Consequence (7 page)

But they weren’t finished.

One day, they’d be back to finish what they started. They still had every intention of creating a serum that would make them Virtuoso again, either by imprinting or other means.

We were too late. But at least we saved those people.

I yanked out of the vision and shook my head, disappointed and happy at the same time. “They’re gone,” I told everyone. “They planted the cameras to see if someone found them and knew we were here. They aren’t coming back.”

They started to cheer, but when they saw that I wasn’t as happy and Caleb came to soothe me, running his fingers over my Visionary mark on my neck, they slowed their celebration.

“Why don’t you seem happy about that?” Kyle asked.

“If they were here now, we could end it now,” Caleb explained, knowing I was exhausted in my head. “Now, we’ll have to wait, look over our shoulder, wait for them to snatch more humans and use them for guinea pigs to finish the experiment. They won’t stop until they get what they want.”

Everybody seemed to understand then.

“Let’s do one last search before we leave, make sure we didn’t miss anything,” Caleb ordered.

I crossed my arms and looked around the room we were in one last time. There was nothing remarkable there. It was a typical American house. The couch matched the curtains, the floors were wood, and the chandelier in the foyer bounced the light from the setting sun out of the window onto the walls. It was a beautiful place. It was a shame that people, so evil, had lived there.

Some kid’s artwork caught my eye on the way out. It was over the fireplace. I smiled, thinking of my own kids, knowing that they would be safe now, for a while anyway. It seemed strange that people so evil would be thoughtful and caring enough to want to show off their son’s artwork like this.

He had drawn a boy on a horse for one, then the other was a woman holding hands with a little boy on the hillside. I felt hands on my shoulders and looked up at Caleb.

“Hey…what?” His face was white as a sheet.

              “Maggie, look at these drawings.”

              “I see them. What?”

              He pointed to the name on top. I don’t know how I missed it. “Seth.”

              “Oh, my… What does this mean?” I turned and looked at him frantically. “Ashlyn warned us. Did we miss something?”

              “Come on.” He snatched the drawings from the mantel, and we hurried to the truck where a few of the rescued people were still sitting, waiting for us to leave. “Was there a child down in the cells with you?” he asked them.

              “No,” the fragile woman answered. I sighed, but before I could relax, she broke my heart in two. “He doesn’t stay down there with us, they keep him in the house. My cell neighbor had him several years ago, but they…got rid of her. They raise him now. They bring him down to the cells sometimes. They tell him we’re criminals.”

              “Caleb,” I said, knowing we failed. “She said I wasn’t seeing it properly. She told me!”

              He took me and hugged me hard to his chest, sighing into my hair. “Baby, it’s not your fault they ran with him. Look at all these people you saved.”

              “He’s just a little boy.” I sniffed.

              “We’ll keep looking,” he promised and kissed my forehead. “We won’t stop looking for him.”

              When we got back home, we took the rescues to the hospital. Some of the family members thought it might be exposing our kind if they talked, but honestly, they would just think it was a crazy family that kidnapped them. Fact was, the Watsons had no powers. The police crawled all over that place, but found nothing to lead them to where the Watsons were. They eventually just left it, abandoned, a crime scene with no leads. Somehow, the Watsons had gotten the money to pay the mortgages they were behind on, barely, so they owned the land again outright.

We just had to wait for them to return to it.

All the children were asleep when we finally got home that night. Caleb and I just crawled into the big bed in Caleb’s old room with them and held on tight. I couldn’t help but cry for Seth, a little boy I didn’t even know. I had failed him. Even though Caleb tried to soothe me and take all my hurt away, I knew it was all my fault.

The next morning, I snuck out of the arms and limbs in my bed and Gran, Rachel, and I made pancakes for everyone. It was a full house at Peter’s, but even still, I didn’t have the energy to change out of my pineapple pajama shorts and t-shirt the kids bought me for my birthday last year. I heard Caleb’s thoughts when he woke up, so I started making his coffee with mine. I fingered the hem of my shorts while the coffee brewed. I wondered if Seth even knew who his mother was.

Hands gripped my waist. “You’ve got to stop doing this to yourself, baby,” he drawled into the back of my neck before kissing the skin there. “You can’t blame yourself for the actions of others.”

I turned and faced him, sighing at the sight of him. I bit my lip and ran my hand through his hair to help him tame it. “Morning,” I whispered.

“Are you trying to rile me up this morning?” he asked, his voice that low, husky tone usually reserved for a flight of stairs above us. He ran his fingers along the seam of my short’s leg. “Pancakes, coffee, and…pineapple shorts?”

I gave him the small smile he was looking for. He gave me the dimples I wanted in return. I closed the small distance between us and right as our lips touched, our new wonderful life interrupted us.

“Ew, Daddy.”

We both looked over at Rodney who was half smiling, half barf-faced.

“Ew?” Caleb asked. “Ew, really?” He laughed as he scooped him up and threw him over his shoulder. He came back to me. “We’ll finish this later, Mommy.”

I smiled and giggled. “Yes, Daddy.”

He kissed me loudly, smacking my butt as he walked away.

“Ew, ew, ew!” Rodney chanted as Caleb trotted away with him laughing.

