Chapter 11

It was a few days later, when we had all recovered from the encounter with the old woman, that we found out more about what had happened.

Of course, we figured out in the meantime that something had drained us of our energy. I shared with them what I had felt at the time, how I had felt suddenly tired and had blacked out from it. Kayla and Erika had added that when they had touched me, they had also felt an overwhelming sense of fatigue.

In fact, neither of them could do much at all afterward. Jonathan had managed to extricate us from the old woman and call Emily and Angela to come get us. They also felt tired and drained after touching me, unable to climb back into the car without help.

Meanwhile, a couple of men had come rushing out of the woods. When they saw the upturned vehicle and the old woman lying on the road, they started yelling and screaming. It took Jonathan quite a while to convince them that the woman was not injured by the accident. As he showed them there were no bruises or contusions on her, he managed to convince them that we had avoided her but in turn had simply lost control of the vehicle.

They had called for a car and loaded the old woman up to drive her to the hospital for evaluation since she had been missing for almost two days.

A bit later, the tow truck had arrived and turned the SUV back on its wheels and towed it off to the body shop for repair. Then poor Jonathan, who'd had to deal with all this on his own, had to drive us all home. By the time he got us home, the girls were able to help me into the bed where we had all fallen sound asleep.

All of this we had been able to piece together, but it was far from the whole story.

We had two visitors that day that helped to fill in the rest of the story. The first occurred that morning, shortly after breakfast when we got a call from the front gate that there was a man who wanted to speak to me regarding the accident.

Kayla and Angela conferred for a moment and then nodded to me. Kayla spoke to the gate and a minute or two later, a pickup truck pulled up to the front door.

Angela answered the door and ushered the man into the office, where Kayla and I were waiting. He was dressed in blue jeans and a simple shirt. He had to be around sixty or so, and appeared to be ex-military from the look of him.

"I'm Dr. Halden and Ms. Kayla's attorney." Angela began.

"I'm not here to sue you or threaten you," began the man rather uncomfortably. "I'm here because of what you've done for Granny."

I must have had a puzzled look on my face because he looked at me strangely and continued. "Granny was dying of cancer, it had spread all over her body and the doctors told us that she only had a few weeks or months left to live."

"Yet when we took her to the hospital after the accident, she was already doing better, and today at her appointment, when they repeated her CT scan, they could only find a couple of small tumors, all the rest were gone."

"I'm very happy for you, it is a rare thing to have a remission from advanced cancer," I replied, not sure where the conversation was going.

"Well, now, that is where you come in. See Granny seems to think that you are the one responsible for her improvement. So much so that she made us all swear to look out for you."

I paused, even more confused by the conversation. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name," I said as I stalled for time and tried to assess from Angela and Kayla what they thought was happening here. Unfortunately they were as confused as I was.

"Well now, here is where things get a mite interesting," he replied. "See, Granny told me not to tell you."

He looked both smug and uncomfortable at the same time. I got the feeling that he was pretty comfortable that he wouldn't be telling me anymore than he had, but uncomfortable that he was being rude.

I also immediately got the impression that 'Granny' wanted to test my power even further.

"Go get a vial of the pheromone" I thought to Angela.

"I think I need to show you something that will help explain what might be happening here," I said to the gentleman. "Angela will be back in a moment."

And a minute later, Angela returned with the vial, having already opened it and handed it to the man.

"What's this?" He asked.

"Just take a sniff of it," I answered, trying to keep my face emotionless.

He did just as I asked and he got a little glassy eyed as he inhaled. We all watched as he shook his head to clear it.

"I'm sorry Dr. Halden, but Granny made me swear. My name is Arnold Campbell and I am a retired Marine Commander. I will personally be heading up your security force."

He paused and took a deep breath, then he continued.

"Granny has the gift of sight. She is very good at predicting what will happen. I got as far as I did in the corp because I had a touch of her gift. But whereas she can see days or weeks into the future, I can only see a few moments. But in war, those few moments can make all the difference."

