“Spike never . . . he doesn’t want . . . he . . .” She kind of moaned, and this time real tears welled in her eyes.
“Are you transferring your fears for him onto me?” That seemed the height of unfairness. She shook her head, but I could see her fear. That meant it wasn’t for me.
“Mom.” I stretched my arms across the butcher block, not really reaching for her, but to support the weight I couldn’t seem to carry. “I don’t know how to convince you.”
“Daley, you tried to stab yourself in the chest!”
“I was ten! I didn’t understand what I had, that I was unique. I thought everyone felt like me, and that I was the only one who couldn’t handle it. We had seven people in this house who bombarded me with their emotions every single day. It hurt.”
“And you still blame me for that! So you make me watch you on the news, risking your life, and when I haven’t heard from you I watch not knowing if I’m about to see you die!” She slid off her stool and stood, shaking. “I didn’t know! And I don’t understand why you can’t forgive me.” She broke down into sobs. The weight on me didn’t disappear, but settled over a wider area, making it easier to carry.
“Oh, Mom.” I crossed the kitchen and put my arms around her. “I’m not punishing you. I don’t blame you. I didn’t blame you then.” I sighed. “I can’t fix this for you. You have to forgive yourself.”
She just kept crying, and I kept holding her. Eventually, she subsided with a sigh and hugged me harder.
“Thank you, sweetie.”
“I’m not sure what you’re thanking me for.”
Her mouth trembled as she tried to smile. She patted my shoulders. “You just . . . said the right thing, that’s all.” With another pat, she left the room.
I stood for a minute, battling the memories she’d dredged up. It had been sixteen years, and she’d never admitted to the guilt she’d just revealed, however indirectly. If I’d known, maybe I could have helped absolve her sooner.
My ringing phone made me jump. I didn’t mind the excuse to delay going back into the dining room, so I answered it without looking.
“How bad is it?”
“Adam.” I closed my eyes. He sounded exhausted, his voice tight with pain, but the sound of it made every muscle in my body relax. “How do you always know?”
He chuckled. “Because it always happens. I thought it might be worse with the recent events and that you might be needing to vent right about now.”
I leaned against the island and wrapped my free arm around myself. “You thought right. We had a blow-up.” I told him what had happened, hesitating only briefly over the word suicide. I hadn’t told anyone but Summer about it before.
“The truth is,” I said when Adam didn’t sound disgusted or disappointed by my revelation, “she had nothing to do with the cause or the healing. I was bombarded, and the crush of both positive and negative emotions overwhelmed me.” I turned and eyed the block of knives on the counter. “It seemed like it was centered in my chest, so I took a butcher knife and tried to carve it out.” I lifted the knife—not the same one, but remarkably similar—from the block. Adam didn’t gasp, but his indrawn breath was audible.
“God, Daley, you poor kid.”
“I didn’t want to die, just end the pain. I was terrible at it, too.” I smiled and watched the light glint off the blade, then shoved it back into the wood. “I hardly even cut the skin, never mind got past the bone.”
“What happened?”
“Best I can tell, the physical pain of the first scratch jarred me so much I put up an instinctive shield. It blocked out everything external and allowed me to focus on my wound.” I pressed the heel of my hand to my breastbone. “I was so shocked and relieved, I saw my own colors for the first time.”
“What did they look like?”
I smiled again. “Brilliant. Vibrant. And chaotic. After that, I could build the block on my own. It was kind of like when you’re trying for months to whistle, and then it suddenly happens, and after that, because you felt it work the first time, you know how to do it every time after that. I practiced constantly until the blocks became default, and I could see what people felt without being touched by it.” I had honed those blocks and analysis over the years, and looking back, I realized I could be proud of what I’d accomplished.
“I never really thought about all that,” Adam said when I stopped talking. “Never bothered to wonder how it had been for you as a kid. You’re amazing, you know that?”
My face heated and I was glad he was on the phone and not here in front of me. “I am not. But thank you. I take it your abilities weren’t so hard to assimilate?”
“Not at all. It was one of those situations that just was. I never knew anything different.”
“Still, you had to overcome that,” I pointed out. “Not a lot of people like you would have the compassion and awareness of others that you have.”
I could hear his smile over the line. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you.” I meant it, in a lot of ways. “I feel a lot better now.”
“I’d better let you get back to your family, then.”
I realized the dining room was still silent. Shit. They were waiting for me, probably heard my fight with Mom, and maybe even my phone call. “Yeah, I’d better go.” But I didn’t want to disconnect from Adam. “Are you doing okay? You still sound worn out.” I didn’t expect him to be honest. He tried just as hard to keep from burdening any of us as he did bearing the burden of responsibility.
“I’m fine. Actually took a pain pill an hour ago.”
“Liar.”
“Hey!”
“If you had, you’d be sleeping right now.”
“I’m not far from it.”
An image of Adam stretched out beneath satin sheets flashed through my head, and a new kind of heat reddened my skin. “Goodnight, Adam.”
