Oblivion

Earthshaker
Series

—Book
Four—

By Adrianne Lemke

Copyright
© July
2016 Adrianne Lemke

All
rights reserved

Edited
by: Brittany King

Proofread
and Formatted by: Terri King

Cover
Design by: Christian
Bentulan

Also by Adrianne Lemke:

Fear

Earthshaker Series:

Tracker

Kindred

Hunter

Secrets of Sacorria:

Secret Power

ONE

Sam

“Where is he,
Alice?” My voice cracked. Nothing was going the way it was supposed to. Hannah
and I had gotten away from Hunter, only to have Jason disappear. We knew that
he was with Hunter, a man who wanted to either hunt my brother or sell him. Now
Hunter is dead, and we have no idea where Jason is, or who he’s with.

Mark Jones and
Alice Farrow were investigating around the crash area, trying to determine the
cause of the accident. “It’s possible he got disoriented and wandered away,”
Mark suggested.

Possible… but if
my brother was conscious and moving around, I would be able to feel him. “The
accident was probably my fault,” I said softly. Sending all my anger into
Hunter’s mind destroyed him. If he was driving at the time… he never would have
been able to keep control of a vehicle.

Alice looked at me
sympathetically. “You can’t know that, Sammy. And you can’t blame yourself.
Everything you did was to protect your brother. He wouldn’t want you to blame
yourself for this.”

I scoffed. “No,
but he wouldn’t hesitate to blame himself. It doesn’t matter what you say,
Alice. This part of what happened? It is most definitely my fault. But I can
help find Jason. If my ability can be used to destroy a mind, I may be able to
communicate with one as well. Just know that I will not give up on finding my
brother.”

She smiled sadly,
and glanced toward the car, where Mark was again exploring the vehicle.
“Neither will
we
, Sam. Jason is our friend… our
family. Just…,” she hesitated, looking a little nervous. “Let us know when
you’re using your ability. Tell us what you’re up to, so we can help. Okay?”

My ability was
mostly focused on trying to find Jason, but I could tell the idea of what I
could do was making her nervous. And not just her, but Mark as well; both
watched me now with trepidation. It hurt, but I could understand it. Jason’s
ability, while dangerous and frightening, could not affect people’s minds.
Mine? Mine could drive a man to insanity, and I hardly needed to try.

“We’re
accomplishing nothing here. Where did Nickels disappear to?” Mark asked.

It wasn’t the
first time he brought up the man’s absence, and I wondered what it was about
the detective that raised Mark’s suspicions.

“I might be able
to help you with that,” I offered. Nickels was familiar enough to me that I
could potentially search out his mind. If his emotions were strong enough, I
might be able to make a guess as to what he was up to.

“How? What exactly
is it you can do?” Alice asked. She shook her head slightly. “I know it’s
something to do with sensing emotions. Also that you believe you destroyed
Hunter’s mind before we found the car. But I don’t understand exactly what it
is you do.”

Shrugging, I
answered, “I don’t know either. Until Hunter grabbed me, Jason’s emotions were
the only ones I could sense. Then Hunter’s snuck in. While I was chained alone
in the room, I eventually managed to start adjusting the levels of some of
Hunter’s limited emotions.”

I paused. Talking
about my abilities felt so strange after hiding them for so long. Now I knew
how Jason felt when he was forced to share information he didn’t want to.

“Sammy, we love
you. You know that, right?” Hannah put her arm around my shoulders. “Nothing
you tell us will change that.”

I knew of one
thing, but that part I wasn’t going to share; at least not until I was able to
beg for my brother’s forgiveness. “I manipulated him. He felt a little
trepidation at facing my brother, especially once he realized what Jason can
do. So I amped up the fear. Gotta be honest,” I admitted, “I’m not sure that
worked as well as I wanted. After making Hunter afraid, he became more
determined to fight and beat Jason. I still don’t know why he grabbed me, when
it was Jason he wanted. Or why he was so obsessed with Jase before he knew
anything about his abilities. I honestly wish Jason could just forget
everything he went through. The whole time we’ve been here, I wanted to go
home! But he can never get his mind off his past, no matter how hard he tries.”

