Mute (Muted Trilogy Book 1) (15 page)

The front door is locked?
he typed. Jemma nodded.
Let’s check the rest of the building.

They did, quickly verifying that nobody else was present. Jemma pulled out her phone again, remembering her first impulse, and texted Cecily.

Did you come back by here? The employee door was open.

She showed the text to Jack in explanation as she waited for a response. Her phone buzzed.

No. It was locked and latched when I left. I checked. Do you need me to text the police?
Cecily had typed.

I’ll handle it
, wrote Jemma.
Nothing else seems to be wrong, and a patron I trust helped me make sure nobody was in the building. Another patron probably just sneaked in when I was doing reports and left through the nearest exit.

If you don’t object, I’ll text the non-emergency line and have the police make an extra couple of passes tonight. I’ve asked them to do that once or twice when something felt wrong
, Cecily replied before she had put her phone away.

That’s fine. Thank you
, wrote Jemma. She shoved her phone in her pocket. Jack followed her as she checked the employee exit again, making sure it was locked and shut firmly, and then they went out the main entrance, both of them scanning the parking lot while Jemma locked the door. They walked to Jemma’s car, where Jack stopped and pulled out a cell phone. He typed before turning the phone so she could read it.

Can I have your phone number? Facebook friend you? Home IM name? Something so that we can talk a bit easier in the parking lot and so I know you get home safe tonight?

Jemma paused for long enough that he turned the phone back around and typed again.

Is that weird to ask for?

She shook her head, then pulled out her phone, created a contact, and entered his name before passing him the phone. He typed in his number and returned her phone, and she pressed the button to send him a text.

This is me. It’s almost always on silent. I use it to text to my mom and sister and for emergencies, mostly. I’ll text you when I get home.

Okay :)
, he sent back. He waved at her and got in his car, waiting until she was in hers and moving to pull out of the parking lot.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

Not Just a Dream

On some level, Jemma knew she was dreaming, but that didn’t stop the flood of adrenaline as she tried to escape the person or thing that was chasing her. Each time she looked back, the shapeless being seemed larger and more menacing. She was running through the library parking lot, which kept stretching longer, farther, the safety of her car impossibly out of her reach.

She tripped, skinning her knee painfully on the ground, getting back up as she heard the being approach.

“Help,” she yelled. “Please!”

“Jemma?” She heard him nearby and managed another burst of speed, ignoring the trickle of blood down one leg. She didn’t think he was a good fighter, but between the two of them, they could figure something out.

She dodged a traffic cone and leapt over a concrete parking block. Glancing behind her, she saw it was closer than she’d thought, and she made a sudden turn to her left, darting beside the library. The parking lot was plunged into darkness.

“Where are you?” she called, running through the pitch black air that seemed to be grabbing at her, slowing her down.

“I’m here, Jemma!”

She darted toward the voice she trusted, her feet getting heavier as the creature gained on her. She yelped as she slammed into something in front of her.

“It’s me.” His chest rumbled against her hands. “It’s just me. You’re… I think you’re dreaming. It’s morning. It isn’t night.”

A dream. Right. She knew it was a dream. The creature behind her growled, and she spun to face it, standing next to her unseen friend, her heart rate still elevated. The darkness approached, two glowing eyes shining brightly enough that she looked away, straight into the eyes of—

She sat up in bed, panting, heart racing.

“It’s okay, Jemma,” the familiar voice continued to speak soothingly, the sound echoing in her mind.

“Jack?”

“It’s me.”

“It’s you?” Her mind racing, her body still dealing with its dream-induced fight-or-flight response, she had trouble straightening her thoughts. “It’s… It’s been you the whole time?”

There was a brief pause before he responded, tone laced with apprehension and an attempt at humor. “As far as I know, I’ve never been anyone else.”

“Did you,” Jemma started, wrapping her hands around her legs. “Did you know it was me?”

“Not for certain. I suspected, though. Was pretty sure.”

Jack. Two of the people she’d interacted with most often on a daily basis, the patron and the telepathic stranger, they were the same person. How had she not put it together? He Talked just like he wrote. She couldn’t quite reconcile it in her head, the fact that she’d been Talking to Jack, not just some stranger, and that she’d been unaware of the fact while Jack, apparently, had already guessed. What else had she missed that was right in front of her?

“How long?” she asked.

“How long have I had a good idea it was you?”

“Yes. How long?”

“That day you tried to send the image. You stopped trying at the same time as your tablet started talking. That’s when I started wondering. Almost said something in the parking lot that night, but I wasn’t sure. Not enough to say it, not if I was wrong.”

She remembered his hesitation at her car, that night clearer than most because of how flustered she’d been.

Jack continued speaking. “And then it was little things. You sounded like yourself, once I started listening for it. You use some of the same words and phrases. And you had a habit of pulling away from the conversation while helping someone. I was sure enough to tell you, but you’d seemed so against dropping the anonymity.”

She closed her eyes, resting her forehead against her knees. He was giving her a chance to think, a chance to process, but he hadn’t withdrawn, and neither did she.

“This is logical. I don’t know whether it is a lingering effect of the nightmare,” she sent, choosing her words carefully, “but I’m having trouble accepting the logic. I’m upset that you weren’t more open about it, but I was careful not to reveal who I was in conversation, too. Still, I need a day to think.”

“Fair enough,” he sent.

“Can you give me that?”

“Of course.”

She breathed in and out, still trying to get her heart rate completely back to normal. She could feel he was still connected, waiting.

“How did you know I was dreaming?” she asked.

