Jaden Baker (54 page)

Jaden thought a little about the reveal, but was afraid it would lead to more questions, like the how and when. If he was on the other side of this table, he would want to know. Quite honestly, a part of him wanted Libby to know the truth. Sharing with one person, someone who already had an inkling of understanding, might be liberating. Or terrifying. He walked a pencil-thin line, parts of it already erased.

“I am,” Jaden began, chewing on his tongue for a second. “I...can’t believe I’m doing this.” He took a long drink of lemonade, choking a little as it went down, his face red and eyes watery.

“If I had tequila I’d offer it to you,” she said. “But I don’t. We’ll have to go to for the ‘It’s the thought that counts’ mantra on this one.”

He couldn’t help it, he smiled at her, a small smile that lightly touched his eyes. “Fair enough,” he mumbled. “I’ve never told anyone.”

“Oh,” she said. “You’ve heard the story about the Band-Aid, right?” she said.

“Band-Aid?”

“Yeah, about ripping it off quickly.”

Jaden smiled again. “Yes, I know that one. So here it goes,” Jaden said, taking a deep breath. “I’m psychokinetic,” he said, the word fat on his mouth. He understood why Dalton and Madrid referred to it as “PK” instead. Psychokinetic. It was a crazy word. Libby might think he just announced he was insane.

“Psychokinetic?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “You move things with your mind?” she said, insincerity in her tone.

“Yes,” Jaden said, amused with her disbelief instead of irritated. Before his underground incarceration, Jaden tried everything to hide his secret. When it came out of him he made excuses, even if the people around him didn’t believe him. Now that he wasn’t running from the truth, she doubted him. It was a funny sort of irony.

“You can move things. With your mind,” she said again. “Like a Jedi Knight.”

Jaden sat up in his chair. “Exactly like a Jedi Knight.”

“So you’re saying you’re like Yoda, only taller, less green, and without the backwards talk,” Libby said.

Jaden nodded to himself. “Yes, and no hair in my ears,” he added.

“Right, but other than that, you’re all powerful and move rocks and X-wing fighters with the lift of a finger.” She looked at him sideways, a doubting but playful curl to her lips.

“You don’t believe me,” Jaden said.

Libby leaned back. “What gave me away? My tone or my body language?”

“Both,” Jaden said. “I’m serious, though. I don’t have an international organization chasing me because I can eat a lot without gaining weight.”

“Well I’d study you for that,” Libby said, taking another long drink. “But no, I’m having a hard time picturing it.”

The difference between Libby and the people of Archcroft was so dynamic it thrilled him. He was actually glad to have a chance to prove his ability to her, and he couldn’t wait to see the stunned amazement on her face.

“Okay,” Jaden said, scanning the room, preparing a show. “You want to see?”

She grinned. “Absolutely I do.”

“Fine,” Jaden said, smirking at her. “You’ll understand if I close the shutters, to keep it private?”

“Oh totally,” she said, waving a hand at him.

Without lifting a finger, sitting calmly in his chair, and staring into her blue eyes, the window louvers tilted shut, dimming the room.

Libby’s knowing grin slid off her face.

“Maybe a light now it’s darker,” Jaden said, and a light flicked on above them.

Libby stared, her gaze solid and purposeful, her disbelief gone.

Jaden picked up (with his hand) a fork Libby used to eat her salad. He held it at arm’s length then released, but the fork did not drop, it hovered above the table, and as Jaden lowered his hand to his knee, the fork spun, its neck the axis. First it spun slowly, then gradually gained speed, until it was a silver blur, whirring in the air.

Then it stopped, and Jaden tapped the prongs with his index finger, and the fork teetered on its axis. He looked over it to Libby, who stared, her mouth gaping. She peeked at him over the fork, and he nodded, encouraging her.

Libby extended her hand under the fork then above it, as if checking for invisible wires. She picked the fork from the air, held it, then tossed it high. Instead of falling with a clatter, it tumbled gracefully to its original position, two feet above the table’s surface.

“That’s incredible,” she said breathlessly.

“You’re not unique in that thought,” Jaden said, lowering the fork to the table, opening the louvers and shutting off the light above them.

“How can you do that? I thought it was impossible.” She took the fork in her hands, staring at it like it was cast in platinum.

Her question was the natural one, he knew it would come. It was a question he could not answer. No one had explained the how to Jaden, only the why. The things he had done seemed unimaginable, he still wondered how he controlled things he couldn’t physically touch.

“I don’t know,” Jaden said. “No one told me how.”

“You have this power naturally?” she asked.

“I think so. It must have always been there,” Jaden said, his eyes on the table. “It came when I needed it, then never went away. It got stronger and out of my control.”

“You’ve got it under control now,” Libby said, almost laughing.

Jaden nodded, thinking of the way he learned, how they chained and threatened him with a gun. Shocking him when he was disobedient, shoving a rubber tube down his throat when he refused to eat, denying him basic human dignity. He rubbed his eyes and sighed, wishing he could take the memories out of his head and bury them somewhere else.

“Are you okay?” Libby asked.

They knew where he was now, those men and women who locked him away all those years ago. Even though he was an adult, Jaden felt small: the little boy in the corner, his only private place, rocking himself with his eyes screwed shut. What good was it to possess such power if people out there could control him so easily?

Getting away was simple. Having stayed awake most of the night, Jaden was exhausted. His brief sleep in the hospital had given him a boost of temporary energy, but adrenaline only took him so far. Libby understood and insisted she had work to do. After showing him to his room, she went back to her office, presumably to work.

