The Violet Awakening (The Elementum Trinity Book 2) (11 page)

I stared out the window in awe, gripping the door tightly as I watched the trees whip by in blurs of green and brown. It felt uncomfortable to be moving so quickly while sitting perfectly still, like the smallest thing could launch the entire van to its fiery demise. With every bump of the road, my stomach flipped, and my grip tightened just a bit more. Lakin’s hand warmed my shoulder from the back seat. It must have seemed ridiculous for me to be nervous about something as common as riding in a car, but the closest thing I had ever known was riding in the elevator at The Facility. At least, in the elevator, you wouldn’t be able to see the floor leaping toward you as you plummeted to your doom.

As if driving a bagilliondy miles an hour—it may have only been sixty-five, but it certainly felt like a bagilliondy—
wasn’t bad enough, we had only spent a few minutes on the road when red and blue lights began to bounce off the interior of the van, followed closely by a screeching siren. Lily sighed as she pulled to the side of the road, mumbling something about Abigail not renewing tags.

I sat rigidly in my seat, imagining our faces on old ‘wanted’ posters, straight out of a Western film. ‘Cool-Hand Angie,’ they’d name me, ‘wanted for m
urder, exceptional and unforgivable strangeness, and being an accessory to driving a dilapidated rust-bucket too quickly.’

In my peripheral vision, I glimpsed Lily’s eyes fading from their ethereal white just as the officer reached her window. I instantly recognized her from the ruins of the store, as Lily struggled to roll down her window, which had been stuck from dirt and time.

“License and registration, please.” The policewoman said, lowering her iridescent sunglasses to stare us down with clear-gray eyes.

Lily didn’t seem
at all concerned, removing a glove to hand the officer a bundle of papers from the console. As their hands touched, my jaw went slack. The officer’s eyes flashed purple, just for a moment, just long enough to wonder if it had even happened.

“Where you all headin’?” she asked, handing the papers back without really looking them over.

“Down south,” Lily said casually, as if she were talking to a random bystander at a grocery store. “New Hampshire.”

“Well, I hope you aren’t takin’ the main roads. They’ve got checkpoints all along ‘em. Traffic’s backed up wicked bad.” Her words sounded so strange, like a combination of a bunch of different accents I had heard in movies, but not
really like any of them at all.

“Checkpoints?” Lily questioned, eyeing the woman curiously. “Are they looking for anything specific?”

“From what I hear,” she said, eyes lingering on me for a second as she studied the inside of the van, “a high-risk patient escaped from Waterville Psychiatric. You’re probably best stickin’ to the back roads if you’re in a hurry.”

Lily nodded, eyes shifting with thought. The policewoman slid her glasses back up her nose and patted the top of the van.

“You folks have a safe trip.”

“Thanks for your help, officer,” Lily said, rolling her window back up as the woman walked away.

“Well,
that
wasn’t strange,” Lakin called from the backseat as we began moving again.

“We have a few friends in town,” Lily explained quietly, eyes trained ahead as she turned off from Belfast Road onto a bumpy, unmarked back lane.

“And they all just happen to have creepy, light-up eyes,” I mumbled under my breath.

“They have a couple things in common,” Lily said, voice full of restraint.

I stared out the window as we drove in silence, thinking over the information—and lack-thereof—that I had been bombarded with in the last few days. My cheeks grew warm as my temper rose, realizing how selective Lily and Al had been with their explanations. My generation may have grown up without even knowing there were more like us in the world, but we were a part of everything, now. We deserved to know what we would have known, had we not been ripped away from our families.

‘You do deserve to know. But there is a lifetime of knowledge you’ve been kept far away from, Angie. We grow up with all of these things. It’s difficult to figure out how to explain everything to someone who’s so new to o
ur world. It may feel like we’ve been plotting against you, but it’s honestly just as hard for us as it is for you. Your answers will come with time,’
Lily’s voice echoed in my mind. How presumptuous of me to assume my thoughts were private.

I was too angry to remember that I was afraid of riding in the car. The rest of the three-hour-drive was spent in uncomfortable silence, made slightly more irritating by Lakin thumping his foot against the back of my seat for the first hour, which finally ceased at my snippy ‘Could you not?’ Apparently, even the strongest bond is not enough to overlook someone’s annoying habits.

