ANOM: Awakening (The ANOM Series Book 1) (8 page)

Hot
Shot punched both of his fists out again, and Jeremy could feel himself start
to rise, pulled and pushed back up into the air. Jeremy reached for the ground
again, and then, just as his feet lifted off the floor, he could feel himself
drop. Whatever Hot Shot was doing before—throwing him into the air—it wasn’t
working now. Jeremy started to walk forward.

Hot
Shot punched again into the air. Jeremy braced himself. This time there was
nothing. He felt the pressure pushing back against his whole body, trying to
lift him into the air, but it didn’t matter. Jeremy didn’t move until he
started forward again. Hot Shot pushed back through the air, harder than
before. It didn’t matter. Jeremy kept coming.

It
wasn’t easy. He felt like he was walking to shore against the pull of a wave
trying to race back out to sea, only it felt as if his whole body was
underwater and every inch of him was being pulled back.

Hot
Shot pushed again.

Jeremy
managed another step. This time, as his foot touched down on the floor, the
marble under him cracked into a wide spider-web, crushed by his own weight.

Hot
Shot punched his fists out again, and Jeremy could see the man was struggling
now. His chest was heaving in and out, gulping in as much air as he could. His
face was turning bright red, and his arms, held straight out from his body,
were violently shaking up and down. A thin trickle of pale blood started
running from his nose.

Hot
Shot pulled his arms back and punched both of his fists out again. Another wave
crashed over Jeremy, trying to drag him back to sea, but it wasn’t enough. He
kept fighting forward. Ten feet away now. Six. Three feet.

Suddenly
Hot Shot dropped his hands. He stopped pushing, and instead, he threw a weak
right punch at the side of Jeremy’s head. Jeremy blocked it and countered with
a right hook. He caught Hot Shot on the side of the jaw. The assassin spun
around once as he fell to the ground, knocked out cold.

And
just like that, it was over.

As
Jeremy climbed out of the back of the SUV, the first thing he saw was his mom
racing down the front stairs. She crossed the sidewalk and wrapped both her
arms around him just as his second foot touched the ground.

“I’m
okay.” Jeremy tried his best to sound calm, but his mom didn’t answer. Instead,
she pulled her arms tighter around his back.

Jeremy
pulled away. “Really, Mom, I’m fine.”

“Mrs.
Cross,” a strong voice came from behind his mother. It belonged to a soldier
dressed in gray camouflage. He carried an assault rifle in front of him, pointed
down, but still at the ready. The soldier had followed his mom out of the house
and down the steps, always half a step behind, but now, as they stood on the
sidewalk, he seemed uneasy, his eyes scanning the far side of the street.

The
soldier touched the back of Emily Cross’ elbow and spoke again. “Mrs. Cross, we
need to go back inside. Ma’am—”

Emily
turned with her escort and started back toward the house. Jeremy followed.
Behind them, two more soldiers climbed out of the SUV. The first held a submachine
gun tight to his chest. Like the other man, his eyes were everywhere, scanning
up and down the street. The other soldier, the man in the rear, reached back
inside the vehicle and took Kate by the hand, helping her climb out of the SUV.
Then all three of them fell into step behind the others and started toward the
house.

At
the door, another soldier with a buzz cut and gray camouflage stood sentry, the
butt of his rifle tucked into his shoulder. For a second Jeremy was struck by
the absurdity of it all. He was ready with a quip about needing a password to
get inside his own house, but then the moment passed and nothing about the
soldiers or the guns or the camouflage seemed absurd anymore. Not today.

They
crossed the threshold and crowded into the entryway. Then Emily Cross hugged
her son again.

“Mom,
I told you, I’m fine.”

Kate
stepped forward between the soldiers. “He saved us, Mrs. Cross. He saved all of
us. Jeremy’s a—”

His
mom pulled away, and her face was hard. “You can’t keep doing this, Jeremy. You
can’t treat your life like it’s…like it’s disposable. You’re not your father.”

Jeremy
stepped back. “Mom—”

“He
left us, Jeremy. He did.” Emily wiped at her eyes. “And you owe me more than
that. You owe yourself more than that.”

“Excuse
me, Mrs. Cross. Kate. Jeremy,” a low voice came from down the hall, and all
three turned to look. Standing there, by the living room, another soldier, this
one with gray hair at both of his temples, was waiting for them.

Jeremy
glanced over at his mom, and then he stepped forward, holding out his hand to
the soldier. “Yes, sir. I’m Jeremy.”

The
soldier smiled, and deep crow’s feet appeared at the corners of his eyes. “I
know. I’m Colonel McCann, Jeremy. It’s nice to finally meet you in person.”

