Chapter Twenty-One

I opened my locker the next morning and knew something was wrong. A quick look around and I figured out the picture of Tsar, my dog, was missing. Thinking maybe the adhesive had come loose, I searched the bottom of my locker and the floor but didn’t find anything. The Low Tack on the inside of the door was still wet. I knew then that the picture hadn’t fallen off. It had been taken.

It was a picture of Tsar, sitting on his haunches with his slobbery tongue hanging out. Near him was our mailbox. “Red Canyon Estates” was spelled out across it. Our house showed in the background. Visible at the top left-hand corner of the picture were the five metal numbers above our garage.

My heart thumped. Someone had taken my picture because it was proof of my address.

I closed the locker door with a bang. I didn’t bother spinning the lock. Someone from Sebastian’s camp already knew the combination, anyway. Pulling my cell phone from my backpack, I dialed Mom’s number. She answered on the second ring, but before she could even say hello, I asked, “Are you okay, Mom?”

There was a moment of confused silence, and then she said, “I’m fine, Alison, but judging from your voice, you aren’t.”

I improvised. “My stomach is bothering me, probably from all the pizza we ate last night. I was wondering if you’re feeling it, too.”

“No, I feel wonderful,” she replied. “But then, I only ate the cheese pizza. You carnivores deserve indigestion.”

I made myself laugh at her joke. “Maybe you’re right. Are you teaching at the gym this morning?”

“Yes, but you left your calculus homework on the kitchen table. I’m on my way to drop it off at the school office for you.”

“Thanks,” I said, heading toward the main doors of Fillmore. “I’ll meet you out front. The bell hasn’t rung yet. How soon do you think you’ll be here?”

“Two or three minutes.”

I hung up and considered whether or not I should get Ian and Brandy from class. Telling them about my missing picture and the danger it suggested was high on my list of priorities, but I wanted to see my mom and know she was safe first.

Using all seventy-two inches of my height and muscle, I pushed my way through a throng of kids. Standing on the top step, I had a good view of the parking spaces in front of the school, as well as traffic on the main road. When I saw the bright blue paint of Mom’s rental car coming, I walked down the steps to meet her. The late bell rang behind me.

I caught a glimpse of something moving across the street and felt the tickling of an unfamiliar vibration. It was coming from a woman dressed in a too-tight skirt, a silk tank, and four-inch espadrilles. She stood leaning against her idling car. When Mom pulled to the curb, she got a cell phone out of her bag.

I reacted by running at her full speed. I didn’t know what I planned to do, but I couldn’t let her take my mom. She was staring at the rental car and didn’t see me coming until it was too late. I tackled her to the ground. She recovered quickly, and the look of surprise on her face was quickly replaced by a look of comprehension. I was ready for her when her essence reached out and struck me in the stomach. I pushed back against it, equalizing the pressure. Then I slammed my fist into the side of her face. She clawed at my neck and her energy hit me in the back. I fought through the pain and punched her in the jaw. Then her energy left me. She was concentrating on something or someone else.

Pushing her wrists against the cement, I glanced up and saw Brandy leaning over my mom, who had fallen to the ground. Before I could hit the dewing woman a third time, someone grabbed the collar of my shirt and hauled me up. In midair, I realized it was Ian. He steadied me on my feet, looking furious. The heat coming off him told me he was engaged in an essence fight with the dewing woman.

“Go check on your mom,” he said through clenched teeth.

Over his shoulder, I could see Brandy had maneuvered my mom so her face was turned away from us. She hadn’t seen what happened.

A black SUV pulled up behind the dewing woman’s still idling car, and a very tall man got out. He was one of the dewing who was supposed to be protecting my family. “Where were you?” I yelled, striding toward him.

Ian grabbed my hand, practically spinning me back to him. “Get your mom out of here,” he said to me. The dewing woman was bleeding and unconscious on the pavement.

I accepted the wisdom of his suggestion and turned back.

When I got to her, my mom was trying to explain to Brandy what had happened. “I think I passed out,” she was saying.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. McKye, the ambulance is on the way.” Mom tried to sit up, but Brandy eased her down again.

