Chapter 24: Brother

Carla made sure the boy was secured as she closed the back door of the truck. All she wanted was to finish the job and get home to her son, but the damned captain was making it difficult for her.

“Like I just said, and will only say once more—you can interrogate him at the facility. The orders are to bring him there at once, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Carla didn’t care that the man was a captain, and why would she? Her orders superseded his. But the man was being more than just a little stubborn. Carla was not a mean person, or even a pushy person, but when you’re a mom in your mid-forties with parental responsibilities, you don’t always have the time to waste discussing matters that have already been settled.

“Listen to me,” the man said. “I need the information in this child’s head. It could very well mean the difference between life and death for a great many people. You can have him after we’ve revived him here and gotten what we need from him.”

“And you listen to me, Mr. Puro, or Paro, or whoever the hell you are,” she growled in retort. “A Commander has already given the order to take him to facility-B. If you want, you can see him first thing in the morning. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s already past dark and he should’ve been there by now. Out of my way.”

She didn’t give the man a chance to respond. She was so sick of arguing with idiots. Carla double checked the locks and restraints then made sure the bed the boy lay on was secure. The last thing she needed was to explain to her superiors why their prisoner was rolling around the highway.

The transport van was large. It was wide in the back with room for up to fifteen to be seated comfortably. Although, at the moment there were only seven of them, with her being the only Psych. Truth be told, she didn’t really need to be there—she never did, but it was all standard procedure. All criminal transports required at least seven recon officers and one Psych.

“Doug, we ready to go?” Carla asked the man sitting behind the wheel. All seven men were armed with standard assault rifles, dark blue T.A.C jackets, and non-constrictive helmets.

“Moving out, Carla,” he said.

There were no windows except the driver’s in the front, so a sudden lurch in her stomach was the only indication she had to know they were accelerating. Facility-B was located in the Harbor off Staten Island. Given current traffic conditions and expected construction sites, she estimated a travel time of two hours.

Carla looked over at the unconscious boy. She was tempted to close his eyes. The way he seemed to be almost starting at her, it was more than just a little creepy. They were wide-open, bloodshot, and had an unnerving look to them, as if they were saying that whatever had put him in a coma was something beyond terrifying.

Carla was not a member of the Investigative or Operations departments. She was offered a job in both, but she didn’t feel either was right for her. Psychs like her didn’t have a name—they were just workers. Her specialty—if it could really be called that—was in prisoner transport. In other words, she got to sleep in the back of slow moving vehicles while comatose murderers gave her creepy looks.

The ride seemed to drag on, as the occasional bump woke her from her doze. She wasn’t really supposed to be sleeping, but in the close to twenty years she’d been doing this, the only action she ever saw was a few car accidents.

She tried to doze off again but noticed that something was a bit off. The bumping had stopped for almost two minutes, and she no longer felt the movement of the vehicle.

“Doug, why aren’t we moving?” she asked.

“There’s a young woman lying on the street up ahead. Carla, you have to see this.”

Carla unbuckled her seatbelt and walked to the front of the van. It was dark, and for Manhattan, the street held surprisingly few people, although some still shuffled about. Ahead of them, she saw the girl.

She was on her stomach with her left arm stretched out in front of her and her right extended to the side. Her face was turned, and her cheek rested on the pavement. This part of Manhattan wasn’t as dense on traffic as others, but it was still Manhattan. How did nobody see her?

“You three.” She pointed to the nearest three officers. “Go see if she’s okay.”

“Yes ma’am!”

The three officers leaped out of the back of the vehicle and ran over to examine the girl.

“So, Doug, how’s the wife?”

The man sighed. “Well, she’s a wife, if that answers the question.”

The two shared a laugh. “Dougie, how many years have you been married now? You’ve given me that same answer since we started. You must love her to death if you’re still with her.”

Doug smiled. “Well, of course I do. But it’s just that lately I don’t feel like we share the same interests anymore. For instance, just yesterday—”

The sound of a bloodcurdling scream cut him off.

Carla whipped her head around and looked out the front window. Her heart almost gave out, as she saw the three recon officers on the floor, wailing and coughing up blood.

“What in the hell?” Carla leaped out the back of the vehicle, and ran toward them. “You three, what happened? Are you okay?”

