Arise (Book Three in The Arson Saga) (8 page)

Kyro’s thumb flew across the outdated dial pad. Several drawn-out ringtones buzzed in his ear shortly after. “C’mon, Ricky, you lazy fool. Pick up.” He checked the time. No way his boy would be up naturally at this hour. But he kept pressing redial.

Upon the fourth attempt, a groggy voice answered. “He-l-l-ooo?”

“Yo, it’s K.”

“What do you…want, man?” A lengthy yawn and then, “Frick, Kyro. You have any idea…what time it is? Hit me up in a few hours. I partied way too hard last night. Or…this morning. Whatever.”

“Get your whiny butt up, man. I need your skills.”

“Yeah, you need some therapy is what you need if you think I’m stayin’ on the phone whichu. I was havin’ this freaky good dream, and you squashed it. Whose number is this, any-anyway?”

“Who cares? I copped it off this white-collar dude. You don’t know him, and he ain’t gonna miss it. Shoot, one o’ the number keys is missin’ anyhow.”

“Homeboy needs an upgrade.”

“Word. Look, I need your help. I’m in some busted-up bathroom in the middle of nowhere.”

“Rape Central, USA, dawg,” Ricky snickered. “Serves you right. You took off like a bat outta hell last night, man. No warning, nothin’. What gives?”

“It was important.”

“D’you catch up with that weird dude lookin’ for his daughter?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m callin’. This is serious. Game time, homie.”

“This. Is. Serious,” Ricky returned, trying and failing miserably to impersonate an aggravated Spartan.

“I mean it. This is for real. Life and death.”

“Really?” Ricky said, all of a sudden awake and sober. “What went down? Somebody get shot? Please tell me somebody got shot.”

“What? No. You always want someone to get shot. I need you to minimize all them dirty websites you got open and get me the script on this redheaded trick.” Redd’s full name had been blistered in his mind since he’d stolen a glance at her license. “Lana E. Casey.”

“Lana E. Casey. She sounds kinda hot.”

“You got issues, man. Stay focused. Lana E. Casey. Write it down, and run that name through those databases, search engines, whatever you gotta do. I know you got them illegal spy programs and ish. I wanna know everything.”

Kyro listened for Ricky’s computer coming out of sleep mode followed by the rapid movement of fingertips racing over a loud desktop keyboard.

“So who is she, really?”

Kyro paced the room, noticing that some yellow sludge now clung to his heel. “To you, nobody. Just punch the keys and keep ya jaw shut.”

“Bossy, as usual. I could always hang up. You ruin a perfectly good dream and ask me to dig into some poor girl’s life for you. You’d think it wouldn’t be too much trouble to throw in a
please
and
thank you
.”

“
Thank you
,” Kyro offered with a long sigh. “Look, she’s this investigator that’s just rubbin’ me the wrong way. I don’t trust her.”

“So, let me get this straight. You’re in the middle of Rape Central, with some strange redhead investigator who just so happens to be
rubbin’ you the wrong way
, and what, weird guy from yesterday’s gonna be a witness?” A drawn-out pause. “Okay.”

“You were dropped way too many times as a baby,” Kyro shot back. “Nah, man. I’m helping that guy out on this thing.”

“So he’s not a cop?”

“Nah, he’s straight. I think I know what happened to his daughter. I’m gonna help him find her.” He scrubbed his face, totally grossed out by the grungy restroom. “It’s about time I did somethin’ legit for once.”

“I hear that,” Ricky chimed.

“But Casper calls this Lana Casey trick in to help us, and tell you straight-up, I just get the feelin’ like she’s playing us. There, now you got the facts.”

“You live an adventurous life, amigo.”

Kyro caught his reflection in the mirror and slid away. “Nah, I’m a dang lunatic.”

“Look, K, this may take a few.”

“How long?”

“Hard to say. Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes it ain’t. Most times it ain’t. I’ll buzz ya as soon as my screen starts spittin’ back some knowledge. Wait, before you hang up, you’re keeping this phone, right?”

“I am now.”

“Scummy move. It kills me that you don’t have your own line.”

“Like I want Big Brother up in my junk? They got chips in ’em, ya heard? Next thing you know, you cross the street without glancin’ both ways, and some douche in a uniform shows up outta nowhere and takes you out. Uh-uh. These is some scary times.”

“Whatever, Dr. Paranoid. So I’ll call you back as soon as I can. Cool?”

