The Lost Soldier

by Jen Talty

  A black cloud floated down from the sky, covering the vision.

  He blinked his eyes open.

  “What did you see?” Savanah asked.

  “How did you know I had a vision?”

  “Years of living with my sister.”

  He stroked Savanah’s back, tickling his fingertips across her soft skin. “I don’t know what to make of it, but it was as if Willow was leading us somewhere.”

  Savanah tugged the sheet up over her torso and inched herself to a sitting position. “Have you ever let visions come freely?”

  “No,” he admitted, rolling out of the bed and finding his pants, hiking them up to his hips. As much as he wanted to spend a few more hours holding her and making love to her, they had work to do and men to find. “At least not when I was awake.”

  “Do your visions come into view slowly, and perhaps with a swirl of colors or do they just snap into your head?”

  “Both and I take it that means something.”

  “If they snap into view, they are moments away from happening. The more you use your skill, the less that will happen.”

  “Good to know.”

  The sound of tires kicking up pebbles from the broken road stole his attention. “We’ve got company,” he said, snagging his phone from the nightstand.

  “It’s not even six in the morning,” she muttered as she gathered her clothes.

  “Stay here. I’m going to see who it is.” He slipped from the bedroom, pulling the door closed.

  A military Jeep rolled to a stop right next to the one he’d been given. Scottie stepped out of the vehicle.

  Chad decided to meet them outside, giving Savanah a little time to get dressed. “What brings you by so early?” he asked.

  The warm jungle air filled his nostrils with the thick scent of vegetation. A layer of mist fell from the sky.

  “We have a possible location on where Hunter Knight and Karl Homer are being held captive.”

  “How good is the intel? Did someone remote view?”

  “I’ve got one team member with that ability, and he’s tried, but he can’t get past the concrete walls. It’s as if they were made of some sort of anti-psychic material.” Scottie leaned against the Jeep, chewing on a toothpick. “Mallard wants you and Savanah to try. If you can confirm, we’ll begin plans to go in and retrieve our men.”

  “All right. Let’s go in and grab some coffee and get started.”

  When Chad crossed the threshold of the cabin, Savanah had already started the water and was sitting at the table, laptop open to one of the classified files. She glanced his direction, giving him a quick smile, which made his heart flutter like a schoolboy on a first date.

  “Good morning,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “What do we owe the pleasure?” Her words were laced with a bit of defensiveness.

  Chad couldn’t blame her for her bitterness toward Scottie. The man had an attitude and a chip on his shoulder, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a good soldier.

  “We might have found the missing men, but we need your skills to find them,” Scottie said.

  She arched a brow, the corner of her mouth tipping slightly upward. “You mean you want me to remote view the location.”

  Scottie cleared his throat, nodding. “Both of you.”

  “You turned around quickly,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.

  “I’ll do anything to save those men.” Scottie pulled back one of the folding chairs. “I also had an unwanted visit from some chick by the name of Willow.”

  Chad laughed. “She wake you up too?”

  “I’ve never in my life had anyone talk to me inside my head before. Totally freaked me the fuck out.”

  “Seems like my sister’s skill is getting stronger and stronger. She used to be only able to talk to other telepathies.” Savanah closed the laptop, resting her hand over the silver cover. “What did she want?”

  “Hazel, one of your other sisters?” Scottie rubbed the back of his neck. “Had a vision about the building we think the men are in. Willow was giving me the info and also recommended I come gather the two of you.”

  “You listened to her?” Savanah asked.

  “I brought it to Mallard. He agreed,” Scottie said, scratching the side of his face. “But a skill we might be able to use when we locate our men and their captors.”

  Should we tell him Alexis, Brett, and Hazel are on their way here? she asked Chad.

  No. But now I’m wishing Willow had come with them, but as long as she can project from anywhere, it should be okay.

  I just tried to get her, but I guess I can’t unless she initiates it.

  Weird how these things work, he projected back.

  “Let’s confirm we know where the men are, then we can bring Willow into it,” Chad said, resting his hip against the wall.

  “Works for me.” Scottie yanked a piece of paper from his back pocket. “These are the coordinates. Not sure which of you wants to try first.”

  “We’re going together.” Chad took the information, showing it to Savanah.

  “Two separate views at the same time?” Scottie’s brow scrunched.

  “Nope. One view, two people.”

  “That could be dangerous.” Savanah cocked her head. “The space between can be tricky.”

  “Tricky?” Scott shook his head. “It’s suicide.”

  “Why do you say that?” Chad might be new to the whole remote viewing thing, but so far it all seemed simple enough.

  “We’ve seen people cross paths in the space between not come back the same person.”

  “Brett summoned me in the space between, and we’re both fine.” Chad snatched another folding chair from the corner. The metal screeched, then halted halfway open. Flexing his muscles, he tugged harder. The chair snapped open. “I didn’t even feel sick.”

  You and Brett are quadruplets. Tighter bond than sisters or any other psychic. Savanah’s succulent voice filled his mind.

