Of Delicate Pieces (24 page)

Chase flew off his feet and landed heavily on his back with Alex on top of him. A cloud of dust puffed from the turf. Chase lifted only his head. “Not bad, Ash. For a girl.”

She didn’t like Chase calling her Ash. She wasn’t a buddy, and she didn’t want to be one. “I took it easy on you,” she said, trying to push him back down. He yanked at her arm and used his free hand to pull her closer. “Don’t ever take it easy on me.”

“Get up, you two,” Kaleb groaned. “What did we tell you about that?”

“You know you have an audience, right?” Gabe added.

Spirits trickled out of the tunnel, forming a puddle at the foot of the stands.

“You could stay and play,” Chase suggested to Alex. “You’d like it. Everything you told me about that health center, that’s how I feel when I leave the fields at night.”

Alex jumped to her feet. “No way.”

The veteran newburies, who’d been dead at least two years, played referee and picked the game of the night. Whoever wanted to participate took a place on the field. Depending on the game, some newburies retreated to the skate park or the trampoline park, but most stayed to try their hand at winning. The nightly tournaments served as bragging rights for the following day.

Alex sat alone in the corner of the front row where she could hide and watch the games until Rae finished picking flowers. She didn’t get a chance to relax because Jack and Reuben emerged from the tunnel and took a seat on a bench at the edge of the fence. Jack spun around to face the crowd. He studied the spectators, and his haughtiness irritated Alex.

She scooted low in her seat and concentrated all her energy into the bench, lassoing her mind around it and pulling. The stone flew out from under Reuben, and before he could stand up, she slid the bench back to its proper positioning, slamming into Reuben’s back and wedging him between the fence and the bench.

He thrashed like an animal stuck in a net. His arms were trapped at his sides, and his big round head was wedged sideways against the fence. All he needed to do was project himself away, but he didn’t. Or couldn’t.

A few giggles rose above the stands, twisting into the night like twirling kite tails. Alex counted seven. Only seven people entertained by his predicament. Last year, the whole audience would have been howling, and Alex was the one coming to his rescue. What a difference a year made.

Jack spun around to glare at everyone and no one. He squinted at the bench, but he couldn’t move it, not anymore. The protégé couldn’t do anything telekinetic without his twin around to help him.

Score one for the good guys
. Alex thought.

Jack leaned down and said something to Reuben as he tried to move the bench with his hands, but it was no use. Jack straightened, smoothed out his coat, and marched into the stands with purpose. Did he think he was going to find the culprit? He paused at each step, scrutinizing the crowd. No one questioned him. If anything, they cowered away from him.

Alex figured she’d better leave before he noticed her.

“I bet that Reuben kid is the only newbury in Eidolon who cannot wait to be sorted out.” Sigorny perched at the lowest bench with her feet up on the railing. “I doubt they’ll sort him though.”

“Why?”

“If I had to bet, the gifted would find him. Kill him.” Sigorny gestured to the lights of the city, hovering to the right of the stadium. “
They
know that.” She lifted her pen. “What do you think about Jack’s new following?”

“I’m sorry. His what?”

Multiple sets of footsteps clunked down the stairs of the bleachers. Jack had a small army with him, including Joey and Hecker, but there were new faces, too. As badly as Alex wanted to know when newburies began to treat Jack with such prestige, she bit her tongue. Sigorny would twist Alex’s questioning and mold it into whatever article she was spinning.

Sigorny leaned forward as far as she could without falling over the railing. When Jack stopped beside Reuben, his army stopped, too. Some were Eskers kids, but some weren’t. Carr stood like a bodyguard beside Jack, who said one last thing into Reuben’s ear before leaving with his mob in tow. Sigorny tucked her notebook under her arm and chased after them.

Before she could change her mind, Alex projected herself to the space next to Reuben. She directed her energy at the bench and moved it backward. Reuben rolled onto his back to see who had saved him, and his mouth fell open.

“I need to ask you something.” Alex checked the tunnel, not knowing how long it would take Jack to return with help. “About your family. Did they know mine?”

Reuben shifted to his side and pushed himself to sit, but he didn’t answer.

