Deception So Dark

by Clara Kensie

  He slid his hands over my hips and pulled me in closer. “You’re amazing. And you’re beautiful. You’re everything.”

  I lowered my lips onto his, and we didn’t stop kissing until the plane landed in Braddock, Tennessee.

  ❀

  Jillian and Logan. Jillian and Logan! I was finally going to see them again. How would they react when they saw me, the sister they believed was dead? My heart broke into a thousand pieces at the thought of telling them the truth about our parents. But once they accepted it, it would be such a relief not to be alone anymore. They would understand my grief and shame, and share it with me. The three of us sharing it would make it easier for all of us to bear.

  We landed at a small airfield near Braddock, then Tristan rented a car, bribing the agent with charm and a few extra bucks because he was underage. He drove us a few miles through the snow-frosted mountainous region to the Forty Winks Motel. “Look at the eyes,” I exclaimed as we neared the motel. On a hand-painted wooden sign, high over the road, were two enormous closed eyelids, smaller than my Nightmare Eyes but much more amicable. Almost identical to the shapes that Brinda had drawn. “You were right, Tristan. You did it.”

  As we pulled into the parking lot, I wrinkled my nose as I observed the motel. Run-down and dirty, rotting wood with peeling paint. A smaller sign boasted Weekly and Munthly R tes! Typical of the motels my family stayed in while we were on the run.

  No matter. This was the last dingy motel my siblings would ever have to stay in. Jillian and Logan were coming home with me, today. They were just a few feet away, behind one of those scuffed white doors.

  We dashed to the lobby to get their room number, and I gasped. “They were here. I can see them!” Through the fog, standing right there at the registration desk. Right there.

  “Balance, Clockwise,” Tristan said. He didn’t sound worried, though. Just a gentle reminder from my constant protector. “Keep the fog balanced.”

  I brought in the fog a little. Jillian and Logan had been standing in this spot just a few hours ago. Jillian looked tired; shadows under her eyes, hair stringy and dyed dark brown. Sunken cheeks. Was she not eating enough? Logan looked thin and tired, too. Both wore plain baseball caps pulled down low.

  It was so good to see them again, even if they were just intangible images. I’d be seeing them for real in just a few minutes.

  A plump woman in a green sweater-vest and a silver name tag—Valerie Simmons, Clerk—appeared behind the desk. “Can I help you?”

  Oh. She was real, not a vision. I shook the fog back into place.

  “We’re here to see the manager,” Tristan said. “He’s expecting us.”

  Valerie looked over her shoulder. “He must have gone on his coffee break,” she said in the cutest Southern accent I’d ever heard. “I’ll go get him.” She disappeared into the back office.

  I couldn’t wait for the manager. I could find Jillian and Logan’s room on my own. I lifted the fog and filtered through the visions until the one I needed came to me. I saw Jillian slide some cash to the stocky middle-aged man behind the desk—Lyle Berri, my visions told me—and he handed her a key dangling from a diamond-shaped tag. Printed on that tag was the closed-eyelid symbol. And underneath that: a number.

  “Room 160,” I said.

  Then I started running.

  I ran from the lobby, back outside and down the corridor of white doors, vaguely aware of Tristan rushing after me. Room 101, 118, 124. Why did this motel have to be so big? 132, 146…160. There it was. At the end.

  I raised my hand to knock on it at the same time Tristan skidded to a halt a few feet behind me. “Tessa.”

  The door was open. Just an inch.

  That wasn’t right. My family had always kept the doors locked, double-locked, when we were on the run.

  I felt it then, through the fog. Fear. Jillian and Logan were scared. Something had frightened them. I could feel their fear, feel their panic, bleeding through the fog, seeping into me.

  A vision showed them rushing out the door and down the corridor, then disappearing completely.

  We had been so close. So close. My heart hurt, like someone had taken it in their fist and squeezed it dry.

  “They’re gone, Tristan,” I said. “We were too late.”

  “Let’s look inside their room,” Tristan said as he held me against his chest. “Maybe you’ll see what made them run away again.”

