Archer Warrick February 21st,20XX

Aaron looked nervous as he drove the large seven-seater car. It wasn’t like he’d said he was nervous, but it was obvious through his actions. He would continuously look at us kids through the rear-view mirror and made sure we were all wearing seatbelts. While he wasn’t doing that, he was keeping his eyes on the road peeled and kept a death grip on the wheel.

“Are you sure you know how to drive?”

Kaja, who had taken the passenger seat, tightened her grip on the handlebar by the window and hung on for dear life.

Aaron had noticed Kaja’s exaggerated posture and the fear in her voice as she questioned his driving skills. He put on an annoyed grimace as he answered her question, but didn’t bother loosening his grip on the wheel or relaxing from his hunched-over position in the driver's seat.

“Of course! I’ve had my license for about four years now!”

A memory flashed through his mind and caught my attention. It was a memory of him taking his driver’s test. It caught my attention because I realized how confident he’d seemed in the memory. I wondered what had changed the sudden anxiety was about.

“Yeah, but how much driving did you do in those four years?”

He went silent at the question and returned to focusing on the road. We barely passed the legal speed limit, and I saw a bunch of angry drivers flip Aaron off through the window. It wasn’t even like we were on the highway, so I wondered what the anger was about.

I couldn’t hold back my curiosity and gently tapped into his mind and searched for driving-related memories. They were easier to find since Kaja had already brought up the conversation.

“Eva, I’m going to take a quick nap, wake me up when we get there.”

Although the feedback wasn’t as harsh on me as it was on Eva, using my abilities tired me out pretty quickly. I wasn’t planning to do a deep dive, but it would still tire me out. It seemed like we would be in the car for a while, so I could probably afford a half-hour nap.

Are you okay, Archer?

Eva levelled her eyes with mine and sent over a wave of concern, but I shook my head and closed my index and middle finger on my right hand and then pointed at the back of Aaron’s head with my other.

It was a symbol we had come up with to show that we were using our powers.

She sent me a disappointed look at first, but then her eyes narrowed, and she laid back in her chair as well.

Fine, be careful though.

She didn’t like me using my powers on people we knew since she didn’t like it when I used it on her and figured that others wouldn’t like it either.

I briefly wondered why she didn’t stop me, but let out a small chuckle when I realized why.

It looked like she was still angry at being cheated out of her turn to go up in the air. She rarely got angry over things like this, so I wondered what made this time any different.

The car rode over a large bump, and the seatbelt strained against my chest. I heard Kaja shriek in response to the sudden jolt of the vehicle, but considering she was the only one that did so, I figured she was just overreacting as usual.

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“Be quiet so I can focus, Kaja.”

Aaron snapped at Kaja in a voice more aggressive than usual, and I felt my heartbeat increase. I knew Aaron was a nice enough guy, and I knew that not everyone was like ‘him’, but I couldn’t stop myself from reacting as I had.

I shook off the bad feeling and closed my eyes. Although I liked Aaron and Joyce enough, I didn’t feel comfortable staying around them until I knew them a bit better.

Neither of them had promised that we would stay in that house for long, but I’d assumed that we would stay there long enough for me to get a feel for both of their personalities. Now that we were being moved to a secondary location, I needed to get more aggressive.

I went right past the first layer and dived into the third. The second layer was full of worried thoughts about driving and keeping us safe. There was a snag in his thoughts about why he feared the road, but it was too deep of a thought for the second layer to reveal it all.

While it wasn’t especially what I’d come into Aaron’s mind for, I was curious and chased down the line of thought.

The snag blossomed into a formidable force and pushed me into the depth of the third memory. I took a moment to gather my senses, but soon lost them again when the memory of Aaron being tackled by a truck hit me.

Each memory usually played in front of me like a show on a television screen, but the emotions related to this one were so intense that I felt like I’d lived through it. I knew that no matter how awful it felt; it was only a second-hand experience. It didn’t compare to what he had gone through, but that only made me more scared.

The dreadful feeling of time slowing down, and the inescapable helplessness that followed. I saw him make eye contact with the driver milliseconds before the crash and had seen the half-smile on his face as he’d heartlessly run him over.

I remembered reading about a case of an out-of-control truck that had eventually crashed into a ditch. The news report had shown that there were no casualties, but it looked like there just had been none that could be reported.

The memory replayed from the beginning, but I cut it short and tried to find something else to look at.

While I’d wanted to get a general feel of Aaron’s personality, I didn’t want to know all of his traumas. If he wanted to tell them to us, then he could, but doing any more than I had would be an unforgivable invasion of privacy.

I withdrew from the third layer and took a break back in the safety of my mind. My heart was still racing, and I felt sweat bead down my face as I panted heavily. My mind hurt as it processed the intense memory I’d just witnessed. I’d expected to be tired after, but nothing could have prepared me for what I’d just seen.

It felt like a death memory.

Although he was alive, I couldn’t help but feel like I had just watched him die. And since the memory stopped right as he’d gotten hit. It felt like it had ended there, despite me knowing that it hadn’t. Something must have happened, otherwise he wouldn’t be in front of me now.

Archer! Why are you yelling? What did you see?

Eva’s voice ripped through my head and forced me to take stock of my body.

My throat hurt and I realized I’d probably screamed while going through that intense memory. Again, it was rare for me to react physically while going through memories, but I’d been surprised.

“Archer! Tillo, can you reach back and check if Archer is still breathing!”

Aaron’s panicked voice pulled me back into reality and triggered me to open my eyes before Tillo could place his finger on my philtrum.

“Ah, I’m fine! I’m fine I just had a bad dream… sorry for scaring you.”

I expected him to speed up the car again and for us to get back on track, but the car slowly pulled to a stop and Aaron grabbed his phone from the side of his seat.

“Yeah, no way.”

We were all scared and worried. We didn’t know why he’d suddenly stopped the car in the middle of the road, and despite how kind he’d been, we’d only known him for a few hours. He looked angry at something, but I was reluctant to get into his mind and figure out what that something was.

Who knew what I’d see next.

It wasn’t like this was the first bad thing I had seen while going through people’s memories, but this was one of the first times I’d seen the mind of a victim. Going by how strong the memory was, he probably replayed it in his mind a lot.

“Joyce, I’m taking the kids out. Probably won’t be back till tomorrow.”

He waited for a response and the resolute expression on his face slightly crumpled, but he stayed resolute. I didn’t know what was going on or where he wanted to take us, but I could tell it wasn’t anywhere dangerous.

“It’s not like you don’t have my phone tracked. Use that to find us and come join us, you’re with Destia, right?”

He revealed a scary fact about his girlfriend and his relationship before hanging up the phone and getting back into the car. He closed his eyes and took a moment to collect himself before turning back with a bright smile.

“Hey, you guys want to take a quick detour?”