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Her eye moves rapidly over her microscreen. “That’s what their schedule says. It’s possible they’re doing a hush-hush concert or a private event.”

Wyatt slouches his shoulders. “Shit. If I’d known I was screwing you up…I was freaking more than I should’ve.” He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. “We have zero clues, don’t we?”

Elle stops pacing, her expression brightens. “You knew the clean-shaven guy, didn’t you? You recognized his voice.”

All eyes are back on me, Wyatt’s making me feel especially guilty. These people share everything, their food, their feelings. I’ll never get used to that.

“Yes,” I say, slightly irritated about being called out when I hadn’t had time to reconcile why… “
it sounded like my ex, Darren.”

“What?” Wyatt hisses, his face turning red with anger. “Was he involved in criminal stuff when you were with him? He didn’t hurt you ever, did he? He’s not the one that gave you
those sca-”

“No!” I cut Wyatt off, annoyed at him for immediately going there and thinking the worst. “Darren’s a nice guy. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. That’s why I…maybe my brain was just playing tricks on me. I’ve been thinking about him more than usual the past few days.”

Wyatt looks skeptical, but doesn’t say anything.

Changing the subject seems like a
bueno idea, especially since we’re getting nowhere with my cut-off vision. “What happened in the water? Besides that one video Christopher showed me, I’ve never known what I look like when I zone out.”

“Your eyes went blank. That’s pretty standard,” Wyatt says. Elle nods in agreement. “But then, like, Elle and Reed for instance, they blank out and then come to a minute later and are maybe a little disoriented.
You
turned from me and started bolting. You got your legs all tangled up in your towel and then you fell into the water. If I hadn’t been right there, your head would’ve gone under.”

“I know, thanks,” I say, handing his empty water bottle back to him. “So you hung out with me in the water trying to get me to wake up until the other guys could help you carry me over here?”

All the guys laugh at that while Wyatt turns red again.

“No,” he scoffs.

Kai slaps him on the back. “My boy is deceptively strong.”

“And you may have curves,” Wyatt blurts, flustered, “but you’re almost a foot shorter than I am. You’re tiny. I could fit you in my pocket.”

I glance at his arms -- they’re sinewy, though muscle-y enough, I suppose.

“Oh,
sheeeeeit,” I hear Reed whisper to Ty. “Did he say he noticed her curves?”

Wyatt must have heard too, because he shoots Reed a pointed look.

“Okay, so you got me out of the water,” I say, drawing Wyatt’s focus back to me. “How long was I out?”

“One minute and thirty-seven seconds once you hit the towel,” Phoebe says, her eye moving over her microscreen. “Let me calculate from in the water…about two minutes twelve seconds.”

Wyatt had run with me in his arms. This makes me feel almost…safe, protected.

Elle and Kai stand and start picking up their stuff. “Penny should rest while the Lookouts do their thing. Let’s head,” Kai says, clearly pissed off that I ruined his beach trip for the second day in a row.

I squelch the urge to apologize to him for doing something that I didn’t know I was going to do.
Like I care.

Ty reaches down, taking my hand, and hoists me to my feet. Before letting go of me, he hikes up his shirt sleeve and turns his hand palm up. He’s got thin, white uniform lines carved into his forearm from wrist to elbow. My eyes meet his and he winks. “Love is the best medicine.”

Phoebe gathers up the towels. “Wyatt, it’s your call as to whether we tell Ben and Christopher about this immediately.”

This takes me aback, pulling me out of my mini self-destructors support group with Ty. I grimace. “Wait, what? Why is it up to him?”

Elle lays a comforting hand on my arm. “I know it’s weird, but he’s your Lookout. You’re merely the vessel the vision travels through. Wyatt’s your logistics man. It’s protocol.”

Wyatt hands me my clothes. “I
gotta make this right, figure it out. If we tell Ben and Christopher now, they’ll for sure take me off of Penny duty and give her to Melody.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” I raise an eyebrow at him.

“No, but…I know you don’t understand this, but I’m the baby and the only one that doesn’t have a real place within the construct of the New Society.”

I more than understand. “You need to prove yourself.”

He nods. “I need to prove myself.”

We drive back to Redwood. Ben waves to us from his front yard where he’s fussing with a rusty wire basket full of dead plants. A quick touch of Elle’s arm and it becomes a wilted hanging basket of white and coral impatiens.

