The Pull (The Emanation Saga Book 1)

by R. J. Lloyd

  Eva slapped him. “You're an asshole.”

  He smiled. “And yet, you love me.”

  “That thought makes me want to throw up.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “We’ll see.”

  Ian pushed his shoulder. “What do you hope to gain from this?”

  Mitchell rubbed his chin in the spot where Eva has slapped him. “New friends? World peace? Oh! I know! I hope to take over my father’s studies. You know, since it’s a permanent money maker for me. And trust me, he makes a lot of money.”

  “You think you can run a company forever? You don't think that’ll be suspicious?” Ian asked.

  He laughed. “Oh, please! It's a scientific lab that studies and experiments on ghosts. No. I don't think anyone who has anything to do with it will bat an eye. And anyone who does? Well, I’ll make enough money to pay them to stay quiet if needed. Or… we can always use more subjects.”

  Eva's eyes were filled with tears. “I stand by what I said. You are a monster.”

  “Don’t cry, my love. You can run the company with me.” Mitchell grinned excitedly.

  She growled under her breath. “I am not your love. And I will not be running any companies with you. You make me sick.”

  He took a step toward her and laid his hand on her cheek.

  “Don’t touch her!” Ian pulled his fist back before letting it fly forward, connecting it with Mitchell's jaw.

  Mitchell didn't even look at his attacker. He threw his hand out, planting it on Ian’s chest. Ian, who started to swing again, went rigid. His eyes flew open, his mouth fell slack, and his arms and legs shot out straight. Only a gasp escaped his lungs.

  Eva grabbed Mitchell’s arm, trying to break his contact with Ian. “Stop! Mitchell! Please stop!”

  He didn’t let Ian go. He just moved his gaze over to her. “Maybe I took the wrong person.”

  “Is there any line you won’t cross?”

  “To get you back?” He lifted a corner of his mouth. “Probably not."

  “That’s never going to happen, Mitchell. There's nothing I won’t do to protect Ian. But giving you what you want isn’t saving anyone.” She tried to remember how she sent out that blast of energy before.

  “Nothing, huh? Then I can have him keep Michelle company?”

  Her breath caught. “No.”

  “But…”

  “I said no!”

  She closed her eyes and focused all her rage into the palm of her hands.

  Mitchell started to laugh. Just as he opened his mouth to speak again, a shockwave burst from her palm and pushed him back several steps, breaking his hold on Ian. Ian gasped, his hands flying to his chest as he struggled to breathe. Eva reached for him to help him steady himself before he fell to the ground.

  Mitchell caught his balance. “See?” He coughed. “Look at you and your little power blast there. Do you believe me now?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “I want you to bring me Michelle. I want you to leave Ian alone. And I want you to forget about me. Or we will find out what gifts I might have and test them all out on you.”

  He feigned a shiver. “Sounds like fun! You always did know how to have a good time.”

  Ian tried to raise his fist, but Eva shook her head. “I'm not going to hunt down a bunch of people for you to torture and kill.”

  “What about Michelle?” he asked.

  She pulled Ian’s arm around her shoulder to help support his weight. “She wouldn't want me to, either.”

  “So, you're just going to let me kill her and do with her as I please?”

  She shuffled under Ian’s weight. “Well, Mitchell, sometimes we just have to do what we have to do.”

  Mitchell looked at her curiously. “That’s very true.”

  She dropped her shoulders. “And sometimes what you need to do comes to you when you need it most.”

  As she finished her sentence, she gripped Ian and closed her eyes, focusing on the place she wanted to be most. Half bracing for what it would be like and half for the sound chance it wasn’t going to work, she envisioned being inside the conference room in the labs, betting that was where Michelle was being held.

  At first, nothing happened. Well, nothing except for Mitchell’s laughter. But then, she felt the same build-up wash over her just before she sent out the energy pulses. Everything went black, and she held on tight to Ian.

