Snap, Crackle ...

by Dale Mayer

  When suddenly he kept going faster and faster and saw no sign of her headlight, he got worried and drove the car even faster but still saw no sign of her. He swore into the darkness, pulled over to the roadside, awkwardly made a three-point turn, heading back the way he’d come. Somehow the witch had lost him. How was that even possible?

  He drove much slower going back, covering ten miles before realizing that the energy was different on this side. He crossed to where the energy shifted again, almost like driving through a slight field, feeling that she was here somewhere close by, her energy drifting. Maybe he didn’t understand because, if she were hiding from the energy of whatever was in that storm, surely this would be a giveaway.

  He pulled off to the shoulder, turned around again, drove up to where he thought the line divided, and stopped. He slipped into the trees, letting his senses open up. It felt so familiar, as if someone he knew were here, yet how was that possible? He sent out a message to Stefan. Are you feeling this?

  Yes, watch your back.

  Always.

  And, with that, he slipped farther down, heading toward the long expansive river and the lake that followed all along the road. Here, as he made his way toward the water, he thought he heard something. He paused, stretched out his energy again, then shook his head at the same sense of knowingness, and then he saw her. She sat there, huddled up against a tree, something black in her arms.

  It must be the cat, although he couldn’t imagine how she could have possibly carried him on a bike ride like that. Unless she had a bag for him or some chest pouch. He hadn’t even checked for something like that. Hell, he hadn’t checked for anything because she hadn’t had anything. He stepped forward, realizing she made no attempt to leave.

  “Did you really think you’d get away?” he murmured.

  “Well, I did,” she said quietly. “At least from what I was trying to escape from.”

  “And what was that?” he asked, struggling hard to keep his anger and his disappointment shielded.

  “Well, not you,” she said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have used your energy to escape.” She turned and looked at him, and he saw her eyes, brilliantly twinkling globes of lights. “Someone was searching for me in that storm.”

  “Are you sure they were searching for you?”

  “Oh yes,” she said quietly. “You never forget that sense of being hunted.”

  He winced at that because his life was hunting others. He nodded slowly. “Do you think you evaded them?”

  “Well, that depends,” she said, slowly climbing to her feet. He saw the exhaustion in her face. “It depends on whether you led them here or not.”

  And, with that, the storm caught up with them. As the thunder boomed, and the lightning flashed, she looked at him sadly and said, “You did, didn’t you?”

  Chapter 10

  Beth didn’t know what to do. She’d half expected him to come but had hoped that he wouldn’t. She stood up slowly. “They’ll find us here.”

  “Okay, then we’ll go somewhere they can’t find us,” he said, his voice firm and not at all afraid.

  “No such place exists,” she said. “I’ve tried looking. I hid for a long time. I took energy from people, as I moved from shadow to shadow, and every time it seemed like I left a little piece of myself behind.”

  “There are tricks to pulling that back.”

  “Well, yes, there are,” she said, “but some of me is—” She shrugged and said, “Not some, all of me is b-broken. I can’t pull myself back in this condition.”

  “That doesn’t mean there isn’t any place we can hide.” He hesitated for a moment, and she watched as the rain built above them in the dark skies. “We’ll get soaked. Let’s go grab the bike, get into the car, and we’ll talk about it there.”

  Not knowing what else to do, she shrugged and said, “I don’t think you can put the bike in the trunk of your car.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  He helped her up, and a strange feeling crept up her arm when his hand touched hers—a sense of connection. But, of course, that was his energy reacting to his own energy that she’d taken from him. She didn’t pull back in any way but noted such an odd thing to hold somebody’s hand. As they got up to the bike, he looked at it and nodded, then said, “I’ll put it in the car.”

  She followed as he pushed the bike over, popped the trunk, and put it into the back, leaving the trunk open. He had a strap that he lowered the trunk lid with, securing the bike, preventing it all from bouncing. He motioned at the car and said, “It’ll start pouring. Let’s get in.”

  She slipped into the front seat, with Nocturne curled up in her lap. Hunter got in and stared at the cat, opened his mouth as if to ask, then thought better of it, and slowly closed his mouth again. As they sat here in the darkness, he asked, “Would you have any idea where you escaped from? The location, I mean?”

  “Of course,” she said, “a point like that is always indelibly marked in your consciousness.”

  “And how long after leaving the original compound was it?”

  “Maybe ten minutes,” she said. “Why?”

  He said, “I’d like to find the original compound.”

  “Well, I would too, but I doubt we have the same reasons.”

  He looked at her and then shrugged. “Well, I was thinking it would be a safe place, where they wouldn’t be likely to come looking for you.”

  She stared at him in shock. “You know what? … That might be possible. The boss had all kinds of defenses set up, so nobody else could search for the place and find it. Nobody could come in without his permission, without him opening the doors.”

