Significance

  I ignored them and tried again to focus on hearing someone’s thoughts. If I focused on one person it worked. It was strange how my body just seemed to know what to do. Just like Caleb had described. There was no denying it. We were meant for this.

  There was a man by a door with a gun. I opened my mind and focused on only him; thought of his face and it worked. He thought this was ridiculous and they should just kill me. Then the imprint would break and Caleb would never ascend. Problem solved. I inched against the wall around him, eying him warily. He smiled sweetly and reassuringly at me which completely contradicted his thoughts and I wondered if my whole life had been lead this way.

  With people saying or acting one way and then thinking and believing a complete other way.

  I kept at it. I discovered that if I was hearing a thought, my head felt a little fuzzy, like I was talking on the telephone with a metallic connection. I had to focus to notice it, but it was there. I’d have to master that skill so as not to answer something that wasn’t asked out loud.

  We came to a ladder at the end of the hall, or tunnel. It went straight up so Sikes went up and unscrewed the bolt on the lid and lifted it straight up and over. He went out and I assumed I was supposed to follow. I climbed the steep ladder slowly and with labored breaths and bare feet because they’d taken my shoes. I knew I couldn’t make it. I was going to fall the short distance I’d made but then felt a hand on mine. I looked up to see Sikes wife smiling.

  “Come on, dear. I know it’s hard but you can do it. Let me help.”

  She pulled me up the rest of the way and I collapsed on the ground. When the sun hit my cold face it was painful and good. I’d missed it.

  “Get up,” Sikes barked. “Almost there, then you can rest.”

  “It hurts. It’s been...I don’t know how many days since I’ve seen Caleb. I can’t. It hurts too much.”

  I didn’t want to cry anymore but after the exertion, it was ferociously painful and pronounced. My head pounded so hard that my vision bounced when I tried to focus on something.

  “I can’t help you. I don’t want to taint you with an offense mark until we’ve tried every other avenue in our experiment first. Come on, just a little further.”

  His wife looked displeased as she helped me from the ground.

  If we hadn’t been married for as many years as we have, I swear...

  I wanted to look over and laugh at her but my body would absolutely not have cooperated with that. Sikes’s wife was practically dragging me behind him as we made our way through a wooded area that was really grassy and overgrown. The grass was so tall it was up to my thighs, which made sludging along that much harder and the blades were scratching and itching my feet.

  I felt like I’d collapse again but we came upon a well. I could see the cliff just beyond it and knew exactly where I was. Did they know that Marla had told me that story? That she told me about the well behind their house? I knew where I was! If I only could tell Caleb.

  I looked at Sikes. I tried to push into his mind just like Caleb had pushed into mine that first day. Focusing and honing in on him, picturing his mind. It didn’t take much of a push and I was in. It was the strangest thing I’d ever experienced. It wasn’t like Caleb’s mind at all.

  Sikes’s mind was murky and I could feel his anger and bitterness like a slime on my skin. It consumed him. I realized I wasn’t just reading his thoughts, I was looking into his mind; all of it, every corner. I could sort through and look at things he had planned or thought and done before this. I saw what he was planning for me and this well.

  And I wanted no part of it.

  We stopped and I looked around to see Marcus and about five other guys had joined us there, big burly dark guys. Their thoughts were all different and I discovered, just like Sikes’s wife, not everybody was thrilled to be here.

  “Oh, man, I’m so ready to be done with this.”

  “We can’t even call ourselves human beings after this. Sikes is crazy.”

  “I wonder what mom’s cooking for dinner. Hurry up, Sikes’s. I’m ready for some fried chicken.”

  “Why are other clans always so much hotter than ours. I’d pay a lot for ten minutes with this one.”

  “So stupid. It’s not even gonna work. All this wasted time, torturing some teenage girl. Ridiculous.”

  I felt the onslaught crushing over me but staved off the collapse of my control with focus. I could control this but I hated hearing what people said. Well, these people anyway, so I shut them out.

