She stood about the same height as Flavia – five foot two – had larger breasts, though, with hips already ripening to maturity. She wore bright blue Capri pants, a white t-shirt with blue lettering stating something trendy and a pair of white flats upon her feet.
Johan walked into the T.V. room from the door opposite the one the two teen girls had entered. His eyes darted over to Jolene and immediately his entire demeanor changed. He went from his usual half-arrogant saunter, to some slack shouldered geek in the matter of seconds.
What the fuck is this? I remember thinking as Jolene’s face suddenly lit up. I swore I saw a sheepish smirk play along the lines of my brother’s mouth.
I sent a pair of raised eyebrows in Flavia’s direction. To which, she replied, by rolling her orbs in disgust as if she were beyond weary of the situation. “Come on, Jol, let’s go to my room,” she suggested with a beckoning gesture to her friend.
“I think Johan has a kissing friend,” whispered Katie in my ear, which made me nod involuntarily. I couldn’t get my head around my fourteen year old brother capturing the attention of a girl two years his senior. I should’ve known I wasn’t the only one who was good with the girls. It’s in the blood!
“Can Johan come too?” asked Jolene in a voice that didn’t sound quite her own. She seemed to catch herself and she swallowed quickly, clearing her throat. “I mean to hang out too, you know,” she added with a hand coming to rest between her neck and chest.
Must’ve been one hell of a make-out session, I thought.
By then, all of us, were riveted to the scene unfolding before us.
Flavia’s threw up her arms in supplication, spun on a heel and walked out. “Well, come on you guys,” she called from the stairs as Johan walked up to Jolene and whispered a soft “hello” that none of us can hear, but we could make it out by the way his lips moved.
Jolene just smiled as she turned gracefully to follow my step-sister though her eyes never left Johan’s. Together they walked from the room, a numb silence in their wake.
“Oh shit, Eff, your brother’s got game too,” bubbled Ramona, at my side, making the couch bounce, as she giggled deep her throat, smiling so widely, her entire face was bunched up. Her eyes were mere slits she could barely see through.
“I swear I could see that girls toes curling in her shoes,” muttered Leda, out of the corner of her mouth. Suddenly, she let her typically sour veneer drop and laughed just as throatily as my girlfriend.
Sandy edged to the end of couch, “one-bunning it” as my mother was fond of saying. “I would say that was at least a second-base reaction right there,” commented the girl her smiling like the others.
“Could even be third…,” peppered Katie, her eyes still gazing upon the spot where three others had vanished from sight.
That made Ramona laugh even harder. “Man-o-man, Johan got some titties!” she wheezed. She was chortling too much to do much else, which made all the girls explode with laughter.
I just sat there, unsure if I was happy for Johan or if I was sad that my little brother was growing up. I mean, he had always been at my heels, following me, asking questions, my constant companion. This was before my mother had married my step-father and, suddenly, our house was full with people again. In my mind’s eye, he had gone from that little boy, that curious, happy little boy to something else, something more akin to me. Had he really sucked on that girl’s tits? Had he felt her up, put his hand atop the mound of her pussy or cupped her ass? Was it possible that he would know what to do? Would he know the right time to do it?
I look back and I can see just how naive I was, at times, when it came to those around me, especially when it came to members of my family. Of course, he knew what to do and when to do it just as I had when I was his age. What the fuck was I thinking? I lost my virginity when I was twelve. True, she was older than me, and true, I hadn’t known what the fuck I was doing, but I had inklings. Even back then, when it took only seven or eight pumps into a girl before I blew my load, I had an idea. Unpracticed novice or not, why wouldn’t Johan know? Why was I so special? I wasn’t. Johan was my brother and that should’ve been enough to explain it.
“You ok, Effy?” asked Katie with a grin still plastered to her face. I must have looked at her like an idiot, because her smile froze in place for a moment. She read me and her levity returned - full force. “Ha-ha, Jeez, Effy, what did you think, that you’d be the only one to get a crack at some pussy?”
