Trance. Part 3

"You look different."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Different good or different bad?"

"Just different." He reached out and flicked at a lock of purple hair. "I remember this-not the eyes or those powers. That wasn't you."

"No, it wasn't."

My fingers trembled as the adrenaline surge from Cliff's attack began to wear off. Thank G.o.d for my new powers. Having Gage there made me feel strangely safe when I should have been more cautious; I didn't know this adult. I yanked off the cap and let the rest of my hair tumble down around my shoulders. "So can I a.s.sume your powers are back, too?"

"They came back last night." A flash of pain pa.s.sed across his face, leaving its shadow behind. Deeper shadows lurked beneath his eyes, hinting at hidden agony he couldn't quite put into words. "Not an experience I want to repeat. Ever."

"I hear that. And I think whatever reactivated us had a few flaws. I seem to have gotten my grandmother's powers back this morning, or some screwed-up version of them." I snapped and an orb flared to life. I tossed it at an empty gla.s.s bottle; it exploded in a shower of shards.

"Wow," Gage said.

"I'm still getting the hang of it."

He glanced around at the s.h.i.+fting shadows and rows of quiet semis. "We should get out of here."

"Definitely." I slung the knapsack over my shoulder with the grease spot facing outward and followed him through the parking lot. "How did you find me, anyway?"

He sucked his lower lip into his mouth, a very boyish gesture that betrayed his discomfort. He fished into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a Vox. "I picked up your signal briefly outside of Salem. I found it again ten minutes ago when, I'm a.s.suming, you arrived here at the truck stop."

I nodded, affirming his a.s.sumption. There were only so many direct routes from Oregon to L.A., so running into each other wasn't entirely implausible. "My dad's Vox was with my stuff. I'm glad it still works."

"Me too." His mouth twitched into a pained frown. "Controlling my powers again is a b.i.t.c.h. It's hard trying to filter everything like I used to. Putting all of the information in its own place."

"I bet." Relearning control of his hypersenses had to be a pain (no pun intended). My stomach grumbled, reminding me again of its empty state. The adrenaline was gone and a gentle ache had begun at the base of my skull. "You know, I wish you'd found me before we left Salem. I think the trip would have been a lot more pleasant."

Gage's eyebrows knotted and his eyes narrowed. "Did he hurt you?"

"No, just unnerved me a bit."

He didn't seem convinced. "Are you hungry?"

"Famished," I said before I could stop myself. The last thing I needed was to explain why the diner was out of my price range. "Where's your car?"

"In front of the motel."

"Staying the night?"

"I planned to, yes, and then get a fresh start in the morning."

Not a terrible idea. I felt disgusting and was desperate for a hot shower. "I don't suppose they have any more rooms available?" I asked, even though I couldn't afford one. No sense in saying so and advertising my poverty to Gage. For all I knew he was a successful investor.

"The desk clerk said I got the last one, but there's plenty of s.p.a.ce to share," he replied.

Share? Spend the night locked in a room with a strange man. The idea raised my hackles, but knowing it was Gage-a former Ranger who understood what I was going through, to an extent-kept me from falling into full-on panic. And it beat sleeping in an alley or under a car.

I flashed him a smile, using it to hide my apprehension. "Should we flip a coin to see who gets the floor?"

He shook his head. "I'll take the floor."

"It's your room, Gage, I was kidding." I rolled my eyes at his mile-wide gentlemanly streak. "It's not like I think you'll attack me in my sleep, and as long as you're not a warrants officer, we'll get along fine."

Gage stared, and I could have bitten off my own tongue. What was wrong with me? I don't let things like that just slip out.

"Warrants officer?" he repeated. "Were you in jail?"

I tried to shrug it off. Four years ago, an accessory to burglary charge had landed me in the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, where I spent the worst twelve months of my life. Which had, naturally, led to lack of good employment opportunities and the current state of my c.r.a.ptastic life. Not that I was doing so hot before I agreed to drive the van for a guy I thought I loved in exchange for 20 percent of the fenced merchandise. The money was supposed to buy us tickets to Arizona and a fresh start.

Now I couldn't technically leave the state of Oregon for two more years. Not that it had stopped me last night. "Let's just say I had a rebellious, misspent youth and not dive into details."

"Fair enough. You know, we got our powers back, so there's a chance the Banes did, too. I think the state of Oregon can forgive your debt if we're being called back into service."

Called into service. Put like that, it sounded almost n.o.ble. Would the American public, still recovering from the previous decade's atrocities and the loss of their largest cities, readily embrace a new generation of Rangers? Or would they sooner burn us all at the stake?

"You know, you're really starting to look the part," he said as he led the way toward the motel. "The purple becomes you."

"I'm glad." I tossed a lock of hair over my shoulder, relaxing under the spell of the friendly banter. "I'd hate to be stuck with a color that looked awful. Can you see me with green hair? Or orange, even? I'd look like a carrot."

"But a cute carrot."

