Lost Souls: Imperfection – Episode 2 (6 page)

Eugene nodded, his head.  He leaned back, running his hand through his brown hair, which only made some of it stand up straight.  “Is there a problem?” he asked, sliding a filing cabinet drawer open.

“I don’t know.”

Eugene pulled out a file, opened it and nodded.  Slapping it closed, he stood and said, “Express trip into the burbs.”  He laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder and they fazed, materializing inside of a house.

It was dark, and quiet.  The shifting dim and then bright light of a television illuminated the hallway before them.

Ben moved down the hall until it opened into a small kitchen with a television on the counter.  No one was in the kitchen.

Ben fazed to the hallway.  He shook his head at Eugene and together they looked up the stairway.  Prickles raced along the nape of his neck.  An electric charge?  Ben wasn’t sure, but he felt something in the air.  He fazed to the top of the stairs and looked down the hallway.  One door was closed at the end of the hallway.  Two doors were open across the hall from each other.  Slowly, he began down the corridor.

He was ready for anything and nothing all at once.  He looked into the first room.  A bathroom bathed in blue peeling wallpaper.  He turned his head to look into the room across from it.

The sign on the door should have given it away.  Pink letters proclaimed ‘Rachel.’

Ben stepped into the room, his gaze taking in the unmade bed, the scattered clothing on the floor, the pile of books on the table beside the bed.  A light was on beside the books.  Typical teenage room.

The room was not super charged, nor were the outlets burned out.  The lights were not broken.  All of these would have been the signs of a Jump having been made.  A Jump had clearly not happened in this room.

So where was Rachel?

~ ~ ~

Sam leaned against the wall in Claire’s room, watching the girl.  She had just finished doing homework, closed the book and hopped into bed.

In many respects, her spunk reminded Sam of Cora.  She liked the girl, as much as she didn’t want to admit it.  Claire was making a brave effort to continue with her life as normally as possible.

Claire pulled her covers up.  She grabbed her cell phone from the bedside table and typed something onto the tiny keyboard.

Sam shook her head.  Modern technology.

A crooked smile formed on Claire’s lips before she put her cell phone back on the table.

Bedtime, Sam thought.

Claire paused.  Her smile disintegrated as she grabbed a picture beside the light.  She stared down at the glass for a long moment.  Tears entered her eyes as she gently stroked the picture.  “Miss you, Ryan,” she whispered in a trembling voice.

Sam pushed herself from the wall.  “Don’t worry, kiddo,” she said.  “I’m not going to let anything else happen to your family.”

Claire didn’t move or acknowledge her, and Sam didn’t expect her to.  She remembered the ache of losing Cora.  It was like part of your life had been cut out of you and there was a hole left.  She knew what it was like to lose a family member.

“Sam?”

Sam looked up to see Ben standing beside her.  He had just fazed in to the room.

“Ryan’s girlfriend is missing.”

“Missing?” Sam asked.

~ ~ ~

Sam stood behind a kitchen chair, her arms crossed.  Christian, Ben and Eugene sat in chairs at the around the kitchen table in the dark.

Eugene stared down at his black machine.  “For 24 hours now.”

Sam grit her teeth.  They had missed this.  How had they not known Ryan had a girlfriend?  And even so, who could have predicted that it was love.

Christian shook his head.  “I don’t understand.  What does this have to do with Scala?”

Sam grimaced.  She couldn’t stand having to explain to him.  She and Ben didn’t have all the answers!

“We think Scala made the Jump to Rachel,” Ben answered.

“What?  Wait!”  Christian held up his hands.  “You said the lifelines had to be connected.”

“Love is a lifeline,” Sam snapped.  “The question is how do we find him…er, her now?”  Sam and Ben looked at Eugene.

Eugene hunched over his black box, his fingers flying quickly over the keyboard.  Slowly, he looked up.  “I don’t work well under pressure.”

Christian rose.  “So, what you’re basically telling me is that after six hundred years, you can no more tell who the Changed are going to Jump into than you could at the beginning?”

Every eye turned to him.

Fury washed over Sam.  Who did he think he was?  They were doing the best they could.  “If you can do better, then feel free.”  Her tone was tight and strained.

“Sam,” Ben said firmly.

