Chapter 7
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S teele shifted upward, determined to at least make it back to the world of the living long enough to understand what had happened to him.
The fact that he had been attacked was only part of the story.
That she had come back in time to see him downed, but not the attacker, was the part he struggled with.
How long had he been out?
And did she attack him?
He hated to even consider such a thing, but, as he sat here in her room, it was hard to not consider it. And yet why would she?
He’d made enemies in his line of work, but he’d been knocked out cold in that forest, not killed. If somebody wanted to end his very existence, they would have done a better job of it. They wouldn’t have just knocked him out and left. That was a half-finished job, and he didn’t understand it.
He managed to get up and walk around, smoothing out his energy, even as his body fired up, stronger and better.
He’d always been very good at self-healing.
He tried not to ever take it for granted and certainly didn’t go willy-nilly into trouble, even while knowing he could get himself out of whatever because it wasn’t like that.
He tried to think back and only remembered the pain in his head, which even now was still killing him. He used the bathroom, and, as soon as he had washed his face and stepped back out again, he walked to the door and peered out the little window at the top of it.
Not much to see.
He sensed she was close by and finally saw her out of the corner of the window. She was talking to somebody, but it was who she was talking to that concerned him.
He immediately shifted back, looking protectively around the area, not sure if she had set him up or if something else was going on. Just because she was talking to somebody didn’t mean she had betrayed him. Even if she was, what would she even know about him to betray him with anyway?
He vaguely remembered snippets of their conversation about a big car accident years ago, where they’d both helped out other victims. Was that discussion just recently, somewhere around the time of his energy crash?
… He wondered. It took way too long to dredge up those memories from the recesses of his mind, but, when he did, he recognized her.
That, for some reason, made him feel much better.
At least she was on the healing spectrum, not the murderous one.
So how had he attracted an attacker? He kept a low profile.
Nobody knew he was in the area. He’d followed the Beacon, for crying out loud.
That’s all he’d done, and yet it seemed like that had been enough to trigger all kinds of issues.
He glanced out the window again and watched as she stepped away from the person she was talking to, and, carrying a bag, she walked up the stairs toward him.
He studied her energy. It was vibrating, as if sending out single shots of energy, probes , searching, checking, looking for something.
He realized that she was wary, searching for anything that was off, that was different, that was dangerous.
It was a probing system but one unique to her. And surprisingly easy for him to see.
He’d long held it as a personal point of pride that nobody could sneak up on him, and suddenly not only could somebody do it but they had. And not just snuck up on him but injured him enough that he needed another healer to take care of him. He hated that.
When the door opened, he stepped back just in time to get out of her way. She stepped inside, startled to see him quite so close. With a last glance behind her, she closed the door and asked, “Did you go outside?”
“No,” he replied, heading to the small side table.
“Oh, thank God. I think we’re being watched.”
He pivoted, staring at her intently. “By whom?”
“No idea,” she stated. “I also don’t understand exactly who you are or why you would have been attacked, but the fact that I can now feel eyes watching me makes me nervous.”
“Of course,” he noted, “but I’m no threat to you.”
“If I thought you were,” she declared, “I wouldn’t have brought you here.” At that, she held out the bag and said, “Food. Best get something in you, in case we need to leave in a hurry.”
He immediately sat down at the small table, looking over at her as he opened the bag, checked inside, then asked, “Did you eat?”
“I did not,” she stated. “I didn’t want to order so much that it was obvious I wasn’t eating it all myself. The fewer people who know about you, the better.”
He hesitated. “And you have no idea who we’re running from, or who we’re trying to stay hidden from?”
“No,” she said, yet that faint suspicion in her gaze rose again as she studied him. “I guess I’m wondering who you are, why you were there, and who would have wanted to stop you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have an answer for you. I was following the Beacon, as I told you.”
“I wonder if Terk really understands what he put in motion.” She walked to the window and peeked out from the edge of the curtain.
“Not only do I not think he fully understands what he put in motion, I don’t think he understands what the Beacon is doing now.
Although it would be highly unusual for Terk to be taken by surprise by anything. ”
Steele noted, “I’m not sure he has been. What is working on this energetic level versus the Beacon’s energy level is very different. It’s almost a different dimension,” he muttered, “if you know what I mean.”
Her lips twitched, and she nodded. “Not many people in this world do though. However, I was thinking about the woods and the fog. What if it was a holograph, built by the Beacon, to keep the flow of Beacon followers going in one direction, giving it and Terk control of who gets through to the castle?”
His gaze met hers, studying her intently. “Most people would have something to say about my even mentioning such a thing.”
“Maybe,” she noted, staring at him, her arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the door.
“And you don’t trust me, right?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she began, as she studied him too. “Your energy is not telling me that you’re somebody I should be wary of, but it’s also not giving me laid-back relaxed vibes either. You’re trying to hide something, and, because I don’t know what that is, I’m leery.”
