Tainted Energy (The Energy Series Book 1)

by Lynn Vroman

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  By the time I made it back to Jake’s, my nerves were ready to eat the outer layer of my skin. Of course, there was a lot of rationalizing going on about the sudden storm. Most people blamed global warming.

  Oops! Try again!

  All I knew was that Arcus was leaking into Earth. I had no idea how. But if Tarek didn’t get his ass here soon…well, at least Wilma would know if I got sucked in again.

  I threw my bag on the couch, still damp like my clothes, and went into the bathroom to change into sweats. When I came out, I noticed Jake sitting at the kitchen table, huddled over coffee. I sat across from him, doing my best to make eye contact. We hadn’t had a chance to talk alone all weekend, due to me finding every possible way to avoid it.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He looked up from his cup with eyes so red they could’ve been stop signs. “Hey.”

  “No sleep?” I’d keep this conversation up as long as he’d let me.

  “What’s going on, Lena?”

  Crap.

  I gave a loose string on my sleeve my full attention. “I’m not sure, really.”

  He reached over and stilled my busy hand. “Let’s try that again.”

  “You sure you wanna know?”

  “Positive.”

  With a sigh, the story tumbled out, ending with the super storm this morning. When I finished, he looked past me and out the kitchen window, toying with the gold cross hanging from a chain around his neck. “And you believe this…this story? Christ, it sounds like a children’s fairy tale. Well, the kind meant to scare kids.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve seen this stuff, Jake. I know it’s real. And the whole gym class saw the sky turn purple and the rain fall on us like a uniformed army.”

  “It’s just so…” He still didn’t quite believe me, the evidence clear in his nervous laugh.

  “Crazy? Surreal? You name it, that’s what it is.” I hesitated a second. “But whatever it is, it’s real, and probably not a good thing for people to find out.” I pulled at the string. “It’s not like anybody would believe us, anyway.”

  Jake stretched with a half-assed yell. “So, what now? I mean, what happens with you and your mom?”

  “Mom doesn’t need to know any more than what she already does. She hasn’t even asked. Besides, I don’t think she’d handle it well.” I grabbed his mug and sipped. “And Tarek and Wilma will figure things out eventually. Until then, I have my angry giant shadowing me.”

  “Yeah? Where’s the giant now?”

  Face flushed and warm, I took another sip. Man, I hated black coffee. “He went to Exemplar to talk to Wilma.”

  Jake’s eyebrow shot up to almost his hairline.

  “What?”

  He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “Look, this…it’s crazy, but I’m not going anywhere. You guys can stay here until everything gets straightened out.”

  God, I loved him. “Thanks, but you’ve done enough. I’ll get our things up to the apartment in a couple days.”

  “I guess I wasn’t clear.” He gave me his famous stubborn face as he rolled his shoulders, putting his elbows on the table. “You two will stay here until this shit clears up.”

  I smiled, liking that idea a lot. “Well, if you insist…”

  “I do.”

  I stood and wrapped my arms around his back. “I guess you have some new roommates.”

  Lena

  Pounding on the front door made me jump, my book falling to the scratched floorboards. Pacing for an hour didn’t help calm my nerves, but reading Shakespeare did. Call me crazy.

  Wait, no, don’t call me crazy.

  “Who’s there?” My voice sounded way too high. With Jake already gone, I’d have to handle whoever was on the other side alone.

  “Open the door, Lena.”

  A mixture of relief and irritation washed over me. I threw open the door, one hand resting on my hip. “If the goal here is to curb fear, I’d suggest a more pleasant knocking sound. Why’d you knock, anyway? Can’t you like, I don’t know, teleport into the living room?”

  He stomped past me, dressed in jeans and a black V-neck sweater.

  “What? Leather pants dirty?”

  Tarek rolled his eyes, but the pain and anger that drove him away didn’t shadow his face.

