Lost Energy (11 page)

I shot Tarek a raised eyebrow, and
he gave me a weak shrug. Clearing my throat, I said, "Why don't we go
inside, okay? Let these guys, ah, get back to whatever it is they…do."

When Belva sighed and her smile
disappeared, the animals whined like toddlers. Taking a step back, she waved a
hand in the air, motioning in the direction of the woods. With muted grumbles, the
squid all retreated in unison, scaling their tree trunks and climbing deeper
into the verdant, thick leaves.

Tarek stomped a path to the castle,
shaking his head while I grabbed Belva's hand, her face flushed and
breathtaking.

"How'd you do that?" I pulled
her up the icy path, hoping none of those things followed.

"I…I don't know."

Laughing, I bumped her shoulder
with mine. "You're the goddamned squid whisperer."

TROUBLE
AT HOME

"N
o, Lena. Not happening." Jake stomped
back and forth by the fire, the blanket he had wrapped around him thrown on the
floor.

"It's all we got right now,
Jake." I switched attention to Farren, who sat next to Mom and Belva on
the couch. After we told him about Belva's little animal show, he couldn't stop
gazing at her, his reddened face full of awe. I nudged Farren's shoulder. "You
okay with it?"

With what looked like effort, he
peeled his eyes away from Belva's face. "Yeah, I'm game. In and out, I'm
good at that."

Belva's hand went to his leg and
squeezed. She frowned, but kept quiet.

Farren leaned forward, his big palm
covering her hand, and pointed his eyes at Jake. "I'll take care of her,
old man. She'll be fine."

"I can't… It's not safe."
Jake knelt down in front of Mom. "Jacie, we can't let her. She's just a
girl."

Tarek came up behind me, putting
his hands on my shoulders. "No, she isn't."

That he had my back, even when I
knew he was scared, swelled my heart. But Jake ignored him, keeping his
attention on Mom. "Jacie?"

Her eyes filled as a shaky hand
cupped his cheek. "Lena hasn't been
just a girl
since she was five
years old. I believe in her." She lifted her eyes to mine. "You come
back, Lena. Come back."

"I will, promise." I
turned into Tarek's arms. "Thank you."

He hugged me close, and whispered, "If
anything happens, if they hurt you, they'll pay."

∞
∞ ∞

Farren opened a portal in the
theater, bringing us right into the kitchen. The lights were all off and the
only sounds keeping us company were the humming coolers. Still, I felt the need
to whisper. "The kitchen? Really?"

"Did you have somewhere else
in mind? A resort, maybe? Disney World?"

"Shut up." I left his
arms to look out the tiny window on the door. "Oh, damn."

"What?" Farren came up
behind me, breathing down my neck. "Oh…damn."

The lobby sat bare, nothing off.
Nope, except for the yellow police tape glaring at us through the glass doors in
the main entrance.

Farren cleared his throat. "We
got problems."

"No kidding." I backed
away from the door and went for the coolers. "Want a drink?"

With a shrug, he opened the cooler
himself, picking up a Coke. We stood there, drinking soda, studying the
blinking light inside the cooler.

"Need to get that fixed,"
he said.

"Yeah, I'll add it to the
list."

Farren grunted, throwing his empty
bottle into the recyclable bin. After a loud, obnoxious burp, he went back to
the door, peering through the window. "Police involved isn't a good sign."

"I would say it's not." I
threw my own empty in the can and went to stand beside him. "Time to figure
out what's going on."

He nodded. "We need to get the
paper."

Really?
Man, even in a crisis. "You
think now's the time to read the latest headlines."

"Yeah, especially if we're a
part of them."

Oh
. "Point made." I glanced
at the digital clock on the wall–3:00 a.m. Arcus time definitely didn't
coincide with Earth's. "There's a Quicky Mart open twenty-four hours down
the street."

"Looks like that's where we're
headed. But we need to stay off the sidewalks, in case…"

"In case of what?"

He smiled, challenge lighting his
dark eyes. "Use your big brain, Lena. Figure it out."

I thought for a second, and then…police,
crime… "Right, good idea."

"I'm full of them."

"You're full of something all
right."

I grabbed the spare keys to my
place from the office before sneaking out the front doors and into the humid
night. Farren led the way using side streets and backyards until we made it to
the bright beacon that was the Quicky Mart. A brilliant red sign claiming they sold
cigarettes at the state minimum graced the window.

One thing I hated about these
little places? The damn music piped into the speakers. All the elevator music
did was encourage me to leave fast, which was probably the goal. The bright,
fluorescent lights put me in a good mood, though. "Ginger, I'm thinking
clown, maybe Bozo?" I pointed to a security mirror, and Farren's eyes
followed my finger.

The Arcus color wasn't as kind to
his red hair and fair skin as it was to me. I looked good after a dose of Arcus–not
conceit, a fact. The first time, when my bed had pulled me into the dimension,
I came back looking like an amplified cover girl. First time I had unwanted attention,
too. Of course, it faded, which I prefer.

Farren had no problem with his new
face and laughed at his reflection, his cheeks flaming red on skin so white the
blue veins underneath looked like the thin, squiggly lines on a road map. "Now,
I
can make this work." He rubbed his chin.

"Yeah? In what world, Dracula?"

Eyes so dark they were black, he'd
definitely pull it off. Well, he could pass for Dracula's redheaded stepbrother.
"I'll still have the ladies drooling. Bet?"

I went to the newsstand and grabbed
yesterday's
Pocono Record
. "Imma pass, thanks." I held up the
front page. "Shit. Besides, I think catching attention for you right now isn't
a good idea."