“Stay still,” I urged. “The paramedics should check you out before you try and move.”

When I looked up, Ian was hefting the dewing woman into the back of the SUV. The tall dewing got in the driver’s seat and drove away. I smoothed the hair away from Mom’s face. “What happened?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. I was fine one minute, and the next I had the worst headache of my life. It came and went so fast.”

The ambulance arrived and the paramedics started to check her out. “Her vitals look good,” one of them said to me. “We’ll take her in to the ER so she can get a thorough checkup there.”

“That’s not necessary,” Mom insisted.

“Just go to the hospital, Mom. That’s what Dad would want. I’ll drive your car over after I check out at the school office.”

I held her hand until they loaded her into the back of the ambulance.

The minute the ambulance door closed, Brandy grabbed my arm and marched me out of hearing distance of the onlookers. “What were you thinking when you ran at that woman?” she hissed.

“Isn’t it obvious? She was waiting here to snatch my mom.”

“No, she wasn’t. She was sent here as an observer. She was probably looking for information, anything out of the ordinary. You certainly gave it to her when you attacked her.”

Brandy’s words fanned the flame of my own anger. “I am sick of all this,” I said, with hot rage burning in the pit of my stomach. “I’m sick of worrying every second of every day that someone is going to get to my family. She attacked my mom.”

“She attacked her after you charged her. Sebastian will certainly figure everything out when one of his spies turns up missing from the front of Fillmore,” she retorted. “If you’d just done as I asked, if you’d just let us take care of things, we would have stood a real chance. But no, you had to rush headfirst into the situation and ruin everything.”

“This isn’t a situation anymore,” I said. “This is a catastrophe. That woman started texting at the very moment my mom drove up to the school. She was waiting for her to arrive. Someone out there knows about my family.”

“What’s going on?” Ian asked, coming to stand next to us.

“It’s all been for nothing,” I said. “Three years of hiding, and it all means nothing. They have the picture of Tsar, by the way.”

Ian and Brandy were confused. “Who’s Tsar?” Ian asked.

“My dog. My house number and the name of our development showed in the picture, too. It’s a sick way of saying ‘gotcha.’”

Ian sighed in frustration.

“I just want it over,” I said, putting a hand over my eyes. “Sebastian needs to die or I do. The McKyes are good people. They loved me when no one else did. I won’t let them become pawns in his sick game.”

“I think you know what this means,” I heard him say to Brandy. “You should probably go back to class. I’ll talk things over with Alison.”

I felt Brandy’s hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said. “I didn’t know they had your picture. I would probably have attacked the woman, too. I’ll call tonight to see how your mom is doing.”

I nodded as she left, but I was still furious. Ian pulled me in for a hug.

“We have to do something,” I insisted, “and soon.”

“I knew the time was getting close,” he said. “The clan chiefs can’t make a decision, Brandy is getting weaker each day, and the killings have started again. The dewing you just punched got a text off before you clobbered her. I think it’s safe to assume Sebastian knows you’re here.”

“It’s just a matter of time before he comes for me, right?”

“Yes, but this might work to our advantage. We know he went to Seattle because he thought he was going to get information about you. I’d be willing to bet he’ll come to Vegas if he knows you’re here. I assume he’ll have to make some arrangement on his end, but he’ll likely give the order to have you picked up within the next day or so. We need a change of plan.”

“Okay, what do you want me to do?”

“Maybe nothing. We could let Sebastian’s people come for you. Brandy and I will stick close. Then when they try to pick you up…I’ll get one of them to tell us where Sebastian is, and we move on as we planned.”

Maybe it wasn’t the best plan, but it would get me to Sebastian fast, and that’s what I wanted. It was going to be him or me. “I just want one thing,” I said, pulling back to look at him. “I want an army of your dad’s friends around to protect my family.”

“They’ll be here by this afternoon,” Ian agreed. “I hate putting you in this position when you’re still so vulnerable.”

“I’m ready,” I stated.

He picked up my hand to look at my reddened knuckles. “You’ve got a great left hook, by the way.”

