by Marnee Blake
Blue’s friend’s house came into view as they rounded a corner. It was a cabin, barely visible where it sat tucked in the trees. Good. Goldstone’s helicopter would have a hard time seeing it from the air.
Goldstone’s helicopters. Christ.
What the hell had happened back there? Why was Goldstone all over some dinky town in Colorado? And how the hell had this pixie girl blown out all those windows?
He studied Blue next to him. He’d caught sight of her after he’d found the bed-and-breakfast owner and her husband. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen dead bodies. He’d returned from the Middle East two months ago. It had been different there, though. They dressed differently, lived differently. It had been a different planet. These people…
He clenched his jaw. The image of those twin girls—the Barnetts, Blue had said—in side-by-side twin beds…it would stay with him forever. Their little bodies in matching Cinderella nightgowns with matching blood trails from their eyes and mouths.
As he’d returned to the main street, he’d felt like he’d been tossed into a horror movie. Or like he might be the last person in the world alive. The town was a ghost town. Silent. Eerie. Full of dead people.
That’s when he saw her. This girl—Blue—standing in the middle of the street, arms outstretched, her eyes bouncing all over the street, like a caged animal. She was short. So was her blond hair, shorter than the way most girls he knew wore it, but it looked great on her. Like a shaggy Peter Pan, it seemed to go in every possible direction. Makeup smeared under her eyes. She looked fragile. Until she opened her mouth.
Then she’d tilted her head back and cried out. And broken everything. Like something straight out of a comic book.
That’s how it looked, anyway. Glass shattering everywhere. He’d covered his head and ducked, waiting for it to end.
When it did, she’d fallen to the ground, defeated. He’d instinctively wanted to go to her. She’d looked broken, like she needed someone. But after what he’d seen her do, he’d approached her cautiously.
She didn’t appear dangerous, though. In fact, he liked her. She had a smart mouth and spoke her mind. Those were some of his favorite qualities in people.
And he liked everything about the way she looked. Compact, a bit edgy, and curves in all the right spots.
Maybe it hadn’t been her that blew out the windows. Goldstone could have done it with some sort of bomb. Electromagnetic or something. He’d seen a few pretty messed-up weapons. Never this, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. Anything was possible.
Besides, she hadn’t moved. He hadn’t seen her do anything. And she’d seemed confused about it when he asked. He shook his head. Nah, it couldn’t have been her. Probably a weird coincidence.
Seth stopped the car under a tree, out of sight of the sky, and they slid out. He joined Blue on the other side.
She rested against the car, crossed her arms over her black polyester uniform shirt. “I guess we should go knock.”
But she didn’t move, only stood, staring at the quiet house. A long moment passed while she did nothing.
Not wanting to push her—she’d been through a lot today already—he stalled. “Anything I should know about the Laughtons?”
Her eyes remained trained on the quiet house. “Parents. Dad—Mike—works in Raton. See him at the bar where I tend sometimes. Mom—don’t know her name—stays home. Daughter, Kitty, a year younger than me.”
He sensed her anxiety, her worry for her friend. “You and Kitty are close?”
“We were close in school. We’ve drifted some since graduation. Her parents…they’re strict.”
The front porch light was on. They had electricity here. All the power had been cut to Glory.
He checked his phone in his pocket. Still searching for a network. He’d lost cell service as soon as he’d driven into Glory last night. No internet, no phone. He hated being disconnected. Maybe the Laughtons had somewhere he could at least plug his phone in, to rejuice it. Maybe they’d get internet closer to civilization. He needed to know if anyone else was affected. What if the entire country had been wiped out?
Then again, those guys from Goldstone looked pretty healthy to him.
On a whim, he pressed the button that released the phone’s battery. Phones with batteries could be traced, and he preferred to remain untraceable. Maybe he was paranoid, but better safe than sorry.
“What’s wrong?”
He tucked the phone back in his pocket and glanced at Blue. “What do you mean?”
“You wrinkled your nose.”