Removing the food from inside the bag, he laid out a burger and fries. Burger in his hand, he turned to her and muttered, “Wow.”
“Yeah, wow is right.”
He didn’t know what to say, as she still decided whether to stay or to leave, if her position were anything to go by. “We have these abilities to count on all our lives,” he began, “yet…”
“We do have them,” she confirmed. “Yet we can still be good guys or bad guys within the energy-working world.”
He picked at the fries. “Yeah, we’re all messed up because of it.”
“You’re right,” she muttered. “We shouldn’t be though.”
“No, we shouldn’t be, and yet somehow we are.”
“Are we though?” She walked closer and sat down, close but not touching, once again searching his energy.
“You can search all you want,” he told her, as he finished eating. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
“You absolutely do,” she countered. “The question is, I don’t know what or why it’s important for you to hide it. So nothing you say will change the fact that I know your statement isn’t true.”
He sat back and looked at her. “It’s called boundaries.”
She added, “The problem is, there are things we want to keep hidden that have nothing to do with anybody else, and our only reason for keeping them hidden is our own personal pain, joy, or security. And, in your case, I can’t tell exactly what that is.”
He whistled and asked, “Do you ever just relax?”
“No,” she stated, staring at him. “That way lies death.”
“I don’t know about death,” he countered, studying her even more intently.
She was the most interesting person he’d probably ever met.
The fact that she had abilities like him was also fascinating and yet terrifying in a way because it seemed like she had an ability to understand so much more than he expected—or wanted.
She was causing him to step up his game, and he wasn’t used to that.
He finished eating, immediately bundled up the wrappers, and put them in the garbage can beside her.
“Considering that you’re not sure about me, that you don’t want me to leave or are just worried about what that’ll look like, I’m heading back out to where I was attacked.
Something is going on there that I want to check out—rather I need to check out—if only for my own sanity to understand what happened. ”
Her gaze narrowed as she studied him.
He just looked back at her, his gaze level, flat. He added, “I’m not lying. That much you should figure out on your own.” It was almost an insult, but he did it deliberately, just to test where she was coming from and to see what her ego would do.
She smiled at him. “I don’t take the bait quite so easily as that.”
“No, maybe not,” he conceded, “but you gotta make a decision as to whether you’re comfortable with me or not.”
“No, I don’t,” she declared, with a laugh. “I don’t have to make any decisions. I can just stay here and let you go do your own thing, which I think is what I’ll do.”
“Good enough,” he stated, then stood up and pulled out his wallet. “How much do I owe you for the meal?”
“No.” She gave him a wave of her hand. “You and I both know that money is a currency that doesn’t apply to us. If there is ever an opportunity for you to repay the favor, that is the only payment I would accept.”
He smiled and nodded. “Let’s hope there isn’t such an opportunity, but, if there is, obviously I will do so.
” He rotated his shoulders and his neck, feeling decent, considering.
As he walked to the door, he turned and asked, “Do you think anybody else will see if I walk out? That someone is watching us?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. I felt eyes on us earlier but less so now, so who’s to say?”
He opened the door and stepped out. Then he looked back at her and said, “Thank you.” And, with nothing more to say, he moved down the stairs. As he stood at the bottom, he remembered that his vehicle was still parked by the woods.
Steele couldn’t imagine how much difficulty she’d had getting him out of the woods and into her vehicle, then up to her room, but she had.
Given her size, she must have used energy to make such a feat happen.
He had at least seventy pounds on her. For that alone, he owed her.
As he looked back up at the hotel, he saw her standing outside, staring at him.
He smiled, and, putting one foot in front of the other, started to walk back in the direction they had come.
*
“Damn it,” Cyan muttered, as she watched him head down the highway.
She thought for sure he would balk when realizing he had no wheels here, but of course not.
Stubborn all the way. Still, if their positions were reversed, she would do the same thing.
Leaving him and going to the restaurant had been unnerving.
She’d developed a close connection to Steele, due to the healing energy she had given him.
However, the farther away from him that she was, the less she felt it, whatever it was.
She sensed something else when in his space versus being out of his space.
Somehow that distance from him gave her clarity and an ability to question the events. Along with that had come doubts.
Yet watching him walk away from her was like an elastic band being stretched tighter and tighter, knowing that one or the other would have to relent and give in, as the elastic demanded a return to the neutral state.
She had no idea what to do. Yet, with every passing step, taking him farther from her, it felt wrong, like seriously wrong. And, if she knew one thing, it was to follow the energy. So, if something told her that it was wrong, it was wrong.
A pulsating uproar rose in the back of her mind.
Run after him . She felt a building sense of wrongness.
Vehicles passed him on the road, even as she stood on the outside patio of the motel and watched.
Nobody stopped to pick him up. He didn’t put out a hand to ask for a ride.
It literally just seemed like he was fading into the energy.
She frowned as she watched and then realized he was almost out of sight.
Without hesitation, she grabbed her few items and raced out to her car.