The Elders

Chapter 2

2

“Thomas!” I block his attempt to hit my Adam’s apple. “What the hell?”

In answer, Thomas kicks my shin. With all my talking and confusion, I didn’t see the kick coming, and damn it, it hurt. The mixture of betrayal, incredulity, and resurfacing anger intensifies the pain.

As Thomas moves to attack me again, I swerve out of the punch, but something else distracts me, something relevant to the fight at hand. A part of me—the part that’s been waking up during fights ever since I Joined with Caleb inside the head of the Israeli martial arts guru—registers that Thomas’s ‘interesting’ fighting style is Hapkido-inspired.

As if to confirm my guess, Thomas grabs my arm as I move to hit him in the stomach, and overextends my elbow joint. An eruption of pain instantly follows. Then he throws me over his shoulder. Two Hapkido classics, I think as I sail through the air.

As I’m about to hit the ground, the world slows a little, so I have some hope as I try, yet again, to phase into Level 2 of the Quiet. My fight with Thomas has recreated the conditions of my last phasing to a T: if I land on my head, I will break my neck and die.

I hit the ground. Air rushes out of my lungs as I land on my back rather than on my head. Clearly, nothing happened as far as Level 2 phasing is concerned. The only result of my fall is the excruciating pain in my tailbone.

“You will stop, Pusher.” Mira’s voice is cold and commanding. “Now.”

Were she addressing me, I’d strongly consider stopping.

I try to say, “Listen to her,” while I begin rolling over onto my stomach, but what comes out is a hiss as Thomas kicks me in my exposed side.

A gunshot rings out.

Thomas’s body falls on top of me.

Is he dead? I’m torn between the hope that she did shoot him, which would stop the fight, and not wanting Thomas to get hurt, because, well, it’s Thomas. I haven’t yet accepted that he’s attempting to kill me for real; I could think of another explanation if people would just stop kicking my ass.

When he grabs me in a headlock, I realize I was wrong—wrong about him being dead and wrong about his fighting style. This is more of an Aikido headlock. What I also know about this lock is that once you’re in it, you’re usually done for.

“Darren, stay still,” Mira says.

All I manage is an affirmative grunt. That done, I pretend like I’m choosing not to move in order to comply with her request.

She fires another shot.

Warm liquid sprays all over my body, and Thomas’s hold on me slackens.

I try to move, but I’m not ready for that yet.

Mira puts the gun’s safety back on and fumbles with Thomas’s body, rolling him off me. I immediately feel lighter.

“Are you okay?” She gently touches my face.

“How do I look?” I ask and spit blood. I wiggle a tooth with my tongue. That’s not good. Teeth are usually stable, unmovable objects.

“You look . . . disturbing. Let’s get you out of here.”

Cringing, I half crawl, half turn so I’m next to Thomas, and then I feel for his pulse.

The heartbeat is there, though faint. His breathing is ragged, and I’m not sure how long he has.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” I frisk Thomas for guns or any clue as to why he attacked me. No luck. “Unless I phase out, Thomas will be Inert.”

“You’ve got to be f*****g kidding me,” she says. “You’d rather he make you Inert?”

“No, but—” I crawl away from him, toward my frozen self’s body.

“He tried to kill you, probably to prevent you from overriding your would-be killers.” She nods in the direction of the cops. “Something you should actually do, by the way, and as soon as possible.”

She’s right. If Thomas made me Inert, those cops would’ve shot me in the real world, which reminds me that she’s also right about this second point.

I need to stop all these cops from shooting me. I only have a few moments to phase out and back in again. A few moments that would buy me the chance to reset my injuries, as well as Thomas’s. The cops’ hands are far enough from their guns to allow me this luxury.

Deciding that crawling isn’t efficient enough, I get up, even though doing so makes me feel as if I’ve suddenly aged three centuries.

Mira turns toward Thomas, drops to a crouch, and checks his pulse. She looks unhappy with what she finds.

My heart sinks. I didn’t make it. He’s already dead, which means he’s now Inert.

A part of me says, Oh well. Maybe it’s for the best.

Then Mira stands up and aims her gun at him.

I was wrong. She must’ve discovered that he still has a pulse and decided she wants it gone. She wants him Inert.

It’s not clear to me why I do what I do next.

With my body screaming in agony, I leap for my frozen self.

