Accused (Ganzfield) (15 page)

I stretched my hand across the back of Trevor’s neck and pulled a mental shield around us.
I’ve screwed this up, haven’t I? This whole getting married thing?

He shook his head.

No?

Okay, yeah. A little.

Ann’s all worked up about planning something elaborate for us. She had an idea with a flock of doves…

A flash of surprise glowed yellow within him and he glanced at me for a second before returning his eyes to the road. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
You’ve been discussing wedding plans with Ann?

Yeah. But what do YOU want? Wedding-wise, I mean.

It doesn’t need to be anything fancy.

I… I don’t want a big ceremony and reception and everything. Trevor… my dream wedding is just you and me in a beautiful place, promising to love each other forever.

That sounds perfect.
The twitchy anxiety trickled from him as an invisible arm wrapped around me and held me close.

Behind us, Ann contemplated the importance of… centerpiece design? Seriously? Ugh! Way
too scary. My thoughts returned to the different ways to take down a mind-controlling killer.

There’s only one way to settle this.

Ann held out her hands.
And that is?

Lightsaber duel.

Trevor’s lips twitched as he pretended not to listen.

No contest. Zack charms Trevor to stand down. Zack’s the bigger Jedi.

Only if he’s faster than Trevor’s throat grab. If Zack can’t talk, he can’t charm, and that makes Trevor the bigger Jedi.

Zack chimed in. “Um, shouldn’t we be thinking about how we’re going to handle this thing with Belinda?”

Yeah, I guess. Not as much fun as planning a lightsaber duel, though. How about this—you charm the doorman; we go up to her apartment; Trevor opens the door; I fry Belinda’s brain; and we grab some pizza before we head back?

“What if she has a gun?”

Tell her not to shoot.

“What if she’s not alone?”

Tell everyone to freeze.

“Think she’s expecting us?”

I frowned.
I hope not. She doesn’t know Rachel’s RVing again and she charmed out the other long-range RVs’ ability to track her before she left. I’m still trying to figure out how she did that. Most of the time, you guys just block memories, but she wiped their minds clean of any memory of her. But c’mon—what can she do to us? We’re all immune to her.

“Should we check to see if she’s still there?”

I tossed him the phone.
Rachel’s on speed-dial.

We stopped for food and gas somewhere in Massachusetts, and then Connecticut flashed by outside the windows. As we got closer to New York, Ann shielded. “You don’t need to yet, Maddie.”

Great—a pity-shield for the minder who couldn’t talk. Still, better that than an overload like last time—that whole minder-feedback-loop thing had sucked. At least the two of us knew better than to get behind the wheel when we were headed into the city—the mental roar was more distracting than texting.

I pulled into my own private mental bubble when we hit the Bronx. The babble of thousands of minds roared through me like a river of thought. Golden bars of sunlight slanted between the buildings as we made our way down Sixth Avenue through midtown. I watched the numbers on the buildings decrease as we came closer to the place from Rachel’s vision. We pulled into a parking garage near Penn Station. We’d go the last block on foot.

Trevor took my hand as we left the car. “You going to let me in on this shield?”

I held his eyes while I shook my head, but laced my fingers more tightly with his. I wasn’t going to fill his head with all of this brain-noise, but I wouldn’t let Belinda charm him, either.

“It’s that loud?”

I nodded.

Invisible arms surrounded me and pulled me closer to him.

“Maddie?” Ann moved up behind me and tightened her grip on Zack’s hand. Didn’t we look all couple-ish? “Can you target Belinda’s speech center while shielding?” Her voice was too loud—like she had earphones on—but I still had to strain to hear her.

I shook my head.

“So I need to keep doing it? Or keep my distance?”

I frowned. I knew Ann’s presence gave Zack better protection from Belinda’s charming, but it really complicated things for me. If she dropped her shield and all this mental energy started a feedback loop between us—

WOOOOOO!

A painful rush of exuberance hit me like a sledgehammer to the temple. I staggered and Trevor’s hand tightened on my arm.

“Ann? Are you okay? What happened?” Zack’s voice rasped with concern from somewhere behind me.

