“Hello,” he said as gently as he could. “You must be Anna.”
“You must be stupid,” she snapped back.
“Uh—”
“You lot ought to know by now that I can hear everything out there once the door is opened. I heard you take off your lab coat. Did you think that’d fool me because you’re new? Did you think I would imagine you a friend come for tea?” She sneered. Her fury was palpable, her upper lip on the edge of snarl.
Despite the years he’d longed for this meeting, Jason suddenly felt a desperate urge to flee. He had no words to counter such wrath.
Anna’s eyes darted back and forth between Trish and Jason as if she were performing a scan. Then she closed her eyes and put her head back down, muttering, “At least you know enough not to have brought me fresh gifts. Do what you will, then, as I have no means to stop you. Get it over with.”
The abatement of her rage allowed him to recover his breath. He tried to explain. “You misunderstand. I’m not here to—”
“Don’t insult me by pretending to care,” came her muffled voice. “Nobody who comes down that lift cares.”
“We do,” replied Trish meekly.
Jason stepped a little closer to her and then crouched down to be at her eye level but still ready to react if necessary. He wanted so badly to reach out to her, both as a gesture of friendly comfort and for his own need to test the reality of her presence. However, he knew he wasn’t welcome to do so and did not wish to risk reigniting her anger or, worse, frightening her. He put one hand on his knee and held the other open before her so she could see that he held no weapon or medical instrument.
“Anna,” he said in the softest tone he could muster given his shaking stomach, “my name is Jason Truitt. Well, that’s not my original name. I was born Jason Moore.” He leaned in closer and added in a whisper he hoped was too low to be heard by any recording device Trish might not have disabled, “In the year 1620, in London.”
Anna looked at him in shock, but her expression returned to fury as she spat, “Liar!”
“I wish it weren’t true,” he said earnestly. “I’m like you. I don’t ever get sick. Any wound I receive heals quickly. I don’t appear to be able to die.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re playing a trick. I won’t fall for any more tricks!”
“I can only imagine what they’ve done to you down here, but I honestly am here to get you out.” He smiled at her as best as he could given the bevy of painful emotions raining down upon him. “I’ve been looking for you for over a century, since Ebenezer Howard’s book reading at a fund-raiser for his new Garden City Association in 1899. June, I think it was. I usually know the date, but forgive me—it’s such a dream come true to finally meet you that I can’t quite think straight.
“But the memory of you on that day is very clear to me: when the Crooke’s tube on display overheated, you put yourself between it and a group of ladies sitting nearby. I saw what was about to happen and tried to intervene, but there were too many people in the way. You raised your arm just as the tube exploded. I saw the burn and the glass in your arm. But in the ensuing mayhem you hid it all and shortly thereafter revealed a perfectly healthy arm, insisting that your dress had taken the brunt and that the blood upon it was that of one the slightly injured women you so bravely protected. Everyone declared it a miracle, but I knew it wasn’t true. I’ve had a piece of that glass in my home all these years, and I’ve been searching for you ever since.”
She stared blankly at him for a moment, and then she closed her eyes and whispered, “This is a particularly cruel trick.”
“It isn’t a trick,” Trish said. “Jason, show her. We don’t have much time.”
Anna opened her eyes to fix Trish with a cold stare and then looked back and forth several times between them again. Next she stared at the open door, and Jason could tell by the slight shift in her posture what she was considering, so he said, “Trish, move back a bit. Don’t block the door. We’re not keeping anybody in here, are we?”
Trish stepped to the side as she said, “Nope.”
“You can run right out if you wish. We are setting you free, not abducting you. We would never take you anywhere or hold you against your will. However, as I said I’ve been looking for you for a long time, and if you were to afford me the pleasure of at least one conversation, I would be most grateful.” He shifted sideways to make it clear that she could go.
She narrowed her eyes at them suspiciously. “What have you got out there waiting for me?”
“Freedom,” said Trish.
“I’ll prove to you what I said before,” Jason offered. He leaned back and, with one hand in the air in placation, slowly withdrew his pocketknife with the other. Anna nonetheless hunched defensively back into the corner, so he said, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” He offered her the knife’s handle, but she only stared at it. “Cut me with this, anywhere you like, although I find it quite unpleasant to be stuck in the face so if you wouldn’t mind avoiding that, I’d appreciate it.”
Anna kept staring at the knife.
Trish rolled her eyes. “Do it yourself. I wouldn’t want to cut you. That’s kind of gross, actually.”
“Forgive me,” Jason said quickly. “I thought it would seem like less of a trick if I gave you control of it.”
Anna shook her head slowly.
He opened the knife and drew it across the palm of his hand right before her, wincing slightly as he went. He folded the knife and put it back in his pocket while keeping his bleeding hand in front of her.
