Critical Point

by S. L. Huang

Fifer was baiting us in with Tabitha, but her setup would be designed to kill us all before we got her hostage out. I would have put money on it. But we were running out of time to come up with anything better than dashing after Tabitha headlong.

  The sudden breakthrough of information had made me so sure we could come up with something better—some way of coming at her weak points, taking advantage of what we now knew …

  “Did you say Barberry Canyon?” D.J. asked. He cocked his head at us. “During the day? You guys know this is a trap, right?”

  “Of course it’s a trap,” I said. “But our friend—”

  “No, I mean, like, sure she’s probably rigged the whole bridge to do something spectacular, but the kid you’re after won’t be there. Remember, Charles? We used to goof off there all the time at night, but—”

  “But during the day it’s actually a busy area,” Checker said breathlessly. “You’re right, and there are hikers in the canyon too. She can’t have Tabitha there. Or any dogs, or anyone else—people would see.”

  “Bridges make great traps,” D.J. said cheerfully. “They blow real nice, and you can wait till someone’s right in the middle so there’s no scurrying out. Shit crackers, she’s probably going to blame me for blowing it, huh?”

  “Or me,” Checker said bitterly. “And she’s not going to worry about how many bystanders it takes down either. The first major hit in her big fearmongering plan. But, Cas, if Tabitha isn’t there—”

  “Wait.” I pointed at him. “You said it, earlier, when we realized Willow Grace was bad news. Fifer’s impersonating someone famous. To avoid making people suspicious, she would be having to impersonate her, right? I don’t care how detailed her ‘sabbatical to write a book’ cover story was, she’d still need to keep it looking like Willow Grace was alive and kicking.”

  Checker sucked in a breath. “You think she’s using Willow Grace’s house. The real Willow Grace’s house.”

  I nodded, and he spun back to his computers like he’d been shot from a cannon.

  “If there are multiple options, find somewhere the correct radius from the ranch for her to bring the dogs there and come back to blow it up when the police reports say she did,” I said.

  “Got it,” Checker said. “She’s got some Malibu mansion—oh my God, what a cliché.”

  “Right distance?”

  “Right distance,” he confirmed. “With a little extra time for her to get the dogs installed wherever she wanted them and then make a return trip.”

  “What are these dogs you’re talking about?” D.J. asked curiously.

  What about the dogs, indeed. I still had no strategy against them. “What’s the latest on Simon’s condition?” I asked Checker.

  He shook his head grimly, pulling something up on one of his machines. “Last medical notation I’m getting is … okay, it seems like he’s stable now. But still in the ICU. Uh, looking at this—it looks pretty bad, but—I don’t know; I’m not a doctor. I did tell Juwon to call us as soon as he got through, and no word from him yet. From this, I’m not optimistic they’re passing in any calls.”

  “Okay.” I rolled things around in my head. If I couldn’t take Simon with me, either in person or on the phone … but with telepathy on our side, there still had to be a way we could use it. “Can he talk at all?”

  “I can show you his charts, but … I’m not a doctor?” Checker repeated.

  Neither was I.

  “It still makes sense to try him,” I declared. “I can go in person; the hospital’s not a big detour. That way I can take Pilar too, see if he can set her right.” And then see if there was any way he could either help us in advance or talk us through. “Checker, do you have another phone for me to leave with him, if he can talk?”

  He opened a drawer and tossed me a new burner. “I’m sending Willow Grace’s address to it right now. And the hospital address.”

  Perfect. The chance of getting some backup in the form of Pilar made stopping at Simon’s bedside doubly worth it, and a hospital wouldn’t be an unsafe place to leave her if Simon wasn’t communicable.

  And if he wasn’t … Oscar’s memories washed through me again, his drug-addled brain purposely high and reckless.

  “There is a plan B,” I said. “If Simon can’t back us up. We know how Oscar and Fifer were able to approach the things.”

  “Cas,” Checker said.

  “We might not know exactly what they were using, but I have contacts I can ask for something similar,” I plowed on. “I’m guessing it would be something like PCP. That won’t addict after one use.” Even if it did, withdrawal would have been a small price to pay to give Tabitha a chance.

