Twisted Miracles (8 page)

“Drink it, Cass. You need it.”

“Why?” He’d added cream, the way I’d once liked it. I raised the cup to my mouth and blew, but I didn’t take a sip.

“What did you feel, right before she blacked out?” he asked.

“I don’t really know. It was—it was like a converter surge, but stronger. A lot stronger.”

“You’re sure it was a converter? Could it have been something else?”

“I don’t know. I guess so. I mean, I’ve never felt anything quite like it. Why? What’s going on?”

Shane rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s her powers. They’re gone.”

“What do you mean—how can they be gone?”

“Bunny says the connections are damaged. I don’t know what she means. But she thinks it was a shadowmind who did it, probably a converter.”

“One of us?” I stared at him. “It couldn’t have been. How would that even work?” I thought about the man I’d seen in Mina’s memory. “Did you recognize that guy?”

Shane shook his head and sat down on the steps. “But that doesn’t prove anything. There’re bound to be converters around here we don’t know.”

I sat down, too, and took a sip of the coffee on reflex. The taste of it shocked me, like cola when you’re expecting water, and I set the mug down on the porch. “It’s not permanent, though, right? I mean—she’ll heal.”

Shane pressed his palms together at his lips and closed his eyes. “She might. But Bunny can’t find a way to fix her.” He opened his eyes and faced me. “Someone tore apart her powers. And it looks like they did it on purpose.”

* * *

I should have been booking a plane ticket back to San Francisco. Instead, I was calling local converters on my cell phone, asking them to come to a welcome-home party for Mina. At least, that was what we were saying. It was really a chance to get every telepath in the city to look at the man in Mina’s memory.

The Tooleys offered their place so we didn’t have to disturb the B&B guests, and since I was hopeless in the kitchen, I got assigned invitation duty while Shane and Lionel made stuffed mushrooms and jambalaya. I was shocked by how many people remembered me. I was prepared to explain—”used to live with the Tanners, just visiting”—but everyone knew exactly who I was. Mary Ellen Hebert’s mother, Deborah, asked me about California as if it were a foreign country, and Missy Gagnier spent fifteen minutes telling me about her middle daughter’s telekinetic kitchen disaster. Eggs everywhere.

At six o’clock Lionel left Bruce in charge of the B&B, and the four of us drove out to Lakeview in Shane’s Camaro. I managed to sit in the back, grateful to use Mina’s comfort as an excuse not to ride next to Shane. If he noticed, he didn’t comment.

I hadn’t been to Mac and Janine’s in years, but it felt almost as familiar to me as the B&B. They had a brick townhouse-style place with a neat front yard and a red brick walk. It had taken on water in Hurricane Katrina, but they’d had it renovated, and now you’d never know it had flooded.

The Tooleys were expecting us, so we went in without knocking and found Janine’s husband Mac on the back porch grilling burgers and hot dogs. We sat and talked and ate potato chips while the sun went down and people started trickling in, and eventually, the Tanners wandered into the kitchen so Mina could hold court. Shane gave me a look as he got up, but I stayed where I was, watching Janine set up a fire in a brick-lined pit in the yard.

I wasn’t alone for long. People wandered out of the kitchen, fished beers out of the cooler on the porch, started up conversations. Soon, there was a crowd. The Tooleys had a high wooden fence, and nearly everyone at the party was a shadowmind, so people were playing around. The Gagniers were roasting marshmallows over the fire, using their powers to turn them slowly, no sticks needed. My head started buzzing. I wasn’t used to shielding myself from so much mental activity, and I knew I was in for a rough night. I thought about my pills and took a gulp of beer.

Despite the pain building in my head, I wanted to join in. It would be so easy. I could stand next to Missy Gagnier with a marshmallow of my own and hear about the latest gossip she’d overheard in people’s heads. I could slip back into mindmoving as easily as walking, play telekinetic games with Missy’s kids and swap memories with the Heberts. This was why I couldn’t stay—why I shouldn’t stay. These people were my family in a way that went deeper than blood.

