Legacy (3 page)

And the newest minder at Ganzfield happened to be my mother.

Ugh.

I shuddered. Things were going to get ugly. Our basic decision was either to take the heat—as though we really were the ones who’d needed the pregnancy test—or to violate Rachel’s privacy and tell the other minders.

Please. Like that’s actually a choice.
Trevor quickly dismissed that option. Of course we weren’t going to tell.

We were in-synch on this, but I didn’t want to put Trevor through that.
Are you sure? It’s going to get bad
.
My mom, Williamson…

We’ll take it
. He walked with me as he telekinetically tapped his keycode into the security box by the door to our church.
At least WE know you’re not pregnant.
The outside light came on as the door unlocked and Trevor smiled at me in the dim light.

Thank heavens.

I rubbed my hand across my face. Even the thought of dealing with a pregnancy
rumor
for a few days was mortifying—imagining all the I-know-what-you-did-to-get-that-way thoughts made me shudder—a real pregnancy at seventeen would be horrible. Between that and recognizing the cause of Rachel’s nausea, I was becoming seriously attached to my technical virginity.

Trevor grinned playfully.
I told you so.

I snorted.
Okay, you were right. Thank you for protecting my chastity and virginal honor.

Technically,
he added with a laugh, pulling me into the warm, still air of the church.

Technically,
I agreed, leaning up to kiss him.

After coming back to Ganzfield a few months ago, we’d considered taking our physical relationship further. But between Trevor’s issues with unplanned pregnancy, my mother’s telepathic presence in Blair House, and the fact that soulmating was incredible, we hadn’t been in any rush. And we always connected as energy before we got too far—like we had a Higher Power chaperone.

We still did
stuff
, though.

My turn tonight.
Trevor’s words caused a delicious wave of red energy to dance across my skin. We’d learned pretty quickly that if we physically touched one another, we lost control almost instantly and ended up soulmating. So, we’d come up with taking “turns”—using telekinesis.

It was as mind-blowing as it sounded. In fact, that’s what we called it.

I kicked off my shoes and dropped my purse in the coatroom as Trevor swept me up and over to the new, king-sized bed in the middle of the church sanctuary. The frame was thick, wrought-iron, and bolted to the floor. I’d bought it for Trevor with the “dirty, dirty money” I now had from my multi-million-dollar stock market accident. Trevor didn’t really approve of my telepathic “market research,” but how else did he expect a seventeen-year-old, mute, telepathic high school dropout to make a living?

Our hearts raced each other as Trevor’s lips found mine. My hands clenched with the desire to slide over the smooth contours of his chest, over his taut stomach muscles, over his—

Trevor groaned. He gently pulled my hands up to grip the twisted iron of the headboard and then covered them with his own.

MY turn,
he repeated. He trailed kisses down my neck. I blissfully closed my eyes and opened my mind fully to his, showing him every nuance of my thoughts. My body arched as Trevor’s invisible touch made me melt. His lips trailed along the hollow of my neck and left a line of delicious fire in their wake. Our skins hummed with glowing red energy and my breath came in little pants.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

I moaned as his mouth moved higher, finding my lips again, and his physical hand gently angled my face up to his. I opened my eyes, met his gaze, and fell into his soul. Our energies pulsed together, glowing with a beautiful, powerful, overwhelming love, bringing us to an intensity that fused our souls together in a magical bliss.

Our still-clothed bodies trembled as we returned to them. Our breathing slowed back toward normal as we gazed into each other’s eyes, still amazed with one another, both filled with total adoration.

Distilled essence of intimacy.

I stayed with Trevor, together in peaceful completeness, until he drifted to sleep. I then reluctantly climbed into my own bed up in the loft over the coatroom, since I didn’t want him to accidentally throw me across the sanctuary during the night. That sort of thing really killed the romantic mood.

CHAPTER 3

Williamson wants you in his office. Now.

