Chapter 1: Bad Beat Story

"You won! You won! I can't believe it! Fifty thousand dollars!" Sarah shrieked, leaping into Lindsay's arms as flashing lights and confetti dazzled Lindsay's eyes.

People crowded all around her congratulating her. A giant fake check bumped against her hand. A microphone appeared in front of her face.

"Can we get a word with our new poker champion?" A reporter Lindsay couldn't pick out from the sea of humanity asked. "You went from Spring Breaker to Desert Springs Casino Tournament winner. What's your secret?"

"I've always just been lucky, I guess," Lindsay said, smiling as she took the corner of the check and posed for the camera.

---------------------------------------------------

Lindsay heard her own answer as she rubbed her dark auburn hair dry with a towel fluffier than she'd ever had in a hotel. "Sarah, turn it up," she called from the massive bathroom of their penthouse suite.

"She's psychic," Sarah's recorded voice added.

"What are you going to do with your money?" the reporter asked.

"I'm going to pay off my next semester in college."

The reporter laughed. "Your parents will appreciate that."

Lindsay pulled her light pink T-shirt on and smiled caustically at the screen where she smiled back with a little red ESPN2 logo glowing out from the screen. "Yeah, they're going to love it." She pushed the bottle of round white pills deep into her jeans pocket with her thumb. The worn label read:

Lindsay Weaver

Azithromycin

Take one daily with food

Exp: 04/1

The last number was worn off. If anyone asked, she said the label had gotten wet, not that the six had faded away two years ago. But no one ever asked. Not even the gaming agents who had practically interrogated her after she won before begrudgingly giving her the check. Only five left. She frowned. She'd buy some more when she got home. Derek was usually good for it, twenty-five a pill. She'd need a supply of her little miracle pills for finals.

"I still can't believe you won!" Sarah beamed at her from the couch. "You seriously have ESP or something. Your parents are going to flip!"

"Yeah, they won't be able to hold my submarine grades over my head, now. It's not their money I'm throwing away on parties and boys anymore."

"Submarine grades?"

"Yeah, Dad calls them that because they're below 'C' level."

Sarah groaned. "He even manages a dad-joke when he's threatening to cut you off."

"That's Bahbee Weavah for you," she said, mimicking her father's thick Nantucket accent. She plopped down on the couch next to Sarah. "I mean, I get why they're doing it. But I'm only young once and it's not like I'm taking rocket science or something. I've been coaching since I was fourteen and doing public relations since I was born, it's not like they're teaching me stuff I don't already know. So why does it matter? 'D' is for diploma."

"And F is for Fifty Thousand Dollars," Sarah grinned impishly, pulling the gratis bottle of champagne from a bucket of ice on the table. She popped the cork and poured them each a glass. "What do you want to do to celebrate? We could call up those guys from last night."

Lindsay fell back against the couch with her arms outstretched. "God, I love twins."

"Those two were hot, even the one with the fox tail thing."

"Hey, he knew how to use it."

"I didn't think you'd go for a Furry."

Lindsay sat up straight. "No, I went for a hot Furry. You know what they say: You and me, baby, ain't nothin' but mammals-" she lowered her voice to imitate The Bloodhound Gang as she sang, moving close to Sarah.

Sarah laughed, pushing her away. "I know, I heard."

"You heard? Didn't you have that guy I beat in the third round? The one with the glasses. James or something?"

"Mike."

"Oh yeah. It was Mike. But his last name was Kirk and he was from Iowa."

"I can't believe that's how you remembered him! You're such a trekkie."

"No, my mom's the trekkie. I only remember it because of that Captain's Birthplaces Road Trip we did. Riverside, Iowa. Didn't Captain Kirk take you to strange new worlds?"

Sarah blushed, brushing a lock of mousey brown hair behind her ear. "No, we didn't do anything last night. We just talked."

"But I saw him leave this morning. You didn't talk all night?"

"Yeah."

"Not much of a Kirk."

"It was nice, though." Sarah adjusted her glasses. That could only mean one thing.

Lindsay stared open-mouthed. "Oh my God! You're really into him!"

Sarah's pink face turned even pinker. "Yeah. We want to take it slow; you know? Cause he's in Iowa and all."

Lindsay squealed with delight and hugged her best friend. "I can't believe it! Remember, if he ever treats you badly, you just tell me and I'll drive up to Iowa and teach him some manners."

Sarah laughed.

"Well, guys are out, then," Lindsay said.

"You can still get one, if you want," Sarah said.

