The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1)
Read The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Jody Klaire
The Empath
The Above & Beyond Series
Book 1: The Empath
Book 2: Blind Trust
Book 3: Untrained Eye
Book 4: Hindsight
Book 5: Midas Touch
Book 6: Black Ridge Falls
Book 7: Full Circle
© 2014 Jody Klaire
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any means,
electronic or mechanical, without permission in
writing from the publisher.
978-1-939562-66-1 paperback
978-1-939562-67-8 ebook
Cover Design
by
TreeHouse Studio
A Mindancer Book
BInk
a division of
Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company
Fairfield, California
http://www.bedazzledink.com
Aeron Lorelei is a young woman with a troubled past and a troubling gift. Blessed and cursed with the ability to sense the feelings, past, and future of those around her, Aeron lived as a misfit child. When she was sixteen, she took the blame for the death of her best friend’s little brother. Eleven years later she's released from the correctional facility and must go back to her hometown–the scene of the crime that no one has forgotten.
But Aeron must deal with more than just animosity. Someone in town is abducting and killing young girls. Aeron becomes the number one suspect and her distant father, the specter of her grandmother, and her mysterious psychiatrist must work together to discover the real killer. To prove her innocence, Aeron is forced to use the gift she has spent her life hiding.
To Hoody, Ollie and Uncle Terry—
You live in my words always.
For:
Mum and Em who go above and beyond.
And
For anyone who is that little bit different.
Acknowledgements
There’s so many people I need to thank that it’s hard to know where to start. One thing I will state first is that I may have put the words down alone but without the support and guidance from so many people, I would not have found the strength or knowledge to get my book released. If you’re a reader, yup you who has taken the chance on me, thank you. I really hope that you love Aeron and enjoy her story. To anyone who is starting to write and are unpublished as yet, you can do it. Don’t give up, work hard, learn and love it. There’s nothing better than letting your imagination free.
Okay . . . For the people on FB (especially the Clubhouse ladies!) and Twitter who have been so supportive, I really appreciate your kind words. To the Cloudies who have also been right behind me all the way, there’s so many of you but namely Katherine Hetzel, Louise Walters, John Taylor, Brenda Woodford, Ian, Emma D, there’s so many more but I could take a tome to list you! Britta Murasaki who helped me out with some of the finer points of Missouri life, thank you for your time. The Writers’ Workshop, you guys have given so much to us and I am so very grateful to have been pointed in your direction. Nikki, Laura, Harry and the team, extra chocolate for you!
To Pat and Ian Griffiths, you help me to be able to keep writing. Without your expertise, my hands may have fallen off by now!
Gerri Hill, Georgia Beers, your support of newbie authors and warmth towards me was very much appreciated! To the GCLS
who work tirelessly to offer great opportunities and to their educa
tion team and faculty (Liz M and Liz G especially). Wonderful organisation, wonderful ladies.
To my Betas: Sarah Rickman, Moira Spence, Glenda Davies (and Mel Oglesbee!) Joy Fry your lovely words and gentle encouragement really mean the world to me. To Mary Buchanan who beta read for me, thank you very much!
To Team Truth, Gena Ratcliff and Dani Dixon-Bradshaw, what can I say? I am so very lucky to have stumbled across you both. Your fervent love, belief in my work and joy really do make a difference to me. Thank you for all the uplifting chats, lessons in southern speak and pie recipes too!
Casey and Claudia at Bedazzled for taking the chance on me and my work, I couldn’t imagine a better home for Aeron. Thank you for helping me to share my stories with the world. To Sandra Moran, you know I think you rock, SFH, but your encouragement, your help and your patience for me mean the world. To Ann McMan, thank you for the wonderful cover, it is perfect for Aeron. To my fellow Binkies who have been welcoming and always ready to help and chat. TOTS!
Brie Burkeman, you may need to be canonised for your patience with a wide-eyed naive Welshwoman. Having the fortune to receive all your guidance, time and energy was and is truly a blessing. Debi Alper, I have never met such a passionate advocate for writers learning their trade. You have been an elite mentor who has taught me so much and yet has inspired me more. Everytime I have the pleasure of learning from you, it seems another facet of writing illuminates before my eyes.
To those who guarded me when that cloud hovered overhead: Fr Mike Komor, Mr B & Revd. Sue Beverly, Moira Spence and all in the CNB parish, it was in the depth of darkness that I truly found a welcome. Your teachings, love and support mean an immeasurable amount to me. You are warmth, welcome and light.
My family: Uncle Terry, you were a blessing that I will trea
sure always, there is no tenor that even comes close to you. Aunty Heddwyn, you inspired so much of Aeron’s experiences and I adore you for it, it was also nice to know that spiritual is in the genes. A special thank you for the armour too! Dad, whose stories and weaving of tales seemed a mark of my childhood. Those days of spooky tales, the castles, the love of the sea and the wonder of the stars at night ignited my imagination, thank you.
To two very special people that I could not be without yet no words can quite bring to life just how important you are to me: Em, home isn’t home without you, thank you for your eagle-eye, your constant patience and your love for Aeron.
Mum, for the love of literature you share, for the love and comfort that you give, for the endless cuddles and undying support. From reading me stories, to encouraging every creative whim I had, for the hours of queuing outside auditions and for your belief in me even when mine faltered. Thank you for loving my books, for sharing the stories and never giving up on me. Thank you for helping me to construct a sentence and for being as passionate about my writing as I am.
To the both of you for being there no matter what. I’d need more than words to express what you mean to me.
To THS, there is no Word greater, thank you for giving me Aeron and thank you for the light.
Jody Klaire
July, 2014
“Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God.”
—Ephesians 6:14 - 17 (NIV)
Chapter 1
MY PROBLEM IS that I know too much.
I see things. I can tell a person’s life from their jewelry, I can read other people like you would read the morning newspaper. Plus, I can displace ailments, heal and wound . . . and none of it is voluntary.
I’m different and for some people being different is what makes the world love them. They have talents that everyone else wishes they had. Hell, they might even be a genius of some kind.
I don’t know how to stop it and I sure as hell can’t control it. When I try to explain these “burdens” to people, I either become a freak-show, a threat, or they think I’m just another crazy person, which is why I am now in a secure mental facility and have been since the age of sixteen. I murdered someone—at least, I think I did. The authorities found me guilty of manslaughter.
My name is Aeron Lorelei. Aeron, because right up until birth, the family thought I was a boy and my father wanted a boy more than anything, a son called Aaron. They were all pretty disappointed when I appeared and at a loss of what to name me, they changed the A to an E and so I got a name that stuck out as much as I did.
Not that any of that matters anymore since I was convicted as no one in my family will admit I exist. Aeron, the odd runt who talked to animals and wandered around telling people things about themselves they didn’t want known. Who’d want that kind of gossip?
I mean, my family tried . . . really tried. I was even sent to a priest once. They thought some holy water and chanting was going to fix me right up but the priest was actually kinda nice. Still, I didn’t tell him a thing. Even back then I knew that my family and the local folks figured me for a freak.
They were probably right all things considering. Look where I ended up, wearing orange and sitting ‘round in a concrete tomb with a bunch of other misfits.
I share my cell with a woman named Lori. She’s a bulky woman with mad professor hair. Now, Lori murdered her entire family as they slept and I don’t think she even knows why. I can see this nasty dark cloud over her, its slimy tentacles leeching away her sanity. I could get rid of it for her but then I’d have to figure out what to do with it. Besides, it’s been attached for so long that it would leave a great big crater in her mind. Sure, they’d free her, they would say she had responded to whatever “miracle drug” they were dishing out this month.
Then, when she was out in the world, that great big hole would attract a different leech . . . Someone else could get hurt and it’d be my fault, like always.
So I do nothing but watch her getting fed on by the cloud over her head. It sounds cold, doesn’t it? I know, but I don’t believe in messing with the future, in messing with people. No one should have that kind of power or knowledge.
So, like I said, I know too much, and the last thing I want is to have more blood on my hands.
Chapter 2
AT LUNCHTIME, I sat in the usual spot on the bench in the cafeteria. It was me and the four other inmates I called friends. We’d been here the longest but if you thought that bought us any kind of dispensation, you’d be wrong. I didn’t really think that we were particularly devious, or violent but somehow we fell into a category that the Head Shrink would class as ringleaders.
