CHAPTER FOUR
Once Adam and I are alone, I grab the plastic bag containing my clothes and lock myself in the small bathroom to change. One pair of black sweatpants, one oversized gray hoodie, one pair of clean socks, a set of under garments, and one pair of black Converse high tops. I change quickly, happy to be out of the hospital gown and even happier to be getting out of this place.
Dr. Roberts is waiting for me with my discharge papers when I come out. I’m still under eighteen so Adam signs the release. Dr. Roberts says something to Adam that I only half hear over my own sighs of relief to be leaving. I hate this place. It brings up way too many bad memories of watching my mom die.
Dad died instantly in the car accident. Mom didn’t. They brought her here where she held on for two days before succumbing to her injuries. After that I swore I’d never set foot in this place again. I guess fate had other plans though because here I stand in this ugly green room. At least I’m not on the same floor she was on because there is no way I could’ve handled that. I can’t even go in her room at home.
“Ready sis?”
“Absolutely.”
Adam twirls his keys around his finger as we get in the elevator. “Want to stop and get some lunch on the way home?” My stomach immediately responds to the word ‘lunch’ with a loud growl. Adam laughs then tugs on a strand of my blue streaked hair. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
On the way out the door I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass immediately wishing I hadn’t. I look horrible. My hair is a greasy mess and my eyes are puffy from lack of sleep. I can’t go into a restaurant looking like this. I pull my hood up. “Let’s make it take out.”
Wind cuts through the thin fabric of my hoodie and the sky overhead looks like it’s ready to spew rain at any moment. Hopefully not before Adam and I make it to his blue Ford pick-up, which happens to be parked all by its lonesome on the other side of the parking lot with the exception of one black motorcycle and its rider five spaces away. Just like the bike the rider is covered all in black; black helmet, black leather jacket, black jeans, black boots. His head turns in our direction. I can’t see his face, but I can feel him staring. The skin on the back of my neck prickles with a weird sensation of familiarity like I know him from somewhere.
Adam unlocks the doors to the truck and I tear my eyes away from Motorcycle Guy long enough to get in. I don’t really know anyone who drives a motorcycle and I can’t even see his face so I don’t know why he seems so familiar to me. I put my seatbelt on before peering back out the window. He’s still staring. Adam puts the truck in drive, pulling out of the parking space. In the rearview mirror I watch, as Motorcycle Guy grows smaller.
“So where do you want to eat?”
I’m still thinking about Motorcycle Guy so I only catch a few words of what Adam is saying. “What?”
“Food. Where do you want to go?”
My stomach growls loudly. I wrap my arms around it. “Any where’s fine with me. I can eat anything.”
“Sounds like it.”
A few minutes later we pull through the drive-thru of a locally owned burger joint. My mouth waters at the prospect of a juicy hamburger. I feel like I haven’t eaten in days and I guess I haven’t really. During my illustrious stay in the hospital I slept for four days straight and during the time I was awake I didn’t feel much like eating. There was just too much stuff weighing on my mind to think about food, but now that I’m out, my stomach is loudly reminding me that I’m starving.
Adam orders our food and pulls up to the pick-up window where I lean across my brother to snatch the bags from the burger girl before she even has a chance to say ‘thank you and come again’.
Adam chuckles then thanks the girl before we pull away. He pokes me in the ribs. “You’re like a feral dog over there. Didn’t they feed you in the hospital?”
I smack him playfully before handing him the bag containing his food. “I got to make up for those four days I was sleeping.”
I unwrap my hamburger, my stomach growling in anticipation when something black passes through my peripheral vision. My mind immediately goes back to the Motorcycle Guy and I find myself hoping that he’s there, but he’s not, and I think that I’m sad about that. Which is weird, because I don’t even know who he is, so I don’t know why I’d have any feelings about him at all. The smell of my hamburger fills my nostrils, making my stomach growl again. I push Motorcycle Guy along with my strange reactions to him to the back of my mind focusing on the delicious food in front of me instead.
