Out of the Darkness

by Jaime Rush

  Rand filled in a luminescent blue sky in broad strokes. He painted with abandon, his whole body moving with his passion. Oh, to be able to let go like that. To open herself and just let go.

  A mouse appeared, hunkered down to avoid the eagle’s claws.

  “Wow, it’s amazing! It’s like 3-D.” She tilted her head. “Are we the mouse? Is the eagle Darkwell?”

  He stood back, looking at the piece. “No, we’re the eagle.”

  “Freedom! Dude, where ya been?”

  They both turned at the voice that belonged to a tall, skinny black guy with a Mohawk. He and Rand did some kind of hand-slap shake.

  “Been rocking some heavy shit,” Rand said. “Had to get up, though.”

  “Heavy shit, huh? Anything I can help with? As much as you’ve had our backs, the boys’ll have yours, too.”

  “Thanks, man, but I gotta handle this on my own.”

  The guy’s eyes lit with both interest and curiosity when he saw her.

  Rand put out his hand as though to present her. “This is my…my…” He looked at her, suddenly uncomfortable labeling her in his life. “This is Zoe. Zoe, this is my boy, Taze. That’s his graff nickname.”

  Taze gave her a nod as his gaze took her in. “Nice tattoo,” he said, tilting his head toward her Dracula tattoo.

  “Thanks.”

  Rand signed his moniker in letters that looked like stylized, three-dimensional squares.

  Taze surveyed the new piece. “Not your best, but still a burner.”

  Rand glanced at his watch. “Don’t have time for the best.”

  “The city buffed your homage, dude. We’re going to hit it tonight. You in?”

  Rand threw the cans in the bag and zipped it up. “Can’t. Paint my tag in for me.”

  “Homage?” Zoe asked.

  “It’s nothing,” Rand said, but Taze said, “You didn’t see it? Oh, man. I got pictures.” Taze started digging in his back pocket. “I can show you—”

  “No, we gotta run.” Rand walked over and unlocked the bags on his bike. He obviously didn’t want her to know about this homage. So naturally, she wanted to know.

  “I’d love to see pictures.”

  He patted his other pocket. “Damn, they must be back in my car. Check out my MySpace page, T-A-Z-E, Sly’s slide show.”

  “Gotta go.” Rand gave her a pointed look.

  “Who’s Sly?” she asked, not budging.

  “One of my boys.” Taze rubbed the back of his neck. “Kid was just sixteen, poised to be a king. Freedom took him under his wing when he first started, used his crazy knack for knowing when the cops was coming. The kid idolized this guy.”

  Rand’s expression darkened, and his jaw tightened. “He just hung around, that’s all.”

  Taze continued, so caught up in his story he didn’t notice Rand’s obvious objection. “We was doing a piece—Sly’s first. Freedom has that sixth-sense thing, though, and he started running to Sly, telling him to scram. We thought the cops was coming, but this car came screeching around the corner.” He pointed, and Zoe guessed it had happened here. “Sly froze, man, just froze like a deer, and Freedom and I, we was screaming, but he didn’t move, and the car slammed right into him. The driver freaked, stumbling drunk, crying and shit. Freedom ran over and grabbed him up, but his head was wrecked. He was breathing, gurgling, then he was gone.”

  Zoe looked at Rand and saw deep grief and self-blame on his face.

  Taze went on. “The driver got six months in jail. That’s it, six friggin ’months. Freedom let him have it, did one of his satire pieces, a burnerific painting of Sly’s face and the words, ‘If a poor black kid dies on the streets, and the rich white folks don’t hear it, did he really die?’ Cut ’em, man. It cut ’em good. It was all over the news.”

  She put her hand to her mouth. “I saw that in the paper. Wait a minute.” She turned to Rand. “You’re Freedom, that guy who does the controversial graffiti!”

  He took her by the arm and pulled her to the bike. To Taze he said, “We gotta run, dude. Later.”

