Catharsis (Book 2): Catalyst (5 page)

CHAPTER TEN

            The wicked whip of life’s ironies has never failed to make an impression on me.  A year ago before I left home, my sister and I were both teenagers and we had started bickering on a regular basis.  We have completely different personalities, and we weren't hanging out together very much anymore.  Most of our interactions involved me being angry at her for one thing or another.  We lived in the same house, and yet we attempted to speak to each other as little as possible (She's taller, prettier and more outgoing than I'll ever be.  She has the natural personality of a social butterfly, and that combined well with her upbeat attitude to make her a person everyone always wanted to be around.  She's peppy, happy, friendly and the type of person that strangers are instantly attracted to.  All of that made it very easy for me to not like her as she got ready to join me at the high school.  She wasn't even at the school yet, and she was already more popular than I would ever be.  I loved her, but I didn't really like her.  And the fact that she wasn't bothered in the least by my annoyance only bothered me more.  It was Leyna I was fighting with that fateful night my life changed.  A fact I haven't forgotten.  Nor has she.).

            But now that I've been gone from home for almost a year, her voice is one of the only things that truly brings me to a smile anymore.  I miss her, and I've made a point of contacting her to talk at least once a week.  I know she wants to hear from me and know that I'm ok, but the calls are more for my sanity than hers.  That's why I had Ren set up an untraceable number when I dial her.  I can't have her tracking me down.  Being kept at a distance is something I know she doesn’t like, but she has learned to accept it.  It’s still better than the alternative: not hearing from me at all.

            "It's been good, Leyna, thanks," I answer in response to her question.  "The city continues to be a big, scary place that constantly keeps me on my toes, but I think I'm winning the battle."  I pause and think back over the events of the night.  "At least most of the important ones."

            Twisting the throttle of the bike, I push its speed and pass a car on the road as if it was standing still.  One of the joys of having heightened reflexes and near immortality is that I don't really worry any more about the repercussions of reckless driving.  I've come close to taking a tumble a number of times, but so far my body's self-preservation abilities have always kicked in and saved me.

            "How's school going so far?" I ask her so that we can stick to one of our safer topics.  We've learned there are a few areas of our lives that neither of us dredges up, but the boring neutrality of the educational world has remained a staple of our conversations.  "Any news I should know about with the report coming up?"

            "Ha!  Nothing that wouldn't embarrass you," she tells me through a laugh.  "I always thought you were supposed to be the smart one, but I'm starting to make your old grades look bad.  I'm going to make honor roll again this term, but my history class is getting tougher.  I'm hoping if I can keep it at least a B+ for the rest of the year then my math grade will help offset it. ."

            "You still rocking that crazy, high math class and getting A's?" I ask as I slow for a red light and wait for it to change (I may speed at times and bumper-slide more than I should, but I try not to run lights if I can avoid it.  That's just bad karma.).  "I still can't believe how easily that stuff comes to you."

            "It just makes sense to me," she says in a quieter voice.  "I don't even have to try in Mr. Porter's class.  My brain just gets math."  She stops talking after that, and I can almost hear the neurons rubbing together in her brain as she considers her next statement.  "I get that from mom.  You know that."

            I don't respond as I stare at the stoplight in front of me, and I do my best to not let what she said affect me.  The moment the light becomes green I kick the gears and accelerate as hard as the bike will let me without flipping over.  I know I can't run away from this conversation as easily as the bike did from that intersection, but I can wish for it to be that easy.  I know I need to address what she said, but I don't want to.

            "Leyna, you know I don't want to talk about them.  It's too painful, and it does me no favors," I tell her as I do my best to
not
picture the two people she's talking about.  "I call you to find out about
your
life, not
theirs
.  I can't go down that road.  Not right now.  Not for a while, at least."

            "I know.  I'm sorry," she tells me.  "They just miss you and ask about you.  And I promised them I would..."

            "Leyni Jay!"  I growl out my pet nickname for her before she can continue.  "Stop.  Please.  I don't want to have them on my mind tonight.  Do me that little favor?"

            "Ok, ok, Cat.  I had to at least try, or I wouldn't be able to look mom in the eyes later when she asks," she says with a final dig at the topic.  "Forgiven?"

            My younger sister may only be in her first year of high school, but sometimes she shows the twisted genius of a young Machiavelli.  She knew mentioning our parents would haunt me until I eventually break down and write them another letter.  She can still find ways to manipulate me, and I have to respect her for it.  But
respect
and
forgiveness
are two different things.

            "Uh huh," I say non-committal.  "Speaking of fun topics for us to bring up, how are Brandon and Evan?"

