Spark: One of Us Series Page 4

  Flickering lights.

  A woman screaming. Blood…so much blood. I closed my eyes and nodded.

  It didn’t matter, none of it did. Stay here…be something my daddy used…or be somewhere else. Maybe then I’d leave…maybe then I’d be the real illusion—the real fake. Be happy…have friends, something flickered in the back of my mind as the sheriff leaned close. His mouth moved…words I couldn’t grasp.

  That flicker came closer…like a tiny flare of electricity humming through my mind. Hairs on my arms stood on end. An icy whisper at the back of my neck.

  No, not electricity. Something more powerful coursed through the darkness inside my mind…something like lightning.

  Neon white flickers coming closer…closer…closer…my chest throbbed and the hand around my shoulder slipped.

  The sting of filthy nails cut deep as he pinched and twisted…but it didn’t matter…I wasn’t here. I was in the darkness…watching the storm sweep in.

  A face came to me…electric blue eyes, dark brown hair…a girl…a girl all alone. Lightning slashed again, brighter now, leaving behind a white spark in my eyes.

  She stood there. Stood in the glow of that blinding strike.

  She lifted her hand, fingers outstretched…calling…calling…calling.

  “Son, you okay?” The sheriff reached across the counter.

  “I did it,” the whisper slipped from my lips. “I did it all. Take me away, take me away from this place. I need to get out of here.” I turned my head and stared into my father’s eyes. “I need to get out.”

  “Okay then, Finley Stutter, you’re under arrest for the charges of…”

  His voice slipped away…and everything else that followed. My father dragged his hand away and rose from the seat.

  He wasn’t getting his weapon back…and that’s all I was to him, a weapon he could wield anytime he wanted to.

  “I’m outta here,” he snarled and then made for the door. “I see you again boy, and I’ll shoot you dead.”

  “Mr. Stutter,” the sheriff growled.

  But it didn’t matter. They were probably the truest words he’d ever spoken, for they were the ones he told my Momma on the day she left and never came home. My father never looked back as he yanked the door opened and strode through.

  "Get the fuck outta my way!" he screamed at someone.

  I flinched, heart hammering, and then turned to the sheriff. Anywhere was better than back there. Anywhere was better than home.

  Pitch

  Drake 2005

  I hate you...

  I love you...

  Three zero zero two…

  I want a divorce...

  I want a baby...

  Four one zero four...

  I closed my eyes...hands clasped over my ears.

  Still, the voices seeped in.

  All of them...

  Hate, rage, fear, loneliness, desperation, older men, younger women...children laughing, crying, people dying...please, don't leave me...

  Waves and waves of sounds, loud, soft...a whisper...a scream, and underneath it...underneath the roar of trucks and TV’s and a plane at the airport on the other side of the city, were two voices. Two small voices that if I narrowed in enough, if I focused on the tone, the desperate, painful tone, I'd hear them—my parents in the room down the hall from mine.

  “I don’t know what to do for him,” Mom murmured. “I don’t know how to help. I don’t know how to shut it off. I want to shut it off, Gabe. I want to shut it all off, and not just for him…for us.”

  “Shh.” Boots scuffed the carpet as Dad stepped closer. “He’ll hear us.”

  “He always hears us Gabe. He always hears. I’m too frightened to say anything, too frightened to think. I’m too frightened to be in my own goddamn house.”

  “Well what the Hell do you want me to do?” Pain etched deep in his words.

  “I don’t know,” Mom answered. “I just know that I can’t do this anymore. He told me he hears people dying, Gabe. People actually fucking dying. What kind of fucked up existence is that?”

  I pulled away from her words…I pulled away from her, and leaned over the edge of the bed to grab my backpack. They were still talking in the room at the end of the hall. Talking like they thought I wouldn’t listen, or talking like I would.

  I shoved up from the bed and made for the set of drawers. A whimper filled my ears from the room next to mine. Steel clattered against porcelain, followed by a moan of relief.

