Armadron: The Otherworld Series: Book 1

by Corey Tate

  “Jared, you’re the little brother. I’m the big brother. You’re not supposed to worry about me. Let’s just stick to our roles.”

  Jared just stared at Scott without blinking and waited for a real answer.

  Fine. Screw it, Scott thought.

  “I keep having seizures, I think, and I’m pretty sure I made a fire hydrant blow up the other day and the shower blow up too. I can do things. Stuff that people can do in comics and movies and stuff, but not in a cool way. I can’t control it. It’s . . . it’s stuff that I can’t explain. It’s been going on for weeks, and I think it’s killing me.”

  After a couple seconds Scott noticed that Jared was just staring at his bowl, not making any sounds.

  “Uh, hello?” Scott chuckled and tapped Jared on the head with his finger. “Anyone home? I was being serious, ya know. You’re the only person that I’ve told this stuff to. I’m actually freaking out a little bit.”

  Jared ignored him, got up, and put his bowl in the sink without looking at Scott. He started to walk toward the stairs and out of the kitchen.

  “Jared!” Scott was yelling at him now. “Why are you being weird? I just told you the truth!”

  “No! No, you didn’t! You never tell me anything!” When Jared whirled around, Scott saw tears in his eyes. “You—you always act so tough and . . . and I never get to really talk to you! And n–now D–Dad’s dead and Mom’s never around—”

  Scott was already on his feet moving toward his brother. Before Jared could react, Scott pulled him in for a hug and let Jared cry into his shirt.

  “Shh.” Scott brushed back Jared’s curly brown hair repeatedly. “Shh.”

  “It’s not fair, though! He just—”

  “I know,” Scott soothed. “I know, buddy. But Mom’s gonna be okay. And so are we.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  “Then why are you still lying to me all the time?” Jared shot back at him.

  “I’m not lying, Jared. I swear,” Scott said.

  “You swear?” Jared sniffled.

  “Yeah.” Scott nodded slowly. “I swear.”

  “Then you’re either crazy or a superhero or something,” Jared said with a small laugh.

  “You believe me?” Scott asked, incredulous.

  Jared looked up at him and stared him right in the eyes.

  “Yup.”

  Scott saw something veiled in Jared’s eyes, and he suddenly had the unsettling thought that his brother might be keeping secrets of his own.

  Scott released him from their hug.

  “Go upstairs and wash your face, man. We’ll talk later, okay?”

  “Okay,” Jared said and ran upstairs, leaving Scott alone in the kitchen.

  Scott had always suspected that Jared kept some things to himself. There was something different about Jared. Some kind of underlying intelligence. An old-soul sort of thing. Scott wasn’t even sure that Jared knew what it was. It was almost like there were two people in there. One was an innocent kid, and the other was . . . not.

  Scott finished breakfast just as the bus was pulling in. He grabbed his book bag from the kitchen chair and made for the front door.

  “Jared!”

  “Coming!” Jared called, running back down the stairs with his backpack over his shoulder.

  He tried to slip past Scott, but Scott held his arm out to stop him.

  “Do you have your inhaler?” Scott asked.

  “No, but—”

  “Go get it.”

  Jared looked like he wanted to argue, but Scott pushed him a little bit and he ran back up the stairs.

  Jared was only about five two and weighed less than a hundred pounds soaking wet. He had asthma and was always forgetting his inhaler, so it was Scott’s job to remind him. Constantly.

  Jared came thundering down the stairs, inhaler in hand, and Scott ushered him toward the bus, locking the front door behind them.

  Rick the Brick

  The bus doors opened with a hiss.

  Jared walked to the back of the bus to sit near the other sixth graders, as noisy and obnoxious as always. In sharp contrast, Jared sat quietly and stared out the window.

  He’d once been an outgoing kid, as rambunctious as his buddies. But events from the last few months had left their mark on him.

  We’ll get through this, Jared, Scott thought, remembering what Jared had just said to him in the kitchen: “You got me. And I got you.”

