The Blind Lily
A Gifted Series Companion
Character Journal
AshleyNicole Shelton
Copyright 2011, 2012, 2013
Books by this author can be found on either the author’s official website:
https://www.ashleynicolebooks.wordpress.com
or through, select online retailers.
I Dedicate This Book:
To my son, Emmett,
You are my Heart and Soul.
My love is there, wherever you may be.
Thank you for teaching me something new every day.
To my mom, Michelle,
You are my Strength and Support.
Thank you for all your love and care.
I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you.
To my loving family, friends, and fans who cheered me on.
And last but not least, to my friends,
David and Josh, for participating in character roles of this book.
Chapter One
____________________
Walking in the sweltering heat of Nevada and carrying eighty pounds of dead weight on my back, not knowing how much farther I have to go makes me feel hopeless. How will I save this girl’s life, if I die from dehydration? To keep walking, I concentrate on the facts: I am in the year, 1884. I didn’t die from dehydration looking for her and she is still breathing. Picking up my speed, I concentrate on my task at hand.
My best guess of how many hours that have passed is probably three, considering the position of the sun. Finally, I can see some shapes in the distance. Silently I pray it’s not a mirage and then I hear people shouting. This can’t be my imagination. The mother of the eighteen-year-old girl on my back is the first to reach me. She is crying so hard that I find it hard to believe she can see anything through her tears. Despite her ferocious crying, she is able to lift her daughter off my back and take her inside.
Suddenly, I feel as if I can’t move. I assess the condition of my body. My mouth is dry and filled with dust, my arms and legs are shaking uncontrollably, and my breathing is slightly staggered. I hear some steady footsteps come towards me. I lift my head to meet them at eye level.
A man with peppered hair, large droopy bags just below his grey eyes, and wrinkly skin covering his whole body, stands before me. He appears to be over a hundred years old. Of course, I know he’s not from how he walks and from the deep purpose in those grey eyes. His strength and keen eyes prove he is no older than ninety.
“Thank you for bringing her home. When that man kidnapped her and threated to kill her after torturing her, I never thought I’d see her again. Without my granddaughter, I don’t know what I’d do. Here, I brought you some water.” He hands me a canteen with tears slowly sliding down his cheeks.
I was going to say thanks for the water and that it was no trouble at all, but I realize that the dust has taken my voice. I gratefully take the canteen with trembling hands attempting to hold it still. I look at him with what I hope resembles a smile and drink. At first, I cough uncontrollably at the sudden clogging of my throat spewing some of the water on the ground before me. I feel the burning of the water as it stings the back of my throat, but with a little effort, I am able to drink from the canteen until there is not a drop left. The water works it’s magic making me feel rejuvenated in no time. Before I can say thank you, the scene in front of me changes.
This is always my least favorite part. I never know where or when I will end up. Crossing my fingers, I hope that I end up in the safety of my bedroom in my own time. Maybe crossing my fingers had been too much.
I materialize under the eyes of a handsome man in his early thirties. He is wearing a uniform that is highly decorated and carries an air of command. He quickly draws a gun from his side, aims it in my direction, and pulls the trigger. The bullet just grazes my ear. It doesn’t take me long to get over the shock before I jump into action. I knock the gun out of his hand and pick up a three foot long copper pipe, forcing the wind out of him with one strike. As he collapses to the ground he makes a thunderous crash into a stack of poles alerting anyone within hearing distance. From around the corner of the building appears a Navy SEAL. As he realizes what has just happened, I knock him unconscious with a blow to the head.
In an attempt to escape, I dash around the corner and spy a gate that is not guarded on the inside. I am almost home free. Five more SEALs come towards me. They all look under the age of twenty, so I know they would be fast, but so am I. They form a circle around me. At first, no one moves. After I turn around a few times the first one comes at me. Instead of trying to fight with me, he goes straight for my waist in the efforts to pick me up. I drop to the ground; slide under his legs, and trip him while jumping back to my feet.
