"Yeah, it's okay."
She sat down.
"Now, just sit still for a while."
"How much of a while?"
"Two minutes."
"Okay." That's hardly anything. Easy peasy. She stilled herself.
"Close your eyes."
Lucy did.
"Now relax."
She released the tension in her muscles and breathed deeply. I can totally sit still. Not a problem. Time passed slowly, and her body twitched, but she forced it still. Her nose itched, and she tried to ignore it, but it consumed her whole attention. She forced herself to focus on something else—the breeze through the trees, the smell of the flowers. Her mind spun in circles, looking for anything to grab onto for a distraction. Her body, bored from inactivity, tried to rebel, but she wrestled it under control.
Mr. K's deep voice broke through her thoughts. "You're holding your breath."
Oh, right. Lucy exhaled and inhaled, reminding herself not to stop. How much longer? She started counting in her head, but she didn't know how long she'd already been sitting there, so she didn't know how long to count. Has it been two minutes yet? She opened her eyes a little bit, to peek at Mr. K, but something else had grabbed his attention.
She finally counted to two minutes, which meant she'd been sitting still for even longer than two minutes. "Okay. That's been two minutes, right?"
Mr. K chuckled. "I didn't realize we started counting. At what point were you sitting still?"
"What? That whole time I—"
"Lucy, you fidgeted like a schoolgirl whispering in class. Your thoughts blared like a noisy trumpet. Do you think that's still?"
She harrumphed and crossed her arms, knowing she looked like a petulant two-year-old, but not caring. "No. I guess not." Stupid stillness. "I'll try again."
Luke called out from the valley. "Lucy, we could really use your help with camp."
She jumped up, grateful for an excuse to move around, be active. "I gotta go help. I'll see you soon, Mr. K."
"I'll be here. Not going anywhere." He chuckled at his own comment, but it was laced with sadness.
Lucy ducked out, eager to escape his presence. But he's everywhere, isn't he? She'd find a way to conquer that whole sitting still thing, just as soon as she found a way out of this valley.
Chapter 87 – Sam
I sat in the kitchen with Father Patrick, Bernard and Darren. Susie had gone to tend to multiple students who'd woken up with headaches. I tried to feel bad that I'd hurt my friends, scared that I could have destroyed their minds if Susie hadn't calmed me and encouraged me to let go, but I only felt emptiness and fear—a deep, clawing, painful, gut-wrenching fear that felt like it would rip me in two.
I'd showered off Mrs. Beaumont's blood and dressed in clean clothes, going through the motions as my mind spun, trying to piece together the puzzle of this night.
"Are you sure you heard Drake?" Bernard's kind eyes drooped with fatigue. "Stress can play tricks on us, make us think things that aren't real."
I sighed. "Yes, it was Drake, I'm sure of it. He came to me while I was showering and said my father, Steele, is behind Ana's kidnapping. But Steele had to be working with someone here, so I need to interview everyone immediately, starting with Mary."
Darren rested his hand on mine, then pulled it away. Ever since Drake had contacted me, there'd been an awkward gap between us that probably wouldn't go away. Drake had always stood between us, but now he presented a visceral reality.
He was coming to Washington, and he'd help me get our daughter back. Maybe then we could be a real family—a simple life with Drake and Ana. It seemed the stuff of fantasy, based in a reality that didn't exist, and maybe couldn't exist.
"Drake doesn't know anything?" Darren loved Ana. He'd been doing little things for her since she was born, and it occurred to me that he probably thought we could be together, given time. Was his heart breaking too? Would any of us ever find happiness?
Lightning crackled outside. A storm brewed to match my mood.
Father Patrick had left numerous messages for our contact at IPI but hadn't heard anything. Desirai had tried to find her via dream walking, but apparently babies didn't dream the same way adults did, so even if she found Ana, it might not tell us much. We'd accounted for everyone at the mansion, and no one had seen anything out of the ordinary. Susie had no idea how someone could have gotten to Ana from outside the house. She'd been taken from her crib in my bedroom and just disappeared.
