Jaden Baker (63 page)

Libby held a hand to her chest. She wiped her eyes with her other hand, sniffling. She bit her bottom lip, her mouth a straight line.

She walked to him with small steps. Those lively blue eyes, magical where Dalton’s were unnatural, stared into him with pure kindness.

Jaden wanted to hold her and never let her go. He took a step up to her and wished he could read her mind.

They were almost eye level, Jaden just below her because he didn’t take the last step. She closed the distance and stood on the top floor.

She placed her hands on his face, her thumbs on his cheeks. Her hands were soft and gentle, her fingertips left imprints of warmth. Closing her eyes, she leaned and kissed his left cheek. A serene fire kindled inside him. The tip of her nose grazed his as she moved to kiss his right cheek. She kissed his forehead, and brushed her nose down his face, then paused.

He felt her there, her lips inches from his. Every nerve, every part of him was lit with elation. Libby was here—right here—touching him.

Lightly, and with exceeding tenderness, Libby gently kissed him, barely touching his lips, but enough to feel her warm breath on his mouth.

Jaden circled his arms around her waist, keeping her there and pulling her closer. His hands crawled up her back to her shoulders and he held her. She leaned her forehead on his. She smelled like cocoa. He breathed her in, the clean scent of her hair, her warm breath on his face. Happiness was this. Happiness was Libby.

He closed the gap, he came up the final step and embraced her tightly. She gripped him around his shoulders, resting her face in his damp neck.

They held each other. No one had ever touched him like this, with so much affection and compassion. After a time, she pulled back, touched her fingers to his neck and kissed the scar there, the reminder of a life almost lost.

He ran his right hand through her hair, his thumb tracing circles on her soft cheek. She covered his hand with her own and smiled. He tilted his head more toward her, but wasn’t sure. Her eyes flickered down to his lips then back to his eyes. She smirked then twitched her eyebrow up.

With a quick breath, Jaden kissed her, falling into her.

His imagination had not come close. The real Libby, the actually Molly, surpassed everything he thought she would be. She returned the kiss. Libby accepted him. She moaned softly, and rest her head under his chin on his chest.

Jaden sighed a deep, long sigh and closed his eyes, keeping his arms around her, holding her to him. As he kissed the top of her head, smiling into her, Jaden knew he wasn’t going to New York. He wasn’t going anywhere.

It was a pleasant and conventional idea to wake up next to her, and as he rolled over to look at the side of the bed, as empty as it had been all night, he imagined how comforting it would be to see her smiling at him. Ideally she would be here now, but Libby had made it clear in a way only she could that, despite him being a real smooth talker, the only way to get her in bed was if she had a gold ring on her finger.

Sunlight beamed into his room, and from here he saw not a single cloud in the perfectly clear sky: a jubilant day. He swung his legs out of bed and dressed, choosing his nicest clothes, which were not much: khaki carpenter pants and a long sleeved blue t-shirt. He would need to shave and brush his teeth before seeing her, and he hoped, as he skipped down the stairs, that she was still in bed, though he heard sounds from the living room.

She was awake, dressed in sweat pants and a white tank top, her hair pulled back in a tangled pony-tail. The television was set to the news which played video of a building ablaze.

Before taking the last step, he turned off the television. Libby whipped her head around, her eyes wide behind black rectangular glasses.

“Did you do that, or do I need a new TV?” she asked.

“I did that,” he said. “I can’t watch TV.”

“Well, why not? Jaden, the news. It’s your building!” She grabbed her remote and turned the television back on.

He turned his back to it. “Mute it!” he said.

She did. “Why can’t you watch TV? Your building is on the news. It exploded yesterday!”

Who was inside? If it was live news coverage, or even something recorded from yesterday, he could risk watching it, right? He faced the television.

The coverage
was
recorded yesterday, a helicopter’s perspective. Em House was engulfed, flames billowing from the windows, firefighters trying to contain the fire. Then the building collapsed in on itself, crumbling to the ground like a sandcastle hit by a tsunami.

Libby was on the edge of the couch, leaning forward as if hoping to glean more information by sitting as close as possible.

“Who was inside?” he asked, his tone flat.

She whirled around, hair flying.

“Who?” she asked.

“Yeah, who was inside? How many people? Have they released names?” A young reporter’s mouth was moving soundlessly, standing in the foreground of the smoking pile of rubble. A marquis at the bottom ticked the facts: a building in Seattle rigged with explosives killed an estimated 14 people inside. Homeland security is investigating but has not commented on whether or not it could be terror related. Families of the deceased are being notified.

“What channel is this?” Jaden asked.

Without even checking, Libby said “It’s national.” She stood, hands on her hips. “You knew it was going to explode.”

She looked so different with glasses, but still Libby. He couldn’t tell if she was mad or simply curious. Obviously she’d turned on the news before doing anything. Had a friend of hers tipped her off?

“I knew it was going to explode.”

Her mouth wide now, like her eyes, Libby spun back to the television, then back to him. “You did that?” she asked.

