Invaders' Wrath (The Unstoppable Titans Book 2)

by Jerry Hart

  When he first saw her lying in that bathtub weeks ago, nearly dead after Eric’s attack, Chris’s heart had torn in two. He’d loved her ever since he first saw her in school, and he hated seeing her hurt. He’d thought that he would never get the chance to tell her how he felt about her, like Owen had suggested he do.

  Chris was about to say hello when Stephanie was suddenly upon him, kissing his lips. Her arms were around his neck, and she was pulling herself up to him. He wrapped his arms around her to help. Becky rolled her eyes and left them on the front porch. They kissed for a long time.

  * * *

  After spending time with Stephanie and telling her all that had happened to him and his friends (and possibly herself, since she was part of the zombie soldiers), Chris returned to Birch, making sure to fill up the gas tank before getting to Cullen’s.

  He and Owen didn’t say much to each other after he got there. Everyone sat at the table for dinner, staring at each other in silence. The tension was thick between Chris and Owen, though the others didn’t know what it was about.

  “These hamburgers are awesome,” Doug said to Cullen and Vanessa, startling everyone.

  “I helped grill them,” Curtis added as if his feelings were hurt by the exclusion. Everyone laughed.

  And then everything got quiet again. Cullen was feeding Sidney baby food (peaches and green peas) while taking bites of his hamburger.

  “I’ve decided to finish high school,” Owen said.

  Chris’s eyes darted to Owen’s in that instant. Owen was already staring back, as if daring Chris to say something.

  “That’s great, Owen,” Vanessa said. “What made you decide that?”

  “Cullen and I talked it over. He convinced me it was a good idea. Since I missed out on most of high school”—Owen looked away from Chris as he said this—“I figured it would be cool to get that experience. I want to walk across a stage to get my diploma, like everybody else.”

  Everyone except Chris was nodding and smiling. Chris thought it was a good idea, as well, but he felt incredibly guilty. If it hadn’t been for him, Owen would’ve finished high school in the first place. Everything was Chris’s fault: Daniel’s and Alyssa’s deaths; Owen’s fractured childhood.

  Chris got up from the table and walked into the living room. Everyone watched him go. Everyone but Owen. In the living room, Chris sat on the couch and stared at D in the corner. With Daniel and Alyssa dead, and Owen going back to school, Chris wondered where that left him. He knew it was selfish of him to have these thoughts right now, but he no longer had a place to call home, and he couldn’t fathom going back to the streets.

  Just then, Owen sat down next to him. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be,” said Chris. “You’re doing the right thing. I’m proud of you, in fact.”

  Owen smiled at that. “You know, I have a big old house now. It’s got plenty of rooms. You can live with me.”

  Chris pondered this for a moment. It’s as if Owen was reading his mind, and wouldn’t doubt it considering Michael had been able to read Owen’s once before. Then he said, “Will you help me kill that monster? Armenus’s test subject?”

  Owen’s smile faded. “I … don’t know, Chris. I’m just a normal person now. I’m not super-strong anymore. I don’t want to do any of that; I want to have a normal life.”

  Owen had told him about the supplement, and about how his dad really died. “You’re scared, aren’t you?” Chris asked, not unkindly.

  “Yes, I am.”

  Chris nodded. “I understand. That’s why we can’t live together.” He got up and walked over to D. “I’m going to need him, though.”

  “You’ll have to talk to Doug,” Owen said.

  “It’s fine,” a voice said from the hall. It was Doug. Curtis stood next to him. “It’s fine because we want to help, Curtis and me.”

  Owen looked back at them for a while, then turned to Chris. “There you go,” he said quietly, as if giving Chris his blessing to continue the monster-hunting game without him.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe you two,” Seneda said to Daniel and Alyssa by the blue waterfall. “First you save those two boys—Curtis and Doug. Then you keep Owen alive for weeks, using so much of your own energy to do so. It was so … so … selfless.”

  Daniel and Alyssa, both of whom had been looking at the snow-white ground in shame, suddenly looked up at the smiling woman.

  “What you have done, no one has ever done before,” Seneda continued in a less harsh tone than when she started. “I want to thank you for keeping my son alive during his ordeal. I only wish I had been able to do so myself, as a mother should…”

  “You would have, if you’d known how,” Alyssa said kindly.

  “We can teach you,” Daniel added. “It’s not too hard.”

