Chapter 9 #3
“Of course, but can you take all three of us?”
“She’s a piece of cake, hardly even worth bringing into the picture. But the two of you? Yeah, I’ve done that before. Even making me go through the motions will piss me off, and you’ll pay for it.”
“Ah,” she muttered, “there we go, threats and more threats. Same old, same old again. Every time I turn around, somebody is threatening somebody,” she muttered. Then she turned to study Wallace for a moment. “What are the chances that we are being watched?”
“Probably pretty good,” he said, as he flexed his fists.
The second guard suddenly reappeared, glaring at everybody. “Wow, what’s this? You had an opportunity to have a dustup, and you didn’t even try it?” he asked, with a laugh.
Wallace shrugged. “No challenge with just one,” he muttered. “But now that you’re back—” Without warning, he swung his right fist and took out the second guard, with a hard crack to his jaw.
He crashed to the floor without even making a sound.
The first guard stared at him in shock.
Wallace gave him an evil grin. “You’re next.”
And, with that, the guard bolted for the doorway.
*
Wallace laughed as he grabbed the retreating guard, gripping him like a cat by the scruff of the neck as he pulled him back and gave him a fist to his face too. He dropped him to the floor and in a moment sent him packing, the same as his buddy. He looked over at Terk. “That was easy.”
Terk nodded. “Once you shift the energy, plant those seeds of doubt,” he murmured, “they don’t have much in the way of defenses against it.”
“I could feel it,” Amy exclaimed, staring at him. “I just didn’t know what you were doing.”
“Yet you were working in sync with us. Wallace and I were giving them a chance to rethink their life choices,” Terk shared, with a wry look in her direction. “I’m not a pacifist by any means, but it’s definitely the only way out of some situations.”
Wallace turned and looked at the doorway. He glanced over at Terk. “You have any reading on where the boss is right now?”
“He’s waiting,” Terk replied. “This was the test.”
“Yet he doesn’t even know what he’s testing, does he?”
“No, but he’s hoping for something conclusive, maybe something that will give him an idea if this is worth pursuing, if we have any abilities that can help him.”
“Yet this wasn’t that much of a test,” Amy noted, staring at him. “Not that I want to denigrate what Wallace has just done, but… surely a lot of guys could have done this without too much trouble.”
Wallace snorted and gave her an amused glance.
She raised her arms in frustration. “I’m not trying to insult you, but it’s not as if this took energy work.”
“Not the physical fight, it didn’t,” Terk agreed, with a smile. “Even if any energy work was used, it’s not something they would recognize.”
“Right,” she noted, “and I didn’t get an impression that this place was wired to interfere with that.”
“It was,” Wallace pointed out cheerfully. “We took that out first. So no eyes or ears on this room.”
She grinned. “Always nice to work with pros.”
“Yep.” Wallace laughed. “That’s one of the first rules.”
“Sounds good,” she muttered, and then she laughed in amusement. “When you think about it, there’s an awful lot of things still to learn, isn’t there?”
At that, Terk nodded. “The day we stop learning, we’ll be dead. The field we’re in?… It always changes, day in and day out, absolutely no break. Just understand that there’s no stopping this craziness either. It continues to grow constantly as well.”
“Maybe that’s okay too,” she murmured, then she stepped forward. “Why don’t I go out first?”
“What good will that do?” Wallace exclaimed, glaring at her. “That’ll just put you in danger.”
She laughed. “They won’t hurt me, remember? I’m just the bait to keep you cooperative.” And, with that, she smiled at the two of them. “Back in a sec.” She opened the door, and leaving it open, stepped out into the hallway.
Wallace went to follow her, but Terk grabbed him and murmured, “You might not like it, but she’s right. They won’t take her out or hurt her badly, at least not right now.”
“Hurt her badly?” Wallace repeated. “Did you hear yourself?”
“Yep, sure did,” Terk replied. “I’m not sensing any danger around her at the moment though.”
Wallace shifted, checked in with his own senses, then nodded. “Agreed.… Interesting work you got here,” he quipped, with a glance back at Terk.
“Yeah, you want more of it?” Terk asked. “I could use somebody who knows how to knock out assholes in a one-two punch.”
“You mean two for two?”
“Yeah, two for two works. The faster, the easier, and the less stressful it is for everybody.”
“Yet we don’t even know where Jonas currently is.”
“I’m going there first,” Terk stated, with a casual look around. “As much as we might have our issues at times, I would never leave him behind.”
“Good,” Wallace said, “because I sure wouldn’t do any work for you if I thought you would.”
He laughed. “We’re an odd pair left in this world.… Not a whole lot of honor among thieves anymore.”
