“Kaylee—” Holly protested.
“You may get hit on in the holding cell. Just push the big women away gently. They’ll tell stories around town about how you used your magical power against them, which will add to your mystique. In a few hours I’ll come bail you out. In a few weeks there will be a hearing on whether to charge you. The judge will want to throw the book at you. I’ll change her mind.”
Holly nodded. “So this is how the casino works.”
“This is how the casino works,” Kaylee said.
“Do you enjoy your job?” Shane asked drily.
“I love my job,” Kaylee said with gusto. “On days when everything works out, like this.”
“You call this working out?” Shane shouted. “What about—”
Abruptly he stopped talking, slipped into the driver’s seat, and slammed the car door.
“Kaylee,” Holly said reprovingly. “Did you change his mind?”
“I have to ride all the way back to town with him. You don’t.” Kaylee kissed Holly’s forehead. “See you in Vegas.”
Holly leaned through the doorway and put her hand on Elijah, unconscious in Shane’s car again, this time because of her. He’d given up his power to save her, the power that he loved, and she’d responded by throwing him across the room and giving Rob the knife to stab him.
Shane looked over the seat at her. “He’ll forgive you.”
As they drove away, Holly caught a flash of her reflection in the windows of the car. Her hair had dried in long, dirty curls. Mascara hollowed her eyes and streaked her cheeks. She was so bedraggled, she almost looked like a supermodel—or like a stylish, urban-chic magician’s assistant she’d envied at another casino.
If she were somehow able to parlay her exhibition at the dam into publicity for her new act, the victory would be empty if there was something wrong with Elijah, if he lost his power permanently, if he were a vegetable, if he died.
She said a prayer for him. Not a single vehicle swished past her on the highway as she whispered hopes and pleas on his behalf, watching Shane’s car speed down the flat highway that vanished into a point on the horizon glowing in the night.
Then she started walking.
21
Elijah couldn’t close his eyes. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think.
Shane parked his car in the employee lot at the casino. Two security guards muscled Elijah onto a stretcher and wheeled him onto the employee elevator. A long ride later they wheeled him off again, down a hall, into a hotel suite. They lifted him onto a bed.
In the next room, Shane said, “Go get some sleep, Kaylee. I’ll stay with him until Holly gets back.”
Holly peered at Elijah. Her face was a mess of makeup and dirt. Kaylee and Shane watched Elijah over Holly’s shoulders.
“His eyes are still open,” Holly mused.
“Yep,” Shane said.
“Is he conscious?”
“Sort of,” Shane said. “He’s receiving. He’s not processing.”
“Does he have power?” Kaylee asked.
“No,” Shane said, “thanks to y—” He stopped in midsentence.
Holly looked at Shane, then at Kaylee, then back to Elijah. “He looks dead. If he does wake up, he’s not going to forgive me.”
“Of course he is,” Kaylee said. “He loves you. I’ve never heard of someone with power giving it up to save someone else. That’s part of what makes the Res so ugly. Doesn’t he really love her, Shane?”
“Yes,” Shane said.
Holly asked Kaylee, “Are you making Shane say that?”
“No,” Kaylee and Shane said at the same time.
Holly lay beside Elijah on the bed. Her face was scrubbed clean now. She reached out and touched Elijah’s bottom lip.
Kaylee appeared in the doorway behind Holly. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Holly said without turning around.
Kaylee lay down behind Holly on the bed, spooning her, and draped her arm over Holly’s waist. “Any signs of life?”
“None. His pupils don’t even dilate when the light changes. Is that normal?”
“I think so, just while he recovers.”
Holly slid her hand away from Elijah’s mouth. “I gather that it’s considered extremely rude for you to change the mind of a person with power.”
“Yes, and I would never have done that to you if I didn’t absolutely have to—”
Holly put up her hand. “I understand. I’m just wondering, if it’s so outré, why you keep doing it to Shane.”
