Impact

by Steven Whibley

  The back of my neck kept tingling. I put my phone back into my jeans pocket.

  Nathan started walking toward the grandstand. I tucked two fingers into my pockets and trailed after him. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I told him about having to keep my parents home today.

  “You’re lucky to still have your folks.” He sounded like he really meant it, and I remembered Archer saying Nathan’s dad had been in the CS and had died before he could pass on his gift. I didn’t know if I should say anything, but Nathan stopped and faced me. “Did Archer tell you my dad was in the CS?”

  I nodded. “He didn’t say much more.”

  Nathan pulled off his sunglasses. “Yeah, he wouldn’t. He doesn’t like to tell stories that aren’t his own. My dad—he had the gift. For a long time, I thought I’d get it from him. He told me if I still wanted it, when I was old enough, he’d gift me visions. But then he got sent to prison.” Nathan glanced at me, the corner of his mouth lifting in a crooked smile. “They arrested him for causing someone’s death—a death he’d tried to stop. But he wouldn’t say anything about the CS.”

  “Couldn’t the CS get him out or something? Get a lawyer for him?”

  “Oh, they did. They had all kinds of people working on his case when he was knifed in a prison riot. He was still trying to stop someone from dying—another prisoner. I was just a little older than you at the time.”

  He started walking toward the grandstands. I hurried to catch up. I stuffed my hands back into my pockets and just about cut my finger on Becky’s shark tooth. I touched the tooth and thought about Becky and my folks. What would I do if my dad died like that?

  “Nothing like that should ever happen to anyone in the CS,” Nathan said, his voice flat. “If people knew about the CS, my dad would never have been accused of anything. He’d be around still. He’d be saving people. And we’d all be heroes.”

  His voice changed. It had gone low and hard, like he would never be able to forget about what had happened to his father.

  I reached out and touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. I can’t even imagine what that must’ve been like.”

  He looked at me and said, “Someday we’ll fix it—won’t we? We’ll make the world see who we really are. Come on. Let’s go see what McKnight’s doing.”

  Nathan knew his way around the fairgrounds better than me. He took a shortcut past the food trucks to the hangars that had been set up behind the grandstands. Smells from the food trucks left my mouth watering, and my stomach growled. I hadn’t been able to eat breakfast, and I was sure I wouldn’t be able to get anything down now. But hot dogs and chicken skewers smelled really good.

  “Cool shortcut,” I said. “You really know your way around the place.”

  Nathan smiled. “Never rely on just what the CS tells you. Doris is a know-it-all, but she’s like the rest of them—holding stuff back just so she can feel like she’s better than you. Always do your own research. And always scope out the area you have to work in.”

  I’d only met Doris a couple of times, but that didn’t sound like her. Archer had said Nathan was smart, and now I began to wonder just how smart. It was a good idea to have been all over the fairgrounds before this.

  We’d made it to McKnight’s hangar. A bunch of people stood outside, and the hangar doors stood open. I could see McKnight’s plane and his flight crew checking it out. McKnight stood outside the hangar with his wife, Sophia. His daughter, Maddie, bounced around, her walkie-talkie in hand. The CS wouldn’t be able to distract McKnight today with any kind of fake family emergencies.

  Then I saw Rylee standing over to the side, taking a photo of McKnight. My stomach dropped. She might not want to see me, but I had to figure out a way to get her out of here. Leaving Nathan, I walked over to Rylee. “Hi.”

  She glanced at me and put her cell phone back into her shoulder purse. “Hi. I didn’t think you’d be here today.” There was a coldness in her tone—like she was trying to show me she wasn’t into me the way she’d been before. I couldn’t tell if it was an act or if she really wasn’t into me anymore. But I was surprised by how okay I was with that. She pushed her hair back. She had on another sundress, something short and white, and she looked really cute. I wanted her to go on looking that way, but she wouldn’t if she stayed here.

  “Last day of the air show—where else would I be?” I said.

  Fiddling with her purse strap, she nodded, and a small smile crossed her face. “Well, if you want, not that it’s a big deal, but maybe we could hang out together?”

