Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (3 page)

“
I want you, because you
are mine. Do you hear me, little man? You belong to me, the
Seeker.”

He did not understand what
she was saying. But, the inference of possession was not lost on
him. He was about to burst out of his shorts. He was the hardest he
had ever been. He imagined his manhood was as hard as
stone.

“
I’m not… yours… to
have…,” he said in rapid bursts, tears streaming from his eyes, and
not just from outrage alone. Her clutch was tremendous.

She brought her face
toward his, her lips a fraction of an inch away. “Since the day you
were born, it was your destiny to be mine.”

“
N-no…,” was all he said
before his clothes were ripped from his body and his was thrown
ruthlessly to the ground.

The last thing he
remembered before she began was her standing above him. Her face
was devoid of emotion as she silently stepped free of her boots,
her feet were bare inside. She shed her garments and was soon naked
in the bright beauty of the day.

“
Why?” he asked, pleading
like a child.

“
Because, I say it is
so.”

She lowered herself onto
him, engulfing him with the warm tightness of her right there in
the dirt.

He closed his eyes. He was
lost.

He had been with two other
girls in his young life. Both times, those encounters were wild,
frantic couplings. They finished fast, out of fear of discovery.
They’d been nothing like what she had vented upon him than fall
morning. For the next few hours, she brought Ricardo to the brink
of death with throes of ecstasy unlike anything he could’ve
dreamed. His imagination could never have been as vivid, as wicked
or as deprived before he had come across her in the
desert.

She was the
master.

He was the
slave.

He would never leave her.
He would die first.

In the end, she made good
on her promise. She took him, in every way he could deem was
possible.

Marianna White-Horse was
nothing to him now…

*****

Officials from government
entities as such the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security
had espoused the beginning of the incident now known as The Event
at a specific date and time - Wednesday, November 24th at exactly
6:47pm Pacific Standard Time.

In actuality, it had
started months earlier and five hundred, fifty-two miles from its
epicenter. It began with Ricardo Charon, the first child abducted
from Holbrook, Arizona since the end of World War II.

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Part One:

Chaos Unleashed

Be faithful in small things
because it is in them that your strength lies.

~Mother Teresa.

Don’t walk behind me; I may
not lead.

Don’t walk in front of me;
I may not follow.

Just walk beside me and be
my friend.

~Albert Camus.

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ᴥ
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~ 1 ~

The Tornado Man

Friday, November
26
^th
,
the Day after Thanksgiving, 12:58 pm…

Marissa Avalon sat in
front of the huge fifty-two inch HD LCD-TV, worry etching her tiny,
delicate brow. The "wow" effect of last year's Christmas gift from
her father to the family had long worn off. She hardly marveled at
the size of the set anymore.

Instead, she cast her
visage with an expression she seldom wore. Anyone who knew Marissa
would say she possessed a bubbly wit and was always ready with a
warm smile - atypical of some nine-year-old girl's.

She sat on the couch with
her feet dangling in mid-air, her legs far too short to reach the
floor. Her white converse sneakers bounced in front of the images
flashing across the screen before her. Despite the fact she was in
the third grade, she was small in stature. Her features were
little; characteristics that made it appear as though she was in
the second or maybe the first grade.

She had always been small
for her age. Even at birth, she had only weighed four pounds three
ounces, though she was born hale and robust. She was just
diminutive. She stood four-foot-three with a slim frame. She had
light-brown hair, straight, parted down the middle. It hung down to
the end of her shoulder blades. She had dark-brown eyes set within
a narrow face, ending in a sharp, v-shaped chin. Her lips were a
natural pink and thin, set above a narrow nose right-sized to a
face as small as hers. Her skin was the typical golden brown of a
little woman of the United States, but with heritage reaching back
into the heart of Mexico. It would not be uncommon to see her,
during the height of summer, as dark as chocolate
itself.

Today though, all those
tiny details comprising Marissa were tense, taut. It was as if some
invisible giant was pulling her in all directions at the same time,
upon hidden strings. Now, she was a marionette. Her face bunched,
her brow furled. Her arms and legs would not stay in one position
for all that long. Agitated, she was in a constant state of
movement, shifts and squirms that were necessary, crucial. She was
certain if she sat still, she might go crazy.

“
Look, Mari! Look at me!
See how fast my new shoes make me run!” screeched her younger
brother Sebastian. He streaked across her field of vision, racing
as fast as his five-year-old legs could carry him.

It was not like Marissa
was ignoring him per se. She just chose to take no notice of the
boy.

To many, Sebastian was a
spitting male remake of her - only younger and untamed. He had
stringy, shoulder-length hair and large, dark-brown eyes were all
features mirroring hers.

No, she had not ignored
him. She had not even heard him.

Instead, she continued to
fidget as she watched the television. Her eyes riveted to the flat
screen. Its’ images were ultra-clear and captivating. The
high-speed digital feed piping through their cable box made it even
moreso. The story conveyed on the screen had her complete
attention.

“…
to be
frank, Al, the events of the past eighteen hours have been
extraordinary to say the least...,
” said
the attractive female field reporter on the TV. She was speaking to
the lead anchor back in the studio.
“…and
still, this is despite the fact the entire Eagle Rock Plaza was
scooped out of the ground. This is despite the fact that a local
Vons Superstore has vanished into thin air. Nothing - I mean
nothing - could be more harrowing than the abductions of twelve.
Yes, I said twelve, children from this small neighborhood in
northeastern Los Angeles. I cringe every time I think about it. It
is hard to believe they were all taken within a five-mile radius of
one another. It is agonizing to think that some of them knew each
other. Three of them were siblings, and two others are rumored to
be best friends.

