Arise (Book Three in The Arson Saga) (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

A
dam examined the sea
of bodies, approached a few cautiously. None of them moved, but he checked pulses for Emery’s sake. Some were alive but fatally wounded. He knew man was not designed to survive an explosion like this. He knew that clearly because he’d seen it, time and time again.

Over the years, he’d been exposed to a series of films the doctors encouraged him to watch—
encouraged
being a frail and pathetic euphemism for
forced
. After all, being tied to a chair, without so much as the luxury to turn your eyes away from disturbing images couldn’t fall into any category even remotely linked to the word
encouragement
. In these artistic vignettes, Adam witnessed the causes, effects, and aftermath of wars. Wars of all kinds. Viral. Bloody, hand-to-hand combat that often left the participants disfigured. Scenes of torture as a means of extracting valuable information. Were the makers of these films aware of what they were doing?

Of course they were. Don’t be ridiculous. Human beings are always aware of the danger they chase.
The images he remembered and returned to frequently, much to his torment, were of the nuclear kind. Mushroom clouds that whispered rumors of the effects of radiation. Scorched crops that led to a questionable future where plague and famine seemed inevitable. Infants nursing off infected mothers because food was scarce. He recalled figures standing atop the ruins of once great empires, stained with the dust bones of their brothers and sisters. He could still feel them all, clamoring about his mind, looking for hope—all the hungry, infected, war-torn faces. Not unlike the patients who had rushed past him moments earlier, looking for answers and shelter they would not find.

He killed one of them, told Emery it was for her protection, but really that wasn’t the reason at all. The truth was, he didn’t have a reason. The patient hadn’t tried to hurt him, was so thin and weak he probably couldn’t have hurt Emery either, even if he desired to. Adam just needed to drain himself of the pain he swore they’d removed long ago. But that was the greatest lie because it still dwelled with him. It was comfortable inside him. All of it. The last memory of his mom, clouded now by the gases and radiation. His father looking away as the Grey Man led him down the sidewalk and into the black sedan, somehow overshadowed by bloody hands clawing at his ankles.

Lana’s tears the night of the carnival…undone by nothing. It was his purest memory. More potent than the idea of nuclear war. More rabid than the children with no food and no warmth and no love to call their own. More intense than his parents abandoning every human instinct to protect their son from his own mistake.

No one could judge him for strangling that patient. No one.

“What happened?” Emery asked, peeking inside at least a half-dozen cars in search of life.

“What does it look like happened? A bomb went off.”

“That’s not the whole truth, is it? What aren’t you telling me?”

Adam peered far off, knowing full well where Salvation Asylum was supposed to be, where it had been less than twenty-four hours earlier. Now replaced by a gigantic crater.

“Adam, what happened when you blacked out? You were acting freakin’ weird.”

The proximity between the asylum and them was unsettling. In fact, it forced him to reveal something he wasn’t sure she could handle, but without further thought, he blurted it out. “Arson’s alive.”

“What? You’re sure? Like, absolutely sure?”

“I didn’t think you could handle knowing the truth, so I was waiting for the right time—”

“The right time?” she said shoving him in the chest. “Are you crazy? What gave you the right to hide this from me?”

He snorted. “Nothing. I should’ve told you.”

She paced, cupping her elbows with each adjacent palm. He wanted so desperately to be the one to give her comfort, but when he tried to, she pushed him away.

“So this explosion…” she started. “Arson did this?”

Adam confirmed with a methodical nod.

“You…what, felt it?”

“It was like I was there, experiencing it with him.”

“How’s that possible?”

“How is any of this possible?” he snapped. “It just is. I have this ability to
slide
. I can enter another person’s mind and be connected with them for brief periods of time.”

“How long?”

“In the real world, a few hours. In the landscape of the mind, possibly forever, I don’t know. I think we’re still connected somehow.”

She was processing. “So you were inside Arson’s head when it happened?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”

“I mean, I don’t know what was happening. I was there, but I wasn’t. Normally, when I slide, both parties need to be unconscious; otherwise it doesn’t work. I can get in there, extract data, move a few things around, and get out.”

“Does the person realize you’re in there messing with stuff?”

