Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance)
Read Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance) Online
Authors: Dan Rix
Dan Rix
This
is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments,
organizations, or locales are intended only to provide authenticity, and are
used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are
drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
ENTANGLEMENT. Copyright © 2012 by Dan
Rix
www.danrixauthor.blogspot.com
All rights reserved.
Editing by American Editing Services
www.americaneditingservices.com
For Laura,
my inspiration.
Contents
ONE
28 Days, 19
hours, 15 minutes
“Scar tissue,” said the
doctor, “here.” She tapped the white lump on the MRI scan.
“Is
that in my brain?” said Aaron.
“Just
touching it, actually. Between the grey matter and the skull. Aaron, how long
have you been having these headaches?”
“Since
I was a kid. It’s gotten worse recently.”
“Well,
the good news is it’s not cancerous.” The doctor stretched on a pair of latex
gloves and probed the back of Aaron’s head with two fingers. “The pain is
always here?”
“Yeah,
like something tugging back there.” Aaron Harper shifted, still jumpy from the
MRI, and his sticky palms suctioned the paper off the exam table with an
irritating crinkle. “What’s the bad news?”
“Pardon?”
“You
said the good news is you don’t think it’s cancerous. What’s the bad news?”
He
felt the doctor’s breath on his scalp.
“The
bad news is that according to your MRI, that scar tissue is right here—” she
tapped the very back of his skull, “in the region of your clairvoyant channel,
possibly obstructing it. Since you’re almost eighteen, my guess is you’re
experiencing a boost in clairvoyant activity with your half. Hence the
inflammation in the surrounding tissue.”
Aaron
fought the urge to swallow. “But we’re okay, right? Me and my half? I mean, I
would have felt if something was blocking us.”
“Well . . . ”
the doctor scrunched up her eyebrows, “not necessarily. I doubt you’ll notice
the symptoms until you meet her. After that, it really depends on both of you.”
“The
symptoms of what?”
With
a whip-like snap that made Aaron flinch, the doctor peeled off her gloves. “Aaron,
I’m sorry, but with that scar tissue blocking your channel, your half could
literally be standing right in front of you—
kissing
you even. Part of
you is going to feel like she’s not really there.”
***
In
the Sansum Clinic parking lot outside the Radiology wing, Aaron jabbed at his
Mazda’s ignition but couldn’t slot the key. His hand still trembled from the
doctor’s words.
His
half.
The
girl
born
at the exact same time as him, somewhere else in the world. Like all
seventeen-year-olds, he was scheduled to meet her on his eighteenth birthday.
Now it felt like a
death sentence.
The
key lodged. He cranked the ignition and thrust his foot down, and the tires
burned out with a screech. Smoke rose in the rearview.
In
twenty-nine days, he was supposed to meet his soul mate. Eighteen years of
waiting, wondering, fantasizing . . . looking forward to someone perfect.
Now
this crap.
***
That
evening as the buzzer concluded the first league volleyball game between Pueblo
High School and Corona Blanca, Aaron, Pueblo’s starting setter, ripped off his
jersey and flung it into the stands.
His
coach grabbed his shoulder. “Cool it, Harper.”
“Where
the hell was Franco tonight?” said Aaron, stooping to catch his breath.
“He’s
eighteen now.”
“Coach,
it takes forty-five minutes to win a volleyball game. He can’t leave his half
for
forty-five
minutes?”
“And
I wouldn’t ask him to,” said his coach. “Just like I won’t ask you after your
birthday.”
With
a nervous twinge, Aaron recalled his visit to the doctor. All the things he
didn’t
get to look forward to. He stood, shrugged off the coach’s hand, and made for the
exit.
His
coach called after him. “Put a goddamn shirt on, number eleven.”
Aaron punched the wall
on his way out. Outside the gym, the night cooled his sweaty skin, and Corona’s
fans parted around him. He never reached the bus, though.
Someone’s hard shoulder
crunched into his spine. In that split-second of contact, he felt a shock-like twinge
at the back of his skull, then something crawling inside his scalp. He
staggered forward and grabbed the back of his head. But the skin wasn’t broken.
Aaron spun toward the
culprit and saw a figure in a gray hoodie vanish into the crowd of Corona fans,
oblivious.
Aaron started after
him. “Hey!” he called, but the figure slipped out of view. Aaron charged
through green-jerseyed fans. He shoved aside a Corona player and saw a flash of
gray hoodie. He lunged.
But his hand closed on
empty air.
The figure darted past
the last cluster of students and receded into the night. Aaron tore after him,
and for a brief, blind moment, the wind whistled in his ears—before he collided
with a chain link fence. He caught his breath and peered into the shadows
beyond the fence.
There, under a dark
hoodie, two pale blue eyes—Aaron blinked. No, just shadows.
He slammed the fence in
frustration. As the pain in the back of his head subsided, his skin formed
goose bumps.
It was the same spot.
