Fractured (7 page)

Agent Reston tilted her head and adjusted her skirt. I looked away. The woman was blind, but she wasn't above flaunting her long legs.

“Ungrateful bastard. I should have left you for dead,” Glass said, rising from the couch. He stood over me with a mocking half-smile, his pointy chin peppered with faint stubble. He looked like he'd slept in his clothes. “You look like a pile of shit, Pendell. I'll get you water. Since I'm a thoughtful kind of guy.”

I sat up and rubbed my head. “I'm fine. All I need is a shower.” I tried to stand, but my head was still spinning crazily. The dead girl was gone. And in the chaos I hadn't noticed that Gabe and Marisa were gone, too.

“In case you're wondering where everyone went,” Glass said, offering me the glass of water, “Gabe had a new student orientation and Marisa decided to go with her. We thought it was better than sitting around watching you wig out.”

“You let them go out alone?” I shouted. I caught Agent Reston smiling from the corner of my eye.

“Relax,” Glass said. “It's just on campus. What do you think Gabe is going to do when she goes to school here? Have an armored car shuttle her around?”

“Thanks for reminding me about that.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose and sipped the water.

My gaze caught the ring sitting on the coffee table. It looked so bland and unthreatening. I looked away. I wasn't ready to revisit the horror of the visions just yet.

“Well then. We're done for now. The treatment lasts seventy-two hours. If you manage to solve the crime, the object will lose its resonance and the seizures associated with it will most likely quiet. You'll go into remission.” Agent Reston smiled, stood, and flicked open her cane. “Until you stumble across the next criminal artifact.”

Her partner took her by the arm as the medical team packed up its equipment. “If you don't, the seizures will return with more severity,” she said. “And the worse they get, the more antidote you'll require to break out of them.” Agent Reston walked to the bed and stood imperiously over me, her face angled downward.

I stood abruptly, my face inches from hers so that I could see myself reflected in her dark lenses. “You did this to me, didn't you? You never planned to let me go.”

Agent Reston's mouth twitched. “These things happen. It's beyond our control. For the meantime, it's probably best to wait for further decisions. You'll be turning eighteen next month. Then you can decide your destiny for yourself.” She started to turn away, then stopped and faced me, adding, “If you make it through this weekend, that is.”

I moved in closer to Agent Reston, my face nearly touching hers, but she stood her ground. “I think I've made it pretty clear that I don't want any part of your shitty Program.”

She nodded, smiled, and cupped my face in her hand. “Such soft skin. Just like a baby's.” Her smile faded. “Administered in large doses, the antidote destroys brain function. It will pull you out of a psychic seizure, but at the same time, it'll slowly turn you into a vegetable. We won't deny you the temporary cure, but unfortunately it will lose its efficacy as your brain unravels. But there is a much better alternative available should you agree to sign on.”

I shook my head. “How do I know you're telling me the truth? You'd say anything to get me into your Program.”

“Bobby,” Agent Reston said, very softly. “Let me let you in on a little secret. While you would certainly be an asset to the Program, our main interest is in protecting you. Also, assets who prove unmanageable become liabilities to the Program.”

“Unmanageable?” Glass said. He had been listening carefully, chin resting on his hands.

“Anyone who compromises The Program and our tactics is a risk factor. We have our own ways of dealing with them.”

“You knock them off?” I said, shuddering.

Reston smiled her cat smile. “Of course not. There are far better ways to deal with Renegades than killing them.”

“Renegades,” I said, rolling the word on my tongue. Nausea bubbled inside of me. The floor seemed to buckle and roll. “But what if I do sign up? Wouldn't my condition still do me in?”

“When you're ready, we'll talk about it. For now, see what you can do with the information you have. The treatment will keep you from going too deep into a vision, kind of like a tether. Think of it as deep-sea diving. You'll be hauled back up to safety.”

“Wait—you're leaving? Just like that?”

Agent Reston smiled broadly enough to reveal her white teeth. “Consider this your audition. I have faith in you, Bobby.”

I glanced at Jeremy. He simply threw up his hands.

