Paranormal Word Series Box Set (Books 1-3 and Novella)

by CC Solomon

  He didn’t answer, just tilted his head as if studying me. “I’m not sure. I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before. Are you in business school?”

  I shook my head. “Law school.”

  He nodded slowly. “Platinum Gym, maybe? I go there a lot.”

  I tried not to look him up and down, but it was evident from how his clothes laid on his body that he was fit.

  However, I had no gym membership of any kind. I shook my head.

  He squinted his eyes. “Dating app?”

  I cracked a smile. “Now, that’s entirely possible.”

  He stretched his hand out to me. “My name is Phillip Leal,” he said. “I’m sure I must have swiped up for you. Well, back when that kind of thing existed.”

  I chuckled, shaking his hand. His hand was warm and surprisingly soft. “I’m Amina. Langston,” I replied.

  “Ah, Amina, Amina, yes, that name sounds familiar,” he called out, slapping his forehead lightly. “Beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

  There was charm oozing from him unaided by even words. I’m sure I blushed and was thankful it was dark and that my almond coloring was deep enough to hide it.

  “So, what brings you out in the park, looking like bait, along with me?” I asked.

  “Would you run if I told you I didn’t know? Sometimes things get fuzzy here for me.”

  “You aren’t the only one. Maybe both of us got hit on the head.”

  Phillip turned away and leaned back on the bench, staring up at the night sky. “Let’s help each other then. Do you live in the area?”

  Did I? I didn’t know for sure, but the park felt familiar. “Yeah, I think so. Where are you from?”

  He smiled again. “I’m from Philly but originally from the Dominican Republic. Came here when I was five.”

  Two places crossed off my list of where in the world I was. “So, we know who we are just not where or why we’re here.”

  He gave me a lazy smile that made my stomach twist.I felt like a 13-year-old with her first crush. It was those damn eyes. They seemed to connect with me, showing a genuine interest that made me feel…beautiful. “How—”

  He was cut off by another roar, still distant but just as distressing. It didn’t sound quite like a lion-like I first thought. A bear? I looked at Phillip. “Please tell me you heard that. Hey, do you think maybe there’s a zoo around here?”

  “It’s not from the zoo, but nothing can hurt us here.” His voice was soft and fell over me like a protective blanket. “I remember, I remember,” he whispered more to himself than me.

  I sat back on the bench. Nothing made sense. Here I was in the dark with a stranger and not bothered by some random, scary, animal noises. Maybe I was drugged and didn’t know it.

  “I know it all seems crazy, but it’ll make sense soon, it always does. You just have to remember.” Phillip sat up straight. “I don’t always remember. At least not at first. I have to keep talking, and then everything starts falling into place. I just need to ask questions. How’s your brother?”

  Clearly, I was losing my mind as well because I didn’t recall telling him about my family. If we were close enough for him to know about Charles, then why couldn’t I remember him? Who was this guy?

  I squinted my eyes again and turned, fully facing Phillip. “I’m so confused. Have we talked before? I just don’t remember.” Statement of the night.

  His smile left, and his eyes went serious. “You have a brother named Charles. He’s got powers too.”

  I moved to the edge of the bench again. Was he crazy? Was I crazy? Nothing he was saying was registering. “Right, but how—”

  “Did I know any of that? Because we’ve met before. You always forget until the very end. Which I can understand. I used to forget too. I don’t know why I started remembering.” He grabbed my hand in his and looked into my eyes, seemingly searching them. “Listen to me, Amina. I need you to remember me from now on. This is important. I’m Phillip Leal. It’s important that we stay connected. I couldn’t figure out how to get you to remember before, but I think I know now. I’m Phillip Leal. Remember my name.”

  The ground shook, and another roar bellowed with it. The shake was not strong and only lasted a second, but it was enough to disturb me. “Was that an earthquake? And what is making that noise? We shouldn’t be out here,” I shouted, wanting to get up and run to safety. Home. Wherever that was. Why couldn’t I remember where home was?

