“I don’t have any parents,” the beautiful black girl of about 11 or 12 stated. “They took me from my granny, and she hasn’t been right in the head for a while. She keeps calling me Tanya. Tanya was my mom. I’m Jasmine.”
“No worries,” Jace stated. “We have a wonderful place we can show you, and if you like it there, you can stay.”
Jasmine slowly nodded. “I don’t think Granny’s gonna miss me, and I don’t want to go with CPS.”
“I don’t want to go home,” the other young teen stated. “Mom and Dad are afraid of me,” he looked down at his feet. “Whenever I draw something, it happens in their dreams.” He looked at us levelly. “I don’t draw pleasant things.”
He was a teen a little on the thicker side, with peculiar features. His eyes, though, were stunning, and carried a haunted look. He was far too young to be carrying the weight he was carrying in them.
“It’s okay,” Jace stated. “We can try to help you both with your gifts.”
“It’s not a gift,” the boy scoffed. “More like a curse.”
“You won’t feel that way for long,” Jaxson said confidently as he pulled the fat man up on his feet with the help of Remy.
“Let’s go,” Jemmy stated as she came into the house. “The swipe teams on their way.”
“Are we going to get Micah?” Alex asked expectantly.
Since Baltimore wasn’t too far away from our location, we decided to head there by vehicle. Collin was using his blocking gifts on the prisoners we got, so he was accompanying Will back to Knightstown. Jemmy and Gavin were taking the two teens back with them. Will asked Rachel to return with them, so she can help interrogate the prisoners. That left me and the guys heading to Baltimore with Alex.
“He’s really tired,” Alex said with concern next to me. “He’s been running for weeks. He thinks they have a tracker with them, because every time he thinks he lost them, they find him again.”
“Can you tell him we’re on the way, and let him know when we get there, we’ll ask him to meet us somewhere?” I asked, barely stifling a yawn.
I hadn’t used my gifts for long, but I was still exhausted. My body was still recovering and wasn’t too pleased I hadn’t eaten yet.
“You need to eat,” Jaxson stated beside me. I looked at him with wide eyes, and he gave me a crooked smile. “I can hear your stomach.”
“We have no time,” I stated resolutely.
“We can stop at the McDonalds up here, next to the Bay Bridge,” Remy said from the front seat.
“Can I get a Happy Meal!?” Alex asked excitedly.
Jace chuckled. “Yes, we can get you a Happy Meal.”
Soon we were going through the drive thru, and I ordered a Big Mac meal, large. I couldn’t finish my meal; I was so tired that I ended up passing out on Jaxson’s shoulder.
I woke up when we got to the outskirts of Baltimore. I could tell Alex was slightly nervous as he bounced up and down in his seat.
“He’s not alone,” he said worry lacing his words. “They finally found him.”
“Where is he?” Remy asked urgently.
“He’s says he’s at the Aquarium,” he stated after a few moments. “There’s a lot of families there today and he’s been trying to blend in.”
“Tell him we’re almost there,” I bit my lip in consternation as I squeezed Alex’s hand.
As we pulled up into the parking lot, Remy turned to Alex. “Can you tell him, we’re here? Can he meet us out—"
He stopped in midsentence as a tall gangly teen with red curly hair and green eyes popped into the back seat. “Go!” he shouted as we saw five men running out of a side door of the aquarium.
The Tahoe started to shake as the tires lifted off the ground.
I felt a sudden pressure in my head, and I heard the guys yell out in pain. “They have an empath out there,” Jace said through clenched teeth.
“And a telekinetic,” Remy hissed as he tried to force his door open.
I acted on pure instinct as the pressure continued to build in my head. I unbuckled my seat belt and fell to my knees on the ground.
The Tahoe came crashing down and I bit my tongue and hit my head against the door. I yelled out in pain as I tasted the sharp metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I felt the Tahoe begin to rise once more and I took the opportunity to push open the door. I stumbled out of the SUV and fell to the asphalt, scraping my hands on the pavement.
“Blake!” I heard Noah call out my name in panic.
I could feel the iciness engulf me as the empath tried to push feelings of despair and loss onto me. I almost gave in to the feelings, but I felt Jace’s warmth begin to envelope me, battling the other empath.
I watched as a man advanced towards us, hail-like objects flying from his hands. They were pelted into the vehicle. The sound of glass shattering filled my ears.
Troy jumped out of the vehicle beside me and carefully took aim against the hail, melting it before it could make impact. Drake jumped out next, creating a force field around us, kneeling beside me as he tried to get me up. Remy was running at full speed as he tackled a man trying to pull our vehicle into the cyclone. He flew a good 20 feet before his head connected hard with the asphalt.
“We can’t fight them off for long,” Noah bit out as he shielded Alex with his body. “They’re strong. Horatio sent his best.”
“They really want us,” Alex cried out. “They’re not nice. They do mean things,” he was crying.
I watched as Micah showed up behind the telekinetic man and swung a tire iron at his head. The man crumbled to the ground. Micah showed up behind another man who seemed to flash with speed before my eyes. I knew I had to snap out of it. I had to help get us out of here.
I focused all my energy into feeling all their gifts and commanded them to stop. The guys on the other side paused in mid motion. “Leave,” I commanded them. “You never saw us. You don’t know why you came here,” I added.
We all sighed with relief as they began to move away. Micah had knocked the one guy out cold, so he had to be dragged away, along with the guy Remy had hit.
The guys came walking back, and Remy cursed as he looked at the Tahoe. The front tires were now laying at a weird angel. “The front axel’s shot.”
“Let’s go,” Jaxson muttered. “We drew a crowd.”
“I’m calling the swipe team,” Jace stated as he pulled out his cell phone.
Noah hopped out of the truck and took Alex’s hand. “Where are we going?”
Jaxson was busy casting illusions of a movie set. Everyone that had saw what just happened would think they were watching a movie being made. It was a bit disconcerting to see me kneeling where I had been kneeling moments before. He cast the illusion like we were still standing there. By the time the bystanders realized it was an illusion, we would be long gone.
“We need to erase any camera footage,” Drake said with worry. “We haven’t been out in open like this before. Not to this degree.”
Micah disappeared in front of me and reappeared moments later. “Done,” he said with a satisfied smile.
“That’s a pretty neat trick,” Jaxson said with a smile.
“Oh yeah,” Micah smiled with a cocky grin. “Watch this,” he said as he grabbed my hand.
My first experience with teleporting was highly alarming.