The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) (6 page)
Read The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Jody Klaire
All the while, that stone beckoned to me. I waded out, knowing exactly where it was. Her essence seemed to coat it until it glowed. I picked it up and flicked it over in my hand. The water dried in a strange way. I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I was hallucinating. The numbers nine-eight-four formed on its surface.
Slam, the brakes screech, the wind howls, bank scrapes and scratches, smell of gas and fire, the rain hammering, the water rising.
I scrambled through the waters and fought my way up the muddy bank, then I bolted up the lane, my toes catching on the gravel, the mud thickening under the might of the rain. The sheer power of it swept in waves across my path. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t stop. I had seconds to get there.
I saw the explosion from the car before I heard the tires of whoever did it spin in the gravel and mud as they drove off. They must have thought Llys was in the car, but she wasn’t.
The car smoldered, hissing at me as I reached it. The driver’s side was open. Blood was on the door. I looked around. Empty. She was out but where was she? Llys was face down in the river, somewhere. The river was rising so fast, the mud coming with it, that I couldn’t see beneath the surface.
“Doc!” I yelled.
I knew there wouldn’t be a response. She was drowning, she was unconscious. I closed my eyes, willing every gift I had ever been burdened with to help me.
“Where are you,
Renee Black
?”
The moment I said her name, I knew. I hurtled down the bank, scrambling over the sharp rocks and glass from the crash. She was there head down. The muddy water splashed into my face as I ploughed into the river. I gripped hold of her shoulders and hauled her upward, the blood gushing from a wound in her head. I lifted her into my arms, the river now hitting my knees, the current strengthening.
“Nan, if you’re around. I need help.”
A lightning flash rippled overhead and I pushed off through the river.
A gush of water smashed into me, sending me sprawling sideways. The current swept my feet away as I clung onto Llys, not daring to let go. The water sapped my strength as I found a foothold. So cold, so tired.
“I mean it, Nan. Help!”
A surge hit my back like a large hand pushing me and I got a foothold on the bank. I scrambled up, losing a shoe as the river bubbled below me. I got to a stable grassy patch and collapsed onto my knees, my body pounding with cold and adrenaline.
Llys was cold, not moving. Her breathing had stopped. I rolled her onto her back and frantically pulled at the debris in her mouth, clearing the airway. I didn’t know how the hell to do CPR, I didn’t know how to help her.
“Please.”
A shallow breath hissed out at me. The rain mixed with the blood from her head wound. A roar overhead sparked a monstrous tremble through the ground and I staggered to my feet, hauling her up into my arms.
“Stay with me. Please.”
I looked up into the raging storm and gasped for breath. The trees swayed like grass beneath her fury. I had no choice but to walk headlong into that storm. I fell forward. The silence deafening. The wind ceased. The entire forest seemed to still in that moment.
Oh no, oh no. I started to run, to pound down the road, gripping hold of Llys, praying I would get us back to the cabin before—
“God help us,” fell from my lips as a crashing roar ripped through the air and I realized what was coming for us.
Chapter 43
ELI WALKED DOWN the steps into his basement. The house sat on a hill two miles or so from the river and he hoped that would stop the flood from reaching them.
He stopped for a second before he walked into the room where Jenny and the girls were sitting. He wanted to go and check on Aeron. Every bone in his body begged him to but he wouldn’t. What right did he have to become the overprotective father all of a sudden?
Aeron knew the drill with the storms. Hell, the girl could fix wood faster than he ever could. Nan had taught her well. What use was he? Plus, she had the doctor to keep her company so she wasn’t going to ride out the storm alone.
Eli leaned his head against the wall. The urge to get out there felt like a wildcat clawing its way out of his stomach.
“You and the girls okay?” he called to Jenny.
“Yeah, you coming?”
Eli looked up the stairs and at the door of the room where his family was. “I just got a call—O’Reilly—I got to check it out. You know she’s on her own.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He didn’t peek into the room either. His face always gave him away when he lied.
Eli rushed out the house and jumped into his secondary cruiser, a truck, and shook off the rain from his hat. “Take your tablets.” Aeron’s voice echoed in his head. He smiled and pulled out the bottle. The words, however sharp, gave away that maybe, just maybe, she didn’t hate him completely.
He started the truck up and eased out onto the road now shimmering with the pooling rain. The clouds had massed into a bank of murky black, towering into the sky and for a brief second, he wondered when he’d gotten so crazy.
As he got to the turn off, every part of his body pulsed with panic. That was the doctor’s car crashed into the utility pole.
Eli stopped, got out, and ducked as a branch hurtled from the trees to his left and nearly took his head off. The doctor wasn’t in her car, and the river was like a torrent, crashing and straining against the banks.
Eli studied the saturated dirt track. Another branch hurtled through the air at him and crashed into his truck. He looked up and stared at the horizon, his heart nearly stopping. Beyond the O’Reilly farm, way in the distance, right on the horizon, he saw a funnel appear. Aeron, he had to find Aeron . . . and the doctor.
I COULDN’T BREATHE each time the wind smacked into me. It was so fierce I felt as though I was being rammed by an invisible car over and over again. It swept my feet from under me, the mud sucking at them like quicksand.
I fell again, the rain blinding me, my breath stolen from my body, the energy sucked from me. Every step I took felt like I’d hurled myself through a brick wall. The roar of the wind was deafening, and I was thrown forward, Llys landing in front of me. I heard a siren somewhere, faint, and my body tensed so painfully that my calf cramped.
I stared at the approaching tornado, trying to find something left to get both of us to the cabin. Sure, I’d seen one before, but from much further away. This close . . . Hell, it was huge.
I got to my knees and dragged myself through the mud to Llys. She was cold, alive, I knew, but for how long? I looked behind, the funnel moved closer. We stood no chance, no way would we get even close to safe. The lightning forked just above me, scoring a direct hit on the tree to my left. It slumped toward us. I tried to dodge it, dragging Llys to safety, but a branch caught the back of my leg. I collapsed onto my front with a mind-splitting pain.
I had nothing left, I couldn’t do this. So tired . . . so tired.
A hand touched my own. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear who it was.
I found myself in a truck, Llys hauled in beside me and we were hurtling down the slippery mud road to the cabin. All I could do was look out of the back window as the twister gained on us.
