Finding Sage (The Rogue Book 1) (17 page)

With a raging burst of power, they all fell to the ground unconscious.  Silas slowly stood up with Alice in his arms and Lilly at his side.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

              Tariq, Salah, and Eli stood in disbelief.  They slowly rose and followed, staring at Silas as he walked.  They had spent a lot of time with him, but he was different right now.  Confident.  Determined.  Enraged.  For the first time, the reality of their abilities sunk in.  They all thought in unison,
We might actually have a chance.

29.

              Jax watched as a grey semi-truck backed into the warehouse.  He and Luke opened the back doors of the trailer and saw it packed wall to wall with cardboard boxes.  The scent of the cargo hit Jax like a thick cloud of smoke.  He shivered slightly at the familiarity of the aroma and began unloading the cargo.  Each of the boxes had a blue wreath stamp on the top.  He and Luke stacked the boxes on metal shelves until it was empty and then watched as the truck left. 

He watched as another came and they unloaded that truck.  This continued until five o’clock.   Before leaving the building, Jax took a look at the warehouse and dreaded what was coming.  The warehouse was getting full and they would be having a distribution soon.  Jax grimaced as he thought of the grimy smell of the dark, moist tunnels that they had visited two weeks ago. 

             
Fantastic
, Jax thought to himself.

Jax and Luke walked out of the warehouse into the full parking lot, got in the white van, and began driving back to the house.  The half-hour trip passed with no words.  When they pulled into the driveway, Jax walked up the Victorian-era staircase and into his room and closed the door. 

He sat down on his bed, sighed, and ran his hand through his hair. He sat in silence for a couple of minutes, relishing the peace.  The peace didn’t last long.

His eyes shifted slowly to the upper right drawer of his dresser against the wall.  His heart rate began to increase and he heard the drawer’s contents calling his name like an insatiable itch refusing to recede.  He wiped sweat from his forehead and his hands began to shake. 

Jax looked around, even though he knew that he was alone in his bedroom.  He stood up, walked to his dresser, and pulled out the upper right drawer.  He stared at the finely-ground white powder in small plastic bags.  His breathing became deeper and shakier.  He picked up one of the bags and opened it, then put it up to his nose.  Instant relief flooded through his body with a tingling sensation.  He loathed every second of it.

              Jax opened his eyes slowly.  He was lying on the cold hardwood floor.  It was in the middle of the night, his window was somehow open, and he could feel the cold chilling breeze blowing in.  He stood up and tried to shake off the aftereffects.  As he stood, he nearly toppled over from dizziness.  He placed his hands on the dresser to keep his balance.  He felt something small and granular be pressed into his hand.  He looked at his hand, and to his horror, the same white powder stared him in the eye. 

He panicked and fell down in an attempt to get it off of his hand.  He pushed himself to the opposite wall of the room with his feet and huddled there for a moment.  He was now hyperventilating in rapid and shallow breaths.  He bit his trembling bottom lip and looked down at the floor as a tear fell from his eye.  After a few minutes he gathered the courage to look up.

Staring at him from the doorway with a cocked head was his step-father.  His step-father was holding a baseball bat with blood dripping from it.  His eyes grew wide, filling with horrifying memories and he backed into the back corner of the room, erratically whispering “no” repeatedly.  As his step-father came nearer, his shape changed several times a second.  First he was a hairy monster, then a tiger, then an alien, and several other shapes that Jax did not recognize.  Colors flashed and he heard a deep maniacal laugh echoing through his mind. 

He huddled in the fetal position for hours, sobbing like an infant without its mother.  His head spun and he wished for death; longed for it, pled for it.

Jax woke to the early morning sunlight shining in his eyes.  He was afraid to move for several minutes, remembering the sheer horror that he had just recently experienced. As he rolled back over to escape from the memory of the horrific fabricated experience, one thought pervaded all:
I can’t do this anymore
.

