She reached over ever so slowly and unfastened her boomerang with her left hand.
“Gotcha.” Simon scurried over to Billy’s unconscious body. He slapped him in the face to wake him up, realized it didn’t work, and then grabbed his arms and pulled him out of the room.
Zoey looked over to Tristan. “I’ll keep it busy—you go get help.”
“No!” Tristan picked up a half broken chair and wielded it before him like a shield. “I’m not going anywhere without you, forget it.”
“It wants me, not you.”
Tristan leaped across the room and stood protectively in front of Zoey.
“I don’t care. You’re hurt, and I’m not leaving you. We’ll fight this thing together. Simon will get help.”
For an instant, Zoey thought she saw a halo of blue light emanate from Tristan’s skin, but then it was gone—probably a trick of the light.
With an angry roar, the Krakenite charged.
Tristan whacked the beast with the force of a superhero. The broken chair exploded off the Krakenite, and the beast staggered and then fell back.
“How did you—” began Zoey, in shock at Tristan’s strength.
Tristan faced her. “We need to get an agent. We don’t have anything strong enough to defeat it—”
But the Krakenite thrashed its tail into Tristan, and he flew through the air like a ragdoll. He hit the wall with a sickening crack, slid to the ground, and was still.
Before Zoey could register what had just happened, the Krakenite swung its massive tail into her chest. It was like being hit by a tree. She flew into the air and hit the ground with a thud. She was winded, and as she struggled to regain her breath she felt wetness dripping onto her face. She blinked and looked up. The beast’s jaws drooled just above her. Its warm rancid breath was choking her. It was going to kill her.
Her fear disappeared and the adrenaline of anger surged through her limbs. She was not going to die today. She grabbed her boomerang tightly with both hands.
The Krakenite opened its jaws and lowered its head.
With strength she didn’t know she possessed, Zoey stabbed the end of boomerang into the creature’s good eye. She pushed it deep into the monster’s brain and twisted it. The creature breathed heavily once and then fell on top of her, dead.
Zoey tried to move, but it was like trying to push a boulder. It hurt to breathe, and the smell was making her dizzy. She was suffocating under the putrid creature. This wasn’t how she planned on dying.
And then she heard laughing.
“What are you doing down there?” Tristan stared down at her with a smirk. He had a cut on his forehead but otherwise looked unharmed.
The blood was rushing to Zoey’s head. “Can’t…breathe…help…me!”
Tristan used his back to lift the dead Krakenite high enough for Zoey to slip out. Her jeans and t-shirt were covered in a semi-transparent sticky substance like gelatin. She smelled her hands and made a face. She smelled like a mixture of bile and garbage that had stood in the sun for too long.
Tristan inspected the boomerang. It was still embedded in the Krakenite’s skull.
“Like I said, I’ve never seen anyone use a boomerang like that. After this, I’m sure the agency’s going to start producing them again.”
“I doubt it,” said Zoey, still breathing heavily. She inspected herself again. “I can’t remember the last time I smelled like manure—”
A woman screamed suddenly.
Zoey and Tristan looked at each other.
“It came from the main hall,” said Tristan as he turned towards the door.
Zoey leaped over to the dead Krakenite. She pulled with all her might and yanked her boomerang out of the Krakenite’s skull with a wet suction noise.
When she turned around, Tristan was smiling.
“What?” she said. “You said it yourself—this is probably the only one—I’m not leaving it to rot in this creature’s head.” She flashed him a smile.
Without another word, Zoey followed Tristan out the door and into the hall.
It was a chaotic scene. Bloodied bodies lay scattered everywhere. Another Krakenite’s severed head lay several feet away from its body in a large red puddle. The smell brought tears to Zoey’s eyes. The walls and floors were smeared in blood, as though someone had thrown buckets of red paint around. She could hear cries and moans. Those who were still alive were busy attending to the wounded or covering the dead with pieces of clothing. She didn’t recognize any of the dead.
