Garcia got down on his knees, staring intently. "Tell me."

Jade tucked a hair behind her ear, looking shamefaced. "I don't know a name."

Garcia exhaled in a frustrated rush.

"I'm sorry," Jade said, her lip trembling.

I came forward. Garcia wasn't going to bully Jade just because she didn't have all the answers.

"I know the impression," she said hesitatingly. "I've felt it somewhere before. I recognize it."

He stood, planting his hands on his hips, legs spread, brows furrowed. "But no name?"

"I have a face," Buddy interrupted. "Obviously," he added.

You fight a guy and ya tend to remember it pretty well. The face. Before it becomes unrecognizable. Like Brett's, I thought with mild satisfaction.

"But you don't know who he is?" Gale asked, standing beside Garcia.

"Nah."

Garcia flipped open the notebook, pen poised. "Description?"

Buddy crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. "Maybe five-nine, two hundred..." he combed a frustrated hand through his hair.

"That's it? Big guy," Garcia said, indicating a Santa Claus belly with his hands.

Buddy shook his head. "No way, this dude was solid."

"Two hundred pounds?" Garcia asked, doubting. "That's what I weigh."

Buddy looked at him. "Me too. What, we're both six foot? That's about right. This guys spends time at the gym. Real time."

Garcia made a low sound in the back of his throat, insulted. Obviously he spent some time at the gym too.

Buddy corrected Garcia's assumption with, "No, like a couple hours a day. He knows martial arts too, hand to hand, the works."

Garcia's eyes narrowed on him. "How old are you...?"

"Buddy Hughes," he said, supplying his name.

Garcia waited.

"Senior," he said.

Garcia began at his feet and when he got to the top of his head he said, "How'd you manage to be Johnny-on-the-spot here?"

Buddy looked at Sophie and said, "I was waiting for Sophie. We're goin' out."

Garcia looked at Jonesy and he took that as his cue to leave, having been quiet this whole time. Subdued. Very un-Jonesy like.

"I'm gonna take off," Jonesy said, looking at Sophie one more time. "You gonna be okay?" he asked her.

She nodded. "Buddy's here, it's okay Jonesy."

Jonesy's eyes tightened but he nodded, looking at me and Jade and gave us a guy salute then he was out the door.

Buddy watched him go with something like relief.

Jade watched him go with knowledge in her eyes. I didn't have to be an Empath to see his frustration, his concern over her nearness to danger. He wore it all the time now. Buddy saw it too.

Garcia watched the empty doorway where Jonesy had exited, missing nothing. Every dynamic of the group was naked to his knowing eyes.

"So Buddy?" Garcia began, pen poised. "You spend some time on the mat?"

"Enough," he shrugged.

Garcia turned to me, "Didn't you guys get into a scrape not long ago?"

We nodded, saying nothing and he snorted out a laugh. The dead techs frowned at him. "What was so funny?" their expressions said.

He sobered up. "Not chatty about it?"

We shook our heads. "Fine," he said.

Sophie stood, with Jade's help. "I can help with the description."

Garcia's face lightened. "What can you add?"

"Well, he kinda looks like every dude. He's a..."

John was outside in the hall and said loudly, "Nondescript."

Sophie looked at him. "What he said."

Garcia went to the open door and closed it on Terran's face. Terran pressed his nose practically against the glass of the small window that bisected the door. I stifled a laugh.

"But... he has a scar," she said.

"Great. That's a good detail to remember Sophie."

She pointed to her temple and said, "It's here," she pressed her finger very close to her eyebrow, "and it's like a star."

Gale frowned, inching away from the teacher's body that was being encased in the body bag behind her. "Like an injury scar?" she asked and I looked at her quickly, that was kind of a brilliant leap of logic.

Sophie shook her head. "No, it was perfect, like it was made."

Garcia palmed his chin, thinking. Finally, he tapped his pen to his notepad and made it disappear into his pocket.

"I've pulsed your parents, Sophie," Gale said. She turned her attention to Buddy. "I couldn't reach your guardians."

We all waited for Buddy to speak.

He shrugged. "Been emancipated for going on two years now. Out on my own."

"Really? That's a very independent situation you have there Mr. Hughes."

They stared at each other. I was starting to get that Buddy Hughes was a self-contained guy. He didn't rush in to fill those awkward silences where the other person waited for you to talk. He just didn't.

In other circumstances, I thought we might have been friends.

Garcia opened his mouth to say something more but Gale interrupted, "Look Raul, let's have the kids go home."

"Is there gonna be someone assigned to Sophie?" Buddy asked.

Good question, I thought.

Garcia nodded. "Protocol. Although she is no longer a minor, there was an attempt on her life."

The nurse walked up to Garcia. "I need to speak to you privately for a moment."

Garcia held up a finger and said, "Just a sec, kids."

They walked over to a corner, speaking intently to each other for a few minutes. We shifted our weight, none of us talking. Jade and Sophie's eyes kept turning to the shroud of black plastic zipped over Proctor. Sophie's eyes welled with tears that ran over her wounded face. Buddy pulled her in against him, stroking her hair flat, where it would bounce back as soon as his palm left it.

Garcia walked back over to the group, a troubled expression on his face.

"What?" I asked.

"The depressant..."

We nodded.

"Miss Connolly here, administered it to take you kids out of realm. That's not really its intended purpose."

Jade asked, "Isn't it supposed to suppress paranormal ability during sleep?"

He nodded slowly. "Yes. But when," he looked at Randi, "she got help, the nurse knew that if you were already using your Astral Projection ability, already engaged, as it were, that it would take you out of it, quickly."

