Authors: Wilette Youkey
The Origin
He may have super powers, but his is no hero's story...
For someone who has no idea how he acquired his special abilities, all Daniel wants is to live a simple, emotionally detached life. He has a quiet day job, a solo night job and no social life to speak of, and that's just the way he likes it.
That is until Olivia King, a woman from a past he'd rather leave behind, talks her way back into his life and he discovers that he is neither strong nor fast enough to fight off the attraction. Just when he finally accepts that she could be a permanent fixture in his life, Olivia disappears and he upends New York City to try and save the day.
But when being honorable doesn’t get him results, Daniel yields to the dark pull of his powers, committing unspeakable acts in order to rescue the only person he’s trusted with his secrets. And just when his life could not possibly get more complicated, a psychic delivers some damning news that will pit his own happiness against the safety of those around him.
Daniel has never considered himself a hero, but in the end, as he looks at the blood on his hands, he wonders if he isn’t the villain of the story after all.
The Origin
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, and events is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Wilette Youkey. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from either the author or the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote a brief passage in a review.
Produced by
Phoenix House Press
.
Cover design by Wilette Youkey.
DEDICATIONDrustan
Nebula image by Ali
Ries
.
To my daughters, Amelia and Abigail
.
May you grow to be confident, industrious
and, most importantly, kind.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are not enough words in the English language to express how grateful I am for all the help I've received in the making of this novel. To that end, I shall have to go global...
I would like to first express gratitude to my family near and far. Your love and support mean the world to me.
Maraming
salamat
.
Merci beaucoup
goes out to my beta readers, who gave me valuable insight and helped shape this story. Also to my editor and mentor, MJ
Heiser
, who not only corralled many a wayward comma but also lit the way to my self-publishing journey.
Danke
schön
to my writer friends, who constantly inspire me to improve.
To those I bugged over the years to read my stories,
arigato
.
Muchas
gracias
as well to my designer friends who gave me a fresh eye when my own have crossed from staring so long at the computer.
And to my husband, Mark:
spasiba
for being the man that you are. You make me proud to be your wife.
Moo.
“Oh, but these stories don’t mean anything if you’ve got no one to tell them to.”
–
The Story
, Brandi
Carlile
The silence was absolute, a big exclamation mark over the football field.
Daniel didn’t notice the lack of noise at first as he palmed the pigskin above his head in jubilation, rejoicing in his third touchdown of the night. Eventually, the absence of cheering from the home crowd sank in. Even his teammates, who had been chest-bumping seconds before, were now all transfixed by the scene behind him.
With his euphoria fraying at the edges, Daniel held his breath and turned around, not fully prepared for the sight of the opposing team's linebacker, a mountain of a high-
schooler
nicknamed Rap, laying motionless on the grass.
Daniel watched as coaches, medics and teammates descended upon Rap in slow motion, removing his helmet and calling his name to rouse him from unconsciousness.
Finally, after what seemed like a year, Rap's brown eyes fluttered open and peered around in confusion. A huge whoop of relief erupted all around, a sentiment that Daniel shared tenfold.
“He’ll be fine,” said Daniel’s coach, Mr. Grosse. “That was some tackle, Johnson! I’m surprised you held onto the ball.”
But even as Mr. Grosse spoke, Rap began to cry out. “I can’t move, Coach! I can’t feel my legs!” His burly, dark hands flailed about, grasping at anything within reach for answers. “Why can’t I feel my legs?”
Still rooted to the spot, Daniel fixed his grey eyes on the scene as they loaded the hysterical two hundred and thirty-pound linebacker onto a stretcher with some difficulty. Daniel’s mind screamed at him to walk over and help, that his strength would be useful in lifting Rap off the field, but his muscles refused to move. What if they asked him how he had managed to hurt someone almost twice his size?
As six men carried the stretcher away, Daniel tensed up as a hand clapped him on the shoulder, and he spun around, a denial ready on his tongue.
“Damn, dude! What did you do to him?” his teammate said.
Daniel forced a casual shrugged. “I don’t know.” It was a boldfaced lie. If anybody ever found out his fantastic secret, he could be kicked off the team, go to jail, or the most unthinkable and inevitable of all, end up dissected in a research lab. For what else could happen to a kid who just learned that he was stronger and faster than anybody he’d ever known?
No, his was a secret Daniel could never tell.
|
TEN YEARS LATER
New York City truly never slept. Even at fourteen minutes past midnight, long after most people had retired to the relative safety of their beds, the city was still vibrating with life. Trash cans moved with unknown visitors, air vents blew out puffs of smoke, cars droned by. But of the entire nocturnal symphony, only one sound was of immediate concern to Daniel Johnson, and that was the ragged wheezing of the person cradled in his arms.
He avoided looking at the unconscious woman as he ran, afraid that he wouldn’t be fast enough to reach the hospital in time. He didn’t know who she was, avoided actually caring, but he had an obligation to get her medical care seeing as she was bleeding in several places and was not even conscious to realize it.
Daniel had been done for the night – had already thwarted a burglary and a mugging – when he’d seen a scraggy man in dirty clothes straddling a woman who was sprawled on the concrete. Though her arms had been up, they hadn’t protected her face from the punching, slapping and even clawing that the man was dealing. It was only when Daniel got closer that he realized the man’s real intention: he meant to pry that woman’s mouth apart, and he didn’t care if he had to tear her jaw off, or even kill her completely, in order to achieve that goal.
Within moments, Daniel had pulled the frenzied man off the woman and had bound his ankles and wrists with zip ties. But the man was a hellcat and had still struggled on the ground, sweat-stained and screaming, “Give it to me, you fat bitch! I know you have it!”
Daniel had recognized the signs – the skeletal face, the dilated pupils – and had confirmed his theory a few moments later when he’d turned to the now-motionless woman and had found a tiny vial of crack cocaine hidden under the folds of her tongue.
“That’s mine!” the man had screamed, floundering on the ground in hopes of reaching his precious drug. “Give it to me! That ho stole it from my sock drawer!”
“Who is she?” Daniel had said calmly, searching for a pulse on her neck through his thin leather gloves. Bingo.
“My sister. She nicked my purple caps!”
Daniel had used a nearby phone booth to call the police, confident that Crack Guy would be found within a few minutes. With the revulsion stuck in his throat, he’d picked up the unconscious woman and had fled for the hospital as fast as his legs could manage. But even though he could move swiftly, he was not nearly fast enough for his liking on nights like these.
As he laid the woman gently in a wheelchair at the emergency room entrance, he looked her over, making sure he did not leave a single trace of himself. The police would be looking for any fibers or fingerprints and would interview all involved to try and find a clue on Daniel’s identity. But so far, the NYPD’s search for the black-clad vigilante had yielded nothing.
Later on, as Daniel lay alone in his bed, he busied his mind with thoughts of Victoria’s Secret models, of baseball, of the recession – anything to keep the nausea at bay – for if he allowed himself to absorb the evil that he bore witness to night after night, evidence of the horrors of the human soul, he would surely be overcome with emotion. And a small part of him knew that if he allowed that anger and grief to saturate his thoughts, he could possibly go mad with power and deem himself judge, jury and executioner for anyone he encountered. Taking lives could become so easy.