Echo

Dakota nodded swiftly. "Yes, that's what I believe it is. I've researched-" but again I didn't let her finish the sentence. My blood began to boil again and I felt my anger unleashed, mingled this time with disgust and horror.

"What kinda sick person is this!" I screamed.

Dakota's look silenced me. I trembled where I stood. "Can you calm down so we can have a rational discussion?" she asked quite calmly, despite my childish antics.

I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, and all the tension from my recent discovery fell off my shoulders. But turmoil and fear and disgust still swirled around inside me. For the second time today, I felt like being sick.

I had enough control to form a coherent question. "So...I can see into someone's mind," I began, and Dakota confirmed it with a nod. It was like she was the teacher and I was the dumb student who was finally learning what she had said a hundred times over. "A twisted, murderous person," the horror filled me up but I pushed it back down. "You said it was simple...why me? How?"

Dakota was prepared for my questions. "Why you? No one knows. It's Fate, and there's always a deeper reason, one that you can search for and never be found, but it's there. In the end, down along the way, you may discover it, only when it wants to be found. Fate is an intricate, concealed web of mysteries."

At the moment, I didn't care for Dakota's explanation on life's mysteries. I'd heard them a hundred times already. "Ok, so how?" I asked, hoping to push her towards the question.

She pursed her lips into a tight thin line and looked thoughtfully at me. "That insight is like a sixth sense. Sixth senses sometimes are born with you, or developed later in life, at any age, at any given time or place. But most come when you experience a serious trauma to the head."

She pointed at my forehead. Instinctively, I reached up and felt the swollen goose-egg on the right side of my head. "This? I got this this morning when Maddison-"

But Dakota marched up to me and placed a finger on the left side of my forehead. "No. This."

Dread, mingled with pain at her touch, filled inside me. She had just pointed out the scar on my forehead. About two weeks before, I was jogging in the park when a tall guy came running up behind me, and in his attempt to pass me, he accidentally shoved my shoulder and sent me stumbling sideways into a lightpost.

I had managed to save myself a full head-on collision with the pole, but when I turned my face, the left side still pinged off it pretty hard, putting me out cold for a few seconds. I had awoken ten seconds later, completely dazed and in pain, to find my head split open up there, and blood dripping down my face.

I managed to walk myself home-however drunkenly-but I refused Maddison's offer to take me to the hospital. I was adamant that I didn't need stitches, and I was right. The cut just patched itself up.

"So this stupid jogger gave me the insight into someone's mind."

She shrugged. "Fate works in mysterious ways." I concealed my groan from her. I didn't care about stupid Fate!

Enraged only further, I shoved my bandaged hand under her nose. Trying not to yell, I growled, "And how do you explain this? This is a connection to someone's mind?"

Dakota bit her lip. She gently held my hand and studied it between her own. "It is indeed a strange connection."

"No effin' way!" I jerked back my hand and glared at it. I didn't want this. I didn't need this. Not now, not ever.

Calm as ever, even with me shouting in her face, Dakota said, "Tell me what you saw this morning."