Edgewood Series: Books 1 - 3 (14 page)

I could have told the story in about three sentences, but he went on for fifteen minutes. According to Jameson, this is how it went: After I left them in the reception area, Mallory pretended to fill out the form to make the nurse happy. She didn’t give them our names, and she didn’t know anything about Gordy, so she filled in some nonsense and used mind control to make the nurse think the form was complete and that he was completely insured.

“You should have seen it!” Jameson crowed. “Mallory is like, ‘The form has all the information you need,’” and the woman is like, “Oh good, he’s got complete coverage.”

“Then I went out and moved the car so it wasn’t blocking the entrance,” Mallory added.

And after that, Jameson said, two men came in—the same two men Jameson had seen at the library. “We were sitting in the waiting area at the time,” Mallory said. “Texting you. Or trying to text you.”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Sure enough, they’d texted me, but my phone was on silent.

Jameson said, “The two men were dressed the same way as when I saw them at the library. Dark suits, black shoes, ties, like businessmen. They walked right up to the desk and asked about a patient who had just been brought into the ER, Gordon Hofstetter. One of them said Mr. Hofstetter was his father.” He made a dismissive noise. “Like anyone was going to believe that.”

“You should have seen the look on Jameson’s face when he saw those two guys,” Mallory said. “I thought he was going to curl up in a ball and start whimpering.”

“That’s not true,” he said, giving her a steely-eyed look. “Why would you say that?” He turned back to me. “The woman at the desk asked them to wait while she went and checked, and then to distract them, I knocked over a cart full of supplies.” He tapped his forehead. “Using only the power of my mind, Russ.”

Mallory interjected the next part. “So I took advantage of the commotion to follow the nurse into the examining area. When I caught up to her, I did my mind magic and told her that a middle-aged woman named Marge Schaeffer had brought Gordy to the hospital. I even gave her a description.”

“And this worked?” I asked incredulously.

Mallory’s head bobbed up and down. “She would have testified in a court of law. Tomorrow she’s going to have a headache.”

When the nurse came back, she told the men that Marge Schaeffer had brought Mr. Hofstetter in and described her exactly as Mallory had specified. And when a bunch of guys came into the hospital carrying a buddy who’d been beaten in a bar fight, it was enough of a distraction that Jameson and Mallory were able to follow another staff member through the double doors to come and find me.

“So that’s why we went out the side door?” I asked. “To avoid the men in the suits?”

“Of course,” Jameson said, smug as usual.

“And why are we dancing around these guys again?” I leaned forward to address my question to Mallory. I’d had enough of Jameson. “Why not just ask them what the story is? For all we know, they’re the good guys.”

The car screeched over to the side of the road so fast I thought my head would snap off. Mallory threw the car into park, put on the four-way flashers, and twisted around to face me. “Russell Becker, I hope you’re joking.” Her voice was raised and her face contorted in anger.

Jameson said, “I had my doubts about this guy from the beginning. I told you that. I say you wipe him out.”

I held up a hand to block Jameson’s face out of my view and kept it there. “It’s hard to believe you’re both geniuses because you’re acting like idiots. I’m not saying we tell anyone about the light particles or the field, or your powers. But what’s wrong with saying we found an old man who needed medical help? How are we going to get more information if we just skulk around dodging people?”

Mallory shook her head. “Are you not the same guy who was freaked out just yesterday because you’d been chased and shot at the night before? Do I really have to explain to you how dangerous it would be to voluntarily come forward?”

“But isn’t it even more dangerous keeping it just to ourselves?”

Jameson batted at my hand. I lowered it and gave him a smile before continuing. “Look at it this way. If something happens to us, wouldn’t you want our families to have some information about what’s going on? Maybe, if the other kids had gone to the media, the ones you say were killed or disappeared, they’d have been protected by the authorities. Maybe they would have stayed safe.”

Jameson dramatically lowered his head in his hands and wailed. “Mallory, I can’t believe you vouched for this guy. A chimp has more sense.”

“Mallory?” I wanted to hear her reaction and not his; right now, I’d have said she looked conflicted.

