“You think this is so funny?” she snapped. Before she could say more, thunder rippled through the air.
People in the park glanced up and looked at each other with astonished faces. Some laughed with nervousness, but no one ran because there hadn’t been a tremor.
She scanned the lake for Cassandra. The boat was gone, and Morgan and Karyl were no longer sitting on the park bench. She checked the rest of the park. She didn’t see them, but in the commotion they could have seen her and hidden. If they were doing something for the Atrox, they wouldn’t want her to know about it.
“Doesn’t seem like a quake to me,” Collin said beside her.
She couldn’t forget her anger that quickly. “Why’d you stay and mess with those ’hood rats?”
Her anger took him by surprise. “What do you mean mess with them? They accosted me.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “You should have gotten the hell out. You think you can face down a gang of little punks? They get out of control and have to show the others that they got what it takes even if they don’t. It’s like these punks can’t wait to build a big reputation so everyone will know their name.”
“Is that what you did?”
That caught her by surprise.
“Yeah,” she whispered in a hoarse voice that seemed to travel over all the memories of the things she had done. She gathered her books from the front seat of his van.
His eyes had a new look for her. Was it pity, embarrassment, or understanding? She pretended not to see, and went on, “Maybe one of them even had a gun.” She turned and started walking toward her grandmother’s apartment. “Why am I wasting my time? You’ve had a nice easy life, so there’s no way you can understand.”
“And you don’t understand my philosophy.” He walked along beside her.
She glanced up at him. “Your what?”
“No fear,” he whispered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If I had given in and run like you’d wanted me to, then fear would have taken hold inside me.” He shrugged. “Then it starts to grow until you’re afraid of every little kid who comes up to you dressed like a gangster.”
“Maybe you should be afraid of those little kids.” She held her books tight against her chest.
He shook his head. “Once you’re afraid of something, you attract it into your life. I know.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Yeah, you try to avoid it,” he explained.
“And you try to get away from it, and because you’re trying so hard, you’re always concentrating on it, and the more you concentrate on it, the more you pull it into your life.”
She looked at him and wondered what he had feared that had made him develop such an odd philosophy. He seemed to read her thoughts.
“When I was younger my mother kept threatening to leave us.” He looked away from her then. “I was afraid she would. The fear became huge inside me. Every day I ran home from school. Every day I cleaned my room. All I could think of was her leaving. I tried everything I could to make her stay, and then she left. That’s when I decided to stop being afraid.”
“You were just a kid then.”
“So was Serena,” he added. “But I knew from that day that fear is a wasted emotion. It never stops anything bad from happening.”
“Do you know where your mother is?” Jimena asked quietly.
He shook his head. “Who cares? That was more than ten years ago.” But she knew from the tone of his voice that he did care.
She stopped at the walk that led up to her grandmother’s apartment building. “I don’t know where my mother is either.”
He glanced down at her.
“She never threatened to leave,” Jimena added. “One day she was just gone. Drugs made her go.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“My grandmother told me that some people can’t overcome their addictions and they should be pitied and prayed for and loved all the more—”
He interrupted her. “But you can’t forgive her?”
She nodded. “It’s worse than that. Even now, if I think about her, I can’t remember her face. I only see the photographs my grandmother has shown me and instead of remembering the time I spent with her, I remember the stories my grandmother has given me to go with the photos.”
“At least you had a reason for her leaving.” Collin didn’t seem to be speaking to her but to himself. “I wish I knew why mine left.”
“Did your dad ever tell you?”
He laughed, but it was a dry unhappy sound. “Yeah, he said she wanted to be a movie star.”
He walked her slowly up to the steps between the two cement lions. He stopped her before she put the key in the lock.
“That wasn’t fair what I said, about how at least you know why your mother left. It had to hurt as badly as mine leaving.” He touched her hand. It surprised her and brought on a premonition so strong that she uttered a small cry and fell back off the step.
He caught her arm. “What?” he asked. “Are you okay? Why are you looking at me so strangely?”
She had seen herself kissing Collin. And it hadn’t been a brotherly peck on the cheek. The kiss was long and passionate. She brushed her fingers across her lips. Collin? Why would she ever kiss Collin?
“Sorry,” she said and fumbled with the key. It kept sliding across the lock. “I don’t know what came over me.”
He took the key from her, inserted it into the lock, turned the knob, and handed the key back to her. “Maybe it hurt too much to talk about your mother.”
She started to go inside. “No, that was okay. Sometimes it’s good to talk about the bad things. It makes them hurt less.”
He nodded and she closed the door, then stood to the side, and watched him walk back to his van.
She needed to see Maggie. Something had to be wrong with her power. First she had seen Cassandra with Veto and she wasn’t even sure if Veto was alive or dead. And now she had a premonition of kissing Collin, her best friend’s brother. She supposed it was possible for her power to mess up. It had happened once when she had a head cold and lost her hearing and sense of smell. Maybe standing in the rain had given her some kind of illness that had affected her.
This was definitely an emergency. She turned abruptly and ran up the stairs to her grandmother’s apartment. She felt too impatient to wait for the elevator.
