Broken Shadows (4 page)

“I’ll just...go, then.”

I opened my eyes. “I just want to get back to sleep. I’m really sorry.” For lots of things.

“Well...I’m right here if you need me.”

I nodded without looking at him, and he finally left, shutting the door silently behind him. I let out the breath I’d been holding. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d known just how not fine I was.

Chapter Four

I woke up embarrassed.

It was morning. The shower was running, and the red-lighted alarm clock on the bedside table said it was 7:00 a.m. I groaned and debated the possibility of pretending I was still asleep until he left for work. Unfortunately, I had to pee. I waited as long as I could, but the situation was getting critical. I pulled on a robe and went out.

The bathroom door was closed, but I didn’t hear the shower running. I took a step closer, hopeful.

The door opened and Jackson came out, a dark blue towel wrapped around his trim waist. I yelped and skittered back, flattening myself against the wall. He gave me a sheepish look.

“Sorry. Forgot my robe.”

“It’s okay.” I didn’t know where to put my eyes. I settled on the crown molding above his head, thinking this was one more reason I needed to leave. Knowing he was a bad idea didn’t make him any less pleasant to look at. “You aren’t used to having someone else in your space.” At least I thought he wasn’t. For all I knew, when he didn’t have houseguests, he brought home a new woman every night.

“I don’t mind,” he said, and I glanced at his face. His mouth quirked and I flushed crimson, wondering if he’d heard me.

“Still. I—whoa.” My eyes strayed to his chest. It was marred with a row of angry red marks. “Are you okay? What are those?”

Jackson stretched his neck and frowned, looking down at himself. “I dunno. Hadn’t even noticed.”

I took another step toward him. He didn’t move. Memory fired in my brain—the mugger. The blisters on his hand. Jackson holding my wrists as I came out of the dream.

“What?” he said.

I raised my hand and fit my fingers over the marks. His skin was warm and damp from the shower, and my fingers were cold, but he didn’t flinch. My palm matched the pattern on the marks almost perfectly. I looked up and met his eyes.

“I hurt you.” They didn’t look like bruises. They looked like burns. But that wasn’t possible.

“Nah. Shower must’ve been too hot.”

“If it was hot enough to do that, it would’ve cooked you.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” His muscles rippled under my palm, and I dropped my hand. The back of my fingers grazed his abs, and I blushed and stepped back.

“I’m, uh, gonna go put some clothes on.”

“Right, yeah, of course.” I retreated into the spare room. He turned to go into his room, and I saw that on his back was a series of numbers. They weren’t tattoos—they looked more like brands. I’d never noticed them before. Then again, this was only the second time I’d seen him half-naked.

I went into the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth. The spot where the mugger had backhanded me had developed into a purple smudge overnight. I pressed the place gingerly. It was tender but not too bad. When I came out, Jackson was in the hallway in full corporate armor, reading something on his phone.

“Going to work on a Saturday?” I said.

“No rest for the wicked. There’s cereal if you want it.”

“Right. Thanks. I’ll chip in for the grocery bill.”

He waved me off. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, really.”

He chose not to respond to this. “You have the extra key?”

I nodded.

“I’ll be back around six. Call if you need me.” He jiggled his phone.

“Sure.”

“See you tonight.”

“I may be gone,” I felt compelled to say. You never knew. A miracle could happen.

Jackson nodded and looked down at his briefcase. The strap wavered up and fell back down again. He frowned a little and bent to pick it up. “Weird.” He shook his head. “Powers are fuzzy.” He rubbed his temples. “Anyway, stay as long as you want.”

He left through the front door, and I leaned my head against the wall in the hallway and banged it three times.

Okay, so he was attractive. I mean, what woman wouldn’t be attracted to the man? He had those bright green eyes and those cut biceps. And he was nice. And he had this fancy bachelor pad with the thick white rug in front of the fireplace. But I was not interested. He was not interested. And a relationship with a shadowmind was the last thing I needed. I banged my head on the wall once more. Time to go and see about getting a new key to my soon-to-be-ex-apartment.

* * *

“You were
mugged?
” Doc’s voice was thick with sleep even though it was after noon. I’d called her from the DMV. Even though I’d gotten there the second it opened, the wait to get my license replaced was hours long.

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Oh, Mina.” I could almost see her pacing. “I thought you were staying with Avery. I told the new buyers they could go ahead and take possession if they’d credit us the rent.”

