by Jordan Dane
The cab driver only glanced in his rearview mirror before he hit a switch on the front dash. Every door locked at the same time and a mechanized privacy panel inched its way up the Plexiglas—the kind that he’d seen on high-end limos. In minutes, he wouldn’t see or hear the driver. O’Dell tried both doors and yanked at the handles.
They wouldn’t budge.
“Hey, what’s happening? You can’t do this.” O’Dell pounded on the shield as his rear windows faded to black, too. The lights of the city were disappearing. In seconds, he’d be in pitch-black, unable to see anything.
What the hell?
“Sit back, sir.” The driver’s voice came over an intercom. “Don’t hold your breath. You’ll only get worked up over something you can’t change. Stress is a killer.”
Over the drone of the taxi’s engine, O’Dell heard a soft hiss and smelled humidity in the air, tinged with a medicinal odor. Despite what the cab driver had told him, he held his breath until his lungs were on fire, but that didn’t last. In heaving gulps, he sucked air into his chest, and the fire in his airways spread. He felt sick and dizzy, and when he couldn’t hold his chin up, he leaned forward to pound on the shield again but couldn’t lift his arm.
“Hey...” he slurred.
O’Dell slumped to the seat in a thickening mist that felt cold on his skin now. Listening to road noise, he fought to stay conscious—and lost.
Chapter 8
Downtown L.A.
Morning
Kendra had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion and didn’t see Lucas get sicker. He’d taken a bad turn during the night. After she woke from a restless sleep, curled up on the concrete floor with a jacket for a pillow, she found him thrashing under the dank sheets of her bed, delirious. She rushed to him and put a hand to his forehead, feeling the heat off his skin before she even touched him.
“Oh, no, you’re burning up,” she gasped.
She hadn’t asked anyone else to stay because of her guilt over what she’d done. Now she felt as if she’d made things worse for Lucas and the only family she ever really had. She doused a rag in a bucket of cool water she had close by and wiped him off. Water trickled down his face and over his bare chest. Lucas looked ghostly pale. Seeing him like this, she didn’t know what else to do. She’d used her best herbal medicine and even resorted to giving him aspirin four hours ago when he was coherent enough to swallow the pills. Fevers sometimes got worse before they broke. She’d seen it, but what if that didn’t happen?
Lucas? Can you hear me? she pleaded to him and only got a frightening silence in return.
She could haul him to a clinic and make up a story about him, but that scared her. She could ruin everything—for all of them—if she risked that. Rafe would go with her and help carry him. She knew he’d do it if she asked, but what if the doctors got the cops involved?
Rafe would be unpredictable. If he thought she’d be in danger, he could do anything. Risk anything. That meant the others might have no one left to take care of them, and she didn’t want to imagine what would happen to Lucas or Rafe or her if the Believers got ahold of them. None of her scenarios ended well.
The more she thought about what bad stuff could happen, the more those dark thoughts knotted her stomach. As much as she wanted to do right by Lucas, Kendra had others to think about, too. She kept the washrag cool and stroked him with it. She had to hold him down so he wouldn’t get hurt when he flailed his arms.
That was when she heard it.
Lucas mumbled something. She’d been so worried over him that she nearly missed what he said, but the words he spoke in his delirium caught her attention and held it like an icy fist at her throat.
“I didn’t mean to do it, Daddy. It just...happened. Please don’t hate me.”
Her face flushed hot as if Lucas’s fever had become hers. Those words had been hers, years ago. Hearing them again shoved her right back there, as if it were yesterday. It was as if he’d read her mind, down to her darkest secret.
No. Stop, Lucas. You don’t know what you’re saying, she told him. Please don’t...
She tried to reach him in the only way she knew how—with her mind—but he didn’t stop. He said stuff over and over. Everything he mumbled brought back a terrifying crush of memories like a tormenting strobe that flickered an exposing light onto her worst nightmares.
