Siphon (Siphon Chronicles, Book One) Read online

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  When I heard the pieces officially being torn over a dozen times I chuckled under my breath to make sure she heard. She growled in that girly way that females do. When it seemed she moved her head closer to the back of me. I took the advantage of her position and rocked my chair back to land against the edge of her desk. She squealed giving us away to the toad-faced woman who sat at the desk reading her stupid romance novel. One eye rose above the book to look our direction, which was directly in front of her purple flowered teacher desk four feet away, and rested on me. I sat my chair back down and waited for teach to lower her angry unibrow.

  I heard a giggle behind me. So maybe she wasn’t completely in hate with me.

  LARK ✜ The Votes Are In

  His note disturbed me in more ways than one. First, I would be with him every day, five days a week. Second, I would be with him and Foster five days a week. What cruel joke was someone playing on me?

  Just like earlier, I felt like I couldn't breathe with him near. It was him. I wanted to take from Daniel Crawford—steal every breath he owned.

  I barreled out of the room wanting to get a breath of real H2O air that I’d been holding in with the thick as rainforest hothouse I’d just spent an hour in. Sweat was pouring off of me and it was sixty degrees outside the main doors where I heard birds singing to a song I didn’t know or care about at the time. As long as it wasn’t me singing. I raised my face to the air needing energy like never before. I had no idea why I was so drained.

  “Just say it, Pigeon. You need it as bad as I do.”

  His voice was so close. I wanted to tell him off.

  “I am not your dang Pigeon. I don’t know what you’re doing to me, but stop it. And don’t tell me what I need. I take it from those who don’t have as much time left. You take it from those who don’t know what they have left. Revitalizing energy or killing a human being is not the same.”

  Oh no! I said it aloud. I. I told him.

  “Someone filled your head with lies. What you do isn’t any better than my own way of dealing with what we are. I tried it your way. It didn’t work for me or my job status. I couldn’t do it. You call it revitalizing energy but it's life sustanance. You stop, you die.”

  I'd rather die.

  If I were voting for good guy or bad guy right now, I’m afraid Mr. Daniel Crawford would fall into the latter. Whatever his job status, I was getting an uneasy feeling he wasn’t in town to just check me out.

  DANE  All Ears

  That stopped her. Crap. I’d said too much.

  “You did it my way?” Her face was angled to mine following the way I moved then following my hands to my face. I switched my head to face the west hall doors and she followed. Thrown off by her mime-like ways, I finally replayed what she’d asked of me and formed an answer.

  “I tried to focus on the dying for years but then it all changed. Their essence...it made me sick. I could feel their pain. My father assigned me elsewhere.”

  Her face paled. I shoved my hands in my pockets and she followed them too. She didn’t mime it, just watched.

  “I can taste it. Their feelings or something. Usually they’re calm and soothing. Sweet. Occasionally their bitter, but only if they are too close to death.”

  She could taste their essence? “Can you not smell it?”

  She wrinkled her nose up, “Er, no. Can you?”

  Feeling suddenly defensive I realize I’d told her too much of myself. More than I’d told any other human or anyone like us. Like her. Like me.

  Now I wondered if I’d assumed too much of our kind. Was she the anomaly or I?

  I had to know more about why my father sent me to take her even though I wanted like anything to bust out of here and never look back. The mere thought of leaving twisted my chest in torture. But I told myself the staying was just about information.

  “When I take from them,” I stammered stopping to swallow. This was difficult to put in words. I’d never done it. “...I can tell they are happy with me before I start and it makes a scent that is relative to their own...essence hovers above so to speak. Then I absorb it.”

  She just blinked rapidly with a blank state.

  "As soon as they think I am there for their benefit, they freely give their essence over. Before I turned eighteen, it was never freely given. That's why I switched. I didn't like the pain and I didn't like giving it."

  Her eyes said she was really listening to me. Her hands said she was scared. I was good at reading girls.

  It’s the guys who scared me. As if reading my mind she asked, “You only take from girls. Why?”

  How does she infer these things from the little clues she has? I nodded to answer then said what I didn’t want to share. “Girls are sweet. Happy. Not as disgruntled when I am done. Guys just look at me with a stale expression and leave annoyed with me. Sometimes before I approach them. I can’t make them like me first, so it leaves me feeling the same. Maybe I deserve it, but who wants to walk around feeling depressed on purpose?”

  As if studying me too long and acknowledging I knew it, she shifted her feet. We were alone on the front steps of the school and at the same time looked to our vehicles sitting beside the other in the parking lot. At least no one heard our ridiculous conversation. Anyone would think we’re mad.

  I don’t know how she had me talking, but here I was listening to her assessments of my bad habits and what I should and should not do. And I was all ears.

  “I accidentally took from a friend one time. It was painful. I felt her sadness like I was stabbing her in the heart. It was awful and I’ve stayed away from the young since.”

  She was sharing. I saw her mouth move and knew she would say something else. What she said next made me rethink my whole outlook on what we were and why we existed.

