“No.” She shakes her head, her eyes watering, reliving the emotion. “Johnny dove on him, knocking him away from me.”
“Brie, what the hell have you gotten yourself into.” He pulls her against his chest, holding her snugly.
“He doesn’t have anybody. His mother’s gone. His father beats the crap out of him. I tried to talk him into staying here. But he won’t,” she confides.
“Don’t you think you have enough on your plate without worrying about Johnny Vito?” He references the loss of her parents.
She pulls away from him, her arms still familiarly encircled around his waist. “He helped me. He helped you. Someone should help him.”
Lon runs his hands lightly over her hair and down her face and neck, happy to find them unscathed. His mind returning to the comment he made to Johnny now resonates on his remorseful face. “Ah, God. And to think…I told him he probably deserved it,” he admonishes, shaking his head.
“How could you have known?” Brianna attempts to comfort him.
“What can we do for him, really?” he asks, his tone not so much a question, but an admission. “You offered to let him stay here. He declined.” Lon paces in front of her, contemplating. “It’s not like you can make him do anything. You can’t change his situation. Only his father can do that.” He stops, refocusing on her. “And you can’t go putting yourself in those types of situations.”
“I know,” she rebukes. “I had no idea what Johnny’s home life was like when I went there today. But I don’t regret going. Not now. Somebody needs to help him.”
“I don’t know that we can help him, Brie. I mean, he’s probably so messed up by now, there is no helping him.” Lon tries to imagine what his existence would be if his father used him as a punching bag. Unable to even fathom such a notion, his
Pop
the ultimate protector and provider, he groans in frustration.
“We should tell somebody…or something. Get him some help,” she urges. “I can’t just pretend I didn’t see what I saw. If we do nothing, then we’re no better than his father.”
“Argh,” Lon growls. “Let me talk to Pop. He’ll know what to do.” He takes Brianna’s hand, escorting her toward the door.
“Your Pop,” another lightbulb flashes in her mind. “Are you two still building that extra room? At your house?” The wheels of her brain fully in motion.
“Don’t even think about it.” Lon locks the front door behind them. “Johnny Vito and I can’t even get along in school, let alone living under the same roof.”
“You don’t want to build that room in vain, do you?” she continues.
“That room is for you.” He opens the passenger side door to his Scout, helping her settle into her usual seat, pulling the lap belt around her and fastening it securely.
“I told you, my grandparents are coming into town this week. They’re not going to let me live with you, Lon Castille,” she raises her voice in the open SUV, projecting it over the hood as he walks around to the driver’s side.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” He climbs in under the wheel, firing up the Scout.
“I bet Johnny could be a big help to you and your pop,” she says, internalizing her true thought that Lon and his father could be a big help to Johnny.
Lon doesn’t acknowledge her, simply shifting into gear and driving away. Brianna lays her hand palm side up on the console of the Scout, an affectionate action that Lon usually initiates to hold her hand. He catches her sentiment out of his periphery, resisting the urge to meet her palm with his, not quite ready to pardon her for kissing Johnny.
She pulls her hand back into her lap, his refusal signifying the beginning of a long, quiet ride back to the bayou.
Three years later…
On the outskirts of New Orleans, Lon Castille slows the speed of his trusty Scout, pulling off onto an otherwise deserted gravel road. The once fixer-upper SUV is now fully overhauled thanks to his college summer vacation. A bonding project he enjoyed with his
Pop,
the exterior sports a new coat of paint indicative of his soon-to-be alma mater—LSU—Louisiana State University. The gold Scout, artfully trimmed in deep purple, bears an LSU Tiger decal on the hood. Lon’s mind recollects the summer spent with his parents at his childhood home, wondering how time slipped by so fast.
Entering a familiar clandestine compound, he pulls through the gargantuan metal gate, taking note of the sign—
ETNA Laboratories. NO TRESPASSING.
Wishing he could consider himself a trespasser, if only his presence was not expected, he stops at the security booth identifying himself to the portly officer there.
The security officer slaps his hands together, clearing from them remnants of a doughnut, a hunk of telltale glaze still resides at the corner of his mouth. Referencing his visitor list, the officer efficiently checks off Lon’s name. He and Lon do not make small talk. Everyone and everything that enters the facility is considered top secret—
don’t ask, don’t tell.
