Chapter 14

Joss

 

As soon as we heard the back door slam, Dylan grabbed me for a quick, hard kiss. “Are you okay?” he demanded, looking over my hands.

I swiped up a wad of napkins from a dispenser that was attached to the top of the counter and pressed it against the cut on his head. “Asks the guy who just got out of a blender filled with metal furniture.”

“Just bruises. Where’s Maddy?”

“She got out before you came in. Matt?”

“He went out the back. Joss,” he said, stopping me in front of the door. His voice was concerned, soothing and serious, “what do you think she meant?”

I didn’t want to think about it. I think Vivian and Dylan expected me to go tearing off for the Army/Navy to see what had happened, but I wasn’t. Whatever it was I was too late to stop it, and now I really didn’t want to know. My head ached from using my Talent against Poe and my body hurt from the beating I’d taken. I was tired and I just didn’t want to cope. Didn’t want to face the fact that I’d been lured here by Matt’s dilemma while Marco used the distraction to do something to my family, knowing I’d be too busy to catch him at it.

I pushed through the door and walked away from Dylan. I heard him following me across the little deck and down the two wooden steps. Matt and Maddy jumped up from where they’d been sitting on the edge of the porch, but I ignored them. I was tired and I just wanted to curl up in my bed and forget about all of this.

I turned toward the Army/Navy.

The others walked with me. Dylan answered a few questions and then they were silent until we passed the midpoint entrance to the mall.

“Where are you going, Joss?” Maddy wanted to know. “The car’s this way, remember?”

“I gotta go check on something. You guys go home. Drop Dylan off, will ya?”

“I think you got hit on the head,” he said, picking up the pace to get ahead of me. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Eleven. Give or take. You should go home and put ice…everywhere.”

“Don’t be like this, Marshall,” he said quietly, falling into step beside me. He looked over his shoulder and talked to the twins. “Vivian said something about her dad’s store. We need to check it out. You guys should get home.”

“No way, we’ll go with you,” Matt was talking too loud. “What did she say?”

“Awesome,” I muttered.

The store was dark. Like most merchants, we had a few lights we always left on, but it was completely dark inside the shop. I had my keys in my hand, even though I knew I wouldn’t need them.

“I need to check the alarm system,” I told them. “Wait out here and keep an eye out.”

Of course that worked on the twins, but Dylan followed me inside as I pushed open the door and walked in. No annoying beep from the motion sensor, and that felt eerie and wrong. The next thing I noticed was the smell, a weird mixture of cleaners, scent cover, gun oil—I was just guessing based on what was at hand. The combination made a stink all its own and there was no way I could pick out individual odors.

The alarm box was still powered. “It’s been disarmed.”

“Huh?”

“Someone’s keyed in the right code.”

“How many people know it?”

“When I was at Dog-Eared, Marco said something about Angie opening the safe. Decoding or cracking stuff like that—that’s probably her Talent.”

“Bitch.”

Dylan said it like a girl would. I smiled a little in spite of myself and his hand stroked down my hair, squeezed my shoulder.

“We need to get to the back room, see if we can get some lights on.”

We couldn’t really see anything, and the gloom got deeper as we neared the back of the store. As I got colder. We had to move slowly, picking our way through all the stuff we couldn’t see on the floor.

I had to shove at the door to the store room. There were piles of boxes behind it. They must have gone out through the back. It was completely dark back here.

“Hang on, I’ve got a lighter.”

I could feel Dylan behind me, reaching into his pocket. I touched his arm. “Not yet, you’ll ruin your night vision. I can find the box.”

“Be careful.”

At the light box I let him flick on the lighter so I could find the right switches and just put on the few lights we usually kept in the shop at night. Just in case the cops decided to actually patrol the mall. When they flickered on in the stockroom, I couldn’t help but suck in my breath.

Everything was trashed. I mean, from what we walked through to get back here, I figured out that they trashed the place, but I mean they really went to town on it. Water pooled on the floor in the door of the bathroom like they’d even tried to flush some of the stuff down the toilet until it couldn’t take anymore. There was hardly anything left on the shelves. There were boxes everywhere, and most of them had been hacked into. I doubted there was a single piece of saleable merchandise left.

“The GOOD packs are gone.”

“What?”

“There were three backpacks at the back of that shelf, behind some of these boxes. Get Out Of Dodge bags. They had first aid kits, extra clothes, disposable cell phones, a little cash…That kind of thing. I don’t see them anywhere.”

