The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) (15 page)

Chapter 80

I CAME AROUND feeling like my jaw had been set in concrete and spent most of that week sucking my food through a straw. Renee had been in the room with me most of the time, and I’d had to pretty much force her to go and get some rest. I knew that she was trying to keep me from thinking too much. Thinking ’bout Sam, thinking ’bout all he’d done. Thing was, I blamed myself. There was nothing she could really say that would make that any better. No matter how much she tried, no amount of words would really heal the wounds he’d inflicted because of me.

One thing that kept me from needing a permanent visit to Serenity was my father. He was up and about, his leg set and his throat healing. He was lucky not to have snapped his neck, Renee told me. I was thankful for that thick ol’ rind of his for the first time. 

He’d been in to see me a few times but as he could only croak and I wasn’t much better, we’d sat in silence. The only time he had spoken, he’d told me he was sorry. Sorry that he’d never said nothing about Lilia and sorry that he’d messed up so bad. I’d tried to tell him that it weren’t his fault but I guessed we had come out of the same tree and if I was feeling responsible, nothing I said would make him feel no different.

Seeing his injuries made me want to hate Sam. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t but I couldn’t, same as Sara. Sure, I hated what they did—I really hated it—but hate them? I guess I just wasn’t capable of it.

So, with nothing better to do, I sat there stewing, staring out at the top of a green tree and trying to block out the nurses’ aching feet, an elderly lady’s desperation as she tried to find her dentures, and the woman next door’s infatuation with the junior doctor. Good thing I’d been in a mental institution already or I would have thought I was crazy.

The door opened and I lifted myself up ready to give Renee an ear-bashing for not resting. I stared at a woman in my doorway.

She was me, or an older, more ladylike version at least. Even the hair. That’s why my father couldn’t bear to look at me. We were like clones. Heck, I was so much like Lilia that it was a mirror image. Sure, it was a freaky funhouse mirror but wow, it was unreal.

“Can I come in?” she asked, hovering in the doorway.

I shrugged. My brain warred with my heart. I mean, this was my mother, my real mother, the woman who gave me life, the one who I was bonded to in gifts and some pretty strong genes. But she was my
absent
mother. She weren’t my mom. She was just somebody I had known nothing about, a mother who had abandoned me and sat back while I went through hell, alone. Renee had said she saw stuff, so did she know? Had she seen what damage her running off had done? Could she see how much it had crushed my father?

Still darkening the doorway, she hesitated. “Your jaw looks better.”

I shrugged again. I hadn’t seen my jaw. To me it was twice the size of Blackbear and not half as pretty.

This woman, this stranger, walked in and sat in the visitor chair. “When you were a child, I saw something that forced me into a choice.” She stared out of the window. “I could either ignore it, stay with the family I loved.” She met my eyes. “And I still adore.” She flicked her eyes away again. “Or I could stop the horrific from happening.”

I cleared my throat, which felt like I’d swallowed a cactus. Talking weren’t easy with the metal in my jaw. “Renee said you stop things happening.”

“Not quite,” Lilia said. “I learned long ago that I must never tamper with fate, only heed its warnings.”

I looked down at my hands, picked at my fingers, wondering how much I’d see if I touched her, how much she had held back from me. Would I finally see the truth?

“That’s what the group does. I see a person who is instrumental in an event—”

“The center of the storm?” Trying not to glare at her, I picked away. Norah had picked back in the institution. I had told her off for it so many times. Had Lilia seen that? Had she let me spend over a decade of my life in there and done nothing?

“The center of the storm, yes. I’m not sure what they are doing there, or why.” She was trying to catch my eye but I didn’t want to look at her. “But I know that they are either the cause, the victim, or the one who breaks its grip.”

It sounded about as useful as my gifts were. It sounded like she was grasping in the dark. I didn’t like it. Going in blind and messing around with folks’ lives didn’t seem right or fair.

“That’s what the CIG team does.” She leaned forward, crossing her legs all ladylike. Guess we weren’t clones in mannerisms. “Renee protects the person while the others try to discern what role they play and what will happen.”

It sounded dumb, even if Renee was a hero. What was she doing with those people? “May as well hang seaweed out to predict rain.”

My mother met my eyes, I expected her to argue but she smiled. I was irritated with myself for responding to it. One, ’cause it hurt like hell to smile and two, ’cause she didn’t deserve a smile. “That’s why we need someone who can read people.”

I lay my head back and closed my eyes. This must be some kind of a delusion. Mothers, even long lost ones who’d just up and left, would maybe engage in small talk or ask forgiveness.

But no. Here was my mother, my betraying, abandoning, lying mother sitting in my room and trying to guilt me into being what? Another her? “I don’t mess with stuff. I’m done seeing.” That sounded like I was in kindergarten.

“It doesn’t work like that, Aeron.”

Uh uh, she didn’t get to use that “I’m your mother” tone with me. No way. Iris had tried it and gotten nowhere, like hell was Lilia. “Doesn’t it? The only thing I’m planning on doin’ is gettin’ in the car with Renee and heading the hell out of here.” I glared at her. “An’ as far away from you as I can get.”

