Mind Blind (5 page)

Who was the prey?

I was the prey. Of course.

Who was the hunter? Daniel. Of course. He was here to catch the little runaway and take me home.

But I wasn’t going to let my family use me as a training exercise.

I may be crap at some of this stuff, but I’m not as useless as the mindblind. I was not prepared to be the target in a grab.

Daniel and I are technically the strongest readers in the fourth generation. I can sense emotions over longer distances, but Daniel is better at pinpointing location, which makes him a more efficient hunter. We’re both very accurate thought-readers too, but Daniel edges it on points again, because he doesn’t scream, faint or throw up when he reads someone’s mind.

Also he’s taller, bigger, stronger and fiercer than me.

But I’ve got my dad’s running away genes, and I hoped that would help in a chase.

Daniel hadn’t sensed my exact location, he was checking out the golf course because I usually run to the nearest green space.

He’d brought a team with him, but I couldn’t tell who yet − probably his wee sister Martha, and his sidekicks, Kerr and Sam. Would he have all four Patersons with him too? Would he really expect Roy to join in with the inevitable end of the hunt?

Because I knew what Daniel would do if he caught me. The senior readers wouldn’t mind one of us coming home
with a few bruises and minor broken bones, if we all learnt a useful lesson. Especially not if I was the injured one. Efficient violence is a skill our family teaches, rather than discourages.

So I needed to get away before they worked out where on the course I was. If I played this right, I might manage to avoid a kicking
and
get back to base before them. I could be lying on my bed like a good boy doing my essay when they all trudged in, having failed today’s test.

But I didn’t get up and run right away. Once they were closer, I could tell how many cousins were there, and which way I should run.

I might even be able to work out if I could cheat. Because I was unlikely to beat Daniel and the rest of the fourth generation if I played fair.

As they got closer, I counted eight minds, most of them relishing the excitement of the chase. But one familiar mind was anxious and uncomfortable. So Daniel had brought Roy.

Now they were at the clubhouse. Was I worth the cost of eight teenagers playing 18 holes? No, they were going to break in too.

There was a moment of focus as Daniel instructed his troops, then they moved around the fence towards the trees.

I got up. They would find the bent wire soon, and by the time they got in, I needed to be hiding in the tall grass at the edge of the course, not out here in the open. I sprinted towards the fence.

This was a risk: I was running towards cover, where I’d be hidden from their eyes, but I was also running towards their minds, and the nearer I got, the easier it would be for them to sense me.

However, I had a plan. I was going to try an experiment. No, not an experiment, just an idea I’d been considering recently. We can’t cover our emotions like we can cover our thoughts, but I’d been wondering if I could deliberately change the emotions I gave out.

Daniel and his team would be searching for prey feelings, victim feelings, possibly even fighter emotions, and the familiar mind of their pathetic cousin.

So all I had to do was pretend to be someone else.

All I had to do was feel like a golfer.

As I ran, I imagined myself starting a round of golf, grasping the club, swinging it. I felt a bit bored, slightly frustrated, mildly competitive.

I made it to the rough without any of my cousins recognising my mind. I dropped to the ground just inside the fence, 100 metres from the broken section. I lay in the long dry grass, feeling smug. I was trying to feel smug like a middle-aged golfer though, not smug like someone getting one over on his cousins.

They were so close now, I could hear Daniel’s voice as he bossed them about.

I concentrated on mild golfy thoughts – a ball curving away from me, hole in one, checked trousers – as Daniel sent Martha, Kerr and Sam away from my hiding place, past the clubhouse, and announced he would lead Laura, Becky and Josh in the other direction, towards me. He left Roy, the one Paterson he never trusted, to guard the exit he was sure I was nowhere near.

Then Daniel strode towards me, with three Patersons behind him. And I realised I’d made a massive mistake.

I couldn’t stay in the grass feeling like a golfer, because golfers don’t lie down when they’re playing. If Daniel sensed someone in the rough grass, he’d come over to investigate. Then he’d beat me to a pulp.