  “PCP won’t addict you after eight uses,” D.J. said brightly. “Or has it been nine?”

  “Wait. Think this through. Drugs are a huge risk,” Checker protested. “PCP might work to make you feel invulnerable to the dogs, but it also fucks you up. You could end up killing yourself. Or Tabitha. Or just tanking the goddamn mission, which would, oh, right, also kill Tabitha—”

  “Keep your shirt on,” I said. “I have a lot of experience with drugs, remember?”

  “Depressants,” Checker pointed out. “And not ever when you’re on a job and there are people depending on you. You have absolutely no experience with that!”

  What did you take?

  My medicine.

  The crack of bone against flesh, the sharp snap of moves so fast they couldn’t be countered.

  “You don’t know everything about me,” I said to Checker. Coldly.

  He pulled away from me, his face closing up like I’d threatened him.

  Fuck. Fuck “chronic illnesses” and their interference with my fucking life. I took a breath and did something I’d never purposely done before—acknowledged it. “Sorry. I’ve got some brain leakage happening.”

  “Is it…” Checker licked his lips. “Are you okay for this?”

  “Yeah. I am,” I said honestly. “It’s just … moments.”

  “Nobody interesting is sane, dollface,” D.J. put in. “You’re in good company, right, Charles?”

  Christ save me from D.J.’s help. “Where were we?”

  “I was telling you I thought drugs were an incredibly risky plan,” Checker said. “Which I still think is true, but…” He shut his eyes a moment. “It’s all we’ve got, isn’t it? Just, Cas—be careful, okay?”

  “Careful is for suckers,” D.J. piped up. But at least it rescued me from having to answer.

  “That’s the plan, then,” I said. “I’ll go to Simon, failing that, find some injectable courage, and head to the mansion. You two sit on the station and either dismantle whatever Fifer leaves or get the cops on it. They can pull the bomb squad in if you can pinpoint a device.”

  D.J. snorted. “I wouldn’t trust the bomb squad to take apart one of Fifer’s shebangs. She may be sloppy, but she did learn from the best, and trust me, I taught her how to derail a bomb squad.”

  “Look, all we need is for the prisoners to get moved,” I said to him. “That’s all. If you can’t keep the rest of the station from going up, so be it. You keep our people safe, you’ve held up your end of the deal.”

  A slow smile spread across D.J.’s face. “See? I knew I liked you!”

  “No, we do care,” Checker said. “We definitely care if other people get hurt. But … our first priority is Diego and Elisa. Just, you know, don’t ignore everyone else.”

  “Sure! It’ll be like old times!” D.J. yelped. He grabbed his backpack of equipment and scampered out of the garage.

  Checker shuddered slightly and then followed.

  thirty-six

  SAN FERNANDO Memorial Hospital was a big, boxy institutional place. I slipped in to steal a wheelchair for Pilar and then walked us straight into the intensive care unit, trying to act as though we belonged there. Pilar had gone quiet, and when she grabbed a bit at my sleeve, her hands didn’t seem to be closing right. Her skin was clammy, her hair plastered acros
s her face.

  Simon had a private room. When we first came in, my eyes had trouble finding him on the bed—his body was so buried behind blankets and traction equipment and an oxygen mask. Tubes crisscrossed the room, machines beeping in the corner, and the sterile dryness of the air sucked everything raw.

  I had a moment of trepidation, wondering if this had been a fool’s errand. Then his head turned slightly, and a weak hand burrowed up to pull at the mask. He must have sensed our presence somehow.

  I nudged Pilar closer to the side of the bed.

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want him to see how little I’d been thinking of him since I left him with the ambulance. How I never even checked to see if he’d lived, not until we needed him.

  He’d see it anyway, I knew.

  I brought Pilar up right to the side of the bed, close enough that he twitched a hand over to cover hers loosely. I pulled up a chair next to her. “Can you help her?”

  His hand pressed gently, quivering against her skin. Her head lolled up, her eyes coming into focus on his face.