  I thought about that. Would I be able to look after Rylee better if I had her with me? However, what if more visions hit me? I couldn’t let her see that. And I didn’t even know if I was safe here today. I had to get rid of her, and I knew only one way to do that. After this, Rylee would probably never talk to me again, but at least she’d be out of danger today.

  I blew out a breath and hoped I didn’t over-or undersell what I was about to do. I adopted a tone I’d heard Eric use a hundred times. “Nah, I don’t think that’s a good idea, Rylee.” I scratched the back of my head and tried really hard to sound completely indifferent. “If we hang out, people might think we’re together and”—I laughed—“I don’t think we want anyone thinking that.”

  She shook her head, and her eyes got all glossy. “We don’t?”

  I laughed. “You and me? No way.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” She stared at me with sad eyes. “Is that why you didn’t want me to come here? Because you thought I’d bother you?”

  My throat caught. This is for the greater good, Dean, I told myself. I couldn’t speak, so I just shrugged and made a face that I hoped said, “Sorry.”

  “Well, I was just leaving anyway,” she said. “Sorry if I bothered you before. I won’t anymore. I promise.”

  I pointed to the closest exit. “I think there’s a bus stop just outside those gates.”

  “I’m surprised you and Eric aren’t better friends,” she said, and her voice caught. “You two are more alike than I thought.” Her lower lip trembled.

  I wanted to take it all back. I liked her, but if she stayed, and something happened to her … I folded my arms and shrugged again.

  She turned and strode away, almost running from me.

  I stood with my arms folded, feeling like the biggest jerk on the entire planet.

  From behind me, I heard Colin say, “Kinda harsh, Dean.”

  “What he said,” Lisa echoed.

  Colin had dressed a lot like Nathan, in black jeans and a black T-shirt but without the windbreaker. He seemed hot and sweaty. Lisa had on shorts and a T-shirt as well as her running shoes. With her hair pulled back, she looked ready for a track meet. Or a lot of action.

  Lisa’s mouth twisted down. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Saving lives,” I said.

  Colin swapped a worried stare with Lisa and said, “Dean, you need to lighten up.”

  “And you need to remember the more people we send home, the less dead bodies we’ll have around here.” I looked away, my face hot.

  I heard Archer’s voice next to Colin. “Hey, guys. You ready for the day?”

  “Oh, yeah. Dean’s about ready to have a breakdown of some kind, I have knots on the knots in my stomach, and Lisa’s chewed off half of her fingernails so far,” Colin said.

  “I have not,” Lisa muttered.

  Archer didn’t seem to even notice. He was looking around the air show grounds. It already seemed more crowded than any other day. The show started earlier today because it also ended early. I had checked on the program, and a special time had been cleared for McKnight’s flight. After the delays, McKnight was the star today.

  “Keep it together, guys,” Archer said. “We’re going to have our hands full today. Sarah’s done everything she could, but Hank keeps telling her she can’t send everyone from the CS here.” He sounded almost as frustrated as Nathan. Archer scrubbed a hand through h
is hair. He gave us a tight smile. “We really do need to shake things up in the CS. I’m half tempted to call in a bomb threat to the air show just to clear this place today and make it safe. But if I do, it’ll be my last act in the CS. Hank would flip out. And I’d probably be tracked by Homeland Security and jailed for the next few years.”

  I glanced around at the crowd, the back of my neck still tingling. Something from one of my visions kept nagging at me. Not something I had seen, but something I’d missed seeing. “There’s got to be another way,” I said, talking more to myself than anyone. “Change …” I noted.

  Something had changed between the two different visions I had. Not the visions of McKnight, but the visions of the other people in the grandstand.

  What was it?

  CHAPTER 18

  Colin and Lisa kept staring at me like I really had lost it, but I felt like I was close to figuring out this puzzle. The heat of the day closed around me. The long days had left me tired and not really thinking straight. But I knew whatever was bugging me had something to do with what Nathan had been saying. He’d talked about change, just like Archer. However, Archer had sounded frustrated. Nathan sounded certain, more like the CS had already changed.