"Maybe I'll text the twins later. The other one has a body building competition till nine. What about a show? They always say how good the shows are." She scanned through the list on her phone. "There's a Celine Dion Experience in half an hour." The alarm on her phone buzzed. She pulled it out, the little blue hippo charm, Hector, swinging in gentle arcs into the side of her hand. She flicked the alarm off. "Just a second," she said. She went over to the bathroom and filled a glass of water as she opened her overnight bag and pulled out her birth control pills. She popped one into her mouth and took a drink to wash it down. Just as she zipped up the bag there was a loud knock at the door.

"Gaming Agents," a firm voice from the other side of the door said.

Lindsay froze, staring at the door.

Even before Sarah turned the handle, she knew they shouldn't open it. Two people in black suits and wearing earpieces stood in the passageway.

"We need to have a conversation with Miss Weaver," The no-nonsense looking woman said, a large man with curly hair and shades next to her. Have a conversation with, as though they really wanted to talk.

Lindsay shook her head at Sarah, mouthing, "No," into the mirror on the opposite side of the room.

Run. A voice in Lindsay's mind told her.

Sarah's eyes shifted to the mirror and she became somewhat stiff. "Lindsay's in the shower. I'll tell her you're here if you wait outside."

Run!

They shoved their way in. "I'm sorry, but we need to speak to Miss Weaver immediately." Fortunately, they went the direction Sarah's eyes had gone. Sarah stood frozen.

RUN!

Lindsay grabbed Sarah's hand. "We have to go!" She yelled, pulling her out of the room. She slammed the door shut behind.

They ran to the elevators and Lindsay smashed the down button. The hall seemed strangely smoky. "Who are those people?" Sarah asked.

"I don't know. But we've got to run!" Lindsay said. "Come on, come on!" she begged the elevator. The 4th floor, on the other side the 8th floor, the 9th floor, the 10th floor, why did it stop on the 14th floor!? Look to the left, her mind told her. "The stairs!"

"You go, I'll take the elevator, we'll trick them," Sarah said. "I'll meet you at the Circus Circus sign in an hour."

And that was the last thing she heard Sarah say. She heard two loud bangs as she passed the thirteenth floor but she didn't stop, it was probably something else. It had to be something else even though her mind flashed an image of her friend lying on the floor in front of the elevators bleeding. No, it wasn't her ability, it was just her fears playing tricks on her. She sped down the stairs and out the door into the lobby. She was momentarily blinded by the bright lights and flashing machines. She turned around, searching for the entrance.

The elevators chimed and the doors opened, she turned, hopeful it was Sarah. There they were, guns drawn. "Stop! In the name of the law!" the man shouted.

She ran, shifting right just in time to avoid a bullet. Blood sprayed from the chest of a man just next to her as he went down. They were shooting at her! She'd only won a poker tournament!

She was out the door into the dark night. A navy-blue sedan screeched up with a Black woman driving.

A handsome young man with blonde hair threw open the back door where he sat. "Get in if you want to live!" he shouted.

She didn't think twice, her instincts were in overdrive. She jumped in the car. The man easily pulled her in and yanked the door closed. The car screeched away just as a hail of bullets peppered the trunk.

"Look, I'm sorry your casino got all shot up," the woman said to the empty passenger seat in a thick Caribbean accent. "Baby Boy back there just had to have his Egg McMuffin. I was telling him we'd be late. Hey! Don't you be talkin' to me like that," the woman warned the vacant air. "Least she ain't dead on your doorstep."

It was weird, but Lindsay figured maybe the woman had a headset or something. It sounded like she worked for the hotel. Was there security team really that good? It didn't matter to her at the moment. All Lindsay could think about was the image of Sarah on the floor. It couldn't be true. No, Sarah was fine. She'd be waiting for her. "We've got to go to Circus Circus!" Lindsay demanded. "We've got to get my friend, Sarah!"

"You're loyal, I like that," the handsome blonde said. "Anyone else would have asked who we were and who they were. Your friend won't be there, but don't worry, she'll be ok."

"You mean she's not ok?" Lindsay was nearly frantic.

"No, but we called it in five minutes ago. The paramedics will be there soon."

Lindsay's mind went grey for a moment. She felt sick. "Then... then we have to go to the hospital and wait for her."

"Listen, honey," The woman said. "The best thing you can do for her right now is get as far away from her as possible."

The man turned, placing a hand on Lindsay's knee. "She'll be alright, I know you can tell I'm telling the truth." And, looking into those blue eyes in that open face, she knew he was. "You and me, we're the same."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"We're ESPers."

