Broken Shadows (3 page)

Lessons were out of the picture.

Avery must have seen everything I was thinking on my face.

“That bad?” she said.

“Worse.”

“I’m sorry.” She twisted her lips. It wasn’t the same for her, and we both knew it. Her live-in boyfriend was a software engineer at one of the big tech companies south of the city. She’d be fine.

“Mina—I have to tell you something.” She leaned in. Her usually clear alto had gone soft and blurry, her words running together. This wasn’t good news.

“What is it?”

“Stu and I...we’re moving.”

“You’re moving apartments?” It was hard find anything to rent in the city right now, and high-end two-bedrooms like Avery’s place were going for double what they’d been a few months ago. A tech bubble, everyone said. If only I were one of the techies.

“No—we’re moving to Colorado.”

My jaw dropped for a moment until I caught myself and schooled my expression back to normal. There went my backup plan.

“I’m sorry, I know I said you could stay with us if you have to, but the thing is...” She looked down and dropped her voice until it was barely audible. “The thing is, I’m pregnant.”

“Avery!” I forgot to whisper. Avery looked alarmed, and I covered my mouth. “Sorry.” I mouthed the words. “Wow—that’s fantastic! I mean, are you happy?”

She smiled a little weakly. “Well, it wasn’t planned. Obviously. And I don’t want Doc to know yet—you know she knows my parents. But we’re excited. Stuart doesn’t want to raise kids in the city, and I guess I don’t either. It’s too expensive, and it’s changing so much. So...”

“Now’s as good a time as any?”

“Something like that. Stu found a job at a start-up in Boulder—we’re leaving next week. We’re month-to-month on our place, so we’re moving out and staying with Stu’s brother.”

“Wow—I’m really happy for you. Really.”

“Yeah. My parents are gonna flip when I tell them. But, Mina, what about you? Have you found a new place yet?”

“I’m sure something will turn up.” Avery looked doubtful, and I squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Loves.” Both of us jumped. Doc stood in the entryway to my cube with her laptop bag, her flute and a grim expression. The blue-black circles under her eyes marred her brown skin, and her usually perfect wavy black hair was pulled into a messy ponytail. “It’s time to go.”

Avery and I exchanged a glance and followed her out. The half-dozen other staff and volunteer musicians were standing outside on the sidewalk. We all waited, watching, while Doc flipped off the lights and shut the door. She turned to face us, readjusting her bag. She pulled a bottle of whiskey and a stack of plastic glasses out if it, and poured us each a shot right there on the street. Everyone took a glass. More than one passerby stopped and stared at us.

Doc’s face had that same look it always did, serious and slightly sad, as if she knew every terrible secret in the world and was protecting you from the horror of it all by keeping quiet. “To the Center,” she said.

“To the Center!” we all chorused, and clinked glasses. The sound of plastic on plastic was unsatisfying. While Doc wasn’t looking, I took a gulp from Avery’s.

“It’s been an honor,” Doc said. “And if anyone wants to continue the funeral reception at The Twisted Elbow, that’s where I’ll be.”

A cluster of volunteers followed her, but Avery and I hung back. “Doctor’s appointment,” she said. “And, you know.” She glanced at her still-flat belly with a look between a grin and a grimace. “What about you?”

“I think I’d better see about finding somewhere to live.”

“Oh, Mina—”

“I’ll be okay.” I waved her off. “I’ve still got almost a week and a half.” It was a good thing Avery was a normal, because a telepath would’ve felt me panicking from a mile away. “I’m really happy for you,” I said, and meant it. “Will I see you again before you leave?”

“I hope so.” She pulled me into a hug. “Let’s make sure of it.”

Avery said goodbye and walked toward her car, and I headed for one of the few remaining local coffee shops in the neighborhood. It was a dimly lit, smoky place, full of questionable local art and rickety tables, but the coffee was cheap and no one ever asked you to leave. No time like the present to start hunting through the apartment listings.

Two hours and three cups of coffee later, I’d found out just how quickly the San Francisco housing market moved. Every listing I called had dozens of other applicants. Some of them were filled after being posted less than a day. I was almost relieved when I had to leave messages—at least it wasn’t a no. I was checking out a semi-reasonably priced studio, which turned out to be reasonably priced because it was two hours away by train, when my phone rang.

