Forgotten

by Jessica Carbine

  “All of that was real. I didn’t want to influence much, but I couldn’t afford to lose the poker game. Of course, I shouldn’t have played at all. And the girls. Well, that was the real reason we went to the party. You only knew me as a friendless nobody, and I wanted you to see that I did, in fact, have friends.”

  “Pretty good friends by the look of it.”

  Halle laughed. “Don’t worry, he’s never cheated on you. I’d make him suffer if he did.”

  “She would, too,” Kyler said, then he pointed out the window. “See those lights? That’s Las Cruces.”

  “Finally! I’m starving! I can’t wait to have you back, Cass! I mean, you’re back now, but I really want you to remember me. We were practically closer than you and Kyler!” Halle chirped cheerfully from the back. “Honestly, things will be much more fun around here when we can actually do things! And now we know we can fly or move anything we want with impunity!”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Hal. We need to make sure this is permanent,” Kyler scolded.

  “Killjoy,” Halle murmured quietly.

  Cassie smiled. The lights were getting closer. “Is there a size limit on what you can move?”

  “I don’t know. It depends. It’s like… moving it with your mind. It’s not like you wish it would move and it just does. You imagine it moving, and force it to move with your will. The bigger it is, the harder it is,” Kyler answered.

  “Speak for yourself! Just because you don’t have the concentration! I can lift a car,” Halle teasingly bragged.

  “A car, yes, I thought she was talking about real weight, like a house!”

  Cassie laughed. “A house? That’s gotta be impossible.”

  “Yeah, maybe a little much,” He admitted, laughing too. Everyone’s mood was more positive.

  “So, when my memory comes back, there’s just the one surprise you’re not telling me about?” Cassie asked them both.

  “Well…”

  “Maybe two. But I think you’ll like it,” Halle gushed.

  “I’d say more than two. It’s your whole life up to six years ago that you’re missing. There are bound to be quite a few unexpected memories,” Kyler pointed out, and for some reason, he was blushing.

  Shortly thereafter, seated in a booth at an all-night breakfast diner, Cassie watched them show off a little.

  Cassie wanted to call her mom immediately, but they convinced her that it would be better to do it right before they left the city. She was more inclined to agree with them because of her previous capture, which was taking on a dreamlike quality. Her days had been so stagnant that they all meshed together and felt imaginary.

  “What do you want, Cass?” Kyler asked, interrupting her reverie. The waitress was there.

  “Sorry. I’ll get the strawberry French toast. Over-medium eggs, hash browns and one sausage,” She ordered quickly.

  “I don’t think you could do it,” Halle accused Kyler.

  “Seriously? The truck?” He rolled his eyes.

  “What’d I miss?” Cassie asked.

  “Oh, Kyler thinks he can lift that truck with only three seconds concentration.”

  “Kyler?” Cassie prodded him.

  “You couldn’t?” Kyler asked Halle.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s been so long since we’ve practiced, I think it would take me longer,” Hal defended.

  “That’s why I’d need the three seconds,” Kyler smiled.

  “Prove it!” Halle said.

  “Here? I can’t!”

  “Why not?” Cassie asked eagerly.

  Kyler thought for a moment. Most of his old reasons were gone. “I guess just because we don’t want it to be seen.”

  “Oh come on! No one would believe what they saw, nor connect it to us,” Halle answered. “It’s the middle of the night, everyone here is exhausted!”

  “You’re all talk.” Cassie jabbed him in the rib with her elbow. “Besides, Halle said you could make everyone see something but one person. Could you make everyone in the area see the truck as it is, and only Halle and me see it rise?”

  “And no cheating! I’ll be able to tell if you’re just making it look like it’s rising,” Halle told him.

  “That’s a lot more to ask than just lifting the car. But I’ll try.”

  “Yay!” Cassie clapped her hands together.

  “No starting until I say!” Halle ordered. “Ready?”

  “Any time,” He said with affected laziness.

  “Well in that case,” Cassie cut in, “Let’s wait until you’re not expecting it.”

