Stray (29 page)

“This isn’t playtime.”

“I can teach you how to block precognition in a fight, draw strength from your opponent’s signal and use it to overpower them.”

“Really? Why don’t
you
do it then?”

She screws her mouth up. “I’m a telepath, not a Shield. My body isn’t strong like yours.”

“We’re wasting time.”

“That thing you do with glass is a form of telekinesis, you know?”

I don’t want to show any sign of interest in anything she has to say that isn’t about finding Aiden and saving Miriam, but she sees my hesitation.

“
I
can’t even do that, manipulate matter, but I could show you how to focus and control your gift so you can do it on purpose, not just when you’re upset.”

“They’re kind of your things, aren’t they? Control and manipulation.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“Get on with it.” I close my eyes again and this time it’s the comforting black inside of my head. Thank goodness.

“Picture your brother. Bring him into focus. Find a physical memory as if you’re going to Transfer. Remember his signal. Now reach.”

I know immediately this is different. When I reached for Jamie, the night after his mother shot me and he was out stalking Richard and I was bleeding on his parents’ kitchen counter, it was a plunge into static, an ocean of bandwidth, or like trying to see through a storm. This is like standing on a mountain top on a clear night. My spine carries the hum and buzz but there’s no painful zapping pins and needles, no roar in my ears. It’s like flying.

Aiden’s eyes, his nose, cheekbones, mouth, his smile, his voice. I carry the details close, reaching, reaching. I think,
Where are you? Aiden. I need you. Miriam needs you
.

We’re only a mile or two from Joss Hill. Tesla thought it best to check ahead of time if I could sense him, so we could plan our approach, not wanting to spook Aiden into running or charge into the old summerhouse and start a fight. I wouldn’t let them do that anyway. I would go to Aiden alone. I would sit with him, explain, prepare him for Tesla. I wouldn’t let Davis or Benjamin anywhere near him. My anxiety is all over the place, afraid of finding him and not finding him in equal measure.

“He’s not there,” she says.

“I know.”

“You’re strong.”

What am I supposed to say – thanks?

“Stronger than you think.”

“Not strong enough to block you out.”

“Not yet.”

I open my eyes, in my seat, no out-of-body hallucinations, back in the here and now. The Proxy opens her eyes and starts to peel the sensors from her temples. Tesla strides in with the small silver disc in his hands. “We will take the next reading at the house.”

I don’t ask how he knew we were finished. He must have been listening.

“Do not give up hope,” he says.

I don’t know what to hope for.

The house is empty, I tell myself the moment we pull up. It’s impossible to sense anything through the torrential rain, static crackling in my head, but I know Kitty and Aiden aren’t inside. Of course not. It was never the plan for Aiden to sit in the old beach house, waiting. He was just supposed to take the jeep and keep moving, checking back in a fortnight for any sign of a message from me. How far would he travel with two weeks in mind for laying low?

I sense Jamie watching me, the tension in his body, like he might burst from the van at the slightest sign from me that his sister is in there. I make myself meet his gaze and give a small uncertain shake of my head.
I don’t know
. It’s barely visible but his shoulders drop and I can’t ignore the plunge of regret in my stomach.

“No heat signatures,” Davis says, handing the rectangular scanner back to Benjamin in the front seat. Felicity sighs.

A street away the ocean beats the shore. We sit in the van on the front lawn, the rain pelts the roof. It’s loud. My head aches from six hours in a small space with the static of five other signals. Somehow the Proxy keeps her noise on mute. I envy the others; none of them are wincing and massaging their temples. I can’t wait to get out of the van. Neither can the Proxy, her eyes on the rain-streaked window. She’s holding her breath.

I rivet my focus on her, reaching into the bandwidth for clues. She couldn’t possibly try for an escape now. Not when Tesla can paralyse her, us, with a press of a button. Not out in the open. She couldn’t run far. She swivels her head towards me, a small smile at her lips, but I can’t read a single thing in the static. Not even a pulse.

