Psych Investigation Episodes: Episode 1 (A Young Adult Scifi / Fantasy) (49 page)

A thought came to Melissa. It was among the
most inappropriate things a person could think during a life or
death situation, yet it was beyond her control—a single penetrating
idea rang out in Melissa’s brain, one that she felt deeply ashamed
of.

If Jack stops to pick up any of those
snacks, I’m going to kill him.

Ruin telekinetically picked up everything and
anything, gesturing so fast he resembled a composer of a musical
orchestra. Loose pieces of floor, broken glass, and even some of
the snacks—they all flew towards Sarah.

“
They’re trying to take out our
Path!” Melissa yelled.

If a Telepath died during a battle between
Psychs and there was no second Path, it was game over. If for even
a moment Sarah stopped fighting off Andy’s Manipulation, he’d kill
them one at a time with the same agonizing methods he’d used
against Richard and his family.

Melissa needed to separate him from the fight.
It was the best chance they had of survival. “Jack!” she called.
“Get over here!”

Jack, who at the time was treading carefully
around the chasm in the floor, was for some odd reason laughing.
What was he on about now?

“
Haha, Melissa. Scorpion from Mortal
Kombat says, ‘get over here’ too.”

Melissa was going to kick his butt for that
when they made it through this, of that she was sure. They
would
make it out alive, and he would receive a plethora
of slaps for his outrageous comments amid a fight for their
lives.

Jack ran to the side of her. Michael and Ruin
were sparring to keep control of the various hazards flung around
the room, while Sarah struggled to keep Andy from killing Kazou,
who was still pinned down from the Manipulation trying to melt his
face. Requiem was deep in concentration, and Melissa wasn’t
certain, but she suspected the girl was weakening all of them. They
were in a deadlock—and losing.

Melissa charged at Ruin, who turned to meet
her. He was a Telekinetic of incredible power. Melissa knew he
would be able to repel her attacks while still fending off Michael.
He raised a hand to impede her, but before he could so much as draw
an inkling of power, Melissa dashed off her right foot and leaped
to the side of him and then ran in a straight line towards
Andy.

Jack followed after her. Andy backed up as he
saw her charge at him, and with all her strength, Melissa attacked
again in a downward smash, one that was easy to avoid. Only this
time, she wasn’t aiming to connect with Andy.

The ground below them cracked, giving way under
the power of her monstrous strength. Jack screamed as the three of
them plunged into the dark tunnel below.

Jack didn’t understand what Melissa was
attempting until it was too late. Chunks of the marble floor were
sent scattering, and a moment later Jack had the uncomfortable
sense of losing balance. An instant after that, when Jack felt the
first sensation of tumbling downward, the realization entered his
mind. Melissa was plunging the three of them into whatever
nightmare awaited below.

It didn’t occur to Jack that he was falling
until he felt the bubbly, acidic burn deep in his lower stomach. To
Jack, the worst part was not knowing how far he would fall. It also
didn’t help that he didn’t know where they were falling to in the
first place. Luckily, they only descended for a few seconds before
Jack landed with a painful squish onto gravel and then stumbled
forward. For a brief instant, he believed that the ride was over,
and then once again Jack felt the sensation of dropping. Only this
time it was like rolling down a hill.

Jack yelped as his arms scraped against the
gravel while he forward-rolled down a steep hill into the darkness
below. The only sounds were grunts and cries of pain, as Jack,
Melissa, and Andy plummeted and rolled down, occasionally bumping
into each other. They would all be scraped up, the sharp gravel
leaving something in their skin to remember it by. The dizziness
was nauseating. The world flipped up and around. Jack went from his
stomach to his back, picking up speed like a bicycle down a steep
hill.

“Melissa!”
he yelled, tumbling into the shadowy depths. “Was this really
necessary?”

Between the pitch-black darkness, the scraping
of gravel, and the nauseating rolling-front flips, Jack was in
unrelenting misery. There was a confusing moment where Jack no
longer felt the gravel under him, and he wondered if the torture
had finally ended. It was then that he felt the return of the
falling sensation. With a groan, he landed on another strip of
gravel. He hacked and coughed up the icky stuff. But he was finally
still.

He sat up and shook the gravel and dirt from
his messy black-hair then looked around. There were strip-lights
lining the floor, small circular objects that were just bright
enough to cast a bit of light a few feet around them, but otherwise
it was complete darkness. The lights extended far into the
distance, with no visible end. Jack figured it was some sort
of underground maintenance tunnel that ran along the path of the
train tracks.

“
Melissa, are you okay?” She was
dusting herself off and standing to her feet.

“
I was going to ask you the same,
Jack.” She looked around at the darkness, her eyes scanning along
the floor. For a moment Jack didn’t know what she was looking for,
until he remembered the reason for their descent in the first
place.

“
Andy!” Jack yelled. The boy was
also getting to his feet. Andy looked at them. Terror and panic
spread along his features. There was more, though. Just behind his
shaken exterior, Jack could see fatigue in his former friend’s
eyes. Andy must’ve been weary—tired of everything that had been
happening to him.

“
Please,” Andy croaked, “just let me
go.”

Small scrapes and gashes covered Andy’s arms
and legs. Jack was wearing black jeans and Melissa wore
tight-fitting black leggings, so their lower-bodies had been
protected from the rough gravel, although both of their pants had
small tears and holes from the rough fall. Jack’s arms were pretty
scraped up, and he wondered why Melissa had remained completely
unscathed, until he remembered that Reinforcers could be as hard as
steel if they wanted.

