Run to You Part Four: Fourth Shadow

by Clara Kensie

  “It’s not your fault,” I muttered. “You didn’t know.” She seemed as hurt as I was.

  Mac and Aria greeted us cheerfully, barking and yipping, but their tails stopped wagging and they started whimpering as they picked up on Ember’s distress. She sank to her knees and buried her head in Mac’s fur, then picked up Aria and gave her a kiss. Lyric slunk from behind the sofa and rubbed Ember’s legs, mewling. She scratched behind his ears, the tightness in her shoulders loosening.

  “Tessa needs to feel better too,” she said. The animals obediently turned to me, and I obediently petted them as Ember snapped leashes to the dogs’ collars.

  She was right: I did need to feel better, and petting the animals helped.

  “Come with me,” she said, handing me Mac’s leash.

  Before we even had a chance to warm up, we headed back out to take the dogs for a walk. Mac pulled me along behind him, and Aria danced on her little paws next to Ember. “Did they say things to you about your parents, right to your face?” Ember asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Me too. They said you shouldn’t be allowed at our school. You shouldn’t be allowed to live in our town. I had no idea they were going to be like that, Tessa. I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks.” Maybe it was a bad idea for me to go to Lilybrook High. Just like the scars on my stomach reminded me of my parents’ crimes, my mere presence at that school reminded everyone else. Going to Lilybrook High was like throwing myself into a pit of vengeful lions.

  “Winter Milbourne is the one who told everyone who your parents are,” Ember said, her breath coming out in little clouds. “Did you meet her today?”

  “Not officially.” With my free hand I touched the Killers’ Spawn note in my pocket and lifted the fog, just a tiny bit. There she was, the telepathic auburn-haired girl, writing the note in geometry class as she sat right in front of me, then having a Lab Brat named Mina teleport the note onto my tray as I passed them in the cafeteria.

  “Her dad is the head warden at the Underground,” Ember said. “That’s probably how she found out about your parents so fast.”

  Ah. My mother had given the warden a heart attack with her psychokinesis, during her failed escape attempt. Thanks to the quick action of Tristan and the guards, he’d survived, but it explained Winter’s animosity toward me.

  Was there anyone in Lilybrook whom my parents hadn’t hurt in some way?

  “Winter is also Nathan’s girlfriend,” Ember said. “When she started saying all those things about you, I thought he would help me stop her. But he was even worse than she was.”

  “Yeah.” My arm still ached where he’d grabbed it. “Tristan’s really upset about that.” We halted when Mac stopped to sniff a tree trunk. “What I don’t get is, Nathan’s a really good guy,” Ember said. “He’s like the most charitable person on the planet. When he was a kid, he started a blood drive in honor of his dad. He has a coat drive every fall, and he volunteers at a food pantry every week.”

  “You know what’s ironic about that?” I sighed. “My mother depended on coat drives and food pantries to survive when she was a kid.” She’d grown up impoverished, friendless, and abused by her stepfather. “Then as an adult, she murdered the father of someone who volunteers at places like that.”

  Ember shifted uncomfortably at the mention of my mother. Above me, the Nightmare Eyes glared and glowered, and my blood burned, burned, burned. I unzipped my coat and breathed in the cold January air, but I still burned.

  Mac finished sniffing the tree and pulled us onward. “Nathan’s a safeguard, like his dad was. He’s also clairvoyant, like his mom,” Ember said. “Tristan and Nathan always planned on being investigators together. Partners.”

  We walked a block before she spoke again. “Probably not anymore, though.”

  * * *

  Like a shadow, the Nightmare Eyes hovered high in the guest room as I read my history textbook and waited for Tristan to get home from college. Ember had to leave for her volunteer job at the animal shelter, but she sent Mac, Aria and Lyric to keep me company, and now they sprawled on my bed, leaving me only a small corner of it. Mac kept his head on my lap. I didn’t mind. I liked having them there. The animals didn’t care that I was Killers’ Spawn.

  I jumped when Dennis and Deirdre knocked on my door frame. “Ember called to tell us what happened today,” Deirdre said. “Honey, I’m so sorry. Nathan’s mother is one of my friends. I’ll talk to her.”

