Coercion

by Tamara Hart Heiner

  “That’s all we’re going to need,” I said.

  “And what about the fact Trey lost his powers? How can you help with that?”

  I shook my head. I had no answer.

  My mom called a few minutes later, wanting me home. She didn’t like me out in the evenings anymore, and no amount of talking would convince her I was safe.

  “I’ll see you Monday in school,” I said, shouldering my bag and heaving a sigh.

  Meredith tapped her pen against her lips. “Are we just going to disappear without letting our parents know again?”

  My poor mom would have a heart attack. But what else could we do? “Yeah. I guess so.”

  Meredith didn’t look happy about that, but she bobbed her head in acknowledgment.

  *~*

  I tossed and turned in my bed, thoughts running through my head. Every time I thought of the jail break—well, hospital break—we were planning for Trey, my heart rate increased and the blood pounded in my throat, making the scar on my neck throb.

  And then there was Aaron. For a moment I pictured his deep blue eyes, the dimple in his chin, the lazy way he would smile at me as if he knew a secret but wasn’t telling.

  I banished the image from my mind and squeezed my eyes shut like that would make the ache in my heart go away. Aaron was gone, and it was my fault. And I would not stop until I had him back.

  His face was the last thing on my mind when I finally fell asleep, so it should’ve been no surprise when my dreams led me to the hallway of doors.

  “Jayne.”

  His voice called to me. I’d been here before, and I remembered the way. I hurried to the door at the end, the one from where his voice came.

  “Aaron!” I called. “Where are you? I’m coming!”

  I touched the tip of my finger to the door knob and immediately clenched my fist and pulled back, expecting it to burn me like last time.

  But it didn’t. It was cool to the touch. Even so, my palm began to sear. I gasped and flipped my hand over.

  There, in the middle of my hand, was the brand I received last time. The star of Auseklis. Only now it glowed red hot, as if a fire burned under my skin.

  I stared at it, then I looked at the door knob again. Sure enough, the star was still imprinted there, the same star that last time I had burned into my flesh. Hesitant, already flinching from the expected pain, I pressed the star on my hand to the star on the knob.

  The knob twisted without my help, and the door swung inward.

  I leaned my head against the door frame and stared down a winding set of stairs as they disappeared into the darkness. A cold feeling rushed up the stairwell, the chill much more than physical, reaching my soul and settling around my heart. I shuddered, wanting to put as much distance between myself and the stairs as possible.

  “Jayne.”

  I closed my eyes. There was no mistaking that voice, the British lilt to my name. I put both hands on either side of the door frame and pushed myself forward.

  “Aaron,” I said. I wanted to shout, wanted to scream his name into the dark and let his voice guide me to him. But my voice came out in a frightened whisper. I put one foot on the step.

  A gush of cold wind blew up at me, blowing my hair away from my face, lifting me up and throwing me backward. I landed on my backside and skidded several feet down the hall. The door swung closed, slamming so hard into the frame that the hallway shook.

  “No!” I cried, and then my eyes opened.

  I was in my bed, and I was awake. My bedsheets wrapped around my legs, and I took several breaths to calm my racing heart.

  I didn’t know what the dream meant, but the sense of urgency pummeling through my veins left one thing clear: we needed to put our plan into action now.

  *~*

  The rest of the weekend passed in similar turmoil, with me and Meredith sending surreptitious messages back and forth, half the time panicking and half the time encouraging each other.

  “Can I pick Beth up from school today?” I asked my mom at breakfast Monday morning. I willed my hands not to tremble, and I kept my eyes on the grapefruit I dissected. I couldn’t let her see my deception.

  “Aren’t you going to work after school?”

  Minor detail. “I thought she could come with me. See what I do.” There was a lot of truth to that statement.

  “Some other time. I don’t want her away from home right now. You either, but I’m trying to give you more freedom.”