“So what exactly are you proposing?” she asked. “Who do we tell—our parents, the police, the FBI? And what exactly do we tell them? The whole truth or only part of it? Are you prepared for the repercussions? Have you even
thought
about the possible repercussions? Because we have. We’ve worked out every possible scenario, and believe me, none of them are good.” When I didn’t say anything, she said, “I’ll tell you what, Russ. You go ahead and tell anyone anything you want. Nobody is going to stop you.”

Jameson said, “
I
would stop him and—”

“But here’s the thing,” she said, waving Jameson’s words away. “None of us is going to back you up either. If you say we’re involved, we’ll say you’re crazy and we don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’ll be on your own, pal,” Jameson said. “We’re not backing you up. We’ll say you’re crazy.”

“Yeah, I think I got that since Mallory said the exact same thing a second ago.”

Mallory said, “Look, we’ve all been through a lot recently. Russ, would it be possible for you to think about this for the next few days before you do anything?”

A few days? What could possibly happen in the next few days? Sure, I could wait. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“You better keep it to yourself,” Jameson said. “Do you know how much trouble Nadia would be in if her mother found out she’d been going out at night?”

That would be the least of our troubles. “I already agreed not to say anything. Just yet,” I added.

“Well I’m glad that’s settled.” Mallory started up the engine and fiddled with the radio, finally settling on an old Nirvana song. Something about a mulatto and an albino and a mosquito. The lyrics made absolutely no sense, but hearing a familiar song pulled me back into my everyday world and made me feel better. After flicking on the turn signal, Mallory did a cursory back-and-forth glance at the road before pulling off the shoulder, and then we were back on our way. We didn’t go far before she said, “I hope you guys don’t mind if I cut the evening short. I have a bad headache and I want to go home.”

“No wings?” Jameson sounded disappointed. “But I’m starting to really get hungry.”

“Maybe another time.” She met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Okay with you, Russ?”

“Of course.” The thought of going out for wings with Jameson there spoiled the whole date night concept. “Whatever you want, Mallory.”

We dropped Jameson off first. Turned out he lived in a biggish house in the wealthy end of town. Rich Edgewood. No surprise there. I had him pegged as a privileged sort of guy. We drove up the circular drive and under an overhang, the kind you see in front of hotels. White pillars flanked either side, and a stone lion sat to the left of the enormous door. “Well, here you are,” Mallory said, her voice full of false cheer. “The end of another wonderful Saturday night.”

He had his hand on the door, but he didn’t seem like he wanted to leave. “Thanks for driving, Mallory. When I get my license, we can go in my dad’s Corvette.” He leaned forward like he wanted to kiss her or something, but she just looked straight ahead.

“That would be great,” she said, and then to me, “Russ, why don’t you get in front?”

I scrambled out of the car, and Jameson was forced to get out. He stood on the porch and waved as we drove away. I glanced back and said, “I thought he’d never leave.”

Mallory laughed, and suddenly all was right with the world. “He’s not too bad. A little insecure so sometimes he acts superior, but overall he’s okay.”

“A little insecure and acting superior doesn’t sound okay to me.”

“He’s the only one of us who’s a true genius,” she said. “Nadia and I are in accelerated classes and we both do exceptionally well, but Jameson is way beyond either of us. He actually has an IQ of like 186 or something. Of course, the IQ test as a measurement of intelligence is a matter of debate.”

“Of course.”

“Still, he’s undeniably gifted academically.”

“Sure. Yeah, I can see it.” I tapped my fingers on the dashboard. “But he can be kind of a whiny baby at times.” She smiled but didn’t contradict me. Neither of us spoke for a time, Mallory because she was driving, and me because I was starting to pick up on electricity again. I felt it coming from the engine compartment through the radio. At its source, which I knew to be the battery, the car electricity felt different than what I’d experienced at the hospital, and different yet from the power lines I sensed as we drove past. So odd, being able to pick up on electricity; it was like being able to see in the dark. I wondered at the fact that electricity is all around us, yet people go through their days oblivious to its presence.

