"Is that your real name?" Casey asked.
"Huh?" asked Jet.
"Jet, is that your real name? I thought I heard my mom call you something else."
"Oh," Jet said, as he watched Windows load. "My parents introduce me as JT, but I'm Jet to my friends." All zero of them.
Apparently that was all the invitation Casey had needed, because a couple days later, on the weekend, Casey had showed up at Jet's house. Jet was in the living room, playing Nintendo, but he heard Casey at the door, asking for JT.
Jet's mother sounded a bit surprised, but she showed Casey in, and said "Casey's here to see you, isn't that nice?" She gave him a smile that said be nice to the poor chap.
"Thanks, Mum," said Jet. His English mother was the reason they were back in England – they'd always come during summer vacations, and sometimes for Christmas, but they'd been living in the US for his father's work for most of Jet's life. His mother had put up with it for sixteen years, but she had longed to return to her country of origin, so finally his father had found employment over here in gloomy, rainy England, and here they were. They'd arrived in the fall, just in time for Jet to celebrate his fourteenth birthday in an unfamiliar house without any friends. On his first day of school he'd been hyper-aware that he was an early bloomer when it came to puberty; he already stood around 5'11" and if his father was any indication, he still had room to grow. He'd been so nervous about the complete upturn in his life that he had a panic attack his first day and spent most of it in the nurse's office. After that no one wanted to talk to him. He knew his mother felt a little bit guilty about his loneliness, but Jet wished she wouldn't – it wasn't her fault that he was a total failure at social interaction.
It was on Casey's third Saturday at Jet's house, after days of barely speaking, other than affirming Jet's choice of entertainment for the afternoon – sometimes video games, sometimes old recorded episodes of Doctor Who – when Casey said "I can read minds."
At first, Jet figured Casey was just bored, and looking for something to say, and he went back to looking at the television.
But then, Casey added, "You're thinking about her – Ace – you think she's pretty."
While Jet did agree that there was something attractive about Sophie Aldred's character and the way she readily exploded things, this was something he had never shared. He sat up and narrowed his eyes at Casey, and then focused. Five times seven, he thought, arbitrarily.
"Forty," Casey blurted. "No, wait, thirty-five. I'm really rubbish at maths."
Ignoring that someone Casey's age should at least know basic multiplication, Jet leaned away. "So you can read anything?"
"Not exactly," Casey said. "It's more like, if you're thinking something hard, or having emotions about it. I still haven't figured out what JT Stands for."
"And you won't if I have anything to do with it," Jet said. He hated his real name, and was a bit grumpy at Casey for discovering his pseudo-crush on Ace, but at least that wasn't anything serious, and Jet had always loved the idea of special powers. He'd always wanted his own, but if that wasn't happening, maybe he could at least hang out with Casey and observe.
"I don't really care about it anyway," Casey said. "But yeah – it's only if you're thinking at me, or feeling strongly about something. Like, you seemed pretty worried that I'd find out you were cleaning porn off our computer. But I already know. God, the popups that come up thanks to the stuff my dad looks at. My mum thinks that's just how the internet is, so she doesn't let me get on, so I use it at night after she goes to sleep. Once she takes her pill an earthquake wouldn't wake her." Usually Casey spoke in sentences of four words or fewer, so to hear him go on like this was new.
"Well, that's the way," Jet said, whose parents had often banned him from the computer when he was younger. "Sneak on." He generally didn't have to anymore. The world was coming around to the idea that computers were useful for homework and things like that.
"Yeah," said Casey, who then launched into a long description of the websites he liked to visit, which included picture stories of Mr. T beating up popular cartoon characters, and similarly edited images of massacred Teletubbies.
All this from getting a secret off his chest, Jet reflected. But at the same time, Casey was grinning, and Jet knew he must really be happy to have shared his secret with someone. Since that day, even though Casey could be a little annoying, Jet found he didn't mind having him around, even though his sister began to mock him mercilessly about his little friend.
