Call Out (8 page)

Stressed and exhausted, we didn’t talk much
on the flight to Orlando or the drive back to the hotel. Back at
the Dolphin, we surrendered to the robber baron and ordered room
service. I kicked off my shoes, peeled off my socks, and crawled
onto the bed to sit with my back against the headboard. Brian
dropped into the desk chair and reached for his guitar, but
hesitated as he watched London slide down the wall to sit with his
knees drawn up and his head down.

“London?”

“I’m fine,” London said, in answer to the
question Brian hadn’t really asked. He ran his hand over his face.
“I should have said something sooner, but the timing sucked.
Anyway, Dylan’s still okay.”

Brian sat back in his chair, and I said a
silent little prayer of thanks.

“And I feel like I should tell you guys that
I lied to you,” he added.

“About what?” Brian got the question out
before I could.

“Nothing important. Just...this is going to
sound weird, but I lied about business class being sold out.”

Sound weird? What an understatement. “Why?” I
asked.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“This is awkward,” he said, wrapping his arms around his knees.
“But...I wanted an excuse to not sit beside you. One that I didn’t
have to explain.”

I shouldn’t have felt like I’d been kicked in
the gut, but I did. Something must have shown on my face because
Brian told London he might want to explain his statement.

“We didn’t have a lot of time before the
flight, and I wanted to wait until we were back here to get into
this. It’s not easy for me talk about.”

“What isn’t?” Brian asked

“All this...paranormal stuff. Talking to
Ashe, having him teach me...it brought back a lot of memories.” He
sighed. “I had what I wanted to say planned out in my head, and now
it’s all gone.”

“London,” I began, but he cut me off with a
wry grin.

“I know, I know...it doesn’t matter where I
start. Just open my mouth and see what comes out.”

I smiled at him and gave my head a little
shake. “I was going to say you don’t owe us any explanation.”

“Maybe not, but I need you – both of you – to
understand what we’re dealing with.”

“We’re listening,” Brian said.

London took another deep breath and launched
into his story. “Everyone I know who’s involved with magic, or
whatever it is, has different abilities. Mine deal with
emotion.”

“Like with Dylan’s dress. You could see her
because of the emotions tied to it. Right?”

He gave me a little nod. “That’s part of it.
But I don’t really ‘see’ her. I sense her emotions. And before you
ask, she’s a little bit scared, a lot pissed off, and worried – I
think about how Brian’s dealing with her not showing up at the
airport.” He turned to look at Brian. “She...she’s pretty crazy
about you.”

Brian swallowed, hard, and said, “Good to
know.”

“Anyway, the first time I reached out for
her, with you two touching me, I didn’t just sense her emotions. I
felt them like they were my own.”

“That’s why it hit you so hard,” I
guessed.

“Yup. You two, and your feelings for Dylan,
acted as a kind of focus. But there are other things that can make
the connection stronger, too. For me, and for a lot of other people
from what Shelley told me, working with your abilities makes them
stronger. Kind of like weight-lifting, right? But there’s a...a
gap, I guess, in between learning to call your powers and learning
to control them. While you’re in that gap, you’re really
vulnerable. When I first started dealing with my abilities, they
were ‘on’ 24-7. I couldn’t choose when to focus on someone’s
emotions and when to shut them out. So every time I touched someone
– shook somebody’s hand or got bumped into or anything, I knew what
they were feeling.”

“And you were just a kid,” Brian noted.

“Yup. Fourteen. And having to deal with
knowing when my parents were pissed at each other or my sister was
lusting after her Chem teacher. That was pretty bad. But when
things were at their worst, I didn’t even have to touch someone to
read them. If I did touch them, I could usually tell why they were
feeling what they were feeling – who they were mad at or what had
happened to upset them. Shelly told me it meant my abilities were
really strong. All I knew is that I was learning a lot of stuff
about people that I didn’t want to know.”

London fell silent for a moment, and I
thought about what he had said. It would be hell to know what
everyone was feeling all the time, especially for a
fourteen-year-old. Being a teenager is hard enough for us vanilla
folk.

