by R. T. Lowe
And then Allison—once again—took matters into her own hands.
Fighting through the cord that Harper was using to shackle her, Allison lunged at Harper and landed a ferocious overhand to the face. Followed by two more: whack, whack. The sound of bony knuckles on soft facial tissue split through the misty, moisture-heavy wind currents. The last of Allison’s blows opened up a deep gash beneath Harper’s left eye.
The choking pressure on Felix’s lower leg cut out all at once as the long cable slithered its way back to where Harper stood, returning to the source like a retractable vacuum cord. He dropped out of the sky, tucking his chin to his breastbone at the last second to avoid landing on his head. When he hit the pavement, something in his back crunched and a shooting pain traveled in waves all the way down to his toes. He forced himself to his stomach, the wind crushed out of him, and watched as Harper put a hand to her face, feeling for the cut and wiping the blood that dribbled down her flushed cheek. For a moment, she examined the blood on her fingers with a look of confusion that slipped into surprise. Then her jaw hardened and she exhaled sharply through her teeth, her eyes burning with fury.
Harper released the cord from Allison’s arm.
Allison didn’t use the opportunity to flee. Instead, she went on the offensive, kicking viciously at Harper’s face. Harper sank low and Allison’s boot whistled over her head. Before Allison could pull her foot back, Harper twined a cord around her ankle and yanked her off the ground. Allison flipped head over feet and dangled upside down, throwing punches at the air.
Harper cocked her head and studied Allison—now face to face with her—and a terrifying calmness fell over her eyes. Then the other cord (lying in a loose bundle on the ground next to her) rose up and moved through the air like a probing snake toward Allison’s neck.
In a burst of recognition, Felix connected the dull look in Harper’s eyes and the cord’s destination. What was about to unfold was as certain to him as if he’d already witnessed it. He knew that Harper was going to kill Allison. He knew that she was going to rip her head clean from her shoulders.
“Stop!” Felix jumped to his feet and pointed at Harper. Now he had to do something—regardless of the risks. He focused his thoughts on the electrical cords, but controlling them was harder than he’d anticipated. It wasn’t like manipulating a book or a log or even a sea stack. He felt resistance. Like the things themselves didn’t want him to control them. He knew he could use more power—just push harder—but Harper still had one cord wound around Allison’s leg. If he pushed the wrong way or pushed too forcefully, Allison could lose her foot. But pushing gently had an odd effect: given the resistance he was encountering, the substance of the objects, which he felt in his mind, began to slip away. It was like trying to control a shadow without manipulating the thing casting it.
So Felix pushed harder.
The cord in Harper’s right hand began to thrash wildly like an unattended fire hose. Harper stared at it with a startled look in her eyes. As Felix gained control of it, the whipsawing diminished, until finally, he stopped it in place.
Slowly, carefully, Felix unwound the cord looped around Allison’s ankle. Harper looked furious, staring with homicidal rage at Allison, thinking that she was the one controlling the cords like a hacker remotely accessing a computer. When Felix finally peeled away the last bit of cord, Allison dropped straight down, head first. She twisted her body and pulled her knees into her chest, striking the pavement with her hands and shins. Then she popped up and hastily backed away from Harper, hurrying to Felix’s side, giving him a look he interpreted as it’s about time!
Harper stared at the cords, then at Felix. Her eyes widened and her face grew dark. She understood what had happened—and who was responsible. “What are you doing?” she screamed at Felix, her eyes bulging with anger.
“Stop and I’ll let you go!” Felix shouted at her.
But Harper wouldn’t stop. She stubbornly resisted him, refusing to give up control of the weapons. Her arms, extended and held out in front as though she was holding a steering wheel, trembled. Under Felix’s control, the cords were long, straight and as rigid as javelins. Harper’s legs shook and her knees buckled. She stumbled in the direction of the Nissan, all the while yelling angrily at Felix, cursing at him.
“Just drop those goddamn things!” Felix stepped toward Harper, his face tightening. “We can work this out. Let’s talk. You don’t have to do this.”
