I couldn’t deal with his guilt. I closed him off ruthlessly and stripped, wincing as my shirt pulled away from places where it had adhered to the wounds. Fresh blood seeped from the skin of my stomach and back.
Naked, I looked worse. Like a shrapnel victim. Slivers of glass were stuck skin-deep all over my body. I set my jaw and dug around in the cabinet below the sink until I found rubbing alcohol. Then I stood in front of the mirror and ripped off squares of toilet paper, methodically pulling out the glass and swabbing every cut from my shoulders down. The slivers were milky white and rippled in places. I recognized the pattern. The fixture on the ceiling above my bed.
My back was worse off than my front. I craned my neck around to look, and it was brownish-pink with flakes of dried blood. There wasn’t enough damage to require stitches, but I probably needed a few Band-Aids, and I was going to have to use telekinesis to get the glass out and clean the cuts. The thought made me panicky, but the alternative was to ask Shane for help.
That would be worse.
I tried mindlifting a square of toilet paper soaked in alcohol. I got it six inches off the counter before I remembered the last time I’d seen 3B coming up the stairs with his mail. I’d pretended to be on my phone so I wouldn’t have to talk to him. The toilet paper hit the counter with a splat.
Shane tapped on the door.
“I’m not decent.”
“Cass, let me help you.”
“I’m fine.” Maybe if I said it enough, it would be true. I tried to reach the worst spot, the one where I could see a bit of glass poking out of my back. I twisted my shoulder to the limit, and blood oozed from the wound. Shane opened the door.
“What are you doing?” I covered my chest with my T-shirt and re-opened cuts in the process. “I said I don’t need your help.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” He came inside, set down a box of bandages and picked up the bottle of alcohol. “I won’t touch you, if that’s what you want. But you’re going to let me clean up those cuts or take you to the hospital. One or the other.”
I clenched my teeth and glared. He inverted the alcohol bottle over a wad of tissue, and I turned my back to him. It was all the acquiescence I could give him.
“Jesus,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was this bad.”
I didn’t say anything. He used telekinesis to lift the tissue, and I closed my eyes and hissed as he swabbed the cuts.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
His mindtouch slid over my skin, looking for the broken places. I tried not to remember what it had felt like to have his mental hands on me in other ways, with other intentions. I knew my face was heating, and I didn’t open my eyes. I wasn’t going to open a channel to his thoughts, either. I could guess them easily enough. The last time he’d used his mind to touch me, I’d been naked and moaning against the side of a shed.
He found the spot where the glass had gone in, and I yelped.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Slowly, carefully, he worked the shard free from the flesh of my back. I winced, but I wouldn’t let myself ask him to stop. My skin stung as the glass slid out.
“Got it,” he murmured, and wiped the spot. He tore open a bandage and used it to seal the cut. The shard made a tinkling sound as he dropped it on the bathroom counter. I opened my eyes. It was an inch long and jagged, bright red with fresh blood. “Are there any more?”
He met my eyes in the mirror. I shook my head.
“Then I’ll let you get some rest.”
By the time I found the words to thank him, he was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
“We can’t just sit around waiting for something to happen. There must be something we can do.” I was in the kitchen at the B&B, eating an omelet and drinking a full cup of coffee for the first time in five years. It was making my head buzz.
“If you have a better idea, I’m all ears,” Shane said, and he disappeared into the guests’ dining room. He was serving, which made it difficult to argue with him. Every time I felt like I was making headway, he went out to refill someone’s orange juice.
I was wearing a shirt and jeans scrounged from Mina’s closet while I waited for the box Jackson was sending. I probably should’ve been grateful I hadn’t shown up naked, but I couldn’t wear bloodstained pajamas all day.
The upside to accidentally teleporting across the country was that Shane and Lionel finally believed there was something different about me, but that didn’t solve the problem of how we were going to find this guy. Twice now he’d attacked someone at the B&B, and no one had noticed him nearby, much less been able to stop him. Shane suggested we keep watch every night until he came back to try and attack again. I was less than enthusiastic about this plan.
