I need to know how Justin is connected to the witch, Maetha, and why she’s involved with both the potential success of the delivery and the potential failure. Perhaps she’s actually working for the Death Clan, not against them. No, I saw the Death Clan being destroyed in the vision. Still, her motives don’t make sense.
I scan the faces of my fellow running mates, taking in their collective thoughts about Justin. Everyone, except Beth, wants to throw Justin to the Demons for being a traitor. I can’t let that happen.
“You can’t throw Justin to the Demons!” I say to the group. “I’m ashamed of you for even thinking it. Believe me, he’ll be properly punished in due time, but not now at the hands of a bunch of vigilantes.”
“You read minds?” several of them ask me collectively, almost in reverent unison.
Before I can answer, Jonas asks, “Are you an Immortal?”
“What?” I scrunch my eyes shut. “I don’t know.”
Jessica shakes her head. “Immortals are myths.”
“What about the Death Clan? Aren’t they Immortals?” Ricky asks.
Jessica answers, “They’re only Healers. Immortals don’t exist.”
“Then how can Calli do all these things?” Beth points to me.
“Look, I don’t know what I am or am not. I can try to answer your questions later. For now, I need some privacy with Justin and Chris. The rest of you should tend to those fires.” My natural assumption of authority is accepted by the group and they retreat further into the cave.
Justin walks forward and stands at the entryway.
“I might as well walk right out to the wolves,” he says. “You’re going to send me there anyway.”
“You can if you wish, but if you had any idea what those monsters looked like, you wouldn’t stand so close to death.” I pause, then say, “Tell me Justin, how long have you worked for the Death Clan?”
“What?” He swiftly rounds on Chris. “You told her?”
“No,” Chris defends, then throws a questioning glare my way.
I calm the two guys by saying, “I read your mind, Justin. You’re an open book. Tell me why a witch gave you my perfume.”
Chris nearly explodes. “You’re working with a witch?”
Justin cowers away and moves closer to the fire. He bends down and pushes a couple sticks into the flames. “She told me the Death Clan hired the Hunters to follow us to ensure the package arrived safely and on time. The perfume was supposed to make their job easier. They’re only following us.”
I move closer to him. “They’re here to kill us, Justin. I smelled it on them.”
“Yeah, right, like you can smell death.”
I press him. “When was the last time you met with the witch?”
“At the compound, before we left on the assignment. Why?”
She’d been at the compound? “You haven’t seen her since?” I need to make sure he doesn’t remember Maetha giving the real diamond to me.
He stands. “No.”
I say, “Without the perfume, the Hunters will have to rely on the smell that still lingers on you. That was expensive stuff you dropped, with high oil content. Your clothing will hold the scent for a while. I can smell it, and if I can, they can too. I suggest you take half the group and run west tomorrow morning. The rest of us will stay in the cave, and hopefully the Hunters will take the bait and follow your trail. When they do, we’ll follow them and ambush from behind.”
“Or,” Justin shoots back, “you could go kill them tonight and rid us of the problem.”
“So I have to become a cold-blooded killer because you’re a traitor?”
“Go back to their camp and expose them to the Demons,” he says. “That would solve everything lickety-split.” Justin sounds pretty sure of himself, but he adjusts his tone when I don’t play along. “Well, what are you going to do with them after the ambush? Aren’t you going to kill them then?”
“No,” I say. “They’ll become our captives, and we’ll turn them over to the authorities.”
“This is not the human world. There aren’t any authorities. Man, you’re such a muck!”
In the blink of an eye, Chris moves and grabs Justin’s jacket front, pushing him up against the wall, his nose about an inch from Justin’s face. “Don’t talk to her like that! You hear me?”
“I’ll talk however I want.” The defiance in Justin’s voice echoes off the walls.
“And I’ll pound your face in.”
“Maybe—if you can catch me.”
Chris pushes Justin a little further into the wall and says, “You threw the race, forcing Dirk to the top, didn’t you? You knew Dirk and the rest of the team would be kidnapped. You’d been forewarned, hadn’t you? How could you betray your friends?”
“Oh, yeah, and you’re one to talk, Chris. You probably don’t want me spouting off your dark secrets,” Justin hisses.
“I ought to string you up.”
“I’ll do you one better. I’ll leave the group.”
“You can’t. We all have to be present when the package is handed over, remember?”
“Tell me how that’s my problem.”
I feel the need to end this stupid clash. I say, “Justin, you’ll be with us even if we’re forced to take you bound and gagged. We’re all stuck here tonight, so we might as well try to get along.” I put my hand on Chris’s arm. “Let’s decide who will be going with Justin’s group.”
Chris backs away as Justin straightens his jacket and cracks his neck. Justin says, “It doesn’t really matter, does it? They have guns and Runners. We can’t compete with that.”
Chris points his finger in Justin’s face. “You’ll have to live with the consequences if anyone dies because of your choices.”