“No!” Harper screamed. “This isn’t possible! Stop it! Let me go!”
“Harper!” For the first time since Felix saw the car speeding into the lot, he felt real anger. And then he felt something else. From the deepest part of his being, an enormous burst of energy erupted and lashed out at the objects in Harper’s hands. The part of him that released it had no concern for the consequences. It only wanted to strike Harper down, to teach her a lesson.
The cords surged with electricity, crackling and lighting up like comets entering the atmosphere. The earth rumbled, swelling and receding in thunderous waves. Harper moved her arms out to her sides and widened her base, attempting to stay balanced. Her eyes found Felix and her lips parted as if she was about to say something. And then she was hauled off her feet and sent hurtling across the parking lot like a mosquito straying too close to a ceiling fan. She collided against the driver’s side of Fallon’s sedan, and for a moment, everything seemed frozen in time. With her hands raised high overhead, the cords went limp, falling behind her where they slapped down on the car, thumping across the hood. Then it began: The car rocked on deflating tires. The hood popped open and slammed into the windshield, snapping off at the brackets and careening off toward the kiosk. Orange and white sparks burst into the sky from the engine and tailpipe. The windows shattered. The tires flattened, sinking in on themselves. The rims crumpled. The cabin lit up bright for a moment. And then—wha-wuff—the car exploded in a roaring fireball.
Jaggedy-edged car parts rocketed in every direction. Allison crouched down low and covered her head, but nothing disturbed her or Felix or the space around them. A shroud of black smoke enveloped the parking lot. The air smelled of gasoline and burning rubber. The word ‘shield’ hadn’t flashed across Felix’s mind, yet he’d created one, unconsciously, and it was working perfectly, deflecting the flaming debris and preventing the heat of the conflagration from getting through. He took a step toward the car, trying to control the fear swelling inside him. He felt Allison’s hand on his arm. He knew that Harper was on the wrong side of the shield. Unprotected. He had to get to her. But he was blind. Beyond the dark swirling veil he couldn’t see a thing.
He took another step.
“Not yet,” Allison said softly, gently pulling him back.
So they waited.
The frigid winds shifted and changed direction, blowing the dense smoke toward the mountains. Through the haze, the burning wreckage came into view, the winds pulling the flames high into the gray sky. Harper appeared—at first he felt relief, then terror. She looked waifish, a ghostly soldier limping awkwardly toward them, struggling to get to the next trench.
With a thought, Felix dropped the invisible barrier. The temperature spiked instantly, and he heard Allison say “shit” in surprise. Through the huge curls of thick smoke, he saw Harper, still stumbling forward, clutching at her chest. He waded into the field of destruction with Allison beside him. The heat rolled over them, warping the air around them. They covered their faces and picked their way through the smoldering landscape. The acrid smoke limited their visibility to whatever the mercurial winds allowed. Harper stopped moving, hunched over next to a tire set aflame. With thousand-degree air burning down their windpipes, they converged on Harper from opposite sides and dragged her away, retracing their path through the blistered blacktop. Harper made no attempt to support her own weight.
When the air no longer seared their lungs and they had distanced themselves from the worst of the fire and the mechanical carnage, Felix nodded at
Allison and they eased Harper onto her back in a sleeping position. His eyes suddenly felt like they were on fire. He dug his knuckles into his sockets, pressing back the stinging smoke.
A startled scream escaped from Allison’s lips.
His eyes snapped open, taking a moment to clear, and when they refocused, they fixed on Harper. A metal rod, grooved and cleaved off at the top like the point of a dagger, protruded from the center of Harper’s chest. He sucked in a gasping breath and fell to his knees, reaching out for the object. And that was when he realized that Harper’s neck was wrecked. It wasn’t a cut. It was a divot.
Allison gagged.
