by Sarah Wynde
“All right, I’m going to take that as a no.”
Rose yelped in protest. She hadn’t even decided yet, much less had time to make the temperature drop. But it was too late, as Colin entered the house without taking his gun out. A few steps into the sunroom, he stopped, unhooking a flashlight from his duty belt. Turning it on, he let the light flicker across the empty space.
“Kenzi?” he called out. “It’s Sheriff Rafferty. Where are you, honey?” He stopped moving and listened.
“She’s upstairs in the movie theater room,” Rose said quickly. “Hurry. The stairs are this way.” She headed toward the stairs by the garage, but Colin didn’t follow. He stayed by the light from the wide windows overlooking the lake, heading into the dining room, a living room, and back into the kitchen. He moved with steady assurance, not lingering, but sticking close to the walls and pausing at every doorway.
Rose wanted to scream with frustration. “You don’t have time for this,” she wailed, returning to where he stood.
“Kenzi?” He tried again. “It’s the sheriff.”
“She’s upstairs, darn it.”
But a muffled thump had Colin swiveling, one hand dropping, as if by reflex, to his gun. Rose turned, too. Could Kenzi have come downstairs? She hurried forward, passing straight through the wall of the kitchen and into a small shelved space behind it. The pantry, of course.
“Shut up,” hissed a twin, shoving his brother.
“The sheriff. That’s like police, isn’t it?” The second twin ignored the push, leaning up against the door and pressing his ear to it.
“She said wait for the police. Nothing ‘bout a sheriff,” whispered the first twin.
“We heard the sirens.”
“Until they come find us. That’s what she said. You wanna get shot? I bet it hurts.”
“He’s out there, though, ain’t he? That’s finding us.”
“We don’t know who he is. Maybe he’s a bad guy. We gotta wait.”
Rose popped back through the door. The sheriff leaned against the wall next to it, his head tipped as if he were listening to the conversation. “Boys.” Colin knocked on the door. “I’m here to help you. Come on out.”
A squeak came from behind the door, followed by a smack and a protesting, “Ow.”
“Dumbass,” one of them grunted.
“Don’t hit your brother,” Colin said, voice firm. “And open the door. Is Kenzi there with you?”
The door inched open. Colin tilted his flashlight at the crack as a brown eye peeked out. “Are you the police?”
“Yes,” Colin answered, quickly aiming his flashlight back at the ground. “And I’m in a hurry. I need to find Kenzi. The little girl, the blonde one. Is she with you?”
The door opened all the way. Both boys stood in the darkness. Colin let the light play over them, steering clear of their faces.
“She was upstairs before,” one of them volunteered. “But she’s probably hiding now. She’s a good hider.”
“We heard a sound. Really loud. Like a crack. Was that a gun going off?” asked the other.
Colin ignored the question. “Where upstairs?”
“All the way up, the big room,” said the helpful twin.
Noise drew their attention, all heads turning toward the left. A metallic clang, followed by another, a third, and then the sound of breaking wood.
“That’s the front door. They’re getting it open. Come on,” Colin ordered. He turned and hurried toward the foyer. The boys exchanged glances.
“Don’t be stupid,” Rose said. “Go with him.”
One twin hugged himself, crossing his arms over his chest and looking worried, but the other twin shrugged and charged after Colin. After a moment’s hesitation, the second followed more slowly.
“Stay here,” Colin ordered when the boys reached the foyer. He called out, loudly enough to be heard through the wood, “You’ve got two boys here. Take good care of them.”
Before the deputies had finished getting the door open, he’d moved on, heading farther into the house. “Kenzi!” Colin shouted. “Where are you?”
Rose was too impatient to wait for him. She hurried up the main stairs to the second floor and around the corner into the movie room. Unlike the rest of the house, this room was furnished. Three rows of cushy chairs, four seats each, sloped down and faced a wall where Rose was sure a movie screen had once stood. Now Travis and Jamie stood there, Kenzi between them, arguing.
“Man, they’ll lock you up. You won’t even get to juvie. They’ll put ya in a padded cell and drug ya until you’re like some zombie kid.” Jamie blocked Travis’s path up the low steps.