  Phillip leaned close to me and whispered words in my ear that I didn’t understand. It wasn’t Spanish.

  “What did you say?” I asked as he leaned back.

  “It’s a spell that I hope works. You’ll remember me next time. You’ll remember everything we talk about when I see you again,” he replied.

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t know exactly what to say. I was sitting in a vacant park, at night, with a handsome but incredibly odd stranger, weird things kept happening, and I seemed to be the only one concerned about them.

  “I’m so confused,” I replied.

  A soft smile crossed his lips. “I know, and I’m sorry. I know you so well now, and you still look at me like a stranger.”

  “I wish I could remember you. You seem like someone I’d really like to get to know.” I leaned towards him. “Maybe inside, where it’s safe? Then you can tell me what the hell is going on.”

  He sighed and looked around into the darkness of the park. “It’s not safe anywhere. They want the gifts you have…”

  I frowned. “Who’s ‘they?’ What gifts?”

  He looked up at the sky again, and I followed suit. There were no stars out, but the moon was full, giving some light to accompany the street lamps. “I thought I’d get through it, but it’s not happening.”

  “Phillip, I have no idea what you are talking about.” I touched his shoulder. “You gotta help me here.”

  He looked down at me. “You’ll die if you stay where you are. You have to find a way to get out. And when you do, don’t go alone. Never be alone. When you see the others, bring them with you.”

  Before I could ask him further questions, the streetlights flickered, and I heard an unsettling flapping of large wings from above. For me to hear the wings flapping, I knew it was something larger than a bird, but what? I looked up at the sky, searching, and saw nothing but the moon. A loud bird’s screech thundered in my ears. I jumped up and turned around, looking into the darkness.

  Phillip remained still.

  “What the hell was that?” I yelled at him as if he had the answers.

  Phillip stood up and sighed. “They’re coming. I gave you some help. When you can, run.”

  I stopped searching around for the invisible bird thing and looked back at him. “What help? Run where?”

  “To me.” His brown eyes softened as he said that, and I was touched with an emotion I couldn’t place.

  I grabbed his hands. “We need to get inside; something’s out here. There’s a bar across the street where we can talk.”

  “I have to go, Amina.” He brought my right hand up to his lips and kissed it softly. “And you have to wake up.”

  “Wake up? Huh? Where are you going?”

  The roar came again, along with the bird’s screech.

  This was too much. “The hell!” I shouted in frustration. “We gotta get out of here!” I yanked at his hand, but he didn’t budge. “Come on, Phillip. I don’t want to stick around to find out whatever is making those noises.”

  “I’m near D.C. in—”

  My eyes opened to a dark room. I heard footsteps circling around me.

  “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” said a female voice. Curtains were pulled, and sunlight spread through the room.

  I squinted, closing one eye against the bright rays.

  My eyes still had a thin glaze of sleep over them, and I blinked it away to see my surroundings clearer.

  “Did you sleep well?” The mystery voice asked.

  I looked around the pale green
room, filled with generic light wooden furniture. I was on a full-sized hospital bed under white sheets. Across from the foot of the bed was a small, flat-screened TV mounted to the wall. Off to the left of the TV was a door cracked open, revealing a bit of tiled floor. It was probably a bathroom. I turned my head to the window on my right. It was a bright sunny day. I could see tops of vivid green trees, so I knew I was a couple of floors up in a building.

  “How do you feel?” said the voice, coming now from my left.

  I turned my head and found a woman standing in front of me; she was white and in her early 50s with graying red hair and bright green eyes, laugh lines deepened at the corners giving away her regular pleasant disposition. I knew her all too well.

  Joanie.

  She was checking what I assumed were my vitals on a machine next to me. She then looked at the IV bag hanging off the hook; my right arm was stuck with the attached needle.