In other words, if there was trouble of some sort, generally we were at fault . . . and when I say we, it was normally me.
The shrink told me that I liked to incite unrest. I’d call it standing up for human rights and objecting to being treated like a guinea pig but whatever name you gave it, that was us . . . well, more me . . . but guilt by association and all that.
My buddies were Aimee, Nora, Yasmin, and a girl originally from China. Her name was too difficult for us to pronounce without her breaking out into fits of laughter, so we called her Tiz. We’d stick together to stop some of the more vicious offenders targeting us. I may be tall and overly muscular but some inmates were so sucked into their pain that I could have the strength of ten men and not survive it.
“So how’s the new girl?” Tiz asked.
I looked at Lori for a moment, that nasty cloud sucking at her. “Desperate . . . she’s thinking about attacking Sheila.”
“She told you that?” Nora asked, picking at her thumbs.
I shook my head and tapped her hands until she stopped. I hated it when she did that.
“Ah, so third eye, huh?” Aimee chimed in.
I looked at Aimee. “Somethin’ like that . . . I think she’s had enough.”
Aimee and me, well, we had hated each other for years, right up until we’d been trapped in the laundry room with an inmate in a full psychotic rage. Fear, and the need to survive, had melted the ice. Although to hear us talk to each other, you would never believe it.
“If she takes on Sheila . . . Hell, she won’t make dinner,” Yasmin said.
I nodded, looking at Lori’s fierce expression. The cloud pulsated over her, black and soulless. I felt for her, and that was why I wouldn’t do a thing to stop her.
It was her choice.
As I thought it, she got up as if by my command and walked over to Sheila. Sheila spent most of her days locked in restraints, the woman was a walking mass of anger.
“Should we stop her?” Tiz asked.
“You kidding me?” Aimee scowled. “She’d rip your freakin’ heart out.”
The five of us sat there and watched. I guess you would call it morbid fascination. I wanted to turn away, I did. I wanted to lock myself in my cell and hide but instead I sat there watching.
Lori picked up a simple plastic fork from the table and jabbed it into Sheila’s face, right into the left cheek. Blood splattered out over Lori’s hand and the cloud pulsed over her.
Nora started fiddling with her hands and Tiz gripped my arm tight as Sheila exploded with fury. I felt my entire body ripple under her anger. She was like standing beside the mouth of an angry volcano—that was what normal people would feel.
For an Empath, it was like being burned by the spewing lava. My chest tightened as she roared. Tiz gripped harder. Lori jabbed the fork again and caught Sheila in the shoulder. The middle fork prongs snapped. Blood poured out. It was deep. I tensed, getting the burst of her pain as I sat there. Deep and agonizing.
Sheila pulled the fork off Lori, jammed it into her chest, and hauled Lori over two sets of tables. I winced, clutching my own chest, it had hurt.
The cafeteria was in chaos, people screaming and others chanting, the frenzy of violence stirring everyone up. Nora started biting her skin, Aimee scratched her neck, Yasmin hugged herself, Tiz squeezed the life out of my bicep.
I sat there, numb. Their pain thudded through my heart. I wanted to get up, to go over there and stop what I knew was going to happen. I could see both women’s intentions like they were picture books but it wasn’t my place to do anything.
It was their choice, not mine, theirs.
Unable to tear my eyes away, I sat still and awaited the inevitable crescendo.
Lori wasn’t done. She got up and hurled herself, a jagged half of the fork in hand. The guards sprinted over. I held my breath. Sheila lifted up her half . . .
Then calm.
I watched the chaotic scene in silence as Sheila and Lori fell to the ground with a thud. The guards tore at them as they tried to save them.
But it was too late.
The five of us exchanged looks. After ten years of being trapped in here with the tortured and unloved, we understood. I understood and that was why I’d done nothing.
They were free now—something I would never be.
Chapter 3
I ENTERED THE psychiatrist’s office for my daily session less than an hour after the incident. I was surprised to find that the elderly Doctor Bison was now a thirty-something woman with the brightest shade of lipstick that I had ever seen.
“Come in, take a seat,” she said, not once looking up from her notes
.
I did as I was told and noted the differences in the office from that of her predecessor. Doctor Bison had been in residence here for longer than most of the inmates had been alive. He had been the kind of man that Freud would have loved but more as a specimen than a fellow psychiatrist.
This woman, on the other hand, emanated a different energy. She was in love with her job, in love with her books and her certificates. She was proud of all she had achieved and she had not wanted, in the slightest, to be stuck in this institution with the likes of me.
“Aeron Lorelei. Unusual name.”
I nodded, slightly transfixed by the energy dancing around her. A go-getter.
“You were Lori’s cellmate?”
I nodded again and chose to stare at the large certificate of the Doctorate instead of the woman who so clearly couldn’t be bothered to look at me. Doctor S. Llys. So she went to Yale, Ivy League then.
“It says on your file that you believe you can see the future.”
I sighed. Most people who started off with “you believe” generally finished by saying “delusional.” I may be many things, but I know what I see.
“You saw Lori attack Sheila?”
I folded my arms. “In what context?”
Llys looked up, her steel-gray eyes unnervingly clear. She thought I was trouble. If she kept up her attitude, I would be.
“Is there more than one?”
“You start by saying I see the future, then asked if I saw Sheila and Lori. Therefore it ain’t too obvious to assume you’re referring to my foresight other than the actual events.”
She raised her eyebrows.
Yeah, I read, lady. I can throw out a sentence when I need to
, I thought.
Stick that, Ivy League
.
“Did you see it . . . beforehand?” she asked.
Human curiosity. All the degrees in the world couldn’t suppress the inner-gossip.
“Yes.”
She sat back and perched her hands together in a prayer-like pose. I half wondered if she was going to do just that. “You saw Lori attack Sheila, and you didn’t stop her?”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
I looked past her out of the window. When you’re stuck inside four gray walls for years on end, it’s funny how much greener the world always looks beyond . . . even if it was through bars and barbed wire.
“Freedom,” I answered.
“Yours?”
I laughed. Now, she was just being dumb. The only thing it would offer me was peace from Lori’s screaming all night long and her desperation coating the walls of the cell like thick black tar.
I didn’t bother to answer and that seemed to rile Miss Ivy-League right up. “Did you convince her it was a good idea? Is that the way you work? Is that how you and your friends entertain yourselves?”
I raised an eyebrow. Did psychiatrists come off production lines? If they didn’t get a satisfactory answer to shove you in box A, B, or C. They went for an attack instead.
“Nice of you to think so highly of me.”
“I haven’t come to any opinion of you yet,” she answered.
“Haven’t you? You sat for twenty minutes reading the notes of a man who should have been retired forty years ago. You borrow
his
opinion and he didn’t know me.”
Llys smiled.
I smiled back.
I’d just told her exactly what had happened and it confused the hell out of her. She would put it down to perception skills or guesswork. Doctors are like that.
“So who are you?” she asked.
I tried not to roll my eyes, if in doubt switch the question. “Aeron Lorelei . . . but then I thought you’d read it on the notes.”
“Is this the way it’s going to be, Aeron?” she asked. You know you’re definitely irritating them when they use first names.
“That depends on you, Tess,” I shot back.
She froze. How could I possibly know her mother’s pet name for her?
I smiled. No use in trying to outplay an Empath. We can see all your cards.
And that’s when our first session ended.
Abruptly.
She kicked me out.
It was the first time I’d been kicked out of a session.
I liked it.
Chapter 4
THAT NIGHT I managed to sleep for the first time in a month. I could feel that somewhere, wherever people go after they leave here, I could feel that Lori was happy. The next morning, however, Llys had decided to assert her authority in the hope of wearing me down. In short, she had separated me and the other so-called ringleaders.
I breathed in the biting cold of December and tried not to shiver with fear. She’d not only separated me but she’d stuck me in the yard with Sheila’s fellow fury-fiends. All of which I knew instantly felt that
I
was responsible for Lori’s attack.
