by Faulks, Kim
I stepped through the doorway and into the house.
We came for answers.
And we waited no more.
Chapter Twenty
Oleander
Glasses clinked, slow chatter stumbled as Emily-Sue took in Sixth, Tex and Shadow. Her cheeks flushed as Tex took the filled glass with a, “thank you Ma’am.”
“This here is my Mom, Jess. I’m sorry about the welcoming, it’s just…”
“It’s just we don’t trust,” her mom answered. “Not anymore. We used to…before…”
Before…
The pause was filled with so many words. I tried to place them all together, tried to fill the space. Before they let you all go…before we knew what you were…
Before they turned you into monsters.
“Before…” Sixth urged and took a sip of his drink.
“Before they killed my husband,” the older woman answered. “It might’ve been him who pulled the trigger, but they were the ones who put that gun to his head. They were the ones who backed him into a corner…they were the ones who made him do those things…those things…”
“To us.” The words slipped free. “They were the ones who made him do those things to us.”
Sixth turned his head towards me and took a step closer. He reached for my hand, and the others followed. Tex stood at my shoulder as Shadow took my other hand.
Emily-Sue lowered her gaze, catching the unspoken words.
We…
Us…
Together…
“Who are they,” Sixth answered.
“Johnathan Harper,” Jess answered and looked him straight in the eye.
Johnathan Harper. The name roared through my mind as Sixth dropped his hand from mine. “Johnathan Harper…President Johnathan Harper?”
“I knew it,” Tex snarled. “I fucking knew it!”
“He was the one who started it. He came to our house, sprouting lies like it was spring. He fed them to Chris, God he fed them to him, telling him about this once in a life time opportunity. Kids with special abilities, he told me, even though he told me they’d kill both of us if they knew he’d shared that information. I didn’t believe him, not at first, not until he showed me the files.” She glanced at me then, stared into my eyes, and then skimmed my hair. “The girls were called, Eves, and the boys, Adams, first of their kind.”
Eve. Pryor’s voice filled me. I flinched as Jess continued to talk.
“They made it sound like he was going to turn human evolution on its head, and in a way, he did. At first it was the parents, he was told to lie to them, to use anything he could to tear these children from the safety of their homes. Many had good, honest, loving parents…” She glanced at me. “But some didn’t.”
My heart boomed inside my throat. I tried to swallow as that image came to life. Christmas. Me sitting on Mom’s lap. “Did they kill her? Did they kill my Mom?”
I waited for the flinch, for the recognition of the words—words so terrible they couldn’t be true.
“I don’t know,” Jess answered. “And I doubt you’ll ever find out. They did a lot of heinous things, and President Harper has many sins to answer for. But those in power will never let any of this come out.” She glanced toward the shotgun that sat against the wall inside the front door. “We’ve been running our entire lives.”
“We found you,” Shadow broke in. “And if we did, then others will too.”
“Oh, they know we’re here, they send their men every now and then to,” she lifted her hand, two fingers curling as she snapped, “check on us.”
A thump echoed somewhere under the floor. Emily-Sue stiffened. Rushed words spilled from Jess’s mouth, as though she suddenly had to unleash all these secrets, “The girls were the key he told me, it was all about the girls. They were programmed…”
But that noise came again thud echoing under the floor boards.
TICK…TICK…TICK…
The sound was a roar inside my head. My entire body vibrated…sending a shudder like an electric pulse. I took a step, moving toward the doorway before they knew.
“Hey!” Emily-Sue called out.
But I wasn’t listening. I was letting destiny lead the way as I stepped through the doorway and into the hall. A set of stairs led down under the house, and that was where I needed to be.
“Don’t you dare go down there!” Jess roared, footsteps rushed, voices were raised…her’s and Sixth.
He’d protect me, they’d all protect me. Flashes of the past descended as I strode by the open bedroom doors, gripped the bannister and stepped down the first stairs.
“Oleander!” Sixth called me.
But I couldn’t stop…not until it was done.
Flashes filled my head. The roar of sound, blasting my ears.
You belong to us…you are a weapon. You are not human. You are nothing.
Step…
TICK.
Step…
TICK.
Step…
TICK.
Step…
Darkness swallowed me as I hit the last stair and stopped at the entrance to the basement until my eyes adjusted.
He sat in a wheelchair with his back turned to me, quiet, motionless…until his hand gripped the steel frame around the wheel and yanked. The chair swung, smacking into the timber cabinet behind…thud…
“You knew it was me, didn’t you?” I took a step closer as those words filled my mind once more…not human…weapon…it was all about the girls… “You knew I’d come.”
His hand slipped from the frame around the wheel, and he turned his head as Emily-Sue spoke behind me. “He’s been like this since the accident. But we stay together, him and all his stuff. He wrote about you, you know? His girl with the purple hair. It’s in his notebooks…if you get the chance, I mean if you want to stay for a while he might let you read them.”
I moved deeper in the dark, rounding the wheelchair to stop in front of the man I once called a friend. His face was misshapen, skull caved in on one side.
