Chapter 18

Samantha's mother was indeed worried sick. The police had been around and talked her after finding my mother's body and no one home at my house. We explained that we had been out looking for her and with a little push or two from me, she quickly accepted that and talked to us.

"They told me it was Alek." she said, after we had gotten her calmed down. "They said he shot her and then hung himself. He seemed like such a nice man too. You just can't tell who is a crazy and who isn't anymore. I'm so sorry this happened, Jake. She was a good friend and a wonderful mother. If there's anything I can do for you, all you have to do is ask."

The next few weeks were something of a blur. I made all the proper arrangements – with considerable help from Samantha and her mother. It was a closed casket. The funeral director said he could repair the damage and make her look as good as new, but she was never one for wearing much make up, I didn't think she should go to her rest wearing huge gobs of it.

I was already eighteen so the house and my mother's accounts were all mine with no extra hoops to jump through. Apparently my concerns about the health of her accounts were completely unfounded. There was plenty to see me through college and beyond. She hadn't skimped on the life insurance either.

Actually, Samantha found all that out as I was in something of a fugue. I just signed the papers she handed me, spoke into the phone when she gave it to me and said whatever she told me to say.

Kirsten heard the news about the dead bodies at Phillip's office and confronted us – she never threatened to tell the police, she simply wanted to know. We ended up telling her the truth. I just got tired of all the lying. It took a while and required a demonstration before she believed it, then it got a little ugly – you know, considering the revenge sex part. But I was able to keep her calm enough and Samantha really has a way with words. Thanks to my mental suggestions she never gave a second thought that I might have used my mental suggestions to help her accept and forgive – though I didn't have to do much in that regard.

Turned out most of her protests were mostly on principle. She wasn't too upset about the domination even without me meddling. As a control freak (along with the anxiety that drives it), being submissive to Samantha and Tiffany had been something of a therapeutic outlet. By giving up all control in a safe place with safe people, she had learned to subdue her need for control in her daily interactions. This gave her a less anxiety riddled life and she was much more pleasant during those interactions.

She asked if our unique ... er... 'interactions' could continue – I left it up to Samantha and we continued to meet up with her fairly regularly. It would be more but Tiffany and Mike got their turn. Then of course there we're those times it was all of us.

We turned down the humiliation quite a bit though. She was still subservient, but no more degradation. I think we had all gotten a little uncomfortable with it, more so as we came to like her more and more. In addition to her smoking hot looks, she had become a delightful and likable young lady. She simply liked handing over control to someone else once in a while.

We told Mike and Tiffany everything as well. Again, it took a demonstration and it was touch and go when it got to the sex and Tiffany falling in love with Mike, but when Samantha explained to Tiffany where she had seen her relationships going, how it would have most likely ended and the fact that I hadn't made her fall in love, just opened her mind to appreciate how Mike treated her, she had to admit Samantha was right and she also admitted Mike made her feel great, both in and out of bed.

Mike was actually the tougher nut to crack. He had come to love that girl and the thought that she had been passed to him like a puppy angered him. This time it was Tiffany to the rescue, explaining what had been going on with her relationships and convincing him that she didn't care how they had gotten together, the only important thing was that her feelings were real and that they were together.

I made some adjustments to their shield personas as well. It was easier when they knew what I was doing. That's right – I told them I had constructed false personalities to protect them from other talents. They knew it, then, after I was done, they forgot it.

We all ended up at the same college. Samantha's erstwhile lovers, at least the ones we had been involved with, wound up scattered around the country.

The psychic community didn't know I existed and I wanted to keep it that way. I did notice certain things in the news that I was pretty sure had talent fingerprints on it, but it was no longer any of my business. So, I was careful about where and when I used my talent, I didn't want some nosy psychic talent seeing me manipulate my aura and get curious. I figured I could finish college, get married, start my career and just ride out the rest of my life in anonymity.

But, you know what they say about the best laid plans.

Samantha and I were sitting in one of our favorite coffee shops enjoying a little down time. It had been just over two years since mom had passed and I was adapting to what they called 'the new normal' in that her not being here wasn't such an aberration, I was getting used to it. Coming home to a house without tempting aromas wafting out of the kitchen wasn't like getting punched in the stomach any more. The house still felt empty and wrong, but I didn't notice it as much. For that matter, it had been a few months since her loss was the first thing I thought about the moment I opened my eyes in the morning. I still missed her, a lot. I had been just getting to know my mother, my real mother, when she had been taken from me. Despite that, I guess I had accepted that she was gone. I only choked up occasionally these days.

Of course, having killed her murderers helped a little – no unfinished business to agonize over.

It was the middle of April, about two months before the double wedding we had planned with Mike and Tiffany. When they had announced they were getting married it reminded Samantha and I that we had intended to do the same before my mother had been taken. So it was to be a June wedding.

