Not The Sun - 14. Chapter Fourteen: Traps

14 ~Traps~

Brandon got to Jordan's house at noon the next day, not feeling totally rested, but well enough to at least fake it for a few hours. Dalaja was already up, but Nikki had yet to make an appearance. Jordan was making lunch for everybody.

"Here, eat," Jordan said, setting a sandwich down in front of him. Brandon took a bite. It was turkey, provolone, tomato, mayo, with mustard and Brandon was ridiculously touched that Jordan had remembered something so little and so simple. Jordan put a vegetarian sub down in front of Dalaja. "Is that okay?"

Dalaja picked up the sub. "Yes. Thank you, Jordan."

Nikki chose that moment to come downstairs, stretching. She looked relaxed, but her eyes were cold and hard. She went over to Jordan and started helping him while Dalaja and Brandon were eating. Dalaja and Brandon both had their mouths full when suddenly Brandon felt something pressing against the edges of his mind and he threw up a block without even thinking about it. Then he swallowed and glared at Dalaja.

"Bitch," he said and Dalaja kicked him underneath the table. Brandon grimaced a little and Dalaja wiped at her mouth with her napkin.

"Watch your language in the presence of a lady, young man," she warned. "I just wanted to see what you could do. Try it again, and this time, push me away, but not hard."

He felt the pressure again and threw up another block first, then focused on that energy and pushed it back. Dalaja leaned back slightly and blinked, but that was the only outward sign she gave that Brandon had done anything at all.

"Good job," she said. She finished off her sandwich. "Nikki, Jordan, get ready. Let's move out in a half hour."

Brandon stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth, used a mouthful of Coke to help break it down and swallowed. Jordan gave him his car keys.

"You know where this guy lives right?" Jordan asked.

"Yeah."

"You can find it from here?"

"Sure thing."

Jordan kissed him lightly, apparently not caring that they were in full view of Nikki, who was still eating. "Be careful okay?"

"You, too," Brandon said. It wasn't himself he was worried about. He knew Keith, knew how he worked. They didn't.

Nikki got up and cracked her knuckles. "I'm ready guys. Let's do this."

Brandon liked Jordan's car; it was small and fast. But he was too wound up with nerves to enjoy driving it for the first time. When he pulled up alongside Keith's house, Nikki frowned. "He lives here?" she said.

"Yes," Brandon replied, feeling defensive. Did she think he couldn't do something as simple as find someone's house?

"Well, we're not out of place at all," she said sarcastically, climbing out. "Jordan, you'll be lucky if you come back out here and find all your tires and hubcaps in place."

"It'll be fine Nikki."

Nikki pushed a hand against the small of Brandon's back, propelling him to the front of the group. "Go on. It'll look more natural for you to be at the door since you know him."

Brandon gave Jordan an uncertain glance and Jordan nodded almost imperceptibly, moving in closer to Brandon. Brandon took a breath and knocked on the door.

Several minutes later, after a few more knocks with no answer, Brandon tried the door and, to his surprise, found it unlocked. The cat, which he vaguely remembered from his last time here, dashed out, shot between his feet and was off down the sidewalk in a matter of seconds. "Call out?" he asked softly.

"Sure," Nikki said. "I think he's bolted, but go ahead."

"Keith!" Brandon called out, striving to sound casual. "It's Brandon."

No answer, but it's not like he expected there to be. He took a tentative step forward. "Come on, I know you're in here," Brandon said, walking inside. "I want to talk to you. Come on out."

Nothing but empty silence greeted them. Brandon turned around and raised his eyebrows. "There's no one here."

Nikki cursed quietly. Dalaja followed him inside, looking around. "No one's here? No parents?"

Brandon shrugged. He had never seen anyone here except for Keith and that woman on one occasion.

Dalaja was turning around in one spot. "His Enabler has been here. I can feel it." She looked back at Jordan. "Come in here and tell me if you can." Jordan came in through the doorway and Nikki followed, closing the door behind her.

