Soul Frequency (Frequency Series Book 2)

by Shane Scollins

  She looked around. “I don’t see anyone here.”

  “Yeah, this is still new. I never used to have this feeling except like three seconds before someone died. Now it seems to be building farther down the road.”

  “Remember the car dealership, think back to how you felt just before you pushed those kids out of the path of the car.”

  Jordan closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. “I remember, but that was still only a few seconds.”

  “Well the warning will become more controlled, it won’t hit so hard the instant before it will build in and give you time to get to the next lesson. Thinking back to that instant before the car careened out of control, is that how you feel now?”

  He thought about the question with a twist of his lips. “No, it’s different.”

  She shifted in the seat to face him more directly. “Okay, use your feelings and direct your energy towards that goal, see it, feel it and ask yourself, is there someplace you feel you need to be?”

  It hit him like a both of electricity. Jordan slammed the gas pedal to the floor sending the SUV lurching forward. He cut the wheel hard until the tires moaned in protest. Spinning the SUV around, he turned down a residential street. This area of New Jersey was not familiar to him, he’d never been here before but he suddenly knew he had to go this way. Exactly where he was heading he didn’t even know.

  Kayci reached up and took hold of the grip handle on the A-pillar. “Where’re you going?”

  “No clue.”

  “You’re going there in a hurry.”

  “I know.” The road came to an end there was no way to go except through someone’s yard so he did, smashing through a wooden fence and blazing a path through a thin swath of bushes and small trees.

  Back into the open, across a grassy area the SUV launched off a tall curb and slammed down onto the black asphalt. They were in the rear parking lot of a large mall.

  Jordan was surprised where he’d ended up but felt the pull and navigated around the backside of the gray stucco building. Swinging around to the front, they came to the large anchor store at the end. The mall looked moderately occupied for middle afternoon. He stopped the vehicle and turned off the engine.

  The sunlight beamed, the blue sky looked peaceful and a calming silence settled over them. A few circling crows squawked but Jordan knew something was so very wrong.

  Climbing out of the SUV he stood there by the hood looking at the store. Kayci stood next to him and said, “I don’t feel anything sketchy in the local frequencies. What is it you’re feeling?”

  He shook his head slowly, the feeling was changing to something else and when people came busting through the glass doors in a screaming panic what was happening became painfully obvious.

  Kayci, being Kayci, drew her pistol and ran straight towards the gunfire that erupted from the store. Jordan, being Jordan, followed her without thinking.

  They got into the store, fighting the stream of people pouring out. The gunshots were still popping off somewhere in the vast building. By the shear volume of shots, Jordan expected to be climbing over piles of bodies but he hadn’t seen a single victim yet.

  It was odd, usually when death comes looking for him, he finds it right away. This whole chasing the pending death scenario was freaking him out a bit. The pain in his head that usually came after these episodes was already starting to build and that made him think he was too late, and that someone he was supposed to save had already died.

  They came up to an escalator and quickly traversed the metal steps. When they reached the top, they came face-to-face with a young man holding an assault rifle at a crowd of employees and customers.

  “Drop it!” Kayci yelled.

  The young man had tears streaming down his face. Constant twitches attacked his lips and eyes, and he jerked the gun side to side. Jordan knew if he squeezed that trigged six people would be instantly dead or wounded.

  This was not the first time Jordan had faced a crazed gunman. In fact, it was something with which he was all too familiar. And like every other time he was unarmed with anything other than his rapier wit.

  Jordan stepped past Kayci to face the man. She knew better than to try and stop him but she kept her gun trained on the young shooter.

  “Hey, man.” Jordan said. “You don’t want to do this.”

  The kid slid his eyes to Jordan. His crazy brown hair and wild almond eyes just seemed like they didn’t fit with his attire. He was wearing nice black slacks and a white and red button-down shirt with a red tie. Jordan didn’t know anything about fashion but he knew expensive clothes when he saw them, especially since all his clothes came from the bargain racks.

  Jordan moved closer to the group of people, hoping the kid would put the gun on him but he didn’t. “Hey, what’s your name?”

  He looked back at Jordan, his nervous feet and facial ticks didn’t slow. “I’m Br-Br-Brett.”

  “Hi, Br-Br-Brett, do you always stutter?”

  Brett looked at him and firmed his lips. “N-N-N-Noooo! I don’t stutter—don’t stutter.”

  “Did you just start now?” Jordan looked at him.

  Finally, Brett pointed the gun at Jordan. “You idiot no—no you idiot!”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Brett took one hand off the gun and smacked himself in the side of the head. “I don’t know—don’t know—I don’t know what’s wrong with meeeeeee!”

  Jordan turned his palms towards Brett. “Hey, Brett, I get it, sometimes we all want to snap. But this isn’t the way to do it. Maybe we could go buy some watermelons and just smash the heck out of them.” Jordan looked over the crowd of people, trying to understand which one he was there to save. He saw two young female bodies on the floor. They were already long gone.