ELI CLUNG TO the wheel and fought the truck as it was buffeted by the winds. His heart hammered so hard that he knew, if he hadn’t taken his tablets, he’d be in trouble.
Eli looked into his rear-view mirror. He
was
in trouble. The twister was gaining fast and the only hope he had was that she would change course.
The road slid and slipped under the tires. The debris slammed every part of the truck. Twisters. He hated damn twisters.
Not only a twister but this monster had a base that now stretched across the width of a quarter of a field.
Eli hurtled into the yard and slid to a stop, thankful to Nan that she had re-enforced the first three floors. The river had burst its banks, and no doubt would sweep away the truck if the funnel didn’t get it first. He ripped open the door, dragged a limping Aeron into the building, and headed back out into the wind. The twister would be on them in minutes. He lifted the doctor into a fireman’s lift and used every ounce of fight he had to get to the door.
The wind sucked away his feet. He grabbed for the handle. Aeron was there. Her hand gripped his, and she had a rope around her, no doubt tethering her to the center driveshaft of the building.
She pulled with him and he broke free of the suction and slammed the door behind him.
“Bolt it. Bolt it,” he shouted.
Aeron limped to him and they threw brace against brace over the door. Eli hammered the nails into the wood. The cabin rattled and he looked down at the floor. They were ankle deep in river water.
“Shelter,” Aeron slurred as she tied the rope around him and the doctor.
They slogged through the water to the pipe room and Eli nearly cried in joy. Aeron had made a storm shelter there. She’d used the housing of the machines to build a makeshift fort almost, bolted to the main structure of the building.
“Ingenious,” he said.
They dragged the doctor into the room and Aeron bolted the door. The room was set up like a base camp—sleeping bags, food stores, everything they would need.
“Med kit?” Eli shouted to Aeron over the roar like a freight train outside.
Aeron grabbed a box, and he helped her to open it. He saw her hands were grazed and swollen.
“Doc . . . Doc . . . Come on, please.” Eli moved over to the prone doctor and checked her vitals. He heard barely a heartbeat.
“Warmth, she needs warmth,” he told Aeron as he started to search through equipment.
Eli heard the rattle-like gasp from the doctor and tried to shake her. “No . . . no . . . Don’t you die on us now!” He started CPR and Aeron scrambled back seconds later. “We’re losing her!”
Aeron scrambled to the doctor’s head and started mouth-to-mouth. They worked in a frenzied rhythm—desperate, panicked bursts.
“Please. Come on!” Eli said.
Eli stopped and looked at Aeron whose eyes spilled tears and made streaking light lines over her mud-battered face.
“No . . . don’t give up . . . no!” Aeron said.
Eli tried to grab for her arm but Aeron moved around to the doctor’s chest and pumped her fists.
“Please . . . breathe . . . Please,” Aeron pleaded.
A huge crack of something hit the roof. Eli ducked but Aeron didn’t even wince.
“Please!” she shouted.
Eli straightened and his vision seemed to dance in front of his eyes. Aeron had her hands over the doctor, her head resting in hopelessness on the doctor’s shoulder but the room seemed to pulse with something. Not from the storm but from Aeron herself.
Eli sat rooted as Aeron continued to beg the doctor to breathe.
“Aeron, Aeron. Let go . . . please, sweetheart . . . let her go.”
He went to Aeron and pulled her away. Aeron collapsed into his arms and sobbed so hard that he could do nothing but cry with her.
Chapter 44
I CRIED SO hard that my head pounded with grief. I held on so tightly, the pain wracked my body, mind, and spirit. It was my fault that Llys was here at all. It was my fault.
“Ow,” came a very quiet whisper from behind me.
“What’s hurting?” I heard my father ask.
I looked up at him, shaking my head. “I didn’t say anythin’.”
He frowned. “You said your head hurt.”
“No, I didn’t.”
We looked at each other, then I spun around. Llys was breathing steady and calm and she was awake.
“Doc!”
We went to her, and she looked up at me with a confused look. “Did you slug me?”
I laughed and shook my head.
“Wow, you take a mud bath?”
Llys tried to sit up. My father went to stop her but she grumbled until he let her. “Where are we?”
I looked up at my version of Fort Knox. “Storm room.”
“Hell, it hit us?”
My father and I nodded. I hoped it had switched lanes or blown itself out, but the scared child inside me made me feel like it was just waiting for us to step outside again.
“How’s your head?” I asked.
Llys rubbed the dried blood off her forehead. She had one hell of a nasty gash.
“I feel fine . . . cold . . . groggy . . . like I had too much liquor and I’m paying for it, but oddly I feel fine.”
I looked at my father.
His eyes were veiled. “You were dead . . . I don’t . . .”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“Did you? . . . you . . . the room . . .”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t do nothing. I swear it.”
Llys looked from me to my father and back. “I died?”
“No, you didn’t die. I wouldn’t believe it. I kept going. It was because I kept going.”
“You did. Yes, Aeron kept going.” My father nodded as if wanting to believe it.
Llys touched my hand, just to thank me, but the world was sucked from before my eyes.
The killer was there watching, she pulled out of the parking lot, it was easy, no one would see, by the time they realized, the storm would destroy the evidence, easy, so easy.
“They’re going to hit, brakes, brakes! No, No, swerve, swerve, I’m going to hit it, have to jump have to . . .
“It wasn’t an accident,” I managed to blurt out before I blacked out.
Chapter 45
ELI RUBBED HIS stinging eyes as he sat in the dim light of the lamp. The doctor and Aeron were resting but he couldn’t. Aeron’s words that someone had tried to kill the doctor, that the car hitting the pole hadn’t been an accident, rolled around and around in his exhausted mind.
The storm had abated somewhat over the hours he’d sat there but the storm inside his own heart was only just beginning. He had left Jenny and the girls on instinct, he’d driven to Aeron and abandoned them to the storm. He hoped with every ounce of his being that they were okay but there would be repercussions from this, massive ones.
Eli looked at Aeron. She shivered in her sleep, so he looked for another foil blanket, like the one they had wrapped around the doctor. He searched in the boxes but found none. He saw the soaked bag tossed in the corner of the room and went to it. Shoes and boots. He took them out and put them next to the oil burner to dry out along with the clothes, which looked new, tags attached. He frowned as he felt something cold, hard, and familiar at the bottom.
