The Carrier (The Carrier Series Book 1)

by Diana Ryan

  When I arrived at the docks I felt the most horrible feeling. For the first time in my life I dreaded seeing Ava. She came up to visit me after her first trip of the day. I searched her sweet face. There was no way she could be intentionally keeping a dangerous space orb in her house.

  Ava took one look at me and knew something was wrong. “Hey, honey, are you okay?” She came close to me and then put her hands around my waist.

  Be careful. Don’t alarm her.

  I kissed her forehead quickly and then pulled away. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t bring myself to smell the coconut scent in her hair when it could be the last time I ever did so.

  I tried to act normally so Harper wouldn’t know I was up to something. “When are you off tonight?” I asked Ava, but my voice came out all wrong.

  Oh, God, I wish I could tell her.

  While her shaky voice told me she had the early shift today, she grabbed my hand with a hard squeeze. I could see she was in pain, and it was killing me.

  Maybe I could whisper. I could tell her to sneak out of work and go somewhere, anywhere. I slowly moved in for a hug and whispered in her ear, but as I did, a semi blew by the booth, its large engine covering up my whisper. A middle-aged couple with some loud kids walked up to the booth, so I quickly pulled away from Ava.

  Dammit!

  When the family left I tried another tactic. “Can you come over to the cabin when you are done with work? I’ve got...something planned.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but I could tell she was not buying it. I was seeing the pain grow in her face. It was agonizing that I couldn’t comfort her at that moment. Then I kissed her forehead again and went back to fake work selling tickets.

  The day was absolute hell. I spent the entire shift in a haze trying to orchestrate ways to get us out of the mess. Every time Ava came up to see me, I felt more and more sick, but luckily for me, perhaps, I was swamped with customers, and we didn’t get to talk much at all. I suspected the unending crowds were somehow a stunt planned by Harper.

  My shift ended when Ava was out on her last tour with Jack. I grabbed a handful of twenties and then threw all the rest of the money and ticket stubs in a drawer under the counter. This was definitely my last day at the boats and perhaps my last day alive, but in case we did escape, we might need a few bucks to get by on before we could establish ourselves somewhere.

  I sprinted out to my Audi in the small parking lot near Lower Two. There were no suits that I could see, but when I pulled out of the lot I noticed a dark black Audi with tinted windows pull out after me.

  Crap!

  I punched the accelerator and heard the engine roar in response. I tried to lose them on the way home, but they had been trained the same way I had been. There was no getting around them.

  Brakes screeching, my car slid into the spot in front of my cabin, sending gravel flying everywhere. I flew out of the car and rushed through the cabin door. Locking it behind me, I wedged a chair under the doorknob while I madly gathered a few essentials we could take with us. We needed to get the hell out of Wisconsin as fast as we could. I would deal with her genetic disorder later.

  BOOM!

  An oversized fist came crashing through the window on the back wall of the cabin and scared the crap out of me. Half a second later, a small army green item came crashing through the window.

  Dammit!

  They were going to gas me out. Judging by the size of the room, it would only take about thirty seconds. I kicked the chair away from the knob, but right when I opened the front door I felt a bloody fist meet my eye. I hit the floor just as I blacked out.

  * * * *

  In what felt like seconds later, I came to in a small, very dark, cold room. Agent Harper was sitting on a chair under a naked light bulb hanging from a silver chain in the ceiling. I had been placed on a chair too, but my hands were tied behind my back with rope. A laptop was sitting open on a small circular table in front of me. Its screen was black.

  “Nolan...” He growled like a small, ugly dog. “I warned you not to alert the Carrier!” He did not sound happy, like every bit of good was squeezed out of him.

  “I didn’t tell her anything!” I protested. Something about the situation did not feel right. And then it dawned on me. How did I not see it before? I am such an idiot. “I don’t work for a covert branch of the FBI, do I?” I had been knocked out and then tied to a chair by my boss. This was all too nefarious for the FBI.

