Ballistic: Icarus Series, Book Two Page 3

  The dog trotted quickly to my side. Ty hung back at the mouth of the corridor, absently crossing himself as he stared after us into the shadows. I didn’t have to look behind me to know that Zander was there. I pulled the knife from my pocket and flicked it open at my hip. I hadn’t felt the pull since we had arrived, but there was an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I wasn’t taking any chances. When Bella reached the restroom alcove, she looked over at me, backed away a few steps, and lowered herself onto her haunches.

  “Ah, Christ,” I muttered, burying my nose in the crook of my elbow.

  Bella whimpered and pressed herself against my leg, her brown eyes glistening up at me. We both knew exactly what would be on the other side of those doors and going through them was not going to change a thing.

  Chapter 2

  The Stranger

  “How many?” Eli asked.

  “About twenty or so,” I said, wiping sweat from my face with the bottom of my tank.

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” he said, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “According to the sign outside, the whole place closes down completely at five. Those people should have been gone hours before Icarus hit. What the hell were they even doing here?”

  “Wasting their money by the looks of it,” Falisha said, shoving a bright orange flier into my hand.

  “Solar Flare Ghost Hunt?” I read aloud. “Don’t miss your chance for this once in a lifetime opportunity to commune with the spirits on this, most celestial of nights. Twenty dollars gets you a ticket to the Solar Flare Icarus Viewing Party, a hot dog and fountain drink from Conover’s Coffee and Chocolate Cafe, a ten-percent coupon for Mystical Mountain Jewelry, and an exclusive one-hour ghost hunt tour in Historic Conover Square’s Haunted Billy Barnhart Museum. Be sure to stick around for the unveiling of our brand new exhibit.”

  “Seriously?” Jake raised a brow. “They were ghost hunting?”

  “Looks that way,” I said, dropping the flier to the ground.

  “That’s just creepy,” Riley said, scrunching up her nose.

  “Ghosts or no ghosts, we need to get into the basement, and we need to do it now,” I said, waving for everyone to follow me. “Just cover your mouth and nose and let’s go.”

  Eli’s eyes shifted nervously as we made our way across the lobby of the mall. Zander positioned himself in front of the restroom alcove until the last of us had passed. He brought up the rear as we headed toward the doors at the end of the barn board covered hall. The stark contrast between the industrial brick of the rest of the building and the faded whitewash of the walls in the museum corridor made it feel as though we were stepping back in time.

  “It’s locked,” I said, wiggling the handle of the old glass-panel door.

  “Coming,” Zander said, weaving his way through the group. “That explains why those people were hiding out in the bathroom, I guess.”

  “Something isn’t right, here,” Eli protested looking about nervously. “Why would this door be locked if they were supposed to be going down to the museum after the flare?”

  “That doesn’t matter right now,” Zander grunted as he sent the door’s hardware scattering across the old tile floor. “We are out of time.”

  Once the locking mechanism was displaced, he pushed the door with his foot, but it didn’t budge. He booted it a couple of times, then gave it one more good kick and the door swung open, slamming against the wall of the stairwell. The impact sent something flying into the shadows. It clattered to the ground at the bottom of the steps.

  Zander poked his head through the door shining his flashlight in ahead of him. A second later, he stepped through into the shadows and beckoned us to follow. I was at his back before my next breath, sliding my knife from my pocket as I went. Flashlights clicked on, all around me, illuminating the room in an odd smattering of dim floating circles and hushed whispers. Maybe it was just the unfamiliar surroundings, but something had me feeling uneasy.

  Some of the walls were covered in brick, others in aged barn wood. At the center of the lobby area sat an old, covered wagon, a few wooden barrels, and an antique metal plow that, despite what looked like many coats of paint, was more rust than it was metal.

  “What are we looking for, exactly?” Riley asked.

  “We need to find a safe place to rest,” I whispered, shivering as the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I shook off the chill that ran down my spine and trudged forward. “Quickly, if possible. This place is giving me the heebs.”

