Then gray. Curves and lines of gray. A shape-a glass. With flesh tones holding it-Joyce holding a glass.
"Everyone ready?" Joyce said.
Kaitlyn didn't move, didn't open her eyes. She was concentrating on the next part of the picture. Rich olive-hued flesh, with a mass of burnt umber and deep madder for hair. The brown and red went together to make mahogany.
Marisol. A picture of Joyce and Marisol. And Joyce was holding out to Marisol a glass-
"I've got his head," Joyce said. "And-now-"
Kaitlyn's scream, both mental and verbal, cut through the words. '-'Don't do it! Don't do it! She's with him-Mr. Zetes!"
In the split second that followed, she wondered if she might be wrong. Joyce might have given Marisol something unknowingly-but the picture hadn't said that. It might not even be a picture of a real event, but for once, the meaning was clear to Kaitlyn. And the meaning was one of menace and danger. It felt to her the way the picture of the old witch giving Snow White a poisoned apple had felt to Kaitlyn the child.
And, even as Kaitlyn opened her eyes, she saw that she hadn't been wrong. Joyce had thrust Gabriel's head against the crystal and was holding it, and her face had an expression that Kaitlyn had never seen before. A look of twisted, bestial fury.
She knew all the time. She was in on everything, Kaitlyn thought, sickened. She could feel the shock and pain of the others-especially Rob. But her shout had reached them in time. Not one of them had touched the crystal.
Except Gabriel-Gabriel, who was now being roused from unconsciousness by the white-hot lightning bolts of pain.
Kaitlyn started to move-to tear Joyce away from Gabriel. Rob started at the same moment she did. But before they could get there, the doors burst open and chaos exploded on them.
It was Mr. Zetes-and the dogs. Something knocked into Kaitlyn with the force of a speeding truck and she fell. A dog was ripping at her. Mr. Zetes had the gun.
Still holding Gabriel against the crystal, Joyce was shouting. "I'll break the link! I'll break it!"
Rob was fighting the other dog. Anna was trying to pull the animal off him, her own calls to it lost in the clamor.
"There's an easier way to break it! Only one of them needs to die!" Mr. Zetes shouted. He was aiming the gun at Lewis.
And this is how it ends, a part of Kaitlyn's mind thought, curiously detached. None of them could help Lewis. None of them could do anything before Mr. Zetes could shoot.
She seemed to sense the old man's finger tightening on the trigger. At the same time she saw the room as one large picture, every detail etching itself into her mind as if with the burst of a flashbulb. Rob and Anna tangled with the rottweiller, Lewis standing in almost comical horror, Joyce's twisted face over the face of Gabriel, whose cheeks were masked in blood and who was just opening his eyes . . .
She felt Gabriel's awakening at the same instant, felt his pain-and his fury. Someone was hurting him.
Someone was threatening a member of his web.
Gabriel lashed out.
Mr Zetes had said that a telepath in a stable link couldn't reach outside that link-but Gabriel was now connected to a source of unthinkable power. His mind blazed out like the flare of a supernova-in four directions. With absolute precision and deadly force,
he sent a torrent of fire through Mr. Zetes and Joyce and the two dogs.
Kaitlyn felt the dim shadows of it through the web, the reverberations of what Gabriel had unleashed on them. It knocked her flat.
Mr. Zetes fell without firing a shot. Behind Gabriel, Joyce hit the wall. The dog tearing Kaitlyn's arm spasmed as if it had been electrocuted and was still.
Then Gabriel stopped it. He had sagged back from the crystal, collapsing. The entire room was silent and motionless.
Let's get out of here, Rob gasped.
Kaitlyn was never sure how they got out of the house. Rob was the main force in moving them. He practically carried Gabriel. She and Anna and Lewis helped each other. There was a long time of stumbling and dragging and finally they were on grass.
Grass cool with dew. It felt wonderful. Kaitlyn rested against it gratefully, as if she'd just staggered out of a fire.
At last Lewis whispered thickly, "Are they dead?"
The dogs are, I think, Anna said. Kaitlyn agreed, but didn't mention that she'd seen blood coming out the eyes and nose and ears of the one on top of her.
