Chapter Fifteen
Ness didn’t even have to wake up for school on Monday morning—she hadn’t been able to fall back asleep after being roused by her dream at three fifteen. She rolled out of bed dead tired. She completely ignored Cliff, Claire, and anyone else who tried to tease or talk to her that morning—and that was pretty much how the day at school went, too. She didn’t care how many people she stumbled into as she walked through the halls of Saint Catherine’s, or how many teachers had called on her as she sat in a far-out daze.
By third period physics, she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. Slowly, she put her head down on her book and closed them, her odd red hair spilling onto the desk around her. She fell asleep halfway through the lecture on rotational inertia.
The fogs of her dream world began to return, but this time they weren’t forcing themselves into her mind. They floated lazily around, twirling in thick tendrils through the craziness of Ness’s imagination. She watched them curiously, happy that the fumes were just shadows, and nothing more.
She walked around peacefully in her own mind, exploring the possibilities of her dreamscape. She finally felt as though she was dreaming like a normal person for the first time in days—until she saw the darkened figure enveloped in shadow.
“Ness,” the voice whispered to her. The figure raised a hand, beckoning for her to come forward.
“No,” Ness said back to it. “I’m not coming.”
“Join me. Come back to us. ”
“No, I’m staying here. You can’t make me go.” A hand reached out from the fog and caressed her side, pulling her closer. Another grabbed her hand, and another found its way to her back…
“Are you with us, Ness?”
“No, I’m not…I’m not…” The hand on her side was gently rocking her back and forth. She tried to use her power to push it away, but it wasn’t working in this dream world.
“Ness.”
In the real world—the land of third period physics class—a hand slammed down on the table in front of her, scaring her awake. Mrs. Redding, the teacher, was standing right in front of her with fire in her eyes.
“Are you ready to join us now, Miss Parazzi?”
The class let out a stifled laugh. “Um. Yes. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry that my class is so boring it put you to sleep,” Mrs. Redding said sarcastically. “Perhaps you want to continue the lesson in the principal’s office…?”
“No! Um, no, that’s okay, I’m awake.”
“Don’t even think of attending my class again when you wish to sleep through it, or that’s where you’re going to end up.” Mrs. Redding stalked off to the front of the room.
Ness sat in the desk, her face as red as her hair. Again, her dreams had shown her something…or hadn’t they? Was the voice in her dream just Mrs. Redding’s voice? Were the hands that were grabbing her just the hands of the boy who shared the table with her, trying to shake her awake and save her from embarrassment?
Frustration filled her. How was she ever supposed to know which dreams were prophetic and which were just fragments of her imagination?
The boy who sat at the table with her—Nick Wendell, a scrawny kid with coke-bottle glasses and a greasy nose—slid her a piece of paper.
Sorry I didn’t wake you up in time. I bet she wouldn’t have even realized you were asleep, but when all the books fell off the shelf, she looked over.
Ness let her eyes travel to the left of her desk to the bookshelf under the window. The leftover textbooks were lying in a haphazard pile on the floor, some of them as far as ten feet away. She had a funny feeling of what had happened but wasn’t sure. She grabbed her pencil and wrote back: What happened?
As she was waiting for Nick’s reply, she tried to remember when she attempted to use her power in her dream, but the whole thing was unclear to her. Nick slid the paper back.
I tried to shake you awake, and that’s when the books fell.
Bingo. Sleeping telekinesis.
Ness raised her hand in the middle of an explanation of linear inertia. Mrs. Redding looked back at her, frustration clear in her face. “What is it, Miss Parazzi?”
“Can I use the pass?”
Mrs. Redding’s eyes narrowed and she pointed out the door. Ness quickly got up, grabbed the pass, and left the room behind.
The corridor was darker than normal, it seemed. The florescent lighting overhead buzzed in the unusual silence of the halls, and the big clocks above the lockers ticked louder than ever. The two windows—one on each of the far ends of the hallway—barely let any of the overcast light into the building.
Ness.
The redhead jumped at the voice in her head, startled. Landon?
Who else?
I don’t know, there have been a lot of voices in my head lately. I’m beginning to feel like I’m schizophrenic, Ness replied. It was strange talking to someone else in her mind—she didn’t know exactly how she did it, but she knew Landon could hear her mental voice.
Where are you? he asked.
I’m supposed to be in physics, but I can’t stay awake. I’m in the hall. Why? What’s wrong?
You tell me what’s wrong—I could feel you all the way in the gym. What scared you?
You mean other than Mrs. Redding? Ness joked. She could feel a twinge of humor run through his mind like a mental laugh.
You know what I mean.
Nothing. I had another dream, that’s all.
Ness walked further down the hall, trying to stay in a straight line. She imagined that this is what being drunk would feel like.
Just before she reached the stairwell that lead to the first and third floors, its doors burst open and a girl and boy stumbled out of it. Ness jumped and backed up into the entrance of an empty classroom, not wanting to be seen by the oversexed adolescents.
