Shit. Not here.
When I saw things, it happened out of nowhere and it didn’t matter where I was. I couldn’t afford some kind of episode in the middle of a hospital, when I was supposed to be doing an interview. I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. The antsy feeling I got up and down my spine when I really wanted to drink was kicking in big time. The last thing I needed was some kind of panic attack….
The bell dinged and the doors opened up. No one was waiting for the car on the other side. I smoothed down my hair and wiped my eyes one more time, then stepped out. The door clunked behind me, then slid shut.
I found the right room and went inside, where a man in a white lab coat stood next to a hospital bed. I peeked past him to see the woman who was lying there. There was a bandage across the front of her neck, covered in gauze tape. After a minute, she noticed me and looked past the man in the coat. When she did, he looked over.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Jan Holst.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Zoe Ott.”
“You’re with the FBI?” He said it like he couldn’t believe it.
“Yes.”
I fished my contractor’s badge out and held it up so he could see it.
“Okay,” he said. He turned to the woman. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”
She nodded, still looking at me. She looked pretty beat-up, but she smiled, just a little.
“You’ll have to leave,” I told him. He frowned, and I felt a little surge of anger come from him.
“Look, Miss Ott,” he said. “This wom—”
He stopped in midsentence as I concentrated and the room got bright. As the colors drained away from everything except the light around his head, out of the corner of my eye I saw the woman’s smile get a little bigger. I pushed back the spike of red light that had been forming until it disappeared back into the blue.
“I need privacy,” I told him. “If anything happens, I’ll get you.”
He nodded. In the doorway, he looked back at her one more time, then left, closing the door behind him. The lights went back to normal. When I turned and looked at her, she was still smiling. There was a chair in the room and I pulled it over next to the bed and sat down.
“How are you doing?” I asked. She shook her head, and pointed to the bandage over her throat.
“Sorry, right.”
Nico told me about that in the phone message. I had to sign out an electronic tablet. I took it out of my purse and turned it on, making the little gray screen light up. She held out her hand and I gave it to her.
“Does it hurt?” I asked. She shook her head, then tapped on the little keyboard and angled the screen so I could see.
I’ll be okay.
“Good.”
What did you want to ask me, Agent Ott?
“Miss Ott. I just work for them sometimes.”
Digging in my coat pocket, I found the list of questions I was supposed to ask and pulled it out. Smoothing the paper, I looked at the first question.
Where is Hiro Takanawa?
I focused in on her so I could put her under, and she closed her eyes. When the aura appeared over her head, though, I saw that thin, white halo. The swirl of color behind it stayed calm when I tried to change them, and couldn’t. She opened her eyes and smiled as she met mine.
My heart was beating faster. Nico’s questions sat forgotten in my hand.
She tapped on the tablet’s keyboard.
You can see.
“Yes.” She could see me, too.
We’ve contacted you more than once. Why don’t you respond?
That was true. I’d gotten several notes and a few weird phone calls. I knew they were interested in me. The weird little woman that appeared after the revivor took me and wired me to their machine told me they were interested in me.
I didn’t have a good answer for her. I just shrugged.
Aren’t you even a little bit curious?
“I’ve just …been avoiding it, I guess.”
Why?
My words got caught up in my throat, but then I started to relax a little. For a second, it actually felt like I’d taken a big shot of ouzo. I felt the tension inside me loosen.
“Because I was scared,” I said.
Scared of what?
“Nico doesn’t trust you …I thought he’d be mad …I was worried he might be right, maybe, or that …I wouldn’t be special?” I said. The words were flowing like I was drunk. “That I wouldn’t be any good, and I’d be as bad at this as I am …”
I trailed off, and she smiled again.
You are special, and there’s no reason to be scared. We would welcome you, and I know how lonely it feels to think you’re alone.
My throat burned and I felt tears in my eyes again. She was right, in a way. It seemed like I’d gotten to the point where I was doing everything right, or the way I was supposed to do them anyway. I was trying to be like everyone else, to go to bed sober and wake up and go to work and make friends, but it wasn’t working. Even though I knew more people now than I ever had, I was lonely. Karen acted like it was the drinking that made her kick me out, but it wasn’t. It was part of it, but it was the other stuff she couldn’t stand. My ability, and the dreams, and all the things she thought were so cool at first; they started to scare her.
The people around you don’t understand you, Jan typed. They can’t.
I shrugged as her fingers moved over the screen.
You need to understand what it is you can do—how to do it and when to use it. Let us show you.
“Maybe,” I said.
These people and the way they treat you make you sad, but these people, the ones who aren’t like you, what they think doesn’t matter. They don’t deserve to hold this power over you—
“Stop.”
She deleted the message. She didn’t look disappointed or mad or anything. She just stopped typing.
Nico didn’t trust them; that was the thing. Sometimes, the way he talked, it was like he thought that all those people that got killed back then deserved what they got. Sometimes, the way he talked, I wondered if maybe he didn’t trust me either, and I really wanted him to. I wanted him to believe in me. I wanted him to know that whatever side he was on, I was on it too.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
It’s okay.
I looked back at the paper Nico gave me, the one with the questions, but I knew I wouldn’t ask them. I crumpled it and shoved it in my pocket.
“Is the city really going to burn?” I asked. Her eyes got very serious.
Yes.
“Why? How?”
Meet with us and you’ll get your answer.
As I read the words, a bad feeling came over me. I started feeling really dizzy, so bad it made me sick to my stomach a little.
“I can’t …”
If you don’t, she’ll be forced to—
I practically jumped out of my skin as a loud popping noise went off right near my head. At the same exact time, one of her eyes blew up. It just blew apart and caved in, leaving a big red hole behind. Her whole body jerked on the bed, and the eye she had left rolled in the socket, looking off at a weird angle.
The tablet slipped out of her hand and clattered onto the floor. She slumped back onto the pillow, and the machine she was hooked up to was beeping over and over. Someone was shouting from down the hall. A puff of smoke was rising from a spot in front of the bed.
I was still trying to figure out what the heck just happened when the IV rack next to the bed shook all by itself, then tipped over and crashed onto the floor. When I looked over, I saw the air ripple there, just for a second. For just a second, I saw a guy standing there. He was bald, and his skin was gray. His eyes glowed a dull yellowish color, and for that quick flash, they were staring right at me. He moved, and I saw a gun in his hand before the air flickered again, and he was gone.