Exactly where the MRI showed a lump of scar tissue in his brain. The headaches
were one thing, just pressure on his brain, but this—this had felt like a piece
had actually torn off. And all because a stranger in a gray hoodie bumped into
him.
The doctor he had seen
earlier wasn’t the first to predict that he and his half would have problems.
He had seen a dozen doctors the last year alone, brain surgeons and clairvoyant
specialists, and they all said the same thing; the scar tissue would hamper his
emotional connection to his half, they just didn’t know how much.
No surgeon dared
operate on him. The lump of scar tissue was pushing up against his clairvoyant
channel. One mistake with a scalpel could sever it, destroying the already
delicate connection between Aaron and his half. They would both die.
Aaron was still
standing at the fence, a new wave of dread soaking through him, when he
realized there was someone behind him.
“Number eleven, right?”
Aaron recognized the
shaggy-haired guy as Corona Blanca’s starting setter.
“Yeah, what’s up?” said
Aaron.
The other setter
extended his hand. “I wanted to meet you,” he said. “I was watching you set
during the game, and with a pair of hands like yours, Pueblo should have won.”
“Thanks,” said Aaron,
as they shook hands, “the better team won.”
Corona’s setter
shrugged. “Hey, a couple of our players are heading down to the beach. We got a
bonfire going and a couple of coolers. You feel like a postgame party?”
“Maybe next time.”
“No pressure,” said the
setter, and he headed back to the cluster of green jerseys.
Aaron rubbed
his scalp again. It still felt raw. As he lowered
his hand, he wondered if the doctor had been optimistic. Maybe symptoms would show
up even before his birthday. Like tonight, the searing pain caused by the
hooded figure. Maybe this was his last night as a normal seventeen-year-old.
If
it was, he damn well wasn’t going to waste it lying in bed.
“I
changed my mind,” Aaron called. “Where’s the bonfire?”
The
setter glanced back, grinning. “Arroyo beach. Once you hit the sand, turn
right. You can’t miss us.”
***
He
really couldn’t miss them. Aaron felt the bonfire’s heat a good sixty feet from
the flames, which leapt above the silhouettes of what looked like Corona
Blanca’s entire school. And some.
They
had taken over the whole beach, crowding around open coolers and sitting on
pieces of driftwood, drinks in hand, their faces glowing reddish-bronze. Aaron
wished he hadn’t come. This wasn’t his school.
At
least he could have changed out of his damn red and white Pueblo volleyball jersey—
“Number
eleven, over here!”
Aaron
spotted Corona’s setter along with the rest of the Corona Blanca volleyball
team chowing down on pizza off to his right. As soon as Aaron reached them, he
felt an icy sting as the setter slapped a can of soda into his palm.
Aaron
took a swig and scanned their surroundings. A brief flicker of red by the base
of the cliffs caught his attention. At first he thought it was an ember from
the fire, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he made out two seated
figures on the beach just beyond the lighted radius of the bonfire. He
recognized one of them.
The
figure in the gray hoodie.
The
other one was a girl, a blonde with long, wavy hair, and Aaron couldn’t quite
tell from the distance, but she looked pretty—and very bored. As Aaron watched,
the hooded figure slipped a bright red object into his pocket.
Aaron
grabbed the sleeve of Corona’s setter, his heart racing. “Who is that?” he
said, nodding to the pair of them. “Over there in the dark.” He didn’t want to
lose sight of the figure again.
The
setter and a few of his teammates followed Aaron’s gaze. They all laughed.
“You
noticed her too, huh? Welcome to the club,” said the setter. “That’s Amber
Lilian. New student at Corona Blanca.”
“Sure,
she’s eye candy,” said number ten, “she’s also sassy as hell.”
“I
mean the
guy
,” said Aaron. “He bumped into me earlier.”
The
team went silent. Then the setter spoke in a much quieter voice. “That’s Clive
Selavio. Also new.”
“Her
half?” said Aaron.
“Her
boyfriend, but they have the same birthday, so it’s pretty much a sure thing. I
think their families moved here together.”
Aaron
nodded. Same birthdays. Given that halves were usually born near each other—often
within the same city—halves did sometimes find each other before their birthdays.
But people got it wrong too. He looked back at the boy and girl seated on the
driftwood only to find that once again, the hooded figure had vanished. The
girl sat alone.
Aaron
scanned the beach, now frantic. Something weird had happened when Clive bumped
him, and he needed to figure out what. Aaron couldn’t find him in the crowd,
though, and his eyes darted back to the girl. Maybe she could explain.
“I’m
going to go talk to her,” said Aaron, making up his mind before she, too, could
disappear. He barged through what was now a Corona Blanca team huddle and
slogged toward the girl.
A
player muttered behind him, “Where do these Pueblo guys get their nerve?”
“It’s
because he doesn’t have to live with the embarrassment of seeing her at school.
I’d talk to her if she was a Pueblo chick.”
“Nah,
it’s because he was running behind-the-back quick sets all night—”