  Brett looked up at Jordan and jabbed the assault rifle at him with a grunt. The ticks in his face went away, his body language changed from a jerky slouch to an upright aggressive stance. His wide eyes narrowed and he calmly brought the gun to his shoulder.

  The crack-crack of the gun was loud but no bullets flew from the assault rifle. Kayci had ended the threat. Brett was down. Jordan moved over to him, bent down to look at his face. The kid looked up at him, fear and pain in his eyes slowly drifted away into the mercy of death.

  Jordan brought his hand to his face, then ran it through is thick hair. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  Kayci holstered her pistol and said, “He was going to kill you.”

  “He was a mixed up kid. I could have talked him down.”

  “He was going to kill you.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Trust me. He was going to kill you.”

  He looked at her and the moment he met her green eyes, he knew. “You know, don’t you?”

  Kayci looked around. “We need to go.”

  Chapter 6

  Jordan gave Stormy, his all black cat, some fresh water and sat on the couch in the basement. He didn’t plan to stay in his mother’s basement for any length of time. It was just supposed to be a layover. After leaving Syracuse, he planned on heading south for a while to get out of the winters. He’d spent two years in upstate New York between Buffalo and Syracuse and he needed a break. Moving around was something he’d done all his life to unsuccessfully escape the creeping battles against random death that followed him around. It never worked but he tried anyway.

  Under ordinary circumstances, he’d just go, hit the road, split the scene. But now with Kayci, he wasn’t really sure how to proceed. He wasn’t used to being part of a couple, not one that was likely to be together for more than a month. He and Kayci were linked for life now, there was no way possible he’d ever be able to get her out of his head. The link they opened up can never be broken. She explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that two people of like frequencies can’t do what they did without side effects, without opening that forever link. Yeah, it’s bizarre, no doubt about it.

  He was sad about the deaths at the ma
ll. If only he’d gotten there sooner, maybe he could have prevented them. But as Anna warned, maybe those weren’t his to prevent. Being a savior frequency wasn’t something he asked for, but now that he knew what he was the trick was how to learn to deal with it. What bothered him the most, was that he was pretty certain the person he was pulled there to save, was the gunman.

  Kayci sat next to him and handed him an orange soda. “I know you weren’t asking for a soda but I took a chance.”

  He reached out and gripped the can. “I was just thinking about us.”

  “Me too.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “You’re life has been all disjointed again. I get that.”

  “Because so has yours.” Jordan sipped his soda. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t being selfish.”

  “I know you weren’t.”

  “I just don’t know what to do next.”

  She touched his hand. “I think you do.”

  “It’s a lot of pressure, being linked to you for life. I don’t want to disappoint you by not being what you think I am, or can be. I’m nothing special. I’m just a car mechanic who happens to cook at a gourmet level. I don’t want to be less than you need.”

  She slid her arm around him. “You’re all that I need. I’m always here for you, Jordan. Wherever you need to go, whenever you need to go there, we can figure it out together. We just have to be open and honest with each other all the time, no matter what. Most couples don’t work because they lack that brutal honesty. Sometimes it will be hard to hear the truth and sometime it will hurt but it will always lead to a resolution. You’re still learning yourself, and us. It’s a learning curve for me too but we can learn it together. You just have to trust in me, and I have to trust in you. It’s going to take time just like any other couple to get to that sweet spot.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “We just have a bit more transparency than most couples. It’s nothing to fret over.”

  He nodded slowly. “Why didn’t I get there in time today?”

  “Maybe those people weren’t yours to save.”

  He thought for a second. “Brett.”

  “What about him.”

  “I think he was mine. I was supposed to save him.”

  She shook her head. “No, can’t be, you must be mistaken. He was psychotic. He would have killed twenty people if we didn’t get there. There’s no reason to save someone like that.”

  Jordan shook his head adamantly. “No, I don’t believe for a second that whatever is in my head would have me save someone so evil. Do you?”

  “Jordan, there is no exact science to what we are, what we do. I’m not a savior frequency, but I do understand more of what you’re going through than anyone else on this Earth. And as with any ability such as ours, sometimes things seem one way but they’re not what they seem. It’s possible you were there to save one of those people in that crowd and you did.”

  “But I wasn’t drawn to any of them, I was drawn to Brett, and I played it wrong.”

  “You played it right.”

  “But how? I mean, then why do I feel like I failed?”

  Kayci sighed. “I don’t know. I’m sorry you feel that way, maybe it’s for another reason entirely.”

  “When I saved the girls at the car dealer, and when I saved the kid at the skate park in Ohio—I felt a very specific type of thing. I didn’t feel that this time. I know it now, I’m sure of it. I was meant to save Brett.”

  Kayci leaned back into the couch. “Okay, maybe you were. But why? And what does it mean if you had? You would have saved him to go directly to jail for life?”

  “I’m not sure. What’s the reason I’m supposed to save anyone? Is it just to save a life? Is it to do some greater good in the world?”

  “The butterfly effect.”

  “Maybe…maybe saving him was somehow going to affect another unseen event. What do we know about Brett?”

