Leigh replied to that, this time obviously in agreement with Brodie. “We’re convinced that a strong enough psychic will be able to find a way past their mental shields and give us the information we need to fight them.”
“What makes you believe I might be that one?”
“I can feel it in you. The strength. The potential.” Leigh smiled. “And I gave you a little test, Sarah.”
“What test?”
“Earlier today, when you looked into my mind. Remember?”
“How could I forget. You opened a door and showed me…everything inside you.”
Leigh shook her head slightly. “You opened that door, Sarah. Something not one in a hundred psychics could have done. The door was not only closed, it was locked—and I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to make those locks strong. But they didn’t stop you. You didn’t force your way past them, you didn’t hurt me. You just opened the door as if it were no barrier at all.”
Sarah didn’t know what to say to that.
“You’re the one, Sarah,” Leigh said. “You’re the key to our future.”
“Well?”
“She’s made contact with Munroe.”
“And?”
“Brodie’s there. And the girl.”
“Then we can assume they’re making plans.”
“Yes.”
“Good. That’s good.”
It was unsettling, to be told she was so important in a cause she hadn’t even been aware of a week before, and Sarah wasn’t sure what she felt about it. All she knew was that a weight of responsibility was settling on her shoulders, and it was heavy.
After a short silence, it was Brodie who spoke, his voice matter-of-fact. “Until we know who they really are and why they’re taking psychics, all we can do is fight a holding action. They don’t win—but neither do we. And all the while, for every psychic we get to in time, we lose half a dozen more.”
Sarah shook her head. “I never realized there were so many people with psychic abilities.” She saw Brodie, Cait, and Leigh exchange glances, and added immediately, “There’s something weird about that, isn’t there?”
With a slight smile, Leigh said, “Never use the word weird in the presence of people with psychic abilities, especially a born psychic; we’ve heard it entirely too many times in our lives.”
“Tell me,” Sarah insisted, ignoring the wry humor. “I’m tired of being in the dark, and I have a right to know.”
“It’s all supposition, Sarah,” Brodie said.
“All of this is supposition, according to you. So? What is this about the number of psychics?”
Brodie leaned back and gestured slightly toward Leigh, who spoke slowly.
“We don’t know what’s causing it or what it means, Sarah. All we know is that the number of people with psychic abilities is increasing, not only generation by generation, but year by year. More are born. And more are, for want of a better word, made. Created. Changed from latent to active. Twenty-five years ago, there might have been one or two people who became psychic in a given year due to a head injury or some other kind of trauma; this year, so far, you are one of fifteen.”
“What?”
Leigh nodded. “Fifteen that we know of.”
“How many did you get to in time?”
“Three. Not counting you.”
“The others…they were taken?”
Leigh nodded again. “One of them was snatched almost under Brodie’s nose. He wasn’t happy.”
With a grunt, Brodie said, “I hate to lose.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Cait told him loyally. “The guy couldn’t bring himself to believe he could be involved in something so bizarre. He just didn’t believe in the threat against him.”
“We lose some because of that,” Brodie agreed. “Psychic abilities vary; sometimes the people we’re trying to help have no way of knowing the truth of what we try to tell them. They don’t know they can trust us. So they run. Right into one of Duran’s traps.” He looked at Sarah. “That’s why we had to be so careful with you, why we held back the couple of times we got close enough to make contact. It was my decision, and I’ve learned never to approach a wary psychic in the dark. Makes a bad first impression.”
Sarah smiled slightly. “Yes, it would have.”
He nodded. “But we’re here now. You do know you can trust us, or at least you’re giving us the benefit of the doubt. And you do know what we’re up against.”
Softly, Cait said, “And you know, now, how valuable you are.”
Sarah drew a deep breath. “If all this was intended to persuade me not to go after Tucker—it failed.”
“Sarah, you can’t fight them.” Brodie’s voice was steady.
“I can try.”
“You’ll lose. They’ll take you and kill Mackenzie. They’re just waiting for you to come after him. You know that. He’s bait.”
She stared at him for a moment, then shifted her gaze to Leigh. “I came here hoping you could tell me some way to fight them. Teach me how to use my abilities against them.”
“I don’t know how, Sarah. I’m sorry. I can help you learn to use your abilities, but that will take time. It’s a matter of concentration, of focus. Of learning how to tap into those places deep inside you—and outside you.”