No Peace for the Damned

man’s side. He moved so fast I missed it. He turned to me again. “Do it, damn it! Listen to him!”
    For I moment my mind blanked. Father wanted something from me. Something real and useful—to listen to this man’s thoughts and find something specific. Against my will a strange warmth rose inside me
.
    I shut down the feeling immediately. Where was Uncle Max?
    The guards shifted and their thoughts grew clear. This was the last survivor of a terrorist family who had inadvertently stolen the wrong plane. They had thought they were hijacking drugs. They had ended up with guns. Weapons en route to a foreign dignitary Uncle Max was trying to woo. The rest of his family was here. Or they had been before Uncle Max had spent the day with them. But Uncle Max couldn’t breach this man’s mind. He’d literally worn himself out of power
.
    Father dragged the man over to the bed and tossed him on top of me. His body sprawled over my broken legs. A wave of pain shot up my spine. I gasped. Father picked the sledgehammer back up
.
    “Wha-what do you need me to find?”
    He hesitated with the enormous mallet poised to swing. “Where are our guns?” His growled words were not human. Not at all
.
    Matted, bloody hair hid the man’s face. But through the blood, he lifted his head and met my eyes
. Oh…no
. He didn’t know. He’d told them he didn’t know. Over and over. But they hadn’t believed him, not without Uncle Max confirming it
.
    I took a deep breath and stamped down the pain. No point in dwelling on it now. There would only be more
.
    Sitting as straight as possible, I looked at Father. “He doesn’t know.”
    His anger swelled through the room. The mirror shattered. The bed shook. For a terrifying moment he questioned my honesty. But he dismissed the thought quickly. After all, why would I lie?
    As quickly as his anger had appeared, he reined it in. He smoothed back his dark hair, brushed off his sleeves, returned to the disciplined posture he gave the public eye. With a sniff, he looked down on the crumpled man once more. Then he turned for the door
.
    Was that it? He wasn’t going to slam that sledgehammer into my skull? Or use one of those pocketknives he always carried to “kill” the messenger?
    At the door, he paused. I tensed
. Here it comes
. He flicked his wrist and the man’s neck snapped. His shuddering body became dead weight on my legs. But his head kept turning. The bones of his neck cracked and scraped until his head was turned at a completely unnatural angle, his open eyes staring right at me
.
    One of the guards stepped forward. “No,” Father commanded. “Leave him.”
    Then he turned and left the room. And the two guards followed, shutting the door behind them. The man’s body was heavy on my shins—just far enough away that I couldn’t reach him without moving my lower body. And Father had made damn sure that wasn’t going to happen
.
    So we’d spent the night like that. Me alive, wishing I was dead. And Father’s terrorist, lying on top of me, his dead eyes unable to look away
.
    …
    There was no fear or nausea lying with Theo. No pain. Just…calm. My hand was still clasped over his heart. His steady snores faltered. I held my breath as he slowly stretched his body.
    Relaxing again, he rubbed his hands over his face and rolled onto his back. Eyes still closed, he moved his hand to his chest and felt around like he was searching for something. I flexed my hand to regain some circulation and his eyes popped open. Immediately, he saw my hand and grabbed it like a lifeline. Only when my palm was clutched once more over his heart did he settle back on the bed.
    “How are you feeling?” I whispered.
    “I’m good…I think. Sore, but good.” His voice was rough from sleep. “I didn’t know you could do that. Enter someone’s mind like that from a distance.”
    I swallowed. “I didn’t know I could do that either. I—I’ve never done anything like that before. I wasn’t sure it was even real until you showed up here like that.”
    He just stared at me. I cleared my throat and asked, “How did you get here? I couldn’t, um, sense you anymore after you made it to the highway. How did you get back to your car?”
    He looked down at where our joined hands rested on his chest. Softly, he rubbed his thumb across the backs of my knuckles.
    “I’d made it about a mile on the highway,” he said, “when there was a guy being pulled over for drunk driving. The cop had