He grit his teeth so hard I could hear it. Then I showed them taking my blood, and when he saw me able to read Sikes’ wife’s mind he gasped and pulled back to look at me, awestruck. I smiled and leaned my head back to his. Then I showed him going down the hall and up to the well, waiting all day and night and another day down there, freezing and trying to climb out. Then the Watsons attacking me and my being pushed, accidentally, off the cliff. He growled and cursed and huffed through it. Then we saw the water, the cabin, them looking for me and my hiding, my opening my mind to hear all thoughts and reaching out to read his mind, hearing him and his father speaking to each other about my heartbeat returning to him, then his cousin Rodney finding me, then here, now.
I pulled back to look at him and he was red and shaking.
“They’re still human. How could they do this to someone?” he muttered more to himself than me.
“Caleb,” Peter said behind us. “I’m sorry but they’ll know we’re here by now. They’ll run and we’ll miss them if we don’t go.”
“I’m gonna kill-”
“I saw. We all saw,” Peter said shakily and Caleb and I both looked sharply at him.
“What?”
He pointed above us and our thoughts mingled and bounced into view on the ribbons and streams of energy around and above us still. Right then, I could see a fuzzy blue broken picture of Caleb and me looking up at the ribbons, because that’s what I was thinking about and him, too, apparently. It was a strange revelation. That reminded me of when I’d first heard Sikes’ wife’s mind and the picture shimmered and changed to that vision of her taking my blood on the bed. I could even hear our voices.
“Can you hear that, too?” I asked and Peter nodded. “Am I doing that?”
He nodded and smiled proudly, coming to lay a warm hand on my cheek.
“Maggie, your ability is a most rare and precious one. We haven’t had a Seer in our family in over a hundred years.”
“A Seer?”
He took the hand from my cheek and placed it on Caleb’s shoulder with the same look of proud respect for his son as for me.
“Someone who can read minds, see into minds and read their feelings and desires, see the past thoughts and actions of someone. You can read anyone’s thoughts or plans. There have been no known ways to block a Seer, either. Just like you did Caleb, they don’t even have to be near you, you just have to focus on them and you can read them like an open book in front of your face. You also can receive visions, usually of the past but I’ve heard of Seers getting glimpses of the future as well.”
“And that’s good?” I asked, remembering when I’d thought reading minds was a lame gift.
“Yes,” he laughed. “That’s very good.”
“What’s your ability, Caleb?” I asked, turning to face him.“Don’t know yet. Don’t care yet.” He smiled widely. “I’ve said it a lot but...you’re amazing.” He kissed me with a hand cupping my cheek, right in front of his dad. “Come on. Let’s get you taken care of and then we’re going to go find the Watsons and kick some a-”
“Caleb,” his dad barked, both amused and parental.
Caleb just grinned at me, lifted me in his arms and carried me to the SUV.
Chapter Twenty Six
“Where’s my dad?” I asked as I sat in the backseat with Caleb and woofed down a to-go bowl of corn chowder his mom had made for me.
“He’s at his house. We didn’t tell him we’d found you yet. He’d want to come with us and we couldn’t let him...you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I felt so much better it was like night and day. I was still tired but felt like I could at least function properly. Caleb hadn’t left me at all. He sat right next to me and had a hand on my thigh the entire time I ate.
When he’d walked with me to the car, the energy ribbons and streams followed us, but as soon as he’d placed me in the backseat, losing skin contact, all the energy ribbons fell away and sizzled into the sky as his family looked on in awe. When he climbed in on his side and touched me again, I almost thought the energy burst would return. I worried that every time we touched each other now we’d light up like a Christmas tree, but they didn’t come.
“What about Beck? What happened to her and Ralph after the party?”
“I found them and told them that you’d been kidnapped. I didn’t know what else to say, so I just told the truth. Beck was freaking out. I called my dad, dropped them off and then had to go tell your dad.” He shook his head and swallowed. I saw pieces and glimpses of their conversation in his mind, my dad red faced and yelling. “Man that was not fun.”