“Anything like…fake IDs, weapons?”

“Multi-tool pocket knife kind of things. No guns. No ID.”

“Okay, let’s move on then. Check out the front room.”

He squeezed my shoulder and propelled me back toward the front of the store.

It was pretty much the same story there. The knife cases were smashed and empty of anything but price cards and broken glass. The cash register wasn’t there; it must have been dumped on the floor behind the counter somewhere, even though we always left it open and empty. Remnants of clothing, shredded by knives, still hung on some of the hangers. Books ripped to shreds, packages trampled all over the floor.

The pegboard wall Dad had reset last week was practically empty. Higher up on the walls, all the posters had been scribbled over with black spray paint.

“What the fuck?”

I followed Dylan’s gaze to the wall above the doors to the stockroom. A giant heart was spray-painted there and inside it read “DM + JM 4ever.”

If I’d needed any proof that this was all about me, there it was.

“I need to go home.”

Dylan didn’t say anything, just put his arm around my shoulders and walked me out of the store.

The twins were still waiting outside. They’d been watching us through the window and they started with the questions as soon as we opened the door.

“Whole store’s trashed,” Dylan told them. “Just leave it at that. I need to get Joss home.”

“We’ll drive you,” Maddy offered.

We heard sirens approaching. I should have thought that Vivian would send us over and then tip off the cops. But I wasn’t thinking so great right now.

“Let’s move it,” Dylan said, taking me by the elbow and starting to jog across the mall.

I went along pretty much in a fog. I felt like I couldn’t get too worked up about the fact that the police were on their way and that we were at the crime scene. Even my headache felt distant and unreal. I was just…hollow.

Dylan sat right up next to me in the backseat, rubbing my cold hands between his. His knuckles were red and swelling, and one was cut open, a consequence of having to punch someone without the benefit of my Talent.

I didn’t even realize that we were in my driveway until Matt was standing in the open door, holding out his hand like I was getting out of a coach or something.

“Come on, Joss.”

Dylan gave me a little nudge and I ignored Matt’s hand as I climbed out. Dylan slid out behind me and put his arm around my shoulders.

“Want us to come in with you?” Matt asked.

When I didn’t say anything right away, Dylan said, “Nah, probably better to keep it to a minimum. Thanks for the ride.”

Matt chuckled. “Thanks for pulling my ass out of the freezer.” He turned to Joss. “I’m really sorry about…everything.”

I just kind of shrugged and moved away from him up the walk. I dug my keys from my pocket, but dropped them when I tried to fit one in the lock. Dylan scooped them up and got the door open.

We weren’t even in far enough to close to the door when Jill came barreling down the stairs, shrieking my name. She must have been looking out her window and seen us. She collided with me, knocking me into Dylan, and wrapping her arms around my waist.

“Hey,” I said lamely.

“You’re back!”

“Yeah, looks like.” I didn’t know what to say to her. Jill could be pretty huggy, but I really wasn’t and she usually left me alone. I didn’t know how to detach her without hurting her feelings, so I just left her there.

“Where have you been? Hi, Dylan.”

“Hey there, Warrior Princess. What’s up?”

“Joss?”

My mom stood in the hallway for a second with a dishtowel in her hands, then she dropped it and raced down the hall to fling herself on me too.

“Mom, you’re squashing me,” Jill complained.

“Think how I feel,” I muttered.

They both let me go. I felt guilty.

Mom looked at Dylan. “You’ve been fighting again?” she asked me. “Are you okay? Jocelyn, where on Earth have you been?”

“I’d like to know the answer to that.”

Dad stood at the top of the stairs with full-on Dad Look. Everyone took a step back as he started down. Dylan finally shut the door, and I had to be pretty impressed that he didn’t put himself on the other side of it.

“Wait, Dad, there’s something I need to tell you first. About the shop.” Now that I was here at home, looking up at Dad, it felt harder to talk. It felt kind of hard to breathe.

“We heard it on the scanner, sweetheart,” Mom told me as Dad came down the stairs.

“The police called; I was just going out to see what’s what,” he said, reaching the bottom.

“It’s pretty—”

My report was cut off in a bear hug.

“It can wait, Joss,” he told me, his voice rough. “First things first. Are you okay?”

I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his shirt, mortified that I was crying. “Yeah, I’m okay.” Except for feeling like there’s a hand wrapped around my throat and I can hardly talk.

