The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) (3 page)

Slam.

Why not give them to someone, anyone but me? Why me? Why? I hauled the remains from the kitchen out into the yard and bellowed at the sky. “What the hell do you want from me?”

I slumped down next to the rubble, feeling so empty, so tired. What was the point in giving someone like me superpowers? I couldn’t use them, I didn’t know what to do. Why not endow a world leader or someone who counted with them? Why me? Who the hell was I?

“You’re no one,” I told myself.

I sat staring at the pile of rotted wood as though it represented my life. I was in a daze, and I don’t often feel that way. I keep going, I don’t even know why half the time but I do. Right now, though, I felt like asking the point of it all.

Everyone else seemed to play at life on an easier level—settling down, raising kids, a career, and vacations in the sun, laughter, happiness, friendship. It all seemed a given to them, some more than others. I felt like I was playing life on nightmare level. Everything I wanted to do, even the simple things were guarded by twenty-foot walls and the snarling hounds of fate. “You will not enter.” Everywhere I turned, people turned away from me, their words sharp and jagged to my heart. “You don’t exist.” But, if I didn’t exist then why the hell did it hurt so much?

“It gets better,” I heard Llys’s voice say.

I stood up so fast that I got stars in my eyes. “Doc?”

A hand on my arm told me I wasn’t hallucinating but the blood was thudding in my ears like I’d pass out any second.

“Doc? How are you here?”

The evening air was setting in and the cool breeze wrapped around the shadowed corners.

“You missed your appointment,” she said.

My vision cleared a little and Llys swayed into view. Her concern almost making her look angry.

“I had an appointment? When?”

“Today,” Llys said. “At two. You didn’t get the letter?”

I sighed. “Post office is run by Jake’s Aunt Edna. No mail for a murderer.”

Llys frowned even deeper. “So where are you staying while you fix this place up?”

I shrugged. I was starting to get the feeling that Llys’s mood was heading south.

Her aura flickered as she stared at me, waiting for an answer. “Don’t you dare tell me that you’re living in there?”

I shrugged again. “Where else would I go?”

Llys muttered something under her breath as she looked up into the sky. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who yelled at the stratosphere.

“Your father could have at least put you up until it was livable.”

I laughed. I could hear the bitterness in it blaring like a foghorn. “My father?
Mine?
And break the habit of a lifetime? Oh no, my father can kiss my—”

A slate from the top of the stacks of supplies smashed to the ground. Llys squealed as she jumped.

I couldn’t help laughing.

“It’s not funny. They are tied on . . . tight. How?” Llys walked over to the supplies and prodded at the bundles.

“Sorry. Nan hates it when I cuss.”

“Nan?
Your
Nan?” She laughed, putting her hand on her chest and staring at me like I’d grown a set of antlers. “You said she died.”

I nodded.

Llys paled and moved away from the stack like it would bite her.

“Relax, Doc. She’s just scolding me.”

Llys didn’t look at all convinced, so I led her into the now stripped lower floor of the cabin. Only the cold stone floor and the damp stained walls remained of the place. All the furniture and goods had been sold years ago, leaving only the trunk with Nan’s belongings for me. I walked to my camp in the center and watched Llys as she took in the place.

“It’s huge,” she said. “I’ve stayed in lodges smaller than this.”

I looked around, trying to see the place through her eyes. The first floor was the length of a small field, its stone walls in odd shapes jutting out here and there. The entire place was built around the watermill that brought power and the flour mill that it linked to so the back part was pretty much all cogs and shafts and clunking mechanisms—when it was working.

The cabin provided everything Nan and I had needed. The river powered the place, provided food and the field and mill provided the income. Even if I couldn’t fish, Nan had been the greatest at it and I loved her meals, I just didn’t like murdering the poor critters.

The only one bathroom was on this floor at the back. I’d fixed it all up the day after I had arrived. The pipe to the septic tank sure hadn’t been pleasant to sort out but it beat using the great outdoors.

“Upstairs is a few floors. They’re all open so you can see right into the kitchen from the top,” I said, walking to the wall that would hold the wheel again when I re-attached it. “This here used to be the living area. I used to love looking out as the water from the wheel splashed against the window.”

I went to the steps as Llys smiled.

“If you trust the stairs, I’ll show you ’round.”

Llys nodded and followed me up the rotting staircase.

“See, Nan always slept there.” I pointed at the large expanse of wood. The light marks from where her bed had been for years making the rest look dirty and worn. “Nan said she couldn’t sleep without the whir of the wheel. she suffered with her ears . . . ringing or something. It used to drive her mad.”

“Tinnitus,” Llys said. “It’s not pleasant . . . and I thought she didn’t speak?”

I nodded. “She didn’t, but then she didn’t have to.”

