Page 6 of Love Beyond Time


  to change the tire a man appeared out of nowhere and

  started in my direction. I just had the feeling that I was in

  trouble, that he was going to try to grab me. So I ran,

  stupidly, into the woods and thank God I heard you guys or

  I swear I'd be dead."

  "Take a good deep breath," Kal instructed out loud .

  Do as I say, he silently commanded her. "I'm Kal and this

  is Nathan, Doug, and James. We're here on a

  fishing/camping/pretending we're still in college guys'

  weekend and we will help you. Don't worry."

  "Did you just tell me to do as you said?" Isabelle

  questioned, looking at his friends but fortunately they just

  looked confused. "Are you serious? I appreciate the help

  but I'm not a helpless female. If one of you would loan me

  your cell phone, I'll call the police. I left mine in the car

  because I didn't know I was about to be jumped and it said

  it was out of range."

  She'd actually heard that? Out loud? How was that

  possible? Kal swallowed hard into his throat. Doug was

  getting out his cell phone. Was it possible? Had he just

  stumbled onto one of his kind? And if that was true then the

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  person who chased her was not really gone, just waiting till

  he could get her alone. Isabelle Listora was in way more

  danger than she could possibly imagine. They had searched

  for more than twenty years for their missing brethren and

  had he actually found her just by chance in the woods?

  Nothing about this was making Kal feel at all at ease.

  "Here's an idea." Putting his hand out, he flipped the

  top of the phone down thereby stopping her from using

  Doug's cellular. No one that she could call was going to be

  able to protect her from what was after her and he knew

  from personal experience that involving the human

  authorities often made things much worse. "Let's all walk

  back to your car. It will be easier for the police to find us

  and maybe we can spot the guy and give them a

  description." And maybe his head would spin in a circle

  while he sang show tunes. When had he gotten so

  proficient at lying?

  "Thanks," Isabelle responded, her voice a tad

  warmer but her demeanor still reserved and her eyes

  terrified. "I'm sorry. I'm not used to feeling helpless or

  pursued like that. I especially didn't expect that to happen

  while I was out here in the middle of nowhere changing a

  car tire. Wouldn't it have been useful if I could have called

  one of those tire changing services and then I could have

  just stayed in my car and all of you wouldn't now be

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  bothered with some random woman destroying your

  vacation and making you protect her from some crazy

  rapist?"

  "Let's just get you safe." Kal led the group with one

  hand on Isabelle's arm, back through the woods. His friends

  were used to following his lead when he was like this. It

  was natural, as if they instinctively knew he was in charge

  even without his having to control their minds. "We weren't

  catching that many fish anyway and we're really just a

  bunch of wannabe woodsmen." This earned him some

  chuckles from his friends and strong denials to the contrary.

  Kal was pleased his distraction had worked. He

  didn't want anyone focused on the fact that he had

  heightened his senses and was now scanning their

  surroundings to see if anyone was around or watching

  them. He didn't catch even an inkling of anyone else and it

  put him on edge. Nervousness was not an emotion that he

  generally possessed and he would be glad when he could

  send it on its way.

  "Veli," he silently called, " I think I've found

  someone." Quickly he relayed the whole scene to the man

  who was the closest thing to a parent he'd ever had. He

  hated talking to him but given the circumstances he didn't

  see that he had any choice.

  "Keep her safe Kal, until I can get there," Veli

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  replied immediately, taking on Isabelle as his responsibility

  and once again reminding Kal about just how little faith

  Veli had in his abilities. Veli was probably right, he would

  probably screw this up just like he screwed up everything

  else and once again everyone would be able to say 'I told

  you so.'

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  Chapter Four

  Isabelle used her walk in the woods to collect her

  thoughts and take some deep breaths. She couldn't believe

  the series of events that had just taken place. She supposed

  she shouldn't be surprised with all the strange things that

  had been happening. Hearing voices and strange dreams

  aside, weird things always happened to her.

  It was easy to pretend that these incidents were

  nothing when she was going through her day-to-day routine

  and acting normal but the truth was they weren't, not at all.

