Ravens (5 page)

I’m better
. Liam growled.

Kendra cringed.
 

I’m better, and the truth is better than
any night with him.

Kendra rubbed her temples. If only she
could physically remove the voice from her head.

Randal sighed. “That’s my cue,” he
muttered, stood, and left.

Liam’s snarls didn’t cease until Randal
closed the barn door after him. Kendra groaned, relieved when Liam’s voice
faded. She alerted herself to her surroundings, both Randal and Liam were
absent, and she was alone to wallow in her misery.

Chapter Five

Kendra tossed keys in her palm once,
twice, and a third time. She narrowed her sight on the distorted shadows beyond
the curtains. The disturbing and bitter stillness didn’t take long to gather
itself and take its toll. If the uncanny voice didn’t get to her, this constant
obsession with the truth would. The wind howled outside and rattled the many pecan
and oak trees on the property. The sunset absorbed light.

“Well?” she grunted. “Where are you when
I actually want to talk to you?”

No one answered, of course.

Kendra scoffed, and decided to lie in
bed while she waited. She didn’t know what she waited for or why she waited;
she just did. Eventually, sheer boredom drove her crazy. She restlessly moved
around the loft. An increasing agitation faced her as an invasion, which began
in the center of her mind, radiated outward to the remainder of her body.

Standing at the bottom of the stairs,
Kendra glanced at the full-length mirror, tugging at her lower lip with her
teeth. She wore the same outfit from her outing with Randal. With her wild
hair, piercings, and tattoos, she appeared to have become a darker person. Did
she expect to impress Liam like this? She couldn’t amaze him with her new,
grown-up body, so what sane explanation did she have for the anticipation?

Whether she actually waited for Liam or
not didn’t matter, since insomnia gnawed at her. She might as well practice for
her upcoming black belt test. Despite her boots being oddly comfortable, she
never wore shoes on the mats. Rolling the mats up and setting them aside, she
glanced at the exposed floor. It hadn’t been bare in years.

Kendra practiced her kicks and blocks in
her boots, finding them to be quite comfortable. She could not only run in
them, but she could kick butt in them too. She imagined herself being a real
comic book vixen. They looked like this: busty and trim with sexy outfits, a thick
head of hair, and a commanding presence. She could be a superhero. She just
needed a super power.

What super power would she possess? In
pointless thought, Kendra pondered the great powers from telekinesis to
superhuman strength.

After a few moments of shadow sparring,
faintness hit her. She felt very hot as an invisible force hit her chest. She
stumbled back with a heavy groan, but shook off the dizziness. Though the barn
remained visible around her, visions of a gloomy forest with red and white bolts
of light created a transparent, altered world.

Kendra gasped, forgetting to breathe.
She found herself in the middle of a thicket of trees in the woods near a park
at the city’s limits. Twilight hit the horizon, and a red sun unleashed
brilliant rays of pink and purple across the darkening skies. The lack of wind
didn’t help the unmistakable Texas heat. She glanced up and tilted her head at
the figures of three moons in the distance. She creased her brows at the
abnormality.

Loud cries and yells grabbed her
attention. She twisted her upper body to the right. Streaks of visible energy,
of colored lightning, zapped before her in horizontal blasts. The flashes
lashed after men in black, bringing them to their knees in agonizing pain as
bursts of burning flesh warped her senses. They fried alive!

Kendra’s mouth dropped in horror. She
never experienced such brutality. Her stomach churned, and her body encouraged
a visceral reaction to the barbaric act. What monster was behind this?

She jerked her head in the direction of
the heat’s origin, surprised to find the young man from her deliriums throwing
down the bolts of heat as if tossing sand to the wind. He clenched his teeth
and pulled back his lips in an animalistic snarl. The glowing white energy
seeped from his pores and gathered at his fingers.

Kendra didn’t understand, but connected
this to another scene from her nightmares where the energy licked her flesh and
her features resembled Liam’s.

An expression of disconcerting surprise
washed over Liam as if he didn’t expect her to experience his world, at least
not in this way.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Kendra?” He took a step toward her.

She shook her head and closed her eyes
tightly. When she reopened them, she found herself standing alone in the barn.
Then the tremors began. Her body trembled. The barn shook. A sudden wave of
panic hit her. How could it happen again?

Her heart raced; her breathing
increased. She stood, fully prepared to bolt, but she remembered her
hallucinations. As if they were messages instead of figments of thought
generated by her mind, she obeyed. She wouldn’t run this year. Kendra would
stay and have a faceoff with reality.

The barn shook with more ferocity than
she remembered as a child, but it invoked just as much fear. She must’ve been
insane! She had to get out of here, and fast!

Gaining balance by spreading her feet
apart, she ran toward the barn entrance. She unlocked the door as fast as she
could. Kendra managed to pry the door open, but before she could maneuver
through, it slammed shut without her doing. She jumped and stared wide-eyed at
the wooden barrier, the only thing that stood between her and safety. She had
nowhere to run.

“I asked you not to run.” The familiar
voice demanded her attention.

Kendra spun to face Liam. He stood with
arms at his sides, his brows creased, and his lips pressed so that the muscles
in his jaw stood out. He appeared from nowhere, but he was definitely here, and
she was definitely not asleep.

Liam made a wide circle as he crossed
the floor in pursuit of the young woman. Kendra instinctively moved back and
toward the glowing white light of what appeared to be a swirling portal, like a
sheep herded through the pasture.

