Killshot (Icarus Series Book 1) (24 page)

I moved swiftly and easily. Pivoting past a small fire near the garbage bins, I ducked beneath a low branch and leapt over a pile of what I hoped was smoldering debris laying in the yard. I danced around each and every obstacle with near-choreographed precision, and didn’t stop until my feet landed softly on the other side of the chest high fence.

              “Whoa,” I said, pausing for just a moment to look back at the course I had just miraculously wormed my way through.

              Before I could question it further, I spun on my heel and sprinted over to the sliding doors at the back of the house. On the way, I scooped up a gardening trowel that lay on the ground and leapt up onto the back patio. In one swift motion, I used the trowel to slide open the door and dove across to the other side of the doorframe. Bright amber flames shot out through the opening, engulfing the space I had occupied just moments ago. A relentless torrent of thick, black smoke surged out after it, soaring into the night sky like a swarm of locusts. After nice deep breath of fresh air, the fire retreated back into the house to continue its feast.

              As soon as it did, I tightened the towel around my face, crouched down and crept through the open door. Out of habit, I suppose, I kicked it shut behind me. Cut off from its escape route, the smoke began to cling in angry clouds, thickening against the ceiling of the burning kitchen. I should have left it open, but it was too late to turn back.

              I rushed across the tile floor, keeping my head as low as possible. Stepping over a burning stool, I ducked beneath the singed remains of the swinging doors and out into the main entryway of the house. Fire trickled up the walls, like an orange waterfall flowing backwards, sending bits of flaming paint and wallpaper, fluttering to the floor around me. Like me, the flames were seeking higher ground and I needed to hurry if I was going to beat them.

              I tightened the towel around my face again and took a deep breath. My lungs screamed in protest, but I fought the urge reject the toxic air as I dove forward into the unknown. Flashbacks of grade school fire-prevention assemblies flashed through my mind as I staggered towards the stairs. The fire fighters always said the same thing— stay low to the ground, cover your mouth and nose, and never, ever go into a burning building.

              Two out of three ain’t bad.

              Mrs. Tate’s prized oak railing was still miraculously intact and I ran one hand along its smooth surface as I army-crawled to the top of the staircase. When I crested the top step, I slithered along the floor, keeping my hand against floor molding that ran the length of the hallway. I followed it past the bathroom, towards where Riley and I slept.

              Unable to see through the wall of darkness, I found my way to Riley’s room by touch alone. The heat was all consuming. My eyes watered uncontrollably, though I had no idea where my body had found the moisture and it did little to soothe the burning beneath my lids. My throat felt raw and tight, each breath like swallowing sand. I hacked and gagged as the smoke tried to force its way into my lungs.

              It tasted of burnt plastic and chemicals and my tongue began to swell in protest. The paint above the trim was peeling away at my touch, curling as if it, too, was trying to escape the flames. I held the towel closer to my mouth and crawled on knees and elbows down the hallway.

              I pulled myself up onto the balls of my feet, lunging head-first through Riley’s open door. I caught myself on the footboard of her bed, my left eye narrowly missing the sharp prong on a studded belt that hung there. I coughed and sputtered against the poisonous black cloud and followed the edge of the mattress to the old base drum Riley used as a nightstand. I sifted frantically through the tumbling stack of books, hair ties, and make-up until I found what I was looking for. I shoved it deep into my pocket and ducked back out into the smoke-filled hallway.

              The cloud of poison had grown thicker now, forcing me back down to onto the floor. My backpack flopped from side to side, banging into my ribs as I skittered across the rough wood floors. From my vantage point, I could easily see beneath the door to my room, to the orange glow that awaited me on the other side. I shifted around so I was lying against my pack on the hard floor, the soles of my boots resting against my door. I held my breath, cranked my feet back, and thrust them as hard as I could into the door. On the third kick, it swung open and I rolled to the side as the knob slammed hard against the wall inside my room.

              “Gah!”

              A wave of heat and flames burst through the door and into the hallway. As soon as the backdraft subsided, I scrambled across the floor into my room, which was almost completely engulfed in flames. It was so hot, I could barely think as the smoke strangled and pressed me into the floor. The walls and ceiling bubbled under the bright orange tendrils. Pieces of plaster crashed down around me, as the texture disintegrated above me. The end of my bed was a wall of fire and the flames crept their way across my room.

              I inched forward on my hands and knees, to my bedside table, and swiped blindly at the items on its surface. The lamp clattered across the table, one of the table’s legs gave out, and the entire thing crashed to the floor. The lamp shattered, sending shards of pink porcelain and broken glass hurtling towards my face. The rest of my bedside items scattered across the floor in all directions.