“Yeah, cool. No, wait. Don’t call. I don’t want this to blow up in my face. Text me instead, got it?”

“Got it.”

The call went dead. Kyro put the phone on vibrate and slid the device into his pocket. The nameless white-collar man was a frantic mess outside the bathroom door. He appeared to be retracing his steps, and kept aimlessly repeating the same question: “Where did I put that stupid thing?” Kyro felt bad, really, but acted normal and walked past. Too late to turn back now. Finding Emery was more important, and if there were even a prayer that a no-good stain like him could make it out of this alive, he had to know what he was dealing with. He had to know the truth about Redd, whether Cass wanted to or not.

Before leaving, he snatched some Yodels and a soda, flipped up his hood, and hustled to the car.

Chapter Eleven

Their footsteps created sounds
Arson detested but had come to know too well. The repetition, the sameness of each step, was a stabbing reminder of his lostness, his inability to control his own world. A reminder of how he’d failed. Still, these echoes of movement were like bullets, seeking to erode his will to be free, or the belief that such a dream of escape could even exist within a nightmare like this one.

But was it just a dead idea? He still didn’t know which in him was greater—the apathy or the spirit. And furthermore, did a spirit—or ambition, or whatever it was—really exist here, in this realm? Could it?

He stopped to glance at his hand for a long moment. Arson was almost positive he could see a burning fire underneath the splitting knuckles that had hardened, like calluses, with ice.
Where am I, really?
he wondered. Did the mind ever cross into the real world, or was it only personified by this perfect hell? Could such broken corridors usher a boy from yesterday into tomorrow?

Did Adam truly possess the knowledge to guide him toward salvation?

Still the echoes—combatants against the quiet—fought to be heard and accepted as real, perhaps even harder than their brothers. All his strengths could not rid him of their vengeful interference. Greedy, inhuman devices the echoes were, creations effortlessly permitted to wander here, beside him. But why? It was a mystery how, somewhere between life and death, the collision called humanity endured. And Arson was a testament to all. He was human and inhuman, all of them and none of them. Every face on earth. Every soul searching for eternity. And the ones who were lost like static. Perhaps in a realm like this one, all could exist. Through repetition, even the dead were alive again. Memory, soul, flesh. What was the difference?

But no, he was not so blatantly conceited as to think he had any kind of answer. These thoughts, and every loose decision attached to them, were misplaced particles, weaned off reality, the same cycle of resolve they had subsisted on for so long. Maybe neither time nor eternity dwelled here. It seemed more probable that the empty space housed nothing but fear and anguish, nail-biting plagues Arson had forsaken since he was a boy. Dangerous cancers such things had become.

He set his hands at his sides and walked on. As warily as he treaded down the endless school hallways, he knew there was a future he had to get to. He wasn’t sure how, but he had to. For now it was becoming clear that he was both the footprint and the echo.

It was in this moment of imperfect revelation that a new, slow breath slipped off his lips. “Hot and cold at the exact same time.”

“You can get used to it; you can get used to anything,” was all Adam offered.

All his life, Arson had been “getting used to it.” Though he’d never fully mastered his powers, he’d mastered the ability to remain invisible, to be unknown to those around him, for his sake; for Grandma’s sake. Being human seemed like the only fantasy worth believing in. But now…

Another breath. Another chill mixed with heat. The war was still very much taking place beneath the skin. He never thought that one day he’d be forced to absorb a new power. But Adam was right, harsh as it was to hear. There were fiercer entities to worry about right now, fiercer things than harnessing some new ability.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Adam said after a lengthy silence. “Remember, your powers take some time to control. But also remember, time is always against you. Always. There must be a balance.”

“Will there be more?”

“Perhaps. Can you handle more?”

Biting his lip, Arson concentrated to design with his new power a candle made completely of ice. The shape grew inside his palm, cold breath circling his face and eyes as it scaled upward. But in seconds, before the wick fully formed, Arson watched it dissolve; his wrist was too warm for the ice to survive. Frustrated, he dug his fingernails into skin. The pain didn’t quell the overwhelming chant of defeat lurking in his being. Instead, his knuckles turned to frost then to fire in a matter of blinks. Arson felt his heart race, eyes shuffled in the frenzied dance between the smoke and fog emitted by his soul body. Supremacy over these conflicting selves seemed impossible.

