Tangled Minds (Society of Exalted Minds Book 1)

by A. M. Mahler

  “Jeremiah told me to ‘keep my ear to the ground.’ But I don’t know what that means. I mean, I do, but in regard to this? Are we supposed to just wander around and listen to people’s thoughts? What would we even be listening for?”

  I sat up and crossed my legs as I wound my wet hair into a bun. I wasn’t going to be winning any beauty pageants, but I didn’t care. We lived together now, and I wanted to be comfortable.

  “Basically, yeah.” I said. “The only way to know that kind of thing is to tune in. It’s invasive, and I don’t like doing it as a general rule, but we don’t have much choice. You need to learn to read more minds, and we need to know where other telepaths are. I think it’s more dangerous for us to stay on our own.”

  Jagger sat up then and leaned back on his hands. “Jeremiah also said something about a colony or something in Maine.”

  “He never mentioned that to me,” I said, cocking my head to the side. Why did my grandfather tell Jagger things and not me? I wished so bad that I could talk to him and get answers. “But Willow said something about us going north, and, well, Maine is north.”

  The privacy curtain flung open then. “Good, you’re not naked,” Willow said standing there. “I made a discovery.”

  “Maybe you could make some noise or something before you do that next time?” Jagger frowned at his sister. “What if one of us was naked?”

  Willow literally waved him off and sat down, producing several license plates from various states and laying them spread out on the bed. “I found these behind the outside TV. There’s also registration to go with each of them. There are addresses associated with the tags in each of the states here. Everything is registered to a Brian McCaffrey, whoever that is.”

  Jagger and I snapped our gazes to each other. “Uh, that’s me,” he said.

  Willow arched a brow at her brother. “Come again? Are you adopted or something, big brother? Because if you are, I’m way jealous.”

  “Brian McCaffrey is an identity Olivia’s grandfather set up for me to get my trust fund money. He gave me a fake license and other identifying paperwork to go with it.” Jagger and I shared a confused look.

  How long has my grandfather been planning this? He must have just been waiting for you to be ready. Jagger shook his head in response to my thought.

  “Whoa, hold up.” Willow stuck a palm out as she looked back and forth between her brother and me. “You two can’t be having mini conversations together in your heads and leaving me out. We’re in this together remember.”

  “We’re just confused,” I said with a furrowed brow. “My grandfather gave Jagger that identity, but clearly he had been using it to set this all up for a while before that. He didn’t give us a lot of answers before he died.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” She asked.

  “Shit, Willow.” Jagger scolded her. “Maybe you could be a little more sensitive.” I’m sorry, baby. She’s an idiot.

  “Sorry.” Willow said, but she still wanted to know the answer to her question. I wasn’t mad at her. Teenagers weren’t always very tactful, myself included.

  “Yes,” I said. “I felt my link to him close a few hours after we left town. He’s gone.” My eyes began to sting, but I pushed my grief back. Jagger reached across the bed and squeezed my hand. It was enough for now. I couldn’t keep my heartbreak at bay forever though. Eventually, the dam would open, and it would be very, very messy.

  The growling of Jagger’s stomach prompted our move from the bedroom. Willow went ahead of us. Once we were standing, Jagger drew me into his arms for a much-needed hug. Letting out a deep breath, I sank into his embrace. Had I known his hugs were this amazing, I would have begged my grandfather to let me tell Jagger who I was sooner. His scent ... there was just nothing else like it. The herbal soap he used made him smell woodsy, but also there was something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on that I was beginning to associate with as home. As he pressed a kiss to the top of my head, I pulled from his energy. It was amazing how he could calm me—even more since we’d been able to touch each other. I needed to start keeping a journal of all the little things we felt change about us since he discovered who I was. If I could really study it, maybe I could find patterns or an evolution, anything that could give us the answers my grandfather denied us. As I stepped away from Jagger, he ran a hand down my arm, just a little reminder that I wasn’t alone and that he was always there for me.

