“Well, yeah, you’ve got me there. I guess I do play it up. Tourists tip better if you have a little mystique about you.” She winked at the nurse, who smiled moonily back at her as she collected his cards and his bet.
“Reading minds wasn’t adequate?”
“It wouldn’t do me any good, dealing blackjack,” his mom pointed out. “The casino doesn’t want to cheat people, anyway. Our percent payback to customers is set by law. We could change the minds of the gaming commission, I suppose, but we make enough money without doing that, and we don’t want to get a bad rep with the gamblers. I’m just here to catch cheats and protect us all from troublemakers. Like the folks from the Res who just wandered through here, looking for you.”
Elijah leaned forward. “They want me?”
She shook her head, then realized what she’d done. She moved her head in a circle to pop her neck as if that’s what she’d intended all along, her hair zigzagging behind her shoulders with the motion. “A male mind reader—I doubt they’d be that stupid,” she said inside his brain. “A really powerful mind reader can get out from under a mind changer’s power if she lets up for even a second. That’s why a mind reader is always at the top of the heap at the Res. He wins the game of rock-paper-scissors.” She cocked her head to one side, considering him, turquoise earrings swinging. “No, they probably want you so they can get to Holly.”
“What for?”
As his mom danced her dealer’s dance, moving cards and chips around the table, she concentrated on the EXIT sign behind him, above the doors to the street. He realized she must be deliberately stopping him from reading her mind. As long as Holly’s fate wasn’t in the front of his mom’s mind, he couldn’t read it.
He was afraid he knew why. “Oh, no, no, no. We’re done with secrets. That’s why I’m here. What kind of place is the Res?”
She dealt a new hand. “Teenagers with power find it through the grapevine. They go there because they’ve had trouble fitting in on the outside. And once they get there, they can’t leave.”
Elijah swallowed. “Because they lock you up? Or do they give you Mentafixol?”
“Worse. They grab for power. They shift allegiances. They play mind games. They invade each other in every way imaginable.”
“It sounds like a cross between a cult and a pick-up bar.”
“Good analogy, except people with power don’t drink or do drugs. That would dull their power, and nothing feels better than power.”
“I don’t see what’s so awful about that,” he said.
“I don’t see what’s so awful about the Res,” she repeated, and even managed to convey sarcasm telepathically, like she couldn’t believe he’d said something that stupid.
Which really ticked him off. “What’s so awful about the Res, Mom? It’s bad enough that you keep all this from me for my whole life. You don’t have to act like I’m an idiot for wanting to know.” Impatiently he gave up listening to her. He looked as far into her mind as he could go.
“Don’t do that.” Ignoring the nurse’s signal to hit him again, she closed her eyes. Elijah felt her trying to make her mind go blank. But he’d already caught a glimpse of her blind fear. She opened her eyes and stared hard at the EXIT sign, deliberately clearing her mind so he wouldn’t see anything else.
“This is why I’ve always told you to keep your mouth shut about MAD and Mentafixol,” she told him. “Even mind readers can’t find you unless they’re close. But now they’re close.” She’d forgotten to concentrate on the EXIT sign. Her cold terror gripped Elijah again, stronger and more real than Holly’s hand around his throat.
“So, what do I do?” Elijah asked, tossing his useless cards back to her. “Bow before Kaylee and Mr. Diamond and pledge allegiance? Why can’t I just leave town?”
“Now that you have power,” his mom said, “you’ll be shocked how hard it is to get along out in the world without people thinking you’re insane.”
Judging from his experience of the past week, Elijah knew this wouldn’t shock him at all.
“You figure you can make a lot of money from this power,” she said. “What rich person on top of the world wouldn’t want a mind reader on their side? But those people would rather kill you than deal with you. It’s not that they want you for your power. They want other people not to have your power. They’re scared they won’t be able to control you. They want to be the ones with power, and if they can’t have it, no one can.” Ending that hand, she picked up a thick stack of chips from the holder at her side, the many dollars Elijah had lost over the past few minutes, and placed them in front of the nurse.
