“I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit,” I said pacing in nervous agitation in front of the cabin.
“Will someone please shut her up?” Margaret said from where she was lounging lazily on the back of her black motorcycle.
I stopped pacing and glared at her, not caring how dangerous that was. “Sorry for having emotions. I forgot…you don’t like them.”
She looked away from the woods and stared me down. As our glares met, her irises turned completely black. It was like seeing the wild woman from my shared memory. It was enough to send a shiver down my spine. The air around us hissed and crackled with electricity. All the hairs on my arm and neck rose at the feeling in the air.
“Margaret.” Jackson chided her. He didn’t seem worried or upset, just bored as he leaned against Daniel’s black Audi.
At the sound of his voice, Margaret’s eyes cleared, and she went back to staring at the woods, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. I started pacing again, too worked up to be worried about what could have happened.
Jackson moved so he was blocking me. “I’d be a little careful about making Margaret angry.”
“I know that anger is bad for us. We lose control. Daniel told me. It’s just…”
Jackson cut me off. “It’s a little more than that.” Even though his face was serious, his voice was laced with laughter, which made it hard to take him seriously. The next words he spoke, though, I took very seriously. “The last person she got really mad at was hit by a lightning bolt on a perfectly clear day.” His hands enacted someone blowing up. I felt my eyes widen. “Didn’t Daniel tell you what her particular gift is?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“She can control the weather.”
I remembered Daniel mentioning talking to a person who controlled weather. It was the first day we worked on cars together. I also remembered the way Margaret’s thoughts had reminded me of a storm raging out of control. Suddenly, it made sense.
“What can the others do?” I asked as I looked around the dilapidated cabin we were waiting in front of. Daniel had promised to be right back, but that was ten minutes ago. I was definitely in need of a distraction.
“Well, Daniel can see the future. He can’t see it all the time, which is kind of annoying, and he can only see a couple of minutes into the future with any certainty.” I rolled my eyes. Jackson knew I knew what Daniel could do. “Beatrice can control people. She can get a whole army to waddle like a duck or kill each other, though she doesn’t like to do that. It works best on humans, because they don’t know how to block us out. Han can control energy. He has to have an energy source like a fire or a generator, but he can take that energy and do really cool things. He can cause power surges or kill people with pure energy overload.”
I shivered, realizing how often Jackson came back to killing people. Watchers really were geared towards murder and mayhem. I wondered what my talent would be. Would my power be just as destructive? It seemed inevitable it would be.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I never get mad.”
“Ever?” I asked.
“Not enough to lose control like the others.”
“So, you never have to worry about turning?” I asked.
Jackson shook his head and glanced at Margaret. He didn’t have to worry about turning, but I knew he worried about her. It was obvious she was a lot to worry about as far as that was concerned.
“He warned us to back off.” Daniel said as walked out of the woods with his hands tucked in his pockets.
I breathed a sigh of relief. When we had arrived at Amanda’s house after school, we had found it deserted. Even the dogs were gone. Once we’d arrived, Daniel had gotten a vision of the brown-haired Seeker coming to intercept us. He had left to meet him, aware that it would be better for everyone if the Seeker didn’t see me.
Daniel smiled at my sigh, but he was preoccupied with the news he had brought. “He said, and I quote, ‘Back off and we will spare your family. We respect your strength, but if you do not back away from our mission, you will force our hand. You have been warned.’ Then he left.” Daniel’s jaw tightened. A vein throbbed in his temple.
“Sounds rather old-fashioned,” Jackson said. “‘You have been warned!’ What a jackass.”
I ignored Jackson. “He didn’t say anything about what their mission was?”
“No. But, I definitely think something has changed. They’re not trying subterfuge anymore.”
“They must really want you,” Jackson said to me.
“Or they have something else planned. Something I can’t see.” Daniel said.
“What?” Jackson, Margaret and I asked in unison.
Daniel’s mouth twitched with a smile at our demanding tone. “I keep getting blocked from seeing what they have planned. It’s like the plan is somehow…” he gestured with his hands looking for the word, “malleable.”