How could he know what had happened? She hadn’t told anyone. No one knows! Not even Rafe when they had one of their marathon confessions late at night after neither of them could sleep. Kendra felt sick and all she could do was tend to Lucas as he blurted out her secrets without knowing how much he hurt her.
“Shh. Please, be quiet,” she whispered. Shh!
The fever made him do it—and maybe the mental tie she’d made to him had triggered the bond she couldn’t break with him now. Kendra touched his lips with her trembling fingers as tears trickled down her cheeks.
“Please. You can’t know what happened. No one can.”
She knew Lucas had a powerful mind. If she guessed right about him, he was evolving into a Crystal child, a rare thing for an Indigo kid to become. She’d searched some websites before she ran away from home. Kendra had prayed to encounter other Indigo psychics, the first line of evolutionary warriors that would fight and surpass mankind to pave the way toward a future where their kind would be plentiful. But reaching out and finding a Crystal child like Lucas—the future, more advanced evolution of the Indigos—had shocked her. Linking to him, touching him, knowing he was real had lifted her soul.
Putting a name to what they all were explained so much. It gave her hope that what she’d read and wished for might come true, if they could survive those who hunted and destroyed what they didn’t understand. She didn’t feel like such a freak. What she was—what they all were—was blessed.
They had a duty...to become. Evolution had picked them to plant its seed.
The first time she sensed Lucas, only days ago, she knew he’d be special, but if he could see into her mind, through the walls she’d built to hide her worst terror from Rafe and the others, Kendra didn’t know if she could take it. After the fever went away, would Lucas remember? If he did, how could she look him in the eye again? If he knew—if he’d actually seen what she did—he’d hate her.
But an even darker thought hit her. Could she trust him not to tell?
Two Hours Later
Rafe Santana rushed through the shadows of his underground home. He knew how to move in the tunnels without flipping on his small flashlight and wasting the battery. His eyes and his nature sensed the dark. Even the darkest corners had glimpses of light if he looked hard enough. Maybe that had more to do with his mood than anything. He had a small box in his pocket and he didn’t want to crush the pink bow. He’d wrapped it. Even with his clumsy hands, it came out pretty good.
But he had one stop to make before he gave that box to Kendra.
“You seen Benny?” he asked Little G.
“Not if he doesn’t want to be seen.” The kid smirked and nudged his head. “Yeah, he’s playing down at the old engine. Saw him two minutes ago. The twins are with him.”
The scrawny kid with a dirty face barely looked up. He carried two buckets of sloshing water, doing his job of restocking their drinking water and filling the system that kept Kendra’s garden going. They got their fresh stuff from a water main they’d hijacked—like the city of L.A. would miss what they stole.
“Thanks, man.”
Rafe picked up his pace and turned down a corridor to walk on old railway tracks. As he rounded a corner, he saw a familiar sight in the murky darkness. A huge shadow blocked the dim light behind it. An old steam locomotive engine rose from the gloom like a hulking monster with a metal grill that looked like bared teeth that hovered over the rail. Its broken headlight looked like a cyclops eye and its black body looked fierce and powerful. A massive creature without a soul.
That was what he thought when he first saw the steel beast.
Benny had
a thing for that old rusted train engine, though. He knew every inch of it and had played with every gauge and lever. The first week he came to the tunnels, the kid hid in the dark there. Wouldn’t come out. Rafe had to bring him food and water and stay with him until Benny figured out he wasn’t being punished and that Kendra and her crew were okay. That old engine wasn’t a basement with a locked door. The kid could come and go whenever he wanted. He and Benny had found a home where they could stay together.
“Yo, Benny. It’s me.” Rafe picked up a stone off the ground and flicked it at the monster’s teeth. It pinged and echoed in the dark. “I got something for ya.”
“For me?”
A little head popped out from the engine compartment—then two more—and Rafe heard footsteps clang on the stairs. Benny liked hanging out with the Effin twins. They never talked to him. They didn’t talk to anybody, but that didn’t matter to a stealth ninja.