  Dennis pushed his glasses up his nose. “The school has a zero-tolerance policy for bullying. I’m going to report him and Winter Milbourne. They’ll be suspended.”

  “Please don’t.” Getting Nathan and Winter suspended would only give them another reason to hate me. “It was no big deal. Nathan is Tristan’s best friend, so he can’t be that bad. He’ll come around.” I forced my lips into a smile. “He needs to do that blood drive. Suspending him will do more harm than good.”

  Dennis and Deirdre reluctantly agreed, but instructed me to tell them if it happened again.

  When they left, I raised the fog to numb myself and got lost in it. Until someone grabbed me, slid his hand behind my head, caressed my cheek with his thumb, and pressed his warm lips to mine.

  Tristan.

  Suppressing a squeal of joy, I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he shooed the animals away, then fell into the bed on top of me.

  “This was the longest we’ve been apart in weeks,” he said, nuzzling my neck. “And the farthest.”

  “I missed you.”

  “I’m sorry about Nathan,” he said. “And about that note. I’ll fix everything.”

  “Please don’t talk about that while you’re kissing me,” I replied, then took his face between my palms and looked into his eyes. Big, blue, beautiful eyes, filled with love. The complete opposite of the Nightmare Eyes. I crushed my lips back onto his.

  “Kids!” Deirdre called from downstairs. “Dinner! I picked up sweet and sour chicken!”

  Was someone calling us? Deirdre, maybe? If she was, I couldn’t hear her. Tristan was here with me again, and he loved me.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Tristan sat at his desk to write a paper for his criminal justice class while I curled up on his bed to read The Scarlet Letter for American Lit. His computer dinged—an email.

  He pumped his fist triumphantly. “It’s from the APR,” he announced. “The board accepted my request to work with Brinda Lakhani to find your brother and sister. We have a meeting with her tomorrow at five.”

  “Who’s Brinda Lakhani?” I asked.

  He gave me a grin, lighting up from the inside out—first his eyes, then his smile. “Brinda Lakhani is going to tell us where to find your brother and sister.”

  Chapter Nine

  Late the next afternoon, with Tristan on one side and Dennis on my other, I hurried down the white-pebbled path to the Agency for Psionic Research. The first time I’d entered this building, I’d been dragged in by John Kellan. Handcuffed, blindfolded, gagged. Terrified.

  No one had to drag me this time, and terror had been replaced with hope. Brinda Lakhani. Whoever she was, she was here at the APR, she was going to help me find my siblings, and I loved her already. Tristan had told me to bring along Jillian’s ballet shoe and Logan’s sheet music, something I would have done anyway. I carried them with me everywhere.

  We rushed past the snow-dusted wooden sign that falsely identified the facility as the Northern Wisconsin Science Laboratory, and into the unassuming, industrial brick structure. In the lobby, the security guards greeted Dennis and Tristan warmly. “Thought you retired, Mr. Connelly,” a hefty guard with square glasses joked to Dennis. “But you still come in almost every day.”

  Tristan chuckled, and Dennis grinned. “Deirdre would prefer if I stayed home,” he said, “but r
etirement doesn’t agree with me.” Dennis had retired as executive director last year because the stressful job was bad for his heart, which had been weak ever since my mother tried to kill him by giving him a heart attack.

  Before shame could swell up inside me, Dennis placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. The guard looked at me with unease as he buzzed open the security door to let us through.

  It was almost five o’clock, and most of the APR employees were leaving for the day. As we passed them, some raised their eyebrows in surprise, or maybe disapproval, at the sight of me.

  Did they all know I was Killers’ Spawn?

  In response to one dark-haired woman’s apprehensive glance, Tristan brought my hand to his lips and kissed it.

  “While you’re here,” Dennis said, “do you want to visit your parents? The warden told me that your mother’s been asking for you.”

  My heart squeezed into a tiny ball. “No.”

  “Absolutely not,” Tristan said at the same time.

