by Jolene Perry
Samson jumps between us and touches Ocean’s shoulder. “Lay off, man.”
Ocean shrugs Samson’s hand off his shoulder. “I can feel your thought creeping in, Sam. Nice try.”
Sam gives a quick nod and eyebrow raise of approval. “He’s good, Kara. Find a way to keep him around.”
Now it’s my turn to calm Ocean down, even though part of me does want him to walk away. I’m still not convinced I want a partner. “Mr. Prince was just saying stuff to freak us out. Remember, he has experience.” But I hate the thought that there might be some truth in what he said… The Middle Men are businessmen, but we also do good things. Surely I’d know if extreme measures like he was talking about were taken just to protect us…
“Yeah. Maybe.” Ocean shoves open the door to outside, just as Digs runs out from the main house.
“Ocean! You can’t leave, okay? Give Kara a chance to explain. Without you…” He shakes his head. “Without you, we might lose everything.”
Digs in an Insighter, and I meant to tell Ocean that when you open your mouth too loudly around here, everyone’s gifts are trained on you for a bit while they try to figure out what’s going on. When an Insighter like Digs or my dad hears something, they start digging around in your future. He must have seen something, just like my dad must have seen something, telling them both I need Ocean.
And now I’m a little pissed at Digs because everyone will know I need Ocean with me to bring the sailboat in and that just sucks. It means they’ll all know my own parents didn’t think I was up to the task without help. And amateur help at that.
Dad steps out of the house, still across the small parking lot from us. “You two start moving south. Kara, tell Ocean whatever you need to, okay?” He’s giving me the “boss face” so I guess Ocean gets the whole story.
I give Dad a salute that’s an even mix of snark and honesty.
“I’m not leaving until I get answers.” Ocean crosses his arms.
“Dammit. The boat’s loaded. I’ll even let you drive and I’ll explain on the way. Okay?” My patience is gone. I’m stressed and hate that I’ve been totally overshadowed by the talent of the guy standing next to me. I also hate that three minutes in a room with Mr. Prince has me questioning things I know have to be false. “This isn’t exactly awesome for me right now either.”
“Someone promise me something before I get on that boat!” Ocean yells, his face contorted in confusion and anger. “That man better still be alive when I get back!”
“Of course he will.” Dad scoffs like Ocean’s statement is ridiculous, but I think Ocean sees through him. And I think I might be seeing something behind Dad’s eyes as well. I don’t like the unease settling in, and am ready to leave and focus on my mission.
“Promise!” Ocean points, and his whole body and face look…hard. Determined.
“Mr. Prince will be just as you left him when you return.” Dad crosses his arms. “You two are losing time.”
“Be safe.” Samson pulls me into a big hug. “You need him, Kara. You’re my best friend and I need you home safe, Okay?”
I give him one last squeeze before stepping back. My throat feels all swollen, and I have no idea what to say back to him, so I just nod once.
“Come on.” I take Ocean by the hand and try to pretend he doesn’t feel like home as we run across the parking lot and down to the dock where our boat waits.
SIX
Micah
Landon’s been asleep for close to ten hours, and I’ve only left him once to pull my shift at the helm. We’re nearing Nassau, but the largeness of the port scares me. Too many people. Too many ways to be noticed. We need Landon awake before we get too close.
We’ve slowed until Landon can tell us what happened, so I’m once again lying next to him, watching him sleep.
I run my fingers down the side of his face, so familiar to me after our two months on the boat. Every line, every scar, the way his stubble slowly grows back in, and the way his hair falls across his forehead. The way he breathes when he’s really exhausted and not just resting. Everything.
A smiles spreads as his eyes slowly open. “How long was I gone with the shadows?”
“A day. A full day.” A torturously long day.
“No wonder I’m so tired.” He groans as he pulls me closer, never really opening his eyes.
I let the warmth of him fold into me even though it’s hot outside. Hot on the boat. Hot everywhere. I was too scared for him to care. He practically passed out after The Middlemen on the small boat were left behind.
“What was it like?” I ask.
“Like…” He rolls onto his back, pulling me onto his chest. “It felt like looking at a negative. The world was black and white and opposites and filled with smoke. Like all the burned ashes of their dolls turned into burned ashes of themselves and then burned ashes of the world around us. And I was here, but not here. And I could walk on the water and under the water. That part was unbelievable. Time felt like it passed so quickly. I remember feeling like it had gotten darker, and was thinking it couldn’t possibly be night—”
“How were you able to get in?”
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head.
I’m afraid to ask him about getting back out, because it all feels so out of this world and possibly permanent. “And what about the shadows?” I ask.
Landon blinks a few times and pulls in a few deep breaths, like he’s looking for words. “They’re people. Like us. Some bad. Some good. They’re trapped, just like we learned in that stupid school project that feels like three lifetimes ago.” He lets out a breath and his fingertips run up and down my arm. This is so like Landon—to gain comfort for himself by comforting me. “For whatever reason, Voodoo dolls were made of these people. The shop was burned down. They can’t go on and they can’t come back. They’re not part of this world, Micah. They don’t belong, and I think I might know how to help. They’re burning there, and freezing here.”