  He barely gave her time to get on the bike before he took off. She could feel the tension in his body. He rode for several minutes, then he turned down a road leading toward the water and several marinas. He pulled into a parking lot and killed the engine, set his helmet on the asphalt, and walked to the seawall. He stared across the expanse of water toward boat-storage houses and a dock system.

  She remained a distance from him after getting off the bike. He radiated a Stay away vibe, his jaw tense and expression fierce. She should stay away, give him space. She should.

  But she couldn’t.

  She walked up behind him and slid her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against his back. The salty breeze whispered through her gelled locks, strong enough to lift them.

  He set his hands over hers for a second, then peeled them away. His breathing came deeply, as though he were fighting to keep something inside. She dropped her hands, but remained pressed against him.

  “You never let yourself grieve for him, did you?”

  “He was just a kid, a punk.”

  “You cared about him.”

  He spun around. “I don’t care about anyone.”

  “Maybe you can convince yourself of that, most of the time. It’s easier for you, and for me, to see you as the reckless, selfish rebel. I hate to tell you this, but you do care.” She took a step back. “You blame yourself for his death, don’t you?”

  He looked away and took a deep, shuddering breath. His eyes glistened with tears. “I saw it happen ten seconds before. And I couldn’t stop it. What good is this damned ability if I couldn’t save his life?”

  “It was his time, Rand.”

  “He was just sixteen years old!”

  She cradled his face in her hands. “I know it’s not fair. But you couldn’t stop it. You tried, you did your best, but it happened. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “He died in my arms. That kid took his last breath in my arms. And no one cared. The cops didn’t care, the media didn’t care—”

  “You cared.”

  He shook his head, but she kept her hold on him.

  “You care, Rand. You hate it, you fight it, you deny it, but you care. You care about that little ‘punk kid,’ and you care about your gram, and you care about the Rogues, and you can’t stand it, but you care.”

  He looked everywhere but at her. “I don’t want to care. I lose everyone I care about.”

  The emotion in his voice reached right into her chest. “I know. It’s easier to detach. I know, Rand. But sometimes we can’t detach.” She imagined her granddad lying in that bed, wasting away. “And sometimes we lose the person we care about, and dammit, it hurts, and we just have to live with the pain. We feel the pain because we feel the love, but the pain is better than being numb.” She didn’t even know where these words were coming from, spilling from her heart.

  “No, numb is better,” he said, staring just beyond her.

  The sound of a boat’s horn filled the air with its plaintive wail. Even the seagulls seemed to be crying.

  She turned his face so he had to look at her. “Numb isn’t living. I used to believe that, too, until I nearly died. That night in the woods, what happened, or nearly happened between us, was us needing to feel because numb isn’t working. Feeling something is scary. Caring is scary because one of us might die, and another one of us might be holding that person when they take their last breath. But if we don’t feel that moment and feel that pain, then we are not alive. We may be the one who survives, but we are not living.” Emotion tore through her, pouring out in her voice. “And if you hold me as I take my last breath, and you call me some punk kid who meant nothing to you, I will haunt every waking moment of your life.”

  His face paled. His voice was nearly a whisper when he said, “I won’t…”

  “Then grieve Sly. Honor him in a deeper way than painting his picture and flipping off the people who didn’t
care. Because you care. Honor him with your heart, Rand.”

  His chin trembled as he still fought the emotion. She pulled him against her, her arms going around his shoulders. He tried feebly to push away, then he locked his arms around her. His body shuddered as his grief poured out. She knew he’d never let himself cry, not for Sly or for his father or himself and all of his losses.

  She felt a ball of emotion in her throat. Neither had she. How they had suffered because of Darkwell. How much they had lost. Could they ever get any of it back?

  Standing there, holding Rand, she thought: Maybe. Maybe just a little.

  He released her, looking away as he wiped his eyes. “We’d better go. We’re too vulnerable here.”

  She nodded, following him to the bike. She knew he meant vulnerable because of Darkwell, but she wondered if he’d meant emotionally, too.