I picked it up so fast I almost dropped it. Someone calling me back already?

“Yes? Hello?”

“Hey there, gorgeous.”

It was Malik. I slumped in the uncomfortable wooden coffee shop chair. My butt was numb. “Hey.”

“Nice to hear from you too.” He laughed. “Who sat on your cupcake?”

“Nobody. It’s nothing. What’s up?”

“You, ah, missing anything?”

“Yeah, a job.”

“Seriously?”

“For now.” I rubbed my face. I was so completely fucked.

“Well, you left your fiddle here last night. I’ve got it behind the bar. You want to come and pick it up?”

“Shit.” I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it.

“I’m here now if you wanna swing by.”

“See you soon, then.” It wasn’t as if I had anything else to do.

The speakeasy wasn’t far, so I saved the Muni fare and walked. The sidewalk got narrower and more uneven as I went, and the concentration of produce stands and liquor stores went up. The neighborhood around Featherweight’s had managed to escape gentrification, at least so far. Anywhere else in the city, the abandoned car dealership next door would’ve been turned into a towering condo development months ago. I felt sure its time was coming.

I couldn’t get into the speakeasy myself, so I had to call Malik from my cell phone once I got to Featherweight’s. He told me to go to the broom closet, so I let myself in and waited in the dark until the second door opened to reveal Jackson’s cousin Paulie holding a glass of something amber over ice.

Paulie was about two inches taller than me, slim, with a thick shock of blond hair. Right now, he looked as though he hadn’t slept in days. His always-unkempt hair was particularly unruly, and there were bluish circles under his eyes. He was attractive in the way your friend’s kid brother was attractive: sweet and safe.

I followed him down the concrete steps to the second door. “You’re starting early,” I said, nodding toward his glass.

He made a noncommittal noise and took another sip.

“Rough day?”

“My roommates are going through emotional crises.” Paulie was an empath. He couldn’t mindspeak, but he could pick up on people’s emotions, even experience them. It was a useful gift, but not necessarily a pleasant one. Extremely rare.

“Shit. That can’t be easy.”

“It’s like being forced to watch the Hallmark Channel,” he said. “Only it actually gets to me.” He pulled hard at the door at the end of the hall. It had been wedged open with a drink coaster. Empaths usually weren’t telekinetic

“Awful.”

“Yeah.” We went into the bar and took seats on the stools. The place was completely empty of patrons. Paulie polished off his drink just as Malik came in from the back holding a bar towel.

“Hey, gorgeous.” He leaned across the reddish-brown steel slab to kiss me on the cheek, then looked down at Paulie’s already empty glass. “One more and I’m cutting you off.”

“Screw you.” Paulie poured himself another from the bottle on the bar.

Malik rolled his eyes and turned back to me. “So. What’s this about you not having a job? I thought you were working at that music center for kids.”

“It went under. Took my apartment with it.”

“Honey, you are having a bad week.”

Paulie gave me a glum smile. “Sorry, Mina.”

Malik poured me a drink—Glen-something, I didn’t know what—and I took it even though I didn’t usually drink hard liquor. Today was full of exceptions. It stung going down.

“So what are you gonna do?” Malik asked.

“I don’t know. It’s hell trying to find a job right now.” I took another sip and held the liquor in my mouth, letting it burn through my nasal passageways and clear out my head like a brushfire. When I swallowed the alcohol and took a breath, the air burned cold over my tongue.

“You know...we did just lose a bartender. Asshole decided to move down the coast and work on an organic garlic farm. Means I’m running this place myself.” Malik rubbed his shaved, dark brown head. “You interested?”

“Malik, I’m an accountant, not a bartender. I don’t know the first thing about mixing martinis.”

“Yeah, well I’m getting a public policy masters, but I still gotta pay the bills. And I can show you how to mix a martini.”

I tried to control the bubble of hope that bloomed in my chest. It was a job around shadowminds, but I wasn’t exactly high on options. “You think Simon would hire me?”

Malik shrugged. “He leaves the staffing to me. If I want to hire you, I hire you. I’m trying to graduate in May. This is a shit time for me to be shorthanded.”

I tried not to let hope get the best of me. “How much?” I said.

“He pays the bartenders double the minimum wage, all cash, plus tips.” He pulled a beer from a cooler under the bar. “And free drinks if you want them.”

