Purpose (23 page)

“We went balls to the wall fucking the hell
out of each other! Got it now?!” I clapped my hand over my mouth.
Oh!
Did I really just say that?

“Oh,” Owen said flatly. Then realization
finally overcame him. “
Oh!
”

I heard something about Hurricane Alexis
muttered from the balcony. I threw Tristan a look through the glass
doors. He shook with laughter. Owen looked at Tristan, then at me
and then at the bedroom door. He shook his head slowly.

“I need to get a motorcycle,” he
muttered.

I didn’t know if I’d ever heard Tristan laugh
so hard.

As soon as we all sat out on the balcony, the
guys hounded me about what I could do, briefly taking me back to my
old school days when kids called me a freak for healing in front of
their eyes. But, of course, to Tristan and Owen, what made me
freaky was my
lack
of powers. In addition to what I could
always do, I could only think of the heightened senses.

“So can you see that boat way out on the
water?” Owen asked.

The only boat in our view appeared to be a
small fishing vessel about a half-mile away.

“The one with the white hull and blue
stripe?” I asked.

“Nice.” He sounded impressed.

So something
had
changed over the last
few days—not even two nights ago could I see so far.

“Can you read the name or the numbers?”
Tristan asked.

“No. I can see that they’re there, but I
can’t distinguish them,” I answered. “Can you?”

“It’s called the ‘Trojan Horse,’” he
said.

“It’s kind of an odd name for a boat,” I
said.

“Makes you wonder why they’d name it
that.”

“Maybe it’s not really a fishing boat,” Owen
said and then he quickly grew excited. “They must be hiding
something bad. Maybe they’re pirates. Or maybe there’s a bunch of
Cubans or Haitians in there, escaping to the States. Or maybe
they’re drug traffickers. There you go…that’s it. Tristan, you
wanna have some fun with a drug bust?”

Owen was obviously joking, but Tristan shook
his head and answered anyway. “I just got back from hell. I’m not
really in the mood to deal with automatic weapons and lunatic drug
dealers.”

“Well, I can hear a guy talking, and his
words don’t make any sense, but I’m pretty sure he’s talking about
fishing anyway,” I said.

They both stared at me, their eyes wide and
their mouths slightly open, apparently forgetting Owen’s
theories.

“You can’t hear him?” I asked. Owen shook his
head.

“I can hear him moving around,” Tristan said,
“but not any words.”

“Huh.” My brows furrowed as I tilted my head.
“I don’t know who he’s talking to. I can’t hear anyone else. And he
keeps interrupting himself with incoherent and irrelevant
words.”

It wasn’t just
what
he said that
seemed strange. The quality of his voice sounded odd. His words
kind of echoed or reverberated, as if spoken through a
wrapping-paper tube.

Tristan peered out at the boat.

“I only see one guy. I think he’s alone.” He
paused, looking at me, then back at the fisherman and back at me.
“I wonder… It’s a unique gift, but just maybe…”

“What?” I asked with trepidation, not liking
his tone or the look in his eye.

“You might be hearing his thoughts.”

“Nah,” Owen guffawed, leaning back in his
chair and lacing his fingers behind his head. “Rina’s the only one
who can do that. Besides, how can she hear his and not ours?”

“Maybe she’s not trying and doesn’t have
control.”

“There’s no way,” I said, shaking my
head.

Tristan continued to peer at me, his eyes
full of curiosity. “Try me.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “This is crazy. I
can’t read your thoughts, Tristan.”

“Just try,” he urged. “You
are
unique.”

“Of course I am,” I muttered.

“Remember that connection you spoke of
yesterday?” he asked.

“I didn’t hear your thoughts, though. If I
did…”
Well, life would’ve been quite different while he’d been
gone
. Our connection, if I was right about it in the first
place, didn’t exist through the mind, though. We were connected
through our hearts or our souls…or our blood.

“No, it would have been too much of a
distance. But it could be some kind of a precursor,” he said.

I glanced at Owen. He apparently dismissed
Tristan’s idea. He stared off into the distance, seemingly lost in
his own world, not paying attention to us. Good thing—our
conversation had become a little too personal for comfort. I looked
back at Tristan. Anticipation lit up his face.