  “Alright, Maggie,” Sikes started. “Let’s get you in.”

  “Please, no. Please don’t put me down there,” I begged and tried to pull from Sikes’s wife but she held me tight.

  “Don’t start. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll send Marcus to Caleb’s house right now and we can see first hand what happens when an imprinted Ace dies.”

  “No!” I yelled and collapsed to my knees. The pain in my stomach at just thinking about it was insufferable. “Please, don’t.”

  “You see,” he said conversationally. “This well is supposedly what started it all. Over three hundred years ago, my ancestor fell down this well. The legend says he was betrothed to a beautiful girl and was in the well for four days. He thought she’d be worried sick about him and prayed to God, made every promise he could think of to help him. He became so enraged when no one came to his aid, that on the fourth day he started to scream and beat his fist on the walls. His blood from his hands and arms mixed with the water in the well and it started to glow. He was scared but then he saw a face over the well. Someone had come to rescue him. He was pulled out and was eager to see his beloved, but when he came up, she was not among the ones waiting for him. You see, she thought he had cold feet and had left, decided not to marry her so she married another. He was heartbroken and went to the church where they were to be married to pray. There in the cemetery in the church yard, he met a girl, placing flowers on her father’s grave. When he helped her stand and they touched, that was the first imprint. He was relieved of the pain from the woman he loved and immediately loved another. Within a few days him and his significant both ascended. By then others had started to imprint in the village as well. A village occupied by mostly Watson’s. Then they ascended just as my ancestor had and it started it all. No one in the village was married again without an imprint and their abilities helped them to conquer and fend off their enemies. You see, when he bled into the well, in his rage, legend had said that’s what started it all. He eventually told everyone that the water had started to glow and it must have meant something. And it was the village well, so everyone consumed this water. Now, you see why I want to test the theory of the well water. Now. Get on the platform,” he said evenly and I heard Marcus chuckling behind me.

  Sikes’s wife helped me to stand and moved me towards the board attached to rope on all corners over the well opening. I couldn’t fight, I just moved where she moved me. She laid me on it and I curled up in a ball and tried to hide my fear from them. I didn’t look at them or speak to them as they lowered me down. I heard Sikes’s wife muttering in her mind but she kept right on doing what he wanted, and Sikes.

  He wanted to see if the water would reverse the imprint or break it since it had given it to someone who had none. As for Marcus’s mind, I couldn’t even look into it without being sick. All the vile and horrible things he thought about me, about the Jacobson’s, about Caleb. It physically hurt me to look in his mind with its gray fog and thick barrier of pure hatred.

  So I let them lower me until I felt water come over the edge of the board and I sat up. I didn’t know if I’d have the strength to swim and I started to panic, but felt no increased heart rate to go along with it.

  When the water reached my stomach the pulley stopped and I looked up to see Sikes leaning over.

  “We’ll be back to get you in a couple days, Maggie.”

  I felt my breath rush in and out in panic.

  “Please don’t leave m
e down here. I’m scared,” I called up.

  “That’s the idea,” he yelled back and moved away.

  Twenty Five

  I felt my stomach bunch and cramp. So this must be the third or fourth day away from Caleb and they were going to let me sit in a well for days, testing a theory. And what would they do with me if it did break the imprint? Should I fake a broken imprint? Could they tell?

  I sat for a long time, trying not to shake and jerk my muscles in pain because the sloshing of the water was driving me insane.

  I listened to see if someone was up there waiting for me. I listened for their thoughts but got none. I tried to call Caleb but got nothing from him. After a few hours my teeth chattered so much that my jaw ached and I bit my tongue several times. I had an idea.

  I spit my blood into the water around me and waited and waited. No glowing apparitions, nothing. I scolded myself for buying into his lame story and wanted to lie down so bad I could barely think. I couldn’t lean back on the wall because the platform started to buckle.

