Bloom (7 page)

A single, naked light bulb shined in the middle of the huge, cavernous space, hanging from a wire that ran up to the ceiling and over to an outlet on the wall. A man stood beneath the light, alone. He waited with his arms at his sides, feet planted on the ground in a wide stance. The man wore a long, dark coat over black clothes. His face was hidden by the shadows cast from the overhead light, but Colton could tell he was staring at them.

“This guy really knows how to make an impression,” whispered Reece.

“Is that him?” asked Colton.

“Yeah. Come on.”

They walked over to the edge of the light, their footsteps crunching on small chunks of debris and echoing loudly across the concrete floor. The man tilted up his head slightly and looked at them. His face was long and thin, with sunken cheek bones and deep-set eyes. His black, slicked-back hair glistened wetly in the light.

Reece cleared his throat. “So, you already know me. This is Colton.”

Colton took a step forward and looked into the shadow covering the man’s face. “Thank you for your help.”

The man tilted his head down. “I am Alistair,” he said in a slight English accent. “You have a good friend here, to do such a thing without knowing who I am or what I really want.”

Colton looked over at Reece. “If you say so.”

Alistair squinted at him. “Perhaps you are wondering why it was done at all.”

“It crossed my mind.”

“I have been looking for you a long time, Colton Ross. You were not easy to find. But now…here you are.” He smiled to reveal a mouth full of perfectly white, straight teeth.

“Right,” said Colton. “Look, I just came to say thank you, so thank you. Reece, let’s go.”

They started to walk away.

“Colton,” said Alistair.

Colton turned just as Alistair threw a small, round object directly at his face. Colton ducked to the side and reached up his hand. It hit his palm with a loud
SMACK
. He turned it over—it was an apple.

“What is that supposed to be?” asked Reece. “He wants you to have a snack?”

Alistair smirked and walked toward them. “He knows what it means. Don’t you, Colton?”

Colton stared at the red piece of fruit. He had always been so careful after buying the apples from the produce stand. He made sure that no one was watching before the fruit withered and died in his palm.

“Like I said,” continued Alistair. “It took me a long time to find you. Searching for you in the world was like throwing a rock into a big pond to try and hit an invisible fish.” He frowned. “I threw many rocks. It took far too long, and for that I am truly sorry.”

“Who are you?” asked Colton.

“Me? I am just one small gear in a giant machine. But you are a big gear. Bigger than me, bigger than almost everyone I know. At least you will be, someday.” He laughed. “You are very important, Colton Ross.”

“What is this psycho talking about?” asked Reece. “Can we please leave now?”

He tried to pull Colton toward the front door, but Colton took a step closer to Alistair.

“
What
are you?” he asked.

Alistair smiled and wagged his index finger at him. “Now we are getting somewhere.” He walked back to the hanging light bulb and reached up to touch it. The light dimmed and Alistair’s skin seemed to glow ever so slightly in the darkness. He lowered his arm and light flooded back into the bulb.

Alistair nodded toward the apple. Colton held it up and concentrated on its red skin. He watched the apple slowly wither and die in his palm, shrinking into nothing more than a blackened core. He felt the warmth grow between his shoulder blades and spread down to his hands.

“Good,” said Alistair, laughing. “Good! You have discovered the first part. But do you know the second?”

Colton dropped the shrunken apple and set his hand on Reece’s shoulder.

“Colt, what are you—” said Reece, then stopped. “Hey, that’s really warm. How are you doing that?” He looked down at his shoulder in amazement.

Alistair clapped his hands and smiled. “Excellent. Almost a year with no training and you can do all of that on your own. I am very pleased.”

“What is it?” asked Colton. “The thing we do, I mean. What are we?”

Alistair looked at him. “I was born in England,” he said, “but I am not English. You were born in America, but you are not American. We are something different. Something very special.”

“Enough with the mystery, already!” said Reece. “My shoulder feels amazing, by the way.”

Colton waited eagerly for an answer.

“You need special teaching,” said Alistair. “This is a very powerful gift you have—one that has gone to waste until now. Someone must show you the true path. I will tell you everything, but not here. You must come with me.”

“I can’t leave. I have a job and an apartment…and a
life
,” said Colton.

“Your job will be waiting for you when you get back, if you still want it. Your apartment, well…your friend here has no more money, so maybe it’s time to find something else, yes? And he can come along as well. I insist that he does, actually. As for your old life, I can assure you it won’t be missed.”

“I’d listen to the guy, Colt. This could be really big.”

Colton crossed his arms and kicked at a small piece of broken concrete on the floor. “Where do we have to go?” he asked.

Alistair grinned and showed his perfect teeth. “Montana.”

“Wait, what?” said Reece. “That might sound good to you, being from overseas or whatever, but
Montana
? I thought you were going to say Egypt or Switzerland or someplace fun and, you know,
exotic
.”

“You don’t like Montana? I must admit, it wasn’t my first choice, either. But it grows on you after a time. We go where we’re needed, so to speak,” said Alistair. “And I
am
paying for everything.”

“Oh,” said Reece. “In that case, where’s the plane?”

Colton couldn’t force himself to completely let go of caution long enough to take the chance that the man was telling him the full truth.

“Colton, listen,” said Alistair. “You have a wonderful gift, and you have the potential to help a lot of people. I know you’ve been doing it already, haven’t you? At the homeless shelter. Don’t be modest! Your instincts led you there because those people needed help. I can show you how to do so much more.”

Colton stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged—the choice was made. “So, what’s in Montana?” he asked.

Alistair smiled. “More people who are just like you.”

7

T
wo weeks after her house had burned down into nothing more than a pile of charred wood and debris, Haven went back to try and find anything that had survived the flames. It took her a few minutes to work up the courage to step over the blackened wooden plank that was the only remaining piece of what used to be the front door.