“Fine, if it’ll make you happy,” I said with
a sigh. “How do I do it?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Telepathy’s an ability
they couldn’t give me—never theirs to give. My guess would be to
open your mind and just listen.”

I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind
of all my own thoughts. That’s harder than it sounds. As soon as
you tell yourself to not think, you’re still thinking. So I gave
myself something to think about: a black, empty space, like a big
cloud of nothingness. And then I grew that cloud so it seemed to
expand beyond the confines of my own head. I pushed it out farther
and let it spread out on its own, eventually drifting out to
enshroud the guys. Thoughts of it not working started to poke into
my cloud and I almost gave up. But then I heard Tristan’s voice
singing an old rock song loud and clear in my head, sounding almost
like his real voice
. “Here I am…rocked you like a
hurricane.”

ere I am
I burst out laughing.
I
thought I rocked him.
Now he laughed.
Oh!
He heard
me!
He nodded.

Then a vision appeared as if I imagined it
myself—the destroyed Caribbean room wavered into view. And then
images of a naked woman and man in the heat of passion, their arms
and legs entwined. They weren’t Tristan and me, though. They were
Owen and…

“
Owen
!” I gasped. I didn’t even want
to know the identity of the woman. It was bad enough to see
him
in the vision when I thought I’d been seeing Tristan’s
memory.

Owen jumped with surprise. He squirmed in his
chair with obvious discomfort.

“Sorry. I didn’t really think you could,” he
said. “I didn’t even know you were trying.”

“I wasn’t
trying
. It was just
there
,” I said, exasperated. “Ugh! I need to learn
control
.”

“Yeah, you do,” he muttered.

“Trust me—I don’t like it anymore than you
do. I don’t want to go through life like this.” I shook my head,
trying to erase the image of Owen’s fantasy as if my mind was an
Etch-a-sketch. “That’s really scary.”

Tristan’s eyes bounced back and forth between
us. He lifted his eyebrows.
Hurricane Owen wants to visit our
Caribbean island
, I tried to tell him with my thoughts. He
grinned. He apparently “heard” me.

“Rina controls it so she only hears thoughts
when she wants to,” Tristan said. “She can teach you how to tune
the rest out.”

“I hope so,” I muttered.

“
Yeah, me, too,”
Tristan thought and
Owen’s thoughts echoed his.

I pressed my forehead against the table and
put my arms over my head, trying to make the “voices” go away. I
imagined sucking the cloud back in and making it disappear. Either
both of their minds went blank or I was able to close my mind to
them. I couldn’t hear the guy out on the boat anymore, either.

“I am never doing that again,” I finally
said.

“Yeah, let’s try something different,” Owen
said, jumping at the chance to forget the whole thing. He looked
around. “We’ll start with the easy stuff. See if you can make the
chair move.”

“Uh…
how
?”

He shrugged. “I use magic, so I can’t explain
it for you.”

“
Magic?
”

“Uh, yeah, warlock,” he said, flipping his
hands toward himself, as if this title was as obvious as the blond
hair on his head and I was blind. “Warlocks use magic.”

I felt my eyes bug out of my head. “You’re a
warlock
?”

He chuckled. “You didn’t know? Thought you
would’ve figured that one out.”

I closed my gaping mouth and tried not to
stare in disbelief.
But holy crap! Owen—my Owen, who I’ve known
for years now—is a freakin’ warlock!
My mouth opened again, but
I was too stunned to speak. I pulled in a deep breath and composed
myself. Apparently, these were things I would have to get used
to.

“That’s, um…unexpected. So, you’re not really
Amadis?” He threw me a dirty look. “Sorry I don’t get it yet. I
mean, were you converted?”

“Third generation
good
,” he said,
proudly smacking his chest with his fist. “Rina’s mother converted
my grandparents. All I’ve known is the Amadis way of life.”

