The Hunt: The Oakmont Saga, Book 2

I woke up to the doorbell ringing. Looking over, I saw that it was 5:00 in the morning, unless I had slept way longer than I thought possible. Getting up, I snuck down the hall, knowing Mom and Dad would be answering it, and also that they wouldn’t be happy with me being up still wearing a nightgown with someone at the door.

“Mr. Randall Brager, Mrs. Rebecca Brager?” the cop at the door asked, as I stole a glance in the foyer.

“Yes, officer,” Dad responded.

“We have a warrant to bring you in for questioning. You are not being arrested yet, but you are required to comply. If you would please come along peacefully, sir, ma’am,” the cop instructed.

So, my plans weren’t going to happen. They had launched the first strike. I was pretty sure something was going to happen when I had that feeling inside Fred’s, but I hadn’t expected it quite that fast.

“Can we at least get dressed?” Dad asked the cop.

“Yes, sir,” the cop agreed, with a friendly smile.

“We were instructed to turn the children over to Children’s Services, who have personnel here to take possession of them,” he said, stepping slightly to the side to show four adults in business suits behind him.

Without any hesitation, I sent a probe to Mom and Dad, along with Aliyah. Mom, Dad, I’ll get Ben and Aliyah and we’ll hide in the room. Once you’re gone, we’ll go to the Draper’s. Don’t try and reply. It’ll take longer than we have, I told them. I got an impression from Dad of some kind of hidden place in our secret room. It came to me that he was hoping I’d pick it up from his mind, and he wanted me to get what was in that place.

“Okay,” Dad said out loud, and I knew that was directed at me, rather than the cops or the OCS people. “The children spent the night off last night, but you should be able to pick them up at the Stone’s house.”

I headed back down the hall to Aliyah’s room, where she was already dressed. We both went and grabbed Ben, having to put a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. Thanks to Dad’s training, he quickly understood and remained silent as we all went into the crawl space, where a special room had been built for something like this.

Once we were there, I went to the small place Dad had tried to show me in his mind. Behind a shelf was a large box, and behind that was what looked like an electrical panel. I knew it wasn’t though, now that I’d seen it in his mind.

I moved the box out of the way and then pried the door of the panel open. Remembering the positions of the breaker switches in Dad’s mind, I flipped the right ones into the off position. Then I pulled the panel from the wall. It took a lot of strength, but it finally swung out on hinges that were not visible until it was opened.

Inside was a compartment that contained several thick file folders. Dad’s thoughts didn’t clearly tell me what he wanted me to get, so I grabbed everything and began stuffing it into my pack. There were several file folders, a couple of them being very thick, all of them in sealed plastic bags. I then grabbed the large baggie with lots of money in it. This was getting eerily familiar.

There was also a small wooden box and a small notebook. I recognized the notebook. It was the notebook I found at Oakmont, outlining the research that was done there. Without looking, I knew the box contained the serum that I’d found. There were also a couple of cell phones, which I knew were untraceable.

“They have a telepath,” Aliyah informed me as I was stuffing Dad’s secrets in my pack.

“Keep track of him,” I replied, not really knowing if it was a him or a her.

“I’ll try,” she said.

At that moment, I was glad my Dad was a spy, or whatever it was that he did. Because of that, along with the constant threat hanging over Aliyah and me, we always had packed bags in here, along with separate changes of clothes. He had run drills with all of us to get in here quickly and quietly.

When I finally got Dad’s stuff, I grabbed the spare clothes that were there for me. Aliyah and Ben were already changed and ready to go.

“The telepath is a girl,” Aliyah informed me, as I was changing.

“Be careful, or she’ll know we’re here.”

“She already does, but I knocked her out,” Aliyah said, as if it was no big deal. I sensed there was something she wasn’t telling me, but I was too distracted to worry about it.

It was at that moment that Ben started throwing up. That was exactly what I needed during this, a sick little brother. I gently rubbed his back, as he settled back down. Once he had stopped heaving, he began holding his head and both Aliyah and I were shocked as ‘tentacles’ began flailing crazily all around him.

What timing! He couldn’t have awakened at a later time, when we weren’t trying to run from another telepath who was hunting for us? This was also proof that he was going to be strong, since he’d awakened very early. He was about the same age as I was when my telepathy woke up.

