Authors: Fabio Bueno
***
I drive even faster than before. The police
are
probably too busy with the quake emergencies
to bother with a speeding old car. I try to map the fastest route in my head. I could really use a GPS right now.
Brianna
lives close
to
I-5, on Corliss Ave
. Our school’s street
, the 92
nd
,
is the straightest path there. When we’re about five blocks from
Brianna’s house
, Skye grabs my arm.
“I’m sensing her!”
“How many?” I ask.
“Just one,” she says. “But it’s getting strong quick
ly
.” She bites her lip.
It takes me a while to put it together in my mind. Jane is probabl
y already absorbing more energy.
Which means…
I can’t put it in words. I just hope I’m wrong.
We
speed past our school grounds,
and I glance
briefly to my left, seeing the school’s pool,
my
pool. A thought zaps through my
head
: I want to go swimming, forget the world, forget all this.
“It’s too strong!” Skye says.
I hit the gas harder.
“Wait!” s
he says. “It’s weaker now!”
Something clicks inside my head. I slow down and hit the brakes.
“What?” Skye asks.
I put it in reverse and back up, guiding myself through the rearview mirror.
“It’s getting stronger again,
” Skye says, looking at me.
“
Jane is
in
side the
school,” I say, my teeth clenched.
I reach the lot’s entrance, put the car in gear again, and cross the lot without slowing down.
T
he Volvo hits the curb
and
goes
airborne
for a second
. I cross the grass and paths in front of school, avoiding trees, and I stop short of the entrance stairs.
Skye and I leave the car at the same time, climbing the steps two
at a time
, but by the large door
,
she pulls my arm.
“We’re too close,” she says. “Jane is sensing I’m here.
She can feel me.
”
“
Screw her.
When I’m done with her, she won’t feel anything,” I reply.
The door is locked. Without thinking, I kick its glass part, hard, harder than I
’ve
ever hit anything. It’s all a blur to me, but
a
few more kicks
create
an opening big enough for me to slide my hand inside and open the bolt from the other side.
We reach the
dark
hallway.
I turn to Skye. “Where?”
She point
s
to the
other side
of the building. The gym. We run there.
When I turn a corner, I see a
blurry
shape moving toward me. I duck instinctively, slowing down. Skye is right behind
me,
though,
and something hits her before I have a chance to warn her.
She lets out a yelp and tumbles to the floor. I see another shadow, this time a person running away from us. Even in the dark corridor, I recognize
Brianna
.
I turn to Skye. She’s unconscious. Breathing
steadily
.
She’s
sleeping!
Crap.
I shake her a few times and even give her one hard slap. Nothing.
I leave her there
and start
toward the gym. I’m more cautious now, aware of the danger of thrown potions.
Jane must have sensed Skye and sent
Brianna
to attack us.
Skye would have sensed
where
Jane
is
. But I don’t have this radar, and either Jane or
Brianna
—
or
even those two guys
from the house
—can surprise me.
But
nobody ambushes me. I
stop by the gym’s
closed
doors and look through the glass. The door is
close to
one of the corners. From where I stand,
I
can’t see the whole basketball court.
But
I
see enough. In the center circle, Mona lays down on the
half
-
court
line
, still wearing her hospital gown.
I
can’t see her face.
Kneeling next to her is
Brianna
,
searching for something inside
a backpack. She has a numb, happy expression on her face, like a
peaceful zombie. It’s creepy.
But Jane’s nowhere
to be seen
.
I glance over my shoulder—maybe she
’s
coming from behind me
—but nobody’s there
. I don’t know what to do.
Brianna
makes the decision for me.
She removes a handcrafted, ancient-looking
black
knife from the backpack. Then she looks straight at me.
I pull my hood
over my head
, squint my eyes, and take a deep breath. I have no idea how these potions work, but I
’ll
try to minimize contact with
them if
someone throws one at me. I open the door, expecting the worst.
Then I rush inside, half-ducking, just in case Jane is in my blind spot ready to attack me.
She
isn’t
, but
Brianna
yells, “Stop!”
Brianna pulls Mona’s inert head up and holds the knife’s blade close to my sister’s throat.
I
halt right
underneath the backboard.
Jane is i
n the other corner of the court, the one I couldn’t see
from the door
.
