Vanishing Rain (Blue Spectrum Chronicles Book 2)

Vanishing Rain

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

L.L. Crane

Blue Spectrum Chronicles

Book 2

www.llcrane.com

[email protected]

For Lily 

“All I need, all, all I need, all I need is you smiling…”

(Awolnation)

Vanishing Rain
is a work of fiction.  Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, are entirely coincidental.

©2015  L. L. Crane

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Cover Design:  L. L. Pix Design

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1               
Good-bye

Chapter 2               
Plan

Chapter 3               
Vanishing

Chapter 4               
Tools

Chapter 5               
Liquid

Chapter 6               
Caught

Chapter 7               
Garment

Chapter 8               
Haven

Chapter 9               
Blush

Chapter 10               
Fire

Chapter 11               
Fever

Chapter 12               
Injection

Chapter 13               
Heartbeat

Chapter 14               
Fighter

Chapter 15               
Practice

Chapter 16               
Vanish

Chapter 17               
Rain Drops

Chapter 18               
Map

Chapter 19               
Warning

Chapter 20               
Bad-Bye

Chapter 21               
Free

Chapter 22               
Shots

Chapter 23               
Hiding

Chapter 24               
Dog

Chapter 25               
Subway

Chapter 26               
Troll

Chapter 27               
Beast

Chapter 28               
Mutant

Chapter 29               
Fingers

Chapter 30               
Necklaces

Chapter 31               
Wire

Chapter 32               
Father

Chapter 33               
Promise

Chapter 34               
Friends

Chapter 35               
Killings

Chapter 36               
Waiting

Chapter 37               
Run

Chapter 38               
Blues

Chapter 39               
Acceptance

Chapter 40               
Home

Chapter 41               
Lordess and Love

Chapter 42               
Invitation

Chapter 43               
Surprise

Chapter 44               
Reunion

Chapter 45               
Ice

Chapter 46               
Choice

Chapter 47               
Arms

Chapter 48               
Kick

Chapter 49               
Attack

Chapter 50               
Kiss

Chapter 51               
Shattered Heart

Chapter 52               
Go

Chapter 53               
Awakened

Chapter 54               
Patience

Chapter 55               
War

Chapter 56               
The Peanut

Chapter 1

Good-bye

That last morning was also the first. I kissed Snow good-bye, pecking his forehead like the mother bird I had always been to him.  The knowledge that I would probably never see him again was painful, a sledge hammer pounding relentlessly against my already battered chest. Inside of that bird-like ribcage of mine was an equally injured heart, which had nothing to do with Snow and everything to do with Orion.  Snow wouldn’t understand, even if I tried to explain it to him.  Gods, he was only eight years old.  Still, I fiercely held him to me, probably a little too harshly.

“Geez, Rain,” he stammered, rubbing his eyes as he sat up groggily.  “Why are you squeezing me?”

“I just love you that much, little buddy,” I told him with a fake laugh.  He knew something was up, casting his blue, almond shaped eyes at me, almost suspiciously. His dark hair had just been trimmed, and even though he was only eight, there was something about him that screamed thirty. It had always been that way with Snow.

I hadn’t seen him that sad since we lived with our mom, and thoughts of her turned my body cold, as if the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Of course, whenever my mom came onto the scene, everything took a turn for the worse. I ruffled Snow’s hair and left him, striding away from his boyishly decorated room as if nothing was out of the ordinary. 

But everything was out of the ordinary. 

I searched for Sun and Storm, waiting for Snow to kick up a fuss.  He didn’t.  Part of me was disappointed by that.  Another part was proud, that maybe he had moved on and had begun to trust.  Gods knew, I needed to.

Finding the toddlers in their playroom, I snuggled them both to me, breathing in their soft, blonde curls and sweet baby scent.

Baby scent. 

Baby scent. 

Those words stalled me, even as the toddlers both took it all in stride, too busy with their toys, at being perfectly S.L.A.G. free to even wonder what I was up to. Their careful, non-biological, and very legal conception made it so.

Dove was next.  For some reason, she was the hardest of all.  Even harder than my dad, who was in such a rush, he just waved good-bye to me, as if it were any other ordinary day.  

It wasn’t.