“Of course, you can’t be forced to join the casino,” she said. “But if you won’t join us, the casino won’t protect you. And in that case, by all means, get out of town before the Res finds you.”
“I guess that’s what I’ll do,” he said. “I need to find Holly first.”
“You can’t take her out of town with you.” Alarm swirled in his mom’s head.
“Why not?” Elijah asked, alarmed himself now, scared for Holly. “I can’t let the casino get her either.”
“That’s a decision she needs to make for herself. But if you take her out of town, she’ll be a lot more vulnerable to the Res. The Res makes that decision for you.”
Elijah should leave town, but Holly couldn’t? Their parents would keep them apart again? If that’s all the control they had over their own lives, they might as well have stayed in the ninth grade. He tapped his cards on the table in frustration.
His mother responded to that signal by dealing him another card, even though he’d intended to stand on that hand and she knew it.
He glared at her.
“Believe it,” his mom said. “There’s nobody at the Res older than twenty-five. They don’t last that long. Holly might get away eventually. I did. Kaylee did. But a lot of girls don’t. And even if Holly did get away from the Res, she’d be different. If you love her now, you wouldn’t love her then.” His mom concentrated on the EXIT sign.
“Mom,” he said. “Mom, what does that mean?”
“Think what fun they would have corrupting that sweet girl. It means keep her out of there.” Exit. Exit. Exit. Exit.
He had no choice, then. If leaving town would put Holly in more danger than staying, she would stay, and Elijah would stay with her. There was only the matter of finding her and convincing her to trust him again.
“Lady luck isn’t smiling on me today,” he said out loud, slipping off his stool. When his mom glanced up at him, he looked straight at her and thought, “I love you,” very clearly, so she would know he was saying it, not the nurse.
As he turned for the EXIT sign, he felt his mother’s message in his head: “I love you, too.” And then, when he was close to the front doors and almost out of range to read her: “Be sure you eat something.”
16
The moment Kaylee heard her office door burst open, instinctively she changed the intruder’s mind about changing her mind. Sure enough, the first person through the door was red-haired April, one eye closed against the headache Kaylee was giving her.
Carter came right behind her. “You don’t have her?” he asked April, eyes on Kaylee.
“We’re at a stalemate,” April murmured.
Kaylee knew how April felt. Neither of them could let go of the other. And neither of them could stay in this painful limbo for long. But she had more experience than April, and she knew the appearance of strength was almost as important as strength itself.
Then Nate pushed into the office, cowboy hat first. Kaylee’s will almost faltered. He was a mind changer himself, weaker than Kaylee or April, but he and April working on Kaylee together might just get through.
Kaylee couldn’t use up any space in her mind for that kind of thinking, and she couldn’t give away to mind-reading Carter how intimidated and outnumbered she felt. She held Nate off. She held April off.
As Violet slammed and locked the door behind all of them with her mi
nd, Kaylee called boldly, “Did Isaac send you? Too scared to face me himself?”
Violet called back, “We want Holly and Elijah. Give them to us and we’ll leave the casino alone. For a while.”
Not daring to take her eyes off April and Nate, Kaylee blindly felt in front of her until she touched Holly, who hadn’t spoken or moved a muscle. She seemed paralyzed with fear, plastered against the front of the desk. Kaylee gripped Holly’s arm and hurled at the intruders, “Go get Elijah yourselves if you can. Good luck with that. But you’re getting Holly over my dead body. And yours.” With her other hand she reached into her holster, pulled out her Beretta, and pointed it at April. “See if you can change my mind about this.”
“Don’t,” Holly whispered. “Let me.”
The chair Holly had been sitting in launched across the room and hit Violet in the chest, knocking her against the wall, her gauzy purple skirts a swirling riot.
“Let’s go,” Carter said quietly, offering a hand to help Violet up, watching Kaylee.
Violet waved off Carter’s hand.
Carter and April and Nate flattened themselves against the wooden paneling. Kaylee ducked behind her desk. People with power knew better than to come between two levitators in an argument.
The chair flew toward Holly. Score one for Violet. Suddenly it diverted to one side, tumbled over the end of the desk, and thudded to the carpet. Score one for Holly.
