Psych Investigation Episodes: Episode 1 (A Young Adult Scifi / Fantasy) (47 page)

Paro closed his eyes and his voice dulled to a
whisper. “Sarah, quit tracing them for a moment. Divert your
attention to sensing Psych ability. Are there any Psychs currently
drawing or using power?”

She blinked, and once again returned to look
downward. She only remained in the position a moment, before
whipping her head towards the team. Her face brightened with
alarm.

“
Yes! Manipulation, Telekinesis, and
… and there’s more. It feels like it’s been going on for a while.
Paro, oh, oh God! They’re going to rip this place down around us.
They’re going to crush us!”

Michael and Kazou stood dazed. Melissa grabbed
Jack’s arm for dear life, clinging to him. Jack felt his own rising
terror, but he forced himself to remain calm. Paro seemed to be
doing the same, and one at a time, the team went from frantic to a
reluctant calm.

“
We’re going to leave right now. If
they’re going to bring this place down, they’ll only be killing
themselves. We’ll be up there.” Paro pointed to the nearest
staircase. “We’ll be waiting for them.”

Jack noticed movement in the corner of his eye.
“Paro, look!”

On the side of the tracks they’d entered, three
forms crawled out from beneath a bench. There was no doubt that
what Jack was seeing were the forms of Andy, Ruin, and the maddened
Requiem. Requiem was the first to her feet. She licked her lips and
looked at them from across the tracks.

“
Darling,” she spoke directly to
Jack, “I’d leave if I were you.”

Ruin peered daggers at her, but he was quick to
return to his normal, carefree visage. “We’ve been waiting for
you,” he said. “Andy and I have been working up a little surprise
for our good friends.”

Paro spat on the floor and looked
apologetically at his team. “Damn,” he muttered. “How did we not
look under the benches? I didn’t think three people could fit under
a single bench.”

Andy focused his attention on Jack, with an
intensity that felt like he was trying to burn a hole through his
head with only his eyes.

“
I wish I could stay to see you die,
Jack.” There was still a great deal of fear and terror in the boy,
apparent in his shaky voice.

“
Andy,” Jack breathed. Before
anyone—especially Melissa—could attempt to stop him, Jack drew on
his disgusting, vile source of power. Once again, he poured it into
his legs, and with all of his strength he leapt across the tracks,
clearing fifty feet of air in a single leap. There was a loud bang
as he landed on the other side. Now he stood only a few feet from
the three Psychs. Andy backed up and ran behind Requiem, shivering
and shaking.

“
Jack!”
Melissa
cried.

“
No, don’t!” Paro yelled—but not in
time to stop Melissa from doing the same. Only a Reinforcer could
make a jump from such a distance. She landed next to Jack with her
usual smooth gracefulness.

There was a rumbling sound as the beams
crumbled and shook. The roof-supported metallic rods rang with a
deafening sound, painful to Jack’s ears.

Paro turned to Sarah and Michael. “There’s no
time!” he shouted. “We need to go—now!”

“
I don’t think so,” Ruin laughed.
“Andy, weaken that for me, please. Thank you.” He made a gesture of
chopping air, and the stairway behind Paro imploded, collapsing and
barring their escape.

“
We, on the other hand, really need
to go,” Ruin said. Requiem and Andy followed him as he walked
casually up the stairs just to the left of the narrow walkway where
Jack and Melissa were huddled together. They didn’t even glance at
the two on their way out—they walked so close that their clothing
brushed against Jack’s.

Jack was torn, and he suspected that Melissa
was too. Were they supposed to chase or stay and try and help their
team?

“
Paro, please,” Michael begged. “You
and Kazou can make that jump. You can use Reinforcement. Grab Sarah
and go. These roof-beams are going to collapse any second. Look,
there’s no point in all of us dying, and I’m doing everything I can
to hold them in place. I can’t stop for even a second. Just
go!”

"You’re right,” Paro said. His voice lowered to
a barely audible whisper. “There’s no point in all of us dying.” He
turned to Melissa and shouted, “Catch!”

Michael and Sarah screamed in surprise as they
were telekinetically flung at Melissa, soaring across the
train-tracks. She braced herself and caught the two with a grunt
then set them down beside Jack. A large, thick beam fell from
above, crashing with a tremendous clang on top of the tracks with a
force that would crush a car as easily as it would a
person.

Kazou was mid-jump at the time and narrowly
managed to survive being smashed by it. He cleared the object by an
inch and came to land with a thud next to the four of
them.

“
Paro, hurry!” Sarah called. “Jump
across, please, hurry.”

Paro looked as if he were about to jump but
stopped and instead glanced upwards. All at once, the beams gave
out, and fifty deadly pieces of metal began to fall, moments from
ending the lives of all six of them. They would all be dead within
seconds.

Jack felt a foreign presence wrap around his
waist, and by the gasps from around him, he could tell that the
rest of the team did too. He realized what was happening. He tried
to shout, but it was too late. An invisible grip picked up Jack and
his four team-members and then threw them back towards the stairs.
Even as he hurled through the air, Jack could see Paro grunting and
sweating with exertion.

He tried to run forward to help, but Melissa
grabbed him and pulled him up the steps, while Michael dragged
Sarah who was attempting the same. Kazou assisted where he could,
and within a few seconds, the overwhelming sound hit
them.

One after the other, they heard the terrible
ringing-clash as beam after beam collided with the train-tracks. It
was so loud that Jack had to drop to the floor and cover his ears,
as the metal screeched at them.

 “
No!” Sarah cried. “Did … did
Paro just die?”

When the sound quieted, Jack tried to run back
down, but the crashed roof-beams completely sealed off the
entrance. The sickening feeling of anger entered Jack, the one that
he despised almost as much as the draw of power. He forced any
thoughts of Paro out of his mind. Andy and his friends had done it
yet again—they’d taken what they had no right to.

