Kaitlyn looked back.
Mr. Zetes.
Light from the porch shone behind him so he appeared as a dark silhouette, but somehow Kait could still see his face. When she'd first come to the Institute a week ago, she'd thought that Mr. Z was a handsome, aristocratic old gentleman - like Little Lord Fauntleroy's grandfather. Now she knew the truth, and the leonine head with its shock of white hair appeared completely evil to her. Those piercing dark eyes seemed to burn like -
Like a demon's, Kaitlyn thought. Except he's not a demon, just an insane genius, and we've got to get out of here...
They were all paralyzed. Even Gabriel, who was in front of Kaitlyn now that she had turned around, closer to Mr. Zetes. Something about the man stopped them all dead, drained the will out of them.
They were held by pure fear.
Don't look at him, Rob's voice said in Kaitlyn's mind, but it was faint and distant. The terror reverberating in the web was much stronger.
"Come here," Mr. Zetes said. His voice was strong and rich and utterly commanding. He stepped forward and Kaitlyn could see him more clearly in the living room lights. There was blood in his thick white hair and on his starched shirt collar. Gabriel's mental attack had done that, knocked him out, made him bleed. But Gabriel was exhausted now...
As if he were part of the web and could hear her thoughts, Mr. Zetes said, "You're all tired. I don't think you can use your powers any further tonight. Why don't we sit down and talk together?"
Kait had been too frightened to speak, but this struck fire in her. "We don't have anything to talk about,"
she said caustically.
"Your futures," Mr. Zetes said. "Your lives. I realize that I was too harsh earlier tonight. It was a shock to find you'd gotten yourselves into a permanent telepathic link. But I still think we can work together.
We'll find another way to break the link - "
"You mean besides killing one of us?" Kaitlyn snarled.
Don't stick around and argue with him, Gabriel said, his cold mental voice cutting through the thrumming fear in the web. You four go - start heading for the back door. I'll keep him here.
"No," Kaitlyn said aloud, before she could help it. Even in the middle of this danger, she felt a wash of emotion. Gabriel, who'd always claimed he didn't care about anybody, was risking himself to protect them...
And he was moving now, putting himself directly between her and Mr. Zetes. Once she could no longer see Mr. Zetes's face, she felt her paralysis break.
But we can't leave you, she told Gabriel. You nearly died once tonight already - Gabriel didn't glance back. His posture was wolf-like, his attention fixed on Mr. Zetes. Kessler, get them out. I'll handle the old man.
But Rob's mental voice was sharp. No! None of us can stay. Don't you see, he wants to keep us here - and we haven't seen Joyce yet.
The instant he said it, Kaitlyn knew he was right. It was a trap.
"Come on!" she shouted, both mentally and aloud - but even as she was shouting it, a shape appeared in the kitchen doorway beside her. Hands grabbed for her.
"Let me go!"
Kait found herself kicking and screaming. Other shouts hurt her ears. All she could see was the venomous, twisted face in front of her.
Joyce Piper's sleek blond hair was plastered flat to her head with sweat and blood. Dried rivulets ran down her cheeks. Her aquamarine eyes were full of heated poison, and her lips were drawn back.
Oh, God, she wants to kill me; she really wants to kill me. I trusted her and she's crazy, she's as crazy as Mr. Zetes is -
Hands were pulling her away from Joyce, shoving her toward the back of the house. Rob's voice rose over the background shouting.
"Run, Kaitlyn! Go! Everybody run!"
Looking back, Kaitlyn had a brief glimpse of Rob and Gabriel grappling with Joyce, of Mr. Zetes coming toward them, his face suffused with fury. Then she was running, with Lewis and Anna jostling around her. She didn't realize she still had her duffel bag until she got to the back door and had to put it down to undo the locks.
She yanked the door open - and there was Mr. Zetes's chauffeur. Looking immovable as a mountain, blocking the way.
Get him!
