Liquid Death (The Edinön Trilogy Book 1) (18 page)

              I wish Juan was here as well. He would have possessed enough bravery for the two of us. Our powers combined would be unstoppable.

              My senseless fears will be the annihilation of the human race.

              “
Kandi, you understand that this is for the
benefit
of the human race, don’t you
?” Dad asked, uncrossing his limbs. “
This is a natural process all species must take. How do you think our kind has survived so long
?”

              I incinerate the tray and dishes in my lap, then scatter the ashes. “
I wouldn’t know
.
You and Jim are the only examples of Edinön I have known
.”

              A crestfallen expression contorts his features. “
You do not believe me
.” He brushes his pockets.

              I narrow my eyes. “
Does that
surprise
you
?”

              “
Of course not. I simply never expected you to speak your innermost doubts to my face
.”

              “Your powers are waning, aren’t they?” Switching to English. This is a genuine concern. If his powers are waning, it means mine are growing... which means... well, that part was never clear to me.

              “No.” Dad bites his lip pensively. “It is becoming more difficult for me to hear your thoughts, but not because I am lacking.” His glowing, mossy gaze meets mine. “
Perhaps I am the one guilty of underestimating you, Kandi
.”

***

The Vision

              June 24, 2017

                           
I see the fire.

...And the bodies, broken shards of glass, people sobbing in the streets behind the yellow tape, pleading for the authorities to save their loved ones. I watch from across the street as firemen unleash the Pacific Ocean on the obsidian flames, changing nothing. The freakish fire continues to smolder.

Doctor Hendricks perches upon a stretcher, conversing intensely with a pair of paramedics, insisting she is fine as they attempt to force an oxygen mask over her face. I am able to perceive her thoughts. She is frightened. She blames Kandi for this catastrophe.

Kandi
did this?

A Lincoln Navigator rolls up to the side of the street, and a man in a black suit jogs toward Doctor Hendricks, his brown hair flying in the wind. I cannot hear what he says, but I can hear what he thinks:
Gotta get him. Gotta get Juan Chavez. Bring him back.

I duck further within the trees. I recognize him as one of the men who found me at Ned’s.

Now the Doctor looks more furious than terrified. She sends the man on his way, and he jogs back to the hefty vehicle. The Doctor accepts the oxygen mask from a ponytailed medic and takes several deep inhalations.

Holy crap. This is a mess.

I figure
someone
on the scene may have an inkling to Kandi’s whereabouts, Doctor L if anyone. I merely need to stick around in case a pertinent thought pops into her head.

Two federal agents capture my attention as they emerge from another section of the forest, squinting in the late morning sunlight. They step onto the street, which has been blocked to prevent traffic from occupying the road, and sprint across toward Doctor L.

I listen to their thoughts and read their lips. The tall, lanky agent displays his badge to L and pockets it. “We found the end of the trail,” he says. “Two bodies, a man and a little girl. The girl’s throat was slit, and the man was stabbed directly in the heart. No sign of the other girl. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

I recall B mentioning Kandi took another girl with her. Which one is still alive? What if Kandi is the one who killed the man and the girl in the forest? What if...

I remember her face and doubt the latter theory. No way. She is the victim. She would never...             

I need to find this crime scene. I must be absolutely sure.

The agents depart from Leyla to reenter the forest. I distantly pursue them, eyes flicking every which way to ensure I am maneuvering undetected. The officers meet a female officer and a male officer with a bloodhound at the peak of the hill. They exchange a few words and continue their hike, now with a slight slope downward, thankfully. I am deathly depleted of energy after last night.

The forest thickens as the hike progresses, and the trees vary in type and shade. The ground also becomes... crispier, so I ease the weight of each step a few notches.

The crime scene is swarming with cops, hounds, and forensic analysts. They are snapping hundreds of photographs at every angle and delicately fishing samples of hair and tissue from the dirt. Every man and woman on the scene believes a small, twenty-year-old woman with blond hair and green eyes is the suspect. The dead girl has been identified as Patient 100, or Marcy Pinkett. She was ten years old. The man who was stabbed in the heart has been identified as James Levinson, Kandi’s uncle and former guardian. He had been missing since January.

