Foreseen (The Rothston Series)

by Smiles, Terri-Lynne

  The barkeep looked her up and down. She looked every bit of seventeen, even if she was a year beyond it, but the guy suddenly waved her through. Dumb luck. I’d have to get Kinzie an ID and figure out how to make her look older in the future. No way that lightning would strike twice.

  My frat brothers were already gathered at our regular table in the back of the main room. It was noisy tonight, with a large crowd of returning students in the billiards room.

  “I thought you were busted,” Murphy said to Kinzie with his trademark stupid grin.

  “Yeah. I can’t believe he let you in,” Pete echoed. “I’ve seen that look before and it only ends one way.” He and Boomer laughed and fist bumped.

  Kinzie just smiled. “I guess it isn’t how old you look, but how old you act. I act about ten years older than any of you, which makes you guys about eight.”

  Everybody laughed. This was good, I thought, watching them carefully. They accepted Kinzie and she knew how to handle them. And she was right – they did act about eight. That’s what made them fun.

  I left Kinzie with them and returned to the bar, not wanting to give the bartender a second chance to kick her out. I ordered my usual Cuervo and Dos Equis and a Coke for Kinzie, waiting on a stool for the keep to bring them back. The place was hopping, so it wasn’t going to be fast. After a few minutes, the red-haired girl beside me got her drink and moved on, revealing an unwelcome douche on the other side. Brolie didn’t see me at first, engrossed in a conversation he was having on his phone.

  “Of course, I’ll do it,” he said. “You know I always get the job done. It’s just that, you’ve been sending me off to D.C. or New York constantly.” He paused and listened. “No, I’m not afraid to miss classes. This work is more important. But I need some lackey to do the grunt work.” Another pause. “I know I’m the best, but … Yeah, maybe her – if she learns her place.” He saw me watching and snapped off his phone, but I didn’t look away. This guy was more than a douche. I’d put money on that the entire call – talking about important work and Washington – was nothing but an act to try to impress the redhead who’d been standing here a moment ago. The loser hadn’t realized she was gone.

  “If it isn’t Nicolosi’s common fuckwad.” Brolie said, narrowing his grey eyes. I just stared at him, not in shock but … the guy was surreal. People just didn’t act like this. He stepped in closer. “That little bitch needs to stay out of my way,” he said menacingly.

  I rose to stand only inches from him. “Keep away from her,” I demanded coldly, my chest expanding to emphasize the point. My biceps flexed, wanting an excuse to take action.

  Brolie gave a humorless laugh. “Like you could do something to me, you common fuck. I’ll take you out in a heartbeat.”

  “Right,” I responded sarcastically. The adrenaline coursed through me as the bartender set the drinks in front of me.

  “Is there a problem here, gentlemen?” he asked with a tone that said the right answer was “no.”

  I picked up the drinks and forced myself to walk away, wanting to pummel this guy – bad. And Brolie was an idiot if he thought he’d win. With a deep breath, I put a smile on my face and I took my seat next to Kinzie. “Ever have tequila?” I asked, offering her one of the shots.

  She waved it away as her eyes had stopped on something. “No. And I don’t think tonight’s the time to try it,” she said slowly. I followed her eyes to where Rex Brolie was striding past. God, this guy needed to sink into the ground like the pile of shit he was. He leered at her the entire time he walked through the bar, before disappearing into the billiards room.

  “What’s his problem?” Boomer asked.

  “Douche extraordinaire,” I answered, and changed the subject to anything more interesting than Rex Brolie. I wasn’t sure why he was so fixated on Kinzie. She’d admitted on the drive from the airport that he’d been at this internship with her, but said she never saw him. From the looks of it though, I’d say that wasn’t quite true. But with the guys here, it didn’t seem like the time to ask.

  We caught up on our winter breaks, with Boomer giving me a hard time for being boring now that I had no conquests to share, but I got the feeling he was impressed. Like somehow he respected me more. Pete was regaling us with his bar hopping escapades with his sister in Chicago, when Brolie trailed back into the room, three of his plastic-faced frat brothers in tow. He slapped a stack of paper napkins on our table – the symbolic inter-fraternity gauntlet.