“What’s the address, again?” Lily asked, after passing a washed-out sign that read, ‘Welcome to Derry.’

“Fifteen Collette Grove,” I said, recalling our conversation with Bryant from the previous night.

I wouldn’t say we were lost, necessarily, but we didn’t quite know where, exactly, we were. Derry wasn’t the smallest place, and even Lily seemed a bit disoriented by the signs and traffic. After all, we’d spent the last three hours on the back roads of Maine. It had been a while since we passed another living thing that wasn’t covered in fur or feathers. Or both... There was some unusual wildlife in the Maine forests.

Finally, after passing the road we were looking for one or two—or seven—times, we turned onto Collette Grove. I shifted anxiously in my seat, suddenly very nervous about meeting my brother, in person, for the first time. Thick shrubbery lined either side of the long road, letting in just a few stray beams of sunlight to cast reflections off the bits of rusted metal that littered the ground. We pulled into the drive that was marked by a bright yellow ‘15’ spray-painted onto a tre
e. My lungs went on protest, outraged that they were expected to do so much more work for the same amount of pay.

A sandy-haired boy sat on the
crumbling porch of a mobile home, book in hand, and duffle-bag at his feet. He carefully dog-eared a page before looking up, squinting at the creeper-van that was coming up his driveway. My heart went into overdrive.

I found myself fiddling with the door handle. Before the van had even come to a complete stop, I ripped off my seatbelt, jumped out the door, stumbling a bit to catch my balance, and stared at the boy who was standing just a few feet in front of me.
My brother
. My brother, there, in front of my very eyes. Just a few days ago, I didn’t even know I had a brother, though I had known Bryant my entire life. And now, I was within an arm’s reach of my kin, my blood… my family. One more piece of the life that I was denied as a child. One more step toward leaving The Facility behind, for good.

My mind was no longer in control of my body. Before I was even aware that my feet were moving, I was wrapping Bryant in a type of embrace that I had never shared with anyone. A sense of safety swept over my body, warming me from head to toe, like a void I’d never realized existed inside
of me had suddenly been filled. He wasn’t a particularly emotional person, but I felt my hair dampen as he returned the embrace, my own tears having a similar effect on his shoulder.

“You’re leaking,
” I chuckled, brushing the rivers from my cheeks as we backed away from each other. “You might want to have that checked out.”

Bryant grinned, drying his own face on his sleeves. “I guess we’re both defective, then. It must be hereditary.”

I couldn’t stop smiling as Lakin and Bryant gripped each other’s palms and went in for the most awkwardly-macho hug I had ever seen. It wasn’t long before all of our faces were glistening with tears of happiness, and it was only a few moments after that when Lily stepped up beside me. In the brief moment of our content, the weight of our mission had lifted, and I had forgotten that all was not well in the world. I suddenly felt encumbered by the journey ahead of us.

“Bryant,” Lily said sweetly, reaching one of her gloved-hands toward him, “It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

“You, too.” Bryant nodded, shaking her hand with a sincere smile, before reaching down for his bag.

“Don’t you want to say goodbye to your family?” Lily asked, surprised by Bryant’s hasty steps toward the van.

The look on my brother’s face slapped a grin on my own, as he glanced from Lily to the mobile home. I had never noticed it in the Energy Room, but we shared the same expression when someone asked a question we thought they should have already known the answer to.

“I’m not leaving my family,” Bryant said, sliding open the back door of the van and tossing in his bag, “I’m going with them.”

The entire drive to Joseph’s, I caught myself craning my neck around to glance at Bryant and Lakin. Every night of my entire life, I had spent my dreams with these people. I’d never expected to spend my reality with them, to look at them with conscious eyes. I wan
ted to reach out and touch them to make sure they were real, but constantly glancing back was probably weird enough.

