The Enlightened

Chapter 2

2

I’m aware of movement. I’m in a car, and it’s driving very fast. That’s all I’m feeling. I can’t see for some reason, and I’m not sure how I got here—wherever ‘here’ is. I’m also freezing. Then it slowly comes back to me.

Caleb drugged me. This is his car. Where is he taking me? What the hell is going on?

I’m overflowing with adrenaline at this point, and even though I know it’s futile, I try phasing into the Quiet.

When it works, I’m so surprised I can’t believe it’s real. But it must be. I’m in the backseat. The car is no longer moving. The roar of the engine is gone, and I’m not cold anymore. Frozen Caleb is sitting in the driver’s seat. Next to him I see a black bag covering my frozen self’s head. That explains why I couldn’t see. I find it interesting that the bag did not join me in the Quiet. Clothes usually do, but I guess whatever it is that decides ‘what to bring’ into the Quiet decided that the bag wasn’t part of my clothes. Good call, and another small piece of evidence in support of Eugene’s theory that all this Quiet stuff is really something that just happens in our heads.

So after all the time I spent worrying about it, I’m finally back in the Quiet. However, I can’t enjoy it. Not without knowing what the hell Caleb has gotten me into.

Opening the door, I leave the car. I’m no longer cold, though I wish I were wearing more than swim trunks. I look in the back of the car. In Brooklyn, Caleb’s Hummer had all sorts of guns and knives in the back. This car, which I’m guessing is a rental, has nothing of the kind. Disappointed, I look around.

We’re in the middle of a highway going through what looks like a forest. A dense wall of trees stretches for miles on either side of the road. There’s no way for me to tell where we are. It certainly doesn’t look like Miami.

I try walking into the forest, but after a few scratches and splinters, I decide that aimlessly hiking through the hostile woodland is a dumb idea, especially as a means to figuring out where Caleb is taking me. Wandering down the road proves just as pointless. Despite walking for miles, I find no sign of our current location.

Getting back to the car, I try to explore the front of it. I get my frozen self out of the seat, unceremoniously letting the black-bagged body fall to the ground, and look inside the glove compartment.

Finally, I find something useful.

True to himself, on top of whatever armament he probably has on his person, Caleb has a gun stashed there.

I take the gun and use it to push open Caleb’s vest. I don’t want to touch him; the last thing I want is to have him in the Quiet with me. I was right, though. He has a gun, and the huge knife he likes to carry with him is attached to the inside of his vest.

Okay. What now?

I decide to go back and pretend to be unconscious. Now that I’m no longer Inert, I can phase in once in a while to look around. Maybe after another couple of miles, I can figure out where we’re going.

I touch my frozen self and phase out of the Quiet.

The noise instantly returns, as does the cold from the air conditioner. More importantly, I’m nauseous again from either Caleb’s driving or the effects of whatever drug he used to knock me out. Or maybe a combination of both. The last thing I want is to throw up, especially with a bag over my head, so I employ a trick I’ve used since I was a kid and breathe in deeply. In. Out. In. Out.

The nausea slowly subsides.

Suddenly, the car comes to a screeching halt, undoing all my work. I almost puke.

In a blinding flash, the bag is off my head. I keep my eyes closed, pretending to be unconscious. I wish Caleb would kill the engine now that we’ve stopped; the cold of the air conditioner is making me shiver, which is a dead giveaway to my being awake.

Then the world goes eerily silent. Caleb has pulled me into the Quiet. I keep my eyes closed.

“Stop that bullshit, kid. I know you’re faking it,” Caleb says. “I pulled you in, which means even if you were unconscious before, you are conscious now. It also proves you’re no longer Inert. So why don’t we have a little chat?”

Shit.

He’s right. The process of pulling someone into the Quiet wakes them; that’s what happened with Mira that time when I pulled her out of her beauty sleep, and got a gun pointed at my head for it. Before I can dwell any longer on that fond memory, powerful hands grab me by the hair and trunks. In one swift motion, I fly out of the car, scrape my elbows, and land in an explosion of pain.

“f**k, Caleb.” Coughing, I attempt to get to my knees. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Ah, so you are conscious,” he says and kicks me in the ribs.

The air rushes out of my lungs, and I struggle to take a breath.

He kicks me again. And again.

I gasp for air, nearly gagging from the pain as he finally steps away. I wonder if he’s going to get a gun to finish the job. At least this time I know I’ll survive getting killed in the Quiet, though I’ll be Inert again and for who knows how long. With all my remaining strength, I start crawling away, though my shattered ribs scream in protest.

