Page 34 of Empowereds

“Is that possible?” Enzo asked. “I thought you had to be near death to do that.”

Charity had to give it back. It wasn’t hers. “I’ll get a hold of another shot and give it to myself. When my heart slows, I’ll be able to return the power back to Dad.”

Her mother frowned. “Even if that worked, and I don’t know that it would, your father needs time to recover.” She scrubbed a hand over her face. “What visions have you seen about the future, about what needs to happen next?”

Charity felt worry twine with the tension already gripping her stomach. She should have had at least one vision about what to do next, shouldn’t she? They were still in danger. “I haven’t seen anything past reaching you.”

Her mother rubbed the back of her neck. “Maybe you won’t run into trouble on the way to New Salem.” She didn’t sound convinced.

“Or maybe I just don’t know how to be a psychic. Can I talk to Dad before we go?”

Her mother nodded. “I’ll take you to him.”

Enzo headed toward the door. “I’ll fill up the car and see if someone has some scissors to cut Blue’s hair.”

Blue squeaked in alarm. “Cut it? She said for me to wear a hat.”

Enzo motioned for her to come with him. “It will look fine with all of the blue cut off. Short but fine.”

“Don’t you dare touch my hair,” Blue said.

He held the door open for her. “Come on, Brown.”

She glared but went with him.

Charity’s mother went out the door as well, and Charity followed, her mind abuzz. She’d known the government would be looking for them. She hadn’t considered they might have such a large reward for her. Sixty thousand credits were four year’s wages for a harvester. She hated to think how many of the people she’d worked with would turn her over for that sort of money. She could never go back.

They went to Mr. Whitney’s bedroom, a room larger than some of the bunkhouses she’d stayed in. It smelled of antiseptic, a scent that seemed out of place among the dressers, paintings, and frilly curtains.

Her father lay on the bed, eyes shut. His skin had a yellow tinge, and his hair was mussed and matted with blood. An IV bag hung from the bedpost, connected to a needle taped to the back of his hand. The doctor and all the other equipment were gone.

As Charity came in, her father opened his eyes and smiled.

She sat on the side of the bed and held his hand. He didn’t squeeze her hand, a reminder that he couldn’t feel her grip. “I’m sorry about all of this.” The words caught in her throat. “I don’t know if I did the right thing, giving you that shot. Maybe I did more damage.” Her head hung with the weight of the words. “Why didn’t you have a vision to tell me what to do? Why didn’t your visions say I should shoot Schmitt first?”

“Good questions.” His voice had a slur to it. “Most of the time we only think about what’s best for us in the short term. The visions direct things for what is better in the long term.”

“How could this be better?” Charity asked. “You’re crippled now, and you no longer have your gift.”

Even then, his eyes were kind. “I can think of reasons why this is better. The government knew I was a psychic and knew you weren’t one. They’ll concentrate their efforts on finding me. But even if they do capture me, it won’t do them any good.”

He sighed. “I can’t betray New Salem now. Perhaps the visions knew I would give the government whatever information it wanted to keep my children from being tortured. But my brother and mother live in New Salem. The visions protect them too.”

He seemed far too willing to part with his gift.

“I don’t want to be a psychic,” Charity said. “I’ll give the power back to you as soon as you're well enough. We just need to find one of those shots.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think that will work. You’ll know that you’re not really dying.”

If she’d had any tears left in her body, she might have cried at the burden of the mantle he was handing her. “Then we’ll find another way. We have to. The people of New Salem listen to you. They won’t listen to me.”

Charity turned to her mother for support. Certainly, her mother would agree that Charity wasn’t capable of that sort of job. She wasn’t a leader.

Her mother only stared back at her in solemn expectation.

“Charity,” her father said. “The family needs you to lead them now. Enzo and Blue need you to get them to safety. The people of New Salem need you, even if they don’t know it. You had faith in my visions before. Transfer that faith to yourself.”

“I had faith in you ,” she protested. “Your wisdom can’t be transferred.”

“Sometimes wisdom comes from making mistakes,” he said.

Well, she was about to prove that maxim wrong. “If that were true, I’d be wise already. I’ve done nothing lately except make mistakes.” As proof, and perhaps because she was a little hysterical, she added, “I let Enzo know who you were. I used my flashlight in the forest so soldiers captured us, and I gave you that shot.”

As though refuting her, he said, “Enzo is on our side now. You were able to rescue me, and you’ve preserved the power we need to lead our city. I see no mistakes there.”

How could Charity keep refusing her father? She had to at least try to be the leader he wanted. “I haven’t had any other visions. I only had the two that helped us get here.”

He shifted in the bed and winced from the effort. “Have you made any specific plans about what to do next?”

“Um, no,” Charity said. “We were waiting to see if you pulled through. I wanted to stay here for a while, but Mr. Whitney won’t let us.”

“Make specific plans,” her father said patiently, “and see if the visions tell you to alter them.” His voice grew softer, got slower. “At times you’ll have visions, other times you’ll have vague impressions. Those are the hardest to get right. Just keep trying. It won’t always make sense.”

