Lost Souls: Imperfection – Episode 2 (7 page)

“Give me a break,” Claire said.  “I’ve been gone for a week because of Ryan’s funeral.”

“And that’s all the more reason to stay in school today.  You’ve already missed so much.”

“I’ll get to it later.”

“You’ve said that before.  Don’t you understand this is your future?  Don’t you see how important it is?”

“My friends are more important.”  She started up the stairs again.

Doug clenched his teeth and shook his head.  “I warned you, Claire.  I told you no more ditching.  You know the consequences.”

Claire shrugged.  “Whatever.”

Doug stormed up the stairs after her.  “Don’t talk to me like that.  I’m your father and you’ll show me some respect.”

“Like before, Dad?  Is that the respect you want?”

He held out his hand.  “Give me the car keys.”

Oh, that hurt, Sam thought.  To a teenager, car keys were the key to freedom.

Claire’s mouth dropped.  “No!” she hollered.  “You can’t do that!  I pay for my own car insurance.”

“You know the rules.”

“Here!”  Claire took her purse and threw it across the room where it hit the wall and slid to the floor.

Doug’s hand came around swift and hard, striking with a resounding thwack.

Sam jerked away from the wall.

Claire’s eyes welled with tears, her hand holding her red cheek.  “I hate you.  I hate you!”  She raced up the stairs into her room and slammed the door.

Ben materialized beside Sam.  “What happened?”

“Apparently this family is not as perfect as we thought.  Did you find anything?”

Ben shook his head.  “No secret rendezvous place that I can find.”

“Scala wouldn’t go there, anyway.”  Sam’s gaze locked on the door at the top of the stairs.  “Too easy to find him then.  Go see what Eugene’s found.  I’ll meet you there.”

Ben nodded and vanished.

Sam fazed into Claire’s room to find her sobbing into her pillow.

“Why did you have to leave me, Ryan?” she cried.  “I hate him!”

Sam’s heart twisted.  How hard it must be to carry the brunt of your father’s expectations.  It had been so long since Sam had seen her own father, she barely remembered his face.  But he had never hit her.

Claire sat up, running a sleeve across her nose and cheeks, smearing the tears from her eyes.  She grabbed her cell and typed something in.  Then she pocketed the phone and stood.  She locked her door and moved to the window.

Sam shook her head, silently pleading with the girl.  You’re just making matters worse.  Don’t do it, Claire.

Claire opened the window and swung her leg over the side.  She reached over and grabbed hold of a white trellis on the side of the house.

Sam fazed to the outside of the house and watched Claire agilely climb down the trellis.  Sam remembered her rebellious youth.  How Ben had tried to stop her from sneaking out to see Damien.  But this was different.  Claire was hurting.  Doug was hurting.  It wasn’t typical teenage angst.

Claire jumped to the ground, looked back at the house and then took off across the street.  Sam followed as she skirted fences and hopped over bushes.  It was very apparent that Claire had done this before.

Finally, Claire came to a house about five blocks away and paused in the backyard to text on her cell.  It was only moments before a blonde girl opened the back door and stepped aside to let Claire in.

The blonde girl closed the door and Sam walked through it…

…only to find Christian sitting in one of the chairs of the kitchen.  She was startled for a moment.  He had gotten here first; his instincts had led him in the right direction.  A reluctant grin stretched Sam’s lips.  Not bad.  He might be useful after all.

“What are you doing here?” Christian asked, rising.

“Don’t go getting all defensive.  Claire skipped school to comfort her friend.  I just followed her.”

Christian nodded his head as if that was acceptable.  “Yeah.  I was at the high school.  Heard that Missy was Rachel’s best friend.”  He nodded again.

Still so defensive.  Sam guessed that was her fault.  She should cut him a break.  At least a little one.  They did end up in the same spot.

“Look,” Missy was saying to Claire with excitement.  “I think Brad slipped it into my backpack.”  She held up a golden locket.  “I told you he liked me.”

“Where are Ben and Eugene?” Christian wondered.

“They’re at the lab,” Sam answered, turning to look at the locket Missy was holding.  “Eugene is trying to track Rachel’s car.”

Claire took the locket into her hands and studied it.  Her brow furrowed.  “This is Rachel’s.”

Dread slithered up Sam’s spine.

