“Of course.” I unloaded my suitcase from the trunk, and Doc drove off in the midday traffic.
My first real shift at the speakeasy was that evening, but Malik had said I could come in early and help with a delivery. I tucked my suitcase in the closet of Jackson’s spare room and took the train to the Mission. I was starving, so I splurged on a sandwich at a nearby café and hoped someone would be able to let me in to Simon’s. Fortunately, when I walked into Featherweight’s, Caleb gave me a little wink.
“Go around back. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
“Back?”
“The real employee entrance. In the alley. Go through the side door.” He pointed across the bar.
Catty-corner to the bathrooms was a red door with a pen-and-ink drawing of a cardinal mounted above it. I slid off the barstool and went to open it, finding that it led into the brick alley between the bar and the abandoned car dealership next door. After a minute or so, I heard a scraping sound, and Malik appeared from behind the Dumpster at the back of the alley. I walked over to meet hm.
“Jackson told me. You okay?” He lightly touched the bruise on my cheek with two fingers. It was still tender.
“I’m okay. Just shaken up.”
“Some shit. Hope he catches the guy. Come on—this way.” He ducked back behind the Dumpster.
“Wait.” I trotted to keep up with him. “You mean Jackson’s looking for him himself?”
Malik led me through a plain wooden door wedged open with a crushed beer can. Inside was a flight of stairs leading down.
“Sure,” he said as he led me down a flight of rickety wooden stairs to a short hallway. “It’s what he does.”
Great. As if I wasn’t imposing on him enough as it was, now he felt compelled to chase down my mugger. We came to the end of the hallway and another door, steel like the one at the main speakeasy entrance, but unpainted.
“Here’s your key.” Malik handed me a plain silver key. Its edges were still sharp. Freshly cut. He used a key of his own to open the door. “Takes you right into the storeroom.”
“Neat.”
We walked through said storeroom—really just an oversized pantry—then through a hallway with more doorways and alcoves cut into the concrete.
“How big is this place?” I asked, looking around. I walked a few yards down and saw that the hallway became a kind of tunnel as it curved out of sight.
“Oh, it’s huge,” Malik said. “Don’t go getting lost.”
“No problem.” The poorly lit tunnel with no visible end creeped me out more than a little.
I followed Malik across the hallway and into the main bar. None of the candles were lit, but the space was illuminated by a handful of electric bulbs spaced near the ceiling. I could see more of the graffiti in the brighter light—Jackie Loves Allison in thick block letters above the door, a sketch of a rabbit with fangs near the bathroom, a three-foot tall redwood tree occupying a previously dark corner. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Paulie at his usual barstool.
“Hi, Mina.”
“Roommates again?”
He mumbled something I couldn’t make out while looking at his empty glass.
“I usually prep garnishes before we open,” Malik said. “Have a lime or twenty.” He sent a crate of them floating up from the floor to thunk on the work surface in front of me.
“Sounds like a party.” I washed my hands, found a paring knife and started cutting. Malik was doing something fancy with a bag full of kiwifruit.
“Speaking of parties.” Malik finished peeling a kiwifruit in one long curl and sent the curl soaring into the compost bin. “Did I mention my band is in need of a keyboardist? And that we have a gig coming up?”
“You’re in a band?”
“Just some local shadowminds. Me and Paulie and a few others.”
Paulie nodded. “We’re The Green Eggs.”
I looked at Malik. “I didn’t pick it,” he said. “Anyway, you play keyboard, right?”
I sliced a lime exactly in half with one firm cut. “No.”
“No you don’t play?”
“No. I’m not interested.”
“Come on, Mina. The idiot shut his hand in the van door—he’s going to be out of commission for weeks.”
I held up a lime wedge. “Is this thin enough?”
“You’d get a quarter of the tips.”
I sliced another wedge.
“You know, I’m starting to think you don’t really play. Are you one of those posers who picks up guitars at parties and murders ‘Stairway to Heaven’?”
I gave him the most caustic glare I could manage. He chuckled.
“Don’t push her,” Paulie said. “You’ll end up like Greg.”
The guy who’d grabbed me. I frowned. “What happened to him?”
“Just lost his powers for a few hours. He’s fine.”
I froze with my paring knife sunk into the second lime. The image of Jackson flooded my mind, tall and perfect in his suit, his briefcase strap wavering. The memory of him holding me after my nightmare. The palm-shaped mark on his chest.
“Whoa,” Malik’s eyes went wide. “What happened with Jackson?”
I blushed crimson. Fucking telepaths. “Nothing.”
“You guys are into some kinky—”
“Shut up. I had a nightmare. He was...”
“Helping you forget about it?” Malik winked. Paulie gaped. I glared at them both.
“No! Jesus, you’re such a jerk. It’s just...weird stuff has been happening.”
“Weird like I-don’t-know-what-all-these-feelings-mean weird or weird like the-zombie-apocalypse-is-coming weird?”
“I don’t even know how to talk to you.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to see if you need relationship advice or a sawed-off.” He sent another kiwi peel into the bin.
