The 6th Power (18 page)

Jumped out of bed and hustled down the stairs. Mom was doing laundry. Decided not to bother her until I was sure. Headed out the backdoor.

Chet was there, standing over Nate. He wasn’t helping him or anything. He was just standing there, holding his baseball bat. He started going through his warm-up routine, same thing he did every time he was coming up to bat. 

Just stood there, staring at him, not believing my eyes. Sure, Chet was furious with the shrimp, but this…  

Before I even knew I was going to do it, my mouth opened and I said, “Chet.”

He jumped and looked at me, annoyed, getting angry. I took a deep breath and walked towards him, hands in my pockets, not threatening, and said, “What are you doing?”

“What do you care?” he sneered.

I swallowed and said, “What did you do to him?”

Chet lowered the bat and nudged Nate in the back. “This? This is the shrimp’s own fault. I haven’t done anything to him. Yet.”

When I pulled my hands from my pockets, they were already squeezed into fists. I stepped between my brothers and got up in Chet’s face. “Leave him alone,” I said, and was pretty surprised at how calm I sounded.

Chet looked surprised, too, but just for a second. Then the anger came back. The anger always came back. He grabbed the collar on my shirt and pulled me close. “What in the heck do you think you’re doin’, pretty boy?”

For the first time, I got angry right back at him. I gave him a shove, breaking his hold on me. “You’re going too far! You wanna kill him?”

“I told you, he needs to be taught how things work around here. Apparently, so do you. I guess you’ve forgotten what I’ve done for you, what you owe me.”

I remembered. We were both in junior high. I was sitting on my bed, bawling. Chet sat beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. 

“Dude,” he said, “it’s going to be okay.”

“No, it’s not,” I cried. “I’m flunking almost everything. The counselor says I’m gonna have to repeat eighth grade. Mom and Dad are gonna kill me. Everyone will know I’m a loser, and you and I aren’t gonna be in the same grade anymore.”

Chet patted my shoulder again, then gave it a squeeze. “Listen, no twin of mine is ever gonna be a loser. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.”

I wiped my eyes and looked at him. “How?”

He smiled. “I’ll take a dive.” I frowned at him and he explained. “I’ll flunk out, too. That way, you and I can repeat eighth grade together.”

“But you’re smart,” I said. “You can’t do that. And what about baseball?”

“No biggie. I’ll play again next year, and by the time I hit high school, I’ll be big enough that I can get on the varsity team as a freshman. Plus, if we both flunk, nobody will dare to call you an idiot because then they’ll have to deal with me.”

It was the coolest thing that anyone had ever done for me, and as I remembered it, I stepped back from Chet, uncertain.

But Nate was still lying there. I’d picked on the shrimp for years, but I didn’t hate him. I didn’t want him dead. I just did it because, for the most part, it was kinda funny. And it was what Chet wanted me to do. I shook my head and said, “I haven’t forgotten, Chet, but you can’t do this. I…”

He moved so fast, dropping the bat, stepping forward and swinging, hitting me in the gut, lifting me up off of my feet. It felt like I was hovering there for a long time, and then I was on my knees, gasping for breath.

First time he ever hit me, but I couldn’t even say that I was surprised about it. I’d always figured he’d eventually get around to me. In a way, it was kinda nice. The other shoe had finally dropped, and I didn’t have any more doubts about what to do next. 

Chet picked up the bat and started towards Nate again. I lunged, grabbed his foot, and he stumbled and fell. “Stop it,” I wheezed, holding on tight. 

He turned and glared at me, kicking out, breaking my hold. He swung his foot back around, connecting with the side of my head. I could feel my brain slosh, everything went tippy, and I fell back.

“You’re pathetic,” Chet said, standing up and grabbing his bat. “You’re just like the shrimp, thinking you can tell me what to do.” He was standing over me. I knew that he was going through his warm up routine again. “You’re gonna take his side? You’re gonna get what’s coming to him.”

I was hurt, but not nearly as bad as I was pretending. Chet bought it, though. He grunted, swinging at me. I rolled into him, cutting him off at the legs, the bat swishing as it went by me. Chet wobbled and fell over again, but I knew he’d be back up in a second, and then I’d be in real trouble. So I took a deep breath and finally spoke up.