“That’s what’s important, little girl. I’m glad you came home.”

I hadn’t been “Daddy’s little girl” for a really long time. The tears came harder as he ran a hand down my hair and kissed the top of my head.

“I’m so sorry. It’s bad—the store—it’s really—”

“Don’t worry about the store. That’s my business.”

“But it’s my fault!”

“Jocelyn,” he ground out, clearly losing patience, “the damned store is insured. Tell me what’s going on with you.” But I didn’t know what to answer. “I see you haven’t learned to duck yet,” he said to Dylan over my head. “What did you two get mixed up in this time?”

Dylan gave Dad a pretty truthful rundown of what went on in the mall. Not a play-by-play, but just the basics. I managed to stop crying at some point, but Dad didn’t let me go.

“Dylan, let’s go in the kitchen and clean up that cut on your head,” Mom suggested. “Jill, go bring me the first aid kit.”

“How come every time you bring my sister home I gotta get the first aid kit?”

“It’s a damned good question,” Dad muttered as they left the room.

“Dad…”

“Don’t you ‘Dad’ me.” But there wasn’t much bite to it. He pushed me back from him and tilted my chin up because I didn’t really want to look him in the eye. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, I’m not hurt.” I shrugged. “Headache, few bruises...”

“The usual, huh? You think you should have a usual level of being beat up?”

“I didn’t get beat up,” I said testily, swiping at my cheeks. “That guy could change gravity. We actually did really well. Dylan, especially, did—”

“Just…spare me the account of that kid’s heroic deeds. So where are we now? If I go to the store and talk to the police, are you going to be here when I get back?”

“I’ll be here, Dad.”

“You’ve made a point, Joss. I don’t think it’s a good point, but you’ve made it. We’re still going to talk about this. With the Syndicate involved…Jesus,” he said, running a hand into his hair, “it’s a whole different ballgame.”

I was checking him over without being obvious about it. He was tense, but maybe no more than usual, and not even the tick. It was almost like he wasn’t agitated enough. Was he really that relieved that I was home?

“We can talk about it later. I’ll be here. You need to go see about the store.”

“Yeah.” He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re home, sweetheart,” he said softly, rubbing his thumb over the spot. I wondered if he was trying to erase the kiss or rub it in.

He turned from me and walked out the door.

“Gene, don’t forget—” Mom came out of the kitchen with something small in her hand.

“What is it?”

“Your dad forgot his pills.”

“Oh, well I’ll catch up with him.

I took the bottle from Mom and went out the front door, but by the time I got there, Dad had already backed down the driveway and was pulling away. He didn’t see me.

“I don’t recognize these,” I told Mom when I got back inside.

“They’re new.” She took them from me and put them on top of the fridge. Which made no sense anymore. Jill was eight now, not about to mistake medication for candy, and could get whatever she wanted off the top of the fridge. “Jayce started him on these a few weeks ago. I think they’re really helping.”

Dylan was sitting at the table, a fresh butterfly bandage over his eyebrow, Band-aids on a few knuckles, drinking a soda and pretending like he wasn’t listening to us.

“Jayce is Dad’s doctor,” I told him, sliding into the seat next to him. Not because I thought he couldn’t put that together, but because I didn’t want him to feel embarrassed hearing what we were talking about. I trusted him, and if he was going to be around, he could know stuff. It was cool that Mom seemed to think so too. “You know, you could have gone with Dad.”

Mom tilted her head, as if that hadn’t occurred to her. “I guess I could have. He was going over by himself while I stayed home with Jill. I just…” She shrugged. “Too much going on, I guess. Joss, you look terrible.”

“Oh, thanks, Mom.”

“Tired. You look tired. And so does Dylan. You’ve both been through a lot tonight. I think we should say goodnight to Dylan and you should get to bed. Do you need a ride home?” she asked him.

“Aw, Mom, he just got here,” Jill complained.

“Jillian, have you suddenly forgotten how to tell time? Why are you not in your bed?

“I heard a car and then I saw Joss. And no one told me to go back to bed.”

Mom pinned her with the Mom Look.

Parental looks rely a lot on brow positioning. Whereas the Dad Look involves the lowering of the brow as a whole, the Mom Look takes advantage of the power of the single, raised brow. Of Doom.

“Goodnight!” Jill told us, and fled the room.

“So, Dylan, do you need a ride?”

