Chapter Seventeen
Will watched the compound for three days while Emma grew impatient. He did his best to convince her that it was rash to rush in. He needed to figure out the routine of the compound and find their weaknesses, yet there was no denying it—not much was going on.
“This is stupid.” She sat on the ground in the shade of the car, leaning against the door. The stifling August heat, coupled with a non-existent breeze, made her cranky. The fact that Jake refused to acknowledge her presence since the day he traced the heart in her hand didn’t help. “Nothing is happening down there, Will.”
“This is the way it works, Princess. It’s the dirty little secret of surveillance. Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s boring.”
She swatted at fly that buzzed around her head. “What has James been doing for three days? We leave him back there to work and he’s got nothing to show for it. I suspect he’s renting pay-per-view movies and jacking off.”
Will laughed. “I wouldn’t put it past him, but we both know that wouldn’t take all day. Besides, he is making progress. It’s just slow. The Vinco Potentia isn’t a secret group for nothing. But the contact list is helping and he’s slowly building a dossier.”
“What about the Cavallo? I’m more interested in them.”
“They’re even more difficult. At least he has a contact list for Warren’s group. He’s got nothing besides Alex and we don’t even know if he’s really one of them.”
She released an exasperated breath and blew a strand of hair out of her face. “This is pointless. I could at least be practicing with my power.” She’d had three long, boring days to consider it. While she didn’t want to use her power to blast a forest, there was no denying it had saved her life. And if she learned to control it, perhaps she could use it without hurting people.
“No.”
“Will!”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“But Raphael said—”
“Fuck Raphael,” he growled.
She got up and stood next to the tree he was perched in. “Will, I have power and I need to learn how to use it.”
He looked down at her, his mouth pinched in anger. “No, you’re going to kill yourself. You need to get that goddamned thing off your neck.”
She grabbed the pendant, warming her fingertips. “Take it off? It’s what saved me before. Will, you’re obviously not thinking straight. Look what I did in the woods.”
“Exactly, look what happened in the woods, Emma. You caused a raging inferno and nearly died. Do we really want that to happen again?”
She grabbed his arm and leaned into his face. “If I am in that situation again, I will do it again.” As difficult as it was to live with, she’d do it again if it meant keeping her alive to find Jake. “Do we want me knowing how to handle it or just throwing it out there?”
He groaned, rubbing his hands over his eyes. “How many marshmallows should I get for you to roast?” he said as he hopped off the branch.
She threw her arm around his neck and kissed him. “A couple of bags. Maybe some hot dogs, too.”
“The first time I think you’re in danger, you have to stop.”
She twisted her mouth into a smile. “We’ll start off small and work our way up.”
“We’ll have to go somewhere more inconspicuous. My work’s done here anyway. I think I’ve figured out our way into the compound, but we won’t be able to use it for a day or two. That’ll give you time to practice.”
“So what’s your plan to get inside?”
“I’m still working on it. I’ll let you know when I work out the details.”
She raised an eyebrow as she frowned. “That’s a bullshit answer.”
“For once, just trust me.” He gave her a quick kiss. “You’ll be the first to know, now let’s go.”
It was so little to ask. Just trust me. Part of her protested with a vengeance. He shouldn’t keep secrets, but who was she to point fingers, with secrets of her own? She forced herself to concede. She gave him so little. She could give him this. “Okay. I trust you.”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise and his face lit up with happiness, making Emma feel guilty that she didn’t give him what he asked more often.
They stopped at a Wal-Mart and bought a couple of fire extinguishers, some fruit, and a six-pack of beer.
“Got a craving for watermelon?” she asked.
“You gotta have some kind of targets. Tin cans don’t seem appropriate in this instance.”
She could see the logic in his answer. Exploding cans could get dangerous. “What about the beer then?”
“It’s hot out there and I might need it to deal with what you’re about to do.”
Will drove into the middle of a recently cut, deserted field. “I’d prefer to take you to the desert,” he said as they got out. “I’m worried you’re going to set the southwest corner of South Dakota on fire.”
Emma scowled. “Very funny.”
“Who said I was joking?”
They leaned against the trunk of the car while Will popped open a beer and handed Emma a bottle of water.
“So tell me how this works,” he said. “How did you do it before?”
“I’m not really sure. When I healed you I thought about healing you. But in the woods, I just thought about how I wasn’t going to let them take me.”
“Okay.” He got out a watermelon and set it on the ground twenty feet in front of them. “Can you do something to it?”
“‘Do something?’ You mean, like make a watermelon slushy? We should have stopped at Sonic for that.”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny. What do you think you can do to it? Blow it up?”
“I haven’t got a fucking clue, Will. That’s why we’re here, right?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, do your thing, Princess.”
She stared at the melon on the ground. What was she going to do to it? Set it on fire? Was that possible? Blow it up? That seemed like a good start.
