“You can’t do this to me,” he screeched. “You don’t know who you’re messing with. My dad will have you arrested. He’ll sue your ass.”

“That should be interesting,” Slade said. He looked at the other two. “Get him in the Vibe and get out of here. Come anywhere near her again and you will all wake up in an ICU or maybe just plain dead, depending on my mood at the time. Is that understood?”

“Shit, this guy’s crazy,” the man from the backseat whispered. He ran for the vehicle. “You guys do what you want. I’m out of here.”

He hopped into the driver’s seat, rezzed the little engine, and put the Vibe in gear.

“Wait up, damn it.” Garrett raced toward the Vibe and jumped into the front seat.

Derek staggered to his feet. “Don’t leave me, you bastards. He’ll kill me.”

“It’s a thought,” Slade said, as if the idea held great appeal. “Better run.”

Derek fled toward the Vibe, which was now halfway through a U-turn.

He lunged forward and managed to dive into the back of the buggy.

The Vibe whined away into the night and vanished around a turn.

A hushed silence fell. The eerie quiet was broken only by the sound of labored breathing. Charlotte realized that she was the one trying to catch her breath. She was shivering but not because she was cold. It was all she could do to stand upright. Great. She was having another stupid panic attack. And in front of Slade Attridge of all people. Just her rotten luck.

“You okay?” Slade asked. He picked up the flashlight and put it in her hand.

“Y-yes. Thanks.” She struggled with the deep, square breathing exercise the parapsychologist had taught her and tried to compose herself. “My glasses.” She looked around but everything except Slade’s darkly luminous rainbow was indistinct. “They fell off.”

“I see them,” Slade said. He started across the pavement.

“You m-must have really g-good eyes,” she said. Geez. Now she was stuttering because of the panic attack. It was all so humiliating.

“Good night vision,” Slade said. “Side effect of my talent.”

“You’re a h-hunter, aren’t you? Not a g-ghost hunter but a true hunter-talent. I thought so. I’ve got a c-cousin who is a hunter. You move the same way he does. Like a b-big specter-cat. Arcane?”

“My mother was Arcane but she never registered me with the Society,” Slade said. “She died when I was twelve.”

“What about your father?”

“He was a ghost hunter. Died in the tunnels when I was two.”

“Geez.” She wrapped her arms around herself and forced herself to breathe in the slow, controlled rhythm she had been taught. “Wh-who raised you?”

“The system.”

She went blank for a moment. “What system?”

“Foster care.”

“Geez.”

She could not think of anything else to say. She had never actually met anyone who had been raised in the foster-care system. The stern legal measures set down by the First Generation colonists had been designed to secure the institutions of marriage and the family in stone and they had been very successful. During the two hundred years since the closing of the Curtain, the laws had eased somewhat but not much. The result was that it was rare for a child to be completely orphaned. There was almost always someone who had to take you in.

Slade seemed amused. “It wasn’t that bad. I wasn’t in the system long. I bailed four years ago when I turned fifteen. Figured I’d do better on the streets.”

“Geez.” No wonder he seemed so much older, she thought. She was fifteen and she could not imagine what it would be like trying to survive on her own.

At least her pulse was starting to slow down a little. The breathing exercises were finally kicking in.

“You’re Arcane, aren’t you?” Slade asked.

“Yeah, the whole family has been Arcane for generations.” She made a face. “Mostly high-end talents. I’m the underachiever in the clan. I’m just a rainbow-reader.”

“What’s that?”

“I see aura rainbows. Totally useless, trust me.” She tried to focus on Slade as he reached down to pick up her glasses. “They’re probably smashed, huh?”

“The frames are a little bent and the lenses are scratched up.”

“Figures.” She took the glasses from him and put them on.

The twisted frames sat askew on her nose. The scratched lenses made it difficult to see Slade’s face clearly. She knew exactly what he looked like, though, because she had seen him often in town and down at the marina where he worked. He was nineteen but there was something about his sharply etched features and unreadable gray-blue eyes that made him seem so much older and infinitely more experienced. Other boys his age were still boys. Slade was a man.