  Inhaling disappointment instead of oxygen, my muscles replaced by rocks, I pushed open the door to room 160 and went inside.

  The television screen was shattered. The drawers in the cheap dresser were half-open. Something had scared them, startled them enough to shatter that TV and leave in a rush. But although they’d fled in a hurry, they made sure to leave nothing personal behind. The drawers: empty. The mattresses: sheetless. Except for a lamp that lay in pieces on the worn carpet, whatever they had touched—a menu, a map, perhaps a newspaper—they had taken with them to burn. “They’re doing everything our parents taught us,” I said. Our parents had taught us too well.

  A groan came from the bathroom.

  Jillian? Logan?

  It couldn’t be them. But please, please…

  Tristan and I darted to the bathroom. The door wouldn’t budge, so he shoulder-charged it. It splintered, and when he pushed it open, I was blinded by silver.

  No. Just a plastic silver-plated name tag, reflecting the light hanging over the sink. Not a knife pivoting on its point. A name tag. But that name tag was attached to the green sweater-vest of a stocky man crumpled on the grimy floor. The man groaned again, blood trickling from a deep gash on his forehead, and reached for us with stubby fingers.

  Tristan dropped to the man’s side. “Tessa,” he said, “call an ambulance.”

  The silver name tag flashed again, catching the light, reflecting on the walls. It glittered and glimmered, sparkled and glowed.

  “Tessa!” Tristan’s sharp voice made the silver light shatter and disappear. “Call 911.” He was applying pressure to the man’s cut with a washcloth. I shook my head to clear it, and with shaky fingers, used my phone to call for help.

  The man stirred, his name tag falling off as he struggled to sit up. Lyle Berri, General Manager, it read, and as I watched, it glimmered, just once, like a wink.

  “Those two kids,” the man moaned. “The lamp flew off the table and hit me on the head. All by itself. Did they do that? Did they make that happen?”

  “No, sir,” Tristan said soothingly. “You don’t remember that right. You tripped and hit your head.”

  Jillian and Logan attacked this man, he said to me silently.

  “No,” I said aloud. “They would never—”

  Then the fog lifted, and showed me that they did.

  ❀

  She asks Logan to go back to the lobby of this shabby Tennessee motel—it’s Tennessee, right? They’re in Tennessee?—to get some food from the vending machines. As soon as he leaves, she breaks down again. She’s been crying all week, ever since they went to Nebraska and Gavin’s mother told them he’d died of a brain aneurysm over two years ago, the night her family left that town.

  That college professor they contacted from Twelve Lakes had died of a brain aneurysm, too. There was no way that was a coincidence. Dennis Connelly had killed them both. It was obvious.

  Gavin. Smart, shy, beautiful Gavin. No one else thought he was beautiful, but she did. Dennis Connelly had killed Gavin, sweet Gavin who wrote her poetry and quoted Shakespeare and Wordsworth, simply because her family had escaped. Did he kill him out of vengeance? Or had he questioned him first, torturing him, hoping to get information about her family?

  And then Gavin’s mom told them that someone had stopped by just a couple weeks ago, a very polite man in a black jacket, looking for them.

  So now they knew: Dennis Connelly was still hunting them. Even though he’d already killed Mom and Dad and Tessa, he was still after them.

  When Gavin’s mom told
them that she was going to call the man in the black jacket to tell them they were there, as the man had instructed, they fled. They destroyed the rusty red pickup, bought a different car, and zigzagged around the country for days, stopping only for gas and food, until Logan saw the giant sign with closed eyelids on this motel in Tennessee. After ensuring the old motel had no security cameras, he’d insisted they get a room and sleep for a few hours before hitting the road again.

  How can she sleep, when Gavin is dead, and Mom and Dad and Tessa are dead, and Dennis Connelly is still after them?

  ❀

  He rushes back to the room after making a run to the vending machine in the lobby, gripping a sheet of paper, slamming the door behind him. “Jillian—”

  “Don’t start,” she says with a sniffle. She’s on one of the beds, rotating the heart charm around the gold bracelet that Gavin had given her, and going through Tessa’s getaway bag again. “I told you, I’m not getting rid of these things. It’s all we have left of them.”