  What does that have to do with us going into a view together?

  Remember how sick I felt after you dragged me through your tunnel?

  “All right, let’s get the show on the road.” Chad took Savanah’s hands in his. “I’ll go through your tunnel.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said with wide eyes.

  He couldn’t explain why he knew this would work better than separate views, or why he felt safe doing it, other than he believed that his vision earlier was the two of them inside a view. “I cross into your view and if there is a problem, we’ll come right back.”

  “It could be too late,” Scottie muttered, shaking his head.

  “I need you both to trust me.”

  Scottie laughed. “You barely know what you’re capable of and never used them in the field, and you want me to trust you? Ha! Now I trust her more than you.”

  “I trust you,” Savanah said softly, closing her eyes.

  A wave of nausea sloshed in his stomach as he felt a strong pull. The cabin faded into the background. In the distance he heard a waterfall. Savanah took his hand as they ran toward…

  Your tunnel is a waterfall?

  No. We dive off it into a pool of water.

  Thank God for my SEAL training.

  Chapter 7

  “TELL ME IF WE need to go back.” Savanah glanced over her shoulder as they emerged from the water and took off running toward the concrete compound.

  “I feel fine,” he said with a smile. “I bet our views could have merged as well.”

  “Maybe.” She slowed as an image of Willow flashed across the building. “Did you see that?”

  “Yep. It was part of my vision.”

  “Anything else I should know about that vision?”

  “No. It ended here,” he said.

  “Wow. I can hear you both,” Willow’s voice boomed between her ears like a set of loud speakers.

  “This is way too cosmic.” Savanah came to a stop about twenty yards from
the building, crouching down behind a tree. Not that anyone could see her, but it made her feel better about being out in the open.

  “This is giving me a headache,” Willow said. “So, I’ll be quick. I got a call from Hazel who said she had another vision about this building being blown to pieces at seven twenty-two this morning.”

  “Did she see where the bomb was?” Chad asked.

  “If you go in the far east door and into the cellar, it’s behind the furnace.” Willow’s image faded as her voice grew quieter.

  “What are you thinking?” Savanah turned to Chad as the link to her sister disappeared.

  “We need to split up. You find the men. I’ll find and disarm the bomb.”

  “We can’t do that. First, you have to come back with me through my tunnel or you could be lost here forever.”

  “According to Scottie, I shouldn’t be able to do this, so we really don’t know what risk there is, and maybe I can summon my caves.”

  “Then summon them, just to make sure.”

  He turned, planting his hands on his hips. “They are there.”

  “If you’re lying to me, I’ll come back here and kill you myself.”

  “Trust me, I don’t want to be stuck here.”

  “Fine, but my other concern is how will you disarm the bomb. It took Brett a long time to take something back from a different plane.” She glanced at her watch. “We have time to go back and tell Scottie to just—”

  “Without knowing where exactly the men are and the bomb is, Scottie won’t have time to make a plan that would ensure at least a fifty percent survival rate of more men.”

  Movement on the right side of the building caught her attention. Five men, all armed with Uzis, appeared to be making some sort of security check around the compound.

  “We go into the building together. We only separate if we have to,” she said.

  “Let’s go.” He patted her shoulder and started running toward the building.

  No matter how many times she’d viewed, she always felt exposed when out in the open inside a view. Realistically, her body wasn’t there. No one could see her, except for maybe a few very powerful psychics, which included Brett and Chad, but others might be able to sense her presence. If anyone thought she were there, or anyone like her, she feared for the men who were being held captive.

  “Quick.” Chad reached back, taking her hand.

  Together they scooted through the open door into a long, cold corridor. “This door faces north. We can communicate with each other. So, I’ll go find the bomb. You methodically search the rest.”

  “I don’t like this one bit.”

  He curled his fingers around her biceps.

  “Oh my. You shouldn’t be able to touch me.”

  “Really? That might come in handy when I find the bomb.”

  “Interesting. Okay, call me when you’ve found it. I’ll go find the men.” She took off down the hallway, her feet hitting the tile floor, but she didn’t hear them. It was all an illusion. She wondered if him touching her back at the cabin had anything to do with them touching each other on the cosmic plane.

  She pushed all those questions and pesky doubts from her mind and concentrated on moving about the building. Most of the time it was easy to step through a wall, or peek into a room, but Scottie was right, someone had built up a strong wall protecting this place from people like her. Only she felt stronger with Chad. It was as if her ability doubled in strength.

  For the most part, the building was empty of people, but filled with explosives and military weapons. She peeked her head into the last room on the top floor on the west side. Boxes and boxes of grenades filled the room. She reached in through the wall. The cold, hardness of the cement bricks chilled her bones. The skin on her fingertips burned when they grazed the top of the metal objects. One moved slightly as she pulled her hand back. She froze, hoping that wouldn’t set them off. Glancing at her watch, she let out a sigh of relief. Would have sucked had she been the reason the building exploded and not the bomb.