Kaitlyn wasn't sure who shouted it, but she and Anna and Lewis were all moving at once. It was as if they suddenly had only one mind, divided into three bodies. Lewis put his head down and ran at the man's stomach; Kait swung her duffel bag at his face; Anna slammed a foot into his shin. He toppled over and they ran on, stampeding toward the green convertible in the driveway.
It was Joyce's car, the car they'd taken from Mr. Zetes's mansion to get back to the Institute. The keys were still inside.
"Get in the back," Kaitlyn told Lewis and Anna, throwing her duffel bag into the backseat. Rob!
Gabriel! Get out here! Come on; we're ready for you!
She twisted the key in the ignition, yanked at the gearshift, and turned the wheel hard. She wasn't a very good driver - she hadn't had much practice back in Ohio - but now she sent gravel flying as she swung the convertible in a tight arc on the driveway.
"Headlights - " Lewis gasped. Kait reached down blindly and wrenched a dial. The blaze of light illuminated the chauffeur, who was on his feet again in front of them.
Kaitlyn headed right toward him.
She could hear yelling, but everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. The chauffeur's mouth was open. For endless seconds the car kept getting closer and closer to him, and then suddenly he was diving sideways. He got out of the way just as Rob and Gabriel burst through the back door.
Get in! Kait hit the brake, jolting the car. Rob and Gabriel scrambled in, climbing over Lewis and Anna.
Kaitlyn didn't wait for them to untangle themselves; she put her foot on the accelerator and pressed - hard.
Go, she was thinking - or maybe it was somebody else thinking it, she couldn't tell. Go, go, go, go.
Tires squealed as she reached the street, turned, and sped away from the purple house that was the Zetes Institute for Psychic Research.
It was a great relief to be moving this fast. She overshot stop signs, shrieked around corners. She didn't know where she was going, just that she had to get as far away as possible.
"Kait." It was Rob's voice. Rob was in the front seat beside her, an armful of folders clutched to his chest. He put a hand on her arm. Kait.
Kaitlyn was breathing hard and shivering - a fine all-over tremor. She'd reached Ell Camino Real, the main street in San Carlos. She ran a red light.
Kait, ease up. We got away. It's all right. His fingers tightened on her arm, and he repeated, "It's all right."
Kaitlyn felt her breath come out more slowly. She was able to ease her grip on the steering wheel. "Are you guys okay?"
"Yeah," Rob said. "Gabriel knocked them out again. They're both lying unconscious in the lab." He turned to look into the backseat. "Nice going."
"Oh, glad you thought so," Gabriel said in a voice as cold as Rob's had been warm. But through the web, Kaitlyn could feel Gabriel's desperate tiredness.
She sensed a rush of concern from Rob and knew he felt it, too. "Look," he said, "you're wiped out. Do you want me to - "
No, Gabriel said flatly.
Kaitlyn's heart sank. Just an hour or so ago Gabriel had been willing to accept Rob's help - all their help.
Back at the mansion he'd let Rob use his healing power, let him channel energy from the rest of them to save Gabriel's life. Gabriel had come to trust all of them, when he'd never trusted anyone before. They'd actually gotten through to him, broken down the walls. And now...
Gabriel was reverting again. Shutting them out, pretending he wasn't part of them. And there was nothing they could do about it.
Kaitlyn gave it a try anyway. Sometimes Gabriel seemed to... respect her more than the others, or at least he listened to her opinions more. "You've got to keep your strength up," she began lightly, trying to catch his eye in the rearview mirror.
He cut her off with a terse, Leave me alone.
Kait got an image of walls, high walls with nasty spikes sticking out of them. Gabriel trying to cover his vulnerability. She knew what he wouldn't verbalize, that he didn't want to be indebted to Rob ever again.
Anna's quiet voice broke into her thoughts. "Where are we going?"
"I don't know." It was a good question and Kait's heart started pounding again. "You guys, where can we go?"
