Free Storm of Visions by Christina Dodd

ceremony, a trivial moment of childish swearing.
    Yet . . . she did still get the Girl Scouts’ magazine, and she’d kept her badge vest wrapped in tissue paper in her cedar chest, so maybe the oath she had sworn at the age of eight had been exactly that—an oath on which she could stake her soul.
    And maybe stepping into a chalk circle drawn with precision on the floor of a New York City subway station had been an unspoken vow of equal importance.
    Because it wasn’t the oath or the gesture that was important, but whether or not she chose to honor it.
    She wasn’t one of the Chosen Ones. Because she had walked into the circle of her volition, she had chosen.
    Now she watched miserably as Martha took the whisk brush from the pocket in her skirt and started dusting the chalk off the floor.
    As if a great barrier had been removed, the sound of the subway station increased and Caleb locked his gaze on her again.
    Of course. Until she’d stepped into the circle, he hadn’t let her out of his sight since San Michael. Somehow, she suspected she might never escape him again.
    “Darling.” Zusane pinched Jacqueline’s chin to get her attention. “On the day I took you in, I foresaw a time when you would take my place among the Chosen Ones.”
    “You adopted me because you wanted a clone.” Jacqueline lowered her voice, wanting desperately to keep this confrontation private.
    Zusane raised her voice, because she loved nothing as much as melodrama played to the crowd. “I adopted you because I saw you and knew you were mine. Is that so impossible?”
    Jacqueline jerked her head away. “Considering that I spent my entire childhood waiting for you to come home from a party, I’d say yes.”
    “I had no one to depend on except myself. If we were to live in the manner I desired, I had to stay on top of things.”
    “ You could have gotten an education. You’re smart enough.” Of that Jacqueline was certain. Zusane had an IQ off the charts, and a sense about others that had nothing to do with telepathy and everything to do with an earthy knowledge of the human race.
    “My dear. What a lovely tribute. But look at me!” Zusane spread her hands wide to indicate her Marilyn Monroe body covered by glittering sequins. “This is not the form of an accountant, and I used it for us. For you . So you would have a good life.”
    “Mother. This is not the time for this discussion. We, all of us, need to go to the Gypsy Travel Agency and—”
    Zusane talked louder still, talked over the top of Jacqueline. “I wanted you to have the childhood I never had, so I kept you innocent and untouched until—”
    Jacqueline’s patience snapped. “Until your bodyguard seduced me.”
    Zusane stopped talking. Her gaze dropped. “Yes.” She looked up again. “But I took steps to correct the matter.”
    “Did you?” Jacqueline had wondered. Now she knew.
    Not that that made it any better. On Zusane’s command, Caleb had dropped Jacqueline like a hot potato.
    What a guy.
    “You sent him to get me in California.” Remembering the day and night before he dragged her to the private jet at the Napa Valley airport, the hours of passion, the flight—and fight—that followed, Jacqueline asked, “What were you thinking?”
    Zusane’s blue eyes got soft and dreamy, the way they did when she knew something no one else did. Then she drilled a look into Jacqueline’s eyes, and her voice was brisk. “I had to use him. He was the only man who could get you here.”
    Jacqueline’s bitter cup overflowed as she turned to look at Caleb. “Your own personal Rottweiler. Don’t bother to pay him a bonus. I already reimbursed him.”
    Zusane considered the two of them, and Jacqueline remembered she was an expert on what made men and women tick. “Did you.”
    Even Jacqueline heard the similarity in their voices, in their tones. No matter that Zusane wasn’t her birth mother, or that she didn’t want to be like her—Zusane had been her role