Split Second (Pivot Point) (3 page)

Laila:
One a.m. If I have to be awake, then so do you.

It was haunting me—the stupid date on the front of the envelope. Every time I reached into my purse, the envelope seemed to scratch against my hand. And now just the thought of it was disrupting my sleep. Six weeks until Addie came home. I could not carry around the guilt-inducing letter for another six weeks without knowing what it said. Before I could change my mind, I threw back my blankets, grabbed my purse, and ripped open the envelope.

A note on lined paper was folded in uneven thirds, one corner sticking out at a lopsided angle. I smoothed out the page and read the letter Addie had written to herself.

I read it through twice, too shocked to comprehend it the first time. Restore her memory? She wanted me to restore her memory. I didn’t know how to do that. Could I in her other life?

I knew some adult Memory Erasers could do that. Some could pinpoint memories, selectively Erase certain people from memories. I was limited for now. Still growing. I could Erase sections of time. Like two days, three weeks. When I came into my full ability, I’d be able to do more things. But the note implied I was able to restore memories now. At this age.

She couldn’t have been any more vague. Couldn’t she have written helpful information, like how I managed to do that or why she wanted it done? Bobby was the only person I knew who helped people advance their ability. And Bobby was absolutely unavailable. But I would’ve never hung out with Bobby. So who else could I have learned how to advance my ability from?

Great, opening the stupid letter didn’t prove any more useful than carrying it around for weeks.

I reread it.

A smile crept onto my face. I had always pushed my ability to just beyond the limit, scared of the damage I could cause myself if I went any further. But this note proved it was
possible. No more holding back.

I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a DAA-approved electronic clip. Maybe putting a few extra hours in on mind patterns would help. But as I went to attach it to my card, I stopped. Doing the same thing I always did would produce the same results. I needed something different. And I knew exactly where I could find just that.

The party was in full swing when I got there. This wasn’t like the parties I sometimes dragged Addie to. Even
I
normally avoided these parties. Untested programs filled each wall—a combination of lights and images—broadcasting who knew what kind of garbage into the brains of the watchers. A pattern that wasn’t designed for my ability usually made me physically ill. Other people claimed it took them to a new level, but a new level of sick wasn’t my idea of enlightening.

But an untested mind pattern created for my ability? That was something I was willing to try. I wandered through the rooms, looking for someone I knew while trying to keep my eyes straight ahead. The patterns of light dancing on the walls were edging into my vision from all sides.

Ahead of me, Kalan sat against the wall, a set of headphones on. I stopped beside her and nudged her leg with the toe of my boot. “Kalan.”

She pulled off her headphones. “Hey. What’s up? I didn’t know you came to these.”

“I don’t.”

“So you’re a figment of my imagination?”

I rolled my eyes. “No.” I nodded to the wall in front of her. “Do you know if there’s a program for Memory Erasers somewhere?”

“No. We don’t label them. That’s the point. It’s freeing not to put yourself in a box.”

“Okay.” So they were all idiots. “Who provides the entertainment for these things?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think he attends them.”

I sighed and turned to go. Maybe someone else would know more.

“Stay, Laila.” Her voice was smooth and steady. It made me want to sit down and join her. It almost made me forget Kalan was a Persuasive.

“Did you really just use your ability on me?”

She smiled. “This is where we practice. We try to reach further. You should practice.”

I sat down next to her. “And does it work? Are you advancing?”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Not really. But it’s fun.”

I shook my head. No help whatsoever. I started to get up, but she grabbed hold of my forearm.

“I need your help.”

I looked at her hand on my arm and she let go. “With what?” I asked.

“I need a memory Erased.”

“You want one of your memories Erased? Fine. Tell me when it happened and how long the event was.”

She cleared her throat and looked at her hands. “No. Not one of my memories. Someone else’s.”

I sat up straighter. “What? No.” Addie may have thought I just Erased whenever the need arose, but I had my limits.

“I know you’ve done it before. I saw you kissing Patrick one day by the lockers. I asked him about it the next day, thinking you two were together, and he looked at me like I was crazy. He thought I had imagined it.”

“Well, that’s none of your business, is it? Those are memories of me I took back. I didn’t take out anything that belonged to him.”

“This would be a memory of me you’re taking. I swear.”

“Kalan, no, I can’t. I won’t. Sorry.” I stood and left her sitting by the wall alone with her mind pattern.

I continued to search, pausing at an open door. Someone in the room had caused everything, including the people, to float about an inch off the floor. That was impressive, even for a Telekinetic. I didn’t know many who could move more than one thing at a time, let alone an entire roomful. A guy in the center of the room, the only one not floating, caught my eye. I had no idea who he was, but as soon as he saw me looking, a big smile spread across his face, and everything fell with a bang.