Alice appeared
thoughtful, her eyes unfocused for a moment before answering. “Jason does seem
to be a magnet for these people. Maybe it’s something to do with his abilities,
or maybe it’s something else. Either way, he is in trouble, and if you can help
us find him…” She left the rest unsaid, and I nodded.

“Once he wakes up,
I’ll be able to get a picture of his emotional state. For now, I can focus on
Nickels, and see if I can tell anything about what he’s up to.”

“Let’s get
outta
here first,” Mark said. “We should regroup at your
house until we get a direction to go.”

Hesitating, I
glanced at the crashed vehicle. “Jason isn’t here anymore, Sam. There’s nothing
more we can learn from sticking around here. The police will call us if they
find anything,” Mark’s voice was kind, and he understood my desire to stay in
the last place I knew Jason had been.

He was right.
“Okay, we can go.” I cast one last glance at the car, and followed the others
to our SUV. Hannah seemed to share my reluctance to leave, but she was still
ahead of me.

The drive back to
my house was silent, and I dreaded going back to the place I shared with Jason.
He wasn’t there, but everything there would remind me of him. It was a pretty
long drive home, so I decided to relax and attempt a connection with Scott
Nickels. The missing detective proved elusive.

We went back to
the house that Jason and I shared, and I continued my attempt to find Nickels.
Over the next couple days, reports from the accident scene began to come in,
and there was still no sign of my brother. However, it did appear that Hunter’s
car had been run off the road by another vehicle. Something Hunter likely could
have avoided if I hadn’t destroyed his mind.

Three days after
the accident I finally caught a hint of the missing detective’s emotions. What
I felt was… unexpected, to say the least. Nickels seemed, protective, for lack
of a better word. Some sense of dread was there as well.

Suddenly, it
seemed as if the detective was looking back at me.
“Get out of my head,
little boy!”

With a gasp, I sat
straight up in my seat, drawing the attention of my companions. “What
happened?” Hannah was the first to ask.

“I don’t know,” I
said breathlessly. “But I don’t think Nickels is who he says he is.”

TWO

Jason

My head is
throbbing, and my whole body aches. A faucet is dripping, and each drop feels
like an ice pick slamming through my skull. The water is all I hear. It is the
only thing I can focus on, and it is driving me insane. All I need to do is get
up and turn it off, but that is easier said than done.

First of all,
opening my eyes is a trick I’m not sure I am feeling up to. And everything
hurts. No part of me feels unscathed, although my head is definitely the worst.
A door opened, and I hear footsteps entering the room. The door clicked shut
quietly, as if whoever entered was trying to avoid waking me. Maybe it’s time
to open my eyes and see what’s going on.

As expected, my
first attempt at opening my eyes lead to a spike of pain, causing a hiss to
escape me. I suspected it would ease eventually. I kept blinking, trying to
clear my fuzzy vision, and was soon able to see shadows in the dim room. There
was a window nearly blacked out to block outside light. Only a slight glow came
in around the edges. I took a moment to be thankful for the darkened room, since
bright light would have no doubt led to even more pain upon opening my eyes. My
eyes adjusted to the near lack of light and I looked around the room. There
were two doors, but both were closed. One likely led to the hallway, the other
I suspected was a closet. The shadowy form of a dresser stood in the space
between the doors, and there was a small table next to the bed. No pictures
adorned the walls, and there were no knick-knacks around to prove anyone lived
in this room.

My face contorted
into a frown, and I slowly sat up, wincing at the muscles pulling as I moved.
What happened? Where was I?

Standing was
another challenge, but if I wanted to figure out what was going on, I needed to
move.

