Something had happened with Wong and the trance session he put me in. I felt disoriented, like I'd been woken from a deep sleep. Wong was shaking me and screaming loudly, asking if I was alright. I felt something tug at the back of my skull like a childhood memory but I couldn't make any sense of the murky images that were playing inside my head. I sat up from the recliner and shook my head to clear the thoughts. Wong mumbled an apology and left me there, saying something about needing to check up on the girl we'd rescued from the warehouse. I called after him to wait up but he must not have heard me because he continued walking in the direction of the tower. I tried standing up and the world swam around me, so I waited for ten more minutes before I got up and left for the tower, closing Roberto's door gently behind me.
By the time I got to my room, I was exhausted. Every single noise seemed amplified and even the smallest attempt at forming a thought sapped me of strength. Trying to force the premonitions was a very bad idea. Edwin was by the door waiting for me, his brows furrowed.
"What's wrong with you?" I asked.
"Not here," he replied, dragging me inside and bolting the door behind me.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked again, raising my voice this time so Edwin knew I was serious.
I'd just come out of a hypnotic spell; my patience was wearing thin. Edwin suddenly put his hands around my temples and I felt woozy for the second time in one day as he invaded my head with his memories. Edwin's telepathic communications were completely different from this all-access pass to his mind. The former felt like a nagging in the back of your head, single bursts of thought alien to your own that you only noticed because they sounded nothing like you. The latter was more like a tidal wave of alien images and sensations that felt like an epiphany you were never supposed to have. We were still hazy on how it worked, but Roberto postulated that he suppressed the parts of the brain responsible for thought, leaving the mind vacuous, and then filled the vacuum with his thoughts or memories while the mind compensated to interpret the influx of information in the best possible way. I saw his thoughts like a movie reel. Apparently, a lot had happened while I was away.
Edwin had been practicing with his mental skills, testing the circumference of his telepathic reach with Marian when he encountered a strange mental energy. That's the only way he could describe it. Someone was using so much mental energy that it flared up like a beacon and attracted his attention. He cut his psychic link with Marian and sent a psychic tendril of thought up to the top of the tower where the flare was coming from. It was from Zoe, one of the girls they'd rescued from the warehouse. Edwin thinks the only way he managed to piggy back into her head and read her thoughts was because she was so focused on whatever she was doing that she didn't even notice his small intrusion. He found her memories very quickly and his first scan through them terrified him. The Zoe girl was no amateur. He thought she's the most powerful telekinetic he'd ever seen, even stronger than most he'd heard of on television. She was so adept at telekinesis that she could use her mind to lift tractors and somehow manage delicate tasks like calligraphy, absently controlling the pen like she was using her hand. For some reason she had stopped using her telekinesis over the last year, the reason why he couldn't tell. She had somehow obscured that as well, which made him suspect she had basic level telepathy as well. He could have broken through the mental barrier hiding those thoughts but he didn't want her to notice so he scanned her recent memories instead. It turned out she had no memory of the last five months. She had no idea where Alyssa was. The stream of memories stopped abruptly, she'd suddenly turned her attention to him and shut him out, swatting out his tendril of consciousness like a fly. I winced, from Edwin's memories; it felt like a blow to the head.
Edwin took his hands off my temple and held my shoulder to steady me. I didn't even realize I was swaying.
"I need to talk to her." I said. "I need to find out why she's lying."
Edwin sighed as he opened the hatch that led into the tower's tunnels. "She's not the only one who's lying."
We quickly travelled up the tunnels; Edwin's heightened mental acuity made it easier for him to remember where we were supposed to bend and where we were to duck. We arrived at a side false wall, adjacent to the door of the room on the twelfth floor. It was ajar. We stepped in and stopped when we saw the scene. Roberto was unconscious and on the floor, lying on his stomach and the back of his head was matted with blood. Zoe was behind one of the beds dragged up to the wall and used as a barricade, snarling at Wong was on the other end, a drip stand in his hands and brandished like an ancient Japanese spear.
