Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1) Read online

  “Do you have a second job I don’t know about?” Chloe demanded as she started the car.

  I shook my head rapidly. “No! I’m way too lazy, you know that! They clearly thought I was someone else.”

  “Obviously,” Chloe said, back to being her unflappable self. Meanwhile, I was practically vibrating, eager to get as far away from the dark office as possible. “I mean, they looked at little old human me first.”

  “I’m human!” I insisted. “They shouldn’t have been looking at either one of us!”

  “Yes, but you’re human-plus. Human with benefits. I don’t know if I’d call you super-human, but—”

  “Okay, stop. I get it. And hey! You pointed them straight at me. What if they were there to hurt me—or hurt whoever they think I am?”

  “I panicked!” she admitted. “Believe me. If things had been different, I wouldn’t have put you in that position.” There was a trace of disappointment in her and it was clinging like a slug to the greasy edge of her guilt. “I’m so sorry.”

  I knew she was sorry. I could feel it, though I didn’t want to—not just because it was an unpleasant experience, but because none of this was her fault.

  “It’s okay,” I soothed, wishing I could project feelings, not just receive them. “It was... um, I don't know what that was, but they weren’t there to hurt me. They seemed to be scared of me, actually. I don’t think anyone’s ever been scared of me before.”

  “Except the pizza boy when he’s late with your dinner.”

  “Well, he’s asking for it,” I agreed, shaking my fist as comically as I could manage. As I’d hoped, Chloe laughed and we both went quiet for a few minutes, basking in the glow of not feeling terror or worry. Finally, I piped up.

  “Did I really just agree to help them? Me? Why would I do that? I don’t know the first thing about finding kidnapped children. I’ve lost two cell phones in the last year. What was I thinking, agreeing to handle this?”

  “I think you were thinking that two scary monsters were standing in front of you, telling you that they’d found parents in distress over their missing offspring. Not even you could turn your back on that.”

  “Not even me?” I rolled my gaze her way and caught the slight smile on her lips. She was teasing me. Instead of giving in to her ribbing, I pushed ahead with the matter at hand. “We should look into that before anything else. If families have just gotten wise and found some way of hiding their kids from these... things, then there may not be a problem at all.”

  “You could ask Mel to help!” Chloe suggested. Cheer tap-danced out of her psyche and all over mine. I ground my teeth, trying my best to figure out a reason why I would not—could not—ask Mel Somerset for help. Sure, he’s a successful private investigator, but he’s also Mel.

  “Fine!” I huffed after my brain failed to offer me an out. “You can call him tomorrow morning and ask if he’s willing. I don’t want to ask him for anything. He might take it as an invitation to take his pants off.”

  “You should invite him to take his pants off anyway,” Chloe said, her optimism fluttering against my grumpiness and threatening to suffocate it. “Not now, of course. Wait until he’s helped find the kids and then pay him in sex.”

  “I hate you both.”

  “You love me,” she said, patting my thigh. It reminded me of my sister, which wasn’t surprising, since Chloe is practically family. In fact, they both have the frustrating habit of trying to get me to take proper care of myself and laughing at me when I fight them on it. God help me if they ever teamed up.

  “Fine,” I said again, calmer this time. I wanted to hold onto my grouchiness, as it had conveniently taken over for the fear I’d felt around Laurel and Hardy, but I knew Chloe wasn’t going to let me. Just being this close to her, I could feel myself cheering up, absorbing her giddiness through my pores. “I love you, but not Mel. Never Mel.”

  “Okay,” Chloe said, though I could tell she wasn’t really agreeing with me.

  ***

  Midnight ticked past and I let out a groan, rolling onto my back in hopes the ceiling might drop onto my head and forcibly knock me unconscious. I wouldn’t be getting any sleep without outside help. My brain was racing, going over the night’s events in a nervous, spastic, rambling way. I couldn’t make my thoughts line up coherently, so they jumped from moment to moment.

