Clean: A Mindspace Investigations Novel (35 page)

I needed fire. Something hot. My eyes ran over the teacher’s station, the gas line already set up, a snaking line leading to a simple Bunsen burner. I hustled over there. Now I just needed a spark—something to light it with.

“Do you see any matches?” I asked Cherabino, who was taking a pained rest stop halfway up the room. She was sweating and pale, but the knife was still in her hand.

She took a breath, looked up at me. “What’s wrong with your lighter?”

Oh. I felt like an idiot. I fished the lighter out of my pocket and—

The outside door flew with impossible force, hitting the opposite wall with a
clang.

I gulped. Two men, one tall and beefy, the other Bradley in all his skinny geekiness, entered the room. Bradley’s left eye was bright red, leaking fluid. He looked pissed.

Knife in hand, Cherabino stepped toward them, one lurching step at a time. “You’re under arrest,” she said.

Bradley raised one hand and threw her back with solid force.

Cherabino’s face lit up with surprise as she flew through the air. Her knees struck one of the student desks with painful force, her head slamming into the tabletop. She slid off the table, landing on the hard tile floor with a
crunch.
Then came the lighter sound of the knife hitting tile.

She tried to rise, her vision swimming, before collapsing into a puddle, her consciousness sliding away. I caught myself at the edge of that same abyss, fought back with my vision turning into a tunnel—and stayed standing.

My hands flew, hitting the gas valve, opening the jar, bringing the lighter up. It caught—

And Bradley threw me back, hard, against the chalkboard. I hit with an impact that jarred my teeth, the lighter flying across the room. I blinked, disoriented, while he paced forward, grabbing beaker after beaker with his mind. A bottle of water next to me started to rise in midair, the changing air currents making the flame on the Bunsen burner flicker.

I lurched ahead—surprised to find I could. No pressure held me to the board. Before he could change that, I grabbed for the magnesium, threw it at the fire, and turned my head.

Blinding light flashed out with a popping sound, and I threw myself forward, under the first row of student desks. The water bottle dropped onto the floor with a
thud
. I dropped into Mindspace, quickly, knowing I’d have one chance at this.

Bradley’s shields were down, his mind full of the
painful flash of light. I darted in like a fish into the mouth of a whale—fast, quick, no apologies, swimming as hard as my mind would let me. While my mind cracked and bled, I kept going, kept pushing, holding the course no matter what it took.

He started to react—but he was too slow. I reached the right spot, grabbing with my whole mind and clamping down. He froze, literally unable to make a decision.

I took a breath. With painful double vision, I opened an eye. There was still another bad guy out there. If my concentration slipped for a moment, Bradley would be free, but I couldn’t just let the bruiser hit me over the head.

I looked around, holding, holding on to impossible pressure. Cherabino’s body sprawled three feet to my left. The shadow of the bright magnesium started turning red, and the high hiss it made started to crackle, to crackle like a wood fire. I was betting the teacher’s desk was starting to catch; I hadn’t been all that careful with the magnesium.

I grabbed at Bradley again when he struggled. Where was the second bad guy? Cherabino’s knife was maybe two feet to my left. Could I get it in time?

The bruiser ran straight down the aisle, ignoring me in favor of the fire. His thick legs darted back and forth, dashing forward to the wall to turn the gas off at the source. The fire got quieter, suddenly, and the bruiser hurried forward to get the red fire extinguisher under the teacher’s desk. The wrong one—the red carbon dioxide, not the black chemical extinguisher. Crap.

I heard the safety pin tinkle on the floor, closed my eyes, and braced.

The
boom
of an explosion, a flash of light visible
through my eyelids. I’d been expecting it; my mind slipped, but I recovered, holding, holding, keeping Bradley immobile by my will alone. Had it spread beyond the desk?

The bruiser cried out, hit the floor with a
thud
. I opened my eyes; he was scrabbling back, on his back like a crab, cursing up a storm, his face splotched with burns.

