Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (4 page)

“
Marissa, that’s a pretty
name,” said Mikalah with a big smile lighting up her eyes, making
them sparkle. “I’m Mikalah, Elena’s sister.”

And that had been the
lynch-pin releasing all the tension. They had immediately struck up
a conversation. They talked, excited about this and the other thing
- family, brothers, sisters and parents. They had even conversed
over their worlds up to that point in their young lives. They
continued gabbing until they had reached the threshold of their
classroom where Mrs. Sato had stopped. There, she had spun upon one
of her practical heels. She began to outline the various rules of
behavior and conduct that were to be enforced throughout the school
year. They had grinned at one another throughout the entire
lecture.

From then on, the three of
them had been inseparable. They made many friends. All three were
equal in popularity, rising in time through the social ranks of the
student body at Yorkdale Elementary. The core of their group had
always been the three of them. Whether they were in different
classrooms or not, they remained close. Wherever they could, they
crossed each other’s paths and made sure each of them was included
in whatever was happening. When they got older, they learned more
about the world around them. The first phone calls they’d ever
placed were among themselves. For the most part, they did so to
verify some detail of their homework. Over time though, those calls
became more personal and less motivated by academics. They shared
more about themselves than they did with anyone else, maybe even
more than they did with their parents. As the years passed, Marissa
began to feel like her two true friends were more like sisters to
her than a pair of kids she went to school with.

And now… everything was
wrong.

Something had come in the
night, smashed up their grandmother’s backyard and had taken them
against their will. Something bad had them and had taken them to a
secret place. Something -.

“
Mari! Mari! Mari! Look
how fast I can run!” quailed her young brother as he jumped up and
down before the TV, blocking the view on purpose.

Behind him, Marissa just
hear,
“…still the police have no clue of
the motive behind the disappearance of the children. These are kids
who range in age from seventeen on down to the wee age of little
Mikalah Herrera who is due to turn eight in the middle of
November…”

She glanced up at
Sebastian, who was still hopping upon the tips of his toes. “Get
out of the way! I’m trying to watch TV,” she commanded. Her voice
sounded strained, with a higher pitch than normal.

The moment Sebastian
realized she had taken notice of him; he stopped jumping at once
and streaked to left. It was a wild attempt to show her how fast he
could run in the new sneakers their mother had purchased for him
the night before. He did not get far though. Instead, he ran into
the front end of the love seat, standing to the left of where
Marissa was sitting. He caught it with his torso at just the right
angle. He bounced off the cushioned seat and into the end table
beside it. The lamp atop the table teetered. About to topple over,
Marissa had to leap up from the couch to steady it before it did
just that and broke all over the front room.

“
Sebastian, calm down, you
jerk-o! You almost broke the lamp!” she admonished the boy, who was
clutching at his side where he had hit the edge of the table,
yelping with a pitiful mewl at her feet.

“
Marissa what’s going on
out there?!” hollered her mother from down the short hall leading
to the kitchen beyond. “You guys better not break
anything!”

“
You see, Sebastian!
You’re going to get us both in trouble! Now, calm down!”

Sebastian whimpered a few
more times as he regained his feet. Then, he stuck his tongue at
her. The pain he had been feeling only moments before evaporated
before her eyes. He bounded around the furniture and down the hall
toward their mother, who was making their lunch.

Great, now the little
booger is going to make up some lie and make mom mad at
me.

She huffed with the
frustration only an older sister had to bear. Hers was the
insufferable misery of having a hyperactive and younger sibling.
She made her way back to the couch and sat down, worn
out.

Why can’t I have a normal
brother? Why does he have to be so crazy?

“
I thought I told you to
stop watching the news,” came a voice out of nowhere.

“
Oh god, mom, you scared
me!” burst Marissa as she whipped her head around to see her mother
and her brother standing in the entryway to the front
room.

Her mother only arched her
eyebrows.

Marissa whined. “Buuuut,
mom, they’re my friends. I’m worried about them…”

Her mother’s faced
softened. “I know, honey. That’s why I don’t want you spending all
your free time obsessing over it. Go out and play. Or, play a video
game or watch some cartoons. But for now, no more CNN or MSNBC or
whatever the heck it is you’re watching.”

“
K-CAL 9 news,” muttered
the young girl without thinking, tears began to come forth. She
wiped her eyes quick, so they did not fall. Tears that did not fall
were not real tears, which meant she was not crying.

Her mother walked into the
room, around the couch to the coffee table in front of it. She
grabbed the all-purpose remote, inputting the three-digit channel
number for the Cartoon Network.

Marissa watched
crestfallen as the TV displayed the ridiculous yellow face of
Sponge Bob Square Pants. He was arguing with Squidward over some
mundane topic she did not care to witness again. She had seen so
much of Sponge Bob; she figured she had seen every episode at least
twice. Some of them, she had seen more than five times and had
still enjoyed them. But now… she had no interest in the idiotic
antics of those underwater weirdoes.

She wiped at her face
again, telling herself she was not crying, but could not help the
hollow sensation in the pit of her gut. A knot of uneasiness had
been bothering her ever since she had found out her two best
friends had been kidnapped. It would not go away. No matter how
hard she tried to ignore it, it remained. She could not get the
idea her friends were in grave danger out of her mind. That was why
she felt compelled to watch the news, to try to find out every new
shred of information as it came out. That way she would know. That
way she could begin to understand why this was
happening.

Why had they taken her
friends, their brother and their brother’s friend?