I devour my burger and fries in about five minutes flat.
Adam flicks his eyes between the road and me, a slight smile playing at his mouth. His hamburger is hardly eaten and he hasn’t even touched any of his fries. “Did you even taste it or did you just swallow it whole before any flavors had time to register?”
“What? I was hungry.”
Laughing he holds up his fries. “Want some of mine?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
***
My room looks the same as it did when I left it Friday night. Book bag still propped against my desk chair, bed unmade, dirty clothes on the floor, stacks of paintings in the corner, homework undone. Maybe Mr. Green will give me an extension. A four daylong coma seems like a good excuse for not getting my English paper done on time.
I kick a pair of the many Chuck Taylor Converse I own under the bed as I straighten the covers. After they’re all nice and smoothed out I fall forward sprawling out on top of them. It feels so good to be home and in my own bed. Lying here I can pretend like my life is still normal. I can pretend that Blondie, his black eyes, and the boy he murdered don’t really exist. I can pretend that everything that happened—didn’t.
I lift my wrist up to my face where the pale blue symbol rests against my skin, a reminder that it did happen and that my life isn’t normal. Not anymore.
I heave myself up to pull out some clean clothes from my drawers then lock myself in my bathroom for a long overdue shower. Forgetting the outside world, I focus on the hot water beating down on my back letting it carry away all the tension in my neck down the drain. Once I’m squeaky-clean I quickly towel off then throw on some comfy flannel pajama pants pairing it with a matching tank top. With the palm of my hand I wipe away the condensation on the mirror. On the outside I still look like me; gray eyes, light blonde hair with dark blue streaks, full lips, but on the inside, I can feel myself changing. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I know it has something to do with the symbol on my wrist. I can feel it.
It shimmers as I stare at it, tempting me to touch it. My fingers hover inches away when I hear Adam call my name. I let out the breath I was holding and slip on my robe making sure to keep the symbol covered. When I open the door, I find him leaning against the doorjamb of my room tossing his cell up into the air and catching it as gravity pulls it back down.
“What’s up?”
“Catch.”
The phone sails through the air heading straight for my face. Time seems to slow and I become acutely aware of everything around me down to the tiniest detail. Adam’s eyes widen, his mouth pulling back into a grimace as the phone inches closer. Then the strangest thing happens. Instead of the phone hitting me like I was expecting it to, I sidestep in one swift motion plucking it out of the air.
I am the definition of uncoordinated. If a person were to look up the word in a dictionary, it wouldn’t be surprising to see my picture beside it. That phone should have hit me.
I look at my brother. His mouth hangs agape, his chin practically hitting the floor. Obviously my sudden ninja moves are just as surprising to him as they are to me.
“That was awesome.” A goofy smile plasters itself over his face as he looks at me with newfound interest. “You moved so fast. How did you do that?”
I don’t have an answer. Under normal circumstances I shouldn’t have been able to catch that phone. My whole life’s history is testimony to that. I have always been clumsy and accident-prone and now, now I’m suddenly like the character Jason Bourne.
What the hell is happening to me?
Adam is still staring and I still don’t have an answer. “I don’t know,” I finally say.
Adam looks around my room, his eyes landing on a bottle of purple nail polish. His stride is long and focused as he crosses to my dresser in three steps. He grabs the polish winding his arm back to pitch it. “Let’s try that again.”
“Let’s not.”
“Fine.” He sticks out his bottom lip pouting as he puts the nail polish back on the dresser. “You’re no fun.”
“What did you want anyway?” I ask, reminding him of why he came to my room in the first place.
He stares at me a moment, his eyebrows gathering as he thinks. I hold up the phone pointing at it to help speed up his memory. “Oh, yeah. Kat and Jared keep texting my phone every five minutes for you.”
