Siphon (Siphon Chronicles, Book One) Read online

  Something settled over his face like fear, but it left just as fast. He poured out a few apologies for what it looked like he was about to tell me, but did not go over well since everything he offered sounded like nothing big to handle. He told me he was the son of a council member and that it was his job to find siphons like me and bring them in for training or other things. He said he’d been doing this job for less than a year and that before he was a brainwasher. I asked for details on it, but he refused. He also mentioned he had one job left before he could become one of the council like his father. And this was the job.

  This acknowledged the rumors for his bad reputation.

  I needed to know more. He was the son of one of the council members who regularly rebelled against anything they taught. From what I’d learned, nothing was good about the council. My stepparents were involved in this though I have never even considered the idea they might be siphons or integrated within their network. They kept me from meeting the council for a reason. I remember hearing my stepfather mention one night behind closed doors that the Crawford boy was an up and coming council member but kept putting up walls against some of the dirty deeds. Some said he was evil, others doubted it. This had to be the same person. He’d help me.

  DANE  New Friends

  My other jobs before now seemed far in the distance. I told her about them. The last job as a brainwasher was the worst. Or mind eraser, whatever my father terms it from day to day. I hated having that trait within me. I’d accidentally let my father know about that one and regretted it ever since. He didn’t know I could help the poor souls retrieve it back after the fact. He hadn’t caught me yet by the fact. He hadn’t caught me yet by the fact that they are all still alive. I check often.

  When I ran into the gas station for a quick fountain drink and snack the man at the counter cowered to my still stewing glare of despair. I was wound up tighter than a rusty switchblade with the implications of what meeting this girl meant and why they sent me to get her. I couldn’t help but think I was being put to a test. A test I was meant to fail.

  The gas station attendant kept his eyes down and away from the likes of me. I shot out a jolt of current when I picked up my items. It wasn’t something I could always control. Mostly because I didn’t try to control it or not. It was an unnecessary evil that most likely was put there by my father in all his experiments on me. Glaring at the attendant just to be mad at someone besides myself, I decided it was good to know someone still feared me. I was a soon to be siphon council leader who took jack from anyone. I needed to screw my head on straight and leave the girl behind. Get my life back on track to move up in the council. Become the head of security like my father.

  Yeah, it all sounded crisp and clear until my mind revisited those eyes. I couldn’t go another flippin’ day without seeing them. They were like headlights in the darkness. You couldn’t see without them. I can’t see without them.

  And my father is jacked up. He believes anything the devil does.

  The night went fine at the pool table entertaining three siphons of varying ways. Carl learned more of who I was therefore making me squirm until he commented on the fact that I wasn’t what the legend preceded. Having Lark’s eyes examine that more than I wanted, I snuffed out the short-lived interrogation with a comment about following my father’s footsteps but not following his lead. Carl seemed to accept it, but Lark was only more curious.

  We ate pizza, again, and I won both games earning a few credits in the ego department in front of her.

  With the night over, I didn’t waste time. “Now may I meet this guy Jason?”

  Turning her knees towards the console, she returned with her own question, “Why so eager?”

  I adjusted my hands on the wheel to hide my anger, “I just do. If he’s been hidden like you, I’d like to know him. It intrigues me.” The only lie in that regarded the guy's intentions. Intentions with life. Intentions with Lark.

  “So that’s all it is. I’m a novelty. You’ll see my seven wonders and then move on like you do.”

  Sure, I wanted to see all her wonders. She was so down on herself. I hate that girls feel the need to make us tell them how amazing they can be. She was pure venom one moment and shy girl the next.

  “I was sent here just for you Lark. I didn’t know Jason existed and I’d like to know how the two of you have made it in such a city for so long without detection.”

  “Wrong.”

  I lifted my brow in wait. This was the venomous vixen shining through.

  “My parents talked of you and your council for years. Just not to my face.”

  “Your parents? The ones you live with?” The people she hid these powers from. And she had more. I saw the file of what all she’d been caught doing and thought no one saw. Sure. They were all accidents. But they happened nonetheless.

  She nodded a little worried she’d repeated that piece of information needlessly.

  “I spent the first eleven years thinking I was alone in the weirdness factor. One night I heard my dad mention losing his old life. It made me stop in the empty hallway and listen through the door like a petulant child hoping for candy and getting broccoli. I didn’t like what I heard, but at least I knew what I was. Through the years I figured out they were in contact with someone in Rhode Island who knew me, but I could never determine the reason why I was here or why I was with them. I was told my parents were dead, but since that night hearing about what I was, I’ve doubted even that.”

  “You’ve lived with a lot of secrets.”

  She put her hand across mine which stretched across my right thigh, “So have you apparently. They don’t talk nicely of you, yet you’re nothing like they say.”

  “Why did you kiss me that day if you know so much about me?”

  Her cheeks turned red, the color the sky looks when you're driving across country towards the setting sun. “I have been lied to so much, I tend to not believe much. Even now I admit I know your lying to me about why you’re here, but here I sit. It may be dangerous to be near you and it might be my downfall, but you are the answer to secrets I’ve never known. It’s worth the risk.”

