Empath (Book 1 of the Empath Trilogy) (7 page)

“What about your gift?  Doesn’t that make you believe there’s something else out there?  Jenkins’ book?”  This was from Troy again, who was sitting forward in his seat, elbows on his thighs looking directly at my face. 

I was really hoping we were just having a philosophical discussion, but I was careful not to offend, regardless.  I was in the minority here and didn’t want to test Stephen’s loyalties if I could avoid it.  “My gift, as you guys call it, is a weird fluke that is just an overly emphasized, but perfectly normal, thing.  Everyone understands other people’s emotions to a point, I just get them in more detail.”  That was something I had tried to convince myself of before; I was just really observant. 

Troy cocked his head to the side, staring right into my eyes.  “First off, you can feel people’s emotions not just understand them and Stephen says you can channel people’s emotions as well.  That is definitely beyond the norm.  That makes it para normal.”  He said this last as two words to emphasize the point.

The little detail that had been nagging gently at the back of my mind kicked me then, Troy knew something even Stephen shouldn’t have known.  No one should have known because I had never told anyone.  My fury swelled in my chest.   “How do you know I can channel?  I know I have never said that to you.  Ever.”  I stood up.  I was pretty sure that I could walk back a block to the gas station we’d passed on the corner and wait for a cab there.  I was about two seconds from walking out the door. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I didn’t want to be here anymore; that much I knew for certain.

Stephen touched my arm, very lightly.  His touch was just a whisper, but there was a flash of something.  I didn’t know how to describe it.  In my head flashed my terrified face when I was falling into him, then my fear of feeling him.  I tried to remember what he had said that day in the coffee shop after I first met him.  He’d said that I “blasted him” when I touched him.  I had thought the word “ouch” but had not felt any pain myself.  Since then, I had admitted to him that I feel people but never the most frightening part of my talent, the fact that I could lose myself completely in someone else and channel them.  That was also the part that I had yet to master control of, the part I wasn’t sure I
could
control.

My breathing was speeding up; I was starting to hyperventilate.  “How do you know that?  Can you read my mind?”  I sat back down, my mind going numb with shock.  The phrase, “
You have to listen
,” running through my head brought me back to the present, and I tried to focus on what Stephen was saying, my heart began to slow back down.

“No, but you and I have more in common than you think.  I kind of figured things out when you landed on me.  I felt a lot of power there.”  He sat back into the cushions behind him with a sigh, “You can feel other people’s emotions rather strongly, yes?”  I nodded.  “If someone is having a strong feeling and they touch you, you can’t help but feel what they are feeling, right?”  Slowly, wide eyed, I nodded the tiniest bit.  “Well, I have a similar ability.  You feel people by their emotions, I see them by their intentions.” 

“I don’t understand.”  I was totally confused now and was thinking very strongly about running outside right now despite the compulsion I felt to listen.

“How do I explain?”  Stephen looked up at the ceiling and put his hands on his head, mussing his hair again.  He looked about twelve years old.  He stared right at me, appearing decided.  “Think about your parents,” he instructed me.

“Why?”  I had no idea what was going to happen but I didn’t want to give him any information about my family that could be used to harm them or me.

“I’m going to show you what I do.”  He waited for me to process all of it and gave no more than a slight muscle twitch of the eye when he saw me cave.

“Okay.”  For some reason beyond my comprehension, I followed his instructions and closed my eyes, thinking about Mom.  She was probably worried about me by now, I thought, I should take them up on their offer to come take me to lunch.  It was just so easy to get lost in my new life.  When I got back to the dorm, I would have to call and invite them down for the afternoon.  I could try out my new shielding on them.

“So when are you going to have them over?”  Stephen asked, breaking into my thoughts.

Rolling my eyes at him, I answered sarcastically, “That isn’t hard to figure out.  It’s like a phony magician.  All you have to do is read me.  Here I am, a college student away from home and you have me think about my parents.  It is going to either be ‘I’m happy I’m away’ or ‘gee I sure miss them,’ you have a fifty-fifty shot at being right.” 

He patiently tried to explain his point, “Well, as you explained about your gift being one that is just a normal human response heightened to a special level, so is mine.  I can go downtown and show you who is going to commit a crime, when a girl decides to go home with a guy from a bar, anything like that.  I read emotions like you do, but I can’t tell much until the person makes up their mind.  That is when I can see what they are going to do.”

“So can you tell the future?”  My eyes widened in disbelief.  No wonder he was so calm all the time, nothing surprised him.

“No, but if the President decided to go to war, I could tell.  That doesn’t mean it will happen because it isn’t that simple to go to war, but I could tell that is what he decided to do.  I can see his intentions.  It has come in handy a few times when we’ve needed to figure out if someone is telling the truth.”

“Like a human lie detector?” 

He seemed pleased.  “Yes, that is one way we can use it.  I can also see if someone is able to handle strange information.”  He looked meaningfully at me and I smiled a bit shyly.  “My gift compliments yours very well.  That is why we,” he gestured to his family still in the room.  I had forgotten about them, “Have called you here.  We have someone who specializes in helping people like you.  I brought you in because your gift is so strong, I worry for you if you don’t get it under control.”

Tonya stuck her head out from the kitchen.  “You are forgetting the most important part, dear brother.  Or don’t you want to tell her what you’ve been doing to her all this time?”  Her expression was smug, and cruelty lit her eyes.

I looked quickly back to Stephen, my own eyes narrowed in suspicion, voice just above a whisper, “What have you been doing to me?” 

Stephen looked guilty and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand as he looked up at me and said, “There’s more to what I can do.” 

