Chapter 47 part 2

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The lock broke easily in William's hand and he shoved the door open.  Jess wasn't there.  He stood in the doorway.  She was supposed to be there.

He stood for a moment and the fog thickened around him.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a splash of color leak out from behind the door.  He looked through it.

Jess stood there, a weapon in each hand.

He knew how strong she was.  Armed like that, Harold wouldn't have stood a chance against her.  She probably thought he was Harold and was waiting for him to clear the doorway before she stabbed him in the back and clubbed him.

She didn't need protecting.  He didn’t know what she needed, but it obviously wasn’t that.

Show her.  The Advisor stood beside her.  He held his hand up to William.

"Jess, it's okay," William said.

Her head jerked, her ear turned to his voice, but she didn't say anything.  He slowly stepped into the doorway.  "Jess, it's me."

She turned her ear again, then shook her head.  "You're dead.  You burned."

“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” he said.  They had read several Mark Twain books together and had traded his quotes back and forth for weeks when they had moved in together.  As the line sank into her, he saw the colors around her calm and she lowered her weapons.

The Caretaker pulled away from his knee and William nearly buckled from the pain the quickened healing had produced.  He leaned against the doorframe and watched as The Caretaker probed around Jess, but didn't enfold her, didn't try to comfort her.  She is ready now.  Show her.

"What do you mean show her?" he asked aloud.  Jess looked around the room.

This is the only time that she will allow herself to understand, The Advisor said.

"Understand what?"

What she can do.  What she needs to do.

He shook his head.  "I'll get her out, then show her," he said.

She will not accept it then, The Advisor said.  It has to be now.

Why wouldn't she accept what they wanted her to know later?  William knew the voices had their reasons, but this didn't make sense.  What difference would a minute make?  He stood in front of her.  "Jess."

"You're talking to them, aren't you?" Jess asked.

Now, The Caretaker said.

"I'm here," he said to Jess.

The Advisor took William's hand.  This is why you came back.  To show her she has a place.

This was why he escaped the institution, not to protect her, but only to show her something that the voices wanted her to see?  That was it?

With all that he had given up, seeing her there, so close, he still wished for more.  The rush of emotion pushed the physical pain from his body.  It was a need that had been blocked out by the drugs and the voices for two years.  The intensity of it pushed through everything else until William saw that his desire was lacking one thing.

Hope.  He knew she'd never accept him.  He was damaged in her eyes.

Jessica dropped her weapons, reached a hand out to grasp his arm and pulled back from the burnt, tattered fabric.

William started to reach forward to her, but The Hunter moved suddenly at his side.  William followed his gaze through a window in the floor and saw Bryan hiding behind a wooden crate, with Harold and Jared moving toward him from opposite sides.

They will kill him.  Hurry, The Hunter said.

And there are more coming, The Advisor said.

"More?" William asked.

"William, what's going on?" Jess asked.

Now.  The Advisor pulled William's hand toward Jess, over her eyes.  William let it happen.

First came the wave of knowledge William had experienced before, but even larger, beyond his ability to register it as anything other than a painful overload.  Jessica shook, slipped to the floor.  William followed and leaned close over her.

More information came, too broad to process at first.  Slowly, parts of it became understandable…packets of information that took shape without words.  It was knowledge and certainty that his mind began to translate into language.

He felt the meaning directly, and wasn't sure if Jessica would understand it, but as she clasped onto him, he realized that his translation of the information and energy was being passed into her.

There were more like him.  There were more coming.

For a moment he felt them, a trickle of awareness, then a flood of emotions and thoughts from the others.  They were frightened.  They needed help.  They didn't understand what they were, or what they could do.

And almost all of them needed something to help them grow into what they were becoming.

On the floor, Jess tried to turn away.  The Advisor kept them connected.

Finally, the pressure of the information began to lighten, change into one thing, a visual image.

It lasted only seconds.  The vision was brief and simple.  Jessica stood in a room alone, then a figure appeared before her.  William recognized the teenage boy who had helped him out of the burning building, the empath who had felt his pain and not run away from it.  Then another, and another.  Soon the room was filled with young men and women.  Each was surrounded by flashes of color and figures in the fog around them.  Finally, they were everywhere, with Jessica at the center.  When they came to her, they changed.  It was subtle, seen only in the energy around them, but something sparked within them in her presence.

He held the vision in his mind a moment.  He wasn't in it.  Nor did he see the young woman from the diner, the one who had been scared and overwhelmed by what she could see, what she could hear.  Where was she in the vision?  Where was he?

Jessica's screams pulled him away from it.

She clutched at her head, palms scraping against her eyelids.  She thrashed forward against him and began shaking violently.  Her breath came in short gasps as the scream died.

William looked up at the voices.  "Help her."

The Caretaker leaned in over Jess and she was suddenly limp in his arms.  He looked down at her.  He opened one of her eyes.  It was still opaque white.

They had made her see.  Everything that William had seen in the vision, all of the people that were like him, Jessica teaching them all, changing them, she had seen it as well.  It was the first time she'd actually seen a visual image in her life.  The voices had wanted a moment when she wouldn't fight against it, when she'd be vulnerable, and it had hurt her.

They had used him to hurt her.  He had given up everything, turned himself into a homeless murderer because he thought he was supposed to protect her.  And in the end, he was only a messenger who had hurt the woman he loved.

He felt his heart speed up, beat harder in his chest.  The pain hit him for a moment, but was quickly replaced by the growing anger.  He had done this for nothing.  He'd have been better off in the institution, filled with drugs. 

The voices stood around him, not one of them giving him the answers he needed.  He looked down at Jessica.  He couldn't imagine the pain she must have felt before The Caretaker helped her pass out.  He had known the voices all his life.  The extra perceptions that they gave him had never come at him unexpectedly, had never given him something he couldn't handle, not like this.

They had hurt her.  And though William knew he would never be with her again, he didn't want Jessica hurt.

But why had it been so important to show her that?  Why was it worth the pain she had felt, worth what he had given up? 

Still, there was no answer from the voices.  But, like always, he knew they had answers they weren't telling him.  He turned to The Advisor.  "Why?"

(Author’s note:  Will William get the answers he’s looking for?  Will he get Jess out of there alive?  And what about Bryan?  What do you think is going to happen?  Thanks for the votes and please tell me what you think!!!)

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