Chapter 17

For a little while, Mr. Foster didn’t say anything. The car was nice. It was clean and comfortable, but the silence was getting on my nerves. Finally, I said, “You wanted to talk about something, Mr. Foster. It seems to me you wanted this to be private - away from the others. What is it?”

“Straight to the point, huh?” he asked without taking his eyes off the road.

I shrugged. “Well, I don’t really know you or the others. What would we talk about?”

“You could ask about my job,” he said, “ask about my House, or even about my powers.” He glanced at me. “There are a number of things we could talk about. Especially if you don’t mind me asking you some questions too.”

“I suppose we could go back and forth,” I suggested. “You ask a question and I ask a question.”

“Sounds reasonable,” He said. “How about you go first?”

I thought about that. He was offering to let me go first, but put it in the form of a question. “Are you always contrary?”

He smiled. “Caught that. Very observant. Ask another question.”

I nodded and thought about everything. I ended up coming back around to my original question, “Why did you want to talk to me?”

He glanced at me and grinned. “You intrigue me, Mr. Sutton. I’ve seen the interviews and read the transcripts of Ms. LaSalle’s trial. You don’t come across as someone who grandstands.” He chuckled then. “I was pretty sure you were ready to walk out of several of those interviews.”

I softly chuckled. “They didn’t want to know anything about the trial or the victims. I wasn’t going to let them make me out to be someone I’m not.”

He nodded. “And that message came through, loud and clear. I just don’t get why you didn’t simply get up and walk out when it was evident that they wouldn’t take ‘no’ to their repeated requests for demonstrations.”

“Actually, I’ve turned down a number of interviews when I realized that I would be the topic.” I shook my head. “And I did walk out on several interviewers when the managers had convinced me it would be tastefully orchestrated. I later saw those interviews. They were pieced together from what they could get out of me to make me look like a talking baboon.”

“You said no one asked about the trial or the victims,” he said, “what was there to tell?”

I explained about the drug used to inhibit Jacquelyn’s powers and why I was considered a stooge for my part in a trial that many believed shouldn’t have taken place. Then I started listing her victims’ names. All the people the police suspected Jacquelyn of killing and why. I knew enough information about each person that it would take hours to go over it all. I also felt bad for those people. Even months after learning everything that I knew I still had problems speaking their names. There were so many lives cut short because one person felt her need to get high on her powers was more important. I ended up racing through all the same emotions I felt while learning about them: horror, fear, the injustice of having a life cut short, and anger.

I finished with, “Jacquelyn got off light.” Actually, I growled that thought out loud. Then I cleared my throat and said, “Mostly because the weapon she used was so unconventional they couldn’t produce it in court. Which is why I was brought in as a key witness. Even then, the judge would not allow me to show my shield or use my telekinesis because he saw it as ‘too outlandish’.” I said the last two words with finger quotes.

“How did you get away with seeing auras in court?” he asked. “I would imagine the defense attorney would have objected.”

I nodded. “He did, but my demonstration was only that - a demonstration. It was meant to prove that what the prosecution accused Jacquelyn of doing was possible.”

I was going to say more, but an SUV cut in front of us so close I stopped talking. Both of us looked around and realized that we were surrounded by big black vehicles, boxing us in on the road. The SUV in front of us started break-checkin us, forcing us to slow down.

I glanced at Mr. Foster. “What do you think?”

“I think you shouldn’t hold back,” he said with a frown of his own.

I focused on the SUV. I thought about the controls, especially the accelerator. I pushed on it, hard. The vehicle took off, hitting a car in front of it. The SUV and that car both ended up jerking and heading off into the ditch along the highway.

Mr. Foster nodded his approval and picked up speed too.

I frowned as I looked back at the two vehicles. The driver of the car was already climbing out and shaking a fist at the SUV, but the SUV was struggling to get back on the highway.

Two more of the big black SUVs pulled up close on either side of us. I looked up at the driver-side window of the one on my side. The window rolled down. I immediately recognized Mr. Portal from the track. He grinned at me and then looked ahead of us.

I looked too. One of his portals appeared in front of our car, on my side. I wasn’t sure what the portal would do to only half the car, but I didn’t think Mr. Foster would be too happy if they cut it in half. I said, “Dodge that block!” and then focused on the SUV on his side. I forced the steering wheel to turn the SUV away from us, sending it off into the median wall, giving us enough room to swerve around the portal.

“What are they doing?” Mr. Foster asked.

“The driver in this one is one of the pair that attacked me at a jogging track on Friday,” I said. “He’s a Green Dragon member.”

“Right,” Mr. Foster said under his breath as if getting really bad news. “Hang on,” he added, and then slammed his foot onto the accelerator.

We took off like we had been standing still.

I didn’t know what he had under the hood, but I never would have guessed this normal looking sedan could go that fast!

We started swerving in and out of traffic, leaving the SUVs behind by one, two, five car lengths. They had accelerated too, but their size made it almost impossible for them to keep up.

Then Mr. Foster took an unexpected exit. We flew down the exit ramp, slipped into and out of a convenience store parking lot to avoid the stop and yield signs, and rocketed down another road with three lanes on each side. I didn’t know where we were, but I would worry about that later. Other drivers honked at us, but we were spared the indignity of any police coming out after us. Unfortunately, the SUVs showed up behind us a moment later.

“They shouldn’t have been able to follow us after that,” I said.

“They’re tracking you,” Mr. Foster said. “You must have something on you they’ve bugged.”

I frowned. “I’ve been wearing the same stuff all weekend. I don’t even have my phone anymore.”

He shook his head. “There has to be something. Was there anything out of your possession this weekend?”

I snorted. “My shoestrings and my belt. The police took them while I was in holding.”

“Check the belt,” he said. “Especially the buckle.”

He continued to drive like a formula one racer overtaking other cars and putting them between us and the SUVs.

The SUVs took to knocking other cars off the road to get closer to us.

I unbuckled my belt and pulled it out. I looked over the buckle but didn’t see anything odd. Then I felt something under the leather. It turned out the black leather had a piece of black tape. I peeled off the tape and under it was a small item that looked similar to a memory card for a phone. Angry at what was going on and the efforts these people were going to ensure my demise, I squeezed the item between my thumb and forefinger. I felt a spark and dropped it. It was like someone had rubbed their socks on the carpet and then touched me. I picked up the item from the floorboard and saw a tiny wisp of smoke rising from it.