by Rysa Walker
His voice rises at the end, hopeful.
“Sure,” I say. “Sounds like fun.”
He holds my hoodie open, and I slip my arms into the sleeves. We walk along in silence for a few minutes. Aaron seems a little tense. I glance around at the motor homes lining either side of the path. Is he picking up bad vibes from one of them?
But then Aaron reaches over and takes my hand in his, smiling the tiniest bit when I don’t pull away. Was he just trying to work up the nerve? Maybe Taylor was right when she said that neither of us is very good at this romance stuff.
His palm is warm against mine. Comfortable and right. By the time we reach the edge of the RV park, the muscles in my shoulders begin to loosen, and for the first time in days, I feel relaxed.
Two wooden picnic tables and a small playground frame a narrow trail sloping upward through the trees. “I was over this way earlier,” Aaron says as he leads me toward the path, “trying to find the dumping station.”
“Blech.” I’ve learned much more than I ever wanted to know about RV dumping stations, gray water tanks, and black water tanks over the past few days.
He laughs. “Don’t worry. The station is in the other direction. But . . .” He pauses as we hike the last few steps to the top of the trail. “I did find this.”
He motions with his arm to indicate the panorama that has just come into view. The hill overlooks a shining strip of water that reflects the stars and the tiny sliver of moon hanging above.
I remember this. I saw this river, from almost this same angle, when I was half asleep in Porter’s truck three days ago.
Aaron tugs me onto a grassy patch at the crest of the hill. For a moment, the moonlight on the river reminds me of the view from the windows at Memorial Hall, when Deo and I were trying to escape from Cregg. I push that thought firmly out of my mind and lean back against Aaron’s chest, unable to shake the sensation that I’m doing this for the second time.
“It’s nice,” I say. “Are you sure this is still Ohio?”
The line didn’t make a lot of sense when I remembered it from the vision, but now we’ve both experienced Taylor bitching about driving for hours through farm country.
He pulls me closer and laughs. “Hey, it’s not all cows and corn. And to be honest, I think that bit”—he points across the river—“that might be West Virginia.”
The kiss that follows those words is every bit as wonderful as I remember from the vision. The only change is that there’s an extra track playing in the background now as I remember what Jaden said about the visions. They aren’t always bad. Sometimes, they let you experience the good things twice.
For you, maybe. I didn’t like kissing my brother the first time, and that was just a vision, so—
I shove Daniel back, hard and fast, but not quickly enough to keep Aaron from noticing that I’ve tensed up.
“Something wrong?” Aaron asks, pulling away to get a better look at my face.
“No. It’s just . . . this kissing thing is new territory for me. I’m going to have to work on ways to keep my walls operational.”
“Oh. Not cool, Jaden. We finally get away from Taylor and Deo, and . . .”
“It wasn’t exactly Jaden’s fault.”
I’m so, so tempted to keep going. To just tell him that it’s Daniel causing trouble. I still think it would be easier on everyone if they knew that Daniel was still here—fully alive, fully himself. If they could speak to him, even though he’s not in his own body. But Daniel insists that it’s his call to make, although he’s been a little contradictory on the reasons why we can’t tell them. First, he said it would upset them, and then he said he didn’t want to get their hopes up.
Both, okay? It’s both.
I scramble to come up with some explanation that doesn’t break my stupid, forced promise but also keeps Aaron from thinking Jaden is a total creeper.
“I . . . um . . . I had a vision the other day, and I saw this. The view of the river . . . us . . . here. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was a vision or a dream, since I was half asleep, and Jaden . . .” I trail off, keeping myself from having to tell him a lie. Everything I’ve said so far is true, even if it’s not the real reason I turned into an ice cube right in the middle of kissing him.
“You’re sure that’s all?” His voice is doubtful. Worried.
“Mmhmm.”