“Good thing we’re not thieves,” Wallace pointed out.
Just then, Amy popped her head back in and grinned at them. “All clear.”
Terk sighed. “That’s bad news.”
The smile fell from her face. “Okay, you need to explain that then,” she snapped, a bit abashed. “I was feeling pretty darn cheeky that nobody was out here waiting for us.”
“So where are they then?” Terk asked.
She frowned and muttered, “Oh shit,… Jonas .”
“Yeah,… Jonas.”
They stepped out into the hallway, and Terk motioned to the left. She looked over at him and shook her head. “I don’t think so.” He raised an eyebrow, and she murmured, “I hear a weird hum going on.”
“I noticed it,” Terk replied, “but what are you saying?”
“I think they’re using us to track to him, hoping we can find him, which will allow them to know if we know something or not.”
“And?” he asked patiently, his gaze intense.
She took a deep breath, and Wallace had to admire that she was even bucking Terk. It’s not that you couldn’t talk to Terk, but, in a situation like this, she seemed to be almost questioning his judgment.
“I think they’re trying to send you in one direction, or at least confuse your signals in one or even more ways.”
“Yes, they are being confused,” Terk confirmed. “I did compensate for that, but tell me where you think we should go.”
She hesitated and pointed in the opposite direction.
“Why?” he asked curiously. Again she hesitated. “Tell me, and not just that.… Give me a solid reason, and I’m happy to try it.”
She gave him a quick grin. “Because I can feel him.”
His gaze narrowed. “You can feel who?”
“I can feel Jonas,” she stated in a low tone.
“Good enough.” Terk nodded. “Let’s go.”
With that, he made an about-turn and headed in the direction she had suggested. Wallace, his eyebrows shooting up, looked at her in surprise. She shrugged. “I don’t always get any answers,” she murmured, “but, when I do, they’re quite strong.”
“Good, and I like the conviction that went with it.” Wallace sent her a smile.
She laughed as they walked forward. “I don’t know about conviction,” she clarified, “but there’s a sense of timing right now. There’s an urgency involved.”
“No doubt.” Wallace groaned. “When isn’t there with people like this?”
She nodded. “Jonas is okay, but I don’t know that they’ll keep him that way.”
“They don’t plan to, but two guards are down, courtesy of Wallace, so we can count on at least two guards up ahead. So Dom and the boss man are around somewhere nearby.”
She thought about it and agreed. “That’s all I’m getting for numbers too.”
Terk nodded. “So, that makes three of us against potentially all three of them.”
“Good,” she murmured. “Glad to know we’re at least in agreement on that much.”
As they headed down the hallway, Wallace watched as she hesitated. He grabbed her hand. “When you have a conviction, you stick to it,” he stated. “We can always change direction but only if you feel it.”
“What if we’re heading into a trap?” she asked, with a wry look in his direction.
“Then we’re heading into a trap, but we have to try this anyway, so remember that. Most importantly, we already know it.”
She didn’t say anything.
Wallace asked, “That accident you had, what did it do to you?”
“You mean, what didn’t it do?” she muttered. “Seems as if it ripped off a huge Band-Aid, exposing a fresh wound.”
Terk looked over at her and grinned. “That’s a really good analogy because that’s how we often felt when we were healing after being attacked. Everything felt wide open, raw even.”
“Exactly,” she agreed, with a shudder. “There’s… this sense of not being able to shut anything down, not being able to control everything that’s flying at you.” With a sigh, she continued on.
They walked a good twenty yards, and she stopped again. Terk raised an eyebrow.
She frowned. “He’s being moved.”
“Ah, that would explain it.”
“Explain what?”
“I feel energy shifting. Two bodies, but I don’t know how many we were dealing with right now.”
“I’m not even sure I’m getting two bodies out of this,” she admitted. “But definitely a feeling of… somebody being moved somewhere.”
“They’re trying to keep Jonas on the move to see if we can track him,” Terk suggested.
“That’s a shitty thing to do,” she murmured, and then she laughed. “But that’s all they really want to know, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, and that’s also what we don’t want to reveal,” Wallace pitched in.
Terk nodded at that. “So, if we continue in this direction, we’ll have to find a way to save Jonas, then afterward not reveal anything.”
“You mean, from them having a good idea of what we can do?” she muttered. “So, how will you do that? You don’t have a mind-wipe handy, do you?”
He grinned. “No, and it’s not exactly ethical either.”
“No, maybe not,” she muttered. “Still, I sure wouldn’t mind getting rid of some of these people who seem to think playing games with lives is okay.”