Legacy (32 page)

The van finally stopped in a ditch close to the tree line. The engine cut off.

What the hell was THAT?

—
is Claire okay?

—
ARE WE BEING ATTACKED?

What happened? Did—

—
an accident?

—
something’s on fire!

—
my head hurts.

The pain still bounced around within my skull, and Trevor and I weren’t the only ones feeling it. Whatever’d happened, it’d hit all of us.

Jonah focused on killing the three blazes the sparks had started in the upholstery during the chaos. Unexpected bursts of mental energy? Running the van off the road? Sudden fires this close to a gas tank? Hell, we were lucky we weren’t all
dead
.

“Maddie? Are you okay?” Trevor’s voice came to me as though from far away, even though he was speaking into my ear.

I might’ve whimpered, but I really couldn’t hear it over the sound of my brain exploding—or whatever it was doing. Each heartbeat made something pound against the inside of my skull, and pain in my side stabbed me with each breath.

“Maddie? What’s wrong? Where are you hurt?” Trevor’s mind focused into mine, so he answered his own question.

Ann and Hannah had tumbled off the seat behind us. Zack had landed on top of them. The two of them worked to disentangle themselves when Zack suddenly screamed. Blind terror thrashed through him. Oh, God. Had we injured him somehow? After a few seconds, Zack went still.

“I’m not dead?” He sounded surprised.

ZACK!
Ann’s mental voice sledgehammered into my already overloaded mind as relief erupted from her.
OH, ZACK!

I cringed, noticing Trevor doing the same.

Everyone else seemed to react, too.
Huh?
Something was off about that.

“Hey, keep it down, minder. Some of us were trying to sleep.” Drew took stock of the situation.
No witnesses—good.
Traffic on Route 84 after midnight in this part of Connecticut was almost non-existent.

Harrison shook his head like a wet dog, trying to clear the pain out. He’d slid off of his seat in the back row as the van had jolted off the road.

Ann’s emotions for Zack firehosed into all of us. If I hadn’t already had pain-tears running down my face, I would’ve started crying from the waves of joy and love—emotional concentrate, minder-to-minder, caustically strong.

“Hannah, Maddie’s injured.” Trevor’s concern wrapped dusky-rose energy around me.

Tears of joyful relief ran down Hannah’s face, but they weren’t from her own emotions. Ann was projecting, and not just to me—to everyone. Big time. We all heard her every thought and felt her every emotion.

What the
hell
had happened when she’d released the energy in Zack’s head? It was like a mental explosion had hit us all.

Trevor unbuckled the seatbelt from around us, trying not to move physically as he did. I winced as my obviously-broken rib stabbed me again. Someone rolled open the side door, letting the cool air into the vehicle.

Hannah gently pulled up the hem of my shirt and placed her hands on either side of my ribcage. “Maddie, hold still.”

Yeah, like I was planning on moving anytime soon. I gritted my teeth and moaned as she pressed the shard-ends of my broken rib together. The pins and needles of her healing poured through me and, finally, the pain melted away. I drew a cautious breath, and then exhaled with relief.
Thanks, Hannah.

She acknowledged that with a small smile and nod as she moved on to mend Ellen’s broken fingers.

“Um, Ann?” Trevor wrapped long fingers around my shoulder. “You know you’re projecting, right?”

Ann’s horrified realization hit us all.
I’m—? Oh, my God. I can’t stop!
Her most private thoughts were on display. She jumped from the van and ran into the night.

“What’s going on?” asked Zack.

“The short version? Ann just pulled you out of a coma,” said Trevor. “And whatever was keeping you under just blasted through her and into everyone’s mind. Now Ann’s projecting her thoughts to the rest of us and can’t bring up a shield to stop.”

“
That’s
what that was?” asked Drew. “It felt like something exploded in my head. That
sucked
.”

I humphed.
Welcome to my world.

Drew grinned back at me.

