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The Silver Spoon

But right now, I had to find out what was going on and keep Scott safe. If I went home, he would come home, too. And if Nevan were still hanging around... I shook my head to clear the image. I didn't even want to think about the possibilities. Regret pulling hard at my heart, I turned the power off on Caelan's cell phone and dropped it back into his jacket pocket. I turned on the water in the sink, then washed my hands and splashed cold water on my face to keep the tears at bay. Drying my face on the hem of my shirt, I headed back out into the main room with Caelan's jacket and laid it at the foot of the bed. Caelan had slept through it all. With nothing else to do but wait, I turned on the television. I only managed to flip by two channels before I saw it. The local early morning news was running the story. They had my high school senior picture–does the phrase "big hair" mean anything to you–with the word

"Abducted?" plastered across it. Even on CNN–I couldn't believe this dump had cable–they had a blurb running across the bottom of the screen. "26 yr old waitress disappears from Silver Springs, TX. Local authorities consider an Observer to be the primary suspect."

"Damn." I turned away from the television and went to the side of the bed where Caelan lay.

"Caelan?" I said softly. I didn't want to startle him or break his concentration, if that was what this absolute stillness was. His eyes opened for a split second, then closed again before I had time to ask him if he was all right.

I looked down to check his back, and I couldn't believe what I saw. Instead of the ragged and furrowed skin that had almost made me throw up, his back appeared smooth, though still bloody. Wherever there had been an injury with glass or metal or wood, only a healing pink line remained and near each of those lines, the piece of debris that had once been in his flesh. I picked up a shard of glass and stared at it. You could still 58

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see where the blood had clotted to the smooth surface. There was no question–it had once been under his skin. His body had forced it out like a splinter. Could they all do that? And if they could, what else could they do?

"No wonder everyone's afraid of you guys," I muttered. I saw the tattoo just as I started to move away from him. It was like none I'd ever seen before, and I've seen my share. In the small of Caelan's back, flames engulfed a bluish green planet. But the shades of blue, green, red, and yellow were so vibrant they appeared to be the color of his skin rather than dye beneath the surface. The blue seemed wet, that was how real it looked. And carving that image in two, right down the center of the planet, was what appeared to be a large piece of the diner's front window. It couldn't have been more than a half-inch from his spine. The wound still seeped blood, and the glass appeared firmly embedded.

"Oh, shit," I whispered. He shouldn't have been walking around with an injury like that. The glass could shift and damage his spine. He needed help for this one.

As if someone else were reading my thoughts, sirens sounded in the distance. I checked my watch again and swore. Ten minutes over the hour I'd paid for. Word of the diner disaster must have reached the woman in the motel office somehow. The police scanner, I realized belatedly, remembering the indistinct chatter emanating from behind the counter. No wonder the clerk had acted so strangely. She had known who I was from the beginning but waited to bust us until she was sure she wouldn't have to refund the $30. Humanity, ain't it beautiful?

I started to reach for Caelan to try to wake him, then stopped. He was badly injured. There was no way he could get up and out of here in time, and certainly no way I could move him. The decision had been taken from us. The police would come and get him and take me back home. He'd probably end up in jail for 59

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escaping from Brigham, and I...I might be getting another visit from Nevan.

"Screw it." I shook his shoulder a little harder this time.

"Caelan, they're coming."

"Zara," he said, but his eyes remained closed.

"We've got about three minutes to get out of here." I looked toward the door, ears trained on the sound of the sirens. "Maybe less."

He looked up at me then, his eyes beginning to focus on my face. "They're coming."

"Yeah, I know." I ran my hands through my hair.

"You have to help us. You're the only one who can." He sat up.

I backed away. "What are you talking about?"

"Listen, please. Two years ago, we woke here, four of us, with no memory of our lives before. Nevan is the only one we have met who seems to know us from the past. But he will not speak to us of it." Caelan moved his feet to the floor. His movements were quicker than before but still not faster than human.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute." I held up my hand to stem the flow of words from him. "You have no memories?" My heart landed with a sickening thud into my stomach. He'd lied to me.

"Nevan refuses to reveal anything. But we continue to pursue him. He will eventually kill us to keep us silent." He pulled his jacket from the foot of the bed and slid it on, pain tightening his face.

"If you don't remember anything, how can you possibly explain what's going on to me?" I crossed my arms over my chest, anger lifting my voice.

"We need your help," he said. "The gift you have been given, to become one with our minds, will be enough." I stared at him for a second. "Screw you. You tricked me into 60

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this. Why should I believe anything you say?" Vaguely aware that the sirens had stopped, I stormed past Caelan to the door, halfexpecting him to try to stop me. My fingers touched the doorknob.

"Two hundred and twenty-two," he said. I turned back around. "What?"

"That is the number of Observers believed to be present here on Earth, correct?" He started moving closer to me, the intensity in his face frightening.

I swallowed hard. "Yeah, something like that."

"I have seen more than twice that many myself in this province alone." He loomed over me now.

Province? He must mean country, I decided. "Not possible." I shook my head. "We would know about. The government–"

"How? Your government was never given a method to track or number us. None of the leaders on this world were given such a thing. Do you suppose that even if they attempted to determine the exact number that it would be allowed?"

"How could you stop them?" I turned my head slightly to one side, away from his eyes. He stood far too close to me now, his warm, bare chest only inches from my face. And rather than triggering my claustrophobia, as I would have expected, his toonear presence activated something I hadn't felt in a long time–a warm tightness, low inside me. A jolt of old fashioned lust. Not good, Zara, I thought, panic dousing the sensation almost immediately.