Mallory turned off the radio and my eyes opened. “What’s on your mind, Russ?” she said softly. “The look on your face is freaking me out a little.”

“I’m concentrating,” I explained. “On the electricity. I can feel it now. It started in the hospital. I was aware of it surging and pulsing all around me. I can sense it even when I close my eyes, and if I really quiet my mind, it’s like it speaks to me. I know where it’s coming from and how strong it is. You know what I’m talking about. You guys have had this happen, right?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“But you can sense it?” I gestured to the electrical poles that dotted the roadside. “Outside it hums like music through the wires.” I patted the dashboard. “And I can feel how it powers the radio. So amazing.”

“So this sensing thing is happening to you right now?”

“Well, yes. It’s not like something that happens now and again. It’s there all the time. It just is.”

“Hmmm…” She turned into my subdivision. “The light particles do appear to affect everyone differently, based on what I’ve seen with the three of us. And what you experienced on your night was in all probability different than what we experienced, so it would make sense that you were affected differently as well.”

“When I was out in the field, and the particles fell all around me, I felt—”

“Wait a minute!” For the second time that night Mallory suddenly pulled the car over to the side of the road. This time a little more smoothly. “The particles fell all around you? You stood inside the spiral while the light fragments came down around you?”

“It was mostly done falling by the time I got there,” I said. “But while I was in the middle of the spiral, more did come down, yeah.”

“And it didn’t burn you?”

“No, the pieces glowed, but they were warm, not hot.”

“Huh.” With one hand she smoothed the wheel to the left and continued the drive to my house. “I wonder what that means…”

“I don’t know.”

We drove on. I noticed that the sun had dropped in the sky while we were at the hospital. The headlights of the car lit the road ahead of us, and I felt the way the electricity reached from the battery to the headlamps to make that happen. How had I gone a lifetime not even noticing this?

Finally, Mallory pulled into my driveway. It seemed like a day had passed since she’d first picked me up, but it had been only a few hours. “Well, this it, I guess,” she said.

I unclasped my seat belt before extending my right hand. “Thanks for a nice evening and for driving.”

“No problem.”

I thrust my hand closer. “Take my hand, Mallory.”

“What?”

I ignored her puzzled expression. “It’s a social custom. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Shaking hands? Put it there.”

Still bemused, Mallory gave me her hand. I sandwiched it between mine and focused all my thoughts and energy on our touch. We were two separate people linked by skin and bone and blood and energy. Especially energy. The energy from me hummed right at the point of contact. From the look on her face I could tell she felt it too. Her head tilted toward me and her eyes lit up with amazement. “Whoa,” she whispered.

And then, it felt done. Abruptly, I let go and her hand dropped. I said, “Thanks again, Mallory. See you at school.”

I was halfway to my front door when she rolled down her window. “Russ?”

“Yes?”

She waved her hand out the car window. “The cut on my finger is gone.”

I nodded. I knew it would be.

Later that night, when I was almost asleep, it occurred to me that maybe I could use my powers to heal Gordy. I sat up in bed, turned on my nightstand lamp, and rubbed my eyes. If Jameson and Mallory hadn’t been so eager to leave the hospital, I might have thought of it while I was still there. Now it was after midnight and I had no way to get to the hospital. For my own peace of mind, I looked up the number to Mercy Hospital and called the front desk to inquire about Gordon Hofstetter.

The woman who answered the phone asked me to spell his last name.

I gave it my best guess. “I think it’s spelled H-O-F-S-T-E-T-T-E-R. First name, Gordon. He came into the ER earlier this evening.” I was careful to speak quietly, knowing that Frank was asleep on the other side of the wall. Nothing worse than a hyped-up ten-year-old awake after midnight.

I heard the sounds of a keyboard clicking before she came back on the line and said, “I’m sorry, we don’t have a patient by that name.”

“Does that mean he was released?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t give out that information. Hospital policy.” She did sound a little sorry, anyway.

I hung up feeling better. Best-case scenario—Gordy had been stabilized and released. They didn’t keep anyone at the hospital anymore if they didn’t have to. Last I saw, the old guy was doing pretty well. Considering he’d been electrocuted.