  Taking the stairs, she jogged to the lowest level, and made her way to the west side. The compound had four corridors off a center building. The few people that mulled around were either guards or what appeared to be office workers in the main tower, though what kind of office she had no idea because she didn’t believe this to be a government organization. The guards didn’t wear the North Korean military uniform, but it could be some secret government organization. Hell, the United States had a half dozen or so that even some of the highest officials didn’t know existed.

  As she rounded the corner on the second floor, she heard male voices. She wished she’d taken a language in school, though it probably wouldn’t have been Korean.

  From the third door on the right, two men appeared, both with bags over their heads, one visibly injured as he limped and groaned with every step. Behind them, four men wearing military camouflage, carrying large weapons, thrust the captives forward, hitting them with the butt of their weapons.

  “Hunter,” she whispered in her mind, but got no response.

  When the two men walked past, she felt a wave of psychic energy around one of the men. She couldn’t tell if it was him, blocking himself off from everyone, or someone else had wrapped him in a blanket of protective energy.

  Or maybe a bit of both.

  “I found them,” she projected to Chad. “They are on the move.”

  “Follow them,” Chad responded.

  “Find the bomb?”

  “Yes. Tell me if they leave the building.”

  “Be careful,” she projected.

  “You too.”

  On tip-toe, she slinked through the hall until the men stopped at the elevator. It wasn’t a very big elevator, fitting maybe eight people. With her, it would be seven people inside. While her non-existent body could be absorbed into almost anything, if she came in contact with organic material, and a person was organic, they could know she was there in a way that could zap her energy, making it difficult

  She sucked in a breath, slipping inside the caged machine, right next to who she believed to be Hunter. Heat radiated from his body, prickling her skin. She kept reminding herself that her body wasn’t on this plane. That she really wasn’t feeling any of this.

  But part of her wondered if Hunter really was emitting some kind of boiling, invisible steam.

  The doors closed, and the motor roared. The elevator shook and bounced as it started it’s decent downward. Hunter’s body continued to come in contact with her mind. A dull ache built slowly from the base of her neck to the top of her forehead.

  As soon as the doors opened, she leapt into the hallway, then followed them through the north wing.

  “Where are you?” Chad’s voice filled her mind, giving her a sense of calm.

  “Heading toward the doors on the north end.”

  “I can’t disarm the bomb, and I can’t take it with us.”

  “So, this place is going to blow soon.”

  “Yep. Best part is that the bomb is not Korean, either North or South. It’s American. So, either our government has more than one op here and the branches aren’t speaking to one another, or some gorilla organization. Either way, we need to figure out how to get our men out.”

  One of the captors pulled back the door. The warm sun filtered through the open space. A convoy of trucks awaited them.

  “Not going to be a problem. They are getting in the back of a truck now.”

  “Get in it, too. I’m on my way.”

  “Hurry,” she said as she climbed on the back of the vehicle, standing on the bumper. Her body ached and skin still burned from crossing her mind with Hunter’s body. “First few trucks pulling out.”

  “I see you.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. A sense of relief settled deep inside as he jumped onto the back of the truck right before it lurched forward.

  “You doing okay? You look a little green.” He wrapped a protective arm around her
waist, holding her tight.

  “I crossed bodies with I think Hunter, and he’s a cosmic ball of psychic energy right now.”

  “If he’s one of my brothers, I’m going to have to have a talk with him about doing anything with my girlfriend.”

  She swallowed the butterflies floating from her stomach to her throat. “Now you’re freaking me out on how easily you’re accepting this.”

  “Not easily, just I’ve been fighting it my entire life, and I’m tired of it.”

  Chapter 8

  CHAD FOUGHT THE increasing stabbing pain in his temples. He didn’t know if it was because he’d forced Savanah to return to reality, leaving him inside her view, or if it was caused by whatever psychic phenomenon was happening to Hunter.

  And why only Hunter?

  The other SEAL being held captive, Karl Homer, seemed to be free of those things that surrounded Hunter, except for Homer’s ability, precognition, or foreshadowing the future. Savanah had fed Chad all the information she could about both SEALs. Hunter, obviously the most talented between the two, had the ability to communicate telepathically, move and manipulate objects, which was known as telekinesis, and the most interesting to Chad, something called retrocognition, or the ability to view past events.

  Chad sat on a tree stump, just fifteen yards west of the small house where Hunter and Homer’s captors had set up camp. With everyone speaking Korean, he wished he could remote view an interpreter or somehow miraculously understand the language. That said, he understood enough based on their actions, that Hunter and Homer’s days, or hours, were limited.

  “Where are you, Savanah?” he projected.

  “Ten miles away,” she said, her voice softer and shallower than normal when she spoke to him. He figured it was because his mind was fifty miles from his body, and she was communicating from one plane to the next.

  He stifled a laugh.

  No one could make this kind of shit up and never in a million years did he think he’d ever embrace it so wholeheartedly.

  But he did.