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R eeni stared at Bullard and nodded. “Not sure if a warning is in that comment or not, but I have no intention of disrupting your family life in any way,” she murmured. “I honestly came to help.”

“If that’s the case,” he said, “then you’re more than welcome. But the business that we work in, that we live in,… it’s not always full of people willing to help, particularly for nothing.”

“Right, and that’s the world I was trying to get away from, but it’s not that easy. It seems as if it’s everywhere.”

“It is,” he agreed, still studying her.

Even now she felt his gaze intently on her face, and then it shifted to Trevor. The fact that Trevor was here thrilled her to no end. She’d always loved the guy. He was special in so many ways, and a lot of it was the fact that he accepted her for who she was. It was hard to get that acceptance from anybody else, and it was definitely something she recognized in him.

As she was led into a very large kitchen and through to a dining area, she stopped at the threshold and frowned. “There has been violence in here.”

Trevor, staying at her side, wrapped an arm around her. “I gather it’s not just electrical anymore.”

“It is, and yet it isn’t,” she muttered in a bewildered tone. “It’s starting to get more emotional, and I don’t like it,” she announced in resignation.

He chuckled. “No, I can’t imagine you would. Yet you run on a lot of emotions yourself.”

“Maybe that’s why I recognize it now.”

“You’ll have to fill me in on what happened,” Trevor stated, “because, if your abilities have changed, that’s a big one.”

“I don’t know that they’ve changed,… just grown maybe. Yet”—she held up a hand—“it is connected to electrical energy around me. I just can’t really explain it.”

“You don’t have to, certainly not to me.” Trevor gave her a reassuring smile.

She smiled back at him. “I remember that too. You were always really good at acceptance.”

“I would hope so, since it’s essential in the field we’re in, whether we choose to be in it right now or not. It is very much about acceptance. You and I both know that, just as soon as you think you know something, something happens, and you feel as if you don’t know anything at all.”

“Yes,” she murmured, “that’s very true.”

She sensed his intense gaze, but she ignored it. She would have to explain it all to him at some point in time, but not when everybody else was here, practically breathing down their necks. They didn’t know who she was before, so they wouldn’t understand the changes, or what had brought them on anyway. Plus… it was personal. Personal, private, and not something she really wanted to advertise. She also knew that Trevor wouldn’t mind in the least.

Bullard admitted, “Now that I understand you do all this energy work, you and I won’t be butting heads so much.”

Trevor laughed behind her. “I wasn’t about to tell you either,” he shared. “If I’d known you had any dealings with Terk, then maybe, but otherwise no way would I let anybody know. The fact that you do deal with Terk means I can talk about it because you have some understanding of what goes on.”

At that, Bullard shook his head. “No way anybody can understand that shit,” he declared, staring at him. “That’s just too far beyond, and to think that this woman,… Reeni here, walked right up to my front door to tell me that I had a saboteur in my electrical field—at a time when we were already having a ton of electrical problems—it just pushed me past my limit.”

“That makes sense,” Trevor agreed, chuckling.

Reeni listened to the others, but, as their voices lowered, she couldn’t hear anymore. She figured they had decided that she was not a fraud and was only here to help. At least she hoped that’s what they were sharing among themselves. So, ignoring their mutterings, she stepped inside the dining room.

Dave smiled at her and pointed. “Coffee is on the sideboard.”

She headed there, where another woman joined her. Reeni smiled at the incredibly happy woman and introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Reeni.”

“I’m Leia, Bullard’s wife. Or he’s my husband rather.” She laughed. “It’s all a matter of perspective.”

“It is, indeed.” Reeni studied the woman with interest. “This is quite the place you’ve got here.”

“It is. It’s really great. I’ve been incredibly happy here, although I suspect that the purpose of your visit won’t be one I like.”

At that, Reeni winced. “I’m sorry. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s much better to deal with a problem as soon as it pops up than let it develop into something that’s much harder to deal with.”

“I agree with you totally,” Leia stated. “Absolutely I do. If you can help with this, please do. I don’t want anything to mar the perfect family life I’ve built up here.” Then she laughed nervously. “Though I know that sounds foolish because we can’t protect and control everything.”

“No, but you can do a lot when it comes to protecting things in life,” Reeni shared. She loved Leia’s energy, so calm and peaceful, and yet a sense of having already been to hell and back was there too—at least once, if not more. “If you have already had some bad incidents in life, the motivation to do what you need to do is that much higher.”