  Scott quickly made his way down the aisle and stopped at his preassigned seat, which was next to his best friend, Charlie McEntly. Charlie, wearing a black Metallica T-shirt loosely hung over his skinny frame, looked up at Scott with a tired grin on his face. He looked even more tired than usual, and his thick orange hair was sticking up on the right side where he had been using his book bag as a pillow.

  “What up, Scott?” Charlie greeted sleepily.

  “Mornin’.” Scott slumped into the aisle seat and set his backpack on the floor. “COD or Battlefield?”

  “The new Battlefield. Just came out.”

  Charlie was a gamer. Every night. All the time. Nonstop. He loved it, and he probably would never give it up.

  “You ready for soccer tryouts?” Charlie asked.

  “I was born ready.” Scott grinned.

  “Sure ya were, stud,” Charlie replied sarcastically as he put his head back and closed his eyes.

  “Yeah, buddy.” Scott laughed and patted his friend’s arm. “You get some sleep. You’re gonna need it if you want to make the team again this year.”

  Charlie shot him the middle finger, and Scott laughed.

  The bus accelerated and pulled away from the curb.

  Scott loved being the last stop. Now, everyone on the bus had twenty minutes to kick back and relax, because there were only one or two stop signs between the Farangers’ house and the school.

  He unlocked his phone and inserted headphones in his ears. He listened to a couple oldies tracks, from a playlist Charlie had given him, and several minutes later he turned to ask Charlie if they had a geometry test that day.

  Charlie was fast asleep. He was using his book bag topped with his jacket as a pillow again.

  Scott shook his head and once again immersed himself in Charlie’s music. He watched the streets pass by as the bus drove through his hometown of Glendale, Arizona. The sun had risen above the horizon a little while ago, and as he looked out the bus window, he saw dozens of cul-de-sacs lined with front yards of yellow, dead grass. Kids waited at street corners with parents, and everyone was dressed in minimal clothing in a vain attempt to combat the over-100-degree temperatures that had been hitting them lately.

  A ball of paper hit the seat in front of him, and Scott turned around to see who threw it.

  He saw three kids in the back of the bus laughing and throwing paper at each other. Jared was sitting a seat in front of them, reading a science fiction book and trying to tune all of it out.

  Scott frowned, remembering something his mother had said a couple days ago.

  Scott, why don’t you take Jared with you the next time you hang out with Charlie? Your brother needs to socialize more. He’s by himself too often. Too immersed in pretend worlds. I don’t think it’s helping him.

  Scott wasn’t sure he agreed. Reading seemed to relax Jared. Plus, Scott wasn’t ready for Jared to act like a full-blown teenager yet. Despite the occasional tension between them, he liked having a little brother who looked up to him.

  A couple songs later the bus screeched to a halt behind the line of buses in the front of the high school.

  He woke Charlie. Exiting the bus in a crowd of drowsy school kids, they headed toward what Charlie liked to call “the prison.” The adults in their lives preferred to call it Glendale High School. Charlie claimed they were one and the same. After all, they both had assigned seats, bells, premade food, cells (teachers called them classrooms), an exercise yard, and a massive lunchroom.

  True to form,
Charlie suddenly cleared his throat and yelled, “Welcome to prison!”

  Scott did a face palm.

  “You ready for the trip on Sunday?” Charlie asked suddenly.

  “I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s gonna be awesome!” Scott replied, feigning overexcitement.

  Charlie laughed. Scott was always making fun of the way he went from zero to a hundred in less than a second. He was just that kind of guy, though. He couldn’t help it. Just like electricity. Charlie smiled to himself at the thought.

  “For once, my mom is being pretty cool,” Scott commented.

  “Your mom’s always cool!”

  “My mom? What planet are you from?”

  Christine Farranger was the CEO of some big company that sold healthy chips. Sometimes her company did fun things, like book executive meetings on cruise ships. In fact, that’s exactly what was going down this Sunday. She would be boarding a cruise ship and spending a week at sea—and bringing Scott and Jared with her. She’d even generously purchased fares for Charlie and his parents. Christine and Barbara McEntly, best friends since high school, had always thought it would be fun for the families to vacation together. It was almost too good to be true, but Charlie and Scott were just a few days away from spending a week wreaking havoc on a cruise ship together.