“Yes. That’s why I want to know who was inside. Hold off your temper and let me explain,” he said, emerging from the kitchen. “That place was locked down solid when we left it. The only person who could get in was me. It was locked from the inside with chained padlocks. Even if someone was strong enough to break the chains, they’d have to move a three ton barricaded wall to get inside. It was a pressure bomb on a timer. The only way to set it off would be to stand on or move around the second floor. It was delayed to thirty-five minutes. That means whoever set the bomb smashed into the building, moved the barricade, and was standing on my home floor for thirty-five minutes, moving my stuff, putting it boxes, dusting for my prints. The only people who would go to all that effort are the people looking for me. Now I know they’re here.”

Live coverage showed a German Shepherd scouring the wreckage for bodies. Jaden had spent years learning how to set the explosive: what chemicals he needed and in what amounts. He had been careful not to blow himself up in the process. Searching for bodies was a futile attempt. The building had probably burned for hours, incinerating everything inside. The rescue teams would only recover human bones and teeth. To identify bodies they would have to compare dental records.

“Jaden,” she said, in a forced calm. “Fourteen people. Dead.”

“Fourteen people looking for me. They had no good intentions. This is war.”

She chewed on her lips for a moment. “Have you killed people before?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Yes, I have. I didn’t want to, but they were after me and I couldn’t let them capture me again.” Jaden cleared his throat and kept his eyes on the television, hoping to see speculation of who was inside, if it was anyone he knew...

“How many?” she asked.

“Seven,” he said. He thought of the SUV tumbling down from the freeway, not sure if anyone survived.

Libby’s eyes widened. “Seven?”

He nodded. There were two people in the helicopter, four in the SUV. The seventh person deserved it more than the others. That man, Hoganoff, had crossed a line. The people pursuing him had been collateral damage, and should’ve known better than to follow him, but they needn’t have died. These new fourteen people, they underestimated Jaden again. They wanted to re-enslave him. He had difficulty mustering sympathy.

“How did those deaths happen?” she asked.

“I threw an SUV into a helicopter,” he said, and took a sip of water from a mug.

“You threw an SUV into a helicopter?” Her eyes were so wide they threatened to fall out of her skull.

“Yes.”

“How did you do that?” she asked. “How does anyone throw an SUV?”

“You know how,” Jaden said. “It was simple. The hardest thing was waiting for it to line up.”

“Wait a second. You have that much power you can just chuck cars and things at other things?” She was becoming less coherent.

“Yeah, I thought you knew that.”

“No!” she said, turning off the television and pulling strands of hair away from her face. “No, I thought you could bend spoons and, you know, open and close the louvers and turn lights on and off, I didn’t know you could chuck a car at something!”

Jaden set the mug on the counter. “You think an entire organization is after me because I bend spoons? You think these people are risking their lives to get me because I can flip switches? They didn’t hold me captive for six years because I can do stupid little crap. Anything that can be moved I can move. Cars, busses, trains, whatever. It’s not just that,” he said, picking up the mug of water. He dumped it out as an ice block. “I can manipulate matter. Control body functions—”

“What?” she asked shrilly. “Control bodies?”

“Yes,” he said. “Like speeding up or slowing down a heart.” He didn’t mention stopping one. “Constricting the arteries and airways. Stuff like that.”

“‘Stuff like that?’ Oh my God!” she said, her hand on her forehead.

“That’s why this is so serious. These people know how to control me. I’m a weapon in their hands. I thought you knew that.”

“You thought I knew that?” she asked, her hair standing up even after she took her hands away.

“Why are you repeating everything I’m saying?” he said, putting the ice back into his mug and defrosting it to a tepid temperature. He took a sip.

“Why am I—” she stopped herself, shook her head and rubbed her face. “It’s just, you know, it’s just—just sudden. I didn’t know. I thought we were joking about the whole Yoda thing. So you’re saying anything that has the potential to move you can. Just like that? Toss a Ferrari through the twelfth story of a building?”

He finished the water in the mug. “I’d rather it not be a Ferrari, but yes, I could do that.”

“How?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve tried figuring that out for years, but I don’t know. Dalton said it was a defense mechanism, and that’s how it started, but it comes as easily to me as lifting a pencil with finger and thumb.” He watched her for several minutes. She was twisting her hands and fingers, and kept running them through her hair, making it messier than it already was. She tossed her glasses on the counter so she could rub her face.

“Okay,” she said, crossing her arms. “Okay. Help me understand,” she said, facing him.

“Fine.”

“I’m having some difficulty understanding this. You’re hiding from these people.”

“Right.”

“But this thing, this superpower you’ve got is so strong you can throw a helicopter into a car.”

“SUV into a helicopter,” he corrected.

“And you rigged your building to explode to eliminate as many as possible.”

“Right.”

She sighed. “Why are you running? Why aren’t you facing them and fighting back? Why aren’t you destroying them head on, and taking your life back? Why all the running and hiding?”

Jaden was taken aback. He knew she disapproved of the running because of her comment yesterday. But the killings, which at first alarmed her, proved he was capable of defending himself. She took his need for defense and postulated an offensive fight. Why not confront them, end it all?