He tried to sit up and instead grimaced and sunk back into the pillows.

Her mother went to his side. “He needs to rest now. Go back to the bunkhouse and start making plans. I’ll come in a few minutes to help you.”

“Wait,” her father said. To her mother, he said, “Do you have my notebook?”

She nodded.

“Give it to Charity. It’s hers now.”

The notebook. This somehow made it all feel final. The job of psychic had become Charity’s whether she wanted it or not.

Charity sat with her mother, Enzo, and Blue in the bunkhouse, her father’s notebook in front of her. On a loose piece of paper, she’d written, “Drive to New Salem,” and listed the roads they would take.

No visions had come. Her father had had so many visions he’d needed to calendar them to keep them straight. She was bereft of instruction. She had a bunch of blank pages and a growing sense of dread. “Would it be safer to leave right away or wait until morning? The roads are more dangerous at night.”

“Mr. Whitney might not let you wait,” her mother said.

“If we wait until morning,” Enzo added, “anyone who passes our car might recognize it.”

“So we go now,” Charity wrote the word “now” next to the others. “We take food, our weapons…” She jotted that on the list. “And a container full of gas so we don’t have to stop at a gas station. We’ll pull off to the side of the road any time we have to, you know, relieve ourselves.”

Blue fiddled with her hat. “Do you really need to add those sorts of details?”

“I don’t know,” Charity said. “My father said to be specific. Besides for those rest stops, we drive straight there.”

A vision came then. The three of them sat in the car pulled off the road behind a copse of trees. Bits of garbage lay strewn along the ground, including a large, faded plastic orange container. The last vestiges of daylight were slipping away. Enzo sat in the driver's seat and Charity perched beside him, holding his hand.

Blue scooted forward from the middle of the backseat. “We’ve been here for over an hour, and all that’s happened is the two of you have discussed your future and made kissy faces at each other. No sign of the police.”

As the words left her mouth, an armored police truck drove by. If they hadn’t been pulled over, the truck would’ve spotted them.

The vision ended, and the room came into focus again. Everyone stared at her, expectantly waiting.

She wrote what she remembered about the surroundings in the notebook. “At some point, we’ll have to pull over to the side of the road and wait for an hour so that we’re not seen by a police truck.”

“Where?” Enzo asked.

Charity shrugged. “I don’t know. An orange barrel lay on the side of the road. We’ll have to keep our eyes open for it about an hour before sunset.”

“That sounds doable,” Enzo said.

Charity’s mother reached over and hugged her. “See, you can do this. Now what about my plans? A week from now, your father and I will take the same route as you. We’ll leave at daybreak, take food and gas with us, and stop only when we need to.”

Her mother’s words faded. Charity saw her mother pull up to a checkpoint in the road. Her father, bundled in a coat and hat, sat in the passenger side. Her mother leaned out the window and counted out bills for the guard. “That’s three thousand. It’s all we have.”

The guard put the cash into his jacket pocket and waved them through.

The room returned. Her mother had stopped talking and was waiting for Charity to speak.

“You’ll need three thousand in cash to bribe a guard at a checkpoint.”

Her mother’s eyebrows furrowed. “We don’t have that much. Paying for the doctor took most of what we had.”

“You can sell my gun,” Charity said. It wasn’t nearly enough, but she didn’t own anything else of value. “Don’t go until you have the money.” Uncertainty suddenly overwhelmed her. She didn’t have enough information to give her mother and would be leaving before she could find out anything more. “Should we send someone from New Salem here with money? I didn’t see anyone sitting in the backseat.”

Her mother took the gun and checked the safety. “If we’re not there after a week, then yes.” She gave Charity another hug.

Charity stayed there, holding her mother for another moment, not wanting to let go.

Blue picked up the bag of food and headed to the door. Enzo edged that way as well.

It was time to go. Charity took the notebook and said a last goodbye to her mother.

As she left, she wanted to look back but didn’t for her mother’s sake. Her parents needed her to be a leader. She would have to start acting more confidently.

She could figure out what had to be done.

The group strode to the car. Someone had covered it with a tarp while they’d been in the bunkhouse. Enzo pulled the tarp off and checked his pocket for his key. He didn’t find it. He searched his other pockets.

“Oh,” Blue said. “I have it.” She took it from her pocket, unlocked the doors, and threw the key to Enzo.

“Why do you have my key?” he asked.

“I have certain skills.” She climbed into the backseat.

Enzo and Charity got into the front. “Yeah, I know,” Enzo said. “I wasn’t asking how you got it; I was asking why you took it.”

Blue buckled her seatbelt. “I considered taking off on my own but decided not to.”

Charity turned in her seat. “You were going to steal our car?” Perhaps she shouldn’t have felt the sting of betrayal. Blue was young and a stranger, but Charity had already begun to trust her.

“I decided not to,” Blue emphasized.

Enzo glared at her. “Do you even know how to drive a car?”

“No. That’s one of the reasons I decided not to.”

Enzo started the car and drove toward the road. “If you want to leave, be my guest, but don’t even think about leaving us in a lurch. Remember, I know how to hunt Empowereds.”