“Oh God.” The words slipped out before I could stop them. I knew the Center still owed money Doc was planning to pay out of her own pocket, but I hadn’t known this.

“It’s not a problem, is it? I thought I told you—they’re starting demolition soon. I really thought you’d already moved in with Avery and Stu.”

Christ.
Now I couldn’t tell her I needed to stay without revealing Avery’s secret.
“Everything’s fine. I just need to get a couple of things out.” I looked around Jackson’s spare bedroom and made myself admit I’d probably be staying in it whether I liked it or not.

An hour later, Doc met me at the Center with the key. “No point in getting the locks changed,” she said.

“I guess not.” I was going to have to put my things in storage. I mentally subtracted the cost of renting a storage locker from my security deposit calculation. I was going to have to find someone to help me move it all. Looking at my secondhand futon and beat-up dinette set, it hardly seemed worth the trouble. I packed my hair products and lotion, the rest of my clothes and makeup, and closed the door on the little place with a dusty slam.

Doc gave me a lift to the Muni station. She spent half the drive talking about a new project she had in mind, something about educational internet radio. “I hope you find something, Mina. I know it’s tough out there right now.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“You’ll let me know if you need anything, though, right? I mean, letters of reference or anything.”

“Of course.” I unloaded my suitcase from the trunk, and Doc drove off in the midday traffic.

My first real shift at the speakeasy was that evening, but Malik had said I could come in early and help with a delivery. I tucked my suitcase in the closet of Jackson’s spare room and took the train to the Mission. I was starving, so I splurged on a sandwich at a nearby café and hoped someone would be able to let me in to Simon’s. Fortunately, when I walked into Featherweight’s, Caleb gave me a little wink.

“Go around back. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

“Back?”

“The real employee entrance. In the alley. Go through the side door.” He pointed across the bar.

Catty-corner to the bathrooms was a red door with a pen-and-ink drawing of a cardinal mounted above it. I slid off the barstool and went to open it, finding that it led into the brick alley between the bar and the abandoned car dealership next door. After a minute or so, I heard a scraping sound, and Malik appeared from behind the Dumpster at the back of the alley. I walked over to meet hm.

“Jackson told me. You okay?” He lightly touched the bruise on my cheek with two fingers. It was still tender.

“I’m okay. Just shaken up.”

“Some shit. Hope he catches the guy. Come on—this way.” He ducked back behind the Dumpster.

“Wait.” I trotted to keep up with him. “You mean Jackson’s looking for him himself?”

Malik led me through a plain wooden door wedged open with a crushed beer can. Inside was a flight of stairs leading down.

“Sure,” he said as he led me down a flight of rickety wooden stairs to a short hallway. “It’s what he does.”

Great. As if I wasn’t imposing on him enough as it was, now he felt compelled to chase down my mugger. We came to the end of the hallway and another door, steel like the one at the main speakeasy entrance, but unpainted.

“Here’s your key.” Malik handed me a plain silver key. Its edges were still sharp. Freshly cut. He used a key of his own to open the door. “Takes you right into the storeroom.”

“Neat.”

We walked through said storeroom—really just an oversized pantry—then through a hallway with more doorways and alcoves cut into the concrete.

“How big is this place?” I asked, looking around. I walked a few yards down and saw that the hallway became a kind of tunnel as it curved out of sight.

“Oh, it’s huge,” Malik said. “Don’t go getting lost.”

“No problem.” The poorly lit tunnel with no visible end creeped me out more than a little.

I followed Malik across the hallway and into the main bar. None of the candles were lit, but the space was illuminated by a handful of electric bulbs spaced near the ceiling. I could see more of the graffiti in the brighter light—
Jackie Loves Allison
in thick block letters above the door, a sketch of a rabbit with fangs near the bathroom, a three-foot tall redwood tree occupying a previously dark corner. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Paulie at his usual barstool.

“Hi, Mina.”

“Roommates again?”

He mumbled something I couldn’t make out while looking at his empty glass.

“I usually prep garnishes before we open,” Malik said. “Have a lime or twenty.” He sent a crate of them floating up from the floor to
thunk
on the work surface in front of me.

“Sounds like a party.” I washed my hands, found a paring knife and started cutting. Malik was doing something fancy with a bag full of kiwifruit.

“Speaking of parties.” Malik finished peeling a kiwifruit in one long curl and sent the curl soaring into the compost bin. “Did I mention my band is in need of a keyboardist? And that we have a gig coming up?”

