The Hunt: The Oakmont Saga, Book 2

“Randy, she’s convinced that she needs to be locked up. I couldn’t talk her out of her belief that she’s dangerous, and frankly, she’s right. I don’t think she needs to be locked up, though,” she said, as they talked on the phone a few minutes after her talk with Melanie.

“She’s too smart for her own good, sometimes,” he replied.

“She won’t budge on her belief that all of them need to be at that school,” she told him.

“Alright, I’ll go ahead and visit the place. I’ve been holding out, hoping an unannounced visit wouldn’t be necessary. So much for that,” he stated.

“Have you found Aliyah yet?” she asked.

“No, but I imagine they’ve made it here by now. It’s about a four day drive, going a reasonable distance each day, and it’s been seven since they left. I’m certain they’re in the area, but they’re lying low. Does Melanie know where the school is?”

“Not that I’m aware of. We don’t know where it’s at, so she can’t get it from me or Brian, even if she read our minds,” she replied.

“Do you think she has?”

“No,” she said, without any doubt.

“Are you sure?”

“I can never be certain with her, but she has an aversion to invading people’s minds. The only time she seems willing to is in desperate situations, and she hasn’t been there, yet,” she said, fairly certain of her belief.

“That last attack wasn’t desperate?”

“Not in that way,” she replied.

“I trust your judgement. That fits with what I know of her and what I taught her,” he said.

“Randy, you’re a soldier, and you carry that persona with your children as well. You need to stop being a soldier for a little while and be soft to her. She’s hurting really bad, and needs someone that she can collapse into. She needs someone that will give her that emotional support she needs, and she needs that more than anything else right now,” Rebecca told him.

“I don’t treat my children like soldiers,” he began.

“No, but you’re somewhat remote to them, like a good soldier. You have likely seen a number of friends die, and it’s jaded your ability to get close. I haven’t spent as much time around Ben, so I can’t give as good of an assessment, but I’ve spent a great deal of time with Melanie. It’s her emotions that are the problem, along with the trauma she’s experienced. The path to helping her is through her emotions, though. As strong a person as she is, as strong as her will is, she’s still a little girl. She needs her Daddy to cuddle up with and wipe the tears from her face when she bangs her knee, or when her heart is broken,” she said.

“She’s not a little girl, anymore,” he said.

“Emotionally, she is. She’s suffered too much for too long and her emotions haven’t matured naturally. She needs her Daddy, not her soldier father,” she insisted.

“I don’t know how to be anyone else, but who I am,” he said, after he’d been quiet for a long time.

“If you want her to heal, even a little, you’re going to have to. She needs you,” she told him, not giving him any slack.

“She’s moving away from me. She doesn’t trust me anymore,” he said, changing tact.

“Then fix that,” she countered.

“She wants me to tell her things I can’t tell her,” he insisted.

“What, like things about the Oakmont program? She likely knows more than you, and she knows that. Maybe it’s about this other school. Is that it? Well, she thinks she needs that, and she’s going to get it whether you want her to or not. If you give her that freely, you might be able to start the path to healing. You want her trust, then give her yours. That little girl knows things that even the President doesn’t know, and you’re worried about giving her information?” she asked, but it was clearly rhetorical. “Randy, as smart as you are, sometimes you’re stupid!” she exclaimed, not giving him a chance to reply to her question.

“I can’t,” he repeated, ignoring her comment.

“Then you’ve lost her. We all have. For what it’s worth, I’d suggest having her mother there when she gets to North Carolina. It might be the last time either of you see her,” she told him, and hung up. She was done being nice. Melanie needed help too much for ‘nice’ to be a consideration any longer.

“You weren’t nice to him,” she heard, almost giving her a heart attack. Turning, she saw the voice of the little girl she’d been discussing.

“How long were you there,” she asked me. I was still trying to understand how she didn’t know that Momma had been killed, but it was obvious she didn’t.

“Long enough, but I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I left before the end of the call, though, when I realized it was a conversation you probably didn’t want me to hear.”

Mrs. Stone took me into a hug, which I gave in to willingly. It felt good, and I was needing that then. My emotions were a mess, and I was having a lot of trouble sorting them out. At least I wasn’t as bad as I had been when I was at Oakmont. At least, I didn’t think I was.

“We need to go, Mrs. Stone,” I said, after a few minutes.

“You don’t sit still long, unless you’re horribly injured, do you?”

“Hazard of my creation, I guess,” I said, giving her a slight smile. She didn’t smile back, not seeming to like my comment. I didn’t care, though.

“Melanie…” she began, but I turned around and walked away, not giving her the chance to tell me how much I needed to talk. Or maybe she was going to tell me that I didn’t need to be locked away, or one of the other talks she’d had with me over the past couple of years. At that moment, I didn’t want to hear any of it.