“Just so you know, you passed up your first chance. Second time around, the bar is set higher.”

I just stared at her, incredulous. “You're saying I have to prove myself? Or be left to go insane?”

“You've got seventy-two hours to show me what you can do, Bobby. Oh, and boys—did you wonder exactly why I happened to be in New York when my home office is in Washington, DC?” She cocked her head expectantly.

“It keeps me awake nights wondering,” Jeremy said.

“Always the joker,” Agent Reston said, shaking her head. “Do you remember what my ability is, Bobby? I can see murders. And there's a big cluster of them around here. Only they haven't all happened yet. And I'm counting on you to do something about that.”

18

Jeremy

Saturday: 8:13 PM

I
glanced at the clock. It was 8:13 PM. Ten minutes after Agent Reston had left. The girls weren't back yet and I was edgy. I didn't like the implied threat from that manipulative blind bitch: that if Bobby Pendell didn't prove himself useful, they'd make him disappear, kill him or something—whether he planned to cooperate or not.

Bobby paced the apartment in his stocking feet. He still hadn't peeled off his rumpled clothes and his hair looked like an oil-soaked crow had landed and died on his head.

An unexpected wave of big brotherly protectiveness washed over me. The kid had a hair-trigger temper and zero sense of humor. But despite his tendency to want to punch me in the teeth, I liked him. Since most people wanted to punch me anyway, I tended to overlook small things like that.

Bobby wasn't talking, though. He stalked back and forth, occasionally texting Gabe, I figured, pretending like I wasn't there. The apparition scurried along in his wake. Occasionally, he'd whirl around, snarl at her, and she'd scrabble over to crouch near me. But I ignored her, so she'd fall back in line, marching behind Bobby like a semi-transparent majorette.

I sighed. Tenderness, I realized, wasn't the best way to deal with a hardscrabble hick like Bobby Pendell. “So, what's your next move, Pendell? Shrivel up in a ball and die?”

“Fuck you.”

“You really need to work on your vocabulary range.”

Bobby stopped pacing and whirled on me. “What the hell is your game? Do you enjoy kicking people when they're down? Is this entertaining to you?”

I raised an eyebrow. Maybe it was time to drop the act. “Actually, Bobby, it's not entertaining at all. It's pure shit. So I'll just cut to the chase. We don't have the luxury of sparring with each other, so pack up your ego and stuff it under the bed. Read between her bullshit, Bobby. You're going to die if we don't figure out how to deal with this.”

Bobby blinked, apparently stunned into silence. “We?” His face turned bright red. Bobby Pendell looked like he was about to cry.

“Dude,” I said. “I get it. I've been through my own crazy crap. And you never saw such a diva. I guess I just show it differently.”

Bobby sank onto the couch next to me and buried his face in his hands. After a while he said, “I don't know what I'm going to do. My dad. My brother. They need me. I can't— This can't.”

I sighed and patted him lightly on the back. I wasn't sure if I was the ideal choice for pillar of strength, but right now he could use all the friends he could get.

He looked up at me, eyes wet, then swiped at them roughly with the back of his hand. “If you tell Gabe about this—about how I— I swear—I will punch out your front teeth.”

“Sure you will, dude. It's okay. I get it. We're uncomfortable being weak. But you're not weak. You're a balling monster of crazy nerve. You're going to do this. And I'm going to make sure of it.”

No, I didn't hug him. We were not quite ready for an actual bro moment.

“Shake on it?” I smiled and extended my hand.

Bobby nodded and extended his. “I guess I had you kind of all wrong, Glass.”

I shrugged. “You wouldn't be the first one.”

19

Bobby

Saturday: 8:29 PM

J
eremy Glass might be the strangest guy I'd ever met. One minute, he was mocking me, treating me like he'd never met anyone dumber in his life. The next, it was as if a curtain had gone up and there was a totally different person standing there. Someone I could maybe hate just a little bit less.

I didn't know if I could ever be friends with Jeremy Glass. I still wanted to kick him in his metal shin. But something in his eyes told me that he was a lot tougher than he looked. And maybe his smarts went further than his big mouth.