  I definitely didn’t notice how my breath quickened when the scent of apples and lilacs filled the room. Nope, I didn’t feel anything–except for the electricity he sparked inside my chest.

  He gestured toward the couch. “Can we talk?”

  “Depends.” I hesitated by the door, refusing to give in to the urge to forgive him.

  “On?”

  “On if this talk has anything to do with my love life.”

  His jaw clenched, but relaxed in an instant. “It doesn’t.”

  I sat on the couch. He settled on the other end, bent forward with arms resting on his knees. I had to switch to breathing through my mouth so the scent he brought back didn’t turn me into a sappy mess.

  “I never told you how we met.”

  Tension and excitement tightened my shoulders. Even the morning’s storm took a seat further back in my mind. “There hasn’t actually been a great time to bring it up.”

  He smiled, his dimples making an appearance. “No, I suppose there hasn’t been.” He brought his attention level to mine. “Remember when you asked why I never chose to be your Protector?”

  I smoothed my hair, his attention making me self-conscious. “Yeah, something about a conflict of interest?”

  “That wasn’t altogether true.”

  “Okay….”

  He looked at his fidgeting hands, giving them his undivided attention. “Ah…okay, so, when a new energy is created, it causes a…stir in our world.”

  “New energy?” If I knew there’d be an intro before the good stuff, I’d have grabbed some popcorn. Maybe a notepad and pencil, too.

  “Yeah. When Guides or Protectors…have relations…” His palms formed a steeple.

  I nudged his shoulder. “Are you giving The Talk? Because I learned about the birds and the bees in fifth grade.”

  His face reddened, but his smile came back. “Sorry. Anyway, it’s rare when our…togetherness…results in creation.” He splayed his fingers. “You see, a new energy in Exemplar is a…ah…highly evolved energy from another dimension. When these energies are read, they’re deemed privileged enough to be cycled into Exemplar. Which then become newborn Exemplians…ah, after these…relations.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Tarek talking about sex was better than any Saturday Night Live rerun. “So Exemplar is the end of the line, kind of the height of evolution?”

  He shook his head, the corners of his mouth turning down. “So some say.”

  “Are new Exemplians’ past lives remembered? You know, from their old dimension?”

  Sadness tinged his eyes. “No. It’s a fresh start, a new beginning.”

  “So, what happens when Exemplians die and decide to go back to Exemplar for their next cycle? Do they just appear or something, exactly as they were before?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Our DNA is harvested when we’re born into our first cycle. When our corporeal form dies, our energy is directed to the Synod medics. Science isn’t my thing, but simply put, we come back as a younger version than we were at the time of our death.” He hesitated. “We come back with all our memories, too.”

  I stole a few glances at my mother’s door. “Christ, you’re all a bunch of mad scientists. That…it’s not natural.”

  “Believe me, I agree with you, but it’s been that way for centuries. Even if it wasn’t natural prior, it’s natural now.”

  This conversation would take years, and it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Enough. Tell me how we met.”

  He gave a small grin, his shoulders relaxing some. “When the word spread that there was a new Exemplian born,” he gestured toward me, “Protectors fought for th
e chance to protect her, know her.”

  “Why?”

  “You can’t imagine living the same life for centuries. Knowing the same things, thinking the same things, never again living a childhood. It makes one…cold, immune to the smallest pleasures. So when the Synod chose me to be your Protector, I was excited, eager for the first time in years.”

  “What would a young Guide need a Protector for? I doubt they traipsed around reading energies at five.”

  “We’re full-cycle Protectors. We protect your kind from the moment of your existence.” He shrugged. “And a young Exemplian is just like a newborn here.”

  “And so…”

  “New energies are curious, risking their lives to seek pleasure, knowledge, just like young people here. Older people for that matter. Anyone who only remembers one life, I guess.”

  “Okay, okay… people are the same everywhere. So you protected me during my first go at the whole life thing. I take it didn’t go so great?” I gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “Did I get killed off too soon by a giant hamster in another world or something?”

