Found (7 page)

The doc leaves and Elle and I both lay on our beds facing each other.

“Wanna do a yoga vid?” she asks.

“In a minute.”
I tuck my knees up. “What was in the envelope that you gave Wyatt?”

Elle blushes and swipes a golden strand of hair back behind her ear.

Chapter Nine

Wyatt

I make like I’m going to the infirmary. Looking over my shoulder, checking that no one is watching me, I sidestep to the right and sneak into the old records room. It’s the only space in the Society School that Claire wasn’t allowed to touch.
Which was fine by her, because no one ever comes in here besides Christopher. It is a dark, very brown place. There’s a wide table covered in fake wood-grain laminate at its center, two worn-in, peeling black office chairs tucked underneath either end. The rest of the room is made up of metal shelving, two sections, twelve rows deep, with an aisle down the middle. These shelves hold nothing but brown cardboard boxes, their white labels facing out. And those boxes hold nothing but papers and printed photographs. I shudder when I think of all of the trees that died to furnish the contents of this one room.

I shut the door behind me, leaving it open just a crack so I can hear if anyone is coming. That’s the problem with living underground in what is basically a concrete bunker – it’s fairly sound-proof once you shut the door.

Pulling out a chair, I drop my backpack onto it and take out the envelope of photographs. I shuffle through them again, smiling at the little girl Elle, her hair all caddywhompus in pigtails. Did she ever have an awkward stage? What did Penny look like then? Was she happy? She must have been, judging from her reaction and the memories the photo of Maud Lavoie likely brought up. I have a feeling that’s not the last time being here is going to churn up Penny’s past. Yet, it seems like she is going to stay, wants to stay.

I hope she stays.

Walking the aisle between the shelves, I stop halfway and randomly go right. I have no idea what I’m looking for, but figure I’m in the general area of the Fifties.

Elle’s words ring in my mind.
“If there was two and two to put together, wouldn’t Christopher have put two and two together?”
I’m not so sure. My Uncle Christopher has always been whip smart, witty, and driven. However, without his partner Frank around to remind him to take a break once in a while, he’s slipping. There aren’t a lot of Retroacts with mind control ability and no one knows what happens after using that ability at full strength for a number of years. We have Christopher to thank for the illusion that Redwood is a ghetto-looking street. That has to be doing something to him.

I drag the first box marked Dec. ’49 – Feb. ’50 from the shelf and put it on the floor. I drop down beside it and remove the lid.

Penny

“Sorry about that,” Elle says. “I wasn’t trying to keep things from you as much as I didn’t want to add to your stress. The envelope had a few family pictures in it.”

“Was Maud Lavoie your great-grandma or something?” I ask, straightening my legs and laying my head on my outstretched arm.

“I don’t know. We had a framed photo like the one we saw in class up in my house.”

“Me too.”

She twists a chunk of her hair around her finger. “I know. I saw.”

“You saw?” I prop my head up on my hand. “We can access each other’s memories?”

Elle shakes her head. “No, we can’t.” She sits up on the edge of her bed. “Maud isn’t the only thing I saw, Penny. Your mom, she could be my mom’s twin…probably was her twin?”

I sit up, mirroring her. “Which would make us…”

“Cousins!”
Elle springs up and launches herself at me like she’s going in for a hug, but at the last second thinks better of it and plonks down on my bed next to me. She holds her arm out, palm up. “I’m freaking out! The blood that runs through my veins is related to the blood in yours. I’ve never been able to say that before.”

I trace my fingertip along the blue line at her wrist. “Should we have Dr. Avery do a blood test just to be sure?”

“I guess.” Elle shrugs. She intertwines her fingers with mine. “But I think I already know it’s true. I can feel it, Penny, in my gut. Can you?”

I squeeze her hand, suddenly sure. “Yeah, I can.” Elle doesn’t hold back this time and grabs me into a hug. I let her nearly suffocate me in her strong embrace. “Christopher said I’d find family here,” I say on a strangled breath.