So I had to make my mind invisible. I had to stop thinking or feeling at all.

I’m not sure how I did it, but I found the nearest nothing in my head: the dark quiet nothing of Vivien just after she stopped being afraid. Just after she stopped feeling anything. Exactly when her thoughts and feelings switched off.

I dived into the moment of her death.

I joined Vivien in her dark nothing.

So I didn’t feel the earth under me, the danger passing me, the grass tickling my nostrils. I didn’t feel anything.

Eventually I became aware of just one sensation. The feeling of grit under my fingers. Hard poky dry cold grit.

But my fingers were touching the earth. Soft, slightly damp earth. Not gritty at all.

That tiny difference between Vivien’s memories and my surroundings pulled me out of her death.

Then I was lying on the ground again, brutally aware of my heaving stomach and thumping head.

I flexed my mind cautiously. All the good readers – Daniel, Martha, Kerr, Sam − were now too far away to sense me. I’d been hidden in Vivien’s death for as long as it took them to walk to the other side of the course.

I could sense other readers too. Further away, outside the fence.

Bloody hell. My uncles. At least three of them.

What were they doing here? Were they judging this as a field exercise? Marking Daniel on his leadership? Or assessing me, to see if I’d lost control completely? I hoped they hadn’t detected me trying out forbidden new techniques.

I double-checked. The family were too far away to sense me, as I shivered and retched.

I lay in the grass, wondering what I had just done.

Did I
think
myself dead?

I’d better not do that again. If the sensation of grit on Vivien’s fingers hadn’t woken me up, I might have shared her death forever.

But it had worked. Daniel had walked right by me without sensing my emotions at all, because at the time I was feeling nothing.

As my head and stomach settled, I sat up. Now I’d better get off this golf course.

Was Roy still guarding the bent fence?

I recognised the nearest mind and grinned.

I wasn’t going to cheat. I was going to ask my best friend to cheat for me.

I stood up, put my earthy hands in my pockets and strolled towards the fence.

“Hey mate,” I said softly.

“Hey.”

“So, what about kneeling down and doing up your shoe, or nipping into the trees for a piss, and letting me past? Accidentally of course.”

Roy is the worst reader in the family. He’s not bothered about his marks in training exercises, because he’s not planning on a career in the family firm. So of course he would let me past.

But I could sense his answer.

He was miserable. He was miserable that he’d been put here, miserable that I’d asked him to break a direct family order, miserable about how he was going to answer.

He didn’t have to shake his head for me to know.

“You’re choosing Daniel over me?”

“It’s not Daniel’s hunt. It’s Malcolm’s hunt.”

That made complete sense and no sense at all.

The uncles weren’t watching Daniel hunt me. They were hunting me themselves, sending Daniel and his team in like beaters, to flush me out.

Why were the senior readers hunting me? Just because I’d kept going when Malcolm and Mum ordered me to come back? I had no time to wonder. I had to get away.

But Roy couldn’t let me past.

Roy’s current strategy was to survive our family long enough to get out when he was eighteen. So he couldn’t directly disobey Malcolm, not even to help me.

We both knew that he should keep me here and call for back up.

We stared at each other.

We’re both readers. He’s a useless reader and I’m crap at everything, but you don’t need to read minds to know what your best friend is going to do.

I grinned at him. He frowned.

Then I turned my back on him and ran.

I sensed his indecision. Would he yell out, tell them I was here?

No. He smashed through the grass after me. His long legs caught up with me and his hand stretched for the back of my t-shirt.

Then, with perfect timing, he stumbled over his own big feet and thumped to the ground behind me.

I laughed as I ran off. Let Malcolm try and sort that one out. All he’ll get is the truth of Roy refusing to let me through, and of Roy tripping and falling when he chased me.

But now I was running
away
from the best exit.

So I ran towards the only other way off the course. The clubhouse.

