Ghostwalker 04 - Conspiracy Game

onslaught of raw emotions.
    Walking through the streets, knowing she would be subjected to the intense emotions of the people, was a nightmare, but if she didn’t go and find a refuge, she wouldn’t make it through the next few days, and her brothers needed her to perform.
    Briony squared her shoulders and stepped out. She had studied the map of the streets and knew exactly where she was going. She was also certain she could fight off or outrun any attacker, so she strode with purpose, all senses alert to trouble, but walking briskly through the streets back toward the Congo River and the rain forest.
    Why was she so different? Why was she able to read thoughts and emotions if she were touching someone and feel them if she was near? Her parents had insisted on a rigorous, almost military training, very physical, for as long as she could remember, yet when her mother held her, she felt fear mixed with love. Did her mother fear her strange abilities?
    And if so, why had she insisted Briony develop them, yet keep them secret? Secrets kept her apart from her brothers and the other performers around her. Secrets and her extraordinary differences. She detested those differences.
    The streets were crowded, people everywhere, still late at night, many already preying on the night population, easy marks with too much drink and drugs. The smell of marijuana hit her hard. She was very sensitive to scents, had always been able to identify people and animals in near proximity to her before anyone else, and now the unwashed mingling with the overperfumed made her queasy.
    She made it through the streets without incident and followed the river into the rain forest, where she picked up her pace, jogging easily along a winding path that led to a deep stream feeding the river. She kept going along the stream, seeking a refuge, a place where she could curl up and just breathe in peace.
    It was hot and humid in the forest. She stopped to wade into the water and stood there listening to the sounds of insects, the flutter of wings, and the movement of creatures through the trees. For the first time in days, she felt the tension ebbing away.
    Briony dipped the scarf in the cold water and pressed it to the nape of her neck.
    Desperate for relief, she waded deeper into the small stream. Her brothers were going to kill her for disappearing, but she wasn’t going to survive the next few days if she didn’t find somewhere to get away from the suffering. Whatever she’d learned about shields didn’t work in Africa. There were too many people, too close, and far too much suffering.
    How many performances had they agreed to? And did it make sense? Why would the festival pay them so much money to come up with an acrobatic performance to African music? The act was spectacular, but the offer came before they’d come up with the idea.
    Why didn’t that bother anyone in the circus? Where would the festival get that kind of money? And if they had that much money, when the festival was all about music, why would they want a circus act? Briony glanced around her, once again feeling unseen eyes on her. Was she the only one who wondered why her family was in Kinshasa? And why did she always feel as if someone was observing her?
    The music festival was a tribute to African artists and their music. It made no sense to invite a circus act. Jebediah, Tyrel, Ruben, and Seth just shrugged their shoulders and said not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but Briony felt something was off. Everything felt a little off-kilter to her. Her bizarre education, her abilities, even the fact that she had a special doctor, flying in the moment she got a sniffle—and even that was strange—the fact that she rarely had viruses. Usually she was ill from the constant bombardment of emotions battering at her daily. Her brothers told her she was paranoid, but, as she was now, she was often uneasy, certain someone was watching her. She looked around, seeing with her enhanced vision, looking for heat images, anything that would tell her she was in danger, but there was nothing, not even a change in the constant hum of insects.
    Briony rubbed her pounding temples and waded downstream, farther away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Soldiers on every corner with guns, the underbelly teeming with hidden violence, the nightlife seemed a glitzy cover for the desperate and the criminal to do their worst. She wanted to go home.
    For a moment she went very still. Home. What