I was way more interested in the pay than the free drinks. “How many hours a week?”

“I work thirty. You could do the same. And if you want to put in some extra time cleaning up the disaster that man calls the accounting, I’m sure he won’t mind.”

I did the math in my head. Even if I could make forty hours, it would be less than what I’d made at the Center, and I’d have the added expense of higher rent. But it was all under the table. And maybe I could find a room in a house instead of a place to myself. Assuming going rates for security deposits, I’d have enough in about two weeks. Less if I ate nothing but peanut butter sandwiches. I factored in the cost of a hotel room for a few nights. Maybe three weeks. It could work. Malik was watching me.

“When can I start?”

Chapter Three

I stayed until opening time and several hours afterward, shadowing Malik. It was a weeknight, so it wasn’t busy, and Malik taught me a handful of simple drink recipes as he took orders. He sent me home at midnight, with the promise I could start in earnest tomorrow afternoon.

The streets around my bus stop were busy enough, but as I got closer to my soon-to-be-ex-apartment, they grew more and more deserted. It hadn’t used to be this way, but the new developments had chased out most of the local bars. The empty construction sites looked like the shells of cities abandoned after a bombing, ragged with steel scaffolding and holes in the earth. My fiddle case felt conspicuous in my hand. I sped up.

If I still had my powers, I would mentally scan the area for anyone with suspicious intentions. And if anyone tried to attack me, I would put the fear of the devil in them. Hell, my brother once scared a would-be mugger so thoroughly with a floating garbage can, the guy turned tail and ran smack into a parked van. Knocked himself right out. Without my powers, I felt helpless.

My building came into view, and I relaxed. Almost there. I jogged across the street, almost tripping over the curb in my hurry to get inside, and froze. There was a man standing in front of my door. Wearing a full-face ski mask. Pointing a gun at me.

“Gimme your purse.”

I dropped it right where I stood. The man advanced on me, gun trained on my chest, I put my hands up and tried to back away, but came up hard against the construction barrier cordoning off the intersection.

“I said gimme your purse!” His voice was shaking. He gestured at me with the gun.

In these situations, people always told you to hand over whatever the man with the gun wanted. And I would’ve. I wanted to. But my muscles weren’t responding to my brain. I stood there, frozen on the pavement, and the man in the ski mask flung his hand toward me and delivered a telekinetic jab to my gut.

A converter.

I doubled over, wheezing, and he looked at me with panic in his eyes. He hadn’t meant to reveal himself. “Come on, you stupid bitch!” He backhanded me across the face, and I staggered sideways. Then his hand was on my neck.

That same tingling feeling I’d felt at Simon’s bloomed over my skin. I raised my arms up and tried to shove him away, but he held on. He wasn’t exactly choking me, but that didn’t make me any less panicked. I raked his hands with my fingernails, feeling his skin tear, and an inexplicable rush of energy surged through me.

The man shrieked and released me, staring at his hand. It had gone bright red with blisters.

“Oh my God!” I stepped forward in unthinking horror, and he fell on his ass on the concrete. “Are you okay?” I asked stupidly.

“What the fuck!” He scrabbled away from me like a crab, screaming, and I realized I was advancing on him. While I was trying to figure out whether I should run or call the police, he got to his feet and took off running with my purse.

“Hey! Give that back!”

The only sound was his footsteps on the empty street as he rounded the corner and disappeared behind the one-hour dry cleaners.

I leaned heavily against the plate glass window of the Center. He’d taken my purse, including my wallet and my keys. I was stuck outside in the middle of the night in a thin jacket and uncomfortable shoes, and I felt as though I was about to pass out from shock and adrenaline
.

My cell phone, thank God, had been in my back pocket instead of my purse. I called Malik. It went straight to voicemail, and I called again. Still nothing. He was probably listening to his headphones while he cleaned up the bar. Maybe he was already asleep. I banged my head against the glass door, wishing I was still telekinetic so I could just pick the lock and get out of the cold. Useless.

No help for it. I called Jackson.

* * *

“It was like he was waiting for me. Right outside my door.”

“Did you recognize his voice at all?”

I shook my head. Jackson had come right away when I’d called. I was sitting in his car, parked on the street about a block away from where I’d been mugged. We hadn’t called the police. Too risky for them, Jackson said, but my certainty that the mugger had hit me telekinetically was fading.

