“Because it’s just like you said. It’s family history and none of their business.” She set down her spatula and put a flour-dusted hand on her hip. “Any reason you want to know all this?”
Shaking her head in what she hoped was an innocent manner, Anna said, “Just curious.” There she went, blushing again. “Hey, what’s for dinner?”
“I’ve got some shrimp for stir-fry. I’ll get started just as soon as your parents get back, whenever that is. They didn’t tell me, and I don’t have any idea where they’ve gone off to.”
“Mom’s on her way back from a meeting at City Hall, and Dad’s in his office.”
“He’ll probably come up when she gets back, then. He can always tell the minute she’s back in the building. Did Celia call you to let you know?”
“Yeah,” Anna said, flailing a moment. Time to change the subject again, without looking like she was changing the subject. “You know how she is, always has to check up on us.”
“She just worries.”
“Or she’s a pathological control freak.” That came out a little stronger than she meant, and she tried to smile it away.
“That, too,” Suzanne said sunnily. “Just remember it’s because she loves you.”
Anna wondered sometimes. More often, she felt like a cog in Celia’s plans that had fallen out of place and didn’t particularly want to fit back in.
* * *
After dinner, she fled to her room, making excuses about needing to study. Instead, she turned out all the lights, sat on the floor below the window that looked out over the city’s west side, and closed her eyes.
Bethy was in her room, actually studying instead of just using it as an excuse to be antisocial like Anna did. Her grandmother and father were in the kitchen, cleaning up. Her mother was in the living room, lying on the sofa, resting. Anna pushed her awareness outward.
Uncle Robbie’s condo was a couple of blocks away, and he was at home. Teia and Lew, also at home along with their mother. Sam was at his family’s apartment. Everyone safe at home, as she expected. There was Teddy, at his family’s east end brownstone. She lingered at the spark that was his presence in her awareness; she could tell where he was but not what he was doing. He was stationary, which meant he could be doing anything from sleeping to watching TV to reading to showering. Not for the first time, she felt a deep envy for her father’s telepathy. He never had any questions about anyone, did he? She thought it would be worth finding out things you didn’t want to know, to learn the things you did. She thought about giving Teddy a call, or sending a text, or something, then decided against it. She’d see him at school tomorrow.
Their presences glared in her mind because she’d searched for them so often. They were always simply there, the moment she looked for them. Spotlights shining up from her mental map of the city, each with its own hue and shape, depending on whom it belonged to.
It was a comfort, knowing where everyone was, knowing they were safe, and that they would be there for her the minute she called. She didn’t know how other people got along without such reassurance. That was what cell phones were for, she supposed. But she never lost her charge.
She could find her family and closest friends without thinking of it; to find others—acquaintances, people on the fringes of her life rather than in the center—she had to work at it. If she needed to, she could find police Captain Mark Paulson, another good friend of her mother’s. Her teachers, people who worked at West Plaza whom she saw nearly every day but didn’t know well. She’d been able to track down some of the city’s superpowered vigilantes—the Block Busters, Earth Mother, Breezeway—when she needed to. Mostly to avoid them, when she and the others were out practicing.
But she had one specific person she wanted to find tonight. Since she’d met him only the one time, she didn’t know if she could. But she wanted to try.
She held a picture of the green-suited super in her mind. His costume, his voice, the slope of his chin. The way he perched on the fountain, the way he moved. Where she’d seen him last, where he might have gone next after making that epic leap.
She didn’t have any trouble ignoring most of the lights and presences she encountered on her search. If she wasn’t looking for them, they faded to the background. It was like searching for friends in a crowd: you knew what defining traits to look for, if they were tall or short or redheaded or always wore a certain leather jacket. You scanned the crowd, and those details snagged your attention. Same thing.
A spark flared in her mind. East, on the university campus. A young man, fit and agile, with a sharp gaze and calm demeanor. It was him. She’d found him.
The secret Olympiad elevator hadn’t been shut down or closed off after her talk with her father. Which meant he didn’t know about it. Or he didn’t care if she used it, which meant letting her have access to it was part of her parents’ plans, and they were watching her anyway, despite how hard she worked to avoid the building’s surveillance. She was an interesting rat in their maze. Which meant she shouldn’t use it anymore if she didn’t wa
nt them tracking her. But what choice did she have?
She could go crazy thinking of it.
Once outside, she made her way two blocks over to the main east-west bus line, the one that stopped right on the university campus, where she disembarked and walked on. Her target, the mysterious superhuman, drew her forward. Now that she’d focused on him, his presence grew brighter. She could follow the map in her mind right to his location. He was stationary, she thought. In a room—not the dorms but in one of the buildings near the auditorium. Maybe he was a student. As she closed in on him, her heart pounded. She felt strong, all-knowing. Times like this, her power thrilled her. She could do anything.
Here she was, doing something exciting and powerful. If only the others could see her.
He was close. The knowledge of his location was just there, like knowing where the corner store was, or the placement of the sofa in your own living room. The paved bike path she followed curved around a grassy lawn, past a big square cinder-block building. Even this late at night, a few students were out, keeping to the well-lit paths, walking back to the dorms from the library or coffee shops. The assumption in the family was that Anna would be a student here in a couple of years. Anna couldn’t picture it. She knew her way around because she’d grown up in the city, but the university still felt like another world.
When she passed the cinder-block building, the spark brightened—there, he was inside there. It was the university gym. A student at the front desk asked to see her ID. Startled, she patted her pockets, shook her jacket, and muttered, “Shit, I forgot it. Look, my friend Eliot’s here, I just need to talk to him a second and I’ll come right back out.”
“Eliot Majors?”
“Yeah,” Anna said, bemused.