Bloom Page 7

  Haven was halfway to the cafeteria door when a powerful heat blossomed on the back of her neck and ran down her spine. It spread outward, stretching to every part of her body. The blushing warmth in her face paled in comparison to the boiling heat that coursed beneath her skin. Arms, legs, torso, and head—every part of her felt like it was burning. She stopped walking and looked down at herself to make sure she was not actually on fire.

  “Hey, what’s wrong with her?” someone said from a nearby table.

  Haven tried to run, but her legs wouldn’t move. She tried to call for help but her voice caught in her throat.

  She looked down in horror as a bright blue ball of light formed around her right hand.

  Not here, she thought. Not now.

  Another sphere of light grew from the palm of her other hand until it completely encompassed her wrist and fingers. It looked as if she had stuck her hands into two large balls of blue light. Haven tried to run again, then realized that her feet weren’t touching the ground. She floated into the air and hovered next to a table, still rising toward the ceiling.

  The students in the cafeteria screamed and backed away. Several of them held up food trays for protection.

  The blue light from Haven’s hands turned to flames and spread to cover her entire body, like fire crawling over gasoline-soaked wood. She felt a tingling sensation on each of her shoulder blades and looked behind her as two huge wings of blue energy unfolded from her back. The tips of the wings touched the ceiling and burned black holes into its smooth surface.

  In the shiny plastic reflection on the bottom of the food trays that were being held up for protection, Haven saw a blue angel hovering above the tables of the cafeteria. Her hair floated around her head as if she were submerged in calm water.

  Her vision filled with light and she reached up to feel the energy pulsing from her eyes. The flames covering her body cracked like lightning and whipped back and forth violently—a thousand dancing snakes made of blue fire.

  Haven’s back arched and she screamed. A flat circle of blue energy shot out from the middle of her body. Nearby students dove to the ground as the ring expanded and passed overhead. It shattered every window in the room and burned into the walls, leaving behind a black strip that ran completely around the inside walls of the cafeteria.

  By that point the students no longer cared to see what happened next. They pushed each other out of the way in a mad scramble to leave the cafeteria.

  The blue energy faded from Haven’s vision. Darkness clouded her sight and she felt weak. Her body dropped from the air and fell to the hard ground. She looked up at the ceiling until the world around her faded to black.

  14

  Colton sat with Reece in the back of a dark SUV and fidgeted nervously with the window controls.

  “I still don’t get why they won’t let us roll the windows down,” he said.

  “Who cares?” said Reece. He settled into his plush leather seat and leaned it as far back as it would go, then folded his arms behind his head and kicked off his shoes. “Stop worrying. I trust the man completely.”

  Alistair was with the driver in the front of the SUV behind a partition of black glass that separated the cab from the rest of the vehicle. Colton hadn’t been introduced to the driver; he and Reece were ushered into the SUV as soon as they walked out of the abandoned building.

  He had no clue where they were at that moment, and Alistair hadn’t spoken to them in over an hour. Colton flicked the window switch and sank back into his seat.

  The rear section of the SUV had been made up to look more like a limousine than an off-road vehicle. A bench lined the very back and two swiveling leather recliners took up the remaining space. There were two LCD screens mounted into the paneling, one on each side of the driver’s glass partition, but neither Colton nor Reece had been able to figure out how to turn them on.

  Reece fell asleep shortly after that, leaving Colton to wonder if he had made the right choice in leaving everything behind. He owned a dresser full of clothes and a few odds and ends, but nothing that he felt genuinely distressed about walking away from. He would have liked to tell his boss he was going away, but figured that he might be back in only a day or two if Alistair’s little adventure turned out to be a bust.

  An hour later, the SUV slowed to a stop. Colton reached over and punched Reece in the shoulder until he woke up. The front passenger door opened, then closed. Footsteps crunched on loose gravel toward the back of the SUV, then one of the side doors opened and blinding morning sunlight poured into the vehicle.

  Alistair smiled at them. “We’re here.”

  Colton got out of the car with shaky legs. He stretched to loosen his muscles and cracked his back. They had parked in the middle of a huge empty lot that was paved with black concrete and painted with bright yellow lines.

  Reece hopped down out of the SUV and whistled. “Is that yours?” he asked.

  Colton turned around and shielded his eyes from the sun. A small two-engine jet was waiting a hundred feet away. Heat fog drifted out from its still-running engines, distorting the grassy field behind it that stretched away into the distance. The runway was in the middle of nowhere, from what Colton could tell. There were no buildings nor any other signs of civilization.

  “Not mine,” said Alistair. “A little too flashy for my taste. But the owner would very much like to meet you, Mr. Ross, and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” He gestured them toward the plane.

  “Listen,” said Colton as they walked across the pavement. “I’m gonna need some clothes, or something, and a shower. And sleep, eventually.”

  “Understandable,” said Alistair, nodding sincerely. “Very soon, Mr. Ross. I promise. First you must meet the man behind the money which severed your chains and set you free.”

  Colton looked at him hesitantly.

