He nodded. The muscles in his jaw stood out from clenching it so hard.
“Someone is betraying you,” I said softly. “I think we need to be more careful with the route we take to the Compound. They know where we’re headed and will be waiting. It should be safe to get a room in the next town. No more communicating. With anyone.” I rubbed a hand over my face, tired.
He moved forward, slightly widening his arms as if to hug me. Yeah, right. I quickly stepped away and walked toward the bike. Too much disappointment in one day wasn’t good for a girl. Anyway, the countdown to the imminent end of my life still ticked away, and we stood in the open taunting it.
“Bethi,” he said with slight exasperation.
I didn’t turn back to look at him. “We need to keep moving. The dreams are calling again,” I said to explain my hurry.
We found a room next to a sportsmen outlet before the sun set. I’d managed to stay awake for most of the ride, but exhaustion tugged at me. Once inside the room, I kicked off my shoes and landed on the bed completely ignoring Luke.
The hand hitting my face knocked me off balance. I stumbled but spread my stance to avoid falling.
“Which one are you?” he demanded as he hit me again. Fire lit my face; each strike had created a burning path across my cheek and jaw.
I remained silent. My father and brother stood a short distance away and watched despite their urge to rush forward.
“What is your ability?” he roared, his anger growing.
Smack.
I struggled to maintain my mental hold on my father as the last hit broke skin and a trickle of blood ran down my cheek. My father’s anger crawled into me as he yelled at the man to stop. He curled his fist, and I willed my brother to lift a hand and rest it on Father’s shoulder. Fear of the group of men surrounding us overshadowed my brother’s anger.
“Do you see lights in your mind?” my tormentor growled through his elongating teeth.
I tried again to assert my will over his. Most people’s will felt like a thick sturdy rope, easy to grab and to hold. Once I held someone’s will, I easily implanted thoughts into their minds as if the thought were their own. The men around us were different. The slim slick strand of their will slipped from my gasp. In the half of a second I touched their will, nothing ever happened.
Smack. I’d waited too long to answer.
“Have you seen things that helped your family become prosperous?”
Several of the men looked at my father’s wealthy clothes, a gift from my mother’s father and nothing to do with my ability.
“Do you calm those around you?”
My eyes flared slightly before I could stop the reaction. The man hesitated.
“No,” he murmured to himself, watching me. “You cannot be her. Her presence is felt by everyone. Her purpose is to calm and prevent fighting.” He reached forward and lightly touched the open wound on my cheek. His fingertip came away bloody. “I would not feel so angry right now if you were her,” he added with a slight narrowing of his eyes. “Why then did you react to the question? Do you know where she is?”
I kept my gaze locked on his, afraid to give anything further away. I had no idea who he spoke of.
He licked the blood off his finger with an evil smile and glanced at my father and brother. “You are not their Hope or their Prosperity. If you were Wisdom, you would have run when we first appeared. You are not Peace, and Courage always dies young.” He turned to me with a bark of laughter. “I smell your loving father’s anger and your brother’s fear. Yet, they remain here neither running nor fighting. Do you find that odd, my dear?”
I kept my face carefully relaxed as I turned to look at my family.
The man stepped closer to me, his features rippling and contorting. “Asking you questions will result in nothing answered, will it not? Perhaps we need to ask someone else.”
Keeping my eyes locked with my father, I said, “I love you. I am sorry.” Tears gathered in my father’s eyes, and his panic flared within me a moment before I calmed it and pushed the urge to sleep at him and my brother.
The men behind them howled in outrage as my father and brother collapsed to the ground. The man before me laughed. “You will need your Strength,” he said a moment before he bent forward and viciously clamped his teeth into my shoulder.
I howled in pain and fought harder to grab his will. As slippery as before, the thread of his will escaped my grasp. He straightened and pulled me up by his teeth. Another scream ripped through me. Giving up on my attempt to hold his will, I imagined my will as a stiff unbreakable rod of metal and jammed it toward him. Fighting for breath and control, I hammered at his thin string of will. The pain in my shoulder grew—
“Bethi! Wake up!” Luke’s hand patted my cheek gently.