Fractured (6 page)

“Pendell?”

I was standing three feet away, but his gaze flicked straight past me. Hands outstretched in front of him, he took another hesitant step toward the apparition and knocked over one of the stools from the kitchen counter. It hit the marble floor with a resounding
clang
.

Gabe and Marisa both woke simultaneously, rumpled and wide-eyed. Pendell continued to fixate on the apparition only I could see.

“I think we've got a problem,” I said. “And a pair of gloves isn't going to cut it.”

13

Bobby

Saturday: 12:07 PM

I
knew I'd been gone.

The floor was solid under my feet, the heat of the sun warm on my face. I had the vague sense of a space that began and ended somewhere, and that within that space were living people. But they were blots against the hazy ribbons of color that flashed and blinked around me, like millions of movie clips projected onto swaying strips of silk.

The dead girl stood a few feet away from me, clear against the shifting mist.

I felt a hand on my arm. “Don't you see me?”

Glass's voice was vague and distorted, like the hum of distant traffic. Other voices murmured gibberish in my ears.

My heart pounded. I took a step toward the girl because I was lost and she seemed to be guiding me somewhere.

“I think you need to sit, Pendell,” I thought I heard Glass say. His voice seemed to be bouncing from place to place in the void. “You had a rough night.”

I waved my arms around in front of me. He had to be somewhere in the colored fog. “Why don't you stand where I can see you, Glass?” I thought I said. But I wasn't sure. I wasn't even sure if I was awake.

“I'm right in front of you.”

I knew that couldn't be. His voice was everywhere and all that was in front of me was the dead girl. She nodded, then whispered, soft as the sound of paper tearing, “Tell him what you saw.”

I looked around me. Half-formed images danced in and out of the mist. I shivered and hugged my arms around my waist. I just wanted to be with Gabe. But I didn't know how to get back to her.

Hands rested firmly on my shoulders, leading me somewhere. How could I know I if I could trust them?

“Let go of me,” I growled.

“Bobby, please,” said another voice.

It was Gabe. She was nearby. “Where are you?”

“I'm right next to you, baby. Just let us help you.”

I couldn't fight them. They walked me forward into the mist and pushed me down onto a soft surface where I lay, helpless, like a turtle on its back.

The dead girl looked down at me from above. She seemed agitated. “Tell them what you saw. You can't follow me here. You have to help me.”

“But where is here?” I asked her. I was afraid. I didn't really remember how I'd gotten here. Or exactly where here was.

“Bobby! Snap out of it!” Then there was darkness and only vibrations. I searched for the girl, but she was gone.

A sudden, wrenching shock of cold jerked me from the half-dark.

14

Jeremy

Saturday: 1:46 PM

I
t was like Bobby Pendell was sleepwalking. And no matter what we tried, we couldn't wake him.

The three of us had flanked him in a circle and pleaded. But he'd only seemed to hear if one of us shouted at the top of our lungs.

“What did we do to him?” Gabe fought back tears. “What if he's lost forever?”

“Shh,” I said. “I'm thinking.” My gaze flashed to the flywing girl. I was certain Bobby Pendell could see her.

“I still say he needs to go to the ER,” Marisa insisted. “He's in some kind of minimally conscious vegetative state.”

“Trust me,” I said.

◆

It took Marisa and me an almost an hour to fill the tub with cold water and ice.

Bobby Pendell came back to reality with an ear-splitting yowl.

I knew he was alert when he tried to punch me.

15

Bobby

Saturday: 3:04 PM

I
was sitting in a bathtub filled with ice water.

“What the hell?” I said and scrambled out of the tub, thinking that the first thing I needed to do was punch Jeremy Glass in the face.

But I slipped on the wet floor and fell on my butt instead. Surprisingly, Glass was not laughing. Instead, along with Gabe and Marisa, he stared down at me, his face flushed, hands on his hips.

“Jeez, Pendell. You scared the shit out of us.”

“What?” I said. My head throbbed. Strands of color, like sloppy tissue paper decorations, hung across my sight in sheer strips.

