I pulled out of his mind and
entered the other’s mind. His thoughts told me his family had been murdered by
the Hunters when his power had surfaced. He’d been taken captive too and forced
to be the legs of the Hunters. He had been beaten horribly for attempted
escapes and I experienced the hatred in his heart for the Hunters, especially
the ones right in front of him.
Another shot rang out and the
commotion ensued. Chris and his group assaulted from behind and dodged knife
blades with ease. One Hunter dropped his handgun but quickly retrieved a knife
from his ankle. The Hunters were slow with their jabs and attempted stabs. But
no one was aware the captive Runner picked up the gun except me, because I
experienced it in his mind. I identified his intent to kill and the exact
moment his finger began to squeeze the trigger of the gun. The first Hunter
took a bullet to the head taking him down. The second fell just as quickly with
a dead-on shot to the chest. Then, I realized he was raising the gun to his own
temple.
“No! Stop him!” I yelled too late,
and as the bullet entered his mind, it entered mine too.
I must have blacked out. My senses
began to return to my body one by one making me aware of just how much pain I
was in. I couldn’t make my eyes open for some reason, in fact, I couldn’t move
or speak. Panic began to spread like wildfire through my body. Then I heard
Chris’s voice chastising Lizbeth.
“Why didn’t you protect her,
Lizbeth?! Why did you let her get so close? How did she get shot?” The anguish
in his voice didn’t go unnoticed by me.
“I don’t think she was shot, Chris,
she sort of passed out and maybe hit her head. She’s still breathing. ”
“She shouldn’t have been standing
while the gun fire was flying around.”
“She wasn’t. She was lying on the
ground looking through the brush. She yelled something and passed out. Just
give her some time, she’ll come to.”
Yeah, I was shot through a mind
read. Is that even possible?
My eyes finally opened to find Chris bending
over me. I reached out and grasped his hand.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Better. Help me sit up, please.”
He did so and I looked around at
everyone. Some of their mind blocking abilities needed perfecting because I
read their concern about the blood dripping out of my ears. I touched along my
neck under my ear and found blood.
Kayla and Ricky sat near me on the
ground. They had both sustained injuries from the gun shots; Kayla in the calf
and Ricky in the shoulder. I wanted so much for them to be whole again, for
them to be healed. Their agony and pain washed over me and I wished very much
to help them. I examined Kayla’s leg wound and instinctively reached toward
her. The heat of the wound radiated on my hand and the lead intruder in her
flesh almost called out to me. Kayla grabbed Chris’s other arm for support. I
willed the bullet out of the muscle with every fiber of my being. Astonishingly,
the dull gray color of the lead became visible as it emerged and fell on the
ground.
The hushed amazement of the crowd
told me this kind of thing didn’t usually happen, frankly, I didn’t understand
how I did it; I just did. I turned to Ricky and reached forward with my hand to
his shoulder. Again, I located the hard piece of lead in his flesh, but also
the broken bone fragments of his shoulder.
“You’re shoulder is broken too.” No
one said anything as I worked the bullet out of the wound. I placed one hand on
the back of his shoulder and the other on his collar bone and held them firmly
as the bone knitted together under my fingers. “What does it feel like?”
“Like an ice cube. It crackles a
little.”
“Is there pain?”
“No.”
“You’re done now.”
He rotated his arm all the way around
raising and lowering it, “Thank you, Calli! You’re better than our Healer.”
Why hadn’t it occurred to me I was
using the healing ability? Where was Jonas? I had to find him. While searching
the crowd, my eyes made contact with Chris and his expression of absolute
relief. I could tell what he was thinking, his vision would come true, and our
lives would eventually intertwine. No time to deal with his grandiose
misinformation, I looked beyond him for Jonas.
“Who are you looking for?” Chris
asked me.
“The one I told you about last
night.”
“Come with me, Calli.” Chris took
my hand and led me away from the group. I kept trying to locate Jonas. “Calli,
look at me,” his stern tone caught my attention.