            "Ugh," she groans into the phone, and I have to smile at her discomfort.  Her constant social machinations with the boys of the school are a world that I never had to deal with, and I get no end of joy tormenting her with the topic.  "They're both getting a lot more persistent, thanks.  Sometimes I just think I should swear them all off completely..."

            She continues to rant about the social
hierarchies
 
at the school, but I only half listen as I approach the neighborhood that Ren had indicated on the map to me previously.  Her words become a pleasant hum in the background as I do my best to push her comments about our parents from my mind.

            I know my disappearance nearly destroyed them, but I honestly don't think I could have handled it any other way.  By the time I had enough of a handle on my life to start thinking about them again, it had been months since I had left.  And I had disappeared after attacking our school nurse in the middle of the day and then fleeing the school building by jumping out of a second-story window.  Then they had no contact from me for weeks.  And that contact was only because I let myself be seen on a convenience store's security video so that they would know I was still alive.

            Looking back at the past year, I can't imagine how they might feel towards me.  Leyna says they love me, but I know that love has been tested.  I won't let her talk about them or that day I left.  I don't want to know what the school thinks about me or my old friends or how my being gone has destroyed my parents.  I can't change it, so I've learned to accept it.

            Plus, I've had Ren set up multiple savings accounts in Leyna's name using the money from the drug houses.  I'll never be able to use it all, and I know my parents would be horrified to even think about taking money like this from me.  So I invest it in Leyna.  Someday she will be a very rich girl.  I just hope I'm still alive to see it.  But that's a dream I doubt a little bit more with each passing day.

            "Cat, you're close," Ren's deep voice tells me over the helmet's speaker cutting into Leyna's melodic ramblings about the kids at school and her exasperation with them.  "We're going live in about thirty seconds.  Be ready."

            "Hey Leyni, I gotta go," I say interrupting her mid-word.  "Sorry.  I love you, little sis."  I consider saying more, but nothing comes to me.

            She seems unfazed by my abruptness, though.  "Love you, too.  Be safe out there.  Please."

            "I will.  I always am," I say before disconnecting the call.  I've never exactly told Leyna what I do in the city, and she's too smart to ask (She knows I'd never actually tell her.).  But somehow I have the suspicion that her guesses would be frighteningly accurate.  Like I said, she's a smart kid.

            "Ok, Renny.  I'm ready for ya," I say into the helmet's microphone and slow the bike as I approach the street he had originally pointed to on the map.  "Let's find me a way to release some pent up hostility."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

            "Cat, you're going to first have to turn on the tracking system on the bike," Ren tells me.  "It's the small box I wired in below the gauges.  Give it a moment to start up, and then let me know.  I'm only going to activate their LoJack in bursts so we can try to find them without also popping up on the police’s radar."

            "What do you mean by their 'radar'?" I ask as I hit the little green switch on the device and watch it power up.  "And it's on now."

            "Remember how last time we used this thing I left it pulsing and it brought the entire local police force down on you mid-battle?"

            That wasn't exactly a pleasant experience, and it's definitely not one I want to try for a second time.  "Yeah, I remember that," I tell him.  "We can avoid that now?  Ok.  I was just planning on being faster this time."

            "Well, I didn't really know what I was doing last time.  Kinda just learning on the fly.  Apparently, the LoJack sends out a constant information stream screaming, 'HEY, I'M A STOLEN VEHICLE!  COME GET ME.'  And that was why the cops interrupted your interrogation of those cartel boys.  That LoJack was constantly waving a big red flag telling every cop nearby that they needed to come investigate.  The only thing that slowed down their response time was the fact that it wasn't in their system as a 'missing vehicle'." 

            "And now?" I ask him.  "What's different this time?"

            "Well now," he tells me.  "We're just going to do a quick on-off pulse every once in a while to let you try and find them.  You'll be the only one looking and the chances of a police car being nearby and scanning will hopefully be very slim.  It'll take us a bit longer, but it should also cut down on the chances of you having any unexpected visitors."

            "Sounds good, Renny," I tell him as I pull back onto the street.  "I'm moving now.  I'll just drive the neighborhoods while you do your thing.  I'll let you know as soon as I pick anything up on my end."

            "Copy that.  I'll pulse it every thirty seconds until you get something from them.  It shouldn't take very long," he tells me, but I can hear there's more he wants to say.

            I give him a moment to speak up again, but he doesn't.  "What's up, Ren?"  I finally ask when I realize he isn't going to say anything on his own.

