Jumper: Books 1-6: Complete Saga

by Sean Platt

  After lunch, I tell Mom and Dad that I need some fresh air, and want to take a drive.

  Jack starts to say something. Maybe he wants to warn me away from Carla’s, but then he catches himself and says, “Be careful.”

  I kiss them both on the cheek, then head out the door.

  I drive aimlessly for a while, knowing where I want to go, but not sure if it’s a good idea.

  I go anyway.

  I knock on Carla’s door, anxiously awaiting her response.

  What the hell am I doing here?

  This is a terrible idea.

  However, I — and not just Chelsea — can’t shake the feeling of needing to see her and find out if she’s okay.

  The door eventually opens a crack, security chain in place.

  Carla’s eyes meet mine, but her expression isn’t joy, or even surprise to see me alive and out of my coma. She’s clearly terrified.

  “What are you doing here?” Her voice is slightly changed from the still-swollen cheek. A violet bruise has swallowed the skin beneath her left eye. I’m almost afraid to know how many other injuries she suffered at Jack’s hands.

  “I wanted to see if you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. Please go.”

  “I am soooo sorry about what my dad did to you. He had no right. He — ”

  “Stop.”

  “What?” I ask.

  She still hasn’t unlatched the security chain.

  “Please, I don’t want to do this.”

  “Do what?” I ask, genuinely confused.

  “Your father was right.”

  “What? No, he wasn’t. Nobody should have to endure what you went through.”

  “Maybe, but I understand. He was afraid. He needed someone to blame, and he was right — I should never have let this go as far as it did. You were my student, and I knew better.”

  Chelsea’s emotions are gushing forth in an unbridled wash of sorrow and deep, pining love. I can hardly control what comes out of my mouth.

  “But I love you.”

  I’m shocked as it leaves my lips, but there are no take-backs.

  This gets to Carla.

  Her eyes are welling up, and she’s quiet, maybe wondering if she should take the chain off the door and invite me inside.

  “Please, don’t give up on us. I’ll make my father understand.”

  Carla stares at me, her chin quivering, resolve about to break. She’s going to unchain the lock and open the door.

  “They made me sign papers.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Made me sign papers that I wouldn’t go to the police, news, or anybody else about what happened, and … ”

  Carla pauses as if unsure whether she should tell me the rest.

  “And what?”

  “And I can’t see you anymore.”

  “And you signed?” I’m incredulous. Angry. “Why?”

  “I just want this over. It’s too much. And you don’t need this in your life.”

  “Don’t tell me what I need in my life. I know what I need — you.”

  She shakes her head. “Sorry, Chels. I just can’t.”

  “Nobody has to know. And what’s the worst thing that can happen if Dad does find out? The police already investigated you. You didn’t break any laws. Hell, if anything, you have something on him — he kidnapped and nearly killed you!”

  Carla shakes her head. “Sorry.”

  I feel a cold, dark anger.

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “What?” Carla asks, balking at the accusation.

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “It’s not about the money.”

  “I want to know.”

  “Why?”

  I can’t stop the words spilling from my mouth. They’re Chelsea’s feelings, and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.

  “I want to know what I’m worth to you. What it’s worth to throw my love away.”

  “It’s not the money. I’m doing this for you.”

  “But I love you.” Tears are streaming down my face, knife piercing my heart as if it were me Carla was rejecting rather than Chelsea.

  “I love you, too,” she says, “which is why I’m closing the door.”

  And then she does.

  I stand outside Carla’s door, crying for what feels like an eternity.

  I want to knock on her door, hell, bang on it, and demand that she see me. I know I can convince her that Jack will come around. He’ll have to. I’ll make him.

  I know this is what Chelsea feels, but there’s a part of me that feels this too. Have Chelsea’s feelings somehow become mine? Am I that vested in their relationship that its collapse is killing me as if it were my own doomed love?

  I can’t commit Chelsea to this course of action.

  If she wants to push this relationship while back in her body, fine, but it can’t come from me.

  It must be her.

  I’m tired of screwing up my hosts’ lives.

  And so I leave Carla’s porch.

  Epilogue

  It’s been almost a month since I left the Caldwell family’s circle. Today I’m a 60-year-old cab driver in Oregon named Martin O’Leary.

  Usually, this far out from an event, memories get fuzzy, and it’s hard to remember anything but a few details, shadows of people’s lives.

  But this time is different.

  As I Jump from body to body, I keep finding myself wondering how Chelsea and Carla are doing. Did they get back together? Is their father keeping them apart? Surprisingly, their affair hasn’t made the news.

  I’ve never seen a story that scandalous just drop off the map, never even appearing in the headlines or gossip sites. It’s as if someone scrubbed the story from existence. Did the kids at Chelsea’s school feel sorry for her once Anthony Rocco and Blake Wellington’s misdeeds came to light?