But Mr. Zetes and Joyce-I don't know, Anna finished. I think they might be alive.
"And so Joyce didn't want to save Gabriel," Lewis said.
"She wanted to break the web somehow," Kaitlyn said, not surprised to find her voice hoarse. "Even if it killed us. Gabriel wasn't any good to them linked to us. ... Don't ask why. I'll explain everything later."
"But Joyce was bad," Lewis said sadly. The simple innocence of the statement caught Kait-and did something to her.
Joyce was bad. She'd been against them, ready to use them, the whole time. Marisol had been wrong; Joyce had clearly known everything. She'd known about the big crystal and had had no hesitation about using it. She must have known all about the hidden room, too.
"God," Kaitlyn whispered. "How could I have been so dumb? It was probably her room-everything was copies, remember, Rob? Duplicates. Mr. Zetes had his stuff here, and she had hers in the Institute."
"Kaitlyn," Rob whispered, and there was both pain and tenderness in his voice, although he couldn't reach her since he was cradling Gabriel. "Don't. It's not worth it."
Kaitlyn looked at him in surprise-and realized she was crying. Thick streams of tears. She put a hand to her cheek and touched the wetness. As soon as she did, she felt something swell up in her chest.
And then she was sobbing, huge sobs, the kind she hadn't cried since she was eight years old.
Anna held her. Leave her alone, she told Rob. She deserves to cry. We all do.
The shaking sobs passed quickly, and Kaitlyn began to feel better.
Gabriel was stirring.
"This time," Rob told him, "you don't have any choice. You're half-dead-and we can't stay here. You have to take help." He added, silently, where it would mean more, You saved my life a little while ago.
There's only one way I can repay that.
Gabriel blinked. He looked terrible-the blood and the pain had distorted his handsome face. But he managed a trace of the old arrogance as he whispered, "Only because I can't stop you."
Kaitlyn stopped sniffling and smiled. It's not much good to talk like that when all your walls are down, she told him. Then she added, I like you this way. Walls can be very bad things.
Gabriel ignored her, which was all he could do at the moment.
Now Rob was touching Gabriel with gentle, irresistible fingers, and Kaitlyn could feel strength flowing into Gabriel. Through Rob's healing points, through the telepathic web. She put her hand on Rob's and added her own strength, letting Rob take her energy and channel it into Gabriel. Lewis and Anna crowded close and touched Rob's hand, too, adding their contribution. All four of them, linked tightly, willing life and energy into Gabriel.
Kaitlyn could sense his need and his fear-which rapidly turned into astonishment. He'd never felt energy freely given before, she realized. Now she knew what he was feeling and she could feel it with him- the sparkling lights, the pure water, the refreshment. The awakening from half-sleep into real, vivid life.
She could feel astonishment and joy from Anna and Lewis, too.
And I never believed them about kundalini rising, Lewis said. Jeeeez, was I wrong.
About what? Anna asked, laughing in her mind.
Kundalini-old Chinese health concept. Relating to chi, you know. Remind me to tell you about it sometime.
Anna, still laughing, said, I will.
When they were all feeling ready to ride tigers and fight elephants bare-handed, Rob lifted his hands.
"That's enough," he said, and then added gently, "We really shouldn't stay here. I think Anna was right, and that Joyce and Mr. Zetes are alive. We need to keep moving."
"But where?" Kaitlyn said. She could stand, she found; she could even move easily.
Gabriel was on his feet, too. "Well, out of San Francisco for a start," he said, wiping his face with his dew-wet shirt. Even in the simple act of standing up he had pulled away from them all a little, mentally.
It's only to be expected, Kaitlyn told herself. Don't be disappointed. He needs his space.
"Well, of course, out of San Francisco. But then- where? Home?"
Even as she said it, she knew she couldn't go. If Mr. Zetes and Joyce survived, they would come after her. Kaitlyn knew about them now-Kaitlyn was a danger in the way that Marisol had been a danger.
They'd want to have Kaitlyn ... quieted.
And as much as Kaitlyn adored her father, she knew him very well. He was loving, impractical-vague.
Happiest in his own small world, singing and doing odd jobs. What protection could he offer her? He wouldn't even be able to understand her story, much less help her deal with it.