  “She’s been neutralized,” Dennis said. “It’s safe. It might do you some good to see her.”

  “I’m not ready.” I would never be ready. The woman I remembered as my mother didn’t really exist. The real woman was a liar. A thief. A killer. I wanted nothing to do with her.

  Tristan stopped suddenly and gripped my hand. Everything grew silent. Coming from the boardroom was a woman with a wide jaw, dressed impeccably in pressed slacks and white shirt, and a gold badge that read Executive Director. Following her was a man with a red beard.

  John Kellan.

  My lungs wouldn’t inflate. My heart wouldn’t beat. Kellan had kidnapped me. He’d hit me, he’d chased me down and drove me far away, locked me up in a dark cell, and put a gun to my head.

  The woman shook his hand and returned to the boardroom, but Kellan stayed, turning to me with a bored blink. Hanging from a lanyard around his neck was a new red badge that boasted Lead Investigator.

  Stiffly, Tristan pushed me behind him.

  But I wasn’t running away anymore. I wasn’t hiding anymore. I stepped out from behind Tristan and forced myself to meet Kellan’s grimy blue eyes. He was telepathic, so I smothered my fear with fog. “You sent a security guard to search my house in Twelve Lakes,” I said, slowly, to keep my voice from shaking. “You didn’t even care enough to go there yourself.”

  “I’m understaffed,” Kellan said with a shrug. “Believe it or not, Miss Carson, I want to find the targets as much as you do. I don’t like loose ends.”

  “Jillian and Logan aren’t targets. They aren’t loose ends.” I no longer had to pretend that I wasn’t afraid, because I wasn’t. I was angry. “They’re my brother and sister. And if you find them, you need to take me with you to get them.”

  One corner of his lip curled up in amusement. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you’ll bring them here by force. If I’m there too, they’ll know it’s okay to come.” Then I added, “And I need to make sure you don’t hurt them.”

  I’d hoped my words would shame him, but he only snickered.

  Dennis, however, rubbed his chin. “She makes a good point. They won’t trust anyone but her. Take her with you once you know where they are.”

  At that moment, Nathan Gallagher came out of the boardroom, his dreadlocks long and loose. Kellan clapped him on the back like a proud parent. “I just brought Nathan on as a junior investigator,” he said.

  Nathan sneered, “Kellan used to have a different junior investigator, but that traitor fell in love with his target and almost ruined the mission.”

  Tristan cringed, clearly hurt. “I don’t regret a thing,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “And I know you don’t mean what you said to Tessa at school. And that note? Come on, buddy. You’re better than that.”

  A vision pushed into me, a vision of a young Tristan and Nathan, right here in this hallway, both wearing yellow Lilybrook Middle School T-shirts as they taped blood drive flyers to the wall. Tristan nodding in earnest agreement as Nathan said through clenched teeth, “Yeah, but even if the Kitteridge Killers are captured, they’ll just be sent to the Underground. They get to live, but my dad will still be dead. How is that fair?”

  I shoved the vision into the fog, but the guilt remained.

  A younger man, early twenties maybe, came rushing around the corner wearing a black APR jacket, glancing at his watch. He seemed to be in a hurry, but he stopped when he saw us.

  He frowned at Nathan. “Did you apologize like I told you to?” he said. He had the same blond hair as Nathan, but cut conservatively. Same straight nose, too, but eyes of tawny brown instead of hard steel.

  “You can’t tell me what to do, Cole,” Nathan said. “You’re my brother, not my father.” He cut a glance to me. “We don’t have a father.”

  Dennis stepped between us. “Cole, hello,” he said, his cheery tone an attempt to thaw the icy tension. “How are things in the Lab?”

  “Good,” Cole said. “I’m testing a potential recruit. He’s pyrokinetic, but he’s so anxious that he hasn’t been able to set a single fire. It took me all afternoon to calm him down enough to make a few sparks on his fingertips.” As Dennis laughed, Cole turned to me. “You’re Tessa Carson.”

  On guard, I nodded. He seemed nice, and Dennis liked him, but he was Nathan’s brother. My parents had murdered his father.

