"That"s the way I would have always wanted to go. Peaceful, surrounded by the people I love. At least I know I won"t die by some Watson"s hand or in some stupid car. I"ll die the right way, the way G.o.d intended. Let me have this," she said harder. "This is our secret, pretty girl."
I nodded. What else could I do? She wiped under my eye with her knuckle. "Thank you. You know this family. They won"t let it go."
I did know. They would drive themselves crazy with worry about it, though it was inevitable that everyone died of old age one day. I nodded again. "I promise."
I tucked Gran"s vision away behind my walls and vowed to keep it there. I let my mind return to the matters of the day, to my Ava, which was pretty easy to do, and when Gran and I turned back to the room, they were getting ready to go.
"Mom," Caleb called out, so busy and completely oblivious to my and Gran"s revelation. He shook his head. Hearing what he had in his mind, I sighed in relief. "I want you to stay." Rachel"s mouth popped open in protest, but Caleb went on. "You"re one of the strongest here, your ability could protect the children if someone did come. I want someone to stay here with them, just in case. Don"t worry, I"ll watch out for Dad."
Rachel was torn. She wanted to keep her grandkids safe, of course, but the significant in her didn"t want to send Peter off to fight without her there. Peter was at her side in an instant. He sighed, having heard it all in her mind. "It"ll be all right, Rae. Caleb"s right. If anyone could stay and protect the children, it would be you."
She took his face in her small hands. "You better be careful."
"Always am." He pulled her up and we looked away as he kissed her.
I kissed Rodney"s forehead as he slept in Maria"s arms and hugged Ava tight before handing her off to Gran. Gran and I shared a look of understanding before I headed out. It was hard to keep it together for two reasons now. We were on our way before I felt like I even had time to get my bearings. I rode in the front, middle seat with Caleb"s hand stuck between my thighs the whole way there as he drove. Peter sat on the other side of me and reached over to squeeze my hand over now and then. It felt like the blink of an eye when we were parking near the woods. When we got out, I was a live wire. I was too worked up. I didn"t know what was up or down, what was what.
"Maggie?"
"Huh?" I whispered and lifted just my eyes to find Caleb bending down to catch my gaze. "What?"
He leaned in and kissed my lips firmly, the tips of his fingers rubbing behind my ear. He pushed away from the truck and held his hand out. "Now let"s go get these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."
It was what I needed. Exactly. I put my hand in his and let him lead me the short walk through the woods to the house. The Watson Compound. I had never seen this part of it when I was here. I could see the well on the cliff a little ways in the back. A shiver ran over me at the thought that we might find people down there today.
"No time like the present," Caleb muttered and lifted his hand to let everyone know, from their various scattered positions across the estate, that we were moving in. There was a couple of cars in the driveway, but for the amount of people that supposedly lived there, it didn"t look right. We sneaked across the property line until we reached the main entrance. The ma.s.sive gate was left cracked open...like they left in a rush. We made our way up the driveway to the house. Some of the family started to search the outlying buildings while we took the main house. Caleb and I took either side of the front door and listened. Not hearing anything, he started to grip the handle to turn it.
I got the worst feeling. I didn"t know why, but I hissed, "No."
He stopped. I went to his side and he put me right behind him as he borrowed my ability and yanked the door from hinges with a wrench of his wrist in the air. We turned our heads, just in time it seemed, as a blast of noise and smoke came from the other side of the door. Caleb looked at what it was. "They rigged the door with a shotgun." He looked back at me over his shoulder. "How did you know?"
"I don"t know." I gulped.
He squeezed my fingers gently. "It"s okay. They rigged the place since they don"t have any powers to protect themselves."
"And how is that supposed to make me feel better?"
He didn"t answer as he inched past the gun and looked around the room. "If they were here, they would have heard that. We need to move quickly."
"The well," I said. "And the bunker out on the hill."
He nodded. He knew I was right. If they had someone here, that"s where they were keeping them. We moved over the hill to the storm shelter looking door and opened it up to find the ladder leading down to the tunnels as Kyle and Lynne went for the well. I gasped at the smell. It smelled the same...exactly the same.