  “What’s the challenge?” I asked, eyeing him steadily.

  “Billiards. Now. Four of us, four of you. Rotating shots.”

  I glanced around the table at my frat brothers who were eager to accept. Not that there was any choice. “You’re on,” I said, rising from my chair.

  “And you’re coming too, aren’t you?” Brolie said to Kinzie with a twisted grin.

  “Of course,” she answered like the challenge was somehow to her. “You guys will rip them apart,” she told us confidently.

  “I’d like to see anyone stop us,” I said leading my ranks toward the billiards room.

  A half-dozen tall tables set at the edge of the room were at capacity, and a few clumps of people stood between them. “You sure you want to stay in here?” I asked Kinzie, as another group crowded into the room to watch the competition.

  “Yes, I need to. I’ll be fine,” she answered firmly.

  I squeezed her hand a last time to give her strength, before turning to rack the balls. She was challenging herself with the crowd. Good for her for facing her fear, but I needed to keep an eye on her – make sure she was okay. She stood to the side with a fierce determination on her face. If I hadn’t known about her phobia, I’d think this game meant more to her than just fraternity pride.

  Unfortunately, the game started badly. Boomer nearly missed the cue ball on the break, sending it ricocheting to the side. Truly strange for him. I’d seen him nearly shatter the ball before. And I didn’t do much better. The strange thing was, the Sig Chis were playing as badly as we were, with one of the guys sending the cue ball sailing off the table, straight through some poor sap’s beer. It shattered in his hand and sent the cold brew into his lap. It was like we were all drunk. Maybe the Sig Chis were, but we’d just gotten here. The game went on and on, with a bunch of shots pocketing no balls, and even more scratches.

  Finally, it came down to one shot and it was my turn. The room fell silent. If I sank the eight ball, we won. It was a one-bank shot. Not hard, but the way I’d been playing tonight, I couldn’t take anything for granted. I studied the angles, lining them up with my cue to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. I took my position and held my breath to try to control the cue in my hand. Slow, steady. I only needed a tap. My hand started shaking. I stood back up and exhaled.

  “What’s wrong, Langston? Can’t do it?” Brolie taunted.

  “You’ll get it, Greg,” Kinzie said, glaring coldly at Brolie.

  I checked my angles, again. It was just physics. I bent back over the table to line up my shot, again. I tested the cue, again. But this time, it moved smoothly in my hand and didn’t shake. With a quick snap, I took my shot. The cue ball bounced off the rail, tapped the eight ball sending it gently into the corner pocket. The Alpha Delts let out a cheer.

  I threw my arm around Kinzie, shielding her from the crowd as I gave her a kiss.

  “Not bad, not bad,” Brolie said after making his way over. Presumably he was talking to me, but he looked at Kinzie the entire time. This guy needed to get a life – and Kinzie wasn’t part of it. After a moment, he turned to me. “I know a guy who can put a pool ball in his mouth. Bet you can’t do that,” he challenged.

  “Why the hell would I want to do that?” I said back with a laugh. Maybe he thought I was enough of a doofus that I’d do it to show off for Kinzie. I turned to leave.

  “I think you want to,” Brolie said, and I stopping, tipping my head as I turned back. Maybe I should, just to make this asshole shut up. He
handed me the cue ball and I weighed it in my hand.

  “Don’t, Greg. This is stupid,” Kinzie urged beside me, but her eyes were glazed. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was drunk.

  The cue ball bounced in my hand. Kinzie was right. This was stupid, but I didn’t want to give Brolie the satisfaction of me walking away from a challenge. What’s the worst that could happen? I bounced the ball again in my hand, and looked down at Kinzie. She’d give me a hard time about this, no doubt. A nearly silent chuckle came from Brolie. She’d get over it, but there was no way I was letting this guy walk out of here saying I was a wuss. I bounced the ball one last time in my hand, and raised it to my mouth when another urge overwhelmed me.