In here that kind of attention would see you in the infirmary and that was if you were lucky. My neck prickled with the cold and the wave of hate as I wandered over to a pile of fallen snow. Pure, pristine, gleaming snow undisturbed by the boots of the inmates.
I knelt in front of it. There’s something magical about snow, at least to me. It reminds me of how my childhood
should
have been. The days spent building snowmen and riding sleighs, the warm toasty fires and the sweet hot chocolate.
My childhood had been nothing like it. Pushed from pillar to post as my parents worked longer and longer hours. The brief promises of how, when Daddy got his promotion, he would be home more or when Mommy won this case she would take time off.
Neither did.
I spent most of my time with Nan. I’m not even sure if she was my grandmother and that was a pet name or if she was an elderly woman who had nothing better to do than babysit a misfit. When I look back, I can’t ever recall her talking much, she would either be fishing, tending to her vegetable garden, or reading. Nan loved to read.
An angry voice broke me from my trip into memories. “Lei—A word.”
I sighed. Whenever someone shortens my last name or asks for a word in here, it means they want to rip my head off.
“What’s up?” I asked.
I knew the second I turned around, the woman belonging to the huge shadow on the snow was going to swing for me. The longer I delayed, the harder it would be for the guards to ignore what was happening. One was already itching to intervene, I could feel her.
“You Lori’s friend?”
I shook my head. I was no one to Lori. Lori didn’t know where the hell she was by the time she’d gotten into the cell. All I had met was a screaming shell.
“Are too . . . I know you bunked with her.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. A flash of the woman’s intentions made the hairs on my arms prickle. What was with all the violence?
“They put her in my cell,” I said. “I didn’t know her.”
“Liar!”
She lunged. I rolled to the left and got to my feet, my attacker now sprawled in the snow. Three of her friends started to run over. Hell, they were going to tear me to pieces.
I looked up at the guards, who turned away. Thanks a lot.
Damn, I was in trouble. I looked around at the yard. Four massive walls, armed guards on top, a chain-link fence, penning me in like a turkey at Christmas. My eyes lifted to the guard who I could hear wanted to help, she was
desperate
to help and so I walked as calmly as I could back to the gate.
My heart thudded so hard that I thought my ribs were going to break. The sound of the heavy boots crunched on the grit and sludge behind me. My breath was loud and rapid.
“Get her!”
A little further, just a little bit further, come on
. The clomping got nearer, my heart—
thud, thud, thud
—I could make it. The guard was itching to help. She was new, it would wear off.
I could hear the mob behind me shouting, their thoughts crystal clear.
Kill her, rip her apart, pound her head, stamp on it
. . .
“Please,” I blurted as I got to the gate. The guard opened it instantly and locked it behind me as the three bear-like women charged into the solid iron.
I smiled at the guard, hardly able to hear over my heartbeat. “Thanks.”
She nodded and moved me away from the flaying arms of the crazed trio. “Why did they put you out there with them if they hate you?”
I met her eyes for a moment. First day. She had a hell of a lot to learn. “They don’t hate me, they just want to crush anything that moves. They’d happily crush each other.”
“You aren’t like them,” she said.
“No, but the guards will tell you I’m trouble, which I probably am. They won’t like that you just got me out of a hiding.”
The guard frowned. “I’m sure they would never do that.”
I smiled. “You’ll see. Watch the rotation—my friends will all be in with the lynch mob at some point today.”
“Why?”
“I dared to answer back. Crazy people ain’t allowed opinions.”
The guard wasn’t completely convinced. I could see her running through the training that she had been given. The training that informed her that the inmates in this institution were as crafty and slippery as they came. Diligence at all times.
She took nearly half an hour to navigate the rabbit warren of corridors to take me back to my cell. Not that I minded, I needed the time to calm down.
I didn’t say a word the entire time but listened to her feelings, her worries and I owed the woman. “Piece of advice. In these places it’s you or us . . . outsiders or insiders. If they think you aren’t completely one of them, you won’t last long.”
“I appreciate the honesty,” the guard said.
I smiled. “It’s an ear infection by the way . . . she needs to go to the doctors.”
The guard tilted her head. “Excuse me?”
“Your daughter, she’s not ignoring you, she has hearing problems. Right now, it’s an infection.”
The guard looked down the corridor and back to me as if to say, “Did I speak aloud?”
“You don’t have to believe me but just think of it as me returning the favor. Oh, and stick her in front of a piano.”
The guard looked at me in disbelief. I was used to it. “Maybe I’ll try that.”
“I would. Don’t forget that you think I’m a troublemaker. They’ll like that.”
The guard smiled. “Noted.”
I walked back into my cell and lay flat out on my bed. My friendly guard would be gone in six months, she was pregnant. I wanted to tell her but realized she already knew. She was working in this place to get enough money to see her through to the birth.
I wasn’t sure how she was going to cope with life in here. It was hard enough when you lived in it day after day but to leave the world outside and spend time in the gloom of the institution, who the hell would want that?
They were more desperate than us.
Chapter 5
I FELL ASLEEP in my cell after my rescue. It was one of those odd siestas that left me feeling groggy and confused. I lay there between full sleep and awareness and tried to lift my consciousness. In that state, as an Empath, I’m in danger of visions and if there’s one thing I hate more than anything, it’s visions.
A simple person falls into sleep and processes the day before. Occasionally they have an odd dream where their husband becomes a monkey and dances the samba . . . but all in all, safe, sweet dreams, right?
For me, a person’s odd dreams are my vision-time. I get wonderfully horrific glimpses of events that haven’t yet happened. It never works on a simple level either. If, for instance, someone was going to find the love of their lives, I would see smashing heat and fire crushing everything in its path. Their passion, my inferno.
None of it even remotely pleasant.
Unable to drag myself from a doze, the dream began, only it was not future but past replayed.
I had always liked Jake. He was Sam’s brother. Sam was my best friend and we were joined at the hip from the age of eleven. He had been the guy who every girl loved. I loved him but not in a cuddly way. Empath’s have a bit of trouble in that area. We don’t know if what we feel is us or simply a projection of someone else’s emotions. At a very young age, I decided that it would be better for the world if I never attempted to find out.
So, Sam and I were as close as you could get. Jake, his junior by two years, followed us everywhere. I doted on him. Sam put up with him. Wherever one was, the others were.
A trio of terrors, that’s what his mother called us. She was right. If we weren’t breaking into the old soda pop factory to steal glass bottles to shoot at, then we were raking the floor under the machines in the arcade.
Coming from a small town in the middle of the Ozarks, prime tourist country, we had more than a few tricks to earn money. Some of them a little more light-fingered than I like to remember but then I did end up a murderer so no use sweating the small stuff, I guess.
That night, the one I have replayed a thousand times, we were out by the old rail crossing on the far edge of town. Sam and I had come up with the brilliant idea to strip the copper from the signal posts and sell it for scrap. It seemed like fun and we had done it a million-and-one times. We could get a fair amount for scrap.
That night, Jake had followed us. Sam was furious because Jake could never keep his mouth shut about anything. I quite liked the trait in him. Jake was honest, sweet, and adored me. He detested Sam like an ogre. Brotherly love for you.
We stripped the signal and loaded up the pick-up truck that Sam had “borrowed” from the campsite out in the fields. I hopped in the passenger seat as Sam and Jake began to argue.
It’s always at this point the dream gets foggy, confused, and out of place.
I’m in front of Jake, he’s telling me it’s illegal, that we need to stop stealing, that someone will catch us. The ground rumbles as a high-speed train hurtles around the corner. Jake tries to grab for me, my hands stretch out. He’s gone. The blast of air hits me backwards.
I woke up and, as always, I sat bolt upright, clutching my pillow, desperately trying to pull Jake back. It was always too far, too late. Jake was gone and it was my fault.
“Doctor Llys would like to see you,” I heard my friendly guard say.
I half turned and nodded.
“Do you need a few minutes?” she asked.
I shook my head and pulled myself to my feet. A quick splash of water on my face to wash away the past I couldn’t change and I was off to meet Doctor Llys . . . round two.
Chapter 6
LLYS GAVE ME one of
those
looks as I wandered into her office. The “you’re late” look. The one which people who are always early for everything give those of us who really don’t give a damn. I gave her a look back, the one that said, “Yeah, I’m late. Deal with it.”