“Absolutely,” Leia agreed. “I feel as if I’ve already been through a lot, and I don’t want anything else to go wrong, not again.”

“Of course not,” Reeni replied.

“We’ve certainly had a few other incidents and exposures to people who do energy work,” Leia noted, “and I’ve been blessed to have one help me through childbirth.”

“That’s absolutely wonderful,” Reeni murmured. “The healers do such an incredible job, and, all too often, miracles are the result—literally.”

“I won’t argue with that.” She gave Reeni a bright smile, as she handed her a cup of coffee. She asked politely, “You take anything in it?”

Reeni shook her head. “No, I don’t, thank you.” As she accepted it, a buzz filled the air, and the lights flickered. She frowned, handing the coffee back to Leia. “Hang on to that for a minute.” With that, she headed to where Trevor was.

He looked at her and nodded. “Yes, I feel it.”

She smiled. “I forgot how much of a ground you were.”

“Not just a ground but an accelerator too,” he added, with a laugh.

“So, it’s not just the bird’s-eye view thing,” she teased.

He nodded. “Definitely not.”

At that, Bullard stepped in and asked curiously, “Hey, what’s going on?”

Trevor looked over at him. “No attack is happening yet,… but a definite buzz of energy is here right now,” he explained. “That’s causing your lights to flicker.”

The men gathered around, one of them asking, “When you say, not an attack , what do you mean?”

Nodding, Trevor replied, “Not an attack this time .” Then he faced Reeni. “I definitely get the feeling that the intruder is testing the limits.”

She nodded. “That makes sense, though I don’t deal in the world where people would want to be testing such things. Unfortunately, now that you mention it, I see that as a possible option.”

“It is, no doubt about it,” Trevor declared. “That’s what I’m getting right now.” He walked closer to Bullard and gave him a wry look. “We need a list of anybody who you think might want to attack you these days. I know it’ll be a substantial list, but I don’t see any other way to do this. Also do you know anybody who does energy work who would hate you?”

Bullard stared at him. “I don’t know anybody who does energy work, outside of Terk and his team, and I know Terk and his people wouldn’t do this. So, what you’re really asking me for is an all-encompassing enemies list.… Jesus, are there really so many of you guys, Terk ’s guys?” Bullard looked confused as hell.

Trevor nodded and motioned Reeni over.

She joined them and added, “It really is somebody who knows you, but it could just as well be money related. I don’t know what your financial situation is, but an awful lot of attacks lately were where people utilized energy to steal.”

He stared at her expectantly. “Steal what?”

She shrugged. “Banking information for one, identities for another. That isn’t what I would expect in this situation, but I don’t really have any knowledge of what this is yet. All I can tell you is that, whatever you’re keeping under wraps here, it is valuable, and somebody wants it.”

At that came hard muttering from the group around them, and she took a step back, knowing that she had delivered bad news. Still, they were better off knowing than not knowing. She couldn’t stop the warm sense of companionship she felt when Trevor wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

He leaned into her and whispered, “It’s all right, you know?”

“Is it?” she murmured. “They don’t know me, and they had to bring you along in order to even listen to what I had to say.”

He laughed. “Think about what you’re saying and about the group of men gathered here you’re saying this to. They’re all about following evidence and having proof, something they can see. Bullard’s team might know Terk, but they don’t know you. Terk heads up a large group of people like us now, so the word is getting around. Yet you’re an unknown element. Whether you were associated with Terk’s group or not, chances are you would still be treated the same.”

She gave a headshake. “Talk about suspicious.”

He burst out chuckling. “That’s what they do, and being suspicious has kept them safe all this time,” he explained. “So don’t judge them for that. Now all we can do is help them adjust by giving them some tangibles that they can work with.”

“Tangibles would be excellent,” Bullard confirmed, frowning at him. “Have you got something concrete instead of this potentially nefarious somebody-wants-what-I-have idea?”

“You already know that somebody wants what you have,” Trevor stated, locking gazes with him. “You have money. You have this compound, three to date that I know of. You have a team with impressive skills. You have a medical team as well. You have a family. You have even more than that. In fact, you have lots of things that people want.” At Bullard’s confused look, Trevor continued. “I’m not necessarily talking specifics, but consider somebody who hates you, consider somebody who may have just recently checked in out of the blue and realized, instead of suffering, you’re doing incredibly well.”

