Lynn sat across from Cindi. He wore a hoody over starched jeans. His skateboard sneakers with flame decals were muddy, their color drained and muted. Even though they lacked the same intensity they may have once had straight off the conveyer belt, they still stood out in the musty room, dull rug, and cardboard boxes that he propped his feet on. He was clean shaven with long floppy hair. I wanted to tell him something. An uncomfortable observation, not exactly something he would want to hear. But that kind of knowledge might have been what we needed to hear the most.
I didn't know if he would come or not. Seeing as he did come, I couldn't help but become optimistic. He was interested in figuring this stuff out too; just like me, Cindi, and Dharia. Oh, and Raiden, to some extent.
Speaking of Raiden, I looked over at him to read his reaction. He didn't seem too interested in Lynn's appearance. He was distracted by Dreamweavers' escapades. Maybe I would have said something, but I also noticed a bandage over her eye. When I saw it, I started looking even closer and noticed a bunch of other Band-Aids and bruises he collected from that time at the lot. Guilt settled in. I made a mental note to thank him personally after we're done.
"Looking at the evidence that we currently possess, it appears as though the black box can impart supernatural abilities on certain people or there's a strong correlation between those who have an ability and its possession. Paradigm was after the box and Dharia was directly impacted by an AAD, a phenomenon that only recently came out of nowhere. Discovered shortly after we found the box and…activated it?" I couldn't think of a better word. It just seemed right. I was thinking back to when I felt some sort of power emitting from its tiny little frame, the static prickling my fingertips, the strange figure in the dark on the beach, my body's willpower drained as though a vampire had been clinging to my neck, sucking me dry. It was too connected. Too much of a coincidence to not be connected.
"'Phenomenon' is definitely a choice word for people blowing up for no reason," Lynn said. "It sounds like a viral internet challenge when you put it like that."
I said, "If Dharia and Paradigm both derived some sort of power from it, then there's the chance others have as well."
"Wait a minute," Cindi said. "Who said Paradigm ever had it? From what it sounds like, he's looking for whoever has it now, but that could mean we had gotten to it before he could. We don't know for sure if it was even his in the first place. Maybe it's someone else's'. There's no way for us to know for certain that it's his. He could be some government spy or cartel leader--or something."
It crossed my mind that he could be working for someone else, but it seemed as though he was taking things personally. He had some stakes in this. Of course that doesn't rule out a third party. In fact, I think that means there's even more evidence to suggest someone had put him up to it.
"That's the only explanation I had for why he had powers too. But I don't think it's entirely unsubstantiated," I said. "In the hospital, he knew me by name and even instructed Dharia to look for me. Suffice to say he knew I was a patient there and likely even knew whether or not I had woken up from my short coma. That's for certain. Maybe he was watching us that very night and we just didn't notice him. Or perhaps he has some way of accessing that kind of information on the fly. Dharia and I's room numbers, to be specific. He could even be someone with access to hospital records and administrative info."
"I think I would have noticed a creep like that watching us," Cindi said. "Sound's like something straight out of a horror movie."
"Like an alien," Raiden said. "Probing your mind an' shit." He pointed towards his temples and made an odd pincer-like gesture; An obvious imitation of his own lobotomy. "Or like, vampires. Werewolves?"
"Anyway," Cindi continued along. "I can't think of a more pressing excuse to bag this dude before he can come after you again."
"Easier said than done," Lynn said.
Cindi leaned forward to prop her elbows on her knees. "Any bright ideas then, Late Lynn?"
"'Late Lynn'?" He parroted.
I said, "We're lucky I have a friend on the inside. Earlier today I asked Dharia to investigate the hospital to gauge if any of its staff have any connections to our shared person of interest."
"When did you ask her that? During your midday nap ?" Raiden asked.
"It was Geometry, actually," I said with a hint of sarcasm. Raiden snorted.
"Have you heard from her?" Cindi asked. I shook my head. I took out my phone to check again. Still no sign from her. Dharia had personally gotten my phone number through Nurse Sharon seeing as she knew I'd be more likely to come back for Dr. Crowe's check ups if I had Dharia to remind me. I'll have to thank her later. Dr. Crowe, though. He had information on me that could definitely cause some concern if there was a mole at the hospital. For all I know he could be Paradigm.
That thought left a sour taste in my mouth. I felt like a snake, like I was trying to look for flaws in Dr. Crowe's words, a sign of his treacherous inclinations. If I kept going down this route of suspecting everyone around me, then eventually I wouldn't be able to trust anyone anymore.
I looked back at the three of them. Did I trust them? I thought I did. We spoke, strategized, joked as if I did trust them. But could I ever know for sure?
"Monty," Cindi said. She snapped her fingers. Hearing it, I turned to her and smiled.
