0577651001373397368 ls 00.7- ta (4 page)

‘I can remove memories. Or plant fake ones.’

I stare at him, scanning for any trace of a lie. He comes up clean.

He shrugs at me. ‘Guess we’re similarly gifted.’

Gifted. The word my grandma used to use. But I never realized there were others like us. Or who might have different but similar gifts. Oh… oh… OK… now I’m figuring something else out too. I suck in a breath and rest both hands on the counter. A light bulb pings in the air above me.

Suddenly Ryder’s hand flattens over mine. ‘What? What?’

he asks.

I’m sucked into the river, current ripping all around, but inside, weirdly, I’m calm as the eye of a storm.

‘That guy, the guy from the In-N-Out.’ I can barely voice the words. ‘He must be like us too. It explains the thing…’

I wave my hand wildly at the air above us.

A long beat and then Ryder just nods. ‘Yeah, I know.’

I tug my hand out from under his. ‘You know?’

An apologetic half-shrug. ‘Yeah.’

I blink in astonishment. What does this all mean? What are the odds? You wait your whole life to meet someone with a gift like your own and then two turn up in the space of one night.

‘What can he do?’ I ask quietly.

Ryder ponders this, grimacing. ‘It’s more like what can’t he do.’

I shake my head, confused. It never even occurred to me there could be different types of gift. ‘How did you get mixed up with him?’

‘Long story,’ Ryder answers. He frowns at the door.

Through the glass I see the Chevy parked up just outside. A huge Labrador hangs its head out of the window, panting.

‘This is not good,’ Ryder suddenly says. ‘If he finds out ---’

‘What’s not good? What do you mean if he finds out?’ I ask, but my gut is already twisting in anticipation. Wisps of green and blue are weaving around Ryder’s head. He’s afraid.

‘Look, Amber,’ he says and his expression gives away his feelings as much as his aura. Regret. Sorrow. ‘I came here to say goodbye.’ A pause. ‘And to do this ---’

Suddenly he leans over the counter, reaches his hand around the back of my neck and pulls me towards him, and before I can take a breath his lips are on mine and he’s kissing me and wow… every thought in my head evaporates, every single cell in my body zings with electricity.

When Ryder eventually pulls away, his hand still rests on the back of my neck. I am breathless and my whole body is vibrating. We’re still nose to nose, his breath warm on my face, his lips just an inch away and my stomach is fluttering wildly.

Ryder’s breathing hard and fast, his focus still on my lips.

Then he pulls back an inch. ‘Bye, Amber,’ he says, and sadness falls over him like a shroud.

In that same instant I realize what he’s about to do and wrench myself backwards out of his grip.

He came here to make me forget.

‘What are you doing?!’ I yell, pressing myself back against the wall, still shaking.

He frowns at me. ‘It’s better this way. If you can’t remember anything then you’ll be safer.’

‘What? No. You can’t come in here and tell me all this and kiss me’ --- I gesture in the direction of his lips --- ‘and then make me forget it all.’

‘It’s to protect you,’ he answers, grim-faced.

‘From what?’

‘It’s better that you don’t remember anything about this conversation. Or me. Or anything I’ve told you about Demos. Trust me. It’s for your own good. You don’t want to get involved in any of this. If he finds out what you are… well…’ He grimaces some more, ‘… then you’re in trouble.’

The sound of a footstep, echoing through the store, makes us both spin around. My heart flies into my mouth.

Standing in the middle of the store, as though he just apparated there, is Demos. Behind him is the other guy ---

his goon.

‘I guess,’ Demos says, surveying us both with a cold smile,

‘you’re in trouble then.’

How the heck did they just appear like that? Then I remember that while Ryder locked the front door, the back door is only on a latch. But even so…

I turn to Ryder but he’s not moving. He’s not moving or saying anything because he’s completely frozen --- one arm outstretched as though he’d flung it there to shield me, his lips half-parted.

‘Wh ---’ I begin, but immediately my mind goes blank. I feel a drag, a pull, and my feet are moving all of a sudden, without any conscious thought on my part. My instinct is to struggle but I don’t. I feel unnaturally calm. Relaxed, even.

