Flicker

  Alex shot her a glance as he merged onto the highway. “The airport,” he replied shortly. “Did you think we were going to drive there?” When Elise didn't say anything, he gave a short laugh. “Elise, it's almost a five hour drive just to get there-- that's not going to happen.”

  Her fury threatened to soften as Elise considered the cost of airline tickets. But then the photos of her attackers flashed through her mind, along with fantasies of the happy and blameless lives they were living now. Her jaw clenched, Elise nodded curtly.

  Alex set the pace as they strode through the airport, but for once, Elise had no trouble keeping up with his long-legged stride. She barely listened to him bantering with the perky woman behind the desk as he purchased their tickets. He was passing them off as brother and sister, buying open-ended tickets for a short-notice trip that might be their last visit with an ailing grandmother. The woman was appropriately sympathetic; Elise struggled to contain her simmering rage at the delay.

  When they reached the long line at the security checkpoint, Alex took a tight grip on Elise's arm. She nearly shook him off, but he bent and quickly whispered in her ear. “Contain yourself,” he murmured sharply against her hair. “You're putting off waves of anger-- you feel dangerous, and the humans are starting to notice. If you can't pass yourself off as harmless right now, you're going to get detained and searched-- and I thought you didn't want delays.”

  He was right, damn him. Elise took a deep breath, doing her best to tamp down her feelings. She couldn't erase her fury completely, nor did she want to, but she could at least keep it from blazing through her eyes. By the time it was her turn to go through the metal detector, she knew she hadn't managed to convey harmlessness, but she'd at least toned her killing rage down until it seemed like simple annoyance. They passed the checkpoint without incident, and Elise swept down the terminal to their gate, Alex close behind her.

  They had some time to wait for the flight to board, and Alex took advantage of it to pull out his cell phone and make a few calls. After a few moments, Elise had heard enough to realize that he was arranging for a rental car to meet them at the airport in Pittsburgh, so they could drive the last leg of the trip. Elise appreciated his forethought.

  A few minutes into the conversation, he turned to her; Elise could hear an annoying approximation of jazz music through the tiny speaker, and assumed he was on hold. “You should call your parents,” Alex spoke rapidly, the phone pressed to his shoulder.

  “What?” Elise snapped, her eyes wide with surprise. That was the last thing she'd expected to hear from him right now.

  Alex's eyes narrowed in annoyance. “We're going to be gone several hours. On the plane, your phone will be off; you'll be unreachable. Unless you want to answer a lot of questions later, call them and give them an excuse now.”

  Elise crossed her arms over her chest, turning to face the wall of windows that looked out over the tarmac. “I can't talk to them right now.”

  Alex leaned close to her once more, and his tone was chilling as he hissed in her ear. “Money and power can erase a lot of things, Elise, but if you drop a body in that little town of yours, you're going to need something to build an alibi. So at the very least, text your parents and tell them we're going to a park for the day. Now.”

  She sat shivering for a moment after he leaned away and resumed his cheery conversation with the rental car agency. Part of her, the sane and rational portion that was her everyday self, was terrified at his frigid voice and icily efficient summary of what he was planning for her to do-- what he thought she was capable of doing. The powerful, vengeful, livid spirit that currently possessed her flared with the impulse to choke the life from Alex this very moment for daring to give her an order. After a minute of warring within herself, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and rapidly sent the text Alex had told her to; he was savvy enough not to remark on her obedience. A few minutes later, her mother sent a message back telling her to have a good day, and inviting Alex to dinner that night. Not long after that, a crackly announcement came over the lounge speakers bidding travelers to begin boarding the flight.

  Elise expected that something would have changed, that some of the trauma that had been inflicted on her here would be reflected somehow in her town. But no, nothing-- for these people, life went on as if she had never existed. For a moment, she wondered if she really had ever existed here. She glanced over at Alex; he was driving their compact little rental sedan, his eyes fixed carefully on the road in front of them. Elise clenched her teeth. This was no time to question herself. Still, it had been a long trip-- Elise couldn't cling to her fury the whole time. Instead, as she'd boarded the plane she had let it seep to the back of her mind and simmer there until she needed it. So for the moment, she was able to view Allison Springs through the eyes of one who was coming home.

  Alex pulled smoothly into a parking space along the curb, and Elise climbed out, stretching gratefully after the nearly hour-long drive. She looked around at First Street, with its brick buildings and little shops and cafes, taking in the familiar sights she'd grown up with. She hadn't thought she'd missed hills, of all things, but now she realized that Willowdale was distressingly flat compared to Allison Springs' gently rolling slopes. The moss-green painted streetlamps were twined with garlands of fall leaves, and a bright orange banner was hung across the street announcing the date of the Halloween costume parade she'd always walked in.

  “Do you want to get something to eat?” Alex asked behind her. She nodded, raising her hand to point out her favorite Italian restaurant, where her dad had taken her to lunch for her birthday every year until they'd moved.

  And then, quite suddenly, the door opened at the hardware store down the street and Bill Bates walked out.