He put his thoughts to the front of
his mind,
“You can’t expect yourself to be able to heal a cancer patient. The
bullets were—simply amazing; but Ricky and Kayla knew they were hurt. Jonas
isn’t aware he has cancer. What if you tell him and try to heal him and aren’t
successful? Then you’re left with a distraught boy and you beating yourself up
for not knowing how to help him. We simply don’t have the time to waste trying
out your newfound power. And, if we don’t reach a town tonight, there will be
no healing the boy, ever.”
“Alright. You’re right, I mean,
ok.”
“But?” he asked.
“No buts. We need to get moving.
What about the bodies?”
“They stay. The prisoner will go
with us.”
“Prisoner?”
“We will hand him over to the Mind
Reader’s council for an interrogation. They’ll perform a read to investigate
his intentions—wait,”
“I already have, Chris. He’s
innocent. He was kidnapped and obeys because of the threat to his family. The
other Runner was the same, only his parents were murdered by the Hunter’s Clan.
That’s why he killed them and himself.” The memory flooded back into my mind. I
grabbed Chris’s arm, “I felt the bullet pain in my own head and I passed out. But
I don’t understand why I had blood…” I trailed off, “unless the aspect of being
in someone’s mind is far more physical than I originally thought.”
“Well, try not to be inside
someone’s head when they die, alright?”
“Alright,” I smiled at him.
“Release the prisoner,” Chris
announced as we returned to the group.
“What?” Justin strutted over. “Let
me guess; she jumped into his mind and saw stuff that sets him free?” His tone
of voice mocked me, poked fun of me.
“Cut him free, he’s innocent.” Chris
ordered Will and Michael to cut his bindings.
“What’s your name?” I asked the
Runner.
“Azeel,” he said with a rich
Arabian accent. He appeared to be in his twenties and stood taller than anyone
in the clan.
“Where is your family, Azeel?”
“In New York. The Hunters told me
if I don’t do exactly as they ordered, my family would be killed.”
“How old were you when you were
taken captive?” As he replied I witnessed the events in his memories.
“Sixteen. Immediately after racing
my friends home from school and beating them by ten minutes. The men showed up
and took me away.”
“You were the one I missed,” Chris
stated quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
All eyes fell on Chris.
“I was given the assignment to pick
up a new Runner right after I turned nineteen. Only, when I arrived, I’d missed
him. That had to have been you, New York, four years ago.”
“Four years ago, yes.”
Justin had been in the background
pacing while we interrogated Azeel, “We are burning daylight here. What
direction are we heading, Chris?”
“West, we can make it to a town by
nightfall. Azeel, come with us.”
“I must make sure my family is
alright.”
“We can do that once we reach the
next town.”
I stopped Chris before he started
running, “The packs. We need the Hunter’s packs. They have enchanted tents and
who knows what else. They might come in handy.” Chris agreed and we scavenged
what we could from the dead Hunters.
Right before we started running
again, I overheard Justin throw another hushed jab at Chris. “You and I both
know why you missed him. Hope you can live with
your
consequences of
your
choices.”
Chris whirled around on Justin and
said something harsh, but I couldn’t tell what it was. What I did know was that
Chris was definitely bothered about losing Azeel to the Hunters and he had been
all these years.
***
We ran over peaks and through
valleys, over rivers and lakes until the sun descended low in the evening sky. We
hadn’t reached the town yet, but we were close. My running abilities had
definitely improved from the day before and I wouldn’t doubt for a second I was
the fastest in the group now.
The sun sat precariously on the
horizon as we ran toward the small town with two run down motels. We divided
into the same two groups again and went to the two different inns. Our group
secured the last two available rooms and we didn’t waste any time getting
inside to safety. I parted the curtains and spied the Demons emerging in the
shadows.
That was close!
How did
Justin fair with getting rooms? Chris must have been thinking the same thing
because he came to the window and stared out into the dark parking lot.
“Are you worried?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Chris answered in a low
voice.
“I can go check on them, you know.”
“I know, but that’s not what I’m
worried about. Justin is going to turn on us. On everyone.”
Going to? He already did.
“What
makes you think that?”
“He’s threatened by you and your
power. Haven’t you noticed how he looks at you?”