Missy scowled.  “I never saw her with it.”

“Ryan gave it to her the night he –”  Claire looked at Missy.  “What are you doing with it?”

Christian looked from the locket to Sam.  “What is it?”

“Scala.  He leaves items he takes from one victim with his next intended victim.”

Eugene and Ben suddenly appeared at her side.

“Rachel’s body was found,” Ben said.  “He’s not in Rachel.”

Sam stared down at the body bathed in the pale moonlight as police swarmed the vacant lot.  Rachel was found near a dumpster in a bad part of town.  Memories flooded back.  How many women had Scala killed?

“Just like before, Sam,” Ben said, walking over to her.  “Eyes burned out and feet cut off.”

Sam clenched her jaw.  Again.  Scala was back to start his murderous spree all over again.  They thought he burned out the eyes because he couldn’t stand the guilt he saw reflected in them.  Then, he cut off the feet so they wouldn’t come after him in death.  It was deranged that he still did the same things, even knowing about Souls and Changed.

The police stretched crime scene tape from the vacant building at one side of the lot to a dilapidated house on the other.

“No one saw anything,” Ben said softly.  “And there are no cameras in this part of the town.”

Sam stood absolutely still.  Chills peppered her body as she stared at Rachel’s blank, black eye sockets staring off into nothing.  Images of other black eye sockets flashed in her mind.  “How many times do we have to lock this bastard up?”  She turned to look at Ben.  “Where is Scala?  Who is he in?”

Ben shook his head helplessly.  “You said Brad gave the necklace to Missy.  We could start with Brad.”

Sam shook her head vehemently.  “It’s too easy.  I think Scala is playing games with us.  He knows we’re looking for him.  He knows we know what to look for.”  Sam shook her head again.  “This isn’t right.  Tell Christian to stick with Brad.”

“Christian is too new to take on Scala alone.  If he’s in Brad –”

“I don’t think Scala is in Brad.  He’s sending us on a wild chase.  You stick with Missy.  I need to talk to Eugene.”

Sam fazed; the brick walls faded into darkness and Eugene’s temporary HQ materialized around her.

Eugene was sitting at a computer at a wooden table speaking to someone as Sam walked up behind him.

“You’d better relay this message, Eugene,” the familiar voice on the screen said.  “I know where to find you.”

“Don’t threaten me,” Eugene replied with more venom than Sam had ever heard.

Sam stepped up behind Eugene… and froze.

Memories and past agonies rushed through her as the face on the screen filled her vision.  She would recognize the square jaw, the rugged profile, the aquiline nose anywhere.  The only difference was the eyes.  Where they had been a sapphire blue before, they were completely black now.  A lump rose in her throat as a smile spread across his face, almost melting her very being.

“I think it’s too late, Eugene.  Hello, Sam,” Damien greeted.

Eugene spun around to face Sam.

Sam didn’t want to look at Eugene; she only wanted to look at Damien.  Her wit and sarcasm abandoned her.  Her very soul ached for her husband.  She couldn’t even return the greeting.

“Meet me at the abandoned factory on Washington,” Damien instructed.

Sam nodded blankly, even though she had never been there before.  She couldn’t faze there if she had never been in that area before or didn’t know exactly where it was.  “I don’t know where it is,” she whispered.

Did his eyes soften or was that her imagination?  “I’ll wait for you.”  And the screen went blank.

She almost reached for him, but forced her hand to remain at her side.  She stared at the blank screen for a long moment, remembering him.  Damien.  The vision on the screen seemed so much more… alive… than she remembered.  So much more real.  It had been six hundred years.  His image had faded, his touch just a forced memory.  But her feelings for him had never dissolved.

“Sam, you can’t go.  It’s a trap.”

Her gaze snapped to Eugene.  He had lied to her.  Anger, fierce and sudden, swept through her.  It was a dangerous anger, an anger that roared like an inferno, that completely took over her being.  She fought it.  Fought the betrayal, fought the rage, pushing the anger back down inside of her.  She refused to let that fuse ignite.  That was the path to becoming a Changed.  A one way ticket to doomsday.  She forced her thoughts to slow and let the words come out slowly.  “Do you have a map?”

Eugene’s shoulders slumped.  “I can’t…”  He shook his head.  “Did you see his eyes?  He is a Changed!”

