Broken Shadows (2 page)

“Been looking for him.” Dreadlocks came over to stand next to us. “Barbara, right?”

“Bridget.”

“Yeah. Conner told me about you.” He grinned.

Usually I suck at reading people’s expressions, but Dreadlocks was a piece of cake. He gave Bridget a once-over and leaned in close.

“Look, I really need to find him.”

I’m sure he felt he was whispering. I could smell his breath from three feet away.

Bridget took a step back. “I don’t know where he is. I’ve been looking for him for days.”

“Aww, come on, you don’t gotta lie.” He put a hand on her upper arm. “I just wanna talk to him.”

She flinched and tried to jerk away. Dreadlocks’s face went dark.

“Whassa matter with you?” He moved even closer, backing Bridget up to the bulletin board. She winced and turned her head.

“You’re hurting me,” Bridget said. She sounded surprised by it. She probably was. I was willing to bet this was the first time in her life someone this drunk had gotten close enough to touch her.

I should have called Malik or Jackson over. This guy had five inches, fifty pounds and telekinetic power on me. But I wasn’t thinking. I was looking at Bridget’s face.

“Hey!” I said. “Lay off!” I grabbed his arm and yanked him away from her.

Dreadlocks grabbed hold of my arms and grinned.

Shit.
Big mistake.

“Whass wrong, sweetheart? You jealous?” He pulled me toward him, and I put my hands up defensively. He grabbed my wrists. I felt pressure along the sides of my body, his mental hands starting in on me. He was in my head. He had to be. Panic flared hot in my belly.

“Let me go,” I said, struggling, but he only pulled me closer, knocking me against a table littered with half-full glasses. I thought about screaming, about kneeing him in the balls or slamming the heel of my boot onto his foot. All I could see was his teeth; all I could smell was the cheap vodka on his breath. Fear made my vision waver and my skin prickle. The panic flared, out of my control, and the shots of vodka still sitting on the table exploded into flame. I stared at them in shock, but no one was more surprised than me when Dreadlocks flew across the room and hit the opposite wall with a crash.

Chapter Two

Silence. Candles fell from the wall sconces and rolled along the floor, still lit. The spilled alcohol caught. The whole table and the floor beside it was up in flames. I stared at my hands, confused and terrified. Then I saw Jackson walking forward.

I’d never seen him so furious. His eyes were black with the intense concentration of a shadowmind harnessing his powers. Dreadlocks stirred on the floor, then yelped as Jackson jerked him up and pinned him telekinetically to the wall.

“Are you all right, Mina?” he asked without looking at me.

“Uh, yeah, I think.”

Jackson stood in front of Dreadlocks, all fury and threat. Malik came up behind him, arms folded over an impressive chest. It would’ve taken a better man than this guy to take on either one of them. Dreadlocks looked ready to protest anyway—he probably had more booze in him than sense—but after a moment, he seemed to reconsider. He dropped his head, a clear signal of submission.

Jackson leaned in close. “Why were you looking for Conner?” he said, his voice almost too low to hear.

“He’s just my friend, man, just wanted to know if he’s okay.”

“You make a habit of harassing your friends’ sisters? You usually attack women in public bars?”

“No. No, man, I’m sorry, I’m drunk, I’m just drunk.”

Jackson grabbed the guy’s shirt collar. “You’re telling me this like you think it’s a good excuse.” Dreadlocks’s eyes rolled in panic.

“I’m—I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know she was with you.”

Jackson looked back at Malik with a can-you-believe-this-shit expression. Malik shook his head, dark eyes flashing.

“I think it’s time to close out your tab.” The light tone of Malik’s voice covered steel underneath. He reached into the guy’s pocket, took out his wallet, and extracted a pair of twenties. Then, in an impressive show of telekinetic force, he flung him bodily out the door we’d come through.

The bar was totally silent for about six more heartbeats. Then everyone started talking at once. The guys who’d been lighting things on fire with Dreadlocks scrambled out after their friend.

Jackson walked directly to where I was standing, still in shock.

“Are you okay?” He held his hands out but didn’t quite touch me, as tentative now as he’d been fierce ten seconds earlier. My skin felt hot and hyper-charged, as though I were carrying a sustained static shock, and everything looked watery and indistinct. I realized I was hyperventilating.

“Hey,” Jackson said, his voice soft. “Hey, take it easy. You’re okay. Here.” A chair came sliding over from across the room, and he gripped my elbow and lowered me into it. He crouched in front of me, close enough for me to smell his aftershave. The energy seemed to bleed out of me, and my heart slowed down. The table was still on fire.

“Somebody should really put that out,” I said.

Jackson turned, looked mildly surprised to find the thing burning, and brought a fire extinguisher telekinetically flying over from the bar. A hiss of foam, and it was out.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” When I shook my head, he looked over my shoulder at Bridget. “Bridge? You okay?”

