by Lisa Amowitz
“I-I—” I knew I had to come out with it because Xavier was in trouble, but I hesitated to admit I’d gone to visit him in the middle of the night. “Something’s wrong with Xavier.”
Vincent stepped closer, arms extended. I ducked and slipped out of his reach. A shadow passed over his bright gaze. “I doubt that. Were you in his room?”
“So what if I was? I’m telling you there’s something wrong with the guy. I think he’s having a seizure.”
Vincent’s arms dropped to his sides. “He’s fine.”
Again, Vincent reached for me and I darted out of his way. “Don’t touch me,” I snapped with more venom than I intended.
“Are you angry, Beth?” Vincent asked softly. He stepped closer and I realized that I’d backed myself into a corner. He stood gazing at me as if he was debating whether to sock me in the jaw or kiss me on the lips.
“Forget me,” I pleaded. “Xavier needs help. Jeez. I know you don’t like him, but he was in a bad way.”
Vincent stood his ground, but didn’t advance. His posture was relaxed, but the intensity in his eyes made my stomach flutter. “I warned you that Xavier is troubled. And those troubles manifest in unusual ways.”
“I can swear I saw the handicapped girl, Della, walk out of his room. How is that possible?”
Vincent squinted just a fraction, but his composure held, his voice measured and even. “It must have been her twin, Evangeline.”
“No one ever said Della had a twin.”
Vincent shrugged, but the intensity of his gaze hadn’t softened. “It never came up.”
I was breathing fast, my heart clacking like a metronome on speed. My fight or flight mechanism had been activated, and suddenly, despite the warm blue eyes and golden curls, I wanted to get away from Vincent very badly.
He moved closer. “You’re agitated, Beth.”
Throat dry, my pulse pounded in my neck. “Don’t touch me.”
Another step closer. “Are you afraid of me?”
The walls were closing in, transforming from a protective enclosure to the bars of a cage. A dark shadow hovered vaguely over Vincent’s head. “There’s something weird about the way you touch me.”
One corner of his mouth twitched up, but Vincent didn’t move any closer. “It’s only because I care about you.”
“You barely know me.”
In a blur of motion, Vincent lunged for me and enfolded me in his arms. His grip was shockingly tight, yet gentle all at the same time, cool silk over steel. At his touch, my anger melted, and the tension leaked from my tight muscles. I slumped against his chest, exhausted and defeated. The shadow was gone.
Whatever power he had over me, I thought, in my last clear moment, I couldn’t fight it.
And I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Back in my room, I eased the Blast Mahoney button from under my mattress, and, clutching it to my chest, fell asleep.
I dreamt about Sam. He was running through the woods, calling to me, but I didn’t stop. I was running, too, from the massive shadowy figure that chased us both.
12
FIRST THING IN THE MORNING, VINCENT CAME TO escort me to breakfast, and for just a moment, I recoiled at his presence. But my initial reaction was tempered by the need for him to touch me. To settle my swirling thoughts.
Since I’d come to the High Step compound it was as if my brain’s frequency had been scrambled. I wondered if they’d let me stay when they realized that I was a two-fingered grip away from slipping down the rabbit hole for good.
Vincent’s blue eyes were bright against the creamy tan of his freshly shaven face. He smiled as if seeing me was the peak moment of his day. In the morning light that streamed through my window and glinted on his curls, he was more beautiful than ever.
“How are you feeling this morning? Better? The aftereffects of the Evaluation did a number on you.”
“Much.”
“I’m very happy to hear that.” Vincent leaned over and kissed me lightly on my cheekbone. My heart stuttered, and I admitted to myself that I’d begun to crave his touch. That, with my meds gone, it might have been the only thing holding me together. When he reached for me, the heat from his fingers bathed me in the sweet reassurance that I was fine. That the longer I was here at the compound, the better I would feel. That the paranoia was only the last of my depression sloughing off as I healed.
Yes. I believed this as we walked arm in arm to the dining hall.
