Psych Investigation Episodes: Episode 1 (A Young Adult Scifi / Fantasy) (37 page)

Pathetic,
Cemmera thought.

“
Listen up, boys, because I’m only
going to say this once. Be ready to move out on a moment’s notice.
As soon as I give the signal, we move in. For now, we’re going to
wait here and see how things play out. Does everyone
understand?”

They all nodded, even the wounded Neil. Well,
he wasn’t
really
wounded, at least not physically. Cemmera
smiled. She needed to make a kill so bad that it hurt.

Long live the hunt!

Those creatures, would their nightmarish faces
ever fade from memory? Andy would give anything, if for only a few
moments he could be at peace, away from those things with the human
faces. Why? Why did they want him so badly? Why couldn’t they just
stay dead?

Andy wondered if perhaps he himself was dead.
Was this dark place hell? Was this eternity, a never ending
remembrance of the people he killed, of the skeletal creatures that
reeked of death and decay?

“I think he’s coming
back.”

There was a voice. It sounded familiar to Andy,
like someone he knew. Was it Jack? No, this was a darker voice, yet
at the same time carefree and cheery.

“
Darling, I think it’s working.
Oh, Andy, can you hear us?”

So, I am alive,
Andy
thought.

His eyes shot open. His head was resting in
Requiem’s lap in the back of a large van with a broken window. He
tried to sit up, but he had trouble moving. With the little bit of
strength he possessed, he inclined his head up to Requiem. Even
through the deep pits of madness that were her torturous eyes,
there was a note of relief. She smiled.

“
Ah! Ruin, it worked. I have cured
him.”

“
Excellent, dearest sister, perhaps
now we can finally get on with things.”

Andy wasn’t sure what was going on, but he had
some idea. The last thing he remembered was running away with Jack.
He was … he was betrayed, Andy remembered with a frown. Jack had
attacked him with something, something that shouldn’t have existed
in the real world. He shook as the memories returned to him in a
flood.

The look of concern in both their eyes bothered
him. Did they not know? Did they not know that he tried to betray
them and run away?

“
Why … why did you save me?” Andy’s
voice was raspy. It was difficult for him to speak.

The two looked astounded by the question, as if
it was the most ridiculous thing that anyone had ever asked
them.

“
What do you mean ‘why’, Darling?
You’re our Brother. We would die a hundred times for
you.”

Andy didn’t think that he could still feel
surprise, not with everything that had happened to him. But at that
moment, it came rushing into him. Were they being serious? There
didn’t seem to be even the slightest hint of mockery in their
expressions. They looked at him like he was a wounded loved one who
had just been through a massive surgery, only to narrowly
survive.

“
I don’t understand. Do you two …
actually care about me?”

For a moment it looked like Requiem was going
to shed a tear.
“
Of course we do!”
she shouted at
him.

Now Andy felt a tremendous guilt. He was so
frightened of these two, so terrified of the price of displeasing
them that he never considered for a moment that they might actually
care for him. He was so certain that if he stuck around long enough
they would eventually grow bored and kill him. That was what he had
thought of them, but yet, they had just risked their lives to save
him. Sitting up, he could see the damage they had inflicted to
retrieve him. Dead bodies littered the street just ahead of them,
corpses that looked kind of like SWAT officers. Immediately Andy
recognized them as having the same uniforms as the ones that had
apprehended him.

He looked at his two saviors. “I never thought
… I never thought there were people in this world that loved me. I
was so sure that you two were going to kill me off someday that I
betrayed you. I don’t deserve you both. I am so very sorry, but you
have to know the truth. I went to Jack Harris and I asked him to
help. I was going to escape. I was going to run far away and never
look back. Do you see? I am not worthy of your care.”

Ruin took a seat next to Andy and pulled him
into a hug, his sister joining in. “Andy, families make mistakes,
don’t they? I told you once that when you became our brother, we
would be the only family you needed. For feeling so alone, it was
truly our fault. We should have been there for you more. We were
too hard on you, and for that my Sister and I are very sorry. How
about we forget all that has happened, and work on moving forward?
What do you say, Andy?”

Andy, for the first time since the night he had
murdered Richard, felt a great pain removed from his heart. “I’m so
sorry for everything I did. I understand now that you two were just
trying to help me all this time. I freaked out, I panicked, but at
the last minute, I think I’d have made you two proud.”

Now Requiem’s eyes lit with an amused glint.
“Oh? And why is that, Andy?”

“
Because at the very end, when I was
sure they were going to capture me, I finally understood your
message. I killed one of them, you know? An officer just like the
ones you guys killed outside. I screamed at them, all of them, that
this was our right. I finally understood what you were trying to
teach me. I acted upon my right! They should all burn for trying to
take that away.”

