Snap, Crackle ...

by Dale Mayer

  “Have you ever talked to anyone?” he asked cautiously.

  She looked at him and smirked. “Like a therapist? Are you kidding? You know I’d be committed in no time.”

  He had to admit she had a point. “I’d like to think not, but you’re right,” he said. “Just aren’t any tools out there, or anyone capable of handling this kind of scenario.”

  “Exactly,” she said, “which is why we’re still stuck where we are, … in the psychic Dark Ages.”

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

  She shrugged. “So am I, but that doesn’t change a damn thing.” Now she waved him off. “I’ll try to go back to sleep.”

  He nodded and stepped back. “You can try,” he said. “If that doesn’t work, you can get up, and we can go get some food.”

  “Isn’t it still too early for food?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  She nodded and watched as he backed over to the small table. As far as motels went, it left a lot to be desired. But it was quiet and relatively safe for the moment. She felt them out there, hunting her. She felt them looking, that pervasive sense of being prey, while someone was after her. She knew an end was in sight but didn’t know how it would work out. She could only hope that maybe, for once, she would be on the winning side.

  She thought she’d done that before. She thought she’d been on that right side for once, but, when she took that bullet in her side, after all this time of freedom, she knew it had all been a facade, and all the years of staying on the move and getting away had worked, until it hadn’t worked anymore. Which just broke her apart because she knew she could never stop looking over her shoulder. How was anybody supposed to get through life like this?

  The alternative was for her to just give up and to walk away, knowing that safety would never be there for her.

  This evil shouldn’t be allowed, but, of course, nobody monitored this. Nobody out there was capable of it. Maybe Stefan, but then he had his own trials. She didn’t even know what he was doing with his life, but she figured he was doing some good because that had always been his bent.

  But people changed, so maybe not. She herself had no idea, but she was at the end of her rope; yet she could only persevere, the same as always. Depressing, yet she didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Forcing her eyelids closed to rest, she once again drifted toward sleep. She wasn’t even under when she heard Lizzy’s voice in her ear.

  Beth, wake up.

  She bolted upright with a soundless cry on her lips, as she studied the small room in a panic. Hunter was immediately at her side again. He raised an eyebrow, as she took a long slow deep breath and said, “Lizzy is here.”

  He looked at her sharply and then walked over to study outside the window. “I’m not so sure about that,” he said. “I don’t see her, sense her.”

  “You don’t have to be sure,” she said. “I’m sure.” She stood, gathered her hoodie, called to Nocturne on the ethers to be prepared.

  “And what does Lizzy want?”

  “What she always wanted,” she said. “Me. Lizzy’s been hunting me all these years.”

  “Okay,” he said. “What can we do about it? How do we throw her off our trail?”

  At least he was asking her questions and not dismissing her concerns. A step forward. She looked at him and said, “We have to get out of here. Lizzy is not somebody to be trifled with.”

  “Okay, will she come alone?” he asked, studying the energy outside.

  “No way to know. I don’t know who is even left in that mess. I don’t know who else is part of her team. I don’t know anything,” she cried out, “except Lizzy is hunting me.”

  “Why you?” he said urgently, turning from the window to face her. “Why? What is it about you that she can’t let go?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “There has to be a reason, but I can’t think of anything else.”

  He nodded slowly. “Well, it’s possible. I’ve contacted Stefan. He’s gathering people about us to protect us and to find Lizzy, so talk to me. Explain this Lizzy to me.”

  “I don’t know what else to say,” she murmured. “Anything is possible with these people. You don’t know what they’re like.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said, “and obviously we want to find them and stop them, if there’s any way to do so.”

  “I would hope that Stefan could do it,” she murmured, “or at least somehow be of assistance.”

  “And he would be if he could,” Hunter murmured, “but we have to give him more information.”

  “Can’t he track her?”

  “How good is she? Can she hide her tracks?”

  She slowly nodded, defeat sinking her shoulders. “She’s the best at it,” she murmured. “Nobody could ever beat her.”

  “Was she that talented?”

  “She was talented, and she worked hard. We all did, but she was the best.”

  “Why was she the best?”

  “Because she did so well,” she said, looking at him. “Is that so hard to understand?”

  “No,” he murmured. “I just wondered if she had any tricks, anything that was different. Something that gave her an advantage over anybody else.”

  “Hard work was one,” she said quietly, “not to mention she was fast, as in, she would panic because naturally she didn’t want to be punished, and so many were punished and in the most horrible of ways. We all fought to do the best we could in order to avoid it.”

  “Of course, so the threat of punishment drove her to succeed?”

  She nodded. “Isn’t that how everybody functions in this world?” she murmured.

  “Well, a stick is a heck of a good motivator in keeping people on the straight and narrow,” he said. “It’s just not too well looked upon.”

  “I don’t think anybody at the compound cared one way or the other,” she said quietly. “Let’s get real. When it comes to people who want what they want, they don’t care how they get it.”

