“It does.” There was a smile in his voice. “But there’s another part of that saying.”
“There’s more? Gee, great.”
“The rest didn’t mean anything to me. But now it does.” Anon leaned closer to her ear. “ ‘Wisdom tells me I’m nothing. But love tells me I’m everything.’ ”
“Oh,” Flicker said, just as their lips met full and hard, her heart beating slantways and too fast. The smells of dust and crowd and Anon blended in her head, along with the cries of joy at the last few fireworks overhead, the feel of him against her, both of them breathing hard.
When they parted, it took a moment for her to find herself. Another moment to realize what she needed to ask.
“Was that the first time we’ve . . .” Flicker knew this was silly. “I mean, it’s just that it felt that way. But obviously not, right? I mean, we must have before now. But was that our first—”
“It was,” Anon said. “It always is.”
CHAPTER 83
MOB
DAWN WAS BREAKING ACROSS THE waiting-room windows when the doctor said she should go in and see her dad.
Not “could.” “Should.”
Like there wasn’t much time.
Kelsie had been sitting in the broad, beige waiting room of Cambria County General for hours, feeling the storm of energies swirl around her. A hospital was not a good place to feel the crowd. Too many people dragging her emotions around. A few happy at their test results but most of them fighting anxiety, and too many cold, hard washes of despair.
Kelsie tried to tune it out. But every time she disengaged from the pulse of the crowd, she was overwhelmed by her own fear about her dad. That fear was like a channel, carrying her back to the anxious herd.
She’d been glad when the other Zeroes had turned up. They formed their own group within the larger throng of fear and pain and boredom. All of them were buzzing with energy, a dozen times more united than at the meeting two days ago.
“We’ve done everything we can,” the doctor was saying. “Your father’s suffered a lot of internal damage. And his system was already compromised by the drugs . . .”
Kelsie nodded. For hours now she’d been nodding every time a doctor spoke. The man looked exhausted, like he’d really tried. Kelsie wished she could feel her weariness. All she felt was scared.
“You should go see him now,” the doctor repeated.
But she was frozen to the chair. Nate was standing by the doctor, asking for more details. He said things like, “Is there anything more we can do? Cost is irrelevant.” But he seemed to be saying them from a great distance. Over against a wall she could see Chizara and Flicker, and beside Flicker a shadow that slid in and out of focus. Anon.
Ethan was sitting beside her. He nudged her knee with his.
“You want me to come with?” he asked softly.
She looked up at him, trying to feel her way through the panic and grief. She had a question for him, the real him.
“Is it true, what you said about my mom? Back in the Parker-Hamilton? Is that all real, or . . . a scam?”
Ethan took a breath. “I never know what’s true or not. The voice just says the right words to make what I want happen.”
“What did you want? Can you remember exactly?”
“Well, your dad was so guilty about getting you mixed up in his troubles. I just wanted him to get a little peace before . . . you know.”
Kelsie stared at the floor. She did know. In the Parker-Hamilton her dad had thought he was about to die. He hadn’t made up the story about her mom; he couldn’t have. There’d be no peace in lying at the end.
“So do you want me to come into the room with you?” Ethan asked. “You know, get the full story from your dad?”
He looked seriously frightened by the idea, and Kelsie felt a surge of gratitude that he would even offer. She wondered if his voice could keep her father honest, if all Ethan wanted was the truth.
But she’d never be certain. Ethan and the truth had a complicated relationship.
“It should be just us. Me and Dad.”
Like it had always been. Her and her dad. Since before she could remember.
She got to her feet, and Ethan rose with her.
“I still think your power sucks,” she said.
“My power still does suck,” Ethan confirmed.
Nate squeezed her shoulder as she passed. “We’ll be right here. Waiting for you.”
Kelsie nodded, a lump in her throat. She’d never been so glad to know that someone would be waiting for her. That they all would be there when she got through whatever came next.
She left the Zeroes in that beige room and followed the doctor down a narrow hall, into a small space full of blinking machines.
“Take all the time you need,” the doctor said, then left them alone.
The hospital bed was dwarfed by the equipment on either side. Her dad looked terrible. His skin was pale and gray in the harsh overhead lighting, making his bruises darker.
She crossed to the bed and stood, afraid to touch him until he reached out a hand. She grasped it, feeling how light and hollow he’d become.
“I wish you didn’t have to see me like this, Kels.” His voice barely made it above a whisper.
“The doctor . . .” She couldn’t get the rest out.
“I know, sweetie.” Dad cleared his throat. “Your old man really screwed this one up.”
He’d been saying that all her life. She pressed her hand across her eyes, wishing he would say something new now.
She wanted to disconnect from the tides of anxiety around her. Not all of it was hers. Every frightened, desperate, sad person in that hospital had a direct line to Kelsie right then. She stood with the tears pouring down her face. Not just for her dad, but for everyone.
She knew everyone’s pain.
“Too many mistakes,” her dad was saying in a thin, raspy voice. “I got myself to a place where nobody could help me.”
“Dad—”
“I only wish I hadn’t taken you there with me.”
“That was my decision,” she said.