She could sense consternation all around her. None of them except Lewis was familiar with the San Francisco area.
"Well - jeeez," Lewis said. "Okay, we don't want to go into the city, right? My parents live up in Pacific Heights, but - "
"But that's the first place Mr. Z will look," Rob said. "No, we agreed before, we can't go to our parents.
We'll only get them in trouble, too."
"The truth is," Gabriel began, "we don't know where we're going - "
"It doesn't matter," Kaitlyn interrupted him. "It doesn't matter where we're going eventually. What we need to figure out is what to do now. It's two a.m. and it's dark and it's cold and Mr. Zetes is going to be after us..."
"You're right about that," Gabriel said. "And he'll have the police after us, too, when he wakes up from being knocked out. We're in a stolen car."
"Then we'd better get away from San Carlos fast," Lewis said, alarm sharpening his voice. "There's Highway 101, Kait. Get on it going north."
Kaitlyn clenched her teeth and got on the freeway, which was a big one, five lanes in each direction. She knew the others must be aware of how nervous she was, but no one mentioned it.
"Now, let's see... we don't want to go to San Francisco... Okay, take the San Mateo bridge there, and when you get across, go on 880 north. That's the East Bay; you know, Hayward and Oakland."
The bridge started out wide but narrowed to a ribbon of concrete that seemed to barely clear dark water. In a few minutes they were cruising up another freeway.
"Good job," Rob said softly, and Kaitlyn felt a flash of warmth. "Now, don't speed too much; we don't want to draw attention to ourselves."
Kaitlyn nodded and kept the red hand of the speedometer quivering just below sixty miles per hour.
They hadn't been driving two minutes before Lewis said, "Uh-oh."
"What 'uh-oh?'" Kaitlyn asked tightly.
"There's a car behind us with antlers," Anna said.
"Antlers?"
"Police light bar," Lewis said. His voice was thin.
Rob stayed calm. "Don't panic. They won't pull you over for going three miles over the speed limit, and Mr. Z probably isn't even awake yet..."
Lights sprang to life on the roof of the car behind Kaitlyn. Blue and yellow flashing lights.
Kaitlyn's stomach plunged as if she'd stepped into an elevator. Her heart had begun a sick pounding.
"Can we panic now?" Lewis gasped. "I thought you said Mr. Z wouldn't be awake yet."
"We forgot," Anna said. "He had plenty of time to call the police and report the car stolen back at the mansion. When he first woke up."
Kait had a wild impulse to run. She'd run from the police a time or two back in Ohio, mainly when they wanted her to make some prediction about a case they were working on. But that had been on foot, out in the farmland that surrounded Thoroughfare - and she hadn't been a criminal then.
Now she was in a stolen car, and she'd just helped assault three grown-ups.
And you've got me in the car, and I'm violating my parole, Gabriel's voice said in her mind.
Remember? I'm not supposed to leave the Institute except to go to school.
"Oh, God," Kaitlyn said aloud. She gripped the wheel with palms that were slick with sweat. The need to run, to jam on the accelerator and get out of here, was swelling in her like a balloon.
"No," Rob said urgently. "We won't be able to get away from them, and the last thing we want is a high-speed chase."
"Then what do we do, Rob?" Anna asked.
"Pull over." Rob looked at Kait. "Pull over and we'll talk to them. I'll show them this." He hefted the files. "And if they take us to the police station, I'll show it to everyone there."
Kaitlyn felt a surge of incredulity from Gabriel. "Are you joking? How naive are you, Kessler? Do you think anybody is going to believe five kids - especially any cop - " He broke off. When he spoke again, it was in a different voice, taut and yet somehow expressionless. "Fine. Pull over, Kait."
Walls. Kait could feel Gabriel's walls go up, but she had more critical things to think about. She took the next exit off the freeway and the flashing blue and yellow lights followed her.