“Ben, I’m going to show you something, but it’s going to be different than anything you’ve ever experienced. Don’t freak out, okay?” He nodded his head, but looked very skeptical and very scared. He was also in a good deal of pain.

Without any idea what else to do, I sent a probe into his mind giving him instructions on how to control his telepathy, or rather, they were general impressions of how I controlled my telepathy. Aliyah would probably be able to show him something completely different since she’d had more training.

Although it seemed like forever, he sat back and the tentacles seemed to slow down in their mad flailing. Finally, they settled into a peaceful kind of rest, after quite a while and a lot of concentrating by Ben. They were still relatively uncontrolled, but they weren’t going wild now. This was starting out much better than I thought possible, considering how it began.

Then I thought of how fast the problem might start showing up in him, the problem with the energy spike, or whatever it was. That thing that almost killed me back at Oakmont.

“He needs the stuff,” Aliyah said, seeming to read my mind, although I knew she hadn’t. She was right, but now was not the time.

“Okay, but not now,” I replied, getting a nod of agreement from her. “Can we leave?”

“I think so. I can’t sense anyone near the back of the house. They’re all worried about their telepath,” she said, almost spitting out that reference to ‘their telepath’. Again, I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me, but again, I had too much on my mind to worry about it at that moment.

We climbed out of the secret room, making sure to close the hidden entrance, and headed to the back of the house through the crawl space, where there was an exit in the backyard. We paused a moment to let Aliyah double check things, then we continued on out. Thankfully this winter was proving to be snowless so far, or they’d definitely have heard us leaving and seen our tracks through the snow.

We climbed up the hill behind the house and into the woods, where we raced to a small trail that we played on all the time. Following it, we came out a few streets over, near the elementary school that I once went to.

“Aliyah, can you reach out to Uncle Mike or Aunt Sarah?”

“I can’t go that far.” I was afraid of that, but had to ask. That was something that I had always been better at than her, although our strength wasn’t that different.

We went to the back side of the school, where Aliyah quickly picked the lock and we went in. We headed to the gym and then into the P.E. supply room, where Aliyah again picked the lock to let us in. Our hope was that it wouldn’t be messed with today, but we had no idea.

Once we were settled into a nice corner at the back of the room, I closed my eyes and sent a probe questing out for her parents, who everyone knew as our aunt and uncle. They really were my aunt and uncle.

I had no idea where to go, and this was really hard. I hadn’t done anything like this in quite a while. By the time I came out of my trance, my head was killing me, and I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. Aliyah gently laid me down, knowing I was spent. At least there wasn’t any bleeding.

Not even noticing it, I went to sleep and slept deeply. I only woke up when Aliyah started shaking me. “Mel, we need to get ready to go. There are a bunch of kids in the gym,” she informed me, as I sat up. What she told me meant that there was a good chance someone would come in here, probably Coach Sullivan, if he was still teaching here.

I had to find Uncle Mike, or Aunt Sarah. Without waiting to tell Aliyah, I sent my probe out again, but this time I sent several, all going in different directions. I’d never done anything like this before, not this many probes this far. As my probes started getting farther and farther out, I could feel that pain that told me I was pushing myself, possibly too hard. The pain was growing the further out I went, but I had to keep going.

I had no idea how I was able to keep track of all of the probes at once, but I was doing it. Finally, I found Aunt Sarah. I was at the limits of my ability, but I found her. She was close the whole time, and I had missed her. At times like this, Aliyah’s ability to sense people would have been very handy.

Trying to be gentle, but barely able to stay conscious, I entered her mind and started talking. Aunt Sarah, please don’t panic. This is Melanie. We need help. Mom and Dad were arrested and we ran. We’re at Beach Lake Elementary in the gym. Would you please come get us? I asked, and my connection winked out, pain flooding through me like a tsunami.

“Mel!” Aliyah exclaimed, as I collapsed back to the floor, my head bouncing as I did.

“Who’s in there?” I heard, but was unable to think or even understand the danger it posed. Ben and Aliyah were absolutely quiet, barely even breathing. Funny that I noticed that in my condition.

“Melanie, Ben?” I heard a man’s voice say. Aliyah was frozen stiff, clearly not sure what to do. I could feel her mind engaging to defend.