I only mention that to point out that the weather was warm, which explained the brief attire the young lady was wearing. Most male eyes had turned in her direction when she entered with a couple friends, laughing and joking and just being teenage girls. She had on tiny cut off jeans and a t-shirt tied into a knot just under her nicely developing tits. Most of those eyes had resumed their regularly scheduled broadcast after a short appraisal.

I just happened to notice there were two that did not. Eyes belonging to a man who looked as though he was concentrating on her in a way I hadn't seen for a while.

So, in an act of clever camouflage, I put my elbows on the table and began gently rubbing my temples, as though I had a headache, while I closed my eyes and called up my sight.

Sure enough, he was sending out his auras, all of them in a big mass of individual tendrils – it looked really creepy. Her most prominent aura, amusement and merriment, was being drawn towards his amusement aura, itself beginning to lead the others.

This told me he was a telekinetic, as this was exactly how Philip had been training me. Relax, will your mind towards your target and make contact. He hadn't told me what I was doing aura-wise, but that information is irrelevant to a telekinetic since he can't see auras anyway. You will your consciousness, your aura, towards your target. Apparently your auras can sense theirs when they get close enough and their most prominent aura draws your matching one.

The sparks were just beginning to seek each other out when Samantha distracted me.

"I know it can't be a lack of caffeine giving you a headache, you're on your second latte. What's going on? Something in here you like?"

I opened my eyes. Samantha was grinning with a lusty glint in her eye. Occasionally when one of us saw something, or rather, someone, who really impressed us, I would take a peek to find out if she were the type of girl who wouldn't be terribly bothered by the idea of some impulsive sex with a strange couple. Once in a while we found one and every so often we would take advantage.

"Do you see that blond haired girl over there by the window, blue shorts and white t-shirt?"

She glanced over, her eyes darting quickly back to me. Her voice low and urgent.

"What the fuck, Jake? Yeah, she's very pretty, but she also can't be more than fourteen. I hope you aren't thinking what I think you're thinking – or the wedding is off."

I kept my voice low as well.

"What? No! I'm not thinking that, but the guy two tables to the left of her sure as hell is."

Okay, that was a little lie – of course I was thinking it, but I never would have acted on it, and neither would most of the guys who had checked her out. A sexy female is a sexy female, but in current society, decent grown up men simply don't go around fucking kids. Even lithe, sexy ones with long thick blonde hair, a tight round ass and tits just a bit on the adult side of the budding stage.

Maybe look her up in a couple of years...

Samantha shot a glance in that direction.

"What's he doing?"

"Making a connection. I don't really know what for, but if ain't something lascivious I'll eat my hat."

"You're not wearing a hat. Can you stop it without blowing your cover? Shit, blowing cover or not, we can't let this happen, Jake."

"Let me try something."

Resuming my 'I have a headache' pose, I closed my eyes and continued my aural voyeurism.

Since I knew he couldn't see auras, and my mother had confirmed that my way of connecting was very hard, if not impossible, to detect, I reached out with one of my own tendrils and jammed it into their connection.

"He's trying to convince her that virginity is not only overrated, but embarrassing at her age."

"Is she buying it?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't she? As far as she knows, these are her thoughts. Hold on, now that she's well on her way to wanting to lose her cherry he's getting her to notice him, to think he's sexy and that he would be the perfect man to introduce her to the world of sex. Jesus, he's going to make her try and pick him up. He gets off on young girls' clumsy attempts at seduction."

"I repeat, Jake, we can't let this happen."

I was beginning to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach – there were implications here beyond this young girl's plight. Opening my eyes I looked back at my lovely redhead. I knew I had ten or fifteen minutes before his suggestions would start to have any serious effect. At that, it would be a very short induction time for a telekinetic, but I didn't think he cared about how she would feel afterward.

"It won't happen, not if I can help it. But I've just realized that by backing away from these mind fucking assholes all I've done is put my stamp of approval on shit like this. I mean, after what I learned from Phillip and Alek's attitude, hell, even my mother's, I should have known this happens, and I'll bet it happens a lot."

"What are you getting at?"

"I never seem to think things through. Take any group of people and give them a set of rules. A certain percentage of them are going to break those rules. Alek seemed to think that using the power for sex was okay as long as no one got hurt, Phillip's attitude was even more forgiving than that and both of them were coming from a twisted perspective that leaves a pretty foggy definition of what 'hurting' someone actually means. Even my mother thought it was okay as long as everyone was 'relatively unscathed' – what the fuck is 'relatively unscathed?'

"Now factor in the guys who break rules. They'll push even those rather vague limits to satisfy their desires. They can't use their abilities to make someone love them. They can get everything else they want – but they can't make their dream girl love them. That has to piss them off, so when do push the limits, they probably aren't very nice about it.

"There has to be a lot of guys like this running around and they are protected from the law by the fucking Powers that Be so the secret doesn't come out. If I want to stop this sort of crap, and I do want to stop it, I'll most likely end up going against those powers. As for this asshole, I'm sure this isn't the first time he's corrupted some young thing who has no business screwing around with someone his age. Shit, he could be her father ... or her father's older brother."