“Nothing.”
In front of them, the house felt peculiar. “Maybe they aren’t here,” he offered, even though he didn’t believe it for a second. They were in there. They both knew it.
Blue turned to meet his eyes. She didn’t buy that, either. But she nodded and started for the porch anyway, her back straight and her hands steady.
He followed. In that moment, he admired the hell out of her.
She banged on the door and yelled, “Mr. and Mrs. Laughton? Kitty? It’s Blue Michaels. Are you home?”
No one came. The swing next to them swayed. After long moments, she knocked again. Nothing.
It was now or never. Seth reached for the doorknob.
She grabbed his sleeve. “Hey. What are you doing? You can’t just go in.”
“I think we can. Should, actually.” Because they had to know. And what if the Laughtons were in there, dying, right now? He twisted the knob, and the door opened. “Lemme guess. No one locks their doors around here.”
“Yeah. Not a lotta crime,” she whispered back. Their eyes met, and neither missed the irony. He stepped inside onto gleaming ceramic tiles.
“Mr. Laughton?” he called, taking in the neat living room with its comfortable furniture and obviously used fireplace. Magazines lay on the coffee table—Seventeen, Better Homes and Gardens, and Men’s Health—along with an iPod and a half-eaten muffin. This was the kind of living room he wished he’d grown up in. “Mrs. Laughton?”
Blue turned right, through the living room and into what looked to be the dining room. He followed the hall in front of him, and it opened into the home’s warm kitchen. The scene should have been domestic bliss, with the bananas on the counter and the coffeemaker open, cleaned recently.
But the dead body on the floor ruined the coziness. The remnants of sickness were apparent in the sink. The hair on Seth’s arms lifted. Damn, not another one…
Grim, Seth dropped down next to the middle-aged woman—Mrs. Laughton, he assumed. A quick feel at her neck confirmed her death, though he probably hadn’t needed to check, what with the blood trails on her cheeks and from her nose. She was cool to the touch.
He looked up to find Blue, her hand over her mouth and her blue eyes as large as quarters. He shifted, trying to shield the body from her sight. “I’m sorry.”
And he was. He hated seeing this, and he hadn’t known this woman or her family. This must be so much harder for Blue, stumbling across friends and relatives.
She nodded, her eyes watery. But she dropped her shaky hand. “Let’s find the rest of them, then,” she whispered as she headed to the door, giving Mrs. Laughton a wide berth. Her movements were jerky, as if her limbs weren’t working properly.
He had the strangest impulse to reach for her as she passed him. To squeeze her hand or…something. But he didn’t.
When she’d gone down the hall, Seth swiped his hand over Mrs. Laughton’s eyes, closing them. She looked slightly less gruesome, though the blood on her cheeks didn’t help. Then he stood and followed Blue upstairs, determined she shouldn’t come across anyone else without him.
Blue halted at the top of the steps, in front of the bathroom. Turning, she looked down at him, her lips white. “Mr. Laughton.” Then she nudged her head behind her, indicating the bathroom.
Sure enough, Mr. Laughton lay in a heap on the tiles in front of the toilet.
His stomach sick, Seth took B
lue’s hand, unable to keep from reaching for her this time. Together, they left the man there, continuing deeper into the upstairs. Ahead of him, she opened a door and peeked in before moving on. He glanced in as he passed. The master bedroom. Empty. The next door swung open, and Blue stopped. She gripped the doorframe, her knuckles white.
“Kitty?”
A chill crept down his spine. He had no idea what to expect, but he stepped behind Blue anyway, determined that she not face whatever it was alone. He rested his hand on her shoulder, so she knew he was there. The feel of her under his fingers comforted him. He didn’t pause to examine his sudden surge of protectiveness.
Because Blue was so short, he searched the dark room over her head, looking for adversaries. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then he saw her. Curled in the corner, her legs tucked up to her chest and her head resting on her knees, a mass of dark hair falling around her. She appeared to be wearing a pale dress of some sort.
