Ravens (9 page)

“Don’t worry, we’ll find her,” Liam said
through tight lips. He was prepared to kill every hunter involved in tracking
and capturing Julie.

The guys went over their routine. Most
holding facilities and labs were about the same. The hunters kept Ravens in the
basement in energy-diffusing cells under the watch of dozens of armed humans on
the premises. It required skill and caution to get by them, and full use of
their powers to kill the hunters and rescue the Ravens. This crew had yet to
enter a raid and not kill a hunter.

Years ago, they got away with
incapacitating hunters and escaping, but those hunters came back in stronger
force. They sought to capture and kill, and left the Ravens with no choice
except to kill them first. The police and the government wouldn’t do anything
to prevent hunters, so what choice did Ravens have?

A few hours passed while the guys
conspired and Kendra slept. As she slumbered, her molecular make-up shifted,
altering her DNA. Her senses heightened, her muscles strengthened, and soon,
she would exude energy. If she was like Liam, she would possess extra
abilities, and he couldn’t wait to find out what they were.

****

Kendra made an effort to pull herself
out of Liam’s drug-like, energy-induced sleep. She groaned and moved her head
toward the closed bedroom door. She touched her lips as she gradually recalled
what happened. She licked her lips, the smooth barbell slid against her skin.

She remembered Liam’s lips against hers.
She smiled, but stopped halfway. Concentrated energy, having assailed her from
Liam’s touch, made her woozy. He touched her after intoxicating her with his
powers. Oh, she remembered all right, and the boy would get it.

Kendra growled. His energy through his
touch manipulated her thoughts. Yeah, she remembered. She remembered his warmth
near her face, his breath against her skin, and great devil, his lips touched
hers.
Twice
! She fumed.

The energy within her grew, making it
easier to give in to anger. She hated this feeling. She hated the changes her
body underwent, and she hated Liam for dragging her into this mess.

Kendra lurched up in bed. She planned to
give him a piece of her mind, then rip him a new one. When she jumped to her
feet, dizziness hit and she fell back onto the bed. A tugging annoyance ate
away at the pit of her stomach and coupled with nausea. The growing heat
writhed and pulsated, spreading against her organs and straining to reach the
surface.

Kendra lingered on the verge of freaking
out. This energy sensation felt like an alien parasite about to rip through her
gut.

She moaned, sat up, and bent over at the
waist.

She should get out of here, escape, and
get back home where these things didn’t exist. She’d find safety with her
parents, with Randal, with the world she knew. She glanced over at the jeans on
the bed and the sneakers on the floor. If she needed to run, she might as well
be agile about it.

As she slipped out of her skirt, she
went through her musings. All this time, she hoped she would meet her
imaginary, grown up Liam and that he would like her. Well, she got what she
wanted, and then some.

Kendra pulled up the snug jeans, zipped
them, and tied on the sneakers. Thankfully, Julie’s clothes fit her.

Another attack of dizziness forced her
to sit down. Minutes passed before the energy from the living room seeped
toward her like a predator. Her stomach lurched and the blood in her veins
curdled. The powers of this world transformed her. She doubled over in pain,
dropped to her knees, wrapped her arms around her, and dug her fingernails into
her sides. Even with her eyes tightly shut and teeth clenched, she couldn’t
imprison her cries any longer. They moved past her lips, a shriek shattering
the calmness, and even startling her.

Liam ran into the bedroom within a few
seconds to find Kendra curled up on the floor. He immediately went to her,
dropped to his haunches, and pulled her into his arms.

When the bout of anguish passed long
enough for her to realize Liam held her, she shoved him and grunted, “Don’t
touch me.”

The pain alleviated and surged back,
burning rivers in her veins. She curled into a ball. She clenched her teeth so
hard she thought they would fall out. Tears dampened her jeans.

Liam didn’t listen, and took her back
into his arms. She couldn’t ignore the pain long enough to push him again.

When the pain receded, Kendra collapsed
in his arms and heaved. She searched the room with frantic eyes. Her raspy
breaths collided against the hollow of Liam’s throat. She was exhausted.

She wiped sweat from a warm brow and
rested in Liam’s arms. As her strength returned, a strange phenomenon washed
through her. Heat, energy, raw power took over. When it filled her, she shoved
harder than ever. Liam didn’t attempt to hold her again.

“You kissed me,” she hissed.

“Should I say I’m sorry?” he asked,
almost innocently.

She choked back words. Yelling “Yes!”
didn’t seem to be enough. Then she recalled the moments before passing. He
cornered her. He pushed her in, somehow. He forced her here. She wanted to help
Julie, but how could she trust this boy?

She stared at him, incensed.

A cloud washed over her eyes in a film
of flickering rage. She cringed at first because she felt the entity move
inside of her, prickling her eyes where sparks formed. It felt like a parasitic
invasion and she wanted nothing more than to claw through her face and dig it
out. She imagined thousands of tiny, electric worms gorging on her flesh,
devouring her veins and consuming her muscles. The horrors of this trek just
wouldn’t end, but she tried to control her fears. What had he done to her?

Kendra stood and Liam followed. She
hissed again, “Don’t ever touch me.”

“I know you don’t mean it now, darling,
with the pain and all.”

“You’re unbearable,” she growled. The
whites in her pupils sparked. Kendra cringed at both the pain and the sight of
the sparks in her eyes. She curled her hands into claws, but remembered she
couldn’t try to scratch it out.

Liam smiled. She grunted. What did he
smile at? Did he enjoy this?

He tapped his fingers against his thighs
in a rapid beat.