There was no response, though Carla didn’t expect one. They were leaking blood so fast that it looked like their mouths were fountains. A deep puddle of the stuff formed around the blue-suited bodies. Carla forced herself to remain calm, or at least she tried to, but she wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

The other four officers rushed to her side, and she signaled for Doug to remain in the vehicle. They had weapons out and loaded, but each one of them looked scared out of their wits. These men had never had to use their weapons, and they probably never thought they would.

Carla looked around and tried to get an idea of what’d happened, and immediately she noticed the girl they had spotted from the road was now nowhere to be seen.

“Did anyone see where she went?”

They were on a narrow street, with entrances to shabby-looking apartments on both sides. A few small restaurants lined the block, but on the whole, they were in a low-income residential area. A cat jumped over a trash can off to the side, giving them pointed looks before crawling on.

“Well?”

The men glanced around at each other, but no one offered a word in reply. Not that it mattered, for only a few seconds passed before Carla heard yet another scream, this time from the van.

“Doug!” she cried.

Doug’s lifeless corpse smashed through the front window of the van and was sent hurtling at her, flying at a speed so fast that she barely had time to jump out of the way. She leaped, and the body collided with the officer standing behind her, knocking him to the ground.

She remained frozen, so did the only three officers still on their feet. One by one, her men were dropping like flies, and she didn’t even know who their enemy was. Carla felt an acidic bubble of fear in her gut. She wondered if she was only moments away from the end of her life.

The van shook, and she knew that whatever was still inside it was coming out. The men leveled their guns and waited for their tormenters.

The two that came out, were two of the oddest people Carla had ever seen. One was a beautiful young woman, with exotic red hair and a look of madness so deeply embedded into her expression that Carla wondered if she was born with it.

The other was a laid-back, tall, black-haired young man. He didn’t have the crazy-look like the other one did. In fact, he appeared genuinely happy, yet upon closer inspection there was sadness present too, beneath the carefree exterior.

Carla loved to watch movies. She watched so many movies, that their influence on her was apparent even in the way she spoke. Upon seeing these two, she was expected to offer them an opportunity to surrender, to turn themselves in. But from a lifetime of watching cheesy action flicks, coupled with a growing collection of dead recon officers, Carla wanted these two dead before her next breath. It was always the hesitation that got the characters in movies killed.

“Open fire, now!”

The three officers didn’t need to be told twice. They clicked off their safeties and unloaded a volley of fire into the two approaching Psychs. The guns were loud, and the deafening roar of bullets actually made her feel safer in a way. The dark Manhattan alley lit up with grandeur as the flashing of three assault rifles pumped bullets into the distance.

The men emptied their clips, refusing to take their fingers off the trigger until every last bullet had left their guns. They were just as shaken up as Carla was. Even with the sound of gunfire she could still hear the empty shells clinging as they hit the ground.

When the men had ceased firing, and yet the two remained side-by-side completely unharmed, Carla struggled with everything she was made of to resist the urge to flee.

Calm down, girl, she told herself. All this means is that one of them is a Kinetic. We don’t need bullets to deal with them.

Carla took no chances. She drew every last bit of power she was capable of grasping, and let it pour into herself. She was a Manipulator, the deadliest of all Psych affinities. She would melt their faces before they took another step.

Narrowing her eyes on the two, she threw everything she had at them. Kinetics might be able to stop bullets, but they couldn’t stop this.

Carla gasped, as small puffs of smoke materialized a foot away from the man’s face. Her attacks were being stopped by something.

Does that mean the other one is a Path?

Carla doubled her efforts. Even if one of them was a Telepath, if she overwhelmed their defenses and broke through whatever it was they were doing, she would make it out of this alive. She poured every last drop of power she had into her attack, and the smoke came closer and closer to the young man’s face, now only a few inches away. Once her attack connected, it would be over. His facial tissue would melt and fall off his head, and he’d drop to the floor as dead as the men he’d just killed.

“Ruin, Darling, this one is trying to push me back? Why are we toying with it?”

“Because, sister, it is more fun if they think they have a chance.”

