by Lisa Amowitz
I noticed Andre touch a hand to her arm and her expression softened, her eyes gone moist. She smiled and leaned in to kiss him, then turned to me. “Your mom and Carson are going to be thrilled. I wish someone would have told us you were coming. I’d have made breakfast!”
Andre hugged Shelly closer and smiled at me, too. And then, for a split second, Andre’s beautiful mask of serenity slipped. His eyes went hard, the warmth gone. He reached over to touch me and the chill that had shot up my back departed.
I was home. I might not have remembered being here, but I was going to see my family. That was going to have to be enough for now.
“How is Carson?”
Shelly’s smile widened. “He’s in great spirits. His crew comes to visit at least once a week and takes him out. He’s always got a joke. And, it’s amazing, but he’s been accepted to Duke for the fall semester.”
“Wow,” I said. “That is amazing.” I couldn’t imagine how my athletic brother had adjusted so quickly to his new life in a wheelchair.
“It’s because of your mom,” Andre said. “She wouldn’t let him give up. She’s relentless.”
It wasn’t my triumph. In fact, it may have been my absence that allowed Mom to focus without distraction on Carson’s rehabilitation.I looked at the ground. I hadn’t been there to help. I wondered now just how long I had been gone. On my timeline it seemed like only weeks. I shuddered.
“C’mon! Let’s go in!”
I glanced at the elaborate ramp Mom had had constructed and marveled at the speed in which she’d gotten it done. Mom was unstoppable when she put her mind to things, but this was really mind-boggling.
Shelly skipped up the ramp, opened the door, and called inside. In moments, the oval of Mom’s face appeared at the door and the emotions I’d been trying to keep down came gushing to the surface.
I raced up the ramp and flung myself into her arms, my face in her hair. I inhaled her perfume, wishing its scent could seep permanently into my skin.
“Oh, Beth,” she said. “We’ve missed you here so much.” She pulled back to look at me and stroked my hair. Andre touched her arm and the worry lines softened. “I see you’ve let all the blue grow out. I like the new look.”
I wasn’t really sure what the new look was, considering I’d given zero thought to my appearance other than for the Reveal. It was then I realized that in the fuzz and confusion of my time at High Step, I hadn’t noticed how long my hair had grown, and that the bright ultramarine tips had faded to a pale powder blue.
“What’s today’s date?” I blurted.
“March 10th, silly,” Shelly laughed.
I swallowed down panic. The last date I remembered was late October. Apparently, I’d been gone for five months. I couldn’t make sense of how this was possible. How chunks of time could be totally missing from my memory.
“It’s so good to see you,” Mom said, ushering me inside. “Carson! You’ll never guess who’s come to see us!” she called.
I cringed. To them, my absence was normal and unquestioned. When I disappeared forever, would they even notice? I glanced again at Andre, who seemed deep in concentration.
There was a soft whir as Carson rolled into the foyer. His face and hair were the same as ever; glossy sandy-gold hair flopped across a handsome face. Strapped into his chair, Carson’s entire body was slack and immobile with the exception of the few fingers he used to control the wheelchair.
“Beth! Excuse me if I don’t get up.”
The smile was the same, broad and without irony. His eyes twinkled with life. Carson was making the best of things.
Andre touched my arm and the warm feelings coursed through me. Whatever hurt I felt was totally selfish. My mother and brother were doing fine without me. I’d just be in the way.
I leaned in to kiss my brother, felt his warm stubbly cheek scrape against my own. I hugged him hard, though I wasn’t sure he felt it.
“I missed you, Carson.”
He stared into my eyes with a depth I’d never seen from him. “I know.” The intensity disappeared in a glowing smile. “The game’s on, guys. Mind if I go back to it? Maybe it’s sick, but I still get a thrill out of watching seven-foot dudes run around and try to toss a ball into a hoop.” He winked. “Besides, I’ve got some bets lined up with the guys. Feel free to join me.”
