Chapter 20

When I came to, Jay was gone. The headache I had before I was gassed took on a whole new dimension, making my eyes tear with pain.

“Look on the table,” a voice boomed. It wasn’t Derek, but a man with a much deeper voice, more foreboding. Slavic or Russian accent, I guessed. I glanced at the wall but there was no image.

On the table sat a glass and a plate with two purple pills.

“For the pain,” the voice continued.

I was understandably cautious, as I approached the offering. What if this was just another attempt to sedate me? Or somehow extract my power?

“Who are you? How do I know you’re not lying to me?” I mumbled, wincing. I’d never experienced pain so intense. Even speaking those words exacerbated my condition, my head pounding with each syllable.

“You don’t,” the voice boomed. “Your choice, stay in pain or get relief.”

Fuck it, death would be better than this, I thought, as I downed the two pills. At first nothing happened, but then the pain subsided some.

“Thank you.” I knew it was ridiculous to thank my captors, but the pain was so unreal. “Who are you?” I repeated.

“No one of consequence.”

There was a strange kind of melancholy to his voice, but yet he still managed to sound scary. I was glad I couldn’t see an image of him. “Ah, so another one of Derek’s minions. You a freak like me?”

The voice didn’t answer, which to me was answer enough. “Why did you gas me?”

“There was an intruder. We couldn’t risk your escape.”

Jay. He was here, he must be the intruder. I breathed a sigh of relief. He’s not one of them. Still, I had so many questions. Like what was he doing here and how did he get in?

“You know him.” The voice stated it as a fact, a revelation.

“Don’t see how that’s any of your fucking business.”

“No matter. They capture him soon enough.” The voice sounded so sure, as if Jay’s imprisonment were inevitable.

A sudden feeling of regret welled up in me. Jay was just a friend at work, and now he was caught up in all this shit. Because of me. What will happen to his family if they do get to him?

Everything I touch turns to shit. I felt a single tear roll down my cheek, before it all began to flood. I curled up in a ball on the bed, hoping I could just somehow disappear.

“What is… what is wrong?” the voice asked. As unbelievable as it sounds, there was concern in his voice.

“He’s an innocent. He has nothing to do with all this, and I’ve endangered his life,” I said between sobs. I wiped the tears from my eyes, in an attempt to get it together. If Derek saw me this way, he’d take it as a sign of weakness. And I couldn’t give that fuckface the pleasure.

“No, you are not understanding. That man, he has p—”

Before the voice could finish his thought, the alarm went off. I looked up, and Jay was there in the cell with me.

“Hurry!” he said, as he grabbed my hand. To my surprise, we teleported out of the cell.

What the fuck just happened, did I somehow teleport us? I wasn’t familiar with where we were, but it looked like an apartment of some kind—a little nicer than mine, but nothing extravagant. I was about to ask him about it, but he fell, appearing to be unconscious.

“Are you all right?” I slapped his face lightly, but he didn’t respond. His chest rose up and down, so I surmised he just passed out. I grabbed a pillow off a couch nearby for his head and took hold of his hand. “Come on, Jay, come back to me.”

What the hell is going on? Not knowing this place, I didn’t see how it was possible for me to teleport us to it. Unless…

I wasn’t the one who did the teleporting.

I tried to think back to recent events with Jay, to figure out if there was any indication of anything unusual with him. Just as I remembered the time in my bathroom when he touched my face, I felt a tingle, and then a massive heat buildup in my hand that held his.

A surge of warmth originating from his hand traveled through me, jolting me, but not in a painful way. It was more soothing than anything else, and my lingering headache seemed less acute. Jay’s eyes fluttered open, and he sat up.

“What happened?” He shook his head, in what I guessed was an attempt to reorient himself.

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

Jay took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. When he made eye contact with me, I gasped. His brown eyes were covered in a haze.