by Jackson Ford
I risk a glance. There are multiple officers walking in and out of the traffic, along with one or two firemen. A cop car is parked across the lane to our left, lights flashing.
Torchlight flickers through Nic’s window, and I bury my head in the hoodie. Which probably isn’t going to help, but I don’t know what the hell else I’m supposed to do.
The window slides down, letting in the stench of smoke.
“Everything OK here?” Nic says.
“Where you headed today, sir?” The cop has a voice like old wood: textured, deep and very hard.
“Just Burbank.”
“Yeah, where in Burbank, please?”
“Uh… East Orange Grove. It’s north of the 5.”
“East Orange and?”
“What?”
“The cross-street, sir.”
“Ninth? Yeah.”
“You live up there?” The cop sounds sceptical. And why wouldn’t he be? We’re driving a shitty, dirty Prius. Burbank isn’t the richest neighbourhood in LA, but if you can afford to live there, you’re probably driving something a little nicer than this wreck.
“My mom.” Nic actually manages to sound bored. “Just going to check on her.”
“She should be gone already, sir. They’ve issued an evac order.”
“When?”
“Maybe a half-hour ago. The wind changed, and the marshals are pulling back. Can I see your licence, sir?”
“Uh, OK? Why?”
“Just procedure.”
Nic doesn’t respond, but there’s a rasp of fabric as he pulls his wallet from his jeans.
“Thank you,” the cop says. “Hernández! Is south of Bel Aire still good?”
The officer he yells for wears a thick bulletproof vest over her uniform shirt, a white undershirt peaking out the collar, a radio clipped to her shoulder. Her dark hair is pulled back in a severe ponytail.
I stay very, very still and keep my eyes closed. I am half a second from yelling at Nic to just floor it, but we are never going to be able to bully our way through the traffic. They’ll run us right down.
“Our man here’s going to Orange Grove. Just south of Bel Aire. Did they evacuate there?”
Any second now they’re going to tell me to turn round. Show my face. Maybe they’ll just cut right to it and start shooting.
“No, Orange Grove’s OK,” the lady cop says. “Fire hasn’t got that far yet.”
I risk another glance around the edge of the hood. She’s a little closer now, a few feet to the right of Nic’s car. She looks exhausted. There are dark rings under her eyes, and the slump of her shoulders speaks of someone who has had a very, very long day.
My eyes meet hers.
It’s a split-second glance, no more. It’s like I can’t help it—like it was inevitable. The breath in my lungs freezes solid.
The set of her shoulders changes, her hand straying to the pistol on her hip. She might not know what she saw, not consciously, but she knows she saw something.
I can’t breathe. Every muscle responsible for getting air into my lungs has locked up tight.
A loud blast of a horn from the car behind us. Whoever it is really leans on it.
“Let’s keep it moving, Hernández,” the first cop rumbles. “We backed up all the way to Los Feliz by now.”
The next few seconds take years. The cop holds her position, scanning the line of cars.
Then she nods. Stalks off.
“Do not go north of Bel Aire,” the cop says. “If you can, get your mother and take her somewhere safe. It’s OK now, but it might not be later.”
“I will,” Nic says. “Thank you.”
The window whirrs up. I stay very, very still, counting slowly to thirty in my head. Then, still without moving, I open my eyes.
Nic glances at me. “You OK?”
“What? Oh. Yeah. I think so.”
“Sure? You look like you’re about to have a heart attack.”
The fires are visible now, turning the horizon an angry red. Not to mention the giant plumes of black smoke choking the night sky. No stars tonight.
I would give anything, absolutely anything, to know if Carlos, Annie and Reggie are OK. Hell, even Paul. No way of finding out. I don’t even have a phone to call them on.
My tongue feels like it’s coated in grease, a coppery taste that won’t go away no matter how often I swallow. I’m light-headed, and it isn’t just with exhaustion. It’s fear. Raw, slippery fear.
The last time I felt like this was when I was with Travis. On the one night we spent together.
Telling Nic about my past was easier than I thought it would be. My parents, my brother and sister, Tanner: I came to terms with it all a long time ago. But I don’t dare speak about what happened with Travis. I don’t even know how to begin. What I did to him on that night… the way it all turned out…
I don’t really do regret. I don’t spend time dwelling on my past fuck-ups—it just wastes energy and time. Time is better spent eating and reading and listening to good music and doing fun shit. But just because I force myself not to think about those regrets doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And Travis? Travis is the biggest regret there is.
I’m lost in my thoughts when Nic says, “Scooch down.”
“Huh?”
He points to the street sign illuminated by his headlights: East Orange Grove.
“I want to do a pass of the house,” Nic says. “Make sure nobody’s watching.”
“And if they are?”
“Well, you wanted to come up here. I’m sure you’ll have a few ideas.”
“Yeah, OK.” I slide down in the seat, pulling the hoodie over my head again. Willing myself to stay calm.
He’s close.
The killer. The second psychokinetic.
I can’t know this for sure, but it doesn’t matter. It’s starting to feel real. I haven’t even thought about what I’m going to say to him if we do meet. Assuming he doesn’t try to kill me first. I’ve got so many questions, and asking any of them is going to be almost impossible—at least at first.