I examined my hand more closely. My knuckles were swollen and smeared with dried blood. “I thought I was a pacifist,” I said.

He chuckled. “We need to tell Brandy what we’re going to do.”

“I’m cutting for the rest of day,” I said. “I need to check on my mom at the hospital and drive over to the Shadow Box. I need to talk to Lillian.”

“I’ll go with you. At least until you get to Lillian’s. Then I’m going to talk to your mom’s surveillance team. They screwed up today.” With his arm over my shoulder, we went back inside.

“Think you can thoughtmake the secretary into checking us both out for the day?” he asked.

“I could do it in my sleep,” I replied.

Lillian was waiting for me when I got to the Shadow Box that afternoon. The minute she saw my face, she asked, “Sebastian found you, didn’t he?”

The answer must have been written in my expression, because she said, “We are sometimes at our strongest when we don’t have the luxury of overthinking things.”

She led me to a chair by the window and we sat down. “What are you going to do now?” she asked.

“Let Sebastian come for me. When he does, we fight him.”

“Sounds like suicide,” she said.

“You’re always so optimistic.”

She thought a moment. “I’ve lived a long life. I’ll come, too.”

I laughed. Lillian would never change. “I can’t have you come. I need you to look out for the McKyes. Ian said he’ll have extra people on it, but I don’t know them. I’ll be able to concentrate better on what I need to do if you’re protecting them, too.”

“Fine,” she agreed. “But I’d give almost anything to see Sebastian Truss die.”

“I promise to give you all the gory details if I survive. In case I don’t, I want to say thank you for watching over me all this time and for giving me the perfect job. I love you for that.”

Lillian was a little shocked that I’d said I loved her, but I did. She was sour and grumpy most of the time, but she’d looked out for me. I’d come to depend on her without knowing it. I’d really miss her antisocial attitude when I left. She gazed out the window for a moment.

When she looked back at me, her eyes were watery. “I wasn’t always like I am today,” she said with a sad smile. “I know what people think of me. They think I’m distant and unpleasant. But I wasn’t always like this. I was young like you once. I had family and friends. I was full of hope, happiness, and dreams.” She shook her head. “But over time, my hopes were disappointed. Those I loved died or moved in different directions, and my happiness dimmed.

“In order to cope, I withdrew from everyone. I thought I could limit the pain that way, but another kind of pain took its place.” A tear rolled down her softly wrinkled cheek. “There are two kinds of emotional pain. The pain of loving and letting go, and the pain of never loving at all. I’ve come to believe that never loving at all hurts worse. My advice is to love with an open heart. If you have to leave the love behind, at least you have memories to take with you.”

I knew how much it cost Lillian to open herself up like that. She sniffed and wiped away the tear. Then she was back to her stoic self. “Did you find anything useful in Angela’s notes?” she asked.

“No, but I haven’t gone through all of them yet.”

“Why don’t you sit here and read through the rest of the notebook? I’ll take care of the store today.”

“Thanks, Lillian. I’ve got to make a call and check up on my mom first. Then I’ll get right to it,” I said.

She gave me a half smile and then walked away.

I made myself push through Angela’s entries until I reached the last one. They came to the house, she’d written. John and I held them off, but we’re on the run now. My sister has been forced to run as well. We can’t seek shelter in the clan. We pose too great a danger to them. If I could figure it out, if I could break through the barrier, I would have something to bargain with. I would have something to trade my life and John’s for. Tomorrow will be the end one way or another. He’s sent an army after us this time. I can sense the Truss all around us. In all my years, I’ve never sensed such greed in a clan before. It shrouds them like a cloud…I told John to run, but he won’t. He says he’ll die anyway. He’d rather be close to me when it happens.

I closed my eyes. As sad as the last entry was, there was something in it, a clue. I made myself feel the differences between human thoughts and dewing thoughts as I reread it. I felt again the open places in the human mind that allowed my thoughts in and the steady ropelike thought strand in the dewing mind where no open places existed.

Then it happened. Like seeing a four-by-five photo switch into a panoramic view, my outlook was widened and deepened.