Then I sensed a thump of recognition. Someone had spotted me.

I’d been spotted by Kerr, on the other side of the clubhouse. He must have sensed my confrontation with Roy. Or maybe he’d heard Roy hit the ground like a tree trunk.

I could see him now, running to block my way out. And he was nearer the clubhouse, so I wasn’t going to get off this golf course unless I knocked him out of the way first.

I’d already tried to cheat my way out. Now I’d better start fighting dirty.

I stopped running towards the exit and started running straight at Kerr.

This might seem either brave or stupid. But getting a thumping from Kerr would be better than getting a thumping from Daniel, who fights to hurt rather than simply to win. Also there was an even chance I might beat Kerr.

So I ran straight at him.

He stopped beside two elderly ladies in beige trousers and grabbed a club out of one of their trolleys.

The women shrieked. That would bring the rest of the family.

Kerr was standing between me and the exit, and between me and the rest of the women’s clubs. In the dojo, he and I were well matched. But now he had a weapon and I had nothing.

Kerr was laid back, grinning at me, hefting the club in his hand. He just had to stop me getting to the exit before Daniel and his team got here.

I slumped and let him drive me back a couple of steps. I was stumbling backwards, carefully feeling almost defeated,
but also trying to circle nearer to the clubhouse exit.

Kerr laughed. “I’m not that daft, Bain.”

Let’s see if you are, I thought as briefly as I could. He swung the club at my head. I ducked to the side and he swung again. Now he was driving me away from the clubhouse, towards the 18
^th
hole.

A couple of men in pink diamonds and yellow stripes yelled from a distance, “Get off the fairway! It’s dangerous!” He swung again. I ducked again. Closer to the hole, closer to the flag.

“Calm down, Kerr. We’re attracting attention.” I didn’t say too much, because he reads by voice rather than touch. As I spoke, I thought of the golfers looking at us, the golf balls aimed at us. I needed him to believe I didn’t want to be going in this direction. He swung again and I ducked away.

He was herding me. I’d better resist. I jinked one way, then tried to run the other way.

Kerr lashed out. He’d sensed I was planning something, so he anticipated the change of direction and caught me on the shoulder.

Shit! That
hurt
.

But at least he thought the swerve was what I’d been planning.

And suddenly I was running, away from Kerr and his golf club, towards the 18
^th
hole. I needed him to chase me towards this boring bit of golf course, so as I ran I concentrated on feeling fear, pain, defeat, not on what I was running towards.

I reached the flag poking out of the wee round hole. I grabbed the flagpole and ran round it, hand high on the pole, like using the banister to swing yourself round the bottom of the stairs.

Then I yanked the flag out of the ground.

And aimed it at Kerr.

His surprise was almost comical. He hadn’t seen a weapon when I was running towards the flag, he’d just seen a bit of
golf landscape.

He was already skidding to a halt on the grass. Shame. I’d hoped he would run straight onto the flag, like a jousting knight onto a lance.

Now we were squaring up to each other. He had a puny little golf club and I had a nice long flagpole.

I jabbed the pole at his chest and he danced out of reach.

He was still confident, because even though my flag would probably beat his club in the end, that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was speed. If I didn’t get past him to the exit in the next minute, I wouldn’t beat him at all.

Because I could sense the rest of them, closing in. Roy resigned. Daniel angry. The uncles still watching from a distance.

All Kerr needed to do was to keep me here.

He slashed out at the flag, hoping to break it. But I whirled the pole out of the way of his swing, brought it right over his head and cracked it into his left shoulder.

We were both hyped now. This wasn’t a training bout. We were really trying to injure each other.

And my family were getting closer. I needed to finish this fast.

I threw the flagpole up and over, then caught the muddy end. Kerr got in a hefty blow to my ribs while my defence was up in the air, but then I had the red flag under his nose, tickling, teasing.

He bellowed, lifted the golf club over his head and slashed it down, straight at my skull.

