Damaged (30 page)
Just holding the X-26 Taser, with its lightweight, bright yellow casing that fit perfectly in his hand, gave him a sense of confidence. The power the stun gun possessed surged all the way up Dawson’s skinny arm, so that he actually became an extension of the Taser. All he had to do was point and wham, there goes 50,000 volts of electricity. And suddenly Dawson Hayes was somebody. The powerless, suddenly powerful. He could control anyone and everyone.
So what if he wasn’t an athletic superstar like his dad wanted him to be. So what if he’d never be a quarterback like Johnny B or a tough, tobacco-chewing cowboy like Lucas or even a brainiac like Kyle? With this sleek piece of technology
in the palm of his hand Dawson felt like he could do anything.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t just the Taser. Maybe the salvia had a little something to do with it. He’d been chewing his wad for about fifteen minutes and he could already feel the effect. That was just one of the highlights for tonight.
Dawson looked for the camera hidden behind some low sweeping pine needles. Though it remained camouflaged he could see the green dot blinking only because he had helped Johnny set it up earlier, making sure the tripod blended in with the branches. No one else knew it was there. Being the geek in residence did have its advantages.
Dawson glanced around at the campground they had stomped out for themselves in a secluded part of the pine forest where they probably shouldn’t have a frickin’ campfire. Johnny B said no one could see this parcel from the road or the lookout tower, though it didn’t matter. Both would be vacant. On one side was an open field, a swell of rolling tall grass separated by a barbed-wire fence. On the other side was the thick beginning of ponderosa pine. About ten yards away the Dismal River snaked by. Dawson could hear the water tonight, just a whisper running over the rocks.
They had left their vehicles about a quarter mile down in a deserted pull-off, a two-tire trail worn into the knee-high grass. They even had to climb over barbed-wire fence to enter the forest. The trek was only the first test of the night but Dawson thought it revealed quite a lot about tonight’s guests, how they maneuvered and crawled over the sharp barbs, just how capable they were. Whether they turned to help the next person get over or under the fence or if instead they looked for assistance. Or worse,
expected
assistance.
That was another thing about Dawson that made him different than other kids his age. He liked watching how people reacted to each other, to their surroundings and especially how they reacted to the unpredictable. His generation had become mindless zombies, mimicking and copying each other, caught up in their own little worlds of
what is
rather than
what if
. That was probably what interested him most about Johnny’s experiments.
There were only seven of them here tonight and yet they still grouped together in their cliques. Johnny was surrounded by the babes, Courtney and Amanda. Tonight even Nikki had inserted herself into the cool clique, which disappointed Dawson. He had hopes that Nikki would be better than that. All three girls looked like
they were hanging on every one of Johnny’s words, laughing and tossing their hair back then tilting their chins in that way girls do to show their interest.
Smoke and mirrors. Everyone with half a brain knew exactly who was in charge, who controlled who.
That was okay. Johnny was good at looking like it was his club, his party. Like he called the shots. Quarterback, homecoming king, Johnny Bosh was charming but with just enough of a bad-ass attitude that nobody challenged him. Being Johnny’s friend was safer than being someone who annoyed him.
Dawson wasn’t quite sure why Johnny wanted the Taser. He didn’t need it. Johnny exuded confidence, even in those silly cowboy boots. The leather biker jacket was a bit much, but it fit the cool image. Kids called him Johnny B and it was the coolest nickname. Dawson had even heard Mr. Bosh call out, “Johnny be good,” at one of the football games and then the man laughed like he expected just the opposite from his son and that it was perfectly okay with him.
The first flash of light came without a sound. Everyone turned but only briefly.
The second flash crackled overhead. Dawson thought it might be lightning but his eyes blurred
it into blue and purple veins that spread over the treetops like a crack in twilight’s ceiling.
Dawson heard “oohs” and “aahs,” and smiled to himself. They’re tripping out, enjoying the fireworks. He probably was too.
He hadn’t used salvia before but Johnny B said it was better than anything from the family medicine cabinet and way more potent than regular weed. Johnny said it was “freakin’ cool,” like “rock ’n’ roll fireworks squeezing your brain, convincing you that you could fly.”
Dawson thought the stuff looked harmless. Green, the color of sage, with wide leaves and similar to something he’d find in his mom’s old flower beds. God, he missed his mom. Dawson squashed some more of the plant into a tight wad and stuck it into his mouth between his teeth and cheek like chewing tobacco, no longer wincing at the bitter flavor.
