“It’s just a theory,” Marcus said. “But they’ve been lobbying against PSS in Washington for years, and they haven’t made much progress going that route. Maybe they need to prove something to someone—some big name investor—and the list is a way to conduct some under-the-table experiments until they figure out exactly what they’re doing.”
“So, we’re guinea pigs?”
“Maybe,” he shrugged.
“And you actually expect me to leave my best friend with people like that?”
“They can only use Emma if we’re still here,” he said, taking my ghost hand. “If we’d left when we should have, this wouldn’t have happened. And that’s my fault. Not yours. I wanted those blades. I thought they could help us, and that blinded me to the risks. But you’re right. We can’t just leave her at their mercy. So, we call the police, and we leave an anonymous tip. We let the professionals take care of this.”
“You’re advocating calling the police?” I asked, pulling my hand from his. “You’re the one who constantly insists that the police force is made entirely of CAMFers.”
“Then we text Emma’s mom, tell her where Emma is, and let her parents handle it.”
“I’m not dragging them into this. The Campbells aren’t exactly street wise. They’d probably go running over there and get themselves killed. There’s no one else to help her. It has to be us.”
“We can’t help her without exposing ourselves. You know that.”
“So what! We risked that to go after the blades, and it didn’t stop you then.”
“Yeah, and look how great that went,” he pointed out.
“What about David? Do you honestly expect me to believe you wouldn’t go after him if they had him again?”
Marcus stared at me long and hard, then looked away. “No, I wouldn’t,” he said.
“You are a terrible liar.”
“Maybe I am,” he said, looking down at his hands. “I thought I could keep everyone safe, especially David, but obviously that’s not true. But I know he wouldn’t want me to risk you for him.”
“I didn’t ask what David would want,” I said. “I asked what you would do.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said, turning away from me. He paced to the far corner of the tent, and stood, his back straight, his fists clenched, battling out some inner struggle.
“She came looking for me,” I said to his back. “She went to Palmer’s for me. She needs our help.” I had been bluffing about doing it on my own. I needed him. Wished I didn’t, but I did.
I stepped toward him, put my hand on his back. “We can do this,” I promised. “We have the bullet, and we can figure out how to use it. We have Palmer. I can get information from him—Oh my God!”
“What?” Marcus jumped, spinning around as if we were under attack.
“What if they want Palmer back? What if that’s what the Dark Man meant?”
“No,” Marcus shook his head. “Even if they thought we had him, they’d cut their losses. He botched your capture twice. CAMFers don’t treat failure kindly. To them he’s expendable.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I just am,” he said, reaching out and pulling me to his chest. “It’s how they think.”
I tucked my head into the curve of his neck, inhaling the scent of him—smoke and woods and sweat and something indefinably him.
“Okay, we’ll go get her,” he sighed into my hair.
“Really?” I looked up at him, our faces close.
“Yes,” he said, smiling down at me. “But only if you promise to keep playing my feelings like this.”
“I’m not—I didn’t mean to—”
He kissed me this time, his hand finding the back of my neck. His mouth was rough and insistent, the scratch of stubble at the edge of his lips leaving a trail of almost-pain across mine. I opened my mouth wider and our tongues touched, teasing, coaxing. My body melted into his, marveling at the fit of hard against soft, the pressing need, the way we were trying to crawl inside each other. His right arm circled my waist, pulling my hips against his, and I couldn’t help myself; I actually moaned into his mouth.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked startled, pulling away.
“No,” I said, blushing like crazy, looking anywhere but in those amazing eyes.
“Oh, so you liked it,” he said, sounding very pleased with himself. He bent his head again, his mouth kissing its way down my jawline, finding the hollow of my neck. He pulled away, staring at me like he’d never seen me before, and said, “God, you taste good.”
“So do you,” I said, smiling.
“Olivia,” he said, his face gone dark and intense. “This isn’t a game to me.”
“I know.” My eyes strayed back to his lips. “I’m sorry I said that. It’s just—I’m not sure what this is.”
“Um, I’m pretty sure we’re making out.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, looking away.
“Hey,” he said soberly, touching my cheek and drawing my eyes back to him. “I like you.” This time he kissed me gently, brushing his lips across mine. Then kissing me on the nose, and the forehead, like a blessing. Like I was some precious thing.
“I like you too,” I said, feeling warm and amazed, but it was followed by a sudden wave of guilt. While I was standing there kissing, Emma was in serious trouble.
He must have seen it in my face, or felt it in my body, because he pulled away and said, “So, we need a plan.”
“What are you thinking?”
“If we have any chance of taking the CAMFers down and getting Emma out safely,” he said, beginning to pace, “we need to figure out exactly what Jason’s bullet does and how to use it. And we need everything we can get from Palmer. You understand what that means, right?”
“I’m going to have to use my hand on him.”
“Yes.”
I knew it would come to that, even as I’d pleaded with Marcus for help. Palmer would know how many CAMFers there were, how they were armed, where Emma and the blades might be held. Going after Emma was going to come at a cost. I was going to have to do something bad, something that all my convictions were screaming at me not to do. But I was going to do it anyway.