“That was less than a minute,” someone called out.

“I was distracted,” he said, turning his smile back to me.

I gestured him over with my head, and he bounded over like an eager puppy.

“How’d you do that?”

He shrugged one shoulder and leaned close. His breath
reeked of stale smoke. “I’m talented.”

“Who sold you the program?”

“What program?”

I sighed. “The one that helped you do that.”

The guy looked over my shoulder to someone behind me. “Great party.”

I turned to face the host. I didn’t recognize him—short, red hair—but he would have answers. “Hey.” I caught up with him as he continued to walk down the hall. “Where did you get these programs?”

“They’re DAA.”

“Whatever. They are not. I’m looking to buy some myself.”

The guy gave me a hard look, and by the way he studied me I wondered if he was a Discerner, like Addie’s dad, trying to find out if I was telling the truth.

He must’ve decided I was, because he said, “His name is Connor.”

“Connor Bradshaw?”

“I think so.”

Huh. I vaguely knew Connor. We had shared a class or two over the years. He was cute in a scruffy, just-rolled-out-of-bed kind of way. I knew Connor sold minor Enhancers, which were discouraged but legal—a couple of weeks ago he had offered me a block enhancer at a party—but I had no idea he sold illegal ability patterns as well. Nice. Connor, like every other guy, would be easy to manipulate. I was one day away from answers.

Addie:
Adult parties are even stupider than teen ones.

I sat in the bedroom my father had appointed for me in his new house. Aside from being plain, the room wasn’t bad. My feet were propped on the desk, while I painted my toenails two different colors—black and orange. More out of boredom than holiday spirit. I obviously had no friends in Dallas, my dad had no cable, and I had brought only two books, both of which I’d read—one on the drive over and the other yesterday. What had I been thinking? Two books for six weeks? Not smart. But despite my boredom, this trip was exactly what I needed—time to be alone, rest my ability from the strain of classes, and figure out how to move forward.

My dad poked his head in my room and said, “I have a
pre-Thanksgiving party for work tonight. Did you want to come?”

Would I have to speak to people?
was what I wanted to ask, but instead just shrugged.

“I think my boss has a daughter your age. Or maybe it’s a son. I don’t know, either way there will be a teenager in the vicinity.” He must’ve seen the hesitation on my face, because he clasped his hands together and said, “I’ll make you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“If you come with me to this work thing, tomorrow morning I’ll take you to the most amazing bookstore you have ever seen in your life.”

Considering the only bookstore I’d ever seen was a small, one-room, secondhand dive, he knew it wouldn’t be hard to impress me. He also knew it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. He smiled before I could even respond, obviously using his ability of Discernment to read the feelings written all over my face.

“Do I have to dress up?”

He looked me up and down, lingering on the ratty cuffs of my jeans. “Maybe a little bit. Would a skirt be out of the question?”

“I can probably handle a skirt.”

“Okay, it sounds like we’ve come to an agreement then. Can you be ready to go in an hour?”

“Sure.”

As we drove to the party, I began to wonder if my dad had invited me to meet friends and up his odds that I’d want to stay
with him after Christmas. He’d hinted that he wanted me to stay longer, through the school year, but I figured I’d picked my mom’s house for a reason. There must’ve been something about this life I didn’t like. What would be the point in changing my mind now, after I’d gone through all the work of making the decision?

“What’s up, kid?” my dad asked, patting my knee.

“Nothing.”

“We don’t have to stay long, okay?”

He picked up on the wrong anxiety, but I appreciated his concern anyway. And not staying long sounded great. “Thanks.”

We turned onto a street where large houses loomed out of the darkness. Birds I couldn’t see squawked in a noisy chorus from treetops. What kind of birds were so active in darkness?

The circular drive was full of cars when we pulled up. My palms were already sweating from the thought of the small talk that was about to ensue. I repeated my cover story in my mind as we exited the car. The taller-than-necessary front door stood partially ajar, and the noise of the party flowed down the walkway. We let ourselves in, and my dad greeted several clusters of people as we made our way into the heart of the home.

“Ah! Coleman!” a broad-shouldered, gray-haired man called from across the room.

My dad waved and closed the distance between them. “Jenson. Thanks for having us. This is my daughter, Addie.”

“Hi, Addie.” He pumped my hand several times and then looked around. “Hmm, mine is roaming around here somewhere
and would be much better company than us old folks.” The longer he searched the room, the more irritated he became. “Give me a minute.” He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Are you upstairs?”

My dad and I exchanged a look, and I tried not to laugh.

“Could you please come down? I want you to meet someone.”

Great, I was forcing someone to attend a party against their will. Perfect start to a friendship.

