Brodie glanced at her, then looked back at Sarah with a wry expression. “Crocodile. Shark. Smiling villain. Whatever the hell you want to call him, he’s obviously in charge, at least of their field operations.”
“Field operations? You make it sound…military.”
“Maybe it is. Or maybe it isn’t. Until we get strong enough as an organization, or find a single psychic who’s strong enough, we have no way of knowing. They don’t leave evidence behind them, not so far.”
Sarah thought about it. “So that’s what you meant when you all were talking earlier? That I might be the one?”
Leigh replied to that, this time obviously in agreement with Brodie. “We’re convinced that a strong enough psychic will be able to find a way past their mental shields and give us the information we need to fight them.”
“What makes you believe I might be that one?”
“I can feel it in you. The strength. The potential.” Leigh smiled. “And I gave you a little test, Sarah.”
“What test?”
“Earlier today, when you looked into my mind. Remember?”
“How could I forget. You opened a door and showed me…everything inside you.”
Leigh shook her head slightly. “You opened that door, Sarah. Something not one in a hundred psychics could have done. The door was not only closed, it was locked—and I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to make those locks strong. But they didn’t stop you. You didn’t force your way past them, you didn’t hurt me. You just opened the door as if it were no barrier at all.”
Sarah didn’t know what to say to that.
“You’re the one, Sarah,” Leigh said. “You’re the key to our future.”
“Well?”
“She’s made contact with Munroe.”
“And?”
“Brodie’s there. And the girl.”
“Then we can assume they’re making plans.”
“Yes.”
“Good. That’s good.”
It was unsettling, to be told she was so important in a cause she hadn’t even been aware of a week before, and Sarah wasn’t sure what she felt about it. All she knew was that a weight of responsibility was settling on her shoulders, and it was heavy.
After a short silence, it was Brodie who spoke, his voice matter-of-fact. “Until we know who they really are and why they’re taking psychics, all we can do is fight a holding action. They don’t win—but neither do we. And all the while, for every psychic we get to in time, we lose half a dozen more.”
Sarah shook her head. “I never realized there were so many people with psychic abilities.” She saw Brodie, Cait, and Leigh exchange glances, and added immediately, “There’s something weird about that, isn’t there?”
With a slight smile, Leigh said, “Never use the word weird in the presence of people with psychic abilities, especially a born psychic; we’ve heard it entirely too many times in our lives.”
“Tell me,” Sarah insisted, ignoring the wry humor. “I’m tired of being in the dark, and I have a right to know.”
“It’s all supposition, Sarah,” Brodie said.
“All of this is supposition, according to you. So? What is this about the number of psychics?”
Brodie leaned back and gestured slightly toward Leigh, who spoke slowly.
“We don’t know what’s causing it or what it means, Sarah. All we know is that the number of people with psychic abilities is increasing, not only generation by generation, but year by year. More are born. And more are, for want of a better word, made. Created. Changed from latent to active. Twenty-five years ago, there might have been one or two people who became psychic in a given year due to a head injury or some other kind of trauma; this year, so far, you are one of fifteen.”
“What?”
Leigh nodded. “Fifteen that we know of.”
“How many did you get to in time?”
“Three. Not counting you.”
“The others…they were taken?”
Leigh nodded again. “One of them was snatched almost under Brodie’s nose. He wasn’t happy.”
With a grunt, Brodie said, “I hate to lose.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Cait told him loyally. “The guy couldn’t bring himself to believe he could be involved in something so bizarre. He just didn’t believe in the threat against him.”
“We lose some because of that,” Brodie agreed. “Psychic abilities vary; sometimes the people we’re trying to help have no way of knowing the truth of what we try to tell them. They don’t know they can trust us. So they run. Right into one of Duran’s traps.” He looked at Sarah. “That’s why we had to be so careful with you, why we held back the couple of times we got close enough to make contact. It was my decision, and I’ve learned never to approach a wary psychic in the dark. Makes a bad first impression.”
Sarah smiled slightly. “Yes, it would have.”
He nodded. “But we’re here now. You do know you can trust us, or at least you’re giving us the benefit of the doubt. And you do know what we’re up against.”
Softly, Cait said, “And you know, now, how valuable you are.”
Sarah drew a deep breath. “If all this was intended to persuade me not to go after Tucker—it failed.”
“Sarah, you can’t fight them.” Brodie’s voice was steady.
“I can try.”
“You’ll lose. They’ll take you and kill Mackenzie. They’re just waiting for you to come after him. You know that. He’s bait.”
She stared at him for a moment, then shifted her gaze to Leigh. “I came here hoping you could tell me some way to fight them. Teach me how to use my abilities against them.”
“I don’t know how, Sarah. I’m sorry. I can help you learn to use your abilities, but that will take time. It’s a matter of concentration, of focus. Of learning how to tap into those places deep inside you—and outside you.”
“The crossroads. I already found it.”
For the first time, Leigh was obviously surprised. “The crossroads?”
A bit impatiently, Sarah said, “That place we all pass through, the—the junction of past, present, and future.”
“You tapped into that?”
“Yes. Tucker needed to know something and…and I just reached out to find it for him.” For the first time, she realized that each time she had found a new use for her abilities, it was because Tucker had asked it of her or needed it of her.
“And you found it? Something…from the past?”
Sarah nodded. “Someone he knew a long time ago. I had to find out what had happened to her.”
Brodie turned his frowning gaze to Leigh. “That doesn’t sound like what I’d expect from a precognitive psychic.”
“No,” Leigh said slowly, still staring at Sarah. “It isn’t. Sarah, can you tap into that place at will?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really know how I found it the first time. It was…for Tucker.”
“You’re in love with Tucker.”
It wasn’t a question, but Sarah found herself nodding even as she felt the shock of awareness. Yes. I’m in love with him.
“You two are lovers?”
Cait, a bit uncomfortably, murmured, “Surely that isn’t important?”
Leigh didn’t even look at her. “It’s vital. Sarah?”
Again, she nodded. “But just…one night. Last night. Before they got to him.”
“I wonder if that was by accident or design,” Leigh murmured.
Brodie was still looking at her. “Why’s it important?”
“It’s important because unless I miss my guess, there’s now an unbreakable link between Sarah and Tucker. Sarah, can you sense him right now?”
“Yes. Just faintly, on the edge of my awareness. He’s sleeping now, or unconscious. He woke up once, briefly. It was cold and dark, and somebody was watching him.” She shivered, remembering.
“Could you sense him like this before last night?”
“No. Though I did…hear…him thinking about me last night before we…before we became lovers.”
After a moment, Leigh looked at Brodie. “We don’t have a choice. If we want to save Sarah, we have to save Tucker as well.”