The Forbidden Trilogy

by Kimberly Kinrade

  Drake's jaw opened in shock. Toby had survived because he did have a para-power, and his mother clearly hadn't. This created a whole new problem for them both. If the boy kept flickering in and out like that, there was no way Drake could explain any of this. What would he tell the paramedics when they arrived? Should he lie about his involvement? He certainly had no intention of copping to illicit drug use—a one-way ticket to jail.

  His choices didn't look promising, with no money, no identification, no address. He was a nobody in the system, a lost soul too far off the radar for anyone to care, but a prime suspect to pin a death and almost-death on. If they tested his system, what would they find? Would he test positive for drugs?

  Toby's breathing steadied and he stayed visible, which relieved Drake. The waiting sent him pacing the house looking for something to distract him. He couldn't help the boy, or his mom. He considered moving Toby. Waking up wrapped in the arms of his dead mother was probably a harmful experience for a kid, worthy of some serious therapy.

  With that decided, Drake easily lifted the underweight boy and carried him to the living room, and set him on the shabby couch. Drake sat next to him, watching his chest move up and down rhythmically. The couch faced a small, old fashioned television that probably didn't work, but Drake figured it was worth a try. He needed a distraction. What was taking them so long, anyways? This zip code probably didn't rate high on the response time charts—the city of lost souls and nameless faces.

  He clicked the ancient relic on and smiled when it actually got a signal, but his pleasure was short lived when he realized it only got one channel, which currently featured a news story that Drake almost ignored, until he saw a picture flash on the screen of a vial with crystal blue liquid in it. They were talking about the drug.

  Drake turned it up and sat back down to watch. The newscaster was live on the scene of a wealthy home, with a Chanel-wearing woman crying into a handkerchief. "My boy, he just went crazy. He started throwing things at us, things he couldn't possibly have lifted on his own. I don't understand what's going on. Then, he just disappeared. Someone took my baby!"

  It flashed to another scene, with another woman sobbing. She looked angry and sad. "My girl died, and lots of others have died as well, and the ones who have... side effects... they go missing. But if they aren't blond and white, this country doesn't give a crap. One white kid goes missing and the media suddenly pays attention. What about the dozens of kids on our streets who have died or been kidnapped. Why has no one paid attention before?"

  Sirens blaring in the distance alerted Drake to the paramedics. He turned the television off and filed the new story in the back of his mind for later review. Now, he had to focus on his own story, and on not getting in trouble.

  When the paramedics arrived with two police officers, Drake knew he had little chance of escaping this situation unscathed. They came in armed, weapons in hand, and uncompromisingly antagonistic against Drake.

  "Put your hands on your head and turn around, now!"

  Drake bristled at their tone and the implications, but he followed their orders. "Officer, I'm the one who called you. I found this kid being beaten up by some drug dealers, and I cut in to save him. Then he ran off. I was worried about his health after taking such a beating, so I followed him. By the time I got here, his mom was dead and he was barely breathing. It looks like they took some drugs of some kind. I called you immediately."

  The other officer had disappeared into the back room. "Found two vials, it's the same stuff. Proceed with caution."

  Drake tried to turn around, but the cop holding the gun on him would have none of it. "Don't move or I'll shoot, do you hear me?"

  Drake knew his rights better than most. Raised in foster care, he had to know them to survive. "Are you charging me with something, Officer? Because if you aren't, I'd like to go. I was just trying to be a Good Samaritan." He had no intention of leaving Toby, but he couldn't let them know he cared one way or the other.

  "You're not going anywhere until we sort this all out."

  "What charges are you holding me on? You can't detain me without just cause."

  "Son, you were found in a known drug neighborhood, with a dead woman and her dying son. We've got plenty to hold you."

  This wasn't going as well as Drake had hoped, but he would have played along a little longer if they hadn't started handcuffing Toby and strapping him to a gurney, and not in the 'trying-to-protect-the-patient' way.

  Drake's frustration hardened into anger. "What the hell are you doing to him? He's just a kid and he's sick. He's not a criminal."

