Ill-Fated (Ill-Fated Series Book 1)

by S. C. McMurray

  Her stomach began to churn once again, this time with guilt. She hated to lie to him, but she didn’t really see another way. She couldn’t tell him the truth and she wasn’t sure he would believe it anyway.

  As Evelyn approached the building, she noticed that her bedroom light was off. Her heart sank a bit. I’m busted. Her father was no idiot. He’d probably come home from work and gone up to her room to say hi and see how her day was, like he always did when he got home. She was sure that in a matter of seconds, he’d figured out that the lights and the music she’d left on were a ruse, used to sneak out while her mother was sleeping. She could see him in her mind, anxiously pacing the floor of the living room waiting for come through the front door. She was glad that at least one of her parents cared that much.

  Evelyn passed through the empty lobby to the elevator. She pressed the up button and watched the numbers illuminate in descending order as it climbed down. Suddenly, there was a noise behind her like light footsteps moving swiftly across the tiled floor. She whipped herself around, but there was nothing there. Uneasiness settled on her and she felt like one of those helpless teens being hunted by a serial killer in a slasher movie.

  The elevator dinged and the number one button illuminated, but Evelyn took a step back. If life were a slasher movie, the killer would be on the elevator waiting to surprise her. Her heart was beating faster and she braced herself. The doors slid open revealing the elevator to be empty. She took a breath of relief..

  Come on, Evelyn.

  She stepped inside, embarrassed. She rode the elevator to her floor, thinking now of the real terror that was going to be her father’s wrath. The doors opened. Evelyn sighed then grudgingly walked down the hall to their apartment. She typed in the passcode and the door unlocked.

  Here we go. She turned the knob and opened the door expecting to see her father, angry and fuming on the other side, but the living room was empty and dark. A terrible feeling swept over her.

  They can’t be sleeping.

  She took an apprehensive step forward. “Dad? Mom? You here?”

  There was only silence.

  She reached for the light switch and flicked it, but nothing happened. Her heart began to pound in her chest. The police… No, she couldn’t call them and she knew it.

  Not wanting to move much further into the dark unarmed, she reached for something she could use as a weapon and settled on an umbrella. She grabbed it and crept forward. Now, she really felt like one of the helpless teens in a slasher movie.

  Aside from the power being out, everything seemed to be in its proper place. She made it to the stairs and began to climb with the pointed end of the umbrella leading the way like it would actually do some good. She came to her parent’s room on the right. She turned the knob as quietly as possible and opened the door. The room was empty and the bed neatly made.

  “Let them be okay…” she whispered to herself.

  She crept down the hall until she came to her father’s office. The door was ajar slightly and the jamb splintered. Someone had kicked it in.

  She took a deep breath to gather her courage, gripped the umbrella tightly and pushed the door open the rest of the way. The room was a complete mess with papers everywhere. Her father’s books had been pulled off the shelves and were spread out over the floor. His filing cabinet was lying on its side and the drawers of his desk were pulled all the way out. Someone had turned his office over looking for something.

  It was hard to see in the little bit of light that was coming in from the window, but something on her father’s desk caught Evelyn’s attention. She stepped forward to get a closer look, but slipped on something and fell against the desk with a bang, dropping the umbrella. She cursed herself for being so clumsy and bent down to grab the umbrella. She reached down and felt around the floor until she came in contact with something wet on the floor. It wasn’t water.

  She bent down to examine it and her heart sank.

  “Blood?”

  She stood to her feet in horror. She was standing in a pool of blood. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage and warm tears filled her eyes. Suddenly, there was a swishing sound from behind her. She whipped around just in time to see a figure lunging at her from the shadows. She threw arms up and the figure slammed against them, propelling her back against the wall by the window. In the light, she saw that it was a man and he was trying to inject her with something from a hypodermic needle. She screamed and he thrust the needle forward. She caught his wrist in her hands, but he pressed against her until the needle was just inches from her neck.

  “Sleep, little girl.” He said as he pushed the tip of the needle against her skin.

  She grimaced as she pushed back against him. “No!” She saw something like surprise and disbelief in his eyes as she managed to slowly move the needle away from her neck. With a shove she pushed him away.

  He stumbled backward and smiled. “A fighter, I like that.”

  She was afraid, wishing that this was just some nightmare and she would wake up. It wasn’t. She moved along the wall toward the door.

  “No you don’t!” He shouted as he lunged at her again. She instinctively threw up her leg and kicked him squarely in the chest. There was a cracking sound and he flew back against the book case and fell down upon the desk unconscious. The room was quiet.

  Breathing heavily, Evelyn slid to the floor and pulled her knees against her chest. She stared vacantly at the unconscious man with a mixture of fear and disbelief.

  “Wh-What just happened?” The sound of fast approaching sirens snapped her back into reality.

  “I need to leave.” She jumped to her feet and rushed down the stairs to the front door. She poked her outside. The hallway was clear so she shut the door behind her and left. She headed for the elevator, but as she rounded the corner, the elevator doors opened and two men in dark suits stepped out. She froze when she saw them.

