Chapter 11

Part of me was angry. Angry with Mr. Shepherd for telling me I needed to be at the mall. Angry with myself for listening to him. The rest of me felt a mix of relief that the situation was over with, confusion over what I had done and how, and even a little bit excited. I could see auras, but I could also do several other things too. At the moment though, my anger had the upper hand on my other emotions.

“Are you okay?” Rachel asked.

I didn’t want to look at her, it would have calmed me down and I didn’t want to be calm at the moment. I just shrugged because I didn’t have anything to say that would have been nice.

She reached passed the gear shift between us and put her hand on mine. Looking at her wasn’t the only way I would be calmed by her. My anger faded. Finally, I gave in and held her hand.

“Talk to me. You’re being quiet,” she said.

I took a deep breath and let it out, still looking out the passenger window at the passing city. “I’m angry. I’m angry with Mr. Shepherd for telling me that I had to be there. And I’m angry with myself. I’m mostly angry with myself.”

“Why?” Rachel asked.

“For listening to him. He said I had to be there and like an idiot, I just did what I was told.” I shook my head. “Stupid, really stupid.”

She pulled her hand away from mine to downshift as we approached a red light. “You questioned his vision a lot. I don’t think you wanted to be responsible for what that man would have done if you hadn’t been there to stop him.”

“What if I hadn’t stopped him?” I asked, my voice raising a touch.

“To be honest,” she said, “I think you were the best choice.”

I looked at her then. “What? Why?”

“Well, could you see me disarming that guy? Sure I could uncase my wings and distract him. But when he pointed the gun at the woman I never could have reached him in time.”

“I didn’t think I would either,” I said. She just didn’t seem to understand. The throb in my head wasn’t helping either. I was wishing the Tylenol would work.

“And if it had been Christian there, again, he could have distracted the guy, he might have even lived through being shot, I’m not sure, but he couldn’t have kept the guy from shooting the woman.”

“So, you’re saying I was the only one who could have done that?” I asked, not sure how I felt about that idea.

She nodded. “And I’m sure he would have been shot by the guard if he had shot the woman.”

I looked away, out at the streets again. I wanted to say, “Or shot himself,” but didn’t. I had seen the desperation in him, the bit in his aura that hadn’t looked right. I had seen it before. Now that everything was over with and I could think about it, I remembered where I had seen those motions before.

During my sophomore year in high school. I had been having a crappy day. My head hurt so much that I had gone to the counselor’s office to lie down three times yet my head still hurt. Finally, the school decided to let me go home. I called my mom at work and then waited by the entrance for her.

While I waited I spotted someone in front of the school. It was one of the students, Ronnie Pearson. He was hunched over and walking across the field away from the school. His aura, a pale olive green, was hardened around the edges but swirled like a storm. It was the same motions I had seen today in Jeff’s aura. I didn’t know what it was at the time. Then my mom showed up and I left for home. I was too out of it to let anyone know that Ronnie was skipping school.

It had been more than that though. The very next day rumors were flying around the school. I wasn’t popular enough for anyone to want to share gossip with, but during lunch, one of the teachers came to me and asked about Ronnie. I told her that I saw him leaving and I apologized for not saying anything, fearing I was going to get into trouble. It was worse than that. Ronnie had left early so he could go home and get his father’s gun. He wasn’t going to rob anyone, he wanted to end his own life.

What I had seen in Ronnie’s and Jeff’s auras was the conflict between the desire to live and the willingness to take their own life laced with depression. They were suicidal. Jeff had been suicidal. He was going to kill his wife, and then be with her in the afterlife.

I shook my head and asked a sensible question, “Do you think Mr. Shepherd saw me stopping the guy or just what would happen if I hadn’t been there?”

Rachel shrugged. “Dunno and I don’t think he’ll tell us. He doesn’t worry about details after one of his visions has come to pass.”

I leaned my head back against the headrest. “Yeah.”

Rachel pulled into the parking lot in front of a strip mall. Specifically, a Mattress Giant.

“Why are we here?” I asked.

She looked at me after killing the engine. “You still need a bed before you get home.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said.

