The Ashes of My Soul, page 15
I handed my phone over. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Thank you, by the way.” We sat for a minute in silence and then she let out a sigh. “Good. You’re not as smart as you think you are.”
I frowned and glanced over at her. She held my phone up and I saw she had the Wi-Fi menu on screen. There were a couple of saved networks at the top of the list and my eyes went straight to Star’s. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“I asked Andreas for help,” she said. “Asked him how to try and narrow down a phone’s location without access to its GPS. Believe me, if I thought I could get away with it, I’d see if you had location history enabled, but I draw the line at unauthorized access.”
“I understand a lot of those words, but I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.”
She pointed to the list of networks. “I know all of these except this one. I also timed how long it took you to get to me. Max mentioned you were having dinner with Sarah tonight.”
It all came together. “That idiot let it slip and now you’re trying to find out where she is.”
“And now I can narrow it down. Once I see that network pop up on my phone, I use a signal analyzer and figure out where it’s strongest. And I know she’s within a three minute or so walk from where you met me, and I saw which direction you came from. Granted, that’s still a lot of Troy, but it’s a lot less to cover than before.”
I sighed. “Look, two things. First, you’re being a really creepy stalker type right now, regardless of it being your sister.”
“I know. I’m fine with that.”
“Second, you know I’m going to tell her.”
“Don’t.”
“And you know what she’s going to do when I tell her? She’s going to change her network name. Hell, she might go out and get a new router. Double hell, she might even move, though I don’t think she’d go that far.”
Jess visibly deflated. “Fuck.”
“I’m surprised you’re not angry at me for not telling you she’s around here.”
She looked away. “I am. I’m fucking furious, you don’t even know. She’s so close now and I can’t see her? How is this even fucking fair? But you know, I’ve been furious about this ever since I learned she was alive. Maybe I’m getting used to it.”
“You know I promised to bring you back together,” I said, reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. “Trust me, I’m working on it. She’s being a pain in the ass about it.”
“Of course she is.” Jess brushed my hand off. “I don’t want to hear it. Honestly, Kev, I don’t. I just want to see her.”
I tried to explain further, but she turned her back to me. I didn’t push it. I couldn’t blame her. We rode the bus back to Ripley in silence except when she took her phone out, battery not dead as claimed, and called Max to meet us. When we got off the bus and saw him standing there, she walked straight to him and thumped her forehead into his chest. Max looked at me, eyes wide. I shrugged and hauled the box over to him. “All yours,” I said.
We walked up the hill in silence except for Max’s occasional curses at the box. He took it to Jess’s room, then came back to our room about five minutes later. “Kev. We have to talk, man.”
“Where’d she go?”
“Said she needed to go for a walk. Half of me wonders if she’s going right back downtown.”
I winced. “It’s way too late for her to go wandering down there. Want me to try and find her?”
He sat at his desk and looked at me. “No. Kev, I want you to stop fucking with her.”
I tried to keep my voice calm while my temper stirred. “I’m not fucking with her. I really wish you hadn’t let it slip that Star’s here.”
“It wasn’t a slip.” I blinked. “Don’t you realize what you’re doing to her? She was heartbroken after finding out you got engaged. She’s been desperate to find her sister, her goddamn twin sister, ever since you told her she was alive. Shit, I can’t even imagine what I’d go through if it was Ariel, and we’ve never been close until recently. Is it because you’re an only child? Is that why you don’t seem to give a fuck?”
Max’s sudden vehemence shook me. “It’s not me keeping them apart! Star isn’t ready yet!”
“Fuck your excuses.”
“Excuse me?”
He stood up and did a credible impression of looming over me. “Star’s going to keep making excuses because she’s terrified, she feels guilty, shit’s awkward, and so on. The longer this goes on, the worse she’s going to get, and the worse Jess is going to feel. How the fuck do you think she felt when you told her Star didn’t want to see her?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“That’s how she took it!”
Our voices were getting louder and louder. I looked toward the door and made a cutting motion. “Reset,” I said, returning to a normal volume. “I really don’t want Nikki eavesdropping on this.”
Max looked like he was going to burst a blood vessel, but then backed off. “Right. Look. You’re the only one here in control. You’re the only one up here who knows where Star is. If I knew, this shit would be done already. So, either tell me or do something about it.”
I took a deep breath. If I didn’t do anything, Jess would comb the city until she found Star. If I told Max, it would be a relationship-ending breach of trust. If I forced the issue, it was the least worst result. “All right. I’m going to do something about it.” Max started to say something, but I held a finger up. “Conditions. First, you get Jess to back off. Second, you trust me to do this. It’s not going to be quick. I need to lay some groundwork and make a plan. This’ll take a couple of weeks, minimum.”
“I’ll help with the plan.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “You told Jess. I don’t want you telling her anything else.”
He slowly sat down. “Fair, I guess.”
“Deal?”
“Deal as far as I’m concerned. I can’t speak for Jess and I doubt I can talk her out of anything. You said it’s not going to be quick, but for her sake, make it so.”