  “We have to go. Now. Dennis Connelly knows we’re here.”

  Her eyes grow large. At her silent command, the chain on the door slides itself into the lock. “How do you know?”

  He peeks out the window from behind the curtain. “The guy in the green vest at the registration desk. He was watching us.”

  “But why do you think—”

  He shoots the paper over to her. “I saw this on the counter.”

  She plucks it from the air and gasps. Two black and white photos, side by side: one of Jillian. One of Logan.

  “Connelly must’ve known we would come here,” he says, “so he sent that Lyle guy to act as manager and wait for us. The same way he sent Tristan Walker to wait for us in Twelve Lakes. The same way he sent someone to Gavin’s house in Nebraska. Connelly’s probably on his way here right now.”

  With a wave of his fingers, the washcloths fly out of the bathroom. They hadn’t been here long; they hadn’t touched much so there wasn’t much to burn. Just a map of the city and a few washcloths. He decides to take the bed linens and pillowcases as well. Can’t be too safe. They’ll burn everything later.

  Jillian hoists both her and Tessa’s bags over her shoulder. He gives the room a quick glance. No sign that they’d ever been there. They open the door, and that man with the green sweater-vest is leaning against the wall outside their room, obviously watching it.

  Every muscle in his body goes rigid. “Get out of the way,” he says. He clenches his fists. He will fight this guy if he has to.

  Jillian whimpers. The dresser drawers start trembling, the lamp vibrates, the television screen shatters. “Hey!” the man shouts, and when he charges inside, she squeals. The lamp flies off the table, slamming with full force into his head. The man groans and falls to his knees, then, clutching his head, collapses to the floor.

  Jillian stares at the man in horror, hands clamped over her mouth. “I didn’t mean—”

  He puts his hands to his knees. Think. Think. The guy’s not dead, he’s still alive, struggling to get up. They need to stop him from following them. He drags the man into the bathroom and slams the door shut, using his PK to jam the doorknob so it won’t turn.

  Then he and Jillian grab all the getaway bags and flee.

  ❀

  I chased the vision of Jillian and Logan as they ran from the motel room, down the aisle, and into the parking lot. Their images were fading, but I tore after them anyway, raising the fog higher and higher. What kind of car were they driving? Which direction did they go?

  I raised the fog again. So many cars had driven through this lot; minivans and sedans and rumbly old delivery trucks. If I could just see the car my siblings hopped into. Please. Just a glimpse.

  Something grabbed me, yanked me, and a siren blared, sending the fog back in with a whoosh.

  I was standing in the middle of the parking lot of the Forty Winks motel, Tristan was gripping the hood of my sweatshirt, and the only moving vehicle was a red and white ambulance. It pulled to a stop in front of room 160.

  “You ran right in front of that ambulance,” Tristan shouted, frantic. “I was yelling for you to stop. Didn’t you hear me?”

  “Logan saw their photos on the registration desk,” I blurted, the words tumbling over each other. “They panicked. That’s why they attacked the manager and ran. And they know Gavin’s dead. They already went to Nebraska. Gavin’s mom told them someone’s looking for them.”

  Tristan stood shocked for a moment, then pulled me into his arms. “Can you lift the fog, very slowly, very carefully, and see what kind of car they were driving? I’ll have the APR put out an all-points-bulletin. But you have to be careful. Don’t lift the fog too high.”

  I lifted the fog as high as I dared, but there were no more visions. Just the glowering, gleeful Nightmare Eyes above, and the weedy, crumbling parking lot at my feet. Beyond the parking lot was the street, and beyond that were businesses and houses and roads, and then more roads. North, south, east, west—it didn’t matter which way they went. All the streets in Tennessee, all the roads in the country, went in one direction: away from me.

  Tristan and I returned from our failed trip to Tennessee, stumbling into the Connellys’ house after nightfall. Tristan had called his parents from the plane to tell them what happened, and the moment I stepped inside, Deirdre pulled me into a too-tight hug. “You ran in front of a speeding ambulance? Honey, what were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” I mumbled into her chest. “I was looking for Jillian and Logan.” I stayed in her arms for a few moments before pulling away. It felt good to be hugged like that.