The next three men attack me at the same time. I duck out of the way as they fall into one another. The last one is much stronger and now knows what to expect. We struggle in combat with kicks, punches, and spins. We end up fighting on the ground and finally I knock him out with a hammer fist to the back of his head. I turn to bolt for the gate, but stop suddenly. There is a boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen, a year or two older than me. He looks a little shocked and scared.
“It’s okay. You don’t need to be scared. I can get us out of here.” I give him my hand.
Shakily he puts his hand in mine. I start running leading him and I to our freedom when unexpectedly he grabs my arm and punches a needle into it. I scream not being able to conceal the pain, and collapse.
It was a GX72 TRANQ. Of course it didn’t put me to sleep like it would everyone else. This particular tranquilizer contains Glycytocine, which I am allergic to. It made all my muscles go weak and now I can’t move a thing. The SEAL, who put up a tough fight, throws me over his shoulder and carries me into an underground building. Every step he takes is like millions of swords driving though every part of me. Tears pour down my face, but I say nothing. The pain is unbearable as he dumps me onto the cold floor without a care of the pain he is causing me. I hear a scream that rattles my bones. My ears ring, blocking out all other sounds. That is when I realize that I am the one screaming. I finally stop when I run out of breath.
“Why isn’t she asleep?” demands the man who shot at me earlier.
The SEAL says, “I…I don’t know Sir.”
“Bradley, give her another dose,” he says nonchalantly to the boy.
“No!” I scream. “Please no,” I say more quietly. “It does the opposite for me. It keeps me awake. I am allergic to the Glycytocine. Please no more. I can’t move anything. I swear. I can’t do anything. I can move nothing, my muscles are paralyzed.” Then I whisper to no one in particular, “Why does this have to happen to me?”
“Who are you and why are you here?” the older man asks.
“I am Eileen East, I live in North Charleston, South Carolina, I don’t know why I am here, and I was born like this,” I say as clearly as I can.
“You’re a little far from home Miss Eileen East,” he chuckles playfully at my name. “And what do you mean you where born like this?” he asks.
“It is true. You saw me materialize in front of you.”
“That was a trick.”
I try to shake my head, but I can’t, “No,” I hesitate, “I can travel through time.”
“So you’d like me to believe you are the gifted agent that the FBI has been trying to track down for four years?”
“There is a reward of ten million dollars for turning me in,” I say, proving I am that girl.
“Wait, how…but…wait…no that is impossible!” he has an awe struck ex
pression.
“If you don’t believe me look up my name. I’m sure you’ll have a file.”
He looks to the boy, “Son, go tell Montez to find anything he can about Miss East and bring me the file.”
The boy is his son? I guess that is why he didn’t try to escape with me. He’s probably training to be just like his father.
The SEAL walks over to me with a stone cold expression on his face and asks, “How do you want me to dispose of this?”
“Hold on a second!” I say in a loud demanding voice, “You are going to kill me? Who are you to kill me?”
“I am the Director of the US Navy Special Operations. You know you shouldn’t be here,” Brad’s father says.
I cringe inside, “This is not Area 51...right?”
“No. But we are in a top-secret location and what we do here is classified.”
“I didn’t know I would end up here!”
The director shakes his head in pity towards me, “There are signs posted around the whole area. When you break the law, you receive the consequences.”
“Why am I so cursed?” I yell at no one in particular, “Why couldn’t I stay in 1884?”
Bradley walks in and gives me a confused look, “What are you talking about?”
I give him a sympathetic look, “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I think you are a liar,” he says stepping closer to his father.
“Of course you would. That is because you have never met anyone that materializes out of thin air.”
The SEAL takes a step towards me, “No more lies. You’re not getting out of this.”
“I’m not lying and you’re an idiot. You are as bad as Einstein.”
I can tell I pinched a nerve, but he laughs it off, “First of all, why are you insulting me, and second don’t you know Einstein was smart?”
