There was a lot there.
A family of four had built the place in the early 1900’s; the parents had died, leaving the kids alone at the ripe young age of sixteen. From there, the eldest sibling had lived there with the sister until the sister had died of pneumonia two years later.
The memories continued through the brother’s life, all the way up until he walked in one last time in the nineteen eighties and never came back out alive again.
The next time someone had entered the cabin had been when three men had come out there around a year ago and started fixing it up.
I watched, and waited, for Wink to get all the memories that I did from the door handle.
Sometimes they had to be searched for, but the ones on the door handle were so complete that I doubted she would have to.
Which she told me not ten seconds later.
“That was amazing!” she said excitedly. “Why don’t I have to do that everywhere?”
I explained the basics to her, and she nodded.
“So this is all the time for you?” she asked, pushing the door open.
I nodded.
“I’ve gotten to the point where the images and information cycle into my mind, into a different compartment than my normal thoughts take place,” I said, walking through the door behind her and turning on the light. “You’ll get to that point too, I’m sure. You’ve already partially taken on my habits, at least when it comes to the powers. You know me, and when you learn something new by touching something of mine, you process it and forget about it almost as fast as it happens. Kind of like the DNA. I see it but I don’t ‘see it.’ Not unless I’m actively telling my brain to process the information.”
“Hmm,” she said, looking around the room.
There wasn’t much to the inside just like the outside.
It was a one-bedroom open styled floor plan. One side of the large room was the kitchen, where we were currently located. The other side housed a bed and wardrobe, as well as a bathroom behind a curtain.
The single window that led to the outside was worn and needed to be thrown away and replaced.
The lighting, however was atrocious. The lamps that were inside were dull, and barely lit the room.
But one of the benefits I’d acquired from Mace was sharper than normal eyesight.
I could see in the dark, which meant that Wink could see in the dark now, too.
Something that she realized when she headed into the room and automatically walked to the string that would turn the light on.
“I can see in the dark,” she said, sounding only mildly surprised.
“Yep,” I confirmed.
“I wanted superhuman strength,” she said.
I snorted.
“So did I,” I said. “But, as you can see, I only get what I’m gifted with. Alaric, one of the other dragon riders who you haven’t met yet, has strength like you’re speaking of. He can do just about anything strength wise, but that’s all he can do.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I’ll have to weigh the benefits.”
She looked around the room while I walked up to the table that Brooklyn had been tied down to, and placed my fingertip on it.
It was a hack I’d grown accustomed to using when I was wary of seeing something that might overwhelm me.
When I was younger and still trying to control my powers, I’d learned to be careful about what I touched, because if I wasn’t, I’d be lost in the memories without my conscious desire to do so.
I’d had to come up with an adaptive technique in the instance that I needed to be aware of my surroundings, but also needing to read something.
The less skin that’s touching the object you’re trying to read, means the less information dump you get.
Doing it the way I did it with the fingertip meant I could control how fast the memories came at me so I could pay attention as well.
Wink watched me work, then did the same thing I was doing.
“Force the memories into your box,” I instructed. “Form the box with your mind, and then funnel them into the box, but also pay attention to me at the same time. Okay?”
She pursed her lips and watched me.
“Working?” I asked her.
She nodded.
“What do you see?” I asked her.
“Pain. Brooklyn. She was in pain,” she whispered.
I nodded.
“Her brother. That’s the male you see in the picture. He teamed up with the purists—religious zealots that didn’t think anything but humans should live on Earth—and tried to lure Nikolai here using Brooklyn,” I informed her.
She nodded.
“I can see,” she confirmed. “There’s another male in the background, but I can’t get a sense of him.”
I nodded.
“That’s the man I think can hide his aura. His signature,” I said. “I can feel him, too, but I can’t get a definite identity on him like I can with everyone else.”