Brain Storm by Cat Gilbert (ebook reader computer .txt) 📕

I WOKE WITH a start, unsure of where I was, the sunlight casting a ruby glow through the room. The memory of last night flooded back, and I flopped back into the pillows as I was reminded of the problems we now faced. How had I been so naive? How had I been so foolish as to think I was ready to go up against them? Glancing at the clock, I rolled out of bed and headed for the shower. The fact that it was nearly noon and no one had come to wake me told me volumes. I half expected to walk out of the room to find the others had chosen the wiser road and hightailed it out of town. I spent more time in the shower than was necessary, letting the hot water pound the aches from a body that was too out of shape to spend the night running up and down a mountain, much less lying in a bunch of bushes for an hour in the cold.

I discovered evidence of our fast descent down the mountain in my hair, in the shape of bits of leaves and twigs, and found myself laughing at the thought of what it must have looked like. Thank goodness I hadn’t looked in the mirror, but the others had gotten a front seat view. I had, I was certain, looked like exactly what I was. A deranged lunatic, trying desperately to hang on to some shred of sanity.

My laughter dissolved quickly, though, as I stood in the stream of cascading water, and faced the facts. It looked like Hughes could sense me, and if he was able to pick up on my emotions too, it cut the odds greatly of being able to turn the tables on him. One wrong move or worse, one unguarded emotion and he’d be on the alert. I had nearly made the mistake of going into a gun battle, assuming I was the only one with a gun. It shouldn’t have surprised me to discover that not only was the other side armed. They were better shots.

I cut the water and ran my hands over my head, squeezing the water from what was left of my hair, disgusted with myself. I needed to keep my distance from Hughes, that much was certain. I wasn’t sure what all he could do, but if he had actually sensed me last night, he might have picked up on my emotion too. Anger, plain and simple. The minute he’d hopped out of the Hummer, I’d felt it flare up. Whether he knew it was me or had just picked up on the emotion flowing around him, he knew something was up and if he had half a brain, he’d be on the alert. I could practically guarantee he wasn’t going to leave the safety of the facility now. More likely he’d stay put and wait to see what happened next.

A knock on the bathroom door snapped me out of my reverie, and I jerked a towel off the rack just as the door opened.

“You coming out of there anytime soon, or are you planning on drowning yourself?”

Trinity’s head appeared around the curtain, and she squinted at me through one eye.

“At least your hair looks better. Hurry up - food’s here.” She snapped the curtain back, and the door slammed shut before I’d even said a word. Apparently, they hadn’t decided to take off after all. I dried off and pulled back the curtain to find the bathroom swirling with steam, the mirror completely obscured. I wiped off a small circle of moisture only to watch it steam back up within seconds and knew I was facing a losing battle.

Frustrated, I grabbed up the hair dryer and proceeded to dry my hair without the benefit of being able to see what I was doing. Abandoning the brush, I felt my way with my fingers, trying to remember what went where in my new cut. I was halfway through when it hit me. There was another way to try to find Brown. One that didn’t involve Hughes. It probably wouldn’t work, but at least, we had something else to try. My mood considerably lighter, I gave up on the dryer, deciding to let it air dry. However it ended up looking, it had to be better than what it looked like last night. I pulled on the clean jeans and sweater I’d brought in with me, finding them somewhat damp from the steam. I ran my hands through my hair one more time, feeling more confident by the minute, and pulled open the door, finally ready to face the world.

I came out of the bathroom to find everyone stuffed into my room, two steaming pizzas on the table, such as it was. They’d been talking amongst themselves until I came out and then everyone clammed up. Suddenly famished, I wound past them and picked up a couple of slices of pizza, throwing them on a plate and made myself comfortable on the bed, suspecting they’d been talking about me and deciding to just ignore them.

“So what’s the plan?” Trinity demanded to know, just as I took my first bite of pizza. She waited impatiently as I grabbed the cheese that was stringing back to my plate and pulled it loose, popping it in my mouth.

“What makes you think I have a plan?” I asked, back on my way for a second bite.

“Well, that would be Mac, the human barometer,” Jonas said, slapping Mac on the back hard enough to stagger him. “You may keep your emotions bottled up inside, but they slide right across his face like film on a screen. It’s pretty easy, now that we know what to look for.”

I kept chewing, cocking a brow in Mac’s direction. Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected had no problem keeping his own emotions in check, but apparently, mine were an entirely different matter. Thinking of my reaction to being invaded with Brown’s emotions the other night, I couldn’t blame him, but it was good to know. Something we’d definitely need to work on in the future.

“That’s right, Samantha.” I leaned over to look around Jonas, who was efficiently blocking Mama D from view. They’d set her up at the desk, and she was happily munching away. “We knew when you woke up from the way Mac kept shaking his head.”

“I have kind of a constant background buzz in my head when you’re awake,” Mac explained, twirling his finger around in a circle above his ear. “Takes a few minutes for me to get used to it.”

I finished off the rest of my slice and started picking apart the second piece while I let that one rattle around in my head. If what he was saying was true, he was pretty much always aware of me. Bummer for him.

“Is there a limit as to how far away you can pick me up?” I asked, pulling off a chunk of sausage and popping it in my mouth.

“I don’t know. It didn’t use to work this way before you became active. Now that you are, we’ve been in pretty close proximity for the most part.” He flipped open a box and grabbed a handful of slices.

“You feel it with anyone else? Any of these guys?” I bobbed my head in the general direction of the room while playing with a mushroom that was hanging half off the crust.

“No. Just with you.”

“Hughes or Brown, maybe?”

“Noo...”’ He drew it out, pausing in his eating to look at me.

“Hmm. Interesting.” I decided to quit playing with the pizza and picked it up to finish it off.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake! Quit it, you two. Taylor, do you have a new plan or not?”

The others had been watching the back and forth between Mac and me, bouncing their attention between us like they were watching a tennis match. Trinity had reached the end of her limited amount of patience, which was practically non-existent in the first place.

“No. The plan is still the same. The goal is to find Brown.” I dropped my plate onto the side table and dusted off my hands. “We just have to go about it differently now. Try and avoid Hughes, if at all possible.”

“And just how do you propose to do that? Hughes is the only one who knows where Brown is.”

“Wrong. There is one other person who might be able to tell us,” Jonas said. He got up to throw his plate in the garbage and threw me a knowing smile over his shoulder. He was catching on fast.