In the noisy hall we found our places at the table with Lila and the others. The teasing and happy banter felt normal and routine as we dug into overstuffed omelets with sides of bacon and sausage. I belonged there, I told myself.
I was smiled at. I smiled back, but still, it was a blur, as if I was on autopilot, one Beth carrying on the social niceties, the other Beth lost in a distant labyrinth of forgotten thoughts and emotions.
“Hey,” Lila said, interrupting my silence. “We have second period History together. Isn’t that cool?”
“That’s awesome,” I answered, but my gaze wandered to the entrance where someone had wheeled in One-Digit Della. There was no sign of the flouncy blonde who looked like her, just the frail girl with the stiff unyielding body.
The question about Della still tingling on my lips, I stabbed a sausage with a fork. It was heavy and greasy in my mouth. Chewing mechanically, I felt the bad thoughts start to sift in again, staining my mood, dragging me under. I had to fight this darkness that wanted to overtake me. If High Step kicked me out, what would become of me?
I made myself smile and thought of something to add to the conversation that flowed around me like water over rock. I grasped at a hopeful thought, something I really was looking forward to. “Maybe today I’ll get my individual instruction assignment.”
Everyone smiled and nodded, then broke off into happy chatter. My ears rang with the sound, like rain hitting a tin roof. My gaze drifted back to Della. She was parked at a table, her head jerking in rolling spasms while someone spooned cereal into her mouth.
That someone, I realized with a shock, was Xavier. As if he’d noticed me watching, he turned toward me. Our eyes locked. His look was piercing, accusing. I scanned the memory of my midnight break-in and blushed. I’d probably imagined that he was as stiff and frozen as a corpse. He was just pissed I’d barged in on him in the middle of the night like a crazy woman who watched him sleep, and rightfully so. Or maybe he thought it was a dream.
Yet beneath the hostility, there was something else. Something that reached across the room, grabbed me by the throat, and told me that I would venture to his room again.
My heart raced as fear pumped to my nerve endings. I tore my gaze away and glanced at Vincent. His expression was stern, lips pressed together in a thin line. In a quick motion he rested his arm on my forearm and my thoughts stilled as the distress dissipated and broke apart.
“Gideon and Monica want to meet with you after breakfast,” he whispered. Despite his calming touch, remnants of worry still lingered. What if they’d discovered I was a nut job and didn’t want the trouble of dealing with me? Maybe I’d failed my Evaluation.
Vincent must have recognized the panic in my eyes, because he tightened his grip. It helped, but not enough to wipe away the fear that there was something really, really wrong with me.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “They’re just going to set you up with your individual instruction today.”
I frowned briefly, then smiled hopefully. “I passed my Evaluation?”
“I’ve told you a million times. It’s not a pass/fail situation, Beth. It’s all about placement. You know that. Acceptance here is highly selective. Once you’re in, you’re in.”
Vincent informed me that I’d be missing my first period Literature, but would be able to get to second period History. He said goodbye after breakfast to go to his first class. I was left to find my way to Gideon’s office alone.
Intellectually, I knew I shouldn’t be scared.
I told myself that it was just the years of ingrained trauma from my poor academic track record, and that here at High Step, I had the chance to change my ways and make a new start. But that didn’t help quiet my galloping heartbeat.
In the moment that I hesitated outside the dining hall, someone grabbed my shoulder. I spun around to find Xavier’s face just a few inches from mine.
His voice silken, he flashed me a lopsided smile. “Why were you in my room last night?”
My heart pounded, yet I kept my tone even. “You invited me, didn’t you?”
“I guess I did.” He stepped back. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t exactly welcoming.”
“You were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I wasn’t asle—” Xavier’s words cut off as if they’d gotten stuck in his teeth. His jaw clamped shut, his expression strangely fierce, as if he was fighting to pry them apart. His lids fluttered and his eyes, the haunted dark blue of a forlorn winter lake, seemed to lose focus briefly before his gaze reclaimed its usual intensity. Finally, he managed to spit out very, very softly, “I would like it if you would…if you would visit again.”
