Twisted Miracles (31 page)

He was still there. Unconscious, but alive. When I got up to the camp, he was right where I’d left him, slumped on the boards like a discarded doll. The energy I’d drawn from the environment had been enough to keep me from killing him, but his mind was quiet and blank, and I wasn’t sure I hadn’t put him in a permanent coma. If I had, Susannah was going to want more than a handful of favors in exchange for taking care of him.

I might’ve destroyed his abilities, but he could still hurt me if he woke up. There had to be something in this place I could use to secure him. I went to the rudimentary kitchen and started digging through drawers, shifting a collection of plastic tableware, fishhooks and a broken reel, three empty CD cases. I finally found a dirty roll of duct tape in the bottom drawer. It would have to do.

Ryan hadn’t moved. I bound his hands behind his back and his legs at the ankles, and when I felt a twinge of guilt over the state of his bare skin, I remembered the girl we’d found in the church, and I added an extra layer.

It was easy to lower him into the boat. I let him down hard.

I poled the bateau through the breaking ice around the dock and thought about trying to contact Shane, but the fear of reaching for him and finding nothing was too great. I reached out tentatively for Lionel instead, but got nothing. I was too far away.

That was what I told myself, anyway.

I had to get Ryan somewhere secure. The ideal thing was to dump him on Susannah, but driving there would take hours. I could leave him tied up at the B&B, but if he woke up with his powers back, I had no doubt he’d kill one of the guests to teleport away. There was nothing for it. I was going to have to go straight to Biloxi.

The fishing camp was tapped out. The trees closest to the building were dead, I could tell, and I couldn’t let myself think about what else I’d done. How many fish had I killed? I pushed the thoughts away.

I turned on the motor when I made it out of the shallows and raced for the lake, hugging the tree-choked shoreline. Just as when I searched for Mina, I could feel the life teeming below the surface—turtles and frogs holed up in the mud, fish and snakes resting in the tangled tree roots, water plants and slow currents and clams buried in the sandbars. I rode until I couldn’t feel the dead zone around the fishing camp anymore, and then I killed the engine.

I tied off the boat and leaped to the bank, then walked until Ryan’s mental signature grew faint. Sunrise had brightened the sky out on the water, but under the canopy of moss-draped oaks and maples, it was still dark. I found a stand of sweet gum and pines on a small hill of earth, and I stood next to the biggest one. Pines were fast-growing trees. I felt less guilty about killing them.

I put my palms flat on the rough bark and pressed. The tree’s tap root was almost as deep as its trunk, like a massive tent stake driven into the earth. I could feel all of it, from the broad base to the tiny, threadlike tendrils running through the soft soil, and I reached for it.

Power flooded me. The tree groaned in complaint, wood splintering up the grain from base to branches. Needles dropped, first a few and then a shower of them, falling down and stinging my skin. They sounded like rain on the forest floor. Just as before, I was aware of everything around me, from the creatures in the ground to the stir of branches overhead. I held on to my stolen power and brought Ryan floating over from the boat.

I should’ve cared whether he would make the trip alive, but I didn’t.

I rested his body on the damp ground and took a moment to steady myself. I could picture the grill where I’d met the guardian. The Sand Angel. How closely did I need to know the place? I hadn’t needed GPS coordinates to find Bunny’s condo or to follow Ryan to the camp. Would visiting somewhere once be enough?

I concentrated on what I remembered best. The beach towels hung like flags out front, the bright chalk menu over the counter, the sound of the waves. I crouched down and pulled Ryan close, breathed in deep, and jumped.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Too long. It was taking too long. There was nothing but dark, no air, no air. I took a breath and felt like I was drowning, my lungs collapsing into an infinity of nothing. Ryan’s body was the only thing I could feel. I couldn’t tell if I was still or spinning head over feet in the emptiness, and then I slammed hard into asphalt to the sound of honking horns.

My ribs were on fire. A rush of wind blew my hair back as an eighteen-wheeler flew by me with inches to spare, tires screeching and horn blaring. I barely had time to stand before another car roared by and then a minivan. I scrambled for the shoulder, dragging Ryan with me, and collapsed into the weedy ditch beside what was clearly an interstate.

I had no idea where I was, but it wasn’t the beach in Biloxi. Ryan rolled over and groaned.

