Oblivion Read Online Free PDF Page B

to her.
    My mouth twitched
in a smile. She wouldn’t hurt my brother or me, so I assured her, “I know. You
are one of the few people Jason trusts completely. I know you wouldn’t
purposefully do anything to compromise his safety.”
    She frowned. “Does
that imply that I would inadvertently put him in danger?”
    I shrugged. In my
mind, past events spoke for themselves. Without her involving Jason in the
Trevor Mason case, Jason would never have appeared on Mason’s radar, and we
likely would never have left home.
    Her hurt gave way
to reluctant acceptance, but the frown remained. Harping on the past wouldn’t
help, so I informed them that I was going to try contacting Jeremiah. “Don’t
talk for a few minutes, okay?”
    My three
companions nodded, and my mind traveled the path to Jeremiah’s. Explaining how
the connection worked was nearly impossible. The closest I could come up with
is that because my mind could sense emotions, I could follow a specific
person’s emotions back to the source.
    Anger seemed to be
one of the main emotions Jeremiah knew how to feel, and I followed that path. I
winced as I made the connection. Right now it went well beyond anger. Kindred,
because he was definitely in assassin mode right now, was absolutely furious.
Something was happening, and it had thrown him into a murderous rage. To gain
his attention I attempted to dial down the anger.
    I definitely got a
reaction. Pain shot through my mind as his mental voice snapped back at me. “Not
now, Oblivion! I am a little occupied at the moment.”
    “Where are
you?” I wasn’t about to let him go without finding out where my brother
was. “I need to know, or I can’t help you.”
    “You can’t. Not
now. Believe me; I will let you know when you can be of service.”
    Now I felt my own
anger rising, and I clenched my fist. It was a struggle to prevent myself from
tearing into Kindred’s mind. “You and I are similar, Kindred. The name works
for me now. I will do whatever it takes to get my brother back, including
tearing through you if I have to.”
    “I will contact
you again in a few moments. Just give me time to finish this,” Kindred
said, cutting off contact without any consent from me.
    He was still more
powerful than me. For now. But he was still sincere in his desire to help, and
I knew he would be in contact. “What did he say?” Hannah asked quietly,
brushing her hair back behind her ear.
    “He’s busy with
something right now, but he promised to contact me again soon. We should find
somewhere to stop. A hotel or something,” I suggested.
    “We don’t need
to,” Mark said. “I have a friend who has a house here, and the O.K. to use the
place whenever I’m in town.”
    I felt a flash of
discomfort from Mark as he spoke, and saw him glance at Alice, but didn’t
question him. Nor did I mention the flash of—was it jealousy?—from Alice. Now
wasn’t the time.
    “I think Kindred
is in trouble,” I finally said.
    “What happened to
calling him ‘Jeremiah’? I thought he wasn’t going by his assassin name
anymore,” Alice asked, turning toward the back seat.
    “He is absolutely
furious right now. I don’t think the name ‘Jeremiah’ works as well when he’s
ready to kill someone. If it helps, he didn’t argue when I called him Kindred.”
    Oddly, she didn’t
seem all that reassured. Alice pursed her lips, and Hannah put a hand on my arm
and asked, “Do you have any idea what was happening?”
    “No, but it was
definitely not good. And I did learn one thing: I can’t control his emotions—at
least not to the extent that I could with Hunter. I tried to dial down his
anger, and it just made him more furious.”
    Nodding, Alice
said, “Well, we know Jeremiah’s ability does have a lot to do with the mind. He
probably has more control over his own mind than most people.”
    “Not only his mind.
If he could only control his own mind, he would never have been able to
manipulate Jason,” Hannah