Chasing Power (15 page)

Kayla shook her head to clear her vision. The air was clammier here, and the heat sucked at her skin. The trees were spindly, and a barbed-wire fence ran along a dirt road. “Just saying that this might not work right away.”

“Or at all,” he said. “You can say it.”

She didn’t say it.

On the next jump, they reached the shore.

Waves crashed onto gray rocks. Palm trees bowed out over the ocean, and the water was a frothy blue. The rocks were slick with seaweed and ran into the water—there was no beach here. In the distance, mountains jutted up, seemingly out of the water, and white birds arced over the waves.

“Can I catch my breath?” With each jump, Kayla felt as if she were leaving a layer of herself behind. Daniel released her hand, and she sank down onto the rocks. She hung her head between her knees and let the crash of waves soothe her like it always did. She tried to imagine she was home on the Santa Barbara beach with Selena. The salt air tasted almost the same. “How can you stand it? Every time we jump, I feel like I’ve been shoved through a colander.”

“The more familiar the destination, the easier the jump. These kinds of jumps … hurt.”

She heard the exhaustion in his voice. She lifted her head to look at him, to see if he was all right. He was looking out across the water, and the wind was blowing his hair back. His eyes matched the ocean, dark and churning beneath a clear sky.
She wondered what was going through his head. “What’s your mother like?” Kayla asked. “Are you close to her?”

He sank onto a rock and pulled out a water bottle from the backpack Selena had given them. He drank and then handed it to Kayla. She drank and then returned it. “She’s the only family I have. She’s … Well, she looks the opposite of yours, no offense meant. She’s more like Selena’s mother, from what I saw, minus the pricey jewelry. She only wears power suits, and I haven’t seen her without makeup in years. She’s always working, even when she’s not. She has her cell phone glued to her. Not much choice. Academia is cutthroat, and she started late. I’m proud of her.”

“She uses you for her travel, you said.”

“I don’t mind,” he said quickly. “It’s a good way for us to spend time together, you know? Anyway, maybe when this is over, she won’t go anywhere for a while. She’s been promising … Look, she is what she is, just like yours is what she is. I don’t go around thinking I can change her. But she’s my mother, and I know she’d do anything in her power to save me if the situation were reversed.”

“You don’t need to get defensive,” Kayla said. “She’s your mom. She doesn’t have to be flawless for you to want to save her.”

He was silent for a moment. “We fought the last time I saw her. Total cliché, right? You’d think I’d be racked with guilt and want to find her to say I’m sorry. But I don’t. I mean, sure I’ll say I’m sorry. But I just want to find her.”

“I get that.” Looking out at the water, she thought about Moonbeam. Kayla always tried to protect her too. She shielded her from the stuff the neighbors said, she secretly paid off bills with money she stole, and she made sure Moonbeam took her vitamins. “I’m sure your mother’s okay.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Not to be blunt, but if she weren’t alive, her kidnapper wouldn’t have known where to find the parchment or that they should steal it from me.” She tried to sound convincing.

Daniel nodded, and for an instant, his face looked calmer, happier. But then the clouds rolled in again. “You may be right. But what did he do to her to find that out?”

Kayla didn’t have an answer to that. She wanted to put her arms around him and hold him until the knots in his shoulders loosened and the wounded look in his eye faded, but she didn’t know how he’d react. “We’ll get there. I promise, it will be over soon.” She pushed herself to standing and ignored the dizziness. “Okay, let’s continue.”

Jump after jump, they traveled across Central America. Kayla guessed they’d left Guatemala, but she didn’t know where they were. Honduras? Nicaragua? Wherever. She tried to drink in as many sights as she could: a rickety dock stretching into a blue-beyond-blue lake, a banana tree with leaves like elephant ears, a woman with red woven scarves and a cell phone that she dropped when she saw them, a mountain so peaked it could only be a volcano, a waterfall that fell hundreds of feet into a churning lake … Twice, they materialized on mountaintops that were so windy they had to clutch each other to keep from falling. Once, they appeared in a street in front of a donkey laden with sacks and beneath a billboard for shaving cream. Yet another time, they found themselves in front of a bulldozer in a half-torn-up field. It roared toward them like an animal, and Daniel had to jump them away fast.

