by S. H. Kolee
The tension that had wracked my body dissipated at the thought of not having to live in constant fear of my father jumping out from every corner to attack. It made me almost weak with relief.
Simon didn’t seem equally assuaged by Ryan’s reassurances. “But what if you’re wrong? We could be lulled into a false sense of safety by believing you’ll be able to sense when Caitlin’s father is near, only to be taken by surprise if you’re wrong.”
Ryan studied Simon with narrowed eyes for a few moments before responding. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. I know what I’m doing and I’m rarely wrong.”
I interrupted their staring match, trying to get the conversation back on track. “Do you feel any other vardogers nearby?”
Ryan didn’t answer right away as he continued to glare at Simon, who was returning the look with the same ferocity. The tension in the room was so thick that it was almost stifling, but Ryan finally broke the gaze as his eyes flicked back to me.
“No, at least not any vardogers that have overtaken bodies. Have you had any visions recently?”
I shook my head. “No, and it’s frustrating me. I’ve been completely blank since we left Connecticut. No visions, no dreams. That’s why I think I should try to be hypnotized.”
“Caitlin, I already said that was too dangerous. You’ve already been put under hypnosis more times than any other seer I’ve ever heard of. Your body can’t handle the kind of stress that comes along with it.” Simon was frowning as he spoke, but before I could object Ryan chimed in.
“He’s right. Marie told me about the number of times you’ve been put under. It’s too dangerous, at least for now. It takes a serious toll on your body and you need time to recuperate. Besides, it usually takes at least three seers to be able to put someone under hypnosis.”
I threw my hands up in exasperation. “So what are we supposed to do? I can’t just sit around anymore and wait for something to happen! Maybe we should go south to try to find my father. You said you lost track of him after Delaware. We could start there.”
Ryan leaned forward, his gaze sympathetic as his eyes locked with mine. “I can only imagine how hard all of this has been for you. From everything Marie has told me, I’m amazed that you’re still standing with everything you’ve been through; still fighting. It just shows how unbelievably strong you are. But we need to figure out what your father’s plan is before we start tracking him again. The worst thing we can do is to do what he expects. And he expects us to follow him.”
I was surprised by how much Ryan’s words affected me. I felt a warm flush at his words of admiration. They meant a lot since it was coming from a fellow seer, someone who understood what it meant to be different from everyone else.
“How do we figure out my father’s plan without putting me under hypnosis?” I asked. “Even though it’s not a guarantee of finding out the answer, it’s better than nothing.”
“Your father will come here once he realizes that you’re not falling into his trap. And you’ll be ready for him.”
I looked at Ryan skeptically. “How will I be ready for him?”
“By killing vardogers while we wait for him. The more vardogers you kill, the stronger you’ll become. The stronger you become, the more prepared you’ll be to fight your father.”
“But I need to have visions to see who’s at risk of being overtaken,” I said in frustration. “I have no idea when I’ll start having them again.”
“I’m sure they’ll return soon. Your mind is probably blocking them because of all the trauma you’ve been through. But in the meantime, we can work off my visions. I’m sure you’ve realized that for a seer as strong as you, you have the ability to destroy vardogers beyond your own visions.”
Simon broke into the conversation before I could respond. I was surprised that I had forgotten his presence for a few moments because I was completely absorbed by Ryan. I had missed the growing tension in Simon’s body, but I didn’t miss how his voice vibrated with anger when he spoke.
“This isn’t a game,” he bit out, his fists clenching in his lap. “Caitlin is in danger and she doesn’t need to go out playing Buffy the Vampire Slayer by hunting vardogers. I’m trying to keep her safe, not actively putting her in harm’s way.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened as he looked at Simon challengingly. “You’re not helping her by keeping her hidden away. She’s no shrinking violet. She’s a seer, and an incredibly powerful one at that. She needs to learn to hone her skills, and she can only do that by using them. You want to keep her safe? Then give her the ability to protect herself.” Ryan’s eyes narrowed as he continued to speak. “Or are you afraid of her becoming stronger? Are you afraid of her seeing you for what you really are? A killer.”
