Chapter Twenty

The minute I walked through the door at the Shadow Box, Lillian accessed my mind. Thankful for the opportunity to practice my defensive skills, I gathered my mental energy and tried to push her out. I couldn’t.

“What have you been up to?” Lillian asked suspiciously.

I checked around to make sure there was no one else in the store before answering. “I had stage fright before my presentation in school today, and Ian…helped me.”

Lillian rolled her eyes. “That was a stupid thing to do.”

She never disappointed when it came to speaking boldly. I put my apron on and started straightening books behind the counter.

Her eyes practically bored a hole in my back. “There’s something else going on, isn’t there?” she asked. “Something more than an excess of energy has got your mind in a whirl.”

I met her gaze. Of course she would pick up on my emotional turmoil. She’d accessed my mind as a reader. I put an armload of books on the counter. “I need to figure out how to cloak my thoughtmaking, so I can get Ian and Brandy into Sebastian’s mansion. The giant problem is that I have no idea how to it. It seems destiny doesn’t care, because it’s pushing the timeline up.”

“You heard about the killings,” Lillian stated.

My shoulders slumped. “Yes,” I admitted.

“Have a seat by the window,” she ordered.

Lillian disappeared somewhere in the back of the store while I sat in an overstuffed chair. I heard her moving things around and doubted she’d find whatever it was she was looking for. I hadn’t made a dent in the mess back there, but she came back carrying a thick notebook.

She sat in the chair opposite me. “This was my sister Angela’s,” she said, laying the book open on her lap and running her veined hand over it. “She sent it to me the week before Sebastian’s people found her. It’s the only thing I have left of her.” Glittery tears filled her eyes as she continued. “It’s not really a journal. It’s more like a day planner with her thoughts written in it, but toward the end, when Angela was being hunted, she was trying to develop the kind of mind-cloaking your mother used. She wrote about some of her attempts in here. Maybe there is something in this that can help you.”

She handed the book to me.

“I’ll return it to you,” I promised.

“No,” she said firmly. “It’s yours now. I don’t think Angela meant for me to have it forever. Perhaps she knew another thoughtmaker would need it someday.”

She told me to stay put and look through her sister’s writings for the rest of my shift.

A quick glance through the pages showed me her sister had written everything from grocery lists to a few lines of poetry in it. Not knowing what might turn out to be valuable information, I decided to start at the beginning and work my way through. I’d made it about a quarter of the way when my cell phone rang.

“Hello,” my mom said happily. “We’re having dinner out tonight. Alex wants pizza, and since it’s his birthday, I’m giving in. Can you meet us?”

With everything else going on, I’d forgotten about Alex’s birthday. “Probably. Where are you going?” I asked.

“California Pizza at the Mirage. We’re bowling at Batcat’s afterward.”

“Okay, I’ll drive over after work.”

“Sounds good, sweetheart. I have to go. I can’t steer this shopping cart and talk on the phone at the same time.”

“Sure, Mom,” I said, envisioning a cart loaded down with gifts for Alex.

At seven o’clock, I was sitting in my car outside the Shadow Box still reading Angela’s journal. On Ian’s orders, I was waiting for Brandy to come before leaving Lillian’s protection. Brandy was going to tail me to the Mirage and then stake me out from a nearby spot.

Seeing Brandy’s white Toyota coming, I closed the notebook and turned the key in my ignition. I got nothing but a clicking sound as a result. Brandy pulled up and rolled her window down. My eyes went immediately to Ian in the passenger seat and stayed there.

“I knew your car was due for a breakdown,” Brandy said.

“What’s wrong with it?” Ian asked.

“It won’t start. The engine won’t turn over at all.”

I got out, locked my doors, and then slid into Brandy’s backseat.

“Hmm,” Ian muttered. “Nothing about the car look tampered with, did it?”

“I didn’t notice anything unusual.”

Ian and Brandy exchanged anxious looks. “What’s wrong now?” I asked.

“Sebastian’s men killed another dewing in Seattle this afternoon,” Brandy said. “She was Stentorian. We think Sebastian is trying to find Luke, too.”

“We’ve got to do more to protect the McKyes,” I said.

Brandy shook her head. “We can’t send for more protection. A bunch of dewing surrounding your house would be like yelling, ‘Hey, Sebastian, look over here.’”

