Pulse

it back where it was safe, not because he couldn’t stand to see what he was seeing, but because Wade had opened the first door. By the time he got to the second door, Hawk had done the unthinkable: he had gotten in with the bodies, hiding among the trench coats and the shotguns and the rotting limbs. When Wade opened that second door, he shined his own light on the grisly contents of the room.
    “I knew I should have buried these damn things,” he complained, turning up his nose at the smell of death. “God, what a mess.”
    And with that he slammed the door shut and went looking for Hawk elsewhere in the building. Hawk didn’t move for another five minutes, just to be sure, and in those minutes he came to understand that his life was not going to be as easy as he might have hoped. It had always been difficult, but it was getting harder still; and he was becoming part of something bigger than himself—something he was pretty sure might get him killed. When he felt sure Wade Quinn had abandoned his search, Hawk crept out of the closed area of the school. How Wade had done what he had done was unclear, but there was no doubt Wade had been responsible.
    If he could have seen outside the long line of windows of the classroom, Hawk would have noticed that Dylan Gilmore had been watching everything that had happened inside the room. The moment Dylan knew that Hawk was safe he was gone. He had another place to be, and he was already running late.
     
    “You’re nowhere near ready to be doing that, and there are other risks, too,” Dylan said as he landed on the roof behind Faith. She was standing at the railed ledge, staring off into the distant light of the Western State, and hearing his unhappy voice startled her.
    “A little warning would have been nice. You scared me half to death.”
    Dylan walked away toward the table they’d sat at the night before. He’d arranged some things there that he needed her to work on, but, sitting down, he doubted they should be on the roof at all. “I shouldn’t have told you. It was too soon.”
    Faith was irritated. Getting back up to the roof in the dark had been a harrowing experience, and when she’d finally made it to the top, she’d found herself alone. For all she knew he was going to stand her up. Or worse, the whole event really had been a bad dream or a bad trip. Maybe, she had thought as she stood there staring out at the light, I really am crazy . Dylan’s insensitivity bordered on cruelty.
    “You’re being kind of a jerk.”
    “I’ve been called worse.”
    “I bet you have. Lots of times.”
    Faith walked to the table and sat down hard in the chair, looking off toward the ledge where the ladder was, thinking about whether or not she should just leave. Dylan wouldn’t look at her, wouldn’t speak. It took about ten seconds for Faith to break the silence.
    “Okay, so I blew it; but seriously, what’s the big deal? I moved my shoelace. So what!”
    Dylan looked straight at her, all business.
    “They can feel you.”
    “What? Who?”
    “It doesn’t matter who,” Dylan said. “I told you not to move things unless we’re up here. Please, trust me on this. You can’t do that again, ever.”
    “It matters to me,” Faith said. She understood she’d made a mistake, but she was also starting to feel like she was being played. “I need to know what’s going on, Dylan. Put yourself in my place. I’m moving things with my brain! It’s not exactly normal.”
    Dylan peeled off his jacket and hung it on his chair. He had on a flannel shirt and began rolling up the sleeves.
    “Time to go to work,” he said, ignoring Faith’s plea. She leaned back and folded her arms across her chest.
    “Screw that.”
    Dylan had finished rolling up the sleeve on his left arm and began doing the same to the right. The table was arrayed with all sorts of colored balls, blocks, and cups of different colors.
    “Move the yellow ball into the blue cup,” he said.
    “Move it yourself. I’m tying my shoe.”
    Dylan leaned under the table and saw that the untied shoelace on her left foot was, in fact, busily tying itself back into a perfect double loop. He was more than a little surprised at how well she was able to do this, given how little training she’d had. When he sat back up, all the balls, blocks, and cups were gone. Faith smiled sarcastically, then everything that had been sitting on the table fell out of the sky and landed, one by one, on Dylan’s head.