The Prisoner of Cell 25 (13 page)

Her expression frightened me. “Yeah.”

“In Pasadena?”

“How did you know that?” I asked.

She turned pale, like she was going to be sick.

“Mom, what is it?”

“We need to go,” she said, her voice quivering. “We need to get Ostin and leave now.”

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t tell you here . . .” She looked me in the eyes, her eyes dark with fear. “Michael, there’s more to this than you know. Your father . . .”

Just then Ostin returned. “I’m ready for another frosty mug of root beer,” he said.

I looked up at him. “We’ve got to go,” I said.

“Right now?”

“Right now,” my mother said. “Something’s come up.”

It was dark outside when my mother paid the bill. We were walking out to the car when Ostin said, “Wait. I forgot my jacket.”

“Hurry,” my mom said to him as he turned to run back inside. “I’ll pull up front.” We continued walking to the car.

My mother was unlocking our car door when a man appeared between our car and the truck next to it. His clothes were dirty and worn and his face was partially cloaked in a dark gray hoodie. He said to my mother, “Excuse me, do you have a dollar?”

My mother looked at him, then said, “Of course.” My mother always helped others. She lifted her purse.

When my mom’s head was down the man pulled a gun from the hoodie’s pouch. “Just give me the purse.”

My mother dropped her keys on the ground.

“Okay,” she said, her voice pitched. “You can have it. You don’t need the gun.”

“Shut up!” he said. “Just give it to me and shut your mouth. If anyone screams I shoot.”

“Don’t talk to my mother like that,” I said.

He pointed the gun at me. He looked nervous and was shaking.

“I’ll shoot you first.”

“Please,” my mother said, “just take the money.” She handed her purse to him. “Just take it. There’s credit cards and cash, you can have it all.”

He cautiously reached out and took the purse from her, the gun still shaking in his hand. He backed off again. “I want the car too,” he said. “Give me your keys and back away.”

“I dropped the keys,” my mother said. “They’re right there. I’m going to pick them up.”

“You don’t move,” he said, pointing the gun at my mother’s chest.

“You,” he said to me, “give me the keys.”

I looked at him, then my mother.

“Bring them to me now and I won’t shoot your mother.”

“Okay,” I said. I crouched down and lifted the keys, then slowly walked toward him. About a yard away from him, I turned back and looked at my mother.

“What are you doing?” he said angrily. “Give me the keys.”

My mother guessed what I was thinking. She shook her head.

I looked back at the man. Maybe I had watched too many superhero movies, but if ever there was a moment to use my power it was now. I could stop him from taking our car and my mother’s purse. I was handing him a ring of metal. All I had to do was surge.

I took another step forward, then slowly reached out with the keys. His hand shot out and grabbed them. The instant he touched the ring there was a loud snap and a yellow spark that briefly lit up everything around us. The man screamed out as he collapsed to the ground. There was a pale mist of smoke in the air from the shock.

For a moment it seemed that time stood still. I looked at my mother, wondering how she’d react. She was staring at the man on the ground. The silence was broken by a man’s voice. “Well done, Michael.”

I quickly turned around. I have no idea where he came from, but a man was now standing just a few yards from us. He was sharply dressed in a tan suit with an orange silk tie. Even though it was dark, he wore thick-framed sunglasses. His hair, dark brown with sideburns, was nicely styled. He looked at the man on the ground, then back up at me, and lightly clapped. “Really, that was impressive.

What was that—nine hundred, a thousand volts?”

I looked at my mother, then back at him anxiously.

“Who are you?” my mother asked.

“A friend, Sharon. A friend and an admirer of Michael’s. And his gift.” My mother and I exchanged glances. “Yes,” he said smiling, “I know all about it. As a matter of fact, I know more about it than you do.”

Just then the thief groaned and I looked down at him. He was struggling just to lift his head. As I watched him, anger flooded through my body. If I had ever wondered if my electrical powers were somehow connected to my emotions, there was no doubt of it now as I felt power surging through me like I had never felt before.

I looked down at my hands. Electricity was sparking in blue arcs between my fingers, something I’d never experienced before.

“It’s an emotional reaction,” the man said. “Fear, anger, hate—the powerful stuff causes your nervous system to react. It’s peculiar isn’t it? Normal people respond with adrenaline—but special people like you react electrically.”

