Night Sky

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Her lips twitched, as if she were holding back her own grin. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been there, done that. It was years ago, but it happened.” Dana’s smile grew and then turned wistful, as if she was rewinding a memory. “Believe it or not, I didn’t make it to a bathroom, either. I puked right in Milo’s lap.”

  I felt my eyes get huge. “Really?”

  Dana nodded. “Eh,” she said dismissively. “You know him, though. He’s a rock. Nothing bugs him. Well, almost nothing.”

  “I can tell,” I replied warily, afraid we were entering the boyfriend-warning zone.

  “You’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg, Bubble Gum.” Dana played with a packet of sugar. “Milo’s been through it.”

  I raised an eyebrow, not understanding.

  “He’s had a rough life,” Dana continued. “You know about the warrant. Imagine having to steal money that’s yours from someone who’s supposed to take care of you, someone whose idea of taking care of kids included frequent use of their belt—and then having that follow you for the rest of your life.”

  I couldn’t imagine.

  “I met Milo in that foster home,” she told me. “He’d been there for a while.” I could tell by the way Dana said the words a while that she was talking years. “He’d been through the typical shit-show. You know, dead mom, wino dad who ended up in prison…all that loveliness.”

  “I’d guessed it was bad,” I whispered, “but I really didn’t know how bad.”

  “Well, how would you?” Dana shrugged. “Anyway, you have to understand something.” She focused her eyes on mine, gazing at me with an intensity that made my throat turn dry. “Milo hasn’t met many girls like you. So just take that information and file it somewhere useful in that big brain of yours, and back the hell off.”

  I leaned across the table, because it was so important to me that Dana understand. “I would never,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, yes, he’s great, he’s amazing, he’s…” I tried to make it into a joke, of sorts. “Mere words cannot describe the wonder that is Milo.” But Dana definitely wasn’t laughing, so I quickly added, “But he’s my friend, and you’re my friend, and I would never, ever do anything to come between the two of you.”

  Dana blinked, once. Other than that she didn’t move a muscle.

  “Never,” I added for emphasis.

  “Well, good,” Dana finally said. She glanced toward the door to the kitchen as if looking for our waiter, but there was no one in sight. “Milo and I have been…”—she cleared her throat—“together for years. I’m glad to hear that you respect that.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “Good,” she said again, and then she sat there, just looking at me as if she was maybe going to say something else, or as if she were waiting for me to say something else to her.

  I didn’t know what there was to add, maybe an additional reassurance that I’d understood her message—back away from my boyfriend—but then I didn’t have to say anything because an absurdly cheerful waiter approached our table.

  “Hi! I’m Mike! I’ll be your server today! Can I start you off with something to drink?” Mike chuckled a little, as if he couldn’t contain his own jubilance.

  “We’re ready to order,” Dana replied, not bothering to check with me.

  Mike nodded eagerly, his pen perched above the pad and ready to write.

  “We’re gonna need a large pepperoni pizza, extra cheese, sausage, mushrooms, and stuffed crust. Two baskets of bread, two large colas, and a lot of napkins.”

  The waiter’s hand moved furiously across his notepad. He punctuated the order with an expressive pop as the pen hit the paper. Then he looked up and nodded. “Be back soon!”

  “Wow.” I asked Dana, “Are you trying to fatten me up?”

  “Who said I ordered anything for you?”

  I frowned.

  “I’m kidding.” Dana grinned. “But I’m not kidding about you needing to eat more. You’re skinny as it is. And if we really do train the way I want to, you’re going to be burning a seriously huge amount of calories. The telekinesis is an enormous drain. I bet the telepathy is too. And, believe it or not, the more full you keep your stomach, the less likely you’ll be to…regurgitate the contents.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” I said skeptically.

  “Just try it and see. It can’t hurt to try, right?”

  I nodded cautiously.

