Home > Snap, Crackle ...(7)

Snap, Crackle ...(7)
Author: Dale Mayer

He raced toward her to hold her upright.

She looked up at him. “I don’t want to be a prisoner ever again.”

“You won’t be,” he said. “I promise.” He picked her up, swung her off her feet, and carried her to the bathroom to sit on the counter.

Once back there, she felt rather than sensed him standing beside her, as he checked her wound, applying pressure to slow the bleeding. He quickly changed out her dressing, before sitting back to stare at her.

“I’m staying,” she said. “For a while.”

“You are, indeed,” he said.

She studied him in the darkness. “Why do you care?”

“You came here for help. Stefan is helping you. I won’t have you run off on him.”

She winced at that. “So, you’re doing it for Stefan’s sake.”

“Maybe,” he said, scooping her up and walking her to the bed where he gently laid her back down. “is there any other reason I should?”

Her back stiffened, and she shrugged. “No.” She rolled over, shifting uneasily with her wound. Finally she got comfortable, and, even as she closed her eyes and lay here, she sensed him still in the room. “You can leave now.”

“No, I can’t,” he said. “You’ve already shown you can’t be trusted.”

She hated that, hated that somebody could judge her for fighting for survival. Then he didn’t know what she’d been through. “It’s for the best.”

“It’s not for the best,” he said in exasperation. “Now go to sleep.”

She wanted to; she really did. But having him here was unnerving. “I can’t sleep while you’re sitting there, staring at me.”

“Fine,” he said. “I will leave, but, if you try that stunt again, you won’t like the result.” He turned and walked out, shutting the door hard behind him.

Still, she was alone, and, with that, she closed her eyes and slipped off into dreamland.

*

Hunter waited outside the bedroom door, not exactly sure what he saw, but definitely something was going on. He opened the door quietly and stepped back inside the room. A woosh of energy. No rhyme or reason to it. It flared and sparked. Hunter whispered, “What the hell?”

He didn’t understand it, but this huge energy ball moved toward the window. Instinctively he knew that it was part of Beth. Was it her, assessing the window to see if she could get out, and would then go back and wake up the body? He knew it sounded like something from a freak show, but he didn’t quite understand how and why her energy was everywhere. Like somebody had taken a high-voltage line and had plugged her in, exposing her to it, just shattering everything. But a part of Beth remained calm and contained in this outlying mess.

He couldn’t imagine it would be very nice for her to live this way, but somehow she had managed. That’s the thing that always got him, when he saw these gifted people with abilities. The things that they survived and managed to live with just blew him away. No real reason for her to have survived something so like a high voltage of energy.

But she had, and that brought them back to what Stefan had said about the childhood torture, the “training” that had occurred, and that she would have been a test subject. Stefan didn’t explain too much about it, but enough grimness was in his tone that Hunter knew any further discussion would hurt Stefan to relive that time as much as anybody else. And Hunter didn’t want to do that.

Stefan had done more for everyone in their psychic world than anyone Hunter knew. And Stefan was still fighting the good fight, but just so many bad guys were out there that sometimes Hunter wondered if it was worth fighting at all. And Hunter had to admit that, given what he’d seen of her, Beth probably felt the same way. And that had to be hard too. What were you supposed to do when everything broke down and became this constant torture? It’s not what anybody would want for themselves.

Hunter watched as a huge ball of energy shimmered in place at the window. Neutralizing his own energy, Hunter stepped forward and made sure the window was locked. The energy flashed around him, and, whether pissed off or frustrated, he didn’t know, but he quickly stepped out of the way. It reached forward and back, over and over, until Hunter had backed up against the door.

“Go back and lie down,” he ordered. The energy shimmered in place and then headed toward the window. This time as Hunter went forward, he saw the window unlock. Swearing, he stepped forward but came up against the energy and immediately bounced back, as heat seared through his soul.

He shook his head. “That’s not allowed,” he snapped.

The energy shifted toward Hunter in a threatening move, but he stood his ground. “No, you’re not leaving. You might get through that window, but you can’t get through the energy shield.”

It shimmered again in frustration. He was used to seeing energy; he was an energy hunter. He followed energy, hunted it down, based on its individual energy pathway. Just like a dog could scent a certain smell six feet under and miles away, Hunter saw it, and he could follow it, but he needed something specific to follow. He must have a signature, and this energy didn’t seem to have that.

He studied it carefully. How would he possibly recognize it in the future? The best way would be to understand that it didn’t have a signature at all. It just flared in a multitude of colors and energy patterns, and he shook his head. “That makes no sense,” he cried out. “What the hell is going on?”

The energy stepped back, as if not liking his questioning. And he nodded. “You need to go back and lie down.”

The energy shifted a little bit closer to the bed. He nodded. “Go … now!”

At that, maybe the tone of Hunter’s voice, maybe something completely different, but the energy turned and lunged toward him. Almost immediately, another energy stepped in place, blocking the space between them. It slammed up against him like a wall, flattening like a cloud of smoke hitting a pane of glass and spreading along the edges. Then another energy—and he didn’t even understand what that energy was—touched the same energy, like a lightning bolt. It immediately shrunk down to almost nothing, then slowly drifted back to the form sleeping on the bed, where it laid down on top and slowly dissipated. Soon gone, the shield in front of him immediately dispersed too. Taking a long slow breath, he stared down at the woman, who even now twisted on the bed in obvious pain.

He whispered, “Dear God, what the hell was that?” He slipped from the bedroom and locked the door. Then he turned, finding Stefan standing in front of him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Stefan asked urgently.

Hunter nodded. “I am. But what the hell is going on here?”

“I don’t know,” Stefan said, “but we need to find out.”

“She’s dangerous,” Hunter said.

“We all are,” Stefan said, giving him a lopsided look.

Hunter took a deep breath. “I get that. But I don’t know what the hell just happened in there.”

“And we’ll find out,” Stefan said, with a firm nod. “We will find out. It’s okay.” He nodded again. “You should get some rest.”

Hunter looked at him strangely. “It’s a little hard to rest.”

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