Foreseen (The Rothston Series)

by Smiles, Terri-Lynne

  I flinched her away. “No, Jenna. Not interested,” I told her firmly. She pouted again, but then slid into the last chair at the table, sizing up Pete and Boomer. God, this girl was a slut.

  I crossed my arms in front of me while Jenna nibbed in on our trip to Walmart. I tried to imagine walking through the place with her dangling beside me, cheerfully chirping about whatever silliness she saw there. And I wondered what she’d get me to buy her. Girls always got me to buy them something – a stuffed animal or a stupid looking hat or something equally childish. My phone buzzed with a text. I ignored it, until Jenna started talking about needing new nail polish and holding her hands out to get our opinion on what color. What the hell? I pulled the phone out of my pocket, making it clear I wasn’t going to answer her.

  The text was from Kinzie, so I flipped it back to the main menu. I didn’t need to read it. I tapped through the icons on my phone, checking my Facebook page for no reason, playing a stupid game for a moment, looking at my calendar, but somehow found myself back on the texts. I sighed and hit message from her.

  “In trouble. NEED to see you. Plz? Meet you on the hillside.”

  My heart tightened. Needs to see me? She was in trouble? Wait … this had to be some asinine girl game. Play helpless victim who needs the big, strong guy to swoop in and save her. I knew perfectly well that Kinzie was far from helpless. Maybe if she hadn’t been, we’d have …

  Jenna reached over and put her hand on my arm to emphasize some point she was making. Her hand was warm and soft, and held none of the buzzing tingle that was always there with Kinzie. It felt … normal. She noticed me staring at her hand.

  “What are you doing, Greg? Something wrong?” she chirped with just an edge of concern.

  I read the text again, then looked into the hopeful face of the girl beside me. Kinzie didn’t need me. “We’re going to Walmart,” I said to Jenna as I texted Kinzie back a single word: Busy. I looked up at the waiting blonde, a smile spreading across her face. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 25

  Kinzie

  The Guard yanked my arm as I tripped again on the stairs. If they would let go and let me walk on my own that wouldn’t happen, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say it. Since stepping off the plane in Bangor, nothing had gone in a way I could have ever conceived of. And I didn’t think complaining would make it better.

  Maybe I’d been stupid to think everything would be fine. I thought back over the past twenty-four hours. As soon as I realized Rex couldn’t have left that quickly, I knew I’d translocated him. Dread stole over me, and my hands were shaking as Sasha kept pressing me to speak. Where would I have sent him? And then I remembered. I’d wanted Mr. Jamison to see Rex, and had pictured him where I’d seen him last – on stage at the end of the library. I closed my eyes and scanned Rothston through the turbula, looking for Rex. And he was there, standing in the library, with the murky shapes of a handful of people now gathered around him. They’d seen him appear. But at least he was alive, and completely intact from what I could tell.

  I’d opened my eyes. “He’s okay,” I’d told Sasha with a sigh of relief. “He’s at Rothston.”

  “No. He’s here at school,” she’d insisted, and I shook my head.

  “He was but …” The expression on her face choked the words in my throat. The puzzled confusion had dropped into horror and she backed away from me, bumping into the wall near the door.

  “Kinzie …” she’d begun, sounding like a plea for me to deny it, but she’d bolted from the room before I could say a word. That couldn’t be good, I’d thought to myself, but then again, it was Sasha, and she hadn’t been speaking to me anyway.

  Twenty minutes later, I’d gotten a call from Brenda Thompson, curtly informing me that I was to return to Rothston immediately. She disconnected before I could ask anything like why or even how. That call had scared me. Rex was fine, yet, my mind was spinning as I tried to figure out why they wanted me at Rothston, and what Rex might have said. And I did the only thing I could think of that would calm me down – I texted Greg that I needed to see him.

  But I hadn’t made it to meet him. Sasha showed up in the doorway before I left, with Dr. Collier beside her. Uncle Mark dropped his eyes sheepishly as he told me I had to come with them. Sasha, on the other hand, glared at me triumphantly. They’d taken me to the airport, influencing their way through security to remain with me until I was securely on the flight to Bangor. And when I’d arrived at the other end, it wasn’t Charlie who met me. It was the two black-suited stiffs who flanked me now. Members of the Guard.

