[Ganzfield 2] Adversary (23 page)

We arrived back at my mom’s house shortly after eleven. The night was clear and still above freezing. After a New Hampshire winter, it seemed relatively balmy to us. I suddenly realized that it was almost the beginning of March.

Since the fire alarm incident at the high school this morning, we’d decided not to risk going back there tonight. That made even more sense now, since we were charm-less. We didn’t have anyone who could persuade the guard.

We found Sean and Rachel curled up sleeping on the living room couch. Rachel loosely held the kitchen fire extinguisher in her sleep-slackened hands. I frowned at this…this
irresponsibility
. My mom was upstairs, and this place was made of wood and filled with other flammable things. A line from an old Talking Heads song drifted through my mind:
Three hun-dred six-ty five de-grees...

Trevor gave a mirthless snort of laughter and the song continued to play in his head.

Drew frowned down at his cousin and considered beginning his explanation of fire safety by kicking Sean in the shin.

Wait!
Let them sleep for now. We need to go get Cecelia in, like, three hours. He can sit watch while you get some sleep after that—and you’ll get to stay indoors, too.

Drew contemplated kicking Sean for another moment, and then he nodded, pulled the recliner in front of the TV, and started channel surfing.

Trevor grabbed the camping gear. I went upstairs for the little travel alarm from the guest bedroom. All trace of Zack had been stripped from the room, almost like he’d been exorcized. My mom had changed the sheets and arranged her little red-and-gold pillows in an artistic pile in front of the headboard.

As I went out the back door, I set the alarm for 3 a.m. with a silent groan. Trevor had set up my tent back by the trees. He tossed his own sleeping bag on an air mattress and pulled me gently down to join him. I wrapped myself in the warmth of his arms and his thoughts and we gazed at a couple of lonely stars together for a few minutes before I reluctantly moved to my tent to get some rest.

*   *   *

The alarm dragged us from sleep.
Blech.
I rubbed my hand over my face. Even the thought of 3 a.m. annoyed me—simultaneously too late
and
too early. Inside, in front of the TV, Drew didn’t even seem tired. He waved absently at us as we passed through to grab Sean and Rachel. An on-screen explosion filled him with delight.

Trevor drove, even though I still hadn’t had a chance to use my new driver’s license. Whenever we went somewhere,  I needed to scan people’s thoughts for hostile intentions. Was it really necessary tonight? It wasn’t as though the Sons of Adam knew we were here in New Jersey.

Probably.

In the back of the darkened van, it was apparent that, in the thrall of their feelings for each other, both Sean and Rachel had forgotten that I was a telepath and that I was
right here
. Their PG-13 activities quickly drifted into R territory.
Ah, hell.
I should’ve said something earlier. Now if I asked them to stop, I’d deeply embarrass us all. I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to catch thoughts from the rare passing car.

The drive felt longer than the seventeen minutes shown on the dashboard clock.

“We’re here!” Trevor called out loudly, studiously not turning around as he put the van in park. In the light from the streetlamps filtering through the windshield, I saw the flush in his cheeks.

Rachel and Sean went into the station to look for Cecelia. As soon as the van door shut, Trevor and I both cracked up.

Whoa,
he thought, bemused and embarrassed.

I covered my face with my hands for a moment, and then leaned back against the headrest and tilted to look at him. “I guess they didn’t have to give Dr. Williamson the same promise you did.”

Trevor laughed again. “Guess not.”

“At least, with Cecilia here, they’ll have a chaperone for the ride back.”

Trevor studied my face with thoughtful eyes. “You see things like that all the time, don’t you?”

I nodded. “Especially from them. Rachel’s crush on Sean was one of the first things I felt after my initial dose of dodecamine.” It seemed so long ago. Was it really just five months?

“You never told me that.”

“Just one of the many secrets I was planning to take to my grave. Now that they’re together, it’s not a secret anymore.”

“That Rachel had a crush on Sean? That wasn’t a secret.”

“Really?”

“The way she looked at him all last summer? Incredibly obvious.”

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Understand what people are feeling when they raise an eyebrow or clench their teeth. Before I got to Ganzfield, I got flashes where I just knew what people were thinking or feeling, but you do something different.”

“Really? I thought everyone could see it. It’s just in people’s faces.”

“So, you think you’d know what I was feeling, even if we didn’t have this connection?”

“Most of the time. I noticed you before that first night in the church, you know.”

“I remember.”

“What do you mean?”

“I noticed you, too. I saw you in class that first day and you thought something nice at me after the thing with Michael in the dining hall.”

“Do you remember what I thought?”

I nodded. “That I was brave, even though I was probably really scared.”

“Was I right?”

I grinned. “Okay, you
are
good at reading people.”

Rachel and Sean’s romantic attraction flowered hotly in the distance. Cecilia followed behind them, resonating with what I considered her customary setting: long-suffering annoyance.

Cecilia nodded coldly in greeting as she tossed her bag onto the first bench and slid in next to it. Rachel and Sean got in behind her, drunk on each other. Actually, the second-hand giddy, blissful stuff was nice to read off of them. I found myself smiling from the contact high. Rachel’s thoughts glowed with adoration for Sean. All she needed now was a notebook cover where she could scrawl “Rachel Fontaine McFee” or “R.F. loves S.M.,” then draw a heart around it. Sean’s thoughts tended to be more explicit so I tried not to focus in too much. Right now, though, he considered some of the other things about Rachel that delighted him, like when she’d said something funny. My lips quirked at that. I’d never heard Rachel say anything particularly funny, but it was nice that Sean thought she did.