  The first time she could remember was when she was

  twelve years old and she had sworn the old lady next door

  had visited her bedroom for a nice chat, only to find out

  later that the woman had died around midnight. Or maybe

  it was reminiscent from when she had concentrated really

  hard and could have sworn she was responsible for moving

  the car that had rolled on top of her grandfather's leg and

  then healing her grandfather with her hands.

  These incidents had been easily explained away at

  the time. Her mother had insisted Isabelle had coincidently

  dreamed of the old woman the night before and that she

  had imagined she was responsible for the car moving off of

  her grandfather. Anytime Isabelle tried to protest about this,

  her mother would respond to her with one of her trademark

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  statements.

  "Strange things happen every day, Isabelle. What

  makes you think you're any weirder than anybody else?"

  But Isabelle had always felt different, as if she

  didn't quite belong where she was.

  Her parents had claimed that it was all nonsense.

  Her mother liked to use words like eccentric and unique

  when describing her daughter and her father said that she

  was one of a kind and there was no one else in the world

  like her. When she was little, her older brother would just

  laugh and claim that of course she was weird—they had,

  after all, found her during a thunderstorm her in the

  backyard. But her mother had told her not to worry about

  that, older brothers sometimes said mean things when they

  teased their sisters. Somehow that brotherly form of teasing

  had never gotten funny to her and she hadn't missed the

  stern way that her mother had lectured her brother in

  hushed voices and how he had never mentioned that

  particular joke aga
in. She had secretly spent the whole rest

  of her adolescence wondering if she was an alien.

  Today's events were making her question that again.

  She didn't know why the voice had told her to run at

  that very moment but she was thrilled that she had known

  she had to get out of there at that very instant. Her legs still

  burned, an indication she really had to be better about

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  getting to the gym but she didn't feel tired and she had

  known that if she could beat her pursuer then help would be

  waiting for her. As if she just had to get to those men by the

  creek. The voice had stated that she had to get to him. Had

  it meant Kal? Or one of the other men that she was walking

  with?

  Isabelle shook her head. She was pretty sure it had

  meant Kal. He had taken charge as soon as she had seen

  him and she knew right away that the others would defer to

  him.

  Isabelle quickly pulled a strand of her dirty, tangled,

  dark hair behind her ears and looked up at the man leading

  her through the woods. His name was Kal but she would

  have called him something else, something more personal.

  She would have called him the man from her dreams.

  It was a good thing he couldn't read her mind

  because she was having rather unladylike, and given the

  circumstances inappropriate, thoughts about the dark

  stranger helping her out of her current predicament. So

  what that she had seen his near double about a million

  times over the years whenever she first closed her eyes at

  night? He was always laughing with her and touching her,

  making her feel safe and secure. She knew when she was

  with him that she was the only woman in the entire world

  that he could or would ever find desirable.

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  What did it mean that he actually existed? Was he

  the man she had been dreaming about or had she somehow

  seen him before and placed him in her dreams? Was he the

  same guy? Did he know who she was?

  She knew every contour of his face. He had black

  hair, very similar to hers and a face that looked like it had

  seen more worries than most people his age even though it

  was still smooth and unlined. The eyes were haunted even

  though they pretended to be jovial. No one should have

  eyes that were that hidden. The windows to his soul held

  the look of a person who was totally in control all of the

  time. She wondered if he ever smiled or did he just pretend

  to?

  High cheekbones lined his deep dark brown eyes

  and whiskers finished his face, giving him a certain

  western, rustic appeal, as if he had just stepped out of some

  cowboy movie where he had met someone at noon with his

  pistols drawn. She had gotten a good feel of his body when

  she had tumbled out of the woods and ran into him. She

  knew that under his flannel shirt and jeans was the hard,

  muscular, and perfectly-put-together body of a real man.

  Not that she had felt the chests of so many men that she

  could really do any kind of comparison, but she had the

  feeling that Kal would look really extraordinary with his

  shirt off.

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  Shaking her head, she cleared her throat. She wasn't

  the type to swoon over some dumb embodiment of male

  beauty just because she had been a little roughhoused by a

  psychopath. It was time to get control of herself. There had

  to be a psychological name for this kind of thing and she

  was going to ask her friend Jeanne about it when she got

  home. It wasn't every day that the guy from your dreams,

  who you would have sworn you invented to fulfill a latent

  sexual need, popped up in real life as your savior in the

  woods.

