Chapter 12

Marco

 

“Hey, jailbird, how was your time in the slammer?” My laugh echoed off the walls of the industrial plant that housed my new lair. Way better than the last one, I might add.

My cousin just glared at me, which somehow made it funnier. I think he was afraid to talk, though. Vivian probably gave him an earful in the car on the way back from the lock-up. I know she really let me have it already, and she probably wasn’t done yet.

She shoved Tony from behind, taking him by surprise so that he stumbled forward and almost fell into me. Which wasn’t cool because I was leaning on the railing overlooking the huge, concrete tank. I figured the tank was probably used to collect some kind of toxic run-off from whatever they used to make here, and then they let it drain into the river. Before some bleeding-heart environmentalist started crying about the poor widdle fishies and shut them down. Whatever. Their loss, my gain.

“Do you boys have any idea the trouble you’ve put me through? And, more importantly, the trouble you’ve put my bosses through? They are not pleased.”

I thought about slamming her back against the wall and giving her something to be pleased about. I wondered what was under that trench coat besides the stripper-special boots.

“The Syndicate’s not going to tolerate another screw-up like this. This idiot went and got caught,” she looked at Tony like she wanted to spit on him, “and you did a lot of damage to a store that was supposed to be under your protection.”

I shrugged. “He was late with his payment.”

“So you go in there and take some stuff, do some minor damage, embarrass him, scare him a little. Something to remind him to take you seriously. You don’t inhibit his ability to do business.”

“That was the plan! It was Joss and Dylan who came in and fucked everything up.”

“The same Dylan that screwed up your bank job and broke your crew? The same Joss you let get evidence of your Talent, who fucked up that adorable little blackmail thing you had going, got in the way of your recent bookstore robbery, and destroyed your last place of business? How many times are you going to let them take what’s yours, Marco? How much longer are you going to let those kids stand between you and what you say you want? Because let me tell you something: I’m already sick of this little shit-hole town of yours. That NIAC-affiliated idiot at the high school has provided me with about all the intel he’s gonna, and I’m sick of letting him grab my ass just to make sure he stays off yours.”

Tony reached out and picked up a bright red curl of hair that was lying on her chest. “Aw, poor Viv. If you want, I can—”

Tony was becoming a real moron lately, and, with a nerve strike to his arm and a roundhouse kick, Vivian put him on the ground.

“The only reason I didn’t put you over the rail just now, D’Attaviano, is because I just used a lot of Syndicate money and influence to get your ass out of jail. I don’t want to have to explain why I did that and then wasted you, when I could have just had you offed in custody. But I can talk my way out of a lot, so don’t try my patience again.” She turned back to me. “And that goes for you, too. My patience is at an end. If those kids are going to be a problem, get rid of them. Let’s get you in with the Syndicate and me away from that slobbering Dobbs. And back to the city where I can get a decent fucking manicure, okay?” She gave Tony, who was still lying on the concrete, a swift kick in the ribs with the pointed toe of her boot. “I just broke a nail you little shit.”

“All right, look. I’ve got a plan for some serious payback that will crush Joss—trust me, she’s the one causing the problem—and get both of them out of the picture. But to do it, I’m gonna need to put the hurt on another paying customer.”

“You don’t have a whole lot of paying customers to begin with, Finelli. You keep that in mind. But if you’re talking about putting that Army-Navy store out of business, I say go for it. That guy’s not right. He gives me the creeps.”

“That whole family’s full of freaks. And I’m gonna take them down.”

 

* * *

 

Joss

 

“Okay, that was a good one. Don’t be afraid to put some power behind that. Really hit me.”

“I don’t want to hit you,” Maddy whined.

“You’re not going to hurt me.” I was getting tired of repeating that. It had been a day of assessing Talents and trying to show them a few basic fighting skills and self-defense. Mostly I was just trying to get them used to the idea of hitting and being hit. These kids were so not used to violence in any way. Some of the girls had burst into tears, and I’d hardly even touched them.

It was hard. I understood that having to deal, really deal, with someone hitting you and having to defend yourself was shocking and upsetting. But damn I was tired. “You can’t let your brother fight all your battles for you,” I told her as we circled each other. “You totally jumped that NIAC ape at Kat’s party. I know you’ve got it in you. Come on.”