I sliced a lime a little too hard and juice squirted all over my face. I wiped it off with the back of my hand and sighed, resigned. “Something in between.” I told Malik about the burns on the mugger’s hand and the marks on Jackson’s chest, the way his powers had been fuzzy. He was quiet for several long moments after I finished.
“That’s a first,” he said finally.
“But I’m sure it’s nothing. Just a coincidence, or whatever.”
“Wait,” Malik said. “The first time this happened was with Greg, right?”
“So you say. But nothing—oh.” The fire. I looked over to the charred spot where the table had been. My stomach felt hollow.
“Then the mugger. Then Jackson.” He held up fingers as he’d listed the incidents. “All three times these guys had their hands on you—” he waggled his eyebrows, and I rolled my eyes, “—and at least twice, they came away a little fuzzy.”
I frowned. “What are you saying?”
Malik shrugged and started shifting shot glasses from one shelf to another. “Think about it. The timelines make sense—maybe you’re absorbing power.”
Paulie was staring at me like a kid looking at his first Playboy.
“That’s not possible,” I said.
But maybe it was.
Months ago, before I’d left, Cass had tried to fix me. She’d wanted to give her own power to me, force her ability to pull to run in reverse. It hadn’t worked. But had she rewired something in my shadowmind? I didn’t realize Paulie had been staring at me until he grabbed my hand.
“Let me try.” He lunged over the bar and gripped my hand between both of his, hard enough to make the bones rub painfully together. “Just for a second.”
“Paulie—what—no!”
I tried to pull away, but he was holding me too tightly. His palms were sweaty and cool, but as I struggled, a sensation of heat traveled from my hand to my arm to my ch
est. Warmth bloomed there, spreading, and with it came a kind of fluttery, heart-pounding feeling. Paulie’s face went slack with bliss.
“Oh, man, that is awesome.”
I yanked my hand back, furious. “Why did you do that?” I rubbed my hand where he’d touched me. It felt unnaturally hot. “Why would you do that?”
Paulie didn’t answer. His eyes were glazed.
The pulse-pounding panic I’d felt when Greg and the mugger had grabbed me rose up inside me. It wasn’t as intense, but it was still there, making my hands shake and my palms sweat. Jackson. I’d done this to Jackson. My brain played the events of the morning over and over, his warm skin marked with what must have been burns, his briefcase strap wavering as he tried to lift it. The hollow feeling in my stomach spread to my chest. I felt loose-limbed and sick, as though I might faint.
“Oh God. Oh God.” I sat down hard on the stool behind the bar.
“There’s nothing,” Paulie said, still with that blissed-out look. “Just nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?” Malik glanced at me and got in front of Paulie. “Even if you try?”
Paulie only shook his head. “I—I gotta go.” He slid off his barstool and banged through the door before I could think to stop him.
“I think it must take contact,” Malik said. “My powers are fine.” He reached out for me. “Here—see what happens—”
“No!” I flinched away from him. “I have to go.”
“Hey, Mina, wait—”
But I was already leaving. The door closed on the rest of his sentence.
Chapter Five
I walked for hours. Even after it began to grow dark, I didn’t head back to Jackson’s. My whole body was buzzing, and I just needed to get away. I didn’t care where.
I left the speakeasy and Featherweight’s far behind. The neighborhoods grew hillier and more residential as I walked. Instead of large blocky apartment complexes, there were two-and three-story homes, old buildings in impeccable condition with fresh paint and neat landscaping. Some had posters in the windows. War is not healthy for children and other living things. Legalize Gay. Park for Mayor. The farther I went, the fewer the signs and the bigger the houses.
I eventually noticed how tired I was. My feet had started to ache several blocks back, and I was starting to think longingly of the fancy water bottles in the overpriced gourmet grocery store I’d passed at the bottom of the last hill. I sat down on a low concrete wall bordering one of the well-kept Victorians.
My phone buzzed. Jackson. Malik must have told him. I sent the call to voicemail and put my phone in do-not-disturb mode. I had no idea what I was going to say to him.
I stayed where I was on the concrete wall. My urge to run had bled out into wrung-out, apathetic exhaustion. My feet throbbed and my eyes felt dry. No one came and asked me to leave. It grew dark in earnest. I was going to have to find a hotel, or call Avery and beg for a spot on her fiancé’s brother’s couch.
I was going to have to go home.
I should have gone home the moment I’d seen that eviction notice. I should have known I couldn’t make it out here on my own.
I took out my phone. It was nearly 10:00 p.m. and I had eleven missed calls from Jackson. Time to find a hotel for the night.
I looked around. This didn’t seem like the sort of neighborhood that had a cheap hotel. Actually, this wasn’t the kind of city that had a cheap hotel. I was going to have to get downtown somehow, try my luck somewhere south of Market Street. I needed to get to a train.
I started walking back the way I’d come. It was as good a plan as any. I passed the grocery store, closed up for the night and dark. The Muni station was two more hills, I thought, two more San Francisco city blocks. It seemed impossible. I made it to the bottom of the first one when a tiny, bright blue electric car came zooming through the intersection. It screeched to a stop right in front of me, and a tall redhead came tumbling out of the driver’s seat.