  One of them pointed. “That’s her!”

  She turned around and sprinted for the stairs. She reached the door but didn’t open it because she could hear the echo of heavy footsteps ascending rapidly. She glanced to her left down the hall. The two men from the elevator were rounding the corner. One of them pulled a gun. Her eyes widened and she bolted for the only exit left, the window in the laundry room.

  One of the men shouted orders into an intercom while the other gave chase. A woman in a robe opened the front door of her apartment and stepped outside to see the commotion as Evelyn passed by. Evelyn glanced back over her shoulder and saw her pursuer barrel right over the woman without a second’s hesitation. The run in with the woman slowed him down a bit and Evelyn pulled away.

  Evelyn threw open the door to the laundry room, startling an elderly man and causing him to drop his laundry basket.

  She rushed by him and said, “Sorry,” as she leapt on top the table under the window.

  With her hands shaking from the adrenaline that was pumping through her veins, she unlatched the window and squeezed through it just as her pursuer bounded into the laundry room. He lunged for her and grabbed her ankle causing her to trip and slam hard against the metal of the fire escape. She broke free of his grip and crawled to the ladder and climbed down. He was too bulky to fit through the window. He pulled back, and then reappeared quickly with his gun in hand. He fired a couple shots at her but they ricocheted off the metal of the fire escape with a flash of blue light. They weren’t bullets, they were something else.

  Evelyn climbed down the ladders as fast as she could. The sound of the approaching sirens was growing louder. She had to get to the ground fast. Soon, the apartment building would be swarming with satrapy police as well. She still had two stories from the ground to go, so she decided to leap for an open dumpster that was nearly ten feet away. She backed up against the rail of the fire escape, took a breath and sprinted forward. She stepped on the opposite rail and jumped. To her surprise she made it, landing and sinking almost waist deep into smelly garbage.

>   She scrambled out and bolted down the nearest alley, the smell of garbage lingering behind her. Her plan was to get to the shopping district, disappear amongst the crowd and hail a cab. She would go to the only address she could think of, the one written on the twenty dollar bill Lana had given her. She hoped Lana and her friends would be waiting. It was a fool’s hope, but that was all she had.

  A few minutes of running later, Evelyn could see the lights of the shopping district. She was almost there. She glanced over her shoulder. There was no one behind her. She slowed to a stop. She was out of breath but she’d covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. She hadn’t realized she was that fast.

  Maybe my long skinny legs are good for something. The thought briefly brought a smile to her face. She caught her breath and hurried to the edge of the alley. She could see the neon lights and people, mostly college kids, meandering along the sidewalks. She was about to merge with a nearby group of twenty-something’s walking by when she heard a buzzing sound overhead. She sighed and looked up. It was a drone.

  Drones were like hounds. They were no bigger than microwaves and resembled television cameras with circular wings. The buzzing was from the engine that propelled the machine. This was only one of a handful of times that she had seen one up close up, but she was familiar with them as were most Americans. An hour long show with a catchy theme song was dedicated to their first person exploits and aired weekly. It was simply entitled DRONES and it was one of the highest rated shows on television.

  As long as it had its eye on her, they would know where she was.

  She stepped into the shadows, hoping it hadn’t spotted her. Suddenly, she heard the sirens again. “Damn it!” She whispered. The drone was onto her.

  There was a common theme in every episode of DRONES, the bad guy always got caught. Her heart sinking, Evelyn leaned back against the cool brick wall of a nearby building and closed her eyes as the sirens closed in.

  Chapter Eight

  “I’ve got to run for it!” She whispered to herself. “Maybe, I can lose it in the crowd…”

  Staying against the wall of a nearby building she was about to make a run for it when she was grabbed from behind. The person, whoever it was, covered her mouth before she could scream and with one deft movement pulled a strange looking gun and aimed it at the drone. Without a sound, the drone powered off and fell from the sky onto the alley below.

  Evelyn could feel the warm breath of her captor against her skin as he whispered in her ear. “The name’s Rillian and I’m here to help.”

  Rillian…She recognized the name from earlier. He was the man in the shadows.

  He continued in his harsh whisper. “I’m going to remove my hand. Promise you won’t scream.”

  Evelyn nodded and he uncovered her mouth. She glanced over her shoulder, but it was still too dark to see his face. He holstered the gun inside his jacket.

  “Do you have the pill Lana gave you?”

  “Yes.” She answered meekly.

  “Take it now.”

  “What does it do?”

  He sounded annoyed. “If you want those drones to stop following you, you’ll take it.”

  She was perplexed, but she reached into her pocket and pulled it out. She quickly put in her mouth and swallowed it dry. He took her by the hand and said, “Come on.”

  His grip on her hand was firm, but gentle. He pulled her out of the shadows and for the first time she really saw him. He was younger than she thought, probably 18 or 19, with dark hair that matched his olive skin. He glanced back at her. He was undeniably handsome with dark eyes that shown with a fierce determination. He looked fearless and somehow that reassured her. They hurried to the shopping district and merged onto the sidewalk.

