Brain Storm, Cat Gilbert [read books for money TXT] 📗

me one last steely look before he huffed out of the kitchen.

“Gee, what a killjoy,” Trinity blurted out as soon as Brown was out of the room. I was pretty sure he could hear her. She’d said it loud enough. “He really doesn’t like you, does he?”

“Feeling’s mutual.” I shrugged, getting up to grab a broom and clean up the mess I had made before Mama D beat me to it. It didn’t matter to me whether Brown liked me or not. I had bigger problems than that to deal with. Such as why I couldn’t get into his head anymore. I’d been able to communicate with him before we’d rescued him, been able to pick up on his feelings, his emotions, but for the last few days, it was like he’d put up a brick wall. The only thing I got from him was that irritating buzzing noise, which was slowly driving me crazy.

“Well, regardless of Brown, I’m impressed.” Jonas’ words had me turning back to the table in surprise. “Oh, you’ve done bigger things, but you made a breakthrough this morning that you’ve been working hard to do and got insulted for doing it. I just want you to know, we all appreciate how hard this is for you and how hard it is to put up with Brown. We know you’re doing this for all of us and we do appreciate it.”

I bobbed my head, mumbling something incoherent and turning around to sweep before he could see the tears well up in my eyes. He’d caught me completely off guard. Jonas was my biggest skeptic and he’d just given me the support I hadn’t even known I’d needed.

Brown’s incessant harassment had gotten to me more than I’d realized. Even his acknowledgment of my success, his scornful imitation of Henry Higgins from My Fair Lady, had been a dig. A reminder of his superiority and my reliance on him to teach me. Not unlike Eliza, the poor, uneducated flower girl.

He’d been teaching me, if you could call it that, and whacking away at my self-confidence at the same time. Not your usual teaching methods, for sure. I needed to learn, but there was a limit as to how much Brown could get away with, and he’d reached the limit. Blinking away the tears that had threatened to spill over, I decided it was time to change the rules.

I finished cleaning up just as the buzzing from Brown began to increase, which meant he was on his way back in. I grabbed my plate and threw it in the microwave to heat it back up, just as he came back into the room.

“There’s more on the stove if you want it,” I told him. “Grab a plate and dish it up.”

I retrieved my plate from the oven and headed back to sit down. I’d cleaned up the mess and figured my responsibility ended there. I sure wasn’t going to serve him a new plate. I took my seat and noticed Mac and Jonas eying Brown and felt better that they didn’t trust him any more than I did. I knew they were never far away during my supposed training, and it felt good to know they had my back.

“Now that you’ve finally figured out some measure of control over this, we’ll work on honing your skills after breakfast,” Brown announced as he settled back down at the table with a full plate.

“No,” I answered, stopping his fork halfway to his mouth. “I don’t think so. We need to work on something else.”

“Oh? You think so?” His eyes narrowed, but his fork started moving again. “And what, in your opinion, would that be?”

“Today, you’re going to teach me how to block my mind from others, like you’re doing now.” His reaction was almost imperceptible, but I’d caught it. He might be blocking me mentally, but I had eyes, and I knew what to look for. Can you say, Investigator, Dr. Brown? Didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that there had to be some way to protect yourself and that someone had figured it out. That Brown hadn’t mentioned it before and that he wasn’t happy that I knew about it now could mean a lot of things. None of them good.

“You need to improve on your kinetic abilities first. We can save the rest for when you’ve got a better handle on it.” He kept his gaze down, pushing food around on his plate. “One thing at a time, Taylor.”

Jonas sat his coffee down and slid his chair back, eyes trained on Brown as Mac leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. I got the distinct impression that they weren’t happy with Brown’s resistance to my plan.

“Well, Dr. Brown, I disagree. We’ll be working on how to shield ourselves today.” I sat back in my chair and pushed my half finished breakfast away, finding I’d lost my appetite. “And Sean, here, will be joining us. I am sure there are times he’d like a little peace and quiet too.”

Mac nodded in agreement, watching Brown over the top of his coffee as he took a long sip.

“You know, I’d kinda like to sit in on this too,” Jonas piped in. “See how it works. Knowledge is always a good thing.”

