The Riser Saga

by Becca C. Smith

  I disconnected from his light and jumped back into my own body.

  Dean was instantly himself, “You’re going to pay for that, bitch!”

  “Yeah, yeah, save your threats for someone who’s actually scared by them,” Turner said, reaching over to inject Dean with whatever knock-out drug that was in his syringe.

  Before any of us could react, Dean smiled at Gramps and opened the door with his cuffed hands, jumping out of the car and free-falling to the ground. I instinctively reached out to help him, but he was gone.

  Turner slammed the door shut with a look of annoyance.

  I looked out the window to see what I thought would be the splatted body of Dean on the ground below. But all I saw was a flash of Dean running back towards the compound before he disappeared completely.

  I whirled on Gramps, “How?”

  Turner sat back, frustrated. “Another skill of Dean’s. I’ve seen him fall from an eighty story building without a scratch. You should have waited until I injected him.”

  “You said I could jump out!” I distinctly remembered him telling me to jump out before he injected him.

  Gramps sighed heavily. “I forgot about that particular talent of Dean’s. It’s my fault.”

  Whoa. Wonders never ceased. That was as close to an apology as I was ever going to get, I suspected. Even Ryan raised an eyebrow in amusement.

  Ryan took my hand and kissed it.

  I smiled back at him.

  We had made it.

  I had survived another attempt by Elisha to torture me to get me to do what she wanted.

  “There’s a shoot-on-sight order placed on Elisha and all of Harry’s team,” Turner said as if reading my thoughts.

  I didn’t respond. What could I say? It was out of my hands. I just wanted to go home and snuggle in my comfy bed with Ryan’s arms wrapped around me.

  “Where’s the serum?” Gramps asked.

  “I have it. I’ll give you what’s left after I cure Max.” I wanted that to be clear. Max and I had been through a lot to get this formula and Max couldn’t survive without it.

  “Yes, of course, but after that we need to study it. Without Fortski, though, I’m not sure my scientists can figure it out.” Gramps seemed more like he was running down scenarios rather than stating facts.

  “I can take a look at it if you want me to,” Ryan volunteered.

  Turner’s face lit up at that suggestion. “Yes, that would be appreciated.”

  This was seriously the most cordial any of us had ever been with each other and it was just weird. I could tell Turner and I were both uncomfortable, but I preferred this Turner to the monstrous murdering one. At least this one didn’t want to slit my throat.

  We landed at Population Control ten minutes later and Gramps had a set of guards escort us to Max’s hospital room. Apparently the world wanted my head on a pike for the shopping mall incident, and word had leaked that I was staying at Population Control. There were families of the victims there protesting that I be executed for my crimes. I wished I could convince them that it wasn’t me, but I didn’t see how. Sooner or later Gramps was going to have to do something publicly, because as of now the world saw him hiding me as the worst form of preferential treatment ever.

  Nancy stood up and ran to me when she saw us enter Max’s room. Her arms squeezed me in a bear hug that felt amazing. Just what I needed. Bill and Jason were there as well, sitting in cushy chairs a few feet from Max. After Nancy was finished hugging me they both followed suit, though far less forceful.

  Jill barely looked up when she saw me. She was a wreck.

  I couldn’t blame her. Max’s body was almost grey he was so far gone. His breath was shallow, but at least he was breathing.

  I moved past everyone and sat across from Jill on the other side of Max.

  Jill and I exchanged quick glances as I pulled out the small bottle containing Fortski’s formula. I poured a few drops down Max’s throat…

  …and waited.

  Jill kept looking from me to Max like she was a cat following a pendulum, but she didn’t say a word.

  Max started to move. His breath became stronger and deeper. And, magically before us, all his wounds healed within seconds. Max had been beaten far more than I had been, seeing as he had died, and watching the serum run its course through his system brought tears to my eyes. I knew how much pain Max had been in. Max’s body had almost given up on him.

  His eyes fluttered open, unclear for a moment. When he looked over and saw Jill he smiled with his whole face.

