Out of Mind

Chapter 16

Cabs weren’t her thing, but Willow took one back to Royal Street. First, she wanted to get there fast. Second, when Ben and Sykes followed her out of Fortunes, she wanted to be out of sight already.

“Now you know you gotta keep to the center of things?” the cab driver said, starting the same old lecture she’d heard before. “Don’t be wandering off the beaten track on your own. Don’t matter what time of day it is. Be safe. And if you need a cab—” he shoved a card over his shoulder “—call me.”

Holding Mario, she thanked the driver when he stopped a few yards short of Millet’s and paid him too much. He tried to give her change but she pressed it back at him.

He took a good look at her then and a pleased smile creased his deeply tanned face. “Guess you don’t need my help,” he said. “You’re one of them.”

With that, he drove off, and she heard him turn up his radio. Swamp pop pelted the damp and ever-hotter air. Bobi Jackson’s “Alligator Woman” started her shoulders rolling.

One of them. The cabby had called her that.

The turmoil Willow felt had not lessened, but she knew what she wanted to do about it. She had a mission, and she had to take control—for the sake of others. Or she would try, just in case the thoughts she had weren’t imaginary.

They probably were imaginary, which would be good, because then she could put her powers behind her again and go back to being normal.

The sidewalk was thick with the wanderers and the striders. A kid scooted up beside her and cracked his skateboard onto one end, startling Willow. He grinned at her, deftly used a sneaker toe to flip the board into the air and caught it.

All she wanted was to be normal, just plain old normal. Why was that too much to ask?

As quietly as she could, she opened the ornate iron gates to the alley leading to the back of the Court of Angels.

She hugged the wall of the shop and crept forward, trying not to make the gravel crunch under her feet. If Pascal heard her, or any other family member, she would have to face an inquisition. Mario struggled and she put him down. He sat at once and stared up at her.

What would she do if someone came to claim him? The way he’d shown up was strange, but he was part of her life already. She tried to take comfort in not having heard or read a thing about someone looking for a little red dog.

She darted across the alley, skirted the big storeroom where she kept her scooter and the trailer and entered the courtyard, grateful for the cover of palms, lush ferns, and bamboo that exploded from every area. White impatiens, tall but dense rather than leggy, bobbled softly among the dark green fronds. Water trickled like liquid silver from the fountain angel’s shell, and she smelled the vanilla scent of creamy clematis climbing railings and scaling over windows.

Deception.

This was a stage set to give a false impression. Why she had never thought of the place that way before, she didn’t know. Peace was a facade, and behind that facade, intrigue seethed on every side. And this was exactly where she was supposed to be at this moment.

She had not told Ben or Sykes, but she thought the picture she had been shown of the woman resembled some of the angels in the courtyard.

Willow looked at the ground, listened and opened herself to feel anything that wanted to approach.

Mario trotted forward and disappeared into a bed where lilies unfurled their pointed blooms.

Willow inclined her head to see where Mario had gone—and the faintest shade of pink washed slowly down to color the scene in front of her. Her stomach turned. Pink blended to mauve and she closed her eyes.

She couldn’t move, yet movement was all around her.

A strong current, a blast like high wind, buffeted her this way and that. If her feet weren’t rooted to the ground, she would fall. She tried to open her eyes, but couldn’t.

“Can you hear me?” A man’s voice sounded so familiar that she reached out. “You over there. Can you hear me?”

Was he talking to her?

“Are you embarrassed because you’re naked?” the voice asked. “I won’t look, but you’ve got to say somethin’ to me, girl. Let me know you’re alive—if you are alive. We don’t know how long we’ve got before someone comes back. We gotta get out of here first.”

Willow was too hot. The wind settled to a whirling stream. Behind her eyelids she saw something small, a writhing thing she couldn’t make out. But she was sure the voice came from this.

Pale, partly buried in bright yellow granules and walled off by glass, when the creature stopped twisting for an instant it became invisible, blended with the yellow-white of its surroundings.

Of course she knew the voice. “You’re Chris,” she said, amazed and not certain whether she spoke aloud. “Chris? Where are you? Who’s with you?” He had not been talking to her before, after all.

He didn’t answer. The tiny shape turned over and over, like a minuscule shelled shrimp.