  I was the fucked up one in this house, that’s what Mom said. I was the one she was scared of. I was the one ‘out of control’. But I wasn’t the one in danger…

  Drip…drip…drip…

  I stepped up to the door connecting our rooms and knocked. “Stacy.”

  “Go away,” she snarled through clenched teeth. “I’m not dressed.”

  She was dressed. She was dressed and she was bleeding…just like all the other times. All the other times where she wore long sleeves in the middle of summer, and jeans all year round.

  Stacy was the one cutting herself, and yet I was the fucked up one.

  I was the problem. I was the one who needed help.

  I was the one they sent away.

  I lifted my hand, fist clenched, ready to knock and knock and knock.

  If only it’d help her…if only it’d stop her from slicing deep.

  I stared at the thick black numbers on the inside of my wrist. Three zero zero two. I tried to listen to the numbers, tried to heard their truth. All I heard was the thready boom…boom…boom inside my veins. Valves opened and closed with a lub...dub…lub…dub.

  I dropped my fist and returned to the open drawer, grasped a fist full of shirts and then my clean pair of jeans. Socks were next. Three pairs, and then the dollar bills I’d stuffed in the drawer, before I heaved the strap of my pack over my shoulder and made for the window.

  Gone…I was already gone. Leaving them, leaving them to talk and bleed as loud as they wanted.

  The window squealed as I yanked it open. I stilled, turned my head, listening. But they never heard me, if they did, they never cared.

  I eased the window higher, stepped one leg through and then the other, until I stood on the other side. One step and the spell was severed, there was nothing tying me here, nothing here for me to stay.

  I never looked back, walking as fast as I could under the massive oak tree and then making for the street. I held my breath, passing one house and then another, before I exhaled.

  I reached the end of the block before I knew it and crossed the street. Mr. Urden lifted his hand and waved as I went by. My pulse thundered, still I swallowed the urge to run and lifted my hand in response…just like it was a regular day where I had a backpack filled with clothes and all the money I saved.

  A bus turned the corner up ahead, and I picked up my pace and glanced at the flashing sign at the top of the windshield. Tolmond Street.

  Boom…boom…boom…My pulse filled my ears as I reached the stop and lifted my hand, catching the driver’s eye. The bus pulled in close, the doors whooshed opened and I climbed on board, taking a seat.

  I hugged my pack as the bus pulled away from the curb and surged forward. Stop after stop, people piled on and stepped off. Voices slammed into me, cried, laughter...voices filled with rage, and others with terror…until I was drowning.

  I closed my eyes, sinking into that power…boom…boom…boom…I shuddered with the echo and clung to the sound. Still the voices called to me, desperate for me to hear them—desperate for me to witness.

  Down…down…down…they clung tight with sharpened claws. Digging, shredding.

  “Hey kid, this your stop?”

  I yanked open my eyes and stared at the mammoth white building in the distance. My heart leapt, fingers fumbling as I shoved from the seat and out into the aisle.

  “Thanks,” I muttered and scrambled out of the door.

  My steps were stuttered, racing with my heart. I scanned the ou
tside, and the closed gates that said No Entry as the bus passed.

  There was no guard in the hut at the entrance of the Aquarium and the carpark was empty. No one around at all. I lifted my gaze to the dimming sun. Mom would be getting dinner soon, muffling her fear and hate by cutting, searing, and stabbing, and then in an hour’s time she’d knock on my bedroom door.

  Would she care that I wasn’t there?

  Or would I hear a sigh of relief?

  I glanced to the rear of the bus as it drove away and then scanned the street before I crossed. Words meant nothing. But every sigh, every whimper…those sounds—they told the truth.

  I scanned the hut, watched the doorways, and made my way to the door with the camera. There was no whir of movement in the dome. No sound of power racing to the unit. It was dead, empty, nothing more than a dummy, one good enough to fool most people.

  But I wasn’t most people.

  I was…a monster….

  I gripped the handle and yanked. The staff entrance door opened with a rush. People were still here, feeding the animals, shutting down the rooms and turning off the lights. I slipped inside and felt the rush.