“Um, no thanks, Mrs. Marshall,” he said, getting up and pushing his chair in. I took his soda can and put it in the sink.

“Are you sure? Of course, Gene took the car, but if you want to wait I’m sure he’ll drive you home when he gets back.”

“Yeah. I mean no! I mean, no thanks, I’ll be fine.”

“Well okay. Joss, why don’t you see Dylan to the door and I’ll pretend to be busy in here for the next…” she looked at her watch, “two minutes. And…go!”

We more or less bolted out the kitchen and out the front door as she expected.

“Are you okay?” Dylan asked, stroking my cheek.

I could feel my face turning red. Now that I thought about it, I was embarrassed about losing it with Dad in front of him. I looked down at my boots, kicking at a leaf that had made its way onto the porch. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“And things with your Dad…?”

“Mmmm…not fully resolved. But a lot better than I would have thought. Mom’s right, he does seem to be better.”

He smiled, pulling me into his arms. “I’m glad. I’ll sleep better.”

“You’re not staying?”

He pushed me back to look down at me. “Am I staying?”

My cheeks burned. It wasn’t really like that, but I was still asking a guy to come up to my room to sleep with me. Sometimes I didn’t even recognize my life anymore. “Well, just ’cause there’s still that person running around, tapping into our dream space, and we don’t know who it is. So I figure we’re safer together. I mean—”

“Marshall,” he whispered, “you don’t gotta talk me into it. Just leave the window open.” He kissed me quickly and said, “I gotta go…disappear,” before skipping down the steps and starting off down the street.

As I shut the door behind me, I wondered if he had some usual place to go for that. Like climbing up my house was turning into some usual thing.

“And five seconds to spare,” Mom said, making a show of examining her watch. She was lounging in the kitchen doorway, but she pushed off and came toward me, wrapping me up in another hug.

“I’m so glad you’re home, sweetheart.”

My throat got all tight again. “Me too, Mom.” It had been hard being away for those first few nights when I was alone, but once Dylan was in the Warren with me, I’d hardly missed my family at all. I felt guilty about that now.

She looked at me, smoothed back my hair. “You’re tired. Why don’t you get to bed, hmm?”

“I think I really need a shower first.”

“Well, I didn’t want to mention…”

“Oh, gee, thanks.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

She watched me go up the stairs, so I had to go slowly, like I was really feeling the tired. As soon as I was out of sight, I moved faster, using my Talent to cushion my steps. In my room I hurried over to the window, reset the contacts and opened it. I didn’t see Dylan coming yet, so before I turned on the light I stripped out of my clothes and pulled on my bathrobe.

I showered quickly and left it running while I gave my teeth a quick brush and tried to make myself look presentable. As presentable as one can look dripping wet in a bathrobe. Probably all for the best that the mirror was fogged over and I couldn’t really see myself.

Back in my room the window was shut and Dylan was stretched out on my bed, barefoot, with his eyes closed. I saw his jacket and boots and kicked them farther under the bed, then pulled at his hand.

“What?”

“Just come on.”

We snuck down the empty hallway to the bathroom where the shower was still running. Dylan raised a brow at me.

“You’re invisible. So make with the invisibility. Just hurry up. It’s not like me to take really long showers.”

He tried to cover his surprise and drawled, “I’m shocked to learn this, really,” as he phased out.

I sat down on the toilet lid, making sure my robe was as closed as it could get. “I figure I owe you a shower since you snuck us into your place the other day while your mom was at work,” I told him, kind of fascinated by the way his shirt appeared only after it left his hand and started falling to the floor.

“Yeah, but I was a gentleman host and kept lookout at the front door.”

I heard the sound of the gentleman’s zipper, and then his jeans sliding down his legs. This was a really bad idea.

“Also, you worked up a sweat fighting it out with Poe. I didn’t want to mention it, but…you’re a little rank.”

“Suddenly she’s picky.” Balled up jeans landed on top of the shirt.

The curtain drew back, fell into place again, and then there was a groan from inside the shower that made me glad the vent fan was so loud.

“Hurry it up.”

“Maybe if you would come in here and scrub my back it would speed things up.”

“I’m not invisible.”

“I know this.”

A few minutes later the water shut off and the curtain drew back. I held up a towel, averting my eyes even though there was really nothing to see.

“Sorry it’s kind of damp.”

“That’s fine.”

