Lia pursed her lips and sat quietly, chewing on the information. “Where did you take all of the stuff you stole?” I asked, filling the silence.
“Uh, there’s a safehouse, that the...uhm,” he stammered, lowering his voice to a whisper before continuing, “the Company used to use. It’s just a few miles off the road, that way.” He pointed off vaguely to the east, through the hill beside us. “You can see it from here, if you’re on the lookout hill.” His voice continued to grow more unsteady as he spoke, and tears began to form in the corners of his eyes. “There’s...there’s not much, uhm, there, right now, b-but you can…”
The sound of a quiet sob brought Lia out of her introspection, and she looked over the bandit with concern. “What’s wrong?” She punched my shoulder and narrowed her eyes at me. “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” I said, holding up my hands to intercept any further punches.
She paused as she read the truth on my face, then leaned closer to the crying youth. “What’s wrong...oh, I never got your name. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head and scooted away from her. “P-Patrick,” he managed to whimper as he wiped the tears from his face.
“Patrick,” she repeated quietly. “What’s wrong, Patrick?”
“It could be that most of his friends are—” My thought was cut short as I swatted away a second punch.
“Not. Helpful,” she muttered, poking at my chest. I held a hand over my mouth and raised my eyebrows expectantly, and she smiled. “Better.” She turned back to Patrick and folded her hands neatly in her lap. “Patrick, what can I—”
“Are you going to kill me?!” he shouted suddenly, his whole body trembling.
Lia recoiled. “What? No! Primes, no! Why would you...well, alright, I can understand why you would think that. But you didn’t try to hurt me, so I don’t have any reason to hurt you, right?” She reached out carefully and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been really helpful, Patrick. I don’t have any more questions for you, so whenever you’re feeling up to it, you can leave and go wherever you want.”
“You’re still young, Patrick. You’ve got a long life ahead of you,” I added. “If you go find yourself some real, honest work, you’ll get a chance to see it.” I stood up from my place in the grass and brushed off my cloak. “Just make sure you avoid the Company from now on, hmm?”
He slowly turned to look in my direction, his eyes glassy and uncomprehending. “I’m...uhm, I’m going to sit. Just sit here, for...a while, I think.”
“Okay,” Lia nodded. “Good luck, Patrick. Be safe.”
“You...too?” he said, staring straight ahead as we walked by him. We left him behind his small hill as we returned to the road and climbed to the spot where the southern lookout had been hidden. As Patrick had said, a black shingled roof appeared on the horizon, nearly invisible in the lengthening shadows of the evening.
“I guess that solves the mystery of where the supplies went,” Lia sighed. “Still no lead on the employees, though.”
“Hopefully, our lead is hidden somewhere in that safehouse,” I said, taking a step towards the building. “If we head there now, we’ll make it before dark. There might even be beds; those bandits had to be sleeping somewhere, right?” She nodded in agreement and followed behind me as we made our way across the hilly expanse.
I pushed out a wave of energy to scan our destination and our surroundings as we walked. “You know,” I started, grinning, “you did a great job back there. Controlling the conversation, fighting off all of the bandits, the interrogation, everything. I do have to admit, it was difficult not to laugh at the start; hearing you do my bit was definitely—” I hissed as a sudden pain sprouted in my temples, and I staggered to the side as I clutched my head.
“Lux?” Lia asked, placing a concerned hand on my arm. “Lux, what’s wrong?”
My head swam as I fought to piece together the source of the pain. There was a strange buzz around the image in my head which seemed to emanate from a point farther down the main road to the south. I sent a fresh scan towards the edge of my mental map and winced as the pain renewed itself. When the mana reached the edge of my current vision, it felt as though it were sucked away beyond the ill-defined border and out of my control. “I...don’t know. Something to the south.”
I saw a brief flash of amber light as Lia’s own mana raced out along mine, and the audible gasp beside me confirmed that she felt the same interference. “What is that?” she whispered. “Why is that happening?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated. As I continued to fight against the interference, details of the oddity began to reveal themselves. The mana I sent out had continued to spread in every direction that wasn’t blocked and soon completely encircled the field of darkness. The gap it left in my Detection was nearly two hundred yards wide, and it seemed to be moving in a straight line across the countryside; it stole my extended energy wherever it went, plunging new parts of my vision into darkness while revealing others where it had been moments before. “Whatever it is, it’s moving. Fast.”
“We should...investigate that, right?” she asked, wincing at the mental pain.
“Yes. Elise’s boxes can wait. Whatever that is, I don’t want it to get away before we can—” My breath hitched in my throat as a faint echo registered in my still heightened sense: the remnants of a blood-curdling scream in a familiar voice. “Lyn,” I managed to say before my mind emptied and my enhancements flared. Every cell in my body screamed to life as I rocketed away to the south, immediately pushing my body far beyond