On the tails of that thought were my distant
and unhappy memories of high school.

“High school,” I said aloud. “You were
surrounded by people all the time.”

“Yup. I went to a pretty big school.
Something like 5,000 kids. All that emotion...it was overwhelming.
And a lot of the time I couldn’t tell where my own feelings stopped
and other people’s started. I felt like I was drowning.”

He stood up and went to the windows, looking
out into the night. I hadn’t bothered looking out the window, but I
knew Disney’s Epcot stretched out below it. It’s beautiful, all lit
up at night. I doubted that London even really saw it.

“I still don’t know whether it was not being
able to deal with my abilities – my own fear and frustration – or
if I’d picked up one too many negative emotions from other people.
But whatever it was....” He sighed and leaned forward to rest his
forehead and one arm against the glass.

I looked at Brian. He was watching his friend
– his brother – with a look of dawning horror. He’d reached the
same conclusion I had. I wanted to tell London to just stop, that
we didn’t want to hear anymore, but I stayed silent and let him
talk.

“It was right after the Christmas break. We’d
had a couple weeks away from school, and I thought I was getting a
handle on my powers. I learned a little about shielding – turning
off my ability to sense emotions. But as soon as I got to school
that first day back, I knew I hadn’t learned enough. A couple of
days later, I chased a handful of my brother’s allergy meds with
half a bottle of my dad’s scotch. I woke up in the hospital. My
parents knew enough about what I was dealing with that they kept me
out of the nuthouse, and they were 100 percent behind me when I
said I was done with magic.”

“Jesus, London,” Brian breathed.

I didn’t have anything to add. Couldn’t have,
anyway, without giving away the fact that I was crying. I eased off
the bed and into the bathroom to grab a handful of tissues. I was
still standing there mopping my teary face when London pushed on
the half-open door and peeked inside. I reached out to touch him,
but made myself stop. He’d put distance between us earlier, on the
flight home, to keep me from touching him, to keep from feeling my
emotions. I wasn’t going to inflict them on him now.

London smiled at me, his eyes tired. He
pushed the door again, so it was wide open, and held his hand out.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Come here.”

I hesitated for just a second, and then took
his hand. He shivered, even though the room wasn’t cold. His eyes
met mine and there was something in them that I couldn’t quite put
a name to.

After a minute or so, he changed his grip on
my hand and drew me forward to wrap me in a warm hug. A foot of
difference in height makes hugging a bit awkward if you don’t go
about it right. A couple of my friends are pretty tall, though, so
I had had a little practice. I slid my arms around London’s waist
and rested my head against his chest, right over his heart.

We didn’t stay like that long; we enjoyed the
moment, and then let go. But brief or not, that hug was pretty
amazing.

Room service showed up a short time later,
and we ate dinner to the somewhat muted sound of fireworks
exploding over the nearby theme park. Not long after we’d finished
dinner and the last firework had boomed, London spoke up.

“Shelley sent me to Ashe because he’s the
only person she knows of who has powers similar to mine and has
used them to track people,” he said. “He hates the mainland and
avoids it as much as he can. We’re assuming Dylan is probably in
Orlando still, and he didn’t want to have to come here and try to
track her, so he passed that job on to me.”

“Can you do it?” Brian asked.

“Honestly? I don’t know. I could track you
guys from the backyard without a focus, and Ashe said that’s a good
sign. I could find you,” he added, looking at Brian, “from a little
farther away, because we have a...bond I guess. And I could track
you from way down the block using Dylan’s dress as a focus. From
any farther away, I couldn’t do a damn thing, though. I want to try
getting more distance with one of you, but I’d need something
personal, something with emotional attachment. Using secondhand
emotion, like with Dylan’s dress, just doesn’t work as well.”

We both stayed silent for a moment. I hoped
that Brian would come through. I had something with me that had a
strong sentimental attachment, but I wanted to avoid admitting to
it if I could.

“My guitar,” Brian said after a moment.