“I got no choice.” Travis looked ready to drag Kenzi out of the room, but she was tugging, resisting his pull.
“They’ll lock her up, too,” Jamie protested. “Experiment on her like a lab rat.”
“You watch too many movies,” Travis snapped.
Jamie waved his arm at the wall. “We heard the sirens. There’s police out there, ambulances, everything. The doc’s gonna be okay. But if you tell them about Mac, you won’t be.”
“You don’t get it.”
“I do, man, I do,” Jamie tried to reassure Travis. “You didn’t mean to do it.”
As the boys talked, Rose pushed back through the door to the outside of the room. Maybe if she created a cold patch right by the door, Colin would notice. And it wouldn’t be too hard to find some strong negative emotions to build up her temper. In their own way, the children and Colin were all hoping to keep one another safe. But while their fears held them back, Natalya was dying.
“Kenzi?” Colin called from the bottom of the stairs.
Rose listened, hoping he’d be able to hear the boys arguing. But the theater room must have been sound-proofed, because all she could hear was something that sounded like a garbage disposal, a rhythmic beat, beat, beat.
“Aw, hell,” Colin muttered. He leaped up the stairs, taking them two, then three, at a time.
The garbage disposal was a helicopter, Rose realized. The blades weren’t grinding food, but churning air. That meant they were almost out of time. If Kenzi was to have any chance to help Natalya, it had to be soon, before the helicopter evacuated her to the distant hospital.
“Kenzi!” Colin yelled again. “Where are you?”
“Over here,” Rose called from the door, as he ran past the second floor and up to the third. “Over here,” she tried again, with a sigh for the futility of her efforts.
Maybe she should give up and go outside? She could welcome Natalya to the afterlife, help her get used to the idea of being a ghost. But the door behind her opened. Travis stuck his head out, looked from side to side, and listened.
“Come on.” He gestured behind him. “We gotta take the back stairs, get out that way. Can’t let them catch us.”
Kenzi followed him out the door, Jamie trailing after her and they headed down the hallway, away from the nearby stairs.
“This is a bad idea, Trav.” Jamie was still arguing, his voice low. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Kenzi’s lips quivered as she looked back at Jamie. Rose hurried to catch up to her, resting her arm on Kenzi’s shoulder and letting warm thoughts of love and encouragement send powerful energy into the little girl. Kenzi felt it, because her face cleared and her shoulders relaxed.
Colin stepped out of the darkness in front of them. “No more running, guys.”
The boys froze. Kenzi started to move forward, but Travis stopped her, scooping her up into his arms.
“You don’t understand,” he said, his voice breaking with stress. “I gotta get out there. I gotta get to the lady doctor.”
“It won’t work,” Jamie muttered from behind him. “They got ambulances. They’ll fix her.”
“She’s hurt bad,” Travis was keeping his voice steady. “You saw that. Mac can… Mac can help her if you’ll let us.”
“He ain’t gonna believe you,” Jamie said, like some
Greek chorus of disapproval. “Nobody does.”
“She did,” Travis replied. “The lady doctor did. Right away she did. She didn’t even ask any questions.” He clasped Mac tighter and she put an anxious hand on his cheek, looking into his eyes.
Colin strode forward, relief lightening his expression. “I do, too,” he said simply. He held out his arms. “Give her to me. Let me get her to Nat.”
Travis pulled back, his head turning in disbelief, as Jamie stepped forward, eyes wide.
“Yay!” Rose cheered, jumping up and down. “But hurry,” she added, stopping abruptly. “You’re running out of time.”
“She already saved my life,” Colin added. “I know what she can do.”
“This—this is the weirdest place ever.” Travis shook his head as Kenzi leaned out of his arms, eagerly turning to Colin. “You’re the police. They never believe anything.”
Colin ignored him. Taking Kenzi, he said, “Hang on tight,” to her and “Meet us downstairs,” to the boys and rushed away.
“Yay, yay, yay!” Rose cheered again, before chasing after him.