  “Dean!” I saw Nathan headed toward us, hands tucked into his windbreaker even though the sun beat down hot enough to leave my underarms damp. Colin gave a groan, and even Lisa shifted on her feet like she didn’t know how to act around Nathan anymore.

  “Archer,” Nathan said with a nod. “Mind if I take Dean with me for another patrol of the grounds?”

  Archer deferred to me. “It’s Dean’s choice.”

  I checked my watch; we had just under forty minutes left. I started to tell Nathan I wanted to stay close to McKnight. The pilot had his plane out of the hangar and looked like he was checking it over before his flight. Nathan grabbed my arm. “Come on, Dean. Let’s see if we can get security to close the grandstands. Maybe tell them the fire marshal wants it closed so it’s not too crowded.”

  “Wouldn’t you need documentation for that?” I asked. He didn’t answer. He just dragged me with him; I didn’t really see how I couldn’t go. He kept hold of my arm. Instead of heading for the grandstands, Nathan strode toward the main gates.

  “Is this a shortcut?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to close the grandstands.”

  Nathan didn’t let go of me. He didn’t answer, either. I started wishing I had Colin and Lisa close. Or Archer. Or anyone. I tried to hold back, to drag my feet, but Nathan tightened his hold on my arm and kept pulling. I thought about the martial arts he knew. If I tried anything, he could flatten me and then still drag me with him.

  What was going on?

  He stopped a short distance away from the main gates in one of the aisles of parked cars. The sunlight bounced off windshields and blacktop. An old guy who took tickets sat on a stool at the gates, an umbrella over him. Two security guards leaned on the fence, watching the street traffic pass by, their security carts—golf carts really—sitting nearby. I thought about calling out to them, but Nathan had stopped us far enough away that I wasn’t sure they’d hear me. Overhead, but close to the ground, planes roared. I heard the crowd in the grandstand yelling and clapping.

  Nathan twirled his sunglasses in one hand. “You’re going to be a hero today.”

  I jerked away from him, and he let go. “Y’know, we learned in school that the Greeks who started all this hero stuff said a guy had to be dead before they called him that.”

  Nathan’s mouth quirked at the corner. “That’s why I like you. You’ve got nerve, Dean. You’re not afraid to tell people what you think. But you are going to be a hero. After Vidmar died, I thought, well … I knew no one else at the CS would gift me visions.” He shook his head. “And then before he died the old coot gives you the gift. Worst day of my life. I thought I’d never get what I wanted, but now it’s all going to work out.”

  Worst day? Worse than his father dying? Nathan was officially freaking me out.

  He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “After today, we’ll remake the CS, you and I. We’ll do it together. All this secrecy crap that’s holding us back, we’ll dump it. We’ll tell people what happened here. It’ll be great. Archer’s been right all along about the CS needing to figure out how to do things better. His problem was not going far enough.”

  “But you will?” I backed up another step and bumped into a truck that was parked right near where we stood. “Nathan, how far are you going?”

  He grinned wickedly, his hands still inside the windbreaker pockets. Sweat glistened on his forehead. “We’re both headed to the top. You’re just what the CS needs. Archer was right about that. Young, gifted. I can mold you into the right kind of visionary for the CS. We’ll get rid of this zone and district stuff—it’s a useless structure. Outdated. The CS needs someone who’ll run it right. Who’ll take charge.”

  Nathan withdrew a silver box from his pocket. He ran his thumb over the edge, and I glimpsed a joystick. Sunlight glinted off the box and flashed in my eyes, almost as blinding as a vision.

  I sucked in a hard breath when I realized what I hadn’t seen in that second vision of the deaths in the grandstands.

  I’d seen faces of CS members—a lot of them. But I hadn’t seen Nathan.

  He wasn’t going to die today. That’s why he wanted to be standing here, as far from the grandstands as possible. And that meant he knew what was going to happen and was ready for it. I could think of only one reason why he’d know all that. He didn’t have the visions, so he had to know about it because he had something to do with it.

  I looked over to the woods on our right, where McKnight was due to fly overhead. Even from here, I could hear the birds squawking. The last piece clicked into place.

  My mouth fell open, and I forced the words out.