  One second I was seeing the face of the man at the bar, the next Laurel’s expression when I’d tried to shake his hand. After that, I had moved onto trying to make a list of groceries to buy. Two items in (honey and sugar) and my brain hopped back to the dark office and the look on Chloe’s face when I’d addressed our strange visitors so flippantly.

  I wasn’t sure how much Chloe knew about the magical world around us, but I was guessing it was probably less than me. And I barely knew anything. My general knowledge is kind of hazy, and my personal knowledge pretty much stops at Mel the werewolf gumshoe and the fact that both my siblings have powers like mine.

  Of the three of us, I definitely got the rawest deal. My brother Thomas is preternaturally lucky. The day he’d turned eighteen, he bought a lotto ticket and won. That isn’t even the best thing that’s happened to him in his short life, either. The kid manages to avoid nearly every bad situation that might come his way. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen him pause, weave, or duck for seemingly no reason, only to watch bird poop drop right into the spot where he’d previously been.

  My older sister Robin has a form of very minor mind control that’s activated by touch. She can’t make you fling yourself off a building or stick your tongue to a frozen metal pole, but if you’re ambivalent about doing the dishes and she gets her paws on you, you’ll be elbow-deep in dishwater before you know it.

  Then there’s me, the empath stuck working in the same building as a werewolf who thinks it’s hilarious to show up and rub his stupid emotions all over the place. I know my mom is just a plain, Chloe-level human, but I’ve long suspected my father has something extra going for him. The fact that he’s with my mom—a woman way out of his league if you ask any of us kids—is enough to convince me. But there hasn’t been a second of my life past age twelve where my father and I have been able to communicate maturely. Three words into any conversation and we devolve into a screaming match that is only won when one of us storms off screaming nonsensical insults.

  I’ve never had the guts to ask about any abilities he may have because doing so would require I talk either to or about him. Neither prospect is appealing.

  Other than the first time I’d seen Laurel and Hardy as a child, I’d mostly managed to avoid the magical world. Sure, Madeline at the café was a creature of some sort and Mel was around more than I would prefer, but I’d never run afoul of a leprechaun or discovered a sword of plus-five dexterity. I couldn’t even tell you if those things existed. If I’d had my way, my first interaction with Laurel and Hardy would have been the last scary, magical thing I’d ever dealt with. Even spending the evening talking with them like we were all people and none of us were horrifying hadn’t entirely quelled my fear. If they were out there, who knew what else there was?

  No, I had no interest in stumbling on something with tentacles in place of eyeballs or a taste for empath kidneys. Once these kids were safe and sound, it was back to blissful ignorance for me. Although, if I could get Hardy to pay me by taking Mel off my hands, it might actually turn out to be worth running into them again.

  Rubbing my hands over my face, I wondered if I had any cold medicine I could chug to knock me out. The idea of anything alcoholic magnifying my empathy even temporarily wasn’t appealing—there's a gopher in my backyard that's perpetually grumpy, though I don't mind when I catch wind of squirrel emotions—so I fumbled around on my dresser and grabbed my mobile phone. I chose the most relaxing music I had to play and settled in to give sleep one last shot.

  Wishing I had my sister there to order me to catch some Zs, I curled up on my side and decided to count
sheep. Thoughts of farm animals made me wonder if Mel had ever blown a house down around a were-pig. Strangely, that put me right out.

  ***

  My night was anything but peaceful, my restlessness due mainly to strange, walrus-and-bear-filled dreams. I finally gave up on my bed at just after five-thirty, shuffling like a zombie out to Sonny’s cage. The second my pet sun conure heard my footsteps dragging along the floor, he started calling to me, welcoming me to the new day as loudly as he could. I grumbled back but my puffy face and lack of enthusiasm didn’t deter him. In fact, he started ringing his bells at me the closer I got, as if he was aware of my empathy and hoped to infused cheer straight through my pores.