She lets up a bit. “Lookout Ashley promised me the same thing. It just took me a while longer.” Elle leans back. “I mean, I have Kai and the Morgans, and Wyatt is…Wyatt.”

“
Yeeeeeeah. What’s going on there?” I ask, embarrassed by my demanding tone.

Elle smiles.
“We’re close and probably would’ve gotten together if Kai hadn’t come along.” She bites her lip. “His heart has taken a lot of hits.”

“Meaning?”
I don’t want to pry, but think it might make me feel better somehow to know I’m not the only damaged goods at this school.

“I can’t. His stuff isn’t for me to tell. I’m sure he’ll lay it all out for you when the time is right. Retroacts and their Lookouts have a close bond.”

I get to my feet and yank her up next to me. “Okay, that’s fair, but if I have to wait to find out about him, you’re definitely letting me see the pictures in that envelope!”

Elle nods and takes my hand. “Follow me.”

Wyatt

I hear the creak of the records room door open and scramble to my feet, none too quietly.

“Wyatt?” Elle whispers

My heart quits jumping out of my chest and I step into the aisle to wave her back. Penny’s with her and they’re holding hands. All kinds of wrong thoughts flood my brain.

“Hey,” Penny says, her voice low. “Find out anything interesting about my cousin and me in here?” A smile beams from her face, and I can’t help but smile back.

“Is that the consensus you’ve come to?
Cousins?”

They nod in unison.
Cute.

Hot.

Damn.

I shake my head, breaking the wrongness apart. “I haven’t discovered much of anything. Only the original of the Maud
pic we saw in class and the entirety of her treatise on that French coven.” The girls look disappointed. “I’ll keep searching,” I quickly assure them. I pick up the envelope Elle gave me from the shelf and hand it to Penny. “You probably want to look at these, huh? Like seeing your own mom, Elle tells me.”

Penny eagerly snatches the envelope from my hand, and she and Elle hover over it, flipping through the three photos a few times. Penny sniffles and then asks, “What’s a
Browncoat?”

“A person who likes this old TV show,
Firefly
,” I interject, needing to be a part of their moment for some reason. “Uncle Christopher has it on
DVD
, if you can imagine. Elle and I tried to watch it, but it’s pretty weird.”

“I told you I thought Buffy was more your speed,” Christopher says, coming out of his hiding place behind the first shelf closest to the door.

“Hey, uh, Uncle Chris,” I say, lowering the file folder I’m holding and trying to drop it back into the box without looking. “We were just--”

“Trying to learn more about Maud and why Elle and Penny had such a reaction to seeing her photo. I get it. I’m not surprised to find you all here.” He grins at the girls. “Plus Zellie
teched me and said she thought for sure you two were on the cusp of a snoop. She’s killer at knowing these sorts of things.” He winks at me. “Now.”

“Sorry,” I say, putting the lid back on the box before hoisting it onto the shelf and sliding it into the empty space. “I haven’t found squat.”

“That’s because there isn’t anything.” Christopher steps forward and Penny and Elle back up to get out of his way. He chooses the first box from the shelf. “I had noticed the resemblance between Maud and Elle, but that trail stopped immediately. I couldn’t find any documents stating that Maud even had children. I chalked it up to the idea that we all share a common ancestry and are bound to have similar traits.”

“Is there any harm in our continuing to look?” Penny asks, her chin jutting out and her eyebrows arching.

“No. Not at all. That’s why you three have Independent Study with me last period from here on out.” Christopher takes out the original Maud Lavoie photo and gives it to Elle. “For your room. I’m sure Claire can find a suitably gaudy frame for it. Maud belongs with you two.”

“Thanks, Christopher,” the girls say.

He nods. “Now, get the hell out of here and head to dinner. Abbie’s made prime rib and peach cobbler that are likely to be gone within the next five minutes.”

Elle and Penny’s eyes both go wide and they lick their lips in tandem.