“Back so soon?” Ben asks when Wyatt hands him the key to the van.

“Yeah, it was really crowded and tourist-y today and Penny’s tired. I think we’re just going to hang in the game room and play some VRV.”

Ben looks from Wyatt to the rest of us, his gaze lingering on me, checking me over. “How’s the new schedule working out for you Penny? Marcus is happy to have you in his class.”

“Great!” I say, way too brightly, sure I’m giving us all away.

“Okay,” Ben drawls, tilting his head to the side like he’s trying to read my mind.
Oh, God. Can he read my mind?

Wyatt takes my hand. “All right, uh,
chido. See you later Uncle Ben.”

We all haul ass across the street to the Society School house.

“Ben doesn’t have the power to see what I’m thinking, does he?” I whisper as we run up the front steps.

Wyatt smirks. “No, but like every other adult on the planet, I’m sure he wishes he did.”

Chapter Eleven

Penny

I sit next to Wyatt on a curved sofa in one of the gaming suites. He and Phoebe both have their Ret-techs on, searching for answers about Kent Hahn. The rest of us half-heartedly watch Reed and Kai play VRV.

“I’m coming up with a big, fat goose egg here,” Phoebe says, leaning forward and looking around Wyatt at me. “What can you tell me about Darren? Maybe that’s the direction we need to be looking in.”

Wyatt visibly tenses at the mention of my ex’s name. I let myself like it.

I shrug. “I’m not sure there is much to tell.” I glance up at Wyatt’s face, a slight smile raising the corners of his mouth, popping his dimple. I let myself like
that
a lot.

Phoebe gets up and slaps him on the shoulder that’s closest to me. “Move over.” Wyatt complies and scoots to the right so Phoebe can sit down. She smiles at me. “How’d you two meet?”

“At an Arch party,” I say, tucking my feet underneath me.

“What’s that?”

Her large blue eyes look at me with such interest I have to resist my impulse to shrink away from her. “Basically, it’s a big gathering underneath the St. Louis Arch. Loud music and a cheesy light show, a lot of drunk people hooking up behind the porta-potties.”

Phoebe wrinkles her nose.
“Fun?”

I chuckle and shrug again. “I don’t know. Some people like that sort of thing.” I take a deep breath. They’re all going to find out about me sooner or later. “I was there to lift bank cards and score some eats from one of the food stalls.”

Phoebe nods. Her expression is free from judgment – whether real or practiced -- and this allows me to smile, remembering. The beginning between me and Darren had been bueno. “Darren was working at a burrito stand and caught me trying to make off with a container of black beans. But, instead of busting me, he sat me down on a cooler and made me a burrito as big as my head.”

“Wait,” Phoebe says, her eye scanning her microscreen. “In the
intel file we have on you, it states that Darren was also displaced…but you’re saying he had a job?”

I blush, not sure how to explain the next part without sounding like a mega-whore. “So,” I say, lowering my voice, hoping Wyatt isn’t eavesdropping, although I guess if they’ve all seen this
intel file then I’m laid bare no matter what, “his boss showed up to collect the receipts earlier than expected and when he saw me eating for free, he fired Darren on the spot. Darren tried to take it in stride, but mentioned that a contingency for staying at the halfway house he was living at was employment and now he didn’t know what he was going to do. I, uh, felt horrible about costing him his job and his place to stay and, um, offered him-”

“The only thing you thought you had to offer. Got it,” Phoebe says, laying her hand on my forearm and squeezing it. “You and Ty, and I don’t think he’d mind me telling you this, have quite a bit in common. Before he and Reed found each other, Ty was also living on the streets. He’s been really helpful in opening my eyes to other kids’ experiences.”

Phoebe’s lack of judgment was real. I exhaled, letting the rest of my confession spill out of my mouth. “He went with me back to the room I was squatting in and just never left. I’ll admit, it was nice. I’d been lonely…always…and he was decent company.” Every cuticle on every finger of mine suddenly needs chewing. “Only problem -- my sleepwalking.” I put the corner of my thumb to my teeth and nibble the skin. “At first, he slept through it. I was lucky enough to come to, usually fairly close to where I was staying, and get back before he woke up.”

“Until you didn’t,” Phoebe says.