“Sometimes. But if I’m careful, I can wander undetected.” They kept walking down the interstate, turning over bodies that looked like they could be saved. But after checking, it was clear they were too far gone. “I can disguise myself as someone else, someone the host feels safe with. I can take on their persona, become them in the mind.”

“Okay,” Emery murmured, following the maze of his words.

“But this time, it was different. I was there, with him, but, I don’t know, it was just different. I knew what was happening, but he didn’t know I was there.”

“Because you were disguised?”

“No, it’s like when you’re dreaming, and you know what’s happening in the dream, but you can’t react to it. You’re watching it from the outside and also experiencing it from the inside. Look, I realize this doesn’t make much sense, but I saw him destroy the asylum and then…”

“What?” Emery said with wide eyes. “Then what?”

“He vanished.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, figure it out.”

“It isn’t that easy.” He scratched his scalp. “He was with three people when he vanished.”

“Did you see their faces?”

Adam shook his head. “It was a blur.”

“He must not have gone far, right? We could still find him. Let’s go.”

“Emery, what happened was an accident. I didn’t mean to enter his mind. Because of the connection, I think it just sorta happened.”

“But you’ve done it before, on purpose. You can do it again.”

“Normally, I have to be asleep. And normally, I need to have access to my powers.”

“They still haven’t fully come back?”

“No.”

Emery cursed. “We have to try and look for him.”

“We don’t know who he’s with. They could be dangerous. We have to be—”

“Cautious? Afraid? I’m done playing that game.”

He didn’t like how she persisted, didn’t like this new side of her that seemed so blindly foolhardy and desperate to reunite with a past he’d warned her was already dead.
But it isn’t dead yet, is it?
his mind intruded.
He’s very much alive, and you still need him.

“We have to try, Adam,” she said with tears. “I have to.”

I shouldn’t have told you, Emery. I knew I shouldn’t have told you the truth.
Then why had he?

“All right, but first, we have to get as far away from here as we can so my powers have a chance to rejuvenate,” Adam said. “I give it ten minutes before the Overseers dispatch a DATA unit. Odds are they’ll come and clean up this mess before the local news has a chance to get their hands all over this site.”

“Do you think we’re still being tracked?”

“Do you really want to know what I think?”

She didn’t answer.

“That’s why we have to stay on the move. I need my powers to fight back.”

Emery nodded, still very much at war with her own emotions, he could sense. How much of her still craved that connection with the other boy? How much did she still desire him?

Emery started down the highway again but, seconds later, was forced to stop. A body had caught her shoe, and she fell to the ground, scraping her palms on loose asphalt.

“Are you all right?” Adam asked, running to her side.

But Emery’s face was frozen. A mixture of awe and sadness and anger. He knew those eyes well. “Mom?” she sobbed. “Mom?”

The body was covered in ash, and looked nothing like a human to Adam, but apparently she saw something else, some
one
else. Underneath the soot-covered flesh, there was evidence of the mother who had raised her.

“Don’t look,” he said calmly, kneeling between her and the corpse she kept calling Mom. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

“Get away from me, Adam. Get away now.” This girl was so different from the one calling him back from the other realities, the one kissing his neck, his cheek, his forehead, brimming with love or the fragile, corruptible idea of it. This girl was darker. Intrigue and caution alike filled his mind as Emery dusted off the corpse’s nose, revealing an emaciated jawline, with a chunk of lip missing and cuts running across the cheeks. Tightly sealed eyes shut the world out, shut her daughter out in her moment of need, this moment of fractured clarity.

“No,” she cried, pressing her head against her mother’s chin. “Mom.” He couldn’t help but wonder what he would do if he were granted the chance to see a member of his family again. What he would give for that moment. He wondered how much it would hurt to find them like this.

“Emery, we have to…”

With tear-soaked eyes, she glared up at him with one request. “Heal her.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Heal her now.”

“I can’t. Emery, I told you, my powers are gone.”

“No, they’re not. Maybe you just need to concentrate harder. Maybe you can’t willingly harness the strength to slide into someone’s head, but just one touch, please. If you try hard enough, you can bring her back.”