She lurched forward so suddenly he almost fell backward, but her grip on his hand kept him upright. She pulled the deep cut open to inspect it, which hurt, but he did all he could to prevent her from noticing his pain. It began to heal right away; her jaw dropped. She poked at the blood that remained as the wound closed and examined it on her fingertip, then sniffed it. He felt her hand begin to tremble as her breath quickened and she started whispering several staccato, incoherent phrases, the clearest of which he heard as, “Can’t be!” and “No, no, no, not ever!”
“I thought I’d never find anyone like me either,” he said.
She held her own palm beside his, once more her eyes darting back and forth. Then she looked at him, and a single tear fell down her cheek. “I don’t know what to do now.”
“That’s simple,” Trish said. “We leave. Let’s go.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t find you sooner,” Jason said as both relief and sadness began to pour out of him. “I would have come if I’d known.”
“Right, great, you two will have plenty of time to talk in the car,” Trish said. “But seriously, they’re going to realize there’s a security system problem soon. Let’s go.”
“She’s right,” Jason said, struggling to maintain his composure. “Please, let’s get you out of here.”
Anna let go of his hand. He reached to help her up, but she rose from her knees to standing in one smooth, elegant motion, revealing more strength than he could have imagined in someone so pale and wan. He instead pointed to the door, gesturing for her to go first. She did, eyeing both of them all the while.
When she got to the outer room, she looked around as if it were completely unfamiliar. She saw Steve on the ground and frowned. “Is he dead?”
“No,” Jason replied. “Merely unconscious for the next few hours.”
“What did you do to him?”
Trish and Jason exchanged a look of concern, but Jason said, “I drained him. It’s something I can do.”
Anna narrowed her eyes at him again.
“I can’t make things grow as you can, but I can touch people and sort of steal their energy. We don’t know how it works except that there is a minor electrical field—”
“Can you kill with it?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“But you didn’t kill him.”
“No, I try to avoid killing,” Jason replied, followed by the thought, These days, at l
east.
“Can you kill me?”
His first instinct was to reassure her he had no intention of trying, but then his stomach knotted as he realized by her desperate tone and newly hopeful expression that she meant it not as a concern but as a request.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think so, and I wouldn’t even if I could.”
She turned away, and his heart broke anew. “Very well then,” she said sadly. “I want to go now.”
Trish pushed the elevator button, and the doors opened. They both nodded at Anna to indicate she should go in first, but she stood fast until Trish rolled her eyes again and went in ahead of her.
As the elevator began to rise, Jason looked down at Anna’s socked feet. “We have shoes and clothes for you at the next car, but I’ve just realized we forgot to bring shoes with—”
Anna gasped and threw her head back, eyes wide. She lifted her hands, palms upward and called out, “I feel them again!”
Trish backed into the corner, staring at Anna in horror as the latter changed before their eyes. Loose skin draped on bony arms filled out with strong, feminine muscle lines. Her face rounded out, softening out the pointed chin and cheekbones. Even her hair seemed to lift up and regain a healthy bounce as she groaned in a way that might have been pain, delight, or both.
When the elevator stopped, Anna looked forward once more and grinned with both pleasure and malice. As the doors opened and she strode forth, Trish hissed, “Jason! Do something!”
But he didn’t want to. He didn’t dare. Only when Anna knocked aside the plastic curtain ribbons and was out of sight did he find his feet enough to go after her. He looked through the checkpoint to see her at the door, rattling the handle hard enough that he could see the metal discolour from flexing.
“Did the building just shake?” Trish asked in an uncharacteristically high voice as she hurriedly put her shoes back on.
Jason grabbed his shoes and said, “Anna, wait, please!”
“I want out now!” she demanded.
“Trish, unlock the door.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good—”
“Trish, please!” he insisted.
Trish only approached the door when Anna stepped obligingly away. As she unlocked it, she said, “We really do have to proceed with caution out there—” but Anna darted beyond her, flung the door open, and ran out to the main offices.
“No, wait!” Jason pleaded again, rushing after her. But Anna had gone only a few steps into the hall around the corner.
He looked around, saw Trish step out warily behind him, and also saw that the office workers were all clustered around the windows, frantically pointing and exclaiming about something outside and thus paying him no heed.
“Hurry while they are distracted,” Anna said in a low growl before taking off once more.
“No, this way!” Jason hissed.
Anna turned, regarded him warily for a moment, and then went the way he was pointing.
Jason took Trish’s hand so he would not lose track of her as they ran out of the building. Anna rushed out the back door ahead of them, but as they exited, Jason stopped fast and Trish crashed into him.
Anna was already in the rear parking lot, which was now covered with thick, swirling, rapidly growing cables of grass and creeping ground cover. She had resumed her pose from the elevator, turning slowly around with her face turned up to the sky. Another dramatic change occurred: her skin took on a healthy colour, as if she were instantly soaking up the sunshine.
“Oh my god,” Trish said, pointing to the writhing tendrils of green climbing up the building’s walls. The sea of growth extended to the tree lines of the property on all sides, and possibly beyond.
