Crystal Fire

by Jordan Dane

  “Ah, easy now. That’s my liver.” Gabe winced.

  A wash of gelatinous blue pulled from his skin. The ooze looked stark against the white sheets of the hospital bed until it melted and spread over unconscious Oliver.

  So cool. One of the twins refused to be quiet as the transformation took hold.

  That was in you, Gabriel? the other said. He looks like...boogers.

  “I heard that,” Oliver mumbled in a gruff, graveled voice. After he opened his eyes, he squinted into the light and said, “Never admit that you know what boogers look like.”

  Both the Effin brothers laughed. The sound felt peculiar in this place, but Gabriel liked it.

  After he pulled Oliver free of the hospital equipment, he helped him sit up. The guy was shaky and although he winced in pain, he didn’t make a big deal about it. One of the twins gave him water to drink, but when Oliver was ready to say more, Gabe was surprised at the first thing out of his mouth.

  “I gotta get out of this pastel shit.” Oliver stared down at the hospital pajamas he wore and grimaced.

  “Your makeover will have to wait. We gotta move.”

  Gabriel still had Boelens on his mind. The guy was on the loose somewhere and could still cause trouble, but Gabe wouldn’t leave Ward 8 operational. He had to hit the Believers hard and send a message to his father—that he’d be next.

  “Thanks for the body loan, Gabriel. And for what you did here, there are no words, man.” Oliver stood with his help. “Where’s Caila? Is she okay?”

  When Gabriel heard a commotion outside and saw a girl rushing to ICU 4 with his uncle, he knew who she was.

  “Oliver?” she cried. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  The girl ran into the room and didn’t hide how she felt about Oliver Blue. Caila wouldn’t have broken stride until she held him in her arms, but the guy stuck out his hand to stop her.

  “Hold it. Don’t get near me,” he said. Oliver stared at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. “None of you should let her touch you. She’s a user. She messes with your head.”

  Caila stumbled back and looked crushed. Her face turned bloodred and she cowered from Oliver’s stare. She couldn’t look any of them in the eye. By her reaction, Gabriel saw there was truth in what Oliver said. The girl didn’t deny or justify whatever she’d done to him. But after Gabe had shared his body with Oliver, he knew something about the guy that even he didn’t know.

  Fake or not, Oliver had real feelings for Caila.

  “Can we have some privacy?” Oliver shifted his gaze to Gabriel and waited.

  “Yeah, you got two minutes.” He didn’t apologize for making things harder. It’s just the way things were.

  “That’ll do. Thanks.”

  Gabriel shut the door behind him and the twins after they left. With their two-minute clock ticking down, he looked through the observation window and saw Oliver stare at the girl. Neither of them looked in a hurry to say a word. Whatever had happened between them, it was complicated.

  * * *

  Oliver wanted to hate Caila for what she did to him. She’d hijacked his life, no different than what the Believers did when they kidnapped kids off the street. This girl came to him and used his relationship with Zack to force him to help her. He still didn’t understand why, but that didn’t matter now.

  After today, he didn’t have to see her again—but that’s not what his heart wanted. Shit!

  “Whatever you did to me, it wasn’t real,” he said. “The doctor told me that. Don’t deny it. You used me.”

  “No, that’s not—”

  “Dr. Fiona said you don’t even know what the truth is. I can’t trust you.”

  Caila’s face glistened with fresh tears. “I thought I was doing the right thing, but...I was wrong. I almost got you killed, like...”

  The girl was falling apart. She looked thin and frail. Her body shook and she couldn’t look him in the eye. A normal human being would’ve walked away and let the sins of her past catch up with her, but no one had ever accused him of being normal.

  Despite how she had betrayed him and put him in the crosshairs of the Believers, she’d also given him something that meant more. She’d given him hope. The weeks of torture strapped into that helmet, his mind held a lifeline buried in it—his memories of Caila. When he wanted to die, she had given him a reason to live.

