Illusionary

by LeAnn Mason

  "Girl, you have no idea what I'm taking you into." It was my turn to dial up the devious smile. Could Jade handle the "command post"?

  CHAPTER 10

  "WHAT THE–?!" JADE'S EYES bulged comically as they bounced around the brightly lit gym space. "Nathalee, why—" she squeaked when a weighted bar clanked into place on our left, the male working it sitting up and put his arms over his thighs to watch us move further into the space.

  Jade glued herself to my side and whisper-screamed in my ear, "What are we doing here?" Her asthma was kicking in, making me think I may have made a mistake. That she'd end up hyperventilating and passing out before we ever saw the commander and whatever he wanted me to look into.

  I stopped her with a hand at the elbow and brought her around to face me, looking directly into those too wide eyes. She looked ready to bolt. "Jade, breathe. Just breathe for a minute and I'll explain. It may be better, well easier to explain once we leave the training area and the stares from all these Primal males." I raised my eyebrows questioningly and gave her a little half smile. The fact that I was calm seemed to help her. She took a few deep breaths and nodded vigorously at me, her eyes once again focusing. "You good?"

  "Yeah, I'm good." Nodding again, she began walking. I steered her toward the door I had entered the day before. It was closed again, so I knocked. This time, Dane's smiling face didn't throw me off, but it did Jade. She stood, rooted in place, staring slack jawed at him. Her thoughts were all sorts of naughty, but she wasn't scared. Not at the moment at least, who knew if that would change when we learned why we were here.

  "Hey, Dane, good to see you again."

  "Hi, Nathalee." Again, he waved us forward into the room.

  "Dane, Commander, this is Jade Danforth." I waved her forward, "Jade is a talented empath. I'm thinking you may want her on the team."

  "I'm sure she is quite talented,” the commander acknowledged with a small nod at Jade, “Though I don't know why we would need to read emotion when we can read actual thoughts?"

  I turned to Jade, my expression questioning. She finally walked into the room, her eyes darting between Dane and the commander, assessing. She stopped at my side, glancing at me briefly, then returned to sizing up the Primals.

  Finally, having made a decision, she gave me the mental green light to reveal the extent of her ability. I opened my mouth, ready to tell them precisely how useful a true empath could be, but snapped it shut in a lightbulb moment. "Jade, how about you show them what you can do."

  Jade looked over at me with a “what the hell?” look as I urged her onward. A moment later a mischievous smirk, one I'm sure mirrored my own, drew across her face. She's going to enjoy this. The room stilled as Jade sauntered up to Dane, halting just before she reached where he stood by the computer bank along the right wall. They were locked in an intense stare down.

  All of a sudden, Dane's depthless chocolate eyes went impossibly wide, his eyebrows pinched and jaw clenched. Breathing labored and muscles stiff, he swiveled his attention toward Commander James. "I'm terrified! I don't know why or of what, but I am!" His body began to tremble as he brought his attention back to Jade. His hands opened and closed convulsively, his entire body vibrating with tension as he fought the inexplicable urge to flee. Jade broke concentration and stepped back to my side, looking for all she was worth, like the cat that got the canary.

  But Dane's mind was elsewhere, still locked in its terrified state. I saw flashes of gruesome images, one after another, until one stayed front and center. A woman, her beautiful face marred with bruises and blood. Eyes like blue pools were open and vacant, shot through with red. Haunting. That's exactly what I was seeing, a haunting memory Dane was reliving. Looking at the commander, I noticed he was watching Jade, unaware of where his enforcer's mind was currently trapped, the nightmare he was stuck in.

  I nudged Jade. “He’s in a bad place, you have to do something to bring his mind back.” I was starting to emulate what Dane was feeling. His thoughts and horror so intense, I couldn’t escape it. My breathing sped up to mimic Dane’s as did my posture, fists and jaw clenched. Soon, Jade would feel its effects as well.

