Run (The Tesla Effect #2)

by Julie Drew

  Beckett turned to go. “Fine. But I think my eyes are permanently damaged. I can’t unsee that.”

  Bizzy trotted after her. “I could describe it to you again if you want.”

  Joley, the last to leave, allowed himself one last lingering look at the scene, his dark eyes even narrower than usual as he tried, with moderate success, not to laugh. “Finnegan, best boarding school mate, I would not be so crude as to congratulate you over this. Naturally, we are both too evolved for that sort of hooliganism, plus that Women’s Studies class we took was bloody brilliant. So, of course I am in no way high-fiving you in my mind right now. Not at all.”

  Tesla gave him the stink-eye, her arms crossed over her chest, and even though Finn laughed, Joley beat it. And with that, they were alone again.

  By the time they were dressed—Tesla in Sam’s jeans and a much-more appropriate and somewhat baggy long-sleeved T-shirt of Finn’s—both of them were feeling a little awkward. They walked down the stairs together, Finn leading the way and Tesla wondering how she should act now—around all of them. God how embarrassing! Maybe they could just pretend last night (not to mention this morning) had never even happened? But then Finn stopped on the last stair, with her one riser above, so they were eye-to-eye. She swallowed once, wondering if he was waiting for her to speak, and Finn reached up and tucked her hair once more behind her ear. Tesla wasn’t sure when it had happened, but this gesture had somehow become theirs—private, tender, reassuring.

  “Remember, we’re in this together, Danger Girl,” he said, and kissed her, quickly and oh so softly, on the lips.

  When they walked into the parlor, every one of their friends turned and stared—Joley, leaning against the wall, looking somewhat smug. Becket, slouched in a chair, rolled her eyes and then inspected her perfect manicure while Bizzy sat on the edge of one of the sofas staring and grinning, and Keisha, with Malcolm in tow, hovered near the front door. They clearly hadn’t been here long.

  Keisha walked immediately to Finn, her expression unusually serious. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly, her hand reaching out to tentatively touch Finn’s forearm.

  “Yeah, Keish, I’m fine. Nothing to worry about,” he said, and after a moment’s pause in which she stared hard at his face, assessing what she saw there, Keisha visibly relaxed, and turned to Tesla.

  “Hey, T. What are you doing—what’s going on?” she asked, her tone changing from light greeting to suspicious interrogation in a split second.

  “What do you mean? Nothing!” Tesla said quickly, but she had already started to blush, and her hand moved up automatically to touch the heat in her cheeks.

  Keisha’s eyes narrowed and swiftly moved to Finn, then back to Tesla.

  Bizzy giggled somewhere behind her and Keisha’s face cleared, her eyes widening with sudden understanding. “You hooked up with my cousin,” she said, and it was clearly an accusation.

  “I did not!” Tesla retorted, but when Beckett snorted loudly she quickly amended her denial. “Well, not exactly.”

  “More importantly, though, what did you do to your hair?” Keisha demanded, hands on hips, and actually sounding angry now.

  “Exactly what I’d like to know,” Beckett said from her chair. “That improbable color was your best feature.”

  “I like it,” Bizzy quipped. “She looks mysterious.”

  “It’s temporary,” Tesla said, happy to have the subject changed. “It’ll shampoo out.”

  “Good,” Malcolm chimed in. “I don’t like it.”

  “You’re just agreeing with Beckett,” Bizzy said, disgusted.

  “Am not!”

  Finn turned and looked at Tesla, and she shook her head. Unbelievable.

  “Hello!” Finn said, trying to get their attention. All eyes turned to him.

  “Can we please fill Tesla in, let her tell us what’s been going on back in the past, and figure out our next move? She doesn’t want anyone else to know she’s back just yet. Everybody got that?”

  “What about Sam?” Beckett asked.

  “What about him?” Finn countered.

  “He texted me a while ago. He’s coming over.”

  “He already knows she’s here,” Finn said, “so he’s in the loop.” Well, not entirely, he corrected himself silently, wondering if Sam, like Keisha, would have a sense that things had changed between Finn and Tesla—and if he did, how he would react.