  Then, she felt herself slam into the ground.

  Opening her eyes, everything was blurry. She blinked several times and tried to figure out if Ian was there, and if they landed where she’d intended.

  “Are you alright?” Ian knelt down beside her.

  “I'm fine. I just need a moment.”

  He braced her up. “How did you do that?”

  She sat forward and coughed. “I allowed myself to remember. I had to. I had to so I could figure out what I could do and how. He was going to kill you. I could see it.”

  “Eva.” Her name was a whisper from his lips. “No.” He pulled her hand out.

  With her vision clearing, she could see blood in her palm. She wiped the back of her hand to her mouth, and it came away scarlet. “I probably bit my tongue.” She started coughing again, more blood splattering across her hand.

  He lifted her from the floor and put her in one of the office chairs. “No. You're not. You traveled after allowing yourself to remember something. It has obviously caused some damage.”

  “Michelle.” She said her best friend’s name through more coughing. “She traveled with him. She could be hurt, too.”

  “I think you're hurt more because you were the one to bring us here. Michelle didn't sound hurt. But I’ll go find her. You stay here and rest. I’ll get her and bring her back, and we will get out of here. Just stay out of sight.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Eva demanded. “We can’t be sure she’s here.”

  “No. Stay here. If you’re hurt bad, you need to stay put and work on forgetting everything and healing,” he ordered her. “I have a feeling you chose the right place.”

  She got up from the chair. “I can’t just let you go in there alone.”

  He hated to say it, but he wasn’t sure any other way to keep her from going in there. “Eva, you'll slow me down, and I'm slow enough after what Mitchell did to me. Plus, if you start coughing in there, you can get us killed.”

  “But what about locks?” She struggled to get the words out around struggling to breathe.

  Ian reached into his pocket and pulled out a keycard. “Marcus slipped me this right before he was killed. He was worried Stanley was going to lock us up that day.”

  “And you’re just now finding it useful?”

  “My mind was focused on saving Michelle, and for all we knew, there was no way she would be here if he was working against his father.” He went for the door. “But I bet he’s pretending to until he gets the upper hand.”

  “You’re right.” She breathed through another cough.

  He waved the keycard in the air. “I'm going to shut this door. Don’t let anyone in. Okay?”

  “Hurry. Please. And be safe.”

  Ian kept his back to the walls as he made his way through. The building wasn't very big at all, and, if it was like the time before, the parking lot was probably virtually empty. It wasn't likely to be staffed with too many people. And under the circumstances, he doubted Michelle was with the others.

  He made it to the first door that required the keycard and swiped it. It blinked red. He tried a second time. It blinked red again.

  “Shit.”

  Looking around, he couldn’t find a second door to try another corridor. He inspected the lock, but he couldn’t figure a way to jimmy it without tools either. It was a dead end.

  “Shit,” he swore again.

  Ian made his way back to the conference room. As he approached the door, he saw it was cracked open. Instantly, he stopped. Keeping his voice low, Ian slowly walked into the doorway. "Eva?"

  She didn't answer, and h
is heart dropped.

  “Eva?”

  He looked around the room, but it was empty.

  Ian raced down the hall in the other direction. Dead ending once again at another locked door. He tried the keycard, but it just blinked red as well. He started to panic as he raced back to the conference room.

  “Eva!” he shouted.

  “I'm right here,” she spoke from behind him. “Keep your voice down.”

  He jumped. “Thank God. I was afraid Mitchell or his father found you.” As he turned to look at her, worried about her condition, he was surprised to see Michelle leaned against her side.

  “I… ummm… I found her.” Eva smiled meekly.

  “I see that.” Ian rushed over to help with their friend. “Are you okay? Are you both okay?”

  Michelle shifted some of her weight against him. “Just get me out of here.”

  “Yes. I’ll explain later. She’s right. We need to get out of here,” Eva said.

  He tensed a moment. “The front door? If I remember correctly, there are a couple buildings next door. We can go there, hide and make a plan.”