  The loud greetings continued as I unlatched his cage and reached in to rub his bright yellow chin. Before I could stop him, he zigzagged his colorful little body and climbed onto my hand and up my arm. I let him pick through my hair lovingly as I padded down the hall. We made idle conversation while I slowly made my way back to my room and bathroom, where Sonny hung out on a perch I’d had installed in place of a towel rack along the back wall.

  Time to wake up, Gwen.

  After the shower, I scooped Sonny up, dropped him back on my robed shoulder, and shuffled barefoot to the kitchen. Nothing looked out of place at first. My kitchen is long and L-shaped, with my dining table stashed around the corner. I grabbed a plastic cup off the counter next to the sink and filled it straight from the tap. As I turned toward the fridge, the cup slipped out of my hand onto the floor.

  My refrigerator looked like someone had sneezed words all over it.

  Someone had come into my house and opened up what looked to be all my boxes of magnetic poetry, nearly covering the fridge and freezer door with crooked, sideways, and occasionally upside-down phrases. I couldn’t read them from my position, but I instantly pictured Laurel and Hardy carefully detailing some sort of magnetic manifesto about how they were going to take revenge on me for lying to them. As I closed in and read some, though, I realized that would have been ridiculous for several reasons.

  Sonny squawked, curious about my sudden tension. I turned, got a bird-kiss on my lips, and set him down so he could patrol the counters. Stepping around the puddle, I walked back to the fridge.

  The sentences were whole but unrelated. The diatribe started with, “Mind the towels” and “Jewelry, pizza, and wine: make it happen,” then rambled on for the entire length of my fridge. After the fourth line (The Gavel will bang again), I gave up reading them individually and just started scanning for a pattern. Nothing jumped out at me, though the magnets proclaiming “Princess Mel” gave me pause. My brain gifted me with an image of Mel in a frilly dress, tossing his hair out the window of a tall tower, and I started giggling. It was half exhaustion and at least a quarter nervous energy, but it felt good to laugh regardless. Realizing I was going to need documentation of this to prove to myself I wasn’t going crazy, I fled to my office to grab my camera.

  Less than a minute later, I hit the kitchen at a hop, forgetting about the water, and went sliding. My foot shot sideways, hitting the counter, and I ended up wedged awkwardly between two cabinets.

  My back and foot hurt like hell, but my camera and I were otherwise unharmed. I swallowed, eyed “Mind the towels” suspiciously, and pushed myself up slowly, awkwardly. I set the camera down long enough to check myself for bruises and squish myself back far enough to get most of the fridge in the frame. I took a wide shot of the whole fridge first, then moved in for a series of closer shots.

  I took careful photos of every section of magnets, making sure that any pictures I took would be legible if printed out. As I sunk lower and lower, I read random phrases, unable to make sense of most of them.

  Almost at the end, I found one phrase sticking out from others, separated by blank space. It said, “Answer the phone :) :)”

  Before I could wonder how my magnetic poetry had manifested smiley emoticons, the phone rang. I yelped, crawling away to put my back to the wall, my heart pounding away like a boxer. Whatever had filled my fridge with the magnetic equivalent to Minority Report had left my mobile phone within arm’s reach. I hadn’t even noticed it missing from my nightstand when I’d woken up. Swallowing, I grabbed it, tapped the answer icon, and pressed it to my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “I didn’t think you’d be awake!” Chloe chirped.

  I scowled at myself, realizing I’d half expected to hear some mysterious voice tell me I only had seven days to live.

  “Yet you still called at this ungodly hour.” I got to my feet to look over the fridge again.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Some… something was in my house last night. It decorated my fridge.”

  Chloe was silent for a beat before saying carefully, “Okay.”

  “I’m not joking!”

  “Are you sure you’re not dreaming?”

  My gaze fell on six word magnets that seemed to know exactly what was going on. They spelled out, “you took pictures you’ll prove it.” The tiny shiny rectangles had a point.

  “I took pictures. I’ll prove it,” I said, tipping my head suspiciously at the fridge. “What do you want?”