  By now they’d reached the front doors of the school, along with the other several hundred school kids. The noise of the crowd was so deafening that Scott seriously contemplated bringing earplugs to school from now on.

  A small group of kids was blocking the front door. Everyone seemed to be watching a video on a phone while talking excitedly to one another.

  “That dude’s lifting a car,” someone was saying, “with one hand!”

  Charlie rolled his eyes at Scott. Charlie believed kids their age didn’t need cell phones unless it was an emergency. Charlie also had bright-orange hair, though, so he was a little off-center from the norm.

  “Chill, Gramps,” Scott told him as they walked past the kids.

  Charlie gritted his teeth at the nickname Scott was growing fonder of using with each passing day. Scott just chuckled.

  The two went through the main doors and weaved their way through the milling students until they reached the stairs.

  “See ya!” Charlie clapped Scott on the back before turning down a side hallway, hollering over his shoulder, “See you at tryouts after school!”

  Scott shot him a thumbs-up and headed up the staircase.

  Halfway up, his heart nearly skipped a beat. At the top of the stairwell, making her way down the stairs, was the best thing about being in the tenth grade: Molly Clenton.

  He took in her curly brown hair, her turquoise blouse with the button gaps caused by an impressive bustline, and cropped jean shorts showing off tanned legs. Molly had these little freckles near the tops of her cheeks that made her look Irish. She also walked so confidently that Scott wondered if she’d ever tripped on anything in her entire life.

  He realized he was staring and made himself blink.

  “Hey, Scott! Don’t you just love the end of the week?” Molly gave a dazzling smile that could melt the sun.

  “Alas, Moll-ay, to end is simply to start again,” Scott joked, instantly realizing how lame he must have sounded.

  Some nearby kids in the stairwell laughed. He was certain they were laughing at him.

  Oh God, that was corny. He mentally slapped himself. Kill me now.

  He joked with Molly all the time, but she was still eons out of his league. That much was obvious to anyone.

  Molly smiled sweetly at his comment and disappeared around the corner.

  Scott kept walking up the stairs and took a right at the top, accidentally bumping into someone getting a drink at the water fountain. Scott’s backpack slid off his shoulder and landed on the floor with a thud.

  Before he knew what was happening, he was on his back on the yellow-and-brown tiled floor with the breath completely knocked out of him. Turning his head, he realized he was eye level with his backpack on the floor, and it was at that moment that Scott knew who he had bumped into.

  “Watch where you’re steppin’, Faranger!”

  Scott looked up and groaned out loud.

  Rick the Brick, he thought as the color drained from his face.

  Rick Levinston. Senior at Glendale High. He’d failed twelfth grade once already, and was the only guy in school who had a full-grown beard and looked like a pro wrestler. He was a super senior. But not of the superhero variety. Rick the Brick tortured any kid in his field of view. In fact, most people took the intelligent route and usually just sat down and pretended not to exist when Rick came near them.

  Scott was not most people.

  “Sorry, Brick. I didn’t see you,” Scott said from the ground.

  “What’d you call me?!” Rick the Brick snapped.

  “Aww geez, Rick,” Scott whined in his best Rick and Morty impression.

  Brick picked Scott up with ease and slammed him against a locker.

  “Ohhhhhh!”

  It took Scott a second to realize that the sound had not come from him. It had come from several dozen kids who had stopped to watch, and the crowd was growing fast.

  Brick was getting a little nervous from all the attention. Scott could see it on his face.

  “I called you Brick because I respect you,” Scott gasped, “and because you lift a lot, right?”

  Rick the Brick thought about this for a second.

  “What? Yeah. Yeah I do. . .”

  “How much do you bench?” Scott interjected quickly.

  Some of the kids in the crowd were trying to cover up their laughter. They knew the Scott/Brick routine. More kids kept gathering around with every second too.