"Come on Brandon," Nikki said.

"What are we doing?" Brandon asked.

"Looking around for right now. The more we know about these people, the better we'll be able to fight them if it comes to that."

"So we're snooping?"

Nikki turned to him, raising her eyebrows. "You have a problem with that?"

Brandon shrugged. He didn't feel comfortable looking around someone else's home, no matter what the reason.

"Remember what these people did to you, what happened to you and your friend. If you want to go up against these people, you're going to have to make some hard choices, some much worse than trespassing."

Brandon followed her as she roamed around the small house.

"Dalaja's psychic abilities are so well defined that she can tell there was an Enabler here at some point," Nikki explained. "Whenever an Enabler or Creator is in a contained area for a certain length of time, they leave kind of a psychic thumbprint, like an energy signature. If you knew the Enabler, you could tell who it belonged to. For example, you could recognize Jordan's energy signature pretty easily, or maybe mine or Dala's. But since we don't know the Enabler, Dala can only tell there used to be one here, but it doesn't do anything to help determine who it is." Nikki was still walking, bypassing some rooms completely, lingering near others. "I can feel the signature of a Creator. Can you feel it?"

Brandon nervously let his mind relax and open up. He could feel something, a little tingle that raced over the surface of his mind, not necessary unpleasant, but most definitely unfamiliar. It wasn't the same kind of presence that he felt with Jordan or Dalaja that morning; it was fainter, less defined. He closed his mind and brought up a block anyway. "Yeah. I can feel it. When I let myself."

"You should keep your mind open more often. You'll catch things other people will miss."

Brandon thought it was his mind at stake and he would do whatever the hell he wanted with it, but he didn't say anything.

"His signature is stronger in some places than others," Nikki said, approaching a closed door. "Probably places where he spent more time. It's very strong here. Is this his room?"

Brandon nodded.

Nikki opened the door, surveyed the room briefly before stepping inside. "It's pretty empty," she said. "Was-" There was a loud crack and Nikki glanced down at her feet. "What the-" The report was deafening, Nikki's body shoved back by the force of it, the smell of smoke and gunpowder hitting Brandon like a punch in the face.

"Motherfucker!" Nikki gasped, pressing her hand to her side. She stumbled and Brandon caught her before she hit the ground, stared at the large patch of blood spreading over her blouse.

"Shit. Shit! Nikki!" Brandon yelled.

"What happened?"

"Shit, Nikki, you've been shot. Jordan! Dalaja! Jesus Christ, I need help!"

Dalaja came first, her face white, followed by Jordan. Dalaja knelt down next to them, cradling Nikki's head and shoulders.

"What happened?" she asked, her Indian accent so thick in her words that they were hard to understand.

"I don't know... She stepped on something, and then... it just hit her."

Jordan pressed a cell phone into his hand. "Go out into the hallway and call 9-1-1. She needs an ambulance, okay?"

"Okay," Brandon said, taking the phone into the hallway and dialing the number. He felt a little bit calmer now that he had something to do, to focus on. He gave the operator the information he asked for, the address and that Nikki had been shot. When the operator asked how, he hesitated for a moment then replied that it was an accident.

When he returned, Dalaja had taken her shirt off and had it pressed against Nikki's wound and Jordan was in Keith's room, carefully trying to take a shotgun down from where it was hung on the ceiling, hidden behind a large swag of cloth that looked like it had once been a hammock.

"Tell them number two," Dalaja was saying quietly.

Nikki nodded, grimacing in pain.

"The gun fell out of the closet and discharged accidentally. You'll be okay, all right?"

Nikki nodded again. "It hurts to breathe," she gasped out.

"I know, just hold on." Dalaja looked up at Brandon. "The ambulance, are they on their way?"

"Yes," Brandon said.

"Bran, give me a hand," Jordan said. He was standing on a desk chair, and Brandon went over and took the rifle as Jordan passed it down. It was damn heavy in his hands and Brandon felt himself break out in chills.