“Kara, the girl on the small boat said they’d try to trick us.” Do I believe her? I’m not sure. The two people were our age, and maybe I’ve misread everything and they’re trying to help. I hate that I don’t know what to think anymore. Even though Landon’s gone there and they let him come back, seeing a shadow person still scares the hell out of me. How am I supposed to trust something like that?
“Well. We keep going south until we learn more. But I’m going to have to go back in.” Landon plays with the edges of my curly blonde hair, sending shivers through me. “I still sometimes can’t believe I get to touch you like this,” he whispers. “I swear the pull to you is stronger every day. I love you, Micah.”
“Love you, too,” I whisper, aching at how it feels to lie next to him.
I press my face harder into his chest and slide my hand around his middle not wanting to leave this room. Maybe not ever.
SEVEN
Kara
Every time I’ve tried to talk to Ocean, he silences me with his hand. I’ve given up and instead just enjoy the feel of the wind in my hair now that we’re traveling on a real boat.
The steering wheel is familiar underneath my hands, and the sleek exterior makes me feel the confidence that I need to start tracking for real. I have the radar equipment on, which will pick up even small boats in our vicinity. The Middle Men boats are made bright and white—the less shadow, the less the chances of us being bothered by the beings that move through them. I keep scanning for Landon, and am driving in a bit of a zig-zagging path as I head south. It’s a long-shot that we’ll run into them, but it’s happened before.
I try to ignore Ocean as he sits in the passenger’s side of the boat with his eyes closed and tanned face tilted toward the sun. Still ignoring me, which is fine for now. We don’t have to work together yet, and maybe we won’t have to work together at all. If he wants to sulk, he can stay on the boat, and I’ll search. As I look at him, he definitely looks a bit like Landon, a face I may have seen a few too many times as I�
��ve studied his file...
Okay, Kara. You’ve got to keep better focus.
My eyes scan the GPS, charts and then the radar. A blip that looks as if it could be large enough to be their boat hits the edges of the screen, and I stretch my mind that direction but don’t feel anything. I adjust the heading on the boat just in case. It’ll only take us a few minutes to check it out.
I pop open a Dr. Pepper (the boat is stocked) and take a long deep drink of the sugary fizz when Ocean shifts in his seat.
“Nassau,” Ocean says. “Go to Nassau.”
I stare at him for a moment wondering if he knows or is just guessing to seem helpful.
“You know that’s like the armpit of The Bahamas,” I try to tease. Only I’m wondering why I’m trying to tease and loosen the tension, when what I need to be doing is telling him if he doesn’t want to be here, he can go back to Florida.
“That’s where they’ll be. You want my help or not?” His voice is short and hard. As much as I want to call him on his attitude, we really need to get to work, because Long Island in The Exumas is where we need to keep them from going, and it’s only a few days sail from Nassau.
“Do you want the rest of the story?” I almost have to yell to be heard over the sound of the engines and the wind. If anything will sway him to drop his weird attitude, this will be it.
“Stop and turn off the boat and then yes. I want the story,” he yells back.
Stop? I shake my head as I close in on the boat I saw on my radar, but it’s definitely not them.
Everything in me screams to keep going as I pull down off power and sit for a moment with the engines idling, wondering if I care about how pissy he is and if I should just keep going.
I sigh and stare at him for a moment, at which point his brows go up slightly and I know that I need him on my side. I know like I sometimes know just what I need to carry with me on assignment. Or when I need to set my clock different, or put money aside. It’s a compulsion kind of feeling. I’m resigned, but also resisting the urge to scream in exasperation. I turn off the engines, letting us bob in the waves of the turquoise water.
“Finish the story and help me know why this is so important.” Ocean pulls his legs up and wraps his arms around his calves. There’s an innocence in his expression and the way his body’s positioned in the seat, and I see a flash of what he must have looked like as a boy. It changes things. It’s hard to hate someone or be irritated with them when you have this idea of what they were like at eight years old.
“Why are you so difficult?” I ask.
“Always been that way.” He shrugs, but manages to keep his hands clasped around his knees. “Mom used to tease that it happens when you lose a twin. That part of you has a hole it’ll always try to fill.”
My chest suddenly feels scraped out. “Sorry.” But I’m not sure I said it loud enough for him to hear. I’m not sure what it’s like to have siblings, but I do know I’d suffer without Samson.
“It’s done.” His blue eyes are intense. “Long time ago, okay?”
“Okay.” Only there are probably days of conversation just in the very few bits he’s shared with me, and I wonder if Ocean and I would ever get along enough to talk for days. I wonder if I’d get along with anyone well enough to talk for days. I’m not around people enough to know.
“So? We left off with a woman who practiced Voodoo,” he prompts.
I sigh as I sit down because this makes me feel so small and vulnerable. The whole story. The idea of being connected to all the people with gifts. And furthermore, the idea that it would only take a handful of people to take away everything I’ve worked my whole life for.
