Balancer (20 page)

X Marks the Spot

Nicole, Amy and
Ben were back in the car heading to their respective houses. It was the end of one of the longest school days Nicole could remember.

Ben had been dropped off first, and he had promised to email when he had heard back from Professor DuBois about the flu symptoms. Both he and Amy had reacted as though their worst fears had been realized when Nicole admitted to Balancing at the Patriot Center. Ben had wanted to know whether there were any lasting effects from Nicole’s Balancing and hoped DuBois could help.

In a moment of Nicole-esque articulacy, Amy had described the Balancing as “morally defunct.” (Both Nicole and Ben had been lost for words.) Nicole hoped the hospital results would change her best friend’s mind, especially given the fact that the audience members were actually recovering from their flu symptoms.

Deep down, Nicole was annoyed that they didn’t seem to trust that she knew what she was doing. She was supposed to be Ben’s crush, which surely meant he should cut her some slack. Instead, he had been angrier and more forthright than she’d ever seen him, which made Nicole all the more uncomfortable. Ben had been mad because the girls needed to cover their tracks and stay off of people’s radars, and their latest YouTube clip had given away too much information. They may as well have produced a treasure map with “X marks the spot” surrounded by neon lights, Ben had said. “Here’s where you’ll find the miracle-worker! Come one, come all!”

With Ben gone, hopefully the level of drama in the car would go down, too.

Next was Amy’s house. With a quick parting shot and a promise to call later, Nicole heaved a sigh of relief as she watched her best friend head up her driveway and be greeted by her mom at the doorstep. With a honk of her car horn, Nicole drove away from Amy’s house and began her five-minute trip home.

She smiled at the familiar sight of the trees lining her road. Her house was now in sight, and, as usual, she’d grab herself a soda and some cookies, head up to her room and bury her face in a pillow.

Yet as she pulled up in her driveway, she noticed three large black SUVs parked nearby.

This wasn’t something she could easily shrug off.

When she brought her Nissan to a stop, her attention drifted to Mrs. Truman, who was standing in her newly overhauled front yard, her hands on her hips. Her expression, at first unfathomable, changed the moment she made eye contact with Nicole.

The old lady’s face cracked into a satisfied smile, and she turned and went indoors.

A shiver ran through Nicole’s bones.

As much as she wanted to put her foot down on the gas and get out of there, there was no time to turn back. She had been seen, and by the looks of those vehicles, she could also be outrun.

Preparing herself for what might come next, Nicole got out of her car and shut the door. As normally as possible, she walked up to her front door. She may have looked calm, but inside, she was frantically praying that those cars and the men inside them weren’t there for her.

The moment her key reached the lock, a clear, smooth voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Nicole Aaronson?”

She hesitated before turning to greet the owner of the voice.

He was a tall man, about her dad’s height, with fair hair and sparkly brown eyes. She couldn’t tell whether he was friendly; his manner was of pure professionalism.

He held up a badge, and Nicole’s blood froze in her veins.

FBI.

“I’m Agent Carter, and this is my partner, Agent Bishop. We’re from the FBI, and we have some questions to ask you. May we come in?”

Nicole observed the short, bearded and exhausted-looking older man who joined Agent Carter. She half wondered whether he’d been at the Patriot Center dancing to Jenna Kidd, he looked so terrible.

“What about?” Nicole asked.

“Perhaps it would be better if we talked inside?” he replied evenly.

Not knowing what else to do and instinctively feeling that her home turf may be safest, Nicole nodded. “Uh, sure …”

She opened the door further and let them inside, desperately wishing that Amy and Ben were still with her.

Moments later, she’d provided the agents with coffee and was sitting down, still preparing herself for what was to come. She wanted to appear as normal and casual as possible to throw them off the scent.

“I think my mom has some coffee cake. Let me cut some pieces for you.” Nicole glided into the kitchen, hoping to buy herself some time. She was about to text Amy when Agent Bishop joined her in the kitchen to “help out.”

Nicole cut the cake in silence and returned to the living room.

Agent Carter sipped from his mug and set it down.

“What happened at the wildfire, Nicole?”

“I rescued a little girl and her dog. We found them while we were running away. I thought she was injured and he was burnt, but the vet told me that he was fine and was just in shock and had singed fur. When the fire crew cleaned him up, he looked pretty good. The doctors don’t really know what happened with Elise. Just got lucky, I guess.”

“What about the dead animal trail?”

“Dead animals? Oh, I saw them on the news. I was too busy running to see them then.”

“I didn’t ask that. Did you have anything to do with them dying?”