She focused, narrowing her vision, imaging the watermelon exploding. After a half minute, Will swallowed a gulp of beer. “You going to start anytime soon?”
“Shut up, Will.”
“Oh, I guess you’ve started. It’s not working?” he stood up. “So that’s it then, we’ll call it a day. That didn’t take long.”
“Sit your ass back down. I’m not done yet.”
He leaned against the trunk and picked up the fire extinguisher that lay at his feet. “I’m ready.”
“Shut up.”
He chuckled as she grabbed the pendant in her fingers. It must have something to do with the pendant. Holding the warm stone in her fingertips, she focused on the fruit. After several minutes, she stamped her foot and spun around in frustration.
“Damn it!”
Will grabbed her arms and pulled her to him. She tried to tear herself away. She wasn’t in the mood to hear him gloat.
But he tilted up her chin and stared into her face with patient eyes. “It’s okay. You can do this.”
“Obviously, I can’t.”
“You just started. Give it a chance.”
She nodded. He was right and, surprisingly, encouraging, but it frustrated her. Before she hadn’t even tried to do anything and it worked. It just happened in both instances.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and cleared her mind. She thought about the watermelon and making it blow into thousands of pieces.
Nothing.
Her anger began to rise. What the hell? Why I can’t do this?
The pendant on her chest grew warmer.
Just like when she healed Will.
Just like in the forest.
She focused on the heat and it began to cool. Okay, so that wasn’t it. What had caused it to heat up?
Her anger.
She thought about how pissed she was that the stupid melon hadn’t blown to smithereens yet. She thought about Jake and Alex and whoever else kept her and Jake apart. The pend
ant on her chest grew warmer and warmer.
“Emma…”
She ignored him, focusing on the watermelon and imaging that it somehow had wronged her. It had to be disposed of.
“Emma…”
She narrowed her eyes at the green oval on the ground and suddenly fragments of pulp and rind flew in all directions.
She smiled to herself, giddy with excitement.
“Oh, fuck. You did it.” Will tipped the can up and drained it. Then he turned to her, a worried expression on his face. “Are you okay? Are you tired?”
She shrugged. “Maybe a little, but not too much. Did you see that?”
Will brushed a piece of rind off his arm. “Uh, yeah. Hard to miss when it’s raining melons. How did you do it?”
“I got angry.”
“What? You were pissed at the watermelon?”
“Yes. No. I was mad because it seemed so simple compared to healing you and the forest fire. But more angry about Jake and the pendant got hot.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. It was glowing.”
“When I healed you, it glowed in my hand.”
“So the power must come from that stone. That’s good to know. What do you want to do now?”
“Try it again. What else do we have?”
“What about something smaller? Like a peach?” He grabbed one out of the bag sitting the trunk behind them and handed it to her.
She took it and sank her teeth into it. “That’s a waste of a good piece of fruit. What else do you have?”
He chuckled and pulled out an apple. “You opposed to making applesauce?”
“Nope.” She took another bite, the juice running down her chin. Will’s eyes followed the trickle and she recognized the look on his face. “Down boy, we’ve got work to do.”
A wicked glint flickered in his eye and he wrapped his arm around her back, pulling her closer. “Maybe we need to take a little break,” he murmured.
She pushed his chest playfully. “Nope, we haven’t been working long enough to take a break. Now go put that apple somewhere.”
He loosened his grip and started to let go before he leaned down and sucked the peach juice off her chin and lower lip.
She tingled down to her toes. “You fight dirty,” she said, relaxing against his chest.
“If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black.” His arms dropped and he backed away, grinning. “Just wanted you to see what you turned down. Maybe you’ll think twice next time.”
She snorted. “Whatever. You’ll just offer it again ten minutes later.”
He laughed as he walked over to set the apple a few feet from where the watermelon had been. He looked over his shoulder. “Did you see there’s a small pit in the ground where the watermelon was?”
“No.”
He backed away from the apple. “Let me get away before you start blowing things up, okay? I don’t want a hook for a hand.”
She laughed. “Don’t worry, you’re too precious to blow up. Yet.” She winked at his upturned eyebrows and threw her peach pit in the bag.
When he stood beside her, she concentrated on the apple, focusing on her anger at the people after them and how she wished for a normal life. The pendant became warm within seconds and the apple flew into the air, pieces flying in all directions.
“You did it again. Damn. What did you feel?”
“Anger.”
“Again? Are you always this angry?” He shook his head. “Sorry, that was a stupid question.”
Her eyes widened, stricken. “Am I really that angry?” She was. Anger had been her constant companion for so long she’d grown accustomed to it.
He saw the pain in her face and lowered his voice. “If you weren’t angry, I would think there was something wrong with you. Your entire life has been one fuckup after another.”
She rolled her eyes. “Wow, thanks. That makes me feel better.”
“You know what I mean. Your mother is a piece of work. You’ve raised Jake alone. You gave up the secure life you wanted for him because of other people’s selfish greed.” He paused and she looked up into his eyes. “I realize how important security is to you.”