Until she spoke, he thought she could have been a ghost.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Please go away.”
Blue stepped in. “Kitty? It’s me. Blue.” Her voice cracked with emotion, as if being rejected by this girl was the last straw.
The girl’s head lifted slowly. All Seth could make out was long dark hair and an oval face that shone white in the otherwise dark room. “I know. I know both of you.”
What? He’d never met this girl before in his life. He was sure of it.
She looked right at him, brushing her hair out of her face to reveal big pale eyes. “I know I’ve never met you before, Seth. I can hear your thoughts.”
That’s impossible.
Blue’s shock shouted through the room without a sound. It hurt Kitty’s head.
She’d thought the same thing around midnight last night. She’d clutched the toilet in her parents’ bathroom—Dad had quarantined himself in the other one—and thrown up so many times she’d thought she’d die.
Then the flashes began. Explosions behind her eyelids, like fireworks, followed by the worst headache of her life.
That’s when she’d heard them.
Her mom, tinged with her mother’s signature meekness. This is my fault. Mike is sick, Kitty, too, it sounds like. I bet that meat was bad. Upstairs, there was Dad’s ranting. Who didn’t wash their hands properly? Why don’t they listen to me? There are ways to do things. The two of them will be the death of us.
Later, as her mother’s breath became shallow and her head throbbed, she worried for her, Kitty, her daughter. I’m dying. I can’t leave Kitty alone with Mike. He’ll smother her.
She’d worried for nothing. Her father had already died, his last thoughts filled with an old girlfriend and regret.
Kitty’s throbbing and aching ended, then, and her stomach stopped revolting.
That’s when the tears came.
She crawled into her room, left the lights off, and rocked herself. The stillness of the house filled her, the silence.
What had happened? What should she do now?
Mom couldn’t tell her the right thing to do, and Dad couldn’t ridicule her for doing the wrong thing. So she’d stayed there, with the corpses of her parents in the other rooms, for hours, probably, until she heard Blue and Seth arrive.
Even before they came in, she could hear them on the porch, wondering what they would find. Blue’s hope, her wish to find Kitty living and breathing. Her memories of her grandmother, of the Murphys, the heartbreak and guilt. Seth’s stoicism, his admiration for Blue, his flare of jealousy at their home. If only he knew…
All the while, as they crept inside, she’d huddled in her room, trying to breathe and block them out. Trying not to be a horrible freak.
She can’t hear thoughts.
“I thought the same thing. Yet there it is.” Kitty’s whisper broke the silence.
It took Blue a second to realize she’d been speaking to her. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Talk to me when I haven’t said anything.”
“Sorry.” Yeah, that probably would be annoying.
Blue turned to Seth. He wasn’t looking at her, though. He was too busy staring at Kitty as if she was naked and on fire. Kitty pulled her knees closer to herself.
Seth’s thoughts jerked from military men he knew to the flu he’d had last night. Then he focused on Blue and remembered the windows exploding along the street in Glory.
Kitty turned to Blue, too. “Why did the windows in Glory blow out?”
“What?” Blue’s eyes widened in horror. How does she know about the windows in Glory?
“He’s thinking about it.” Kitty nodded to Seth.
Blue glared at him. “Why are you thinking about that?”
He stepped back from them both. “Christ.”
“You asked me about the windows back in town. Why?”
He sighed. “Because it was crazy timing. You yelled. The windows broke. I blamed a bomb or electromagnetic pulse or something. But, now, after seeing this”—he nodded toward Kitty—“I wonder if you didn’t have something to do with it.”
Blue shook her head. No. No way. That couldn’t have been me. The sheet stunt was strange, but the windows, too?
Kitty glanced at her. “What sheet?”
“Stop it, Kitty.” How is she doing that?
“What sheet?” Seth echoed.
Blue swiped her bangs from her forehead, somehow managing to look chic and punky even in distress. Kitty hadn’t even changed out of her nightgown.