  “Ooo, good idea!” Halle said.

  “So where are we headed?” Cassie changed the subject.

  “We need to find a place to lay low and plan,” Kyler answered. “It doesn’t matter where, not with their scanner down.”

  “How do you guys live? I mean, you don’t work.”

  Halle laughed, “That’s one of those things where we bend the morality rules just a bit. Kyler’s really good at poker and blackjack.”

  “I don’t actually break any rules!” Kyler protested. “They just incorrectly assume I’ve won.”

  “Okay, well how about Australia, then?” Halle challenged, then explained to Cassie. “We went there a couple years ago, to try to replenish our dwindling funds. We thought it was far enough to not be found.”

  “It did take them a while to find us there.”

  “But that doesn’t justify roulette or craps! You totally cheat.”

  “So you just change the number the ball lands on?” Cassie asked feeling a little overwhelmed.

  “Yeah,” Kyler said, slightly abashed. “Roulette and craps are the safest. With poker or blackjack, you need to do a blanket cover and hope the people monitoring the cameras are close enough to be fooled. But roulette! You bet where the little ball will land… and it does!”

  “But don’t you have to be careful with poker? What if someone else has the hand you’ve given yourself?” Cassie wondered.

  “That’s why Kyler does it. You can’t just change the cards in people’s hands, you have to change the cards they’re drawing, and you need to keep it all the same unless you want to mess with their heads as well as sight. It gets complicated. I’m terrible at it. But Kyler manages to keep it all straight somehow.”

  They quieted when the waitress brought their food.

  “Thanks!” Halle said grinning.

  “Your problem is you don’t do it as a blanket cover,” Kyler explained when they were alone again. “You try to change each individual’s perspective. Halle’s strength is in what she can do to one or two people at a time. You need the influence to lay on everyone in the room, not just the one who can see the card. And then, if it’s not a private game you’ll need to stretch out the influence to include security.”

  “So how far can you ‘stretch the influence’?” Cassie asked, a little awed.

  “With poker, only about fifty yards in every direction. Poker’s just very complex, but with something easier, I can do maybe half a mile. I think it depends on my motivation.”

  Halle smiled, “Whereas I think my best is about 200 yards. At least, for a blanket cover. If it’s just one or two, I can probably move out farther.”

  Cassie laughed at the craziness of it.

  “It’s not as powerful as it seems. We can’t keep it going indefinitely. Far from it. If we’re tired, we can’t do it long at all. The longest I’ve done a long-range blanket cover was an hour, and that was much simpler,” Kyler said.

  “And it becomes harder depending on what you’re trying to change. If we do something implausible, it takes a lot more effort. Poker is easy. They expect to see cards, you’re just changing the symbols. But when you’re being chased by ten men with guns, their brains are going to push back on the ideas you give them. It’s a lot harder. It’s easiest to go with what people already believe,” Halle said, animatedly. “But just one person. We can make one person believe just about a
nything.”

  “You mean you can,” Kyler said. “I’m best with sticking with what people expect to see, or as plausible as possible.”

  “Which makes covering up strange things pretty easy. Or being invisible,” Halle said.

  “So how did you send me the dream without setting off their scanner?” Cassie asked.

  “I don’t know. I assumed it did set it off. Did it not? Every time I sent it, I was on the move the whole time, staying on the edge of my range,” Kyler said.

  “And as soon as he finished, we were back to our hideout,” Halle said.

  “I’m sure they would have noticed. They would have been scanning the entire area. General Ramford was pretty sure you’d come for me,” Cassie told them.

  “Huh. Maybe it uses different brainwaves somehow?” Kyler asked.

  “We really don’t know much about the science of it all. My dad didn’t leave any of that information behind,” Halle said. “So how did Uncle George treat you, Cassie?”

  “Well there was no overt torture. Except for Lieutenant Berg,” Cassie said. Her dislike of Diana had not faded.

  Kyler turned red. And Halle laughed.

  “You know her, don’t you?” Cassie accused.

