Ashes (29 page)

Adam counted the number of bodies on the lawn. Five. Krane, Lamont, and three others were left alive. They were armed. He heard them cock their weapons. Swallowing hard, he turned his imagination on. The weapons all aimed at Krane.
No, not all.
Just one. Blinking, Adam pictured the other
three armed
soldiers lifting their pistols to their own heads. Fearlessly, they pulled their triggers. From behind the door, Adam and Emery listened for the gunshots.

“What just happened?” Emery asked, wincing slightly, no doubt afraid the bullets had been aimed at her.

“I controlled them,” he whispered.

Panic filled the two souls that remained. Adam heard Lamont's shock, waited for Krane's. It soon came. Cursing at one another, the two men drew back, exactly as Adam had decided.

“A diversion. That's right. Freak out. Only two left. This should be fun.”

The door finally opened with a whine. Adam was now able to stand on his own, or dared to. His side was stained red. His hands were encrusted black, and a deep pain swelled beneath his skin.

“What's he doin', Doc?” Lamont asked, the dip swishing between his gums. He couldn't keep still. He was being pulled toward Krane. Meanwhile, the doctor walked backwards, and neither stopped until they were drawn together in the middle of the road, Lamont in back, Krane in front. Adam knew they were bewildered. He looked over at Emery while he controlled the scene. Lamont screamed.

“He's compelling us, Jeb. Using his powers to make us do what he wa-w-wants. You won't get far, Adam, I pro-promise.”

The wind dragged through hair and jacket and fear. Cut down to the marrow. Snow littered their faces and the cars. The cold dropped from above and breathed over all of them.

“Was it like you remembered?” Krane asked. “Henry and I l-lef-left your home as it was when you stepped into your destiny. But this block was getting rather cr-c-crowded, don't you think?” A horrible cackle intensified the doctor's voice.

Adam exhaled, and as he did, he compelled Lamont to bring his weapon toward the doctor, simultaneously shifting Krane's body around. Face to face, they stared at one another.

“You can feel it, c-can-can't you?
The sharp stinging under your skin.
I used it to help me find you. To take you back to your real home.”

Adam ignored the doctor's threat. “Jeb hates your guts, Emanuel. Wonder if he wouldn't like to squeeze that trigger. It'd be quick and painless, isn't that what you always said?”

“Adam…” Emery began, stepping out of the shadow of the porch and into the icy, morning light.

Lamont swore in confusion and said, “Her face. It changed.”

“You did what I could not,” Krane said, almost defeated.

“You're not like us, Emanuel.”

“She's qu-qu-quite beautiful, but will she be strong enough to s-s-survive it all? The more time I spent with her, the more I began to realize how unique you are, son.”

“Don't call me that!”

“We've searched and studied and created. But you are
a
m-marv-marvel, Adam. You are pure.”

“And you made me a monster! You used me. You promised me the world, but you took my life away from me! I was just your experiment! But I won't be your puppet anymore.”

“You were never a puppet. You are so much more, to me. You were meant to f-f-fix this world. It is the future we all want. A per-p-p-perfect world.”

“One for you and your sick species to rule,” Adam seethed.

“If I am strong enough.”

“None of you could ever be strong enough. I am the most powerful being on this miserable planet, you weak insect!”

“Then m-ma-make us like you. Fix us. Return. We will r-run-run the trials again. We will make humanity complete. Your blood can save us.”

“Like it saved Frances? Your bodies will ruin. Mankind could never be what we are.”

“But there will be more. You know this. We can change this world. We wish to rebuild it, Adam. It is such a flawed, p-p-pathetic excuse for a home. This race is tired. From the womb to the grave goes man. But we c-c-can purify it with fire and ashes.”

“I am more than fire and ashes.”

Krane shivered. “I know.”

“All their blood will be on your conscience!”

 
“Our conscience, A-Ad-Adam. You are darkness. And you are the life we crave. This world will fear you as a god. The way it was always meant to be. I believe you were intended, b-b-born-born, to destroy. Born to create again. We will start fr-f-fresh, as a new race. Like you.”

