Chapter 2
The attacks came and went. There were headaches and bouts of nausea and sickness after big ones. Every once in a while there would be a huge, overwhelming wave of voices that flowed into her mind and it was all Jess could do to hang on to her sanity. It was hard operating like that, hard living under conditions where you knew that any second, you could black out.
Slaughter watched her from the back of the classroom as she rubbed her temples. She had just walked—stumbled, to be more precise—into the class and she looked ill to say the least.
If only he was 18 already, he wouldn’t need to touch her to see her memories. From across the room he would be able to recall her past. But as it was, he had only just turned 16 at the end of the summer and still needed to be in physical contact with a person in order to see their memories. Slaughter’s own limitations weighed him down heavily as he watched the girl lay her head on her crossed arms.
When class was over, he stayed a few paces behind her and watched as she walked to her locker to retrieve her books. But instead of leaving right away when that was done, she leaned against it, her eyes closed. For barely a second, Slaughter considered speaking to her, introducing himself, but he wasn’t sure if she had known his father as well as he had known hers. So he stayed where he was, nonchalantly glancing at her from the corner of his eye as he bent to drink from the water fountain.
Jess stood up straight and stuffed the books in her bag before walking towards her next class.
He stayed a few paces behind her, aiming for subtlety, but apparently he failed. It was when she reached the corner of the next hallway that she spun around and pointed at him.
“You’re following me.”
His response was immediate. “Am not.”
“Are too.”
“I’m a big brother—I can do this all day.”
She squinted at him, eyes hard. “Why are you following me?”
“Calm down, sweetheart. I’m just walking to my next class like everyone else.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said curtly, not even hesitating. “And don’t call me sweetheart. I’m not your girlfriend.”
“I think we got off on the wrong foot.” Slaughter offered his hand. “Jake Slaughter.”
Jess looked down at the hand and back up at his face, unmoving. Her eyes narrowed just slightly, taking him in. “I don’t know you.”
“You knew my father.”
Slaughter wished he could read thoughts. His whole memories thing was great and all, but what it could be like, having access to someone’s head like that. No one could ever lie to you—but then again, that also meant more pain in certain cases. Still, what he wouldn’t give to be able to hear Jess’ thoughts as recognition clicked and the tight corners of her mouth deflated into a line.
“I knew of him,” she said, her voice quiet. “Yeah, Alex, right?” Slaughter nodded. “So you were following me.”
He shrugged without giving a definite answer. “Maybe.”
“Why?”
Slaughter hesitated. There was no real answer he could give, none that would make him seem like any less of a weirdo, so he simply said, quiet and honest, “To talk to you about what you can do.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, disbelieving and sarcastic. “Look, dude, I don’t know if you’re, like, some spokesperson for a charity or something, but I don’t really have time—”
“I mean,” he sighed, “what you can do with your powers.”
Her face went still, pulse thumping steadily under her skin. Slaughter watched, waited.
She looked to her right and to her left. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, you obviously can’t see memories because you would have had to have skin contact. Um, can you see the future?” She gave him a blank look. “Catastrophes, maybe?” She arched an eyebrow. “Thoughts, then?”
Something flashed in her eyes. Her mouth opened slightly.
Her expression said shock, but that didn’t make any sense. Growing up with her father, she had to know what she was, what she could do. It wasn’t like Markus to hide it, not unless he thought it would protect her. Frowning, Slaughter crossed his arms and said, “Someone must have told you. Your father at least should have… No?”
Jess gave him a fake smile. “Listen, Jake Slaughter, old family friend, I’m sure you’re a really great guy, but you’re kind of creeping me out right now, so maybe you can cut to the chase so that I can get to second period?”
“You can’t actually be this ignorant. Your father, both of you…” Slaughter sighed heavily. “You’re a Seer.”
She blinked. “A what?”
“Oh, this is going to be harder than I thought…”
The warning bell split the air and Slaughter watched as the hallways cleared. Jess held onto the strap of her bag and made a move to step around him, but he caught her wrist gently. She gave him one look and he let it go.
“Sorry—I—just listen. Meet me after school.”
A person can tell a lot of things about another by their response for a command. Any sane person would normally question it, especially coming from a stranger like Slaughter, but the question they would ask wasn’t Jess’.
Any other person would ask, “Why?”
She asked, “Where?”
Slaughter noticed the difference. “Just wait outside your classroom,” he insisted, and his voice had a soft grumble to it, like power was lurking underneath.
“And where will you be?” she asked.
“I’ll be back,” he called as he walked backwards down the hallway. “I’ve just gotta pick someone up at the airport.”