“More?  How much more?”  No longer scared, now I was angry with him.  Having my legs cut out from under me every few seconds was keeping my fuse short.

“Once I touch someone, I get a feel for them.  After that, I can make suggestions to them.” 

“Everyone can make suggestions, why do you need to touch someone?  Get a feel for what?”  I was struggling to make the connection that was once again just beyond my reach.

“We all have an energy feel.  You feel it when you touch someone, right?  You get their specific feel and can pick them out of a crowd later?”  Seeing my reaction, he knew he was right and went on.  “Once I touch someone, I get a feel for them and can find them if I’m within a certain range.  I can make suggestions to them.”  He saw that I still wasn’t making the leap.  “
In their head
.”  And that was where he said it, I watched his mouth remain closed but the words appeared in my head in the same tone as several others had that evening.

My sudden intake of air helped to lift me up off the couch and move quickly toward the door.  Stephen jumped up too.  I was so furious at him, at all of them, for bringing me here to toy with for their own amusement.  When I jumped up, I lost focus and my weak shields slid, allowing the disorienting chaos of their unique chatter to slam into me and I wobbled on my feet. 

Stephen reached to grab me, but when he touched me, I skittered back, this time falling into the loveseat.  “You bastard!”  I shrieked at him.  I’d gotten a flash of peace at his touch.  He was trying to do it again.  “How dare you try to control my thoughts, you have no right!  People’s heads are private. And what about the rest of you?  What do you do?  Do you go into people’s heads too?  Or is that just Stephen’s special
gift
?”  I spat this last bitterly.  It was vulgar, what he was doing.  He had been telling me to be calm, to listen, he had been manipulating me this whole time and I was angry with myself for having trusted him.

“Wait, Claire,” Stephen reasoned quietly.  He started to put his hands out to me, but saw my fury and slowly put them back down.  “Think for a minute about what you have heard me say to you.  I’ve asked you to be calm when you were scared and asked you to listen when you were not sure if you should.  I promise you that I didn’t ever try to sway you or do anything unethical.  I apologize that I ever went into your thoughts, but this situation called for it.  You need to get yourself under control before you get yourself or someone else in trouble.  With our abilities being so closely related, I thought I would be able to help you.  When I saw how strong yours was, I even hoped that some day you could work
with
us; you would be a great asset to us.”  He once again sounded so sincere. 

My blocking was not fully back up and I could feel that his intentions were honest and he truly believed what he was saying, making me want to believe him, regardless of how utterly insane this was. 

I looked around at his family and saw that they were all very still, watching me for my reaction.  Even Tonya had her forehead resting on the kitchen doorjamb with one eye hidden behind the wall, and the other one focused on me.  The one I could see looked very worried, it was the only hint of real emotions I’d seen from her.

Taking a deep breath, I looked back and met Stephen’s gaze.  Moving to touch his knee in front of me, I retracted my hand at the last minute. Instead, I pleaded with a word.  “Sit.”  Seeing his hesitation, I added gently, “Please.”  He sat wordlessly and closed his eyes, relieved.

Unable to bear the image of him so still and unlike the Stephen I knew, I glanced away and found Troy’s gaze, which wasn’t hard seeing as it was leveled directly at me while he studied my reaction.  “What do you need me to do to get this started?”

Troy’s eyebrows ticked up as he considered me.  “Claire, there is more that you need to know before committing to this.  Not all is as it seems here.”

“My friend has offered to find help for me; I need to be responsible for any resulting obligations, what else is there?”  Trying to lighten the mood, I added, “We are talking about an entirely different reality than the one I normally operate in, I think I’m being perfectly reasonable.”  Besides, I really didn’t see any other options.  If I could get help with this cursed gift of mine and keep his family free of an obligation they clearly did not want, then I just didn’t see any question in the matter.  And if someday they needed me to help them out with something. I could do that.  The idea that something good could come of this curse; now that would be an interesting twist.

It was Tara’s turn to speak and she appeared to be reconsidering me very cautiously.  “Ours is not a family like any you have known before.  Because we have not introduced an outsider to our clan in a long time, I am not sure how to do so.”  She appeared to be deep in thought and had gotten up to walk to where Tonya stood at the doorway of the kitchen. 

I could see that there were some pictures arranged on the wall in a circle surrounding a large oval shaped mirror.  Tara motioned for me to join her in front of them.  Taking a moment to look first at Stephen, who nodded that it was okay, I rose and walked to stand with her.

We stood looking at the pictures, and judging by the cars, clothes and general condition of the photos, I could see that some went back a few generations.  The unmistakable family resemblance was uncanny.

“Is this your dad?”  I asked, pointing at a picture of a smaller, slightly built man smiling at me from under a fedora.  The suit and car said 1930’s.  “He looks just like Stephen.”

In a cautious voice, Tara answered, “No, that
is
Stephen.”

I kept my eyes on the pictures, not certain what she was saying.  My head was whirling.  How could Stephen be that man?  That would make him over seventy years old.  What about the rest of them?  Did they want me to believe that they were all ageless?  Immortal?  My brain stuttered on the word.

“Here I am”, she pointed to a larger woman standing in a WAV uniform, next to a battleship and a tall, thin man in an army uniform circa World War II.  “And that is Troy with me.  This is a great one of Tonya,” she smiled as she pointed to a flapper in a glittering dress and feather headband complete with beads and cigarette between her fingers, her head thrown back laughing.  She was a lot less intimidating when she laughed.  Tara raised her voice a hair as she half turned toward the kitchen, “Do you remember that one, Tonya?”