I fall a foot away from me/him. I’m certain I just broke something else, as the pain is incredible. On the bright side, I feel on the brink of phasing, but I hit that mental wall again. If I could climb over it, I’d reach Level 2. Then again, I’ve hit this wall before with zero results.

Mira hears me move and her big eyes widen in a ‘are you insane’ kind of look. Then her eyes narrow in realization.

“i***t,” she says and removes the gun’s safety.

No Level 2 this time, I think and extend my shaking right hand, snaking it under my frozen self’s pant leg to touch the ankle. I feel the hairy leg under my fingers, and all my pain dissipates.

The sounds of the world return, and in the next moment, after I phase back in, everything is still again.

I’m back in the Quiet and all the injuries Thomas inflicted on me are gone, as are Thomas’s shot-up body and Mira.

I let myself reflect on the fact that I didn’t hear Mira’s gunshot, which means Thomas isn’t Inert. Yay?

I debate bringing her in, but decide against it. She’s probably pissed at me for thwarting her plan. I don’t want to deal with that right now, not until I secure the area.

I walk to where my moms are standing. Even though I’m about to neutralize the cops as a threat, I Guide my moms to get on the ground in case my Guiding doesn’t go according to plan, and in case Thomas has a gun hidden where I couldn’t find it. I’m certain he doesn’t, since he would’ve used it to shoot me when he was attacking me, but when it comes to my family, I err on the side of caution. For good measure, I make sure they won’t notice if any shooting starts. They’re to ignore any violence that occurs in the next few minutes. I don’t care if my moms experience slight amnesia; safety comes first. With any luck, they’ll think they zoned out because of the priest’s monotone voice.

Knowing my moms will be safely on the ground, I approach the uniformed officers.

I find two female cops and Guide them to walk toward us, get on the ground, and cover my moms with their bodies. It may be overkill, but better safe than sorry.

I then approach every officer and give the following Guiding instructions: You will not reach for your weapon. You will not move from this spot for the next twenty minutes. You are absorbed with emotions of loss, and you will not pay attention to anything but the ceremony. You are solemnly observing a few minutes of silence for the fallen hero.

I give similar ‘ignore the world and don’t move’ instructions to the rest of the civilian-clothed cops, as well as to the priest and the guys with rifles.

When it comes to the Quarterback and a couple of other bigger-looking dudes, I give them a few extra instructions.

Happy with my progress thus far, I walk back to my body and phase out.

As soon as the world comes back to life, I phase in and out of the Quiet every fraction of a second to make sure the cops aren’t reaching for their weapons anymore.

To my huge relief, on the fifth check, I find that they aren’t.

I phase out of the Quiet again.

“Area secured,” I whisper to Mira as soon as the sounds of the world return. “But just in case, be ready for anything.”

She doesn’t reply. I guess the incident in the Quiet garnered me the silent treatment. Instead of worrying about Mira’s mood, I focus on my surroundings. After counting exactly two Mississippis, I spot movement in the direction of the cops.

I also see Thomas taking a step toward me, the beginnings of a run.

I return to the Quiet to make sure my extra Guiding worked. It did. The movement I saw in the corner of my eye was indeed my doing. I phase out and focus on Thomas.

He’s running in earnest.

The blur of movement coming from the crowd of cops gets closer.

Thomas is mere feet away from us when the Quarterback smacks into him with all the grace of a horny rhinoceros. I don’t know that much about football, but this looks like great work to me. Thomas flies into the air—far into the air—and lands in the dirt that’s destined to go on top of Kyle’s casket. I hope the dirt softened his landing and try not to feel too guilty about what I made the Quarterback do to him.

My guilt increases as the Quarterback falls on top of Thomas. He’s keeping my friend down until I can figure out what the hell is happening. The other larger officers form a makeshift human pyramid on top of them. As I recall from when this sort of thing happened to me, this doesn’t hurt the person on the bottom too much.

Granted, this happened to me back in kindergarten.

Suddenly, my world is filled with pain so visceral that my eyes water. Air escapes my lungs with an audible whoosh.

Trying to comprehend what’s happening to me, I realize with a shudder that the pain is coming from my most treasured and intimate of places.

I focus on inhaling air and not falling, and at the same time, I phase into the Quiet.

Oh, the sweet relief. The pain is instantly gone. Its absence highlights just how bad it really was, and I feel as though I’ve been given a shot of morphine.

From my new vantage, I see what happened and recoil in disbelief.

Mira is frozen in the act of kicking me in the balls.