Fate Foretold

by Jaliza A. Burwell

  “You just surprised us. We weren’t expecting that,” Eli says. “We don’t mean you any harm.”

  I stare at all of them, going from expression to expression. Finally, I force my shoulders to relax and I nod. I can understand the excitement.

  “Lyn, is this why you’re in danger?” Jackson asks. “For your gift?

  I nod and lick my dry lips. “I’ve always been in hiding, on the run, but they caught up to me and it’s been hard. But I’m making do with everything.”

  “Bullshit,” Eli says.

  I sigh. “Okay, it’s really fricken hard, but I’m surviving.”

  “Let us help you,” Jackson says. “We have connections. We can protect you.”

  I shake my head. “No, you’ll die.”

  “We won’t die,” DJ says. “We’ve been through too much to just roll over and kiss the dirt.”

  “I’m fine by myself.”

  “Dammit, Lyn, stop being so fucking stubborn,” Eli yells, and I jump at the suddenness of it. “Just fucking trust us.”

  “Trust you?” I whisper. “I barely know you guys. I don’t even know your gifts. You guys keep sharing glances the whole time tonight and you’re up to something, and I know for a fact it’s something about me. You’re keeping something from me. What?”

  Again with the shared looks

  “No!” I snap. “Don’t do that. Just answer my question. If you want trust, answer me.”

  Colton’s lips thin out. “We’re searching for you.”

  “Don’t.”

  He leans forward. “You can’t stop us. We’re going to find you whether you want us to or not and we’re going to help you.”

  “I don’t want your help!” Frustration builds up higher and higher in my chest, along with the pain of knowing. “You’ll die!”

  “We won’t.”

  “You will. I already Saw it. Over and over, you die. No matter what, you die. Just leave me be. Move on with your lives.”

  They grow quiet at my revelation, and I curse myself for releasing that bit of information.

  DJ gapes at me. “Are you serious?” he asks in a low voice.

  “Yes. You die. No matter what you do, you die. Sometimes I die too. So just leave it be. You can’t do shit for me.” I’m yelling at the end, speaking faster and faster with desperation. It feels like I’m drowning “It’s useless to help me, so don’t even bother.”

  Arms wrap around me and pull me into a hard chest. My arms hang limply at my side as my brain tries to process what the hell is going on. “How far into the future do you See?” Colton asks, his lips near my ear. My face grows red at the intimacy.

  “Far,” I answer against his chest.

  “That isn’t an answer,” DJ points out.

  “Months,” I say, pulling away from Colton, needing the distance. Colton respectfully steps back, and for a moment my heart aches, already missing his touch.

  I shouldn’t miss him. Not like this.

  Shaking my head, I answer. “I can See as far as months.”

  “Do you know when we die?” Jackson asks.

  “You die when you try to save me, like I said. Don’t bother. Just let me be.”

  Colton leans forward. “Too bad for you,” he says in a low voice, his expression hard. For once, I get a glimpse of the darkness inside of him and it warms me to my core to see it whirling because of me. “DJ, send her back.”

  DJ glances at him before sighing. He waves his hand at me, as if shooing me away. I fall again, the scene melting away into nothing before I wake up gasping in bed.

  7

  Exhaustion is my whole existence. Despite being a dream realm, looks like all that mental work using my gift comes back with me. My eyesight blurs as I try to focus on the story Henlie is going on about during breakfast—some kind of action-packed dream he had last night.

  I smile when I should, but my heart isn’t in it. I just want to figure out why I’m being pulled into DJ’s dream realm and lock it down.

  “Ada, honey, are you okay?” Hannah asks, and I blink, realizing I’m focusing on my food too intently.

  When I look up from almost turning my eggs into a face mask, her expression is twisted with worry. Trying to alleviate her concerns, I flash a small smile. “Just tired. I didn’t sleep well.”

  She frowns. “Was the bed uncomfortable?”

  I shake my head. “The bed was heaven. I just had a rough night.”

