Hunter

by Adrianne Lemke

  HUNTER

  Earthshaker Series

  —Book Three—

  By Adrianne Lemke

  Copyright © October 2014 Adrianne Lemke

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Christian Bentulan

  Edited by Brittany King

  Also By Adrianne Lemke:

  Earthshaker Series:

  Tracker

  Kindred

  Oblivion (coming soon)

  Mystery:

  Fear

  Anthologies:

  Bite-Sized Offerings: Tales and Legends of the Zombie Apocalypse

  When Disasters Strike

  Secrets of Sacorria:

  Secret Power

  ONE

  Jason

  It’s strange how sometimes life seems to go in circles. Seven years ago—almost to the day—I ran away from my drunk and abusive father, and today I discovered that my new boss is also a drunk. One who didn’t mind showing up at the office—whose staff consisted of him and me—raging drunk because his wife threatened to leave him again.

  Luckily, we currently had no cases on the docket. Nobody would want to hire a private investigator who couldn’t even figure out that his wife had cheated on him with everyone from the mailman to the dog walker. She told him today which led to a rather large, angry man storming into the grungy little office I was in the process of organizing for him.

  Most of his yelling was impossible to understand as he stomped around the little room destroying most of what I already organized. I remained seated at the chair by his desk until he suddenly turned on me.

  “You knew! You were one of them!” he screamed at me, his bulk looming over me; intimidating only because he was about five inches taller and weighed about sixty pounds more than I. Much of his weight was muscle, although it was covered by a layer of fat, not helped by his steady diet of take out.

  “I-I didn’t…” I wanted to tell him I had no idea what he was talking about, but my mind was spinning. What had I done to deserve another abusive figure in my life? Would I ever find a place I wouldn’t have to be afraid?

  “Spit it out, boy!” He yelled. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

  I pushed the chair back against the wall, trying to put as much space as possible between us. It was also an attempt to blend into the background, while silently waiting out his rage. If he was anything like my father, he would run out of steam soon. But, if he was anything like my father, I wouldn’t be in very good shape when he did.

  My fear turned to anger when I realized something: I am an adult. I survived the worst that Trevor Mason, a sadistic criminal, could throw at me. He kidnapped and tortured me, but I got through it. I beat Kindred, the assassin created by the same man, who killed an unknown number of people two years ago, in a misguided attempt to thank me for freeing him from Mason.

  With my anger came the stirring of the power I tried to ignore since leaving Crandal County nearly two years ago. The ground under the office growled lightly, like a pet left alone too long. “Back off,” I said, my voice quiet, but firm. My eyes were downcast to avoid looking at the cause of my anger.

  When he instead took another step closer and grabbed my arm, I rose, stepping into his space. “Back off!” I said again, louder this time. It was emphasized by the building shaking slightly.

  Joe took a step back, his angry grumbling stopped for the first time since he entered the office. I took a deep breath, and the building stopped shaking. “I’m going to say this once, Joe. I did not know anything about your wife cheating on you. Nor did I ever have any kind of relationship with her. I think I’ve met her once in the time I’ve known you. Now, go into the back room, and sleep it off.”

  I don’t know who was more surprised by my outburst, him or me, but the result was Joe finally stepping back. He went into the little room off the main office, where he kept a cot for when he worked late. I lowered myself into the chair with a deep sigh of relief. Angry or not, it was never a good idea to antagonize a drunk. Something I learned quickly as a child.

  Thankfully this confrontation ended with no one getting hurt, and Joe was so drunk he’d probably forget it ever happened. Or, if he didn’t, with any luck he’d only remember bits and pieces. Hopefully excluding the office shaking, which had been unintentional on my part, and I hoped he would completely black it out. If not, I could always try to blame it on how drunk and unsteady he’d been at the time.

  Either way, it was done for now and I couldn’t see myself trying to do any more work today. Not with my quick breathing and shaking hands. I needed a break.