"Sorry. I was just thinking." I never had to think about something like that before. If push came to shove, however, It's nothing I couldn't handle.
We ended up talking a little while longer. It was getting dark, so we decided to meet again in a few days. Winter break would hit us soon, then we'd have more time to investigate thoroughly.
We made our way through LAZER-US and said our goodbyes to Jerry. He ate his shawarma in bliss while he waved us out. I wondered if he had heard anything about the conversation at all. The shop was relatively empty. Just one or two people nearby. I could see the possibility of our voices carrying through the vents or something similar. Maybe I was being paranoid.
Jerry noticed me watching him and set down his food. He must have sensed how worried I was because he said, "Don't worry kid. Didn't hear a thing." He zipped his mouth close.
I smiled at him. "Thanks Jerry. You're a mind-reader." He winked and returned to his food in high spirits. I found some peace in that.
Outside we exchanged numbers and agreed to the time and place of our next meeting. After a quick sign off from Raiden, he split and left to return to the skate park, mentioning something about paying Divanshu a visit. We objected at first but he wouldn't listen. He really wasn't someone who got easily hung up on his own safety, or the fact that he was on a gang's watch list. Cindi told me as much herself. I just hoped they wouldn't be waiting for him there.
As we started walking back to our complex I said to Lynn, "There's a possibility that Brady may have absorbed some kind of power from the black box." How would he react to hearing his friend was also affected?
He continued to look forward, unmoved, like a marble statue. "That thought crossed my mind. He's so different now, like I don't even recognize him." Maybe he really was worried. Sometimes he was hard to read, though. "If he really was different now, I haven't noticed anything that stood out as supernatural."
"Maybe he's like Paradigm," Cindi said. "Like, he could have some kind of telepathic ability. Similar to Dharia."
"Dharia has dream powers," I said dryly.
"So? It's all in your head anyway."
"That's only if what you say about the black box is true," Lynn said. "I'm still not on board with the whole magical powers shit you guys seem perfectly content with believing. There's got to be an actual explanation for everything that's been going on."
Lynn rubbed his temple. "This shit is breaking my brain. Can we just stop talking about it?" He glanced behind. "Heads up. Don't stop but I think we're being followed."
"Where?" Cindi asked quietly. Followed?
"A car parked just down the street. It was waiting before I arrived too."
I didn't want to look and risk them knowing we were on to them. I kept looking forward. Trust. I choose to trust Lynn. I could count my heartbeats.
"How can you tell they're tailing us?" Cindi asked.
"Two figures in the front seat," he said. "They haven't moved an inch since."
"Hardly a reason to suspect them."
"Do you want to be the one to walk up and ask?"
"Hell no."
I suggested, "Maybe we should call the cops?" Cindi seemed skeptical. Lynn shook his head.
"Hell no," he said. "I doubt they'd be any help."
"Come on, you just don't like cops," I said poignantly.
"Exactly," he said. "Hate 'em. They're slow, useless, and more likely to arrest us than our actual perp'."
We began to cross the street. As we stepped onto the curb the car suddenly turned on. Its engine roared to life. I tried not to panic, even if the nerves in my legs were jumping at the chance to run. Lynn remained calm, composed. Cindi, on the other hand, jumped like me, kinda skittish. She glanced from Lynn to me and back to the car.
"Get ready to bolt," Lynn whispered. "I'll give the signal and you two jump the fence, I'll start running." We stood at the precipice of an alleyway. At the end of it a chainlinked fence blocked off the street from a series of residential apartments.
"What? Are you crazy?" Cindi whispered back.
"Where?" I asked. "Where would you go?"
He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Away from here. I can't risk leading him back to the complex." He sucked in air through his teeth and cursed under his breath. "What a fucking mess."
The car began rolling forward and almost immediately Lynn shouted, "Signal!" Cindi and I bolted, just as he instructed, down towards the end of the alley. Lynn sprinted forward down the street. I could only hope that they'd tail him and not me.
Cindi glanced back towards the entrance of the alley and cursed. One guy stepped out of the car's backseat. He watched us as his partner slammed down on the pedal and drove off, to presumably chase down Lynn while his buddy dealt with us. We were close now to the fence as he started shouting. If he thought he could deal with us alone, he's surely mistaken. He brandished a wooden baseball bat splintering at the end, as if he only just tested it on something. Even then, as he taunted us with the chunk of wood, I knew we'd dealt with worse.
A hint of light reflected in the dark alley caught my eye. I leaned down to pick up a smooth glass bottle and tossed it at the assailant. I missed and it shattered on the wall next to his head. He ducked down to protect his head with his hands, giving us enough time to climb and jump the fence. He shouted as he rattled the chain fence, watching us escape.
