Ravens (21 page)

Kendra cleared her throat and stepped
away. Randal reluctantly let her go.

Kendra rubbed her right arm. “I-I don’t
want to talk about it,” she whispered in a successful attempt to prevaricate an
answer. Too many people waited for an answer on the spot.

“Did it have to do with Julie and Liam?”
Randal asked.

The names took her by storm, as if
whirling her back across the space-time continuum and slamming her thoughts
into the living flesh of the missing children who grew up in a different
universe. They weren’t dead in a heap of bones and scraps of clothing. Instead,
they were nothing more than strangers, trapped memories who were just
that...memories of old relationships that didn’t cross the bounds of space.

Kendra nodded in answer.

“Oh, sweetie.” Mrs. Pierce placed a hand
on her daughter’s shoulder. “I thought you moved past this.”

“I’m over it now,” Kendra softly argued.

“Are you sure? You disappeared, and we
thought the worst happened to you,” her father spoke.

“I’m okay.”

“At least tell us where you went.”

“Around the city.” She spoke the truth,
the same city just in another dimension.

“Don’t push her to talk,” Mrs. Pierce
muttered to her husband.

“This has gone on far enough,” he hissed
back.

“Please, not now,” she pleaded. “It’ll
just make things worse.”

“There’s never going to be a good time,
but it’s gone too far. I’m calling them.” Mr. Pierce pulled away from his
wife’s beseeching hold.

Mrs. Pierce went after her husband as he
picked up the phone, begging him, “Please, I can’t take this right now.”

He put the phone down, and muttered
under his breath. The two continued to bicker very loudly. Their voices carried
to Kendra and Randal at the front door. Randal looked down at Kendra.

“Wanna get outta here?” he asked,
perhaps sensing the apprehension in her.

She nodded, tearing away from her
parents’ arguing. He took her hand, led her out the door. They left in his car.
By the time her parents realized she left, Kendra would have arrived at
Randal’s apartment.

He pulled into a space in front of the
sidewalk and sat silently for a moment. Randal stared at the steering wheel while
Kendra’s focus remained glued on the windshield. She didn’t really notice the
surroundings beyond the glass.

Before Kendra turned to catch Randal’s
movement, he unbuckled himself and took her face between two large palms. He
firmly planted a kiss on her lips, then pulled away. Still cupping her face and
without drawing back, he peered directly into her eyes.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” she gasped at the unexpected
kiss.

“Were you abducted?”

“No.” She tried to shake her head along
with the verbal answer.

He swallowed before asking, “Were you
raped?”

“No.”

“Do you promise me these answers?”

“Yes.”

In another second, he reluctantly let go
and pecked her on the cheek. Kendra crawled out of the car after Randal. She
glanced up, taking note of the familiar brick building. “You live here?”

“I live on the fifth floor.”

“Let me guess.” She pointed at the dimly
lit window. “You live there.”

Randal set the alarm on his car and
tossed the keys in his hand. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Feels like I’ve been here before,” she
muttered, following him inside.

How odd to be back in
this
apartment
where Liam and Julie lived in a different dimension. It felt strange to have
the urge to leap up flights of stairs like child’s play, but she couldn’t do
more than jump up one step at a time. She found herself missing her superhuman
abilities, and ached for the return of the energy.

They took the elevator, and meandered
down the hall. It was déjà vu.

Randal opened the door and invited
Kendra to step in first. He flipped on the lights, locked the door behind him,
and tossed the keys onto the dining table.

It was astonishing. To the left, the
kitchen had an open view over a granite countertop. The dining table stood to
the right with the bathroom just a little further past. The living room opened
up straight ahead with two bedrooms to the left. Randal used one bedroom and
set the other one up as a library/guest room.

Weird couldn’t begin to describe this.
Had the place been decorated the same pristine way Julie set up, it would’ve
been downright creepy.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s a really nice place.”

“You know your test is in a few hours.
Will you be up to it?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged off the emotion.
Kendra sat on the couch and Randal took a seat at the other end of the sofa.

“Do you wanna talk about it, Kendra?”

“About what?” She stared at the carpet.

“Anything: Where you went, what you did,
how you feel.”

“No. You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“I wouldn’t think that; you can trust
me.”

Trust?
She mused, as she looked him
over. How could one word create such wry diversions? No matter how much Randal
urged her to give in and trust him, she couldn’t. She knew how insane the story
sounded without viable proof. Though the tale was true, it wasn’t sound.
Portals, parallel dimensions, and superhuman powers? Even Kendra questioned if
it wasn’t just some wild, surreal dream.

It didn’t feel right to be in Julie’s
identical home, same building, same floor, same apartment! Kendra had to get
out of here. What a better way to lose herself than doing what made her forget
about Julie and Liam? Practice at the dojo would cure what ailed her, so she
went.

****

Kendra’s parents informed Randal during
Kendra’s mysterious hiatus that they called in a special psychiatric team that
contacted them after Julie and Liam’s disappearances. They dealt with the types
of vanishings that involved earthquakes and bright white lights. They snooped
around the barn, or, as they called it, “ground zero,” for several months and
during the first few anniversaries. They stopped after three years without
evidence of the children’s whereabouts.

The men asked Kendra’s parents to keep a
watch on their daughter, and report to them immediately if her behavior
changed. If, for example, she spoke of imaginary people, other dimensions, or
raved about the kids being alive and well. Kendra, of course, knew nothing of
this.

