It was not an empty threat. All my life I’d been ground down, beaten, and treated like property. I would not let it happen again. I felt my lips curl in a predatory smile as the ground outside the tiny police station rumbled in anticipation. This insignificant little man was going to be in for a surprise when he realized I was no longer tied down because of being inside the building.
Unlike at Mason’s warehouse, I no longer feared knocking a building down on top of myself. There was an open window in the hallway near the holding cell—perhaps not the best idea in a jail setting, but that was only my opinion—and outside that window was the earth I was currently maneuvering to help. Before too much longer, this man would be barely a blip on my radar. He’d have realized his mistake, and would be punished for it.
Brayden was studying me closely, trying to keep any worry or fear off his face, but through the ground I could feel something. It was an odd, but rhythmic vibration and it was coming from him. I pushed a bit more energy into the ground, keeping any sign of what I was doing off my face. The earth outside rumbled a little more, and the vibration quickened. He’d heard the earth’s displeasure, and, although he was able to keep the reaction off his face, his heartbeat was not so easily controlled.
“You’re heartbeat is giving you away, Brayden,” I said, feigning serenity. Since when could I feel people’s heartbeats through the ground? And this wasn’t even directly on the ground. My power was normally muffled by hard floors. “You’re scared, and you have every right to be. If you let me go, I will not do to you what I did to Mason,” I promised; my voice light. “But,” I added darkly, “If you insist on holding me hostage, you’ve brought your own doom on yourself.” It sounded a little melodramatic in my mind, but my intent was clear. I would not be his captive.
“You have five seconds to decide,” I informed him, gathering my energy and pushing it down into the earth in preparation. My captor was looking uncooperative at the moment, and I couldn’t count on him actually letting me go. “Five…four…three…”
“You’ll do nothing!” he exclaimed. “Before you killed him, Mason told me your weakness, something I could use to control you.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a stun gun.
“Two…one,” I finished calmly. “You lose.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Hannah
Dustin had been planning to go to a baseball game with some friends, but instead accompanied me to the police station where we showed Alice the note. He wouldn’t let me go by myself. “Kindred is giving us no time limit to get him home. He’s been gone less than a day, and Kindred is already threatening us…threatening you because of it. Unfortunately, unless Jason calls, we don’t know where he is either.” Alice was aggravated, and therefore easily irritated. What was hard to tell was whether she was angry only at Kindred, or if some of that anger was directed at Jason. After all, they had decided only a couple days earlier that running away wouldn’t do any good.
“He needed to clear his head,” I said. “Sam said he thought Jason had too many people’s opinions bouncing around, and he needed to be able to figure out his next step on his own.”
“That Sam is a perceptive kid.” Dustin admired people who could so easily figure out motives in others, and seemed a little surprised by the skill in a twelve-year-old. Alice nodded. She’d had the same thoughts about Sam after the warehouse incident in November.
“So what can we do?” I asked, trying to get back to the current dilemma. “Kindred is threatening me, and there doesn’t seem to be much that he can’t do.”
My sister still seemed angry when she replied. “Do you think he told Sam where he was going? If he knows, he could tell us and save us all the trouble of having to search.”
Dustin dipped his head affirmatively. “I don’t believe Jason would leave his brother without telling him exactly where he’d be, and possibly exactly when he’d be back. Either way, it couldn’t hurt to ask him.”
“I’m supposed to be picking him up from Dan’s house this afternoon.” I glanced at my watch. “He’d have been there about an hour ago already. He does know something at least,” I admitted. “Sam told me that he had promised not to tell, but in this situation, he might.”
“Dan went home a little while ago,” Alice said. “He was going to be coming back in about half an hour. We could just have him bring Sam over when he’s ready.” Alice gave me a look that said she didn’t want to let me out of her sight.
I acknowledged her look with a small smile of thanks. It wasn’t in my plans to get snatched by some whacko today. I had homework to do. “Call him. I’ll stay here with you for now.” I sat on a chair to the side of her desk, and Dustin sat on one in front of it. “You don’t have to stay, Dusty. If you want to, you can get going. You could still make most of the game.”
“I’m staying. If we do find Jason today, I want to talk to him.”
Once his decision was made, I turned my attention back to Alice. “Thanks, Dan. We’ll be here waiting.” She hung up the phone and said, “He’s going to come now. Sam’s there, but Dan said he seemed hesitant to tell us Jason’s plans. Maybe if he sees the note, he’ll be more willing to cooperate.”
Dustin shook his head, “I’m not so sure,” he said cautiously. “He idolizes his big brother, and would do anything to keep him from harm. If he feels Jason is in danger coming home, he may not be willing to share. He cares for Hannah, but his brother is his lifeline and protector.”
“Family first,” I said stoically. We’d just have to wait and see if Sam could stand up to Alice in that battle of wills. No one responded, and we sat in silence for several minutes. Alice was doing paperwork, Dustin sat staring at the desk, and I was watching Alice and chewing my thumbnail nervously.