As she walked through the grey and black ruin, her feet kicked up small clouds of fine powder, which floated into the air and clung to her clothes. She had barely taken ten steps and it looked as if she had been crawling around in dirty air vents all afternoon.

Yellow police tape still encircled the yard to keep out anyone with more than a passing curiosity about the unusual fire that had so quickly consumed the Kincaid home. She had been told that she was allowed to come back anytime she wanted, as long as she called the local police and informed them of her visit.

The fire was classified as “unusual” because the Fire Scene Investigator could not yet determine what started the blaze. The authorities suspected arson due to the strange red color of the flames, so they had been searching for an accelerant—some type of chemical that started and fed the powerful fire.

Haven’s parents had both been in bed at the time—presumably asleep—and had suffocated on the poisonous fumes.

The police could find no sign of Noah. Haven overheard one of the firemen explaining to a news reporter that the remains of those who died in a fire were usually very easy to identify. Sometimes only a bone was left, but it was enough to run a DNA test and identify the victim. Haven was still unclear as to whether or not the police intended to classify the fire as an accident—they told her they couldn’t be sure until they ran more tests. No one seemed to want to talk to her about the devastating incident. Whenever she managed to pull someone aside, they simply said that they were working on it and would have an answer for her soon.

Haven felt utterly helpless.

Noah’s room—which had collapsed down through the first floor and fallen into the kitchen—was covered with pieces of his burned bed. A few blackened toys lay scattered across the broken floor. The police had briefly mentioned that it could have been a kidnapping, but Haven could tell by the look on their faces that they thought it was only a matter of time before they found his remains in the ashes. They had no leads to follow besides the black car that Haven had seen driving away from her home when the fire started. Since she hadn’t seen the license plate or the driver, the chances of the police finding the car were practically zero.

Haven hugged herself and shivered as she walked through the ruins of her home. Most of the second floor had completely fallen through to the first, leaving the burnt, skeletal frame around the outside of the house open to the air. The sky above was grey with rain clouds. Thunder rumbled in the distance; it was supposed to rain later that afternoon.

She brushed the tears from her eyes and stopped at the threshold to her parents’ room, hesitant to go any farther. What was left of their bed mattress covered the broken pieces of the bed frame in the middle of the room. A huge hole was burned right through the center of the mattress in a long oval that was exactly where her parents had been sleeping when—

Haven quickly turned and walked away to search other parts of the house.

Her closest relatives were her Aunt and Uncle in San Diego. They couldn’t make it out for the funeral service and had wired her some money so she could stay in a hotel just down the street until she got her plans figured out. They said she could even stay with them if she wanted. Everyone kept telling her that the best thing she could do after something traumatic was to be around other people, but she didn’t care. Haven wanted to be alone so she didn’t have to listen to anyone telling her how sorry
they
were for
her
loss.

The service for her parents had been two days earlier at the funeral home across town. Extended family flew in from all over the country; people she hadn’t seen in years and barely remembered. They were all nice to her, mumbling their apologies and offering to do anything if they were able, just to let them know. She thanked them all and tried to be as sweet as possible but couldn’t say much more than that because she would start crying again. It took her at least half an hour to stop once the tears started.

Everything she did reminded her of her family. She needed a dress for the funeral, and that made her think of all the times she went shopping with her mother. The first time she ate a bowl of cereal after the fire, she couldn’t help but think about trying not to wake her parents whenever she crept downstairs at night to eat ice cream.

She felt absolutely awful about not being nicer to them in the weeks leading up to the fire.

Haven stopped next to the collapsed frame of the couch in the family room and kicked at a small pile of rubble. The tip of her shoe caught on something small and pushed it under the couch. She knelt down and pulled it from the ashes.

It was a glow-in-the-dark star from the ceiling in Noah’s room. One of the five points had burned off. She wiped a fresh tear from her cheek and rubbed her wet finger against the star to wash away the black soot covering the plastic.

Haven had been unable to get past the crippling guilt that consumed her in the first week after she lost her parents. She did little more than spend every day in her hotel room, yelling at herself and pounding the walls because she had gone to that party and hadn’t stayed home with her family.

The guilt gradually lessened after the first week, but she knew it would never fully go away.

Haven squeezed Noah’s star in her fist before putting it into her jeans pocket.

She walked over the debris in the family room and onto the front yard. The grass was burned twenty feet out from the house in all directions. The fire department had been able to stop the flames from spreading to the neighboring houses, but there was nothing they could do to save Haven’s home; it was already too far gone by the time they arrived.

The speed at which the house was consumed gave more credibility to the theory that an accelerant had been used, and meant that—if anyone had kidnapped her brother—they had also murdered her parents by purposely starting the fire to cover their tracks. As Haven walked toward the street and the waiting police car, she couldn’t help but feel hatred toward the officer inside along with every other person who was supposed to be helping to find her missing brother and the people who had killed her parents.

She didn’t say anything as she got into the passenger seat and closed the door. All she did was cross her arms and watch the ruins of her home drift away as the officer pulled the car out onto the street and drove toward her hotel.

8

H
aven’s first day back at George Walker High School started terribly.

She was given a police escort a few days earlier when the “experts” were supposedly getting ready to declare Noah’s absence a kidnapping. A police officer trailed after her wherever she walked—which was hardly anywhere—and drove her to the few places she was forced to visit.

When her escort dropped her off in front of school that morning, reporters were already waiting for her, microphones in hand. They pushed forward as she got out of the car, leaning to the side so their cameramen could get that all-important close-up of a girl who had lost everything. The reporters shouted questions about how it made her feel to know that her parents’ killers were still on the loose, and could she please tell everyone how scared and worried she was about her kidnapped brother.