I grinned. At the tender age of ten, such a simple compliment from Gage would have sent my girlish pulse racing. I noticed our direction and asked, "Hey, aren't we eating?"

"The motel room has take-out menus. It might be better to eat in until we know for sure what's going on. Room's the third one over," Gage said, pointing.

I followed his lead, a few paces behind. The door next to ours opened abruptly and a man in torn jeans and a stained flannel s.h.i.+rt stepped out, right into my path. I backpedaled and started to fall. The stranger caught me by the arm. Before my instinct to groin-kick him took over, a greasy blonde stepped out next to him. Her hair was unkempt, her clothes frayed, and she had a big black duffel bag slung over one shoulder.

"Sorry about that," the man said. "Didn't see you comin'."

"S'okay," I said and ducked my head, hoping to hide my face and eyes behind a curtain of hair. Should have been faster about that.

The man glanced over his shoulder and nodded at Gage, who offered only a steely, suspicious gaze. His attention jumped to me. I winked at Gage, my head still angled away from the pair, and he relaxed just a fraction.

"Cool contacts," the woman said. "Very risque."

Definitely not fast enough. "Thanks." I ducked around the man and followed Gage into his room.

He locked the door and slid the bolt. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, bare minimum rating on the scare-o-meter." The question surprised me. It was nice having someone around who cared, even if the question was probably more knee-jerk politeness than genuine concern.

I turned the motel room's heat up to a balmy 75 degrees and dropped my small knapsack on a cheaply upholstered chair, which matched the striped bedspread. Two abstract prints hung opposite each other on plain ivory walls. Ugly, but the quality was a step up from my personal squalor.

Gage's expensive-looking suitcase sat in the middle of the king-size bed, leering at me. I eyed it, not bothering to hide my jealousy. He probably had three sets of clothes, all neatly folded, a leather shaving kit, and clean underwear.

d.a.m.n.

"What?" Gage asked.

I snapped my mouth shut, unaware I'd made a noise. Or maybe he heard the spike in my heart rate. Gage's powers had fascinated me as a child. Instead of supersight or superhearing, all five of Gage's senses were enhanced to an extraordinary degree. He could increase and decrease the amount of information they collected and received. Eyesight and hearing had been the strongest, with smell in the middle, and taste and touch trailing behind. That could all be different now, but I imagined I was close enough for him to hear my heartbeat if he tried.

"Just admiring your suitcase," I replied.

"There's a shopping center a few miles away-"

"No." He had just flipped a bad switch. Buying me dinner was one thing. I would not be beholden to him for little luxuries that I could do without. I'd managed on my own since I was sixteen; I didn't need to be taken care of by Gage.

"If you need something, we can get it, Teresa, and if it's about the money-"

"It is about the money, Gage." I spun on my heel, hair flying, and planted both hands on my hips. "I don't do charity. I took a handout from Cliff and look what it almost got me."

He closed the s.p.a.ce between us in three long strides. Muscles in my arms and back coiled as I braced for attack, and I found myself eye level with his neck. I swallowed. Gage wasn't Cliff. He was on my side.

"Look at me," he said, his voice soft and gentle. Warm breath tickled the top of my head.

I looked down instead, but his hand cupped my chin; and I allowed him to tilt my head up. His flecked eyes bore down on me, mesmerizing and kind. A gentle look-one I'd not received from a man in too many years. It made my stomach flip in a pleasant way.

"I'm sorry if I insulted you." His breath smelled like apples. "That wasn't my intention. The world rocked sideways last night, and I'm still getting back on my feet."

"I'm grateful you want to help, Gage, but trusting people always comes with a price." I'd learned that lesson the hard way-multiple times.

"Not always, Teresa. I'm not going to buy you dinner and then demand s.e.x." He sucked in his lower lip, adopting that scrunched, thoughtful look I'd seen twice in the last fifteen minutes. For a guy with learned control over his five enhanced senses, his face was pretty easy to read. "We may have been kids together a lifetime ago, but in so many ways we just met. I'm not expecting you to hand me your trust immediately, just hoping you'll give me a chance to earn it."

He was right. I didn't know the adult standing in front of me, or what he was capable of doing (or lying about). History showed that my judgment sucked when it came to trusting men-especially when my last boyfriend abused that trust so badly. I knew better.

Yet for some reason, on an instinctual level built upon Meta kins.h.i.+p and the girlish crush of the child I'd once been, I knew I could trust him. Eventually.

Enough to let him buy me dinner.

We phoned in a pizza and made polite conversation until it arrived. I attempted to pick his brain one question at a time over pepperoni and extra cheese, but hit wall after metaphorical wall when my questions delved deeper than surface stuff. I found out he'd been sent to St. Louis after the War, worked as a finis.h.i.+ng carpenter in his early twenties, and then moved to Oregon. He'd lived twenty miles away from me for the last three years.

He wouldn't talk about what brought him to Oregon or engage in reverse questioning. I didn't enjoy talking about my meager existence in the service industry or the h.e.l.l I'd made of my life, but I would have liked some personal interest on his part.