Simon shot up, and before I realized what was happening, he had hauled Ryan up off the couch by his collar. “I’ll destroy you before I let you come between us,” he bit out viciously. “Maybe I should kill you now, to get it over with.”
Instead of cowering, Ryan smirked and met his gaze with no fear. “I figured you’d resort to your true nature sooner or later. I just didn’t realize how soon it would be.”
I felt glued to my chair as I stared at them; seer and vardoger facing off. Natural enemies that were balking at the circumstances forcing them to work together. I had the thought to rush over to try to calm Simon down, to reason with him to take his hands off Ryan, but I remained seated. I couldn’t always be there to diffuse every situation and they needed to come to terms with each other on their own. Besides, I didn’t believe Simon would actually hurt Ryan just because he made him angry. I heard a whisper in the back of my mind that maybe that belief made me a fool, but I squelched the thought as soon as I had it.
Grant and Sarah were also silent as they watched Ryan and Simon face off. Grant looked tense while Sarah looked absolutely frightened, her face ashen and her eyes wide with fear. I knew she still didn’t trust Simon, and she watched as if she expected Simon to tear into Ryan.
Seconds seemed like minutes until Simon finally released his grip and stepped back, his eyes glittering with repressed emotion. “That’s what you want. You want her to see me as an animal. Inhuman. You’re going to have to work harder than that for me to lose it. But I won’t let you put Caitlin in danger.”
“He’s right, Simon.”
Simon turned towards me, and I could see the look of betrayal in his eyes for siding with Ryan. I knew he wanted to protect me, but that’s the last thing I needed right now.
“I need to get stronger to defeat my father. I need to use the time he’s unwittingly given me to strengthen my powers.” I gentled my voice before continuing. “And I’m a seer. This is my calling, what I’m meant to do. I can’t deny it. I don’t want to deny it.”
Simon’s expression darkened. “There’s a difference between pursuing vardogers you’ve seen in your own visions and going after the ones Ryan sees in his. That’s his goddamn calling, not yours.”
I stood and walked over to him, placing a hand on his arm. “Please don’t fight me on this. I need your help. I need you to be on my side.”
An expression of hurt flashed across his face. “I am on your side. I didn’t think you doubted that.”
I sighed heavily, the desire to soothe his hurt battling with the need to stake my independence. “I don’t doubt it. I know you’re just trying to protect me, but I need more than that right now. I need you to believe that I know what I’m doing.”
I wasn’t even sure if I believed I knew what I was doing, and Simon seemed like he was going to argue, but then his shoulders slumped in defeat. “I do believe in you. I’ll support this, but the second I think it’s becoming too dangerous, I’m pulling you out.”
His acceptance was more than I had hoped for, so I just nodded despite bristling at his attitude that he thought he had the right to dictate when it became too dangerous. I turned to Ryan who had been watching our exchange with an unreadable expression.
“I gue
ss now we just have to wait for one of us to have a vision,” I said.
“I already had one last night of a person being killed by their vardoger.” Ryan looked down at the couch and straight at Grant. “It was of him.”
Chapter Four
Sarah gasped and clutched Grant’s hand, her face turning even more ashen. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach as I followed Ryan’s gaze to Grant. Grant looked like he was in a state of shock. Even Simon seemed taken aback by Ryan’s revelation.
“It can’t be!” Sarah cried out. “You must be mistaken!”
Ryan’s expression was grim when he spoke. “I’m sorry, but I’m not mistaken. I clearly saw him in my vision last night.”
I spoke before Ryan could describe what he had seen. “Are you sure you’re ready to hear this?” I asked them. Grant was still frozen and Sarah was trembling with fear. I wasn’t sure if they could take the grisly details of whatever Ryan was about to tell us. Despite her distress, Sarah straightened with a determined look on her face.
