Danny Torrance was avoiding Charlie McGee’s mental touch on purpose.
Someone was watching him. Someone or something.
*I need a drink.* A mental voice which sounded too much like his dead father played in his head. Like an old recording he disliked yet couldn’t bear to get rid of.
*Shut up, Dad.* Danny hugged himself, knowing it wasn’t really his father.
*My daddy is dead. Gone forever because I was weak. Too weak to save him.* No, it wasn’t Tony. Tony had disappeared, replaced by a five-year old boy’s voice, far too like his younger self.
Charlie McGee may have been looking for a lifeline, but so had Danny Torrance. Being able to help her, save her from her own addiction healed something he feared was broken inside himself.
He’d failed to save his daddy. He’d failed to save Carol Anne. All because he was weak.
“You’re not weak.” Carol Anne’s eyes shone a brilliant blue, shining with the terrible conviction of an angel. Even if she was just a memory. “You won’t let yourself be.”
No. He couldn’t give into his father’s weakness. He couldn’t reach for a drink. Not with those eyes looking back at him from his memories.
“Danny Torrance.” Two men in black suits stood before him, staring at him with hollow eyes hidden beneath sunglasses. Reflecting nothing. “We’d like you to come with us.”
“Who are you?” Danny took a step back, stiffling a laugh at the melodramatic clichè of the situation. Men in black. Seriously?
He pushed a little with his mind, reaching for their minds, the humanity behind the facade.
An emptiness awaited him. These men could shoot him, dropping his body in a ditch and feel nothing. They’d done it before.
The push loosened something, made one of them start talking. “We’re looking for a terrorist. Charlene McGee. She blew up a government institute in Virginia.”
“A research center.” The second man glowered at the one who’d spoken first. “Doing vital work to protect this country.”
“I’m sure.” Anger flared up in Danny, the remnants of a temper Jack Torrance had left with his son, refusing to die with the rest of him. “Her parents were part of that research, weren’t they?”
“This is classified information.” One of the men gazed at him, fascination filling a little of his hollow gaze. “How did you know?”
“Because he’s one of them.” The second man was already reaching for his gun, his hand shaking.
“And you’re one of them,” Danny growled, too angry to be scared. “One of the people who’s been stalking Charlie since she was a baby. You killed her parents, caged her, tried to break her, but you couldn’t. She’s greater than anything you’ve ever been a part of. Once you realized that, you tried to hunt her down and kill her. Pathetic.”
Both men pulled their guns out, but Danny was ready for them.
*Dick may have called you a pistol, Danny boy.* His father’s own snarl, one which had pursued him through the Overlook throbbed with his head. *Let’s see who’s quicker on the draw. The thugs or you.*
*That won’t be necessary.*
The voice was softer than any male voice Danny Torrance had ever heard. It soothed his throbbing temples, silenced his father’s ghost.
The men in black stopped, their faces going slack. They holstered their guns slowly, paying no attention to the third man walking toward them.
For a moment Danny thought it was his father. He was dressed in a tan jacket like his father might have worn over a red polo shirt.
No. There was more sunlight in this young man’s auburn hair. He had a smaller nose and his features were fine, almost delicate. His soft brown eyes reminded Danny of Stevie Nicks, but there was a glint of fire in them. He walked with the certainty of a man who’d just spotted his purpose and wasn’t about to let it escape.
*No, I’m not.* The soft mental voice spoke directly in Danny’s head right when the young man fixed his brown eyes upon him. *I’ve been looking for you, Danny. You and Charlie. I think I can help you.*
The man, the seemingly young man put a hand on each of the black suits’s shoulders. “She isn’t here. You never spoke to this young man. You remember nothing of his conversation.”
Danny felt the push, smoother with a silkier flow than he or Charlie managed. As suggestive as a subconscious hunch. *If you hurry, you might catch her.*
“Come on!” One of the suits nodded at the other. They started striding off to a car parked in front of, of all things, a fire hydrant.
If they were government agents, they didn’t show much concern for the law.
“No, they don’t.” The young man spoke aloud, running a hand through his hair. Short, layered in a wave, a simple classical haircut. “They never have. Maybe they wouldn’t have done the things they did if they had.”
