The school band began to play the fight song as Daniel ran up to his teammates to celebrate the first touchdown of the night.
“Holy shit, Daniel! That was some Michael Johnson moves you just pulled right there!” someone yelled with a laugh.
“You’ve been working on your sprints, haven’t you?” Coach asked as soon as the other team called a time-out. The score was 16 to 0; Westmoore was dominating thus far.
Coach Grosse pulled Daniel aside and looked up at the stands. “See that man in the blue shirt up there, son?” he said, putting an arm around Daniel’s shoulders. “I didn’t want to tell you guys in case it gave you the jitters, but that there is a scout for the University of Oklahoma.”
Daniel’s eyes widened and suddenly, a life of Boomer Sooner football flashed before his teenage eyes: parties, girls, money, glory. It was everything a high school player in Oklahoma hoped to achieve.
“He couldn’t have come on a better day.” Daniel laughed much too loudly, feeling lightheaded from his good fortune.
Coach slapped him on the back. “I couldn’t agree more. You’re really a sight to see out there tonight, Johnson. You’re running so fast, you’re starting to blur.”
Daniel beamed. “Thanks, Coach.”
“Johnson?” Coach called as Daniel jogged back to the field to join his teammates. “Don’t get all cocky and screw this up.”
Daniel only gave him a confident grin. “Not even possible.”
“Doing okay?” Kyle, the running back, asked as they huddled. “I think defense is really gunning for you.”
“You think?” Daniel said sarcastically, waving his friend away. “I’m fine.”
He was. But if he had been any other normal boy, he would have been reduced to silly putty by now. The other team had not only been relentless, but they had also been brutal. Especially their linebacker, Rap Matera. The kid was built like a mountain and had managed to tackle Daniel a few times already. Rap, it seemed, had been instructed to take Daniel down not head-on, but by the legs, with varying degrees of success.
This time, Rap, you won’t get me, Daniel thought with determination.
At the snap, Daniel shot away from the group. He turned and saw the football already sailing his way and, with a mighty leap, caught the ball with two hands. Landing squarely on his feet, he ran like the ground was on fire. He blazed through the field, only briefly feeling Moore’s defensive team as they glanced off his shoulders one by one, spinning around like tops.
Daniel was almost home free until he saw his adversary several yards shy of the end zone. It would have been easy enough to go around the human wall that was Rap, but Daniel’s pride sought revenge.
You think you’re strong? he thought wildly. Well, stop this!
He hunched down and headed straight for the boy at full speed.
The impact was tremendous, his jubilation complete, as he rolled inside the end zone, the ball still grasped safely in his hand.
Let’s see you get up from that! Daniel thought triumphantly, standing up to revel with his teammates and receive his acclaim.
“Just a tackle? That was no freaking tackle!” John shouted and launched himself at Daniel, sending both men to the floor. “You severed his spinal cord!”
“It was an accident!” Daniel repeated weakly. He had said it so many times over the years that he no longer knew whether it was still the truth. Had he really not intended on hurting Rap?
John sat on Daniel’s chest and his fists began to fly. “He’s dead, you motherfucker!” he said, making Daniel’s heart skip a beat. “You killed my brother!”
21 | OUT OF SIGHT
John’s hands were on fire as he beat the crap out of Daniel Johnson, whose face felt like molded metal, but he kept going regardless. The memory of his brother, as well as the pride of his family wouldn’t allow it.
He was furious that, after all this time, Daniel didn’t know what had happened to his brother, enraged that he hadn’t even bothered to check up on the boy he’d maimed. And that’s all Rap had been at the time: a boy. They had only been fifteen when they’d immigrated to Oklahoma from New Zealand, sixteen when they’d both tried out for the football team. And seventeen when John had been benched for subpar grades and Rap had been playing on his behalf.
And this son of a bitch never even bothered to find out what happened to us both! John thought. “You never even came to the hospital!” he shouted, aiming a bleeding fist straight for Daniel’s nose. But the asshole lay motionless beneath him, simply allowing the pummeling to continue, which added additional fuel to his anger.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel said once more. His instinct dictated that he hold his arms up to cover his face, but he knew he needed to bear this beating. Rap’s twin brother deserved to deliver this vengeance. “I didn’t know.”
John paused, his nostrils flaring as he panted. “You didn’t know?” he sneered. “You didn’t know that your little move on the field not only made him a vegetable but also caused massive organ failure? He died, and you never even bothered to say sorry!”
Dead. Why didn’t anyone tell me? He had killed Rap Matera. The news hit Daniel harder than anything John’s fist could ever deliver.
He readied himself for more punishment. As it was, the thought of saving Olivia was the only thing keeping him from closing his eyes and slipping into unconsciousness.
“Liv,” he said through loose, bloody teeth. His lips were bruised, his jaw felt unhinged, and his nose was definitely broken.
The punching stopped for a moment. “What did you say?” John said.
