“It was a drive-by shooting, but Jason saw them coming and protected us. But he hurt his shoulder when the wall he made crashed down on us.”
“Shooting? Where are the bullets?”
“Sorry,” I muttered, grasping the loose dirt at my side and concentrating for a few minutes, pulling up the small chunks of metal that had been buried when I’d filled in the yard. Little bronze pieces began to appear on the surface and I needed to stop.
“You need to stop that,” Hannah chided softly. “You’re exhausted already. Using your powers now won’t help.”
Several sets of sirens were approaching, and I cringed at the noise realizing that I had a pretty bad headache. And I finally noticed that there was frantic tapping coming from inside the house. “Someone needs to tell the kids I’m okay. Their tapping is giving me a migraine.”
I could almost feel the glances being shared over my body. “Fine, I’m not okay, exactly. But it’s nothing life threatening. Just tell them already so they stop tapping!”
“I’ll go,” June said.
Speaking of… “Dan, you told,” I said, opening my eyes to look up at him. “It's my secret, and you told someone I barely know.”
He cringed. “Yeah. Sorry kid, I’m just no good at keeping secrets from my wife. I swear to you that she is the only person I’ve ever told.”
I shrugged my uninjured shoulder and closed my eyes again. “Not like I can get mad. I just kinda gave the whole thing away anyway.”
“It’ll be okay,” Hannah said gently running her fingers through my hair.
Dan knelt near me and started examining my injury. “I don’t think it’s dislocated. I think it’s just a really bad bruise. But I guess we’ll have to wait for the x-ray to be sure. The ambulance is here. Just hold on, kid. And I really am sorry.”
I smiled up at him. “Like I said. I’m not mad. No worries. If I didn’t trust you, do you really think I’d have let the kids go to you? And trusting you means that I trust your judgment. Besides, I guess I really can’t expect you to lie to your wife.” My energy was already beginning to return, but my head still ached and my shoulder just kept a constant throbbing pain.
“They almost got us, Dan,” I whispered. “If I hadn’t looked up and seen the car coming, Hannah and I would have been going into the house and we’d have been shot. It was pure luck that I saw them. My abilities don’t work on vehicles.”
“Maybe not,” Alice said. “But you seem to be getting stronger about both sensing movements and manipulating the earth.”
I stared up at her curiously. “What do you mean?”
“The tapping you were hearing? The kids were on the second floor of the house. You’ve said before that you need to concentrate really hard to feel people moving around in a house above the first floor. You weren’t even concentrating and their movements were giving you a headache. And, from what I’m seeing here, you pulled up a lot of soil. More than you normally do, and you seem to be getting your strength back already.”
“She’s right. Your color is much better and you’re breathing more easily,” Dan said.
“I guess you were right about strengthening your powers,” Hannah said, still smoothing my hair. “How’s your head?”
“Already getting better.”
“Hey,” a new voice interjected. “We need to get to the patient to check him out. Everyone not him needs to move.”
Everyone surrounding me apologized and even Hannah began to move away until I reached back and grabbed her wrist. “Stay,” I whispered. She nodded, settling back down and continuing to run her hand through my hair soothingly as the paramedic began his exam.
FORTY-NINE
Hannah
My body shook with tension as the paramedics got Jason up to check his shoulder. I rubbed my hand over my face wearily; remaining on the ground for several moments after Jason had been taken. “It doesn’t appear to be dislocated,” I overheard one of them say. “But it is badly bruised.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Jason muttered, his jaw was clenched as the medics examined his shoulder. His situation was made even more uncomfortable by the fact that his shirt had been removed to do the exam, exposing the evidence of his abuse the previous fall. “Could you speed this up guys?” he asked. Jason was ignoring the other people standing around, some of whom had gasped and pointed when the scarring was revealed.
“Hannah, we need to do something,” Alice said looking around at the small crowd of people standing around Dan’s house. “Most, if not all, of these people saw what happened. Jason’s abilities have just been exposed.”
“And what exactly do you propose we do about it?” I asked. “We can’t exactly wipe out their memories of it, so how do we change anything at this point?”
“Kindred could do it,” Alice muttered under her breath, glancing angrily at the crowd.
“Great idea, sis. Let the psychopath who’s stalking Jason wipe the memories of all of your partner’s neighbors. Sounds like a wonderful idea.”
“Can the sarcasm, Han. It was just a comment. Of course it would be a terrible idea; I’m just saying he could do it. Based on what we’ve been able to find out, mostly thanks to Jason, he seems to be able to make people see what he wants them to.”
“So who’s to say that he hasn’t been doing that to us this whole time?” I looked up at my sister, suddenly wondering if any of what had happened was real, or if it was just in our minds.
“I don’t think he can use his powers that consistently. We’d eventually notice something. Jason’s confrontation with him in Torsten proves he has limits. He was shaken, and losing his control over his powers.”
That was a relief, but it still left us with the problem of all the people who’d seen Jason use his power. But would they really believe it? People had an amazing ability to rationalize what they saw. Maybe they would convince themselves that they hadn’t seen the giant earth wall rising out of Dan’s yard. Maybe more of the focus would be on the drive-by shooting in their neighborhood.