Jack forced himself to ignore Andy’s pleas, but
it wasn’t easy. There was a part of Jack, a feeling that still
hammered at his heart that desired to save his friend. It
covered Jack with guilt, washing over him and filling him with
uncertainty.

No,
Jack reminded himself.
The
only way to save Andy is to bring him down. After what he did to
Richard, after what he did to those two little girls—no, I can’t
let him leave.

Melissa put a reassuring arm on his shoulder.
“I know this is hard, Jack. But it’s time we ended
this.”

Jack nodded. “Andy, I really don’t wanna hurt
you. Please don’t put up a fight. Let’s get out of this
place.”

Andy glared at Jack with an icy rage. “You
don’t want to hurt me? How can you say that? How can you tell me
that after everything you did to me, Jack! I’ll never get those
faces out of my head. I’ll never be able to forget. The moment I
let down my guard you’ll do it again!”

Jack inhaled and steadied his hands, fostering
calm into his voice. “Andy, I don’t know what I did to you.
Sometimes I feel like I did something but then later I don’t
remember. Look, I just … I’m sorry if I hurt you, but you really
gotta listen to me. I know everything seems like it sucks right
now, but things can suck so much worse. Please, you have to listen
to me. You’re gonna die if you don’t come with me. I know you’ve
never really thought of me as a close friend, even if I always
thought of you as one. But if you’ve ever thought of me as a friend
at all or at the very least trusted me, then please, believe me
now. If you don’t give up, you’re dead.”

Andy’s face darkened and a single tear fell
from his eye. His voice was a whisper. “I know … I know, and I
don’t care anymore. I’ve done what needed to be done, and I did it
for
us
, Jack, for everyone
like
us. And I don’t
just mean people that can do what we can do—I mean everyone who’s
ever been afraid to go to school, for everyone who’s ever been
forced to feel pain just to make others laugh, for everyone who’s
ever cried themselves to sleep because the abuse was too much to
handle. Why can’t I kill them, Jack? Why can’t
we
kill
them? I don’t care if I die anymore—I’m done with life,
anyway.”

Jack felt a mixture of disgust and
disappointment. “So you’re just gonna give up? After everything
that happened you’re just gonna throw in the towel? What gives you
the right? Do you think you can just die after all the people
you’ve hurt or killed? Look, Andy, I’m sorry how the other kids
treated us at school, I really am. If anyone understands, it’s me.
But that doesn’t give you the right to go on a killing spree. To
kill children!”

“
The two little girls were an
accident.”

“That doesn’t matter!”
Jack roared. He leveled an accusing finger at
Andy, one that carried the full weight of his emotions. “Take
responsibility for what you did! You killed them, not me, not
Melissa, and not the bullies at school.
You
did that, Andy.
And even if it was just Richard and no one else, it would still be
wrong.”

Jack felt the disgusting anger build. He poured
his emotions into his words. Jack wasn’t a bully or a tough-guy,
but as he dug into his heart for the words he needed to say, he
felt the anger grow stronger, along with a desire to cause pain.
“Do you know what hurts me the most, Andy? It’s that you think you
were doing this all for me. Don’t ever put that on me, Andy. Do you
hear me?”

Jack’s voice turned cold and he poured every
last drop of his rage into a thundering shout.
“DON’T EVER PUT
THAT ON ME!”

Andy opened his mouth to speak but said
nothing. He turned over his hands and glanced down on them. His
eyes filled with confusion. With a sudden jerk he twisted around,
making a crunching sound as his foot slid across the gravel and he
ran into the distance.

So he won’t surrender,
Jack thought
with a disappointed sigh.

Melissa bolted after him, and Jack ran for all
he was worth to catch up. Andy wouldn’t be able to outrun a
Reinforcer, but that didn’t stop Jack from feeling a burning
disappointment towards his former friend. Jack had offered him one
final chance to redeem himself, to show remorse for what he’d done.
Even after everything that happened, Jack had still considered Andy
a friend, but that was over now. By fleeing, Andy was now nothing
to Jack. There was a small pain as Jack felt the fleeting passing
in his heart for the boy he once knew as Andy. The boy whose home
he had invaded to force him into round after round of Street
Fighter. The boy he dragged to the movies on rainy days, despite
his muttered protests.

Andy was a loner, and Jack had tried to be
there for him, because he knew that deep down, Andy had always been
grateful for the company, even if he’d never admit it. But all that
was over now. Andy was nothing more than murderous scum. Jack was
determined to do all he could to bring Andy in alive, and when it
was all over he’d wash his hands clean of him. It would be his
final offering of goodwill to a person he once called
friend.

Andy,
you’re not getting away
again.

It wouldn’t take Melissa long to catch up to
the boy. Jack was panting to catch up, still a few yards behind. He
pumped his arms and ran. All he could see were the lights moving
towards him as he sprinted through the criminally dark tunnel. The
sight of the slow moving lights approaching was mesmerizing—the
sounds of crunching gravel added balance to the sensory-depriving
dark tunnel.

Jack heard Melissa scream, and in an instant
went from determined to terror-stricken. He felt his concern for
Melissa as real as he felt the breath in his lungs. He could make
the two of them out only a few feet in the distance. Melissa was
kneeling, sweating and gritting her teeth. Andy was beside her with
his palm extended towards her face.