I could feel him standing there, right in front of me, drying himself off. The tension in the room was thick. It was too much, a really bad idea. I couldn’t see him, but I wanted to reach out until I found him. To see what he’d do if I touched him. To see what I’d do. It scared me, how fast things had changed—how fast I was changing. A few weeks ago we were still dancing around and not even admitting that we liked each other. Now I felt like I couldn’t stand it if I had to spend the night away from him. It was crazy. I darted to the other side of the tiny bathroom to pick up his pile of clothes.

“Joss.”

I turned around right into Dylan’s chest. His very visible, very naked chest. I dropped the clothes. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. It’s not like I hadn’t seen him without a shirt already. I’d even slept with him shirtless. Okay, thinking that didn’t really help me out. My automatic response to being uncomfortable was to drop my eyes, and that showed me how the towel he’d wrapped around him hugged his hips and was just barely big enough to do the job. A shiver raced up my spine.

Then he was kissing me, fast, deep, and desperate. Without clothes to hold onto, my fingers splayed out over his chest, sliding up damp skin, over his shoulders, into his wet hair. This was nothing like the gentle, careful boy I had been cuddling with all week, the one who never pushed me too far, who always backed away with a sheepish grin whenever we started to lose our heads. It was like we’d started off way past that this time.

I strained toward him, trying to press myself closer. He grabbed me around the waist and set me up on the counter. I didn’t think about anything but him, of touching him, of him touching me, kissing me. I didn’t notice how the tie of my robe loosened or the way I opened my knees as I pulled him into me again. Just the way we fit together, the intoxicating thrill of his skin against mine.

I gasped for air when his mouth left mine and trailed down my throat. His lips moved lower, teeth grazing my shoulder, tongue swirling over my skin in a pattern that was driving me crazy. His hands were hard on my bare, arched back, pressing me to him, and beneath my own I could feel the way his breath heaved in and out of his body. One of his hands slid around, pressed against my stomach, smoothed upward, closed over my breast.

My head fell back against the mirror, my whole body slack with the pleasure of it. Then his mouth closed over me and I shot back up, fisting my hands in his hair.

Someone knocked on the door. Dylan dropped me like I was on fire. I was. He had jumped back, then reached out to me to help me pull my robe back into place, but snatched his hand away again before he got there. We were both wide-eyed and breathing hard, staring at each other as I slid from the countertop, pulling the tie on my robe unnecessarily tight. He turned away from me and made adjustments to the towel around his waist.

The knocking turned to pounding.

“Jo-oss, how long’re you going to be in there? I gotta go pee!”

“Jill,” I breathed.

I bent down to scoop up Dylan’s discarded clothes, my tight belt digging into my waist. I balled them up against my chest as Dylan phased out and I opened the door.

Jill breathed out, thoroughly exasperated. “What were you doing in there? It looks like you tried to scrub your face off.”

I felt Dylan brush against my back as he made his escape from the bathroom and I gave Jill my best big-sister, narrow-eyed glare. “It’s just so great to be back. Goodnight, Jill.”

She returned the squinty eyes and threw in an obnoxious air-kiss as I hurried down the hall after Dylan.

“Can I get my pants, please,” he whispered out of nowhere as soon as I had cleared the door.

“Here,” I said, shoving them in the direction of his voice and connecting with his stomach. “And stay invisible until you’re decent.”

“I think that’s going to be a really long time.”

“Ha ha,” I said, yanking the bedcovers down. I felt around under my pillow. I still had PJs there.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m getting into my closet,” I told him as I pushed some hangers and kicked a pack aside to make room for my feet.

“You don’t trust me?”

“I think you’ve seen enough for one night.”

I closed myself into the little space and got dressed, bumping against the closet constantly and feeling silly. Dylan flicked off the light. When I opened the doors again he was right there, wearing his jeans, but all bare-chested in the light coming in from the window and grinning down at me.

“It’s like you don’t know me at all. It’s never enough.” His arm snaked out and grabbed me, but he turned me around so that my back was to him as we fell back on the bed together. He kissed my cheek. “Sorry I got carried away.”

“Not like it was just you,” I muttered, blushing.

“And I’m putting shaving on my to-do list for tomorrow,” he added, rubbing his stubbly cheek against mine.

“Yeah, you do that.”

“So, you know, if you want me to go…”

“I don’t.” It came out really quiet, so I said it a little louder. “I don’t want you to go. You keep apologizing to me, like you’re doing something wrong. But I know…” I didn’t know how to say what I knew.

