The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural (37 page)

With one last cough and sniffle, Larissa sat
up and cast her eyes about her surroundings. Nothing but palm
trees, bushes and moonlight decorated the mountainous scene and as
she listened to the approach, she couldn’t help but hope that it
was Ammon.

But she couldn’t have been more wrong.
Directly in front of her, a bush began to shake before the figure
of a lady continued toward her. Even with her super sight, Larissa
strained to see who it was until the moonlight fell on the face of
someone she hadn’t thought about for years.

She had chosen to forget about her family the
moment she was locked up in an orphanage. But the sight of her long
forgotten cousin standing in the moonlight reminded her that she
was possibly the only family she had left.

“
Que onda
prima
,” Ithaca smiled, “Remember
me?”

~It was two in the morning when Ammon finally
climbed up from the moist sandy beach. Even as he dragged his bare
feet back up to the empty Honolulu street, he couldn’t get his mind
off Larissa. He wasn’t sure if it was the lack of sleep or from the
fact that he realized that the only two women he had ever been in
love with happen to be supernatural, but somehow, Ammon managed to
carry two pairs of shoes and a cellphone with 5 percent battery as
he trudged back up to the street.

It had been four hours since Larissa had
vanished on him. At first, seeing her vanish sent him into a rage
that took nearly an hour to cool off from. After he finally came to
his senses, he had been grateful that the ocean line had been
vacant that evening because during that hour, cruel names were
shouted into the air as he paced back and forth along the sand.
Ammon was pretty sure he blacked out from time to time as his anger
directed toward Larissa swelled like waves inside him. How could he
have been so stupid to let her into his heart? And yet Larissa was
the spineless coward for not facing him.

Finally after an hour of anger and ugly
thoughts did he remember what she said before she vanished. She
loved him too. And there was no doubt that seeing him so furious
would hurt her. Around that time Ammon finally sank to his knees
and whipped out his phone. It took nearly forty calls straight to
her voicemail for him to come to the conclusion that she didn’t
want to talk to him. As time ticked on and Larissa continued to
ignore his calls, his anger had simmered into nonexistence and
there was nothing more that he wanted from her but her safety. As
the unanswered calls continued to count up, he realized that the
comfort her voice would bring made him regret screaming at her from
the top of his lungs. Even though he was fairly confident Larissa
wouldn’t pick up, he still called her up until his phone threatened
to die.

Honolulu was so unlike Tarrillian in the fact
that not even a car was in view as Ammon crossed the street. There
was no way he was going to find a taxi to take him back to the
Stelter Hotel. He wasn’t even sure if he could walk the distance
without getting lost. But the hotel was right along the shoreline.
If he stayed along the beach, maybe there was a chance he could
find it before sunrise. Then, if by some crazy chance, Cassie and
Josh were awake, he would have to explain to them why he showed up
alone.

It hadn’t even dawned on him
that a lie was needed to keep Cassie and Josh unaware of Larissa’s
identity. If he had reacted in such fury when Larissa finally
showed her true colors, there was no telling how Cassie and Josh
would react. Even if Josh had noticed that there was something
fishy about Larissa’s behavior, Ammon was pretty sure he didn’t
see
this.

The humid see breeze tossed Ammon’s wild
brown hair around as he trudged toward the heart of Honolulu.
Through the rustling leaves of a palm tree, the familiar Stelter
Crest illuminated at the top of a tall tower. Relief spread over
him as he realized he wasn’t as far from the hotel as he had
imagined. In less than ten minutes, he would be stepping into the
hotel’s elevator and ascending up to his suite. In less than ten
minutes, Larissa’s cover-up story would have to be made due to the
fare probability that Josh and Cassie were still wide awake.

By the time Ammon entered the lobby of the
Stelter Hotel, he was far to sleepy to notice the startled glances
of the hotel clerks or observe the grand lay out of the premises.
Instead, Ammon slumped over to the elevator and began his assent
with a brilliant lie in mind.

“
Stop knocking me off
Cassie!” Josh’s voice raged over the ambiance of video game jingles
when Ammon stepped in.