Christian added, “I’m just saying… there must be some way –”

“This isn’t an exact science,” Sam said sharply.

“The possibilities can be endless,” Ben added.  “And unfortunately, there are not enough Souls as there are possibilities.”

“So you guess?” Christian demanded.

Ben shrugged.  “Sometimes it’s easier than this.”

“Yeah,” Sam said.  “Maybe we could have covered every one of his friends.  And teachers.  And co workers.  And –”

Christian scowled.  “A girlfriend should have been one of the first to cover.”

“Okay, Mr. Perfect.  Next time you decide who we cover.”

“Maybe you should have asked me.  I’m in this group now and I should have a say.”

“You’re a freshie.”

Christian nodded.  “And you were once, too.  I’m tired of you treating me like I’m incompetent.”

“Not incompetent, just a freshie who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“I might be newly made, but that doesn’t mean I can’t guess with the best of you.”

Sam slapped her hands on the table and leaned toward him.  “Look –”

“Okay.  Okay.  We need to calm down,” Ben interrupted.

Sam glared at Christian.  She’d been doing this for six hundred years without some freshie telling her how to do it.  How to hunt these Changed.  “If you think you can hunt the Changed better than we can, then go ahead.”

Christian nodded.  “I will.”

“Christian,” Ben called.

“Go on,” Sam encouraged.

“Sam,” Ben warned.

Christian straightened, staring at her.  His lips were taut, his fists clenched at his sides.

Sam cocked a grin and crossed her arms over her chest.  He didn’t have the nerve to go on his own.

Suddenly, he fazed and was gone.

Sam dropped her hands.  At least he fazed and he didn’t walk out of the room, she thought with an unwelcome tinge of admiration for Christian.

Ben rolled his eyes.  “Now, how is that going to help us?”

Sam shrugged.  “He can follow his own assumptions.  We have work to do.”

Sam hadn’t really thought Christian would go.  He was more stubborn than she gave him credit for.  But not more stubborn than her.

She ignored Ben’s scowl of disapproval and looked at Eugene.

Eugene grinned at her.  “I didn’t like him, either.”

That’s when Sam knew she had gone too far.  It wasn’t that she didn’t like Christian; she didn’t even really know him!  And she didn’t want to get to know him.  She sat down.

“What do you have, Eugene?” Ben asked quietly.  “Any sign of Rachel?”

Eugene shook his head.

“There wouldn’t be,” Sam said.  “Scala isn’t stupid.  He’ll avoid cameras and anything that will give him away.  He knows we’re looking for him.”

Ben paced, running his hand through his brown hair.  “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“It never is.”

~ ~ ~

High School.  It had been a long time since Christian had been in school.  As he stood in the gym observing the teenagers, he remembered how horrible it had been.  Not necessarily for him, but for some.  He had been a decent short stop for his high school baseball team.  As such he wasn’t bullied.  But he had seen others bullied and picked on relentlessly.

Now was no different.  He could pick out the children that were bullied.  One skinny little boy stood away from the class, observing the game of basketball the others were playing.  He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

“Come on, Fenske!  Get in there!” the coach hollered.

The skinny kid named Fenske took one step forward onto the court.  The instant the coach turned his back, Fenske took the same step backward.

There was a group of children very much into the game, racing up and down the court, dribbling, passing, moving past Fenske as though he weren’t there.  That would have been the group of kids Christian hung out with.  He had always been more athletic, oblivious to the nerds on the sidelines.

There were also groups of girls standing around, more interested in talking and watching the boys than they were in playing the game.  It was these groups of girls Christian loomed around, listening.  They spoke of Rachel in hushed tones, as though if they said their fears aloud, she might never turn up.

Then Christian noticed a blonde girl sitting alone on the bleachers.  The girls carefully avoided her, whispering amongst themselves.  She was a pretty girl and Christian was certain she should have been in the popular crowd.  She hadn’t even changed for gym.

When the coach called a foul and a kid stood at the free throw line, one of the other boys jogged over to the blonde girl.  Christian followed him.  “Hey, Missy,” the boy greeted with a jerk of his head.  “How you holding up?”

Tears rushed into her large blue eyes and she nodded and looked away.