  “Much appreciated,” I said, sucking a segment of grapefruit from my spoon. I kept quiet as I ate, trying to figure out how I would get Beth away from my mom’s watchful eyes. I would just have to come home and grab her while Meredith hid Trey away somewhere.

  Which meant that, by tonight, my mom would know Beth and I had disappeared again. My chest tightened, and the grapefruit in my mouth turned bitter.

  “Well, I’ll see you later, Mom,” I said. Avoiding her eyes, I leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek. I didn’t want to appear overly affectionate, but I couldn’t just walk away from her.

  “Wait, Jayne.” She grabbed my arm, and I paused. Did she suspect? Had I done something to give it away?

  “Yes?” I pasted on a fake smile.

  Her eyes scanned mine, and it was like looking in a mirror. How we could possibly have the same shade of aquamarine blue was pretty amazing. I held perfectly still lest she read my thoughts.

  “Are you okay, honey?”

  I widened my fake smile. “Yeah. Of course. Just on my way to school.” I held my backpack up by one strap to prove my point.

  “I mean, with Aaron’s disappearance. You haven’t mentioned him once since coming home.”

  I froze, the smile immobile on my face. Of course she knew he’d vanished. Why did that shock me?

  She was still talking, her lips moving as her words droned on, but I only now tuned back in.

  “ . . . okay to cry, if you want to talk about anything—”

  “I’m fine,” I said, realizing as I said it that I was using the tone of voice people use when they are exactly not fine. I tried to soften it. “Aaron’s fine. Aaron’s coming back. I promise, he’s going to be fine.”

  Instead of reassuring her, her eyes welled up with tears. She patted my arm. “Of course, sweetheart.”

  She could not have had a worse reaction. My throat tightened up, and my eyes burned. “He’s not gone. He’s just missing. You’ll see.”

  I didn’t wait for her response, didn’t wait to see more sympathy in her eyes. I simply wrapped my scarf around my neck one more time and rushed out the door.

  My heart pounded, the beat sounding like, “Save him. Save him. Save him.”

  *~*

  Meredith was waiting for me when I got to my locker, and for the first time since we arrived home from Maryland, something besides despair was written all over her face: anticipation. I returned her smile, feeling the same stirring in my chest. We were doing something.

  “Are you ready?” I asked, doing the normal book-switch at my locker.

  She bobbed her head. “Ready as I’ll ever be. I have the poem here, and I have a back up if I need something more. I tried to make a storm like I did in Maryland, but nothing happened.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it will come when you need it.” Like I was sure about anything. I closed my locker and faced her. “My mom wouldn’t let me pick Beth up from school. So here’s the plan. We go to the hospital as soon as visiting hours start at four o’clock. We use your poem to get Trey out and leave before anyone has woken up enough to sic the police on us. Wait.” I paused and gave her another look. “The guards will snap out of it, right?”

  Meredith looked slightly less certain, but she nodded. “I included a line intended to make the effects of the poem temporary.”

  “Criminy. If it works, that’s nothing short of awesome. You can make all kinds of poems just for temporary effect. It isn’t long, is it?”

  “Just four lines. I don’
t plan to stand there reciting sonnets all day. That would just be ridiculous, since they’d fall asleep on their feet from boredom before the effect of the poem ever hit them.”

  I laughed at that assessment. “So. We need two cars because after we get Trey out, you have to sneak off with him. Don’t go home. I’ll go to my house just long enough to grab Beth and then meet back up with you.”

  “We need to have our rendezvous established now.”

  “Stephen’s house,” I said without thinking. “His aunt will be at work, he’s not there, and it’s far enough away from the police station it’s not likely to be their first check. And I can get there in just fifteen minutes.”

  “Trey and I will wait for you there,” she promised.

  The warning bell rang, and we gathered our books and walked across the street as if we were nothing more than average high school students. But the jittery energy in my veins and the butterflies dancing in my stomach told me otherwise.

  And I still had to get through work after this.