  Jade looked at a loss, not expecting Dane’s continued agitation. She was swinging her eyes wildly between Dane and me, her golden locks flying with each turn. “I cut off the terror already,” she scrunched her nose, searching for a solution. “I’ll send calming juju.”

  It didn’t help. Dane continued to see the woman’s unnerving stare, even though his mind and body were calming. It would be extremely confusing later when he thought about this scene. Would his mind and body stay calm as it was now or would he revert to his original emotional state?

  “I wish I could say that worked Jade, but he still has the visual.”

  Before I finished the words, she had marched over to Dane and was standing toe to toe with the big male. She reached up and grabbed either side of his face, yanking him down while standing on the toes of her cartoon emblazoned flip-flops to close the gap between them, as Dane was easily a foot taller than Jade.

  The crashing of their lips was enough to startle Dane out of his self-imposed nightmare. Jade was surprised how soft and full his lips were. Once his surprise wore off, however, Dane was a full participant, thinking this may be his only chance to experience her kiss. His dilated eyes bore into hers, mouth opening slightly.

  Jade was shocked out of the moment when his tongue grazed her lips. Letting go of his face, she stepped back and out of reach. I cannot believe I just did that! Just walked up and kissed the man! she scolded herself. So many mental face-palms ensued that I lost track. She pulled herself together and straightened up, putting on the persona she wore so well. "Uh, sorry. It's the best I could think of to bring you back." Jade was so hotly embarrassed I could almost see the steam escaping her ears.

  I cleared my throat and rubbed my now maneuverable hands down my thighs to rid them of sweat. "Anyway, now you know how you may be able to use an empath, or at least Jade, both to incite and calm." I threw her a pointed look, “Though maybe she’ll think through her emotions a little better next time…” I raised my eyebrow, asking for confirmation of my statement.

  Jade recovered and put a hand on Dane’s arm. He was looking at his hand, opening and closing it compulsively as a means to ignore the room's occupants and avoid our eyes, as well as any questions that may be aimed at him.

  "I'm sorry, Dane. I just thought making you feel something that was out of the norm for you would demonstrate my ability to override one's emotions. I didn’t mean any true harm." Jade looked lost, biting her lip, upset at what she caused.

  Commander James, who had been looking at Dane with a concerned, almost fatherly expression, now turned his attention back to Jade. He decided to avoid the previous situation in hopes of allowing everyone to save face. "Yes, I now see how having an empath, at least one such as you, on the team could be…useful." Pause for emphasis. “But carefully.”

  Squaring up, he gave us the full picture of scary Primal commander clad in a dark shirt and khaki pants with a myriad of pockets. His boots surprised me—not full leather or canvas but a mesh which looked both durable and breathable. Depthless cinnamon eyes blazed at Jade with an intensity which screamed to be obeyed; or else. "You will not use that portion of your ability without being expressly told to do so, do you understand? I will not tolerate anything malicious going on within the team."

  Jade nodded like a bobblehead. "I've only done it a handful of times and only on my parents–until today." She went on hastily, "I was only trying to demonstrate. I wouldn’t abuse it.” She rolled her eyes before continuing. “And if you knew my parents, you'd understand why I would use it on them."

  She was rambling as confusion surfaced, both on her face and in her mind. "Wait, what am I agreeing to? I don't even know who you are and what this ‘team’ is!" Oh, she was back to seething at me for not telling her all that had happened the last few days. I was in for a tongue lashing, and not the ple
asant kind. I flushed again as that thought brought forth the memory of being in both Jade’s and Dane’s heads during their kiss. Telepathy sucks.

  "Well, Miss Danforth, we are a branch of Enhanced Enforcement. I am putting together a team of Primals and Sage who would work side by side to investigate the more severe or confusing crimes committed within the community. We even have an NE or two on the team.”

  Seeing her about to protest, he held up a hand to stay her objections and powered on. “I understand that Sage are not physically able to compete with Primals, but you are able to use abilities long range, and may investigate better than Primals.