Oh, to be a peach cobbler.

Chapter Ten

Wyatt

The next day, after another fruitless hour spent in the records room, we meet up with everyone in the rotunda. It was decided over breakfast that we’d try for our missed beach adventure again. We all drop our badges off at the guard station, wait for Phil to remotely unlock the door, and head upstairs. I jog over to Ben’s house to grab the key to the van that’s plugged in out front – it’s the only vehicle that will hold all seven of us.

Ben and his husband, my Uncle Connor, are sitting at the island in their kitchen drinking kale juice and scrolling through the L.A. Times on a tablet between them.

“Ready for the beach?” Ben asks, grabbing the key off the counter in front of him and tossing it to me.

I catch it one-handed.
“Yeah. We’re good to go.”

“Hey, Wyatt!” hollers Ben and Connor’s 9-year-old daughter, Zellie, running down the hall. She’s dressed for ballet class.

I grab her in a big hug, surprised she reaches the middle of my chest. “Wow, little Zel, you’re getting so tall!”

“I know, right?” Connor says, motioning for her to come to him. She gives over a comb and a handful of ponytail holders. Connor parts her coarse black hair down the middle and expertly works the right side into a braided pigtail.

“Is Penny going with after all the excitement she’s had?” Ben asks, concern on his face.

“She is, but I promise to bring her back if she gets tired or looks like she’s in pain. I made her take a preventative half a pill. Although, I wonder if Avery’s ultra scanner is working okay, because she says she’s fine and her ribs don’t hurt at all anymore.”

He nods. “Okay. That is weird. I’ll have Raleigh take a look at it.”

I turn to leave.

“Hey, Wy, I know you know this, but keep your eye on Penny in the crowds. It might seem like she’s adjusting and fitting in, but she’s a major flight risk. She’s not going to go from severely messed up to totally fine in a couple days. Trust me, I know.”

“I hear ya.” I give little Zellie a high-five. “See you all later.”

It’s not easy to find a parking spot down by the pier when you’re in a regular car, not to mention a van that seats eight, but after circling the block four times and then finally stalking a large family all the way from the Promenade to their SUV, I park.

We decide to go hang out on the beach until the tourist activity on the pier calms down some around dinnertime.

Elle and Phoebe pull large multi-colored striped towels from their tote bags and fan them out on the sand before kicking off their flip-flops and slipping out of their swimsuit cover-ups. As usual, I try not to let my eyes linger too long on either of their bodies – Elle in her orange bikini and Phoebe in her purple swimmer’s one-piece.

“Toss the ball?” Kai asks, taking a football out of his backpack and stripping off his shirt to reveal his toned and intimidating physique.

“Yeah, man.” I follow his lead, hearing Penny gasp behind me.

“Hey!” I laugh, turning to her, noticing she unfortunately remains clothed. “I’m an Oregonian; my torso hasn’t seen the light of day in ten months.”

She shakes her head at me. “Your ink is really
bueno. It must’ve hurt like hell.”

I shrug, trying to play it cool, but the truth is I’d wanted to cry for the whole first hour of the full-back tattoo.

“What’s it mean?” she asks.

“The date is my birthday, which also happens to be the day that Zellie saved my life -- Avery’s and Mom’s too -- all before coming back from the dead herself.”

“What?” Penny says, moving closer. I feel her tracing the peak of Mt. Scott in between my shoulder blades. A ripple of pleasure shudders through my body.

“That’s the scene where the Society School was born,” Reed interjects, stripping off his shirt and showing off his impressive tan, even though he’s from farther north that I am. “On that road to the mountain, Dr. Adams, Ben, and Christopher -- aka, The Three -- worked together and discovered how to change the fate of our triggers. The Three are the reason we can all live to our full potential and be who we were meant to be.” He chuckles. “Damn, did I just get deep there or what?” Reed puts his arm around Ty’s waist and tugs him close. “This is actually the first time I’ve seen it in the flesh.” Reed slugs me on the arm.
“Helluva eighteenth birthday present, my boy.”