              I slapped aimlessly at the floor around me, unable to see through the blackness closing in. I barely flinched when the rosy lamp shrapnel embedded itself in my hand, but nearly I lost it when my hand finally landed on that stupid stuffed lion. I grabbed my courage by the tail, stuffed him up the front of my shirt, and made my way out of the scorched remains of the princess bedroom, gagging as my lungs burned in my chest. I crawled along the old wood floor, board by board and by the time I reached the top of the stairs, they were fully consumed by flames. I nearly lost my balance and fell over.

              “Shit,” I choked out, grabbing onto the railing for support.

              The flames licked at my heels and without thinking, I threw my leg over the solid oak railing and pushed off. I held on for dear life as I sailed down the thick banister and landed with a thud at the bottom of the staircase. Nothing was recognizable anymore through the trenches of smoke, but I instinctively headed back the way I had come. The swinging door crashed to the ground behind me, sending shards of flaming wood my direction. I rolled to the side to avoid them and slammed my already sore shoulder into the corner of the breakfast bar.

              “Ahh,” I groaned as I inched my way along the tile floor.

              I oriented myself towards the only light I could see; a shred of night sky that peeked through glass doors ahead. The moonlight seemed pale in comparison to the smothering darkness of the black smoke around me. My head was buzzing and my vision was blurry. My hands and feet felt numb, but somehow I dragged myself over to the sliding door. I tried to get up but found I could not reach the handle. I shoved at the frame, but the door would not open. Desperate and disoriented, I rolled onto my back and kicked at the glass.

It laughed at me and held firm.

              I felt myself sinking into the floor, my limbs no longer responding to commands. My eyes would not open, but I could feel the heat closing in on me. I always heard your life flashed before your eyes when you died, but in my case, it was more of a random, fleeting thought…
I died trying to save a stuffed animal.

              Tiny diamonds rained down on me and a breeze tickled my face.

              “Liv, hold on!”

              My body floated weightlessly through the flames.

              “Oh my God, is she—” Small hands touched my face.

              “Damn it, Sarge,” croaked another voice. “Open your eyes.”

              The ceaseless spasm in my throat refused to let me speak. My head tilted back, but I didn’t issue the command. My lungs ached as though someone was standing on my chest.

              “I don’t think she’s breathing,” a voice cracked. “Do something!”

              “Liv, please.” Stubble brushed lightly against my ear.

              “Please, someone do something!”

              I was floating, and it felt nice.

              “Come back to me, Liv.” Lips on lips.

              My chest felt warm and light. Though it rebelled at the intrusion, relief flooded my body, pulling me back towards the ground. I felt my chest rise and fall, defying my paralysis. Those warm lips left mine for just a moment and my entire body ached at their loss. Soon enough, coolness spread through my chest again, bringing with it tiny crackles that tingled through my fingers and toes. The fuse lit and inched closer and closer to my heart, bringing with it the weight of earthly pain.

              Every cell in my body was electrified, buzzing with energy. Then, like a dam, everything seemed to burst at once, sending a wave of agony rippling through my body.

              My body shot upright of its own volition and tears flooded my eyes.

              I gulped greedily at the midnight air, starved for what I had been denied. Despite the burning in my chest, my heart sang at the sensation as it filled. My stomach, however, had had enough of the abuse and retaliated. With my last ounce of energy, I rolled onto my side and threw up.

              Right in Zander’s face.

Chapter 24

Senses

               “Damn it, Liv,” Riley said handing me a bottle of water. “You
have
to stop doing that.”

              She wiped at the last of her tears and then crossed her arms, looking at the destruction around her. The Tates’ house was obliterated. Even if I had known what to say at that moment to make this all okay, it hurt too much to speak, so I didn’t.

              “I’m with her on this one,” Falisha glared at me. “Seriously, this whole trying to get yourself killed thing, is getting kind of old.”

              I squirted some of the water into my eyes, rinsing the soot and ash away as best I could. My vision was still a bit cloudy but it was quickly improving. My throat was going to be sore for a while and I was going to have to watch for signs of hypoxia from the smoke inhalation, but for the most part, I was okay. Still, they were right. All in all, I was lucky to be alive.

              Again.

              “That was so stupid. Why did you go in there, Liv?” Riley asked, dropping to her knees at my side. “The Tates are— everything is gone.
What
was so important, that you risked your life?”

              “A promise.” The words scraped from my throat. Courage the lion, who was now singed and stained with my blood, lay next to me in the dirt, looking as beat up as I felt.

              “Jesus Christ, Liv.” She swiped at her face and then laid her hands in her lap, shaking her head. “You could have died, don’t you get that?”

              I reached out, turned her hand over, and dropped the delicate metal into her open palm.