“What?”

“I know your other…relationships…have progressed faster than this. I know you’re taking it slow, like, waiting for me to catch up, I guess. I know you feel like you have to be careful with me.”

“Maybe it’s that I want to be careful with you.”

Damn. That was it. I was goo.

“I mean,” he went on, “you’ve been keeping to yourself for a long time. Maybe you do have some catching up to do. I don’t expect you to cover four years of make-out experience in the first two weeks of our relationship.”

“Four years?”

“I don’t know, give or take a year. It’s not like there’s a schedule. Are you actually worried about this?”

“I don’t know.”

“That means yes. Come here.” He made me turn to face him, brushing my hair from my face and tucking it behind my ear. It was too dark to really see him, which was kinda good. “Am I thinking about it? Yes. Is it an effort to keep from throwing you down and having my way with you? Yes. I’m a guy, you’re a girl. A beautiful, super-hot, kick-ass ninja girl with a brain, and I am totally in love with you. So don’t think it’s some big hardship for me to be careful with you when all I want to do is take care of you.”

He kissed me, soft and slow like he had all the time in world.

“I love you, too,” I told him.

I felt more than saw his smile. He hugged me closer. “Well, that was worth having a serious discussion for.”

I actually said it. And it was okay.

It was good.

 

* * *

 

Joss

 

“Joss!”

When my dad called my name, I jumped out of bed. An instant later the room flooded with light and he was in the doorway, looking half wild. “Joss, we gotta move. Get your p— What the hell are you doing in my daughter’s room?!” His voice, already over-loud, rose to a bellow, waking me up completely.

My head snapped around. Dylan had jumped out of bed on the other side and stood there, totally visible, in all his half-dressed glory.

Shit.

The shock on Dylan’s face hardened into the sullen look he’d had when squaring off with Marco at Vinyl Salvation.

Shit. Shit. Shit. This was really bad.

“I asked you a question, boy.”

“Nothing happened.” I said. “He was just sleeping over.”

“You expect me to believe this is a goddamned slumber party?!”

“Mr. Marshall, your daughter hasn’t done anything you’d be ashamed of. This is all on me.”

“Oh my God, will you cut the crap? Dad, I asked Dylan to stay, but just to sleep. Really. I swear.”

“You asked him to sleep in your bed? Young lady, you are seventeen years old!”

We all turned toward the door at the sound of Mom’s voice.

Jill ran up in her PJs holding Tinka, the plush pink unicorn she was way too old for. She collided with Mom, almost bumping her out of the doorway. “Joss did what?”

Mom took Jill by the shoulders. “Jilly honey, go to your room, put some warm clothes on. Pull the pack out from under your bed. I’ll be there to help you in a minute.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked her.

Jill didn’t move.

“She’s talking about what you’ve brought down on this family!” My father roared. “You’ve pushed your luck too far and now we’ve got to go. You need to get yourself ready. And you need to get the hell out of my house and away from my daughter before I kill you.”

“Gene!” my mom exclaimed. That’s when I realized she was hovering. She should have taken Jill to her room, away from this. But she was afraid to leave Dad’s side.

“This is all his fault. She learned her lesson with the fire and then we never had any problems with her until he showed up. Now she’s running wild, running from the police, getting in fights. She’s showing off her ability any time she feels like it—”

“That’s not true!” I protested.

“—and making enemies of his friends who are mixed up with the fucking Syndicate! The Syndicate, Jocelyn, do you understand what that means? It means no one’s going to help you. It means they have people everywhere, including the police department. Maybe even NIAC.”

“But I don’t—”

“They’re coming for you! His buddy Marco—the one you were so sure wouldn’t move against you—and his Syndicate friends have threatened the merchants into going to the police.”

“About what?”

“To frame you. And him,” he said, jerking his head at Dylan, “for what happened to our store—for all the downtown crime. McGuffey found me at the shop tonight and told me they’re supposed to go into the station as a group tomorrow and tell the police about how you and your boyfriend—and some of your other Talent friends—have been terrorizing them, demanding money and destroying property. Businesses have already been destroyed, Jocelyn, and now they’re threatening these people’s families. It’s going to happen. There’s nothing we can do to stop it. If we’re not long gone from here, this time tomorrow you’ll be on your way to State School. You need to get dressed, get your stuff, and we need to move. So get your shit together and be downstairs in ten minutes. And I don’t care where you go,” he said to Dylan, “but you’re out of here right now. Get moving.”