I ignored the club, and drove the flagpole towards his chest, shoving him backwards. The club kept crashing down, but he jerked it back as he stumbled and it missed me by a couple of centimetres.

He was off balance. So I held the flag firmly and ran at him. But I didn’t aim the pole at his body, I aimed at the ground, and as the tip hit the grass, I forced it deeper, gripped the end
tight and let my speed carry me up into the air.

I let go when the flagpole pointed straight up, and I soared towards Kerr. I kicked my left heel solidly into his cheek, and as he screamed and fell away from me, I landed on the smooth fairway grass, found my balance and ran.

I didn’t look back. I could sense his disorientation. He didn’t know which way was up; he couldn’t possibly chase me.

I shouted cheerfully to the two old ladies as I ran past, “He’s dropped your club at the 18
^th
!”

But then I saw what was ahead of me.

Sam in front of the clubhouse door, Josh and Martha standing either side. They were blocking the exit and leaving me out here, exposed, ready for…

Daniel.

Daniel was sprinting at me from my left.

Kerr had done his job: he’d kept me on the course long enough for the ring of cousins to tighten round me.

I swung round to face Daniel.

He was grinning as he slowed to a jog.

I knew what I should do.

I should surrender.

I should give up and give in. I should pretend I thought this was a game. Put my hands up and say,
Well done guys, you got me. Full marks. Now let’s go home.

It wasn’t a game, though. It was the next round in a battle Daniel and I had been fighting since we were babies.

It was a chance for Daniel to prove yet again that he was the top dog, that I was the runt.

But if I surrendered, he’d just laugh and lay into me anyway.

So, fight and get beaten up, or surrender and get beaten up. Tough choice.

Daniel could sense my dilemma, my confusion. I could sense his pleasure and anticipation.

He was only a few steps away. Not even jogging now. Just
walking. Slowly.

Daniel works out for fun, not just for fitness, so he’s building bulgy muscles, which he decorates with tight t-shirts. And he has shoulder-length black hair that he actually thinks looks cool pulled into a pony-tail.

I fixed a picture in my mind of him tying a pink ribbon in his hair, then caught his eye.

He scowled. “Don’t play the fool, Bain. My dad wants a word about that job you ruined. So come on home.”

I opened my mouth to say,
Yes. Ok. Fine. I’ll come home, just don’t hurt me.

But I could sense his happiness at beating me yet again. He was enjoying his victory already.

So I said, “No. I’m not coming home just because you say so.”

He laughed. “Are you going to stay out here with the mindblind, the people who make you cry and faint and puke? Come on home, like a good boy.”

“I’ll come home in my own time. Why should I do what you say? You’re not my boss.”

“Not yet.”

“Not ever, Daniel Reid.”

“No? Your mum might think you can run the firm some day, her clever little reader. But however strong your reading is, Bain, it’s no use if you can’t get near a target without collapsing. You’re never going to run this firm. I’m the next lead reader. And when I’m in charge, you won’t have a job. If you can’t work with us and you can’t live with the mindblind, where will you go?”

I couldn’t fault his logic. It was the discussion Roy and I had all the time.

We were circling round each other now.

What was I doing? Even if I beat him − and in a lifetime of bouts in the dojo I had never done that − there were plenty of other cousins near enough to grab me. Was I showing my
uncles that I could do something right, even if it was only getting beaten up bravely? But that was damaging the family too. With all the golfers watching, someone must already have called the police. This was just another example of how I was a danger to the family.

The most immediate dangers to me were Daniel’s eyes and hands.

Kerr reads by voice, I read by touch, Daniel reads by eye contact. So I couldn’t let him look directly into my eyes and see my thoughts.

I couldn’t let him grab hold of me either, because if he touched me, I’d get a headful of his vicious thoughts.

I had to beat him quickly, before he got his hands on me or caught my eye.

