He said nothing.
“You want everyone here to tear
your clothing off like the Demons? Give it to me and perhaps we can make some
kind of amends.”
Chris stepped up to me, “He doesn’t
have it. He dropped the bottle on a tree trunk. It’s broken.”
I turned to Justin, “Show me with
your memories, Justin.”
The others watched our conversation
like a tennis match. I stared at Justin, trying to get inside his mind when
suddenly he pushed his memory to the forefront with such intensity it literally
pushed my head back a bit. My perfume was being sprayed at arm’s length on a
tree trunk, and then it slipped out of his hand and shattered on rocks below. I
comprehended his dread, almost empathizing with him, until the face of Maetha
filled his mind. What was she doing in his memory? I stared utterly dumbfounded
as
she
handed him my perfume!
Chapter 6
Unwanted Abilities
I scanned the faces of my fellow
running mates taking in their collective thoughts about Justin. Everyone,
except for Beth, wanted to throw Justin to the Demons for being a traitor. I
couldn’t let that happen. I needed to know how he was connected to Maetha and
why she was involved with the success of the delivery; and the failure of it. Perhaps
she is actually an evil witch working
for
the Death Clan, not against
them.
I stood with Chris’s help. “You
cannot throw Justin to the Demons! I’m ashamed of you for even thinking it! His
punishment will come properly; not at the hands of vigilantes.”
“You read minds?” A collective
question almost spoken in reverent unison.
“We will have plenty of time to
answer your questions later. For now, I need some privacy with Justin. Justin
and Chris. The rest of you should tend to those fires.”
They all seemed to understand and
went back further into the cave. Justin walked forward and stood at the
entryway.
“I might as well walk right out to
the wolves. You’re going to send me there anyway.”
“You can if you wish, but if you
had any idea what those monsters looked like you wouldn’t stand so close to
death. Come here and tell me why a witch gave you my perfume.”
He bowed his head and came over to
the small fire and slouched down, “I didn’t have a clue she was a witch when
she gave me the perfume, nor that she worked for the Death Clan. She told me
the Hunters would be following us to ensure the package arrived on time.”
“They are here to kill us, Justin. I
smelled it on them.”
“Yeah, right, like you can smell
death?”
“When was the last time you met with
the witch?”
“At the compound, before we left on
the assignment. Why?”
She’d been at the compound?
“You
haven’t seen her since?”
“No.”
I needed to make sure he didn’t
remember Maetha giving the real diamond to me. “Without the convenient
breadcrumbs from Justin, the Hunters will be using their own tracking
abilities. Most likely, they’ll follow the perfume smell that still exists on
you, Justin. That was expensive stuff you dropped with high oil content; but
your clothing will retain the scent. I propose you take half of the group and
run north tomorrow morning. The rest of us will stay in the cave, and hopefully
the Hunters will take the bait and follow your trail. When they do, we will
follow them and ambush from behind.”
“You could just kill them tonight
and rid us of the problem,” Justin shot back.
“So I have to become a cold-blooded
killer because you are a traitor?”
“Go back to their camp and expose
them to the Demons. That would solve everything lickety split,” Justin sounded
pretty sure of himself, but realized I wasn’t going to play along. “Well, what
are you going to do with them after the ambush? Aren’t you going to kill them?”
“No. They’ll become our captives
and we’ll turn them over to the authorities.”
“There aren’t any authorities! This
is not the human world! Man, you’re such a muck!” Justin couldn’t be more
disgusted with me.
In the blink of an eye, Chris
jumped and grabbed Justin’s jacket front pushing him up against the wall,
“Don’t you talk to her like that! You hear me?”
“I’ll talk however I want to.” The
defiance in his voice echoed off the walls.
“And I’ll pound your face in.”
“Maybe, if you can catch me.”
“You threw the race forcing Dirk to
the top, didn’t you? You knew they would be kidnapped, you’d been forewarned,
hadn’t you? How could you betray your friends?” He pushed Justin a little
further into the wall.