Ann groaned. “I think New York just scored or something.”

“What? The whole city?”

Ann gave a shaky laugh. “Madison Square Garden’s just over there. There must be a game right now.”

Trevor cupped my chin in his hand as he watched my face.
How’s Maddie holding up?
“Should we wait?”

I shook my head and pointed toward the street. I just wanted to get this over with. The pressure within my skull kept building and it wasn’t going away as long as we were here.

Trevor slid in with me as we went through the revolving door. The lobby resembled a modern steel interpretation of a gothic cathedral. Two burly men in uniforms sat behind a counter-like desk along the wall near the elevators.

“Hi.” Zack turned on the charm and I tightened my grip on Trevor’s hand. “We can go up without signing in or showing identification.”

The guards nodded. “Which resident are you visiting?” the younger one asked.

“You don’t care.”

The guard considered that for a moment, shrugged, and then settled back to watch the game on the little TV behind the desk.

We stepped into the waiting elevator and I pressed one of the top buttons. The light remained dark.

“Penthouse floors require a key,” the older guard said.

“Do you have one?” asked Zack.

“Uh-huh.”

“Use it now.”

“Sure thing.”

A couple of blocks away, New York scored again. I shut my eyes and suppressed a groan.

And the crowd… goes… wild!

More than fifty stories later, the elevator dinged. We’d left the smog layer of mental energy back near the ground, so I felt like I was floating above all the mental voices. Finally, having a short mental range had a benefit! Somewhere behind me, my cell phone rang. Zack patted his pockets before pulling it out and staring at it.
What do I press to answer?

I reached over and hit the little green icon.

“She’s leaving! She just got a call and now she’s headed down in the other elevator!” Rachel’s voice came through Zack’s thoughts.

Crap!
I met Trevor’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?”
I hate being cut off from Maddie this way.
“Ann?”

Ann’s eyes flashed from Zack to Trevor. “Belinda’s leaving.”

We piled back into the elevator and headed right back down. How had she known we were here? Did the guards call up? Wait—did she actually know anything? She might just be heading out to get dinner or something. Maybe we should wait inside her apartment until she came back.

“She’s in the lobby. She’s talking to the security guards.” Rachel must still be watching. “Belinda’s headed out the front door and the guards… ah, hell! They’re pulling guns on your elevator.”

Cold spread between my shoulder blades and down my back. I guess Belinda wasn’t just heading out to dinner after all.

Trevor’s invisible arms spread wide around me. “Ann. Zack. Get behind us.”

“I can stop them.” Zack tensed as he stared at the door.

Ann grabbed his arm with both hands and yanked him with her. “I know you can, sweetie, but do it from back here, okay?”

An elevator ding never sounded so ominous. The doors started to roll open and Trevor braced himself.

“Don’t shoot!” Zack yelled.

The guards looked down in surprise at their drawn weapons.

“Put the guns away. Everything’s back to normal.”

The two men holstered the firearms.

“Have a nice night.” It was a command. The guards smiled blissfully as we ran out of the lobby and into the crisp evening air.

“Which way did she go?” Ann scanned the street. The sidewalks were crowded. Zack suddenly remembered the phone in his hand. He pulled it close to his ear.

“Left! She went LEFT!”

We wove through the clustered people. Ahead of us, I caught a glimpse of a trampy-looking blonde. No, wrong one. And there’s another one. Still not her. Not to judge or anything, but there seemed to be a lot of trampy-looking—

There!
Belinda glanced over her shoulder and I felt adrenaline spike through her, even over the crowd noise. Her eyes widened and she put on a burst of speed. She bumped into a tall man and gripped his arm for a moment.
What’s she saying to him?

The man looked to where she was pointing. Anger settled over his features as he barreled at us like a charging bull.

“There she is!” Trevor gasped as he recognized Belinda. The charging man reached for Trevor, who turned in surprise.
What the—?
The man went down face-first, tripped by my unseen hand. Trevor’s eyes met mine.
Did you—?

People in the crowd glanced over.
Is he okay?

“Hey! Get off the sidewalk! I’m walking here!”

