by Lan Chan
I couldn’t breathe. Over and over, that little pop sounded in my head. That was all it took—my fierce, take-no-shit mother, obliterated by a single piece of metal. And then the other thought: If I’d been there, I could have stopped it if she’d taken me with her instead of just disappearing.
“Catch,” Shadowman said. In my stupor, I didn’t realise what he was saying. The flash drive clattered along the ground. I didn’t bother to reach down for it. There was nothing in my field of vision except for the caustic fury that raced through my veins. My mind was still trying to conjure up ways I could end his life. One of the guards must have picked up the drive and inserted it into the tablet. He shoved it in front of my face.
On the screen was a list of names. The guard continued to press parts of the screen, and sections opened up to reveal lists and lists with red marks on them.
“What am I looking at?” I finally managed to say.
“A hit list.”
“What does that have to do with my mother?”
“Of all the things you know about her, what’s the one profession she would be best at?”
My jaw clicked. “My mother isn’t an assassin.”
“Really? She was bagging and tagging espers before you were even born.”
That’s when I finally blinked. It allowed me to see the names in front of me properly. The first name on the screen was Avery Cain. She was twenty-six. A gamma-level EK. Next to her name was one word: Eliminated. A quarter of the top of the page had the same designation.
“This is a lie,” I said.
“Believe what you want. All I know is that your mother was hunting my assets. She was eliminating the very thing that makes you who you are. Can you blame them for wanting a little revenge?”
“As if you didn’t put them up to it!” I snapped.
“Splitting hairs.”
I took another step forward. “This world lives and dies by its espers,” he said. “Sooner or later, you’ll have to make a choice. Like that, for example.” He pointed towards the two men on the train tracks.
Despite knowing he was a liar, I turned. The men on the tracks appeared to be jostling with each other. At first, I thought they were just two idiots playing chicken on the bridge. One of them took a swing at the other. They were actually fighting. A chunk of the bridge cracked off and fell onto the pavement.
“You see? Powerful though you are, your brethren lack control. You need the Kings to give you purpose.”
“I have a purpose,” I said. The idiots kept coming at each other. I thought for sure the esper was going to win, but when they continued to fight, it made me realise they were both espers. Both of them were telekinetic. And they were breaking the bridge apart.
The Shadowman was still in my ear. “This city needs more than a saviour,” he said. “You can’t save them all.”
Almost as though his words were a catalyst, the bridge groaned. People on the street cried out. I didn’t see what they were concerned about until the dog started barking. He stood directly under the collapsing bridge barking at the thing as though it was alive. A little girl raced after him. She may have been calling out a name but I was too far away to hear. All I could see was the instant the espers lost control. Their telepathy slamming into the bridge like they were trying to make each other lose balance.
Cement cracked. Metal screeched in my ear.
“Run!” I screamed at the girl. She was frozen. My mind reacted instinctively. It reached for anything it could find. The closest obstacle was a cement truck parked in the distance. Something wet trickling down my nose as I dragged the truck forward with every last inch of strength I had left.
It lacked control at the highest level but all I could think about was something to wedge between the bridge and the little girl. Tires squealed. Rubber burned as the truck gained momentum.
A male figure shot out from the coffee shop and darted towards the bridge. He was fast, but gravity was faster. Before he could make it, the broken halves of the bridge disintegrated. It fell onto the bed of the truck, which promptly collapsed. The guy screamed as dust billowed from the crash. I tried to get a lock on the little girl with my mind, but there were too many people in the area now.
I whirled on the Shadowman. “You did this!” I snarled. My legs buckled.
“How could I possibly orchestrate this?”
I turned back around to the scene. The two men on the bridge were gone.
“They’re yours,” I said.
“Not all of them are mine. And not all of them can be controlled. You know your own power. Which is more dangerous? Which one will you be when the time comes?”
I stood there, torn between the man who killed my mother and the scene below, wondering if the little girl was okay.
“Take some time to think about it,” the Shadowman said. “I’ll be in touch. If it helps, she was a worthy adversary.”
If it helped anyone else, they were all right about me. I was reckless and couldn’t control my temper. There were times when I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. Fight or flight? I chose to fight.
They weren’t expecting an attack. What I gave them wasn’t one. My foot pattern across the three metres between me and the Shadowman weaved in a way that made aiming for me difficult. That didn’t stop them from trying. The guards got off three shots. The last grazed my shoulder. Two guards blocked me as I neared their boss.
I dropped to my knees, skidding between their legs. Reaching out, I grabbed for the cuff of his ankle. A fist collided with my face, and my brain froze.
Stunned by the blow, coherent thought escaped me. But I didn’t need thought to do what came naturally to me. As soon as I made contact with the skin on his ankle, the anti-psi static became nothing more than gossamer.
I slipped through only to be shoved back a moment later by a powder keg of energy. Someone had bobby trapped his mind with a psi-bomb. In my weakened state, it was all I could do to keep my shields intact.
“Go!” He commanded. The people around him moved. My eyes closed as the last of the shadows disappeared.
