Aurator, The (23 page)

I stumbled back, my body felt like ice, and I saw shimmering lights in my periphery. I can’t. I can’t be this. Not me. I don’t want this. I want it to end. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime I wanted to scream and cry, be held and told it would be all right. I didn’t want to be responsible. I didn’t want…

I felt a sharp stab to my gut. My attacker had regained control and was taking advantage of the moment. It was so quick and all I saw was blackness. From behind the curtain of shadows, I struggled to not lose consciousness. A force greater than anything I had felt thus far raged from inside me. I grabbed at whatever was above me, and through the blur I could see the surprise on the face of my target. I felt my muscles expanding and blood rushing to keep up with their need. He struggled to loosen my grip, but my instincts had taken over, and I overpowered him. I suddenly found myself standing upright holding him off the ground. Throwing him behind me, I watched as his body slammed and bent around a stone structure. I walked over to him as I watched him fall several feet down to the ground from the rock wall that formed the walkway in front of the garden area. I moved back over him and he was having trouble breathing, maybe a broken rib. Maybe a lot was broken by now.

He needs to die, I thought.

Keeping one hand above his chest, I was able to keep him pinned as I felt something in the palm of my hand, a throbbing. I pressed down with a force that caused a cracking sound below it. I could feel the throbbing getting stronger and my hand felt as if I was holding something. I tried to wrap my hand around this invisible object and squeeze. That’s when I felt it. I was just above his heart. I could feel the roundness of the top part of the heart and the arteries coming off of it. The man below me gasped and clutched at his chest.

My eyes went wide and my breathing quickened as I struggled to maintain my control over the situation. I squeezed my hand and felt his heart battle and shake against my hand.

The man gasped, and then with a final gurgle he stopped moving. He was dead. I felt his heart go limp in defeat under my hand.

Turning slowly I heard Nicholai say,
“We
won
here,
everyone
okay
there?”

I looked over and saw Max and Aaron staring at me, eyes wide and jaws open.

Yes,
Nicholai,
we’re
all
okay.

Just then all of the men screamed out as they fell to the ground in reaction to the transformation. Max and Aaron dropped while clutching their stomachs. Nicholai and Aleck did the same in Greece. Why wasn’t I?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move in the bushes. It moved away from us. Tomas? I wasn’t sure but I was not going to leave my friends. Whoever it was, I could feel they were already gone.

I felt my body beginning to transition as a quivering chill started in my core. Then electricity shot all over my body, traveling through every muscle and out of my extremities as I felt the familiar feeling of ecstasy warm me from the inside out. I didn’t have pain. I didn’t fall. This time was different. Shorter.

Max was the first one to rise up. Breathing heavily he walked over. “You okay?”

I took a moment to look myself over. “Yeah, yeah, I think so.”

Aaron ran over and grabbed me, wrapping his arms around me. “Are you okay? Oh my God. I wanted to help you when you were on the ground but I… I couldn’t. If anything had happened.” He stopped suddenly and moved away and shifted his weight from one foot to the other uneasily. “Hey, you’re bleeding,” he observed in a forced nonchalance, averting his eyes from mine.

Max’s eyebrows raised as he looked from Aaron to me. “Yes. Megan, are you okay?”

I shook my head at Max to tell him to drop it. Max walked over to me, removed his jacket and wrapped it around my bleeding shoulder. I winced slightly, and he said, “We’ll have to fix that up later.” Then, walking over to Aaron, he put his arm around his shoulder. Sweeping his other arm out, he said, “Well now, look at the mess we’ve made.”

The comment broke the tension of the fight, and with a sense of relief, we all laughed.

We discussed how to clean up the area and what to do with the three bodies. We noticed that a small tree had fallen nearby, probably due to the earth shaking. Max decided that this would be a good cover-up.

“We should try to make this look as natural as possible.” Max held out his hand and Megan was amazed again as he used his gift to pull one man’s body out from the wreckage of the Conservatory. He laid him on the ground in front of us. He then reached back up and pulled down a large tree behind the building to make it appear to have crashed the glass dome. It seemed like a stretch but it was the best we had. None of us were sure how this one was going to slip by people.

“Well,” said Max, “that earth shaking Megan caused might be a blessing in more ways that we realized. Aaron, check to see if there was an earthquake reported.”