“First you keep the information that he was a Soul from me, then you keep the fact that he was trying to get in touch with me a secret.”  Her voice was strangely calm.  Much more calm than the swirling fury dangerously close to surfacing.  “Do you have a map?”

“Sam, please.  This isn’t right.  You can’t meet him.”

Sam leaned in close to Eugene.  “I’m tired of you telling me what I can and can’t do.  For years, Eugene.  I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.  And now…”  She shook her head.  “I can’t forgive you for this.  I can’t.”  She straightened.  “I’ll get the damned map somewhere else.”

“Wait!  Wait.  I’ll get one.”  He punched in some letters on the keyboard and a map of the city popped up.

Eugene relinquished the chair to her.

Sam ignored the chair, leaning over the keyboard, studying the map.  She found the road Ryan’s house was on and placed a finger against the screen to hold her position.

“Sam,” Eugene whispered.  “I’m trying to protect you.  I knew you wouldn’t be able to think clearly, to see this for what it was.  He is evil.  He is not your husband anymore.”

She scanned the map for Washington Street.

“You are biased in this matter.  I was trying to help you.”

Sam located Washington Street on the map and found the quickest, easiest path to the street.  She would find the warehouse by walking the rest of the way.

“Sam, listen to me.”

Sam slowly turned to Eugene.  He had been her friend for a long time.  Or maybe he wasn’t really her friend at all.  Maybe he had just been looking out for himself.  She shook her head and began to step around him.

“Please, Sam!”  He reached out to her.

She jerked away.  “When did Damien contact you?”

Eugene dropped his hand and his head.  “Yesterday.  He was adamant.  He wanted to talk to you.  He said he knew you were here.”

Sam stared at Eugene, knowing she could never trust him again.

“I couldn’t tell you…” Eugene whispered.  “I just couldn’t… lose you.”

That was it, then.  The reason he hadn’t told her about Damien.  The reason he had remained silent all these years.  And now she knew why.  Eugene thought he was in love with her.  Damien, and her feelings for Damien, would only get in his way.  “You’ve never had me to lose.  I can’t work with you anymore, Eugene.  After we finish with Scala, don’t call me again.”

Eugene snapped his hurt gaze up to Sam.

She ignored the pain in his eyes and fazed to Ryan’s house.  She followed the street west to the intersection and made a right.

Damien.  It had been so long.  How would he react?  What did he want?  Why hadn’t he tried to reach her before?  He was a Changed.  She would have to remember that when she faced him.  But did it really matter?

They could have been together.  She swallowed in a thick throat.  Six hundred years.  If she had known, if they had been together, she could have helped him.  Had he asked Eugene for help contacting her when he was a Soul?  Agony speared through her.  No.  She wouldn’t think of that.

She took a left and continued walking.

He was waiting for her.  Why now?  What was different now?  Too many questions.  And she could only focus on the fact that it was Damien… and how much she missed him.

What if it
was
a trap?

She turned onto Washington Street and the empty warehouse loomed before her.  It was a black building with broken windows dotting its entire front wall.  She didn’t give a damn if it was a trap.  She had to see him.

She fazed closer to the building.  She pushed her hand through the wall, and then her head.  The immediate view she had of the room showed her nothing alarming.  She stepped through the wall into the large room.  The front part of the room was empty except for a broken chair and a twisted metal beam on the floor.  Light from the moon shone through the glassless windows, illuminating squares on the floor.

Sam didn’t need light to see him.

Damien sat in the middle of the huge room on an old metal desk.  His bottom rested on the metal, one of his legs bent over the side.  His hands were folded in front of him as if he had all the patience of a saint.  His dark shoulder length hair fell forward over his bowed head, obscuring his face.  He was everything she remembered.

She fazed forward once, cutting across the distance in the blink of an eye, and then again until she stood before him.

She stared at his bowed head for a long moment.  Slowly, agony rose inside her burning her heart.  It was Damien.  The Damien she had thought she lost.  Her husband.

The silence stretched between them, an abyss no words could bridge.

“Damien,” Sam whispered softly, finally unable to bear the quiet any longer.

“It’s been a long time,” he agreed.  But his voice was strong and didn’t have the same tremble hers did.

“I thought you were dead.”