by Lisa Amowitz
“Let go of it,” I heard Gabe say. “Bobby! Let go of the button!”
I couldn’t. My heart was racing, my throat tight around the scream I couldn’t release.
I felt her pull and bend at my fingers. I held on tighter until finally my fist released, and the burden lifted.
I sagged on the bench, my normal sight and the vision leaching into smoke and shadow.
“We’ve got to go back there,” I said.
6
Jeremy
Saturday: 1:15 AM
I was roused suddenly from a brief and fitful sleep to the sound of a soft but persistent thumping at the door. I tried to ignore it, but whoever was there had no intention of leaving. Marisa slept soundly through the steady knocking, her ponytail a wild tangle, stray strands of loose hair stuck to her face and fanned across her torn yellow sweater. Her chest rose in sharp little intakes of air. I rested my head against her thin shoulder then glanced at the bedside clock. 1:15 AM.
She’d cried herself to sleep in my arms until I’d eventually drifted off too. I hadn’t pressed her about what happened. We both knew each other better than to pry into things we weren’t ready to share.
“Crap,” I muttered. The knocking persisted. I grabbed Marisa’s stick umbrella and bunny-hopped to the door. “What the fuck do you want?”
Like I didn’t already know.
◆
Bobby Pendell’s eyes were glazed and wild beneath the disheveled black mop. The red-haired girl looked pretty spooked herself, the skin around her freckles a sickly white.
“What do you want now, wolf boy? Baying at the moon lost its charm?”
“Didn’t she tell you?” he demanded. They barged past me into the room.
“Whoa! No way in hell are you bothering her.” I tried to block them, but my human pogo-stick status pretty much killed that approach. Pendell easily circumvented me and strode to the bed where Marisa slept.
“Don’t wake her,” I growled.
Ignoring me, Pendell sat on the bed beside Marisa and whispered into her ear. The redheaded piano player glared at me, warning in her yellow cat eyes.
I launched myself airborne and somehow landed on Pendell’s flanneled back. Wrestling him off the bed and onto the floor, I had his wrists pinned, my knee digging into his ribcage. “I think you need to leave before I break your face. I told you we were done with you. I don’t care about that fucking ring.”
I was about to land a punch on his ugly mug when the wildcat grabbed me by my hair and dragged me off. I tried to scrabble away, but it was pointless. Who was I kidding? I was as lethal as a fish on sand.
The girl towered over me, the tip of her boot pressing against my Adam’s apple. I gritted my teeth. Marisa had appointed herself one fearsome bodyguard. “Keep your hands off of Bobby,” she said, nostrils flaring.
“Congratulations, Wonder Woman. You have smote the enemy.”
“We came here to help you, idiot,” she huffed, the boot pushing under my jaw. “Bobby saw something.”
I rolled my eyes and swiped the hair from my bleeding scalp. The cut had reopened. “I told you we could handle this ourselves. So can you please remove your boot from my throat?”
In a spectacular blur of motion, Marisa shot from the bed and lunged at the girl. She was a tiny thing, but Marisa knew how to fight. She’d once threatened a guy with a baseball bat on my behalf. I almost felt sorry for the redhead. “Leave him alone!” she screamed, clawing at the girl and pulling at her hair like a banshee.
“Whoa, whoa. Baby, don’t…” I tried to grab for Marisa’s ankles, but my flounder moves didn’t get me far. I managed to reach for Veronica, strap her on, and then get to my feet. “It’s okay. C’mon, honey,” I pleaded.
But Pendell had already pulled Marisa off his girlfriend. She continued to struggle and cry hysterically in his grip. I still wanted to punch him, but instead, I sucked in a deep breath and tried to channel the voice of reason rather than my inner prizefighter. “Will everyone just calm down? What is wrong with you people? Marisa, baby, come over here.”
From under her nest of wild hair, Marisa stopped struggling and met my gaze, the fight drained out of her. The defeat in her eyes was far more terrifying than her rage.