“I-I just hadn’t really thought about… Johan,” I stammered not sure what else to say.
“We all grow up, babe,” said Ramona sagely, still bouncing here and there with laughter. She wiped at her eyes, so her mascara wouldn’t run.
“Yeah, I know, but still. It was kinda weird to see in person, you know.”
“You think he might have a ‘power’ similar to Estefan’s?” asked Leda. The thought had just occurred to her and she was obviously scared by the notion.
“Naw,” replied Ramona at once, making us all gaze in her direction. She looked from one set of eyes to another. “He’s different.”
“Has he got sick yet?” asked Sandy, looking from me to Katie since we’re his family and had been with him the most over the last few days.
“Not that I know of,” I answered with a shrug off my shoulders.
Katie shook her head in the negative, but stayed silent.
A thought occurred to me and I turned to Ramona. “Will he get sick eventually?”
She nodded slowly, but there was little pause in between the end of my question and the movement of her head.
She had known for some time, came the notion, which invoked a deeper version of the same line of thought. “How many of us will get sick do you think?”
She tilted her head to the side, studying something etched on the inside of her skull. A barely hidden smile was etched for lips for a moment or two. This was a thing she always did when someone had asked something serious of her and put her on the spot.
She was abruptly downtrodden. “Every one of us, in this house right now, who hasn’t been sick yet, will be within the next few days.”
My eyes bulged at that, because I hadn’t expected her answer to be such a wide swath of my family and friends. Jesus Christ every fucking one of us!?!
“We’re becoming Mutos, huh?” asked Leda quietly from the other side of Ramona.
“Yes,” was all Ramona said.
“Which means… sooner or later, someone’s gonna snitch on us and the NIA Special Division will come for us,” added Katie as a matter of fact, devoid of emotion. “And then there’s no telling what they’ll do. Everyone that gets corralled by those bastards disappears permanently. I’ve never heard of a person being released once they’ve been captured.”
“What’da’ya think they’ll do to us?” wondered Sandy allowed, more to herself than any of us, but loud enough that it sounded like a question.
“Nothing good, Sandra,” began Leda. Her eyes were direct, hard about the edges. “What would you do if you were a member of an all-powerful government organization with a Muto teenager in your grasp?” Every one of us looked her way. “They’d do their worst, that’s what they’d do.”
God that sounded horrid!
“You really believe it is that bad?” Sandy always had an overly optimistic outlook on life. She just didn’t tend to see the worst of things, even when it was staring her straight in the face.
“Come on, girl, after experimenting on you in every possible way, don’t you think they’d turn to more basic methods of torture?” Leda could be callous at times - thick headed and callous, on the verge of being mean. “They’d be raping you every hour on the hour until you couldn’t take it no more and died of exhaustion before anything else.” She paused to shake her head. “Fuck, Sandy, why do you have to be so childish sometimes.”
Sandy was staring at her in abject horror. Her mouth was working, but nothing sound coming forth for a few seconds. “They’d do that
?” she choked.
“Jeez, Leda, why do you have to act that way?” I demanded more than a little annoyed at the girl, especially after everything she had done earlier up in the Loft. You’d think she’d have garnered a shred of humility, but apparently not.
“What, Effy? Look at her, she freakin’ hot, what lame ass, turnkey wouldn’t want his way with her,” was her justification for being rude.
“You’re hot too, Leda, who wouldn’t want a crack at your ass?” I countered, deliberating looking her up and down.
She squirmed upon the couch. “Yeah, I know…,” she responded timidly, then looked over at Ramona her brow knitting. “Get you man under control, girl. He’s creeping me out with those eyes of his.”
“You deserve it, Leda. Besides, Effy, makes a good point, it’ll be bad for all of us, if we’re caught, so maybe… instead of fighting, we should – I don’t know, stop all the bullshit and put our heads together, because this Muto-shit isn’t going away. Sooner or later, something is going to happen and it’s not going to be good. In fact, I think it’s going to be bad – real, real bad…” She trailed off.