  They marched me through a large wooden doorway at the top of the stairs and I bristled at the ignominy of how they’d treated me. My hands were bound behind my back with the bands of the plastic handcuffs cutting into my wrists. You’d think I was a hardened criminal. Around my ankle, bunching up the bottom of my cargo pants was a glowing blue band – the quantum interference transmitter they’d snapped on me as soon as I’d gotten off the plane.

  Now I understood Curtis’s pallor when Rex had tortured him with a QIT. It changed everything – removed all the depth. Like waking up and discovering the entire world had been replaced with badly drawn cardboard cut outs. It was disturbing – disorienting was more accurate.

  The Guards pushed me into a large room where the granite walls were broken by massive columns. On the far side of the room, Brenda Thompson glared at me from a desk that was dwarfed by the semi-circular wooden one beside it. The curved expanse was raised three feet off the floor and spanned the width of the chamber. Intricately carved scenes ran across the front of it – an old-fashioned clipper ship on stormy oceans, a huntsman in deep forests. Rich wood paneling lined the wall behind the desk and above it, the words “Guiding the Way” were etched deeply into the stone. It would all seem very stately and dignified, if I’d been here for any other reason.

  The Guards at my sides turned me to face into the semi-circular desk. My breath hitched in my throat. I needed to relax. I knew most of the people who would sit in the seven chairs on the dais. They’d already heard I could translocate and could see that I hadn’t harmed Rex at all. Once I explained what had happened – why I’d translocated Rex – everything would be fine. In fact, they’d probably be impressed, like Sasha had been with the spider.

  A hidden door in the paneling behind the dais opened up, and seven blue-robed figures silently strode out, each standing at their respective places, before all taking a seat at once. From his end seat on the left, Sasha’s grandfather, Norman Reynolds nodded toward the Guards, and one immediately leaned down and removed the QIT from my ankle.

  “Both members of the Guard will be reading you, Ms. Nicolosi, for any decision to use your adept attributes in this room. They are quite capable of incapacitating you at even a hint that you are about to try anything, so I strongly suggest you refrain,” Mr. Reynolds said sternly.

  I stared at him, but didn’t speak. His words and tone scared me, but I was equally distracted by my awareness of the turbula flowing back. It wasn’t all at once like the way it went away. This was more like lights being gradually raised with a dimmer switch. And then I felt the dull headache begin. Sasha’s grandfather had told the truth: the Guards were reading me.

  After another moment, the aged Rita Mendez, seated in the middle, spoke. “Ms. Nicolosi, we have a report that you have violated our rules. Specifically, that you have repeatedly translocated living creatures, including the extremely dangerous act of translocating a human being,” she stated sternly. Her eyes darted over to Rex Brolie, seated on the end on the right side. He sneered at me when I looked over, and the familiarity of it helped me get my bearings. Too bad I hadn’t translocated out his arrogance.

  I looked up at Rita Mendez. “I can explain,” I told her as I tried to step forward from the Guards, but they grabbed my arms tightly. I shot the one on my right a dirty look. I could feel them in my head, so they knew I wasn’t going to attack The Seven. Besides, how
could I possibly do that?

  “It is a disturbing accusation,” George Alphonse’s voice boomed from beside Norman Reynolds. “Particularly after showing last week that you hold no respect for either this body or our traditions.”

  “I am sorry about that,” I jumped in as he paused. “I … I was scared. I don’t do well with crowds, and …” Mr. Alphonse held up his hand to stop me, and the dull headache blazed into a stabbing pain. I winced and tried to reach up for my head, but my hands couldn’t move. “Please … stop …” I whimpered. “That hurts.”

  Norman Reynolds straightened with interest. “So it is true,” he stated. “You feel it when you are read.”

  “Yes,” I whispered, wanting the pain to go away, but it had just gotten worse. A ruffled silence spread in front of me, but I couldn’t focus to see their faces. “Please stop,” I begged again.