  Even now he had to fight his thoughts that he would have a future with her in it. He knew the memories she’d planted in him were lies, but what the hell was he doing, fighting something he should want too? He also had to deal with his unhealthy appreciation for what Dr. Fiona had done to him and for him. She’d made him stronger and turned his gift into something more powerful, but she’d done it through her cruelty.

  Damn it, he hated the way he felt. All of these thoughts confused him—but none more than his strange feelings for this girl, conflicting emotions he might never shake.

  “Did you find Zack? Is he here?” he asked.

  Caila stared at him with tears welling in her eyes. She looked like a lost little girl. When she finally broke down, she sobbed so hard that Oliver wasn’t sure she’d ever tell him anything. The mistrust had festered in him too long. Her tears could be part of her act. He wasn’t sure he could believe anything she told him, but he waited for her to talk and didn’t push.

  “He’s...he’s dead.” She grabbed her stomach and slid down the wall, crying. “That doctor...has his brain in a jar. We can’t even bury him. The doctor said he died...because of me.”

  Oliver’s eyes grew wide and he couldn’t catch his breath. The doctor was a liar. Caila lied too. He didn’t know what to believe, but if Zack’s brain was in a jar, the girl hadn’t been the one to cut it out. All he could do was trust his gut instincts.

  His mind raced with memories of his friend and somehow he knew what the girl said was true. When he touched the Cheez Whiz can and used his ability to scry for Zack, a trail of darkness lingered. He’d chalked it up to his own shitty outlook on life, but now in this place, he felt the hole where Zack had been.

  Oliver knelt down with Caila. He didn’t touch her. He wasn’t sure he could, but he missed Zack and knew she did too. That part had always felt real. He reached out his hand and touched her hair. When she broke down in his arms, he finally gave in and held her.

  He didn’t fight the lies she’d planted in him. All he felt was his crushing grief over Zack.

  Haven Hills Treatment Facility

  Lobby

  Boelens had chased the Darby kid through the mezzanine before the boy hit the hospital lobby. When the little freak got to the front entrance, Boelens thought he’d get help from the night-shift guards.

  “Stop the little bastard!”

  When he’d yelled at them and pointed, he got only weird looks in return. They acted as if he were a frigging lunatic.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  He barreled through the automatic doors and ran into the darkness of the parking lot where few vehicles remained. The kid would be easy to spot. And outside, he’d make sure there were no witnesses. He could shoot him and say he had a weapon. Killing the mind freak and claiming self-defense—against a disturbed mental patient who had escaped the hospital—would cure all his problems. The church and the hospital would back him up.

  Worn out from the chase, Boelens felt like shit. His lungs burned and his legs were giving out. Like the first time he set eyes on the kid, Darby would pay the price for making him run. Only this time, Boelens would get to finish it, without interference from Kendra Walker.

  He heard Darby’s footsteps and saw his back. The little bastard had stretched his lead. Boelens knew he wouldn’t catch him if he didn’t stop him soon. After he left the parking lot, he’d lose the security lights.

  He
aving for air, Boelens stopped and pulled his gun. He racked the slide and took aim.

  “Adios, motherfucker.”

  Boelens pulled the trigger and felt the gun buck in his hands.

  “What the hell? No way.”

  Darby kept running. He’d missed. Boelens wiped the sweat from his eyes and took aim again. This time when he fired, the kid disappeared like a ghost. One minute he was running scared, the next he was...gone.

  “This ain’t over, Darby.” Boelens gritted his teeth and swore under his breath. “You’re mine, you little shit.”

  Ward 8

  Minutes later

  Uncle Reginald and Rayne brought the freed Indigos with them as they came toward Gabriel. Their blue auras were a bit dim but still with them. The kids looked scared. There were five and one looked no more than six years old. What had the Believers planned to do with him? Gabriel fought hard to control his anger at seeing such an innocent child in this place.

  “This little guy is named Noah.” With tears in her eyes, Rayne fought hard not to cry as she ran her fingers through the kid’s mussed brown hair. “He’s...shy.”