Benjamin opens the doors, the shoulders of his black sweatshirt already saturated, his skin glistening in the wet, tense, distracted, a warning look in his eyes that says, don’t try anything stupid. I scowl to remind him that I despise him for destroying Aiden’s blood sample, to remind him that I don’t trust him either, then I push past out onto the lawn. Gulping air, ozone and icy damp, I’m grateful for the sodden grass beneath my feet though it soaks my sneakers. Out here the signals fade and the weight on my temples lifts and the noise in my head dials down. I tip my face up, let the rain pool above my cheeks, open my mouth and taste the sea salt in the air. It feels so good to move and stretch after spending the whole road trip holding myself rigid, trying not to bump thighs and shoulders with Jamie.

“Look,” Davis says.

I wipe my face and turn.

He stands beside Benjamin and Jamie, watching the Proxy climb out of the van. Felicity holds her hand, murmuring and reassuring. The Proxy blinks against the pouring rain, ducking her head, but her mouth stretches wide with a smile. She huffs white clouds, a soft grunting laughter. She clings to Felicity, leaning into her, one hand stretched out, palm up for the rain, a gurgle of delight. I realise her anticipation was for this moment and not escape.

With matching frowns, Benjamin and Jamie look away, like her joy is somehow obscene – but it’s not quite disgust, more the discomfort of witnessing something deeply wrong. How old must the Proxy be? At least my age. This shouldn’t be a girl’s first time in the rain.

Davis shudders. “Freak.” He turns to the van and closes the doors with a clap that reverberates through the air. Tesla appears around the side of the van, a warning look on his face as he nods at the neighbouring houses. It’s not quite dark but there are no lights in the windows. These are mostly holiday cottages and it’s nearly winter. There’re not likely to be many people around but still, we don’t want to draw attention.

“Is there a key?” Tesla walks beside me, hunching against the sheeting rain.

I shake my head and lead the way, single file across the lawn and down the side of the house. By the time we climb up onto the back stoop, we’re all soaked through, thunder booming overhead. Davis assesses the deadbolt and opens a leather wallet of picks, like a thief from a movie. He springs the lock in seconds and opens the door into the dim kitchen. I go first, pointedly scuffing my sneakers on the welcome mat. Davis rolls his eyes but follows suit.

The air isn’t stale like a house that’s been shut up for months and the circuit-breaker by the laundry room door shows the power switch is on. It’s cold but not as cold as the house should be if it had been empty and my skin prickles with hyperawareness. The lights come on in the kitchen and the small living room beyond.

The others file in and Davis looks doubtfully at the tidy but old-fashioned interior. “Nice place.”

“Benjamin,” Tesla says, “check the house. Davis, unload the van.”

Davis doesn’t complain, just steps back out into the rain and closes the door. Benjamin examines the living room, the scanner in his hands. I check the key rack above the counter. The key to the jeep is missing and my stomach swoops. Relief? Anxiety? “They’ve definitely been here.”

“Is this the garage?” Jamie slides the laundry room door back but I nip past him, two strides to the garage internal access. I’m shaking as I open the door, Jamie close behind me. No car.

“I guess they got the jeep.”

He doesn’t move, glowering into the empty space. I want to get past but I don’t want to touch him or feel the hum in my skin. It’s bad enough in a tight space, the resonant wash of his signal in and over mine. Finally, he turns, stalks out and I release my breath.

Benjamin reports the house is clear. He and Davis take the van to go in search of food. Tesla reminds the rest of us he has the silver disc. In the living room, Felicity spreads her jacket and the Proxy’s sweatshirt over the backs of chairs to dry. The Proxy fidgets by the cold hearth in her socks and short sleeves, intermittently peering up at the ceiling and then at the picture frame above the mantelpiece. The rain roars on the tin roof and each time thunder rolls, she flinches and ducks like the ceiling is about to cave in on her. Something has changed since she’s come inside and Felicity watches the girl, her brow pinched.

The picture above the mantelpiece is one of those grid frames with holes for multiple photographs. I cringe inwardly, knowing I’m in almost every one. In fact, I’m all over the room, down the little hall and in the two bedrooms. This was Nan and Pop’s holiday home. I never spent as much time at Joss Hill as I did at their place in Burton but I was an “only child” with a photographer aunt/mother – it might as well be a shrine to the chronology of my life. I consider bolting through the house tearing pictures from the walls but know it will only draw attention and comment.

