Having done everything one might do before bed, he sighed. Casey's disappearance had him spooked. What was he going to do in a couple days' time if Casey didn't return home? How could he explain what had happened? No one was ever going to believe him if he told the truth.
Jet took a deep breath, counted to ten, and let it out. He repeated this three more times. It was a technique his old psychiatrist had recommended for dealing with anxiety, but it failed at least as often as it worked. Placing a hand on the wall so he could find his way in the dark, Jet made his way into his parents' bedroom, and then their bathroom. In the drawer farthest to the left, there was a bottle of nighttime painillers. He took two pills and then fumbled his way back to his own bedroom. He took the medicine, and then his regular pill, then lay back and stared at the ceiling.
How was it possible that Casey had just disappeared? As a young child, Jet had wanted to believe that science fiction and fantasy stories were real; that people could teleport, or be spirited away, or become invisible. But then he had grown older, and come to understand that the supernatural didn't exist.
And now he was doubting that.
Jet's muscles turned to jelly as the medicine finally kicked in. He took one last deep breath, and shut his eyes hoping that no one would break in while he was asleep.
He woke up with a jolt to the sound of the phone ringing. Jet's legs flailed to escape the covers and then hit the floor, his brain catching up with him as he ran to his parents' room to answer the call. "Cooper’s," he mumbled.
"JT! Hi!"
"Dad," said Jet, surprised.
"Good morning," his father said. "Did I wake you?"
Jet rubbed his eyes with his free hands. His mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton balls. "Well, kind of." He looked behind him to the clock on his dad's nightstand – it read 10:10.
"Sorry about that," said his father. "I was just calling to tell you that I'll actually be home for dinner tonight – I know, I know, don't have a heart attack."
"Oh," said Jet. It was pretty surprising. Often on weekends he didn't see his father at all, the same on some weeknights. If he was home for dinner twice in one week, it was a good week.
His father chuckled. Jet was never sure what to make of his father; the man knew he was practically an absentee parent, and never seemed offended if Jet or his sister called him on it, directly or not. "Well, I thought since it's a special occasion and it'll just be you and me, I'll stop and get some Chinese food. Sound good?"
"Sounds great," said Jet.
"Oh, and Casey's welcome to stay for dinner, too."
Jet's stomach clenched. That's right. Casey. "I'll ask him," he said.
"Great," said his father. "I'll be home around six."
"That early?" Jet asked.
"Yes, that early," his father said. "On the upside, that leaves you with eight whole hours to get the living room cleaned up." Absent or not, his father knew him well.
"Right," said Jet. "Well, I guess I'll see you then."
"See you then," said his father, and hung up.
Jet sighed, counted to ten to calm himself, and then went downstairs to pick up the garbage that still littered the living room.
* * *
When Ellie next awoke, it was because her right arm was on fire. She gasped, a long deep breath, and the cold, rough air rattled against her parched, worn throat. As her lungs swelled, her chest tightened. She opened her eyes and they were flooded with a brilliant white light, which made her feel like her brain had exploded.
She thrashed – it seemed the next logical thing to do – but she was strapped down at the ankles, waist, and chest. At least she could turn her neck. A glance at her right arm revealed the IV shoved into the crook of her elbow.
She shut her eyes again. She knew she must have slept once more, but for how long? And when had it begun? When they'd given her the shot in the van, she'd gotten all mixed up in her head. The events of the ride came back to her, but all in the wrong order. She'd been blurting out the details of what had happened at school...
And then I slipped, and fell. Her lips were like clay. But I caught myself with my mind.
School... it seemed so long ago, almost like she'd never been. Had they realized something was wrong when her mother arrived? Was that hours, days ago? All the men in the van had spoken with accents. She didn't want to think that meant she'd been transported overseas, but...
And then later, I pushed the phony officers away with my mind.
Her confession was murky, played through her mind like feedback from a speaker.
Where are you taking me?