Aaron nodded and stepped away to check his phone. Max moved a few more branches to look like they caused the damages in the windows. “Hmmm,” he said, “I suppose I’ll have to write a check for all of this.”

I raised both eyebrows at him, “You have that kind of money?”

“Sure,” and he continued his rearrangement of the area.

“So…” he started.

“Yes?”

“What was that with Aaron?”

I ducked as another branch flew close to my head. “Hey!”

“Oh, sorry about that.”

“Well, I don’t know, we were in an argument the other night and then he just… got close.”

Max stopped and a small tree dropped in front of us that had been in midair moments ago. “What do you mean… close?”

“Well, close. Nothing happened.”

“Megan?”

“Max, I don’t understand. I didn’t do anything.”

Max motioned to lower my voice. Aaron wasn’t that far away.

“Okay, I’m sorry. Listen, it’s not that he isn’t a nice guy but come on, he’s older than me and I’m married to… well… the only man in the world I can imagine loving. What am I going to do?”

Max continued to move the tree into place as he spoke. “Feelings sometimes get confused when anger, fear, and love cross and lines blur. It sounds like he was angry you were on TV that day… that was day this happened, right?”

I nodded yes.

“And he was afraid for you. Plus, on some level, Megan, since we are all connected we have a tight bond. This could be confused with love. I’ll talk with him and we’ll try to work it out. Don’t worry.”

Somehow it was calming to speak with him about it, but I also decided it was better to drop the subject.

Just then Aaron walked back over. “There was an earthquake reported but they can’t pinpoint the fault line since the epicenter seemed not to be on one.”

“That sounds about right,” uttered Max.

The three of us stopped and looked around. If I didn’t know better I’d say that some natural disaster had occurred here. Brilliant.

“Okay then,” Max said. “Aaron, you grab that guy, Megan, that guy, and let’s get them to the car before someone shows up here.”

We left one of the bodies pinned under a tree and dumped the others in the trunk of Max’s car.

Max reached into his back seat and removed a black bag. How cliché, I thought. Opening the bag, he removed suture material and then pulled his jacket from my shoulder. Moving my shirt to the side, he assessed my arm. “Hmm, bullet went straight through. Lucky. A few stitches here and we’re all good.”

I was curious, “What are you going to do with them?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll probably put them under a tree or car or something along the way out of the park. It will look natural.”

“Okay… well… that’s it?” I stumbled over my words. It felt strange to just leave after this.

“Megan, my dear, go home and see your family.” Max cut the last of only four stitches. Hmm, I thought. I had hoped for more stitches.

I watched as Aaron shut the trunk door on top of the men and then looked away.

I sighed, “You’re right. I’m dying to see them.”

“Go. Go. We’ve got the other stuff.” Then turning, “Okay, Aaron, you ready?”

“Yeah, let’s go… bye… Megan,” but he wouldn’t look at me.

I waved but he was already in the car.

Getting into my own car, I went home. I drove up to my house, and Luke was standing there waiting for me. He stared at me as if waiting for an explanation. I had no words for him. Stepping next to him, I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and headed upstairs. He did not press me for conversation, but I could feel him watch me disappear up the staircase. I changed my clothes, flopped on the bed, and without another thought about what had happened, I drifted off to sleep.

27. True Colors
 

Luke and I sat in silence over breakfast. The girls chatted about different things going on at school. He and I occasionally looked at each other, and I noticed his shadowy aura. I shrugged it off. I don’t care today. The news was on in the living room and I froze when I heard the announcer.

In a stunning event of nature there were two earthquakes simultaneously last night. One here and one in Greece, on the island of Kos. Both, however, were not directly on any fault line according to the epicenters. The epicenter for the San Francisco earthquake was in the vicinity of Golden Gate Park and registered a 5.2 on the Richter scale. It was only a few seconds long so the damage was limited to areas near the epicenter.

Not bad, I thought. I wonder if I could get it up to a six. I giggled and when everyone looked at me, I waved my hand as if to indicate that I was crazy. Then I tuned back in to the newscast.

Most of the damage from the temblor was at the Conservatory of Flowers. We have live photos where you can clearly see the destruction that the falling trees caused to this favorite San Francisco tourist attraction. This is going to be a terrible loss and expense to the city. Three fatalities have also been reported, apparently related to the damage and destruction from the quake
 . . . .