We live in the middle of nowhere. How the hell could someone come onto our property, kidnap my kid, and vanish without a school full of paranormals seeing something? Anything? I would tear apart minds, if necessary, to find the answers.
My reaction frightened me. I had been protective of Ana during the pregnancy, but I'd always held my powers back out of moral concerns. I realized that holding her in my arms, feeling her tiny fingers wrap around mine, the sweet smell of her skin after a bath—all of this had bonded me to her.
I would do anything for her, ethics be damned. Mamma bears have nothing on me.
Bernard and the others wouldn't let me conduct a full-on mind raid tonight, not with everyone still in pain from my recent mind probe. They did, however, concede on waking Mary and bringing her down for a talk, after I told them about her standing in my room with the baby after the birth.
She appeared in the hall, a practiced look of indifference on her face. "What?"
I walked up and slapped her hard. "What did you do to my baby, bitch?"
Chapter 88 – Steele
Mr. Steele sat in the center of a large empty room. It had only one chair, and natural lighting that bounced off the all-white soundproof walls. A soundless cooling and heating system kept the temperature at a perfect 65 degrees.
Nothing can touch me here.
Beleth chose that moment to walk through the door with a scrawny boy in tow.
Correction, nothing should be able to touch me here.
"What do you want? Have we finally made tangible progress with our experiments?" Mr. Steele had little patience left for the fools in his employ. If they couldn't master this after so many years, he'd kill them all and find someone who could.
"The side effects are still a problem. The lab needs more time before you can attempt an extraction from the baby. If you try now, the baby will die, and you will not get the powers you desire."
The stillness of the giant man unnerved Steele, though he'd never admit that to anyone. How any being could embody such calm, he didn't know, but someday he would own Beleth's powers and finally understand. "What of the new specimens?"
"We pulled those who had useful and active para-powers. The undesirables are in a separate facility, awaiting your word." Beleth clutched the hand of the sniveling child next to him.
Why bring that rodent into my sanctuary? The child's large brown eyes stared into Steele, but he turned his gaze back to Beleth. "Sell them to the human traffickers. The girls can be sex slaves, the boys... well, they can too. Whatever you get for them, use that to make more Blue Power. We need more bodies to experiment on."
The air in the room shifted, and Beleth's mouth turned down in a slight frown. "There are other uses for them, other means of releasing them."
"None that will pay so high a price. Are you getting soft on me, Beleth? Do you no longer believe in our mission to empower humans and raise up the enhanced as rulers?"
Beleth said nothing for a moment, then pushed the boy forward. "He was slated to go out with the other disposables, but I believe his para-power could be useful to you."
"Step forward, boy. What's your name?"
"Tommy Beaumont."
"And what is this para-power that Beleth seems to think is so special?"
"They said that I'm an empath, that I can sense emotions."
Steele didn't know whether to laugh or curse. "And what do you sense in me?"
The boy's eyes widened. "Nothing. There's nothing in you. It's all black." He shive
red, weak and afraid.
Steele sickened at such a pathetic excuse for humanity. To think he had been like that boy once—shoved into lockers, too weak to defend himself against his own father's fists, too powerless to leave. Never again.
He turned on Beleth. "What makes you think I'd want a heightened sense of people's feelings?"
Steele had never been able to intimidate Beleth, who now held his gaze without fear. No matter how many memory modifications he'd performed on the dark man's subconscious mind, he couldn't break him. He'd find a way, eventually.
"To read a person's deepest feelings and desires is great power, Steele. If you dismiss that, you are more short-sighted than I thought."
"Get rid of him. He goes with the others."
Beleth moved forward, as if to object.
Nerve endings twitched as Steele fought to maintain control over Beleth. He didn't have the power to beat the larger man in direct combat, so he couldn't risk losing the small edge he had with his mental compulsion. How he hated feeling powerless.
