Fate Foretold

by Jaliza A. Burwell

  The men’s faces flash through my mind.

  They want to help me. They want to protect me. I wish I was selfish enough to say yes, help me. Or is it being selfless? Hell, maybe it’s just being stupid.

  But they die.

  I See it every time I check. I’m tempted to See again, but my brain can’t handle me using my gift, and the minute I do, Noah will be here. I won’t be able to fight him. He’ll just scoop me up, and I’ll disappear.

  Once the wound finally stops bleeding, I work on cleaning it and bandaging it up, using more tape than I probably need. It doesn’t look pretty when I’m done, but at least it’s over. Not having the energy to move, I lie back down on the cold tile of the bathroom, liking how it feels against my feverish skin.

  I just need to rest enough to get energy. And then I’ll find clothes. I’ll also need to get out of here. I’ll need to sneak into somewhere to get more medical supplies. Maybe something stronger for the pain.

  But first—rest.

  16

  ~Colton’s POV~

  I’m holding on by a thread. Adalyn’s face flashes through my mind again. Her pallid, damp skin. The blood. Her blue-grey eyes dark with pain as they blink up at me from my lap. I don’t even remember how we got into that position. I just know she was suffering and I wanted to help ease it. And then I had her in my lap as Jackson looked over her wound.

  As soon as we woke up, we headed back out. The street lights pass by as we get closer to where Noah’s men were. This time we are in one vehicle, no one willing to even take the time to get into another vehicle to follow behind.

  Time never felt as fleeting as it does now. In my head, I can hear the tick-tock of a wall clock as we lose time. Time we should be having with her, taking care of her. Instead, we’re still searching. Why is it so hard to find her? It shouldn’t be this hard.

  “I have alerts up for her at all nearby medical facilities, including animal hospitals. I’m not taking my chances. I’m also scanning all radio frequencies for a report on a GSW to a female. If anyone finds and reports her, we will know.” Eli continues to fill us in on the precautions he’s put out there to find her.

  We listen without interruption, needing to know all the bases are covered.

  “I’ll be borrowing your gift again,” I tell him. “As soon as we get there, we’re going into that building. We need to find a trace of her and then trail her. Also, I need you to look at what’s in that neighborhood. If she got shot nearby, then she’s still nearby. She wouldn’t have been able to get far. Check nearby abandoned locations, even houses or apartments where the owners are gone.”

  I pause and take a deep breath, trying to keep my thoughts on track. It’s so easy to bring up the last image I have of Adalyn. She looked like she was near death. The only thing holding me together is that she said this wound was not what will kill her. I need to believe that, especially since she’s The Seer. I’m sure she’s Seen her death enough times and apparently, none of that is connected to being shot.

  “Colton?” Eli asks, breaking me from my thoughts.

  Clearing my throat, I continue and everyone is distracted enough to not point out that my voice is hoarse. “Jackson, DJ, you’ll stay with us. We need to keep an eye out for Noah and his men. They know she has to be in the area too so they’ll be back as soon as they can. I’m only hoping Holsen is keeping them busy enough, but we might run into them.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if we had a run-in,” Jackson says in a dangerous voice.

  “Me either, but we can’t afford for them to know about us. Not yet.” My tone matches Jackson’s. “If they know we’re searching for her, they could trace us to her if we manage to find her first. We won’t be able to safely protect her. She’s been shot, so we need to move her to one of our safe houses. We’ll need to go dark until she recovers.”

  The others voice their agreement, and shortly after, we pull up to the building Noah’s men were at earlier in the day. We jump out and run into the building. I grab Eli’s shoulder, feeling for his energy. When I find it, I take some, making it my own. My senses heighten tenfold.

  “This way,” Eli and I say at the same time, picking up her blood. She’s lucky Noah didn’t have someone with similar abilities, otherwise, they would have easily found her with how strong the scent is.