For the first time Danny noticed the black ankh hanging around the stranger’s neck. A strange accessory with the polo shirt, the jacket, and the hair. It didn’t quite fit.
Not that he was sure what to make of this stranger. “Just what did you do?”
“Something a lot quieter than what you were planning.” The young man smiled at him, softening his words. “I'm a little different. I always have been. Like you. Like Charlie.”
“Is that so?” Danny didn’t smile back. There was something attractive about this man, something which made Danny want to like him. His own attraction made him wary.
What Danny Torrance was drew predators toward him. This was why he’d pushed Charlie away when she reached out.
He liked her. He liked her too much. He didn’t want the things which had been stalking him since he was five years old to find her.
Charlie McGee was the first real friend Danny had had since Dick Halloran and Carol Anne Freeling. Real friends were more precious than psychics. Especially to psychics.
He wasn’t sure if this man was a friend or not. No matter how attractive he was, how soothing his mental voice was. Danny was waiting to see just what he was.
This didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in hearing what he had to say.
The young man stood, waiting with a subtle courtesy, waiting for Danny to finish his train of thought. Not filling the silence with talk.
It was a habit he’d picked up from a live-in tutor, a very good listener. Danny could see her, a pretty woman with long dark hair and dreamy brown eyes.
Victoria Winters. The young man gave him the name of his girl, letting him have it, just as he let Danny see her. One of the first crushes he’d ever had.
This made Danny smile. Nothing like talking about girls to put strange men at ease. Especially a strange man who was strangely attractive.
All right, that wasn’t a thought to put him at ease.
The young man smiled, accepting the stray thought with a slight nod of his head. A graceful motion.
He offered up another stray thought of Victoria Winters, of a portrait of her. Or a portrait of a woman who looked just like her. One of the young man’s ancestors, hanging on the wall in his family estate.
He had money, this young man, and he’d grown up with ghosts. Most of David’s friends were ghosts. He’d been able to see them since he was a child. Not that everyone in David Collins’s family could see them.
David Collins, yes, that was this man’s name.
David lifted his head and nodded, looking Danny straight in the eye. Allowing Danny in, to see a little more.
Yes, he’d grown up with ghosts. One of his best friends had been a ghost, another one of his ancestors. Sarah. She’d died at the same age David had been when he met her.
Like Carol Anne. She and Danny had been the same age when they met. Around the same age as Charlie.
David shivered slightly, holding in a sadness which never left him, thinking about Collinwood and its ghosts. His home where few people were ever happy, dead or alive, yet there was no nowhere else David Collins would rather be.
Danny felt a rush of protectiveness for this man who was older than he looked, yet still that child growing up in the haunted house inside. David was strong, stronger than most people, but he was alone.
Like Danny. Like Charlie. He was at the mercy of his power because he was strong.
David shivered, holding up a hand to shield himself from the sun. For a moment it seemed like a great eye, watching him. Always watching him.
*Like Sauron.* The sun was bright, life-giving, yet it could be terrible.
“Yes.” David sighed, releasing a shuddering breath. “I came to offer you protection, you and Charlie, but you’ve found me out. Maybe I can’t protect you. Maybe I can’t even protect myself, but maybe we can help each other.”
“How did you find us?” Danny asked, gazing at this man, still wondering if he was real. If he wasn’t a dream or a ghost like Carol Anne had been.
Charlie. Charlie was real. If she was real, maybe David could be, too.
“I heard you crying. You were far away, yet the sound pierced my dreams. Reminding me of my own loneliness.” David sucked in another breath with a ragged hesitation. “I heard Charlie, too. I felt it when she nearly lost control. I felt her anger, her frustration.”
He shut his eyes as if everything he was saying was too much.
Danny did something he hadn’t done. Not since he was a small child. Not since Dick Halloran died.
He took a step forward, closing the distance between David and himself. He reached out to take the other man’s hand.
Some of the tension ran out of David’s shoulder’s. Danny could feel it, quivering in his fingers, settling down.