She went quite a way down the street before she could make herself slow and stop. The police car glided up behind her like a shark and stopped, too.
Kaitlyn was breathing hard. "Okay, you guys..."
"I'll do the talking," Rob said, and Kait was grateful. She watched in the rearview mirror as a figure got out of the cruiser. There was only one officer, a policeman.
With numb fingers, Kaitlyn rolled down the window. The policeman bent down a bit. He had a neat dark mustache and a very solid-looking chin.
"Driver's license," he said, and Rob, leaning over Kait, said, "Excuse me." And then Kait felt it.
A pulling-back, like the ocean gathering for a tsunami. It came from the backseat. Before she could move or say anything, Gabriel struck.
Dark power shot out of him toward the policeman, a wave of crashing, destructive mental energy. The policeman made a sound like a hurt animal and dropped his notebook, clapping his hands to his head.
"No!" Rob shouted. "Gabriel, stop!"
Kaitlyn could only feel the echoes of the attack through the web, but it was blinding her, making her sick.
Dimly she saw the policeman fall to his knees. Anna was gasping. Lewis was whimpering.
Gabriel, stop! Rob roared in a voice to cut through all the confusion. You'll kill him. Stop!
I have to help him, Kaitlyn thought. We can't become murderers... I have to help...
It took a tremendous effort of will to turn around, to focus on Gabriel's mind. She wanted to shield herself from the terrible power still pouring out of Gabriel. Instead, she opened herself to it, trying to break through to him.
Gabriel, you're not a killer, not anymore, she told him. Please stop. Please stop.
She had a sense of wavering, and then the black torrent eased. It seemed to flow back into Gabriel, where it disappeared without a trace.
Trembling, Kaitlyn leaned her head against the seat back. There was absolute silence in the car.
Then Rob erupted. " Why? Why did you do that?"
"Because he would never have listened to us. Nobody's going to listen, Kessler. Nobody's on our side.
We've got to fight if we want to live. But you don't know anything about that, do you?"
"I'll show you something about it - "
"Stop it!" Kaitlyn shouted, grabbing Rob, who was lunging at Gabriel. "Shut up, both of you. We don't have time to fight - we've got to get out of here, now." She fumbled with the door handle and flung the door open, dragging her duffel bag behind her.
The policeman was lying still now, but to Kaitlyn's relief he was breathing.
Who knows if his mind's okay, though, she thought. Gabriel's power could drive people into screaming insanity.
The others were scrambling out of the car. Lewis was ghastly pale in the police car's headlights, and Anna's dark eyes were huge - owl eyes. When Rob knelt by the policeman, Kaitlyn could feel the tension in his body.
Rob passed a hand over the policeman's chest. "I think he'll be all right - "
"Then let's go," Kaitlyn said, casting a desperate look around and pulling at him. "Before somebody sees us, before they send more police..."
"Take his badge first," Gabriel suggested nastily, and that got Rob on his feet. And then something seemed to break in all of them simultaneously, and they were running away from the deserted police car.
At first Kaitlyn didn't care where she was running. Gabriel was in the lead, and she blindly followed his twists and turns onto side streets. Eventually, though, when a stabbing pain in her side slowed her down to a walk, she began to notice her surroundings.
Oh, God, where are we?
"It's not Mister Rogers' neighborhood," Lewis muttered and jammed his baseball cap on backward.
It was the most eerie and menacing street Kait had ever seen. The gas station they were passing was derelict: no glass in the windows, no gas pumps. So was the station across the road. The Dairy Belle snack shop was enclosed by a very solid-looking chain-link fence - a fence that had barbed wire on the top.
Beyond the Dairy Belle was a liquor store with a flickering yellow sign and iron bars in front of the glass windows. It was open and several men stood in the doorway. Kaitlyn saw one of them look across the street - directly at her.
She couldn't see his face, but she saw teeth flash in a grin. The man elbowed one of his companions, then took a step toward the street.