Free My Soul to Take by Tananarive Due Page B

sure. Tears flooded her.
    The lump in her right breast was gone.

Eight
    “I t’s up on HuffPo,” Caitlin said.
    Johnny raced to peer over Caitlin’s shoulder at her window seat, reading the Huffington Post on her notetab. Caitlin tilted her screen so they could both see the color display under the GLOW WARS graphic of a vial. “Phoenix concert puts Glow center stage,” by Mike Middleton. Johnny knew his name: Middleton taught biochemistry at UCLA Medical School and was a fierce critic of Glow and Clarion. He had also been one of the first to RSVP for Phoenix’s concert when he got his invitation.
    He would get a surprise at his next doctor’s visit.
    “Bet he’ll have some nice things to say about Clarion now,” Caitlin said.
    Johnny’s eyes skimmed the glowing screen: “… unforgettable experience … no easy answers … rethinking my assumptions about what is possible in approaches to healing …”
    Johnny never trusted blind optimism anymore, but he was glad the headlines had started. Huffington Post. MedNet. Even
People
magazine’s website! Truth overpowered lies. Glow was becoming a political and social movement, beyond the realm of medicine. People would
demand
access to Glow, the government be damned. Once that happened, vials would be available at drugstores. Hell, the vials would
eliminate
drugstores.
    If only Fana could conduct mass healings every night! Maybe she could. The idea made Johnny’s heart pound. God’s vision manifesting through Fana’s Blood!
    Fana was staring out her window at the clouds, but Johnnysaw her cheeks dimple in a small smile. Fana didn’t smile nearly enough.
    Johnny took the empty seat next to Fana, the one he avoided if anyone except Caitlin was nearby. Now that the plane was in the air, only three of them shared the first-class cabin. He wanted to ask Caitlin to leave them alone, but how could he?
    Caitlin and Fana had started the Glow movement, so this was their triumph more than his. But he’d persuaded Fana to do the concert, and she had listened to him. If he couldn’t at least advise Fana, he had nothing to offer her.
    “You’re the new religion, Fana,” Caitlin teased her. Fana hadn’t spoken to either of them in nearly an hour, caught in her head, but Caitlin had a knack for reaching her.
    Fana made a face. “And be like him? No, thanks.” Fana rarely mentioned her fiancé when Johnny was present. “Why do you think I didn’t show myself?”
    “Oh, please,” Caitlin said. “They knew it was you.”
    “She’ll learn how to mask better next time,” Johnny said. Fana was the telepath, but Johnny often finished her sentences or spoke her mind before she did. Fana smiled at him, patting his hand. Johnny’s skin sparked beneath her touch.
    Johnny almost caught Fana’s hand and squeezed it. Almost.
    WE CAN’T
, Fana said silently, sadly. Johnny moved his hand away.
    “Let’s see if anybody recognizes a miracle anymore,” Caitlin said. She seemed far away; Fana must be carrying him with the current of her thoughts. Caitlin’s distant voice went on: “Fana, are you zoning? I never know where you are….”
    Fana wasn’t listening to Caitlin, her eyes closed.
    THANK YOU FOR THIS, JOHNNY
, Fana told him.
TONIGHT WAS THE BEST FEELING OF MY LIFE. MY GRANDMOTHER USED TO SAY I NEED TO BE WITH PEOPLE, TO TOUCH THEM. I’LL NEVER FORGET IT
.
    Johnny’s heart leaped. Fana seemed barely to see him sometimes, and now she was sharing her mind with him, enfolding them in a private cave.
    “Anything, Fana,” Johnny whispered to her ear, wishing he could burrow into her thoughts, too. “For you? Anything.”
    Fana’s heart soared as the plane charged the skies.
    A year ago, her grandmother had died as Michel’s prisoner on this Embraer Legacy 600 jet, one of her colony’s planes, and the pain and terror of her family’s ordeal still clung like wallpaper. She closed her eyes, acknowledging Gramma Bea in her painful dying place. Gramma Bea had forgotten