Right. And maybe pigs would fly.
I just couldn’t believe that people would simply forget the towering wall in the middle of the yard. I looked over at Jason, who was studiously ignoring the strange looks he was getting from everyone, looking either down at the ground or right at the medics who were examining him. They finally finished their exam and handed him a spare T-shirt to use. It didn’t cover all the scars on his arms, but it hid the nasty looking ones on the rest of his torso.
His whole body was trembling, and he cringed in pain as he slid the shirt over his head, immediately grasping his injured arm and holding it protectively at his side. “Take care, buddy,” the younger of the medics said, slamming the doors of the ambulance as they prepared to leave.
“You’re not going to the hospital?” I asked.
He shook his head, still glaring at the ground. “Does someone have a long sleeved shirt he can use?” I asked. “June? Could you grab one of Dan’s button-up shirts?”
She nodded and ran into the house, emerging shortly after with a lightweight dress shirt. “Here,” she held it up, helping Jason get his injured arm into the sleeve. He left it unbuttoned, but glanced at her in gratitude; his whole body relaxing as the last of his scars got covered.
“They said it was just a bad bruise, to rest the arm as much as I could. They gave me a sling to use, but said there was no reason to go to the emergency room. I’ll be fine, Hannah. It was my own fault for not controlling it better.”
Always so ready to take the blame. Someone attacks him, and he believes that the injuries he got during that attack were his own fault. I wanted to smack him sometimes, he was so dense. Either that or go back in time and beat some sense into his father. He hadn’t told me much, but from his father’s actions last fall, it had to be his influence that made Jason so ready to blame himself for injuries.
Sometimes I wished Kindred hadn’t killed Jason’s father, so I could get my hands on him. And then I looked at Ja
son, and realized Kindred had done us a favor by getting rid of the man Jason had feared for his entire life. “It wasn’t your fault,” Alice beat me to saying it. “Any injury to anyone involved in a criminal activity falls on the shoulders of the person or people who are responsible for the crime. This injury—although caused by the use of your powers—would never have happened if you hadn’t been attacked. That makes it their fault.” She waved her arm angrily in a random direction, not knowing exactly which way the attackers had gone.
Jason nodded silently, but I could tell he didn’t truly believe her. “At least no one else was injured.” He looked up at her, suddenly worried. “They weren’t, were they? Did I get the wall up in time to protect them?”
“Jason, everyone is fine,” I said gently. “They’re all just worried about you. You were pretty out of it for a while there.”
With a shrug he responded, “I guess you were right, to a point. I used my abilities on a large scale, and was completely worn out by it. But I’m feeling stronger by the minute. My ability to recuperate is getting better and faster. Which goes along with what I was saying; I’m getting stronger. I should never have been able to raise that kind of a wall so quickly. Something smaller and thinner, yes, but this was at least ten feet high and three feet wide, plus I was still able to harden the outer edge enough to be nearly bullet proof.”
“Not to mention the fact that you were able to clean up the mess left behind. That by itself used to be enough to wear you out a bit. And you were already down at that point,” Alice added.
“Alice is right. How is it possible that you were able to do all that?” I asked. It may or may not be relevant, but I was concerned by the apparent increase in his power.
He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t really remember cleaning up. It just kinda happened.”
Alice had cocked her head to the side, her eyes crinkled in concern. “The last few times something happened that you didn’t remember, Kindred was involved.” I started looking around in panic, despite knowing I wouldn’t see him if he didn’t want me to.
“Is he here now?” I asked in a near whisper, still scanning the crowd.
Alice and June glanced at Jason expectantly, and he knelt with a sigh to feel for the distinctive footsteps. He closed his eyes and cocked his head to the side as if listening for something. His eyes opened but I got the distinct sense that he wasn’t really there with us at the moment. “I was here,” the voice was Jason’s, but the words were not and I found myself backing away fearfully. “As a final favor to the Tracker, no one here will remember what happened.”
“Why? Why are you helping him?” Alice asked stepping closer.
“No matter what he’s done to me now, he still saved me. For that I will always owe him. But I cannot allow him to harm me. The next time we meet will not go well for him.”
“Or you,” Alice said coldly. “If you and he meet again, he will stop you. He’s stronger than you. Now get out of his head.” She was practically growling by the end.
“Very well, Detective. One thing first, a request and I will leave your friend’s mind.”
My sister glared at him, and she wasn’t alone; Dan and June, who were gathered around Jason, also looked upset. “Fine,” she bit out. “What do you want?”
“Find out who I am.”
“Find out who you are? What kind of brainless request is that?” she asked, anxiously shaking Jason’s shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Jason asked with a pain-filled grimace, reaching up to grab his bruised shoulder, which was currently being gripped by Alice.
She let go quickly with a gasp of apology. “It was Kindred,” Jason said before anyone else could tell him. “He was here, but he’s gone now.”
“We know he was here,” June said.
