The trouble was, Vallon still felt Detective Bryson on her, in her, and his scent on her skin, —and his observations were just too on the money.
She needed the good Detective looking over her shoulder like she needed Gleason’s or Landon’s scrutiny while she conducted her investigation.
Because investigate she would, and no one had better get in her way.
She pushed herself away from the counter as a gust of rain rattled against the kitchen windows and snuck through the warped frames to stir the gingham curtains. The clock ticked on the wall. Close to eight o’clock, and she needed to be on the desk at ten. First she needed to talk to Fi.
She left the scene of her and the good Detective’s crime and padded up the hardwood stairs, checked Fi, but the woman was still sound asleep, her tangled mat of blonde hair dampening the pristine pillows with a grey stain. The camo coat lay in a heap on the floor, smelling like a wet dog. Vallon scooped it up, emptied the pockets of stones and bottle caps and crumpled bits of paper, then dumped the coat in the washing machine in the upstairs closet and turned it on.
She shed her own clothes in her room, then stepped into the shower and tried to get warm. She stood there, letting the stinging spray pummel her face, and hoped it would knock some sense into her.
All it did was make her sure she’d probably committed the biggest error of her error-laden life. Another man-wreck, only this time he posed a threat not just to her, but to the AGS and Gifted folk everywhere. What would the US populace do if they knew there were people like her around?
With the rise of the religious right, the Salem witch trials came to mind.
She toweled dry and dried her hair, then pulled on fresh clothes—her favorite low-rider jeans that made her feel sexy, and a dark brown, turtleneck sweater. When she returned to Fi’s room, the woman had only burrowed further under the covers.
Vallon perched on the edge of the bed and smoothed her old friend’s hair off her face. She looked so peaceful, now, without the glitter of fear in her eyes. Almost like the girl Vallon remembered.
“Fi?”
Just slumber’s even breath.
“Fi?” She caught Fi’s shoulder and shook her gently. “Come on, Fi. We need to talk.”
A groan. “I don’ wanna get up, Mom.”
“You don’t have to get up. I just need to ask you a couple of questions, Fi. Then you can go back to sleep for as long as you like.”
Fi’s breath steadied to sleep again and Vallon shook her head, grabbed Fi’s shoulder and shook again. “Fi! We have to talk.”
“Wha? Wha?” Wild blue eyes, pale as watered skies. “Vallon? What are you doing here? Did you get away, too?” Then her gaze registered the yellow walls, the smooth sheets under her hands and she bolted upright, threw the covers off, her face a study in fear. “How? Where?”
“Fi. It’s all right. Everything’s all right.” Softly. She used Fi’s name to anchor her. Vallon stroked her friend’s arms, her frightened face, her hair, and finally caught one of the fluttering hands. “You’re in my house, Fi. You’re safe.”
Fi turned doubtful eyes on Vallon. “Not safe. Never safe. Vallon, we have to get away. Keep moving and she can’t find us.”
That made no sense. Vallon held Fi’s gaze. “Who is she, Fi? What’s she doing? Is she the one killing the agents?”
But Fi was shaking her head, pressing her hands to her ears and peering into the ceiling as if it would open up and take her. “Don’t talk. Don’t talk or she’ll know. Move. Move.”
She started to scramble off the bed, until Vallon caught her hands again. “I said it’s safe here, Fi. It is. I’ll protect you.”
She hoped. But if what she’d felt at the garage and the fire were correct, she doubted any Gifted she knew was safe from whatever had taken Simon. She had fought to hold the flophouse firm when Detective Bryson had entered, lest he be lost in the change. But then the power had become aware of Vallon’s intent as she had tried to follow the power back to whomever caused the change. Fury had licked into her head with a scalding of licorice and brimstone.
Then the place had gone up in smoke while Bryson had dragged her out.
And then the change had been completed.
She caught Fi’s shoulders, peered into her dilated eyes. “I need you to tell me what you know, Fi.”
Fi closed her eyes and shivered under Vallon’s hands. “Don’t know anything. Anything.”
Vallon fought to keep her voice calm. “Fi, sweetheart, you have to listen. Yesterday you came to me. You said you had to warn me.”
That brought Fi’s eyes open.
“Warn me about what, Fi? Who is she?”
Fi shook her head and wildly searched the room. It was the most pathetic thing Vallon had seen, and once it would have broken her heart. She caught her friend in a hug, inhaled the scent of unwashed body, and underneath, the well-remembered scent of licorice-anise and mint. “It’s going to be all right, Fi. It will be. Remember, you came to me for help and I will help you.”