Shaking her head, Blue shifted from one foot to the other. “Gran. I had the flu. I woke and found her…well, I couldn’t go to her.” God, I sound like such a coward. “Anyway, I wanted to stop looking…” And the sheet covered her by itself.
“You moved the sheet by yourself?” Someone else had the flu and woke up a freak. Kitty didn’t want to be comforted by that, but she was.
“Yes. I mean, no. I don’t know.” Blue dug her hand into her hair. “The sheet moved. I don’t think I did it.”
This is insane. This can’t be happening. Seth glanced around the room. “Try now. Pick something and move it.”
Oh, right. Even as Blue thought it, she focused on the bed, and it lifted off the ground a half a foot.
No way. Just no way. Blue skipped back, her hand to her mouth. The bed dropped to the floor with a crash.
Kitty got to her feet, her bare toes cool against the hardwood. “You did it.”
“No way.”
“You already said that.”
Blue scowled at her. “No, I didn’t.”
“Oh.” Yeah. Guess not.
“This is insane. It must have been that flu.” Blue’s voice shook with anger, and she began to pace. “If I could have done this yesterday, I would have caught that extra tray of glasses at the bar instead of making another trip. And Clay, oh, Clay.” She growled. “That guy pinched my butt again after I warned him not to. If I could do this, he would have woken up this morning with more hurting that his usual hangover.”
“Do it again.” Seth put his hands on his hips, a scowl on his face. “Move something else.” There must be some logical explanation.
Blue’s face darkened, and her thoughts followed suit.
Kitty stepped back. Suddenly, she was bombarded with all sorts of thoughts from both of them, and it was too much. She hit the wall behind her and dropped to the floor again. She covered her ears and tried not to hear.
She needed something, anything to distract her.
A prayer, said a million times, popped to her mind, and she chanted it in her head mindlessly. Her mother said her religion had saved her. Kitty never knew from what, but after a lifetime with her father, she could guess. So, she took her mother’s advice and dived in.
When she finished the first prayer, she began again. She couldn’t remember the order of the rosary, but the exact configuration couldn’t matter that much, right?
She’d get credit for tryin
g, wouldn’t she?
Chapter Four
Blue stared at him, with his defensive posture and his firm jaw. He wanted her to perform. Like a circus monkey.
As if finding out she could move things without touching them was hard on him.
Anger flooded her. She didn’t need this right now.
“Oh, do it again, huh?” She glanced at Kitty’s dresser. A jar of cream jumped and zipped across the room. It crashed against the wall, making Kitty jump and white goo splatter everywhere. A brush followed it, connecting with a thud. As Blue got the hang of it, she let her gaze fly, and the contents of the room exploded around her. The blankets, the pillows, a stuffed bear. She spared the television—those were expensive—but everything else tumbled and twisted as if on a breeze, with barely any effort at all.
The rage was heady, and it filled the empty spots. Heat rushed to her face, warming her where she’d been cold. She wanted to curse, to scream. To curl in a ball and cry. To be home, where she belonged, in the place where she’d smiled with her gran and felt loved and whole.
She turned on Seth and gave him a mental nudge.
“How’d I do?” He stumbled backward, his eyes wide, his hands coming up as if to defend himself. A flash of alarm passed over his face.
In light of his fear, she froze. What was she doing? This wasn’t her, not at all.
When she allowed herself to meet his eyes, he met her gaze with his steady gray one. There was no frustration or judgment there, only understanding and concern. The anger left her. Slowly, seeping out, not in a rush. In its wake, all she had was her loss and uncertainty.
What would happen to them now? They had nowhere to go. Maybe her life hadn’t been perfect before, but she’d known where she belonged. She’d had someone who loved her.
He continued to watch, his eyes searching her, as if he could see every emotion racing through her.
She dropped her eyes, and the huge expanse of his chest stretched before her. He smelled good, despite the stress of their situation. Like shampoo and mint. She swallowed, suddenly awkward.
She had the strangest urge to reach for him. To let herself fall forward.