Chapter 44
We were halfway through training and Adele still hadn’t shown up.
I was so worried I could barely focus on what I was doing.
I’d already fallen into the freezing river, tripped over rocks trying to run between them, and even smacked face-first into an obstacle Zion had set up to simulate an enemy attack.
When I stepped on the trap, it sprang up and the wood slapped my forehead, landing me flat on my butt.
My gut was telling me something was wrong, and when I looked at Zion, I noticed he seemed troubled too, but he had to see the training through to the end.
I couldn’t stop wondering why Adele hadn’t told anyone.
Why didn’t she fight back? We were trained for this kind of situation, and Adele wasn’t the type to let herself get hurt like that.
On the second lap, I stepped on the damn trap again and took another hit to the face, landing on my butt. Aish was right behind me and stopped with a disapproving look.
“Are you blind, zoozi? By Amarwen! That’s the second time you’ve fallen in the same spot—I’m starting to think you’re aikan? in the head,” she complained, helping me up. As always, I wasn’t hurt. Only my pride was wounded.
“Aikan??” I asked, confused.
“It means ‘crazy’ in the Amperian dialect.” Aish smiled when I narrowed my eyes at her.
“I’m not aikan?, I just can’t concentrate. I have a headache,” I told her, and then Zion blew the whistle for us to climb the tree.
It was ten minutes of pure stress, because the more I stood still, the more my mind spun.
I heard a phone ringing and looked down just in time to see Zion answering the call.
Anxiety gnawed at my stomach like a living thing.
He blew the whistle to end our time in the tree and left to find somewhere he could talk without being heard.
I scrambled down faster than any other student and pulled on the bond.
I strained to hear something beyond that tunnel, but Zion’s protective barrier was fully active.
I went back to training looking like I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
It was already 6 PM and I couldn’t stop thinking about Adele.
Zion returned a few minutes later with a look that said nothing good was happening.
He ended the class by sending the students to practice target shooting until 7 PM or train with whatever weapon they preferred.
“Something happened to Adele. I need to go now,” he said in my head, and I felt my heart race even faster.
“What happened?” I watched Zion disappear into the shadows.
“I don’t have time to explain in detail, but Adele is in the hospital with some broken bones. Ambrose is already taking care of everything. Right now, the police need me. As soon as we’re done, I’ll come home.”
I didn’t want to be left in the dark. I was getting terrified. What had happened to Adele?
“I’m going to the hospital to find out more,” I said, already running toward the gymnasium.
“No, Kay. Let the team handle it from now on—wait for her to recover. I don’t think Adele is in any state for a conversation right now.”
I kept running to the gymnasium, because if I stopped, my mind would spiral out of control.
The truth was I felt guilty. Maybe if we had acted sooner, things wouldn’t be like this.
I felt Zion moving away, and I just ran without direction.
I arrived at the gymnasium before everyone else, grabbed my backpack, and headed home.
Breno stared at me in confusion as I blew past him like a hurricane.
“Hey! Aren’t we going to compete in target shooting?” he shouted after me.
“Not today—some problems came up at the hospital.”
Δ
It was getting dark, and on the horizon, low clouds slid down the mountains, draping them like a cotton blanket.
Since it was late autumn, the cold had begun to settle over the streets, and even with two sweaters, my body was still freezing.
On the way, I felt a presence stroking my mental wall and shuddered with fear, stopping under an orange maple.
They were claws—real claws, and sharp ones—but they only brushed lightly against my thin barrier, as if testing the texture.
“Don’t be alarmed,” the voice said, and I nearly had a heart attack when I recognized Serguei’s voice.
“You have to stop scaring me like that,” I grumbled, resuming my hurried walk down the street where some soldiers were running shirtless.
“And what would you have me do? There’s no door to knock on, my child. And if I breathe any harder on that pathetic barrier, it’ll collapse.”
My cheeks flushed, but I ignored his words. I rolled my eyes and kept walking.
“I did something today that filled me with emotion.”
“Serguei, I don’t have time for small talk right now. If you want, we can talk tomorrow, but not today.”
