Forgotten (7 page)

“Gray?”

He hurries in, and his eyes linger on me for just a moment, but he manages to recover well when he sees my predicament. “Here,” he says, “let me help.”

He takes the washcloth from me and manages a kind of sponge bath with it. “I’m sorry about before,” he says. “I know that it’s a really awkward position for you, and I know you have a lot going on. Even if you don’t feel the same way about me as I do about you, then I still want to be your friend.”

Well,
that
doesn’t make things any more comfortable. In fact, the whole thing is one of the most awkward few minutes of my life so far. I’m so close to Grayson, but I’m about as far from him in that moment as I’ve ever been, even though we’re physically touching.

I guess the sensible thing to do then would be to stay away from him once we’re done, but I can’t even do that. I go to sit with him on the sofa after a while, and we watch TV together again. That
is
a bit like being with the old Grayson, because we’d sit together on each other’s couches forever, just being close to one another. I don’t even notice the moment when I fall asleep.

I wake with Grayson shaking me.

“Celes, wake up.”

“What? What is it?”

“You don’t remember? You were screaming. You were yelling for people to take shelter.”

I start to say that I don’t remember, but I do. The dream comes back to me as he says it. Something was coming, and I was the older me that I’ve seen so many times in my dreams before. The man whose face I can never see was there too, except that now, now it seems so obvious. I look at Grayson.

“You were there. You were there with me all the time.”

EIGHT

I
get the bed in the room’s adjoining bedroom for the night, while Grayson takes the couch. Not that I sleep that well with my hands still cuffed. In the morning, Senator Hammond’s men come to fetch us, blindfolding us again so that they can take us back to the entertainment room they left us in yesterday. Breakfast is waiting for us, in the form of fruit and pastries, coffee and juice, all laid out on the counter at the side of the room. We eat, and before long, the door open, letting in the senator. His bodyguards stand back in the corners of the room, watching.

            “I’m not going to ask if you slept okay,” he says. “That would be hypocritical of me. I hope your night here wasn’t too bad, though.”

            “So long as you get what you want, do you even care?” Grayson asks.

            One of Senator Hammond’s bodyguards starts forward, but the senator raises a hand to stop him. “I’m not going to lie to you. I need access to the device used to fade memories. I will do whatever I need to do to achieve that, but I won’t hurt either one of you unnecessarily.”

            That isn’t exactly comforting. Especially not when he’s already kept us here as prisoners for the night, and his men have beaten us both unconscious once. I have to ask the obvious question though. “Is there any news of Jack? Has he gotten back to the Faders yet?”

            Senator Hammond looks a little uncomfortable in that moment. “Ah. That’s the thing, Celestra. We dropped Jack back near the Location where we took the three of you an hour or two after he left here. I should have heard something from him by now. At least if he’s taking me seriously.”

            “What are you saying?” Grayson asks.

            “I’m saying that I think your friend is playing games with me,” Senator Hammond says, “and I don’t have time for that. None of us do. So I’m going to have to find a way to persuade him to hurry things up a little.”

            I don’t like the sound of that. Especially not when one of the bodyguards steps forward, reaching into his jacket. I’ve seen movies before, so I can guess at the kind of things a kidnapper might do to hurry Jack up. My stomach clenched and I can feel my body stiffen, getting ready act if necessary. So much for saying he didn’t plan to hurt us.

            Except that the bodyguard doesn’t come out with some kind of weapon. Instead, he passes the senator a flat touch screen.

            “What’s that for?” I ask.

            Senator Hammond turns it so that I can see it. “Watch and you’ll understand.”

            Images start across the screen, obviously taken from security cameras in the space they gave us to sleep in. There’s a section of me curled up on the couch with Grayson watching TV, looking like we’re a happy couple having a cozy night in together. Another part captures us kissing.

            “Why are you doing this?” I demand. “That isn’t how it happened.”

            Senator Hammond shrugs. “There’s more.”

            The next section is from the bathroom. I almost know what’s coming before it starts. Grayson helping me. Grayson washing me when I can’t do it myself thanks to the cuffs. It looks… it looks like the kind of thing that would really hurt Jack. My face burns red just at the thought of it, with both embarrassment and anger. Embarrassment that someone was watching all through that. Anger that Hammond is planning to use it against us.

            “You can’t send that,” I say. “Please don’t send it.”

            Senator Hammond shakes his head. “I told you. I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

            “But Celes didn’t
do
anything!” Grayson complains.

            “She kissed you.”

            “
I
kissed
her
.” Grayson shakes his head. “I made all the moves yesterday. Celes didn’t want anything to do with it. She’s with Jack.”

