Shifted

Chapter 26: Mind Clash

Declan stood near the three stone pedestals at the front of the room, tracing the strange, circular shape etched into the stone with his finger. Surprisingly, now that Finn had gone, my mind was clear as day and my body was finally back in my own control. The last time I was with Declan alone, I felt as though my mind was swimming. As I watched Declan, I did my best to keep any doubts out of my mind. I knew whatever I thought, he would use it to his advantage.

"I thought my son had masterfully convinced you to leave, my dear," Declan said after a long silence.

"Couldn't you just Shift me and find that out if you wanted to? By that logic, you'd already know what happened by several accounts," I answered audaciously.

I wasn't always this brazen but I was feeling confident and honestly I had nothing else to lose. Declan was the lion and me, the mouse. He smiled knowingly from across the room, his eyes crinkling at the corners where his smile met them. His white teeth gleamed in contrast to his dark heart. It was dangerous how charming he was...somehow I still wanted to like him despite his manipulative track record.

"You really are more clever than Americans get credit for, and how you're keeping your mind guarded, I don't know. But I applaud you," Declan declared.

I looked at him flatly, allowing my body to emit its protective glow once again. I straightened my posture, readying myself for Declan's next move. My necklaces swung again, immediately drawing Declan's attention to them. While he was distracted, I took my moment to Shift him.

For the first time, I truly looked into Declan's mind, searching for what his interest in my necklaces might be. His mind was incredible, it had to be one of the most active minds I'd Shifted so far. It was full of thoughts and memories that zipped by like cars on a busy highway. At this moment, he was actively calculating the risk I could pose to him. He still wasn't sure of my potential, and he was also ridiculously frustrated at something.

Filtering through useless memories, I came upon a file in his mind labeled Artifacts. There were countless memories in this file, so I figured it would be worth a look. They began with his pocket watch; there were hundreds of memories of him pulling out this watch.

I was shocked and intrigued to find that he didn't check his watch for the time, but rather to see the future. Every time he pulled it out in these memories, an image of future events would show on the face of the watch, similar to the way Dillon's visions of the future looked. With this information, I jumped forward to his current thoughts.

As I watched the most recent memory, he was standing near the door of the chapel, watching guests for the wedding file in. This memory must have been within the last couple of hours. From Declan's point of view, I observed as he pulled out the pocket watch. Once again, instead of a watch face, I saw a vision-like scene through his watch. He was seeing Finn and myself, as Finn was carrying me down the stairs to the room we were in now.

In the memory, Declan looked up from his watch to the end of the aisle of the church at his son, standing near the altar. Dillon was frozen where he stood and I could tell by the look on his face that he was having a vision. Within a few seconds, he came out of the vision and locked eyes immediately on Declan, resentment burning in his posture. Without a second thought, Declan then turned away from Dillon and started for the castle.

In the present, I was retreating from Declan's mind just as he was looking from my necklace up to my face. I focused on his shocking blue eyes that reminded me so much of Dillon's and smiled.

"So whatever future you see through your watch, Dillon sees too?" I asked. Somehow I wasn't as taken aback anymore by the more inconceivable elements of this new world. Declan's extraordinary watch just seemed to fit in perfectly with the life that I was now living.