“What is it?” The kid jumped to the lowest step and sat down. The twins took the steps above him. The Effin brothers’ lips twitched into their version of a smile.
But another face edged from the darkness like a mist. An old face materialized in a slow swirl, with wrinkles that cut deep into its skin and sad, watery eyes. It took all Rafe’s concentration not to jump and scare Benny when he saw the bleached skin that glowed in the dark and a head that hovered without a body until the spirit finally showed. An old dead guy, dressed in soot-covered overalls, stood over the boys and looked down at Rafe.
The dead don’t speak if they don’t want to. Not to him anyway. The Effin brothers probably could do it, but he’d never been strong enough to hear what they had to say.
A weathered hand reached down to pat Benny on the head—a callused hand with dirt under the nails, a hand that had seen plenty of work in its day. The kid grinned up at Rafe and scratched his head where the dead guy had touched him. Rafe looked at the twins, who only shrugged. They had the ability to see the spirit world like he did, but Benny had no idea the old locomotive had its own ghost—one that watched over him as if he were a grandbaby.
Rafe figured it was tough enough for a kid to sleep belowground. No sense telling him about everything that lurked in the dark. Where he came from, Benny had enough to be scared of, for real. With a subtle nod of his head, Rafe greeted the spirit and shifted his focus back to Benny.
“I got you something to bring you luck. Your own piece of magic.” Rafe held up a silver charm tied into woven black leather. The trinket was in the shape of Kendra’s lucky number—eight. If that number was good enough for her, he figured he’d borrow the good luck for him and Benny, too.
“Friendship bracelets are made of string. You seen ’em, right?” When the kid nodded, Rafe knelt down and said, “Hold out your wrist.”
Benny’s wrist was so small that Rafe had to double wrap it. The kid didn’t notice.
“This one’s in black leather,” he said as he tied the bracelet on with the twins looking over Benny’s shoulder. Their mouths were gaped open. “That means we got something stronger than friendship. We’re family now.”
He expected the kid to say something, but he got real quiet and didn’t look up at him. Benny kept his head down and stared at his lucky charm. Rafe ran a hand through the kid’s hair and smiled before he let him be.
“I gotta see Kendra.” He stood and took a step back the way he’d come. “I’ll catch up with you later, little dude.”
“Rafe?”
“Yeah?”
As the kid sat on the steps—with his mirror-imaged silent friends looking at each other—Benny stroked his bracelet with tiny fingers. In a shaky voice, he said, “No one’s ever gotten me anything before.”
Benny had a way of breaking his heart and making him feel good at the same time, even when the kid reminded him of stuff he didn’t want to remember, either.
“Don’t think that’s cuz you didn’t deserve something nice, Benny,” he said in a quiet voice. “Some folks shouldn’t have kids. No one knows that better than us.”
Rafe didn’t say anything more. With his hands in his pockets, he nudged his head at the dead guy in overalls, who never took his sad eyes off him, then headed through the darkness to Kendra. Rafe knew where to find her without asking anyone. She’d be playing with her new toy, Lucas. The new kid would eventually lose his shine to her and become like the rest of them. It would happen, but not soon enough for him.
He pulled the gift box from his pocket and looked at it as he headed for Kendra’s. Today he’d worn his favorite Raiders jersey and best jeans. Look sharp, be sharp. She always made him want to be his best. When he came into her room, she had her back to him as she sat on the edge of her mattress with a washrag in her hand. She hovered over Lucas. He looked real sick, but with her candles burning, the glow of them made Kendra look like his guardian angel. If she could look prettier, he didn’t know how. Her candles brought light to the shadows, like she’d done for him.
Before today, he’d always loved seeing her in the flicker of her candles. Now that sight put him on edge. A dark premonition triggered inside him when he saw Kendra with this new kid. A cold stab of truth he couldn’t pin down.