“Did you enjoy your exercise?” Llys asked, attempting not to scowl.
“Oh yes,” I said. “Especially the part where Uma landed on her ass.”
Her real name wasn’t Uma, but it was another of those very long and foreign names that none of us could manage. This time, I thought Scandinavian or maybe Polish, I wasn’t really sure.
“You enjoy other people getting hurt?”
I sighed. She was back to borrowing Doctor Bison’s opinions again. Bison felt that I was plotting to take over the prison. I’m not quite sure what he felt I would accomplish by this but the man was paranoid and way past his expiration date.
“You get she was attempting to take my head off at the time?”
Llys raised an eyebrow. Course she did. “Why, when you’re so sweet and innocent?”
One piece of advice. Never bug a person who has been locked inside four gray walls for as long as me. We have a tendency to get testy. “Using patients to fight your battles only shows weakness. You wouldn’t want the rest thinking that you were fallible now, would you?”
“Point made,” Llys said.
Darn right it was. If she tried it again, she’d have to figure out how to remove her pen from . . . Well, you get the picture.
“I heard you were having dreams?”
I looked at the door. The friendly guard had been worried about me, she was too good for this place.
“You were in distress.”
I shrugged. The dream still probed at my groggy senses.
“Do you have it a lot?”
I looked Llys in the eyes. “You’ve just spent the last session trying to beat me into submission. Why the hell would I tell you anything? You don’t care. You don’t even want to be here.”
Llys looked at me for a moment or two and then nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be here, but I am. I’m not too bad at my job either, so maybe . . . I could help.”
Normally, I would have seen this change of tact as a subtle maneuvering but I could see the truth shining around her. When someone tells me something and means it, they shimmer like glitter has fallen from their lips. It’s kinda pretty.
“Do we have a truce?”
Again Llys nodded. Again honesty.
I leaned back in the chair. It wasn’t like I was really giving anything away. I’d told Ol’ Bison the same dream a hundred times. He’d managed not to snore . . . once.
“I’m at the railroad crossing. Jake is there. The train comes and hits him.”
Llys nodded. “Where was Sam?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I read the report . . . hazy as it is. Sam, Jake’s brother was there, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“So, where was he at this point?”
I replayed the dream but my entire focus had been on Jake. Every sound, feeling, every second suspended in time as I grab for him. “I don’t know. I was too busy trying to save Jake.”
“But it says in the file that you confessed to his murder.”
I looked up. “I was sixteen and I’d just let my best friend’s little brother get hit by a train. That’s murder.”
Llys made notes. I hated it when they made notes. I couldn’t see what she was writing, which irritated the hell out of me. She wasn’t as open to reading today, maybe she had taken me seriously. Some people are so good at blocking me from their thoughts that I can’t read them at all.
Sam was one of those people. That’s why it was so nice to be around him. I could be a person.
“Why did you run?” Llys probed.
“Because I was scared, because we had a stolen truck with stolen signal wire . . . because I was in shock . . . I loved that kid. I mean,
really
loved him. Like he was my own little brother.”
Llys’s aura flickered. It resonated with her. So she was human. Go figure.
“The police said neither you or Sam told anyone what happened. Sam denied ever being there.”
I nodded. I had told Sam to say it. It was bad enough that I couldn’t stop Jake getting hit, the last thing Sam needed was to be looked at by his own family. It would make my story look weaker if Sam denied everything.
It worked too. No one believed a word I said. I was the loner, the odd one, the kid who no one wanted around. It was easy to blame me and believe that the son of the mayor was innocent.
“He lied?”
“Course he did. Sam had a big future ahead of him. I was just a thieving little runt.”
Llys frowned. “You were the daughter of the local police chief.”
“The only part he played was long before I was born.”
“But it says your parents were married?”
I nodded. “Yeah, she had about as much input. They preferred their ambition. I rebelled.”
Llys smiled. “Explains the thievery.”
“What better way to get Daddy’s attention than to make him look bad in front of his colleagues.”
Llys sat back in her chair. “Did it work?”
I laughed. “I could have robbed the local bank and paraded the money on top of his desk and it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“I
know
it was for one reason alone. I wasn’t a boy. He managed to produce one measly kid and not only was I a girl, I was his worst nightmare.”
Llys looked at me for a moment. She liked to do that. I didn’t mind, while she tried to decipher the messed up childhood, I read into why she was here when she didn’t want to be.
“So, you believed he didn’t want you?” she asked.
“I
know
he didn’t want me. He told me. You know that my parents worked a crap load less than they said they did? They used to have dinner parties but they didn’t want me there. They borrowed one of the girls from school if my mother’s partners from the firm came around.”
“Where were you?”
I closed my eyes. Nights spent in the watermill cabin with Nan. The smell of trout cooking and the crackle of the fireplace, the slosh of the water hitting the window from the wheel. “Nan’s.”
“Did you get along with her?”
I opened my eyes. “We never spoke. I’m not even sure if she could speak. I’m not even sure who the hell she was.”
“You said she was your nan.”
“No, I said she was Nan. Whether she was a nan, my nan, or her name was Nan, I have no idea.”
Llys looked up at the clock on the wall. For some reason they felt bad when they checked the time. Like I cared that they needed me to leave so another poor soul could get the third degree. I’d have to have feelings of my own for that.
“If what you’re saying is right, you didn’t kill Jake, Aeron. I know you may not wish to acknowledge my opinion but you seem unable to grieve until you find a resolution in your mind.”
I nodded. She was probably right but in my mind I was responsible. And, I would remain responsible, indefinitely.
“Enjoy the dinner,” I threw her way as I wandered out the door.
“I thought we had a truce?”
“We do. Your cocktail dress.” I pointed to the bathroom door, a glitzy twinkle came from the hanger-bag.
Llys laughed. “In that case, thank you.”
Chapter 7
MONTHS PASSED AND Llys and I seemed to find a common ground. I started to tell her about my dreams and she started to trust that I was telling the truth. She didn’t believe in my gifts, but she did accept that I did. So, when I told her about a dream I’d been having about Yasmin leaving, she came clean with me.
Now, I don’t see the future, I’ll swear blind to you that I don’t. What I see is snatches, symbols and, like I mentioned before, all fiery infernos. None of it makes the slightest bit of sense but I’d been dreaming over and over about Yasmin. I could see a pair of shoes up on a wall, a gurney with a black bag, and Yasmin’s hand hanging out of it. I could see a gun and it scared the hell out of me. These weren’t symbols, these were pretty clear pictures and that’s why I told Llys.
Llys told me that the parole board had indeed sanctioned Yasmin’s release. Even the thought made my stomach clench. I had seen what would happen. Yasmin had it in her head that she would be the next superstar. She would quite happily tell you that she sang like a strangled cat, and there were tree trunks less wooden than her but, in spite of these drawbacks, she was still going to win every award.
That
ambition
had seen her end up on the streets at age thirteen.
Yasmin was a nervous sort. She came in not long after me for killing the man who handled her on the streets. She was from Farmington originally—a small town girl, like me, but she loved the city. She talked a lot about the life and the clubs and of course, the glamour of the stars and how if she could make a name for herself in St. Louis she could head out to L.A. in first class.
I saw through it all though, I never told her so, but I knew the truth. Yasmin had no one, nowhere to go and she was terrified that the people her handler had worked for would find her and shove her back out on the corners.
She chain smoked and drank black coffee by the barrel, her yellow-tipped fingers always adjusting her hair. Even in rec time, she would dress like she was off down some red carpet and that was pretty hard to do dressed like an orangutan.
Yasmin was a kind soul at heart. Her ash blonde hair, the mask of makeup, the dumb-blonde routine was all a cover. When you got past it, you got to see an intelligent, sweet-natured woman who had been given a crappy start. I didn’t even think that she should ever have been sent here but she had told me, once, that it was to protect her from her life outside.
Today, Yasmin was getting out.
The others had hugged and whimpered and shed tears and murmured “write to us” requests but I had said nothing. I couldn’t.
“You been silent, sweetie,” she said as I walked her to the guards.
