Forgotten Enemy (The Powers of Influence Book 1)

by C. B. Haight

  Collett probed a little further and felt Ashley’s fear of finding someone to love her like her father loved her mother. In her timid and logical mind, love like Rederrick’s and Cynda’s was rare and almost unheard of. Collett became aware of other feelings as well. Such as the love she had for her family, and worries she had over school, and a slight trace of guilt for kept secrets.

  Knowing enough to help her now, she quickly withdrew, not wanting to intrude further on Ashley’s thoughts. She looked Ashley in the eyes and stated with surety, “Ashley, love it isn’t as rare as you believe, and it is worth waiting for.”

  Ashley knew right away what Collett referred to. Collett brought forth the buried emotions to the surface when she reached for them herself, making them clear and vivid. She felt Ashley’s embarrassment as a result.

  Instinctively, Collett felt the need to ease this burden on Ashley, much like when she’d read Jenny the first time. So once again she laid her hand on Ashley’s shoulder and whispered, “Feel. It is real.”

  Feeling the strong urge to share the power of true love at its fullest with Ashley, she compiled her new-found feelings for Cade, Jenny’s tender feelings for her lost Sam, and Cynda’s undying feelings for Rederrick. They were all emotions Collett somehow retained upon experiencing them.

  According to her current memories, they were three of the most powerful feelings she had ever felt, and she poured only a fraction of each one into Ashley.

  Ashley gasped as the force of them rushed through her. Though Collett held back most of it, it was still enough to drain her and have Ashley staggering backward in awe and wonder when it was over.

  Collett closed her eyes in order to calm her now spinning head. She felt someone ease her down into a chair and recognized Cade’s steady, firm grip. “How long have you been in the room?” she asked quietly.

  “Long enough,” he answered, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’ll be fine. Is Ashley all right?”

  Cade, who knelt in front of her, chuckled, “Still worrying about everyone else I see.” He looked back to a surprised Ashley, “She’s okay.”

  With her eyes still closed Collett said, “I think I overwhelmed her.”

  Ashley spoke up, “I’m fine Collett, but that… that was absolutely incredible. Never would I have expected that. I have never known any empath who could do that. You can’t be any ordinary empath, and I should know, I’m empathic too.”

  Collett opened her eyes carefully, “You are?”

  “Well yes, but I’m better with animals. That’s why I want to be a Vet.”

  Collett looked back to Cynda, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because she knows I don’t like people to know,” Ashley answered for her.

  “It’s not my secret to tell,” Cynda added.

  “You could help me then,” Collett asked more than stated to Ashley.

  Ashley drew her brows and stated with disappointment, “No. I can’t. Collett you are far more powerful than I am. For that matter, like I said before, I’ve never heard of anyone capable of doing what you just did. I mean, I’ve heard of it in theory, but I‘ve never met someone who could actually do it.”

  “Then if you add in her little premonition, it makes for a pretty big combination.” Tracy supplied.

  Tracy’s words distracted Cade from Ashley’s cryptic words; he twisted his head to Tracy and questioned, “Premonition?”

  “Yeah,” Tracy answered.

  He swung his head back to Collett, waiting for her to explain. She sighed and told him of her vision of the three little girls. Then she tried to put it aside, “I don’t know what it was, but it did feel real to me.”

  Cynda eased her way back into the conversation, “I know how we can find out.”

  “How?” Cade asked.

  “We test it,” she answered. “Let her try to specifically focus on someone’s future.”

  Cade shook his head, “She’s too drained to try something like that right now.”

  Collett narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “You’re speaking for me again. I can do this.” However, her words held no weight. She was tired.

  Cade stood and pleaded, “Collett, I don’t fully understand what you did there with Ashley, but I’m not blind to the effect it had on you. And now you’re ready to plow on to something you don’t truly understand. We have no idea the effect it could have on you. You can wait one more day, after you’ve rested some.”