“Why would I? Unless I accidentally stepped on them.” Nicole directed her stare back.

The balding, grumpy one whose name was Bishop opened his reporter’s notebook and took over questioning.

“What about the ditch? You carried Elise through the water, right? That’s what you told the paramedics,” Bishop said.

Nicole gazed at him vacantly. Out of the two, Nicole preferred this agent, however gruff and unkempt he was. The other one had a nasty tone to everything he said. And everything he said was deliberate.

“Yeah. I mean, what else could I do? She seemed really badly hurt.”

“Quite the little hero, aren’t we?” Agent Carter said.

It was a lightening-fast comment, and in that moment, the atmosphere in the room changed completely. It was like someone had turned down the thermostat to zero.

Nicole sensed this was about to get ugly, and she was scared. Her throat was suddenly parched, and she took a large gulp of coffee. She wondered whether the agents could hear her heart, it was so loud in her ears.

Agent Bishop didn’t flinch and simply flicked over the pages of his notebook. Apart from her heartbeat, that was all that could be heard in the room now, steeped as it was under a loaded silence.

“The Geller family.” Agent Bishop sat back. “Would you like to tell us about them?”

Nicole took a breath and began. “Well, my mom, she works in the ER at Evergreen Hospital. She heard that Mr. Geller’s son, Ethan, was a fan of mine. I was on the news a lot and got called ‘SuperNix’ from all that other rescuing stuff. Anyway, Ethan Geller was dying and I went to see him a couple of times. To cheer him up. Which I think I did. Anyway, his dad died from a heart attack.”

“So sad,” Carter said pointedly, sipping his coffee.

Nicole nodded dumbly. She had been trying to explain it with facts that an outsider would know, but the words stumbled thickly out of her mouth. With each new sentence, she could feel herself getting deeper and deeper into hot water.

“Ethan Geller was the boy who made a full recovery?” Agent Bishop checked this out with his partner, who nodded. “Bit like Elise?”

“You were with Mr. Geller when he died, right Nicole?” He turned to her.

“No, I talked to him outside for a bit, then I had to go. My mom told me about his heart attack.”

Silence in the room again.

Nicole felt like someone had punched her in the chest. She struggled to keep hold of herself. They must have seen the security footage. She cursed herself.

Agent Bishop closed his notebook.

Agent Carter set down his coffee cup.

They knew she was lying.

Nicole realized that the tangled web she had weaved had now caught her. She understood, in that second, that these men didn’t need her to tell them the facts.

Whatever she said now would fall on deaf ears. She couldn’t think straight any longer; the panic screaming in her head would not leave her alone. She was cornered.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I don’t want to answer any more questions until I talk to my mom.”

“Oh, she left us a message that she’ll meet us at our offices. She was busy when we first tried to call her,” Carter said.

Nicole tried to register this. Her mom had been told? They were going to meet up with her? Why hadn’t her mom told her?

Then the taller one leaned forward and caught her in a terrifying glare.

“We know it was you, Nicole. The wildfire, Tim Geller, the Patriot Center. We don’t know how you’re doing it — or why — but we know.”

Nicole felt an electric shock tear through her whole body. She clutched the couch as though she were on some kind of rollercoaster.

They knew everything.

She felt tears well up in her eyes as she floundered for words.

“Now, my partner here thinks you did it out of the goodness of your heart, and I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt,” Carter said. “But I think it’s time that you come with us so we can hear your side of the story.”

It was exactly as Ben had said. They would take her in and interrogate her. The room began to swim and Nicole felt panic overwhelm her. She could vaguely tell that Agent Bishop had leaned forward to address her, and she could see his eyes were sympathetic. She heard words like “help” and “medical tests” and “not alone” and then felt his hand on hers.

But her survival instincts were taking over.

She clutched her throat.

“Sorry … I … think I’m gonna be sick!” she blurted out, and before the agents could stop her, she got up and ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

Her heart pounded furiously as the shock of what had just happened hit her like a train.

Medical tests? Interviews? What Ben had predicted was happening right now, and it seemed there was nothing she could do about it.

She heard a knock on the door.

“Nicole?” It was the older bearded guy, his voice muffled by the wood of the door.

“Yes?”

“I know you didn’t mean to harm anyone. Just come with us. Let us help you. We have the best of the best working with us. Like I said, we can work this thing through together.”

She heard a low mumble then, as though the agents were having an argument.

She fought with her fevered breath and tried to calm herself down.

Think, Nicole. Think.