The name mingled with blood as it came sputtering out of Daniel’s mouth. “Liv.”
Suddenly, Daniel felt John’s weight ease off him. He opened his one good eye – the other was swollen shut – and peered up at the man towering over him.
John couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He wiped his hands off on his shirt, looked again, and earnestly began to panic. He didn’t know when the change had occurred as his hands had been clenched into bloody fists, but all of a sudden, his fingertips were becoming transparent. He stared down at his hands and watched in horror as he began to see the carpet right through them.
“What the hell!” he said, stumbling backwards into a wall. “What’s going on?” Not bothering with the buttons, he ripped his sleeve to find that his arm had also become transparent.
From his peripheral, he saw Daniel staggering back to his feet, a fact that took him by surprise almost as much as his disappearing limbs. He had given Daniel the clobbering of a lifetime; there was no way he should even be conscious, let alone have the strength to tell him to live.
“What the hell have you done to me?” Immediately, he thought of King Industries and its zeal to develop the most innovate drugs. “You work for King! He had you come here and inject me with… some sort of… melanin bleaching shit for taking his daughter!”
Daniel swayed but remained on his feet. “What?”
John didn’t believe a second of Daniel’s innocent act; King had hired Daniel Johnson, of all people, to dispose of him. And there was no way he would die at the hands of his brother’s killer.
Determined to put an end to what he’d begun, John reached around and retrieved the gun in his waistband. Lifting the black pistol up with his transparent hand, he pointed the barrel straight at Daniel’s chest and, without hesitation, pulled the trigger.
He watched with satisfaction as Daniel’s body hit the carpet, and before he could further dwell on how alarmingly easy murder had come, he grabbed his laptop bag and sprinted towards the stairwell.
* * * * *
As soon as the elevator doors opened, Olivia jumped out and ran into the marbled lobby, past the unmanned security desk, and towards the first set of glass doors. She pushed with her shoulders but it didn’t budge, so she turned and tried to pull it open with her hands, but it still wouldn’t move. She spied another set of doors a few yards down and tried those to no avail.
“Da
mmit!” she screamed, her voice echoing in the darkness. I could use a little help here! Small favors, please!
All of a sudden, she froze at the sound of the stairwell door opening. “Hurry, she’s still here! I heard her.”
She spun around frantically and scrambled under the security desk, begging the darkness to be her friend now. Her heart pounded right into her throat as the footsteps came nearer. She held her breath when they stopped.
“You go that way,” said the one without the accent. “I’ll look this way. She can’t have gone far.”
When the footsteps receded, she stole a look around the desk, and then she saw her salvation: across the lobby, shattered glass lay on the floor, and above it, a large, rectangular gateway to freedom.
How did I miss that? she thought as she scanned the area for the two men. The shorter one was heading around the corner, but she had no time to look for the second one. It was now or never.
She ran for it. Thankfully her years of training meant she was light on her feet and she made it across the floor without making much noise. She was almost at the window when she spied Dane coming at her fast from the left.
“Felton!” he called to his cohort as he ran at full tilt.
Just make it outside, was her silent mantra as the soles of her shoes crunched glass. Just make it outside.
Realizing that she only had seconds to spare, she dove head first through the glassless window.
* * * * *
The entire night had been a disaster of epic proportions. John hadn’t anticipated that Richard King would abandon his own daughter for any amount of money. To King, whose reported net worth stood in the tens of billions, the amount John had been asking for was a mere pittance. But, evidently, he’d grossly overestimated King’s fondness for his daughter. Or, as it turned out, underestimated his fondness for money.
Which was more reason for John to stick with the plan. Dane was right, he couldn’t play it fast and loose depending on his emotions because that was how you got caught. And as much as he felt for Olivia – the despair on her face when she’d finally lost composure would haunt him, this much he knew – he valued his life even more.
And Daniel Johnson, who had been the indirect cause of John’s issues, had unexpectedly turned up as if he’d been magically summoned by John’s vulnerability. After ten years of hiding, he had appeared in the hallway like a ghost and lain limply while John had exacted his revenge. But it hadn’t been enough; John had wanted him to fight back, had wanted to find out exactly how Daniel had been able to hurt his brother. John had always wondered how someone much smaller could have taken down Rap, because even in their teens, he and his twin was known as the Twin Mountains of the Moore High team.
Now Daniel was dead. And though John had just taken his first life, he felt surprisingly light. He supposed avenging the wrongful death of one’s own flesh and blood would have that effect.
The parking garage was quiet as John exited the stairwell, but he immediately saw the two men standing beside the black van. As he approached, his steps echoing in the darkness, he noticed both Felton and Dane staring at him with their mouths hanging open and the whites of their eyes clearly visible from afar.
“What the hell happened?” John eyed the closed van doors, listening closely for any noise from Olivia. “Is she in there?”
Felton nodded his head, but it was Dane who spoke up. “We’ll talk about the girl later. First, let’s talk about what the hell happened to you.”