  Seneda’s smile vanished. “You kids are messing with the laws of nature. Your intentions may be noble, but this isn’t something you should do often.”

  “But if we can stop people from dying—” Daniel began.

  Seneda held up a hand, silencing him. “You can’t stop death. You can only delay it. Everyone on the planet will die some day, no matter what we do here. I’m sorry, kids, but that’s just the way it is.”

  Daniel and Alyssa were silent after that. They had gone from shameful to proud and then to depressed all within a minute. It didn’t feel good. All they had wanted to do was help their friends on Earth, even if it meant using all of their own energy to do so. But what would happen if there was no more energy to give? Perhaps Mrs. Walters was right.

  Seneda cleared her throat. “Now, if it’s okay with you two, do you mind … teaching me how you saved your friends?”

  Daniel and Alyssa smiled again. The lesson began.

  CHAPTER 21

  Nikki sat at the dinner table with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. The silence was uncomfortable but Nikki was slowly getting used to it. Even though she’d returned home a year ago, nothing had changed. Her mother sat across from her, slowly eating mashed potatoes and trying not to look at her daughter. Manny, the boyfriend, nursed his bottle of beer, his plate empty.

  Returning home had been a difficult decision for Nikki, but she had hoped she could repair her relationship with her mother. The past year had seen one failed attempt after the other. Clearly Mother still hated Nikki for revealing her affair and ruining her marriage. Nikki didn’t feel bad about that anymore; it wasn’t her fault that her mother had been unfaithful. Nikki wanted more than anything to say that out loud, but she managed to keep it bottled within.

  Right now, however, she wanted to think of Darlington—Armenus. She often thought of his real name and had trouble associating it with the man she had grown to love over the years. She missed him terribly, even though he had been the cause of everything bad that had happened. The orb, the creatures, Owen’s father’s death. Darlington hadn’t meant to cause any harm in this world. Nikki knew that in her heart.

  “You still hungry?” Mother asked.

  Nikki shook her head automatically. She had hardly touched anything on her plate. She got up, took it to the kitchen and washed it off. She then retreated to her room and lay down on her bed. Her life felt empty and meaningless now. She didn’t want to be in this house anymore, but there was nowhere for her to go. She wanted to be with Darlington, even if that meant rotting in jail with him.

  Or had he been executed for his crimes? That thought made her heart race. She sat up, no longer able to sit still. Nikki paced her room, thinking about where she could go.

  She collapsed on the edge of her bed; she could think of nowhere. She looked around her cluttered room, which her mom had turned into a sort of storage closet in Nikki’s absence, and furiously wiped away the tears that sprung up. She saw a box labeled “Tom’s Stuff” in a corner. Tom was her dad.

  Nikki crossed the room and pulled the box out. It was fairly big but light. She opened it and rummaged through. There were a few random ob
jects, but the box was mostly filled with journals. She grabbed the top journal, which was battered and flimsy, and returned to the bed to read:

  I wish I had never bought that book. Ever since picking it up, I have been unable to get it out of my mind. It’s as if the words were meant just for me. It’s filled with short stories about talking animals and giants. I’m not usually into fantasy, but this doesn’t seem like fiction to me. I can’t explain what I mean, not to my wife or daughter. I feel alone in this.

  Nikki went to the next entry, dated a month later.

  I’m not sure how I did it, but I managed to track down the author. His name is Fred Lane. He said he’d been expecting me. He confirmed what I knew to be true: The stories are based on real events. He told me that I wasn’t the first to come to him with the same feelings. He said he’d written The Rift for just this purpose—to recruit.

  Nikki stopped reading as she grew uneasy. “Recruit”? For what? She read on:

  He told me that a war was coming, and that we had to go and stop Him. When I asked who He was, Fred told me a name that made me shiver: Norrack.

  That name! She recognized it from somewhere. Fred Lane, however, she did not.

  Fred told me we had to go to another world to stop Norrack before he came to this world. I believed him instantly, even though he sounded like he was talking nonsense. It was a terrible feeling, not knowing who you are and what you’re meant for, not knowing what is real. But talking to Fred helped me understand my place in the universe. I knew after speaking with him that I wanted to go, to help.

  Nikki stopped reading. She wasn’t sure if she could continue. A horrible sense of dread crept into her. Wherever her father had gone, he had not returned. Did he die, or just find a place where he was happier? Without her?

