The Forbidden Trilogy (61 page)

Toby's breathing steadied and he stayed visible, which
relieved Drake. The waiting sent him pacing the house looking for something to
distract him. He couldn't help the boy, or his mom. He considered moving Toby.
Waking up wrapped in the arms of his dead mother was probably a harmful
experience for a kid, worthy of some serious therapy.

With that decided, Drake easily lifted the underweight boy
and carried him to the living room, and set him on the shabby couch. Drake sat
next to him, watching his chest move up and down rhythmically. The couch faced
a small, old fashioned television that probably didn't work, but Drake figured
it was worth a try. He needed a distraction. What was taking them so long,
anyways? This zip code probably didn't rate high on the response time
charts—the city of lost souls and nameless faces.

He clicked the ancient relic on and smiled when it actually
got a signal, but his pleasure was short lived when he realized it only got one
channel, which currently featured a news story that Drake almost ignored, until
he saw a picture flash on the screen of a vial with crystal blue liquid in it.
They were talking about the drug.

Drake turned it up and sat back down to watch. The
newscaster was live on the scene of a wealthy home, with a Chanel-wearing woman
crying into a handkerchief. "My boy, he just went crazy. He started
throwing things at us, things he couldn't possibly have lifted on his own. I
don't understand what's going on. Then, he just disappeared. Someone took my
baby!"

It flashed to another scene, with another woman sobbing. She
looked angry and sad. "My girl died, and lots of others have died as well,
and the ones who have... side effects... they go missing. But if they aren't
blond and white, this country doesn't give a crap. One white kid goes missing
and the media suddenly pays attention. What about the dozens of kids on our
streets who have died or been kidnapped. Why has no one paid attention
before?"

Sirens blaring in the distance alerted Drake to the
paramedics. He turned the television off and filed the new story in the back of
his mind for later review. Now, he had to focus on his own story, and on not
getting in trouble.

When the paramedics arrived with two police officers, Drake
knew he had little chance of escaping this situation unscathed. They came in
armed, weapons in hand, and uncompromisingly antagonistic against Drake.

"Put your hands on your head and turn around,
now!"

Drake bristled at their tone and the implications, but he
followed their orders. "Officer, I'm the one who called you. I found this
kid being beaten up by some drug dealers, and I cut in to save him. Then he ran
off. I was worried about his health after taking such a beating, so I followed
him. By the time I got here, his mom was dead and he was barely breathing. It
looks like they took some drugs of some kind. I called you immediately."

The other officer had disappeared into the back room.
"Found two vials, it's the same stuff. Proceed with caution."

Drake tried to turn around, but the cop holding the gun on
him would have none of it. "Don't move or I'll shoot, do you hear
me?"

Drake knew his rights better than most. Raised in foster
care, he had to know them to survive. "Are you charging me with something,
Officer? Because if you aren't, I'd like to go. I was just trying to be a Good
Samaritan." He had no intention of leaving Toby, but he couldn't let them
know he cared one way or the other.

"You're not going anywhere until we sort this all
out."

"What charges are you holding me on? You can't detain
me without just cause."

"Son, you were found in a known drug neighborhood, with
a dead woman and her dying son. We've got plenty to hold you."

This wasn't going as well as Drake had hoped, but he would
have played along a little longer if they hadn't started handcuffing Toby and
strapping him to a gurney, and not in the 'trying-to-protect-the-patient' way.

Drake's frustration hardened into anger. "What the hell
are you doing to him? He's just a kid and he's sick. He's not a criminal."

"He took illegal drugs, and probably killed his mother.
That makes him dangerous, and a criminal. That also makes you his accomplice.
You're both coming with us."

Oh shit.
Again, Drake tried to keep his cool. Two
cops and two paramedics did not make for the best of odds.

His cool lasted about thirty seconds, until the damn idiots
leaned in to duct tape Toby's mouth closed.

What the hell? No way.

He whipped around and kicked the gun out of the cop's hand,
then attacked him. In a flurry of fighting, Drake didn't last long—not after
they tasered him, then beat the crap out of him. He didn't notice the pain; all
he could focus on was Toby's taped mouth and his increasingly shallow breaths
as he struggled to get air into his lungs.