And in the next instant I find myself standing right in front of Demos, staring up at him, noticing small details like the flecks of stubble on his neck and the scar across his chin, and the curve of a smile lifting his top lip. But I don’t feel fear or much of anything at all --- I’m completely empty of emotion. But how can he do this? I start to ponder. How can he do any of this? The thought is foggy though and slips away as soon as it surfaces.

‘Amber,’ Demos says, and instantly the fog clears. I try to run but I can’t move. My limbs won’t respond to what my brain is telling them. He isn’t touching me but it feels as if I’m being held in an invisible vise. And now fear rushes in, obliterating every other thought and every impulse. If he wasn’t holding me I would fall.

‘It took me a while to figure out it was you back at the burger place,’ he says. ‘I thought it was Ryder.’ He smiles and shakes his head in wonder.

‘What do you want?’ I manage to stutter.

‘I want you to join my group of Psys,’ he says.

‘Psys?’ What is he talking about?

‘That’s what they call us.’

‘They? Who are they?’

A muscle twitches by his eye, his grip on me tightens, iron hands squeeze around my waist. Anger beats off him, slams like a jackhammer against my skull. ‘Oh, you’ll find out,’

he says through a clenched jaw.

I try digging my heels in but to no avail and then I try gathering up all my energy and directing it at him. I hurl all the terror I’m feeling back at him, throwing it like a punch, and his grip on me falters. I’m suddenly free. I stagger backwards as Demos presses a hand to his head and winces.

‘Amber,’ he says in a low voice edged with rage, ‘don’t do that again.’

‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ I hiss, as I back away towards Ryder, who’s still standing motionless. ‘You can’t make me.’ My eyes dart to the door. How are we going to get out of here? But even as I measure the distance and try to imagine a way we could make it, a rail of clothing goes hurtling through the air and crashes to the ground just in front of the door, blocking our way out.

It takes me more than a few seconds to process what I just saw. I turn my head slowly back to face Demos, terror gripping my insides, and see that the other guy, the silent bald-headed one, is now grinning at me. He shifts his gaze to my right, to the stand of sunglasses and hats and then, right in front of my eyes, it lifts off the ground and ploughs into the barricade he’s already made.

‘OK, that’ll do, Bill,’ Demos says out of the side of his mouth. ‘We don’t want to scare her.’

No. Obviously.

Demos cocks his head to one side and suddenly my gut tightens as though he’s thrown an invisible lasso around my waist. And I’m being pulled towards him once again. I struggle, digging in my heels, but it’s useless. He drags me across the store until I’m standing right in front of him, staring at the muscles across his chest.

‘That’s where you’ll find you’re wrong,’ he says. ‘I can make anyone do anything. But if it makes you feel better, Ryder’s coming along for the ride too. I’m sure you two can keep each other company.’

Darkness thick as grief billows around him in thundering waves, drenching me. A sob rises in my chest. And it’s then, only then, that I fully understand that I can’t fight him.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask, my voice strangled.

He draws in a deep breath. Exhales. ‘We’ll start with Bank of America.’ A twitch of a smile. ‘I need to make a withdrawal. Then we’ll hit up the Gun and Knife Show at the Fairground, and then, one final stop… San Quentin Prison.’

My mind slams to a halt. A prison?

‘A friend of mine needs a little rescuing,’ he says with a grin.

VENTURA --- Police responded to a bank robbery at Bank of America on Main Street yesterday afternoon after four masked robbers made off with close to three million dollars in bills and bonds, as well as the contents of dozens of security deposit boxes.

Mystery surrounds the robbery, which took place in broad daylight. None of the fifteen bank employees and customers present can recall any details about the crime, leading to mounting speculation about how the robbers managed to pull off the heist.

A source close to the investigation, who asked not to be named, said: ‘No one can remember anything about the robbery. If we didn’t have the CCTV footage you’d think the place was robbed by ghosts.’

The security guard on duty at the time said in a statement that he experienced a sense of overwhelming euphoria just prior to the incident. When police arrived on the scene they found him in a state of hysteria. He was admitted to the local hospital for psych evaluation and drug testing but has since been released.