  When I stepped into my third hour chemistry class, my eyes immediately went to the empty spot next to my seat. I knew Stephen wouldn’t be there, but I couldn’t help hoping against hope that I would walk into class and everything would be back to normal.

  I put my books down at my desk and was about to sit when the whole room went quiet. I hesitated and lifted my head. Even the air had gone still. The noisy chatter of teenagers giggling and gossiping and whispering before class had vanished. I half expected my class to have vanished also, but when I spun around, all of my classmates were there.

  Frozen.

  They stood unmoving in whatever pose they had been in moments earlier. I lifted my hand to my face and wiggled my fingers. Was I the only one who hadn’t frozen? What was going on?

  The classroom door opened, and I lifted my head just as Jods stepped through.

  I sucked in, fear breathing to life in my gut. I hadn’t seen the dark-haired, deeply muscled, demonic god since the confrontation with Samantha. Was this a vision? Was I imagining him?

  No, I was wrong. It wasn’t Jods, though they could have been bothers. This one had something different around his eyes and jawline. I stared at him. He wore no shirt over his bronze chest but some kind of sash that looked woven from strands of wheat. A grass skirt finished the ensemble, complete with a fringe of metal beads. He definitely was not my teacher, who I hoped to never see in a skirt. This guy managed to pull it off. A tumble of jet black hair cascaded to his shoulder blades.

  What was happening?

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  He gave a smile, mischievous, dangerous, and inviting all at once. “You don’t remember me? I am hurt.”

  My stomach tightened in recognition when he spoke, and yet I was certain I’d never seen him before.

  “Do I know you?” He had to be one of the pantheon, part of the Latvian gods and goddesses. Meredith and I had studied them, trying to memorize who did what, but right now none of them were ringing a bell.

  He stepped closer to me, cupping my arm right beneath the elbow. “You and I go way back, Dekla,” he said, the warm timbres of his voice like honey to my worried heart. “In time, you’ll remember.”

  Even as he spoke, a memory surfaced in the back of my mind, glossy and trembling like a mirage in the desert sun.

  A barren meadow. Barefoot. I was there again, moving steadily forward, one foot in front of the other, a thin tunic wrapping around my ankles like a breeze.

  I lifted up my gaze and I was back in my classroom. He stared at me, his eyes penetrating my own.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “The question is, what do you want? I can help you get it.”

  My eyebrows shot up. These people didn’t give something for nothing. Not even Laima, goddess of fate, gave someone a longer life without taking it from someone else.

  “What’s the price?” I asked.

  He leaned close to me, so close I felt the warmth of his breath when he spoke, his lips nearly brushing my forehead. “When you’re ready, you’ll know the price. And then you will come to me.”

  A shiver ran down my spine, and I lifted my face, ready with my next question. But the light touch of his hand disappeared from my arm, and he was gone. At the same instant, life returned to the classroom. The cacophony of voices, the slamming of books on tables, the teacher’s footsteps scuffing on the floor as he went to his desk. I didn’t move, just stood there absorbing every moment and trying to understand what had just happened.

  “Jayne?” Mr. Joenks said. “Would you like to sit so we can begin class?”

  I nodded and sank into my chair. Just like when I have my visions, time had not passed for everyone else. But unlike my visions, I hadn’t been Seeing the future through someone else’s eyes. Had I dreamed up the whole thing? Had it just been an extremely realistic daydream?

  Something shiny on the corner of the table caught my eye. I slid my hand over and picked up a bead. A metal, strangely shaped, exotic bead.

  Exactly like the ones dangling from the man-skirt.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I was a bit twitchy the rest of the day, practically jumping at shadows and half expecting weird gods and goddesses to appear out of nowhere.

  But nothing else even remotely strange happened, and I left campus to head to work without further incident.