My mother put her hand on my arm. “Michael, we need to go.”

I didn’t move. “How do you know all this?” I asked.

The man took a step forward. “Michael, we’ve been looking for you for a long, long time . . . almost since you were born.”

“Michael,” my mom said.

“Why?” I asked.

“To reunite you with the others.”

“Others?”

“You’re not alone, Michael. There’s more of your kind than you think. More than just your friend Taylor.”

His mention of Taylor made me feel even more confused.

“I’d like to introduce you to some of them right now. Behind you is Zeus.”

Suddenly a young man was standing next to my mother. He was good-looking but unkempt. He had long, greasy, blond hair and worea Levi’s jacket with the sleeves cut off and no shirt underneath. Even though he was only my age he had a tattoo on his chest of a lightning bolt. My mother looked at him anxiously.

“And this is Nichelle.”

A young woman stepped up behind the man. She wore black clothing and dark, thick makeup, mostly black or dark purple, the way the Goth kids do. Both kids looked about my age, though Zeus was taller than me.

“Zeus, show Mrs. Vey what you can do.”

He smiled darkly. “Glad to.” He lifted his hands and electricity flew from his hands to my mother in blue-white strikes. My mother screamed and collapsed just like the man I had just shocked.

“Mom!” I dropped to the ground with her, cradling her head in my arms. “Why did you do that?” I shouted angrily.

“She’ll be okay,” the man said. “It just took the wind out of her.”

My eyes darted back and forth between the three of them. “Who are you?”

“I’m your friend,” the man said softly. “Nichelle?”

The girl started toward me. As she approached I noticed that the Zeus guy took a few steps back, as if he were afraid of her.

As the girl neared me I started to feel different. Everything was out of place, the man, the two kids, my mother on the ground, it was all like a bad dream. I felt weaker. The electricity stopped arcing between my fingers. Then I began to feel dizzy. I looked at the girl and she looked into my eyes with a strange, emotionless stare. I couldn’t make sense of any of it—who these people were and why they were there. More importantly, what they wanted with us.

With each step the girl took toward me, my dizziness increased.

Then my head began to pound like a bass drum. I put my hand on my forehead as my vision began to blur.

“Take it easy on him, Nichelle,” I heard the man say. “He’s not used to it.”

Suddenly I heard Ostin’s voice, blending into what seemed like a collage of other sounds. I looked down at my mother. She was still, but gazing at me. I saw her lips move but I couldn’t hear her.

I couldn’t hear anything other than the loud buzzing in my ears. I think she said
I love you
. It seems like that’s what she said. It’s the last thing I remember before passing out. 

16. Gone

When I woke I was in a bed with aluminum side rails. I was lying beneath clean, white sheets and there was an IV taped to my arm. I felt as if I had been drained of all my energy and every joint of my body ached, throbbing like a bad toothache. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light above me. I groaned out, as if expulsing a nightmare. Ostin appeared at my side.

“Michael?”

I turned my head toward him. He was standing in front of closed blinds that glowed from the daylight behind them. Next to him were his mother and father. Ostin’s father was in charge of maintenance for the county’s parks and recreation, so he was rarely home. I was surprised to also see him in the room.

My tongue stuck to my dry mouth and it was difficult to speak.

“Where am I?”

“Honey, you’re in the hospital,” Mrs. Liss said. Her face was dark with concern.

“How did I get here?”

“Paramedics,” Ostin said.

“You passed out,” Mrs. Liss said. “The doctors were afraid you had a stroke.”

“Where’s my mother?”

“Do you remember what happened?” Mr. Liss asked.

It hurt my head to think about it. “There was a guy with a gun. Then this man with two kids. One of them shocked my mother.” I looked at Ostin. “Did I dream that?”

He shrugged. “I only saw the gunman.”

“Is my mother okay?”

Ostin didn’t answer.

I turned to Mr. and Mrs. Liss. “She’s okay, isn’t she?”

Mrs. Liss walked closer and put her hand on mine. Her eyes were filled with tears. “I have some bad news, honey. Your mother’s gone.”

I looked at her blankly. “What do you mean?”