  “Wait,” Ashley said with confusion in her voice. “You don’t understand? Are you telling me she hasn’t projected to you before?”

  “Projected? She’s been projecting?” Cade fired back.

  “I told you Cynda thought I could share warmth and comfort with people and make them feel better,” Collett told him.

  Cade snapped his gaze to Cynda, “You didn’t tell me she was projecting.”

  Cynda repeated her earlier statement, “Not my secret to tell. Besides it sounds like Collett told you herself. I didn‘t know what to call it.”

  “No, what she told me was different. I didn’t think she could project.” He silently cursed, realizing he should have put it together, and knew why he hadn’t. He was too distracted by his feelings for her. He was the most experienced. He should have figured it out sooner.

  Cynda shrugged, “I didn’t tell Rederrick either. Besides I didn’t think it was a big deal, until now. I suppose I should have known it was important, especially after I remembered that day at the river, when Collett brought me back from darkness. We were too close to her. It took Tracy and Ashley to see it for both of us.”

  “Let’s see if I can put this into perspective for everybody. Collett is not only empathic, she can also read thoughts linked to emotions, project emotional feelings to people… He looked to Ashley for agreement and receiving her nod continued, “And now you all believe Collett could possibly have the power of premonition.”

  This time Cade directed his attention to Tracy and witnessed her soft nod confirming all he listed. He roughly ran his hand through his hair, as he was prone to do when upset. “That’s a pretty odd and powerful list.”

  “It’s not so odd,” Cynda added. “If you think about it, each ability is linked to the other in some way, and all are linked to her empathy. I also think it’s best if we include everything here. So don’t forget Collett has easily picked up on my basic teaching in evocation with elements. She heals fast, and she’s pretty darn good in a sparring match.”

  Cade looked back at Collett, locking his golden eyes with her crystal blue orbs and couldn't help wondering, just who is this woman I’m in love with?

  He glanced to Nate and Rederrick looking for some sort of insight. They had both entered the parlor with Cade, but had stayed quiet during the entire exchange. Even though he knew the answer, Cade began to ask a stoic Rederrick, “Have you ever…?”

  “No, never.”

  Nate shook his head negatively as well.

  “Neither have I,” Cade uttered in a low tone. “And for my lifetime that’s saying something.”

  Collett stood, “Never, what? Just what’s going on?” She said with confusion and nervousness infusing her words,

  “Collett… “Cynda hedged carefully. “No one in this room, has ever heard of someone having that many powers of influence and despite what you may think, you wield them fairly easily. We didn’t put it together before now, but the prospects of this many abilities, have very promising possibilities.”

  “Or scary ones, depending on how you look at it.” Tracy scoffed.

  Cade gave Tracy a quick and sharp glare, warning her to shut up. She ignored it and with a shrug, explaining unabashedly, “She needs to know.”

  “What do I need to know? What do you mean by, powers of influence?”

  Rederrick agreed with Tracy, “Tell her Cade. Help her understand.”

  Cade moved his gaze to Collett and tried to infuse his voice with a patience he didn’t feel, “Collett, while your discovery of t
hese abilities is amazing, Rederrick and Tracy are concerned the combination of them could be…”

  “Disastrous.” Tracy finished for him tersely.

  Collett lifted her gaze to meet Tracy’s, horrified by her one word statement.

  “Disastrous?” she muttered, as her mind flashed back to the day she woke on the beach in Texas.

  “Tracy, enough!” Rederrick snapped.

  Tracy held up her hands in a gesture of surrender, though her green eyes showed her impatience.

  Rederrick jumped in, helping a frustrated Cade explain better, “Collett, each of your abilities are what we would call influential. With just one of them mastered, you could have the ability to easily affect a person’s fate, or change their direction. Un-mastered, you could still possibly change a person’s future course.

  These are powers of influence. So far you have four of them, empathy, the ability to feel emotions; precognition, the ability to see the future; telepathy, the ability to read thoughts; and the last one projection, the ability of projecting or even controlling emotions. I should tell you that projection is very rare.

