Faceless

by Jus Accardo

  His face was different.

  “I’m going to get to it first,” the newcomer to the dream said in a somewhat familiar voice.

  Cain’s voice.

  Get to it? Get to what? My mind flashed back to Dromere and a thought started to buzz. The annoyed and slightly panicked look in Devin’s eyes when I’d walked in the room. It all made sense. Anderson had made a deal with her, too. Find the formula in exchange for…something. He’d pitted us against each other! Sent us both in to do the same job—winner takes all.

  “Now, kiss me,” he demanded in a cold, dead voice.

  She obeyed, tears trailing from the corners of her eyes and plopping down to darken the violet sheets.

  My name is Brandt Cross, and I would never do something like this…

  Only I had. The change from Josh to Cain made sense now. I might not have done it on purpose, but the kiss in Cain’s room suddenly made sense. Painful, sickening sense. I’d pushed her to do it. Somehow, without speaking—without trying—Cain’s ability had forced her to kiss me back.

  In that moment, I’d never hated anyone as much as I hated myself. My blood began to boil and I couldn’t stand another second. Watching her cry and knowing that I was ultimately the cause made me sick.

  Pulling out of the dream was easy. It was like taking a deep breath and diving back into myself. I shot up, back in Cain’s bed, with sweat beading across my forehead. My heart pounded and the muscles in my right hand were twitching. I ran my fingers over the inside skin on my hand and cringed. I’d clenched my fist so tight that there were tiny indentations in my palm from my nails.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  It’s a good thing guys my age didn’t usually have heart attacks. Still though, I could have sworn my heart stopped—just for a second. Standing at the foot of my bed, eyes swollen and red, and wearing green flannel shorts and white T-shirt—was Devin.

  She backed away several steps, glancing around. “And what the hell am I doing here? Is this—is this Cain’s room?”

  Cain’s room?

  Who the hell was I?

  I looked down at my hands and a chill filled the room. On the left one, thumb to pinkie, was the faint pinkish ghost of a scar. I’d gotten it two years ago when Dez and I had joined Alex and his buddies for a game of midnight hide and seek. Farther up the arm was a tiny discoloration. A scar from the time Dez and I lit off firecrackers in my back yard. The bottle had tipped over and it nicked the skin as she pushed me out of the way.

  They were all there. A lifetime worth of battle scars and keepsakes etched into my skin. My skin.

  Brandt’s skin.

  “I’m going to ask one more time,” she said shoulders tensing. “Who are you?”

  “I’m—I’m Brandt.”

  Chapter Seven

  Only I wasn’t. Not really. Not anymore. After the initial jolt of excitement, I started noticing the little things. Yeah, this was Cain’s room, but there were things here that didn’t belong. My leather jacket—the one Dad bought me for my sixteenth birthday. My sneakers—the black and white checkered Vans Dez used to rib me about. But the thing that did it? The thing that pulled it all into place? The skate wheel. It was sitting in the corner—still attached to my board.

  I hadn’t fully come out of it like I’d thought. I’d only pulled myself from Devin’s dream and into my own. And apparently I’d brought her with me. That was new. Sheltie’s ability must be getting stronger.

  “I’m Brandt,” I repeated, more confident. It felt amazing to use my real name—in my own voice. I couldn’t help the goofy smile I knew went from ear to ear.

  Devin didn’t share my excitement, though. She stepped over to the dresser and picked up one of Cain’s shirts. A gaudy black thing with black-light-white vampire skulls all over the front. Waving it at me, she said, “This is Cain’s room. He’s the only one in this place with such a tragic wardrobe.”

  Feet to the floor, I wiggled my toes, happier than any sane person would be, when the middle one snapped. I’d broken it when I was in fourth grade. It’d always bugged me, but now, for some reason, it made me smile. I’d missed it.

  “Why are you staring at your feet?” she squealed. “I’m serious. If you don’t start talking, I’m going to start screaming.”