  "He took illegal drugs, and probably killed his mother. That makes him dangerous, and a criminal. That also makes you his accomplice. You're both coming with us."

  Oh shit. Again, Drake tried to keep his cool. Two cops and two paramedics did not make for the best of odds.

  His cool lasted about thirty seconds, until the damn idiots leaned in to duct tape Toby's mouth closed.

  What the hell? No way.

  He whipped around and kicked the gun out of the cop's hand, then attacked him. In a flurry of fighting, Drake didn't last long—not after they tasered him, then beat the crap out of him. He didn't notice the pain; all he could focus on was Toby's taped mouth and his increasingly shallow breaths as he struggled to get air into his lungs.

  Toby's body faded away, disappearing into nothing as Drake's consciousness also faded to nothing. His last thought was filled with the regret of yet another mistake, which had surely destroyed another innocent.

  Chapter 78 – Lucy

  The fire crackled and sent sparks into the dark sky. Like fire fairies in a children's book, they flickered into the air and danced on unseen currents. Soon, the sun would peek its head over the ocean and send rays of light onto the island. Until then, Lucy sat and warmed her hands by the fire, hoping the heat would burn out the dampness in her clothes from the rain the night before.

  She held her sphere in her right hand and admired the way the flames danced off the silver. It pulsed steadily, doing more to calm her than the fire.

  Beleth, ever the enigmatic, had stretched his black wings and flown off after his parting instructions. What Lucy wouldn't give to fly. She had no way of capturing him, no way of defeating him, no way of digging up the seed of doubt he'd planted in her heart.

  Would killing Agent Simmons really save all of those kids? She couldn't believe she was even considering it. Why did Beleth want the agent dead? Did it matter? Wasn't one life worth the lives of so many innocent children?

  Another coconut cracked open under her knife. She grimaced and forced herself to eat the meat, and vowed that once she was off the island, she'd never eat anything with coconut in it... ever again. Ever!

  She was tempted to hunt for more food, but Luke still lay passed out on his makeshift mat, and she didn't want to leave him in such a vulnerable state, despite how pissed off she was at him.

  Her mind spun with choices and questions. She needed more information, but had no real way of acquiring any. Beleth clearly had his own agenda, whatever that was. IPI may have had some dark secrets of its own, but she'd never seen anything to indicate she couldn't trust them. Still, those kids needed to be saved. What was she willing to do to make that happen?

  A small pile of coconuts sat at her feet. She picked up one and stared at it, then pulled off her baseball cap and put it on the coconut. It almost looked like Robert. She placed it a few feet away from her, then took her gun out, made sure the safety was on, and pointed it at the coconut.

  Images overlapped themselves. The coconut turned into Robert, the way he'd looked just moments before she'd shot him. Could she do it? Could she shoot Robert again if she had to?

  The vision expanded, to her brother splayed against the wall of the plane, his body stretched beyond endurance by Robert's power. She shifted and pointed her gun at her sleeping brother. If she hadn't shot Robert, then she would have been responsible for Luke's death.

&n
bsp; Lucy pivoted back and forth between the Robert coconut and Luke, each becoming a potential target. Two choices, neither of them right or good, but a decision had to be made, and Lucy had made it. Beleth was right: she would make the hard choices in the end. Her gun landed on the coconut.

  "Pow-Pow!" She made mock shooting sounds and imagined the coconut blowing up; imagined Robert as he fell to the ground, dying. Yes, she'd do it all again, if she had to. She'd do it to save Luke.

  Agent Simmons was a different matter. Robert had been killing her brother, so shooting him had been in direct defense of another life. As far as Lucy knew, Simmons was not a threat to those kids at all.

  She's one of the good guys, right?

  After what Beleth said, Lucy couldn't be sure. Beleth hadn't been lying when he said IPI was trying to rewrite its past, that they'd been responsible for the original experiments on paranormals. But just because he believed it, didn't actually make it true. The inherent flaw in her power: she could only tell when someone was consciously lying. If they believed something to be true, but were mistaken, her powers were useless.