“My brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles all chipped in and got it for me,” I explain.

“I Live To Die Another Day,” Penny whispers, reading the inscription above the waistband of my board shorts.

I step away from her, the heat of her breath tickling my skin. Thankfully, Kai saves me from appearing rude and throws the football at me and then runs backward, his hands in the air.

I snap my arm back and let the ball fly, looking over my shoulder at Penny, some dumb hope that she is watching me and my awesome display of athletic prowess. But she’s taken off her shoes and joined Elle and Phoebe on the towels, her gaze flitting about, like she’s noting all her available exits.

Penny

This is all too much. To have my belly full, new clothes on my back, people being easy with me. A
cousin
. After the initial excitement…I don’t deserve it. And the ocean, something I’ve never seen up close. The vastness of the water overwhelms me but calls to me too. It would be so simple to wade in and disappear.

I pinch my forehead between my eyebrows, willing that thought away. Another reason I hate taking pain medication – it makes me melancholy and hopeless. I wish Wyatt hadn’t insisted I take half of one, and that I hadn’t taken it to please him. If I could go for a run the fog would lift sooner and I’d be back in fighter mode. But that probably wouldn’t look good.

Out of the corner of my eye, I follow Wyatt and his massive tattoo as he and Kai throw a ball back and forth. His tat is surprising. That blacktop road fading into the mountains and the badass inscription. Kind of a morbid way for him to commemorate his birthday – which is probably why I like it so much. Not to mention it complements his lithe, tight-muscled body. I blush, catching myself full-on staring now, tracing the front edge of his low-hung shorts with my eyes.

“You okay,
Cuz?” Elle asks, rolling from her back to her stomach, facing me. “You have to be hot with all that black on. Did Claire get you a swimsuit?”

I nod. I even have it on, but I’m attracting enough attention and questioning looks already that I don’t know if I can bear what will come of revealing my messed-up body.

“You should at least take your jeans off,” Phoebe suggests. “None of the guys care. Believe me. My brother and Ty are gay, Kai only has eyes for Elle, and Wyatt is like everyone’s big goofy brother.”

It’s true. The Wyatt from my first night…I was silly for thinking he was ever going to be into me, when he’s so clearly into Elle. He couldn’t get away from me fast enough when I was checking out his tattoo and I’ve caught him staring at Elle’s boobs more than once. Christopher did say the glimpses don’t always happen exactly as we see them. Maybe Wyatt and I were going to kiss, maybe not. Or maybe future
him is throwing future me a pity kiss?

No way am I going to let him feel sorry for me now or then. I decide to take the plunge, figuring I can’t go in the water with my clothes on anyway. I’m not sure if saltwater is bad for the fabric or even how we wash our clothes at school. Before I lose my nerve, I undo my jeans and shimmy out of them and then pull my peasant blouse off.

“What a pretty suit,” Phoebe says, smiling at me, her eyes kind.

I stand, smoothing my hands over the one-piece deep green halter-style swimsuit and resting them on my hips. I’m grateful the suit covers up the bruising on my torso, but wish it hid the scarring on my upper thighs. I hastily pick up my beach towel and wrap it around my waist.

“I think I’m going swimming.”

I walk straight for the ocean, the warm sand squishing between my toes before becoming cooler and hard packed. Standing still, I wait for the approaching waves and let them wash over my feet. When the water goes out, it pulls the sand around my feet out with it, leaving them on their own little islands. I squat down and put my hands out flat, letting the water suck the sand around them too.

Two long, narrow feet appear next to mine.

“You
gonna go in?” Wyatt asks.

I look up at him, the sun putting him in shadow.
“Eventually.”

“Have you ever swum in the ocean?”

“No. This is actually the closest I’ve ever been to it.”

Wyatt squats down next to me, spreading his fingers and digging them into the sand. “I wondered at breakfast yesterday, but you never know. Elle does put an
assload of pepper on her eggs.”