“Night, Daley. See you tomorrow.”
I hung up and took a deep breath. The images returned, this time slow and languorous, unreeling behind my eyelids. He’d be tender and loving, focused on my pleasure, but what really made me catch my breath was the idea of making him lose control. Adam never lost control. If I could be the cause of it? Putting all my attention on him, forcing him to let go and fly? My pulse went out of control just considering it.
I shivered and shoved that all down deep before pushing slowly through the door to find everyone watching me. Mom wasn’t in the room. To a person, they were blank. Not a stray emotion to be read, which meant they were fully focused on me.
Great.
“Sorry I took so long. That was Adam.” I sat again and sipped from my water glass. “He—”
“We didn’t mean it!” Becca blurted. “I’m so sorry, Daley. I never knew it was all our fault.”
Steven rubbed her back reassuringly. “She knows we didn’t mean it, Beck. But I’m sorry, too. I didn’t know how hard it was.”
“You guys were kids! Still are kids, actually.” I managed a grin. “I never blamed you, either. Come on, Mom’s finally getting off her guilt train. Don’t you guys start boarding it!”
“I remember,” Sarah murmured. “The rest of you probably don’t remember everything. But I remember how frightened Mom was, and the blood all over Dad’s shirt. You were in the hospital for days.”
“Not for the knife wound,” I explained. “That needed stitching, but it was pretty superficial. They put me in the psych ward.”
“Was it horrible?” Becca’s eyes were as wide as E.T.’s.
“No. I was lucky. The juvenile psychiatrist had worked with super-kids before, though he didn’t tell me about them. He knew how to help me. I saw him for a few weeks afterward, but it was like going to the gym. I didn’t have emotional issues to work through, but had to p
ractice shields and control.”
“That’s probably why you’re so good at working with teenagers now,” Dad said.
“No, I’m good at working with teenagers—and kids and adults—because I don’t have to guess at what they’re feeling.” Except my family. And my boyfriend, when I had one. But that wasn’t really the point I was trying to make.
“Okay, yes. But you could do only that. It would still be helping people, and you’d be safe.”
I bit the inside of my cheek so I didn’t yell at them. Suddenly, everything became clear. They were selfish to want me to restrict the use of my gifts, even if it was because they thought I’d be safer. And it would be selfish of me to withhold them from where I could do the most good. Finding those people in the rubble had saved huge amounts of time and saved lives. And I had potential for more. Calming the guy in the restaurant might have saved those lives, too, or at least that relationship. And if not, if it had only saved the hostess further embarrassment, it was worth it.
I didn’t have to voice the argument for it to have an effect. Not on my father, but on myself. The entire time I’d been with HQ a tiny voice inside told me I was the mascot, only a very small part of the team. They didn’t need me.
Now I could see that that wasn’t true. I couldn’t say the voice wouldn’t rise again, but it fell silent for now. I was more confident, stronger. And, in turn, more able to face my mother’s guilt and my family’s regret.
Dad dragged Mom out of the bedroom, and we talked for an hour. Spike stayed, but was the most silent. I figured the others, if they even noticed, would attribute it to his being too young to remember anything. I knew the truth, though, and thought maybe he was rethinking his decision to keep his ability hidden. I was surprised he’d been able to so long. Jeff was known to fight with his fists. Becca and Steven had the scars to prove it. But maybe being the baby had spared Spike that.
I got a text message from Kirby around nine-thirty.
Fnd soe. Cm whn u can, or call. B @ HQ 2 mdnt.
I hated her text shorthand, but I figured out that she’d found something, I assumed about CASE, and she wanted me to come to HQ or call her. She’d be there late.
“I need to go.” I made the rounds with hugs and kisses and apologies and thanks. Sarah reminded me about the family picnic in three weeks, and I grimaced. “Just as long as it won’t be like this. I don’t want to do heart-to-hearts with all thirteen cousins.”
Dad stood at the door, keys in hand.
“Just take me to the Metro,” I told him. “It’s late, it’s Friday night, the drunks and crazies will be out.”
He humphed. “Good reason not to leave you at the train.”
“What do you think I do all the time? It will be fine. I have mace.”
“You don’t live close enough to the station.” He held the car door for me. I waited until he went around and got in before continuing the argument.
“I’m going to HQ. That’s half a block from the Metro. I’ll be fine. I have a kubaton, too.”
“Okay, okay.” He started the car. “The Metro.”
I called Kirby from the train, before it went underground, to let her know I was on my way. She sounded very excited but refused to tell me why. I hoped it was big enough to form a plan of action around.
Half an hour later, I unlocked the front door of HQ and relocked it behind me. I wasn’t used to being here at night without the team running all over the place or wrapping up after a mission. The building was dark except for the glow of her computer, and my feet echoed and crunched on the cracked linoleum.
“Kirby?” I called, suddenly nervous.
“In here!” She sounded normal.
I hurried into the office. She didn’t look up from her screen, so I slid a chair over and sat next to her. “What have you got?”