  Twenty minutes later, Sam had arrived and they had all crammed into Beckett’s room for a meeting, afraid that if they stayed downstairs Jane Doane might walk in and see Tesla. She was currently out, but she didn’t exactly keep banker’s hours, and no one ever knew when she would be home, or how long she might stay.

  Beckett was not happy to have her room commandeered, but Finn had insisted, arguing that she had the biggest bedroom, with the only en-suite bath, which never had been fair, and she could damn well share it. When she tried to argue for a right to privacy, Finn merely looked at her—and not in an especially friendly way—and she acquiesced quietly, shocking Tesla by glancing apologetically at her.

  Beckett’s room was big enough to hold the requisite bed, dresser, and desk, but it also had a lovely upholstered window seat with a small couch facing it, and a narrow little coffee table in between.

  “Nice digs,” said Keisha, feeling generous since Beckett had agreed with her about Tesla’s ill-advised hair color situation.

  “Yeah, don’t touch anything,” Beckett replied.

  Beckett and Bizzy sat on the foot of the bed, while Malcolm and Keisha went immediately to the window seat, followed by Tesla who darted after them and sat in the middle. Sam and Finn took opposite ends of the sofa—sitting as far away from each other as possible—and Joley took up his usual stance, leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “So,” Sam said. “What are we doing?”

  “Just catching up, I believe,” said Joley. “And we’ll see from there.”

  “I’ll start,” said Finn with a quick glance at Bizzy, who nodded at him. Ostensibly, he was talking to everyone, but he looked only at Tesla as he told the group what he’d found out about the night of the accident, based on the police report, coroner’s report, and published news articles on the event. He was thorough, factual—but left out, as he and Bizzy had agreed, the strange fact that the very young Tesla Abbott had been at the scene when her mother had died in a fiery automobile crash eight years ago. It was not, he and Bizzy had agreed, their job to inform others about something so personal and potentially traumatic especially since Tesla appeared not to remember the incident at all. Finn planned to tell her, privately, when and if the right time presented itself.

  Now was not that time.

  “I can confirm what Finn has learned; there was too much damage to the remains to determine cause of death. It was either the impact or the fire that killed Dr. Petrova,” said Sam, looking at Tesla with sympathetic eyes. “The one thing I can add is that the coroner determined that the impact occurred when she was still alive, but the question of whether the body was immolated—that is, burned—before or after death is unclear. It might have been, if there had been an autopsy, but Dr. Abbott wouldn’t allow it.”

  Tesla sat upright, wedged tightly between Keisha and Malcolm on the window seat, her hands clasped together in her lap. She felt uncomfortable, but it seemed due to the fact that she felt this was supposed to be upsetting, rather than that it actually was. Perhaps, she reasoned, because her mother’s death, and having to imagine the violence of it, was nothing new. “I’m not surprised,” she said, eyes on the hands she was twisting in her lap. “He can barely talk about it, even now. I doubt he could have handled that, and what would it have changed, anyway?”

  “That does make sense. But there is one other item we need to put on the table,” Finn said, his eyes still locked on Tesla. He felt her discomfort, but was reassured that she didn’t seem to be wracked by grief. He noted, fleetingly, that having some understanding
of the effects of the entanglement he shared with Tesla made them much easier to bear—he was aware that the new, unexplained and often conflicted feelings that coursed through him were not his own, but rather the product of some enhanced empathy with her. It was amazing how interesting—and, frankly, kind of cool it all was—once it wasn’t freaking him out by making him feel like a crazy person.

  He sensed her anxious anticipation and went on with the piece of information he and Bizzy had agreed they could share, because it was potentially so important to the task they had agreed on: figuring out how Greg Abbott and Jane Doane were mixed up in what happened on that dark road the night Tasya Petrova died.

  “This could mean anything or nothing,” he said as a preamble. “It’s important that we not jump to conclusions. The initial call to 911 about the accident came from Jane Doane, who at that time was a brand new agent, and happened upon the scene.”

  Several sounds were made at once: Bizzy, who already knew this, exhaled through her nose audibly at the exact moment that Beckett, her eyes narrowed suspiciously, said, “What?”