16
I woke up on the rooftop. The sun was a bulbous glare in my eyes. It was noon, at least. Dad and Jenny must have been having a fit. I was so dead if this wasn’t already the afterlife. Every part of me hurt like hell. Especially the spot where I’d been clocked. Moving my jaw from left to right confirmed that it wasn’t broken.
How to get off this roof? When I tried to get up into a sitting position, my head spun. I dry retched as though my empty stomach was going to come out of my mouth. Nope. Movement wasn’t going to happen. With little other choice, I tapped into the next hover drone that flew past and used it to ring Julian. The lesser of two evils.
“Hello?” a distorted voice said.
The drones couldn’t actually transmit in proper vocal range. They could only send text-based communication that then translated into monotone speech. It was normally hilarious to listen to their emergency dispatch calls to the Academy. It didn’t seem so funny when my body was busted up.
“Jules. It’s Willow. I’m on the roof of a building overlooking the Queens Gate Bridge. I need a doctor.”
It was the first time ever that I’d heard him swear. He and Gabe arrived less than ten minutes later. There was plenty of swearing from the latter.
“Do you have any idea what your dad and aunt have been going through?” Gabe roared.
“Leave her be for a sec, Gabe,” Julian said. The pressure he exerted on me as he checked me over for injuries wasn’t exactly gentle either.
“Might I remind you that you’re a doctor for a Street King and not in any position to judge me,” I said. Julian pinched me really hard on the vein above my big toe.
“Ow!”
“Sorry.” It was the fakest apology I’d ever heard. “Drink this.”
He gave me a thermos full of chicken noodle soup. I slurped up like it was my last meal. I licked the edges of the empty thermos after it was all gone and fe
lt better immediately. The soup helped settle the nausea that was making it hard for me to stand up on my own.
When it was apparent that I would live, Gabe crouched down in front of me.
“What were you doing here?” he said.
I considered using another free pass, but something in his voice made me pause. “You know, don’t you?” I asked. “You know she’s dead.”
It was the only time I’d ever seen him lost for words. He stood up, picked up his phone, and dialled. “Why aren’t you answering me?” I yelled. He continued to pretend I wasn’t there.
I glanced at Julian, but he was concentrating on putting his implements back into his case.
“I found her,” I heard Gabe say. “She knows. I’ll meet you at the Rendezvous in half an hour.”
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Get up,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
Instead of allowing me to make it on my own, he grabbed my shirt and lifted me. Then he pushed me in front of him. I winced, thinking that the toe I’d just used to stop myself from tripping would hurt like crazy. Huh. Nothing. Whatever Julian had done to it had worked. Figures that the Shadowman’s crappy doctor wasn’t worth a damn.
On the street, the crash scene had been cleared. Now all that was left was the ruined sides of the bridge jutting out only a little over its foundations. Where was the little girl? Was she alive? I could only hope.
Gabe continued to remain mute on the drive to the Rendezvous in his luxury car.
“What the hell is going on?” I wailed.
Neither of them said a word. Were they being serious right now? That did it. My thoughts were flying before I even had a chance to consider what it was I was doing. Gabe felt the first brush of telepathy and slammed his foot on the brake. The cars behind us honked their horns. We remained stationary.
He met my gaze in the rearview mirror. There wasn’t a single twitch to the mask that had slipped over his face, but the message was perfectly clear.
I had made a promise to him when I was a kid that I’d never read his mind. If I did so now, it would break the bond between us. Then again, he’d known about my mother’s death and not said a thing to me. So where was the justice?
After a while though, I couldn’t keep up my poker face. I was an esper, but that didn’t give me a right to go poking where I didn’t belong. I would never tell him so, but I loved him too much to betray him like that.
“Fine,” I said. “Keep your secrets.”
We made it back to the Rendezvous Hotel in less time than it had taken for them to come and get me. Gabe parked in the underground garage. We took the elevator to Gabe and Julian’s rooms.
I had my head in the fridge when somebody knocked on the door. Dad practically flew into the room when Gabe opened the door. Jenny followed at a more sedate pace.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Dad said. He raced over to me and held me in his arms. I got a five-second hug before the yelling started. It was so loud they could probably hear him in the parking lot. Jenny didn’t yell, but her guilt trip was just as effective.
“What in the world were you thinking?” she said. “Do you have any idea what we’ve been going through? There’s news reports every second day about abductions of teenage girls –”
“How many of those girls can do what I do?” I asked.
“Do you think that makes a difference?” Dad shouted.
“Why?” I said. Something just occurred to me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Dad held me at arm’s length. Jenny’s eyes closed in that enigmatic way of hers that made me want to scream.
“Where were you tonight?” Gabe asked.
“I don’t think so,” I snapped. “On the scale of what news is worse, I think yours wins hands down.”
Until I saw the looks on their faces, it hadn’t felt real to me. It was just another woman who looked like my mum on a video some jerk had taken. But when Jenny blinked slowly and Gabe stared at the floor, I couldn’t stand up straight. Julian caught me as I stumbled.