Police are refusing to comment on any links between this robbery and the raid on the Ventura Fairgrounds Gun and Knife Show the same day, which saw several high-powered rifles, semi-automatic handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition stolen. Once again, despite the number of people in the vicinity there were no eyewitnesses.

***

ALIEN ROBBERY!

Weird things are afoot in Southern Cal. We’re hearing all sorts of crazy talk about what went down at The Gun & Knife Show in Ventura a few days ago, and it’s got X-Files written all over it.

Over fifty guns were stolen, along with enough ammo to blow up the White House. The police are claiming an inside job (a local biker crew with a reputation for gun-slinging and drug-trafficking was working security at the fair) but we think it’s all a cover-up for aliens in our midst.

And THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS ALL ABOUT

THEM!!!!!

There are hardly any eyewitnesses, despite the fact several thousand people were at the show when it occurred, but we managed to get an exclusive interview with someone who watched it all go down:

‘I was coming out of the bathroom and I saw them. There were four of them. Three guys and a girl. And they had a dog with them too. Probably wasn’t a dog at all. Was probably some kind of body-snatcher. The girl had red hair and I’d bet my grandma’s teeth she was an alien too. She had this look about her, you know? And she was wearing sunglasses, like you know, probably because she could melt your brain if she looked at you direct…’

We think supernatural powers must be the reason. How else could four people walk off with that much hardware without anyone noticing?

The local biker crew who were providing security at the event are claiming foul play, and the cops are investigating a rival gang from Oxnard, but it doesn’t sound like gangland robbery to us… more like Pleidian visitors from another galaxy.

Our witness also claims that a fight broke out later that night when the biker crew discovered their bikes had been covered in My Little Pony stickers.

Aliens with a sense of humour?

Let’s hope so. Because I’m not sure I want to know what they want all that firepower for.

***

San Quentin Prison Breakout leaves investigators puzzled.

The following are excerpts from confidential files, stolen from the laptop of an employee of Stirling Enterprises, a private defense company commissioned by the United States Government to investigate the San Quentin Prison breakout.

From security footage we have established that four people led the raid on San Quentin Prison which facilitated the escape of the convicted felon Harvey James. James, 32, who had been sentenced to life without parole, was being held in the maximum security unit at the time.

… unclear how they bypassed security checks.

not a single guard interviewed could recall details of the raid…

‘and they just walked on in and took him from the cell. Just like that. The guard let them in but he didn’t seem to know what he was doing, like he’d been brainwashed or something. Harvey seemed to be expecting them. He got up and patted the guy on the back and they hugged, like they were old timers. Then they just walked out of here. I asked them if I could come too but next thing I know I’m lying on my bed dreamin’…’

‘I didn’t wee nothing, only caught a glimpse of her as they were leaving, but I can tell you one thing, she had red hair.

Get me a lawyer and maybe I’ll remember more about what she looked like.’

All four were armed and are considered highly dangerous.

FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT TO AMBER

AND RYDER IN HUNTING LILA.

VENTURA --- Police responded to a bank robbery at Bank of America on Main Street yesterday afternoon after four masked robbers made off with close to three million dollars in bills and bonds, as well as the contents of dozens of security deposit boxes.

Mystery surrounds the robbery, which took place in broad daylight. None of the fifteen bank employees and customers present can recall any details about the crime, leading to mounting speculation about how the robbers managed to pull off the heist.

A source close to the investigation, who asked not to be named, said: ‘No one can remember anything about the robbery. If we didn’t have the CCTV footage you’d think the place was robbed by ghosts.’

The security guard on duty at the time said in a statement that he experienced a sense of overwhelming euphoria just prior to the incident. When police arrived on the scene they found him in a state of hysteria. He was admitted to the local hospital for psych evaluation and drug testing but has since been released.

Police are refusing to comment on any links between this robbery and the raid on the Ventura Fairgrounds Gun and Knife Show the same day, which saw several high-powered rifles, semi-automatic handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition stolen. Once again, despite the number of people in the vicinity there were no eyewitnesses.