A profound, but charged, silence followed her prophetic words. Every one of us felt a tingling sensation at the back of our necks. We felt the unease run up and down our spines, because we knew then and there, together – as one, Ramona had spoken the absolute truth.
[He is compelled to speak with an unaltered mind.]
My little prophet of a girlfriend, I really need to convey to you just how grateful I am that you’ve been by my side all of these years, grateful you’ve saved us all from utter disaster time after time… I love you, Babes!
Anyhow, I regress… sorry.
[He sinks into what has gone before.]
…So we shared a long, intense look of mutual understanding, feeling for the first time, the gravity of what was happening. It was unsettling, awkward upon our shoulders. This was no longer about me and Katie or Ramona, or anything remotely like what we thought this summer would be like. No, this was different. Our group was getting bigger and would continue to do so. If we were going to keep everyone safe and out of the clutches of the NIA, we were going to have to start coordinating like a team, especially against the likes of their Shock Troops. They were armed to the teeth and used lethal force without question. We had to be better, now that our future’s had all changed.
“You won’t let them take me, will you, Eff?”
I twisted to look at Sandy, right into the pool of those light brown orbs, uncaring of who was watching. “No, Sandy, I will not.”
“Promise?”
“Of course,” I replied, my voice deeper than I had intended, which almost made me apologize. I chanced a quick glance at Ramona, who was looking back at me in resignation, her eyes welling.
She leaned forward, taking her legs from my lap and whispered accusatorially, “I told you!”
I shrugged a wordless, “what?”
She breathed in my ear, so close her tongue flicked my earlobe more than once. “You don’t even know it, Steve, but they are both falling for you. I can fucken read it in their minds!”
“What - ?” I started to say when little Martín came running into the room - full tilt.
“Effy, Effy, Effy!”
“What, big guy, what’s the deal?” I asked trying to get him to calm down. He came right up to me, little chest heaving.
He was breathing so heavily from running. It took him a few minutes to get in a word edgewise.
“I-I-I went to Flavia’s room to get, umm… to get her to fix my parachute guy, because… well, he got all tangled, and I saw Johan kissing a GIRL!!! Yuck and gross, dude!”
I laughed out loud. The swings in our conversations couldn’t have been more dramatic, even if I’d planned them. The twists and turns so unexpected, all I could do was act out of instinct. The whole shit was fucking crazy.
Martín stared at me wide-eyed for a few moments, trying with all of his six-year-old intellect to understand why I was laughing at something that, to him, was so intrinsically disgusting. I should be barffing out my guts, not laughing like a hyena.
I reached over and mussed his straight, jet-black hair. For some reason, my mom had always cut in a bowl-like shape, except for his bangs, which were usually an inch shorter than the rest of his mop. He was a beautiful little boy. I’m not saying that because he was my half-brother. No, he was adorable. He had big, dimpled cheeks and pale skin, dark eyes to match his very dark hair. He was not skinny or over weight, but proportioned somewhere right in the middle. He was solid, but not husky, and he was the keenest little guy I have ever known.
When I look back through the many, many, many years – and I am not exaggerating, I have lived for a long, long time. Every time I’d gone to the Doctor’s office, to watch him administer a sonogram, so he could tell me the sex of one of my many unborn children. Every time it was male, secretly, I have wished to see a face like Martín’s upon his birth. I never have though. I’m still looking for him, even in crowds or on the public Starliners. The nostalgic, old-school part of me still looks for him. I miss you, Marty. I wish I could see you one more time…
On that day, when he had come up to me horrified over Johan’s descent into ultimate betrayal, I merely asked what Flavia was doing. For a second, he seemed mad, outraged that I hadn’t taken him seriously. His eyes narrowed, because it didn’t seem to bother me that Johan was putting his lips upon a female, that he was putting his tongue into her mouth. Then, he got it. The light bulb went on and he understood. His entire demeanor changed. He became more like a mad scientist than the cherubic six-year-old boy he had been at the time.