Aaron sighs and gives me his one-sided smile, the one I feel I’ve known forever, even though we only met a few days ago. And yeah, it’s been an intense couple of days, but the real reason he seems so familiar, so comfortable, is that I have all of Molly’s memories, too. Memories that were accumulated over years, not mere days. That smile was one of Molly’s favorite things about Aaron, one of the things that had her more than a little bit in love with him when she died.
Aaron’s smile broadens, and I realize how very easy it would be to follow Molly down that path. “Well, damn,” he says. “Here I thought I was being so original, surprising you with a romantic view, and . . .”
Okay, maybe it’s just me who’s not good at this. Between that smile and the teasing look in Aaron’s eyes, I’m almost able to forget that we’re not really alone here and pick right back up with that kiss.
Almost.
I shift gears, glancing over at the grocery bag. “The snack wasn’t in my vision. So that part’s still original. Whatcha got in the bag?”
He takes out a partial package of Oreos, along with two red Solo cups and a thermos of milk. We munch contentedly for a few minutes, staring out at the river.
Aaron pulls out the last cookie and offers it to me. I shake my head, but he insists on sharing it.
“Thought there were more left,” he says. “Taylor must have gotten into them.”
Which, of course, reminds me that none of us, Taylor included, would have gotten a crack at these Oreos if Deo wasn’t sick. For the past year, he’s been a gastronomic black hole, sucking in every scrap of food in his orbit. But he’s barely eaten anything today, and that thought definitely harshes the tiny bit of mellow I’ve found here in the moonlight with Aaron.
“We should get back. Keeping that huge tin can in the proper lane is going to be a lot harder if you’re exhausted.”
Aaron is quiet for a moment. “I’m thinking we should just hang here tomorrow. There’s . . .” He seems to be looking for the right words. “There’s a major hospital two hours in either direction. Maybe someone should take a look at Deo. I’m not buying the nasty cold excuse. Are you?”
I’ve been thinking the same thing for the past day and a half, but hearing him say it out loud makes it seem even more real.
“No,” I say finally as I shake the last few drops of milk from our cups and toss them into the bag. “I don’t think it’s a cold. Neither does Deo. But we both know that getting him medical care would complicate things. And . . . if it’s from that injection, then . . .”
I stop, realizing that I’m repeating everything that Daniel said earlier. The practical arguments.
“I know that,” Aaron says. “But it doesn’t matter. If Deo isn’t better soon, we’re finding him a doctor.”
That comment pretty much sums up the difference between the Brothers Quinn. Aaron puts others first. Tears sting my eyes, and I turn away to hide them as I gather up the trash from our midnight picnic.
I wasn’t being selfish, Anna. Like you said before, those are practical arguments. And I damn sure didn’t mean we’d let Deo die or anything. It’s just—you do know there are more lives at risk right now, don’t you? I’m trying to balance—
I shove Daniel back again, wishing he’d stay the hell put, so that I can focus on what Aaron’s saying. I’ve already missed the first part.
“. . . earlier to pick up Sam’s message, I let them know Deo’s sick. And that we need to talk sooner than planned.”
Sam is not only Aaron’s grandfather but also his business partner at Quinn Investigative, a small private detective agency. Everyone call
s him Sam, including his grandkids, although Taylor has been known to call him Popsy when she’s angling to get her way.
“I’m going to call back in the morning,” he adds. “Hopefully Sam and Mom will be able to get Magda in on the conversation, too.”
Magda Bell is the woman who’s bankrolling this expedition. We haven’t gotten explicit orders from her yet, but we’ll be searching for more adepts—kids (and possibly a few adults) with special abilities due to their parents’ participation in a government experiment called the Delphi Project. Magda originally planned for Daniel to head up the operation, since he’d been undercover with Delphi for several months, but after he was shot, she decided that the four of us were an acceptable substitute. In addition to Aaron’s experience as a private investigator, he and Taylor both have skills that could help in the search. Magda seems to think my ability to block some forms of psychic manipulation could be useful, too. Daniel and his knowledge of the Delphi program are also temporarily housed in my head, even if it’s not something I’m at liberty to share.
