“It’s right-“ I reached for it, but found my throat bare. That was impossible. I never took that necklace off. Never.
“Damnit!’ She screamed. She grabbed the briefcase and shoved it into my chest. “Listen to me. There isn’t much time, so I can only say this once. I need you to do exactly as I tell you. Do you remember the weak spot in the fence that the Berkley children used to drive their four-wheelers through?”
I nodded.
“Good. I want you to sneak through there and get to my car. Once you’re there, I want you to press this sequence in the navigation system; 6,7,R,7,9,3, just like that.”
“No!” I panicked once I realized what she was asking. She was asking me to leave her. To what, I had no idea, but it was clear that my mother didn’t expect to come with me. “I’m not leaving you.” Hot tears spilled from my eyes.
“Yes you are Cresta. I promised to keep you safe no matter what the cost, and that’s what I’m going to do. Now, once you’ve typed in that sequence, follow the directions to the destination it shows. Stop for nothing. It might say that you need gas, but that car has tricks. Trust no one. I don’t care how well you think you know them. When you get to where you’re going, I want you to find a man named Morgan Montgomery. Tell him Ash sent you.”
“Ash?” I repeated. “Mom, just let me call the police.”
“ No!”She grabbed my shoulders and squeezed them tight. “ The police can’t help you. They’ll just slow you down; get you caught. Go to Morgan. You can trust him Cresta.” Tears started to glisten in her own eyes. “You do what he tells you. He’s a good man. And Cresta,” her grip tightened. “No matter what they tell you, no matter what you hear, I do love you; very, very much.”
“Mom, I don’t want to-“
The door exploded open in a sea of wooden splinters. Mom grabbed me and pulled me behind her, shielding me from whatever just destroyed out front door. Looking over her shoulder, I saw three men in the doorway. The buzz cut army dude from last night, Jiqui, was flanked on either side by burly men that I had never seen before.
“Go Cresta,” Mom muttered, and let go of me.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said. And I didn’t. I stood, still as a statue, clutching the briefcase she gave me to my chest.
“Don’t make this all for nothing Cresta. Get out of here. I’ll hold them off.”
Jiqui walked toward us, his muscled flunkies a few steps behind. He looked Casper up and down. His nose was wrinkled, like he thought Casper smelled like fish or something. “Was it really necessary to involve the Neanderthals?” He turned to Mom.
Mom’s fingers curled up into fists and she adjusted her weight, almost like she was getting into a fighting stance. “Leave now,” she said.
“I do think so,” Jiqui said. He wore a three piece suit and a thin black tie. The men behind him were dressed identically though, while Jiqui paced around the room, they stood stalwart in the center; their hard faces unmoving, unblinking.
“It wasn’t a suggestion,” Mom said through gritted teeth. “And it’s not a luxury I’ll afford you again. Now leave, or I’ll make you wish you did. You have no idea how far I’d go to-“
“Please!” Jiqui spit, obviously disgusted. I felt Mom tense as he got closer. “We know all about you; all about what you’ve done, and the abominations you and your brethren have inflicted on this world. Do you really think you’re above the law; above destiny? He will prove you wrong. He’ll rip away your little pretenses and expose you to the sharp light of truth. And what will we see then, Mrs. Karr? Who will you be then?”
He said her name like it was a curse, like the words hurt on the way out.
“A mother,” Mom said. Mom twirled and shoved me, knocking me back. “Get her out of here!” She yelled to Casper. “I’ll see you when I see you,” she winked at me, and then turned back to Jiqui and the others.
The burly men advanced on her. I cringed. I knew she wanted to protect me, but how could she? She was five foot nothing and these guys would block out the sun if they ever stood up straight.
“Mom, no!” I yelled. She didn’t turn to me. Instead, she jumped into the air. She pulled back in midair. Her legs joined and, before he knew what she was doing, the first of the burly men got her Sketchers across his chin. He fell back, though whatever shock he felt was nothing compared to what I was feeling. My mom wasn’t a fighter. Hell, she was a klutz. She could barely maneuver a shopping cart. How was she doing this?