They burst out of the house into a scene more orderly than it looked. A crowd of people gathered down the driveway—volunteers and rescue workers, waiting for news. A technician was putting bright yellow police tape up around a wide area of the house and car, while Mitchell and Michael stood on the side porch, talking brightly to two listening deputies. The helicopter had settled down on what should have been a lawn, if the developer had finished landscaping. Paramedics and EMTs were clustered around it, loading stretchers into the open doors.
Colin raced straight for the helicopter, Kenzi bouncing in his arms. The paramedics were talking, hushed voices, words and numbers with no meaning for Rose. Colin ignored them, dropping Kenzi at the edge of the door.
“Go on in, honey,” he said to her. She crawled forward.
“No,” one paramedic protested, as he hooked an IV bag onto the wall. “What are you doing? We can’t take her.”
The other ignored all of them. “Blood pressure’s dropping,” she reported, voice tense. “We need to get moving.” She turned to the pilot who was in his seat already, head tilted up, watching them, and nodded.
Rose clambered aboard, eagerly following Kenzi as the little girl slipped forward to take Natalya’s hand. She tuned out the noise as the helicopter revved up and the paramedic argued with Colin and the pilot radioed in, focusing all her attention on pouring energy into Kenzi.
Natalya’s eyelids flickered slightly in her pale face. She was still in there, Rose realized, still fighting, still holding on. “Heal, heal, heal,” Rose chanted. “Stay here, be strong, you can do it.” She didn’t think the words helped, but they couldn’t hurt. The helicopter shifted, starting to lift, but Rose kept all her attention on Natalya’s face. Was a little pink appearing in her cheeks? Was the bleeding stopping?
Her focus was so intense that when Natalya started to move, her body drifting slowly up and up and up, Rose blinked in confusion. As the helicopter passed straight through Rose, leaving her to float gently back to the ground, she realized she’d forgotten to concentrate on the vehicle’s movement.
And they’d left without her.
Chapter Twenty-One
A sun lodged in her chest, burning her from the inside out.
Natalya whimpered.
“Hang on.” A worried male voice. She ought to recognize it. But, oh, she hurt. Connecting the sound to a face was much too challenging.
A tingling warmth started in her arm and ran up through her body and down, down, down. In its wake, the sun shrank and faded.
She floated.
She faded.
Was she having a conversation?
She thought she might be talking. But the words didn’t make sense. Flowers? Of course she liked roses. Who didn’t?
She slept again.
Natalya opened her eyes.
She licked her lips. They felt dry and cracked and her mouth tasted disgusting, as if she’d been eating blue cheese before falling asleep. And her chest—oh, it hurt, an ache as deep as an ocean running through the core of her.
She turned her head. Her father sat in a chair next to her, his head tilted back, his eyes closed.
“Dad,” she whispered.
His eyes popped open. He leaned forward, fumbling for her hand. “Nat. You’re back.”
“Didn’t go anywhere.” She blinked, trying to clear her eyes. He looked older, the lines around his mouth and forehead deeper than she remembered.
“No. No, you didn’t,” he agreed. He pressed his lips together. The glimmer in his eyes might have been tears. He nodded toward an IV. “Do you need another dose of painkiller? There’s a button I can push.”
Natalya’s free hand fluttered toward her chest. “Not… not yet.” She closed her eyes and breathed. Leaves on water. It hurt, but she could bear it. “What happened?”
“What do you remember?”
She thought. Her brain felt sluggish, slow, as if her thoughts were underwater.
He didn’t wait for her to respond. He started to tell her about her condition, the blood loss, the surgery to remove the bullet, the doctor’s surprise at the way her heart had closed around it… but she wasn’t listening.
Her gift was back.
And it felt like a gift. She remembered everything her father was telling her and so much more besides.
“Dad,” she interrupted him.
“Painkiller?” He reached for the pump.
“No.” Her head rolled weakly from one side of her pillow to another.
“Water? A wet washcloth? Do you need me to call the nurse?” Max stood, clearly torn between fear she needed medical attention and a desire to fuss over her.
Natalya’s lips curved up. “Nothing,” she said, before correcting herself. “No, water. Water would be good.”