  Willow had started pulling out sandwich fixings from the refrigerator and setting out paper plates. She liked to save on water and tried to limit the number of dishes that needed to be done with each meal. I didn’t disagree with her. After all, we were teenagers, and we didn’t like having to do chores any more than an average teenager. We were slowly starting to get into a routine of who handled what, but a dish washer had yet to reveal themselves. I should claim it, so I didn’t somehow get stuck with bathroom duty.

  In deference to our current location, the window shades were drawn, and the air conditioning was on high. Texas was hot. We were from Colorado and not used to a southern summer. Despite that though, we agreed it would be suspicious if we weren’t ever seen outside our RV—and admittedly, we’d start to go stir crazy—so, once we each fixed up our sandwiches, we grabbed ourselves some drinks and sat outside at the picnic table under the awning. The white canvas rolled off the top of the RV and angled down, blocking the sun above. The really cool thing about the awning was it had a bamboo shade that dropped down in front to shield us from the setting sun, so Willow pulled that down, as well. People would see us outside, but they wouldn’t be able to get a very good look at us.

  As Willow switched on a metal oscillating table fan and lit citronella candles set on various surfaces around the table, Jagger and I scanned the area with our minds to see if anyone was close by that might want to mess with us. Satisfied we were safe for the moment, we settled in for dinner. We didn’t turn on any of the RV’s outside lights because one, bugs; and two, less chance of our faces being seen clearly.

  “I had a few thoughts I wanted to run by you,” Willow began.

  “Go for it,” I said, before looking sideways to Jagger. Stay out of her head as much as you can. I don’t want her to think she’s constantly under surveillance and we know everything she wants to say before she says it. She’s who you can practice blocking with.

  Jagger didn’t answer me, verbally or psychically, but nodded his head quickly as he bit into his giant hoagie. Jagger eats a lot. He doesn’t just go back for seconds. He finishes everything left over—a human garbage disposal.

  “I’d like to head further down south, like to Corpus Christi,” she said, before taking a sip of her soda. “I’d like to get closer to the Mexican border. From there, I could email mom under my real account at a public library and tell her we’re okay and not to worry about us. They will, of course, have the email traced, and the IP address will show up there.”

  “Leading them to think we might be headed to Mexico,” Jagger concluded, setting down his sandwich and picking up his soda.

  Willow nodded. “It might make them focus the search there. We can go into town, send the email, and drive right out again.”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Jagger said. “But it might put us on national news, especially since I’m eighteen and you’re not. It could plaster your picture on every kind of screen coast to coast.”

  “But I don’t look like myself out in public,” she reminded him. “They can put all the pictures they want out. For a little while at least, it might direct them somewhere else, giving us a little breathing room.”

  I took a bite of my sandwich—not the most delicious Italian hoagie I’ve had, but not a bad showing either—and listened to them debate the issue.

  “At the moment though, they have no clue what direction we went. They may even suspect foul play, though I’m sure dad thinks I kidnapped you. Why not keep them guessing? At some point, they’ll probably find my car in that garage in the middle
of nowhere and a search will start of that area. They won’t know what kind of vehicle we left in. Don’t you think our trail is cold?”

  He shoved the last of the sandwich in his face. He literally finished that thing in four big bites. No wonder he was always hungry. He hardly even chewed his food. I was barely a third of the way through my hoagie.

  Willow shrugged and picked up her sandwich. “It might be playing out that way. And he probably totally thinks you kidnapped me, despite the fact I’m sure I was seen running to your car and not being dragged into it. He’s an asshole. So, wouldn’t you want to waste a lot of his time, money, and resources in searching for us somewhere we’ll only have been for about an hour?” She took a bite of her sandwich as Jagger chugged a bit of his soda and let out a belch after it.

  Boys. No shame there.

  “You’re a pig,” Willow said around a mouthful of food. Black pots and kettles came to mind.

  “You’re forgetting something,” Jagger said. “In that scenario, he’d know we can’t get into Mexico because he has our passports.”