I scroll through the messages. There are at least twenty from Kat and another ten from Jared asking if I’m ok. I send a quick text back to the both of them letting them know that I’m fine and that they don’t have to worry.
“Catch.” I toss the phone back to Adam.
It hits the tip of his fingers and falls to the floor. With a grunt he bends over to pick it up. “Guess I don’t have your ninja abilities.” He smiles impishly as he pockets the phone.
After Adam goes back downstairs, I flop on my bed re-examining the symbol. Since its arrival I’ve had some sort of strange vision with glowing lights, the ability to rapidly heal, and now super reflexes. I have to find out what it means and why it’s happening to me.
But where do I start? The only person I can think of to ask is the only person I can’t. Because he’s dead.
I move from my bed to sit down in front of my computer. Maybe I can find out about him online. See who his friends were or where his family lives. Maybe they’ll know something about what’s happening to me. But first I need to find out what his name is, so I start from the beginning typing in the clubs name: The Iron Knife. A news article is the first thing to pop up.
Tragic Death at The Iron Knife
By: Lorie Rhodes
Tragedy struck the peaceful little town of Lake Haven
Late Friday night when the body of 16-year-old
Samuel Ryan of Belbridge was discovered in the alley
Alongside the popular club The Iron Knife.
His name was Samuel. Sam. The very name I thought of in the hospital. How could I know that? I put my head between my knees closing my eyes in an attempt to stop the room from spinning. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Forcing myself to get a grip, I swallow it down. This is just one more thing to add to the list of weird things happening to me. I can handle it. I have to handle it if I’m going to figure out what’s going on.
I dare another glance at the screen feeling the panic rise back up. I stand with enough force that my desk chair topples over crashing to the floor. It hits hard with a loud thud and I jump despite myself. I was wrong. I can’t handle this. Knowing his name when I shouldn’t, crazy abilities, symbols that glow, visions, black eyes in the face of a monster that wants something from me, it’s too much.
It’s all just too much.
The walls start to spin, so fast I can’t see and I can’t focus. Not even the floor feels solid under my feet anymore. My world is fracturing at the seams and I’m helpless to stop it. Darkness seeps in around the edges of the room until it consumes me, and the ground below reaches up to drag me down.
I’m back in the alley. Everything is black and white having lost color except for the blood spreading out beneath the dark haired boy’s shirt—beneath Sam’s shirt. Blood covers the ground at his side, little tendrils branching out flowing toward my feet.
“What did you see Hanna?”
My body goes rigid at the sound of his voice. It’s a voice I’d hoped I’d never hear again. I slowly turn to face him silently hoping that he won’t really be there. Blondie leans casually against the colorless bricks of the building behind him. With his head bowed down his blonde hair shines as bright as the sun against the gray walls.
“What do you want from me?” I want to sound strong, defiant even, but it comes out as nothing more than a whisper. Moments pass before he lifts his head, a smile tugging at his lips.
“I want all kinds of things from you, Hanna.” His eyes are lowered, focused on the knife in his hands, and when he finally lifts them, they’re an icy blue. They’re almost beautiful and I hate myself for thinking it because I want to hate everything about him.
“Your eyes. They’re different.”
“You’re avoiding the question Hanna.” He pushes away from the wall. My heart jumps into my throat. I swallow trying to push it back down.
I back up. He moves closer. I step in something warm and wet. Holding my breath I look down. My feet are bare and surrounded by blood. “Oh, God.”
“God can’t help you Hanna.” Blondie stands in front of me now. My eyes dart side to side, my heart ready to burst. There’s nowhere to go.
“Please.” Tears fill my eyes, slightly blurring his features until they fall and I’m able to see him clearly again.
