Brink of Dawn (A Chosen Novel Book 2)

by Jeff Altabef

  Frankie scans the floor. “They took out six hoods. That’s a lot.”

  Landon squints at Troy. “You’ve got dried blood on your face. Someone must have gotten a punch in.”

  Frankie waves his hand in front of his face and wrinkles his nose. “Why does it smell like smoke in here? Was there a fire?”

  Troy and I shrug.

  Tara scoots over to join us, her lips turned down. “All the girls are drugged. A few have bruises, but they all seem like they’ve just recently been taken. Hopefully we found them in time, before real harm has been done.”

  “That’s as good as we could have hoped for.” Landon looks at us with bunched eyebrows and narrow eyes. “All right, start talking. Tell us what happened. You two didn’t do this on your own.”

  “We had a little help,” Troy says, “but that’s not important. We found Lilly and stopped these guys, which is the only thing that really counts.”

  “Help from whom?” Frankie steps toward us.

  I figure it’s my turn to contribute. “That’s a strange story. We couldn’t sleep knowing Lilly was in trouble, so we thought we’d walk the streets. You know, get some fresh air. We headed toward the river and ran into this group of guys who were just hanging out on a stoop. Must have been a dozen of them, right Troy?”

  Troy nods, a cheesy grin on his face.

  “We asked if they had seen Lilly and they brought us over here. When we told them what you suspected had happened to her, they were eager to help. We crashed the party and next thing I know, they’re gone and we’re calling you.” I beam a bright smile, twist on the spot, and look toward my feet.

  Frankie snorts and peers out the window. “Can you see that, Bear?”

  “Yeah, I see it.”

  “What’s out there?” I look at the windows.

  “Pigs zipping by the windows, flapping big pig wings.” Frankie chuckles a deep rumble and looks back at me. “Man, you’re one bad liar. That’s a load of bunk. Next time let Troy spin the tale. He couldn’t do any worse. No one’s gonna believe that story.”

  “And if we ask the girls, what are they going to say?” Landon glances at us.

  “They look out of it to me,” I smirk.

  Tara puts her hand on Landon’s shoulder. “She’s right. They’re in no shape to be reliable witnesses.”

  Troy sweeps his arm toward the girls. “We saved three lives. Who cares about the details?”

  Frankie puts one beefy hand on my shoulder and the other on Troy’s and pulls us together. We’re mashed into a giant bear hug that squeezes the air out of me. “You’re right. Whatever happened here, you guys are heroes. You did good. Just call us next time. Guys like these are dangerous. You and your... unknown friends from the stoop might not be so lucky next time.”

  He releases us from the giant three-person hug and I sputter, “What are we going to do now?”

  “Let’s call Susan,” Tara suggests. “She can use a good bust like this, and she’ll wash over some of the... details for us.”

  “Let me guess. Susan is another one of your graduates,” I say.

  “We have a few friends on the NYPD,” says Landon. “Just because this worked out okay, doesn’t mean you two are off the hook with me. We’re going to have a discussion about this. You can’t count on dumb luck. These streets can be dangerous.”

  Frankie winks at us. “Let’s save that for another time, Bear. We should call Susan and get these girls back to the center. They’ve spent way too much time here already.”

  Greasy Hair moans and sits up. Shoelaces bind his hands and feet, but his mouth is free to yap. “Don’t let her near me. She’s a witch!”

  We all stare at him, terror clearly scribbled in the corner of his eyes.

  “What’s he prattling about?” Tara looks back at me.

  “She’s a cracked witch or a chosen vampire or something like that! Keep her away from me!” He frantically kicks the ground with his feet and shuffles backward.

  All eyes turn toward me, so I grin. “You see what drugs do to you? We should take a video of this guy and use it in the infomercials they play at school, Troy.”

  “Yeah, we could call it, ‘This is your brain on drugs.’ They’d love it.”

  Frankie shoots me an amused grin. “I think you’d better get a move on. We’ll tell Susan that we found these dudes from a tip on the street. Arrests should be easy. There’s plenty of evidence of drug use and these girls are obvious kidnapping victims.”