Mom shrugged and smiled, her cheeks blooming apple pink. “Carson does watch a lot of TV. But he reads a lot, too. More than he ever did before. I got him an e-book reader. That’s how he finished his GED in record time…”
She ushered us into the expansive living room, where her tasteful design sense was evident in the polished wood floors, cathedral ceiling, and wall of windows overlooking the sunlit lake. I wondered where she’d found the funds for it when she’d claimed we were going broke only months before. In minutes, with Shelly’s help, a spread of cheese, crackers, and sparkling cider had been laid out on the coffee table. Mom followed with a piping hot casserole of macaroni and cheese and set it down on a trivet.
The normalcy only added to the anxiety that flamed my insides. Had they been paid off for their compliance? Mom would not knowingly consent to that. This, I concluded, was for me. To allow me to let go so I’d know they were fine.
I shivered. Someone feared my wrath enough to eliminate the possibility of my going postal.
I glanced at Andre, who beamed back at me, and squelched the urge to shudder. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t stay here. I didn’t belong anymore.
“I hope the food is decent at school, honey. Bet you miss my famous macaroni and cheese.”
“Um, yeah, Mom. It’s good,” I said, choking down a mouthful. It was as I remembered it, but I seemed to have lost my sense of taste. “And I did.”
“The chef at High Step is five star,” added Andre with a smile. “No one starves there.”
Mom beamed. “That’s what I want to hear!”
After a round of meaningless chatter wherein I couldn’t really answer Mom’s questions with anything approaching truth, I decided to check in on my brother.
In the den, which Mom had managed to transform into a modern track-lighted entertainment center, Carson’s wheelchair faced the giant flatscreen TV. He pivoted his chair toward me when I entered.
“Hey, sis. How is school treating you?”
I plopped down on the leather couch and sighed. “Fine.
It’s all fine.”
Carson stared at me a beat. “You may be fooling Mom and Shelly, but you’re not fooling me.”
A chill tiptoed up my back. “About what?”
“C’mon, Beth. Remember the time in the hospital room?
How you fought so hard to keep me alive?” Carson jerked his head to flick the hair from his eyes.
“N-no. I don’t know what you mean.”
He maneuvered his chair closer. Any trace of a smile was gone. “It’s not easy living like this, Beth. At first I did want to die. But I’m only alive because of you.”
I wiped away hot tears with the back of my hand. This is what I’d dreaded. What I couldn’t face. “I-I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I should have warned you something terrible was about to happen.”
He cut me off. “That’s a load of bullcrap. Get the remote and hit the mute button, will you? Can’t even do that myself, damn it.”
I did what he asked and returned to my perch on the couch opposite him, my heart ticking like an old clock in the silence of his penetrating gaze.
“When will you believe me that it’s not your fault I’m stuck in this chair?” he asked. “They wanted me dead. You kept me alive.”
I struggled to clear my throat. The floor felt insubstantial, like it might give way. “Who wanted you dead?”
“People,” Carson said, his gaze still fixed on me. “People like us.”
He looked up. I followed his gaze to the trace of dark vapor that scuttled across the ceiling. “I learned how to beat it back,” he said quietly. “But I’m not as strong
as you.”
I tried to slow the pounding of my heart. “What the hell are you saying, Carson?”
“Quit playing dumb. You and I are the same kind of freaks. I’ve known it for quite a while. Ever since I killed Dad.”
The floor buckled beneath me. I clutched the arm of the couch, certain the couch and I were going to fall through. “D-Dad died of a heart attack.”
“It seemed like that, didn’t it?”
I closed my eyes, breathing in and out slowly. Maybe I would wake from the nightmare to find that my brother was just an unfortunate kid in a wheelchair and not some broken and discarded freak.
“It’s true, Beth. I figured out that I could do this at fifteen. I was getting pretty good at it. Maybe too good. And the sick thing is, I kind of liked it.”
I said nothing, just continued to breathe in an attempt to control my mounting panic.
Carson continued. “I was so caught up in my own little drama that I failed to do the one thing Sam asked me to do. Protect you.”
