Powerless (Bird of Stone Book 3) Read online

  “Yeah, I’m not really looking forward to seeing her anyway, so she can stay away all day if she wants.”

  “She’s in the forest,” someone says. It’s a guy, a voice I don’t recognize.

  I look at Beck. “Did you say that?”

  He’s frowning, his eyes searching the room. “No. But I heard it.”

  “I said it.”

  I stand up, looking behind my chair. Nothing. No one. There’s nowhere to hide in this room. All of the furniture is up against the walls. There are no interior walls partitioning the room. Wherever the voice is coming from, it can’t be a person because I can’t see them.

  “Speaker,” I whisper to Brody.

  He nods, looking around at the equipment in the room. He runs his hand along the side of the TV, feeling for anything abnormal. I kneel by the coffee table to search underneath. Nothing.

  “How do you know she’s in the forest?” I ask the voice. I want it to keep talking so I can hone in on where it’s coming from.

  “I saw her leave this morning after she fought with Dr. Evans. She’s out there blowing things up with her mind. She’s angry. She’s always angry.”

  “What about you? How are you feeling, huh?”

  “I feel great. How are you?”

  It’s coming from the wall near the door. But there’s nothing there. Brody, Beck, Alex and I all turn toward the door, staring at it, confused as crap.

  “I’m good,” I answer slowly. “What’s your name?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Have we met before?”

  “Just a few minutes ago.”

  “Stewart?” Brody asks doubtfully.

  He laughs. “That’s it! You get points.”

  “How many?”

  “Five.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, Stewart?” Alex calls sweetly. “How are you doing that with your voice?”

  “I’m talking. Same as you.”

  “I don’t think it’s exactly the same as me. Why can’t I see you? Where are you?”

  “I’m right here.”

  “Right where?”

  The wall next to the door shifts. It ripples and undulates, almost the way Alex’s Slipping does. And, just like Alex’s Slips, when the movement stops, there’s a person standing there. A person who absolutely wasn’t there before.

  A person who is butt-naked.

  “Oh my God!” Alex cries, covering her face with her hands.

  Brody throws his eyes to the ceiling. “Come on,” he grumbles.

  Beck and I stare at the guy, frowning.

  He stares back, smiling. “Hi.”

  I wave at him slowly. “Hi, Stewart. You’re naked, buddy.”

  “I can’t do my trick if I’m not.”

  “What’s your trick?”

  The door next to him snaps open. Wind blows in, wiping Stewart away in a quick wave of light and matter. The wall he was standing in front of is blank, the doorway next to him suddenly full.

  A woman bursts in, all bluster and blue eyes. Brown hair. Creamy skin and full lips that frown at us standing there staring at nothing.

  She follows our eyes to the wall, shaking her head angrily. “Fun’s over, Stew. Get to the office. Now.”

  He reappears slowly. His face is sullen, his narrow, naked shoulders slumped. “I wanted to listen to their conversation.”

  “I know, and that’s wicked rude, so knock it off and get your butt to the office.”

  Stewart does as she says, slinking out of the room into the rain.

  “And put some friggin’ clothes on already!” she shouts after him.

  “Are you Gwen?” Alex asks cautiously.

  The girl turns toward us, pushing her short hair out of her face. Her eyes are sharp, reading the room in a glance. She grins slightly at Alex as she offers her hand. “Yeah. You must be Alex. Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you too.”

  “Slipping, right? That’s what you call what you do?”

  “Uh, yeah. It is.”

  Gwen nods, moving on to Beck. “Marcus?”

  He offers her his hand.

  She hesitates, looking at it closely. “You gonna be gentle with me?”

  Beck grins, his cheeks flushing. “I promise.”

  Gwen smiles easily, her eyes shimmering with delight as she shakes his hand. “Thanks for that.”

  “Brody,” Brody introduces himself next. She doesn’t hesitate to take his hand. “Hearing and sight.”

  “I know. Congrats. If I could pick a power, it’d be yours.”

  “It’s not always fun.”

  “None of them are, as far as I can tell.”