  “That is remarkable!” Ms. Mendez gasped. “Unheard of. We need to determine how that can be possible.”

  “We must be cautious,” the pudgy guy on her left said. It took me a moment to come up with his name – Pasternak. “An anomaly like that might make her less predictable. And she doesn’t accept the seriousness of our rules. She could have killed Rex. Perhaps she even intended to. Isn’t that what your granddaughter told you, Norman?” he asked Mr. Reynolds. “That she was using translocation to try to kill spiders?”

  “That is correct,” he confirmed quietly. Concern knotted his brow as he turned to me. “Ms. Nicolosi, did you intend to harm Mr. Brolie when you translocated him?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Should we believe you?” Marci Lee asked in a nasal voice. She leaned forward in her seat between Rex and Mr. Jamison. “You seem inclined to hide things from us. Like that fact that you could translocate at all?”

  The pain jabbed in my head again. “I … I wasn’t hiding it from you or anybody, except … Curtis said … I mean … I thought …” There was no way out except to tell the truth. “I was only hiding it from Rex.”

  George Alphonse broke in with his big voice. “Curtis Mechenbaum? What about Curtis?”

  “She’s friends with him,” Rex answered easily before I’d had a chance. “The kid has always been groveling to me like I was some sort of god. He might have told her to wait to see if she could do it well before letting anyone know – might have thought it would embarrass me.” The last part came out with a laugh.

  Mr. Jamison leaned forward, putting his finger to his mouth in thought for a moment before speaking. “She’s friends with Curtis, you say?” he asked Rex, who nodded. Mr. Jamison’s eyes turned to me, but instead of looking friendly, they held a cold suspicion. “You don’t think she would have…” Whatever his question was, it hung in the air unfinished.

  “I would have what?” I asked.

  “Could be,” came Rex’s answer in a grave tone I’d never heard from him. “We know she doesn’t care about our rules. She might have tried translocation on him first. We may never find him … or whatever’s left of him.”

  “Wait! Where’s Curtis?” I asked, as Rita Mendez visibly shuddered. My heart thudded. Something had happened to Curtis? He was missing? And they thought it was me?

  “We have no proof of anything with regard to Curtis Mechenbaum,” George Alphonse stated to his peers. I started to open my mouth to ask again where Curtis was, but stopped. I’d have time for that later.

  Rita Mendez continued to study me for a moment, then stated wistfully. “She has shown such remarkable talent.”

  “But we have a disturbing set of facts,” Norman Reynolds added, and several heads dipped in agreement.

  “But, you haven’t heard what happened,” I pleaded. “There’s a reason I tranlocated Rex. He was …”

  “Her results are impressive and unprecedented,” Bart Pasternak interrupted. “But the risk was so unjustified.”

  “Such talent. She’s learned so quickly and accomplished the impossible. If there were some way to harness that …” Brad Jamison said almost to himself, before leaning forward again, to look across his colleagues. “Madame Chairman,” he said to Ms. Mendez. “I believe we have the information we need to decide how to address Ms. Nicolosi.”

  “Wait!” I pleaded, but Ms. Mendez tipped her head.

  “We shall adjourn to deliberate,” she told me. “You shall remain here until we return with your sentence.”

  My hands grew cold and a numbness spread through my body as I watched the robed figures file out the hidden door. Return with my sentence. That phrase didn’t bode well. Nor did anything that had been said in this room. How could I look so bad when I hadn’t done anything wrong? Or at least, I hadn’t meant to do anything wrong. But did that matter? I hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell them about Rex hitting me. My head spun as I thought of things I should have said, or said differently, or not said at all. God, I wished someone had been here to help me. Anybody. I wasn’t very good by myself. Greg knew that. He always helped me think. But he was gone. Desperation welled up inside me at that thought.