  When we come across her blood, nausea hits me hard. My eyes refuse to stray from the bloody handprint on the wall. It’s innocent, just a handprint, but I know exactly why it’s there and my heart aches, knowing she’s in pain, in need of medical care, and we aren’t there to help her.

  We follow it to the source.

  “She traveled through the tunnels,” I whisper, slightly amazed by her creativeness.

  “Damn. No one ever thinks about that,” DJ says.

  “Noah did.” We wince at Jackson’s obvious statement.

  I frown, thinking about everything we know.

  “I’m even more worried,” I say out loud and the rest of the team stops talking and turns to me. I take in a breath, desperately hoping I’m lying.

  “Explain,” Jackson says.

  “They were on her ass. She was here. They were too. And at the rate she would have been moving, they should have been able to find her. I mean, that handprint is pretty damn noticeable.”

  Realization dawns on their face.

  “So what happened that catching her was no longer their priority,” Eli whispers.

  Nodding, I say, “They could have had her. So why did they leave? If Holsen is behind the reason, then what is he up to where he gives up a long search for a woman, especially when his team is right there?”

  “I fucking hate this. We need to find her and go dark,” Jackson snarls.

  We all nod in agreement and continue our search. She did well hiding her trail except for the handprint. We have to rely on our senses. There isn’t even any more blood to track. She somehow managed to keep that from leaving a trail.

  In her escape, Adalyn had followed a hallway into a storage room. We find signs of her at a window that she managed to crawl through. Not willing to waste time, we follow the same path, Jackson as the largest of us barely fitting through.

  “This way,” I say, picking up her scent again. We walk along the building until we come out behind it. There’s a tree-line to act as a barrier between the warehouse and a road.

  “Eli, what is around here that she can possibly hide in,” I say. “She had to have found a safe place to hide if we were able to pull her into the dream realm. She felt safe enough to fall asleep.”

  “On it.”

  With Eli focusing on that task, I focus on following her. It’s a little harder outside, the natural elements making it harder to track her. I may not be as good as Eli when it comes to hunting someone down, but I’m still good—Eli is just exceptional. The rain is coming down as a sprinkle now. In minutes, it’ll be a downpour and any chance we have of tracking her will be wiped away.

  Urgency pushes us to a small residential area with houses spread apart.

  “There’s a family on vacation,” Eli says and steps up next to me. He points to a house, and we pause, staring at it. There aren’t any signs of life, but that doesn’t mean much.

  “Eli, you’re on guard duty. Jackson and DJ with me. Sweep the house fast.”

  The house remains dark, and we don’t pick anything up. Not even a heartbeat. I share a look with Eli. She’s not here, but we still need to search. Maybe she left something behind or there’s a clue to where she’s going.

  We find the place she entered. A basement window. We fit through, Jackson cursing under his breath, and then use our phone lights to look around.

  “Upstairs,” I whisper.

  A few minutes later, we’re gaping as we take in the scene in the upstairs bathroom. My nose curls at the metallic scent in the air.

  “Damn, it looks like someone was murdered in here,” DJ says.

  I clench my teeth in fear, worried about what it means to have
all this blood and no heartbeat in the house. She could no longer have one. The sharp intake of breath I take is painful as my heart constricts with that thought.

  No. She’s okay. She has to be.

  “DJ, clear the house. Make sure she isn’t here.”

  He gives me a credulous look. “You’d hear her.”

  My eyes land on a black ball leaning against the wall. That doesn’t bode well for us and my heart thunders as it beats. If her bag is here, there’s a good chance she still is. Unless she’s so out of it that she forgot it. I really hope she just forgot about it.

  “Exactly,” I finally respond to DJ.

  His mouth snaps shut, and his face goes white. He nods and stiffly leaves. Jackson’s expression is thunderous as he takes in every drop of blood in the bathroom. The tub is empty of water, but the water that hasn’t had time to dry is tinged pink. The floor and sink are covered with blood. Too much blood.

  How is she still alive?