“Yeah you did, Maddy. That was awesome,” Dylan encouraged. We were in one of the tunnel intersections in the Warren, where there was a little more space for sparring. Dylan and Matt were lounging against the wall, a safe distance away, watching.

“Try to find an opening where you could use your knee or your foot. As a girl you’ve got a lot of power in your lower body. You can use that, if you can keep your balance.” I’d already given her several openings, times when I’d even closed her in near the wall so she’d have that to fall back on. But she wasn’t seeing it, or she wasn’t following through.

Something shrilled, echoing through the stillness of the tunnels. I turned to look for the sound, and that’s when Maddy found her power and clipped me in the jaw. No way that was going to put me down or anything, but it did send me back a step, and Dylan could tell. As Matt answered his phone, Dylan was all over me in a heartbeat.

“Okay, that’s enough of that. Let me see.”

“Oh my God, Joss, I’m so sorry! Did I really hurt you?”

“No, of course not,” I was trying to say to Maddy, whom I couldn’t even see. I could barely talk the way Dylan was twisting my neck around trying to get a good look in the lousy light we had in the tunnel.

“She’s fine,” he told Maddy. “You’re going to have to really work out before you can hope to put a dent in this hard head. But let’s cool it for today, okay? I think you’ve both had enough.”

“Fine by me,” Maddy agreed.

“Sorry about that,” Matt said, putting his phone away. “That was Mom. She’s held up so she says you’re cooking dinner.”

“What? No way. It’s so not my turn,” Maddy told him. I hadn’t brought out the boxing gloves today. I figured these guys needed to know what bare-handed fighting felt like. Maddy, of course, had worn the leather cycling gloves she always wore, one of which she was pulling off with her teeth. She reached out her bare hand toward her brother, who jumped away like she was threatening him with electric shock. “Come on, give me your hand.”

“Cut that out.”

“You won’t let me get your thoughts because you know you’re lying.”

“Maybe I’ve just been thinking how incredibly lame and girly you are, how you couldn’t fight your way out of a paper bag, and don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“Nice, Matt,” Dylan said. “The bickering twin thing is really adorable and stuff, but how about you guys take it on home now.” He was looking at me with that concerned, thinking about lecturing me look.

“Come on, jerk. Drive me home. Let’s leave the lovebirds alone for a while.”

Dylan waited until we heard them climbing back up the ladder before he spoke again. “You are so done for the day.”

“Rob’s coming next. He should be here in like,” I checked the time, “Twenty minutes or so.”

“So I’ll call him and tell him to forget it.”

“No, you can’t do that. I really need to work with him on this information system phone tree whatever thing.”

“You’ve got a headache.”

As good as it felt to have him start massaging my temples, I was thinking that I was going to have to figure out how he always knew, find that tell and kill it.

“I’m fine.”

“Come on, let’s at least go lie down while we wait.” He took my hand and started to tug me down the tunnel.

I didn’t move. As nice as that sounded, I really didn’t want to go into that room with Dylan. I felt bad about holding back, but I just wasn’t sure how to deal.

“What?”

“Um, yeah,” I said, breaking free of him and moving down the tunnel, away from him. “That’s a good idea. I’ll go lie down, have a few minutes of quiet time. Maybe you could go up to the surface and look out for Rob. He hasn’t been here before, and he’s going to need one of us to show him the entrance.”

I had mixed feelings about revealing this location to more people, but we needed a place to meet and they couldn’t use the Warren to hide out from NIAC if they didn’t know about it. Right now I was just glad to have something to ask Dylan to do for me.

“Well, yeah, okay. I can go meet him up top.” Dylan started to follow me.

“Probably you should go up now. In case he’s early.”

“Um…yeah, okay.” He hesitated. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a headache, like you said. I’ll go close my eyes for a few minutes and it’ll be a lot better. Really.”

He did that stroke my cheek thing and gave me a half smile before setting off down the tunnel. He’d looked worried, but that was nothing new. It was interesting to realize that the guy with the easy smile, who always knew what to say, was as much a worrier as I was.