  Harper released a truly evil laugh. “Oh, Agent Hill.” There was a pause as he stood up from the chair. How could I have ever thought that face was kind? Maybe it was the bad lighting, but Harper looked downright wicked now. “No. You do not work for the FBI. You never have. Although the CBB’s mission is to keep the American people safe at all costs, the government won’t condone our methods, pronouncing them unethical and corrupt.”

  I couldn’t believe it! How could I have been working for the CBB and not know it wasn’t part of the FBI? I could feel the anger rising inside of me. I had been betrayed and used.

  He walked behind me, continuing to lecture. “Ten years ago when the CBB was rejected by the government, Ethan Myers, a founding member, broke away and secretly formed his own covert operations. He hired Americans as field agents and made them believe they were working for a legitimate government function.”

  “You son of a bit...” but I was cut off by a deeper and more urgent voice emerging from the shadows.

  “Now, now, Agent Hill. Save your curse words for when I’m absent.” The man’s voice was steady and confident. “I know you’ve just been blindsided by the truth, but I suggest you think logically about this. The CBB has provided well for you these past three years. You can’t deny that.” He walked into the light, and I could see his face clearly for the first time.

  “Ethan Myers.” It came out as a surprised whisper. I would recognize his face anywhere. The field agents at the CBB had been trained to recognize Myers as an enemy of the US government. We believed he was involved in treason, espionage, and designing genetic weapons. And now he was standing right before me.

  A large bead of sweat began to drip down the side of my face. We must have been trained to know him as an enemy so we would further believe we were working for the FBI. Or perhaps there was another agenda I just couldn’t figure out in my mind right now. I was so angry I had been deceived in this way. I had sacrificed a real life in order to fight for good—but not for whatever this was.

  “Let me make something clear, Agent Hill. The Carrier and the space rock need to be destroyed within the next three hours. And you are the only one to do it.” Myers sat down in the chair at the other side of the table and casually crossed one leg over the other.

  “That’s bullshit. Any one of your monkeys could take her out!”

  What was I saying?

  I wanted to take it back the second it came out of my mouth. I struggled with the ropes behind my back angrily, and wiggled in my chair, frustrated.

  Harper and Myers laughed as they watched me realize what a fool I was. Myers nodded at Harper, and he walked over to the computer sitting on the table. “Maybe this will persuade you.” He turned it on and played the video waiting on the screen. It was my mother, father, and sister tied to chairs and looking like they had been drugged. My mother was moaning, and I saw blood dripping from my father’s hairline. My sister sat lifeless.

  I bit my bottom lip and tasted blood in my mouth. They wanted me to become agitated, weak. But the video could be completely fabricated for all I knew. I tried to hide my solicitude, so I looked Ethan Myers directly in the eyes and said nothing.

  “Fine. If that’s the way you want it.” Myers stood up from his chair. “You’ve made your decision. I’ll send my field agents to take care of Miss Gardner immediately, and then I have no use for you or your family.”

  And then I remembered the plan I had hatched that morning. A plan that had only the slightest chance of succeeding, but could possibly save the ones
I loved.

  Myers gave a nod to one of the suits standing near the door. Then Myers and Agent Harper turned to leave just as the bodyguard grabbed me from behind with a burly arm across my chest. Then he brandished a knife in front of my face and brought it slowly to my neck. It was now or never.

  “WAIT! Wait! I’ll do it!” The man lowered his knife but held his hold across my chest. Harper and Myers stopped dead in their tracks. Myers turned around wearing a disturbing smile. Then in a voice that was barely there, I said, “I’ll do it.”

  Myers walked right over to me, put his hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “That’s a good boy, Agent Hill.” His voice was like poison in my ear, and his smell was disgusting. He let a hand run over my hair a few times like I was his pet dog. I growled a little under my breath as Myers pulled away from me. Harper whispered something to the bodyguard, and then he and Myers left the room.

  The door to the little room slammed shut and the guard took several slow steps towards me, smiling nefariously. “Boss said to let you go, but how would that be any fun?”