“She’s mad, Effy… watching TV, but I can tell she’s mad.”
I could see it clearly in my mind, Johan and Jolene frolicking upon Flavia’s bed, making out like crazy, while she’s forced to watch TV. She would hear everything as they jostled and annoyed her with each and every smacking, slurping sound. I chuckled again.
“Why don’t you go ask her to fix our toy and maybe that’ll stop Johan from kissing that ugly… nasty… creepy girl!” I supplied a big smile for him and reached out to tickle him.
He easily evaded me, more than used to my tactics. He bounded a few step away, made to leave. He stopped suddenly, a grin on his face, so wide it appeared about to split his skull in twain. “I don’t think she’s creepy, Effy! SHE’S CUTE!!!”
Before I could so much as move, he was gone.
“Oh my god, Estefan, is every single one of the males in your family a fucking chick magnet! He’s adorable!” gushed Sandy.
It’s in the blood, baby doll…
“They are all like that, girl,” concluded my girlfriend. “These boys are dangerous…”
“Yup,” added Katie, secretly pinching my side, which tickled like a bitch.
That was when my cell twitched alongside my thigh and I moved to read the incoming text. The specificity of the notification decried what sort of message it was.
“Hey Dick, gonna call the house in like 10. No cells today, hardline only!”
It was Jacob. His message meant he had news. In fact, new serious enough, he didn’t want anyone else to hear, but me.
“Hey, guys,” I announced over the general din of the girls still immersed in conversation about us Ernando boys.
One at a time they stopped.
“Jacob’s got some cheese on what happened to Tirza’s sister.”
That got their attention and the room was deadly silent in an instant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Chapter 32 ~
(Summer – 2018)
An Ugly Discovery
“You know, Eff, we gotta talk about Tirza,” declared Ramona a second or two after I announced my cousin had news.
“Yeah, I know,” I began thoughtfully. “I think all of you are pretty much in agreement when it comes to me meeting her. To be honest, I really don’t want meet her myself.” That got Ramona’s attention, bu
t not in the fashion I had intended. She was thinking I thought Tirza was lying about her true intentions. I had to remedy that, quickly. “I’m not saying I don’t believe her when she says it has nothing to do with her and me. About that, I have no doubt, she doesn’t think of me in that way anymore, and neither do I. I just don’t see the value of meeting with her under any circumstances. I don’t know, so much has happened between the two of us, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“What I don’t like about the whole thing is, she won’t tell you why she needs to talk with you. And, why is she so desperate in the first place?” Katie speculated, moving from me to sit on her knees. She was still perched upon the couch. “All the cloak and dagger shit is a little tedious.”
“Yeah, I feel you on that,” agreed Ramona. “I just don’t want you guys to be alone. I don’t care what the topic is, I just don’t want that, especially after what Estefan’s demonstration upstairs. He is too strong and he still hasn’t gained full control over what he can do.” She looked at me more squarely in the face. “Sorry, Babes, I don’t think I could deal with that right now.”
I nodded, trying to express that I felt the same. She was correct as far as I was concerned. My eyes inadvertently wondered over to Leda, who wasn’t looking at any of us. She seemed to be staring at the coffee table with overly enthusiastic scrutiny. She was as still as a statue. I recall wondering what she was thinking about. If what Ramona had said was true. The notion began to creep into my brain, maybe she was thinking about what she had done up in the Loft. Maybe the idea of it was no longer embarrassing her as much as it had hours ago…
“Whatever you do, Effy, just don’t go alone like Ramona said,” echoed Sandy, then turned to look forward. “What you did to us, to me, was powerful… I have never felt such compulsion like that before…”
Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten Page 39