“
When I take the time to
try to wrap my head around it, I find that I am unable
to…”

The tall, big haired woman
kept speaking, but Marissa was not listening anymore. When she
heard the word “siblings”, it triggered a flood of thoughts, laced
with fear and anger, worry and distrust. She had known them, all
three of them. The girls she had considered two of her closest
friends. She and the girls were part of a close knit, inner circle
of her third grade class.

…
And now, someone had
taken them. Someone was no doubt hurting them - very
bad.

Elena Herrera.

Mikalah
Herrera.

The two names seared into
her brain. Like twin hot pokers, sticks of iron, glowing bright red
with heat, they gouged huge runnels along the gray matter in her
head. How could things be any worse? They were her friends. She had
known them since kindergarten when they had all been so afraid of
being away from their parents. Together, they had been thrust into
the greater world beyond.

Elena and
Mikalah.

The sisters had been a
packaged deal even way back then on that bright fall morning. She
remembered when all the new students (and their parents) of
Yorkdale Elementary had gathered in the small auditorium for
orientation. She had spied them from across the narrow isle between
benches just as narrow. She recalled feeling her nerves twist and
turn in her belly, wondering what was going to happen next. By the
way they looked; she knew the sisters felt the same. Each of them
had been sitting upon the laps of one of their parents. The skinny,
wide-eyed Elena perched upon her father’s knee. The round-faced
Mikalah sat sunk into the body of her mother as if she were trying
to melt away.

Marissa had peered around
the body of her mother at the two sisters. She had not known they
were sisters at the time, because they did not look alike - at all.
This was something she had always thought to herself. She had not
voiced the notion aloud when she had introduced them to others. It
was her opinion and she felt it should remain unsaid.

They were in fact sisters,
eleven months apart, but had different personalities and bearing as
well as looks. Plus, they were beyond loyal to one another. There
had always been no hesitation when it came to one of them fighting
the other’s battles.

If you picked on one, you
better be ready for the other to be up in your grill.
She smiled to herself.

Once the Herrera sisters
made friends, they were just as protective of their buddies as they
were of themselves. This was why Marissa had grown to like
them.

That first day in
Kindergarten had been hard on all the children. It had been a
nerve-wracking morning. Nothing was worse than the separation from
their parents after a short meeting with the officials of the
school. Some her classmates had protested with wails and screams as
if they’d been in agony when it came time for parents to leave.
This had not helped the more stoic children who were trying to put
on their bravest faces. She had been one such child. This had been
a challenge for her, especially with nearby kids howling at the top
of their lungs. She half-expected to see someone chopping off their
legs. Who would not feel those first vestiges of anxiety? Who would
not begin to feel their resolve begin to crumble? Those kids had
been crying for a reason, right? Marissa had felt unbidden tears
start to well at the corners of her eyes and had glanced around, on
the edge of feeling frantic. She had turned, hoping beyond hope to
catch that last glimpse of her mother.

She had not.

By then, they had herded
into a long, single-file line, trailing behind Mrs. Sato (her very
first teacher). At the time, she had already walked them through
one of the side doors. She had marched them to what would be their
classroom for the rest of the school year.

Marissa never got that
last look at her mother and remembered feeling a sense of dread
rise from within. She would have cried, right then, if it had not
been for a voice, though it was not directed at her.

“
You don’t have to cry
Mikalah. This is school, remember?” issued forth the tiny, singsong
tones of the five-year-old version of Elena. She dressed in a loose
fitting, powder-blue, polo shirt and a pair of darker, navy-colored
cotton shorts. For some strange reason, she walked upon the balls
of her feet.

Marissa smiled anew at the
memory. Elena had always walked on her toes like she was
negotiating a minefield.

Even back then, Elena was
indomitable, confident. The squeals and yelps of the ill-prepared
did not bother her in the least. Their cries seemed to tumble
passed her like so many leaves upon the wind.

That had been enough for
Marissa. That was all it took. She felt her own misgivings melt
away just as her eyes caught a hold of the kid to whom Elena had
been speaking.

Mikalah!

She looked even younger
than the other girl. A shy child, Mikalah had long, course and dark
hair about a tanned, if not squarish face. Now, it was set with
newfound determination that settled about the corners of her
eyes.

Marissa knew Elena’s words
had comforted the little girl in the same manner they had comforted
her.

“
The crying kids bother
me,” admitted the four-and-a-half-year-old version of Mikalah. She
peered back through her eyelashes.

“
Their parents didn’t
explain things to them, that’s all.” Elena’s reply was quick with a
nonchalant bunch of her shoulders.

“
Well… it’s still a pain,”
quipped Mikalah. Then, her eyes had darted toward Marissa,
realizing their conversation was being overheard.

Elena’s own eyes had
followed a split second later.

Marissa would have looked
away embarrassed, if Elena had not spoken.

“
Hi! My name is Elena.
What’s yours?”

Marissa, thinking they
were going to say something mean or rude, stared back for a few
heartbeats in a semi-state of shock. “Um… ah, my name is Marissa,”
she said through a strangled throat, not recovered in
full.