“You don’t want to
do that.” I jumped at the sudden voice, and glanced around the room. There was
a man standing in the corner, watching me.

“Where did you…What?”
I aborted the attempt to ask a question when my throat dried out, leading to a
coughing fit.

The stranger handed
me a glass of water. “Here; you haven’t had anything to drink all day. Take a
moment, and you will feel better.”

I watched the man
suspiciously through my watery eyes. Somehow, this guy literally showed up out
of nowhere. I’d looked at the entire room before. There had been nobody here.
The doors were still closed. So how did he get in? I’d heard someone come in
before I opened my eyes. Where had this man hidden? The man continued staring
at me, and it made me feel self-conscious. Why was I here?

“You gave me a
scare,” he said, once my coughing stopped. “It’s been a couple days, and you
hardly showed signs of waking.”

I narrowed my eyes
at that, the pain in my head and throat receded slightly with the intake of
water. “Days? What happened?”

Now the stranger
hesitated, and I suddenly noticed a rhythmic thumping that seemed to be
speeding up, I also noticed he took a deep breath before coming up with
something I was sure would be a lie. “I don’t know everything, but you had an
accident.”

An accident? If I
wasn’t so sure he was lying, I would have believed him. My injuries—a sore
back, neck pain, and headache, among other, more minor aches and pains—could
have very well come from an accident. His hesitation told a different story.
But I didn’t know enough about my situation right now to feel comfortable questioning
him.

There was no way
to know he wasn’t the cause of all my injuries. Until I knew more, I would need
to play along.

“Can you tell me
what you remember?” The stranger seemed reluctant to ask. He seemed anxious. Why,
I was unsure, but he kept his voice quiet. Almost as if he was afraid he’d be
discovered. Unfortunately, the cause of his fear wasn’t the only thing I was
unsure of. “What do you remember?” he asked again, probably noting the
confused, and possibly slightly lost, look on my face.

Thinking hard, I
tried to figure out what happened. I got a flash of a cabin in the woods, and a
strong feeling of both anger and fear but beyond that… “There’s nothing,” I
whispered.

“I’m sorry?” the
stranger asked. “What did you say?”

Speaking a little
more clearly, I looked up at the man and said, “I can’t remember anything about
what happened. I can’t remember anything.”

He looked
surprised, his dark eyes widening. “You remember nothing? What’s your name?”

Narrowing my eyes,
I wondered about how the man worded everything. It seemed as if he suspected
there was something wrong. Through the conversation, he never mentioned my
name. It seemed unnatural. Was he trying to figure out what I could remember?
Did he suspect that I wouldn’t remember anything? “Who are you?” I asked back
at him. “Why don’t you turn on the light and let me see your face?”

My aggression
seemed to surprise him, and he slowly moved to the wall to flip on the light
switch. The man in front of me was dressed normally enough: jeans and a T-shirt
with a leather jacket worn over it. But his face… his face was scarred. Half of
his face was burned, and disfigured to a point that I wondered how he managed
to survive what must have been agonizing pain. The eye on the left side… the
burned side, was a milky white. The unburned side of his face was unremarkable,
but there was a look in his eye… a dangerous gleam I couldn’t help but see. As
unassuming as he was trying to be, I suspected this man was dangerous.

He watched me
expectantly. “Who are you?” I asked again.

A frown appeared
on his marked face. “You truly don’t recognize me? I was not expecting…” The
man shook his head before finally answering. “You can call me Jeremiah.”

Jeremiah. I
searched my nearly blank mind for any reference to the name, but came up with
nothing. But he had said… He said, ‘you can call me…’ Did that mean he gave me
a false name?

“Am I…? Do I know
you?” I narrowed my eyes and frowned.

“The real
question, my friend, is do you know yourself?” The question was asked with a
hint of concern, but he still watched me with his predator’s eyes.

The gaze was
disconcerting, but the answer to his question was even more so. “Honestly?” I
said, my voice wobbling a little. “I have no idea.”