Jax faintly heard a voice calling his name.  He tried to open his eyes, but he found his eyelids to be too heavy.  Someone shook him and he slowly began to rise.  He blinked several times and the blurry figure of a man crystalized. 

              “Jax, you have to get up,” Grayson said.  “We have a distribution today.”

              Jax nodded and Grayson left the room.

              He rose and walked to the bathroom, immediately splashing water on his face.  His head throbbed with pain and he was nauseated, but he attempted to shake it off and stepped into the shower. 

              He allowed the hot water to strike him as he stared at a singular patch of porcelain while contemplating the raging battle that ensued within his own mind.  The driving itch of the addiction, the release of momentary gratification, and the bitter aftertaste of guilt all plagued him with fresh memories of crystal clarity. 

              As he stepped out of the shower, dried himself, and got dressed, an itching question burned in his throat, begging to be asked.  He looked at the stack of water bottles beside his bed and the hypocrisy stung like salt in an open wound.  In a moment of desperation, he sat on the toilet lid and voiced it, careful to let no one else hear even a whisper.

              “What am I going to do about this?”

              He put his head in his hands and bit his lip in an effort to avoid crying.  They had to leave very soon and he did not want to let on that anything was wrong, least of all around Grayson.  So he took several deep breaths and rose from his seat, pushing past the baggage to trek through the day’s events. 

              He walked down the stairs and met his two roommates, dreading the distribution but knowing it was necessary.  The three of them climbed into the white van and drove away, leaving the old house behind them in the dust. 

              After an hour of driving, they parked in a large lot and walked into a large stone building.  The archaic structure had a moist appearance to it with luscious green vines climbing up the sides.  Were it not for the packed parking lot, one would think it was abandoned.

              They walked inside and took a descending escalator to the floor below them.  From there, they walked to an elevator which Grayson operated with the use of a key.  Once below, they reported to a U.N. soldier, who directed them in their job.  The royal blue uniforms always brought distasteful memories for citizens, but even more so for Jax.  His whole life he had been forced to pass them on the street knowing that if they knew the truth, he would soon be dead, having only a few close friends who knew the truth.  Nonetheless, he worked under them, remembering to play the part.  They wanted drugs in the water supply, so he would pour them in the water supply.  For now.

              The boxes were already in the lower level.  They had been transported here from the warehouse overnight.  The workers lined up alongside the metal pipes, which had been cut open at places to expose the water, flowing freely and uninhibited.  Jax, along with Luke, Grayson, and the other workers, dumped the white powder into the water.  Jax closed his eyes and shuddered at the first box.  The second was a little easier.  The third was easier still.  By lunchtime he barely felt anything, a fact that scared him more than anything in the world.

              When he came back from his lunch break, he began to feel the itch again.  He longed to reach down into the box, grab a handful, and stuff it in his pocket.  Just one handful.  He had seen the others looking at the luscious white powder longingly before taking a short break to grab a glass of tap water.  One handful.  That was all he wanted.  Just one. 

              As he fought within himself, another worker bumped into him, interrupting his emotional train of thought.  The worker apologized and Jax nodded.  He came to himself and realized what he was thinking about doing.  Several people probably would have seen him.  He could have been noticed by the soldiers.  If he was noticed by the soldiers, his chances of exposure were greatly increased.  With horror, he realized that his addiction could have in a few short minutes led to his death.  For the rest of the day, he worked in silence, incredulous at the depth of his own fall.

              In a few more hours, they finished the distribution and went home.  When Jax saw the familiar sight of the old stone house, he tensed up.  He knew what was awaiting him from the moment he stepped inside the door.  True to form, he felt the mental itch nagging at his consciousness. 

              He entered his room and sat on the bed, not daring to move for fear of what he would do.  The potential pleasure and guilt called his name, beckoning him, seducing him.  He began to breathe heavier and more frequently and put his head in his hands, unsure of what to do.  He looked at the pile of water bottles next to his bed.  He remembered why they were there.  He knew what he must do.  He lifted his head and formed a scowl on his face.