  I dropped the cue ball on the table and wrapped my arms around Kinzie, cradling her head in my hand as I kissed her, tenderly at first, but with the passion behind it growing. Somewhere my brain registered the hooting of the guys around us, but I didn’t care. My mouth moved along her jaw and her throat. My hands ran down her sides. I wanted to know every inch of her body – needed to know them. Her hands were grabbing my back, pulling herself impossibly closer, as our breath grew ragged. The jeering of the crowd changed in intensity as well, becoming frantic. Then suddenly, Kinzie pushed me away.

  “Oh god, no!” she exclaimed in horror. “I didn’t see that!”

  I tried to grab her back. I didn’t want to stop. But then my head started to clear. We were in the middle of a bar. What the hell was I doing? This wasn’t some slut I could go bang in the back room and be done with. I started to apologize, but Kinzie stepped backwards toward the corner, her eyes frozen in terror. What had I done?

  Then I realized she wasn’t looking at me, and the frenzied din of the crowd hadn’t stopped. Across the pool table, the crowd was yelling and beating on someone. Murphy. He staggered as he grasped the pool table, with the crowd’s hands pounding his back. His eyes were wide as his reddened face turned purple and his eyes bulged in fear. Someone shrieked and he collapsed onto the floor. I jumped up on the pool table to get to him quickly, and caught a glimpse of Brolie, standing to the side with a ghoulish grin plastered on his face. I looked down at the table as I skimmed across it. The cue ball was gone.

  ψ

  The speckled linoleum tiles in the waiting area of the Greene County General Hospital’s emergency room were worn but spotless. The cool air was scented with disinfectant and the cheap perfume of some previous visitor. I shifted on the hard, institutional chair, pretending to flip through a People magazine, but I was watching Kinzie. She sat beside me, knees drawn up on her chair, staring straight ahead with a determined look, like she was trying to figure something out. But she wouldn’t talk to me, or even acknowledge I was here. Maybe the packed billiards room had been too much for her, especially the frenzied shrieks and screams at the end. Or maybe I’d pushed her too far. But that was almost three hours ago, and she still hadn’t spoken. Damn. What had I done?

  I closed the magazine and searched her face. “Talk to me, Kinzie,” I urged, pulling her hand from her knee to hold it. Her eyes studied our hands, thinking about that vibrating current, no doubt. It was hard to ignore. It felt like it was pushing us toward each other. Binding us together somehow.

  Shit. I needed to man up. That was nothing but an excuse to justify what I’d done tonight. I’d let myself get out of control. What started as a kiss rapidly grew to groping – right there in the bar where everyone could see. This was Kinzie. I looked down at her face, and my heart wanted to burst with the joy that she simply existed and the agony that she’d shut herself away from me. I’d scared her, when she’d already had more than she could cope with standing there in the crowd. I deserved every bit of the torture she was meting out.

  Her head lifted and her dark eyes scanned around the room for a moment before finally settling on me. “What is it?” I prompted again, but still there was silence. She bit her lip as she tried to work out whatever she was thinking about. Another five minutes passed. All I could do was wait.

  “He’s forcing my worlds to collide,” she said at last. “Is it is a test to see what I’ll do or is he getting even?” She bit her lip and became lost in thought again, but her eyes kept darting over to me, like somehow I factored into whatever equation she was working on.

  “You matter to me,” she eventually said in a very factual tone. “More than I should let you.”

  I tipped my head. “What does that mean?”

  She turned away with a puzzled look, as she continued to piece together the thoughts in her head. And I worried about those thoughts. She’d never even kissed a guy other than me, and I’d treated her like she was some barroom whore. She deserved so much more than that – more than a guy like me. Maybe now, she saw me for what I was – what I had always been – a shallow jerk who used whatever girl was handy to satisfy my basic bodily needs. Damn, I was an ass.

  “I need to tell you something,” Kinzie said evenly after another long minute had passed. My heart stopped cold. This was it. She was going to tell me it was over. “This may be exactly the wrong thing to do, but I can’t live my life in two pieces.” She reached over and took my hand, staring at it again as the tingle flowed through us.

