Crystal Fire

by Jordan Dane

  Caila gritted her teeth. “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know his name, but Oliver had tracked him with his gift. I know he found him. This boy is a danger to anyone who crosses his path. Unfortunately, until he attacked Oliver, no one had known how dangerous. He’s an Indigo who hurts his own kind.”

  Hurts his own kind? Caila wondered if this woman ever listened to the spew coming out of her mouth. “Why would Oliver go after this guy? Did you ask him to?”

  “I think Oliver was trying to protect other kids like you and him. That’s the only thing I can figure. He did a brave thing.” Dr. Fiona stroked Oliver’s hair and stared down at him. “I thought that since you were friends, you might finish what he started, because it mattered to him.”

  “You say that like he’s already beyond saving, like this is his last wish, or something.” Caila felt heat rush to her face. “Are you keeping him alive only so I can...help you?”

  “What kind of monster do you think I am?”

  Caila shut her eyes. She didn’t want to look into the smug, lying face of Dr. Fiona, but she had no choice except to do what she said. Touching Oliver, even if it was only to say goodbye, was all Caila had left.

  “Tell me about this guy you want me to find,” she said. “What did you tell Oliver about him? I have to know everything.”

  Dr. Fiona smiled. “Yes, of course. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

  Stewart Estate

  Rayne held his hand as she led him toward the serenity room. Gabriel saw the door had been left open. Soft lights flickered into the corridor with laser beams piercing the darkness. When he heard the mock sound of a Star Wars light saber, he knew his uncle had the planetarium show equipment ready to go.

  Gabriel stopped at the threshold to see projections of beautiful images rotating in layers across the dome over his head. In the darkness, he saw silhouettes below and the Indigo boy’s soul stirred inside him. On the steps down, Gabe clutched his chest and held on to a railing until the pain subsided. Although he couldn’t be sure, he sensed fear that wasn’t his own.

  “Are you okay?” Rayne asked, and squeezed his hand.

  “Yeah,” he lied.

  When he got to the base of the steps, Gabe stared at the concerned face of Uncle Reginald. He wasn’t alone. Lucas and Kendra stood at his shoulders and in the shadows of the dark room, the other Indigo children had gathered too.

  “What’s the occasion?” Gabe forced a smile.

  “A coming-out party, of sorts,” his uncle said. “At least I hope that’s what it turns out to be.”

  Uncle Reginald led him to a reclined seat in the center of the room. Gabe sprawled into the chair and watched as the shadows of the other Indigos closed around him. Their brilliant blue auras bled together as they closed ranks, and on cue, stunning images of a rain forest filled the circle over him. Glistening raindrops on vibrant green leaves, colorful exotic animals and rushing rivers told a story across the domed ceiling, with the soft patter of rain as white noise playing in the background. His uncle knew how much rain meant to him and his mother—and how much that would relax him.

  Uncle Reginald stood over him. “I’ve never seen a case like yours, Gabriel, but I’d like to meet our guest, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d prefer to buy him cab fare and send him home, uncle.”

  Despite the severity of the situation, Uncle Reginald fought a smile. “Yes, of course. In due time, but let me explain what I’d like to try.”

  “Okay. I’m ready.” Gabe burrowed his back into the plush seat, fighting the torment of his worsening headache. “Explain away.”

  “Not to you, Gabriel. I’m hoping to speak to our visitor...through you. This is an intervention. With your permission, I’d like to begin.”

  After Gabe nodded, his uncle called for the others to lay a hand on him. When they did, he felt a surge of energy from the hive and closed his eyes, embracing the feeling. Each hand carried its own signature that he felt even with his eyes shut. The fingers of the Effin twins tickled and made him hungry. Kendra soothed him with her healing gift. Lucas bolstered his strength with his own and Rayne’s small hand nudged a smile from him. Each face projected their presence into the darkness of his mind, but the Indigo boy inside him didn’t have the same reaction to their touch. Gabe had to fight his negativity and the dark specter of his life force.