  Hannah purses her lips and then finally nods after glancing at Trent. “Okay, as promised, we’re putting some supplies together for you.” She looks me over. “Including some clothes.”

  “You don’t—”

  She waves her hands. “I am. Trent is drawing you a map. You can get out of here going south. You’ll have extra water and food to last out of these mountains, though it’s about a day’s hike.” Hannah frowns as she looks me over. “I wish you’d stay another night. You look like you might face plant any moment now.”

  I laugh, some of the tension in my body disappearing. “I’ll be fine. This isn’t the first time I’ll have to work through fumes.”

  “You shouldn’t have to.”

  “But I am.” My smile widens, her genuine concern making me all warm and fuzzy. “Thank you for everything. You may feel like you didn’t do much, but you’ve done far more than I ever expected. I’ll never forget your help.”

  Hannah blinks furiously, and her nose twitches. I didn’t even know noses could do that.

  “Shit,” Trent says. He stands up and goes over to Hannah, pulling her into his chest. He glances at me with a frown before gently bringing her into a different room.

  “You made Mama cry,” Henlie says.

  “I did?” I ask, my eyes widening. I didn’t mean to make her cry. I just want her to know how much I appreciate everything she’s doing.

  Matteo nods. He eyes my plate again, and I sigh, pushing it toward him. I forced myself to eat what I can, knowing I’ll need the energy, but I still can’t finish my plate. Matteo has no issue eating off a stranger’s plate and enjoys the rest of my eggs and potatoes. He even adds more ketchup to the dish.

  Henlie rolls his eyes and gets up, grabbing his plate and going into the kitchen. I stay with Matteo as he continues to eat.

  “I’m sorry I made your mother cry,” I say.

  He flicks his focus to me for a moment before shrugging and going back to eating.

  “I can’t stay. I don’t want to bring danger to you guys, and if I stay any longer, that’s what’s going to happen.”

  Pops will protect us.

  My eyes widen at the whispered words floating through my head. I stare at Matteo, my mouth popping open. He smiles at me.

  Pops says Mama is a bleeding heart. She protects. That’s what she does. She doesn’t like that she can’t help you more. She’ll be fine. Pops will make sure.

  I still gape at the child.

  “Your gift?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “That’s an amazing gift,” I whisper.

  He seems surprised by my words.

  Not many think so.

  I smile. He even sounds like he’s pouting.

  “You think?” I ask, leaning back in my seat and staring at the ceiling. “I was about to spill my heart out to you. A lot of people will feel that way, that you’ll be easy to talk to because you don’t talk back. They’ll tell you things they won’t tell others. You’ll be the one with all the knowledge, all the secrets. You’ll be easily dismissed and overlooked because you don’t talk out loud.”

  That doesn’t sound cool. I want something fun like Henlie.

  I shrug, not knowing what Henlie’s gift is. “I’ll tell you a secret.” I glance at him, and he’s staring at me with a patience no young child should have. “Knowledge saves lives. Your subtle gift will allow you to communicate when no others can. For example, and this is me greatly simplifying things, but someone comes to visit. You remember meeting them before, but your parents don’t. You can ju
st tell them who they are and how they met without having to embarrass anyone. It’d be embarrassing to tell them out loud and most likely in front of the person. I know you didn’t save a life, you just prevented embarrassment, but that type of situation can happen in a million different scenarios, and some of those scenarios can be dangerous.” I close my eyes. “Sorry, here I am giving you a lecture and you probably don’t understand.”

  I do. I can alert to danger without drawing that danger to me.

  I blink open my eyes and stare at his adorable hazel eyes. Memories haunt his eyes and my chest tightens. What has happened to this family to have them looking like Matteo and hiding in the middle of a mountain?

  “Yes, you can sound the alarm without having to yell or scream. You can pass along messages to the others while you’re in trouble. You can become a strategist, you can whisper into the ears of powerful men to keep them safe and protected. You have far more options in life than you think.”