Jack marched up the stairs. He wasn’t going to
let them get away. Melissa once again grabbed him by his shoulders
and pulled him back.

“
No,” she said. “Don’t go after
them. We need to call for help. We don’t even know where they went
or where our recon officers are.”

“
I can’t reach them on the radio,”
Kazou said. He was showing little emotion, but a small amount of
paranoia did creep into his voice.

Sarah fell to her knees and wept openly. Tears
streaked down her face and splashed on the ground. “He couldn’t
have survived that,” she cried. “Paro’s dead, Michael.”

Michael tried to comfort her, but he too grew
red in the eyes. Jack had seen enough. He brushed off Melissa, and
before she could respond he dashed up the stairs, back into the
terminal. The three were still there, walking with a slow
confidence and chatting with each other.

“
Andy
!
”
Jack
thundered. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Andy turned around and almost fell to the floor
in shock. “You’re alive?” he shouted. “But how?”

Jack gritted his teeth and drew again from that
vile part of him, almost howling in discomfort as the cringe-worthy
nausea overwhelmed his senses. He let the power enter him for a
second longer than he knew he should, but Jack needed it now more
than ever. He felt it rush in, a maddening, overwhelming stampede
of pure energy. After a moment it began to hurt, and he realized
he’d drawn enough. He tried to cut off the flow of
power.

I can’t stop!
he realized with a
start.

Jack screamed, loud and pained, as Melissa,
Sarah, Kazou and Michael rushed to join his side. “I can’t stop!”
he yelled at the top of his lungs.

“
Can’t stop what? What is he talking
about?” Sarah asked. Andy and the two twisted siblings watched in
fascination instead of fleeing, observing Jack’s odd
behavior.

Jack grabbed the sides of his head with his
hands, and with every bit of willpower he possessed, he forced
himself to close that door, that part of him overflowing with
power. He stood back to his feet and eyed the three Psychs with a
growing rage that burned even more than the draw of the
power.

“
Andy,” he growled. The boy shrieked
as Jack spoke. “You and your friends aren’t leaving.”

Jack searched for that familiar trigger, the
one that he knew better than all others. With a massive burst, Jack
hurled his growing hate at the three of them. Ruin’s face changed
instantly from relaxed to surprised.

“
I don’t know if I can stop this!”
Ruin called out. He gestured at the air. Jack could see what he was
doing, in a way he hadn’t been able to before. Jack’s projection of
energy was a whirling force of might, and with what Jack supposed
was all the strength the other Telekinetic could muster, Ruin threw
an equally powerful one back at him. The two forces rippled across
air with a buzzing hiss as they traveled then collided together in
the space halfway between Paro’s team and Andy’s.

There was a massive explosion, one even louder
than the previous sound of collapsing beams. Every window in the
terminal exploded and shattered. The sliding entrance-door was
ripped from its hinges and flew through the air, before crashing
into a wall behind them and breaking into pieces. Trash cans,
litter, and even vending machines—all were ripped free from where
they sat and were sent scattering in every direction. The noise was
maddening. In the middle of the room, at the point where the two
forces collided, the marble floor began to crack, and after a
moment, it too ripped free and was sent reeling to every
corner.

Michael and Kazou bolted in front of Jack,
Sarah, and Melissa, and did their best to keep stray objects from
knocking into them. Michael squeezed his fist and a sharpened piece
of glass was sent in the opposite direction. Kazou charged
forward—a vending machine only a moment from crashing into and
killing Michael smashed against Kazou’s fist, falling harmlessly to
the ground.

Melissa didn’t move. She held her palm to her
mouth and gasped as the terminal became a scene of complete and
utter destruction. When the noise had finally quieted and objects
around the room finally ceased moving, no one said a word—they only
looked upon the destruction with a quiet disbelief.

Even Ruin, the Telekinetic, seemed to be shaken
up. He didn’t have that overconfident and carefree grin he enjoyed
wearing. Instead, he was leaning over and panting. Somehow, by a
means which Jack didn’t understand, he knew that what Ruin had used
to counter his burst was the pinnacle of his ability, and now he
was exhausted, struggling to regain his breath. Jack, on the other
hand, didn’t feel tired at all. He still burned with anger towards
the three Psychs.

“
Brother, Darling,” Requiem said.
“That Harris-boy just used a power greater than your own. Can this
be possible?”

Ruin looked at her. His carefree, cheerful
expression was gone in its entirety. Now, there was a grim ferocity
and a madness that almost rivaled his sister’s.

“
We need to kill these five and we
need to kill them now!” Ruin exclaimed. “Andy!” He grabbed the
boy’s shoulder. “Get over your fears or you’ll be forced to
experience them again! I don’t know what the Harris-boy did to you,
but after using that much energy, he can’t have much left to draw
from. You want revenge?
Then take it, damnit!
”

Jack felt his arm brush against something and
realized that Melissa had come to stand close to him. She stiffened
and cleared her throat.

“
Jack and I will handle Andy.
Michael, you and Kazou need to take on those two.”

Jack felt pride well in his heart while he
watched Melissa take charge. He knew she was just as devastated
over Paro as the rest of the team, but she wasn’t letting that get
to her, not when there was still something that needed to be dealt
with in front of them.

Michael and Kazou picked Sarah up off the floor
and nodded at Melissa, accepting her leadership.

“
I reckon this has gone on for too
long,” Michael said. “Jack, when all this is over with, I think I’m
gonna ask you to teach
me
what you just did.”

Jack grinned. “I can’t, because when all this
is over I need to get home and watch the new episode of Breaking
Bad.”