  “My brother has some...issues with you,” he said, placing his hand on my shoulder, “and he feels very angry and hostile right now. But he has no right to treat you this way. He won’t bother you again. Got it, Nathan?” He glanced at his watch again. “It’s late. Go wait for me in the car. Mom’s waiting for us.”

  Muttering something under his breath, Nathan stormed away. Dennis shook his head at him, then pulled Kellan aside. The two telepathic men began a silent conversation—an angry one, judging by their tense postures and jabbing fingers.

  Tristan watched Nathan leave. “I don’t get it,” he said. “I thought he’d understand.”

  Cole mirrored Tristan’s bewildered and disappointed expression, and sighed.

  My heart broke for Tristan. I had destroyed his lifelong friendship with his best friend. And now, I was also the source of disagreement between two brothers. My siblings and I had had our squabbles, but we’d never had such bitter animosity for each other. My mere presence in Lilybrook had caused the rift between Nathan and Cole.

  “Don’t feel guilty, Tessa,” Cole said.

  How did he know I was feeling guilty?

  He smiled. “And now you’re confused.”

  “Um, yeah,” I said. “Are you telepathic?” Telepathy seemed to be the most common psionic ability around here.

  “No mind reading for me,” Cole said. “I’m an empathic clairvoyant. I can feel the emotions of others. I’ll do my best to keep Nathan away until his feelings toward you are more compassionate.”

  Maybe that was why he didn’t hate me—he was feeling my emotions, not his own. If he wasn’t an empath, he’d probably hate me as much as Nathan and Kellan did.

  He zipped up his jacket and rushed off. Dennis was still deep in his argument with Kellan and he waved us away, so Tristan and I went to see Brinda Lakhani without him.

  Tristan took my hand as we climbed the back stairwell to the second floor. “Brinda’s precognitive,” he said. “She’s the one who predicted where we would find your family. Remember that drawing of twelve lakes in the evidence binder?”

  I did. While trying to prove my parents were innocent, I’d had Tristan help me swipe the binder of evidence the APR had collected against them. That binder also contained notes from the APR’s psychics who’d predicted where my family would go. One note was a crayon drawing of twelve misshapen circles in blue, with wave symbols. Twelve Lakes.

  We stopped at a door covered with
hundreds of stickers and crayon scribbles. “Brinda’s a little girl?” I asked.

  Tristan raised his finger to his lips. “Shh. In a way she is. No talking, though. She doesn’t like noise.” He brushed his hand on the door rather than knocking on it.

  The door opened a tiny crack, and from up high, an olive-brown eye peered out. Tristan grinned and wiggled his fingers.

  The door swung open wider, and a tall Indian woman with shiny black hair jumped up and down at the sight of him, clapping her hands but stopping before just they touched. Tristan held his arms open and she threw herself into them.

  An older gentleman, black hair peppered with gray, sat at a short table inside the room. Smiling, he raised his hand in greeting to us. His other hand held a red plastic beach pail filled with Crayolas.

  Brinda hugged me next, towering over me as she wrapped me in her arms. She is a child, I sensed as I timidly hugged her back. A child in a woman’s body. Eyes young and innocent, like she’d never been sad or scared in her life, and all she’d ever known was love and adoration and peace.

  How different from my life. How wonderful. I hugged her even tighter.

  She’s forty years old, Tristan told me telepathically, but she never developed past the age of four. She’s never spoken a word.

  Does she live in here? The silent room was set up like a playhouse. It even had a wooden play kitchen. Every surface—walls, table, floor—was covered with stickers and crayon marks.

  This is just her playroom. She has no idea she’s making predictions for the APR.

  Who’s that? I gestured to the man at the table.

  That’s her dad. He’s neutral; one of the few neutrals who knows about this place. They lived in New York until an APR sensor discovered her when she was five. Then they moved to Lilybrook.

  Brinda stared at me for a moment, head tilted, then she curled her fingers into a claw and swiped across her stomach. She pointed at me with her eyebrows raised.

  My hands fluttered to my belly. Yes, that’s me, I confirmed with a nod.