"Well, let's hope he doesn't actually have any daughters," Samantha said with a disgusted curl of her lip, "or nieces. Are you planning to come out of your psychic closet and challenge ... well, whoever?"

"Not if I can avoid it, I think I can stop this without revealing my identity. But there are more like him out there, you can bet your ass. If I start taking them down, the community may figure out someone's fucking with them but, hopefully, not who."

I looked into her eyes.

"I won't do it unless you're on board. Anonymity may be our only defense and I can't guarantee we'll stay in the shadows. If we're found out, I'm as good as dead and it'll go worse for you. You know this."

She reached over and covered my hand with hers.

"I leave it up to you. If you're asking me my opinion, I think you should do it. You can beat them. It seemed like you didn't have too much trouble with either Alek or Phillip."

"It wasn't as easy as it looked, both of them were able to snake their way into my thoughts. If I can stay under their radar, I think I can take out any telekinetic I run into without them knowing a thing. Any psychic will be able to see what I'm doing right away, but I can hit pretty fast and will have the element of surprise so I'm pretty sure I can win that as well, but a psychic/TK pair might be more than I can handle. It damn near was in Phillip's office.

"You won that one."

"Only because I didn't hesitate to kill. I'm not sure how far down THAT road I want to go. I was thinking more along the lines of scaring the shit out of this guy, shredding a bunch of his memories so he'll be less likely to do this again and giving him a massive headache for about a week."

"Why not? Killing doesn't bother them."

I must have looked a little shocked.

"Don't give me that look. If you remember, I didn't hesitate in Phillip's office either. These guys ... they're just ... look, you said you don't think that this is the first time he's done this to a girl her age – and she probably isn't the youngest. I bet this fucker has caused a virtual epidemic of shattered emotions, physical issues, addictions and he probably even has a string of suicides in his wake. If you were to rip out his heart right here and put his head on a pike, all you would get from me is heartfelt 'job well done'."

"I never thought you were this bloodthirsty."

"When you come across a rabid dog you are doing everyone a favor by putting it down – even the dog." She spat, then she sighed, "I'm not bloodthirsty, I'm pragmatic. From what you've told me about the psychic community, most of them just want to be able to use their advantages to live comfortably and be left alone, and I don't have a problem with that as long as they aren't pulling this sort of crap. The ability can't be used to create love, so the assholes among these guys are going to use it for control – some much heavier handed than others. The one's who are doing this kind fucked up bullshit and the other stuff you've told me about ... well, fuck them. I do believe in the sanctity of life, but only for those who have respect for the lives of others. Something shitheads like Mr. Friendly over there doesn't have."

"Okay, your way does guarantee he won't do this again, my way doesn't. Before I give him a brain aneurism though, I want to see what he knows about other mind fuckers around here."

The only other talents I had ever had contact with was Phillip, my mother and the asshole. Okay, and that Telekinetic in Phillip's office, but I hadn't really had much chance to get to know him ... you know ... before I killed him.

I again made like I was having a migraine and called up the sight.

Reaching out with an aural tendril, I very gently connected to his anxiety aura and rode it into his head.

"He works in the mayor's office. It's his job to make sure policy decisions go the right way. Anything he can't handle is kicked up the chain. You got something to write with, and on?"

"I have a pen in my purse and ... the back of our receipt big enough?"

"Yeah, I'm getting about a dozen or so names, a couple work in government, but there are some in the corporate world as well and a few he just thinks of as, 'colleagues'. Whatever the hell that means."

I began telling her the names of other talents in his mind, where they worked and had her put a 'T' or a 'P' beside each one.

"Just the names? No addresses or phone numbers?"

"He doesn't know many addresses and 'speed dial four' won't really help us." I told her, and then, "Okay, that's all he knows. Time for the ... hold on, there's something he's thinking ... he's thinking ... oh fuck."

"What?"

"That trail of emotional fuckupedness you were worried about isn't even the tip of the iceberg. He totally mind fucks his victims, shreds their personalities until they don't know who they are then sells them to a pimp. He's thinking he might get a couple thousand or more for this girl because of her age and beauty. She'd probably never be seen again, at least on this continent. So much for any reservations about offing this creep."

"You better do it before I go over and shove my pen in his ear."

I had connected to his anxiety aura for a reason. As I began pumping it up I also reached out, through the link, with telekinesis and created a blockage in a blood vessel deep in his brain, causing that vessel to begin to swell. His panic prevented him from figuring out what was happening and trying to shield against it. I saw his aura snap back from the girl and the outline of multicolored fire jumped up from his table. I kept feeding his aura and swelling the vessel and in a matter of seconds the pressure caused him to black out. I lost his thoughts as his auras reverted to neutral but I didn't ease off his brain until they faded out to nothing.