“I’ll get the info,” I said, praying I’d have the guts to follow through, “but I’m not going to pull anything out of him. Just the information. That’s all.”
“Fair enough,” Marcus agreed, “and one more thing.”
“What?”
“The other guys. It has to be their choice to come. I think Nose and Yale will want to. I don’t know about Jason. But whoever comes, they come armed.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding.
“And we should go soon. They weren’t anticipating this thing with Emma, which means they’re scrambling. We want to get in there before they have a chance to fully set their trap. That means tonight. Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“I will be,” I said.
26
INTERROGATING MIKE
Mike Palmer didn’t look so good in the morning light. He was bruised and swollen, and crusty with dried blood, his body sagging against the ropes the guys had used to tie him to a tree. The bandages I had applied the night before were pushed up on his forehead so he could see, but his eyes were vacant. They didn’t track me, didn’t even register my existence, as I entered his field of vision. And he smelled bad, really bad. That was when I realized that the dark marks near the crotch of his pants weren’t mud or blood.
Yale was sitting guard duty, leaning against a nearby tree upwind, but he stood when the rest of us entered the small clearing.
The breeze picked up, thrusting the full force of Palmer’s stench upon us, and I was afraid we were all going to revisit my breakfast. I took a few deep breaths and thought of Emma instead. Mike Palmer didn’t know we’d lost her. He had no idea that she was, at that moment, in the hands of his comrades, a hostage at the mercy of desperate and determined captors just like he was. And
the last thing we needed was for him to find out. After all he had done, he deserved what he was about to get. This is what I told myself.
Nose took out Palmer’s gun and handed it to Jason.
Jason hefted it in his hand, and the Fire Chief’s eyes moved for the first time since we’d approached him, looking at the gun, looking at Jason, then back at the gun.
Jason stepped forward and ripped the duct tape off Palmer’s mouth in one savage yank.
“Fuck you,” Palmer said, his lips cracked and bleeding.
“Looks like you’re the one who’s fucked,” Jason said, tossing the tape aside. “Went and got yourself caught by a little girl, and now your CAMFer pals don’t even give a shit.”
“Fuck that bitch too,” Palmer said, looking at me with absolute hatred in his eyes. “She’s a freak. A mutant that needs to be put down. All you freaks need to die.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had known this man for years, had said hello to him in the supermarket. I had attended the same back yard barbeques and local sporting events he had. I’d even headed up a Fireman’s fundraiser in middle school and presented this very man with the proceeds in front of a class of seventh graders, handed it to him with my own ghost hand. And all this time he’d hated me simply because of the way I’d been born, for something completely outside of my control. How many other people felt that way? My teachers? My classmates? The new neighbors who had moved in next door, and then suddenly moved out two weeks later without any explanation?
“You keep your mouth shut,” Jason said, striding forward and pressing the gun to Palmer’s forehead. “You don’t talk unless we ask you something. You don’t breathe unless we tell you to. You don’t piss yourself till we say so. You got that?”
I glanced at Marcus. Was it really a good idea to start this interrogation with Jason holding a gun to Palmer’s head? We needed that head, or at least we needed the information inside of it. But Marcus wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at Palmer. Palmer. When had I started thinking of him by his last name? Was it easier to dehumanize people when you did that? Probably. It certainly seemed to work for coaches and gym teachers.
“What are you gonna do, kill me?” Palmer asked, looking past Jason and the gun to Marcus; he knew who was really in charge. “Go ahead. Doesn’t matter. Whatever you do, I’m not gonna tell you anything.”
“Naw, we’re not gonna kill you,” Jason said, pulling the gun away. “We’re gonna do something worse.” Marcus looked at me and nodded.
I could feel all their eyes on me as I stepped forward past Jason, trying not to inhale too deeply. I stared down at Palmer, and everything seemed to recede into the background but him and me. He was my enemy. He had tried to destroy me, end me. He was the door that led to Emma, and I was the key.
I held my gloved ghost hand in front of Palmer’s face and saw his eyes flicker with fear. I reached out with my left hand and stripped the glove off, peeling it back, revealing my PSS one slow centimeter at a time, like some kind of uncanny stripper.
Palmer’s eyes flashed with uncontrolled panic and dawning understanding.
“My hand goes into people,” I said, my voice sounding like someone else’s. I raised my ghost hand to his face, almost touching him.
“You’re lying,” he panted, his very breath belying his confidence. “PSS can’t do that.”
“You have no idea what I can do,” I said, caressing his cheek.
His head recoiled, banging against the tree trunk behind him.
An inexplicable thrill ran through me. He was actually afraid of me. This man who had terrorized me. Now he was afraid.
“Don’t touch me, bitch,” he said, half-demand, half-plea.
I didn’t listen, caressing his face again.
He cringed from my touch, like my mother had in the hospital, thrashing his head back and forth, his wide, white eyes tracking my ghost hand as if he were incapable of looking away. “I’ll kill you,” he said, spitting at me, the glob of pink phlegm landing on my shoulder.
“And how would you do that?” I asked, white hot rage welling in me. “You’re tied to a tree, sitting in your own piss.”