Violet rose into the air unaided. Toes barely brushing the ground, she pointed at Holly. “That’s twice, bitch. Third time’s the charm.”
Holly hurled the chair back at the intruders. Next she threw Kaylee’s desk chair. Papers. Pens. Kaylee’s computer screen and keyboard. All these objects seemed to bounce off a force field around the intruders as Violet protected them.
Violet opened the door behind her and hovered in the doorway. Carter slipped past her, then Nate. She and April exited at the same time, Violet shielding both of them from Holly’s wrath while April shielded them from Kaylee changing their minds. The last thing Kaylee saw was April’s cherry-red hair before the door slammed shut.
Holly had run out of loose objects to throw and was proceeding to remove the framed and autographed photos of Elvis and Sammy Davis Jr. from the walls when Kaylee popped up from behind her desk. “Stop! Coast is clear.” With a sigh of relief, she released her death-grip and reholstered her Beretta. Her fingers ached. Then her adrenaline spiked higher at the memory of what Violet had said to Holly. “What did Violet mean when she said this was twice?” Had Holly been to the Res already?
“They came after Elijah and me in Icarus,” Holly said.
“Oh, God.” Kaylee’s mind spun. Not many people had known where Holly and Elijah had gone. To get that information, the Res had read someone’s mind. Possibly her own. She turned once more to the bank of camera monitors. “Where did you go, you bastards?”
“Elijah!” Holly cried, rushing to the monitor where they’d seen him sit down at his mom’s table. But as they watched, he threw down his cards, nodded to his mom, and headed for the door. The Res hadn’t had time to reach him. He was safe. For now. Then a strange movement on a monitor caught Kaylee’s eye. “Oh, no.”
April walked unchallenged across the casino floor, clearing the way, followed by Nate in his cowboy hat, then Carter. Violet brought up the rear. It was hard to see exactly what she was doing because the cameras were mounted high in the ceiling, and the matchbooks were small. But Kaylee knew what Violet was doing. It was an age-old game at the Res. With her mind, Violet struck matches and raised them high to the luxurious draperies framing the arched doorways. The strange movement Kaylee had seen was flames.
The fire alarm clanged overhead.
Holly dashed for the door.
Kaylee made Holly think going out that door was not a good idea.
Holly stopped short in confusion. Then she whirled to face Kaylee, her brunette curls flying. Kaylee could tell from the outrage in Holly’s eyes, accentuated by the wild green eye shadow, that she’d figured out the mind-changing game. “Kaylee, not now!” she wailed over the clamor of the fire alarm. “The casino is on fire! All those people! Elijah’s mom is down there!”
Kaylee divided her mind into three compartments. In the first compartment, she maintained her hold on Holly. Holly would not go out that door.
In the second compartment, Kaylee played casino administrator. The sprinklers would put out the fire shortly. Extra curtains and lengths of carpet were rolled up in storage for an emergency such as this. She calculated how many minutes it would take to reopen the casino.
In the third compartment, she worried about the Res. The monitors showed the last of the gamblers hurrying toward the exits with their arms over their heads to shield themselves from the sprinkler shower. Security guards ushered them out. Elijah’s mom, Jasmine, gave the camera a thumbs-up, meaning she didn’t sense anyone with power on the casino floor. The Res was gone.
But they would be back. They’d already killed Mr. Diamond and set the curtains on fire. Next time would be worse. Kaylee wasn’t sure how many more assaults the casino could stand before their loose confederation of people with power started to fall apart.
And she had no idea how to stop it. She’d been away from the Res and Isaac a whole year, and he was still able to toy with her like a cat playing with a mouse before he killed her.
She ran her hands back through her hair, a nervous gesture she never allowed herself in public, as she surveyed the wreck Holly and Violet had made of her office. Kaylee would outmaneuver Isaac. She had to. But until she figured out how, all she could do was buy time.
She waved to the monitors showing the casino floor. “The fire is out,” she told Holly. “But I’ve got bigger problems. I’m putting you under house arrest until I solve them.”
“What!”
