Eyes are the window to the crime.

 Being a medium sucks.

 If I had any choice in the matter, I would be as mundane as possible, a whole foods manager, or maybe a pool cleaner. Granted, if I had a choice, but my "gift" seems to have a mind of its own. Or an eye of its own. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Plus, I'm a little too busy at the moment to wallow. I may not love being a medium, but that doesn't mean I don't work hard, so I need to concentrate. 

From what I can see of my surroundings I'm in a dingy motel at the edge of town. I can barely see the red hue of a vacancy sign - which narrows it down to one of four motels that even desperate people driving through won't give a chance. 

God. Kidnappers are so predictable. I mean, a motel? 

Really?

I don't have much more time to think about the lack of common sense some people possess, because I realize I'm crying.

God I hate crying, I also hate seeing anyone cry.

My head suddenly moves around looking at as much of the hotel room I can while being tied to a chair, and I notice that the comforter is adorned with trees. 

  I also note that the focus of all the art in the room is of trees as well, i can see some Aspen, A big Willow, but mostly Pine trees.

Suddenly the front door opens, and a man who looks like he's straight out of prison comes in.

Well, okay, I know for a fact that he's straight out of prison, but my opinion would still stand if I saw him walking down the street.

"Priscilla, stop pretending to cry." he grounds out.

For a moment I had forgotten that my name is not Priscilla, that he is not my abusive ex boyfriend, and that I am not the person in this room.

I feel my mouth trying to speak though my gag, and then three words escape.

"Go."

"To."

"Hell."

He isn't pleased by this, and brings the back of his hand careening into my skull. 

The next words I hear are nicer, but not by much.

"Joey, Joey hey, come on wake up or I'm going to leave you in a coma." Okay not nicer, but they come from someone who is usually nice to me.

That would be my partner, who is probably annoyed I didn't cut the connection with Priscilla before anything violent happened, considering the longer I use my gift the more my own body feels what the person I've reached out to feels.

"Sorry Dan I was trying to get as much info as possible on where Priscilla was, but Elliot decided to knock her out before I could narrow down which motel it was." I say, giving him a half ass apology.

"Jesus Joe. It's fine, you mumbled some stuff about a motel and trees, and we found the place. I've already sent some guys, we gotta go now or I'm leaving you." He rushes, making me feel a tad as stupid as Elliot is for kidnapping Dan's little sister.

We get to The Whispering Pines motel in about 3 minutes, which is unnerving considering it's supposedly a 20 minute drive, but now doesn't seem like a good time to remind Dan on the rules of safe driving.

The whole thing then lasts about as long as the drive. 

Dan has Elliot in handcuffs sporting a nasty blow to the face before I can even decide how to be useful in an actual police situation, so I opt for slinking over to Priscilla.

She's sitting down on the curb by her secondary location, and I have to hold myself back from making a joke about her surviving.

"Hey Joe, I was taken to a secondary location and made it out alive, take that J. J. Bittenbinder." Priscilla says while laughing. 

Damn.

Who says humor isn't a positive coping mechanism.

"Good job Pri, you've avoided being a statistic." I offer, making my way over to sit on the curb beside her.

"Come on, let's go over to The Hole In The Wall and get a bite to eat." I nudge her shoulder, hoping that the prospect of going to our favorite diner will get her to get away from the motel.

"Yeah alright, but I promise I'm fine, Elliot's harmless, I would've been fine." She casually comments.

If I didn't know Priscilla like the back of my hand I would have been too charmed by her natural confidence to pick out the slight tremor of her voice as she tried to assure me, or more herself, that she was apparently fine.

"Mhm, let's go, I've had a craving for the Breakfast For Dinner burger all day." I tell her, pulling her up to her feet.

As we drive to the diner (getting there in 12 minutes, exactly as long as it should take to get there) I let myself indulge in the reward of my gift, and remind myself why I do this, and how good it is to see the person I've saved alive.

Possibly my favorite person on the planet greets us as we walk in. Betty started this diner in the 80's and still runs this place almost all by herself. 

   Four years ago her grandchildren moved out here to be closer to her while they went to college. I don't know if it was just creepy twin powers or what, but they got her to cave and allow them to work for her, and are still the only other people she's let behind the counter.

I would never tell her, but I think she's the happiest I've ever seen her, even if it's just because the twins are cooking now.

"Hi kids, what can I get you Priscilla?" Betty says once we get into our booth, directing her question at my friend seeing as I've been getting the same thing here since I was 11.

"Oh gosh, well, let's do The Yellow Brick Road please." Priscilla says after a moment of deciding.

Of course she just got waffles.

What a dweeb.

My favorite dweeb.

A dweeb that I would've killed for if she'd died tonight.

God.

She could've died tonight.

I remember when we were both 15, and we snuck up onto my roof to see fireworks for the 4th of July. It was the summer my gift had shown itself, and I was constantly terrified of looking into someone else's world, and not knowing what to do.

  We had been up there for only a few minutes when I had tilted my head up to see a firework and the yellow sparks suddenly turned green, and I was at the town park watching an entirely different set of fireworks.

After realizing what was happening I started to freak out, which progressed when a hand came over my mouth and a gun dug into my back.

In an instant the gun muddled into a hand, and my mouth was free, and I was in Priscillas arms sobbing.

She calmed me down enough to piece out what had happened, and with no hesitation called 911. She then told the operator that she had seen what had happened from her roof.

   We couldn't see anything but darkness from that park, but the operator had no reason to doubt her and sent the police over right away.

    They managed to get there in time, and those eyes that I had looked through belonged to my neighbor Jared, who because of Priscilla (since I would've just remained catatonic on that roof had she not been there) was studying to become a teacher at our local college.

Priscilla always knows what to do, and I'd probably be in an institution right now if it wasn't for her constant presence in my life grounding me to sanity.

She interrupts my inner monologue by flicking my nose.

"Stop it." She scolds.

"Stop what!" I defend, rubbing my nose.

"You were staring at me like a lost dog Joe, I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere." She tells me, staring intensely at me, silently daring me to argue.

  "I know, I know Pri, but that doesn't mean it scared the hell out of me any less." I whisper, not comfortable at all talking about my feelings, but needing her to understand how important she is.

Before either of us can start crying, again I hate crying, Betty comes over with three delicious looking platters, and after drooling over them for a moment I realize we had only ordered two. 

Our confusion is about to be voiced, but Betty cuts in, "Shut up, I'm just glad you're both still in one piece, this pie is a thank you for not being complete idiots tonight."

With that completely sweet gesture, she leaves us.

"Wow, and I thought you were bad about being mushy." Priscilla muses at me as she skips her waffles for a bite of blackberry cobbler.

"Well now I'm not so sure I shouldn't have just left you at the motel." I grumble before taking out just as big of a bite from the cobbler.

After bickering back and forth for quite a reasonable amount of time, we lapse into a comfortable silence and move our concentration to making our way through our food.

My nerves have now unwound, and I feel as close to peaceful as I'm capable of sitting in the diner, wrapped in the warm yellow lights, with the soft hum of other patrons chatting amongst themselves, sitting with my best friend who I finally saved for a change.

Okay, maybe being a medium doesn't totally suck.