  Thank you.

  I smile. He’s so darn adorable.

  His older brother comes back in the room. “Still eating?” he asks.

  Matteo shakes his head and collects the plates, including mine.

  “I can get mine,” I say.

  Matteo shakes his head again and runs into the kitchen.

  Henlie eyes me with wariness, and now despite not knowing the situation, I understand a little bit better why they’re in hiding.

  “You have a good little brother. You must have taught him well.”

  He blinks a couple of times, probably not expecting that. He glances to the floor briefly before looking back at me.

  “We had a baby sister.”

  Pain stabs through my chest at his revelation and my lungs try to constrict. He doesn’t have to say anymore because now I know. Their loss is still fresh and it explains why Henlie is so guarded and why Matteo is so quiet, not speaking to me until today. It explains Trent’s reactions, and Hannah’s sadness before she left the room.

  What does one say to a little boy who holds guilt for his baby sister’s death? Nothing. Nothing I could say would make it better.

  Hannah comes back into the room, her eyes rimmed red. “Sorry,” she says and tries to smile. “Trent is getting everything together, and he’ll be out shortly. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  “You too, Hannah.”

  She nods. “If you need us, here is a number to our emergency phone. If you call, we’ll find a way to help. We have contacts through the states too.” She hands me a slip of paper with a number scrawled across it in a messy penmanship. I smile. I don’t need to use my gift to know Trent wrote this out, and he most likely was the one to make the decision to give it to me.

  “Thank you. I really appreciate this.”

  “Here,” Trent says, coming into the room and holding a backpack. “There is enough food and water for two days and some change of clothes.” He digs into his back pocket and pulls out an envelope. “And this to help you get around.”

  I grab the envelope and open it, gaping. “I… I can’t take this.”

  “You will,” Trent says, glancing at his wife. “We don’t need it.”

  I stare down at the envelope of money. There had to be a couple hundred dollars in here. I tuck it away in the bag and sling the strap over my shoulder, ready to go.

  “Here is the map.” Hannah hands over a folded piece of paper. I unfold it and take in the well-drawn map. There are even markings for all the landmarks I’ll need to look out for.

  “I’ll repay you guys. I promise.”

  Hannah shakes her hand, dismissing my promise. “Don’t worry about it. Just stay alive. My boys have taken a liking to you, and they’ll be sad if something happens to you.”

  “I’ll be sad if something happens to you guys too. So be safe.”

  I unleash my gift just long enough to See and then close it down again.

  “When you do decide to leave again, don’t go west. Go east and meet up with Trent’s old friends. I know you haven’t seen them in a long time, but they care, and they’ll keep you safe. Just trust them.”

  Hannah gasps and Trent’s mouth pops open briefly before he presses them together and nods.

  “Your secret is safe with us,” he says.

  “And yours with me.”

  He grins, his stern expression morphing into something beautiful. I can see why Hannah married the guy. He looks young when he smiles, and I hope in the future, he’ll do so more often. Tragedy may weigh heavily within this family right now, but they’ll find their happiness again.

  I wave, smiling at the two boys standing behind them, staring at me with a heartbreaking sadness that only time can soften. It hurts to leave them there, but I also know I can’t stay. We all have our demons and it would be a disaster to overlap them. I can barely handle my own demon, and that family is barely fighting theirs. We’d be overwhelmed if I stayed.

  With a heavy heart, I make quick work heading south, and Hannah is right, this is going to take about a day to get through. There looks to be a small establishment at the bottom of the mountain. They probably expect me to stop there to get help, but that’s a bad idea. Once I step foot in such a small village, everyone will know I’m there and when Noah comes following, they’ll be able to point him in the right direction.

  Instead, I’ll have to bypass the village and a couple miles from there is a small town with a resort for hikers. I’ll be able to get a bus from there and get out of the state.