I let myself into the storage room. In addition to the end of the world/NIAC siege supplies that were stashed there, there were now my school books and a bag of my clothes. The cot that had been bare the last time Dylan had been here, now had my sleeping bag rolled out on it. I’d cracked open a case of MREs and a case of water, and there were some empties I needed to take up to the trash. Not big changes, probably, but stuff I thought Dylan would notice—the way he watched me like a hawk—and stuff I didn’t really want to explain.

I felt bad for not wanting to explain it. I felt like we were together now and I should be telling him stuff. Maybe part of me even wanted to tell him about it. I’d left home, which was big, but I’d also left my dad, which was bigger. Dylan probably wouldn’t get that. He hated Dad now, after what I’d told him yesterday. So I already felt bad for talking about that and guilty for how good it felt to tell him and have him care so much. It was just…

Ugh. Stop thinking!

I stretched out on the cot and closed my eyes, trying to relax and let the headache pull back. I tried to shove the stuff about Dad aside. Tried not to think about the day, about all the kids I’d talked to, how clueless they’d seemed, and how deferential they’d been toward me, like I was some kind of expert or authority figure or something. Dylan had been at work most of the day, so he hadn’t been around to run interference for me, to say the right things, ask questions the right way.

“Hey, Joss, I—”

I sat bolt upright so fast I almost turned the cot over.

“Sorry.” Dylan said, “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“It’s fine,” I said, getting up and moving toward him. Maybe I could herd him out of the room. “Is Rob here already?”

“No, I…” He stood between me and the door. “Are we okay?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I mean, you’re not…afraid to be alone with me or anything, are you?”

Oh. Oh, damn. “No, it’s not you. I’m sorry. It’s just been a really long day. I’m not used to so much…interaction.”

“Oh.”

Well, this is awkward. “I think I feel better, though. Let’s go up and wait for Rob together.”

“Joss, how long have you been here?”

Crap. Truth, lies, or evasion? “Since, um, Friday?”

“You’re staying here?”

“It’s not a big—”

“What happened? Did he do something to you?”

Dylan looked ready to explode. I knew exactly what he was asking and it immediately got my back up. “Of course not! I wish you’d quit acting like my dad’s some of kind of monster. Just because he’s had problems in the past—”

“Uh-uh. After what you told me yesterday, you don’t get to keep acting like I don’t have any reason to worry about you.”

“Well, I’m so glad I confided in you. That’s awesome.”

“And I’m immune to the sarcasm, Marshall. You ran away from home. Tell me what happened.”

“It’s not a big—” He gave me a look, and I realized I was repeating myself. “I got grounded.”

“Grounded.”

“Yeah. I got grounded when I got home from spending the night at your house. Which I kinda get, I mean—I snuck out and stayed out all night. And maybe if that’s what it had been about, I could have handled it. I can’t deal with him right now. I don’t have time. NIAC’s coming for us, and right now these kids are lambs to the slaughter. Marco’s out of control—”

He took me by the arms. “That doesn’t have to be your problem,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, it does. I didn’t want to see it before, but it is. When I had my head down—the way Dad wanted me to—it was just me. I didn’t have to see the others, didn’t have to worry about them. But now they’re in my life and I can’t help it. I can’t hide under my bed while Marco destroys the town and NIAC comes to take everyone away. Not if I can help.”

I broke away from him and flopped down on the cot, drawing my knees up to my chin. “I call into this voicemail number we have once a day and let them know I’m okay. Because, yeah, my dad gets freaked out about my safety and it would be cruel to make him wonder. But I’ve been walking on eggshells around Dad for years, and lately it seems like he’s a lot stronger than I gave him credit for. He’s going to have to deal with the fact that I have responsibilities and obligations that aren’t always going to match up with what he thinks is best. I totally understand where he’s coming from, but I can’t keep living like that.”

Dylan had followed me to the cot while I was talking. “Okay,” he said softly, pulling me into his arms. “Okay.”

The way he said it made my heart hurt. I took a deep breath. Let it out. “And I didn’t run away from home. I’m just…taking a break from my home life.”

“So how long you think this break’s gonna last?”

