Chapter 6
?
C yan paced her hotel room, her phone in hand, but she got no answer from Terk. No answer to phone calls or multiple texts. Now she was calling her cousin, wondering where the hell Vivian could be.
Even as she walked back and forth, this stranger remained crashed on her bed. He was sleeping off whatever this was, but it bothered her because she’d been out there too. Although he had been the one attacked, she hadn’t felt the presence of that other person, which was the scary part.
“Cyan,” her cousin answered on the other end.
Her breath hitched. “Yes, Vivian,” she cried out. “God, where have you been?”
“You mean, where have you been?” Vivian asked, a note of amusement in her tone. “You’re the one who took off without warning.”
“I did take off,” she noted, “but I told you where I was going.”
“Sure, and I told you not to bother. Yet, once again, you didn’t listen to me.”
“Right,” she conceded. “I have a tendency to go off on my own.”
“You do. Now”—Vivian sighed—“what’s the matter?”
“Do you remember that car accident from a long time ago, and I told you about the one guy who helped me with the various injured people?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “That was what, eight years ago? You were really struck by him. Mentioned him for years, didn’t you?”
She winced at that. Of course her cousin would mention those details.
But, in truth, there’d been something about that man.
His energy had attracted her back then. And now?
It was a given that their energies blended as well as they had.
She’d tried to find out who he was back then, but he’d disappeared into the chaos as quickly as he’d shown up.
She remembered an old woman asking him for his name, and it had been so unusual that Cyan had never forgotten it. Steele.
“Something like that,” she muttered to her cousin. “I met him again today.”
Then came silence. “Okay, interesting synchronicity. What difference does that make?”
“It’s not that it makes a difference,” she began cautiously, “but it’s interesting.”
“ Hmm . Weren’t you supposed to go to that weird guy, Terk’s, place?”
“Yeah, to you, he probably would seem really weird,” she replied, “but he’s always been somebody I felt I could trust.”
“So this other guy? What about him?”
“I was opening a lock at Terk’s, though I don’t really understand why there was a lock to begin with, particularly in the woods. Neither do I know why I felt I had to park and walk but…”
Vivian interrupted, “Yeah, could we get to the point, please?”
Cyan rolled her eyes at her cousin’s cut to the chase attitude, then again, Cyan rambled, “He was attacked in the field, behind me. The guy from the wreck, I mean.”
“Attacked?” Vivian’s voice rose, as if she were suddenly paying attention. “Behind you? I mean, you put all of that in one sentence, and you expect me to make sense out of it and not freak out? What the hell are you doing? What are you involved in?”
“I’m not involved in anything that I know of,” she replied, wincing at the tone of her cousin’s outrage and her shocked voice.
“All I can tell you is, I was heading to Terk’s place.
He had a few… warning measures in place.
While I was sorting that out, I felt this guy behind me, and I invited him through, but he didn’t come.
I didn’t really get what was going on but knew something was off, so I went back and found he’d been attacked. ”
“Good God.” Then Vivian fell silent, which was way worse.
“Anyway, I managed to get him back to this small hotel, but he’s been attacked in a… It’s not just a physical attack. It’s like a psychic attack. His energy’s draining in a big way.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s sleeping—or rather he’s out cold, neither here nor there. I’m not sure what to make of it. Maybe a psychic attack? Whatever it is, it is draining his energy, and I don’t know how to stop it.”
Vivian, her voice calm now, stated, “First off, you need to settle your own energy because it’s all over the place. Then you need to be sure it’s psychic energy.”
“Yes, of course I’m sure, Viv. I mean, I can see the energy draining right out of him. I really have no clue what to do with that.”
“Well, plug it,” she snapped in exasperation.
Cyan stared down at her phone, and a hysterical laugh escaped from her. “Do you really think I haven’t tried that? That I couldn’t at least come up with that?”
Her cousin sighed. “Chances are, you’re already too emotional.
If you phoned me, it’s because you haven’t detached yourself enough to handle it,” she snapped, her tone hard.
“Get off the phone, detach yourself from him, balance your own energy, and then plug the drain. If you can’t plug it, at least start funneling energy in. ”
It was all Cyan could do to hold back her exasperation, as she snapped back, “I’ve already done all that. What I don’t know is how to stop whoever it is from taking all his energy.” She turned to look at the man stretched out on her bed. “He’s so weak. I can see it damn-near flowing out his toes.”