  “It’s a nourishment thing. If you don’t provide the fuel, your body starts to, well, kind of cannibalize itself. You don’t just burn fat, you burn muscle, and that weakens your entire system. Keep yourself fed, and you’re less likely to have nasty-ass side effects.” Swiftly, she grabbed a clean napkin off a nearby table. “You got a pen?” she asked me.

  I started to dig through my bag as she added, “Anyway, I’m serious about taking this training thing to the next level. And I want to make sure that things go more smoothly tomorrow when we’re sniffing around McDouche’s house looking for clues.”

  I was still searching when Mike came back to our table with the sodas. As he leaned over to place the drinks on the table, he made eye contact with Dana. His head tilted abruptly to the right. “I would love, very much, to give you my pen,” he announced almost robotically, and pulled a blue ballpoint out of his shirt pocket.

  He presented it to Dana as if it were the Hope Diamond, and she took it from him just as gravely. “Why, thank you, Mike.”

  It was the same thing she’d done to Calvin when we were all in his car, driving around Harrisburg. Mind-control, Cal had called it.

  I laughed out loud as Mike walked back to the kitchen. “That’s so crazy.”

  Dana didn’t reply, but moved our soda glasses out of the way, leaned over the table, and motioned for me to do the same.

  “All right. Let’s get organized here.” Dana scribbled my name at the top of the napkin. Underneath that she made a vertical column of dashes, as if she was planning to write a list. “Okay. I want to review your talents—everything that you know about so far.”

  I thought for a moment. “Well, the most obvious one is the telekinesis.”

  Dana nodded and jotted it down.

  “Then there are the smells. I don’t know if that’s something that’s becoming more pronounced, or if I’m just more aware of it now that I know that I have that skill…”

  “Probably both.”

  “And then there’s the whole psychic thing,” I continued. I almost wanted to laugh; our whole conversation sounded so ridiculous. And yet it was all true. I was psychic.

  “Psychic abilities,” Dana said, nodding as she wrote.

  I thought about the most recent vision I’d had of Sasha…the one that had appeared in my mind so clearly, right before Edmund’s awful arrest—and how I’d asked him “Where’s Sasha?” instead of “Who killed Sasha?” Hope rose in my chest like a tidal wave. I knew this was my opportunity to argue my case. “Dana, I’m not sure that my abilities are only psychic. You know, with my dreams and…visions?” I took a deep breath and just said it. “I think I might be prescient too.”

  Dana looked up from the list without moving her head.

  “I just… When Edmund showed up this afternoon, it was terrible. I mean, it was as awful as it gets. I had another vision when I spotted him. And it was strong. And powerful. And when I spoke to him? It was like that time when I just knew you were in that diner.”

  Dana waited for me to continue.

  I dropped the bomb. “I think Sasha’s still alive.”

  “No.” Dana dropped Mike’s pen and took a long sip of soda from her straw. Swallowing, she shook her head. “No. I understand you want to believe that. But there’s no way.”

  I placed my hands on the table for emphasis. “But I saw her! She was asleep! She wasn’t dead. And it wasn’t a…a past-tense im
age. I really think it was happening in that moment. Like with Calvin in his car, with the hat.”

  But my words didn’t convince Dana. She leaned over the table, and with eyes brimming with sympathy, she covered my hands. “No, Sky,” she said again.

  I pulled my hands free as I scowled and opened my mouth, more than ready to argue my point.

  “And if you want to tell me why you disagree, Bubble Gum, I’m all ears—after we finish reviewing this list. Because whether Sasha’s dead or alive, we need to keep working.”

  I could tell she was just humoring me. Sighing mightily, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Fine.”

  “Okay,” Dana said. “So we were talking about your psychic slash prescient abilities.”

  On the napkin, Dana placed the word prescient between two very large and imposing sets of quotation marks. She didn’t believe me.

  So I’d just have to show her. But right now, I moved on. “I have an eidetic memory,” I said.

  “’Kay. What else?”

  “I can run really fast.”

  Dana shook her head. “Man, I love that one. It is so freaking cool to watch you do that.” She smiled as she wrote it down.