  Uncle Reginald placed his hand on Gabe’s head and said, “We mean you no harm. We’re here to help you, if we can.”

  Amid the soft rhythms of the rain, Gabriel heard faint music come through Lucas and Kendra. Some Indigos heard haunting melodies in their heads. It made them calm. Lucas had told him that when he was a baby, he hummed a song before he ever said the word Mama. Now Kendra’s and Lucas’s gifts sent the sweetness of two violins in harmony to quiet the boy they had come to reach.

  “What’s your name, dear boy?” Uncle Reginald asked. “Can you tell us that much?”

  Gabe’s belly clenched. He winced with the pain.

  “Are you all right, Gabriel?”

  “Don’t mind me. Keep...t-talking.” He felt sick. “I think he hears you.”

  Gabe felt the life force from the hive standing around him, but something dark lurked inside him too. The soul of the other Indigo boy swept low and prowled like a shark in deep water. When he felt the heat of him rise to the surface of his skin, Gabe’s face grew hot and he panted for every breath. Feeling this presence in him carried the agony of shotgunning his soul into the Indigo expanse, except that he couldn’t find comfort in the release of the blast.

  An odd sensation rippled up from his toes and jolted through him until he opened his mouth to speak. He had no idea what he would say. It wouldn’t be him doing the talking.

  “My name is...Oliver Blue.”

  Gabe heard the words come from his mouth, but he sounded like someone else. His voice was lower and he’d lost his accent. That sent chills over his skin until Oliver’s struggles sent heat raging through him that felt like a sudden and intense fever.

  “Can you...hear me? I can talk?”

  “We can hear you fine. It’s truly remarkable how you can speak through Gabriel,” his uncle said. “I’m sure you have questions. We do too.”

  “What happened? How did I...?”

  “That’s what we’d like to know too. My nephew thinks you crossed paths at Haven Hills. Is that where...your body is?”

  It took a long time for Oliver to answer.

  “I don’t...kn-know that...name,” the boy told them.

  Even though the voice came from Gabriel, it carried an echo that sounded far away. Gabe tried to speak louder, but straining made things worse. He had to give over control to this boy.

  “It’s a mental hospital, run by the Church of Spiritual Freedom,” his uncle clarified.

  “Oh God. Hang on.” Gabe grimaced. “Something’s...happening.”

  Like the other night in the alley, when he first encountered Oliver, he got bombarded with too many images and thoughts to filter through it all. Every flash of this boy’s memory, every word spoken in anger, punched Gabe from inside and pummeled him as if he were under attack.

  Fucking soul vampires.

  His first instinct was to protect his psyche. It took all his self-control, and his Indigo intuition, to relax and let Oliver speak through him.

  Fear is a drug.

  He let the boy say what he wanted and show him stuff. Gabe flashed on locked rooms and evil experiments from people wearing white. Hours of isolation and the panic of unbearable torture raged through him in seconds, forcing him to endure. Oliver wanted him to know and feel what had happened to him. When he felt his body sweep through ventilation shafts as if he could fly, the vertigo made him want to puke, but he held on.

  Gabriel held it all inside...for O
liver’s sake.

  No one else heard his confusion and anger. If Gabe allowed Oliver’s startled thoughts to escape into the hive, the others might not understand his need to rage. Oliver simply couldn’t contain his hatred and had to release it, something Gabe had sympathy for. He refused to be distracted by Oliver’s behavior when he saw only what they had in common. The guy raged against the injustice of being abducted and tortured by adults who should care, while Gabe had suffered the murder of his mother at the hands of a father who should have loved them both.

  Gabe resisted showing what he saw and felt from Oliver because he couldn’t risk exposing the children, or anyone, to his torture at the hands of the Believers. If he let the others sense his torment, they wouldn’t see what Gabe was beginning to realize.

  Somewhere at the heart of all Oliver’s pain was a girl. Gabriel sensed her presence through Oliver, who let him see a scared face with ice-blue eyes.

  Caila.