  He smiled a little, though it looked forced. “We spent fifty years together that first cycle. Your passion, your curiosity, it brought me back to life. I noticed the colors, smells, everything you fell in love with or decided to hate. I became too protective, too involved.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad.” I ignored the need to hug him.

  “Yeah, well, when a mission went wrong, and your corporeal form was found…”

  The pain racing across his face crushed my inhibitions. I slid close, wrapping my arm around his back.

  His next sentence flew out. “When it was found and destroyed, I went crazy.”

  “I don’t understand. What do mean, found?”

  He sighed. “When you collect energies from Wardens in each dimension, your energy leaves your physical form. It’s just your energy that guides others through the dimensions. Don’t know why, but Guides can’t transport energy unless their corporeal form is in the dimension they’re collecting from.”

  “Why do you blame yourself?”

  “Because I wasn’t there to protect your body as I should’ve been. We thought it was well hidden, and I…had trouble letting you take the bad energy you’d collected to a dimension that makes Arcus look like a playground.” He scrubbed at the scruff on his cheeks. “I knew nothing could happen to your energy form, but…I became possessive.”

  “Oh.” What could I say to that?

  He scrubbed his face again. “And so, when you chose to return to Exemplar, I stepped down as your Protector, and Wilma volunteered.”

  “Were we, you know, more than friends the first time around?”

  He smiled a genuine smile this time. “No. That didn’t happen until your next cycle.”

  “Another story?”

  “Yes.” He laughed when I hunkered down, ready to listen. “For another time.”

  My shoulders slumped. “So why tell me all this?”

  He stood and went to the window. “My way of telling you I won’t get too involved again. That my decisions will be more, ah, rational from now on.” He bent his head. “I’ll follow the rules.”

  A smile threatened even as disappointment crept in. Man, I so wanted him to kiss me again. “Is this your long way of saying sorry?”

  “Guess it is.”

  “Okay, well I accept.”

  “And,” he cleared his throat, “just so you know…I was mad because he kissed you.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and shook my head. “But it wasn’t me you kissed, right?”

  We stayed silent for a second, me looking at him, while his eyes went everywhere but on my face.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “I’m trying.”

  “Good for you.” That excuse didn’t make anything better. He could try all he wanted, but he’d better be kissing me the next time–if there was a next time. “Anything else you wanna share?”

  He cleared his throat again and nodded, his face reddening. At least he had the decency to feel like an ass. “Now, believe me when I say, decisions from here on out will be made with reason.”

  “Okay, so you made a decision and…” I waved for him to get on with it.

  “You have to trust me.”

  “Don’t believe I have a choice.”

  “Wilma and I…we’ve found something.”

  Excitement sizzled in the room. I hopped off the couch, standing right up against his chest. Maybe there’d be an end to this whole thing after all. “What is it?”

  He pursed his lips and arched an eyebrow. “It’s about your boyfriend.”

  The way he said boyfriend annoyed the shit out of me. “Reason, huh?”

  “If you just listen–”

  “What are you gonna tell me? That he’s some sort of crazed animal from another world come to kill me?” I tried to keep my voice low, but the conversation turn made it get louder with every word. “I’ve known him for over three months, and until two weeks ago, nothing’s happened. Nothing.” I don’t know who I was more pissed at–him for accusing Zander or me for not realizing Zander’s obsessive fascination for me was odd a long time ago. Hell, Belva even noticed.

  Wonder if STUPID could fit on my forehead?

  His big hand slid through his hair, but his voice never rose. “I know how it sounds, but hear me out.”

  As I opened my mouth, the bedroom door creaked. Mom, mussed from sleep and face still swollen, came out of the room, a soft smile floating on her lips. “Hey, honey.” Her eyes darted toward Tarek, who gave her a glare that would have had most people running for cover. Mom lifted her chin and stood taller. I had to admit, she made me proud.

  She nodded her head his way. “Tarek.”

  “Jacie.”

