Atlas (The Atlas Series)

by Becca C. Smith

  But instead of a dead body, Penny stood in front of Kala with the same indignant look on her face. The newly made bullet hole closed up and healed before Kala’s eyes as the bullet popped out of Penny’s head, falling to the floor.

  Penny shook her head. “I can’t be killed, so don’t bother trying to threaten me. It’s annoying.”

  A strange screeching noise sounded from outside Kala’s apartment. Kala turned to the window wondering what on earth would make such a sound.

  Penny’s face went pale. “Asmodeus.”

  Kala turned to Penny. “What’s Asmodeus?”

  “Not someone I ever want you to meet. You’ve really screwed things up, you know? If you hadn’t blabbed that confession to your superior and whined about seeing the countdown, then we could have kept this whole thing under wraps. But now both sides know who the Atlas is. Know who you are. That’s never happened before. EVER.” Penny was beside herself with anger, but Kala noticed it was more than that. Penny was terrified.

  Kala had zero idea of how to respond to any of this. The screeching sounded again and it chilled her to the bone. Whatever this Asmodeus was didn’t sound friendly.

  “I may not be able to kill you, but I’m sure as hell not going to sit around and wait for my boyfriend to kill me.” Kala punched Penny as hard as she could and made a run for the door.

  Penny was too fast. She was already blocking the door before Kala could reach the knob. Kala went for another swing, but Penny grabbed Kala’s fist before it landed.

  “I’m trying to help you,” Penny scolded.

  “You just said you were basically babysitting me until Jack came to take me out,” Kala accused incredulously.

  Penny tilted her head in grudging agreement, “Well, temporarily help you until he gets here.”

  Kala shook her head in frustration and tried to shove Penny aside using one of her Aikido moves, but Penny was inhumanly strong. She pushed Kala to the floor.

  The screeching again, but this time sounding just outside the window.

  Penny pulled Kala to her feet. She placed Kala behind her body protectively. This whole situation was completely surreal. For someone who claimed to want Kala dead, Penny was certainly acting as if she wanted to save her.

  “Does this Asmodeus want me dead too?” Kala asked. She found that she wasn’t really scared. It felt like she was in combat and under attack. Nothing felt more natural to her. It was when Kala did her best thinking.

  Penny on the other hand was shaking with fear. “No, he wants you to fail. He wants the world to end.”

  Kala was sure this sentence would scare most people, but to her it was information on how to survive the upcoming attack. Whoever this Asmodeus was, he didn’t want her to die. Not yet anyway, Penny on the other hand was counting down the minutes until Jack arrived to kill Kala. So Kala’s choices were, Asmodeus, Penny or Jack?

  It wasn’t a question: Jack. This Penny girl might think Jack would kill Kala, but Kala knew Jack. He’d never let anything happen to her.

  Taking advantage of standing behind Penny, Kala picked up the discarded gun and shot seven rounds into the back of Penny’s head. Kala knew it wouldn’t kill the woman, but she was sure it was give her at least a few seconds to escape. Penny dropped to the floor from the shock and probably pain of it.

  Kala ran out the door and into the hallway at breakneck speed.

  And sure enough, apparently healing fast, she heard Penny scream her name in rage.

  Running down the exit stairs four at a time, Kala was surprised she didn’t tumble to her death. The screeching penetrated through the walls and Kala began to know real fear. She’d been in countless combat attacks, but there was something about that sound...

  It wasn’t human.

  Penny’s pursuing footfalls thudded down the stairs above Kala. Kala knew Penny would be on her in seconds. Hitting the bottom floor, Kala pushed open the exit door and ran into the alleyway that lay between her apartment complex and the one next door.

  The screeching was deafening outside. Whatever it was, it was close.

  Asmodeus. Whatever or whoever that was.

  Kala ran past her neighbors, who had run out of the apartment building thinking the noise was some kind of fire alarm. At least now she knew she wasn’t making it up in her head, unless her hallucinations included imagining confused neighbors. No, Kala had survived her whole life trusting her instincts. And her instincts told her all of this was happening. She just wasn’t sure what “all of this” actually was yet. Oh how she wished for the simple stress of countdown clocks!