"Everyone calm the fuck down!" Edwin boomed, before using the full force of his psychic powers to bludgeon us with a mental screech. My hands instinctively went over my ears even the sound Edwin had projected wasn't aural and putting hands over my ears that did nothing to dampen its whine. Wong and Zoe hazarded a look in our direction, made sure neither of us were about to join the fray and turned back to face each other down, not sparing a single further thought for the telepath in the room.
"What happened here?" I screamed at Wong over the ringing in my ears.
"She tricked him into letting his guard down and then she hit him over the head with the pole in my hands. I got here just in time to stop her from escaping. I don't even think I would have managed if not that she's so weak." He shouted back at me. I slowly walked over to Wong and as gently as I could, took the pole from him.
"You need to check on Roberto, Edwin and I will make sure Zoe doesn't escape."
Ed twitched me. {If she decides to use her telekinesis, I don't think I can stop her.}
{Neither of them knows that, right?} I hissed back at him. {She doesn't know what you're fully capable of, so we're going to bluff our way through it.}
Wong crept over to Roberto, and checked his vitals. He seemed to be breathing normally and his pulse was regular, which Wong announced and suggested that for the moment the Priest was stable. He reached over to the nearest overturned bed and dragged the first aid kit that lay at the foot of one of the bed's legs before using one of the gauze pieces within the kit to bandage Roberto's head, pressing down with extra cloth to stop whatever bleeding might occur much later. He put the rest of the kit under his head so any excess blood would flow away from his skull and covered him with one of the bed sheets lying around. He promptly joined me and snatched the pole out of my hands and pointed the curved top at Zoe, daring her to move. She barely shifted from where she stood, catching her breath as she watched us intently.
It was three of us against her, but Edwin and I knew she knew she had the upper hand. If she took Edwin out before he was able to break through her mental barrier and immobilize her, Wong and I would stand little hope of stopping her. We needed to talk her over to our side. I projected my thoughts as well as I could through the psychic link Edwin now kept open between us whenever we were together, a little void of darkness in the back of my head. He had assessed the situation and had come to the same conclusion. We had to defuse the problem.
I took the end of the drip pole and gently tugged at it to get Wong's attention.
"Let it go." I whispered at him through gritted teeth.
His eyebrow shot up in inquiry. I steeled my face. "Trust me and drop it."
He grunted his disapproval and I felt the tension on the pole ease. I gently pulled it out of his hands and raised it slowly over my head. Zoe's eyes widened and she took a step back and lowered her centre, mistaking the shift of weapon to mean I was freeing Wong to attack her.
"Don't jump to any conclusions." I called to her, "I'm just taking it so I can put it down."
I let the pole clatter to the floor, watching her eyes follow its trajectory. Her shoulders sagged as she relaxed a bit. I had established contact, I had to strengthen it and somehow convince her to not attack. I nodded in the direction of Father Roberto and asked, "What happened to him?"
She shrugged. "I was trying to escape. He was in my way."
I couldn't help but smile. Cocky Roberto; He probably thought he'd take her down with one punch.
Edwin coughed loudly to draw our attention and then faced Zoe.
"Here's what we know, you've been lying to Wong and the priest, you in fact have no idea where Alyssa is right now. And you're crafty enough to find your friends a way out of St. Andria. That makes you a liability out in the world, so tell us why we should let you out of our sight."
She scrunched her face, and then laughed loudly. "So it was you who was messing around in my head."
"I don't think you gave us any other choice given your special skills." Edwin replied, unembarrassed.
"You're right; I may not know where Alyssa is. But right now I have no intention of escaping anymore. If there's anything I know from my years of pick pocketing fortune tellers, is that you don't mess with the future. And old Ginger has seen the future, hasn't he?" She said, turning her gaze firmly at Wong.
Wong swore under his breath and glared at her.
