I said nothing.
“Okay, then.” He lowered his hand and continued to smile through the awkwardness. “I’ll start off by saying your family isn’t too different from mine. Your powers are genetic. Maybe not everyone has them, but when they do, it’s obvious. However, there’s one big difference between us.”
“Why would I care?” I crossed my arms, determined to keep my temper in check. He wanted me for my powers, so I wanted to give them to him, only on my terms and not his.
“Because that’s what drew me to you. Psychic powers run in families, but it’s rare to find them so powerful across more than one member. At most, it might skip a generation or two. That’s what drew me to you. That’s also why if you play your cards right, you and your sister will never see another tuition bill again..”
“You’re assuming I still plan on going there. Right now the chances are looking pretty slim.”
“Now hold on. Don’t take your anger out on the entire university, okay? The only reason why the Babcock Building ever came into being is that we wanted a place to use our powers in secret and not have to hide them. A place where others like us would understand. Maybe even find a better purpose for those powers that could benefit everyone, including your family.”
“What do you people want so we can get this over with?” The more I spoke to him, the harder it was for me to keep my composure. I needed to hold it in until I found out what happened to both my mother and Howard.
“Cornerstone University wasn’t always a hub school. The Babcock Building went by another name prior to 1973 and by then, more than fifty percent of the college was still human. Only the most talented students were allowed to take part in studies that happened underground in a place we called the Catacombs. Babcock was the entrance to their supernatural sanctuary. All of it was managed under the guise of debunking psychic phenomena. The government didn’t buy it. They wanted to see if any of those students wanted a side job.”
“Let me guess.” I went back over to the couch and sat down. “Riley Cavanaugh sold them out.”
“Sold is such a harsh word. Perhaps introduction is a better term. Anyway, Dean Cavanaugh thought it would be a good way to help supernatural families out. Unfortunately, students didn’t feel safe there, so they stopped coming. If anything, they retreated into themselves. Sound familiar?”
I sighed. “You’ll eventually get to the part about what you want from us, right? I mean—I have a good idea, but I want to hear you say it.”
“Right. Sorry.” He tapped on the tablet screen but turned his attention back to me. “The Babcock name was changed and the Catacombs were no longer needed after it was decided to purge the normals from the population and only allow supernaturals and the touched to attend. The government is still interested in us and always will be. It’s a fact. The only difference is their offers are more lucrative now and their selection standards have quintupled. The problem is that the most powerful are the ones that the feds want and there just aren’t a lot of us anymore.”
“You poor thing.”
“Love the sarcasm.” He held up a single finger as if to stop me from talking. “Riley Cavanaugh introduced me to the feds who took a special liking to me so much that my family and I will never have to work a common job again. Oh, and before I forget, Riley Cavanaugh is my grandfather.”
“Is that the big reveal?”
“Why? It’s not big enough?”
“Does this bland look on my face say so?”
“No, it doesn't.” He smirked. “My grandfather left the university because he found working for the feds was more profitable. I finished school at the hub and followed in his footsteps. Unlike you, I had been given a gift and chose to do nothing with it.”
“Is that why you won’t leave us alone? Do you want to pimp my mother and me out to the government?” I crossed my arms and shook my head. “You’re no better than the rest of the supernatural community, you know that?”
“Yes and no.” Excited, he grabbed a nearby chair and pulled up closer to me to sit. “In my family, the older you get the more your power lessens. Without my powers, I don’t get paid. My grandfather doesn’t get paid. We need you and your mother to recharge us, so to speak.”
“Excuse me?”
“You and your mother are so powerful that you can do things that others cannot. You can charge objects as small as a pair of car keys or as large as a house. Combine that energy with another paranormal’s and it can heighten the weaker of the two.”
“That’s why there were offers on our house and why they haven’t come off, isn’t it? Decades of living on that property have turned it into a magnet for leeches like you.”
“Say what you want, but every time you use your psychokinetic powers, it has the potential to punch a hole into a dimension where only the supernatural exists. That’s only possible with the most powerful of our kind and it takes years of investment to build that up.”
“Which my family has done by living in our house for so long.”
“Yes.”
What happened with Jayden and me in the school cafeteria flashed through my brain. It was like we had traded powers—or merged them—for the briefest period, but enough for us to realize what happened. It was crazy. Something neither one of us had ever done before. It took a trigger, but it happened because we were both in contact with each other. Knowing what happened made it hard to disprove the stuff the Crothers was saying. It made it scarier, too.
“So,” I began carefully, hoping he didn’t hear the tremble in my voice. I think I failed, but I wasn’t sure. Please tell me Kurt got my message from Nadia. “What’s the plan for me and my mom? You plan on stashing us away in that house outside of Chicago again for the next twenty years to charge it for you?”
He chuckled. “Something like that. But we’re offering the best life you and your family have ever had.”
“You want to use us to make up for your shortcomings. Keep the money from the feds rolling in, because if they found out you and your grandfather were turning into supernatural eunuchs like you called my brother, they’d toss you both to the curb for the next best thing on the market. You would be useless to them. Your precious funding for all of your high-end expenses would be cut off.”
