“Perfect. Jason was in drama for all of his high school years. And since he failed to mention he was a senior last year and has now graduated, that makes him an even better actor.”
“Bleeping great!” Jason jeered knowingly.
I turned my nose up at him.
“Dare I ask why you refuse to swear properly?” Daniel teased openly.
They could both make fun of me, but I had my morals. “You can both sleep on the water.”
Jason threw his hands up, “Not I. I have things to do.”
I pointed my finger down below, perturbed at the fact that they were ganging up on me. I didn’t like being made fun of. And I still needed to get my way on the meeting the Siphon Council. I just knew, danger or not, it was the only way to find out more about my parents.
“Alright. Alright. No waterbeds needed. I concede.” Jason mumbled while Daniel laughed but then fell over the bench cutting his wrist. Daniel ignored it, but I took him below to where I thought a first aid kit might be located.
He called me on the hospital/nurse ruse with my inability to bandage properly. I had no desire to be a nurse. I just wanted to keep from taking from the young and that was the only route to take and end up at a nursing home.
The night on the boat was memorable after the two boys let up on their teaming up behavior. Jason left early on and said he’d be back by morning. I didn’t get his weirdness factor, but he seemed okay with leaving. Daniel and I stayed up till midnight plotting my attitude and presentation. With redundant insistence, he reminded me that I couldn’t falter in the rudeness department. If I came off as the least bit too “nice”, his father would second-guess us both. I hated to meet the man who sounded like Satan’s kinfolk.
Daniel drove me home to get a bag packed. I settled on telling my parents, whom I've always wondered how they were related to my mother and will question further when the time is right, I would be at Sam’s for the rest of the weekend. It was not uncommon between the two of us. Sam was reluctant to vouch for me saying things related to teen pregnancy and such. I assured her I had no intentions of losing any virtues. The only way I could get her off the line was a rash, not very thought out, decision to put Daniel on the phone. Whatever she asked, it was bad because he turned the color of bleached rice after assuring her my body was off limits in the naked department. I myself blanched at hearing him say the words and refused to look his way when he handed the phone back to me. I had half a mind to tell her off in front of him, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself more than I already was.
I snuck into my balcony room and packed a few clothes for the road trip that would vastly resemble nothing like what I would wear at Sam's, then followed Daniel to park my car behind her house. Her absentminded mom would never notice it anyway.
Once in the Jeep, we followed the GPS to Jason’s address. I’d never seen his house, so I didn’t expect an apartment. He’d moved out of his stepparent’s house six months ago.
He was waiting for us with a single banana smoothie just for me after we parked.
“What, no love for me too?” Daniel held his hands out like he was hurt being left out.
Jason scowled, “We can talk when you return what is rightfully mine.”
“You had your chance.”
“Perhaps being the only honorable one, I’d intended to wait till certain timelines ended one era from another. May isn’t that far away,” Jason proclaimed awfully grumpily.
I was lost as a goose in the conversation. With the way they sneered at one another, I figured it best to stay out. Maybe the two just weren’t meant to be best buds. People do clash sometimes.
“Maybe life hands us new plans that don’t always land the way we intended,” Daniel got up in Jason’s face.
“Maybe it was an unwanted interruption.”
“Maybe you should butt out and go your own way,” Daniel pressed closer. I noticed his hands fisted and started to rise.
That was my cue. I shoved in between the two taking a great risk, but I didn’t want to see them offer up so much hate at the start of this journey.
“I think it’s time you two backed off. I don’t know what this is all about, but it’s not worth a fight.”
Jason moved my hair off my shoulder to see Daniel’s face around mine, “Oh, we both know she’s worth it.”
That made me flinch. Did he mean me? Did Jason like me like that? I tried like anything to flirt with him for over a year, but he always shrugged it off like he didn’t get that I was practically throwing myself at him. Then last year, he said he had a girlfriend and that was that. For now, I didn’t want to go there. They were severe opposites. Jason and I are world apart and always have been. Daniel was like my very own survival first aid kit. I can’t go on without him. Daniel seemed to read me like a book. I thrived off the feeling it make. We drove in silence across two states before any of us said anything. I faked sleep for much of it, but I was too wired to even doze off.
Rhode Island seemed like a world away. We ate halfway, but kept going. The guys actually took turns driving. At one point I closed my eyes and actually slept. I wasn't even going to ask about a hotel. When I woke, they were whispering. Who wouldn't listen?
"Do you freeze up when she sings?" This was Daniel's whispered voice.
"Like a hallucination or something worse. I can see her, but I can't move. Afterward, it's like I am seriously under some spell. It wigged me out the first time so bad she tried to feed me soup from the kitchen at the home. Nasty stuff, but she fed it to me. Wouldn't tell her no for anything."
Daniel huffed but said back as if in the direction of where I lay in the backseat, "I know the feeling."
Jason's serious voice deepened like had been doing over the last couple of years, "Don't hurt her."
"Can you tell if all can hear her?" Daniel ignored Jason's comment. I was faking sleep or otherwise I'd call him on it.