  Sam would still be in school, so I could go back to our small house and study, or just relax for a little while. Our house was secluded, out on a few acres of open land hidden within a wooded area. It was what I was looking for when we left Alice and Hannah. I never specifically told them where we now lived, but, as detectives, Dan and Alice would have no trouble figuring it out.

  I also suspected Sam was talking to them when I wasn’t around, and he probably told them our exact location. I’d never told him not to call, but he may have gotten the wrong impression by my inability to speak to them. If he had spoken to them, I thought while I walked out of my workplace, then I was glad they never tried to come and get me. Or tried to convince me it was time to come home.

  Home. A concept as foreign to me as a feeling of security, or lack of fear. I hadn’t had a true home in… ever, I guess. Not the way my family was.

  Although if I had to be honest, the closest I ever felt to having a home where I was cared for and wanted, was with Alice and Hannah. Unfortunately, I lost the sense of security initially offered by staying with them when my father found me, and later when Kindred and the rest of Mason’s crew found out my exact location. Not exactly a comforting thought.

  “Excuse me?” A voice sounded behind me, while I locked the door. I didn’t jump. I had felt the footsteps approaching cautiously, and determining little to no threat. The heartbeat was quick, but the steps indicated nervousness, which meant they did not necessarily mean me harm.

  I turned to see the woman standing there as I pictured her: hands clasped in front of her to stop the shaking, her breathing shallow, and face pale. “How can I help you?” I asked politely, hiding my earlier anger behind a mask of professionalism.

  “You’re a private detective, right?” she asked softly.

  Of course, I couldn’t tell her I was just learning the ropes from the man who was passed out drunk in our back room, so I simply nodded. I fully intended to share any information she gave me with Joe, once he was sober again.

  Shining hazel eyes darted up to meet my own dark brown gaze for a moment before flicking downward again. “You find people?” Her voice was barely audible, and she struggled with the tears that were trying to fall.

  “We certainly try,” I said gently. “But the police may be better…”

  “NO! They haven’t found anything, and it’s been a week. My boy,” she sobbed. She was probably in her late thirties or early forties, so her child could be young or into the late teens. “He disappeared on his way to school last Friday. No one saw or heard anything. He’s just gone! I need help. The police think he ran away, but he wouldn’t!”

  She was getting agitated, so I held up my hand to calm her. “Do you have a picture?”

  With a nod, she reached into her black leather purse and pulled out several pictures of a young man. He was probably about seventeen, with blond hair, hazel eyes, and a broad smile. They were professionally taken photos. “He’s a senior this year, top of his class. Likely to be valedictorian.” Pride shone through her sorrow. “Smart as a whip,” she said. “He has a date for prom next week. Does that sound like someone who would run away? He’s too smart for that. If,
for some reason, he did want to leave, wouldn’t he just wait until graduation?”

  She seemed genuine enough, but so had my father any time someone questioned him about injuries I had as a child. If this boy, this very smart boy, had run away, was it for reasons similar to my own? Or did he crack under the pressure of being top of his class and popular?

  “Will you help me?” she asked.

  I unlocked the door, and stepped back into the office. “I need to leave a note for my boss. Then I need you to take me on his route to school, so I can see the area where he disappeared.”

  Her teary eyes showed gratitude, and I warned, “I may not be able to find anything more than the police. But I will try.”

  TWO

  Sam

  Life is strange. My brother and I had finally found people we liked and trusted, and yet he still felt the need to run. Jason had been on his own for too long to get used to the idea of depending on others. Of course I couldn’t let him go without me. Who knew when or if I’d see him again? But I still regretted his decision to leave.

  Hannah, I knew, felt hurt because when Jason left, he didn’t call. Not once. He’d called Dan’s house, only speaking if Paul, Jeff or Ginny picked up. I couldn’t tell if it was because he no longer trusted them or if he felt ashamed of running when there was no longer anything to run from. Those emotions were complex, wrapped around each other in a tangled mess in my brother’s mind.