  “Well, 245 is my—”

  “Warm-up.” Scott finished the sentence still pinned against the locker by one of Brick’s massive arms. “And then you finish by eating small children.”

  Laughter erupted among the crowd. Brick’s face contorted in a look of embarrassment; he hated all the attention and he wasn’t good at thinking on his feet.

  “Are you—?” Brick thought out loud.

  “Making fun of you?” Scott cut in, faking an appalled expression. “Brick, you’re the most popular dad in school. Why would I do that?!”

  The crowd laughed and cheered, while Brick stood there, perplexed.

  Ohhhh crap. Crap crap crap. I’m getting that seizure feeling again, Scott realized, noting how his head was starting to ache and throb and his stomach was turning into knots.

  Brick suddenly looked at him differently, like he was seeing his face for the first time.

  “Your eyes,” Brick mumbled, “they’re purp—”

  “Break it up!” a teacher suddenly yelled from deep inside the crowd.

  The students quickly dispersed, running in all directions. In the confusion, Scott pushed back against Rick so that he would let him off the locker.

  Rick the Brick flew seven feet back, knocking three other kids into the lockers on the other side of the hall.

  Scott felt like his head was about to peel like a banana. He scooped up his backpack and just ran.

  Janitor’s closet, janitor’s closet, janitor’s closet!

  He ran down a side hallway and into the nearest janitor’s closet he could find. Scott slammed the door, locked it, and turned on the light.

  The closet was just big enough for him to get in a ball on the floor, and that’s just what he did. As he half fell and half crouched down, Scott could have sworn that the water in the mop bucket nearest to him floated out, temporarily ignoring gravity and all its laws. It dropped back in again before Scott could blink, though.

  Whaaat?

  That was all that he could think before the seizure struck.

  Scott’s back arched like lightning had struck him, and his head slammed back against the metal shelf behind him, knocking him out cold.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later S
cott jerked awake. As soon as he realized where he was, he scrambled to his feet, grabbed his stuff, and opened the door. There was no one in the hallway outside, so he full-on sprinted to first period.

  The uber-vigilant Mrs. Wontsman didn’t even notice him sneak in from the back of the class. Smooth.

  He quietly took his seat as a couple of nearby girls giggled. While Mrs. Wontsman droned on about the life cycle of plants, Scott’s brain raced a million miles per hour trying to process what had just happened.

  He experimentally pinched his forearm hard and cried out, distracting the class for a second.

  “My bad.” Scott smiled sheepishly, and Mrs. Wontsman continued, only slightly perturbed.

  When the bell rang, Scott was the first one out the door. He fast-walked to geometry class. It was three doors down on the same floor that he was on, so he was there in no time.

  When he entered the room, he found there were only two other people in the classroom: Mr. Eidington and Molly.

  It actually wasn’t that much of a surprise to him. Scott had noticed over the past couple months that Molly liked to be early to things. He wasn’t being creepy, though. Just observant.

  He took his seat next to Molly and smiled at her. She smiled back like a supermodel.

  “Sooo . . . you goin’ to soccer tryouts?” she asked him, leaning toward him a bit from her desk.

  “Yeah. You?” Scott asked, leaning back in his chair in a bad attempt to look cool and at ease.

  Her hazel eyes were staring into his soul, and that always made him say stupid things.

  “You betcha. I’ll dribble circles around those girls, and when I’m done, I’m comin’ for you.” Molly winked at him.

  “You won’t make it past the girls,” Scott snorted.

  “Hey,” Molly said, her face suddenly changing expression as a thought crossed her mind, “I saw you and Rick in the hallway . . .”

  She let the statement hang in the air, and Scott could feel his face getting red. Luckily, kids started filing into the room, so he was saved the response.

  When everyone was seated, Mr. Eidington started “tweaching.” Someone had come up with the nickname because whenever it got completely silent and all eyes were on him, Mr. Eidington would twitch his neck and his voice would vibrate from nerves. It happened all the time. It used to be funnier, before it happened so often that everyone got used to it—and especially before last year’s talent show when one of the students performed an impression of him and he had taken it extremely personally.