Tangled Minds (Society of Exalted Minds Book 1)

by A. M. Mahler

  I was tired, my girls were tired, and I was sure they wouldn’t want to deal with little assholes any more than I did. Then again, a little headache might keep them in their tent tonight and everyone could get a good night’s rest.

  Wait. Maybe I shouldn’t do that to children. It was probably, like, unethical or something.

  “All we have is our own code of ethics, Jagger. I think at worst it’s just not very nice.”

  Well, I didn’t care about nice, I cared about taking care of my girls.

  I tried not to glance up at the television too much as Harley explained the amenities we would not be availing ourselves of. When he was finished, I thanked him and moved out of the small office as casually as I could. There was no telling if Harley would think I looked at all like the picture on the TV. So far, nobody thought anything of us. Willow made me look like whoever was in the photo on Brian McCaffrey’s driver’s license. His likeness was similar enough to me that it could probably work without the makeup, but why take the chance?

  Just as I was about put my hand on the doorknob to leave, it swung open towards me. I stepped back and a cop stepped in. I froze. The man was all muscles and tattoos. He took up the small space. I did my best not to outwardly react in any way. I scanned his mind to see if he was looking for us and relaxed when I discovered he was here about that disruptive family. I nudged my way by him, and it wasn’t until I was back behind the wheel of the RV that I let out a breath.

  “They’re not here for us,” Olivia said. She reached over and rubbed my shoulder when I briefly touched my forehead to the steering wheel.

  “No,” I agreed. “But after I saw our faces on the television screen, I got freaked out a little.”

  Blowing out a breath, I put the RV into gear and pulled forward. The campground was dark now, so thankfully no one would get a good look at us tonight. This was another pull-through site and directly next to the dumpsters, not just near them. Both my girls curled up their noses as we pulled up. We could smell them inside the RV even with the windows up. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take us too long after we left in the morning to air out our little home.

  Once I pulled us through the so-called site, we all got to work with our set up jobs. I headed outside to hook up the water and electric—and tried not to vomit from the stench. Since we were only staying the one night, Willow wouldn’t be setting up anything outside, so once Olivia had the slide out opened, they set things right inside. Olivia set up our bed, since it folded a bit when the slide out was in and we were traveling, and Willow went to work on digging out dinner.

  I could hear thunder in the distance. We hadn’t had to stay in the RV in inclement weather yet, and I was kind of looking forward to a good storm—curled up in our little nest with Olivia in my arms. The brief encounter with the police had spooked me. I froze before I remembered that not only could I search his thoughts to find out what purpose he was there for, but I could also put him down while we took off. I needed to work on my reactions to others. People that weren’t running from the law, generally speaking didn’t lose their shit when a cop was near them.

  I got inside just as the first drops of rain started to hit the roof. The oven was on for a frozen pizza, and Olivia was tuning the TV into the local news through the account Harley had provided me with in the paperwork. By the time the pizza went in, the thunder and lightning were booming and flashing while the rain pounded overhead. It occurred to me that the campground could lose power, and we would be stuck in the Louisiana heat. I should have Willow check to see if someone made generators for RVs. Maybe we could find a Home Depot or something tomorrow.

  I settled down on the couch, and Olivia crawled and curled her way into my side, stretching out with me. If we weren’t running from unknown forces of evil, this would be a perfect moment.

  No, even with the high stakes of life on the run, it was still a perfect moment.

  “A CROCK POT?”

  Willow stood in front of me with a box that advertised a small pressure cooker-crock pot combination.

  “Wills, how much room do you think is in there? How are we going to fit that?” I mentally ran through the contents of the RV’s cabinets and realized there were some that I had no idea what was in them. For all I knew, we could fit it.

  “It’s not that big out of the box,” she said, dropping it into the shopping cart that was already filling up with various food items. “There is just enough room for it in the cabinet under the table bench. Heat and eat meals are bad for us. We can’t keep eating them. Well, we can, I suppose, but I don’t want to. We should get a small cooler that we can fill with ice to free up the refrigerator from drinks and stuff like that. Then we’d have more room for vegetables and meats. We could have actual meals. This thing cooks frozen chicken in twenty minutes.”

  I furrowed my brow. I was starting to fear that Willow was treating this more like a game or a grand adventure. Then again, neither one of us really had a concept of the danger we were in. Only Olivia, and honestly, she had been really young when she and her grandfather had to move and change their names. Since then no one had tried to come for her—that she knew of. Sometimes I wondered if we were running from anything at all. If I hadn’t been there for Jeremiah’s death, I wouldn’t have seen his desperation. To give up the kind of power he had and hand it over to someone else, there had to be a real danger.

  What could this small kitchen appliance hurt? Especially if Willow was planning on doing the cooking.

  Wait a minute.

  “Since when do you know how to cook?” I demanded. At home, our mother did all the cooking. I had never seen Willow do anything at home. According to dear old dad that was all our mother’s “job.”

  My dad’s such an asshole.

