Free Shattered Sky by Neal Shusterman

laughter from above. Lourdes turned her eyes to the sky, the birds’ wings went limp, and they plunged, dead, into the sea. Then she turned to her profligate partiers.
    â€œDance!” she ordered. Suddenly their arms began to jerk and their bodies to undulate, involuntarily pulled by their puppeteer’s unseen strings. Flustered, the band quickly kicked into another number. Satisfied, she released the dancers with the slightest flick of her head, and although their steps missed a couple of beats, they quickly took over for themselves, regaining the rhythm, and not daring to leave the dance floor for fear of what Lourdes might do.
    â€œDon’t look at me like, like I’m a monster,” she told him. “All of my guests are here by choice, because they appreciate me, and the pleasures I have to offer.”
    â€œWhat about the crew?”
    She hesitated before answering. “They know their place.” Then she turned and walked to an open-air bar farther back on her private deck, while her Michaelesque boys both hurried to clean the shellfish scattered on the ground. Even before she arrived at the counter, the bartender had mixed her a red and white “Miami Vice,” heavy on the Bacardi.
    â€œAqui tiene, Señorita Lourdes,” said the bartender, stuffing a paper parasol and a pineapple wedge into the drink. He took a quick glance at Winston. “¿Uno para su compañero?”
    â€œNo—he’s underage,” Lourdes said, irrespective of the fact that she, too, was underage. She sat on a stool, ignoring him as she sucked down her drink, its daiquiri head flowing like blood into the Piña Colada beneath.
    What troubled Winston most was how easily Lourdes had seized control of her guests’ bodies on the dance floor. Used to be it took incredible concentration for her to control such a large group of people, but, like himself and Dillon, her powers were still exponentiating toward an end he still didn’t know. It frightened Winston to think what Lourdes might do if she ever really got angry.
    Maybe it was best after all for her to be queen of her own little ship, her dominion limited to the souls on board, slaves and followers who were resigned to subjugating their will to hers. Let her have her ship, so that she might be satisfied, and extend her grasp no further.
    Leaving her to vanish again to the horizon would certainly be the easiest thing to do, but for the shards, the path of least resistance always led to disaster. Winston knew that if Lourdes slipped off his radar again, it would be a dangerous step backward.
    He came up behind her, waiting for her to turn around, butshe didn’t, so he sat beside her at the bar. “There is something we need to do, Lourdes. You, me and Dillon. I’m not sure what it is, but it keeps me awake at night, and when I do sleep, I dream about it. You have to be feeling it as much as I am.”
    She slurped down the bottom of her drink. “I don’t feel a thing.”
    â€œYou’re lying.”
    She turned to the bartender. “Gerardo, one more, please.” Winston dimly recalled that she had a brother named Gerardo, and Winston found himself not wanting to know if she had put her whole family to work here. The bartender mixed her another drink, but by the time he slid it onto the counter, Lourdes had lost interest. She sauntered past Winston to the railing, looking out at the Ensenada shoreline.
    â€œYou’ve been dreaming, too, haven’t you, Lourdes? About someone in a purple chair. And three figures on the ledge of a building.”
    Lourdes sighed. “It’s not a ledge, it’s a stage. Three performers taking bows at the edge of a stage, surrounded by the flowers thrown by the audience. I can smell them. And the chair’s not purple, it’s lavender.”
    â€œWhat do you think it all means?”
    â€œI don’t care.” That was a lie, too, but this was one she