Wallace, page 18
She did it again.
He jolted again, the corner of his lips floundering, as if he were having a stroke.
She nodded. “When you play with energy, there are often repercussions, which can do much damage, can cause a stroke even. How would you feel about losing all control of your left side?” she asked, staring at him intently. “Are you okay with never speaking normally again?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he mumbled, as he stepped back once more. “That’s … that’s not possible.”
“What? That you can have a stroke? You’re having a stroke right now,” she stated, “and that’s a whole different story. You see? A stroke is caused by a blockage of your heart, so just a snap of my fingers—not everybody’s fingers but my fingers—can make you have a stroke, like you are experiencing right now.”
She stared straight at the boss man. “And you know something? I’m okay with that because I’m a little tired of you guys pushing me around, trying to do things with my friends and using me to hurt people. I’m fed up with you, trying to use me to get what you want. So, … until we come to an understanding, I’ll just keep doing this.” That warning given, she snapped her fingers.
His body jolted even harder, his face now flushed and his left arm twitching. He cried out in pain.
“So, are you in agreement?” she asked.
He struggled to answer verbally, but instead he nodded frantically.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That doesn’t do it for me. I need more of an answer than that.”
“I … weave … you awone,” he mumbled.
“I didn’t quite hear you,” she called out.
“I … weave … you awone,” he cried out louder this time, stepping back to get farther away from her, almost frantic to get out of her sight.
“Oh, one more thing, just in case you think this is a reach thing,” she added, snapping her fingers one more time. Even though he’d backed up a good ten feet, he still danced in place. “It’s not about distance. That gun of yours? It’s all about energy, and that weapon won’t work anymore.” She pointed at it. “Go ahead and fire it. I really don’t give a shit.”
He frowned at her, looked down at his gun, and lifted it, as if forgetting that he even had it. He fired at her, once, twice, three times, but it did nothing. It just made a weird clicking sound. He stared at it, stared at her, made an odd sound, then turned and tried to run. However, his body was dealing with the recent stroke effects, hitting him even now, and he slowly crumbled to the ground about twenty feet away.
She turned to the other men, her temper still evident. “Yes, he’s having a real stroke.” She sounded calm, but her aura was barking mad. “So, it’s up to you guys whether we get him medical help or we just leave him to die in the tunnels, like he left poor Gerry,” she muttered.
Riff looked at her with a newfound respect. “I know what I vote for, but it’s really not up to me.” He looked down at Jonas, held in his arm, and asked, “What do you want to do?”
He looked over at her. “I’ll get a team in here right away. We don’t want assholes like this running around.” He turned to Riff and tapped his pocket. “I’ll need a phone.” Riff helped pull out Jonas’s phone searching for a signal. There was a single bar but it was enough. Very quickly he had a team on their way.
She looked around at the others. “Just in case any of you feel like judging me for that …”
Immediately Terk shook his head. “I’m not judging you. I don’t think any of us are.” He added, “Cool trick, by the way.”
“It is,” she agreed, with a smile, “though it’s not one I tend to use often.”
“Yeah, I’m not surprised,” Terk muttered. “How far is the range of your effectiveness?”
She looked at him and then sighed. “I haven’t tested it, to be honest, but I’m pretty sure there’s no limit.” Terk stared at her in fascination, and she nodded. “So, the next time you get pissed at me …”
Terk burst out laughing. “Yeah, we all have skills and techniques that can create all kinds of hell on earth. I’m not afraid of you any more than you’re afraid of me because we all have kept our humanity.”
She grinned. “It would be awfully nice to know that people out there aren’t afraid of me.”
“For that, you really need to join my team.”
Jonas grumbled, turned to glare at Terk, then asked Amy, “Hey, what about my team?”
“Oh, you mean the team you already turned me down for?” she asked, frowning at him.
“I didn’t know you could do all that,” he replied. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Are you serious?” she asked, her eyebrows raised. “Why would I tell you? That just sounds like a bad deal for me.”
He rolled his eyes at that, and Terk laughed.
“Jonas, you need to give it up. Anybody in this field needs me, not you.”
Jonas shook his head. “The powers that be, they were thinking that both could work out. You know that you could have your team, and we could have ours.”
“Yeah, but it’ll take somebody like me to lead it.”
At that, Jonas eyed him hopefully. “As it turns out, I wanted to ask you about that.”
“About what?” Terk asked warily.
Jonas shook his head. “Would you run our team for us? Official government status and all that other good stuff.”
At that, Riff snorted. “If he does, he’ll lose half his men,” he declared.
Jonas glared at him. “Nobody’s asking you.”
“You may not be asking me, but we’ve already been there, working for the government. As you may recall, it ended badly,” Riff reminded him, “so the answer is no. Why is it, whenever you guys get anything, you try to control it? As you should see from what just happened here, controlling us doesn’t work so well.”
Jonas winced and nodded. “Still, that doesn’t mean I’m done talking about it,” he called out, as Terk continued to walk toward the end of the tunnel.