  She turns to me, her smile slipping. Dropping down a gear to more of a smirk. “And you must be Campbell.”

  I put out my hand, but she ignores it. Instead, she offers me a high five up top.

  “Give it up for being the normal, am I right?”

  I grin, slapping her small hand with mine. “Amen.”

  “I hear you’re a genius.”

  “You heard right. You?”

  “Same.” She shrugs casually. “No big deal.”

  “It’s not. Not to me.”

  She laughs, nodding her head knowingly. “I heard about you.”

  “What’d you hear?”

  “I heard you’re a prick.”

  Alex laughs happily, enjoying the moment.

  I smile at Gwen as she slowly walks away from me, heading for the door. She’s shorter than all of us, maybe five-six, with a petite build and a swan’s neck. Brody is a mountain above her. Beck could break her in half with one hand. Alex has abilities she can’t even dream of. And still, Gwen walks through the room like she has nothing to fear. It’s a kind of confidence I admire.

  The kind that gets you labeled a prick.

  “Hey, wait,” Brody calls after her. “How did Stewart do that? Can he Slip like Alex and Liam?”

  Gwen laughs. “No, thank God. Not even close. He’s a chameleon. He blends in with the background. He’s good at it, but the problem is he has to be naked to do it. Otherwise he’d be a bunch of clothes next to the wall with no one in them. Dead giveaway.”

  “Does he do it a lot?” Alex asks. “The sneaking around naked thing? Should we expect that?”

  “You should always expect everything here.”

  “Even the Spanish Inquisition?” I challenge.

  She looks at me with appreciation in her eyes. Amusement on her lips. “‘Our chief weapon is surprise. And fear. Fear and surprise.’” She opens the door, stepping out into the rain with a parting wave. “Welcome to the island, guys. It’ll be good to have some fresh meat around here.”

  The door slams shut behind her, leaving us alone again. Honestly alone this time, but with a better sense of the powers around us. Of the people.

  Alex glances at us with a slight frown. “Did that sound ominous to anyone else?”

  “I’m keeping my eye on everyone here,” Brody answers seriously. “No exceptions.”

  I smile. “I like her.”

  “She has breasts,” Alex laughs. “Of course you like her.”

  “That and she quoted Monty Python. Do you know how hot that is?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Very.”

  “Mmm. Cool.”

  I narrow my eyes at her. “You don’t know what Monty Python is, do you?”

  “I do, I just don’t know what sketch you’re talking about, but please don’t explain it to me. I really don’t care.”

  “It’s a sketch from the seventies.”

  “Do. Not. Care.”

  “In it, three men in catholic garb burst into a room after a man says ‘I didn’t expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition.’ The lead Bishop shouts, ‘No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!’ Then, he says—”

  “Shut up.”

  “No. He says, ‘Our chief weapon is surprise.’”

  “And fear. I heard her. Yeah. Thanks. Now shut up. Please
.”

  “Please doesn’t work on—”

  “Shut up!” they all shout together.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ALEX

  I’m nervous. I’ve been pacing back and forth so long, this strip of forest floor is trampled into a muddy river bed. Nick is watching me. I can feel his eyes on me, his concern building with every step I take, but I can’t sit still. Naomi makes me anxious. Her mind makes me want to cry. I’m grateful I’m not going inside today.

  Back on the bone ship when Nick held us in the harbor outside Sandrine’s place, I had to go inside Naomi’s mind and pull out ‘something freaky’. Those were literally my instructions. She gave me a lot of material to work with. That girl’s mind is all dark alleys and cold corners. It’s a haunted house where the veil has been pulled back and all the ghouls and ghosts are right in front of your face. They’re eating at the table. Lounging in the living room. Dropping a deuce in the bathroom, and those douchebags don’t courtesy flush. The entire place is pulsing with dark matter and cobwebs and WTF.

  I hate it.