Pendell gently eased her into my arms and looked me stonily in the eye. “If I’m not mistaken, you were the one who jumped me. Not a good idea to start stuff you can’t finish, Glass.”
I shook my head and let Marisa burrow her face into my chest, her ribs shaking with silent sobs. All I wanted to do was glue her broken pieces back together. And sleep. “I’m tired. We’re both tired. Seriously, can’t this wait? Look at her. Have a heart.”
Pendell’s mouth was set in a firm line. The redhead glared at me, arms crossed in front of her chest. Clearly the Dynamic Duo had no intention of letting up.
“There’s a dangerous person on the loose,” Pendell said. “I saw the whole thing. He wore a black bandana. It’s not just about catching a maniac. It’s about…”
The redhead had opened her palm to display a silver button. Pendell tensed up at the sight of it, his eyes blank and unfocused.
Wrenching herself free of my embrace, Marisa said, “That’s my coat button. How did you get that? And how did you know about— What the hell kind of freak are you?”
Pendell continued to stare straight ahead, frozen like he’d been turned into a wax figure.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” Marisa shot me a panicked look.
The redhead looked on in fear. No one seemed to know what to do.
The loud knock made us all jump. Except for Pendell, who remained inert and unblinking, as if he hadn’t heard a thing.
“Campus security. Open up!”
7
Bobby
Saturday: 1:37AM
It had felt wrong to bust in and violate their privacy like that. And taking advantage of Glass’s disability the way we did made me want to run into the bathroom and puke.
I hadn’t told Gabe everything. I’d insisted that it was our duty to stop a criminal before he hurt anyone else. I knew that would rile her up and she’d want to take action.
I should have asked her to tuck that silver button away somewhere safe. Explained to her how touching it had detonated an explosion in my brain. How I had been trapped inside the scene of Marisa’s attack and couldn’t get free.
She’d known all along about my visions and the tumor that had nearly blinded me. When she’d finally put the button away, the vision eased up, but its remnants still clung to my sight in frayed strips.
The moment I spotted the button glinting on her open palm again, I was instantly sucked back in. And I didn’t even have to touch it. This had never happened before.
My heart was pounding wildly, their voices echoing faintly as if from miles away. Half-deaf to what was around me, all I could see was the continuous loop of Marisa fighting off the man in a bandana who’d overpowered her. She’d never had a chance.
I was stuck, as if I’d been dropped into wet plaster that had begun to thicken.
I blinked and tried to shrug off the bone-deep exhaustion that had turned my limbs to rubber. I was about to keel over any second. The real room behind the vision shimmered in a vague blur.
“Easy, dude. We got you.” Glass had me by the arm.
“Was there some kind of party in here?” I heard the security officer ask. “Underage drinking is not tolerated on this campus.”
“No ma’am,” Glass said. “We were just, uh, roughhousing a bit.”
My ears rang, words reaching me in muffled waves. I teetered as they led me to the bed. Gabe whispered, gripping my arm, “It’s okay.”
“Is that guy all right?” someone asked. “Looks really out of it.”
“He’s fine,” Gabe said. “He’s just blind.”
It was true for the moment, anyway. I tried to blink things clear, but it was little use. Sounds were garbled and tinny. My heart sped up. I was so going to be sick.
There was a silence, and then Marisa spoke. I strained to understand through the distortion. “It’s my room, Officer. We were just getting a bit silly. My boyfriend and I knocked heads.”
“You shouldn’t have this many people in your room at this hour.”
Marisa laughed. “I know. But it’s a special time. My good friend Gabriella Sorensen, the famous pianist, just got accepted here. She brought her friend along on his first trip to New York. He lost his sight when he was thirteen and has always wanted to visit. You’re familiar with Isabella Sorensen, aren’t you?”
“As in the Sorensen Theater?” asked the officer.
“Yep,” said Marisa. “As in the famous opera singer that donated half the money for the concert hall.”
“Ah, I see,” said the officer. “But we did get an alert from the NYPD. A body was found a few blocks from here. Maybe consider calling it a night?”