  IT’S worth the risk. “But not me.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I don’t know you, Daniel. I’ll admit, it’s really nice to be close to someone who doesn’t run away or act like I’m a succubus in heat, but my guard is up. And I don’t intend to let it down again.”

  Meaning when she kissed me. “So you’re not going to kiss me again?”

  “Not if I can help it. It’s dangerous.”

  “No, it is not. It’s euphoric you said.” I did not stop the smirk.

  “True enough, but dangerous. I don’t know what it means yet, so it’s best to stay away. It’s hard enough sitting this close.”

  I sat up more. “Close to me. How is that bad?”

  She looked away, crossed her legs and faced the window with her body and eyes, “I did not say it was bad.”

  She liked me. This girl truly liked me. And saw through me.

  “Can I meet Jason?” Now! I have something to ask him.

  “He’s at the nursing home now.”

  “On a Friday night?”

  Away from me still she said quietly, “My real grandmother went deaf and was put here in a home. She was the only blood relative I had, so I went to visit her one day at my stepmother’s request. Eventually it turned into a weekly thing. I felt better, but didn’t know why until Jason found me taking from someone. Friday’s are their slowest night. That’s when Jason and I go the most. We avoid the world, it avoids us.”

  I wanted to take away her sadness. I had enough welled inside myself for the both of us. I didn’t want her to deal with it too.

  Driving into the parking lot she announced that the deep red convertible Mustang GT was Jason’s.

  “How does he afford it?”

  Her hand waved in the air between us, “He ended up with rich parents to live with unlike me.”

&nbs
p; She lived in a comfortable two story home. Rich was relative.

  Inside the front doors where everyone is expected to sign in, Lark was greeted by virtually every single person in the room no matter the age. They all called her by name.

  I stood by watching her smile at each of them in total happiness. She liked being here.

  After the fifth nurse hugged her accordingly, she moved on to a tall dude near our age. Well, not mine. He was dark haired and held one of those biker looks chicks dug. A sulferous smell permeated from him making me question what he was. A tattoo on his wrist matched that of an eagle. It seems birds were a theme here.

  Unfortunately, I did not like him already or the way Lark just hugged him a little too closely. The dude wrapped his arms around the length of her and nearly had his grubby hands on her back-end. He circled in to my obviously intrusive overkill of taking him down with my death glare alone.

  “Who’s the stiff, babe?”

  Lark turned fast and walked back my way. I disregarded tact and wrapped a possessive hand across the side of her hip. It was a stupid move, but it did the trick.

  “Daniel, meet Jason Haltler.”

  LARK ✜ Old Friends

  Jason jolted across the space between us and yanked my hand forward but it felt electric to the touch. When I jerked back accusing him of shocking me, the color drained from his cheeks. Tug-of-war was not my thing.

  He shook his hands out like I shocked him back. It was weird. “You’re with Crawford. You told me he was just following you around at school.”

  “You talked to him about me?” Daniel half-cursed before stopping himself.

  Once again, I didn’t like being in the middle of a testosterone fit. “Yes, I told Jason about you for my own safety. And yes I’m with Daniel, obvious by the fact that he is standing here.”

  Jason looked me up and down like he never had before. “You went out with him.”

  Geez. “Jason. Back off. Give him at least the benefit of hearing him out.”

  “Why did you bring him here? His motives are not pure...and I don’t want someone’s innocence taken from filth.”

  “Look dude, you’re not capable of telling me what I can and cannot do. Lark is safer with me than she could ever be with you. Just because she turned you down doesn’t mean you earned the right to disgrace others.”

  I blushed remembering the time I kissed Jason. It was a short lip lock kind of kiss, one he asked me not to offer again or to anyone. And funny enough, he shocked me that day too. When we kissed. Both didn't make sense then, but it offends me now that I know the implications. Jason knew I was different.

  DANE  Rivals

  “He didn’t even make a move. He’s a gentleman and all but nice to me. Don’t talk to him that way.” She shifted to cover him like I might deck him or something.

  Lark may not be able see it, but this guy did go after her. She just wasn’t interested.

  “Disgrace Lark. I think we both know what could disgrace her. I know why you’re here.”

  That was the defining statement.

  “You know nothing,” I barked.

  He looked both ways then whispered fiercely, “Then maybe you can explain to her why I can hear her sing and you can’t.”

  Hitched by his verbalized truth, I went straight for her.

  “Did you know he could hear you?”

  Fear hit her eyes for the first time since the beginning of secrets starting to spill. I watched them both. They were more intimate than I liked in their ways of communicating.

  “I thought everyone like us could hear me. Jason can’t possibly know the whole of it. It was one kiss. I don’t know why I’m different.”

  “Do you plan to tell her, Crawford?”

  “How did you come to know things if you’re a ciphor?”

  “What’s a ciphor?” she asked.

  “A siphon who doesn’t know what they are,” Jason offered. “Perhaps I made a new friend when Lark told me you showed up.”