“Probably a good idea if you don’t pull that out,” the doctor said.
Eli looked up and met the doctor’s steady gray eyes. “I don’t know many doctors who carry guns.”
“There’s a killer on the loose.”
“It’s not the kind of gun you buy at a store, Doctor.”
The doctor raised her eyebrow. “Really, you can tell what it is by the feel?”
“I’m not an idiot and I know military spec when I feel it. Who are you?”
“I’m Doctor Serena Llys,” the doctor answered. Her voice carrying an unmistakable warning tone.
“And are you the one I should be looking for?”
The doctor shot him a scornful look. “If I was harming anyone, it wouldn’t be public now, would it?”
Eli felt the gun. He’d only ever felt one other like it. His childhood friend, Dan, had joined up with some hush-hush force and showed it to him. Dan had never come home. Years later his bereft mother had been sent a simple telegram. There was no visit, no phone call, no letter, just an impersonal telegram from a military source that informed her of her worst nightmare.
This gun was an upgraded version, but unmistakably the same make.
“So, what are you here for?”
The doctor looked at Aeron. “She’s too important to leave to villagers and their pitchforks.”
Eli frowned. “You may think you know the people in this town, but they are good people, quiet people—”
“Who hang outsiders from road signs and butcher young girls. Yes, citizenship of the highest regard.”
Eli couldn’t argue with the facts. “Is that why you were run off the road?”
The doctor sighed. “That, I don’t know. In my line of work, the past has a way of ramming you into poles when you least expect it.”
“So, you don’t think it’s the killer?”
“I don’t know. Either way, someone is rattled.”
Eli kept his hand on the gun. “How do I know you are on her side? That you won’t just fire when our backs are turned?”
The doctor’s gaze was steady, calm, unwavering. “You don’t. You don’t know me, assurances are hollow.”
“But?”
The doctor smiled. “I won’t let her come to harm.”
Eli nodded. He had no idea why he was lifted by the doctor’s words but perhaps someone out there was looking after the Lorelei name.
“Does she know?”
The doctor shook her head. “At least I haven’t
told
her. Your daughter sees too much.”
Eli looked at Aeron, who shifted in her sleep. He couldn’t argue with that, not at all.
Chapter 46
I WOKE UP feeling like my head had been removed and tumble dried on high power. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth and my nose was so stuffy that it stung when I breathed. I sneezed and yelped with a side-splitting pain in my ribs. I rubbed like crazy at the spot, feeling like I’d been in a fight with a truck.
“Let me take a look,” I heard Llys say somewhere nearby and peeled my eyelids open. “We need to wash out your eyes.”
My blurry vision made arguing pointless.
Llys ran her hands over my rib cage and the pain shot like a knife through my side again. “Nothing broken, but definitely bruised . . . hang on.”
I waited as Llys clattered around beside me. “Where’s my father?”
“Downstairs in the cellar. He’s trying to budge the flood release lever. Last thing I heard he had resorted to swearing at it.”
I went to sit up, to try and go help, but the room swayed like a pendulum, my stomach swaying with it.
“Lie back down,” Llys said.
“I thought you were the one with a bad head?”
Llys’s warm hand touched my side as she rubbed something gunky onto my ribs. “It’s healing up pretty well, it was only a scratch.”
“Lying to me is a bit pointless, you know.”
Llys chuckled. “Well, unless you want to explain to me and your father how I rose from the dead. Maybe you should go with it.”
“You weren’t
completely
dead,” I protested.
“There’s more than one stage?”
I smiled. “Can I say you were just
mostly
dead?”
Llys laughed. “Not unless you’re looking for a six-fingered man.”
I lay back as Llys checked me over. She found more sore spots than I thought possible.
“Maybe you should try working on yourself,” she said eventually.
“Doesn’t work like that. Other people can. For some reason, I can’t. Like I can’t see nothing about me.”
Llys helped me to sit up a little and began bathing my eyes, the cold damp cotton soothing. I swore that the mud, debris, and wind must have stripped away my eyeballs for the pain I was in.
“You can’t see anything about you?”
I shook my head. “I am not sure if the universe has rules, but one of them seems to be that I can’t have an unfair advantage.”
A cool wet cloth touched my face and I winced, my skin felt on fire too.
“Wind burn,” Llys told me. “Nasty too.”
“Think I must have done somethin’ to my ear too. I can hear all rushing and high-pitched squealing.”
“You haven’t perforated it, so that’s good news, but it’s definitely going to be sore.”
I grunted. “No kidding.”
Llys continued to bathe my face and then she opened up something that smelled like yoghurt.
“Hungry?” I asked.
“I’m going to put it on your face,” she told me.
I wasn’t quite sure how plastering my face in yoghurt would help but she seemed to have more of a clue than I did. I couldn’t say that it was very pleasant having the goop splodged onto my burning skin but after only a few seconds the relief was immense.
“So why can’t you see things that concern you? Surely, there are people who have your . . . er . . . talents . . . that aren’t selfless.”
I shrugged. “I don’t really know anyone else . . . unless you count Mari’s grandmother and Nan . . . but I don’t think it’s a choice.”
“Maybe that’s how you can discern it’s a good gift,” Llys said, her hands now on the leg that had been hit.
“How do you figure that?”
She touched my calf where the log had made contact, and I jumped.
“Sorry,” she mumbled and continued to check it over. “I’m no expert, but if your gifts only allow you to help others, then that seems pretty good to me.”
I wiggled my toes, thankful for the movement. “I’m not really sure if it’s quite that black and white.” I managed to open my eyes a little. “I look at it as we all can receive signals. Maybe its electricity and my brain can decipher it.”
“Like some people can read body language better?” Llys asked.
“Exactly. Maybe it’s just a sense, and genes dictate if that part of you works or not.”
She smiled at me. “So you’re saying that being able to see the future is as normal as rolling your tongue?”
I shrugged. “To me it is. And I can’t see the future. if I had I would have stopped you going to get me clothes. I would have seen the huge twister that nearly got us.”