The second of the burly men found himself on the receiving end of a karate chop to the throat and a kick to the shin.
“Go!” Mom screamed, and turned to me just long enough for the first man, who had composed himself, to land a jackhammer of a punch across her jaw.
“No!” I yelled and tried to go to her, but Casper had already got me. I kicked and screamed. I clawed at him, but it was no use. He tossed me over his shoulder, just like before, and started toward the door. The last thing I saw before we burst to the outside was my mom on all fours, panting for breath, about to get pummeled by one of her gorilla looking attackers.
“Casper, let me down!” My voice was hoarse, my throat hurt, and tears made salt tracks down my cheeks. The air was cool against my fevered skin. I tried to suck in air, but I couldn’t. I was having an asthma attack or a panic attack; probably both.
I must have beat bruises into Casper’s back by the time he let me down. We had ducked through the weak part of the fence and were now beside my mother’s car on the back side of the house.
My feet were Jell-O as they hit the driveway. I leaned against my knees and tried to catch my breath. My inhaler was gone; left or lost somewhere. Maybe it was with my necklace. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t think about that right now. I couldn’t think about anything but my mother.
“Just breath,” Casper put his hand on my back.
I knocked it away and laid into him with a flurry of slaps and punches. “You son of a bitch!” I yelled. “You left her! You made me leave her!”
I turned and tried to run back to the house, back to my mother, but he had me by the waist again. He wasn’t going to let me go. I struggled; pushed him, kicked at him, but it was no use. He was stronger than me and determined not to let me get away.
“What are you gonna do?” He asked and, though I was turned the other way, I could hear the tears in his voice. “You wanna save her? Well, you can’t. Neither of us can. All you’re gonna do is get yourself killed!”
I collapsed, falling to the ground in a mess of tears. His arms were still around me when I spoke. “I left my dad. I left him there in that water, all by himself. And now he’s dead. He’s dead and he’s never coming back. If I can’t save her, that’s fine. If I die, bring it on. But I can’t leave her Casper. I won’t leave my mom too.”
Casper crouched beside me. His arms were still wrapped around me, but they were looser now.
“Please Cass,” I sobbed. “Please, just let me go.”
“I . . . I can’t,” his voice trembled.
“You have to,” I pulled futilely, tasting tears that had run down to my lips.
“I can’t,” he repeated. “I can’t move.”
Turning to him, I saw that the hurt I had heard in his voice had now become sharp immediate fear.
“I can’t move an inch. “ I pushed against him and pulled as his arms, but they didn’t move at all. His body was a stone wall, and for some reason, he was trapped in it.
“What’s happening to me Cresta?” He asked.
“Sorry,” a voice sounded before I could respond. “That’s a side effect.” The amputee from the night before came floating into view. He was dressed in a suit that perfectly matched Jiqui and the other intruders, except the legs of his pants hung loosely; their edges dragging the ground. His hair was silver points and his face was colored with a menacing smile. His eyes, once kind, now danced with something darker.
“A side effect of what?” Casper asked, his arms still locked like iron bars around me,
trapping us both where we sat.
“Me, of course,” the amputee winked. “I know it’s rude, taking away your motor functions and all, but my boss would be sorta upset if I let some Neanderthal stop me from retrieving what’s his.”
It was the second time in as many minutes that some weirdo called Casper a Neanderthal and, I’m sure that if we weren’t in the weirdest form of danger either of us could imagine, he’d probably be pissed about it.
The amputee’s smirk turned into a full on grin as he floated closer. “Don’t be so sensitive about it. This is far from the first time I’ve done this to you, Casper. Not that you’d remember that.”
I’m sure that if he could have, Casper would have shuddered at the sound of this guy saying his name. I know I did. It sounded intimate, personal. He had known Casper for quite some time. God knows what he had done to him, and like last night, Casper couldn’t remember any of it. I shuddered again, wondering what might have happened to me that I couldn’t remember.