On the board, the erasers caught fire, but the tray was metal. We had a few seconds at least.

“Fire!” the bruiser yelled at Bradley, and Bradley struggled, trying to react.

“Fire!” the man screamed in Bradley’s face, shaking Bradley, hard, and my mind stretched like taffy to keep his will—and held. I felt warmth trickle down my lips as my nose started to bleed. But I had to hold this. I had to. I grabbed control of Bradley’s body—

I made his leg kick at the bruiser’s knees. Connect. The bruiser’s arms windmilled, and he hit the side of a table—hit it hard. He didn’t get up. For ten seconds and more, he didn’t get up; he didn’t move.

I breathed. I’d gotten lucky. But I could feel the heat of the fire, hear the crackle of the flames. It was spreading.

I stood up, holding my grip on Bradley’s mind through sheer will and concentration. Sweat rolled down my face, and blood ran in a steady stream down my face as I held him, carefully, taking one concentrated step at a time. I was walking the high wire with no net, one step from death.

The center of the teacher’s table
cracked
, and the hot flames grew higher. Fingers of flame ran all the way under the desk, a few feet—and a minute—from lighting the whole room on fire. The chemical extinguisher was no longer an option.

I couldn’t do water, I thought, in careful small thoughts as I took step after tiny step down that tightrope. I couldn’t smother it with another table, not with it about to fall apart. A fire-retardant blanket? Or sand? Sand. There was a fifteen-pound bag of sand in the closet.

Ten careful steps later, the fire roaring, I pulled the rip cord to the sandbag. I shoveled out handful after handful of sand with my hands, throwing it on the fire with slow, careful moves.

My concentration split, Bradley strained against my hold like a giant moth in a small glass jar. Blood ran down my face faster, sweat pooling, as my head pounded like the beat of a gong. Handful after handful of sand hit the burning table. The last handful of sand went on the last flame, which sputtered and died. I breathed.

The smell was acrid, deadly, the table turned into so much splinter and ash. For a long moment, I stood swaying, in so much mental pain I could hardly think. I put a hand on one of the student tables to support me. I was out of juice—and Bradley was struggling harder.

I had to do something, had to know what he knew, so I forced a partial merge. It might kill us both—

Just you,
Bradley spat at me.
You deserve to die.

My brain pushed farther than it had ever been, I actually held on. Tears streaming, nose bleeding, arm throbbing, I actually held on.

I saw myself from his point of view, the handsome guy, the Golden Boy at the Guild, the head of the department Bradley wanted more than anything to work in. He’d screwed up his courage, put the application in, and two days later saw it come back in a red envelope with two words scrawled on it:
Too Weak
. The
words were in my handwriting, Golden Boy’s handwriting. His jealousy surged. I’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted, ignored him at every turn, and now I dared to sneer at him? It was like a kick to the ribs, a kick from an angry horse. He still felt the impact.

He’d decided he would never be weak again. He’d find a way to be stronger than me, to do more than me, to take what I had. Years of research—and more of testing—to get to the point where he could steal the Ability he deserved, years where I was gone from the Guild and he was in control again. But he wasn’t surprised to see me here. It was right. I was the enemy, I was fighting him, of course I was fighting him. I always had. But he would win.

Nameless, faceless test subjects stretched out before me in a line. Dozens. Over years. People who were dead, people with no family, no one to report them missing. Subjects who’d finally given him what he deserved. But Neil was a fool; he washed the bodies and told the cops. No matter, Neil was dead now. Like I would be. Like the cop woman would be. And then Bradley could make it to New Orleans and his meeting with Garrett Fiske, the criminal boss, head of the Darkness in the Southeast. With blueprints in hand, Bradley would get everything he needed from Fiske—money, supplies, new machines, mechanics to build them. Give him a year—just a year—and Bradley would be back in business, only this time with buyers. Fiske said there were a lot of people willing to buy Ability, no questions asked. Bradley would finally get the recognition he deserved.

Go back to the victims. What were their names?
I pushed.
How many? Where in New Orleans?

