Brothers of Chaos (The Unstoppable Titans Book 1) (21 page)

So Owen
nodded.

What did that mean?
Chris asked himself.
Owen simply nodded. Then it came to him. Owen was telling him to blow them up.
Right now.

Chris nodded
back. Now was the time. But he had another idea. He reached into his pocket
again. Suddenly a loud bang that sounded like a thunderclap came from the orb,
and the pulse grew in intensity, spreading in all directions. Glass shattered
from the nearest buildings, as well as all the glass from the parked cars
around them. Car alarms were going off, barely audible due to the pulse.

“Now!” Chris
thought he heard. He turned back to Owen and saw him screaming at him.

Now was
definitely the time. Michael and his brother stood close together, directly
under the orb, as if trying to stay in a protective circle. Chris pressed down
on the activation button of the Rejecter bomb and threw it at them.

The
explosion was worse than he imagined it would be. The ground shook, and the
explosion itself almost seemed frozen in time; all sound ceased to exist, as if
someone had flipped a switch to turn it off. Everything lit up brilliantly.

The next
moment, time caught up with itself. A powerful force sucked everything inward,
toward the orb. Chris grabbed onto the closest car, but it too was being
dragged. Then, an explosive force blew everything away. The entire parking
garage wobbled and cracked. It felt like it was about to collapse completely.

Chris had to
get Owen out of there. He ran toward him, trying to stay away from Michael and
the orb. He didn’t even bother looking at them. He reached Owen, pulling him to
his feet. That’s when the ground below them gave way. Chris yanked Owen back as
the ground collapsed, taking Michael, Jason and the orb with it.

But the
crack in the ground spread, and then more ground began to collapse. Cars fell
through the expanding hole. Before Chris could even think, Owen lifted him off
the ground.

The entire
garage, all six levels of it, was collapsing. Owen ran away from the
ever-expanding hole, carrying Chris in his arms.

“I can run,
you know!” Chris screamed.

“No time,”
said Owen.

The ground
disappeared below Owen’s feet. He leapt onto the nearest car, and then the next
one after that, as the cars vanished. He continued to leap from car to car,
staying off the ground as best he could. The sound of the collapsing structure
was overbearing to Chris. How were they going to get out of this? It was only a
matter of time before they ran out of space, before the entire building was
gone.

Owen jumped
onto a car that had already begun to fall. Utter fear grasped Chris as the two
of them fell, but Owen didn’t give up. He jumped to the next car that had
started falling above them. And then he jumped to the next one after that. They
were going to run out of cars before too long.

And that
they did. Owen stayed on the last car he’d jumped to, pinning Chris against the
roof so he wouldn’t fall away. The car spun and the roof faced down, toward the
ground. Owen gripped both sides of the roof and pulled one side with all his
strength. The car tilted until the roof faced upward again. Chris took this
moment to look around—the entire parking garage was collapsing.

All because
of one tiny Rejecter.

Chris and
Owen looked down as they fell into the void.

The dust hadn’t settled yet
when Owen opened his eyes. He was on the hood of a car—the last one he’d jumped
on—with his back against the windshield. Chris was next to him, unconscious.
Other cars were littered around, some almost completely crushed by rubble.
Something was digging into Owen’s back, but before he could look to see what it
was, a low rustle of gravel alerted him to something moving in his direction.
He held his breath as the figure drew closer. Owen could see the silhouette of
a man pushing through the dust.

“If only you
knew who you really are,” said the figure, “you would not have stopped us.”

“I know who
I am,” said Owen.

The figure
stepped into a patch of light coming from the moon far above, and Owen saw it
was Jason, blood covering his face and clothes.

“Do you
really?” asked Jason.

“I made that
orb. I knew it the moment I saw it. It’s mine to do with as I want.”

He noticed a
body lying a few feet behind Jason. He assumed it was Michael.

“You’re
wrong about that, my friend. It’s ours,” spat Jason, “and the decision is not
yours, as much as you’d like to believe that. The decision will never be just
yours. Never forget that, brother. I hope you’re ready to die for this world.”

Sirens
wailed in the background. Jason became fully aware of them and tensed on the
spot. He started backing away, never taking his eyes off of Owen. In the blink
of an eye, Jason and Michael disappeared. The dust that had surrounded them
puffed inward, as if filling the void the brothers left behind. Owen wasn’t
sure what he had just seen, but he also didn’t care.

He looked
over to Chris, who was still passed out. Only then did he remember the pain in
his back. He reached to feel for what was behind him and his fingers touched
upon a hard, round object.

“It can’t
be,” he said.

He grabbed
the object and brought it to the front so he could get a good look at it. Sure
enough, it was the dreaded orb that had caused all the chaos.