I smile the best I can at his ignorance; “Actually he stole most of his ideas from an eleven-year-old girl by the name of Josie Maric.”
The director looks at me as if he has just seen a ghost, “How did you know that?” He takes a file from Brad.
“Why should I tell you? You are going to kill me anyway.” I roll my eyes since that is all I can do. “Could you do me a favor? Just give me a shot without Glycytocine, that is medicine to keep someone awake, I would rather be asleep when I die.”
“You are making a request on how you want die? Are you insane?” Bradley asks dumbfounded.
“No. I have had way too many near death experiences to be scared.”
The boy looks at me with a pale face. He must have lost someone and never learned how to cope with it. I look at him and his father. They have many similarities in their appearance but they seem disconnected. The SEAL seems to be getting restless.
The director stares at me for a moment and then continues to read my files over and over before he starts staring at me again. I am really having trouble breathing at this point. The Glycytocine made my bones so weak that when the SEAL threw me on the ground he broke my ribs.
“Revive her! She is an FBI agent,” The director says finally.
“She is what? That is impossible! She is only what eleven?” The SEAL asks.
“I am fourteen,” I correct him.
“Shut up pipsqueak,” he yells at me.
“Don’t talk to her like that! Don’t you know who she is?” the director asks as I try to take a breath of air.
“A weak girl with a pea in substitute for a brain,” the SEAL replies, laughing to himself.
“I am not weak…”gasp “If I wasn’t allergic to Glycytocine I would have kicked your…”
“Enough! Brad, send for an antidote. The FBI will want her back,” the director smiles at me.
“What?” the SEAL and I ask in unison.
“The FBI has been watching Miss East very closely! Don’t you know you are an agent?” The director draws his eyebrows together.
I may have been running out of breath and life, but I was still ticked off, “They want me to be their agent, but they haven’t caught me yet. What I am wondering is why you are making me suffer and yet not going to kill me? Instead you are going to make me become a lab rat and a slave while I still…” I say just before blacking out. I feel myself being ripped from my own body. I must be having an out of body experience. There is a taste of soup in my mouth, but as I try to swallow I feel nothing in my throat. My ears are ringing like church bells that quickly fall silent. I open my eyes and I watch the scene below me.
The director and the SEAL don’t know I have passed out.
“The FBI said I couldn’t kill you so I won’t. It’s as simple as that. You are so young and I respect your bravery. You are very gifted and very important to…”
“Oh my gosh!” Brad says cutting off his dad.
“What?” the director asks.
“Dad, her face is purple!”
“Well don’t just stand there, get the antidote for Glycytocine from Montez!” he orders.
I suddenly can’t see anything and my body looses all feeling. Then something warm touches my wrist and causes a tickle up my arm. My heart stops for a moment. Then I cough and I can breathe again.
I feel the color come back in my face. Finally, I realize I am not dead. I notice Brad hovering over me, staring at my face. I smile up at him with the little energy that I have. He has a look in his eyes I have never seen before in anyone else’s.
“You made her bleed. Gosh can’t you do anything right?” his father asks him.
“Sorry,” he whispers, “I will go get a bandage.”
“Hurry up already.” his father yells at him.
As he goes out the door his father says something I don’t quite catch. I am watching Brad. He looks like a young boy afraid of death, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. I thought he wanted to help his father kill me, but now it seems he is afraid of death itself.
“Miss East?”
“Yeah?” I ask, still thinking about what just happened.
“You are pretty calm for a little girl who almost died,” he smirks.
Bradley comes back and wraps my arm. “I am sorry that I hurt you,” he says smiling at me.
I think I could get used to that smile.
“It’s okay. I’m used to near death experiences,” I joke even though in all seriousness, I have.
“You are not like most girls,” Brad says.
While we were talking, Bradley had already bandaged up my arm and now he is still holding my wrist and shoulder. He notices this too and quickly pulls away. No one says anything for a while.