“You better be done talking about it,” Riff stated. “Otherwise I’m not helping you out of here. I’ll leave you right here on the sewer floor.”
Jonas groaned. “You guys are all mad.”
“Maybe, but we’re good mad, so remember that.”
And, with that, Riff carried Jonas toward the light.
*
“Did you mean it?” Amy asked Terk. “About coming to work for you?”
He nodded. “Yep, I sure did. We’ve got a lot of people working and living together, so getting along is the order of the day.”
“I can understand that,” she replied, “and my gifts are still rusty in many ways.”
He laughed. “Not in any of the ways that I saw,” he murmured. “I’ve never seen that trick before.”
She snorted. “It’s pretty easy. Once I realized what it could do, I knew just how much of a problem it was for other people.”
“Of course,” Terk agreed. “It’s one thing to have that control, but it’s another thing completely to let people know you can do that.”
“And know that he’s had a stroke,” she added, making air quotes, “but I don’t know if he’s safe to have that knowledge.”
“After they treat him, we can see what shape he’s in,” he murmured. “However, don’t ever feel bad about self-defense. You have the right to live your life as you choose, and it’s not fair if other people keep trying to take that freedom away from you.”
“It may not be fair,” she murmured, “but you and I both know it happens constantly.”
“But we don’t have to let them get away with it,” Terk stated. “That’s partly why we do what we do.”
“I do love that,” she said, with a smile. “It’s definitely heartwarming to know that people like me are living a more normal life than I ever thought possible.”
“I’m glad to hear that too,” Terk noted. “There’s plenty of room for all of us in this world, and you’ve just got to let people know that you won’t be pushed around. I think you did that effectively today.”
She laughed. “It felt good in a way. I’d forgotten what it was like to utilize that energy.”
“Have you ever had to do that before?”
She shook her head. “No, I haven’t had to, though that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to a time or two,” she muttered. “I suppose Jonas will be on my case constantly because I didn’t tell him that I could do that.”
Wallace walked closer and reached out an arm. She looked up, smiled, and hooked hers through his. He squeezed her hand. “Of course you didn’t. That’s the kind of thing we keep under wraps. We’re more open between us and Terk and his team as relationships and as trust develops, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned? Not only no, but hell no.”
She nodded. “That was part of my problem with being isolated so much when my gifts changed. That was a big one.”
“In what way did your gifts change though?” Terk asked. “I thought you could always do this and the rest.”
“Yeah, but now I can do it without trying,” she muttered. “It’s almost too easy, as in, I have to control my temper and never get to that point.”
“That goes for all of us,” Terk noted. “We all have abilities that require control, and that’s one of the reasons I have the place that I do, because then we have a safe home base, where people can learn that kind of control. Otherwise power without control is just abusive, and that’s not what we want at all. That’s not who we are.”
“Got it.” She chuckled. “I agree wholeheartedly.”
“Good,” he replied. “So, in that case, can I tell them at home that the apartment should become permanent then?”
She stared at him. “Is that an option?”
“It is as far as I’m concerned, so you tell me.”
She smiled. “I would love for it to become an option,” she clarified, smiling, as she looked back at Wallace. “What about you?”
He laughed. “You tell me. As far as the group is concerned, we’re already an item.”
She winced. “I did get that impression.”
“How could you not? We got the suite with adjoining rooms after all.”
“But I wasn’t sure if you were okay with that.”
He gave her a quick grin. “Honey, if I wasn’t okay with it, I would have changed it on the first night.”
“Good,” she said, “because it’s definitely how I want it.”
“Perfect.” He leaned over and gave her a big kiss. “Now”—Wallace turned to Terk—“do you think we could possibly get the hell out of here? We could use a couple days away, just to figure out our life, you know?”
“Or you could just spend a few days at the castle, settling in,” Terk replied. “That’s almost a holiday in itself.”
Jonas burst out laughing. “Like hell,” he muttered, his laughter now a coughing fit. “So much chaos is going on in that castle at any given time, I can’t imagine you’ll want to spend all your time there.”
“Maybe not,” Amy conceded, “but it would be nice to have a home base and to know that it really is home.”
“Exactly,” Wallace agreed, “so it’s all good. Let’s get the hell out of here and go home then.”
And that’s exactly what they did.
Chapter 11
Amy headed for the shower, as soon as she arrived at the castle, as did Wallace, Terk, and Riff. That smell had to go. When Amy finally walked into her bedroom that night, she sat down on the bed, wondering at the quick change in her circumstances. She did feel safe here. She did feel a part of something bigger than herself, and yet it was something that she didn’t quite understand.
Such a team feeling encased this whole castle that she found herself a little hesitant, wondering if maybe she didn’t quite have what it took. She also knew that everybody else would slam her for even thinking that, and she didn’t want to get caught up in that negative thinking, but it was hard not to when so much was going on all the time.