Agent Barnes and Agent Lee came running down the hall to Zoey and Tristan.
“Simon said there was another Krakenite? Where is it now” said Agent Barnes urgently as he brandished a large double barrel rifle,
“Dead,” said Tristan. “Zoey whacked it good in the skull with her boomerang.”
Both agents gave her a look of surprise, and Zoey gave them a little smile. “It wasn’t as cool as Tristan says, but it’s dead.”
“You’re bleeding.” Agent Lee handed Zoey a handkerchief from inside his jacket.
She took it and pressed it against her wound.
“Thank you,” she said awkwardly, not used to Agent Lee being kind to her. Maybe he had forgiven her about the kick.
“Guys!” Simon collapsed beside them. He was breathing heavily. “Oh, man, am I glad you’re okay. I thought the Kradelite had finished you both. That would have clearly sucked.”
“Krakenite,” corrected Tristan.
“That’s what I said,” said Simon.
“But how did you do it? Did you get it on film? Please say that you got me some cool shots?”
Agent Barnes heaved his rifled on his shoulder. “According to Tristan, Little Red here took care of it for us. Nailed it right in the brain—dead. I would have paid money to see that.”
He winked at her, and Zoey felt the blood rush to her ears.
Simon’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “You brainorized it? Coooool.”
Then he lowered his voice. “You think I could take a picture of you and the Kranelite side by side?”
“Maybe some other time, Simon,” said Zoey feeling a little self-conscious. She really didn’t want to go near another Krakenite for a while, its smell made her dizzy.
Agent Barnes’ face was flushed and sweaty. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “I’m glad you guys are safe. Ew!—This is a real rotten mess. We need to dispose of these Krakenites’s bodies before they stink up the entire hive. How many casualties?”
“Six dead and ten injured,” answered Agent Lee. He turned towards the dead Krakenite. “The way it was sniffing out a particular scent—my guess is they were looking for something or someone.”
Tristan and Simon both looked at Zoey. The Krakenite was looking for her—but why? Why did it want to kill her? She had never even seen one before?
“We all know how they got through the Nexus,” continued Agent Barnes. He hadn’t noticed the strange looks Simon and Tristan had given Zoey.
“Who knows what else will be slipping through to our world? There are worst things than Krakenites in the Nexus—much, much worse.”
Agent Vargas arrived with bloody towels in his hands.
“You three,” he pointed at Zoey, Tristan, and Simon, “come with me. The injured need help. And I need all the help I can get.”
The three of them followed Agent Vargas down the main hall to an area where the wounded had been placed in a row. All her classmates, even Billy, were attending to the wounded. Billy’s head was wrapped with a bandage, but he seemed okay otherwise. Women and men cried over the dead bodies, and Zoey felt a pain in her chest—they had died because of her.
“Here,” Agent Vargas gave them towels and bandages. “Wrap them up as best you can—tightly, to stop the bleeding. Help is on the way.”
Tristan and Simon went to help the wounded right away, but Zoey couldn’t move.
Screeching resonated down the hall and she turned around. Two men in white uniforms
rushed in pushing stretchers on screeching wheels. They stopped beside a woman whose abdomen was bleeding profusely. They lifted her up gently, placed her on one of the stretchers, and then wheeled her away down the hall and around the corner.
“Where are they taking them?” asked Zoey, her mouth dry as she tried to swallow.
“To the medical bay.” Agent Vargas rushed to help lift a young man covered in blood up onto the other stretcher.
Zoey had no idea they had a medical bay. She had never seen it or heard anyone talk about it before now. She stared at the wounded and couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was responsible for the attacks. It felt like a bad dream. If it were true that the Krakenites had come to kill her—why were they trying to kill her? Who was she to them?
And then, like a light switching on in her brain, she knew—the cat-faced woman was responsible.
A chill washed over her. She had overheard them plotting. And although the agency didn’t believe her, apparently the cat-faced woman hadn’t taken any chances. She had found Zoey out and had released these mystics in the hopes of killing her.