At that, Bullard glared at him. “So, you’re saying this is personal.”

“To attack your home, the home of your friends, your wife and theirs, plus the children?” Trevor slowly nodded. “It’s a hell of a lot more than personal.”

At that, all the other men agreed. “So, we need to take this on as a mission,” suggested one of the men close by, “and we need to get to the bottom of it quickly.”

Trevor agreed, and Reeni watched as they basically made decisions and didn’t even bring her into it. It was such a weird feeling knowing that she’s the one who started this ball rolling, but, until Trevor arrived, nobody was willing to even listen to her. She sighed.

He chuckled and pulled her closer. “It’s not because you’re female or a redhead or anything else. Believe me on that, because too many strong women are around here for these men to get away with that. This is just because you’re an unknown factor.”

“Yeah, I heard that the first time you mentioned it.”

One of the men looked at her and nodded. “Even now, it’s not that we don’t believe you, but again we don’t know you. We do have some experience with Trevor, and, of course, we all know Terk.”

She nodded. “So, if I were part of Terk’s team, would you trust me?”

“A lot more,” he replied cheerfully, as he walked over to grab a cup of coffee. “A whole lot more.”

*

Trevor watched Reeni’s disgruntled expression take over her demeanor and smiled at her. “Good reason to affiliate yourself with Terk, you know?” he muttered in a low voice.

She shrugged. “I’ve never met him, so I haven’t exactly been welcomed into his inner circle.”

“It’s not as if there was an inner circle, or any inner circle that existed. Up until maybe a year ago, nobody was really being invited in,” he shared, with a chuckle. “After his world blew up, quite literally, things have changed. He’s now gone private—not only just private, but also he’s got a bigger team than ever who does this work.”

She stared at him, fascinated. “You mean it when you say this work , don’t you?”

“I absolutely do,” he confirmed. “I’m not necessarily such a big part of the energy work, but, when Terk sent out a call, I couldn’t resist coming and checking out what he had going on.”

“Is he the one who sent out that beacon?” she asked, puzzled. “I heard it, but I didn’t really know who was calling, or even know what for.”

“Oh, that was Terk all right,” Trevor declared, with a wry smile. “I think he may regret it now. However, he was desperate to see how many other people were on the ethers.”

“Too many,” she muttered.

At that, Trevor burst out laughing. “You and I might say too many, but, when you’re looking for more people like us, we can never have too many.”

She shrugged. “Still, it seems to be a foolish thing to do.”

“I think Terk’s thinking the same thing, but it did bring me to him, although I’ve known him and many of his team members for years.”

“That’s the thing. You already know him. You already have a relationship with him,” she pointed out. “I don’t, and I doubt that he would want anything from me.”

Trevor eyed her, puzzled. “More to the point, what do you have to offer the team, in terms of going out and helping the world? That’s what would interest Terk.”

“He really is into helping the world, huh ?”

“He absolutely is,” Trevor declared. “That was the main thing I was thinking of when I made the suggestion that you should affiliate yourself with him. He also has a lot of women on his team now.” He watched her eyebrows shoot up, and he chuckled. “Remember, no judgment.”

“Sure, no judgment, but that’s still easier said than done.”

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “Yet Terk is not somebody you can ever pigeonhole into a particular box. He works on a lot of different premises, and he’s quite open to many different types of people. So just keep that in mind, while you figure this out.”

She nodded and didn’t say anything more, and he appreciated that. She’d had enough judgments against her over the years, but he knew that an association with Terk was something completely different. So, if she could get her mind wrapped around it, she would be better off. He already thought it would be a good idea for her to be associated with Terk, but that wouldn’t happen until Terk saw what she could do, how she did it, and how she conducted herself out in the world, all because there was no shortage of ways to get yourself killed.

Terk would never want that to happen in his name. Even as Trevor considered that, a banging came on the front door, and he watched as Damon soon strode in. Instantly came shouts and greetings as people gathered to greet him, and Damon smiled broadly. Trevor watched as his friend came over and smacked him on the shoulder.

“Have you got this solved yet?” Damon asked, with a big grin. When he caught sight of Reeni, his gaze widened, and the smile fell off his face.

Trevor thought it was almost a comical reaction to Reeni. She did make an entrance, just by standing there.

She nodded at Damon. “I’m Tangerine, but everyone can call me Reeni.”

