Run to You Part Three: Third Charm

by Clara Kensie

  When we reached a security door, Tristan gestured impatiently to the guards. “Open it.” One of them scrambled to unlock it, and Tristan shoved it open with a bang. We rushed out onto a white pebbled path with snow piled high on each side, toward evergreens that stretched up to the onyx sky. Taking my hand, he strode with steps so fast and wide I could barely keep up.

  “You saw it, didn’t you?” I cried, victorious. “You had a premonition that he sliced me open. That’s why you took me out of there.”

  “What? No,” he said without slowing. “I took you out of there because I’m bringing you home. Maybe there you’ll finally see that we’re not lying to you.”

  I tripped over his words. Stumbled to a stop. “Nothing I say will ever convince you. You will always believe your father over me.” I yanked my hand from his and marched back to the building.

  “Tessa, what are you doing,” he called. “Come back.”

  “I’m not leaving this place until I can leave with my parents, or until your father kills us. Whichever comes first.”

  Radiating anger hot enough to melt the snow, he strode over to me. “Then we’re going to die in there of old age, because neither of those things is going to happen.”

  The night air went silent and still.

  I shattered it with a whisper. “I’m not asking you to stay with me, Tristan.”

  He grabbed me then, pressed me to his chest. Sliding one hand behind my head and in my hair, he forced me to look into his blazing eyes. “I’ll help you through your panic attacks. I’ll let you use me as your punching bag. I’ll break into offices and steal files for you. I’ll even try to prove your parents are innocent. I’ll do anything for you, Tessa. Except one thing. I. Will. Not. Leave. You.”

  Our gazes locked for one endless moment, each cloud of breath dancing between us, melting into each other, becoming one. Then he crushed his lips to mine. I struggled, pushed against him, but my muscles conspired against me and I found myself wrapping my arms around him, pressing into him, as I kissed him back with fierce desperation.

  Even my own body was betraying me.

  I pushed away with a sobbing gasp.

  Tristan’s arms fell to his sides. “Tessa. Please.”

  “You promised you would keep me safe,” I said. “And you didn’t. Go home, Tristan. I don’t want you here.” Turning my back to him, chin held high, I walked back inside the APR. My family needed me. I would not fail them again.

  The guards followed me to the Underground and let me in my cell. I shut the door myself.

  As big as Tristan was, the cell somehow seemed smaller without him. Darker. Silence screamed at me. Unable to warm up no matter how tightly I hugged myself, I slid under the blanket on the cot.

  Shivering, I ran my fingers over my stomach. The scars were there, but I was still whole. Uncut. Instead of killing me, Dennis Connelly had offered me a home.

  I hated him for it.

  Eventually the fog came, rolling in like a storm cloud, and carried me off to sleep. As always, my nightmare visited me. But this time it was different. This time, my parents were the monsters.

  And when I woke up, Tristan was sleeping on the floor.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The week passed in a murky haze of fog. I kept time by the meals delivered by the guards. Whenever they brought something with meat, Tristan would send them away with a command to get a vegetarian meal for me. Periodically I’d ask the guards for updates on my parents and on the search for my brother and sister.

  The reports were the same, day after day: Mom disconsolate. Dad unconscious and in pain. No leads on Jillian and Logan.

  Other than that, neither Tristan nor I spoke. I tried not to look at him. Every time I did, he was gazing at me with pleading eyes, and the faith I had in my parents’ innocence faltered.

  Everything the APR said about my parents made sense. I couldn’t find a way around it. I spent a lot of time in the shower, hiding in the fog. Trying not to think. Thinking led me places I did not want to go.

  Once I came back into the cell and discovered Tristan had replaced the wool brown blanket with a thick, soft one in periwinkle. Another time, a fuchsia backpack decorated with chartreuse peace symbols—so bright it hurt my eyes, which were accustomed to the cell’s dim shadows—sat on the cot. Inside were clothes from his sister to replace my prison uniform.

