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Chapter Eighteen

Penny

I’m never thinking I’m weird again. Sure, I brought a woman back from the dead, stopped time inside her person, and watched as she took over her husband’s body…

But I’m not
joking
about it.

Raleigh puts Melody’s body all the way in the back of the van on the floor. He looks down at her for a second and then takes off his t-shirt, rolls it into a ball and places it underneath her head. He then proceeds to run his hands over his own abs while letting out an approving whistle. I mean, the guy is ripped for an old man, but…I don’t even know. Everyone else just laughs.

“I guess Penny and Elle got the job done,” Reed says, scooting to make room for Raleigh, who climbs over the seat from the back.

“Was that your suggestion?” Raleigh asks, putting his seatbelt on.

Kai starts up the van and pulls away from the curb again.

“Yup.
Sure was,” Reed says, beaming.

“Nice,” Raleigh goes in for a high-five. “You’re not as much of a dumbass stoner as I thought you were.”

Ty and Phoebe both give Reed an affectionate pat on the head.

I can’t take it anymore. “Um, am I missing something? Don’t things still suck pretty hard? Is no one worried that Melody’s body won’t heal and that she’ll be stuck inside Raleigh? Aren’t Parker and Ben still kidnapped by my psycho ex-boyfriend?”

“Isn’t Wyatt still a virgin?” Reed shakes his head in mock tragedy.

“Hey!” Wyatt says, chuckling.

“Shut it, Reed.” Elle puts her arm around my shoulders. “You get to a point, Penny, where sometimes all you can do is make fun of how absurd your life is. I mean, who the fuck has superpowers? Or a ghost dad? Or goes to school in the summer by choice?”

I see Kai catch her eye in the rearview mirror and wink. Maybe I am all doom and gloom. Maybe I’m suddenly worried because…I have people to care about? My eyes tear up and Wyatt turns from the front seat. He reaches his hand back and I take it.

“Melody,” Wyatt says, addressing Raleigh, “before you died the first time, you were saying something about Parker and him not telling Darren about two doses? Care to elaborate?”

Raleigh tucks errant strands of hair behind his ears, all business.
“Right. So, you guys got a lot of things correct about Parker – he’s been a decoy for four years and is free of student loan debt because of it. Darren left us alone for about fifteen minutes, and I gathered as much intel as I could.

“Parker wasn’t in town to do a decoy job. He was asked to come speak at a conference at UCLA about his work – which, get this, is a serum that inhibits the impulse to kill. He and his team have been running trials on both inmates and mental patients – including Darren’s partner,
Clemmon Wayne Dansbury.”

“That’s cool and all, but why does Darren want to whip up a batch?” Elle asks. “We’re not trying to kill anyone.”

Raleigh nods. “That’s what I asked, after Ben had spent a good five minutes explaining the myriad ways he was going to torture, but not kill, Darren. Essentially, letting our secret out. Up until then, Parker didn’t know why Darren was bothering to terrorize us, but when he heard about some of the more rewindier and mind controlier ways Ben was going to mess with Darren, instead of freaking out, he lightbulbed.”

My stomach goes queasy and I punch myself in the gut. “Parker’s serum inhibits our abilities, doesn’t it?”

Raleigh points his gun finger at me and shoots. “Bingo. He said he’d have to do a scan while one of you was mid-rewind to be sure, but that it was very plausible it involves the same part of the brain.”

“But how is it all connected?” Wyatt asks. “I get that Darren wants revenge on The Three for having
Clemmon Wayne Dansbury committed and revenge on Parker for experimenting on him, but what the hell does it have to do with Penny?”

“I’ve been
noodling that,” Raleigh says, “and the only explanation I can think of is that Darren thought he’d take care of three problems at once. Imagine his delight at discovering the scientist dosing the leader of The Crusaders looks a whole lot like Kent Hahn – someone his Retroact ex-girlfriend adores. He knows she’s a big fan and he knows what she’s capable of – that she’ll have a connection with him and will likely dream about him.