  Eva shook her head. “No. Just…”

  She held both Ian and Michelle’s arms and closed her eyes.

  He swung around to look over Eva, checking her breathing, her lips, her heart rate. She giggled when he pressed his ear to her chest.

  She pushed him back gently. “I'm fine.”

  He turned his attentions to Michelle, checking her state from both the travel as well as whatever she went through in her captivity. “Did he do anything to you?”

  “He kidnapped me and locked me in a cell,” she snipped.

  “But you’re not hurt?” He pressed his fingers to her wrists.

  “No,” she replied.

  Finally, he looked up to see where they were. He recognized his surroundings. The couch. The book shelves. The coffee table with dark spot from where a drink had been spilled and left to soak into the wood a couple years prior.

  He helped Michelle to the couch, and turned to Eva. “How?”

  She joined her best friend, who was lounging back, taking slow, deep breaths. “What you said before leaving the conference room… forget it all? Yeah. It dawned on me what I needed was to push it all out of my head. Just like back in Alpena, it dawned on me how to harness some of those abilities Mitchell had been talking about.”

  He knelt down in front of her. “How many?”

  She pulled one of the throw pillows over and wrapped her arms around it. “I don’t know. A few.”

  “We’ll come back to this.” Ian started pacing the room. “What now? Mitchell was already looking for us. But once he knows Michelle is gone, he will be hunting for us just as much as the others.”

  Eva held the pillow a little tighter. “And Stanley. I saw him in the lab just before I took Michelle out of there. He saw me in there. They already know.”

  “Plus, Mitchell knows where we live,” Ian exclaimed. “Not to mention he is able to use teleportation, too.”

  Michelle stood. “I need to go use the bathroom and clean up. Where is it?”

  Eva pointed down the hall. “Second door on the left.”

  “Thanks.” Michelle waved her hand as she walked off.

  Ian crossed the room and picked up the figurine off the bookshelf by the door wall. “How is it I can be dead? A ghost. Not even alive. But I'm standing here, holding this object? My hand doesn’t go through it, but I can’t help shield you from this monster? Why?” He slammed the object to the floor. Pieces broke off and scattered.

  Eva jumped.

  “I'm sorry.” He sulked over to the armchair and dropped down into it. “I don't know how to fix this. How to keep you safe.”

  She dropped the pillow and sat on the arm of his chair facing him. “But you can. Mitchell and I aren’t the only ones with powers.”

  He touched her face. “What do you mean?”

  She put her hand on his. “We’re ghosts. We defy the laws of physics already. At least the laws as we knew them when alive. But that’s just it. There’s so much more to physics than we know. And as we are now, we can do more than we ever thought possible.”

  “How, though? I mean, you trained as far as I gather. I don't think I have. So, how can I learn to do these things before Mitchell or Stanley come looking for us?”

  “Just think about it.” She pulled his hand into her lap. “That was the key. I realized I just needed to think it and concentrate and not force it. When I forced it, that was when I ended up coughing blood.”

  “Build it; they will come? Really?” he scoffed.

  She nudged him with her elbow. “Don't mock me.”

  “I’m not.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I'm mocking the situation.”

  “Still, not funny.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “But what we need to decide is if we should stay here or not.”

  Eva’s sat, looking down at Ian’s fingers, thinking. It didn’t take but a moment, but she looked up, a steadfastness in her eyes. “We stay.”

  “Stay?”

  “Yes. We stay. You know this house, so we have an advantage. He’s going to find us anywhere we go. So, why not know where we are? And if we split up, that just puts us all at risk of being picked off one by one.”

  He tossed his hand up. “But how do we stand against an immortal ghost?”

  She chewed her lip. “I don't know. But we can’t go on the run. He’ll just find us. So, let’s stay, make a stand and figure it out. We are immortal ghosts, too!”

  “You’re right.” He growled. “Alright. We stay.”