"Foster homes and therapy seem to be the norm for us," I said, once again leading the topic. "I wonder if the others had the same problems adjusting to life-after-theft."

"After what?"

"After our powers were stolen and our lives as we knew them shattered to bits. You know, I had the same d.a.m.ned nightmares for three years?" My stomach twisted at the recollection, the pizza no longer sitting well.

Gage's left hand curled around the edge of the table. "Nightmares about that last day in the park?"

A tremor wracked my spine. I have never felt terror again in my life like the terror I experienced that day. Encompa.s.sing, mortifying, and ugly, it was fear of certain death in the most gruesome manner imaginable.

"Yes," I said when I found my voice. "A variation of it, anyway. Sometimes I'd dream about my dad leading the Banes toward us kids, shouting orders to capture first and kill later. It would be him coming up the steps first." Things got fuzzy after that charge, because that's when the gut-twisting, brain-numbing power loss began.

Gage's right hand reached across the plastic table and squeezed my left. I tucked my fingers around his and held tight, focusing on his warmth. The nightmare had not returned in more than a decade, but the emotions behind it still ran deep and threatened to return in a wave of hot tears. Too bad memories didn't come with an emotional mute b.u.t.ton.

"Hinder was a good man," Gage said. "I remember how bravely he fought, even before the War, and how proudly he led his Corps Unit."

I rubbed my free hand across my forehead, as if the motion could erase the dream's images from my conscious mind. "One of my shrinks used to say that the dream was my subconscious mind's way of dealing with my own survivor's guilt."

"Sounds reasonable."

"Yeah, well, another shrink said I had abandonment issues, so I don't trust their a.n.a.lyses very much." Even if the abandonment issue seemed pretty spot-on at times-but I wasn't keen to delve into that particular neurosis tonight. "Do you remember your parents?" As soon as I asked it, I remembered the answer. Stupid.

He released my hand. "No, we were orphans when the Corps adopted us. My mentor, Delphi, raised me and Jasper."

Jasper McAllister had possessed superspeed and enhanced reflexes, and had joined an active Corps Unit eighteen months into the War. The entire unit was killed a month later, trying to prevent a Chicago apartment complex from collapsing. He was sixteen.

Gage had been barely thirteen when his big brother, Jasper, died, and from the brackets of sorrow around his eyes, the pain was just as fresh now as it had been then. Picking at a pepperoni, he said, "It was the loneliest way for a kid to grow up."

I held back a question and gave him a chance to continue the thought without prompting. I was afraid of shutting him up if I pushed.

"Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if Jasper had lived," he continued. "I could have had someone to talk to, someone who understood what it was like to hear people trash-talk the Rangers, curse Metas in general, and blame us for all the problems of the world. Like those problems hadn't existed long before we did."

I understood, probably better than he realized. I'd spent years pretending to hate Metas as much as my cla.s.smates, laughing at their cruel jokes, and convincing myself I'd never been different. Never been the daughter of Rangers, never been trained to save lives, never raised for a greater purpose.

"I used to wish I could just forget it all completely and start fresh. Put all that pain behind me and never look back." Gage sighed heavily. "Wishes and horses and all that."

I didn't get the reference. I did understand the sentiment. We'd never be free from our pasts, whether personal or Corps-related. There was no way to gauge how the world would react to our empowerment. No way to know if we'd be welcomed or despised, or both.

And I truly didn't know which I'd prefer.

Four.

Specter.

The digital clock-radio ticked off another minute, and the bathroom door still hadn't opened. Thirty minutes was a long shower for a guy-even though I'd taken nearly an hour. Hotels charged extra for water consumption that exceeded the regulated clean water limit, same as apartments and rentals. Between the two of us, we had racked up a pretty hefty fee. I was planning to pay him back for part of the motel (how exactly I'd get the money was still open to debate), so what was another fifty bucks in exchange for a shower that actually ran hot for longer than five minutes?

I unscrewed the cap on a bottle of water, swallowed a couple mouthfuls, and put the open bottle down on the small side table. Having Gage on the other side of that door, in some state of un- or half-dress, left me on edge. I'd believed him earlier, when he said he'd never demand s.e.x in return for his kindness-old apprehensions just die hard, I suppose.

Out of boredom and a need to redirect my thoughts, I snapped my fingers and a small sphere popped into existence. It hovered, perfectly aligned with the tip of my index finger, waiting to go where I sent it. Trouble was, any likely target in the room would just get billed to Gage.

The sphere fizzled out and disappeared.

Practice makes perfect, Teresa. A woman's voice, sweet and lilting, danced through my mind. Practice makes perfect.

"Mom," I whispered. I could recall the silliest details about my father-the mole on his left cheek; the way he wheezed when he laughed too hard; he couldn't roll his tongue or whistle. So little remained of my mom.

Right before the official start of the War, when I was just five, she was shot by a panicked citizen as she tried to stop a bank robbery in progress-a citizen who probably thought she was a bad guy because she had green skin. It wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last time the Rangers were turned on by the people we'd sworn to protect.