“I don’t like using him as bait,” I said to Lionel. In the dining room, Shane was laughing and making conversation with the guests as if someone hadn’t just tried to kill him.
“We don’t have much choice,” Lionel replied, telekinetically turning a perfect omelet. I could feel the power he was using, the little tingle at the base of my skull enhanced by the caffeine. “He already is bait.”
“I agree with you, chère.” Bruce was sitting at the table reading the paper. Lionel gave him a look. He shrugged. “Well, I do.”
Shane came in from the dining room with a load of dirty dishes and sent them floating into the sink.
“Isn’t there anyone else we can ask?” I said. “Have we gone to everyone we know?”
“We’ve covered half the coast already,” Shane said, and a glance at Lionel told me he agreed.
“We just have to wait, sugar.”
I glared at no one in particular and went back to my omelet as Shane went back to the dining room. The egg was so fluffy and rich with butter it practically dissolved in my mouth, but I couldn’t enjoy it. Any second, the rogue could come back for Shane. He could be out there in the dining room right now. What would’ve happened if I hadn’t interrupted him the night before?
“Cass, sugar, could you bring this plate out?” Lionel pulled me out of my thoughts. “Shane says somebody wants seconds. Table three.”
I wiped my hands and took the plate he was holding. One perfect crabmeat-and-goat-cheese omelet, with chives, decorative cut-up fruit on the side. Funny how the guests never noticed how seamless the service at the B&B was, as though the waitstaff could read their minds. I backed out of the swinging door with the plate.
The guests’ dining room had been decorated for the tourists, an exposed brick wall on one side, framed Mardi Gras posters and beads on another. French doors opened to the courtyard, and a nice breeze ruffled the edges of the white tablecloths. Table three was a young couple on their honeymoon. I gave them their omelet, and they asked for coffee refills, so I picked up the pot from the sub-station by the fireplace and started making the rounds.
Shane was chatting up a middle-aged couple with two teenage girls, and the girls were making eyes at him and giggling. He played along by ignoring them. I gave him a look, and he winked at me. I shook my head at him and moved on to a couple of retired-looking ladies in stockings and dress shoes.
“Miss,” said one of them as I poured her decaf, “Can I ask you something? Do you know where we can see Cindy Cepello speak? Such an amazing story—we heard she’s from New Orleans. Is that right?”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was a minor local celebrity. But hearing her name, I tightened my hand on the orange plastic coffeepot handle so hard it cracked. The woman’s thoughts flickered in my head—miracle—something to see—tell Barb back home about it—what’s wrong with the girl?—I wonder if—
Shane was beside me in the next second, smiling, taking the coffeepot, holding the broken plastic together telekinetically and pouring as if nothing was wrong.
“Cass, honey, Lionel needs you in the kitchen.” He pushed me toward the door. “Well ladies, I believe Mrs. Cepello is speaking at the community center in Metairie this week
—I can see about the time if you like?”
I blocked out his voice as I entered the kitchen. Lionel was watching me, but he didn’t say anything. I blew through the screen door and into the backyard.
Luckily, the patio was empty. I sat down at the wrought-iron table, about five feet from the spot where I’d appeared the night before. A handful of dead pine needles littered the top, and I broke them into tiny pieces and scattered them on the bricks. When Shane sat down next to me, I didn’t look up.
“I looked up her website, you know. She wrote a book about it.”
He shifted in his chair. “I saw that.”
“It makes me sick. She’s just trying to make money off of it.”
“Maybe it’s more complicated than that.”
I huffed and shook my head.
“I’m sorry.”
Maybe it was the coffee, or maybe some of the anger I’d been feeling last night had bled away and I was subconsciously trying to listen. Whatever it was, I couldn’t avoid what was going on in his head.
—sorry, so sorry—only wanted—didn’t know—please forgive—please—”Cass. Please forgive me.”