“I’m off now,” I told Dove, pretending I was going to school.  She was preoccupied, picking up the toddler’s toys and searching for her lost tablet. 

She lifted up her flaxen head, soft brown eyes fixing on me with love. “Don’t forget about getting the Shot after your shift at the Clinic,” she reminded me, just as Sun and Storm waged a sibling war over the same toy. She turned to them, fussing at them about their behavior. 

Forgetting all about mine. 

I stared at them all, wistfully, wishing I could stay with them forever. 

I couldn’t.

“I won’t,” I answered with more fake happiness.  Fortunately, Dove was so busy with the toddlers that she gave me no mind.

What I told her was simple, an agreement we had made the day before. It was also a lie.

I pushed a button and watched the door glide shut, gathered my bag and satchel, and left the apartment, knowing I would never be back.

Not by choice.

I walked with determination to my air glider, hating every moment of what I was doing, every movement that my body made.  More than anything else, I wanted to stay with my family, remain in Citizen School, become the scientist I was training to be and find a cure for S.L.A.G.  But that wasn’t an option. 

Sighing forlornly, I punched in the coordinates for downtown, to the recognizable mirrored building I hoped would give me the answers I needed.  I had nine point seven three minutes to calculate what I was doing, if it was even worth it.

Thoughts had been circling in my mind, a cyclone of craziness from the moment I first discovered that I was pregnant less than a day ago.  It wasn’t too late to back out now.  I could show up at school, just be disciplined for being late, probably get a mini-detention.  Number 74 was sweet on me, and to be honest I had never seen him give the “charge” to anyone, so chances were that I could escape the electrical punishment the Administration reserved for those of us who couldn’t seem to follow their mandates.

I could get the Shot, and the baby would automatically be aborted.  No harm done.  Chances were the baby would be born with S.L.A.G., anyway.

But this wasn’t just any baby.  It was my baby.  And Orion’s.  For whatever that was worth, which at that moment wasn’t much.  I let out a huge gust of frustrated air at the thought of Orion.  Gods, where could he be?

My glider landed quietly without even a bump, and I grudgingly tugged myself away from those thoughts.  No, I was going through with this, with or without Orion.  At all costs, this baby would be born, and I knew without a doubt that the price would be great.  Not financially, but personally. If anything, Dove had taught me that.

It was one of those rare spring days in Province A where the air was actually clean and you could see beautiful, green trees, something besides smog and skyscrapers.  At another time, I might have even enjoyed a day like that.  But not on that particular day.

Sighing deeply, I reached into my satchel, the one I had packed so carefully, and pulled out one of Sun and Storm’s sippy cups.  I had already filled several of them with my dad and Dove’s brandy.  Well, I guessed it was brandy.  It was a dark amber liquid, and when I smelled it, I knew it was booze of some sort.  Brandy just seemed like a good name at the time.  As far as I knew it could have been rubbing alcohol.

I tipped back the cup, downing the liquid in one gulp, feeling it burn my throat as if a wildfire was blazing through my chest.  I took another swig and then stopped.  I wanted my senses to be numb, didn’t want to feel what I was about to do.  At the same time, I couldn’t be entirely drunk, either. If that happened, I couldn’t carry through with my plan. I had to be a little drunk but not recklessly so.  The only other alcohol I had ever consumed was a bit of champagne.  

I giggled out loud at the thought.  Garment’s champagne.  Garment.  One of the only people I trusted enough to help me.  There was Ivy, but she was at Citizen School, and that was the last place I could show up, even with my tracker-timer.

I pulled the scissors I had taken from Dove’s wrapping paper box out of my satchel and doused them with the nameless amber liquid.  It was the best antiseptic I had. Hell, it was the only antiseptic I had, and I knew that the scissors had only been used to cut wrapping paper for presents, so I doubted if they were too dirty. But I still didn’t want to take any chances. Not for myself, but for the baby. 

I took another swig, and as if on cue, my head began to feel fuzzy.  My teeth were floating in my mouth and everything before me…the buildings, the gliders, the rapidly moving people on the street were spinning in colors of greens and gold.  Of a blurry spring day that should have boasted of happiness.

