I Am Phantom (16 page)

“They
were trying to isolate the physical attributes given to me. It didn’t work. The
man died.”

“Interesting…”
Matt said, tapping his chin. Interesting? He really needed to learn a little
tact. “So what is it that made you able to withstand not dying?”

I
tried to shrug, but Melanie pushed me down and continued dabbing the wound.
“Beats me.”

“Drake,”
Cody was rubbing his hand on his forehead. “Are you sure, completely sure, it
was Carlyle down there? You only saw the guy once. You could have been wrong.”

“It
was him, Cody,” I said. “I’m sorry.” Cody swore and started pacing the room.

“Does
that mean this whole Lab thing is them? Are we really working for them?”

Melanie
finished up the last bit on the wound. “No, Cody. I’ve been here for three
years and I’ve known exactly where all my projects go. The Lab is overseen by
the Department of Defense. Project Midnight isn’t.”

“Still…”
Cody saw that she was done. “You feeling better?” I propped myself up on one
elbow.

“A
bit. I…I just don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. All this Project
Midnight stuff. They had a whole operation down there, and who knows how many
more like it still exist.”

I
waited for Cody to pipe up with words of encouragement. I glanced up. His face
was masked in shadows. “You think I’m doing good, Cody?”

Cody
moved into the light. “Yeah…I think you are. But—” He ran his hand over
his mouth. “You’re in bad shape, and you just started. Who knows how long you
can keep this up before something really bad happens to you.”

Huh.
That wasn’t what I expected.

“I
don’t know, Drake buddy,” Cody continued. “Maybe I’m just being cynical. Maybe
this will all look better in the morning.”

He
gripped my arm and helped me stand. The ground looked too far below me and my
stomach tumbled. Cody made me drink some more water. “I’m still behind you all
the way, you know, if you still want to,” Cody said.

I
sighed and took a step forward. The pain had lessened greatly in my side,
almost as if it was healing itself right then. “I have to. I have to know more.”

“And
Sykes?” Matt said quietly.

Sykes…Sykes.
A man that scared me to no end, yet was the best chance for answers beyond
Carlyle. But how many people would get hurt? How many innocents would he tear
through for his twisted revenge while I sat and waited patiently to get
answers?

“I…don’t
know,” I said.

“Ah,
well,” Cody said, gently patting me on the back. “We’ll be with you whatever
you decide to do.”

I
wanted to tell them they were fantastic. Having them there to support me meant
so much. I wanted to tell them they were why I would keep trying my best as
Phantom. I wanted to say all of that but my tongue turned to rubble in my mouth
and finally my brain tripped and I went black.

Chapter
Ten

The
Date

Finals
distracted me from Project Midnight, if only for a bit. With all the studying I
had to do, there was only enough worrying I could get done and stay sane.

“You
need to get your mind off all this Project Midnight stuff, Drake buddy. It’s
almost Christmas break. Be merry!”

My
glowering look was enough to shut off that faucet of enthusiasm. “It’s my life,
Cody. I have to find out more about them. To find out more about me.”

We
took another left. The gym I sparred at was just ahead. It wasn’t that I needed
to train for fighting, obviously, but it was nice to fight someone without the
potential of death hanging over me. “Not like I want to worry about it, but I
kind of have to.”

Cody
nodded, as though making his mind up about something.

“Did
you mean it when you said you wanted to ask Liz out?”

“This
is not a good way to make me less stressed,” I said.

“But
did you mean it?”

What
was he implying? “Of course I meant it.” Cody bobbed his head down the
sidewalk. “Great, ‘cause she’s right there.”

Sure
enough, Liz had just left the gym, her bag slung over her shoulder, and turned
towards us down the sidewalk.

“I
didn’t mean I wanted to ask her right now!” I hissed, panicking.

“When,
then?”

I
must have mumbled something along the lines of ‘a year from now’ because
suddenly Cody was waving his hands and calling Liz over.

She
looked up, saw us and broke out in a broad smile. The butterflies soared.

“You
guys hitting the gym?” She said when we met her. “Darian isn’t there today. I’d
spar but I want your pride to be in tact.” She grinned again and pulled the bag
farther up her shoulder.

“Yeah…”
I said stupidly.

“I’ll
meet you inside, Drake,” Cody said before abandoning me. “See you, Liz.” She
waved at him and then turned back to me. Cody didn’t go inside, but hung behind
her just a bit, moving his hands in a ‘go on’ gesture.

“You
joining him? Don’t tell me he’s your sparring partner. That’d just be
mean—“

“Hey,
Liz…I was wondering…”

Cody
waggled his eyebrows and winked. I wondered in what universe he thought that
was considered helping.