“All clear,” Nic says.
I sit up, blinking. Nic is mid-U-turn, pulling us back onto North Parish. We’re at a leafy intersection, the north end of which is a railway line separated from the street by a long stretch of gravel. “No cops?”
“Nobody. I think I know where the house is—didn’t see anyone there.” He points to one of the houses, hidden behind a tall wooden fence. On the other side of the fence an American flag hangs limp. “That’s it, I think.”
“Isn’t that kind of odd if they’re evacuating people?”
“Not really. They don’t exactly have the manpower to go door to door.” A pause. Then: “How do you want to do this?”
“Park a little way away. Probably better if I approach on foot.”
“We, you mean.”
The car is just rolling up to an intersection. I choose my next words carefully. “No. I. Singular. You are not coming in there.”
“’Scuse me?”
“Stick around for a couple of minutes—I might need an exit if we’re too late. But if Salinas is still there, I want you to get the hell away.”
“Fuck no.”
“I’m not kidding, Nic. If the other psychokinetic arrives…”
“Which part of Fuck no didn’t you get? The Fuck part or the no part?”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.” How can he be this dense?
“Sure. I’ll just head on out of here and leave you to do this by yourself. Great idea.”
“Nic.”
“No, no, no. You’re not—”
Which is when Javier Salinas comes smashing through the windshield.
FORTY-FOUR
Jake
Jake explodes out onto the street. He’s so angry that the edge of his vision has actually gone grey.
Javier Salinas was supposed to come right through the front door. He was supposed to open it, step inside and get a piece of reb
ar right between the eyes. Quick. Clean. Simple.
He didn’t come inside.
He knocked.
Jake stared at the door, mouth hanging open. What was Javier doing? This was his house!
Except it wasn’t. He and Sandy had split up. He was living somewhere else. He might not even have a key any more.
“Sands?” Javier’s muffled voice was threaded with panic. More frantic knocking. “Sands, it’s me!”
Carefully Jake reached out, grabbed the lock, clicked the door open.
“Hey,” Javier said, pushing inside. “I’m so sorry I’m late, the job was—”
He trailed off, confused as to why the hallway was dark, why Sandy wasn’t there to greet him.
Jake made himself wait. He wanted Javier fully inside, silhouetted against the dimly lit street. The perfect target.
“Sandy?”
Javier took another step—and stopped dead.
He was looking down at the floor.
Jake followed his gaze. Alan—the neighbour. His body was still there, along with the patch of blood, grown tacky but still unmistakable.
“Sands! Kelly!” Javier Salinas shoved the front door open, barging into the house, and that’s when Jake sent the rebar flying at him.
He should have waited. He was trying to hit a moving target and had acted out of panic—panic and anger. The metal shot past Javier’s head, burying itself in the door frame. The man yelled, dancing backwards, falling down the front steps, getting to his feet and bolting back down the drive. Then he turned, eyes huge as if suddenly remembering his wife and daughter. Torn between blind terror and protecting his family.
Which is when the furious Jake came through the front door, the rebar whistling through the air ahead of him. Salinas ducked, and the rebar shattered the driver-side window of his truck, a big Ford F150. Under the dim street lights, the health department logo on the door gleamed a dull white.
Javier bolted, the terror taking over. He took off, sprinting into the street, moving with a gait that said he wasn’t used to running.
Jake was dimly aware how thick the smoke had got. The air had a hot syrupy quality, like he’d have to swim through it to make any progress. Salinas was going to run? From him? Running wasn’t going to help. It was way, way too late for that.
Jake reached out with his Gift, picking up the first thing it touched: the tall metal flagpole embedded in the dirt. His intention was to throw it point first—a bigger version of the rebar—but at the last instant, as Javier turned left, he had a flash of inspiration. He swung the flagpole in a wide arc, putting so much force into it that he felt the metal torque.
The pole hit the running man right at the base of his spine. By then it was moving with so much speed that it swept Javier up into the air, sent him tumbling end over end as if he’d been hit by a moving car.
Jake feels bitter joy flood through him. Shoot at him? Try to kill him? Forget quick. He’s going to impale him with the flagpole. Slowly. He strides out into the road, lungs burning from the smoke, picking up the flagpole as he goes.
FORTY-FIVE
Teagan
I tumble out the car, landing ass first on the asphalt. There’s broken glass everywhere: in my hair, down my front, collected in the hoodie at the base of my neck.
Had Salinas—or whoever it is—been moving even a little bit faster, or been a little bit heavier, he probably would have killed both of us. He came butt first through the windshield, embedding himself in it but not dislodging it from its frame. He’s still moving, his body twitching. Still alive.
“Teagan!” Nic is up, shaking glass out of his hair, coming around the front of the car.
“Fine.” I cough, fighting the smoke. “I’m fine. Help him.”
My mind chooses that moment to reboot. For a second I’ve got a completely blank slate, then a rush of thoughts nearly knocks me over. Salinas didn’t throw himself through our windshield; he was thrown. That means…
He’s backlit perfectly by the glowing horizon: a tall figure striding out from behind the wooden fence into the middle of the road. I can’t get a good look at his face, silhouetted as he is, but it’s him. It has to be.