  He nodded and said, “Do you have a way to communicate with her?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve kept that channel closed since I escaped. Or tried to but being weak and disoriented I wasn’t always successful.”

  “Why did you originally?”

  She gave him a hard look. “Do you understand how any of this works?”

  “Of course,” he said, “at least I’d like to think so.”

  Just enough humor was in his voice that he probably did know. “I’ve kept it closed so that she can’t track me.”

  “But she already has tracked you,” he pointed out unnecessarily.

  She glared at him. “Remember that part about Lizzy being exceptionally good?”

  “I get it,” he said, studying her.

  “Can you see energy?” she asked suddenly.

  He nodded slowly. “Most of the time.”

  “Most of the time?” she challenged.

  He nodded.

  “Can you see mine?”

  “Yes,” he said slowly, but he was obviously uncomfortable with the questioning.

  “So, what is it you see?”

  “Honestly,” he said, “I see shards.”

  She stopped and stared. “What?”

  “I see shards of energy, like a broken mirror.”

  “Well, that would fit,” she said, with a hard laugh. “Because that’s what I am, broken. I don’t know that I ever mirrored anything, but I’m definitely broken.”

  “But you can heal,” he urged. “There is a way to do this.”

  “And how is that?”

  “Stefan,” he said simply. “Or maybe Dr. Maddy.”

  “But this isn’t normal healing,” she said.

  “Which is why it would take those two. Although we do have other healers in the group, it would take at least those two.”

  “And how does that work?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure, but they have abilities that go way past anything that we know.”

  “Well, it would take som
ebody like that,” she said, “because God knows I don’t have a clue how to handle this. I’ve done the best I can, which is to stay out of the line of fire, but now that Lizzy has found me again?” She shrugged. “A part of me says I might as well just give in, tell them where I am, give up the fight, and walk.”

  “Wait, what?” he said. “Don’t walk toward them.”

  “They’ll be here finding me soon enough anyway.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  “Of course not,” she said, glaring at him. “Surely you know that much about me.”

  “Which is why I’m struggling to think that you would give up,” he said in confusion.

  “Because I’m tired,” she snapped. “I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of always being on the run. I’m tired of being alone in this world, with nothing to help me, with nobody to understand what this is like,” she cried out.

  “But you’re not alone now,” he said.

  “No, of course not,” she said, flailing her hands up. “I’m sorry. Don’t listen to me. Obviously I’m more overwrought than I thought.”

  “You’re being very hard on yourself again.”

  “Well, I don’t know any other way to be,” she stated. “So what difference does it make?”

  He studied her for the longest time. “I’m not sure,” he said, “but I’m pretty certain that we can do other things.”

  “Says you,” she muttered and laid back down again.

  “Don’t we need to leave?” he asked suddenly.

  “You’re the hunter.” She turned on him and said, “So, do we?”

  He groaned. “Do you know that you are the only person who has ever made me doubt my abilities?” he asked. “For the last several years, I have been very content in knowing what I could and couldn’t do. But, right now, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on because I’m not getting the same reading out of any of this.”

  She gave him a cracked smile. “Now you know how I feel,” she said. “Absolutely nothing is normal about Lizzy at all. She’s way stronger than anybody could ever imagine.”

  “But is it just Lizzy or could it be more than that coming with her? What does she want with you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe take me back. Maybe she is getting something special for hauling me back. I don’t know,” she said. “But, whatever it is, I don’t want to go.”

  “And Stefan and I’ll do everything we can to keep that from happening,” he said.

  She nodded slowly. “Thank you for that,” she said, staring up at the ceiling. “But somehow I don’t think it’ll be enough.”

  “We won’t worry about that right now,” he murmured, “because sometimes we have to just trust.”

  She snorted. “Trust what?” she asked. “Trust that they’ll get me one way or the other? Trust that my life will never be the same? Yeah, I trust in that all right,” she said in a snappy voice.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s upend this whole nightmare that’s bothering you,” he said. “Surely we can do something to switch up this energy.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “we need to run like hell.”

  *

  Hunter couldn’t believe how fast Beth was up and at the door. He barely grabbed her hand and said, “Stop. No point in running if Lizzy can continue to find us. We have to make sure she can’t hunt us down.”

  “Too late,” she said, staring at him and looking around wildly. “We’ve been here too long.”

  “We’ve hardly been here six hours,” he cried out.

  “Well, you should feel it,” she snapped. “You should sense that somebody is pursuing us.”

  “Normally I would,” he said, “but I’m wondering if I’ve been sucked into your own psychosis about this.”

  She stopped and stared. “Meaning, you think I’m making this up?”

  He raised his hands, palms showing. “No, not necessarily.”

  “Not necessarily?” she said, glaring at him. “But maybe?”

  “No, I didn’t say that.”

  “But you thought it.” At that, she felt his own his temper flaring up stronger and stronger.

