Mute (Muted Trilogy Book 1)
Page 20
“I like cats fine,” said Jemma, pausing to check street numbers and count which house they were heading for. It was on their side of the street, and she could see the driveway, but most of the house was obscured by its neighbors. “I haven’t been on my own for too long, not somewhere I could have a pet. Besides, Jilly already likes to tease me that I’m gonna be the crazy cat lady, living alone, working in a library, never doing anything, you know?”
“You’re nothing like that stereotype,” sent Jack, mental tone firm. He let mild amusement show through, and she broke her stare to glance at him, seeing a grin on his face. “Besides, ‘never doing anything’? We’re here on a covert mission, investigating.” He waggled his eyebrows, and she felt a hint of smile forming despite herself.
Before she could respond, a splash of color drew her attention back to their surroundings, and she paused, Jack following suit. The house they were looking for was a bright purple, with colorful accents. The yard was manicured, flowers neatly surrounding the house.
“Well,” sent Jack, “that’s not exactly what I’d pictured.”
Jemma sent a wave of acknowledgment. “Do we… I mean, do we look around, or do we just go right up to the door and knock?”
“Knock, I think. We’ve still got at least an hour before sunset. That makes sneaking a bit trickier than it needs to be.”
“Good point.” Jemma rubbed her shoulder again, then let go of Jack’s hand, running hers along her upper arm, feeling the need to be in control of as much as of the situation as was possible. She took a deep breath and continued down the sidewalk, branching off to approach the house, walking along the empty driveway toward the bright white door that had a pink flower painted in the center. The windows facing the front of the house were covered by thick curtains, drawn tightly closed. Jack by her side, Jemma took one last breath in front of the door before she raised her hand and knocked.
There was no response. After several seconds, Jack reached forward and rang the bell, his other hand twitching slightly at the noise.
Nothing happened. For a moment, Jemma opened her mouth to shout for Kendall, then closed it again. She felt a wave of understanding from Jack.
“I almost tried to yell, too,” he sent. “Maybe she isn’t home.”
Jemma looked to her left just in time to see a curtain fall back into place.
“She’s here. She was at the window.” Jemma knocked again, harder. If they couldn’t talk to this woman, where would they go next? How could they find out how to keep themselves from being taken, let alone find out what had happened to Marcia? They’d made it pretty obvious they were looking, coming here to this house; what if they disappeared before they could do anything else reckless? What if—
There was a loud crash from inside the house. Jack looked at her, then tried the knob, looking unsurprised when it was locked.
“Let’s try the back. We don’t know if she’s hurt or if…” He trailed off, sending worry and frustration.
They walked quickly to the unfenced backyard, and Jemma knocked on the sliding glass door and then tried to open it.
It was locked, too.
“What do we—” Her message to Jack was interrupted as the blinds blocking the door flew open, revealing a thin, blonde woman who glared at them with red-rimmed eyes.
“What are you, stupid?” echoed a stranger’s voice, and a glance at Jack showed he heard it, too. “I don’t want to see you! Just go away, and don’t ever come back!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
To Meet You
“Wait,” sent Jemma, reaching back along the connection Kendall had established. “We have information about Marcia.”
The woman stilled, narrowing her eyes further. “How do I know this isn’t a trick? What if you’re working for them?”
“Do you know where Marcia is?” Jack sent.
Kendall’s eyes moved to his. “I don’t—” She looked back at Jemma, her bottom lip beginning to quiver. “She’s—” Tears filled her eyes. “They took her, didn’t they?” She reached forward and unlocked the door, then seemed to crumple, sitting back on her heels on the floor and covering her face.
Jemma glanced at Jack and then opened the glass door. The younger woman reminded her of Jilly, and it was almost instinctive for her to kneel down and put an arm around her. Unsure of whether it would work, Jemma tried sending reassurance.
Kendall stiffened. “Don’t. I don’t know you. Sending your feelings like that, it’s just…” She leaned away from Jemma, who let go of her and stood. “I never expected to get that from anyone but Marcia.”