  This was trouble.

  I shoved my thumb in the heart of the knot behind my back and had the rope untied by the time the guard reached me. I ducked just as the guard swung his fist and then I leapt up on the seat of the chair and tipped the backrest down with my left foot. I caught him by surprise and in a split second I whipped up the chair by the back and swung it—CRACK!—right across the bodyguard’s head. He fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes with a loud thud.

  I took a second to catch my breath, and then I felt his pulse. He was gone. I picked up his knife and ran out of there as fast as I could, trying not to think about my first kill.

  When I busted through the heavy steel door, the light of late afternoon burned my eyes. I squinted around. I was at some type of warehouse in the middle of nowhere. They had driven my Audi there and parked it outside the door, apparently for when I agreed to go kill Ava. How nice of them. I hopped in and turned on my dashboard GPS. It indicated I was outside of town about two miles from the cabin.

  I drove as fast as I could all the way back and called no one as I drove—the car was surely bugged. They had seen and heard it all. All summer we had been watched. I couldn’t believe it. It was all my fault. I had led them to Ava, and now they expected me to kill her or they would do us both in along with my entire family.

  I flew into the alley behind Animal Island. Ava’s car was there and my heart stopped momentarily. Dammit! Had they sent someone to take care of Ava?

  I screeched the tires to a halt within inches of my cabin’s front steps. I left the driver’s side door open as I carefully inched my way to the front door. I pressed my ear to the door listening for noises inside, but heard nothing.

  A small, wailing sound led me around the back of the cabin. Wishing I had been issued a gun, I carefully peaked around the sidewall into the back yard. Ava was crumpled into a ball on the grass, crying hysterically.

  Oh my God.

  I ran to her. “Ava! Are you hurt?”

  What did they do to her?

  I knelt down on the grass beside her and slid my arms around her waist. She settled right into my body and held on tight. I let out a breath of relief. She was okay...for now. Her wonderful smells flooded my heart with a million emotions. She sat up and looked at me through her tears.

  “Please, sweet Ava, tell me what’s wrong. Are you hurt?” I couldn’t hold back my own tears as I held her sweet face in my hands. Was this the last time I’d be able to sense her heart beating with mine? I kissed her with everything I had, and she kissed me back.

  I knew we were being watched and time was running out. I quickly picked her up and carried her to the front seat of my car. Then I got in and peeled away from Animal Island. My body was shaking with fear and anger and my mind was flooded with a million thoughts as I sped down Minnesota Avenue.

  Judging by the level of the sun beneath the trees, it was pretty close to sunset. Myers’s field agents had most likely raided the Gardner house by now and were apprehending Ava’s parents as we spoke. I prayed to God they didn’t hurt her mom and dad.

  I parked and shut off the ignition, but stayed in the car staring silently out the windshield, tears streaming down my face. I didn’t know if I could go through with it. I knew that once today was done, I could never see Ava again.

  I didn’t want the summer to end. I didn’t want our relationship to end. I was beyond frustrated at this point. Ava reached for my hand, but I pulled it away. If she only knew what I was about to do.

  Time was running out, but I was losing my nerve. I dropped my head into my hands and said a quick prayer. With my whole body shaking, I slammed my fist into the steering wheel and scared Ava half to death. Then I lifted my head and screamed in anger at the ceiling of the car. I was sure Harper and Myers were wearing earpieces, and I hoped I just blew their eardrums out.

  I looked down at the clock on the dashboard—8:46.

  Now. It’s time.

  I leaned over and told Ava in a whispered voice to say nothing. I didn’t want the bugs picking up any clues to where we were going. Then I opened the door and waited impatiently for her to come around the front of the car. In one swift motion I grabbed her hand tightly and set off running toward Make Out Rock. I heard a train honking its horn down the tracks several hundred yards away. We jumped over the train tracks and ran through the bushes. We descended down the deep path until we were at the rock cliff.

