His stomach left him as the elevator sped upward, but his mind cleared, and the tingles subsided. Taking a deep breath, he noticed his ghostly reflection in the clear plastic sheet protecting the portrait of white-haired, dignified Mr. Diamond. Elijah wiped more sweat from his brow, yanked his wavy hair into place as best he could, and hoped he would pass for healthy, at least until his interview with the owner of the casino was over.
He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. If he was being kicked out of his apprenticeship, his boss would tell him, not Mr. Diamond. Maybe Elijah had done such a great job that Mr. Diamond was promoting him. Elijah had very carefully refurbished the elaborate gold paneling in the Peacock Room. But he was fourteen. He couldn’t officially work even part-time until his fifteenth birthday in the summer.
The doors slid open before he was ready. Tentatively he stepped onto plush carpet and looked around. There were only three doorways in this short hall, and Elijah knew one of them led to the penthouse. Mr. Diamond’s door must be the one with two men in dark suits stationed outside. The guard with a beard daydreamed about his trip to the beach next month. The red-haired guard noticed Elijah. Tall kid, fourteen years old, light brown wavy hair, green eyes. Yep, that was him. The orders were to scare him to soften him up. The guard planned to open the office door for Elijah and shove him inside.
Realizing this, Elijah stopped five paces away.
The red-haired guard glared at him and moved his jacket aside with one hand to expose the gun on his hip, though he had no intention of using it on an unthreatening kid. He barked at Elijah, “What the f**k do you want?”
“You know I’m Elijah Brown,” Elijah burst out. “Open the door for me. Don’t you dare shove me. I’m having a really bad day, and so help me God, I will kick your ass.”
The red-haired guard froze. The kid was one of those, and Mr. Diamond hadn’t warned him!
The bearded guard was unimpressed. Elijah might be a mind reader, but he didn’t know how to control his power yet. The guard hoped Elijah did try something, and then he would show Elijah how to kick somebody’s ass. He pushed open the door and shoved Elijah twice as hard as the red-haired guard had planned. Elijah reeled across the carpet, his backpack throwing him off balance. The door slammed shut behind him.
He stopped himself in the center of the room, in front of a single chair. Beyond that was the biggest desk he’d ever seen. Mr. Diamond himself sat behind it. Floor-to-ceiling windows displayed a killer view of the Strip at night. Other casinos glowed every color. The red and white lights of traffic crawled by a million miles below.
Beside Mr. Diamond’s desk, waiting for Elijah with his arms folded, was Holly Starr’s dad. Elijah hadn’t recognized him at first without his magic cape. He wore a normal business suit, had a black eye, and scowled at Elijah.
Uh-oh.
“Sit down,” Mr. Starr spat. He tried to make this sound authoritative, but he was distracted. Elijah looked exactly like his father had looked at that age. It was uncanny that two people could look that much alike, father and son or not.
Hearing this in his head, Elijah forgot to follow the instructions. He placed his hand lightly on the back of the chair and watched Mr. Starr.
Mr. Starr pointed at him. “This is exactly the attitude that’s gotten you in hot water. And you’re not taking Holly with you.” After his experience earlier that night, Mr. Starr now thought Holly might be more dangerous than Elijah. But that didn’t matter right now. His mission was to scare this kid. “Stay away from my daughter.”
“Bullshit,” Elijah said as calmly as he could. His voice broke, but he pushed ahead, heady with power and high on the tingling sensation in his limbs. “You’re scared of me and of Holly. You’re trying to hide something from both of us, and I won’t let you.” To make good on this threat, Elijah turned to Mr. Diamond for help.
But Mr. Diamond was the only person Elijah had encountered in the last few minutes whose mind he couldn’t read at all. Elijah would have suspected the old man was a cardboard cutout, another reproduction like his portrait from the elevator, if it weren’t for Mr. Diamond’s middle finger tapping the opulent desk.
Mr. Diamond stopped tapping and cleared his throat. “Peter, it’s happening for Elijah right now. He can hear everything you think.”
Mr. Starr looked at Elijah in surprise, then at Mr. Diamond. “Do you have a shot?”
“Not here,” Mr. Diamond answered in a kindly, rumbling voice. “You’ll have to take him down.”
Mr. Starr grabbed Elijah by the throat. He hadn’t moved a step toward Elijah. He hadn’t uncrossed his arms. But with his mind, he took Elijah by the throat and squeezed.
Elijah fought back. He knew now that he was powerful. If Mr. Starr was scared of him, surely Elijah could crush people’s carotid arteries with his mind, too. He focused all his energy on Mr. Starr’s throat, just as Mr. Starr focused all his energy on Elijah’s. But Elijah only tingled mightily from the effort, his mind bursting with Mr. Starr’s violence, as the room faded to black.
He woke not fifty feet from where he’d started—in the basement of the casino, at the employee health center, with his mom and a physician named Dr. Gray in chairs on either side of his bed. His memory of what had happened was so ridiculous that he immediately doubted it. His mom confirmed that much of it had been a delusion. Mr. Diamond really had called Elijah up to his office because Mr. Starr had complained about a lowly apprentice carpenter asking Holly out. Mr. Starr had not attacked Elijah with his telekinetic powers, duh. Elijah had wigged out and punched Mr. Starr. Funny how Elijah’s malfunctioning mind had turned that around to make him think Mr. Starr already had a black eye when Elijah stepped into the room. If he’d held out hope that Holly’s parents would reverse their decision and let him date their daughter someday, that was pretty much over.
His mom and Dr. Gray listened to his story of what he’d imagined Mr. Starr had done to him. When he finished, his mom and the doctor stared at him for a few moments. He wished he knew what they were thinking, but all of that was gone.
Finally his mom smiled. “Well, no wonder you’ve got an A in English. That makes a great story!” She looked at Dr. Gray. “His advanced English class is reading Romeo and Juliet right now.”
“Ohhhh.” Dr. Gray nodded. “We see this a lot. All teenage boys want to save the girl and take on the world. The only difference between other boys and you, Elijah, is that you, unfortunately, have a hereditary mental disorder that pushes your delusions of grandeur into the danger zone and makes you think you can read minds.” He chuckled.