She
sits
cross-legged,
with closed eyes and
hands resting on her knees
:
the
same pose
she used
when she tried to kill Skye in the
pool. A ritual pose. Since she doesn’t move,
I turn to
Brianna
.
“Please let my sister go,
Brianna
,” I say in a calm
and soothing voice. “She’s a kid
.”
Brianna
looks at me as if I’m mad. “A kid? Have you seen what she did? She created an earthquake!”
“Don’t hurt her. It’ll accomplish nothing,” I say. Things just come out of my mouth. How do you reason with a person willing to commit murder? How do you think straight when your sister’s life is on the line?
Jane starts
chanting
. She’s in
a
trance
-
like
state, and I wonder if she can
even
hear us.
Taking a cautious step
forward
,
I point to Jane
.
“Jane wants her power. Jane would be the one cr
e
ating earthquakes then. Mona didn’t know what she was doing.”
“That’s the point, idiot,”
Brianna
says. “Jane will know what to do; she can control all this power.”
Brianna
doesn’t move the blade even an inch away. She’s stalling.
Why?
I step ahead
again
. “What’s it to you,
Brianna
?”
“Jane will turn me into a Sister.”
Another step. I’m about at the
free-throw line now
. “No, she won’t. It can’t be done. Skye told me.”
“The Singularity can do anything,”
Brianna
replies. Not a shred of doubt in her voice.
Crap, crap, crap.
Brianna
is in this to the end.
I have to stop her. But it will work only if
Brianna
understands what she’s doing. How much does she know? Only one way to find out.
“I know you can’t kill Mona until Jane is ready to absorb the energy. You’re bluffing.”
Brianna
’s response is to force the blade into Mona’s
throat
, almost to
the point of piercing it. I let out a gasp
, but I don’t dare to move
.
Brianna
smiles. “Jane told me the energy lingers for a while. Jane’s got a window. It doesn’t need to be at the exact moment. So, I can kill your sister anytime I want.”
I
s she bluffing
now
?
I
f she can do i
t any time, what’s stopping her?
My mind wh
irls. Jane is still in
a
trance. The determined look in
Brianna
’s eyes terrorize me.
Is
Brianna
trying to hurt me too? Another desperate thought comes to me.
“I’ve loved you,
Brianna
,” I say, trying to make the lie stick.
She chuckles and shakes her head. “Well, I didn’t love you, Drake. It’s not about
you
.”
When I realize I’m out of ideas, reality hits me. My sister is going to die.
How do you think straight when your sister’s life is on the line?
You don’t.
I open my eyes, but it’s still dark. Where…?
The hallway. Somebody threw something at me. A potion.
A sleeping potion.
The tingling. A Sister is around. Jane.
It’s all fuzzy. My head feel
s
like scrambled eggs.
I prop myself on my elbows.
T
he morning cleansing potions I’ve been taking
and my protection rituals
are paying off right now. If not for them, I’d be asleep for hours.
Have I been? I look at my cell. The numbers are blurry. Squinting, I see I slept
for
about five minutes
only
.
Where’s Drake?
The gym!
Dizzy, I
pull myself up, the cell still i
n my hand. Call for help. Connor.
I
stagger
toward the gym while speed-dialing Connor with one hand and steadying myself on the wall with the other.
No! Don’t call him! Drake doesn’t trust Connor.
I hang up before the call is completed.
I turn off the phone for good measure.
I’m already f
eelin
g better when
I reach the gym’s door. I
see Drake
talking to
Brianna
, who
’s
about thirty feet away from him. She’s
holding
a knife
—a black
athame
, the mark of
the
Night
Sisters
—to
Mona
’s throat
.
My tingling sense tells me that
Jane is inside, somewhere to my right, but I can’t see her. Does she sense me too?
I grab the gym’s doorknobs, ready to intervene.
Suddenly, Drake lunges forward.
Brianna
presses the knife into Mona’s
throat
.
Before Drake can reach them, Mona opens her eyes. I can see blood
trickling down
her neck.
A lot of things happen at the same time, and my jelly mind has trouble comprehending
it
all. At first, a tsunami of magical energy hits me at once, paralyzing me.
It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt, a humongous jolt of pure magical energy.
I grab
the
door’s handles
to avoid being
knocked back.
S
imultaneously, a fireball erupts where Mona and
Brianna
were just a second ago
. Its shockwave throws Drake backward,
hurtling him
toward
the gym wall
.