All of a sudden, I’m back in the car in real time, with the noise of the engine roaring and the cold of the air conditioner blanketing me. I’m blissfully not in pain, but then everything goes quiet again.

I stare at Caleb, who’s now in the back seat with me. What the hell is he doing? He took me out of the Quiet only to pull me back in.

“Get. Out,” he says through clenched teeth.

With a sinking feeling, I realize I’ve never really seen Caleb pissed before. Not until now, if pissed is indeed what he is.

My heart hammering, I scramble out of the car. He climbs out too and takes off his vest with the weapons, dropping it on the ground.

It seems like he wants to fight.

Ignoring the hopelessness of the situation, I focus and brace myself.

My right hand moves to block his first punch without my brain really telling it to. My left tries to hit him in the jaw. He manages to block my hook, and in the next moment, I’m seeing stars.

My nose is the epicenter of unspeakable pain. I feel something warm running down my chin, and as I try to inhale, something obstructs the air from entering. My nose must be broken. As that realization hits me, I block a punch to my solar plexus.

Then Caleb does a move I can only describe as a football tackle. He rushes me, and since I didn’t expect it, I lose my balance and fall to the ground.

He kicks me in the head. The crack that accompanies the strike sounds as though the universe split open. Must be a skull fracture, I think vaguely as painful white light fills my vision.

Caleb seems to pause, and my consciousness ebbs.

I’m in the cold car again. The pain is gone, but my confusion is multiplied a hundredfold. What the—?

And then I’m pulled into the Quiet again.

“Do you want to keep playing, or are you ready to talk?” Caleb asks after I get out of the car, my legs wobbly.

This is what it’s about? Some kind of a creative torture he invented? Kick the s**t out of me in the Quiet, reset the injuries by phasing out, and then pull the restored me back in, beat me up, rinse and repeat?

“What the f**k do you want?” I say with more bravado than I feel.

“You can start by explaining how Jacob was killed by the gun I gave you,” he says, and I know I’m in really deep s**t.

“Jacob was killed?” I ask, trying my best to sound surprised, which is easy because I am surprised—surprised that Caleb found out about the gun. Thomas—my new friend and the only other adopted Guide I know—was so convinced we were in the clear. But I forgot that the gun I used was the one Caleb had personally given me. He must’ve gotten access to the ballistics report from Jacob’s murder case and realized it was his revolver that had killed Jacob.

“You know he was.” Caleb crosses his arms over his chest. “Do you really want to resume my game?”

I think quickly, knowing full well a delay in response will be interpreted as a sign of lying. If I come clean about everything, including being a hybrid, he’ll likely kill me outright, like in the memory I experienced where he killed a Pusher bomber. If I give him a half-truth—yes, I killed Jacob, but he was the bad guy responsible for killing Mira and Eugene’s parents—he might believe Jacob’s guilt, or, again, he might kill me for murdering his boss. This leaves me with the weakest response of all, but I proceed anyway, feeling as if I have as many choices as a person being Pushed.

“Wait,” I say. “I genuinely don’t know anything about Jacob getting killed—”

Caleb takes a threatening step toward me.

I start speaking faster. “Look. I got shot after you dropped me off at Mira’s house. You can check the hospital’s records. When I was in the hospital, someone took the gun.”

It’s somewhat plausible, and given the circumstances, not the worst thing I could’ve come up with. Unfortunately, Caleb doesn’t even dignify my quick thinking with criticism. Instead, he walks up to me and throws the first punch, which I manage to block with my left hand. At the same time, my right elbow connects with his jaw.

He raises an eyebrow in surprise and retaliates—how, I’m not entirely sure, as it looks like a blur of movement—and then pain explodes in my chest. Like before, I fall to the ground, and he kicks me repeatedly. The beating hurts like hell. And just like before, when I’m barely alive, he phases us out of the Quiet.

I’m cold, and this time it’s not just from the air conditioning. The adrenaline is pushing me into a fight or flight response. I’m dreading another beating. I don’t think I can take it. But he doesn’t pull me into the Quiet. Instead, he puts the damned bag over my head again.

“They’re going to find out exactly what happened anyway,” Caleb tells me.

Before I can ask what the hell that means or who ‘they’ are, I feel a pinprick of what I assume is a needle, and the familiar nothingness spreads through my brain as I go under.