“Mom! Come quick! Nate fell out of the tree!”

Chapter 23

W
ow. I had not expected that.

I settled back into my own body and opened my eyes. The doctors and nurses were gone. I still felt pretty warm and sleepy, the pain killers doing their job. Mom was sitting beside my bed, holding my hand, dozing. She probably hadn’t had much sleep the night before, being in the hospital, being worried. Part of me wanted to get some kind of satisfaction from that, that she’d actually had to pay attention to me for once, but I just couldn’t muster it. I remembered the love that I’d felt from her when I was in her mind, and all of my old grudges just didn’t seem that important.

And Robert? Still couldn’t believe that he’d actually fought Chet in order to save me. I always knew that he was just Chet’s henchman all these years, but I guess he had his limits, too.

But Chet… I still didn’t understand him. He intentionally flunked his classes so that Robert wouldn’t be alone, then ends up trying to kill Robert just because he protected me. Why was he like this? What happened to him? Was he brain damaged? Too many violent video games? Someone traumatized him with the got-your-nose game when he was a toddler?

Things started getting fuzzy again. Hard to think. Closing my eyes seemed like a great idea.

When I opened them again, the sun was in a different position. Mom was still there, awake now, holding Kiki, talking with Dad. Someone was standing in the hallway, looking in at me.

Chet. His arms were folded. His face was expressionless. Fear shot through me. I was lying there, helpless, and…

Deep breath. Calm down. I wasn’t helpless, at least not for a few more hours. I still had the psychic power. I could still get inside of Chet’s mind and try to figure out some way to stop him. But, to be honest, I was a little scared to look. In the movies, if a monster is wearing a mask, it’s usually because he’s even scarier underneath it. Of course, when the monster’s true face is revealed in a movie, it’s usually a surprise. I doubted that I’d be surprised by whatever darkness I’d find in Chet’s head. So, before I could lose my nerve, I sent myself into my brother’s mind.

Turns out, it wasn’t dark at all. It was white.

Completely white. A room that was so white, it was hard to make out the walls and the ceiling. Nothing in it. Just… white.

It was also cold, which was kind of strange as I didn’t think that temperature changes should be noticeable to a psychic ghost. But then again, it wasn’t a goose-bumps, I-want-some-cocoa kind of cold. It was more of a complete absence of warmth. I realized that when I had been in other minds, I had been sensing more than just the thoughts of my host. I had also been feeling their emotions. Mom was all fear and sorrow and love. Robert was nervousness and happiness around Lorelei. But Chet was just… nothing. No emotion whatsoever.

Weird. Freaky weird.

I ran my hands along the walls. Smooth. No doors. No seams. That didn’t make any sense. In everyone else’s mind, there were ways to access memories. Did Chet not have any memories? No, he was just hiding them. But why? It wasn’t like he knew that someone with psychic powers was going to be visiting, did he?

Then I thought about my brother. Except when it was just the two of us, when he was about to make me miserable, he always had a mask on. He was The Good Son, the kid that everyone liked. The baseball star. How did he do that? How did he keep the nastiness under wraps all the time? Apparently, he put up a wall and made sure that his true self didn’t get out unless he wanted it to. Which meant that his Good Son disguise wasn’t just skin deep, it was a part of who he really was. Jekyll and Hyde, but no potion needed to make the change. My feeling of unease, my desire to just get the heck out of here, increased. Still needed answers, though, so how did I get through the wall?

Well, come to think of it, I’d already gotten through Chet’s walls a couple of times that week, hadn’t I?

My dad spends a lot of time on his laptop coming up with presentations for clients, trying to make his ideas for their campaigns look as awesome as possible. If it’s a big client, he’s often up late, practicing his pitch, using a projector to flash images of cars or toilet bowl cleaners or breakfast cereals on the wall of his study. The projector is strictly off-limits to the rest of us, but with a thought, I conjured up a duplicate, accessed some memories, and started up a little home movie. The white walls made for a great screen. There I was, flushing the toilet while Chet showered. Making him spew orange juice. Making him spew a lot more in Mr. Magellan’s yard. Getting him in trouble with Mom. Lying to him. Flying away from him.