  I feel bad that I hate it because does that mean that I hate Naomi? I don’t think it does, but I really don’t know. I want to say the state of her mind is her situation, not her, and she’s a person despite all that, but what kind of person is she? She rarely speaks, she hardly blinks, and the overall feeling I get from being locked in her stare right now is dread. Whether she’s doing it on purpose or not doesn’t matter. It makes me want to stay away from her, something that makes me feel like a complete jerk.

  “Alex,” Liam calls gently. He’s not exactly a yeller on the regular, but his voice is hushed around his sister. He’s constantly on eggshells and I wonder how he does it. How he hasn’t gone insane. “We’re ready. She’s open.”

  My heart rises in my throat, pumping painfully. Thirty feet away, Naomi sits on a red blanket, her legs crossed like a pretzel in front of her. Her long, blond hair is silky and straight. It drifts around her like a golden cloud in the breeze kicking up the mountain. Daylight drifts down through the filter of leaves in the trees, swaying slightly. Dancing over her pale skin and bright eyes. She looks like an angel. Like a princess out of a fairytale.

  The sight of her gives me goosebumps.

  “Are you ready?” Campbell asks me quietly.

  He’s standing behind me, watching me. We’re both keeping a good distance from Naomi. Nick and Liam are the only ones willing to get in close to her. Our reluctant guard is laid out on the blanket next to her, passed out cold. He raged when Liam showed up with a black medical bag. The guard thought he was the one he should be afraid of. He wasn’t expecting Naomi. When she looked at him, her pretty face calm and her head cocked sideways like an interested little bird, he calmed. He hesitated. When she took a few steps closer, loosening the leash, letting him feel her; that’s when he understood.

  That’s when he pissed himself. Literally. Six-feet-three-inches tall, two-hundred-thirty pounds of pure muscle and an angry accent I can’t quiet place, and he was brought to his knees by a waif in a white peasant top. It was a sobering thing to see.

  I shake my head at Campbell. “I have to be, right? We have to know.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “You don’t think this is the way to do this?”

  He shrugs, leaning against the rough trunk of a towering tree. His arms are crossed over his chest, the ankle of one foot hooked over the other. He’s the picture of a casual man not giving a crap, right up until you look him in the eyes. They’re narrow and alert. Irritated. “If it were me, I wouldn’t be diving into minds left and right. Seems risky.”

  “You think this is risky? You?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “You signed up to be an Air Force Pararescue, hands down one the most dangerous jobs in all of the Armed Forces, and you think that this is risky?”

  “That should tell you something, shouldn’t it?” he answers seriously.

  “Alex,” Liam calls again. His voice is rising. He’s getting anxious.

  Proximity to Naomi will do that to a person.

  “I’m coming.” I look at Campbell for a second longer, but what I’m looking for, I don’t know. He watches me patiently. His face gives nothing away.

  Maybe there’s nothing to give up. Maybe I’m stalling. Looking for ways to avoid what I set in motion because it sounded good on paper, but in practice this is terrifying. My whole life has been a long string of terrifying moments, and I wish on every star in the sky that I had Nick’s fearlessness. Just for a day.

  I step slowly through the low foliage toward the blanket. Tall grass grabs at my ankles. Thin bushes push at my shoes. I feel like I’m walking uphill, the air thinning the closer I come to Naomi until I hear it rasping in my chest. Wheezing through my lungs. I feel lightheaded. Dizzy.

  Nick’s warm hand touches my elbow. “Breathe,” he whispers in my ear, his deep voice like a warm blanket around my shivering, fearful heart.

  I release a short breath, immediately pulling in another. It hurts in my chest. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You can do anything. Fill your lungs. There’s nothing stopping you.”

  I look at Naomi, wondering if that’s true. She stares back blankly as I inhale, deep and slow. Exhale on a rush.

  “Again,” Nick encourages softly.

  I breathe again. My brain slows, my body relaxing into Nick’s hold. My chest stops screaming as it drinks in the crisp, delicious air.

  “She made me think I was suffocating,” I whisper to Nick. “She tried to kill me. That can’t be good, right?”

  “I doubt she did it on purpose.”

  I look into her clear, bright eyes, and I honestly don’t know if I believe that.