  “You’re planning a bird strike on McKnight’s plane.”

  Nathan laughed. “Birds? Good one. Like I’d rely on them.” He held up the box in his hand. “The birds are a distraction. Maybe the birds hit the plane, maybe they don’t. But I don’t rely on maybes, Dean.” He gave the remote a shake. “Do you know how inexpensive drones are these days? Honestly. I picked this one up for a couple grand. I threw a tracker on McKnight’s plane the other day and an IED in the drone, and presto.” He smiled a creepy, psychotic smirk and dipped his head in a kind of bow. “McKnight’s going to be blamed for the whole thing. Good, isn’t it? The drone has feathers on it. A tragic end, I’m afraid, but the CS will be thrust into the spotlight, and those of us who remain will see to it that it’s reborn … like a phoenix from the ashes.”

  Sweat clung to my back and dripped down my forehead. Nathan was completely nuts. But it still didn’t explain how he was going to kill everyone. Maybe it was possible that McKnight would crash into the grandstands, but there was no way that was guaranteed. We weren’t that close. Odds were he’d crash into a field, or maybe not even crash at all.

  No, Nathan had a plan—he was too confident, and as crazy as he was, he was smart. I remembered my dad telling me that sometimes the best thing a therapist could do to make one of their patients talk was to say nothing.

  So that’s what I did.

  Nathan kept right on talking, seemingly convinced I was on team crazy along with him.

  “I’ll be the highest ranking CS member left in this entire area,” he said. “There’s going to be at least six districts left without leaders, if all goes well. But you can gift me visions, Dean—or I can get one of the dying CS members to gift them to me. Either way works. We’ll expand. Going public will put me in control of the entire West Coast. Plus, once I step out into the limelight, I’ll become the face of the Society. The others will fade away. You’ll be my right-hand man. Think of it, Dean. Punks like those two jerks I got rid of for you the other day will worship you.”

  I thought about how Nathan had used his martial arts skills on Eric and Rodney. My mouth dried like an arid desert. Nathan was talking abou
t killing way more than fifty people today. And he made it sound like nothing to him. I didn’t know his whole plan, but I knew I had to stop him. I just didn’t know how.

  “Hey, Dean,” Colin called out.

  Nathan and I both spun around.

  Colin and Lisa wove their way between the rows of parked cars, headed for us. “Archer needs help clearing the grandstands. Sarah’s given the CS the order to do that, and they’re about to start. We need everyone over there.”

  Nathan’s mouth tightened. I didn’t trust him not to hurt Colin and Lisa. If he’d take out the CS, he wouldn’t think twice about hurting my friends.

  Clutching my head, I staggered. I shifted my stare to the right, to an empty point in space like I was seeing something, and I gave a groan.

  Lisa hurried over to me. “Dean—is it a vision?”

  It felt like forever, but I tried to wait about thirty seconds before I brought myself out of my fake vision and looked straight at Nathan. I didn’t know how to make my skin go pale, but I thought about all the deaths he planned, and my stomach flipped in disgust. I was pretty sure that helped me look like I’d just seen something bad.

  “It’s your death,” I told Nathan. “You’re going to die.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Nathan lunged toward me, his mouth tight. He shook his head like he didn’t really believe me, but he asked, “What did you see?”

  I put a hand to my skull and looked down as if I was dizzy. Angling my head, I winked at Colin and Lisa, so Nathan wouldn’t see. Colin stiffened, picking up on my message. Lisa moved closer to Nathan.

  “What’d you see?” Nathan asked again, almost shouting at me.

  I played it up to the hilt. “You’re mangled. Twisted up worse than I’ve ever seen. Maybe a car wreck? Maybe just hit by a car. I thought I caught a glimpse of silver … maybe it was part of the car. I’m not sure but it’s important. It’s dangerous, whatever it was.”

  I didn’t know if Lisa or Colin would get that keyword. My visions were black and white, and something silver would probably look about the same in color or in gray scale, but I hoped they’d get the message. I hoped I wasn’t being too obvious and that it wouldn’t click for Nathan since it pretty much gave away the fact that I was faking it.