“Don’t go back there. You can find money some other place. Hell, you can go to Nan’s cabin . . . live there . . . you’ll be safe there.”
“And miss my shot at stardom?”
I pulled her around to meet my eyes. “I mean it, Yasmin. You know. You know what I see.”
She kissed me on the cheek, wiped the lipstick off with her nicotine thumb, and started to waltz out of my life. I stood there helpless. Another person I cared for was about to be taken and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it. I’m guessing that was why it happened. Before I could stop and think logically, I took a plate and threw it in Yasmin’s direction. It clanged right off the bars next to her head.
“Don’t do this!”
Three guards hurled themselves at me as I watched her heels clicking away.
I felt the friendly digs and lost it.
As I said before, I’m muscular. Really muscular. I have spent years in the gym trying to exhaust myself enough to sleep without dreaming. So, the guards had one hell of a time trying to subdue me. They were about to hit me with a shot when Llys’s voice stopped them.
“Bring her to my office.”
The guards muttered and I fought them every step of the way. I couldn’t let Yasmin go, I had to stop her.
“Get off me!” I scrabbled out of their grasp to run, got tackled from behind, and hit the floor. “Yasmin. Please!”
She looked like she’d come back for a second but one of the other guards pulled her away and out of sight. I threw the heavy bulk of a guard off my back. I had to get to her . . . reason with her.
I got half way down the hall, then one of the grumpier guards, Val, smacked me into the wall and the lights went out.
Chapter 8
I CAME TO in Llys’s office with her holding smelling salts under my nose.
“Glad to see you’re back,” she said.
I tried to get up, remembering with a burst of adrenaline, that Yasmin was getting away. I didn’t get far, I was strapped down. “Please, you have to stop her.
Please
.”
Llys sighed and walked to her desk. “Yasmin had no reason to be here anymore. She served her time, there was nothing I could do.”
“You know she’s going back. They’ll pull her body out of the river. Please.”
The flashes of what would be if I didn’t stop it pulsed through me like venom. My skin dripped with it, my heart screamed as it beat, my stomach cried out in agony of what would happen. If Yasmin went back, she would never survive.
“I . . . can’t. I tried, Aeron. I contacted the police department to see if I could find someone who would listen.”
“And?”
She shook her head. “I think the exact words were, ‘We have enough to deal with without pursuing crimes that
might
occur.’ ”
I hung my head. It didn’t surprise me. It sounded like my father. I’d tried to help him with a case once, when I was, maybe, nine. A big case, one that no one else could solve. He was a detective back then, commuting to the same big city now sucking Yasmin into its claws. I had told him where to look and who to look for. He’d replied, “Enough of your fairy stories, don’t you have dolls to play with?”
Two months later, he had solved the case, only after he had followed my visions. I know he’d done it out of desperation and when I had been right, I didn’t get a hearty well done or a thank you. No, that’s when I got sent to the priest.
“So, that’s it?”
Llys sighed. “I know we disagree vehemently on your belief in foresight but my logical observations tell me that Yasmin is going to head straight back to where she thinks she can make her fortune.”
“What the hell does she want for a fortune anyway? Yasmin wants kids, a perfect husband, and a white picket fence. What the hell is a fortune going to bring her?”
Llys offered me a warm smile. “Love, Aeron. That’s what she thinks. Acceptance, adoration . . . attention.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wanted love . . . attention. Look where the hell it got me. Strapped to your chair, knowing my friend is about to walk head first into a pistol.”
“Why don’t we just hope that both of us are overreacting and Yasmin will be sensible?”
It was a half-hearted consolation and Llys knew it.
“Because we both know Yasmin.”
Chapter 9
THE SUN WAS shining down, beating heat through the bars of the cafeteria on the day the news filtered through about Yasmin. They had found her in the river. She had been free less than a week. It was the only time that I had ever known the cafeteria to fall silent. Even the monster mashers over in the corner dropped their heads.
Everyone had loved her.
Nora sobbed huge tears onto Tiz’s t-shirt. Aimee hugged herself, head bowed. I stood staring at the friendly guard as she wiped a tear from her eye. I’m pretty sure Aimee had tried to console me, she didn’t often but I registered her hand on my arm.
I wandered in a daze down the corridor, my head empty, everything so numb.
I didn’t cry, I seem incapable of it, but I
wanted
to, I
willed
myself to, but nothing. Not a single tear would fall. That’s why I figured it was all my fault like when Jake died. I should have said something more, fought harder, I should have forced her to stay.
Now it was too late.
I know days passed as I sat alone in my cell. I know that I stared for weeks at the solid brick wall opposite my bed. I know that I ate the food brought for me by the friendly guard and I know that I must have showered, must have slept, must have gone about in some routine because I didn’t end up in observation. That’s where people go who don’t look like they are going to make it.
Whatever I managed to do, I wasn’t present. I switched off. Another friend falling from my outstretched hands while I stood by helpless. Life became a blur, people, places, time, a wash of gray over an empty canvas. No details, no real emotion only a slideshow of life before my eyes.
I looked up then, one morning, to the high window in my cell and saw the sunlight stream gently onto the floor. The dust floated in kaleidoscope-colored shapes, dancing before my eyes. A form emerged, only briefly, but it was enough to break the numbness from my senses. It was a picture of Yasmin, she was happy, smiling . . . and she had new shoes.
The vision made me laugh. One thing Yasmin had always wanted was a pair of new shoes, mainly to buy them herself, it was her definition of success. Fancy shoes meant you must have it all.
I found myself waving at the dust, knowing that as I did, the vision would fade before I could see her wave back. I promised her then and there that if one day, I ever got out of this place, I would buy the most expensive pair of high heels I could find and display them on my wall just for her.
Her voice echoed in my mind. “Just make sure they’re sparkly, sweetie!”
Chapter 10
LLYS HAD SEEN me a lot in the months I’d spent in a daze. I think I must have worried her because that day, as I sauntered into her office ten minutes late, she didn’t scowl. In fact I thought she was going to get up from behind her desk and hug me senseless. I know she was seriously considering it, her aura danced like the Northern Lights.
“You’re okay?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be that. But I’m with it again, if that means anything.”
She smiled. “It does. May I ask what sparked this?”
“Depends if you are prepared for me to talk about freaky stuff.”
Llys smiled again. Hell, she
was
glad to see me.
“I will take it. Just don’t expect me to buy it.”
I nodded and sat in the chair. It felt like yesterday, not months ago, that I had been strapped to it. “I saw her—she’s okay—she has new shoes.”
Llys laughed. It was actually nice that she got Yasmin as much as I had. Whichever way we had got there, the conclusions were the same.
“You know, I don’t agree that you have a gift, but I will concede that you were right. I only wished I could have convinced the police to listen to you.”
I shrugged. “A tip off from a person locked up ain’t really going to win you brownie points.”
Llys sighed. “I guess not. Have you seen the others?”
I shook my head. “No. I just hope they’re okay and they’re speaking to me.”
“They are. Nora has found an outlet.”
I cocked my head. Nora was always fiddling with her hands, her nerves and her worries with nowhere to go, so they turned on her instead. “What did you convince her to do? And can you see her hands under the Band-Aids?”
Llys laughed. “She doesn’t pick anymore.”
I shook my head. That
couldn’t
be possible, could it? “What did you do to her?”
“Art therapy.”
I folded my arms. “Bison tried that . . . made her worse.”
Llys nodded. “Very true. Mostly because he was unimpressed she wasn’t Renoir at first try.”
“You know he should have been committed too, right?”
Llys said nothing, she didn’t have to, her thoughts sung like church bells on summer evenings.
“Thought so.”
After that session, I started to get a sense that Llys trusted me. I was one of the longest servers there. I could help her to get a feel for the other girls. I was happy to help. I figured that as I hadn’t been able to save Yasmin, maybe, somehow, I could help stop the others going the same way.
The institution where I lived wasn’t easy to cope with. Most people got shoved from pillar to post. Lesser offenders flitted in and out. Then, they’d get shifted to another institution. It was unusual for anyone to stay more than eight years in one place.
The folks at the top had some kind of policy that shifted everyone around to stop them becoming institutionalized. Toward the end of their terms, some of the girls would go to half-way houses or minimum security places. It was always like watching salmon trying to get to the top of the river, some would make it and some would just come right back.