“I’m just trying to understand.”

He studied her. “You never cared to talk to me before. Why now?”

“I tried last year. You didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Still don’t.”

“Fine.” She should have left him stuck in the fence. “Nevermind.”

Reuben let out a huff. “You don’t know it, but you’ve created two sides. There are spirits who support you and Sephi.” He spoke her name with a twang, pronouncing it
Say-fee
. “Then, there are spirits who don’t agree with her preaching, who hated her. Jack is smart. He used that to his advantage. He’s now president of your opposing team.”

For a moment, Alex couldn’t answer. She was too stunned by Reuben’s accent. She never heard him speak more than a handful of words at a time, and she hated how a southern twang made him endearing.

“Then he shouldn’t be mad that I’ve given him some friends, should he?”

“He blames you for last year.”

“That’s stupid. No offense, but
I
didn’t try to kill you last year. It was the other way around.”

“You were never in any harm.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“We didn’t know it then. Whoever controls Sephi controls the world. Whoever brainwashed us into following along wanted you, not us. We were tricked into thinking we’d be among the likes of the Darwins and other legacies.” He pulled himself onto the bench and said with a cluck of his tongue, “A Havilah.”

She didn’t like the way he spat the name, so she used her mind to nudge at his seat. When it shifted, he grabbed ahold of the sides with his chubby hands.

“Who do you think hired my family back in the day?” Reuben rested his lump of a chin on his hands. “Havilahs. Where do you think the Bonds got the bright idea to hire hunters for the Interactions Department? Havilahs. You’re the reason our curses follow us around. You might look like the darling of the nineteenth century, but really you’re a chip off the tainted block.”

Alex didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or to hate him.

“So you tell me, why am I the one getting the beatings?” Reuben tightened his grip on the fence. “Life might not be fair, but I sure as hell know now that neither is death.”

“I can’t believe you were talking to him!” Chase said as they climbed the hill away from the fields. “Doesn’t it mean anything to you that people are trying to protect you? To help you?”

“You’re just mad you got hit in the face with a ball.”

He stopped and his face flushed. “Sorry if I’m concerned about your welfare when I see you playing nice with the kid who tried to kill you a few months ago. When are you going to learn, Al?”

She watched her feet as she followed him up the hill. Her prints disturbed the grass here unlike the fields.

Chase reached out for her hand. “You see the light in things and people, and that’s something I love about you. I shouldn’t be mad, but I don’t know what it’s going to take for you to be more careful.”

“I don’t think Reuben is the problem. You want me to hate him? I can’t.”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all. I don’t want you to hate. It would change who you are.”

“Indifferent then?”

He shrugged. “That’s a step.”

“I can’t pretend like he’s not there. He is there. Those Eskers kids will always be there. So why not at least try to coexist? I think that’s the purpose of the sociology lessons. It’s not about the gifted but about the spirited getting along with each other.”

When he didn’t respond, Alex peeked at him. His hat was gone, and his hair was smoothed back. Control and order took over again. Part of her wanted to reach out and mess up his hair, and the other part of her wanted to hug him because she loved him so much. Even the neurotic parts.

Once they entered Brigitta, she figured Chase would deposit her at the seventh floor and go to his room, but he followed her down the corridor and stopped outside the frame marked with Eliza Tillerman’s name.

She waited for the doorframe to appear. “Don’t worry. I don’t think I can get into any trouble between the hallway and my room.”

“I thought you wanted to give meditation another try.”

“Oh!”

Several times over the past few weeks, she attempted to use the sketch to travel to Parrish. The idea that she could investigate her hometown undetected spun excitement within her. It was like being invisible, a fly on the wall. Her concentration lacked though because she’d gotten nowhere. She hadn’t even reached that gray area she’d found with Chase.

Chase ran his hand along his square jaw. “I don’t mind if you need some space. I can go.”

There could never be a time she’d tell him to leave. He should know that by now.

“I want you to stay.”

The door swung open for him as easily as it did for Alex. It was a bit more subjective with visitors, even Rae usually kicked it.

Chase threw his bag to the floor. “All right, let’s do this before curfew.”