Yeah, this was okay. As long as they could keep out of range with their physical stuff, I’d be happy. I really didn’t like seeing mental porn, especially of people I knew—people I had to talk to with a straight face the next day.

I flickered to Cecilia and lost my smile. Her last dodecamine injection had been seven weeks ago, and she could feel her ability beginning to fade.
Crap.
No wonder she’d come when we’d asked. She needed a booster, but a full dose for her would take about half of our remaining supply. I’d also need another shot in the next day or so. We’d have to restock quickly after we got Matilda and Morris out.

Would Coleman get Dr. Williamson released tomorrow? Hopefully. I felt sure that Dr. Williamson would be able to get us resupplied. This scared, lonely, what-do-we-do-now feeling I’d had for days would be over as soon as he was out. He’d take charge, and everything would be okay. I sighed as I relaxed and drifted toward sleep, lulled by the almost hypnotic effect of the headlights on the highway. I had a vague memory of Trevor’s arms around me, carrying me from the van to my little tent in the backyard. 

CHAPTER 10

“You have
got
to be insane.”

We’d all slept late; my mom had left for work by the time we gathered in the kitchen for breakfast. Cecelia wasn’t happy with the plan.

“Got a better idea?” I asked.

“A better idea than going directly into the home of the killer telepath? Gee! How about
not
going into the home of the killer telepath?” Cecelia’s voice dripped sarcasm. She sat with her arms crossed, leaning away from the table as though to disassociate herself from the rest of us.

She frowned as she absentmindedly rubbed the injection site on her arm—Hannah had given her half of our remaining supply of dodecamine. The muscles in my jaw tightened. Cecelia had taken some of our scarce resource and now she wasn’t making herself useful.

“I’m pretty sure they’re not in the main house.” Rachel pushed a printout of the aerial map into the middle of the table. “I’ve been comparing the map to my visions, and I think they’re…here.” She pointed to one of the outbuildings on the western edge of the property. It sat away from the others, isolated.

“How are they doing?” Trevor looked up from the stove. The smell of frying eggs wafted through the kitchen.

Rachel’s silence only answered the question for me. In her mind, I saw Morris. His face seemed tight and grey; both his legs stuck out at unnatural angles. I winced with a grimacing, hissing breath.

The sound caught Rachel’s attention. “Yeah. They did that late last night. Both his legs look broken,” she explained to the others.

I shook my head. “Then they’re definitely not in the main building. Isaiah’s got a big range, at least three hundred feet. A telepath wouldn’t keep someone in that much pain anywhere near him.”

Rachel checked the scale of her map. From the large house, the little outbuilding would be well beyond Isaiah’s range. Her confidence that Matilda and Morris were there grew.

How the hell I was going to hold it together around Morris? If his legs were still broken tomorrow, his pain would overwhelm me if I got too close. Perhaps Matilda could knock him out. He’d need to be carried, anyway.

“Where’s Isaiah?” asked Drew.

“Still on the property, as far as I can tell.” Rachel didn’t feel as confident in her ability to track Isaiah. Her flashes of him were much hazier and unfocused. “He sticks mostly to the main house. He’s got the entire mansion to himself, as far as I can tell.”

“So, he’s having a little luncheon with the Sons of Adam tomorrow, and you think this will be the ideal time to party-crash?” asked Cecelia.

“Actually, yes. We’re better off blending into the crowd.” I said. “Normally he’d notice a bunch of strange minds in his range, even if he’s not close enough to read them clearly. But I think he’ll be overwhelmed by all of his guests. We should be able to get the healers out while his head is full of other people’s thoughts.”

“Won’t he hear you coming? Don’t you telepaths hear each other more loudly?” She accused me with a scowl.

“I can shield.”

Trevor placed a plate of eggs in front of me. He set a second plate down as he took the chair next to me. I met his eyes and smiled.
Thank you.
With the first bite, I knew his title as “perfect man” was secure.
I’m still shocked you know how to cook.

Trevor’s mouth tightened.
It’s nothing, really.
A flash of memory: a much younger Trevor, alone in a house as the afternoon light faded, pulling a chair over to the stove so he could make himself something to eat.

Something tightened in my chest and I squeezed his hand.
It’s not nothing. It’s amazing. You’re amazing.

He ducked his head, but I could still feel his smile.

“You can shield?” Cecelia asked me, dubiously. I snapped back into the conversation.

“Well enough to sneak up on Seth.” Did that sound a little smug?

Her eyebrows shot up.
Really? Whoa.
“So why do we need the Sons of Adam? You said you wanted one of them to get us in tomorrow.”

“Yeah. We need you to charm them today. Get one of them to drive us in and vouch for us tomorrow.”

“Why? Why go in through the front door at all?”

“You have a better idea?” asked Drew.

My eyes widened, reluctantly impressed. “She does.”

Cecelia shot me an angry look. “I hate when you get in my head like that.”

I gave her an acid smile. “Oh, but I get such
pleasure
out of hearing the
sweetness and light
that fill your thoughts.” My eyes narrowed as I considered zapping her Broca’s area. It would shut her up
and
piss her off—a two-fer.

No, no, no. Bad Maddie. I needed to stop that high-handed, “Princess of Ganzfield” stuff. Zack had been right about that. However annoying I found Cecelia, we were still on the same team. Besides, she actually
did
have a good idea.