Kendra saw Lucas as a savior—a new kind of human being that she thought of as the next coming of Christ—but when Rafe looked at Lucas, all he saw was a threat to what they had. A kid that could tear down everything from within. When Kendra first felt Lucas’s presence, she got all excited and spilled her guts about this kid to him. She got all religious and stuff, like a higher power had a hand in everything. She didn’t think much of organized religion. In her mind, this world and the universe had a natural order that made more sense to her.
Rafe didn’t believe in a Supreme Being or a master plan. If someone like that existed, why would he and Benny have been dealt such a shitty hand of cards? How could God let bad stuff happen to a sweet kid like Benny? But Kendra believed in something bigger than people turning into worm food. It was what got her through the dark in her life. Who was he to mess that up for her?
“Hey, Kendra.” He nudged his chin as she glanced over her shoulder. “Got a minute?”
She hesitated and looked at Lucas before she said, “Is it important? I think his fever is down, but I don’t know.”
“Uh, guess not. It’s...nothing.” When he turned to go, she stopped him.
“Wait.” She ran a hand through her dark hair and sighed. “I could really use a break.”
Rafe heard her get up, but he didn’t watch her, something he normally would have done. Instead, he stepped into the dark tunnel outside her place and waited. He clutched the wrapped box in his hand with his eyes shut tight as he listened for her.
He could have used his ability to sense her mood—something she might not detect him doing—but he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. The new kid needed her doctoring. He’d been hurt, and Rafe knew she blamed herself for that, but shit happened. Everything turned out okay. No big deal. He wanted to see things like Kendra did—that big-picture stuff she always talked about—but that would never be him.
All he saw, or ever wanted to see, was Kendra. When she rounded the corner, he stood straight and faced her. She looked worried. Distracted.
“I got you something.” He forced a smile and flicked on his flashlight to shine it on the box he had in his hand. The glow off the shiny paper reflected onto her face like candlelight.
“Oh, Raphael. You don’t have to keep doing this.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and heaved a tired sigh again. “I thought we agreed you’d stop.”
“You agreed. I didn’t.” Heat rushed to his face. “Open it.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, but when she touched his hand to take the box, she made him feel better. As she usually did, Kendra undid the paper and peeled off the bow to save it. She used it for the kids at Christmas. Her small fingers trembled as she pulled off the top of the box and lifted the white cotton. The light caught the silver charm as she held it in her finge
rs. It dangled off woven black leather.
“You told me once that eight was your lucky number, so I got you and Benny one. Me, too. See? We all match.” Rafe grinned and held up his wrist to show his larger one. He’d scored the matching friendship bracelets made with black leather.
“Silver plated,” he told her. “This won’t turn your wrist green.”
When he saw the eight dangling off the bracelet, Rafe knew he had to get it for her. He knew her favorite number because he remembered stuff she told him. He liked the idea that he’d bring her luck, and every time she looked at her new bracelet, she’d remember who gave it to her.
“Yeah, it looks like an eight, but you see how flat and stretched out it is?” she said, holding the bracelet up so he could see. “This is an infinity sign, Raphael.”
Rafe flinched for only a second, before he shrugged.
“Yeah, I knew that. I was joking,” he said. “Infinity, that’s like how big outer space is and stuff. Or Little G’s stomach when he scores a burger, right?”
“Yeah,” she said. Her soft chuckle stabbed at his heart. “But infinity is also a symbol that means forever.”
Forever. He liked that even better.
“You like it?” he asked.
“It’s beautiful, but why... How did you...?” Kendra always had questions about where he got stuff. Like usual, she dropped it quick. “Never mind. Can you help me put it on?”
She handed him the bracelet. In one smooth move that only girls knew how to do, she held up her small wrist and asked for his help. She could be strong one minute but need him the next. He liked that.
“You looked like you need cheering up,” he told her. “Maybe it’ll bring luck to...that kid in there.” He said that more for her.
His fingers were too big. Everything he did went slow, but that was okay, too. Her hair smelled like coconut, a shampoo he’d stolen for her. When he got the bracelet on her wrist, she smiled at him and played with the dangling trinket, wearing the infinity he’d given her.