Adam stood to his feet. “It doesn’t just work like that. We have no idea how long she’s been like this.”

“You healed me. I had those scars for years.”

“This is different. You weren’t dead!”

His words must’ve sounded so harsh, but they had to be said. It was too quiet on this highway. They had to start moving, and quickly.

“You won’t even try?” she asked, beaten. “Adam, it’s my mother.”

He was a stone. There was no point in trying when he already was certain of the outcome. Why enable more pain? But he knew Emery would not be satisfied unless they exhausted every option. “Fine. I’ll try, but when it doesn’t work, we run.”

She nodded.

Adam dropped to his knees once more. Snow chilled his bones, melting inside the fabric faster than he wanted and dripping down his shin. He shut his eyes, trying to get into character. He released a short breath and touched her mother’s cheek. Emery was shivering behind him, desperate for a miracle.

“Is it working?”

Adam didn’t answer. He kept his hand on the woman’s skin a little while longer, even contracted his jaw muscle to let Emery think that maybe, just maybe, this might work. And then he gasped, feigning exhaustion.

“I’m sorry, Emery. I can’t.”

She cradled her forehead with her palms. Defeat oozed out of her.

“It’s too late. And my powers haven’t fully returned. I can’t bring her back.”

She didn’t want to realize it. Everything about her told him that. And he couldn’t blame her. After his eleventh month in Salvation, Adam had tricked himself into thinking that his parents were already dead. Perhaps their deaths were a result of some virus outbreak, or maybe they had turned to ash in a nuclear strike. The
how
didn’t really matter, only that they were indeed dead to him. And it worked; for years, his mind hoax had worked. She would have to do the same. It was the only way to survive.

“We need to leave. Someone will come for us, Emery.”

“I don’t wanna run anymore.”

“We have to,” Adam said, trying to force her away.

“No,” she struggled. “No!”

“I’ve lost loved ones too, Emery. I get how hard this is, but it gets easier.”
No, it doesn’t.
“It has to.”

One last tear. Emery searched her mother’s pockets, looking for a photograph. She was certain her mom still kept it. A picture from her childhood, before the accident. It was winter, like today, and they’d spent the entire Saturday afternoon building a snowman. Emery had been happy that day. She searched every pocket, grabbed her mother’s wallet and scavenged through it until… Yes, there it was. Adam noticed when Emery plucked it from the clear plastic holder. It was a perfect shot of a family. The man in the picture must be Emery’s father.

Emery also found a cell phone that had been buried by ash beside the body, but it was charred beyond use.

“The explosion most likely knocked out any signal for miles, at least for a while,” Adam said, not knowing if what he said was true, only that he was trying to offer consolation. It wasn’t working.

Emery placed the photograph back in the wallet and shoved the wallet into her pocket. All of its contents now belonged to her. There wasn’t much in it. A little cash, some receipts, and a few credit and debit cards. But the picture—Adam knew that mattered most of all.

“Wait,” she said, something falling into place behind her glazed over eyes. “If she’s here, that means she was looking for me.”

“How would she know where to look?”

“Don’t know, but she got close. Which means, my dad must be close.”

“Maybe.”

“Yes, maybe,” she repeated, no doubt emotionally warring with his cynicism. “He could be one of those three people you said you saw with Arson.”

“Look, we can’t base everything on what I saw. It was a blur, remember?”

“For now, it’s all we’ve got.”

Adam agreed with his eyes, not his words.

“Goodbye, Mom,” Emery said, stoic. She didn’t hug or even kiss her mother. She just got up and started running, away from the body, away from the ruins of Salvation Asylum, away from the innocent girl Adam knew was slowly fading.

He followed closely behind, feeling new power spike in his chest. The sensation rode his veins, finally reaching his knuckles. Glancing down for a brief moment, he witnessed an amber glow line his fingertips. He stopped short, looked back at Emery’s mother then forward at the new world covered in snow and ash. Before long, it would all be this way. Emery had to be strong enough when the time came. She’d finished off Dr. Krane, and he was proud of her for that, but that small act of defiance was only the beginning. If she wanted to survive, she had to be educated, trained to be numb, to look death in the face and not feel a thing.