Jemma rubbed her arm and watched as the woman rose, wiping her eyes and taking deep breaths. Despite the crash they’d heard, Kendall didn’t appear injured. She turned, grabbing a tissue from a nearby box, giving Jemma a chance to look around. They were in a small kitchen, counters and appliances old but functional-looking. The walls were teal, with flowers stenciled near the ceiling and placed at what seemed like random intervals around the room. The kitchen opened up into a living room sporting a hodgepodge of furniture.
Jack shut the door behind him before moving further into the kitchen, putting his hand briefly over the one Jemma was running over her arm. She stopped the movement, breathing in and out once, relaxing as best she was able.
Kendall faced the two of them, leaned against the counter, and crossed her arms, her posture that of giving self-comfort rather than of defiance, her shoulders slumped and her eyes still watery. “You’re Jack and Jemma, right? She said she was gonna go warn you. We looked you up after…” She shook her head. “First, tell me what happened to Marcia.”
Jemma saw Jack look her way, then back at Kendall. “She came to warn us, like you said,” he sent, his tone comforting without projecting the emotion. “Then people came and took her and her car. She didn’t seem to be injured, and they didn’t use a lot of force. We let the police know what happened.”
“They won’t help.” Kendall wiped at her eyes again. “We tried to talk to them. They’re just too busy to care.” She looked between Jack and Jemma, then nodded toward the living room. “Let’s go sit. I want to hear more, and then what I have to say might take a while.”
As they walked, Jemma focused on Jack’s connection, noticing that her connection with Kendall faded much more drastically without concentration than she was used to. “It feels odd, Talking to a complete stranger,” she sent Jack, watching Kendall for any reaction. There wasn’t one. She felt a wave of agreement from Jack. In the living room, Kendall curled up in a battered armchair, wrapping her arms around a throw pillow. Jack and Jemma sat across from her on the loveseat.
“Before she stopped Talking, she said, ‘Tell Ken.’” Jemma paused. “She could have spoken to you directly from there, right? So we thought she wanted us to let you know what happened, or to come talk to you. It seems like you two had more information than we do, though.”
Kendall nodded. “I’m not sure how much. I didn’t want to look into it at all, you know? I just wanted to pretend like everything was normal, just make it all go away. If we couldn’t pretend here, we could’ve just left everything behind and gone… I don’t know. Anywhere. Somewhere where people weren’t watching us. But Marcia, she said she couldn’t just leave, that we couldn’t empty our savings if it was all just coincidence.” She looked up from the pillow. “I’m not sure I’m making any sense. I’m sorry. I just…”
“You just found out something happened to someone you care about,” sent Jack. “It’s normal to be upset.”
“We started dating a few years back,” said Kendall. “We’ve lived together for two years, and we’re… we’re not officially engaged, but we’ve talked about it, you know? Getting married.” Her face crumpled again, and she looked back down at the pillow, hair not quite obscuring the tears that fell. “I just don’t know what I’m gonna do if she doesn’t come back.”
Jemma picked at the seam near her knee, not sure how to help, wanting to press for infor
mation without making the understandably shaken woman even more upset. She felt Jack take her hand, stilling her nervous movements, and she squeezed his hand in return.
Kendall’s shoulders were still lifting periodically when she resumed Talking, her body language and rough breathing telling Jemma her words would be interrupted by sniffles were she speaking aloud, but Kendall’s mental tone was even. “We knew we were being watched,” she sent, “or at least, we were pretty sure. Stuff added up, and it just kept getting worse, like whoever was watching us was getting desperate. We tried the cops, but we didn’t have any proof, and they basically said unless someone was right there pointing a gun to our heads, they couldn’t do anything to help. So we just kept doing what we always do. She went to work and made sure someone walked her to her car if it was after dark. My work didn’t really have to change since I do my paintings at home. We could have just pretended everything was normal, but every night she had to try to figure out what was going on.