  “Stop putting words in my mouth,” he said. “Look. Something’s going on here that I don’t understand.”

  “Well, goody for you,” she replied. “I don’t know why you think you should understand any of this, when I’ve been explaining how it’s beyond understanding.”

  True. Confusing the heck out of him. “We have to get somewhere where you’re safe.”

  “And where would that be?” she demanded.

  “I’m not sure. We need a place where somehow Lizzy can’t track you.”

  “Well, I don’t know how to make that happen,” she said. “I’ve been on the run for a long time.”

  “What did you do for those five years that she couldn’t find you?”

  She stopped, stared, and said slowly, “I hid.”

  “What do you mean, you hid? How did you hide?”

  “Right under her nose. I stayed here in Oregon, knowing that they would all expect me to run away to Mexico or overseas or whatever.”

  Chapter 18

  Beth knew it was useless to explain it to Hunter, but he had insisted on heading out once again. She sat in the front seat of the car, with the motorcycle still in the trunk, just wondering if she should make another run for it.

  He looked at her and said, “Oh, hell no.”

  She glared at him. “What? Are you telepathic now?”

  “Nobody needs to be telepathic to see the thoughts running through your head,” he snapped. “Running away on your own will hardly help. They found you earlier to shoot you, and now they’ve found you again with me here, so they’ll still find you, with or without me.”

  “So, what’s the point of having you then?” she cried out, “if you’re just dead weight.”

  He burst out laughing at that.

  And she sagged into her seat. “Why don’t you just let me go?”

  “Can’t do that,” he said cheerfully.

  “You should,” she murmured, but, at the same time, she was damn glad he hadn’t. It was new—this feeling of not being alone. But it would be dangerous to get accustomed to it.

  “I suggest we pick up groceries and head back to the cabin.”

  As much as she liked the idea of going back to his cabin on the lake, she didn’t understand why he would retrace his steps. “Why there?”

  “Because, based on your theory about hiding in plain sight, they won’t expect us to go back to a place we’ve already been.”

  She frowned at that and then shrugged. “I guess that’s a possibility,” she said. “As long as you realize they will find us eventually.”

  “When they find us, what will they do with you?”

  “If they don’t immediately shoot me dead, they’ll probably take me captive, back to the compound,” she said. “I can’t imagine why else they would want me.”

  “So, do you have any information that they’re after? Did you run away with anything important?”

  She shook her head. “No, I just ran away with myself,” she murmured. “That was enough for them.”

  “So, they must see you as a continuous danger in order to keep coming after you.”

  “I imagine,” she said. “If I ever got anybody in law enforcement to listen to me, I suppose there’s always a chance they could be charged or have somebody shut down their operation.”

  “And yet the operations go on underground.”

  “Yes,” she said, “underground is a good word for it.” He was quiet for a long time, and she welcomed the silence. “I told you there are just no answers here,” she murmured.

  “There are always answers,” he said. “We just have to get to the place where we can get a hold of them.”

  She laughed at that. “Again with the Pollyanna attitude.”

  “You’re very well-spoken, you know,” he said. “Did you go to school?”

  “We
were given all kinds of training and education,” she murmured. “Not necessarily what a normal curriculum would be like. But, if you’re asking if I ever graduated high school, no, although we were taught in the compound to pass a GED test. I just hadn’t completed that yet. So I got my GED pretty soon after I escaped. I needed it for getting a job. I could even do some of it online,” she said, with a shrug. “Pretty simple, once I found a public library with free internet services.”

  “Good,” he said, “and you’re right. It’s pretty important.”

  She nodded. “We were meant to function in society,” she said, “so that was an important part of their plan.”

  “Right, so you had at least some schooling in the compound.”

  She nodded. “And it certainly made life a little bit easier for some of us, while being held there. Because school was something I took to quite simply. A way for me to hide—diving into the history of something else, you know?” she said with a half smile.

  “Makes sense,” he murmured.

  “It doesn’t matter if it does or not,” she said. “Nothing else in that place did. We did whatever we could, when we could, and, if we were lucky, we survived. But more often than not, there just weren’t any answers for us.”

  “No, of course not,” he said. “Keeping you off-balance and isolated, out of society, kept you focused on them and kept you as a prisoner to their needs,” he murmured. “That’s pretty standard.”

  “Pretty standard for what, Prisoner 101?” she asked, with a snort.

  “Something like that,” he said, with a smile. “And it’s good that you still have a sense of humor.”

  “Sometimes there isn’t anything but,” she said, “because all of this is way too ridiculous.”

  “Agreed,” he murmured.

  As they pulled into the same parking lot and grocery store they’d been at before, she looked all around and said, “I don’t even feel them at the moment.”

  “Good, maybe they can’t follow us through the ethos.”

  “I think she picks up some signature or something. I don’t know.”

  “Did you work with her a lot?”