Thing is, you stay in a place long enough, it becomes a habit, you get in a routine and us humans love our routines. Makes us feel in control.
So, you can imagine what someone who has lived in one place for five or so years would feel like when someone says, “right, now we’re going to move you someplace else.” It was pretty distressing to watch and for days before the transfer list was announced, the whole institution descended into mayhem. I always expected to be on the list. I never was though, which was really odd. Not that I cared either way. I didn’t really have strong feelings about anything much. I just hated the panic it stirred up.
Especially around a full moon.
Chapter 11
THE MOON IS so beautiful, she shimmers through the clouds or glows with the red of an unseen sunset. Sometimes I can even see a face on her. I think it’s the sea of tranquility. Whatever it is, it’s captivating and I ain’t the only one to think so, I don’t think. Her magnetic presence has been a source of fascination for mankind since someone looked up and saw it hanging there on a cloudless night.
Did you know that the moon apparently controls the tides of the sea? So, is it a surprise when the human brain with its squishy fluid gets affected by her pull? A pull so strong that it moves the earth’s oceans? Some people seem fine with it. I don’t know what it is exactly but I know that here, the effects of that pull fill me with dread. Not because the people here become monsters or nothing, but because of the torment.
You see, I feel them all . . . in here.
I’m trapped in a big concrete lump with hundreds of tortured souls. And during a full moon, especially before the transfer list, their pain roared through the halls like a giant wave of agony. The only place I could escape was the gym.
As dumb as it sounds, pumping, running, hauling, rowing helps me to focus on just the physical. It’s my therapy, I guess. I stop thinking and receiving all the signals and relax.
Not that my mind ever calms totally. I’ve got too many scars, too many thoughts for that but here in this empty gym, I found a little solace. It was the only thing I ever asked for a little peace now and again. So, you can imagine my irritation when I felt someone wander into my little space.
“Mind if I join you?”
I turned at the sound of Llys’s voice. She didn’t look like the kind of woman who was a gym bunny.
“Sure, as long as you keep your emotions to yourself.”
Llys raised her eyebrow. “I’m on nightshift . . . busy couple of days.”
I nodded and went back to my set of fifty but I could sense her watching me. She wasn’t here to work out, she was here to talk.
“Spit it out, Doc,” I said.
“Am I that obvious?”
I nodded. “To me you are. Don’t worry about Aimee, she’s always uptight until she realizes she ain’t leaving.”
Llys slumped down on the weight bench next to me. “She’s being moved.”
I put down the weights before I threw them. “What?”
“They sent me the list today. She’s being moved. They want to try integrating her back into society.”
I got up, walked to the punching bag, and beat the crap out of it. “Let me guess, there’s nothing you can do.”
Llys was hurt by my comment. She pretended otherwise but she felt it.
“I didn’t mean . . . I’m sorry . . . full moon and all that,” I offered.
Llys nodded acceptance of the apology.
“You know, she won’t cope with norms. Someone will say the wrong thing and—” I hit the bag hard to emphasize the point.
“I know but unless she can prove she’s not ready . . .” Llys said.
I looked at her for a moment, realizing why she was paying a visit to the gym when no one else would be around. “And what kind of something would help convince?”
“She once told me she was a spaceman in a former life,” Llys said. “If I think she believes that she is one . . . say now . . . then, I could put it down to the stress of her being moved and stop it happening again.”
I turned to her. “I don’t think she needs to be here for
that
long, Doc.”
Llys smiled. “I agree, but until she has healed up enough she needs to be somewhere she feels safe, and for some odd reason, that’s here.”
I nodded. Aimee had been through most of the institutions in the country before ending up here. She was happy here, even when I had been zoned out for months. Aimee, Nora, and Tiz were really close now. They were all a couple of years younger than me and it felt really nice to know they could keep each other going.
“Spaceman,” I started. “Got any spare fishbowls?”
Llys laughed and patted me on the shoulder.
When she was six, she fell off her bike, she had three stitches in her left arm. Her boyfriend in school was the prom king, she adored him. They married in the snow in front of a hundred friends and family. He left her two years later for a teenager he’d met at a club. She passed every exam with top grades in med school and flew into the top position at a leading university. Her “relationship” with her Dean had seen that come to an abrupt end and she was shunted into this job. She’d hated every second, first of all, but now after starting to see people beyond her medical assessments, she felt happy. Her mother always called her Tess, always. The reason why it irritated her so much was that it was her sister’s name.
I shook the information free from my head. Too much data uploading causes my brain to freeze like a computer would.
“What just happened?” Llys asked, rubbing her hand.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Apart from the massive static shock you just gave me, fine.”
I smiled, relieved that she didn’t have a clue how much I had just learned about her. “Probably just the bag.” I thumped it for good measure.
“So, you’ll talk to Aimee?”
I nodded. “Doc’s orders.”
She smiled and started to leave.
“Hey, Doc?”
She turned and raised an eyebrow. “What’s your name?”
The question seemed to catch her off guard, she worried if I was playing with her.
“Just a simple answer, Doc. You know my name.”
“Serena,” she answered.
I saw the uncomfortable wobble her aura gave off. “Serena’s a really nice name. I knew you weren’t a Tess.”
“And how is that?” Llys folded her arms.
“Your certificate says S. Llys, not T.”
Llys laughed and left me to my work out and I needed it. How the hell was I going to convince Aimee to go along with the plan? How was she going to pull it off? And how the hell had I managed to win the doc ’round?
Must have been the moon.
Chapter 12
BEING IN A secure institution wasn’t a lot of fun, especially when it was for psychiatric reasons. Yet, there were times when somehow, we managed to make fun of the hell we lived in. That was going to be my pitch to Aimee anyway. It was bad enough knowing that you had a malfunction somewhere inside your head but being asked to play on it really pushed it.
And that’s what I was asking Aimee to do.
I don’t think that Aimee was wrong about being a spaceman in a past life. Even I couldn’t tell that much about past lives, but she came out with feelings and quotes that were not in the least like the Aimee I know. I’m not sure what the medical name for Aimee was but she heard things. I couldn’t see the people that whispered to her, and I can normally see spirits if they’re present. Aimee believed what she saw and heard was real but I couldn’t see any of those nasty black clouds with tentacles, and her brain seemed to work well, unlike many of the psychopaths here who seemed to have an entire section of their brains switched off.
Aimee, to me, seemed to be able to hear a hell of a lot better.
I told Llys that, and she smiled at my evaluation. See, the thing was, none of the psychiatrists had ever diagnosed her with anything definite. But one day Aimee woke up, took a rifle, and shot every adult male that she could find—which totaled five. Before that, she had been a happy-go-lucky kid with a loving family. A family that still visited her weekly. Aimee simply gave the reason, that the voice in her head had told her that these men were evil.
Now, normally when someone hears those kind of things, I can see the odd fluctuations they give off. I’m not sure if it’s a short circuit or they really are picking up someone else’s thoughts—but with Aimee—there was nothing. That was when Llys told me something.
“She’s lying,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
Llys smiled at me, she’d gotten warmer with her expressions after Yasmin. “There’s nothing wrong with her. Well, there is. Just not the mental health issue she is portraying.”
“I don’t know what you mean?”
Llys wheeled her chair over to mine and dropped her voice. “She murdered someone and wanted to cover it up.”
This news floored me. I had a million questions and none of them were pleasant. I felt cheated, why the hell would Aimee pretend to have problems?
Llys seemed to read my thoughts and placed her hand on the arm of my chair. “Aimee shot the man who attacked her sister. She then shot the other men who testified to his alibi. The police wouldn’t help the family, didn’t believe them, and so Aimee made sure her sister wouldn’t have to live with seeing them.”
What can you say to that? I’d have done the same. “Why crazy?” I asked.
Llys smiled. “Aimee is very intelligent. She worked out her defense before she committed her crime.”
“You said she needed to heal. If she’s so calculated, why?”
Llys met my eyes, gray, clear, baring her soul. “Aimee was in love with one of them.”
I got a flash of Aimee in her normal pose, she would always fiddle with a gold ring she hung around her neck on a chain. A ring too big to fit her little hands.
