“And then the next year your family moved closer to the university,” I muttered.
“Right. Dad was teaching, doing lab research, and working on getting yet another Masters degree. Mom figured if we lived closer to the campus and he had a shorter commute, we might get to see him more.”
So that was it, the answer to the big mystery of why I’d lost my best friend. Because Tarah had seen my Clann abilities starting to develop and had talked about it with her dad.
“And then you became friends with the outcasts.”
“Sure, why not? Back then, they were just regular kids like me, and unlike all the other kids in my class, they never teased me about running off into the woods with the Shepherd boys. And becoming friends with a bunch of people got my mom off my back.”
“I guess she never thought you’d end up getting arrested because of them, huh?”
“It’s actually the other way around, Hayden. My friends got arrested because of me. If I'd never seen you levitating, I wouldn't have gotten so obsessed with magic, we never would have ended up having all those weekly meetings in the woods to try and develop our own abilities, and maybe they wouldn’t have learned how to throw fireballs and energy orbs and make it rain on command and stuff. But they did. They discovered their Clann abilities because of me. And even if they hadn’t gotten arrested, they still would be in constant danger because of me. There were so many times that we nearly blew ourselves up while they tried to learn how to control their magic.”
She looked at me then, her eyes big and soft. “That’s why I’m telling you I know how out of control these abilities can get, and how easily accidents can happen with them, and how guilty you can feel afterwards about it. Because I’ve been there. I’ve seen it happen. And if anyone in our group had ever gotten hurt, in the end it would have been my fault. We were being really stupid messing around with stuff we had no understanding of.”
She was tempting me to open up about what happened to Damon and the others. And part of me wanted to give in. I was tired of having secrets between us.
Except every time I looked at her, I remembered the way she’d smiled at me when first waking up at the internment camp. That dazzled look in her eyes, that smile, had made me feel like I was her hero.
It was easy for her to claim to be understanding now while the past was just a bunch of crazy rumors for her. But once I told her everything, how could she not look at me differently? I wouldn’t be Hayden the savior of an entire internment camp to her anymore. I would become Hayden the Screwup.
I knew it was selfish. But for just a few more hours, I wanted her to keep looking at me like I was special for a good reason for a change.
When I didn’t speak, she continued, the corners of her mouth turned down slightly. “Anyways, experimenting with the outcasts in the woods might not have helped me find any special abilities of my own like you guys have, but it did help me in a lot of other ways.”
“Like how?”
“Well, just how many journalists out there can say they helped found a new outcast group and got to be a part of it for years way before the internment camps were ever even created? Or got to help break out an entire prison camp full of Clann people? I've even got video evidence of what we saw in that camp. This is history in the making, Hayden. And we didn't just get front row seats for it. We're actually right up on stage with everybody else."
Yeah, getting thrown into prison and now running from the law just like everybody else. I shook my head in disbelief. "Tarah, your entire life has been wrecked because of all of this."
"No, I found my future because of it. Thanks to all of this, I finally figured out that I want to become a journalist like Jeremy. If not for going through all of this, I might never have realized that, or maybe I would have, but I never would have found the courage to actually go for it. Now? This story is practically writing itself for me. All I have to do is see it through to the end."
She was delusional.
My hand and forearm were getting tired holding the wheel. Forgetting about my hurt shoulder, I tried to switch hands on the steering wheel and cursed under my breath from the resulting pain.
"Shoulder hurting?" she asked.
I nodded. "Too bad I can't just hit it with a spell to heal it up fully or something."
"Do you know how to heal like Pamela?"
I shook my head. "To be honest, I never really got to train with my abilities much. Damon and I had just started before he died."
"Hmm. You'd think the Clann would have some spellbooks or something. I wonder how the descendants still in the Clann train their kids when their abilities start showing up?"
"Actually, they do have spellbooks." I told her about the bookstore where her father had gotten arrested.
Her eyes grew wider and rounder the more I told her about the magical items hidden in the back storage room. "Is it dorky of me that I really wish I had one of those wands now?" she asked.
I grinned. "Well if it is, then you can call me a dork too. I was actually kinda jealous of the descendant kids when I heard about them. The store owner said we're too old for wands, though. Apparently only twelve and thirteen year olds get to use them."
"So did you get to buy anything?"
"Yeah. I got a spellbook. It's in the backseat." Which reminded me... "Hey, do you want to check it for a healing—"
But she was already diving over the backseat. "What does it look like?"
“Uh, like a history book.”
Papers rustled as she dug through the crap in the backseat. “Got it!” She sat back in her seat with a huff, pulled her seatbelt back on, then flipped through the book with a frown. “Hayden, you got robbed. It really is a history book.”
“No it’s not. Hold it closer to me.” When she did, I murmured, “Revelattio.”
The book’s cover and contents changed, making Tarah gasp, “Holy crap.”
“Yeah, that’s about what I said the first time too.”
She started flipping through the pages. “Whoa. This has some seriously deep stuff!”
“Anything on healing?”