“Greg, leave me alone,” the girl said, her voice filled with fear.
“No. You have what I want, and I’m going to get it,” the boy growled at her. Ness heard a sound like a whimper escaping from the girl’s mouth.
Ness peered out from the classroom to see who the couple was. They were both seniors, like her—the boy was tall and muscled with dark, curly hair: Greg Johnson, the captain of the football team. The girl was petite, a brunette, and extremely pretty. Ness recognized her vaguely as Max’s current center of affection, Jordan Mackey.
“I told you, I don’t have anything for you.” Jordan’s voice was small and shaky, close to tears. Ness could barely see her figure hidden behind Greg’s—he was so big, and Jordan was so tiny compared to him…he was going to hurt her…
Landon? Ness asked, still feeling the boy’s connection with her mind. I think we might have trouble.
What’s up?
I don’t know yet. Try to get the pass and meet me by the second-floor stairwell.
Do we need Jonas or Max?
I don’t know. Maybe.
“…in your blood. I know you have the key, Jordan. I know you know where it is,” Greg told her. Ness silently cursed herself for missing what he said before that.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Jordan cried. “I don’t!”
“Ganelon is not very happy with people like you,” Greg’s voice fell deeper than normal.
Ness thought her heart stopped. Ganelon. How many times had she heard that name recently? The first time was in the airport, when she got attacked in the bathroom and the old lady had been vaporized. She strained her memory—what had that thing said to her?
Camael said Ganelon was Satan’s right-hand man. He was in charge of the house they tried to break into. Here she was, standing in her own school, where God-knows-what was going on…and they had gone to the house first, risking all of their lives! Meanwhile, things were happening right under their noses…
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jordan said. Ness could tell she was trying to be brave despite the fact that Greg’s gigantic hand was pinning her to the wall by her neck.
Greg slapped her across the face. “Don’t play dumb with me, you—”
”Hey.” Ness stepped out from her hiding place. Greg spun around and met Ness’s eyes with fury and surprise. A wash of relief fell across Jordan’s face and she looked at Ness, her blue eyes wide with terror.
Ness couldn’t help but notice how Greg’s dark eyes swept across her features, lingering on her strange red hair and even more disturbing violet eyes. The sickly smile of a snake spread across his handsome face and he relaxed—but his grip didn’t loosen on Jordan’s throat.
“Well, well, well, what have we here,” he whispered, his voice coming out as a hiss. “So we meet again, Ness Parazzi.”
Ness glanced at Jordan and saw the fear flood back on to her face—she thought Ness was against her, too.
“Who are you?” the redhead asked, distracted by his odd statement. He wasn’t Greg Johnson, that’s for sure.
He laughed a hideous laugh. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember,” he hissed, eyes flashing yellow like a cat’s.
A shock of remembrance coursed through her, and her mind jumped back to that time in the airport bathroom when the cat-eyed monster had come through the wall and grabbed her. In her physical eye, she saw Greg; in her mind’s eye, she could see the glowing eyes and the snakelike smile of the monster.
Ness had to stall—she didn’t want to use her power in front of Jordan. She didn’t know if the girl was just a normal person, or if she knew of the world that Ness had just recently become introduced to. She had to get her away from him somehow…
“You killed that woman,” she whispered.
Greg tilted his head. “Yes,” he murmured, “I did. And I should have killed you when I had the chance.” He raised his free arm, and a ball of light gathered in his palm.
Uh oh, Ness thought. So much for stalling.
She narrowed her eyes and pictured Greg’s hand loosening from Jordan’s neck, and she willed him to fly off down the hall. His eyes—yellow in her mind but dark brown in reality—widened in surprise as his feet were lifted from the ground and he was thrown backwards down the hall.
Landon, Jonas, and Max burst through the second floor stairwell doors just as Greg met the linoleum. Jordan’s eyes flew from the three boys, then to Ness, to Greg, and back to Ness again. She took in a heavy sigh and fainted, her body falling forward since the wall was at her back. Max rushed to her and caught her small body in mid-fall, saving her from the hard tiles.
Greg was slowly getting up from the ground, his eyes burning as he looked at the four teenagers. He lingered on their strangely colored features, his face twisting into an unrecognizable grimace.
“The Four have come together,” he snarled, his snakelike smile turned into a frown. Landon, Ness, and Jonas stood shoulder-to-shoulder like a wall, and Max was guarding Jordan—clearly, Greg was outnumbered. The overhead lights flickered; Ness saw out of the corner of her eye that Landon’s steely gray eyes were shifting to glowing gold, the color of his lightning.
Greg turned and stalked down the hall.
“Do something,” Ness whispered to the boys on either side of her. “You’re just going to let him walk away…”
“Ness, we can’t kill a student while school’s going on,” Landon told her sensibly.
“Oh, God…school,” Ness mumbled, her eyes traveling to one of the clocks on the wall. “I’ve been gone from physics for ten minutes.”