  "As I told Nathalee yesterday, we will need to assess where you are physically and what we can do to strengthen your skills, should you need to leave a situation. Hopefully, most of your interactions will be without duress and under controlled circumstances, but I cannot guarantee all will be that way."

  Suddenly, I was jolted to the left, having to take a step in order to stay upright. I grabbed at my right biceps, having just received a wallop from Jade. "Ow!" I narrowed my eyes at her, though I knew why she had done it…and that I deserved it. "I'm sorry! I've been so caught up in figuring out what I was going to do, that I forgot to actually…tell…you. I'm sorry." I knew I repeated myself, but really, what else was I supposed to say?

  I refocused on Commander James in an attempt to move attention away from myself and my lack of communication with my bestie. "So, Commander, why am I here today? I assumed you wouldn't need me until after I had some training." I raised my eyebrow in time with the question.

  "Ah, well, we have a person in custody who is telling us something that does not agree with our findings. I was hoping you may be able to give us some insight." He stepped to the side, dragging one of the boards plastered with people and information along with him. In the newly open space, a large window was revealed. It took up nearly the entire length of the wall, starting about three and a half feet from the base and extending upward.

  In the room was a disheveled man. His hair, falling almost to his shoulders, looked tangled and wet, whether from water, sweat, or blood, I couldn't tell. His clothes in much the same state as his hair, were dirty and torn. They also bore patches of a rust color, which I believed to be blood. He was seated haphazardly in a blue plastic chair, staring blankly at the floor ahead of him. His hands, bruised and bleeding at the knuckles, were limply hanging toward the gray floor behind him, legs fully extended in a V. He was in a heavy state of disbelief.

  "What happened?" I stuttered, bringing myself close enough to reach out and touch the glass. I traced lines along the blemishes, wondering just what would possess this man to flip his shit. I had seen the product of violence many times with my father at the hospital, so this man's appearance was not a new sight.

  His mental state, however, wasn't something I associated with aggressors. Now that I was focused on him, his mental state was all too clear. He was in heavy self-recrimination, to the point he may try to hurt himself. "He’s destroyed. Filled with self-loathing," I turned my head to find Commander James behind me, further from the window. He was tall enough that I didn't impede his view so he didn't feel the need to move closer.

  Looking a bit uncertain, he answered. "He was reported viciously beating his neighbor. Two of my most capable enforcers were barely able to pry him off the other man. He had flipped. The man he had beaten was already unconscious, but Jerath here seemed to have no intention of letting up. I'm not certain of the condition of the victim as of this moment, but I need to know what Jerath's motive was."

  Commander James scrubbed a hand over his shorn hair and down his face, a move born of frustration. "He was raging about how he saw the man hit his wife while he was fixing the fence between the properties. Many Primals are protective of women and children, Jerath apparently is no exception." The man in question still had not moved or changed his expression during this rundown. He was apparently accepting of his fate—at least at this moment. I didn’t know anyone who would go quietly into that good night, when said “good night” was Enhanced Prison.

  "I still don't see why you need me." I was confused, this seemed open and shut. "He was seen beating the man. He's obviously guilty." I brought my attention back to Jareth's limp form. The man I saw looked lost, devastated. Why?

  "We have his version of a motive, though when we checked the victim’s property for a female, we found none. Other witnesses said that the wife works in the fields and is gone every day from sunup to sundown. But our assailant was so sure of what he saw, or so he says."

  It clicked into place then, "All right, I get it. You want me to read him, see if his mental and verbal accounts coincide." I pursed my lips in thought and bobbed my head. "Well, right now, he certainly isn't thinking about what set him off, I need someone to push his thoughts in that direction."

  Dane stepped forward to volunteer, but Commander James waved him off, saying that he would go in and Dane could be back up if necessary. Dane was not comfortable putting his commander in a precarious situation but nodded his assent all the same. "Jade, can you influence his emotions on this side of the wall?" Her skill may come in handy if Jareth flipped again.

