Priceless

recliner.
    A while turned out to be over two hours thanks to his prehistoric printer. You’d think with all the upgraded equipment he had, he would’ve put out for a faster printer. The possibility of not having enough paper was bad, but worse was his non-stop questions, of which I answered zero. If he’d been just a few years older, I would have had a lot less difficulty with him. I would have just thumped him on the head and left him tied up in the bathroom. Being a kid gave him an immunity to my anger and my blades that he didn’t even realize he had.
    I ended up drinking the rest of the root beer and felt a sugar headache coming on fast. At least it would keep me awake.
    Kyle bundled up all the papers for me and wrapped them with two elastic bands. “Here. I think that’s all of them.”
    I took the bundle and tucked it under one arm.
    “So, what do you think the files are really for?”
    I looked up, surprised at first. Of course, he couldn’t believe the files were about the supernatural. That was an impossibility in his world of technology.
    “Just a code name for missing kids. The ones they can’t explain.” He followed me out to the door, neither one of us noticing the slight beeping on his security system until we were at the door. Or the pair of suits walking up on the camera monitors toward his back door. Not good; sloppy on both our parts. I blamed my inattention to the memories that this case was stirring up.
    The doorknob was cool under my hand and the slightest shuffle on the other side of the door caught my ear at the last second. I froze and looked over at Kyle.
    His face was pale and his eyes wide. He shook his head ever so slightly and I backed off the door. Together, we sidled back into the kitchen. Running back to his workroom, he checked his security monitors and let out a groan, hands clenched in his hair. There in black and white were two very dark grey suits, standing at his back door, discussing something. Probably us. Kyle grabbed my arm, his body trembling. “I didn’t know they would actually show up at my door,” he whispered, his voice cracking under the sudden stress.
    “Neither did I.” I thought for a minute. There was a way out of this, but there was a possibility Kyle would get a glimpse at some of the things I could do. “Go back into your computer room, get all the online games going that you can, quick now.” I gave him a shove in the direction of his work room.
    “How’s that going to help?”
    “Just do what I say!” I took a breath and explained quickly. “If they come in, you can claim you didn’t see what I was doing, that you were playing your games while I used the printer.” A thread of adrenaline started to pump through me. If I got thrown in jail, it would mean the end of India’s chances. I couldn’t let that happen.
    Kyle stumbled over his own feet as he tried to make his body obey his commands despite his obvious fear, glancing back at me for reassurance. I nodded and shooed at him with my free hand before turning my back on him.
    With Kyle busy, I turned my attention to the bundle of papers. I couldn’t make it disappear; that was way beyond what I could do. But I could make it look like something else. Something close to what it truly was. Giselle had shown me how to do this, but using my abilities to do something they weren’t designed to do would make my sugar headache a fond memory.
    Concentrating, I focused on the heading, slowing my breathing to match the pulse of my energy. FBI Arcane Division became Francine Bouvier’s Interesting Facts on Divisions of the Arcane. A bead of sweat rolled down my face. This kind of glamour always left me drained. It just wasn’t one of my strong abilities, though at the moment I was glad I at least had this little amount. I slipped off the elastic bands and flipped through the pages; changed the major headings of which there were ten. The pages began to flow under my hands as the glamour took hold and spread through the entire stack of paper. I let out a breath and wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. Crap I was tired now, even with the sugar rush; I was not at my best for facing down an FBI agent. Even worse, since it was O’Shea.
    A hard knock at the door snapped my head up. A glance at Kyle’s white face and wide eyes didn’t give me much comfort.
    “Stay there,” I said, gesturing at Kyle as he stood. “I’ll go to the door and deal with them. You just stay