The Riser Saga

by Becca C. Smith

  Bill nodded and went after her quicker than I expected. He was developing some kind of bond with Jill, and as much as it was hurting me to see him so angry at Nancy and me, I was glad. Jill needed someone reliable and trustworthy and that was basically Bill in a nutshell.

  Nancy’s fury started to rage at Bill’s quick-step out the door. “See?! She’s turning Bill against us! She’s evil! Blaming you and accusing you and… ugh… I could kill her myself!”

  “Nancy, it’s cool. We should have told her. She’s just freaking out.” I wanted to keep her calm.

  “Bull! She’s still a spoiled little brat! And Bill! Did you hear what he said to me? He said I was just like her! How dare he!” Nancy fumed.

  “Okay, Nancy, relax,” Jason cut in. “She’s gone and will probably be assassinated in the next few hours, so you won’t have to think about her much longer.” Jason was done with Nancy’s tirade and the severity of what he said hit Nancy like a ton of bricks.

  Her eyes welled up, “I don’t want her to die, I just…” Nancy couldn’t continue.

  Jason walked over to her and did something that shocked everyone in the room. He kissed her. It wasn’t an all out passionate kiss, but it was full of a sweet tenderness that was normally lacking in Jason. He pulled away. “None of us do. Bill will take care of her, and nothing she says will turn him against you. I’d bet my life on it, and you know how much of a wimp I am.” Jason smiled warmly at Nancy.

  Nancy smiled back and I knew in that moment that Jason was over the age thing. His whole demeanor changed. I think he was just tired of holding back how he really felt and needed to show Nancy he was ready. Nancy’s previous anger melted completely away. “Can we do that again?” she asked with a contented sigh.

  “Later.” Jason winked. So smarmy! But so Jason, and Nancy loved it.

  What timing this guy had! Turner was in the school and my little crying fit wasn’t going to hold him up all day.

  Ryan seemed to be thinking along the same lines, “Can we get out of here now?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Jason said as he looked out the small window on the door to see if the coast was clear, “Damn. Is there a back exit? How far up are we?”

  I raced to the door and my heart sank.

  Turner was leading the pack of reporters straight to Mr. Alaster’s room. I could hear Mr. Alaster screaming about how he’d sue and that going into his room was illegal, but we’re talking about Gramps here. He was definitely above the law, and entering a classroom was the least of his offenses.

  “Too late,” I said and felt Ryan’s protective hand in mine.

  Nancy took my other hand and we looked like we were bracing ourselves for a hurricane.

  Jason made us back up and for once he stood as front man. I guess he thought this was his territory, or maybe it was his newfound confidence from kissing Nancy, either way, I was kind of proud of him.

  The door swung open to loud shouts from the press and Mr. Alaster, but my eyes were only focused on the calm, solitary figure of my grandfather as he stepped into the room. He turned to the gathering, “That will be all. I need a few words with my granddaughter alone. Stay away from the door.” Turner shut the door behind him and waited until the crowd was out of view before turning his attention to us.

  It was just him.

  Alone.

  With the four of us.

  Didn’t he know he was way outnumbered?

  We all stood there in silence like we were in some kind of western showdown waiting for the other one to draw their weapon first.

  I searched the room for anything dead, knowing that he could do the same, but also knowing my power was innate and his had to be performed by a spell.

  Nothing. Only some flies. But dust could work in a pinch, too, I’d learned.

  “If I can’t speak to you in private, I’ll speak to you in front of your cronies,” Turner’s agitated voice broke the tense quiet.

  “We’re not her cronies we’re her first line of defense.” Jason stood his ground and I felt an excited squeeze from Nancy at his braveness.

  Turner’s eyes turned red and he canted a few words to send Jason’s body flying across the room, slamming into Mr. Alasater’s desk.

  “Good defense,” Turner snickered.

  I reacted out of instinct and made five dead flies on the windowsill fly straight up Turner’s nose and down his throat until he was hacking fly carcasses on the floor.

