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Stacey Klemstein

thought.

But, God, for better or worse, had other plans. The connection between Caelan and I snapped. I felt it go missing like someone had taken my arm or leg. I knew what that absence meant: Caelan was dead. Whatever grief I might have felt was lost in the relief that I would soon be following him. Whatever energy I had departed and I fell on Slick, who was greatly weakened but not yet dead. Then, the strangest sensation, a buzzing in my ears and numbness in my skin, spread throughout my body, taking away all pain and leaving behind only the sense of a faint electrical current.

The end is not bad, I thought dimly. No worse than that first connection with Caelan.

It took me a full second to realize what was happening, to understand that this was not yet death. It was a connection. Slick and I were connected, which meant I had power, not much but maybe enough. I moved my eyes, the only movement I was allowed in this kind of connection, toward Caelan's body. If I could just figure out how to get this power into him, maybe that would be enough. I knew I didn't have much time. Slick was heading out of this world at a rapid clip, which at least kept me from being sucked into his thoughts, but I wasn't far behind him. If I could just...

A leg, covered in gray wool trouser material, appeared in front of my eyes, and Nevan knelt before me, blood dripping from a gash down the side of his face. Apparently, he hadn't been able to maintain his distance completely and somebody had gotten him, just not finished him.

No, I wanted to shout.

"Ms. Mitchell, if I do not survive, neither will you." And he leaned forward and closed his hand around my wrist to pull me up. The power flowed from Slick through me and out of the hand being clutched by Nevan. After a long second, I felt Nevan's hand tear off me, but I didn't scream. There was no pain now, only darkness and oddly, the smell of hot dogs cooking on the grill. And then nothing at all.

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Chapter 21

"...where are you taking her?"

"...needs medical attention we cannot provide." Sirens, loud piercing ones, and the cold, biting into my skin, pulled me from the black void but only for a moment.

"...open your eyes, sweetheart. What's her name..."

"...non-responsive."

"...Jesus, did you see her eyes? The blood vessels are shot..."

"...major blood loss...units of O negative." A sharp pain in my arm, then warmth, then a blissful empty darkness.

Later, the light and cold woke me. Before I opened my eyes, I could see the brightness through my eyelids. And while the rest of me was warm, my toes were numb with cold. I dragged my feet up to get them warm and then tried to curl up on my side, away from the light. But the pull of something on my right arm kept me from reaching that comfort.

A sound between a laugh and a cry startled me into alertness. My heart pounded harder in my chest.

"I told them if I uncovered your feet, you'd wake up." Scott's voice.

I turned my head in the direction of his voice and tried opening my eyes. They cooperated long enough to give me a glimpse of him in a much too bright room before closing again.

"Turn off the lights, will you? It's bright enough in here for surgery," I croaked. My throat was dry and sore. I heard him move past me in a rustle of clothing, then the lights dimmed, relief for my weary eyeballs. "Yeah, you know those crazy doctors, wanting to actually see what they're doing in the hospital." I heard him sit down again, the squeak of furniture 232

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against the floor.

I opened my eyes again, and this time, they stayed open. Scott was at the side of my bed, perched on the edge of a chair, hands wrapped around my bed rail. His face was pale, and his glasses accentuated the dark circles beneath his eyes and the red puffiness of his eyelids. The more than five o'clock shadow on his jaw still made a stranger out of this familiar face, though he'd been shaving for more than four years now.

"What happened? What hospital is this?" I fingered the IV

line into my right arm.

"This is St. Joe's in Minocqua, Wisconsin. The ambulance brought you here after...after." He looked down at his hands for a moment, tapping his forefinger against the rail. "You looked dead. I...I couldn't find a pulse, but they, the ones that knew you, they said you were still in there. They carried you to this old hunting lodge and gave me a phone to call the ambulance. Then, they left." He shook his head. "Zara, what's going on?"

"Did they say where they were going?" I clutched at his hand. He jerked his head up, staring at me. "No, they didn't."

"What happened to Nevan? Did he get away?"

"Who?" Scott's body tensed up like he was going to leap up and ring for a nurse at any second.