“I bet,” I muttered. “Was he mad at you?”
“Oh, yeah.” He chuckled humorlessly. “I haven’t been called names that bad since...ever.”
“I’m so sorry. He-”
He wrapped an arm around me, pressing my face into his neck.
“He’s your dad. I’d think something was off if he hadn’t freaked. I had just told him when we left for our date that I’d keep you safe and then had to come and explain that someone had taken you right out from under me.”
I looked up to see his face and decided to see for myself what had gone on while I was away.
I didn’t have to try hard because we were already in each other’s mind, the ascension like Caleb had said, but his memories of his losing me and the withdrawals zoomed to me in a hazy rush. Some parts were normal and others were like they were on fast forward.
I saw him out of his mind with worry and grief on the beach looking for me. He called my name over and over. He knelt in the sand and beat his fist over his heart to make it work, anything to pick up my heartbeat again, to find me. He knew what had happened; the Watsons had taken me somehow. He knew it and he was puzzled as to how they had kept my heart steady to hide me from him.
He ran back to the bonfire, snagged Beck and Ralph and sped the entire way back to Beck’s as he talked frantically with his father on the phone. Then he went in to talk to my father without waiting for his, like his dad had told him to. He knew I’d want my father to know as soon as possible and he felt responsible; wanted to meet his punishment head on.
Then I saw glimpses of my dad in Caleb’s face yelling. Then all that flew past and I saw Caleb on the couch at Kyle’s, sitting, pulling at his hair with his fist as his dad tried to get him to try to sleep.
“You’ll be no good to Maggie this way, son,” he said but Caleb just pushed off his hand and continued to rock and moan in agony.
“I have to find her. I have to find her,” was all he would say.
Then more flashes and glimpses of him sick and in pain, him rolling and groaning on the floor in the guestroom at Kyle’s where someone had taken him to rest. Him yelling my name over and over as his father and mother watched, Rachel burying her face in Peter’s shoulder to cry loudly for her son.
It was too much to watch. I tried to yank away from it and soon, I was caught anyway.
“Maggie, no!” Caleb said harshly. “You don’t need to see that.”
“Caleb,” I squeaked and took a deep steadying breath. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Well... It’ll never happen again, I can tell you that much,” he muttered angrily. He took a deep breath and smoothed my hair back. “Anyway, your dad called the cops and calmed down a little once they got there. He even apologized to me later for yelling at me but said he still didn’t forgive me.” He rubbed his chin and I saw in his mind he was upset by that. “My parents rushed right over and they have been at your dad’s every day since then.”
“How many days have I been gone?”
“Four. Long. Days,”
I swallowed. Four days.
“Dad’s going to make things so much harder for us now.”
“I think you might be surprised.” He smiled sadly. “Just wait. You feeling better now? Dad looks like they’re ready to go.”
“Yeah, but I don’t like this. I don’t want your family going after them because of me. They’re dangerous. Someone could get hurt.”
“My family is very powerful. I’m not bragging, I’m just telling the truth. Our family has the most powerful abilities, always has. We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about them, they know what they’re doing. The Watson can’t get away with this. If we had taken care of them after the first time they tried to kidnap you, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Okay. All right,” I conceded and tucked my brushed hair behind my ears.
Caleb’s mom kept a brush in the SUV and I was so grateful.
He took my face in his hands.
“My family loves you. They’d do anything to keep you safe and I promise you they can handle themselves, they’ll be fine. Don’t feel guilty about us protecting you. That’s what family does.”
“Okay.”
I smiled weakly at him and he smirked at his victory, shaking his head. He leaned closer and kissed my forehead.
“I love you, Maggie,” he whispered, his lips moved against my cheek.I smiled at hearing it, real and out loud, for the first time without being pulled and yanked away from it.
“I love you, too,” I said, my voice breathy with emotion.