Randal didn’t agree with this route of
action, and intended to tell Kendra as soon as she returned. He, of course,
worried about her safety, but he didn’t doubt she would come back on her own
terms. No one could get over the loss of loved ones without closure. He did,
however, suspect something happened when her headaches intensified, and she
heard Liam’s voice in her head. He kept this bit of information from her parents,
otherwise, they would have called the team right there and then.

When she still wouldn’t confide in him,
and now used the term “crazy,” he wondered. The word sparked the memory of what
her parents planned to do. They argued at the house earlier over calling in the
team. Mrs. Pierce didn’t want to send her daughter off, but Mr. Pierce had
enough and wanted Kendra to get help.

Did she go crazy? He shook the thought
from his head. He wanted to tell her about the psychiatrists, but didn’t want
to deter her from confiding in him. He thought if he spilled his knowledge to
her first, she would panic and keep her mouth shut in fear that he would report
her.

In time, she would talk. For now, he
held up the pads as targets for Kendra as she pounded through them, sending
throbbing shock waves through his arms and shoulders with her powerful kicks.
This change amazed him. She had more power, more aggression, better aim, and
along with it all, beautiful grace. He wondered what really happened during her
hiatus because those couple of days created a tempest of a fighter, precision,
power, and poise.

Randal stumbled back.

“Okay, okay.” He stopped her.

Kendra stood mid-stance of a round-house
kick. She bent at the waist, her right leg in the air. “What?”

Randal dropped the pads. “Where did that
come from?”

“Where did what come from?”

“You were a good martial artist before,
but suddenly you’re incredible.”

She shrugged and gave an awkward smile,
as if she had an explanation but didn’t want to tell him.

Chapter Twenty

The martial arts test came and went.
Students sat off the mats. They lined the walls of the dojo, sitting
cross-legged, backs arched in a disciplined and still manner. 

The test started with a demonstration
from the lower belts. As the tests increased by belt, they increased in
complexity. The test was not a form of embarrassment or critique when done in
front of all the students, but for the benefit of everyone present. The black
belt candidates had to learn how to control themselves and concentrate, whether
in front of a silent audience or in the center of a heated battle. Their skills
and a glimpse of what higher tests consisted of gave the lower belt students
something to aim for, an idea of what they needed to work on, and their
expectations.

The black belts, as always, gave the
best demonstrations just before the black belt testing at the end. Three
students tested today. The first, a woman who failed her first black belt test
a few months prior, performed much better this time. She overcame her faulty
skills to receive her belt. The second, a ripped young man with ever-growing
skill and talent, received his black belt. Kendra tested last. She made her way
up the ranks very quickly as she gave her first attempt at a black belt.

The sensei anticipated a bright outcome
for her. She mastered her kicks, punches, and stances like a professional. She
even added upside-down flying kicks and full body spins in mid-air. 

“That was amazing.” Randal grabbed her
after the ceremony where she received her black belt.

Kendra gasped as he caught her in a
tight embrace, half expecting him to plant another kiss.

“I think they actually considered adding
three degrees to your belt with that one test! It’s far better than what I’ve
been doing.” He beamed.

Kendra felt exhilarated and flushed, but
her thoughts meandered back to her abilities in the parallel world. The skills
she displayed in her test today paled in comparison, but no doubt some of that
skill had not completely worn off. If she wowed the crowd tonight, they would
have really been impressed if she’d been a Raven. Admittedly, she missed her
powers a great deal. Without the semi-separate entity, she felt torn in two.

After showers, as tradition dictated,
the senior black belts took the newbie black belts out to dinner for a happy
evening.

For those few hours, Kendra forgot about
everything else. No one here, with the exception of Randal, knew about her
past, much less about the past few days. No one knew she went missing, that she
drowned in emotional turmoil, or that she might, in fact, be dancing around the
edges of sanity.

The laughter and jokes lightened the
mood. Being around rambunctious, young people made it easier to ward off
lunacy. If only this moment would last forever, but like all good things, it had
to end.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Kendra spoke into her
cell phone outside the restaurant. She leaned against Randal’s car. “I passed
my test. Everyone told me I was pretty impressive.”

“That’s good,” her mother said.

“Don’t wait up. I’ll be with Randal.”

“No, honey, come home. I’m not
comfortable with you spending the night at a guy’s place.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nothing will
happen. It never does.”

“Nothing has happened before because he
was smart enough to wait until you turned eighteen. Now that you’re eighteen,
what’s stopping him?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she mumbled.
“Bye.”

Without another word, Kendra closed her
phone. She turned to the sound of her fellow black belts exiting the building.
Kendra crawled into Randal’s car.

“Where to?” Randal asked.

“I’m kinda tired.” Her faded, weary
voice returned, so much for lasting exuberance.

“So you want to go home?” He pulled out
of the parking lot.

“Your apartment?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “Are you gonna spend
the night with me?”

Her gut clenched at the idea. “You have
an extra room. Do you mind?”

“Not a problem, you’re welcomed to sleep
over whenever you want. Your dad’s not gonna hunt me down with a rifle, is he?”

Kendra knew what he really wanted, but
it was too soon. She didn’t need a lover right now, she needed a friend.

Without further thoughts on the matter,
they ended up back at his place.