My eyes snapped open. “What did you say?”
Carson quirked an eyebrow. “Sam used to tell me that he had this theory that our kind were drawn to this area because of some weird type of magnetic resonance. But I don’t think that’s it. I think our families were all lured here somehow.”
I kneeled beside my brother’s wheelchair, took one of his limp hands in mine, and squeezed it almost hard enough to break a bone.
“I can’t feel that, you know,” he said, looking at his hand. “I have the tiniest bit of sensation in the fingertips of my left hand. And just enough movement to control this chair.”
“What happened to Sam?” I whispered through gritted teeth.
Carson’s eyes grew watery. His voice caught. “I wish I knew, Beth. But I tried to distract you. To keep you from thinking about him. It’s what he wanted.”
I sank to the floor and tucked my head between my knees, wishing Zuber had left me in that cold dark hole in the ground.
Carson continued, his voice gruff. “I’m sorry. I wish things were different. I wish we were different.”
I couldn’t look at my brother, couldn’t stifle the sob that forced its way out of my lungs. Finally, I swallowed it down and, my eyes clenched tight, managed to speak the truth that had been staring me in the face all along. “Sam was like us.”
“He was.”
“What kind?” I pressed my knuckles to my lips, still unable to look at Carson.
“I don’t know, Beth. Probably something dangerous. Something that needed to be taken down. Linford is a nest of people like us. There are predators. And there are prey. You figure out who’s who.”
I pried my eyes open to look up at my brother. “Are you saying the Guild tried to kill you and Sam?”
“If that’s what you call them,” Carson said quietly. “It’s been going on since forever. Think of all the missing kids around here. I’m betting there are more. Kids who died in freak accidents. Kids who moved away suddenly.”
“Xavier,” I whispered, my insides churning. “Did you ever know a kid named Xavier?”
Carson pulled in a long breath and took a sip from a tube attached to a canteen of water strapped to the back of his chair. Mom’s ingenuity again. “The only Xavier I knew was the Smith kid who died in that boat explosion five or so years ago. But I think that was his middle name.”
“How could you remember that?”
“I always had a mind for details.”
I chewed on a nail. It would explain the horrible scars.
“Are you sure?”
“It was on the news nonstop. William Xavier Smith, the son of that annoying preacher, Barclay Smith. The one that showed up in my hospital room right after the accident. His dead kid is the reason that guy is on his missing kid crusade.”
My hand flew to my mouth. “Xavier is that man’s son?”
“The guy you know can’t be the same person. That kid
“What if he didn’t? You didn’t.”
Carson took another sip from his water tube. “I’m really glad you came, Beth. Really glad we had a chance to have this talk. Up to this point, I’ve been able to keep it from Mom and I’m proud of that. But I don’t have long and I worry about her.”
“You don’t know that, Carson. You can’t just give up.”
“I’m fighting like crazy, Beth. My lungs are shot. I hate the thought that Mom’s going to be alone.”
Tears flooded my eyes. I pushed back on the dark cloud that had massed on the ceiling, biding its time for the right moment. Deep in my gut, I knew my brother was right. He would lose his battle soon and I wouldn’t be there to help him. I squeezed his useless hand harder. I wondered if Dawn could be of some help, but thought better of getting his hopes up.
“Andre and Shelly will take care of you and Mom.”
“You think so?” Carson swiveled away from me, pulling his hand free. “Ask your good friend Andre why I sometimes catch him watching me like a cat looks at a fish in a tank. His magic touch doesn’t work on me because I can’t feel it. I can see right through him.”
I tried to slow my breathing. To steady my voice. “Andre cares about us. He’s been trying to help as best he can.”
“Andre’s out for himself. Even Sam could have told you that.”
I followed Carson’s gaze to the door. Andre stood in the threshold. He wasn’t smiling. “We should get going, Beth.”
31
I PRESSED MY CHEEK TO CARSON’S, THE SOFT STUBBLE on his jaw scratching my skin.