  Jack’s car squealed to a halt in the parking lot. “GET IN!” he screamed at Kala.

  Kala looked behind her to see Penny running out of the apartment building. When she saw Kala, her eyes flared blue.

  Uh oh. Kala gulped. What was worse was how Penny was looking at Jack. I guess she didn’t like the fact that Jack had come to rescue Kala and not kill her. Kala couldn’t resist being smug.

  As she opened the passenger door to get in, Kala smiled at Penny triumphantly.

  Penny screamed in outrage and started to charge the car.

  Kala slammed the car door shut as Jack hit the gas full throttle. Looking back through the window, Kala nearly gasped as a blur of black smoke completely engulfed Penny, followed by the screeching.

  It appeared that Asmodeus was going to have to satisfy himself with Penny for the moment.

  Flipping back around, Kala looked at Jack. He turned to her and his smile was slow and meaningful.

  He simply said, “We need to talk.”

  Chapter Nine

  “That’s an understatement,” Kala replied. She took a deep breath to steady herself, adrenaline pumping through her veins a mile a minute. It felt as if she had just cheated death, the biggest rush there was. Kala knew she needed to calm herself enough to process what was happening.

  “What happened to you when you killed the President?” Jack asked.

  Kala had been ready for explanations not questions, but the question jarred her a bit. If what Penny had said was true, then Jack had been preparing to kill the next Atlas his whole life and Kala had taken that away from him.

  “I’ll share all the details after you tell me what you know. That Penny girl says you have to kill me. Are you going to kill me Jack?” Kala needed to see his response. To see if Jack was who she thought he was.

  Jack didn’t hesitate. “Never.”

  Kala took a few seconds to take that in, then she nodded. “Tell me what you know.”

  “Let’s get somewhere safe first.”

  They drove the rest of the way in silence.

  Kala took the trip as a breather to think about everything that had happened to her. She still couldn’t quite grasp that what she had seen with the President was real, but so far everything that she’d witnessed made her come to some kind of truce with herself that she’d listen to Jack with an open mind. The one thing she didn’t want to think about was the fact that, if all of this was real, then her “mission” was to kill Jack. That was not something Kala could do. Ever. So ultimately that meant she was going to fail. She just hoped that failing didn’t mean what the President said it would mean: world destruction.

  And, now that she was really thinking about it: WTF? Some screeching smoke monster named Asmodeus just engulfed an annoying woman named Penny that somehow can survive a round of bullets to the head. Kala guessed it wasn’t any more farfetched than being an ancient Greek god that was saving the planet every four days, but still... Looney bin time.

  After about a half hour of driving, Jack pulled into a diner on the outskirts of town. There wasn’t anything special about the restaurant, it looked almost comforting to Kala after the ordeal she’d just been through. Large glass windows wrapped around the rectangular-shaped buildings and an old seventies style neon sign simply said: Nora’s Diner. Kala didn’t know who Nora was, but she had to be nicer than Penny.

  Turning off the car engine, Jack turned
to Kala. He grabbed her and pulled her close, kissing her passionately. Kala lost herself in that kiss. She let all the craziness of the past twenty-four hours wash away in the solace of Jack pressing up against her. It almost felt like they were teenagers sneaking away to a make-out-point the way they were going at it in the front seat of Jack’s car. But Kala didn’t care, she didn’t want it to stop. Because she knew, when it did, more insanity would try and to suffocate her life.

  Agonizingly, Jack finally pulled away, but he kept his hand on Kala’s cheek. “I love you.”

  Jack kissed Kala gently, then drew back so their faces were only inches from each other. His eyes were intense — sad, happy, scared — anything and everything was going on behind them. So much so that Kala didn’t know how to respond to his declaration. She wanted to tell him she loved him too, but her fear was a much stronger combatant, so she waited for him to say more.