  “Me too,” Riley said, hooking my elbow. She shined her tiny flashlight over at the wagon area and pulled me closer to her side. “Though, I can’t imagine that the haunted basement portion of this little sideshow is going to be less creepy. I mean, what is all this stuff?”

  To the left was a set of doors marked only by numbers. Across from that was a small showroom with a sign that read Blackhawk Model Railroad. It housed the largest model train set I had ever seen in my life. It spanned the full length of the room and wrapped itself around a very detailed little town, complete with buildings, trees, and tiny people. The track continued onto an elevated platform above my head that appeared to run the length of the hallway and back. Railroad memorabilia covered nearly every vertical inch of wall space in the room, as well as the walls just outside of it.

  “Holy crap,” Jake whispered his flashlight bouncing about as he moved farther into the exhibit. “This is so…wow.”

  “All aboard the dork express,” Christa muttered, shaking her head as she and Ty ambled past us.

  “That’s enough of that, young lady,” Ty chided softly as he threw a glance over his shoulder at us.

  If Jake heard their little exchange, he didn’t let on. He kept his attention fixed on the small white circle of light provided by his flashlight. Once the two of them had passed by Jake finally looked away, his eyes almost sad as they trailed along after them.

  “Over here, everyone,” Zander waved at us from farther down the corridor. His voice was calm, but the clenching of his jaw told a much different story.

  I whistled at Jake then grabbed Falisha’s arm as Riley and I passed by. Eli had already made his way to the opposite end of the museum’s vestibule. Zander was shifting his weight from side to side, and Eli looked uneasy.

  “Ty?” Zander tilted his head toward the door. “You mind?”

  “Right,” Ty nodded. “Wait one second for me, would ya?”

  He held up a finger to Christa and then disappeared into the dark stairwell. She crossed her arms over her chest and blew her bangs out of her eyes in a huff, but her attitude didn’t last. A few seconds later he poked his head back through the doorway and nodded up at us, then reached for Christa’s outstretched hand.

  “Turn your lights on, everyone. Follow Ty and be careful on the steps,” Zander said, directing everyone through the door.

  Riley and Falisha met my eyes as they passed by with the spoils from their kitchen raid and I nodded my assent. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust Ty. They just trusted me more, I suppose. The two of them huddled close together and walked through the doorway side-by-side, disappearing into the shadows.

  “Liv?” Zander’s eyes bore into mine, and he tapped his chest. I shook my head back and forth. “Me either, but…”

  “But?” Jake asked, stopping short just outside the door. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s kind of hard to explain. I just feel itchy, or something. It’s like I’m crawling out of my own skin.”

  “I’m right there with you,” I whispered sliding my hand in his. “But it’s not the same as before, with Gunther or the others. There’s no pull.”

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have time to look into that,” Jake said, swiping at his brow. “We’ve already been up here too long. We gotta go, okay? Just stay on the alert.”

  “I told you something wasn’t right,” Eli said gritting his teeth. He clutched his p
recious backpack tightly to his chest. “I knew it.”

  “Just go.” I pushed him ahead of us and patted my leg, motioning for Bella to follow.

  From the moment she had hopped out of that truck an hour or so ago, the dog had been restless and on edge. While we buried the truck on the construction site next door, Bella trotted about sniffing the ground and growling or running in circles around the building.

  “Take it easy, Bella,” I said scratching her when she trotted to my side. “Go on, girl.”

  She yipped softly and licked my hand then hopped into the stairwell ahead of us. I held firmly to Zander’s hand as we headed down into the dank and musty basement. As many times as we had found ourselves below ground in the last few days, there was still something so fundamentally wrong about our being there. It wasn’t that the darkness bothered me. It was more like we weren’t meant to exist where the sun couldn’t reach us. It was unnatural.