“Doesn’t matter what you do to me,” he said. “They’re gonna get you. They’re gonna get you all, and make you pay.”
“Who’s going to make me pay?”
“You don’t know?” He laughed.
“So, why don’t you tell me?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, grinning wickedly. “I’ll let that part be a special surprise.”
Somehow, I’d lost the edge of fear I’d held over him, and I wanted it back. “I’ll give you a special surprise,” I said, putting my hand back up and touching his face.
This time he resisted the urge to recoil. He was fighting his fear.
“I got somewhere else you can put that hand of yours,” he said, leering at me.
My hand began to melt into tendrils, licking at his cheeks, winding in his hair.
His eyes bulged, and he writhed in his cocoon of rope like a giant fly in a spider’s web.
Coils of my PSS wound around his neck.
“No, you can’t,” he choked, squeezing his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to see what I could do to him, so he could pretend it wasn’t real.
And I wasn’t really choking him, but it didn’t matter as long as he thought I was.
“But I can,” I said, two of my elongated fingers snaking along his eyelids, peeling them back with the subtle force of my PSS. He was going to watch this. He was going to look at me and know who to fear.
The whites of his eyes rolled in their sockets, frantic, terrified. I wasn’t even doing anything to him. He wasn’t in physical pain. I’d experienced more discomfort putting my eyeliner on in the morning. But Marcus had been right; fear was more powerful than pain.
I heard murmurs behind me, but I ignored them. They’d asked me to scare Palmer, and that’s exactly what I was doing. It wasn’t my problem if it scared them too.
Palmer began to thrash as if he were having a seizure. The crotch of his pants grew suddenly darker, the odor of fresh urine spritzing the air even as I heard the trickle down the inside of his pants.
I felt disgusted by him, but I felt something else too. Powerful. This time, I was in control. I was the predator, not the prey. Gone was the insignificant, defective girl. I was some kind of fucking comic book vigilante, and it felt—amazing.
Someone came up to me, touched my upper arm, and I barely bit back the words, “Back off!”
“Olivia,” Marcus said.
It was all part of the plan. I was just supposed to scare Palmer. Marcus was going to interrogate him. And while he did, I was supposed stay focused enough to keep my hand from going into anyone. What was wrong with me? I had almost lost control.
Marcus’s hand was still on my arm, and I glanced at him, retracting my elongated fingers from the Fire Chief’s eyes. I left the tendrils waving around his face and head though, an incentive to cooperate.
“Please. Oh God, please,” Palmer whimpered in Marcus’s direction.
“Tell us what we need, and I’ll keep her off you” Marcus said. “How many CAMFers are in town?”
“Four,” Palmer said weakly, his chin falling to his chest. “I told them we didn’t need many. She’s only a girl. And I didn’t know there were more of you. I didn’t know.”
“Four including you?” Marcus asked.
“Yes.”
“Armed with what?”
I saw Palmer hesitate and I sent a tentacle out, tickling his nostril.
“Guns, and minus meters,” he blurted, jerking his head away. “But the meters are fucked. They don’t work in town. Something is jamming them.”
“Can they still extract?” Marcus asked.
“I don’t know,” Palmer said, avoiding Marcus’s gaze. “We didn’t test that.”
Because they hadn’t had anyone to test it on.
“Where’s the base of operations? Your ho
use?” Marcus drilled him.
“Yes,” Palmer said, looking up at us, comprehension dawning on his face. “You’re going in there?” he asked, almost laughing. “You’re actually going in there?” Now he was laughing, bloody drool running down his chin. “If that’s what this is about, if you’re just going to walk in there and give yourselves up, I’ll tell you anything you want.”
“Is that where her backpack is?” Marcus asked, ignoring Palmer’s taunt. “Your place?”
“Yes,” Palmer answered, but suddenly he wasn’t laughing anymore. His eyes looked away. He knew something more about my backpack.
“Do you know what’s in it?” Marcus pressed.
Palmer didn’t answer. His eyes had gone hard and defiant again.
I wrapped a PSS tendril around his neck and placed the tip just at the opening of his left ear.
He glared at me. He didn’t think I had the guts to really hurt him. He thought we were just kids who would lie down, and roll over, and let them kill us.
I made my PSS expand and wind its way into his ear canal. It was a strange sensation. Not at all like any of the times my hand had gone into flesh, but just as intimate, like I was insinuating myself into places no one should go. “I could burst your ear drum right now,” I told him, realizing it was true only as I said it. It would be just like picking a lock, except messier.
Palmer squirmed and bucked, yelling something incomprehensible.
“Do you know what’s in the backpack?” Marcus demanded again.
I increased the pressure of my PSS by a fraction. What would it feel like to have me in your ear, in your head, probing, pressing?
“Blades,” Palmer yelled, shaking his head back and forth as if he could dislodge me.
“And what do they do?”
“I don’t know,” he cried. “We don’t know. He was running tests.”
“At your house?”
“Yes. Fuck. Make her stop. She’s hurting me.” He squeezed his eyes shut.
“I’m not hurting him,” I said. “He knows more.”
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