They hadn't answered. But now, piece by piece, it came back to her like a jigsaw puzzle. The van had stopped, eventually, and they’d carried her out and put her on a gurney… now she remembered being strapped down, and the rising panic in her chest that had eventually been defeated by the drugs in her system, and then they'd taken off her blindfold and she remembered seeing a paneled ceiling like you might see in an office or school... and then she'd passed out again.
And now here she was, staring at the burnt orange haze behind her eyelids.
Can I use my mind to break out of here, too?
The idea came to her gently, the only thought she’d had in hours that hadn’t caused her head to throb. Hope surged through her, followed quickly by little needly doubts: She didn’t know where she was, and even if she could break free from a gurney, could she get out of a room that would almost certainly be locked?
You don’t know, she said to herself, if they are going to kill you or not.
She opened her eyes slowly, allowing time to get used to the light. If she bent her head downwards, she could just barely see the strap across her chest. It was canvas, and looked to have been cranked tightly. There was a release lever, though.
Ellie narrowed her eyes. The previous two times she’d been triggered by a surge of emotion, and now she felt only unrest. Still, if she could just make herself concentrate… as if an invisible pair of hands and arms were working their way towards her chest. She could almost see the fingers, long and delicate, as they wrapped themselves around the lever…
Her headache swelled against her skull, and the invisible fingers, lacking in strength, fumbled, slipping away from the lever and collapsing into a shaky fist. Ellie swallowed, and ignored the pain in her throat. The sickness swimming in her head and stomach from whatever drugs they were giving her was making it hard to focus, but she could not give up.
She reached out again, and this time when she envisioned the phantom fingers grasping the lever, she felt a ping in her brain that told her they’d caught hold. It wasn’t a solid grip – it was like she had hold of it by her fingertips instead of using her whole hand to pull the lever as one might normally do – but it was a start.
She pulled, and pulled, and pulled…
Click, went the lever, and the tightness around Ellie’s chest vanished.
It was replaced almost immediately with a cold fear when something else clicked – presumably the lock on the door.
She tried to sit up to see who was coming in, but her wrists were still bound and she was still so weak.
"I see you’re awake," said a man. He was not particularly tall, heavyset, with smallish eyes and a neatly-trimmed goatee.
Ellie shrank back into her pillow, as much as it would allow.
The man took a clipboard from the end of the bed and looked it over. "Ellen Alicia Shiflett," he said, punctuating each of her names with both amusement and subtle malice. "You’re a talented one, that’s for certain." He replaced the clipboard and reached for the strap she’d undone, rewound it and began to crank it tight again.
"What do you want with me?" Ellie croaked.
"It’s nothing personal if that’s what you’re suggesting," said the man.
Ellie thought for a moment. "Am I in England?"
"What makes you suspect that?" asked the man – though he was clearly toying with her as his accen
t was a giveaway. "We can’t have you trying to escape, so I suppose I’ll have the doctor up your dosage. Anyhow, there are several guards in the next room, I doubt you’d get past them in your condition."
Ellie’s stomach churned. "Are you ever going to let me go?"
The man didn’t answer. He strode to the corner of the room and took a phone receiver from the wall. After a moment he spoke. "It’s me. We’ll need an increase." Pause. "Do hurry." He hung up, and looked back at Ellie. "The doctor will be with you shortly. Any other questions?"
Ellie swallowed. "Can I have some water?" Her question hung in the air for several seconds.
"I'll see."
He slammed the door on his way out, and the lock clicked shut.
She tried to focus again, but her grip on her mind was slipping once more, the invisible hand rising up above, through the ceiling and roof, away from her control.
Help, she thought, plaintive, desperate, pinning the word to the tail of her flyaway hope, as the crushing sensation returned to her brain.
* * *
Casey awoke, yelling. He looked around, wildly, and saw Matty, sitting a few pews ahead, staring at him. For a moment he forgot where he was – he was supposed to be staying over at Jet's, wasn't he? – and then it all came back to him.