At least, that’s what the
TV Lady had said. She mentioned something about a boy named, Andrew
Ibarra. He was a childhood friend of Anthony’s, Elena and Mikalah’s
brother. The woman with the over-styled hair and big, white teeth
had said. She said terrorists had set a small bomb underneath the
front porch of Andrew’s house. They had detonated it to get entry
into the domicile. The entire front end of the house had blasted
away. The front door was pulverized. Andrew’s father had been blown
to bits in the process, only a few stains of blood was all that
remained of him. Then, the assailants had stormed into the house
and took Andrew. Or so the police surmised. Nothing else was
disturbed. The boy’s younger siblings or his grandmother, who had
been watching TV in one of the back rooms the entire time, were
left alone. They had killed the father and took Andrew, and were
gone within minutes, disappeared without a trace.

Why did they take my
friends?
she thought, feeling pathetic,
The pit of her stomach flipped, then flopped.

“
Marissa, my dear, are you
ok?”

They are such sweet girls.
Why would anyone want to hurt them?

“
Marissa, are you
listening to me?”

What am I going to
do?

“
Marissa Marie Avalon,
answer your mother now!”

Surprised, she realized
her mother had been talking to her. The noise she’d been hearing
was not coming from the television. She peered up at her mother.
Everything was blurry, because of the tears marring her
vision.

“
Huh?” she wondered, tone
faint.

Her mother tossed the
remote on the couch. She made for her in a rush, grabbing her by
both shoulders, forcing the girl to look her in the eyes. “Marissa,
are you ok?”

The little girl stared
back. Her throat constricted, choking off her response, though she
wanted to tell her mother she was ok, that she was not crying. She
was unable.

Her mother’s brow creased
with concern. She embraced her, hugging her in a fierce clutch, one
of her hands reaching up to cup the entire back of Marissa’s skull
within her palm. “I’m so sorry about your friends, Mari. I am. I
truly am, because I know how close you were to Elena and Mikalah. I
know how much they’ve come to mean to you over the years. I know.
That’s why I want you to take a break from everything going on
right now. I want you to relax for a bit. Ok? Take it easy.
Ok?

“
Marissa can you do that
for me?” asked her mother into her ear, still stroking her
head.

Take it easy?!? Really?
When someone bad is hurting my friends, you want me to take it
easy?

They were thoughts coming
before she had the time to suppress them. They splashed across her
consciousness before she could process them. The import of those
errant tendrils caused her to react as if her mother had turned
into Freddy Kruger. She shoved herself from her mother’s embrace
and scooted across the coffee table to stand before the
LCD-TV.

“
What are you talking
about?!?” she raged.

Marissa’s mother was
shocked by her daughter’s vehement reaction. She looked as though
she was about to get angry, but caught herself at the last instant.
She realized there was something more important happening. Her
daughter was hurting inside. This made all else matter little.
“What would you like to do then, Mari? Watch the TV all night and
work yourself into a frenzy with worry over your friends? How is
that going to help the situation?”

Marissa frowned at that.
“I don’t know, ok! But, at least I will know…” She had started with
moxie, but lost it when her insides flip-flopped once again.
“I
have
to
know…”

Her mother sighed,
resigned. “Fine,” was all she said and walked out of the room. She
did not head back into the kitchen, though. Instead, she made her
way out through the other portal leading from the living area. She
was heading toward the bathroom, or maybe the bedroom she shared
with Marissa’s father. She had her forehead in her hands. Was she
crying?

Marissa felt her heart
lurch.

“
Is everything ok, Mari?”
asked Sebastian from the kitchen doorway.

Marissa glanced over at
him with weary eyes. Of a sudden, she was exhausted. “I hope so,”
she muttered, grabbing for the remote her mother had left
behind.

Her brother seemed to
wilt. His former enthusiasm leaked from him like water through a
sieve.

The nine-year-old felt her
chest constrict for a second time in the same minute. Her mother
was one thing, but Sebastian was altogether something else. She
could not abide any sorrow emanating from him.

“
Why don’t you show me how
fast your new shoes make you run,” she cajoled as she changed the
channel back to the news.

Sebastian perked-up at
once and came skipping into the front room. He made for the
threshold her mother had disappeared through.

Marissa shook her head in
resignation, knowing her hyper-active sib was planning to run
across the entire room.

It shocked her to the
quick when Sebastian reached his destination. He made ready to hurl
himself across the chamber and did what she had least expected.
Instead of running, he screamed and pointed.

Thunderstruck, Marissa
followed the tip of her brother’s tiny finger without
thinking.

There, peering through the
second story window, next to the huge TV, was a man’s
face.

She had only a second to
try and understand how that could be possible. There was no fire
escape on that side of the building. There was no ladder. There was
nothing for him to stand on. And yet…

The momentary thought
passed. In the heartbeat following, she realized his face was
unlike anything she had ever seen before. She could tell it was
humanoid, though covered in long flowing robes of black.

She watched, mortified, as
his blue irises turned hazel, then navy, then slate. On an on, they
altered color. She felt a scream of her own fill her chest as the
man’s features melted from one set to another. Asian, Caucasian,
Hispanic, African-American, again and again, unstopping,
ever-changing.

Lips in a constant state
of flux, his smile was wicked. His face became female with big,
pouting lips and long blond hair. He puckered his lips at her,
giving her a long distance kiss.

She did scream
then.

And so did
Sebastian.

Seconds later, when her
mother came hurtling through the apartment, she found her brother
in a sodden heap upon the floor. The glass of the window strewn
every which way, there was no sign of Marissa. Only the remote and
small trace of blood upon the window seal remained.