by Char Webster
He had to go back and talk to her. She was probably overwhelmed and frightened. He didn’t want to think about her being scared or upset. Nick needed to help her and make sure she and the kids were safe. He also needed to come clean with her. Hopefully she wouldn’t throw him out.
~*~*~
Frank walked through the Family Services building parking area from the lot across the street where he had left his car. On the side of the lot, about thirty feet away from the building, was his target. She was sitting on a bench enjoying a smoke as he walked up and sat down next to her.
He looked over, pulled out a cigarette, and asked her for a light. He didn’t smoke much, but today, he would be a chain smoker to talk to her. “Thanks,” Frank said to her. “No one smokes these days, so it’s hard to get a light.”
The woman next to him was slightly older than Frank, probably in her mid-fifties. She had red hair that was a bit frizzy and looked like it had been dyed a few times too many from a color-at-home bottle. She wore too much makeup that he was sure was an attempt to make her look younger. It didn’t work out that well. Her clothes were also an attempt to look younger, but since they were a little tight, they just managed to make her look older than she was.
“Oh, I know,” she said, turning fully to him with a calculating smile. Bingo, Frank thought. Got ya. She tried to turn on the charm. “I haven’t seen you in this building before,” she crooned.
“That’s because I work at the building across the street. No one over there had a light, so I figured I would try here,” Frank lied. He held out his hand and said, “I’m Bill. We smokers need to stick together. Next thing you know, they will ban smoking from the grounds, too.”
“Hi, Bill, I’m Sheila, and it sure is a pleasure meeting you.” She did everything to get his attention but bat her eyes. Frank was just waiting for that to happen. He grasped her hand and brought it to his mouth for a brief kiss. He knew this was the type of thing she would eat up, and she was.
“Aren’t you a gentleman,” she gushed.
“You're the type of woman to bring out the gentleman in a guy,” Frank said reeling her in. “So, what do you do here, Sheila?”
“I run the entire office,” she embellished. She figured he wouldn’t know that she was just the receptionist. “If I take a day off, everything just falls apart.”
“I can tell you're a take-charge kind of woman,” Frank told her.
“I can be as take-charge as you want me to be,” flirted Sheila.
Frank smiled at her and said, “Well then, Sheila, why don’t you ask me out for a drink later tonight?”
She put her hand on his leg and said huskily, “Meet me at the Town Pub at eight?”
“Love to,” Frank told her as he smashed down the end of his cigarette and walked back toward his car.
~*~*~
Kate tried to keep herself busy after Nick left, but was failing miserably. She couldn’t settle her mind enough to concentrate on anything. She tidied up the house, but it was already clean. She checked on Maddy, but the little girl was still asleep.
She finally decided to call Cindy. “Hey, Kate,” Cindy greeted her with enthusiasm. “What’s up?”
“Hi, Cin, just wanted to check in. I feel like I haven’t chatted with you in ages,” Kate told her.
“That’s because you’ve been playing Mom and haven’t had time for your best friend,” Cindy teased her.
“That’s not true, and you know it,” Kate teased back. “I miss you. You need to come hang with me.”
“That might be a tiny bit difficult,” Cindy told her. “I’m in Florida.”
“What? When did you go there?” Kate exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going?”
Cindy laughed, “Mike surprised me with a trip to Florida. His aunt’s not using her house in Clearwater, so we’re going to be spending the next few weeks here,” Cindy explained. “Neither one of us has to go back to school for several more weeks so this is perfect. Plus, it’s not like you’re hanging out this summer with the whole ‘I’m a responsible parent’ thing you have going.”
Kate laughed. She loved the way that Cindy would rattle on without taking a breath. “That’s very cool. You better send me photos!”
“Kate, I’ve got to go. We’re heading to the beach.” Cindy hung up the phone before Kate could respond.
She put her cell phone down on the table next to her and sighed. Cindy would be gone for most of the summer. She felt overwhelmed and all alone, and she didn’t feel like she had anyone to talk to.
She couldn’t tell her parents about any of this; they would think she was nuts. Cindy was all wrapped up with her boyfriend. She had a few other good friends, but not the kind you could tell a crazy story to and them be okay with it. She had no one.
Alex and Zach would be back late. She hoped they were having a good time at the water park with the neighbors. They really needed it after everything they had been through and the weight of the secrets they had to keep.
She paced around the yard, not knowing what to do with herself. She finally decided to make some noise in the house to see if Maddy would wake up so at least she had that distraction. She went into the kitchen and took out some baking things. Between the mixer and banging the pots and pans, Kate heard a little voice call her from the top of the stairs. Maddy was not allowed to come down the wood steps by herself.
Kate smiled. “Good afternoon, Maddy. Did you have a nice nap?”
She nodded and squeezed Kate around the neck in a tight hug. Her eyes lit up, and she said, “Cookies?”
