Orion’s agent in the front seat suddenly turned on the car. “I’m on my way,” he said urgently, and then he peeled away from the curb and raced down the street.
“What’s happening?” I asked Rayne.
Rayne had his hand up to his ear, covering his earpiece. “It sounds like shots were fired. Some of our men were hit.”
“Oh my gosh,” I said in alarm. “I need to help them.”
Rayne took my hand. “We have Healing Water. You don’t need to worry.”
“But I’m right here,” I protested.
I just wanted to help. I wanted a chance to use my abilities.
Rayne looked me straight in the eyes, keeping his voice low. “You need to save your strength for other important things. Think about it... this might be your last chance to help us find you-know-who before you’re sent home.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Rayne had a good point.
I was about to tell him I agreed, when Rayne suddenly squeezed my hand, continuing to listen intently to his earpiece.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?”
“He was here,” Rayne said. “Voss—he was here.”
“Voss?” I repeated.
“Sounds like this thing was a set-up,” Rayne explained.
The car came to an abrupt stop.
“Stevens,” our driver said to Rayne, “give me a hand.”
The next thing I knew, the two of them were hoisting one of Orion’s men into the seat next to me. The agent had blood pooling over his chest. Rayne took a small metal bottle and dripped Healing Water onto the man’s wound.
The agent who had been driving returned and quickly took his seat. “All of our men have been accounted for,” he said to Rayne. “Time to go.”
Rayne made sure the man was situated in the seat then ran around the front of the car to sit in the passenger seat.
As we zoomed away, I couldn’t help but stare with concern at the injured man propped up next to me. His eyes were glazed over. He barely seemed conscious. Strangely though, I could sense from his being that he wasn’t the least bit scared. He was in pain, there was no doubt, but there wasn’t any fear. I was the one who still felt on edge.
Only five or ten minutes had passed when the man started to move. His eyes became clear and his strength almost completely returned. Healing on Ambrosia took effect almost instantly, but here on Earth it took a little longer. Still, ten minutes or less to heal from a gunshot wound, seemed like nothing at all. It was no wonder the man hadn’t been scared.
Once the man was fine again, I was finally able to relax. Then, I remembered that Rayne said Voss had been right there at the restaurant. He had caught us all completely off-guard.
My first thought was to use my locating skills to find Voss right now. He couldn’t be that far away yet. If we knew where he was headed maybe we could all take our vehicles and surround him. He would have nowhere to go.
But then I realized, half the point of Ash going to his meet today was supposed to create a cover for where he was getting his information. Orion was supposed to believe that it was Ash’s contact that told him where Voss was staying. If I located Voss now, we would somehow have to explain how we knew where he went.
The thought of telling Orion there was more to my abilities than just healing made me uneasy. But, finding Voss was huge. Nothing would make me happier than to see him behind bars.
Maybe it would be worth it to tell. Maybe that would be a reason Orion would allow me to stay.
But then I thought it through a little further. Couldn’t Ash still have found out where Voss was staying? Even though his contact didn’t show, Ash still could have somehow figured it out when he saw Voss. He probably wouldn’t even have to give Orion an explanation. If Ash said he now knew where his father was staying, why would Orion have any reason to doubt it?
As soon as we were back at the house where we were staying near the border, I pulled Ash aside and explained to him my reasoning. Luckily, he didn’t see any reason to disagree. I also had first taken a moment privately in my room to locate Voss. For all we knew, he wasn’t anywhere near his hotel room. He could have been off in some unknown location orchestrating more evil plans with his men.
He was there though... Voss was actually at the hotel. I could hardly believe it.
“I’ll tell Orion right now,” Ash said when I told him the news. “Now that we know my father is aware that we’re here, there’s a good chance he’ll change locations. We need to act fast.”
After Ash explained to Orion what he knew, the entire team congregated in the front room to discuss possible plans for attack.
The team was down a man. They were able to save four of Orion’s injured men with the Healing Water, but one of them the team wasn’t able to get to in time. I wanted to use my abilities to heal him myself, but Rayne and Orion both agreed that it was already too late. If only they would have let me stay close to the action, maybe I could have been there to help.
