Sleight (13 page)

IT WAS ALL I could do to keep myself from jumping out of my chair. What exactly did
that
mean? Her fingers squeezed my leg and she leaned closer.

“I’m not waiting for you to make up your mind anymore, Benny. I’ve made up my mind.”

I started to get up but she moved even closer and put her hand on my chest. “Wait,” she said. “Hear me out. I’ve been going through this transition. So many things about me just feel different. And I kind of like it. Really like it actually. I’m not waiting on the things I want to do anymore, or the things I want to say either.”

My hand sought out the marbles in my pocket and I palmed a couple.

“I love you. There I said it. It’s out there. You don’t have to take the first step and you don’t even have to say it back. Not right away. Whatever is holding you back I want it to go away. Unless it’s Maddy...and then...then I guess I step back and let you go to her, because that’s what love is right? Wanting whatever is best for the person you care so much about.” She sat there her eyes bright and full.

On the one hand I was tremendously relieved. I let go of the marbles and withdrew my hand from my pocket. I’d thought I was two seconds from getting turned into the equivalent of a zombie. Then again, now I had been put on the spot, the same one she’d had me on a couple of times. She had given me an out, sort of, by telling me I didn’t need to respond in kind. But every guy on the planet knows how that works.

“Justine, I—” I started.

“Benny, stop. Don’t say anything right away. Think about it. That’s all I’m asking. And I’m ready to tell you a little bit about where I’ve been and what’s happened to me,” she said.

I could see the vulnerability in her eyes and despite my nerves it made her less threatening and more like the girl I knew.

“I’ve got some stuff to tell you too,” I said. “There are things I want to tell you. I’m going to be straight with you. Things not many people know about. I’m willing to make a leap of faith too but it’s going to take some time to discuss it and it’s going to sound crazy.”

She leaned back and loosened her grip on my leg. “Okay, I’m listening.”

I started by beginning with moving into the apartment building next door. I left out the significant fact that I lived on my own and my ‘mom’ was a cover. I told her about discovering my knacks, not all of them, and how I used them to make money by performing magic in the parks. She raised her eyebrows but didn’t interrupt me. I skipped over parts that would reveal too much which made sharing
any
of it tricky. When I got to Sonja and her pursuing me she interrupted.

“Wait, what now? This is the woman who hired those goons that kidnapped us? And she was after you
why
?” To say she looked skeptical would be an understatement.

“She has a knack, an ability of her own. Two actually. One allows her to sense knacks in other people; the other one steals knacks and pretty much turns that person into a vegetable.” It sounded ridiculous even to me.

“Seriously? And her eyes are lavender? Like mine are now? Is this the part of the story where you tell me I’m like her? Because that’s just...that’s
stupid
. I don’t feel like there’s anything different about me,” she said, her arms crossed over her chest and her lips pressed together in a tight line.

There didn’t seem to be any choice but to plow forward. “You are though. When I passed out downtown the other day? That was you unintentionally using your knack. In fact, even our attraction to each other is partially influenced by the fact that we both have them.”

Eyes wide, she said, “You’re attracted to me?”

Seriously,
that
was her take away? “You know I am. When you wrote in my yearbook,
‘more than meets the eye’
you said, that was probably your knack curiosity, sort of like a personal magnetism sensing my abilities.”

A smirk slowly spread across her face. “I like the part about you finding me attractive, but the other stuff? I knew you were a bit of a nerd, we both are, but you can’t seriously expect me to believe any of that.”

I decided to be more direct and reached out mentally.

Can you hear this?

Nothing.

She just sat there, so she was one of the many that couldn’t converse with me telepathically. I’d have to try something else and probably flashier than a card trick.

“Okay, hang on.” I fished a marble out of my pocket and held it in my hand. “Watch.” Focusing my telekinetic knack I influenced all of the space around the marble and made it rise out of my hand and remain suspended in midair.

Her eyes widened and her smirk faded. “That’s...how are you doing that?” She glanced at the ceiling and then at the space between my extended palm and the marble.

Putting my hand down, I kept the marble floating. “Watch the marble. No wires and no tricks. It’s all me.” Changing the influence I caused the marble to shoot across the room and imbed itself in the wall. While she was doing the jaw-drop I manifested again and made a block of plastic with a half dollar coin inside it float off a shelf and move toward us where I let it gently descend to the top of the desk.

“Pick it up,” I said. “Run your hands over it. No wires. No trick.”

Hesitantly picking up the plastic cube she turned it over in her hands. Frowning, she set it back on the desk and looked at me.

“How are you doing it? I mean, I’ve seen stuff like this on TV. You say it isn’t a trick, but...”

She was a hard sell. Probably because if she admitted I had a knack, she would have to consider that what I had said about hers was true. I stretched out a hand and pushed back her sleeve to expose her bare skin. “Look at your arm.”

Glancing at her arm and then flicking her eyes back to mine she raised her eyebrows.

“Focus on your arm,” I directed.

Once I was satisfied that she was concentrating on her bare arm I manifested my knack illusion, causing a vivid blue heart to appear on her skin. I expected her to jump or scream. Instead she sat there with her mouth hanging open and then clomped her mouth shut, slowly lifting her head to make eye contact with me.

Her eyes were welling up. “Benny, how are you doing this?” I broke my concentration and the heart disappeared.