His eye was closed, eyelid puckered and stuck. But his other was open, and blazing blue. I dropped to my knees, holding his gaze and murmured, “I’d like that very much.”
There was a flicker in the blue. A recognition. And that ticking in my head throbbed louder. “You knew I’d come, didn’t you?”
My hand shook, fingers trembled. He held his breath as I reached for his cheek. His eye widened. The beast moved closer to the surface, sweeping in like that cold Alaskan wind. “What happened to him?”
“He tried to kill himself, it was the day we left. He went home, walked inside and opened the safe, took out the gun we had there, and then blew a hole in his skull. But he didn’t kill himself. He missed all vital organs, leaving him like you see him now.”
I wondered if he knew…I wondered how he slept at night, knowing what they did to us.
The faint sound of thunder came from overhead. Emily-Sue stiffened, and then turned. “There are no damn clouds in the sky.”
And then she left, the echo of her boots mingled with the sound of my pulse as she raced up the steps, leaving us alone.
“You knew.”
His good arm trembled, the other limp by his side as he gave the tiniest nod, and answered. “I knew it would be you. You always were my favorite.”
My fingers danced, barely an inch from his cheek.
“Purple, we got a situation here!” Sixth roared overhead.
“Do it,” the broken man in front of me whispered, his stare imploring. “Please.”
Not human.
Weapon.
Kill.
The booming in my head, merged with the TICK…TICK…TICK…
“Did…they…kill…my…mother?”
The crack of a rifle broke out overhead. I didn’t flinch, nailed to the spot by that one clear blue eye as I whispered once more. “Did they kill her?”
Boots boomed as Shadow raced down the stairs. “Babe, we have to go now…it’s
gotta be Pryor.”
But the doctor turned his head, staring at Shadow as Tex lunged down the stairs after him.
“Like now, Purple,” Tex bellowed, and leaped over the bannister, midway along the stairs.
“It worked,” the doctor whispered as Tex strode toward me, lips trembled, repeating the words once more. “It worked.”
“Dad!” Emily-Sue screamed. “I’m not leaving without my Dad.”
“Goddamnit,” Tex barked and then rounded the wheel chair and motioned Shadow to the other side. “We’re not here for you, old man. Just making sure we’re clear.”
“For her,” Doctor Bishop whispered as drool slips from his lips. “Everything for her.”
“Damn straight,” Shadow snarled and then they heaved the old man and the wheel chair from the ground. “Everything is for her.”
They side-stepped and shuffled, hauling him out of the basement and then up the stairs.
The sharp crack of the rifle, mingled with the boom of the shotgun, and the bitter scent of gunpowder carried. I climbed the stairs behind Shadow as they hit the landing and then shoved the doctor toward the entrance where we’d come in.
Sixth stilled at the open window, jerked his gaze toward me as he reloaded, and then turned to the doctor. “You lied to us.”
Emily-Sue took aim at the chopper that touched down next to the barn and snarled. “Yes, and you’d do the damn same for those you love.”
He glanced at me, and then lifted his gaze to the sight once more. He’d lie. He’d kill. He’d do whatever his soul could allow…and then things it wouldn’t.
He’d wrestle with those decisions for the rest of his life.
Just as I would wrestle with them for mine.
I knew now…knew as Jess stepped into the lounge room with a pistol in her hand—I knew it wasn’t fate or destiny that bought us here.
It was control.
It was fear.
It was the ticking in my head.
And the memories in theirs.
It was that place.
Jess took a step, and leaned down to her husband kissing him on the cheek and then whispered. “I love you, Chris. I’ve always loved you.”
And then she turned, made for the front door and was gone.
The scream of the screen door hinges were all she left behind. Sixth swore, and then wrenched the muzzle of his rifle high.
Jess was a dark blur, racing along the verandah to leap down the stairs. “Get the fuck away from my family!”
Pop…pop…pop…the firing of the pistol punctured the roar of the rotor blades. But there was a crack in response.
I stepped closer to the doorway as Emily-Sue screamed. “Mom!”
Emily-Sue dropped the muzzle of the shotgun, and lunged for the front door.
“No!” Sixth roared, jerking his gaze to her and then charged.
My heart thundered. Time slowed. Bits of wooden doorframe exploded as Emily-Sue punched through the door to race after her Mom.
“Purple, stay here!” Sixth screamed as Tex moved to Sixth’s open pack and dragged out a pistol.
Shadow was next, lunging for the bag, and grabbing whatever he could as the sound of another chopper filled the air.
Sixth punched though the screen door and vaulted over the verandah in one fluid move, as the barrage of gunshots rang out.
“For you,” the doctor gurgled. “All for you.”
Bullets smacked into the front of the house as Pryor’s voice drifted from the chopper. “Give me the girl! No one has to die here.”
The crack of a rifle came in response. I took a step toward the doorway, drawn by that sound. The beast slipped closer, swallowing and consuming, tearing veins from the earth as memories slipped into place.