“You need to call the shots,” Adam said. “
You
are their master. Not the other way around.”

Arson tuned him out.

“Listen to me. It’s not just a feeling. You need to believe it. Believe in these abilities. Believe that the powers are your subjects. You are not a victim. The power is inside of you. It is you. Become one with this reality.”

Arson bent his fingers, spun his wrist, and inhaled deeply. Seconds later, his powers were once more activated, enough for him to create a hollow, oval-shaped object. From his palms and fingers developed a mask made wholly of ice. Arson whispered Emery’s name like a secret.

But again, his creation melted almost instantly in his hands before dripping to the floor.

Adam dispelled a sigh. “Why can’t you stop thinking about her?”

“I should’ve been able to protect her from these monsters, but my powers—”

“You lost them, I know. That’s the catalyst for why you got locked in here.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“Hey, don’t kill the messenger.” A pause. “You love her, don’t you?”

“More than my own life.”

“Careful what you let your mind believe.” Adam hurried forward. They were heading toward a new entrance. “What, pray tell, is behind door number two?”

Arson smeared the hand-slush onto his jeans and eyed the next obstacle. An enormous frame outlined the door, and a trippy color scheme radiated from the surface, passing through and all around. “What’s so hard, right?” he tried to reassure himself. “I mean, it’s not like I have a new power to master or anything. Just walk through it. It’s not like the love of my life could be a thousand miles away from here—”

“Hey, Soap Opera, pull it together,” Adam scorned. “We’re close. I can feel it.”

“Now we’re back to feelings?”

Irritation oozed from Adam’s stare. Every blink commanded attention, which was kind of odd, considering the real Adam was actually somewhere inside this portrait of a young Danny, whose body boasted no more than ninety pounds. The drill sergeant demeanor would likely splinter soon.

Reluctance turned to desperation. Move. Breathe. Repeat. It seemed simple enough. But Arson’s nerves refused to settle. Step by step. Twitch after twitch. It wasn’t easy. Sweat crawled inside the grimy creases in his forehead.

Just. Move. Forward
.

He was only steps away from the door when he heard an eerie, unsettling screech. A loose wheel, barely clinging to the metal to which it was bound, creaked and rattled across the uneven floor. Arson shifted to his right. A young girl approached him slowly, methodically, dragging behind her a small cart with rusted, dead wheels. They owned the screeching sounds. Closer she came.
Scrape
. Closer still. Arson watched the harsh greens and deep reds that originated from behind the closed door penetrate the frail outline of his breath. The child’s dress was bloody and ripped in certain sections. As her feet warily pulled her toward him, Arson noticed that both her legs were covered with wild cuts and bruises. The lacerations moved like a virus up unsteady knees then crawled back down to her ankles. One of her socks sat higher than the other. And one foot sauntered without a shoe to protect it.

“Hi, little girl,” Arson whispered, tense.

“Who are you talking to?” Adam asked in a perplexed way.

The girl’s hair dangled down in front of her eyes, which she dared not show. Her arms were spotted with scars and blotches that looked painful. Some kind of disease had wreaked havoc over her body. Maybe its task was not yet complete.

“Not a disease, Arson. It’s you,” she said in a hush.

Arson’s pulse throbbed. This girl knew his thoughts.
Because she was created by me, in my subconscious, from my memories.

She nodded and her eye twitched. “But not fully.”

He wanted to scream at her, tell her to go away, to leave him in peace. It was now that he remembered he’d seen her before. She had disguised herself as Emery; only now he was terrified of her.

“I have bad news,” she said slowly. “There is no peace here.” It was a sweet but eerie voice. “Be fearful of the thoughts of men…”

“Be wary of the traps of the end,” Arson concluded, remembering the bloodstained wall Isaac had painted after Grandma’s murder was revealed to him in vivid detail.

“Who are you talking to?” Adam asked, confused and slightly frustrated. He approached from a slight distance.

The girl dropped the books in her hands and raised her palms. When she made the motion, Adam instantly flew backward, his spine colliding with one of the lockers.

“You didn’t let her out, did you?” Arson questioned, immediately inundated with new knowledge.
It was downloaded from her thoughts
. My
thoughts, but
her
in me
.
She knows things
.

“Not everything,” the girl replied.

Up until now, he believed that only Adam had the ability to read
his
thoughts, but the rules had changed.

“Arson, whatever you see, don’t believe it.”