Adam laughed. “You will die, Doctor, before the end of all of your dreams.” With the pistol digging into his forehead, Krane turned pale, his neck moving to face Adam and Emery. Lamont grabbed him suddenly by the throat and clenched his grip. “The world will turn, brother against brother, mother against daughter, son against father!”

“But the diseases and famines and wa-w-wars will not last.
Even if you refuse us.
We are strong as well, Adam. We can adapt, if we must. Can you smell it in the wind? Can you t-t-taste it on your tongue?
The evidences of our new order.
It is coming without mercy. Why don't you co-c-c-come back and finish what we have started together?”

“No!” Adam screamed. “I will not save you.”

“Your faith in what we've accomplished doesn't matter. I do not much matter. This world will become with or without me. You ca-c-cannot stop it.”

The snow melted on Adam's face. He had missed so much. The cold wrapped itself around him and wouldn't let go. Emery moved closer, held his hand, the blood from both now stained on their skin. Adam guided her toward the vintage Firebird parked on the lawn. They stepped over the body that had undoubtedly driven the car and searched for keys.
 

“How far do you think you can get?” Lamont said, his mouth soaking in poison. “I'll find you again, swear to God, I will. I'll tear your eyes out o' your skull, and do her just to make me feel nice.”

Adam scanned the two men. Squinting, he compelled Lamont to draw the gun on himself. With the pistol pressing against the agent's fat neck, Adam made Lamont pull the trigger. A bullet chewed through the meat in his throat and shot out the other side. Blood splattered against Krane's cheeks and clothes, some soaking his lips.

Lamont held his throat, falling to the ground.

“Can
you
taste it, Doctor?” Adam said.

“I'll…kill him!” Lamont said, gurgling, struggling just to breathe.

“You were stupid to come against me. Open your eyes, Emanuel. Your kind is a hand on a ticking clock. You're dead, and you don't even know it. I should kill you right now.”

Krane practiced a sardonic laugh. “But you are human. You a-ar-are one of us.”

“We are not the same!” Adam shouted. With a twist of his wrist, he caused Krane's ankle to snap. The doctor dropped to the pavement, smacking his head, his glasses breaking.
 

Emery unlocked the car door and sank inside the passenger seat. She then tossed Adam the keys and shut the door, grasping the weapon ever tighter.

Adam stepped into the driver's seat, straining as he gunned the engine. For a second, he looked back at the frail lives sprawled out helplessly on the blacktop. The doctor and his dog really were weak. Not much of a scare at all as they lay there, crying to the winter sky. He watched them shiver and crawl until the image of the men got smaller, eventually disappearing as the Firebird abandoned the past he once knew and sped toward an unknown future.

39

 

REDD NEVER WENT TO sleep.
Most of the night, she listened to the words of Joel and Aimee next door. Her cell phone relentlessly vibrated in her pocket. She didn't dare shut it off; Saul Hoven would
lay
into her pretty hard if he knew. But she wasn't prepared for a verbal confrontation with him. Not yet.

The imaginary demon inside her skin edged closer to her heart.
A harvester or a serpent with maggot fingers reaching for the hollow chamber.
There was a Bible in one of the drawers.
But no priest.

The gun lay in a spread-out, disassembled mess on the bed. She'd spent several hours taking her weapon apart and piecing it back together and then repeating the process. But this last time, she left it disorganized, disarrayed, disintegrated. She toyed with round after round, the bullets like tiny hearts in her hand.
Cold, hard.
Steel shells. They had grooves, rough indentations where life might exist with the powder and the dust. The sharp tip of her fingernails got lost somewhere there, between grooves and the empty metal.

She checked her phone. Eleven voicemails. She kept her jobs close to the chest, chose when and when not to adhere to the vulture's demands. But what if she changed their fates? What if she left? What if she ran and washed her hands of it?

It won't make a difference,
her thoughts groaned.
If it's not you who carries it out, someone else will.
They would still die. That much was certain. They should've died months ago, but she had made excuses for keeping them alive. Still, the last thing Saul Hoven needed on his plate was a pair of nosy parents sticking their faces where they didn't belong. It was only a short matter of time before the local authorities got involved. How long would it take?
A day, maybe two, before they were in body bags and disposed of?
The Atlantic, the deserts of Nevada, or their remains dusted over the Grand Canyon. There were many creative ways to dispose of human life, and Hoven was the master architect at constructing dark deeds.