Lindsay was overwhelmed, she grabbed her head, long hair sicking through her fingers. ESPers? Like she was supposed to know what that meant? But hadn't she heard that term before. "Wait? You mean like ESP?"

"Exactly. That's how we knew where to find you and when."

"Eddy here is the most talented ESPer we have," the woman said.

"Dolora! You stole my introduction! But yes, I'm Eddy and this is Dolora."

"And who were those guys?"

"The Spook Force," Dolora said.

"The Spook Force?"

Eddy answered, "Well, that's just what we call them. They're really called the Paranormal Police, which isn't much better."

"You know how President Orange is with names," Dolora said.

"Their job is to round up anyone they believe might have paranormal abilities, like us. Then they take us to their labs and perform all sorts of horrible tests on us. Our job is to stop them before they can, because once you're at St. Marks not even God, Himself can save you."

"St. Marks?"

"St. Marks, Kansas. It's where they have their lab. We'll give it a wide berth."

"What do you mean, give it a wide berth? Where are we going?"

"We have a place in the Ozarks. It's safe and it'll give us a chance to figure out your abilities. Then we can decide where to go from there. But one step at a time."

Considering they had just saved her from a pair of gun-wielding agents, she decided not to pry further. not tonight, she was suddenly too exhausted for any more. "Where are the Ozarks?" she asked.

"Don't you worry, honey, we'll get you there," she vaguely heard Dolora say as the gentle motion of the car lulled her to sleep.

The last words she heard were "Sleeping gas."

She awoke in the morning. Her body felt stiff, like she'd fallen asleep on the couch. She felt a pair of muscular arms around her. She snuggled down into the arms, her head resting against a thin t-shirt over a rock-hard chest that moved slowly up and down like he was sleeping. She gripped the soft fabric of the shirt. She wouldn't mind pulling that shirt off when he woke up. But, for now, she could relax to the sound of his steady heartbeat. Who was he? She searched her groggy mind for memories of last night. Then it all came flooding back to her. The gaming agents. Running for her life through the casino. The car.

That had to be a dream.

She opened an eye and looked up into the handsome, sleeping face of the blonde man, Eddy, head leaning against the window of the car. She closed her eye, inwardly shrinking. It's wasn't a dream!

"You awake, honey?" Dolora asked from the driver's seat.

"Yeah," Lindsay whispered.

"How's your head? Looks like those agents got you with some sleeping gas. It can give you one hell of a headache."

"It's fine, I guess," she kept her voice down, glancing at the sleeping Eddy.

"Oh, don't worry about waking him up. Eddy can sleep through anything. Why don't we stop for breakfast? I'll get you some pancakes."

Lindsay's stomach rumbled as she slowly extricated herself from Eddy's arms. She smiled sheepishly at Donora. "Pancakes would be great right now."

They pulled over at a roadside diner that had a faded blue sign with a Route 66 placard in the middle. Taking opposite seats on the duct-taped vinyl booth benches, the waitress laid down two oversized, laminated menus.

"Oh, don't worry, Sugar," Dolora said to the woman. "We're ready to order. Blueberry pancakes, hon?"

Lindsay glanced at her menu and then back to Dolora's kindly smile. "Can I have the chocolate chips?"

"Of course. And I'll have the brown sugar bourbon pecans." Dolora handed the menus back to the waitress. "Thank you."

"Two orders of pancakes. Any coffee?"

"Yes!" Lindsay exclaimed. Coffee would be heaven right now.

"Please," Dolora said, almost apologetically. "And keep it coming. It's been a long night of driving."

"Where you headed?" the waitress asked.

"Salt Lake City," Dolora answered.

"Not much more left," the waitress said.

"No. Four more hours."

"I'll get your coffee, then."

Lindsay watched the waitress leave. "Salt Lake City? I thought we were going to-"

"Shhh," Dolora interrupted. "Those agents from the casino aren't going to forget about you. We can't make it that easy for them to find us."

"Oh. Oh yeah." She hadn't even thought about that.

The waitress reappeared with a stained coffee pot that looked older than Lindsay.

"We can talk about it later," Dolora said as the waitress turned over their mugs and filled them with the deep brown, steaming liquid. "How are you doing?"

"How am I doing?" Lindsay repeated, staring into her coffee. "I don't... I don't even... I just won fifty thousand dollars and then people were shooting at me and now I'm wherever here is and my phone has no bars and I just keep seeing Sarah in a pool of blood and I don't even know if she's alive or dead!" Tears stung her eyes. "And it's my fault she was there in the first place! I dragged her along! She could be dead right now because of me!"