“I’m not sure. He’s gotta be pretty pissed at me by now. I’ve been out of the house all weekend, haven’t told them where I’m staying, blew off my shifts at the shop, and then there was the thing with the car…”

“That’s why you suddenly wanted to go home yesterday. You stole your dad’s car? To take me on a picnic.”

“I borrowed the family car. I took it right back.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I sighed and leaned into him. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t know how. Or I wasn’t ready yet. And then we were in a fight, and—”

“I am so sorry. You were going through this and I should have been there for you, and instead I was—”

I unclasped my hold on my knees so I could elbow him. “Shut up. What are you, psychic now?” I turned into him. It was so easy to turn into him, so natural. Like I thought he was mine now. I wanted to cry. I wanted to pound on his chest and yell at him and tell him how much I’d needed him, how alone I’d felt. But I wouldn’t do that to him.

“I was all caught up in my own crap.” He pried my hand from his shirt and brought it to his cheek as he said it, his voice full of regret.

“Don’t.”

“I’m not. I just want you to know that I would’ve figured out all on my own, that the ache I was carrying was me missing you. And I would have come crawling back on my knees asking you to forgive me.”

Jesus, how do you come up with this stuff, let alone actually say it? I felt liquid, like I had melted and might slide out of his arms and spill onto the floor.

He tipped my chin up, brushed a kiss across my lips as my eyes closed. “You don’t ever have to be alone.”

Something took hold of my throat and my chest and squeezed. It hurt for him to say that, a reminder of how much it hurt to feel that way. It was like that was all I knew and I hadn’t even noticed it was there. It was only when it was gone that I recognized it as loneliness. As pain.

He understood that. Somehow Dylan, with his friends and girlfriends, with his charm and careless smiles, knew what it was to feel that. And that we could make it all go away so we’d never have to feel it again. How could Dad ask me to give this up? How could he think that I could?

The kiss spiraled down, deep and frantic as though we thought that we could blot out the whole world with it. Because we could. We lowered back onto the cot. Dylan’s body settled warm and heavy over mine. What else mattered but him, but us, the way we fit together? Nothing else but his mouth on mine, his hands on my skin, the solid weight of him.

The buzz of the phone in my pocket startled us, but didn’t break the kiss. I reached for it but Dylan grabbed my hand, his fingers twining with mine, raising it over my head. “Don’t answer it,” he muttered, his voice thick as his lips moved down my neck.

“It’s gotta be Rob. I was supposed to meet him,” I breathed.

“Let him wait.”

“How long?”

He took my mouth again in one long, heavy kiss that he broke off abruptly. “I see your point. All right, fine. Where’s the phone?”

It had stopped ringing. He batted my hand away and started digging in my pocket, shifting his body around like he couldn’t get a good angle and pretending he couldn’t quite get hold of it. When he finally got it he sat up and threw both legs over mine. He pinned me there, distracting me by running his fingers over my bare stomach while he called Rob back. I had little idea what he said.

I thought about the fact that Dylan was on my phone and Rob was going to know that we were both down here, why we didn’t meet him, and why we didn’t pick up the phone. It was kind of embarrassing, but it was kind of hard to get upset about it.

“All right,” he said, closing the phone and tucking it into my pocket. “Let’s go find Rob.” He bounced up off the cot and pulled me up, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “So I just found out that my girlfriend is a crazy homeless person.”

“I’m not crazy.”

“You wanted to answer the phone in the middle of that? I stand by my analysis.”

A few days ago I would have freaked out about whether or not he was mad or if I had done something wrong. But not today. I grabbed his hand where it hung over my shoulder and tugged it, hugging myself with his arm to squeeze us both through the doorway. “Yeah, okay, guess I’ll own that.”

“A crazy homeless person who lives in a boiler room. I don’t like the idea of you here by yourself. What if there are other crazy homeless people looking for a posh set-up like this?”

“I doubt that’s a big issue on campus.”

“Drunken frat boys, then.”

“It’s fine, Dylan. My family’s had stuff stashed here for the last few years and it’s never been touched. And I’m not exactly helpless.”