“I’m sure. Burying our heads in the sand isn’t going to help matters,” she said resolutely. “We need to know everything.”
Grant nodded stiffly in agreement, and I cast him a worried look, but his jaw tightened resolutely when he saw my gaze on him.
Ryan glanced at me questioningly and I indicated for him to continue. Sarah was right. Not knowing the truth wouldn’t stop it from being true. Better to be prepared.
“It happened outside in a wooded area,” Ryan started. “It was pretty straight-forward. He was being pursued until his vardoger finally caught up to him.” He paused and glanced at Grant before continuing, his voice noticeably gentling. “He was then shot in the head with a gun.”
Sarah whimpered at his words and Grant’s face whitened, tension radiating through every line of his face. “Is my vardoger here now?” he asked, his voice strained.
“Most likely,” Ryan answered. “Vardogers are attached to their human bodies, but it’s nothing more than a shadow at this point. Like I said earlier, I can only sense the energies of vardogers who have already overtaken their humans. I can’t feel them when they’re just shadows. But you don’t have to worry about your vardoger until the moment it decides to step out of the shadows to overtake your body.”
Grant took a deep breath as he visibly tried to calm himself. There was a tinge of hysteria to Sarah’s voice when she spoke. “What happens now? How do we protect Grant?”
“We’ll stay with him until his vardoger attacks,” I answered. “We won’t let anything happen to him.”
Sarah didn’t seem comforted by my words, but I couldn’t blame her. Nothing I said would minimize her fears for Grant’s safety.
Ryan ran his hand through his hair, suddenly looking tired and worn out.
“Do you want something to drink or eat?” It felt a little ludicrous to be playing hostess in this situation, but I was suddenly reminded that despite being a powerful seer, Ryan was still just a human.
He shook his head. “No thanks, I’m fine.”
“You must be tired after the long drive,” I said. “Did you bring an overnight bag or anything?”
“It’s in my car.”
“Why don’t you go get it?” I checked my watch and saw that it was close to two a.m. “I doubt any of us will get much sleep tonight, but we can at least try. Of course you’ll stay here, especially since we need to keep an eye on Grant.”
“Thanks. I’ll go get my bag.”
No one spoke until Ryan had closed the door behind him to retrieve his bag from his car. Grant was the first one to speak.
“Do you think we can trust him?”
“I do,” I answered. “I don’t think there’s any reason for him to lie to us. Especially about having a vision of you.”
“Of course there’re plenty of reasons for him to lie to us,” Simon challenged. “He could be working with your father, for all we know.”
“Why the complicated ruse then?” I demanded. “My father knows where I am. He could just come here himself and face me.”
Simon shook his head in frustration. “He wants to become immortal and he believes you hold the key to that. He may believe that he can use Ryan to get to you, to get some answers.” His mouth thinned. “Like how he wanted to use me with you. He just got too impatient to see it through and decided to take matters into his own hands.”
“That’s not what’s happening here,” I said emphatically. “Like you said, my father is too impatient. He wouldn’t try something like that again. I don’t know what he’s planning right now, but I doubt he’ll try to use the same method twice. Especially since it didn’t succeed the first time.”
I knew better than to mention that the connection I had immediately felt with Ryan made me trust him. Simon would misconstrue it as something else. It was just that Ryan knew better than anyone what it meant to be a seer. How isolating and lonely it could be.
“Do you think it’s a good idea for him to stay here?” Sarah whispered, as if she were afraid Ryan was listening with his ear to the door. “What if he tries something in the middle of the night?”
“I need him to help me protect Grant. I can’t watch him 24/7. The last thing we need is for everyone to be sleep deprived while trying to fight vardogers.”
I was surprised that Simon hadn’t been the one to object to Ryan staying at the apartment, but he cleared that up with his response. “It’s better to keep him close where we can keep an eye on him.” He raised an eyebrow at me as he spoke. “And you can damn well be sure that I’ll be staying here too.”