  He doesn’t need to tell us twice, so we scoot down the stairs and back out onto 11th Avenue.

  Troy stops me with a tug on the arm. “So what did Connor say to you in there? You guys were alone for a while.”

  I study his face in the darkness. I’m not sure what I want to find. I look for signs that he’s jealous, but none exist. I’m not even sure if I want him to be jealous. We’ve never had that type of relationship. Since Sicheii died, I don’t think about him like that so much anymore. Still, a little jealousy would by nice.

  “We didn’t talk about much. He offered to toss that guy from the window if I wanted.” I shrug, but there was more to the conversation than that and more than the spoken words. I still feel his fingers stroke my cheek and how he swept the hair from my eyes. I try hard to prevent it, but heat flushes my face anyway.

  Troy frowns. “Be careful with him. He’s a drunk and he’ll let you down.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I turn and spot a 24-hour deli wedged between two larger stores in the middle of the block. “I’m starving. Let’s get something to eat.”

  I buy a ham and cheese sandwich, some chips and a giant bottle of Arizona Iced Tea.

  Troy can’t help himself, so he gets a sketchy burrito that looks a few days old.

  “Are you serious? You’re going to eat that?” I ask him.

  He takes a massive bite. Grease runs down his cheek. “Not terrible,” he mumbles.

  “Right.” I munch down my sandwich in record time.

  “Stewie lives on the first floor of the Inn, right?”

  “That’s what he told us.”

  “Good. I’m going to sneak into his apartment. There’s more that he’s not telling us. I’m sure of it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a great idea,” I say, but I can tell that he’s made up his mind.

  My eyelids open, only a few hours after I crawled into bed. The first rays of morning light beam through the windows and pierce my consciousness better than any alarm clock I’ve ever owned. I groan, stuff a pillow over my head, and try to lie still, keep my eyes shut, and go back to sleep, but it’s useless. Faces and thoughts swirl in my mind. The harder I try to sleep, the faster they twist, until they whirl into a vortex that threatens to suck me down into some dark pit.

  That pit scares me.

  I stretch and tiptoe around the suite.

  Troy snores on the couch with his face mashed against a cushion, one leg hung over the side, and his right arm flopped on top of his head. He’ll sleep for hours, and I don’t want to wake him. One of us should get some rest.

  He left the book Landon gave him on the cocktail table. I snatch it and jump back on the bed. Sydney’s name is written in red ink on the inside cover with her cell phone number scrawled underneath it. When did she write that? I grip the cover harder and smolder at the perfectly cute loopy letters she used to sign her name.

  What’s her role with us? How does she figure in? Stuart, I understand. He’s the Host and although he’s quirky and a bit rough, at least he makes sense. He’s here to help us defeat the Deltites. He doesn’t want them to take over the universe. Fine, I can put him into a mental folder. He might not care about us or about Earth even, but he does care about stopping the Deltites and that’s probably good enough.

  Sydney, on the other hand, is not a Chosen and she doesn’t fit the mold of a secret keeper. Not like Sicheii, and from what I’ve gathered from the other Chosen, not like those in charge of their Orders. She’s too young
, for starters, and I can’t picture her self-sacrificing for the good of others. She’s too beautiful with perfect ringlets, full lips, a golden tan, and a small cute nose. She reminds me of the girls back at my fancy private school.

  It might just be pettiness—I’m certainly not above pettiness—but I’ll fetter better once I understand why she’s helping us. Maybe Stuart showers her with money? That could explain her involvement, but money only goes so far. Once things become dodgy and her life’s on the line, she’ll bolt. Money can’t buy loyalty.

  Not like Troy. He’ll stay with me until the end, if I let him.

  I turn the page, doing my best to ignore the offensive Sydney signature and phone number, and start reading. The two-hundred-and-fifty-page paperback takes me twenty minutes to finish. It used to take me forever to get through a book, but now the words whip past me and, even weirder, I’m able to remember every one. Odd facts spring to my mind: approximately 500 Native Americans lived on Manhattan when they sold it to the Dutch; approximately 500 Native Americans live on Manhattan today.