He watched us make sense of it.

"So, if you're not using but you're asleep, it keeps you from using it. But if you are using it stops it mid-use?" I asked.

He nodded.

So, it was like a weapon. You could inject that crap in a gun and hit somebody with it and it'd halt their ability.

Almost Null-like.

Powerful. And not good. If that stuff got passed for more than a depressant used for suppression during sleep, there'd be a buttload of misuses. Abuse. Exploitation.

The Graysheets would love it.

Nifty little drug. An inhibitor and suppressant, both.

Okay interesting but, so what?

The nurse looked really uncomfortable. Finally, she said what the problem was, nailing us with the horribleness of it, "There is a residual of twenty-four hours."

Well shit, maybe it wasn't what I was thinking.

It was.

"Both Buddy and Sophie will be vulnerable tonight for sleep. They may go into realm, beyond realm, to a Point of Acquisition. If the attacker were to meet them there... " she let the sentence trail off. Then continued, "It's not safe for either of you to sleep tonight," she said, looking into their eyes, hers full of worry. "We can't give you a stimulant, it will be dangerous with the depressant already in your system. I'm sorry. I did what I needed to so I could get you out of realm. Unfortunately, now you are still in danger."

She looked at Garcia. "Do you have a Null on staff? Somebody that can watch over the kids?" She gave Buddy a considering look. "Young adults," she corrected.

Garcia thought about it, giving me a surreptitious glance.

Smith, we were both thinking. He'd been a helluva Null.

Of course, he'd been a lot more than that.

He nodded. "I think I can find somebody."

He looked at Buddy and Sophie. "You two will have to be together tonight. No arguments." He looked at Sophie, seeing the damage to her face, his expression softening. "Let him stay at your place. You're younger and there is no one living with him," Garcia jerked a thumb at Buddy and I got the feeling that Garcia wasn't thrilled with him. He should have thought he was great, saving the day and all, but Garcia was slow to trust.

Probably a good way to be.

CHAPTER 19

"That's quite a story, Caleb," Dad said, his stare telling me that there may be more to it.

I threw my hands up while Mom bustled around in the kitchen, getting the last of supper on the table.

"I swear, for once, I didn't have anything to do with it."

He looked at me, his stare level. "It's extremely alarming that Sophie was attacked. And the depressant they're using... " Dad shook his head, mildly disgusted.

"What Dad? We all got the dose last week. I thought you were for it."

Dad nodded. "In theory I think it's a stupendous advancement. But that's not what this nurse told you," he took off his reading glasses and began cleaning them with the end of his work shirt. "What she's advocating is something that works in a latent context, inert. It's duality makes it dangerous. Take the case in point." He finished, indicating the problem with Sophie and Buddy needing a Null to stand watch in case the attacker tried for her again.

Mom plopped down on the bench, putting her chin in her hands, elbows on the table, foot swinging a mile a minute. "If I were Sophie's mom I'd want some assurance that horrible attacker couldn't enter her... realm?" she asked like a question and I nodded. She had it right.

"And the teacher dead," Mom shook her head sadly. "It's a tragedy. That someone can enter another person's realm and whatever they inflict manifests on their body." Mom shuddered.

It was worth a shudder.

"Die in realm, die in life," I said cryptically and Mom frowned. I shrugged, it was the truth. And it was taught in Sophie's class.

"Oh!" Mom remembered. "Sensei Anderson phoned."

Pulsed, I translated.

"And he wanted to remind you that lessons will resume next week. You remember he was getting the dojo overhauled?" She asked, popping a hot bite of mashed potato in her mouth and doing the food juggle.

I did remember but I thought it'd been scheduled for next week and told her that.

She dismissed me with a hand. "I think I am pretty capable of keeping track of things, Caleb. It was always next week."

Dad raised his eyebrows. "We know you're capable, Ali."

They exchanged a look and I rolled my eyes.

Parents.

Sometimes they were so lame they sucked the oxygen out of the universe. My universe.

I stood after giving Onyx a covert morsel. I walked my dishes over to the sink and jerked on the hot water, scraping the respective scraps into their proper place. Mom thought she was training me. But what it really was is I was training her not to hassle me every time I did the boring daily crap.

I turned and she had a look of pride on her face.

Who knew separating the trash was such a big deal?

I grabbed Onyx's disgusting ball and headed for the door to throw it in the forty degree weather. It was fall but winter was coming, the temperature hovering above freezing. Rain would drive down what wanted to fall as snow but without the commitment. Typical Kent weather. I thought about that. We'd get six months of this then spring would come.

I threw on a hoodie with Onyx at my heels.

It smelled like rain, a storm coming.

I had that right.

Principal Chen cruised back and forth on the stage. All black and in mourning even when one of her teachers hadn't just got creamed by a whack-job.

She was extolling his virtues and I hadn't known him so I was kinda unfazed. And secretly thrilled I wasn't being called to raise him or any exciting crap like that. It would've sucked balls.

Sophie sat next to Buddy, with dark circles under her eyes. Well, eye, that was. The other one was a slit, the side of her face pretty bashed looking. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around a man doing that to a girl. There were a lot of guys that felt that way. Some that didn't. Jade sat at my right and Jonesy on my left. He'd been awfully quiet since yesterday. Jade held hands with me and Sophie. Jade had been at Sophie's last night. Which had made me vaguely uneasy. It didn't make sense that I would worry. Buddy was there, a Null that was a cop and Jade wasn't AP but somehow, I didn't like it.