Felix stared at the blood—the life—pumping out of the horrible wound in steady, predictable bursts. Feeling numb, he jammed his closed hand against Harper’s neck, trying to stanch the bleeding. But it was no use. The wound was too deep. No amount of pressure was going to help. “Harper!” he screamed, panicked, a shattering rush of emotion pulsing through him. “I’m sorry. Oh my God. What did I do? What did I do?” The words came out heavy, catching in his throat.
Allison knelt down beside him and took Harper’s hand.
“I’m so sorry,” Felix whispered hoarsely. The hysteria bubbled up in his chest. His throat was ragged and rusty with smoke and misery. He stared down at the girl who literally took his breath away the first time he saw her—the girl who put his heart into arrhythmia every time she looked at him. He thought (in those infrequent moments when he was brave enough to admit it to himself) that she might be the one—the love of his life, the girl he would spend forever with. And now that girl and all of his perfectly foolish teenage dreams were dying on the cold winter ground in front of him.
Harper tried to speak, but only coughed up blood. The rain, which had settled into a steady, quiet drizzle, suddenly broke, and sunlight filtered in through ribbons of fast-moving clouds, falling over her body.
“Why?” Allison said with thick despair, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Harper, why’d you do this?”
Harper’s body shook. Her breathing was wet and rattling. Blood streamed from the corners of her mouth.
Felix was watching Harper die, watching the life drain out of her—and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He felt completely powerless. Helpless.
And then something very strange happened.
Harper’s body trembled uncontrollably for a moment. Then her black leggings were no longer black leggings; they were jeans, dark blue but faded in a striped pattern down her thighs. Her black leather jacket with the tab collar and quilting on the shoulders vanished and reappeared as a gray down-filled winter coat. The brown leather riding boots with the buckled straps around the calf and ankle became wheat-colored Timberland work boots. The new clothes were bigger than the old clothes. And the legs, arms and feet that resided within the new clothes appeared to be bulging and lengthening, filling up the jeans, winter coat and Timberlands until they fit properly. So it wasn’t just the clothes that had grown. Harper had grown. Substantially. Harper’s face—the face Felix had fallen in love with on that first night in his dorm room—was also changing. Before Felix’s eyes, the clouds of blonde hair withered away, shriveling up into coarser stuff that was now short and just a few shades removed from what most people would consider midnight black. Harper’s straight perky nose flattened out and broadened until it was nearly as wide as her mouth. Her lips lost their fullness, becoming straight lines, their prominence diminishing as her chin and jaw grew thicker and wider. The chin grew a dusting of the same coarse black hair—whiskers. And finally, her eyes—her beautiful eyes—went from deep blue to coffee-brown, from large and roundish to small and slightly droopy at the corners. It was like watching a girl morphing into a werewolf. Only he wasn’t looking at a werewolf. He was looking at a guy. A guy.
Harper—the most beautiful girl he’d ever known—had turned into a guy.
Felix struggled to his feet, his hand dripping blood onto the pavement.
“I’m not Harper,” the guy croaked. The voice had also changed. Now it was a medium tenor. Everything seemed to have changed—except for his age. He was young, no older than Felix and Allison.
“What the?” Allison murmured, stunned. She let go of his hand.
Felix was speechless. He didn’t know what was going on. What happened to Harper? Is this Harper? Is Harper really a guy?
“Where’s Harper?” Allison shouted at him. She had already collected her wits as Felix stared down in total bewilderment, his eyes locking onto the goatee, trying to comprehend how Harper could have grown facial hair.
“The airport,” he answered softly. “That’s where I touched her.”
“Touched her?” Allison flinched. “What do you mean? Did you hurt her?”
“No. That’s how I do it.” He coughed up more blood, his face contorting in pain. “That’s how I adopt the way people look. I have to touch them.”
“Harper’s alive?” Felix’s voice was high and desperate. A flicker of hope—and understanding—was rising inside him, working its way through the diamond-hard substrate of confusion coating his brain.
He nodded and put a hand on the steel bar, curling his fingers around it.
“So you’re not Harper?” Felix asked tentatively, as the strange reality of what was happening dawned on him. This guy wasn’t Harper—Harper wasn’t bleeding out in front of him. Some guy—some random guy with a goatee—was bleeding out in front of him. “Who are you then?”