Justin walks away, holding his head high as if he doesn’t care.
I turn to Chris and say, “Can’t Runners dodge bullets?”
“I can, and Justin can too, but only if we know we’re about to be shot at. If another Runner is at the other end of the barrel, bullets are almost impossible to evade. They know how we move. We’ll just have to stop the Runners before they have time to shoot.”
Chris fetches a couple of the other team members to decide how to divide the group. They use the same type of groupings Clara spoke of: an equal division of the three different skill levels. There’s definitely wisdom in this tactic.
Justin’s group will include Beth, Michael, Will, Kayla, Jessica, and Ricky. The rest will be in Chris’s group: Lizbeth, Yang, Ashley, Tyler, Shanika, Jonas, and me.
I walk away from the council and go over to the fire. My thoughts are running a mile a minute.
“Well, Calli, this is certainly a shocker,” Beth says as she sits beside me.
“Yes. Isn’t life interesting, Beth?”
“What do the Shadow Demons look like?” She speaks with a hushed voice, but others hear her. I figure of all the people in the whole world, Beth is probably the one most genuinely curious about the Demons’ abominable appearance.
Everyone else starts to gather around us to listen.
“Well, they’re large and scary, with animal heads, huge claws on their hands and feet, and long teeth as sharp as daggers.”
“Why are you able to walk among them and not be torn to shreds like the rest of us?” Beth asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“Why are you able to see them and we can’t?”
I shrug my shoulders.
Jessica asks, “So, you can read minds too? Can you read mine?”
“I don’t really want to. It just happens,” I say, entering her mind effortlessly. I feel right away she has a serious crush on Justin, but her friendship with Beth keeps her from pursuing it. “I will say, I think you’re right in not acting on your crush.”
Her eyes open wide. “Uh, how did you . . . please don’t say anything.”
“Can I ask you a question?” I say. “What do you feel when I’m in your mind?”
“The
top of my head feels ticklish and kind of itches.”
Everyone agrees with her.
Ashley catches my attention and asks me to read her mind. I want to roll my eyes, want to point out there are plenty of more important things to worry about than this silly parlor game. But then Ashley’s past opens up to me, revealing she spent time in a juvenile detention center for burglary just before her running ability surfaced. The irony of it makes me laugh out loud. She would’ve been uncatchable as a thief.
“What’s so funny?” she asks.
“If only you could do then what you can now, maybe you wouldn’t have been caught. Then again, it was best you were reformed before your abilities surfaced.” I remember Ashley is only thirteen. She’s had a rough life to have already spent time in a detention center.
An amazed expression crosses her face. Then she smiles. “Who says I’m reformed? This is incredible! That wasn’t even on the top of my mind. Did someone tell you about my past?”
“No,” I say. She obviously thinks I’m some type of shyster, because she jumps to the conclusion someone must have told me about her past instead of believing I’m actually reading her mind.
My eyes wander over to the other fire where Chris is talking to Will. They are both facing me, but whispering to each other, so I do what comes naturally. I read their lips.
“How does she do it?” Will asks Chris.
“Beats me.”
“She possesses every single power. It’s amazing.”
“Not every power,” Chris replies.
In order to read their lips, I need to keep a constant eye on their faces. Usually people don’t catch on to the fact I’m reading their conversations, but this time both of them are staring right at me while I do what they don’t know I can do. I have to look away. It’s not every day I have two “tens” staring me down, trying to figure me out, and one of them thinks I’m his soulmate because of some faulty future vision.
The others around me talk excitedly, and my attention is pulled back to them. Jonas, asks me to check out his mind.
“Am I going to find any x-rated stuff?” Everyone laughs, while I see into his past and witness his father beating him, his older brother chasing him, his mother crying at a funeral. A hard lump forms in my throat, and I choose my words carefully. “Who died?”
“My brother,” Jonas answers, obviously surprised with my question. His memory displays the horrific event. His father beat his brother to death while Jonas hid in the closet. This happened before his running ability kicked in.
“You couldn’t have done anything to stop him.” The crowd is quiet as they listen. A quick glance around tells me they are already aware of his story.
Jonas says, “I wish you were a Seer, because you’d be able to tell me if he’ll ever pay for what he’s done.” Further searching of Jonas’s mind reveals his father sits on death row, and the appeals are dragging out the inevitable. I bore deeper into his eyes, struggling to see his future, but I see nothing. Strange. Everyone has a future, don’t they? Unless . . . unless he doesn’t. Why? What’s going to happen to him?
I try again to discover his future, but there’s nothing there. I turn to Shanika, who sits next to Jonas, and foresee her hugging her parents with her graduation cap on. Tyler’s future involves marriage and holding a position in a city government. Beth’s future holds prison—not so good. Turning back to Jonas, I still see nothing.