Breaking the silence, a voice erupts on the intercom. “The helicopter has just landed for Miss East’s departure. The FBI Director would like to come and speak with you before they leave.”
“Thank you. Send him down.” The director responds.
I hurriedly get to my feet, a little off balance, run for the door then I stop. They will come through this way and most likely catch me. I look to my right and see a vent.
“Miss East, come back! You will be fine. They are coming to get you right now. They will take you home,” Brad yells.
I don’t turn to face him or respond. I run straight for the vent, rip the front off, and dive in. The vent is tall enough for me to stand in so I run as best I can. I pass what looks to be a kitchen, library, and lots of labs. I don’t stop for the life of me. I don’t want to get caught and I need to find an exterior vent. By now I know they have looked at a floor plan to find the exit vents. I can expect they have posted guards at the vents. If they don’t find me in a certain length of time then I must prepare for them to be waiting outside near the closest exit vent. My best bet is to get there as soon as I can. I am a fast runner and although I am having trouble breathing they won’t send enough guards to the end by the time I get there.
I didn’t consider the fact that I am in the underground part of the building. There are several level
changes that I have to jump, catch the edge, pull myself up and continue on. Finally, I get to the end and slow down. I don’t want any agents or SEALs to hear me.
It looks like I’ll have to jump two stories down. There are two guards below me. One was a woman with pale skin and hair that almost looks white tied into a tight bun. The other is a man with olive skin, and a shaved head.
“Why are we going through so much trouble to catch one little girl?” the man asks.
The woman replies, “I wish it were that easy. The FBI has been waiting for a gifted child for twenty-eight years. They aren’t going to let this one go. They are going to want to run tests to see if it is genetics or if it is a mutation in her DNA. Now just shut up Tom and keep an eye out," she tells him.
They are sitting down against the wall under the vent. I should be able to easily out run them. There appears to be only one camera. As long as I play my timing right I can jump without the camera seeing me.
I back up, run forward, and dive into the vent screen. I fall towards the ground, tuck into a dive forward roll, stand up after it, and run as hard as I can toward the gate.
I am home free. All the agents and SEALs are at other vents looking for me, so no one will see me leave except the camera and the two guards. The video would have been a good smack in the face to the FBI saying I got away again. At least it would have been. Now, I am only a few feet away from the gate and I collapse. I know I am still weak and have trouble breathing, but I thought I could have made it. I start coughing up blood.
Someone calls my name and I start to run. All I am worried about is getting to that gate. I drag myself across the dirt to get there. I just have to get past the gate and then I can rest while figuring out my next step. I have my hand on the fence. I was going to use it to pull myself through but I get a sudden jolting pain though my whole body. It is an electric fence. That kind of shock would normally kill someone. With volts shooting through my arms and legs, I am still able to pull myself forward. Finally, I am outside the gate.
It’s over. I am free. I will be fine. I release a big breath of air I had been holding in my chest, relieved that I had survived this battle.
“Miss East.” someone calls behind me.
Oh, no. It’s Bradley. “Leave me alone!” I yell at him.
“I am sorry Miss East. I can’t do that. You need a doctor and the FBI is going to take you home. Wouldn’t you like to go home?”
“Don’t talk to me as if I were a four-year-old that can be bribed with ice cream. I am perfectly fine. I have been hurt worse before. I can take care of myself. No, I don’t want to go home because my mom is just going to be mad I didn’t tell her where I was going and will ground me again. Oh yeah, and the FBI taking me home is a huge joke. Let me tell you a little something about the FBI. All they want to do is black mail me so that I am forced to do what they consider is my civic duty. They don’t care about me going home. They want me to be their slave and their lab rat.” As I talk to him I continue to crawl away from him. When I finish, I try standing up. It works for a couple of steps, and then I collapse again.
I get up and try to walk some more. This time when I fall, Bradley catches me.