“Um...” She quickly flipped through the pages, the sound of the paper pages crackling in the quiet cab. “Yep, here’s a whole section on it.”
“Want to read it to me?”
“Right now?”
“Why not?”
“But you said you just got this book, and Damon and you didn't get a chance to train together long, either. Which makes you pretty much a beginner, I'm guessing." She flipped through the spells again, her frown deepening.
"Yeah, so what's your point?"
"My point is I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to learn these kinds of lessons in order so each lesson can build on the one before it."
“Tarah, what part of this little road trip we’re on says I’m a huge fan of following the rules right now?”
One corner of her mouth kicked up into a reluctant smile. "Point taken."
While she read the directions, I gingerly switched to steering with my bad arm, freeing my good hand to apply the spell on my wounded shoulder.
Nothing happened.
“Did you read it right?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I read every word in this section. But you obviously weren't listening. You can’t heal yourself, dummie.”
“Why not?” Seriously, what was the point of being a descendant from the Clann if I couldn’t even fix myself?
“Because it doesn’t work like that. It says when you heal someone, you take a little of their pain into yourself, and you give them a lot of your energy in return. If you try to do it on yourself, there’s nowhere for the pain to go and no fresh energy coming in to heal you.”
I scowled at the road ahead of us. “Huh. Well, what else has it got?”
“Nope. I’m not reading anything else from this book unless you agree to do the lessons in order.”
“But—“
“Nu uh. I’m serious here, Hayden. You can’t
mess around with magic. If you do, bad things can happen. It’s like playing scientist with acid and other dangerous chemicals and having no clue what you’re doing or how to stay safe.”
“Oh come on. I don’t need to know the whole book. Let’s just pick out a few spells—“
“No. I am not letting you blow us up or turn us into chickens or something! Either do it right or not at all.”
“Chickens?” I snorted.
I glanced at her to see if she was serious. Yep, she was serious, judging by the mulish set of that chin and lower lip.
That lower lip that I really wanted to kiss right now.
I sighed. “Fine. Start at the beginning, I guess.”
Smirking in victory, she flipped to the first chapter then started reading.
CHAPTER 11
The girl should’ve considered a career in the military, because she drilled me harder on those spell basics than any drill seargeant ever could have. My hands began to ache as I practiced making various spells’ gestures over and over until she was satisfied they matched the book’s illustrations. Only then would she teach me the words to think or say that would complete each spell.
I didn’t feel like I was learning all that much. But then I discovered I didn’t really care as long as she kept reading to me. Her voice had changed since we were kids. Even back then, her voice had never been very high or squeaky. But now it had a husky yet honey smooth richness to it. I liked hearing it enough that she could have been reading a cookbook to me for all I probably would have cared.
It wasn’t until she shivered two hours later that I noticed how much time had passed and that the sun had dropped to just above the treetops. As the sun set and we continued straight north, the temperature both outside and inside the truck’s cab had also begun to drop.
I switched to driving with my left hand, bracing it against my thigh for support, so I could turn on the heater with my right. And then I froze.
“Hayden? Are you okay?”
I barely heard her, my mind racing. If it was getting cold inside my enclosed truck, what did it feel like under those canvas top trucks behind us? They’d grabbed wool blankets from the camp for everyone to share. But it still couldn’t be comfortable for them. Most of them didn’t even have on coats because they’d been grabbed from their homes and taken straight to the camp. The only ones with coats were the few who had been taken as they’d arrived home from work and school, or the outcasts who had been grabbed from the woods behind my house along with Tarah. Not to mention, they would all need food and water and bathroom breaks.
I checked the GPS. Still eight hours to go till we reached the safety of Sioux Falls and Grandma Letty’s, and it was only going to get colder as night fell and we traveled farther north. I swore under my breath.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“It’s getting cold. They’ve got blankets, but they’ll need more. Not to mention more food and water and bathroom breaks. And those trucks have to be missed by now. We’ve got to stop somewhere, get some supplies and different transportation.”
She reached for the GPS unit and started tapping at its screen. "If you take the next exit, they've got a Wal-Mart and a bookstore with free WiFi."
"Okay." I threw an early blinker in warning before taking the exit. The military trucks followed. At the stop sign, Tarah told me to turn left.
Two miles down the road as promised, we crested a hill and discovered the town below with a Wal-mart and a bookstore in front of it. Once we were parked, I grabbed my laptop from the backseat and flipped it open.
"What are you doing?" she asked, staring at the laptop with wide eyes. "Can't they track us through that thing if you turn it on?"
"Probably. But they also could have tracked us through that GPS unit if they'd wanted to."
Her eyes widened even more. "Then why haven't they found us already? Isn't your dad looking for you?"
I didn't hesitate before shaking my head. "If that internment camp does have any proof that I was involved in the prison break, he's already pulled strings to get my name cleared of it. The last thing he'll ever allow is for his name to be linked to something like that." I started booting up the computer then handed it to her. “Would you mind looking up a local place to rent a bus of some kind? One that’s big enough for everybody to ride in together?”