He fussed. The nurse was summoned. Water procured. Natalya helped to a sitting position. Her sheets smoothed. Her teeth brushed, with help from the nurse and a cup to spit in. The room temperature adjusted. The television turned on and off again.
Finally, Natalya stopped him. “I need you to do me a favor.”
“Anything, of course. What is it?” Max dropped back into the chair next to her bed.
“My foresight is back.”
“Wonderful,” Max said with relief. “You’re not going to get shot again, are you? Because if so, I’m building you a tower, like Rapunzel, no way in, no way out. I’ll send your food up by dumbwaiter.”
Natalya’s chuckle turned into a groan as the pain shot through her chest like jagged darts.
“Sorry, sorry,” Max apologized, reaching for the morphine pump again.
“Don’t do that.” She waved him away from it, leaning back against her pillows and trying to catch her breath.
“You sure?”
“Positive. Got too much to do.” She closed her eyes. The pain was ebbing again, easing off its tight grip on her.
“Honey, you’re in the hospital. You’ve been shot, had major surgery, and nearly died. You’re not doing anything today.” Max’s tone was firm, no-nonsense, her father laying down the law.
Natalya restrained her chuckle, but her lips curled into a smile, before she opened her eyes. “So this is what you get to do then.” She took a moment to organize the thoughts, and then started talking, loving the way her words triggered her foresight, memory after memory of the future piling up in her mind.
Partway through her list, Max pulled out his phone and started taking notes.
“All right,” he said when she was done, looking down at his phone dubiously. “I think I have it all.”
“You can let the last couple wait until I get home,” Natalya offered. “It won’t be too long.”
“The doctor said weeks.” Max raised his eyebrows.
“The doctor was wrong,” Natalya answered, taking a shallow breath. God, it hurt. She was glad she knew how quickly it would stop. “Will be wrong,”
she corrected herself.
A knock on the door forestalled Max’s next question. He stood as Colin poked his head around the door. The rush of warmth and euphoria that hit Natalya was so strong she glanced at Max to make sure he hadn’t pushed the pain relief button. His hands were nowhere near it.
“Okay if we come in?” Colin asked.
Natalya nodded and the door opened to reveal Kenzi, her small hand held tight in Colin’s. Her other hand held the doll Grace had given her, tucked close against her side. She was wearing an outfit Natalya had never seen before, purple leggings with a blue and purple cotton dress, and her hair was neatly brushed and braided in two short braids. Her face looked solemn and wide-eyed.
“I’ll go get started on my chores, then,” Max said. As he left, he clapped Colin cheerfully on the arm and touched Kenzi’s head with gentle affection, but he didn’t say anything further.
“Hope you don’t mind,” Colin said, unsmiling, his eyes intent. “Kenzi wanted to see you.”
“Not at all.” Natalya turned her palm up, holding her hand out to the little girl. She came forward, tugging Colin along with her. “How are you, Kenzi? I mean Mac.”
“I like Kenzi,” the little girl said, voice soft. She set her doll down on the bed next to Natalya’s hip, propping her up carefully, not looking at Natalya. “I want to be Kenzi.”
“Yes,” Natalya said in quiet agreement, feeling a warm contentment entirely at odds with the pain and misery messages her body was sending her. She already knew that, of course, but Kenzi deserved the chance to say it.
“Kenzi’s talking now,” Colin pointed out needlessly.
Natalya smiled at him. She knew enough about the future that she would have liked to laugh, but it would hurt far too much.
“My mama said it was okay,” Kenzi replied. Natalya saw Colin flinch, his hand tightening on Kenzi’s. The little girl looked up at him. “She did,” she insisted.
“I know.” Colin forced a smile. “It’s all right.”
“The nurse says I’m wrong.” Kenzi’s lower lip slid out. “My mama is gone now. The nurse says I didn’t talk to her, but I did. She said I could talk now and not to hide any more and she told me good-bye. And she said she was sorry and she loved me and she’d see me again soon, but not too soon.” Kenzi paused for a response, but when it wasn’t forthcoming, she added insistently, “She said. She did.”