Before he'd been modified with para-powers, Steele had hated his life as a nobody, worthy only of the bullies' attention. But science had gifted him with a new life and a new start. The program they'd been a part of had been pulled, but he and Beleth continued the work they'd started so long ago. Back then, Beleth didn't balk at what they had to do to enhance humanity, but Steele had seen a change come over his former partner. That meant he had to complete his preparations soon, before Beleth broke free of his control and altered the course of their undertaking.
Steele's power held, and Beleth stepped back, ready to do what he was told.
No matter, for even had Beleth broken free, Steele kept another ace in the hole, one which nobody knew about: his daughter. "What's the status on Drake?"
"He is free and will likely attempt to free the boy. I don't understand why you haven't sent guards for him. You know he's going to head straight to Sam, first chance he gets."
Drake. So like his mother. Strong, stubborn and willful. If only the Seeker had been blessed with more backbone, he might have survived.
Mr. Steele smiled. "And how do you know that's not exactly what I want?"
Chapter 89 – Lucy
As Lucy meditated, her mind buzzed with thoughts.
Finding a way out of the valley proved more difficult than she'd thought. They'd built a camp, and spent hours exploring the clearing, to no avail. They did, however, find some of the tastiest fruits ever, as well as savory vegetation that worked well in a stew. Mr. K had been instrumental in helping them find food sources that were safe.
Lucy's mind wandered, the scent of rainbow flowers, as she called them, stimulating a recent memory with Hunter.
***
In the distance, the setting sun glinted off the hard shells of the beautiful beetles. Lucy felt no compulsion to chase them. Not after last time.
She stood alone under a tree and let her mind wander. So many small decisions had led her to this moment. For better or worse, Lucy's life began to feel like a series of impulsive leaps, none of which actually led to what she expected. She'd been instrumental in leading the resistance at Rent-A-Kid, but so many had died. Could she have done things differently? Could she have saved more of them?
The scent of honey and rain and sweet perfume filled the air around her. Hunter stood next to her, holding out a star flower.
Lucy took it and inhaled deeply. "How do you sneak up on me like that? You're so quiet."
His I'm-not-going-to-tell-you grin should have irritated her, but it didn't. Not much, at least. She enjoyed how mischievous and charming it made him look.
"I'm a secret agent. It's in my job description to be stealthy."
"Uh-huh. Thank you for the flower. It's beautiful." Of all the amazing and magical things they'd seen since entering this Wonderland, she liked the star flower most, with its deep blue petals and diamond sparkles. But how did Hunter know that?
A slight breeze caressed his disheveled black and silver hair, and a faraway look crossed his face. "I always liked making wishes on stars as a kid. I thought...." He shrugged in the self-conscious way of a man not used to intimacy. "I thought this could be a wish for you." He plucked it from her hand and slid it behind her ear, then he leaned forward, his face inches from hers.
She braced herself for a kiss that never came, at least not as she'd expected it to. His soft lips brushed so gently against her forehead she could have imagined it.
"It looks lovely in your hair."
With a snort that totally broke the mood, Lucy laughed. "Yeah, sure. My nasty hair that hasn't been washed with real soap in who knows how long!"
"Doesn't matter. A beautiful woman is a beautiful woman, no matter what her hair looks like."
***
Mr. K's voice popped her memory like a bubble. "Earth to Lucy."
She opened her eyes and sighed. "Sorry. I tried, but it's so hard not to let my mind wander."
The leaves around her rustled in what sounded like laughter. "You actually did surprisingly well. A full five minutes of inner stillness before your boyfriend took over your thoughts."
"He's not my—"
A branch slapped her gently. "Hush, girl. I have eyes and ears everywhere. Call it what you want, I know what it is."
"Fine. Whatever." She scowled on the outside, but glowed a bit on the inside in a teenage-girl-crush way that made her want to throw up a little.
Time to focus on something else. "I think I can go longer. I'd like to keep trying." If being still would make her stronger, more focused, and more capable of finding a way out and rescuing those kids, she'd master it, no matter how hard.
