Chapter 10

“Where have you been?” Jake yelled as his wife and Alicia walked through the front door.

“Well, I love you, too,” Béla admonished him.

“Don’t give me that!” Jake exclaimed. “I just now came home and I heard a gunshot upstairs! I ran up and Lisa was...” He suddenly noticed that Alicia was standing there, looking very interested in what he was saying. He decided to go non-verbal, letting Béla see what was in his mind.

He let Béla know what the end of the barrel smelled like, in addition to the gunpowder.

“I needed you and you weren’t here!” Jake whined. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. All day! Where have you been?”

“Ah, there are two emergencies, then?” Béla asked politely, raising her eyebrows.

She was surprised, but not too concerned, that her daughter shot herself between her legs. Despite the fact that Lisa didn’t remember much about being Beth, she was still the same person. She just thought of herself as Lisa, now. She would, naturally, have similar drives and desires.

But, Jake had been searching madly for her before his discovery of Lisa’s little sin. He looked at her now, not understanding her question.

“Why were you looking for me?” Béla asked, simplifying it for his human mind.

Jake glanced at Alicia. He formed his misadventure with Foxy in his mind, then showed it to Béla.

“Oh, god!” Béla said, disgusted. She closed her eyes for a moment. She opened them again and looked at her husband. ‘He’s really worried about her... ‘ She closed her eyes so she could follow Jake’s trail more easily, mentally searching through the building where Jake and the ‘Foxy’ girl had been.

“The fair’s still going, but she’s not there right now,” Béla said, trying to comfort him. “I’ll check again in the morning. If she’s there, I’ll bring her here. No one should be treated like that!”

“Well, you two seem to be getting along really well,” Alicia said, now that everyone was back on a verbal level. She’d heard that Béla was telepathic, but ‘It’s really annoying to not be able to hear a conversation that’s occurring right in front of me!’

“I apologize,” Béla said, picking up her thought. “It was simply too private. I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

“So,” Alicia said, trying to start a conversation she could be a part of. “Am I to understand that your daughter is playing with guns? How old is she, now? Three? Four?”

“She’s four – the same age as your own son,” Béla admitted, smiling at her guest, “but you’re in for a big surprise when you meet her.”

Jake sighed, feeling an odd relief and kissed his wife hello.

‘That’s more the greeting I was expecting, darling, ‘ Béla thought into his mind. She radiated ‘calm’ at him. He was really distressed over how that strange girl with the sexy name was being treated. What was bothering him the most was what he had done to her. Béla let him see how he was hiding that from himself. After that little surprise, he seemed much more composed.

Their kiss only lasted five or six seconds. Alicia never even realized that, in that small amount of time, Béla had reached into Jake’s mind and helped him unravel his true feelings about Foxy.

Their kiss ended and Béla gazed into his eyes for a moment. ‘I understand why you feel that way about her. But I’m curious – What was it that made you want to take me under your wing?’

Jake grinned. He remembered only too well. ‘Your soul was hurting, ‘ he confessed to her. ‘You’d been alone too long. I made you happy again.’

‘Do you really think you can help this girl?’ Béla asked. ‘If we free her, she’ll simply find someone else to subjugate her. You showed me that you know this. Do you want to be the one who owns her?’

Jake blinked, surprised at what he almost admitted.

‘Well?’ she asked. But Béla already knew. She saw it in the instant before he closed his mind to her. Then he connected with her again.

‘Yes! I want to own her!’ Jake silently admitted. ‘I want to protect her!’

‘Then I will find her for you, my love, ‘ Béla assured him. ‘But she won’t want your protection. She’ll only want to be your slave ... And if you aren’t a harsh enough taskmaster, she’ll probably kill you for betraying her. I’ve been a slave and I know these things.’

“You’re doing it again,” Alicia complained quietly. “Can you at least point me to where I’m going to sleep?”

“No. Sorry,” Béla told her. “You’re going to sleep with me...”

There was a loud thump at the top of the stairs. Everyone looked up at the sound. Lisa was standing there in a nightgown looking furious. “Mom!” she screeched. “Keep Dad out of my room!”

To emphasize her adolescent demand, she stomped her foot again and created a curtain of white fire around her. Then she vanished, along with the fire. They heard an angry, furious teenage screech from around the corner, then her door slammed shut, shaking the entire house.

They all stared, mouths open wide, at where Lisa had been standing at the top of the stairs.

‘Praetor! Explain what just happened!’ Béla demanded in her mind.