“We are so messed up.” Recarie shouted to Ian. They were just living in the moment, but it all came to an end when the hill met leveled land. “Ah.”
“Ha, ha, ha.” Ian was still high with adrenaline.
She observed their new surroundings. Trees were in every direction she looked. Not far ahead of the pair, was a small cottage.
“Do you hear that?” Recarie raced to the house and Ian trailed behind her.
“What is it?” They pressed their noses against one of the wooden paned windows.
“A television!” She turned the knob to the front door and welcomed herself into the house.
“That’s breaking and entering.” Ian whispered standing outside the cottage.
Inside the little house, Recarie turned the television on. Flipping through the channels, she found the same thing on each of them.
“No!” Recarie gasped and covered her mouth so Ian would not have to hear her cry for the second time that day.
Ian rushed in the house and kneeled by her side. “What is it?” She pointed to the news program on the television and turned up the volume.
“Acting alone, two dozen Nation Security of Super Humans, also known as the NSSH, officers entered Farous to retain one of their citizens that had fled custody several months before.” The news anchor spoke the words as if she had said them hundreds of times before. “Now the officers that were arrested that night will be returning to Disten for execution, the sentence passed down on them today after an investigation and trial. Although there are still four members at large and the one café waitress known as Recarie, we are told that this sentence goes for them as well. On to other news.” She shifted the paper in her hands. “Disten has already given the Farian government an undisclosed amount of money to aide in the reconstruction of our town. There has also been talk of reconciling between the FPA and the NSSH…”
“Agh!” Recarie screamed as she sent a nearby iron into the television set. “Humph, humph!” She was about to black out.
Standing next to the front door and a safe distance from Recarie’s rage, Ian processed the news he had just heard. “How could they… No.”
“So they sell out their own loyal men for a chance of peace with this continent?” Another item, unseen by Ian who was already occupied with thoughts of his own, crashed on to the wall on an inch from his head. “Bull! No! No! NO! This is where this ends!” She went towards the back wall of the room which was luckily a bathroom. “I have had enough of their games.”
“Wait!” Ian snapped out of his little world. “Where are you going?”
She rolled her eyes. “The bathroom, duh.”
“But this is someone else’s home. You already destroyed their television set and now you welcome yourself to their facilities?”
If it was one thing Recarie hated, it was being talked back to. She had just a little bit too much pride. Without an answer she opened the bathroom door, gave Ian one last look with her squinting eyes, and slammed the door behind her.
“Why, lord? Why?” Ian whispered as he sank into the nearby sofa, but not by choice.
From inside the bathroom, Recarie was controlling his every movement. “Just sit there like a good boy and tell me if the owners of this place show up!” That was a command, not a request.
“Come on.” He rummaged his mind for a solution from his invisible ties. “Of all my training and practice, why?” Ian went on to try and contact Trey through his telepath abilities, but he could not even picture the Hunter. “Of course.” Even if he could not summon his powers, Ian still had his wits. “She has them. Only through her can I get my abilities.”
In no time at all Recarie was out of the shower and dressed in the clothes of the woman that lived there.
“Finally. Now can we go?” He had not even bothered staring at Recarie as he spoke.
“Not like that you aren’t going anywhere.” Recarie looked Ian over, slightly blushing in the process. She was still unable to believe that he was there, flesh and blood, with her. Struggling, Recarie sent him in the bathroom. “And don’t come out until every bit of dirt has washed away down the drain!”
Stars in the late evening sky began to twinkle and shine. This day that had come and was ending felt different, new even, to the two people in black cloaks standing on top a hill.
“Well kid.” Trey patted the boy’s back. “This is where I leave you.”
Tory stood with the air ruffling his loose hair. He gave a glance down to his hand that was now marked with glowing blue symbols that led in a spiral up his arm from his palm.
“Good now. Be a good boy now.” Trey turned and left.
Tory did not need to watch the Hunter leave. He would be fine on his own now. Thanks to the Members, he had found out some things about himself that should had stayed hidden. There were no feelings of being in love with Recarie, nor was he being controlled by any of her invisible strings. It was something stronger and more heart based. This boy had a higher calling to her.
“This is not happening.” Lionel, still in his lieutenant’s uniform, hit the back of the boat that he sat in along with the officers he had been in control of a day before. Now he had nothing. His title meant nothing and all his hard work and life’s work led to nothing.
“It is fine.” Out of nowhere a women seemed to have popped out of thin air. “So what the NSSH has sold out all of us? So what if they want to use their mistake as an excuse to get into the FPA’s pants? So what, right?” Her blond hair brushed against his arm. It was the only thing he could see of her arm as he kept his down.
This officer looked at her comrades. The blinking florescent lights and no windows did not help make them look any more optimistic. Everyone was sentenced to death without even an actual trial and this one woman looked as if she had won the lottery. Who knows? Maybe she did. Or just quite possibly the situation she found herself in had caused her to go clinically insane.
Out on a hidden path, Recarie and her company traveled until the sun had set and the moon shone. She and Ian had not said a word since they left the small cottage. What did they have to talk about? They were fugitives from two sets of government and he was her unwilling companion.