            "Nothing," he finally says in a quiet voice.  "Just," he pauses before continuing, and I can hear him breathing over the open channel.  "Be careful out there.  I know you're in a hurry to get back to Chadwick, but don't make any
unnecessary
decisions."

            "I won't Renny," I say and smile at his thoughtfulness.  The guy may be dark and mopey at times, but he has a great heart.  It's why I couldn't survive out here without him anymore.  He’s becoming the soul that I’m slowly losing.

            I've come to respect the irony of our situation.  The fact that I can't feel
normal
unless I'm around a person whose blood is so full of toxins and poisons that my dark hunger balks at the very idea of ever drinking from him.  In order for me to feel like I'm really
alive
, I have to spend time around someone who is close to
death
.  Fate, you are a wicked mistress.

            As I cruise the roads of the upscale neighborhood where Ren suspects tonight's targets are doing business, I let my mind drift a bit waiting for the beep of the LoJack scanner to kick on. 

            It isn't just Ren's inedible blood that makes him such a crucial part of my life.  He also helped me kick my own inadvertent drug habit.  My first taste of human blood occurred after I defended myself from a crazed homeless man in a dark alley.  He had stabbed me and then stood over me as I bled out in the stacks of garbage.  That was the first time my Dark Hunger had taken control of me in order to preserve my life, and it did so by relieving that man of his own.

            Unfortunately, along with his blood, I also consumed the drugs that had been pumping through his veins, and his addiction was passed on to me.  But I had been unaware of it at the time.  As it had been my first time ever
feeding
on another human, I had thought my
addiction
had just been to blood.  I hadn't realized I was going through drug withdrawal until it was too late.  By then I was on the verge of getting myself killed mid-battle with some pretty horrible people.

            I tried to kick my addiction to tainted blood cold turkey, but I wasn't strong enough to do it on my own.  After dealing with my newly-formed need to gain sustenance from the life-blood of others, I just didn't have the courage or constitution to kick a drug habit on top of that.  True to drug addict form, though, I managed to deny its existence for weeks before I eventually succumbed to its sweet siren call again.

            Depressed and overwhelmed with guilt (at both my addiction and my acceptance of the evil nature of who I was becoming), I contemplated suicide for the first real time in my life.  I didn't want to exist anymore, even if I was finding a way to do good things while I was here (if you can consider destroying drug dens a good thing).  Even though I knew committing suicide would be a damnation of my soul (And this is
on top of
the knowledge that I had willingly caused the death of
two
different men.  I was pretty sure no amount of good I could do would save me from the eternal fires that awaited.), at least I wouldn't be controlled by an addiction that I despised.  The hypocrisy of my attacking and harming drug dealers while I was addicted to the very products I was attempting to destroy was too much for me.

            And then, in the midst of my despair, I found Ren.  He saved me by being the strength and guidance I needed in order to beat the drugs that flowed freely through my system (Given
his
saving of
me
only came after
I
prevented
him
from jumping to his own death on one of the city bridges.  I noticed him on the bridge with me as I sat on the edge contemplating my own fall into blissful oblivion.  Even if I had planned to end my own existence, I still couldn't just stand by and let another do it.  I stopped him from completing his act, and in so doing I discovered a person who had blood I could
never
drink from.  I was fascinated, and our ensuing conversation sealed a friendship.).  He not only kept me calm when my body went into rages in its attempts to purge itself of the poison, but he also found me fresh, clean blood to drink from so that my body could have the strength to heal (I've never asked him where the blood came from, even after all these months.  Ren is incredibly resourceful and brilliant, and that is enough for me.  I've learned not to look a "gift bag of blood" in the mouth, as they say.).  Without Ren, I wouldn't be here today making our city the better place it is.  I owe him.

            Speaking of being
here
, I look down at the screen of the LoJack tracker and notice that it has changed.  It now has information about a vehicle listed on it.  Both model and manufacturer information (Black Cadillac Escalade) as well as distance and direction (three miles East-Southeast). 

            "Whoops," I mumble as I realize the device never made a sound when it picked up the vehicle's LoJack pulse.  I wonder how long I've had that information on the screen without noticing it.

            "What's up?"  I hear Ren's deep voice in my ear.  "What 'whoops'?  Is something wrong?”

            "No, little buddy," I say using a nickname he hates even more than my usual ones as I attempt to distract him from my mistake.

            "Cat," he growls into my ear.  "You know I don't..."  He begins before I cut him off.

            "We got 'em, Ren.  Black Escalade.  Three miles south of here."  I brake hard and turn the bike into a tight turn before cranking the throttle and shooting off down a side street to the South.  "It's show time!"