  Willow rolled her eyes so hard at me I was surprised she didn’t sprain a muscle. “Duh. It’s called the internet. I’ve been watching YouTube videos on how to work this and I looked up some recipes to try.” She started pushing the cart with Olivia and I walking along beside her. Olivia continued plucking things off the shelves and dropping them in the cart. “I could put together something in the morning, plug it in, stick it in the sink so it doesn’t fall over when we’re driving, and by the time we get to our next location, dinner is done. A nice home cooked meal at the end of the day. One cannot live off fast food and frozen pizza alone. Back me up, Olivia.”

  “Sounds delicious,” Olivia said. “If you’re willing to take point on preparing dinner in that, I certainly won’t complain.”

  “Outnumbered and out gunned.” I raised my hands up in surrender. “I’m not against it. I’m a hungry man.”

  “I don’t think I ever paid close attention to how much you eat. It’s like you have an extra stomach.”

  I’m a growing boy, baby. It takes lots of energy to look this hot.

  Blushing, she turned away from me and studied the shelves of an aisle we needed nothing in. I didn’t embarrass her exactly, but she did blush prettily.

  It was important to me that romantically, we moved at Olivia’s speed. I wanted her to be fully comfortable with every new step we reached. It would kill me if she had any regrets, and I was in no rush.

  Reaching out, I linked our fingers. Quite frankly, I was surprised to discover we weren’t already holding hands. That was a direct violation of my new always-be-in-physical-contact-with -Olivia-in-some-way policy.

  Suddenly struck with inspiration by something I saw in the store, I grabbed a Carolina Panthers hat off a shelf with my free hand and tossed it in the cart. Brian McCaffrey needed a persona, and I was going to give him one. I needed to come up with a character for him, maybe a different walk, like actors did when preparing for a role. Maybe I could work on an accent. When we got over to menswear in the Walmart we were in, I nudged the cart in that direction.

  “Uh, what are you doing?” Willow asked. “Jagger, you have clothes.”

  “I do, but Brian doesn’t,” I said.

  “Brian? Fake Brian?” Willow
asked. “You know he’s fake, right? You’re not developing schizophrenia or anything, are you?”

  “But he’s not fake,” I replied, thumbing through some flannel shirts on the clearance rack. Does Brian like flannel? Probably. I threw it in the cart. “He’s talking and walking through Walmart. He can’t sound like me. He can’t walk like me. He’s not any good if he does.”

  “Bizarrely, I follow that,” Willow replied. “I think Brian likes those Timberline shit-kicker boots.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like him,” I agreed.

  “This whole conversation turned bizarre,” Olivia muttered, removing the Carolina Panthers hat and tossing in a Clemson hat instead. “And he doesn’t like NFL football. He only follows college football and is a Clemson Tiger. That’s where he went to school.”

  “Where he majored in Agribusiness,” Willow replied.

  I stopped in front of belt buckles and turned to my sister. “The hell?”

  “It’s a thing. Brian is smart,” Willow insisted. “He’s from the rural south and wants to modernize his family’s farm where they grow various kinds of squash.”

  “Maybe.” I cocked my head to the side and considered. “But they also have animals, and Brian actually majored in animal and veterinary sciences because that’s where his talents have always been. He’s considering becoming a large animal vet, but he’s taking a gap year with his fiancé and her best friend for a year before he enrolls.”

  Olivia arched a brow at me. “Fiancé?”

  What, like you weren’t planning on spending the rest of your life with me ... Brian ... me. Wait. I just confused myself.

  “I like who Jagger is. I’ll stick with him.”

  I didn’t go crazy in getting Brian a new wardrobe. I just got one outfit for him to wear when he was out. There was still the issue of limited storage space in the RV, and we’d already picked up a small generator that we could store in the outside compartment.

  “You know,” I said, as Willow turned the cart toward the self-checkout registers. “Livvy, you should also think about another character to be, as well. Yeah, you have the makeup on, but you’re still walking and talking like you. You have the same color eyes as you. It’s something to consider.”

  Olivia began to imagine herself as a blonde. Maybe she’d dress a little crasser and go heavy on the makeup or be a gum chewer. Then she imagined her hair jet black and tattoos on her skin. I flinched. I couldn’t help it. The thought of her changing herself, despite it being my idea, left an unpleasant feeling in my stomach. I loved her just the way she was.

  But Brian would love someone different.

  “Brian loves Jess,” I said softly, as Willow began unloading items from the cart and checking them out. Olivia turned into me and wrapped her arms around my waist, squeezing tightly. “Maybe she does have black hair and a tattoo. She got it during a wild phase. But she’s a country girl at heart and is an award-winning equestrian. She and Brian plan on expanding the stables on their farm to raise horses.”

  Olivia rubbed her cheek on my shirt—hopefully not transferring any makeup off in the process. “That sounds like a nice life. A simple life. Maybe they know how to do that flat foot dancing that’s popular down here.”

  “Of course they do,” I said. “And they won the Jasper County Teen Flat Footing Championship three years running.”

  Her eyes lit with humor and her laugh came straight from her belly. Grabbing my forearms, she pressed a smacking kiss to my lips. For a moment, the worry and sadness in her eyes disappeared, and all it had taken was for us to be other people—to have different lives.

  And that was a depressing thought.