Ian had not noticed it, but night and turned into morning and then morning into night. They had travel for two straight days and not having stopped for food or rest, Recarie still had energy to burn. He began to lag behind then blank out completely. Still conscious enough, Ian felt the cold blades of grass under his exposed skin. A bitter breeze blew past the very tip of his nose.
“Tired.” Recarie joined Ian next to where he lay. She stared at the sky and watched the stars twinkle.
“Could you tell me what your plans are?” Ian remained on his back staring at the sky, but not seeing the stars. “I have not questioned you or your motives and followed you faithfully, even if it is by force.”
“Hm. You have earned that much.” Several rustles later through her purse, a granola bar landed on his stomach. “I am headed back to Disten.”
“Crud!” A piece of the bar had gotten caught in his throat. “You are what?!” His eyes looked the young girl over. First he was angry and a little bit confused, but as he looked at the girl lying on the ground with her hand limp on her exposed midriff, he calmed down.
“Ah.” She turned on her side not facing Ian. “Tell me you can put all of those men and women out of your mind as they are shipped across the sea to die for nothing. It was never their fault for growing up in hate. They did the only thing they knew to do and that was to listen and obey the NSSH.” Recarie heard Ian take his spot back on the ground. “When I left Disten, I promised that I would return to free those like me. I would free the enslaved and prisoned that looked at me with such hunger in their eyes.”
A short silence passed and Ian was ready to talk again after finishing his granola bar. “What are you? At some moments you can be a beast of imaginable power, then a fragile soul and back again.”
“I’ll tell you w
hen I have that figured out myself.” The last word from her lips seemed to stretch with the wind. She passed him a bottle of water from her purse.
Several feet away from where Ian was lying, Recarie pulled her legs towards her chest and shut her eyes. She had said all she had to tell Ian for that moment and closed her eyes. Another gust of cold air brushed over her exposed legs and Ian felt the chill through her.
Quietly, with his back facing hers, Ian scooted closer to her until they were inches apart. Recarie could feel his body heat against her and inched closer to him. Before either of them knew what had happened, Ian had wrapped his left hand fingers in between her right hand fingers. Recarie did not notice it was not actually his hand she was holding, but a physical projection of it from his mind. Now a warmth had started in her heart and flowed inside her. Neither said anything else that night as they laid nearly back to back.
The next morning the duo was up again and approaching a town. In the distance Ian spotted a leveled clock tower and brick streets torn up with bricks still lying scattered here and there.
Without warning, he grabbed Recarie’s arm using his telekinesis. He never actually touched her arm. “We are not going back in there!”
“Why not?” She easily shook free of his hold.
“Have you forgotten that this is the place that you destroyed? Don’t you remember that news report? Daouen is still at large.” Recarie looked at him wide eyed like he was speaking another language.
A tingle traveled through her nose. “Of course I remembered Daouen! He was a boy who made me feel welcomed and that I was part of our little makeshift family of abandoned and lonely children. Daouen had made me realize so much about herself that I had failed to see who he truly was.”
Holding his ground Ian stared into her eyes. She knew that he was not going to budge. “I am not going in there and neither should you.”
Recarie felt her heart being stabbed. He had talked to her as if he was some sort of parental figure to her. “Then stay, if you want to. I can make you come with me if I wanted to... But I don’t.” With nothing left to say she entered the small town.
It was obvious that no one was in the city as they had fled only four hours before.
In all direction, ruins stood where shops and homes once were, but there was only one place Recarie was looking for. Buried beneath all rubble and debris, she found the remnants of her old room.
Ian took a deep breath and stuck one foot in the boarders of Farous and then observed the town. Papers fluttered in the streets and aluminum cans rattled on storm drains. It seemed to be the same paper everywhere. Plastered on shop windows and lamp posts, the same notice. He grabbed the closet flier and read the big, black bold letters as he heard something approaching the city.
Recarie grabbed a hand full of pebbles and gently let them fall to the ground. The place she now stood before used to be full of life and love. It was Acanelle’s. A place that Caleth ran and cared for with everything she had.
“All of Caleth’s hard work, gone.” A tear trickled down Recarie’s cheek.
“… North and find her.” A voice whispered on the wind.
“What?” Recarie asked the invisible force.
“Don’t linger here too long. In the mountains lives a woman who can help you. Go north and find her. Be well Recarie.” The words looped only for Recarie to hear. After a few listens to the message, Recarie realized it was Caleth giving her friend one last bit of help.
Those words hit Recarie hard. Her eyes let a wave of tears fall down her cheeks. Lost in the moment, she failed to see Ian running up behind her shouting words she did not want to hear. He waved a hand full of fliers and dust clouds formed behind him.
“… Run!” Only his last word seemed to reach Recarie.
After wiping her face, Recarie went wide eyed as she watched bull dozers and tanks follow behind Ian. “Damn.” Running with her feet flat against the ground, Recarie led Ian out of the shopping district and into an overgrown field by mistake.
“Huh!” Ian patted his knee as he coughed out a breath. “I don’t think they saw us.” He peered over at Recarie.