“She was commissioned often to make dolls. So she had all these dolls made, and the British Navy had gotten wind of her witchcraft and burned down her store—Voodoo dolls and all. It wasn’t a very populated island, and they searched The Bahamas for years to find her. Though, some people say that it took them so long because several members of the British Navy used her services and helped to keep her hidden. But those are things we’ll never know.”
Ocean’s sitting, absorbing every part of the story.
“So all of these people who were dolls in her shop turned to shadows. They don’t live in this world, really. They live in a shadowy version of this world. Smoky.” I swallow once needing to go back to the woman before continuing with the shadows.
“So the woman was hunted as she fled, knowing that the soldiers had done more damage to those souls than she could have ever done.”
The lapping of the waves and the familiar feel of warm, salty air and hot sun does nothing to calm me. “The shadow people are what’s left of the people whose dolls were burned, and they started to track her through her magic. To put them off her trail, she divided all of her magical gifts amongst people she came into contact with to throw the shadows off, knowing that they’d take her into their world and steal her powers so they could come back to earth. I’m not sure how long it took the shadows to figure it out, or if they just inherently knew when they were stuck as ash. So. That’s how we’re connected. We all come from the same place. The same woman. And that’s how the shadows follow us so easily—they know the magic. Their existence came from the same place. We, well our ancestors, are what the woman used to escape the wrath of the shadow people.”
Ocean sits. Silent. And in this thick silence between us, once again being hit with how tenuous our existence with talents is, my body starts ramping up in the kind of tension that means I’m on a hunt.
“So. The shadows want to pull us in?” he asks.
“Yes. They almost succeeded once. They’d convinced a small group that separated, much like Landon, Micah, Dean and Addison have. Though, I guess we can’t call it “separated” when they were never a part of us. Anyway—the last time, everyone with talents almost lost because the shadows tricked enough people to get free. The Middle Men got to them just in time, and that’s when the Seekers became the “police” of The Middle Men. We only do what we have to do. We can’t know what the implications of that bitter, angry groups of souls who have been trapped in that shadow world are capable of if they’re able to get powers they were never intended to have. That old woman was smart enough to give all of hers up and to disperse them so we’d never have to worry about this happening.”
“And since Landon’s headed that way, you’re worried he’s going to try to give the shadows their power back? Why would he attempt to do something so awful?”
“Did you see him jump through the shadow on their boat and appear out of nowhere?” The thought of one of us crossing over and coming back shakes me to the core. They’re definitely going to try and convince Landon to help them, and we can’t let it happen.
“Yeah… But it didn’t seem real. I keep thinking my brain was playing tricks on me. That he was just standing behind the mast.” Ocean’s voice shakes a little, and part of me is glad that I’ve instilled some fear in him.
“No. He found a way to slip into their world, which means they’re one step closer to getting exactly what they want.” I lean closer to him, hoping he’s beginning to understand the gravity of the situation. “They almost killed me once, Ocean. The shadows did. I won’t let Landon give them a way to finish the job.”
We sit in near silence for a moment, the only sound is a far-off engine and the water lapping against the sides of the boat.
“Why doesn’t your dad gather everyone up and launch some kind of full-scale entrapment?” Ocean asks.
I lean back, and what I already sort of knew comes crashing down on me because I never asked, because I’ve learned not to. “My dad’s Insight is stronger than anyone’s, and something in him knows that plan won’t work.”
“And we will?” he asks. And for the first time I see some of the excitement that I feel when I’m tracking someone new. Or get a new job. A new task.
I shrug. We’re probably just the best odds.
“Can’t we ask him?”
“If we know it works, would we try as hard? Would the outcome be the same?” Besides. I’m used to my father’s totally cryptic answers that frustrate me more often than not. He has a different perspective on how time works since most of what he sees is in the future.”
He shakes his head. “And if we knew, just our knowledge would change the course of events.”
“Exactly.” I nod. “So you sort of get it.” And for the first time, I’m not upset about him being my partner.
He lets his feet flop to the floor as he scratches his head, further messing his blond and making him look even more like a movie star than he did before. “On one side this is so cool it’s sort of unbelievable, but on the other side, it’s so real that—”
“What we’re working on here is life-changing, and not just for us. Possibly for a lot of people. Definitely everyone with talents, and maybe more. We have to stop them.” I feel this desperate need for him to believe me and really, actually help me, instead of continuing to do this for fun. Because I bet that of the three “choices” he gave me for being with The Middle Men, his was for fun. I wonder what it is now?
“Agreed. They need to be found.” He stands up and takes my spot behind the wheel of the boat, which I happily relinquish if for no other reason than to watch his excitement. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”
EIGHT
Micah
Sitting in harbors stresses me out. In other words I get restless, grouchy, and hungry. I lean back on the bench seat behind the indoor table. “I don’t even want these cookies and I’m going to eat them all anyway.”
Addison laughs a little and grabs a chocolate chip from the pile. “I know. I didn’t even care that the oven heated up the whole stupid boat.”
Only her rail thin body won’t see the effects of the cookies, where my curves most certainly will—unless my nerves wear them away.
I slump further in my seat as the guys finish tying us to the dock. Dean’s relief at being on shore again is palpable.