“Paul!” she cried. “No!”
She looked at the two men standing over him and asked in a trembling voice, “Is he dead?”
They nodded somberly. To Adam’s astonishment, Maddie fell to her knees, put her face on Paul’s chest, and began to sob. That was not the reaction he had expected. He was completely shocked. He then remembered when she had told him that she had never loved anyone like Paul. Maybe she still loved him. Maybe she would always love him more than anyone—more than Adam himself. The self-doubt started creeping back in. Adam wondered if he had just killed the man Maddie loved. He didn’t know what to do. He just stood there dumbfounded and let her grieve.
After what seemed like an eternity, she turned and looked at Adam, sad and bewildered, and quietly said, “Did you do this?”
He nodded. She closed her eyes and looked away.
“It was self-defense,” he said. “He was trying to kill me. He was trying to kill us.”
She hung her head. Adam felt a pain in his chest, and he thought he was going to be sick. He fought the urge to vomit.
Ian was standing off to the side, his face a mask as he looked off into the distance. He would not look at Maddie or Adam. Adam figured that Paul must have paid him a huge sum of money to carry this out.
The other man stood there beside Maddie, apparently not knowing what to do either. He looked at Adam and said, “What Paul said is true. You have mastered RTP in a short amount of time. That’s very rare.”
Was Adam imagining it or did he hear a hint of respect in the man’s voice? He didn’t know how to respond. Up until that day, Adam didn’t think he had mastered anything. It was only when he was faced with a life or death situation that he was able to summon RTP on demand. He decided to keep that to himself. Not knowing how to respond, he simply nodded.
The man nodded twice. Adam wasn’t sure what that meant.
The men didn’t seem like a threat anymore. Adam took a chance and said, “It doesn’t have to be this way, you know.”
To Adam’s astonishment, the man nodded again and said, “Not everybody in the KTP agrees with Paul’s methods. There are some who would like a more peaceful way of life, who don’t want to force people to be in the KTP or kill people that won’t join. There are some who believe that Refined Transcendent Power should be widespread knowledge used for good, but they are fearful of Paul and will not speak out.”
He looked at Paul’s body on the ground and said, “Or they were fearful of Paul.”
Adam said, “There’s got to be a way we can work something out between the peaceful ones and the KTP.”
The man nodded and said, “There are powerful people in the KTP who would be willing to hear your case. My name is Jeremy. Until just a few moments ago I was second-in-command. We’ll discuss this further at a later time.”
Maddie looked at Ian and said in a trembling voice, “Ian, how could you?”
Ian stared at her, unapologetic, but said nothing.
Adam moved to stand closer to her. Ian looked away.
She went back to crying over Paul’s lifeless body. Again, Adam wondered if he had made a mistake that would damage their relationship forever. He wondered if he should’ve gone peacefully with them and not fought back. But it was too late now. He couldn’t undo it. It was over. Paul was dead.
The three men stood there for a moment, no one having anything to say or making a move. Then Jeremy looked back toward the interstate and the cars passing by in the distance.
He said, “We’d better clean this up before the real law enforcement gets here.”
Ian nodded. He walked to the back of one of the cruisers, opened it up, and pulled out a tarp. Adam gently tugged on Maddie’s shoulders, trying to get her to let go and stand up. He almost had to pry her hands off Paul’s body. Dazed, she reluctantly stood and blinked at Adam through her tears. She buried her face in his chest and continued to cry while Ian and Jeremy rolled Paul’s body in a tarp and put him in the trunk of the police cruiser. They then focused on the car that was overturned.
Jeremy raised his hand toward the wrecked police cruiser and the car rose up off the ground, flipped over, and landed upright with a loud thud. Adam had never seen someone use RTP in that way. He was amazed. They gathered up the dead driver’s body in the same manner.
Again, Jeremy raised his hand toward the crushed car, and the damaged parts of the car seemed to decompress and magically fix themselves. It was like watching a video of the crash in rewind with the shattered glass rising off the ground and forming back into unbroken windows, and the dents popping out as flecks of paint reapplied themselves.
The blood from Paul’s lethal head injury had magically disappeared. In a few short moments, the scene had been transformed to the way it was before anything had happened. There was no evidence left. No one would ever be able to piece together what had happened.
Seeing this happen before his eyes gave Adam a new appreciation about what Maddie, Mel, and Sancha had been trying to tell him about RTP of the KTP and how it could be used for evil and illegal purposes. The KTP could make someone disappear without a trace and without ever being discovered by the police or prosecuted. And they had perfected their methods over centuries. Adam shuddered at the thought.
Without saying another word, Ian got in the driver’s seat of one of the police cruisers as Jeremy approached Adam.
He said, “I’d like to arrange a meeting between the peacekeepers and the KTP leadership. I think some of our leaders would be