She unlocked the door, dropped her books on the floor, and picked up the phone. She had just started to dial when someone grabbed her from behind. She turned around, swinging.
CHAPTER SEVEN
VETO STOOD BEHIND HER, holding his jaw. “You hit hard,” he teased.
“Veto! You scared me to death.” She wanted to be angry with him but she felt too happy to see him. “How did you get in here, anyway?”
“The kitchen window.” He handed her a single red rose.
She took it, sniffed the sweet fragrance, and made a mental note to nail the window shut.
She tilted her head in a flirty way and looked Veto up and down.
He wore a black leather jacket over a plaid button-up shirt and khakis. A gold earring glistened in his ear and he had gotten a haircut. He smiled as if he knew she was admiring the way he looked.
“I couldn’t meet you at school.” He touched her chin lightly. “I had things to do.”
She rolled her eyes. “What else is new?”
He took her hand and pulled her toward the door. “But now I have time. Come on. This is the first time it hasn’t been raining. Let’s go to the park so I can tell you everything.”
“Everything?” She looked up at him, expectant.
“Yeah,” he said as he opened the door. “Todo—and I’ll answer all your questions too.”
She set the rose down and grabbed her keys.
As they walked toward the park, Jimena felt as if a terrible worry were being lifted from her shoulders. People smiled at Veto and said hello. Three little boys r
an up to him and asked if he wanted to buy candy bars for their Little League. There was no doubt in her mind now that he was real. She leaned against him as they walked down the crowded street. She wondered how she could have ever thought he was a ghost.
“When are you going to tell me?” she murmured.
“Soon,” he promised. “Wait till we get to the park. Right now I can’t get enough of this sunshine.”
“I know.” She lifted her face to the sun and enjoyed its warmth.
Children in bathing suits and shorts jumped in the rain puddles that shimmered gold.
They crossed the street through the grid-locked rush-hour traffic and entered the park. A tecato drifted toward them, his heroin-thin bony hand shaking a cup at them. His few begged coins rattled at the bottom.
Veto stared at the addict, then shook his head sadly. His reaction surprised Jimena. In the old days he might have yelled at or lectured the man.
Jimena turned and looked up at Veto. There was something different about him but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
A woman wrapped in a rebozo sat on a beach chair with a bag of mangoes between her feet. Veto handed her a dollar. She took a knife, cut the mango into six easy slices, dropped the slippery yellow pieces into a sandwich bag, and handed it to Veto.
He gave one to Jimena and took one himself.
Veto took a bite and the juice ran down his chin. He didn’t try to wipe it away but closed his eyes and held his face up to the sun. “This is heaven, you know. Sunshine and mango and you.” His eyes opened and he looked at her in a strange way as if he were trying to memorize every thing about her.
“Kiss me,” he whispered.
She leaned over and kissed his sweet lips.
“Let’s go watch the old men play chess.” He took a handkerchief from his back pocket, wiped his hands, and gave the hankie to Jimena. She wiped the sticky juice from her hands and face.
Veto took her hand and pulled her to the corner of the park where the old men had set up chairs and tables. They were hunched over, concentrating on the checkered boards. In the old days Veto liked to come here and watch the men play and then whisper their mistakes into Jimena’s ear.
They stood behind an old man wearing a tandito and Stacy Adams shoes. His tattooed hand hovered over the castle. Age had blurred the letters written in his skin.
Veto studied the board.
Jimena felt a change in her moon amulet and looked up. Her breath caught. Karyl and Morgan were five feet away, their backs to her. They apparently hadn’t sensed her presence because they were concentrating on the lake. Were they waiting for Cassandra? She shielded her hands against the glare on the water. The geyserlike fountain in the center continued spraying water, but she didn’t see any paddleboats. The pedalo boat ride looked closed.
“Oye,” Jimena whispered to the old man with his hand on the chess piece. “When do the boat rides open?”
The old man looked up at her, annoyed.
“Domingo, solamente domingo.” He looked back at the chessboard.
“You want to go for a ride?” Veto asked. “The boat rides are only open on Sunday, but I can steal one.”
Had Cassandra stolen a paddleboat?
She glanced back at Karyl and Morgan. She didn’t need a premonition to know they were up to something bad. Her moon amulet vibrated against her chest in warning.
Veto could always read her emotions. Already he was scanning the park, trying to see what she saw. He put his arm around her and pulled her closer to him. “What? You see something? Wilshire 5?”
“I don’t bang hard anymore. It’s something else. You wouldn’t understand.” She caught the look on his face. He didn’t like being excluded from her thoughts.
“Dime. Tell me.”
The two men playing checkers sensed the command in Veto’s voice and looked up.
“Nothing.” She tried to make her voice sound carefree. “I’m just getting a headache maybe from all the sun.”
Veto recognized the lie. “La verdad, Jaguar. Tell me the truth. I’ve seen too much now for you to keep anything from me. Ojalá, more than you’ll ever have to deal with or see.” His eyes looked tired now. “Anything that’s bothering you, you can tell me.”