The words slashed through my daze like cold steel. A body? I began to shake as if I’d been packed in ice.
“Oh, shit,” Gabe said softly beside me.
Fingers dug into my arm. Glass hissed in my ear. “Don’t even think about saying anything, Pendell.”
Now there was a body. And an attacker on the loose, and Glass wanted me to stay quiet. It was insane. Jeremy Glass was insane.
But with Marisa unwilling to speak, I was in no position to argue. No one would believe me. Plus, I was still frozen, unable to utter a word.
After the campus security officers left, things came slowly back into focus. I could move again, if a bit sluggishly. Marisa had pulled her dark hair back into a semblance of a ponytail.
“That was pretty smooth,” Gabe said, eyeing her warily. “How on earth did you know all that about me?”
Marisa had crumpled, all traces of bravado gone. “When Jeremy told me he was at the Smoke and Jazz Lounge, I looked up the website. I saw your face and read about your background.”
Marisa leaned against Jeremy, her face hidden. He pulled her close, protectively stroking her hair. “How do you think she got here in the first place? Research is Marisa’s middle name. Especially when it comes to my whereabouts. Nice work about the blind thing, girls.”
Marisa looked up at him and managed to smile. But I could see she was still shaking. And with the vision waiting to pull me back into madness, so was I.
“So, I guess that’s it, then?” Gabe threw up her hands and began to pace the dorm room. “We don’t go to the cops?”
“Absolutely not. I thought we were clear on that,” Glass said.
“I can’t. You wouldn’t understand. If Papa ever found out…he never wanted me to come here in the first place.”
“It’s not their business,” Glass snapped.
“These guys are ridiculous.” Gabe said. “Let’s just try to enjoy our weekend and buzz out of here, Bobby. I’ve had enough.”
Phantom shreds of the vision streaked across my sight like cobwebs. I knew if I didn’t do something, it would only get worse. I clenched and unclenched my fists. “No,” I said, softly.
“What?” Gabe swiveled on me. “Bobby, you’re not thinking clearly. Let’s go now. Please.”
“No,” I said. “We can’t.”
I didn’t just want to find out who Marisa’s attacker was.
I had to.
8
Jeremy
Saturday: 1:52 AM
Pendell sat on Marisa’s dorm room bed, his eyes unfocused.
“Tell him, Marisa. Tell him what happened,” he said gruffly, as if the words scraped on the way out of his throat.
First, an apparition had spoken to me in the park. Now there was a body. And it seemed that from just touching her coat button, Bobby Pendell knew exactly what had happened to my girlfriend.
I thought about the ring I’d found and wondered where it all connected. I didn’t understand what was happening. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “You seem like a good enough kind of person. Gabe, is it? You’re aware of his creepy shit? Doesn’t it bother you?”
Pendell blinked rapidly, his eyes glazed and watery. He wouldn’t look at me. Or couldn’t. “Do you think I want to be like this?”
The redhead was at his side, staring me down. “You don’t need to explain yourself to him.”
Pendell lowered his head and blinked into his open palms.
“Well. I think you should take your cryptic warnings and go,” I said. “I never promised Agent Reston I’d babysit your strange ass. I think we’re done here.”
“Don’t speak for me, Jeremy.” Marisa rose abruptly from my lap and strode across the room. She sat on the bed beside Pendell and asked, “What exactly did you see, Bobby?”
After he’d described in harrowing detail what he’d witnessed in his vision, Marisa melted into a puddle of sobs and confirmed the whole thing. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to strangle the bastard or have him knighted.
It was clear that we weren’t getting rid of Bobby Pendell just yet.
But that didn’t mean I had to like him.
None of us were going to be able to go back to sleep anytime soon, so we agreed to get coffee at the all-night diner around the block.
Pendell had recovered sufficiently from his supernatural grand mal seizure to walk without Gabe holding him up. He shuffled along beside us, reminding me a little of the Scarecrow, as if any second his straw legs would give out. My stump ached inside Veronica, every step a conscious effort. Marisa clung to my arm and I held on just as firmly to her.