“We didn’t even realize that our Talk was anything special at first. I mean, of course we could Talk, right? Why wouldn’t we be able to. But then we started noticing the emotion thing, especially when we had more physical contact going on. Then I tried Talking to her when I thought she was still in the room with me while I was painting. Turned out she’d left and was all the way in the kitchen, but she heard me and responded fine. I know it isn’t a big house, but it was a lot further than we should’ve been able to Talk.”
Kendall hugged the pillow more tightly. “She found these forums where people were talking about the people who could Talk better. Nobody admitted they could, obviously. By this point, people had been taken pretty openly for it. But Marcia’s always been good at making friends, even online, and we found out a little more. People in a bigger city with more missing, they managed to put it together, find a connection.” She looked up at them. “Blood banks. There’s this national company that handles collecting blood and donating it to where it needs to go, not the Red Cross, but a smaller company that has a few different blood banks.”
“What?” Jemma spoke in surprise, not having intended to interrupt. She did try to donate blood when she could, but it had never occurred to her to see whether Jack did, too.
“Seriously?” added Jack. “That place over by the mall? That’s the only one I’ve donated at that wasn’t just a bus.”
Kendall nodded. “She asked around and found someone who worked there who agreed to tell her the names of the people whose donations got handled differently. He was texting us the names one at a time. I don’t know why. He said there were seven of us locally. Sent my name first, then Jemma’s, then Jack’s. Then he stopped texting. He stopped responding, didn’t show to work. Marcia decided that meant someone had found out he was giving her information, and she panicked. She said we needed to warn you that they had your name, that they knew you could Talk even if you were hiding it. I tried to talk her out of it.” She hid her face again. “That was… Our last conversation was a fight. I wanted to ignore it, stop looking into it, just make everything go away. And now she’s gone.”
“We don’t know what happens,” sent Jack. “She could be perfectly okay, just not able to Talk to you or come home right now. I didn’t know her, but if she risked more exposure to warn us, I don’t think she’d want you to be this upset.”
“You’re right,” sent Kendall, “but it’s hard. She’s barely been gone any time at all, and I want to tell her about my day and have her hold me close. I want to see her face right now having this conversation with the two of you. She hated how hard group conversations were and would’ve loved being able to Talk to more than one person at a time, everyone hearing and being able to act like everything was normal again.”
Kendall fell silent, and the living room was quiet. Jack tightened his grip on Jemma’s hand, and their mental connection strengthened.
“I don’t know what I would do if I lost you or my dad. I mean, I worry about him anyway, but to not even know where he is…” His tone carried traces of distress, and Jemma sent back comfort, feeling him relax almost immediately.
“Your dad isn’t involved in this,” she sent him. “No families have disappeared that we’ve heard of. And you and I, we’re being safe as we can without staying in the dark.”
He nodded, and his connection returned to normal as he spoke to them both. “Kendall, can you tell us what forums she was on? Or what she meant when she said we were on a ‘maybe list’?”
Kendall shook her head almost violently. “No! The forums got taken down, and I already told you everything else I know. She didn’t tell me everything since it was making me upset. Looking into this only got Marcia taken. There’s no point! They come faster if they know you know. You can’t keep looking or you’re gonna disappear, too.” She got up from the chair, throwing the pillow back to the seat, and started pacing the small living room. “I can’t do this. I can’t have everyone disappearing. I don’t want to know. I just want to lock myself in my studio and paint until they take me away or I wake up from this nightmare. And at least… If they take me, at least I might be with Marcia, might have her there and know she’s okay, unlike now.” She tangled her hands in her hair, and Jemma got up, trying once more to comfort her, putting an arm around her slight shoulders.
When Kendall threw her arms around her, Jemma stiffened, then forced herself to relax, running a hand up and down Kendall’s back. When the woman stopped shaking, Jemma Talked in a low tone, careful not to project the concern she was feeling. “Do you have someone you can stay with? Someone who can stay with you?”