So that pasty piece of crap sprawled on the ground was the balding man in the photos contained in Kandi’s file. He was the man who drank Kandi’s blood and assaulted her on a nightly basis.

I wish I could bring him back to life and unhurriedly torture him to death. I
hope
Kandi killed him. She deserves justice and closure.

I analyze the scene for a few minutes from behind a wide oak tree and listen intently to the minds of the experts, hoping someone will find something that could indicate Kandi may not be the only suspect. They have not found Kandi’s fingerprints on either of the bodies, which is not a surprise to me because a document in her file listed her “physical limitations” as follows:

-Experiences flu-like symptoms with eye contact

-Relieves the pain of anyone she touches/displays powerful aversion to physical contact

-Unable to speak; diagnostically mute

Okay, so now I know Kandi is not dead. She is still out there, likely running from the authorities as I would do after an escape as
explosive
as the one she pulled last night. I turn to leave, fearing now that I will be spotted any moment.

A stranger’s thought stalls my flight:
What if this is the work of Jeremy Levinson, and not of his daughter? I bet if we find him, we find Kandi.

Bingo! How hard could it be to find a wanted murderer? If I find her father, I find her. It must be that simple.

Something tells me Leyla Hendricks would know where Jeremy Levinson is. And, since I know where
she
is currently, talking to her would be a great start. But not a wise one. Approaching her would be impossible. She is surrounded, outgunned, and the last person on Earth I want to see. Also, according to B, she wants to recruit me to find Kandi, which means she is probably low on leads at the moment.

Not to worry.

I tear away from the grisly scene in the forest when I remember something: Kandi’s mother and sister died in the same manner as Patient 100 and Kandi’s uncle: one stabbed in the heart, one sliced across the neck. This is without a doubt the work of her father. He must have kidnapped Kandi. Where did he take her? What is his motivation? I know he is – or used to be – a Doctor for Blue Skys. I know Kandi is the biggest piece of the Blue Skys puzzle, and the reason Blue Skys exists in the first place. I know her father pumped some kind of magic steroids into my body during his random visit to San Diego when I was fifteen. What does he plan to do with Kandi? Subject her to more torment? Why? What is his objective?

I stop running to catch my breath beside a stream. I am unbearably hot, sweaty, and exhausted, functioning purely on adrenaline.

Shortly, the world begins to spin before my eyes. The stream trickles toward the sky, and the trees grow toward the ground. I fall on my knees and close my eyes, the dizzy spell overtaking me.

Only, it is a dizzy spell like none other I have experienced. I see double, then stars. Zooming in, I observe the Earth from space. I taste blood on my lips and cough. A ruby dye blankets the blue planet, and I hear screaming. Fire inherits the place of clouds, swirling ominously in the atmosphere. I behold a woman in rags dragging a bloodied male corpse in the dark recesses of an alleyway before lowering her lips to his wounds and sucking violently.

“So sweet,” she chatters, giggling maniacally.

I witness more unspeakable acts of violence occurring all over the globe: rabid humans hunting people with inexplicable abilities like mine for their blood... for immortality.

A high-pitched tone pierces like a laser through my skull, and I cover my ears, crying for relief. When I open my eyes, the vision is gone, and I look at my hands. They are covered in blood and shaking. What the heck is happening to me?

I see stars again... then a dark, all-consuming void.

***

              I jump awake, my face creating a depression in the damp soil. Night has fallen again, and it is especially dark under a new moon. I lift my aching head and scrub the dirt from my face. I feel like I have been ground into paste by a bulldozer.

              My hands are no longer covered in blood, but I still hear a deadly ring and remember everything I saw. And I know where Kandi is.

              I don’t concern myself with the whys and the what-the-hecks for a while. My head hurts too much to think. All I can do is temporarily shun my physical pain and rise from the earth with the help of a sturdy tree.

              My journey out of the forest is an arduous one. I flag down a car when I finally reach the road. Thank the heavens, it is a group of teenagers who stops to give me a ride. The dude at the wheel waves. “Need a ride, bro?” He questions my appearance in his mind.