Blondie’s smile widens as he brings his hand to my face to wipe away my tears. “Tears won’t save you.” His fingers, oddly gentle, trace along my jaw before resting on my neck. Icy blue eyes meet mine. The dark circles of his pupils begin to dilate erasing the blue until only blackness remains. His hand no longer gentle squeezes around my throat until I’m gasping for air. The grin never leaves his face as he shoves me against the wall. The tips of his fingers on his free hand trail down my arm stopping at my wrist where he then grabs it forcibly. Jerking it up he shoves the symbol into my face. “I know he marked you and you will tell me what he showed you before The Order finds you.”
From the corner of my eye I see the lifeless body of Sam at my side. I don’t want to end up like him. My hand curls into a fist. Before I can think it through, I swing as hard as I can, punching Blondie in the side of the head. Stunned, his fingers loosen from around my neck allowing me to finally breathe.
Blondie stumbles back shaking his head. I start to run only to slip in all the blood. Falling into Sam’s lap his head dips forward, blood pouring from his mouth. The scream bursts out of me before I can stop it.
Regaining his senses Blondie looks down at me. His smile grows wider pulling his skin too tight. I scream again.
“Hanna! Hanna wake up!”
My eyes spring open, a face filling my vision. Blondie. Screams continue to rip their way out of my throat and I react violently shoving against his chest throwing him across the room. I stand only to trip over my own feet in my haste. Needing to get away I scoot myself backward until I hit the wall. With nowhere else to go I pull my knees tight to my chest.
“Wow. That hurt. Like a lot.” Jared’s face scrunches up in pain as he struggles to sit. “What did you have for breakfast? A bowl full of steroids?”
Only then, at the sound of his voice do I realize that it’s Jared I’d shoved and not Blondie. I’m in my room. There is no blood on my feet. And Blondie is not here.
“I’m s-sorry,” I manage to hiccup before I lose it, fully giving into the tears.
Jared sits down beside me then pulls me against his chest holding me as he rubs my back. “It’s okay,” he says, even though it’s really not. Nothing about any of this is okay.
We sit in silence for what seems like hours until I have no more tears left. “I think I’m done now.” I look up into his green eyes remembering how hard I’d hit him and how he flew across the room when I did. I lay my hand over his chest. “Are you okay?”
Jared smiles, kisses my forehead. “You’re the one who just spent,” he glances at the clock, “the last hour crying uncontrollably and you’re asking if I’m okay? Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“Well, it’s just that I hit you. Really hard.”
“I’m fine.” He studies my face. “But you’re not.” Gently he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear leaving his hand to rest against the side of my face. “You know you can always talk to me about anything.”
“I know.” But not today.
I pull away and he rubs at his chest as he picks himself up off the floor. “Where did you learn to hit so hard anyway? You knocked the air right out of my lungs.” After helping me up, he walks over to the full-length mirror beside my closet. He lifts his navy blue t-shirt revealing two huge handprints blooming across his chest in shades of blue and purple.
I slap my hand over my mouth at seeing what I’d done. Our eyes meet in the mirror. While mine are filled with horror, his look astonished and maybe even a bit impressed. He lowers his shirt then turns to face me, the dimple in his cheek deepening with his smile.
“Why are you smiling? Look at what I did to you.”
“Exactly. How did you do that?”
The question hangs in the air because honestly I don’t know. I have never hit like that. Maybe it was a rush of adrenaline because of the nightmare I was having. Or maybe it’s another side effect of the symbol.
Super strength?
I know I need to figure this out and get to the bottom of whatever’s happening to me, but right now, I just can’t. Right now, I just need to get away, clear my head, and forget the craziness for a while. Right now, I just want to be a normal seventeen-year-old girl and not some freak that left bruised handprints on her best friends chest.
I grab ahold of Jared’s hand dragging him towards the door. “Come on, let’s get out of here, go somewhere, get some air. Something.”
“I’m all for dressing comfy, but if you go out in your bathrobe people are going to talk.” He hooks a finger under the belt of my robe giving it a tug.
I look down at my bright pink robe covering the flannel pajamas underneath. “Give me five minutes,” I tell him, before shoving him out the door and into the hall.