“Well,” Hunter said, “just think about what may have happened to her.”
“I don’t want to,” he said quietly, “because I have a pretty good idea. My escape would have just made it that much harder on her.”
“Of course,” Celina said. “If they thought she had anything to do with it or thought that you were coming back for her …” And she let her thought hang there.
“Exactly,” Stefan said.
She nodded slowly. “So, what do we do? Just wait until she wakes up the next time?”
“She’ll wake up guarded,” Hunter said. “She knows you put her under.”
Stefan nodded his head. “I know. She is bound to wake up, kicking and fighting.” He smiled at the thought. “That would make me feel better than this fragmented soul she has become.”
“How much do you remember about her?” Hunter asked. “And do we even trust her?”
Stefan shook his head. “Absolutely not,” he said. “I trust the person I used to know, but I don’t know this one at all.”
“Is she so different?” Celina asked.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “She’s very different.”
“In what way?”
“Her energy for one. I’ve never seen anything like it. She is in pieces, and she’s holding herself together with a very thin spiderweb of energy.”
“Why though? What exactly is she doing?” Hunter asked, as he studied Stefan. The man had experience in this like nobody else. But even Stefan hadn’t seen everything. Hunter had done all he could in the last decade to help gifted people—like himself, Stefan, and, yes, even Beth. Something was so odd with her. Something affected him so strongly about her; maybe that she understood what he was.
Maybe she understood who he was on the inside, but her assertion that he would be hunting her shook him. He did spend a lot of time hunting people, not to cause injury but to help. She didn’t seem to get that part of it, and that bothered him too. He could only hope that, when she woke up, they could talk a little bit. Hopefully she would be less cryptic and more open. But somehow he doubted it.
“I think she’s been alone a long time,” Celina said. “I think she’s been alone since Stefan left.”
“Not possible,” Stefan said, “but she probably felt alone. I know how rough it was for me back then, and to think of that as just a fragment of what she faced seems terrifying.”
“She seems to think that she has brought trouble here,” Celina said quietly. “Do we need to worry?”
“I’m scanning for anything out there,” Stefan said, “and, so far, the answer is no.”
“But we don’t know what that means, do we?” she said, slowly wringing her hands together.
He walked over, placed a hand on top of hers, and said, “No, we don’t.” He asked Hunter, “Do you sense anything?”
“I’ll go out and take a walk,” Hunter said. “I’m definitely sensing something, but I’m not getting a negative threat from it.”
Stefan nodded. “No, I’m not either,” he said, “but I don’t know what it is, and I’m also not sure what she meant about not being alone. And having already communicated with them. But her energy is a mess, making it almost impossible to read.”
Hunter nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.” He walked to the front door, shoved his feet into his boots there, grabbed his jacket, and said, “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Stepping out into the night, he didn’t go far. He just went enough away from the house itself and the strong energy beacon that Stefan ran high and loud and large for those who needed it, plus the silencing shield that Stefan had put out for the other energies of those looking for him. Hunter had to get far enough so that he wasn’t distracted by those energies. As he took several steps forward, he felt something. He looked everywhere and couldn’t see anything. Unnerved, he took several more steps farther out, hoping for answers and looking for something wrong. He didn’t have to go far to find it.
A black cloud was up in the hills behind Stefan’s house. Hunter suspected it’s where she had come from. He studied the energy, finding hers, and then slipped through the trees, taking the long way around to see where this came from and what they wanted. Because one thing he knew for sure, when he hunted, he didn’t leave any of the prey behind, if he could help it. As he’d learned from Stefan, the prey and predators came in all different forms.
Never a day passed that Hunter didn’t get a chance to find something new and completely different out there. It was shocking really, and the rest of the world had no idea what went on. And, in this case, Hunter wasn’t sure he understood himself. Did Stefan? Hunter had no explanation for the crazy energy-field flickers they had witnessed. No explanation for so much of what they had just seen happen, and yet the woman who had answers didn’t seem prepared to cooperate at all. She appeared ready to run, but from what?
She was right in the sense that Stefan had healed her enough to survive. And knowing him meant knowing that he would help her. So that explained why she came. But now, rather than stay and give any explanations, she was prepared to leave in the middle of the night, if need be. Hunter shifted, climbing up the hill. Behind the house he sensed Stefan’s curiosity, that probe on his part, asking if Hunter had found anything. He answered calmly enough. Energy, black energy on the hill behind the house.
Recent?
Yes, recent. They were looking for her.
Well, they found her, Stefan murmured in Hunter’s mind. Neither had any expectation about the world around them. Hunter didn’t think Stefan would want to let Beth go, not in any way, shape, or form, no matter what she had to say. Hunter wasn’t so sure she could be trusted, but then he had trust issues himself.
Just as he walked forward, a crackle sounded beside him. He looked down, thinking he saw something, but it shifted in the wind. He called out a Hello on an energy level and got one in return. He froze, looked down, and whispered, “Who are you?”
No answer.
But he could sense the energy. Small, but a powerhouse. Like the woman crashed in Stefan’s spare bedroom. He stepped back and slipped against the trees, until he blended in with the silence around him, waiting to see just what was going on. But found nothing related to the crackling energy. He did find another energy, a black energy, old but stale. Left by somebody who didn’t care if his presence was found or not. A predator who didn’t give a damn. A predator who was dangerous, indeed. Hunter searched the area and sent a message to Stefan. Whoever was here is gone now.
Hunter turned to look around and sidestepped a sudden shift in energy. He pivoted to stare at the darkness around him. “What do you want?” he cried out. No voice, no answer. Nothing was more perturbed than he expected it to be. He studied the silence around him in the darkness, looking for an answer.
“Who are you?” he called out. And again nothing. Frowning, he slipped off to the side and waited and watched, and, when there was nothing, he waited longer. Determined to win this waiting game, he waited more and then another ten minutes beyond that. Then he noted a gentleness of an energy separation, and something small and black moved toward him. An animal. A voice reached into his mind.