Tears welled in his eyes. “Who’s going to take care of my little girl?”
She leaned across him, hugging him as gently as she could, careful of the tubes that fed into his arms. “Don’t worry about me. I have plenty of friends now.”
“Friends are everything.” She heard the pride in his voice. “Friends and family.”
That last word made her pull back. Her dad was crying now too, his face wet and raw. He looked exhausted and even smaller than when she’d first come into the room. Like he was shrinking.
“Dad?” she said carefully. “Was it true what Ethan said about Mom?”
Dad nodded slowly. “I don’t know how that kid knew all that.”
“So she’s alive?”
Dad nodded again. “She’s not a bad person, Kelsie. But for some people, it’s too much.”
“What is?”
“Being a parent,” he said simply.
Kelsie sat on the edge of his bed, carefully. “Didn’t she love me?”
“She loved you more than anything,” Dad said. The effort of speaking was really costing him. He pulled himself up from the pillows. “But your mother, she did better alone than in a family.”
She nodded, but she couldn’t see it. Even in this place where anxiety pulsed from the walls around her, Kelsie knew that she was better in a family, in a group, in a crowd. And now she had one all her own.
She felt sorry for her mom then, but it was like feeling sorry for a stranger. Most people didn’t have what Kelsie had. A power. A connection.
“She did the best she could,” Dad said softly.
“You both did.” She gave him a small smile, to let him know he’d explained everything. He didn’t need to fight anymore.
Dad eased back into his pillows. His eyes lost their fevered brightness, and for a moment Kelsie thought he’d already gone.
“Da
d? Not yet, okay? Please? Not yet.”
But he only nodded, gently, like he was listening to something else. He closed his eyes, his breath coming in soft, rattling gasps. His hand in hers became still and slack.
Kelsie stayed with him to the end. She felt it, the moment her dad stopped being part of the flux of human life. The moment he left the crowd of humanity behind and drifted away.
For a time the world rushed in. She let it happen, all the grief in the hospital flooding through her, sinking her under its weight, filling her with hurt and hopelessness and loss.
Then she pulled back and back, until she was very small inside her own skin.
For a while she was more alone than she had ever been.
She sat with her father a long time, until his skin began to cool. By then none of the anxiety of the hospital touched her. In the end, worry and doubt and fear were beside the point.
The worst had already happened.
* * *
When she made it back to the waiting room, the sun was spilling in.
Ethan and Nate were still where she’d left them a lifetime ago. Nate was upright in a hard, beige chair, looking like he was about to conduct a board meeting. Ethan was sprawled with his legs hooked over a chair arm and his head against a vending machine.
She went over to Ethan and tapped his shoulder lightly.
He was instantly awake. “Kelsie?”
Nate joined them. “The others are downstairs. Is there anyone we can call for you?”
She thought it through. She could call Fig or Ling or Remmy. Or even Mikey. They were all her friends. They’d all try to help her now, like they’d been helping her since the robbery. But right now the people she’d shared most with in the past week were here.
She shook her head. “No. Thanks, though.”
“Well, anything you need.” Nate gave her a reassuring smile. “You know we’re here for you. All of us.”
Ethan was on his feet by then. He blinked at her, eyes puffy with sleeplessness.
“There’s one thing.” Kelsie turned to Ethan. “That thing inside you, the voice? The thing that’s so smart that it knows everything everyone wants it to say?”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah.”
“Well, it’s totally messed up.”
“I know.”
“But thank you.” She wrapped her arms around him. If he hadn’t found her just in time, she’d be alone now. “Thank you for what you did in the hotel. For wanting me to find some peace with Dad.”
Ethan held her awkwardly, his arms coming around her, one hand in her hair.
“Hey, I’m just—” his voice said, smooth and perfectly comforting.
But then it fell silent, finishing in a kind of strangled noise. Ethan coughed hard a couple of times. Then, in his real voice, he continued: “I wish I knew half as much as my stupid voice. I wish I knew what I could say right now to make you okay.”
Kelsie squeezed him harder. “Well, that’s probably close enough.”
CHAPTER 84
BELLWETHER
“WE DID THE BEST WE could,” Nate said.
He gave them time to absorb the words. They were all exhausted, their defenses low, their minds primed to bond with each other in defeat. He could feel the eager pattern of it in the air. All six of them were part of the group, thanks to the web spinning around Anonymous and Flicker. There was even a connection, sharp and specific, between Anon and Scam.
They were all closer now. And their attention on Nate was tinged with something new and bright, something that hadn’t been there before he’d led Mob and Scam and Jerry from the Parker-Hamilton.
Almost getting killed, it turned out, could be useful.
They were in the meditation chapel of the hospital, a small room with a few wooden benches and a stained-glass window ignited by the morning sun. Mob looked as though she wasn’t sure if she was welcome there, but had nowhere else to go.
Now was the time to seal her to the others.
“After this last week,” he said, “I feel like we understand our powers better.”
We did a lot of damage with them, he didn’t say. And we had to rescue Scam three times.
