Victor’s not amused.
Hearing his voice in my head grounded me, lessened the fear. One of my finer moments, thanks to you.
There was a pause. I’ve got to be quick. Victor says Daniel Kelly is up top. We think this might be it.
They’re going to try and wipe my mind again?
Very likely—but we won’t let that happen. Don’t forget to keep your shields strong. We’re moving in to position, got a team on the floor below posing as a cleaning crew.
Where are you?
Close. I’d better stop talking to you now in case Sean picks it up.
I don’t think he can, but maybe Maria is about the place somewhere. She’s the more powerful savant, I’d say.
Then we must break this off. Stay safe.
Yeah, you too.
The trip up in the lift wa
s one of the hardest things I
have ever done. I had to hide the fact that I was feeling sick with nerves, remembering al too wel what had happened last time I’d been alone with Daniel Kel y and son.
‘So, what you fancy? They do a good club sandwich,’ Sean said, rubbing his hands together.
Al he needed was a black cape and to cackle ‘bwa-ha-ha’ to complete the bad guy act. I found him pathetic.
‘Um, yeah, that sounds lovely.’
‘You like Las Vegas?’
‘It’s unique.’
He sniggered. ‘It is that. A manmade playground.’
‘You in col ege?’
‘No. I went straight into the family business.’
‘Hotels?’
‘And other things.’
It was the other things he preferred—the racketeering and the violence. I could sense he thought of himself as fol owing in Dad’s footsteps.
He was quite pitiable real y, with none of the edge his father and sister had. He was only truly frightening when he threatened to suck the emotions out of me.
The lift doors opened on an al too familiar corridor. I couldn’t help hesitating before I stepped out.
‘Problem?’
‘Er … no, just a moment of déjà-vu.’
He stroked his moustache to hide a grin. ‘I know the feeling. Look, Sky, I just want to introduce you to my father; he’s CEO of the family business. It won’t take a moment. Is that OK with you?’
I shoved my hands in my pockets, glancing down quickly to check that my microphone was not visible in my cleavage. ‘OK.’
I’m doing this for Zed, I told myself as I fol owed Sean into the boardroom.
As he had been that day weeks ago, Daniel Kel y was waiting at the head of the table. ‘Ah, Sky, good to see you again.’ He got up and waved the door closed with his telekinetic powers.
The lock clicked.
What? He wasn’t even bothering to hide that he was a savant.
‘I’ve met you before?’ I asked, hoping I sounded genuinely puzzled.
‘You can drop the pretence now. I’m ful y aware that the FBI has sent you to us in the vain hope we’l incriminate ourselves. But that’s not going to happen.’
Then why was he talking like this? I couldn’t help but glance down again.
‘You can forget about the wire. Maria’s running interference. They’l just be getting static. Sean, where are your manners? Show our guest to a chair.’
Sean seized my shoulders and pushed me down on to a seat on its own by the window.
‘What are you getting from her?’ Daniel Kel y tapped his fingers on his crossed arms.
‘The smug confidence has gone.’ Sean inhaled deeply. ‘Fear—wonderful fear.’
‘Take as much as you like,’ his father said. ‘She’s cost us enough with that stunt she pul ed in the casino.’
I shuddered as Sean bent to my neck and rubbed his cheek against mine. I felt like a tyre developing a puncture, air rushing out. My training with Victor fled with it; I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to do. Fear escalated; I was shivering uncontrol ably.
Worst of al , I couldn’t feel Zed with me any more. Al the most frightening times in my life crowded to the fore: my parents’ argument, Phil’s beatings, abandonment, being shot at in the forest, the warehouse.
‘Wonderful,’ murmured Sean. ‘She’s like a vintage wine—intoxicating, potent.’
Daniel Kel y decided he had indulged enough.
‘Stop now, Sean. I want her conscious.’
Sean brushed a sweaty kiss on my jaw and stood up. I felt clammy and washed out, energy having drained away with the emotion. I hugged my arms around me.
Think, I ordered my fractured mind. There’ssomething you can do. Windsor Castle.
But my shields were a house of cards, tumbling down at the first shock.
‘If I am right, the FBI wil be trying to gain access to this floor so we don’t have long. Unfortunately, Sky, you are going to go on a teenage rampage, your doubtful sanity having given way. Seizing this gun,’
he indicated a handgun lying on the table, ‘you’re going to run through the casino shooting at innocent guests. The FBI wil have to take you out to stop you
—sacrifice their pawn. Rather poetic isn’t it?’
‘I won’t.’
‘You wil . Of course, they’l suspect the truth but there wil be no evidence, what with you being dead and al .’
‘No.’
‘How tragic for the Benedicts.’ He perched on the edge of the table, checking his watch. ‘You see, Sky, I’ve decided that to make them instrumental in the death of innocents is the best revenge. They’l have to live with the knowledge. It’l cripple them permanently and the FBI wouldn’t dare use them again.’
I had to get a grip on myself. Victor had told me what to do if I faced mind-mugging again. I had to get it right as not only my own life was at risk this time. I couldn’t imagine anything more horrifying than causing the death of others. He was not going to do this to me. I refused to let him.
I clenched my hands on the arms of the chair and began to project waves of my power. The table shook; a glass carafe juddered to the edge and crashed to the floor; a crack developed in the window, snaking up to the ceiling.
‘Stop it!’ Kel y said sharply, slapping me round the face. ‘Maria! Sean, drain her!’
Maria rushed in as Sean bent once more to my neck. I felt him this time before he could begin absorbing the emotion. I pulsed out one beat of anger, hitting his mind like a punch to the chin. He reared back.
‘What the—!’ Sean grabbed his head, blood dripping from his nose. ‘You little witch!’
‘Maria, do something!’ ordered Daniel Kel y as the ceiling panels began to fal into the room.
Maria thrust both palms towards me. It was like hitting a wal after freewheeling down a hil . I was thrown back in the chair, ending up on the floor, my attack cut off.
‘Our little savant has learned to use her powers, has she?’ With a wave of his hand, Daniel Kel y righted my chair. ‘But you don’t seriously think you can match the three of us, do you? No, I can see from your eyes that you don’t. You’re stil waiting for your cavalry to charge in and save you, but the bad news for you is that they won’t. This floor is locked down and they have no warrant. By the time they get one, the drama wil have relocated to the casino.’ He grabbed my head between his hands and squeezed.
‘Now sit back and relax. This won’t take long.’
The next thing I remember is walking out of the lift into the hotel lounge. A pianist sat at his instrument crooning a song about people needing people. But I didn’t need anyone. I wanted to shoot them, didn’t I?