When I looked up, he was watching me with his lips pressed together and his eyes soft, as if he was waiting for permission to speak. I didn’t so much nod as give him an opening, a tiny mental window into what I was feeling. It was too complicated for me to put into words anyway. I only knew that whatever was coming next, it would be easier with him than without him. Shane pulled me out of my chair and wrapped me up.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, voice muffled in my hair.
“It doesn’t change anything. I still can’t control it.”
“You will.” He leaned back. “You’ll figure it out.”
I wanted to believe him. “You don’t know that.”
“I know you.”
I rested my head on his collarbone. He smelled like cinnamon rolls. I didn’t know how not to forgive him.
“Come back inside,” he said.
“Okay.”
Back in the kitchen, the deep stainless steel sink was stacked to capacity with dishes, and Bruce was scrubbing away while Lionel slid unbaked cinnamon rolls into the fridge.
“Let me get those,” I said to Bruce. I wanted to do something distracting, and it looked like a solid hour of work.
“You’ll get no argument from me, chère.” Bruce sat back down to read the paper.
I was elbow-deep in sudsy water, scrubbing the crusts of eggs off a frying pan, when I felt a twinge at the back of my head. At first, I thought it was Shane trying to mindspeak, but nothing came through, and it only got stronger. No one was watching me expectantly. Lionel was chopping up bell peppers by hand. Shane was sipping a mug of coffee and reading the sports section. Maybe it’s just the caffeine... The buzzing got worse. I stopped scrubbing.
“Do you feel that?”
“Feel what?” Shane looked up over the paper.
It was getting stronger. “That.” I bent over the sink as a little wave of nausea hit me, and then I panicked.
Oh, God, this was it. I was vaguely aware of hitting my knees. I thought back to everyone I’d seen in the dining room. Was it one of them? The women asking about Cindy—had it been some sick joke? The surge filled my head with painful resonance, but I ignored it and searched the minds of everyone within my range. If I could find the source and stop it... I knew what it should feel like—exhilarating, powerful. But everyone was thinking about streetcars and riverboat tours and praline-making classes. I pressed my hands to my temples, soaking my hair with dishwater.
“Cass? Cass!” Shane. He’d reached me. He took my arms and tried to pull my hands away. Frantic, I reached out for his mind, hoping I could block the pull. But there was nothing there to block.
The surge was fading. I opened my eyes and saw Shane crouching over me, puzzled but perfectly fine. It was almost over, and it was nothing like before. The surge I’d felt when Mina was attacked was many times stronger than this had been. Not Shane, I realized finally. Somebody else.
“Somebody get me a map.” I was so focused on the lingering feel of the pull, I couldn’t hear their replies. I reached out, straining to keep hold of the feeling as it faded. My awareness raced out of the Quarter through the Garden District to the river and beyond until the surge dissipated, leaving me gasping.
When I looked up, Lionel was coming through the back door with a fold-out paper map of the greater New Orleans area. Shane was staring at me in shock. I wiped my hands on my jeans and flipped to the part with a view of the surrounding waterways.
“Pencil,” I said, my voice stronger now that the surge was over. Shane sent one flying over from the office off the kitchen, and I oriented the map to our location and drew a line south, cutting through the swamps below the city.
“It was that way,” I said. “I don’t know how far.” I looked up at the two of them. I could feel their confusion, mixed with a tiny amount of fear.
“Didn’t y’all feel it?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“Not really,” Lionel said. “Just a twinge.” Shane nodded in agreement.
I looked down at the line I’d drawn on the map. It crossed over blocks and blocks of the city and grazed a dozen little towns in the marshes to the south.
“That’s a lot of ground to cover,” Lionel said.
“You can tell where it was coming from?” Bruce had gotten up to look at the map.
“Yeah, I guess I can.”
“We could start checking out those towns,” Shane said. “See if there’ve been any deaths...maybe get a composite sketch of the guy somehow...”
