Kindred Spirit - Noah Harris Page 0,43

his crossed legs, frowning. “If he has to do stuff like that too much, it wears him out. He wasn’t always this strong, and he can be pretty strong, but he’s got limits.”

“I take it you’ve seen these limits...and not just the appearing to you thing.”

Levi looked up, and something dark flickered behind his eyes. “Yeah. First time a bunch of suits came after me, or found me anyway.”

Jacob tilted his head. “The government? DDI?”

Levi shrugged. “I don’t know who it was, but it doesn’t take a whole lot of thinking to know it was the government. Suits is what they were. Shouldn’t you know this?”

Jacob winced. “This is the part where I admit that not only was I not as good about reading the file I was given, but there were...gaps.”

“Gaps?”

“Government likes their red tape and their redactions. I know about certain events that were noted, but there were parts of your life that were left out. I honestly don’t know if it was because the DDI doesn’t know or because they didn’t want to tell me.”

“You...didn’t read about me?” Levi asked, watching him carefully.

Jacob thought back to what he said and chuckled. “I guess I did kind of let that slip, huh?”

“Blame Lou, he caught that slip. He’s good at that, sometimes better than me. He was telling me from the start not to trust you.”

“Good instincts, not so great on the accuracy,” Jacob told him.

Levi raised a brow. “Oh?”

“Yes. He somehow knew something was off about me and that I wasn’t being as honest as I could have been. But that doesn’t mean you can’t trust me.”

Levi watched him for a moment longer. “Were you really in the Army?”

Jacob stretched his injured leg out before him, wincing as it pulled painfully. “Enlisted when I was seventeen, shipped out for basic a month after my eighteenth birthday. Ended up part of the 115th regiment, and on my last deployment, I made corporal. We worked outside of Baghdad mainly.”

“Doing what?”

“Mostly keeping the peace, which involves getting shot at a lot depending on how the people in the area were feeling on any given day. That changed a few months before my deployment was set to end.”

“Somehow, I’m getting the feeling this isn’t a happy story.”

Jacob gave him a humorless smile. “We got reports there was a group of insurgents operating out of an old base several clicks from where we were stationed. My men and I were sent to investigate and deal with the problem. Thing is, we got there, and it wasn’t a group.”

Levi frowned. “What was it?”

“One man,” Jacob said softly.

Levi stared. “What was he?”

Jacob took a deep breath. “I was told later that he was a telekinetic. Due to the fractious nature of the region, psychic phenomena aren’t tracked too reliably. No one knew about him. I don’t even know the man’s name. What I do know is he had the power to tear a group of seasoned and well-trained soldiers apart. Men I’d known for…” He took another breath, keeping his voice calm. “Known for a very long time. Some torn apart, literally. Others crushed beneath thrown debris, chopped apart, anything you can think of, it was done. It only stopped when…”

When he’d used the man’s distraction against him. Private Jessup had been one of the last to die, and the crazed telekinetic had made it his mission to enjoy what he was doing. While he pulled Jessup apart like a disturbed child would yank the wings off a fly, Jacob had taken his chance. Telekinetic was not telepathic, and insanity had a way of distracting a person. For all the man’s power, a ka-bar to the throat had ended the nightmare in seconds.

“It stopped when I killed him,” Jacob finished.

Levi was watching him intently, but Jacob found it impossible to meet his eyes. He knew what was going to follow, but he had to get it out. He owed Levi the truth, even if that truth might damn him further.

“The DDI took me in after that. It wasn’t quite that simple, and there were weeks of madness. I didn’t know up from down, but when they got hold of me, they told me the truth, showed me I wasn’t crazy. They showed me the types of things that can happen in this world, what they help to keep from the public. And then they offered me a job. I had nothing left with the Army, they were ready to kick me out for mental