              “My mother’s cross?” Riley’s eyes widened. “But, how did you—?”

              Her breath hitched in her throat and she clutched the necklace to her chest. Her eyes, glistening with tears, reflected the burning ruins of the Tates’ home behind us. Riley’s hands shook as she frantically struggled to hook the clasp behind her neck.

              “Thank you,” she whispered, tears rolling down her cheek.

              “You would have done the same for me,” I said, my voice little more than a garbled croak. “Where’s Zan?”

              “Changing his shirt,” Falisha snorted, as she carefully pulled me to my feet.

              I followed the jerk of her head and saw him rifling through his bag near the shed at the edge of the Tates’ footpath. The burning building was not the reason my I felt my face heat. I stuffed Courage into my backpack and slung it over my shoulder. My vision blurred and I swore under my breath as white-hot pain shot down the side of my body reminding me of my recent collision with the breakfast bar. I dropped it back to the ground, and didn’t look back.

              “Zander,” I whispered, clutching my angry throat.

              Once again, he was bare from the waist up, and the amber glow threw warm shadows across the muscles in his back. They tensed and rippled beneath his skin as he stood and slowly turned to face me. The second our eyes met, we dove at each other. My arms shot around him possessively, my fingers clawing at the bare skin of his back as I buried my face in his neck. I felt like I could not get close enough to him.

              “I thought I’d lost you,” His fingers laced through my tangled hair, pulling my face close to his as he murmured into my ear. His other hand lay heavily at my hip, holding on as if I might float away.

              “How did you know?” It came out as a squeak. I gestured towards the burning house, my words stuck behind the searing pain in my throat. He was barely conscious when I ran into that house, but somehow he had saved me.

              “I don’t know, Liv, I just felt that you needed me.” He clutched his chest and said, “I felt it
here
.”

              I shook my head and narrowed my eyes in confusion.

              “It was like an itch I could not scratch. Something inside me exploded and it all but
pulled
me to you,” he pressed my hand over his heart, his eyes warm copper eyes boring into mine. “I couldn’t have ignored it if I had tried, Liv. All I could think about was protecting you. Next thing I knew, I was smashing my fist through the glass.”

              My heart flip-flopped in my chest. Instinct took over, and I clutched at his arm, inspecting it for injury.

              “It’s fine, Liv,” Zander said, calming my hands. “
I’m
fine.”

              I shook my head in disbelief, carefully peeling the tattered remains of his bandages away from his skin. He didn’t as much as flinch. I had expected blood, burns— something. Aside from the blackened skin that had already taken over his limb, he appeared unhurt. My eyes shot to his, a million questions racing through my head.

              “I don’t know,” he said, clenching and unclenching his black hand. “I can’t explain it, either.”

              I ran my hand lightly across the dark skin around his hand and forearm. It was rippled like tree-bark, but smoother to the touch. He opened his hand and I traced the lines of his palm lightly with my fingertips.

              “Hurt?” I whispered around the gravel in my throat.

              “Not at all. It feels strong—
I
feel strong.” His eyes shifted to the ground and he ran his other hand through his dark hair.

              “How?”

              “I don’t understand what is happening to me— to us,” Zander said, pulling me closer. “But I feel this
connection
.”

              “I have a few theories about that.” Jake appeared from nowhere. “You two okay?”

              I turned to face him, nodding as I shielded Zander’s arm with my body. Jake looked at me and then at Zander and for a moment, he looked hurt.

              “You don’t need to hide it from me,” he said. “I’m on your side.”

              “It’s okay, Liv.” Zander stepped forward to my side, his arm dangling in plain view.

Jake cocked his head to the side then stepped forward and reached out, tentatively running his hand over Zander’s rough skin. He turned the hand over in his own, inspecting it as closely as possible, without physically touching it with his face, then released it and took a step back.

              “It’s the infection,” he said. “This virus or parasite, whatever the damn thing is. It is changing you,
both
of you, and it appears to be happening at a cellular level.”

              “Not sick,” I whispered, throwing my hands up in confusion.

              “Not every virus or parasite will make its host sick, Liv. Let’s just look at the facts, okay? Two days ago you were tripping over your own two feet and squinting to read your text messages. The freaking sun explodes and suddenly you can see like a
mile
in the dark and you are rushing through burning buildings and dancing around like a freaking ninja? But that doesn’t explain…hmmm.”

Jake started pacing, staring down at his feet as he went, and for some reason that made me nervous. This wasn’t a conversation, anymore. Zander and I were simply bystanders to the thought process of a genius. We watched him move back and forth like he was the pendulum on a grandfather clock, as we waiting for the stroke of midnight.

