Wild Sky

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “This is bullshit,” I said and pulled my own cell phone out of my pocket, even as I continued to watch the play-by-play on Cal’s. Quickly, I dialed Milo’s number.

  And then?

  It had been an inside joke between Milo and me. Whenever my name came up on Cal’s phone, Sir Mix-A-Lot’s decades-old single “Baby Got Back” played. It was apparently my official ringtone, and every time I heard it, it cracked me up. So Milo had downloaded it onto his burner phones, so when I called him, it played, too. The first time it happened, I’d laughed so hard I’d almost peed my pants.

  Right now though, I wasn’t laughing.

  Because Milo’s phone was turned to top volume. He must’ve had it set like that so he could hear if I called him while he was on Dana’s motorcycle. And right now that ridiculous ringtone was playing, the bass bumping loudly, even through Milo’s cheap cell-phone speakers.

  Tell her to SHAKE that (shake that) SHAKE that (shake that) SHAKE that healthy butt!

  Rochelle had been kneeling over Ashley’s body, and when the music started to play, her head whipped up fast, her pupils filling her entire eyes.

  Dana looked at me and gasped. “Hang up!”

  “What’s happening?” Garrett finally turned onto Rochelle’s street, his eyes on the rearview to see if the police car was following.

  “Dude, that’s my jam,” Calvin said to no one in particular from the backseat.

  “Hang up!” Dana barked at me again.

  Shocked, I pressed the End button and then dropped my phone like it was a spider. “Oh my Lord!”

  Meanwhile, Milo had been fumbling with his phone, trying to turn the ringer off. But the moment he’d attempted it, the volume had only increased.

  And, anyway, it was too late now.

  Rochelle was bounding toward the hallway—toward the closet—toward Jilly and Milo. She was out of sight for a moment as she exited the range of the living-room flower-cam.

  Meanwhile in the car, Garrett finally hit the gas and we surged forward, but we were still at least a half a mile away.

  Over the cameras, I could hear Rochelle’s voice as she shrieked. “What are you doing? How dare you!”

  I should say, I could hear her voices. She screamed the words in three very different octaves. One was high-pitched, like a baby crying. The second was midrange, and the third was a low roar—like a lion. It was terrifying.

  I saw Milo’s arms, still in the view of the flower-cam as he reached for Jilly.

  But before he could pick her up, Rochelle got to Milo.

  He tried reasoning. Tried to sound as if he belonged there, quickly turning the flower-cam to face her as she glowered at him with some very crazy eyes.

  “I’m here to help Jilly,” he said evenly. Calmly. “Rochelle, if she dies, you’ll be out of Destiny.”

  But reasoning didn’t work with a jokering addict, because then, God, Milo was in the air, flying across the room like he was being carried by a hurricane-strength wind, and I realized that Rochelle was using her TK on him—as effortlessly as if she were tossing away a rubber ball.

  Milo hit the opposite wall with a sickening thunk before he landed in a heap on the floor.

  “Oh my God,” Dana breathed.

  “Is he okay?” I shrieked, although I knew that no one in this car could answer that question for me.

  I tried to see, through the image on the screen, if Milo’s chest was rising and falling. But the camera was too far away and he didn’t move and he didn’t move and he didn’t move…

  “Get up, Milo,” I whispered. “Please. Get up.”

  Garrett’s jaw was clenched as he continued to race toward Rochelle’s house.

  My heart pounded. This felt exactly the same as the night Dana had pretended that Milo had been taken. Except, this wasn’t a drill. This was really happening. And this time I knew that Milo was hurt—that he was in danger. I knew it, because I could still see him, slumped on a jokering Destiny addict’s floor.

  Get up, Milo. I need you to get up. I need you to be okay.

  I need you.

  “That bitch,” Dana snarled.

  In the closet, Rochelle had turned her attention back to Jilly. She was jamming that needle back into the girl’s vein.

  “Almost there,” Garrett said softly, determined. “We’re almost there.”

  I breathed. Still thoughts. Still thoughts.