  “I got ahold of Mel. He’ll meet us at The Internets for breakfast at eight-thirty. We can tell him what went down, see what he might know about these guys. Maybe he has connections in the preternatural world, someone who knows who Laurel and Hardy think you are.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I mumbled. My gaze jumped to another set of magnets. These instructed me to open the cereal cabinet. I started to wonder how this prophetic jerk had managed to use words that I was sure none of my sets even contained. “I’ll meet you guys there.”

  “Eight-thirty,” Chloe said, her voice slow.

  “Yes, I got it.”

  “Repeat it back to me. I’m still convinced you’re unconscious and this is all some sort of sleep-walking endeavor.”

  I grunted in disgust and hung up on her as she laughed at me. I stuck my phone in my robe pocket, whirling on my cabinets like they’d threatened me. It occurred to me as I grabbed the handle that maybe they were dangerous. Maybe whatever had been in my home had filled them with giant radioactive scorpions or possibly even the Scorpion King himself. While having The Rock in my kitchen sounded pretty pleasant, I figured it was much more likely that blindly opening my cupboards was going to get my head lopped off by snapping pincers.

  “Dammit,” I whined. Sonny squawked at me and I sighed, scooping him up to put him back in his cage, where I hoped he’d be safe. My next stop was back in my office, where I grabbed a wooden baseball bat from next to my desk and stepped into my slippers. They had some pretty solid rubber bottoms and would probably smash bugs well enough if it came to that.

  I stood in front of my cabinets working up my courage, then took a deep breath and let out a quick battle cry, yanked open the door, and hopped back. Nothing jumped out at me, screamed threateningly, or tried to raise Anubis’s army from Hell. I blinked, confused for a few moments at the fact that all I spied were my boxes of cereal, oatmeal, and—and an upturned, empty Twinkie box.

  “No,” I whispered, dropping the bat to the ground as I reached for what had, only two days before, been an entire case of spongy, cream-filled delights. “No!” I snatched the thing out of the cabinet and shook it, as if that would activate some secret compartment and my treats would come tumbling out. I should have known better; there were empty Twinkie wrappers littering the inside of the cabinet. The box remained barren, but I did notice a pink sticky note on the back.

  I didn’t recognize the handwriting but I could read it; it said, Laurel and Hardy will be unhappy with you if you don’t find those kids followed by a sad face. Was my food threatening me? I shook the box again, knowing it was futile.

  Maybe I was dreaming.

  Slamming the cabinet shut, I eyed the rest of my kitchen. Who knew what else the Twinkie thief had taken or touched? Maybe my pastries weren't the only thing it put its hands all
over. Marching to the fridge, I gave it one more scan, hoping for answers. None of the magnets had moved. The one proclaiming “Stay away from the baby sasquatches” still sat right next to “Don't accept the ring!”

  Worrying slightly less about scorpions and slightly more about the state of my kitchen, I went through the cabinets. Gone. It was all gone. Not a speck of anything sugary or sweet remained anywhere, not even in my most careful emergency hiding spots. That bastard.

  Seething, I took the time to go through the house, checking windows and doors, checking my valuables, checking my clothes to make sure nothing had been taken. Maybe ten minutes into my reconnaissance, I stood at the edge of my closet, torn between being disgusted at myself for the state of it and terrified that I’d actually have to open the box I kept hidden at the back.

  I’d been married once, jumping into it at the tender age of eighteen with a man who had, even at the time, deserved much better than an immature sugar addict like me. I hadn’t spoken to him or heard from him in ten years but that didn’t stop my guilt over how things had ended. That regret had fueled a series of impulse purchases over the last six years, leaving me with a box full of milquetoast mystery novels written by my ex. I’d never read any of them, but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them. Stanley only had four novels out, but I had somehow amassed somewhere around thirty copies of his books.

  After a minute of staring at the pile of old coats that concealed the box from prying eyes, I convinced myself that my visitor hadn’t found the books, that I didn’t need to check to make sure they were safe. It was just good sense, you see. Not cowardice. I swear. I moved on to checking the other parts of my closet.