The strangest thought: this is the first time in the history of the human race that two people with psychokinetic powers have been in the same place.
The moment just crashes over me. I thought I was ready for this. I wasn’t. This other person—this killer—is the only one like me.
“Watch out!” Nic roars.
The flagpole hovers over the street, whirling like a baton, the American flag flapping. Then the figure cocks his head, and it comes right at Salinas, point first.
If I’d actually been thinking straight, I could probably have deflected it. But I just lie there, watching it come, eyes huge.
It’s a good thing Nic is more on the ball than me. He knew what was going to happen the second that flagpole started flying. He reaches over, grabs hold of Salinas and pulls. Salinas is heavy, but Nic manages to yank him out of the hole in the windshield a split-second before the flagpole buries itself dead centre. It does so with a loud whang, the end of the pole bouncing as it settles.
A horrific, cruel thought: Salinas, a government worker, impaled on an American flag. The image is like a slap to the face. It snaps me awake, and I scramble up, using the side of the car for leverage.
The flagpole rips itself out of the car with a huge crunch. It twitches like it’s alive, hunting for its prey. Then it points at Salinas, who is lying on the street on the other side of the car.
This time I get there first. I reach out with my PK and grab the pole before the other dude launches. The pole jerks in mid-air, shuddering.
The man clenches his fists, fighting with me for control. When I don’t give it back, he looks first at Nic and then his head snaps towards me.
“Yeah,” I say.
Abruptly he releases his hold on the flagpole. I manage to hold it up for perhaps half a second before I let go too. It crashes down on the car’s hood, metal screeching on metal as it rolls off.
I’m expecting him to come at us a second time. He doesn’t. He just stands there. Long blond hair, an angular face, jutting chin. Young—my age, maybe a little younger. He wears a dirty biker jacket over torn jeans, and he has the strangest expression on his face.
Nic is cradling the unconscious Salinas. It’s definitely him. He might not have been impaled by the flagpole, but he’s still in bad shape. One leg is turned at a horrific angle at the knee, and there’s a huge gash on the side of his neck, his shirt turning dark with blood.
“We gotta help him,” Nic says.
“Nic, we—”
“Call 911.”
“The—”
“Call 911!”
“On what?” I yell back.
He squeezes his eyes shut, and a long angry growl escapes his throat.
I point at the car. “Find a cop.”
“Teagan—”
“Just go. I got this.”
Our eyes meet. Just for a second.
There’s a horrible moment when I think he’s going to refuse. If he does, I don’t know if I can protect him.
Then his eyes change. It’s like he’s taken a step back, looked at what he’s being asked to do and decided the only way to do it is if he wipes away every trace of emotion.
“OK,” he says, not looking at me.
Which is when I reach over, pull him to me and kiss him.
I don’t know why I do it. No, that’s a fucking lie. I know exactly why I do it. I do it because the blank, focused look on his face terrifies me. It’s a look that says he’s not sure if I’m going to make it out of this, and the only way he can get through it is by shutting himself down completely.
I don’t want him to leave. He has to. And kissing him—his lips on mine, tasting of salt and smoke—is the only thing I can think to do.
I pull away. “Go.” My voice is hoarse, the smoke starting to shred it.
Th
ere’s a flicker of anguish in his eyes, then the shutters come down again. He gets his arms under Salinas, grunting as he lifts him.
I keep expecting the other psychokinetic to attack, but he doesn’t. He’s just… standing there. Staring at me. Like he’s lost all interest in Salinas. Like I’m a bug, or a bacterium under a microscope.
Nic shoves Salinas into the back of the car, slamming the door, clambering into the driver’s seat, ignoring the shards of glass. His eyes meet mine one last time.
He reverses, swinging the car round with a squeal of tyres, hitting the gas and roaring off into the smoke. The fire is very close now.
I turn. The movement lasts no more than a second or two, but it feels like it takes years. The other guy is still standing there, in the middle of the road, glowing smoke at his back.
He’s killed people. Let me take the blame for it. Taking him out is the only chance I have of making it through the night. And I don’t have the first clue how to do it. I don’t have a taser, or any other method of knocking him unconscious.
But if I do, if I somehow face off against him and actually win, and do it without killing him, I’ll never see him again. Tanner will make him vanish. She’ll tell me I’m lucky that I actually get to stay alive and should be grateful and kiss her pretty little feet.
But out of everyone in Los Angeles—everyone in the entire world, for all I know—he’s the only one like me. Seven point six billion humans… and us.
Even Chloe and Adam didn’t know exactly what it was like to have my ability. What would it be like to talk to him? Find out if it’s the same for him as it is for me?
He’s stronger than I am, that’s for sure. But how did he get there? How much can he lift? Did it happen gradually, or did he suddenly realise one day that he was more powerful than he thought? Has he had sex? Does what happens to me happen to him?
Where did he come from?
Still nothing. He doesn’t move, not an inch. Outside of the distant sirens and the soft crackle and crunch of fire, the street is silent.
Slowly I lift a hand in greeting. “Hi. My name’s Teagan. What’s yours?”