Hush Money (12 page)

Phil was reacting too, though, this time
aiming his vision at the agent and hitting him in the shoulder. The
man screamed, clamping a hand over the spurt of flame from his
clothing and dropping to the ground. The other three agents, also
unable to hold onto their weapons, rushed toward Phil.

I held onto Kat as she started forward, but
saw Matt and Maddy rush in. Maddy threw herself on the back of one
of the agents. She pressed her cheek to his, like she was bracing
for a struggle, but then slid off when Matt grabbed his arm and
stared at him.

When Matt dropped his hand, the agent simply
turned and started to leave.

And that’s when the dolls started to
move.

It just started with one. A little French
number in blue bonnet that only caught my eye because it was on the
mantle, right near where Phil was struggling with the two agents.
One of them had him in a headlock and had drawn some kind of
metallic bag over his head while the other tried to hold him still
from the side. I watched, fascinated, as the little figure with the
blonde ringlets picked up a decorative plate and swung it at
Headlock Guy. Two more plates followed in rapid succession, shards
of china flying up when the plates—which weren’t flung with too
much force—bounced off the agents and struck the fireplace.

But it was enough to freak them out.

They stumbled back from Phil, reaching for
the heavy artillery they had worn slung across their backs, and
they both aimed at the fireplace.

“Rubber bullets!” Maddy shouted at the room
that was erupting into another round of terrified screams, “Get
down!”

Part of my mind was trying to process all
this, even as I reached out to the table legs with my mind and
dumped the contents of the buffet into the floor. I slid it into
position in front of us as a shield, barely missing Dylan who was
already tugging me to the floor behind it. I pulled the couch that
had been near the back door, only to find there had been kids
behind it. They bolted outside, and then Phil hurled himself over
the table and Dylan had to pull me out of his path.

I couldn’t even appreciate it. I was too
busy, my mind throwing out its lines, grabbing furniture and
building up our wall, the huge pieces flying toward us and
stacking, my mind racing and working so hard that there was nothing
else but finding and stacking pieces until a hand clamped onto my
shoulder.

“
We need a plan, Joss. What do we do
next?”

I checked my need to gather the air in front
of Matt into a burst that would knock him on his ass and settled
for a glare and a hiss: “Get out of my head!” Which I then realized
there was no way he could hear over the shouting and gunfire.

“
Just listen. Heather says to tell you to
figure out how we’re going to get out of here. You’re the only one
who can.”
I tried to shake him off, opening my mouth to say
something, but he must have read my face—I hoped it was my face he
was reading.
“I don’t know why she says that, but she just knows
things.”

Dylan’s arm came around, giving Matt the
shove I’d wanted to and making him let go of me. “What the hell,
Matt?” he yelled, but I think I was the only one who could hear.
Matt just shook his head.

We didn’t have time for this. Heather was
right, someone needed to figure a way out of here. I had built up
our little corral with three walls and the fourth being the kitchen
doorway. Years of training from my dad had made thinking to include
an escape route automatic, as well the thought of how I’d block it
if it were compromised. Now I wondered if anyone was beyond the
door, and Heather jumped into my view, shaking her head
violently.

No,
I thought,
don’t go that
way?

She looked exasperated and started climbing
over kids to get to me. At the same time, the agents began to
body-slam my furniture wall, and I diverted my attention to holding
it steady and keeping a wing-back chair from falling on Elizabeth’s
head. I wanted to call out to her, but she was oblivious, and
through the opening she was watching from I could see once-pretty
dolls with disheveled clothing and missing limbs tearing at the
agents and being shattered by rubber bullets.

“Kitchen’s clear! I think!” she yelled right
in my ear.

You think?

I scuttled to the door to check, but Dylan
grabbed me before I could push it open and looked at me like I was
out of my mind. Then he slipped through without another word.

Boys. Idiots.

He came right back and practically dragged me
through. I saw Matt darting around touching everyone for a brief
moment before they turned and headed for the kitchen too. Because
I’m just that paranoid, I waited until a few people were through
before I slid the refrigerator in front of the door that led off to
the rest of the house.
Nope, can’t pin that on me.