Something
popped
inside my brain, and I lost the hold.

I woke up next to a student desk, with no memory of how I’d gotten there. Worse, Bradley was levitating me up and across the room like a bad student prank but much more ominous. I couldn’t move. Bands of force locked around my hands and feet, heavier than hundred-pound weights. I struggled against them….

“I said no,” Bradley barked, and threw me against the chalkboard.

I hit and saw stars, the impact so hard it broke the chalkboard. I screamed, pain radiating down my spine from the knot on my head. The area smelled of sulfuric acid reaction from the bubbling tile and ash, overwhelming ash.

I reached for Mindspace—and lost it. The pain was too great, and Bradley, like a huge suffocating pillow, overlaid everything; he blocked my every movement, my every struggle. I was going to die, I realized, pinned to a chalkboard like a bug on a collector’s card.

Too late, I thought to call Kara. He blocked me, pinning me down harder. Blood rushed down my face, and I struck out at his mind. I bounced off his shield. I scrabbled around the edges, but I had no power, no control.

He looked at me, head tilted to the side, and I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. We were in my vision.

Bradley held up a hand. He was so average, pasty skin, light brown hair, average height. Skinny. Harmless. This was the face of the man who was going to kill me, I thought with despair. A man I couldn’t even remember.

Behind him Cherabino sprawled unconscious, just like in the vision. She hadn’t been assaulted, not this time, but it seemed like that didn’t matter in the end.
Overcome with despair, I tried to pull my hand off the board—and got slapped down.

Bradley started pressing down; impossible pressure inside and out—my mind, my body crushing. I felt the chalkboard crack again behind me.

He sneered. “Thought you were so smart, didn’t you? Thought you knew everything. Well, Golden Boy, who’s the smart one now? All the sniffing cops around my apartment, all the taunts and Guild guys crawling around, you didn’t find a shred of evidence. Not a shred, and the girl, thinking about you like a billboard. You think I would just let that one go? I grabbed her right from under your nose, and you couldn’t stop me. You can’t stop me, Golden Boy, not anymore. Now who’s too weak?”

I threw pain at him, and he shrugged it off like the buzzing of a fly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am.” With nowhere to run, it was time to try something else. I knew I was an idiot back then—rejecting his application with two words was cruel. That much was true. I could be sorry for that, truly sorry. If it would save my life, and Cherabino’s life, I could be sorry.

“No you’re not,” Bradley said, and his eyes flashed hurt all of a sudden. “You know what? I’m tired of listening to your lies.” He pushed down, my bones grinding against the board, the eraser tray at the bottom of the board cutting painfully into my thighs.

And then the real pain started.

A hundred knives pierced my skull while light and dark changed places and danced on my neurons with vicious glee. White-hot pain radiated from my entire body. I forced myself to open my eyes, to look, to think of something, anything but the pain.

Bradley was focused, angry, watching me like a boy pulling the wings off a bug. Behind him, Cherabino’s body started to twitch. Her arms and legs jumped like a seizure, over and over, as my pain echoed through the link. I felt her mind, dark with the red pain of a concussion sharing space with my sharper torture—she was struggling up.

It occurred to me like a silent movie that Bradley was talking again. And déjà vu descended like a cloud of pain-touched perfume.

Bradley’s anger built, and he clamped down with all the force he was capable of, closing my airway until I literally couldn’t breathe. Until not one iota of air could come down the pipeway.

I told myself not to panic, don’t panic, panicking just used up the oxygen faster.

Bradley watched my face, hard, waiting for me to pass out and then to die, with all of his anger filling the room. “I told Neil at the beginning this was a messy business, but he couldn’t take it. They couldn’t take it. So I found someone who can. Who’ll pay me what I’m worth. And you—you wanted me to stop. Well, I won’t. And you’ll be rotting garbage while I’m rich. Respected. While I have whatever I want. I want you to know that, as you die. I want you to remember. I want you to know this is your fault.”