My face heats.
“You’re very intuitive for a guy.”

“Nah, I’m a Lookout, that’s my job.” He shrugs. “And I have two sisters. You all may be strong, but you cry about everything.” Wyatt gives me a huge grin and ducks his head, as though he knows there will be retaliation for that remark.

I fling wet sand at him, globbing some on his arm. He lifts his dripping hands and wiggles his fingers at me.

“C’mon,” he says, taking my sandy hand in his. “I’ll go in with you. I’m also a certified lifeguard, just in case things go awry.”

I let him lead me into the lukewarm cloudy water, grateful that he doesn’t question my decision to leave the towel on, until what is waist deep on him becomes almost chest deep on me. The waves splash up onto the neckline of my swimsuit and I drop his hand, using both of mine to gather up the towel before taking a big step backward. “Hey, man, we’re not all six feet tall, y’know.”

“Sorry.” He stoops down, submerging to his shoulders in the water,
detouring the waves around me. I watch as his gaze lingers on my boobs for a moment before he shakes his head slightly and meets my eye. “See over there.” He nods. “Does that look familiar?”

I turn to the right and recognize the setting for the cover art on the last
Squirrelish Figure single. “How chid-”

An unconscious Kent Hahn, dressed uncharacteristically in a navy blue suit, burgundy silk shirt, and navy bow tie, is being carried from a wide service elevator by two men across a dim, most likely underground, parking garage. There are few cars and no other people around.

The older, bearded man that’s facing
me, drops Kent’s feet and fishes car keys out of his jeans pockets. “Hey!” His blond partner says, his wide, muscled back to me, his voice oddly familiar. The bearded guy pushes a button and the back hatch on a modified electric white SUV rises. He picks Kent’s feet up again and together, he and his partner lay the lead singer of Squirrelish Figure down in the truck.

I awake to Wyatt slapping my cheek, a freaked out expression on his face. Ocean water drips from the ends of his hair onto my forehead.

Shit
. Apparently, I went narcoleptic in the water. Sitting up, I put my palm on his bare chest and gently push him away from me.

“I’m okay.” I glance around at the group, all of them kneeling around the towels, concern on their faces. “On the upside,” I attempt to joke, uncomfortable and embarrassed, “I didn’t try to leave the beach. You guys could’ve had to chase my unconscious ass all over L.A.”

“Oh, you tried to leave,” Wyatt says, his hands shaking as he unzips his backpack.
What the hell did I do?
“So, you had a vision?” He gives me a glass water bottle.

I unscrew the top and take a healthy swig. It tastes funny, vaguely citrus-like. I make a face.

“It’s special Retro water Avery developed when he was in med school. You’ll recover more quickly. It’s full of electrolytes or some shit.”

I take another drink. Elle grips my forearm and closes her eyes. The vision fast forwards through my brain. Her eyes snap open.

“Crrrrap,” she growls.

“My sentiments exactly.”
I pull my knees up to my chest, wondering if they’d all discussed the scars on my legs while I was passed out.

Elle repeats the vision to the group. Phoebe records the account on her Ret-tech so she and Wyatt can review it later, and then she brings up the
Squirrelish Figure tour schedule.

“They’re in Europe and then Asia until December.” She turns to me. “Do you have much lag time between your visions and the event?”

I shrug and shake my head. “I don’t know…until two days ago, I thought I had very vivid dreams and was a sleepwalker. Um, it felt like it was…now?”

“Now?”
Reed asks, confusion in his tone. Everyone leans in closer to me as if I’m about to reveal a secret.

“Yeah?
I don’t know. I think my visions aren’t of the future, I think they’re in real time.”

Elle sits back on her heels. “So Kent Hahn is being kidnapped right this minute and taken to an undisclosed location and us waking you up probably ruined any chance of saving him?” She
stands and starts pacing. “But he’s not supposed to be here! He’s supposed to be in Prague, right Phoebs?”