“Don’t,” I whispered to her. I remembered her stopping me once, long ago. Or was it more than once? I couldn’t remember.

“Melanie, dear God, what’s wrong?” I heard, and then felt hands gently touching my face.

“What’s your name?” the voice asked.

“Aliyah, sir,” she replied.

“Pretty name. What happened?” he asked. There was a long pause.

“We had to run away from some bad people and we hid in here until our aunt and uncle could come get us,” she replied. Even in my pathetic state, I knew that wasn’t a good answer. He’d have to call the police.

“Coach Sullivan,” I mumbled.

“Yes, Melanie,” he said, and I felt his hand on my head.

“Aunt Sarah is on her way. Please don’t tell anyone we’re here,” I told him.

“If someone is after you, I have to call the police. They can keep you safe,” he replied.

“The bad people were with the police,” I informed him. I was sure he wouldn’t believe that, and even if he did, he’d still have to call them. There was a long pause, way too long in fact.

“I’ll let your aunt come and get you. I won’t call anyone,” he finally said.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Now, what happened and why are you bleeding so much?”

“They took Mom and Dad so they could get us, but we ran before they could. You don’t want to know why I’m bleeding and I can’t tell you,” I told him, unable to come up with an explanation that would have been believable but not tell him the truth. My mind wasn’t working well enough for that.

“Melanie, you were always a wonderful kid to have in class. Although I might be making a mistake, I won’t ask anything else and I won’t tell anyone. But you need to get cleaned up,” he said, his hand rubbing my head in a friendly way.

“Aliyah, I’ll bring some water and paper towels, if you’ll take care of her,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

A few minutes later, I felt a warm cloth wiping my face. Strangely, the action helped with the pain in my head as well.

When Aliyah was finally done, I sat up, beginning to feel a little better and gaining a little more energy. Coach Sullivan was nowhere to be seen.

“He left to teach his class. I think he wanted everything to look normal. He told me to sneak out once he took his class outside and he also told me to go out the back entrance,” she said, indicating the entrance we used to come in.

I stood up slowly, grabbing my pack as I did. Even going slow, I suffered what amounted to a headrush on steroids. I stood there for a little while, fighting down the nausea that came with the pain.

Ben stood up quickly, his pack already in place, and Aliyah stood with me, making sure I was alright. She swung her pack onto her shoulders once she was sure I was steady and led the way out. Thankfully, no teachers came into the hall as we were making our escape.

I looked back toward the playground as we left and saw Coach Sullivan wave at me. I waved back and we went into the woods to wait on a hill overlooking the school. We probably should have waited there from the start, but it was cold.

We didn’t wait long before we saw Aunt Sarah’s SUV pull into the school parking lot. I was about to send a probe to stop her from going into the school, but as soon as I touched my ability, the pain exploded in my head as bad as it ever had. I screamed very loudly when it happened and collapsed. I could feel the wetness on my chin as blood poured from my nose and eyes. I was sure it was blood.

I had no idea how long it was, but I felt hands lift me up and start carrying me. Yet again, I passed out. I had gotten weak over the past couple of years, not using my ability hardly at all.

When I finally opened my eyes, pain stabbing them as I did, I saw Coach Sullivan kneeling over me and Aunt Sarah beside him. Both looked very worried. “She needs an ambulance,” someone else was saying.

“No ambulance,” I mumbled, and could tell my voice sounded funny. “Aliyah, don’t let them take me,” I begged, unable to figure out why I sounded so weird.

“I won’t,” she assured me. Drawing every ounce of strength I had, I forced myself to sit up. Slowly, I could feel my energy returning, but it was very little and I knew it wouldn’t last long.

“The ambulance is on the way,” a female voice said.

“We need to leave,” I said, on the verge of panic at that revelation. My voice was back to normal, even if I still felt horrible. Aliyah helped me up and we started walking away, before the adults realized what we were doing.

“Melanie, you can’t go. We won’t let you,” Mrs. Ivers stated, as if she could control me. Actually, right then, she probably could. She stopped in front of us, prepared to stop two misbehaving girls and a little boy. She was shocked as we walked around her, and she was unable to approach us. There was a small purple flash and she couldn’t move. Aliyah had blocked her from getting close to us.

It was as if a purple bubble opened up around Mrs. Ivers as we passed her and left her when we were completely passed.