  The stairs drew down at a steep angle, and the corridor was narrow enough that Zander’s shoulders nearly touched both sides of it at once. The rustic barn wood paneling that ran the length of the passageway was covered in a layer of dust thick enough to leave tracks where my fingers had grazed it. I wiped the grit onto my pant leg and joined the rest of the group at the bottom of the steps. They were huddled together, their flashlight beams dancing and weaving around the small space.

  “Now what?” Christa asked no doubt rolling her eyes in the darkness. “Are we just gonna stand here and sing campfire songs to the ghosts, or what?”

  “Now we find a place to rest,” I said, rubbing at the odd tingling that ran down my neck. “We have a long road ahead of us, guys, and we are going to need sleep. Ry, you have the food?”

  “Right here,” she said, dropping a garbage bag onto the hard concrete floor.

  “Pretty much everything in the cafe was either melted or had gone bad. We didn’t get nearly as much as we had hoped for,” Falisha said as she deposited her bag with Riley’s. “Seriously, the place looked like a crime scene. Some of the canned goods had exploded back there, and there was scorched chocolate and stuff everywhere. It smelled raunchy.”

  “Sorry, Liv,” Riley shrugged, “but that’s all we could salvage from the mess.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Ry. We can definitely work with this,” I said clapping her shoulder. “Jake, would you do an inventory please?”

  “On it.” He nodded and sat cross-legged on the floor. Bella parked herself at his side and sniffing each item as he pulled it out.

  “Liv, check this out,” Zander said, waving me down with the tiny beam of light from his little red torch.

  He was leaning against the doorframe of a small room in the back corner of the basement. I slid my flashlight into my back pocket and made my way over to him. Truth was, I only had the thing to keep up appearances. I didn’t need it anymore thanks to my newly acquired talents. The little hints of light from the others’ torches actually made it more difficult for me to see in the darkness. Zander sensed my discomfort, and he clicked his off as I approached.

  “Sorry about that,” Zander whispered. He slid his torch into his pocket and threaded his fingers through mine. “I guess I forget sometimes.”

  “I wish I had that problem,” I said shaking my head. “Being the resident freak is sort of hard to forget about.”

  “Tell me about it,” Zander said, wiggling his blackened fingers at me as we stepped through the doorway and into the little room. “Maybe this will help take your mind off of all that.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said, turning in a circle at the center of the room.

  “I know, right?” He smiled at me, sliding a loose hair behind my ear.

  One of the walls was covered from top to bottom with American flags, both splayed and in shadow boxes. There were as old uniforms in nearly every shade of green and khaki imaginable. Helmets of all shapes and sizes were interspersed between them, and a big, black POW-MIA flag hung from the ceiling above it. To our right was a glass case lined with rusty old knives, antique pistols, and small, hinged boxes holding various medals and badges. Nearly every inch of wall around the case held old photos of soldiers, tanks, and framed articles dating as far back as September of 1939.

  “This must be the new exhibit,” Zander smirked.

  “It’s unbelievable,” I said gazing around the room at the artifacts of wars past. “This stuff is awesome.”

  “I told you that you were amazing, Liv Larson,” Zander smirked, shaking his head at me. “Seriously, if you didn’t believe me before, you have to now.”

  “What?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Really?” Zander scoffed at me. “There were tons of places along the way that we could have stopped to rest, Liv. There were plenty of houses still standing, not to mention stores, restaurants, and even bars. Of all of them, you chose an old piano factory turned run-down strip mall. Why?”

  A door slammed somewhere out in the foyer and was followed immediately by the sound of shuffling feet and grunts. My friends were out there dragging things around in an effort to make a safe place for us to rest, and here I was caught up in the light of Zander’s eyes and the softness of his words.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged and stared down at my boots. “It was just a gut feeling, I guess.”

  “Exactly,” Zander said raising my chin so our eyes met. “You say you are not meant to lead; that you don’t know what you are doing. I disagree. True leadership is about more than just strategy and tactics, Liv. It’s about instincts, and thanks to yours we have food, shelter, and a way to protect ourselves.”