  “Stay?” Michelle came back in the room. “Here? Isn’t that dangerous? And where is here?”

  “Detroit,” Ian answered.

  “Detroit?” Michelle repeated. “And you want to just stay here like sitting ducks?”

  “What can we do?” Eva addressed her friend. “Mitchell seems to have a life-line to me, and shows up everywhere at will. If we run, he will find us.”

  “What exactly can we do when he does show up again?” Michelle asked, her hands planted on her hips.

  “I don't know.” Eva's voice quivered.

  “Ian?” Michelle looked to him for advice.

  He shrugged. “We don't know.”

  “So, he’s going to come and take or kill us at will?” Michelle fell back down onto the couch.

  “No. We will figure it out.” Ian got up and went to the kitchen, returning with bottled water for each of them. “We will figure it out.”

  “Figure what out?” Kyle came down the hall. “And how many women you going to have move in?”

  “I’m not moving in,” Michelle retorted. “Am I? Eva?”

  “No. Just staying until we’ve dealt with Mitchell and Stanley,” she replied.

  “Mitchell and Stanley? Ex-boyfriends?” Kyle asked.

  Ian chuckled. “Well, it’s a long story. But no. Remember what I told you about the experiments and others like us?”

  “Yeah.” Kyle leaned against the wall, arms folding across his chest.

  “Stanley is one of the scientists. Mitchell was his son, who he murdered when he became sick and materialized him like us. He works with his father now, and they both are on the hunt for us,” Ian explained.

  “And her?” He motioned to Michelle.

  She stood. “Michelle. Michelle Douglas. I'm Eva’s best friend and recent former roommate.”

  “How did you get mixed up in all this?” Kyle took a bite of the granola bar he carried.

  Michelle’s expression dropped. “I didn't trust my best friend and made a huge mistake, which resulted in her being put in danger. And just like clockwork, karma kicked me in the butt when Mitchell kidnapped me and held me hostage.”

  “Wow.” Kyle examined his snack as if he thought it was poisoned with some form of hallucinogenic. “Oh! You’re the one they ran off to find!”

  “Yep. That’s me. You?” she asked him in return.

>   “Me?” He tilted his head and went to sit next to her. “I only know what Ian has filled me in on. I actually am no more involved than that. I’m just the roommate and business partner.”

  “Lucky,” she said under her breath.

  “We’re all in this, and, for that, I'm very sorry.” Eva rubbed her forehead. “As much as we have no clue what to do, we can at least go over what we do know so everyone is on the same page.”

  “What good will that do?” Kyle asked.

  “Yeah. I mean, other than scare the crap out of ourselves more than we already are.” Michelle pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

  Kyle absently ran his hand over her back. “You really need to put her through all that after what she just experienced?”

  “Yes.” Ian sat forward. “This is no joke. It’s not a school test. It’s not a bad work day. This is scary, and this guy will kill us all.”

  Eva repositioned herself on the arm of the chair. “I’m sorry, and it sucks, but he’s right. Basically, the gist of what’s going on is that Ian and I aren't really alive. When we were, we were married, and they killed us to harvest our souls to experiment on. After materializing us, they...”

  “Experimented on you both, including tying you to this psychopath, erased your memories and placed you in society. We all know this,” Kyle interrupted her, growing agitated. “We both know that, right?” He checked Michelle’s expression noting she wasn’t shocked by any new information.

  She nodded, her chin resting on her knees.

  Eva held up her hands. “Fine. But what you both might not know is the others he wants us to find are like us. Materialized ghosts. But they’re in varying degrees of stability. And while he posed as someone who wanted our help to find them before his father can, he doesn't. He's actually working not only for his father. He's also working to take over the lab after his father dies and run it indefinitely. And, apparently, we have abilities like him.”

  “Well, that should have been obvious.” Kyle’s tone grew more and more sarcastic. “But why? Why does he want the company?”