I walked to iron steps that curled around the huge drive-shaft that would normally be rotating. It stretched right through every floor to the roof where the hot water and electrical box had been set up.

“What does it do?” Llys asked as she joined me.

“Runs the electricity. It’s like the spine. If you could see the mechanism back there, it runs the flour mill.”

“Why all the way up?”

“Well, the further you get from the point of power, the less output you get. The river gets pretty strong in winter so I guess it made sense to keep the electrical box up top and keep it from surging.”

Llys stepped closer, eyeing the edge nervously. “It’s a bit dangerous, isn’t it?”

I raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

Llys pointed to the cast-iron steps. “If your Nan was sleeping here, you were upstairs, correct?”

I nodded and made my way up to the next floor, followed by Llys.

“And at no point did a great big hole in the floor worry anyone?” Llys gave me an incredulous look. “There’s not even a guard rail.”

I laughed and stepped out onto what had been my floor. It was more cramped than I remembered. The absence of furniture made it feel even more neglected. It was all used to pay for Nan’s funeral. A funeral that she hadn’t wanted. No, Nan had wanted to be burned on a pyre and scattered over the mountain but my father wasn’t having any of her wishes. He had rules to follow . . . as always.

“Nan would have known if anything was going to happen. Health and safety wasn’t necessary.”

“With you tearing around the place? Your Nan could have had a siren on her head and not stood a chance.”

The echo of a laugh swept through the drafty windows and Llys shivered.

“No wonder you see things. This place is enough to make anyone feel like they can communicate with the dead.”

The laughter whispered through the breeze again.

“What
is
that?” Llys asked, hugging herself.

I looked at her. I felt lifted by the fact she was paying attention to my mischievous Nan. “She likes you. Let’s go back downstairs. I can make you some tea or somethin’ . . . if you have time?”

Llys smiled. “Actually, I do. I’m on vacation and I was off to the mountains after your appointment. But it’s late so I might just pitch outside if it’s okay with you?”

I folded my arms. “You hike? As in wander lonely as a cloud?”

“Very droll, Wordsworth, and yes, I like hiking. I grew up in the Rockies.”

The picture of the prim-and-proper doctor trudging up mountains dressed in flannel and a windbreaker made me chuckle out loud.

“Don’t judge a book . . .” Llys said as we climbed back down to the first floor.

“You’re more than welcome to pitch in here,” I offered. “It seems odd but the wood keeps the heat in and it shelters you from the creeping crawlers.”

Llys raised an eyebrow, skeptical. I saw a flash of a little girl holding her daddy’s hand, his medal in the box.

“He was a great man,” Llys whispered more to herself than me.

I nodded, not really knowing what to say.

“Is that why you joined?” I asked.

Llys broke from her thoughts and looked at me. “I thought we had a truce.”

I wagged my finger. “Uh uh, you broke that truce. Remember?”

“You shouldn’t know any of it. I’m serious. Hell, Aeron, you freak me out.” She folded her arms and shuddered.

I shrugged. It was probably true and if anyone ever asked, they would never believe that Llys hadn’t told me herself. “You don’t have to answer. It’s just—”

“What?”

“It ain’t exactly professional . . . you being here and the fact you just happen to have your equipment with you. You’re here for a reason.”

Llys sighed and walked out the door. Had she gone? Was she coming back? Did she want me to go after her? I stood there wondering what I was meant to do and walked to the door to follow her and stopped. I’d look silly if she was coming back. I went back to the middle of the room. I did this a couple of times until, a few minutes later she came back in with a fully packed hiker’s backpack.

Thankful that she hadn’t seen my dumb wandering ’round, I watched her set up. First came her tent, then her sleeping bag, a camp stool, and finally some kind of luxury camp stove. I’d never seen nobody, not even Nan, erect a camp at that speed. It was like breathing to her. I knew better than to ask if she wanted help. One, I’d get in her way and two, she had a
system
. I learned quickly from Nan that when a woman’s got a system, you leave her to it.

“So, you gonna spill it, or we just gonna ignore the obvious?”

Llys sighed. “I don’t know how much you can tell, but your talents have me intrigued.”

I nodded. “That and you’re waiting for the investigation team to hit the institution and you need to get out of their way in case you need to go back.”

Llys opened her mouth and then closed it. “Can you read everything?”

I shook my head. “I get a glimpse . . . flashes.”

Llys motioned to my hands. “No gloves. You don’t need them here?”

“Perceptive, and you’re avoiding the question.”

Llys walked into her tent and I set about starting the sludge that would be dinner. Boiled goop. Yum.

I toyed with telling Llys about Mari and Natalia but if I was honest, I didn’t want to. I was too grateful of the company, I wanted to forget the reality around me and pretend.

“I have somethin’ to show you,” I said when she re-emerged in sweatpants and a sweater.