  Jade looked nervous. "I'm not sure, actually. I've never tried doing it when I wasn't nearly touching the person." She wanted to say she could but didn't want to overstate things. "I'll go in if we need to subdue him." Dane opened his mouth to protest but was quelled by Jade's stare.

  She, we rather, didn't want to take the easy road. "If I'm on this team, you have to let me do my thing. Be my backup if needed, but don't tell me I can't do it." Her eyes were spitting their green fire at Dane as she waited to see if her point was made. Finally, he nodded once, acknowledging her statement.

  I turned back toward Commander James and relayed my concern. "I'm not sure how we'll communicate with you in the room and me not."

  "Tap on the glass once you get what you need." With that parting statement, he opened the door and walked into the sterile-looking room where Jerath was still sitting, still staring at nothing. "Jerath," the commander's smooth tones reached me through the panes of glass only slightly muffled. "Jerath, tell me again what happened."

  Commander James had stopped a few steps into the room and stood tall, his legs braced and his arms crossed with his chin dipped nearly to his chest. He was in a power position, but his tone was coaxing. His query was met with silence, but Jerath's thoughts flickered.

  There was a brief image of a man, seen through a large picture window, his back to us, throw out a powerful fist which caught a woman with short brown hair across her left cheek and sent her spinning to the ground. With the image, Jerath's self-recrimination ebbed. That image, the thought, enraged him. Commander James tried again, harsher this time. "Jerath, why did you attack Mr. Barnes?"

  Jerath's eyes flicked to meet the commander's as he ground out, "I told you. He hit his woman." There was definitely anger there, and it was rising. It was only with this agitation and the subsequent movements that I noticed that the man’s hands were bound. Those two things served to remind me that this man was here for a reason, his present state shouldn’t sway me from that knowledge.

  "And I told you, there was no female in residence when we searched the premises. No one saw her leave, and the whole block was outside and watching you beat Mr. Barnes. Someone would have seen her leave, had she been there. We've been told that Mrs. Barnes works in the fields as do you all, and is never around at the time you claim to have seen her, though your description of the woman does match. We are checking on her status as we speak."

  The longer Commander James went on in his speech as to how Jerath was wrong in what he saw, the more Jerath’s anger built. I saw the fight unfold, though it wasn't really much of a fight. Jerath rushed the door when Mr. Barnes answered and yanked him onto the porch, digging his hands into the man's shirt and flinging him to the ground when he denied Jerath's accusation of assaulting his wife.

  Mr. Barnes
landed in a heap on the ground at the base of the porch steps, dazed and coughing on the dust kicked up when his body hit the ground, but then Jareth was on him. He showed no mercy, even as the man shouted his innocence, Jerath landed blow after blow, and had focused his attention mainly on the man’s face.

  It was about this time I noticed something. I knocked quickly on the glass to get Commander James's attention, he took the cue and turned to leave. Once he was securely outside the room, he asked my thoughts.

  "He definitely thinks he saw a woman take a right hook to the face."

  Commander James looked taken back. He must have expected that Jareth was lying in order to explain his actions.

  "Here's the interesting part," I paused, flicking my eyes between the three pairs currently fixed on me. "The sequence I watched of the initial assault was different from the sequence of the ensuing fight." Three pairs of eyes, blinked blankly at me. Confusion was the overwhelming result of that statement.

  "Ok, let me see how to explain…every person has a mental 'voice' or 'signature,' if you will. Something that is uniquely them. A way of speaking, a tone, a sequence…always the same for them, but unique to everyone." That didn't seem to help. How did I accurately explain this to people who had never experienced it?

  "It's like this. Jade, you know how you say every emotion has a feel?" She nodded slowly. "Well every 'voice' has a tone, a…frequency. All thoughts resemble each other as that tone for that specific person." Heads nodded now. I was heading in the right direction on the explanation. Let's hope I could keep it up.

  "The imagery for the woman's assault is a different 'tone' than Jareth's recount of the fight that resulted." I was excited now, bouncing in place. "We know the fight between Jareth and Mr. Barnes occurred, so that is a true account."