“
How else am I supposed to
win?” Came Cassie’s retort.

Ammon let the door swing shut behind him and
in two strides, he was face down on his undisturbed bed top.

“
S
ooooooo
,” Cassie sang as she sat atop
Josh’s bed and hammered down on the A button. “How was your
daaaaaate?”

“…
mhh..mmm..nnn… shum..mnn…”
Ammon replied with a face full of soft sheets. He had hoped that
his friends would be too interested in the game to really care
about his evening. But Cassie’s response was the complete
opposite.

“
Hey, why did you pause the
game!” Josh exclaimed throwing his hands up in the air. “I was
about to get a box!”

But Cassie ignored him and swung around on
the sheets to face Ammon. “Where’s Larissa?”

Oh, here we go,
thought Ammon as he sat up in his bed. “Larissa’s
gone.” He answered sharply.

Even those two words were enough to get Josh
to drop his controller and swing around. “What did you do, sell
her?”

“
Yes, Josh.” Cassie snapped.
“Because here in Hawaii, a favorite-pass time is selling people.
Did your mother drop you as a baby? Jeez…”

Just before Josh could spew out a yo-mama
joke, Ammon intersected and said quickly, “Come on guys. Just look
at me. I’m not in a good mood… Larissa and I broke up.”

Cassie frowned, “Aaaww, and it was a bad
break up too?”

Ammon glanced up at the worried expression
over Cassie’s face and nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty bad.”

“
So, what happened?” Josh
asked.

Ammon’s eyes shifted over to Josh before
saying the one word no one wanted to hear while they were on
vacation. “College.”

Before taking on their undercover assignment
in Tarrillian City, each one of them had been promised a full ride
to any college in America. Even though he knew none of them had
even filled out an application for the fall semester, Ammon figured
that this would be the best cover-up story to protect Larissa’s
real secret.

“
I don’t think any of you
knew this but Larissa’s pretty smart. She made me promise I
wouldn’t say how high her IQ is but it’s over 100.” Ammon lied.
“Didn’t you notice she always seemed like she was one step
ahead?”

“
Like when she was the only
one who brought a gun to the Gobble Race!” Cassie
exclaimed.

“
And she’s quick to notice
things.” Ammon added knowing that Cassie would be easy to lie to
but Josh had already seen some of what Larissa really was. Now was
the time for Ammon to convince him of something else. “Have you
noticed?”

Josh nodded as Cassie looked thoughtfully up
in the air.

“
She’s a genius guys. She’s
had her name down at Yale for years.” Ammon continued to lie, “That
was her big secret. Remember when she started getting all moody
after that chase?”

This time, both Josh and Cassie nodded.

“
She stayed locked up in her
room because she didn’t want to go to Yale as a celebrity. That was
just one of the reasons why the TCPD stopped all media about the
chase after a while.” Lie after ugly lie. But with every nod his
friends were giving him, they sure seemed to believe it. “She’s…
amazing guys.” Ammon continued. Even though he was fibbing through
his teeth, he never imagined he would get emotional with his words.
“I’m really going to miss her.”

“
So then why did you break
up?” Cassie asked. “What about long distance? You’re good at
baseball. What if you went to Yale for that?”

“
Yale is a school for smart
people.” Ammon snapped, “I can’t even figure out how to use the
Pythagorean theorem.”

“
But-”

“
Can we stop talking about
this?” asked Ammon whipping out his cell phone because it just gave
him a dying buzz. “I need to sleep.”

Josh and Cassie shared a look. Without
another word, the TV screen went blank and Cassie slipped back into
her room through a door in the wall. Josh turned off the light and
fumbled around in the dark before he found his bed. All was still.
Even though Ammon’s body was begging him to sleep, he couldn’t stop
hoping for Larissa to call back. An hour later, sleep finally
consumed him with his hand still clutched onto his cell phone.