Brown was clearly not happy, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He’d just gone from one on one to three on one. He was smart enough to figure out that the tables had turned and why. He stood up, resigned to his larger and definitely hostile class and headed for the living room.

We worked through lunch, had a late dinner and finally called it quits at ten p.m. Brown had rambled on for over ten hours, and most of it was worthless information. I could only hope that there were bits of truth hidden somewhere in the middle of all the nonsense that Brown had doled out. We’d done countless mental exercises with no success whatsoever. My brain had turned to mush nearly two hours before we ended, and I found I was running on autopilot alone as Brown droned on. The only thing I knew for certain when we finally stopped for the night was that lessons from Brown were officially over. He had nothing more to offer. At least nothing he was sharing.

By 10:30 I was standing in a hot shower, letting the scalding water pound into muscles that had stiffened from sitting in a chair for hours on end. After ten minutes of steaming hot water, my muscles felt almost as limp as my brain did. I did a half-baked job of drying off, content to let the sheets finish the job as I crawled under the covers. I snuggled down under the plump quilts, making a comfortable nest. Still warm from the shower, I was asleep before my head had settled on the pillow.

It seemed like minutes later that I woke up. As much as I could tell, I hadn’t even moved, and I was still so tired that I didn’t want to. I lifted my head just enough to see the alarm clock, which told me it wasn’t time to get up. Nowhere even close to time. It was just after midnight. I’d been asleep less than an hour. No wonder I was still feeling groggy.

I listened, trying to make out any sounds that might have woken me up. The house was quiet, with the exception of the light buzzing sound coming from Brown. Apparently he was still awake, but I wasn’t too concerned. Mac was on watch and would keep an eye on him. Reassured, I closed my eyes and wished myself back to sleep, trying not to think about anything. The last thing I wanted was to start thinking about things. If my mind got started up, I’d be awake the rest of the night.

Instead, I just laid there listening to Brown’s endless buzzing, trying to block it out of my mind. We had him bunking downstairs, but I could still pick him up. Punching my pillow into shape, I regretted that we couldn’t just put him outside somewhere so I wouldn’t have to listen to him. On the upside, at least he wasn’t in one of the neighboring bedrooms. I really didn’t know how Mac got any rest, sleeping on the same floor. Maybe that was why he always volunteered for night duty. Poor guy.

I’d been listening for a few minutes when I suddenly realized that his buzzing was changing. It was gradual, but it was definitely there. I listened for a few more minutes, hearing the small changes in pitch and strength. I’d heard them before, but it had always been extreme swings when Brown’s emotions were off the chart. These were small variations, but now that I’d noticed them, they were obvious. Brown was not only awake, but he was either worried or nervous about something. After the past few days of torture he’d put me through, I couldn’t help but hope it was something I’d done to give him a sleepless night. I smiled at the thought and snuggled down into the bed, intent on getting back to sleep, when the buzzing from him surged.

Suddenly, I was wide awake. Something was wrong. I rolled out of bed so fast I made myself dizzy and had to stop for a second to let the room settle back down. I’d left my clothes on the floor where they’d dropped earlier and quickly threw them back on. I didn’t know what Brown’s problem was, but I knew I wasn’t traipsing down there in my pajamas. Not bothering with the light, I stuffed my feet into my shoes sans socks and moved quickly to the door. The house was dark and quiet as I stepped out into the hallway, easing the door closed behind me. I stayed there, frozen in place, waiting for my breathing to slow and my heartbeat to return to normal, listening intently for Brown.

I was at the end of a hallway that ran the length of the cabin with two other bedrooms and a bathroom separating me from the stairs at the far end. Trinity and Mama D shared one room and Jonas and Mac had the other. We’d made a bed in the study downstairs for Brown, and that’s where he was supposed to be now, sound asleep. Except he wasn’t. The buzzing was getting louder by the second, which, if I was right, could only mean one thing. Brown was coming up the stairs. Slowly and in the dark. He had no business on this floor. No reason for him to come up here.

I stepped back into the far corner of the hallway opposite the door to my room and melted into the shadows, waiting to see what