“Girl,” Chris’s voice said again. “We gotta talk. We gotta help each other. I’m Chris. What’s your name?”

The next sound Willow heard was a muted crying, so soft she had to strain to hear it at all.

“Yeah,” the Chris voice said. “Good. You’re not dead—yet. I’d like to cry, too, but there’s got to be a way out of this. Hoo, mama, this is weird. Did you, er…did you meet someone interesting before you came here? You know, interesting in a sexy way?”

The female sound rose to a thin wail.

“Okay, okay, we won’t talk about it right now. But it was somethin’ wasn’t it? I couldn’t see her, but I could sure feel her. Geez, no one ever came on to me like that before. Were you blindfolded, too?”

“We can’t get out,” a female voice said. “We can’t climb the glass. We’d just slip back down.”

“Stay with me,” Chris said. “We’ll figure it out.”

“We’re going to die.” The other one sounded as if she had already given up. Then she said, almost inaudibly, “I’m Caroline. I don’t want to die.”

“No. We won’t. If we were going to die, we’d be dead already. We were captured for some reason. I just want us out of here before they get a chance to show us what they think we’re good for.”

Slowly, Willow’s eyes opened. The mauve haze had deepened to a shade of purple she had already seen once today.

Stumbling, parting ferns to step into one of the plantings, she went to the first stone angel she saw and stared into its face. Then she moved on to another, this one tall and very slender, its marble drapery falling in intricate folds.

“Willow, don’t be scared,” Ben said, so close behind her she reached back convulsively and grabbed at him.

He held her hand firmly, and for what seemed a long time they stood there, both facing the same direction, the skin on her palm and fingers pulsing at his touch.

“I’ve known there was a presence in this courtyard,” he said, keeping his voice low. “You’re feeling it, too. What do you see when you look at them?”

She knew he meant the statues. “Nothing. Just…just what they are.”

“Ah.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll explain later,” he said. “We should go where we can have some privacy.”

“I can’t leave yet,” she told him.

“Because you’re trying to find a statue that looks like the woman you saw in your Mentor’s book?”

She nodded, moving on to a figure so small she had to crouch to get a close look. This one had the round-cheeked face of a girl child.

Ben steadied her as she stood up again. He slid his free hand under her chin, then wrapped his forearm across her upper chest and pulled her back against him. “We’re going to work it out. We were made for this. It’s our destiny.”

“I’ve never felt it was mine,” she told him. “I’m not strong like you. Whatever these things are that happen to me are shadows beside what you can do.” She must be careful not to say too much.

“When people like us work together, we complement each other, Willow. You are a member of an extraordinary family.”

“Extraordinarily weird,” she muttered.

He chuckled. “We have to work on your attitude, my love.”

If she had the willpower, she would separate herself from him. She couldn’t do it, didn’t want to do it. “Why did you really come back to New Orleans?”

“You needed me,” he said promptly. “No other reason.”

She eased away and moved on, much more quickly than before, searching out the statues, even checking gargoyles on lintels although she knew their faces from memory and they could never be beautiful.

“Why would that man think the woman was so important? Ben, she did look as if she could be one of our angels.”

“I’m sure she did.”

“Do you know if Nat’s been looking for me?” she said, her heart slamming against her ribs. “Have you heard anything about Chris?”

She heard the shop doors open and slam shut. Uncertain steps approached, and Willow looked over her shoulder at Marley, who gave them a distracted smile.

“Hey, Marley,” Ben said.

She nodded to him.

“Did you hear from Nat again?” Willow asked her sister.

“No. But now you’re supposed to be on the run.” She smiled impishly, but didn’t seem as lively as usual.

“Meaning?” Ben said.

“Willow was sprung from her office by two accomplices and has disappeared. That’s the word around, anyway.”

He made a face and said, “But Nat didn’t call or come here?”

“Nope,” Marley said. “I think the media’s getting carried away—with a little help from someone called, Rock U.? Tattoo parlor owner with a place near your offices, Willow?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Guess I should have gotten over there to see what kind of place you were hanging out in. But I will today, anyway.”

Willow frowned but wouldn’t allow herself to ask any questions.