  The instant he sensed the girl’s name, Gabriel couldn’t breathe. He gripped his hands on the armrests of his chair and gasped. Suddenly he was inside the black helmet, suffocating. It felt as if he were drowning. Gabe fought the panic and forced his trust in this boy.

  Otherwise he could too easily believe that Oliver intended to kill him.

  “He understands...the reference,” Gabe panted. “It’s made him...angry. Tell him m-more.”

  “We think the Believers are hunting Indigo children.” Uncle Reginald raised his voice, feeling the urgency. “They’re experimenting on them in a place they call Ward 8. Does that sound familiar?”

  The boy didn’t answer. Gabe felt stabs of pain that pulsed at his temples. When he winced, Lucas jumped in.

  “I’d like to try something. It could help,” Luke said.

  Gabe opened his eyes and stared at Rayne’s brother like everyone else. Luke had never spoken up like that before. It surprised him. The guy’s lack of confidence came from being young and inexperienced after he’d spent years in a mental hospital, but he was smart and a quick learner.

  “Let him try.” He nodded. “Go for it, Luke.”

  “You and Gabriel, you’re more alike than you realize,” Rayne said. “I know you can help him.”

  After a shaky smile, Lucas heaved a sigh and moved his hand to Gabe’s head. He placed it alongside Uncle Reginald’s. The blistering headache had become unbearable for Gabe. Gambling on Lucas, when everything hurt, had its risks.

  But it was the right thing to do.

  Haven Hills Treatment Facility

  Ward 8

  Caila felt the eyes of Dr. Fiona on her as she reached for Oliver’s cheek. Her fingers trembled, giving away how much it tortured her to see him like this. She couldn’t help feeling that he’d never find his way back. Her gift had gotten him into this, but she had no hope that it would bring him back. Her psychic ability worked more on its own, when she felt threatened or scared or painfully alone. Although she felt all three as she stared down at him now, she’d been emotionally violated by this cruel woman who watched her. She wanted her words to be only for him, but she had no hope for privacy.

  “Oliver? I need you,” she whispered. “Please...hear me.”

  When she leaned close, she kissed his cheek and trailed a finger down his pale cheek. All my fault.

  Memories of him flooded her mind, notions that she had planted, but that didn’t make them less real for both of them. In her mind she pictured him smiling, she felt the warmth of his hand in hers, and she imagined that kiss happening again, but none of those memories would bring him back.

  Oliver. The doctor says you’re in a coma...that a boy hurt you. Show me what you saw. She says that’s the only way to help you get better. She willed him to hear her. Show me the boy. Tell me about him. She closed her eyes tight, to block out the horror of seeing him struggling for every breath through a machine.

  Nothing. She got nothing.

  “Dig into his memories. I didn’t bring you here to whisper sweet nothings in his ear. Do it.”

  The ugliness in Dr. Fiona’s voice pulled Caila from any closeness she had with Oliver, but when she opened her eyes, she saw it. Caila gasped when his eyelids fluttered. Had she imagined it? She had wanted to reach him so badly that maybe his reaction had been only her wishful thinking. When his head moved and he winced at the breathing tube in his mouth, he looked as if he was choking.

  “What’s happening?” Caila backed off and glanced over her shoulder at the woman in white. “Is he dying?”

  “Keep trying. Tell me what you see. I have to know about the other boy,” the doctor insisted. “What did Oliver see?”

  “But he could tell you himself, if he comes out of this,” she argued. “Isn’t that possible?”

  “Your gift works best when you’re scared. That’s what you said.” Dr. Fiona grabbed her hair and yanked her head back so she’d have to look at her. “Well, try this. If you don’t do what I say, I’ll make room for you next to Zack.”

  Stewart Estate

  Minutes later

  When Lucas had seen Gabriel wince, he sensed something through his body. It had come from the strong connection they had, ever since they shared visions and haunting dreams. This time he felt an intrusion from another soul.