  While the particular Tribe who populated the island was called Manhattanoes like Troy said, they were part of the broader Legunes people. The Manhattanoes used the island mostly for sheep and goats and a few crops. It didn’t have much value to them since the land wasn’t particularly fertile. Only after the Dutch settled the island and it became useful as a port did Manhattan’s true value come to light.

  All these facts flash through my mind as I put down the paperback. I consider adding speed-reading as another aberrant trait, but we’ve all seen those commercials where people learn how to whip through books—not as fast as I raced through this one, but close enough. I don’t want to add to my aberrant traits, as the number is getting perilously close to ten. Somehow I just know that once those traits reach double digits, I won’t be able to fool myself into believing I’m still normal.

  As if I can do so now.

  Needing to waste more time, I grab all the books off the bookshelf on the far wall and pile them on the bed. It makes quite an eclectic collection: eight worn romantic paperbacks that Stuart has no doubt read, six encyclopedias that cover the entire alphabet, two thrillers, and one book about World War Two. Nothing I’d choose to read under normal circumstances, but that’s all there is, so I prop up two of the pillows against the headboard and work my way through them.

  By the time I start the sixth romance novel, I can read it by flipping the pages. I don’t even have to pause and look at the words anymore; my mind registers them in a stream of data. It takes me only five minutes to finish an entire book. I stare at the last two romance books I haven’t read, but decide against zipping through them. I keep inserting Troy and Connor into the stories, and my head has started to hurt.

  I shove the books off to the side and think about Connor: the deep wells behind his eyes, his slightly bent nose, the way his touch is both strong and gentle at the same time. There’s so much more to him than his drinking and his cocky attitude.

  I’m sure Troy would see it, if he let himself. They’re not that different once you peel back the surface. Argh!

  Desperate to chase Connor and Troy from my mind, I meander my way through the encyclopedias. They take longer to read, as I have to stop and scan the entire page before going on to the next. I don’t mind. At least it eats up time.

  Eventually Sydney knocks on the door and calls out. “Wake up. We’ve got places to go! Everybody rise and shine and meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes!”

  I groan. Sydney is the last person with whom I want to spend the day.

  Troy rolls over, flops off the couch, and falls to the floor. “What’s going on? Fire or something?” He shakes the sleep from his eyes.

  “Your girlfriend, Sydney, wants us downstairs in fifteen minutes.” The edge in my voice irritates even me. It’s too late to correct it now, but luckily Troy acts as if he didn’t hear it.

  “Oh.” He squints at the clock on the wall. It’s eight thirty. “I feel like I just went to sleep.” He stretches and points to the pile of books on my bed. “Some light reading?” He looks at me, a worried expression chiseled into his face. “Still having problems sleeping.”

  “Why sleep when there are so many tantalizing encyclopedias to read? I may never close my eyes again.”

  “Just don’t start spouting off facts like our friend Marlon back home. No one likes a showoff.” He pads his way to the bathroom to get ready.

  We leave the Inn seventeen minutes later. To my surprise, Blake, Akari, and Connor are all waiting with Sydney. I wonder if they have problems sleeping as well.

  She checks her watch and frowns.

  “Where’s Stuart?” I ask.

  “He’s not coming with us,” says Blake. “Apparently he has better things to do.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Sydney points to the Zip Car behind her. “We’re all headed for an outing to the Bronx Zoo for some team building. It’s my favorite place in New York.”

  Blake moans. “Well, I don’t want to go. It’ll be crowded, and do you know how many diseases kids carry with them? They’re little germ magnets, sneezing and coughing all over the place.”

  Sydney opens the passenger door. “You’re not going to get sick.”

  Troy rubs his stomach. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay behind. That burrito I ate last night is staging a revolution in my stomach.”

  Sydney frowns. “I was hoping you’d squeeze in next to me, but if you’re sick you should stay here.”

  “I’m sick too,” whines Blake.

  “Get in the car.” Akari shoves him in the back.