  “And recently…” I cleared my throat, feeling my cheeks heat up. “I found out that I can get into another person’s head by…touching them. But it’s only that…one person. Milo. I don’t know why,” I added almost apologetically. “Ditto with the dreams.”

  “Contact telepathy and projection dreams.” Dana nodded. She didn’t look upset at all, which was a good thing. If I were Milo’s girlfriend, I’d be way less cool with another girl invading my boyfriend’s brain—but I guess Dana was just super confident. Of course, how could she not be? She was the epitome of sex appeal.

  “I think that’s it.”

  “You forgot to mention your musical abilities.”

  I blushed in spite of myself. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “But that’s not something to fluff my feathers about. It’s not like it would ever help us out.” I tried to make it into a joke. “Excuse me, creepy old lady who steals little girls. What’s that you say? Listening to Mozart melts your brain…?”

  Dana studied my face, and I looked down at my fingers nervously. Finally, she spoke. “A few years ago, I went to a bookstore.” Dana took a sip of soda. After an appreciative aah, she continued. “I couldn’t afford to buy anything at the time. Not even a cheap paperback. And my e-reader had just gotten run over by a very angry trucker in a neon-orange semi—long story. Long and very disappointing. Anyway. I missed the whole sit-read-and-relax process, so I picked up an old hardcover from the bargain bin. It was sixty-eight cents.” Dana smiled. “The book was called Learn French in 24 Hours. Well, I read it in two. And when I was done, I had learned French.”

  I laughed. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.” She took another sip. “I remember thinking, Well, that was easy. So I found another book called Master Japanese. I read that too.”

  “And?”

  “I mastered Japanese.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  Dana shook her head. “Nope.” She played with her straw. “I’m not trying to…fluff my feathers, either. But I know that there’s something about the way that you and I can use a greater percentage of our brains that makes us…unique. Different. Special.”

  “Greater than?”

  “You can call it that if you want. But my point is that you can’t take any of this”—she waved the napkin—“lightly. And you can’t take it for granted. But you also can’t start thinking you’re better than anyone else, just because you got lucky and you won the genetic crapshoot that allows you to integrate more of your brain than the average normie can. Because thinking that you won is just one way of looking at it. The other way says that you lost. Big time.”

  I knew exactly what she meant and I rubbed a hand over my face. “It’s tiring sometimes.”

  “I know,” Dana said almost tenderly. “It’s a gift, but it’s also a frickin’ heavy burden.” She smiled, and I smiled ruefully back at her.

  Of course, Mike the waiter interrupted the moment. “Pizza time, ladies!” he exclaimed, sliding the ludicrously enormous tray of piping hot pizza onto the table between us.

  “Thanks?” I was skeptical because the thing wasn’t cut. But then Mike put an enormous pizza cutter with a huge, round, dangerous-looking blade onto the table, along with the bread baskets and a huge pile of napkins.

  Dana looked at Mike, her gaze deliberate.

  Mike’s head tilted to the side. “I would love to bring you some red pepper,” he said, his automaton voice back again.

  I coughed a little into my sleeve, watching as Mike quickly scurried toward the kitchen, but then stopped and grabbed a container of red pepper from another table. He ran back and handed it to Dana, before his head returned to an upright position and he waltzed away.

  “Man,” I said, picking up the pizza cutter. “You really are a pro at the Jedi mind-screw.”

  Dana shrugged. “Practice makes perfect,” she said nonchalantly. “Here. Let me help you with that.”

  The pizza cutter was pretty dull, despite its horror-movie, implement-of-torture look, and I was having a hard time getting the pie to slice. Dana tried to yank the thing away from me, but I was holding on too tightly. Somehow, the circular blade grazed the side of Dana’s palm, proving it to be sharper than I’d thought.

  “Shit!” she hissed, and I looked up, wide-eyed, as she started to bleed.

  “Oh my gosh! Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” she replied. She took an extra napkin and applied pressure to the cut. It didn’t look like it was terribly deep—but there was a lot of blood. The napkin quickly turned red and soggy.