It was March 17, a Friday night, and Jet's father was working late, and his mother and sister were out of town for a few days because of one of Violet’s musical recitals. Jet and Casey had decided tonight was the perfect night to marathon the Star Wars trilogy. They’d popped a few tubs of microwave popcorn, acquired several bags of potato chips, and Casey, whose mum had a sweet tooth, had brought over a grocery bag full of Jaffa Cakes and Jammie Dodgers. Jet had also put a couple of TV dinners in the oven; his parents had the uncanny ability to tell when he hadn’t eaten any vegetables, so the corn and broccoli in the frozen meals ought to do it.
They were thirty minutes into the second film when Jet noticed that Casey was rubbing his temples an awful lot, and frowning.
"You have a headache, Case?" he asked.
"A little," Casey said. "I guess. I’m not sure what it is." He scrunched up his nose and brow and scowled. "It's like something thumping."
"You want some ibuprofen?" Jet asked.
Casey continued to massage his temples for a minute before he responded. "Okay."
Jet stretched, then stood up and shuffled into the kitchen. The tile floor chilled his feet through his socks. They'd left the kitchen dark, with a pile of dishes in the sink and a couple of half-eaten TV dinners stacked next to it. Jet knew his mum would hate that, but she wouldn't be back for days, and if his dad wasn't home by now, he wouldn't be home all evening. He glanced up at the microwave, where the green glow of the digital clock read 21:59.
Jet filled a glass with cool water, then found the painkillers and took two small pills from the little plastic jar. Just as he was replacing the pills in the cabinet, he heard Casey grunt from the living room.
"Case?" Jet called, and ran quickly back to the living room. Casey was lying on the couch, clutching his left side with one hand and his head with the other.
"Ow, ow, ow," he moaned.
"What is it?" Jet asked. Was the appendix on the left side? Appendicitis wouldn't just happen out of the blue, right? Casey would have felt something beforehand. But would he have said something? Jet didn't know him that well yet.
He went to his friend's side and extended the water and pills, but Casey, still doubled-up, ignored him. "It huuuurts."
"What can I do?" Jet asked, now desperate.
"I don't know, it's just..." Casey said, and then blinked.
Jet held out the water and pills again, but again Casey didn't take them. He sat very still for a few moments.
"Case?" Jet asked, once more.
"I think I'm all right, it's just..." Casey began. And then Casey gasped, his pupils tightened, there was a rush of air, and Casey vanished from the couch.
Jet dropped the water glass onto the floor.
* * *
Location Unknown
Two warm hands pressed against Matty's torn-up side. He gasped, shocked at the pain, but equally shocked that he was still quite alive. He touched his side, and found it intact. In fact, nothing hurt anymore... he was just cold. He was cold because he was lying on concrete. Matty's eyes were closed, and he left them that way as the rest of his senses came back to him.
There were so many questions he might have asked. Did you heal me? came to mind, as did Where am I? He opened his mouth, found it parched and dry, clumsily moved his tongue back and forth until his throat felt like it could do more than croak, but all that came out was "What?"
He heard the person next to him stand up. "I healed you," she said. "You could say we're i
n my special place, and you're here because you teleported."
Matty opened his eyes, finally, but they refused to focus on the person looking over him. He groaned, willed his arms to move so he could pull himself to his feet. He wobbled, but remained standing. He touched his side again. His shirt was shredded and barely clung to him at this point, but there was no evidence on his body of the slicing and shattering that should have ended his life – there wasn't even any blood on his shirt. He must have been healed – he hadn't dreamed the car accident, no dream would hurt that badly.
The girl before him was a lot shorter than he was. Her skin was brown, though he couldn't pinpoint her ethnicity just by looking. She wore large hoop earrings, a white twill newsboy cap, and fashionable clothes, all in black and white. Her shining black hair was long, past her waist, and perfectly straight. Her speech suggested she hailed from the western half of the United States – Hawaii being full of tourists, Matty had gotten pretty good at differentiating regional accents.