I reached out and took her hands in mine. “Justine, I really don’t know exactly. I discovered that I could do...things...a couple of years ago. We aren’t the only ones. There are others but they’re few and far between. Sonja, the woman who’s been after me, she’s been doing this for a long time.” A tear brimmed over and slid down her cheek. “I’m your friend. I’ll stick by you but to help you I need to know where you’ve been and what you know about what happened to you.”

She pulled her sleeve over her hand and used it to wipe at the tear. “Is Maddy like you? Like us?”

“No.”
That
was her biggest concern?

She frowned and bobbed her head. “I woke up in a clinic. It’s in Tacoma or Puyallup I think. I could smell a pulp mill, so that’s where I’m guessing it was. It was strictly low tech. The doctors there, I don’t even know if they were real doctors, they wouldn’t tell me who had brought me, only that my expenses were taken care of by someone.”

“When you left, how did that work? Did you run away?” I asked.

Shrugging she leaned her head back and waved a hand at her face, trying to hold back more tears. “No. I was doped up while I was there. What I remember is kind of jumbled. They just came to me and told me I was ready to go. Asked me who my best friend was, and where she lived. Stuck me in a car with a bag over my head and dropped me off in front of Kayla’s. It was at night and I know we passed that pulp mill, the smell was horrendous.”

Who would do that, and why? “And that was it? They just dropped you off? No contact since?”

The tears and the rubbing had smeared away most of her mascara. She looked even more like her old self. Her chin trembled a bit and her mouth twisted. “No. Kayla said that I was out of it when I showed up at her house. It wasn’t until I’d been there a few days that I felt anywhere close to normal. I guess I was lucky her parents were out of town. That would have been a huge mess.”

Reaching out a hand I stroked her shoulder. “You need to meet someone. He’s a friend of the man that owns this shop. He knows a lot about what you and I are going through, but there’s something you need to do first.” I held back telling her more because if she was having a hard time swallowing what she had already heard and seen I was positive that the big picture Kenwoode had shared with me would tip her over.

Placing her hand over mine she nodded. “Get in touch with my parents.” As overwhelmed as she obviously was, she was still the highly intelligent girl I knew from school.

“Yeah, but I have a confession to make.” I took my hand away and drew in a deep breath. “I did something dumb with two thugs who were chasing me. I let them follow me. They were the ones that took you and me.”

Still looking numb she nodded. “Yeah?”

“I screwed up and what I was trying to do didn’t work. They’re still out there. And the worst part is that a detective showed up that had been investigating our kidnapping.” I was having trouble spitting it out. I wasn’t sure how she would react.

Uh, huh,” she said, looking down at her hands.

I rolled my chair closer to her. “Look, I messed up. I don’t want you to be mad at me.” She lifted her head. “I told him you were back. He was going over to Kayla’s to see for himself.”

Narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to one side, she asked, “Why would you do that?”

Sighing I said, “Part of it because I was worried about you, but mostly because if it came out later that I’d known you were back and didn’t tell anyone I’d be in hot water. Your parents, especially your mom, have been pushing hard on the theory that I was involved in your disappearance. When they found me I wasn’t tied to a chair anymore, you were gone and I was the last person to see you.”

She frowned. “My mother—I should be mad at you.” She shivered. “But I can’t be. I know how she is. I guess I need to warn Kayla though so she doesn’t get into trouble.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be a big deal once you tell your story.” A thought occurred to me. “You’d said that you were trying to figure out what to tell your parents. Why would you tell them anything different than what you just told me?”

A tired smile played over her lips. “Really? With everything you know about my mother you have to ask? How do you see that going? She’s going to want all of the Seattle Tacoma area turned upside down looking for that clinic. It would be a circus and I’d be right in the middle of it. I was trying to figure out how I could stay with Kayla’s family for a while.”

I groaned. “And my caving in with the police pooched that for you.”

“Yeah, you’re going to owe me.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. I felt my face flush. Her affectionate behavior was unsettling but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her to stop.

“Justine, I’m so sorry that I’ve been reacting the way I have. My history with Sonja, the crap at school, you showing up unexpectedly, I let it all spook me. I should have been a better friend from the start.”

She gave me a small smile. “I forgive you. So what does this thing you say I have mean?”

That was the question, but I didn’t have an answer. The clinic, and whatever they’d done to her there might have triggered her knack, but it didn’t explain her new image and edgy attitude. Or did it? “I don’t really know, but Kenwoode, that’s the guy I was talking about, he implied that it didn’t have to be a bad thing. I think maybe Sonja turned the way she did because of who she was or the fact that she didn’t have anyone to explain to her what was happening.”

“Well, that’s something I guess.” She looked at me, one eyebrow arched. “What else can you do?”

I held back. “That’s it. Illusion, telekinesis.”

“So that guy that got up in your face at The Cup, he totally knew what he was talking about.
‘masked boy magician’
or something, right?”

“Yeah, he recognized me.”

“And when you pushed him away from you, that was your...thing...your knack? You’re amazing. How have you stayed out of social media and the news?”

I shrugged. “The mask for one. No phone videos allowed when I do my thing. No advertising, no social media page. I just don’t want the attention. It’s a hobby, not me trying to be famous.”

“That’s up to you I guess. It seems like it would be fun though. You could be on TV and make bank,” she said.

“No, I don’t want that. Too many people trying to own me.” Not to mention Dennis tracking me down.

The bell at the front of the store jangled. I looked through the two-way mirror that gave a clear view of the front door, and saw Kenwoode walk into the shop.

Justine looked at me. “Company?”

“It’s the guy I told you about. Kenwoode. You up for this?” I asked, standing up.