  I opened my mouth to speak, lips dry and cracked. My throat felt like it was on fire, and my head felt like someone kept flicking me with their fingers in the middle of my forehead. “Like crap,” I croaked.

  “Let me get you some water, honey,” she said and poured me a glass of water from a pitcher on the side table. “If I had some sliced lemon, that’d be even better.”

  I sat up slowly, still feeling weak, and took the glass. “It’d give this place a real spa-like feel,” I replied, through sips of water.

  Joanie scoffed. “Hardly.” She sighed and put her hands on her slender hips. “Hopefully, they leave you alone today. You need to get your strength back.”

  I rolled my eyes. “For what, them to come back again the next day? I’d be better with them just finishing me off.”

  Joanie sucked her teeth. “Don’t you talk like that, honey. There’s always a better day coming. And you’ve got your brother here. You aren’t alone.”

  They want the gifts you have.

  Why had that popped in my head just now?

  Suddenly, images of a handsome black man with kind eyes popped into my mind.

  Phillip.

  It was all a dream. One that I finally remembered.

  “Feel up to going to breakfast? I can get a wheelchair if you need help. I think it would do you some good to get out of this room. See folk. See Charles.”

  I gave a deep sigh and tossed the sheets aside. I swung my sock-covered feet to the side of the bed, scooted to the edge and stood up. My legs buckled, but I leaned onto my IV pole and waited until I had my balance again.

  “You need the wheelchair, darlin’?” Joanie asked, holding me up by the right arm.

  I quickly shook my head.

  When you can, run.

  I needed my legs. “Just need to fully wake up.”

  Joanie nodded. “Take a shower, get dressed. Then we can walk over to the cafeteria. I’ll be waiting outside.”

  “Thanks.”

  When you can, run.

  I needed my energy. I was breaking out of here.

  Chapter 2

  The world had changed a great deal in the past nine years. One day I was a regular first-year law student, and the next, the supernatural just popped up. Our strange, new world brought with it nightmarish beings and changed a good portion of the human population into something different. We’d learned several theories about the supernatural and why many humans, like myself, were changed. Some unlucky souls transformed into monsters, leading many to believe that creatures such as vampires and werewolves had never been fiction but long-forgotten or hidden tales of history.

  The most popular theory was that we had a special latent gene that was turned on when the supernatural came to life. Some people believed that we always possessed our powers, but they were suppressed by a spell that was then broken. Others thought we were exposed to something that made us change. Still more believed we were tested on unknowingly or given a bad vaccine at some point in our lives. It all just seemed like ideas one might read in the origin story of a comic book superhero. I, however, was less concerned with the how and more concerned with the why and the what.

  Why now? What set it all off?

  The supernatural popping up, in what I would soon learn to be a global event, was just the start of the horrors.

  Electricity and technology went on the fritz and would only work again through magic.

  Then there was the Sickness, as we called it. This disease came upon us at the same time as the supernatural and, although not airborne, did not take long to infect and kill the human host. It disguised itself as flu-like symptoms but very quickly progressed to something worse, resulting in bleeding from the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, organ failure; blindness; dementia; and hearing loss. The Sickness came fast and hard, and there was no doubt that it was related to the supernatural event and possibly supernatural itself.

  We always thought it would be the supernatural creatures that would end the world with nightmarish monsters and dark spells. However, the Sickness is what killed, in what reports would say years later, over fifty percent of our world population. It only affected humans without supernatural gifts, and nine years later, non-gifted humans made up only a little over thirty percent of our overall, decimated population.

  I had been lucky in this new world, for the most part, regarding my safety. Having magic helped. Charles, who was gifted with magic over technology, became a treasure. He got electricity to work and the internet to start. I was a friend of social media and my smartphone, long before the world changed, and now it was the only source of learning about what was happening to our world and how to adapt. I found websites about witchcraft and practiced my own magic. Some years into the new world, I even met a woman who practiced witchcraft long before the world accepted such magic. She became my teacher until her death from a naturally occurring heart attack.