We ate breakfast all together, spirits lifted. Everyone felt this victory in their very souls, so I tried with everything in me to portray my happiness with them since they all looked to me to lead them. And I
was
happy, I just knew it wasn’t over. And the fact that it was a helpless child I had failed was making the guilt multiply.

Later that night, we went back to our home. After dinner, we watched a movie with Ava and Rodney, anything to keep them with us and not leave them alone.

Ava blurted out of nowhere. “Did you see Seth yesterday, Daddy?”

              I froze. Caleb turned to her slowly and gave her a little smile, trying his best to look normal. “Who? Who’s Seth, Ava?”

              “Ashlyn told me about him. She told me you’d save him. She said that he would be my friend one day.” She looked up from her cookies and milk with the most innocent, hopeful look. “Did you save him, Daddy?”

              Caleb was stunned silent. Ava went on. “I know you saw him, Daddy.” She hopped down and went into his coat pocket, grabbing the drawings that we’d taken from the Watson’s. “See?” She laid it on the table and pointed to the boy and the woman on the hill. “This is Seth and this is Ashlyn.”

              “How do you know this, baby girl?” he asked as he hoisted her up in his arms.

             
This was in my pocket all night, Maggie.

              “Ashlyn told me,” Ava answered, like she was getting exasperated. “She said you were going to save him.”

“Sweetheart, I…” My heart literally broke right there. Why was Ashlyn doing this? Why was she messing with our children when it was just going to break their hearts if something went wrong? I didn’t understand. “I’m so sorry, Ava.”

I moved close to hug her, but the second I touched her skin, I was blinded by white light. I heard Caleb’s gasp, so I knew he was with me on this one. Ava giggled. “It’s just Ashlyn. She won’t hurt you.”

And then Ashlyn was there. She didn’t look real here. She looked like a dream or a ghost. She smiled. It was genuine and it was the first time I’d seen her where she didn’t look like she was going insane. “Ashlyn?”

“I’m sorry, Maggie. I know you’re probably upset. But this is the only way I get any peace.” She smiled at Ava. “And Ava is so sweet and so fun to be with. And Rodney. And…Seth.”

I sighed. Caleb’s arm around me tightened. “Ashlyn, just tell us what’s going on.”

“I can’t leave the palace. I’m stuck there. When your children were born, that was the first time since I died that I was able to leave, to get any peace from the madness that I’ve felt ever since Richard and I were supposed to imprint and weren’t allowed to. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but I can come visit them and they’re the only ones that can see me.” She nodded and smiled. “Unless you touch them and have a vision at the same time.”

“So…” my heart lifted, “you can still talk to Seth?”

She pursed her lips. “It takes a lot of energy to come, so I can only come once every few days. And I’ve noticed that the older the children have gotten over the years, the less often they see me. Sometimes I come and they don’t notice me. Which makes me think that soon, they won’t notice at all.”

“Why?” Caleb said when I couldn’t. “What purpose other than you wanting to get out of the palace?”

“I promise you I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just wanted to spend time with them. And you. Even though you couldn’t see me, your family gave me some semblance of what my family use to be like.” The wistful look on her face was heartbreaking. “But then I saw those people that the Watsons were keeping and had to get you to save them. It was the only way to save Seth.”

“But I didn’t save him, Ashlyn.” A sob caught in my throat. “We were too late. Seth’s gone. I didn’t save him.” I looked down at Ava. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“Visionary,” Ashlyn called loudly and squinted at me, “your job is done. Everything you should have accomplished was done so.”

I shook my head at her, my mouth open. “No. They have Seth. I didn’t get to him in time.” 

“I never said to take him away from them, I said to save him.” I scoffed, angry at her statement. What games was she playing with me? She came forward and smiled genuinely. “Even now you doubt yourself.” I pressed my lips together. “Don’t,” she said harder. “You are who you are for a reason. I sent you there to save all those people from the Watsons. That in turn will save Seth.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They were grooming him to be a monster like them. Now, their course is altered, their choices, different. They must do something different in their journey to find what they’re looking for, and I see a different path for our Seth. One that will lead him back to us.”

“What do you see?”

“I can’t tell you. But I’ll tell you this—we’ll see him again.” She smiled and tapped the end of Ava’s nose with her finger. “You’ll see.”

“Promise?” Ava begged. “You said he would be my friend one day?”

“He will, Ava. Promise.”

“So what about me?” I asked. “I’m supposed to just forget about that little boy and let them raise him, not look for him, not try to find him and take him?”

“When he’s ready, he’ll find you.”

“Then what?”

“Then, you can save him. He’ll need you.” She looked at Ava. “He’ll need you, too.” She stood straighter. “In the meantime, you know what you have to do.”

Before she even finished the sentence, I knew what she meant. The council. The council was history. She nodded and smiled. “And you know who will replace them.” My mouth opened in surprise that I hadn’t seen it before.
There, in the midst of all that gibberish was an infinity symbol made of names. Maggie, Caleb, Kyle, Lynne, Bish, Jen, Haddock, Heather.
She nodded again. “Yes. All is as it should be, Visionary. You are right where you should be. It’s just a matter of getting it done.”

I sighed, not wanting the task of firing council members at all, ever, in the least. “And then what, Ashlyn?”

“And then…war, Visionary. War.”