Redd flared her nostrils. It had to be this way. Staying up all night, hoping for something to change in her, wishing for things to be different, when she knew full well they couldn't be, was lunacy. It was insanity. She could leave, sure, but once the Phoenixes were removed, soon
she
would be. But if her death were inevitable, it would not come at the hands of desperate men with evil spells; it would be hers to render.

She quickly located all of the intricate pieces of her weapon and began fastening the bits together. She could do it blindfolded. Redd may have been born without supernatural powers, but she was not without instinct.
Skills for survival.
She, like Lamont, was a dog of war. Not bred but turned. Like a sickness or a red spot bleeding on a shred of white paper, her cruel instincts were at play now, twisting, turning,
binding
together the once torn pieces of her weapon.

When finished, she held it in her wavering grip and pointed it at a target. She thrust a magazine clip into the empty space beneath her wrist and tempted the trigger. The body hanging by a sharp thread in the bathroom had become a part of this motel room. Redd swallowed and closed the bathroom door.

She slowly grabbed her bag and avoided the mirrors, the creaks in the floorboards, the drag of her feet atop fraying carpet. It was all just static. An ambivalent grin toyed with her lips.
A rehearsal for the big show.
Joel and Aimee and Ky—no.
These
new victims
would not suspect a thing. They had no names. They no longer had faces. They were only victims, already dead.

Placing the gun in her back pocket, she stepped out into the winter morning. It was not yet eight a.m. The noise of her victims preparing for the day, no doubt believing Salvation was their last hope, hit her ears first. They were misled. Like unwanted words in a sorrow poem, they'd be blotted out and abandoned. In a few moments, this crimson assassin would harvest every last breath.

Redd's knuckles crunched into a fist and, with a vacant stare, she knocked on their door.

40

ADAM WOULDN'T STOP BLEEDIN. When would the healing take over? Couldn't he fix it? His hand dipped into his side every several minutes, almost like he was massaging the wound or waiting for something other than blood to spill out. Emery's mind still reeled from the battle she had survived.

“Are
you
okay?” he kept asking.

“All this time away from home.
All this strangeness.
I thought I'd be ready to handle this stuff.”

Adam winced as she spoke. She wondered how he could still focus on the road and drive when his fingers were digging into his stomach like that. She imagined them as bloody splinters. Had he even heard a word?

“I'm still waiting for the alarm to go off in my head,” she continued. “Then it'll stop. I'll wake up from this nightmare.”

Adam grinded his teeth.
“This is real, Emery. There is no waking up.”

Did he have to sound so hopeless? Couldn't he allow her five minutes to wish for something, anything? Maybe warring and running and thrusting his fingers into his ribcage
was
a typical morning for him, but it wasn't for her. A hundred different words scattered her brain. Words like
crazy
and
freak
and
terrified
.

“You showed a lot of power back there,” she said.

Adam didn't respond.

“If you healed me, why can't you heal yourself right now?”

“I'm weak. When we escaped the asylum, I wasn't strong enough to use all of my powers.”

That explained the gun.

“It takes a while for my body to catch up. It seems my powers have a deeper hunger than I can handle. My mind can take it, but my body sometimes can't. I'm weak, Emery. I used a lot of it. Not sure when it's gonna come back.”

“Are we talking hours or days?”

“It's always different.”

“So you're saying you lose it sometimes?”

He nodded.

“Well, what are we gonna do?”

“I don't know. Drive until we run outta gas or figure something out. I can't really think right now.”

Emery didn't like
I don't know
. It failed to give her any kind of security or confirmation that they'd be all right. “I want to go home. I want to have a screaming fight with my mom. I want to hug my dad. I want this to be over.”

How long would she wait for comfort that wouldn't come? The false hope of safety or of returning home created a void at the center of her being. She ached and had no way of making it stop.
 

“You're strong, Emery. Trust me.”

“Trust you? It's because of you we almost died back there!” She didn't realize she was yelling.

“I saved us, Emery. You're welcome.”

