Sophie looked at the fading light. “K, let's book, maybe we've got, I don't know, twenty minutes until it's too dark to see.”
We scattered, looking for the elusive cord.
John was far away, up to his elbows in crap. “Alex found an outlet!”
“Got it!” screamed Jonesy, hauling up a torch-bright orange cord that took both of his arms to heave over his head in triumph. He jogged over to where Alex was. The girls, Bry and John made a loose circle around Jonesy.
The outlet for the juice looked in bad shape. “It's been exposed to the elements for a while,” John said.
Alex touched a cracked plastic box that had been a halfway covering at one time but now had a spider-web crack formation and was yellowed with age. “I don't know, Jonesy, looks decrepit. Maybe we keep looking for another outlet.”
I looked at a sky that was blood red, a stain of purple like a bruise overtaking it. “It's gonna be dark soon, we'll give it a try then explore alternative beverage storage in the hide-a-way later.”
Sophie rubbed her arms, feeling autumn creeping in as night stole over us. Jonesy took off his hoodie and gave it to her and she threw it on. “Thanks.”
“Welcome, Soph,” Jonesy said.
“Ah, the hell with it. I'm gonna give it a shot. If it works, we've got juice to the core of our lair and we can have what we need right there,” Jonesy said.
“Are ya sure Jones?” Tiff asked.
He shrugged. “What can happen?”
The guys looked at each other.
Bry said, “Here.” He held out his hand. “Let me give it a shot.”
“I can,” John said.
I nodded like, any one of us guys can.
Mia said, “I can do it too, you know.”
“No way,” Bry said.
She looked up at him and he got that dazed look. “You're going to pull the 'macho-card'?”
“Yeah,” he said.
She shrugged. “Okay.”
She wasn't going to duke it out with him. Females have all the power, the ones that didn't get that weren't paying attention. Duh.
He held it in his hand, leaning forward. He looked at Alex who flipped the plastic box, exposing the outlet and jammed the pronged end into the holes.
Nothing happened.
“We're not gonna see the electricity working. Does anyone have something we can test it on?” I asked.
“Yeah, just let me get that toaster that's been jammed up my ass so we can figure this out,” Jonesy said.
“Nice sarcasm, Jones,” Tiff said, rolling her eyes.
Jade ran back into the tunnel and came back out a minute later. “Try this.” She held up a lantern that wasn't a dinosaur propane-fueled monster.
“Nice,” I said, kissing her on the mouth.
Then I kissed her again.
“Hart!” Bry said.
Right.
He grabbed the lantern and found the opposite end of the cord and plugged the lantern in.
Nothing. Well-damn.
Jonesy planted his hands on his hips, and rolled his shoulders. “That blows goats. I wanted this to happen.” He stalked over to the lantern, with every intention of jerking it off the end of the cord. The instant his hand touched it, the lantern lit up like the sun, the orb of the light looking like the moon was captured inside the glass.
Jade covered her eyes. “Okay, great it works. Maybe something needed to be, ya know, jiggled around.”
Jonesy howled and started to jiggle around.
“Knock it off, none of us want to see you spread your love around, Jonesy,” Bry said with a laugh.
Jonesy put the lantern down and the light went out.
“Did you turn it off?” I asked. Because it hadn't dimmed, but stopped instantly.
We got closer to the lantern and Bry picked it up, shaking it, looking at the on/off switch. Nothing made it come back on.
“Shitty connection,” Tiff said and Bry nodded.
“Bullshit! It worked like it was on fire for me,” Jonesy said, thumb planted in his chest.
He swooped down and picked it up again to do his own check.
It flared to life, a beacon in our eyes.
We looked at Jonesy and he looked back.
A slow smile spread over John's face and Alex and Sophie looked like a couple of kids that had swallowed the canary.
“What? What are the dumb looks for?” Jonesy said, swinging the lantern around, the light making a nauseating arc of brilliance against the gloom.
“Looks like you're Electra-man,” Tiff said.