Worse still is seeing the Proxy, agitated as she is, poring over the images. My happy, love-filled childhood. Scenes from Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and here. If she’s never felt rain before, chances are she’s never built a sandcastle, swam in the ocean, melted s’mores over a driftwood fire or slept under the stars in the backyard of her grandparents’ holiday home. No one’s catalogued her days in water wings, flip-flops and bikinis.

Tesla doesn’t waste time. He sets up his mobile transmitters on the cherry wood coffee table. Watching him, the Proxy grows more restless. She paces the small room, balling her fists, batting away Felicity’s hands when her keeper tries to soothe her. Thunder booms like cannon blasts and the Proxy covers her head, her eyes rolling at the ceiling beneath the brim of her cap.

“It won’t work,” I say, crouching beside Tesla. “Not in a storm. The bandwidth’s a mess. There’s nothing but static. I can’t even make out the heartbeat of anyone in the room let alone reach through all this interference for a signal.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “Anyway, she’s freaking out. We might as well wait for the weather to clear. Let her calm down.”

He sits back on his heels, listening to the torrential downpour on the roof. I breathe in his scent and can’t help looking for the green in his dark eyes, for any evidence of me in the bones of his face. I try to imagine an untampered childhood where I would have come to this house with him and Miriam and not April. It makes my insides knot with a complicated grief. It’s too weird being here with any of these people. A clash of realities.

“We have used six and a half of our forty-eight hours,” he says.

It makes my chest constrict and I swallow.

“You are right, at least, that there is no point trying while she is like this.” He pushes up to his feet and says to the room, “We wait. Eat. Dry off. Perhaps the weather will pass.”

* * *

The storm doesn’t quit. Beyond the kitchen window the lawn is flooded and trees thrash their limbs, littering the dark yard with torn leaves, broken branches. Lightning forks the sky. The house creaks and groans, awake and unhappy. Inside, the active signals seem unnaturally blended and multiplied by static that makes my head throb. I lean my forehead on the glass for relief.

“Evangeline,” Benjamin says. “You should eat.”

Is he trying to bridge the trust gap with pizza? He sits with Jamie and Davis, his expression tense, shadows beneath his worried eyes. The three of them dwarf the dining table, half-empty pizza boxes ravaged in the middle. Jamie has his back to me; he doesn’t look up. Davis manages to chew and scowl at the same time. The cheese and salami aromas mingle oddly with the fug of wet clothes steaming on the radiator. I’m hungry but I’m not sure I could keep anything down. I shake my head at Benjamin, who seems just as haunted and on edge as me, and leave the kitchen as though I have somewhere else to be.

In the living room, Felicity has coaxed the Proxy onto the couch. The girl sits with her legs folded up, hugging her knees, her eyes flicking towards the ceiling, anticipating thunder. It booms overhead. Felicity wears plastic gloves, trying to feed the Proxy small bites of pre-cut vegetables and meat from a Tupperware container, murmuring what sounds like a rhyme about chewing.
Up and down, round and round, the little chompers go
. I can’t see Felicity’s face to tell if she’s embarrassed. My first instinct is to turn and share a “holy crap” look with Jamie but I quickly snuff the impulse, my sharing privileges gone.

The Proxy swivels her head like a reluctant toddler, unwilling to open her mouth for a cube of carrot. Her eyes lock on mine, roundly aware and fearful, but why would she be afraid of me? She jerks back in her seat, hissing at Felicity, rubbing a pink welt on the back of her white hand.

“You must eat,” Felicity says.

What the hell? She pinched the girl?

I escape along the narrow hall, so preoccupied by the creep show in the living room that I’m slow to register Tesla through the door of the first bedroom. He sits on the side of the bed, a framed photo in hand. I stall and stare without meaning to. I was hoping to lie down, clear my head. He looks up, a brief flash of awkwardness that makes me want to apologise for intruding, but this is essentially my house, Miriam’s house with Nan and Pop and April gone, and he’s the one touching my family’s things.
He is family
. The thought makes me prickly, stirring an unwelcome yearning that makes me ashamed.

He puts the frame back on the bedside cabinet and rises to his feet. “They were very alike.”

I glance at the photo. Miriam and April dressed for their first day of high school, grinning, arms linked. I can’t think what to say. I nod.