by Teri Terry
That needs stitches, I say.
I’ve never been good with a needle and thread. But maybe…
What?
I made myself better by the loch, when I was all weak from being sick. Maybe there is something I can do now.
Her eyes go weird, black swirling into the blue. I’ve never seen this happen so close up before, and I stare, curious. She’s looking straight at me, but can she even still see me?
Her face that was so pale goes pink, warmer—and her ear goes red and blurs, and then, where it was hanging off, it is whole. Healed and together. She blinks, and her eyes are normal again.
She looks in the mirror. Wow. She holds out a hand, shaking a little, and touches her ear. “How the hell did I do that?” she says, out loud this time.
I don’t know. I didn’t know you could do anything like that.
She walks down the hall, still holding one hand to the wall, like she’ll fall over if she doesn’t.
“Kai left,” she says, and sighs. “Did you know?”
Yes. I followed the soldiers around and then zoomed up to your house. I saw his bike take off up the road from there.
“And you didn’t go with him? Why?”
You need me more right now.
Shay is blinking back tears. “But he’s your brother.”
And you’re my friend.
“Thank you, Callie. For helping me. For everything,” Shay says, and she means it—she does; I can feel the truth in her thoughts—but I need more. I need her to say the words.
Am I your friend too?
“Of course. I owe you one, more than one; big time.”
You won’t ignore me anymore? Do you promise?
“No. Never. I thought I was going crazy, that I’d made you up, and you weren’t real. But now I know: it isn’t me or you going crazy: it’s the whole damn world. It’s gone from peanuts to macadamias and all the way up the nut chain to coconuts. The world is an insane asylum, and we’re just two of the inmates, trying to work it all out.”
Ha! I like that. But how about, instead, the rest of the world is crazy and we’re the sane ones. And we’re in this together. Right?
“Okay. Deal.” She holds out her hand, and I hesitate, then put mine in hers. She shakes it as if she is holding it, and something catches inside.
Shay is my friend. I have a friend. Friends are there for each other, aren’t they?
Then she yawns and rubs her ear. “It sort of tingles,” she says, and yawns again.
You need to sleep. I’ll keep watch.
“Okay. Thanks.” She wanders into the front room and settles on the sofa, not wanting to climb the stairs and look for a bedroom. Maybe the people who lived in this house died in their beds—a nervous thought leaks out of her. Maybe they’re still there.
I’ll check, I say, and quickly search the house and report back: No one at home, dead or alive. Go to sleep; I’ll wake you up if anything happens.
But once Shay is asleep, I rush up the road the way Kai had gone.
I reach the first roadblock without seeing him; he must have gotten through this one. I’m about to continue up the road, past the roadblock, when something catches my eye.
There, pulled in off the side of the road.
It’s Kai’s bike.
CHAPTER 18
SHAY
KAI LIES NEXT TO ME, his hand stroking my hair. His eyes are on me in that special way only his eyes have ever looked into mine; that warm way that tingles through my whole body and in my mouth and throat until all I can do is kiss him.
But then he’s gone. My arms are cold.
He’s in trouble.
I reach to find him: out and out, but there is silence, absence.
He’s not here, but even worse: he’s not anywhere.
A scream rises in my throat, and my arms and legs flail out. I fall off the sofa onto hardwood floor with a thump.
My heart still beats fast from my dream—but that’s all it was. A dream.
I sit up. Light is leaking through under unfamiliar curtains in an unknown house—one I paid so little attention to as an uninvited guest last night that now it feels as though my eyes are seeing the neat room for the first time.
“Callie?” I say, out loud, then try again with my mind—Callie?
No answer, so this is a good time to think things through and know she’s not listening in on my thoughts.
If she’s really real—after last night, I think I have to accept this now—then I haven’t been going crazy. Does that mean that all I remembered of those dreams with Mum before she died is true too?
Then Callie is my half sister, and my father is the man Kai hates more than anybody.
At least Kai isn’t my half brother: now that would be beyond weird.
My stomach growls. How can I possibly be hungry with everything that has happened?
I wander into the kitchen, open the fridge, and close it again in a hurry. Something in there has gone bad.
But in the cupboard is peanut butter and in the freezer is bread. Into the toaster it goes. I’m on slice four when Callie appears, a blur that rushes down the hall and stops in front of me abruptly. She’s radiating alarm.
“What’s wrong?”
I followed the road Kai would take, and—
“What’s happened? Is he all right?”
I don’t know! His bike was behind the roadblock, but he wasn’t there.
Panic rushes through me, like I’m back in my dream. They shot at me; they killed Duncan. That soldier was still going to shoot me, even when I was surrendering. What will they do to Kai? But I don’t understand. They let him go, so why…?
Callie is hiding something, shielding her thoughts. “What is it? Tell me!”
I couldn’t tell you last night. You were too upset and needed to sleep.
“Tell me what?”
They said they’d try to catch him at the roadblock.
“But why would they do that, when they let him leave before?”