We were the only customers in the overly bright restaurant. The cadaverous waiter, who looked like he probably despised the entire caffeine-slurping population of humanity, led us to a spacious booth. A TV flashed soundlessly above the counter where the waiter’s humanity-hating counterpart, a sour woman with hair the color of curdled yogurt, goggled at us from behind oversized designer glasses.
“Soooo,” I said after an extended silence. “How about those Yankees?”
Marisa giggled softly. “Jeremy has this incredible talent for knowing exactly the wrong thing to say at exactly the right time.”
“I pride myself on my impeccable timing,” I said, waggling a straw in my mouth, Groucho Marx style.
Gabe started to laugh but stopped when Pendell cut her a look.
“Just a little levity,” I said. “Feel free to return to your regularly scheduled brooding.”
Pendell’s mouth pressed into a straight line. “I really don’t like you, Glass.”
“Lighten up, Bobby,” Gabe said, and shook out her thick red-gold hair, bright eyes dancing over the spray of freckles. “He’s just a joker,” she added.
“Humor is a sign of intelligence, Pendell,” I said, grinning at him. “You need it on the receiving side as well.”
Marisa poked me with a sharp elbow. “Don’t you know better than to go waving a red flag in front of an angry bull?”
As if to emphasize the angry bull metaphor, Pendell’s nostrils flared. I could swear I saw little rings of fire circle his tired blue eyes.
“Fair enough,” I said. “Now that we all agree there is a crazed rapist roaming the streets of the city. And a body. And a ring that an apparition led me to. Are you ready for the next step, Pendell? Are you ready to touch the ring? The one ring to rule them all?”
Pendell leaned suddenly over the table and tried to grab for my collar, but Gabe yanked him back. “I already told you I don’t like you, Glass. I don’t care if you only have one leg, because I’m this close to breaking it.”
“Guys!” Gabe said, slapping her palms on the table. “This isn’t a date. No one cares if you like each other, okay? We’ve got some stuff to deal with, so can we get on with it?”
“I am not touching that ring,” Bobby said. He’d slumped back in his seat, staring hard at the tabletop. “It has nothing to do with Marisa’s attack.”
“And you know that how?” I probed. I really couldn’t muster total dislike for the guy. Pity, maybe, mixed with a little awe and a dash
of fear. The dumb lug just didn’t get my style of communication.
If Pendell replied, I didn’t notice. Instead my eyes shifted to the muted TV where the news flashed a still photo of a woman with the caption that read Missing Woman Located. I didn’t need to hear the crap the announcer was spewing to know that she was dead. And that her body had turned up tonight.
Because I recognized her instantly.
9
Bobby
Saturday: 2:05 AM
“It’s her,” Glass said. “She’s the one.”
“What on earth are you talking about, Jeremy?” Marisa said. “What one?”
“The dead woman,” he said. “The one that showed me to the ring.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped the table edge, Agent Reston’s words reverberating in my ears. There really was no escape. No matter what I did, the nightmares would follow me. And now they had taken on the shape of Jeremy Glass.
“No,” I said, the words burning my tongue. “I’m not touching that ring.”
I kept my eyes closed tightly and wished that I’d just gone blind, that the terrible third eye in my mind had gone dark with my sight. Black nothingness was better than the things I was being forced to see.
“Bobby,” Glass said, suddenly serious. “I get you. You don’t want to see the crap you’re seeing any more than I want to meet see-through stalkers in the park. But it’s not like we can just turn it off. You said that you’ve got to solve the crime to make the visions go away. For some reason, I think this is a lead. It’s all just too…”
“Coincidental,” Marisa finished. “Please, Bobby. This guy—he was horrible. Cold and sadistic. It was like—he was almost robotic…” The girl cut off in a blubber of tears. My eyes snapped open.
Agent Reston knew me too well. She knew I’d never be able to walk away.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it. But we’ve got to go back to Gabe’s apartment. Because I can’t promise you won’t have to carry me out if I do it here.”