Releasing the obstructive wooden arm, the officer motions Lon further into the compound.
Pulling off to a formidable, ironclad side building out of habit, Lon makes his way inside the domain where a plain and uncreative placard attached to the exterior stone reads
Laboratory.
After several identifying stops later, Lon enters a room in the back of the building, the automatic steel door closing and locking behind him.
“Mr. Castille,” a quiet, high-pitched voice greets, that of one Dr. Bernard Shaw.
Lon does not respond. He simply bewilders to himself the fact that such a tiny voice can resonate out of a tall, robust frame. His mind trails off to Brianna, knowing he likely stands in the company of the man responsible for her parents’ death, Dr. Bernard Shaw—Director of Astrobiology Science and Technology. The same Dr. Bernard Shaw Brianna bartered with, exchanging the skull she and Lon found at the river for Lon’s freedom.
“Why the long face, Mr. Castille?” Dr. Shaw pokes. “We had an agreement. You come for quarterly testing and I and my staff will leave your little girlfriend alone.” Dr. Shaw smiles smugly. “Have you heard from the surviving Ms. Bentley?”
“No,” Lon replies. His voice, having grown in depth over the past few years, delivers itself completely free of any emotion. Although he tells the truth about his lack of contact with Brianna, he can’t help but loathe the fact. His expression, in current company, matches his voice—empty.
“Have you told anyone else about our arrangement?” Dr. Shaw investigates. “I know you were home on summer vacation. Be a shame to drag your
indigenous
parents into such matters.” He warns offensively, letting Lon know his every move has the possibility of being monitored.
Again, Lon ignores his goading. Folding his ever-flourishing arms across an equally swelling chest, he gives the dubious doctor a pressing glance. “Can we just get this over with?”
“Now, that’s what I like to hear.” Dr. Shaw slaps his hands together sharply. “And they say ambition is lost on your generation.” He takes off toward their ultimate destination. “Come.”
Lon shakes his head, biting down on the inside of his cheek as he follows behind. His senses are barraged as he walks into a familiar room. Harsh fluorescent ceiling lights cause his eyes to momentarily wince, acclimating to the glare. His ears hone in on the methodical hum of medical and scientific devices. The smell of the room, very clinical, reminds him of rare hospital visits.
“Young Lon,” a kind voice from within the room calls, accompanied by a round, happy face that beams from atop a microscope. Dr. Gerald Godfrey, in his small yet oversized white lab coat, shuffles out from behind his station, his brittle frame slightly stooped. “How was your summer vacation? A nice rest from your studies, I do hope.” The pleasant hematologist cannot help himself from being cordial.
“There’s no need for pleasantries,” Dr. Shaw reprimands his subordinate. “Just run your tests and get him out of here.” On his way through the exit, he adds one more order. “Leave the results on my desk.”
Dr. Godfrey waits until the door to his blood sanctuary closes. “He could benefit from an etiquette class, don’t you think?” he chuckles. “Here, here, my boy.” Dr. Godfrey offers up the proverbial medical chair to Lon.
Lon reluctantly removes his t-shirt from his frame, accustomed with the drill, before taking his position in the cool, uncomfortable metal chair.
“Have you been pumping the iron?” Dr. Godfrey remarks on the swell of Lon’s chest as he routinely attaches small padded electrodes to it in order to measure its internal function.
“How about we stick to Dr. Shaw’s plan and nix the small talk,” Lon replies dryly.
“Suit yourself.” Dr. Godfrey smiles. “I believe I can do enough talking for the both of us.”
He rolls his eyes, assured of that fact, having been in the chatty hematologist’s company once every three months religiously for the past three years for such observation. Lon growls with the disagreeable and constant attention as Dr. Godfrey assembles monitoring wires and devices along his form. With electrodes around his heart, oxygen sensors on his hands, a headband around his crown measuring brain activity—every noisy contraption beeps and calculates. He watches Dr. Godfrey’s eyes as they settle on a monitor displaying numbers, percentages and wave patterns.
“What is it exactly that you’re looking for?” Lon asks, perturbed.
Dr. Godfrey shrugs. “Nothing exactly. Just anything extraordinary.” He winks.
