03 Saints (14 page)

I smiled. Her words were the first compliment I had gotten in a long time. The smile fell.

“What if they’re dead?” I asked in a whisper.

She knew I meant Alex and Daniel. “I don’t think they are,” she said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I can feel it,” she said, squeezing my hand tight.

I smiled. “Well, that’s good enough for me.”

Reaper cleared his throat. Ellen and I turned around to look at him. We had both forgotten about him during our talk. He had cocked his head to the side, a confused expression crossing his face.

“Someone is here,” he told us.

I focused, and tried to hear what he heard. The reason for the confused look on Reaper’s face was made immediately obvious. The person outside the house was trying to figure out how someone could think about two things at once, without losing details of one or the other. She was trying to manage it by thinking about how to think of two things at once, while also thinking about her grocery list. I smiled at the strange thoughts. Naomi was home.

I went to the front door and opened it just as she was trying to put the lock in the door. She looked at me without recognizing who I was, her thoughts still lost in the problem she was trying to solve.

Naomi had changed since I had seen her last. She wore a brown leather jacket and professional slacks that her work required her to wear. Her hair was black, with thick bangs obscuring her forehead. The random streaks of odd color she normally kept in hair were gone. I knew it was because she had gotten a promotion at the radio station she worked at, and they had insisted on a dress code. She hated the change, but loved her work. Her green eyes were circled with black liner, and her lips were ruby red. Her shirt had a dancing zombie on it, the only ‘unprofessional thing’ she refused to give up. She loved zombies.

She stepped past me, put her things on the counter, and started to make her way to the bathroom to pee. She realized who I was all at once. She turned around and jumped up and down in her excitement. Still jumping, she pulled me into her arms and hugged me tight.

Naomi’s voice was full of happiness when she spoke. “Yay! You’re back!”

“Just for a little while,” I admitted.

She released me from her hug and put her arm around my waist, so she could keep a hold on me. She put her head on my shoulder.

“I missed you, kiddo. You’ve gotten taller,” Naomi said.

“You’ve gotten more eccentric, I think,” I said.

“We try! Oh, yeah, that reminds me! I need milk!” she said.

“How does that remind you of milk?” I asked.

“Your bones…they need milk…you’ve gotten taller…it makes sense,” she said as if I was missing the obvious.

“Of course it does…”

“Ellen, you’re up! I thought you would be asleep for another hour.” Naomi hugged me tighter. “Would you know that your mom has been going out every night with Sam to try and look for you? She was certain you were in town…for like the past two weeks or so.”

“Really?” I asked.

How odd was it that she had thought I was in town the same amount of time I had been free from the prison?

Ellen shrugged. “It was just a feeling. Naomi…cook me dinner. I’m starved.”

“Cook yourself dinner. Oh wait, you can’t, because you are ridiculous and quite possibly a robot, who hasn’t acclimated to the fact that humans cook,” Naomi said.

“Cook some for Clare, too,” Ellen said, ignoring Naomi’s words. She stood and started toward the bathroom. “I’m going to check on Sam. Afterwards, you and I are going on a walk, Clare. You will hold my hand, and you will not complain when I show you affection in public,” she commanded me.

“I would never complain about that,” I told her.

Her smile was a miracle after such a long time lost in pain. I was glad to see it, but sad in the same instant. It was a reminder that I couldn’t stay here; I would have to look somewhere else for Daniel. Besides, I couldn’t bring my world of danger on to her shoulders again. It was too dangerous. Leaving was unavoidable.

Forgetting about Reaper, I let myself out through the back door to wait for Ellen to finish consoling Sam, wishing I was normal and that I could stay forever.

As I sat down on Naomi’s deck chair, I heard her ask Reaper from the kitchen, “So…who are you?”

Reaper answered politely, obviously intrigued by Naomi and her oddness. They struck up a conversation, and became old friends in a matter of minutes, as was Naomi’s way.

After my long walk with Ellen, which was therapeutic and more wonderful then words, Naomi demanded I hang out with her. While the talk with Ellen had been healing, the talk with Naomi was different, in a good way.

We walked out to the water’s edge together, her arm hooked through mine. When we were close enough to the water to appreciate its beauty in the dark, but far way enough to not get wet, we sat. Naomi’s feet made odd shapes in the sand as her mind kept up constant thought. She had given up trying to think of two things at once, but Naomi was always thinking. Her hyper brain never rested, not even when she was asleep.

We were silent for a long moment, the ocean and her feet moving in the sand dominating the present. I heard other sounds; sounds like avalanches. A crab walking the shore, a couple making out in the lifeguard house, some others down the beach drinking quietly and watching the waves, the sounds of the pier as people walked it’s length, Ellen inside as she sat with Sam in their room and tried to make him feel better about the fact that Alex might possibly be dead, the cars on the street…they all blended into the same moment.

“How you been, kiddo?” Naomi finally asked.

“About as good as a person kicked in the head…and I have been…kicked in the head, I mean,” I said.

“Yeah, you look it. What’s with the shoulder?”

“Got shot,” I said.

“Had to hurt,” she said.

“It did,” I admitted.

“You’re acting strange,” Naomi pointed out. “All reserved. Where’s my Clare at?”

“She got lost in a hole.”

Naomi sighed. She didn’t need my story to know I was in pain. She could see it. “Alice fell down a rabbit hole once, but she managed to find her way home again,” she pointed out.

