Whisper (Whisper #1)(31)

Ward has no free hands, so he nods toward the mounted police officer making his way to us from across the street. Even if the spectators are shaking their heads and trying to convince themselves that what they saw must not have happened — in their eyes, one second Abby was in the middle of the road and the next she wasn’t — there’s no way the policeman won’t ask questions. He would have heard Abby’s excited squeal of “HORSIE!” and watched every heart-stopping moment of her bolting toward the animal. There is no explanation for what happened after that.

But … I still don’t understand what Ward is asking me to do. Or how, exactly, I’m supposed to do it.

“Seriously — you have maybe a minute before we’re all detained for questioning. I’d prefer not to spend the next few hours in a holding cell.”

He has a point.

“Do it just like before,” Ward tells me quickly. “Focus on what you want. Focus on the people around us — the policeman, the bus driver, all the witnesses. You don’t have to picture them individually. Just center your thoughts on Abby, and imagine the people who watched that happen forgetting what they saw. Then Speak.”

He’s asking the impossible. But I already know the impossible is possible when it comes to me. And yet, if I do what he’s asking, I could cause even more damage. What if in trying to make people forget one single event, I make them forget everything they’ve ever experienced? There is no undoing that, surely.

Ward must see the fear on my face, because his eyes capture mine, his gaze intent and steady.

“This won’t mean anything to you yet, but I protect others from the words powered by Speakers like you. I can help control what happens when you open your mouth.”

I suck in a breath and hear his words repeat in my mind:

Speakers like you.

Speakers like you.

Speakers like you.

Does that mean there are more people who can do what I can do?

Other … Speakers?

I want to demand answers, but the mounted policeman is almost upon us, so I try to stay focused on him.

“Trust me,” Ward says. “I will protect them. I will protect you.”

It’s a whisper of promise, and God help me, I believe him. So I close my eyes and concentrate harder than I ever have before, hoping that I’m not making another mistake as I breathe out a single word.

“Forget.”

I open my eyes as the second syllable falls from my lips, and I hear Ward whisper something too quiet for me to hear. Then something astonishing happens. A soft light bursts out of me and a corresponding one from Ward. The two lights merge into one, touching Abby first, lighting her eyes for less than a microsecond, then moving outward toward Isaac, Ethan, the policeman and everyone else nearby. Their eyes light up when the glow reaches them, like the flash of a camera going off in their retinas. Then, after a quick shake of their heads, they continue as if nothing strange just occurred.

“Landy, I’m hungry. How long until we’re home?” Isaac asks, effectively breaking into my stunned disbelief.

It worked — it actually worked.

“Me, too,” Abby says, squirming in Ward’s arms. “I hope Mummy — HORSIE!”

I jump again at Abby’s squeal, this one more excited than the last, since the horse — and its uniformed rider — is only a few feet away from us now.

“Good evening, Officer,” Ward says to the policeman, who looks baffled, clearly wondering how, why and when he crossed the street. “Can you please tell us how to get to the nearest train station?”

The policeman furrows his brow but gives a slight shrug and rattles off directions that Ward has no need for. The distraction works, however, and when the officer finishes speaking, bids us goodnight and nudges his horse away from us, I heave a sigh of relief.

“That was a little too close for comfort,” Ward mutters, lowering Abby to the ground.

“I’m hungry,” Isaac says again. “Is it dinnertime yet?”

Ward smiles at his cousin. There are no signs of a dimple this time, though. His entire expression seems strained, especially when his eyes flick to me and away again. It’s almost like — almost like he can’t stand to look at me. Now that he knows the truth.

Now that he knows I’m a monster.

“Sure, buddy. We’ll be home in a few minutes and you can eat then.”

Abby cries, “Hurrah! Can I read to Jane after dinner?”

She starts to move toward me, but Ward pulls her back to his side. He captures her hand in his free one, and I try not to let that small action affect me, but it does. He doesn’t want her near me. And I don’t blame him.

“Not tonight, sweetheart. There’s somewhere else she needs to go after we drop you back to your mum.”

I feel the blood drain from my face, wondering what horrors lie ahead for me.

I was supposed to have three days. But now I don’t know anymore. What does it mean, now that Ward has heard me Speak? How much does it change things?

Do I even want it to change things?

I’m overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty as we walk in silence to the shopping center beneath Centrepoint and come to a stop beside the elevator.

“Rules are rules,” Ward says, not meeting my eyes.

I don’t realize what he’s talking about until he lets go of Abby and draws the blindfold from his pocket. My troubled heart plummets deeper into despair as he ties it into place, a sense of entrapment pressing in on me as we step into the elevator and begin our descent.