“You’re right. Can’t you hear them finishing the town off with money sent from the NSSH?” Frustrated, Recarie grinded her teeth. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Ian had almost reached out to grab Recarie’s shoulder, but remembered his position.
“North.” And that was the end of their discussion.
“But we have no food, money, or transportation.” He just could not let Recarie have the last word in the conversation. “And what’s up north anyways?”
“Do you ever shut up?” Her feet kicked up the dirt where bricks once had been on the back road out of Farous.
“Do you ever give straight answers without a fight?” Ian followed a safe distance of four feet behind Recarie. “The North it is then.”
Chapter 8
Reflections
“Are you sure you can handle this?” Temthaw Vene held a leather briefcase under the guise of darkness amongst tall oaks.
“You are the one who had asked me here.” His partner, a youthful tan skinned woman grabbed the case.
“Ah yes, very well.” Vene turned and left. He had not planned on his meeting taking as long as it did, but dawdled away back to his sports car for safety. Making a deal with the devil had shaken him to the core and when it came to Temthaw Vene, that was saying something. Here was a man who had sentenced two dozen mildly innocent people to death to cover his own tracks. His meeting with the dainty woman had him looking over his shoulders to make sure she was not there. On the list of things he was not proud of, this ranked very high to almost the top.
“He’s coming around.” A nurse alerted the doctor outside of Gillian’s hospital room.
The man, about five feet ten and pale peach skin, checked the chart at the end of her bed. “Everything seems to be going smoothly for you.” He had the most charming, wide mouthed smile on his face. “Your finger has been reattached and you should be able to leave in the next forty eight to seventy two hours.”
Gillian, still feeling the effects of the anesthesia, watched the man leave. “Hm?” A slight glimmer of gold floated off of him. It was just for a second, but that was enough for her to identify it. Her face got hot and she turned shy. “Ha! I have you figured out Hunter!” She tried to point her newly reattached finger at him.
“Hunter?” The nurse looked at the man in the door way. “Doctor, what is this man talking about?”
“Oh, that is just him coming off of the drugs.” Before more suspicion could arise, Trey left faster than he could be spotted. “Now that that is taken care of, off to Operation Summit.” He shed his psychic induced guise and stepped into the four foot tall bushed that led from the small hospital and into the mountains. “This is not so going to be fun.”
Another night had come and Ian and Recarie resumed their journey to the north as instructed by Caleth. They had taken to sleeping alongside tall oak trees during the day and traveling at night.
“I’m hungry.” Recarie grabbed her stomach and rolled her head back. “This town coming up better have food.”
“Why would a town not have food?” Still following a safe distance behind his captor, he managed a good quip every now and again.
Recarie stopped and Ian froze. He knew that look even though he could not see her face. “Did you say something?” Her voice deep and quiet. It made chills run through his spine and tingle in his feet.
Ian took a few steps back. She turned her head and then the rest of her body until she was facing Ian.
“Hm…” Ian held his hands in the air above his head, a sign of good faith that he was unarmed, but Recarie did not care.
“I did not think so.” She continued on her way.
“How did it come to this?” Thinking to himself, Ian followed his master. He looked and the mauve ponytail bounced. There was still a longing to hold her inside of him. Just the slightest touch would have been
enough to quell his feelings. Ian also had developed a part of himself that would have rather been in the company of a grown and mature woman, Justine’s company. “Sigh.”
Behind her, Recarie heard Ian sigh. “Oh gawd.” She knew of his pain. “If only I could face him and look in to those rushing blue eyes…” Her eyes caught sire of the town up ahead. “We’re here!” Recarie put on her happy ‘everything’s fine,’ face.
The town looked as though they had stepped back in time. Lampposts burned with twinkling candle light, horse drawn carriages lined the cobblestone streets, and the villagers wore attire more fitting for several centuries past. Going with the flow, Recarie entered the first shop that she caught a whiff of.
“A bakery. Well, no surprise there.” He stood outside as Recarie went in and got food. “Just how is she expecting to pay for it anyways?” Ian turned around just in time to watch her give the plump woman behind the counter a gold earring. “…” Wide eyed and speechless, Ian entered the glowing, candle lit shop.
“Thank you.” Recarie was compelled to curtsy as she took her food. She caught site of Ian entering the shop. He was pissed by the looks of it.
“And now you’re stealing?!” He held the door open for her even though he really didn’t want to.
Try as she might, Recarie could not ignore him. “And how else do you suppose we are to survive out here? Hm? If you just so happen to have a wad of currency in your pockets that you’ve forgotten about then we can back track all those miles and return these jewels back to the people who have probably forgotten about them.”
Opening his mouth to speak, Ian’s mind was unable to come up with a comeback. “But,” he had figured it out. “Didn’t you get paid from when you worked at that café? I mean I even saw you with a purse on ‘that’ night.”
“And in case you have forgotten the battled that ensued ‘that’ night, it was a little more than difficult to keep a hand bag attached to my side.” Her anger level was rising. She had made her point and for the time being Ian had decided to back off.
Misery Saves the Night Page 16