Awash in Talent (5 page)

“Telekinesis is telekinesis, whether accompanied by other qualities or not,” he replied.

He proceeded to read Beth her Miranda rights while she squealed, “I didn’t mean to!”

The paramedics carried Carlos out on a stretcher, unconsciously burbling, his face an angelic livid color. I wondered how Beth could dare to suggest that he wasn’t special. She’d clearly never been in love. I barely glanced back at Beth, then leaped across the hall to get my bag with my wallet, my keys, my phone, and my e-reader loaded with
Seven Noble Knights
. I ran to the ambulance’s back door, where Carlos had already been loaded in, and the wife was helping the toddler up and climbing in after.

The EMT looked at me. “This is too many people.”

“But he’s my . . . eternal love . . .” I panted.

The wife moved through space and time more rapidly than anyone I’d ever seen. “Get her out of here,” she squealed, and before I had time to feel insulted, she had personally drawn the heavy doors shut with a sound I will never forget. It was like the world shattering. A chapter of my life coming to a close.

The ambulance pulled away up Hope Street, adding acrid exhaust to the already muggy summer night air. Then Beth was coming down the front steps, flanked and restrained by the two police officers.

“I can control it!” Her Miranda rights hadn’t silenced her.

“Miss, the evidence back there begs to differ,” said an officer. His accent was unquestionably Rhode Island, but I’d had two years of interpretation experience. “Whether or not you can control it, we have to take you in for assault and attempted murder.”

Beth looked at me with eyes just like mine and their curled lashes, pleading for clemency.

“I know what her kryptonite is,” I found myself saying. “Can I come to the station with you?”

They didn’t seem convinced, but the thought of having to hoof it in the dark all the way to the bottom of College Hill to bail out my baby sister was a big motivator for me.

“She’s a minor. I’m her guardian in Providence. I don’t have a car!”

One of the officers opened the door, eying me as if I weren’t old enough to be the Providence guardian of a telekinetic. I crawled in and immediately felt oppressed, squeezed between the screen and the squeaky faux leather seats that had supported who knew what kind of post-criminal activity.

The policeman who wasn’t driving kept looking back at us skeptically as the car took off.

“You know, Rick,” he said to the driver over the sounds of the engine, “this is going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork.”

“I know,” he replied. “I was really hoping to get off early and actually keep my promise to my kid. I swear this job is going to make him hate me.”

“Hey, I got stuff to do, too. But justice must be served,” the first officer said without much conviction. I heard something about “a wicked good tetanus shot” and quite a bit of chuckling. Then he turned to us and spouted a monologue about the long history between the Providence Police Department and telekinetics ever since their kind had been revealed in the 1870’s. “Providence has a really good school for them, did you know? Is that why your sister’s here?”

“Mmm, yes, sure.” As much as I hated my sister just then, it was still a burden to think about those concentration camps for Talented people.

I touched Beth’s restrained arm. She was clammy. The street lights cast narrow amber beams on her face as she wept.

I wasn’t quite finished. “You did a horrible thing.”

“I know,” she keened.

“Why?”

“Because when I saw him, I thought . . .” Her voice became more and more nasal, since she couldn’t wipe her eyes or nose. I prodded my pockets while she talked, but there was no tissue. “I mean, with your secret Carlos shrine and now I discover that we live right across the hall from him . . .”

My favorite picture in the so lately secret hoard showed Carlos’s hair flying wildly in the winter wind above scarves and a black pea coat as he strode toward Sayles Hall, his backpack pulling him slightly toward the ground, but never impeding his determined energy. His left foot was obscured by a naked branch from the bush I was hiding in when I snapped the photo. His right foot displayed a cheap athletic shoe with a gaping hole in the heel that betrayed the striped nature of his sock. I had stared at that photo so many times that I could see the mere corner of it peeking out of the folder and get the full emotional impact.

“I thought the deal was, you wouldn’t talk about Carlos and I wouldn’t mention your powers.”

“Emily, I think it’d be great if you talked about my powers now. I’m so sorry about what I did to Carlos. I think if they let me go to the hospital, I can help him.”