Seth’s mental voice pulled me from sleep. How totally unfair was it that he could reach into my unconscious mind? I couldn’t even
sense
sleeping people—unless they were dreaming, of course. Light trickled in through the slats in the shutters, but that didn’t tell me much—the sun came up before 6 a.m. this time of year.

Narc,
I thought sourly at Seth.

Trevor’s lanky frame stretched out across the big bed, still in the clothes he’d worn yesterday. My heart seemed to expand at the sight of him. I let him sleep. Since we weren’t going to tell Williamson anything, it didn’t really matter whether one or two of us stood there saying nothing.

Trevor began to dream. I climbed down from the loft and skirted around the edge of the room toward the bathroom annex, staying out of his invisible reach as his ability acted out the swimming motions that played through his mind. His pillow flew across the room, hit the wall, and landed with a soft plop on the floor.

Get out of range, Seth. I’m going to take a shower first,
I thought, in case he was still around. I popped up a mental shield as I closed the bathroom door.

I left a note for Trevor before heading to the main building. Ugh. How much was this going to suck? I adjusted my mental shield along the way, steeling for the confrontation I knew was coming. Two floors above me, Williamson—and my mother—waited with noticeable and growing impatience. A glance at the clock showed me it was just after 7 a.m. I felt Seth check in with them from outside.

Oh, great. Everyone’s here for the family meeting.

I fortified myself with coffee in the dining hall before heading to Williamson’s office. I didn’t bother to knock. They already knew I was there.

You’re shielding?
Williamson seemed upset.

My mother sat across from him. Her worried green eyes fixed on mine. She reached out with plump arms, as though to give me a hug, but I stayed back by the door and shook my head. She seemed to deflate as she dropped her hands to her lap.

Disappointment glowered darkly from Williamson’s mind and, for once, he almost looked disheveled. Were those wrinkles in his shirt? And he didn’t spontaneously combust?

Shocking.

He used other’s impressions of him like most people used a mirror. Williamson’s complexion looked sallow and I noticed the salting of white in his close-cut hair. He still radiated paternal authority and strength, but I knew now that he wasn’t as all-powerful as he had first appeared.

His eyes bored into me.
Explain
.

I shook my head, feeling sick at heart. At least Trevor wasn’t here, sharing in this sense of disappointment. I felt Seth’s mental presence outside but he wasn’t gloating. He was actually worried, too. If I still had a voice, I could’ve tried to tell them all something—given them enough information that they might’ve backed off for a while.

Maddie.
Williamson tried to keep himself calm.
This is unacceptable. First, you and Trevor broke your word to me.

I felt my jaw tense at the false accusation, but I kept my shield in place.

Second,
Williamson continued
, you went off the grounds without taking proper safety precautions, which could’ve put both you and Trevor at risk.

A knot of sickly-yellow guilt swept up and lodged in my throat. I guess my conscience agreed with Williamson. But Trevor and I could protect one another, and we’d been careful.

Third, you left us shorthanded while you were gone. What if there’d been an attack?

Again, I pushed down my anger. We hadn’t let anyone down. Trevor and I hadn’t been scheduled to patrol last night.

Fourth, you need to know that you can’t risk a pregnancy on dodecamine. We have no idea how it would affect fetal development. We don’t know what it would do to the brain of a G-positive child.

I gasped as a sick wave of cold dismay washed through me.
Oh, my God in Heaven.
Sean had died back in February—three months ago. If Rachel was pregnant, she’d probably gotten at least two shots of dodecamine since then.

My mother saw my distress and started to cry.
Oh! Maddie IS pregnant
!

Well, I could put that fear to rest, at least. I grabbed a notepad and a pen from Williamson’s desk and wrote a simple:

I’m not pregnant.

I thwacked the notepad back onto the center of the desk. The pen rolled off the edge and clattered across the floor. Let them assume the test had been negative, if that was where their minds went.

Williamson gave a deep sigh. My mom read the note several times, needing to believe it. The tension in the room eased.