Farren's picture, the one I gave
Belva of him in the ring looking dangerous and mean, smeared the front cover
with the byline: Wanted for Kidnapping and Possible Homicide.

"Oh…oh, yeah, that's not good."
He snatched the paper from my hands, giving the bored cashier a quick glance
before skimming the article. "Looks like Belva's parents think I'm some
sort of raping kidnapper. And…goddamnit, a body was found at your place."

I grabbed him by the elbow and
charged out of the store, the tinkling bell on the door sounding like an angry
rattle. "Whose body?"

As we walked, he kept his eyes down.
"Don't know. They didn't give a name. But…you and your mom are wanted for
questioning." He switched directions. "Jake too."

"Where're we going?"

"Well, we can't go to your
house."

"Obviously."

"And so I guess we'll do a B
and E into Wilma's, come up with a plan."

"Sounds good."

We cut across backyards, the single
alarm to our invasion a few yappy dogs. As we slunk up to the back window of
her house, we both scanned the inside, making sure everything looked normal.
When Wilma's living room appeared as dull and quiet as usual, Farren took off
his shirt and wrapped it around his fist. "Back up a sec."

I moved behind him as he jabbed the
old window, the sound partially muffled by his T-shirt. With a grunt and a
wave, he gestured me forward. It didn't take much for him to heave me into the
shattered window. I landed on my ass and rolled in time to miss his boots on my
face. "Damn, easy, Ginger."

"Gotta be quicker." He stomped
by me and headed to the television. For the short stint Farren lived with Wilma,
he managed to get the cable turned on. She hated it, but never got around to
shutting it off.

Thank God, she didn't because as
soon as he turned to a local channel, our faces smeared the screen.

∞
∞ ∞

From an earlier recording, we
watched Belva's mom cry into her husband's shoulder in front of their multimillion-dollar
Tudor. Her dad's face was pale with deep, saggy bags under his eyes, which
added to his scary words about the big, mean-looking redhead who spent too much
time sniffing around his innocent daughter. Oh, and he mentioned the low-life
trailer scum she began hanging around. All us trash were in on some terrible
kidnapping murder spree with Belva being taken hostage. In seconds, the story
shifted to an unknown man's body stripped naked and cuffed to the old radiator
underneath my living room window.

Belva's parents didn't surprise me
at all. They had made sure I understood Belva's association with me wasn't
acceptable. On more than one occasion, I made sure they knew I didn't give a
shit. But the guy… "Well, who the fuck is that?"

Farren shook his bright red head as
he sat on the edge of the couch. His black eyes grew so hard and cold, I'd
definitely mistake him for a vampire if I ran into him on the street. "A
decoy."

"Ah…what?"

He lowered his head before turning
to face me again. "Deee-Coooy."

Nuh-uh. Nope.
"Don't." I punched him
in the shoulder.

He brushed it off like a mosquito
bite and stood. "Remember how I said the authority found ways to make
Protectors pay? Well, I just got paid." He dragged a hand through his hair
and shut off the television. "My face all over the news, that's what they
want. If I ever came back here–which, ha, I did–I'd be on the Most Wanted.
Guarantee my DNA is all over that guy. I get busted, sent to jail, and well, I
can't exactly open a hole around people, right? I'm stuck in prison. Spend my
life there if I'm lucky. Or maybe one night, I have a visitor who finds it
necessary to gut me and have my energy destroyed."

I laughed. Couldn't help it. Talk
about conspiracy theory. His serious face caused my laughter to dry up, though.

"Not funny, Lena. Not funny at
all."

I tilted my head, keeping my butt
planted on the couch. "Oh, come on! You really believe that? Besides, who
the hell would think of doing something that…that psychotic?"

"Me. It was my MO. My
specialty, you might say. Varies with each dimension, but the concept stays the
same."

My insides grew cold.

He made eye contact for a second
before staring at his booted feet. "Not so funny, huh? When I told you
about all those faces that haunt me? There was a time I had no trouble sleeping.
Targets, that's all they were. And the innocent casualties? Part of the job."

Farren. Funny, sensitive,
awesome-friend Farren, a cold-blooded killer. I swallowed. "So, who do you
think that guy was?"

A deep sigh wracked his body. "Some
poor dumb bastard in the wrong place at the wrong time."

I swallowed again, or at least
tried to. My throat felt like I had an active beehive lodged in it. No, I
wouldn't admit a strong pull of fear tightened the knot in my stomach. So,
Farren was a sociopath… No, no he wasn't–not anymore. God, I hoped not anymore.
"Well, um, I guess we need to be careful."

He looked up, and the hurt
tightening his cheeks made my heart lurch. Definitely not anymore.

"You're afraid of me," he
said.

I went to him and wrapped my arms
around his waist. No, he was my brother. Because we didn't share the same blood
meant nothing. "I'm not afraid of you. Afraid for you is more like it."

His body shuttered as his arms slipped
across my shoulders, holding me tight. "Glad I have you, kid."

"Not a kid, but right back at
you."

Farren rubbed my upper arms with a
loud half-yell, half-groan. "Ah, okay, enough with the sappy. I'm not good
at it." He headed to the bathroom. "Where's the list, anyway? And don't
say–"

"In my bedroom, under my
mattress."

"Yeah, don't say that."
He turned the knob and shut the door behind him.

I stalked up to the door and banged
on it.

"
What?
"

"Why can't you open a hole in
my room?"

His groan was louder than the pee
hitting the toilet bowl.

"What? I mean that's the
easiest way, right?"

After the toilet flushed and the
water stopped tinkling from the sink, he opened the door a crack and peeked
through. "How many times do I have to tell you? We can't open a portal to
jump into a portal in the same dimension. It's physics."