“It’s been just me and Marcia for so long,” sent Kendall. “Neither of us really has any family here. Besides, I don’t want to drag anyone else into this. I know I sound ridiculous, but really, I just…” She pulled back. “I really appreciate you coming by and the fact that you’re concerned and all, but I want to be alone. Now that we’ve… After people like us Talk to each other once, folks on the forums think we can Talk from anywhere except wherever they’re taking us, so if I need something I’ll let you know, or if I haven’t been taken yet by the time I’m not this blubbering mess anymore, or.... But right now I want you to leave. Back door, please, and cut through the neighbor’s yard to get back to the street.”
Jemma nodded slowly. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” sent Kendall, letting emotion seep through their connection for the first time, a combination of confidence and heartbreak, plus the desire for solitude that Jemma had felt so often before everything had changed.
“Okay,” Jemma sent before turning to look at Jack.
“Is there anything we can do before we leave?” he sent.
“No.” Kendall seemed suddenly exhausted. “Just go.”
They walked back into the kitchen and opened the door, Kendall behind them. Before she’d shut the door all the way, Jemma sent, “Tell us if you need anything at all.” Kendall nodded, then shut the blinds.
“I wish we could do something,” Jack sent Jemma as they started walking through the backyard.
“Me, too. And we found out… I haven’t even processed everything yet.”
Jack caught hold of Jemma’s hand as they reached the sidewalk and headed back to her car.
“I wonder how Marcia found forums,” he sent. “I looked pretty hard.”
“And there are at least three more of us, just near here. I wonder how many there are elsewhere, how many have been taken, how many are still going about their normal lives.”
“And was everyone on that list able to Talk? If they were watching us instead of just taking, it might not be a given,” he sent.
“We don’t have much time, do we?” Jemma slowed as they approached the car. “Between Marcia coming to the library, our names being given to her, our coming to talk to Kendall like this… They’re going to take us soon.”
Jemma felt oddly calm, almost resigned, tired of being scared, tired of not knowing, until Jack sent disagreement.
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“No. They’re going to try to, yes,” he sent, letting go of her hand when they reached the car, “but we’re watching. We’re ready. And we’ll be even more ready before they try.” He cupped her cheek, and she leaned into the touch. “We’re not gonna go down without a fight, as cliché as that sounds.” He watched her until she nodded, then he dropped his hand and got in the car, and she moved around to get in the driver’s side.
“You’re right,” she said, trying to picture her family struggling to deal with her disappearance. “We’ll fight.”
Jack sent a solid wave of agreement. “We should probably stay together tonight,” he added. “Make things harder for them. You can take the guest room again.”
“All right,” sent Jemma. “The lightsaber night light will help me get into fighting mode.”
Jack sent appreciation, and Jemma started the car, shifted into drive, and pulled away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
Ties
We're not going to make it for dinner tonight. Sorry, Mom. Love you.
Resisting the urge to add more, Jemma sent the text, set her phone down, and looked around the library. There were a few more patrons than normal for a Tuesday afternoon, and a couple of them had mentioned trying to come the day before and finding the library closed. According to Cecily, employee instructions were to avoid mentioning the abduction in order to avoid scaring away the patrons.
"It feels so weird," Jemma sent Jack, "being at work, pretending everything is normal when the world is falling apart around us."
Jack sent a wave of agreement. "I've been trying to get into the blood bank's system, but they've got some major network security going on. I think this is a dead end."
"We finally found a link, though," she sent. "We can't just ignore it."
"And we won't. I'm checking employees, too, the ones I could track down. I figured out which one went missing." Jack sent a link via messenger, making Jemma's computer chime. The link opened a Facebook profile for Davis Powell, an average-looking man in his thirties. "They don't have too big a staff, not in the actual clinic, and I figured if Marcia was able to find him, he probably had a bit of an online presence. Much of his profile is private, but wall posts are public, and friends and family are looking for him."