“Yeah, thanks. Whatever.”

“Would you have preferred me to leave you back there? You wanted me to leave you there to die like him?”

A moment came and went. It was coming back to her now.
Adam's story.
Creating another.
But who?
The last few hours, all she had been worried about was staying alive. She hadn't had time to logically process everything.
To sift through it all.
The gunfire, the smoke.
Adam's power like lightning and fire.
All distractions to what she had always believed at the core. There was someone else back at the asylum.
Someone like Adam.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” He punched the pedal.

“Adam, don't do this. Tell me, please. You know the truth. I've trusted you all night. Trust me now. Is there someone else?”

His eyes darted from her to the road. She counted the seconds between her question and his answer.

“Salvation is just the beginning. It's one of many other perfect prisons just like it. Places where they can create and pervert and
take
!”

Her lips stuttered, but nothing she was thinking made it out of her mouth.

“Emery, I got you out before it was too late. They were experimenting on you, on us. Years I've spent locked away, but no more. No more being afraid of them. No more.”

“How many, Adam?” she said slowly. “How many others are there?”

“I don't know. More. Ten, twenty, a hundred. Who's to say? It's only a matter of time before the final location goes public. It's where they will begin their new order. That's the endgame, Emery. Look, we're different. Don't you get it yet?”

“Yes, I get! I get that's what you believe.”

“It's not just what I believe. It's the truth. I had to save you.”

She scanned the horizon. The sun was almost full in the sky now. The trees were whispering, one to another, something she desperately wanted to hear. The hum of morning and back road streetlights all blended together.

Looking down at her wrists and her shirt, she saw the blood. Whether it was Adam's blood, or other men's blood, she wasn't sure anymore. But it was blood. How long could they keep running before someone found them again? If he could lose his powers so easily, how could he protect her?

The words
I had to save you
replayed in her head like a broken record. She knew it was true, but she wished it weren't. All her life, she'd been waiting for someone to save her, to fix her, to make her right. Her father couldn't; her mother couldn't. She believed Arson could, but he wasn't here now, and even he could die. Was there anything strong enough to take on the darkness in this world? Humans, freaks, aliens, whatever they were.
Flesh and blood and weakness.
They cried. They bled. They had fears.

“Ever since they started testing me, they've been creating.
Little by little.
They're making fighters who will do their bidding. Shipments of my DNA code put in food, baby milk,
drugs
. I let them do it. For years I let them change humanity. But it takes time. They're creating freaks without warning, without incident. The whole world changed.”

“Adam, tell me the truth. Who is back at that facility?
Who
did we leave behind?”

 
He said nothing, one of his hands dripping with new blood. She was starting to get used to it.

Emery thought back to that day at the hospital, when she had been abducted. She had no idea why anyone would want her. Until Adam created this theory that she was different like he was. But beams of energy didn't shoot from her wrists or her eyes. She couldn't heal her own face, for heaven's sake. She was convinced that maybe Adam was wrong. From what she could tell, what she could feel, she was just an ordinary teenager.

As new images danced to life in her mind, she relived that hateful day, being ripped from the only world she'd ever known, torn from the boy she loved. If she had no power, why would they take her? The frustration climbed her brain.
Think, Emery, think
.

They took her because she knew him; that had to be the answer. She knew Arson, and
he
had powers. The faces of the ones who sought to burn her again came flashing back. She experienced their fear, their melted flesh, their tormenting screams all over again. He was like Adam. He could do things, things that would kill a normal person.

Adam was focused on the road. The cars passed them, and the wind seemed to forget them on these country trails. If the world were okay, this picture of color, forest, and distant cities would have been beautiful. But today, it was miserable.

“Where is he, Adam!” she finally said. “Where did they take him?”

He was slow responding. “Who?”

“Don't lie to me. Don't you dare lie to me! Arson Gable. Where is Arson?”

“Who is Arson?”

“I'm not special, okay! I'm not some witch or warlock or superhuman freak! They wouldn't want me! I'm nothing.”

“Don't believe that,” Adam said, his voice weakening. “You are special, Emery. You are.”

