Accordance (Significance #2)(48)

When I opened them, the other man was making a swift advance to me. Caleb was hot on his tail but wouldn’t reach him before the man reached me. I tried to think of something to do, anything but I froze and the guy reached his hands around my neck.
“That’s was my bike you wrecked you little twit,” he growled in my face not worried about his comrade at all. Then his eyes drifted to my neck and his grip loosened a little in his shock. “The Visionary.”
Caleb pulled him off and slung him backwards. He skidded in the grass on his back, leaving a trail and indention as he went with the force. Caleb was shocked at his strength but didn’t dwell on it. The man got up and went to grab the gun that was near him as he roared with aggravation and cursed.
Then something happened that I never expected. Caleb held his hand out for the gun and it flew threw the air just as the man reached for it, straight into Caleb’s hand. The man ran at us full speed with his clear intentions blaring though his mind to mine and then to Caleb. He was going to kill Caleb and take me to Sikes. Without further hesitation, Caleb lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.
The man stopped mid run and fell back from the force of the shot. He lay still on the ground and Caleb turned, throwing the gun to the ground. He pressed my face into his neck.
“Don’t look.”
Caleb had killed the monster for me.
It was then that I felt him, his pain. I had no idea why I hadn’t felt it before but my body recognized the injury and began to heal him. I pulled back, though he tried to stop me, to see a huge red spot on his t-shirt on his stomach. I pulled his shirt up to see a gunshot would on his right side.
I screamed as my heart rate beat painfully for him.
“It’s alright, baby,” he soothed and grabbed his chest a little like he could feel my heart and it was as painful for him. “You’re healing me already. It’s ok.”
I held his arm under mine to steady him and we watched together as the wound sizzled and burned closing up and becoming tan again instead of red and angry. Caleb groaned as the bullet pushed itself out and fell with a dull thud to the ground.I knelt on my knees to inspect closer and ran my fingers over it in awe. I hugged him around his middle and pressed my cheek to his stomach and burst into tears.
“Why didn’t I see that coming? Why didn’t I get a vision for this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You could have died,” I croaked as he rubbed my hair then he bent down with me and pulled me to him. “What if I hadn’t been here, you would’ve-”
“Shh. Don’t. Shh.” He lifted my chin and kissed my lips softly once. “We’ll always be together.”
“What was that?” I asked and felt the cool wind on my wet cheeks. “How did you do that, Caleb? Did you get your ability?”
“I don’t know what happened. I just felt like it told me what to do and I did it.”
It was then that we realized someone was watching us. I looked and saw Marcus standing in front of the garage.
He clapped and smiled cruelly as Caleb and I stood up.
“Bravo. Bravo, really, a spectacular show. I think you’ve gained some new abilities that we never-” His eyes moved to my neck as well and his arrogant steps faltered. “No. No, that can’t be. You’re human trash!” he roared. “You are not our Visionary!” He shook his head furiously and balled his fist. “It’s a trick. They painted that on you to trick us.” He made wide angry strides to us. “I’ll see for myself.”
Caleb once again shoved me behind him and I waited in fright but also fascination as him and Marcus sparred. There were no abilities for him either so it was a fair fight. I wanted to help but was afraid that I’d just distract Caleb or hurt him somehow. As it turned out, he didn’t need my help.
I saw in Caleb’s mind as he fought the moves he learned from Uncle Max as he went along. Some he knew already but some he learned as he went, his mind teaching him. If I wasn’t so scared, I would have been fascinated to see it as it happened in his mind.
Caleb didn’t have to fight long. He had the advantage of knowing how to fight that Marcus didn’t. Marcus would make for a punch and Caleb would rear back to evade and then land a blow to his jaw or chest. Then Caleb kicked a booted foot to Marcus’s chest sending him flying several feet away from him.
I put my hands up to hold him off as he started to run back to us but it wasn’t my power that stopped him. We looked behind us to Peter and Rachel there. Rachel was holding him in place with a murderous look on her pretty face. Marcus’s belt chain and buckle and ear gauge were straining and pulling as he groaned. 