  I, on the other hand, called weekly to find out how everything was going, and to make sure all our friends knew we were still okay.

  School was almost done for the day, letting out at noon due to teacher’s conventions, and I planned to call Alice when I got home. My teacher, Mrs. Hodges, was assigning our homework for the next day when I felt a jolt of fear. My eyes automatically darted around the room to look for a threat I knew wasn’t there.

  “Sam,” Jake, one of the kids in my class whispered, nudging my arm from behind. “You all right, man?”

  “Yeah,” I whispered back, having determined there was nothing to fear in this classroom. But my voice was still shaky, hidden by the whispering and covered by the fact that Jake was a typical thirteen-year-old boy who was not very good at reading people if they lied.

  Jason’s fear remained tangible as I was finally released from school, but it was easily distinguished from my own senses. Until the fear turned to anger. “What’s going on, Jason?” I muttered to myself as I walked, pretending I didn’t hear the calls of my friends who wanted me to join them at the park.

  I walked quickly, thankful that while our home was pretty well hidden, it was not too far from the school. Jason’s feelings faded once more, and I was able to call Alice.

  “Hannah’s worried about him,” she informed me. “She thinks that if he doesn’t try to work through his past experiences he’s going to lose control again.”

  Past experiences being physical, emotional, and sexual abuse from our father—something he wasn’t aware that I knew about, by the way—and severe torture by the monster Trevor Mason, who’d killed my friend Erin, and kidnapped and attempted to kill me. Thankfully, the man who’d been put in charge of killing me happened to be an undercover FBI agent named Mark Jones. He’d been able to get me away from Mason and lead some officers from Alice and Dan’s precinct to find me.

  Unfortunately for Jason, it hadn’t been soon enough for me to let them know that Mason had planned to grab him. So he’d taken my brother, and hurt him. Jason still wouldn’t talk about it to anyone. He’d tried with Hannah’s friend, Dustin, but had given that up again sometime during his search for Kindred. “Sam? You still there?” Alice’s voice held a teasing lilt as she dragged me from my thoughts.

  “Yeah,” I said, now feeling a little melancholy. “I wish we could go back, Alice. I really do. I miss the others.”

  “They miss you too. And Paul is… disappointed that Jason hasn’t come back.”

  Disappointed? Try furious. Paul had always had a temper, but he’d trusted Jason, and now he probably felt abandoned by the one person he’d thought he could count on. Phone calls wouldn’t cut it.

  “Is he ready to talk to us yet?” Alice asked.

  I shrugged, despite the knowledge that she couldn’t see me. “I dunno. I imagine he’d call you when he is. I honestly don’t think he knows why he won’t talk to you. Until he figures that out…”

  She sighed heavily. “All right; just make sure he knows we’re here whenever he’s ready. But it better be soon. Hannah’s about ready to go out there and drag him home.”

  My worry and excitement began to grow in equal measure, and I felt my eyes narrow. Nothing around me would cause that reaction. Which meant… “I’ve gotta go,” I said. “Jason needs me.”

  “Okay. Take care, Sam.”

  Without the distraction of the phone call, I was able to more thoroughly examine the feelings that were coming through from my brother. It was possible the muted excitement was due to a new case, or simply finishing something Joe had asked him to do. The worry was unknown. It was difficult to know the emotions without the story behind them. Especially when they came through so strongly that I couldn’t fully decide if they came from me or him.

  Jason wasn’t aware that I knew how he was feeling at any given moment. Part of his ability to remain calm near me stemmed from his belief that I’d been sheltered from the worst of what he’d gone through. Unfortunately, his assumption was incorrect.

  My brother’s emotions faded again to a background hum, and I was once more able to concentrate on myself. Which was good because I had a pre-algebra test I needed to study for, and I needed to be able to concentrate. My backpack was in my room, so I went to grab it, intending to make a snack and work in the living room.