Then slowly it comes to me. My mind passes throughout his body, feeling for a cause or disease. I scan him until I can see what it is that’s responsible for his non-existent future. The answer comes in an unwelcome whoosh: cancer. I search his mind to find out if he’s already aware of the disease. He isn’t.
My stomach twists into a horrible knot. This boy will be dead in less than four weeks, and he has no clue. Should I tell him? No, it isn’t my place. I can’t do anything to help him anyway, because I’m not a Healer. I put my hands to my head and wish everyone and everything would just go away. Why do I have to see these things?
“She does have future sight,” Chris says as he walks over to the crowd.
Thanks, Chris!
Jonas stares at me in earnest, clearly hoping for a reading.
I have to shut him down. “Look, these powers are all new to me, and I haven’t quite figured out how everything works. I’ve seen parts of the future, but they’re so far out, they will most likely never happen. I can’t summon up a particular event in the future. I can’t look for your father’s future because he’s not here.”
“But what do you see about him in my future?” Jonas leans forward, perhaps thinking I’ll reveal his father’s upcoming death.
“Everything will work out for you in the end.” I watch as everyone reacts to the vague answer, but I can’t bring myself to tell them the truth—Jonas will die soon.
Beth says with reverent awe, “Do you even have a clue how powerful you are? No clan member holds all the cosmic abilities. Not one! How come you do?”
“Why would a slow muck like me be so powerful, you mean?”
Chris jumps in with calm, reassuring words. “No one here will call you a muck again, Calli. What Beth said is true, though. No one person has held multiple abilities the way you do. This is truly amazing. You seem to wield most of the cosmic powers and also maintain your human guise. It explains the Shadow Demons’ behavior.”
“Can you cast spells too?” Beth asks.
I shake my head. If the questioning follows this trajectory, I worry that they will soon start to wonder if I’ve been enchanted. I need to change the subject.
“Chris, do you think you could teach everyone here how to block their minds to prevent mind-reading?”
“Well, yeah, definitely, and you’ll be able to test them.” He smiles.
“I know how to block,” Michael joins in, then several others chime in too.
“Excellent,” I answer. “Start teaching the others. I need a moment to think.” I get up and walk away from the group. I make myself as comfortable as possible on a rock directly behind the falls and try to reason through the situation. If the team members block their minds, I won’t be plagued with their past or present thoughts, and it will help me tremendously. Plus, if the Readers cross our path, they won’t be able to determine our mission. Probably the most important thing is my abilities will be kept secret longer. If I am the only one who can do all these things, I will be in danger.
I can imagine the other clans wanting to get their hands on me to discover my secret. And what would they find? They’d find I’m a fraud, no better than the psychics on television, acting like they speak with dead people. There’s nothing special about me. Well, that isn’t entirely true. I can read lips and I can walk unharmed among Shadow Demons. Clara said the demons are dead Healers. Oh great! I can see dead people. I guess I am like the television psychics.
I think about the current situations and problems we face. Hunters are camped-out just over the ridge because of Justin’s betrayal. How does Maetha fit into all this? Mr. Bates clearly knew she’d given the stone to me but didn’t tell either of the two guys. Yet she gave Justin the perfume so the Hunters could track us easily. Are Maetha and Mr. Bates working for the Death Clan? If so, what would be the purpose of having us tracked down and killed?
“You all right, Calli?” Chris sits down next to me.
“Define ‘all right.’ ”
“You’re in deep thought over here. Can I help with anything?”
“I don’t even understand this myself. How can you possibly help me?” I don’t mean to sound rude, but it comes out that way.
“Well, I know a lot about the powers and how they work since I’m good friends with the hired individuals working at the compound.”
“I bet you don’t employ a Death Clan member.”
“No, but we do have a Healer.”
“A Healer?” Chris must be anxious to find out if that power will also emerge in me. “Chris, can a Healer cure cancer??
??
“I suppose so, but they probably wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“We really don’t have time to go into that, Calli.”
“Well, Jonas has cancer, and the sooner we can get him to a Healer, the better. He doesn’t have much time.” My eyes water from the emotional exhaustion.
“What? How do you know he has cancer? Did he tell you?”
“I sensed it in him when I tried to see his future.”
Chris’s eyes widen and his lips part. “How . . . how much time do you think he has?”
“If I can’t see his future now, then he will be dead inside four weeks.” I wipe my eyes.
“Does he know?”
I shake my head and admire the dancing firelight on Chris’s face. He searches my eyes. His gaze falls to my mouth and then slowly rises back up to my eyes.
I realize I’m holding my breath.
He stands, clears his throat, and steps away. “Let’s keep this to ourselves,” he says. “There’s no point in alarming him, especially when we can’t do anything about it. We need to focus on everyone learning how to block their minds and how to get away from the Hunters tomorrow.”
Kayla approaches and coughs to interrupt us. “Some of us are ready to be tested, Chris.”
Chris doesn’t even seem fazed by Kayla’s presence, so I respond with, “We’ll be right there.”