Chapter 10 The Ultranatural

~They were alone in their home in the
mountains. A sheet of moonlight bled through the sliding glass
doors casting a shadow on the ground where August sat cross-legged.
Out the glass doors and over the railing of the patio, the Honolulu
skyline laid out below them like the shoreline of the ocean but
Ithaca wasn’t glancing out the window. She was standing by the
glass doors with her shoulders leaning into the wall and her
piercing gaze locked onto August. She could have taken a seat on
the sofa since it was the only thing decorating the living room
space, but the anticipation was too great for her to sit down
for.

August’s mint colored eyes glowed like
distant headlights when he finally slid them open. His eyes didn’t
have to adjust to see Ithaca leaning against the wall before him
with her arms folded firmly across her chest. Slowly a wicked smile
spread across his lips before he said, “Well, congratulations. You
did it.”

Ithaca’s smug grin turned into a faint laugh
before she exclaimed, “Excellent! Here I was thinking their love
was inseparable. I mean even when we were kids Mason always fancied
her.” She sighed as she strutted her way into the moonbeam lining
the floor. “Why do I doubt myself? I always knew these looks would
make him rethink me.” From out the window, a small stretch of sand
separated their shabby little abode from the waves heaving in high
tide. “Tell me darling August, every detail. I simply must
know.”

The bass player rolled up from the ground and
glanced at the pearly moon as Ithaca waited. “Well, if you must
know every detail, I suppose I should mention that your plan almost
didn’t work. Haileigh isn’t much of a fighter is she? If it weren’t
for the fact that she hadn’t slept a wink the night before, I think
she would have been able to control her emotions a bit more and
they never would have argued.” He said as he began to recall what
thoughts had been on Ace’s mind shortly before he fell asleep.

August had been invading Ace’s sleeping mind
as he sat on the floor. It was the same talent Mirage had stolen to
implant nightmares and secrets into the minds of others. August had
the ability to conquer any mind as long as the person was asleep
and Ace’s had been the one Ithaca requested.

Ithaca scoffed but didn’t tear her eyes her
friend. “You’re killing me August just tell me what you saw.”

“
Well, they fought, just
like you wanted.” continued August, “After you and Michael left.
Lotus went to her room to catch some sleep, and then they started
having it out.”

Ithaca giggled excitedly, “Who started?”

“
Who else? Lee of course.
She didn’t like the way Ace looked at you.”

“
Then what?” she continued
excitedly.

“
Mason started to explain
that you were a stranger.” continued August. “Then gave some long
explanation about how you are undeniably pretty, but how he’s
already in love with Lee and how he loves who she is and not just
what she looks like.”

“
Typical Mason.” Grumbled
Ithaca folding her arms once more. “This hardly sounds like a
fight.”

“
I haven’t finished.” August
added, “They were about to stop arguing when Ace told her what you
said to him on the rooftop.”

For once a frown slid across Ithaca’s plump
lips as she tilted her head to the side. “I don’t understand.”

“
You told Mason you would
see him again. That’s the last thing Lee wants. She’s afraid he’ll
start falling for your pretty face and forget about her. That’s
what made him mad. He couldn’t understand how she could be so
insensitive. From Mason’s point of view, he saw you as someone with
answers he had been waiting forever to meet. Haileigh sees you as a
threat and she doesn’t want Mason to be affiliated with you. Bottom
line is; they went to sleep angry at each other and you have just
created the first wedge in their relationship.”

A bewildered grin plastered over Ithaca’s
face as she let his words hang in the air. “Well,” she finally
started after collecting herself together. “I had no clue it could
be so easy being me. Pele is on our side, Gadianton is our leader,
and pretty soon the key to our success will join us as well. How I
love to be alive tonight August.” She finished with a smile.

The Australian superstar gazed at her through
the moonbeam. “There’s one more thing I should tell you. He plans
on apologizing- Mason does. First thing in the morning. If you want
to keep this up you’ll have to-”

“
I know what I’ll have to
do.” Growled Ithaca as all cheeriness drained from her voice.
Quickly she turned around and walked her way to the glass door and
glanced out at the black ocean churning far beneath them. Somewhere
out there was an island housing her secret weapon. “Looks like the
truths are coming out a little sooner than expected.”