  “Who?” I asked the tattooed freak with the singed cuffs for sleeves. I had my guesses how they got that way.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know, boy wonder? I know what you do for your daddy. When your name came across her lips, I hung up my hidden status and called in to a friend. It’s a risk, but her needs are greater.”

  “Or you mean it will win her to yourself when she finds out the rest. You’re amiable qualities aren’t so chivalrous.”

  “Never said they were. However, I’ve never lied to her.”

  “Nor have I.”

  LARK ✜ Civilized People

  They were chest to chest in a king of the jungle pose ready to fight. The crowd of elderly patrons watched on like it was a soap opera to behold. One of the ladies giggled and asked for popcorn, then laughed louder saying never mind, she'd forgotten her teeth.

  “Alright you two. That’s enough. I get now you both are in the know about my status or what is to become of it. I’d like to know myself if that’s okay with you both. Perhaps we can all sit down like civilized people and get it in the open.”

  Jason eyed Daniel and he did the same back. Some kind of guy language passed between them and suddenly I was being pushed into the dining room to visit the widow Mrs. Marks. Jason said he just left her and she needed a sitter to listen to her stories for a bit. I didn’t want to go sit with her right now. Jason gave me the pouty lip like he always did when he wanted away from the “old bitties” as he called them. Some of them pinched his butt a few too many times and I was his savior.

  Both of them walked away together. This didn't look good.

  DANE  Plans Change

  “Let’s get this done.”

  “Outside is better,” Jason walked ahead to the outside terrace covered in rocking chairs with checkerboards between them.

  “Let’s cut to the chase then, what are you doing here?”

  “First tell me what she smells like to you,” I asked feeling a little like a freak in my own circus.

  “Strange, but aren’t we all. I don’t know, man. Just girly. Powdery. Sugary. She was the first I’ve ever siphoned young. All the rest are painful which royally sucks in the girlfriend department. She kissed me once. I was paralyzed till she stopped singing. Lark won’t give me the time of day since. What did you do to get her?”

  “Nothing. She came to me,” I rubbed my neck where I’d held it stiff-like from watching her all night the last few. I didn’t want her left alone. Sitting on her roof listening to any sound below her room was tiring, but necessary. I knew what my father was capable of.

  “What does she smell like to you since it’s obvious you’re asking?”

  “Not like a flower or—roses or,” I tried to think of something on the fly that would throw him off but I faltered, “er—honeysuckle.” I sounded so lame.

  “Dude. You’re like in love with her already or something.”

  “Shut the hell up!”

  Jason threw his hands in the air. “Don’t throw me to the wolves you call daddy. I’m not why you’re here. But I promise you I’m going to be a fly on your ass every move you make if it involves her. She doesn’t deserve to be mind warped into one of those siphon robots. You’re not turning her in.”

  “I’m not,” I bit out.

  “Then why are you here?” He leaned against the balcony and crossed his arms. I didn’t even feel her open the door or close it.

  “I’m here for the reasons you think. To take her to my father and take away her ability to sing. But that doesn’t mean I intend to go through with it.” It wasn't what I was told, but I knew it to be the truth.

  “Then what is your plan?”

  LARK ✜ Life…Rearranged

  Daniel ran a hand through his hair, his back still to me. Jason coaxed him into saying it right in front of me. I held my mouth with my hand to keep from gasping like my body was doing. He’d just said he was there to take me away and someone was going to make me not sing. I didn’t get it, but it didn’t sound n
ice.

  “I don’t know anymore. I didn’t anticipate it being this way. She is...more than they said. She’s not hurting anyone. And I think I—“

  “Whoa. TMI, man. Don’t get all touchy feely on me. I think now would be a good time to—“

  I didn’t hear the rest. I ran as fast as I could back through the double doors and out the front ones. I didn’t have my own car and I couldn’t use theirs. A fast food place sat next door, so I took off in the direction of the side door and hid in the bleachy bathroom stall.

  I cried till my eyes were good and puffy. My bottom lip was swollen from tugging on it with my teeth. I was right. He was the bad guy. His father wants to do experiments on me or something.

  The bathroom door swung open and I sat still on the seat hidden in the stall with the door locked. I waited for the other stall door to open and close, but it never did. Instead, two black boots positioned themselves just outside the bottom of the paint peeled door and stilled.

  “Lark,” his voice was low. “I know you hate me now and I would completely back you on that assessment if I didn’t know that I’d changed my course recently. I was sent here to take you to them and not for savory reasons, but you altered the course. I haven’t lied to you in any way, but I have to tell you something now. I am not by any means innocent nor am I here on good terms, but I assure you my mission changed the second I saw you were nothing like my father made you out to be. You’re kind and giving. You love like it’s a living-breathing thing. I believe my father is wrong.”

  DANE  Girls Only

  Not a sound came from the stall, nor did the air move. Her energy did not call to me. My father had said the nexus would be a pure uncontainable single-minded corrupter of our world. He lied to me.