  So to help understand, let’s consider for a moment, that you could project feelings to anybody, affecting their decisions with their emotions, a world leader perhaps? Or maybe, you could help a general predict the outcome of a battle, with a quick flash of the future. Therefore, you could affect the outcome of an important event in a war, or the war in its entirety.

  What if you could sense someone’s greatest weakness simply by reading that person's thoughts, and then pass it to their enemies?

  These abilities are like points on a compass. Individually, they can alter a person’s future course or affect the paths in life they choose to take. Together, the possibilities are almost limitless and each one of these abilities would be great and powerful weapons if used properly or held in the right hands.”

  “But put in the wrong hands…” Collett mumbled, knowing where Rederrick’s suggestions were now leading. They led her down an extremely daunting path. A path Collett had been afraid of from the very beginning. Was it possible, I was on the wrong side before my abrupt memory loss? She wondered. Collett slowly sank back into her chair, with a horrible foreboding settling heavily in her chest.

  Cynda offered kindly, “And you not only have one of these sentient gifts, Collett, you have all four. There have been the rare occasions when witches have been gifted with two, but never all four. In part, that in and of itself, is likely the reason we didn’t piece it all together sooner. I would have never expected this, so I missed it. We all did.”

  The heavy weight on Collett’s chest felt even heavier. It settled in her, pressing down, and each breath she took ached. “What am I?” she mumbled.

  The room fell silent. No one moved or shuffled. No one spoke a single word for what felt like a long time, though, it was merely a minute or two. The tension and worry over this new insight hung in the air like a thick heavy cloud. Cade and Rederrick, looked at each other with concern in their eyes. The women in the room looked to Collett, who in turn closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands.

  Unexpectedly, it was Nate who spoke first, “All of you aren’t seeing the bright side of this.” Unlike everyone who spoke before him, Nate’s tone was unconcerned, as was his posture. He leaned against the wall easily, unbothered by the conversation taking place.

  “What is that?” Tracy asked skeptically.

  Nate shrugged, “You can be sure that now we know why The Faction is after her. And you can also be dead certain it is The Faction. Who else would risk trying to control all of that?” He gestured to her with a wave of his hand. “Plus, we know more about where she stands. Because in general, Faction policy is, if you won’t join them, the only alternative is death.” He shrugged. “It’s simple, they want her dead, so it stands to reason Collett wasn’t willing to sign on the dotted line.”

  Ashley agreed. She looked back to her pessimistic sister, “I’m with Nate. Collett isn’t on the daunting or disastrous side of this. She doesn’t have that kind of greedy malice in her. I would have felt it. She’s not power hungry either. Moreover, they wouldn’t want Collett dead if she had already agreed to join them. For that matter, given her talents, they would have at least tried to manipulate her to their cause in some way if they could have.”

  With Ashley’s statement, a cold, tingling feeling trickled its way down Cade’s spine. So much became clear, and he understood why there had been no move against them in recent days. That’s why after Jeffery’s attack at the river all remained quiet.

  They were trying to capture Collett before… Hadn’t the demon said something about killing her and to hell with the bounty? Then, there was Jeffery. He hadn’t hurt Collett. In fact, with little regard, Jeffery had hurt Cynda. He almost killed her, but not Collett. It was as if he had been pushing them into the river to weaken Collett for capture, and then he would have left Cynda for dead. Things clicked into place for Cade, one by one, like cogs on a slow clock.

  Cade berated himself, how could I have been so stupid? The waiting, it was just a way to re-strategize. Decisions like this took time and recruiting took time. They were coming up with a new game plan, and now, the game would be even deadlier.

  By helping Collett and making it known that The Brotherhood, a sworn enemy of The Faction and a serious thorn in their side, was protecting her, they had unwittingly changed the strike order from capture, to kill!