Oh Gods, I thought, I am getting drunk.  Then, everything became humorous, like when the guards had injected me with truth serum.  I hysterically giggled out loud, finding the fuzzy city landscape to be the funniest thing I had ever seen.

Groggily, I stared at the scissors. Or rather, the two sets of scissors. It was difficult for me to discern which pair was real and which was the one that floated innocuously beside it. Still, my mind was alert enough to wonder if the scissors in my hand were sharp enough.

Busting up with my own private joke, I thought, too bad.  Those scissors, sharp or not, would have to work. Another giggle erupted, like one of those squiggly snakes that jumped out of a can. For a joke.  That seemed to be the funniest thing I had ever heard, and as I laughed, I fell off the glider chair onto the floor.  That seemed even more humorous, and I continued with my tirade of laughter.

Get your shit together, Rain, I told myself.  Over and over again.  This was much worse than the bit of champagne I had at Garment’s…under Dove’s watchful eye.

Fuck.  Where was Dove now?  I snickered under my alcoholic fog, thinking of the scolding I would get for swearing. Ha. That’s only if they heard me.

With great effort, I hoisted myself back up onto the glider seat.  Scissors in hand, I reached for the first aid kit, settling it down beside me.  I had to struggle to open it, because it kept moving on me, just like the scissors, and the clasp was blurry, floating in a golden arc.  This caused another set of the giggles, and my head was so woozy, I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep.

But then I thought of Orion, and that sobered me right up. He had left me. Alone and pregnant. Suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore, and I started bawling like a little baby, like Storm or Sun when they were injured or had lost a toy.  I had been hurting inside for so long, I didn’t know it could get any worse, but with the alcohol, my pain was intensified.  At least a thousand times over.  Maybe more. I clutched my heart, thinking I would blow up, just bust up into a million tiny pieces and turn to bloody dust.

I bit my lower lip until I could taste real blood, wet, metallic and earthy. Staring at my forearm, at the ugly tracker-timer that flashed its horrific numbers at me, I knew it was now or never.  I held the scissors in my right hand and carefully examined the rectangular tracker-timer.  It had been implanted when I was an infant, but if I was to carry through with my plan it had to go.  I definitely could not be traced.  

Taking in a sharp breath, I dug into my skin with the scissors right next to the tracker-timer, slicing my flesh away from it. As the sharp scissors impaled my skin, I screamed out loud, and my head swirled in dark colors; blacks and greys and ugly browns. 

I shook my head and focused on my arm, blood gushing from the slash I had just made. My head spun in woozy circles as pain rambled through my arm.  My hands shaking, I held the scissors as tightly as I could and sliced into my arm again, just on the other side of the tracker-timer. This time I threw my head back and roared, the rough noise exiting my lungs, an injured animal fighting for its life.

I should have thought of the people who might hear me, but by then, I was too far gone. Shaking my head, as thick, crimson blood gushed from my arm, I quickly cut into the other two sides of the rectangular device on my forearm.  I howled in pain, louder now, piercing echoes that slammed violently into my ears.  Tears flew down my cheeks from the pain, and I wanted to run to Dove, to have her make everything okay. 

Gods, I wondered, was I even making the right decision?   Blood was gushing everywhere, my stomach churning into a nausea pit at the sight of the crimson waterfall flowing from my arm.

I took another swig from the sippy cup and yanked the tracker- timer from my arm.  Pain shot ruthlessly through me as I drunkenly examined it.  The tiny wires and electrodes that had been implanted so long ago stretched from my forearm like a spider, its legs protruding like wiry, bloody tentacles.

Rivers of red spurted onto my clothes, washing down my uniform, staining my skin. I woozily grabbed the scissors and snipped the wires, cutting at anything that was attached to me…to the tracker-timer.  At last, hands shaking, I yanked it out, holding the wretched device in my hand, red and metal and ugly.

As quickly as I could, I reached into the first aid kit and wrapped my arm with cottony, white gauze, watching with fascination as blood leaked from my arm, immediately staining the bandage red.  As my head twirled a crazy ballet of circles, my arm bleeding, and my heart breaking, I realized one thing.

For the first time since I was born, I was free. 

Without my tracker-timer, nobody could track me.

Nobody could find me.

Rain 24-A had all but vanished.