LITMIR.BIZ

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      6

      Jack could hear the ocean inside his head. He loved the beach. Sometimes, when things got really rough with a john, he’d just think about the waves crashing on the sand. Santa Monica pier was the first place he’d gone when he’d gotten off the bus from Indiana. If he closed his eyes, the cars on the freeway even sounded like the waves. He could almost smell the salt in the air.

      There were two of them now, a man and a woman.

      Funny, but they looked alike—a lot alike, actually, like maybe the guy from last night cloned himself. They were both really tall, way taller than Jack. And they had this pale skin with red, red hair. The girl’s hair was straight and down to her waist; the guy wore his layered so that the ends just brushed his broad shoulders. They had really dark blue eyes, almost black. Even their voices sounded the same.

      He noticed that sometimes one would start a sentence and the other would finish it. Other times, they didn’t talk at all but he could see they were communicating somehow. Like maybe they could read each other’s minds.

      The guy, Adam, told him the girl’s name was Evie.

      At first, Jack thought they were kidding him. Adam and Evie? Come on. Then Adam stuck another needle in him and everything just sort of went away.

      It didn’t hurt as much the second time. The first time, the stuff burned going in. And his body started to spasm like he had no control. He thought he was having a seizure. Then everything just went dark.

      He woke up completely covered in sweat. Every muscle hurt. He’d never felt so strange. Tired and exhilarated at the same time.

      Adam said he’d get used to it.

      The woman, she was really pretty. She had this soft mouth and her voice was like music. She would sit on the cold cement floor and stroke his face. Her smile reminded Jack of his mom.

      Adam reminded Jack of Uncle Pete. The johns always reminded Jack of Uncle Pete.

      Pete wasn’t really Jack’s uncle. He was his mother’s boyfriend. Mom really liked him because he had lots of money. Pete owned a dealership in town. He bought Mom stuff all the time. He’d buy Jack things, too. And take them to expensive dinners.

      Right away, Jack noticed how Pete and his money brought a real smile to his mother’s face, not that tired, fake smile he remembered. It was the first time they’d really had anything. His mother told him Jack’s dad had taken off the minute he found out she was pregnant.

      Jack couldn’t remember when he’d figured out she was lying. He just knew that, whenever he’d asked about his father, his mom would look away really fast and change the subject. So he stopped asking.

      He had a feeling that, before Pete, Mom had made the kind of choices Jack had the last months living on the streets. She probably didn’t even know who his father was.

      Jack looked just like his mom. Like looking in a mirror, baby boy. How many times had she said that to him? She loved the fact that they looked alike. He knew his mom was proud of him. He didn’t need to get good grades or be smart, she just thought he was special because he was all hers.

      That’s why, when Uncle Pete started touching Jack, he let him. He kept thinking about his mom and how happy she was. How much better her life was with Uncle Pete’s money.

      It always happened in the basement, one just like this. The musty smell, the sound of dripping water in the sink, it was all too familiar. Jack remembered he’d focus on that sound, pretending that someday it would be the ocean he’d be listening to and not Pete’s heavy breathing.

      He’d always thought his mother didn’t know. I mean, if she knew, she’d put a stop to it, right? His mom loved him, no matter what.

      Then six months ago, she took Jack aside and gave him a sweaty wad of money. She said she’d been saving a little bit every time Pete gave her some cash. She thought it would be enough.

      She told him he had to go away. I need you to be a man now, okay, sweetie? She’d been crying the whole time, kissing him all over his face, holding him so tight.

      She kept saying how sorry she was.

      Jack remembered feeling numb. He hadn’t cried. He hadn’t even hugged her back. All he could think was: She knows. She knows everything.

      He didn’t know what hurt more. The horror he felt knowing that anyone—let alone his mother—knew his horrible secret. Or the fact that she’d let it happen.

      Now, sitting in another cold basement, handcuffed to an old metal desk, he wished he’d told Mom that it was okay. That he understood how maybe she’d convinced herself nothing was wrong, how Uncle Pete couldn’t be this dirty old man—until the truth hit her so hard in the face she had to admit what was going on.

      He didn’t blame his mom. After some of the things he’d done since coming here, he understood what it meant to fight to survive.

      “Jack, you need to pay attention.”

      Right, he thought, realizing he’d let himself drift. Evie wanted him to focus. She needed him to think about the past. Only, she wasn’t talking about Uncle Pete or his mother. She wanted something else.

      “Open your eyes to what’s possible, Jack.”

      He wasn’t really sure what she meant when she said stuff like that, but he knew he wanted to please Evie. She called him things like baby and sweetie. And she’d stroke his hair, just like his mother used to.

      “That’s it, baby,” she whispered. “That’s very good.”

      She sounded so happy. And that voice of hers, the way she’d say things like very good and I’m so proud, it felt like a wave of heat warming him in that cold basement. He actually smiled even though his head hurt like someone was taking a pen and jamming it in his ear.

      He loved the way she touched him. Just like Mom.

      “You did well, sweetie.”

      She unlocked the handcuffs and folded him into her arms as a reward, again repeating how well he’d done and how special he was.

      Adam had said the same thing. You’re special. He’d told him he could turn Jack into a superhero.

      Jack didn’t know what that meant exactly, except that it wasn’t all good. Not if it meant handcuffs and that huge needle.

      Only now, Evie was rocking him in her arms. And Adam, he knelt down beside them and put his arms around them both. The way he looked at Jack. He’s proud of me, too.

      They were both smiling at him, Adam and Evie. And he could hear them talking inside his head. Even though their lips didn’t move, the message was so clear. We’re a family.

      Family. That’s the only word that described the emotions he felt coming from Adam and Evie. They cared about him. They loved him.

      He wanted to reach out and hug them back, but he couldn’t move. He realized he was paralyzed or something.

      But he could listen. So that’s what he did. He just lay there, in Evie’s arms, and listened to the sound of their voices inside his head.

      7

      The great city of San Diego did not claim to be paradise on earth, but it came damn close. An average temperature of seventy degrees Fahrenheit, less than twelve inches of precipitation annually, a slice of blue sky and seventy miles of beach pretty much clinched it. After Morgan Tyrell weathered one too many Boston winters, the city was also the site of the Institute for Dynamic Studies of Parapsychology and the Brain.

      The Institute, as it was known, commanded a nice piece of real estate on the Point Loma peninsula. With the pounding surf below, the compound’s architectural design—a central galleria ringed by labs and offices—assisted its multidisciplinary collaboration. Hard science worked alongside soft, some might even say pseudoscience, the Institute being home

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