Llys peeled off my threadbare socks, and dabbed disinfectant onto my feet. “What are you then?”
“A freak?”
She tutted. “You can’t see the future, so I guess that means you aren’t a mystic. Although you did see Yasmin.”
“For all the good it did.”
She sighed. “You tried your best. So, you can’t help yourself, you can’t read everyone, and you can’t control it.”
“Like I said . . . useless.”
Llys shook her head. “You can read the past though, you can see past events and you can see what is happening to people in the present. Right?”
I nodded. “Sounds about right, that’s why I say Empath. I can see most present things and maybe if I really try, the immediate future but mainly if anything is future it’s all in symbols and bizarre pictures—a language I sure as hell can’t read.”
Llys tilted her head. “So you are admitting you
can
see the future?”
“No, I see jumbled crap I don’t understand that
could
happen.”
She gave me a look that said more than her words ever could. She had it figured that I
was
able to see glimpses of the future, I just didn’t want to. Maybe she was right. Maybe I could have predicted a huge funnel would drop from the sky and try to demolish the entire town. I’d felt
something
wasn’t right but so had every animal in the forest.
“Ever thought that you could actually help?”
I tensed, my ribs jarring as I did so. “No, I can’t help. Even if I wanted to help, all I would be doing is fishing for something, and you know how I feel about fishing.”
“Using your gifts isn’t killing fish.”
“Ain’t it?” I asked, feeling sorer the more tightly wound I got. “I’m not just throwing some information around that you will meet a tall dark stranger who will turn your world upside down . . . I’m seeing girls being murdered . . . in detail.”
Llys took my hands and put ointment on them.
“Was there anywhere I didn’t bust up?”
“Nope.”
I groaned. “Some hero I am.”
“You saved my life,” she whispered.
“My
father
saved your life, like he saved mine. All I did was get you muddy.”
I knew that she didn’t believe my protest for one second but she didn’t push anymore. I had preferred it when she had discounted my gifts altogether, that way she felt as unhappy about them as I did. Under no circumstances did I want to use them . . . for anything.
Chapter 47
THE ENTIRE TIME we spent locked up together in the cabin made me so jittery that I didn’t trust myself to speak.
My father had pretty much busied himself the minute he woke, trying to shift the flood lever that would open the flood gates below the cabin to divert the chest-high water into a relief channel that had been built especially for that purpose.
In spite of all I had done to prepare the place, I hadn’t gotten around to opening it and now the mechanism was under water and the already contrary crank had seized up. That meant most of the day, Llys and I were holed up in the storm room with Mrs. Squirrel, who was starting to get cabin fever the same as me. Unlike me, the squirrel wasn’t injured. I’ve never been a great patient but being hurt and stuck in the aftermath of a storm, I could feel the panic from the town. The pulsing worries of people searching through debris flashed into my mind in rapid succession.
“You’ve been quiet,” Llys said after dinner. My father had resumed his lever diving only moments before.
“Tired,” I mumbled as an excuse.
“Tired in general or of the company?”
I looked up at her. “No, my father’s keeping out of the way and you’re never any bother.”
“Did you have another vision?”
I shook my head.
“You know, I may not have a sixth sense but I do have some empathy.”
I smiled. “Eight not six.”
“Eight what?”
“Eight senses, not six.”
Llys counted out her fingers. “Okay, I got five . . . six, you can see the future.”
I frowned but didn’t bother arguing. “I can see your past and present. Six, I can heal you. Seven . . .” I stared at the floor.
“And the eighth?”
I looked at my hands, now a mixture of scabs and red graze marks. “I can do the opposite.”
Llys sipped her coffee quietly, her intense eyes flicking over me. “You can hurt people?”
“Like I said, nothing is intentional.”
“So, how can you hurt? How do you hurt someone?”
I sighed. “Same way I fix you. I displace ailments. They have to go somewhere, so if someone is hurt badly enough and I heal, I wander around with it stored in my hands.”
“Explains the mood,” she answered.
I nodded, what else could I say?
“So how do you get rid of the ailment?”
I looked down at my hands. “It ain’t really like that. It’s not like if I touched you, your head would split open or nothing. But the hurt and damage, like a negative force, is just there.”
“And how do you remove it?”
I wasn’t really sure. That was the problem, the only time I’d ever wandered around after helping someone, I ended up really hurting someone else. I was only eight. One of the girls that had come to Oppidum on vacation fell into the river and broke her arm. I touched her to help and next thing I knew I was passed out on the bank and she was fine, like nothing had happened.
I was pretty happy with myself, thinking I’d done a good thing but then one of the other tourists, an older boy made me angry. I pushed him when he teased me and he was on the floor cradling his leg and screaming.
Lucky for me, the parents who had seen this didn’t believe for a second that the little midget had pushed their son hard enough for his leg to snap in two like a twig. They assumed he’d gotten it caught. He was of the same thinking.
Nan wasn’t.
I’d had my fair share of Nan’s wrath over the years when I’d been up to some kind of mischief. Even though she didn’t speak, her eyes were sharper than a sword.
That time, when I went home and told her, scared out of my wits, she gave me the biggest hiding I’d ever had.
I knew I’d scared her, as unintentional as it was. I learned my lesson. Under no circumstances was I to heal anyone. It wasn’t my place, and people would only get hurt.
“What does Nan say about it?” Llys asked.
I knew I was scowling from the tight feel of my healing skin.
“In her diary, you said she spoke to you. Maybe there’s something in there to help?”
I looked at the trunk. “You think?”
that
good.
Shortstop,You need to wash your hands of the wounds. The river is the best place, good cold water but wait till it’s clear again.Listen to the doc, cos she knows what she’s doin’
. . . and you know it.LoveNan xxxPs. Don’t be so daft—course you can heal yourself, Dimwit.
I laughed, shaking my head at the note. If it wasn’t written out in front of me, I would swear blind that it couldn’t be true. I handed the book to Llys who sat staring at it with wide eyes for the longest time.
“I just . . . how . . . ? My head hurts.”
I nodded. “You’ll have to get used to that when you’re around me.” My chest twinged. I got to my feet, and hobbled over to the railing. “Take your damn tablets!”
My father looked up with a guilty look on his face. “They’re in the truck.”