“Great. Then when the crazy drunken homeless frat boys show up, I’ll have you to defend me because I’ll be staying here until you decide to go home.”

I knew there was little sense arguing about it, especially when I didn’t want to. “You sure that’s okay?”

“You mean, like, with my parental unit? She won’t really care if I don’t come home for a few days. And she won’t really care when I come back.”

I didn’t have anything to say. I leaned my head against him and tightened my arm around his waist.

“It doesn’t really matter, Marshall.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Not anymore.”

 

* * *

 

Marco

 

“It’s too cold,” Maddy whined, turning up the collar of her jacket. “Why are we doing this?”

“You should have worn a hat like I told you.”

“You told me to wear a hat because my hair color’s not stealthy enough for you. Not like there’s enough light down here for anyone to see it. What happened to all the streetlights, anyway?”

Matt shrugged. I had to wonder why he’d worry about his sister’s platinum hair, but not care at all how much their voices carried right up the storefronts. The super-powered muscles in my legs took me across a gap between buildings in a pretty bad-ass jump.

“What was that?” Maddy asked, stopping and squinting up to where I was standing. I crouched down. There was a lot of cloud cover tonight, and I was pretty sure she couldn’t see me.

“Dunno.” Matt sounded worried.

I grinned.

“Let’s go home. This was a dumb idea. Joss would be pissed if she knew we were doing this.”

“No she wouldn’t. I know she’s been keeping an eye out down here lately. And she’s been working so hard this week with the training thing, she’s not in the best shape to deal with Marco and those assholes if they try anything.”

“And that’s where you come in.”

“Why do you think she’s been spending so much time training Talents?”

“Um, to protect ourselves from NIAC? Like she said?”

“You didn’t have to come along.”

Matt started walking away, but Maddy kept after him.

“Like I’m gonna let you prowl around down here by yourself. Idiot. Come on, Matt. What are you thinking? That she’s going to be oh-so-impressed that you showed up to patrol with her? That you’re going to find her in a jam, swoop in and save her, and then what? She’s with Dylan. Give it a break.”

“Shut up, Matilda.”

“Don’t you see the way they look at each other? There’s just no way.”

“Hey, did I mention…shut up, Matilda?”

“Lookit, I’m not sayin’ she’s totally out of your league or anything—”

“You are the most annoying person on the planet.”

Yeah, really. I was starting to wonder why he hadn’t hit her yet.

“—I’m just sayin’ it ain’t happenin’ any time soon. So this whole fantasy life you got going on that’s brought on this whole case of civic duty, or chivalry, or whatever the heck it is—it’s just a big waste of time.” She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “And it’s cold.”

I jumped another gap, made less noise this time, but scared the crap out of Bella. At least, I was pretty sure I was looking at Bella. Out of her body, she kind of made the space she was in look like way hot exhaust makes stuff look. That patch of distorted air had jumped when I’d landed.

I strolled over, across the roof of the ice cream place. I thought how, if she were in her body, I’d warm my hands up under her shirt and she’d totally let me. This girl wanted me bad.

“It’s the twins down there,” I said in a low voice. I didn’t look at her, partly just because it creeped me out, and it was weird talking to the thick air. “They think they’re ‘patrolling,’ but they haven’t even noticed anyone’s in the shop yet. I’m gonna go in. Come down if you’ve got something to report, otherwise you can stay up here and keep watch.”

There was no response, of course. Bella couldn’t talk or even make any kind of signals that made sense without her body.

I took the fire escape, feeling the twinges in my knees from all those jumps. I had hoped to find Joss while I was prowling around. Figured she’d be around here somewhere, looking for trouble. Wherever she was tonight, she was keeping pretty well hidden. But Matt and his dumbass crush would bring her out.

 

* * *

 

Dylan

 

Joss moved in her sleep, pressing her back closer against me. She wasn’t the only creature that was stirring, and I hoped the one in my sweats didn’t wake her up. It was going to be another long, mostly sleepless night.

Still, I couldn’t help feeling like Joss’s fight with her dad was the best thing that ever happened to me. And, okay, I felt bad for thinking that, especially knowing it hurt her, but we were living together. Maybe when I was a little kid, like before Dad left, maybe I felt like I belonged at home, but I didn’t remember it. I felt like I belonged here. With her.