“I don't feel so good.”

A thin girl with dark circles under her eyes crouched on the toilet. She stared at me, eyes pleading.

“What?” I said. I knew I'd been somewhere and it had something to do with her. I just didn't remember. I didn't know if I wanted to remember.

“Bobby,” Gabe said softly, “just warm up.”

She'd pushed everyone, except the creepy girl, out of the bathroom, peeled off my clothes, and then shoved me into a hot shower.

Gabe watched as I toweled off. “Better?” she asked.

“Better than what?”

Gabe sighed. “So all that and you don't remember a thing.”

“All what?” I glanced around. The thin girl tilted her head at me, birdlike.

“Let's go get something to eat,” Gabe said.

The others sat around the glass dining table, chowing down on cartons full of food.

“Indian food first thing in the morning,” I said. “Yuck.”

Glass raised an eyebrow and kept eating. Marisa flashed him an unreadable look. I was clearly missing something.

Gabe chuckled. “You know Bobby Pendell is feeling better when he starts bitching about food. It does happen to be three in the afternoon.”

“Not a culinary adventurer, are you, Pendell?” Glass said, his mouth full.

“Didn't you mother tell you not to eat with your mouth full?”

“Sure,” said Glass, “but not lately. She died when I was eight.”

Marisa rolled her eyes. “Jeremy. Enough. How are you, Bobby? You really should eat something.”

“I'm fine,” I said. “So what did I miss?”

They all shared looks. The thin girl had come out of the bathroom and stood a few steps away.

“Get lost,” Glass said, directly to her. “We'll figure this out. Go back where you belong.”

“You don't need to be rude to her,” I said.

Gabe and Marisa both stopped eating, their forks midway to their mouths.

“So you can see her,” Glass said.

“Yes.”

“Then just give her what she wants.”

I pulled up a chair and looked over the cartons brimming with unfamiliar and possibly inedible stuff. My stomach rumbled.

“I don't even know what you're talking about.”

“Rhymes with sing,” Glass said. Gabe cast him a warning look.

“And fling,” he added. “And flywing.”

I furrowed my brows. Yes. I realized. I had forgotten one very big
rhymes with something
. Ring.

As I felt myself slip off my chair and into the dark void that had opened beneath me, I remembered why.

Because remembering was going to kill me.

16

Jeremy

Saturday: 3:22 PM

A
gent Reston strode into the room on the arm of her partner, high heels clacking on the wood floor. She and her squad of paranormal paramedics had arrived in less than twenty minutes after my call.

“Lucky for you, I was visiting the New York offices today,” she said smoothly. Her dark glasses reflected the afternoon light from the windows. I thought I saw her turn toward the apparition, who had taken to sitting in the corner to stare gloomily at me, arms hugging her knees.

“Yeah,” I said. “Very lucky.”

Marisa was on the couch comforting Gabe after she'd finally managed to drag her off of Bobby Pendell's unresponsive body.

He had frozen, midsentence, a forkful of jasmine rice halfway on its journey to his mouth, and then fallen off of his chair.

I hadn't wanted to call Agent Reston. But I didn't think there was any other way to save Pendell's life.

Agent Reston's partner led her to a stool by the kitchen counter. She waited there, neck straight, ears cocked like a hunting dog while her team of white-coated medics poked and prodded Pendell with strange objects that looked more like portable bug zappers than medical equipment. I flinched when one of them stuck a long spiral rod up his nose.

Bobby Pendell, however, did not move a muscle.

“This may take a while,” Agent Reston said. “You can leave if you want.”

“Not a chance!” Gabe sprang off the couch. “No way in hell am I leaving him alone with you!”

Agent Reston tilted her head. “Ah. Must be the girlfriend. Well, that's fine. But I'm warning you. It may not be pleasant.”

“I can deal with it,” Gabe said defiantly, hands on hips, an effect completely wasted on Agent Reston.

A slim eyebrow lifted above the dark glasses. “Lovely to see such devotion. Continue with the procedure, team.”

“What are you doing to him?” I asked.