Liam kept his eyes locked on hers. “I
asked because Julie needs your help…and I need to see you.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s in danger. Only you can help
her.”

“Stop talking about her like she’s
alive!”

“We are alive,” he snapped. “You don’t
believe anything I say. You’ll have to see to believe me before it’s too late.
I know how to get you here.”

He kept moving as Kendra met his strides
with hers.

“I asked because you need to know the
truth. The only way you’ll believe is if you witness it yourself.”

“Leave me alone,” she barked.

“I’m not asking again.” His voice
strengthened, became stern, adamant. “You belong here.”

Kendra paused and gawked to her left
where the glow spread, licked the floors in search of her. The portal opened
like a gaping, intensely bright void that waited for her. Kendra shook her
head. She’d rather stand and fight than to go into whatever that was.

Liam flinched. He appeared distracted,
and lost focus as if he searched for something else, something she couldn’t
see. With another thrust of his fingers, another dart of his telekinetic
powers, he sent Kendra stumbling into the light with bright, terror-filled
eyes.

Kendra felt the invisible force push
her, and it pushed hard. The intense power pulled her feet out from under her
so that she fell into the light without kind consideration. Her palms and knees
crashed against the dry wood. She tried to stand, but was glued at the points
of contact. She couldn’t move. She panicked and imagined how Liam and Julie
went through the very same thing: the terror, the racing heartbeats, the
perspiration in response to utter fear. Horror gripped her so fiercely she
couldn’t imagine surviving.

She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t.
Her eyes darted across the room as the lights flickered. The light from the
portal would soon devour her, and her parents wouldn’t know what happened—again.

The floor opened into a blaze of
glorious white light. Kendra found an outlet for her screams. The sound rumbled
through her throat and escaped her lips, but the noise of the near silent
portal muffled her cries. The portal sucked in everything in its path,
beginning with the lightest components, being air and sound.

Her wobbly knees, feet, and hands melted
into the floorboards and blurred in the white light. She panicked even further,
if such a thing were possible. The fierce pulsations in the veins behind her
ears sounded like war drums, preparing her for an imminent odyssey.

The portal made a crackling sound when
her extremities pulled away from her body. Coupled with sheer terror and utter
pain, Kendra gaped at the eternal white haze around the long and endless
flesh-colored smudge, which radiated from her body. Her legs and arms no longer
held shape. She felt the excruciating pain when an invisible force stretched
her body.

She jerked her head up. With one final
cry, the light fully invaded her. The brightness erupted from her mouth,
nostrils, and eyes, lighting the room for one brief moment before dying and
taking the rest of Kendra’s body with it.

The first time through was significantly
traumatizing. Before logic or reason could get a hold of Kendra, she lost all
control of her mental state, losing herself in the chaos and pain of radiant
white and pink lights. The assault on her senses made her conscience curl up
and shut down to protect itself against the unknown.

****

The sound of gunshots tore a blaze
through the fabric of time. The bullets cut just close of the impending portal
opening, and bounced from the fibers of the portal. The bullets raced toward
Liam. Though slightly distracted by the growing white light near a tree off to his
left several feet away, he remained focused on the fight.

The first bullet whizzed past his head,
and he saw the second coming as if in slow motion. He jumped from its path,
moving his head back to avoid impact. The bullet grazed his auburn hair, slicing
a few strands that floated away with the increasing wind from the portal.

The clouds above him grew heavy,
writhing in torment at the tear in the space-time continuum. Lightning struck
in unlikely patterns in long arches with dozens of branches. The blinding
brightness would attract other humans. The late evening sky became black
beneath the billowing gray clouds before lighting up beneath monstrous
lightning bolts.

The precious phenomenon startled the
hunters. They knew of this event, but very few witnessed the occurrence.
Normally, only those who passed witnessed the portal. Liam didn’t worry if
these men knew the portal’s location since they hunted him, and he fought to
kill.

“Enough,” Liam growled through bared
teeth.

The black sclera of his eyes clouded and
the whites of his irises and pupils erupted in tiny flashes of lightning, which
spread throughout his body, sparking as the pulse of energy moved down his
throat and arms, moving toward his fingertips. The energy carried with it a bit
of pain, the type of pain that made him want more.

With one quick glance across the dim
park, he pinpointed the last two attackers. He planted his feet firmly on the
ground, drew back his elbows, and shot his hands forward. The pain from the
energy prying through his flesh felt so good and added to the anger.

The white fury trapped in his fists
pushed open his fingers like an impatient dog prepared to attack. The lightning
burned through the trees and brush like precision lasers, catching both
adversaries, burning them within a matter of minutes.

Things never had to come down to this,
killing and dying, but the hunters made it this way. They forced him to kill,
which was better than dying on their autopsy table.

Liam remained poised, scavenging the
woods for any lurking hunters. After confirming his safety, he stood upright as
light faded and the energy dissipated into the space around him.

He sniffed. Something strange lingered
in the air. He pivoted toward the origin of the growing scent as the portal
opened and the blinding light flashed. He stepped back and shielded his face
with his right forearm.

A young woman fell through the breach,
knees and palms first, crashed against and breaking tree limbs in her descent.
She grunted but remained unaware as her molecules reassigned themselves in her
body. She hit the moist grass and lay motionless, sprawled out on her stomach.

The light vanished, and the portal
closed above her.

Liam ran to her. She faced away from
him, but the tattoos on her arm gave her away. Kneeling beside her, he
positioned her onto her back, careful to keep support beneath her neck. The
young woman didn’t utter a sound, nor did she respond to the movement.