I looked at Llys who shook her head. “Oh no. Don’t you even think about going in that water. Your wounds will get infected with I don’t know what.”
I sighed. Nan’s warning in my head. “What do we do then, Doc? ’Cause my dear daddy needs to take his medication before he has an attack.”
Llys frowned. “What the hell is he doing in the water then.”
I grabbed her before she hurtled off into the sludge and grime below us. “Relax, Doc. Angina.”
“Can he get out?”
I looked down at my father. “Think you can squeeze through the kitchen window?”
My father looked at the large window, nailed shut, and nodded. “Got a crowbar?”
I sighed. “In the barn.”
Llys fumbled about in the back of the room as I tried to figure out some way to escape my own fort.
I turned to her. She held a metal brace from the old machine. She crawled out of the room onto the landing next to me.
“How ’bout this?” she called.
“That’ll do,” my father said.
Llys dropped the brace down to my father, and we watched him wade over to the kitchen window and start hammering. The swoosh of fresh air hit us seconds later and we stared at the sun streaming through the gap where the window had been.
My chest eased considerably and I nodded to Llys. “Let’s hope he doesn’t just leave us here, huh?”
Llys looked at me. “Would he do that?”
I heard a creaking and cracking and looked at the door. It flung open and the flood water poured in and out as my father waded through it. He had a crowbar in his hand.
A few seconds later the flood gate mechanism opened and the water flowed out, leaving a thick layer of mud and grime.
“I got to go check on the others. You two be okay now?” my father said.
I shrugged, knowing that he was itching to escape. “We’ll be fine. Will your truck start?”
My father laughed. “It’s upside down in the willow tree. Kept my meds dry though.”
“Just keep them on you . . . and go to your appointment.”
He saluted and turned to leave.
“Hey,” I called out, making him turn to me. “Thanks.”
He stood there for a couple of minutes, emotions running across his face like a movie on a screen until finally he nodded. “I’m your father. It’s my job.”
Chapter 48
ELI TOOK NEARLY two hours to walk the few miles to his house from the cabin. Between the utility lines littering the highway, the flood water, and the devastation, it was like negotiating a battlefield. The clean-up crews were out in force, picking through the remaining debris of their homes and possessions. He finally turned onto the block where he lived and stopped and stared at his house. The top floor had been ripped off. Why he’d ever let Iris talk him into building a half-timber house, he didn’t know.
He didn’t even want to think about the phone calls to the insurance company, let alone how to fix the damn place. At least the lower half had stayed solid. “Thank God for bricks and mortar,” he whispered as he opened the door.
He heard Jenny and the girls in the kitchen talking to Skip. They sounded like they’d lost hope. “Sorry, Jenny . . . Eli’s truck . . . we can’t find it and Mrs. O’Reilly said he never got there . . .”
Eli took a deep breath and then stepped around the corner. “I got here soon as I could.”
The girls ran to him and attached themselves to him. Skip laughed with joy but Jenny . . . Jenny was scowling, curled up like a snake ready to strike.
“What the hell happened to you?”
Eli sighed. “Twister nearly landed on my hood, just as I got to the farm, crash. Hell, the thing chased me.”
“Chased you where?”
Eli knew that it would come out eventually. May as well be now. “Cabin. Just got to safety, truck’s in the damn willow.”
Skip whistled. “Hell, that was close. Aeron let you in?”
Eli nodded. Skip was from out of town. He had no clue about Aeron and no judgment either.
“Convenient,” Jenny snapped.
Eli folded his arms, the girls still limpets. “I was at Aeron’s, not a damn strip joint.”
Jenny’s eyes darkened with her anger and Eli felt all the fight leave him. Did she care that someone had tried to run Doctor Llys off the road or that he’d nearly been taken by a twister? Did she care that Aeron had tried to carry the doctor to safety not caring that she was in peril herself?
Did Jenny care that the doctor had died, right in front of his eyes, that somehow, some way, Aeron had helped her come back?
No. Jenny cared about when her next manicure was coming up and what her handicap at the golf club said about her pedigree.
Skip shifted on the balls of his feet.
Eli turned to him. “Got running water anywhere?”
“Mine and Sandra’s has. Hot too. Benefits of being on the other side,” Skip said.
Eli nodded. “Girls, you okay?” He kissed them both on the head. The eldest, Ruth, was just nine and was his girl through and through.
“We’re okay,” she said. “Do you have to go to work?”
Eli smiled, the guilt was nagging at him for leaving but if he stayed, they would just get to see Jenny and him in yet another yelling match. So, he’d run. Like the coward he was.
“Yup, got to make sure everyone is safe and sound.”
Ruth kissed him on the cheek, her younger sister Louise waved a hand in front of her nose.
“And you smell . . . bad,” she said.
Eli nodded. “Real bad.” He went toward her as if to hug her again and she ran and hid behind the still fuming Jenny.
“Come on, Skip. Shower and then I want a full run down on how bad it is.”
Chapter 49
LATER THAT NIGHT I watched Llys fixing the food. I wanted to go help her but I’d been ordered out of the kitchen—well, the cooking area.
“You cook real good for a doc,” I said.
She lifted her eyes from her cooking and smiled. “I’m glad you like it.” She went back to her task, and I rested my hands on my knees and tucked them under my chin.
Llys was so organized, every part of the process timed to perfection. I figured that she’d make a great TV chef. Tons of folks would tune in to watch her.
“Did you enjoy your meal after?” I asked, getting raised eyebrows in response. “Back in the institution. You had a sparkly number on the back of your door.”
Her eyes veiled like I’d said the wrong thing. “I don’t find it easy.” She looked up at me. “Sharing, that is.”
“I only asked about the meal, Doc,” I answered. “I wasn’t going for trade secrets.”
Llys smiled. “Then, no. I didn’t.”
She went back to the food and I watched her, thinking about the dress. It had been a fancy dress, like the ones stars wore when they were on the red carpet. The kind that Yasmin would have dreamed of wearing.
“Why?”
Llys laughed. “I thought you didn’t want trade secrets?”
“We’re stranded after a twister nearly got us,” I answered. “I guess I kinda figured that you would trust me a little more.”
“Touché,” she said, prodding at the food.
“So, you gonna spill it?”
