Chapter 7: Allies
(AN: Sorry its been so long!!! I will try to update more regularly.. I just hit a major case of writer's block, which my calculus hw is not particularly helping to cure. Anyways, enjoy the chapter! Page breaks indicate pov/time changes.. since fictionpress duzn't like my asterisks :P)
Kayleigh paced nervously. "Why hasn't he called? It's been a week!"
The boy at the worktable looked up at her, briefly taking his eyes from his tinkering. "Kayleigh, you're not his mother. Let him be. He'll call when he's ready. Hand me the Robertson screwdriver, would you?"
Kayleigh selected a red-handled screwdriver from the pile on the table and handed it across to him. He took it without even looking at her, his attention completely focused on a weird looking and seemingly useless mound of wires, cables, and various other electrical components within a plastic casing. "What are you doing anyway?" she asked him.
"I'm building - CRANK - a device that will - SKREEK - track cell phone calls. CRACK!" he told her, amidst the complaints of his invention. "Oh dammit… " he sighed and pulled a broken piece of plastic away from the unit. "At least that's the plan," he continued. "I dunno if it'll actually work. But in theory..." his attention slipped from her back to the electronical monster on the worktable. Kayleigh returned to her pacing.
"Aiden, we have to do something."
"Like what?" he asked. "We don't know where he is, or what he's doing. We could end up messing up something." He reasoned logically. "Better to wait for a call. And if I ever finish this," he grunted, tightening a screw, "then even if he calls on a cell phone we'll be able to track him."
Kayleigh couldn't fight his argument, but she was still worried. Deep inside she had a sinking feeling that something was horribly wrong.
Jeremy watched as Kia and Aaron piled into the blue pickup. He stowed their bags in the back under the locking cover he had dug out of storage and put over the open back of the pickup. Kia settled herself in the backseat with her knapsack at her feet, eyes sparkling with excitement and anticipation. Aaron paused for a moment with his hand on the door, glancing from the empty seat in the back beside Kia, to the passenger seat beside the driver. His gaze wavered between the two, then settled on Kia.
Feeling uncomfortable, although he did not quite know why, Jeremy spoke up quickly before Aaron could move. "Aaron, would you mind riding shotgun? I need a navigator, and since you know where we're going…" he gestured at the road. Aaron paused, then nodded slowly and swung up into the passenger seat with a last lingering look at Kia. Jeremy shook his head, climbed in behind the wheel, and turned the key in the ignition. Adrianna and Ian waved goodbye from the front step as they headed down the dirt road.
Kayleigh sat on Aiden's worktable humming absently. Her left arm abruptly vanished, followed by her right foot. Her face disappeared after that, except for her eyes, which blinked, purple, in midair. A loud whining buzz began, disrupting her concentration. Her arm and foot immediately became visible again, although she managed to retain her face's invisibility. "Aiden!" she said, annoyed. She disappeared her arm again.
She was working on her right leg, piece by piece when Aiden called loudly for his allen key wrenches. He jerked backward in surprise when the requested wrenches floated before his eyes, about two inches from his face. "Jeez, Kayleigh! Warn me before you do your disappearing thing! You know I don't like being surprised when I'm working! I could have hurt you! There's a lot of dangerous stuff around here and if I can't see you when I'm working, you're liable to have an accident!"
"Well if you'd take out those damn earplugs and listen to me instead of playing 'mad scientist', maybe it wouldn't have been such a surprise," Kayleigh remarked dryly.
"I prefer the term 'Eccentric Inventor,' " Aiden said. Then, "and I do listen to you. I was just sawing. Please Kayleigh… for my sake. I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you and it was my fault."
He looked so worried that Kayleigh dropped her invisibility. "I know." She said. "I'll try to keep myself visible in the workroom." she rolled her eyes and hopped off the worktable. "I'm going inside. I'll tell you if Aaron calls."
Aiden nodded absently, mind focused on the heap of plastic, metal, and components in front of him in which his arms were buried up to the elbows.
"Did you even hear me?" Kayleigh asked, hands on her hips.
"I heard you, I heard you." Aiden turned and looked at her, pushing up his safety goggles. He extricated his arms from his work and wrapping them around her. "I do listen. I'm sorry. You know how I get caught up in my work. I don't mean to ignore you."
"I forgive you." Mollified, Kayleigh gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and opened the door that led from the workshop - which doubled as the garage - and made her way into the house.
"Oh, there you are Kayleigh. I was just going to check on you." Aiden's mother met her in the hallway. "Everything all right?"