  His lips were still inches from hers, which made Kala want to pull him in for another kiss, but Jack spoke instead. “You don’t have to say anything back. I don’t expect you to, but Kala, you have to know that I love you and that I’ll never let anything happen to you. I don’t care what they want. Do you trust me?”

  Kala found that she couldn’t say much of anything, let alone confess her true feelings for Jack, so she simply nodded.

  “Let’s get something to eat.” Jack tilted his head toward the diner. As if he couldn’t resist himself, he kissed Kala one more time.

  Kala was the first to break the kiss, and she smiled at Jack. “I’m starving.”

  The two of them entered Nora’s Diner and found it almost empty. The décor was exactly what Kala expected: 70’s vinyl booths with Formica table tops, black and white checkered linoleum floor, and the smell of grease. A large platter of steak fries and a cholesterol-filled patty melt was exactly what the doctor ordered. Kala looked up at the clock and had to do a double take. The countdown was more annoying now than freaky. Doing the math in her head was not something Kala was particularly good at. It said: 3d 18h 45m 21s. After what felt like an eternity, she finally asked Jack. “What the hell time is it?”

  Jack gave her a momentary look of confusion, then understanding dawned on him. “Do all clocks countdown for you?”

  Kala wasn’t sure how she felt about Jack knowing so much more about her situation than she did, but she nodded anyway without her usual snarky comeback.

  “It’s 11:15,” Jack said. He motioned to the booth in the back of the diner and the two of them sat down.

  After the waitress took their order, Jack took a deep breath as he looked at Kala. She felt the weight of his stare like an anvil of guilt. He finally spoke, “You must think you’re going crazy.”

  Kala laughed at that. “I haven’t ruled that out completely yet.”

  Jack reached across the table and held Kala’s hands in his. She didn’t pull away. “This is something I’ve been training for my whole life. My parents have been dreading and waiting for this day since I was born. And when it came down to it I choked.”

  “You didn’t choke, I just had a better shot.” Kala found that her first instinct was to make Jack feel better, not strangle him and ask him what the hell he was talking about. Sometimes she felt like such a girl! Kala decided to remedy that. “What have you been training for your whole life? This Atlas thing, or whatever?” Oh the elegance.

  “Sounds mental, doesn’t it?” Jack took his hands away when the waitress came to drop off their food.

  Kala bit into the greasy deliciousness that was her patty melt and everything felt a little better. “It sounds more than mental, it sounds like a cheesy fairytale.”

  “Stories and myths always come from somewhere.” Jack bit into his healthier turkey club.

  “I was pretty solid on the fact that they came from writers,” Kala couldn’t resist the attitude. Like the scorpion and the frog, it was just in her nature.

  “Not this time.” Jack sighed. “Now they want me to kill you so I can be what everyone thinks I was destined to be.”

  “So, the only way to make a new Atlas is to kill the old one?” Kala decided to get a few things clarified.

  Jack nodded, “But the Demons would rather the Atlases not accomplish their mission and let the world slip into chaos after the four-day time clock.”

  “Hold up. Demons?” Kala needed a bit of a rewind. Demons? Being a foster kid, religion was always forced down her throat before she lived with Owen and Linda. And Demons had always scared her the most. The thought of something so evil actually existing made her skin crawl.

  Jack sat back, shaking his head. “There’s so much you don’t know. I had a whole lifetime to learn it. Yes, Demons. There are two sides: the Malaks and the Demons. The Malaks are the good guys like Penny. They’re fighting for balance. But the Demons live for chaos and destruction. Asmodeus is their leader.”

  “First, off, Penny is not a good guy, she’s a bitch. And second, Demons?” Kala still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that Demons were real. Not only that, but their leader was just at her apartment trying to… Kala didn’t even know what exactly he was trying to do.

  “Have you had your vision yet? The task you’re supposed to complete to keep the balance?” Jack looked at Kala with genuine concern.

  Kala sat there quietly. She couldn’t tell him. How could she? What was she supposed to say, Yes, my mission to save the world is to murder you. Then again, Jack was completely honest about his mission to kill her and his refusal to carry it through.