  Heaven knew that The Faction definitely couldn’t afford to have someone like Collett working against them. Cade looked away from Collett, not wanting her to see the regret in his eyes and swept his eyes swiftly across everyone in the room. There were too many possible casualties now. “Tracy, Ashley, pack your bags, your trip has just been cut short. Get on the next flight out of Colorado,” he said harshly.

  “Just what the hell are you doing?” Rederrick protested.

  “Think, Rederrick!” Cade snapped. “They didn’t intend to kill her before like we thought. Ashley said it. They wanted to manipulate her, capture her, or torture her, until she complied with what they wanted.” Cade ground out the last of it, the mere thought of such actions knotted his insides, sickening him. He pushed it back and finished with more calm than he felt, “Rederrick, they would never risk Collett’s collage of abilities being of use to us. Think how bad that would be for them. They wanted her for themselves! They intended to use her!”

  Nate put it together for everyone, “So now that we have her, they’ll send in the real hit squad. She’s better lost to them, than possibly helpful to us.”

  “Exactly,” confirmed Cade. “And if they sent a demon and Jeffery for the first task, imagine the possibilities of who they’ll hire for the second job. They won’t take any risks on her living. They’re coming, and you can bet they’re coming soon!”

  “Well, you heard the man. Pack your bags, girls. You’re outta here. Jenny, you too, you can go stay with Tracy for a while. Cynda you’re with Ashley,” Rederrick thundered. “They won‘t be sending in the second-string players this time.”

  “Ha!” Cynda boasted, “All the more reason for me to stay.”

  Rederrick’s brows drew together, and his eyes turned flinty. He looked to his wife of twenty-nine years, and prepared to order her to go.

  Before he could get out a single syllable however, Cynda snapped with an authority that only a wife could, “Don’t you dare think you can order me out of my own house. I don’t care one wit about your self-righteous need to play the role of the hero. We have been over this before, Rederrick James Williams! I am not the little woman. I am not helpless, and I will not wait idly by some phone for you to call and tell me when it’s all clear! You need me, and I’ll hear nothing more on the subject. As for our children and Jenny, I agree, they can all be on the next plane ride away from here. Get on the phone and get their tickets changed.” she ordered, storming out of the room, stomping right past a now contrite Rederrick.

  Tracy
stepped past her father and moved to follow Cynda.

  Nate pushed himself off the wall he’d been leaning on. “I’ll help with the travel arrangements.” Then he left to sit at a computer and work on finding tickets out of Colorado.

  Rederrick mumbled something about talking to Cody and James, about security or something like it. Cade wasn’t paying attention to Rederrick, so he barely noticed as he slipped out of the room as well.

  Cade just stood there, staring out the window, clenching his jaw so tightly you could see the jaw muscles tic. He stared at nothing, as one by one they all left. He was furious with himself and angry at the circumstances. His temper was barely contained at the moment. He desperately wanted to punch or destroy something right then.

  Ashley stepped into his view, unaffected by his flinty, rage-filled gaze. She knew Cade was berating himself for his inability to see this sooner. Ashley knew that because she knew him, and that’s just how Cade was. He was forever taking the responsibility for everyone’s safety onto his shoulders. She could feel his emotions, but she could feel turmoil too.

  Without a word, Ashley tipped her head in the direction directly behind him. When he saw what she was motioning at, Cade closed his eyes slowly and searched for calm. With one tilt of her head, Ashley reminded him of Collett’s presence, giving him slight control again. Collett still sat stunned and confused, and she was much too quiet since the startling realization of her multiple abilities.

  Knowing she did what was needed, Ashley left as well, her soft footfalls sounding against the wood floors as she exited. Cade opened his eyes. He turned around to Collett, trying to smile reassuringly, not that it would have mattered if Cade had managed the false smile. Collett wouldn’t have noticed. She was far too lost in her own personal thoughts. So Cade dropped the facade. For the first time in his long memory, Cade was scared, bone-deep scared.

  He wanted to reassure her. Wanted to whisk her away, and find a way to make it all disappear, but he couldn’t.