“I work for you now,” Marley said. “I’m the new indoor plant expert—until Chris gets back. I also plan extraordinary buffet tables and mix one-of-a-kind drinks. That means no two drinks are ever the same. I’m going to be so useful, you’ll wonder how you managed without me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Willow said.

“No,” Ben said. “How many people have to tell you to keep yourself safe? Even the cab driver warned you.”

Willow snorted. “He didn’t mean what you mean. He… How do you know what the cab driver said?” She shook her head fiercely. “Don’t bother to say anything. You were there, weren’t you? I’m going to have to go over the Millet rules with you.”

“She’s all rules, rules, rules suddenly,” Ben told Marley. “Those are Millet rules, not Fortune rules.”

“Don’t argue about having me with you,” Marley said, her dark green eyes skewering Willow. “You would do the same for me. Without you it could have taken forever to find out what Gray had been through—but you could tell, you could actually see. Think of yourself as a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis, only you’ve waited a bit long and you need some help getting unstuck from the sticky stuff. I’m going to help—when Ben’s not around, that is.”

Willow put her hands on her hips and stepped too far away from Ben for him to touch her. “You’ve been talking about me,” she said. “Discussing me. All of you. I don’t like it.”

“She doesn’t like a lot of things,” Ben said. “Especially me.”

“I never said that,” she snapped back at him. She felt herself blush and added, “You can be a bit pushy, though, Ben.”

Marley raised her face to the sky. She watched the cloudless, haze-tinged blue intently, and Willow thought her sister was listening for something. She turned toward the shop and went in.

“I’ve got a bunch of questions I’d like to ask you,” Ben said when they were alone again.

This was the one person she knew who wouldn’t push her too hard. He never had. Ben treated her differently from anyone else in their circle—which had made her feel special for a long time, until Poppy pointed out that his deference only meant he didn’t think of her as one of them, not completely.

Trying to learn more about the courtyard—if there was more—would wait. “I’ve got something to tell you, too,” she said. “Let’s go up.”

Without waiting for a response, she started up the steps but turned back when she remembered Mario. He was already running behind her.

Ben stood right where he’d been, staring at her. That stare stopped her. “What is it?” she said.

“Just wondering what it’s going to take to get my way with you,” he said with a crooked smile. “I mean, to get you to do what I want you to do, of course,” he added. Suddenly, he looked exasperated. “I just want you to be sensible.”

She set her lips together and carried on to her flat.

On the threshold, she paused.

Ben crowded behind her, moving them both inside, and shut the door again.

“Did you have breakfast?” she asked for something to say.

“It’s lunchtime, but I’m not hungry,” he said. “I am tired. We haven’t had much sleep in the last couple of days.”

“I don’t think that’s going to get better soon,” she told him. “I mustn’t forget my appointment.”

He frowned heavily. “Yeah, you mentioned that. When is it?”

She didn’t want to lie to him. “Seven this evening.”

His face cleared immediately, and he might as well have come out and told her how relieved he was that seven o’clock was hours away.

“Excuse me,” he said and passed her.

Willow followed Ben and didn’t say a word when he unplugged the phone in her living room before moving on to the bedroom. Once more he disconnected the phone. “Make sure your cell’s off,” he said and dealt with his own. He threw it down on her bedside table.

Hesitantly, Willow took out her cell and made sure it wouldn’t become a way for someone to reach her until she wanted it to. She hadn’t missed what Ben did with his own phone.

“It’s warm in here,” he said and switched on the overhead fan. He raised his face and said, “Better.”

“It’ll be cooler in the living room,” she said and hoped he didn’t hear her swallow.

“Nope. This is the coolest room. This side of the building always is.”

“This is my bedroom, Ben.”

“I noticed.”

What was she supposed to say to that? Walking out would make her feel like a silly kid, but it was what she ought to do.

Ben went around the bed, flipped off his shoes and stretched out on the other side. He patted the mattress beside him and Willow turned hot, then hotter. She radiated heat.

“C’mon,” he said softly. “I’m not dangerous. Promise. We’ve earned some relaxation time.”

“And lying on my bed with you beside me is going to make me relaxed?”

“We-ell—you do have a point. But it’s up to you to control yourself.”

She bit back a smile. He always had the smart comeback. Willow sat carefully on top of her white cotton spread at the very edge of her bed.