"Can you not?" Jason inquired louder than he was before. I hoped then I was not a snorer or my cover was blown.
"I...I can't. She and I...something is different."
Different how?
A whistle moved through the car. Jason finished his slow tune and said rather suggestively, "Ahhh, you already kissed her?"
I held back the gasp to here Daniel's reaction. He coughed before saying, "Yes."
"And?"
And what?
"We don't take from each other. It's only a give."
Wow! He was trusting Jason.
"Wow! Seriously?"
No more was said. I waited for a good five minutes before I stirred. Even then, I felt guilty. They never discussed if it meant anything or if they knew anything about the subject. And they never shared what varied conclusions each came to.
Regardless of the scenery and landmarks found on the way, I learned twenty minutes before we arrived that the entire headquarters was underground. Spooked by the idea of never returning to blue skies, I asked how long we would intend to stay. No one answered me.
DANE At the Council
The first words to your son should not be, “Is she worth it?” Maybe a “hello” or “good to have you home” would be nice. To repay the sentiment, I didn’t reply.
“Did you take from her?”
Disgusting man. “Ample enough amount to know what she is not. Our kind will act first before they know her true abilities are not what we thought knowing hype will win out regardless. She wasn't killing off anyone in Dallas, just misinformed like the rest.”
His face rarely changed so even now I could see no visible reaction to downplaying Lark being the nexus. He was afraid of her. I could see it in his eyes. I’d heard how he talked about the nexus to others when he thought I wasn’t listening. He was afraid of what she could do.
“How many has she killed?” he asked Jared behind him. The old man was her first kill, as my father termed it. She didn’t kill anyone.
"And she uses duel abilities not unlike yourself?"
"Yes." That would
n’t help my case, but didn’t think she’d hide any unknown powers well. Trying to not seem agitated by her presence so close to the council, I nodded to Marion Bartlett, the council counselor, to speak to Lark. It was purely a distraction on the part of sparing her from my father’s one-on-one scrutiny.
“She doesn’t need protection, son,” my father argued. “If you’re meaning she can’t hack it, then she isn’t any good to us Dane. If she’s on our side, we need a soldier, not a female body to take up space. If she is the nexus, I want her contained quickly and then she is yours to keep for whatever appeals you warrant. If she is staying with you, make sure she is guarded. She either is or she isn't, but I want proof. Others will test her allegiance to you.”
If she is the nexus, he said showing he wasn't convinced. A glance back told me she might have missed that part. She was staring at Jared, father's second. He was the only one here who could control father in the smallest way.
I looked down like a good son and allowed him to best me. I didn’t say if she was one way or another, but I prayed she could be a soldier in my father’s wake. I just don’t want her hurt or spoiled by the group in the next room. The Siphon Council would toss her away like yesterday’s casserole.
My father eyed her carefully getting an extra gleam in his eye that didn’t send the signals I cared for. I stepped ahead of her blocking his view. The fact that he would say things like this in front of all who preceded her always bothered me. But today it caused me pain.
I wasn't sure how he intended to take her "singing" ability away other than death, but I would cross that bridge at a later date. He didn't exactly make it known who I was going after until I reported in the day after meeting her.
“Are you offering your protection?” Lark suddenly appeared beside me. I didn’t hear her conversation with Miss Bartlett and definitely didn’t hear her come near me.
She was ballsy publicizing my father in a conversation. Lark was feeding a shark that would eat her alive if he found out our scheme. "Because I don't need it."
If I answered this in the wrong way it could go bad for both of us. Lark could be sentenced or sent away just by my overindulgence to her attention on me. I could be virtually imprisoned or forced to watch her walk out of my life permanently. Any way you measured it, my father didn’t intend for her to remain near me unless it was for immoral reasons. I had only one option available and it was sending her into a nest of dancing pythons on steroids that only wanted her powers for their own, nexus or not. If she survived, she’d have all the power she needed to tell those cannibalized council members where they could stick their political heads.
“I am offering her as a challenge under the standing of she belongs to me and me alone.”
Her head snapped to mine. She hadn’t seen this coming and I couldn’t tell her until we were alone. My father saw our lies as truth the second she stepped into the room dressed like she was. His spies had seen otherwise. I’d called her a vixen in my mind before, but now she looked it. She’d dressed in all tight black everything and it was driving me crazy not to cover it all up. Every male body watched her enter the council building and descend the stairs to this room. My father even reacted to her. She was like a siren in our siphon world where most girls were pretty, she was downright beautiful. Inside and out. And I wouldn’t let a single siphon soul know it till the time came.
She would fight, earn the status I have, and fight alongside me till the time was right to take over. I just should have let her in on that scenario.
LARK ✜ No Turning Back
"Either way, any siphoning will give her away. Taking from our warriors will single her out."
"She will not take anymore from them that they take themselves. And if she did, it would only show that she takes from either, not anything beyond."
Daniel wasn’t serious, was he? Did he just bleeping say he’d sacrifice me to the wolves he’d spent so much time telling me to avoid?
There was a burning fury buried down deep inside my belly that coiled and was inching to get out. I wanted to tear his tongue out for lying to me. Was Daniel a traitor?