I’m calming him, Danny thought, wondering at the effect he’d had with just a touch. I’m calming him the way he calmed me. The headaches, the pressure, the anger I feel around other people, he feels it, too. We can calm each other.
“Not exactly,” David said, responding to his thought as if he’d spoken. “I’m like Charlie. I want to use my power. And my power wants to be used.”
For a moment he glanced in the direction of the sun before looking away.
Danny saw fire, a woman waiting in the flames. Beckoning him. A man made of fire.
This time the images vanished as if a wall had slammed down between them.
Danny let go of David’s hand as if the other man had just hit him.
“Sorry,” David said, not looking at him. He sounded genuinely sorry. “I wish I could share that, but not yet.”
“It’s important,” Danny said aloud, realizing it was. “It has to do with Charlie as well as you. Maybe me, too.”
For the first time David looked truly alarmed. “I hope not. It was to get away from that I came looking for you.”
“What is it?” Danny breathed, not daring to speak too loud.
“My heritage, the other half of my heritage. The source of my power.” David shut his eyes again. “Sometimes I get the urge to use it. It hurts me to stop when I’m agitated.”
Pressure was building up, heat condensing around David. Yes, it did feel a little like Charlie, like something greater than herself, yet part of herself was waiting to be released. Yearning to be released.
What would happen if it was released?
Danny Torrance found he didn’t want to know.
He reached out, grabbed David’s hand, and pushed. Stroking the pressure, soothing it with his mind. Calming it so it stopped boiling up and settled down.
As one both men released another shaking breath, exhaling it into the air.
“You helped me to stop.” David opened his eyes, fixed them upon Danny. Hopeful, hungry, childlike, a lost little boy looking back at another lost little boy from a man’s face. “Just as you helped Charlie.”
“This is what you mean by helping each other.” For a moment Danny Torrance dared to believe it was possible.
“This and more.” The fire was back in David Collins’s eyes, the purpose. “You’ve seen my home.”
Once again Danny saw the mansion, a pair of twin mansions on top of a hill. “Collinwood.”
“Yes. It’s full of ghosts, cursed, but it’s mine. Connected to me by blood.” Each word was uttered with care, a shy hesitance. “It could be a sanctuary for you and Charlie. A place where you could hide from the ones hunting you.”
“We could hide among your family ghosts.” The idea didn’t frighten Danny. Not after being friends with Carol Anne.
There were good ghosts, friendly ghosts. Ghosts which came off as scary, but were just lonely. “I think I’d like that.”
To go back to Collinwood with Charlie. To live there with David. “Are you offering to adopt us? You don’t look that much older than Charlie or me.”
This might not be true. David Collins might be a lot older than he looked.
David nodded slightly. It was unclear if he was confirming Danny’s suspicion. “Because of what I am, I cannot have children.”
“You broke off two serious relationships because of this.” Danny could see the girls. One of them had auburn hair, redder than David’s. She used to play the guitar.
Now she favored lingerie and played games in the city which kept even other supernatural beings in terrified thrall.
Danny let go of the image of her with a blush, feeling David flush as well in mingled longing and regret. Amy Jennings had once been her name, but she’d changed it.
The other seemed almost like a priest or a nun in her black cloak, her high collar, striding into an ancient gothic edifice containing a secret order. Fair hair gleaming in the darkness. Hallie Stokes. Her name might also not be the same. She might not even be alive.
David waited, allowing Danny to shuffled through his painful memories before revealing that these revelations weren’t just one way. “You lost your parents.”
Danny winced, unable to suppress the thought of the woman wasting away, tubes clinging to her, cancer eating away at her. You’d never know Wendy Torrance was once beautiful.
Which was worse? To die like that? Or to aim a mallet at your face, killing yourself with hands which no longer obeyed your will? To be seduced and invaded by ghosts who knew all your secrets and made your worst nightmares come true?
Danny wasn’t sure which had been more tragic. The death of his mother or the death of his father.
Was it any worse than to have faceless government agents torture and kill your mother? Hunt down your father and yourself, only to shoot your father as he desperately tried to save you from them?
At least Andy McGee had died a hero’s death, but so had Jack Torrance at the very end.