When Eric dragged Kat through the swinging
door and everyone was in kitchen, I visualized my wall outside and
pulled as much of it in toward the kitchen as I could. It’s hard
for me to move what I can’t see, so most of it I just let fall and
it was enough for now.

“But my parents—”

“They don’t want your parents.” I interrupted
Kat. “They’re cooperating, and these guys are obviously supposed to
use non-lethal force. So don’t worry about them, ok? We need to
know how to get out of here. What’s out that way?”

“But—”

“The garage,” Maddy supplied. “There are a
few steps down, but it opens right into the two-car garage.”

I remembered that now. I’d come in that way
twice already. I’d hated the drills my dad had put me through, the
prolonged, vigorous use of my ability, or using it under
distracting conditions. But it was the only way I was able to do it
now while I was trying to hold the doors, figure out our next
moves, and trying not to think about all the Talents I was seeing
in people I had been going to school with my whole life.

“Of course.” I looked at Heather who had
known there was no one in the kitchen. Would she know about the
garage too? She gave me a thumbs up. What Matt said flitted through
my head, that thing about Heather thinking
I
was the one who
could figure a way out of this.
That girl is out of her freakin’
mind.

Everyone was watching me or the door. Heather
twirled her finger at her head in the universal crazy sign before
pointing to herself, smirking at me the whole time.

Bitch was reading my mind!

She mimed an offended expression and the
hallway door started to give way. I hadn’t been paying enough
attention. I panicked, knocked over the fridge, took the range next
to it and flipped it on top. I heard someone—Matt, maybe—say, “Holy
shit! Who’s doing that?” Belatedly, I noticed that it was an
electric range, thank God.

Heather already had the door open, and I
shouted at everyone to get down into the garage. As soon as their
backs were all turned, I started pulling the cabinets from the
walls. I went last, Dylan trying to tear my arm from the socket,
the invisible strings to my mind pulling them all with me into a
stack against the door as I slammed it closed.

Now what? I’ll figure out what’s next just
as soon as I throw up.
My head was pounding with the stress and
effort as I literally stumbled down the steps.

“Ok, everybody just calm down.” I said.
“We’re doing great. We’ve got trained government agents out there,
and a few Talent kids just showed them their asses.” Someone
whooped. Dad always said that morale’s important. Not everything,
not at the expense of reality, but if you don’t believe in yourself
or your team, you’ve probably lost already. “Now it’s Phil they’re
after. We have to get him out of here. I wish I knew how many there
are…”

“There are the four agents in the house,”
Maddy said, “and there were supposed to be two more in the backyard
for backup. But they didn’t come in at the signal, so they might be
incapacitated—”

“What signal?”

“Radio signal.” Maddy held up her hand to
shut me up. “There are four more agents in two cars, waiting give
chase if—”

“Did someone say ‘chase’?” Eric asked,
grinning.

“Quit kidding around,” Dylan snapped.

“Who’s kidding? Look at this baby.” Eric ran
his hand across the top of Kat’s dad’s Corvette. “I don’t care what
they’re driving, they’ll never catch this.”

“They’re driving Crown Vics,” Maddy said.

Eric just laughed.

“But I don’t have keys to that!” Kat
wailed.

“Who needs keys?” Eric put both hands of the
hood and closed his eyes for a moment. The engine roared to life
and everyone jumped. Everyone except Dylan. “Phil and I will tear
up the road in this. They’ll chase us, but I’ll lose ’em and drive
him far enough to get safely out of town. I’ll probably have to
change cars somewhere—”

“You’re going to take my dad’s car in a high
speed chase and then ditch it??”

“Kat, I’m going to take very good care of
this beauty, I promise. He’ll get it back, good as new.”

“I don’t believe this…”

“I don’t believe you’re sticking me with this
minivan,” Dylan groaned and Eric laughed.

“Who says you’re driving my mom’s car?”

I guess I could see how this would be
upsetting to Kat, but her priorities were confusing to me. I’d just
ripped out all her kitchen cabinets, but
this
is what she
was worrying about. “If Eric’s taking Phil, that leaves Dylan as
the first runner-up delinquent to drive the second getaway car,
ok?”