In fact, she'd probably be putting him in danger by going home. Nothing would be easier than for Joyce and Mr. Zetes to find her there. And once they found her, she'd be dead-along with anyone else who had heard her story.
Kaitlyn didn't have the least doubt that Mr. Zetes had ways to get people killed. He had contacts. He had clients. He would find a way.
Looking around at the others, she could see them reaching the same conclusion about their own families.
She could feel their dawning bewilderment.
"But then . . . where do we go?" Lewis said, in a croaking whisper.
"We have to do something to stop them. Not just Mr. Zetes and Joyce, but whoever else is involved.
There must be others-like that judge. We have to find a way to stop them all."
Kaitlyn felt her breath snatched away. She looked at Rob. Yes, she loved him, but really ... really, she'd just been thinking about how to keep herself and her friends safe. That was going to be hard enough.
"If we don't stop them," Rob said, turning and looking directly at her, "then they'll do it again. They'll try again, with some other group of kids."
Rob was counting on her. Trusting her. And of course, he was right.
"It's true," Kaitlyn said quietly. "We can't let that happen."
"I agree," Anna chimed in softly.
There was a pause, and then Lewis said, "Oh, jeez . . . Count me in."
They all looked at Gabriel.
"I don't even have a home," he said mockingly. "All I know is that I'm not going back into a lockup cell."
"Then come, with us," Rob said.
"You don't even know where you're going."
Kaitlyn said, "I might."
Everyone looked quickly at her.
"It's just an idea," she said. "I don't even know exactly why it's come into my head . . . but do you remember that dream, the one we were all in together?"
There were nods.
"Well, what if... what if the place in the dream was a real place? When I think about it, I get this sort of feeling that it might be. Does anybody else?"
Everyone looked doubtful, except Anna, who looked thoughtful.
"You know," she said, "I had the same feeling while I was there-in the dream, I mean. That beach felt real. It was a lot like the beaches where I live, up North. It felt almost. . . familiar. And that white house-"
"Wait," Kaitlyn said. "The house. The white house." Her brain was whirring again. She'd seen a white house somewhere else. In her mind this afternoon-could it only be this afternoon?-when Joyce had tested her with the shard of crystal.
She'd never drawn that picture-it had disappeared in a flash. But now she suddenly felt she might be able to reach it again.
Don't think-draw. Draw with your mind. Let your mind go.
Whether it was the recent contact with the great crystal, or simply desperation, she'd never know. But her mind began to draw, sketching with easy, fluid strokes. Vigorous clean strokes. She didn't even have to think about what colors to use. They simply appeared before her, shimmering, in a picture that was completed in a few heartbeats.
A white house, yes. With red roses growing at the door. A lonely house, but an eerily beautiful one. And a face in the window-a caramel-colored face, with slanting eyes and softly curling brown hair.
The man who'd attacked her-but had he attacked her? He'd grabbed her and tried to talk with her when she was waiting to meet Joyce. He'd grabbed her in the backyard of the Institute-and she'd hit him. And then he'd called her reckless and told her she never thought.
She was thinking now. Whoever he was, he had been in the house in her dream. And he had showed her a picture of a rose garden, with a crystal in the fountain.
She hadn't recognized it as a crystal then. But when she'd seen the big crystal, that monstrosity that Mr.
Zetes had owned, she'd almost remembered.
The crystal in the rose garden hadn't looked ... perverted. It had been clean and clear, with no obscene growths sprouting out. It had looked . .. pure.
So what did it all add up to? Kaitlyn didn't know, but she took a deep breath and tried to explain it to the others.
When she was done, there was a silence.
"So we're following our dreams," Gabriel said with mock sentimentality, his lip still slightly curled.
The words pleased Kait somehow. "Yes," she said, and smiled at him. "And we'll see where they take us."
"Wherever it is, we're going together," Rob said.
Kaitlyn looked at him. She was cold and battered and she knew that the danger was just beginning. And they had no clear idea of which way to travel and even less idea of how to travel.
But somehow it didn't matter. They were all alive, and all together. And when she looked into Rob's golden eyes, she knew that it was going to be all right.