Once again, David waited until he’d finished his train of thought to speak. “Coming to Collinwood might not just throw off pursuit. It might give us a chance to heal. All of us.”
Danny felt a tightness in his chest ease, allowing him to breathe easier. He also realized he was still holding David’s hand. He blushed.
The other man chuckled, letting go a little quickly. “Sorry about that.”
“No, you’re not.” Danny looked him straight in the eye. “Neither am I.”
A vision of a handsome young man with light brown hair fixing brilliant blue eyes upon him, flashing a devilishly attractive grin in his direction made Danny flush all the more. “Quentin?”
“Got me again.” David’s smile turned wistful. “Another one of my earliest crushes. One of the ghosts which scared me, but turned out to be just lonely. We ended up becoming good friends.”
“He didn’t feel like a ghost.” Everything about the vision of Quentin seemed vibrant and alive.
“He’s complicated.” For the second time David seemed guarded. “I can’t share everyone else’s secrets. Any more than I’ll share yours and Charlie’s.”
“This could be complicated.” So many layers of meaning seemed to slide in and out of his own words, more than Danny himself could pin down. “You’re adopting us, but it’s complicated.”
“Yes.” David looked him right in the eye. “Shall we find Charlie?”
This made Danny grin. “Do you want to do it or shall I?”
***
Charlie felt as if a veil over her was sliding off, leaving her naked and visible to eyes she’d rather not see her.
A woman in a hat stared at her as if she was something good to eat. A man lying in a gutter gazed up at her as if he’d like to peel her clothes off.
All she had to do was use her power. Let it loose and make everything go away.
No. Back off. She wasn’t going to set the alley on fire because she didn’t like the way people were looking at her.
“You.” A man in a shabby suit stood in front of her, blocking her path. Pointing a gun at her.
Charlie recognized the stance, even recognized the man. “You were from the Shop.”
Another person whose life she’d destroyed just as they’d destroyed her life. He’d gotten away from her. He’d come back for her. When did it end?
Charlie felt so tired.
She could almost feel John’s hand, touching her brow. “Give it a rest, kid.”
“Vicky.” The man stared at her with shadowed eyes. “Is that you, Vicky?”
Vicky. Her mother’s name. It hurt to hear it, whispered by one of her killers. Only this man couldn’t have killed her mother. Her father had gotten all of her mother's killers. She had gotten the rest.
Except there were always more. They kept coming after her.
Anger flickered in her, giving her new energy.
“She’s a monster, Vicky. Your daughter.” The man’s mouth twitched, spasming. “I’m sorry, Vicky. You were just an innocent college kid. I shouldn't have told you to knock over those dominoes. That was the beginning of everything.”
“Was it?” Charlie doubted it. She doubted her parents had been the Shop’s first victims.
Her parents in college. College kids. Charlie had never gone to college, but she sometimes snuck into lectures. Tried to listen and learn. Her father had been a college professor once. This was a way of getting closer to him.
Funny. Other kids hated going to school. For Charlie, it was a welcome fling at being normal. Not that it could ever last.
“I’m sorry, Vicky.” The man was pointing a gun at her. Where had it come from? “It has to stop. She has to stop.”
For a moment, the man changed. Became John. Gazing at her with such loving tenderness, as if she was the center of his entire world. “Let me see your eyes. I love you, Charlie.”
Ah, the heat was building up in her as she waited for him to fire. She’d been faster. Perhaps she wouldn’t be this time.
The pressure eased, flowing into a force greater than her power, yet part of it. She felt herself flow into warmth, loved by a sun which claimed and embraced her.
*It’s all right, Charlie. We’re here.*
*Danny?* Relief brought tears to her eyes, blurring her vision of John.
No. John wasn’t there. If John had ever been there.
The man in the wrinkled suit dropped to his knees. Danny was at one side of him, taking the gun from his hand.
Another man with auburn hair streaked with gold was walking toward her. For a moment Charlie thought he was Danny’s brother, but his mouth was different, his jaw. The ankh around his neck swung with his movement. The next moment, Charlie caught a glimpse of a woman engulfed in flames. She had no fear of fire or of Charlie.