  She was calling me…they were both calling me. I scanned the dimmed hallway and turned left. Footsteps echoed in the distance, voices on the other side of the park, whispering, loving…you’re a good boy, Herman. Need to get big and strong now, take your medicine, that’s a good boy.

  The slap of flippers. The call of the wild. I liked to see the seals and the otters…I even liked to watch the stingrays and the sharks. But they weren’t my favorite…that wasn’t where I found peace.

  Voices and sounds called me from the streets and in the town. Cars, trucks, babies crying, gunshots popping. My sneakers skimmed the concrete as I stepped…illuminated signs pointed left and right. Turtles, seals, walruses…and one pointing up ahead, to the biggest underwater pool in the northern hemisphere.

  Excitement raced, like a whisper that was a scream. Footsteps resounded through the hall as I picked up my pace…my stride lengthened, almost running as doorway after doorway whipped by.

  The muffled scream pushed me into a run. My heart was thundering, swallowing her sound as she thrashed on the surface and then dove.

  She could hear me…sense me somehow.

  I’m coming.

  The doorway opened up. In the distant dim light was a splash of blue. I raced for that opening…for the one thing…the only thing that kept it all away.

  She called me, the high-pitched tone slicing through my head to hum through my soul. Blue was all I saw now as I shot forward, legs pumping, soles of my sneakers slapping against the painted concrete floor.

  Black and white blurred as I ran through the doorway, and then she was gone, leaving behind a wake of bubbles and blue. The straps of my pack slipped from my shoulders as I slowed.

  She was a murky image…slicing through the blue. I bent at the waist and stepped through the metal barriers, until there was nothing between us but hardened glass.

  Cold caressed my fingers as I splayed my hands wide against the surface. Faint muffled squeals echoed through the water. I closed my eyes and lowered my head until it touched the icy glass.

  And I forgot everything else.

  Short sharp tones mingled with the deeper call, growing sharper, bubbles bursting on the surface. And it was here that I found it…peace.

  The call grew louder…so crisp now. I opened my eyes as she carved through the water in front of the glass…my breath caught as black and white filled my view.

  Small dark eyes glistened, fleshy pink tongue flattened on the floor of her mouth. I stared at her until my eyes blurred. She swam in a tight circle and doubled back. It’d been too long since I’d seen her, been too long since I heard nothing but her song.

  “I’m here now,” I whispered and sank to the floor. “I’m right here.”

  She swam, turning over and over until black blended with the blue. I watched her as she played, pretending she was excited to see me. Deep down I knew she wasn’t. I knew I was no one special.

  But it didn’t matter.

  She was special to me.

  I leaned my head against the glass and pulled my knees closer. Lights flickered overhead and then died, leaving me awash with blue. She was the one who brought me peace. The one who stilled the roar…the one who gave me silence.

  I lay like that, with my head against the glass…until the pool lights went out. Then she was lost in the darkness…and so was I. Lost with the sound of her calls filling my head.

  Here I rested…here I was free. I leaned forward and dragged my backpack through the steel barrier and pulled last week’s granola bar from the pocket. My belly tightened, letting out a grumble in response as I peeled the top and took a bite.

  She sang; my whale. She sang and she swam while I finished my bar and laid my head back against the glass. A crack of thunder filled my head. I flinched…shouldn’t be able to hear that, not down here, not muffled by the water and concrete. Down here was silent. Down here was safe.

  Get away from me…a girl’s plea echoed inside my head, not safe for you.

  I sat up, and glanced around the aquarium…

  Beast. Monster. Weapon. Filthy...filthy animal.

  Those words resonated from the black hole in my past, cutting deeper than any razor ever could.

  Dangerous…she pleaded…stay back…not safe. I stared into the murky darkness of the pool and tried to breathe.

  Please, she whimpered.

  Everything else was silent around her, every person, every sound—I leaned forward and shoved from the ground.

  Everything but her.