  “Well actually, he thinks he has our passports. I’ve got them. Mom got mine out of the safe for me a few months ago and never asked for it back. She didn’t try to hide the combination either, so when I was home alone, I went in and got yours.”

  I really needed to give Willow more credit on her intelligence. I shouldn’t be surprised since Jagger is super smart, but she really put a lot of effort into the details of this.

  Jagger looked over to me. “Do you see anything wrong with this plan?”

  “Not on its face,” I said, picking up my drink and taking a sip. Jagger eyed my sandwich.

  Not a chance. I’m still hungry.

  “I might go make another one.”

  “I do think we should switch out the Colorado plates though, since we have other options.” I said. “If they start searching around there, someone might remember an RV with Colorado plates.”

  Pointing a finger at me, Jagger nodded. “Excellent idea. We should do it at night, but after we leave the RV resort since they took it down when we registered.” I picked my sandwich back up. He eyed me like a dog begging at the human table. When he realized I wasn’t going to fork over the rest of my dinner, he sighed and straightened up. “There is actually something I wanted to talk to you two about. I think we should get a car. We can tow it with the RV.”

  “No,” Willow and I chorused.

  “What if we have to make a quick getaway? We can’t do that in an RV,” he argued.

  “Certainly not towing a car,” Willow said. “As long as we’re not speeding, there’s no reason for a cop to pull us over. Everywhere we go, we have a different face, and now we can switch out license plates. I’m sure this isn’t the only Thor Freedom RV in the country.”

  “A car has to be paid for in cash,” I continued. “And we have to buy a trailer or a tow and figure out how to drag a car. Not to mention, we’re hardly comfortable driving this. Imagine adding a car? That would make us super long. We don’t have decades of driving experience behind us. But maybe we should get bikes. If we’re planted in one spot for an extended period of time, a bike will help us get around to the store or something instead of having to take the RV. We don’t know how long we’ll be living in this or where we’ll even be.”

  “I think we do kind of know,” Willow said thoughtfully. “The license plates, they’re all registered to specific addresses. I wonder if Jeremiah might have wanted us to go to one or any of those places. What if they’re safe houses or something?”

  “What if they’re not?” Jagger said. “That could be dangerous.”

  “Well, we’ll be disguised when we get near one, and you’ll be able to hear their minds, right? If it’s not safe, we’ll just casually keep driving. Jagger, we have no direction right now. While road tripping is fun and all, we need to lay low somewhere. Spending hours on makeup every day just so we can step out of the RV is eventually going to weigh on us. Tell him, Olivia.”

  They both looked over at me. Having finished my sandwich, I rubbed my hands together and clasped them between my thighs. Twilight was beginning to fade, and the fireflies were starting to come out making happy little sparks in the hot, heavy air. A slight breeze wisped along the back of my neck from the opposite direction of the table fan. There wasn’t much we set up outside in case we had to pack up quickly. We had just enough to make it look like we were normal campers—a couple of canvas chairs and some candles.

  “I don’t know what my grandfather intended for us in all of this. I didn’t even know he’d bought this,” I began, gesturing to the mammoth RV we sat next to. “All he ever told me to memorize was the address where the RV was and to grab the cash from his hiding place. I didn’t know he could get a fake ID for Jagger. Why get him one and not me? I just don’t know what he wanted us to do. Both of you could be right. Maybe we’ll find friends at those addresses, maybe we’ll find enemies. It’s more likely they’re just random addresses who have no idea there’s a huge camper registered to them.”

  I looked to Jagger. There was no leader among the three of us, but I wanted it to be him. His popularity in school made him a natural leader there. He was captain of the football and baseball teams. I was in an emotional place right now with the death of my grandfather and Willow was only seventeen. Jagger was the more level-headed one out of the three of us.

  Without delving into my mind, he sensed my need to lean on him for now. His hand slid up my back and into my hair, gently bringing me towards him for a kiss on my temple. I loved when he did that. It made me feel cherished. I still couldn’t believe we were actually together, and he was mine.