“What was happening down in the courtyard?” he asked. “You saw something, didn’t you?”

“You know too much,” she said. “I keep telling you you’re too powerful for me.” Willow closed her mouth firmly. That was not what she had intended to say.

His silence unnerved her.

She undid her sneakers and kicked them off, then threw her socks on top. Very carefully, she settled herself in the horizontal position, but as far from Ben as she could get without falling off the bed.

The fan moved a soft breeze across her face. It felt good, or it might if her stomach didn’t keep turning over and over and her heart would stop trying to leap out of her chest.

She would wait until he said something.

All she heard was Ben’s quiet breathing.

He had said he was tired. More or less. How dare he come into her bedroom, get on her bed and just go to sleep….

Steamed, that’s how he made her feel. She rolled her head toward him—and looked directly into Ben’s blue-flame eyes. He didn’t smile, but he stared back at her and they didn’t need to touch for her to tingle all over.

“Do you want to go first?” he asked.

“No. It was a bad idea to say I wanted to talk. There are things we have to do alone.” Like deal with shrimpy little creatures that sounded like people she knew. Telling him about that would really make her sound well-balanced.

He reached out and settled his fingertips on her cheek. They both drew in a sharper breath, but Ben’s gaze grew so intense Willow felt it branded her.

“Ben, after we left Nat’s office this morning, what happened while we were talking on that sidewalk? When I told you about something touching my neck?”

His eyes never left hers. “I listened to you. I believed you.”

Gathering her courage she said, “You left, didn’t you? Just for…part of an instant? I didn’t see it, but I did in a way. Where did you go?”

“I was there.” But his mouth set in a hard line, and the way he watched her changed. She had surprised him.

“Are you going to tell me what I saw?”

“Have you accepted that you aren’t what you like to call normal?”

If she avoided the dreaded question, he might assume she’d meant to say yes, and tell her what she wanted to know.

His fingers brushed from her cheek to her hair and slowly down over her shoulder and along her arm.

Willow tried to keep staring at him but failed. She screwed up her eyes and sucked a breath through her teeth.

“Look,” he said, with all kinds of persuasion in that one word, “you are normal, but you’re gifted. Will you admit you have the gift?”

“The gift?” she muttered. “Why is it called that?”

“Just answer me.” The tips of his fingers traced tendons on the back of her hand. Back and forth, back and forth.

“Are you being fair?” she said.

His smile did just what he intended; it made her smile back.

“This isn’t about being fair,” he told her. “And it’s not a joke, not anymore. We’ve got to circle the wagons, my love, for everyone’s sake. I need you to admit what you are and let me know I can trust you to use the talents you have.”

“What am I, Ben?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t know.” She looked at his face again, at his eyes. “Chris is in terrible trouble. He’s trapped in sand or something. In a thick glass thing. There’s a woman with him.”

“At least he’s not alone,” Ben said, showing no surprise at what she had told him.

“That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. Believe me, two is better than one most of the time. Is this what… In the courtyard, is this what you found out?”

“I heard Chris, then I saw him. Then I heard her, but I didn’t see her. I never did see her.”

“What would you say that makes you?” he asked quietly.

“Not normal.”

“You can do better than that.”

“First I feel strong emotion—not mine, someone else’s,” Willow said. “Sometimes, after that, I see what made them feel the emotion. Fear is the strongest one. Pain. Sadness. I felt anger and fear everywhere before I heard Chris. Then I knew he was trying to be funny and brave for the woman.”

Ben took her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.

“I think I may be clairvoyant,” she said softly.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” His breath was warm on her skin.

“Give me a break. Now I’m admitting it. That isn’t easy for me, and it’s not easy to admit I’ve heard what other people are thinking. I’ve only heard you when you talk to me—without talking.” If she was supposed to feel relief at saying all this aloud, it wasn’t happening.

He held her hand against his chest. “But you’ve tried to listen to what I’m thinking?”

She felt the steady beat of his heart. “Yes,” she admitted. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You’re only human,” he said.

“Evidently only barely,” she said bitterly. “I’ve fought this for a long time.”

“I know. Now it’s time to quit that and start using your strengths.”