“Thought you’d say that,” London said. “But I
had something else in mind. Are you still carrying around that
letter?”

“Yeah.” Brian pulled out his wallet and
opened it up to withdraw a creased sheet of paper from the bill
section. I recognized the handwriting.

“Is that...?”

“A love letter from Dylan?” London finished.
“Oh, yeah.” He took the letter from Brian, a small smile playing
across his lips. He grabbed the spare key card from the desk where
he’d left it when he came in from the bar the night before.

“You’re not going to wander off alone are
you?”

“Not if you come with me. Brian can stay
here, where it’s relatively safe. I don’t need him to be missing; I
just need to know if I can find him. If that makes sense.”

It did. I pulled my socks and shoes back on
and followed London down to the lobby. He stood there for a moment,
eyes closed, and then gave a little nod. He turned and walked away,
trusting me to follow. We went out the back door of the hotel to
the covered walkway that leads to the Dolphin’s sister hotel, the
Swan. Halfway between the two buildings, London stopped again,
reaching for Brian with his senses. Again he nodded. He repeated
his routine from inside the Swan. So far, so good.

London wandered out the front of the Swan and
looked around. There isn’t much there except a big circular drive
and a fountain. We couldn’t get much farther away, going that
direction.

“This way,” I said, leading him back through
the hotel to the walkway. Outside, I took a right instead of
following the path to the Dolphin.

London took the lead once we were on the new
path, trying to compare the distance to what he’d already tried. I
shook my head and moved ahead of him – no small feat considering my
stride is half the length of his.

“Let’s go down to the Boardwalk. If it’s too
far for you to sense Brian, you can work your way backward,
right?”

London stopped in his tracks. “I feel dumb,”
he said.

I laughed. “We can’t all be brilliant,” I
said.

Shaking his head, London stepped forward and
caught my hand. Anyone watching us walk down to the Boardwalk would
think we were young lovers enjoying a night in the Happiest Place
on Earth. Even under the circumstances, it was kind of nice.

At the far end of the Boardwalk, London
dropped my hand and closed his eyes again. He frowned in
concentration for a moment, and then shook his head.

“It’s too fuzzy,” he said. “I can sense him,
but I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”

My heart sank. We weren’t all that far away.
We’d have to be practically on top of Dylan to find her. In a city
this size, it’ll be like finding the proverbial needle in the
haystack. If she was even in Orlando.

London stared across the lagoon at Epcot for
a minute and then took my hand again. Instead of leading me back
toward the hotel, he closed his eyes. His lips curved up into a
smile, and when he opened his eyes they shone with triumph.

“What just happened?” I asked.

“You boosted the signal, that’s what
happened.”

Hope flared inside me. “How much of a signal
boost?”

“Enough,” he said. He turned and looked
behind him. “Where does that path go?”

“Um...not sure. Epcot maybe? But if we go
that way,” I said, pointing off to one side, “there’s a long, long
sidewalk out to the road and the employee parking lot and
stuff.”

London headed off in the direction I pointed,
my hand still in his. We were nearly to the street before he shook
his head again. I had a mere second to feel that sinking pang again
before he said, “It’s not even fading. We need the car.”

We went back to the room, got the keys from
Brian, and dragged ourselves back to the parking lot. Two miles,
give or take, seemed to be the cutoff point.

“Not bad,” London said, as he circled around
and pointed us back toward the hotel.

“It’s still a pretty small search radius,” I
said.

“But think about it, Em. You care a hell of a
lot more about Dylan than you do Brian. And he cares about her,
too. With both of you, there’s no telling how much bigger that
search radius is gonna be.”

I did think about it. Then I added, “But your
bond with Brian is stronger than with Dylan. I mean, you don’t even
know Dylan.”

“When Ashe and I were experimenting, my own
feelings only gave me a few extra yards. Your feelings for Brian,
which we both know aren’t as strong, gave me nearly two miles. I
think it’s safe to assume my own emotions don’t play as big a part
in this.”

Hope reared its head again. “You really think
you can do this?”