“No!” Fi shoved away, her face a map of fear. She captured Vallon’s wrists. “I warn. You hear? She—she takes and takes and takes and takes and then she will destroy.”
“Who, Fi. Who is it?”
Fi’s gaze latched onto hers. A smile, older and filled with more grief than a woman Fi’s age should ever know. “You know.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek.
“Do I?” Vallon thought frantically back. Who would she know? “Someone from school? One of the staff?”
But she’d lost Fi’s focus again. The other woman hunched down as if snakes darted out of the ceiling.
“Fi!” Vallon shook her slightly. “Tell me.”
A quiver through Fi’s body, then she shook her head. “Don’t tell. Don’t tell. Don’t tell, she tells me — and touches me right here.” She touched a ragged-nailed finger to her head. “I got away. I ran.” Proud.
“And good thing you did. I’ve missed you, Fi. Really missed you.” And the funny thing was, she had, and hadn’t even realized it. Even if this haunted creature wasn’t the vivacious Fi she remembered from school. It was Fi’s indomitable will that had set Vallon’s example way back when. An example she still followed. And under the unwashed clothes, it still smelled like Fi.
“I missed you, too, Vallon.” Mists swirled across the moment of lucidity. “But it’s a secret.” Smiled like a child with a momentous surprise.
“What is, Fi? What were you warning me about?”
Fi’s headshake was like a stubborn child’s. “I told you. She wants. She takes them one by one. You should leave Vallon. Away, away, away, with me. Before it happens.”
“Before what happens?”
A look of exasperation. “She’s doing it.”
Vallon rubbed her forehead to rid herself of the need to shake Fi and force her to answer.
“Doing what.” One more time.
Fi scrambled off the bed and went to the window but there was only rain streaming the glass and night backing the room’s reflection. Vallon went to her and their two images were almost negatives of each other—Fi almost ethereally fair, Vallon dark and shadow-eyed even with her blonde hair.
“What do you see, Fi?” Because she couldn’t see a damn thing except the flare of gifted in the night when she -reached- and one particular Gifted who was too close. She shivered.
“Mountains.”
“Pardon me?” Vallon caught Fi’s hand and peered out into the night. “Where, Fi. What mountains.”
“Mountains in a long line. North to South. Compass points, Vallon. You know compasses. Like at school. Arrows and Rose Lines and North Stars. All along the lines.”
Perfectly reasonable judging by Fi’s face, but it made no sense at all. She took a stab in the dark.
“What’s the matter with the mountains, Fi?”
Fi caught the ends of her damp hair with her fingers and tugged like a little girl. “They’re going away,” she sang.
“Away?” All the blood seemed to freeze in Vallon’s fingers because suddenly Fi’s ramblings made a strange kind of sense and yet it was impossible. Someone with the power she’d felt at the flophouse just might be able to smooth the coastal range out of existence. But to do so would exacerbate what was already a ticking time bomb along the coastal faults. The Juan de Fuca plate was already sticking where it submerged under the continental plate. That had held the local earthquakes to a minimum, but when it truly let go, seismologists predicted a quake of a magnitude nine or better.
That was ecological disaster the like of which ancient Indian tales told. Enough to wipe out most of coastal Washington and Oregon and much of the southwestern coast of Canada. The most heavily populated areas.
The question would be why?
She needed to get to the AGS. Not that she wanted to see Gleason or tell anyone about her suspicions. Not until she had something concrete, or Gleason would say she was more than a loose cannon: she was nuts and a fear-monger.
She checked her watch. She should be going, but if she just headed off to work, in all likelihood Fi would just disappear again; and Vallon didn’t want to have to go through an evening like this one again anytime soon.
“Fi, honey?”
Fi’s watered, wandering gaze finally settled on Vallon.
“I have to go to work. You’ll be safe here—at least as safe as anywhere else. Okay?”
Fi scanned the room, nodded.
“I just want you to promise me that you’ll stay here. I want my sister back. Okay?”
Fi met her gaze uncertainly. “Family?”
“Didn’t we always say we were better than blood?”
Slow smile. “I remember.”
“Well you hold onto that thought while I’m away tonight, okay?”
Slow nod as if it took untold concentration. God, what had happened to Fi? She’d always been at the top of the class with Vallon. That was what had made them both a formidable pair.
Fi had been athletic, brilliant, determined. When she’d left the Academy it had been a last, bright light pulled out of Vallon’s life.