“I probably imagined it,” I said, for about the eleventh time. “It happened really fast.”

Jackson frowned at me. “That doesn’t mean you imagined it.”

I wasn’t so sure anymore. It had been a hard week. This was probably some weird product of too much stress and not enough sleep. And the way his hands had blistered, as if they’d been burned...I didn’t have an explanation for that one. I hadn’t even told Jackson about it. I slumped against the cool window of Jackson’s car.

“Look,” Jackson said, “why don’t you crash at my place tonight. Just for the night.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.” I thought of my lumpy futon, and for once, it sounded like heaven. Actually, I would’ve settled for the rug on the floor next to it.

“You didn’t.” He paused. “Mina, look, this sounds like it was more than just some random mugging. He was waiting in front of your apartment, and he was a converter. After what happened last night...”

“You mean that guy you threw against the wall?”

“Yes. Greg. He’s not exactly an upstanding citizen.”

“Well, that’s a shock.” I rubbed my face. “Are you saying this was some kind of retaliation?”

“I don’t know. But it could be. That plastic bag we found—he’s into something, and we haven’t figured out what yet. He could be dangerous.”

I chewed on my lip.

“What I’m saying is, it won’t kill you to sleep in my guest room for the night.”

I looked at the deserted street and thought of the way the gun had looked in the man’s hand. As if it was all there was of him.

“All right,” I said. “Just one night.”

Jackson looked relieved. “Great.”

He picked the lock so I could get in and grab a change of clothes. I had to wait until he checked the place before he’d let me go inside, and then he made me wait again while he checked the stairwell and the street. He didn’t seem to relax until we were back in his car.

It took fifteen minutes to get to Jackson’s high-rise downtown. He parked in the garage next to his building, and we took the elevator to the twenty-seventh floor. It looked exactly like every other floor in the building: thick beige carpet with a subtle textured pattern, dark red doors, potted plants every few feet. The only difference between the levels was the artwork on the walls, all of which looked like it came out of doctors’ waiting rooms. Jackson’s floor featured flower arrangements. It was better than the twenty-sixth floor, which I’d once gone to by mistake. It had watercolors of little blonde girls wearing white dresses, posed in various outdoor settings.

Jackson’s unit was in a corner, which I guessed made it more expensive. More windows. He opened the door for me, and I went into his huge ultra-modern living room with its glass-fronted zero-clearance fireplace and boxy black leather couch. A piano sat in the corner, an espresso-stained wooden upright. I’d never seen him play it. Maybe it was just one of those things that went with his life, like the sleek designer furniture and the gourmet copper cookware. Jackson took off his tie and draped it over a dark-red wingback armchair.

“You feel okay?” He rested his hands on the back of the couch. He was clearly thinking something. I just didn’t know what.

“I’m fine.” I readjusted the strap of my duffel bag. The sight of the gun had unsettled me, and I still wasn’t feeling exactly steady. My pulse was pounding. “Thanks for letting me stay here.”

“It’s no trouble.” He smiled. “Really.” He loosened a button at his collar, exposing a little more of his tanned neck, and I wondered where he’d gotten the tan. I’d always assumed his muscles were the kind you got at a gym, but maybe I’d been wrong. I swallowed hard. I was starting to remember the reasons why this was a terrible idea.

“I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow.” God, I hoped it was true.

“You know you can stay as long as you need to.” He watched me, hands kneading the back of the chair. Nervous that I’d take him up on it?

“Uh, thanks. Maybe I could just borrow your phone charger? I have to cancel all of my cards.”

He went and got it, and I took it with me into the spare bedroom before he could ask again if I was okay.

None of my credit cards had been used yet, miraculously, and the nice service rep promised to send me new ones within the week. I had to give her Jackson’s address even though I hoped I wouldn’t still be here when they came.

Jackson’s spare room was the same way I’d left it almost a year ago. He’d been using it as an office before I’d gotten dumped on him—a desk and a couple of filing cabinets occupied one corner, a bookshelf full of architectural magazines and reference books sat in another. In the closet, he’d stacked boxes of his past ten years of tax returns, piling them on top of each other to make room for me to hang my clothes. The accountant in me approved.