  “I’ll level with ya,” I said. And by level, I meant lie through my teeth. “I don’t know where I am, how I got here—or who Cain is. No idea who you are, either.” I stepped around her to look in the mirror. With my index finger, I poked the side of my face, then ran a hand through my messy, sand-colored hair. The annoying cowlick in the back, the one I’d hated my entire life, was a sight for sore eyes.

  Her shoulders relaxed a little. “How can you not know where you are?”

  I turned to her, lips slipping into an easy grin. I felt like myself. For the first time since Sheltie had killed me, I felt like me. No one else’s thoughts poked around in my head, no one else’s personality fought with me. I not only looked like Brandt, I felt like Brandt. “Are you serious? Didn’t you just insinuate you had no idea where you were?”

  She leaned back against the dresser. “I’m still sleeping. That’s the only explanation as to why I’d end up, of all places, back in Cain’s room.”

  “I think you are still sleeping. Actually, I think we both are.”

  “Both? So, you’re real?” She closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath. Suspicion was etched all over her face. “How is that—wait.” Then understanding. “You’re a Six, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah—you one too?”

  There was a flash of anger in her eyes. Arms rigid, she took a step closer, and I couldn’t help feeling a swell of admiration. I’d walked her dreams in an attempt to figure Devin out. She was a serious Betty, but more than that, she was a fighter. Whoever Josh was, I had a sneaking suspicion he was real, and he’d terrorized her. Most people would have buckled under something like that. Not Devin. It made her stronger. “And you have the ability to invade people’s dreams?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like that. I wasn’t trying to invade anything. I’m not sure how we ended up here together. I’m not even sure whose dream we’re in.” The lies tasted bitter, but after seeing her dream and realizing what I’d accidentally done earlier, I wasn’t about to tell her the truth. She’d feel even more violated and I didn’t want that.

  “Are you new to the boarding house?”

  I settled back on the bed. The words tumbled out before I could even think twice. “Boarding house? I live in Parkview.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know where that is. So you—you have no idea how we got here?”

  I shrugged. “My control is a little wonky sometimes. What’s your name?”

  “Devin. And you’re Brandt?”

  “Devin? That’s a new one for a girl.”

  She graced me with a smile that tangled my stomach into knots. She was even more beautiful when she wasn’t glaring daggers of death at me. “I’m named after my dad. The doctors told my parents I was going to be a boy. Imagine their shock… I grew up with a lot of blue.” She looked around. “So, any idea how we get out?”

  “Gotta wake up.”

  “Oh,” she said, fiddling with the edge of Cain’s tacky shirt.

  “So, this boarding house, is that where you are? What is it, like a home or something?”

  She shook her head again, eyes still on mine. “This is weird.”

  “Sorry. Just trying to pass the time.”

  “No, I just mean—are you sure we haven’t met?”

  That took me by surprise. “Met? Um, yeah I think I’d remember.”

  “There’s something about you…”

  I puffed out my chest and gave her my previously famous Lady-Killer Grin. “Well, I am quite the stud.”

  There it was again. That brief smile. I resolved to see it more often. Whatever I had to do, I was determined to get this girl to grin like that in the waking world. “I can’t put my finger on it,
but there’s something familiar about you.”

  I motioned to the chair by Cain’s desk. “So you never answered my question. You a Six?”

  “I am,” she said, sinking onto the chair. She pulled up both feet and tucked them close to her body, never taking her eyes off mine. I couldn’t blame her for being leery. If a strange girl showed up in my dreams—well—yeah, never mind. What seventeen-year-old guy would be upset about that?

  She was wearing the socks again. The purple ones with the dancing mice on each toe. Picking at the edges of the left one, she said, “I can hack computers.”

  She was being modest. Hack computers? I knew a lot of people that could do that. What she could do was something epic. “While the hacker-chick status is hot and everything, how does that make you a Six?”

  She grinned and tapped the side of her head. “I can do it with my mind.”