  They stayed that way for fourteen long seconds, while I shifted in the chair, waiting. Then Simon’s eyelids fluttered and his hand slid down.

  Pilar slumped in the wheelchair, her eyes closed. I reached over and touched her wrist. Her pulse had slowed to something only a little above normal.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She opened her eyes. “Cas? Wh—where are we?”

  Her voice sounded hoarse, as if she’d been screaming.

  “The hospital,” I said. “I think Simon just fixed you.”

  She moved as if to get up from the wheelchair, then sagged back down. “I don’t, I don’t feel very fixed…”

  She probably wasn’t, not all the way. At least, assuming Simon hadn’t flung his powers against her accidentally—like he had at me the day before—and stolen her whole memory of the incident. I realized too late that I should have been worried about him ensnaring us in an unintentional psychic morass, but whatever his new injuries, he seemed to have control of his brain.

  I could tell by how embarrassingly uncharitable I felt toward him.

  “You’ve been in a state of panic for hours now,” I said to Pilar. “It probably took something out of you.”

  She gave a little nod, her face going greenish.

  “If you need to be sick, I can find you a bedpan or something.”

  She seemed to swallow it back down, and then croaked, “Tabitha?”

  “I’m asking you this time,” I said quietly. “Are you in?”

  Without any hesitation, she twitched her head in a nod. “Just, um. Let me…”

  I reached back into my belt and retrieved her CZ, keeping Sikorsky’s Glock for myself. “Here. Get yourself together.”

  She took the gun and holstered it, managing it on the second try.

  I turned back to Simon.

  His eyes were still slitted open, following me and Pilar.

  I wanted to tell him I was glad he was okay, but he would see the lie in it.

  Cas, just tell me what else you need. The words projected themselves wearily at me.

  “Uh. We’re … Tabitha got taken. Arthur’s daughter. We think we know where she is, but we need to…”

  He shifted his head slightly, his eyelids fluttering again as if he were having trouble keeping them open. Then he lifted his hand toward me in the smallest motion.

  It was a clear invitation.

  Fuck. He was too weak to talk.

  I’d said I would do anything.

  I took a deep breath and reached for his hand, concentrating on his face, trying to bring the whole mess of a situation to the forefront of my mind: Willow Grace and Tabitha, and Elisa and Diego in danger, and Pilar and I had to go in but there would be no way we could get past the fucking dogs, or if she had any other people like Coach …

  Coach.

  Simon’s hand tightened on mine, his fingernails digging into my skin. With an effort, I wrestled back the wave of guilt and self-recrimination and failure and grief. Killing the man I’d barely known in this life.

  “Sorry,” I said, and I actually meant it.

  Simon had begun twitching like he was about to seize, but then he rode through it. I refocused on the problem—the dogs, we knew she had more, they’d probably been her first experiments, and they’d been moved from the ranch. We thought we knew where. We’d never get past them.

  Simon read my microexpressions and the pressure of my hand and the movement of my eyes and the twitch of my second eyelash, or whatever constituted his powers, and his chin dipped slightly. I understand.

  Can you—I don’t know. Brainwash us? Hypnotize us somehow, in advance, so that we won’t be afraid of them? I thought the words as clearly as I could, in English.

  No.

  Annoyance from him—because of course he would have done that before, if it were possible. It wasn’t. At least, there was no way he could think of to pinpoint it; the dogs were designed to push our fear centers.

  Frustration roughed through my thoughts, along with a push for him to help us, to brainstorm, that there must be something he could do. Unfair, and I knew it, but he had goddamn superpowers and so did I. We had to be able to figure something out.

  I caught something then, from Simon. Despite how rudely I was asking, he was trying to think of a way to help us, something he could do, and …

  “What do you mean, it’s too specific?” I said aloud.

  It’s too specific. I could … but it’s too dangerous. Bad idea. Bad idea …

  “You’re breaking up,” I said. I felt my own thoughts poking at him—what? What? What? What is it?