He nodded. “I should have guessed,” he noted, with a bright chuckle. “I was told you had bright red hair.”

“What you mean is orange hair, just like my namesake.” She sighed. “I was born with this hair, and that’s why my father decided I should carry this ridiculous moniker.”

“I’m glad he had a sense of humor,” Damon replied. “Not sure it’s the easiest name to go through life with, though.”

“Nope, it wasn’t,” she agreed, studying him, “but then neither is yours.”

His eyebrows shot up. “I don’t remember giving you mine.”

“You’re Damon, one of Terk’s right-hand men.”

“That’s true enough,” he stated, looking at her, “but we really are all part of the same team. We consider ourselves part of Bullard’s team too.”

“How does that work?” she asked. “There’s always one boss.”

“There can be one boss and a lot of second bosses,” he said, with a smile. “When you’re part of a team, small or large, you always have somebody who is ultimately responsible for major decisions. However, when you’re in a team with Terk, he lets you have a lot of input into how you want things to be.”

Reeni listened, while reading his aura. He seemed completely calm and collected.

Damon continued. “So, we don’t look at it so much as Terk’s rule, but as a compilation of all our wishes,” he explained, with a smile.

“That works for you?” she asked.

“It absolutely does, and it’s hard to imagine working with anybody else. We almost shut down shop here a while ago. If not for outside forces taking an even uglier turn in our world, we might have and would have all gone our own separate ways. That would have been a terrible shame because what we can do now, what we’ve accomplished, it’s massive.”

She smiled. “That’s how it’s supposed to be. Together you’re supposed to do so much more than when you’re apart. That’s what relationships are all about too,” she said, her tone gentle.

“I would agree with that as well.” He reached out a hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Reeni.”

She chuckled. “Same.” Then she looked back at Trevor. “I suppose Trevor told you all about me.”

“Not really. He told us a little bit but not a whole lot. He just mentioned that you were very unique.”

She snorted. “Yeah, if that’s all he told you, he was being kind.” Everyone looked at her. She shrugged. “I’ve had an awful lot of names thrown at me, and, truth be told, to my family I’m a complete embarrassment, and they want me to take a long walk off a short pier. At this point in my life, I just have to ignore them, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Some families are that way,” Trevor agreed, “yours especially. They expected you to grow up and either be a trophy wife or arm candy,” he shared, knowing she was not a fan of the topic. “You never had to work for a living, and so doing what you’re doing just adds to your family’s ire.”

“Right. They think I’m some charlatan out here, making life crazy for people,” she muttered. “They don’t understand that it’s a calling, something I have to do. I’m compelled to help, whether I want to or not.”

“Lots of people don’t understand the work we do,” Damon chimed in, eyeing her carefully. “It’s a matter of understanding and learning about energy and what energy does. And, more so, what it is that you can do for others while using your energy gifts.”

“I’m still learning about my gifts,” she admitted, “and sometimes it comes more easily than other times.”

“That is part and parcel of the work we do,” Damon noted. “If you were to hook up with somebody a little more adept than yourself, you would find that your skills would grow in leaps and bounds. In our group alone, our skills have changed on a proportionate level that none of us could ever have anticipated.”

At that, she stared at him in wonder. “Really?”

“Absolutely,” he declared. “New abilities appear every day that we hadn’t seen or recognized as being in the realm of possibilities, but now, for us,… it’s commonplace.”

“And you?”

“What about me?” Damon asked, with a smile.

“What is your gift?” she asked.

“I work as a ground, but I also manipulate energy. However, I certainly don’t manipulate electronics.” He turned to Bullard. “Have you picked up any tricks while I wasn’t looking?”

Bullard snorted. “If I did, you can bet it wouldn’t be to hack my own system.”

“Maybe not, but did you piss off anybody lately?”

Bullard winced. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but, as you well know, in our line of work, it could be anybody.”

“Did you fire anybody recently?” Damon asked.

Bullard frowned at that, looked over at his team, and they all slowly shook their heads.

Damon nodded. “Okay. Have you had any arguments with suppliers, any of your old contractors? Has anybody threatened you, anything along that line?”

Trevor watched in amusement as Damon, knowing Bullard better than Trevor did, poked and prodded, forcing Bullard to contemplate these angles, to think about where they were at, who they might have pissed off, and what might be going on in their world. Bullard would be a little defensive when dealing with these issues. Yet everybody seemed to think about it and tossed questions around a couple times, not really landing on a suspect.