“Hey, when you minders want to do that again, why don’t you
not
do it in a moving car, okay?” Dave couldn’t stop shaking. “Especially one that
I’m
driving
.” Oh, God, if Claire and I hadn’t had seatbelts on, we would’ve gone through the windshield.

Zack made a move for the van door. Hannah put a hand on his arm. “I need to assess you before you go anywhere.”

Zack narrowed his eyes and cleared his throat.

Wait! Don’t charm Hannah. I’ll go talk to Ann. Having me hear her thoughts is no big deal. Get checked out first then come find us.

Harrison walked around the vehicle, examining the damage. “I’ll go back and see if I can find our fender.”

“We lost a fender?” Drew sounded almost impressed.

“Yeah, and scraped and dented both sides. The van’s a mess. I hope it’ll still run.” Harrison and Drew had worked on cars with their dad before he’d died. I moved past them into the darkness as they went to take a look under the hood.

“Even if the engine’s still running, how’re we gonna get the van out of this ditch?”

Drew humphed. “Hey, Trev. We’ve got a job for ya.”

The chirping of thousands of crickets grew louder as I stepped away from the others. The three-quarters moon cast a pale light onto the highway, but left the shoulder in the shadow of the trees. A car whished by, the sound dopplering lower as it receded.

I picked up Ann’s sobbing distress and stepped a few paces closer to her.

Hey
.

What do you want, Maddie?

Can we talk for a minute?

Talk? I can’t shut up! I’m projecting everything! I can hear my thoughts coming back to me from everyone else!

Ann, you’ll be able to shield when you calm down.

How do you know? How do you know I still can?

I drew a heavy breath
. Well,
you just blasted everyone. That’s what I do. If I can shield, you can
. I had no idea if the logic of this assumption would hold up, but it might be enough to end her freak-out.

Somehow, Ann had pulled the energy from Zack’s brain—energy that’d felt like the blasts that Isaiah and I did—and she’d funneled it through to the rest of us. Had the number of people somehow diluted the effects? Could it’ve killed Ann if she’d tried to reach Zack like that when she was all alone?

I felt the edge of her hysteria seeping away as my words sank in.
Ann, I throw nightmares. I know what this is like. Once you calm down, you’ll be able to shield again.

Is Zack okay?

Zack’s fine. Hannah’s checking him over now. He’s worried about you.

I don’t want him to hear all of the stuff running through my head. I—I have mental diarrhea right now!

I gave a laugh at that
. Okay. They’re trying to find the pieces of the van that fell off, so you’ve got a little time.

Pieces of the van fell off?
Guilt pinged from her.

Yeah. And we had a few broken bones and some bruises, but Hannah’s fixed them already.

Is everyone all right?

Everyone’s fine. Now we just have to get you shielding and we’ll be all set.

“Where’s Ann?” Zack’s voice came out of the dark behind me.

Gah! Don’t sneak up on me like that!
I’d jumped like I’d been pulled up on a wire.

Behind him, the headlights silhouetted the people reattaching the front fender. Trevor held the piece in place while Drew and Jonah focused mental blowtorches and welded the metal back onto the vehicle.

Zack, hold on a minute. Ann’s projecting private thoughts
.
She doesn’t want anyone to hear.

“I need to talk to her.”

Zack’s with you?
Ann couldn’t hear him when he was shielding, either.

Yeah. He wants to talk to you
.

I don’t want him to see me like this! I’m a mess!

She doesn’t want—
I began.

“I heard her.” He gave me a calculating look. “Maddie, I
need
to see her.”

I crossed my arms and scowled.
Not if she doesn’t want you to
.

“Don’t make me charm you.”

Don’t make me blast you, Zack. You just got out of a minder-induced coma. Another zap probably wouldn’t be good for you right now.

We squared off in the moonlight, each wondering if the other really meant the threat.

Zack dropped his shield.
I think I’m in love with her
.
I…I need to be with her
. His sincerity made his thoughts like glass—clear, sharp, and fragile.