Agent Reston turned to face me, a slight smile curving her red lips. “I see you two have bonded. That's very nice. But I'm afraid our methods are confidential.”

“But what's wrong with him?” I pressed, and swallowed down the hocker I wanted to spit at her.

“If Bobby had listened to me, we wouldn't be here right now,” Agent Reston said.

“And you did nothing to stop this? When you knew the danger he was in?” Gabe was inches from Agent Reston's face, but the woman remained unruffled.

“I did try to warn him,” she said. “But he insisted on handling things his way. And since he is still a minor, I could do very little without his father's consent.”

On the floor, Pendell had begun to writhe and rave, as if he were speaking in tongues. The flywing girl rose from her corner perch and began to run frantically back and forth.

“Stop!” Pendell screamed hoarsely. “The ring belongs to Brendan Wavestone!”

17

Bobby

Saturday: 6:10 PM

“S
top!” I cried. But it was too late. The vision crashed back into my memory, sweeping me out to sea with the pull of its violent swells.

◆

Brittany Byers spills out of the limo, shoeless and still a bit wobbly. She stumbles aimlessly through the streets of Harlem, not really sure of her direction. It's late, and there's no one around to notice one lost and half-dressed girl. And it's cold. Ball-freezing cold.

Again Brittany fishes in her bag for her phone, and again it's nowhere to be found. Cursing her terrible luck, her next plan is to hail a cab home to Queens. At least she still has her credit card. But there are no cabs, so Brittany decides that an all-night coffee shop is her best bet to find a safe haven.

Then she sees it, shining like a beacon of hope in the night. Riverside Church at 122
^nd
Street.

Miraculously, the door to the sanctuary is open. She slips in and sits in one of the pews at the back. Votive candles flicker at the altar, casting the space in shimmering red light. The air is thick with incense. Brittany decides that this might be a good time to pray. She closes her eyes, head bowed in meditation. It makes her just a little homesick for Tennessee and Mama's homemade fudge.

That's when she feels the hand that comes to rest on her shoulder. She looks up, thinking it's a priest or some other kindly person who's come to look in on her.

But the person in a black cap, bandana, and dark glasses does not look kindly. Silently, he claps a hand over her mouth, and then drags her from the pew and into the church basement before she has a chance to cry out.

◆

The probes that invaded my every orifice were nothing compared to the inferno that raged in my skull.

“Hold on, Bobby,” said a voice. “We're almost done.”

I'd recognize that voice anywhere. It was the voiceover to all my latest nightmares.

Agent Reston.
Here
.

I wanted to run. But I couldn't even move.

“You're going to thank me for this,” she said. Someone jabbed a needle into my arm and the sudden warmth spread from the entry point straight to my head. “But the relief is only going to be temporary, Bobby.”

The room came into focus, wavering and blueish as if we were underwater. Agent Reston sat on one of the kitchen counter stools, drumming her shiny red nails on the countertop.

“What are you shooting me up with?” I gasped. My voice sounded harsh and raw to my ears. My throat felt like splintered wood.

“It's a temporary antidote for your condition.” She turned to me and smiled, her dark glasses reflecting the overhead kitchen lights. I realized with a shock that it was night. I'd lost a big chunk of time.

“What condition?”

“If you'd have heard me out, I could have warned you. But of course we had no definitive way of knowing you'd develop this problem.”

Little by little, the room's curved lines began to straighten. The ragged strips of color that overlaid my vision had faded to vague impressions.

“What's wrong with me?”

“On the rare occasions when a patient's psychic ability remains intact after the tumor is removed, certain conditions can trigger seizures. For lack of a better name, we call your affliction Psychic Epilepsy Syndrome, or PES for short.”

“You sure like your acronyms,” Jeremy Glass said. I'd only just noticed him sitting on the couch as the room came into focus.

I squinted at Agent Reston. “You said temporary antidote.”

She lifted her chin. “That's because there is no true cure.”

“Feeling better, Pendell?” Glass asked.

“Fuck you,” I said. “You're the one who called her.”