Weapon…
Target…
Not Human…
Kill…
Weapon…
Target…
And amongst the deafening roar of that room… Where they stuck things against the side of my head…where they forced those images into my mind just like they forced those drugs into my veins. I saw him.
My target.
My destiny.
My pulse stuttered as gunshots rained from the outside in, and the inside out. I turned then…turned to that one clear blue eye.
And for a minute I couldn’t move…
As the ticking inside my head stopped.
The beast bloomed, sweeping over me without warning. She smiled, moved my body as though it were her own and stepped closer to the doctor to whisper. “The end is finally here.”
His hand gripped the armrest, fingers spearing into the cracked leather as he gave a tiny nod.
The brush of my finger against his cheek was sweet, and soft. She never waited, unleashing the venom from the tips of our finger into his cheek.
I was nine years old the first time I killed a man.
And today I killed another.
Not the man I needed to kill.
But the one they commanded of me.
The one I was programmed to all those years ago.
He closed his eye, body shaking and shuddering.
Blood slipped from the corner of his mouth as the second helicopter’s engine died down.
“Oleander?” Shadow called.
But Oleander was a prisoner for the beast. She stared at the doctor as black veins carved lines across his face, and exhaled long and slow before he stilled.
Something wet slipped down my cheek. Followed by another.
Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth as the crack…crackcrackcrack…of automatic gunfire filled the air.
“Momma’s still alive. We have to get—” Emily-Sue barged through the screen door and then stopped dead in the middle of the living room.
She stared at him, silent, eye half closed, black veins across his face, and then lifted her gaze to mine. There was a flinch, a cold, brutal understanding.
But there were no words.
Not now…
Not ever.
She turned, glanced at the others and then strode through the screen door.
“What have you done, Purple?” Tex murmured and took a step toward me. “What the Hell have you done?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Oleander
Shadow grabbed Sixth’s pack, took one look at the dead doctor and then made for the front door.
I knew where he was going…he had bad guys to kill.
All for me, remember?
Everything was for me.
Tears dripped from the edge of my jaw. “Open your eyes,” I snarled to the beast inside. “Open your goddamn eyes and look what we’ve done.”
I wanted that ticking in my head back again…wanted that need to get somewhere…to be something…desperate to remember once more.
My knees trembled, still I held on.
I held on as those memories flooded back to me…
Things stuck on the side of my head.
The booming of that sound.
A man screaming...and blood, so much blood.
Weapon.
Kill.
Not Human.
Weapon.
I lifted my hand. I could still feel the softness of his cheek. Would my own feel the same?
A memory slipped free from the darkness. Cold steel bed under my body, straps tight against my wrists…I was a just a girl…just a skinny, scraggly girl, ripped from her mother’s arms.
A tiny whimper filled my ears, muffled and pathetic. I turned toward the sound. Blue eyes sparked in the darkness.
She lay on a bed, wrists strapped, just like me. I caught the tremble of her lip…words a mumble. “Where are we?”
“It’s okay,” I answered, slick tears falling down my cheek.
I tried to reach for her, fingers outstretched, the straps too tight. My wrist stung under the bandage, burning from what they did to me. I lifted my gaze to hers, same bandage, same hand.
“Are-are y-you my f-friend?” she blubbered. “I wan
na…p-please, I wanna…”
“Yes,’ the words slipped free, finger outstretched until the skin between them burns with the strain. “I’m your friend.”
Blue eyes sparked, just a flicker…
And through the window at the far end of the room, lightning slashed the night sky.
“We’ve gotta get out of here.” Tex wrenched me from the memory. “Emily-Sue and her mother are gone, left us behind. Pryor just let them get away.”
Of course he did. They weren’t the one he was after. The gun gave one last crack and then nothing. The air throbbed with the silence. I turned my head to the screen door, and to the faint yellows and browns of an open field.
“I have to go back down to the basement,” I turned to Tex. “I have to get his notebooks.”
I lunged, driving my boots into the floor.
“Oleander!” Tex roared behind me.
Tears blurred the stairs. I smacked into the bannister, pain flared in my hip as I grasped the railing and lunged down the stairs.
Darkness waited for me. I stumbled in the direction where Emily-Sue had glanced before. Notebooks were stacked in a corner on the floor. Their spines were broken, pages torn and stuffed back inside the cover.
“Babe, please!” Tex stumbled after me.
“You have to help me!” I grasped one pile and lunged toward him. “I’m not leaving these behind. I have to know…I have to know what they did to my Mom.”
He opened his arms, holding on as I handed him the books and then returned for the others. “Someone has to figure this out.” I spoke those words for me. “Someone has to know. We have to warn them…we have to…we have to…”
That open field filled my mind. Tall grasses waving, heavy with seeds.
We were the seeds.
Floating in the wind.
My nails skimmed the concrete floor as I grasped the last of the notebooks and straightened. “We’re the seeds, Tex. We are the seeds.”
“You’re not making any sense, Purple.”
He looked at me with concern. But it didn’t matter.
I understood perfectly.
I followed him then, taking one last look over my shoulder to the darkened basement where the man from my childhood had lived in secret.