Just in case, Kaylee changed Holly’s mind about hurting her. At the door she put her hand on Holly’s bare arm. “People with power don’t like to have their minds changed. I understand that. I use it as a last resort. I’m in a difficult position right now. I hope someday you’ll forgive me.”
Holly didn’t say a word. She was a beautiful, disheveled, very angry showgirl at the center of Kaylee’s junkyard of an office, staring Kaylee down, trying to get out from under Kaylee’s spell and out the office door.
But she wouldn’t. At least Kaylee was confident in her own power. No matter what, she still had that.
She slipped out the door and closed and locked it behind her—not that this would stop Holly in the unlikely event she was able to escape Kaylee’s command. In that case, nothing would stop her. Kaylee simply didn’t want a hapless guard going in. He would be in trouble.
She emerged from the employee elevator onto the casino floor. The room reeked of smoke, but the air vents high overhead roared with double their usual force. All the doors had been thrown open to the bright summer day, with dealers stationed at them to prevent gamblers from coming in. Construction crews stood on ladders, removing the singed drapes, and janitors used industrial vacuum cleaners to suck up the water standing on the carpet. All was as it should be, if this were a normal casino, with normal employees, and normal arsonists. She pointed at Jasmine by the door, crooked her finger at her, and met her beside the barred cashier windows.
“There were four of them,” Jasmine reported. “I’ve sensed them here before. April, a mind changer, bright red hair like the young girls color it nowadays. Carter was a mind reader, Nate was a mind changer, and then there was a levitator. I didn’t catch her name because she was distracted, setting fire to the curtains.”
“Violet,” Kaylee said.
“You’ve met them,” Jasmine said, a statement rather than a question, because she could read Kaylee’s mind. “They were definitely from the Res and feeling like they need revenge for whatever happened up in your office.”
Jasmine had told Kaylee nothing she didn’t already know, but Kaylee touched Jasmine’s elbow. “Great job. I’m so
glad to have you down here.”
Jasmine’s proud smile was fleeting. The corners of her mouth sank into disappointment. “Tell me another. I’m too weak to be any help.”
“Not true.” Most of Kaylee’s staff couldn’t read minds, or do anything out of the ordinary besides take out a target at two hundred yards. “The Res wants Elijah and Holly. I’m trying to figure out what their plan might be, and I was hoping you could give me some insight.”
“Why are you asking me?” Jasmine snapped. “Isn’t Isaac in charge out there now? You were his girlfriend. I’ve never met him.”
“No,” Kaylee said, holding fast to her patience, “but you knew somebody like him. You knew Elijah’s father.”
It was a gamble to bring up Elijah’s dad to Jasmine, but Kaylee desperately needed this information. The gamble didn’t pay off. Instead of opening up, Jasmine closed down. She crossed her arms. “Why aren’t you asking Mr. Diamond?”
“Mr. Diamond is otherwise engaged,” Kaylee said.
“With something more important than Elijah?”
The afterlife? “Yes, absolutely.” Kaylee left it at that, both verbally and mentally, reinforcing the wall in her mind between what she let Jasmine see and what she couldn’t tell anyone.
Jasmine put one fingertip to her temple. She was giving herself a headache trying to read Kaylee. Finally she said, “If you want my help, why are you blocking me so hard? What is it you don’t want me to know?”
A movement in the corner of Kaylee’s eye caught her attention. She and Jasmine turned to watch a ladder topple over and clatter to the ground, leaving a man hanging from the blackened draperies while his coworkers scrambled underneath to catch him. So much for the casino running like a well-oiled machine.
Impatiently she turned back to Jasmine. “The Res is after your son. Are you going to help me or not?”
Jasmine huffed out a sigh. “Here’s my theory. Isaac’s decided he wants more than the Res. Maybe he wants the casino. Elijah’s father had that thought, but lots of young people were protecting the casino then, and Mr. Diamond wasn’t putting the kids on Mentafixol. We’ve all gotten old and weak, and Isaac knows it. He sent some scouts in to read our weaknesses. I’m surprised he didn’t assassinate a few people to scare us and make us cower.”