Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero (17 page)

He looked back to the man now, who was standing over the water, washing off whatever he’d taken from the body. As it came clean, Jonathan saw a faint red glow in the man’s hands. Whatever he held, it was somehow tied to Jonathan’s new sense. It, and not the monster, had been what Jonathan had felt since his chest lit up back home.

The helicopter was close now. It must have spotted them on the dock and started moving directly for them. The man returned and knelt next to him.

He opened his palm and showed Jonathan what he’d pulled from the beast. The red glow illuminated Jonathan’s face as he gazed down at an opaque stone, no larger than a chicken’s egg. The glow came from within, as though at its center was a bright light surrounded by red fluid. It was pretty to look at, remarkable really, but Jonathan couldn’t imagine its purpose, or why his mind was linked to it.

“Jonathan, take the chain off your hand. I need you to destroy this,” the stranger said.

Jonathan’s tired eyes flashed with defiance.

“No,” Jonathan said.

The man appraised the look and shifted his eyes down at the stone, then back at Jonathan.

“I know you don’t trust me Jonathan. I can’t blame you for that,” he said, “but please try and understand, it was circumstance that forced my hand.”

Jonathan’s face didn’t change. Nothing this man said could make him obey. The helicopter’s light would be on them soon. They would be surrounded by people and this man would have to explain himself to everyone. Jonathan had no doubt the man would flee, but he didn’t need the stranger’s confession to prove anything. Everyone had seen just how crazy the world had become. At least Jonathan would not be alone in that any longer.

“Jonathan,” the stranger said as he looked up at the helicopter. “Destroy this in your palm. Everyone who died tonight does not have to die. You can make it all right again. But you must do this.”

A moment earlier, Jonathan himself couldn’t have fathomed a thing this man could say to sway him to do anything. Yet now, despite his anger, his hostility, his mistrust, he felt that certainty falter. It was the one thing that Jonathan would risk making his situation worse for, to bring those lives back, to bring that child back.

“How?” Jonathan asked, his voice betraying his desire for the man’s words to be the truth.

“This reality is tied to you and this stone. The link can only be severed by you, or it,” the man said pointing to the monster’s corpse. “If you do not destroy the stone, this reality will be fixed. All of those who died tonight will remain dead.”

“I don’t understand,” Jonathan said. He was shaking again, not wanting the weight of another terrible decision tonight.

“I promise I’ll explain it to you Jonathan. But now,” he looked again at the helicopter that was making him raise his voice, “but now is not the time. It’s your choice. Do nothing, and hundreds remain dead, and you’ll never know. Trust me or not, I am offering you the only chance to save those lives.”

“Why! Why should I trust you?” Jonathan said, glaring into the man’s eyes.

“I can’t give you a reason to trust me. We don’t have enough time. I can only tell you the rules. If tonight you wish to put the rules to the test, it is your decision to live with.”

Jonathan felt his defiance crumbling. The words reminded him of his father. He wanted to grab hold of those words and believe they were meant to stir him wisely now. How could he dare risk doing nothing if that man might be telling the truth?

There was no real choice at all.

“Do you promise? Do you promise they’ll all be alive?” Jonathan asked.

“Yes, Jonathan, I promise,” the man said.

Jonathan paused.

“Give it to me,” he said.

The man nodded and went to place the stone into Jonathan outstretched hand. He stopped a moment before putting it in his palm.

“Jonathan, soon you will be home again. It will be disorientating. You will be confused. Do not discuss this with anyone until we’ve spoken again. Return to the park where you jog, I will be waiting there, it’s very important that you call me by name when you see me.”

The idea that this man had a name caught Jonathan by surprise. He had referred to him as the blond stranger for so long that he hadn’t thought of him in terms of a person.

“Right,” Jonathan said with obvious sarcasm, raising his voice over the sound of the helicopter. “Then what’s your name?”

“Heyer,” the man replied, placing the stone into Jonathan’s palm.

Heyer pointed at Jonathan’s eyes with his middle and index finger, then pointed at his own eyes with the same two fingers as if to instruct him to focus on what he said next.

“It will be confusing, Jonathan,” he said, raising his voice now as well over the helicopter blades.

The wind from the propeller flung their hair about and made Jonathan chill with cold as he was still soaked through from the water. Heyer seemed unperturbed by the wind.

“Talk to no one. Meet me at the park. Say my name when you see me.” Heyer nodded once, then pointed his finger at Jonathan’s hand. “Now destroy it.”

Jonathan looked at Heyer as though he were mad. He didn’t pause long. He didn’t take his eyes from Heyer’s when he crushed the stone in his hand. Like holding the man’s gaze would force everything he’d told him to be true. He felt the stone break, like a delicate piece of glass with fluid inside. Heyer stood and backed away from him. As soon as he did so, Jonathan’s heart sank. It seemed an omen of betrayal.

The fluid from the stone was all over his hand. It burned as it had when his chest had turned on, searing its way from his hand down his arm. Jonathan no longer felt cold in the draft from the helicopter; he was molten lava again.

Fear gripped him. What had he done? The fire was moving toward the glowing lines on his torso, not away this time. He curled into the fetal position with the pain of it, finally breaking his eye contact with Heyer, pulling his knees up to his chest and gripping tightly as he endured the pain migrating down his arm and into his chest. The world became red all around him.