  I missed having a mother.

  Deirdre gave Tristan a hug too, then scolded him. “This is exactly why I told you to let the APR handle the case. Leaving class and taking Tessa out of school was bad enough, but she could have been killed, Tristan.”

  He hung his head. “I know. You’re right. If anything happened to her, it would’ve been my fault.”

  “Tristan, I lifted the fog too high,” I said. “I didn’t hear you shouting for me to stop. It wasn’t your fault.”

  He shook his head anyway. “I promised I would keep you safe, and instead I almost got you killed.”

  Dennis came in, phone in hand. “I just hung up with Kellan. I asked him why he didn’t know Jillian and Logan went to Nebraska.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “He did know about it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Gavin’s mother called him right after they ran off. Kellan never reported it. It happened almost a week ago, but he said he’s been too busy to file the report.”

  I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. “Who cares about filing a report? He should have called us the second he heard from Gavin’s mom.”

  Tristan cursed under his breath. “He just didn’t want anyone to know he screwed up.”

  “The good thing is,” Dennis said, “I convinced him to take on an additional investigator, someone who’ll be dedicated full-time to your case.”

  “Me?” Tristan asked, hope in his voice for the first time in hours.

  “I suggested it,” Dennis said, “but Kellan won’t work with you. Sorry, Tristan.”

  That wasn’t fair. Tristan already had the dedication and the desire. If he also had the resources of the APR, we’d find Jillian and Logan in no time.

  “Who is it, then?” I asked Dennis.

  “Kellan’s selecting the new agent tomorrow,” he said. “He said to meet him at the APR at four o’clock.”

  ❀

  I couldn’t pay much attention in school the next day. Not because I was busy keeping the fog balanced against the visions, or pretending that Nathan and Winter’s scornful glares weren’t bothering me. Well, I was busy doing that, but I also couldn’t pay attention because after school, I was going to the APR to meet the new investigator assigned to my case. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

  When I got home, I gave Marmalade a quick cuddle before
Dennis drove me to the APR. Tristan was waiting for us, having left class early for the occasion.

  “Tessa, do you want to visit your parents first?” Dennis asked as we walked to the elevator that would take us down to the investigation offices. “I’m sure your mother would like to see you. The warden told me she asked if you received her birthday card.”

  Tristan shook his head, and I shook mine. “I just want to meet the new investigator.” I had the ballet shoe and sheet music with me. Same with Brinda’s drawings. I didn’t want to give them up, but the investigator would need them.

  John Kellan marched toward us as we waited for the elevator, his red Lead Investigator badge swinging from a lanyard around his neck.

  “How could you not have told us that Jillian and Logan went to Nebraska?” I demanded, arms crossed. “We might have found them by now.”

  “I was getting to it,” Kellan said. “I have over a dozen cases and I’m understaffed. Filing reports is not my main priority.”

  Dennis frowned at him. “John, introduce Tessa to the new investigator. Then you can get back to your eleven other cases.”

  “With pleasure.” Instead of turning to the elevator, Kellan pivoted on his heel. “This way. He’s in the Lab.”

  “The Lab?” Tristan said through tight lips. “Those guys aren’t trained in investigations.”

  Kellan snorted without turning around. He led us to the end of the hallway and into the bright, glass-walled Lab, which looked more like a lounge than an industrial science laboratory.

  I’d been here once before, while Tristan and I were staying in the Underground. The round tables, comfortable chairs, and plate glass windows gave the place a sense of receptive openness, but beyond the windows were tall trees, and surrounding the trees was an electrified fence.

  One-way mirrors lined one interior wall, and they caught the light from the windows and reflected into the Lab, making everything luminous. Several APR employees wearing green Lab badges sat at the tables, interviewing potential psionic subjects. Cole Gallagher was interviewing a boisterous, brown-haired woman as she gazed into a wide bowl of water and described the visions she saw in it. Mirroring her confident expression, he gave us a nod as we passed him.