Fractured

by Lisa Amowitz

  “What did we do to him?” Gabe fought back tears. “What if he’s lost forever?”

  “Shh,” I said. “I’m thinking.” My gaze flashed to the flywing girl. I was certain Bobby Pendell could see her.

  “I still say he needs to go to the ER,” Marisa insisted. “He’s in some kind of minimally conscious vegetative state.”

  “Trust me,” I said.

  ◆

  It took Marisa and me an almost an hour to fill the tub with cold water and ice.

  Bobby Pendell came back to reality with an ear-splitting yowl.

  I knew he was alert when he tried to punch me.

  15

  Bobby

  Saturday: 3:04 PM

  I was sitting in a bathtub filled with ice water.

  “What the hell?” I said and scrambled out of the tub, thinking that the first thing I needed to do was punch Jeremy Glass in the face.

  But I slipped on the wet floor and fell on my butt instead. Surprisingly, Glass was not laughing. Instead, along with Gabe and Marisa, he stared down at me, his face flushed, hands on his hips.

  “Jeez, Pendell. You scared the shit out of us.”

  “What?” I said. My head throbbed. Strands of color, like sloppy tissue paper decorations, hung across my sight in sheer strips.

  “I don’t feel so good.”

  A thin girl with dark circles under her eyes crouched on the toilet. She stared at me, eyes pleading.

  “What?” I said. I knew I’d been somewhere and it had something to do with her. I just didn’t remember. I didn’t know if I wanted to remember.

  “Bobby,” Gabe said softly, “just warm up.”

  She’d pushed everyone, except the creepy girl, out of the bathroom, peeled off my clothes, and then shoved me into a hot shower.

  Gabe watched as I toweled off. “Better?” she asked.

  “Better than what?”

  Gabe sighed. “So all that and you don’t remember a thing.”

  “All what?” I glanced around. The thin girl tilted her head at me, birdlike.

  “Let’s go get something to eat,” Gabe said.

  The others sat around the glass dining table, chowing down on cartons full of food.

  “Indian food first thing in the morning,” I said. “Yuck.”

  Glass raised an eyebrow and kept eating. Marisa flashed him an unreadable look. I was clearly missing something.

  Gabe chuckled. “You know Bobby Pendell is feeling better when he starts bitching about food. It does happen to be three in the afternoon.”

  “Not a culinary adventurer, are you, Pendell?” Glass said, his mouth full.

  “Didn’t you mother tell you not to eat with your mouth full?”

  “Sure,” said Glass, “but not lately. She died when I was eight.”

  Marisa rolled her eyes. “Jeremy. Enough. How are you, Bobby? You really should eat something.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “So what did I miss?”

  They all shared looks. The thin girl had come out of the bathroom and stood a few steps away.

  “Get lost,” Glass said, directly to her. “We’ll figure this out. Go back where you belong.”

  “You don’t need to be rude to her,” I said.

  Gabe and Marisa both stopped eating, their forks midway to their mouths.

  “So you can see her,” Glass said.

  “Yes.”

  “Then just give her what she wants.”

  I pulled up a chair and looked over the cartons brimming with unfamiliar and possibly inedible stuff. My stomach rumbled.

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “Rhymes with sing,” Glass said. Gabe cast him a warning look.

  “And fling,” he added. “And flywing.”

  I furrowed my brows. Yes. I realized. I had forgotten one very big rhymes with something. Ring.

  As I felt myself slip off my chair and into the dark void that had opened beneath me, I remembered why.

  Because remembering was going to kill me.

  16

  Jeremy

  Saturday: 3:22 PM

  Agent Reston strode into the room on the arm of her partner, high heels clacking on the wood floor. She and her squad of paranormal paramedics had arrived in less than twenty minutes after my call.

  “Lucky for you, I was visiting the New York offices today,” she said smoothly. Her dark glasses reflected the afternoon light from the windows. I thought I saw her turn toward the apparition, who had taken to sitting in the corner to stare gloomily at me, arms hugging her knees.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Very lucky.”

