Chasing Power (2 page)

The woman stuck her card back into her wallet. As she waited for the cash, Kayla shifted her attention to the wallet. She could “feel” the card poking out. It was stuck in the wallet’s plastic credit-card sheath. She pulled at it, and the card wiggled, slightly. She concentrated harder, and it wiggled more. And then a sharp pain shot through Kayla’s head and blossomed into little fireworks inside her skull.

Undeterred, Kayla drew the razor blade out of her pocket and sent it slithering fast over the sidewalk. It rose up to the woman’s purse and dipped inside. Speed was essential. So was precision. Neatly, it sliced through the thin plastic sheath in the wallet to free the stuck ATM card. Kayla caused the razor blade to flip out of the purse and land on the sidewalk.

Free from the wallet, the card floated out of the purse nicely.
Sending it down the wall, she let it fall behind a rock border that edged a few brilliant orange flowers.

The whole maneuver took only seconds—less than the time it took the machine to spit out the money and the woman to count it. Completely focused, Kayla hadn’t breathed. Now, she exhaled.

The woman walked away with her cash without glancing at Kayla. Ignoring her too, Kayla spat the gum into her hand and then sent it flying up to block the security camera lens above the ATM. The gum stuck, obscuring the camera’s view.

As she strolled over to the ATM, the razor blade flew up into her pocket, and the woman’s bank card flew into her hand. In front of the machine, Kayla pretended to draw the card out of her pocket. She stuck it into the ATM, punched in the woman’s PIN, and withdrew the same amount as the woman had, $120. She pocketed the cash and then retreated, leaving the card in the machine. From a safe distance, Kayla called to the wad of gum. It fell off the lens, skittered along the sidewalk, and then jumped into a trash can.

Kayla despised people who dropped their gum on the sidewalk. No consideration for others.

Task complete, she continued to stroll down the street. Several heavily pierced-and-tattooed teens nodded to her, and she nodded back, but she didn’t stop. She entered a coffee shop and used one of her new bills to buy a mochaccino with whipped cream and chocolate drizzle, and then she parked herself on a stool by the front window, directly across from Henri’s Fine Jewelry and Watches. She pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head for a better view.

She’d never done this distance before. Happily, both the
door to the coffee shop and the door to the jewelry store were propped open, simplifying matters. She wouldn’t have to wait for someone to open them. She took a sip of the chocolaty coffee, steadied herself, and concentrated. First problem: her target case was locked. Second problem: the jewelry store clerk was leaning against it.

Kayla focused on the case by the front door instead. The lock was easy and quick to pick. With practiced ease, Kayla shifted each tiny tumbler inside the mechanism until she “felt” it pop. She couldn’t slide the case door open, of course—much too heavy—and besides, it wasn’t her target. Instead, she repeated the lock trick with several more cases before switching her attention to the watch display. One by one, she unclasped each watch. The heavy Rolexes slid on their own off their displays. The clerk scurried over to fix them, leaving her vigil over the diamond case. While she was distracted, Kayla focused on the diamond case. She slipped three diamond rings—platinum bands only, per Selena—off their velvet display fingers and scooted them underneath a necklace stand, close to where the case door would open. Then, taking the ball of tinfoil from her pocket, she sent it out of the coffee shop and across the street, rolling like debris and pausing by the curb before hopping up it. She rolled it inside the jewelry store and tucked it under the lip of the diamond display case. And then she waited.

She took a few deep breaths and let her brain relax. Using her power felt like using a muscle—she focused, clenched, and then released. Her skull felt as though it were vibrating. As she steadied herself, the buzz of the coffee shop sank into her, soothing her. There were maybe a dozen people at the rickety wood tables, a few alone with laptops, others clumped around the tables. The
coffee shop tried for an artsy look, with old vinyl records stapled to the walls and chalk signs with slogans like “Get Off My Unicorn” and “If a Tree Falls in the Forest, Call a Dryad.” It had a shelf of used books and bins of specialty chocolates. You could also buy coffee-scented hand lotion. But Kayla liked it, even if it was trying too hard and even if the clientele thought they were too cool for school. All the self-absorbed people were too distracted by the glory of their own personalities to notice her.