“There must be a dozen different communities on that line. And I have no idea how far away it was.”
“You seem pretty sure about the vector, though,” Bruce said. “Why not triangulate?”
We all turned to look at him.
“What’s that, now?” Lionel asked.
“Triangulate.” Bruce put a thick forefinger on the map, way out in Kenner. “Go out and see if you can feel this whatever-it-is somewhere else and draw the vector. Narrows down the search.” He traced an imaginary line to intersect with the first one.
“Bruce?” Shane said.
“Mmm-hmm?”
“You’re a smart man.”
Bruce sat back down and refolded his paper. “Just tryin’ to keep up with you-all.” He shook his head and sipped his coffee. “Crazy psychics don’t see what’s in front of their faces,” he said under his breath, but he was smiling.
* * *
Crash.
The box full of books I was trying to lift hit the attic floor and sent up a cloud of dust and fiberglass insulation fragments and God-only-knew what else. I gave a frustrated growl and kicked it, scaring up even more dust and bringing on a coughing fit. Great—now I was going to have lacerated lungs. I slumped down to the uneven planks that formed the floor.
I’d been in the attic practicing all afternoon. Well, practicing was a generous way to put it. Now that we had a way to find our rogue, we had to have a way to incapacitate him, and since none of us was comfortable with the idea of shooting him and burying him in a shallow grave, it was going to be up to me to strip him of his powers. Unfortunately, the tide of energy I’d tapped at the lake with Jackson wasn’t so accessible in the middle of a city at noon, surrounded by tourists and stay-at-home dads. Every time I tried to pull, I imagined dropping one of them in the middle of the street—and I dropped the box of books instead.
“The guests are going to think we have a ghost.”
“Shane!” He was standing half in, half out of the attic, leaning against the trap-door opening. “Don’t sneak up on me when I’m doing this! I could’ve hurt you.” Or worse, my brain supplied.
He looked himself over, running hands over his chest and shoulders. “I seem all right to me.”
I glared at him and tried to ignore the way his T-shirt showed off his biceps. “What do you want?”
�
�It’s after one. I brought you something to eat.” He produced a plate with a sandwich and a pile of chips. It floated over to me, and I wiped my hands on my jeans and took it. Shane came all the way into the attic and sat beside me on a rafter, propping his feet on a box full of Mardi Gras beads.
“Been thinking about another location for us,” he said. If I could detect the surges from a few different spots around the city, we should be able to lock down the source, at least within a few miles. It would give us a place to start looking.
“Yeah?” I bit into the sandwich. Ham and swiss, on the same crusty bakery bread I remembered from when I was a kid. I closed my eyes in bliss.
“There’s a spot on Lake Cataouatche where we can camp. Pretty isolated. And I thought it might be good for you to get out of the city. To practice.” He eyed the box and the disturbed dust all around it.
I knew he’d felt my anxiety, even all the way downstairs in the kitchen. I knew he’d seen Andrew’s face in my mind, felt the fear that shut me down every time. “Yeah, that’d be good.”
“So what are we going to do with this guy once we catch him?” Shane asked. As if we were trapping a stray dog.
“Right. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that part.” I told him about the guardian I’d met in San Francisco and the address he’d given me for Susannah in Biloxi.
“It’s better than handing him over to the police,” I said. “What if his powers come back?”
“We’ll go tomorrow.”
* * *
The next day we headed out after Shane finished serving breakfast. A storm was coming in from the gulf, but it hadn’t hit yet. The ocean was dark and white-capped as we drove east along the coast.
“Think it’ll hit before we make it back?” I said, eyeing the surf.
“Depends on how long it takes to find this guardian. We could always get a room.”
I looked at him sharply, but he wasn’t grinning. I hoped as silently as I could that it wouldn’t come to that. I still hadn’t quite figured out what we were to each other, and now didn’t seem like the time to get into a complicated relationship discussion.
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