  “I did,” he said, and then tried to change the subject. “Ramford is obsessed, but not crazy enough to starve you or anything.”

  “Did you date?” Cassie asked, refusing to be diverted.

  “Yes,” Halle said, laughing. “I never did like her.”

  “Well I did,” Kyler defended. “But when I left the base, I left her, too. She probably barely remembers me.”

  “Oh no, she remembers,” Cassie assured him. “And she’s definitely still bitter.”

  Remembering Diana’s testiness, Cassie laughed. It made sense now. Then suddenly, she froze. The salt shaker on the table was floating an inch and a half above its place. As she looked at it, it slammed back down.

  “That’s cheating!” Halle accused.

  “What?” He answered too innocently.

  “You’re practicing!”

  “With a salt shaker? Come on, that doesn’t even compare!”

  “Yeah, but you’re keeping your mind on it. It makes it easier!” Halle said.

  “Wow,” Cassie said. It was so unreal. And they were so casual about it.

  “Sorry, Cassie.” Kyler put his hand on her leg under the table, worried he was scaring her.

  “No, it’s fine,” She paused, then turned to him suddenly grinning. “Do it now! Move the truck!”

  All three turned out the window to watch a large red pickup rise about half a foot in the air and then drop back down. A group of customer’s walking toward the entrance completely ignored the phenomenon.

  “Whoa,” Cassie breathed.

  “Okay, I’m impressed,” Hal conceded reluctantly.

  Cassie spent the meal watching them move things, or watching others in the restaurant swat at invisible flies. They were loving their freedom.

  “You ever done anything really fun with it?” Cassie asked, feeling somewhat envious. She felt quite ordinary with these two.

  Kyler laughed. “I don’t know, I think making Craig sign up for the army was pretty fun.”

  Cassie laughed, “Not really?”

  “Yeah. It was great, because he’d signed. So the next day he didn’t know what he’d been thinking but it didn’t change anything, he was obligated.”

  Halle looked concerned. “Kyler! You can’t do things like that! It’s completely taking away his freedom! I swear, Cassie, we don’t do that.”

  “You would have done it, too, Hal. In fact, I think he’s lucky I didn’t do something worse. I considered getting him locked into the sex slave trade in Cleveland. But I thought that might be going a little far since he didn’t actually do anything.”

  Cassie was red; she didn’t want to have to tell this story in front of Kyler. Though, apparently, she already had back in her dorm room with Jenna. “I’ll tell you about it later, Halle. But how did you manage it, Kyler? This is different than changing perspective.”

  “Radically different, and extremely difficult. I could only control him for about an hour. But that’s all it took, then I convinced him to go to bed,” Kyler said, unremorsefully.

  “We can’t influence more than one person at a time, and it’s something we do very rarely, so we haven’t gotten any better at it. I imagine you couldn’t do anything else for a while afterward?” Halle asked her brother.

  “I was wiped out the next day,” Kyler agreed.

  They both seemed intent on pointing out their limitations, and they kept looking at Cassie like she was going to flip out.

  “I’m fine, guys. Anything else amazing you can do?”

  “I’d say the flying,” Halle said. Kyler nodded vigorously.

  “Flying?” Cassie asked.

  “Yeah! It was the first thing I learned to do, once I realized I could move objects,” Kyler told her.

  Halle explained, “We can move anything, including ourselves. So when we’re alone, it’s pretty fun to just… float. But we haven’t done any of that stuff in years.”

  “Wow,” Cassie said again. “I’d really like to try that.”

  Halle looked at Kyler and grinned. “Oh, you probably will sometime.”

  “We’ll definitely make you fly. Soon. You ready to call your mom?” Kyler asked, rifling through his wallet for money, which he left on the table.

  Is he deliberately avoiding eye contact with Halle? Cassie wondered, but all she said was, “Sure, I’m done.”

  “Okay, Halle and I will wait on either side of you. We’re going to blanket ourselves from everyone who might be able to see us, don’t let it freak you out. We’re right there. Just in case they are already tracking her phone, we need to be able to protect you.”