  “All right. Enough games!” Turner yelled after he’d regurgitated his last dead fly.

  Nancy rushed to Jason’s side and helped him to his feet. No damage it seemed. Lucky for Gramps.

  “What do you want?” I asked coldly.

  “What do I want? What I want is for you to grow a brain! Do you really think I’d come all this way and announce that you’re my granddaughter just to kill you? Are you that stupid? Don’t answer, I already know you are.” Turner brushed himself off. “Now listen, you little brat, I tried to be reasonable with you. I even tried to help you: I was going to announce our relationship all along. Why do you think I had my scientists come here and take blood samples of every flippin’ student in here?!” Turner took a deep, steadying breath. “No one’s been able to get under my skin like you. I’m not used to losing my temper like this.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” I said. I decided not to budge an inch. Gramps was obviously angered, but I still had the sense that he was going to tell me something very important no matter what I said to him. If he were willing to risk himself being alone with me and my friends, then he definitely had something to say.

  “Well, it’s true.” He looked at me with a frustrated expression. “When I told you I thought you were pivotal to Roland Light and his plans to break out a mysterious someone which now I realize you were already planning on breaking out yourself… I meant that Elisha…” he began, but I never got to hear the rest of his sentence.

  BOOM!

  The whole school shook to its foundation.

  Immediately, twelve bodyguards rushed in and surrounded Turner.

  “Wait!” Turner screamed at his bodyguards. “I’m not finished.”

  BOOM!

  This time we all fell to our knees from the impact.

  “What was that?!” Nancy had to yell over all the commotion from the screaming reporters and students all rushing down the hallways outside.

  “Explosions. The school was just bombed.” One of Turner’s guards announced and started pushing Turner out the door.

  Explosions?

  Please tell me Roland and Doris weren’t behind this!

  “I said I wasn’t finished!” Turner’s livid expression was palpable.

  “Standard protocol, sir. We have to remove you from the premises,” the same guard said and all twelve men encircled Turner and led him to the door.

  Turner turned to me and our eyes met. His face was angry, but more than that… pleading. “Chelsan. The boys. They’re the key to everything! They’re not brain dead!”

  And he was gone.

  Out the door and into the chaos of the hallways.

  “We have to get out of here,” Ryan said as he took my hand.

  Nancy became our leader since she remembered a shortcut out of the school to the courtyard below. I let Ryan lead me, my mind spinning a mile a minute. The enormity of Turner’s announcement was only felt by me.

  If John and Samuel weren’t brain dead, then why were their heads swirling black holes? And why, when I connected to them, did I almost go blind from light? Why were they the key to everything? I felt like throwing up. Elisha had used me to help her break them out. It wasn’t because she felt sorry for them, it was because she needed them for some reason. But what? What? What? What was I missing?

  Smoke filled the hallways and the jam-packed crowd screamed and coughed in alarm. I could feel the heat from the fire that the two explosions caused, but I still couldn’t see where exactly the school was hit. I searched the school for dead bodies, in
the fear that I might find some, but I was relieved to only pick up on Principal Weatherby’s months old corpse. The bombs didn’t appear to have killed anyone.

  Which meant they were designed for something else.

  Bill’s head bobbed up a few hundred feet ahead of us. When he saw me he waved for us to come to him.

  We shoved our way through the thick throng of scared people until we reached his side. Jill was there and she wasn’t making eye contact with any of us. I’d have to deal with her later.

  “Come on. We can get to the hover lot through here. The cars weren’t touched. It was just the courtyard,” Bill told us. He appeared to be his old self again, apparently hoping we’d all forget his little tirade at Nancy.

  But the news that the bombs had hit the courtyard made my heart skip. That was exactly where we had been headed, but also the one place that was always empty. I felt a pang of sadness. That courtyard had been a sanctuary for me when I had to deal with Jill’s torment. It was by far the most beautiful part of Geoffrey Turner High.