She gave me a strange look I couldn't read, but her fingers began to fly across the keys without any further argument. “Sure. You want a school bus or a charter bus? A charter would have a bathroom on board so we wouldn’t have to stop as much.”
“Good thinking. Okay, let’s try for a charter if we can find one. Don’t worry about the cost.” When her gaze darted over to me, her eyebrows sky high, I smiled. “We’re packing Mom’s business plastic. No daily spending limits, and only Mom sees the bills.”
She frowned, opened her mouth as if to argue, then ducked her head and focused on the laptop’s screen instead. Her fingers began to fly across the keys. “I should have something for us in a few minutes. In the meantime, what will you be doing?”
“Shopping. I’ll be back in a few.” Her head popped up in surprise as I shut the driver side door.
I stopped by each of the trucks to explain the new plan. The kids all grinned with relief and excitement; the parents looked cautious, as if afraid to even hope. I knew how they felt. I also suggested they split up into small groups of two or three at a time to go to the nearby gas stations’ bathrooms so they wouldn’t be as noticeable. We could only hope no one would pay as much attention in the growing darkness to a few people climbing out of two military trucks behind a huge bookstore.
But in case anyone did, I got the shopping done as fast as the superstore’s size and my list would allow. By the time I made it out of Wal-Mart, my cart was loaded down. But I was worried pushing the cart all the way to my truck at the farthest edge of the parking lot might attract the attention of security watching on the store’s cameras. So I looped my hands through the huge haul of plastic handles, left the buggy at the nearest cart collection area, and hoofed it like an overloaded mule back to the trucks.
When I passed everything out to the group, though, it was worth it. Everyone acted like it was Christmas, their faces lighting up at the sight of the cases of bottled water, bags of apples and oranges, PB&J supplies, and coloring books and crayons for the kids.
Tarah joined me just as I got to the last items in the pile…unscented boxes of baby wipes.
Her raised eyebrows prompted me to explain. “My mother always carries these in her purse. I figured they could use them too. You know, to clean up with after they eat the fruit or PB&J or whatever.” Embarrassed, I ducked my head and focused on passing the plastic boxes to the mothers in the group.
When I snuck a glance at Tarah a few minutes later, she was staring at me with a strange smile.
Once everyone was busy with their new stuff, I handed Tarah one of the two disposable phones I’d picked up at the store to replace our old ones in case hers was being tracked.
Then I leaned in close and quietly asked her, “Any luck with the buses? Or should I go buy more blankets now?”
“I found a place one town over that rents charter buses and is open on Sundays. Their buses aren’t fancy, no DVD players or high tech stuff on board, but they come with bathrooms and plenty of seating for everyone. They’re open till eight tonight.”
I glanced at my watch. Six-thirty. “Okay, I’d better head over there now.”
She held out a slip of paper between two fingers. “I wrote down the address.”
“Thanks.” I shoved it into my front pocket, then hesitated. “I guess you’d better wait here with them till I get back. You know, in case your face is on a government most wanted list or something.” I tried to make a joke out of it to lighten the mood, but my stomach was knotting up. I didn’t like leaving her here. But the Most Wanted list was a real possibility. “Maybe you should come with me anyway. You could always lie down out of s
ight in the backseat while I’m inside renting the bus.”
She smiled. “Yeah, I could if you didn't keep so much crap back there.”
“I could move some stuff around to make room for you.” I acted like I was offering to do her a huge favor, knowing it would make her keep smiling.
She did one better and actually laughed. “Gee, thanks. But I think I’d better stay. You never know, they might need someone to keep them calm or something while you’re gone. Plus I should charge up and activate our new phones.”
Everyone had looked pretty tense, though the supplies had at least given them something to do and a way to get some decent food in their stomachs. And Tarah was right. Maybe with her here to keep everyone calm, we wouldn’t have a repeat of the gas station incident in Oklahoma.
Wishing I hadn’t remembered that, I hesitated, staring at the khaki colored trucks. Would Steve be able to keep cool for an hour or two? If he didn’t, would Tarah be able to stop him from doing something else stupid?
“Quit worrying,” she murmured. “We’ll be fine.”
“Who said I was worried?” I’d forgotten how easily she used to be able to read me. Apparently she hadn’t lost the ability despite the long break in our friendship.
“Hey, did I hear you’re going to rent a bus now?”
Steve had gotten out of the cab of one of the trucks and was headed our way. At the sound of his voice, the healer Pamela poked her head through the truck’s flap. Below her, a miniature version of her also looked out past the flap, the little girl’s matching blonde hair a tangled mess of curls. Her dad reached up to ruffle her hair, making the girl’s solemn face break into the briefest of smiles.
“Yeah,” I answered Steve, cautious now. “Tarah found a rental place one town over. I should be back in about an hour with a charter bus.”
Steve frowned. “Not without a legal driver, you won’t. You’re what…seventeen?”
My shoulders stiffened. “Eighteen.”
“Yeah? Well, you’ve gotta be at least twenty-five to rent even a regular car. I’m sure the same applies for renting a bus.”