Caleb held the door open as our family watched and waited for instruction. Peter was next to me and gripped my arm to keep me steady. Caleb walked to me easily. They all knew and remembered what happened to me here. "You don"t have to go down there. You can stay out here and-"
"No," I cut him off. "Then they win." I looked up at Peter and back to Caleb"s eyes, begging him to give me the strength to do this. "Sikes doesn"t get to win, does he? Marcus doesn"t get to win after everything they did?"
He touched my cheek. "h.e.l.l no."
"Let"s go."
I let him go first because I knew he needed to, but I was anxious now. I needed to see if anyone was down there and get them out of there if they were. While half the family stood topside and watched for company, walking the estate, the rest of us came down and started to search the tunnels. I opened my mind and listened, but it was quiet.
It didn"t take long however to know that we"d found what we were looking for. When a ghost white hand crept out from the bars of a cell, so weak the fingers could barely bend, I yelled for the person to back away so I could open the door. With the only weapon I had, I used my mind to yank the door from the hinges to reveal a woman so thin and weak, I didn"t know how she was still alive.
She was afraid, I could tell, but Caleb immediately knelt and lifted her, handing her to someone closer to the hall and told her it was okay, that we were taking her somewhere safe. Her cries and "Thank you"s could be heard all the way down the tunnel. Every door we opened, another woman, another man was found. Some were hardly abused at all and you could tell they were taken care of and then others were barely alive. It made no sense at all. We rescued over fourteen people from those rooms. They said the Watsons had just been there that morning, so we missed them by a couple hours.
When we went inside the house and searched the rooms, we didn"t find anyone inside, but we did find more b.o.o.by-traps. We decided we"d wait them out, but when we started finding cameras in every room, we knew there was more to it. I sighed, knowing we"d missed them, knowing they weren"t coming back. They were probably watching us right that minute. I took one of the cameras Caleb had ripped down in my hand and didn"t flinch when the vision came.
They scattered. They had gotten smart. In the absence of powers, they didn"t roll over and play human like we thought-no. They had taken the initiative to use power that was manmade while they worked on Sikes" formula. So they studied technology and tactical systems to keep themselves safe until the time came when they could get their true powers back. They had gotten good at pretending, blending in, being invisible. We had practically forgotten they existed.
And that was our mistake.
We should have checked up on them and made sure that they were giving up. Now, they knew we knew their secret, so they scattered all over so we couldn"t find them.
But they weren"t finished.
One day, they"d be back to finish what they started. They still had every intention of creating a serum that would make them Virtuoso again, either by imprinting or other means.
We were too late. But at least we saved those people.
I yanked out of the vision and shook my head, disappointed and happy at the same time. "They"re gone," I told everyone. "They planted the cameras to see if someone found them and knew we were here. They aren"t coming back."
They started to cheer, but when they saw that I wasn"t as happy and Caleb came to soothe me, running his fingers over my Visionary mark on my neck, they slowed their celebration.
"Why don"t you seem happy about that?" Kyle asked.
"If they were here now, we could end it now," Caleb explained, knowing I was exhausted in my head. "Now, we"ll have to wait, look over our shoulder, wait for them to s.n.a.t.c.h more humans and use them for guinea pigs to finish the experiment. They won"t stop until they get what they want."
Everybody seemed to understand then.
"Let"s do one last search before we leave, make sure we didn"t miss anything," Caleb ordered.
I crossed my arms and looked around the room we were in one last time. There was nothing remarkable there. It was a typical American house. The couch matched the curtains, the floors were wood, and the chandelier in the foyer bounced the light from the setting sun out of the window onto the walls. It was a beautiful place. It was a shame that people, so evil, had lived there.
Some kid"s artwork caught my eye on the way out. It was over the fireplace. I smiled, thinking of my own kids, knowing that they would be safe now, for a while anyway. It seemed strange that people so evil would be thoughtful and caring enough to want to show off their son"s artwork like this.
