Levitating Las Vegas(42)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Peter nodded along, but he looked pained. “I know you’re learning the ropes from Mr. Diamond. I know you have to take over the withdrawals sooner or later. But why does Holly have to be your guinea pig? Especially when you’re trying to keep track of Elijah Brown too?”

Kaylee tilted her head to one side as if she were considering this carefully, then constructed a true statement, sort of. “I’m following Mr. Diamond’s instructions.” The instructions he’d left for her in his binder.

This seemed to satisfy Peter for the time being. “What are Holly and that kid doing in Icarus?”

“My guess is—”

“Your guess!” Peter roared. “You didn’t have them followed?”

The blinds over the enormous windows on either side of Kaylee’s desk suddenly raked open behind her, startling her with the noise and the bright sunlight. She jumped in her desk chair.

And immediately felt humiliated that she’d jumped. She said slowly, “I hate levitators.”

Peter closed his eyes and breathed through his nose. “I’m sorry. I just—”

“We never follow the people we’re withdrawing,” Kaylee interrupted him. “You know that. If we followed them, Elijah would sense us. He’d get paranoid, they’d think we were out to get them, and they’d both run straight to the Res for protection the first time one of those Goth creeps approached them.”

“But that’s for normal withdrawals,” Peter said. “That’s when they stay in town while they’re discovering their power. They just get really drunk and sloppy and do a few lines of coke to compensate, the levitators turn over a couple of police cars, and they’re grateful when the casino bails them out of jail. They don’t usually run off to Icarus, of all places!”

Kaylee nodded. “I was with Holly a few nights ago when Elijah asked her to share one of her last pills. He’s been nagging the pharmacy, too. He and Holly both still believe they’re mentally ill. They must have figured out where the pills are made, and they’ve taken it upon themselves to go and get more. Congratulations on freaking them out completely when they were kids.”

As soon as she made this last comment, Kaylee regretted it. She’d never been on Mentafixol, and she regarded the entire charade of scaring the bejeezus out of fourteen-year-olds as draconian. But it was better than the alternative of the Res. She knew this firsthand.

“Freaked out or not, nobody actually drives up to Icarus to steal pills,” Peter maintained. “I always said that kid was as crazy as his father.”

“Crazy like a fox,” Kaylee murmured, not without admiration.

Peter wiped his hand over his face. “He’s a mind reader, Kaylee.”

All the window blinds simultaneously slid downward, blocking out the sun, shrinking the blocks of light on Kaylee’s desk until she sank into shadow. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the light, she couldn’t see without it.

“He will drag her into some sex game,” Peter whispered. “He will crush her before he even knows he can.”

Kaylee sighed. “You’re being a little melodramatic, aren’t you, Peter? Just because Holly and Elijah are together, you assume they’re having sex?”

“They’re feeling their power for the first time since they were teenagers,” Peter grumbled. “You remember how that is, when you’re first exploring.”

Kaylee was having enough trouble withdrawing them without Peter obsessing over every detail. She was tempted to change his mind about worrying over Holly and Elijah’s relationship. He wouldn’t feel a thing. But sooner or later, he’d realize what she’d done, and he’d come back angry. With Mr. Diamond gone, she had a hard road ahead. She needed every ally she could get.

“No one’s warned her,” Peter went on. He opened his fingers and closed them gracefully one by one, a magician’s gesture, as if drawing Kaylee’s attention to an invisible crystal ball in front of him. “She won’t be able to defend herself.”

Kaylee glanced at her watch for effect. “She will in another few hours.”

As Kaylee had hoped, Peter relaxed in his chair, a smug smile on his face at her acknowledgment of the incredible strength of levitators.

But in reality, Kaylee knew Peter’s concerns were dead-on. She wasn’t sure how Holly would fare in a battle versus Elijah. The nice guy Holly had grown up with would be gone very soon. Power changed mind readers into controlling monsters. They were the engine that drove the sadism of the Res. She knew this from spending years as Isaac’s bitch.

She snapped her attention to her computer again, as if it were full of important information about casino business that she needed to attend to. “Look, you’ve tried to keep Holly out of a relationship with Elijah since they were fourteen. You were right to think they would compare notes on their powers and deduce that they’d been had. But you’re wrong to worry he’ll be bad for her now. Yes, he’ll manipulate her. And when she figures that out, she’ll hurt him and get away from him. She’s your daughter, after all.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, unconvinced. Kaylee didn’t blame him.

She stood, signaling that the interview was over. “There’s nothing we can do, Peter. Holly and Elijah are bound to figure out the Mentafixol situation this afternoon. When they do, they’ll head back. I’ll know when that happens.” She would know only because the hotel room security deposit would be removed from Elijah’s debit card, but she didn’t share this with Peter. “Go home. You have that death-defying feat to perform tomorrow, right?”

“Right,” he sighed.

She rounded her desk and put her hand on his back, comforting him at the same time she guided him toward the door. “Get some rest. Be prepared for Holly to come back into town soon, and for her to want to have a long talk with you.” She opened the door for him and blinked in the bright light from the hallway. “Be prepared for her to be angry.”

11

Elijah woke up sweltering. Beside him in the hotel bed, Holly drowned in dark dreams of zombies with gray clothes and gray faces, bony and gaunt, chained to a ballet barre, crouching in endless pliés. The details of her dream were so quirky, he wanted to laugh. But he couldn’t laugh with such pervasive sorrow and depression driving her imagination. He tried to go back to sleep. His swirling thoughts, her dark dreams, and the heat of the room threatened to smother him.