              I nod and quickly appraise myself.
Crap
. I am not wearing a shirt. I probably look drunk. I smile uneasily at the brunette in the passenger seat and the two girls in the back. “Would it be possible to give me a ride out of town? You know where Trapper Creek is?”

              He glances at his friends. “Uh, sure, but it’s, like, twenty-five miles that way.” He jabs a thumb behind him. “What do you say we drop you off at the bus stop a mile ahead?”

              I sigh with relief. “Sounds great. Thanks.” One of the girls in the back pops the door open for me, and I slide inside.

              “What’s your name?” the driver inquires, his eyes flitting to the rearview mirror.

              I keep as close to the door as possible. “Juan. Yours?”

              “Trevor, or Trev.” Trevor smiles. “Where you from?”

              “California, actually.”

              “How’d you end up here?”

              I scoff. “Long story.”

              The
chica
next to me clears her throat and shallowly sniffs. I know I probably smell like a sewer, so I look at her apologetically and shrug.

              Fortunately, the drive doesn’t last very long, and soon I am stepping out at a desolate bus stop and waving goodbye to Trevor and his quiet girlfriends. “The bus comes around at about midnight. That’s in...” he looks at the clock above the radio. “Ten minutes.”

              “Thanks, Trevor.”

              He smiles grimly. “Good luck, bro.”

              A few seconds later, I am sitting on the bench, dozing and waking every two minutes as I anticipate the arrival of the bus. I don’t know how I am going to be allowed onto the bus because 1, I don’t have a shirt, and 2, I don’t have a dime. My upper torso is caked in dried mud, and stubble is growing in nice and thick on my face. I look homeless and pathetic. Eliza and her power comes to mind; if only I could be invisible...

              Inevitably, the bus grinds to a halt before me, and the door opens to let four people out. I wait for them to clear, then attempt to climb inside.

              “Where you headed, son?” the bus driver, a corpulent black man, asks.

              “Trapper Creek, sir.” I glance at the two leftover passengers, both of whom – a scrawny man in a trench coat and an old woman with a box in her lap – are glaring at me like I murdered their children. The old woman reminds me of Gran. I swallow hard. I hope my grandparents are all right.

              “Do you have money, boy?”

              I look at the driver. “No, sir.” I hear his thoughts. I know he has an eleven-year-old daughter named Jazmine. Just as the man is about to get up to shoo me away, I raise my hands in surrender. “Wait.” He pauses. “Your daughter, Jazmine. I can find her. I can bring her back.”

              Doubt and rage twist his large features. “What do you know about Jazmine?” he asks hoarsely.

              “She is Patient 41. I am a Patient too. But I got out, and I can get her out. Just take me to Trapper Creek.”

              The driver glowers dangerously at me. “What is in Trapper?”

              “Another Patient. A very powerful one.” I glance again nervously at the other passengers, who have no clue what I am talking about. “She can help your daughter.”

              He stares at me for what feels like several minutes. But, maybe partly due to my pleading expression as well as his exasperation, he cautiously concedes.  “Very well.”

              I can’t help but feel empathy for the man. After his wife died of cancer four years ago, he and his daughter struggled to get by. When Jazmine began to experience strange “hallucinations,” he took her to the hospital. A doctor there told him of an experimental treatment that so far had a 100 percent success rate. With it came a side of luxury – free house, food, and other essentials – if he simply agreed to a two-year treatment plan for his daughter. When his daughter slipped into a coma, he became desperate and signed his soul to the devil. He was allowed to communicate with his daughter twice a year. Since the initial two years ended, he had petitioned every week to see his daughter again. And every week, the Doctors would say the same thing:
“She is getting better, and you will see her soon.”

              I thank him and plop into the seat nearest to the exit. “My mother thinks I am dead.” I remark as the bus shifts into gear. “When they took me, they faked my death so my mom would never think to look for me.”

              “How did you get out?”

              “All the Patients in Blue Skys have certain abilities,” I tell him, a weight on my chest lifting as I feel like I can finally be open with someone. “It sounds crazy, I know. I broke out the day they attempted to execute me.”