"The guy in the suit, the one that took you from home," I said impatiently.

An odd expression crossed Scott's face, and he pulled his hand out from underneath mine. "He's dead, Zara. You charbroiled him." He swallowed hard, staring at me. "He grabbed you and flames started shooting out from your hand. You burned him until there was nothing left." He crossed his arms around himself, tucking his hands underneath, looking down at his feet. "You want to tell me how you did that, Zar?"

Slick must have been a fire carrier, like Namere. I sank back into my bed, relieved. "It doesn't matter. What about Caelan?" 233

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"You mean the other guy that died?" The words, delivered with such innocence, drove a hole through me. Breath escaped from me in a cry, which I stifled, but not before Scott heard it. He scooted his chair away and stood, his back to me, looking out the window.

"Tell me what's going on, Zara," he said. "The police, the FBI and the news people, they're all outside, waiting for you to wake up to answer questions. They've been asking me and asking me because they think I was part of this somehow, but I don't even know what happened."

I looked up at him, startled. "How long have I been here?" He ignored my question. "I was at the house, taking the garbage outside, and then this guy, this...alien appears right in front of me. He took my phone from me and then hit me, and when I woke up again, he handed the phone to me, but before I could figure out what was going on, he took it away. Then he kept hitting me, and I tried to fight back but..."

"Scott, I'm sorry." Tears stung my eyes, and I reached out a hand for him, but he didn't turn away from the window.

"And then the next thing I know, I'm falling on the floor, covered in blue stuff and these Observers, these aliens are everywhere, fighting each other. And you..." He turned to stare at me with that same look of horror that I'd seen in the Awakening Chamber. "You were pinned to the wall with that alien choking you and blood pouring out of your nose and mouth." Tears spilled down his cheeks and he jerked his fist across his face, drying them without looking at me.

"Scott, it's going to be okay," I said.

"The hell it is." His face crumpled as he turned away. "I watched you burn someone alive. And you were glad about it. I saw it in your face, just now. You were glad you'd killed him."

"Scott." I tried hard to stay calm, to keep from grabbing at him and shaking him. "You don't understand. If that hadn't 234

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happened, we all would have been dead."

"We all who?" he shouted. "It was just you and me in that room. Everybody else was one of them."

My stomach twisted hearing his words. He didn't know the truth about me. If he did...I couldn't think about that now. "There is an explanation, Scott, a good one."

"There better be. There's about a hundred cops and secret agent guys out there waiting to hear it." He took off his glasses and dried his eyes on his sleeve.

I hadn't even thought about that. What was I going to say to them?

"So let's hear it." Scott sat back down his chair. "Let's hear the explanation that makes sense of all this."

"All right." My mind chugged along, trying to decide which pieces of the story to censor, which ones would only make him worry more or embarrass him. "But there are some things you just can't repeat, Scott, not to anyone."

"I won't." He set his glasses on the table next to my bed and rubbed his eyes. "Who'd believe me anyway?" He looked up at me then with a grim smile.

I froze, struck by the memory of his face pale and without glasses, an island in a sea of blue fluid. He had been vulnerable and alone then, and I couldn't help him. Could that happen again?

I had information now that some, particularly Nevan's fellow Council members, might be nervous about. If I told Scott, would that put him back in danger again?

"Don't keep it from me, Zara." Scott's voice was tight. "If you're worried about someone coming after me because I know, you can stop. They'll assume I know even if I don't and kill me anyway, right alongside you."

I stared at him. The hardened edge in his voice when he talked about death, that was new. Courtesy of me and this little adventure, I was sure. No eighteen-year-old guy, a freshman in 235

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college and rushing three fraternities, spoke about death that way.

"They'll know, Scott, if I've told or if I haven't." I sagged back on my bed, cradling my left arm, which was beginning to throb beneath the heavy bandages. "I don't know if it'll make it any safer for you to keep you in the dark, but I can't risk it. If they find out you know what happened, they might kill you for it. But they might spare you, if I keep my mouth shut." Scott shoved away from my bed, sending the chair crashing to the floor. "I won't tell them anything. I won't tell them I know." He loomed above me, his face growing red, his hands on his hips. He looked just like Dad when he was angry. Dad...his dad, not mine. Not anymore.