I stood there, shocked into silence while Dylan yanked his jacket and boots out from under the bed. “Wait a second. What are you doing?” I just needed a minute to think about this. To run the what-ifs and figure out what to do.

“Joss,” Dylan’s voice had a warning note, and he cast a wary glance toward my dad. But that was all he said. He pulled on his jacket without looking for his shirt, stuffed his socks in his jacket pockets while he shoved his bare feet into his boots. Just like that, he was all ready to leave me.

“Just hold on,” I said, clambering onto the bed as the quickest route to get to him.

“Don’t make me do this, Joss. He has to leave now. Just let him go.”

It was like the room froze when Dad leveled the gun on Dylan. I couldn’t even breathe. Couldn’t think what the hell was happening. Then it flew out of his hand.

For just an instant, I thought I had done it. I thought that instinct had taken over and I had whipped the gun out of his grip without even thinking. But I hadn’t. Before I could finish the thought, Mom was taking it from Jill’s hand.

“‘You never point a gun at anybody, ever, unless you intend to kill them,’” Jill scolded.

“Jillian…” he growled.

Mom untangled the gun from the vine Jill had grown and thrown out to wrap around it. She dropped out the clip and stuck it in her back pocket, ejected the round in the chamber and stuck that in her pocket too. “Gene, you have to stop this.”

“Okay, yeah, you have to go,” I hissed at Dylan. “Phase out and go out the window. I’ll call you later. We’ll meet up and figure this out.”

“No way I’m leaving you now. Not with him like this.”

Dad whirled toward him. “Get out of my house and stay away from my daughter. I don’t need a weapon to kill you where you stand.”

“Jill,” Mom said, quiet but firm, “I need you to go downstairs and call Jayce. She’s on speed dial. Tell her your Dad’s sick and we need her and Ben to come over.”

A sob escaped my throat and in my head there was nothing but no, no, no, overlaying the echoes of the past.

Dad turned toward the door again. “Go to your room.”

Jill turned and fled. Down the stairs.

“You see what you’ve done?” Dad advanced on Dylan and I jumped between them. “Stand aside, Jocelyn.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Joss,” Dylan said calmly, “I don’t need you to—”

“Phase out, Dylan. Please.” I was shaking all over. I’d only seen that look in Dad’s eyes once before.

Dad reached out to grab me and a burst of focused air knocked his hand aside. I watched the shock turn to something else on his face as I crossed my arms over my chest. I imagined drawing in the atmosphere around us, imagined it concentrating in front of me, thickening, forming a wall.

“Daddy, please don’t do this.” I heard the tears in my voice, tasted them sliding over my lips.

“Gene, please,” Mom pleaded. I reached out with my mind, sent a gentle push of air in her direction and slammed the door.

“Jocelyn, open this door!”

“It’s him, don’t you see that?” Dad’s eyes glittered. “You know that at least one person at that school is working for NIAC.”

“I know that because Dylan found that out. When he was helping me.”

“He’s been working against me, trying to get you to slip up, give yourself away. And you’re so starry eyed you can’t see it. But I can. It’s my job to protect you.”

He lunged at us and I did what I had to do. I yanked my arms down, my mind releasing the shield, pushing it out and shoving him away from us. Dad flew back, arms and legs flailing, and smashed into the wall.

He got right back on his feet, hands up in front of his face, eyes glittering with rage.

“I knew it was only a matter of time before you came for her. But I’m never gonna let you have my daughter. I know. I know better than anyone what you are, and I’ll never let you get to her.”

At first I thought he was talking to Dylan, but he was looking at me. “Dad,” I said calmly as we circled each other, “it’s me, Joss.”

“Don’t you say her name. You don’t get to say her name!”

“Dad! You need to stand down!” I was panicked, afraid I was going to have to hurt him. Afraid that he and Dylan would hurt each other. I didn’t feel Dylan behind me anymore. He was still somewhere in the room and I couldn’t see him.

Dad came at me with a series of quick, hard jabs. He was just testing me as an opponent, but already I could feel the difference in his style. We weren’t sparring anymore. He wanted to hurt me.

Not you. Whoever he thinks you are.

Like that’s supposed to make it better.