I considered the strength of her telekinesis and thought about the surgical gash across her stomach, which she’d made a nonissue so quickly. “You can heal others as easily as yourself?”

“I think so. Otherwise, he might die, Emily. Die. I know you don’t want that.”

She was right. A dead true love would be far too melodramatic for someone like me. Keeping my eye on Beth, I rapped gently against the metal mesh. “Officer?”

The one in the passenger seat turned again, slightly less skeptically than before.

“Remember how I said she had healing abilities? She says she can help the man she unintentionally harmed. Surely, that would lessen her guilt, and otherwise, I’m afraid he might be a goner.” I smiled, pleading, but wasn’t sure if he could see me at all through the mesh and with the unstable light as we passed under street lamps.

They conferred in low Rhode Island tones, but made no sign that they were considering helping us. I’d known it was a shot in the dark. Keeping my eyes ahead to make sure the police couldn’t see what I was doing, I reached down and helped Beth slide her thin hands out of the handcuffs, which likely had some aluminum content. I sat on them in order to block their effect on her, and then watched as my sister gave herself over to total concentration. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the steering wheel. She overcame the driver’s muscular resistance at the bottom of the hill. Instead of being able to make the left turn into the police station, the steering wheel remained locked in position, and the car seemed to coast of its own volition across the bridge and into downtown.

I can’t record the things the police officers were saying at that point. They appeared to want to regain control of the car, but could only sit on their hands under the influence of Beth’s superstrong will.

I could tell she was a little confused as we zipped past the Arcade in the preternaturally dark streets with not a soul stirring, so I said, “Keep going left, don’t cross the river again, and we’ll see Rhode Island Hospital in another minute or two.” It dawned on me that we might actually be able to save Carlos, and I thrilled to every twist and turn.

We left the officers with no visible restraints inside the locked car. “Please consider letting my sister save this guy’s life before you arrest her again,” I said in my most convincing voice, but I wasn’t at all certain they would go with it. Someone would find the policemen once we were inside and only shame or possibly disbelief would prevent them from telling what we’d done. I hoped they would at least pretend that coming to the hospital had been their idea.

I held Beth’s hand at the emergency entrance. “Was that okay, what we just did?” she asked me.

“Unquestionably.”

“Are they going to arrest you, too?”

“No way. But now is not the time. It’s time to save Carlos.” I pulled her forward.

As the hospital doors opened automatically, they puffed air onto us that felt frigid and dry in contrast with the night.

“Wow, this place is so metallic,” Beth said, still wiping her nose on her hand. Nevertheless, she seemed to know instinctively where Carlos was located, and I held on to her as she led me. It wasn’t far to the emergency operating room, but I felt my sister weighing my arm down more and more until I was almost dragging her. Her skin was ashen and she couldn’t seem to make her feet work. As we burst through the door, I was immediately distracted by the implausible number of people around the hospital bed, variously cleaning Carlos’s wounds and preparing medical instruments small and large.

“My sister is a telekinetic healer!” I announced, and they took Beth from me and brought her closer to the wounds. I thought I recognized the setup for a blood transfusion. “Does he need B negative blood?” It was actually pretty ironic that I knew Carlos’s blood type and not my own. I distinguished a tall, Nordic woman with her bare hands wrapped firmly around Carlos’s palm as someone else in a lab coat ushered me out the door.

I ended up in the ER waiting room, the cops nowhere in sight. I was wondering whether Carlos’s wife had found anyone to help take care of the kids in this dire situation when she spotted me.

Her face went stony. She said, “I have to go for a second,” and shut her phone. I knew I had every right to wait for my sister there, so I kept standing among the metal chairs and uniformly rumpled people waiting for news of their loved ones, thinking how different this was from the hospital where Beth had her aluminum can tab removed.

She ignored the welfare of her children in order to shout in my direction. “What are you doing here, freak? Shouldn’t you be bailing out your criminal sister?”

“My sister is only a criminal if tried and convicted. She honestly meant no harm. She just lost control of her telekinesis for a second. Plus, she’s in the emergency room right now, helping keep Carlos alive with her healing powers. To file a civil suit against her would be immoral. I have every right to be here, and you shouldn’t yell in front of your children. Haven’t they had enough trauma for one night?”