“Think about it, if the only reason to kidnap Parker was to get the formula to make the serum, why didn’t Darren go to Massachusetts and get it months ago? He did it now when we’ve just found Penny –
hell, he’s probably the one who’s been controlling the intel on her – so that The Three, Parker, and Penny are all in the same place at the same time. I’ll bet that when Ben and I showed up instead of her we put a kink in his plan. I’m sure he wanted Penny to rescue Parker and then for The Three to come after Penny -- too bad for him we’re all super awesome at fucking plans up.” Raleigh smiles and then whispers to himself again. “Honey, my words sound so good coming out of your mouth.”

Kai makes a wide turn onto Redwood and parks the van in front of Ben’s house. I look out the window and see that the front door is open, a pink flip flop on the steps. Apart from that, the street resembles a postcard of Los Angeles.

Elle slides her arm from around my shoulders. The postcard stays. I grab her by the wrist.

“Something’s wrong.”

The van goes silent as all the non-Retro passengers latch onto and then let go of the nearest Retroact.

Elle turns to me, her eyebrows furrowed. “Things still look bueno? Maybe you’ve simply developed the skill to-”

“Melody?”
Wyatt says, making eye contact with me and shaking his head.

“Damn.” Raleigh nods. “I hardly remembered what it really looks like. You think
Christo-”

Wyatt notices the lone shoe and is out of the van in an instant.
“Zellie? Connor?” he hollers, running into the house.

We all exit the van quickly. “I’ll go check on Avery and
Zel,” Raleigh says, and takes off for their house.

“What do we do?” I say to Elle.

She shakes her head. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”

I don’t believe her.

Wyatt runs out of Ben’s house, frantic. “I don’t know what’s happened. There’s no one in there and things aren’t disturbed, but this just doesn’t feel right.”

Raleigh jogs over. “No one’s in our house or Christopher’s either.”

Wyatt paces, yelling into his Ret-tech. “Tech Avery.” He grits his teeth. “Tech Claire.” He fists his hands. “Tech Lookout Command.” Another pause. “Fuck!” Wyatt rips the Ret off of his head and throws it down into the grass. “No one is answering.”

I pick the Ret up and tuck it into the pants pocket of my scrubs.

“All right,” Raleigh says. “It looks like we’re about to find out what Darren’s plan is.”

We hurry into the house, quiet, alert to each other and our surroundings. Raleigh leads the way to the back bedroom where the entrance to the school is, with Wyatt and me bringing up the rear. Raleigh punches in his access code. The door opens and a cloud of white gas billows out from the stairwell. Wyatt immediately has his hand over my nose and mouth, dragging me backward. Raleigh falls, then Kai, Elle, and Reed. Ty and Phoebe make it a couple of steps before they start going down. Phoebe pulls herself to her knees and closes the bedroom door as soon as we’re over the threshold.

Wyatt drops his hand from my nose and mouth. I turn to look at him, purple color draining from his face as he takes a gaping breath.

“What’re we going to do?” I ask, rushing to the front of the house and throwing the door open, letting in the clean L.A. air.

“C’mon,” he says. We run down the sidewalk to his family’s house. Wyatt bursts through the front door and heads to the kitchen, then out into the garage. I follow closely behind.

He stops in front of four shelves against the far wall. They’re crammed with car and computer parts, a massive tent, sleeping bags, scuba gear, ski poles, an old fashioned wooden sled with runners, and about a billion vintage metal service station signs. “There have got to be gas masks in here somewhere.”

“Right.” I nod. “How could there not be.”

We start pulling things off the shelves, the image of everyone passing out spurring me to go faster. Wyatt must have been thinking of them too, because before long we’re ripping stuff from the shelves and throwing it behind us into a massive discard pile. I’m about to give up when I spot a milk crate full of goggles. I pick it up and dump it out onto the concrete floor. “Here!” I shout, down on my knees, untangling the mess.