"Go on, tell them. We don't have all day. Your priest might wake up at any moment." She taunted.
{What the hell is going on?} I thought to Edwin.
{Wong should tell you himself,} he replied. {I wouldn't want Wong to know that I can access his mind without his permission. The less they both know about what I can do, the better off we all are.}
I smacked Wong across the arm in frustration. "By God Wong, you better start talking."
"Alright, alright." He grumbled. "Just don't hit me.
"Norman, when you were under the hypnotic trance, you sorta had a vision, a proper vision. You said something about seeing me and Alyssa together and Zoe with you and we seemed to be fighting each other. Roberto was there but he couldn't help. From what you saw, one of us got hurt, fatally I think. I sort of panicked and broke your trance before you could see more and I left you to come find her and see what she knows."
Zoe dragged herself out from behind the bed barricade and over to me, draping her arm over my shoulder and leaning on me for support.
"So, our futures seemed intertwined. That means I can't leave you until the vision either happens or we find a way to change it."
I shrugged her arm off my shoulder. I didn't feel comfortable with her touching me; actually I didn't know what I felt about her. She had gone from a victim of Alyssa's abductors, to our enemy, to a forced ally all in the space of 24 hours. I might be forced to work with her but she wasn't my friend, yet.
"What do we do now?" Wong asked angrily. He hated not having the answers.
Edwin answered. "I think you three need to head out and find Alyssa yourselves. Roberto seems to be a pivotal factor in Norman's vision, so he not being there when you eventually find Alyssa might be enough to change how things turn out."
He turned to me, "I put some extra supplies in your packed bags for you, and I think Zoe has enough juice to get you all out of St. Andria unnoticed. I'll stay behind and stall Roberto as long as possible."
{I don't like this,} I thought to Edwin.
He sighed. {This is the best we have right now. Finding Alyssa was always our priority and Zoe knows enough to give you a head start. I put that medallion we found in your luggage. Maybe you'll figure out who it's from.}
"What the hell are you waiting for?!" Edwin bellowed at us suddenly, "GO!"
I didn't need much motivation after that. With Zoe sandwiched between me and Wong, we made our escape.
It took us about an hour to escape St. Andria and find our way to the greyhound station two miles east. I led the way, seeing as I had the most experience with breaking out and navigating the premises around the school. We took a detour through the brush land that surrounded the school, cutting through a stream and a small apple orchard where we stocked up, filling our pockets and the sides of our knapsacks and eating as much as we could. By the time we got to the station it was almost eleven pm, just enough time to buy tickets with money Edwin had thoughtfully stashed on the top of Wong's bag. We took seats at the back of the cross country bus; Wong took an aisle seat while Zoe took the window seat beside him and I took the window seat behind her. We settled in and prepared to get some rest. We were going three states south and had only six hours before the bus got there. I drifted off soon after. I really needed to sleep.
I woke up soon after to the sound of thunder as rain pelted the windows. I couldn't really tell what time of the day it was, as the sky was overcast, but it seemed like early morning. The bus drove slowly and quietly, and the overall environment had me feeling pensive. Something nagged at the back of my head. An inconsistency. From what Edwin had said, Zoe was an accomplished enough telekinetic to escape at any time with minimal fuss if she put her mind at it. So why was she refusing to use her gifts? What was she hiding? I had a nagging premonition that we wouldn't like what we would discover when she eventually came clean. Another thought crossed my mind. Edwin had said that Zoe was not the only person lying. Who else was not being honest? Father Roberto? If I could suspect anyone, it would be him. He had already hidden so much from us in the past. And then there was the whole crazy idea of forming a rescue team from a bunch of teenagers when he could have been assisting the much-better-resourced police with their investigation, even though they seemed unwilling to consider her case as an abduction. And after rescuing the hostages, he still did not want to get the police involved. So what was he trying to avoid?
Who was Alyssa anyway?
And why did someone bother to kidnap her?