He hung up the phone. “While we’re waiting, why don’t you get some food? Here, let me show you the good stuff.” He led the way to a table set up with food, and soon I had a heaping plateful in one hand and a soda in the other. So I had no free hands when his daughter joined us downstairs and we were introduced. She was really pretty, taller than me, with dark eyes and hair and a perfectly put-together outfit.

“Stephanie, I want you to meet Addie. Her father and I work together. Why don’t you show her around?”

“Sure.” She gestured for me to follow, and I did. When we were far enough away from our fathers, she said under her breath, “Okay, this food is nasty. My dad is a vegetarian and thinks tofu should be in everything. Believe me, you don’t want anything to do with it.” I followed her into the kitchen, and she dumped the whole plate into the garbage. “If you’re hungry, I can find you something real.”

“No, I’m good.”

She smiled a perfect white smile. “So this is the kitchen.” She pointed through an arched opening. “And that’s the living
room . . . and . . . did you really want the grand tour, or was that my dad’s idea?”

“It was your dad’s idea.”

“That’s what I thought. Come on, I’ll show you the most important room. Mine.”

Stephanie’s room was like a yearbook of her life—pictures everywhere. And where there weren’t pictures, there were pom-poms and cheer trophies. A large football poster hung on the wall, a heart drawn around one of the players. I walked closer and looked at the guy, surprised when I recognized him. Trevor. Dark wavy hair, high cheekbones, amazing eyes. He was just like I remembered him from the football game a couple of weeks ago . . . and from my weird vision or hallucination or whatever it was I had in the hospital. I was trying not to dwell on it. With his poster image staring me right in the face, my heart racing to life, it was hard not to think about it.

Why had I had such a realistic vision of someone I’d barely met?
Because your stupid ability is acting odd
, I told myself.

My fingers brushed the smooth surface of the poster, running down his face and then tracing the red heart drawn there once, then twice. “Is this your boyfriend?”

“Trevor? No. My ex. We were off and on for a while, but he has issues, and I’m tired of dealing with them.”

“Issues?” I dropped my hand and shook it out, looking back at Stephanie.

“He got hurt last year and can’t get past it.”

Now my heart was thumping against my ribs for different
reasons as I remembered exactly why and how Trevor had gotten hurt. I turned away from her so she wouldn’t see my face redden with a surge of anger toward Duke.

“I was so supportive for the longest time, even threw him a big party to help him get over his fears.” She shook her head like she wasn’t going to continue.

I cleared my throat, pushing my emotions down. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. He shut me out after that.”

“That sucks.”

“I know. I’m just done with guys for a while.”

Especially football players
, I thought about adding, but instead said, “Me too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Long story.”

“You want to know the worst part? We have the same friends, so I’m constantly running into him.”

“I hate that.” Running into arrogant ex-boyfriends was not high on my list of things I enjoyed doing either. I continued around her room, looking at more pictures. “Oh hey, that’s Rowan, I know him.”

She curled her lip. “You know Rowan?”

“Well, I don’t know him very well, but my friend Laila knows him.”
Or at least is well acquainted with his mouth
.

“Hmm.” She shook her head. “Never heard of her.” She grabbed a laptop from her desk and plopped onto her bed with it. “So are you going to Carter High now? I haven’t seen you before.”

“No, I’m just visiting my dad for the holidays.”

“Your parents are divorced?”

“I guess it’s not official or anything, but yeah.”

“Oh, so it’s fairly recent then?”

“About two months.”

“Sorry.”

I started to say,
It’s okay
, but it didn’t feel okay. “Yeah.”

“My parents have been divorced for seven years.”

I sat on the edge of her bed. “Does it get any easier?”

She gave me a look of empathy that seemed very sincere. “It totally does. I promise.” She nodded her head toward her computer. “Do you ever chat online? We should exchange info.”

“Sounds good.”

Her computer dinged, and she glanced at it, then let out a sigh. “This is what I’m talking about.”

“What?”

“Party at Trevor’s the day after Thanksgiving. Sharing the same friends with your ex sucks.” She typed a response in the chat window. “Do you want to come with me?”

At first I thought she was narrating her own typing, because she wasn’t looking at me, but then she glanced up with a questioning eyebrow raise.

“Me?”

“Yeah. It would be nice to have a new face around. A friend who’s mine and not one I share with Trevor. Maybe you can help me buffer some of the awkwardness.”

I laughed. “I’m not a very good awkwardness buffer. I kind of create awkwardness.”

“Even better.”

I shrugged and my general loathing of parties almost made me say no thanks, but then I remembered my multicolored toenails and the extreme boredom awaiting me at my dad’s house. And how when I had nothing to occupy my mind, it did a great job occupying itself with Duke. “Why not?”