They said they had to find you, and Lizzie said you’d go to Kai.
“What?”
I was hoping he got away, that they were too slow and he was through the roadblock already. But when I went to check, his bike was there. They must have him.
“Where is he?”
I don’t know. Just now I swept through the whole village but couldn’t find him. What are we going to do?
I’m shaking inside. It’s me they want. Isn’t it? Not Kai.
She reads my thoughts. No! If you give yourself up, they’ll have both of you. What good is that?
“Look. The first thing we have to do is find him.”
I told you, I couldn’t. He’s not at the park or with the soldiers that you ran away from or at the army base.
“Try again. Go!”
Callie hesitates, and then there is a dark blur where she stood. She’s gone.
I sit down and reach. Like I did last night, I stretch out to find all the eyes in the village. Two-legged, four-legged, six or eight; I’m not fussy.
But I can’t feel Kai anywhere. I can’t see him either. And it’s so like my dream that I’m afraid.
CHAPTER 19
CALLIE
I’VE BEEN THROUGH THE WHOLE VILLAGE again at blur-speed and am about to give up, to go back to Shay and tell her I failed.
But something makes me return to Shay’s house one last time.
In the garden behind her house there is a bench, one that overlooks the loch.
It was empty the last time I came here, but now Kai lies on the bench. He’s still. His eyes are closed. His hands are tied together behind him and to the bench.
I’m scared to see him like this, not moving. Is he all right? I can’t even tell.
He has to be all right.
I kiss his cheek.
Don’t worry, Kai; we’ll save you. Me and my friend.
CHAPTER 20
SHAY
WE GO ALONG THE SIDES OF THE LOCH, keeping away from the
roads. I’m careful to be quiet even though I’m sure the thump of my heart is loud enough to broadcast where we are. When Callie came streaming back, I’d already found Kai: I saw him through the eyes of a butterfly balanced on the edge of the bench.
He was still, so still it wasn’t natural—he wasn’t just asleep. His face was pale except where the skin was purpling, swelling, down one side of it. Rope tied his hands behind him and to the bench.
I longed to reach him, to touch him, so much: did it broadcast to the butterfly? She flapped her wings, circled, landed lightly on his cheek.
Still he didn’t move.
I’m coming, Kai. I’d sent the thought then, and over and over again now, and with each step closer.
Callie returns. All clear, she says, and then goes off again—scanning side to side of the path ahead, making sure no one lies in wait.
They must have him tied up like that to draw me there. I know going to him must be a trap, that walking into it won’t help either of us.
But even as fear makes me tremble and want to run fast the other way, there is nothing else I can do.
We’re in the trees between our house and the loch. I can just see Kai’s still form with my eyes.
Callie is back.
There’s no one there! Go and untie him.
You must be wrong. Why would they just leave him like this?
I’m not wrong! Help him. She’s angry. You’re afraid.
Yes. I am. I sigh. Callie, he’s the bait in a trap. Let me try to see.
I sit on the grass. I’d tried and failed at various points on the way to reach Kai, but had to stop walking when I did: I couldn’t see or feel where my body was anymore when I reached out.
I reach—not to Kai this time, though I long to; not yet. Instead I reach out all around us. Close by to begin with, then farther away and a little more, and again. And a little farther, and…there. There is a soldier, hidden, a gun trained on Kai. It’s got a scope thing on it. I scan again and again and find another hidden soldier, another gun. I open my eyes.
Callie, there are two of them. Both with guns trained on Kai. If I go there, they’ll open fire. I tell her where they are as best I can; she rushes off to see for herself.
And now I reach again: to Kai.
He stirs. I’m relieved the terrible stillness he had before is gone, but it is replaced by pain. His head aches, his body too—there are bruises I couldn’t see. He tries to move his arms but can’t, and that hurts too.
Can I reach him, can I soothe him? I’m closer than I was when I tried before.
I pour love from myself into Kai, like I’m giving him an inside-out hug.
He’s startled.
Kai? It’s Shay. Can you hear me?
He tries to move his lips to answer.
No, don’t speak. Think instead.
Shay? I don’t understand. Where are you? Are you all right?
I’m close, but I can’t come to you right now.
How are we talking? His thoughts are muddled; he thinks he’s dreaming.
A nice dream. I caress him inside and try to take his pain away like I took my own away when my ear was hurt. I give him waves of my energy, and he wakes up more.
It really is you?
Yes. We’re going to get you out of this. Just stay put.
Like I can do anything else. Who is we?
Another time for that one.
Don’t do anything stupid. Leave me here—save yourself.
Can’t do that. Sorry.
You didn’t want to go with them. I should have listened to you.
Shay? Shay! Callie is back.
I have to go now. I imagine a kiss and feel it on my lips and his, then do the only thing I can think to do that will help him right now. Sleep, Kai, sleep. I send him into a deep, healing sleep.
CHAPTER 21
CALLIE
WE WAIT UNTIL DUSK.