“The Bagrovs think that Scam and Mob are dead, so we’re safe from them.” Nate turned with a smile toward Chizara. “And thanks to Crash’s panache and superb timing, I don’t think the Craig will be bothering us anytime soon.”
Those words lifted the mood in the room a little. Nothing disrespectful to Kelsie’s loss, just a worn glimmer of levity, like an old family joke incanted at a funeral.
“At the same time, she saved four lives,” he added, and a blush came over Chizara’s face. “Including mine.”
That part of last night couldn’t have gone better. Now that she had more than balanced the scales of Officer Bright, Chizara had no choice but to feel worthy of her power.
“We know each other better,” he said. “And if we can stay connected, we can make each other stronger. Most of us can remember Anonymous now. Flicker’s wrapped her vision around larger and larger crowds. And Chizara’s power is evolving into something completely new.”
Nate hesitated. It was a risk, mentioning Scam. But leaving him out of the list would be too obvious.
“And Ethan found a new Zero,” he said, directing their attention away from Ethan and toward Kelsie, sitting near the door.
He had planned to focus all the warmth of their sympathy on her, to take it all the way, bending their exhaustion into tears. But in that instant of Kelsie staring back at him, Nate remembered how tough she was.
So he simply said, “I’m sorry we didn’t find your father in time. We tried.”
Her gaze dropped to the floor. “Thanks. But it’s not your fault. Dad was always lost, I think.”
Nate tried to answer, but Kelsie’s sadness had gripped the room again. It came in waves, immense, all the death in the world pressing down on them. For a moment it was hard to breathe, even to think. It was too big for him to fight, because Mob’s power wasn’t just about her—it was about everyone.
There was nothing to do but let it pass.
After a while Nate managed to ask, “Is there anything we can do, Kelsie?”
“If we could all just stay here for a while,” she said. “The six of us. I don’t want to be alone.”
Nate nodded. He didn’t either.
* * *
A long time later Flicker had to head off to see her shrink.
The others were fading, in any case. They’d been up all night, and the meditation room had grown warm as the sun rose. Even Kelsie looked like she was about to fall asleep. So when Flick quietly mentioned her weekly appointment, Nate gently pulled them both from the shimmering web of friendship and walked her outside.
On the wide stone stairs of the hospital’s entrance he said, “I guess you’ve got a lot to talk about with Dr. Bridges this week.”
Flicker gave a tired laugh. “I never give him any good stuff. Besides, all he wants to talk about is braille.”
“Sounds scintillating,” Nate said.
“I guess. But it’s cool if you don’t call me with any exciting news during today’s session. Let’s take a week before the next mission, maybe.”
Nate nodded, looking back at the hospital. “I think we’re good for now.”
“Better than we were,” Flicker said. “You were right. We do make each other stronger.”
“And we’ve only just started.”
She looked up and caught the smile on his face. “Let me guess. You’ve got some fiendish plan. Some new Ultimate Goal?”
Nate wasn’t sure how much to say yet. But this was Flick, after all. His little sister.
So he said, “We need a space. Somewhere we can set the terms and choose the crowd, like in controlled experiments. Somewhere we won’t hurt anyone. Chizara’s right about how dangerous we are, and we can’t lose her again.” He turned to Flicker and felt his power shift and slip into need, the way it sometimes did when the two of them
were alone. “I can’t lose any of you.”
She took his hand and pulled him closer to whisper in his ear. “I don’t think you will, not after last night. You make a pretty glorious action hero, mi hermano.”
And they both had to laugh at that.
There were no cabs waiting at the curb, but Nate had mastered this trick a long time ago. He raised his hand into the air like a beacon and focused the geometries of the streets of Cambria around himself, and a few minutes later Flicker was headed off to her shrink. By then the curb was brimming with half a dozen taxis.
When he turned around to head back up the stairs, Nate heard his name.
“Mr. Saldana?”
He looked up. It was Detectives King and Fuentes coming down the steps, looking pleased to see him.
Nate sighed. “Good morning, Detectives.”
“Morning,” said King. She looked him up and down, taking in yesterday’s wrinkled clothes. “Long night?”
“I’m afraid so. A friend of mine just died.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” King said, and it sounded genuine.
Detective Fuentes didn’t bother being somber. “By any chance did this friend of yours happen to be Jerry Laszlo?”
There was no point lying. “Yes.”
“I see,” Fuentes said. “Maybe you could help us get this straight. Here we are, coming to identify the body of a wanted bank robber, and it turns out he’s your friend. And you’re also friends with a kid who happened to be in the bank he robbed. Small world, huh?”
“Big world, actually,” Nate said. “Which made it easy to give you guys the slip yesterday.”
Fuentes didn’t respond to this, but his lips pulled tight as he searched for a retort. It had actually taken Nate half an hour to shake their pursuit the night before. Creating a decent traffic snafu took time.
It was Detective King who spoke next. “Did you ever hear from Ethan Cooper? His mother’s still looking.”
Nate hesitated. No criminals were after Ethan anymore, and the police still couldn’t connect him directly to any crime. Saying things you shouldn’t know on a viral video was suspicious, but not prosecutable, especially when your mom was the prosecutor.
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