Casually, she pulled a bit of thread out of her pocket and tied it to the fishhook. She kept her hands in her lap, where others couldn’t see, and then sent the hook and thread out. The hook and thread snaked across the floor, nearly invisible against the bright patterned tile. The thread wound up the nearest stool. She let the hook snag the upholstery of the chair cushion while the other end of the thread dove into the pocket of a coiffed guy with a half-open shirt. She meticulously tied a knot over a loop of metal that she “felt” inside. When the customer stood, the thread, anchored by the hook, pulled out a car key with zero assistance from Kayla. She repeated this several more times, fishing out more keys, a five-dollar bill, and grocery lists from other customers. She left her finds on their chairs—she was just practicing—and commanded the thread and hook back into her pocket. As they hopped back in, she smiled to herself.

As usual, no one noticed.

After a moment’s thought, she slithered the cash across the baseboards of the coffee shop. She pretended to drop a napkin and scooped up the five inside the napkin. Stuffing it into her pocket, she sat up in time to see a woman and a toddler walk into the jewelry store.

Perfect
, she thought.

Watching, Kayla took another sip of coffee. She loved toddlers. She didn’t know any personally, but every one she’d ever observed was a predictable ball of chaos. It was only five minutes before the little boy was yanking on the display cases, trying to open them. He succeeded instantly with the first case that Kayla had unlocked, a case of charms, and then, with delight on his face so clear that Kayla could see it from across the street and through the window, he repeated his discovery with several other cases, including the diamond ring case.

Clucking, the mother scurried after him, closing the cases as she went. Kayla immediately concentrated on the ball of tinfoil. It rose up and hopped into the corner of the open case door. The mother caught the boy just past the diamond ring case. When she paused in her scolding long enough to close the case, it didn’t shut all the way, stuck on the foil. Finishing with the boy, the mother apologized to the store clerk, who had begun to relock the cases, starting with the charm case.

While the clerk was distracted by the mother, Kayla flipped the hidden rings out of the case and let them fall softly onto the carpeted floor. She hid them in the carpet pilings under the lip of the display case and then popped out the ball of tinfoil a few seconds before the clerk locked the case.

Carefully, under the case, she unwrapped the ball of tinfoil with her mind, and then she rolled the rings onto it. She folded the tinfoil around the rings and guided it out of the store. She let it tumble down the street and into a hedge of bushes half a block away.

Standing, she finished her mochaccino and tossed the cup in the trash. Putting on her sunglasses, she then sauntered out of the coffee shop and across the street. She didn’t go anywhere near
the jewelry store, but she did pass by the hedge and scoop up the tinfoil ball and stuff it into her pocket. Humming to herself, she strolled to a candy store. With her mind, she selected a lollipop from a rainbow-of-flavors display. She sent it flying up to the ceiling, out the door, and along the gutter on the roof. She then flew it directly into the hand of the toddler as he waddled out of the store, his other hand firmly gripped by his mother. Kayla watched as the toddler looked in surprise at the lollipop.

The boy wasn’t flummoxed for long, though. Seconds later, he was waving the lollipop in the air, demanding his mommy unwrap it. Absently, she did, and he stuck it into his mouth.

Kayla grinned and checked the State Street clock. Twenty-five minutes.
Better than penultimate
, she thought. Humming again, she headed for the smoothie café and a soon-to-be-impressed Selena. She passed by the brick bench with the pierced-and-tattooed teens.

One of them was watching her.

He was tall with black hair that dusted over his eyes. Unlike the others, he wasn’t pierced or tattooed. He wore a clean black T-shirt and black jeans with boots. Kayla felt his eyes on her as she walked by and for an instant, she thought,
He saw me; he knows
. But no, that was impossible. It was far more likely he’d noticed her pink-streaked hair or her bikini top, which was the point of both. Also, she liked both. She flashed him a smile as she passed.

He didn’t smile back.

When she reached the smoothie café, she glanced over her shoulder. He wasn’t there. She fingered her blue glass eye amulet and went inside.

In the window, the charms and crystals caught the moonlight, twisting it and turning it until it danced over the walls and the floor and across Kayla’s bed. She sat cross-legged on her futon bed in a patch of dancing moonlight and rolled the tinfoil ball soundlessly from hand to hand as she listened to her mother breathe on the other side of the curtain. Almost asleep.