The Weatherfields had been decent, as foster parents went. They weren’t abusive, and they cared about me in their way. Kate and I looked so much alike, you’d never have known I wasn’t her natural daughter. We had the same straight blond hair, the same heart-shaped face and hazel eyes. The judge must’ve seen the same thing when he’d given them custody, but telepaths know better than most what skin-deep means. When Kate met Shane for the first time, I heard her thoughts as if she’d been shouting them
—good thing we adopted her—no telling what would’ve happened if she’d ended up raised with that family with those poor mixed-race kids—

It hadn’t taken her long to forbid me from seeing him. “Think of your children, Cass,” she’d said. “Would you want them to go through life like that?”
Like that
was Kate-code for
black.
The Tanners, the Tooleys, the Gagniers...they weren’t just the first people who’d known what I was; they were the first people I’d actually wanted to be around.

It felt too right, being home. Too natural. It was only a matter of time before I started using my powers again every day, for things like turning off light switches. I couldn’t let that happen. I didn’t want to think about how long it was going to take me to get them back under control. I was probably in for a solid month of nightmares. I had to tell Shane I was leaving.

I was trying to come up with the best way to do it when he came up behind me. For a moment he didn’t speak, and we both watched as Billy and Missy Gagnier’s oldest daughter Lanie caught her marshmallow on fire and had to stamp it out in the dirt.

“Nothing yet,” he said softly, his breath tickling my ear.

“Anyone not here?”

“Ryan. I think he’s working.”

I nodded and sipped my beer. “It was worth a shot.”

“Yeah. And more people have seen him now.” Shane looked back to the kitchen, where Mina was still sitting, opening her memory to a final few converters. “Maybe something’ll come up.”

I nodded again. He’d moved closer to me as we’d talked. I could feel the heat of his body. Someone had hauled out an old CD player and put on a Lucinda Williams album, and it was playing “Still I Long for Your Kiss.” Shane’s chest vibrated as he hummed along. Without thinking, I started swaying with the music, and as I moved, his hands came up to rest on my arms. He leaned forward into me, rocking me side to side with his body, following the slow beat of the song. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of the fire, relaxed into the simple, natural rightness of being this close to him.

“Wanna get out of here?”

I did. I didn’t want to admit it, but I did. My heart fluttered. I clamped down on it, scrambling for words. My brain called up the memory of kissing him on the porch, and my breathing quickened.

“Come on,” he said, his hands gentling on my arms, stroking. “Nobody’ll miss us.” He dropped his hand and traced a circle on my palm with his index finger. As I stood there watching the fire and trying to form coherent thoughts, he pressed a slow kiss to the base of my neck, swirling his tongue a tiny, teasing bit over my skin, promising all sorts of toe-curling things to come.

I had to say something. He was so close to me I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think about it logically. I wasn’t staying. I shouldn’t do this. But my body was reacting to his presence with a certainty that made logic irrelevant. Every part of me wanted to close the little distance left between us and get out of there, back home, to the back seat of his car, anywhere...

“I—” I stopped when someone’s hand landed on my shoulder.

“Hey, you two, you wouldn’t mind making a beer run, would you?” It was Janine. I smiled at her and breathed again. She smiled back, misinterpreting my relief for willingness. “We’re low, and I can’t send Mac—he’ll come back with ten times what we need.” She rolled her eyes.

“Sure thing,” Shane said, just as I was saying “Uh.” This wasn’t exactly the sort of interruption I’d been hoping for, but when he went back inside to get his jacket, I followed him.

We walked to the front porch, where an increasingly tipsy Mac was telling his joke about the Holy Spirit going on vacation for the fourth time that evening, this time to an empath from Slidell. I paused to laugh along with him at the punch line, delaying the inevitable. Shane walked ahead of me into the deserted street, and I was suddenly terrified of what might happen if we strolled through the Tooleys’ neighborhood unsupervised.

“Last one there carries it back!” I said, and took off running. Maybe it was cowardly, but I wasn’t in the mood to be brave.

“
You sure you want to play this game?
” Shane said. I was already fifty yards ahead of him, so I didn’t answer. “
Just remember it was your idea.
” I heard his footsteps on the asphalt. Moments later came the clatter of a fence as he vaulted over it.

“No cheating!” I yelled, and he laughed in my mind. Damn him, he was taking a shortcut that involved leaping over walls.

The fastest way to get to the liquor store,
without
trespassing through people’s backyards, was to zigzag six blocks. I sprinted, but Shane still beat me there. As I came up the block and leaned over with my hands on my knees, he was propped against one of the red brick columns out front, grinning.