  Tears streamed down Jill’s cheeks in disbelief. She leaned in and kissed Max to his surprise and delight. I felt like I was watching a holo-movie, smiling myself. Then I felt like I was intruding. “I’ll just let you guys be alone,” I said and started to stand.

  Jill pulled away from Max and came around to my side, clutching me desperately, “Thank you, thank you,” she whispered in my ear. It was so sweet and sincere.

  Jill turned away from me and took my previously occupied seat next to Max. Jill was an interesting person to say the least. Cruel one moment and the next she’s the nicest person I’ve ever met. I just never wanted to be on her bad side again. Saving Max gave me some serious leeway in that department.

  As I handed Gramps the vial with the remaining formula, Max said, “Thank you, Chelsan.”

  I smiled down at him, “Thank Fortski, he invented the stuff.”

  “But you brought it to me.” Max wasn’t letting me out of taking credit.

  “You’d do the same for me,” I said, not truly knowing if that were true, but hoping that it was.

  Max seemed to sense that I needed reassurance because he said, “I would, you know, I believe you are the only one who can stop her.”

  Her, being Elisha, and as much faith as was radiating off of Max, I couldn’t even fathom beating Elisha. She was always a step ahead of me. I couldn’t out-think her and, even though Elisha seemed to think that my powers were stronger than hers, I wasn’t so sure.

  “Isabelle and Dean left the compound. They’re not with Elisha,” Max added. “They headed back to Harry and Fortski. I was following them before you pulled me back.”

  “They’re still dead,” Turner chimed in. “Just because they left Elisha’s lair doesn’t mean they’re not trying to play both sides. I know Harry and he likes to keep his options open. I think I’m the only person in existence he’s comfortable burning his bridges with.”

  Whatever happened between those two must have been pretty insane for someone like Harry to cut a man as powerful as my grandfather out for good. If Harry could even consider for a second to work with Elisha after everything she’d done to him, then Turner must have eaten his babies. I couldn’t understand any of it.

  That’s when it hit me: I was freaking tired.

  “Can we go home now? I’m exhausted,” I complained weakly.

  Ryan slid over and wrapped his arms around me so I could lean into his chest. Aaahhh.

  Turner’s voice of reason grated at my soul, “You’ll all have to stay here tonight. Nancy’s place still isn’t safe for you after the mall incident.”

  I found myself livid.

  Elisha was trying to take everything away from me!

  I couldn’t let her get away with it anymore. Elisha would hurt or kill everyone I loved if I didn’t do something about it. I needed to set things right. I needed the world to know it was Elisha and not me that killed those innocent people.

  I wanted my life back.

  I pulled away from Ryan to make eye contact with Gramps. “I’m on board with whatever you want to do. We need to take Elisha down before she hurts anyone else.”

  Turner raised an eyebrow in what I could only describe as… happiness? Go figure. “We’ve had rooms made up for all of you.”

  Roberta came rushing in at that moment and nearly cried when she saw me. “Geoffrey, you told me you’d send for me when you two arrived.”

  “We just got here ten mi
nutes ago,” Turner tried to defend himself, but Roberta wasn’t really mad, she was relieved to see us both okay.

  Before I knew it, Grams embraced me like she hadn’t seen me in days. “You did the right thing. I’m so proud of you,” she cooed in my ear.

  I didn’t really like the fact that she was proud of me, either, but at this point I was ready to drop if I didn’t get some sleep.

  “Roberta, let them go to their rooms. The poor girl is exhausted,” Gramps said.

  Seriously, bizarre.

  For the first time ever they were acting exactly like grandparents should. Putting aside for a moment the threats from Elisha and Harry’s team looming over our heads, it was actually quite comforting.

  Nancy and Bill’s eyes bugged out from the shock of the family moment, too, but they were dealing as best they could.

  Jason finally piped in. I had almost forgotten he was there. “We still have a lot to talk about.” Of course he wanted to keep me up, but it was probably pretty important if he did.