“I see some people I don’t like.” That was true, even though it wasn’t the complete truth.
“If they give you trouble, I’ll take care of them,” he promised. “You know I will.”
“This is a different kind of trouble,” she whispered, her voice low with warning.
“No hay nada I can’t handle.” He spoke it like a solemn oath.
She nodded. There had been a time when that was true. Was it still? Could he help her find out why Karyl and Morgan were waiting by the lake? Maybe he could go over and talk to them, distract them while she had a chance to get in closer, and see if they were doing anything. But that was too dangerous. She would never risk Veto.
“So forget about them,” Veto nudged her. “You’re safe with me. Come on. I have important things I want to tell you. Let’s go sit on a bench.”
She started to follow him when thunder roared from the ground like a diesel truck bearing down on them at full speed. The ground shook and the vibrations traveled up her leg and through her back.
Veto grabbed Jimena and held her tightly against him.
All around them pandemonium broke loose. People ran away from trees, cars, and buildings, fearing this tremor might be the prelude to the big one.
Jimena glanced at Karyl and Morgan. They weren’t running like the others. They stood and slowly walked to the edge of the lake. They were smiling as if the earth tremors had somehow made them happy.
The earth stopped shaking, but her heart was still beating wildly.
The water in the lake lapped at the sides and spilled over onto the asphalt path.
People laughed nervously. The two old men were picking up chess pieces and returning them to their chessboard.
“Ha, you’d do anything to get out of a losing match,” the man in the tandito teased his friend.
The other old man smiled and picked up a knight from the dust.
Jimena remember how Veto had become so frightened before when he heard the earthquake thunder. She glanced up at him. He didn’t seem afraid this time. She started to ask him why, but stopped.
The afternoon suddenly collapsed around her and she was filled with a cruel sense of déjà vu. Veto was standing exactly as he had stood in her premonition. She swirled around looking for Cassandra, afraid she was suddenly going to appear.
She shuddered. “Leave, Veto.”
He looked confused. “I wanted to explain things to you.”
She shook her head. “Go.” The memory of Cassandra reaching for Veto closed in tight and she started to tremble.
“What?” Veto asked with true concern. “What’s wrong?”
Everything seemed to move in slow motion around her as utter panic took hold. She looked behind her. How could she tell Veto about the premonition and make him understand how dangerous Cassandra was? Even if she could explain who Cassandra was, Veto would want to stay and fight.
She started to speak but her mouth felt too dry and she had to clear her throat first. “Things around here aren’t the same as you remember them. There are other dangers.”
He looked at her oddly, but he was still standing as he had been in her premonition.
Why wouldn’t he go? Or at least, move. She shoved him hard, and still he didn’t move.
“Jimena?” He reached out for her, filling her with an absolute sense of doom.
She felt suddenly trapped in a horrible dark hole even though she was standing in full sunlight. The sun now felt cold on her skin. She heard the stealthy snap of a footstep behind her and turned quickly. It was only a child trying to sneak up on a pigeon. She looked back at Veto.
“Veto, if you ever liked me, just do it. Just go. Please.”
He took slow easy steps backward spreading his arms. ?
??Ya me voy, all right? I’m going.” He paused. “Where do you go with your friends?”
“What do you mean?” she said in a dry voice.
“Where do you hang out?” he continued as he took impossibly slow strides away from her. “Tell me so I can come see you.”
“Friday night I’ll be at Planet Bang.”
“I’ll see you there.”
She nodded.
Jimena watched Veto run from her with a sigh of relief. He was far from her now, and she felt that he was safe again.
At last, she looked back at the lake. Karyl and Morgan were gone now. She scanned the park, but she didn’t see them anywhere.
The sun was low on the horizon when she finally walked back to her grandmother’s apartment. She was going to call Maggie right away.
Jimena had picked up the phone and started to dial Maggie when someone knocked on the door.
She went to answer it. As soon as she opened the door, Serena, Vanessa, and Catty rushed inside with worried looks. Serena’s tongue stud clicked nervously against her teeth.
“What?” Jimena looked from one to the other. She couldn’t tell if they were angry or frightened or both.
Vanessa spoke first. “Tell Jimena what you told us.”
Serena cleared her throat. “Stanton gave me a warning.”
Catty kicked off her clogs and paced in chunky-striped socks that crawled up her pink tights. “I still don’t understand why he would tell you. It has to be a set-up.”
“Let her speak,” Jimena broke in.
Serena stretched on the couch and cuddled a pillow.
“Because,” Vanessa started to explain. “He uses us whenever someone threatens his position. I believe him. This isn’t the first time he’s told us something.”
Catty walked over to the couch and fell on it. “I don’t trust him.”
“Tell Jimena,” Vanessa coaxed Serena. “She can make up her own mind.”
Serena began slowly, “Stanton told me that Cassandra has suddenly become favored by the most powerful Atrox Followers, the Cincti.”
“Cincti?” Jimena translated the Latin. “Encircled? I don’t understand.”
“Cincti is what Followers call members of the Inner Circle,” Serena explained.