  “Ahh,” I said. “That’s more like it.”

  “The boarding house is where I live.”

  “So you’re what, an orphan or something?”

  She giggled. The sound sent prickles across my skin. This could be bad. I didn’t have time for distractions right now. I was here to do a job, then get out. I’d dated my fair share when I was—well—me, but this girl was already getting under my skin in a way none of the others had. I couldn’t figure it out.

  She shifted on the bed, hesitating for a moment. She was still suspicious, and that made me admire her all the more. I’d met too many girls that just bought whatever crap they were sold right off the bat. Give me cautious and smart over easy and dense any day of the year. “Not at all. It’s a place for people like us.”

  Not how I’d planned this, but at least now we were getting somewhere. “What kind of place?”

  “A place to start over. A place where we can be ourselves.”

  “Start over? Were things bad at home?”

  She said something vague, but I didn’t quite catch it. Something else—an odd ringing—drowned it out.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The noise again. Like a siren, or an alarm. It was distracting and getting louder every minute. I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away. “You don’t—”

  I shot up, the sound of the alarm clock blaring in my ear. Yanking the cord from the wall, I knocked it off the dresser and sent it crashing to the ground. The unhealthy rattling sound it made on impact told me there was a good chance we’d never have this issue again.

  I threw off the covers and padded over to the window. The early morning sun greeted me with annoying brightness. Time to get ready for work.

  Chapter Eight

  Cynthia, the same woman that drove me to Dromere the day before, was waiting outside when I emerged from the boarding house. We drove in silence except for my single, thwarted attempt to change the station on the radio. In a deceptively sweet voice, she told me she’d melt my organs if I tried it again. Considering where I was living, I took the threat seriously and resigned myself to listening to some dude whine about his tractor and runaway dog. Or he could have been complaining that his dog ran away with his tractor. Either way, it sucked a big one.

  When I arrived at Dromere, I signed in at the front reception area and made my way deeper into the building. I passed Donna’s desk where she and Devin were bent over a stack of papers, talking quietly. Devin looked up as I got to the end of the hall, catching my eye for a moment before I turned the corner and ducked out of sight. I had been curious about her before, but last night had made it impossible to think of anything else. Now, more than ever, I needed to know what she was doing with Denazen. My mind raged that this was a distraction I didn’t need, but I couldn’t help it. She didn’t fit the normal profile.

  I arrived at Wentz’s temporary main floor office to find it empty. He’d left me a note, though.

  Doug—

  Meet me in the lab when you get in. Bring Mt Dew. It’s in the fridge in the office (the one that exploded).

  Good luck with Nader.

  Wentz

  It took some convincing, but eventually Nader let me into the office provided he came with me. I raided the mini fridge—which was remarkably unharmed—under Nader’s watchful eye, pulled out a six-pack of soda, and found my way down to the lab.

  “Name?” the Jim on the left said without blinking.

  I almost pointed out that he’d seen me yesterday, but didn’t bother. “Doug Cain. I’m Mr. Wentz’s new—”

  He turned away and punched in the code. The door opened with a swoosh and he went back to staring down the hall. I shuffled past them and into the room, biting back a very Cain-like comment about the stick wedged up his ass. Wentz wanted to get them to show some emotion? Cain would gladly volunteer to kick them in the nuts. Like to see them keep a straight face then…

  The place was no less hectic than yesterday. No one spoke to me as I walked the center aisle straight to the two large, closed doors at the end. No one even looked. Not that I liked being the center of attention—that was Dez’s thing—but it was almost as if they were going out of their way to not look. That was a little weird. It made me wonder about the comment Nader made the day before pertaining to the short life spans of Wentz’s previous assistants.

  I knocked twice, then pushed through the doors when I got no answer. Wentz was seated at the desk, head down, with a pair of Twizzlers hanging from under his top lip. Despite the candy-fangs, I noticed a difference right away. It wasn’t just his clothes. Work jeans and a simple black collared shirt as opposed to yesterday’s odd business/casual mash up. It wasn’t the tight set of his shoulders and jaw. It was his expression. Yesterday he’d been laid back, almost childlike, and never losing his grin. Today that was gone. This was a man focused. Obsessed.

