by Seren Goode
“Are you for real?” He glared at me across the room. “You can talk to someone else in your head and your first thought is ‘invasion of privacy’?” Even through the pale beams of light from the window, I could see his raised eyebrow.
“Right, sorry.” I hated to admit it, but he was right.
Shim shrugged. Seconds ticked by, and the silence extended between us.
“So…how do you think we are doing this?” I broke the stalemate.
“What do you have in your hand?” Shim asked.
I realized I was still clutching the stone at my neck, gathering comfort from it. I opened my hand and held the stone in my fingers, angling it toward the light so Shim could see.
He held up a clenched fist bathed in moonlight and slowly unfolded each finger to show me the ring in the center of his palm.
“It’s the jewelry?” I asked in my head. There was no response.
I looked at Shim and cocked my head to the side. He held up one finger, then placed it on the stone in the center of the ring.
“Can you hear me now?” The line from an old commercial echoed through my head, loud and clear.
I nodded. “It’s not the jewelry; it’s the stones.”
“Apparently.”
“And you didn’t know this already?” I challenged.
“I told you, no.” Intense irritation came through our connection, followed by suspicion. “Are you saying you just figured it out? You’ve had your mom’s necklace a long time.”
“No! I mean, yes, I’ve had the necklace since she left, but I never knew it could do this. How did you figure it out?”
“It took me forever to figure out who was having an existential crisis in my head. Once I realized it was you, I had to wait for you to stop talking long enough so I could say something.” The voice in my head was droll. My first instinct was to huff and turn my back on him, but this was too momentous.
“You are such a jerk,” I responded bitterly.
He ignored my statement. “It is weird. I’m looking at you and hearing you talk, but your lips aren’t moving.” I was a little appeased at the awe in his voice.
“Yeah,” I conceded with a smile, but wondered, Now what? “Do we wake up the others and tell them?” Maybe they could help us figure this out. Something occurred to me. “Hey, do you think the other stone works the same way?”
“Why wouldn’t it?” Shim shrugged.
I thought about my original question. “Maybe…maybe this is something we should just keep to ourselves, for now.” Honestly, I couldn’t say why I didn’t want to share this with the rest of them. Maybe I was thinking of the exhausted whimpering sounds the twins had made as they tried to find a comfortable spot to sleep on the hard floor. I was so tired myself, I could barely keep my own eyes open in spite of this amazing discovery. But Shim seemed to get it, and in that minute, something between us synced up. “They have all been through so much. One more thing might break them.”
“Maybe…” Shim hedged.
“Are you dating anyone?” Oh my Stars, what did I just think? I fell back onto the floor and pulled my messenger bag over my head. How could I ask him that? I wasn’t even thinking it. I’m so stupid–stupid–stupid!
“I heard that.” Shim chuckled in my head.
“Oh heavens, this is embarrassing.” Trying to turn off my thoughts was like telling myself not to think about something—and guaranteeing it’s all I could think about.
“It's hard not to communicate through the stones every random thought that enters my head,” Shim commiserated, but since I was still buried under my bag, I couldn’t tell if his face was serious. “So tell me something not embarrassing.”
At the odd request, my body relaxed. “What isn’t embarrassing in my life is boring—really boring.”
“Huh, so tell me something about your boring life,” he said.
I hesitated. I knew what he was doing, trying to distract me, but it had been a long time since anyone had asked about me. My face flushed, and I pushed the bag off but stayed flat on the floor looking at the distorted ceiling. I did feel less lonely since I had started talking with Shim through the stones. It felt good, and when I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine it wasn’t Shim, a complicated guy I was stuck with, that I was speaking to. It was just some guy who thought I was interesting. So, I told him about growing up on a boat, silly things my dad used to say to keep me entertained, and thoughtful gestures my mom made so I wouldn’t miss having friends.
Every so often, we would fall into silence. At one point, I looked over at him again. Shim was lying on his back, studying the ring. I could make out the glitter from the cubic zirconia that circled the outside. His thumb was rubbing the dull stone in the middle of the ring, worrying the stone, polishing it.
I understood the pull. I rhythmically smoothed my finger over the worn surface of the stone at my neck, and it seemed to increase the presence of the connection in my mind. I studied the stone. The dullness had faded, the mottled red and green looked richer, and the silver threading brightened and warmed, like it was flowing through the stone.
Somewhere in the middle of my monologuing, Shim started sharing too. He told me about all the “crap” on his mind. His word. He talked about how he usually avoided Logan, his dad. How he hadn’t known what to do when he had caught Logan stealing Kindle’s ring. He told me about their panicked escape to San Francisco, including sneaking out of their home in Las Vegas in the middle of the night. He told me how hard it was to keep Jaxon out of trouble, that his mom and Logan had always made him feel like it was his responsibility, even punishing Shim when Jaxon got in trouble.
I told him about my slippery slide into being the adult in my household and how I resented that I had become the one to make sure rent was actually paid and we had food.