“I don’t know about you,” Aaron says, “but I’m ready to find out exactly what Magda wants us to do so that we can get started. The less time we give Cregg’s people to regroup, the better.”
I shiver, less from the cold than from the memory of that night. Graham Cregg writhing on the floor in the testing room at The Warren, flames engulfing his jacket. The final look Dacia gave me as she was kneeling over Lucas’s body. Cregg’s last text message—another Shakespearean barb about death and revenge. Steering clear of Cregg and his people is one point on which all of us, even the voices in my head, can agree.
CHAPTER TWO
Marietta, Ohio
November 1, 2019, 6:11 a.m.
Sleep is a lost cause after the second dream jolts me awake around dawn. On the plus side, I didn’t rouse the entire household by screaming this time, probably because Aaron was sprawled out on the other side of the king-sized bed.
Taylor’s right—Aaron has a calming effect on me. The bed is warm and comfy, and I don’t want to wake anyone else by moving around the camper. So I stay put for a while, browsing on my phone. There’s nothing new online about the fire at The Warren . . . or I guess I should say nothing new and substantive, since there seem to be plenty of conspiracy theories about what happened. No one has blamed it on aliens yet, but that’s pretty much the only stone left unturned. This would have comforted my former hitcher Bruno. He always liked to think the aliens were above that sort of interference. They might come down and check us out from time to time, maybe even do a few experiments. But Bruno didn’t believe aliens would risk official first contact until they knew that all of us here on earth could treat each other humanely. So . . . definitely not anytime soon.
With Bruno on my mind, I wander over to his favorite website. It’s oddly quiet. No new videos or links on the Zeta Reticulans. Not even an Elvis sighting. In fact, the only section of AllGlobalConspiracies that has posted anything new in the past eighteen months or so is Paranormal and Parapsychology. That section is actually hopping—a bunch of first-person audio interviews have been added, some with transcripts, and many of them have comments.
I plug in my earphones and click on a random interview.
A woman’s voice, husky with just a hint of Southern accent, says “Telephone interview with JP, age eleven. Telepathy, with Tourette’s-like outbursts. All names redacted.”
There’s a pause, and then she continues. “It’s been awhile,
“Mmhmm.” The kid’s voice is hesitant, barely audible.
“You ready to talk about your AMAZING PSYCHIC POWER?” The interviewer sounds a little like a voice-over on those late-night infomercials for the latest totally miraculous cleaning product that will revolutionize your life.
The kid laughs, more at ease now. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Okay, so . . . when did you decide to begin reading people’s thoughts?”
“What? Ummm . . . never. I didn’t . . . I mean, it just happens. For as long as I can remember.”
“So, you’re saying you didn’t choose this. This is just how you are, like me having brown eyes or being left-handed.”
“Right.”
“Can you turn it off?”
“No . . . not exactly. I can’t always connect the thought to the thinker, but when I’m around people, it’s always there. I block it most of the time, using some of the tricks you taught me—like how you filter out a TV show playing in the background. And sometimes it’s better in a large group, because it’s like dozens of TVs playing softly. That’s why school was okay most of the time. With so many voices, I could ignore them.”
“Just most of the time, though?”
“Yeah. If everyone was focused on the same thing, or if a kid was really angry or hurt, then I couldn’t block their thoughts or keep those thoughts to myself. It’s like the pressure built up, and I’d blurt it out. But I couldn’t help it, I swear.”
The boy seems upset, and the woman says, “Take your time. No rush.”
“They said I was doing it to get attention, but I don’t want everyone looking at me. It just happens. Some people think too loud, just like some people talk too loud, plus the kids . . . the mean ones . . .”
“They learned how to push your buttons?” The woman reminds me a bit of Kelsey—not so much her voice but more her way of coaxing the boy to open up.
“Yeah. And once a couple of kids learned that they could make everyone laugh and get me in trouble at the same time just by thinking something like fart really loud . . . well, I couldn’t be in a regular class anymore.”
“So then you were taken to the special school.” She emphasizes the last two words.