  Eventually, I gave in and began to cry again. All day, I sat there. I watched and felt the sun making its way across the sky but the water was so cold that I couldn’t feel any warmth from it. Then the darkness came. I heard awful noises out there, animals yelling and howling, birds hooting and chirping. Breaking twigs. Crickets. It was excruciating. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t lay down. My eyes kept closing against my control and I laid my head on my knees but I fell over several times into the water, splashing it everywhere and wetting me more, making me colder so I eventually stopped trying.

  Then morning came. The sun starting making it’s was across the sky. In the light I could see the bricks were out of alignment in the well wall. I stood wobbly, holding the pulley rope for leverage and tried to set my foot on them and climb. I got a little footing but it was all so slimy and lined with algae that I never made it more than a step before I slid back down and scrambled to not fall further in the well. The last time I was reaching for a brick with one foot on and slipped, slicing my arm on the hard, dirty rocks.

  My blood, once again dripped into the water beside me and I watched it in anticipation, grimaced at it. It was stupid to believe maniacs.

  I tried yelling again. I tried Caleb, reaching him. I was so exhausted, I could barely think. When it was almost so dark, I could barely see, I heard voices.

  I hoped and prayed they were the voices I wanted, the Jacobson’s, Caleb, but they weren’t. I saw Marcus’s face above me as he smiled.

  “Dead yet?”

  I slumped in defeat and wanted to scream as they began to pull me up. Two days. Two days they’d left me down here. All the water left me and I thought the warm air would help but it didn’t, it made it worse. My skin burned and shivered at the same time. Whoever was pulling was jerking and pulling so forcefully that the board was banging on the walls, jabbing my muscles with the force. It felt like my bones were hitting against each other. I heard myself scream and whimper. My chest hurt with it. I screamed Caleb’s name and thought it, begged for him to hear me.

  When I reached the top, I rolled off the board and side of the well to land forcefully in the grass. I gasped and shook. I opened my eyes and saw that Sikes’s wife wasn’t there, but Marcus, his uncle and three other guys were. I wondered how they were going to help me without putting offense marks on me but, by the looks on their faces, they had no intentions of that anymore.

  Marcus smiled cruelly at me and grabbed my arm, yanking me up before jerking his hand back hissing.

  “That still stings as bad as it did the first time.”

  “Alright. We can’t do this outside she’ll make too much noise. Inside, now,” Sikes barked.

  Oh no. What- Then his thoughts were blaring to me. He was so, so mad. He didn’t want to do this and, in fact, had no intentions of watching. He was going to let Marcus loose on me and see how many offense marks they could put on me at one time. See if it affected or drained me so much that it changed something. I couldn’t have that. I shook my head.

  “No. No, please stop,” I begged Sikes’s. Looked right at him to implore his humanity. “Please don’t hurt me anymore. I’m only seventeen. I can’t handle this anymore. It hurts so bad, please.”

  He looked away and repeated his order.

  “Take her inside.”

  I screamed as Marcus came to grab me once more, wrapping a fist in my hair. Something silver and gleaming glinted in the light in his hand. I felt the sting and pressure across my shoulder and the edge of my throat before it registered what he’d done. He’d cut me, with a knife.

  I flung my hand to my shoulder and felt the warm sticky mess in between my fingers. I also felt warm soaking up the front of my shirt.

  “Marcus! NO!” Sikes’s yelled and pushed him aside. “I did not give you permission to harm her with worldly goods, only supernatural! Finn, take her inside, now!”

  I pushed at the one who came then they all came for me. I felt stings and slaps in several places all over me as they all tried to contain me but were jerking their hands back in pain themselves. I slung my arms out and my brain kicked in with karate maneuvers but my body had no strength behind it as I lamely fought back with feeble kicks and blocks.

  I thought, if I could just hold them off, maybe something would happen. And then it did. One of the men, Finn I presumed, yelled and screamed, grabbed my arms and pulled me up to stand. He pulled me against his chest from behind and wrapped a hand around my mouth, still screaming in his own agony but determined to end this now. I bit his hand as hard as I could muster and he pushed me away in instinct, over the cliff’s edge.