As the memories played, the walls started turning from white to red, and the temperature went from glacial to volcanic. No, that wasn’t right. The walls weren’t turning red. They were becoming transparent, and there was a fire behind them.

I looked through the walls in Chet’s mind and I saw the inside of Coralberry Comics and Collectibles, and instead of the pristine shop of Mr. Magellan’s mind, this was my last memory of the place, an inferno, fire engulfing everything. Didn’t make any sense. Why would I be seeing my memory in Chet’s head? But then I realized that I was looking at the fire from the back of the shop.
I was standing in the open doorway, the door that led to the back alley. There was an empty gas can at my feet. I was holding a tire iron, pulled from the mess of our garage, and I’d used it to pry open the door. There was a lighter in my other hand.

I saw the shrimp’s most favorite place in the world going up in flames, and it was beautiful.

I turned and ran out of the alley, down the street. The tire iron and the lighter went down a storm drain, and then I found a place to hang out and enjoy the show. The sirens started up. The lights started flashing. People ran out of the shops, bleating, waving their hands. Hilarious. Wished I had a camera.

I checked the skies, waiting for him to show up. Still didn’t know how he was doing all of this. Super powers. Figures he’d need super powers to stand up to me. But the how of it didn’t matter, not right now. Once he saw the smoke, I knew that he wouldn’t be able to resist checking it out, and I was right.

The shrimp was up there. Him and the girl. They were hovering in the smoke and almost got hit by the news chopper. He dropped her, which figures, but he managed to catch her and then they flew off and landed behind the sporting goods store. I followed.

He was just sitting there in the alley, waiting for her. I could have jumped him right there, but I’d meant what I’d said. Beating up the shrimp wouldn’t do any good. I’d been trying to keep him in his place all these years and apparently I’d been too soft on him. He needed to lose something that he cared about, and the comic shop was just the beginning. I stood there, out of sight, watching him and Hating him. I hated him from the first moment I saw him. Life had been good when it was just me and Mom and Dad and Robert. Then along came the shrimp and it all became about him.

That wasn’t how things were supposed to work.

At first, I hassled him because he was annoying and it was fun. He would whine and cry and he just disgusted me so much. How could a brother of mine be so weak? So I put things in order. I made sure that the shrimp knew that if he told on me, he’d regret it. I made sure that Robert was completely loyal to me by flunking out with him.  I made sure that Mom and Dad thought that I was awesome. Then I just kept things orderly, every day.

Until this week.

The girl came back and gave the shrimp a ridiculous orange mask. He flew off. She went to the end of the alley and watched him go. There was a lot of traffic on that road. Emergency vehicles coming and going. People running away from the fire or coming to watch. Where she was standing, right by that busy road, it just wasn’t safe.

Quickly, quietly, I came up behind her and waited until there was a car coming, driver talking on his cell phone, and I just… pushed.

So easy. Now she was here, too. Right down the hall from the shrimp. Wasn’t in nearly as good of shape as he was, though. I…

Pain shot through my body and I was wrenched back into myself. The room was dark, the door was closed, the blinds were all drawn and the overhead light was off. The glow from the monitors showed me that Chet was standing over me, squeezing my bruised and burnt shoulder.

“Wakey wakey,” he said, his voice low, his eyes gleaming.

Chapter 24

W
e were alone, just the two of us, and for once, I was glad for it.

Tears came to my eyes, and it wasn’t from the pain. Chet had hurt Hannah. He’d burned down the shop, nearly burned down the town, all just to get back at me. He was a sick, twisted freak and…

I groaned as he squeezed my shoulder again and I had to work at not passing out. Chet finally let go, sat down on the side of my bed, and chuckled quietly.

“Wow. You really got messed up in that fire yesterday, didn’t you? Doc Summers told Mom and Dad that you probably won’t walk again. Freaked them out pretty good, I’ll tell you. Poor little shrimp boy, puttering around in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Mom’ll have two babies to look after.”