“Didn’t the police figure it out?”
Llys nodded. “They did, but they couldn’t prove otherwise as the original complaint that Aimee’s sister made had never been filed.”
“How is her sister?”
Llys shook her head. “Moved away. That’s all Aimee will say.”
I rubbed my hand through my hair. “So, why did she want to come here?”
“I think Aimee knew she needed help to process what had happened. Now she’s told me the truth, we’re doing just that.”
I grinned. “You know. You’re not bad . . . for a doc.”
“Thank you.”
A couple of hours later, I sat next to Aimee while Nora showed Tiz her masterpiece. I’d thought about a million ways to break the news softly to Aimee but when I opened my mouth it was neither soft nor eloquent.
“You’re getting shifted,” I said.
Aimee launched into a tirade, screaming that her
voice
was angered. The scene normally tormented me as if I was going through the very same thing. To watch someone you care about suffer was hell on earth but this time, I knew better. Not only did I know better but it irritated the hell out of me.
I never raise my voice, I don’t have outbursts unless I’m really upset and because of that, and the fact I’m tall and built like Samson, it seems to terrify everyone when I do and Aimee in particular was petrified. I grabbed the bench and hurled it across the cafeteria. I knew Llys would be watching and would keep the guards at bay for a moment.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I can’t take it anymore. It’s too much, those voices hurting you.”
I flipped over another bench. Being destructive was actually quite fun.
Aimee grabbed me. “Stop, please . . . I’m okay now . . . stop.”
I gripped her by the shoulders. “Of course
you’re
okay . . . You’re a spaceman.”
Aimee looked at me like I’d grown three heads. “Aeron, you’re scaring me.”
“Why? You’ve seen loads of aliens, right?”
Aimee caught the glint of something in my eyes.
“You know spacemen can’t leave the ship. Who the hell would fly this thing?”
A second later Aimee was on the table, using her dessert bowl as a helmet. “I will not leave my crew!”
“Never!” I yelled.
Nora and Tiz joined in. The wonderful thing about these places was that we made our own entertainment. The dafter the better. Within minutes the entire cafeteria was filled with inmates with dessert bowl helmets, some still with Jell-O inside and fork phasers.
Aimee merrily led the adventure for almost an hour before Llys finally sent in the guards to break it up.
Most of us hadn’t had so much fun in years. Being locked up did have the occasional perk. As we were herded back to our cells, Aimee mouthed her thanks. She didn’t need to, I knew how much it meant to her that someone shared her secret.
Chapter 13
LLYS WAS ON the phone as I got to the session. I could see that she was getting the kind of news she wanted to hear. I hoped it was Aimee getting to stay but I was quite happy to have another few hours of recreating space camp.
“Thank you, I’ll be in touch,” Llys told the other person and ended the call. She looked up and feigned a smile. “I was impressed at your little show earlier.”
I shrugged, sensing that Llys wasn’t happy about something.
“I’ve never seen you violent,” she said.
I looked up at her. She thought she had spotted something and I knew it had set her alarm bells ringing. “I was trying to help Aimee.”
“You threw that bench half the length of the room.”
I nodded. “You know I work out.”
“You were angry.”
I sighed. “I was. She had been lying to me . . . for years. How was I supposed to feel?”
Llys tutted. “I thought you could see the future.”
I frowned. “You breaking the truce?”
Llys nodded. “If you could see everything, you would have known.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t work like that. I don’t want to see or sense anything about anyone. Don’t you understand? I don’t want to know my friends personal thoughts.”
“But you think you do, so why was Aimee different?”
“People who ain’t emotionally charged can be harder to read. Some people are good at concealing it. I don’t know how or why?”
Llys made the prayer-like pose with her hands again. “I thought you were an expert.”
“No one gave me a freakin’ handbook.”
I jumped to my feet and paced. She’d tricked me, like Aimee, she’d used me to help and then used it against me. The truce was not only off, it was obliterated.
“You don’t need one if you will just admit that it may not be real.”
I turned to Llys. “You’ve been lying to me?”
“You. Tell. Me.”
Provoking an Empath is probably a hell of a lot more dangerous than provoking any other inmate. Especially when you are scared of their gifts. I stomped over to her and snatched the pen she always played with in the sessions.
“You tell your friends that your favorite food is nouveau cuisine because you think it makes you look more sophisticated when your real favorite is a croque-madame. You wear high heels even when your feet are so sore that you can barely walk because your ex-husband left you for a girl over six foot—”
“Stop it!”
I shook my head. “Your mother calls you Tess, because she knows that to call you the name of the sister you hate makes you feel pathetic. She thinks it toughens you up but all it has ever done is rip away your self confidence.”
Her desperation made me see past the barrier she’d erected, everything clear. She tried to snatch the pen away. “Your favorite color is blue, you have two dogs called Sasha and Misha, your dad was your hero, your first pet was a goldfish named George.”
I leaned on the desk and threw the pen down. “And you are wearing red lacy underwear that you bought as a luxury to make yourself feel better when you’re stuck in a hell hole day in, day out.”
Llys looked at me, her face pale. There was a crap load more I could tell her and she knew it. I knew now I’d seen the truth.
“Forget the job. Get the hell out of my life,” I barked and slammed the office door behind me as I left.
I stormed down the hall. The guard, Val, went to grab me. I turned around and pinned her against the wall. “You ever lay a finger on me again and I’ll rip your tongue out and feed it to you.”
She dropped to the floor with a thud as I let her go. I knew Llys was watching. I knew she didn’t know what to think.
One thing was for certain. I was done helping.
Chapter 14
I STORMED into my cell, slammed it shut behind me, and the fury got worse. I felt like one of the fury-fiends. Over and over I kept re-running what Llys had said. Even after everything, after Yasmin, she still thought I was a whack job. I dropped to the floor, hoping that push-ups would help me to calm down but it didn’t work.
Maybe I
was
responsible for everything. I mean, I had known what Lori would do. I didn’t stop it. Was I the black cloud? Did I have tentacles? Was I a leech?
Stuff always happened around me. The weather got weird when I was in a bad mood. Mishaps always seemed to happen when I was near . . . that was why they thought I was a trouble maker. Was I? Was that what Llys could see?
I sped up my repetitions, the rain slammed against the window, the weather reflecting my mood.
Every catastrophe that had happened, I could see them, feel them, hear the screams, and I lived the fear and panic of the people involved. Places that I had never been, people I didn’t know, rocketed pain into the deepest part of me. So had I caused them? What the hell was I?
Jake had suffered, he had suffered greatly. It wasn’t instant when the train hit. I knew that but instead of running the mile or whatever down the track to attempt to save him, I did nothing. I had all this knowledge that I didn’t want and I didn’t ask for.
Well, no more. I wasn’t going to live with this stupid crap a second longer. I wanted it gone. To do that meant I needed help from someone, someone who at least believed that these things could be possible. That meant going to the one place that scared me far more than any vision.
Chapter 15
DISCERNMENT IS THE ability to judge well. It’s something that comes from experience. So, when I wandered into the chapel, my experiences had taught me that this chaplain was going to think I had a screw loose.
To my surprise I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Now, I’m not a particularly religious sort. I understand all the billions of points of view and belief systems and I’m quite happy to think that there’s good and evil in the world. I get that, I have seen the bad in action. What I wanted to know was, what the hell was I supposed to do with these
burdens
?
The chaplain wasn’t actually a chaplain. The normal guy was apparently on a retreat but the man who was there instead was Father James McLaughlin. He was a Roman Catholic and a Jesuit, which was an Ignatian, too. I didn’t know what that meant when he told me but, to summarize: St. Ignatius believed that you could discern what was good or bad by how it made you feel.
In a nutshell, if it made you feel all good things—joy, peace, happiness etc.—then it was from a good place. If it made you feel hate or violence etc., then it probably wasn’t from a great place. It seemed pretty simple put that way. So, I asked him about fear. My visions terrified me, and I told him all about them. I expected him to start flicking water over me but the guy didn’t. Instead he told me that some people in his faith were prophets, they had gifts and some of those gifts were scary.