Toby's body faded away, disappearing into nothing as Drake's
consciousness also faded to nothing. His last thought was filled with the
regret of yet another mistake, which had surely destroyed another innocent.

The fire crackled and sent sparks into the dark sky. Like
fire fairies in a children's book, they flickered into the air and danced on
unseen currents. Soon, the sun would peek its head over the ocean and send rays
of light onto the island. Until then, Lucy sat and warmed her hands by the
fire, hoping the heat would burn out the dampness in her clothes from the rain
the night before.

She held her sphere in her right hand and admired the way
the flames danced off the silver. It pulsed steadily, doing more to calm her
than the fire.

Beleth, ever the enigmatic, had stretched his black wings
and flown off after his parting instructions. What Lucy wouldn't give to fly.
She had no way of capturing him, no way of defeating him, no way of digging up
the seed of doubt he'd planted in her heart.

Would killing Agent Simmons really save all of those kids?
She couldn't believe she was even considering it. Why did Beleth want the agent
dead? Did it matter? Wasn't one life worth the lives of so many innocent
children?

Another coconut cracked open under her knife. She grimaced
and forced herself to eat the meat, and vowed that once she was off the island,
she'd never eat anything with coconut in it... ever again. Ever!

She was tempted to hunt for more food, but Luke still lay
passed out on his makeshift mat, and she didn't want to leave him in such a
vulnerable state, despite how pissed off she was at him.

Her mind spun with choices and questions. She needed more
information, but had no real way of acquiring any. Beleth clearly had his own
agenda, whatever that was. IPI may have had some dark secrets of its own, but
she'd never seen anything to indicate she couldn't trust them. Still, those
kids needed to be saved. What was she willing to do to make that happen?

A small pile of coconuts sat at her feet. She picked up one
and stared at it, then pulled off her baseball cap and put it on the coconut.
It almost looked like Robert. She placed it a few feet away from her, then took
her gun out, made sure the safety was on, and pointed it at the coconut.

Images overlapped themselves. The coconut turned into
Robert, the way he'd looked just moments before she'd shot him. Could she do
it? Could she shoot Robert again if she had to?

The vision expanded, to her brother splayed against the wall
of the plane, his body stretched beyond endurance by Robert's power. She
shifted and pointed her gun at her sleeping brother. If she hadn't shot Robert,
then she would have been responsible for Luke's death.

Lucy pivoted back and forth between the Robert coconut and
Luke, each becoming a potential target. Two choices, neither of them right or
good, but a decision had to be made, and Lucy had made it. Beleth was right:
she would make the hard choices in the end. Her gun landed on the coconut.

"Pow-Pow!" She made mock shooting sounds and
imagined the coconut blowing up; imagined Robert as he fell to the ground,
dying. Yes, she'd do it all again, if she had to. She'd do it to save Luke.

Agent Simmons was a different matter. Robert had been
killing her brother, so shooting him had been in direct defense of another
life. As far as Lucy knew, Simmons was not a threat to those kids at all.

She's one of the good guys, right?

After what Beleth said, Lucy couldn't be sure. Beleth hadn't
been lying when he said IPI was trying to rewrite its past, that they'd been
responsible for the original experiments on paranormals. But just because he
believed it, didn't actually make it true. The inherent flaw in her power: she
could only tell when someone was consciously lying. If they believed something
to be true, but were mistaken, her powers were useless.

If IPI really did start all of this, then she'd gone from
working for one bad to guy to another. Lucy aimed her gun at the silver IPI
logo on her backpack and mock fired. The question burned in her mind: who did
she have to kill to save those kids?

Luke groaned loudly, interrupting her thoughts. She shoved
her gun back into its holster and resumed eating her coconut.

"Oh God. My head!" He sat up and clutched his
skull as if it would fall off without the aid of his hands. "What the hell
happened last night? Oh... I had the most amazing dream. Desirai came and
showed me Sam's baby. Little Ana was born and so cute!"