The
colonel reached out and shook Jeremy’s hand. “I know you must have a lot of
questions. All of you. If you and your mom and Miss Marino care to step into
the living room and have a seat, maybe we can make some sense out of what
happened today.”

The
colonel stepped into the living room. Jeremy, his mom, and Kate followed. They
sat down on the couch facing the television, with Jeremy in the middle.

Colonel
McCann stood in front of them; he handed an electronic tablet to Jeremy. “Do
you recognize this man?”

Jeremy
looked at the image on the screen. It was in black and white, and the focus was
grainy, but Jeremy knew the picture. It was the man from the mall.

*****

Hot
Shot laid sprawled across the marble, and Jeremy was still standing over him,
both of his fists clenched, ready for more. There was no need. Hot Shot wasn’t
getting back up. The man’s face didn’t look the same—not anymore. It was a
bright red smear of blood, and the right cheek looked sunken in, no longer
supported by solid bone. His lower jaw twisted grossly away from the rest of
his face. He was lying there unconscious; the only way Jeremy knew he was still
alive was by the rise and fall of his chest.

Then
Jeremy felt the vertigo and the nausea, and then he couldn’t breathe. He kept
trying, but he couldn’t get any air. Then he blacked out.

When
he opened his eyes again, Jeremy was lying on his back on the cold floor. Kate
was kneeling over him. He remembered his first thought, wondering if she had
given him CPR again and feeling embarrassed that the answer was probably yes.
She helped him sit up, and, for a second, everything in the mall was spinning.
Then he took a deep breath and steadied himself. That’s when he saw the
soldiers.

They
were everywhere, spreading out across the mall like ants, each one in their
gray camouflage with their weapons up and ready. Jeremy looked to his side and
four of the soldiers had surrounded his attacker. It was hard to see, but they
were either zip-tying Hot Shot’s hands and ankles together or they were
starting an IV. Maybe it was both.

Then
two more soldiers approached him and Kate, their weapons leveled. Jeremy
thought they asked for their names, but he saw Kate nodding, so he did the
same. Then one of the soldiers grabbed him under the arm, lifting him to his
feet, and they were both escorted out of the mall. They were loaded into the
back of an SUV.

*****

“Do
you recognize that man in the picture,” McCann said, calling Jeremy’s attention
back.

“Yeah.
That’s the guy from the mall.”

McCann
rubbed his chin as he looked down at the carpet. “We know that man, your
attacker, as ‘Hot Shot.’”

Jeremy
nodded. “Yeah. That’s what he kept calling himself. ‘Hot Shot.’”

“He
has plenty of other aliases—probably a new name for every day of the week—but
when someone wants him for a job, they go looking for Hot Shot. He’s a hired
gun, Jeremy. A trained assassin.”

Jeremy
kept staring at the image. “Where is he now?”

“He’s
somewhere safe. You won’t have to worry about him again.”

All
at once, Jeremy could see the big picture, like a connect-the-dots that wasn’t
finished; his mind was racing to fill in the gaps. “If he’s an assassin—he knew
my name—in the mall he was looking for me. He had a picture of me!”

McCann
looked up. “Because you were his target, Jeremy. That man was hired to kill
you. And that’s why you need to tell us everything you remember about last
week.”

Emily
Cross sat forward on the couch, and Jeremy could hear the panic in her voice.
“Last week? You mean about his accident? That man wanted to kill Jeremy because
of his accident?”

McCann’s
eyes stayed fixed on Jeremy. “Tell us what happened, son.”

Jeremy
shrugged. “I got hit by a bus.” He watched the colonel’s face as he spoke, but
McCann didn’t change. He made no reaction. There was no smirk of disbelief.

Emily,
however, spoke up at once. “You didn’t get hit by a bus, Jeremy. You almost got
hit. Dr. Patel told you—”

“No,
Mrs. Cross,” Kate interrupted. “I was there. I saw it. Jeremy got hit by that
bus.”

“We
saw it too, Mrs. Cross,” McCann said. “We studied the footage from the traffic
camera, and Jeremy definitely got hit by that bus. He got hit, but he was the
one left standing. Those are the facts.”

“That’s
crazy!” Emily snapped, sitting back hard against the couch.

Jeremy
looked at his mom, and for the first time, he thought he could really see her.
He could see the person she was. He could see that she believed everything they
were saying—she had to now—but she was too scared to admit it. Scared of what
it might mean for her son. More scared of what it might mean for her. And then
Jeremy realized what she was—all of her anger and judgment and guilt—it all
came from the same place. She was afraid. She spent a lifetime as the wife of
Dr. Jonathan Cross. Another lifetime as his mother. Now his dad was gone. What
if something happened to her son? What would be left of Emily Cross? Who would
she be? And for the first time since his dad died, maybe for the first time
ever, Jeremy felt sorry for her.