"Just fine. I was just coming out for some air. Too much sawdust in there."
"You're telling me!" Aiden's mother agreed. "I don't know how he survives in there!"
"Me either," Kayleigh said.
"Well, make yourself at home, dear."
"KAYLEIGH! KAYLEIGH! PLAY WITH US!" Aiden's younger twin brothers had two volumes - loud and earsplitting. Kayleigh sighed and settled in for a long checkers tournament, all the while wishing Aaron would call.
"It's getting dark. We'd better stop somewhere for the night." Jeremy noted as the sun sank low, lighting the sky in shades of red, orange, and pink. Kia yawned from the backseat, agreeing. Aaron pointed to the left. "There's a motel." Jeremy pulled into the entrance.
They piled out of the truck, Kia yawning hugely. Jeremy put a hand on her shoulder. Kia yawned again, and touched his hand to let him know she was all right. She could tell he was still worried about her recovery from her latest dream-to-reality episode. They walked toward a door that had once been bright yellow and bore a sign with the words: "Office: We are OPEN!" across it in bold black lettering.
Moments later they stood in the small room behind the door. Kia glanced around, taking in the stained yellow walls and thin industrial carpeting. A bald overweight man peered over the worn wooden desk at them from behind cracked bifocal lenses, his thin fingers strangling a ballpoint pen with which he was scratching illegible numbers and letters on a pad of yellowed paper. "Can I help you?" he asked, voice grating as he glanced at each of them in turn.
About $150, a stack of paperwork, and twenty-odd signatures later, Jeremy finally stuck the little silver key numbered '16' into the rust-stained lock on the door to their rooms. The creaky-hinged thing opened into a small room with two double beds and a tiny kitchenette. Jeremy strode over to the left wall and opened a connecting door to another small room with only a single bed. "That's your room, Kia. Aaron and I will be here if you need anything ok?" Kia nodded to Jeremy, dragged herself and her knapsack into the room, and collapsed on the bed without bothering to change into her pajamas.
Jeremy sighed and shut the connecting door to Kia's room with his foot, casting a sideways glance at Aaron, who sat innocently on the foot of one of the double beds. He turned away when Jeremy looked at him and flopped down on the bed. Jeremy crossed the floor - which was covered in suspicious-looking colorful patches - to his own bed, noting with some annoyance that Aaron had taken the bed closest to the connecting door. He was too tired to make a big deal about it though, so instead he mumbled a 'goodnight' in the general direction of the rest of the room, kicked his shoes off, and burrowed under the covers.
Jeremy dreamed of the sea, endless and wild and untamable, forever churning and rocking. He felt power; felt it spread out from him. It touched a darkness, but the sea knew darkness well, and how to fight it. It washed over the darkness, pushing it and pulling it, stretching and eroding until the darkness was washed away, exposing a bright white light, which sprang up from beneath the darkness. The sea left the light and expanded farther until it found a humming red spark. The spark was not put out when the sea washed over it. Instead it grew stronger and brighter, and hummed louder. The sea seemed pleased with this response, and spread around the spark to guard it.
Aaron tossed and turned, fighting even in his sleep. He woke up suddenly in a cold sweat and realized that he was the one tossing and turning -- not the strange boy who had taken over his mind. He moved his hands, blinked, and moved his head, trying to process his new freedom. For a couple of moments, he truly believed the oppressive darkness had left him, but reality kicked in about five seconds later and he realized there had to be something more to it. The strange presence would not have released him for no reason. There must be something it wanted from him; something he could only do when in complete control of his own faculties. There was only one thing that Aaron wanted to do -- talk to Kia. "That must be exactly what he wants me to do." Aaron mumbled to himself. "Well I won't play his sick little games. I'm not that easy to use. "
His fingers curled into fists and he silently cursed the invasive presence in his mind. It was agonizing to lay back down, knowing that all that separated him from Kia was a thin connecting door. He felt positive, however, that the presence was hiding in some dark corner of his mind, just waiting for him to act on his impulses, to make a mistake and screw up so it could be exploited, and he refused to give it the pleasure of being right. He would stay here. He would be strong. For Kia. He would not let that creature near her.
In the next room, Kia dreamed. Faces flashed before her, faces she knew, or at least that she felt she ought to know. They were familiar, yet distant. She probed deeper, trying to find the source, trying to open her memories. She felt a flood wash over her, helping her try to flush out the elusive memories. She caught snatches of memories, of fire and blood and a sea of faces. One face in particular followed her, begging her to come back. Aaron's face. She saw a shining light, and felt it settle around her. It made her feel safe as she continued to wade through her scrambled and fleeting memories.