  Alistair smiled. “A little dramatic, I know. Forgive me. Old habits, you know.” He gestured up the stairs that led into the plane. “Please.”

  Reece hurried past and disappeared into the plane. Colton followed after him.

  “Wow,” said Reece.

  If the inside of the SUV was a limo, then the inside of the jet was a palace. White leather lined all of the walls, seats, inlays, and cup holders. White pinpoints of lights traced the aisle to the back of the plane, where they climbed up onto the back wall and were fashioned into a complex geometric pattern.

  There was only one seat per row on either side of the aisle, and they were so luxuriant that they put the impressive chairs in the SUV to shame. A small black table with a sleek LCD screen set into its surface was bolted to the floor next to each chair.

  Only one seat on the entire plane was occupied. Halfway down, a clean-cut man sat staring at them. Colton thought he was around fifty years old, but as Alistair ushered him closer, he saw that the man could not have been much more than thirty-five at the oldest. Colton couldn’t tell where he was from; the man’s face seemed to contain elements from three or four different ethnicities, depending on how the light was hitting him.

  “Please, have a seat,” said the man. His voice also belied his origins; it flowed easily with the fused inflections of many different languages. The chair in front of him was already turned around to face backward, so Colton sat down.

  Reece sat in the chair across the aisle.

  The door closed and the engines whined powerfully as the jet coasted across the pavement.

  “You must be thirsty,” said the man, turning to Reece. “Alistair, something to drink for Mr. Ross’s friend.”

  “Thank you,” said Reece. “This is a great plane you have here.”

  The man smiled. Alistair returned promptly and handed Reece a clear glass with clear liquid within. Ice cubes clinked against the glass as Reece raised it up.

  “Cheers,” he said, and drank. “Hey, that’s pretty good. What is it? I’m not sure I—I—”

  His eyes rolled back into his head and his body slumped down. Alistair to
ok the drink from Reece’s hand before he could drop it and eased him into the chair. He pulled the seat belt across Reece’s lap and snapped it into the buckle on the other side, then spun the chair around to face away from Colton and the other man.

  “Hey!” said Colton, standing up.

  “It’s alright, Mr. Ross,” said the man in the chair. “He is simply resting. He will wake up in several hours, feeling much better than he was before. I promise.”

  Colton looked down the plane toward the door. The ground outside was already moving too quickly for him to jump. He would also have to leave Reece behind, and that wasn’t going to happen.

  The man in the chair cleared his throat. “I need to speak with you about some things that are best not discussed with…well, with those who might not fully understand.”

  “You friend does talk an awful lot,” said Alistair.

  “Thank you, Alistair,” said the man in the chair.

  Alistair smiled and nodded at Colton, then walked to the front of the plane and closed a partition behind him.

  “My name is Bernam,” said the man. “Alistair and the driver—even the pilot—work for me.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Colton. He slowly sat down in his chair but did not fully relax.

  Bernam smiled to show a row of perfect white teeth, just like Alistair’s. “Montana, as my associate told you earlier.”

  “Why?”

  The nose of the plane rose in the air and Colton leaned back into his seat to keep from falling forward. He looked outside through one of the round windows lining the cabin and watched the ground drop away quickly.

  “We are persecuted for our abilities, Colton, just like everyone else who is branded as ‘different’ by conventional society.”

  Colton looked at him. “So you have it, too?”

  Bernam pressed a black button set into the panel next to his seat. “Charles, no need to panic.”

  He released the button and a moment later the voice of the pilot spoke from speakers embedded in every headrest of each chair in the plane: “Yes, sir.”

  Bernam placed his palm against a strip of lights running along the wall next to his seat. Colton looked around, but nothing happened. Bernam smiled.

  A low hum built throughout the cabin, seeming to come from every surface in the plane. All of the lights dimmed and almost blinked out. The plane’s jet engines whined and struggled to operate. The cabin shook as the plane dropped a few feet in the air.

  Bernam removed his hand from the wall and all of the lights instantly brightened. The engines powered up to full capacity and the plane leveled itself and continued on its way as if nothing had ever happened.

  “What…” said Colton, staring dumbfounded. “I can’t do anything like that.”

  Bernam chuckled. “Not yet, no. But we are the same, Colton. Our ‘gift’—for lack of a better word—is what makes us special, what sets us apart from the rest of the world. Would you like something to eat?”

  “What?” Colton was thrown off by the sudden change in subject.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No. I mean yes, but I’m fine.”

  “Very well. I’ll keep going then, shall I?”

  Colton nodded.

  “You are a Conduit. A channeler, as I am. You take the energy around you and harness it to your whim, focusing it onto a target of your choosing.”

  “Like the apple.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Nothing. It’s not important.”

  “You can store this energy inside of you without unleashing it, but not for long. With training, the strongest of us can contain it for half a minute at the most.”

  Colton didn’t want to tell Bernam that he could hold on to the energy from an apple for half an hour, if not longer.

  “What happens if you don’t release it?”

  “It has to go somewhere,” said Bernam. “It’s like lightning in that sense, you see. If the energy is not redistributed in time, it will take the easiest way out—through your nervous system, internal organs, and anything else blocking its way to freedom.”