He didn't feel better, though. There was a pain in his head developing quickly and a sense of panic growing in his stomach to accompany it. It reminded him of the hurt in his side he'd had just before he disappeared and came here.
Nausea splashed against Casey's innards, and he heaved, though he managed not to vomit.
"You okay?" asked Matty, who stood up and came closer.
"I don't think so," groaned Casey. "It's happening again!"
"What's happening again?" asked Matty.
"I... don't... know..." Casey clutched his head in hopes it would alleviate his pain, but it didn't. As if his skull was slowly shrinking and crushing his brain, the hurting got worse, and worse, and worse, and Casey was pretty sure he screamed at one point...
And then, just like the last time, it was gone, and he was somewhere else.
The room was cold, and far too bright. This time he'd landed on his stomach, which made sense, as he'd been lying on his when he'd teleported. To his left was what looked like a hospital bed. The only sound was a slow, regular beeping.
Casey pushed himself to his feet. There was a girl lying on the bed; she was strapped in with canvas ties and a scary looking tube-needle thing was stuck in her right arm. A pinchy piece of plastic was taped to her right index finger, and the cable from that led to a screen – a heart monitor; Casey recognized it from seeing one on television. Her eyes were open and unfocused, but she looked over at him immediately.
"Who are you?" the girl asked. Her voice was quiet, and rough. She sounded ill. Judging by her accent, she was American, like Jet.
"Who are you?" Casey asked, without thinking. Certainly it was rude, but now it was twice that he'd disappeared and reappeared somewhere else, and maybe the people he was meeting had something to do with it. That wasn't wrong to think, was it?
The girl gazed at him for a moment, and then said "Ellie. Where did you come from?"
"I'm not sure," said Casey. "What is this place?"
Tears welled in the corners of Ellie's eyes. "I don't know. I got taken away... I don't even know how long ago, and they brought me here. "
Before Casey could formulate a response, he heard Matty's voice in his head. Casey, are you okay?
I'm okay, said Casey, but I don't know where I am. It's a locked room and it's cold and bright and there's a girl strapped to a hospital bed and she says she's been kidnapped.
Wow, Matty said, finally.
"If you got in, can you get out?" Ellie asked. "Can you get me out?"
"I..." Casey began. He recalled seeing Matty teleport away, to where he'd disappeared from, by his own will. And if Matty could do it, why couldn't he? The more he thought about it, the more he knew he could do it. "I think so." He looked up at the network of tubes connected to Ellie's arm. He had no idea where to start. The thoughts he picked up from Ellie's mind suggested she wasn't sure she believed in what she saw, but Casey knew he was real, and he had to do something.
Something went thump on the door, and Ellie gasped.
There was no time to think – Casey dropped to the floor. The gurney had a sort of support shelf near the bottom, and he only hoped that if he crawled under it, the shadow would hide him.
He watched the door open and two pairs of hard black shoes – one peering out underneath a pair of creased slacks, the other from blue scrubs – walk in. Casey held his breath. I'm hiding now, he told Matty. Two people came in.
If it's not safe, you should come back, Matty said.
I will if something happens, said Casey. The girl asked me if I could get her out, so I'm going to try.
Be careful, Matty said.
Casey's heart thumped with resolve. He could tell Matty was worried because he was so young. Who would trust a ten-year-old in a situation like this? He had no choice but to wait it out, now he had something to prove.
"She looks like she’s doing well," said the first voice – a deep, cheerful bass, all wrong for someone who was doing evil.
"Glad to hear it," said the other voice – another man. "I'll let you decide how much to increase the dosage."
Casey sucked in his breath as the doctor stepped closer to the bed. "Let's see, then," the man said, and for a few minutes he walked around, fiddling with things and making sounds but doing nothing Casey could see. At one point, Ellie let out a dry gag that made Casey's stomach flip again. He covered his mouth. He couldn’t let anything give him away.