"Your special place?" Matty asked. He looked around. The building looked like it was a small church – or it once had been a church. The floor had been stripped of carpet, the only evidence of its remains were around the feet of the pews, where it might have been too difficult to pull free. The altar was gone, and two angled walls on either side of it had once held stained-glass windows, but nearly every shard of glass and lead had been knocked free. Through the gaping holes one could see several department store mannequins, old and beat-up and wearing odd assortments of clothing – some sort of public art project, maybe? Spray paint covered the walls, too thick and tangled to pick out a single word or picture, and all the windows were boarded up.
The girl forced a wide smile. "Something like that."
"Where is this special place?" Matty asked.
The girl shrugged. "If I told you, then you might try to find it from the outside, and I’d prefer you didn’t."
Matty glanced behind him. The double doors were dark wood and had been covered in layer after layer of timber, nailed into the doors and the wall. Unless this special place was also home to a chainsaw, he wasn't going out that way. Was he still in Hawaii? Was it still daytime? There was no way to tell.
"Okay, but..." Matty said, but the girl was already walking away from him, towards the pews. Matty followed her. As he grew nearer to the pews, he saw that several of them had large stones sitting upon them – quartz, by the look of it – each at least as big as his head.
The girl stood amidst the stones. There were six of them, laid out in a rough circle. "It’s like this. There’s been an event – someone generated one. And that’s why you teleported." She ran her fingers in the air as if tracing the contours of the largest stone, but she didn’t come into contact with it. "And you came here... which means it’s working." The volume of her voice diminished as she spoke, as if she were talking more to herself than to Matty.
"I…" Matty said. The SUV, the truck. Jeff. …Ron. He swallowed. It was like the words Ron is dead were there in his brain, but his thoughts were caught up in some elaborate dance, orbiting the truth but not accepting it. "There was an accident, and they’re probably worried. Is there a way I can get back?"
"I don’t think you should," the girl said. "They’ll be looking for you soon – they have ways of finding people like you, but you’ll be safe here. Others who manifest in different ways might not be so lucky."
"Who are they?" Matty asked.
The girl scrunched up her mouth. "That’s sort of hard to define. But maybe… cops who aren’t really cops. Government agents who work for someone else. You know?"
"Not really," Matty said.
The girl nodded, distractedly. "I can explain everything later, but right now I have to go. Stay here. I’ll be back in a little while, all right?"
"But wait, I –" Matty began, but it was too late – one flash of bright white light, and the girl was gone, leaving nothing but a brief rush of air, moving to fill the space she had occupied moments earlier.
* * *
Ellie had hoped that they’d question her right away and get it over with. The school’s "guilty until proven innocent" policy had resulted in all of the girls by the bleachers being hauled into the office. Alexis was shuffled off to the nurse, while the rest of them sat in plastic chairs, all lined up in a row. After fifteen minutes or so, Alexis emerged from the nurse’s office in a fresh shirt and with an ice pack to hold over her nose. She chose the seat farthest from Ellie.
Early on, Ellie took a sketchbook from her backpack; she couldn’t stand to sit there idly and do nothing with her hands, but a glare from the office staff put a stop to that. She had no choice at that point but to sit and wait, listening to the comings and goings. The office wasn’t very busy this time of day, so most of what she heard was one-sided conversations, as the women behind the desk made phone calls to the parents of all the girls involved. The sidelong glances she received from the other girls when her parents were called made her flush – it was easy to glean what was going on there. Neither of her parents wanted to leave work, and neither of them wanted to talk to each other, and so the office staff were forced to play phone tennis, until after several calls Ellie’s mother finally relented and said she would head over. Ellie knew her mother had had a meeting in Thousand Oaks today and was over an hour away. Her father was probably twenty minutes from the school. Ellie's affection towards her parents was lukewarm at the best of times, but her father was definitely the bigger asshole of the two.