She heard her mother shift and the crisp sheets crinkle.

A deep exhale.

A slow inhale and then steady breaths.

Yes, asleep.

It was funny how roles reversed. Moonbeam talked all the time about how she used to listen to Kayla sleep, checking on her several times each night, reassuring herself that she was here and that no one had taken her in the night.

“No one” being Dad, of course.

And now it was Kayla’s turn to take care of Moonbeam as best she could.

Kayla flicked on her lighter. She focused on the flame, and, with her mind, lifted it with a bubble of fluid from the lighter,
spun it in the air, and lowered it onto the wick of a candle. It lit the walls with a warm yellow glow, and the scent of honeysuckle rolled out with the colorless smoke.

On her lap, she unrolled the tinfoil ball. The three diamond rings lay nestled in the creases. She lifted out one. It was platinum, per Selena, in the shape of two bulbous dolphins that met nose to nose to hold a lump of diamond. Extremely tacky. The second ring was encrusted with starbursts of tiny diamonds. Also overkill. The third was a classic engagement ring with a single stone propped almost aggressively up on spikes. It defied the concept of the word “subtle.” Holding it up, she twisted it, and it caught the candle flame in each of its facets. She stared into the reflected flames, momentarily mesmerized. When the moment passed, Kayla slipped the ring into the pocket of her hoodie, which was draped over the chair that she used as a bedside table. The diamond could be useful, perhaps to cut glass or to cause a distraction.

On the other side of the curtain, Moonbeam tossed under her covers. Kayla froze, ready to snuff the candle, hide the rings, and flop back into bed as if she’d fallen asleep hours ago. But her mother settled again.

Kayla dumped the other two rings into a pouch, the kind used to hold herbs and other protective charms, the kind that Moonbeam wouldn’t look at twice. She then pulled a backpack out from under her futon and put the pouch inside. The backpack held emergency supplies: dried fruit, granola bars, a bottle of water, a map of California, and a bus schedule, plus a few other trinkets that Kayla had lifted.

Next, the money. She slid a twenty into her hoodie pocket with the ring. She’d use it for food tomorrow, or maybe slip it into Moonbeam’s purse. Tomorrow, she’d also deposit sixty
in Moonbeam’s bank account, a small-enough amount that she wouldn’t notice the influx but enough to cover at least part of the electricity bill—they didn’t use much with just the cottage, but it still added up. The rest went into a Ziploc stuffed with bills in the emergency backpack. She had several thousand dollars in her backpack so far. If Dad ever tracked them here, Kayla planned to grab the pack before they ran.

With a few thousand dollars in cash, they’d be able to run as far as they wanted. Across the country. Or maybe to another country altogether. She’d love to see France. Or Egypt. Or Thailand. And if they pawned the trinkets that Kayla had collected, they wouldn’t have to start over with nothing.

She knew she was being paranoid. Dad wasn’t going to find them. It had been eight years and no hint of any danger. But she felt safer with the backpack—and it was a lot more practical than Moonbeam’s thousand charms and amulets, which couldn’t even protect her from mosquitoes.

Kayla stuffed the backpack under her futon again and blocked it from view with a spare pillow. She straightened just as the curtain was pulled aside. Moonbeam stood in the gap in a loose nightgown that hung to her ankles, white and billowy so that she looked like a ghost in the candlelight. For an instant, Kayla’s heart jumped, but she forced herself to take an even breath. No way had Moonbeam seen anything.

“Can’t sleep?” Moonbeam asked.

“Just … you know.” She winced inwardly at her lack of eloquence.

“Chamomile tea with honey? Alternatively, I could rub your back and sing you a lullaby. Loudly and off-key. Most likely, the neighbor’s dog will howl.”

Kayla unwound her legs from the covers and pretended she was stretching after just waking. “Tea works.” She slid her feet into slippers, a pair of Minnie Mouse ones she’d rescued from a yard sale. She’d claimed she wanted to wear them ironically, but really she liked how fuzzy they were between her toes. She padded after Moonbeam.

She loved how the house looked at night, soft and safe. The windows were open, and a breeze blew the crystals and dreamcatchers in lazy circles. The scarves and curtains rippled like waves. All the shadows overlapped like blankets that you could sink into.