“Why are you doing this?” was the last thing Jonathan was able to cry out before everything went white.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THURSDAY | JUNE 30, 2005 | 8:30 PM

JONATHAN
stared at his text book. His head was in one hand, hovering over the kitchen table; the table that should have been split in half. Paige sat next to him reading. She reached down and took a sip of her tea. The TV was on. Collin and Hayden were watching something.

“I don’t want to wait for September for the new season of
Lost
to start,” said Hayden.

That’s familiar,
Jonathan thought.

He felt disoriented. He should be sitting on a dock, dead tired, freezing, talking to the blond man. Heyer? Why wasn’t he tired? How was he so calm? Had he been dreaming? There had been so much pain a moment ago and now, nothing. He felt like he should be bored, or like he had been until a second ago.

He hit the table with his fist lightly. It didn’t collapse. He hit it again harder; nothing, no impossible strength. Disbelievingly, he brought his palm down with enough force to let out a loud smack and cause the table to shake. Everyone in the room turned to the sound.

“What the hell?” Paige said, looking at him as though he was a monkey throwing his poo.

Jonathan stared back at her for a moment, confused by her confusion. He looked about the room trying to orient himself, make sense of what should already make sense. His eyes fell on the clock and he realized the time was wrong. It should have been closer to eleven, yet it read 8:30. He must have fallen asleep. It must have been a dream.

No.

How was that possible? The monster, all those people and police, the news footage, the helicopters, sirens, gunfire, all so vivid in his head only seconds ago. The rage, the guilt, the fear; it was more real than any dream he’d ever had.

No dammit
.

That was no dream; they were memories. He opened his mouth to speak but then stopped. He didn’t know what to say. His last memory was of Heyer specifically telling him he would be disoriented, that he should speak to no one.

Understatement,
he thought. He realized Paige was still staring at him.

“Um, sorry, I’m just, it’s just a struggle to catch up,” Jonathan said.

She raised her eyebrow and went back to her book. Jonathan, still at a loss, pulled the neck of his shirt out so he could look down at his chest. There was no eerie orange glow, nothing.

Talk to no one. I’ll be waiting for you at the park. Say my name when you see me
.

It had literally been seconds ago that Heyer had said those words to him. Hadn’t it? Jonathan rose from the table.

“I need some fresh air,” he said, pulling his coat off the back of his chair; a chair that shouldn’t have been in one piece. Then he headed for the garage door, which shouldn’t have been on its hinges.

“You’ll never catch up if you procrastinate,” Paige said.

He nodded, but didn’t stop. Was he really doing this? Was he really going to go meet this man, this ‘Heyer,’ after what he had been through? Of course he was. How the hell else would he ever prove to himself it was real.

Why was he so damn calm? On the dock his body had been exhausted from adrenaline overdose, and now it was as though he was just beginning to grow anxious. He should have felt like he’d drowned, instead he was as nervous as someone who was late for an appointment. It just wasn’t on the right level, the state of mind and memories contradicted each other. It was making his brain itch somehow. It was irritating.

He shut the garage door and headed down the stairs.

Leah looked up from her laptop when she heard the neighbor’s side door open. She’d been sitting on the balcony above their driveway for a little over twenty minutes now.

This had proven, by far, the best part of her new home. On the East Coast, Jack and she’d never had a balcony. It made her feel like she was giving in to some storybook cliché for girls just by being so drawn to it. Was this some terrible innate desire to be pursued by Romeo? Had Shakespeare ruined balconies for her? Maybe next she would have an irrational need to own a pony. She pushed the thought away. She liked the little sanctuary too much to let herself over think it.

Jonathan came through the door and walked up the driveway. He looked deep in thought and a little pale, like he’d just seen something that was threatening to make him sick. She hoped he wasn’t always in such a state. He’d be attractive if he didn’t constantly appear to be restraining an avalanche of worry.

“Good evening, neighbor,” she said, making sure she sounded pleased to see him.

His eyes found her immediately, but the worry didn’t dissipate when they made eye contact. Leah thought it got worse for a moment, before he forced his facial expression to look more relaxed and smiled at her. It wasn’t the reaction she’d hoped for. He looked as though he’d forgotten how to interact with another human being and was attempting to hide it.

“Hello,” he finally managed.

“You know Jack hasn’t stopped asking about the motorcycle since you mentioned it to him,” she said, “I think you might be on the hook for showing it to him sometime.”

“I’ll have to ask my roommate about it,” he said. “I apologize, I’d love to talk more, but I need to be somewhere.”

“Yeah?” Leah said, a mischievous smile on her face. “Hot date?”

She was trying to seem playful, but really hoping he would tell her that it wasn’t why he had to go, that he wasn’t seeing some girl.

He seemed to hesitate.

“Did you want to wish me luck?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she said, in a mocking tone, surprise he’d guessed where she was going with the question. “But only if I thought you needed it.”

At first she thought he’d been flirting back, trying to see if she’d be jealous if he was off to see a girl, but he just looked inexplicably puzzled. It was like he was somewhere else entirely having a hundred thoughts that had nothing to do with their conversation. He was harder to read than he’d been the other day. She wondered if this was what he’d been like before the attack he’d mentioned. Then she realized that he’d answered her question with a question. He hadn’t actually said where he was going at all.