Significance (43 page)

“He’s at his house. We didn’t tell him we’d found you yet. He’d want to come with us and we couldn’t let him...ya know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

I felt so much better it was like night and day. I was still tired but felt like I could at least function properly. Caleb hadn’t left me at all. He sat right next to me and had a hand on my thigh the entire time I ate.

When he’d walked with me to the car, the energy ribbons and streams followed us, but as soon as he’d placed me in the backseat, losing skin contact, all the energy, all the ribbons fell away and sizzled into the sky as his family looked on in awe. When he climbed in on his side and touched me again, I almost thought the energy burst would return. I worried that every time we touched each other now we’d light up like a Christmas tree, but they didn’t come.

“What about Beck? What happened to her and Ralph after the party?”

“I found them and told him that you’d been kidnapped. I didn’t know what else to say so I just told the truth. Beck was freaking out. I called my dad, dropped them off and then had to go tell your dad.” He shook his head and swallowed. I saw pieces and glimpses of their conversation in his mind, my dad red faced and yelling. “Man that not was not fun.”

“I bet,” I muttered. “Was he mad at you?”

“Oh yeah.” He chucked humorlessly. “I haven’t been called names that bad since...ever.”
“I’m so sorry. He-”

He wrapped an arm around me, pressing my face into his neck.

“He’s your dad. I’d think something was off if he hadn’t freaked. I had just told him when we left for our date that I’d keep you safe and then had to come and explain that someone had taken you right out from under me.”

I looked up to see his face and decided to see for myself what had gone on while I was away.

I didn’t have to try hard because we were already in each other’s mind, the ascension like Caleb had said, but his memories of his losing me and the withdrawals zoomed to me in a hazy rush. Some parts were normal and others were like they were on fast forward.

I saw him out of his mind with worry and grief on the beach looking for me. He called my name over and over. He knelt in the sand and beat his fist over his heart to make it work, anything to pick up my heart beat again to find me. He knew what had happened. The Watson’s had taken me somehow. He knew it and he was puzzled as to how they had kept my heart steady to hide me from him.

He ran back to the bonfire, snagged Beck and Ralph and sped the entire way back to Beck’s as he talked frantically with his father on the phone. Then he went in to talk to my father without waiting for his, like his dad had told him to. He knew I’d want my father to know as soon as possible and he felt responsible; wanted to meet his punishment head on.

Then I saw glimpses of my dad in Caleb’s face yelling. Then all that flew past and I saw Caleb on the couch at Kyle’s, sitting. Pulling at his hair with his fist as his dad tried to get him to try to sleep.

“You’ll be no good to Maggie this way, son,” he said but Caleb just pushed off his hand and continued to rock and moan in agony.

“I have to find her. I have to find her,” was all he would say.

Then more flashes and glimpses of him sick and in pain, him rolling and groaning on the floor in the guestroom at Kyle’s where someone had taken him to rest. Him yelling my name over and over as his father and mother watched, Rachel burying her face in Peter’s shoulder to cry loudly for her son.

It was too much to watch. I tried to yank away from it and soon, I was caught anyway.

“Maggie, no!” Caleb said harshly. “You don’t need to see that.”

“Caleb, oh,” I squeaked and took a deep steadying breath. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Well... It’ll never happen again, I can tell you that much,” he muttered angrily. He took a deep breath and smoothed my hair back. “Anyway, your dad called the cops and calmed down a little once they got there. He even apologized to me later for yelling at me but said he still didn’t forgive me.” He rubbed his chin and I saw in his mind he was upset by that. “My parents rushed right over and they have been at your dad’s everyday since then.”

“How many days have I been gone?”

“Four. Long. Days,”

I swallowed. Four days.

“Dad’s gonna make things so much harder for us now.”

“I think you might be surprised.” He smiled sadly. “Just wait. You feeling better now? Dad looks like they’re ready to go.”