  But the mantra did nothing to calm me.

  All I could think about was getting to Milo. And this time, I couldn’t screw things up. This time I would rescue him. I would save Jilly too. I would get them both to safety. I would.

  If I got there in time.

  Hold on, Milo. Just hold on.

  I reached out to him, despite the distance, and I hoped that some part of his unconscious mind could hear me before it was too late.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Dana kicked in the front door, using her TK along with her steel-toe-booted foot, and the sheer force tore the thing off its hinges. It hit the floor with a crash.

  “So I guess the plan isn’t to use stealth,” Calvin said as we followed Dana inside.

  “The plan is we kill the bitch,” Dana said, “and then we get Milo and Jilly out of here.”

  “Holy shit!” Cal’s foot must’ve hit a puddle and he slipped, nearly going down onto the tile floor. “Holy shit!” As he scrambled to keep his footing, he realized that it was blood that had made the floor slippery—it was everywhere and it was even more awful seeing it in person. The gory splatter sprayed the walls and the furniture as well as drenching the floor. “Holy shit!” he said again. “But they were friends!”

  Ashley’s body was on the floor next to the sofa, her legs sticking out into the room. I looked at her through my eyelashes, and even then I didn’t look too closely. A butcher knife—the murder weapon—was nearby. I didn’t look too closely at that either.

  And yes, she and Rochelle had been friends.

  “This is what jokering addicts do to their friends,” Dana snapped.

  Calvin turned, leaned over, and threw up, and at first I was afraid he was starting to detox again, but then I realized that his was the right response to seeing this carnage. Garrett puked, too, and I probably would’ve done the same, if I wasn’t hell-bent on finding Milo. Please, God, let him be alive!

  I was right behind Dana, who was already leading the way toward the playroom. She caught my arm as I tried to hurry ahead of her. “Me first,” she said. “I’ll distract her, while you get to Miles.”

  I didn’t have time to do more than nod, because there we were. In the playroom. And Rochelle, who’d heard the door crash open, was waiting for us.

  “Welcome, girls,” she said in that weird three-octave voice. She’d been kneeling beside Milo, but now she stood up. “I smelled you come in. What a lovely surprise! Have you come to help me?”

  After seeing what she’d done to Ashley, I’d expected something different—maybe a screaming and incoherent she-monster flinging kitchen knives at our heads. I would’ve stopped short, but I saw Milo there on the floor behind Rochelle and I lunged for him.

  Dana caught my arm again, holding me back as she returned Rochelle’s faux politeness by asking, “Help you do what?”

  Milo was still not moving, crumpled there, facing away from us. To make things worse, Rochelle had—Lord! She’d bitten him. Her teeth had broken the skin on his arm, and she had some of his blood smudged next to her mouth.

  “What did you do to Milo?” I blurted, even as Rochelle told us, “I’m making the biggest batch of Destiny ever.”

  Dana’s fingers tightened around my arm in warning, but Rochelle didn’t take offense. In fact, she seemed to think my question was worth answering, too.

  “His blood’s not any good,” she said. “But yours is. I can smell it from here.�
��

  It was then that I saw it. Milo’s finger moved! Just his first finger, and just a little. Just enough for me to recognize that he was alive and awake and ready for us to kick Rochelle’s butt.

  The relief that ripped through me nearly knocked me over, and I had to lean on Dana to keep from sinking to the floor.

  Dana nodded to me, very slightly, and I knew that she’d seen Milo’s movement, too, even as she kept this weird conversation going. “I guess you didn’t want to share that giant batch of Destiny with your friend, huh?”

  “With Ashley? No. She annoyed me.” Rochelle’s eyes were pure crazy, and the smile that curved her mouth was hideously evil. Now that I wasn’t quite so frantically focused on Milo, I could smell a thing or two myself—and I caught a nasty whiff of sewage. Despite her recent shower, this joker couldn’t wash off her malevolence. It clung to her and made her reek.