  I trembled as I grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. She was more beautiful now than ever before. My heart was breaking over and over again as she looked at me with fear in her eyes. The train was speeding behind us so loudly I had to yell to her that we didn’t have much time.

  She was screaming back at me, more confused than ever. I wished I could explain, but there was no time. Then she yelled, “Nolan, I love you. You can tell me anything!”

  She loves me? Why did she have to say that?

  My voice was caught in the back of my throat, but I was able to choke out, “I love you, too.” Then I kissed her like we were back in the cave on the Upper Dells again. It was filled with raw emotion. She held onto me tightly. If we could stay on this rock forever kissing...but I knew it was now or never. The train had almost passed.

  I found the smallest amount of courage I had left inside of me, looked into her eyes, and whimpered, “I’m so sorry it has to be this way. I truly do love you, Ava Gardner.” And then I pulled the knife from my belt and, with all the force I could muster up, I shoved it deep into her torso with a grunt. I kissed her one last time on the forehead while I hysterically sobbed into her hair.

  Then I threw the knife down on the rock with disgust, and, without looking back, I ran up the path. The caboose of the train had just barely passed as I crossed the tracks and retched into the darkness on the other side of the pathway. My head began to pound as I willed myself to stand and stumble back to my car. The grass was spinning, and I couldn’t tell which way was up.

  When I finally arrived back to my car, Harper was there waiting. I swung at his face, but my body had nothing left in it and my dizzy brain caused me to miss horribly. The momentum of the punch spun me around in a circle and I came to rest bracing myself on the hood of the car with my hands. I stood up, leaving bloody handprints for Harper to see.

  Harper laughed maniacally as he swiped a finger in Ava’s red blood. He pressed his finger to a small black machine in his hand. It beeped after a few seconds and a robotic voice announced that the sample contained extremely elevated counts of radiation.

  “Well, well, Agent Hill. I have to say, I am impressed. First you escaped my man back at the factory, and now you actually had the guts to kill the Carrier. Ethan had little faith in you, but I was sure you’d go through with it. Now, there is no time to waste. You must join me in preventing a little blue rock from blowing the Midwest off the map.”

  Sick, breathing heavily, and full of ra
ge, I turned toward Agent Harper. “You and the CBB can rot in hell.” I was banking on the hope that Harper wouldn’t find Ava back through the trees for a while, and I had no idea what was going to happen to me next, but I didn’t care.

  Without displaying any emotion, he said, “Agent Hill, you disappoint me. Oh well, that’s too bad. I guess Myers was right—the CBB has no use for you.”

  Then I heard a loud bang and instantly my world went black.

  Epilogue

  The hospital bed was too hard and the fluorescent lights were too harsh. I kept my eyes closed as I tried to figure out where I was. I was very uncomfortable and quite disorientated. The pain in my side was too much as I tried to sit up. Then I heard a soft voice from the bedside.

  “Don’t try to move just yet. You’ve had a few operations but you are safe now.” It was a female voice I didn’t recognize.

  “Nolan?” I managed to squeak out. The voice said nothing but gently applied a cold washcloth to my forehead.

  “Don’t talk now. Just relax.”

  I shut my eyes and slept—not because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t help it. I dreamt of flying over the beautiful brown river, gracefully darting around the Lower Dells. I flew next to the cliffs and then swooped down close to the river, skimming it with my hand. I examined my body in the reflection of the water and expected to see a bird, but there were no feathers, and I had no wings. I was perfectly human.

  Flying felt absolutely wonderful and free—I felt truly happy. But then I looked back into the water and saw the reflection of a dark cloud roll in above my head. Flying right above me was a scary, hooded figure holding a sharp, shiny knife. The hood was slowly removed, and I saw Nolan’s face staring at me with a menacing grin.

  I woke up with a loud gasp. I sat up quickly in bed, sweating and breathing heavily. My hand instinctively went to the place at my side where I had felt hot, radiating pain. There was a nurse in the room checking the machines by my bed and she rushed over.