Due to the circumstances and the need to act quickly, Orion decided that my return to Banya would have to be postponed. I certainly wasn’t going to argue with that.
After the team’s plans had been solidified, we all gathered back into the same cars from before and drove to Beverly Hills near the hotel where Voss was staying.
Once we arrived, nothing about my instructions had changed in any way. I was to do nothing except sit in the car and wait. It was infuriating. All I wanted was a chance to contribute in some way.
This time, Rayne was told to join the team to go inside. The agent who drove us stayed with me in the car. The whole time we were there, the guy didn’t say a word to me. I could tell he wasn’t thrilled to be stuck on babysitting duty while all his buddies went on a raid.
Despite being commanded to sit and do nothing, I decided to find my own way to help out the team. Since my babysitter was pretty much ignoring me, I figured he wouldn’t notice if I closed my eyes and used my locating abilities to make sure Voss was still here.
After only a few seconds, my eyes bolted open. Voss was nowhere near his room. He was driving in his car again. Right this very minute he was probably getting away.
I closed my eyes again, searching deeper. Maybe he was still nearby. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
I concentrated my focus outside of Voss’s car. He wasn’t going very fast. He was stopped at a red light. I pushed the vision out to the street until I found a street sign. It said Wilshire Boulevard. My eyes popped open again. That was the street the hotel was on. Voss couldn’t be far away.
Without even thinking, I cried out, “He’s getting away.”
The agent in the front seat jerked his head to look back at me.
“Voss is getting away!” I said again.
Just then, he held his hand up to his earpiece. “The room is empty?” he questioned, as if the team had just discovered what I already knew.
“He’s on Wilshire Boulevard,” I called out. “In a black sports car.”
The next thing I knew, our car was peeling away from the curb.
The agent drove speedily down the street to pull out on Wilshire Boulevard. Just as we neared the intersection, a sleek black blur of a car zoomed past.
“There he is!” I screamed.
Our car skidded around the corner as we began our pursuit, zipping in and out of lanes trying to catch up with the black car.
Voss must have noticed he was being chased. He sped up to lightning speed and peeled around a corner out of sight.
“He went that way!” I yelled as I pointed to the right. Our car zoomed around the curb to follow. We were just in time to see Voss turn to the left.
I clutched the seat in front of me. “Can’t you go any faster?”
The agent driving was too focused to respond. He yanked the steering wheel to the left, just in time to hit the bumper of an oncoming car and turn around another corner.
No matter what he did, the agent couldn’t seem to catch up. We sped right and left, peeled in and out of traffic, even weaved through cars on the wrong side of the road, but Voss’s black car always pulled out ahead.
Voss hit an open stretch on the road and started to zoom out of sight.
“You can’t let him get away,” I urged.
The agent punched his foot on the gas. We sped forward until our bumper was touching the back of Voss’s car. The agent yanked the wheel to the right, ramming the front wheel into Voss’s side. The hit caused Voss to swerve across the road just as a car pulled into the intersection.
The other car screeched and spun until it hit a nearby pole, but Voss managed to bounce back and continue his getaway.
We veered around a truck moving slowly in the right lane and sped back up until we were right behind Voss’s bumper. Voss swerved suddenly to the left, and the next thing I saw was a car stopped right in front of us. There was no time to react. Instantly we hit the back of the stopped car straight on.
We flew through the air. Everything spun like a whirlwind around me. In a second, we smashed back to the ground upside down, skidding rapidly across the asphalt.
The skidding finally stopped. My head pounded as I tried to make sense of what just happened.
I could only see the back of the agent in the front seat.
“Are you okay?” he called back to me.
“I think so,” I replied.
I was just about to take a sigh of relief when a massive blow crashed into us again. My stomach heaved. My vision blurred. The spinning was ten times worse than before. Everything whirled in my head like a flash, colors and flickers and blurs all around.
With a final jolt the car stopped. I gasped for air as my brain tried to make sense. Another car must have hit us after we flipped.