  “I also took from Foster once. He kissed me,” she blushed and looked down, embarrassed. “I took from him before I knew what was happening. He was so angry with me for backing off. I could tell he was in pain, but also in some kind of spacy trance. It made my body feel like a thousand knives were stabbing me. I never kissed him again.”

  Had she not kissed anyone since? I ignored the gut-wrenching ache that forced me to adjust my stance from the idea that she was pure, not tainted. That was my cue, her silence.

  “You are afraid that you will hurt them?” She was. Her fear stricken face said it all. She sat down to face away from me allowing us both to breathe. Under her scrutiny I felt like a reaper of taken lives.

  “What happens when you take from the old or dying?”

  We both sat on the step facing each other again after she conceded to tell me. Her hands were folded between her thighs with my boots nearing hers. This was closer to a girl than I’d ever been in a conversation that didn’t include just physical stuff or leading up to it for which was abruptly cut off by the pain it caused them. Young or old, they couldn't handle the physical touch while we siphoned. And siphoning was impossible to hold back in those acts. When we come of age, it is worse or completely painful for the human. So many of us refrained. The few friends I've asked did the same, said the same. Some...had not. Refraining meant saving their lives. Not all of us are so caring. I kept my abrasive attitude as a front because of who my father was. I wasn't sure what he'd do if he knew I hated who I have become and just wanted to be free of the whole world associated with him.

  She smiled like she was seeing something else in her mind’s eye, “They are happy. When they feel me get close, they offer it to me. I don't have to make them like me.”

  Astonished, I answered with my own thoughts before going over it in my brain first and seeing that it was insane to share with this girl. “Same here with the young. When they decide I’m...” I searched for the right word even though my brain wasn’t functioning on anything but this girl, “like-able, they freely give it.”

  But they never offer. She’s the only one who ever did. And they usually hate me after because they know they were tricked.
But they still never offered.

  And not one other siphon have I ever heard of had that ability.

  LARK ✜ Cat’s Out of the Bag

  I was not uncomfortable in my own skin until someone made me feel less than normal. That was often. But with this boy, it was the first time I was...accepted.

  “You take from the young because they like it—when they like you first. You smell their happiness and yet the old make you sad and left spent. I take from the old and dying for which feel happy and at peace with what I take but feel torn apart by the young. Do you not find this a little baffling?”

  “Well put, but what does it mean?” he asked the air, not me.

  Was it my imagination or was he leaning toward me more? I counted the inches in the air between our knees. Ten.

  “What are you doing?” he asked following my eyes.

  Darn. No one ever paid me this much attention except Foster. And that was a poor comparison.

  “Nothing. Why are you here?” I asked innocently.

  His demeanor changed as he moved away from me. Five inches away to be precise.

  “Passing through. I won’t be here long.”

  Pish! Liar!

  He withdrew from me even more, hiding something. He would leave. Why pain shot up my spine at the thought, I didn’t know. I wanted to know more. I knew Jason was wrong. This boy wasn’t pure evil. What else was Jason wrong about?

  “You’re not the evil they say. You paint the picture for them to see for a reason, but I can’t see the motive for it. Maybe it’s because all the rest of them are like something else.” Wait. I lurched forward in his direction, “Was I wrong? What if they aren’t like me. What if they don’t know you can take from the old like me to make them happier and reduces their suffering? Are there others like you? What if—“

  DANE  Trading Secrets

  I put my finger up to her lips shutting off the questions, absentmindedly lacing my thumb across her top lip. I’d only been able to do it few times before I changed at eighteen and the gesture was always a ploy to get the girl to do what I wanted. Now, with this girl, it was a chance to touch her. She was on a roll and this was a no fail technique that always stopped a girl from a monologue minus the pain I held back by holding my breath because I didn't want to take their years on purpose. That was a sign of weakness on my part. This girl made me do things I shouldn’t. I wanted her trust.

  The flowery scent swarmed me hinting mostly of honeysuckle. I knew the scent because it covers every section of the woods across the southern states where I often have to hide out in stalker fashion for the next siphon relay. It meant so much more to me now. I blinked and cleared my vision only to see her cheeks were crimson as I yanked my finger back forgetting my place momentarily.

  If I thought her previous statements affected my philosophies, the next realization altered my existence.

  She licked her lips, closed her eyes. She did things with such precision. And her brisk ability to move her arms and legs caused one to blink and check their eyesight. A little too brisk.

  Realization hit her when I raised my nose to the air.

  “What do I smell like?”

  Heck, I loved her cheeks. They did things to me too. “Like honeysuckle.”

  She darted her dare me eyes away. “It that the norm?”

  What was she wanting? “No. No one has ever matched that scent.”

  Her turn. “What do you taste?” I asked deciding it would be better to swap secrets and feel easier to give when we get. We hadn't taken yet, so we were both still in the safe zone. We all know what happened to the cat in this stage of curiosity.

  If that was a blush before, this was a pool of sweet color screaming things like shame and regret. Worse, she looked me straight in the eye and licked her pink lips, “Like smoke. A deep, burning cedar-like smoke.”