  Marisa was on the couch comforting Gabe after she’d finally managed to drag her off of Bobby Pendell’s unresponsive body.

  He had frozen, midsentence, a forkful of jasmine rice halfway on its journey to his mouth, and then fallen off of his chair.

  I hadn’t wanted to call Agent Reston. But I didn’t think there was any other way to save Pendell’s life.

  Agent Reston’s partner led her to a stool by the kitchen counter. She waited there, neck straight, ears cocked like a hunting dog while her team of white-coated medics poked and prodded Pendell with strange objects that looked more like portable bug zappers than medical equipment. I flinched when one of them stuck a long spiral rod up his nose.

  Bobby Pendell, however, did not move a muscle.

  “This may take a while,” Agent Reston said. “You can leave if you want.”

  “Not a chance!” Gabe sprang off the couch. “No way in hell am I leaving him alone with you!”

  Agent Reston tilted her head. “Ah. Must be the girlfriend. Well, that’s fine. But I’m warning you. It may not be pleasant.”

  “I can deal with it,” Gabe said defiantly, hands on hips, an effect completely wasted on Agent Reston.

  A slim eyebrow lifted above the dark glasses. “Lovely to see such devotion. Continue with the procedure, team.”

  “What are you doing to him?” I asked.

  Agent Reston turned to face me, a slight smile curving her red lips. “I see you two have bonded. That’s very nice. But I’m afraid our methods are confidential.”

  “But what’s wrong with him?” I pressed, and swallowed down the hocker I wanted to spit at her.

  “If Bobby had listened to me, we wouldn’t be here right now,” Agent Reston said.

  “And you did nothing to stop this? When you knew the danger he was in?” Gabe was inches from Agent Reston’s face, but the woman remained unruffled.

  “I did try to warn him,” she said. “But he insisted on handling things his way. And since he is still a minor, I could do very little without his father’s consent.”

  On the floor, Pendell had begun to writhe and rave, as if he were speaking in tongues. The flywing girl rose from her corner perch and began to run frantically back and forth.

  “Stop!” Pendell screamed hoarsely. “The ring belongs to Brendan Wavestone!”

  17

  Bobby

  Saturday: 6:10 PM

  “Stop!” I cried. But it was too late. The vision crashed back into my memory, sweeping me out to sea with the pull of its violent swells.

  ◆

  Brittany Byers spills out of the limo, shoeless and still a bit wobbly. She stumbles aimlessly through the streets of Harlem, not really sure of her direction. It’s late, and there’s no one around to notice one lost and half-dressed girl. And it’s cold. Ball-freezing cold.

  Again Brittany fishes in her bag for her phone, and again it’s nowhere to be found. Cursing her terrible luck, her next plan is to hail a cab home to Queens. At least she still has her credit card. But there are no cabs, so Brittany decides that an all-night coffee shop is her best bet to find a safe haven.

  Then she sees it, shining like a beacon of hope in the night. Riverside Church at 122nd Street.

  Miraculously, the door to the sanctuary is open. She slips in and sits in one of the pews at the back. Votive candles flicker at the altar, c
asting the space in shimmering red light. The air is thick with incense. Brittany decides that this might be a good time to pray. She closes her eyes, head bowed in meditation. It makes her just a little homesick for Tennessee and Mama’s homemade fudge.

  That’s when she feels the hand that comes to rest on her shoulder. She looks up, thinking it’s a priest or some other kindly person who’s come to look in on her.

  But the person in a black cap, bandana, and dark glasses does not look kindly. Silently, he claps a hand over her mouth, and then drags her from the pew and into the church basement before she has a chance to cry out.

  ◆

  The probes that invaded my every orifice were nothing compared to the inferno that raged in my skull.

  “Hold on, Bobby,” said a voice. “We’re almost done.”

  I’d recognize that voice anywhere. It was the voiceover to all my latest nightmares.

  Agent Reston. Here.

  I wanted to run. But I couldn’t even move.