I took a step back.
Ann, are you hearing this?

Zack? You…you think you’re in love with me?

Zack inhaled sharply as he felt the tenderness in her mental touch. His mind seemed to light up.

My lips twitched.
Okay, guess I don’t need to be here anymore.

Zack and I stepped around each other. I made my way back to the van.

How’s Ann?
Trevor asked as my arms wrapped around his waist.

Zack’s talking to her. She’s pretty upset.

Are you all right?

Tired.
I grimaced.
This has been one long, weird day. How are you holding up?

Terribly
.
I broke my word.

What? When?

I promised to tell you something—when it was all over and we were safe.

I smiled, remembering.
The night’s not over yet.

Maddie?

Um-hmm?

I love you. I love you with every fiber of my soul.

My response flashed from words into a silver glow as Trevor kissed me.

We’d needed to unload the gear to get the van up the steep grade, even with Trevor’s ability doing the brunt of the pushing. Ann and Zack returned—shielding and smiling—as we finished re-loading at the side of the road.

Drew drove the next shift. He and Harrison sat up front and talked about working on cars in hushed tones. Trevor leaned slack-jawed against the side of the van and slept deeply. I kept his hand in mine and listened for the start of a dream.

With Zack no longer out cold and taking up a whole bench, the van felt less crowded.
Hey, Zack?
I twisted on the seat, careful to keep contact with Trevor’s hand
. I’ve been wondering.
What was that thing with the giraffe?

He gave a quick laugh and kept his voice low. “I needed a trigger word that Trevor wouldn’t use in your conversation with Isaiah. I wanted to use something cool, but once I had ‘giraffe’ in my head, I couldn’t think of anything more impressive.”

Trigger word?
Did you charm them?
I remembered the plan he’d proposed months ago for getting the non-shielders into Isaiah’s home in Peapack. I leaned forward as the thought hit me.
Wait, were THE SPARKS the moles we felt? That’s just…bizarre.

“I couldn’t make them completely invisible and keep them conscious, so I had to command them to believe they were animals. Ann said she couldn’t feel human thoughts from them. We were pretty sure Isaiah wouldn’t sense there were people there, either. I worried that he might RV them, but I hoped you’d keep his concentration on you.”

You charmed people into thinking like moles.
I tried to wrap my brain around it. I had to admit—it was outside-the-box thinking.
And the sparks—they were okay with this?

I filled them all in after you two left. Full disclosure
. His thoughts popped into my consciousness like a jack-in-the-box as his shield dropped. I saw how he’d explained it to them—
”mental camouflage.”
He’d tested it on a volunteer—Drew—while the others watched. His memories flashed through the dark to me.

“Drew. I’m going to count down from ten. When I finish, the human part of you will go to sleep until you hear the word ‘giraffe.’”

“If I wake up as part of your stage act in Vegas, man, I’m setting your hair on fire.”

“You’ll be a mole—a rodent happy to be in its burrow. When you hear the word ‘giraffe,’ you’ll wake up, instantly alert and ready to attack Isaiah.”

Not bad, Zack.
I had to give him credit.
I gotta admit, I couldn’t tell they were anything but moles
.
The pain slowed us down, though.

“Pain?” Zack frowned.
What pain?

“Minders feel the pain of the people around them.” Ann’s voice was hoarse. She’d had been following along, still shielding strongly. I didn’t know what she and Zack had done to get her shielding again, but it was effective. She wasn’t talking mentally, though.

And I have no way to block it from Trevor when we’re shielding together
.

Zack looked from Trevor’s sleeping profile to me. “So you two felt the—the
burning
when the sparks attacked Isaiah?”
They felt what it’s like to be...burned alive?
Guilt seemed to slap him from the inside. The plan had been his idea, after he’d heard about Isaiah’s attack on us at my mom’s house.

Yeah, it hurt back then, too.