  “Act natural,” he commanded as he slowed down a bit. A policeman on a motorcycle weaved through traffic, sirens blaring. Evelyn turned to look but, Rillian stopped her. “Don’t look at them.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “General Thorne’s address.”

  “She’s dead.”

  He chuckled. “I know, the address on the bill.”

  She was flush with embarrassment and felt like hitting herself on the head.

  “Yeah.”

  They walked two blocks hand in hand without saying a word. Evelyn wondered if it was as awkward for him as it was for her. To break the silence, she asked, “What did you do to that Drone?”

  He glanced down at his jacket. “The gun sends out a focused electric magnetic pulse. We call it bug spray.”

  “And what about the pill?”

  “It kills the scanner implanted in your wrist. OPTIC was using it to track you.”

  “A pill can do that?”

  “Would you have preferred the other option?” He lifted up his arm, flashing a nasty scar on the inside of his wrist.

  She shook her head and he said, “I didn’t think so.”

  “What about my parents?”

  “What about them?”

  “Are they…” She didn’t even want to think it.

  “Safe?” he interrupted. “I don’t know. If the Secret Service has them, not for long.”

  She thought of the blood back in her father’s office and felt like crying.

  Rillian gestured. “There’s a car waiting in the parking garage up ahead.” But he stopped suddenly.

  Evelyn felt the panic rise up in her again. “What’s wrong?”

  “There are two SS coming our way.”

  Evelyn quickly peered through the crowd ahead. “Are you sure? I don’t see any.”

  “See that man in the black slacks and red jacket?”

  Evelyn nodded. “Yes.”

  “He’s carrying a gun. Only SS carry guns without a uniform.” His eyes narrowed. “That must be his partner walking behind him.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Rillian turned them around and quickly glanced over his shoulder. “Go a different way.”

  They had only taken a few steps when Evelyn saw one of the men that had been chasing her earlier. She stopped and pulled on Rillian’s arm. “He’s one of them.”

  Rillian looked up just as the man noticed Evelyn. “Come on!” He yelled as he yanked her to the right.

  Evelyn and Rillian darted across the busy street to the sounds of screeching tires and beeping horns. The SS man from earlier gave chase and was joined by a half a dozen others, most wearing street clothes. Rillian cut through the crowd of people, pulling Evelyn behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder. The SS were flashing their badges and people were darting out of the way.

  “They’re gaining on us.” She said.

  “I know, but I have an idea.” He pointed forward. “See that alley up ahead on the left? Run for it.”

  The two of them sprinted forward as people stopped to stare. Evelyn reached the alley first.

  “Geeze, you’re fast,” Rillian said, sounding surprised.

  “I am?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  They moved quickly down the narrow alley, passing a young couple, in the throes of a make-out session.

  He smiled as he and Evelyn passed them. “Romantic getaway. Nice.”

  Evelyn just gave them a curious glance.

  They reached the end of the alley just as the SS appeared behind them. One of the SS fired at Evelyn. The bullets hit the corner of the building around her in more flashes of blue like small lightning strikes. There was a cry of pain from behind Evelyn and she quickly glanced over her shoulder to see the young man they’d passed seconds before, crinkle to the ground with visible bolts of electricity running through his body, as his girlfriend looked on in horror.

  “What did they do to him?”

  Rillian was unfazed. “They hit him with a shocker. He’ll be fine after an hour or two.”

  “A shocker?”

  He gestured for them to take the left. “You ask a lot of questions, you know that.”

  “A few hours ago, I didn’t
even believe that the SPC existed.” She fired back. “What do you expect?”

  “See, another question.”

  She glared at him.

  “But since you’re so inquisitive. A shocker is a bullet meant to paralyze, not kill, and you know what that means?”

  “Yes, I know what kill means.”

  “Not kill.” He shook his head. “Their using shockers, which means that they want you alive.” He yanked her to the left through the doors of a greasy bar. “This way.”

  The place was packed and reeked of alcohol and sweat. They squeezed their way through the crowd to the kitchen doors. They stopped to let a waitress balancing multiple plates of food in her arms pass them, then slipped in behind her. They were greeted by the curious looks of the sweaty cooks.

  Rillian led Evelyn by them. “Evening gents. Just looking for a place to take my girlfriend here.”

  One of the cooks winked then nodded in the direction of a back door.

  Rillian smiled. “Thanks.”

  As soon as the back door shut behind them, Evelyn squeezed Rillian’s hand hard. “Your girlfriend?”

  “What?” He responded. “I had to tell them something.”

  She just shook her head and followed him. A moment later she realized where they were going. “We’re going to get on the monorail aren’t we?”

  He nodded. “You are a smart one.”

  They went another block and reached the terminal. It was a wide structure about four stories tall. The high speed monorail system, when fully completed, would connect all of the UPA untouched by the War. It was the glory of the Unionist Party and their policies and each terminal was built of stone and steel as a monument to that glory. They passed through the main gate and hurried up the escalator.

  “Did you see that camera back there?” Evelyn asked.

  “Yes, and it saw us.”

  “Then they know where we are…”