She smiled, opening her arms, welcoming both, becoming one with the blaze, burning and reforming. How like Charlie’s lost mother she looked, beckoning her.
*No, Charlie. That’s not the way.* The vision vanished, leaving a voice, soothing and gentle. Like her father’s yet unlike his. *Let’s find a better way.*
*Who are you?* The warmth coming from this man soothed her, mesmerized her.
She hadn’t felt like this since her father died. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like, to feel safe. Even if it was an illusion, a blanket she thought could shield her from the world.
*Someone like you.* The young man held out his hand. A flame appeared in the palm of his hand, flickering and wavering. *Someone who struggles with the same hunger as you.*
Charlie gazed at the red and gold flower of flame, mesmerized, until the young man closed his hand. It vanished.
*Danny helped you, Charlie, and I helped Danny.* How marvelous that he could close his fingers around the fire and not be burned. *I think we can help each other.*
Charlie blinked back tears, seeing Danny through their mist. *I thought you were a dream. How do I know I’m not dreaming now?*
*I’m sorry I shut you out, Charlie.* Danny rose to his feet, blue eyes fixed upon her. *All my life I’ve been hunted by more than just humans. I didn’t want the things stalking me to catch your scent.*
Charlie thought of the woman in the hat. Anger flickered with her, crackling.
*I’m not afraid of Bad Things.* Her mental voice became a child’s, contradicting her with its quaver. *I protected you from the Bad Things in your memories.*
*And I protected you.* Danny took a hesitant step toward her and stopped, unsure of himself. His cheeks flushed. He looked away.
*And I protected him.* The young man laid a hand on Danny’s shoulder.
*And now we’re what?* Charlie let out a shaky laugh. *The X-Men? I’m Scott Summers and you’re Jean Grey?* She glanced at the strange young man. *Let me guess. You’re Charles Xavier, here to take us to the School for Gifted Youngsters to train us.*
*In a way.* The corner of the young man’s mouth rose. In a gleam in his dark eye, Charlie caught his name. David. David Collins. *I do have a family estate which I share with my cousins. One of them is a psychic researcher.*
*You have a lot of cousins.* Danny’s mental grumble carried an image of an extremely attractive young man with light brown hair and bright blue eyes. Eyes as blue as Danny’s.
David met his gaze and she caught an image of the psychic researcher, Carolyn. A woman with graying blond hair, a refine loveliness left behind by a youth of naughtiness, leaving just a trace of severity. *Carolyn Stoddard.*
*Yes.* She saw the towers of the mansion, almost like a castle. *Carolyn doesn’t live with me. She just does research there.*
*She finds it creepy.* Unspoken were the words. She finds you creepy.
David just nodded, taking it in stride. Clearly he was used to being considered creepy.
Charlie considered what she was being offered. To go live in the creepy estate. She had a feeling the mysterious cousins weren’t there too often, even the ones who shared the mansion with David.
She’d be alone with Danny and David. Alone like she hadn’t been with anyone since her father died.
She hadn’t been alone with John, not ever. She’d just thought she was.
As for Carol Anne, Charlie still wasn’t sure if she’d been a dream.
*You thought the same of me.* Gentle, yet insistent, Danny kept his blue eyes upon her. *Carol Anne was real. As real as I am.*
A shared sadness welled up in Charlie at the mention of Carol Anne. A sadness she could at last share. *We wouldn’t be alone any more.*
*No, we wouldn’t.* David held out his hand. *Come with us, Charlie. Stop running and come home.*
After a moment’s hesitation, Charlie McGee took his hand. She offered her other one to Danny.
The man in the suit couldn’t remember what happened. He’d been running ever since that terrifying little girl had destroyed the Shop. He’d been living on the streets, hiding from the government, hiding from everyone.
He thought he’d seen Vicky Tomlinson McGee. He thought he tried to apologize to her for everything that happened. For having to kill her daughter.
He wasn’t sure of this. He wasn’t sure of anything these days.
Which was fine. He had no desire to know anything more than he’d already been forced to live through.
There were worst things than being a bum. At least no one noticed a bum.
All he wanted was not to be noticed.