  Colton swallowed hard.

  “But don’t worry about that,” said Bernam. “That’s what the training is for. Your limits will be tested and you will know exactly how much you can handle at one time.”

  Colton nodded. “So, are you some kind of a leader?”

  Bernam laughed. “Not at all. I am a businessman with a vested interest in your future. Yours and everyone who is like you.”

  “How many are there? Like us, I mean,” said Colton.

  “Not nearly enough. And with the constant fighting it’s a wonder there are any left at all.”

  “Who are you fighting?”

  “Ourselves. Every Conduit needs a Source—someone to supply the energy that will be used. A Source has the ability to create their own energy. The most powerful Source can harness something called Phoenix energy—a label whose meaning will be made obvious to you in time. There are far fewer Sources than there Conduits, making them somewhat of a rare breed among rare breeds. The main issue is that there are those who would rather keep their abilities to themselves and use them to hurt the innocent.”

  “Is that why you’re fighting them?”

  Bernam scoffed. “One of many reasons. They have joined together to kidnap unprotected Sources and Cons for cruel experimentation. You are lucky that I found you before they did.”

  15

  Haven opened her eyes and blinked against the harsh white light coming from the ceiling. It flooded her vision and stabbed into her brain like a dull knife. She tried to hold up her arm to block the light but was unable to lift it from the hard surface on which she lay.

  She squinted down at her body as the room started to come into focus. She was on her back atop a hard metal table and her arms and legs were pinned down with thick plastic straps wrapped around her wrists and ankles. She wore a loose, blue cotton shirt and matching pants, much like the scrubs her mother would wear to work at the hospital. Thin wires ran out of a hole in the floor and up to the table. The multicolored wires burrowed into the backs of her hands and the skin of her arms all the way up to her shoulders.

  Haven tried to scream for help, but a thick plastic strip ran over her mouth, sealing it closed. She struggled violently to break free from her bindings, thrashing back and forth on the table and pounding her arms and legs against the metal.

  Her vision started to go black as the pain in her head worsened. She closed her eyes and stopped moving as she fought a wave of dizziness that swirled inside her head as if she were on a violent rollercoaster. Haven tilted her head to let her wild hair fall to the side, then slowly opened her eyes and looked around the room.

  The glaring light in the ceiling emanated from a single, round fixture which hung down like some bizarre chandelier. It had a square outline but a domed top and the element was covered with a thin metal mesh, like a cage.

  The table upon which Haven lay was the only piece of furniture in the room. It was a single metal slab supported by four square metal legs that were bolted into the hard polished floor. The walls were dull white—the same as the ceiling—with no decoration of any kind. The only window was a small square of tinted glass set into the tall metal door in the wall past her feet.

  She waited for what seemed like hours, drifting in and out of consciousness between fits of struggling. Every time she tried to escape, her body became weaker and weaker, until eventually the only thing she could do was lay on the table, breathing in quick gasps like a caged, frightened animal.

  Later that day—or that week, or month; she had no way of knowing—they came for her.

  The door opened slowly, hissing loudly on pneumatic pistons. She strained against her bindings to raise her head and look. The wires in her arms pulled painfully at her skin when she tried to sit up. As the door swung farther on its hinges, she saw that it was incredibly thick—at least a foot of solid metal from front to back, with two massive
, rectangular sliding bolts in the center.

  The door hit the inside wall with a deep, ominous thoooommmm, and two men wearing full-body protective suits walked into the room. The suits were made of white, flimsy plastic and encased their bodies from head to toe. Tinted face shields kept Haven from seeing who they were.

  One of the men walked over to the table and knelt down by the wires that ran up from the floor. The other stood next to Haven and pulled the wires out of her arms, one at a time. Each time he pulled one out, he left behind a tiny bead of rising blood. The man under the table was feeding the wires into the floor as his partner removed them from Haven’s skin.

  When all the wires had been yanked from her arms and hands, the men left the room. The door remained open, and Haven would have tried once more to escape her bindings if only she weren’t so weak. She rested her head back on the table as tears ran from the outside corners of her eyes.

  The sound of wheels rolling across the floor echoed through the open doorway. It grew louder until the men reappeared, pushing a cart that looked like a smaller version of the table in the room.

  They worked quickly, unstrapping her left leg and securing it to the moveable table before unstrapping her right leg. They freed both of her arms and shifted her body onto the cart. She made muffled noises through the plastic strip covering her mouth as she tried to ask them what they were going to do to her. Her eyes blinked slowly as she fought to stay awake. The dizziness returned and her eyelids fluttered rapidly.

  After they got her settled onto the cart, the men slipped her hands through the new plastic bindings and tightened them around her wrists. Haven lifted her head, but one of the men placed his hand on it and gently pushed it back down to the table.

  They wheeled the cart out through the doorway and down a long, bright hallway. Tall metal doors—just like the one leading to her room—lined both sides of the hall. Haven couldn’t see past the tinted windows to find out what was inside.