  As she settled onto the bike behind him, she knew things had irrevocably shifted between them. He would either draw closer to her or back so far away she’d never reach him again. As she leaned against him, she had a feeling it would be the latter.

  The thought crushed her. Don’t get swallowed up, Zoe.

  As they sped out of the parking area, a terrible irony hit her: she was finally beginning to gain control over her power…but she had lost control over her heart.

  CHAPTER 18

  P

  etra was still wiped out from healing Eric. They had agreed that she should stay back on this mission. She hadn’t argued, though she knew waiting for them to return from their meeting with Jerryl Evrard was going to drive her crazy with worry. While they were going over their final plan, she took a nap. She drifted in and out of dreams, memories of their attempt to contact Braden, hearing echoes of Cheveyo’s warning about healing mortal wounds.

  So when she heard Cheveyo’s voice calling her, she thought it must be part of the dream.

  Petra…careful…danger…

  She tried to come awake to hear the rest of the words. What if it was a warning? Like when he’d summoned her earlier?

  She struggled, but her mind slipped back into deep, dreamless sleep.

  Zoe was the bait. Somehow everyone had decided that she was the sexy vamp who would lure Jerryl over to her broken-down car, and so here she was, leaning over the open hood just outside the gym where Jerryl went daily. She positioned herself so that her derriere would be the first thing he’d see when he hobbled out the door. She’d be hard to miss, in bright pink, skintight gym shorts and dainty white sneakers, which would have looked terrible if she were a redhead. Only now she wore a long, curly, blond wig.

  To ensure he took the bait, she looked up when Rand gave her the signal and met Jerryl’s gaze with her pleading one. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about cars, would you?”

  His tank top revealed well-defined muscles. He was more bulked up than Rand but in an artificial way. His hair was as short as his five o’clock shadow.

  He squinted his brown, feral eyes and walked over. “What’s the problem?”

  “When I pulled into the lot, it made a really awful noise and conked out. I barely made it into the parking spot.”

  Rand walked toward the gym door, then headed in their direction, as though he’d just come out of the building and was ambling over to help.

  Except he had a gun under his light jacket. When Jerryl leaned over the engine, Rand came up behind him and pressed the barrel to his hip. “Dude, I hate to do it this way, but we’ve got to talk. Get in the car.”

  Zoe bit her lower lip as she met his confused gaze. “Sorry. We can’t take any chances. We need to talk to you about some serious stuff that has to do with either your mom or dad…a top secret program they were involved in twenty years ago.”

  Jerryl glanced around as though contemplating either running or flagging help. Rand pushed the gun harder into his side. “In the car.”

  Jerryl complied, getting into the backseat with Rand. She slammed down the hood, pulled his crutches into the front, then got into the driver’s seat. She glanced around but didn’t see Eric and Lucas, who were somewhere nearby. Once they made sure no one followed, they would head to the next location on Rand’s bike. She had to take the long way to give them time to get into their lookout positions.

  Rand said, “I know this seems waked out to you; I know it did to me. But we’re the offspring of people who were in this program, and we’ve each got a psychic ability. We understand that someone from the government tried to recruit you. Despite the fact that I’ve got a gun pointed at your appendix, we’re the good guys.”

  She glanced in the rearview mirror. Jerryl didn’t seem to buy that. “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace we can talk without getting shot at. We’re trying to get enough of us together so we can figure out what happened to our parents.” He wasn’t going to get into the annihilation part yet.

  Zoe asked, “Did one of your parents die when you were young?”

  “Yeah, my mom. She worked for the DIA—Defense Intelligence Agency—and some guy walked in and shot a bunch of people. She was one of them.”

  She nearly ran into the back of the car in front of her. The blood drained from her face. She exchanged a glance with Rand in the rearview mirror.

  He turned back to Jerryl. “The guy who tried to recruit you, he works for the guy who ran the original program. He’s got a new program, and he wants to use us because of the skills we inherited from each of our parents.”