McCann
turned to Jeremy. “It was your accident that put you on our radar. The only
problem is, we weren’t the only ones looking.”

Jeremy’s
face twisted. “What do you mean? Looking for what?”

McCann
stared down at the carpet. “This is the hardest part for me, Jeremy, because
this is the moment where I need to ask for your forgiveness. Forgiveness from
all of you, really.”

“Forgiveness
for what?” Jeremy’s voice was suddenly flat.

“There’s
a way that we do things, Jeremy. A way that we’ve always done things. We have a
protocol that we have to follow, and when we learned about your accident,
that’s what we were doing. We were following our protocol. The event needed to
be verified.”

Jeremy
twisted on the couch. “So what are you apologizing for, Colonel?”

McCann
took a breath, “Last night we intercepted a communication between your attacker
and another group. They mentioned you by name, Jeremy. Of course we thought we
could still get to you in time. We were wrong.”

Jeremy
kept his eyes fixed on the colonel. “What group?”

“It
was the Red Moon. They wanted you dead, Jeremy. They hired that man to kill you
today.”

“And
you let it happen?” Emily Cross was on her feet, her face scarlet. “Do you have
any idea what they already did to this family? What they did to—”

“We
know about your husband, Mrs. Cross, but—,”

“We
understand that it feels very personal, Mrs. Cross,” a new voice spoke now from
the hallway. It was softer and fuller than the colonel’s—a woman’s voice.
Jeremy could hear the click of heels on the hardwood floor, and it sounded like
she was coming down the stairs.

Jeremy
and Kate both turned to look. A second later and the woman appeared in the
entryway to the living room.

She
was young, maybe only a couple of years older than Jeremy and Kate. She wore a
gray pencil skirt cut high above the knee and a matching gray jacket over a
pale-blue, silken blouse. Her shoes were black, patent leather heels, and she
wore a thin silver necklace with a heart-shaped locket hanging just below her
throat. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a low bun, and her soft pink
lipstick, arched eyebrows, and dark blue eyes worked together to lend the girl
a gravity well beyond her years. In the crook of one arm she carried a tablet,
like the colonel’s, and in her other hand she held a red Pinewood Derby car
taken from Jeremy’s room—the last car he ever built with his dad.

The
blonde woman stepped to Emily, placing a hand on her elbow and leading her back
toward the couch. “Please, Mrs. Cross, you have to trust us. The attack on your
son was never personal. As far as the Red Moon is concerned, it barely
qualifies as a coincidence.”

Emily
sat back on the couch, although she was still visibly agitated, crossing her
legs to one side and then back to the other.

The
colonel spoke again, “Jeremy, Kate, I’d like to introduce you both to Lara
Miller. Lara is a civilian contractor attached to our battalion.”

“It’s
nice to meet you both.” Lara held out her hand.

Jeremy
half-stood, half-leaned forward to shake hands. As they touched, he noticed
Lara’s skin. It was soft and cool under his hand—her fingers long and slender.
Then Jeremy heard the whispered word, “Seattle.” It was spoken in Lara’s voice,
quiet and commanding, but he didn’t really hear it at all. It was more like he
felt the word, deep in the back of his mind like seeing an old picture and
remembering the day it was taken. Still, it was said in Lara’s voice. He was
sure about that much.

Jeremy
sat back on the sofa. “What did you say?”

Lara
looked up at Colonel McCann and then back at Jeremy, an awkward smile starting
on her face. “I—I didn’t say anything. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,
I know, but you did. You said, ‘Seattle. You didn’t say it, but I heard you,’”
Jeremy said.

Lara
turned her attention instead to Kate. “Hi, let me try this again. I’m Lara.”

Kate
leaned forward to shake hands. “Don’t worry about him. Jeremy hasn’t been
himself since the bus. Maybe he’s hearing things now.”

Jeremy
shook his head. “Yeah, I hear things when people speak. That’s how it works.”

“She
didn’t say anything, Jeremy.” The frustration in Kate’s voice matched his own
feelings; he could tell she didn’t believe him. Jeremy wanted to keep going. He
wanted to make her understand, but how could he when he didn’t it understand
himself? He could see it was a waste of time.

Instead,
Jeremy turned to McCann. “Okay, so the Red Moon wants me dead. And it’s not
personal. So what’s their problem?”

Lara
answered for the colonel. “You know that you’re special, Jeremy.”
“Yeah, I feel like a snowflake.” Jeremy looked sideways at Lara.

She
was definitely beautiful, there was no denying that, but right now he didn’t
care. He was pissed about the voice-trick in his head, and he wanted her to
know it.