“Yeah but I don’t like this. I don’t want your family going after them because of me. They’re dangerous. Someone could get hurt.”

“My family is very powerful. I’m not bragging, I’m just telling the truth. Our family has the most powerful abilities, always has. We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about them they know what they’re doing. The Watson’s can’t get away with this. If we had taken care of them after the first time they tried to kidnap you, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Okay. Alright,” I conceded and tucked my brushed hair behind my ears.

Caleb’s mom kept a brush in the SUV and I was so grateful.

He took my face in his hands.

“My family loves you. They’d do anything to keep you safe and I promise you they can handle themselves, they’ll be fine. Don’t feel guilty about us protecting you. That’s what family does.”

“Okay.”

I smiled weakly at him and he smirked at his victory, shaking his head. He leaned closer and kissed my forehead.

“I love you, Maggie,” he whispered, his lips moved against my cheek.

I smiled at hearing it, real and out loud for the first time without being pulled and yanked away from it.

“I love you, too,” I said, my voice breathy with emotion.

He grinned big and proud and happy.

“Let’s go.”

I climbed out, then Caleb and I saw about fifteen men and women waiting for us on ATV’s. Some had weapons. Some had smiles. I saw the guy who had found me there too. He was smiling bashfully. I smiled at him and that seemed to encourage him. He came forward to greet us.

“Thank you,” I said sincerely.

He was young, a lot younger than I had noticed before. Couldn’t be more than twenty two or so. He had light brown hair and a square chin than fit him. He had a large frame, as all the Jacobson’s seemed to have, and he had his hands in his pockets.

“No problem.”

“Yeah, thanks, man,” Caleb said and hugged him a bit awkwardly as he still held my hand tight. “I owe you.”
“No, you don’t. You’d have done the same for me. I’m just glad I found her. I think I scared her pretty good,” he said and winked at me, making me smile and nod.

“Yeah, I saw in her vision,” Caleb said and laughed. “This wasn’t a very well thought out plan was it?”

“It all worked out. I’m happy for you guys.”

“Thanks. Oh, I’m sorry. Maggie this is my cousin, Rodney. They live near the Watson’s so they were closer to you when I could finally reach you again, because we’d been with your dad all day.”

I nodded in understanding.

“It’s ok.” I turned back to Rodney and took a step forward to hug him. “Thank you. Really.”

“No sweat,” he said softly and patted my back. “Now, let’s go find these bastards and show them who they messed with.”

“Let’s,” Caleb and I both said at the same time and we all laughed.

“Come on,” Caleb said and tugged me to a four wheeler.

He climbed on and I climbed on behind him.

“Won’t this be loud? They’ll hear us coming a mile away.”

He turned to grin at me.

“You haven’t met all my family yet.” He kissed my bottom lip quickly and softy. “Hang on, gorgeous.”

I grabbed him around the middle.

“Not gorgeous right now,” I muttered

Hush.

He cranked the ATV, or so I thought. I could feel it rumble under us but couldn’t hear anything. I read in Caleb’s mind that one of his uncles had an ability to control technology. Basically anything with a motor or computer brain, he could control it. He had charmed the ATV’s so the motors would be quiet for our surprise attack. He’s called an Automator.

“That’s awesome,” I said aloud in awe and Caleb chuckled.

“Yeah, it is. Here we go.”

I hung on as Caleb and his family roared on through the woods on silent four wheeled vehicles to go and hunt down the family who had kidnapped and planned to torture me. I could have laughed. Never in a million years would I have ever dreamed this would be happening to me. I have abilities! I have a new family full of people with abilities too who care about me. Never in a million years would I have believed I’d have found the love of my life at a stop light after I saved his life.

Caleb, squeezed my knee.

“Believe it.” I smiled and leaned my head to rest on his back. Within a minute I felt my eyelids begging to close. I could feel his next words vibrate through his back. “Sleep. We’re still about twenty minutes out. I’ve got you.”