  Olivia

  “Ocracoke Island sits off the coast of North Carolina at the bottom of a chain of islands known as the Outer Banks.” Willow announced.

  We left South Carolina behind and were heading to our first license plate destination. Jagger was driving and Willow was riding shotgun. I was lounging on the couch right behind them seat-belted in and reading what I thought was going to be a trashy romance novel but ended up being quite good. I’d never read one before and was pleasantly surprised that the story was so well-thought out, and it wasn’t all about sex. Why did these have such a bad rap?

  “Most of the island is national seashore, but there’s a small village on one end that looks darling. Also, there’s a campground, and I have a feeling that’s where we’re headed.” Willow continued.

  “I don’t like the idea of an island,” Jagger said. “You said we have to take a ferry. How do you make a fast getaway when you’re driving this thing and you have to wait in line for a ferry? And if this is a vacation hot spot, then how do we know that campground will have a reservation open?”

  “If it doesn’t,” Willow said. “Then we’ll get back on the ferry and leave. There are more campgrounds, but this is pretty remote. There’s a reason why Jeremiah is sending us there. Also, don’t forget my vision was of us on a beach. I’m confident there will be a site available for us. I’ve never been wrong.”

  “We don’t know if he’s sending us anywhere,” I reminded her, adjusting my position on the couch with my book in my hand. “We just haven’t come up with anything else.”

  Jagger was concerned that Willow saw all of this as a vacation. In a way, I think maybe he was right. She was learning more about her visions, and I think she was testing herself to see if they were true. None of us really had a concept of the danger we were in. I didn’t know if anyone got close to us in Colorado and my grandfather never mentioned it. He wouldn’t have wanted to scare me.

  Or maybe he didn’t want to take me away from Jagger. All those years of him telling me to keep my distance from Jagger only to expose me himself and set all these plans into motion.

  There were so many unanswered questions they literally made my head hurt.

  Jagger stopped the RV in the long line to get on the Ferry. We were in Hatteras, and I unbuckled my seatbelt to look around. It was pretty sparse. There were huge houses along the water of varying beachy colors like coral, turquoise, and light green. A strip of beach shops was off to the right, and the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum sat to the left. That sounded interesting. The line for the ferry was long and boring.

  “And now we’re sitting ducks,” Jagger said, raising his hands and gesturing to all the cars and open space around us.

  “In disguise,” Willow reminded him.

  “Scan the area, Jagger,” I said. “You have to get into the habit of doing that when we’re in places like this—especially in places that make you nervous. This is the perfect opportunity for you to be practicing. There’s nobody around that wants to cause us trouble. When you see more cars coming, scan again.”

  He unbuckled his seatbelt before climbing between the seats and back by me. “Willow, let me know if the line starts to move.” Willow rolled her eyes and stuck her face back behind the laptop.

  “I’d rather practice back here with you.”

  Climbing onto the couch, he pulled me into his arms then took my book, marked the page, and tossed it up on the counter. It was cramped back here with the slide outs in. The couch nearly touched the dinette table, but that didn’t matter to Jagger.

  “I’m suspicious of the fact that we haven’t encountered anyone so-called hunting us.” He spoke with me in our minds—his preferred method of communication. Sometimes I wondered if it was rude to do that around Willow—like when people switch to another language to talk about you. Despite that I had to remember that this was what our connection was based on to begin with. “It doesn’t make it real for Willow and I.”

  You want someone to be after us? Do you need a fight?

  “Livvy, as far as you know, no one ever came after you in Colorado. Now, we’re ‘on the run,’ and it feels like no one is chasing us. We left because Jeremiah told us to. But maybe we didn’t actually need to. Maybe we were just swept up in the emotional chaos all of that caused.”

  I thought about what he
said—really thought about it. The impending danger had been hammered into me for as long as I could remember. All the things normal kids got to do growing up that I had wanted to do, but I couldn’t because of the danger. I couldn’t sleep over at friends’ houses, they had to stay at mine. I almost wasn’t allowed to get my driver’s license. My grandfather was concerned about me driving too far away from him and not being able to keep in contact with me—not to mention putting me in a searchable system. He finally relented when I told him if I didn’t know how to drive, how could I get away when there was trouble?

  I just don’t have an answer for that. You were there. He told us to go. He transferred his power to you, Jagger. He wouldn’t have done that if there wasn’t imminent danger.

  “Why wouldn’t he have fought though? He wasn’t sick—according to you. Old, yes; sick, no. He weakened himself and we took off like he asked. He didn’t need to do that. He could have fought. He had the perfect opportunity to show me how that talent worked, to warn me that he planned on giving it to me, instead he checked out. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  He slid his hand around my waist and pulled me closer to him. I rested my head on his outstretched arm and brought my hand up to his chest.

  So, what are you saying? You want to go back?

  “Well, we can’t now. We’ll probably be arrested for kidnapping a minor and taking her across state lines. At the very least, we know we’re hiding from the Alpine Valley police. But as far as anyone else goes, any government group or other secret agency, we really don’t have any proof of that.”

  You were just saying that you thought we were sitting ducks on the ferry line.

  “Well, yeah. We’re about to come face-to-face with the Coast Guard.”