Without warning, a wall of darkness hurtled at her. It smashed into the light surrounding her with terrible force, and she felt her wall of light falter and flicker. Angry that her darkness should threaten her light, the hope she had clung to, that she had prayed was not affected, Kia lashed out instinctively at the darkness, burning it back with fire. Her reaction startled her for a second. It was the first time she'd actively sought to use her talent, and the only time that it had truly felt right when it burst from her hands. The darkness responded by crying out, as if in pain. Never before had it reacted in any way to her fire. Encouraged, Kia willed her fires hotter, and was rewarded when the darkness shrieked again, then faded. Feeling strangely liberated, and yet guilty at the same time - the darkness had sounded almost human, and she hated to think she had hurt someone - Kia woke.
She sat up and checked her hands. They were cool. Her burns were no worse and no better than before. Kia breathed a sigh of relief and lay back on the pillow. She watched shadows dance on the ceiling for a while, trying half-heartedly to fall asleep again, but not really wanting to sleep at all. She could not remember ever feeling this free and did not want the feeling to fade. Afraid that if she slept again, the darkness would return and bring back with it that awful feeling of oppression, Kia decided instead to go outside and get some fresh air.
Not wanting to wake anyone, she carefully she turned the knob of the connecting door. She glanced around the room, checking to see if either of the boys were awake. Jeremy lay on his bed, dead to the world. Kia laughed to herself. There was no danger of him waking up. Aaron, however, tossed and turned, moaning in his sleep. His movements startled Kia and she jumped sideways, just missing an end table. "That was close," she reprimanded herself. After waiting a few seconds to ensure Aaron was actually asleep, she slipped over to Jeremy's bed and lifted the key off his dresser, holding the key and the dangling keychain charm separately so that they would not jingle and give her away.
"Why am I sneaking around like this?" she asked herself, but could not answer her own question. She shook her head, and returned her concentration to opening the front door without waking Jeremy. Finally she slid the door shut behind her and locked it. Outside she relaxed completely. The night air chilled and exhilarated her. She pocketed the silver room key, and like a shadow, ran through the night, flowing liquidly across the parking lot pavement; her running shoes barely scuffing the asphalt. She crossed the perfectly manicured front lawn, and set off down the sidewalk. She had no idea where she was going, and she didn't care. She was one with the night, and she was rejoicing in her freedom. A short ways down the sidewalk, she happened upon a small park. She sat down on one of the worn wooden benches and just reveled in feeling so alive. She did not notice the shadowy figure that had been following her until it sat down beside her.
Kia jumped to her feet, startled. "Who are you?" she asked. "And why were you following me?"
"Actually, I wasn't following you," a girl's voice answered. "I was following Aaron. My name is Kayleigh."
"You were following Aaron? Why?"
"We've been worried about him."
"We? Who is 'we'?"
"Aiden and I." Kia looked confused, and the girl rushed on, "You don't know us. Aaron met us after you left, but he told us about you. He's been looking for you for a really long time, you know. You must be a pretty special girl to drive a guy like him crazy for two years. Anyways, Aaron did a lot of research on your powers after you left - that's what led him to Aiden and I. We're special too, you see."
Kia frowned. "How did he know about my powers?"
"He told us about the party - about the day you… left."
"What?"
Now Kayleigh looked confused. "Aaron told us about that boy that almost died, and the house that went up in flames. He told us he felt responsible for not sticking with you; that it was his fault for not being there for you."
Kia was shaking her head slowly. "I don't know…I don't remember any of that. Was…was that what happened to me?"
"You don't remember?" Kayleigh asked. "How could you forget something like that? I know I couldn't."
"I can't remember anything back farther than two years ago. The first memory I have is waking up in the Quinn's home -- my adopted parents." Kia clarified. "They told me they'd found me passed out in my car, and that I'd been in a semi-coma for three days, but I don't remember any of it. I can't remember anything before waking up on the couch."
"Wow," was all Kayleigh could say.
"But none of that has anything to do with why you would be following Aaron in the first place," Kia pointed out, bringing the conversation back to the original topic, "and why you're here talking to me instead of him."