^^^*^^^*^^^
Chase Mabry shouldered his backpack as he made his way through the terminal. He hadn’t checked any luggage and was in a hurry to see Jake, so he immediately began scanning the crowd. The second he noticed the mop of jet-black hair that belonged to his friend, he relaxed.
“Hey, Chase,” Jacob muttered, offering a hand for their complicated guy handshake.
Once completed, the older man took in his companion with watchful eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you ready to go? A cab’s waiting out front for us.”
“Sure. So, tell me about the girl.”
As they made their way towards the exit, Jacob smirked. “She looks like him, Chase. Really looks like him. It’s amazing. But, uh, I was thinking—”
“You know how well that goes, Jake.”
“—I don’t want to scare her away so quickly. Maybe give me a few days to get her used to me and then—”
Chase froze, turning to his friend. “Jake, you know as well as I do that, with female Seers, every day they get is precious. Don’t waste them because you’re trying to get into her pants.”
Slaughter rolled his eyes. “I’m not trying to get into her pants. I’m trying to…to make this work, okay?”
“Why would you even ask me to come here if you were just going to argue with me?”
“I didn’t ask,” he argued.
“No,” Chase spat. “You didn’t. You never ask. You just do what you want and you never listen even though you are the youngest of us, Jake. Besides Oliver, you’re the baby of the family and you don’t get to do this to us anymore.”
“My father told me to come back here, Chase. I won’t ignore orders from him like that.”
“Until you’re 18, Rodney is your father. And until he comes back, I’m in charge.” His eyes were harsh, unrelenting, and there was fear in them. Fear for Slaughter, fear for his family, fear for himself. Chase wasn’t always comfortable being in charge, but he knew how to be. “You get one day. And then I’m telling her everything.”
Slaughter’s jaw clenched. “She’s a 16-year-old girl, Chase. You can’t spring something like that on her. It makes me sick, thinking about growing up, thinking about what happens when I turn 18, and I’ve lived with the knowledge my whole life. You can’t just show up and tell her.”
Chase arched an eyebrow. “Watch me.”
^^^*^^^*^^^
Slaughter was walking down the hall when the bell rang. He was eleven paces from the classroom door before he saw Jess exit, but she didn’t look up, didn’t look for him, and didn’t stop outside the room like he’d asked. Instead, she continued down the hall towards the opposite side where her locker was.
Slaughter followed.
“You didn’t wait,” he accused, leaning on the locker door next to hers. “That’s very rude.”
She ignored him, shoving a book into her locker and lifting two more out. She looked pale, and when Slaughter looked closer, her arms were shaking.
Without even thinking about it, he grabbed the books out of her hands and let them drop. Just in time, too, because her knees gave out a second later and he caught her, arms wrapped around her waist.
“Jesus,” Slaughter muttered. “What the hell happened while I was gone?”
“It happens once in a while,” Jess whispered. Her voice was almost too soft for him to hear. Her arms went around his neck, still trembling. “Bad days, big headaches.”
“How long since the last time?”
Her eyes closed. She leaned against him heavily, like she just couldn’t help it, and he tried to get her to stand up straight.
“Jess—hey, when was the last time?”
“About a month ago,” was her feeble response, and then she was on the floor, sprawled like a murder victim.
His first thought was panic—she was dead; it had finally happened, right there in front of him—but then his brain kicked in and he remembered. Female Seers never went quietly. There were seizures, nightmares, heart attacks, but no female Seer ever just keeled over. She was fine. Besides the inevitable headache.
Students crowded to check on her, flocking to the mystery. Once Slaughter had moved them back and the nurse had been called, he pulled out of his cell phone, already dreading the call he knew he had to make. He waited a little longer, until she was properly settled, and then dialed.
“What happened?”
“She fainted. She’s alive. What do I do?”
Chase, inside Slaughter’s apartment, groaned before thumping his head against the wall. “Goddamn, Jake.”
“It’s not my fault!”
“Bring her here, you moron. Now.”
“She’s not exactly up to walking, Chase.”
Chase sighed heavily. Slaughter felt momentarily guilty. “Fine,” Chase said. “As soon as she can—bring her. Make an excuse that you can text her family, but be sure that she gets here tonight.”
“Okay. Hey, wait, there’s something else.” Slaughter was standing outside the nurse’s office, watching through the window as the woman iced the back of Jess’ head. “She said that she’d had a headache like that before, right before she hit the ground—sounded like they’ve been going on for a while. Probably one or two a month.”
There was heavy, crackling silence—Slaughter recognized it. It was anger and fear and anxiety, all heaped together and steaming on a bed of frustration. It was one of Chase’s worst moods.
“This was an attack, wasn’t it? The attack?”
“We won’t know for sure until you get her here. But she’s alive. That counts for something.”
Link to Chapter 3