  It wasn’t a stretch to think Roland Light was behind this attack, blowing up buildings without actually hurting anyone was kind of becoming his signature move. That meant that Doris and Elisha were definitely involved. But why? Surely, if their target had been Turner they would have attacked his hover-limo when he landed. But even as we reached the hover-car landing area I could see Turner’s limo flying safely away, and leaving me with his last words, They’re not brain dead.

  “Chelsan! Over here!” I heard Doris’s voice over the crowd.

  Well, that solved that one.

  Giant clouds of smoke were stretching up into the sky as far as I could see. Hover vehicles were evacuating the school in a mayhem of alarm, but so far no swirling black holes which meant no accidents. I could hear the sound of police and fire hovers drawing closer.

  I saw Doris first. She was hiding behind a large hover-van that could easily sit twelve people.

  “It’s Doris, let’s go,” I said to the others and we made our way to her.

  I stopped in my tracks when I saw Elisha looking at me through the back window. Even Ryan paused.

  Bill and Jason turned back to us.

  Bill’s face was confused, “What’s wrong? Doris will get us home. Jason and I can pick up our cars later.”

  As if in unison with Bill’s thought process, another explosion shook us all to our knees.

  “Hurry, kids, there’s one more explosion coming.” Doris’s face was wracked with worry and I suddenly felt the urge to punch her.

  How dare she put all these lives in danger?

  Even Bill stopped at that. “How would you know that unless…” Bill figured it out and his face went from welcoming to furious in about a second. “We’ll get our own ride home, thanks.”

  Elisha stepped out of the van.

  Jason, Bill, Nancy and Jill had never seen her before and their eyes were immediately glued to her striking figure. The child with violet eyes, long black hair and porcelain features was a stunning contrast to the smoke-filled sky. It was like seeing a human china doll in the midst of an apocalypse. Jill was the first to start backing up. Elisha obviously creeped her out.

  “Why did you do this?” I found myself asking.

  All of us rooted in place, our instincts screaming at us not to go forward.

  Elisha stepped forward to stare me straight in the eye. She was only ten feet away, but it felt like we were nose to nose, she was so intense. “We came for you, Chelsan. Turner was going to kill you and your friends. We couldn’t let that happen.” She paused and nodded toward the demolished courtyard. “You can sense it yourself. No one has died. We were careful. Just like the Baby Center.”

  “You blew up the Baby Center?” Jill looked like her old self for a brief moment as she viewed Elisha and Doris with disgust. “Are you with that Roland Light guy?” She turned to Bill, “These guys are psychos, Bill. Can you take me home now?”

  Elisha moved her gaze to Jill and Jill moved behind Bill instinctually. “You’re number one on Turner’s hit list, Jill Forester, Chelsan a close second, but don’t you doubt it for a second, if we hadn’t come here to get you, you’d already be dead,” she said it with such intensity that no one could really argue.

  “I hate to be a pest, but we have about ten seconds before the last one blows and we’re not in the most ideal location,” Doris said and waved her hands trying to usher us into the hover-van.

  Jason was the first to move. “We’ll talk about this later. Let’s just get in.” Apparently, coming face to face with the people responsible for the attacks on the Baby Center and now the high school was too juicy a story for Jason to pass up. He grabbed Nancy by the hand and pretty much made her come with him.

  It was better to stay together and I was pretty sure I could take Elisha and Doris if I had to. We all piled into the van: there were sixteen seats, eight on each side of the van’s wall across from each other. They were leather and plushy and under normal circumstances pretty cool, but considering the fact that in about five seconds another explosion was about to go off, I just wanted to get out of there. Ryan, me, Nancy and Jason sat on one side while Elisha, Doris, Bill and Jill sat across from us.

  As soon as we reached the sky the last bomb went off. I could see it this time, coming from the same general area of the courtyard. A ball of red, orange and yellow rolled up to turn into a black cloud of smoke. I searched with my power to make sure that no one was killed and to my relief I still couldn’t see any black holes, human anyway, though the courtyard was a giant mass of spinning chasms from all the plant life that was obliterated.