  I focus on my plans as I work through the mountain, my legs growing weaker with each step. My mind keeps going off track, thinking about the bigger game that could be in the mountains, like bears and wolves. I don’t even know if there are big cats around here, and I don’t want to find out.

  The map becomes my new best friend as I work my way toward a small stream. I’ll be able to follow that down for a couple of miles before having to leave it to stay in the right direction.

  I keep myself distracted with plans. So many plans to go through in hopes of surviving. I’ll need to face Holsen and find a way to get him to leave me alone. The problem is that he won’t. He wants me, and he’ll do everything he can to have me.

  That means I need to take him out of the picture. But how? He’s at the top and nearly untouchable. He has connections everywhere, including with the police. I can’t go to them. I tried that once last year and they detained me long enough for Holsen’s men to show up at the precinct. I barely got out of there in time.

  Any evidence Holsen may have against him is either closely guarded or deeply buried or destroyed. He keeps nothing that can be used against him. Another option is death. He could die. I’m not an assassin so I quickly dismiss that. I can’t kill.

  Just like that, I push through to get out of the mountains.

  8

  ~Colton~

  The moment we wake from the dream realm, we get to work. We have clues, now we just need to solve the puzzle. The others join in our meeting room in the basement.

  “What do we know about Lyn?” I ask, getting the ball rolling as we all settle down around the table. I can feel the clock ticking down to zero, my chest squeezing as we lose time. We don’t have long and her stubbornness is only shortening the time.

  “She’s a seer,” DJ says, concern darkening his brown eyes.

  In fact, everyone here is showing signs of genuine fear and concern for Lyn. With just those brief moments with her in the dream realm, she managed to leave behind an impression. Something about her calls to all four us and our very existence is demanding we hunt her down. She feels like an answer to a problem we don’t even know we have.

  “Her name isn’t Lyn,” Jackson says. “Best guess, it’s short for her real name.”

  I nod. “Good. We need her real name. Eli, search for any seers, any news at all. You’ll have to go on the dark web. I imagine they’ll know what’s up.”

  Eli nods, already pulling out his laptop to get to work.

  “She doesn
’t have any time left running, just look at her this time around,” I say. “She’s exhausted, she’s straining her gift, and they’re getting closer and closer.”

  “She barely made it through the last encounter by the wounds on her.”

  “Okay,” I say and rub at my face. We don’t have a lot on Lyn, but we’ve worked with less information before. “We need a list of powerful, dangerous men. We need to figure out who’s after her.”

  DJ rubs at his jaw. “So all of them? That’s going to be a long list. They’re all corrupt. None of them made it to the top without stepping on someone else.”

  “I can think of three right off the top of my head. Alby, Holsen, and Redfield. They make the top three. Between them, they own about sixty percent of the business world. They’re under constant heavy surveillance, and the government is always digging, but these guys are good. And word is, they’re always looking for more power. More ways to stomp on each other. They’re in heavy competition with each other.”

  DJ frowns. “That can’t be good for Lyn if one of them is after her.”

  “The moment the other two hear about her, it’ll be a race,” I say, seeing all of it play out in my head. “It’ll be an arms race.”

  “How strong do you think she is?” Jackson asks as he knocks his knuckles onto the table. His nerves are showing and that’s a dangerous sign

  I’ll have to keep an eye on him tonight to make sure he doesn’t drink himself into oblivion.

  “Really fucking strong,” Eli says, eyes intent on his laptop as he leans back. He lifts his arms up and grabs the back of his head. He only ever does that when he’s having trouble wrapping his head around something.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “She’s not just a seer, she’s The Seer. Someone who only comes around every hundred years or so, if at all. The last one was two hundred years ago. If she knows to look, she can See. She can predict a man walking into a bank with a gun and the thousands of different ways he can go about robbing the bank. Shoot the guard, don’t shoot the guard. Succeed, fail, taking hostages, not taking them. She’s able to see it all. How can he do it and live or all the different ways he can die. She Sees all the possibilities.”