After fifteen jumps, Daniel began to look pale. After twenty
jumps, he swayed in between each one. After twenty-six jumps, he dropped to his knees. His eyes looked glazed. Kayla collapsed beside him onto the damp ground. They were in the rain forest, on a plateau that ended in a bluff. He’d managed to jump them to a flat area between the trees. She was grateful they hadn’t appeared
in
a tree. Around them, insects buzzed, monkeys screeched, and birds called. Shadows stretched between the leaves. Beyond them, the sun was low in the sky. It stained the clouds a deep golden hue.

Kayla realized she was shaking, her muscles vibrating. She hugged her arms to try to stop them. “Daniel, you okay?” Her throat felt thick. She swallowed and tried the words again. “Are you okay, Daniel?” They came out clearer the second time.

He was shaking harder than she was. She crawled closer to him. “Never did … so many jumps like that. Just … overdid it. You feel it too? Need to rest—” He toppled to the side.

“Daniel!” She crawled to him. Leaning over him, she clutched his shoulders. “You need a hospital. Jump us to a hospital!”

His eyes were wide, as if he wasn’t even seeing her. She didn’t know if he could hear her. “Please, be okay. Stay calm. I’ve got you.” She wrapped her arms around him and held him as tightly as she could, as if her arms were all that was keeping him together. He shook harder, nearly convulsing. His breathing was fast, too fast, and his skin felt hot to the touch. He sweated against her, and his arms shook like branches in a high wind.

She didn’t know how long she held him, but at last his shaking subsided into tremors, and then he stilled in her arms. His breathing slowed until he was breathing normally and slowly. “Daniel?” she whispered.

He didn’t respond.

“Come on, talk to me, please, wake up. Please.”

She rolled him gently onto the mat of leaves that blanketed the forest floor, and she looked around them. She had no idea where they were, or if they were near anything or anyone. She pulled out her phone—no signal. Of course no signal. She didn’t even know what country she was in. Panic squeezed her, and she felt her heart thump faster and faster, as if it wanted to gallop out of her chest. “Help! Someone, please help!”

The birds and the monkeys fell silent. And then they resumed, as loud as before.

Soon, it would be night, and their only ticket out of here was asleep or unconscious or … He wasn’t dead, thank God. But he wasn’t in any condition to jump, and she had no way of knowing how long he’d be out. Lying down next to him, she listened to him breathe. Maybe he only needed to rest. He’d wake soon.

He didn’t.

It grew darker. Shadows overlaid more shadows. The jungle shrieked and shook. Beside Daniel, Kayla pushed herself up onto her knees. Her stomach ached, and her tongue felt swollen and dry. Clouds of insects swirled around them, and she sprayed every inch of her and Daniel’s exposed skin with Selena’s bug spray. It smelled sickly sweet, and it didn’t seem to deter the bugs. There were more and more of them as dusk fell. She looked directly up at the tiny patch of deepening blue visible through the canopy of leaves. A star already poked through.

Think, Kayla
.

She’d never been camping before, at least not since she was a kid. Fleeing from home with Moonbeam, she’d slept in cars and barns and abandoned mobile homes, but she’d never slept out in the open. Certainly never in a rain forest. There could be snakes
here. And jaguars. And more snakes. She needed a fire. As soon as she had the idea, she seized it as if it were a lifeline in a stormy sea. A very green, very insect-ridden sea. Animals would be afraid of a fire, wouldn’t they? And it would keep the darkness at bay.