Trevor looked over at Reeni and found her staring at one of the rooms off to the side. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

She shrugged and then nodded her head toward the room. “That room, it’s wrong.”

Bullard stared at her in exasperation. “What do you mean, it’s wrong ?” he asked in a confused tone. “How can it be wrong? It’s just a room.”

She glared at Bullard, and Trevor could see part of the reason why people got upset with her. She was right in the sense that, if she was picking up something, chances were, something could very well be wrong with that room. However, by saying it was wrong didn’t tell anybody anything useful. Trevor asked her, “Can you give us any more details than that?”

“I need to go in there,” she stated boldly, “but it’s not my house, and I haven’t been invited.” With that, she stared at Bullard in anticipation.

Bullard frowned at her, still unsure of her antics.

Damon motioned for her to move. “Let’s take a walk.” Without listening to any arguments one way or another—or waiting for Bullard’s permission—Damon led her directly into the room that bothered her.

Immediately Trevor came up behind them and noted it was a server room. “This would definitely be a room you would pick up on. That’s for sure,” Trevor said, right beside her.

She nodded and pointed to one of the big server banks. “There’s a problem with that .”

Bullard groaned. “Yeah, well, hang on a minute. Are you a hacker? Do you understand computer systems?” Bullard asked from behind her.

She shook her head. “No, I’m not, and, no, I don’t,” she snapped, turning to look at him. “I get it. You don’t want to listen to anything I have to say, but at least these two guys won’t discount my words.”

“And that’s good,” Bullard muttered, as he shook his head. “Then I don’t have to worry about it.”

She wasn’t sure exactly what Bullard meant, but it’s obvious he thought it was self-explanatory. She sighed and looked at Trevor. “So, this is where it gets problematic.”

“The problem,” Trevor began, “is that you need to give these guys more information. You say there’s something wrong with the server bank, but are you saying that somebody has hacked into it?”

At that question, several of Bullard’s men stiffened.

Trevor continued with his questions to prod more information from Reeni. “Are you saying that somebody has manipulated the hardware here, meaning, gotten in and sabotaged the hardware, or is it more about the software? What is it that you’re saying exactly? Just go with your gut.”

She frowned at him and looked back at the others. “Oh, sorry. I just figured they would know, once I pointed it out.”

“No, they won’t know,” Trevor stated. “What do you see? What’s the problem? Is the energy sparking the problem?”

She walked over and placed her hand on one of the servers.

“That bank is the problem?” he asked. “Or one of the actual disks?”

She tapped a single disk. “This one, this is causing the trouble.”

Immediately one man walked over, one of Bullard’s team, but Trevor wasn’t sure he’d met him before.

Bullard stared at her. “That part of the server controls the satellite.” He was more or less talking to himself.

She stared at him, her eyes huge. “You guys have a satellite? Your own satellite?”

Trevor laughed. “That’s the thing,” he explained to Bullard and Damon. “She doesn’t know very much about electronics in the sense of how to hack or how to use any of this stuff. However, she can see the energy. She can recognize where the problem is, and she may even be able to trace it somewhat. Yet she doesn’t know that you have a satellite. She doesn’t know anything about your world. And remember that she came here to help. Before you go to all-out war, let’s give her a chance to help.”

“I’m all for that,” Damon muttered, as he looked at Bullard sideways and gave him a nod. “She’s right. The energy on this particular disk is,… I’ll say, off .”

“Okay, so that’s not helping me either,” Bullard grumbled in frustration. “What does off mean?”

Damon burst out laughing. “Other energy is on this disk, energy that’s not yours. It looks nothing like your energy or like the energy of anybody else here. Now, the question is, have you had any work done by an outside contractor?”

Immediately everybody shook their heads.

Bullard frowned at Damon. “No, we handle all our own systems work here ourselves. You know that.” Bullard stared at the piece of equipment they pointed to distrustfully. “So, are you saying it’s been hacked, and I’ve got somebody in this system, like right now?”

She replied, “It’s been hacked but…” She looked over at Trevor.

Trevor nodded. “Even if it’s crazy, spit it out, and we’ll try to decipher it as best we can.” He raised an eyebrow at Damon, adding, “We’ll try anyway.”

She shrugged. “Ghosties are in it.”

At that, silence fell.