He had drawn a boy on a horse for one, then the other was a woman holding hands with a little boy on the hillside. I felt hands on my shoulders and looked up at Caleb.
"Hey...what?" His face was white as a sheet.
"Maggie, look at these drawings."
"I see them. What?"
He pointed to the name on top. I don"t know how I missed it. "Seth."
"Oh, my... What does this mean?" I turned and looked at him frantically. "Ashlyn warned us. Did we miss something?"
"Come on." He s.n.a.t.c.hed the drawings from the mantel, and we hurried to the truck where a few of the rescued people were still sitting, waiting for us to leave. "Was there a child down in the cells with you?" he asked them.
"No," the fragile woman answered. I sighed, but before I could relax, she broke my heart in two. "He doesn"t stay down there with us, they keep him in the house. My cell neighbor had him several years ago, but they...got rid of her. They raise him now. They bring him down to the cells sometimes. They tell him we"re criminals."
"Caleb," I said, knowing we failed. "She said I wasn"t seeing it properly. She told me!"
He took me and hugged me hard to his chest, sighing into my hair. "Baby, it"s not your fault they ran with him. Look at all these people you saved."
"He"s just a little boy." I sniffed.
"We"ll keep looking," he promised and kissed my forehead. "We won"t stop looking for him."
When we got back home, we took the rescues to the hospital. Some of the family members thought it might be exposing our kind if they talked, but honestly, they would just think it was a crazy family that kidnapped them. Fact was, the Watsons had no powers. The police crawled all over that place, but found nothing to lead them to where the Watsons were. They eventually just left it, abandoned, a crime scene with no leads. Somehow, the Watsons had gotten the money to pay the mortgages they were behind on, barely, so they owned the land again outright.
We just had to wait for them to return to it.
All the children were asleep when we finally got home that night. Caleb and I just crawled into the big bed in Caleb"s old room with them and held on tight. I couldn"t help but cry for Seth, a little boy I didn"t even know. I had failed him. Even though Caleb tried to soothe me and take all my hurt away, I knew it was all my fault.
The next morning, I snuck out of the arms and limbs in my bed and Gran, Rachel, and I made pancakes for everyone. It was a full house at Peter"s, but even still, I didn"t have the energy to change out of my pineapple pajama shorts and t-shirt the kids bought me for my birthday last year. I heard Caleb"s thoughts when he woke up, so I started making his coffee with mine. I fingered the hem of my shorts while the coffee brewed. I wondered if Seth even knew who his mother was.
Hands gripped my waist. "You"ve got to stop doing this to yourself, baby," he drawled into the back of my neck before kissing the skin there. "You can"t blame yourself for the actions of others."
I turned and faced him, sighing at the sight of him. I bit my lip and ran my hand through his hair to help him tame it. "Morning," I whispered.
"Are you trying to rile me up this morning?" he asked, his voice that low, husky tone usually reserved for a flight of stairs above us. He ran his fingers along the seam of my short"s leg. "Pancakes, coffee, and...pineapple shorts?"
I gave him the small smile he was looking for. He gave me the dimples I wanted in return. I closed the small distance between us and right as our lips touched, our new wonderful life interrupted us.
"Ew, Daddy."
We both looked over at Rodney who was half smiling, half barf-faced.
"Ew?" Caleb asked. "Ew, really?" He laughed as he scooped him up and threw him over his shoulder. He came back to me. "We"ll finish this later, Mommy."
I smiled and giggled. "Yes, Daddy."
He kissed me loudly, smacking my b.u.t.t as he walked away.
"Ew, ew, ew!" Rodney chanted as Caleb trotted away with him laughing.
We ate breakfast all together, spirits lifted. Everyone felt this victory in their very souls, so I tried with everything in me to portray my happiness with them since they all looked to me to lead them. And I was happy, I just knew it wasn"t over. And the fact that it was a helpless child I had failed was making the guilt multiply.
Later that night, we went back to our home. After dinner, we watched a movie with Ava and Rodney, anything to keep them with us and not leave them alone.
Ava blurted out of nowhere. "Did you see Seth yesterday, Daddy?"