“Until yesterday,” Kaylee grumbled, “I didn’t know he had power.”
“Now you do, and you’re still changing his mind. Correct me if I’m wrong. I can’t read minds. But you were in the same room for what? Thirty minutes? And I swear you stopped him from talking six different times.”
Kaylee sighed. “I’m in a very dangerous position right now, Holly. Anyone I’m involved with is in trouble. I’m not going to endanger someone by getting into a relationship.”
“Nobody said anything about a relationship,” Holly pointed out.
Kaylee was quiet.
“I think you get off on changing his mind,” Holly said.
Kaylee closed her eyes.
Holly shifted on the bed and looked over her shoulder at Kaylee. “So you’re just going to keep brainwashing him every time he tries to talk to you?”
“Yes.” Kaylee paused. “He’s hot, though.”
“He is.” Holly turned to face Elijah again.
“Just like your vegetable of a boyfriend.” Kaylee reached around Holly’s shoulder and gently slapped Elijah’s cheek as if to wake him. “We should give him a nickname, like Squash. Or—is he really long?—Asparagus.”
“Aw, that’s mean,” Holly said.
“Don’t worry,” Kaylee said. “He’ll remember this, and he’ll get revenge on me when he wakes up.”
Holly sighed. “If he ever does.”
Elijah’s mom sat in a chair in front of him, looking straight into his eyes. She stared at him for a long time, frowning, without moving. She gathered her long black hair into a ponytail and dropped it behind her back. She put her hand on his hand and stared into his eyes again. The strain showed on her face, and her eyes watered. She put her other hand to her temple.
Finally she dropped her hands, sat back in the chair, and began to cry.
“Guess what.” Holly’s face was very close to Elijah’s.
She waited.
“My dad’s been wanting to retire from the magician business,” she said. “Kaylee thinks my dad is famous enough that nobody with power would dare cross him, and it’s safe for him and my mom to leave town. So they’re moving to Key West. After his hand heals, he’s going to do a little act down on the pier with the locals, just to keep in practice. And guess who’s taking over as the casino’s headlining act?”
She waited.
“That’s right, me!” she exclaimed. “We plan to milk the publicity for all it’s worth right up until the height of the feeding frenzy, when I have my court hearing for trespassing at Hoover Dam and for crawling out a fortieth-story window and stuff. That night we’ll announce that my dad is retiring and I’m debuting my solo act on the Fourth of July. We’re scrambling to put it together, but luckily I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and I have lots of ideas. For instance, what do you think of my outfit?”
She stood up straight, put her fists on her hips, and modeled for him. The frayed bikini bottoms were barely there, and the top had been ripped strategically.
“Something tells me it’s a good thing you’re comatose while I ask your opinion on this.” She stepped out of his line of sight.
Then she stood in front of him again, this time wearing his red UNLV LACROSSE T-shirt, huge on her and knotted at her belly button, and very small gym shorts. She clicked off the lamp. Darkness fell. She slipped into bed, drew the covers over them both, and scooted close to him. She set her forehead against his and tangled her smooth bare legs with his legs.
Then the tingles began: a deep massage that started at the back of his neck and worked slowly down his body.
“I want you back, Elijah,” she whispered against his lips. “I hope you come back.” She sniffled, and her words quivered as she breathed, “I wish you were back.”
Elijah woke. The soft pink light of dawn grazed his shoulders and came to rest like the lightest blanket on Holly. It caressed her features, so strange and young without makeup. It glowed in her dark hair coiled around her shoulders.
She slept, in a stage between dreams, what sounded to a mind reader like static.
Careful not to wake her, he rolled away. As he shifted his weight, he grimaced in surprise at the pain in the back of his arm, then felt for the bandage over the stab wound. He hadn’t dreamed the whole thing, that was for sure.
He slid off the bed and got up to take a piss. It wasn’t until he reentered the bedroom that he saw the wall of windows. It had been behind him the whole time he’d lain in bed, offering a panoramic view of the Strip. This must be the casino’s penthouse.