Anna turned to them again as she stood amongst her handiwork, arms still outstretched. “If only Dr. Steele was here, what a gift I’d have for her!” she intoned, the malicious grin returning. “Shall I show them all what it’s like to suffer and beg for death?”
“No!” Jason cried, leaping off the little landing and running toward Anna. But as fast as he was, he didn’t get to her before she crouched to touch the ground. The green beneath him rose and encircled his legs, making him stumble forward, just out of reach of her.
“Oh god!” Trish cried again, gripping the doorframe as the entire building lurched. Screams echoed from within.
Anna closed her eyes and the growth increased, wrapping the building entirely, making it groan and causing several windows to shatter out of their frames. Her smile shifted from malice to ecstasy.
Jason tried to step out of the entanglement, but it grew faster than he could overcome even with his unnatural strength. “Please, Anna, don’t!” he shouted above the uncanny creaks and hisses of plant growth all around them.
“Why shouldn’t I have my vengeance?” Anna called out. “Those who harm others have no right to mercy!” Her eyes flew open, and she grimaced as she thrust her hands forward. A sickening cracking sound erupted from the center of the building.
Then, silence: not even the sound of wind or a bird. The growth had stopped. Every opening into the building was so stuffed with vegetation that any sounds inside were contained.
Jason pulled his legs free but stayed where he was. Anna stood with arms limp by her sides, regarding her handiwork.
“Because I am not what they think I am,” she said softly. “That is why.”
Jason could feel that there were people alive inside the building; their combined terror shone like a beacon in his mind. He glanced back to see Trish on the stairs, outside the growth but clinging to it and the stair rail to keep from falling.
Anna noticed as well. She flicked her hand, and the green beneath Trish’s feet turned brown and crumbled away, clearing the stairs for her but keeping the door behind her plugged.
“Dr. Steele said I had to be kept locked up for everyone’s safety,” Anna said flatly. “She begged me to understand that. But she was wrong. I’m not a monster.”
I am, was Jason’s automatic thought, but he shook it off and said, “I believe you.”
“I could kill them all, you know. I could bring this building crashing down upon them and drag it under the ground. I could suffocate them, crush them, destroy them.”
“I do not doubt it.”
Anna held her palms out in the sunlight and waved them lightly as if she were trying to catch the beams. “I feel so strong again now, I could probably do so for miles and miles.”
Jason didn’t know how to reply.
“But instead I shall leave it like this. Let them dig themselves out. Let them at least know a few hours of panic and terror and helplessness as I have for …” She let out a single wry chuckle and said, “For I don’t even know how long.”
“That seems fair enough,” he said carefully. He turned to Trish as she approached, white-faced and trembling. He held out his hand for her. “It’ll give us time to get away unseen.”
Trish took his hand and gripped it hard.
“I do not know where to go,” Anna said.
“With us,” Jason replied. “We’ll keep you safe, I swear it. We’ll get you far away from here, and hopefully they won’t even know where to start looking for you.”
Anna pointed to the green at her feet. “Perhaps they’ll henceforth know better than to try.”
Want More?
Finding Gaia is available at all leading ebook stores listed at http://findinggaia.com along with a 3D rendering of the Truitt mansion with screen shots, Trish's blog, a recommended list of songs to match major scenes, plus other extras.
About Kimberly Chapman
Kimberly Chapman has been making things up and writing them down for as long as she can remember. She holds a double major degree in Journalism and Anthropology and worked for a few years as a technology reporter, but she soon found that it was more fun to interact with the fake people who live in her head than interview real-life people about network hardware.
She left her native Canada in 2000 to
marry an Australian and live in the United States with him, because love does that sort of thing to a person. They have a young daughter who keeps asking to Mum’s books and has been told not until she’s twenty-five.
When Kimberly’s not obsessively transcribing the lives of the fake people in her head or busy with Mum duties, she can usually be found engaged in experimental cake decorating (which she blogs at http://eat-the-evidence.com), nerdy knitting, volunteering for creative community organizations like Capital Confectioners and The Biscuit Brothers, discussing topics both profound and trivial on Google+, or playing computer games.
Discover this and other titles by Kimberly Chapman at Smashwords.com:
Gaia Series
Finding Gaia – http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/180554
The Power of a Blush - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/254043
Read more about Kimberly Chapman’s books
Gaia Series
Finding Gaia
Jason Truitt has wealth and power but for over a century hasn’t been able to locate the one woman he believes shares his immortality. Unsure of her real name, he thinks of her as Gaia because of her ability to grow plants by thought alone. Finding her, however, is only the beginning: decades of loss, isolation, abduction, and unspeakable torture have left her unsure of who, what, or when she is.
The Power of a Blush
Last night, Jason and Anna—two immortals trying to survive the modern world—finally succumbed to their desires and made love in a way befitting Anna's unique mastery over all plant life. Today, they will feign interest in other things, but as everyone knows, nothing burns as hot as the lusty fires of newly declared love. This free e-book is a bonus extended scene to the novel Finding Gaia.
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