  Dangerous, she murmured and an ache cut through my chest.

  I glanced over my shoulder to the blue-grey water through the window. The whale’s call resounded, high pitched, echoing just like it always had. I took a step closer and reached out, placing my palm on the glass.

  But there was a new song inside me.

  A new song that consumed even the call of the wild.

  A new song I heard clearer than anything I’d ever heard before.

  Monster, she warned. Beast.

  I swallowed hard and nodded. If she was a beast…then I was too. I tried to listen to my heart as her sadness consumed her, and in the deepest whimpers of her pain I sent out a signal, a flutter of sound on this thin trail that connected us.

  And prayed to God she heard me.

  Spark

  Lakeside 2008

  “Well, you’re screaming louder, sweetheart.” Dad pushed off the kitchen counter, took a step, catching a strand of hair near Leah’s cheek. “But the question is, are they listening?”

  She looked to me as she always did. As though I was the sole measure of her accomplishments. There was that charge inside me, that connection only Leah gave. To her, none of this was about the car’s, or the money, or even the fame.

  It was the respect, the attention, attention she demanded, but not for herself...never for herself.

  She clutched small pieces of paper in her hand and trembled as she inhaled. “If they aren’t by now, then they will tonight, won’t they? They won’t have a goddamn choice.”

  “You won’t give them one,” he murmured and smiled that sweet, sad smile. He always looked at her like that. “You sure this is safe…for you.”

  “Nothing worth a damn is safe, Seth. You know that, but this is justice, the first damn step anyway.” She sparkled as she turned in the middle of our kitchen. The bottoms of her black pants skimmed the floor, strapped heels exposing perfectly polished toenails. I lifted my gaze to the flowing cream-colored top and sparkling jewelry.

  “How do I look?” She lifted her hand.

  He caught the tips of her fingers. “Stunning, as always. Both my girls are stunning tonight.”

  A gala, dad called it. Something important for Leah. I had to be on my best behavior…not get upset or angry—especially not tonight.

  “You okay, Spark?” H
e reached out his other hand.

  Something inside me flinched with the movement, even after all this time. I nodded and took a step closer. My blue dress skimmed my knees. I didn’t care about the dress, or the color, what I cared about were the sleeves. Soft cotton skimmed midway along my hands, hiding the ugly black numbers on the inside of my wrist.

  Leah had them especially made, one in every color, but the blue she liked. The blue was kept for special occasions, ones just like this.

  Headlights cut through the front windows to splash against her face. Dad gave a smile and then inhaled hard. “Well, looks like it’s time, Senator. Let’s go get ‘em.”

  Leah sparkled, outside and in. Glossy lips stretched into a smile as she held out her hand. I took a step closer, letting her fingers slide around my shoulders and grip me close to her.

  This was okay. This was within the barrier. The one where Leah and I lived.

  She wasn’t like Dad, wasn’t soft and caring…wasn’t here. Weekends were a rush, at least we saw more of her then, even if it was frantic dinner conversations filled with campaign this, or campaign that while we ate with the dull thud of plastic cutlery.

  Three years had passed in a blur, but at least these years I remembered. She tugged my hand, urging me toward the front door with a faint murmur of, “Can’t be late. Not to my own event.”

  I glanced at the kitchen and the past rushed back to me. Cold, frightened…cuts on my feet, terror in my chest, heady like a stone.

  I’m not going to have her sleeping in the damn cells, Dad’s words filled my mind. Leah, look at her. She’s cold, hurt…we can take care of her here. Tell him she can stay here…stay…here…

  “Spark,” Dad urged, holding open the door. “Hurry, sweetheart.”

  I followed Leah, stepping through the doorway and out to the waiting limousine. The driver was there, standing beside the open back door.

  The door to the house closed with a thud. Dad’s steps crunched the gravel. “I’ve got this,” he said to the driver.

  He always had it, every open door, every scrape on my feet and knees when they bought me my first bike. The training wheels were still on it, tucked away somewhere in the garage under the house—just like the memories of that night.