“What…,” she exclaimed, her mind unable to comprehend what just happened. I stopped, turning to face her.

“Mrs. Ivers, you don’t want the government to know you’ve seen this. If they find out you know, they’ll never let you go free again,” I informed her, struggling to stay on my feet. She stared at me, her mouth hanging open but no sound coming out.

Coach Sullivan was also staring at me, at us, but his mouth definitely wasn’t hanging open. The expression he had was more as if he finally understood something that had been a mystery. He was there when I first started hearing the voices, so he had probably made the connection.

“I can read your mind,” I told him, confirming what I was pretty sure he was thinking. “But we don’t unless it’s very important. There are others that will without any hesitation, though,” I informed him.

“Is that why you were bleeding?” he asked.

“Kind of. I tried to contact Aunt Sarah, but it was too much. I overdid it and that was the price I paid for it,” I told him, thinking about all the times I’ve felt that pain.

“You look like you’ve done that a few times,” he kind of stated and asked at the same time. I only nodded, not caring to think about how often I’d experienced that feeling.

“Get out of here before they get here,” he told us.

“Thank you,” I replied, as we walked to Aunt Sarah’s car. She knew what Dad had told her about us, but she had never heard us say it, and definitely had never seen evidence of it. Not until then, anyway.

Aunt Sarah drove to her house, remaining absolutely silent. Once we got there, we all grabbed our packs and went inside. I was a bit slower than everyone else.

“Keep your packs close,” I instructed Aliyah and Ben. Aliyah looked at me oddly, but didn’t say anything.

“What’s going on?” Uncle Mike asked as we walked in. “And why is there blood on Mel?” he added when he looked at me.

“Mom and Dad were arrested last night. We escaped,” I told him, my legs feeling very rubbery.

“Sit down, kids. You’re looking a little peaked, Mel,” he observed.

“Mike, she did something to stop the woman at the school. It was like some kind of wall,” Aunt Sarah said. He then looked back at us.

“So all of it’s true,” he replied, his face thoughtful. Aliyah and I both nodded, but didn’t say a word. Aunt Sarah was the one I was worried about. She looked extremely unhappy, almost scared. Her demeanor had changed completely at the school.

“That means that your ability either returned or was never gone,” he then said, making the same logical conclusions that Dad did yesterday.

“It never went away,” I admitted.

“That means you lied to everyone.” This time I nodded, but lowered my eyes, ashamed of the lies I had been living for so long.

“At least you know it’s not good to lie,” he said, and I looked up at him and nodded.

“However, you were right to do so,” he then said, after a pause to look me in the eye for a moment. Aunt Sarah jerked her eyes to him. She didn’t say a word, but I could see the anger there.

“Get that abomination out of my house,” Aunt Sarah suddenly burst out, unable to hold back any longer. As much as I had been teased and insulted in my life, I’d grown immune to most tormenting. Aunt Sarah’s accusation wasn’t simply for tormenting, though, and it hurt really deeply. I couldn’t help tears springing from my eyes. Lowering my head to look at the floor, I tried to wipe them away without them seeing.

“Sarah, she is not an abomination,” he told her, very firmly.

“What she did, could only come from Satan,” she roared, voicing a thought I’d wrestled with in the past.

“You’re saying that God couldn’t do that, or allow one of His children to do it?” he countered. She was speechless at his rebuttal, but I could tell it wasn’t over, and she had no clue that Aliyah was the one that actually did it.

I could see the look on Aliyah’s face though. She was devastated as well, and Uncle Mike seemed to sense it. “You kids need to get away from here, before they come,” he said, sadly.

“She needs to go, but Ben and Aliyah can stay. She’s the demon,” Aunt Sarah exclaimed, pointing at me.

“Sarah, they all have that ability, whatever it is. If one must go, then all must go,” he said, his voice calm and sure. That was a tone I recognized from Dad. When he got really angry, he got like that. “Not only that, if they arrested Randy and Becky, they’ll come here before long. The kids aren’t safe here, and that includes Eliana,” he said.

“My babies can stay. They won’t take them,” she insisted.

Grabbing her shoulders, he gently shook her, and drew out each word, “Yes...they...will.”

Before anything else could be said, there was a knock at the door. “This is the police. Open up,” a loud voice commanded.