“They don’t check in on you anymore, do they?”

He rolled his eyes. “Sometimes.”

“Really?”

“I’m sure Eidolon wouldn’t want to lose someone they could use in the future.” His voice carried an undertone of disgust. “Like I said, some things are worth breaking the rules for.”

She watched him stretch out on her bed, folding his hands behind his head. The way her stomach flipped embarrassed her. She hoped he couldn’t sense it.

“You know,” she began. “I was thinking we should lie on the floor. Less distracting.”

“I distract you?”

“As if you didn’t know.”

He rolled off the bed onto the floor. “Hey. When did she do that?”

A new sketch waited on the wall by the floor. Rae was nowhere to be seen, but she’d known where they’d be sitting and what they would need. It was another picture of the Parrish woods, but this time, it was the Frank house. Rae included every detail: the crooked door, the warped paneling, and the thatched roof. Alex could even hear the buzz of the fluorescent sign advertising palm readings.

“Weird,” she murmured.

“Hopefully it’s a good omen.”

Chase lay back, and Alex followed suit, nestling against him. The pings of electricity zapping, whenever they touched, didn’t faze them anymore.

“You smell good,” Alex said.

“I’m dead.”

“You still smell good.”

Like cold air and fresh laundry. He lowered one arm to wrap it around her, and he suddenly wore the dress shirt she smelled. The shirt he’d worn on his last night of life. Only half-buttoned and rolled at the sleeves, she wanted even more to bury her head there and sleep, but there was work to do.

“I’m ready,” Chase said.

Alex settled into him and focused her attention on the Frank house, well, that and Chase’s hand over hers on his chest. Within a few minutes, the outermost edges of the sketch trembled until they eroded, escaping in miniscule pieces like dust. Instead of falling to the floor, they stretched horizontally toward her. She relaxed and allowed herself to be pulled forward. Grayness.

Not again
, she was about to groan, but before she could think it to Chase, the Frank house appeared.

The haziness of the world drifted in and out of focus like a watercolor painting behind the breath of life. The colors bled. Chase held her hand, and even that didn’t feel real. His touch felt like water.

“This is like a fever,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re imagining this or if it’s real.”

“I think it’s real because it’s kind of what I saw when you would visit me before I died.”

“Like you’re drugged?”

Actually, it felt exactly like that. The distortion and uncertainty increased with each step. Waterlogged voices emerged from the Frank house. The first sounded like Liv speaking from the bottom of a well.

“I grew thick skin at an early age.” Her next sentence buzzed, inaudible. A rippling sound followed, perhaps a sigh or a groan. “Could be why I’m an effing size twelve.”

Alex’s heart constricted upon hearing Liv, and Chase rubbed his chest over his heart and muttered a soft, “Ouch.”

“You … beautiful … think … love.” Thea Frank’s syllables scratched like a skipping needle of a record player.

Liv’s curse-word reply came out clear and boisterous. What she said after that hollowed out. Alex strained her ears as much as she could. She felt the ache of the stretch in her mind.

Thea must have scolded her use of language because Liv replied, “Grandma, when you’re descended from a line of lunatics, you need some sort of shield to deflect the ridicule … ” her words cut out and then returned, “ … assholes who open their mouths, even the assholes who are faithfully departed.”

Chase tugged at Alex’s hand and they walked up to the rippling window. But the second Alex focused her attention inside, she traveled like a breeze, bringing Chase along. They landed by the archway between the kitchen and living room, and Alex’s head pulsed at the temples.

Thea’s arms blurred as she lifted them to fluff her white curls. “You need to spend more time away from here.”

Alex couldn’t see Thea very well, but she sensed her loveliness. Thea had thrived growing up in an age where curves equaled beauty, and so she always flaunted her magnificently full figure in a way that Liv never had. Thea appeared photo-ready even though Alex knew she rarely left the house. She used to say that when you’re never alone, you never want to look like you think you are. In life, Alex hadn’t believed Thea’s profession as a medium, assuming it was a spinoff of the Parrish legends. She’d been as green as Thea’s wallpaper.