Shay is creeping up on the first soldier. He’s sitting on a log, his eyes and gun trained on Kai. Then he sneezes and turns his head, and I tell Shay to freeze until he moves his head back again.
Can she really do this?
I’m frustrated by what I am, like I never have been before. When Shay helped me find where the soldiers were hiding, I’d tried to burn both of them: fling myself through them, hot, like I did with that boy by the river in Aberdeen. But it didn’t work. I can only guess it’s because they’re wearing biohazard suits—something in the suits must block me, just like it stops them from catching it.
If only I had a body, I could flatten him.
Could you? Shay says in my head, reading my last thought.
Oh yes. But can you do it?
Shay doesn’t answer. I’d told her the soldier who shot Duncan was lying still on the ground when I’d gone back, and she said she thought she’d done something to him. She’s been trying to work out what it was, not trusting that she can hit this one hard enough with the rock in her hands.
I could. I imagine his head splattered with blood, and Shay’s stomach recoils from the image in my mind.
Remember who they are, and what they’re doing. They’d shoot you and Kai if they got the chance. Now concentrate.
Shay is moving as quietly as she can, the whole while projecting calming thoughts at the soldier: It’s quiet, you’re alone, the night is still. I see better in the dark than she does, and I’m telling her where to put her feet, watching him, trying to get her in as close as possible.
Wait, I say, and Shay freezes. He’s turned his head and is saying something on the radio in his suit, voice too low for us to hear.
He stops and trains his eyes and gun back on Kai.
We creep closer.
It’s time, Shay. Do it for Kai. Do it because you have to.
CHAPTER 22
SHAY
HOW CAN HE NOT HEAR MY HEART BEAT?
Callie had pictured what to do inside me so clearly. Swing the rock as hard as I can at his head. Kick away his gun.
Me, a sixteen-year-old weakling, against a trained army killer. Yeah, that’ll work for sure.
Do it!
Do it because I must.
I breathe in, focus. He obligingly moves his head back a little farther.
Now.
I swing the rock toward his head with both hands as hard as I can, my stomach sick with dread and fear.
Just as the rock is about to connect with his skull, he twists to the side.
The rock only gets him with a glancing blow. He gets up, half staggering, but doesn’t drop his gun. But I’m too close for him to aim and shoot, and instead he swings it at my head. Somehow I pull away enough that it only hits my shoulder, but pain vibrates through my body.
I fall to my knees.
He steps away, raises the gun, and smiles.
Fear, pain, and now, most of all, anger surge inside me. How can he do this? What gives him the right? A wave of heat and fury rises inside me and swells, then flings itself out in a rush.
He convulses and falls to the ground.
See, easy, Callie says.
I’m stunned, and acid rises in my stomach. Did I just do that? Can my anger hurt people, make someone like this tall soldier lie still on the ground?
Callie reads my thoughts. Good thing, as you’re terrible at hitting people with rocks. One more to go, and—
“Shay McAllister!” A voice booms out into the still night. “Enough of this. Turn yourself in, and we’ll let him go.”
We turn toward the house. And there is the other soldier, holding a gun to Kai’s head.
CHAPTER 23
CALLIE
HIT HIM WITH YOUR ANGER, like you did to this one—do it again!
But Shay is radiating fear for Kai, and that is all that is in her thoughts.
Gather your anger together again!
She tries, but it doesn’t work. Is he too far away?
“Shay, your lover boy here may look dead at the moment, but I promise you, I checked—his heart is beating.�
� The voice again. “He still lives. You have ten seconds to come here with your hands raised. Then I will start shooting. I’ll start with his feet and work my way up every ten seconds.”
“One!”
Shay gets to her feet.
“Two!”
Don’t do it. He’ll hurt you!
“Three!”
I have no choice.
Shay runs out from the cover of the trees to a clearing, and I’m scared—for her, for Kai—and there is nothing I can do.
“Four!”
She waves her hands. “Here! I’m over here,” she shouts.
“Come here. Five!”
His gun is still trained on Kai, not on Shay. He wants her to go closer to him.
“Six!”
She walks toward them, stumbling on the ground.
“Seven!”
CHAPTER 24
SHAY
I QUICKLY MEMORIZE THE PATH I must take.
And reach to Kai. I can’t see my feet or the ground anymore and stumble, but I keep walking. Not straight to them, but a bit to the side so the soldier will have to shift his position a little to shoot me.
Because that’s what he is going to do, isn’t it?
“Eight!”
Kai? Seemingly random images drift through his thoughts: is he dreaming? Wake up, Kai, but don’t move.
Hmmmm. He begins to be aware, of himself, of me, here in his mind. His thoughts are sleepy at first, but then he’s awake in a hurry as he remembers. I urge him to stay still when his muscles are screaming to move after too long in one position. What’s happening?
I show him a picture of his body on the bench, the soldier, the gun. Me walking down the hill.
“Nine!”
I leave Kai and open my eyes just as I step clear of the trees.