  “Do you know if it’s still standing?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. I was always inside.”

  “And when you were transported?”

  “I was blindfolded,” she said succinctly.

  He nodded. “But surely you have a connection to that place.”

  “Of course.”

  “So, can you follow that connection back?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t tried, and honestly it never occurred to me. Mostly out of fear I suppose.”

  “Which makes sense. So, what was your reason for wanting to go back?” he asked her curiously. “You said that you wanted to find it too, but you doubted we shared the same reason.”

  “I want answers,” she said quietly.

  “Answers to what?”

  “Who I am.”

  *

  Not what Hunter had expected. His heart slammed against his chest and then caved in on itself, as the shock finally receded. “Are you saying you don’t remember your family?”

  “I don’t even know if I have a family,” she said. “I don’t know if I was kidnapped. I don’t know if I was sold. He told me that I was sold, and maybe that’s true, but I was only around four, so I don’t have much in the way of memories. I also don’t think Metlomar is my surname. I think it’s one they gave me.”

  “Interesting.” He put the key into the ignition, and started the engine. He opened the window a crack to stop the steam from their breaths from fogging up the interior. “Any idea how far away it is?”

  She looked at him, gave him a brief smile, and said, “Less than an hour from here.”

  “Good,” he said. “Which direction?”

  She stared at him for a long moment and then pointed down the road in the direction the car was already headed and said, “Down here, for about the first thirty-five minutes.”

  He nodded and started down the road.

  “We shouldn’t go back there alone,” she murmured.

  “Why not?”

  “Because he might have left a sentry.”

  “I hope he did,” Hunter said, trying hard to keep the virulence from his voice but not succeeding. “I’d like to talk with somebody.”

  “You don’t understand. These are energy workers who have been bastardized into his creations.”

  “Yo
u make him sound like something out of … Frankenstein or the like.”

  “His creations were,” she said. “Look at me. I was a normal little girl, who became something very different.”

  “You haven’t said what happened to you, but obviously you can manipulate energy at a level most of us couldn’t begin to attempt.”

  “I don’t know about that,” she said. “The boss was always very good at finding people who could, although he had no energy skills that I’m aware of.”

  “He’s still alive?”

  “I think so. I do. I thought I felt him out there tonight.” He gave a strangled noise. “Out in the storm.” She nodded. “Along with Lizzy.”

  “Ah, Lizzy, the searcher.”

  “Yes, the very powerful one with a signature that’s hard to even imagine.”

  “What kind of a signature?”

  “It’s very specific. A strong push and then she pulls back, and then she does a heavy push again, and each time that energy goes out with an almost military precision.”

  “Wow,” he murmured. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.” Except … in Stefan’s guest bedroom, the sickbed for Beth.

  “You would remember it if you had. It’s very distinctive.” She looked around and said, “Do you ever wonder how all these people out there in the world can live their lives without even knowing that people like you and I exist?”

  “I think they’re happier that way,” he said. “If they had any idea of the abilities that some people have and what they could do, they would be terrified.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “There have always been psychics and spoon benders. There have always been people who saw into the future or read the past.”

  “Sure, but, as their people kept those numbers way down, they graced the newspapers for a day or two and disappeared.”

  “I never could bend a spoon,” she said in a way that made her laughter burst free.

  “I never could either,” he replied, looking at her with a smile.

  She grinned. “It’s one of the tests.”

  “Seriously?” he asked.

  She nodded, her green eyes flashing. “I don’t know that he ever found anybody who could. He was always trying to disprove that guy so famous for it.”

  “And yet that guy was made famous because he could do it, basically at will.”

  “And that just means that it’s possible, so, for the boss, that meant he needed somebody who could do it.”

  “Was he looking for court jesters and party tricks?”

  “He was looking for the unusual. He was looking for the special, for the powerful. And, when he didn’t find it, he did his best to create them.”

  “Still, it’s pretty ugly when you think about it.”

  “Everything about him is ugly. Even his face.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was burned in a fire,” she said. “Most people would have no idea who he was or what he could do.”

  “But you know who he is.”

  “Of course. I was part of his world, before he knew how important it was to be secret about it.”

  “And when did that happen?”

  “I think after Stefan left,” she murmured. “Everything changed then.”

  “That makes sense. The boss didn’t realize he was vulnerable before that. Stefan made him vulnerable.”

  “Exactly,” she said, “and it made him really angry.”

  “Do you think Stefan is in danger?”

  “If he finds Stefan and his wife, yes,” she said honestly.

  “So why did you come to him?” he asked. “I’m not judging you. I’m just trying to understand.”

  “I did war with myself over that one. Almost too long, as it turned out,” she murmured. “In the end, I didn’t know who else would even understand me or what it is that I am. Not that anybody possibly could, but, if there are degrees of understanding or if someone could comprehend even a little bit, it was Stefan.”

