11/13/13

Seventeen

Keith had no idea what happened, one moment he was kissing Larissa on the quad, the next moment he was in her room, they were on her bed and things had gone much further.  He pulled back from her embrace.

“Larissa, are you sure you want to b doing this?”

“Of Course.” Her response was breathy, her hands pulled him back to her, their lips meeting again.

Keith could not let go of the feeling that all of this was happening to fast.  That Larissa was not really thinking things though.  And a short term relationship was not what he was really interested in when it came to Larissa.  He pulled back from her again.

“I can’t do this Larissa.  I can’t do this so quickly and without knowing exactly where your head is at.”

“What do you mean?”

“Larissa, I have been in love with you for so many years, I cannot even tell you how much I want this right now.  But I don’t want it if you are just doing this for… for some other reason than you want to be doing it with me.  Am I making any sense?”

“Yes.  Perfect sense.”  Larissa sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed.  Keith sat up next to her.

“Larissa…” He wasn’t sure what to say to her.

“It’s ok Keith.  Really it is.  I think I got caught up in what I was putting out, got caught up in the rush of the feeling.”

“Oh.”

“Not to say that I don’t want it, this, with you.  I think that I do.  I never really thought about you in that way, but I today things have changed in so many ways…”

“So, maybe, you might want to do this again?”

“I’m pretty certain I will definitely want to do this again.” She slipped her hand into his and squeezed.  He let out a rush of air from his lugs.  He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until that moment.

“Larissa, we have to talk about what we are going to do.”

“About the guy on campus?  About the people that are after me?”

“Yes.”

“I have some ideas, Keith.  Especially where the guy is concerned.  I have some really great ideas…”

She proceeded to fill Keith in on what she had planned.  He had to admit, it was brilliant.  If it worked.  He hoped that it would, but it would only be a matter of days before they found out.

Eighteen

Larissa stood at her window and watched Keith walk back to his room.  She loved the way he walked, the swagger in his steps made her smile.  Her attention shifted to the sky above and she let her mind wonder to the plan they had tentatively put into place. 

They would start in the morning, and she had a lot of studying to do before then.  She started to turn towards her books, but noticed a movement on the ground below.  She stood still, waiting for the movement again. 

Then she saw him.  It was the man who had been looking for her.  She watched him as he stared at her complex, his eyes searching the windows for faces or, more likely, searching for the burst of energy she may have let loose earlier that day with Keith.   She wanted to throw daggers at him, she wanted him to feel the fear that his presence placed deep inside of her.  She wanted to disable him in some fashion.  She wanted it all to be over with right then and there.

She did nothing.  She made sure her shields were even stronger than before and concentrated on remaining hidden from the man.  She watched his eyes slide right past her room, no hesitation in them at all.  At least for the time being, she was safe.  He wouldn’t find her. 

Nineteen

John knew he had seen something.  He knew he had caught a glimpse of the powerful one on the quad earlier that day, but who was she?  Where was she?  He had felt the energy shift, felt the suck as she gathered the energies into her field and when he turned, sure he was going to see her glowing, he saw nothing.  He searched, watched, looking for hours again.  Occasionally he thought he felt he suck of energy out of the atmosphere but there was no pinpointing who was using the energies. 

Or it was normal, benign usage.  Being a college campus there were lovers everywhere.  Lovers who, unbeknownst to them, would pull the Earth energies into their systems and feed it to each other.  He was starting to think that maybe headquarters hadn’t really picked up on a person, but rather had picked up on several people, lovers all, shooting love from their systems.  He didn’t think he had ever seen so many couples in love as he did here.

Now he stood outside of a campus apartment complex, searching the rooms from the outside for what had drawn him near.  He looked at each room in turn.  There was so much energy being used in the building that he noticed the drops more than the excess.  There were so few rooms where there was just one person, one lonely soul, that he almost felt sorry for the inhabitants.  His attention was drawn over and over to one room, where the energy was so sad, so depressing, he almost sent the person a boost just to feel better about his day.

He refrained.  In the end, he could not pinpoint the energy  he was searching for to one room, let alone one person, and so he gave up and made his way back to his room. He would have to report, again, that he found nothing.  He was beginning to think it was a wild goose chase.  That corporate didn’t really know if there was someone here or not, they were just testing him to see if he could find something.

He wasn’t looking forward to the call.

Instead of heading straight back, he detoured to the edge of campus.  There was a cliff walk that skirted the outer edge, even though it was nighttime and dark, John still took the path.  He could feel where it started and ended by the trail of energy left there by the hundreds of students that had traveled the path before him. 

He came upon a bench and sat, looking at the town below him.  He stared out at the stars up above, the darker spots indicating clouds.  He dug his energies into the ground, searching for something deep below the Earth’s surface. 

The Grounding search was not something they taught in the courses.  He knew it too.  It was something he had developed on his own.  He had never told anyone about it, he was afraid of what the consequences may be.  He knew that he should not be using his abilities in such a manner, but it had worked for him so many times in the past.  He had always been able to find the person they were looking for, to convince them that they needed to come with him.  He did it with this technique.

Putting his energies, his attention and focus into the ground, he slowly began his search.  He knew she had been grounding, he could feel the suck of the energies when she did so.  She would not know that he could find her that way.  In fact no one knew he could do this.  He let the information flow through his body, filtering out the signals that came from the ordinary people, the people who grounded without knowing.  When they did so, it was like a light feathery touch.  What he was looking for was much stronger.  Like a river.  A current of energy moving.