“A website. They hid it, but I found some oblique references on a forum and traced backwards to the CASE site. It’s not a public site, with no links anywhere, and they don’t spell out their organization name on it, so a typical search would have a hard time finding it. Case isn’t exactly an uncommon word.”
“So is there a location? List of members? What?”
“No location. Not sure who’s running it, so it could be anywhere. There’s a list of members in a secure database. I think I can get in eventually. It’s not top level, and I don’t think it’s encrypted, though it could be in code.”
I barely understood what she was saying. “I’m sure you can figure it out.”
She turned away from the monitor and beamed. She was excited and happy, and I didn’t think it was because of this website.
“What’s going on?”
“Guess what?” She bounced in her seat.
“What?”
“No, guess.”
I closed my eyes in a long blink. I was so tired. “I don’t know . . . you got laid.”
“Nope.”
“Trace kissed you.”
“Trace did what?” His chuckling voice came from behind me. Kirby gasped, embarrassment glowing around her.
“Nothing, it was a joke.” I swiveled in my chair. “Where’s Summer?”
“Busy with Frank,” Trace answered. “She’s not coming back in. Adam?”
Kirby shook her head. “He was totally wiped out, so I didn’t call him. Guess what happened?”
Trace leaned forward and rubbed his eyes. I saw despair licking at his edges.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Same old thing. That studio fell through.”
“That’s okay. You can stay with me as long as you need to.”
Kirby stiffened, but I didn’t care. If she wanted to make a move on Trace, she could. I wasn’t going to, and she knew that.
“Thanks.” He lifted his head. “I can’t guess. What happened?”
Kirby jumped up, her grin wide on her face again, her white teeth reflecting blue light from the monitor while the rest of her remained partially shadowed. She removed something from the desk drawer and held it between the forefinger and thumb of both hands. It looked like a check.
I squinted. A check with a lot of zeroes.
“What’s that?” Trace asked.
She jumped up and down, twice. “Only the thing we’ve been needing forever. The thing Adam said we wouldn’t get. The thing I wanted to happen because of that Today’s News article. Now can you guess?”
“No,” we said together.
Her smile didn’t dim. “We have a benefactor!”
Chapter 12
Despite her excitement and desire to celebrate, Trace and I forced Kirby to go home and did the same ourselves, all of us mentally and physically exhausted. On Saturday, I woke before Trace. I paused on my way to the bathroom. Two empty milk glasses crowded the small table next to the sofa bed. His sheet and blanket were half on the floor, half twisted around his body. He sprawled on his stomach, one arm buried under the pillow upon which his head was not resting, the other hanging off the edge.
I quietly dressed and started making breakfast. The coffee finished dripping and the pancakes were warming in the oven by the time Trace stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing his chest. I imagined Kirby dealing with a half-naked Trace and had to turn to hide my grin. If his bare, smooth chest didn’t do her in, the rumpled hair and slow-blinking eyes would.
“Daley, you’re an angel.” He scuffed to the coffee pot and poured two mugs. “I didn’t sleep so well last night.”
“I noticed. What’s going on?” I took the pancakes out and set them on a trivet on the table, added a plate of bacon and a bowl of fresh fruit salad, and sat down with my coffee. Trace sat across from me and started dishing.
“Nothing new, like I said.”
I didn’t believe him.
I’d never seen him this subdued and serious. But if he didn’t want to talk about it, I wasn’t going to push.
“I had a blowout with my mom last night.” I poured syrup on my buttered pancakes and offered the bottle to Trace.
He glanced up. “About the jumper or the building?”
“Both, kind of. But mostly, about my suicide attempt.”
His head jerked up. “Your what?”
Talking about it with Adam last night made it much easier to do so again today. I wasn’t sure why I did, except that maybe it would make Trace feel more comfortable opening up about whatever his own problem was.
“So you must feel better, huh?”
I shrugged. “Drained, anyway. Maybe she’ll start cutting me some slack about HQ.” I sipped my coffee. “What’s your relationship with your family like?”
Trace chewed and swallowed. “My dad’s like me, only to a lesser degree. He doesn’t know why, but thinks it might be chemicals he was exposed to during the war. So we’re probably closer to each other. My mom . . . I was kind of a challenge as a kid. You know how they say kids have so much more energy than their parents?”
I grimaced. Keeping up with toddler Trace must have been a nightmare. “Does she give you a hard time?”
“They live in Texas now, so I don’t see them much, and they don’t see us on the news. They’re proud of me, I guess. We don’t really talk about what I do.”
I could see that didn’t bother him the way it would bother me, and wished I could be more like him. I didn’t make decisions to please my parents. But I couldn’t blow off their reactions, either. Maybe things would be better after last night, I didn’t know. I’d stood up to my mother more than I ever had before, and maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe she’d thought I was ignoring her. I should let her express herself, acknowledge her concerns, and even address them. Then do my own thing.
The Color of Courage Page 14