  The boy didn’t react and looked in shock. His steel-gray eyes were the color of midnight blue and were glazed over. Gabriel knelt in front of Noah. He wanted to smile, but he couldn’t.

  “You’re safe, Noah. We’ll get you home. Promise.”

  Little Noah finally looked at Gabe. He didn’t smile, but seeing the boy stare into his eyes felt like a small victory.

  “And here we have two strapping young lads, Sam and Quinn.” His uncle rested his hands on the heads of the two boys who looked to be about Lucas’s age.

  Gabriel stood and said, “Good to meet you, boys.”

  Quinn had blue eyes the color of a spring sky and auburn hair. Sam was his dark opposite with olive skin, pitch-black waves and pale green eyes the color of desert cactus. Both boys looked as if they’d bolt the minute they hit the night air. Gabe hoped they would stay, but that would be up to them.

  “These two heartbreakers are Denise and Debbie.” Uncle Reginald pointed as he introduced them. The girls were the mirror image of each other, both with dark hair and eyes, and a spray of freckles across their noses.

  “They’re sisters,” his uncle said. “Twins, to be exact. One of them is quite bossy.”

  “I am not,” Debbie said.

  Denise only rolled her eyes.

  “We’re Indigos, like you,” Gabriel told them.

  He didn’t bother educating them on the difference between Indigo and Crystal children. That would come if they stayed.

  “We have no time to explain why we’re here,” he told them. “That will have to come later, if you’re interested. I only ask that you follow our orders until you get outside, when you’ll be free to go, but I hope you’ll come with us. There’s so much we can teach each other.”

  “If you need a home, we can give you one where you’ll be safe and among your own kind,” Uncle Reginald said. “But that will be your choice, always.”

  His uncle made sure that Gabe knew he could bring them home.

  God, he’s not here. Rafael is not here.

  When Gabriel heard the sound of Kendra’s voice in his head, he turned to see her running toward him. Seeing the misery on her face, he knew she was hurting.

  Kendra had a strength she wielded in her eyes, a fierce determination, but after the Believers destroyed everything she had built and reminded her how vulnerable they all were, she carried a sadness that he saw now. After Rafael went missing, she’d pulled away from them. She did what she had to do for the children, but her heart wasn’t in it. She’d lost the brightness of her spirit that always shone through her eyes.

  “I didn’t find him,” she said. “And I don’t feel him here.”

  Her lips trembled and she looked away. Gabe knew the longer it took for them to find Rafael, the more hopeless they all felt. When the door to ICU 4 opened and Oliver and Caila came out, the girl looked worn out from crying. Oliver didn’t look much better.

  “Who’s Rafael?” Oliver asked.

  “He’s one of ours. They have him. We just don’t know where,” Gabe said. “It’s why we came here in the first place.”

  Oliver glanced at Caila and she nodded her encouragement.

  “If you have something of his, I can help you find him,” Oliver said. “It’s what I...do.”

  Kendra narrowed her eyes with a shocked expression on her face. When she stepped forward, it looked as if she was gauging whether or not she could trust him.

  “I had a...feeling about you.” With her eyes fixed on Oliver, she touched the black leather bracelet with a silver infinity charm that she had on her wrist. “This is his. When we get out of here, I’ll give it to you...to try.”

  Gabriel knew that bracelet meant much more to all of them than something Rafael wore. It meant home and family and hope for a future they could share. When Oliver looked down at the bracelet, Kendra stroked the leather with a finger.

  “If he’s still alive, he’s...in a dark place. I can’t reach him,” she said. “Please...help me find him.”

  Kendra didn’t have to tell the guy why Rafael was special to her. Everything she felt for Rafe was in her eyes. She didn’t hide it anymore.

  “Count on it.” Oliver nodded.

  Before Gabriel could intrude on the moment by reminding them the clock was ticking and they had to go, Lucas did a fine job of it.

  Fire in the hole!