  Luke had to test his instincts. Uncle Reginald had been right about trust being important, but the first person he had to trust had to be himself. After he moved his hand closer to Gabe’s uncle, he felt the energy in a different way. A strange psychic push came from inside Gabriel’s body and shoved him back.

  Oliver, I presume.

  He didn’t know if the guy sensed him there, but he felt his stress and anger radiate up his arm. He had to mind-shield it down to manage it. He shut his eyes and forced an attack on Gabriel, at least enough for him to break through to Oliver. This time Gabe made it easy to get past his defenses, not like the way he’d tricked him at the pond.

  Once he got in, Luke let his mind drift to a memory from his own childhood that he made into an illusion for all of them. The wind blew against his face, and his stomach lurched when his father barreled the Harley into a turn. Lucas grabbed the handlebars tight and grinned. He’d never felt so free and happy—and loved.

  Riding the Harley with his dad, as they restored the vintage bike, had been his favorite memory. He shared that joy—and his father’s love—with Oliver to give him something to unleash his soul and calm him. Like waves ebbing on the shoreline at dusk, Luke felt Oliver’s anger retreat.

  “Thank you, Luke. Much better,” Gabriel said as he breathed deep and relaxed in the illusion. It didn’t take long for Oliver to become active again, but something had changed.

  “He’s getting too weak. I can barely hear him now.” Gabe had to speak for Oliver this time. “He’s sending me a rush of images, with a few words. I have to decipher it. It’s like one of our visions, Luke.”

  Lucas could feel the rush of Oliver’s story at the same time as Gabe told them about it. Through Gabriel, Oliver shared how he’d been abducted in an alley and a hood had been placed over his head. He didn’t get a look at the hospital, but he’d used his senses to “see” another way. When Gabe told them about that, his uncle smiled.

  “Smart boy,” Uncle Reginald said.

  Oliver loaded Gabe with details about elevators, muggy basements and turning corners, but when he talked about double doors and a security code, that made sense to Lucas. It matched his dreams, the ones that always started his nightmares of seeing through the eyes of other Indigos who’d been tortured there. He lived their experiences as if everything had happened to him too.

  “Those double doors,” Lucas said. “They’re the same ones I see in my visions. If Ward 8 is in the basement of Haven Hills, I think I can find it.”

  “If it’s there.” Kendra was the first one to cast doubt on what Oliver
had shared. “We don’t know anything about this guy. It would be better to assume he’s lying than to risk getting tricked into an ambush.”

  Lucas hated living in a world where human beings had to distrust each other in order to feel safe, but after the Believers had killed Benny, he saw the need for a healthy dose of skepticism.

  “I’m all for being cautious, but I can feel this guy dying inside me,” Gabriel said. “He’s getting weaker. I don’t think he’s faking that.”

  “It would appear that Oliver Blue can teleport his consciousness,” Uncle Reginald said. “I’ve never known anyone that could do that. Apparently the distance between him and his body has grown too far. That’s probably why he’s waning, poor fellow.”

  “I have to help him,” Gabe insisted. “I can’t listen to him die in me, and I don’t know what that would do to me either. I have to do something.”

  “What do you propose?” his uncle asked.

  “He jumped into me near Haven Hills. Get me close enough. Us, close enough. Maybe he can make the leap back.”

  “It may not be that simple.” Kendra had an edge to her voice. “If this is a trap, they could be expecting us at the hospital. Even if he’s telling us the truth, that doesn’t mean the Believers aren’t using him to get to us. All of this... The stuff that happened in that alley...could’ve been a trap.”

  “A trap that we sprang on ourselves?” Gabe shook his head. “I don’t think they could’ve known we would take home a hitchhiker. That would make them far more diabolical than I’m willing to give them credit for.”

  “So what do we do?” Kendra asked. “Rafael is still missing. If he’s alive...”

  “I know and I hear what you’re saying, believe me. I have my doubts too,” Gabe said. “But I can’t risk Oliver’s life because I’m paranoid or in a rush to find one of ours. I couldn’t live with that. Choosing between two lives isn’t right, and doing nothing is as good as killing Oliver.”