  Ryan shook his head. “No, she’s sleeping. We’ll talk about everything in the morning.”

  Oh how I loved this boy.

  Everyone grumbled agreement and we all headed to our rooms. Even Max left the hospital bed in favor of a luxury room offered by Gramps. He had a spring to his step that I could relate to. Fortski’s serum made my body feel like a gagillion bucks.

  We each had our own private room (of course everyone coupled off, Jason and Nancy, Max and Jill and …Bill). Bill didn’t seem to mind not having anyone though. He hugged me goodnight and gave me one of those goofy grins of his that made my heart sing.

  Ryan and I entered our room and I nearly gasped at the décor. One word: rich. Everything was deep mahogany, from the four-poster bed frame to the floors to the side tables and dresser, all intricately carved and shaped into beautifully ornate pieces of art. The fluffy down comforter and pillows were a stark contrast with their white coloring, but it made the room scream elegance.

  Ryan leaned down and kissed the back of my neck.

  Serious chills.

  But I must have been tired because not even Ryan’s touch could keep my eyes open, and normally it took everything in my power not to jump him. I kind of shuffled to the perfectly-made bed and threw back the comforter. I popped off my shoes, pulled down my pants and slid into the most comfortable bed I’d ever been in. Even Ryan made a small noise of satisfaction as he crawled in beside me. As soon as my head hit that pillow everything went blissfully dark.

  Chapter Six

  Saturday April 9, 2321

  “What are you doing here?” Isabelle’s voice woke me.

  Or was I awake?

  Uh oh.

  I opened my eyes and I was in the dark place that was Isabelle’s brain.

  How did I end up here?

  “I didn’t come here on purpose, I’ll leave,” I said. I didn’t want a confrontation and I could only imagine how angry Isabelle was with me.

  Strangely enough, she didn’t look mad at all. She looked sad.

  Isabelle sat down in the darkness and rubbed her hands over her face in frustration. “You don’t have to leave. I’d like you to stay.”

  “You would?” I asked incredulously.

  Isabelle looked up at me. There was actual wonderment in her eyes. “What you did…” She left that hanging.

  “You were going to leave us, I know it was wrong, but I panicked. I really am sorry.” I felt like I needed to give Isabelle an explanation.

  Isabelle motioned for me to sit.

  I cautiously sat down across from her. “You know,” I said, “we don’t have to sit in the dark. Just concentrate and imagine where you’d like to be and your brain will do the rest.” It was weird being the teacher when only months ago I was being taught myself by Roberta.

  The darkness transformed into a beautiful setting. We were now sitting on an old wooden dock made of aged pine, stretching at least twenty feet over a crystal blue lake. Our feet touched the cool water while the sun shone down on us in a perfect eighty-degree temperature. I could even feel a cool breeze wash over me as the clear waters caressed my feet.

  Much better.

  Usually, places like this held special significance to the person creating it, and it made me wonder what importance it held for Isabelle. I didn’t know anything about the girl, only that she used to work for Gramps. In my brain I imagined that she was born an assassin and started killing her pets or something horrible like that. Thinking of her as a child didn’t compute.

  “I used to come down here to hide from one of my worst foster homes. He liked little girls, if you know what I mean,” Isabelle confided.

  “I’m sorry,” I said what I thought was appropriate. I suddenly felt like I had walked in on someone’s conversation. Why was she telling me this? It made me feel uncomfortable. Hearing that Isabelle had a difficult childhood, though sad, still didn’t excuse her killing hundreds maybe thousands of people. My stepdad had beat the crap out of my mother and then me. I killed him by accident, in self-defense, and I never wanted to kill again. Then when Elisha made me kill all those people using the twins… I shuddered.

  I wasn’t like Isabelle, she had a taste for killing. She used her gift to murder people for a living.

  Yet as horrible as she was a part of me couldn’t leave. I wanted to know more.

  Then she said, “Don’t be sorry. I killed him eventually.”

