Ending ELE (ELE Series) (15 page)

I don
’t miss the interested feelings that wash over the girls. This stranger intrigues them.

The
few items Tony finds in the man’s pockets are dropped on the ground during the search. It looks like a sheathed knife, wallet, a lighter, and a key ring.

Alec comes behind Tony and grabs the wallet
in search of identification. “Michael Bennett, age twenty-three. Brown hair, blue eyes, 5’9”, and 165 pounds,” Alec says, reading his identification card aloud. He flips through the wallet some more. “Works for Atlas energy as an energy consultant. Nothing else I can tell here.” Alec tosses the wallet back into the pile.

Blue eyes
, I wonder. So is the color of his eyes his original color from birth? It’s in this moment I realize that the one gift I rarely use could be of huge value.

I walk up to Tony, put the safety back on my
gun, and slip it into my pocket. I put my hand on his shoulder as he finishes his searching procedure. “
I’m going to read his memories,
” I tell Tony.

“
Together,
” he says and grabs my hand. I notice that Tony has a swirl of silver in his eyes. He’s already working to shield himself from any unforeseen threat.

I feel strangely pulled towards the man that Tony has a hold of, so I should probably do the same. A memory of Zack and his compulsion flickers in my mind and icy pinpricks cover my arms. I focus on
putting up my shield as I address the man. “If you don’t mind, Michael, we’d like to make explicitly sure that you mean us no harm. May we have your hand please?”

His
blue-green eyes flinch almost untraceably before he hesitantly offers us his hand. I close my eyes, feeling his gaze weighing heavily on me. I do my best to ignore it as Tony and I take hold of his hand together and are instantly transported to a whirlwind of memory flashes. We go momentarily blind as we walk through his memory.

Nothing that I can see sticks out like a red flag.
A non-broken home, a stay-at-home mom, private school, a high school sweetheart that died from the outbreak, a... I gasp for breath, my whole body feeling jarred as the sound of metal screeching, screams, and then an explosion fills my mind. I drop his hand and blink several times, trying to regain my sight.

“
What the heck was that?” Tony asks, shaking his head in an effort to clear it.

The pain from his memory was so severe and quick that it felt like a slash, like a cut deep inside me. I run my hand over my head and through my hair, taking a few breaths. Alec has come up behind us and has his hand on both Tony
’s and my shoulder. Connor is training the gun Alec must have handed him, at Michael.

“
What was it?” Alec asks. I can feel him sending healing into us even though it’s not necessary. We didn’t really get hurt—it was just a memory... Michael’s poor and horrific memory.

“
What did you see?” Michael asks a little too coolly.

I look up and am caught in his trance. Something tells me that he doesn
’t seem surprised by the fact that we just surfed through his memories. Nor does he seem surprised by our eyes, which must have gone completely white. I focus on my own healing ability, just for the sake of adding some color to my eyes. By the look on his face that turns from shock to wonder, I can tell it worked. I decide to answer his question. “A crash. An explosion.”

“
Oh,” he says.

Tony doesn
’t seem too thrilled by his lackadaisical answer. “Explain,” he says through gritted teeth. His hand is on his head as if he can force the sound of those screams from his mind.

“
I was on the train in Baltimore,” Michael says, knowing that those two words—train and Baltimore—are all we need to hear to understand.

Tony and I look to each other in horror. Claire gasps from behind us. The horrific memory makes sense now.
I remember the news coverage of the accident in Baltimore. Accidents of that proportion don’t happen often these days. It was only a few months prior to us entering the shelter, I think. I still remember the images of the charred and twisted eighteen-wheeler that had stalled on the tracks and derailed the passenger train in Maryland. The damage was extensive and there were very few survivors. I guess Michael was amongst the lucky ones.

I take a deep breath and look over at Michael. His eyes are filled with an intensity that only a survivor
’s eyes can hold. An intensity that I know all too well.

“
We need to try again. We need to make sure he’s safe,”
Tony tells me.

I nod my head in agreement. Just because he
’s been through something tragic, doesn’t mean that he’s not a psychopath. Even though I have a feeling that he’s not bad.

I hold my hand out to Michael. His eyes widen in surprise. I guess he thought we were done. He shrugs his shoulders and places his hand in mine. Tony quickly clasps
his hand over it as well and we are sucked into the memory again. The jarring crash as the train crumples in on itself from the momentum. Michael’s body being thrown from his seat, his head slamming into the window as the cart he’s in tumbles onto its side... The screams erupting around him and there’s an explosion from somewhere in the front of the train cart. The heat is intense and then it becomes more bearable as Michael’s body is dragged out of the cart by a rescuer. Then everything goes black. I hold onto his hand for several more seconds. I feel Tony’s hand lift away a moment later, but I keep my hold on Michael. I try to swim through the deep, black abyss to search for other memories, with no luck. Finally, I let go.

I allow myself a few seconds to regain my composure.

“I can’t see you after the accident. What are you trying to hide?” Tony says in a stern voice with little feeling, while placing his other hand near his back pocket.

I look at Michael with the same intensity.
He’s hiding something, I can tell.

“
I’m not hiding anything.” He looks at me when he says it.

“
You are,” I say through gritted teeth, trying to shake his memories away from me. “I should have seen more. There were no memories after the accident. Just... Blackness.”

His blue-green eyes flash with intensity
that’s locked onto me. “I was in a coma for a long time. When I awoke, I was in an abandoned hospital with sweat soaking my body. They left me behind. I can only assume from the bits and pieces that I’ve scrounged up that they thought I was close to death and didn’t bother with bringing me into one of those shelters.” He curls his fingers into his fists. I can tell by his gaze that his mind is wandering back to that moment.