"The room was booby-trapped," Jordan explained. "I think when Nikki came inside, she stepped on a trip wire and that activated the trigger. He was prepared in case someone came by. Willing to kill."

It's overkill, Brandon, do you understand?

Jordan pulled down the hammock. "He even had it hidden," he said in disgust. "The bastard."

Brandon turned and set the rifle down on the floor. Now that he was able to look around, he saw Nikki was right. The room was empty. The bed, desk and dresser were still there, but almost everything... the stereo, the books and papers, the drawings and posters that had been up on the walls were gone. There was nothing to identify it as a room that once belonged to an angry teenage boy.

Nikki coughed. "I'm tired," she said.

"I know. Stay awake for me, okay?" Dalaja said. "Damn it, where is that ambulance?"

A few seconds after she said that, Brandon could hear the faint sound of sirens in the distance. He went downstairs to meet them, led the paramedics to the room and watched as Dalaja unsuccessfully tried to ride with Nikki in the ambulance.

"Come on." Jordan slid a hand over Dalaja's shoulder. "Ride with us; we'll follow. Where are you taking her?"

"Eastside General," the paramedic answered curtly before slamming the doors shut.

Dalaja sat in the one of the chairs in the waiting room. Jordan had given her his jacket to wear, and she held her blood coated shirt in her hands while she waited to hear something from the doctor. Brandon sat next to her, not saying a word. Jordan came down the hallway, holding a take-out box from the cafeteria.

"Here," he said, handing it to Dalaja. "It's a salad, okay?"

Dalaja took it, but refused to open the box, just holding it. Jordan sighed and sat down on the other side of Brandon.

"Are you all right?"

"No," Brandon whispered. "I'm bad luck."

"Don't be ridiculous," Jordan said. "There's no such thing as good luck or bad luck."

"Leia was my friend and now she's dead. Nikki came to help us and now she's in the hospital."

"Well, Leia didn't kill herself until I started hanging out with you. And Nikki only came here because she knew me. And my parents and my brother died. So maybe I'm the one that's bad luck."

"That's retarded."

"Makes more sense than what you said."

Dalaja stood up suddenly. Brandon glanced up and saw the surgeon coming out of the medical ward and also stood up.

"Is she alright?" Dalaja asked.

"She has stabilized," the doctor said. "The bullet hit her in the ribs and punctured one of her lungs. She has pneumothorax, which means that her lung has collapsed. We've removed the bullet and we'll continue to monitor her condition for several days, run some more chest x-rays and we'll have to insert a chest tube, but we are looking at a good chance of recovery. Her age and good physical health are a bonus in this case. She was actually quite lucky. If that wound had been higher, she could have ruptured an artery or worse... much worse. We're moving her up to the ICU right now."

"Can I see her?" Dalaja asked.

"Yes, but I'm going to have to ask you to keep it brief. She's also pretty sedated from the surgery."

"Thank you," Dalaja said. She turned back to Jordan briefly. "Can you guys manage-"

"Go ahead. I'm going to set up a room for you at the motel next door, all right? And either Brandon or I will be back first thing in the morning."

"Okay. Thank you." Dalaja turned and followed the surgeon down the hallway.

Jordan sighed and turned away, making some calls on his cell phone. He left a message for Dalaja with one of the nurses and then motioned to Brandon.

"Come on, let's get some food and go home."

"Shouldn't we stay?" Brandon asked anxiously.

"We can't do anything for her right now. Let's get some rest and come back in the morning. I know how Dalaja is... she'll be staying with Nikki most of the night."

"Will they let her?"

"They'll sometimes make an exception. Come on, you're exhausted, I can tell."

"I think I should stay-" Brandon protested.

"You're no good to anyone if you don't take care of yourself," Jordan said softly. "If there is any change, Dalaja will let us know. Come on."

Jordan's hand on his shoulder was a slim comfort as they left the hospital.