“No,” I said. “It’s a lie. She wouldn’t die. She can’t die. I want to see her. I want to see her!” Julian wrapped his arms around me, but I beat out at him. Lights flickered on and off. The microwave blew its fuse. Burnt rubber and copper filled my lungs, reminding me of the fights I’d had with Mum when I’d lose control. We’d never fight again.
My body wracked with sobs as Julian rubbed my back. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed there in his arms. When I finally stopped crying, the sky was going dark.
By then, Dad had taken Julian’s place. It didn’t matter to me either way. There were things in life you took for granted as always being there. My mum was indestructible. It made no sense that she was gone.
I ran the back of my hands over my eyes. “Did you ever see her body?” I asked.
“Maybe this isn’t the best time to be asking these kinds of questions,” Dad said. I slammed my fist down so hard on the wooden coffee table that it cracked. As did some of the bones in my hand. Ow.
“I want to know now,” I said.
Dad scrubbed at his face with his palm and nodded at Gabe. “They dropped her body on the edge of my territory,” Gabe said. “The Shadowman knew we were friends.”
“Are you sure it was her? They could have been lying. It might have been anyone.”
Jenny stepped forward and drew a few pieces of paper out of her handbag. I flipped them over as soon as she handed them to me. It was the coroner’s report. All this time, I’d looked for her and hadn’t thought to search the coroner’s database. Not for a second had I considered she might be dead.
But it was all here in front of me. Confirmed identity, approximate time of death, method of death. And date. Six months ago. They’d known for six months and hadn’t said a word.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Even I couldn’t recognise myself through the coldness in my voice. A second wave of telepathy spun through the apartment. The lights blew out altogether, leaving us in darkness.
I started hyperventilating immediately. Even through my grief, the nightmare was relentless. Its icy tendrils wrapped around my brain. I shivered and wailed until Gabe opened the apartment door and let in the light from the hallway.
Julian moved to replace the bulbs. They all knew to keep spares around in case. When it was done, and I had calmed down a little, Jenny was frowning.
“You just vindicated us,” she said.
“What the fu...what are you talking about?”
Dad rubbed my back. I remembered a period six months ago when he’d suddenly taken two weeks off work to spend quality time with me. When it happened, I thought he was using it as an excuse to make sure I stopped cutting class. It killed me to know that he was grieving and I couldn’t be there for him.
“If we’d told you then, what would you have done?” Dad asked. “Be honest.”
There was no need for thought. “I’d have gone after him,” I said. “Just like I’m going to go after him now.”
“How do you think that would have turned out?” Gabe asked. “Case in point, last night. You attended and fought in a shadow boxing match that could have ended badly.”
It figures he would have been able to find out where I was so quickly. He had spies everywhere.
“But it didn’t,” I said.
“Didn’t it? We found you half-dead on a roof. You don’t think before you go rushing off into things,” Gabe continued.
“Pardon me if I don’t take advice from a hardened criminal.” Even Dad flinched at that. Gabe wasn’t deterred. I’d called him worse over the years.
“And as a hardened criminal, even I wouldn’t go after The Shadowman. Ed’s been at it for years, trying to figure out his identity. If a King can’t do it, what makes you think you can?”
“Edward Blake can’t do what I do.”
Gabe started laughing. It was merciless. The kind of laugh you expected to hear before you took your last breath.
“Being an esper
isn’t everything,” Dad said. “You have limitations. The Shadowman cares about nothing and no one. That’s why he’s untouchable.” Dad reached out and cupped my cheek. “I know Rose was hard on you. She wanted to prepare you for the world you were going to grow up in. But there are some things we’re born with that we can’t erase unless we want to lose who we are. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the shadow boxing was about more than finding your Mum.”
I turned my head away, so I didn’t have to look at the soft adoration in his eyes. It was making my heart hurt. I needed to be strong.
“Who do you think the first people the Shadowman would come after would be if you tried to attack him?” Jenny asked.
“You and Dad,” I spat out.
“Wrong.”
I turned my head to look at her. “Your Dad and I have a certain amount of protection. I’m too high-profile, and we have Gabe. But the others don’t.”
“What others?”
“The greengrocer who you visit instead of going to see your grandmother every other Sunday. The nun at your school who covers for you when the principal wants to know where you’ve been. Khan at the Academy training centre. And now you’ve gone and done the one thing we were all afraid of.”
My head dropped into my hands. “I’ve put myself on his radar. Now he knows about Daisy and her family.” Goddammit. “What about Gran? Does she know about Mum?”
Dad nodded.
“Why didn’t she do something?”
“Because she’s not stupid,” Gabe said. “Everybody knows this isn’t a battle we can win right now. Everybody except you.”
My maternal grandmother was the wife of the Kew Gardens King for forty years. If she didn’t think it was possible to go after the Shadowman, then it probably wasn’t. I still didn’t have to like it.
“So, we’re just going to do nothing? Just let it go? How is that fair?”
“The world isn’t about fair,” Gabe said. “This is life. Not some comic book.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “He said Mum was killing espers for money. Is that true?”
This time, it was Jenny who sighed. “We can’t tell if it is. Our investigation has led to a dead end. We did dig up some names but there was no pattern to the killings. Some of them weren’t even espers. They were whispers.”