Chapter One

"YOU OKAY?" GREGG asked while they walked down the hall crowded with high school students rushing toward their next class.

Tucking a loose strand of dark hair back into its knot, Gwen Nicholson-Nelson knew her friend's expression as well as he knew hers. Based on his concerned expression, he sensed her picking up on something.

He's here. I can feel him. Or he's here, in one of these kid's minds, and I'm feeling him through them….

"Gwen?" Gregg said again, taking her elbow, and she glanced up at him sharply. His dark eyes narrowed. Reality flooded back in, and she wanted to call herself foolish. Paranoid. She hadn't felt him for two years. Him—her nemesis, a psychic like her. Like her, but powerful. Much, much more powerful.

"I'm all right," she said, forcing herself to concentrate on her steps, the swish of the ruffle-edge skirt she wore against her legs. "Kyle's probably waiting."

They picked up their pace, their heels clicking on the floor, through the emptying halls until they reached the small classroom set aside for their counseling. Gwen and Gregg worked for an outreach program that helped troubled teenage boys. Wayward Angels for Boys offered a "sub-out" policy, which allowed them to counsel the boys in local schools.

Kyle Meadowbrook struggled with a multitude of problems. Several weeks before, after slamming down a bottle of whiskey and snorting enough crack to put him in a coma, he'd come into the Wayward Angels shelter on his own. When he came to, any memory of cutting his own flesh with a razor escaped him. At that time, they'd called in Kyle's father and the Oak Creek Police Department for intervention. Shaken, Kyle agreed to counseling. His workaholic father declined to believe his son's condition warranted more than that.

Mandatory, twice-a-week sessions for the past three weeks got them nowhere. With the passing of the immediate crisis, Kyle showed up late for each session and refused to communicate outside of insisting he was fine.

Fine didn't explain the black shadows around his eyes, or the haunted expression that meant a part of him no longer responded to reality.

"Monday was his last mandatory session," Gwen said, her voice quiet in the characterless room, five minutes after the lapse of Kyle's session appointment time. Gregg sat in one of the padded chairs while she stood, ducking into the doorway every few seconds to search the halls.

Gwen wrapped and unwrapped the chain of her necklace around her finger. "He won't show."

"He'll show," Gregg insisted. "Come and sit down."

"Let's have him called out of class."

"Wait a few minutes. We don't wanna humiliate him in front of his friends. Give him time."

Gwen stared at him, one of her oldest friends, before nodding. He could be right, even if it went against her instincts. Until a year ago, Gregg possessed no formal training as a counselor. Life experience qualified as his teacher. He'd gone through what most of these boys went through. He understood their situations, and he drew them out the way few others could. Troubled boys—including Kyle—trusted him. And he had faith in them, even the hard cases, like this one.

The sick feeling in the pit of Gwen's stomach grew stronger. She closed her eyes, her arms tightening around her middle. She could hear and feel movement all around her. He's close. God, he can't be, but I feel him coming closer….

Opening her eyes, she twisted sharply to see Kyle appear at that very moment in the doorway.

"Here," she gasped under her breath, and his eyes narrowed. She felt like she'd been struck head-on. Don't let this be, she thought desperately when Kyle moved into the room and sat in front of Gregg without looking up. Why wouldn't I have felt his presence during the other sessions with Kyle? Or was he blocking me?

Forcing herself to breathe regularly, Gwen sat down and studied Kyle closely. At one time, before his drinking, drugging, and suicide attempts, the teenager had enjoyed good looks. Even the earrings he wore in his ears, nose, bottom lip and eyebrow couldn't detract from that. Yet his deathly pallor and the pronounced darkness around his eyes stole the life from him. He squirmed in his seat, biting the tip of nail, obviously agitated as he tried to ignore their concerned gazes. He's afraid, Gwen realized.

"I don't wanna keep comin' to these," he muttered.

"You're not better," Gregg said. The gentleness of his voice managed to sound remarkably firm.

Copyright © 2004 Karen Wiesner.