No Peace for the Damned

The breeze from the broken window brought in scents of asphalt and garbage bins. But that was all.
    “I don’t feel anything here,” I said finally. “Nothing. There’s none of the lingering power that was at Batalkis’s house.”
    I slowly moved around the room, frustrated. I must have missed something. That
was
David Sasser’s hand hanging off that chair, and he
had
been taken by my family. So there had to be power in the air somewhere. But wherever I went, even back into the front waiting room, there was nothing.
    I frowned at Thirteen and an image from his thoughts slammed into my mind. David Sasser, sitting at a small circular table, sharing drinks with him and Banks.
    Oh my God
. I knew him.
    “He was at the Turtle,” I said. “The day of our first meeting. He wasn’t in the conference room with us, but he was there, sitting with a group of businessmen having lunch.”
    Thirteen’s thoughts immediately shifted. Heather moaned, “Oh God, he was there?”
    Thirteen turned his serious eyes on me again. “Are you sure you can’t sense anything?”
    “There’s nothing,” I said again. “Either my family hasn’t been here, or they didn’t use any power.”
    “Would they do that? Torture someone without using their powers?”
    “No,” I said, searching the room again. The slice of hand hung like some morbid ornament off the chair. “Especially with the broken window. The guy, Sasser, would have screamed when they cut off his hand. They would have needed a camouflage to cover what they were doing. Even in this neighborhood. But there’s just nothing here.”
    Thirteen rubbed his hand up and down Heather’s arm while she shook against his chest. Once again I found myself questioning Thirteen’s choice of team members.
    “Heather?” he asked softly, gently pulling her away from him. “What is it, exactly, that has you so upset? You’ve seen body parts before…”
    Heather choked on a sob and kept her eyes closed. It took her a couple of tries to find her voice. “There’s just so much hate. It’s everywhere. How could someone do that to another human being? All that blood and pain. It’s just so horrible.” She curled again into Thirteen’s chest.
    All that blood and pain
? Come on. The hand was pretty gross, I guess, but there wasn’t really even that much blood.
    I met Thirteen’s gaze and, even though he didn’t think it, I got the distinct impression he wanted me to look inside Heather’s mind.
    I reached out to her thoughts and had to step back. The sheer openness of her mind was overwhelming. She wasn’t just cringing from the severed fingers on the chair—she was cringing from every evil act that had taken place in this building. She couldn’t see visions of actual people being tortured, but she felt their pain. As well as the hatred that had caused that pain.
    And I recognized the hatred that she sensed. I still didn’t feel any residual power in the room, but the intensity and depth of the evil she felt was like a homecoming for me. Oh, my family had been here all right. Maybe not this time, with this guy, but they had used this building. And often.
    A wave of violent tremors shook Heather. Her empathic abilities had her so scared and confused—no wonder Thirteen had kept her from crime scenes.
    “We should be going,” Thirteen said.
    I nodded absently, then followed as he led Heather back to the car. I locked the alley door behind me and waited on the curb as Thirteen laid Heather down in the backseat. Once the car door was shut, he walked over to me.
    “My family didn’t torture David Sasser in there,” I said before he could ask. “But they did others. She felt it all, even though the lingering power had faded too much for me to sense, she still felt what had been done in there.”
    Thirteen ran a hand through his hair and looked back at the car. “I shouldn’t have brought her. She’s too raw. Too sensitive for these things.”
    I frowned. “If she’s going to be on this task force, she’s going to see horrible things. That’s just the way it is with my family. I’m surprised she hasn’t sensed things like this before.”
    “We try to protect her,” Thirteen explained. “Jon especially. If he could, he would get her to leave the Network, but she
has
to help. Has to do her part for the greater good.”
    I didn’t get it. Why did she put herself through this? Especially when she didn’t even understand why she felt the things she