  I refused to acknowledge the blanket and, using my foot, slid the bag of clothes under the cot. My faith was starting to crack, but I couldn’t allow it to shatter. I wouldn’t. I was all my parents had left. If there was any chance, any at all, that they were innocent, it was up to me to prove it.

  Tristan just watched me from the chair, elbows on knees, saying nothing. I tried to pretend he wasn’t there.

  When the guard with the spiky yellow hair brought breakfast one morning, I asked him to please bring me some paper and a pen. The APR wouldn’t let me see my parents, but maybe they’d deliver a letter to them.

  After Spiky Hair brought the paper, all I could do was stare at it. I’d start writing a few lines, sometimes a whole page, then cross off my words. The floor became littered with the letters I’d started and rejected, all crumpled into balls.

  By lunchtime, I was down to my last sheet of paper. But I finally knew what to write. There were really only three things to say, an affirmation to them as well as to myself.

  How strange it was to write my real name. It’d been years. I took a sheet of paper from the floor, smoothed it out, and wrote Tessa Carson dozens of times until it felt natural.

  I buzzed for the guard again and asked him to deliver the letter to my mother. He plucked the paper from my hand and left without reply.

  “Hey, Clockwise,” Tristan said, “Watch this.”

  He picked up some of the crumpled papers from the ground and juggled them in one hand. “I can do this, too.” He kicked a paper ball around like a Hacky Sack, his hair bouncing up and down, turning gold in the light.

  He’d changed tactics. From pleading to playful. And it was working. I missed this. I missed this Tristan, the one I knew in Twelve Lakes. Carefree and confident. I felt myself about to smile, so I covered my mouth with my hands.

  “I’m really good at soccer,” he said, “but my parents never let me play contact sports because my warning premonitions give me an unfair advantage. I’d know if I was going to get charged or tackled and prevent it from happening. That’s why I play tennis and run cross-country. I ski and play golf too. And I coach. I volunteer at the Park District, coaching soccer and base—” His eyes opened wide, and he flew to my side. “Kellan’s coming,” he said, just as the door slid open.

  John Kellan stormed into the cell with two guards. Tristan pushed me behind him into the corner, shielding me, his stance wide. The fog whooshed in to shield me too, thick and dark, enveloping me.

  Kellan thrust a stack of papers at Tristan. “I need you to sign off on this report so we can close the Carson investigation.”

  “I’m not signing anything that implies I approve of how you handled that case,” Tristan said.

  Kellan’s eyes flickered to me for a moment and returned to Tristan. I wasn’t worthy of a second glace, a second thought. I was simply the tool he’d used to capture my parents. To Kellan, I was scum, the daughter of a thief and a murderer. I was weak. Meek.

  Neutral.

  “My actions were justified,” Kellan said. “The Carsons were all packed up and sitting in their car, ready to run. If I didn’t act when I did we would have lost them again. And what if your little girlfriend decided to contact another professor? She would’ve gotten him killed too. But I don’t have to defend myself to you.”

  Get out! I screamed. But only in my head. I couldn’t speak.

  Kellan heard me anyway. He looked straight at me, the disinteres
t in his eyes turning into disgust. “And you. How can you defend your parents? Do you know how many people your father blackmailed? How much money he stole? And that’s nothing compared to the number of people your mother killed.”

  No.

  “Yes. We learned so much when we were finally able to read her mind. She killed more people than we even suspected.”

  Stop.

  “You know those headaches your sister was getting? The bloody noses? Your mother gave those to her. She wanted her to stay out of your father’s head so she wouldn’t figure out what they were doing.”

  No. Stop it.

  “Your father’s a killer too. He delivered the final blows to one of our agents that day in your house. Stabbed him in the back as he tried to crawl away.”

  You’re lying.

  “I’m not lying. That agent had a wife and two sons. He was a safeguard who died trying to protect his team from your mother’s heart attacks. But he couldn’t protect them from her knives.”