“You lied to me,” Arson said, looking back at his supposed protector.

“Yes, he did,” the girl confirmed, choosing this precise moment to become visible to both of them.

“She’s just a memory,” Adam grunted, rising to his feet. “You held onto her for seven years. It was a mistake. You were just a kid, okay? You need to think this out.”

“I never should’ve trusted you,” Arson spat, trembling.

“He’s going to get you killed; you must sense that by now. He doesn’t know you like I do. Like
we
do.” The girl’s voice slithered out in a strange, haunting slur.

Arson folded his brows. “We?”

“Your memories. Your mommy’s memories. Your daddy’s.” She grinned like a calm demon. “All of you are linked. There’s so much you don’t know, huh?” She eased closer. “Come with me, and I can show you wonders. You are dead, I think. I can make your dead ashes beautiful. Dead things can be beautiful too.”

“Don’t be stupid, Arson,” Adam interjected. “I came in here to set you free.”

The girl tilted her head innocently. “And to control him. You are a sneaky boy. You want Arson to be your little puppet.”

Adam stammered. His back cracked into place. “These are just thoughts. Your mind is making them real, inventing theories, reasons why you shouldn’t trust me. I want to help you. You have to believe that!”

“It was you who let these things in my mind loose. You wanted them out. I tried to lock them away. I
did
lock them away, until now. The broken lockers, the missing parts of the hallways and rooms, secret doors? It’s all you.”

“I merely used what was already in here at my—our—disposal. It was the only way.”

The girl broke into a high-pitched laugh.

“You want me to let it all out. All of myself. To lose control?”

“The only way for you to accept who and what you are is to fight. To know yourself completely. The kind and the dark side. Balance.”

The girl began to hum a nursery rhyme.

“Don’t trust this puny ghost,” Adam warned.

“I should trust you instead? The one who’s been keeping secrets from me?”

“We are the same kind, Arson. Don’t you get it? You exist only because I exist. You came from me. Your powers, your emotions. It’s me. My blood.”

“My mother?” Arson said, new images flooding his consciousness. They came from Adam. “I was…an accident?”

“Far from it. You are a gift to a future race. Our race. Proof that from me, there will be more. We can choose. If not us, the world of sadistic men will rule.”

It was hard to take in.

Adam continued, “I am the first, you are the second. There are already others who have been altered because of you, because of us. And there will…be more. We must be united.”

“Ashes, ashes…we all fall down!” the girl sang. “Silly boys, they will all fall. Are you ready for that?”

“Arson, listen to me! I am trying to free you. I had to test you, to show these
things
in here that you’re more. To prove to you that you’re more powerful than all of it. Can you really blame me? I had to prepare you for what’s coming.”

“What is coming?”

As Adam opened his mouth to speak, the little girl married her index finger and thumb, sealing his mouth. “Your friend talks too much.”

Adam struggled to speak but couldn’t.

When Arson finally got a clear glimpse of the girl’s face, a shiver dropped down his back. Scars composed her skin. Some of them gushed red. Sections of her brown hair cascaded down from a peeling scalp and stuck to the crimson streaks raked wildly across her nose and cheeks.

Nausea swelled inside him.

“Don’t worry, Arson. Just follow me. I think I can forgive you, even though you ran away, the way little boys usually do.”

“I’m not running now, am I?”

“I know, silly. That would be a very bad choice. Now do you understand why I couldn’t let you have peace? Why there is no peace? You tried to kill me. You and your…silly friend.”

She glanced at Adam, who wore Danny’s skin, and with a blink, she forced Adam’s arms and legs apart. The more her eyes moved, the farther apart his limbs stretched.

“It was an accident. A stupid game. I never meant… Danny and I never meant to hurt anyone.”

The nameless girl stepped closer. “Just ’cause it was on accident doesn’t mean it’s all okay. I said I
think
I forgive you, but I will never forget. I can’t forget what you did to me. And I won’t let you forget neither.”

Adam squirmed. Tears of anger, of pain, streamed down the bridge of his nose. His throat bobbed, every shout stifled. His cheeks turned a dark red, veins bulging at the surface of blue skin. Suddenly, the little girl started to burn, the fire born around her feet.

Arson turned back. The fire was under Adam’s control. His pupils were aflame, and the fire he created was devouring the little girl. Her dress whipped back and forth as the wild orange tongues lapped at the weak cloth until it turned to ash.