Human thoughts were choppy and messy. So much so that they diverged from the thoughts of other humans. Human thoughts were messy but unique to the individual, shooting off of a main thought like the branches of a tree. Dewing thoughts were like a rope that connected all of their minds together. That’s why Angela had been able to feel the greed of the Truss around her. That’s why dewing could sense one another and feel clan affiliation. It even explained likeness to a certain degree.

Somewhere deep in the dewing mind, beneath the thought strand I already knew was there, there had to be another strand. One that ran between all dewing at once, a sort of shared consciousness.

Angela had been looking for a way to break through the dewing thought pattern. There wasn’t one, but what if a thoughtmaker could wrap around the strand of shared consciousness? Was that cloaking?

The voice in my mind whispered, Yes.

I couldn’t be sure if the process worked until I tried it out.

At ten to seven, Lillian came to sit at the window with me again. She thrust an envelope into my hands. “For unexpected expenses if you decide to leave,” she said. I checked inside and found a couple thousand dollars in cash. I started to object and hand it back to her, but she refused to take it. “There’s one condition. When you finish Sebastian Truss, you have to contact me.”

We both knew that would depend on whether I was still alive. “I will,” I promised.

We sensed Ian coming before the bells above the door jingled. “I can’t decide if you’re really brave or truly insane,” Lillian muttered, looking up at him.

“What’s bravery or sanity when you’ve got destiny on your side?” Ian replied.

Without a good-bye for either of us, she got up and headed for the back of the store.

Ian sat next to me. He wasn’t in a hurry to start a conversation. He just hummed while looking out onto the street. A feeling of peaceful connectedness washed over me. Ian was my friend. Maybe in a different life, we could have been more than friends. Whatever it was between us at that moment, I liked how it felt to be around him. I gave myself permission to enjoy it.

We watched the shadows grow a little longer on the street. “I’d better get you home,” Ian said eventually. He got up and pulled me to my feet. “You ready to go?”

I took a last look around the Shadow Box. “Yes,” I replied.

I walked in the door of my house, knowing my life would never be the same. I wanted to make something special for the last meal I would share with the McKyes, but it was late, so I made spaghetti. The dinner was quiet. No great bruises up the side of my head to talk about, no sleepovers to discuss, and no birthdays to celebrate. Mom was okay, and my car was back in our garage. My dad said it had been an easy fix—it just needed new spark plugs.

I took mental snapshots of my family doing the normal things I’d taken for granted for years. Mom was recovering from the dewing’s attack at my school and lying on the couch to rest. There was no doubt in my mind she’d try to go to the gym the next day. My easygoing dad, who saw the bright side of any problem, was watching the news. And Alex, the gangly boy who’d been my closest friend during the last three years, was playing Xbox in the den.

The next morning, I packed my backpack the same way I’d done for years. Then I sneaked into my parents’ room and took Mom’s turquoise bracelet, the one the same color as Ian’s eyes, from her jewelry box. She rarely wore it, and I felt sure she wouldn’t realize it was missing for a while. I took one of my dad’s fancy handkerchiefs out of his drawer. It smelled like his cologne. Holding it to my nose, I breathed in and let my mind show me all of the wonderful memories I had of him.

Once Alex had gone down to breakfast, I searched through the drawers of his desk. I found a picture of him playing with Tsar and another of us warring at some video game. I figured he’d know if those went missing, so I settled for taking a couple of pretty rocks from his collection. Hiding these treasures in my backpack, I went downstairs to breakfast.

Brandy called while I was clearing my place. “Can you pick me up today?” she asked. “I left the headlights on last night and ran the battery out.”

“Sure, but can’t Ian jump it with his car?”

“He left early. He’s already at school.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said.

It wasn’t part of my usual routine to kiss my parents before leaving for school, but I did it that day. Mom and Dad were surprised but also pleased. The happiness and pride I saw in their eyes as they looked at me nearly broke my heart.

Alex moved fast when he saw me coming. So I smacked him on the top of the head as a farewell gesture…and then I left.