I could hardly believe I was conscious. My breaths came in rapid spurts.
I tried to move, but I was stuck. I fumbled for the seatbelt, trying frantically to press the release, but the strap across my lap wouldn’t budge.
“Help, I’m stuck,” I called up to the agent in the front seat. I called to him several times, but there was never an answer.
I struggled with the seatbelt strap again and again, but no matter what I did I couldn’t break free.
Finally, I took a breath and closed my eyes. I had been in such shock I wasn’t even sure if I had been injured. After only a few moments, the throbbing in my head disappeared. If I had been injured, I wasn’t anymore. My self-healing abilities must have kicked in pretty quickly.
I called forward to the agent again several times, but still was unable to get a response. I stopped for a moment to focus on the agent’s being. I could feel from his essence that he was hurt badly. I knew this was my chance to finally use my abilities in action.
The agent must have taken the brunt of the second hit. His body felt injured almost beyond repair. I could sense broken bones and internal bleeding and massive head trauma.
I closed my eyes and concentrated hard. I had to take every last thread of tainted energy. The energy inside me reached into his. At first it wasn’t easy. My energy felt weaker than at the testing center, probably because I had just healed myself from some unknown injury.
I had to push harder. Just the week before, I had vowed to myself that if I was ever in a situation where I could save someone’s life I would do whatever it took to make sure they were saved.
My hands trembled as I moved from one injury to the next, pulling out the damage from the agent’s body with everything in me. My muscles went tight as I struggled and shook, but I knew in my heart I wouldn’t let go.
I pushed through the strain until I knew I was done.
An overwhelming sense of peace moved through me. His injuries were healed. I had accomplished my goal.
The dark energy coursed through my veins, taking everything out of me at once, until I knew I couldn’t hold on any longer. I knew it was time to pass out. I didn’t fight it. Instead, I took one last breath and let the deep sleep overwhelm me.
***
When my eyes opened again, I found myself back in my room at the house by the border. Jax was sitting in the chair at my bedside.
When he noticed me stir, Jax scooted forward in the chair with concern.
“Hey, you,” he said warmly. “How are you feeling?”
I still felt slow, but I managed to sit up. “I’m okay.”
Jax shook his head. “I knew you told me that you black out after using your healing abilities, but when I saw you passed out like that... I couldn’t help but worry.”
My mouth curved up on one side. “I have to admit, the first few times it happened, I was pretty scared myself. It definitely took some getting used to.”
Jax looked at me thoughtfully. “Who could blame you? I’ve been watching you like a hawk, just to make sure you were still breathing.”
“Thanks for sitting with me,” I said. “It’s nice to see a friendly face.”
Jax smiled back. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“What about the agent that was driving?” I asked. “How is he?”
“He’s totally fine,” Jax replied. “By the time the rest of the team found you, he was up and walking around like nothing even happened. Your car, on the other hand, looked like it got run over by a train.”
He laughed once, but then stopped and stared at me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Jax said, shaking his head. “It’s just hard to believe that you really healed him. It probably would have taken ten times longer for him to bounce back using the Healing Water. I mean, I know you’ve told me some of the stories from the testing center, but when I really think about it, and what you can do, you’re just... you’re just amazing.”
I stared back at him, not sure what to say, wishing I understood what he was feeling. I sensed his essence again, reaching into mine, like he was searching for answers too.
Jax moved onto the bed, sitting close beside me, gazing at me with a look of awe. “Even now,” he went on, “when I look into your eyes... all I see is...light. Amazing light.” He held up one hand as if wishing to touch my face.
Just then, the door creaked open from the hallway. Jax’s hand fell to his side.
My head jerked away; it felt as if I had been caught doing something wrong.
Rayne appeared through the opening and glanced from me to Jax. His eyes dropped for a moment, looking hurt.
When Rayne and I had our big fight he had accused me of confiding in Jax instead of him, like he worried there was something more between us. At the moment I thought the idea was ludicrous, but was I wrong? Was Jax feeling something I hadn’t realized before?