And even if we were living in a creepy basement, eating nasty food out of plastic bags, and sleeping on a dinky air mattress on the floor—well, there was nothing wrong with sharing the mattress since we’d gotten rid of the cot, except how much trouble I had getting to sleep once we stopped fooling around.

You’re such an idiot, I thought. But I was smiling.

Tomorrow was going to be another long day. School in the morning, and on time. Joss wouldn’t tolerate attracting attention by skipping school or being late, no matter how I tried to convince her. After barely managing to stay awake through school, I was on the schedule for a shift at Casey’s. Since Joss didn’t have to put in time at her dad’s place, she would be down here in the Warren all afternoon and into the evening, working with the Talents. Finding out what they could do, thinking about how to use it, teaching them self-defense, teaching them how to think.

I knew I’d get home from work and I’d see the headache behind her eyes. The little smile she kept for me would be tired, but it would be there. We’d eat, do homework, and patrol. But now we were keeping out of sight, with me cloaking us if we had to walk in the open, and we agreed not to get involved unless someone was getting hurt. If we saw something, we were just going to call the police and let them do their job, because clashing with Marco was doing more harm than good, and attracting too much attention.

But we hadn’t seen anything since Vinyl Salvation. I wanted to be relieved, but I couldn’t help thinking he was just gearing up for something else.

It was cold. I went to pull the blanket up over my shoulder but it felt like something was wrong.

I was cold because I was alone.

I sat up, realized I must have fallen asleep, and fumbled for the flashlight. It was lying on top of Joss’s spiral notebook, opened to a page that read, “Woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep. Gonna take a walk and make sure all’s well up top. Back soon. ~Joss.”

I swore a blue streak as I got dressed, pulling on layers as I raced down the tunnel. The thing Joss didn’t like about the Warren was the spotty cell signal. I never minded because it meant we weren’t bothered much. But I minded now.

I turned a corner and skidded to a stop in the kitchen. My cell phone was gone.

“Dylan, shut the door, you’re letting the heat out,” my mom said. She was stirring something on the stove. When we lived here, in our old house, she used to cook a lot.

I shut the back door slowly, dazed and confused.

“Look at you. What have you been up to? You’re filthy. Get upstairs and wash up. Lee’s gonna be home any minute.”

This isn’t his home, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I went past her, through the front entry and up the stairs to my room. My old room. I shut the door.

“What’s he yelling about?”

I turned to Marco, ten-year-old Marco, sitting on my bed reading one of the comics we’d swiped. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Whatever, dude, he’s not your dad.”

“Mom says he’s gonna be. ’Cause my real dad doesn’t pay the bills.”

“Lee’s a dick.”

“Yeah.”

“Every time I turn around, you got your hand out,” Lee’s voice boomed. There was a pause. “If he’s growing so damn fast, he can go out and get a job!”

“Lousy drunk, just like my dad,” Marco muttered.

I agreed, but I didn’t say so. I was shoving him into the closet. Lee’s footsteps were loud on the stairs. He was yelling my name. “Just stay in here, okay? Be quiet.”

It was hard to stay visible. I didn’t have control over it when I was really scared, and I was shaking. I had to concentrate.

The door slammed open and my heart rate spiked. I knew that I flickered in and out of view in that moment. I felt it.

Then he was on me, yanking me around, yelling in my face, reeking of whiskey. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, couldn’t make myself think of the right thing to say to calm him down, make him see reason, make him go away. As soon as he started to hit, I faded out of sight. But he had me by the arm. He knew just where I was, and using my Talent just made him madder.

Then he let me go. I opened my eyes and saw him slide down the wall. Marco went at him again, grabbed him up off the floor by the shirt, two hundred fifty pounds of angry drunk, and just started whaling on him. It happened so fast, but still slow. My mom was crying in the doorway. Blood sprayed from Lee’s face onto Marco.

Marco was beyond caring.

I grabbed his arm, pulling, begging him to stop. Lee hung limply from his hand. Marco looked at me, blood on his face, his eyes glazed, wild, older.