A tinge of guilt crept up in my stomach
as we passed the ‘Welcome to Walpole’ sign. It’d only taken about an hour to get there. Everyone had grown up so close to each other, but they kept their distance because of me. Because I was afraid they would make for a big, bright target if they were together. ‘Here we are, William! Come and get us! We’ll have tea and biscuits ready when you get here. Fancy a game of Scrabble?’ Maybe, if I hadn’t been so fearful, Lyla wouldn’t have been technically homeless. Bryant wouldn’t have been so alone. Lakin wouldn’t have grown up with a wardrobe of bruises.

We all knew Joseph had the best life of the bunch, but it didn’t quite sink in until we turned onto his road. He lived at the back of a cul-de-sac, with huge, identical houses leading the way. With perfectly-tended lawns, white-picket-fences, and massive rose-bushes lining the porches, it was exactly like The Village. But bigger. And fancier. And superior in every way.

I didn’t have a very good understanding of the concept of money—I wouldn’t have known if apples cost one dollar or one-hundred dollars… though one dollar did seem slightly more likely—but I knew Joseph’s family was considered to be incredibly well-off, so it stood to reason that this little neighborhood was just a big old pile of rich people. I assumed that was why all the houses were dark in the middle of the day. Everyone was probably out, doing whatever they did to make more money, so they could buy more things they didn’t really need. I returned to my thoughts of life inside The Facility, and quickly reevaluated my definition of ‘excess’. Sure, compared to some, we’d lived extravagant lives, but compared to others, it hadn’t been much. And it may not have been much, but it was enough, and enough was plenty. I couldn’t imagine living a true life of excess. How would you ever know when to stop wanting?

“What are you doing?” I asked, as Lily slowed the van to a near-stop before we reached the largest brick-house at the end of the road.

“Something is wrong.”

Lily squinted at the door with an elegant, brass ‘72’ above it, and
I followed her line of vision; the door was ajar, hanging from its hinges at a painful angle.

“Stay in the van,” Lily commanded, leaving the keys dangling in the ignition as she opened her door with a rusty creak.

My jaw tensed as I lowered my brows at Lakin and Bryant in the backseat. They shook their heads at me, and within two seconds, I had caught up with Lily. She glanced at me, but made no attempt to send me back to the safety of the van.

The neighborhood felt odd, and stuffy. Even though nobody seemed to be watching, I felt judged and out-of-place, like a caterpillar in the middle of an escargot platter, trying to pass itself off as a fancy, gross hors d’oeuvre. I suddenly found myself wondering about the diets of the wealthy. Escargot, caviar, calamari... Apparently, the balance of your bank account directly corresponded with how slimy and disgusting your food was.

On the porch, Lily grasped my arm, holding me back as she quickly retrieved a lighter from one of her pockets. The house was completely dark, but in the afternoon-light leaking through the open door, a trail of blood gleamed from the terracotta tile. My heart thudded violently against my sternum, protesting the steps my feet continued to take, leading me into the foyer. In a morbid heap at the bottom of the steps, a body I recognized as one of Joseph’s adoptive fathers lay still, a puddle of red seeping out all around him. I knelt next to him, desperately checking for any signs of remaining life.

“Angie!” Lily shouted from behind me.

My reflexes took over as I looked up to find a bulky man in a black suit standing in the kitchen doorway, pointing a strange-looking gun straight at me. I dodged sideways as a blast of jagged, purple light streamed past my cheek, missing me by less than an inch. A burning sensation spread across my chest, emanating all the way down to my fingertips, until fire shot from my hands and made a direct connection with the man’s face. I gaped at my palms for a moment, as the man ran around haphazardly, screaming, and grasping at his flaming head. Where had the fire come from? There’d been no flame near me to manipulate.

My pondering was cut short by another man bounding from a doorway at the other side of the kitchen. Again, without time to think or worry, another sensation across my chest. This time, a creeping coldness, crawling down my arms until a path of frost stopped the man in his tracks, freezing him solid just before he could raise his gun. I scooted across the floor, until my back was met with the first wall it could find. I shouldn’t have been able to do what I’d just done.

I pawed at my chest, only to find my Spera Lapis fading from a brilliant blue glow, and cold to the touch. In holding it up for a better look, I noticed a different body on the floor at my side.

“Lily,” I called, throwing myself over to her.