John sighed. “I know. That bastard King did it.” He wondered how much the drug had penetrated into his skin, how much of his arms were now transparent. Judging from the men’s expressions, it had spread pretty far, possibly even up to his face.
“He made you… disappear?” Felton’s voice was so small, so frightened, that the idea of it coming from the loud, abrasive Texan was bizarre.
John sighed impatiently. “Well, what the hell does it look like?”
“It looks like… nothing. Just a suit walking,” Dane said, his wide eyes darting back up and down John’s body. “You’re pulling the Invisible Man on us, man.”
“How?” Felton said. “Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know, okay?” John said, then in the darkness of the garage, noticed dark specks on Dane’s face. He followed the trail down his cheeks and saw that his jacket sleeve was torn in places and his hand was smeared with blood. “What the hell happened?”
With a mounting feeling of dread, he stalked to the back of the van and threw open the doors. The sight that greeted him made him double over in panic.
Plan B was definitely coming to fruition, whether he wanted it to or not.
22 | THE UNMASKING
John took a deep breath and organized his thoughts into little compartments, putting away the guilt he felt at the sight of the unconscious Olivia King. Her self-important father was no better than a common thief, and he needed to be taught that every action had a consequence.
John climbed into the van and sat a few inches away from the unconscious woman, afraid to make contact. One side of her face mirrored that of Dane’s, and glinting in the interior light, he saw the broken glass embedded in her skin.
“What the hell happened here?” he said, hardening his heart against sympathy, fighting the urge to dig out each shard of glass that littered the skin on her cheek and jaw.
Her father’s to blame for this, he kept telling himself. Her death will be on his head. This is King’s doing.
Felton climbed into the driver seat and turned to face John. “She tried to run and Dane here tackled her to the ground.”
Dane, who had climbed into the passenger seat, looked at himself in the visor mirror, wincing as he picked at his face.
John looked up. “And the glass?”
“Someone had broken a window and there was glass all over the floor.”
“Who broke the window?” John said, his eyebrows knitting together in concern. Everything had been untouched at the beginning of the night and he had planned on keeping it that way. If everything had gone according to plan, nobody would be the wiser the next day. Unfortunately, that did not seem to be the case anymore, starting with the dead body on the fifteenth floor.
Dane shrugged. “No idea.”
“Felton, get us out of here. Now,” John said and closed the doors behind him. A moment later, the engine hummed to life. “King’s found us.”
“Dude, you’re freaking me out,” Felton said, eyeing John through the rearview mirror.
“Just shut the hell up and drive,” John said, untangling his dreadlocks with a trembling hand that was nowhere to be seen. If anyone ought to be freaked out, it was definitely not the short Texan.
He turned to Dane, who was still picking glass out of his ugly mug. “So what I don’t understand is how she managed to tear the tape from her eyes and escape down to the lobby?” He looked down at the immobile woman by his feet, willing her to remain unconscious for the time being.
It will be better that way, Olivia.
Felton and Dane exchanged a look before Dane said, “This dumbass took the tape off. How she managed to escape us after that, we have no idea.”
Felton piped in: “I can’t explain it. She told us not to move and next thing we knew, we couldn’t move.”
“So she told you to stay, and you two stayed like good little dogs?” John said. He had heard the commotion down the hall as the two men had led Olivia to the elevator, but he’d figured that since she was basically rendered blind and without use of her arms, that they would have had the situation under control. He should have known that Dumb & Dumber would manage to bungle even the simplest undertaking.
“I can’t explain it,” Dane said. He raised one eyebrow at John. “Add that to the many other unexplainable things tonight.”
“And remember when she told me to get off her? My body just moved away, like she did some voodoo shit or something,” Felton said, glancing back at Olivia’s motionless body.
Felton’s shoulders rose and fell in quick, blasé succession. “She’s got a hot body.”
John clenched his teeth, trying to regulate his breathing. For all his faults, and he had many, there was one rule he had sworn to his mother he’d abide by: to never take advantage of a woman in that way. The very thought that Felton had tried to sexually assault Olivia King made him absolutely livid. “Why the hell would you do that?” he said through gritted teeth, ready to burst out of his transparent skin.
“What?” Felton said, looking at Dane for confirmation. “It’s not like we weren’t going to torture and kill her anyway.”
“That’s different!” John clenched his raw fists, fighting the strong urge to impart another face pummeling.
Dane’s voice sliced through the dark van and slapped John on his invisible face. “Is it?”
Is it? His nose flared as he realized that he’d damned himself the moment he’d begun to entertain the thought of kidnapping an innocent woman. He could just dismount from his high horse now because, truthfully, he was no better than a rapist. And the sooner he embraced that truth, the better off he would be.
His eyes darted down when he heard a soft moan at his feet. A moment later, Olivia’s eyes snapped open and looked around wildly. With a heavy sigh, he retrieved the gun from his waistband.
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