The orb he
knew, in some unexplainable way, belonged to him.

And now it
was back in his possession.

Owen pulled
Chris off of the car and carried him away from the collapsed garage. Cops
surrounded their condo down the street, and some were headed to the parking
garage now. Owen knew police had to have discovered Daniel’s body by now and it
wasn’t safe to go home. He couldn’t think of any other place to go right now.

And just
then, he remembered Mr.
Elfman
was out of town. The
old man wouldn’t mind if the boys crashed at his place without his knowledge.
At this point, at least, Owen didn’t care if Mr.
Elfman
would mind.

*
 
*
 
*

“What do we
do now?” Owen asked Chris as they settled into Mr.
Elfman’s
condo. Chris held the orb, studying it. Neither one of them knew what it had
done after it had been activated, but they had stopped it before it could do
any real damage, and that was something.

“I think we
should just chuck it into Trident River and be done with it,” Chris said,
handing it back to Owen.

“I don’t
think that’s a good idea. I mean, what if someone else finds it?”

“Then let’s
destroy it.”

Owen
pondered this. “How?”

“Beat it
with a sledgehammer. I don’t know.”

“What about
Nikki?” Owen asked. “She told us to bring it to her.”

“Why should
we?” Chris asked. “We stopped what those guys were doing, and you said Michael
was dead, right?”

“He looked
dead,” Owen amended. “Daniel and Alyssa were killed because of this thing,” he
added. “I want to know why.”

Chris had
just woken up from his unconscious state and found himself in the old man’s place.
Owen had filled him in about what had happened after they’d fallen to the
street, and how Jason and Michael extracted the knowledge of how to activate
the orb from Owen’s mind. Police were swarming their own condo down the hall,
so they couldn’t return there. Chris rubbed his temples; his head was ready to
split wide open, and he doubted it was because of the concussion he’d suffered
at the garage.

“But how did
you know how to activate it?” he asked Owen for the third time.

“I told you,
I don’t know. I kept having those dreams about this thing, like I was the one
building it. That’s why I think we should take it to Nikki. Maybe she can tell
us.”

“So you
think you built it?”

“I don’t see
how or why. I think I know everything about it, but, at the same time, I know
nothing about it. Michael knew, too. He knew what it does, but not how to turn
it on. I knew how, but not what it does. It’s like pieces…”

Chris looked
up at him when he suddenly stopped talking. “What is it?”

“Pieces of a
puzzle,” Owen finished. “That’s what Michael said he and I were. Two pieces of
a puzzle. And when we were together, we completed that puzzle.”

Chris said
nothing. He only stared at the orb—the puzzle. After a moment, he got up and
went to the bedroom.

“Let me just
lie down for a second,” he said to Owen over his shoulder. “I just need to lie
down. Then we can go.”

*
 
*
 
*

Chris wanted
nothing more than to sleep. His head throbbed and his body felt stiff. He felt
he deserved to rest. The orb was now in his and Owen’s possession, Michael and
Jason had fled, defeated, and the world was safe.

So why did
Chris not feel at ease? Even as he lay in the bed, he felt he should be up. A
sudden fear washed over him. He felt himself slowly fading away. He sat up from
Mr.
Elfman’s
bed, his heart racing.

He was still
infected by Eric. He had forgotten.

Until now,
nothing had come of that; he never felt the urge to feed on human blood; he
didn’t develop super-human strength. But now he felt something odd. He suddenly
felt if he fell asleep, he would wake up changed. Not in a coma, like
Stephanie, but completely changed.

He walked
over to a desk and sat, staring at Mr.
Elfman’s
computer monitor. He slapped himself hard.
I
can’t fall asleep.
He had no idea where this realization came from, but he
felt it to be true.

He was
starting to panic now. He looked around the room for something to distract him.
His thoughts dwelled on the bed, and how Mr.
Elfman
was out of town and, according to Daniel that day D had snuck into this
apartment, wouldn’t be back for another week.

With that,
Chris figured he could catch a quick nap before things got busy.

No,
he thought,
I can’t go to sleep.

The feeling
he wouldn’t be the same if he slept filled him with an overwhelming fear. He
thought of going for a jog, but he was much too tired for that.

He closed
his fists. His fingers crackled—he felt so stiff. His mind felt empty, too. He
was feeling even sleepier because of it. He gazed longingly at the bed; it
looked so inviting.

He spun in
his chair to stare back at the monitor. The dark screen seemed to hypnotize
him. The desire to sleep was growing.