Finally, I asked Shim about his bruises. He was reluctant to talk about them at first. And in the end, he didn’t go into detail, but he said they were football injuries and how much he hated doing team sports, or “man sports,” as Logan called them. Shim said he loved extreme sports: bike tricking, freestyle motorcycling, boarding, you name it. But he did whatever he could to prove to his father that he was tough so he would leave him alone.
“And computers?” I asked with a mental yawn. Shim stopped talking.
“I guess we should get some sleep,” Shim finally stated after a long silence. I didn’t know how long we had been talking, but the room was darker, and the noise of the city had died down.
“Yeah, maybe we should.” It felt awkward. After all that talking, I didn’t know what to say to him. I still wasn’t sure I liked him, and now I had committed myself to sharing another secret.
“Night.” That easily, he rolled his back to me and fell asleep.
Huh, that was anticlimactic. Closing my eyes, I willed myself to go to sleep. Yep…that wasn’t working. Thoughts resumed racing through my head like a deranged scavenger hunt. I was careful to keep my hand off my necklace. I eventually nodded off to bizarre dreams of people drowning who I couldn’t rescue and phones ringing I couldn’t reach.
Chapter 9
Bootcamp
I woke up feeling like something important had happened, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Groaning, I sat up and stretched, my back popping.
Jaxon was arguing with the twins, and Shim wasn’t in the room. I blinked rapidly as I tried to figure out why I found that unsettling. My hand reached instinctively for my mother’s necklace. As my fingers ghosted along my collar bone and connected with the stone hanging at my throat, it flooded back to me.
Oh my Stars. The stones. Why had I never known what they could do? I guess it was because I never knew there were other stones. I always thought there was just the one. Mine.
The thought occurred to me again that maybe this was too big of a secret for us to keep from the others.
/> A heated argument started across the room. The twins were sitting on the floor with Jaxon, who was holding a small, mechanical dog.
Duchess wagged her tail as Breeze and Skylar tried to wheedle a turn with the steampunk pup. Jaxon refused.
“What the hell is that?” Shim stormed into the room and headed for Jaxon. “You little shit! After all Jonas did for us, you stole from him?”
Jaxon jumped up and shifted Duchess behind his back. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know how she got here. She wanted to come”—he sputtered out excuses then pointed to the twins—“they wanted her too.”
Breeze held up her palm and negotiated. “Well, we would support your harmless prank if we got equal time with her…” She trailed off with a little smirk.
“Yeah, 50/50” —Skylar grunted when Breeze elbowed him, and he switched his offer—“make that 30/30/30.”
Shim scowled and was about to say something when negotiations were interrupted. Bang Bang Bang. Something knocked hard on the wood stairs, and Waters yelled up, “Five minutes.”
There was a mad scramble to get out of the room. Duchess was swept up into the backpack.
Shim slapped his hand on the strap over Jaxon’s shoulder. “Your responsibility.”
“Of course.” Jaxon’s sneer couldn’t hide his smile.
“I mean it. You took her, you take care of her until you can return her. And don’t let Waters see her, or she’ll be chopped up for parts and sold off before you can whistle.”
Jaxon glared at Shim before hustling out the door after the twins.
Shim turned to me. He looked indecisive and said, “Um, ah, morning.”
I flushed.
“Hiya.” I pushed past him, and his fingers brushed down my arm, leaving a trail of tingles. Did last night happen, or was it all a dream?
“Pretty surreal night.” He held up his hand, the ring on his big thumb. I guess that answered the question.
It was real.
“Yeah.” I took a shallow breath. I didn’t know what else to say and didn’t have time to think of something as the banging on the banister started up again.
“Class is in session,” Waters bellowed, and we darted out of the room and down the stairs.
∞
I’m still not sure how we ended up staying with Waters. We didn’t even discuss it. That first night when Waters left, flinging the ominous warning behind him, the boys had given each other these maniacal grins and headed for the stairs. Breeze and I were left gaping after them. Then, realizing we were about to be left behind, we reluctantly followed. I didn’t trust the brothers. I trusted Waters even less. I knew he was playing us, but he wasn’t obvious. On the surface, he was helping. He provided a place for us to stay, taught us how to stay safe, didn’t snitch on us, though the last was probably a strategic move. He was a master strategist: scouting out info, positioning pieces, building alliances—and we were pawns. He might be fond of us because of our parents, but in the end, pawns were the ones sacrificed.
It was a concern that grew as we spent the next several weeks following his direction.
I’d shared my concerns with the others. The siblings had listened and agreed he was using us. But we needed information, and Waters had it, so we did what he asked. I just wasn’t sure he would ever share what he knew.
“Going to school” with Waters wasn’t about taking notes and sitting in class. It was like being at a bizarre summer camp, but instead of archery and canoeing—or whatever kids did at camp—we learned boosting, evasion, and breaking and entering.
At first, Shim and Jaxon said there wasn’t much he could teach them and laughed about the whole thing. They got educated pretty quick.
I was nervous about what he expected from us, but since I couldn’t think of what else we could do, I went along with it. I knew we had relied on sheer nerves and dumb luck to get us this far. It would be nice to have a few skills to back it up.