Jason looked confused, so I clarified. “Kindred was here, and he used you like a two-way radio. He said that no one here would remember what you’d done, that it was the final favor he would do for you. And he had a request for Alice,” I said, looking up at my sister.
“What did he want?” he asked, wide-eyed at the thought of once again being used. “Alice, what did he ask you to do?”
FIFTY
Kindred
It had been a spur of the moment decision to check in on the Tracker. The plan had been to check on him the next day, but for some reason I felt the need to go to him immediately. And it was good that I’d done so. I had been able to block his, admittedly frightening, use of power from the minds of those around him, and enter his mind long enough to use some of his ability to clean up afterward. I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to drag enough energy out to clean up otherwise.
Someone else was after him. That much was clear, and was the reason I had started going after the remaining members of Mason’s gang. Despite my anger at the Tracker for going against me and trying to take away my freedom, I still felt the need to protect him. I gave his cop friend a vague warning that he wouldn’t do so well at our next meeting. The request that followed hadn’t been planned.
“Find out who I am.” I wondered if the lady detective could hear in that request how lost I truly was, if she even read enough into it to realize what I meant by my appeal. Or if she’d simply focus on the perceived threat to her friend. That seemed the more likely result, but I figured they’d be looking for my identity anyway so it couldn’t hurt to ask.
My help may have counted for something in her mind. I had saved the Tracker from exposure to the public; there was the slight possibility they would agree to my request in the face of that.
The high from completing my job earlier in the day—and the look of complete shock on the face of my victim as he realized what was happening—had not lasted as long as I’d hoped. The vague memories from my dreams had continued to haunt me, leading up to my decision to check in on the Tracker before I’d originally planned.
And now there was even more to plan. The desire to figure out who was hunting the Tracker filled me, and would be the next job I allowed myself. The money I’d been paid, plus the extra that was in the safe, would be enough to last me quite a while, so I wouldn’t have to take another paying job for several months. Unless I felt the desire to hunt, which was always a possibility. But it seemed less likely with the new task I now faced: finding the Tracker’s new attackers.
There were still some from Mason’s gang that I could contact, including the man who was the most likely replacement for Mason. He would want favors in return for any information he could give me, but he would find that I was less willing to play the same role with him as I played for Mason. I wasn’t exactly in to the whole slavery thing anymore. I would never again allow myself to fall captive to someone who’d use my abilities as they saw fit.
I could only imagine that Mason had caught me off-guard. Because with my powers, there’s no way he should have been able to get the better of me; unless I hadn’t had the same level of ability at the time. With my lack of memory anything was possible.
My first step was going to the office building where one of the higher-ranking members of the gang worked. It was a front business to launder illegally obtained money, but to everyone else it appeared legitimate. I could call, but I’d found that nothing throws people off quite as much as having me magically appear in their normally locked office. That and it was fun for me to see the fear flash through their eyes.
The main building was open for business, but as I suspected the office I needed to get into was locked. One of the skills I was grateful to have learned in my time with Mason was to pick a lock. And no one would ever see me doing it, so I could take my time. Even with that luxury, I liked to push myself to do better each time. The lock on this particular door wasn’t even worth the few seconds it took to pick it. A child could have unlocked it, which made me believe that any sensitive information would not be found in this room. Not that I was looking.
I knew from checking his desk calendar that he was planning to be back in the office by about eight
for an unspecified appointment. That left me with about an hour to kill, so I decided to wander around in search of any hidden files or logbooks. Whatever leverage I could get on the guy would be useful to avoid having to give him anything in return for the information I sought.
Despite my thoughts that there would be no sensitive information in such a poorly locked office, I began my search there. I ignored the computers, knowing the paranoia that ran through the gang about the possibility of getting hacked would prevent them from keeping any criminal logs on them, instead searching the bookshelves and the desk for any hidden compartments or books with false covers. A portion of my concentration went toward sending out a constant ‘there’s no one in here’ vibe, so anyone walking by the office would notice nothing except a locked door. Another portion was on listening for someone unlocking said door to enter the office.
By the time I’d done a thorough search and returned everything to where it belonged, there was a click, and the door opened to reveal the man I’d been waiting for. Oh well. I guess I have to bluff. It’s not like it would be hard to get him to believe I had the stuff anyway.
And if he gave me too hard a time? I’d just kill him.
FIFTY-ONE
Jason
I felt like punching something. The frustration was getting to be too much, and I needed to find some way to let off steam. We had been searching this whole time for some clue to Kindred’s identity, and now he wanted us to find out who he was? I knew he was messed up pretty bad, but did he really not know his own identity? I paced in my room, holding my left arm across my stomach to prevent moving the injured shoulder. Wearing the sling was too constricting, so I would avoid it as much as possible.
True to his word, no one on the entire block said anything about the gigantic earth wall that had appeared and then disappeared within a couple minutes. Kindred helped me again. Why? After our last confrontation he was furious, and I figured he would stop protecting me, and make me pay for making him drop his mask. Sam was going to be staying with Dan and June for the time being. I didn’t want him near me in case something happened again. We wouldn’t be going to their house again, so I hoped the shooters would think the location was a fluke.
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