The Survivors

Chapter Four: Nomad

4

NOMAD

I spent most of the day with my eyes closed, sitting on the bed, trying to focus on anything I could about Mark Winter. I had never encountered someone I could not read, though clearly Mark was unlike all the humans I had spent my time with for the last three years. I could always sense my family, though, so why couldn't I sense Mark? After he walked out the door of my penthouse, it was as if he'd evaporated.

  I needed to be able to see inside his mind because, despite his warnings, I planned to track him. First, I would tell my family of his existence, and then I hoped to provide them with his whereabouts. Then I would go, my part in this ended. But I had to find a way to sense him first.

  In the meantime, I got ready for my journey. I had to pack everything I owned, which was not quite the feat it would be for a typical person. Despite using Nashville as home base for some time, I was still a nomad. I didn't travel as lightly as the typical nomad, true, but I could fit everything I owned into a large set of Hartmann luggage that fit in my car. I had never had the desire to stay in one place, and I had used up the resources in Nashville, so it was time to move on. Now that Corrina was gone, I had no ties here.

  The next morning I gathered all my things and called for a bellman. I took the elevator down to the lobby and asked a young girl behind the desk to get the general manager so I could speak with her. I explained that it was time for me to leave, and assured her that they had done all they could have to make this hotel feel like home to me. I meant every word I said.

  She shook my hand and thanked me graciously for my patronage. She inscribed her private cell phone number on a business card and encouraged me to use it should I need anything. I handed her a stack of sealed envelopes, each marked with a hotel employee's name. I had made a mental map of everyone I had met here, and I put at least a $50 bill into each envelope, along with a thank you. For those I perceived needed or deserved more, I threw in a little extra.

  The valet pulled my car around, and the bellhops loaded my luggage, puzzle-pieced to fit in my trunk. I thanked them graciously, pulled out of the lot back onto West End, turned left, and quickly merged onto I-40. I wove my way out of Nashville's giant roundabout of interstates, onto I-65 northbound, then I-24 westward, and finally left the city in the rearview mirror. As I saw the last of the city's skyline fade away, my stomach caught. It had been the only human home I'd ever had, and now this was it for Nashville and me.

I had 2,000 miles to think. I spent the first 500 miles trying to convince myself there was a reasonable explanation for Mark Winter's powers so I could turn my car around. Was there a technology I wasn't familiar with, perhaps? Was he a superhero like those I saw in comic books and in movies? Couldn't he be something other than what I was? Because if he were like us, then that would mean there were others roaming the earth, and I refused to believe that. Why would the elders lie about that?

            But secrecy wasn't out of character. My family had kept us isolated in a walled city in Montana, and had banned the reading of books from the outside except for evolving translations of the Bible (with the exceptions of the books Lizzie and Sarah had given Noah, Ben, and me). And why? They never offered explanations for the isolation.