We got out of the car and went inside. They were nearly ready to close. Only one other customer was there.

One of the sales reps came over and helped us find something suitable. I wanted a twin bed, even one of those non-matching sets to help keep the cost down. Rachel however vetoed that and got me a double. Then she paid extra to have it delivered immediately.

Considering her car couldn’t accommodate the bed, I didn’t worry about the delivery fee. However, I asked. “Why a double?”

She looked at me. There was a lot of meaning in that look – none of which I could decipher. I didn’t want to look stupid, so I shut up and let her go about her business.

After that, she took me over to a Walmart Supercenter. Inside, Rachel grabbed a shopping cart and I followed her up and down the food aisles. We grabbed some basic stuff to get me through a few days. Mostly frozen meals that I could prepare easily, as well as tea to drink, a new gallon-sized pitcher, and a few ice trays. Then she grabbed a few other things I wouldn’t realize I needed until later, like toilet paper. The grocery cart was already fairly full when we left the food aisles. I wondered what else she had in mind as we headed across the store.

She led me to housewares. After talking about microwaves, Rachel grabbed one and put it across the top of the buggy. I asked, “What are you doing? I can’t afford this.” I tried to remind her of my limited budget and reiterated the fact that I needed a job.

She stopped me with another look. “Consider this a reward for saving one, possibly two lives.”

I blinked at her. I didn’t save Jeff and his wife for a reward. If that was the case, then why didn’t she buy a microwave for the guard or a crew of firemen when they saved someone’s home? She was trying to make me feel better about what I had done. I didn’t have a problem with saving them, I had a problem with myself, and nothing she bought me would help me with that issue. However, half the food already in the cart would need a microwave to cook and I knew there wasn’t one at my apartment. I needed the damned thing.

Something on my face must have given me away because she smiled at me and then turned to continue through the store.

We went through a few more aisles, loading the buggy with various things that I, in my ignorance of what might be needed, hadn’t thought of. It was quickly apparent that we were going to need a second cart. So, I ran and got one.

After checking out, we loaded it all in her car. After packing what passed for her back seat, and the floorboard, I had to get in and let her pack more stuff around my feet and put the microwave in my lap. Rachel seemed to take it all in stride.

The shopping had helped calm me down, but there were still things bothering me. It bothered me that Mr. Shepherd knew enough about what was going to happen at the mall to send me that way and even tell me, albeit vaguely, that I would solve the issue there. It bothered me that he knew I was going to need more privacy and thus need the apartment rather than stay at the dorm. I wasn’t angry about what he knew, but to have someone tell me about something - something I couldn’t have even dreamt of happening to me - was unnerving at the very least. It made me wonder if Rachel was unnerved by it.

As we headed back to the apartment complex I asked her, “You said you’ve known Mr. Shepherd for a while?”

She nodded.

“So, you’ve just gotten used to his visions?” I asked.

“It took a while,” she said glancing at me. “Several months.”

I nodded. If it took her months to get used to it, I should probably avoid him for a while. Of course, part of me wondered why I couldn’t just accept his ability. I had accepted my abilities and the fact that Rachel had wings. I shook my head. Mr. Shepherd had proven what he could do. It was my squeamishness that was having problems. So if Mr. Shepherd had proven his powers, what about Christian? His age should have made me scared of him but he looked just like anyone else. Granted, I hadn’t been around him long enough to get to know him. The meeting had been mostly about me with Mr. Shepherd. And if Mr. Shepherd was head of the House yet Christian was his senior, it made me wonder...

“And Christian,” I said, “if he’s so old why isn’t he the head of the House?”

Rachel glanced at me. “Think about it, Ral. If he stayed in one location too long, then people would realize that he wasn’t aging, I don’t think it would go over well.”

That made some sense. Then I thought about what it must have been like for Christian to live through the last four hundred years. America wasn’t close to three hundred yet, so where was he from? Did he come with the original settlers or later? I hadn’t heard an accent the few times he spoke. If anything he had something like a southern drawl, but other than that he seemed like any other of the faceless people I had seen every day. I asked Rachel if she knew.