“Don’t give up fighting, Beth,” he whispered.
I pulled away and caught Mom watching us, her eyes damp. Andre touched her arm and a warm smile shone through her tears. “It was so lovely to see you, honey! You’ve done wonders for Carson’s state of mind.”
Shelly watched us, frozen like a deer in headlights. Her expression seemed to shift like sunlight on a mountainside until Andre pulled her into a quick hug. After they separated she smiled, too, her jewelry jangling like wind chimes. “Go out and knock ’em dead, kiddo!”
I almost gagged, then forced a smile. Andre cringed visibly at her word choice, but kept his smile in place. “Ready?” He held out my coat and I snatched it from his hands.
“Yes,” I snapped.
He tried to take my arm as we trudged to the car and I reeled away. “Don’t touch me, okay?”
“What’s wrong, Beth? It’s me.”
The setting sun turned the woods crimson and gold. I could run. But with no money or safe haven, where would I go? Zuber was the only person I could really trust. And Xavier. I had to no choice but to cling to the hope that Andre meant me no harm, that he just had his own agenda. If he wanted to hurt me, he’d had so many chances.
I slouched low in the front seat. Andre got in and started the car. He reached out to touch my shoulder and I pressed against the door.
“What is it? Are you afraid of me?”
His hand grazed my cheek, the backs of his fingers pressed lightly against my skin.
“Of course not,” I lied. “It’s just hard saying goodbye to them, not knowing when and if I’ll see them again.”
Andre continued to stroke my cheek and despite myself, I felt the hard kernel of my anger soften.
“I understand,” he said.
I cleared my throat. “Carson said some nasty things about you.”
“Did he?” The warmth of Andre’s touch seeped through my skin and into my veins, smoothing out my emotions. I pushed my fingernail into the infected wound where Sam’s button had pierced my skin hard enough to make it bleed. The pain helped me untangle my thoughts from Andre’s sway.
“It’s sad to see him so bitter and angry when he should really be trying to move on,” Andre added.
“He’s trying very hard to adjust to his new life.”
Andre kept his reasonable tone, but his gaze grew sharp. He backed out of the driveway and the old van chugged noisily down the quiet country road. “I don’t know wh
at Carson said, but if you ask me, he’s just looking for someone else to blame for what he did to himself. He couldn’t handle his Talent, so he drank. He caused his own accident, Beth. He could have had a place at the compound along with you and he regrets his own stupidity.”
The narrative sounded plausible. I stared at the passing trees, their indigo shadows weaving an intricate pattern on the road’s surface. Andre’s touch was in my blood, headed straight for my brain. Plausibility, I repeated in my mind.
“What about Sam, Andre? What do you have to say about him?”
Andre kept his gaze fixed on the road, his expression unreadable. “I tried to warn him to keep his nose out of places it didn’t belong. I think Carson might have tipped him off, but he got curious about the disappearances. He started poking around. Maybe he poked in the wrong place.”
I closed my eyes. Again, an acceptable answer. One I could live with. But something nagged at me. “Carson said he was one of us.”
“Carson is delusional. Sam was just an ordinary guy.”
We drove on in silence and I grew sleepy. What Andre said made sense. Plausible. And I couldn’t deal with the alternative—that Carson was right about Andre.
And that Sam was a freak like the rest of us.
We pulled up to the ruins of the old school building well after nightfall. All was silent except the waves of the Long Island Sound on the beachfront a few hundred yards away. The night air was chill and fraught with silent dread. A shadowy stain lingered, dark against the night sky.
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered.
Andre placed a hand on the small of my back and I let his touch smooth my taut nerves so I could think. In the cone of Andre’s flashlight beam, we picked our way through the piles of debris to the basement auditorium. It was completely dark, no trace of Zuber’s lantern.
No trace of anything except a faint whiff of lingering death.
“This is not good,” I said. We walked hesitantly down the aisle to the dark stage.
“Xavier?” I called. “Zuber? What do you think happened to them, Andre?”
“I don’t know,” he said quietly.