  “I…I just—,” I stammered, lost in the depths of those warm copper eyes of his. When he looked at me that way, words failed me.

  “You are amazing, Liv Larson,” Zander laughed softly as he leaned in toward me, “and one of these days, you are going to see it.”

  “Liv!” Jake’s panicked cries shattered the moment, just as our lips were about to meet.

  “We were just talking.” My heart had crept up into my throat, but the terrified look on Jake’s face sent it slamming back down into my chest. “What’s wrong, Jake?”

  He was shaking, and his eyes were wide with fear. “There’s a guy…he has a—.”

  “Back the hell up or we will shoot every last one of you,” shouted a gravely and unfamiliar voice.

  Before I was even aware I had moved, I was already flying across the lobby. My feet moved lithely, barely making a sound against the old vinyl floor as I raced toward the scuffle. Everyone had gathered in a half-circle in front of the old Carnival game exhibit on the opposite side of the vestibule. They stared at a ragged-looking man with what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun raised to his shoulder. Bella bared her teeth, growling in the man’s direction.

  “Take it easy, Mister,” Ty said as he shoved Christa behind him. “Calm down. We are backin’ up, see?”

  “You people need to take your mutt and go,” the man growled pumping his shotgun. He swung it in an arc before finally landing on Bella. “This is our place now, you hear?”

  “Sir, please put the gun down,” Ty said, and the man flinched, his face softening just a fraction.

  “Please, you have to go before he gets angry,” the man said looking over his shoulder. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “We are not going to hurt you,” Riley said softly as she stepped forward with her hands in the air. Ty reached out to stop her, but she dodged his grasp. “We just need a place to rest for a few hours, and then we will go. I swear.”

  “Please, just—.” The man stopped short then closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. When he opened them again, he stared back at Riley as a predator would its prey. He pointed the barrel in her face and cocked his head to the side with a smirk as his finger tightened on the trigger. “I don’t think so, girly.”

  Riley raised her hands up in front of her face and Ty dove ahead of her. He shoved Christa behind an old metal
sign as he went. By the time the man had bent his finger I had flanked them all, knocked Eli to the ground and pushed off the platform of an antique carnival horse launching myself in the air toward him.

  “No!” Riley shouted, but it was too late.

  Bang.

  Chapter 3

  Fit to be Tied

  My shoulder slammed into the man with enough force that it sent both of us pummeling to the ground in a heap. We rolled over the top of one another a few times before finally colliding with a large, ornate wooden table lined with pamphlets and brochures. My body was buzzing with so much energy and adrenaline that I barely registered the impact. A second later, the table collapsed on top of us, pinning us to the vinyl and sending a shower of multi-colored paper into the air like confetti on New Year’s Eve.

  He lost his grip on the gun at some point in the struggle. It lay on the ground just out of both of our reach. Our eyes met, and we both stretched toward it desperate for the upper hand.

  “Son of a—,” the man groaned as he struggled to push the table off.

  “I don’t think so,” Zander’s boot appeared out of nowhere crushing the man’s fingers into the floor.

  “My hand!” The man growled up at him, but Zander didn’t flinch.

  “Jesus Christ, Liv. Are you okay?” He reached down and grabbed the back of the gunman’s neck, pressing his face into the floor while the others raced over to free us from the wreckage of the decimated antique table. “Get his hands, Ty.”

  “Sombetch,” Ty swore under his breath as he wrestled the man’s hands behind his back. “Coulda killed someone, you crazy—wavin’ a gun ‘round like you own the place.”

  “I—I think so,” I grunted running my hands across my middle as I rolled onto my back. My stomach was sore from where the table had landed on me, and my head was pounding, but I didn’t seem to have any extra holes in my body. I was putting this one in the win category. “Riley? Is she—?”