Willow spread her fingers on his chest. “One of our rules is that we can only use our talents for good. And we’re not supposed to listen in to other people without asking permission first. If we don’t get it, we don’t listen.”

“Good stuff,” he said. “Unless by breaking a rule you do the right thing. I did leave you when we were walking this morning—just for a nanogap.”

“What does that mean?”

He gave an eloquent shrug. “Planck time. Parallel shift. The shortest measurable length of time, and it appears instantaneous. I passed through a nanogap because I thought I saw the suggestion of a manifestation.”

She held her breath and waited.

“I did see it. A wisp of a thing that moved as if it flew. It shot upward—away from you—and I followed, but couldn’t grab the thing.”

Willow shifted closer to him. “No! I’m glad you didn’t touch it. What if it did—you know—what happened to Billy and that woman?”

“All the more reason for me to take it out.”

“If it doesn’t take you out first,” she said. Another wiggle and she was near enough to settle with the top of her head beneath his chin.

They both stopped talking.

Willow pressed her lips to his neck and Ben shuddered along his length. He wrapped her in both of his arms and she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Are you like Marley, then?” Willow asked. “Do you travel out of your body, and that’s why I sensed you were gone, but didn’t see you go?”

“No. She goes for extended periods—usually many minutes, and only when she’s called. I travel of my own will—but very fast, so fast I return with no apparent lapse of time. That’s how I brought you back from that house. Through a nanogap. Sykes is concerned about that. In case you lack whatever makes it okay for me. We don’t want you harmed.”

“It hasn’t hurt me.”

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

She considered that. When she’d realized she had returned from the Brandts’ and was sitting on her own couch again—with a dog she had never seen before at her feet—she hadn’t thought to check the time.

“Can you hear what I’m thinking?” she asked.

He shook his head, no. “I often open to you in case you want in, but you’ve never come or invited me—except by accident, like yesterday.”

She loved his grin. “But you’d know if I invited you?” The thought was comforting, mostly because she didn’t want him to know everything that crossed her mind.

“Willow, Sykes has told me a great deal. So have Marley and Gray. We may not have much time to set things right.”

“What do I do about Chris? If he really is somewhere weird, I need to get him.”

“It’s not time.”

“It is. He’s scared and stuck.”

“But you haven’t seen what you can do about it yet. We’re waiting, Willow. That’s the hardest thing for people like you and me, but there will be a next step. Maybe any minute. Part of becoming what you really are is learning to accept that you will grow stronger, but not immediately. We should think.”

What he meant, Willow decided, was that she was supposed to lie there and hope for the next scary happening while Chris kept trying to climb up a sheer wall of glass.

“Relax,” Ben said. “That’s exactly what I mean. You’ll know when it’s time to do something—and what that is.”

Making fists, she attempted to push away from him. “You said you didn’t read my thoughts.” He was too strong for her to shift against him.

“You opened your mind to me,” he said, sounding aggrieved. “I felt you.”

The fan vibrated. Willow didn’t want to fight him about anything. “I want you to kiss me,” she said.

“This is getting to be hell,” Ben said, his voice gravelly. “You sent me away.”

“And now you’ve come back,” she pointed out and hiked herself up until she could find his mouth with her own.

He kissed her back. Their lips softened, but the searching was there, too. Kisses weren’t enough.

Willow put her arms around his neck and leaned until he rolled onto his back. She combed her fingers through his thick, blue-black hair. He wasn’t wearing it tied back.

“Not yet,” he whispered, but he let her lead him in another kiss.

When the intense sensitivity was too much, she pulled his shirt out and ran her tongue from his breastbone to the low waist of his jeans, and nipped him there.

She heard him laugh, then, abruptly, he forced her up again and held her where he could see her face. “What are you trying to do to me?” he said.

“Make love to you,” she said without hesitation. “Don’t you think it’s overdue?”

“Why now?”

“You know why. You feel what I do.”

He stroked her hair, kissed the end of her nose. “It wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Willow’s cheeks stung. “What do you mean?” Her voice sounded small and lost.

“My love, you know what I mean. Don’t you think I want you? Look at me.”

When she did, he continued, “I could…I want you, and you know how I’m hurting because I want you. But it’s not time yet.”

“You thought it was time two years ago.”