I froze. Caleb turned to her slowly and gave her a little smile, trying his best to look normal. "Who? Who"s Seth, Ava?"
"Ashlyn told me about him. She told me you"d save him. She said that he would be my friend one day." She looked up from her cookies and milk with the most innocent, hopeful look. "Did you save him, Daddy?"
Caleb was stunned silent. Ava went on. "I know you saw him, Daddy." She hopped down and went into his coat pocket, grabbing the drawings that we"d taken from the Watson"s. "See?" She laid it on the table and pointed to the boy and the woman on the hill. "This is Seth and this is Ashlyn."
"How do you know this, baby girl?" he asked as he hoisted her up in his arms.
This was in my pocket all night, Maggie.
"Ashlyn told me," Ava answered, like she was getting exasperated. "She said you were going to save him."
"Sweetheart, I..." My heart literally broke right there. Why was Ashlyn doing this? Why was she messing with our children when it was just going to break their hearts if something went wrong? I didn"t understand. "I"m so sorry, Ava."
I moved close to hug her, but the second I touched her skin, I was blinded by white light. I heard Caleb"s gasp, so I knew he was with me on this one. Ava giggled. "It"s just Ashlyn. She won"t hurt you."
And then Ashlyn was there. She didn"t look real here. She looked like a dream or a ghost. She smiled. It was genuine and it was the first time I"d seen her where she didn"t look like she was going insane. "Ashlyn?"
"I"m sorry, Maggie. I know you"re probably upset. But this is the only way I get any peace." She smiled at Ava. "And Ava is so sweet and so fun to be with. And Rodney. And...Seth."
I sighed. Caleb"s arm around me tightened. "Ashlyn, just tell us what"s going on."
"I can"t leave the palace. I"m stuck there. When your children were born, that was the first time since I died that I was able to leave, to get any peace from the madness that I"ve felt ever since Richard and I were supposed to imprint and weren"t allowed to. I don"t know why, I don"t know how, but I can come visit them and they"re the only ones that can see me." She nodded and smiled. "Unless you touch them and have a vision at the same time."
"So..." my heart lifted, "you can still talk to Seth?"
She pursed her lips. "It takes a lot of energy to come, so I can only come once every few days. And I"ve noticed that the older the children have gotten over the years, the less often they see me. Sometimes I come and they don"t notice me. Which makes me think that soon, they won"t notice at all."
"Why?" Caleb said when I couldn"t. "What purpose other than you wanting to get out of the palace?"
"I promise you I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just wanted to spend time with them. And you. Even though you couldn"t see me, your family gave me some semblance of what my family use to be like." The wistful look on her face was heartbreaking. "But then I saw those people that the Watsons were keeping and had to get you to save them. It was the only way to save Seth."
"But I didn"t save him, Ashlyn." A sob caught in my throat. "We were too late. Seth"s gone. I didn"t save him." I looked down at Ava. "I"m sorry, baby."
"Visionary," Ashlyn called loudly and squinted at me, "your job is done. Everything you should have accomplished was done so."
I shook my head at her, my mouth open. "No. They have Seth. I didn"t get to him in time."
"I never said to take him away from them, I said to save him." I scoffed, angry at her statement. What games was she playing with me? She came forward and smiled genuinely. "Even now you doubt yourself." I pressed my lips together. "Don"t," she said harder. "You are who you are for a reason. I sent you there to save all those people from the Watsons. That in turn will save Seth."
"I don"t understand."
"They were grooming him to be a monster like them. Now, their course is altered, their choices, different. They must do something different in their journey to find what they"re looking for, and I see a different path for our Seth. One that will lead him back to us."
"What do you see?"
"I can"t tell you. But I"ll tell you this-we"ll see him again." She smiled and tapped the end of Ava"s nose with her finger. "You"ll see."
"Promise?" Ava begged. "You said he would be my friend one day?"
"He will, Ava. Promise."
"So what about me?" I asked. "I"m supposed to just forget about that little boy and let them raise him, not look for him, not try to find him and take him?"