“I can’t believe you, man. I can’t believe you’d trash our friendship over this little bitch!” He shook Joss like a ragdoll where she lay beneath him in the dust of the construction site.

“Just let her go.” I got the words out, even though I felt like I was choking. I didn’t have a chance against him. Not a chance of protecting Joss.

He stood, pulling her up with him. Her head hung down and she couldn’t stand on her own.

“Just tell me why. Why her?”

“You know why. You see it, just like I do. Maybe you even saw it first.”

“Saw what?”

“Why I love her.”

Marco laughed. He went on laughing as the world spun.

When I could see again, I stood with Marco and Tony outside a house. Inside, Joss was screaming my name.

I couldn’t move.

A giant fireball built in Tony’s hand. He hurled it at the house. It smashed against the siding, exploding and spreading, the rushing currents of flame meeting others as Tony threw handfuls of fire at the house.

I finally broke free of the terror and moved forward, only to have Tony catch me by the neck with his burning hand. I screamed in pain as he threw me to the ground.

Marco hauled me up to my knees and held me there. “I kinda want him to watch this.”

Tony laughed as he continued to pitch flame until there was nothing to see but one great mass of fire.

Joss stopped screaming.

Marco patted me on the shoulder. “That’s that, then.”

I was still on my knees, choking on smoke and the tears that ran down my face. Trina was standing above me. Tony offered his hand to her, no longer burning, and she reached out to take it.

“Why?” I rasped.

I don’t even know if it was a real question, or if I was asking her, but she answered. And when she answered, she spoke in Joss’s voice:

“We’re not like other kids. And maybe that means that the regular rules don’t apply to us.”

 

* * *

 

Joss

 

“Dylan, wake up!” I had rolled off the mattress with the end of the dream, but now I climbed back on, intending to grab him by the shirt front and drag him out of the nightmare. But he wasn’t wearing one. I remembered pulling it off of him earlier. My heart was pounding and my head was stuffed with crazy, but there was still room for that. I took him by the shoulders and shook hard.

He sat bolt upright as he came out of it. I would have been thrown to the floor if he hadn’t locked onto my arms. Still, it took a moment for the dream to clear from his eyes. Part of me wanted to reach up and brush at the tears on his cheeks, but I didn’t know if it was okay to acknowledge them. In the next instant, his eyes focused on me and I was crushed in his arms.

“Just a nightmare,” he said, in a rough, unsteady voice. “Sorry.”

“Like the one you had last week? When you came to my room?”

He drew in a shuddering breath, let it out slow. Beneath my ear his heart was thudding like a speeding train. Like mine. “Yeah. Stupid, huh? Bad dreams, what am I, five?” I wanted to say something, but he kept going. “I’ve been dreaming a lot crap the last couple weeks. It stopped when I started staying here with you, though. Thought I was done with it.”

“The last couple weeks?”

“Yeah.”

“And you haven’t dreamed since you started sleeping here?”

He pulled back and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Did I just move into another weird dream where you’re crazy and repeat everything I say?”

“You might want to consider that possibility. It’s just…I’ve been having a lot of nightmares too. More than usual.”

“There’s been some stress.” He laced the understatement with appropriate sarcasm.

I shook my head. I wanted to know—I was actually kind of desperate to know more and everything about him—but I kinda didn’t want to have this conversation, and I wasn’t sure how to approach it. “Who’s Lee?”

He actually started to scoot away from me before he caught himself. His eyes were wide and his whole vibe was you’re freaking me out. Well, I was pretty freaked out too.

“Where did you hear that name?”

In your nightmare, I think. “Was that real? Was that where you used to live? Did your mom have a boyfriend named Lee?”

“Was I talking in my sleep?”

“No, you weren’t. I just had a nightmare about you. About us. And when I woke up, you were having a nightmare too. And that’s probably just coincidence, except that there’s been a lot of coincidence,” I was doing that mile a minute talking thing, “and I know it sounds kind of crazy for me to wake up and wonder if I was dreaming real things I shouldn’t actually know about—” –but it would explain some stuff about you, even if I don’t want it to be real.