  Stop.

  “My brother-in-law was the other agent,” he said. “He was a precog. He predicted a peaceful outcome that day at your house, but he missed something. He didn’t predict you. You weren’t supposed to be there. You kept Connelly from going inside and reading your parents’ minds. If he had, those agents would be alive today, and my sister wouldn’t be struggling to raise her daughter all alone. And here’s something else—”

  “No,” I whimpered. “No more. Please.”

  “Shut up, Kellan!” Tristan pulled his arm back, fingers curled into a fist. “You’ve tortured her enough.”

  Kellan laughed. “You’re staying down here with your little girlfriend. Fine. You broke into an office and stole confidential files. Fine. But if you hit me, I’ll haul your ass out of here so fast your head will spin.”

  I gripped Tristan’s shirt. Don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me....

  Shoulders still tight, fingers still clenched, Tristan slowly lowered his arm. Kellan smirked and thrust the papers at him. “I don’t need your approval. Just your signature.”

  Tristan grabbed the pen and scrawled something on the paper. “Signature Refused,” he said. “That’s all you’ll get from me. Now leave.”

  “Good enough.” Kellan pivoted on his heel and left, followed by the guards.

  The door slammed, then sealed shut. Tristan sank against the wall.

  “He made it all up,” I said, thrusting out my chin to stop it from trembling. “He wants a promotion, so he made his report look better by making up all that stuff about my parents.”

  “Will you please let me take you out of here now?” Tristan said. “Even if you don’t come home with me. You can’t stay in this place. Not with Kellan here. He’ll just keep taking his vengeance out on you.”

  The air was too thin in here. I couldn’t take a deep enough breath. I pushed past Tristan and into the bathroom. “I need to take a shower.”

  “All you ever do is take showers. You don’t need another one.”

  “Yes I do.” I slammed the door, shed my clothes, and turned on the water as hot as it would go.

  I’d needed that visit from Kellan. I’d allowed Tristan to cheer me up with his juggling and dribbling and showing off, and I didn’t deserve to be cheered up. Kellan reminded me I was the one at fault here.

  Weak. Too weak to keep my family’s secrets from Tristan.

  Neutral. No powers to stop Kellan from taking me, or to stop him from shooting my parents.

  Scum. The daughter of thieves and murderers.

  No. I couldn’t let myself think that. Not even once. Not even for a second.

  Mom. Dad. Jillian and Logan. Professor Fielding. Tristan. Dennis Connelly. My thoughts raced from one problem to another and couldn’t find a peaceful place to rest.

  So I called the fog. I imagined it nestling inside every crevice of my brain, preventing all those horrible thoughts from surfacing and becoming whole. Only one thought was able to penetrate the fog—all my fault, all my fault, all my fault. No matter how close and thick and dark I made the fog, I couldn’t block out those three words.

  All my fault, all my fault.

  This was good. As long as I concentrated on those three words, I wouldn’t have to think about anything else. Like a robot, I shampooed my hair.

  All my fault. All my fault.

  I heard the bathroom door open, and, from the doorway, Tristan’s voice echoed through the fog. “You can’t keep escaping into the shower, Tessa.”

  I rinsed the shampoo and applied conditioner. All my fault, all my fault.

  “You’d rather blame yourself for what happened than accept the truth.”

  All my fault! All my fault! I scrubbed myself with a washcloth.

  “You don’t need physical evidence to prove your parents are guilty. All you need is logic.”

  I shaved my underarms and legs. All! My! Fault!

  I started to return the razor to the basket when the blades caught the light. Silver blades. Sparkly blades.

  I touched the blades with the tip of my finger. Ran the razor up and down my arm. Grazed the thin skin on my wrist.

  Running to the shower was just a temporary escape.

  But escape by these little silver blades...that escape would be permanent.

  How hard would I have to press—

  Tristan yanked open the shower curtain.