  And she could have sworn that he had told her to do

  as he said even though everyone had acted like she was

  confused. Everything about it was putting her on edge.

  How had she known they were down by the river? It wasn't

  like they were playing loud music and carrying on.

  This thought had to be stopped midway as they

  reached her car. Had they really traveled two miles? How

  much time had passed and why hadn't she noticed it? She

  hated to admit to herself that it had been because the dark

  stranger had been touching her arm.

  Everything was just as she had left it. No sign

  anywhere of the man who had attacked her. She was sure

  the police were just going to see a hysterical woman. But

  Kal, he claimed he had heard the man chasing her, even

  though the others had not. Add that to the list of strange

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  things related to the hunk standing beside her.

  "Looks like that weather stopped," Doug remarked,

  looking at the sky. "That's fortuitous."

  She thought she saw Kal wince a little.

  "Guess I was wrong."

  Kal shrugged but if it was possible Isabelle would

  swear he looked even more guarded.

  "So where are you from, Ms. Listora? Are you close

  to home? Should we call your husband or boyfriend to

  come pick you up?"

  In her life, Isabelle had never seen anyone fish for

  information so blatantly. If the situation had been different,

  she would have asked him if he needed a pole.

  "I'm not from anywhere around here." Isabelle

  looked down, surprised by how difficult she found it to use

  her voice. "It's been a really strange week for me. First, I

  got a phone call that there was a child out here that was

  being forcibly kept out of school. I work for the state as a

  social worker. My boss informed me that the state was

  tapped out of resources and they needed me to come four

  hours out of my way to investigate the situation. I wasn't

  going to argue if there was a child in danger so I drove out

  to the house that they had told me about to see the child's

  parents. Only it was abandoned so I got back in the car to

  come home, blew a flat, and well, you know the rest of the

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  story."

  Isabelle wasn't usually so forthcoming with

  information about herself, having had a sense from the time

  she was a small child that she needed to protect herself but

  she had to admit that she was nervous, and even though she

  should feel safer now, she was getting more and more

  nervous by the minute. She couldn't seem to help herself

  from rambling on.

  * * * *

  Kal didn't like this situation one bit. It seemed

  obvious to him that she had been lured out here to the

  woods to be alone in order to be slaughtered. The Evil that

  had incarnated on the same day that the Outsiders were

  born, or the Really Bad Dude as Kal had called him as a

  child, had obviously targeted her as one of them.

&nb
sp; But it seemed that Isabelle didn't know what she

  was, which put her in even more danger. Outsiders who

  were trained in their ways, even ones without much of an

  offensive power, always turned around to fight. Veli would

  have beaten them if they hadn't. Even the women had to

  know how to defend themselves and slaughter evil. It had

  nearly killed Charma to do so and Kal had always silently

  wondered if empaths shouldn't be exempt from that rule.

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  But Veli was the only one with previous knowledge of their

  people so he had to assume that he knew what he was

  doing.

  How had the bad guys found her if she hadn't been

  using her powers? Kal would bet anything that the danger

  hadn't passed and only through some unknown luck had she

  avoided being destroyed at the abandoned house in the

  woods. His stomach started to twist and the back of his

  neck to sweat.

  Once again, he knew something was coming.

  It was time to be a little proactive and stop treating

  this girl with kid gloves. For a moment, he let his gaze

  travel her body and had to restrain his hands from reaching

  out to touch her. She didn't belong to him but she was

  going to listen to him, whether she wanted to or not. He

  was obviously going to have to have to take control of this

  girl's life, and get her to Veli, even if he had to act like a

  caveman to do it. Charma and Marina had certainly told

  him that he could be caveman-esque on occasion.

  As if on cue, a police motorcycle appeared down

  the road. Nathan ran out, waving his hands to ask it to stop.

  Kal could see the scene unfolding before him but felt

  powerless to stop it. It was a terrible situation and one he'd

  faced before. There were times when he was left with the

  horrendous sensation of being stuck within his powers.