Carla tried to ignore their banter. It was nothing more than a distracting tactic. She pushed even harder, sweating with the effort, as the smoke came closer, and closer, to the man’s face. When it was within an inch, it stopped. It wouldn’t budge even a drop farther. The young woman seemed to be panting with the exertion of keeping up their defense. It gave Carla an idea.

“Men, reload! Open another round of fire. They can’t stop the bullets and my Manipulation at the same time!”

Understanding dawned on the faces of three remaining recon officers. They attempted to reload. Before a single one of them could finish, lampposts, sewer grates, and manhole covers—all of these objects ripped free from whatever was holding them in the surrounding area and soared at the recon officers.

Carla and one other officer ducked, but the other two were not so lucky. The officer standing to the left of her had just enough time to cry in surprise as the soaring piece of metal made contact with his skull, killing him, but at the very least he died in an instant.

The other officer was not so lucky. The pointed end of a lamppost skewered him. Carla tripled her efforts, trying so hard to break through their defenses that she screamed with the exertion. Her voice cried out in a loud bellow as she used all her power in an attempt to push that final inch.

Eventually her knees gave out and she fell to the floor. The Telepath was just too strong. She was exhausted and worn. She lay on her back, looking up at the night sky, as she half-listened to the screaming sounds of dying men around her. Eventually her vision of the starry sky was blocked. The young woman’s twisted face hovered over her.

“Do you know what happens now, Darling?”

Carla cried, “Please! I don’t know who you two are, just go away!”

“Come here, brother,” she called to the young man. She put her hands over her brother’s eyes and he smiled.

“Ohh,” he said, “you have such a lovely heart, ma’am. I can see it beating. I can see the valves that are connected to it. Anatomy is so interesting, isn’t it?”

Carla shrieked as the realization dawned on her. The Telepath! Kinetic’s can only move what they can see, so that woman … she’s showing him my insides.

She shivered, her fear reaching a level of intensity that crippled her. “Please! Don’t do this!” she screamed. “Somebody, anybody, help! Oh God, please, help! I don't want this …”

The young woman licked her lips. “Oh, Ruin, Darling, I do love it when they scream. If only it were the pig-woman lying here and not this other cow.”

The man, Ruin, laughed. “Oh, dearest Requiem, we’ll have our chance. Let’s just kill this creature and save our Brother. Hmm, you’d think with all the times we’ve done this I’d have an idea of how the human heart works. I still don’t, it’s amazing. Like, what happens if I cut that little valve thing, sister, do you see it? The one to the right of where you’re showing me.”

“I don’t know, Darling, but there’s a way to find out, isn’t there?”

Before the pain, there was blood. Carla coughed up a stream of dark red blood, slowing into a small trickle gliding over her lips and splashing the floor, painting it the color of death.

Then came the pain. It was the most unbearable, intense, and overwhelming sensation of agony. It exploded in her, so powerful and horrible that it blocked every other sense. Sight, sound, smell, none of these things existed for her. There was just the pain.

She couldn’t even form words anymore, but that didn’t stop her from trying. Each whimper ended in vomiting more blood. She wanted to die—she wanted nothing more than for it to be over. Tears fell but no one seemed to care. Her whole existence was one of torment. She looked pleadingly at the Kinetic who took great pleasure at tearing her from the inside.

“Mphm,”

She tried to speak, but yet again, she only caused another stream of blood to shoot out, landing on the man’s shoe.

“What happens if I cut this one?”

Mom, Dad, I love you both so much, she thought as she turned her head to the sky. Please, if you’re up there, please take care of Justin. It hurts, Mom, it hurts so badly. Please, Mom, please…

She felt it again—the sensation of something inside her being sliced. This time all she could manage was a moan. She wiggled back and forth on the ground and grabbed her chest, trying to hold and comfort herself. It didn’t matter. There was no longer anything that could be done. Somehow, the pain continued to increase, making her wonder just how much a person could feel.

How was her son going to brave the world without her? Or her sister, who needed payments on her medical bills? She tried to look to the sky again, but her head would no longer move, it hung lifelessly to the side. She could still feel all the pain, but now she was paralyzed, unable to move a single muscle.

Eventually the pain dulled, and for that, she was grateful. She was finally dying. She almost wanted to laugh at how ridiculous it was to feel good about that.

As the light left her eyes, and the world turned to darkness, she wondered what, if anything would come next.