Kendra clutched her stomach again. This
wasn’t pain, but nausea. She ran out the door, startling the men in the living
room. She sprinted for the bathroom and slammed the door shut. She flipped on
the light and the ventilation, and dropped to her knees.

“I guess some folks have a visceral
reaction to their transformation,” Liam mused aloud.

Kendra emptied the contents of her
stomach into the toilet. She flushed and cleaned her mouth, rinsing and
spitting into the sink. She then splashed some cool water on her face. Placing
her palms on the counter, she lowered her head. She’d never been so sick.

She studied her reflection in the
mirror, no longer startled by the dark eyes that peered back at her. Her grim
and brooding features represented her new life as a so-called Raven.

She noticed a window to her left where
moonlight intruded on her solitary world, went to it, stood on the toilet seat
to unlock and open it, and removed the screen, tossing it onto the floor. She
peered out into the night and down the flat, brick building from an alarming
five stories above the sidewalk.

The men muttered outside the room.
Nathan knocked on the door. “Are you okay in there?”

Kendra jerked her head back and barked
at the locked door, “No.”

“Well, don’t worry, it’ll pass soon.”

When Kendra didn’t reply, he went on,
“We’ve all gone through this, Kendra. We were taken by the portals and woke up
in this world without any knowledge of what happened. We all had to experience
a violent, painful transformation we couldn’t control. At least you know what’s
going to happen. You don’t know us, but you have us.”

His consolation just wasn’t enough to
keep her calm. She couldn’t fully grasp everything, and the situation proved to
be too much, too fast.

Kendra leaned out the window and debated
the sanity of this risk. As a human, she knew a fall like this would hurt, or
even kill. As a Raven, though, she knew she had a better chance of making it. A
fall five stories above the street through a window barely large enough to crawl
out of could place her in a worse situation if she didn’t make the jump safely.

Liam said Ravens possessed incredible
agility and speed amongst other abilities. She could risk it, right? What would
be the worst that could happen? She’d break her neck and die, maybe, or, she’d
break her neck, not die, and be at the full mercy of these strangers.

Kendra took the risk. Stepping onto the
toilet lid and leaning against the wall, she grabbed the edge of the window and
pulled herself up, and crawled into the small frame. She didn’t stumble back.
Instead, she found herself nimble as she paused on the perch, her knees to her
chest and her hands gripping the sides of the windowsill.

She took in a sharp breath.

Just remember to bend your knees on
impact
,
she coached herself as if she knew what she talked about!

With the sudden thought that Liam still
prowled her mind, uncovering her intentions, she leapt into the cool, evening
air. Her body acted before she thought, and, before the thought of her actions
caught up to her, she elegantly, silently hit the concrete. The wind whisked
away her hair as she fell. She landed just as she perched, with knees to chest
and arms at her sides. Her palms faced down and barely touched the dingy
cement. Talk about graceful and limber!

Kendra stood up, amazed that she didn’t
break a bone, and looked up at the narrow bathroom window, then at the adjacent
room. Obscure shadows moved across the lit living room window. She hurried up
the street and away from her captor and his friends.

Chapter Nine

Liam jerked toward the bathroom and
sniffed the air, dragging in molecules of scent, Kendra’s scent…or in this
case, lack of. He rattled the doorknob.

“Kendra?” His voice boomed.

When she failed to respond, he didn’t
bother pounding on the door twice. Liam synchronized the heat in his fingers
and a laced energy wove into the door through the gap between the door and the
frame. It moved the metal obstacle until it retracted back into the door. The
bolt clicked. He pushed open the wood barrier and groaned. Only the drawn
curtains flapped in the breeze in the empty bathroom.

Kendra escaped! He knew it the instant
her scent disintegrated into the night.

He growled and stormed back into the
living room. The others watched him.

“She jumped out the window.”

“Great, another time waster,” Mark
griped.

“We have to find her before someone else
does. A new Raven all alone can get herself killed!” Nathan got to his feet and
raced to the front door with Lou and Mark close behind.

“You guys go downtown. I’ll search the
Night District.” Liam followed his crew down the flight of stairs.

The other three jumped into Nathan’s car
and took off. Liam straddled his motorcycle and sped off into the opposite
direction. He used his sense of smell to track her down. Now that she was in
mid-flux, he could pick up her scent easier. The scent would become solid once
her transformation completed, which shouldn’t take long now.

****

Kendra slowed down to a quick pace,
noticing more and more people appearing on the streets around her. The last
thing she needed was unwanted attention. She kept her head low and looked up
through narrowed eyes only when necessary, hoping squinted eyes and the night
kept her most prominent Raven feature hidden.

This dimension offered a cool night, and
goose bumps raced across her flesh. The temperatures in this world were unlike
the humid Texas climate she was accustomed to in the other world.

The population on this side of town at
this hour was sparse. Only a couple of bars and pubs were still open. It didn’t
take long before she approached one. The clamor through the open doors caught
her attention. She looked up briefly, aiming only to keep her distance from the
group of men who emerged from the bar. They reeked of liquor and smoke. Common sense
warned her to ward off a confrontation.

A lone pretty girl wandering around at
night didn’t take long to catch their interest. They whistled at her before she
advanced. She cringed as she approached them, and tried to keep her distance
from the men as best she could. She didn’t consider crossing the street, so she
remained on the far side of the sidewalk, but those few feet weren’t far
enough.

One man grabbed her elbow, yanking her
closer. She caught her balance and pulled her arm back, barely avoiding the
collision into his chest. His friends laughed, jeered, and egged him on in
drunken disrespect. She raised her eyes. They flickered with rage, sparked with
energy.

The men shuddered, all except the man
who’d grabbed her. He made a disgusted face and grumbled, “You’re one of them
filthy Ravens.”