  Elise gasped, freezing where she stood. It was too abrupt, too soon-- she hadn't expected to see any of them yet. But still, wasn't this what she had come for? What was she even going to do? As he exited the store, Bill was laughing, calling something jovially over his shoulder to someone still inside. At the sight of his mirth, something broke inside Elise.

  She erupted into movement, striding up the sidewalk. Bill looked up at the sound of her heels on the pavement, and she was close enough to see his eyes widen in complete shock. His mouth dropped open, and she took advantage of his stunned inactivity.

  Elise didn't have to reach for her power-- it was there, leaping gleefully to purpose and sending tingles through her fingers as she channeled it into her muscles. She gripped the shoulder of Bill's jacket, dragging him bodily into the tiny alley along the side of the building and, gathering handfuls of the leather, slammed him back hard enough to crack his head against the grimy bricks.

  All her speeches, all the things she'd thought to say to them over the past three years, deserted her. She shook him once, but his wide brown eyes were already zeroed in on her face-- she definitely had his attention. His freckled skin was pasty white, and he was breathing in short, shallow gasps. “Why?” She demanded, fury making her voice sharp enough to cut. She remembered these same eyes-- she had looked up into them, pleading, while his friends held her down and he'd watched what they did to her. She had stared him down day after day in the court room while he told lies about her. She had memorized every inch of his face, and knew that it would never truly be gone from her.

  “Elise...” He whispered, and the sound of his voice sent another spike of rage through her-- how dare he say her name? She slammed him back into the wall again.

  “Why?” She hissed again.

  He swallowed hard. “I... I don't know.”

  She cracked him against the wall again, allowing her fury to sear through her body and lend force to the blow. He sucked in a sharp breath as she pressed up and in, half hoping she would push him all the way through the wall. “Not good enough.”

  “I... Elise, what do you want from me?” His voice was shaking, and she despised his weakness.

  “What do I-- what do I want from you?”
She gaped at him in astonishment. “I want my life back!” She shook her right hand free of his jacket and let it fly, twisting her torso to add to her force as she punched him as hard as she could in his cheekbone. His head snapped to the side. “I want my friends back!” She hit him again, an uppercut to the stomach that left him gasping. “I want to be able to feel safe again!” He could fight back, she realized, but he wasn't-- he was just letting her hit him. Disgusted, she wrenched her other hand free of him, backing up a pace. He was bent over, hands on his knees as his chest heaved, but his huge eyes never left her face. “Why did you let them do it?” She hissed through clenched teeth. “When you asked me to homecoming, I thought-- I thought we were friends, at least. But then you just stood there that day and watched them! Why didn't you help me? Why did you lie?” Her voice had risen to a cry. She knew her power was flaring up around her by the way his breath hitched and he cringed back against the wall. Now that she was getting the words out, she couldn't seem to stop.

  “You have this whole life-- a job, a girlfriend, all of it-- and you don't deserve it! None of you do! And you can't fix it now, so I want to hear you explain! Tell me how you smile and laugh every day. Tell me how you can screw your girlfriend without seeing me. Tell me how you've got this bright, shining future that's somehow free of any guilt, because I want to understand how it works.” She was gasping, sweat prickling on her face, but she felt too alive to stop. The very air pulsed with the force of her rage, forcing him back against the wall without her having to sully herself touching him. She was dimly aware of Alex behind her, standing with his back to them as he faced the street, and she knew that he would keep anyone from noticing what was going on in the alley. She ignored him-- he wasn't part of this.

  Bill had to swallow several times before he spoke; Elise watched his Adam's apple bob with each attempt to find his voice. Finally, he whispered, “I just don't think about it.”

  A rushing, roaring sound filled her ears, white-hot rage poured through her mind, and she watched as Bill was shoved back against the bricks again, his mouth gaping open as if he couldn't breathe. Maybe he couldn't. She didn't care.

  She stepped closer to him once more, intensifying the pressure on him, forcing his body to stretch up like he was being crushed. She leaned toward him and hissed into his face. “Maybe you don't now. But you will.” She pulled her power back slightly-- she wanted him to focus on nothing but her words. “You're going to have this wonderful life. You're going to get your mechanic shop, get married-- maybe not to this girl, but to someone-- and have the nice house with the white picket fence. You're going to start your family.

  “Decades from now when you've completely forgotten about me, your daughter is going to have her first day of ninth grade. And then, you're absolutely going to remember. You're going to think long and hard about me, and about what you and your friends did. And you're going to watch your little girl walk into that school knowing there's a whole society out there who won't protect her, who will stand and watch while she's raped-- and afterward, they'll blame her for it.

  “You're going to remember that I came to find you to tell you that it's never over-- that I will carry the scars of this for the rest of my life. You're going to remember when I told you that I don't have friends, that I don't touch people, that I might never be able to have a real life after what you did. And then you're going to remember that I told you-- even as your heart is pounding with fear for your little girl, you still won't understand what it's like.” She stepped closer to him, watching him gasp like a fish as he struggled to draw breath. “Don't mistake-- this isn't some 'maybe' or 'probably' – your child will go through exactly what I went through.” She locked his eyes with her gaze, letting him see the deadly certainty of her ruthlessness. “I will make sure of it.” He gaped at her, wordless, but it didn't matter. She'd said what she wanted to say-- she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had nothing else for her. Turning on her heel, she strode past Alex and back out into the street. She didn't look back as she got into the car, but even as they drove away, she knew Bill was still slumped against that wall, watching her go.