“Yeah, like he wants to crush me
under his heel?”
“That’s the look.” Chris smiled at
me. “What does the future hold for us?”
“I don’t like to look,” I said
staring down at the floor. I wasn’t ready to see if the future had been altered
yet. “You know, Seers only have visions four weeks out. It’s possible the
handoff will have already happened and I won’t be able to relay the future any
longer.”
His warm hand tenderly held my chin
as he pulled my eyes up to his. I couldn’t help myself, I looked. The future flooded
into my mind: The meadow with the gathered clans, as before, and the three of
us standing in front of a stone table. Chris reached his hand forward with the
box containing the real Sanguine Diamond I had switched earlier. At the last
moment, he pulled his hand back, refusing to give it to the Death Clan leader. His
face contorted with agony as the leader killed him. Justin reached for the
actual stone and, upon picking it up, he died. The stone dropped to the ground
and I looked into the eyes of the Death Clan leader and waited for my turn to
die, only it didn’t come. The scene shifted to an explosion in which the entire
evil clan’s bodies explode. I snapped back to the present. Damn. Switching the
stones wasn’t the answer to save Chris. I stepped away from Chris and sat on
the edge of the bed.
“What did you see?” Chris knelt in
front of me.
I noticed everyone from the two
rooms had gathered around to hear. I couldn’t possibly tell them what I’d seen.
I chose my words with care, “The delivery is not going to go well. One or two
people may die.”
“What do you mean?” Chris asked.
“I can’t say exactly what will
happen.”
“You can’t, or you won’t. I die,
don’t I?”
I looked at the curious faces full
of apprehension and nodded my head. I heard several sharp intakes of air from
the others.
Chris responded bravely, “Then I’ll
make sure I’ve put my things in order before the meeting.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t die,
Chris.”
“How are you going to do that? Sacrifice
yourself?”
I didn’t answer, but he did put a
new idea into my head.
My silence must have alarmed him. “No!
I won’t have that, Calli. If it is my time to die then so be it. I won’t have
you…” Chris stood and turned his back on me to stare out the window.
The others dispersed quietly
leaving us alone. All I could do is stare at his back and wonder what kind of
thoughts he had racing through his mind at that moment.
The sleeping arrangements were fairly
even with the girls in one room and the guys in the other. We left the
adjoining doors open. I awoke from sleep to some incredibly annoying snoring. I
got out of bed and walked carefully to the doorway and looked in on the boys to
locate the culprit. My mind was flooded with images and memories, and dreams.
Let me just say, teenaged boys’
dreams are x-rated and I’ll leave it at that.
I noticed right away Chris’s walls
were down making for a rather easy mind read. It made sense to me that
maintaining a mind block was a conscious action; however, within Chris’s mind,
I still found impenetrable walls firmly in place that I couldn’t get through. What
was he hiding? I indulged myself a bit and searched his head for his perception
of me. Ever since he was shown the vision involving me, he’d thought nothing of
any other girl. His idea of the two of us, honestly, scared me. I looked beyond
for the memory of the day he missed Azeel and the frustration of his failure. He
almost didn’t return to the training compound. More recent was his self
loathing as he realized Azeel only became a prisoner because he was too slow to
retrieve him … because he made a pit-stop along the way. However, I couldn’t
determine what that stop was because it was also blocked by the impenetrable
walls.
I pulled out of Chris’s mind with
mixed feelings.
Jonas was the snoring culprit. I
delved into his body to find the cancer growing inside him. The abnormal growth
was everywhere; in his abdomen, lungs, kidneys, and his brain. In fact, the
tumor behind his sinuses was causing him to snore at the moment. My eyes
watered at the thought of his impending death. I should tell him. I should at
least try to heal him. We had several hours to go until morning, what would it
hurt to try?
I focused on the tumor in his brain
first, feeling the mass within my own head, reaching my mind around it like
tentacles, trying to dissolve, break or shrink the lump … I pressed with my
mind and excruciating pain coursed through my head as if the cancer was my own.
My surroundings began to close in on me and darkness overtook me.