  Joley whistled once, softly, and then—silence, as all eyes turned to Tesla.

  “There’s more,” Finn said quickly, before she had a chance to respond. “One more piece that everyone should know. Tesla, your dad was at the scene, too, when the ambulance and the police arrived.”

  Tesla blinked once, before comprehension dawned. “My dad was there?” she asked, finally.

  Finn nodded. “He was out walking—the accident happened on Pinewood Lane, very close to your old house.”

  Tesla’s face went white—whiter—and Finn felt the grief he’d been so relieved only a moment ago to find absent in her. Thinking of her father being there, seeing the accident, watching the car burn, unable to save his wife—it was too much.

  “No wonder he said no to an autopsy,” she whispered. “How much could one person be expected to take?”

  Finally, Keisha spoke, but only after she’d untangled Tesla’s hands and taken one of them in her own. “T, I’ve seen Max, and your dad, too. Just a quick visit to say hi, see how they were holding up since you jumped,” she added quickly, noting out of the corner of her eye that Beckett had stirred restlessly. “I haven’t seen anything suspicious, or anything to make you worry about either of them.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen them both in town—yesterday at the coffee shop. Which makes sense, right?” Malcolm asked. “I mean, they’re practically family, they’re involved pretty heavily in security over his work—and of course Tesla used the time machine again, they both have to be pretty freaked out about that.”

  Tesla was nodding. “Yeah, of course they’d be talking. That doesn’t seem like anything to me. But you guys, I don’t want them to know I’m back yet.”

  Sam looked up. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Doesn’t your dad know you’re back already?”

  Finn said nothing, and his eyes never left Tesla’s face. She did not blush, or look away from Sam, maybe figuring that since everyone else in the room already knew, she might just as well get it over with and tell Sam herself.

  “No, Sam, he doesn’t know. I stayed here last night.”

  Sam looked at her then, really looked at her, and noted that she still had the jeans on that she’d borrowed from him yesterday—yesterday, eight years ago—but the T-shirt and flannel button-down were gone, replaced by a too-large long-sleeved shirt. A man’s shirt that was not his.

  “I see,” he said, and his voice made it clear that he did.

  Finn would not look at him, not in triumph, certainly not in sympathy—there was no point in being cruel.

  “I don’t want him to know I’m here because I’m going to jump back again.”

  “I could go to your house and get some things for you before tonight,” Keisha offered helpfully. “You might want some clothes that fit. Or, you know, something that doesn’t scream, ‘walk of shame.’”

  “She doesn’t have time for that,” said Sam quietly, his eyes still on Tesla’s face.

  “What do you mean?” asked Finn, sharper than he had intended.

  “She’s not waiting until tonight,” said Sam, and it was such a simple statement of fact that no one doubted it.

  “How do you know?” Finn asked.

  “Because he doesn’t remember it,” said Tesla, the apology in her voice and her eyes for the decision she had made to go back, to go to the scene of her mother’s accident, to witness what actually happened, and to do it all without the younger Sam’s knowledge or assistance.

  CHAPTER 21

  When Tesla came out of the bathroom where she’d showered the night before, a towel still wrapped around her wet hair and another around her body, Beckett was in the hallway waiting for her.

  “Look, you might as well borrow some of my stuff,” the blonde said matter-of-factly. “If you keep wearing their clothes, one of them will eventually kill the other one. Plus, I can’t bear to look at you anymore in these dumpy get-ups.”

  “Beckett, wearing their clothes—it’s not really like that,” Tesla protested, but dutifully followed the older girl to the room everyone had vacated after their meeting.

  “I’m sure it’s not,” Beckett’s smug reply floated back to her.

  Beckett stood aside to let Tesla precede her into the room, where Keisha sat on the window seat looking through a magazine. Vaguely aware that Beckett had shut the door behind her, Tesla stood stock still in surprise.

  “Keisha? I didn’t expect you to be here,” she said, pretending to search the thick, cream-colored carpet. “Has any blood been spilled yet?”