  There was news about that, and a few mentions of Chelsea coming out of her coma. But the Caldwells and Carla have otherwise stayed under the radar. They’ve even deleted their social media accounts, so I can’t check up on them that way.

  Chelsea’s father lost his TV deal but managed to line up a new one with another network. Yay, Waylon.

  As each day passes, I wonder if I’ll ever see Chelsea again. She was a good kid. And it felt great to have someone to share my journey. I felt a little less lonely.

  It’s weird how loneliness works. You’re alone long enough, and you start to forget what it feels like to be forsaken. You grow accustomed. But then when you meet someone you connect with and remember what it’s like to be human. Then when they’re gone, you remember what it means to be truly alone.

  I try not to take it personally that Chelsea hasn’t come to see me. After all, she’s back among the living. Maybe she could only astral travel, or whatever it was she was doing, while in a coma.

  I’d call her, but the family changed all of their numbers after the initial surge of publicity surrounding Chelsea coming out of her coma.

  I suppose if I tried hard enough I could remember Waylon’s number, but I’m not sure what I’d say even if I got through, especially today as a 60-year-old dude. “Hey, I’m trying to reach your client’s teenage daughter.”

  Yeah, that would go over like a lead balloon.

  I’m a solo ghost again.

  It’s my final job of the day.

  I’m sitting outside a grocery store waiting on a little old lady who asked me if I’d mind “waiting just a minute” while she ran in to get something.

  I told her no problem.

  That was fifteen minutes ago.

  Did she stiff me, and flee out the back door? Or maybe she’s wandering the aisles suffering from dementia with no idea where she is.

  I’m debating whether to go in the store and look for her or leave.

  I’m not sure of the protocol. Worse comes to worst, I’m out fifteen bucks and will maybe get a reprimand from my bosses.

  I decide to surf the web on my
host’s phone to kill some time. If I’m gonna wait, I may as well check for any news on the Caldwells before calling it a night.

  I usually see the same stories when I search Chelsea Caldwell, but tonight there’s a new one at the top of the results, a story published an hour ago.

  Miracle Coma Survivor Chelsea Caldwell Goes Missing; Teacher Affair To Blame?

  What?

  I thumb through the story. From the scant information, it appears that Chelsea went out for a walk yesterday afternoon and never came home.

  The story then delves into accusations that she was having an affair with Carla. So much for keeping a lid on that story! The real shocker is that Carla Valencia is also missing.

  “Holy shit, they ran off together!” I say, not sure if I’m disappointed or happy for them.

  Suddenly, I sense somebody in my back seat.

  I turn, expecting to see the old lady to have slipped into the car while I was distracted by this shocker of a story.

  But it isn’t her.

  “Chelsea?” I say, not even sure, as the thing in my back seat is like a fading hologram, jittery with static.

  “Ella?” she says, her voice staticky.

  “Yes,” I say. “Where are you?”

  “They took me, Ella.”

  “Who took you?”

  “Some people in a van. They pulled up beside me, put a bag over my head, and took— ”

  And like that, she’s gone.

  “Ella?”

  She crackles back to life, visually and audibly.

  “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know. It’s someplace big. I think I’m … underground. They put me in a coma or something, Ella.”

  “What?”

  “I think they put me in a coma. And I’m not alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a whole room of people just like me, all of them in these chambers. And I heard — ”

  She’s gone again.

  Shit!

  Who the hell took her? Why? And why do they have a room full of people in comas? Why is this happening to her? What did she ever do to deserve this?

  I remember the static in the hospital.

  Am I picking up on how The Collectors communicate?

  Were they looking for Chelsea? And if so, why?

  I don’t remember the assassin saying The Collectors used vans. This is something different.

  But what?

  I need to find out where she is.

  I need to find her.

  I need to save her.

  Suddenly, she’s back, in the front seat now, clearer than before.

  She looks at me as if she can see me better, too.

  I can see that she’s crying.

  “Did you hear me?” she asks.

  “You cut out. What did you say?”

  “I heard them saying your name, Ella.”

  “What?”

  “I think these are the people looking for you. And they’ve got me, Ella. I’m scared.”

  My mind is filled with a helpless panic. I want to save her, but how? I feel blinded by the things I don’t know. I look down as if my hands in my lap will hold some answers.

  “I’ll figure something out,” I promise, even though I don’t have the first clue how I can fulfill that vow. “You hear me, Chelsea? I will find you.”

  But she doesn’t answer.

  She’s gone.

  Deviant

  Chapter One

  I wake to someone shaking me and yelling. “Come on, Darius! Get up!”

  I open my eyes.

  I immediately choke.

  There’s smoke everywhere.

  Fire burning to my left and right, surrounded by long, tall rows of computer servers, most are on fire, an acrid, noxious, chemical stench worming its way into my throat.