Lucy dropped the coconut and took out her knife to stab into
the ground, not bothering to hide the irritated edge in her voice. "Yeah,
I saw it too. She dream-walked."

"Cool. Wish we could have been there." Luke
stumbled toward the fire and sat next to Lucy. "You okay? You seem—"

"I'm fine."

"Right. That sounds all kinds of fine. Even if I didn't
know women so well, and know you most of all, I'd cry bullshit on that
one." He threw his arm over her shoulder and squeezed. "What's really
going on?"

"Seriously? I can't believe you even have to ask after
yesterday. What's wrong is you got so drunk last night you passed out. And when
I needed you, you weren't there."

"Needed? What do you mean needed me? What
happened?"

Lucy stoked the fire and added more branches into it,
pulling out of Luke's arms to do so. "You're right. I didn't need you. I
saved your sorry ass all by myself."

"Saved? From what? Luce, tell me what the hell's going
on."

"Beleth. He showed up last night. And you were passed
out drunk, so I couldn't run, or leave or go after him."

"Beleth was here?" Lucy could tell his hangover
made thinking hard. "What happened? Where is he now?"

"I fought him off. Kind of. I mean, he's like a
machine. I've never fought anyone so... skilled before. He flew off before I
could capture him or get help. If you'd been awake, maybe we could have
captured him. Maybe we could have actually gotten some answers."

Luke dropped his head and his shoulders slumped. "Damn,
Luce, I'm sorry. It was a one-time thing. Won't happen again, I swear. Never
again."

She threw another piece of wood into the fire and watched it
sizzle, much like the blood boiling in her veins at that moment. "One-time
thing? You've been no help since we got here. You've done nothing but mope
around feeling sorry for yourself. Do you know what it's been like for me to
figure out how to keep us alive, all the while having to deal with your
shit?"

"Nah, that's not true." He looked away, unable to
meet her angry gaze. "I helped you look for food. We found that moth
thing."

"Right, you were so helpful with that. Thanks a bunch,
Bro." Lucy stalked off and started packing what food and water they could
take with them.

"Where're you going? Why you packing?" Luke didn't
get up to help.

Figures.
"I know where the IPI base is. It's on
the island, on the other side. We'd better get going now so we can cover as
much ground as possible before nightfall. You should eat and drink. We'll fill
up on water before heading out. I've just been waiting for you to wake
up." She threw the last line out there as a jab, and hoped it stuck him
somewhere tender.

"Wait, what? How do you know this? I was only out for
the night."

She moved around the camp, putting out the fire, picking up
her clothes that she'd laid out to dry. "Beleth told me. You'd better
start packing. I'm not waiting for you, so hurry up."

"And you believed him? What if he was lying? Sounds
like a trap, if you ask me."

"Well, you know what? I didn't ask you, because you
were passed out. And in case you'd forgotten, I am a human lie detector. He
wasn't lying and it's not a trap. You coming or not?" She wouldn't have
really left him, but she hoped he thought she might. She was done with all this
crap from him.

He nodded and stood, still wobbly.

Lucy sighed and handed him water and the can of stew she'd
saved for him—the can that had tempted her beyond sanity all night long. She
hadn't eaten it despite her anger, knowing he'd need it after all that
drinking.

Luke drank an entire water bottle of water, then ate the can
of stew in a few giant bites, and consumed three coconuts.

Lucy stood on the edge of their camp, pack secure on her back,
and tapped her foot impatiently. When Luke finally joined her, she pivoted
without a word and stomped off toward the lake so they could replenish their
water before a long day of hiking.

***

"If you complain about your headache one more time,
I'll pull out my gun and use your head for target practice. I swear to God,
Luke." She slapped her walking stick against the trees for added impact as
she walked through the dense jungle.

Their hike had become an endless montage of trees, bugs, and
Luke's complaints. Lucy felt sticky and coated in sweat. Her baseball hat clung
to her moist hair, and she wanted desperately to take it off, but didn't want
to burn. Her back ached from her pack, laden with the extra food and water.