“Aye, captain.”
He snorted and the tension in the room faded. “Now I need to call Jess. I’ll do it outside. Maybe you can make a phone call of your own while I’m out there.”
I shook my head. “I’m the one going outside. This isn’t something I can break to her over the phone.”
Max looked at his watch, then back up at me. “Dude! By the time you get there and talk to her, the buses are going to stop running.”
I grinned. “I could probably stay over. Besides, I have alternative means of transportation.”
“What, like super speed or something?”
“Borrowing your car.”
He sighed and reached into his pocket. “Don’t fuck this up.”
I didn’t exactly obey traffic laws on the way. A little judicious use of my power to make others unconsciously give way to me helped a lot. There was a small parking garage a block away from her apartment. It took me about a minute to run from there to her building, then another minute waiting for the goddamn slow elevator. When I finally knocked on her door, I was a little short of breath.
She answered the door in shorts and a tank top like I had gotten her out of bed. “Kevin? I didn’t think you were coming back.”
“I didn’t either,” I said. She let me in and I led her to the couch. “You should sit down for this.”
She sat and stared at me. “Don’t you dare tell me something happened to Jessy.”
“No! She’s fine.”
“All right. What are you all worked up about then?”
I grabbed her hand. “Max told her you were here. That’s why she was downtown. She was looking for you. Calling me for help was a trick to narrow down the area where you might be.”
I didn’t know what I’d expected, but sheer panic wasn’t on the list. “No! Why? Now I need to move, right? I can’t stay here. I should get a hotel now. Grace will understand. Why did he tell her? That jackass! Come on, Kevin, let’s go.”
She jumped to her feet, but I kept a hold of her hand and hauled her back down. “You’re panicking.”
“You’re right.” She stood up again, slower this time. “I need a drink and a moment to think about this. I’m just going to the kitchen. Let go, please.”
I let go and she walked away. I didn’t watch her, but I listened as she opened a cabinet and took a glass out. The tap ran for a few seconds before shutting off. Afterwards, silence. No movement. No sounds of her drinking. No sounds of anything.
The silence broke with shattering glass and a sob. I jumped over the back of the couch and skidded into the kitchen. Star was leaning over the sink, her shoulders heaving. Blood streaked her hands, the counter, and dripped down to the floor. Shards of glass spread across the floor and the sink. She held the remnants of a tall drinking glass in her hands, and even as I watched, she squeezed.
I stepped toward her and kicked a piece of glass. It skittered across the floor. At the sound, she dropped the piece of glass in her hands and turned to me, holding her arms up in front of her. Blood trickled down her forearms to her elbows, dripping to the floor. My first instincts were to grab something to stop the bleeding, but how did you stop bleeding like this? I grabbed a roll of paper towels from the holder and thrust it into her hands. Crimson soaked through instantly. “Sarah, what happened?” I asked. “Sarah? Keep your hands raised. Shit. What can I do?”
“I broke it,” she said, her voice shaky, as if she was a little girl caught in the headlights. “I squeezed it and it broke. It hurts.”
“It’s all right. It’ll stop hurting soon.” She did have a first aid kit in the kitchen, but I didn’t know where, and I didn’t want to take my eyes off her for a second. I grabbed a dish towel for lack of better options and pushed it into one of her hands, trying to hold it against the lacerations. “Sarah, why did you do that?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t, so I squeezed instead. It broke.”
“Why are you so upset about seeing Jess?” I asked. She stiffened and started to walk toward the living room. I got in her way before she could step on any glass and forced her into a chair. Her hands clenched the towel and blood started to soak through it as well. With the amount of blood flowing out of her, I wondered if she had sliced an artery. “What can I do?”
She looked up at me. Her face was starting to go pale. “I might not be in my right mind right now, but I can still remind you about your powers, right?”
“Yeah, my basic first aid level powers.”
“Call it on the job training,” she murmured. “I’m not far from going into shock. Do what you can. Call Grace.”
I grabbed my phone as I started drawing my power. I hit speaker and tapped Grace’s name while I used my Sight to investigate her wounds. As soon as Grace picked up, before she could even say hello, I cut her off. “She’s in shock, get back to your apartment, right now.”
“Understood.”
There was a large shard of glass embedded in her left wrist. I couldn’t decide if I should leave it for last or deal with it first. I turned my basic biokinesis skills on the rest of her hand while I decided. Skin started to knit and I was able to form a basic coagulation factor to slow the bleeding in general. Forcing the tendons and muscles to heal was beyond me at the moment. I could encourage them to regrow, but that didn’t mean they’d regrow properly. It would take someone more experienced than me to guide that healing.
“Sorry,” Star said. “Overreacting.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” The closer I looked, the more tiny shards of glass I found in her hands. None of them were as large as the one in her left palm. I used gentle threads of power to pull them out. Some had already been healed over and pulling them out broke the skin all over again. She winced and looked away. “Can you help with this?”
“Can’t concentrate enough right now.”
“Because you’re in shock?”