He turned his back on his father to bestow me a look that was far from a Daniel Crawford norm. His eyes pleaded something indecipherable, as if asking for trust. As if!
The second those eyes turned back to his father though, they were bored, glazed over, and without emotion.
“She will be ready.”
That’s the last thing he said before he walked me through the door with a tight hand on the top of my arm like a prisoner headed into her cell. The walls around us were tall and claustrophobic, filled with the same dull gray as the entrance. When we first arrived, we went straight to what Daniel called the council room. My hesitation at the door of a downtown martial arts studio that appeared to be locked up and closed was worry enough. When we took over twenty steps further down into a underground tunnel-like dungeon, I really freaked. He calmed me with his hand, but continued to descend cold concrete stairs to what I worried some might term as entering hell. With words like, “you’re safe with me” and “stay by my side”, what girl would not at least follow for a while? Well, maybe they can’t say because to most worlds like this don’t really exist. But they do!
Like cattle heading into the butcher, I followed him. It was only because the second the metal door slammed shut his fingers pressed deep into the curve of my back and his soft whisper sailed into my left ear, “It will be okay. I will tell you everything else about this place and more just as soon as we are safe to talk.”
With that, I was calmed. I hated it too. What if he really was the butcher? Was my trust in the wrong person?
I didn’t think so, but what other choice did I have.
He’d told me before about the council and how ruthless they’d become. Not all the members were bad, but felt obligated to follow the current leader or lose their lives and families. Fear will lead a people as well as loyalty and honor. My stepfather says that all the time about the current president of our country. He said loyalty and honor have long since left the leaders of our world leaving only liars and thieves. Blink wrong and they may strike, then start your boots to shaking.
“Is it like an alpha and omega thing?” We were in a small offshoot of the hall that opened to an extended entrance with a sign above that read, CAFETERIA.
“Something like that?” Daniel stood near a desk that was missing the typical rolling office chair. A little tan stool sat before it looking out of place like I felt. He had yet to tell where we were headed.
“Then how is it?”
“Do you remember the one that was standing up when we arrived in the council room?” He waited till I nodded, but not before he glanced at my shoes hitting the floor with a tapping noise for the second time. I didn’t want to stand, so I made myself comfortable by leaning on the opposite wall. “That was the last to vote, so to speak. Like under the omega. The man he was talking to was my father, as you know now. The alpha. If he had his way, Jared, the omega, would be ousted on his rear. He sees him as weak, but he’s the only one in there that will stand up for the rest of us.”
“Which one was Jared again?” she asked.
“Brown hair, small build. Always wears a white t-shirt.”
“Why are they so adamant on being control freaks? Why don’t they try to help instead or support?” I whispered because he did first. Daniel pushed off the wall and stopped right in front of me like the day he first kissed me. My feet were trembling and my arms were stretched out across my front. This made me significantly unable to look him in the eye. His hand, either on purpose or not, brushed against my elbow.
After a long second of staring only at my knees, he shrank away and visibly altered his stance so that we weren’t touching. He held his hand out to continue down the hallway. His muffled answer was none other than an exit to a room labeled CRAWFORD. He didn't answer my question or enter the room.
I thought back to the faces of the many who just judge
d me to be unfit for a siphon and expected me to prove myself. I knew he was only acting this way because of them. The council. As afraid as I might have been walking in, they didn't look so scary. They looked afraid of me.
Except Daniel's father. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but it wasn’t good.
I was thankful for the leather pants now. I looked like I mean business in that wanna-be biker chick kind of way even if my mind was clucking and puking on the inside. I silently thanked my stepmom for all the wayward, form fitting clothes she liked to add to my closet.
Several nodded and saluted to Daniel in the hall as he took me on a tour of the “facilities” as he called it. Dozens of people called him Dane, more often female than male. Many were unusually short, though most were tall and bulky like Daniel. They weren’t midget sized by any means, more like they stopped growing after their teen years. I wondered it was a siphon genetic thing going on and vowed to ask Daniel later.
He talked like we were soldiers or something, a perception of a different man than I knew him as. His voice changed since leaving the room. I know he warned me about the front he would put up, but it was still a little unsettling to hear and see. “You’ll battle other siphons in the ring. They will be relentless and cruel, but you’ll survive. If you take from them each time they are near, it will incapacitate them long enough to take them down. Just remember it to your advantage. It will give you pain, but you have a weapon they don’t.”
“And that is?” I asked without expression. Daniel said there were cameras, but no sound. He kept a solid two feet distance away from me so I couldn’t exactly whisper. It was like he wanted to share the information but wanted to secure how others heard him give it to me. He warned me they all knew of my “greenness” to the siphon world whether I was the prophecy girl or not. It was ridiculous they thought it in the first place.
“I saw Foster, and the old man. Neither one thought anything about it. They didn't know what you were doing, nor did they care. The second you take a year, a song takes shape in your head. The one you take from freezes in their steps and simply gives their very soul over to you. Like their tranced."
Siphon (Siphon Chronicles, Book One) Page 10