  “Understood,” Hunter said. “It’s still sad to think that this boss guy had to put somebody else in danger in order to get answers.”

  “Isn’t that always the way?” she murmured.

  “Well, I hope not. We’d like to think that the world was a little more progressive than that.”

  “The only thing that’s more progressive is technology and our understanding of our own personal limits,” she said. “When it comes to greed, I don’t think anything has ever changed.”

  “I hate to think that way,” he said, “but you could be right.”

  “You know that I’m right,” she said. “Everything about this world is twisted and messed up. That the boss could even survive as he has all these years is completely unacceptable.”

  “And have you ever tried to do anything about it?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said, “and every time I even think about it, I choke up in a full-blown panic, realizing that I’ll just be his next victim.”

  “Any idea how many victims we’re talking about?”

  She snorted. “I don’t know for sure, but at least a dozen, if not dozens.”

  He sucked in his breath at that. “That makes him a serial killer.”

  “He wouldn’t think so,” she murmured. “He wouldn’t see that at all. He wouldn’t see himself as a murderer. He would say that they were all failures. People who weren’t able to do what they needed to do in order to survive, which made them the weaker of the species.”

  At that wording, Hunter winced and said, “I hate to ask this, but was breeding ever part of his program?”

  She looked at him and then slowly shook her head. “Not while I was with him, although that could have been part of the reasons for the move to the new location. I don’t know.” Then she gave a shudder and said, “That’s a horrible thought. Why did you have to put that into my head?”

  “I’m surprised that anybody could put it in your head or that it wasn’t already there,” he murmured. “It’s natural selection, and that’s what brought it to mind.”

  “He used to talk about that all the time, saying that he needed strong warriors.”

  “That just brings us back to natural selection and how that comes about,” he said, studying her.

  “And that’s just gross,” she whispered. “How could he do something like that because it wouldn’t be with anybody’s permission.”

  “Are you so sure? People will do all kinds of things to survive.”

  She winced at that. “That just makes me think of Lizzy. She’s so very unstable, but still she deserves a decent life.”

  “Sure she does, but that doesn’t mean she’ll get it, particularly at this stage.”

  “Well, couldn’t you at least let me keep a little hope?” she snapped at him angrily.

  “Would that help in some way?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Everything is so black-and-white.”

  “Says you,” he said. “But you’re the one who firmly believes that he’ll find us and that you’ll be caught and captured and tortured again.”

  “Well, I will be,” she said, her voice ever-so-faint. “But I’m doing my best to make it as difficult as possible for him.”

  “I’m surprised you even feel that there is safety for you, plus a way to get Lizzy out.”

  “I want to believe there is. I keep hoping. I survived outside for five years, so I know another five years is possible, but I was hiding in plain sight, using their energies to stay hidden. But now somehow they found me.”

  “Tell me what happened when they found you.”

  “I’d been renting a room from a widow, paying in cash. I had been working at one of the local fast-food chains. I’d asked to be transferred to another nearby town, figuring I was getting a little too comfortable with the locals in the first town. Becoming a little less aware made me scared, thinking that maybe my guard would drop, and they would get me.”

  “And so the fast-food company, they didn’t have a p
roblem doing the transfer?”

  “Nope, not at all. Pretty common, it seemed. They always had people moving back and forth. Not even so much back and forth, but a lot of staff movement. I think it’s typical in the industry. It’s usually a pretty short-term deal.”

  “I’m sure,” he murmured. “So what happened?”

  “I got up one morning at the boarding house and went outside and stretched. A beautiful morning, so I raised my arms over my head, did a sun salutation to unlock some of the stress that’s always burning deep inside, and I took the bullet in my side,” she said quietly.

  He sucked in his breath and said, “No honor among thieves, is there?”

  “I never heard a thing,” she said, “but, instead of falling, I bolted.”

  He turned, taking his gaze off the traffic light. “How did you manage that?”

  “Practice,” she said, “a lot of practice.”

  Chapter 11

  Beth knew she’d surprised Hunter yet again. But she fell silent, hating the wash of memories going through her. “I’ll sleep now,” she murmured. She curled up in the corner of the car, closed her eyes, and refused to answer any more questions. When he came to where she wanted him to turn, she pointed it out and had him take the next left. He didn’t say anything but followed her directions in a smooth manner, something that led her to realize just how good he was at doing that. “You’d make a good leader,” she murmured.

  “How do you figure that?” he asked.

  “You take directions when you need to, but you also don’t mind standing up and taking the front position when necessary.”

  “There’s a time to lead and a time to follow,” he said. “Every leader knows that.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “the boss would never have allowed something like that. He would think that a sign of weakness.”

  “Well, that’s not how weakness works,” he said. “Weakness is mental.”