“A plan is malleable?” I was skeptical.
“Good point. It’s probably the person orchestrating all this.”
“The blonde woman…Cassandra?”
Daniel lifted one shoulder. “I can’t tell.”
“Why can’t we just kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out?” Jackson asked.
“Because we need answers,” Daniel said.
“I think it’s a good solution,” Jackson replied. “We know they’re a threat. And it’s not just because of Clare anymore. The others have been hungering for a while now to get us out of the picture. We scare them. Maybe, this is an attempt to do that and they’re using Clare as an excuse.”
“Not to make this all about me, but I don’t think so,” I said. “There’s something about me they want. Something I have. Maybe, it’s tied into the time when Ellen was attacked. They took her…my blood when she was pregnant with me.” Everyone looked at me in shock, but I ignored them. “Or maybe it’s tied to this!” I said as I picked up my necklace. “The way it acted around that demon…it could be a weapon!”
Daniel shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. We don’t need the aid of a weapon.” He held up his hands. “These are dangerous enough.”
He shook his head again in frustration and started pacing. He clasped his hands behind his back as he paced, and he walked the length of the cabin several times. With his serious expression and purposeful walk, he looked very much like an old scholar trying to solve a physics problem. All that was missing was the pipe and tweed jacket.
“What are you thinking Danny?” Jackson asked.
“I think Clare’s ability to read minds has something to do with all this. If someone looks too hard to capture, or kill, they don’t get this excited. And they certainly don’t study one two years before the change. The longest I’ve known them to track a young one was three months. Remember the girl in Jersey? She had already changed too…It has to be connected somehow.”
What they were discussing was serious, but I couldn’t help but ogle Daniel a little bit. He was radiating such an aura of command. He looked completely different from the boy I had encountered on my first day here. The dark brooding face I had come to love wasn’t any different, but I felt the shields he had kept up for so long that he wasn’t even aware of them anymore were gradually sliding away. This was Daniel without the filter. The power, the grace, and the intensity were almost frightening. But, I knew humor was just as large a part of his personality. He loved to laugh. There were so many sides to him – sides I wanted to know better. Refocusing, I slid back into the conversation.
“How does the attack on her mother relate to now?” Margaret asked.
“It could be the same people,” I said. “Ellen said my father scared them off before they could do anything else….then he left us.”
Margaret spoke to Daniel as if he had been the one talking. “But, what could be so important about her blood? And why didn’t they follow her sooner? With her father gone, they would have an easy time of it.”
“If I had those answers, I wouldn
’t be standing here asking you,” Daniel growled in frustration.
“It’s not my fault you picked one with so much baggage,” Margaret said, her voice rising a little.
“No, you’ve made your opinion very clear about how you think I should run my life,” Daniel snapped back. “Sorry, but some of us can’t live like humanity doesn’t exist.”
“I’ve protected just as many humans as you have!” she said.
“Yeah, and how many more have you killed?”
I stepped between them before the darkness I saw in their eyes could spread to a fight. I couldn’t imagine how horrible it had to be to worry about a silly argument getting out of control, but I saw how close both of them were to losing control. I knew Daniel would never forgive himself if they fought and he hurt her.
“We’re getting off point here,” I said, holding up my hands for peace. “Fighting each other isn’t solving our problems. It’s just wasting time we really don’t have.”
Margaret’s eyes went to rake the ground, annoyed I was right. Jackson eyed me differently, something impressing him. Perhaps, it was the fact that I had stepped between two angry Watchers…or maybe, he liked my shoes. It was hard to tell with him.
Daniel looked at me in apology. “Sorry…I’m just trying to understand. Why your mom? Why you?”
“Does there have to be a point?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe, they think I have something. Maybe, they think I’m different. Maybe, they don’t like the way I look.” I shrugged. “It all boils down to the fact that they’re after me.”
“Most things do have a point, though,” Daniel contested. “I feel like this does. Everything just fits together too perfectly.”