The
pause hung there until Liz said, “Yea…wondering’s good.”

Apparently
I was floundering because Cody came back over. “Liz, Drake would like
to—”

I
gently shoved him away. Or, maybe not so gently because he tumbled into a wall.
I was nervous. Sue me.

“Would
you want to go to Fairway Plaza for dinner tonight?” I said quickly before she
could look back where Cody lay crumpled and cursing. “My treat.”

Liz
didn’t miss a beat. “Sure. What time are you picking me up?” I let out an
internal sigh of relief.

“If
by pick you up you mean walk by and escort you since I don’t have a car, then
seven,” I said, ignoring the sound of Cody smacking his forehead behind her.

“Great!
See you then. Bye, Cody.” She continued walking towards campus. I could have
sworn I saw her grinning. When she had turned the corner I did a celebratory
fist pump.

“Charmed
her like a pro, Romeo,” Cody groaned. “Now help me hobble to the nearest
hospital. I think you broke my back.”

I
was in another wardrobe crisis. Except this time, instead of a monk’s robe, I
went with my nicest jeans and a collared shirt. Not that it mattered. Since the
restaurants in Fairway Plaza were outside we would be layered up the whole time
anyway. It was the thought that counted, though.

Satisfied
that I looked as nice as I was going to get, I hurried across Mcminn Hall’s
courtyard and outside the doorway that led to Liz’s hallway. She was already
waiting outside, bundled up in a jacket and scarf.

She
waved, a little shyly, when she saw me. Maybe, just maybe, she was as nervous
as I was.

“You
look great,” I said.

“It’s
jeans and a jacket, Drake. Nothing fancy.”

“You
look fantastic.”

 
She eyed me. “Slow down there or you’ll
run out of adjectives before we eat.” She glanced at something on my forearm.
“What’s that?”

“What?”
I looked at where she pointed. A large gash from my run in with Project
Midnight was showing. I quickly pulled my sleeve down. “I tripped. Come on.”

Fairway
Plaza was on the other side of campus, nestled between high-rise apartments and
a bank office. Stalls filled with all kind of food fanned around the center
fountain.

The
entire walk there I made horrible small talk and weighed the risk of having my
arm broken off if I tried to take her hand. Should I? Maybe not…

“Drake?”

“Yeah?”
We had arrived. A lot of students used the Plaza as a study hangout.
Fortunately there weren’t too many here tonight. The sun was gone and lights
flooded the white stone sidewalks.

“I
was asking what kind of food you wanted. They have Italian,” she pointed at one
stall and moved her finger down the line. “Mexican, Tex-mex, I don’t know what
the difference is, burgers, French. French?”

“I
was thinking we could do a little bit of everything,” I said. “Mexican
appetizers, Italian entree, and then desert somewhere.”

“That
sounds…good, actually,” Liz said.

I
congratulated myself the entire time we were getting food. What a brilliant
idea. Next time I would just not plan anything and make it up as I went. If
there was a next time.

“Here,”
I said, motioning to a vacant table on the outside of the plaza with my elbow,
my hands full of food.

We
sat and started eating. I couldn’t help shooting glances at Liz. She seemed content
to sit in relative silence, watching people strolling between the booths. It
was nice to see someone seemingly so at home with who they were. That made me
happy, and very sad. She knew exactly who she was, what she wanted to be and
what she had done. I knew those things too and yet they had never really been
my decisions, had they? Someone, even before I had been born, had taken that
choice away from me.

But
for now, if she was content, then so was I. Any attempt to force conversation
could potentially end in disaster. I swirled a nacho in some sauerkraut and
took a bite.

“So
what do you do for fun, besides beating up people?”

I
choked and managed to swallow the rest of the sauerkraut.

“So-sorry.
Beating up people?” Liz twirled spaghetti on her fork and dunked it in some
salsa.

“At
the gym. We spar a lot but you’ve got to have another hobby.”

Whew.
“Right, that kind of beating people up. I hang out with my friends a lot.”
Mostly doing illegal things.
“And help
Cody with some of his crazier inventions.”
One
of which is a costume for a vigilante you may have heard of.
“You?”

“Outdoor
Pursuits Club. I came here for Social work but I love the outdoors. Kind of
felt it was pulling me.” She looked back at the plaza. “It’s hard to describe,
but you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,”
I said. “Kind of like you had no choice.”

Liz
paused with some fries halfway to her mouth. “I wouldn’t say
that.
You always have a choice. Nobody
ever decides what you do and why you do it.”

