Gifted Connections 4

“Ronis,” Harry insisted. I guess that was his way of asking for pepperoni, too.

You know that term, ‘it was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop’? Well, it wasn’t quite right in this instance. Silence definitely followed but so did the sound of breaking glass.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Miranda blubbered as she tried to pick up the pieces of her broken coffee cup. “Did he? Did I?” she continued to ramble.

Greg and Hazel were already up and across the room. Hazel was openly weeping as she reached out to touch her grandson's hair. Even Greg couldn’t stop the tears from falling as he embraced his son.

Noah gently pushed Miranda out of the way. “Go see your son.” He carefully began to pick up the pieces of her broken mug.

“Thank you,” Miranda didn’t need to be told twice.

“What happened?” Megan asked in awe.

“Didn’t you watch it on the news?” I teased.

“We actually paused it,” Troy said ruefully. “Darren found the address where we located you, and we noticed the news vans. So we turned on the news but haven’t watched it yet.”

I trudged over to the table and didn’t even make it to my seat before Remy pulled me down into his lap and embraced me.

“He sees things as they’re happening,” I explained. “Today it was a human trafficking ring.”

“It was like his…sight lets him see things moments before it goes from bad to worse,” Lincoln added. “I don’t know much about our gifts, but something tells me the reason why Harry was so…disturbed before was that he never saw a happy ending.”

“It was the first one,” Alex chirped up from Jaxson’s lap. He was eating another piece of cake, better yet, inhaling it.

“What do you mean?” Pops asked as he leaned forward in his seat with his eyebrows knitted. “Have you been there before?”

Alex nodded before he looked down at his plate, his expression suddenly grim. “It’s always the same house but different people in the basement. I asked Ella to draw it for me, but she said she can’t draw things she doesn’t see. I asked Patrick, and he told me the same thing. They always come, and they always take them away.”

“Why didn’t you tell us, buddy?” Jaxson asked ruffling his hair.

“It scared me,” he mumbled. “I wanted to be a big boy.”

“You are a big boy, but even teens and grown-ups get scared,” Jace said gently.

“Like Noah is afraid of spiders, Jemmy is afraid of clowns, Darren heights, want me to go on?” Jaxson asked with a small smirk.

Darren shot Jaxson an annoyed look but added, “Sometimes when we face our fears, we can overcome them, but it’s even better when we have someone supporting us while we do it.”

“Cake,” Harry chimed up as if our discussion was boring him.

“Cake,” Miranda clapped her hands, tears still streaming down her face before running to the counter to get Harry a piece of cake.

“Can we push play now?” Troy asked as he leaned forward. “While they eat?”

“Push play,” Pops stated.

I leaned back into Remy and relished the feeling of his arms around me. The aroma of the pizza was tantalizing to my nose. I was famished, but now that the adrenaline had worn off and I was warm and comfortable, I felt sleep drawing me away.

We watched the news broadcaster in front of a house that was in flames as the camera panned out and showed all the people that were rescued tonight getting medical attention.

“We were right there,” Alex stated as he pointed to an obscure spot on the screen.

“It looks like a crack house.” Noah shook his head.

“It smelled and looked like one, too.” I wrinkled my nose up at the memory.

“How did you know that it wasn’t a dream?” Greg asked in curiosity.