Sweat softened my palms. I curled my fingers to keep it from showing. Still, anxiety prickled down my back, and every time I shifted or moved, it did nothing to ease it. Several times I tried breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, hoping not to give anything away.
“You’re a real smart ass, you know that? I like it.” Though he smiled, everything in his eyes said he was serious. “Just because my powers aren’t what they used to be doesn’t mean I can’t inflict damage.”
“Were you the one who burnt down our house?” When I heard a creak from the other side of the room, a tremor slicked between my shoulders. I prayed that it wasn’t coming from me.
“No. You can blame my stupid little brother for that.” Tobin stood, hooked his hand to the back of the chair, and dragged it back under the table. “He was the oops baby just like your sister. I’m pretty sure Nadia has him beat in the brains department, though. Speaking of which, I’m surprised Nadia isn’t with you. We’d love to meet her, too.”
“Look pervert, I want to see my mother. And while we’re at it, what did you do with Howard and Jayden?”
“Your mother and grandfather are fine—I assure you. Your friend, on the other hand, got away. But that’s okay. I can use Vanessa Kendrick to get a nice lead into wherever the rest of the supernatural underground is hiding.”
“So you can pinch them off, too? Let me ask you a question.” I crossed my legs and folded my fingers around my knees. “What happens if my mom and I say no? What happens if anyone tells you no? Do you just let us go about our daily lives again?”
He chuckled. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. We will finish what your aunt started. I have no problem with locking you and the rest of your family away for the
rest of your lives and using your powers as I see fit.”
“You might want to leave now. You’re irritating me and the last time that happened, it didn’t go so well for the Peglisi’s.”
“Very well.”
Tobin nodded once before knocking on the door. Someone on the other side let him out. When the door closed, the lock clicked.
This maniac wanted two things: to pimp out our powers and keep his own powers gassed up since they were running on fumes. Something tells me he will come up with a third. I just hoped I wouldn’t be around here long enough to see it come to fruition.
Damn it, Kurt. Where are you?
Chapter Twenty-eight
If I was going to get out of this, I needed to do something to help my own situation. So rather than go with powers blazing, I sat on the floor with my legs crossed and closed my eyes. While on the plane, I tried to do some quickie meditation videos in case I ever found myself in a bind with my powers. I pictured myself standing on the warm sand and my toes absorbing the warmth. I let it continue to draw comfort through the bottoms of my feet and winding slowly through my ankles and calves while controlling my breathing.
The door opened. I had no idea how long I had been sitting on the floor, but the guard carried in a tray of food and placed it on the table. I closed my eyes before he could leave and restarted my meditation again. I was up to the part where the heat had filled my chest when a gurgle caught my attention. I opened my eyes.
The man levitated about two feet off the floor and looked like he was being strangled. His body launched up to the ceiling, where his head crunched into a vent at an angle just like the pencil in Dr. Copley’s classroom. His body crumpled to the floor.
Oh. My. God. That was not what I had in mind. Not by a long shot.
The door squeaked. It was opening.
Panic poured inside me.
“Dude,” a guy said as he opened it. “What are you—?” He stopped and stared at his coworker lying on the floor and then at me. “What the—?”
My powers threw him hard against the door, slamming both him and it against the wall. He slumped in the entryway with his body halfway into the hall. I hurried over to him, stepped over his body, and peeked around the doorway. I wasn’t leaving this place without my mother or my grandfather.
The building didn’t seem that big and wasn’t exactly a Top Secret Facility from the looks of it. The walls were reinforced with concrete and three stories total. The floor I was on consisted of a series of rooms or offices, some with windows where you could see into the atrium of the building. The bottom floor was open where there were a few couches where people could sit. A metal balcony that extended to a set of angled stairs was nearby along with an elevator at the other end. Pipes snaked along the ceilings from one end to the other and across to the other side of the second floor.
“Hey, you!” Someone shouted.
I glanced to my right. A man was headed for me with two more security guards in tow and he wasn’t pleased.
I took off to the left. I skirted around a few people while they yelled for someone to grab me. When a guy snatched my arm, I glanced at him and he flew back a few feet, hitting the railing with his back. He thumped to the concrete floor. I continued running until I hit the staircase and bounded down. I got halfway and stopped.
Tobin and another set of security guards came up to meet me.
“Where are you going to go, Phaedra?” He held his palms out as if to show me he wasn’t holding a weapon. A smirk plastered his face. “That house you stayed at was out in the middle of nowhere. What makes you think this place is any different?”
“You’ve got a point” I clutched the railing, my fingers clenching to knuckle whiteness. I faced him, trying to mask my panic with anger.
“So that means you’re going to go back to your room and be a good little girl while you’re here. Because as impressive as the results of that meditative-controlling technique you were doing, it won’t get you out of minding your manners.”
My fear kicked in. It was as though my powers dug in deep like the roots of a large tree, leeching off the nutrients of the environment to grow limbs that stretched into the sky and leaves thick enough to turn day into night. There was no holding it back and I didn’t want to.