            “Which is why he’ll come running,” Senator Hammond points out. He tosses the reader to Grayson, who catches it but doesn’t destroy it. “Ah, clever boy. The original is already on its way, of course.”

            “But you can’t do this,” I say. “I mean, you’re running for
president
.”

            For a second, just a second, Senator Hammond looks a little ashamed, but it doesn’t last. “How do you think people get to high office, Celestra? You think that any one of my political rivals would hesitate if they got hold of footage showing me doing something compromising?”

            “But I’m not running for office. You just grabbed me and…”

            “And with everything that’s at stake, you should be grateful I’m going for an option that doesn’t hurt anything other than your relationship,” Senator Hammond snaps. “All we do is send Jack this and he’ll hurry back. He won’t want to risk the possibility that there could really be romance in the air.”

            I look at him, and for a moment or two, I hate him. Hate him for what he’s done, and for what that might mean for me and Jack. I’m curious too, though. “How can you know Jack that well?”

            Senator Hammond hands back the screen to his bodyguard. “We watched you before we took you, and I’m good at judging people. I saw the way Jack looked at you.”

            “You watched us?”

            He sighs, shaking his head. “I said before, the Others and the Faders aren’t the only ones with an interest here. Frankly, I doubt either of them really knows how dangerous you are. How dangerous you could be, anyway.”

            “And you do?” Grayson says, moving so that he’s between me and the senator.

            Hammond nods. “The part they don’t understand is that what makes you dangerous isn’t your ability to burn people, or your speed. It’s far more than that.”

            I gently move Grayson out of the way. I’m not going to let someone like the senator intimidate me. “You sound like you know a lot about me.”

            “More than you could possibly know.” The senator’s expression softens a little. “But then, I had a better source of information than anyone else.”

            I’ve only seen his expression go that way around one thing so far here. “This has something to do with Johnny,” I guess.

            Senator Hammond looks a little surprised, but then nods. He makes a sign to one of his bodyguards, and the man goes to the door. It opens and Johnny runs in. He looks so excited to be there, though from the way he’s looking at the games console I guess he’s mostly just looking forward to another game of Battlewar with Grayson. Especially with the pleading look he gives his dad.

            “Not right now, Johnny.” Senator Hammond looks at me. “Promise me that you’ll behave yourself, Celestra. Promise me.”

            What? Does he really think that I’m going to do something to hurt a little kid?

            “I’m not the one trying to wipe his memory,” I say, but one look at Senator Hammond’s expression tells me that he’s serious. “Okay, I promise.”

            The senator looks around at his two bodyguards. “Out, both of you.”

            “Senator…”

            “Out. I understand the risks, and right now I’m willing to take them. What I’m not willing to risk is someone overhearing this conversation who doesn’t need to be here. So make sure that we aren’t disturbed for any reason. Understood?”

            The bodyguard doesn’t look happy about it. I guess that he’s worried I’ll try to attack his boss without him there, but what does he think I’m going to be able to do with my hands in heat resistant cuffs and no way out of the room. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to people being that scared of me. Not the Others. Not Lionel’s group of Faders. Anybody. Still, the bodyguard nods eventually. He heads for the door with his colleague and they step outside, presumably to look menacingly at anyone who approaches.

            Senator Hammond holds out his hand for his son, and Johnny steps over, taking it.

            “Can I play now, Dad?”

            “Not yet. I need to tell Celestra and Grayson here about what you can do.”

            Last time we were here, the senator told us that his son had some kind of talent, but he didn’t give us any details. Now, with everything he has said, I can put the rest of it together.

            “Johnny?” I say. “Johnny, how is it that you know all about me?”

            “I saw you,” Johnny says. “I dreamed of you. I dreamed of you, and Grayson, and Jack. I dream lots of things.”

            I crouch down so that I can look him in the eyes.

            “You’re still tied up,” Johnny says.

            I nod. “I guess your dad still thinks that I’m dangerous. What kinds of things do you dream about, Johnny?”

            “He has a gift,” Senator Hammond explains, not letting his son answer. “Or maybe a curse. He sees things. Most of them come in dreams. At first, I didn’t think they were anything important, but then I read some of the intelligence reports about the Others and the Faders, and… well, there were too many similarities to ignore.”

            “I saw stuff,” Johnny insists.

            “I know that now, Johnny,” his father says, and he looks sad as he says it. Whatever Johnny has seen, it obviously isn’t good.

            “So you’re saying… what?” Grayson says. “That Johnny’s clairvoyant?”

            Senator Hammond shakes his head. “It’s more complicated than that. Clairvoyance would mean seeing things in other places, but Johnny does far more than that. We think… we
know
, that he sees other
times
.”