She sighed. “You really want to know?”
I nodded as she stared with intent at the camp stove.
“I was meeting someone for dinner,” she said.
I shot her a “duh.”
She laughed. “But as I’ve just said, I don’t find sharing easy.”
“Then why didn’t you get separate meals?”
She threw a scrap of food at me. “It started off well but someone commented that we would make a great couple.”
I frowned. “I thought you were there with that other doctor. What was her name—?”
“Susan,” Llys answered. “And yes, I was.”
She went back to cooking while I stared at the floor. For some reason what she had told me made her feel on edge. I couldn’t figure out why. “A couple of what?”
She stared at me, looking as confused as I felt. “What?”
I frowned. “Agents, hairdressers, doctors?”
“Aeron, what are you talking about?”
I folded my arms. “You’re the one who didn’t finish your sentence. You said someone thought you and Susan would make a great couple.” I raised my eyebrows. “A couple of?”
“Oh hell, you have no idea, do you?”
“You trying to confuse me on purpose?”
Llys went back to cooking and I could see the feelings whirring around her. She was quiet, deep in thought. So I waited, hoping I’d get where she was going or this could be a long conversation.
“Is there anyone in town who is a little . . . different?” she asked.
“You mean like me?”
“More like two guys or girls who happen to live together.”
“Like me and Nan?”
Llys rolled her eyes. “
Not
related.”
I thought about it, real hard. I could feel her watching me. “No.”
Llys muttered under her breath. “Well, what would you think if there were, don’t you think it would be . . . different?”
“I’d have to know what the hell normal was first.”
She beamed at me with such warmth that I wondered what I’d said to cause it. My head was starting to hurt with the twisting conversation and I just didn’t get it. What did people living together have to do with a cocktail dress?
“Okay, I’m going to be blunt,” she told me.
I nodded, focusing on her gray eyes and bracing myself for the nugget of wisdom she was about to unleash.
“Susan and I were on a date.”
The answer not only flattened my thought process but I was pretty sure that my brain cells up and left for greener pastures. “Huh?”
“A date,” she repeated.
“Like . . . huh?”
Llys’s eyes faltered, her aura dimmed. I knew what it meant all too well. She was afraid, afraid I’d hate her. I tried to collect my remaining intelligence to say something uplifting that would ease her worries and inspire her trust in me. But when I opened my mouth only, “Oh,” came out.
Her aura dimmed even further and I groaned internally.
“You’re freaked out, aren’t you?”
“I ain’t freaked,” I squeaked.
What the hell was wrong with my voice? I cleared my throat, seeing that she was getting upset. I wasn’t freaked out or afraid of her. I was more afraid of saying something dumb—kinda like I had already.
Knowing I had to do something before she thought I was a complete tool, I got up and limped to her.
“I ain’t got a clue about slushy stuff,” I said, taking her hands. “But I know that anybody would be lucky to have you.”
I pulled her into a hug, something I don’t do a lot and if I’m honest, I ain’t all that used to affection but I held on and hoped that she’d get the support from my actions even if my words were as useful as a shovel in an avalanche. And, as I don’t do hugging, I didn’t know how long it was meant to be. After a couple of minutes, I could feel her relax against me, her head resting on my shoulder. I felt a tickle of wet on my neck and realized that she was crying.
“Didn’t mean to hurt you, Doc,” I told her. “I’ve spent most of my life locked in an institution. There’s a lot of things I don’t know.”
She met my eyes and searched them. “I’m not sure why I was getting upset. It’s not like I’m new to this.”
“Maybe it’s ’cause you haven’t been—well, you for a while?”
She shot me a dark look. “You aren’t going to let it lie, are you?”
I shook my head. “Look, Doc. Telling you about my messed up life has gotten me where I am today.”
We both looked around at the damp walls, at my injuries, and the fact we were cooking dinner on a camp stove.
“That didn’t sound as encouraging as I hoped,” I mumbled. “But what I’m trying to say is that it made me feel better.”
“I know.” She smiled. “And you’re right.”
“I am?” I frowned. “About which part?”
“Most of it,” she said with a sigh. “Thing is, Aeron. Sometimes it’s easier to be someone else.”
“You’re kinda preachin’ to the choir there, doc.”
She smiled at me and fussed over the dinner once more. I sat back down but decided that Llys needed to talk, so I’d try and act like I got all the love stuff.
“So Susan wasn’t pretty enough?”
She laughed. “She was fine, just not—well—not my type.”
“You got a type too?” I folded my legs, wincing as my calf ached.
“Yup,” she answered and her aura waved around in pretty colors. I hadn’t a clue what it meant but it was cool.
“Tell me about it,” I said, enjoying the aura light show.
She blushed a little and her aura flickered again. “Athletic, shall we say.”
I frowned. “Susan wasn’t athletic at all.”
She smiled. “I know.”
“Then why did you go out with her?”
“I don’t know.”
Lost again, I sat back, staring at Mrs. Squirrel—who’d poked her head out—for inspiration. “Were you grilling her for information?”
Llys’s wide gray eyes met mine and she swallowed something the wrong way and coughed. “’Scuse me?”
“Well, you didn’t want to date her and she wasn’t your type but you went anyway,” I said. “So I figured you could have been trying to find out something.”
She dished out and shoved my plate of food into my hands. “For someone so naive, that sounded very cynical.”
“So it’s true?”
“No.” She tapped my hand and pointed to my food for me to eat. “I am not, and have never wined and dined anyone for information.”
I chomped on the food as I thought. “Well, if you ever need information off me, just offer to make me this.” I looked down at the delicious goodness. “What is this anyhow?”
“A toasted egg, ham, and cheese sandwich,” she answered. “Or as you so delicately put it once, croque-madame.”
I grinned. “That’s your favorite.”
She mirrored my grin. “Your dad delivered us some fresh eggs, cheeses, and ham from Mrs. O’Reilly while you took a nap.” She looked at her food like it was treasure. “I knew exactly what to do with that.”
“Then,” I said, lifting up my soda can in a toast. “To fine dining.”
She nudged my shoulder and knocked her can to mine. “Fine dining with good company.”
“You’re only saying that ’cause I have muscles.”