  Alex drove in silence for a few minutes, but as they passed out of the borders of Allison Springs, Elise felt his agitation pressing against the last vestiges of her anger.

  “What is it?” She snapped.

  He didn't look at her. “I expected you to kill him, I really did, and I would have understood entirely.” His voice was heavy with sorrow and something else-- disappointment, Elise realized. “But planning to do to his daughter, someday, what they did to you-- I thought that was beneath you.”

  Elise gave a deep sigh, exhaustion dragging at her mind. “It is,” she said softly, gazing out the window. “I would never make another person go through what I did.” With effort, she focused on Alex's face, emphasizing her point. “But now he'll know what it's like to live in fear.”

  Elise slept on the ride back to Pittsburgh; Alexander had to shake her awake so that she could stumble, bleary-eyed, through the airport with him. He guided her with a firm arm around her waist, with no one the wiser that he was supporting a good amount of her weight. She didn't speak while they waited in the terminal, and as soon as they boarded the plane, she fell asleep once more, her head on his shoulder. Alexander didn't blame her in the least-- the amount of energy she had called upon today was staggering. The only thing that was more astonishing was what she had managed to accomplish with it; the abilities she had displayed should still have been far beyond her. He didn't make the mistake of assuming that she had acted deliberately; it had been obvious that she was directing her power purely on subconscious intuition. Regardless, though, he couldn't help but be impressed.

  He listed her feats to himself as the plane taxied into position on the runway. First, in the park she had brushed his shields aside as if they were nothing, and purposefully inspired such terror in him that even now, he could feel the residue clinging to his energy. Frowning, he concentrated, burning out the sickly traces of her rage with his power. Leaving the tiny smudges of fear to fester so long inside him had been part of his penance for dragging this up in the first place. They had been useful for her, too, keeping him bent on fulfilling her will until her errand was completed-- but now it was, and his mind could be entirely his own again.

  That she had augmented her own physical strength had been impressive, but not unexpected. More interesting to him was the fact that, more than once, she had managed to move the boy-- Alexander knew him from the files to be William Bates-- without so much as touching him. Alexander doubted Elise would be able to repeat the skill of utilizing the very air around her as a weapon any time soon-- not without a motivation he had every intention of never giving her again. But the preview of her potential had been awe-inspiring in the least: she had shoved the worthless boy into the wall of the alley so hard she had cracked the bricks behind him. Alexander wondered what excuse William would concoct to explain his several broken ribs and bruised skull. He almost hoped the fool would be stupid enough to go to the police and tell them Elise had assaulted him-- Alexander relished, for a moment, the prospect of having a reason to go back and kill the useless worm. But of course, that line of thinking was what had brought him here.

  A tinny voice came over the plane's intercom, announcing that they had reached cruising altitude, and could move about the cabin. Alexander wouldn't have moved from Elise's side if his life depended on it. He glanced down at her, wondering at the effect this little field trip would have on her continued growth. His hope was that it would be cathartic, that venting her rage would aid her healing process, but he doubted they would be so lucky. He knew she wouldn't forget that he had pried into her past, and although he still felt guilty for doing so, and knew that it had been wrong and foolish in the extreme, he planned to do his best to convince her not to walk away from him because of it. It wasn't even that he felt she still needed him-- he was beginning to understand that he needed her as well.

&n
bsp; She really was magnificent. He wasn't even thinking of her considerable power-- in and of herself, she was everything he wanted. Her poise and charm were second to none. Her personality, intelligence, and wit were engaging. During their conversations, she had displayed hard-won wisdom far beyond her meager years-- the sort that one only gained from harsh life lessons. And of course, she'd had those in spades, but the fact that, at only fourteen years old, she had survived both the vicious attack and the aftermath of blame and lies was a testament to her willpower and rare strength.

  Alexander gazed down at her face, smiling at the innocence of her sleeping form. She was worth any price he might have to pay.

  Elise was startled to wake in Alex's car as he pulled up in front of her house. She vaguely recalled leaving their rental and boarding the flight in Pittsburgh, but no matter how she focused, she couldn't remember getting back to Philadelphia. She bit her lip, wondering if Alex had anything to do with her lapse in memory, but couldn't summon the energy to care about it just now. She felt like she was coming home after running a marathon-- her entire body ached, and she could barely keep her eyes open. In fact, she was just grateful for Alex's quick mind and charm when she climbed out of the car to see her mother opening the front door. He seemed to have spent part of the trip concocting a detailed account of their day hiking in Fairmount Park, which he fed to her parents as she stumbled up the steps to the front porch, rubbing her heavy eyes.

  “You've got to stop bringing her home so exhausted, you know,” Elise heard her mother joke with Alex as she and Elise's dad stood back to give them room to enter.