  “All right,” he said, looking at me then Willow. “We’ll go to Corpus Christi, send the email, and get the hell out of there. After that, we’ll head to one of those addresses. What states were they?”

  “North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine,” Willow said. “And, of course, Colorado.”

  “Definitely not going back there,” Jagger said. We were all agreed on that. “I guess we’ll start with North Carolina. That’s the closest one.”

  “I’ll look up the address and do some recon,” Willow announced. She was going to be our information girl. With Jagger as the leader and Willow as the researcher, I’m not sure what role that left me, but we had a loose plan for now. Whether or not it was a good one remained to be seen.

  Jagger

  What really sucked about life on the run was not being able to enjoy any of the places you went through. Corpus Christi looked like a fun place to hang out. Although it would likely be swarmed with FBI agents soon, seeing as I took off with a minor. We literally drove to a public library; Willow sent the email—with no disguise—and we left. The library was near a supermarket, so we pulled in there. Willow walked the short distance to the library and back in case there were any outside cameras. We didn’t see any in the supermarket parking lot, so hopefully the RV wouldn’t be on camera. Just in case it was though, we kept the Colorado plates on. We switched them out later at a rest stop in Louisiana, managing to park the RV in between two tractor trailers for cover.

  It took us all day to get to a travel park in New Orleans, and I really wanted to explore the town. NOLA had always been on my bucket list of places to visit. Willow wanted to tour the cemeteries, and Olivia wanted to wander around and check out all the street art. Unfortunately, we weren’t in a position to do any of that.

  The girls waited in the RV—in disguise—while I went inside the little office. “Harley” was behind the counter. Skinny and tall, he wore a red-checkered short sleeve shirt and a trucker hat with the name of the travel park on it. On the wall behind him were t-shirts in various colors with their logo on it. The front of the office was small. The dull eggshell paint on the walls was in dire need of a new coat. Harley stood behind a tall counter with brochures of things to do in the area. The ghost walk looked cool, and I had to remind myself we were only staying for one nigh
t. Behind him, opposite the t-shirts on the wall, was a small television tuned to the national news.

  Imagine my surprise when my face popped up on the screen then followed by Willow’s and Olivia’s faces—our school photos. The volume was down, so I didn’t know what the anchor was saying, but it didn’t matter. I was sure they weren’t reporting to the country about my straight As.

  Pulling out my fake ID, I scanned Harley’s mind while he looked at my face. I was definitely beginning to master this—nothing like visiting Walmart for some head cruising. The guy was genuinely only thinking about his job and the things he needed to get from me to register. He thought I looked like a nice guy and didn’t want to put us near the family with the rowdy, misbehaved kids. He seemed like a pleasant enough fellow. Hopefully, I didn’t have to cause him debilitating pain before trying to do a quick three-point and make a fast getaway in the cruise liner I had sitting outside.

  As Harley entered Brian McCaffrey’s information into his computer, I watched the television screen as it switched to what was probably stock footage of the United States and Mexican border. Dear old dad moved fast. For the moment, Willow’s gamble was paying off. All we needed now was enough time to get far away from there. In two more days, we’d be in North Carolina. We could probably drive through the night switching drivers and get there in one, but it was better that Olivia and I stayed as alert as possible to sense any danger.

  Livvy, we made the news.

  “It was going to happen sooner or later. How bad?”

  The sound on the TV is down. It looks like they’re searching cars at the border.

  “Score one for Willow. Guess we’re sleeping with our faces on tonight.”

  I held my calm demeanor as Harley handed the ID back to me, and I paid in cash. Since it was just under forty dollars a night, it didn’t even look suspicious. Harley gave me a hand-drawn map and pointed out the site he had given me. He apologized because it was near the dumpsters and not a lot of people liked that smell this time of year. Still he just couldn’t in good conscience put us by the Loubatti family as their kids were terrorizing the place. They loved banging on camper doors in the early hours of the morning and then running away, pissing everyone off. But since Mrs. Loubatti was the owner’s cousin, they were all stuck with them.