  And it reminded me that even though Milo wasn’t dead, Rochelle could still kill him, easily, without any thought or remorse. She could easily kill Garrett and Calvin, too. They were lurking just outside the playroom door, and I made a motion behind my back that I hoped they’d interpret as a very solid Stay back.

  “What are you going to do with it?” Dana asked Rochelle. “The giant batch of D?” She narrowed her eyes, just a little—and I knew that she was trying to mind-control the woman.

  “I’m going to bathe in it and drink it and become it!” she told us.

  I realized then that she was dressed rather oddly in a blue pair of men’s boxer briefs—maybe something Garrett’s dad had left behind—and a brightly patterned top that she’d pulled on both backward and inside out. The tag was right up by her throat, and the loose neckline draped down her back. She wore mismatched shoes on her feet—one expensive and black and four inches high, the other strappy and bright yellow with a slightly lower heel. If I’d had any doubt at all that she was jokering, her complete disregard for fashion would’ve convinced me that she’d snapped.

  She took an unbalanced step toward us, telling Dana, “And, by the way, I can feel you creeping around in my head, little girl. It’s not working, whatever you’re trying to do. I’m stronger than you—stronger than you’ll ever be!”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” Dana said, adding, “Milo! Go!” as she let loose with the same kind of blast that had opened the front door—the same kind of blast I’d seen her use just a few months ago on that Alabama Destiny farm. She’d sent a sociopathic guard literally flying, saving the day in an incredible show of power and strength.

  I was pretty certain that not only was this conversation over, but that Rochelle was now toast.

  Milo sat up at Dana’s go, and I began to move, too. I knew his focus would be on Jilly—he wouldn’t leave without her. I had no idea how badly injured he was, so I shouted for Calvin and Garrett to come and help us, now.

  Except Rochelle didn’t go sailing back across the playroom the way I’d expected. In fact, she barely moved more than a steadying step, and I skidded to a stop just a few feet away from her, with Cal and Garrett nearly crashing into my back.

  They both retreated, ducking for cover more quickly than I did—probably because I was so stunned that Rochelle had the ability to absorb Dana’s blow. I just stood there stupidly staring at her.

  “Is that really the best you can do?” Rochelle asked Dana as, with a flick of her finger, she used her own power to launch me up and into the air.

  “Skylar!” I heard Milo shout over my own screaming as I fully expected to die. This was it. My life was over. But then I realized that Rochelle had only used her TK to fling me away from her—I was no longer under her power. If I had been, if she’d had abilities like Dana’s, she would have used the force to slam me against the ceiling—crushing my skull and breaking my neck and back. As it was, only my body weight and motion made me crash into one of the overhead fans and then hit the cathedral ceiling with a far less lethal crunch. I realized in those slo-mo nanoseconds while I flew through the air that this was the reason Milo was alive, too. Rochelle’s TK was limited. That was good to know.

  But now I screamed again as I fell back toward the tile floor. That ceiling was more than two stories high, and my impending landing would probably break both my legs—if it didn’t flat-out kill me. I was water, I was water—I tried to find the H2O inside of me and float it above the ground the way I’d done first to the bubble and then to the flowing stream of water at Adventure City. And at first I thought it was working, because I slowed waaaay down. But then I realized that Dana was saving me with her powerful TK. She may not have been able to stop Rochelle, but she was definitely helping me.

  And then, as I was still about seven feet in the air, looking down at Milo and Jilly—I could tell with just one glance that she was nearly bled dry—I realized that I alone had the right kind of G-T power to save the girl. Assuming, of course, that Rochelle didn’t kill me first.

  “Don’t,” I called to Milo, who was again about to yank the IV needle from Jilly’s arm. Blood could flow in as well as out, and even though I didn’t have the exact right medical equipment to give Jilly a greatly needed transfusion, I had the two most important things. Her blood—and my unique ability to control liquids.