“Don’t move,” I told him, even though he hadn’t opened his eyes yet. There were bruises underneath them from the jump.

The sun was only just coming up, so traffic was still sparse. Thank God. An hour later and I might’ve killed us both in commuter traffic. I staggered to the shoulder, bent double from the pain in my side, and looked up and down for a mile marker, an exit sign, anything. I saw nothing but pine trees, stunted grass and gravel. Another car zoomed by, another eighteen-wheeler. I tugged Bunny’s phone out of my pocket and tried to turn it on, but the screen was charred and black. There was nothing for it. I walked to the edge of the shoulder and put my thumb out.

It took half a dozen truckers and seven cars before a guy in a shiny black extended-cab pickup saw me and pulled over. He stopped a hundred yards down on the shoulder and backed up slowly to where I was standing, then leaned over to open the passenger side door. He was young, maybe early twenties, with gelled blond hair and a John Deere T-shirt.

“Oh my God. Were you in an accident? Lemme call—”

“No,” I said. He froze with his hand reaching for his phone, and I wasn’t sure if it was my tone or some subconscious telekinetic restraint that stopped him. “No calls.”

“But—but you look—”

“I need to use your truck, and I need to use your phone.”

“Okay...”

Over in the ditch, Ryan gave another moan. His duct-taped hands were like a flag sticking up over the weeds. The guy’s eyes went wide.

“Listen, we can pretend I never saw you, okay?” He was shifting into drive. “I won’t tell anyone. I can just drive away and—”

This time, I knew it was me. I telekinetically braced the accelerator and slammed the gearshift into park. He tried to shift it back, and when it didn’t budge, he panicked, slamming his palm against it repeatedly.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I said. “It’s—”

It was no good. He was past hearing me, and his head was running though a half-dozen gruesome possibilities. Carjacking gone wrong, serial killer, woman cutting off her cheating husband’s dick. I conjured up a light ball and sent it whizzing past his head to fizzle out on the driver’s side window.

He stopped pounding on the gearshift. “What the fuck...”

I brought up another light ball, a little one this time. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay? What’s your name?”

“Wes—Wesley.”

“I’m Cass.” This didn’t seem to reassure him. “I need your help.”

“Are you—are you a witch?”

I thought about this for a moment. I didn’t have time to explain unexplainable things to Wes on the side of the interstate. I had to get back to Shane. “Yes.”

Wes’s eyes went even wider. I felt bad about what I did next, but not as bad as I probably should’ve.

“Wes, here’s what I need you to do. I need you to put your phone on the dashboard, get out of the truck, walk to the edge of those trees, close your eyes, and count to a hundred.”

“Are you—are you going to kill me?”

Poor kid—his life was flashing before his eyes. He had two older sisters, a girlfriend named Mandy, a dog named Lady and a job fixing lawnmowers at a mom-and-pop hardware store in Theodore, Alabama. At least now I knew where I was.

“No. But if you ever want to see Mandy again, you’d better start walking and forget you ever saw me. Got it?”

His system flooded with panic. “How did you—? My—my truck—”

Christ. Either I’d scared him stupid or he was dumb as rocks to begin with. “Don’t worry about your truck. Maybe you should count to two hundred.” When he hesitated, I fired up another light ball—a big one, this time—and made it spin. “Out of the truck.”

He got out. He tripped over the seatbelt and stumbled across the ditch for the trees.

“Eyes closed,” I called, and when I was sure he wasn’t looking—when his head was full of worry about whether or not I was going to hex him—I levitated Ryan’s body into the bed of the truck and peeled off down the road, feeling mentally ahead for cops.

Once I was confident I was far enough away, I chanced a glance in the rearview mirror, and I understood why Wesley had asked if I’d been in an accident. I’d thought Ryan looked bad. I looked far worse. Bruises and broken blood vessels mottled the skin under my eyes, and my face was streaked with blood. Trickles of it ran from my ears and nose and soaked my collar. Even my nails had gone black and blue, as though I’d smashed them with a hammer.

I was starting to worry about how I’d get back.

Wesley’s phone was almost out of battery. I plugged it into the charger and made myself wait until it was out of the red before I called Lionel. No answer. I called Bruce. The same. Even though I knew it was useless, I called Shane just to listen to his recorded voicemail message.