I nod. “Until I didn’t. One night he followed me – I still remember the dream, I stopped a working girl from getting knifed by some loaded suburban dad in a rusted old Kia Soul. When I came to, I was lying on my mattress, Darren looking down at me, all concerned and…”
Shit
.

Phoebe squeezes my arm again. “What did he tell you he saw?”

I gulp air. “He said he followed me out to the alley and that I was muttering something about souls and then I tripped over a tire and fell down. But of course that’s not what happened.” My whole relationship with Darren whizzes through my brain. Our chance meeting. The way his kindness bewildered me and was something I never got used to, maybe even doubted from time to time. All of the instances I’d catch him looking at me, staring, almost like he was studying me. His hands on my body, distracting me, pulling me out of my shell bit by bit. The first time we took morphine and I slept all night, waking up in his arms.

Wyatt stands and taps Phoebe on the shoulder. “Move over.”

“But we’re just getting somewhere with the Darren lead,” Phoebe protests, and then scoots down the sofa anyway.

“I know.” Wyatt crams in between us and looks me directly in the eye. “If I ever get my hands on that asshole, he’s toast. He obviously played you and he’s obviously not who you thought he was.”

The full force of Darren’s betrayal slams into me. How could I have been so wrong about him? What if my instincts were horrible? What other mistakes had I made trusting them? Oh, Jesus. A man I cared about, who I was still giving the benefit of the doubt just a minute ago had kidnapped someone. Darren was a criminal and Wyatt was right, he’d played me. For one reason or another, Darren had wanted to know more about my abilities and I’d given him…everything. “Fuck that. If you’re close enough to get your hands on him, you can bet I will have already kicked his ass.”

Wyatt nods.
“Fair enough. Now, not that I wasn’t enjoying hearing how Darren thought it was fine for you to trade yourself for a fucking burrito, but I may have a lead on Kent Hahn…or someone that looks like him.”

Elle turns down the audio on the game. “We’re listening,
Wy.”

I squirm in my seat, my mind reeling, unable to focus. The one time I could ever remember being happy with someone, feeling comfortable, and it had been a total sham. I press my fist into my stomach, wondering what everyone must think of me. I’m so stupid.
Clueless. To think of all the times I had sex with Darren, thought he maybe even loved me a little, and he was performing a role.

Wyatt snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Penny? You okay? Did I trigger another vision or something?”

“Interesting choice of words,” Reed mutters.

Wyatt and I shoot him a look in tandem.

“No,” I say. “No vision. I’m sorry, I haven’t been listening. What were you saying?”

He gives me a slight smile, his eyes sympathetic. “I asked if you’re sure it was the real Kent Hahn you saw in your vision?” Wyatt removes his Ret-tech and gently settles it on my head. “What I was saying before is that it’s common for celebrities to use lookalikes-”

“As decoys for the paparazzi and fans, yeah, I get you,” I say nodding.

“Right, and so I figured this was something Kent Hahn did. Blink on the website icon for doppelganger.com.”

I blink and a restricted access page comes up, containing profiles of four men that appear to look very much like the lead singer of Squirrelish Figure. “How’d you find this?” I ask.

“Never you mind,” Wyatt
says, playfulness in his voice. He looks behind him. “Phoebs, sync up with the game monitor so everyone can see.”

The website in front of my eye appears on the big screen, replacing VRV.

“Do any of these guys look
more
familiar to you, Penny?”

I scroll up and down the
page, trying to reconcile the details of each man’s image with the man I had a brief encounter with at the water fountain and the man from my dream. “I did think it was strange that Kent Hahn didn’t have any security with him at the airport and that he was carrying his own bag,” I say, working through the puzzle. “Can I see a photo of the real Kent?” I ask, annoyed I can’t figure out how to do that on my own.

Phoebe works her magic and the screen splits between a concert photo and the profile pages.

“There he is,” I state. “Guy number two is the one I saw at the airport. He’s slightly taller, his nose longer. No highlights in his hair.” I go back over my memory and do a final check, confirming my gut. “Yup. I guess he was telling the truth when he said he wasn’t Kent. But why would anyone want to kidnap him? Mistaken identity? What are the odds this is all just a coincidence?”