“We’ve got day and night coverage on each member of your family,” Ian said. “We’ll keep things as they are until my mom and dad get back.”

“When will that be?”

Neither Brandy nor Ian could answer that question.

Alex and my parents were waiting for me under a palm tree outside the casino. My dad motioned for Brandy to roll her window down. “Where’s your car, Alison?” he asked me.

“Everyone’s negative energy finally killed it,” I replied grumpily. “It wouldn’t start after work.”

“I think there might be a problem with the alternator,” Ian volunteered.

My dad shook his head. “I’ll have it towed to my garage tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you kids come in and eat with us?” my mom suggested. “We’re celebrating Alex’s birthday, and then we’re going to bowl. We could use some extra players.”

Brandy and Ian hesitated, probably because they had bigger issues on their minds. “Come on,” my dad insisted. “It’s the least we can do after your family fed Alison all weekend.”

“Okay,” Brandy said, accepting the invitation. “We’ll meet you inside.”

So, in spite of the danger closing in all around us, I found myself celebrating my adopted brother’s fourteenth birthday in the company of my two new friends. My dad ordered four pizzas, and we were all painfully stuffed by the time our waitress brought out dessert with a candle burning on top. Alex was not too old for birthday wishes, so he closed his eyes and concentrated before blowing out the little flame.

We all clapped, and then he began opening gifts. I felt an edgy excitement as I handed mine over. I’d done my shopping at the Shadow Box. I’d picked three books in the Star Wars series and wrapped them in the cartoon section from one of Lillian’s newspapers. Alex wasn’t a big reader, but I hoped an action-packed series might change that.

“Those are great,” Ian said when Alex put them on the table.

Alex looked doubtful. “Really?”

Ian smiled. I loved that he was a nerd like me.

When we got to the bowling alley, I put on a pair of questionably smelly shoes and prepared myself for humiliation. I was good at most sports, but not bowling. The heavy ball always seemed to stick to my fingers longer than it should, and perfect recall did nothing to improve my aim. Helpful hints only made me mad, so basically I provided comic relief by bowling gutter balls all night.

After completing two pathetically low-scoring games, I sat back to watch the others. Dad and Brandy were having lots of fun. They were content with their mediocre performances. Mom was giving Ian a real run for his money. But Alex, who was doing his best to show off for Brandy, was the star of the show.

He was smart, funny, and most importantly he had a good heart. Someday he’d have a girlfriend. Weird. There weren’t a lot of teen boys who would consider a night out with their family and sister’s friends a good time. Whoever the girl ended up being, she would be lucky. I hoped I’d be around to meet her.

Alex came to sit next to me. “Thanks for the books,” he said.

I laughed. “That’s so genuine. It’s like I gave you a plate of vegetables to eat. Just promise me you’ll give reading them a chance.”

He put a hand over his heart. “I promise.”

I rustled his hair like I used to do when we were younger. On his way back to the lane, Ian punched him in the upper arm. It was a typically male gesture that brought an enormous smile to my little brother’s face. Ian caught my eye and winked.

During the next break, Ian sat with me. “Why, when you’re so good at everything else, do you suck at bowling?” he asked with laughter lighting his eyes.

“I’ve wondered that myself.”

We watched Alex roll a strike and then glance at Brandy to see if she’d been watching him. Ian leaned back and smiled, “I’m glad I got to spend some time with your family tonight,” he said. “They’re great. And it was nice to do something human. It took my mind off of Sebastian for a full thirty minutes.”

He left to go bowl. I was getting perilously close to crossing the line. I’d been fighting it from the beginning, but my feelings for him were getting stronger. I wouldn’t let that happen. It was okay to be his friend and enjoy his company, and I could appreciate that he was hot, but that was as far as it could go. After what had happened in the classroom, well, it would be too dangerous if we took whatever this was any further. We didn’t need the distraction, and I didn’t need to hurt any more than I already would when he went home.

Mom called the party quits, and Ian and Brandy drove away, promising to come pick me up for school the next day. I rode home in the backseat of my dad’s Mercedes, feeling the comforting vibrations of Spencer’s friends the entire way home.

For once, I pushed all the bad stuff aside and just enjoyed time with my family. I wasn’t sure how many more of these moments I would have.