  Jackson goes over to the sink and pulls out a medical kit with drying blood on it. He checks the supplies and then goes through the garbage bin. Adalyn was so out of it, she didn’t even bother to clean up the blood.

  I wait for Jackson’s opinion. This is more in his area of expertise thanks to his past. He’ll know how much blood this equates to and how much she should have left in her system. He’ll know how extensive her injuries really are.

  While he takes inventory, I dig through the bag. Food, clothes, an envelope of money. Basics for someone on the run.

  “She dug out the bullet.” Jackson grabs my attention, holding tweezers with a bullet. “That’s good.”

  “What else?” I ask in a soft voice, not sure I want to know.

  “She will either need to cave and get medical help, or she’ll try to get the supplies herself. She really won’t be able to get far with the injury. She’ll be weak, confused, dizzy. Her heart rate may be high, and I doubt she’s breathing very well. I don’t know what kind of internal damage she has from the bullet. If she lucked out, not much, if she didn’t…” He sighs. “She can have abdominal swelling or pain, chest pains, possible blood if she throws up or goes to the bathroom. It all really narrows down to how much damage. Either way, we need to find her so I can fix her. Why does she have to be so fucking stubborn?”

  He runs his hand over his short dark brown hair.

  “Let’s clean this up. We don’t need the owners coming back and seeing this. I’ll let Eli know to search any medical facilities in this area, or pharmacies.”

  He nods and we get to work. Just as we are finishing, Eli comes running in.

  “I missed it,” he says, his expression lit with excitement. “I didn’t think about it because the place recently closed. But they hadn’t had time to clean it out yet.”

  “What?” I ask, trying to get him to slow down.

  “I found her. There’s a clinic a couple blocks away. It closed down just last week. If she isn’t planning to find medical help and to do it on her own, she’d go there.”

  We all share glances, DJ joining us after hearing Eli’s excitement.

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  We don’t hesitate and sprint out of the room. Eli takes lead since he knows where to go and we follow closely behind.

  We’re coming, Adalyn. Just hold on.

  17

  I’m crying. I’m walking and I’m crying, probably looking like a looney. My only saving grace is that it’s in the middle of the night and everyone is tucked into bed, sleeping. Like I should be.

  Trying to find some peace, I take a moment and think about what it’d be like to be back at my apartment before everything went to hell. I’d be wearing my favorite fuzzy sucks, curled in bed with a good book and a glass of wine. I’d read myself to sleep like I used to do on most nights.

  Instead, I’m running around on unfamiliar streets, trying to get to the damn clinic now across the street. The signs act as a spotlight to safety as the street lights reflect on the word that fills me with hope. Closed. It’s a recent closure. That means they might not have had time to move everything out. My chance has to be in there.

  I hobble around the building, ignoring what it means to have clammy skin and lightheadedness. My breathing is shallow and if I feel for a heart rate, it’s definitely too rapid. At the back, I smile at the door, and prepare to break my way in, using enough energy to break the lock. Once inside, I hold my breath as I turn on a light. Luck is on my side tonight as it turns on. After a quick glance around, I turn it off and go over to a small table lamp, deciding to use that instead in hopes of not drawing attention to someone being here. With the light source being in the backroom, where all the offices are, no one should notice. This room doesn’t even have windows.

  Inside the building is as sad looking as the outside. There are boxes everywhere and someone was pissed because there’s a broken wooden chair. Best guess is that they threw it against the wall. I guess I’d react like that too if my dream is forced to come to an end and I have to close my doors. At least, I really hope that’s the reason behind the closure. It’s better than some of the other possibilities.

  I start in this office, digging through boxes to see what’s still hanging around. There are folders and books, papers, nothing I can use. When I move wrong, turning to go into another room, I wince. Carefully peeling off the bandage and looking at the wound, I frown hard.

  This can’t be good.

  After blinking a couple times to clear the blurriness, I stare at it.

  Definitely not good.