  “You’re going to thank me for this,” she said. Someone jabbed a needle into my arm and the sudden warmth spread from the entry point straight to my head. “But the relief is only going to be temporary, Bobby.”

  The room came into focus, wavering and blueish as if we were underwater. Agent Reston sat on one of the kitchen counter stools, drumming her shiny red nails on the countertop.

  “What are you shooting me up with?” I gasped. My voice sounded harsh and raw to my ears. My throat felt like splintered wood.

  “It’s a temporary antidote for your condition.” She turned to me and smiled, her dark glasses reflecting the overhead kitchen lights. I realized with a shock that it was night. I’d lost a big chunk of time.

  “What condition?”

  “If you’d have heard me out, I could have warned you. But of course we had no definitive way of knowing you’d develop this problem.”

  Little by little, the room’s curved lines began to straighten. The ragged strips of color that overlaid my vision had faded to vague impressions.

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “On the rare occasions when a patient’s psychic ability remains intact after the tumor is removed, certain conditions can trigger seizures. For lack of a better name, we call your affliction Psychic Epilepsy Syndrome, or PES for short.”

  “You sure like your acronyms,” Jeremy Glass said. I’d only just noticed him sitting on the couch as the room came into focus.

  I squinted at Agent Reston. “You said temporary antidote.”

  She lifted her chin. “That’s because there is no true cure.”

  “Feeling better, Pendell?” Glass asked.

  “Fuck you,” I said. “You’re the one who called her.”

  Agent Reston tilted her head and adjusted her skirt. I looked away. The woman was blind, but she wasn’t above flaunting her long legs.

  “Ungrateful bastard. I should have left you for dead,” Glass said, rising from the couch. He stood over me with a mocking half-smile, his pointy chin peppered with faint stubble. He looked like he’d slept in his clothes. “You look like a pile of shit, Pendell. I’ll get you water. Since I’m a thoughtful kind of guy.”

  I sat up and rubbed my head. “I’m fine. All I need is a shower.” I tried to stand, but my head was still spinning crazily. The dead girl was gone. And in the chaos I hadn’t noticed that Gabe and Marisa were gone, too.

  “In case you’re wondering where everyone went,” Glass said, offering me the glass of water, “Gabe had a new student orientation and Marisa decided to go with her. We thought it was better than sitting around watching you wig out.”

  “You let them go out alone?” I shouted. I caught Agent Reston smiling from the corner of my eye.

  “Relax,” Glass said. “It’s just on campus. What do you think Gabe is going to do when she goes to school here? Have an armored car shuttle her around?”

  “Thanks for reminding me about that.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose and sipped the water.

  My gaze caught the ring sitting on the coffee table. It looked so bland and unthreatening. I looked away. I wasn’t ready to revisit the horror of the visions just yet.

  “Well then. We’re done for now. The treatment lasts seventy-two hours. If you manage to solve the crime, the object will lose its resonance and the seizures associated with it will most likely quiet. You’ll go into remission.” Agent Reston smiled, stood, and flicked open her cane. “Until you stumble across the next criminal artifact.”

  Her partner took her by the arm as the medical team packed up its equipment. “If you don’t, the seizures will return with more severity,” she said. “And the worse they get, the more antidote you’ll require to break out of them.” Agent Reston walked to the bed and stood imperiously over me, her face angled downward.

  I stood abruptly, my face inches from hers so that I could see myself reflected in her dark lenses. “You did this to me, didn’t you? You never planned to let me go.”

  Agent Reston’s mouth twitched. “These things happen. It’s beyond our control. For the meantime, it’s probably best to wait for further decisions. You’ll be turning eighteen next month. Then you can decide your destiny for yourself.” She started to turn away, then stopped and faced me, adding, “If you make it through this weekend, that is.”

  I moved in closer to Agent Reston, my face nearly touching hers, but she stood her ground. “I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t want any part of your shitty Program.”