“Mina!” It was Bridget. She came running up to me, wild hair bobbing around her. “Are you okay?”
“Bridget, what are you—why are you here?”
She looked genuinely perplexed by the question. “You’ve been missing for hours. Jackson’s been turning the city upside down looking for you.”
“Oh, God.” I sat down on the sidewalk. The burst of I-don’t-want-to-sleep-on-the-street energy I’d gotten was completely used up.
“Are you okay?” Bridget asked. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
I didn’t have an answer for her. I put my head in my hands. She sat down next to me.
“Did you guys have a fight?”
That got me to look up. “What? No. We’re not together.”
Bridget cocked her head at me. “Oh. Are you sure?”
“I think I’d know,” I said. “Why is he looking for me?”
Bridget laughed, a pealing sound like bells. “You’ll have to ask him. And you’d better come with me.” She stood up and dusted off her rear. “If he finds out I found you and let you get away, he’ll kill me.”
* * *
I sat on Jackson’s couch and sipped the coffee he’d made me. Plenty of cream, plenty of sugar, exactly the way I liked it. He must have pulled my preferences out of my head. It felt warm all the way to the pit of my belly.
Bridget had dropped me off and left, saying she’d see me at the speakeasy sometime. Then she’d given me a tight hug and sped off in her tiny blue car. Apparently no one had told her yet I was too dangerous to touch, but I didn’t feel any zaps of energy from her skin. Maybe I’d managed to keep the contact brief enough.
Jackson had barely spoken a full sentence to me since I’d walked in the door. He’d glared at the coffee as he’d passed it to me, and then he’d started pacing.
“What happened?” he said finally. I was halfway through the cup.
“Malik didn’t tell you?”
“No, I mean why did you disappear like that?”
“What, I have to report all of my movements to you now?”
He rounded on me. “You got mugged last night. You wouldn’t pick up your phone. You’re staying at my place. When you didn’t come back, I fucking noticed.”
I barely heard the heat in his voice until he cursed. I guess when he put it like that, he did have a right to be a little worried. I slumped a little deeper into the couch cushions. “I guess I freaked out.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I think I kind of had a right to.”
He sat down, his expression softening. “I guess you have a point, there.”
“God. What am I supposed to do now? I mean, I can’t be around shadowminds anymore.” I was afraid to ask about his powers, but I made myself do it. “Are your—are they back?”
“What? Oh, sure. They’ve been back a while now.”
I didn’t believe him. “What about that guy? Greg? Malik said he lost his too. I don’t even know how this works. What if there are long-term effects?”
“Mina, I’m completely recovered, and I had my hands on you longer than he did.”
Heat rushed through me at the words; flashes of his naked chest strobed through my thoughts. I was sure he could see them, right there at the top of my mind. Well, fuck it. If he was going to be nosy, I wasn’t going to be responsible for the results. A hint of red crept up Jackson’s neck. It was nice to know he wasn’t totally immune to embarrassment.
“Watch,” he said sharply. His heavy glass and steel coffee table rose several inches off the rug and stayed there. “Believe me now?”
“Sure, but those marks—”
“Mina, I’m fine.” He set the coffee table down. “What I want to know is why you didn’t tell me about this.”
“What was I going to say? ‘I think I’m accidentally burn
ing people?’” It sounded crazy even now.
He sighed. “Tell me again what happened when Cass tried to fix you.”
I explained it as well as I could remember. Ryan had damaged my powers, but I’d been on the mend when Cass’s ability to pull had spiked out of control and damaged them again. I didn’t blame her, but she sure blamed herself. She’d never been comfortable with her gift, even as a kid. After it was all over, after she’d disabled Ryan’s dangerous abilities for good, she tried to do the opposite for me.
I hadn’t been able to feel her in my head, but I still would have stopped her if I’d known what she was trying to do—funnel her own power into me, give up the abilities she didn’t want so I could have mine back. It had been more desperation than any knowledge of what she was doing. As if the universe couldn’t possibly be so unfair, to saddle her with a gift she hated while mine was gone forever. As if wanting to make it right was enough to make it so.
“I finally had to stop her,” I said. “I think she would’ve kept trying for hours if I hadn’t pulled her out of it.”
Jackson’s mouth quirked. “I believe it.”
“But she didn’t really—I mean, I don’t have my powers back.”
“No. But...do you mind if I have a look?”
“In my head?
He nodded.
“It’s not like I could stop you.”
He waited, eyes still asking the question.
“Sure. I mean, go ahead.” I’d never invited Jackson into my mind before. If I’d still been able to feel him, consciously letting him in like this would’ve been a mark of something new. Friendship, maybe something more. As it was, it was just another awkward moment.
Jackson closed his eyes and put his hands on his knees. I tried to make my thoughts go quiet, but I’ve never been all that good at meditation. Knowing Jackson was about to poke around in there wasn’t helping. It seemed the only thing I could think about was the way he’d looked coming out of the shower, damp and wrapped in a towel, and the more I tried to shove the thought down, the bigger and more unwieldy it got. It was like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. Jackson’s fingers tightened on his knee, his knuckles whitening.
Broken Shadows Page 5