“Yeah, but they didn’t do much teaching really. They just wanted me to show them what I could do. To hone it. They kept trying to talk my mom into signing papers that would have me as an overnighter . . . Most of the kids there don’t leave except for trips. But she wouldn’t, and after a while, we got spooked. Packed up and moved.”
I tap to pause the audio.
Daniel, Jaden—do you think he was at The Warren?
They both say no, and then Jaden adds:
You didn’t get options at The Warren. There weren’t any day-trippers. No one had contact with their families. Anyone who left didn’t come back, but like I’ve said before, most of the wabbits that Cregg’s people “disappeared” weren’t kids.
Daniel agrees.
I wasn’t there long, but I didn’t get the sense that any of the parents signed papers. About half of the older kids there were trafficked in from Eastern Europe. A decent number of the little kids, too—less red tape than here and refugee kids disappear all the time. The others were taken from psychiatric hospitals, like Jaden. Cregg generally didn’t snatch kids in the US, although—
Aaron’s arm curves under the pillow, circling my waist. I put the phone and earbuds on the shelf behind me and slide under the covers again.
“Another dream?” he asks groggily.
“Mmhmm. Not too bad, though.”
“You should try . . . to get . . . some more . . . sleep.” The last word is barely audible.
I know he’s right. I’m still in serious sleep deficit. I snuggle up with my head on his chest.
Warm. Comfortable. Safe . . .
And, of course, that reminds me that Deo’s in the other room, feverish, sick, and certainly not safe until we figure out what Cregg did to him.
I stay still until Aaron’s breathing is regular again, then slip out from under his arm and go into the kitchen. If last night’s soup didn’t tempt Deo, maybe I need to pull out the big guns. The boy has never turned down bacon.
While the camper isn’t exactly large, it’s more modern than many houses I’ve lived in. Big-screen TV. Fireplace. Dishwasher, a decent-sized fridge, even granite countertops. I pull a skillet out of the drawer beneath the stove and start layering the slices in the pan. Th
anks to a year of working the morning shift at Carver’s Deli, I can manage bacon and eggs. Eggs are easy, and all bacon requires is a certain tolerance for pain. As usual, the bacon pops, and I end up muttering a few choice words that make the ghost of Emily MacAllister, the most puritan of my former hitchers, clutch her metaphoric pearls. But a few spatter burns are a small price to pay, if I can coax Deo into eating.
By the time I’ve finished scrambling the eggs, Aaron and Taylor have joined me in the kitchen. But still no Deo. I snag some bacon, grab a slice of the toast that Aaron is buttering, and add a dab of grape jelly. If Deo won’t come to the bacon, the bacon will come to him.
He’s lying on his back when I push the door open. That bothers me. In the seven years since we met, I’ve never seen Deo do that. He’s a die-hard belly sleeper.
“D?” No response. I repeat his name. This time, his eyelids flutter, and the fist clutching my heart loosens a tiny bit.
I put the tray on the ledge near the bed and brush my hand against Deo’s forehead. It’s hot, hotter than last night, and dry. And the room doesn’t smell . . . right. I mean, rooms usually smell off when someone is sick, but this isn’t the same kind of off. I know this from group homes I’ve been in—a virus can sweep through a group home like a germ-fueled tornado. But several sets of parental memories in my hitchers’ files confirm that this isn’t a normal sick smell. The odor in the room is distinctive, but it’s more like . . . I don’t know. Ozone, maybe? Kind of like the Metro station, minus the reek of food, sweat, and perfume.
The room feels wrong, too. Charged, almost as though there’s static electricity in the air.
Jaden stirs inside my head, like he wants to say something, but then slides back. I’m tempted to nudge him, to ask what he was going to say, but I’ve been shushing Daniel so much that it hardly seems fair to encourage Jaden to speak up.
I brush a stray bit of hair out of Deo’s face and try again to rouse him. “I brought you some breakfast. Do you think you can sit up? At least drink some orange juice?”