  “Hilarious,” said Keisha, barely looking up from her magazine, but finally tossing it onto the seat beside her. “Seriously, Beckett, Guns & Ammo and Soldier of Fortune? No Cosmo or Wired? And please, The Atlantic should be read by everyone. I must say, I’m disappointed.”

  “I’m sure it won’t be the last time,” Beckett replied cheerfully from inside her closet.

  Tesla looked at Keisha, surprised and curious. Keisha shrugged. “What can I say? I guess everyone comes to love me eventually.”

  “I think ‘tolerate’ is the word you’re looking for,” said Beckett as she emerged from her closet.

  Tesla put her hand over her heart, feigning weakness. “Oh, thank God, Beckett, I thought we might have to call the paramedics. You were dangerously low on your Mean-Girl vibe there for a minute.”

  Keisha laughed, and Beckett nodded once with a brief smile, giving Tesla credit for that one.

  “Okay, this isn’t exactly a slumber party,” Beckett said, getting back to business. You said you were leaving soon, and you’re going to be traipsing around in the woods tonight, right? Your mom…the accident happens late tonight, and you still intend to be there?”

  When Tesla nodded, Beckett continued. “Okay. This isn’t about fashion, it’s about practicality, so I don’t want to hear any of your stupid complaints about the clothes more attractive people think you should wear.”

  “I’ve been saying that for years,” said Keisha.

  “Hey, I’m right here,” Tesla said. “Is all of the bonding between you two going to be based on insulting me? Because I have feelings.”

  “Yes, it is. And yes, you do, just no sense of style,” Keisha pointed out, not unkindly.

  “Anyway,” Beckett interrupted. “Baggy clothes will catch on branches and whatever other crap is out there in nature. No flappy fabric, no wide-leg pants, no clunky boots. You want sleek, sturdy fabric that hugs your body and won’t catch or tear. You want dark colors—you actually can do without a hat since you colored that neon hair of yours. Basically, you want performance clothing for outdoor athletic activity. You have to be able to move.”

  “What are you, an ad for Patagonia?” Keisha muttered.

  Beckett ignored her. “I know what I’m talking about here. I know how to travel, and I know how to move quickly, and I know how to choose clothes that don’t hinder me in, well, whatever I
might have to do.”

  Keisha snorted. “Please. You make it sound like you’re a world-class assassin.”

  Beckett merely looked back at her, a placid smile on her face, and said nothing.

  Tesla started to laugh, then changed her mind and cleared her throat instead.

  “So, what did you have in mind, exactly?”

  “We’re close to the same size,” Beckett said briskly. “You’re maybe an inch taller and your hips are a little narrower.”

  “I’m actually two-point-seven-five inches taller than you,” Tesla corrected her. “And my hips are—”

  “Oh my god, Tesla, I don’t care. How can you bear your own Agent Smith-self?”

  Tesla frowned, thoroughly puzzled.

  “Agent Smith? Neo?” Beckett prodded. “The one time I find a use for Joley’s font of useless sci-fi factoids… Whatever. What size shoe do you wear?”

  “Um, seven and a half,” Tesla mumbled, feeling like she was being swept along, outfitted for some stealth mission that she hadn’t yet thought through.

  “We’re in luck, then,” said Beckett, ducking back into her closet.

  Keisha and Tesla heard shoes hitting the interior wall of the closet, and then Beckett emerged, a triumphant grin stretching her mouth wide and her arms full of clothes, with a pair of all-terrain, lightweight hiking shoes balanced on top.

  Beckett walked over to the bed and dumped the pile unceremoniously on the bed. “I’ve got everything you need,” she said with absolute confidence. “Heavy spandex running pants—it’s going to be cold out there—a long-sleeved performance running shirt that wicks and zips up the front to a mock turtleneck for warmth and airflow. A microfleece vest over that, socks and shoes.”

  “And my messenger bag,” Tesla added, feeling the need to have something of her own on the trip.

  “Suit yourself,” Beckett said, rolling her eyes. “But you might want to consider leaving it behind when you go sneaking around through the woods, at least—that eyesore is going to be worse than bell bottoms for getting caught on stuff.”