  Red streaks stretch out from the wound, which has currently swelled double in size. I need stuff. Things. I just don’t know what. I know nothing about this. For all I know I’ve made it worse. I know I definitely shouldn’t be on my feet. Do I elevate my wound so it’s over my heart? I think I’ve heard about that before. I’ll need to wash it. Maybe there are still antibiotics here. What are the names of antibiotics? I’m pretty sure it’s some name I can’t pronounce.

  Panic sets deep within me, and I hurry up my search for anything to help. I’m in a fucking clinic. There needs to be something here to help me.

  I move too fast and the room spins. When it finally stops, I’m on the floor and I’m not so sure I can get back up. My limbs don’t want to work right.

  “I’ll just take a break,” I whisper and close my eyes, focusing on my breathing, on keeping it steady. It’d be so easy to just give in. Let myself go. What is there out there for me? Nothing. Just pain and misery, and I’ll still end up dying anyway.

  Of course, the moment I think life isn’t worth it, I see images of four men. They would make it worth it, wouldn’t they? I enjoyed the brief time I spent with them. Each one of them called to me for one reason or another.

  It’s nice to see how much Colton cares about everyone. He’s the leader, but he doesn’t just take control. He thinks. He listens. He waits people out before making his move. He’s a subtle leader and those are the most dangerous.

  DJ is such a curious character. He’s imaginative, no doubt a byproduct of being a dreamweaver. When he wants answers, he’s willing to get it and he can be stubborn about it too. It’s only now I’m realizing how fun it’s been to explore his dream realms. I don’t know what keeps bringing me to him, and them, but it’s been wonderful to see the vibrancy of the worlds he created.

  Olive green eyes flash through my mind. Eli. Beautiful, gorgeous Eli. Protective and inquisitive. He doesn’t mind being the first to face the problem, and his gift allows him to do it. I want to learn more about him, about how his mind works. He always seems distracted, but that can be because he senses so much more than we can. What was that like growing up? I’m glad he has the others to keep him on track so he doesn’t get overwhelmed.

  My heart jumps when I think about their final member. Jackson. I know the look of someone who’s gone through too much, and Jackson has. He’s hurting because of it. His face is etched with guilt. Whatever happened in his past roughed him u
p, but he still moves forward, despite his anger. His team is good for him. I can see it. They help him. And he’s probably more protective than Eli is, but his is more on a desperate side, like he’ll never recover if he fails to keep someone safe.

  “Damn.” I really need to stop thinking about them. They don’t get to be in this picture.

  The click of a lock captures my attention and I freeze, my ears straining to pick up any more noise. A soft thud.

  What is that? I doubt it’s an animal getting inside, though it’s a possibility. But that doesn’t feel right. The energy in the air changes, shifting around as if to accommodate for the change. I try to reach out with my senses, but I’m too exhausted and hurting to focus on what I pick up. If it is someone, they can easily get to me. I have nowhere to go, and I’m incapable of moving at this point.

  I need more time. I just need a damn break.

  Something creaks and I hold my breath, listening. There. Footsteps.

  Someone else is in the building. Not just one person. My eyes burn with unshed tears. I don’t know what to do. I have no idea what’s going to happen. I’m going blind here, and while I’m tempted to use my gift, if it isn’t Noah, then I don’t want to alert him to my presence.

  I wish I could just say it’s the building, but I’m not a fool. Others are in here.

  More footsteps.

  Forcing myself into a sitting position, I scoot back quietly, frantically glancing around. I’m already screwed because of the light. I can’t get across the room to turn it off, not in time. This building isn’t that big. They’ll be in here shortly. Whipping my head from side to side, I look for a weapon. I’ll need to make my last stand here.

  My feet are wobbling as I climb to my feet and with eyes on the door, grip onto the first cold thing I feel that I can move. Holding it up, I glare hard as the door creaks open and a shadow moves into the room.

  “Thank fuck. It’s Adalyn,” I hear.