“Okay, slow the crazy train. Yes, my mom used to have a boyfriend named Lee. But I was having a weird nightmare and I probably said some stuff that your brain just incorporated—”

“You woke up here, and there was a note from me.” I went on to tell it in detail. By the time I got to the part where he was shoving Marco in the closet, I knew from his expression that I was right. At the point where Lee was just about to start pounding on him, Dylan’s expression got really tight and I cut myself off.

“And then Lee started beating on me, and then Marco started beating on Lee,” he gritted out. “Yeah. In real life it wasn’t just like that, but mostly it was. We told the cops that he’d been mugged. He never said anything different. He dumped my mom while he was still in the hospital and he never came back.”

And she still blames you for that. Bitch. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, like he was shaking off the memory and the conversation. “Let’s just focus on the fact that you just dreamed my dream. What the hell?”

Yeah, really. “Up to that point, I was just a spectator, you know, like watching a movie. And then next thing I knew—”

“Marco had you.”

“Yeah.”

“And I let them burn you alive.”

“Okay, I thought we were gonna focus. Trust me, Dylan, I’ve been in that burning house plenty of times without you.”

“Okay… So… You got any ideas why we’re suddenly so in sync?”

“Up until tonight, would you say your nightmares were your own? I mean, was it all your memories, your fears, your own material?”

“Yeah, even tonight. I always—” He paused, and I thought he was going to shrug off whatever he meant to say, but he continued, “I always fail to save you from something.”

Oh. Well. That sucks. “That house was mine. Or, part of it. It’s weird. In some ways it’s the same house Emily set on fire when I was a kid, and in some ways it’s totally different. It actually looks like this house that’s for sale—you know that new subdivision off Market Street? Kinda near the Lutheran Church? It’s only got one finished house in it.”

“Yeah, I actually know which one you mean. I can see it now.”

“I only saw it once, and only because Kat dragged me over there because her parents were thinking of building there once their kitchen repairs were done. I never really thought before about why I should mix up that house into my nightmares, but maybe it’s not even mine. Like not my data.”

“I think Kat’s asked everyone for their opinion on that subdivision, like it matters. But what are you saying?”

“I know Tony was there and it seemed like he was the cause, but that house—some form of it—is always in my nightmares. And me stuck in there, choking on smoke with the flames rising—that’s always how it ends. It’s not something you could have saved me from. It’s mine. But you and Marco weren’t, that’s what I’m saying. Some stuff’s mine and some stuff’s not. That night you came to my room, you’d been dreaming. Me too. You’ve been having nightmares. Me too. Your nightmares stopped when you started sleeping down here. Me too.”

“So what’s it all mean?”

“A few things, I guess. That someone’s doing this to us…”

“A Talent.”

“Yeah. Someone who has to be in somewhat close proximity to us in order to work their Talent—which seems to be true for most Talents. When we were home, in known locations, we had nightmares.”

“But we both had nightmares.”

“But not at the same time. That night you came over, you were texting me, but I was still dreaming. How long did it take you before you gave up trying to get me by phone and decided to come to my house—on foot? Long enough for someone with a car to drive over and start working their mojo on me?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“And the fact that when we’re in the same place, we both have the same dream at the same time…it follows. It also means—”

“That someone knows we’re here. Our Nightmare Talent is close by.”

“Or was, yeah. Dammit, I liked it here.”

“Me too.”

“We’ve gotta go.” I unfolded my legs and stretched, ready to get to work. “We’ll just take our personal gear. I’ll worry about how to clear the rest of this stuff tomorrow.”

“Now? It’s just past midnight.”

“This location is compromised. You want to sleep here when someone that creepy knows where we are?” I threw his shirt at him.

“Actually, right now I just want to marvel at how cute it is when you say things like ‘This location is compromised.’” He grinned at me and pulled the shirt over his head.

“You disgust me.”

“Oh, bonus points! Nothing turns a guy on like false disdain.”

I turned my back on him to hide my stupid grin and pack my books. “I’m kind of shocked that you know that word.”

“Hey, this—” he was pointing at his face when I turned around, “not just a pretty—”

The sound of the grate being slid aside echoed through the tunnels.

“We’ve got company.”