“Wow…a warlock.” I shook my head, still
amazed. I knew, of course, that Owen wasn’t normal, that he could
do things regular humans couldn’t, but I’d assumed he was Amadis in
the same way Mom, Tristan and Rina were. I thought shielding was
one of his quirks, like my sixth sense or Tristan’s paralyzing
power or Rina’s telepathy. Never had I expected actual
magic
. “That’s really crazy, Owen. So that’s why you didn’t
stop aging—you don’t have Amadis blood like Tristan and me?”

“Right. I’m warlock through and through. We
get really old, though, so I’ll be around at least as long as
you.”

“Is that a threat?” I teased.

He smiled. “Nope. It’s a promise.”

“So, do you have a wand or a staff or
anything?” I almost laughed at my own question. It sounded
outrageous when I said the words out loud.

“Have you ever
seen
me with one?” He
asked with a snort. “Those are for witches, wizards and sorcerers.
I just use my hands.”

“Witches, wizards and
sorcerers
?” I
stared at him in disbelief again. These creatures all existed in my
books, but in real life? I wondered if a line between fiction and
reality even existed. It seemed to all be blurring together now.
Apparently,
my
fiction
was
reality. “What’s the
real
difference between you…you…?”

“Mages,” he said.

“Right. Mages.”

“You were pretty much right on target in your
books,” Owen said. “Witches and wizards are your everyday magic
people. Don’t get me wrong—they can be very powerful. But sorcerers
have the greatest magical power and they’re able to boost it by
pulling more energy from the world and the atmosphere. We don’t
have any sorcerers in the Amadis. They’re loners, so no one has
been able to get to them and they’re probably too power-hungry
anyway. And then there are the warlocks. We have more power than
witches and wizards and we’re physically built to fight—stronger,
tougher, faster. Our most powerful magic comes out when we’re
fighting.”

“So that makes you an ideal protector.”

He grinned. “Yep. And you happened to get one
of the best.”

“One who caves into a pretty face and a steak
dinner,” Tristan muttered.

Owen scowled.

“Please don’t,” I said.

“No, he’s right,” Owen said, his voice heavy
and the lines appearing between his brows. “I should’ve known
better. And I do take full responsibility for it.”

“It’s in the past, remember? Can we get back
to business?” I suggested. My eyes darted between them until I felt
the tension release. “So, what do I use, if not magic?”

“It’s just power,” Tristan answered. He held
his hand out and drew a line in the air with his finger. With the
scraping sound of metal against concrete, the empty chair slid
across the balcony floor. “Just concentrate your mind on what you
want to do. If you have the power, you can do it.”

I imitated his hand movement and focused all
my mental energy on making the chair move. It wobbled and I did a
dance in my own chair, shrieking with excitement. Owen laughed and
made the chair do a flip in the air. My enthusiasm deflated.

“Show off,” I muttered.

“Yours will strengthen,” Tristan said.

“So what’s the difference between power and
magic?”

I’d accepted that Tristan and I—and Mom and
Rina—had powers years ago. What I didn’t realize was the magic
behind them.

“Our powers are basically based on the will
of the mind and we’re not supposed to be born with them,” Tristan
said. “We come into them when it’s time for us to receive them,
like with your
Ang’dora
. Of course, you and I both had some
powers before then, but they were weak. Owen was born magic, but he
has to learn how to use it.”

“You’ve been given enough magic to do certain
things—abilities—but the power of your mind is how you use it,”
Owen added. “I have magical powers, but I have to learn how to use
different spells and reagents to make the power useful.”

I tried to make sense of their explanations.
“So, Tristan and I, our magic is limited to the abilities we’re
given and we control them with our mind. But you, Owen, can do all
kinds of magic, if you know the spells or have the right tools or
materials?”

“Right. You got it.” Owen grinned at me. “And
your abilities are more physical—you might have to use the mind,
but the power affects physical objects. I can conjure magical
things out of nothing, like the protective shield over this
place.”

“What about this ability to get into people’s
heads?” I asked. “People’s minds and thoughts aren’t physical
objects.”

“Which is why it’s such a rare gift,” Tristan
said. “Even in the Amadis.”

“Of course,
I’d
be the one to get it,”
I mumbled. It was one gift I really didn’t want.

He smiled. “It means your mind is strong
enough to control such a unique power. It’s a good thing.”