  I held my breath as I stepped into the office, bracing myself for more bad news. But all was quiet, just the hum of a printer somewhere, keys clacking on a keyboard, and someone talking on the phone. I let out a little exhale of relief. Every time I thought about the jailbreak we were pulling off in a few hours, a hot wave of anxiety washed over me. A nice, non-stressful day at work would do my blood pressure good.

  “Hey,” I said to Kate as I sat down in the vacant chair beside her. “Where do you need me?”

  She swiveled around and placed a stack of papers on my thighs. “We’re running a whole section as a memorial to the missing people. These are the remaining family members, and we’re interviewing as many as will consent. It’s meant to be some kind of tribute, but I think Chief is really looking for a hidden link, something that ties the people together.”

  I thumbed through the stack. “Did any more people go missing yesterday?”

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t hear about it. Maybe ask Kent.”

  I’d rather ask Lieutenant Bailey, but I felt guilty reaching out to him when I was about to directly undermine him. Still, maybe it would make him suspect me less if we had spoken to each other just hours before Trey disappeared from the hospital.

  Or maybe not.

  “So how are we arranging these interviews?” I asked.

  “Cold calling. Try to set up a live interview, at a café or at their house or something. If they refuse, just get a few words off the phone. Any interview you do over the phone is yours.” She arched a pencil thin eyebrow, emphasizing the bright green eyeshadow that matched her feather earrings. All Kate needed was a perm to look like she’d stepped out of the eighties.

  “Yay me.” It was better than nothing.

  I set up my stuff at one of the phone cubicles and put on a set of headphones. Immediately the room descended into silence, reminding me so much of my chemistry class right before Mr. Deity walked in that I lifted my head and looked around. No, I was still at work, and everyone was still fluttering around me. Nothing new here.

  Why did that disappoint me?

  The first person I called was Lieutenant Bailey. He wasn’t on my interview list, so I used my phone to get his number.

  “Lieutenant Bailey speaking.”

  “Lieutenant, it’s Jayne Lockwood.”

  “Miss Lockwood. How can I help you?”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my hard plastic chair, glancing around to make sure nobody was watching me. “Did you have any luck? With those people in question?”

  “I sent patrols out to the households, but that’s all I could do. We can’t force
anyone into custody or lock them in their houses. And I don’t know how much good it did, because this morning we were unable to reach several of the women we spoke to yesterday.”

  A hard knot formed in my stomach. “Did you go check on them?”

  “I have men en route. Many of the women had small children at home, and we can’t risk the chance of those children being alone.” An edge entered his voice when he spoke again. “I thought this was supposed to have stopped.”

  Did I detect a note of accusation? “It was. But she’s got more power than we expected. That’s why I need Trey Clark. Not just to talk to him. I need him.”

  “I’m already breaking protocol allowing you to be present when we interrogate him. It’s the best I can do.”

  I accepted that with a defeated nod. I had no other option, then. But I had to act satisfied with his response. “Tomorrow, then? At three?”

  “Yes. I’ll see you at the police station.”

  I let out a little exhale after we hung up, my pulse pounding in my temples. I hated to betray the fragile relationship he and I had created over the past few months. But hopefully the outcome would be positive enough for him to forgive me.

  I went through the rest of my calls on autopilot, actually relieved that nobody wanted to speak with me. The closer the clock ticked toward five o’clock and the illicit activity Meredith and I had planned, the more anxious I became.

  I knocked on Mr. Edwards’ door before I left, my heart already doing the jitterbug. This job meant too much for me to just vanish from it.

  Mr. Edwards lifted his head from the dummy sheet, giving the layout his final approval before it went to the proofreaders. I was lucky that wasn’t my job. Usually new journalists started there, but anyone with any brains could see after five minutes that I was no good at editing.

  “Yes, Jayne? You off for the day?”

  I nodded and nibbled on the nail of my index finger, seeking courage and the right words. “I have a little problem.”

  Mr. Edwards leaned back in his stretchy chair and pleated his fingers. “How can I help you?”