“The police believe she’s been kidnapped,” Mr. Liss said.

My heart froze. Kidnapped? “Why would someone kidnap her?”

“We don’t know.”

My body’s pain was nothing compared to the agony I now felt.  Tears filled my eyes. How could this have happened? My mother had spent her life protecting and caring for me and now, I had failed to protect her. I had let her down. Why couldn’t they have just taken me? I wanted to fall asleep and wake up again in my own house, talking to my own mother. I wanted something to make sense. I wanted the nightmare to end. 

17. Lieutenant Lloyd

That afternoon the police came to interview me. Mr. Liss had gone to work, leaving Ostin and his mother still with me. There were two policemen, both in uniform. The officer who did most of the talking was older, with gray hair.

“Michael, I’m Lieutenant Lloyd of the Boise Police Department.  This is Detective Steve Pearson.”

Detective Pearson waved from behind. “Hello, Michael.”

“Hey,” I said.

Lieutenant Lloyd said to Ostin and his mother, “We have some questions for Michael. Would you mind waiting outside for a few minutes?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Liss said, putting her hand on Ostin’s back.  “Let’s go, Ostin.”

Ostin looked at me sympathetically. “See ya, buddy.”

After we were alone, Lieutenant Lloyd walked to the side of my bed. He must have noticed my ticking because he said, “Don’t worry. We’re here to help.”

“I know,” I said.

He grabbed my bed’s railing with one hand. “I’m really sorry about what’s happened to your mother, son. The good news is we have the man who held you up in custody. We’re just trying to put the pieces together. I need you to tell me everything you remember about what happened.”

I closed my eyes. Remembering what happened was like pulling a Band-Aid off a bad cut. “I remember some,” I said. 

“Please tell us what you remember.”

I rolled my tongue around inside my mouth. It felt thick and heavy. I was blinking pretty hard. “My mom had taken us out for pizza for my birthday. We had just finished eating and were walking out to our car . . .”

“You and your mother?” Detective Pearson asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. My friend Ostin was with us, but he went back inside to get his jacket.”

“Go on,” Lieutenant Lloyd said.

“My mom was unlocking the car when this guy was there.”

“The guy with the gun?”

I nodded.

“Clyde Stuart,” Detective Pearson said. “His name is Clyde Stuart. Where did he come from?”

“I don’t know. He was just between the cars. Neither of us saw him at first.”

“What did he do?” Lieutenant Lloyd asked.

“He asked for some money. When my mom went for her wallet, he pulled out a gun and asked for her purse.”

“Then what?”

“He told us to give him our car keys. I handed them to him.”

“Anything else?”

I shook my head. “That’s it.”

Lieutenant Lloyd looked at me with a perplexed expression, then turned back to his partner. Detective Pearson said, “What we can’t figure out is what happened to the suspect.”

I realized the gap in my story. My eyes darted nervously between them. “What do you mean?”

“He was incapacitated when we arrived on the scene,” Pearson said. “He claims the keys shocked him.”

I blinked several times. “I don’t remember.”

“Stuart was acting like he’d been hit by a Taser,” Lieutenant Lloyd said. “We had to carry him into the police cruiser.”

“Taser?” Pearson said. “It was more like he was struck by a bolt of lightning.”

“Maybe he was,” I said.

Lieutenant Lloyd wrote something on his pad. Then he said, “We’re wondering if the gunman had an accomplice. Was there anyone with him?”

“No.”

“Did you see anyone else around?”

“There was a man.”

Lieutenant Lloyd looked up from his pad. “What man?”

“I don’t know. Just a man. He was dressed in a suit. And he had a boy and a girl with him about my age.”

“Did he come from the pizza place?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure.”

“What did he look like? His face?”

“I’m not sure about that either. He was wearing sunglasses.”

“At night?” Pearson asked.

“Yeah. I thought it was weird.”

“What else do you remember about him?” Lloyd asked.

“He had short, dark brown hair. He looked . . . rich.”

“Definitely didn’t look like Stuart,” Lloyd said, jotting down more notes in his pad. “Did you see them take your mother?”

“No. I fainted or something.”

“Fear will do that,” Pearson said.

I didn’t think it had anything to do with fear, but I said nothing.