  Once at the phones, he disappeared. He squeezed her hand, then let go. But she could tell he was still close. She could feel his warmth standing right next to her.

  Apprehensive, Cassie dialed. She didn’t really know where to start. How to ask her mom if she’d been lying to her for six years….

  “Hello?” Her mother’s sleepy voice answered. It was about 3:00 am.

  “Mom?”

  “Cassie!” Instantly her mom’s voice changed. “Cassie, are you alright?”

  “I’m fine, Mom, I promise.”

  “Where are you? Did you get away from him?” She asked, tears in her voice.

  “Mom, listen to me, please. I need to explain everything to you, but I have very little time.”

  The only response she got was a haggard inward breath.

  “Kyler did not kidnap me, Mom. I went with him freely. I know that the police believe that he is dangerous, but it’s not true. Someone else is after him, and they caught me. That's why I haven’t been able to call you. Kyler is the one who saved me.”

  “But who would do that? Why didn’t Kyler call the police?”

  “Because they thought it was him. And because—well it’s a long story, I don’t have time to tell you everything right now. I just wanted you to know I was safe.”

  “Where are you? Are you coming home?”

  “I can’t, Mom. That’s the first place they’ll look for me. I’ll call you as often as I can, and we’ll figure out how we can see you soon. But for now, I have to get away. I just need you to do two things for me.”

  “What?” She was obviously crying.

  “Well three, actually. First of all, don’t worry too much about me. I’m safe, and I’m very happy. I love Kyler.” She tried to insert as much earnestness into this as possible, hoping to comfort her mom.

  “And you’ll keep calling? When? Tomorrow?”

  “I’m sorry, but probably not. I need to get onto a phone that they can’t trace. I imagine they’ll be at your house tomorrow to get things set up again. That’s the other favor I need from you. Don’t trust anyone who comes to you telling you Kyler is evil and that he's holding me against my will.
It’s simply not true. I don’t care if they’re a five-star general! Okay, mom?”

  “Okay, but when will you call again?” Her mom harped on this. She desperately needed reassurance that Cassie would call again.

  “No later than next week. And I’ll tell you more then.”

  “Okay.” Sniffles.

  “Mom, really, I haven’t been this happy since Dad died. You shouldn’t be worried; you should be thrilled for me.” How do I do this? She wondered. How do I ask if everything she ever told me was a lie?

  “Really? You’re not just saying what he’s making you?”

  “Would I say that if I was being forced?”

  “No, I guess not.” She sounded a little more cheerful.

  “Which brings me to the other reason I called.” Cassie made her decision. She’d ask her mom about it like it was true. Because she did believe it, she just needed this one final piece of evidence. “I’ve found my past.”

  She heard a sharp intake of breath. “What?”

  “All of it. But you. You’re the part that confuses me. You and Dad.”

  “Cass, you remember? You know—”

  “Some of it. But not all. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why you and Dad would have acted like you were my parents. You found a sixteen-year-old girl unconscious in a car, and you adopt her, pass her off as fifteen, and quickly move from the area? Didn’t you wonder where my parents were?”

  Her mom’s tears had stopped, but she didn’t sound any less wretched. “It was our biggest worry. That your dad would find you.”

  “Why?” Cassie asked, confused.

  “We looked up your last name. Your real father, Christopher Pine, was a wanted criminal. Dad worked for the police station at the time, and I worked for the hospital. When you were brought in you were pretty beaten up.”

  Kyler whispered in her ear, he was obviously listening. It made her jump. “We’d almost been discovered just a few days earlier… it was rough going.”

  “Bruises everywhere,” her mom was saying. “So your dad looked you up. You weren’t listed, but your real father was. He was a known violent alcoholic. He was suspected of killing his wife earlier in the week and the police were looking for him. His teenage daughter was missing. There was no information about her in the system. She’d been homeschooled by her mother, but when the wife’s body was found, the daughter was nowhere. It was obvious that he had kidnapped you and was driving who knows where when he got in a crash and deserted you. We were afraid that if he found out where you were, he’d come back for you.”