Johnny had called the plant “Sally-D” and told them that the Indians used it for healing. “It’ll clear your sinuses, clean out your guts, soothe your aches and erase the static in your brain.”
However, he also sounded this excited last week when he had them all snort the Oxycoxin he’d crushed into fine particles. He had been able to confiscate only two of the pills from his mom’s medicine cabinet so the effects—when crushed
and spread out among a dozen kids—didn’t quite live up to Johnny’s promises. But here he was, once again, sounding like an infomercial, working his magic and getting them to give it a try, all in the hopes of feeling good and being cool.
Now, less than a minute after Dawson’s second hit he felt light-headed, a pleasant mind-tickling buzz disconnected him from the others so that he watched them stumble and laugh and point at the sky. But it was like he was watching from another room, another time zone and in slow motion from a faraway galaxy right outside his bedroom window. Maybe on a big screen TV.
Dawson was thinking of infomercials, hearing silly rap jingles accompanied by a deep bass rhythm pounding, pounding, pounding at the base of his skull. Tree branches started to sway. Their trunks multiplied, by twos then threes.
That’s when he saw the red eyes.
They were hidden in the bush, back behind Kyle and Lucas, right behind Amanda.
Fiery dots watched, darting back and forth.
How could the others not see this creature?
Dawson opened his mouth to warn them but no sound came out. He lifted his arm to point but he didn’t recognize his hand, yellow and green, almost fluorescent in the flashing strobe light that came out of the treetops. The light became jerks
and waves of purple and blue, crackling through the branches.
That’s when Dawson first smelled the heat. Almost like someone had left on a hot iron for too long. Then suddenly the smell was stronger, reminding him of scorched hot dogs on an open campfire—black, crispy, burnt meat. Then he remembered they hadn’t brought any food.
The sensation started as a tingle. Static electricity traveled the airwaves. The others felt it, too. They weren’t “oohing” and “aahing” anymore. Instead, they stumbled, heads tilted upward, searching the treetops.
Dawson looked back at the brush for the fiery red eyes.
Gone
.
His head swiveled. His eyes scanned the area, only now his eyes moved jerk by jerk. He could hear a mechanical click in his head like his eyes had become a machine. Each blink scraped like a camera shutter, open and closed. Every movement ticked and echoed in his head. His nostrils flared, sucking in air that singed his lungs. A metallic taste stuck in his throat.
The next flash of light sizzled, leaving a tail of live sparks.
This time Dawson heard shouts of surprise. Then cries of pain.
Suddenly the fiery red eyes came running out
of the brush. They came racing straight at Dawson from across the campsite. A hooded wolf, blazing white with teeth bared and sparks of light shooting from its outstretched arms.
Dawson raised his own arm, aimed the Taser and pulled the trigger.
The creature reeled back, fell and sprawled in the leaves, kicking up glowing stars that shot out of a bed of pine needles. Dawson didn’t wait for the creature to spring to its haunches. He turned and started running, or at least, his feet did. The rest of him felt carried, pushed, shoved into the forest by a force stronger than his own two feet.
It was all he could do to raise his arms and protect his face from the branches that snapped and tore at his clothes and slashed his skin. He couldn’t see. The pounding at the base of his skull drowned out all other sound. The flashes were hot and bright behind him. Total dark, in front of him.
He hit the wire hard and the jolt of electricity knocked him off his feet. He stumbled and felt his skin pierced and caught like a fish on a hook, only a thousand hooks. The pain wrapped arrows around his entire body and stabbed him from every direction.
By the time Dawson Hayes hit the ground, his shirt was slick with blood.
DOUBLEDAY
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by S. M. Kava
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
DOUBLEDAY and the DD colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Maps designed by Jeffrey L. Ward
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kava, Alex.
Damaged : a Maggie O’Dell novel / by Alex Kava.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. O’Dell, Maggie (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. Criminal profilers—Fiction.
3. Hurricanes—Florida—Fiction. 4. Florida—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3561.A8682D36 2010
813′.54—dc22 2009052285
eISBN: 978-0-385-53200-6
Cover photograph © Stockbyte / Photolibrary
Design:
www.henrysteadman.com
v3.0_r2
ALSO BY
ALEX KAVA
New York Times
bestselling author Alex Kava returns in a blaze of glory with a gripping, action-packed thriller featuring special agent Maggie O’Dell, who is leading the search for a serial arsonist. As the acts of arson become more brazen, Maggie’s professional and personal worlds begin to collide dangerously. The killer may be closer than she imagines.
And don’t miss
Damaged
, also available in paperback from Anchor.