Blinking back tears, I shook my head. "I can't, Scott. I'm sorry."

He nodded his head in a jerking motion. "Fine, fine. You go ahead and keep your secrets, Zara. They'll find out anyway." He gestured toward the window where I presumed the aforementioned police and media were gathered. "Then you'll be screwed. And I won't be able to help you."

"It's better this way." I gritted my teeth, knowing how I would take those words.

"Fuck you, Zara." He snatched up his glasses and stormed out.

Yeah, pretty much like that.

The sounds of his shoes slapping against the hard floor in angry retreat had barely faded before a knock sounded at my door. I looked up to find a stranger, a dark-haired man in a suit, standing in the open doorway. My breath caught in my chest until he stepped into the room a little further, giving me a clear view of his non-silver eyes. I relaxed a tiny bit.

"Ms. Mitchell?"

I nodded.

He reached inside his suit coat and produced a wallet which 236

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he flipped open. FBI stood out on his id card in bright blue letters. Shit. I'd only been awake for fifteen minutes. I'd thought I would have a little longer to prepare.

"I'm Agent Matt Brickman with the FBI. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

Okay, keep calm. He can't read minds so this can't be anywhere near as tough as dealing with the Observers, I counseled myself. I shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant, without seeming like I was trying too hard. "Have a seat."

"I understand you just woke up from a rather extensive nap." He picked up the chair that Scott had knocked over and sat in it.

"I'm sorry?" I frowned. My confusion, for now, was genuine.

"Ms. Mitchell–"

"Call me Zara."

He shifted a little in his seat. "All right. Zara. You've been here for almost three days."

His words seemed to hang in the air for a moment, my mind refusing to make sense of them. "Three days." I repeated. I'd thought maybe a few hours, most of the night perhaps, but never this long. I shoved back the covers, making the IV pole wobble precariously. "I have to go. I have to find...they could be anywhere by now." My heart ached at the idea that they'd taken Caelan somewhere. Taken him and buried him, without me.

"Who? Ms. Mitch...I mean, Zara." Brickman's words broke into my panicked haze.

I stopped, my feet dangling over the bed.

"Your captors? I understand from your brother's statement that the ringleader," he paused, consulting a small pad of paper he'd pulled from his suit coat, "a silver-haired, older looking man, is dead. But under some very strange circumstances." He closed the notebook. "Would you care to share your version of events with me? Starting from when you left Texas, of course." I swallowed hard, my throat drying out and the burn on my 237

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arm beginning to throb beneath the bandages. "What did Scott say?" I asked.

Brickman smiled at me, transforming him from average to good-looking, even though the smile didn't quite reach his normal brown eyes. "Now, Zara, how are we supposed to get an untainted version of the truth if I tell you what all the other witnesses said?

Your statement would be compromised."

All the better, I thought. I gestured at the water pitcher sitting on the bedside table. "Could you?"

He nodded and poured me a glass. "Slowly," he said, handing it to me. "You've been sleeping for awhile, no solid food or water. Your stomach might overreact."

I frowned. "Thank you, Doctor Brickman." If I'd been asleep for that long, how come nobody had come to check on me before they let him in here? I took a long swallow of cold water, feeling its sharp wonderfulness cut the stickiness in my mouth. Brickman shot a casual, but still uneasy look over his shoulder at the door. Answer: they didn't know I was awake and that he was in here. The nurse's call button lay almost under my thigh. I could have pressed it with no problem right then. But that wouldn't have fixed the problem. Brickman, I could tell, wouldn't leave me alone until he got his answers. He'd sneaked into my hospital room for God's sake. So, I had to tell him something. But what? If I told him the truth, they'd probably have me locked up somewhere–take the nice pills, Zara, they'll make you feel all better. But if I lied about the whole thing, then they'd have no idea what the Observers were really up to. Then when the fake attack Nevan had talked about commenced, they'd believe it, no hesitation. I drained the last of the water and handed the cup back to Brickman.