“Are you kidding me?” Mia said.
“No. Looks like Jones can, ya know, manipulate the juice,” Tiff restated.
Jonesy said, “Listen guys, I don't think because the lantern came on for me...”
Holy shit.
John and I looked at each other at the same time. “The chopper!”
“The school!” John said.
“WTF?” Jonesy wailed. “Clue me in ass-hats!”
Jade was nodding. “Last year at that old cemetery...”
“Clemen's?” Bry supplied.
“Shut up, let her talk,” Tiff said and Bry glared at her.
“...that helicopter just died and then, at your school all the power failed...” Jade trailed off.
We all looked at Jonesy.
He put his palms up. “I haven't tried to do anything.”
I rolled my eyes this time. “Listen, that's how it always is. This accidental crap leaks out all over the place and before you know it, you're making it happen.”
“Remember the road-kill issues Caleb had last year?” John said.
Jonesy nodded. “Hell yeah, that was creeper-city.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don't get your boxers twisted over it, Hart,” he said.
Jade laughed and I looked at her and she laughed harder.
“She's laughing at your junk, Caleb! She's unmanning you,” Jonesy caterwauled.
“How do you know he wears boxers?” Jade asked reasonably.
Nice.
“Okay back on this electric thing...” he said, ignoring the underwear reference completely.
“Here's the thing,” John began, “if he has Electra-Magnetic he can control more than just electricity.”
Alex picked up the thread of conversation because he had the Geek Thing Going On. “Yes, from what I've read, an Electra-Magnetic can manipulate both natural and man-made electricity and that would include pulse,” Alex finished, adjusting his glasses.
“Let's test it on something!” Jonesy said.
Nobody moved.
“What?”
I thought fast. “If you're making choppers fall from the sky and school building pulse power systems fail, we probably don't want to dick around with this 'cuz something big may happen.”
“Like total city power failure,” John said.
“Or lightning striking,” Sophie said. Jonesy put his arm around her and she leaned into him. “Don't worry, I'll just let all that lightning shit hit all the ass-clowns,” he said.
“That's a long list, my friend,” Bry said.
Tiff nodded solemnly in agreement.
“There has to be a smart way to experiment with it,” Alex said, eyes steady, palming his chin that was shaped like a cone.
Mia said, “If he just made the connection,” she smiled at her pun, “tonight, maybe, with so little control... he needs to tell his Unclassified teacher and see how they handle it. The adults will have a...”
“Protocol? I don't know, they couldn't determine what he was so far... they weren't testing him right,” John said.
“It wasn't comprehensive enough. They needed a broader battery of tests,” Alex agreed.
“And it happened when you were under stress before,” I said.
“That's so textbook for a first manifestation, Jonesy. Early manifestations are almost always brought about because of an emotional burst. Like Sophie being taken by that Graysheet
,” John said.
Jonesy thought about it. “I was pretty freaked about that ass-wipe taking Soph.” He unconsciously drew her in next to him and their hair, so much alike, mingled together in a fluffy cloud.
“Okay, so I'm an electra-whatever. Great, let's go figure it out.” He turned to Jade. “Are you okay, birthday girl...with a little fun?”
Jade nodded, lacing her fingers through mine. “Let's do a little test run.”
My pulse vibrated. I put up a finger to the others and depressed my thumb:
Hi, it's Sergeant Garcia- Garcia, Raul- KCP
Hi, what's going on? -CH
We have a situation again, another murder scene.-Garcia, Raul- KCP
What? Distress who? -CH
You know I can't disclose a victim identity on pulse, Caleb.-Garcia, Raul- KCP
Okay- CH
We need to pick you up, where is your location? Is the Weller girl with you? -Garcia, Raul- KCP
Yeah.- CH
I've triangulated your pulse, we'll be there in ten minutes.- Garcia, Raul- KCP
I depressed my thumb, ending the pulse and beginning anew:
Forward pulse message to Tiffany Weller, The Parents
Initializing
Target message pulsed
I thumbed my pulse to hibernate and watched the green characters fade.