A sigh of relief released itself from my lungs as she shook her head, pushing herself up weakly. A purplish scorch-mark ran all the way from the bottom of her right eye down to her jaw.

“I think that asshole
just electrocuted me,” she said, wincing as she fingered the wound on her face.

People were pew-pewing purple electro-guns. I was manipulating elements without actually having any elements to manipulate. Lily was swearing. It was all too much to handle, and the muffled shouts coming from the door across the kitchen didn’t help.

After making certain that Lily was all right, I hesitantly moved myself across the kitchen, shuffling awkwardly around the icicle-man, and overtop the guy I had set fire to, who was currently smoldering, face-down, on the tile. Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the swinging door next to the stainless-steel refrigerator.

“Oh, Joseph,” I choked, tears welling at the sight of his bruised and bloodied face.

“Mmmmm hmmm mhmmm,” he mumbled through the patch of shiny silver that concealed his mouth.

I ripped the tape from his face, and began untying the ropes that bound him to the chair in the pantry, but I was stilled by a small, green light on his
wrist—a light I was far too familiar with.

“Is he okay?” Lily asked from behind me.

“I’ll be fine,” Joseph rasped, shaking his hands as I finished untying him.

I blinked my eyes rapidly at Lily, then at the shackles on Joseph’s wrists, but she had already noticed. Before either of us could say anything, he took off through the kitchen, toward the foyer. Lily and I followed slowly and solemnly, entering upon the sight of the young man standing over his dead parent.

“There was nothing we could do,” Lily said, placing a hand on Joseph’s shoulder, which he immediately shrugged off. “He was gone when we got here.”

“I know.” Joseph’s voice was eerily unwavering. “I watched them kill him. I couldn’t get down the steps fast enough. I didn’t know how to save him.”

A shiver ran from the nape of my neck down to my toes. His words felt like an accusation. He didn’t know how to save his dad, because he didn’t know how to use his powers. He didn’t know how to use his powers, because of
me
.

Joseph turned from his dad without so much as a tear in his eye. He walked, st
iff and rigid, through the door and stood on the porch for a moment, taking in a final view of his past.

“Pop won’t be home until late,” he said calmly, leaning against the railing of the porch as he stared blankly at the van a few houses down. His cuffs clinked as he
anxiously scraped his palms together.

“We can wait, if you like,” Lily said softly.

Joseph thought for a long moment, glancing anywhere but through the doorway of the place he could never call home again. His stiffness was unsettling, like a landmine; cold and hard on the outside, but fully capable of ripping your legs from your body and sending the mutilated bits of them in every direction if you didn’t mind your step.

“No,” he finally said, straightening himself up, “it’ll only make it harder on him.”

Loss is a strange thing. There are many ways to lose someone, and they all cause an ache and an emptiness in your heart, but none so much as knowing that someone could have stayed, and didn’t. People are taken from us by illness and insanity and death, and though it hurts, somewhere deep down we find solace in knowing that they would have stayed with us if they could have. We can’t blame them for the things that were outside of their control. But when someone chooses to leave, especially when we need them most, whether it’s a parent, or a lover, or a child, they take a piece of us with them. They take a piece of our trust, and leave behind a wound of betrayal. We had all felt it. We grew up thinking our real parents had abandoned us, and we’d hated them for it. Had we only thought they were dead, the hurt would’ve still been there, but it would have been different. It would have been acceptable. It would have been unaccompanied by loathing.

In what many might have seen as an act of selfishness, Joseph performed the most se
lfless act I had ever witnessed; he left. Even in knowing that he might never get to see his father again, he left behind the best thing that he could; uncertainty of what had really happened. His father, heartbroken by the loss of his partner, would most likely conclude that the two dead strangers in the house had been working with accomplices, and that Joseph had been kidnapped, possibly killed. And it would hurt. It would pull at his heart from every angle, and shred his insides like shards of glass. But it would hurt less than knowing his son, who he loved so dearly, who was all he had left, chose to leave him in what would probably be the darkest moment of his life.

Joseph pulled his shoulders back, and pushed his chin forward. His muscles tensed and his fists balled as he stepped down from the porch, away from his life, away from his family, away from his home. And he didn’t look back.