“You’re probably right.” I looked past him towards the cabin that was ominously empty. I pointed at it, focusing on a question we could actually answer. “But where are they? What happened to them?”
“I don’t know. They left on foot, but I didn’t have time to track them.”
Jackson rolled his shoulders. “I’m on it.”
He grabbed Margaret and kissed her with gusto. When he released her, she put her hand to his cheek, and I knew they were communicating. Jackson smiled at her in parting, then ran swiftly into the forest.
“What do you want me to do?” Margaret asked in a carefully neutral voice.
“Track the Seekers. See if you can’t find out where they’ve made their headquarters, but don’t engage. Reconnaissance only. Keep in contact…I’ll come help you later.” Daniel’s voice was just as politely calm.
She nodded and went over to her motorcycle. With a deft move, she spun around, throwing dirt and rocks behind her, and was gone. I looked at Daniel, awed and a little confused.
“What?” he asked.
I pursed my lips. “And what do you want me to do?”
He stared at me for a moment. The command melted from his face. I could see him resisting a smile. “Was I acting all superior again?”
“Not really,” I said as I wrapped my hands around his neck. “I was just wondering why everyone seems to defer to you and all of a sudden you have this…It’s like you’re a general in battle or something.”
He gave a funny little cough and said, “What I want you to do is figure out how Amanda might be connected to this. Maybe you and Alex can figure something out.”
“I think you’re trying to distract me, but I accept your challenge.” I stared into his eyes. “I’m worried about her, Daniel. You didn’t see Amanda when we came here yesterday. She was terrified. Even more than that, she was defeated…like she had given up on something.”
His voice was soothing. “We’ll make sure nothing happens to her. I promise.”
I nodded, trusting his promise. We turned back to the car, knowing there was nothing else left to do here. Daniel tapped on the steering wheel in restless thoughtfulness as we started away from the lifeless cabin. He was silent, lending his thoughts to the mysteries surrounding us instead of conversation.
Not able to handle silence, I asked, “Did you say something to Mark today?” The flashes of Mark’s thoughts I’d caught today had been angry, and he’d refused to talk to me.
Daniel’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “He thought it would be a good idea to ask me if we were screwing around. He was looking for a fight, because he resents me being with you. He’s been thinking a lot about luring you to the King’s party this Friday to try to get you drunk for some very ungentlemanly reasons. I suggested if he even thought about coming close to you I would show him a world of pain.” Daniel saw the rising anger on my face. Holding up his fingers and measuring out a tiny distance, he quickly added, “Just a little. A Pluto sized world of pain.”
I could feel waves of anger turning my face red. “How dare he! How dare he act like I’m cheap entertainment! How dare he assume, even drunk, I would sleep with him!”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I’m glad you did!” I raged. “I think I should have a talk with Jennifer. She’d be a little shy about dating him if I told her he has an incurable, transmittable disease. ”
Daniel laughed. His eyes were alight with happiness. “You wouldn’t!”
I looked at him, one eyebrow raised. Anger at Mark had me contemplating retribution in ways Daniel would never start to believe. Daniel touched my pursed lips, and I relaxed. Retribution could wait.
“Pluto isn’t a planet,” I told him at his touch. “Not anymore. They downgraded it.”
“I think I said that for comedic effect.”
“I must have missed the humor,” I teased.
“Ah, well, you can’t win them all…”
I looked down the dirt road we were driving on feeling upset for a different reason. I was back to the reason we had come. “How could he endanger Amanda like that? How could he drag her into their world? She’s his daughter! He has to care about her!”
“Are we talking about Amanda’s dad or yours?” he asked quietly.
I groaned. “Not everything is a Freudian slip.” Daniel’s skeptical look spoke volumes. “All right, I might relate to her just a little bit. I know how empty it can feel not having a parent around.”
“I know.” He took my hand. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t either curse my father for never claiming me, or curse my mother for abandoning me. But, I’ve always had this longing to meet them…just once.”
“I can understand that only…”
“Ellen didn’t abandon you,” he finished.
“Yes.”