I left my shoes at the door as I entered the house.
“Perhaps this will interest you. It concerns Adelevik Ivanov.”
I froze in place.
“What do you know about this?”
“Well, today more than any other day, your mind was troubled, and as you can see, your rickety barrier isn’t holding steady, so I heard a few things.”
Kiara watched me alertly from her spot on the living room rug.
“Continue.”
“So... I got curious about her case. You know how I am—I love secrets.” I rolled my eyes. Of course he did; gossip was his specialty. “Yes, and thanks to my gossip, your little friend is alive—if we can even call her a friend. She has conflicting thoughts about you, but I understand.”
“What? Adele? What happened, Serguei? For the love of the gods, someone tell me what happened. I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.”
I paced back and forth across the room. Kiara walked alongside me.
“Sit down and I’ll tell you. I don’t have much time either. We’re about to start the hunt,” he said, his tone hard and unyielding.
I shuddered at that new tone, then sat down and fidgeted with a cushion.
“You were thinking about Adele, about the signs of violence. So I searched for her mind’s frequency, but guess what? I found nothing!”
“What do you mean? What frequency?” I asked, surprised.
“Every mind without a barrier emits a frequency. Thoughts and emotions create their own vibration, almost like a mental fingerprint. That’s how I locate people.
But when I searched for the white girl, I couldn’t find her vibration.
I had to push my power harder, filtering through everything just to find traces of her mind.
When I finally found her, I realized she had a mental barrier—one made by a skilled psychic.
I entered her head while she was on her way home.
She was terrified, thinking about grabbing her sister and fleeing Interion.
Her thoughts were a jumbled mess, so I dug deeper and discovered blocked memories.
Memories of violence. Whoever committed the crimes had erased all the events and left only the fear. ”
My brain short-circuited. I couldn’t even form a single thought.
“From the memory fragments, I discovered she has an uncle. A level 700 psychic who works in the criminal division—the abuse, rape, and torture section.”
I frowned. The uncle worked in the criminal division, so he could help Adele. He knew what was happening. He certainly... no...
It couldn’t be.
“Cruel, isn’t it?” This time, he sounded disturbed.
“Ivanov’s job is to read the minds of victims and criminals.
But reading minds is dangerous. When you absorb other people’s memories, they become yours too.
It’s a double-edged sword. A psychic already prone to violence can develop a taste for violent acts themselves. It’s called Thacker syndrome.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but it seems the violence started when she was sixteen.
It got worse a year ago, when her sister came to live here too.
It’s hard to piece together because I couldn’t unblock Adele’s memories.
Every time he committed an act, he immediately manipulated her mind so she’d forget everything.
Tampering with those memories is extremely dangerous—I could cause irreversible damage. ”
“But...” My gods, I was in shock. “Why didn’t she tell someone? Why didn’t she ask for help?”
“She did. She tried to tell her mother, but the woman called her a liar—Ivanov is her brother, and he already knew how to manipulate her mind. She couldn’t go to the police because the man was the department chief.
She even asked a teacher named Selene for help, but Ivanov erased the teacher’s memories.
So when her sister arrived, she gave up fighting.
Either she stayed quiet, or he’d start doing the same to the little one. ”
By the gods.
I felt like my mind was crumbling. What I’d suspected was already bad enough, but this?
I was floored. What Adele had suffered...
I couldn’t even imagine. Nausea hit me. It only got worse when I remembered the day we got into trouble, how she’d looked at Ivanov with fear.
What she’d said when I suggested she could end up behind bars: “Seems like a good place to me.” Gods!
She would have preferred prison to being with him.
I remembered how she’d asked for Serguei to be the psychic who would investigate us, how her eyes had been desperate for it not to be Ivanov.
That was a cry for help, and no one saw it.
The smell of blood, the dark circles under her eyes...
It was all there, but no one noticed. Actually, I had noticed, but I hadn’t cared enough to understand.
No one approached, no one questioned, and no one cared.
I didn’t care. The bitter taste of guilt flooded my mouth.