Rayne paused for only a moment then he hurried to my side. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I meant to be here when you woke up, but Ash needed to talk to me about the mission.”
“Does he have any more leads?” Jax asked.
“Apparently, he has dozens of leads,” Rayne explained. “The problem is, now that Voss knows Ash is looking for him, all of his leads have been compromised.”
My body went rigid. If Ash no longer had a way to track his father, then I was the team’s only hope. There was no way they would be able to find Voss without me.
I stepped forward. “I have to talk to Orion. He can’t send me back to Banya.”
I hurried downstairs, with Jax and Rayne following behind me, and found the rest of the team all congregated in the front room.
The first thing I noticed was Ash. He was pacing vigorously. I could sense from his being that he was frustrated beyond belief.
“How could my father have known we were here?” Ash ranted. “Krupkin must have told him we were coming. I had more than a dozen contacts we could have used to our advantage. Now they’re all completely useless. We can’t trust any of them.”
I stood a moment, waiting to see how Orion or the other team members would respond, but nobody said a thing. They all looked just as frustrated as Ash.
I felt the pressure more than ever. I had to convince Orion to let me stay.
I walked across the room to approach him, keeping my voice low. “Do you think I could talk to you?”
Orion looked deep in contemplation. “I’m a little busy.”
“But, it’s about the mission,” I pressed.
Orion still looked annoyed, but he stopped to look at me.
“I mean, I know you’re planning to send me back,” I began, “but I really think I could help if you’d let me stay. I heard you guys say that you’re almost out of Healing Water because of the snipers, and you saw how I was able to help your agent when we crashed after we chased Voss.” I felt myself babbling, but I kept going. “I just think with my abilities I could be an asset to the team. I could be there as a back-up in case anyone got hurt.”
Orion held up one hand to quiet me. “I have bigger things to worry about than sending you home, Ms. James. We’ll continue this discussion after my men figure out our next move.”
Across the room, Ash threw up his hands in anger. “We have nothing,” he raged. “Every safe house, every location, every speck of a lead that I thought I had to offer this team has now just been flushed down the toilet. We’re out of options. We’re basically at square one.” His hands clenched into fists. “No matter what I do, my father is always two steps ahead of me.”
Some of the men grumbled in response. There was a permanent scowl across Ash’s face. Orion’s brow furrowed. The man who seemed to always have a plan, looked just as stumped as the rest of them.
Several minutes passed without any change. Some of the most experienced agents in Banya were in this room, yet none of them could think of a single thing.
I sat down on the couch to think. It was eating me up inside. I knew I had a way to locate Voss, but I didn’t want Orion to know what I could do. I didn’t want anyone to know. I wasn’t even sure why. For some reason I just didn’t trust Orion the way I used to.
But this was Voss we were talking about. I couldn’t just let him get away with all the terrible things he had done.
My palms started to sweat. Was it worth it to tell? Would they even believe me if I did?
Why was I even so worried? What was the worst that could happen? Orion would know I had more abilities than just healing? Why would that matter? Catching Voss was the most important thing. If anything, telling Orion the truth would just prove to him that I was meant to be an agent, even more.
I burst from the couch to stand. “I know how to find Voss,” I announced.
Every eye in the room stared at me in disbelief.
“This probably won’t make sense at first,” I explained, “but I can see him... in my mind. I can see Voss.”
Rayne’s eyes went wide.
Many of the men had to hold back their laughter.
“I’m serious,” I went on. I glanced at the agent who had crashed in the car with me earlier. “You all know what I can do with healing, but there’s more to my abilities.”
Orion stepped toward me intently. “What do you mean?” he said. “Why haven’t you mentioned this before?”
I swallowed hard. My eyes shifted to the side. “I just wasn’t sure if it would really work. I had only tried it a few times.”
“What have you been able to do?” Orion pressed.
I took in a breath. “Well, since we’ve been across the border I’ve looked for Voss several times, and I’m pretty sure it’s been working. Actually, I was the one who found out what hotel he was staying at.”
Orion immediately glanced at Ash.