Kate smiled and she, “Yes, let’s go finish making the cookies.” Maddy clapped in excitement.
Chapter Nine
Kate had just put Maddy to bed for the night. It was early, just after 7:00 p.m., but the little girl had started to fall asleep right after dinner. Kate felt a little guilty because Maddy hadn’t gotten her full nap that day. Alex and Zach were spending the night next door, so once again, she was alone with her thoughts.
Wandering into the family room and grabbing the remote control, Kate thought that TV might be a nice distraction. She was not a big television watcher, but maybe it would help her not think about everything.
Kate had just found a movie that she could get into when there was a knock on the front door.
Smiling to herself, and thinking that it was probably Nick, she was relieved that he had kept his promise to come back and talk to her. Kate quickly opened the door in anticipation but found Robert standing there. Unsure of what to do, she stopped to stare at him for a moment.
“What are you doing here?” Kate demanded.
“Now is that any way to greet a guy who heroically saved a little girl’s stuffed dog?” Robert challenged with a smirk.
Kate tried to close the door on him, but he held out a very strong arm to keep it open.
Standing her ground and folding her arms across her chest, she was not going to let him in if she could help it. Kate looked up at him and raised one eyebrow in her own challenge.
He held up a bottle of vodka and said, “I thought we could have a drink.” Still not feeling anything from him, she now knew that he was probably blocking his abilities from her. Kate wondered what his gift was.
He must have been listening to her thoughts, because he answered them. “Let me in, and I’ll tell you.”
“No thanks, I’m busy,” Kate told him, and once again tried to close the door.
“Doing what exactly? You don’t look busy,” he told her.
“I’m expecting someone,” she said, and hoped it was true.
“I don’t believe you. I don’t think you are expecting anyone,” Robert said, and tried to push past her into the house—but was held back by a hand on his shoulder.
Kate had never been so happy to see someone. Nick grabbed Robert and pulled him back from the door and out toward the edge of the porch.
“What the hell are you doing here, Robert? I told you to leave her alone,” Nick gro
wled.
“She didn’t tell me to leave her alone. Did you, Katie?” Both guys looked at her. Nick arched a brow at her.
“I want you to leave me alone,” Kate told him.
“Now baby, I’m sure you don’t mean that,” Robert challenged.
“She means it. Now go.” Nick walked Robert down the porch steps and out to the road. He said quietly so Kate wouldn’t hear, “If you come near her again, I will hurt you.”
Robert laughed. “Good night, Boy Scout. And you have a nice night, Kate. I’ll be seeing you soon.”
Nick stayed out by the road until Robert was out of sight and then slowly made his way back up to the porch.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said with a cocky smile.
She was so relieved to see him. “That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll come up with a way for you to make it up to me.”
“Really?” he said with a mischievous smile.
“Not in that way.” She huffed and turned around to go in the house.
He laughed while following along behind her, not waiting for an invitation into the house.
She walked back to the kitchen to get something to drink. Robert might have had the right idea about the alcohol. She needed something a little bit stronger to help her through the conversation she and Nick were about to have.
Nick came up behind her and reached for the Jack Daniels bottle. He seemed to need a little liquid courage as well. He poured some in a glass with ice and turned toward Kate, who had just fixed herself a Bacardi Limon and lemonade.
They walked over to the couch in the family room. Kate settled in the corner with her feet up; Nick took the other side, but closer to the center and faced her, his foot up on his knee.
“How are you doing?” Nick asked. Kate looked overwhelmed and stressed out. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay, but he couldn’t do that.
Kate laughed humorlessly. “Okay, I guess, considering.”
“Considering your whole life just got completely unrecognizable?” he helped.
“Yeah, something like that.” She sighed, looking down at the untouched glass she was clutching as if it was the only thing anchoring her to sanity.
“Hey,” he said, moving a little closer and lifting her chin with his hand. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll help you through this. Having a gift is a good thing. You’ve been using it all along and hadn’t even known.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” she acknowledged. “I’ve always wanted to help people. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been able to feel what others were feeling. I knew what was wrong with them and what to say to help them get over their problem. Sometimes, when I touch someone, I can feel their negative emotion leave. I just never realized it was something weird or strange.”
“How is helping someone feel better weird or strange?” Nick asked gently. He was still sitting very close, but he had dropped his hand into his lap.
“It’s not, but hearing voices is,” Kate whined.
Nick laughed. “Yeah, that’s a little weird, but you have to admit, it’s also very cool, too.”
“So why did you freak out and leave today? What was that all about?” she asked.
“I didn’t know you were one of us before, and I had to check someone out,” he said vaguely.
Kate frowned. “I thought you were going to stop with the half answers and tell me what’s going on. You promised me answers.”
He took a big breath. “Okay, no more avoiding questions.” Nick paused. “I may know who your parents are.”