  She nodded, smiled, and cupped my face in her hand. “Such soft skin. Just like a baby’s.” Her smile faded. “Administered in large doses, the antidote destroys brain function. It will pull you out of a psychic seizure, but at the same time, it’ll slowly turn you into a vegetable. We won’t deny you the temporary cure, but unfortunately it will lose its efficacy as your brain unravels. But there is a much better alternative available should you agree to sign on.”

  I shook my head. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth? You’d say anything to get me into your Program.”

  “Bobby,” Agent Reston said, very softly. “Let me let you in on a little secret. While you would certainly be an asset to the Program, our main interest is in protecting you. Also, assets who prove unmanageable become liabilities to the Program.”

  “Unmanageable?” Glass said. He had been listening carefully, chin resting on his hands.

  “Anyone who compromises The Program and our tactics is a risk factor. We have our own ways of dealing with them.”

  “You knock them off?” I said, shuddering.

  Reston smiled her cat smile. “Of course not. There are far better ways to deal with Renegades than killing them.”

  “Renegades,” I said, rolling the word on my tongue. Nausea bubbled inside of me. The floor seemed to buckle and roll. “But what if I do sign up? Wouldn’t my condition still do me in?”

  “When you’re ready, we’ll talk about it. For now, see what you can do with the information you have. The treatment will keep you from going too deep into a vision, kind of like a tether. Think of it as deep-sea diving. You’ll be hauled back up to safety.”

  “Wait—you’re leaving? Just like that?”

  Agent Reston smiled broadly enough to reveal her white teeth. “Consider this your audition. I have faith in you, Bobby.”

  I glanced at Jeremy. He simply threw up his hands.

  “Just so you know, you passed up your first chance. Second time around, the bar is set higher.”

  I just stared at her, incredulous. “You’re saying I have to prove myself? Or be left to go insane?”

  “You’ve got seventy-two hours to show me what you can do, Bobby. Oh, and boys—did you wonder exactly why I happened to be in New York when my home office is in Washington, DC?” She cocked her head expectantly.

  “It keeps me awake nights wondering,” Jeremy said.

  “Always the joker,” Agent Reston said, shaking her head. “Do you remember what my ability is, Bobby? I ca
n see murders. And there’s a big cluster of them around here. Only they haven’t all happened yet. And I’m counting on you to do something about that.”

  18

  Jeremy

  Saturday: 8:13 PM

  I glanced at the clock. It was 8:13 PM. Ten minutes after Agent Reston had left. The girls weren’t back yet and I was edgy. I didn’t like the implied threat from that manipulative blind bitch: that if Bobby Pendell didn’t prove himself useful, they’d make him disappear, kill him or something—whether he planned to cooperate or not.

  Bobby paced the apartment in his stocking feet. He still hadn’t peeled off his rumpled clothes and his hair looked like an oil-soaked crow had landed and died on his head.

  An unexpected wave of big brotherly protectiveness washed over me. The kid had a hair-trigger temper and zero sense of humor. But despite his tendency to want to punch me in the teeth, I liked him. Since most people wanted to punch me anyway, I tended to overlook small things like that.

  Bobby wasn’t talking, though. He stalked back and forth, occasionally texting Gabe, I figured, pretending like I wasn’t there. The apparition scurried along in his wake. Occasionally, he’d whirl around, snarl at her, and she’d scrabble over to crouch near me. But I ignored her, so she’d fall back in line, marching behind Bobby like a semi-transparent majorette.

  I sighed. Tenderness, I realized, wasn’t the best way to deal with a hardscrabble hick like Bobby Pendell. “So, what’s your next move, Pendell? Shrivel up in a ball and die?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You really need to work on your vocabulary range.”

  Bobby stopped pacing and whirled on me. “What the hell is your game? Do you enjoy kicking people when they’re down? Is this entertaining to you?”

  I raised an eyebrow. Maybe it was time to drop the act. “Actually, Bobby, it’s not entertaining at all. It’s pure shit. So I’ll just cut to the chase. We don’t have the luxury of sparring with each other, so pack up your ego and stuff it under the bed. Read between her bullshit, Bobby. You’re going to die if we don’t figure out how to deal with this.”