“Oh, yeah, and you’re one to talk,
Chris. You probably don’t want me spouting off your dark secrets,” Justin
hissed.
“I ought to string you up.”
“I’ll do you one better, I’ll leave
the group.”
“You can’t, we all have to be
present when the diamond is given, remember?” Chris reminded him.
“Tell me how that’s my problem.”
I had to end this stupid clash,
“Justin, you’ll be with us even if we’re forced to take you bound and gagged. We
are all stuck here tonight so we might as well try to get along. Let’s decide
who will be going with you and who will be with us.”
Chris backed off from Justin, who
straightened his jacket and cracked his neck joints before saying, “It doesn’t
really matter, does it? They have guns and Runners. We can’t compete with that.
No elaborate plan will work against that.”
Chris answered spitefully, “You’ll
have to live with the consequences if anyone dies because of your choices.”
Justin walked away holding his head
high as if he could show us he didn’t care. I turned to Chris and asked, “Can’t
you dodge bullets?”
“I can, and Justin can, but when
another Runner is at the other end of the barrel it’s impossible to evade.
We’ll just have to stop them before they have time to shoot.”
Chris brought in a couple of the
other fast team members to decide how to divide the group. They used the same
type of groupings Mrs. Winter spoke of; equal division of the three different
skill levels. There was definitely wisdom in this tactic.
Justin’s group would include; Beth,
Michael, Will, Kayla, Jessica and Ricky. The rest would be in Chris’s group;
Lizbeth, Austin, Ashley, Tyler, Olivia, Jonas and me.
I walked away from the council and
went over to the fire. My thoughts were running a mile a minute.
“Well, Calli, this is certainly a
surprise,” Beth said as she sat beside me.
“Isn’t life interesting, Beth?”
“What do the Shadow Demons look
like?” She spoke with a hushed voice, but others heard her. I figured of all
the people in the whole world, Beth would be the one genuinely curious about
their abominable appearances. Everyone else started to gather near to listen to
anything I happened to say.
“They are large and scary with
animal heads, huge claws on their hands and feet, and teeth that go on and on.”
“Why can you walk among them and
not be torn to shreds?” Beth asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Why can you see them and we
can’t?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
Jessica asked. “So, you can read
minds? Can you read mine?”
“I don’t really want to, it just
happens,” I entered her mind effortlessly. I found she has a crush on Justin,
but her friendship with Beth keeps her mouth shut, “For instance, I think you
are right in not acting on your crush.
“Ugh, how did you … please don’t
say anything.”
“Can I ask you a question? What do
you feel when I’m in your mind?”
“The hair on the top of my head
tickles and kind of itches.”
Everyone agreed with her
explanation.
Ashley caught my attention and
asked me to read her mind. I wanted to roll my eyes, wanted to point out the
bigger more important things worth worrying about instead. Her past opened to
me revealing she spent time in a detention hall for burglary prior to her
running ability surfacing. The irony made me laugh out loud. She would’ve been
uncatchable as a thief.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“If only you knew then what you
know now, maybe you wouldn’t have been caught. Then again, it was best you were
reformed before your abilities surfaced.”
“Who says I’m reformed?” Ashley
winked at me, “This is incredible! That wasn’t even on the top of my mind. Did
someone tell you about my past?”
She perceived me to be the same
type of shyster as a fortune teller or psychic, so quick to jump to the
conclusion someone must have told me her information rather than my actual
reading of her mind.
My eyes wandered over to the other
fire where Chris was talking to Will. They were both facing me, but whispering to
each other, so I did what came naturally, I read their lips.
“How does she do it?” Will asked
Chris.
“Beats me,” Chris answered.
“She possesses every power. It’s
amazing.”
“Not every power,” Chris followed
up with a slightly depressed tone.
In order for me to read their lips,
I needed to keep a constant eye on their lips. Usually, the individual doesn’t
catch on to the fact that I’m watching their conversation, but this time both
of them were staring right at me as I did what they didn’t know I could do. I
had to look away. It’s not every day I had two “tens” staring me down, trying
to figure me out; and one of them thinks I’m his soul-mate because of some
faulty future vision.