  While I hadn’t thought I was invincible—my teacher’s death reminded me of that—I’d thought I was safe. Until about six or seven months ago, when my brother and I had been driving down a road from a trade. We’d made the fateful decision to stop and help a group of regular humans from becoming a meal for what I can only describe as a giant dog. Although we saved the day, we’d been far from rewarded. Next thing we knew, we were being jumped by tons of other people in what we first assumed were abandoned cars. We were drugged and locked up in this place full of magical misfits.

  I had been trapped in this hospital for over six months, I think. Time was hard to track here. Our days became monotonous. The building was more of a prison than a place of healing. Our daily routine made us weaker, not better. Wake up, eat, labor, give blood, rest. Rinse and repeat. Honestly, I was surprised to still be alive.

  I stood at the perimeter of the hospital cafeteria, holding a tray of unappetizing looking oatmeal and a cup of tea, searching for Charles.

  “Mina! Over here!” Charles yelled from my left, waving a hand in the air. He had a smile on his face.

  Why did he look so damn happy? How could he have so much joy?

  I walked over to the circular table and sat down next to my brother. Two other prisoners that Charles and I befriended were seated at the table, a man named Jared Hightower and a woman named Chelsea King.

  “I’m telling you, Jared,” Charles began, “When I get out of here, I’m going to make an interactive magic teaching computer game. I can probably even make it holographic and have A.I. That’s the next wave. We’re about nine years in, it’s time for people to have fun again.”

  “If we get out of here, I’ll help you with marketing,” Jared snorted.

  Charles frowned. “You think this is a pipe dream, don’t you?”

  “Any plans that don’t involve killing the fuckers that run this place seem like pipe dreams to me,” Jared replied, waving his spoon in the air.

  I shook my head. “You have to have hope, or else what’s the point?” I stated.

  Charles pointed at me. “See, she gets it. How you feeling, Sis?” Charles asked, his smile turning to a look of worry
.

  “Alive,” I muttered before putting a spoonful of oatmeal in my mouth. My throat still felt raw, mouth dry, and the food went down hard, trapped in my throat. I sipped on my tea to help it down. The liquid felt soothing and somehow calmed me. Tea had become a special treat nowadays. It gave a sense of normalcy.

  “Well, I feel half-dead,” Jared stated. He gave a loud yawn, squinting his dark-brown eyes. He was white with tanned skin, long blond hair, and a toned physique that supported his previous job as a Raven’s football player in the Pre-world, what we called the time before magic. He looked twenty-something, but he said he was 35 years old. It made sense. Those who gained paranormal abilities aged differently. Once we hit our twenties, our aging slowed dramatically.

  “Yesterday, they nearly killed me,” Jared continued. “I had to get a healer. We have to figure out a way to kill them.”

  Jared always talked about killing them. We tried to hush him up with that talk, but he wasn’t scared, and he was still alive, so we just let him go on.

  “We can’t win against them,” Chelsea said, looking down at her food. She was a petite woman appearing to be in her twenties with long, thick, strawberry-blond hair and hazel eyes. “I haven’t had a clear thought in almost a year. My powers feel like they’ve just up and gone.”

  Our captors were humans, we were now…other. What we were, the normal humans wanted to be, and they had found a way to use us to enhance themselves while keeping our powers turned off.

  I’d seen people die, being experimented on and broken here.

  “We’re getting out,” I said matter-of-factly, staring down at my cardboard-tasting oatmeal.

  “Dream up an escape plan?” Charles asked, an amused look on his face.

  I shook my head. “At the right time, we’re just going to walk out of here.”

  “Well, if it were that easy we’d be free by now,” Jared began. “Our kind helped these assholes keep us in here. Made up the damn drugs to mute our powers. And for what? To get better food, clothes? Who gives a fuck!”

  Chelsea winced.