Her cousin, calm and thoughtful, noted, “That’s an interesting place to take it from.”
“Better than taking it from anywhere else,” Cyan barked, “but that’s also his grounding energy.
So, somebody is pulling it from his ground.
” With no response from her cousin, Cyan frowned at her phone.
Then something clicked in the back of her mind, and she smiled.
“Damn, you’re right.… I’ve got this.” And, with that, she disconnected and turned back to Steele.
Energy was still leaving his system through the bottom of his feet. To even think that so much had already been drained away, yet he was still alive—barely still holding on—amazed her.
Then she realized that, whether from him or from someone else, energy seemed to be entering through his crown. She walked closer and studied the flow of energy, frowning as she realized just how odd this was. She placed her hand atop his heart.
Immediately his body jolted, as if taking a hit from something. She jumped back, unsure of exactly what that was. Yet it seemed to have kick-started his own healing a little bit, as the drain of energy out his feet seemed to slow.
She did it again and then a third time. When he moaned softly, she immediately checked the threads around him. “Hey, I need you to wake the hell up.”
He groaned again, and she placed her hand over his heart and sent another shot of energy into his system.
The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him, but she’d never seen anything like this.
When he slowly opened his eyes and stared at her, she smiled and muttered, “Welcome back to the land of the living.”
He shook his head and whispered, “What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “I came back through the gate and found you collapsed on the ground. Not sure if you remember that part.”
He frowned, reaching a hand to his head, staring at her.
“I didn’t hit you,” she stated, “and I don’t know who did.”
“I sure don’t remember what happened.”
She studied him closely. “If you got as far as you did in that forest, you should be used to working with energy.”
He didn’t say anything, but his gaze narrowed as it locked on her face.
She continued. “And, if that’s the case, somebody took you out fairly easily, and that’s a concern.”
“You mean, because I’m such a poor example of an energy worker that I couldn’t defend myself? That I didn’t see it coming?” he asked. “Or because you think it means somebody is out there to hurt you too?”
Her eyes widened, and she snorted. “Either case is definitely a possibility,” she acknowledged. “I guess I just never realized how susceptible we are, even as energy workers.”
“Just working energy isn’t always enough,” Steele noted, as he tried to sit up, only to collapse back.
She leaned over and whispered, “Stay where you are. You lost a ton of energy out of the base of your feet.”
Startled, he looked down at his feet, then back at her.
She nodded. “Plus, it seemed you were receiving energy in through the top of your head, as if somebody was refilling you as soon as the energy was depleted. I don’t really know what to say about any of that.”
He sat up again slowly, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and announced, “I need to go back.”
“How? You’re still a marshmallow.” He glared at her. Smiling, she gave him the slightest push, and he immediately fell backward. “Like I said,” she repeated, trying not to make him feel threatened, “you’re still a marshmallow.”
“Maybe,” he conceded, staring up at the ceiling, “but that doesn’t mean I can afford to stay here. Not if other people will get hurt because of me.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she snapped. “What are you talking about? Who else is getting hurt?”
“I don’t know who did this, but I don’t like it,” he shared. “I wasn’t hurting anybody.”
“No, but you did get hurt. Look,” she began, then hesitated. With a shrug, she went on. “You looked a little bit scary, troublesome even. I mean, it certainly didn’t look like you had a reason to be there.”
“And you did?” he asked.
“Kind of,” she said, with a chuckle, “at least somewhat.” Then she added, “And maybe that’s not quite the right answer, but I was going to see somebody who you presumably would also know in that area.”
“If you’re talking about Terk and his team, then, yes, I know of them,” he declared, staring at her, his gaze narrowed.
“And so do I,” she stated, “or at least some of them.”
“I am getting a sense of déjà vu here. We talked about that before, didn’t we?”
“We did, or at least I did. So, maybe your brain cells are turning back on again.” She could tell he didn’t like hearing anything about that. She shook her head. “I get it. Pride is an issue here, and I’m really not trying to be a jerk.”
“I don’t think it’s pride at all,” he declared, “but definitely something is going on, and it would be nice if I knew what that was and why I was attacked.”