I scanned my IAC quickly to try to find anyone who could come and help her, but there was no one. It was obvious Meagan was starting to lose it. She darted away from Elliott’s limp body and tried to find a place to hide. I hated that Sam had that effect on her, that she was so terrified she was beginning to shake.
“We’ve gotta go help her,” I said, taking a few steps toward Brandon.
“I’m not supposed to let you out of here. Just give him a minute.”
Through my IAC, I tried to contact Elliott but got nothing. I tried something else—my telepathy. “He’s going to get Meagan if you don’t get up off of the floor! Go! Go get Sam!”
I was shocked when Elliott’s voice sounded in my head. “Where... is... Jamie?” He was clearly still out of it, but at least he could communicate—sort of.
I answered, “Across the park, over by the rollercoaster, heavily engaged. He can’t get there in time. You’re going to have to do it, or I’m sending Brandon.”
That got a stir out of him, but it seemed like there was nothing he could do. He was trying to open his eyes. I saw a flicker on the IAC, but his eyes never sprang open.
Before I could demand Brandon go help, there was another problem. I was still standing in the middle of my hidey-hole, trying to decide whether or not to just head to the funhouse when I got a frantic message from my sister. “Cass can you put a block on for me?”
Part of me was relieved to know she was all right. But I didn’t have time to mess with her right now, not if I was going to save Meagan. “No, I can’t,” I admitted. “Somehow, she’s screwing with what I can do. What’s going on with your IAC?” I realized I was pacing.
“I don’t know.” My sister didn’t sound any calmer. “It’s not working. Did I shoot Aaron?”
I stopped walking, and Brandon took a few steps toward me before he realized I wasn’t with him. I had to check to see what had happened, so I popped into Aaron’s head, no IAC required. He was in a lot of pain. That was all I needed to know. “Cadence! Put your gun away!”
My sister replied, “How do I know you’re you?”
I really didn’t have time for this right now. Neither did she, apparently. I had no idea what she’d done, but if she shot him again, it might be deadly. There was one story I could think of off the top of my head only I would know. “When you were in eighth grade, you tripped in the hallway at school and on your way down, you accidentally kissed your friend Jon, and he thought you were his girlfriend for three weeks. Put the gun down and get Martin!”
My sister disappeared from my IAC, and I had no way of getting her back. I prayed Aaron would be okay, and then I started pacing again. Brandon was staring at me with a questioning expression, but there was no time to explain. I heard shots out in the night and hoped they weren’t coming from the funhouse.
“What’s the plan?” Brandon asked, staring at me like I was the one in charge.
“You’ve gotta go!” I shouted at him.
He turned and looked toward the door and then back at me. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Then I’ll go with you. I can help. I’m not a baby.”
“You’re observing,” he reminded me.
I picked him up off of the ground a few inches, watching his eyes bulge, and then dropped him, saying, “Observe that.”
Brandon shook his head at me. “You have got to stay with me the whole time, got it?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, but I didn’t think that was practical. We headed out of the ticket booth as quickly as we could, running alongside each other at breakneck speed. It only took a few seconds for us to see the funhouse up ahead. As we approached the structure, I could hear scurrying footsteps inside, but Meagan’s IAC was practically useless. She was standing in the shadows, trembling so badly she could’ve caused motion sickness in someone with a weaker stomach.
“Go find Meag. I’ll get your dad up.”
Brandon looked at me questioningly. “How are you going to do that?”
“I have my ways.”
“Let’s find him together first, and then I’ll go.” I decided that would work, too. He took another few steps and stopped. “Cass?”
I was headed up the steps but I stopped and looked at him. “Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
“You, too.”
“I love you.”
My insides melted a little bit. “I love you, too. Now let’s go!” He smiled at me and we headed inside the funhouse, side by side, a couple of rule breakers.
As we walked along, I checked in on Jamie and saw he was closing in on the Vampires at the top of the rollercoaster, but he wouldn’t be able to help us for a while.
The flooring was uneven, and I tripped, falling forward, but Brandon caught me before I hit the floor. I thanked him and then, having had enough of the rotten wood beneath me, I picked myself up an inch off of the floor and began to levitate instead.
Off in the distance, we heard more scuffling, and I could see through Meagan’s IAC that she was trying to hide from something. I assumed it was Sam. We needed to split up. “Go help Meagan,” I whispered. “I’ll find your dad.”
“What if there are more Vampires here?” he asked, reluctant to go.
“Then I’ll kill them.”
He shook his head at me like I was his disobedient child. But he didn’t argue this time. He kissed me quickly and then headed off toward Meagan.
I watched Jamie shoot several Vampires in a rollercoaster cart, their bodies disintegrating into ash before they hit the ground. And then the Healer leapt over a hundred feet to the ground. The building around me shifted from the quake of him making contact with the earth again, but he was just fine. And ahead of me I saw Elliott. We could be superheroes, too, but first he needed to wake up.