“I was wrong. If I hadn’t been, we would never have parted.” He raised her chin. “Have I hurt you? Sweetheart, please don’t be hurt—there’s something we have to do before we take the steps we want to take.”

He wouldn’t hear it from her, but he could not have hurt her more if he had struck her. “Okay, Ben. What is it you think we have to do?”

“Commit to each other. For eternity.”

“Ben.” She watched his face until he frowned, and she thought he had heard her.

“I’m going to take my clothes off. It’s too hot in here.”

“Is that your way of telling me to get out?”

They would do this—just do it. “It’s my way of telling you not to leave.”

“See how well we communicate?” he said, but conflicting emotions crossed his face. The dominant one was a tight and raging desire that distended the veins in his neck while he pulled away from her and flung his arms over his head.

Willow raised her hips and slid her white jeans down.

Ben’s breath came in bursts. She could see the rapid rise and fall of his chest.

The jeans hit the floor.

“This is more than I can control,” he said. He rolled toward her, stroking her legs from knee to thigh, pushing his thumb under a leg of her panties and into the hair covering her mound.

Two more fingers followed, slipping down into the moisture she could not disguise. Her hips jerked upward again, this time because she wanted more of him.

But the instant his fingers met the core of all her sensations, he withdrew his hand and put it over her mouth instead, drowning out her protests.

In one move he sat astride her hips, rocking back and forth, gritting his teeth and sucking up her emotions with his eyes.

“Your jeans,” she said.

Ignoring her, Ben started with the bottom button of her shirt and slowly undid the row all the way to the one at the neck. He spread the shirt and she felt his arousal throbbing through his jeans.

His hands covered her breasts in the skimpy, pink lace bra she wore, pushed them together and buried his face in her cleavage. His tongue did magical work, tracing a line just beneath the edges of the bra where her soft flesh swelled, gradually delving a little deeper to curl around a hard nipple.

“It’s all fire. Everywhere you touch me burns. There’s pain.”

“Tell me if it’s too much,” Ben said. “But if all pain were like this, people would line up to get some.”

“Don’t stop!” Willow cried aloud.

She heard her own thin moan, and wondered at the way her hips pumped up against him. Her reactions had a life of their own.

The muscles in his chest tightened with her touch. She pinched his nipples, and he leaped away, shucking his jeans and briefs.

He penis sprang hard and huge. Willow squirmed, reaching for him.

Standing beside her, Ben shuddered when she held him. He unhooked her bra and pulled it away. He bent to kiss her breasts, to run his tongue in circles, growing ever closer until he took each nipple in his teeth and she writhed.

On her side, she used two hands to guide him between her lips, letting the very edges of her teeth rake him all the way.

A click came from his throat and he swayed forward, tore her panties off and caught her beneath the arms.

Willow rocked her head from side to side. With her eyes squeezed shut, she felt tears run along her temples. Ben moved her as if she were nothing, spread her across the middle of the bed and mounted her. She felt him try to gentle the first thrust, but his restraint broke and they came together as if he were flowing lava filling her up.

Her breasts and belly ached and she didn’t want them to stop aching.

Once, twice, he surged into her. Then the climax broke. His and hers. Bursting over them, drawing out a fine sweat that turned their bodies slick, melded their skin into one skin bonded together.

Ben stilled. The only sound was their panting.

She reached down to feel where their bodies were still joined, his strong shaft impaling her just as it was meant to.

Slowly, he slid out, and she held his face, brought it to hers and kissed him, opened their mouths wide, got as far over and into him as her tongue would take her.

His fingers, landing on her unbelievably sensitive clitoris again shocked Willow. She tried to say his name, but he took over the kiss and she couldn’t speak.

He was tall.

She wasn’t.

Kissing her into oblivion while he worked where she could barely stand to be touched was easy for him. She vaguely felt the rumble of satisfaction in his throat.

He slid fingers up and inside her, drew out and swept to finish what he had started.

Willow struggled beneath him, then fell back, sated, incapable of moving.

He began to kiss her breasts once more, and she spread her arms wide to give herself to him again. The nudge against the entrance to her still-throbbing body opened her eyes.

“Is it okay?” he said. “Again?”

“Again, and again.”