  “Man, this is some pretty crazy shit you’re telling me.”

  “I know. It takes a while to sink in. We’ll tell you what we know, and you can check around on your own. If your father is still alive, he probably won’t know much about what your mom was involved in. Apparently the government paid off the families involved to keep them quiet. They don’t want anyone to know about this, and they’ll kill us to keep it that way. That’s why we’re taking precautions.”

  Jerryl sat back in the seat, a stunned expression on his face. “Can you lower the gun? You’re making me nervous, especially with her looking back here more than she’s looking ahead.”

  She blinked and faced forward.

  “She’s got it under control.” Rand warmed her with his confidence, even if she didn’t quite deserve it.

  “How many of you are there?” Jerryl asked.

  “Not enough.”

  Nicely evasive, she thought.

  She drove back to southern Annapolis to a rundown area with a jumble of faded warehouses. Because of its creek-side location, the area was destined for demolition. The developers of the future upscale shopping area were probably waiting for the economy to resurface. For the moment, it was a good place for clandestine activity, as nothing was nearby. Lucas had told her that he, Eric, and Petra had taken Gladstone, the CIA agent assigned to assess them, here to interrogate him. She’d also learned that Eric, behind their backs, had set the man on fire.

  Lucas had done his prescient sketches of a man killing Eric, and Eric recognized that man as Gladstone. Amy, with her crackerjack ability to recover lost data on damaged hard drives, was able to read the agent’s journal and confirm Eric’s suspicions. The man was going to recommend that Eric be terminated. That Eric had killed Gladstone against the others’ wishes was another example of his volatile nature, and that nature worried Zoe almost as much as what Jerryl might do if he was the enemy.

  Lucas and Eric had already removed the chain that barred the entrance to what had once been a thriving industrial park. Weeds sprouted through cracks in the asphalt parking area and even grew in the gutters. The once-blue buildings had faded to a powdery gray. Some windows were broken out, and what Rand would probably consider “toys” had left their marks with graffiti tags so stylistic she couldn’t read them.

  She parked around the back of the building next to the creek. She didn’t see anyone but knew that Lucas and Eric were positioned at opposite corners outside the building so they could scan the surroundings, weapons ready. Amy was st
anding on the rim of a Dumpster outside a broken window, where she could communicate with both of them and also listen to what was going on inside. Neither man would make an appearance unless necessary, at least not yet.

  She pulled a gun from her purse. Rand insisted she be armed, just in case.

  Those words again!

  She held the gun by her thigh as they walked into the cavern of a warehouse, Jerryl slower because of the crutches. Several broken windows let in enough watery light to showcase the dust motes dancing in the musty air. She passed a scorch mark on the concrete floor and shivered. A man had died there. Burned to death. She forced her gaze to a grouping of chairs below the window where Amy was positioned.

  Jerryl looked around. “What is this place?”

  Rand said, “A private spot to meet. So, if you haven’t decided we’re crazy, are you ready to hear more?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  Rand nodded toward the chairs. Both men sat backward. Must be a guy thing. She bent one knee beneath her and sat.

  Between the two of them, they filled him in.

  He didn’t ask a lot of questions, just seemed to absorb what they were saying. When they were done, he asked, “We all have different psychic abilities then?”

  Rand said, “Yeah. What’s yours?”

  “Sometimes I have a knowing about things. Freaked out my superiors when I mentioned it. I stopped mentioning it.” He looked at them. “What about you?”

  Rand had said to downplay their abilities, though the bad guys already knew what he could do. “I see ten seconds ahead. Zoe, we’re not too sure what she can do yet.”

  “What about the others?”

  Rand shrugged. “A little of this and that. We’ll let them tell you, when we’re ready. For now we want to give you time to absorb all this. Be careful, though, about digging too much. These guys already killed one of us for doing that.”

  Jerryl looked at Rand. “You’re right; I never heard squat about the circumstances surrounding my mom’s death. It was a big secret. Always bugged me.”