  After Lucas sent a message to the hive, Kendra and Uncle Reginald reached for the new kids and shielded them with their bodies. When they heard a loud crash of glass and a grunt, Gabe knew that Rayne’s brother had found another way to exorcise his Ward 8 demons.

  “That’s just our Lucas, doing a little...demo work,” Gabe told the new kids. “Nothing to be alarmed about.”

  Luke had used his powers to destroy the computers and short-circuit every piece of equipment he found. Gabe suspected the Believers would have a network with backup protocols, but it didn’t hurt to annihilate whatever they found. Ward 8 would be a heaping pile of destruction when the morning shift arrived.

  The Believers would know their secret wasn’t a secret anymore—and they’d have to wonder what had been compromised.

  “We can’t leave until we destroy her files. That doctor has information on Oliver and me... Others too.” Caila had been quiet until now. “She keeps records of her sick experiments and how they tracked us. They’re in a locked room. I know where it is, but she’s the only one who has a key.”

  Uncle Reginald raised an eyebrow and held up the ID badge for Dr. Fiona Haugstad. “You mean this key?”

  Caila’s tearstained face melted into a sad smile.

  * * *

  Gabriel sensed the significance of unlocking the door to a file room and office that Dr. Fiona had kept secret. It felt like the reason they had come to destroy the ward. Everything else could be replaced by the church, but whatever evil this woman had conceived, she had locked it away for a reason. If there was anything that would cripple the Believers and set them back, perhaps it would be here.

  Keep the new kids back, uncle. I have a bad feeling. Gabe sent his message to the hive as a warning.

  When his uncle nodded, Gabe walked into the small room. He saw a desk, a computer for Lucas to fry beyond all repair and two metal file cabinets. The office looked like any other. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but this wasn’t it. Everything looked too normal. Whatever she hid behind the locked door would have to be in the files.

  But to his right, he saw shelves that had been blocked by the open door. What he saw staggered him. “Oh my God.”

  Gabriel shook in disgust and his stomach clenched. When Kendra came into the room, he put a hand out to hold her and the others bac
k, but it was too late. She tried to stop the Effin brothers from looking at what he’d found, but the twins shoved by her.

  The hive went silent.

  Dr. Fiona had a shelf of jars containing brains and body parts of the children she had killed in the name of science and her faith. The stark reality of seeing human beings reduced to nothing more than lab experiments revolted Gabriel. His father must’ve known about this. How could he not? This vile woman slaughtered children and carried out her carnage in secret, but his father had to be a part of it.

  Kendra crept toward the shelves and clutched her stomach when she got close. Rayne rushed to her.

  “Don’t do it,” Rayne said. “I’ll look for you.”

  She moved Kendra away from the atrocities—marked with the names of the dead. Rayne looked at every jar for the name of Rafael Santana. When she didn’t find it, she took a ragged breath. Not finding him didn’t make her search any easier.

  No one spoke until Caila pointed a shaky hand to a jar filled with a murky viscous liquid and a human brain.

  “That’s Zack... What’s left of him,” Caila said. “He was my...friend.”

  “Ah, hell.” Oliver didn’t hide his pain. He pulled Caila into his arms and held her. “I’m not leaving him here.”

  Gabe felt bone-deep shame. Oliver and Caila didn’t know of his connection to the head of the Believers in L.A., Alexander Reese. Gabriel couldn’t help feeling responsible for the sinister acts. He steeled himself for what would come next.

  He had to stop his father.

  “We’re not leaving any of them,” Gabe said.

  To the hive, he sent the rest of his message.

  We’re taking these damned files too. Maybe we’ll find out more about how they hunt us. And we can make contact with others they’ve marked. Warn them.

  Gabriel could barely finish. Seeing the dead eyes of Kendra made him feel worse. He backed out of the room, struggling to breathe as the nightmare of his visions came rushing back. Hellboy nudged his leg and whimpered, but the only thing that made the horror tolerable was Rayne.