“No man should wear all that metal,” she said and threw him aside to slam into the side of the garage.
He lay there motionless and Rachel ran to Caleb.
“Oh, my! What…” she said with her hands fluttering without any idea of where to start.
“Maggie took care of me, Mom. It’s fine.”
“What happened?” Peter boomed and looked around. “Are you alright?” He moved forward to inspect me, grasping my arms gently and leaning down to look in my face. “Maggie? Are you alright, sweetheart?”
The yard was destroyed with the huge mound hole and dirt everywhere. There were bike parts and I turned away when I saw a leg sticking out from behind a pile of mangled metal.
“Yes. They were waiting for us,” I explained. “They must have been Aces because they had abilities. Then Marcus came from inside the garage.”
Peter paled.
“Randolph,” he muttered and took off running.
Rachel and Jen both ran in after him. Bella trotted up to Caleb, sniffing his shirt and whining. He bent down and petted her head.
“It’s ok, girl.”
Then we walked slowly inside and as I had suspected, it was confirmed when I heard Rachel’s keening cry. Marcus had killed Randolph, their butler, jack of all trades, security man and family friend.
Caleb sat solemnly on the back steps and I rubbed his back with my hand inside his shirt to soothe him. I felt responsible. They were after me. This was all happening because of me.
“Stop it, Maggie,” Caleb commanded. “This would have happened to anyone who imprinted. We’ll get them. This isn’t over and it’s not your fault.”
I nodded and heard Peter on the phone with the police. Randolph was a human. This was a human murder and had to be handled by human authorities but, what about the mess outside?
I left Caleb there on the step to go and try to clean up a bit. I felt horrible and sickened but it had to be done. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood when I used my power to scoot the bikes and their owners into the hole in the earth they had created and tried to bury Caleb in. Now they were buried in it instead.
I pushed the ground closed and the dirt back down as much as possible in my mind and tried to make it look normal. You could tell something had happened but it didn’t look suspicious.
I had forgotten all about Marcus as I suspected they had.
I whirled around quickly only to find him gone. Crap. He knew. He knew I was the Visionary and now all my enemies would know. I went back inside and told them Marcus was gone and he had seen my mark. Peter cursed up a storm and shoved all the items off the counter in the kitchen to the floor with a roar. Rachel tried to calm him with soothing words and touches. I saw him wrap her in his arms and they just held on to each other as Caleb pulled me from the room.
The police came, as I saw them out the window, but Peter took care of all of it. He told them the mound was the beginnings of a pool. Caleb and I just took showers and went to lay in his room in silence. I wanted to comfort him somehow, to make it all go away but I felt like he just wanted me to be there, that that was enough so that’s what I did. I made sure to touch him somewhere and we just stared at the ceiling together and tried to make sense out of everything that had just happened.~ Twenty Five ~
We woke a little later to Peter. We were still on top of the covers just as we had laid down before and sometime had finally fallen asleep. Peter sat on the bed next to me and told us that he had hired a cleaning crew to come and take care of the place. He didn’t think it was safe to stay when someone had breached the security. We would all go stay at Kyle’s until it was all fixed up again.
So, we got up and got dressed again. Everyone seemed calmer and steadier now and Caleb insisted on driving his bike, though I suggested maybe he shouldn’t drive. He smiled and said he was fine. So we trekked right back to Kyle’s after only been gone from there a couple hours.
Everyone was still up when we returned and there were a few other people there too to greet us, Gran being one of them. She smiled big and hugged me and Caleb at the same time. I smiled widely because she was the first Ace I met since becoming the Visionary that didn’t bow to me. She murmured all kinds of sweet things to assure us that all would be well and she was glad we were safe.
Maria ran to her mother and squealed loudly.
Kyle also greeted us and I saw genuine relief when he looked at Caleb and they bumped fists. Then he hugged me and squeezed me extra tight. Then he pulled away and sat on the other end of the room by Gran. I heard Jen ushering Maria to bed in the hall.
We all sat in the living room to have a powwow.
Lynne had come down and she too seemed better. She came straight to me and wrapped her arm through mine. She smiled at me.