Almost immediately they flared back to life:
Hey Pal, looks like you're working tonight. Keep Mom and I updated.- KH
Okay.- CH
Jade touched the skin of my arm and her eyes widened as she got what program was going down, tactile-much.
I drew her into my body again, hugging her. “I'm sorry,” I whispered against her hair, “that your birthday is interrupted.”
She leaned back. “Somebody died, I think I can get over it.”
The kids all looked at Tiff and I.
Tiff walked over to me. “We on tonight then?”
I nodded.
“Huh, my best laid plans foiled by a corpse,” Jonesy grumbled.
We rolled our eyes, Jonesy was so him.
CHAPTER 28
It was Ceci.
Ceci Cline. Carson's girlfriend, our fellow AFTD.
Tiff was barfing in the bushes and I was thinking I didn't want to do this anymore. How was this possible?
I knew her. She couldn't be dead.
I went over to Tiff who was somewhere between sobbing and barfing and put a hand on her shoulder.
She turned her head and I could see her face in profile, illuminated by the crime scene halogens, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed.
“I'm never gonna have that image out of my mind!” she said in a shouted whisper, her voice hoarse from the vomiting.
Gale walked over, her shadowed silhouette becoming larger on approach. She hunkered down next to Tiff. “You okay?”
She nodded and Gale gave her a cup of water. She gulped a ton then spit it out into the bushes. “My mouth tastes like ass.”
Gale barked out a laugh and stood. “I guess you'll be okay.”
Tiff stood and Gale said, “I'll give you guys a sec.”
Tiff whirled on me as soon as Gale was out of sight and put a finger under my nose. “Don't you tell the guys I puked, Hart.”
I almost laughed but kept it together through sheer grit. “Hey, I would’ve barfed too if I wasn't so used to the smell.”
She shuddered, looking over at the still silhouette of Ceci.
There was shouting and we turned. I said, “Oh God, it's her dad...”
Smith the Null and Gale were trying to restrain him but he broke through, racing to his daughter, picking up her limp form, he shook her.
“Wake up, baby.” Her broken neck lolled into one of his big palms and he howled, his head thrown back, spittle flying out of his mouth.
Tiff and I watched his grief and it struck us mute. It was such a raw wave of emotion we were suffocating in it. I flashed on an image of what my parents would do if I were Ceci.
Better not to.
Garcia, Gale and Smith stood on the perimeter, watching their fellow officer shriek his rage and grief to the heavens, unable to comfort him. Unable to make her live again.
Officer Cline's eyes fell on me.
He laid his daughter's body down and rose slowly to his feet. Shaking a finger at me he said, “You can raise her. You can bring my baby back!” His eyes were wild, moving frantically in their sockets, back and forth, back and forth.
Tiff moaned and moved behind me. I knew just how she felt but I remained where I was as Cline stalked to me. In my peripheral vision I could see Gale, Garcia and Smith advance on him but he'd get to me first.
His fist wrapped the front of my shirt into a knot and he drug me to him. Our height being the same, made our eye contact uncomfortably intimate.
He shook me. “Bring her back, Caleb. You can do it. She told me so. That you were like her, but... you can bring her back!”
My teeth rattled as he shook me with the force of his grief.
“I can't! She won't be Ceci. She'll be something else!”
Garcia tried to untangle Cline's fingers from my shirt and it wasn't happening. He flung Garcia off, no small feat, and then Smith was there.
“Come on, Cline, let the boy go. He can't do it.”
“He can!” he shrieked in Smith's face.
Gale put a chokehold on him from behind, her feet on tiptoe, and Smith worked his hand, prying finger by finger off while Garcia tried to restrain his other hand.
“Get her out of here!” Garcia shouted at the dead-techs.
They moved.
“No,” Cline wailed. “Don't take her! She can't be dead, she can't be!”