“I’m okay. I’m fine.” Her voice was weak, like tissue paper stretched thin. Half the bar was still looking at us over forgotten drinks and decoy conversations.

“All right,” Malik said to the room at large. “Next round’s on the house. Come on up and pick your poison.” He trotted back to the bar and vaulted over it with one hand, then started pouring shots and beers for the crowd that formed around him. I got shakily to my feet.

“I should buy you a drink, or something,” Bridget said, laughing a little.

“I didn’t do anything. It was all Jackson.” I looked at the smoking remains of the table. “Anyway, I think maybe I’d better head home.” I turned to Jackson. “You can tell Cass I’m fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll drive you home.”

“Oh, definitely.” Bridget nodded as if her permission mattered. For all I knew, it did. “Let Jackson take you.”

I was too shaken up to argue. “Fine. Yeah. Okay.”

Jackson placed one hand firmly on the small of my back and guided me through the curious crowd. Another time I might’ve twisted away, but I was still trembling. I let him lead me to the door.

As we went up the steps, my foot landed on a clear plastic baggie, empty except for a residue of white powder on the inside. Frowning, I bent to pick it up.

“Shit,” Jackson said, telekinetically zooming it into his own hand before I could touch it.

“What is that?”

“I hope it’s not what I think it is.” He pocketed it. “Come on—let me get you home.”

The night had grown cold. Almost a year in San Francisco, and I still wasn’t used to the weather. It could be hot enough for shorts during the day, but cold enough for a jacket as soon as the sun went down. I’d left mine in my apartment, and I only had on thin khakis and a short-sleeved shirt. I shoved my hands as deep as they’d go in my pockets as we walked.

Featherweight’s was in a gritty part of the Mission, surrounded by locally owned liquor stores and old apartment buildings with peeling wood siding. The car dealership next door hadn’t been in business in years. The walls were almost miraculously free of graffiti, though, and the little coffee shop on the opposite corner was bright and full.

Jackson’s Audi was parked two blocks down, in front of a two-story stucco apartment building. One of the upper-story windows was obscured by a large rainbow flag. He opened the passenger door for me, and I slid in, shivering as my skin touched the cold leather seats. Jackson got in quickly and started the car. After a moment, my seat started warming up.

“Seat warmers,” he said.

“Nice.” My hands were still shaking. I couldn’t blame it entirely on the cold.

Jackson pulled into the heavy traffic on Mission, and I saw, behind us, the wall of fog obscuring the hills to the west. Featherweight’s was in one of the few fog-free neighborhoods in the city, an island of clear sky. San Francisco weather changed every few blocks—another thing I hadn’t gotten used to yet.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Jackson asked, startling me. “Are you sure he didn’t—hurt you?” His hands tightened briefly on the wheel.

“No.” The places where the guy had grabbed me felt sensitive, tingly, but not sore or bruised. “I’m okay.” My whole body was wired, ready to run or fight.

“I’m sorry. I tried to pull him off of you sooner. He was too strong. Took a while for me to overpower him.”

“Seriously?” I hadn’t seen Jackson use his powers very often, but I’d gotten the impression from Cass that he was stronger than average.

Jackson smiled a little. “Your astonishment is flattering.”

“Well, I think you more than made up for it.” I pictured Dreadlocks hitting the wall. “You didn’t have to light the table on fire, though,” I said, teasing. “It is a pretty enclosed space.”

Jackson cocked his head, eyes still on the road. “I didn’t.”

“Oh. Must have been him, then.”

“Maybe.” He chewed on his bottom lip. “Maybe one of his asshole friends.”

“What’s up with that baggie I found?”

“Hopefully nothing. Maybe just cocaine.”

I coughed. “I’m sorry—what?”

“Greg’s a fuck-up. I’m hoping it’s just the leftovers from his night out.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. That’s not the first time Malik’s had to throw him out.”

I shook my head. If it were my bar, I’d never let him through the door again.

I didn’t have to give Jackson directions to my apartment, even though he’d only been once to help me move in. He double-parked and walked me to the front door of the multi-use post-war stucco building. Too late, I remembered the eviction notice. I tried to block it with my body.

No use. I should’ve known better.

“Whoa—what is that?” Jackson put a hand on my shoulder and gently but firmly moved me out of the way. “You’re being evicted?”

“It’s no big deal.” It was definitely a big deal. “I’ve got some options lined up.” Unpleasant, awkward options.

“What happened?”

I sighed. “They’re going to tear down the building—put up one of those new high-rise condo complexes.” This part, at least, was the truth. The out-of-state investors who owned the building had sold it to developers who were going to tear down half the block to build luxury condominiums. The same thing was happening all over the neighborhood. Hell, it was happening all over the city. You couldn’t walk half a mile without hitting a construction site, some steel-and-glass tower rising up between rows of bright, century-old Victorians and fancy modern spas.

“Do you have somewhere to stay?” Jackson looked more closely at the notice. “You’ve only got a few days.”