“Not just that.”
I knew how hard it was to control my power when I was emotionally unstable. “Where’s Grace?” I asked, trying to divert her attention while I healed the reopened wounds.
“Evening class,” she murmured, her voice starting to slur a little.
“You’re drifting,” I said. “Stay awake, would you?”
“Trying. Don’t touch the big one. Think it hit something important.”
“I was wondering why you were bleeding so much.”
Her face was ghost white now, and she was starting to shake. “You’d think I’d be used to it. I’m cold, Kevin.”
“Can I step away for a moment without you falling out of the chair?”
“I think so.”
I raced to her bedroom and grabbed a robe and blanket off her bed. As I came out, the front door burst open and Grace pointed at me, her eyes glowing bright blue. When she recognized me, she dropped her hands. “Where?”
“Kitchen.” We both rushed to Star’s side. Grace took over her healing while I wrapped the robe and then the blanket around her shoulders. I watched with my Sight as Grace sealed away each major source of bleeding, then took a careful hold of the large shard. With a quick motion, she pulled it out with one thread while simultaneously squeezing the wound shut. It took her nearly a minute to heal it to the point where it wouldn’t start bleeding all over again. “Do you need a break?” I asked.
“No, just a breather while I look everything over.” Grace shook her head. “I’m not going to ask, but shit, this is a mess. What did she do?”
“She squeezed a glass.”
“Really hard,” Star added. Her voice was a little less weak than before.
Grace gave me a funny look. “This sort of injury isn’t accidental,” she said to me with a thread of telepathy. “It might not have been conscious on her part, but it looks like she did it on purpose. What the hell happened? Tell me later.” She spoke the next part out loud. “All right, I can see the rest of it fine. Kev, would you clean up the glass?”
I stepped away and used a few threads of my power to start scooping glass off the floor and out of the sink. Most of them were bloody. I took a hold of the dishtowel I had used to staunch her bleeding and stacked all the shards on it. No amount of washing could save it, so I folded all the glass into it and placed it in the garbage.
By the time I finished, Grace was leaning back on the floor, sweat visible on her forehead. “All the major things are taken care of,” she said. “I’ll handle the rest tomorrow.”
Star tried to stand, but didn’t seem to have the strength in her hands to push herself up. “Help?”
“Help what?” I asked.
“Put me to bed.”
I looked to Grace for confirmation. She nodded. “All right. I’m going to help you wash the blood off first, ok?”
Star didn’t say anything as I put her arm across my shoulder and helped her to her feet and shuffle off to the bathroom. She stayed silent as I wiped the blood off her hands and arms. When that was done, I helped her to her room and placed her in bed. She was out before I could even pull the blanket over her. I stepped back and watched her breathe.
“She’ll be fine in the morning.” Grace stepped in beside me. “She lost a lot of her blood volume. Normally it would take a couple days to recover, but I pushed her blood production to the max. Poor girl’s going to need some iron supplements tomorrow though.”
“Is that normal for wounds like that?”
She shrugged. “Not really. If I had to guess, her blood pressure was up and she was in shock more from a combination of factors than just blood loss.”
I sighed and nodded toward the living room. There were drops of blood on the floor outside the kitchen. “She freaked out because her sister found out she’s here in Troy.”
Grace shook her head and sat down. “Girl needs to get it over with.”
“That’s what everyone else says, too.”
“Not you?”
I shook my head. “I wanted to ease her into it, but after this, I think we need to push it.”
“We? Never mind. You’ll need my help. Let’s brainstorm.”
Chapter Twelve
The walk back to Carson Hall felt different today. It wasn’t just the temperature jumping ten degrees each week through the beginning of July. There were girls in shorts, chatting idly about their weekend plans. Runners were out, enjoying the early summer sunrise and continuing their recovery from the winter. One jogger overtook me, panting as he headed up the hill.
The feeling grew as I walked past the spot on the hill where Davidson had jumped me months ago. It wasn’t fear, though our plans for the night ran the risk of backfiring horribly. It wasn’t anticipation, either. I couldn’t get past the tension, the anxiety, the apprehension that something might go wrong.
I set those feelings aside and pulled out my phone when I reached the street before the dorm. “Hey, I need a huge favor tonight.”
“Are you propositioning me? Because the answer is yes.” Star sounded much more like herself. Grace had kept me up to date on the healing process, both physical and mental.
“No, but maybe, but later,” I said. She giggled. “I’ve been feeling uneasy the past couple of days. Almost like someone’s watching me, but not watching, you know what I mean?”
“You realize I’m at work right now? I’m going to catch shit if my manager catches me on the phone.”
I rolled my eyes. “You could get a new job today if you felt like it.”
“That would be cheating.”
“But you’d still do it.”
“Only if I had to. So what’s this favor?”
I sighed. “I want you to come up here-”
“No.”
“-and sweep the area. I’ve been trying to figure it out, Absynthe doesn’t sense anything, Max doesn’t even know what he’s looking for, and I’m stumped.”