“I’m not Alice,” I said.

“Shutting out the pain won’t make it any easier. Stop pretending you aren’t a person. Feel. Breathe. Enjoy the good. Endure the bad,” Naomi said.

“That’s Ellen’s saying.”

“I know. I steal things. My head doctor told me it’s compulsive. Then, he told me he couldn’t date me anymore, that he was married. I, then, proceeded to steal his car and crash it into a pole. That taught him some things about compulsive…and about dating his patients,” Naomi said.

By the end of her story I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“You were dating your shrink?” I asked around my laughter.

“He always listened to me…” she said primly.

I laughed harder at her explanation. She started laughing as well, accepting my giggles as healthy. Between our laughs, she stood and started digging in the sand, where her feet had been making patterns.

“Help me dig!” she commanded.

I followed her command, still laughing at her. “Why are we digging?”

“I don’t know. Why aren’t we digging?” she asked.

“Good point,” I said.

“Let’s make a tourist trap,” she decided.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“We’ll dig a hole big enough to trap a tourist then even out the edges, so they don’t see the trap. They’ll never know what hit ‘em!” she said excitedly.

“Okay.”

Giggling, telling each other stories, and laughing more at our shared stories, we dug until our tourist trap was finished.

Reaper was on the sofa watching a football game with Sam when we got back. Sam was calm, worried, but trying to act normal as he watched the game. At least he wasn’t yelling.

“I forgot about you,” I told Reaper. “Sorry.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ve been learning a lot about your friends…especially Alex. She seems like a special girl.”

“She’s beyond amazing,” I told him.

“So I hear…” Reaper moved his eyes back to the television screen. “Do you have guesses as to where we should look next?”

“No…” I admitted.

“I might. I’ve been thinking about the story you shared with your mother earlier… You said that you were in the hall with that boy…Spider, and Damian and Nguyen grabbed you there, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And Anna grabbed you later?” he asked.

“There’s no forgetting that,” I said.

“So, your friends saw you being abducted by Nguyen, not Anna?” Reaper asked.

It hadn’t occurred to me they didn’t know Anna had taken me. I had been assuming the wrong thing.

“Yeah…” I said, getting what he was saying.

“If they’re assuming you’re alive, then they are assuming he is alive, right?” he asked.

“Right,” I said.

“There are two places in America Watchers like to have as a base of operations. One is L.A., because of our history here, the other, because it is a place that, like us, never sleeps and never rests. It suits our needs,” Reaper said.

“New York?” I asked.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “While Darian and Lorian keep the majority of their forces here in L.A., Marcus loves New York. It’s his hometown. It the first city he claimed. If your friends thought you were captured by Marcus, chances are they tried to follow you to New York.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Sam said hopefully.

“It might not be a good thing. They’re probably trying to come up with plans to infiltrate Marcus’ nest in the city… which is damn near impossible,” Reaper said. “Trust me, I’ve tried. If they try to look for you there, chances are not in their favor. We should find them before they do something stupid.”

“But how on earth are we going to find them in New York? It’s like looking for a grain of sand in the ocean,” I said.

Reaper smiled. “As it happens, I know where Marcus’ nest is. If they’re smart, they’ll have eyes on it.”

“They’re smart,” I said.

“I thought so,” he agreed.

“Do you want to go now?” I asked.

“After the game,” Reaper said, settling in deeper in to the sofa.

Sam started yelling at the television as one of the players started running for the end-zone. They both jumped to their feet in excitement, hollering in shared happiness as the player crossed the magic line. They high-fived each other then sat back down on the sofa as if nothing had happened.

I joined Ellen and Naomi at Naomi’s small kitchen table. I rolled my eyes as I sat down.

“Men!” I said.

“Sweetie, you don’t know the half of it,” Ellen said.

We laughed, and Ellen took my hand. Her eyes told me that she knew I would be leaving again shortly. They were sad at the thought, but she knew she would have to let me go. And even though I was happier than I had been in a long time, I was aware of every second, every tick of the clock.

How long did I have before I knew whether or not Alex and Daniel were alive? How long till I had the truth?

Chapter 7

After the game was over, we left again.

Leaving Ellen was difficult, but I knew I would always find my way back to her. She was a guiding light in the dark. When I had found Daniel and Alex, I would see her again. Nothing would come between us. Naomi loaded me down with positive thoughts and cherry flavored bubblegum – her favorite; a reminder she would always be there for me. Sam commanded I bring his daughter back. His tone suggested there was no room for failure. I agreed, and had promised him to do my best.

Sara met us near a coffee place on 4
^th
street. She looked bored as she paced along the curb; a sign she had been waiting for a while. My goodbyes had taken longer than I had expected.

“Where to now?” Sara asked.

“New York,” Reaper said.

“You’re getting your money’s worth this week,” Sara teased.

She walked us to a more private area, so we could leave without being noticed.

“I figure I should sometime,” Reaper replied.

She ignored his comment. “Off we go,” she said.

I took Sara’s hand and felt the night blur past. When the light returned we were in a different city.

“Welcome to New York…the city that never sleeps,” Sara said in a tour guide voice.

She had landed us next to a smelly garbage bin and a homeless man, who was sleeping next to the bin. I wasn’t sure which of the two smelled worse.

“Home, sweet, home,” Reaper said.

“You’re from here?” I asked.

“Where do you think I met Marcus?” he asked.

“I don’t know...the world is a big place,” I replied.