Her eyes darted to the toddler, throwing a fit behind her, and her arm shifted the baby on her shoulder in the manner trademarked by harried mothers.

I walked closer. “Hey, you know, if you need help, I could babysit sometimes.”

Suddenly she was on me. Her arms were everywhere, beating me mercilessly with the little piece of outdated technology. The phone’s stub antenna narrowly missed my eye socket and I cried out with shock. “Why would I trust my children to you?” she was screaming. I couldn’t imagine where the baby was or how she had gotten it out of her arms so quickly. I fell to the linoleum floor under the raining blows, reached up, and felt blood on my cheek. That only gave her an opening to start kicking me, and she kept at it whether I flopped on my stomach or my back. It was impossible to comprehend what was happening, so I yelled with all my might.

I opened my eyes and closed my mouth when I couldn’t feel the blows anymore. The nondriving police officer was restraining Carlos’s wife as she struggled, the cell phone a bloody mass in her hand. One of the waiting room people was holding the baby, and the toddler stood behind the other police officer’s leg.

“Are you all right?” he asked, crouching over me. I raised myself up on my arms and nothing seemed amiss yet, so I nodded.

“I heard what you said in the ambulance,” Carlos’s wife shouted. I could hardly remember myself, so she reminded me. “He’s your
eternal love
?”

“Right,” I said. My face got hot.

“You need to remain calm and silent,” the restraining officer said to Carlos’s wife. He asked me, “Do you want to press charges here?” I could see he’d rather be doing anything else.

I looked at my attacker. I couldn’t blame her, really, but then she narrowed her eyes at me and I half expected her to bare her canines, so I calculated each of the offenses. “If you don’t sue Beth, I won’t press charges against you.”

Her face softened a little and she stopped struggling. “But who knows what she’ll do to Carlos in the future? And you . . .”

“I’ll control Beth completely, and I know you’re confused about me and Carlos, but that whole he’s-my-true-love thing was really only a figment of my sister’s imagination,” I said.

She had little choice with all the witnesses to the crime she’d committed against me. I felt myself wavering as I got to my feet. The driving officer steadied me sympathetically. I wondered whether, in all the excitement, he’d forgotten how Beth had hijacked his car, or if he was a reasonable guy who could understand our just motives. Or if he really only wanted to clock out.

Carlos’s wife said, “Agreed.” Her officer released her, she shifted the bloody cell phone into her left hand, and then held out her right to shake mine, as if to make a legally binding arrangement.

After we finished shaking, I moved my hand to check my head again. Without thinking, I said, “Could you let me know how Carlos comes through this?” Her eyes grew so wide that I added, “A disinterested humanitarian concern, I promise.”

Possibilities of restraining orders and her full intention to move out of the building bloomed up between us as the officer handed me my bag. That intense moment might have gone on longer, if Beth hadn’t suddenly appeared in the waiting room. She was held up by the Nordic woman, who said, “Are you Beth’s sister? Please come with me.” I followed them, and, to my great surprise, the Nordic woman led us directly out the front door. Patting Beth on the back, she told me, “Beth really can’t be inside the hospital.” She turned back inside.

Beth took deep gulps of the muggy night air. Her voice had a burnt quality as she told me, “I’m so sorry, Emily. I was no help to Carlos at all. I reached across the bed frame and started throwing up.”

“Not on the patient, I hope.”

“No, on the floor. Then Katarina helped me into a bathroom. They make the bed frames—and a lot of other things here—out of aluminum. I have no powers and it makes me feel so sick!”

“Are you feeling better now? Can we take a taxi home?”

“Yes, please,” she said, coughing drily and taking a swig from a bottle of water the Nordic lady must have given her. “Katarina was so nice. She’s an Other-Talented Healer, like me, can you believe it? That’s why she works in the hospital. She’s not telekinetic, but she says her kryptonite is lithium, so the only place she gets really woozy is the psych ward.” Beth laughed uproariously at her own joke. I thought they didn’t use psychotropic lithium anymore, but then again, I’d thought aluminum was only in cans. I was clearly not keeping up with modern elemental metal usage.