  I heard yells and screams as I soared through the air. Sikes’s roared above me as I fell, out loud and in his mind, “No!”

  I looked down and saw only dark greens and blues moving rapidly towards me.

  I landed in freezing ice water. Raging around me and swallowing me. I fought it but just like up on the cliff, I had no strength to actually make progress. So I just took a deep breath and let the current of the river take me. I floated roughly until I felt scratching and jarring on my legs. I looked up to see I was slamming into a downed tree, leaning over the river’s bank.

  I reached and pulled, slowly I managed to get myself half out of the water. I knew it wasn’t smart to sit here in plain sight. I was sure that Sikes and his bunch would be looking for me. But my body wouldn’t go any further. I passed out with my top half on the dirty freezing bank and my bottom half submerged in tree branches and dirty freezing water.

  I have no idea how much time passed but it was dark when I woke up again. The pain that shot through me was like nothing ever before it. It coursed through me, on a mission to end me. I couldn’t scream, I knew they were looking for me and it would lead them to me. Plus, I knew this was the Watson compound. Who knew how many of them lived out here but, I wanted to scream so badly. I fought it. My mouth opened in a silent scream as my body spasmed and bowed in reflex to the cramps, my fingers digging into the dirt. I contorted in on myself as I spat and coughed up river water when I tried to move up the bank and out of the freezing water.

  I eventually pulled myself up completely out of the water and army crawled to the dry grass up passed the beach. I rolled to lay on my back and tried to catch my breath.

  I could see every star, just like that night at Mugly’s with Caleb. Just like the beach the night I was taken. I imagined Caleb beside me, holding my hand and us just looking up at them so casually as we’d done before. My chest clinched as I thought of him. The stars bounced in my vision as my head pounded against the ground under it. I had to get to Caleb. I was free. I had to get moving.

  I rolled back over and it took all my strength to stand. I started to walk as I continued to shiver. I felt twigs and rocks under me cut my feet and my arms scratched by passing branches and I rammed through like a lump. I felt the gash in my arm break open when I fell to the ground once. I wrapped my fingers around it and kept going, ign
oring the pain in my shoulder. The longer I walked the more I couldn’t feel my toes or fingers. I had no way to warm myself and, after what seemed like several hours, felt my resolve slipping. I was going to die out here. If it wasn’t by the Watson’s hand it would be by the woods.

  I didn’t walk on the trails or the beach instead walking through the bushes and trees to hopefully keep anyone from seeing me. I was so exhausted, so in pain, but I kept going. I saw a shed or cabin ahead of me. I felt hope soar then plummet. I debated whether to go in or not. Who knew whose shed it was. It could be one of theirs and they’d find me there. I couldn’t help it. I was freezing and had to get dry.

  I pulled myself up the short hill to the top by some roots and vines. I crept up to the cabin, wincing when the stairs creaked under my feet. I peeked into the dark window and seeing no light decided to try the door.

  Unlocked.

  I eased it open and heard the lock rattling from my shaking fingers. I took a deep breath and swung the door open. The moon illuminated the room to show a small bed and kitchen. I searched for a light switch and found one by the door. The lights were bright and I quickly turned it off incase of alerting someone. I spotted a flashlight on the floor by the door and tried it instead.

  As I looked around the cabin it was clear that no one had been there in forever. It was undecorated, unclean, and efficient. Across the room, the closet was full of clothes, jeans and coats. I immediately pulled off my soaking wet t-shirt and threw on a long ugly men’s warm sweater. I took my jeans and laid them across the bedrail to dry. There was nothing to do for my cut and bleeding feet.

  I walked over to the kitchen and found a stack of emergency candles all ready and lined up by the sink with matches. I lit a couple of them and then looked into the cupboard for something to eat. I found two cans of Vienna sausage - yuck- but I ate them quicker than I had any tasty burger I’ve ever had. There were a couple jugs of water by the sink too. They were unopened and smelled ok so I took a couple big swigs from one.