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Wyatt says. Under his breath, he begins to read the profile, and I wonder if it’s because he thinks I can’t.
“Parker Henry. Age twenty-six. Undergrad at Rutgers. Masters in Neuroscience from Yale. Finishing up his doctoral work in Neurobiology at Harvard. Wow, that’s young for having gone to so much school.”

“Yeah,” Kai says. “Lucky for him he looks a
helluva lot like a famous singer – pretty cake way to pay for all that education.”

“So what have we established?” Wyatt asks, more talking to
himself than to any of us. “The real Kent Hahn is safe and sound, otherwise we would’ve heard of his disappearance by now. The man who was kidnapped was either taken because of mistaken identity or, and I think this is more likely, because of something to do with his job.”

I nod, picking up his train of thought. “The way I see it we have two options – wait for me to dream again or figure out where this Parker Henry guy was taken from, go there and track him old school.”

“On it,” Phoebe says. After a moment, she scrunches up her mouth and pulls her eyebrows together. “I’m not finding a Parker Henry registered at any hotels in the L.A. area. Do you or Elle know what names Kent Hahn might have used when checking in?”

“US
Daily from two years ago or so said he liked to go by the names Lloyd Dobbler and Rob Van Winkle,” Elle interjects. She really is his number one fan. I’m not worthy.

Phoebe nods. “I’ll try those. I’m thinking that by publicly stating what names he likes to use, he never actually uses
them -- meaning his decoys probably do. Maybe Parker uses his side job to his advantage.”

Wyatt leans in close and says, “Microscreen up,” his Ret-tech obeying. As I reach up to take it off, his fingers cover mine. “Oops,” he says, laughing, leaving his hands on either side of my face. I turn to him, liking the way he’s looking at me. I swear he’d kiss me now if we weren’t in a room full of people trying to save a man from dying.

Details.

He slips the Ret-tech from my head and puts it back on his own. “Switch back to blink mode,” he commands. Wyatt tilts his face toward me. “I still feel like a weirdo talking to this thing. Blink mode draws less attention.”

“Found him!” Phoebe exclaims. “Or at least I found a Lloyd Dobbler staying at the Ambrose – which as luck would have it, isn’t that far from here. It’s in Santa Monica.”

“Now,” Kai says, smirking, “all Wyatt has to do is
sneak out past Phil and abscond with one of his brothers’ or sisters’ cars.” He smiles. “All before anyone discovers you’re gone and starts asking where you went.” Kai looks pointedly at Elle and she punches him in the shoulder.

Elle addresses me. “What Kai is referring to is my inability to lie or be sneaky. I could go with-”

“No,” Wyatt says shaking his head. “I’ll go after dinner, around six. Phil usually takes a quick pee break then.”

“And you know this how?” I ask, echoing my earlier question.

Wyatt smiles. “Just because Elle sucks at lying and sneaking around, doesn’t mean I do. Someone had to go nick beers from Raleigh’s fridge in the garage all last summer, or we might have been parched.”

Wyatt

I walk across the rotunda, scoping out the guard station. Phil catches my eye and nods at me. I nod back and keep on walking until I’m in the administrative hall. Back to the wall, I slide my body to the edge of it and count to twenty before I peek around it at the guard station again. This time it’s empty. I take off at a jog, jump over the exit gate and am at the stairs when I hear footsteps behind me.

I hug the interior wall of the stairwell and look over my shoulder. Penny comes bounding up the stairs, two at a time.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

“What does it look like?” she says, putting her hands on her hips and thrusting her chest out. “I’m going with you. There’s no way in hell I can handle giving up complete control of my visions, whether it’s protocol or not.”

“Fine,” I say wheeling around like I’m pissed off, but really I want to point the hard-on she’s just given me away from her. “Follow my lead, at least.”

She comes up close behind me as I start up the stairs. I stop at the top, wave my badge and punch in Ben’s access code. I feel slightly guilty about using it, knowing he gave it to me in case of emergency, but maybe if I can find Parker Henry on my own…maybe if I have a Lookout triumph, Ben will see that I’m not just pathetic little Wyatt and he’ll trust me with access codes of my own.

The keypad beeps and the door opens -- only I’m not opening it and neither is Penny.

I’ll admit it, what I did next was half out of panic, half out of curiosity.

Wheeling back around, I push Penny’s body into the wall with mine and put my lips to her lips. I don’t really kiss her; that would be going too far.