“
Hey
,
it’s Shane.
I
can’t pick up.
You know what to do.
”

The beep sounded longer than it should’ve, like a heart rate monitor flat-lining.

I didn’t have the guts to contact Lionel telepathically. I probably didn’t have the power either. I hung up and told myself I’d feel it if Shane were dead, like the time a car had fallen off a jack and crushed his finger. I’d been in class, and I’d nearly thrown up. The pain hit me through the connection we’d kept up back then, back when he was the first man I’d ever loved and I was convinced he’d be the last.

I thought about the years I’d wasted since then, and I felt sick all over again.

* * *

I drove until I found an exit with a gas station, where I filled up Wesley’s truck and telekinetically shoplifted a map so the attendant wouldn’t see me. I was fifty miles away from Biloxi. Almost an hour’s drive. Too long. I called information for the address of the Sand Angel and headed for the interstate, hoping I’d make it to Susannah before Ryan woke all the way up.

I smelled the ocean before I heard it. The sun was well up over the gulf, and the first joggers and tourists were out on the beach. The traffic lights went from blinking red and yellow to green as I drove down the beachfront road looking for the Sand Angel. Wes had probably found a way to call the police by now, and it was going to be a race to find the grill before the cops found me and asked why I had an unconscious, duct-taped man in the back of a stolen truck.

I found the Tropical Beach Motel before I saw the grill, passed it up and U-turned in the middle of the road. I sped back to the parking lot and raced out, hoping Susannah kept early hours. The security gate was up, and I sprinted around the corner, my ribs burning with every step—only to nearly run into Susannah in the dining room.

“I said two hours’ notice.”

I froze, rubbing my side. “There were complications.”

She stepped closer and peered at my face. She might have smelled me, I wasn’t sure. She was wearing faded jeans and a gray-and-red Roll Tide! sweatshirt, but it might as well have been full battle armor.

“You teleported,” she said.

“Uh, yeah. A couple of times.”

I couldn’t see her wings, but the air around her looked wavy, like a summer mirage on a hot road. It made my eyes hurt to look at it. A man was standing next to her, a tan, good-looking blond wearing a T-shirt that said Dive Panama! He smiled at me.

“Dangerous,” Susannah said.

“How did you know I was here?”

Her wings shimmered into focus. I took a step back, staring. She flicked them, and they quivered slightly.

“These aren’t just for decoration. I knew some sort of trouble had shown up. I just didn’t know it was you.” She smiled. It was one of the grimmest smiles I’d ever seen. “Where is he?”

I led them out of the grill and up to Wes’s truck. Ryan moaned and rolled over in the back.

“Where did you get the truck?”

“Maybe it’s better if I don’t tell you.”

Dive Shirt grinned again and gave me a fist bump, which I returned in a sort of shocked trance.

Susannah rolled her eyes at him, then sighed and muttered something under her breath. It sounded a little like, “I suppose I’ll handle that as well.” She leaned down into the bed of the truck and nudged Ryan with her thumb. “You’re sure he’s incapacitated?”

“No. That’s why I’m bringing him to you and not the regular police.”

“I should’ve asked for more favors.”

I was pretty sure she was serious.

“Uh—” Of all moments, Ryan chose that one to wake up.

He would’ve screamed if not for the duct tape. Susannah flexed her wings and smiled like a cat in front of a lame mouse. Ryan yanked at the tape securing his hands, and I didn’t have to slip too deeply into his head to hear his thoughts
—what did she do to me what did she do nothing there’s nothing can’t hear anything shit shit shit what the hell is THAT she fucking has wings it’s a fucking guardian I am so fucked so fucked so fucked—

Susannah picked him up and threw him over her shoulders. He tried to kick her, but she secured his legs with one hand and his arms with the other as if he were a huge, ugly cardigan.

“Jason.” She turned to Dive Shirt and smiled an actual, genuine smile for the first time. “Can you help her out?”

“Sure thing. See you at home?”

“See you at home.” And to my total shock, she leaned in and kissed him on the mouth. He smiled as he kissed her back for what felt like a minute or more before breaking away. She nodded, dropped into a crouch and then sprang up in a rush of feathers, disappearing into the clouds above. Dive Shirt Jason and I watched until she was gone.