Wyatt picks up a pair of goggles with a nose and mouthpiece hanging down. “Eureka! What are the chances there are two of these?”

I show him the empty crate and then pick through the pile of goggles more carefully.
“Nothing.” I scan the garage, wishing enhanced vision was one of my abilities. “What about the scuba tank? Would that work?”

Wyatt shakes his head.
“Only if the school is underwater.”

“Crap. Maybe I should just go in alone then.”

“Not a chance, Black,” Wyatt says, the corners of his mouth tugging up into a slight smile. He puts the mask on and takes a few breaths, and then he takes it off and slides it over my head. It’s a bit stuffy, but it’ll do the job. I push it up on top of my head.

He stoops down with his back to me. “Hop on. I can get you in and down the stairs before I need to breathe.”

“And if that’s not true?” I ask. “What if you pass out and I’m stuck saving the day all by myself?”

Wyatt gives me a full-on smile. “God help them.”

Wyatt

“Am I too heavy?” Penny asks, and I stifle a snort.

“I’ve hiked Mt. Scott with backpacks that weighed more than you, Pen.” I bound up the steps to the Society School house to prove my point.

“All right,” she says and then kisses the back of my neck, “from here on out, I promise not to speak of my weight ever again.”

“Bueno.” I squeeze her calves.

“Mostly because I doubt there is going to be a ‘from here on out,” she jokes.

“See? The prospect of dying is sooooo funny!” We head into the house and I approach the door to the back room cautiously. “Ready? Mask on?” I feel her moving around and then she sticks her hand in front of my face, giving me a thumbs up. Not wanting a repeat of earlier when I didn’t have a chance to take in any air the instant I saw the gas, I exhale sharply three times, emptying my lungs before inhaling and filling them.

I open the door carefully, knowing Phoebe is on the other side. But, in true Phoebe form, she’s managed to get herself out of the way enough for Penny and me to fit through. I weave through the bodies leading to the downstairs door, doing a fast check for chests rising and falling. Everyone is still breathing. I move quickly down the stairs through the haze, going more by muscle memory than what’s visible. At the bottom, the gas has thinned out and I go into Lookout mode, assessing, taking in everything I can see and hear as I walk past the guard station and a downed Phil. He’s got six young Seers near him -- no doubt he was trying to get them to safety. The rotunda is littered with bodies, more of the same down the dorm and administrative halls. I search for Avery’s blue scrubs amongst a pile of bodies outside the infirmary with no luck.

What is the point of all this? Knocking everyone out?

That’s when I hear it, someone calling Penny’s name from the auditorium. Penny kicks me in the tops of my thighs. I take a step forward, my lungs burning. I’ve got to at least look Darren in the eye and let him know that we will make him pay. Unfortunately, my body has other ideas and I accidentally sneak a sniff. I fall to one
knee, sure I’m down for the count, when Penny slides the mask onto my face. I suck air in as best I can, as fast as I can.

She puts her hand out in front of her in rewind stance and then shakes her head “no.”
Her powers aren’t working.
I put my hands together beside my head and motion like I’m sleeping and then shrug.
Does she need to be asleep?
She balls up her fists and pretends to punch herself in the face. I pull Penny into a hug, knowing she’s wishing that it was Elle and Kai, or Phoebe and Reed that were down here getting things right instead of the two of us who are fucking everything up – because that’s what I’m wishing.

“Pen-
ny,” Darren calls from the other side of the auditorium doors. “I know you’re out there.”

Penny sets her shoulders and raises her right hand in front of her. She nods at me. I put the mask back onto her and open the door.

Penny

Darren’s wearing a clear hood over his head, standing at the bottom of the auditorium in front of a massive
holo-screen, like he’s giving a lecture on evil to the passed out students filling the seats. He’s flanked on either side by bodies slumped over in chairs, only kept from the floor by their bonds. Zellie with baby Michael at her feet, Avery, Ben, Connor and their daughter, Christopher and Claire. Essentially, most of Wyatt’s family in L.A. -- and Parker.