He swooped closer to us, so close that his stench; copper and gasoline, took my breath away. His hands were stretched at his side; his fingers apart. His nails were bone white, like all the blood had drained from his hands, and his ring fingers on either hand twitched back and forth frantically, like flapping wings that were holding him up.
“Oh come on, don’t take the fun out of this for me. Aren’t you gonna ask me what it is that my boss is so keen on getting his hands on?”
I didn’t answer. I just pressed myself closer against Casper’s motionless body. If we were going to die, at least we’d do it together.
“Fine, I’ll tell you anyway,” his eyes gleamed and I could tell he was getting some sick pleasure from this. “My boss, he’s looking for his wife. And he’s the kinda guy who always gets what he wants. I guess you could say he’s made a career out of it.”
“We don’t have his wife!” I screamed, stuffed against Casper’s chest. “It’s just me and my mom here; nobody else. I promise!”
He hovered still over us, the stench of him thick in the air. His tongue ran disgustingly over his teeth as he responded. “Girlie, you’re not thinking near creatively enough.”
“Ezra!”
I would know that voice anywhere. I heard it in my dreams. Well, the good ones anyway. Owen stood behind the amputee, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “Leave them alone!”
The amputee, Ezra, I surmised, whipped toward him, his ring fingers wiggling wildly to accommodate the move. “Or what?” He growled.
“Or I’ll finish what the Taggers started when they took your legs.” Owen’s eyes, always deep blue pools, were now spiked with lightning; the sort of intensity I had never seen in them before.
“You don’t know what you’re up against,” Ezra said, and starting floating toward him.
“Sure I do,” Owen marched, closing the gap. ”A hapless loser who wouldn’t have a prayer of beating me even if he didn’t have to expend half his energy just to stay upright.”
“Your funeral,” Ezra grinned.
Owen stared passed him and caught my eyes for just a second. Even if things weren’t crazy, even if I wasn’t surrounded by things I didn’t understand, I wouldn’t have been able to read them. I never could. Owen wasn’t dressed like the rest of them. They wore making suits. Owen was in a blue hoodie and jeans, but that didn’t matter. He was still part of this. I heard him say it myself. But if he was a part of all this, if he and Ezra were on the same team, as they seemed to be in Mrs. Goolsby’s basement, then why was they fighting now?
Owen jumped toward Ezra, catching his jaw with a right hook so awesome it made me grin and grimace all at the same time. Ezra stumbled back in midair, but he didn’t fall. Instead, he lifted his right hand, ring finger still moving, and waved it like he was Ms. America. Owen went flying into the air, pulled by some unseen hand. He flipped over us and landed hard on the hood of Mom’s car. He got up quickly, but I couldn’t help but notice the trail of blood coming from his forehead.
“Had enough?” Ezra asked with a laugh in his voice. “You can’t win. We both know how out of practice you are.”
“We’ll see,” Owen huffed. He ran toward Ezra again, blood trickling from his head and landing in big drops on the pavement. Ezra waved his hand again and Owen was once again slapped by the invisible hand. This time, his feet went out from under him and he fell face first onto the drive way. I heard a crack as his nose hit the ground, which was a shame ‘cause, even though he was a supreme liar, it was a cute nose.
“This is pathetic,” Ezra floated. “You’re defenseless. I feel like I’m beating on Shirley Temple.”
Owen was slower to get up this time. I was right about his nose. It was bent and covered in blood and loose pebbles from the driveway. Still, he seemed intent on continuing the fight.
“Owen, you’re gonna make me kill Shirley Temple, aren’t you?”
Owen ran full speed toward him.
“Fine,” Ezra sighed, and waved his hand for a third time.
Owen didn’t fall though. Owen wasn’t affected at all. Ezra waved his hand again, and then again, but Owen just kept coming. Ezra’s invisible hand must have been defective, cause Owen plowed into him like Casper in the lunch line on Taco Tuesday. Ezra crumpled and fell to the ground.
The instant Ezra went out, I felt Casper’s arms move again. I pulled myself free and he stood cautiously beside me.