Chelsea, Richard, let’s go, I called out to them, not even knowing where they were. Less than ten minutes later, we were on the road again. Mr. Stone was driving one bus, along with Mrs. Stone, and Richard was in the other. I’d arranged to be on the bus with Richard and Chelsea.

“Melanie, Mrs. Stone really wants to talk to you about something,” Chelsea said, as we were driving down the highway.

“I know,” I replied, but didn’t add anything to it.

“You don’t want to, though,” she acknowledged, getting only a nod of agreement from me. She didn’t push me, thankfully.

As we were heading out of the small town that we’d spent the last few days in, how many I had no idea, we stopped for gas and snacks. The people from the church had collected quite a bit of money to help us along the road, which had brought me to tears when I’d been told. Of course, that was well after we’d left.

The next several hours were spent in dark thought. Of course, my thoughts weren’t much other than dark for quite a while. I was pleasantly surprised when we pulled off of the latest highway we’d found ourselves on, heading down some well travelled state highway. We soon passed one of those brown historic type signs that labelled the highway as the Great Smoky Mountain Expressway. A little further, there was the standard green highway marker that showed the highway as U.S. highways 19, 23 and 74.

Still further down the highway, Richard took the exit to U.S. 19, leading to Maggie Valley and Cherokee. I knew the time was coming that I’d have to tell him where to go. We were now driving blind.

“I need a link with someone that can sense people, specifically telepaths,” I announced, actually speaking out loud.

No words were spoken, but a link was extended to me within seconds. As I took control, I sent my own probe out, seeking. It was amazing how fast I found Aliyah. Thankfully, she was only a little further down the road, in the direction we were headed. It wasn’t very far before I knew exactly where she was.

“Richard, pull off at that Bojangles Restaurant,” I told him. He didn’t ask any questions, following my directions instantly.

As soon as the bus stopped, I opened the door and bolted out. Aliyah, Ben and Eliana ran to me as fast as I ran to them. After a period of hugging, we parted and I saw Gabriel.

He came to me and put his arms around me, holding me. Although it wasn’t as tight as many hugs I’d had, it felt more secure. I felt secure.

What came next was like an earth shaking event. Unexpectedly, he kissed me, full on the mouth. It wasn’t one of those passionate kisses, like you see in the movies with people sticking their tongues in each others mouths, but it was incredible. I laid my head on his shoulder, not wanting to ever move.

No one said a word about me and Gabriel. I was expecting at least some comment from the adults, but they had also remained silent on the subject.

Unfortunately, we needed to get moving, and Aliyah made it known with a cough. As a group, a very large group, we walked into the restaurant. Mr. and Mrs. Stone remained noticeably silent during all of that. I wasn’t certain, but I had the feeling that he held her back, at least a couple of times.

Once inside, I walked to the counter, while everyone else took over the restaurant. We occupied the entire dining room, which wasn’t a surprise considering how many of us there were.

“Can I help you?” an older teenage looking girl asked me. She had medium chocolate colored skin, along with a deep southern accent. After a quick look at the menu, I knew what we needed. Of course, I consulted with the group in the speed of a thought.

“We need 20 of your 20 piece jumbo tailgate combos. For all of them, I think two fries and two mashed potatoes. We’ll also need 95 drink cups for the tea, please,” I told the girl. She stood there for a moment, before pushing the buttons on her register.

“Did you want all of that tea to be sweet,” she asked.

“Bernadette, we don’t have that much tea,” an older woman said, walking up as she saw her crowded dining room, with me standing at the counter.

“Can you pay for all this?” she asked me, looking very doubtful.

“How much is it?” I asked. There wasn’t a customer facing display, so I had no idea.

“Eight hundred, thirty dollars and ten cents,” she said, voicing it in a way that sounded very sarcastic.

I began digging down in my backpack, as Mr. Stone walked up. I had forgotten that I no longer had the bag of money.

“You don’t have the money anymore,” he said, realizing my situation.

“I guess not,” I said, feeling kind of stupid. He reached out and lightly squeezed my shoulder, with a friendly smile. I couldn’t help but smile back, although my smile wasn’t as good as his.

“I’ll take care of it,” he told the woman.

“This is going to take a while to make. That’s a lot of chicken,” she said, as she processed his card.

It took almost an hour for the Bojangles people to get all of our chicken to us, but they did and it was hot and delicious. It’d been awhile since I’d had sweet tea, and although it was a little too sweet, it was wonderful. The biscuits were absolutely amazing.

“What are your plans now?” Mr. Stone asked. I suspected he’d put off Mrs. Stone, seeming to know I wasn’t going to talk to her.

“Aliyah knows where we’re going, and now that she’s with us, we can all go together,” I replied, earning Aliyah a curious look from him. She shrugged her shoulders, but didn’t say anything.

“We need to stop for gas again. We should’ve stopped a long time ago, but no one said anything, and I didn’t think about it,” Richard said.

“We’re really close,” Raphe said. I hadn’t even noticed him, oddly. Very unlike me, I went over and hugged him.