  I glance at Troy, who winks at me. He’s not ill. He wants to sneak around Stuart’s apartment.

  Uneasiness washes over me.

  I mouth ‘Be careful’ before squeezing into the Zip Car.

  Sydney turns off the Bronx River Parkway and pulls into a crowded parking lot on the east side of the zoo. We unfold ourselves from the small car and follow her as she bounces toward the park entrance, her curly ringlet-infused hair flowing behind her like a cloud.

  I wonder how long it took her to make it so perfect. My straight black hair hangs lifeless in comparison, like overcooked spaghetti.

  “I’ve never been to a zoo before.” Akari looks excited, and for once we’re just normal teenagers out for a day of fun.

  “Well, zoos are horrible, smelly places.” Blake trudges behind us. “Snotty kids run around spewing germs everywhere, and the animals probably have exotic diseases that no one knows how to cure when we catch them.”

  “That’s rubbish. London has a cracking good zoo. I’ve never heard of anyone getting sick.” Connor tucks a water bottle into his back pocket.

  I look at it suspiciously. Does he need to drink booze just to visit the zoo?

  Sydney pays for our admittance and we stroll through the gates. A golden sun hangs high above us, an island in a rich blue ocean that’s interrupted by only a handful of white puffy beaches.

  We pass a stream on the right and reach the first animal exhibit—the bison. Four clusters of animals gather in far-flung groups in a large pasture. One grand, majestic creature stands not more than fifty feet from us, his head up as he studies onlookers with a wary gleam in his eyes.

  We approach a wooden stockade-style fence and peer at the lone animal.

  “It looks like a cow with a furry head and neck,” says Blake, obviously unimpressed.

  “It’s got to be twice the size of any bloody cows I’ve seen,” says Connor. “I’d like to see you try and milk that thing.”

  I lean against the fence. “The bison is my favorite animal. They were like an early version of Walmarts for Native Americans. We used every bit of the meat for food, the skins for clothing and blankets, and the bones for tools and weapons. The bladders were used for canteens and the horns became spoons. We even made bowls out of the skins from their heads.”

  Connor slides next to me and grips the top of the
fence, his fingers brushing against mine.

  Heat sears my skin and flows between us where his pinky touches me. Ridiculous, I know, but I can’t help but wonder if he does it on purpose or even notices the connection. Still, my hand is frozen in place.

  “Aren’t they almost extinct?” Blake stands behind us.

  “Almost.” I pull my thoughts away from Connor’s hand and glance at Blake. “Once hunters showed up with rifles, they killed off the herds. The bison never stood a chance. Now they’re protected and making a comeback.”

  A few years ago, Sicheii told me a story about the vast herds that roamed the plains and the symbiotic relationship between the people and the animals. A sad look settled in his eyes when he finished the story, so I asked him what was wrong.

  He sounded angry. “It’s a crime to kill animals for sport. We have no greater right to live on Mother Earth than the bison or the hawk or fish.”

  “But that was a long time ago,” I told him.

  The heat in his eyes melted and turned watery. “Yes, Little Bird, but man’s selfishness leaves long ripples. How wonderful would it be if we could stand on the plains and see the great herds as our ancestors once did?”

  “They’re magnificent.” Akari snaps me from my memory.

  Sydney hoots. “They look like ugly beasts.” She smirks at me, as if she’s really talking about me instead of the bison. “Let’s each pick one favorite animal to see. This way we’ll make sure we get them all in. Juliet’s already chosen the bison, so how about you Connor? What will it be?”

  Connor turns and lifts his hand in the process. His fingers, coarse yet gentle, sweep against the length of my hand and send a tingling sensation up my arm.

  “How about the gorillas? They’re genetically close to humans. All of a sudden, I feel like we have a lot in common.”

  Blake smiles. It’s the same genuine smile he had last night in the old building. It looks good on him. “Well, I thought you’d say the baboons. You share a few features with them also.”

  Connor scowls and raises himself up on his toes so he towers over Blake.

  I can tell he’s just joking, but from the anxious look on Blake’s face, I don’t think he realizes it.