  I’m not sure where we are. Behind the walls of flame and smoke, it looks like a giant warehouse, filled with servers.

  What happened?

  Why are we here?

  My head is throbbing. The world is askew as I sit up.

  A twenty-something-year-old black woman is wearing a backward Mets cap, a black long-sleeved shirt, and jeans. She is kneeling down and trying to lift me up.

  Janet.

  Her name pops into my mind.

  She’s Darius’s girlfriend. And she’s terrified.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer.

  She’s helping me stand.

  My head throbs harder.

  I reach back and feel a giant knot.

  “What happened?” I pull my hand away. It’s covered in blood.

  “Come on, work with me!” She grabs my right hand, coaxing me to walk.

  We stumble toward a doorway in the distance.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, coughing.

  Her shirt is pulled up over her mouth. In a muffled voice she says, “You don’t remember? They must’a hit your head real bad.”

  “Who?” I cover my mouth, trying not to inhale the thick black smoke.

  She nods to our left, and I see two burning husks of what were once men, one still clutching a gun, for all the good it did him.

  “Who did that?”

  She shakes her head, pulling me through the thick smoke.

  There’s a crash behind us, twenty feet from the door.

  We don’t stop. Or look back.

  Instead, we run.

  We race outside the door and into a parking lot alongside the building: large, industrial, two stories.

  I look for a car but see nothing.

  The building is surrounded by barbed wire fence. The main gate is closed, with a manned guard booth. There are men in uniforms and rifles approaching. I’m not sure if they see us, or if they’re rushing the building.

  Sirens roar in the distance.

  We’ve got to get out of here.

  “Come on!” Janet points toward a gaping hole in the fence where it looks like the metal has melted away.

  Lights bleach the night from above, the rapid thunking of chopper blades adding to the cacophony of trouble coming our way.

  A man’s voice booms from above: “Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head.”

  “Run!” Janet yells, grabbing my arm.

  I’m frozen in the spotlight, staring up at the chopper, wondering what the hell is going on.

  “Why are they after us?” I ask, wondering if this has anything to do with Irina. Though it doesn’t seem to, I’m sure that it somehow does.

  “Come on!”

  Gunfire erupts all around us.

  They’re shooting us?

  I spin around, angry, searching to see our attackers.

  A stream of security guards, or hell, a small paramilitary group in black gear, are storming toward us. I count at least six, two dozen yards away.

  “On the ground!” one of them yells.

  Janet grabs my arm again, urging me to run with her. “Come on!”

  I don’t know why, but my host’s legs refuse to obey. I can’t move. I’m not sure if it’s fear, a miscommunication, or something else, something worse.

  But I can’t move, and they’re about to catch me.

  “Go!” I yell at Janet.

  Her eyes are wide with terror. I can tell she doesn’t want to leave me, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to die. There’s something bigger at play, some mission we’re on that just went south in the worst of ways.

  Someone needs to return to tell … I don’t know who.

  A name teases the tip of my tongue, but it's ephemeral, gone before an associated memory can fill me in on any of this.

  The only thing I know with certainty is that one of us needs to get back to tell our boss?

  Our leader?

  Janet runs toward the gaping hole in the fence. Just beyond sprawls dark woods as far as I can see. I’m not sure how far she’ll get before the chopper finds her, but at least she’s going to try.
/>   More gunfire, from the men coming towards us, now trying to shoot Janet in the back.

  I turn towards them, rage boiling inside me, eager to draw their attention, to put myself between Janet and their bullets.

  I scream.

  Three men in black, rifles in hand, raise their guns and turn them on me.

  I raise my hands, not even sure why.

  And then it happens — fire explodes from my palms, arcing towards the men and engulfing them in flames.

  What the hell?

  I hear another step behind me.

  I try to turn, but I’m too late.

  Something hits me, hard.

  Chapter Two

  I wake up to a screaming alarm.

  I reach out in the darkness, find the phone, then grab and silence it.

  I lay in the cozy bed, waiting for information on today’s host.

  But little is coming. Only a name, Brooke Sumner, age twenty-five. Then I see that she lives alone in an apartment in Anchor Harbor, Washington.

  Everything is fuzzy beyond that.

  I’m still trying to process what happened with Darius before he was knocked out, or killed, and to Irina before that. I feel like I’m back in that waterfall, plummeting towards something I can’t quite make out — something that’s waiting to hurt me.

  I flash back on the fireballs streaking from Darius’s hands.

  Did that really happen?

  It sure as hell seemed like it. Maybe Darius caused the fire and killed those men in the warehouse before getting knocked out the first time before I jumped into his body. Maybe that’s why those men were after him.

  I wish I had been in him long enough to make sense of what was happening, so I could learn more about both Darius and his enemies. Or maybe figure out his connection, if any, to my situation or Chelsea’s kidnapping.