“West Coast life’s making you soft,” he drawled.

“Don’t be such a predictable asshole,” I shot back.

“Come on, Blondie, you lost. Should we get one case or two?”

“Jerk. Didn’t Lionel teach you how to be a gentleman?”

“I can be a gentleman.” He held out his hand to help me up with an exaggerated flourish. “Abita Amber or Turbodog? Or both?” I glared at him, but I was relieved. Banter was preferable to the way he’d been making my heart pound by the fire.

We bought two cases, and I hauled one in each hand while Shane strolled behind me with his hands in his pockets, whistling.

“You could do it the easy way,” he said, looking pointedly at my straining fingers.

I glared. “I’ll get you back for this.”

“You lost fair and square.”

“Ha.”

“And it was your idea.”

He had me there. I stayed quiet.

“Turn here,” he said. “Shortcut.”

I followed Shane along the side of a salmon-pink brick two-story duplex to a wooden fence leading to the owners’ backyard. He cupped his hands together, and a ball of light gathered between his curved palms, pale gold and sending out sparks every few seconds. Shane took a deep breath, and it grew, expanding. He teased it up to chest level and let it hang there. By the glow, I could see the Tooleys’ house through the slats in the fence. Shane stood next to me, the light hanging between us like a lantern.

“How do you do that?” I’d seen it hundreds of times and I still didn’t know. Mina and Lionel had never mastered it, either.

“Just takes practice.” He turned toward me, and his face was lit strangely from below, the shadows moving as the ball pulsed and turned.

I set the beer down and stretched my aching fingers. “How will we get over?” I nodded toward the fence.

Shane rolled his eyes at me. “You are out of practice. The usual way, of course.”

“Shane...” I crossed my arms. “I gave it up, remember?”

“Come on, Cass.” I could hear what he didn’t say. “
Even now?
” When I didn’t respond he said, “Fine. Fine. I’ll lift you over.”

“Lift the beer over if you want. I’ll walk back.”

“You can’t even let me help you?” Shane moved closer to me. I took a step back and came up hard against the brick side of the house. “I won’t drop you,” he said softly.

“I know.” I avoided his gaze.

“Cass.” He reached out to touch my arm. I closed my eyes, trying not to let my heart rate speed up, trying not to let my breath come faster. Losing battle. I turned my head sideways, felt his breath on my cheek.

“No,” I said.

He dropped his hand. “All right.” I opened my eyes and watched as the cases of beer sailed off the ground and over the fence. Shane flew over like a pole-vaulter and looked at me from the other side.

“See you there,” he said through the gaps, and turned away from me.

Chapter Seven

When I got back to the party, Shane was drinking a beer in the kitchen and talking to Mary Ellen Hebert. I hadn’t seen her since high school, and she’d changed. Got contacts, got curvier. She had the same green eyes and dark red hair, but she’d grown it out and arranged it in a complicated braid. She looked beautiful. I hated her.

“Cass. Hey, Cass!” Someone’s hand on my shoulder brought me out of my daze. It was Ryan Tooley.

“Hey, Ryan.” I flicked my eyes toward Shane. He wasn’t watching, but I knew he was listening. “When did you get here?” I leaned back against the wall, and Ryan rested his forearm against the doorway above my head.

“‘Bout an hour ago. Just coming off a shift.”

“Did you get a chance to see Mina?”

He nodded, serious for a moment. “I didn’t recognize the guy, though. I’m glad she’s all right.”

“Yeah. We’re hoping with enough people looking, we’ll be able to track him down.”

“It’s a big city.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “So, you staying long?” I was saved from coming up with an answer by the arrival of Shane and Mary Ellen. The two men clasped hands briefly, and Mary Ellen pulled me into a hug.

“It’s been so long!” She squeezed and let go. “How have you been?”

It was too complicated. “Fine.”

“You have to tell me all about California. I’ve always wanted to go. My mom told me you’d moved out there, and I knew I had to talk to you. Shane said you’ve been there five years.”

I glanced over at him. He was sipping his beer. “Uh, yeah.”

She leaned in and lowered her voice. “What’s the job market like? I’m a CPA now—did you know? But nobody’s hiring down here. You think I’d have a chance out there?” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Sometimes I just want to get out of here. You know?”