  “Not yet,” Kala lied. There had to be some way out of this mess. This retired Atlas guy had underestimated Kala’s tenacity to weasel out of situations. If there was a loop hole, Kala would find it.

  As if on cue to Kala’s misery, the waitress turned on the television. Sure enough, the scene of Kala shooting Jack in the head played again and again until Kala had to shield her eyes with her hand to stop from seeing it.

  “You don’t like car commercials?” Jack glanced at the TV and smiled.

  “Not that one.” Kala moved her hand away and kept her focus on Jack to distract her from the television.

  “Normally the Demons have no knowledge of who the Atlas is. This is the first time both sides know who you are.” Jack’s voice was laced with worry.

  “That’s what Penny said. Is it because I told Turner?” Kala knew what the answer was, but she had to ask anyway.

  Jack nodded. “Your confession went on record, including the part where you told the General about being the new Atlas. Information like that didn’t take long to get into Asmodeus’s hands. Now that the Demons know about you, they won’t stop until they have you.” Jack pushed away his sandwich as if the thought made him lose his appetite.

  “Why wouldn’t they just kill me, be the new Atlas and then wait out the apocalypse.” Kala sounded a little too rational for her taste.

  “Honestly? We don’t know. We think it’s because Demons don’t know what would happen if they killed an Atlas. And what they don’t know is dangerous, so locking you up in a hole for four days is a much safer bet,” Jack explained. “It’s the Malaks you have to watch out for. Right now they’re focused on me being the next Atlas, but once they realize I’m not going to kill you, they’ll bring in the next in line. Some other poor kid who’s been raised to think they’re the Chosen One. Penny is still fighting for me, but after the stunt I just pulled, she won’t be able to defend my position much longer.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that ‘the good guys’ are the ones trying to kill me and ‘the bad guys’ are too scared to kill me so they’re just going to lock me up?” Kala asked incredulously. In her book, ‘the bad guys’ sounded like a much better alternative. Especially since Kala wouldn’t have to kill Jack if they got their way. “Isn’t there some way to break this curse?” Kala asked.

  Jack didn’t outright say Yes or No, he actually seemed to be thinking on it, finally admitting, “I don’t know, Kala. I wish I could say ‘yes,’ but
I don’t see a way out. President Wilton seemed to think he’d figured out a way, but all I saw was a guy that was going to try and kill himself along with a butt load of people.”

  “I really wish we would have let him tell us his plan, maybe it could have worked.” Kala would never have agreed to kill innocents.

  “Maybe, but I’ve been told that there have been Atlases in the past who have tried to stop the cycle by killing themselves. But that’s a part of the curse. You can’t kill yourself. Anyone on the planet can kill you, but if you try to put a bullet to your head. Nothing. It would pop right out and heal.”

  “Like dear old Penny. Why can’t she be killed?” Kala wanted to know. Honestly, knowing that she couldn’t kill herself didn’t make much difference to Kala since she would never in a million years try to commit suicide. She didn’t care how bad things got, suicide was never the answer. Not for her anyway. But Penny? That girl couldn’t be killed, by anyone. That was way more interesting!

  “There’s a lot more to Penny than even I know. She was my trainer when I was a kid and she looks exactly the same.” Jack’s face had a kind of far-off expression as if he were remembering better times.

  “You know I unloaded my Beretta into the back of her head, right?” Kala made the guilty face. Though Penny wanted her dead, Kala still felt weirdly horrible about shooting a “good guy.”

  Jack smiled. “I’m sure that pissed her off.” Then he looked serious. “Did you know she couldn’t die before or after you shot?”

  “Before! Geez.” Kala defended herself, but she could see that Jack was teasing her. Kala inwardly rolled her eyes at the fact that they could tease each other about shooting people.

  They could hear the screeching again. It was far off, but Kala knew with certainty that it had picked up their scent and was coming for her.

  Jack knew it too. “Asmodeus. The Demons won’t stop until they have you. Being the first time they’ve ever known who an Atlas is, they must be salivating. We have to get you out of here. As soon as you know what your mission is, you have to complete it. No matter how difficult. Agreed?”