A lot of special people were here, and it would take her a while to even sort through their names because just so many lived here at the castle. There was also something weird going on with Riff, whom she’d only seen a couple times now, and this woman named Angela. She hung around Riff like a bad penny, and yet she seemed to be all heart and was here for the children constantly. Yet it seemed as if she was keeping a watchful eye on everything.
Nobody had really explained what was going on there, but Amy hoped that if she was here long enough, people would relax, and Amy would get a full, or at least partial, explanation, in time. As she contemplated all this, the door opened, and Wallace walked in. She smiled up at him. “Hey.”
“How you doing?” he murmured, coming to sit beside her.
“I’m okay. It’s been a crazy day though.”
“Yeah, it has been,” he agreed, with a laugh. “And that’s okay. Crazy isn’t so bad all the time.” He reached out to hold her hand.
“Maybe not,” she murmured, looking down at their joined hands, “but it’s strange being here.”
He nodded. “We can always go away for a few days if you want, or we can just stay here and acclimate.”
“You know the acclimating part isn’t a bad idea,” she murmured. “We haven’t had time to do that.”
“No, we sure haven’t,” he agreed, with a laugh. “We haven’t had time to do anything but say hello.”
“What about Jonas?”
“As it turns out, I just came in to give you an update. He’ll be fine. His broken leg has been set, and he’s off duty for a while. He’s already making noise about coming over here to get some healing done,” he added, with an eye roll.
She stared at him and started to laugh. “That sounds like something I would do.”
“Exactly.” Wallace chuckled. “And why wouldn’t you, knowing skilled healers are here?”
“Do you think Terk will have a problem with Jonas doing that?”
“No, not at all. Despite all the bantering and complaining back and forth, deep down I think he and Jonas are good friends. Another good thing is it looks like Gerry Wallace will pull through too. So good news all around.”
She nodded. “That is great news. And I got that feeling myself about Terk and Jonas,” she muttered. “I think Terk knows an awful lot of people.”
“He does know an awful lot of people, but it’s you I want to talk about tonight,” he stated, with a smile, using his free hand to pat hers that he still held on to.
“And here I thought you were talking about Jonas,” she said, with a teasing grin.
He chuckled. “I think we have a few things to discuss straightaway.”
“What could that possibly be?” she quipped, narrowing her gaze at him. “Unless you’ll piss me off immediately by telling me that we don’t have anything between us or that you’re unsure.”
He stared at her, his jaw opening, but then it slowly closed.
She nodded. “Good, I didn’t think you would be that foolish.”
He stared at her for a moment. “What if I want reassurance?”
She blinked, but then she grinned. “You can have all the reassurance you need.”
“Without snapping your fingers?” he asked.
She burst out laughing, only to become somber. “Are you scared of me?”
“Nope, definitely not,” he replied comfortably, scooching closer to her. “I also have a few tricks up my own sleeve.”
“Exactly. I figured you had all kinds of skills,” she noted, with a laugh.
“But it’s not skills that I was talking about,” he clarified. “I was hoping for some, you know, other reassurance.”
And he gave her such a pitiful look that she burst into a fit of giggles, then straightened up, and, in a move that surprised both of them, shifted her position so she straddled him, sitting on his lap, her arms looped around his neck, and she smiled. “Reassurance, huh?” she repeated. “Are you telling me that you didn’t see our energy entwine the whole time we were together?”
He nodded. “I did see it.”
“Are you telling me that you didn’t see our energy seeking each other out when we were apart?”
He nodded. “I did see that.”
“Are you telling me that right now you can’t see the energy between the two of us, blending and melding into something much better?” She leaned forward and nuzzled his nose with hers.
He grinned and said, “I do see that.”
“Ooh, I do too,” she agreed, then burst out laughing. She leaned over and kissed him. “Just in case you have any doubts, and you really do need that reassurance, we already have a relationship, and we can make it into whatever we want it to be. We have the power to make it something extra special because of who we are, what we can do, what we can see, what we feel, what we already know.”
“Huh.”
“It’s not as if we’ll ever argue and give each other the cold shoulder—or not for long, not while living in this fish bowl of a castle full of psychics,” she noted, chuckling. “It’s not as if we’ll drag out the tired old excuse of not knowing there’s a problem, when we obviously will both know very well what’s happening, good or bad. And living in this place? A ton of healing energy will be sent our way.”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight up against his chest, dropping little kisses across her cheeks.
She smiled, feeling the warmth of his breath across her face, and snuggled in closer.
“That’s true,” he said, “and positive energy at that. We’re on an amazing journey, and I can’t imagine all that we have ahead of us.”
She tilted her head and looked up at him. “We’ll have everything we could ever want,” she whispered.
He leaned over, kissed her deeply, his tongue warring gently with hers, and whispered, “So, about these adjoining rooms …”
“I’m surprised we’re allowed to keep them,” she muttered, looking around.
“I think they’re planning to move us out of this suite into a big apartment—with one bedroom. In fact, they’re getting one set up for us right now, providing we’re okay with it.”