  “There’s something about the Rothston Institute where I was over break … something about me … that I’m not allowed to tell you. But I need to. You help me think, and I can’t keep hiding from you.”

  “You can tell me anything,” I assured her. A smile flickered quickly in the corners of her mouth and extinguished again. But it gave me hope. Maybe this was going to be okay.

  “Rex’s challenge tonight wasn’t the pool game,” she told me. “It was to me, to see which of us could influence the result of the game. Something we do at Rothston. He won this round,” she said as if disappointed in herself.

  “We beat the Sig Chi’s,” I reminded her, wondering where this was going.

  She shook her head, and after emphasizing again that she wasn’t permitted to say anything to me, she launched into a fantastical tale of psychic powers and mind-control based on quantum mechanics, and coordinated efforts to protect mankind from its own stupidity. It sounded like a world Kinzie would create – one where she had more control and there was a predictability to life. And that, along with the look on her face, disturbed me. She was taking it seriously.

  “So why are you telling me this?” I asked when she paused.

  She looked at me and seemed lost for a moment, as if she didn’t understand my confusion. “The pool game. That’s what we were doing.”

  “You think we were all messing up because of you and Brolie?”

  “Yes, and on the last shot, I realized Rex was too strong for me to beat him directly and changed tactics. I used Rex’s arrogance, and made him decide that he’d influenced you enough to miss the shot and stop. I hoped that you’d shake his influence quickly because you wanted to win.”

  “And obviously I did,” I concluded, playing along to see where this was going.

  She nodded. “You won the game, fair and square and entirely on your own. So Rex raised the stakes. That was the thing with the cue ball. He was trying to get you to do it so I’d have to stop you. If I failed, you’d be the one in the hospital and I’d know it was because he was stronger.”

  I stared at her, waiting for her to crack a smile and admit the joke, but it wasn’t coming. Instead, she kept talking. “I thought I’d outsmarted him by redirecting you, but I didn’t consider anything else that could happen. And then Rex knew I’d distracted myself as well, and went after someone else. Murphy probably stuck that cue ball in his mouth thinking it was a big joke.”

  “He isn’t laughing now,” I added, less worried about Murphy than Kinzie. Had she just checked out of reality? None of what she was saying was real. It couldn’t be – and Kinzie was smart enough to know that. What had this Rothston place done to her?

  I stared across the waiting area to the bright abstract print on the wall, with no idea what to s
ay. I wished she’d just start laughing, but what if she didn’t? What if she believed what she was saying? What if she’d pushed herself too far – and I’d pushed her even further – and this was some mental breakdown?

  “You don’t believe me,” she said flatly beside me.

  I turned and saw the hurt in her eyes. “How can I believe you? I understand physics, Kinzie. I breathe quantum mechanics. What you’re saying isn’t real – you know that too. This is some TV series, not the way things really work. There aren’t magical powers.”

  She pierced me with her eyes, then slowly stated, “I can prove it.”

  “How? You’re going to pretend to read my mind like some cheap psychic?”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” she snapped back, then looked around the waiting area. A woman and her kid were just entering. “Look,” she said nodding toward them.

  The young mother stopped at a table that had a stack of magazines and picked up the Woman’s Day on top. She turned it around, then laid it back on the stack, facing the opposite direction. I looked at Kinzie and shrugged, uncertain what I was supposed to get out of that. She nodded back toward the table. The four-year-old boy picked up the same magazine, turned it around, and put it back on the other magazines, just like his mother had.

  “He mimicked his mother,” I pointed out. Kinzie was grasping at straws if she thought that proved the existence of people who could see things at the quantum level. “I’m going to the restroom,” I told her. I left the waiting area, just to walk around. It was bad enough sitting here, in the middle of the night, waiting to find out about Murphy, but now this? Should I find a nurse or someone to tell them about Kinzie? Had she checked out of reality? Damn. I didn’t know what to do.

  Maybe I could snap her back to her senses. Give her the hard facts. People couldn’t do what she was saying. Maybe it was just a joke. She could laugh at me, although she’d taken it too far. This wasn’t funny.