  No one said anything as we entered the throng of craziness that was the hover lanes. Ryan placed his arm around me for comfort and I leaned into him. He was a beacon of feel-betterness at the moment. I didn’t even want to look at Doris and Elisha. Frankly, they both made me sick to my stomach. And I really didn’t want to have anything to do with either one of them, truth be told.

  Jason on the other hand…

  “Do you think I can have an exclusive interview with the two of you?” he asked with no qualms whatsoever.

  Nancy elbowed him, making Jason grunt from the force of it.

  What surprised me more was the prompt answer from Elisha. “Of course. Anything to get the truth out there.”

  Jill made a noise that sounded like, “Hurrumph.”

  I agreed with Jill on this one.

  Elisha appeared to sense the beaming distrust and anger towards her because she leaned in close to me. “Chelsan, all I’m trying to do is save your life. You rescued me and I honestly just want to return the favor.”

  I turned away from Elisha without giving her a response and leaned into Ryan.

  Jill and I made eye contact and I felt like we were on the same page. I knew she was still upset with me, but I also knew she could see that circumstances had changed and we’d be better off sticking together. At least, I hope that’s what I saw. It was hard to tell with Jill.

  “We’ll be at Havenville in less than an hour,” Doris informed us.

  Excuse me?

  “Havenville?” Ryan piped up with shock in his voice.

  “Oh no! You’re not taking us there!” Nancy was actually livid. “You’re taking us to my house, right NOW!” She was having none of it.

  “I’m afraid not, dears,” Doris said with an apologetic expression.

  “Doris, we’re not going to Havenville and Roland Light. We can’t.” I tried to reason with her.

  “It’s the only place we can protect you from Turner. He can’t reach you or Jill there.” Doris tried to soothe the escalating situation.

  “Besides, there’s really nothing you can do to stop us, now is there?” Elisha’s expression was frank and annoying.

  “We’ll just leave when we get there,” Ryan said, not keeping his eyes off Elisha.

  “Your choice. But for now we’re going to keep you safe whether you like it or not,” Elisha’s voi
ce was cold and to the point. It was very creepy to watch this child’s face talk like an adult. I had to keep reminding myself that she was eighty years older than me.

  KER-KLUMP!

  Our hover-van stopped with a violent jolt.

  “What the..?” I said aloud.

  With a loud CLANK the hover-van started to fly straight up at a sickening speed.

  Elisha swung open the cover to the hover-van’s skylight just in time to see the roof of the car smack directly into a giant electromagnet.

  “Clean-Up,” Elisha muttered under breath.

  As I looked out the window I saw exactly what she was talking about.

  A giant skyscraper sized hover-truck held us within its magnetized belly. Clean-Up. Normally, they were in groups of seven, two for picking up metal from a disaster area, one for tilling the damaged earth, three to plant whatever trees they wanted for the new area and the last truck to water and fertilize the freshly planted foliage. When my trailer park was destroyed within the hour an oak forest had taken its place.

  Above us was only one Clean-Up truck and it was the magnetized kind. Looked like Gramps wasn’t letting us get away that easily.

  The Clean-Up hover-truck was now on the move taking us with it toward whatever destination Turner ordered. For all I knew, he was sitting next to the driver.

  We all sat in stunned silence.

  “What do we do now?” Doris turned to Elisha for instructions.

  Elisha’s purple eyes met mine. “Chelsan saves us.”

  I looked behind me as if there were another Chelsan in the van sitting behind me… in the sky… or behind the chair… or… yeah.

  I didn’t want Elisha to say another word. I knew she had some crazy scheme in mind that would somehow involve my powers, but I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I almost wanted Gramps to bring us back to headquarters and take her away. Something about Elisha just rubbed my instincts the wrong way. But I was probably being too judgmental. She was a victim. A victim that was going to be executed unless I got us out of this mess.