Stupid drunk. This city’s filled with drunks and crazies.

I nodded. Not being able to communicate with Trevor was getting dangerous. At least I could still borrow his ability.

The stranger lunged for my ankle. I jumped up and Trevor pulled me out of the way before I touched ground again—I probably looked really athletic.
Gazelle-like.
I pointed Zack at the man commando-crawling across the sidewalk toward us.

Understanding flashed across Zack’s face. “Charmed?”

I nodded.

“Stop doing what the blonde told you to.” Charm resonance permeated each word and the man shook his head as he got up onto his hands and knees. We ran past him and pushed into the crowd.

Two more guys in matching Rangers jerseys tried to tackle me. Trevor pulled me clear as Zack yelled, “Freeze!” He uncharmed them as we pushed on.

Where is she?
I couldn’t find her in the crowd.

A tiny, white-haired lady pulled a gun from her purse and pointed it at us two-handed with a make-my-day swagger. Trevor clamped an invisible hand over the barrel and forced her arms down. “Zack! Here’s another one!”

Gah! It’s like the frikkin’
Matrix
around here! Suddenly every innocent person was a potential threat. A sea of blue jerseys surrounded us, crowding us into the dark of a narrow alley between two buildings
. Homicidal hockey fans
—how… redundant. I drew closer to Trevor and squeezed his hand apologetically. This was going to hurt.

I dropped my shield. A gush of mental voices filled Trevor’s head. He staggered against me as he grabbed his forehead and cried out.

I blasted the first guy’s head full of pain. As he crumpled, I turned to the next one. He clutched at his temples and fell on his butt.
Three. Four.
I arced around the circle as each guy fell.
Eight. Nine.

Crap. I hope no one’s filming this.

Thirteen
. The last guy went down with a gurgle of anguish.

Zack held Ann cradled in his arms and glared at me. Ann clutched at her head and moaned.

I gasped as I realized I’d overloaded her.
Crap! Sorry!

She winced in reply. Ah, hell. She was still shielding, too—otherwise I’d be in the same shape.

Zack, uncharm these guys and… I don’t know, tell them to lay off the tequila, okay?

He gave me a curt nod, but still looked pissed at me. For once, I was glad I couldn’t read him.

I pulled mental shielding up around my thoughts. Trevor slumped against me, breathing hard. I framed his face with my hands and searched his eyes.

“I’m okay,” he lied. “Where did Belinda go?”
Is that what Maddie hears all the time when we’re in the city?

I pointed to Zack and pantomimed holding a phone. He’d set Ann back on her feet, but she still swayed a bit. Zack tossed the phone to Trevor and turned back to Ann.

“Are you guys all right?”
Rachel’s anxious voice cut through the crowd of minds. I huffed. With Rachel this upset, superfetus must be setting all of New Hampshire on fire.

“Where’d Belinda go?” Trevor scanned the passing silhouettes at the end of the alley.

“Down the escalator—into the train station.”

Ah, hell. We were going to lose her again.

Ann crumpled and Zack pulled her tightly to him so she wouldn’t fall.

Trevor laced his fingers more tightly through mine. He was in better shape than Ann
. You and me?

I nodded. We had to stop Belinda. She was putting everyone at risk—G-positives as well as total strangers.

Trevor glanced back at Zack. “Meet you two back at the car.” We ducked out of the alley and back into the crowded streets.

Traffic jammed Seventh Avenue in both directions. I grimaced as I felt the pain grow as each step drew us closer. Four cops stood over the bodies of several people. One of them waved the approaching paramedics in.
Damnedest thing! I’ve seen people jump into traffic before, but never so many at once.

I sucked in a ragged breath. Seven crushed and bloody bodies lay strewn on the pavement like a child’s discarded dolls… and only two shed agony at me. I tried to swallow the rising knot of nausea as Trevor and I wove through the unmoving cars and ducked down the escalator into Penn Station. He pulled out the phone again.

“She just cut the line at platform five. Train’s going to D.C. Looks like it’s boarding now.” Rachel sounded calmer—or maybe just sadder. Had she witnessed Belinda sending those people into traffic?