“Zander!” Jake stopped short, then spun and started pacing again. “He was practically in a coma in that wheelbarrow and next thing you know he is leaping over a six foot privacy fence, bashing through two panes of safety glass, and dragging you out through a wall of a fire. All of that, without as much as a scratch?”

              “So?” I squeaked.

              “Your heightened senses, physical enhancements, even the connection you two are feeling, may all be temporary side-effects of the virus,” he said, “or, they may be mutations
caused
by it.”

              “Does that mean that
this
could be
permanent?” Zander stared down at his hand, looking defeated.

              “I don’t know, Zander.” Jake looked at Zander’s arm, shook his head, the continued shuffling back and forth on the footpath.

“This thing seems to need direct exposure to the blood in order to infect its host. Then it attaches itself and attacks the surrounding tissue, like this.” Jake balled one of his hands, shaped the other into a claw, and wrapped it around his fist. “We were able to stop its progression with the medications Liv found, which implies that it is biological, not chemical. The only thing I can’t figure out is how Liv was exposed.”

              “The roof,” I croaked, my fingers absently tracing the cut on my scalp.

              “Her head,” Zander grabbed Jake by the arm and pulled him toward me. “Jake, Liv gashed the back of her head when we went up to the roof to find your friends. The cut was small, but it was deep enough we had to glue it.”

              “Show me,” Jake said, his eyes wide.

              I grabbed his outstretched hand, directing his thin fingers to the small cut I had been hiding beneath my ponytail. He placed his index finger on the cut and his thumb at the base of my skull, against my neck. Then he moved his thumb to the gash and stretched his index finger to the top of my head.

              “Of course. But that means—” Jake trailed off, retreating back into his genius mind. He was pacing again, flicking his hands around as if he were sorting invisible objects.

              “Out loud, Jake,” Zander said, with an edge to his voice. “Talk to me. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

              “Headaches, vision changes, heightened coordination and forethought. Why didn’t I see this before? It all makes sense,” Jake said, tossing his hands in the air. “The entry point; the cut on her head? Zander, it is at the juncture of the occipital and parietal.”

              “Meaning, what, exactly?” Zander slid his hand protectively around my hip, drawing me closer.

              “
Meaning,
the damn thing is in her brain.”                 

***                

              I had not been close to my foster parents, so I was struggling to rationalize my confusion over them being gone. Mrs. Tate was constantly preaching beliefs I didn’t share and Mr. Tate worked second shift, so he was rarely around when I was. Still, they had been good people. I was bitter and angry but they had found it into their hearts to care for me and put a roof over my head.

Riley had lived with the Tates for almost two years, so the loss she felt was far greater than my own. Micah held her close as they walked, whispering reassurances that I had found myself unqualified to offer. Even now, as we walked away from the smoldering remains of their house, I could not bring myself to call it my home.

              “This way, guys,” Jake said, turning left as we reached the end of the alley.

              Falisha walked next to him, diligently scanning either side of the street as we crossed. Her protective instincts reminded me of the way I was around my little brother. Micah and Riley trailed a few feet behind them, lost in hushed conversation. Zander and I gave them some space, the empty cart trailing behind us like a reluctant shadow. The enormity of Jake’s theory weighed heavily on me, making each step more daunting than the last.

              “Are you sure you’re okay?” Zander asked.

              “Mmhmm,” I lied.

              The fires became less frequent as we approached the business district on Main but there were still scattered flames dancing amongst outcroppings of bushes and abandoned cars. The darkness in this part of town was a shocking contrast to the flame-lit devastation from which we had just departed. A couple of blocks later, Jake ducked into another alley and motioned for us to follow. The gravel crunched under our feet, the small beam of his flashlight bouncing ahead as we made our way through the empty passageway between a row of buildings. Finally, we emerged onto the smooth sidewalks of Main Street. The closer we got to Jake’s apartment, the faster he walked.

              “Come on, guys,” Jake’s voice cracked, through the darkness. “Only a few more blocks.”

              Aside from a little dryness, my eyes had almost completely recovered from my stint in the burning house and nothing about that made sense. According to Jake, the cellular changes had likely accelerated our ability to heal. Of course, that was one of the many possible side effects caused by the mysterious thing that may, or may not, have taken over my brain.

             
Awesome.

              I had no idea how to even wrap my mind around any of this, let alone deal with these odd little talents of mine. My stumbling feet had given way to balance and grace. My instincts honed to the point they were almost tangible at times. Perhaps strangest of all was the “night vision,” as Jake had called it, which allowed me to see in almost total darkness. The pale blue wash I had mistaken for moonlight was, in fact, just a manifestation of
one
of these changes that were currently taking place in my head.