Breeze had been adamantly against “school” with Waters from the beginning. She had protested to the point of belligerence, insisting she just wanted to go home. She was even starting to wear thin with Skylar, who had been working as a buffer between her and everyone else.
With all the makeup washed off, Waters was a lighter, duller version of the sculpture he imitated. He had weathered skin, a bald head, and wily brown eyes. By his own proclamation, he was somewhere in his late “older than old, but younger than dirt” years. His hands were calloused, and his face deeply lined, so it was hard to pin it down more than that. He kept his word and showed us all the street survival skills he claimed to have shown our parents. We learned how to blend into a crowd, how to avoid being tailed, and how to procure fake IDs. He also had friends come in and show us self-defense and fighting tricks so dirty even Breeze would be able to take out a full-grown man. I tried to imagine my soft-spoken mother kicking a man in his balls or ripping out armpit hair…Yeah, I couldn’t see that happening.
As a procurer and reseller of “specialty items,” as Water’s liked to call his stock of merchandise, he had a quirky client list. Some were displaced, some were shady, and some were just looking for bargains. Early each morning, he would do his rounds, meeting and selling to clients and searching out the latest news of what was happening on the streets. He sold that too. He seemed to know everything that was happening in his city.
He had a keen eye. He could tell if an area was hot, and he had the uncanny ability to know when a contact had snitched—said it was in their eyes.
In his way, he was a good teacher. As we walked through an alley, he would point out escape paths, threats, and potential financial opportunities. When leaving a new contact, he would whisper under his breath their tells: a wide-eyed stare, gated posture, signs of submission or dominance. At first, he sounded like a first-class bullshit artist, talking like he could read his client’s minds, but eventually, I started to see the tells too.
Waters was also a master negotiator. I quickly realized if he hadn’t wanted to help us, there was nothing we could have done to persuade him to, not that he would ever acknowledge that. He rarely gave a “yes” or “no.” He would turn it into a question or raise his brow and say, “Huh, that so?”
Jaxon was a little too interested in some of the more illegal lessons. Waters labeled him our “heavy.” Jaxon fearlessly took on any task that required sheer guts and a lack of tact. Shim could pick any lock and excelled at electronics. I had pegged him as a jock, but I was surprised when taking things apart turned out to be a specialty of his.
Once Breeze let up on the whining, we learned she and Skylar had the ability to sweet talk people into giving them anything they wanted. The twins learned how to procure whatever we needed—by any means possible. They were particularly talented with fake IDs and documents. It reminded me of the stash of wallets with fake IDs we had in our backpacks, and I wondered if it was an inherited skill. We were careful not to mention those or the stack of cash also in the backpack to Waters.
No one was more surprised than me when I turned out to be the best pickpocket. Years of slinking around new schools trying not to be noticed had probably given me the edge in sneaking up on people. Shim made some crack remark about me having a basic credibility. I think he meant I was boring. I was loath to admit to the rest of them, but I was still struggling with the moral aspects of what we were doing. Mostly, we practiced on each other or someone Waters brought in to test us. So far, I’d been getting double the practice by putting the items back, undetected, after I took them. I don’t know how long that would fly.
Waters had a series of rules all his lessons tied back into. His basic premise was that people are devious, unpredictable, and not to be trusted. He included himself in this judgment. Maybe I’m soft, but that was kind of sad.
Waters’ rules broke down to:
Rule 1: If something looks too good to be true, it probab
ly is.
Rule 2: There is an easy and a hard way to do something. You should choose the smart way.
Rule 3: Everyone has a weakness: look for what they love and what they hate.
Rule 4: Be strategic: people protect what’s most precious to them and frequently forget about the rest.
Rule 5: There is always a backdoor. Use it.
And the Golden Rule: Always look out for yourself.
In another life—one where he didn’t carry a knife in his sock and a gun at the small of his back, sleep in a burned-out shell of an old crack house, and wasn’t borderline nuts—Waters would have made an excellent high school teacher. I could picture him all cleaned up in a sweater vest and flannel slacks, standing at a marker board. “Now class, where should the decoy be while the mark is being selected?”
Okay, so sometimes it did seem like he was trying to kill us. Last week, he’d sent us to make a buy of information in the Tenderloin district, not because he wanted what we were buying, though he did use it to help procure our new IDs, but because the area had the reputation of being one of the toughest. Waters was adamant we needed to toughen up and smarten up.
Whatever pants-pissing fear hadn’t registered yet from our parent’s being kidnapped and running for our lives, well, that fear sunk in as Waters’ raw talent for obscenities and life lessons helped to clarify our dire situation.
Oddly, as much as he shared information, he refused to talk about the time our parents had spent with him. All he would say was that when training was over, he would answer our questions.
Were we being set up? Definitely. But for what? And why was Waters helping us? Every so often, he would let something slip, like telling me I reminded him of Amé when she was my age, or when he pegged Jaxon right off as being Kindle’s son from his temper. I’m sure it was no accident. He was giving us small encouragements to keep trusting him.