“Watch out,” Owen said. He was standing over Ezra, who looked to be unconscious. “He’s a pretty powerful Mover. He doesn’t necessarily need to be awake to-“
Owen went flying. The invisible hand was back, and it threw him hard against our Palmetto. I ran, but not toward him. Owen might have just saved my life, but he had still lied to me, and I still didn’t know what part he played in all this. Besides, my mom was still trapped in the house, and I wasn’t about to leave her.
Casper was probably behind me, trying to stop me from getting myself killed. He was always good like that. I never found out though, because as I neared the house, I found out why Ezra smelled so much like gasoline.
The house that I had spent the last two years, the one that I cried, laughed, loved, and lost in exploded in a flash of orange horror.
And so did everyone in it.
Chapter 7
Weathersby
The next thing I knew, I was sitting straight up. My whole body ached and my eyes burned, even though, surprisingly, the rest of me didn’t. After seeing my house go up in flames; watching the red orange fireball shoot toward me, I half expected that it would swallow me up too.
The first thing I recognized was a sense of motion. I was moving forward, even though my body was completely still. Next, I noticed some sort of tether, something strapped against my body that kept me held against the seat. My mind raced. What sort of unexpected new crazy was this?
I opened my eyes to find that I was— in a car.
Well, that was anticlimactic.
As my eyes adjusted, I saw the sun sinking at the end of a seemingly endless road. On either side of that road were rows of tall trees. Traffic shot by from the passing lane pretty regularly. I leaned up. My entire body screamed, letting me know I hadn’t escaped the explosion completely scot-free. I realized the tether keeping me in place was, fittingly enough, a seat belt.
“Thank God! I thought you were in a coma.”
I jerked to the left; a gesture my neck didn’t thank me for, and found Casper behind the wheel of my mother’s car. His eyes were red and puffy; his face covered in a layer of black soot. His fingers tapped nervously along the steering wheel.
“Are you okay?” My throat felt gravely, like I had swallowed a mouthful of pebbles. “Did the fire-“
“No,” he shook his head. “I’m okay. I mean, it was a lot and everything, but I’m alright.”
I looked down at myself. My Avengers shirt was stained with blood. So were my hands. So were my arms.
“Cass, what happened to me?”
He pulled the wheel a little as he looked at me, causing the car to across two lanes. “Nothing. I mean, not nothing, but not that. What I mean is, that’s not your blood. It’s Owen’s. You were in front of me. After the house blew up, I tried to find you, but there was fire everywhere. Owen ran into the flames and, when he came back out, he had you in his arms. He must have got to you pretty quick too, because from what I can tell, you’re not burned at all.”
“And he was-he was bleeding?” I knew I shouldn’t care. Owen had lied to me for two years. Everything he had ever said to me had been orchestrated. He was a part of this horror. But he had also fought for me, and apparently he had risked his life to save mine. Plus, he was Owen, and it turned out that even after everything, the thought of him getting hurt still made me sick to my stomach.
“I think he’s okay. I mean, he looked okay. Pretty bloody, but okay. He sorta disappeared after he helped you though. He said to get you out of there and he ran off.”
“Casper,” I sat up, sore muscles be damned. I scanned the backseat and found it empty. Everything about me tensed and my voice shook as I asked the next question. “Who else came out of the fire?”
“Cresta, don’t-“
“Who else Casper?” I demanded.
“Nobody Cress. I looked, but there was so much smoke; so much fire.”
“We have to go back,” I turned to him.
“What?” His eyes narrowed. “No. We’re not going back there.”
“We have to. She could still be alive,” I grabbed at his shoulder, though I wasn’t sure why.
“She’s not,” he said quietly.
Things were quiet for what felt like a really long time. Finally, the words came to me. “How do you-did you see a body?”
“No, but-“
“Then you don’t know!” I shouted. “She might have survived. She’s probably in the hospital right now waiting for us.”
“Cress,” he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. There was a tinge in his voice that set me on edge. It was the same one I got from the police officers I asked to dive in after my father the night he died. “You didn’t see it. You didn’t see what that house became. You didn’t hear the screams. I’m sorry, Cress, but nobody survived that.”
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