  What I did instead was sit and wish I was with my friends; Paul, Jeffrey, and Ginny. They were all together at Dan and June’s house, or at school in the same area and seeing each other every day. They’d been my family for two years, and now I only communicated through phone calls.

  It was time. I needed to convince Jason that we had to go back, at least for a visit. He had to be missing them too, and I could feel his loneliness every night that only eased up slightly during the day. Our family was not here. They were in Crandal, and both of us required some time with them to feel less solitary.

  I rubbed at the arm I’d broken nearly three years ago, while I tried to force myself to focus on the heavy textbook, and avoid thinking about the events that had driven us away from home. He’d wanted to leave before Kindred, but it was more imperative once the video got out. The risk of so many people discovering what he could do scared him. I think it was even worse than the threat Kindred had posed. It hadn’t been possible for Jason to stay after.

  Part of him wanted to. Our friends were there. But while I was willing to risk staying with them, Jason was not.

  I had walked away with fewer scars after Mason and Kindred—both physical and emotional—but the feeling of helplessness and pain would stick with me forever. They weren’t new to me by any means, but I’d thought we were safe. Once Jason had taken me away from our father, I thought I wouldn’t have to be afraid of the abuse or live with that kind of pain again, but I’d been proven wrong by both Kindred and Mason.

  Despite what Mason had done to both of us, I knew my brother regretted his death. Not because he thought he hadn’t deserved to die, but because he’d died fast and nearly painless. After he had caused lasting damage to my already scarred brother, I agreed. Jason still struggled with the idea that it was so easy to kill with his abilities, but I wasn’t sure he’d change how he'd escaped if he had to do it again.

  Although he probably would have tried to do it without allowing Kindred to escape; Jeremiah Mason, the formerly law-abiding cousin of Trevor Mason, had been tortured to the point of not remembering who he was. It was the same treatment Mason had been giving my brother, in the attempt to make him use his powers for whatever Mason wanted. Jeremiah had become an assassin, ki
lling anyone who stood in Mason’s way.

  Jason had become a killer. But he’d only killed Mason and one of the bodyguards. I knew he had mixed feelings about Jeremiah, because in the end, the man formerly known as Kindred or the Ghost, had sacrificed himself to save my brother. Was that enough to make up for several years of forced killings? Who knows? I’m thirteen years old. Who am I to figure out what constitutes as penance for those kinds of wrongs. In my mind, I still have a brother because of him. But he’d also left emotional damage in his wake.

  I sighed and rubbed my hand over my eyes. So much for concentrating. Homework was much easier when Jason’s emotions didn’t flare out of control, causing me to think about past traumas.

  The ringing of our phone shook me out of my thoughts. “Hello?”

  “Sammy?” Jason’s voice came in, sounding a little distracted, but otherwise not too stressed or worried. “I’m gonna be a little late. I caught a case. There should be food in the freezer you can heat up.”

  I forced a light-hearted tone into my voice. “Sure, no problem. Everything going all right?”

  “Yeah, it’s a missing person, and I’m following his mother to the scene now. It’s been a week, I don’t know if there will be any echoes left, but I’ll try.”

  He sounded determined, and from what I could tell, his powers had been steadily getting stronger, including his ability to read people’s footsteps, and the echoes or vibrations they left behind. I couldn’t pretend to know what it was like having his ability, and not for the first time I wondered if I was doing the right thing in not telling him about my own. “Good luck,” I said sincerely, hoping he’d be successful.

  Anyone with caring parents deserved to get back to them.

  THREE

  Hunter

  “Thanks for calling, have a great day.” I spoke into the phone with a fake polite tone and hung up. That was the fifth irate caller of the day. Rubbing my forehead I couldn’t shake the sheer boredom of life in a cubical. I’d figured out everyone around me ages ago. Sharon had affairs with anyone who could walk, because it made her feel good to be wanted. Matt lived with his mother and was a total geek, but he was an insufferable know-it-all because he read anything he could get his hands on, so of course that made him an expert.