  If IPI really did start all of this, then she'd gone from working for one bad to guy to another. Lucy aimed her gun at the silver IPI logo on her backpack and mock fired. The question burned in her mind: who did she have to kill to save those kids?

  Luke groaned loudly, interrupting her thoughts. She shoved her gun back into its holster and resumed eating her coconut.

  "Oh God. My head!" He sat up and clutched his skull as if it would fall off without the aid of his hands. "What the hell happened last night? Oh... I had the most amazing dream. Desirai came and showed me Sam's baby. Little Ana was born and so cute!"

  Lucy dropped the coconut and took out her knife to stab into the ground, not bothering to hide the irritated edge in her voice. "Yeah, I saw it too. She dream-walked."

  "Cool. Wish we could have been there." Luke stumbled toward the fire and sat next to Lucy. "You okay? You seem—"

  "I'm fine."

  "Right. That sounds all kinds of fine. Even if I didn't know women so well, and know you most of all, I'd cry bullshit on that one." He threw his arm over her shoulder and squeezed. "What's really going on?"

  "Seriously? I can't believe you even have to ask after yesterday. What's wrong is you got so drunk last night you passed out. And when I needed you, you weren't there."

  "Needed? What do you mean needed me? What happened?"

  Lucy stoked the fire and added more branches into it, pulling out of Luke's arms to do so. "You're right. I didn't need you. I saved your sorry ass all by myself."

  "Saved? From what? Luce, tell me what the hell's going on."

  "Beleth. He showed up last night. And you were passed out drunk, so I couldn't run, or leave or go after him."

  "Beleth was here?" Lucy could tell his hangover made thinking hard. "What happened? Where is he now?"

  "I fought him off. Kind of. I mean, he's like a machine. I've never fought anyone so... skilled before. He flew off before I could capture him or get help. If you'd been awake, maybe we could have captured him. Maybe we could have actually gotten some answers."

  Luke dropped his head and his shoulders slumped. "Damn, Luce, I'm sorry. It was a one-time thing. Won't happen again, I swear. Never again."

  She threw another piece of wood into the fire and watched it sizzle, much like the blood boiling in her veins at that moment. "One-time thing? You've been no help since we got here. You've done nothing but mope around feeling sorry for yourself. Do you know what it's been like for me to figure out how to keep us alive, all the while having to deal with your shit?"

  "Nah, that's not true." He looked away, unable to meet her angry gaze. "I helped you look for food. We found that moth thing."

  "Right, you were so helpful with that. Thanks a bunch, Bro." Lucy stalked off and started packing what food and water they could take with them.

  "Where're you going? Why you packing?" Luke didn't get up to help.

  Figures. "I know where the IPI base is. It's on the island, on the other side. We'd better get going now so we can cover as much ground as possible before nightfall. You should eat and drink. We'll fill up on water before heading out. I've just been waiting for you to wake up." She threw the last line out there as a jab, and hoped it stuck him somewhere tender.

  "Wait, what? How do you know this? I was only out for the night."

  She moved around the camp, putting out the fire, picking up her clothes that she'd laid out to dry. "Beleth told me. You'd better start packing. I'm not waiting for you, so hurry up."

  "And you believed him? What if he was lying? Sounds like a trap, if you ask me."

  "Well, you know what? I didn't ask you, because you were passed out. And in case you'd forgotten, I am a human lie detector. He wasn't lying and it's not a trap. You coming or not?" She wouldn't have really left him, but she hoped he thought she might. She was done with all this crap from him.

  He nodded and stood, still wobbly.

  Lucy sighed and handed him water and the can of stew she'd saved for him—the can that had tempted her beyond sanity all night long. She hadn't eaten it despite her anger, knowing he'd need it after all that drinking.

  Luke drank an entire water bottle of water, then ate the can of stew in a few giant bites, and consumed three coconuts.

  Lucy stood on the edge of their camp, pack secure on her back, and tapped her foot impatiently. When Luke finally joined her, she pivoted without a word and stomped off toward the lake so they could replenish their water before a long day of hiking.