Ash rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s true,” he confirmed. “I didn’t get the information at the meet; I got it from Sadie, just like she said.”
Orion peered back at me. “But Voss wasn’t there in the room when we arrived.”
I looked back at him carefully. “Well, it’s not a perfect system. I can only see where he is right in that moment, and it takes a lot of energy to see past him to his surroundings. If I push too hard I could pass out, just like I do when I heal people.”
The agent I healed from the car crash stepped forward. “She did tell me that Voss had left the hotel just before the team confirmed it. And she knew what street he would be on and what his car looked like before we caught up to him.”
Glances passed back and forth around the room.
Rayne stepped forward as well. “She’s telling the truth. I’ve seen her do it several times just over the last few days.”
“If you want I can try to look for him right now,” I said, trying to sound as confident as possible.
Orion rubbed at his chin. “Well, if you can only see him in real-time, that won’t give us an opportunity to plan ahead, but unfortunately, we don’t have anything else to go on at this point. I suppose it’s worth a try.”
I couldn’t help but grin. It actually felt good to get it off my chest. And now we were one step closer to catching Voss.
“It could take a few minutes to figure out where he is,” I said, moving back to the couch. “So far I’ve been able to talk while I’m searching, so I’ll try to describe to you what I’m seeing while I look.”
Orion sat next to me on the couch while the rest of the team gathered around me.
I felt more nervous trying to use my abilities in front of an audience, but my determination to find Voss compelled me to move forward.
When I closed my eyes, I pushed the room full of men from my mind, concentrating solely on Voss and his location.
As soon as I felt I was connected to Voss I started to describe what I could see to the team. “It looks like he’s walking somewhere outside,” I began. “Like maybe a park of some kind.”
I didn’t think that would be of much help. There had to be hundreds of parks around Los Angeles.
I kept searching, pushing my mind further.
“It looks like a bunch of ponds surrounded by gates, with people looking into them. The water looks strange though, sort of black and oily, with some bubbles and ripples in them.”
Something about it seemed familiar.
“Wait,” I said. “I see statues in the water. They look like... elephants. Or, woolly mammoths maybe?”
Suddenly the familiar scene clicked in my mind. “Wait, I think I know where he is,” I announced happily. “I’ve been here before, on a school trip.”
I opened my eyes. “I know where he is. It’s the tar pits... the La Brea Tar Pits.”
“Are you sure?” Orion questioned.
“I think so,” I said.
Orion pointed to one of his men. “Pull that up and see how far away that is.”
He turned back to me. “Can you see anything else?”
“I’ll look,” I said.
I closed my eyes again. Voss was standing on a concrete path near one of the fences. I started to push the vision wider, hoping to find a name of some kind, just to be sure I had found the right place. I finally spotted a large sign at the front of the park.
“I was right,” I said. “I found a name. He’s definitely at the La Brea Tar Pits.”
Once I had found the sign, my first instinct was to let the vision go, figuring we had found what we needed.
“Sir,” one of the agents said, “the Tar Pits are a thirty minute drive from here. Do you want us to take action?”
Orion sighed, sounding frustrated. “No,” he said, “Voss will probably be gone by the time we arrive.”
I frowned. They weren’t even going to try to go after him?
“We need to wait until he’s settled somewhere,” Orion explained. “He’ll have to find somewhere to stay the night.”
I tried to continue to listen as they spoke, but something inside me pulled my thoughts back to Voss. Logically, I thought it was better for me to save my strength, in case they needed me to find him again later. But something drew me in, prompting me to look at him one more time.
Without telling anyone, I centered my focus on Voss again. He was still in the same spot as before, but I could see a man quickly approaching. I waited until the man walked right up to Voss’s side. Voss greeted him as if he expected his coming. Then, my mouth dropped open in surprise. I had seen that same face almost every day since I had moved to Banya.
My eyes flew open. “I saw something else,” I said urgently.
All the eyes in the room stared back at me.
I turned to face Orion. “I think I know how Voss was tipped off that we’re after him. He has someone working for him on the inside.”