With a scowl on her face but a twinkle in her eyes, she shoved my sandwich into my mouth.
Chapter 50
THE SECOND DAY after the storm hit, the river water ran clear. I found being in Llys’s company wasn’t hard at all. We talked about all sorts of small stuff as we sat and rested up our wounds. We talked about anything but the fact she wasn’t who she said she was, the murders of the girls, and my peculiarities. I was finding it hard being cooped up while my wounds healed and I had spent my entire life in a secure institution. Llys looked like she wanted to climb the walls by the end of the day.
“You know, they shouldn’t place you in a cult or a mine on your next job,” I mentioned as Llys paced the room.
She turned and looked at me with fiery eyes. “Cut it out.”
“Why? Who is going to hear us?”
“Just quit it.”
I folded my arms. “You getting mad at me?”
“Yes,” Llys muttered and then sat in a heap on the floor. “Sorry. You’re right. Four walls drive me crazy.”
“Try not to tell the institution that. They’re already looking for who blew the whistle.”
Llys nodded. “No doubt.”
“You think it was them who shunted you?”
She fiddled with the rucksack for a moment. “Not sure, not really. It could be a lot of people.”
“But they don’t know where you are? The people you’ve dealt with before. Do they?”
She opened the bag and pulled out a very sleek, matte black gun. “No, no one even knows my real name.”
I looked down at the gun. “The fact I do is a problem?”
She met my eyes and then looked away. “You don’t know my name . . . it’s buried beneath every layer I have.”
“Renee Black. Colonel Charles Black’s daughter.”
I was half expecting her to shoot me, the look in her eyes spilled out danger. “He got taken by a storm. My brother Matthew was out on the mountains, training. We both wanted to be like him . . . a hero. Neither came home.”
“And Tess?”
She looked up and smiled. “You quoted me the background of my last job. I was Tess, then Tess became Serena’s sister. It’s how I keep track.”
“So, no sisters at all?”
“Nope.”
I got up and pulled some of the new clothes Renee, because that’s how I thought of her now, had bought me—ones we’d managed to wash out and dry from our pipe tower. “Do you get on with your mother? I mean, Serena and Tess didn’t, did they?”
Renee smiled. “I do. I don’t get home to see her a lot and she understands. Her new husband is a nice guy.”
“And the horses?”
“Mom was a champion at dressage. I preferred pretending to be a cowboy.”
I laughed. If I had owned a horse, I would have been exactly the same.
“So you gonna shoot me? ’Cause I need a little help getting out of these rags. The river water made them shrink.”
Renee smiled, got to her feet, and tucked the gun into Nan’s trunk. A fussing and clattering went on as she muttered until she finally pulled out a pair of tailor’s scissors.
“I surrender,” I said, holding up my hands. “I’ll talk.”
Renee shot me a wry smile and snipped the scissors in midair. “Really? Well, now that sounds like an interesting plan.”
I eyed the very sharp scissors. “You are going to use them, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “How else are we going to get any of it off. It’s welded.”
I looked down at my outfit. I looked like a very bad advertisement for a retro castaway and one that had stolen a child’s clothes.
I closed my eyes as she started to snip away. “So, what am I being interrogated about?”
Renee looked up, gripping the now mini jeans, and smiled. “You can start by telling me how you ever thought these were cool.”
Chapter 51
HAVING CLOTHES THAT fit me and shoes which didn’t have holes definitely made my job of checking over the cabin easier. As I expected from the storm, there was some damage—half a tree trunk had made its way through the newly repaired roof but it was nothing we couldn’t fix up ourselves.
Renee helped me to get the tools back out of the shed and we stood looking up at the cabin in the baking sun.
She pointed to the river. “You need to wash your hands.”
I looked at the river and sighed. I knew that Nan was experienced in odd matters but how could the water help?
“Go on,” Renee said, nudging me.
I took off my new shoes and socks and rolled up the work pants that Renee had bought me, happy to find they had ties to make them shorts. As I stepped into the cool river, my mind went back to the stone with numbers on it. Nine-eight-four. Was it code? Why had Renee thrown it in the river?
“You okay in there?” she called, and I shoved my hands in the water.
I felt like an idiot just holding my hands in the gentle current. A crazy idiot and I was sure Nan, wherever she was watching from, was chuckling like a good ’un.
“What does nine-eight-four mean?” I asked, wading around so I could look at Renee.
She looked up at the sky and closed her eyes, muttering. “Nothing.” She tucked her blonde hair behind her ear.
In the institution, Renee’s hair had seemed darker, almost grayish brown, but now it was far lighter and more golden from being out in the sun. I wondered if it was the sun or whether she had been coloring it. I looked at the river water streaming through my fingers. Why the hell did I care what her hair color was? When did I start noticing hair color?
She was a red head when she first used the gun, she had to, it was kill or be killed, even now, all these years later, she can’t forgive herself, she’ll never forgive herself.
I tried to shake off the information, like a scrolling banner on those twenty-four-hour news channels.
How did she know my name was Renee Black? I’ve been dedicated, professional, I get the job done, so how the hell can’t I just fake who I am to her? How much does she know? Could it be possible that she can read my mind? If the boss finds out, it’s over. Then what will I do?
I staggered a little on the rock bed as I stood there. I could see Renee keeping a close eye. Was I hearing her thoughts?
I need to get the job done, hope she won’t push it. Oh crap, is that a storm? I hate storms. Oh snap out of it. You’re not a child, storms aren’t monsters. It’s just a bunch of clouds.
My hands started to throb with the cold but I kept them there. I looked up into the sky, it couldn’t be Renee’s thoughts. There wasn’t a cloud for miles.
What the hell is that truck doing? They’re going to hit, brakes, brakes! No, No, swerve, swerve, I’m going to hit it, have to jump have to . . .
I winced as I felt the impact from the crash, the bank hit, the rock on my head.
Renee scrambled to the river’s edge. “You okay?”
“Stay back,” I told her.
“But you don’t look too good.”
My hands felt numb, the cold much deeper than the water, my eyes watered with the pain from Renee’s memories.
Got to save . . . got . . . to . . . The world drifted and shifted, the edges blurred, the softest glow calling from somewhere so very familiar . . . it’s all right . . . it’s all right . . . so warm and soft, and light . . . warm and soft and—
I lurched forward as my legs gave way, my hands pulsing with pain, like frost bite. I closed my eyes, trying to keep my head above the water.