  She shook her head, ridding herself of those thoughts. Her father had loved her. He wouldn’t just leave and not come back. Something had happened to him. Nikki planned on finding out what.

  * * *

  Bookers was crowded tonight. Owen made his way through the bookstore as people lined up to get their graphic novels signed by the authors. He avoided looking at the authors and went up the escalator to get to the second floor, where his book was waiting.

  High school was difficult, but fun. His favorite class had to be English. Owen used to find reading a tedious task, but now he enjoyed it. The book he’d been assigned to read for the class had been so enjoyable, he wanted to read its sequel. But in order to do that, he had to buy it.

  He looked over the guardrail and saw the line was getting shorter. He accidentally caught a glimpse of the authors and his heart raced. He knew Curtis Merriman and Doug Hudson were going to be doing their signings at this store, but Owen had no other choice. All the other stores were curiously out of copies of the book he wanted.

  Wandering into the fiction section, he browsed for the author’s last name, since the books were alphabetized that way. Then he found the book. As he pulled it from the shelf, a blond guy walked up to him. Owen glanced at him for a second, then studied the cover of the book. There were spaceships flying in front of an orange planet.

  Another book caught his attention, though. It was a plain brown hardcover. Owen took it off the shelf and studied it. It was called The Rift, by a man named Frederick Lane. He couldn’t take his eyes off the book; it so reminded him of the book-steps from the dream he had a year ago, the steps that led to the giant orb floating in midair. The cover wasn’t the least bit eye-catching, but Owen knew he had to buy this book.

  The blond guy was still standing next to him. Owen looked at him again. The guy had on a pair of jeans and a black leather jacket over a yellow shirt. He appeared to be in his early twenties and had sparkling blue eyes.

  “Can I help you?” Owen asked. The blonde said nothing.

  “You don’t recognize him, do you?” a voice asked from behind the blonde. Chris Weaver walked from around the end of the bookshelf and stood next to the stranger.

  “Hey,” Owen said through the sudden lump in his throat. He hadn’t seen Chris in nearly a year. “I barely recognized you, with your hair.”

  Chris ran his fingers through his much-shorter hair and smiled. “Have you read their graphic novel?” he asked, gesturing toward the book signing on the ground floor.

  Owen nodded. He had read it, indeed, considering it was all about them and how they’d thwarted the evil brothers who wanted to rule the planet with the help of a magical orb.

  All the names had been changed, however, and in this version of the events, Daniel and Alyssa (Austin and Heather) did not die. Owen loved it.

  “How have you been?” Chris asked.

  “Good. School’s been great. I don’t think the sophomores can tell I’m not their age because of my baby face. How about you?”

  “Good. I got a job at a movie theater. Stephanie and I live together. That’s been going well. And, as you know, Doug and Curtis have been pretty successful.”

  Everyone seemed to be doing well. That’s when Owen remembered the mysterious blonde standing before him. He didn’t recognize him, though his blue eyes were familiar.

  “Who is this?” Owen asked.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” Chris said with a smile. “You once dressed him up in an old man’s trench coat and hat.”

  That hit Owen like a ton of bricks. He looked at the stranger again. It couldn’t be…

  “D?” Owen managed to ask.

  “I found this guy who specializes in robotics. I think he and Daniel would’ve gotten along pretty well. Anyway, he managed to recharge old D and make him look human, so he can walk around in public.”

  “That’s what Daniel had always wanted,” Owen said, still marveling at D. He looked completely human now.

  “We call him ‘Dan’ now,” Chris said with a smile. “Doug approved.”

  The trio went downstairs and walked up to the signing table once the crowd lightened up. Curtis and Doug beamed as they approached.

  “Owen, man, it’s been forever,” Curtis said as he hugged him.

  “Hey, guys,” Owen said as he hugged Doug next. “I loved The Unstoppable Titans. You did great.”

  “Well, this is a nice little reunion,” Doug said, looking at all of them.

  “How’s everything on the monster-hunting front?” Owen asked, practically whispering. He didn’t want any stray customers hearing.

  “Some promising leads,” Chris answered. “The squid-creature is swimming around in the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “Interesting,” Owen said; he truly was interested.

  “Don’t worry,” Curtis said. “We’ll get it.”

  “Yeah,” Owen said. “We will.”