Once she had nothing to do with her hands and all the parental phone calls had been placed, her mind snapped back to the incident at the bleachers, and why she’d remained unhurt. It wasn’t that she wanted to be injured, but the fact that she’d not even have a bruise wouldn’t help her chances with the principal, especially since Alexis had a whole posse of friends to back her up.
She was so worried about getting into trouble – and subsequently catching hell from her parents – that it was hard to give any real thought to whatever miracle had spared her from harm. She folded her hands in her lap and bowed her head, which sent several strands of blond hair cascading down her forehead. Ellie was pretty sure she didn’t believe in ghosts, and really sure she didn’t believe in any sort of god, so if something on the outside hadn’t caught her and saved her from banging her neck on the bleachers, had she done it herself?
The door to the office banged open and shook Ellie from her concentration. Her heart thumped at the sight of the three police officers who’d just entered the room. One of them was glancing back and forth between the group of girls sitting along the wall and a fancy-looking cellphone sort of device. His gaze met hers, just for a second.
"Can I help you?" asked one of the receptionists. The officer in charge stepped up to the desk and they began to confer quietly. Ellie’s heart sank.
The officer approached Ellie next. "Ellen Shiflett?" he asked.
Terrified, Ellie nodded.
"You need to come with us."
Ellie swallowed. Her mouth was dry. She wanted to ask why, but the police made her so afraid that she couldn’t make herself speak.
"Who called the police?" the receptionist asked. "She hasn’t even spoken with the principal yet."
"I’m not at liberty to discuss it, ma’am," said the officer. He took Ellie by the wrist. "Come with me."
"Her mother’s already on her way," the receptionist said.
"We’ll notify her mother," said the officer.
And so began Ellie’s second walk of shame of the day, as if having to march to the office in a line in front of the monitor hadn’t been bad enough. At least at this point all the lunch periods had ended, and the open courtyard of the middle school was deserted. There was no one to watch her be escorted down the steps and across the yard, through the gates to the parking lot where the police car was waiting. But why just her, and not Alexis or any of the other girls? This didn't make any sense, unless Alexis knew someone who could pull strings with
the police department? No, that didn't make sense either.
When they arrived, one of the officers stepped a few feet away and pulled his walkie-talkie from his belt. Ellie’s eyes drifted to the police car, a sedan painted all-black, not the black and white she expected, and there were no emergency lights, and looking in the window told her it didn’t have that metal screen to separate the front seat from the back, either.
Panic welled in Ellie’s throat, and this wasn’t helped by what she overheard from the officer with the walkie-talkie: "Sir? It’s us. We’ve got the girl. Awaiting your next orders."
Ellie twisted, trying to break her wrist away from the officer who held her.
"Hey!" he yelled, and tightened his grip. Ellie grunted, but the officer pulled her nearer. "You aren’t going anywhere, so just hold still."
She felt like she had just before Alexis had pulled her down the bleachers, only this time it was magnified – this time it felt good. Was it ridiculous to think it would get her out of this? But even as her brain puzzled over the impossible idea, her heart knew what she needed to do. The same thing that had saved her before might be able to save her twice. Ellie lashed out with a mental shove, as hard as she could.
The police officer’s hands came loose from her wrists; he yelled and fell backwards against the car. Ellie made a mad dash for the gate and screamed "HELP!" as loudly as she could.
For a few beautiful seconds she thought that she just might make it back, find someone to get between her and these fake police officers – but she was an out-of-shape fourteen-year-old, and the officers were all fit, grown men. One of them tackled her around the middle and brought them both down to the ground. He rolled Ellie onto her back and straddled her, pinning her in place.
"Lemme go," Ellie squealed, and prepared to push him away again, but before she could, the man pulled up the sleeve of her hooded sweatshirt and then the third cop swooped in from out of nowhere; he swabbed the crook of her elbow with an alcohol wipe and jammed a syringe deep into her. The pain was deep, cold, and sharp, and Ellie let out all her breath in a big whoosh. Whoever these guys were – they definitely were not SBPD – they were trained well.