Sounds filled the darkening rain forest: cries and growls and shrieks and caws from animals and birds that she had no way to identify. Insects buzzed around them so loudly that they sounded like radio static turned high. She tried batting them away with her mind. It wasn’t easy. Unlike the grains of sugar, the mosquitoes and gnats swirled in swarms. Plucking them out of the sky, she flung them away. She devoted a portion of her mind to that task and sent the rest of her mind out into the growing darkness to find dry wisps of plants that she could use as tinder. Focusing on two things at once kept her from panicking more.

On the undersides of fallen trees, she found bits of stringy bark and, beneath branches, she found a few dead leaves that hadn’t been soaked. Concentrating, she made each leaf float to her lap and then she rolled them together into a loose bundle. Once she had a handful, she left it next to Daniel and lurched to her feet. She still felt shaky from all the teleporting, but after a few steps, her head cleared. Searching close by, she picked up every twig she could find. She was careful to avoid the bluff—last thing she needed was to fall and break her neck. She carted it all back to Daniel and then gathered some thicker branches. She’d never made a fire before, but the concept seemed obvious: start with tinder, then move to twigs, then to thicker wood. Clearing an area beside her and Daniel, she placed her tinder in a nice neat pile and pulled out her lighter. Her hands were shaking as she flicked the flame to life and held it to the tinder.

It caught and then it died.

She tried again. This time, she caught the flame with her mind and forced it to touch the driest bit of bark. It sparked a second flame, and she nursed it as it spread through the tinder. Carefully, she laid sticks against her tinder. It smoldered and then died.

She swore, loudly.

Daniel shifted in his sleep. Abandoning the fire, she hurried to his side. “Daniel? Are you awake? Are you okay?” He moaned—that was a good sign, wasn’t it? She felt his forehead. He still felt too hot. Mosquitoes hovered angrily around both of them. Concentrating, she repelled them with so much force that she heard them smack in a swarm against a tree.

She turned back to the fire. Now, she was determined to light it. She knew it was irrational, but she felt as though if she lit it, then he’d wake and everything would be okay.

Again, she flicked on the lighter. But this time, she coaxed the flame onto the tinder and, as it grew, forced it to split into multiple embers. Then she took each new bit of fire and set it on the wood. Slowly, it caught. Ignoring the insects and the sounds and the darkness, she nursed the fire until it spread and grew.

By now, the sky had deepened to near black, and the forest around them had fallen into complete darkness. Night was louder than day, full of calls and cries and rustling. Under her coaxing, the fire roared higher. Sitting back, Kayla hugged her knees. Her stomach rumbled, and her mouth felt dry. She took out the trail rations that she’d taken from Selena’s camping supplies and pulled out one of the futuristic-looking packets. Freeze-dried ice cream. Kayla tore it open and ate half, letting the chalky sweetness dissolve on her tongue. She chased it with a sip of water. Daniel continued to sleep, and Kayla returned to methodically flinging the mosquitoes away from
them. It helped keep her from thinking too hard about where they were … or what she’d do if he didn’t wake.

After a while, she lay down next to the fire. Hopefully, Moonbeam would assume she was spending the night with Selena. Of course, she’d call to check up. She always did. And if Selena didn’t think to lie … Or worse, if Selena herself worried enough to call Moonbeam to see if Kayla was back … It would take an act of supreme luck for Moonbeam not to find out she was missing overnight. And if she did find out, she’d assume the worst. She’d call the police, and she’d prepare to run. She’d pack their most generic clothes, as well as the supplies to create false paperwork for new identities. She wasn’t a good enough forger to create anything that would hold up in court, but it would be good enough to get Kayla into school and rent a place from a not-overly-scrupulous landlord.

Regardless, there wasn’t anything Kayla could do about it right now. Curling up near the fire, Kayla closed her eyes and listened to Daniel’s shallow breaths.
Please wake
, she thought.
Please wake
. She repeated it like a mantra until she too fell asleep.

She woke minutes or hours later. It was dark, and the fire was down to embers. For an instant, she lay still, unsure if she was asleep and stuck in a nightmare or not.

With her mind, she picked up the embers, spread them to new wood, and held them there until the flames spurted up again.