Monster (Gone 7)

“What’s up?” Cruz said, and Shade held up a notebook. On the page in black block letters: House Is Bugged.

At the same time Shade said, “Hi, Cruz, come on in, girl, we have homework to get done.”

“Yes,” Cruz said stiffly. “Yes, we do.”

Shade led the way to the living room. She picked up a lamp and tilted it so Cruz could see the bottom of its weighted base, and there, where Shade had peeled back the felt, was something that looked a bit like a component stripped off a circuit board.

Shade replaced the lamp and led the way to her father’s study, a small, book-crammed space between the main stairwell and the seldom-used parlor. She held up a hand, stopping Cruz. Then she pointed at a corner of the crown molding where there was what looked like a nail hole. She pointed at her eye, then up at the nail hole, and down at the direct line of sight to Professor Darby’s computer.

They backed out silently and tramped upstairs to the bedroom. And there was the next shock: someone or something had beaten deep indentations into the top of the wall facing Shade’s bed. And Shade’s usually neat bed was tilted at an angle, with the front legs snapped in two. And her comforter had been ripped in half, so that the inner stuffing extruded.

Yes, something . . . odd . . . had clearly happened.

Cruz turned concerned, baffled eyes to Shade and saw on her friend’s face a look of triumph.

Shade jerked her head toward the bathroom, where she turned on the water and let it run loudly.

“I doubt they’ll have put cameras or mikes in my bathroom, or even my bedroom, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“What happened?” Cruz asked in a terse whisper.

“I did it!”

“You did what?”

“I ground up an ounce of the rock, made powder out of it, mixed it with peanut butter, and gagged it down.”

“Oh, my God! I thought you were waiting!”

“You may not have noticed this about me,” Shade said with unmistakable glee, “but I am not patient. I took it, and nothing, nothing for hours. I was depressed. I couldn’t believe it was all for nothing.” Her words tumbled out in an excited rush, very unlike the Shade who Cruz had never seen overly excited or emotional.

“And . . . ,” Cruz prompted.

“And I went to sleep. I had a nightmare, a bad one, and when I woke up I was on the floor.”

“The floor?”

“Clear across the room,” Shade said. She made a hand gesture representation of a person flying across the room and smashing into the wall. “And . . .” She held her fingernails up for inspection. They looked as if she’d been digging in chalk. Or a plaster wall. Chills ran up Cruz’s spine.

“In my nightmare, I leaped,” Shade went on. “I leaped! Practically flew! And in reality, in reality, I leaped. Sixteen and a half feet, I measured it! I leaped out of bed so fast, so hard, I ripped right through my comforter. The impact woke me up, Cruz, and I . . . I was on the floor!”

“Jesus Christ,” Cruz whispered. Half her mind was gibbering, Oh, my God, she did it! in a giddy, triumphant way, and the other half was thinking, Oh, my God, she did it, but in a very different tone.

“Cruz. I did it. It works! I have . . . a power.”

“What . . . but, wait, what power?”

“That we have to discover, Cruz. I can’t believe it. I hoped, I wanted . . . It worked, Cruz, it worked!”

“Congratulations?” There was enough doubt in her voice to earn a sharp look from Shade, but Shade was not going to be put off.

“Do you know what this means?” Shade asked, practically jumping in place.

“Not really,” Cruz admitted.

“It means the ASO works even without the dome. And that fact means that I was right: if bits of the ASOs are out in the world—and they almost certainly are—I won’t be the only one. There will be other people with powers, Cruz, some good, some not, but I will not be one of the random bystanders getting burned, I will—” Shade stopped, and for a moment looked guilty, as though she’d said something she did not intend. “I’ll be able to do something,” she finished lamely.

“About what?” Cruz asked.