It surprised her how much he saw in her. What else did he see that he didn’t mention? “But it seems wrong to get power from anger.”
He brushed away the hair that blew in her face. “Maybe you can use something other than anger. Maybe you just need a strong emotion. Why don’t you try a different one?”
“Like what?”
“Like love.” He saw the guilty look on her face and grimaced. “I was trying for something more pleasant. Obviously, that wasn’t it. Try fear, or pain, or a whole host of other negative emotions. See if one of those works.”
She bit her lip and nodded.
Will put another apple on the ground near where the other one had been placed. When he came back he shook his head. “There’s another pit in the ground. You’re not just blowing these things up but creating some kind of force. Are you getting tired? Do you need to eat something?” His eyebrows furrowed with concern.
“No, I ate that peach. I’m a little tired, but nothing I can’t handle.”
“I think when you do this you use energy, which makes sense. It’s simple physics. You can’t create energy, it has to transfer from one form to another.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re blowing things up, or in my case, healing me. Blowing up fruit probably doesn’t take much energy. They’re relatively small. But healing someone or creating a huge explosion would take large amounts of energy, which had to transfer from you into whatever you caused. That’s why you passed out after you healed me and almost passed out after the explosion. The only reason you didn’t then was because I was in your mind, verbally berating you to get up.”
He lowered his head so his eyes were level with hers. “But if you attempt something too big, that sucks too much energy, it could kill you. It could completely deplete all the energy in your body.”
One side of her mouth lifted into a grin. “I thought you were a history major.”
He laughed and shrugged. “While you were taking accounting and advanced race car driving, I took biology and physics.”
“Very funny, but there might be something to your theory.”
“Yeah, it occurred to me after the fire, which is why I made you eat something. But I think maybe I can transfer energy to you too. When I touched you after you healed me, you said your headache went away.”
“Yeah, it did.”
“And when you passed out in the woods, I touched you. You stirred and then woke up. We should probably practice with that, too. But first I think you should try another emotion. Let’s use another apple since we know that you could blow one up.”
She sighed. “Okay, but anger’s so easy.”
“Try fear. You’re likely to be afraid if you need to use this to defend yourself.”
“What? Am I supposed to be afraid of an apple?”
Will shook his head with a grin. “Were you really that pissed at the poor innocent watermelon? What did it ever do to you?”
“Point taken.”
She closed her eyes and remembered being in the woods alone with the men chasing her. Slick fear slid down her spine, catching her breath at the memory. She felt Will tense beside her. Trying to ignore him, she remembered being hunted through the woods, outnumbered by men with guns. The helpless feeling returned, sending her heart racing.
The stone around her neck remained lukewarm.
After a few more minutes, she opened her eyes and groaned. “That didn’t work.”
“Maybe you need something that doesn’t make you feel powerless. Fear’s a strong emotion but not empowering like anger.”
“You could be right. I was completely freaked out in the woods, but it wasn’t until I got angry that the pendant warmed up.”
Will wrapped his arm around her back and they leaned against the car watching storm clouds blow i
n.
“I think we should head back before the storm hits. We can try again tomorrow.”
“But I hardly did anything today. I made no progress.”
“That’s not true. We learned you can make applesauce and you need to be angry to make it work.”
“But that’s not much.”
“Emma, the first time you hurt yourself I’m putting a stop to it, so if you want to keep doing this you need to take it slow.”
She knew he was right, but who knew how long they had until the next group of gunmen found them? Especially this close to the compound. She wanted to be prepared.
“Emma…” Will hesitated, taking her hand. “I want to talk about something else.”
Her back stiffened in apprehension. “You’re not wanting to leave me again, are you?”
His grip around her waist tightened. “No, that’s not it.” He paused and her heartbeat quickened, wondering what could make him so nervous. “I want to talk about the baby.”
Her mouth went dry. “And…?”
“First of all, is this a discussion we need to have? Is there a baby?”
Guilt ate at the edges of her conscious. How could she have discussed this with Raphael before Will? And why did she still not want to discuss it? But she owed it to him. “Yes, it’s a discussion we need to have.”
“Does that mean…?”
She turned to look at him and nodded.
He pulled her close and kissed her, like he was a happy expectant father and this was fantastic news. It only added to her guilt.
“How can you be happy about this, Will? This is terrible.”
“Why? Because Warren wants the baby? He’d want you anyway, baby or not.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it doesn’t.”
“Emma, we can’t let other people rule our lives.”
Her derisive laugh filled the air. “Are you kidding me? Have you seen our lives? That’s exactly how we’re living. How are we supposed to run with a baby?”
“We’ve got at least eight months before we have to worry about that. Maybe this will all be over by then.”
She didn’t see how that was possible. Too many people were after them. It all seemed so hopeless if it weren’t for Jake she’d consider giving up. But to do it with a baby?
02 Hunted - The Chosen Page 17