  “Hey!” I shrieked. The fog vanishing at the rush of cold air, I whipped my towel from the rod and held it against myself. Tristan had insisted on that prudish Borderline when I was his girlfriend, but now he thought he could watch me take a shower? “Get out!”

  But his eyes weren’t focused on my body. They were staring with horror at my hand, the one not holding the towel.

  Clutched in my fist was a razor.

  Did he have a premonition? Was I about to cut myself?

  The blades glimmered, just once, like a wink.

  Dr. Sheldon had looked deep into my mind. She’d known something was wrong, but she didn’t know what.

  This was it. This was what she had seen. My despair. My devastation. My guilt.

  But she was unable to see the silver blade through the fog.

  “Give me the razor,” Tristan said.

  Frozen, my fingers gripped the handle. He pried it from my hand, then turned my wrist up, looking for blood.

  I looked too. The skin was smooth and unbroken.

  Was I relieved, or disappointed?

  I settled on shamed. I’d spent the past eight years running from death. I couldn’t purposely bring it upon myself now.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not to Tristan, but to my parents and Jillian and Logan. I couldn’t put our family back together if I was dead.

  “I’m sorry too,” he said. “I’ll stop pushing you so hard. It’s just making you run further and further away.”

  Staring at my toes, I nodded.

  He sighed hard. “Maybe seeing your parents will help.”

  “Yes,” I said, my heart riding up into my throat. “Please.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can to make it happen.” Giving me his now almost-permanent look of helpless pity, he slid the curtain back and left the bathroom. He took the razor with him.

  * * *

  The next morning, the guard delivered a clean prison uniform for me, the same shapeless gray top and pants as the others. When I slipped on the pants, they fell down my hips a little. I looked for the drawstring but couldn’t find it.

  It wasn’t until they replaced my tennis shoes that I realized what was happening. The new shoes were exactly like the ones I’d had before, but the laces had been taken out.

  I was on suicide watch.

  Chapter Forty-Five

&n
bsp; My mother paced back and forth across her cell. It was identical to mine, except hers didn’t have a separate bathroom. A half wall partially hid the shower, sink and toilet in the back corner. She wobbled, then steadied herself against the cinderblock wall. Staring hard at the knobless steel door, hands fisted, neck tendons straining, she howled when it didn’t fly open. She sank to the cot, sobbing, then looked up, staring right at me. “Please,” she cried soundlessly.

  Blinking away tears that blurred my vision, I watched it all from the warden’s office, through the monitor hooked up to the cameras in her cell.

  Tristan had tried to make arrangements for me to visit my parents, but because my mother’s psychokinesis kept regenerating, watching them via security cam was all the head warden would allow. Not as good as in person, but we’d been here for almost two weeks now. I’d take any opportunity to see my parents I could get, even if it was through a security cam.

  Tristan stood behind me, so close I could feel his heat. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me since my razor blade incident a few days ago. He’d even removed a pair of scissors from the warden’s desk.

  The warden, Mr. Milbourne, stood in the corner. The massive block of pure muscle watched me, the daughter of killers, with the same disgust Kellan had. I almost preferred his icy glower over Tristan’s longing, overprotective gazes.

  Another monitor showed my father in his cell, which looked more like a hospital room. Eyes closed, he lay withered and motionless on a railed bed. Dr. Sheldon stood over him, making notes in a chart. Machines lined the perimeter of the room.

  I squinted at the monitors, absorbing every detail. An IV needle pierced my father’s arm, and a breathing tube ran under his nose. His chest rose and fell with slow rhythm. I’d never seen him sleep so peacefully.

  My mother’s hair was ratted. She wore a uniform like mine. Her shoes had no laces either. As she rocked on the cot, she absently twisted her hands together, rubbing the fourth finger of her left hand. “She’s not wearing her wedding rings,” I said, and looked closely at my father’s hand. “His ring is gone too. Where are they?”