  Stop it! I told myself. Calm down. Think rationally. What was the worst that could happen? I’d broken their rules, but I hadn’t hurt anyone. And like Mr. Jamison had said, I had such talent. Nothing too bad would happen. What would they do? Have me do manual labor here for a period of time. I’d hate that, and it was completely unjustified, but I could deal with it. Hard work wasn’t all that bad, I thought to myself. Might do some people around here some good if they had to do it. The image of Sasha scrubbing a floor flitted through my head. Wouldn’t be bad at all. As long as it wasn’t cleaning the middle-school bathrooms. Those were a menace. I took a deep breath and smiled to myself as I calmed down. Everything would be okay.

  ψ

  Over an hour later, one of the Guards prodded me out of a chair as the door behind the dais opened again. The blue-robed figures filed out without a single one looking at me, except for Rex. He stared impassively. I wasn’t sure what that meant on either count. They took their seats simultaneously and shifted around to settle themselves. The silence became heavy until Rita Mendez finally leaned forward.

  “Ms. Nicolosi, is there anything you would like to say for yourself before I announce your sentence?” she asked steadily.

  I took a deep breath and found my mouth had gone dry. “Yes, there is,” I answered with my voice trembling. “Translocating the spiders was just an accident. I mean, the first time it was. And when the spider died I thought I could use it for …” I stopped. Why was I talking about spiders? That wasn’t what they were worried about. I tried to wet my lips and started again. “I didn’t translocate Rex because I felt like it. I had to. I mean he had slapped me, and ...” I stopped again, hearing how juvenile it sounded. I saw several eyebrows raise, but couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. I swallowed again, and went on. “And Curtis. I don’t know what happened to Curtis. I didn’t even know he was gone. I didn’t do anything to him.” This time the looks were clear – they didn’t believe me. “Check my phone,” I offered. “You’ll see the texts. Curtis and I are friends. I wouldn’t do anything to …”

  “We have checked your phone,” Rex interrupted, picking it up from the desk in front of him to show me. He flipped it open and a shiver went down my spine at the thought of him reading my texts with Curtis. I wracked my brain for a moment to remember if there was anything in them showing that he was the topic. We’d been careful, but now, I wasn’t so sure. Rex looked at Mr. Jamison. “Most interesting is the date and time of the last text from him: this past Saturday, at 9:36 p.m.” Several heads nodded as if that held some meaning to them.

  “What about it?” I asked, looking from person to person for an answer.

  Rita Mendez pinned me with her ancient eyes that were now filled with accusation. “That text shows that you, Ms. Nicolosi, were the last one to hear from Curtis.”

  I took a step backwards. “But I … I couldn’t be,” I stammered weakly. But I remembered trying to reach him after that, a
nd he didn’t answer. A shiver ran through me. Where was he?

  “Do you have anything else to say?” Rita Mendez asked sternly this time.

  I raised my eyes slowly, still thinking about what could have happened to Curtis. “Not really,” I told her. “Just that I haven’t hurt anybody.”

  She nodded curtly, and glanced around at her colleagues, most of whom seemed to dip their heads in some sort of signal. She closed her eyes for a moment before drawing herself up taller in her seat. I could feel my pulse throbbing in my ears as I waited for her pronouncement. Toilet cleaning. I was going to end up cleaning middle school toilets for the rest of my life.

  “Kinzie Nicolosi, you have flagrantly, intentionally and repeatedly translocated living creatures, including a human being. The Seven has duly considered this matter, and in light of your demonstrated lack of judgment and disregard for our rules, The Seven hereby sentences you … to death.”

  Time stopped as I stared at her lips, thinking I hadn’t heard her right. I couldn’t have heard her right. The creases grew tight in the lips she now held firmly together. My heart thumped once before the deafening silence resumed. This was a dream. A nightmare. It had to be.

  Her lips parted again and formed slow words. “You will go with the Guards to be held while preparations …” her voice sounded far away, until it was snuffed out by a roaring sound in my ears. Every sound in the room – a paper shuffling, the inhale of each breath, the rasping of a hand sliding across the wooden desk – was magnified and swirled around me. I searched each of the faces before me for some hint that this was a joke. Or a dream. Or anything that made sense. But only two were willing to look at me: Rex, whose eyes held a cruel delight, and Mr. Jamison. His face was filled with sympathy and sadness, and that look drove it home. Death. They were going to kill me!