I wasn’t shocked by the bitterness in my voice but I was shocked at how much I wanted to hurt my mother back. At how much I wanted her to feel all she’d put me and my father through.

“Renee will be back at work as soon as I ask her to be,” she said. Curt, cutting, and pretty much like Frei. Who the hell did these people think they were?

“She promised me.” I folded my arms. Renee would do like she promised. She would. She said so. 

My mother smiled again, like I hadn’t snapped at all. “Renee is an agent first, and above everything else.”

Short of sticking my fingers in my ears to block her out, I made do with picking the blanket. “No, Renee ain’t. Did you miss that part? Miss the bit where she is desperate to see her mom?” I hung on the word mom, just so she realized what real mom’s made their kids feel. “Do you know that she has been so many people that she doesn’t know who the hell she is no more?” These people didn’t care about nobody and I didn’t want Renee nowhere near them.

Lilia tilted her head. “Renee is a wonderful agent and an incredible woman.” She ran her nails over her skirt and picked strands off it. “That’s our problem. We don’t have anyone like you. You see through covers and lies, you see the truth. I see pictures of the future.”

Yeah right. “You see a bunch of symbols and try to figure out what they mean.”

She sighed. “We’re a lot more alike than you realize—”

“We ain’t nothing alike.”

She reached across the bed and touched my hand.

I didn’t want to leave, I would have given anything, but I could see them, feel the fear, the screams, I couldn’t ignore it . . . Dan listened to me. He headed off to his people . . . they were waiting on the tracks, the medics at the ready when the train left it. I had the choice . . . let them live or die . . . but I’d seen it for a reason.

Telling Dan meant I had to leave, I had to leave my baby, my love . . . I had to go far away from them, never tell them, never contact them. I had to watch him marry other women, watch my baby in someone else’s arms. The only person who really knew where I was, Nan, vowed never to speak another word as it broke her heart in two.

I had to . . . I made that choice. I stand by that choice.

“I don’t expect you, or your father, to ever forgive me.”

I was reeling. I could see the vision she’d had, like mine but of the future. She’d been terrified and it had driven her almost to madness. Telling my father’s best friend, a man who she knew worked for CIG, had been the biggest risk of her life. She’d risked everything, but on that train, hurtling off the track was a young man. That man had made a breakthrough in science. That breakthrough had saved hundreds of thousands of lives around the world.

She’d done it to save lives. Would I have done that? Would I have left? What the hell kind of a curveball was that for life to throw at you? “Why couldn’t you say nothing?”

Eyes still locked on the imaginary fluff she was picking off her skirt, she sighed. “The people I see. Persons of Interest—”

“Yeah, I heard Renee mention POIs.”

My mother smiled. “Well, they can be anyone, from someone important to the future of society, a mass murderer, a criminal, or a normal average everyday person who just happens to do something extraordinary.”

“It’s nice to know I was under the murderer marker . . . thanks,
Mom
.”

My mother shook her head. “I never believed you would harm another soul for a second. If I thought you would, Renee would not have approached you.”

Not sure if I bought that. I narrowed my eyes at her. “I thought she was a rough and tough agent.”

My mother’s nod was so enthusiastic that I couldn’t help but smile. Darn it. “Oh, she is.” Her gaze drifted to the window again. “But I made a mistake once and she will live with the scars for the rest of her life. Never again.”

My stomach did a back flip into my throat. “Scars?”

“I want you to think about what I have said.” Her changes of subject sure as shoots weren’t subtle. “Aeron, you could save more lives than you realize.”

Two could play at that. “Have you spoken to Dad?” Take that one. Hah.

She shook her head, her eyes narrowed. “No, and I won’t either.” Her lips twitched in a smile. “I can’t until I know what you’re going to do.”

Oh that was sneaky, throw it out there and wait for the bite. “Why?”

Again, a smile, a challenge in her eyes. “I’m not going to tell you.”

I grabbed her hand. The truth hit me like a crowbar. In short, if I didn’t go, my mother would have to stay with the team. If I didn’t go, my father and my half-sisters would have to go it alone.

“I thought you weren’t using your gifts anymore?”

Sneaky, conniving . . . “I don’t get why.” Why couldn’t she see them? Folks knew who she was in Oppidum. “I don’t understand.”

“We’re dealing with fate, with nature.” Her eyes sparkled with her belief in the cause. “I believe we’re being guided, I truly do, but the team, no matter how skilled, they can’t go it alone.” Her sad smile said it all. “One of us needs to be there.”

What the heck kinda use would I be? “But I can’t see the future.”

Again her eyes narrowed.

I folded my arms. “Can’t.”

She pursed her lips. She had perfected the “You’re not being truthful, are you?” look that Nan had worn so often. “You
can
but not like me. I will still give you the cases but from here.”

That gave me a lot of choice. “So, you’ll stay, raise the girls?”

“I missed out on you, so yes.” It sounded like she meant it, the truth even shimmered from her but I still found it hard to believe.

I looked out of the window. “And Dad?”

Her aura lit up as she smiled. I guessed she felt as lost without him as he had without her. “I’ll make sure he never worries again. Promise.”