Mind Blind by Lari Don Read Free Book Online Page A

dry cold grit.
    But my fingers were touching the earth. Soft, slightly damp earth. Not gritty at all.
    That tiny difference between Vivien’s memories and my surroundings pulled me out of her death.
    Then I was lying on the ground again, brutally aware of my heaving stomach and thumping head.
    I flexed my mind cautiously. All the good readers – Daniel, Martha, Kerr, Sam − were now too far away to sense me. I’d been hidden in Vivien’s death for as long as it took them to walk to the other side of the course.
    I could sense other readers too. Further away, outside the fence.
    Bloody hell. My uncles. At least three of them.
    What were they doing here? Were they judging this as a field exercise? Marking Daniel on his leadership? Or assessing me, to see if I’d lost control completely? I hoped they hadn’t detected me trying out forbidden new techniques.
    I double-checked. The family were too far away to sense me, as I shivered and retched.
    I lay in the grass, wondering what I had just done.
    Did I
think
myself dead?
    I’d better not do that again. If the sensation of grit on Vivien’s fingers hadn’t woken me up, I might have shared her death forever.
    But it had worked. Daniel had walked right by me without sensing my emotions at all, because at the time I was feeling nothing.
    As my head and stomach settled, I sat up. Now I’d better get off this golf course.
    Was Roy still guarding the bent fence?
    I recognised the nearest mind and grinned.
    I wasn’t going to cheat. I was going to ask my best friend to cheat for me.
    I stood up, put my earthy hands in my pockets and strolled towards the fence.
    “Hey mate,” I said softly.
    “Hey.”
    “So, what about kneeling down and doing up your shoe, or nipping into the trees for a piss, and letting me past? Accidentally of course.”
    Roy is the worst reader in the family. He’s not bothered about his marks in training exercises, because he’s not planning on a career in the family firm. So of course he would let me past.
    But I could sense his answer.
    He was miserable. He was miserable that he’d been put here, miserable that I’d asked him to break a direct family order, miserable about how he was going to answer.
    He didn’t have to shake his head for me to know.
    “You’re choosing Daniel over me?”
    “It’s not Daniel’s hunt. It’s Malcolm’s hunt.”
    That made complete sense and no sense at all.
    The uncles weren’t watching Daniel hunt me. They were hunting me themselves, sending Daniel and his team in like beaters, to flush me out.
    Why were the senior readers hunting me? Just because I’d kept going when Malcolm and Mum ordered me to come back? I had no time to wonder. I had to get away.
    But Roy couldn’t let me past.
    Roy’s current strategy was to survive our family long enough to get out when he was eighteen. So he couldn’t directly disobey Malcolm, not even to help me.
    We both knew that he should keep me here and call for back up.
    We stared at each other.
    We’re both readers. He’s a useless reader and I’m crap at everything, but you don’t need to read minds to know what your best friend is going to do.
    I grinned at him. He frowned.
    Then I turned my back on him and ran.
    I sensed his indecision. Would he yell out, tell them I was here?
    No. He smashed through the grass after me. His long legs caught up with me and his hand stretched for the back of my t-shirt.
    Then, with perfect timing, he stumbled over his own big feet and thumped to the ground behind me.
    I laughed as I ran off. Let Malcolm try and sort that one out. All he’ll get is the truth of Roy refusing to let me through, and of Roy tripping and falling when he chased me.
    But now I was running
away
from the best exit.
    So I ran towards the only other way off the course. The clubhouse.
    Then I sensed a thump of recognition. Someone had spotted me.

CHAPTER 10
Ciaran Bain, 28 th October
    I’d been spotted by Kerr, on the other side of the clubhouse. He must