When Dan and Sam came in about fifteen minutes later, we all looked up expectantly. Alice raised her eyebrow at Dan, who responded with a minute shake of his head. Apparently, he’d not been able to get Sam to talk.
“Sammy,” I said softly to the very stubborn looking boy. “You know your brother. He’d want to make a decision for himself. If you tell us where he is, we’ll go talk to him. We wouldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to do. If he still feels it's best to stay away, that’s his choice. But at least he would know the situation.”
“I promised. He told me because he knew I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he insisted softly.
“You made that promise before you knew if anything bad would happen here. Now, we know that Hannah may be in trouble if we don’t find Jason. Don’t you think that’s something he’d want to know?” Dustin asked, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
Nodding, Sam finally relented. “I’ll tell you, but you promise you won’t make him do anything?” the strong statement turned into a question by the end. He wanted to order us to leave his brother alone, but couldn’t. He waited until we all agreed then said. “He should be in Torsten for today. He was going to get supplies, and then go to the Farm for a couple days.”
We all flinched at that revelation. Why would he go back to that place? “Why?” Dustin asked calmly what we were all wondering. “Sam, why would he go there?”
“I dunno,” he shrugged. “He didn’t say why. He just said that’s where he’d be.”
“Okay,” Alice stood and clapped her hands together to get our attention. “Hannah, you go with Dan back to his house, Dustin too, if you want. Stay together until I come back.”
“You’re going to get him. Are you sure you want to go alone?” The older cop’s question mirrored my own thoughts. I didn’t want my sister alone, any more than she wanted me to be on my own.
“Dan, I’ll be fine. I’m going in order to keep Kindred happy. If he’s watching, he should know that we’re looking to bring Jason back. That should be enough to keep him from doing anything rash. Just keep my sister and the kids safe.”
She waited until we were all in Dan’s car headed toward his house before she left. Maybe she was right. And maybe we
were just delivering Jason into another hellish torture.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Jason
When I’d told him he lost, it took only a second to prove the statement true. I ordered the earth to rush through the window, and it came in with a crash and a roar, breaking the window frame as a large wave of dark earth poured into the building and surrounded Brayden. “This is a trick I normally use for protection,” I informed him as I formed the earth around him and solidified it. “But in your case, I think it will work as a prison.”
The formerly confident man shrieked in terror as the hardened dirt covered him from head to toe. His heart was racing, and I smiled at the ability to instill such panic into my enemy. I ignored the movements of the now conscious cop as I concentrated on the heart rate. After a few minutes the beat slowed, and I realized he was losing consciousness. There were no air holes in the trap, and the lack of oxygen was wearing him down.
“Jason! Or James, or whatever your name is, you need to stop! He’ll die without oxygen!”
“You’re awake,” I stated unnecessarily, still watching Brayden in his prison. “How’s your head?”
The officer ignored the question. “I don’t know what you’re doing, or how you’re doing it, but you need to let him go. Please,” the man was almost begging. “If you were telling me the truth about what happened to you and who you are, then I know you don’t want to kill this man. Let him go.”
I finally turned to acknowledge him. “You know nothing about me,” I said harshly. “You have no idea what I do or do not want to do.”
“I heard some of what he said. It would drive anyone to protect themselves by whatever means necessary. But he committed a crime by assaulting a police officer and wrongfully imprisoning you. I can have him arrested and he will not be able to hurt you. Just let him go.”
“I’m getting there,” I assured him. “His heart beat just slowed enough; I think he’s unconscious now.” I allowed the dirt caked over his face to crack and fall off, revealing Brayden, who now looked pale and lifeless. “See. He’s still alive, but he can’t hurt either of us anymore. Can you get free?” I asked suddenly, glancing at the officer again.
He struggled against the bindings for a few moments. “No, but I may be able to roll the chair and reach something sharp enough to cut the tape. Just give me a few minutes.”
“Sure. But hurry. I really hate being handcuffed, especially when I’m about to pass out.” My voice was weakening, and my vision was beginning to go dark around the edges. This power was temperamental. Despite using it often without side effects, once in a while, it didn’t take much, and I would become exhausted from it. Or it could be the blow to the head I’d received earlier in combination with the use of my power.
“Hey, stay with me! Just lean against the bars and breathe slowly.” I heard him rolling the chair to reach a desk.
I took a few deep breaths, trying to stave off the darkness. “Can’t,” I gasped, sagging against the restraints. I felt the cold cut of the metal and heard the sound of tape tearing and sensed the cop rushing over to me, then nothing.
An undetermined amount of time later I became aware that I was no longer hanging from my wrists outside a jail cell, but was lying on something soft with an ice pack covering the left side of my face. I winced at the cold and sat up, dislodging it from between my head and the back of a couch. “Wha…What happened?” I looked around and didn’t see anything, so I reached down to the floor and sent some power to find out if I was alone. There were two sets of footsteps in the next room, one of which belonged to the cop who’d tried to arrest me. The other was unknown to me, but from the fact that the cop was not panicked, I figured it wasn’t something I needed to worry about.