  She was making me adjust the way I sat with her voice alone, but I had to ask the next question and I wanted her to have little regret for wanting to tell me anything. “And that is the norm?”

  “Never found it before...but I’ve only tasted two others our age.”

  Wrong again. I’m not the age she thinks I am. I’d save that for later. But I was suddenly enraged to know who the other two were. I wanted to smash their faces in. What the heck was wrong with me?

  “I’m not sure what to tell you now other than the old all taste the same,” she confessed.

  I sure as hell wasn’t sure what to say next. “I think we should both get some rest and see each other tomorrow.”

  I should not be able to find her scent like a dang trail. Never before had it happened and I’d been around hundreds of my own kind. And again, I haven't taken any energy or essence from her even when she offered. I needed to visit a friend for some answers, but he was too far. Instead, it would have to be a friend of a friend.

  LARK ✜ Sleep the Thoughts Away

  I knew he watched me get into the Avenger and drive away without any further goading questions. I did watch him get in his own car that I noted was a topless Jeep. Wasn’t he cold? It’s not like it’s summer or even spring. Too hot for a sweater, but chilly in this temperature.

  I’d promised Sam I’d go shopping with her. She plopped down the cash for Amber to get her jacket for winning the bet at my vehement disapproval. She muttered something about her not ever thinking I would trust men again and it was worth it.

  I didn’t think I was trusting men again yet. Did I trust Daniel?

  At home, I went straight to my room, bypassed the mom on the sofa watching old Oprah shows for advice probably on how to get your estranged stepdaughter to be normal again (not that I ever was), grabbed a Granny Smith apple off the dining room table, and skipped two stairs at a time to escape my life.

  Having my own bathroom was the best thing in the world though I had to share it with Amber. She was a great sister. I have never once felt like the stepchild I was around her. I changed into my yoga pants and tank, slid under the covers, and closed my eyes at five twenty-seven p.m.

  If the voting booth of life included naming one of those days that topped all others, this would be one of them.

  The next morning, I was different. I felt swimmy headed and light like a feather. Funky didn’t even describe it well. I needed energy something awful.

  Third day of school. Third day of Daniel Crawford. What the heck was I going to do about him?

  DANE  Information Highway

  I hurried through the suburbs and out past the outskirts of Dallas to the once small town of Frisco. A friend of a friend lived there permanently. I understood he took from the dying only and that was the information I needed.

  I called, got directions, and headed that way.

  I parked in front of his condo noting the reflection of the rust my Jeep left shining in the window. Pristine and pricy. That was the neighborhood. Moving around, I’d been in many circles. Being a siphon with my job status had its advantages.

  Knocking, I took one step back to watch for movement with an experiment in mind too.

  He was dressed, hardly, in jeans. Tall like myself and around the same age physically, he shook my hand then like the rest, moved away like he was in disgust. Making myself unnoticed in my actions, I took a whiff. Nothing but aftershave.

  Check! Whether it was good or bad at this point, I didn’t want to think on it.

  “Can I ask you a few questions?” We’d already formed niceties on the phone.

  “Shoot man. Gotta leave in a few, but I got five if you can scream through a room as I get dressed.”

  I nodded and stepped across the threshold. A girl darted across the other end of the hall in nothing but a sheet. Crap!

  “I can come back, man.”

  “Nope. I’m good.” He followed my eyes. “My wife knows. She is good with it. More than I deserve.”

  Shocked on several accounts, first being married, I asked, “She’s okay with it?”

  He laughed. “At first she was mortified and hate
d the idea. Then she decided I was too irresistible and that she couldn’t stay away.”

  I heard a distinct “harrumph” come from the hidden room she scurried over too.

  “She knows she has it good.”

  Maybe this was the wrong guy to talk to about this? “Look, I just want to know something.”

  “Shoot,” he slapped on an over shirt while I stood in the kitchen area now.

  I didn’t want to shout this out loud for some human girl to hear. It wasn’t right.

  “Carl by the way,” he stuck his hand out.

  “Dane.”

  He looked back in the direction of his wife and I frowned thinking maybe I should leave anyway. “She is cool man, but I understand your hesitation.” He moved to the barstool and sat.

  I lowered my voice and took the plunge. “I understand you siphon from the old.” He nodded and looked at the clock. “They are okay with you taking it from them, right?”

  He nodded again. “They deal with it, yeah.”

  Not much of a talker.

  “Your wife feel it?”

  “Not if I’m full up.”

  “On old, young, dying. What do you siphon?”

  The guy stopped for the briefest of seconds and stared at me like I might just be the evildoer he was expecting. “Whatever is handy. They all hurt like heck.”

  I’d heard that from many. “You smell their want? Taste it?"

  His face completely changed? “What the hell, man? Not! Just feel it. Know their fear or willingness, whatever they choose. If they like me, they never knew what hit them.”

  That’s the winning bulls-eye folks. I was pissed off for no good reason. I didn’t want it to be different. It would mean I have to confront the idea of what those reasons are.

  “Thank you for your time.”

  He looked at me weird. “Whatever, dude. Don’t meet many of my own. You live around here?”