“You’re in a band?”

“Just some local shadowminds. Me and Paulie and a few others.”

Paulie nodded. “We’re The Green Eggs.”

I looked at Malik. “I didn’t pick it,” he said. “Anyway, you play keyboard, right?”

I sliced a lime exactly in half with one firm cut. “No.”

“No you don’t play?”

“No. I’m not interested.”

“Come on, Mina. The idiot shut his hand in the van door—he’s going to be out of commission for weeks.”

I held up a lime wedge. “Is this thin enough?”

“You’d get a quarter of the tips.”

I sliced another wedge.

“You know, I’m starting to think you don’t really play. Are you one of those posers who picks up guitars at parties and murders ‘Stairway to Heaven’?”

I gave him the most caustic glare I could manage. He chuckled.

“Don’t push her,” Paulie said. “You’ll end up like Greg.”

The guy who’d grabbed me. I frowned. “What happened to him?”

“Just lost his powers for a few hours. He’s fine.”

I froze with my paring knife sunk into the second lime. The image of Jackson flooded my mind, tall and perfect in his suit, his briefcase strap wavering. The memory of him holding me after my nightmare. The palm-shaped mark on his chest.

“Whoa,” Malik’s eyes went wide. “What happened with Jackson?”

I blushed crimson. Fucking telepaths. “Nothing.”

“You guys are into some kinky—”

“Shut up. I had a nightmare. He was...”

“Helping you forget about it?” Malik winked. Paulie gaped. I glared at them both.

“No! Jesus, you’re such a jerk. It’s just...weird stuff has been happening.”

“Weird like I-don’t-know-what-all-these-feelings-mean weird or weird like the-zombie-apocalypse-is-coming weird?”

“I don’t even know how to talk to you.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to see if you need relationship advice or a sawed-off.” He sent another kiwi peel into the bin.

I sliced a lime a little too hard and juice squirted all over my face. I wiped it off with the back of my hand and sighed, resigned. “Something in between.” I told Malik about the burns on the mugger’s hand and the marks on Jackson’s chest, the way his powers had been fuzzy. He was quiet for several long moments after I finished.

“That’s a first,” he said finally.

“But I’m sure it’s nothing. Just a coincidence, or whatever.”

“Wait,” Malik said. “The first time this happened was with Greg, right?”

“So you say. But nothing—oh.” The fire. I looked over to the charred spot where the table had been. My stomach felt hollow.

“Then the mugger. Then Jackson.” He held up fingers as he’d listed the incidents. “All three times these guys had their hands on you—” he waggled his eyebrows, and I rolled my eyes, “—and at least twice, they came away a little fuzzy.”

I frowned. “What are you saying?”

Malik shrugged and started shifting shot glasses from one shelf to another. “Think about it. The timelines make sense—maybe you’re absorbing power.”

Paulie was staring at me like a kid looking at his first
Playboy.

“That’s not possible,” I said.

But maybe it was.

Months ago, before I’d left, Cass had tried to fix me. She’d wanted to give her own power to me, force her ability to pull to run in reverse. It hadn’t worked. But had she rewired something in my shadowmind? I didn’t realize Paulie had been staring at me until he grabbed my hand.

“Let me try.” He lunged over the bar and gripped my hand between both of his, hard enough to make the bones rub painfully together. “Just for a second.”

“Paulie—what—no!”

I tried to pull away, but he was holding me too tightly. His palms were sweaty and cool, but as I struggled, a sensation of heat traveled from my hand to my arm to my chest. Warmth bloomed there, spreading, and with it came a kind of fluttery, heart-pounding feeling. Paulie’s face went slack with bliss.

“Oh, man, that is
awesome.
”

I yanked my hand back, furious. “Why did you do that?” I rubbed my hand where he’d touched me. It felt unnaturally hot. “Why would you do that?”

Paulie didn’t answer. His eyes were glazed.

The pulse-pounding panic I’d felt when Greg and the mugger had grabbed me rose up inside me. It wasn’t as intense, but it was still there, making my hands shake and my palms sweat. Jackson. I’d done this to Jackson. My brain played the events of the morning over and over, his warm skin marked with what must have been burns, his briefcase strap wavering as he tried to lift it. The hollow feeling in my stomach spread to my chest. I felt loose-limbed and sick, as though I might faint.