He had almost given up when he found a stream.  It was not the river he was expecting, but a soft stream of energy being pulled.  He followed the trail, looking for where she may be, but the trail went cold as soon as he moved past the bench he was currently seated on. 

He thought about the day, about the location of the bench he was seated on, and stood.  He walked back towards campus, and stopped just before he entered the quad.

The couple.  He remembered them clearly.  The woman had been so insistent with her energies towards the man.  The man had been surprised.  He had not expected the woman to act in the way she did.  He had watched them move off the quad, their entwined hands leaving him feeling lonely.

He thought about them more.  It had felt so real, the connection between them.  But had the girl been putting on a show?  Was she faking it because she knew he was there, watching?

John moved back towards his room.

He arrived to find his computer buzzing on his bed.  He pulled it open and clicked ‘accept’ on the Skype call.

“John.”

“Have you found anything yet?”  This time the General was alone in his office.  There was a single light on, backlighting him so his face could not be seen.

“I think I may have picked up a clue today.”

“About time.”

“I’m wondering Sir, is there any way that she might know I am here?”

“What?  Impossible.  No one knows about us. Why would you ask such a thing?”

“I think she may be playing with me Sir.  I don’t know if she really knows who I am or not, but I think she may be playing with me.”

“We sent you there for a reason, John.  Play back.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me John.  That is all.”  The screen went dark.

Twenty

Larissa spotted Keith in the dining hall and made her way over to him.  She was not completely sure how to approach him, she had never been good with relationships and after what they had shared the night before, well, she was uneasy.

She had done a lot of thinking through the night.  Both about the mysterious man that was looking for her and what they intended to do to her if they found her and about the feelings that Keith had brought up inside of her.  She knew both situations were dangerous for her.  She wasn’t sure which situation would be more so.

She sat down next to him, pulling her chair closer to him than she would have in the past.  He smiled at her as she sat and she felt her heart melt a little bit.  His eyes were so deep, a beautiful dark brown with little golden flecks, she had looked into those eyes so many times and had never noticed those flecks.  She wondered if they had always been there or if they had developed over time. 

“Good morning Larissa.” Keith said to her.  His face lit up with his smile at her. 

“Good morning Keith.” She decided to take the plunge and leaned into him, bringing her mouth close to his.  He responded just as she hoped he would and kissed her.  It was magical.  She felt her body tingle at the touch of his lips, felt the energy shoot from her feet to the top of her head.  He pulled back before she could get too into the sensations.

“Our friend is here this morning.  I don’t know that we really want to give him too much of a show.  Much as I would love to.” Keith said.

Larissa felt her heart drop a bit.  She knew he was right about pulling back, she certainly could not afford to let her energies run wild the way she wanted to.  She took a deep breath to calm herself down.

“Well, I guess there is no time like the present to see if part of my plan will work.”

“Be careful Larissa.  We don’t know what he may already know about you and your abilities.”

“Keith, we don’t know what all of my abilities are.  How would they know?”

“How did they know you were here?  How did they know to come looking for you?”

“Right, of course.  They have ways that we know nothing about.  Alright.  Well, let’s pick our first target shall we?”

“How about that red haired girl in the corner?  She hasn’t been in the room that long and…”

“No.  Her.” Larissa gestured towards a young woman just walking into the dining hall.  She was beautiful.  She had long, silky looking blonde hair, fair skin and was slender.  She was dressed like she had just stepped from a magazine and was surrounded by people who looked and acted the same.

“Why her?”

“Because she is so unlike me.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“Look, why not start with someone farfetched?  See if I can make this work and cause him to start following her.  He would love to follow her anyway, he has been staring at her since she walked in.”

Larissa carefully studied the girl, letting her eyes go out of focus so that she could see what was happening with the girl’s energy system.  What she saw didn’t surprise her, the girl’s system was packed full of blocks and icky, gooey energy.  Well, she was about to get the cleaning out she had never expected and perhaps some attention she had never wanted.

Larissa focused her attentions on the energy centers at the girl’s feet.  She slowly pictured the girl drawing energy from the ground and into her body.  She pictured the girl’s system becoming clearer, more energized and Larissa watched as the girl’s coloring began to shift and change. 

“He can’t take his eyes off of her.”

“Does he notice me at all?”

“No.  He is only watching her.”

Larissa turned up the energies on the girl, making her shine super bright.  It helped that the girl was talking animatedly about something.  The energy made her even more animated.  Larissa requested the energies to keep growing until it was no longer possible for the girl to get any brighter and then shifter her attention to Keith.

“Did it work?”

“I think so.  She’s still all bright and shiny and the guy is watching her like a hawk.”

“How long do you think it will last on her?”

“I have no idea.  I wasn’t even sure that it was possible for you to do what you just did.  She’s shining almost as brightly as you do sometimes.”

“I have a couple of classes with her, basic classes.  Do you?”

“I’ve got her in my first period class.”

“Then you can tell me if she hangs onto the energies or if it fades off of her.”

“Maybe you should light up a few others, just in case.”

“I plan to.  Just not here and not all at once.  I don’t want him to think that something strange is happening since he’s been on campus for a few days and not seen anything.  To suddenly see all kinds of people lighting up might make him think something is going on.”

They both glanced over at the man, who was watching the girl very closely.