The key still perplexed Charity. “I thought for a telekinetic to move something, they had to either see or touch it. The key was in Enzo’s pocket. How did you take it?”

Blue slouched in her seat. “I saw it when he filled the gas tank. I just kept it from sliding all the way into his pocket and then took it.”

“I’m slipping.” Enzo shook his head in disbelief. “I thought I could trust a telekinetic.”

Blue crossed her arms and huffed. “You can’t blame me. I don’t know anything about New Salem.”

Enzo shot her a look in rearview mirror. “You know it’s not full of people who want to arrest you.”

“Yeah,” Blue said. “That’s why I decided to go there after all.”

This was a bad start to a long road trip. And not a great start to Charity being a leader. She’d been so consumed by her problems that she hadn’t even considered how worried Blue must be or thought to reassure her. “You’ll like New Salem,” Charity said. “It will be a fresh start for you.”

“Right,” Enzo added. “You can act like a normal person and tell people your real name.”

“Blue is my real name,” she said.

“In that case,” Enzo said, “you can pretend your parents were sensible people and make up a different name.”

Blue rolled her eyes. “Like I’d take life advice from a police officer. Do you realize your uniforms make you look like badly dressed Nutcracker dolls?”

Enzo pressed his lips together and glanced at Charity. “She’s not going to live with us, is she? New Salem has a home for juvenile delinquents, right?”

Charity bit back a smile. “I thought you wanted children.”

“Not that one.”

Blue pulled a face. “I wouldn’t live with you if you asked. You’re newlyweds. You’re either going to be fighting or kissing.”

“Kissing,” Enzo said.

“Gross,” Blue said.

Charity said, “There’s a Welcome Center that helps incoming residents until they find work and housing. I’m sure they’ll know what to do. As soon as your paperwork is done, I’ll help you enroll in school. Then you’ll be a student like every other teenager.

“The city is working on a college. Maybe it will be finished by the time you graduate. Or who knows, maybe you can get a new identity and go to one of the state universities.”

Blue said something in reply. Charity didn’t hear what.

The dark fields around the car had been replaced by a street of townhomes—a place she vaguely recognized as a street in New Salem. Blue stood in front of Charity, taller and more mature, with brown hair that had a bright blue streak on her left side. She held a photo in her hands. “So once I find this guy, he’ll just come with me?”

“I don’t know,” Charity said. “I haven’t talked to Callum since the day we left Kansas City. It may take some convincing on your part.”

Blue slid the picture into her pocket. “What am I going to say to him—hey, you’ve never seen me before, but my sister, Charity, really needs your help. The dude will think I’m lying.”

“That’s why it may take some convincing on your part.”

Then Charity jolted back into the present.

Blue finished with, “Although, since New Salem is supposed to be such a great place, they probably don’t even have a police academy. I mean, why would they train people to harass their citizens?”

“You’re adorable,” Enzo said. “Maybe the citizens don’t want to take their chances with raiders, slavers, and other unsavory elements.”

Blue snorted. “From my perspective, the police are the unsavory elements.”

“That’s because you’re a child,” Enzo said. “And I’m sure you’ll make lots of nice hoodlum friends at the orphanage.”

Neither Blue nor Enzo had seen her eyes go white. That was probably for the best. She didn’t think either of them wanted to hear about this vision right now. Still, she found herself saying, “I bet when my parents arrive in New Salem, they’ll want Blue to stay with them.”

Blue dipped her chin petulantly. “Because they feel sorry for me?”

“Because my father needs help. He can’t use his hands or feet right now, and you don’t have to use yours.” She turned to better see Blue. “Could you use your powers to support him while he relearns to walk?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably.” Her eyes narrowed. “Is that why your father rescued me? So I’d be his physical therapist?”

“Why do you keep asking that question?” Enzo said. “The point is he rescued you. Is helping him in return so much to ask?”

She blew out a breath and folded her arms. “If that’s all I have to do, okay. I just want to know when my debt will be paid.”

Charity smiled. “Maybe there’s not a debt to be paid. Maybe he rescued you so you could become part of our family.”

Enzo sent Charity a firm look. “No. Blue has her heart set on becoming the leader of a hoodlum gang of orphans. I can tell.”

Instead of being at all happy at Charity’s pronouncement, Blue’s mouth dropped open. “Are you suggesting I marry your brother?”

Charity coughed and then laughed. “Of course not. Gregor is way too old for you. Why would your mind even go there?”

She waved a hand at Enzo. “Your dad picked out your husband. Now I’m worried that’s what psychics do.”

“Enzo was a special case,” Charity said. “He needed some extra persuasion that we were supposed to be together.”

He reached out and put his hand on Charity’s knee. “Not all that much persuasion.”

“What are you talking about?” Charity said. “I think I’m still persuading you.”

He grinned at her. “I hope so.”

Blue leaned back against her seat and groaned. “Ugh. Newlyweds. This is why I’m not going to live with you.”

“Yep,” Enzo agreed.

Charity didn’t say anything. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she could relax. She felt like she could be happy, and she wanted to enjoy that feeling.