“We don’t have a panic room like your Dad does, Mel. In the shed behind the house is a pack for Eliana and a couple of baggies with money and untraceable phones. Take it all and get out of here. Aliyah, go to Aunt Emma’s in Meldrim. She’ll help,” he ordered us.

“They aren’t going anywhere!” Aunt Sarah screamed.

“Sarah, if those people get them, any of them, they will be tortured and experimented on,” he told her. She clearly didn’t believe him, so he grabbed her and forcefully led her to the front of the house. When she realized what he was doing, she began fighting him.

We took the opportunity to head to the back door and outside. Aliyah was visibly shaken by what had happened. Without realizing it, her Mom had torn her down and she didn’t know how to deal with it.

“They have two telepaths this time,” Aliyah informed me, coming back to herself very fast, the situation demanding it.

“Great!” I exclaimed. Since I couldn’t find them on my own, I wasn’t much help for Aliyah. But they posed a very big problem for us.

As I was thinking and trying to come up with an idea, my mind was attacked with a lot of force. The problem for them though, was that even with that force, they weren’t strong enough. My shields went up instinctively, stopping anything they could hope to do, in spite of them getting the jump on us. It hurt, though.

One really good thing for us, and bad for them, was that their attack, or probe, let me know exactly where they were. I launched a counterattack, my probe following theirs back into their minds. My intention was only to knock them out, but I wasn’t able to gauge my strength. I’d never been able to, so I had no idea what I actually did to them, and considering our safety was on the line, I didn’t care right then. What I did know though, was that they weren’t going to bother us again anytime soon.

With that little skirmish, that I wouldn’t even call a battle, my head exploded with pain, I fell hard to my knees and I was really tired. I shouldn’t have been affected that much by that tiny use of my power. I was completely wiped out.

Aliyah helped me back up and looked at me until I nodded. That didn’t answer her concern though as she looked more intently, as if questioning my response.

“I shouldn’t be this tired,” I replied, thinking about that small use of my power.

“You haven’t really exercised it in two years,” she told me, which made sense. I should’ve been exercising to make sure I was ready, if the time came.

No one attempted to stop us or even find us. Once we were in the woods, we heard voices in the backyard, but it was already too late for them. I guess they could have tried to chase us into the woods, but they didn’t even know we had gone there. At least, I didn’t think they did.

We didn’t stop to find out, though. We hiked through the small bit of woods, scrambling down the side of a hill through a new condo development and then into the Carl’s Jr. parking lot. By this time, we were all hungry and went inside, hoping we’d have enough time to get some food.

As we got up to the counter, we all noticed the cop cars patrolling around, and there were a lot of them. One pulled into the restaurant parking lot, driving really slow. He was looking inside. As he got even with us, he stopped and got out of the car, leaving it running as he walked to the door. We all made our way to the door on the other side and walked out.

“Aliyah, can you do something to him?” I asked, praying she could. I knew I wasn’t in any shape to stop him. She didn’t answer, but she did stop and I could tell she was focusing her mind. I couldn’t even sense her probes, which was an indication of how overused my ability was. Finally, her eyes opened and she smiled at me. She looked tired, though.

“He’s buying some food.”

“What’d you do?” I asked, curious how she convinced him to get food, rather than chase us.

“I kind of placed an idea that he was hungry. I saw you do it once, and thought I might be able to. I’m not sure exactly how I made it work, but it did.”

“Nice,” I replied, with a weak smile.

“We need a place to rest and some help,” she suggested, as we crossed the highway and moved behind some buildings. Considering how many cops we’d seen, I was amazed that we’d managed to get a break large enough to make it over there, but we had and I wasn’t going to question it.

“Where can we go?” she asked, once we were somewhat hidden.

“I don’t know,” I replied, beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed.

“What about that teacher that helped us?”

“Coach Sullivan?” I asked in reply. She nodded.

“I don’t know. We’d put him in danger.”

“But we need to rest and we need help,” she argued. I couldn’t argue back, because she was right. I reluctantly nodded agreement, and we started walking.

I actually knew where he lived, since Dad had been friends with him. They weren’t close friends, but they’d gone fishing and hunting a few times. It was a long walk, made longer because we were trying to stay hidden. Thankfully Ben and Eliana were being very good. They weren’t complaining or anything. As a matter of fact, they were being absolutely quiet.