And with that, he allowed his hands to be loosened from my shirt and he slumped to the ground. He cried like his heart was shattering in his chest, big wracking sobs that sounded like they hurt.
I'd never seen a man cry before.
I'd never seen a parent lose their child.
I felt another chunk of my childhood slide away as I listened to his weeping, Tiff's head pressed against my back.
****
Even I felt sorry for Carson when we got to school Monday. He was a dumb-ass but his girlfriend had been brutally slain by what the news whores were dubbing, “The Null Negator.”
Mom had hated the moniker saying, “Shoddy journalism. It's not an actual word, you know,” her hands buried in the dough for a pizza.
Dad and I had looked at each other. Nothing took Mom unawares. The words were still critical.
The Parents had looked at me for such a long time that I had squirmed under their mutual gaze.
“What?” I'd asked.
Dad steepled his fingers. “It's not just Nulls now, Caleb.”
“A girl from your class!” Mom all but shouted, viciously punching the dough in its center.
That was how my Monday began (but Mondays sucked anyway, so no surprise there).
We were all quiet in our AFTD core class, Ceci's seat sitting empty, some of the girls silently crying.
Dave Smith said, “We're going to take this day off to just talk about what's going on. These murders were not something our community was worrying about, especially the AFTD community.” He took off his glasses, absently polishing them as he spoke. “But now that one of our own has been stolen from us, it's like I said. They need me.”
God, he was still on that?
“Listen, no offense Mr. Smith, but they don't need you or anybody else right now. They thought they had it figured out but now all their speculations aren't accurate,” I said with a tone.
Smith's eyes narrowed. “Maybe Ceci should be raised. In theory,” the class groaned and he held up a finger to stop their noise, “an AFTD victim would be different altogether.”
We were quiet, we just couldn't wrap our minds around her absence. It meant something that an AFTD was the victim. It was a message, somehow. Why had she been picked? It was not lost on me that she was a cop's daughter or th
at she had been dating Carson. It was spiraling into some kind of tornado. I was hoping I'd survive it, and catch the creep that was nailing kids.
Class ended and I all but leaped out of my seat to seek out Jade when Smith blocked my path. “Talk to the police, Caleb. I think I can really help.”
I was getting sick of his interference but wasn't sure how to get away with saying anything and also not get in trouble.
I tried for that half-eye, dazed expression that Jonesy was expert at and he sighed, shaking his head. Smith figured I was a grunter (which was fairly accurate), but I was pretty sharp right then. I didn't wamt him hanging around like a languid fly on a pile of shit while Tiff and I tried to figure it out with the cops.
I slunk out of the class satisfied that I'd escaped notice but knowing it was temporary.
Jade was waiting, leaning up against the wall with a foot against it and her backpack cushioning her torso. Her signature silver hoops flashed in the LED lights of the hall and there, riding in a delicate web on top of her collarbone was the dream-catcher necklace. Wow, it looked good.
Check. She looked good.
She moved forward, a slight sway to her hips. The noise faded around us and she moved into the circle of my arms like a warm shadow melding against me. I put my mouth on hers and pressed it to her, my lips moving over hers.
“PDA!” Griswold growled, as she pistoned by, swinging her arms like a Nazi.
Jade jumped then laughed, covering her mouth.
I nodded, smiling. “Yeah, she's back already.”
“She's not so bad. She took care of the government creeps.”
There was that.
I began walking with her to our next class and we passed Carson, who would normally never miss an opportunity to flip me off or offer general debasing annoyance. Not today. Today he slid through the crowd, eyes on the floor, solemn look on his face.
Jade shuddered.
I turned to her. “What?”
“They're leaking on me.”
“Who?”
She shook her head, as if clearing it, her hair sliding around on her shoulders like black water.
“Everyone,” she whispered into my shoulder.
Brother, must suck to be an Empath.
The Death Series, Books 1-3: Death Whispers, Death Speaks and Death Inception (The Death Series, Volume 1) Page 64