  I held up the cans and gave them a slight shake. “Brought the soda.”

  “Set it down,” he mumbled. One of the Twizzlers fell from his mouth, and he ignored it. Without looking up from his work, he slid a small yellow paper across the desk and tapped it twice. “Here. Do them in order and be back here by four.”

  I took the paper and skimmed it. It was a list of twenty things. Errands, filing, etc. Number four said to pick up dry cleaning. The only dry cleaners I knew of was at least twelve miles from here and I didn’t have a car. “How—”

  He waved me off. “Go. Busy Bumble Bee today.”

  …

  I checked off the items one by one. The first had me running files from the upstairs office to Donna. Nader wasn’t happy to see me again after the morning soda run and informed me I had exactly one hour and then the office was officially closed for the foreseeable future.

  The second thing on the list was to pull all the boxes labeled April 2007 from storage in the basement. That one sucked. Storage turned out to be a room the size of the old public library back home with almost no organization. There were thousands of boxes, all with random dates, seemingly scattered everywhere. Some with just month and year, others with month, date, year, and even a time.

  After working my way from the front of the room to the middle, I figured out the ones for 2007 had the date underlined twice and were a slightly different shade of gray than the rest. Still, that only made finding them slightly quicker. It still took five hours. Granted I’d rifled through each box as I went, trying to find something on the formula. After twelve boxes of random notes and unrelated files, I gave up.

  The third thing was to bring the boxes to Donna.

  “Hey,” I asked as we unloaded the last batch. “Is everything okay with Wentz today? He seems…”

  “Serious?” she said, smiling. “It’s a Busy Bee day. I’ve been here about six months and I’ve only seen him do it like twelve times.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “Wentz is an odd one. He can go for weeks, say and do the weirdest things, and then boom. Out of nowhere, the next day, he’s all business.” Donna patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t last more than a day or so. That’s all he needs. The man is b
rilliant.”

  Brilliant? Someone had a mad crush. I remembered her reaction to him after the office blew up. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. “You have a thing for him, don’t you?”

  Donna blushed and turned away. “Frank is amazing, but he’s far too busy for someone like me. Plus, we have rules about that kind of thing here.”

  Obviously Donna didn’t see herself clearly. Long brown hair and a bright smile bordered by generous lips, she had a sort of exotic quality. Her eyes, light grey at the center, had a darker rim around the edge—almost blue, but not quite. I’d caught Wentz looking at her a few times, and was pretty sure the attraction was mutual. “I think you’d be surprised.”

  Devin cleared her throat and took the last box from my hands. “Was that all you needed?”

  I pulled the list from my pocket and waved it back and forth. “He wants me to pick up dry cleaning, but I don’t have my license on me… Or a car.”

  She’d started sifting through the first box, pulling out folders and setting them on the desk in three different piles. “Devin, could you take Douglass to the cleaners?”

  “No!” we said in unison.

  Donna eyed me, then turned to Devin, fingers drumming against the desk. “Am I missing something? You are both aware that intercompany dating is off limits, correct? So if there’s something going on here Nader will have a cow.”

  “There’s nothing,” Devin replied quickly. “My car’s a mess, that’s all.”

  Donna raised both eyebrows as if to say, really, then nodded to her keys on the desk. “Then take my car, but hurry back. There’s a half day’s worth of filing to do and we still need to go over last week’s payroll. There’s no overtime.”

  Devin hesitated, but only for a minute. Snatching the keys, she started for the doorway, making it a point to stay far ahead. Twice she looked back, eyes narrow. “You better not be staring at my ass.”

  What was the fastest way to get a guy to do something? Tell him he shouldn’t be doing it. Seriously. When would girls learn?