Dolora took Lindsay's hand in her own. It was soft and warm with smooth nails the shape of almond slivers. "Don't worry about her right now, honey. She'll be fine."

Lindsay looked up from her coffee and into Dolora's big, brown eyes. "How do you know? Was it on the radio or something?"

Dolora's eyes jumped from Lindsay's to the diner. Lindsay glanced back to see the waitress disappearing into the kitchen. Dolora nodded. "No, but I know all the same. You know how you and Eddy are ESPer's? I'm what you might call a medium."

Lindsay stared at her. A medium? Like those middle-aged women on basic cable with big nails and even bigger hair? "You mean like, you see dead people?"

"It's a bit more than just seeing dead people, but we'll go with that. Anyway, if someone's passed on, I can find them on the other side, and I can't find your friend anywhere."

Lindsay stared at her, incredulous. She desperately wanted to believe her that Sarah was ok, but talking to dead people... "Prove it," she said.

Dolora let out a sigh and leaned back against the faded upholstery, closing her eyes. Her mouth moved as if she was having a conversation, but all Lindsay could catch were the faintest whispers of words. Dolora opened her eyes and leaned forward with a smile, squeezing Lindsay's hand. "Your Meemaw wants to say you were the best field dresser she's ever seen, but she never said anything cause she didn't want to hurt your brother's feelings. Funny, I didn't picture you as a hunter."

"Just birds and stuff. It's a family thing." Lindsay couldn't help beaming as the words sunk in. "I knew it! I knew I was better than Charlie." She sniffled as last night's events dimmed the victory of the moment. She ran an arm across her eyes. "Thanks, Meemaw," she mumbled. "So, Sarah's ok, then?"

"I didn't say that. But she's not dead."

The waitress laid two plates of pancakes in front of them. Dolora thanked her and asked if they could have a bacon and egg muffin to go. "For Eddy," she said to Lindsay as the waitress went off to ring in the order. "He gets grumpy if he doesn't have breakfast."

Lindsay stared into her pancakes, mindlessly taking large bites of the fluffy rounds that tasted like spongy nothing in her mouth. It could all be lies, Lindsay's mind told her. But what reason would they have for saying Sarah was hurt, then? If they were going to lie, why not say she was fine? Dolora didn't seem like she would lie about something like that. Maybe Eddy might, she didn't know much more about him than that he was hot and that he was like her, though she wasn't sure what that meant. The look in his ocean blue eyes when he said that, though. It felt like some special connection between them. But she'd felt a lot of special connections - just because it might get a guy into her bed didn't mean she'd bet her friend's life on it. But Dolora... she could trust Dolora. She was sure of it.

"Will you... will you tell me if she... if she... Will you keep an eye out for her?" Lindsay asked, choking back a sob.

Dolora's thumb stroked the side of Lindsay's hand. "I will, Sugar. I will. But I don't think she's comin'. Eddy's always right about these things."

"Always?"

"Infuriatingly sometimes, but yes."

Lindsay collected herself. She wasn't going to cry. Not over something she wasn't sure had even happened. She took a deep breath and cut open the center of the pancake with her fork, revealing the place the chocolate chips had gathered in one melted blob. She could find out later, when they were in a safe place with cell service and she could call her parents and tell them she was fine.

She looked over to Dolora who was finishing her own pancakes. "Dolora, how did you end up doing this? I mean, if you're a medium, shouldn't you be on tv or have a hotline or something?"

Dolora chuckled. "Ah yes. Call me for your free seance! If only. But those opportunities have been closed to me for a long time."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not allowed to work in this country. The way I came in means I'll never be able to work at any job that doesn't pay me under the table."

"The way you came in? Are you..." Lindsay looked around for the waitress.

"Yes. A man came to my town when I was sixteen, looking for girls to come to the US with him for work. He promised us we'd be working in New York's finest hotels. There weren't any jobs in my town, and I knew with hotel experience I might be able to get a job at the resorts a few towns over. So, I decided to go."

Lindsay felt sick. "Oh no," she whispered.

"I realize now how foolish that was. I was very lucky, he was a bad man, but he had not lied. He sold us as temporary workers to a service that provided housekeepers to a number of large hotels in New York City. He took most of our money and made us live in a one-bedroom apartment, but it could have been much worse. But it was then I started to discover my own powers."