Max was peering gently down at the face of the girl he held in his lap. “What are we going to do about Jordan?”
Landon thought for a minute. “Us three will go back to class, and Ness can go running into her physics class like she found Jordan there and was trying to wake her up, or something.”
“What if Greg comes back?” Max asked.
“I’ll stay in the stairwell until Ness comes back with Mrs. Redding,” Jonas suggested.
“No, I’ll stay,” Max said.
They put the plan into action. As Ness walked down the hall towards the physics room, she heard Jonas call jokingly to Max, “Hey! No peeking under the skirt!” She tried not to laugh; instead, she focused on preparing herself to look stressed and scared—which really shouldn’t have been a problem. However, she was oddly calm despite the event that had just taken place.
She held her breath and walked through the doorway. “Mrs. Redding!”
“Where have you been?” Mrs. Redding yelled at Ness. “Honestly, Miss Parazzi, I don’t know how you plan on passing my class—”
“Mrs. Redding, come here, quick!”
Alarm spread across the older woman’s face, but she quickly concealed it. “Stay seated,” she told everyone as she followed Ness outside.
* * * * *
By the middle of fourth period, everyone had heard about Jordan Mackey’s fainting spell in the second floor halls. The school was buzzing with every story but the truth—and that was a good thing. Greg Johnson was sulking around the halls, throwing Landon, Jonas, Ness, and Max dirty looks whenever he saw them.
The four had ideas other than eating on their minds during the lunch period.
“We’re going to have to talk to her about it,” Jonas said as he stuffed a French fry in his mouth. “What did you say Greg asked her for?”
“I don’t know,” Ness replied. “I missed that part. But whatever it is, she doesn’t have it.”
“Anyone know where she lives?” Landon asked, looking particularly at Max.
“What?” Max asked, his hamburger poised in front of his face. “You really think I’m that much of a stalker, don’t you?”
“Of course we do,” Jonas said. “I mean, you can turn invisible, ya know…and I could have sworn I saw one of her pink thongs in your bedroom last weekend.”
Max turned pink. “You did not. What about Mackenzie Phillips—”
Landon rolled his eyes and turned to Ness, blocking out Max and Jonas. “We’re going to have to find out where she lives somehow.”
“Phonebook,” Ness said simply.
“She’s unlisted,” Max cut in quickly, then turned back to his argument with Jonas.
“Okay then,” Landon said, a half-smile tugging on the edges of his mouth. “That solves that option.”
“What about the school records?” Ness suggested. “I mean, between the four of us, there has to be a way for us to sneak into the nurse’s office, or something. Don’t they have a file of everyone’s medical records and addresses?”
“You would think they have to,” Landon said. “That’s a great idea…”
“We just need Jonas to stop time, and we should be okay.” Ness took a sip of her iced tea, watching Landon’s face for a reaction.
He turned to the dark haired boy. “How long can you keep time stopped?”
“What?” Jonas pulled his gold eyes away from the death stare he was giving Max. “Oh. I don’t know—a while, I’m pretty sure.”
“Well, come on. We’re going to find out.”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now.” Landon’s gray eyes were tense.
Jonas swallowed his last French fry and put his hand down on the table. “You have to be touching me,” he said. Landon, Ness, and Max each put a hand on his arm. Jonas blinked, the air tensed, and time came to a standstill.
The cafeteria fell into dead silence. It was the strangest feeling—though it was filled with people, a dropping pin could be heard hitting the floor. Kids were caught in mid-laughter, mid-sentence, mid-swallow…it was like being in a room filled with department store mannequins.
Jonas took his hand back. “Alright, where are we going?”
“Nurses’ office,” Ness said as she stood. Suddenly, she felt wide-awake: there was something special about being able to walk around while everyone else was frozen in place. It felt as if the world was theirs.
The nurse’s office was close to the cafeteria, just outside the main office. The door was locked tight. “Okay Max, do your stuff.”
Three hands clamped on Max’s arms and shoulder; his power slowly spread through them and they phased right through the door. It was an unusual sensation: Ness saw the door get closer and closer, until it touched her nose—then, all the sudden, she was on the other side.
The nurse was sitting in front of her computer, her eyelids in mid-blink. One hand was on the mouse and her other hand was around a sandwich that was halfway to her mouth. “Great,” Landon muttered. “How are we going to get to the mouse?”
“I can get it,” Max said. He put his hand on the mouse cord and pulled it through the nurse’s hand.
“That gets freakier and freakier every time I see it,” Ness commented. The four of them crowded around the computer, and Max clicked on an icon titled, “Student Health Records.”
Ness typed Mackey, Jordan in the search box. A file showed up and Max clicked on it. Jordan’s student I.D. picture flashed on the screen, complete with all of her personal information.
“Just let it all sink in, Max. Should we print it for you?” Jonas joked.
“After we look at Mackenzie’s,” Max retorted.
“Guys, you aren’t going to believe this,” Ness said, her voice stiff. “Jordan Mackey lives in the house on Westchester Drive.”
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