I cringe gripping my broken ribs. They really hurt. “Thanks,” I say. “I really can’t go with them.”
“You have to.” He picks me up as if I weigh no more than a feather and I am as breakable as blown glass.
“Brad, you don’t get it…”
While he is walking, he doesn’t notice the FBI director has come up to us.
“Thank you for bringing her back. She is a huge asset to America,” the director says.
Brad looks down at me with that same expression in his eyes as he had before, when I awoke to him hovering over me. He moves his head by my ear and whispers, “Would you like me to stay with you?”
I nod. Why did I nod?
Bradley speaks up, “I will carry her. Show me where she needs to go.”
The director shakes his head, “That’s alright. I can take it from here.”
Bradley steps back in a protective manner and says, “Sir. I think it would be best if you let me handle her. Besides she needs some wrapping up after all the damage you caused.”
I give him a small smile. If it were any other time I would have corrected him saying that he injected me with Glycytocine not them but this time… This time is different. He is helping me when I need it most.
They take me into the helicopter and Brad bandages me up carefully with his delicate warm hands while the FBI director asks me questions. They tell me my options…I was right before – work for them or work for them – my only choice is to join the FBI.
I had to sign a contract, but told them no testing. They said that they wouldn’t plan on testing until I was twenty-one. I was really glad Brad was there. It made it easier. A lot easier! The helicopter finally landed. But guess where…in my back yard.
“What is my mom going to think? Better yet what am I going to say? Oh no, oh no, oh no!” I ramble on, hyperventilating and making my ribs feel like shattering glass.
“You mean to say your mother doesn’t know about your gift or the FBI?” the director asks.
“Both,” I yell at him. “My mom is going to kill me!”
“Is your mother abusive Miss East?”
“Of course she isn’t. She is a parent and she is going to freak out.”
He looks pensive for a moment, “Oh I see. Well we will just have to do something about that. We don’t want you to materialize or dematerialize in front of anyone, including your mother. The fewer people who know about your gift the better.”
“Thank you,” I say as if the whole universe has been lifted off my chest.
The FBI Director and Vice President walk to the front of my house and pretend to be my guidance counselors who were worried about my lack of privacy while the pilot silently flew the helicopter elsewhere. Now thanks to them and Brad, my mom doesn’t come in my room unless I say so. If I don’t answer the door it is most likely because I am studying or writing my thoughts. Now my mom thinks I am in need of a shrink, but at least this lowers the chance of her finding out.
That was almost four-years-ago and it still feels like yesterday even though so much has happened. Right now I am writing in my journal and watching my mom cook. My mom bought this journal for me, saying that maybe this would help me organize my thoughts and she promised never to read it. She even gave me a box with a lock and key to put it in if I wanted. My mother is really controlling, brutally honest, and doesn’t understand me at all. But she is a good mom, does her best, and I love her. It’s just my mom and me now. My dad died when I was young. She never talks about him and I’ve learned to stop asking about him. I can tell it hurts her. I keep a picture of him and my mother on their wedding day in my nightstand and pull it out when I miss him the most. The older I get, the less I remember things about him. Sometimes, I have dreams wishing they could be memories, but I think they are just dreams. It’s nice to imagine that they are real though.
My name is Eileen Lillian East, but my friends call me Lily. I try to be like everyone else. At the age of eighteen, I try to fit in like everyone does in high school. I cheer for the Fall Varsity football team, I get good grades, and I even stress about college applications. Mostly though, I stress, wishing I could actually go to college, but I don’t think I’ll ever get the chance. The government believes that my civic duty is a higher priority than my education.
Most people would love to be able to go back in time and change mistakes from the past. It’s like having a super power. Everyone loves Spiderman, Hancock, Storm, Elektra, and other powerful super heroes. The truth is, time travel is not as exciting as it seems. It can’t be controlled. Where I go or when it happens, is completely up to this power inside me. Along with having this ability, comes the problem of greed. So many people want to have power, bu
t when you have something everyone wants, they will do what ever it takes to get it.