I placed my palm in his, and Jeremy Glass and I shook hands.

“Can you promise me something?” I asked.

“Depends.” Jeremy flashed me a lopsided grin.

“Will you please not tell Gabe about what happened tonight? I don't want her to know that there's a—that I'm a ticking time bomb. If I—if something happens to me, she can deal with it then. I don't want her to have to worry so much.”

He stared at me for a beat without the trace of a smile. “If you like. Though I think your girl is tough enough to deal. Plus she'll rip your head off if she finds out.”

“But she's not going to find out. Because you're going to keep your mouth shut. And if I'm—if I fail—well—I won't know the difference.”

“If that's what you want, Bobby,” he said softly. “But I think you're underestimating Gabe.”

I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath, hoping I wasn't making the biggest mistake of my possibly really short life by trusting Jeremy Glass.

I got up and started pacing again, then stopped and pressed my face to the window. The city sprawled below in a geometric grid of light. I couldn't help but thinking it looked a lot like a web. And I felt a lot like a fly. I wondered where the spider was.

I couldn't panic. I had to think. “I'm ready to tell you what I saw when I was—seeing stuff. If you're ready to hear it.”

I told him how Brittany had been attacked in the limo and then, later, the church. Her transparent form watched us as closely as if we were broadcasting the final minutes of the Super Bowl.

I didn't know what happened to her after she'd been dragged to the basement, but it was clear her attacker had killed her at some point.

And that it was the same person who'd attacked Marisa.

“What?” Jeremy exploded from the couch. “Why didn't you say the person who killed the ghost girl was the same person who attacked Marisa?”

“I was sort of semi-conscious at the time.”

“Damn it,” Jeremy was up tugging at his hair, his limp more pronounced than ever. “Fuck. We really have to do something.”

“Maybe we should just go to the police.”

“You're not thinking, Bobby. Marisa will have to testify. Identify this creep. And your evidence is worthless. Hey—yeah—I'm your favorite neighborhood freak. I can tell your fortune by touching your toilet seat. I mean, only Agent Reston knows what to do with your evidence. We've got to work with her. It's our only option.”

I let out a breath. I wanted to disagree. Come up with a better plan. But there was none.

“So what do you suggest?”

“We return to the scene of the crime. Right now that's all we have.”

“And we can see if there's anything else there that gives us info?” I felt queasy. I was saying the words, but the idea of going under again terrified me. “What about Brendan Wavestone's ring?” I added.

“I don't know, Bobby, you tell me. Did the ring place Wavestone at the crime scene? Otherwise what we have is a lost and found object. I guess we can bring it back to him…since your girlfriend has an in with the guy.”

“We've got to go to the church, don't we?” How did I know that Agent's Reston's antidote would hold? What if I was immune to it and I was lost forever in a vision?

“Yeah,” said Jeremy. He flashed me a sad kind of look. It was at that moment I decided that maybe I really could trust Jeremy Glass. And maybe, with his help, I had a fair chance of surviving the weekend.

20

Jeremy

Saturday: 9:00 PM

I
hoped I wasn't a one-legged albatross around Bobby Pendell's neck. He seemed as if maybe he might be starting to look up to me as the older and wiser guy. I wanted to warn him to look elsewhere, but there
was
nowhere else.

“The church basement, then?” I said, feeling sick inside. And hungry. “Let's order pizza first.”

“Did someone say pizza?” Marisa and Gabe entered the apartment looking flushed and happy. Apparently Bobby and I weren't the only ones who'd done some bonding tonight.

After we'd devoured the pizza, we tried to convince the girls to let us go to the church alone.

“What is this, the Middle Ages? You're protecting the damsels?” Marisa said, blocking the door. “A guy with one leg and another one who goes catatonic at the sight of a gold ring? Give me a break. We're coming, too.”

“Damn straight we are,” echoed Gabe, amber eyes blazing.

“But—Marisa. It was just last night. Your eye is still—” I stopped. Marisa's dark eyes shone like wet stones. I knew she wasn't going to budge.