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were smothering me with affection, and I knew that the only reason you were doing it was because I told you to. After the first few days when everyone thought I was ‘the man,’ I realized it was just a farce. I had taken away your choice and I got no pleasure from that, so I got back in your head and told you to tell me that you just wanted to be friends. You broke up with me, and that was that. It was the right thing for me to do because I had taken away your choice. I’m sorry, Erika. Please forgive me.”
    Erika looked somewhat confused. “I honestly don’t understand what you mean by ‘mind-control,’ but before you explain, do you remember when I was in eighth grade and you were in seventh and we had a drama class together?”
    “ Yeah, Mrs. Jackson hated me. Always gave me embarrassing things to do, and the class was filled with popular eighth grade girls. It was humiliating.”
    “ No, Mrs. Jackson didn’t hate you. She thought you were just as cute as the rest of us. Practically every girl in the class had a crush on you, but most of them got over it once they got into high school. I never got over it. I always liked you.”
    “ But in tenth grade, I told you to like me.”
    “ Well, if that mind-control is real, that explains my obsessive behavior my junior year. But the way I saw it, it was the first time you actually paid any attention to me . Telling you that I just wanted to be friends has haunted me my whole life. I’m sorry that I said that to you because it wasn’t what I wanted. And, Clay, I’ve always been a very affectionate person. My affection was genuine.”
    Clay’s mind was whirling. It seemed to him that every time he controlled someone’s mind, he made a complete mess of things. Clay proceeded to tell Erika about how he messed with a rival in high school, bringing chaos to his life, and how his powers affected his relationship with his wife and son. He told how he hid his powers and vowed to not use them, but nearly every time he did use them, it came back to haunt him. He told about how Tanner began developing his own powers, and then he told about how unhappy and lonely he was that he couldn’t have a proper relationship with his wife or son. It led to the murder of his wife, and he felt responsible. When Erika suggested that he was gifted, he responded that he felt it was more of a curse than some sort of blessing. Erika listened intently. She knew that she was supposed to be helping Clay, and she was trying to determine what it was that he really needed—what it was that was his real problem. Clay was talking about it; that was a first step in a faith lesson. He was trusting her with his pain and his secrets. But once they reached the cave, the real lessons would begin.
    ***
    With Erika gone for the day, Marshall Mortonson, walked to the ‘attic’ door at the end of the upstairs hallway of the Depot. Mortonson had taken to occasionally pulling out his old account books and reminiscing about his past as he spent more and more time, of late, thinking about his future. It was actually an unfinished storage room—the actual attic was above the second floor—but the real attic was rarely accessed and the storage room became known as the attic, mostly because that is exactly what it looked like. The historical building had managed to keep its original design even after over a hundred years of wear and restorations. The door to the storage room attic was no exception and was still unlocked by one of two skeleton keys that Mortonson carried. Marshall kept his account books locked inside a Sentry fireproof safe inside the attic. The electronic keypad was long since inoperable, but the safe could be opened via a backup system by using a skeleton key. Marshall Mortonson was the only person who had copies of each key.
    Marshall was a numbers geek. He’d always kept the books for the business while Adrian Payne took care of sales. Approximately four years into the partnership, the