His eyes went distant. “You have no idea how lucky you are to have her. Most of us are abandoned by the time we are eight or nine.” Bitterness filled his voice. “Our mothers can’t handle the stress of having us around. Self-preservation kicks in, I guess.”
I hadn’t known it was typical for Watchers to be abandoned. I touched his face. “I don’t see how anyone could just leave you. You’re such a good person and to just leave you alone at such a young age…”
“I wish you would quit saying that,” he said.
“Saying what?”
“That I’m a good person. I’m not.”
His shoulders hunched over and tired lines appeared on his face as forbidden memories surfaced in his brain. I took my hand away and looked up at the sky, searching for a way to get him to believe me when I said he wasn’t bad, hating the hatred he had for himself.
Dusk was kissing the landscape with pinks and oranges, casting a thin pallor of sleepiness over the world. Yet, amongst that sleepiness, there were signs of re-growth. The world was impatient to start growing again after such a long winter. The wind was brisk, but it reminded me of sitting outdoors on spring days. I looked past the dusk, affected by its beauty, and saw that the moon was starting to appear. It was a beautiful, glowing pendant in the sky. The wind and the feeling of the moon being so close made me realize there was always a balance. We weren’t good or evil one – we were bo
th. And that made us more.
“Do you ever think about what’s on the dark side of the moon?” I asked.
“No…no I don’t.” He eyed me funny, obviously trying to figure out where I was going with my question.
“We always look at its surface, the part that the sun lets us see, but we never think about what’s on the other side. It’s dark, and probably riddled with ugly bits, but because of its darkness, the side that isn’t lit, we appreciate the beauty of her light. If we didn’t have the darkness, we couldn’t see the light so clearly. That’s the secret everyone overlooks about the moon. She’s always balanced between light and dark, night and day. She accepts that balance, knowing she can be both.”
We pulled up to my house. I started to get out thinking Daniel was considering what I had said, but he stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Clare, you’re more than just beautiful. You…you are the bright side of the moon I see so clearly.”
“Thanks,” I said softly, smiling.
“Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure.” I agreed easily. Now wasn’t the time to argue; I could see that much on his face.
“I can’t come over tonight. I’m going to help track down the other Seekers.” He silenced my interruption with a finger to my lip. “And no, you can’t come. It’s too dangerous. My favor is that you call Alex to stay with you, so you’re not left alone.”
“Okay, but…”
I wanted to experience again what we’d had last night. We had talked about everything, arguing, and poking fun of each other, but mostly getting lost in each other’s ideas and personal truths. I had fallen asleep in his arms, and when I woke up, he’d been there. It had been amazing. I definitely wanted an encore.
Daniel touched my face. “I know.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, as I started to get out. “Be careful.”
He kissed me in reply. His kiss told me he would be more than careful. “Alex will drive you to school in the morning, so I’ll see you in gym.”
“Could…could you call me? You know later. To let me know you’re okay?”
“Tell you what. You can have this.” Reaching across me, he pulled a cell phone out of the glove box. “I’m the only one who has this number, so you’ll know it’s me calling.”
“I think you’re just trying to give me a cell phone because it irritates you that I don’t have one.”
“Partly.” He kissed me again. “Goodnight.”
“Night.”
I got out of the car and shouldered my bag. As I stood with my back to the car, something in the pit of my stomach told me his goodnight had been a goodbye. I turned back and tapped on the window. He lowered it again and leaned towards me.
“I love you,” I said.
Daniel looked surprised, but happy. “I love you, too.”
I stepped back and waved at him as he pulled away. Daniel drove away very quickly, like a ghost into twilight. He was gone before I had caught up to the reality of his absence. As I watched, I felt as if someone, or something, was trying to tell me something important. The feeling told me that things would start blowing up again if I didn’t listen. It didn’t help that the hairs on my neck were standing on end with preternatural alertness. The bad feelings got worse as I walked to the door. The feeling in the pit of my stomach was so acute, I felt as if I was going to be sick.
I went inside, hoping it was just fear for his safety that had me feeling this way, and stopped in the foyer to get my thoughts working straight. After a moment of struggling, the feeling not leaving despite my best efforts, I went to the kitchen.