“I was already awake. Dad… Anyway, I could almost see what was happening. It’s when I was sure it was you, seeing you in the library parking lot, with just your car there.”

“You could see it?”

“Barely. It was like if you’re looking out a window that’s reflecting the TV across from it. If I focused, I could tell what was happening, but I couldn’t see very clearly.” He stopped. “And I could feel that you were afraid.”

“Okay.” She opened her eyes, scanning the empty bedroom. “We can try figuring that out later, okay? Give me today.”

“Sure. What about closing tonight? Do you feel safe alone with what’s been going on?”

“I’ll make sure I’m not alone. I’ll talk to you later, Jack.” She pulled away from the conversation, waiting a moment to see whether he would try to reestablish the connection. When he didn’t, she picked up her phone and checked the time.

Her Friday morning alarm would go off in five minutes.

She sighed and got out of bed, running the shower hotter than normal and trying to work through her unusually scattered thoughts. The hot water and white noise helped her to relax, to wash away the lingering sweat and tension from her nightmare and start sorting her mind enough to get through her work day.

***

She hadn’t really expected Jack to come into the library, not after she’d asked for a day to think, but she’d still felt almost disappointed when he hadn’t shown up.

Her mother hadn’t hesitated to respond to Jemma’s request that she meet her at closing time because she was unsettled, and she’d followed her mom to the family’s home after an uneventful closing.

Now, she was at the table, watching her food and listening to the conversation.

“It was so worth buying a voice for each of us,” Carolyn’s chosen text-to-speech app was saying. “It makes it so much easier to talk at the dinner table. Even with a mouth full of food!” Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s voice was actually very similar to Carolyn’s normal voice, and Jemma found it much more soothing than she did the radio show.

“Yeah,” said Jill, her phone using Alexis Bledel’s voice. “Jemma, you should have seen more of the first dinners after the telepathy started. We kept talking over each other! I swear, I had too much of a headache to even finish my food.”

“The telepathy is good for one-on-one,” wrote her mom, “but it has its limits in group situations, even if everyone can Talk to each other.”

Jemma nodded in agreement, noting her father’s silence. Jill caught her glance in his direction and sent her sister a mental note. “Dad refuses to bring his phone to the dinner table still. It kinda works ‘cause he’ll use telepathy and we stick to our phone apps. No feedback.”

Jemma nodded again, not wanting to risk responding when she saw her dad watching her. Sure enough, he spoke when she would have been responding.

“How was your day?” he sent, letting the others hear while making it clear he was directing the question at Jemma.

“It was fine,” her phone app said, Billie Piper speaking.

Her mother looked around the table, frowning at the silence, then typed again.

“Did Jill tell you she’s Talking to a boy?”

Jemma shook her head.

“She’s much too young to have that kind of connection with some boy we haven’t even met,” sent her father, scowling. On her other side, Jill rolled her eyes.

“He’s a nice boy,” typed Carolyn. “I’ve met him. And you can’t control who you fall in love with.”

“Mom! We haven’t talked about love or anything. We just got to know each other ‘cause everyone else had paired off.”

“I’ve seen you two kissing in the hallway, so don’t even try to pretend you’re just friends.”

“I didn’t say that, did I? Are you spying on us?”

Jemma found herself trying not to laugh. It wasn’t that the conversation was funny, but that her mother was clearly invested in this conversation, and Jill was angry, and yet the voices went along, neutrally narrating the emotional exchange.

“I am not spying on you,” typed Carolyn. “You aren’t invisible in the hallway, you know.”

Jill glared at her mother and turned her phone face down on the table, defiantly, and started shoveling food into her mouth.

“I’m sorry, Jilly,” Carolyn wrote after a tense minute. “I’m just excited that you’ve made that sort of connection with someone. Family is important, but I think everyone needs a special someone other than their parents.” She looked at Jemma before typing further. “I wish you had someone to Talk to, Jemma.”

With Jack not far from her mind, the comment startled Jemma, and the food she was trying to swallow got caught in her throat. She coughed then swallowed, using her glass of water to help wash the food down, and she looked up to see her family staring at her. She tried to decide whether she could play that off as coincidence, but she’d never been one for lying. Dishonesty typically served to complicate things more often than to simplify them, made social situations even more difficult.

She wasn’t ready to be entirely open and upfront, but she wouldn’t lie if asked directly.

“Are you Talking to someone, Jemma?” came her mother’s electronic voice.

Jemma sighed, resigned, then nodded. Her mother started typing furiously, faster than the voice could keep up with.

“Who is it? Is it Cecily? Someone else? Is it a man? How long have you been able to Talk? Why didn’t you tell us?” She stopped typing, turning toward Matthew and blinking in a way that made Jemma suspect her father had said something only her mother could hear.

“Go ahead,” her dad sent, confirming her suspicions.

“A patron I see almost every day,” Jemma typed. “He’s the one who’s been making sure I get to my car safely.” She saw her father nod approvingly. “It’s been two weeks, maybe three. Wasn’t sure at first. It wasn’t as if I were going around trying to talk to random patrons. And I hadn’t heard his voice even though I recognized him.”

She looked up at her beaming mother, her still-nodding father, and her sister, who had raised her eyebrows.

“There’s nothing romantic between us, before you ask,” Jemma continued. “He’s a little bit of a flirt sometimes, maybe. I can’t always tell. But he talks to me the same way he talks to Cecily.”

“Does he Talk, capital T, to Cecily, too?” Her mom seemed torn as to whether she was scandalized or intrigued by this idea.