“What
if they forced you to come here? What if they had picked out the school before
you had even been born?”

Liz’s
eyebrows furrowed. “Uh-huh…I don’t see where this is going, but I would still
question it. The person they want you to be isn’t the person you have to
become.”

By
now I had lost my appetite. I put the rest of my hamburger down.

“I
wish we all had that choice.” Liz seemed to sense we had tapped into something
deeper. She stopped eating.

“What
do you mean?” I hadn’t meant to crowd the date with all this negativity. The
run in with the remnants of Project Midnight had put a damper in my week. Go
figure. Despite all that they had put me through, whether I knew it or not,
they were still around, maybe doing the same thing to more people.

Even
now Project Midnight was affecting everything that I thought was safe. Where
once they could only touch my persona of Phantom, the thing they unwittingly
created, now they had moved past that and were attacking who I was.

“It’s
nothing. How’s your sauerkraut and humus?” Liz didn’t look like she wanted to drop
the conversation.

“Fine.
What do you mean some people don’t have a choice?”

I
couldn’t look at her. Instead I watched a man who had just ordered something
from a nearby food booth. He walked past us and down a small road leading to
the other side of the apartment complex.

“For
some, life doesn’t leave many options. So what do you do when there’s nothing
you can do?”

“Drake,
what do you do at the gym?”

“At
the gym? I fight.”

“Exactly.
You fight. You don’t lay down and die. You fight.” She angrily dunked her chips
again. “Don’t be such a big baby.”

I
felt the tug of a smile. I glanced back at the lone man. Just as three men
jumped him. The first punched him in the stomach and the other two started
dragging him away.

Really?
Now? And yet, it was time to end this pity party. Time to fight.

“Be
right back,” I said, leaping up. I managed to keep my speed normal until I was
sure I was out of sight, then I let loose. The three men had managed to pull
the struggling guy farther down a quiet street, punctuated only by his sporadic
yells that were quickly hushed.

The
men were Project Midnight. The black uniforms with the sliver of the moon on
them. What Sykes had said was true. They were still kidnapping people, still
ruining lives.

I
waited until they paused beneath a streetlamp before I grabbed one of them and
knocked him out cold. The other two stopped when they realized one of their
comrades had seemingly vanished. The guy between them had stopped struggling,
his lip swollen and dripping blood on the pavement.

“Who’s
there?” One yelled. He squinted to try to see past the light and into the
darkness. He couldn’t see me in the shadows. I stalked behind them and grabbed
another one. He yelped and I tossed him into a dumpster. The last man dropped
the guy they were kidnapping and grabbed for a gun.

“Don’t,”
I advised. “You wouldn’t be able to hit me anyways.”

“Not
worried about that,” he said, pulling the gun out and pressing it to the guy’s
head who had just started to rise. He slowly put his hands up.

“Let
me see you or I’m plastering the pavement with him.” I wasn’t scared. I was
angry. It was one thing to threaten me, someone who was involved—I was a
part of their game now. I always had been—but it was another to threaten
innocents.

I
made sure to stay out of the light just enough that he wouldn’t see my face.
The man immediately pointed the gun at me.

“You’re
just a kid. But…” He suddenly shoved the guy away. “We need to come back with
somebody. Wanna-be hero would be better.”
      

“Go,”
I said to the guy on the ground. He looked between both of us, then scampered
away.

“If
you think he’s going to bring back help you’re wrong. We’ll be long gone by the
time he comes back.”

“I
didn’t want him to see this.” I felt my hand breaking his arm before I realized
I was doing it. The man tried to scream but I head butted his face and all that
came out was a dry wheeze. The gun clattered to the ground and I kicked it
aside.

“The
police will find you,” I said. One loss for Project Midnight.” The man
shuddered and tried to look up at me. I shoved his head down.

           
“How—did—you?”

 
I let him collapse. I pulled the other
two unconscious men to him and made sure they were well visible.

“Drake?”

Where
had Liz come from? She stood just outside the light, eyes wide and focused on
the men in a heap in front of me.

Without
thinking, I latched on to her arm and practically dragged her back to the plaza.
She made no resistance. Maybe she was in shock. After seeing that I could
imagine she was. All I could think about was how much of an idiot I was.

 
We walked behind the booths as a few
police ran by, back to where I’d come from.

“Could
you let go of my arm, Drake?”

I
released it. “Sorry,” I mumbled. I couldn’t look at her. We kept walking away
from the plaza and back towards school. I guess that had officially ended our
date.

“You
saved that man,” Liz finally said. She had slowed down so that she hung a
little behind me. I’d expected there to be fear in her tone, but there was
none.