Maybe Agent Bishop was right? Maybe they could help her? She could get herself examined and get some answers. If her mom knew about it and was by her side, then surely there was nothing to fear?

Nicole flicked up the lid of the toilet and made a retching noise. She just needed a little more time to think this all through. It was all happening so fast.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

“All right.”

She heard him go away from the door, and then she dialed her mom’s emergency number.

It rang a few times.

Pick up. Pick up. Please.

Her mom answered, out of breath.

“Hey, Nicole? You OK?

Stunned, Nicole was barely able to give a reply.

“Yeah, mom.”

“Listen, I’m really busy with a patient right now, so unless this is something important, I need to cut it short.”

Nicole felt her worst fears confirmed.

Her mom knew nothing.

The agents had lied.

It was a trap.

Don’t Fence Me In

Nicole knew she
had only precious minutes before the agents realized what she was up to. She had to be faster and quieter than she could possibly imagine.

Casting around for ideas, she saw the small window in the corner of the bathroom, and was filled with relief that she had chosen to let the agents in her home. She had gotten out of this window before.

With shaking fingers, she turned the faucet on full. The stream of water concealed the sound of her movements as she eased a potted plant from the window ledge and set it down gently on the tiled floor.

She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans, painfully aware that any mistake now might cost her. Closing the toilet lid and praying it would hold her weight, she stepped up lightly so that she was standing level with the window.

She lifted the window latch.

Just then, another knock stopped her in her tracks.

She froze on the spot, poised like a strange statue with a closed toilet bowl as its base.

“I’m just finishing up.”

She waited for a reply. Was that convincing enough?

“All right. We’re getting a little concerned out here is all.”

“Sorry. I made a mess in here. It’s kinda gross. Still trying to clean it all up.”

It seemed like a full minute before Nicole heard the shuffling of feet.

He had gone away.

This was her only chance.

Now.

Flushing the toilet, which gurgled noisily into action, Nicole leaned over and pushed open the narrow window. Then, realizing there were only flimsy venetian blinds to hang on to above, she grabbed either side of the open frame to clamber onto the small ledge.

This was it; she’d have to go out headfirst. She tried to calm her rising anxiety, thinking of it as water underneath.

Three, two, one …

Heaving herself up and pushing her shoulders through the gap, Nicole scraped her upper body through the window. She wriggled when the frame hit her hips. The last time she had gone through this window was when she was eight. Times had apparently changed. The plan to flip out of a window headfirst didn’t seem like such a good idea any longer.

Great. Just great.

Underneath, she spotted the ledge she remembered, and she reached out for it, using it to pull herself through. Any moment now would be the inevitable fall. But cuts and bruises would be better than putting herself at the mercy of those agents.

Upside down, with her feet now the last part of her hanging on, Nicole held on firmly to the ledge below. Then she flipped her body over.

She landed heavily, and pain ripped through her upper body. She had to suppress a desperate cry.

She took a second to recover and reassess the situation.

The small bathroom window led to the back of the house, and it was her best path to escape. As she picked herself up, she felt for her smartphone in her jeans pocket and experienced a stab of horror.

She had left it back in the bathroom after calling her mom.

She couldn’t go back for it now. She would have to run.

Picking up her feet, Nicole darted across the backyard and pushed herself through the shrubbery, into Mrs. Truman’s garden. She issued a silent wish for the poisonous lady to be elsewhere right now. She had crouched in these particular bushes hundreds of times before, waiting to reclaim a ball or a Frisbee. Now she was doing it to save her skin. Checking that all was clear in front, she sprang out of the bushes and into the open daylight of the huge lawn.

Up ahead was a taller fence. Mrs. Truman’s neighbors apparently preferred to keep their prying neighbor at bay. Nicole sped up, feeling the bouncy turf under her toes and making quick calculations about how to negotiate the fence. There was no time to run back and pace, so she would have to do her best to hurdle it.

As the fence grew nearer, she readied herself.

And leapt.

She landed hard on the other side and fell to her knees. Amazingly, she still hadn’t been seen.

Exhaling a quick sigh of relief, she surveyed the area up ahead. A covered pool dominated this neighbor’s yard, with a thin little path running around it. Nicole remained hidden, hesitating over which way to go. Too close to the house, and she might be spotted, but the other edge of the pool was narrow and precarious. She also knew she’d have precious few moments before the agents burst through the bathroom door back home, so whatever headway she could make now would count for everything.

She chose the thin path farther away from the house. Even though it was risky, now was not the time for hesitation.