I know I can’t keep you from having sex…
started Williamson.

Well, I can!
My mother had taken to telepathy with remarkable ease. She could hear the thoughts of other minders and read any-one else’s when she had physical contact. That’s why I hadn’t let her hug me when I’d arrived—she might’ve pick up something even through my shield.
Maddie, how you can justify being so STUPID—so unsafe! And I don’t care that you have nightmares. You’re going to sleep in Blake House from now on.

I looked at her hard, forcing my jaw not to quiver. Why didn’t they have any faith in me? Why did they still treat me like an irresponsible child? Hadn’t I done enough to prove myself?

Their accusations tasted like grey, bitter ash. There was nothing I could say and still keep Rachel’s secret, even if I could speak. I couldn’t lower my shield and I couldn’t send thoughts while shielding. I still didn’t know how Williamson did that. I’d been trying to do it for months, but I just couldn’t make it happen. So I simply met their eyes in turn, shook my head, and walked out.

Let them try and stop me.

Outside, I had the sudden, intense desire to get Trevor and leave Ganzfield for a while, but that wouldn’t happen. I was so tired of it all—of having others listening to my thoughts, of the security precautions, of the threat of attack, of the drama from the new arrivals and the returning survivors who now stayed here at Ganzfield.

The bulk of the mental turmoil faded as I moved across the field behind the main building. Silence—sort of. I could still feel the presence of the people behind me. I also heard some of the sparks waking in the little cinderblock houses by the edge of the lake. But right here, surrounded by the ankle-high grass, the only clear thoughts were those of a few field mice that scurried away from my footfalls.

A light haze burned off as the sky brightened. I walked out to the lake, feeling the coolness roll off it, sensing its depths in the drop in temperature. The water was still too cold for swimming, although a few people did it, anyway. Memorial Day, the official start of summer, had been only a few days ago. I walked along the edge for a while, toward the little, tree-lined alcove where a large chunk of granite jutted into the water. I sat out on the rock and tried to make my thoughts as smooth as the water’s surface, but all of the things I could’ve said kept flashing through my mind.

Pregnant? Geez! I’m still a virgin, Mom. You can have one of the healers confirm it for you.
I snorted. Wouldn’t that surprise the heck out of Hannah? She had a completely different impression of my relationship with Trevor…and she didn’t approve.

I imagined confronting Williamson.
You’ve been giving Rachel and every other female G-positive here dodecamine without doing a single pregnancy test.
Why haven’t we been warned about this possible complication?
This wasn’t the first time I’d felt the lack of effective communication at Ganzfield.
You’re a doctor, for crying out loud! This should’ve been handled better.

What about Rachel? How was she going to deal with this? If Rachel was pregnant, would the baby be okay? And, not to be insensitive or anything, but what did it mean for the rest of us? How would we keep track of Isaiah’s movements if Rachel had to go off the meds? She could locate Isaiah better than any of the others could. RVs all connected to their remote viewing targets differently. Some could only find things that were alive. A few couldn’t find living things, only inanimate objects—as though the life force within shone like a beacon for some but jammed the signal for others. But they’d all tried to track a single person for the past few months.

Isaiah.

We could get all caught up in the drama of an unintended pregnancy, but Isaiah Lerner was the
real
problem right now. Isaiah had forced Matilda to alter his brain structure, adding both charm and RV abilities to his natural telepathy. I’d burned out Isaiah’s speech center in the same fight in which he’d burned out mine. His charming ability was gone—at least, we hoped it was gone.
My
ability to speak certainly wasn’t coming back. But Isaiah could still hear thoughts and he still could use his stolen RV skills to locate other G-positives.

The murders had started a few weeks after we’d returned to Ganzfield. Isaiah was tracking and killing G-positives. Eight people had died so far—all in their homes and all from sudden, overpowering strokes. The police hadn’t made any connections among them. The victims had lived in different cities and there weren’t any public records that could link them to Ganzfield.