I sat there and just listened, a bit in shock because I knew he had to be telling the truth. I could fully sense that he was under the influence of the drug and that what he was telling me had to be exactly as he believed it to be true.

I could also tell, somehow, that he was telling me all this to gain my trust and to make up for not answering my question from earlier.

"Commander Campbell," I interrupted, "You don't need to apologize. Your Granny obviously wanted me to do this and she obviously knows things about me."

I paused and thought that if someone had tried to convince me that there were people who could see the future, even a few weeks ago, I would have laughed. Now though, I was convinced that this man was telling me the truth.

"She said you have the power to command," he stated.

"And obviously she was correct. She also warned me to keep all the women in the family away from you."

I could tell he was fishing for answers and so I refused to even acknowledge the inherent question.

"So why do you think you are going to head up my security?" I asked.

"Because, quite honestly, I am the best in the world at it. Since I can see a few moments into the future, I can effectively deal with threats."

"I can see where that might give you the advantage." I replied. "But you don't need to do this, I would have been happy to have healed your Granny."

Commander Campbell nodded his head. "I don't have a choice now though, do I? I'm sure Granny wanted this to happen and now that I know about your power, and have been influenced by it, I couldn't in good conscience, refuse to provide you with protection."

And so, just like that, we had a new head of security. I was sure Jonathan would have more than a few choice words for me. I did get "granny's" name and forwarded it to Jonathan, hoping he could get some more info on what might have happened to her cancer.

The other visitor we got that afternoon was from the government, the NSA to be precise. Shortly after we had agreed to terms with the Commander, he had taken off to give his notice and would begin working for us in a couple weeks time. And just as he was leaving a dark blue Ford sedan pulled down the driveway.

A man dressed in a dull gray suit got out of the car and nodded to us, his partner, an attractive brunette, getting out of the car on the other side.

"May I inquire who you are?" Angela asked, surprised that someone drove down the driveway without getting a call from the guardhouse.

The man reached into his coat and as quick as that I found myself pulled back into the house and out of sight while Angela and Kayla assumed a protective posture outside the door.

I could barely hear the commotion outside as I was pulled by Emily and Cathy into the office and behind locked doors.

I reached out with my mind and connected to both Angela and Kayla and listened in to their conversation.

"Do you have a warrant?" I heard Angela ask.

"No ma'am," was the reply from the male standing at the foot of the steps.

"The NSA doesn't arrest people," added the woman. "We just wanted to talk to Dr. Halden about his contact with Granny Campbell."

"Then I suggest you make an appointment and meet us at the office sometime." Angela replied back somewhat testily.

"We just want to talk to you," the female agent said as she got closer.

As she neared Angela, I heard a soft buzzing in my head, growing louder the closer she came. I was certain that she heard it as well when she reached up to cover her ears.

Kayla must have also figured out something was going on because she stepped between Angela and the woman.

"You really don't want to get any closer," Kayla said softly, not threatening, but warning of the danger.

Her partner, unfortunately did take it as a threat and reached for his gun.

I saw the vial of pheromone sitting on the table in the office from earlier and I realized I could also use it to get this situation under control.

Communicating my thoughts to everyone involved, I grabbed the vial and headed to the front door. I slowly opened it and walked outside, my hands held above my head, the small vial between two of my fingers.

"Look," I started, "No one wants to do anything rash here."

Both agents nodded, the gun still trained on Kayla.

"Why don't we walk over to those benches beside the drive," I continued, "and we can talk bout whatever you like. However, my lawyer will be present and we will record the entire conversation."

The female agent, whose name I now knew was Sally, nodded almost imperceptibly and the male agent followed her lead, lowering his weapon and stepping back so that I could walk to the benches. The female agent and Angela followed me while Kayla and the other agent kept a wary eye on each other.

When we were seated, I began to notice some subtle changes in Sally. Her respiratory rate increased and a flush spread across her chest and face. With some concentration, I could tell that her heart rate was quite fast and she was very warm and beginning to become aroused.