  ***

  "If you complain about your headache one more time, I'll pull out my gun and use your head for target practice. I swear to God, Luke." She slapped her walking stick against the trees for added impact as she walked through the dense jungle.

  Their hike had become an endless montage of trees, bugs, and Luke's complaints. Lucy felt sticky and coated in sweat. Her baseball hat clung to her moist hair, and she wanted desperately to take it off, but didn't want to burn. Her back ached from her pack, laden with the extra food and water.

  Luke had been a miserable companion the entire day. He pouted, complained, and generally slowed her down. What little patience she had was gone.

  For the first part of the day, they'd tried to stick close to the shore, but they eventually reached the cliffs and had to veer deeper into the jungle.

  Like being on a jungle-inspired treadmill, Lucy didn't feel like they'd gained much ground, but they'd been walking since sunrise and the sun was now setting over the mountains. Darkness descended quickly in the jungle. Too quickly.

  Lucy stopped and looked around. The area was mostly flat, with some good dry wood for making a fire. "We need to stop and set up camp, get a fire going before we can't see anything anymore."

  Luke slumped to the ground without a word, and Lucy sighed and started collecting wood for the fire. He finally joined her, just as she had nearly finished building the fire.

  Once it blazed to life, they sat and sipped at their water. At least coconuts were in abundance, and the milk from them kept them hydrated. They ate their coconuts in silence. Lucy pretended it was a cheeseburger and fries, but the fantasy only made her hungrier.

  Luke slurped out the last of the milk from his and cracked it open to work on the meat. "So, did you see that Brad and Des are together? That's awesome."

  Perfect, just the conversation Lucy needed to feel even more miserable. "Yeah, I saw. I'm happy for them."

  Loneliness ate into her, and it wasn't just Luke's recent distance that made her feel this way. She'd felt it for awhile, but hadn't wanted to acknowledge what it was, or maybe she couldn't acknowledge it. Sometimes the hole in her just felt... so hollow, and identifying the piece that fit it was impossible.

  A branch snapped in the jungle and jerked Lucy back to her surroundings. She whispered, "There's something in the trees."

  Luke did nothing to conceal his voice. "Whatever. Probably some animal.
Nothing to worry about."

  "Maybe. But even if that's true, then that's dinner. Something other than coconut. I'm going to check it out."

  Luke didn't offer to come, which hurt her, but she ignored the feeling and grabbed her gun and knife. She walked quietly and heard more branches snap. It could be something big. She hoped the gun and knife would be enough. Her stomach rumbled with the promise of hot meat but the sphere in her pocket pulsed and her instincts made her cautious. It might not be an animal after all.

  Another snap, closer this time.

  She rushed forward, fast but careful, closer and closer to the sound.

  Then she stopped.

  In front of her stood a young man around her age, dressed in black, with black hair streaked with some kind of light highlight.

  He had a submachine gun pointed at Lucy.

  She had her pistol pointed at him.

  They locked eyes.

  Around them the jungle seemed to fall silent, as if holding its breath to see what would happen next. Or maybe that was just Lucy.

  As they stared at each other, Lucy studied him more closely, focusing on the details of his face, despite the darkness surrounding them. His chiseled jaw was locked in focus, and his green eyes seemed to study her just as intently as she studied him.

  A woman came up behind him carrying a flashlight. The tall forty-something woman with sandy blonde hair brought mixed feelings for Lucy.

  Agent Simmons smiled. "Lucy! Oh, we've found you." She gestured to the guy with the gun. "Agent Riley, stand down. She's with us."

  Agent Riley lowered his gun, and Lucy did the same as Simmons embraced her.

  "We're so glad to see you. We saw the plane go down and hoped you'd all made it to the island, so we put together a search party immediately. Where is everyone? Where's Agent Morrison? All communications have been down. We didn't even know if anyone survived, but you did!"

  More IPI Agents surrounded Simmons as she talked. They smiled and said hi to Lucy. Everyone looked relieved to find her.