Ellen was already home. She was munching absently on a sandwich – the only thing she could make without burning the house down – and reading at our kitchen table. When I saw her looking so perfect and so Ellen-like, reading her horror novel and eating the one thing she could make, I felt calm around the worry. I bent down and wrapped my arms around her neck.
She hadn’t abandoned me like so many others had. I’d always felt grateful she had stuck around when it would have been easier to leave, but now it felt like more. She had loved me enough to stay. She loved me enough to risk her own neck for mine. That’s what a family was.
She was startled at my greeting, but didn’t comment. She simply set her stuff down and patted my arms, the only part of me she could reach. She sensed I needed her touch more than her words. I released her and walked over to the phone, so I could call and invite Alex over as promised.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Was my conversation with Daniel showing on my face? Was the feeling I had in my gut – that we were all teetering on the edge of a precipice – that evident in my expression?
“I just never realized how amazing you are.”
“Well, I’ve known!” She laughed, her bubbly laughter filling the kitchen with sound, making my heart lift a couple of inches. “But…did everything go okay?”
I shook my head. “Nobody was home. We think they took off.” I took a deep breath. “Daniel met with one of the Seekers. They’ve decided to be honest about why they’re here and that’s definitely not a good sign. They gave Daniel an ultimatum…back off or else.”
“Oh.” Her eyes were round with terror, but she kept her voice calm. “That could be a good thing, though.”
“How so?”
“Their plan, whatever it is, might not be working. If they have to resort to threats, then maybe they’re growing desperate.”
“That’s all I need – desperate super humans. I have a feeling their kind of desperation is a lot more destructive then our kind.”
Ellen bit her lip. “I didn’t think of that…Is that all that happened?”
“All that you need to know,” I said and picked up the phone.
“Did you and Daniel get in a fight?”
“No.” I put the phone down and sank wearily into the chair next to her.
She stared at me, trying to understand my weirdness. “Are you going to call Alex?” she asked quietly.
“Daniel thought she might be able to help me figure out where they could have gone or how Amanda is involved. If Amanda was taken against her will, I’m going to do everything I can to get her back. Even if she wasn’t taken, I’m going to make sure she’s okay and knows what she’s gotten herself into.”
Ellen was smiling. “Sometimes, you sound so much like your father it’s scary. He had that same kind of dedication to helping people.” She paused, and I could hear her going over the reasons why talking about him didn’t hurt as much.
“It’s because of Sam,” I told her.
“What is?” She started twisting her fingers into knots.
“You can talk about my father because Sam is making it hurt less. He’s reminded you not all love is painful.”
“Stupid mind reader,” she grumbled, looking embarrassed.
“It’s kind of funny isn’t?” I said thoughtfully. “We go all these years managing to stay hidden. Then: Bam!” I bashed my hands together. “Moving here was like a catalyst. We both find friends, Daniel and Sam, and we encounter these Seekers. Kind of weird, huh?”
“Maybe, it’s fate.”
“Or maybe, it’s random chance.”
“Or maybe, it’s fate,” she replied stubbornly.
“Or…not.”
“I’ll take that to mean you agree it’s a possibility.” She put her dish in the sink then grabbed her book off the table. “I’m going to go take a bath and finish this chapter.”
“Okay.”
“Are you good?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She walked out, her mind funneling through everything I had just told her. She hoped she was doing the right thing in staying. She hoped it wasn’t selfishness keeping us here. At the stairs, she paused.
“Your bath salts are in the shoe box at the top of your closet,” I called as she tried to figure out where she had put them.
“Thanks!” she called back.
She started h
umming, a slow, sad song about regret that her grandmother used to sing. It was a song that always calmed her. It was a song I associated with coming change; she had always hummed it when contemplating a move.
I picked up the phone and called Alex, knowing that despite having her here I would be in for a long night of worrying. Another night of sitting on my window seat, counting seconds.
Chapter 17
The Watchers (Book 1: The Watchers Series) Page 17