The others around me were talking
excitedly pulling my attentions back to the group. One of the younger boys
named Jonas asked me to check out his mind.
“Am I going to find x-rated stuff?”
Everyone laughed, even as I saw into his past and witnessed his father beating
him, his older brother chasing him in anger, his mother crying at a funeral. A
hard lump formed in my throat and I chose my words wisely, “Who died?”
“My brother.” His memory displayed
the horrific event. His father beat his brother to death while Jonas hid in the
closet. It happened before his running ability kicked in.
“You couldn’t have done anything to
stop him.” The crowd was quiet as they listened. A quick glance around the minds
told me they were aware of his story already.
Jonas said longingly, “I wish you
were a Seer, because you’d be able to tell me if he’ll ever pay for what he’s
done.” Jonas’ father sat on death row and the appeals were dragging out the
inevitable. I bore deeper into his eyes struggling for his future, yet found
nothing. Strange. Everyone has a future, don’t they? Unless … unless he really
doesn’t. Why? What was going to happen to him? I tried again to view his
future, but nothing. I turned to Olivia who sat next to him and foresaw her
hugging her parents with her graduation cap on. Tyler’s future involved
marriage and holding a position in a city government. Beth’s future held
prison; not good. Back to Jonas, I still saw nothing concerning his future.
I became aware of why, as if my
mind was able to scan his body in a physical manner, I found the thing
responsible for ravaging his future. Cancer. I searched his mind to find out if
he was already aware of the disease; he wasn’t.
I put my hands to my head and
wished everyone and everything would just go away. Why did I have to see these
things? This was horrible! This boy would be dead before four weeks came. Should
I tell him? No, not my place. I can’t do anything to help him anyway.
“She does have future sight,” Chris
walked over to the crowd.
Thanks, Chris!
Jonas stared
at me in earnest for a reading.
I had to shut him down. “Look,
these powers are all new to me and I haven’t quite figured out how everything
works. I have seen some future things, but they are so far out they will most
likely never happen. I can’t summon up a particular event in the future. I
can’t look for your father’s future because he’s not here.”
“But what do you see concerning him
in my future?” He leaned forward hoping I’d reveal his father’s upcoming death.
“Everything will work out for you
in the end.” I watched as everyone reacted to the vague answer, but I couldn’t
bring myself to tell them the truth; that Jonas would die soon.
Beth spoke up in reverent awe, “Do
you even understand how powerful you are? No clan member holds all the powers. Not
one! Why you?”
“Why would a slow muck like me be
so powerful, you mean?”
Chris spoke calm, reassuring words
to the group, “No one here will ever call you a muck again. What Beth said is
true though, no one person holds multiple abilities. This is truly amazing, as
if you wield all the powers plus maintain your human guise, and that would
explain the Shadow Demons’ behavior.”
“Can you cast any spells?” Beth
asked and I shook my head.
If the questioning continued on
this trajectory, they would start to wonder if I’d been enchanted. I needed to
change the subject, “Chris, do you think you could teach everyone here how to
block their minds?”
“Well, yeah, definitely, and you’ll
be able to test them.” He smiled tenderly at me.
“I know how to block,” Michael
joined in and several others chimed in too.
“Excellent,” I answered, “start
teaching them. I need a moment to think.” I got up and walked away from the
group. I found a comfortable rock directly behind the falls and sat down to
contemplate the situation. If the clan members blocked their minds, I wouldn’t
be plagued with their past or present thoughts and that would help me
tremendously. Plus, if the Readers ever crossed our path, they wouldn’t be able
ascertain our mission. Probably the most important thing, my abilities would be
kept secret longer. If I truly am the only one who can do all these things,
then I am in danger. I can just imagine the others wanting to get a hold of me
to discover my secret. And what would they find? They’d find I’m a fraud, no
better than the psychics who go on national television acting like they speak
with dead people. I had no specialness about me. Well, that’s not entirely true;
I could read lips.