"I know you're anxious to progress in this, but right now I want to teach you something new. Meditate again, only this time, instead of focusing inward, I want you to focus outward."
Lucy closed her eyes again, but didn't know how to start. "What do you mean?"
"Pick out each sound. Identify what each is. Become one with all that is around you. Let it become a part of you."
She smiled. This would be way easier than trying to still all her thoughts.
She centered her breath and relaxed her body, then allowed her mind to sense the world around her. A slight buzzing, soft at first, became louder the more she focused on it. Probably a firefly. She followed the sound as it flew through a world that must seem far different than what Lucy experienced.
Footsteps pulled her from the buzz. Hunter or Luke? She listened more deeply. It was Luke. A soft scuffle accompanied each step. His limp sounded different than Hunter's walk.
The more attention she paid to the sounds around her, the more they exploded into her consciousness. The sway and crackling of Mr. K's branches, the scurry of tiny bugs under the rocks, the sound of the waterfall in the distance—the world felt smaller and bigger, louder and quieter. Impossible to explain, but so alive and present.
"Good." Mr. K's brown, bark-like eyes looked straight into her. "Excellent. Do you feel the difference when you open up?"
She nodded. "Yes, but I don't know how to describe it."
"It's about expansion verses contraction. You, and quite honestly most humans, spend all of your time contracted. Like a roly-poly bug or a snail stuck in its shell, you crawl into yourself and shut yourself off from the world. From that vantage point, everything looks isolated and big and scary, and you think you have to defend yourself. But, when you expand, you realize how connected things are. Life becomes much friendlier as you realize that you are not alone. Does that make sense?"
It did, sort of, but thinking about it made Lucy's head hurt. She understood it for moments, like glimpses into eternity, but they were fleeting. Intellectually, it eluded her.
Mr. K shook himself, and flower petals fell from his branches and onto her head. "It's not something you can use your brain to understand. You have to feel it in your body, in your soul. Only then can you learn and grow. And... only then will you succeed at your mission."
That got Lucy's attention. "At freeing the kids? Or getting out?"
"At everything, Lucy. At life."
Lucy's stomach grumbled so loud, it startled a white bird with gold-accented feathers that pecked at the rock next to her.
Mr. K shook with a deep laugh. "Looks like it's time for you to eat. One of the perks of being a tree, I receive constant nourishment through the sun and soil. No hunger pains for me."
"Yeah, I'm starving. Didn't realize how long we'd been here. Time flies when you're meditating. Ha!" Normally time seemed to stand still, so Lucy appreciated the change. "See you later!"
The branches parted as she ran toward the camp they'd set up. Mr. K had taught them how to weave the weeping willow branches into tight, basket-like huts that they lined with layers of leaves to sleep on. In the center of the camp, they'd built a fire pit, which they'd taken solemn oaths to guard carefully, lest the sparks injure Mr. K or any other plant life around them.
Luke sat by the fire pit with his foot resting on a bed of leaves, and Hunter leaned against a tree and carved a stick into a point. Several other pointy sticks lay in a pile by his feet.
"Hey, guys, I'm starving. I need food!" Lucy's pants hung loose around her hips—and she'd been petite before the start of this trip. All of her curves would disappear if she didn't get something of substance into her.
Luke offered her a small bunch of blood-red berries. "They're delicious."
Lucy shook her head. "I know. All the fruit has been exceptionally yummy. Whatever experiment created this place, it's pretty much paradise. But I need meat—thick, juicy, hot, protein-packed meat. I can't live on berries and plants. I'm not a rabbit!" She turned to Hunter, and her stomach flip-flopped—and not from the hunger. "Hey Hunter, want to hunt?"
"Haha. Yeah, I've never heard that one before. But, to answer your not even remotely witty question—yes, I'd love to."
She pointed to his stack of wood. "That for hunting?"
He shrugged. "Hunting. Weapons. Whatever we need."
"Cool. I'll stick to my knife and gun this time, but good to have a backup. My bullets won't last forever."
The Forbidden Trilogy Page 50