He sat beside her.  “Any word on Rachel?”

She shook her head.  “Nothing.  I got a text from her last night just before she left for work.  But she never got there.”

That’s because Scala made the Jump into your friend Rachel before she made it to work, Christian thought.

“She probably lost her cell and is at her cousins.  You know how she is.  She’ll turn up,” the boy tried to comfort her.

The girl nodded, but there was no conviction in her agreement.  “Thanks, Brad.”

Christian knew he had to find Rachel.  And fast.  Now that Scala was in human form, it wouldn’t be long before he started killing again.  Christian’s gaze moved over the teens in the gym.  Each one probably knew Rachel.  Just like they knew Ryan.  Which one would give him the clue he needed?

Brad re-joined his teammates on the court.  The coach patted Brad’s shoulder as he passed him, crossing the gym toward Missy.  Christian could tell by the coach’s saunter and his overbearing demeanor he used to be good at sports, but age was starting to take its toll on him.  He had a toned body with just the slight sign of a rounded belly.  What little dark hair he had receded beneath the red coach’s cap he wore.  “Hi, Missy.”

“Hi, Coach,” she mumbled.

“Not playing today?”  He seemed very sympathetic, kind even.

“I have a note.”  She began to reach into her bag, but he waved it off.

“Why’d you come to school today?  You should have stayed at home.”

“I didn’t want to fall behind on my school work.”

“I would have brought it over to you.”

That seemed rather inappropriate.  Christian never remembered a teacher offering to bring work home for him.

Missy shook her head.  “Nah.  I like being here.  I have friends…”  Her voice broke off.

The coach sat beside her.  “You want to go to the nurse?”

She shook her head.

“Don’t worry about Rachel.  She’ll turn up.”

Missy nodded, a lock of blonde hair falling forward over her face.

The coach stood for a moment.  “If you need anything…”

Missy nodded again.  “Thanks.”

The coach patted her knee and then moved back to re-join his class.

Christian figured since Missy knew Rachel so well, he’d stick with her.  Maybe she could give him the clue he needed.

~ ~ ~

Sam watched from a chaise lounge as Doug, Ryan’s Dad, bent over his computer, typing diligently.  Not that they needed to be there, Sam thought.  Not with Scala already making the Jump into Rachel.  There was no reason for her and Ben to be at Ryan’s house any longer, but Ben wanted to read all of the letters from Rachel to Ryan.  It might let them know where she was, or at least give them some idea where to start.  He was upstairs checking Ryan’s room.

Eugene was back at his lab, making sweeps with his machines, trying to detect where the Jump was made.  Each Jump was so full of energy that it left clues, a power outage, burned out electrical sockets…  Every time a Jump was made, it required a tremendous amount of energy.

Sam swung her legs off the lounge chair.  Guilt was gnawing at the borders of her consciousness.  She knew she had been rough on Christian.  She shook her head.  It wasn’t all her fault.  The fact he thought he could do better then them after just barely becoming a Soul irked her.

The door opened and Claire entered the house.

Doug scooted his chair back and looked down the hall.  “What are you doing home?”

“I’m going to Missy’s house.  She left school early.”

“That doesn’t give you permission to leave early,” Doug answered, rising and moving to the stairs as Claire headed up.  “Claire!”

She paused, but didn’t turn.

“We’ve talked about this before.  You can’t just cut class when you feel like it.”

Sam stood and moved to the hallway, leaning against the wall, arms folded over her chest.

Claire’s hand fisted over the railing.  “Give me a break, Dad.  Her best friend is missing.”

Missy was Rachel’s best friend.  Sam’s gaze narrowed.  Maybe that was the clue they were looking for.  Maybe Missy could lead them to Rachel.

Doug visibly inhaled.  “Look, I know how tough this is for everyone –”

“Do you?” Claire asked and finally turned.  “Then why don’t you get off my back?  Rachel is my friend, too.  I’m worried about her.”

“I understand that,” he said firmly.  “But school is important.  You can’t just blow it off.  You’ve been gone for a week already.”

“I’m not blowing it off, Dad.  I’m taking a day off.”

“You’ve already been out too much.  Your grades are horrible.”

Claire shrugged.  “I can make them up.”

“But you’re not.”