  Kayci took out her phone and started scrolling through what she could find. “Brett Khoaler twenty-one years old, grew up in Livingston, New Jersey, got an associates degree from County College of Morris, he’d been working at Simms Menswear as a sales associate for a year…comes from an upper middle class family, mother is a paralegal father is a chemist, one sibling an older sister named Meredith.”

  “Any criminal history?”

  “None, not even a speeding violation.”

  “And I’m assuming no psychological history?”

  “None whatsoever, he was an above average student as best I can tell, was planning to go back to college to get his degree in accounting. According to his social media threads he was an avid hiker and enjoyed playing golf.”

  “Okay, does that sound like someone who would go berserk and shoot up a mall?”

  Kayci narrowed her eyes at him. “No, but in most cases they don’t. What’re you looking for here?”

  Jordan stood and paced around. “I don’t know exactly but something is really bothering me. I wish I could talk to Anna.”

  Kayci got up and stopped his pacing with a palm to his chest. “Hey, you’re getting worked up. You need to chill out. The more upset you become the harder it is to concentrate.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “Remember what I told you about anger. It’s no friend to a psychic. It can sap your energy and interfere with all the frequency channels.”

  Jordan took a few deep breaths. “I’m calm, really. I just want to know what we can do.”

  “About what? Brett is dead. If he was the one you were supposed to save, it’s too late now.”

  He looked at her and gave her a hug. “I need food.” Ever since his powers started to develop, he’d been eating twice as much as normal. He’s not putting on any weight but he’s hungry all the time.

  * * *

  Kayci felt a little strange having someone cook for her, and even stranger having someone clean up the meal and not let her help. Jordan was an amazing cook and she didn’t want that plate of honey-peanut chicken to end, but at the same time she couldn’t eat it slow. He also wouldn’t let her do the dishes, because he said it was some sort of meditation for him. There was no way she was going to argue with that. Show her a woman who didn’t want a hot guy cooking and cleaning because she’s never met one.

  The truth is she wasn’t used to home-cooked meals in general. After her mother killed herself and she ended up living with her aunt and uncle, she didn’t get many meals at home. They had no kids and didn’t really know how to deal with a teenager. They were used to eating out and continued to do so with Kayci there or not. She ate a lot of meals at diners and restaurants and cafés. They were usually tasty but of course lacked that knowing familiarity of home-cooked meals.

  She glanced over at Jordan as he dried off the dishes. He was struggling with the transition. Since he started emerging, it had been a whirlwind and he didn’t have time to really think things through and experience what was happening to him with some quiet time. And now there was something else at play here that she couldn’t quite put a finger on. She didn’t want to worry him but it was more serious than she led on.

  Moving over to the kitchen sink, she slid her arms around his waist and kissed him on the back of the neck. His body unexpectedly buckled and he nearly fell straight to the ground.

  She propped him up and once he was stable stepped back. “Are you okay?”

  He turned to face her. “That was different.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” He leaned on the counter top. “It was like one of those spells I started getting when we first met. I almost blacked out again.”

  Kayci quickly examined his line of frequency to see if anything showed up but nothing did. She didn’t want to worry, but there were some scary similarities to the kid from Toronto they’d tried to cultivate a couple years ago. She took him by the arm. “You should sit down.”

  Leading him across the kitchen, she moved him into the small living room and eased him onto
the brown leather sofa.

  Jordan moaned out a breath. “That was strange.”

  “What did you feel exactly?” She studied his face. His eyes didn’t look right, the pupils were dilated and they looked glassy.

  He thought about the question. “It was a massive download.”

  “What was it?”

  “I’m not sure, give me a second.” He sat back and looked at the white popcorn ceiling. “It doesn’t really make sense as usual. It’s like just a jumbled mess of images and words.”

  “It will take you time to learn how to sift. What you need to do is look at the lines of frequency, and try to smooth them, in a matter of speaking anyway. You’ll never sort it all out after a big download, it’s too hard. Your mind always stores bits of data as it trickles in. Right now, you’re just randomizing and not really locked full time on the energy around you. Eventually you’ll learn to do it without thinking about it. Look at my frequency right now.”

  Jordan concentrated, and she started sending him bits of data. It was still something he was getting used to. Brain waves were just all around and when they connected with his it was so very cool. It happens to everyone, people like he and Kayci are just able to recognize that it’s real and not just a gut feeling or intuition. If someone around you makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, that’s their frequency data invading your brain. Pay attention to your feelings, they are real. If someone gives you a good feeling, and you connect with them, their waves are stepping into your head.

  Kayci said, “Now, see those peaks and valleys?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Look closer. There are staggered little bits of data within each line. What looks smooth is actually filled with tiny ridges of data. Can you see it and feel it?”

  He nodded. “I see it, but it’s so fast how can I read it that quick?”

  “It’s a feeling. You’ll learn it in time. But now that you know they’re there you’ll get there quicker. Your mind will start to understand until it becomes second nature. You have a lot to learn still. It’s a slow process.”

  “I know. Just when I think I understand, I realize how little I understand.”