He stumbled to the side, his arms seemingly pinned in place. Dylan. I went for Dad’s middle, launching myself at his ribcage from the side, wrapping my arms around his waist, trying to wrestle him to the floor. But even pinned to his sides, his hands were still free. He grabbed my head and forced it down as his knee shot up.

Pressure exploded into my face, a tingling, numbing sensation that wasn’t pain yet, but would be. I went down hard, rolling to my back.

Dad used the distraction to twist in Dylan’s hold. I tried to get back into it, but I wasn’t fast enough. He got a foot planted, bent, heaved, and flipped Dylan over his head.

Dylan phased back into view when the back of his head bounced off my floor. He was already rolling over, scrabbling up, but the seconds I spent watching him cost me. Dad’s fist plowed into my gut, driving the breath from my body and doubling me over. I got my Talent guard up just in time to protect most of my injured face. Dylan came up off the floor, aiming at Dad’s midsection. With the size of his shoulders and the strength in his long legs unbending beneath him, it was a move that usually worked well for him. But Dad wasn’t another teenage boy, he was an experienced fighter with the muscle and mass of a grown man. They grappled for a moment before Dad raised his hand over the back of Dylan’s neck, preparing the a strike I knew to be potentially lethal.

Something flashed through me. Dad didn’t know me anymore, and I didn’t know him either. I whipped my leg around and drove my foot into the small of his back. The kick might have lacked some power because of my positioning, but I beefed it up with my Talent. The force of it made Dylan stumble and lose his grip. Dad fell forward over him, and they went down in a tangle.

My father and my boyfriend were wrestling on the floor of my bedroom like kids on a playground, and I couldn’t find an opening to separate them. Dylan stayed in it by his wits, disappearing and reappearing to keep Dad confused and off-balance. Every time I almost had a hold on Dad to even try to drag him off, the battle shifted and they rolled again.

The door flew open. Ben stood there for a second, filling the doorway with his massive frame, then came straight at me. I was so shocked by the attack that he was wrapped around me with my arms pinned to my sides before I knew to defend myself.

Dad had finally subdued Dylan who lay on his face, both arms bent up behind his back. Just a little shift and Dad would break his bones.

“Nichols! About time you showed up.” Dad said.

“What’s the situation, Sarge? Who are these guys?”

What the hell? Ben’s last name is Duncan, not Nichols. And Ben’s never called Dad “Sarge” before.

“NIAC agents, I think. Undercover at my daughter’s school. They came to take Joss.”

“Joss is fine. All your girls are downstairs, safe. These guys should have found an easier mark,” Ben laughed.

“We need to interrogate them. Find out if there are more.”

“Jayce’s here. She’s got her bag of tricks. I’m sure she can shoot these guys up with something that’ll make them talk.”

“Sounds good.”

“Jayce! We’re ready for you!” He leaned down to my ear and muttered, “You might want to struggle or something, kid. Make it look good?”

It wasn’t like this happened every day. In fact, nothing like this had happened for over a decade. Jayce and Ben were always around when I was a kid, but then when Jayce became more my dad’s doctor than a family friend, they didn’t come around anymore. Yet they acted like this was some kind of game, and they were totally used to it. I made some attempt at struggling against Ben’s hold, but I was too busy trying to figure it all out to ‘make it look good.’”

Jayce came in with a small, black zipper case. She smiled at my Dad. “Joe, why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

“You’re hilarious,” he told her.

She held a syringe up to the light, flicked her finger against it and knelt down by Dylan. She yanked his jacket down to bare his upper arm and then pulled a little package from the case which she opened with her teeth. She rubbed the alcohol pad over Dylan’s bicep.

“Is that really necessary? Give him the stuff already.”

“Do I give you pointers on how to knock heads together? No, I don’t.” To Dylan she said, “Now you’re going to feel a pinch…”

Then she jabbed the needle into Dad’s neck and depressed the plunger.

Dylan cried out as Dad’s grip tightened, and Ben was already on the floor with them, pulling Dad gently away, rolling him onto his back.

“I’ve got you, Sarge.”

“Brian, she…what…did she…?”

Dylan moved away from them, pulling his jacket back into place and shaking his arms. Dad’s arm fell away from his body and Jayce touched his pulse point and looked at her watch.

“It’s all right now, Joe. Just take a break. I got this,” Ben told him.

Dad was struggling to speak, to keep his eyes open. He kept jerking his head in Ben’s lap, trying to rouse himself. “Got to…take Joss…away from here. Not gonna get my girl.”

Then he went under.