“He’s back here. I don’t know how bad the head injury is, but I couldn’t rouse him.” The officer had opened the door between the rooms and I leaned back against the arm of the couch wearily when I noticed the man entering behind him was a paramedic.
“I’m good,” I said weakly. “Just need a little time to rest.”
“I dunno, kid. You haven’t seen the size of the bruise on the side of your face,” the officer said, seeming relieved to see me awake.
I reached up, not quite touching the sore area. “He didn’t hit me that hard…”
“Maybe not, but something did. Do you mind if Mike checks you out to make sure you’re okay?”
When I nodded, the medic approached and felt along the bruised area, making me flinch away. “Hold still,” he said calmly. “I just need to feel for any possible fractures, sorry for the pain.”
“No problem.” I worked harder to stay still, and only flinched a tiny bit when he hit a particularly painful spot.
“Well, I can’t feel any obvious breaks but I still need to check your eyes.” He shone a small flashlight into my eyes, causing a spike of agony to shoot through my head. “Responses are a little slow, but they’re the same on both sides. You don’t have a concussion, but I recommend that you get checked out at a hospital and rest a lot over the next few days.”
A brief chuckle escaped and I said, “I’ll do my best, but I can’t really guarantee anything.”
“Do you have anyone we can call?” the paramedic asked.
“He mentioned a detective in the city. We could probably call her.”
I shrugged. My thinking and clearing my head time had already been ruined, so I might as well go back home. “Go ahead.” I told them the number, and the paramedic went out into the main room to make the call. The officer stayed with me.
“What happened to Brayden?” I asked, suddenly curious.
He looked confused for a second. “Oh, that’s his name? He’s fine. Cooling his heels in a holding cell right now. Don’t worry, he’ll be sent to jail before too long. The sheriff is going to be here soon, and he’ll do the formal charging. What I don’t know is how exactly you managed to stop him.”
“Oh, the dirt,” I said. “I can clean that up for you. Unfortunately I can’t do much for the broken window. Sorry about that.”
The other man waved his hand dismissively, while looking around the room at anything but me. “Don’t worry about it. I’m half expecting that none of this actually happened.”
In a half-hearted attempt to hide my secret, I said, “Well, he did hit you pretty hard earlier. Did the paramedic check your head?” I asked, suddenly concerned. He had been injured for no other reason but because he’d been with me. It could have been anyone. Brayden hadn’t been picky; all he wanted was what he thought of as his property: me. I suddenly wished I’d done something a bit more permanent.
“He checked me before you woke up,” he assured me. “I have a pretty hard head. Just a bit of a headache, there’s no concussion.”
“Good, that’s good,” I said, feeling distracted. “I’ll go take care of that dirt now.” And maybe eventually he would begin to believe he’d imagined this whole thing. I paused and glanced back toward the cop, “Did he…” I nodded out at the paramedic.
“He didn’t see anything. I’d moved our attacker out of the cell area for the exam. Go. Clean up the mess.” He seemed oddly okay with the revelation that the man he’d arrested had powers. How was that possible? I filed it away as something to worry about later and set myself to the task at hand.
The cleanup didn’t take too long. I didn’t have to worry about the window, since the entire frame had been torn inward by the rushing dirt. My mouth twitched at the damage done to this well-kept little building and it’s landscaping, and I did what I could to fix at least the landscaping part. The flowers and small trees that had been pulled up by my actions I replanted. Any grass that had been destroyed would have to be replanted, but at least the other plants would survive.
There were random vibrations in the earth, and I paused in my work, realizing the patterns were not random after all. It was the code I’d made up for the kids when we’d been living on the streets. Alice was here, and she was looking for me. And from her
tapped message, she was not happy.
I went back into the small police station with the pessimistic thought: what happened now?
TWENTY-NINE
Kindred
It worked. My shot in the dark plan worked. With the threat to the girl, the lady cop had no choice but to make the Tracker’s brother talk. And now she was leading me right to him. There was a possibility that I wouldn’t have to take drastic action, but I wasn’t going to count on it. He’d already proven that he was capable of dropping everything and leaving, what was to stop him from doing it again?
I followed the detective to the little town of Torsten, and as we drew nearer I was able to more strongly feel the Tracker’s location. By the time we were in the town, I could tell exactly where he was. His mood was different than I was used to sensing from him. He seemed more confident, less scared than he’d been for a while. It was enough to make me pause and reconsider my plans. If he felt better and safer after this excursion, maybe it was for the best that he had run away for a little while.
Maybe I had jumped the gun a little in my threats. After all, he would have come back eventually. His brother was there, as were his friends. There was no reason for him to stay away for good. For now, I’d make sure he was heading home, and then I would continue watching him. If he pulled this again, I wouldn’t be as nice about it. After the threat to the girl, I doubted he’d run again.
The lady cop drove to the center of town, but I pulled away, heading toward where I knew the Tracker was. It was only a few blocks from where I stopped following her that I found him. And from the looks of things, he’d had to use his powers for some reason. The outside of the building was well-manicured, except on one side where it looked like everything had been freshly removed, and there was a window that had broken; it looked like it had broken inward.
Kindred Page 10