*
 
*
 
*

When Owen
entered the bedroom, he saw Chris resting his head on the keyboard. He
understood why Chris would be exhausted after what they’d just experienced, but
he knew they couldn’t stay here. The police were investigating the explosions
that had plagued the building. Owen had been watching the news the whole time
to see if they’d reported on any of the things that had happened in the last
few hours. Nothing yet, so far.

And the
police were no doubt curious about the weapons cache and the dead body of
Daniel Hudson. Owen Walters and Chris Weaver would most definitely be
questioned about all of that.

Owen called
to Chris, who woke instantly. Owen was startled by his blank expression; his
eyes were empty.

“You all
right?” Owen asked.

Chris didn’t
respond. He didn’t even move. It was like he was frozen. He continued to stare
at Owen, which sent a chill up his spine.

Suddenly,
something started
dripping
out of Chris’s eyes and
down his face. It looked like he was crying, but the tears weren’t clear; they
were dark and sappy-looking.

“Oh, my
god,” Owen said after examining it closely.

Something
definitely wasn’t right. He ran to the bathroom to get a towel, but when he
returned, Chris was gone. Owen looked around the room. He searched the living
room and kitchen, the other bedrooms and bathrooms. The condo was almost as big
as theirs, though Mr.
Elfman
lived alone. Chris was
nowhere to be found. Owen ran past the TV where he heard a news report (the
reporter sounded excited about something), but he did not stop.

His heart
raced. It wasn’t like Chris to just get up and leave like that. Owen walked to
an open window (the one they’d crawled through to avoid the cops at the entrance)
and looked down, preparing for the worst. He was happy to not see Chris’s body
splattered on the street below.

He looked up
at the sun, which was slowly rising; something wasn’t right about it. Instead
of feeling heat radiating from it, he felt cold. Maybe there was something in
the air. He went back to the living room and grabbed the orb from behind the
couch. Had Michael and Jason succeeded in their plan, after all?

The orb felt
warm and greasy in his hands once again. He felt nothing good could ever come
from it. He had succeeded in obtaining it from Michael and Jason, and Michael
was pretty much out of commission, but he couldn’t shake the feeling this
wasn’t over.

Owen saw D
standing in a corner (the robot had been waiting in this condo instead of their
own), low blue lights barely visible in the sun-drenched room. In all the
excitement, Owen hadn’t noticed the front door open. He ran over to it, but
before he could poke his head out to survey the hall, a cop ran by. Owen jumped
behind the door, and then slowly closed it. Chris must have gone out that way.

Owen looked
back to D. There was no way he was going to leave it—him—there all alone, but
he couldn’t very well take him looking the way he did—looking very much like a
robot.

*
 
*
 
*

A few
minutes later, Owen and D casually made their way out of the condo. D had on a
long brown trench coat and a fedora. He was walking with his head down. Owen
wouldn’t have been at all surprised if someone found them suspicious-looking.

No one had
stopped them so far, so they kept walking until they got to the garage, to
Owen’s car. D got into the passenger’s seat as Owen tossed the orb in the back.

“Ready to
hit the road, Daniel?” Owen asked.

The robot
looked at him but said nothing, which was pretty much what Owen had been
expecting. And then Owen caught what he had just said. He’d referred to D as
Daniel. He sat there for a moment, contemplating that.

D did stand
for Daniel, he told himself, remembering how the boy genius had decided to name
his creation.

Owen started
the car and drove out of the lot, making sure not to speed; there were cops all
over the place. “Keep your head down,” he told D.

The robot
did as it was told. Owen turned right on Calhoun. As he did so, he looked to
where the parking garage had collapsed. There were people crowded all around
it, and it appeared some police officers were fighting them back. Owen turned
right on the next street, intending to circle back to the collapsed building.
He had a crazy thought and wanted to check to make sure.

As he
approached Calhoun and 4
^th
, he saw the crowd of people better. Most
of them looked pale and weird, much the way Chris had appeared to Owen moments
ago. Four police officers kept pushing them back, but the people were insistent
upon approaching the site.

That’s when
Owen thought he saw who he was looking for: Someone who looked a lot like Chris
was among the crowd. Before Owen could get a better look, a cop noticed him and
approached his car.

“Sir, you’re
going to have to move along,” the officer said.

Owen nodded
and drove off, fearful of the officer noticing his robot companion. He got onto
the freeway, trying to remember the way to his destination, but his thoughts
suddenly dwelled on Chris again. Where was he? Owen kept asking himself.

As he drove
down the freeway, he kept glancing back at the orb. There was someone who might
be able to tell him what it truly was, someone with strawberry-blond hair, who
could tell you anything you wanted to know, as long as you were completely
honest with her. And Owen intended to be as honest as he possibly could this
time.

He turned on
the radio and settled in for his trip to Baker, to see Nikki. As he drove, he
thought of all the things he would ask her.