He walked to the windows and looked out. Below him, traffic on the Strip was sparse for once. Palm trees lined lush gardens, and a few joggers dotted the sidewalks. Other mirrored skyscrapers surrounded the casino, reflecting each other’s neon signs. The edge of the world was marked by barren mountains. A large orange sun peeked over them.
Elijah loved the view from up here.
He settled next to Holly in bed again, thinking back over the past day he’d been comatose, or two days, or five. He didn’t know. He was sure only that he’d liked her outfit for her new act. It made her look like she’d been chased and nearly caught by a horny fire-breathing dragon.
He wound one of her long curls around his finger. “I do love you,” he whispered.
She woke, slowly at first, dialing down the volume on the static of her sleep. She snapped alert when her eyes focused on him watching her. She hugged him hard with her slender arms and her power, full of joy that he was alive and well.
Holly sat in Elijah’s lap when the radio on his belt called, “Two minutes to curtain.”
“Two minutes to curtain,” he whispered in Holly’s ear.
In the week since the debut of her solo act, this had become their routine. As second in command of security at the casino and Holly’s personal bodyguard, Elijah came to her dressing room before the show and inspected it for safety. Then she sat straddling him on the ancient velvet couch, and they inspected each other.
For instance, at the moment he was ensuring the safety of her ear, since she couldn’t let him kiss her face and muss her dramatic makeup before a show. The sound of his whisper and the feel of his warm breath on her earlobe turned her legs to jelly.
They both started to pull away from each other as the dressing room door opened. Then they relaxed against each other again. It was only Kaylee.
But she was upset—or as upset as Kaylee ever got within view of casino employees. She closed the door behind her and said quietly, “Elijah, something’s happened. It looks like the Res is back at it.”
Holly sucked in a breath and felt Elijah’s hold tighten around her. She’d thought—or just wished—that their problems with the Res were over.
“I’m rounding up some people to go investigate with me after the show,” Kaylee said. “I need you.”
“Yes’m,” Elijah said.
“What is it?” Holly asked. “What happened, exactly?” She knew Elijah wasn’t asking because he’d already lifted the details out of Kaylee’s thoughts.
“I don’t want to tell you before the show,” Kaylee said.
“What?” Holly exclaimed, climbing off Elijah’s lap and standing to her full height on high heels. “Are you telling me not to worry my pretty little head about it?”
“Before the show,” Elijah insisted, standing beside her and slipping his hand around her waist. “It would distract you, believe me. We’ll tell you after.”
Without opening her mouth, she let him know what she thought of being treated like a child.
“No,” he said, “it’s just—when we were at the Res, Isaac took Kaylee’s Beretta.”
“Oh.” Glancing at Kaylee’s expression, Holly surmised that Isaac had used said Beretta.
“And Shane took Rob’s gun,” Kaylee added, “damn him, which is probably why they’re trying to get back at us now. I’m sure Rob’s in trouble with the sheriff that even the Res can’t get him out of.”
Maybe Holly really didn’t want to know the details before her performance. “Well, when you investigate, I’m going with you.” She would be tired when her show was over, with a ginormous headache from taxing her power. But if Isaac was trying to get Kaylee in trouble or was planning another attack on the casino, Holly wanted to know firsthand and help if she could, not wait at home to be told later. After seven years clueless, she never wanted to be in the dark again.
“No way,” Kaylee said. “You’re the magician now. You’re the public face of the casino. Your job is to look rich and stay out of trouble, like your father’s job before you.”
“My father is a weak levitator,” Holly said, “and a liability. I am not.”
“Let her come,” Elijah told Kaylee, his low voice vibrating through Holly’s chest. “Otherwise you’ll waste all night scraping together a team of half powers and those girls you’re weaning off Mentafixol. They’re more a hindrance than a help right now. Besides, Holly will convince you eventually anyway.”