"After he went looking for you, he promised to call and let us know if he was alright and such. He's pretty much estranged from his family - if you could call them that." It was plain that Kayleigh didn't think much of Aaron's family. "We were his contacts in case anything happened and he needed help. He hasn't called us in nearly a month. The last contact we had from him was when he was staying with some people in a place called Derbyshire, and had a lead on you. He was headed for some place called Springwater, and was going to leave sometime that week. That was the last we heard of him. After two weeks, I was worried. I talked to Aiden - my boyfriend - about it, but he said Aaron was an independent and I shouldn't worry because he could take care of himself, but I had a feeling something was wrong. After a month, I brought it up again, but Aiden wouldn't hear about it. He told me I was paranoid, so I decided to find out what was going on by myself."
"How did you find us?" Kia asked.
"You're going to think this is crazy," Kayleigh said, in a bear-with-me sort of voice, but then she tilted her head to the side and examined Kia. "or maybe you won't… after all, with your powers, you must have some of it too." Before Kia could ask 'some of what?', Kayleigh went on. "I found you in my dreams. Everyone who has our kind of powers shows up in dreams. You can find them if you want; it's just a matter of knowing what they look like, and sort of -- calling them, and once you can see them in your mind, you can locate them in the physical world. I'm not exactly sure how this works, I just know it does - I'm not quite sure how else to explain it. Anyways, I looked for Aaron, and it was no easy task either, let me tell you! There was some weird darkness that has been shrouding him lately, but Aaron shines pretty bright and I saw him -"
"Shines?" Kia broke in.
"Yeah. In my dreams, I 'see' Aaron as this sort of ball of white light. He's pretty bright." Kayleigh commented. "Anyway," she continued, "when I woke up, I knew exactly where he was. It took me all day to get here, and then once I found your hotel it was so late, that I didn't want to knock and wake anyone up. Then you came out, so I followed you. I figured you would know what was going on with Aaron. God, this sounds so dumb now. I knew Aaron was still in love with you. If he just forgot to call us after you guys were reunited and stuff… well I just hate to make anyone worry." She finished lamely. "I'm really sorry if I interrupted anything. Gosh, now I almost wish I hadn't come. Aiden told me we'd only screw things up by getting over-involved…" she paused, realizing she'd been rambling out loud. "Can you blame me for being a concerned friend?"
Kia looked slightly stunned.
Kayleigh shifted uncomfortably on the bench, alternating her gaze from Kia to the ground. "I'm sorry I scared you. Aaron is just a good friend and I didn't want anything to have happened to him. I'm not jealous or anything. You know, he never looked at another girl after you left. I just thought you should know that. I'll - I'll be going now." Kayleigh stood up then, the streetlights making her dark skin glow. "Here's my cell number," she said awkwardly, handing Kia a torn piece of white paper with a phone number written on it. "Just in case you need any help from someone who understands. It was great meeting you." Kayleigh turned to walk away.
"Wait!" Kia called.
Kayleigh turned.
"I'm sorry. I'm still really confused about a lot of things, and my memory is -- blocked somehow, so I can't even remember anything truly. Not Aaron, or what happened two years ago, or my life before living with the Quinns… it's all locked away. I can't remember what blocked off my memories, or why I can burn things by thinking about it or by touching them. It's all so new for me, and not knowing anything about who I was before has only made it harder. I wish I could properly understand everything you've said, but I'm still kind of lost at the moment. I guess I just want to say that I really appreciate your offer of help, and I think Aaron is really lucky to have friends like you who care so much about him. "
Kayleigh smiled. "You know, I'd be honored to be your friend as well. We …different ones… need to stick together."
"I'd like that." Kia said. "Hey, you mentioned that you were 'special' too… what can you do? Do you burn things?"
"Oh, no!" Kayleigh said, stifling a laugh. "I'm not that powerful! You're pyrokinetic - that's something really special. Me, I just disappear."
"Disappear?"
"Yep. I've been practicing. Wanna see?" Kayleigh looked eager to show off her talent.
"Oh yes please!" Kia exclaimed.
Kayleigh closed her eyes and concentrated. When she opened them, she knew she was invisible. She had been working on that. Becoming wholly invisible all at once instead of piece by piece took a great deal of effort, but the effect was so very satisfying.
Kia gasped. Although she had been expecting it, it was still rather disconcerting to see someone disappear right before your eyes. "Are you still there?" she asked tentatively. Talking to air was also disconcerting.
"I'm right here," Kayleigh's voice said. Kia felt an invisible hand on her shoulder. Kayleigh reappeared, and stepped back.
"That was awesome!" Kia said.
"Thanks. But I'd better be going. Take care, and please call if you need anything." And with that, she was gone.
Kia sat down on the bench again. She didn't want to go back to the motel yet. She had a lot to think about, and she didn't think she'd be sleeping anytime soon.