But her plan had failed.
A cold sweat trickled down her back—sooner or later the cat-faced woman would try again. Who knew what sort of evil mystic she would unleash next—or when? One thing was for certain, they would be much worse than the Krakenites.
Zoey went to work. She knelt down beside an elderly man with a nasty cut on his face. He was lying on his back, his eyes were closed, and she couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Gently, she dabbed a towel on his wounds. He had a great red stain on his shirt—he was bleeding out. She took another towel and pressed it against his stomach. Tears swelled in her eyes—this was all her fault.
“You…you…” said the man. His voice was ragged. Blood seeped from the corners of his mouth.
“Don’t talk,” said Zoey gently. “You need to save your energy. Help is coming.”
She gave him a reassuring smile, feeling worse and worse by the minute. Her eyes burned, and she blinked until the wetness dried up. She didn’t want the man to see her cry.
“Your hair,” said the man, his voice was almost a whisper. “I knew a woman once with hair just like yours.”
The hairs on the back of Zoey’s neck stood up. “What? What did you say?”
She leaned forward. Maybe she had misunderstood?
The man smiled. “I had never seen the like—fire-red—just like yours. And you have the same green eyes. How peculiar.”
Zoey lost her voice. When she found it again, she asked. “Who—who was she?”
The man coughed up some blood. His eyes opened wide for a moment, and then he lay still. For a horrible moment she thought he had died, but then his lips moved, and he spoke.
“Her name was Elizabeth.”
“Where is she?” Zoey couldn’t mask the desperation in her voice. She felt like she was about to jump out of her skin.
“Where can I find her? Please! Please tell me where she is!” her voice rose, and she fought to control her nerves. She crumpled the bloody towel with trembling hands, her heart suddenly slamming against her chest.
Between coughs, the man said, “Troll City, Louisiana.”
And then his mouth fell open. A single long breath escaped him. His eyes stared at the ceiling, glazed over, and he didn’t speak again.
Chapter 12
A Leap at Midnight
Elizabeth…
Zoey hadn’t slept a wink—the name haunted her. Was this mysterious woman her mother? She had waited all her life for a clue as to who she was. What the man had told her before he died had to be true—she had never seen anyone with the same hair color. Even dyed, it was never the same fire-red—the man’s words exactly. You had to be born with it.
After harassing the agents for five days, Zoey finally discovered the man’s name. He was Oliver Scott. He was a retired agent from New York who had been visiting an old friend at the hive in Toronto. The friend, a Mr. Dean Daigle, was still alive and worked in Inter-dimension trade, communications & transportation, room 2A.
With Mr. Daigle’s help, Zoey had found out that Oliver Scott had been a widower, with no children or any living relatives, even Sevenths. He appeared to have had no living friends except for Mr. Daigle. She had no one else to ask about the mysterious Elizabeth. But her hopes were quickly deflated when she asked him about her.
“I’m sorry dear, I don’t know any woman by that name or with red hair. I never heard him say that name, ever. I’m terribly sorry,” he had told her.
Zoey’s mood darkened. She had been so close to discovering something about her past, and now it was slipping away like an old memory. She meandered around the hive like the living dead—her body moved, but her spirit was elsewhere, dull and unresponsive. She couldn’t concentrate on her studies without imagining what her mother might have looked like. Was she pretty? Tall? Skinny and small like her?
Tristan and Simon were worried that she was about to have a meltdown. They couldn’t understand how she felt—they had real families—she had never known hers. She pretended to have headaches so they wouldn’t feel sorry for her.
The dying man’s face haunted her, too. No one had ever died in her arms before—it had been a surreal experience and had left her feeling cold and numb. She remembered that his body had stayed warm after he’d gone. He had looked peaceful, as though he was sleeping.
Zoey had been restless for five straight days when she decided that there was only one thing left to do. She had to go to Troll City, Louisiana.