He’s big, but he’s fast too. His mum was a martial arts champion in three different disciplines before she married Malcolm. She’s tried to be even-handed in teaching us her skills, but Daniel is the one with the most natural talent.

We were still circling. I heard Roy shout, “Stop pissing about, guys. We’re too visible, we have to get off this course.”

“What a day you’re having, Bain,” murmured Daniel. “Your first clinch with a girl. Shame it was a wrestling match, not a snogging match. Then your first accessory to murder. And now you’re going home for your first…”

My first what?

He’d broken off, because the uncles were coming. We could sense them.

Daniel laughed. “Don’t get your hopes up. My dad wants you talking, but he doesn’t need you walking. Let’s see what I can break before they get here.”

Daniel lashed out at my thigh with his right foot. I jumped back.

While he was off balance, I aimed a high kick at his chest. But I was too tentative, because high kicks against good opponents are risky, so I didn’t commit my full weight and I
didn’t connect.

Damn. A good first shot had been my best chance.

I kicked out at his ankle, hoping to use his higher centre of gravity against him. But he shifted his weight onto the other foot, swung away from my blow and kicked at my thigh again. I jumped away, but even as it glanced off, I could feel the kick’s power.

I kicked back, but Daniel was stepping out of range every time I got an angle.

He attacked my thigh again. The same kick, for the third time. Daniel was too arrogant, letting himself get predictable. I swung away from it easily.

And swung right into his trap. He hadn’t followed the kick all the way. He’d swung round too, and was waiting for me. He grabbed my bare arm and twisted it with his bare hands.

I collapsed under the weight of his hatred for me and the strobe-lit show of tortures he was imagining as he shoved me to the ground.

He let go of my arm. But I didn’t get up. I couldn’t. Even ten seconds of the
Ways to Hurt Bain Show
was enough to knock me flat for ten minutes. But I’d read what he was planning next, so I managed to roll up round my face, belly and balls, while he landed thunderous kicks on my back and legs.

At last I could sense the uncles running close enough to see us.

Malcolm was yelling, “Stop, you idiot! I need him conscious!”

Daniel took one more swing, an earthquake of a kick to my left shoulder, then stepped back. “He’s all yours, Dad. I only bruised him a bit. He wouldn’t come home when I whistled.”

“Get him up.”

No! I struggled to my knees. I didn’t want anyone else to put their hands on me. I stood up. Then I limped away, like a good boy, between my uncles Hugh and Paul, sensing unfamiliar worries from both of them.

I started to walk to the clubhouse and the car park beyond. But Malcolm snapped, “Not that way, you little traitor, there are CCTV cameras and too many witnesses.” So I followed him towards the fence, hardly listening when he told Uncle Phil to wipe or swipe any tapes that could ID us or our vehicles, hardly caring when I heard police sirens in the distance.

In a fog of pain and confusion, surrounded by almost a dozen uncles and cousins, I clambered over the bent wire, fell into the back of a car and was driven home.

Back home to Mummy.

When we got back, there she was, all nail varnish and neat blonde hair. I had sensed her exhausted worry most of the way back from the golf course. But when she saw me come home bruised, bloody and muddy, all I could sense was her irritation. She thinks I’m pathetic.

I fell out of the car. I wanted to crawl over the cold floor to my own cabin in the far corner of the base. But I pulled myself upright and turned to Malcolm, who had driven back in the other car. We hadn’t spoken since he’d called me a traitor.

“I was going to come back,” I said to his expensively tailored chest. “You didn’t need to let the dogs out.”

“You disobeyed a direct order. I had every right to send them out.”

“Now I’m back. And I have every right to go to my room and have a shower.”

Except I didn’t have any rights at all. Not in this family. Not unless Malcolm said so.

He shook his head. “We have questions for you, Bain. We needed answers a couple of hours ago. You denied us those answers by throwing a tantrum and running off. So get your arse over to Q&A and start opening your nasty little mind to your Uncle Malcolm.”