Swarm (25 page)

Get her off my back. But be nice, so she likes me.

“Lily,” the voice said gently, “you know I could never get between you and your sister. I'm not smart enough, or funny enough, or sweet enough. I'm just here to help Flicker out. Okay?”

Lily softened a little. “Whatever, Ethan. Just don't do anything rude. Our mom
wants
to like you.”

“Moms always like me,” the voice said sweetly.

You had to hand it to the voice. It had some stone-cold cojones.

“Okay. Let's put that to the test.” Lily turned away, walking toward a group of adults at the far end of the room.

Ethan hated tests.

“Lily's not a big fan of powers,” Flicker said.

“These days, I feel where she's coming from.”

A woman in waiter's black-and-white carried a tray of mini franks on toothpicks past, and Ethan grabbed a couple. Suddenly he wanted to eat like there was no tomorrow.

Which there might not be. Depending on what Swarm did next.

He looked around the room. Flicker's family sure had a lot of friends. There were at least two dozen people here. Including some very cute girls who were smiling at him.

Ethan smiled back. Smiling felt good.

“Um, those are my cousins,” Flicker muttered. “And you're supposed to be my boyfriend.”

He blinked a few times. He hated when Flicker got in his eyeballs like that. “I was looking at the decorations!”

He swept a determined gaze along the tinseled walls to prove it. The halls were seriously decked in this place. It was like Martha Stewart had exploded here.

Flicker snorted. “Tell it to my mom. Incoming.”

Lily was on her way back, and in her wake was a Hallmark mother, complete with frosted hair and a sweater covered in reindeer and snowflakes. She pushed ahead of her daughter, adroitly stepped around a life-sized Santa, and swooped on Ethan.

“You must be the young man we've been hearing so little about!” The joke sounded like it had been saved up for a while, but her smile seemed genuine. “How do you pronounce your name again? Tee . . .”

Her voice faded into puzzlement.

“Ethan,” Flicker said. “And you've already met him. He came to a barbecue two summers ago.”

“Of course!” She looked like she didn't remember him at
all. But that was probably because Nate had been at that same barbecue. With Nate around, everybody else was backdrop, even if they didn't have Anonymous powers.

“I was the quiet one,” Ethan's voice explained. “You know what it's like, having a crush on the cutest girl at the party.”

Ethan felt himself blush. He sounded like a total dork.

The voice was saying, “You have a lovely home, Mrs. Phillips.”

After the heartfelt talk with Jess, it was a relief to be back in passenger mode. He let the voice compliment Mrs. Phillips on everything from the decorations to her taste in Wedgwood, whatever that was.

“Well, aren't you polite?” Mrs. Phillips gave Ethan's shoulders a squeeze. “We're sorry your family couldn't come.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Ethan had never forwarded the invitation. The whole act would've been way too complicated, and he didn't want to use his power in front of Jess.

“My mom had an urgent case to work tonight,” the voice said. “You know, trying to get an innocent man out of prison for Christmas Day.”

Mrs. Phillips looked impressed.

Ethan was impressed too. That last part might have been kinda dramatic, but at least the voice was sticking close to the truth. His mom working Christmas Eve was about the only tradition his family had.

Of course, she was really working on the Internal Affairs investigation, just in case Ethan needed another thing to go horribly wrong in his life.

“Let me get you a cup of eggnog, young man,” Mrs. Phillips said. “And I'll wrap up some cake later to take home to your family.”

She disappeared into the crowd.

Ethan was totally going to eat every piece of cake she gave him. Probably before he got home.

“I suppose rum in that eggnog would be too much to ask for,” he muttered to Flicker.

“No way. You need to stay sharp,” she said. “My family's circling like sharks tonight.”

“Seriously? You think
this
is tough?” he asked. “We need to swap families for a week.”

Offers of drinks and cake and mini franks on toothpicks were not a thing in Ethan's house, not even at Christmas. The holidays had been pretty nonfestive ever since Dad left. Jess always bought Ethan a shirt from the same store and Mom gave him a hundred bucks for new games. Dad sent a card with a twenty in it most years, but not every year. Not this year.

Ethan was struck with an insane urge to call his father, maybe give him a last chance to act paternal.

Flicker touched his shoulder. “How are things with Jess?”

“We talked. She's not going to tell Mom and she didn't kick my ass.”

Ethan was counting that as a win-win, in the scheme of things.

“I wasn't worried,” Flicker said. “Seems like she loves you.”

Ethan shrugged. “She also said she'd bust all of you if I ever do anything shady again. It's lucky she's shipping out again soon.”

“When she does, you've still got the Zeroes,” Flicker said. “We're a kind of family too, right?”

Ethan frowned. Flicker was being awfully sentimental tonight. Because he was doing her a favor? Or was it fear of imminent death?

“The kind of family who pretend to be each other's boyfriends?” Okay. That just got weird. He started over: “Anyway, Jess is the least of our worries now.”

Someone went past with a tray of sliders, and Ethan lunged for it. But Flicker stepped in closer, cutting him off.

“Put your arm around me,” she whispered. “The cousins are watching!”

“Dude, really?” He wasn't sure what was worse, the judgment of the cousins or missing his shot at the sliders. They were disappearing fast. “What if Tee's watching?”

“He's not here. He had to . . .” Flicker sighed. “He's going through some stuff.”

“Seriously?” Ethan asked. “I think that applies to most of us right now!”

“Okay, sure.” She shook her head. “But he's told you about his family, right?”

Ethan hesitated. When they'd been holed up together in Teebo's hotel room last summer, a lot of stuff had come out. Serious stuff.