I changed into pajamas and crawled into his excessively comfortable guest bed. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t even pretend that I was tired. Who was I kidding? Even if I
could
afford the deposit on a new apartment, I only had ten days. I checked the clock on the bedside table. Nine days.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t go home. But even the thought of being around all the shadowminds I’d grown up with was more than I could bear.

I used to be a converter, like Jackson. The gift ran in my family. By the time I was five, Shane and I were having conversations in our heads. We were twins, and the connection between us had been as easy as breathing. By the time I was ten I could lift potted plants and light candles from across the room. It was as much a part of who I was as my name and the mole on my hip. Then I’d been attacked.

The man who hurt me had been another converter, a friend. He had an ability none of us knew about—he could draw energy from other people to boost his powers. Pulling, it was called. Unfortunately, that sort of thing didn’t often go well for the subject, and I’d caught him dumping a body. He’d lashed out at me with enough force to kill a normal. I guess I’d been lucky. He’d only destroyed my powers and left me for dead, shoving my body into the mud under an abandoned fishing shack.

The first thing I remembered, coming out of it, was seeing my Uncle Lionel standing over me. He asked if I could hear him, and his voice sounded strange. It felt remote, as though he were talking over a phone line, and it had taken me a few minutes to realize something was wrong. Between the words he spoke out loud, there was silence. Either he’d achieved the kind of mental quiet meditation masters spent years perfecting, or I couldn’t hear his thoughts.

I’d spent a long time thinking my powers would come back. My brother spent even longer. Every moment I was around him, I could tell he was scanning my mind, looking for any sign that I felt him there. He was careful never to bring it up, but when you’ve been mindspeaking with someone for decades, it was hard to keep secrets. After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore. I left, and while I was gone, Lionel had been killed. The man who’d been like a father to me, gone. There was nothing left for me there, not now. Just reminders of a life that wasn’t mine anymore.

California was about as far away as I could get. It felt like as good a place as any to start my life over. If only I had any idea what starting over was supposed to look like.

I finally fell asleep with memories of my family still crowded in my head. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I had the dream again.

It always started with silence. When you could hear people’s thoughts, the world was never silent. I suppose that was why so many of us liked to go camping or hunting—it was the only way to easily get away from stray thoughts. Total quiet was something you had to work for, so in the dream, when the silence hit, I panicked. After the silence came the pressure of the mud on my chest. It oozed its way into my ears and nose and mouth. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to scream, but it just went deeper while slick, many-legged things crawled over my skin. I tried to thrash, but the weight of the mud had me paralyzed. Someone laughed as the rotting wood of the shack crumbled around me, pressing me deeper into the earth. The insects worked their way into my ears, my mouth...

“Mina!”

I came out of it in a rush. The soft, cream-colored comforter was on the floor, and the sheets were twisted around my legs. Jackson was holding my wrists, and I’d clearly been trying to hit him. Actually, judging from the marks on his chest, I’d succeeded.

There was a moment where I believed it wasn’t real. The empty place where Jackson’s thoughts should’ve been reminded me. My arms went slack.

“You’re okay, now.” Jackson released my wrists and put his hands on my shoulders and kneaded. “It was just a dream.”

He’d clearly been dragged out of a dead sleep. He was still in his plaid pajama pants, shirtless, his hair sticking up. I shook my head and tried to push him away, embarrassed, but he wouldn’t let go.

“I’m sorry. It was just a nightmare. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“Don’t worry about it. Was it a flashback?”

“No—I’m fine.” I extricated myself from his grip, curled my knees up to my chest and piled the blanket on top of them as if I were cold. The panic of the dream was still with me, even stronger than it had been in my sleep. Jackson leaned forward and laid the back of his hand on my cheek. Light from the living room illuminated the plane of his cheekbone and the rasp of stubble on his jaw.

“You’re burning up.” He leaned back, resting on his heels on the bed. I’d been right about the muscles I’d felt under his dress shirt. Even in the low light, I could see the definition in his abs, the way the muscles disappeared into his drawstring pajama pants. His biceps were bigger than any architect had a right to. I realized I was staring and closed my eyes.

“I’m fine,” I said. The reason I was overheated had nothing to do with a fever.

“Right.” Jackson sounded uncertain. God, I hoped he hadn’t been in my thoughts. Who was I kidding? Of course he’d been in my thoughts. Fuck. He was probably reading them right now. Fuck fuck fuck.