Heat flushed my face, breaking my hold. Sweat beaded my brow and leaked down the sides of my face. I shook my head as though that would help, but it didn’t. It was like sitting in front of a heater and letting your face take the full force of it.
“Remember when I said my powers were weakening?” Tobin began inching up the steps toward me. “I can still do just enough damage to keep the charade going for a little while longer, but only because I know how far to push it and when to hang back. So, meditate all you want, but in the end, I’ll always be more powerful than you because I have what you don’t. I have complete control.”
“I am my mother’s daughter,” I said in a low voice. “I have crazy on my side and nothing to lose.”
Both of his security guards flew forward. Their bodies slammed into both me and Theo, sending all of us crashing into the stairs and rolling down to the first floor. That was not what I had in mind.
I crawled out before anyone else and grabbed a taser and fired it into the backside of the guard on top. He screeched and his body went rigid. Blood flushed his face and leaked into his ears until his entire head turned red. I dropped the taser and ran away from the staircase. Lights above my head snapped and popped, showering sparks down on everyone. Glass smashed across other parts of the building, sending people running. Some of the pipes exploded and water leaked onto the floor. An alarm sounded overhead and lights flashed as if to warn everyone to get out.
When a crew of security guards rushed toward me, they fired tasers.
“No!” I raised my hand and stopped them just like I had Leena’s bullet. I closed my eyes and imagined where I wanted the electrodes to go.
A snap and buzz made me open my eyes. The electrodes were embedded between the eyes of the security guards. That was sort of what I wanted, but I was thinking more so into their chests. Either way, I couldn't complain.
Glass webbed on my left. Shards from a four-foot window broke free and shot across the corridor. I dove to the floor. The glass smashed into the opposite wall, raining smaller shards down me. I got to my feet and dusted off as best I could before flying down the corridor again.
More windows caught my attention and I slowed down. I glanced around as much as I could, looking for any signs of my mom and grandfather. There was nothing. I went from one window to another and most of it was labs, lounges, and break rooms. I lifted my head as the realization came. I’d have to go back upstairs to see if she was up there.
Another crew of security guards came after me. I turned and went back the way I had come, hopping over one of the tased guys on the floor. I held my arms spread wide as I ran, hoping to unleash something that would slow these guys down.
When I got to a different staircase, heat slipped down my back and the back of my neck. I stopped and grabbed the metal railing to keep from falling back down the steps. Even the bar felt hot under my grip. I yanked my hand away and noticed the extra shiny pads on my sizzling palms.
“You can’t escape, Phaedra.” Ryan Babbage peeked around the top of the staircase and smirked. Hands tucked into the tops of his jeans pockets, he leaned against the wall. “You didn’t learn anything from Leena, did you? You’re so desperate for friends. So desperate for acceptance. Being that desperate makes you miss a lot of things. My brother Tobin, thinks I jumped the gun, but I couldn’t stand being your friend and taking that stupid class with any of you. Not when I have the golden goose when it comes to powers. Burning down your house pushed our plans forward and got me out of that freakin’ school sooner.”
I tucked my hand close to my front. Anything I wanted to say, I couldn't because my hand stung so bad. When I opened my mouth, I closed it. I wanted my anger to fester, to build up, to destroy.<
br />
“You want to see something really cool?” His smirk turned to something focused and maniacal.
Heat licked up my hip. I stepped away from the metal railing as it heated to the point that it started to turn reddish-orange. Both railings on either side of the staircase warmed to piping hot. It was as though I were inside a toaster oven with the heat level dialed up to scorch.
“A little too hot for you, Phaedra?” He laughed. “The only reason why I used some lighter fluid on your house was because I wanted it to look like someone else did it. Once I had the light on the roof, I used my powers to take it to the next level. I spread those flames across your house like I was frosting a cake. It was pure perfection.”
I backed down the steps but kept my glower on him. I knew there were people behind me, but I couldn’t focus on them. Ryan is the biggest threat at the moment and more than anything, I want it to go sideways for him.
When my feet touched the floor, I threw all of my energy, feelings, all of my willpower and ferocity inside me into a scream more powerful than the one I used in the attic of my burning home. I aimed it all at Ryan, not caring who got caught up in the aftermath. God help them all for invading my home, my family, my life.
The floor rumbled underneath my feet and across the staircase. Pieces of plaster rained down on all of us. When someone tried to fire a taser at me, they went silent while others shouted and screamed to back away. Pieces of metal whined and buckled all around us.
Heat pressed hard into my face and neck. I wasn’t sure if I was burning, but if I was going to die at this moment, then I’d take the entire building with me. I threw everything I had into my power. I closed my eyes and imagined the world crumbling around me. There was nothing left but a smoldering heap of ash and dead bodies. I wanted all of them to pay with their lives.
Explosions blasted chucks of concrete and debris from the top of the staircase to the bottom and the walls imploded, throwing bricks through the air. Somehow, I blew myself off my feet and crashed into a crumbling wall somewhere behind me, slamming the back of my head hard against the rockface.
Silent Scream (Bittersweet Series, Book 2) Page 23