The guest room was small and secure. Once Jaden closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed, a sense of ease fell over him. Archcroft would never think to look for him here. He was far enough from the city, yet hadn’t left the state. The chances of them even searching this side of the water were slim.

But his feeling of wishful security didn’t put his mind completely at peace.

After fleeing San Francisco he only saw the Archcroft team once during the helicopter chase. Jaden always suspected that sooner or later they would find him, or at least step up the manhunt.

Archcroft was in the open, not clandestine. Libby said it was an international organization, but not as large or powerful as a branch of government. What kind of resources did they have to recapture him? As far as Jaden knew, Joseph Madrid was the only one who could control him. Otherwise Jaden was practically invincible.

The wires in his head. Why were there wires in his head and how did they get there? The doctor and nurse he incapacitated this morning were examining an X-ray image of his head. Was that how Madrid kept him under control?

His mind. The last of his rules—never showing emotion to keep his thoughts and mind private—had been violated. Madrid literally penetrated his brain, a mental raping of his sense of self. His insides squirmed when he thought of it. In hindsight, Jaden realized he had given Madrid control when he lost the battle of wills. Overwhelming pain and humiliation were Madrid’s weapons, and Jaden’s only defense was turned against him. In the end, Jaden had given everything, and Madrid had taken Jaden’s mind as the spoils of war.

What was he to do with this level of outrage? He fumed in that bedroom, skin hot and jaw clenched. What sort of outlet did he have? Destroying Libby’s things would be a futile pastime. There was nothing he could destroy that would assuage this feeling of injustice. Ripping a bed from the floor, trying to break a mirror with it... His rages of the past had never been productive.

He stared into the face of an electrical outlet, vexed and frustrated. He had forgotten how to deal with this level of emotion, or had trained himself too well in coping. Jaden felt defeated.

From the inside of his backpack, Jaden withdrew the Ruger, the gun he’d stolen when he first arrived in Seattle ten years before. There was only one cartridge inside. The simple pull of a trigger would ensure Madrid never controlled him again. It would ensure a lot of other things, too.

He couldn’t do himself in yet. What a way to repay Libby for her hospitality, having to wipe his brains off her walls and dump his body. But if Madrid got too close he would do it. If he couldn’t shoot Madrid first, he’d pull the trigger on his own brain. End it all. For now, his mind wandered over the other things...

There were the large chunks of lost time during those days Madrid lorded over him. One second he had been standing, the next lying down, and vice versa. It had alarmed him, and it petrified him now. Were the wires in his head the mechanism of control, the reason for the blackouts? Had they tampered with his mind to strengthen their level of dominance?

He felt dirty, used. They’d put something in his head. Dehumanizing him by locking him away from the rest of the world, ordering him around like a dog, treating him like a work mule—that wasn’t enough. They threaded a contraption into his brain to completely muzzle him.

Taking the hit last night knocked whatever it was out of place. The piercing headache and dramatic fainting spell of this morning were both due to the wires in his brain. It seemed they had righted themselves while he was unconscious.

Jaden removed his shoes and lay in bed. The summer light beamed through the window, making the room bright. As a child he used to stare at the ceiling and wonder how he was going to escape. And here he was again, an adult wondering the exact same thing.

Dried drool formed a crust on his right cheek. Jaden scratched it away, swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, as he tried remembering where he was. Oh, right.

A shiver went down his spine. He tried ignoring it. In a few days, after Archcroft had moved out of Seattle, pursuing Jaden’s phantom, he’d leave. Optimism didn’t come naturally, though...

It was probably early afternoon. He looked outside for the sun, trying to gage the time, when he saw Libby in the pasture.

She wore skin tight blue breaches with leather patches on the insides of the knees, and a pink racer back tank top. Her auburn and brown hair was pulled back loosely in a ponytail, but a few strands of hair blew about her face.

Libby was talking to the gray horse, smiling as she scratched its neck and chest. Her second horse, a bay, ambled behind her and nuzzled her elbow. She turned to it and talked to both of them, scratching their chins. A halter was slung around her shoulder.

Jaden leaned against the window and wondered what she was telling the horses, thinking about cracking the window to listen, when Libby looked up and gave him a small smile and a friendly wave.

It was the second time she caught him staring at her. He waved back, embarrassed that she’d seen him watching her.

According to the oven clock, it was past two in the afternoon. With Libby outside, Jaden had time to snoop around her house. His first stop was the hallway: the traditional photo gallery of conventional society. Here was a photo of Libby jumping a horse over a fence, a look of excited concentration on her face. In the next she stood before the Tower Bridge in London, elated. Then she was surrounded by a large group of people her age, dressed as wizards, brandishing wands in a bookstore. There were Libby and a friend hugging and laughing, both wearing sunglasses, the ocean in the background. Libby with her dogs; Libby with her horses; Libby with her friends.

He glanced out the back window: Libby had her horse tied to a post and was grooming it. Jaden walked into Libby’s office to look for more photos, and saw only two on her desk: Trinity and Tucker, a ball between them, and the bay horse looking into the camera nose first.

Back in the living room, Jaden scanned a bookshelf, reading over the titles. She had a much smaller collection than he did, but then again Libby may have a library card. Interestingly, she had several editions of the same seven book series.

The side door opened and closed with a crash as Libby came prancing inside.

“Good nap?” she asked, going to her kitchen pantry to grab a bottle of water.

“It was,” he replied, glad he was out of her office. “Are you going for a ride?” he asked her.

“No, I just like to put on boots and helmet for cleaning dishes,” she said, then smirked at him. “There are some trails not far from here and I wanted to take Adama out for a bit.”

She was headed back out when he asked another question. “What kind of horse is he?”