We ran down the back alley street passing by vans and back doors to apartments and shops. We heard the clanging metal of the chainlinked fence as our pursuer climbed it. The sound sent a chill through my spine. It sounded like a dog straining against its chain leash.
"Where do we go?" I asked.
"Anywhere but here," she answered. I followed her around the corner.
Behind us, a belligerent and exasperated voice shouted out at us. A rush of blood pumped through my veins. Adrenaline blurred my vision. We ran, zipping through the alleys and past trash bins and over strewn debris. Everything flew past me in a blurry mess. We ended up at an empty canal separating south Easton from the inner city. Across the gray expanse, safety wavered just beyond our grasp.
"Follow me," she said. She jumped down the slant and began running to the bottom. I followed after her. "Keep up the momentum." When we reached the other side and started up the ramp, a figure emerged from the shadows at the top. A mean face with bone-white teeth, almost animalistic. His jacket sprouted a tuft of fur, like a starving lion's mane.
"Nope, nope, nope," Cindi said. She turned to the canal length and sprinted down towards the south. She nearly ran into me on her way down. The man up top glowered down on us with prideful, sharp eyes. Eyes that said, "There's no escape from me. Run!" A smile parted his scowl, twisting it into something cruel, beastly.
Keeping up with Cindi was no small task, I had a fair amount of endurance, though strength had never been my strong suit, even on a good day. She was on another level. All that baseball training really did a number on her speed. I barely kept up with her. That man, however, was even faster.
We barely heard him as he sprinted across the canal. His feet picked up dust and loose gravel, like a truck driving over a dirt road. He lunged, and for a second I almost thought he was a dog chasing us.
"What's the hold up?" he taunted. "Just looking to have a chat with you kids." We were coming up to a bend in the canal, but if we didn't try anything, we would be trapped. I looked back for just a second and noticed the pursuer from before chasing several blocks back, and even closer was the dog-man with the odd jacket. Even the guy from before was hesitant to follow.
"Why don't you fuck off?" Cindi shouted at him.
"Gladly," he said, still chasing but so much closer now. He was practically on top of us.
We reached the edge of the canal and began to turn the corner when something hard slammed into the back of me. I collapsed into the grime and rubble, where a small puddle of water caught my fall. Ahead of me Cindi stopped in her tracks and swung around.
I looked up. Above me stood one ugly motherfucker. And I meant real ugly. A snarling, unshaven man in his mid twenties. Hair ran up the length of his bare arms. I thought I was staring at the wolf-man for a second, as if he jumped right off the screen, ready to kill the unnamed teens in a cheesy horror flick.
"Caught up to you too, didn't I?" he said, huffing. "I got to hand it to you. You almost gave me the slip. Almost."
Cindi looked ahead of us, around the bend, and saw the canal intersecting with a sewer line. A metal wall rose to a street crossing the ravine. Streetlights blinked to life. It was quiet. There were less cars around here.
My leg twisted in pain. He stepped on it lightly at first. Then, he began to apply some pressure and cruelly twisted my ankle into an unnatural direction. I hissed in pain. It was like twisting a towel. I tried to endure the torture, but I could hardly withstand it without sucking in my breath to take my mind off of my knee digging into the concrete. Panic settled in again. Am I really going to die here?
Cindi looked at me, my face nearly inches from a puddle of water, mud, cheeks pocked with loose gravel. It couldn't have been a nice sight because she winced. She looked back at the edge of the canal and saw an exit, high up on the slope, where an intersection glowed in the evening dimness like an airport runway. She thought about it; leaving me there. I wouldn't blame her. I might have thought the same too. I might have actually ran. I thanked whoever above that she looked back and straightened her shoulders. She never seemed taller. Though, that could have been because my face was getting a grainy, wet kiss.
"We got a stray on our hands, huh Monty," she said. Her voice shimmered, as if on the verge of cracking. "We already called the cops. Get lost."
"Stray?" he mocked. "Funny. I thought I was chasing a couple of pups myself." He pushed down on my leg and the twist buried me deeper into the ground. Someone was getting closer. I heard footsteps along the canal's embankment. "Id the cops are coming we'll have to deal with the two of you quickly then." It was a bluff. It won't work though.
"Mauler!" the voice shouted. It was the guy chasing us. "The boss wanted us to follow them." He leaned over to catch his breath.
The guy he called "Mauler" growled. Or attempted the equivalent of one. It came out more like a grueling choke than anything intimidating. "Catch up with the others. Let them know we're here," he ordered. The guy ran off, tail between his legs and eager to get out of this guy's radar.
"Are you gonna keep barking or are you gonna bite?" Cindi taunted. It may have been cold out, especially so close to winter break, but Cindi shook like she was braving the arctic. Then, I felt it again. Static. The ground hummed with static.