"I can demonstrate. I will tell you everything I know about us and show you more than you could have imagined." He pulled back from me a little to catch my gaze. "I may not know all that I once knew, but even still, I know more than you do now." His eyes on me no longer seemed frightening as much as simply too intense, hiding emotions the depths of which I couldn't begin to guess, nor did I want to.

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I twisted sideways slightly, away from that stare, to look out the peephole. I winced at the responding twinge in my ribs.

"They're out there, you know." Two police cars sat just barely inside the range of my fishbowl view.

He reached around me for the doorknob. I skittered to one side and away from that closeness. That was too much.

"Wait," I said. "What about the...what about your back?" I couldn't say "wound"–it sounded too gory and melodramatic.

"It will have to be for now." But he was beginning to shiver again. He stared at the door, not bothering to look through the peephole. "One of your officials has gone inside the office. The others remain in their vehicles." And then, to my shock, he started to open the door.

"They're going to see us before we get two feet from here." My heart pounded hard in my chest. Needless to say, he couldn't, and I wouldn't, fight them. I just hoped they weren't planning to shoot Caelan on sight.

"I will handle it." He walked out before I could protest further.

I held my breath and followed him outside, perhaps only five feet away from the nearest police cruiser. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the cries of alarm and the command to freeze. But there was no shouting, only the sound of the birds beginning to chirp and police radios muttering to themselves. I took a breath and opened my eyes to find all the officers staring at us, but not moving. Caelan, still next to me, had one hand outstretched toward them.

I looked up at him. "What are you–"

"Move to the car now," he said through gritted teeth. "I will not be able to maintain this for long."

So we stumbled our way to the car and got in. I pulled out of the parking lot as fast as I dared without attracting more attention. A quick glimpse in the rearview mirror revealed all of them still 62

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sitting there, waiting for the first officer to come out of the office. Once the motel was out of sight, Caelan collapsed back onto the seat, lowering his hand.

"How did you do that?" I kept my eyes on the mirrors for any sign of a chase, but so far, so good.

Caelan stretched out as he best he could in the confined space of the front seat, his shoulders turned to spare his back and his head almost in my lap. I could have suggested he move to the backseat, but I didn't think he could manage to climb over the front seat, and I was not stopping the car now.

"I made them see what they expected to see," he said, his voice muffled.

"What does that mean?" I frowned.

"It means they didn't believe we were there," he said.

"Sheryl's dragged us out here on a false alarm. Though I can't think she'd want us hanging around for no reason, it's bad for business. But who says this waitress is missing anyway? She probably just took off with the insurance check and her boyfriend." He recited their thoughts word for word in a flat tone, just as he'd done with Mike's thoughts at my house. It was creepy.

"They didn't believe we were there, so they didn't see us? Is that it?" I tried to wrap my brain around this idea.

"No. It would be difficult, much more effort than I am capable of now, to convince them that they did not see anyone at all. I merely showed them what they expected to see."

"Which was?"

"A man, many years older, and a woman, sharing your same number of years but much different in appearance." Some silicon-enhanced former cheerleader, no doubt. I pushed aside my annoyance to think about what he'd said. "So that's how you'd do it, hide in plain sight, I mean."

"Yes."

"So all those people out there trying to keep tabs on you 63

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folks–"

"Could pass us in a crowd of humans or an empty street and still not be aware of our presence as other, provided that we sensed the intent of that human to detect us."

"And," I added, the snowball of thoughts gathering speed as it rolled down a mountain of speculation, "even if a few of you were busy concentrating on something else, like you were with the sheriff, and they recognized you for what you were, it'd be no big deal." "Because that many more would have hidden in time."

"So there's no way to know how many of you are actually here." I stared down at him, implications ringing through my head.

"There could be thousands, and we wouldn't even know about it."

"I don't know the exact number any more than your human government, but it is well beyond their estimations, I am certain." I had no idea how to respond to that, except with sheer panic. I'd been right all along. They were up to something. The question now was what? It seemed possible that they... Caelan shifted on the seat beside me, suddenly making me very aware of his proximity to my leg. The heat of his skin seeped through my jeans in a much too pleasant way.

Zara, what is wrong with you? I tried to slide away a little bit, but my maneuvering room was limited by the steering wheel and my door.

"So how long before this trick wears off and the police come after us again?" I tried to focus on more important things.

"They will not. They have seen what they expected, nothing more."

A chill went through me. "You mean, it's not a trick. They really saw us that way."

"Yes."

"So you can just alter reality whenever you feel like it?" My voice started to rise along with my temper. Who said Nevan even existed outside Caelan's mind? Maybe all of this was made up. 64

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"I do not believe you were expecting Nevan to be in your home, so I could not have manipulated your thoughts in that manner, even if I had wished to," he said. "And it is only temporary, in a sense. If we had continued to stand before your officials, their minds would have begun to resist the outside influence and they would have seen us. But because we left, your officials have only the memory. It would be foolish of me to deceive you about Nevan and then keep you in my presence, for eventually, even by now, I wouldn't be able to continue the illusion and–"

"I'd know it was fake," I said.

"Yes," he said.

Well, if that little bit of trivia was true, then he hadn't tricked me because I remembered everything as it had happened. But how was I supposed to know if he was telling the truth now?

"I have nothing to gain by altering reality, as you described it, for everything is as I have told you," he said, and by the stiffness in his tone, I knew I'd offended him. But I couldn't let it go.

"So you say," I pointed out.

He remained silent for a moment. "I could show you that I am telling the truth, but even if it happens exactly as I have said, you will still find a reason not to believe." I winced at his words, but he was right. I'd already considered the idea of having him show me what he meant but discarded it when I realized he could cut off the illusion at any time and make it seem like it couldn't be maintained. "Look, I'm trying to trust you, but people lie all the time to get–"