“WHAT? How? I’ve tried to find them so many times, but there was no paper trail. I’m not even sure it was a legal adoption. The records were not only sealed, but destroyed. Every time I asked my parents, they would tell me that they didn’t know anything and that some lawyer came to them with me and said that the parents wanted to remain anonymous.”
She continued, “I tried to find the lawyer, but the name they had was not found anywhere, and the office listed on the paperwork turned out to be a dry cleaners.”
He smiled sadly. “There haven’t been too many children from our kind who have been adopted out that we’re not tracking. There was only one that we have had no trace of at all for the last twenty-three years. It’s too much of a coincidence for it not to be you.”
“What do you know?”
“I’ll have to give you a little bit of our history to really explain it to you. Can you be patient enough to hear it?”
She didn’t want to be patient, but she reluctantly nodded and said, “Yes.”
Nick settled back against the couch and took a sip of his whiskey.
“Have you ever heard of the myth of the lost continent of Atlantis?”
Kate rolled her eyes and started to get up. “If you’re not going to be serious, you can just leave.”
Nick grabbed her hand. “I’m being completely serious. You promised to be patient and listen.”
She sat back down and let out an annoyed sound but said, “Okay, continue.”
His eyes were not really focused on anything as he told her their people’s story. “So anyway, our history is tied with that lost continent. Thousands of years ago, our people lived on Atlantis and evolved slightly separately from everyone else. There was something about the minerals on the continent that first gave our people their gifts.”
He looked over at her to make sure she was still listening and accepting what she was hearing, and was surprised that he didn’t see her frowning at him.
“Everything was great for a while until the gifts became too powerful and the continent became unstable. Some of the gifts could affect the physical world around them and some, like yours, were more mental. The leaders of the society started to worry about their race’s survival, so they made a plan to start disbursing the population around the world. That was when they created the Association to oversee the evacuation and integration of their people with the rest of the world.”
Kate couldn’t keep herself from asking questions. “We’re descendants from Atlantis?”
“Yes.”
“So why doesn’t the world know what happened to Atlantis and where it was located? Why hide that information? It’s one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world.”
“I’ll get to that in a minute,” he promised. Kate thought about questioning him again, but she decided to be patient for a few more minutes.
“The leaders selected the ten most gifted couples from the strongest of their family lines to be the first to establish new settlements. These couples would pave the way for others to join them, and would oversee different areas of the world. They were the first territorial leaders, and they created the Association of Chancellors. Because our people would enter the world with gifts that the other people wouldn’t have, there had to be strict rules in place and even stricter penalties for breaking those rules.”
He took another sip and continued, “The leaders didn’t want our people to take over the world or use their gifts to take control or power. It was vital that our race enter the rest of the world just like everyone else and not use their gifts for evil or wrong reasons.”
“Okay, I guess I understand all that, but why keep Atlantis a secret? No one has to know about the gifts,” Kate asked.
“But that’s just it. If we revealed where it was, people would go exploring, and it’s possible that the minerals are still there in the area. There’s no telling what those minerals would do to people today who have already evolved beyond what our ancestors had when they first got their gifts. It could cause way more harm than good. Also, there would be worldwide fighting over something so powerful. It could be very dangerous—and you know that someone would try to figure out a way to weaponize it.”
“I hadn’t considered that,” Kate said, reeling over everything he had told her so far. “But what does all this have to do with my parents? I want to learn about our history, and I know that this sounds selfish, but I’m more curious about my personal h
istory.”
Nick watched her scrunch up her forehead and started to chew on her bottom lip. It was so distractingly adorable that he reached over and pulled it from her teeth. He needed to concentrate on the conversation, nut how cute she looked biting her lip.
“I’m getting there,” he told her. “Patience.”
She stuck her tongue out at him in a very childish way but remained quiet.
“Nine couples did exactly what the leaders wanted them to do, and they settled into the world without anyone knowing there was anything different about them. The last couple decided to go against all of the society’s rules, and used their gifts to steal power and wealth and cause fear and destruction. When they started to kill innocent people who seemed to oppose them, the other nine came to intervene.”
“Intervene how? What happened?” Kate asked, interested in the story again.
“Never before had a member of their society committed such violent and disgusting crimes. The leaders and the nine other couples decided that killing them would be no better than what the last couple had done, so another solution was needed. They discovered that if they combined their gifts and worked together, they could bind the last couple’s gifts.”
“Bind? What do you mean by bind?” Kate asked, confused.
“They would still have their gift but be unable to use it. One of the nine had the power to enhance or diminish another’s powers; that was a rare gift. No one that we know of has had that gift since. With her at the helm, she was able to draw from the others enough power to bind the couple’s gifts so that they could feel the gifts but be unable to ever use them. The Chancellors determined that knowing they had extra abilities but were unable to access them would be a fitting punishment.”