And the lulling of the ride along with the quiet calm of the woods, Caleb’s warm back under me put me right to sleep.

I woke up to the sound of yelling. I gripped Caleb tightly in reflex and saw ahead of us that we’d found the Watson’s. We were on top of the same hill, the one with the well and the cliff and everyone was scattering, running.

Running away I realized. They had been back in the bunker or basement or whatever it was and were now trying to flee but we’d caught up to them. A couple of ours and theirs started throwing punches. I saw one man holding his hand out towards one while the other man grabbed and clawed at his neck like he was choking.

Then Caleb stopped the ATV abruptly and leaned forward to jump off but stopped and looked back at me. I could see in his mind that he had seen Marcus and wanted to go after him but couldn’t leave me alone. It physically hurt him to think about it right when he just got me back. He cursed in his head at the dilemma but as I looked up I saw Marcus coming to us. I pointed behind Caleb and screamed for him in my mind in just enough time for him to turn and evade being grabbed as he jumped off to shield me, slamming his fist to Marcus’s cheek.

Marcus turned a 180 and punched Caleb’s chin. Caleb recovered quickly and pulled him back, slamming him over the front of the ATV bending him backwards before punching him in the jaw.

I whimpered and bit my lip to stop from screaming. As much as I didn’t like Marcus and what he’d done to me, that didn’t mean I wanted to see this.

Marcus laughed and spit blood off to the side.

“You think you’ve won? This has just begun,” he sang and laughed again.

“If I catch you near her, ever again, I won’t hesitate to end you,” Caleb enunciated every word and banged Marcus’s head several times as he spoke.

“You’re so weak. She makes you weak.”

“Shut. Up,” Caleb growled.

Then, we saw Peter jump off his still moving four wheeler and tackle Sikes. They were the champions of both families so, naturally, everyone stopped and watched as Peter punched Sikes in the jaw and gripped his shirt collar in his fist.

I saw the fear on Sikes’s face, on all their faces. He didn’t even try to fight back. They were terrified of the Jacobson’s and I wondered why, if that were true, had they kidnapping me and risked getting the Jacobson’s even angrier at them? There had to be something I was missing. Some reason other than just jealousy and petty family squabbles that Sikes didn’t want Caleb and I to ascend.

“I have never been more ashamed of being an Ace until I saw the things you did to my daughter-in-law,” Peter growled and it was so intense I couldn’t even be excited about the daughter-in-law part. “You are not a man. You’re a monster. And you know what? It was all for nothing. Even with all your meddling and torture, they ascended anyway.”

Every Watson eye turned on us and Sikes looked devastated.

“No,” he muttered and closed his eyes. “No.”

“Yes,” Peter spat. “Now you take your family and go with your tail stuck between your legs somewhere where I can’t find you. Our family has never attacked yours and I resent this juvenile and idiotic behavior of something that happened between our family’s years ago that has absolutely nothing to do with us. I am not a murderer but I will
not
stand by and watch you try to destroy my family again. The next time, and you better be smart enough for there not to be one, I. Will. Kill. You. Now, go.”

I was floored. I never knew that amount of venom could come out of the sweet man who’d done nothing but comfort and help me. I was floored because all this upset was over me. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or frightened.

He leapt off Sikes and we all watched as he turned his back on him and got on his ATV again. Sikes sat up and looked directly at me. His face was so distraught and forlorn I almost felt sorry for him.

“Don’t you dare,” Caleb hissed under his breath to me and then threw Marcus towards his uncle.

He tripped backwards and fell in the grass. Sikes was helped up by his wife, who wouldn’t look at me at all. Marcus got up and went to stand by them, looking murderous.

Everyone let go of whoever they were holding mentally or physically and made their way back to their own ATV’s. I held on tight as this time, our ATV’s cranked to life loudly and rumbling. I looked back to see Marcus smiling at us as we left. I shivered.