The man in the scrubs stepped back. "That should do it," he said. "I’d let it run its course for the next hour or so, at which point it should be fine to start performing tests."
"Excellent," said the other man. "I’ll phone Jester right away."
"Very good, sir." The feet moved away from Casey, and he heard the door open and shut. Carefully, he slithered out from under the gurney.
I have to get her out of here, Casey told Matty. I’ll be back soon.
Don’t do anything stupid, Casey, Matty warned him – using that tone that adults often used when they felt you were about to do something they didn’t like, but they knew they couldn’t stop you.
I won’t, Casey said, indignant. But he looked over the various tubes and such connected to Ellie’s arm, and still didn't know what to do first.
Understanding his quandary, Ellie said "Undo the straps, first."
The straps. Right. That was easy enough. Casey reached over and pulled the release lever on the first. It snapped back on top of his thumb and he only avoided yelling by letting his cry of pain loose through the telepathic channels.
What did you do? Matty asked.
Nothing! said Casey. He was more careful with the remaining straps.
Once her arms were free, Ellie reached to her right arm with her left hand. It was shaking badly, but she managed to reach the needle-tube in her arm well enough. Her fingers struggled at it.
"I think this unscrews," she croaked.
"O-okay," Casey stammered. He reached over, and found she was right. While unscrewing it, he jostled the needle in her arm quite a bit, and Ellie winced every time, but she didn’t say anything. Finally, the tube came undone.
The heart monitor clip she could get herself, but the minute Ellie pulled it away, the monitor’s rhythmic beeping was replaced by one sustained, one very loud beep. "Oh no," she whispered. "Oh no, oh no, oh shit."
"It’s okay," said Casey, swallowing the panic he also felt. He reached for Ellie’s wrists, held them firmly, and shut his eyes.
Without the gurney, he couldn’t support her, and they fell together to the cold concrete floor of the church.
* * *
"That's too bad about Casey," said Jet’s father, depositing several bags of food onto the kitchen counter. J
et had told his father that Casey didn't like Chinese food and had elected to go home. Of course, Casey's parents didn't expect him home for another day yet, they'd given him permission to stay at Jet's for the weekend – both boys had conveniently neglected to mention that Jet's mother wouldn't be around. Casey also happened to love Chinese food.
"Yeah," Jet said. "Oh well." He tried in vain to convince himself not to care; after all, what business did Jet have keeping the company of someone four years younger than him? He should make some friends his own age at school. Friends who don't read minds, or vanish into thin air, Jet thought. God, how did that happen? Who knew why he had disappeared, but Jet had seen it, and it had to do with Casey’s mind-reading abilities, right? And if he didn't show up again, it would be up to Jet to answer as to his whereabouts, and if someone asked him about that, he wouldn't even know how to begin to answer.
As his father took plates out of the cupboard, Jet began to open the cartons and place them on the table. Stuck in his gloomy thoughts, he wrinkled his nose in disgust. He flopped down in his chair and stuck out one hand to accept the plate his father passed to him, then began to load it with lo mein. He was too nervous to be really hungry, but he knew he'd regret it if he didn't eat something.
"How was your day?" his father asked, making small talk.
"Oh, you know," Jet said. "The usual Saturday." But then he remembered that aside from the fact he was lying, his father was home so little, he wouldn't have any idea what Jet's usual Saturdays looked like. "Cleaned up. Video games. Watched some TV." He didn't like talking about his day-to-day life, it reminded him of how pointless it had become. "How was yours?"
His father forced a friendly laugh. "Boring and full of paperwork." He took a bite of rice and continued speaking with his mouth full. "Trying to get the funding for a new project squared away."
"Yeah?" Jet asked, though he doubted he would get details. His father's work for the Bicontinental Scientific Union required several levels of security clearance.
His father wiped his mouth with a napkin and took a sip of cola. "Yes. Well," he said. "They think I've been working too hard, so they've persuaded me to take the next few days off."
Jet's eyebrows shot straight to the top of his head. "Really?"