“Aeron!”
“Stay the hell back!”
I knew if she tried to help, she’d be hurt, badly. My body writhed beneath the agony, burning through every pore. I knew I was drowning, the river sucking the life from me.
“Aeron!”
I could hear my heart in my ears, thudding, the blood screaming for oxygen.
“Rope,” I called. “Rope.”
I felt the loop over my arms and knew Renee was dragging me onto shore. I was shivering like I’d been entombed in ice. My body felt like a thousand knives were slicing the skin from my bones.
“Don’t touch . . . foil . . . don’t,” I called out, hoping Renee would listen.
I was as potent as a live bomb, the faintest touch would trigger something, I didn’t know what, but I knew neither of us would survive it.
“I got the foil. A pillow.”
“Don’t touch . . . let me dry . . . don’t help me till I’m dry.”
Renee nodded, I could see her eyes filled with her fear, her concern.
She sat there watching me as I faded in and out of consciousness, in and out of fitful dreams. She’d been hit by the killer and somehow it had forged a connection in my brain. I could hear the darkness in the thoughts now.
When I regained my senses, Renee was dozing by my side.
“Got something to drink?”
Renee snapped her eyes open as I sat up. “What the hell kind of freaky crap was that?”
I shook my head. I felt like the river had been sucking my soul from me. “I’ve never been so cold in my life.”
Renee looked at the river.
“It’s fine now. It doesn’t hurt nothing living in it, but I’m pretty sure that it would’ve hurt if you’d entered.”
“You looked like you were having a seizure.”
I nodded. “I think I was. I don’t think I’m supposed to heal. Don’t think it’s my place.”
Renee handed me a bottle of water. “From now on we stick to med kits. Got it.”
“Loud and clear,” I muttered.
Considering I felt as if I’d been a blood donor for a herd of vampires for at least an hour, in no time my strength returned and I was good as new.
“Weird,” I muttered as I tested out my side.
“What is?”
I lifted up my t-shirt and searched for the bruise that had covered my entire ribcage.
Renee raised her eyebrows. “Maybe it was healing you too?”
I looked at the river. “That’s how I can heal myself? By nearly drowning? Great.”
Renee smiled. “Just make sure you have a healing buddy with some cowboy skills.”
She runs, it’s too easy, closer, closer, that’s it, walk into the snare . . . walk into it . . . yes! Another one . . . oh, I’ll have fun with you.
I gazed at Renee and looked around. “Another one . . . killer . . . another one.”
Renee pulled out a phone from her jeans. “Where?”
I tried to focus to see the place. “Fields . . . rubble . . . I can’t see . . . there’s too much damage.”
Renee put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. Can you see what the girl looks like?”
I cradled my head, trying to will the flash back into my mind. It was too quick, too much of a pulse. “I can’t. She’s young. She’s younger than the others.”
I felt sick. Whoever the killer was, there was great joy in the suffering, great fun in the chase.
Renee punched a number on the phone. “It’s me. Unsub has another. No location.”
“Chelsea . . . Chelsea Borland,” I whispered.
“Did you get that? I understand. Will do.”
Renee hung up and shrugged. “You want me to explain now?”
I shook my head. “I know you got given an order you ain’t happy with.”
“How so?” she asked, folding her arms.
“Your aura just lit up like a fairground.”
“Oh . . . well, yes. I need to get you into town.”
I looked in the direction of Oppidum, no way did I want to go there. I was probably being blamed for the twister.
“I need people to see you . . . in the town.”
“Why?”
Renee sighed. “Someone has gone over your father’s head. They’ve called in the Feds.”
“How can they? It’s not across state lines, is it?” I asked.
“No, but good as. There was another victim during the storms. Apparently she was staying as a guest of the mayor.”
“And?”
“She’s the daughter of a U.S. senator.”
I hung my head. I was in big trouble. There was no way anyone would take my father’s word as an alibi and Renee couldn’t exactly talk to the Feds. For a start, I didn’t know who she was working for and no doubt they would see through her disguise if I had.
“How will being in town help?”
“If they see you and you’re right about the new victim, you can’t be blamed for taking her.”
I nodded and put my shoes and socks back on. It sounded like a bit of a long shot, but it was better than nothing.
AS WE APPROACHED the middle of town, the track of the twister was pretty darn apparent. Main Street was split between one side getting minimal damage, thatched roofs missing and smashed windows but pretty much still standing. A few buildings on the other side had been obliterated. All I could see was sharp daggers of wood jutting out from warped steel and piles of rubble, like something out of a war movie.
The closer we got, the more I felt it, fear and hate pulsing my way. Folks were hurrying indoors, pulling their kids behind them, glaring from inside. Others grouped in huddles, their dark mutterings too inaudible. But I could feel their words, the venom. It felt like I was walking into a huge invisible wall of ice.
Some of the folks I didn’t even know—they were new to the place, or maybe they’d changed so much since I’d been inside that I didn’t recognize them. Still, that didn’t seem to matter. Gossip spread like a mountain blaze. They knew who I was, even if I didn’t know them and every last person was firing, “You’re not welcome.”
My shoulders were so tense, I felt like they’d touch my ears at any second.
“Murderer,” a young boy shot at me as he walked past.
I turned and gazed at him. He was a kid. How did he know what I was?
“Come on, Tommie,” a woman called.
I looked up and saw a girl I’d known in school. I smiled, and then wished I hadn’t.
“Sick. That’s what you are, sick,” she snarled.
The tiny shred of confidence I’d managed to find with Renee’s support shattered on the hard, cold hate of rejection.
“Keep the hell away from my boy. I swear it. I’ll shoot you myself.”
Renee touched my arm to pull me from the woman’s sharp volley, but I pulled away.
“Why do you think that? Why would I hurt your kid?”
“Aeron,” Renee whispered. “Leave it.”
I walked toward the woman. I couldn’t even remember her name, we’d never talked in school. What right did she have to judge me?
“What makes you think I’ll hurt him?”
The woman pulled her son behind her back. “Stay the hell away. Keep your sickness to yourself.”