“Riley.”
“Who sent you?” Allison asked suddenly. “Did Lofton send you?”
“Lofton?” Riley said with surprise in his voice, creasing his forehead. “Lofton would kill me if he knew what I was doing. I just wanted to… to impress… Lynch. I screwed something up and I…” He drifted. “Nobody knows what I’m doing. I’m so stupid.” His eyes closed and tears leaked down the sides of his face.
“Who’s Lynch?” Felix asked.
Riley didn’t respond.
“Who’s Lynch?” Felix repeated, shouting this time.
Riley struggled against the weight of his eyelids. “I saw your names on the list. That’s all. I thought I’d test you. I guess I got carried away. Stupid. I’m always so… stupid.”
“What list?” Allison asked.
“The list,” Riley said quietly, his voice barely audible, the shifting winds drowning him out. “You’re all on it. Your friends. Lots of other people too.”
“What’s it for?” Felix asked anxiously. “Are you looking for Drestianites?”
Riley stared vacantly at Felix. “No one’s ever done that to me before. Not even Lynch. Or the others. How’d you do that?”
“What’s Lofton doing?” Felix screamed, restraining a sudden urge to beat the answers out of him. “What’s he doing with the list?” He stepped back a ways to stay clear of the ever-expanding pool of blood forming around Riley’s neck.
“He’s looking for someone,” Riley said weakly. “I just wanted to go on an adventure.” He coughed. “Like in the movies. Prove I could do something important.”
“Who’s he looking for?” Felix shouted.
“I don’t want to die.” Riley sounded scared. Tears welled up in his frightened eyes and slid down his face, leaving trails in the sooty film of smoke residue on his cheeks. “It hurts. It hurts so much. I don’t wanna die. Not like this.”
“Who’s he looking for?” Felix shouted again.
“I don’t wanna…” Riley began, and then his eyes dimmed and went still, half-open and looking up at the sky in an empty death stare.
“Hey!” Straddling the blood on the ground, Felix grabbed his coat and gave him a rough shake. “Hey! Who’s he looking for? Hey!”
“He’s gone!” Allison got up and tugged on Felix’s arm. “C’mon! Someone’s gonna see all this smoke. The fire department will be here soon.”
Felix gazed down at Riley, slowly shaking his head in wonder. He couldn’t believe that just a moment ago, Riley had been Harper—or at l
east, Riley had looked just like Harper. It was still mystifying. “What do we do with him?”
“Leave him,” Allison replied as she headed for the Range Rover. “Let’s get the hell outta here!” She retrieved her phone from under the car before climbing into the passenger seat.
Felix followed after her and slipped in behind the steering wheel, slamming the door shut. “What do we do about this?” He stabbed a finger at himself, then at Allison. He was bloodied from his face to his feet. She didn’t look much better; her lips were split open, one eye had swollen nearly shut and dried blood crusted the lower half of her face.
“We’ll have to find a rest stop on the way.”
Felix started the car and floored it, pulling out of the parking lot and leaving the Cliff Walk behind.
Chapter 62
The Drive
“I didn’t just kill Harper, right?” Felix asked with fear in his voice as the Range Rover rolled over what was left of the roadblocks. Any clarity or relief he’d felt just a moment ago was already gone, replaced with endless avenues of confusion.
“I don’t think so.” Allison was tapping on her phone, using her thumbs.
“Should we call her?”
“Already ahead of you. But I’m not sure she’d want to talk to either of us right now.” She placed the phone on her lap. “I just texted Caitlin. She should be home by now.”
“Why wouldn’t she want to talk to me?” Felix asked after a moment’s reflection, confused. “What’d I do?”
“Did you tell her something about your parents’ attorney? That you had to meet with him?”
“Yeah. The night I… went to Bill’s.”
“Well”—she shivered and cranked up the cabin temperature—“I might’ve told her you didn’t have any reason to see him.”
“What? Why’d you do that?”