  Okay, and on that note, “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  Isabelle splashed some water with her foot. “I’ve never lost control before today. It was terrifying.”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I said again, not quite sure that I was. I was conflicted on that particular point. There was a definite part of me that was genuinely sorry for using her so utterly, but then there was another part of me that felt justified. Isabelle had been going to desert us and I felt like I had no other choice.

  “You could have jumped into Elisha and make her release you. That’s what I thought you were going to do,” Isabelle said flatly.

  Um.

  Wow.

  That thought had never even occurred to me. I was always so focused on keeping Elisha out of my head I had never thought about reversing it and taking a dive into Elisha’s noggin. Maybe I could control her. She was so powerful in the mojo department, I think my subconscious mind was afraid of getting stuck in there. What if that’s exactly what she wanted me to do so she could trap me in there forever? No, jumping into Elisha was dangerous. More dangerous than jumping into Isabelle.

  “Elisha is too powerful. It was a risk I wasn’t willing to take,” I said, as if I had considered the option and decided against it.

  “I had no way to defend myself and you knew that. Smart.” Isabelle actually looked impressed. She respected tactical advantages and military strategy. I was doing none of those things, but she seemed to think everyone thought in those terms.

  “I’m not some soldier, I don’t think like that. I lost control and jumped in your head because you were leaving us behind. I didn’t even know that I’d be able to use your powers, I just needed a body to rescue us.” I didn’t like Isabelle thinking I was some manipulative mastermind. She already compared me to my grandparents and I didn’t need her thinking she had confirmed that I was just like them.

  “That’s how we all discovered our powers. An emotional event. Turner and Forstki experimented with the prototypes of Age-pro on our pregnant mothers. We were the result. Then your grandfather murdered our parents and sent us to the vilest foster homes he could find knowing that if we had powers they’d be triggered by an extreme emotional event. Those that survived mentally and physically ended up on the team.” Isabelle confessed this as if she were talking about French fries, non-chalant, like it had been a job interview. “What about you?” she asked. “How did you find out about your powers?”

  Stepdad. Beating. Killed. Yeah. I saw the pattern.

  “I killed my stepdad.” Then f
eeling totally exposed I qualified, “He was beating my mom.”

  “Did Turner set that up?”

  “No. Maybe. Inadvertently.” I thought about it for a second. “My mom only married him because supposedly he was untraceable to Turner’s network.”

  “Bruce Lenton?” Isabelle asked with steel in her eyes.

  It took a moment to recover. But from the extreme hatred in Isabelle’s eyes, I was sure she knew Bruce well.

  “Yes, how did you know?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  “Bruce was one of Turner’s first experiments with injecting tracking devices into people’s blood streams. It backfired and ended up making Bruce completely untrackable. Bruce fit the mold of the kind of person your grandfather picked for foster care. I lived with Bruce for a while before I knew about my abilities and before he was injected with the tracking device. I know you already know what it was like living with that man. After I discovered my powers and Harry and Turner trained me how to utilize them, I tried to find Bruce, to kill him. But I never could track him. Turner promised me he would hunt him down. Your Gramps made me the monster I am today.” Isabelle splashed the water with her feet as in emphasis. She didn’t make eye contact with me. This was not the kind of girl who shared all that often. What she was telling me was a skyscraper-sized olive branch. I just wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  “Well, he’s dead now,” I said, trying to comfort her. I knew how evil Bruce was, how he would beat my mother for no particular reason other than because he felt like it. As much as I knew I couldn’t kill anyone it didn’t change the fact that a world without Bruce was a better place.

  I sighed heavily.

  A world without Elisha would be better place, too.

  How many people did she have to kill before I sucked it up and killed her? Even just saying the words in my head, it just wasn’t in me. I realized that whereas Isabelle blamed my grandfather for who she was today, I blamed the moment I killed Bruce as the person I was today. As much as my mom and I were better off with him dead (and me controlling his body), I hated myself for killing him. I hated that I’d let my emotions take over and turn me into a murderer. Even if I was only seven at the time, especially since I was only seven, to feel that much hatred so young and to actually do something about it. What did that make me?