“Yeah. But not everything stuck in my head, you know?”

“That's the problem, I guess. But the next time you see him, try to remember something,
anything
more than the usual, okay? Just to make him feel better.”

“Whoa. Okay.” Ethan nervously filed that under Things Not to Forget.

“Now put your arm around me. We look like a couple of middle schoolers standing here.”

“Okay.” Ethan nervously put his arm around Flicker's shoulders.

It was too bad the voice couldn't control his whole body. Ethan didn't feel very convincing, and the cutest of the cousins seemed like she was trying not to laugh.

Flicker dragged his hand tighter around her shoulders, lacing her fingers between his. Ethan's whole wrist went rigid.

“Um, are you
sure
Tee's not here?” Ethan muttered.

“I told you, family stuff,” Flicker said tightly.

Ethan continued to scan the room. “Can you send him a text and make sure?”

“You're pathetic.” Flicker pulled out her phone. “But I should check in with him. Message Nothing.”

The phone purred in response and Flicker started texting with one thumb. It was pretty impressive. A lot of people could text without looking, but Flicker took that to a new level.

Ethan's phone fizzed in his pocket, and for a second he thought Flicker's voice-recognition app was taking the fake-boyfriend thing too seriously.

He checked the screen. “Huh. Why would Sonia Sonic wish me a happy festive season? Did you give her my number? I thought she hated me.”

“Be nice to her, Ethan,” Flicker muttered as she texted. “We still need her on our side.”

Another message from Sonia appeared. Seemed like her wrist was on the mend. Which was just more bad news Ethan didn't need.

Coffee sometime?
she texted.

Ethan texted back,
I don't do coffee. Makes me hyper.

Sonia texted back,
MORE hyper, I think you mean. LOL!

Ethan rolled his eyes and switched his phone to silent. If Sonia was looking for a new story about the Zeroes, he wasn't going to be the one to hand it to her. Not this time.

“Great, the cousins are coming over,” Flicker said grimly. “You up to this?”

Ethan steadfastly refused to look in the direction of the group of girls headed their way. He locked what he hoped was an adoring gaze onto Flicker's face.

“My voice is up to anything,” he said. “I'm not even here.”

“
You know, you have a serious dissociative disorder, Scam,” Flicker replied.

“I don't even understand what that is,” Ethan said, feeling in his pocket for a lozenge.

His throat was already hitting the high burn mark as the cousins descended on them.

THIBAULT'S FAMILY GATHERING WAS IN
full swing. Three generations, from sugar-rushing kids to grandparents, were piled into the living room to open gifts. Attention lines flashed everywhere.

None came to rest on Thibault, of course. No different from his brother's birthday parties. He shouldn't have let Flicker talk him into coming. Things were bad enough without reminding himself what he'd already lost.

Thibault's phone chirruped in his pocket. Next to him Uncle Claude fumbled, pulled out his own. He stared at the blank screen, then smiled at Thibault, realizing the confusion. A moment later his eyes slipped away.

Uncle Claude never remembered Thibault, not even for a second. But at least he'd managed that smile.

The text was from Flicker:
Scam isn't a very good boyfriend. Miss you.

Thibault felt a glow of pleasure. She
missed
him, after fifteen hours in the car together. After the horror they'd seen this morning.

Another text bubbled up:
Ethan thinks you're here. He's scared you're watching us. :D

That made Thibault snort. He texted back:
Would LOVE to check out his boyfriend act. But it's time for presents—the little ones are going nuts.

She replied:
Barbarians! When you open a present on Xmas eve, an elf dies. xo

It took Thibault real effort to sign off. To pocket the phone and bring himself back to the present, where he was almost invisible.

His littlest brother, Emile, sat by the tree, deciding what to open next.

“You're on number two,” Dad said ominously. “No pressure!”

Emile groaned. By family tradition, the little kids were allowed to open three presents on Christmas Eve. The rest had to wait till tomorrow.

After long consideration, Emile reached for a box wrapped in bright red with gold ribbon, and Thibault smiled again. He used the same wrapping paper every birthday.

Emile turned the tag over. “See, Mom, I told you there was a Thibault-present.”

A hesitant little shock went through the room, and his parents looked at each other in confusion. But as Emile began tearing the paper, Dad's gaze slid back to his eggnog. Mom looked around the room, as if trying to spot Thibault in the crowd. But her eyes slid off him, her face growing anxious and uncertain.

Maybe he was just torturing them all, being here.

But even so, watching his little brother open the present was worth it.

“Mini geodes!” Emile announced. “Coo-ool!”

“I noticed you didn't have any in your collection,” Thibault said, squatting beside his little brother and touching his shoulder. The cousins were focused on their own presents, and the glistening branches of the Christmas tree provided a little shelter. For a moment it was like being alone.

“I don't!” Emile said happily. “These are awesome!”

The bond between them sparkled in the air, thin but clear. He'd had this with both his brothers once; now Thibault only got this connection with Emile.

“I mean, you can't really tell anything from the outside,” Emile went on. “It's like a box of chocolates—except you open them with a diamond saw!”

Thibault laughed. The clerk at the lapidary store had made the same joke. Emile must spend a
lot
of time there.

Emile took one of the stones out of the box and weighed it in his hand. “You know how geodes are formed, right?”

“No idea,” Thibault lied. “How?”

That was enough to launch five minutes of rock-nerd chatter. Emile's attention came and went—drifting from Thibault to the cousins' presents, to the geodes, and back to his lecture—but the stream of words didn't halt until the lure of another gift to open drew Emile away.