I got stuck with the FBI, so I guess it could have been worse. Still, I wouldn’t consider myself lucky. As my civic duty I had to sign my life over to the FBI becoming a Federal Bureau of Gifted Teens agent. So far, I have avoided becoming a lab rat but I know it is inevitable. I don’t get paid and I am warped all over the world without a moment’s notice. It is a burden. No one knows how it happens or why I have it. The strange part of time travel is what happens.
It’s difficult to describe, but here it goes: The FBI calls the start of my transition in time the “dematerialize phase.” This phase causes a tickling feeling all over my body. I am aware of the world around me as if I am Mother Nature herself. I can hear all thoughts, and experience all feelings. The scents consume the air I breathe and I feel more alive than I ever feel in my own body. I become a part of all times and all places. Then there is a graceful change as I leave the place where I am standing and I am sent into the time portal.
Like a wormhole, the time portal is something that can’t be seen. It works as a bridge, or more accurately a tunnel through space-time. For some reason my portal likes to change directions sometimes causing me to end up in a different place which is always the most horrifying part for me. Just like driving through a tunnel, I can’t turn around and go back. The portal it is considered the “transition phase” of my time travel.
Being in the time portal is like soaring through space. Inside this invisible tunnel, I smell flowers when I am happy, raw fish when I have sour feelings, and when I am angry, I normally smell something like burning tar. My least favorite part is the temperature; it is always so cold. Like the air conditioning turned on full blast. Light and darkness blend together making sight difficult. I can only see the scenes that I’m passing by, when I don’t look right at them. I can only use my periphery vision; otherwise all I see is darkness.
After I go through the portal, I materialize into the past. The “materialization phase” is the most daunting. If I do not start off my time travel in a balanced and calm demeanor then I may end up in a precarious location. Landing on a cliff’s edge is not a place I want to be.
For some reason the farther I go back in time, the longer I am away from the present. When I was only three years old, I had been missing for hours in my time. Luckily, I was with my dog, Molly. It was the first time I had ever time traveled. My mom totally freaked out when she couldn’t find me. She doesn’t know about the whole time travel thing and I don’t plan on telling her. Despite her constant worry over me she tries to let me figure things out on my own now and trusts I’ll come to her if I need her. I wish I could tell her my secret, but I can’t burden her with something like this.
My phone is ringing and I answer it. There is a man on the phone.
“Agent East, you are going to time travel in fifteen minutes. You are going to a house on Elm Street in the year 1823. There will be a kidnapping. I recommend you go somewhere where no one will see you,” he hangs up and I stay on the phone.
“Hey Michael. Yeah I have the notes for Mr. Flam. I’ll be over in a Jiffy. Bye.” I hang up and grab my car keys.
“Who is this Michael and why does he want notes on a Friday?” my mother asks.
Of course she has to know everything. “Michael is one of my friends in science class. He is a straight A student, what can you expect him to do on a Friday?” I shrug my shoulders nonchalantly.
“Why do you have to take your notes to him?”
“Because he is grounded for a ninety-eight he got on his English Exam.”
“Oh, I like him already. Go on. Don’t keep the genius waiting. Maybe you should take after him.”
“Bye mother!” I say fake smiling out the door. I put my car into drive and race over to Elm Street. I am there in ten minutes, where if I had been going the speed limit and hadn’t crossed the solid yellow line to pass people it would have taken fifteen or twenty minutes.
After I park my car in the clubhouse parking lot, I run into the lady’s room, lock the door to a stall in the bathroom, and clear my head. I don’t want to smell raw fish or a garbage truck again. Standing in my usual position, I make sure I am balanced and won’t fall when I materialize on the other side. It is a lot easier to land softly this way. I look at my watch then put my arm down. I am ready. At least I am until…
“Wait!” some guy runs into the bathroom, busts open the stall door, and grabs my wrist.
Then I go back in time.