  He sighed, the smallest breath through dry lips. Another way …

  But I’d picked it up by that time. “Fear,” I breathed. “You can take our fear.”

  Cas, it’s too dangerous. Fear is useful. You need it. Without fear, who knows what you would do?

  “I’d win,” I said.

  You could kill yourself. Just by not being afraid enough of death.

  “Cas?” ventured Pilar. She’d managed to stand, her hand shaky on the back of my chair.

  “He can make us immune to fear,” I said. “But not only of the dogs. All of our fear. We wouldn’t be afraid of anything.”

  “Maybe that’s good, huh?” She made a small, slightly hysterical sound. “I could use a little less fear.”

  Tell her! barked Simon.

  “I’m telling her,” I snapped. “He says it’s too dangerous. That we need our fear. Without it, we might do something stupid and die.”

  I felt Simon’s mental irritation at my description.

  But Pilar nodded slowly. “I see. With our fear, though … would we have any chance at all? Against those things?” She swallowed. “I don’t—I don’t ever want to go through that again, Cas.”

  I didn’t either.

  “He can reverse it, right?” she asked.

  Bad. Idea, Simon thought at me again, but I got the confirmation.

  “Yes, he can reverse it,” I said to Pilar.

  “Then, uh, is there any other—do we have a better choice?”

  Let me think … pleaded Simon.

  We could always shoot ourselves up with PCP, I said to him. Wouldn’t be afraid of anything then either, and slightly more damaging to the brain.

  From his mental reaction, Simon could clearly tell that was the actual Plan B. I caught a wash of exasperation and anger.

  It’s one or the other, I informed him. This is what we’ve got.

  I looked at him. He looked at me.

  “It’s the best option, isn’t it?” I said aloud.

  The ghost of a growl from him. I snapped at him before I could stop myself: This isn’t something I want either, you know—letting you in my head. She’s sixteen, Simon.

  He could be annoyed with me all he wanted. We both had to put Tabitha first.

  Simon’s thoughts sighed at me, and I got a resigned feelin
g of acquiescence.

  “What do we do?” Pilar asked.

  Cas. You first.

  I followed Simon’s mental directions to scoot my chair closer and lean forward. My wariness spiked, as it always did when I was around him, when I was about to allow him access to my mind. It was an irrational fear—Simon was powerful enough for me not even to know he was affecting me. But I couldn’t shake it.

  Until now, I supposed. After this, I wouldn’t be afraid of anything.

  Simon’s fingers closed around my hand. Focus on me, he directed in my head. Focus on me …

  I did. His eyes were fever-bright. They fastened on mine, held me close like they were my one safe harbor in the universe.

  Relax. The order intoned through me. Relax. You’re not afraid.

  “I’m not afraid,” I whispered.

  My mental landscape flattened, expanded, wavered into a trancelike state.

  I can do anything, I thought. I’m not afraid.

  You’re not afraid.

  I’m not afraid …

  Worry, concern, apprehension, fear—they one and all receded and washed away from me, as if I were rising out of a lake and shedding streams of emotion behind me, forgotten.

  I’m not afraid.

  I’m not afraid.

  I’m not afraid. I am powerful.

  I can do anything, and win.

  I caught Simon’s quick, sharp spike of apprehension. Not about me—toward me.

  I blinked and sat up. “Wait, seriously? I’m not going to try to become a world dictator.”

  In fact, I felt mostly the same. Maybe slightly more narcissistic. But Pilar shot me a quick, slightly nervous glance too, and stepped back from where she’d been leaning on my chair again.

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “You two really think it was fear that kept me from going on a rampage?”

  Pilar opened her mouth and then shut it again. “I think I should ask you to do me now before Cas scares the daylights out of me,” she said to Simon.

  I stood so she could take my place at his bedside. “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

  “Me neither.” She sat.

  The process took a lot longer than it felt like it had with me—and I usually had a good sense of time. Ordinarily the discrepancy would have made me squirrelly, but now I shrugged and acknowledged it as fact. Pilar went tense for a few minutes and then began to sway slightly; when she stilled and blinked her eyes, she seemed to come back to herself.