Although Tristan and Simon had tried to grab her attention after class, she said nothing to them and approached Agent Vargas’s desk. She gave him her best smile.
“Uh, Agent Vargas,” she said. “May I ask you something?”
He was typing on his computer and didn’t look up. “Yes, Zoey, what is it?”
“I’d like permission to go to Troll City, sir.”
Agent Vargas’s fingers slipped on his keyboard. “What? Troll City? Where did you hear such a name?”
“From Agent Oliver Scott,” said Zoey. “It won’t be for long, I only need a few hours. See, that’s where he said my mo—where he said the woman who looked like me is. I’d like to go look for her. I need to know where I come from—who I am.”
Agent Vargas sighed heavily and gave Zoey a painful smile. “I understand your desire to look for this woman, truly I do, but you can’t go to Troll City. It’s impossible.”
Zoey’s smile quickly vanished
“What do you mean? Why not? Why can’t I go?” her voice rose, and she didn’t bother hiding her anger. She hadn’t expected him to say no.
“Because it’s too dangerous,” answered Agent Vargas. “It’s a mystic town, and a very treacherous one at that. Humans are not welcome there. The mystics chose to settle in that area to be away from humans. We have to respect the rules of our treaty, and this is one of them. Troll City is off limits. That is all.”
Zoey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But she’s there—I have to find out if she’s my real mother. You can’t keep that from me—”
“It’s impossible. I’m sorry, Zoey, but you cannot go. No one can.”
“What if I went with an agent? I’m sure Agent Barnes would come with me. He would want to help me find my mother—I know he would.”
Agent Vargas shook his head solemnly. “You’re not listening to what I’m trying to tell you. No one, not even an agent, is allowed to set foot in Troll City. If fact, I believe that no agent or human has ever entered the city. Mr. Scott was dying—he was confused. He wasn’t conscious of what he was saying. I’m just sorry he made you believe some story about a woman—”
“It wasn’t a story,” blurted Zoey. She frowned.
“He was telling the truth.”
“Well, I see that my reasoning with you is pointless,” said Agent Vargas.
“Believe what you will, but forget about Troll City. Now, off you go and don’t ment
ion it to me again.” He dismissed her.
Tears brimmed around her eyes. She stood there for a moment before she stormed out of the room. She ran past Tristan and Simon without looking at them. She couldn’t let her only clue to her mother’s identity slip away. She would find a way.
She gathered her wits and slowed down so that Tristan and Simon could catch up.
“So, I’m guessing he said no,” said Simon.
“I knew it was a mistake to ask him. I mean, as little kids our parents told us scary bedtime stories about Troll City. It’s the creepiest place on earth—why would you want to go there? Mystics eat children in that city. They don’t care about the treaty—they make their own rules. You’d have to be insane to set foot in that town. I wouldn’t go there, even if they paid me a million dollars.”
“No one is asking you to go.” Zoey marched down to the main entrance and pushed open the front doors. The cool air felt great on her hot face.
Tristan ran after her. “I know you’re mad Zoey, but be reasonable. Zoey!”
He grabbed her hand and turned her around to face him. “Wait a second, will you? You have to stop this. You’re obsessing about something that might not even be true. Just stop a second and think it through, okay?”
Zoey wiggled out of his grasp. “It is true. I know it’s true. I don’t care if you don’t believe me. You don’t understand. You can’t understand. Both of you guys have families—you have parents that love and support you. You can’t understand what it’s like to grow up alone. All I ever wanted was a family, a real one. I need to do this for me.”
Tristan’s expression contracted. “Need to do…what exactly? What are you saying?”
He watched her for a moment, and then the realization slowly appeared on his face.
“No. Please tell me you’re not planning on going? Zoey, that’s insane. I won’t let you.”
“Go? Go where exactly?” said Simon looking paler than usual.
Zoey turned away from them. “I’m not asking you to come with me. I wouldn’t want you guys to get in trouble. But I’m going. I’m going tonight.”
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