Into the Blue Beam

SEVEN

Keefe could feel Amy's dread even before he saw it on her face. That, alone, gave him pause—dread wasn't an emotion most Empaths could feel so easily. It was fear, but a specific kind of fear: the fear of what was to come, which was strange, because what was seemed much scarier to Keefe.

That was when he realized this new thing—Keefeing or whatever—was still new. And maybe he'd been fooling himself this whole time to think he could get it under control.

But it was too late now.

"Wait!" Amy shouted, throwing up her hands, even though the Leonard guy hadn't moved. "Wait a second," she repeated, sounding a little calmer. Keefe knew it was an act, though. "Hold on, Leonard."

"You keep saying that," Leonard pointed out.

"I know! Just give me a second!" She spun around, and her wild green eyes met Keefe's. They seemed to be screaming, TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

That was fair, given this whole thing had been Keefe's plan, but what was funny—and not in that ha-ha way; more the ironic funny—was that the reality Keefe had been avoiding this whole time was that he didn't have a plan.

Well, he did—but it was one based on snippets of memory long swallowed by time. It was all those exercises with Tiergan he'd done a couple years ago that regurgitated a flow of what he, at the time, had thought to be pointless moments in the past.

He still wasn't sure that what he'd remembered had been accurate. Even with a photographic memory, it was hard to trust his own mind. Keefe blamed that on Gisela, who'd broken multiple memories. He still didn't know if he'd recovered all of them—which was frustrating and terrifying and also painful all at once.

When all those emotions had arisen once more, when Keefe had woken up changed, he'd remembered the things he'd recovered. One of them, a memory of an Empathy class with his father, was the backbone of his entire "plan." If it failed him...

He didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to think about any of this.

But he also didn't want to hurt Amy, so he said the only thing he could think to say: "I'm her brother."

Leonard's brown eyes—eyes that reminded Keefe of Sophie, which only made him feel weak—flicked to Amy. "You have a brother?" The unsaid words were reflected in the wave of doubt that radiated from his body.

"Yeah—and he was hired as an assistant coach," Amy said, voice trembling a little with the lie. "He doesn't know where he's going, so I was going to lead him to the office to check in."

The doubt only melded with confusion and surprise—probably because Leonard knew Amy wasn't telling the truth.

You're only hurting her in a different way, Keefe thought.

He closed his eyes. "Wait. That's not true."

Amy coughed not-so-subtly.

Keefe ignored her, carefully monitoring Leonard's feelings to make sure he didn't freak. "The truth is a lot more complicated than we have the time to get into right now, so you're going to have to do what I say without question. Amy will explain everything when I'm gone."

"I will?!"

"What is true is that I need inside your school. You can help us. Get your friends to distract your teacher, which I'm sure shouldn't be too hard for you since your vocal chords are so loud they projected all the way over here."

Leonard's face contorted into an offended expression, but Keefe knew he was only trying to cover up his fear. There was a war going on inside of him—would he trust a girl he barely knew and a stranger, or would he tell the teacher?