I glanced up and Luke was looking at me with eyebrows raised. I looked at him as if trying to understand what he was thinking. He couldn’t know what I had been doing last night so I wondered why he was raising his eyebrows at me. He then gave me a look of disappointment, and I concluded that his look must be in regards to what was going on with us.

He announced to the girls that it was time to get ready to go.

The newscaster’s voice broke through again.

We just got news that an anonymous donor has offered the money necessary to put the Conservatory back to its original state. How about that? Now this person is truly an upstanding and generous member of society.

I rolled my eyes and walked into the kitchen with my cereal bowl. I never wanted this, I thought to myself. However, I’ve never felt normal. Maybe this is my reality. My family is everything to me. Through my recent experiences I have developed a very strong feeling of protection regarding them. I hope that’s not because they are doomed to be in harm’s way.

Luke walked over to me and his face became serious as his eyes intensified on my own. “I’m worried about our family,” he said. I watched his aura lighten and the golden edge return.

“Luke?”

“Yes?” he said, staring at me as if trying to read into my soul. Maybe this was the key… the key to his aura.

“Tell me how much you love our girls,” I pleaded.

His eyebrows furrowed, obviously confused by my request.

“What do you mean?”

My eyes filled with tears as I begged while I watched the gold rim slipping away.

“Okay, okay. They are everything to me. I love each one. I wake up grateful for another day with them and go to sleep thanking God for every moment of the day.”

Then I saw it and gasped. His aura was changing right before my eyes. Warmer, lighter, and… gold. He kept speaking about the girls and as he did it continued to change.

My cell phone rang, and Luke stopped talking as he pulled it out of my pocket and opened it for me.

His aura muddied up again as he placed the phone to my ear. I answered, “Hello?”

“Hello Megan. How are you today?”

I was only half listening to Max as Luke walked away from me to the door, where the girls were putting on jackets to leave for school.

I lowered my voice, “Hello Max. I’m good, just tired from very little sleep. Heard the news today?”

“Yes I did, I’m so proud of you. Look at you getting your fifteen minutes of fame.”

“Ha ha, very funny. Everything go okay after I left?”

“Sure, fine, fine. I’m actually calling because Vivian and I would like to invite you and the girls over swimming tomorrow.”

It had been an unusually warm couple of days in the city, and swimming sounded pretty good. I looked at Luke, “Max has invited us to go swimming, all of us, want to go?”

“Who’s Max?” he asked back, seemingly annoyed.

I covered the mouthpiece and mouthed to him so the girls could not hear, “Remember, he told me about my being adopted.”

He shrugged his shoulders and mouthed, “He has a pool?”

I shrugged my shoulders in response, “Guess so.”

Luke seemed less enthused by the idea, but waved his hands as if to surrender to me to make the decision for the family.

“Okay Max. Sounds great. What time?”

“How about noon?”

“Sure, we’ll be there,” I said. “Thank you.”

Alex was behind us. “Where are we going?”

I hung up the phone. “A friend of mine has a pool and invited us swimming tomorrow.”

“Really? Awesome friend. Okay, let’s go.”

Luke then left with the girls, but not before I got a kiss and a quick “I love you.” I watched his aura shifting as he walked away.

I was looking forward to my time alone in my house. I decided to turn the music up loud. Dancing around, I scrubbed and vacuumed. It was a good break for me to escape everything that had been going on.

I stopped dusting as I became distracted with pictures passing through my head of all the people I’ve encountered. I felt as if I were categorizing them all in my mind in some sort of order. I began to wonder: Were the black auras at the zoo and the Conservatory last night both Tomas? I closed my eyes, searching the pictures in my memories for the answer.

There’s no doubt in my mind any more that I will forever have purposes and the uncontrollable need to complete them. In the heat of battle, I can feel my strengths, but when I’m here at home, I start wondering if I have what it takes. I am responsible for bringing our side together. I’m not sure how to accomplish this since most of us are hidden… for good reason. If you’re purposefully killing people, it’s not a good idea to have a very public profile.

I cringed at the next thought, wondering how this would affect my girls.

I had more questions than answers. But for now, I decided to just keep cleaning.