Xavier stared into my eyes for a beat, then flipped his hair so a dark curtain sheathed the scarred side of his face. His easy smile returned and he turned, strolling away as if we hadn’t just had the strangest non-conversation ever.
Watching him go, I couldn’t help but admire his languid grace, so at odds with the weird stuttering fit. It was so impossible to reconcile the two Xaviers that I had to wonder if his mysterious injuries had also left him with some kind of neurological damage. Either way, messed up as he apparently was, nothing diminished his incredible hotness.
Then I remembered I was due in Gideon’s office for my placement conference. I stopped to adjust myself in a mirror, expecting to see something pale and bedraggled, but was shocked to find that I actually looked pretty good.
Since I’d been at the compound, I’d barely glanced in a mirror. I hadn’t bothered with my usual dramatic eyeliner and extreme eyebrow definition, but my cheeks had color and my dark eyes shone. Even my skin looked clearer. Radiant, almost.
I barely knew this girl.
It made no sense that the lack of sleep and meds along with the stress hadn’t taken their toll. Maybe they’d been jacking our food supply with some kind of mega-vitamin supplement. Nothing would surprise me about High Step, but to be honest, I was pretty happy with my new au naturel self.
I walked to Gideon’s office with a little bounce in my stride, resolved to untangle the mystique of Vincent and Xavier another time. Meanwhile, basking in my own awesomeness was enough. Maybe, despite the rough start, this place agreed with me after all.
I was so enveloped in my unfamiliar daze of self-appreciation that I barely noticed when Xavier fell in step beside me.
“Huh? What now?”
Again, his eyes rolled up and he choked on his words. It couldn’t be that I made him that uncomfortable, I thought, not when he’d been so cocky at other times. “I-I’m s-sorry,” he stammered.
“What the hell for?”
“F-for being an ass.”
I kept walking and found that, despite my initial attraction, my patience for his games and weirdness was quickly wearing thin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You didn’t do anything. If you have something to tell me, just come out with it.”
He stopped walking abruptly. His face drained of color and his eyes took on that glazed look again. For a minute it seemed like he was about to keel over. “I-I can’t.”
“Should I get the nurse? Are you okay?”
“No.” Xavier sighed and leaned against the wall, eyes closed. He breathed heavily in and out a few times before he managed to speak again. “I have—a lot of problems.” Then his eyes flashed open, the laser-hot blue washed out. With his usual swagger gone, Xavier seemed deflated, vulnerable, and very young.
“I know y-you’ll think I’m nuts,” he blurted. “But d-do you have something from—from before you came here? S-something important to you?” Struck by a sudden bout of coughing, he bent over.
“I’m going to get help,” I said.
“No!” He straightened and leaned against the wall, eyes closed and head tilted up. “Please. Listen,” he whispered, not looking at me. “What is it? What do you have?”
I wiped a hand across my brow. My heart thudded. There was an ominous turn to our conversation and it was stirring up strange emotions and memories I’d tried so hard to bury. “I have a button.”
Xavier’s eyes snapped open. “Keep it close,” he whispered. “Always close.”
He stared at me for a beat, then buckled over slightly and dashed away down the hall without looking back.
My palm burned with the thought of the Blast Mahoney button, my throat aching with the memory of Sam. How could Xavier know, and why would he want me to hold onto so much pain?
13
I CLOSED MY EYES AND WILLED MYSELF THE STRENGTH to walk to Gideon’s office.
But Xavier’s words, those haunted eyes, struck a chord deep inside of me, and I knew he was far from crazy. Still, I had no idea what he was trying to tell me.
When I entered his office, Gideon stood and directed me to the chair opposite his desk. His shoulder-length auburn waves caught the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and his dark eyes glittered, warm and friendly. Proud, almost. I settled in the chair, feeling instantly reassured that everything would be all right. That I wouldn’t be sent packing from the High Step compound.