“What was that for?” he asked, a little taken aback.

“Thank you for taking care of them for me,” I said.

“I get to do something right for a change. That is good for me,” he said, smiling broadly, showing off his gold teeth. I smiled back.

“You really should smile more. Like I said, you have a very pretty smile,” he told me, making me smile bigger, and I was certain I’d started blushing. “Gabe will think the red cheeks is very pretty,” he said, making me blush even more. I could feel the heat in my cheeks, and Raphe began laughing, further increasing my blushing.

Although I wanted Aliyah, Ben and Eliana to go with me on the bus, Aliyah insisted that they stay with Raphe. However, Gabriel came with me. No one commented on the fact that we sat on the front bench, holding hands. Of course, no one had commented on our hug and kiss, either. It was the happiest I’d felt in a very long time.

It didn’t make sense, though. I hadn’t known him that long, only a matter of several weeks, and during most of that, I was someplace else. In all, I’d spent less than three weeks in his presence, and probably a lot less than that. My memory during a lot of that was very sketchy.

Yet, he made me happy. I wanted to be with him, hold his hand, lean on him...and kiss him. He seemed to complete me, somehow.

I was awakened some time later, which surprised me. I hadn’t even realized I was tired.

“Wake up, sleepy head,” he was urging me. “We’re there,” he said, once I’d opened my eyes.

I’ll go see what this place is, before we all get out. There might be a chance for the rest of you to get away, if it’s bad, I told them, broadcasting to all of the telepaths, and the regular humans.

“You should stay,” I told him, as I stood up, stretching as I did.

“Not a chance,” he replied, firmly taking my hand. That made me feel good, but I didn’t want him to be taken, if this turned out to be bad.

As I got off the bus, a car pulled up, making its way between the front gate of the place, and us. Looking at the place, it didn’t look like the military compound that Oakmont was. This place looked like a boarding school, with tall brick fences, and gates, but no obvious security. I was certain there were at least cameras around, but there was no barb wire, and no concrete, that I could see. Of course, the real security of Oakmont was hidden by a similar looking facade.

Once I’d made an initial survey, I looked at the car and saw Dad stepping out. He went to the back and opened the door, reaching in to help someone out.

The woman that stepped out looked familiar, horribly familiar, but there were differences. My mind couldn’t grasp what I was seeing. It wasn’t possible, and the frail, skeletal figure in front of me couldn’t be the person she resembled.

“Sweetheart,” she said, and there was no mistaking the voice.

“No!” I screamed. It came out of me before I could stop it. “You’re dead!” I yelled, right behind the initial scream. Tears began boiling out of my eyes, and my legs betrayed me. Although Gabriel tried to keep me from falling, he was too late realizing what was happening.

Both of them had a look of complete shock on their faces, but my shock was greater. She was dead, and I knew it. I’d seen it happen.

“No, sweetheart. I came close to dying, and I guess I did, but they revived me,” she said, trying to run to me, her frail form struggling.

I wasn’t able to speak any longer. No words would come out. She was dead, and I knew it. They were approaching me, but I tried to get away. I was on my butt, so my attempt was rather pathetic, as I tried to backpedal on my behind.

The short distance was covered quickly by them, even in her frail condition. She dropped down, Dad with her, and wrapped her arms around me.

“My angel, I didn’t die, I promise. God, how it must have hurt you to think I had,” she said, crying with me. I couldn’t hold back any longer. I began crying loudly into her, holding onto her for dear life.

“Momma,” I whispered.

“My Mel-Angel,” she said, and it was the sweetest sound ever. I’d dreamed of it, since I’d seen her die, knowing it could never happen again, that I’d never get that from her again. I realized that the vision was wrong, or rather, incomplete, but I’d trusted what I’d seen without question.

“Mom, I have to go there, now,” I told her, getting myself composed again.

“No, sweetheart, you don’t,” she said to me, able to adjust to my sudden change of direction.

“I have to. I’m too dangerous. I’ve killed a lot of people and I’ll do it again,” I argued.

“Sweetheart, come back home with us, please,” she said, and I could hear the desperation in her voice.

“I love you, Momma,” I whispered, as I let her go, got up and began walking. Dad was trying to help her up, and couldn’t stop me. I’d kind of planned for that, in that short moment with her, knowing I’d only get one chance at this. I couldn’t resist them very long.

“Please princess,” he begged. I stopped, but didn’t look back. I looked at the ground, fighting within myself.

Gabriel walked up and wrapped my hand in his. “I’ll stay with you, whatever you decide,” he promised. I looked up at him and smiled, even though the smile didn’t go to my eyes, and I knew it. I had no idea what Mom or Dad thought about him taking my hand, and I didn’t look back to see.

With his support, I did the hardest thing I thought I’d ever done in all my life and I began walking forward, tears seeping out of my eyes. Not sure why I did it, I pushed the gate open with my mind, closing it the same way once I was inside.