Her neighbor was taking afternoon tea at the very moment Nicole practically flew through her yard. She looked up, and was startled to see a blur of a girl traverse the pool edge. By the time she called over her shoulder to alert her husband, the girl was gone.

Nicole was already safely in the next yard by the time she heard confused voices behind her.

She crouched out of sight of the main windows of the house and surveyed her next challenge. She was glad it was still working hours, otherwise her escape would be almost impossible. This yard had a trampoline in the center, and there appeared to be no one around.

Then she noticed the large dog appear from the side of the house.

It barked as it caught Nicole’s scent, causing her to stop dead in her tracks. They stood there for a moment — furiously snarling dog and Nicole, with her arms raised, trying to calm it down.

Her mind raced. There was no stick to throw it, nothing to distract it. She was certainly not in the business of killing an animal that was just doing its job guarding its owner’s home.

She noticed the chain around its neck, which gave her hope. It was long and probably stretched to the edge of the yard. If she was fast, then perhaps she could beat it.

So she ran.

Seconds later, the dog sprang up after her, and Nicole felt dire urgency propel every muscle in her legs. Pure adrenaline pumped through her veins as she neared the next neighbor’s hedge up ahead.

The dog’s bark was getting closer, and Nicole didn’t dare look back, just in case she would come face to face with the slavering hound.

If she had looked back, she would have seen the dog’s teeth snapping at her heels and realized that she had jumped just at the exact moment its jaws were about to clamp around her ankle.

She heard a whimper and a howl as the dog’s chain restrained it abruptly. Nicole soared over the privet hedge and onto the pavement on the other side.

The road buzzed with traffic, but there was no sign of the SUVs. Although Nicole knew it was a clear run from here to Amy’s, the roads were too wide and she could easily be spotted. Her priority now was to get to Amy’s street and into the rows of backyards again.

She headed across the busy road, fighting the ache in her muscles and in her wheezing chest. She felt her spirits lift as she entered the next series of yards.

Although Ben had hinted at the scale of the government’s interest in her powers, it appeared the FBI had been tracking her for a while. The agents had said they didn’t know how she was doing it, which showed they had very little proof, but she also knew that Homeland Security possessed tremendous authority. If they suspected her, then she was in big trouble. Hell, they’d only have to inject her with some kind of truth serum and ask whether she’d killed Mr. Geller, and she’d be finished.

Nicole’s head was full of fear, but she knew that all she needed to do was get to Amy’s and Amy would have a solution.

She had traversed two yards without trouble when a larger fence came into view up ahead. Nicole knew she was close now.

Taking a large run up, she caught hold of the top of the fence and bent her leg to steady herself. Another heave up, with her shoulders bearing her body weight, and she flipped herself easily over the top. She seemed to be getting good at this.

“Nicole Aaronson!”

Nicole looked around, her limbs trembling at the sound of her name being called.

It was Mrs. Jessica.

Nicole could have cried with relief.

She was nearly there.

Jumping down from the fence, she hugged the old lady, gave her a kiss on the cheek and then continued toward Amy’s side of the yard.

“Amy!” Nicole screamed. “Amy?”

Vaulting over the fence, she startled Amy’s little brother, Troy, who was riding his bicycle in the backyard and surely not expecting a frenzied girl to come leaping out of nowhere.

“Where’s your sister?”

Troy pointed to the house, and Nicole ran.

She didn’t have to search very long before Amy came out to find her. She looked shocked at Nicole’s appearance.

“What happened?”

“The FBI knows about me. They were gonna take me in.”

Breathlessly, Nicole told Amy all about the two agents and their questions, how they had told her they wanted to help but had lied about telling her mom.

Information that the friends would have normally taken a day or so to mull over was dispensed in a matter of seconds, leaving Amy floundering.

“If they catch you, God knows what they’ll do,” Amy said.

“I know. That’s why I ran. It’s happening like Ben said it would.”

Amy clutched Nicole’s hand and fixed her in a serious stare.

“Nix, we are in way over our heads now. We need to call the police.”

“No! Don’t you see? We can’t!” How could the police protect her from the FBI? She had broken the law. The terrible truth hit Nicole then, and she burst into tears. “I killed a man! I killed Mr. Geller. I mean, I know he wanted me to, but it was still me. I did it. And those people at the concert — I made them sick, all of them. I did it for you, but that won’t matter, because nobody’s going to believe the truth when I tell them.”

Amy let all of this sink in. Her best friend was right, and she couldn’t for the life of her think of how to get out of this.

“You have to go now. If those agents catch you, they’ll lock you up like some lab monkey,” Amy said.

“I know. But there’s something we have to do first.”