Free Hunting Cari (First Wave) by Mikayla Lane

clan mother. But she goes by Cari.
Right now, our priority is finding her and bringing her back to her Clan protector,
Randor. When Randor is well enough to tell us how to find the other children,
we will eventually find them as well and bring them home.” Scaden replied to
his astonished team.
    “They
have more children? More daughters? Females? How?” One of the men asked in
amazement.
    “We
don’t know. And we won’t know until Randor is well enough to explain it to us.
Right now, we have to find Cari. Randor said the children have 'gifts'. We
aren’t sure what all these gifts are, but he said Cari is something he called a
projectionist. She has the ability to project any emotion and make everyone
around her feel it. Fear, anger, hatred… any emotion.”
    “Randor
said she is very stubborn and would most likely attempt to instigate the
Relians to kill her, rather than be held captive by them. So when we find her,
we are going to have to be very aware that what you may be feeling might be her
projecting her emotions. You will have to fight through it. We all will.”
Scaden informed them.
    “Sir,
we have found the vehicle used by Randor for travel. We’re ready to follow the
trajectory scan, at your command.” Niklosi said.
    “Then
let’s move out now.” Scaden said following Niklosi to Randor's vehicle. He had
to find the female… and soon. He had to touch her, and know she was alright.
And he was damned if he knew why.
    *****
    Cari
slowly climbed through the darkness in her mind. She hurt. Everywhere. But
nothing so bad that she couldn’t handle it. Putting her toes back on the floor
to take the pressure off her wrists and arms, she opened her eyes to see if
Vincent was still in the barn.
    The
only person in the barn was Jess. She was curled up on the floor near Cari’s
feet, and looked to be asleep. She could see the bruises on the girls’ arms and
legs where they had hurt her. Her anger rising, she vowed to herself that if
she ever got out of here, she would come back for Jess. She no more than
finished the thought, and Jess whipped her head up and around to look at Cari.
    “Stop!
No anger. Please stop. You are already so badly injured. Please stop.” Jess
begged as she awkwardly tried to crawl towards Cari.
    “It
can’t be that bad. I really don’t hurt all that much. But I’ll try to calm
down, for you.” Cari said gently.
    “It
is that bad. And worse. You have broken ribs, a broken leg… and your face. I’m
so sorry. You have to try to control yourself. He’ll kill you next time. And it
does no good to release you if you can’t make it out of here to safety.” Jess
said grabbing a rag and dipping it into a bucket of water, Cari hadn’t noticed
before.
    “But
I don’t hurt bad enough to have really broken anything.” Cari said taking stock
of her injuries. She knew one of her eyes was swollen almost shut. And her lip
was split; she could taste the blood in her mouth and used her tongue to run
along the cut. Her ribs and leg did hurt, but she didn’t think it was bad
enough for anything to be broken. Her wrists and arms hurt, probably from
holding the weight of her body.
    “It’s
the bracelet on your ankle. Apparently, what was created for you is dampening
the pain and speeding the healing process for you. Even now, you look a lot
better than you did a few hours ago. I made another one for your other ankle as
soon as I saw what he did to you.” Jess said, gently using the rag to clean off
more of the blood from Cari’s face.
    “Wow.
Are you sure the anklets are what is helping to heal me?” Cari asked
wonderingly, lifting up her foot to try to look at the anklets. It didn’t look
that special to her although, it was beautiful. However, she did notice the
awkward bend in her thigh, denoting Jess was right about the broken leg.
    “I
didn’t understand at first why it chose all the healing stones, but now I know.
The red is carnelian, and the white is an unusual obsidian and