“What makes you think today’s going to be any different than any other day?” Lon probes irritably, having enough common sense to know that they have yet to find anything extraordinary about him. Each and every visit is the same as the last.
“Some things, most notably the strange and wonderful, take time to manifest.” Dr. Godfrey encourages. “Take you for instance.” He motions to Lon’s ultra-athletic build, impressed. “When you first came to see me you were lean and wiry. Now you’re quite strapping…a regular powerhouse.” Dr. Godfrey chuckles, inherently comparing his less than stellar physique, knowing his brain is his largest muscle. “You’re coming into yourself, young Lon. Everything grows righteous in due time.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Lon huffs, “but my form is a result of the weight room at college, not some skull at the river.” His steel blues, much like his
physique,
are hard and flexed, completely annoyed.
“And you’re sure that when you cut yourself on that skull at the river…nothing peculiar happened?” Dr. Godfrey asks the question yet again, the same question he asks each and every time Lon is in his laboratory. Inspecting the faint white scar on Lon’s palm, he takes note of the odd beaded presence there, like a strand of tiny pearls.
“No different than any other time I accidentally cut my flesh open,” Lon lies, his memory flashing back to that night at the river and the fluorescent emerald green glow of his blood and Brianna’s. The only person the teenagers confided in about the occurrence was Brianna’s father, a fact he is hopeful Edward Bentley took with him to his grave.
“Little poke,” Dr. Godfrey warns, aligning a beveled needle-tipped catheter into the vein on the interior crook of Lon’s elbow.
Lon sucks air in through his teeth at the bee sting feeling, finally experiencing a bit of relief once his blood starts siphoning from the catheter into a collection bag. “Didn’t look any different than that blood right there,” he further fibs, eyeing the red viscous substance free of any kind of glow.
Dr. Godfrey glances at him disbelieving.
“What do you do with all of my blood?” Lon investigates the friendly, round face staring back at him as if searching its pearly whites for fangs.
Dr. Godfrey chuckles effectively. “Every hematologist has a little bit of vampire in them,” he references his line of work, a
blood doctor.
“Let me assure you I do not drink it, young Lon.” His eyes smile, peering up over his bifocals as he scrunches up his nose, realigning the frames higher upon his cheekbones. “I simply test your blood.” He nods his head in the direction of his microscope setting alongside centrifuges and other blood mixing and separation devices. “You see, that skull you and Ms. Bentley happened upon is not of this Earth. Your blood type…AB-negative…is the rarest in the universe. Only one percent of the world’s population shares your blood type. Couple that with the fact that your blood came in direct contact with that skull, the possibilities are endless.”
“Geez-us,” Lon emits, shaking his head. “You guys are way out there, aren’t ya?”
“According to modern-day western science…it may appear as such. But that’s what makes it so interesting,” Dr. Godfrey notes. Fully engaged in and enjoying his monitoring of
young Lon,
he continues to take notes, a slew of numbers, percentages and graphs aligning, creating a most intriguing picture. “It’s easy to believe what’s right in front of your face…proven scientific fact. The real challenge and reward…discovering something new. Something so
way out there,”
he quotes Lon, “that when you reveal it, it blows people right out of the water. Leaves them with their jaws on the floor.”
“Whatever,” Lon exhales. “Just as long as you don’t ever get the mind to do this to Brianna. You wouldn’t do that? We have a deal, right?” He questions the seemingly easygoing and honorable hematologist.
“We would never actively seek her out, so long as you’re cooperative,” Dr. Godfrey complies. “Now if she volunteers, that’s a different story.”
“Volunteers? Why would she do that? Dr. Shaw doesn’t have contact with her, does he?” Lon’s tone grows aggressive. He grabs the blood catheter. “I swear to God I’ll rip this thing out. This is the last you’ll see of me, if you so much as go near her.” The machine monitoring his heart rate alarms, the life-sustaining organ suddenly bounding beneath his chest.
“Ah dat dat,” Dr. Godfrey scolds gently, his hand tapping the top of Lon’s over the blood catheter. “Don’t go ripping things out. The only thing you’ll do is cause harm to yourself.” His hands retreating at shoulder level, palm side out, he consoles, “Ms. Bentley is just fine. Dr. Shaw does keep tabs on her, though”