She and Rachel had speculated endlessly about where he had come from and, more important, whether he had a girlfriend. If he was dating anyone they were very sure that she was not a local girl. In a town as small as Shadow Bay everyone would know if the stranger who worked at the marina was seeing an island girl.

He had shown up in the Bay at the start of the tourist season that summer, looking for work. Ben Murphy at the marina had given him a job. Slade rented a room above a dockside shop by the week. He was polite and hardworking but he kept to himself. Occasionally he caught the Friday afternoon ferry and disappeared for the weekend. It was assumed that he went to a larger town on one of the other nearby islands—Thursday Harbor, maybe, or maybe he went all the way to Frequency City. No one knew for sure. But he was always back at work at the marina on Monday morning.

“Luckily I’ve got a backup pair of glasses at my aunt’s house,” Charlotte said.

She was immediately mortified. She felt like an idiot talking about her glasses to the man who currently featured so vividly in her fantasies. Not that Slade knew about his role in her dreams. She was pretty sure that to him she was just the weird girl who worked for her crazy old aunt in the antiques shop.

“What are you doing out here at this time of night?” Slade asked.

“What do you think I’m doing out here? I wanted to see the Preserve. My aunt talks about it sometimes but she won’t take me inside.”

“For good reason. It’s beautiful in places but it’s dangerous in some parts. Easy to get lost inside. The Foundation that controls the Preserve put up those notrespassing signs and the fence for a reason.”

“You were inside just a few minutes ago. I saw you come out through the trees.”

“I’m a hunter, remember? I can see where I’m going.”

“Oh, yeah, the night-vision thing.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? Your breathing sounds funny.”

“Actually, I’m getting over a panic attack. I’m doing a breathing exercise. This is so embarrassing.”

“Panic attack, huh? Well, you had good reason to have one tonight. Getting assaulted by three jerks on a lonely road would be enough to scare the daylights out of anyone.”

“The attacks are linked to my stupid talent. I started getting them when I came into my para-senses two years ago. At first everyone assumed that I was just reacting to the stress of high school. But finally my mom sent me to a para-shrink who said it appeared to be a side effect of my new senses.”

Great. Now she was babbling about her personal problems.

“That’s gotta be tough,” Slade said.

“Tell me about it. If I run hot for any length of time, I start shaking and it gets hard to breathe. I was really jacked a few minutes ago so I’m paying for it now. I’ll be okay in a couple of minutes, honest.”

“You should go home now,” Slade said. “I’ll walk with you and make sure those guys don’t come back.”

“They won’t return,” she said, very certain. She finally managed to take a deep breath. Her jangled senses and her nerves were finally calming. “I don’t want to go home yet. I came all the way out here to see the Preserve.”

“Does your aunt know where you are?”

“No. Aunt Beatrix took the ferry to Frequency City today to check out some antiques at an estate sale. She won’t return until tomorrow.”

Slade looked toward the dark woods. He seemed to hesitate and then he shrugged. “I’ll take you inside but just for a few minutes.”

Delight snapped through her.

“Will you? That would be wonderful. Thanks.”

He started walking back along the road toward the woods. She switched on the flashlight and hurried to catch up with him.

“I heard someone at the grocery store say that you’re going to leave Rainshadow for good tomorrow,” she said tentatively. “Is it true?”

“That’s the plan. I’ve been accepted at the academy of the FBPI.”

“You’re joining the Federal Bureau of Psi Investigation? Wow. That is so high-rez. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. I’m packed. I’ll catch the morning ferry.”

She tried to think of what to say next. Nothing brilliant came to mind.

“Do you think those three guys will try to have you arrested?” she asked.

“No.”

“How can you be sure? They might remember you from the marina.”

“Even if they do, those three aren’t going to go to the local cops. If they did they’d have to explain why they stopped you on the road.”

“Oh, right.” Her spirits lightened at that realization. “And I’d tell everyone how they attacked me. Chief Halstead knows me and he’s known Aunt Beatrix forever. He would believe me long before he took the word of a bunch of off-islanders.”

“Yes,” Slade said. “He would.”

She was surprised to hear the respect in Slade’s voice. She glanced at his profile.

“I saw the two of you talking together a lot this summer,” she ventured.