Pride seeped through the expressions of both
Ruin and Requiem. “Yes, Brother,” Ruin said. “Now you really do get
it. Eventually the Harris-boy will too.”

At this, Andy flared in outrage. “Who, Jack? He
can’t be part of this family, you guys! I want him dead. He
betrayed me! I want you two to rip his damned heart out and feed it
to him!
I want to hear him cry out in pain
and—
”

Requiem slapped Andy, cutting him off.
“Silence, fool! You do
not
speak that way of our brother.
How would you like it if someone cut out
your
heart and made
you
cry out in pain? The nerve of some people!”

Andy shook his head. They were never going to
convince Jack to join them. Even if Andy didn’t feel a seething
hatred towards his former friend, his opinion would be the
same—Jack would never join them. In his lonely and sad life, Andy
had finally found other people that cared for him, and now they
were going to get themselves killed or worse, and all for what? So
they could chase after some dream?

“
You have a better chance of winning
the lottery, guys. You’ll never get Jack to go along with any of
this.”

“
You thought the same thing about
yourself, did you not, Brother Andy? Now look at you. I can see it
in your face. You finally understand the comfort of family and the
things we’re going to accomplish together. I am sure that no matter
how stubborn the Harris-boy is, he too will come to love us as his
own. Of this, I am certain.”

Not if I kill him first,
Andy thought,
concealing a devilish grin.

“
So, what do we do now?” Andy
asked.

“
Now that you’re up and about,
Darling, we’re going to head over to the Harris-boy’s home. We’ve
been putting this off for far too long. Tonight, I’ll finally have
him. Oh, I want him so badly it hurts!”

Ruin gave Andy a pat on the shoulder before
standing up and heading to the front of the vehicle. Andy hoped it
was safe to drive something with a hole in the front window and
glass sticking out. As if reading his thoughts, Ruin snapped his
fingers, and the remaining glass broke away from the vehicle,
leaving nothing but an open front.

“
Don’t worry yourself, Andy,” Ruin
said. “I’m sure that Jack Harris can be made to see our
ways.”

“
Ya know, I’m really starting to
think that Will Schuester is a Psych,” Jack said. He chomped down
on the popcorn while he watched the TV from the living room
couch.

“
And what makes you say that?”
Melissa snatched the bowl away from Jack before he could react, and
started munching down on
his
popcorn.

“
Well, did you notice that no matter
where in the world a fight takes place, he seems to just show up
out of nowhere before the first punch gets thrown? It’s like, how
does he know that they’re going to fight, and always manage to make
it on time? I’m telling you, Melissa, he’s a Telepath.”

She laughed and passed Alana the bowl. The
three of them were sitting relaxed in the living room with the
lights off, on Alana’s wide, black leather couch. Jack really
wanted to watch
Chuck
, but Alana and Melissa vetoed him
and decided to go for
Glee
instead.

Jack got up from the couch and snatched the
popcorn out of his mom’s hands, and before she could react, he ran
and jumped back down on the couch. “Make your own, Mom.”

“
Sweetie,” she said with a grin.
“Now that you know the truth about me, I’m not afraid to do
this
.”

The bowl flew out of Jack’s hands, soaring to
the other end of the couch and back into Alana’s lap.

That’s so unfair,
Jack thought.
No
one steals my popcorn!

Jack had made a promise to Michael that he
would try and draw on his power at least twice a day. He’d said
that within a few months the horrible feeling would decrease, and
after a year or two, go away entirely.

Jack reached for that unique part of him, and
with an audible groan, allowed himself the smallest trickle of
power, before sealing himself off. It was the worst feeling. It
made him want to roll around on the ground and scream.

It had been a while since Jack had attempted to
do anything with his power, so he tried to remember how to grab at
things. His mind felt like a room with a billion buttons, before
shifting into strings, changing ever more into triggers. To make
things worse, they moved, and shifted, changing constantly. He
could always find the one that sent near things far away, the one
that everyone called a “burst.” Once he had done it enough times,
it became easier and easier to locate.

The one Jack tried to find was the one that let
him grab things and freely move them around. He searched for it,
struggling to sort through the endless maze of triggers that were
his mind. It took a second for him to realize it, but now Melissa
and his mom were paying more attention to him than they were the
T.V.

“
You can do it, sweetie,” she
encouraged.

Jack felt a little frustrated, realizing that
the only reason his Mom had nabbed the popcorn in the first place
was to encourage him to sharpen his skills. Melissa had told his
mother—even though he had begged her not to—that Jack was refusing
to practice. Oh well, he had already gotten this far.

Jack reached for that familiar trigger, the one
that he had only used twice before under the guidance of
Michael—and he activated it …

He must have activated the wrong trigger,
because pain exploded in his mind. He fell to the floor with his
hands on his head, moaning. He rolled on the ground as pictures and
images filled his mind.