“
That doesn’t explain where your memories went since you woke up,” Tony states.

Michael looks at him as if just noticing he
’s there.

“
Yeah, why couldn’t we see when you woke up?” I ask him.

“
I don’t know how your powers work. I’ve only recently learned about powers. I had found a small group of people with your kind of gifts,” he answers.

“
You’ve found people with abilities? Where are they?” I ask.

“
I don’t know. I woke up one morning to find them gone. I guess they left. I’m getting tired of waking up alone.” His eyes are smoldering as he says the last part.

My cheeks heat at the alternate meaning and Tony steps closer to me.
“That still doesn’t explain why we couldn’t see your memories.”

Michael looks to Tony and seems a little annoyed.
“Look, my mind blanks out a lot since I’ve woken up. Sometimes, I forget entire spans of time. I don’t know for sure but that could be affecting my memory,” he offers.

I glance over at Tony to see if he
’s buying it. He purses his lips in thought. “Perhaps,” Tony says simply. And with that, the tension that built up in the area is gone.

Michael speaks up once more
, this time looking back and forth between Tony and me. “Seriously though, why do you have so many different colors in your eyes? The people I met with abilities only had one color.” He points to Tony. “And you moved that log with your mind. How do you have more than one gift?” I watch as he tries to make sense of it.

“
Honestly, it’s a long story to get into right now. But, yes, I have multiple powers,” Tony says. I can sense a bit of mistrust still floating out there between all of us and Michael. Well, I should say everyone but Marya and Claire. They seem to be drawn to him. So noticeably that Alec and Connor are starting to feel jealous. I scoff at the strangeness of it all.

Alec extends his hand in greeting,
“Nice to meet you, Michael. I’m Alec, I can heal.” He puffs up his chest and I can tell that he’s trying to seem bigger and cooler than Michael. The two guys shake hands and we all take turns introducing ourselves, telling him our name and ability. His introduction to Claire and Marya lingers slightly longer than the rest and both blush and giggle like schoolgirls. Connor gets a bit red in the face and repositions himself so he’s standing in front of Claire.

“
Down doggie,” I whisper in Connor’s ear. The look he gives me could kill. I still manage to give him a smirk.

When it comes time for me to introduce myself, I keep my distance
, not trusting myself not to be pulled into whatever web he has Claire and Marya in. “I’m Willow,” I tell him, not offering up my abilities.

This doesn
’t go unnoticed by Michael. He arches an eyebrow and then nods acceptingly. “Nice to meet you, Willow.”

I nod but don
’t say anything further. We all stand there in awkward silence, unsure of where to go from here.

Michael
looks behind us and notices the hatch we’ve unearthed. “Any clue as to what’s inside?” He walks over to it and gives the handle a jiggle.

Connor interjects.
“It’s a tunnel of some sort—not sure where it leads or anything.”

Michael cocks an eyebrow.
“Let me guess, you used your ‘ability’ to be able to see this, while the door remained sealed.”

Connor grins
while collecting on the ego boost. “You can say that,” he says, while brushing nonexistent dirt from his shoulder. It’s not often Connor takes the limelight from his ability. While cool, it’s not always the most useful.

Just
then, Claire lets out a shriek and is dragged away from Connor. In an instant, Connor darts around and lunges at Claire’s attacker. I see the assailant’s red eyes before Connor punches him in the face and frees Claire. We hadn’t even thought of the threat that obviously continued to follow Michael. The monsters with red eyes!

“
Reapers!” Marya calls out and the area becomes a swarm of action and fighting.

I take out my pistol, readying myself for action. Before I have a chance to know what is going on, a Reaper painfully tackles me from behind.
I feel his ability immediately, like all my powers are being sucked clean dry. Tony plucks him off me. He sends him flying through the air and into a tree trunk several yards away. I cast a glance over Tony’s shoulder and, noticing it, he whirls around and begins fighting off another assailant.

I look around for the gun I dropped and can
’t find it anywhere. I have no time to look for it because a female Reaper is running towards me. Her red eyes and messy black hair give her a crazed look. I lift my hand in her direction and focus on moving her with my mind. The golden haze lines my vision as she lifts up from the ground a few inches. Then a silver glint flickers around the rim of her red eyes and she smirks as she drops back down and continues charging at me. I brace myself for her attack. She throws a punch. I dodge it and counter with a kick to her stomach. I put all of my power into it and she goes flying back. She’s up a second later and coming at me again. I lift my hands, ready to attack, but she stops cold. Her eyes glaze over. That’s when I see the blood and at the source of it, a knife is sticking out of her chest. She attempts to lift her hand up to the wound but falls to the ground lifeless in the next second.

I stare at her in confusion until Claire materializes from her invisible state. Her eyes are wide with horror and she
’s shaking from what she just did. I don’t know if Claire has had to kill anyone yet. My stomach twists, knowing the shock she’s going through.

I don
’t have the time to dwell on it because her gaze flickers to something behind me. I look over my shoulder and find a Reaper with Tony in a chokehold, his face turning purple. The Reaper’s eyes are crazed and swirling with red, neon yellow, gold, and silver. I try to scream and can’t find my voice. I start to run to help him but a shot rings out in the clearing, stopping everyone in their tracks—Reapers and all. The Reaper that was holding Tony has a bullet that sunk clean, square in the middle of his forehead. He slumps to the ground, releasing his hold on Tony.

There are only three
Reapers left alive. They take notice and immediately begin running in the opposite direction. I watch as Michael uses my gun to shoot at the rest of the Reapers. He hits one more, but the other two were way too fast.