  “I’m so sorry!” I managed.

  “Don’t be. Let’s use this as… Well, just watch.” Dana pressed the napkin firmly against the wound.

  “What am I watching for?” I asked. But Dana quickly quieted me with a stern glance as she removed the napkin.

  At first I thought it was my imagination. It looked like the cut was a lot smaller than I’d originally perceived it to be.

  But then a few more seconds passed, and I realized that the cut was getting smaller—in front of my very disbelieving eyes.

  “Whoa,” I whispered.

  And then, it was gone. Just like that.

  No scar. No nothin’.

  “Access to the self-healing centers of your brain is a pretty standard and basic G-T skill,” Dana told me. “A small cut like that is pretty easy to disappear. Bigger injuries take more time. But you have to be very specific and focused when you use this talent, or all your tats’ll vanish. Your body’ll read ’em as something that needs to be healed and…” She looked at me and came to the correct conclusion. “No tats. Of course. Still, you should try it on your knee, while we’re eating.”

  She paused as Mike came running out of the kitchen, his head tilted to the side. “I would love to cut your pizza for you!” he announced, and we sat back as he did just that.

  “Thanks, Mikey,” Dana said.

  “It’s a new thing that isn’t going over very well. But our manager thinks it’s a way to get our customers more involved with the Pizza Extravaganza experience, whatever that means,” he told us cheerfully. His head tilted again. “I would love to tell my manager that you ladies think it’s kinda stupid.”

  “You go do that, Mike,” Dana said, and he rushed off. She grabbed a slice and took a bite and told me, with her mouth full, “Focus on your knee, and as you breathe, send each inhale toward your injury and picture it healing.”

  I did just that, and two slices later, I took off my bandage and found a scrape that looked like it had happened two weeks ago, instead of two hours.

  “Dana, this is freakishly awesome.” I gingerly touched my knee, but it n
o longer hurt. At all. I looked up and smiled at her. “Seriously, if they could bottle and sell this, people would be very rich.”

  “They can, and they are,” Dana replied. “Don’t you see now?”

  I actually did. “So that’s the reason people take Destiny.”

  “That’s one of the reasons why people take it.” Dana grabbed another slice of pizza. “But not everyone has the patience to learn how to control the healing centers of their brain. You can’t just take the drug, and presto, you’re cured of the cancer that’s eating your lungs or your prostate or whatever. You have to take the time to learn to harness the power it gives you—and it gives you way more than just self-healing abilities.” She waved the napkin at me again. “Anyone who takes Destiny could find themselves saddled with a variety of skills, which makes them dangerous when they have adverse reactions to the drug. And it’s definitely a when, not an if.

  “But whoever is in charge of making and distributing this stuff doesn’t really care about that.” She put her recently healed hand up and rubbed two fingers against her thumb. “It’s about money. That’s all they care about. If they had even half a conscience, they wouldn’t be harvesting little girls for the product, for Christ’s sake.”

  I thought about Sasha—who was out there, still alive. I believed this more and more with every moment that passed, with every breath I took. But I kept my opinion to myself as Dana slid another slice of pizza onto my plate.

  I took a large bite as she waved the napkin at me again and said, “Not to freak you out, but my experience has been that G-Ts are more like me. I have a few things that I can do really well. But this list? This is crazy. Without any training? Plus, you’re only sixteen.”

  “Seventeen tomorrow,” I corrected her through my massive mouthful.

  “Seventeen, sixteen, whatever,” she dismissed it. But then what she said nearly made me choke. “I don’t think there’s ever been a girl with as much raw talent as you, Skylar. If I’m a so-called Greater-Than, you’re a holy-shit-what-the-hell. So eat up. You need your strength, because I’m going to train you. Together we are going to sharpen and hone your skills, so you can totally kick ass and defend yourself. Because until you can? There are some badass mofos out there who would like nothing better than to strap you to a table and bleed you dry.”