It was only after I sat that the frail old guy and the goons from my Evaluation entered through a concealed door in the paneled wall. My heart began to flutter like a trapped bird. I flashed Gideon an alarmed look, but his smile hadn’t wavered.
“There’s nothing to fear, Beth.”
“I thought I was just going to be assessed to determine my level of training.”
“Absolutely,” Gideon said. “You tested very well. Outstanding, in fact.”
“I don’t understand. The Evaluation wasn’t about music at all. How can you—?”
My throat was dry. The walls of the opulent office seemed to move in closer, crowding me. Beyond the gauzy curtains, the snow-bound woods were hazy and white.
“You are correct, Beth. The Evaluation has very little to do with music. Your musical ability is a side effect of your true ability. And for that you tested very, very high. Astronomically high, to be precise.”
I gripped the arms of the chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Gideon’s smile faded, his deep voice vibrating inside my skull. “I think you’ve known there’s something different about you for a very long time, haven’t you, Beth?”
There was a scream trapped in my throat.
The frail man with the glinting glasses smiled too, but the goons behind him did not. Closing ranks around him, they braced as if a masked gunman was about to burst through the office doors and mow us down in mob-hit style.
I tried to speak, but my words were gone, my vocal cords useless.
“You’re angry, Beth, aren’t you?” Gideon asked mildly. “Angry because it’s starting to dawn on you that you haven’t been told the whole truth?”
I nodded wildly, unable to move from the chair. Angry wasn’t the word for it. Rage crackled through my nerve endings.
“And you’re also angry because you fear to face who you are. What you are.”
I closed my eyes. Traveling through my bloodstream, searching for release, the heat that built inside me was a physical pain.
“Focus on that anger. On your fear. Let it build. You are very powerful, Beth.”
Shaking and sweating, I watched as the frail man set a black box on Gideon’s desk. He slid up the side and a very frightened white mouse skittered onto the polished surface.
My pulse jackhammered insanely in my ears. Carson had once threatened to drop a dead mouse on me as I slept, and I’d lain awake the entire night
keeping watch. I’d been phobic ever since.
The mouse leapt into my lap. I was paralyzed and desperate, unable to act, convinced that I was going to die of a stroke right on that chair.
“Use your ability, Beth. The one you’ve tried so hard to deny. Do what it is you do best. Channel your energy and destroy the thing you hate.”
The words rattled through me like chains. The mouse clawed its way up my shirt as if I was a rodent wall-climbing challenge. I shuddered, my hysteria a reservoir of molten lava boiling inside of me. A cocoon of shadow enveloped the mouse as it climbed. The back of my neck and scalp prickled with an electric tingle.
I needed this mouse to die before it reached my face.
I exhaled, letting go of the anger and fear in a rush of need for this creature to be gone.
As though my breath was spring-loaded, something heavy released from my chest. The air split with a sharp crack, the shadowy cocoon exploding in black cinders. The goons crowded in front of the frail man and Gideon as if I’d aimed an AK-47 assault rifle at them.
There was moment when I was in darkness, numb and floating, a thing out of time and space.
Then noise and color come pounding back and my chair was thrust backward. Gideon, the frail man, and his goons were clapping as if I’d just scored the winning goal in a soccer match. I had a split second to take this in before I hit the floor. Once I did, the shaking and convulsing started, my eyes shuttering open and closed. I got a glimpse of the dead mouse on the carpet before a shot jabbed into my arm and everything went dark again.
The first thing I was aware of was the warmth coiling up my arm. My eyes blinked open to find Vincent gazing down at me.
“You did great,” he said, beaming.
His hand felt so good on my arm, so natural, that I dreaded what would happen when he removed it. The terror of the past few moments was still fresh in my mind, but softened, the rough edges smoothed down.
I glanced at the dead mouse. “Did I do that?” Despite the soothing heat that spread from Vincent’s fingers through the rest of my body, horror tightened my throat. I was certain I was going to be sick.