  And yes, that ability was definitely temperamental, but I’d already reached out and felt the blood in that collection bag, so I started pushing it back up that tube and into her veins. It required precision and delicacy, which demanded way more effort and concentration than just flinging water around, like I’d done in Adventure City and at the warehouse. I had to do this carefully. Gently. Still thoughts, still thoughts… I could do this. I could save this girl…

  Meanwhile, Dana shouted, “Fry her, Cal!” and Calvin let loose with a blue-tinged blast that surrounded Rochelle with jumping and crackling currents of electricity.

  As my feet finally touched the tile, I immediately dove toward Milo and Jilly, not wanting to get hit with Cal’s erratic newbie superpowers. I was certain that upon Cal’s blast, Rochelle would drop to the floor where she would flail and thrash. Silly me.

  Milo came toward me, grabbing my hands and pulling me closer to the wall where Jilly was huddled.

  “Are you okay?” he asked even as I breathlessly asked him, “Are you okay?”

  Our connection had snapped on, allowing me to know that he was okay—but that Rochelle’s bite had really freaked him out. It had been hard to play dead when she’d done that. No kidding. I flashed him a visual shorthand version of what I was trying to do to help Jilly, and he thought I was brilliant and he loved me madly, but he was also extra not thrilled that I was in danger.

  Ditto on you and the danger, normie, I shot back at him, and he laughed and kissed me—just a quick smack of his lips against mine—before turning back to Rochelle.

  This is bad.

  I turned to see that Rochelle was neither flailing nor on the floor—this was not only bad, it was also getting very, very old.

  She stood there as if absorbing or maybe even feeding off Cal’s electrical current, moaning and groaning as she jolted and jerked. It sounded like she was having the best sex of her life, which was just too disgusting to think about.

  “The power! The power!” she cried in that freak-show triple voice. “I love the power! Give me more! Give me more!”

  Dana was flinging everything she could find at Rochelle—using her TK to pummel the joker with the books from the shelves, the fan blades I’d broken, the easy chairs, and an end table.

  But Rochelle shattered it all into pieces before it could hit her and knock her down—pieces she sent sailing back at Dana, forcing the G-T to bob and weave.

  The remaining ceiling fans were spinning and even smoking, and the roar from Calvin’s power was nearly deafening. I saw Dana gesturing to Calvin, telling him to keep going—but the effort was surely making him burn through the Destiny in his own system. I
wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up.

  Let’s get Jilly out of here, I told Milo, who agreed. I added, Take her and go—

  He cut me off. Yeah, I’m not leaving you here. Milo looked around for… “Garrett!”

  I was looking at Rochelle, and even though Milo’s voice could barely be heard over the din, her eyes flashed open and she looked right at us as Garrett scrambled over to help. He was terrified. I didn’t blame him—I was terrified, too.

  I’d never been gazed at with such molten hatred before, and I wondered if Rochelle somehow knew that Milo had played her and stood her up the way he had because he was my boyfriend.

  “I know about that and other things, too,” she said, and I realized she wasn’t moving her mouth. Not only had she read my mind, but her thoughts were being projected and vocalized without her having to speak them aloud.

  “That is extra freaky!” Calvin shouted as he kept up his assault.

  Dana sent one of the heavy wooden bookshelves launching at Rochelle.

  “She’s telepathic!” I warned them, instantly realizing oh God oh God oh God. Don’t think about Jilly, don’t think about Jilly. I didn’t want her to know that I was putting the blood back into the girl’s body instead of draining it out, except…

  “I already know,” Rochelle intoned as she demolished the bookshelf. “I know everything about all of you!”

  Milo had put the girl into Garrett’s arms, but Garrett was hesitating, clearly aware that the jokering woman was watching us and not at all convinced that the current Calvin was hitting her with would keep her from coming after him. I wasn’t convinced of that, either.

  “It can’t stop me. It won’t stop me,” she intoned. “Don’t you dare move!”

  “Get her out of here, now! Get her into the car and drive!” I shouted at Garrett, and he finally scrambled for the door with Jilly in his arms.

  “Stop!” The triple voice was so loud then, I thought my eardrums would burst.