He even told me that some people had been petrified when angels had appeared to them. I didn’t blame them. People were scary enough. A vision of an angel hovering with its huge wings would more than likely convince me that I
was
crazy.
Then he gave me a passage. He told me that I had choices, that I should talk to the Big Dude about them. I wasn’t quite sure about yabbering to the ceiling but I did take the passage and I used its principles to build a wall. It was all about armor and how the believer’s faith could keep him or her safe.
That was when I built my own armor.
You see, every time I touch a door handle, a table, anything that someone has touched before me, I pick up their signals. I wander around battered by people’s thoughts and feelings day and night. The only place I don’t is my cell. So, I asked for gloves. I wore them everywhere. The barrier worked too. I stopped seeing Jean’s obsession with jigsaws and Tiz’s love for shiny objects. I refused to see Llys again too.
I had resigned myself to spending my days here. It was as good a place as any. The less people I had to press my buttons the better for my equilibrium. The fact that Llys didn’t push it told me she was afraid of me. I was glad. If she was afraid, she would leave me the hell alone.
I did one other thing. I needed something other than a workout to take my mind off the world around me. I tried listening to music first but artists leave a part of their essence in their work. It’s like listening to a life story on an audio book. No, I needed an outlet. So I requested a violin and as I had been in the prison for so long I got it without any arguments.
I didn’t know if I was any good and I didn’t care. I enjoyed it and hour after hour I learned every piece of music I could find. So my armor was in place and I found a little more solace than I had before.
Chapter 16
SERENA LLYS LOOKED at her appointment list and wrote in DNA—Did Not Attend—next to Aeron Lorelei’s name. Aeron perplexed her somewhat. A fierce intelligence lay beneath her gentle eyes and under her impressive athletic stature lay a very large heart.
One thing Serena had learned about Aeron over the year she had been the head psychiatrist and that was Aeron Lorelei adored her friends. Aeron had no idea how much comfort she brought them. Not many inmates crossed her and that, coupled with her . . . talents . . . unnerved even her fiercest enemies.
In short, Aeron was a force of nature.
She had no idea how frightening she was. Aeron Lorelei in a temper was akin to a cyclone sweeping through the institution. And Serena had ignited that temper. Yet, at no point did this supposedly vicious murderess threaten her well-being. All Aeron had done was prove a point that had been obvious to Serena from day one. Aeron had no affliction of the mind that should see her in this place. Aeron
could
see everything that she said she did . . . and Serena had no doubt, much more.
Serena sighed and looked down at Doctor Bison’s file on Aeron.
Unknown to Aeron, Bison had been a close friend of Mayor Roger Casey, Jake Casey’s father. Bison had made very sure that Aeron would never be released. He had marked her as sociopathic, psychopathic, prone to inciting violence, and taking pleasure from the chaos. He had noted her as sadistic, had even fabricated several instances in support of his theories, and Serena had believed the entire thing. Only after being here for months and watching Aeron, did she change her opinion. Aeron suffered alone, protected her friends, and projected a calmness that gave strength and courage to all around her.
It had worn away at Serena’s dislike. Then after seeing the affect Yasmin’s death had inflicted on Aeron, she had resolved never to doubt Aeron again.
But, when Aeron had hurled the bench halfway across the cafeteria, Serena had assumed the worst. She had assumed that Aeron had been toying with her all along and it had stung.
Serena looked at the pen on her desk. Professional pride, she was terrible for it. All insecurity based, she was honest with herself enough to admit that. And so, Aeron who had just helped her friend Aimee not to be thrown at the mercy of the world, had gotten the blunt end of Serena’s bruised ego.
Unprofessional, unkind, uncalled for, and unnecessary. Serena added irredeemable to that list.
Whatever hurt she had caused Aeron, she was now isolated from everything. The gifts that she possessed, the ones that could help so many, had now been bound by barriers and solitude.
And it was up to Serena to fix it.
The problem was, Aeron Lorelei scared the hell out of her. Not only had she recited secrets that even Serena’s closest friends didn’t know but she knew why Serena was there in the first place. That, and she got under her skin and
no one
got under her skin.
No one
.
So far she had said nothing but she knew that Aeron had seen. She knew the truth and that was dangerous for them both. She tapped her pen against her notepad. What to do?
She got up from her desk and headed out into the corridor, ignoring Val and her cronies gossiping and taking bets on which newcomer would break first. She headed to the gym but it was empty and the only other place Aeron would be at this time was her cell. The closer she got to the cell, the more entranced she became by the beautiful strains of violin music wafting from someone’s radio.
The tune was from the
Moonlight Sonata
. Breathtakingly beautiful and emotive on piano and now it was being sung by a lone violin and took on an eerie sorrow that gripped right at her soul. She got to Aeron’s cell door and her heart lifted. She couldn’t contain the gasp of delight that fell from her lips.
Aeron stood, in her tiny cell, her eyes closed as she produced the most heavenly sound that Serena had ever heard. The melody pulled at her, it’s mournful, emotional release coursing into her, hypnotizing her into a meditative state, leaving her breathless. Her tears fell thick and fast as she listened to this lone soul pour out her heart to her wooden friend that reached places she never realized were possible. Far beyond this place they soared, higher and higher in a siren-like serenade. A lonely, lost angel in a world where no one understood her. What life had she known?
On and on it built, the crescendo of chorus, the dips and pauses, the mighty Beethoven’s Sonata filling the air like moonlight dancing on the rippled sea of her emotions. The sweet solo finished and Aeron opened her eyes. She nodded curtly at Serena.
“Incredible,” Serena whispered, her voice hoarse from tears. Her senses reverberated as though her own heart had been as bowed as the violin.
Aeron said nothing. She placed the instrument into its case and sat on the bed.
“I didn’t know it had been done on violin.”
Aeron shrugged. “I liked the music, so I adapted it.”
Serena walked into the cell to look at the music notation. She had played a little cello in school and she knew enough to know that the elaborately written manuscript was the work of a virtuoso.
“It’s just for me,” Aeron said, as if reading her mind. “I ain’t playing to a theatre full of people . . . even if they are ten feet away.”
“Have I hurt you that badly?”
Aeron met her eyes for the briefest of moments. Yes she had. Serena had wounded her. Aeron had put her trust in her and it had been shattered.
“It’s too late to apologize to you, the damage is done,” Serena said, placing the score back on top of the tiny dresser. “But, for what it’s worth, I am truly sorry.”
Aeron nodded but her eyes were fixed on the wall, the same as when Yasmin had died.
Serena knew that Aeron thought that she felt nothing, but about herself, she was always wrong. Aeron felt
everything
, that was her problem. She felt so fiercely that her brain simply couldn’t cope with the onslaught. Serena was going to have to do something drastic in order to show her exactly how much of a hero she could be. But, for now, simple words would have to suffice.
Serena looked Aeron long and hard in the eyes, so that she would know every single word was true. “I believe you.”
Chapter 17
I HAD PRETTY much figured that I was in for life, that my gifts would forever mark me as someone to be kept from society. So imagine my surprise when the transfer list announced that I was getting out. I had to ask the warden to read it again when she said it. I was being thrown out. I had been inside for over a decade, for my
entire
adulthood. What the hell was I going to do out there?
Tiz, Aimee, and Nora celebrated like I had just won a fortune but I was too terrified to move a muscle. Where the hell would I go?
A load of thoughts shot through my head about how I could convince Llys to let me stay. Was that why she’d come to see me? The statement of belief a mere parting gift? What the hell would I do in the real world? Who would give someone like me a job? How would I feed myself? I’d end up a hobo, I’d end up cold and alone, I’d end up like Yasmin.
“You’ll be just fine,” Llys said from behind me.
I spun around, fighting the urge to grip her and shake the sense back into her. “Don’t do this. I did everything you asked.”
“It’s not a punishment—”
“Ain’t it? Where the hell will I live?”
I heard my voice echo off the walls, the guards edgy. My friendly guard had been gone for months and was well into motherhood. There were no comrades on the other side now.
“You’ve served your sentence—”
“So you abandon me? Like Yasmin?”
“Calm down,” Llys said.
“Calm down? You just signed for me to get thrown into a world where I don’t know how the hell to exist!”