“They took me because I knew him. That makes sense. I knew what he could do. Crap, how could I have not figured this out before?” Her eyes flashed with sudden revelation. “They took him, Adam. They had to have taken him. There's no other way. He would've come for me. He would've…they knew what he could do. He's like you.”

“He's nothing like me!”

Emery finally had the truth. Adam knew where Arson was. Maybe he'd known all along. She wanted the truth, and now she had it. But the torment that followed, the fear of not knowing, was eating her alive.

“He's dead. He didn't make it. Is that what you wanted to hear? I told you, he's not like you. He's not like me.”

“I don't believe you!”

Adam pulled off the road. “Look into my eyes, Emery. Do I look like I'm lying? I'm not sure how this messed-up little story ends, okay? All I know is that I'm not
gonna
let anything happen to you. You're all I care about.” His crimson hand brushed her cheek, blood sticking dry to her hair.

“He can't be dead. He can't be.”

“Believe what you want, but I swear it's the truth. He died weeks ago.” Adam was almost lifeless as he said it, like he didn't care about Arson. He must not have known him like she did. “His mind couldn't take it. Our power begins in our blood, but it is controlled by our minds. Most human beings can only use a certain part of it, but not us. The gene Henry Parker discovered in me, it's the same in you. I'm sure of it. They want us for a reason. They have a purpose. When my body no longer responded ideally to their trials, they focused more on him. They wanted to use him to destroy the world.”

“That's impossible. One person can't destroy the world.”

“What about Hitler, Nero, Alexander?
Great men who conquered this planet.
What if they had possessed something more? Imagine if they could do what I could. Imagine if they had entire armies that could, with a whisper, lay waste to our cities, our homes? One battle might endanger a continent. These leaders reigned with their words and daggers, but imagine if they could breathe fire and control the seas.”

“No. No one is that powerful.”

“I am. You don't understand yet. Listen, you witnessed a glimpse of the kind of thing I'm talking about, and still you do not believe. I'm weak now, but my powers will return, and every time they do, my body adapts. I become stronger. While they had me in that cage, they found a way to control me. They feared my unpredictability. Humanity trembles before that which it does not understand.”

Adam leaned back with a sigh. “But he wasn't strong enough. I didn't know you knew that boy, I swear. Listen very carefully to me now, Emery. Let it sink in. They used me. They used my mind and my blood. They've got machines and an infinite supply of money. They influenced me to create more like me.
Like us.
They're triggering events that mankind isn't ready for. All this,” he said, pointing around him, “it's the past. It's all gone. Cities, hospitals, churches, homes. Gone. Very little will survive. Most will die.”

“This is crazy. Why would they want to destroy themselves? They're human beings. Why would they destroy each other?”

“God favored Abel, and Cain killed him. Brother against brother. We're the new kids in town. More powerful than ordinary humans.”

“We
are
human, Adam.”

“A part of us, maybe. But we're not like them. In time, my DNA, my gene, would sift through the children of men. It would become stronger because it would begin a new race. My line might be kings, maybe even gods. Nothing this world has ever seen would be able to stop us.” Adam tried to hide his obvious agony. “But they stole it. They think they're controlling the cards now. But they can't fully fathom what we are or the consequences of what they'll do. They've blindly begun creating more, Emery. Arson Gable was the first of their experiments. Actually, he was an accident. His mother was Frances Parker, the girl I tried to fix with my blood. Remember this, Emery. They can adapt too. And their hands have been busy…for a long time.”

Emery's cheeks flushed red then went pale. What he was saying was a reality she didn't want to believe. But Adam didn't flinch. His eyes were locked on hers for every word. His mouth didn't stutter. His hands shook some, but he obviously believed everything he told her. And he was asking her to believe.

“It's strange how little can stay,” he said softly. “This world has changed so much. Nothing remains the same for long. Decades I wasted. The time I missed. I never should've trusted them. Humanity is dark. They're liars and thieves and murderers.”

“And you think we'll be any different. You said it
yourself,
a part of you is human.
I'm
human. These people, they're not all bad.”

“It's people like them who took us. They can't be trusted. They lie. They manipulate. And now they're going to control it all. These fiends will wage war on this planet so they can stay at the top of the food chain.”