“Sweet!” Eric exclaimed, slapping his hands
down on the hood of the van and working his mojo to get it
started.

“That’s great. Now we can all die of carbon
monoxide poisoning. And who are you calling a delinquent?” Dylan
asked me.

“I wish I knew what was on the other side of
that door. I’d hate to back up into anything when I go tearing out
of here.” Eric said.

Kat put her arms over her head.

“Um, I can help with that.” Jessica walked to
the garage door and put her hand on it. It disappeared.

We all jumped back.

“Don’t worry. It…looks the same from out
there—as it did before.”

“Ok, Jessica. That’s…awesome. Thank you,” I
said, wondering if there were anyone here who had the least little
sense of discretion about using their Talent in front of others.
Maybe this was some big “We Are Family” moment for some of them,
but I wasn’t feeling it. As soon as the thought went through my
head I automatically looked over at Heather who pretended to be
ignoring me. Great.
You and I are so going to talk after
this.

“Yeah, thanks, Jessie!” Eric walked over to
study the lay of the land. I couldn’t help but stare for a moment
myself. I could still sort of see the outlines of the door, the
horizontal lines of the panels, and the whole thing was kind of
blurry. That and the classical music coming out of the ‘Vette made
me feel like I was in a movie.

From beyond where we could see, something
came flying right at us. We all ducked, but of course whatever it
was bounced off the door and onto the pavement.

“Gas!” Eric yelled, and then we all saw the
smoke coming out of the canister, two more hitting the ground and
smoke starting to curl up under the invisible door.

Joss

“Just anywhere back in here is good. They
won’t be able to see us from the road, if anyone’s looking.”

Dylan pulled the van up onto the lawn where I
said. He had to leave the engine running because, well, we didn’t
know how to turn it off. But at least it was quiet. We were at the
rest area on the interstate, off the service drive and behind a
hill. It was one of my family’s emergency rendezvous points and the
place I thought of automatically as a place for us to hide out and
regroup.

The enormity of what had happened was trying
really hard to get to me, and I was trying really hard to ignore
it. My head was pounding and I kept seeing all the things I had
done, all the ways I had used my abilities—in front of all these
kids. In front of government agents! It was all sort of a blur now,
and I was so tired I felt like I could curl up and go to sleep and
convince myself it had been a nightmare—except for the smell of
tear gas in my hair. We had all piled into the van, and I made
Dylan wait to pull out until we saw Eric lead the agents away from
the house. The gas had started to seep inside. Good luck getting
that out of the upholstery.

Dylan tugged at my sleeve.

“Come on. Let’s get some fresh air.”

We all piled out, some of the kids dropping
onto the grass just a few steps from the van, faking nonchalance
and failing badly. I wasn’t the only one who was damned shaken up
from the evening’s events—I didn’t have to be psychic to know that.
Speaking of which…

“How are you doing?” Dylan asked. “You don’t
look so good.”

A) Aren’t you the charmer, and B) Stop
paying attention to me, it’s freaking me out!!

He shrugged out of his jacket and was
slipping it onto me before I could think to refuse it, and only a
moment before my teeth started to chatter. It wasn’t even that
cold, but I was exhausted, hurting, freaked out, and exposed in
this stupid outfit I’d forgotten about. I couldn’t do anything but
stammer a thank you and take a step back to get myself some
distance. Of course the heel of Kat’s stupid shoe sunk into the
ground, which I wasn’t used to, I stumbled sideways, and Dylan was
there to catch me.

That’s when Heather stepped in. “Hey Joss, I
really gotta…you know. Walk with me.”

I shrugged at Dylan as I set off with
Heather, like I was resigned to my girly duty to accompany my kind
to the bathroom. When I’d never done any such thing in my life. And
now I had to do it walking around in these stupid shoes. The heels
were low—I couldn’t have walked in high ones—but they were pointy,
and kept sinking. The things didn’t even have toes. On top of
everything else, I had cold feet. I was starting to get
irritable.