              “Not anymore.”

              He launched himself from the bed, intent to follow through on the first positive impulse he’d had in a very long time.  He pulled open the drawer and grabbed the plastic bag half-filled with white powder.  He walked to the bathroom, threw the bag into the toilet, and pressed down on the handle.  He watched as the bag swirled down the drain.  He felt an emotion that had been so far removed from his life for so long, it felt strangely foreign.  He felt relief.  He felt satisfaction.  He felt happiness.

              He grabbed a water bottle and chugged the drug-free water with joy.  He laid his head down on his pillow with a broad smile on his face.  He was taking a head-first dive into unchartered waters, but for the first time in a very long time, he was happy.  He had done the right thing and he knew it.  For the first time, he felt happy.  He was happy.

Things would never be the same.

30.

              Jefferson slowly opened his eyes.  As the blurry images became clear, a numbing pain in the back of his head rose.  He lay on the ground for several minutes, afraid to move.  He suspected that the targets had escaped, but he was petrified by fear.  In all his days of hunting rogues, he had never experienced anyone entering his mind.  The experience haunted him with a bitter aftertaste that he couldn’t seem to rid himself of. 

              He slowly pushed himself to his feet.  He looked around him and saw that a few were slowly rising, but most remained unconscious.  As he stared in disbelief at the rubble from the explosion and scores of his men lying helplessly, he thought,
What are we dealing with?

              Jefferson’s phone rang and he frantically pulled it out.  He nearly dropped it in his excitement, still on edge from the traumatic event.  The name of the caller was displayed in crisp white font: Agent Rodger Coleman. 

              For a moment, Jefferson considered ignoring the call until he could conjure an appropriate explanation, or perhaps have good news to give along with the bad, but he knew that ignoring the call would not bode well with his superior officer, so he answered. 

              “Jefferson,” he said.

              “Where do we stand?” Rodge asked from the other end.

              Jefferson swallowed heavily.  How do you explain that you had your targets surrounded with nearly one hundred armed men and they still managed to escape?  How do you tell your commanding officer that you were knocked unconscious for an unknown period of time while they walked away nearly unscathed? 

              “They escaped, sir.  Knight displayed an ability that we were not prepared for.”

              Jefferson clenched his jaw, prepared for the worst.  He feared fulfillment of the threat Agent Coleman proposed earlier, that his tenure may be coming to an abrupt end.  To his surprise, however, Coleman did not sound angry.  He did not seem agitated.  On the contrary, he seemed mildly pleased.

              “Really?” Rodge said with an intrigued tone.  “What sort of talent?”

              “He entered the minds of myself and my men.  He gave a message to us, then somehow caused all of us to lose consciousness.”

              Rodge paused before continuing.

              “And what was this message?”

              Chills ran down Jefferson’s spine as he recalled the bone-chilling message.

              “He said ‘Prime Minister.  I am Silas Knight.  You have sought after the lives of me and my friends.  This is a mistake.  See what I am capable of.  If you do not stop, and I know you will not, I will bring all the hosts of Hell to your doorstep.  Your reign of terror is coming to an end and a new order is here.  Long live Sage.’”

              The other end is silent for several seconds and Jefferson grew impatient with anxiety.  Finally, Rodge answered.

              “This is a very interesting turn of events.  Knight has exceeded every expectation.  I’m going to send you some backup.”

              Jefferson heard a blood-curdling scream from the other end of the line and Rodge giving a short series of orders.  He looked at the rubble from the train and his disoriented men and worry began to swell inside of him as it did in Chicago.  A question burned in his throat and he knew he had to ask it.

              “What about the Prime Minister?”

              “Don’t worry.  I’ll take care of her.  You have brought very good tidings, Agent Jefferson.  Stay on their tail and this mission will soon be over.  Find them but don’t attack again until backup arrives.  Clear?”

              “Yes sir.”