“I’ll be fine.” It had seemed like a perk when Doc had told me I could rent the efficiency studio above her San Francisco Youth Music Center, where I worked as an accountant. Now, it was more like a liability. My apartment and my job were gone in one stroke of a Realtor’s pen. I unlocked my door and opened it.

“You can stay with me if you need to.”

“Thanks, but...” I was probably going to end up with a roommate, but I’d rather it wasn’t a converter. I’d crashed in Jackson’s spare room for a few weeks when I’d first lost my powers, but it hadn’t been so bad, then. I’d still believed they might come back. But I knew better now, and the whole reason I’d left home was to get away from shadowminds, away from the constant, aching desire to use my lost powers. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“If you say so.”

“It’s not you,” I said quickly. “It’s just...”

He pressed his lips together. “I understand.” He threaded one hand through his dark, perfectly parted hair, then shoved it back in his pocket. “Look,” he began but I cut him off.

“I really appreciate it, but I’m sure something will turn up.” More lies. We stood there for a moment, watching each other, and I wondered if he’d tell Cass about the guy at the bar, my eviction, any of it. How I still hadn’t adjusted. “Well, I guess I better get some sleep.” I went inside and tried to close the door, but Jackson put out his hand and stopped it.

“Cass didn’t call me,” he said through the three-inch crack in the door.

“What?”

“Cass didn’t call me. That’s not why I was checking up on you.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure how I should respond. Neither of us said anything for a long moment. A street person walked by on the road behind us, pushing a plastic shopping cart full of his belongings.

“I just—wanted you to know,” Jackson said finally.

“Okay.” Maybe my family was starting to accept my new life out here. Maybe that meant I could too.

“Well, good night,” Jackson said, and I watched him walk to his double-parked car.

* * *

The next day was the last for the Music Center. We could’ve stayed another week and a half, but our funders had pulled out when the building sold. As the only accountant on staff, I handled payroll, and I knew Doc had been forfeiting her salary for the past month to make sure the rest of us got paid. We barely had enough cash left to keep the lights on. The coffin was closed. All that was left was hammering in the nails.

“I just called Hearst Valley Middle.” Avery, one of the staff musicians, sat down in the empty chair in our shared cubicle and slumped, her sleek black hair swinging in front of her face. “The principal broke down on the phone.”

“Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

“This is such bullshit. This city.” She glared out the window at the construction site across the street. It used to be a locally owned coffee shop. We’d gone there for afternoon coffees and cookies all summer. Now backhoes were digging out a basement for a new gourmet grocery store.

“Not much we can do about it.”

“Yeah.” Avery played guitar. Not a typical instrument for a school music program, but the kids loved her. “Bastards.”

On Avery’s first day, she’d assumed I was the receptionist and asked me to call her a cab. It was clear she’d taken one look at Steve, the fifty-something white man who was our actual receptionist, and me, a twenty-something black girl, and jumped to the wrong conclusion about which one of us did the filing. I’d sighed—I was sadly too used to it—but Steve had jumped in before I had to correct her. She’d turned absolutely scarlet when she realized her mistake, and she’d spent the next two weeks apologizing. I’d finally had to tell her that the first seven times were enough. Now, we got along fine. In fact, my backup plan involved sleeping on her couch.

“Have you found anything?” she asked me.

I shook my head. This wasn’t the time to be an unemployed professional in San Francisco. The last interview I’d been on—an entry-level payroll position at a big law firm—had a dozen other candidates all waiting in line together, like cows in a slaughterhouse. The woman in line behind me had an MBA from an East Coast Ivy League, and I’d seen her a week later filling orders at a coffee shop on Market. I hadn’t even gotten a call-back.

My situation was getting serious.

Back home, I’d earned plenty of money giving piano and violin lessons, but I couldn’t do that now. For a telepath, playing music wasn’t just about the notes. Listening to music wasn’t like listening to conversation or street noise. When a song really got to someone, they’d go quiet inside. The music would fill them up until all their stray thoughts went dim, and all they were was what the song was making them feel, a heartbreak or a first love, outrage or hope or joy or longing. Memory and emotion, totally pure. When I played, I was a conduit for all that intensity, and no matter how different everyone was, where they were coming from and what the song was making them feel, their experiences all came together in me. When it was just one listener, it felt a little like a shared moment of laughter, the kind of emotional harmony it was rare to find with a friend, much less a stranger. With a small crowd, the experience was almost spiritual.

I’d tried it once since I’d lost my powers, busking in a downtown BART station off peak hours so I wouldn’t step on the regulars’ turf. I’d gotten through the first third of “Lean On Me”
before the silence got to me. The notes fell in the empty station like dry leaves. There was no reflection from the handful of people who’d paused to listen, no emotional feedback, no perfect resonance as the song tapped their unique memories and brought them all together in the music. I finished the song, abandoned three dollars in change in the paper coffee cup I’d set on the floor, and put my instrument in its case. I hadn’t taken it out since. Not even Doc knew I played.