  “She found my fear and exploited it. How was that not on purpose?”

  “I didn’t know you were afraid of suffocating.”

  “Get real, Nick. Most people are.”

  I kneel down slowly in front of Naomi. Nick sits with me, taking my hand instead of my elbow. He clasps it firmly in his, my lifeline as I go swimming in these murky waters.

  “Hi, Naomi,” I say softly.

  Her lips twitch. Not into a smile or a smirk, not even a grimace. But they turn up, not down, and that’s something.

  Next to her, the guard grunts miserably, his eyebrows pinching together.

  “He’s having a nightmare,” Liam explains. “Now is the time.”

  Nick squeezes my hand reassuringly. “I’ll be right here with you. Pull from me if you need a boost. Everything I’ve got is yours.”

  I smile at him gratefully. He grins back, his handsome face perfectly calm, unaffected by the river of fear rushing around us.

  Must be nice.

  “Love you,” I breathe, focusing on that more than anything else. More than the fear, more than the hesitance. I focus on the love. On the burning bright light of him, his power, and the cool, dark intensity of his eyes that hold me tight and tell me everything will always be okay. That he’ll make sure of it.

  His measured grin grows into a smile, teeth and all. That’s his reply, his love in return, and it’s all I need to feel like I’m not going to die, even in the face of the fear machine sitting across from me.

  “I love you too, Alex.”

  My heart hurts again. It’s swelling past capacity, pumping hard and sure. Happy even in this awful place.

  That’s Nick’s power; the absolute opposite of Naomi. She can make me doubt everything down to the air in my lungs. Nick makes me feel like I can fly.

  I take a deep breath, reach for the vibration in my blood, in my hand held in his, and I turn it up. Loud. I need to crank it hard to get inside someone. When I went into Naomi it was easy because she invited me in. What I did with Sandrine was an adrenaline-fueled impulse that almost wiped me out, every avenue closing off the second I tried to take it. This guard (I suddenly wish I knew his name considering I’m about to go running roughshod through his brain) is somewh
ere in between. He’s sedated so he’s not struggling with me, but by nature people don’t have the doors thrown wide open, expecting guests. They’ve at least got the locks bolted, maybe a key kept hidden under the mat.

  It takes a second to find my way, and in the end I tap into Nick’s power pulsing from our joined hands to get me inside. He can spare it. He’s like a nuclear power plant juicing Las Vegas well into the night while I’m more like an emergency generator. I can run your refrigerator and you can go ahead and charge your phone, but don’t you dare turn on that microwave. I have limits.

  Going into someone’s mind doesn’t feel like Slipping. Slipping is a lateral move. This is more like falling, like I’m riding down the rabbit hole into the dark and I have no idea what I’m going to find on the other side. There’s no exhilaration. It doesn’t give me a rush or take away my aches and pains. If anything, it hurts a little. I feel like gravity is increasing on me, pushing on me from all sides. It’s claustrophobic and uncomfortable, like I’m wearing shoes that are too tight.

  Like I’m trying on another person’s mind and it doesn’t quite fit.

  My vision flares white before fading down to nearly nothing. I’m still in the forest, but the group is gone. So is the guard. I’m alone in the cold and the dark, the trees standing ominously tall above me. They’re crooked and bleached white. The entire scene is almost completely without color in the pale moonlight. The moon is looking down on me disapprovingly. It’s growling at me, low and dangerous. The sound vibrates against my skin, sending my hair standing up on my arms. I freeze, my eyes searching the darkness.

  It wasn’t the moon. It was an animal. A big animal. And it’s close by. I need to find the guard before his fear finds me. Before I’m ripped to ribbons that can’t get out of this nightmare.

  “I don’t think you can die in a dream, Nick.”

  “But you don’t know.”

  “I’ve told you before, I don’t know all the answers.”

  “‘At this point, I’d settle for just a few’,” I mutter to myself, quoting Nick. “‘One would be nice. Maybe the answer to this life or death question’.”

  “Shhh!” a voice hisses from the shadows.

  I spin on my heel, searching the forest. “Where are you?”