  “Will you be staying long?” Before he could answer, she answered for him. “Because I’d prefer a night alone with my daughter.”

  I intervened before he could get all mean. “He came by to check on us.”

  She shook her head. “Well, we’re fine for now, thank you.”

  I shot him a look, and we had a whole conversation with our eyes. Mine telling him to shut up and his saying he wasn’t going anywhere. After about thirty seconds, I broke the silent battle. “Why don’t I walk you out?”

  “Lena, I–” I mouthed trust me, and his jaw relaxed with obvious effort. “Okay, but I’ll come by later,” he glared at Mom, “to check on you.”

  “Not too late, Lena has school in the morning–with friends who are still in high school.” She gave him a glare of her own and walked into the bathroom. After a minute, the tinkling sounds of the shower ricocheted off the bathroom door.

  “You expect me to leave when that woman commands it?”

  “That woman is my mother, and I’m tired of reminding you.” I grabbed his arm, definitely not enjoying the rippling play of muscle, and led him to the door. “Look, you asked me to trust you, and I will, with one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “You can’t hurt Zander.”

  “Tell me where I can find him.”

  “Tell me why you think he’s involved.”

  He groaned, rubbing the stubble on his cheeks. “I need more than fifteen seconds.”

  “Well, come back in a couple hours, and you can tell me on the way to his house.”

  “What do you suggest I do until then?” His words dripped with condescension.

  “You know what? I’m gonna ignore your tone because I’ve got manners.” I shut the door behind us on the porch. Even with her in the bathroom, I didn’t want to take any chances of Mom hearing anything new. “And for starters, you can see if there’s any trace of Arcus left in the woods in front of the trailer park.”

  If it were possible, his stare would’ve turned the porch into an ice rink. “Care to explain?”

  I told him about the storm, using my hands to show how the rain arched across everything to hit us in the field. He stay
ed silent, even five minutes after I stopped talking. I squirmed as I searched the splintered floorboards for an escape hatch.

  When he finally spoke, I jumped. “The next time something like this happens, it’d be a good idea to bring it up earlier in the conversation.”

  I didn’t want to admit that the story about our first meeting trumped my better judgment. “Sure, whatever, but what does it mean?”

  He tilted my chin until our eyes met. The gray ice melted, replaced with something more intimidating. Worry. “It means Casimir has managed to bleed the lines.”

  Tarek

  Tarek raised his arm where the air still crackled with foreign energy and opened his fist. He searched the fresh tear, the electric current weaving through his fingers, and gauged its depth. A one, maybe two hundred-foot laceration. A scratch, really, but one Casimir could easily infect if he dug at it long enough. Not good.

  Not. Good.

  Damn. He clenched his hand, closing the hole. No need to help the bastard by keeping the line open. No sense leaving any evidence behind, either.

  He crouched, knees cracking on the way down, and scavenged the ground below the tear. Signs of Arcus were subtle, the dirt a little darker and the budding leaves a tad brighter. Admittedly, the color attracted him. It also attracted other inhabitants. Squirrels and white-tailed deer examined the greener foliage, no doubt the smells more potent with the added pigment. His presence didn’t scare them away as they continued their investigation. They even hung out when he opened the portal to search the lines.

  Arcus had that effect, like a carnivorous plant. The vibrancy sucked you into the illusion before ripping off your head and pulling out your heart.

  Soft wheezing caught his attention. He stood still, waiting for the sound again. After a minute, it echoed through the trees, this time a bit louder. Tension rode his shoulders while he dug through the wet, molding compost, the animals still too curious to care about him.

  Nothing.

  With a quick swipe on the front of his jeans to clean the crud off his hands, he swallowed.

  Then he looked up.

  In a dead tree, its gray decayed trunk brighter, a squid loosely clung to the highest branches. The thing wasn’t as big as most of the animals wrapped in Arcus trees, maybe the size of one of the doe nosing the low-hanging buds. Its pink color faded to almost white.