I nodded. The last thing I wanted to be deprived of was Simon’s presence. As much as I believed Ryan was trustworthy, I felt safer with Simon around. I turned to Grant. “You should stay here too. We have no idea when your vardoger is going to attack, so we need to keep watch even when you’re asleep.”
Grant grimaced. “I doubt I’m going to get any sleep, but you won’t be hearing any objections from me. My macho bravado went out the door once I heard about being shot in the head by my vardoger.”
Our conversation was halted by the return of Ryan who had a bag slung over his shoulder. It was obvious that we were discussing him by our sudden silence, but he pretended not to notice.
“What are the sleeping arrangements going to be?” Sarah asked. “We can’t all sleep in one room.”
“Ryan and I will take turns keeping watch,” I answered. “You and Grant can sleep in your bed.” I glanced at Ryan. “Do you mind taking the couch?”
Ryan nodded agreeably. “That’s fine with me.”
Sarah wrinkled her nose at my pronouncement. “I don’t think I’m going to get much sleep being watched. I doubt I would get any sleep even without being watched.”
“We don’t know how long it’ll be until Grant’s vardoger attacks,” I warned. “It could be tomorrow or it could be next month. We have to prepare for the long haul.”
Sarah nodded, and despite the sleeping arrangements having been determined, no one made a move to go to bed. We were all too wired by everything that had been revealed, and the last thing anyone seemed to want to do was sleep.
We were lost in our own thoughts when Sarah broke the silence. “Screw sleep. I need a drink. Anyone want a beer?”
Everyone took her up on her offer, even Ryan. Grant went with her to help get the drinks, and once we were all settled back in the living room with our beers, the silence was punctuated with sounds of drinking. An outsider would have thought we were just an ordinary group of friends hanging out, but nothing about our situation was ordinary. I leaned back in the recliner with a sigh, feeling the comforting warmth of Simon’s body next to me.
“Where are you from, Ryan?” I asked, trying to fill the heavy silence with conversation.
“I’m originally from Seattle, but I’ve been living in Boston for a while.”
Sarah leaned forward, seemingly eager to know more about Ryan. “When did you realize you were a seer?”
“I’ve known ever since I can remember,” he replied, not put off by her curiosity. “My mother was a seer, and she believed in raising me with the truth.”
“I didn’t even realize guys could be seers before we met you,” Sarah confessed. “I thought it was strictly a chick thing.”
Ryan smiled faintly, making him look a lot younger and more innocent. The rest of us stayed silent, content to just listen to Ryan and Sarah’s conversation. I learned that Ryan lived off some investments he had made from an inheritance, leaving him free to track vardogers without being encumbered by a day job. It was fascinating to hear him talk about his life as if it were completely normal; as if tracking and killing vardogers was just another activity of life.
Now that my body had been drained of adrenaline, I felt a heavy fatigue creeping in. The others must have felt the same because no one objected when Sarah yawned and pronounced that it was time to go to bed.
“I’ll take the first shift watching Grant,” Ryan volunteered.
“It’s okay. I’m not tired at all,” I lied. As much as I believed I could trust Ryan, I was still a little wary leaving him alone with Grant and Sarah, just in case my instincts were wrong. “I’ll take the first watch.”
Ryan studied me for a moment, and then shrugged. “Okay. Just wake me up when you want to switch.”
I left Ryan to arrange the sheets and pillow I had given him for the couch, and followed Sarah and Grant to her bedroom.
“Um, do you mind giving me a minute?” Grant asked. “I need to change.”
“Oh, sure,” I said, reddening. “I should go change too.”
Simon was close behind me as I went to my bedroom. He didn’t say anything as I changed, and I wasn’t sure if his silence was better than a show of anger. I sat next to him on the bed when I was done and took his hand in mine.
“Simon, don’t be angry. We have no other choice. We should be relieved that Ryan is here to help us. We don’t have to worry about my father surprising us anymore.”
