Cry Havoc

Chapter 1

1

The July sun beat down on them from a cloudless sky, its golden rays falling on a windmill with blades that turned slowly. Jack almost snorted as he watched it go. Ah, the classic torture of miniature golf. It was an Earth ritual that he was more than happy to introduce to his Leyrian friends.

Rajel was bent over in the shade from the windmill, gripping his putter tightly in both hands and frowning at the neon-green ball just a few inches in front of his shoes. He gave it a gentle tap.

The ball rolled up the ramp…and hit a blade.

“This is fun to you?” Rajel snapped.

Standing a short ways back with one hand on the end of his own putter, Jack smiled and shook his head. “It's tradition,” he said. “You haven't really had the Earth experience until you've played mini-golf.”

Cassi was sitting on a nearby bench in a blue sundress with white flowers on it, her putter laid across her lap. “No wonder your people are crazy,” she said. “Games like this would drive anyone up the wall.”

Rajel tapped the ball again.

This time it went gracefully up the ramp and through a tunnel at the base of the windmill just before a blade blocked its path. It came out on the other side, stopping right next to Jack's orange ball, just a few paces from the hole.

“See?” Jack said. “It's fun.”

“I'll take your word for it.”

With a heavy sigh, Jack followed a cobblestone path to the green. “Just be glad we got a few days off,” he muttered. “Every bloody Friendship Day. 'You're the first Keeper from Earth, Jack! The children look up to you.' I thought it was over when I moved to Leyria.”

But it wasn’t. Why would it be? Just last week, Larani had informed him that he would be expected to appear at the Global Friendship Day ceremony – in India, this year – and that he had better have a speech prepared. And perhaps it could be a tad less inflammatory than last year's.

Oh, and Anna would be coming too! She was the woman who discovered Earth, after all. And why not bring Cassi along for good measure? They could do one last review of the Earth-based Keepers just to make absolutely sure that all of Slade's cronies were finally gone. And then Melissa had insisted on visiting her family. So, why not just bring the whole team?

He took his place next to his ball, putter in hand, and gave it a tap with just enough force to make it roll right into the hole with a nice plunk. Two strokes. Not bad for a guy who was out of practice.

Rajel took position next to his ball and tapped it gently. Of course, it made a beeline for the hole and dropped in to land on top of Jack's ball and the one that Cassi had put in with just one stroke.

The other man paced over and sank to one knee, retrieving all three of them. Bright sunlight glinted off the purple lenses of Rajel's sunglasses, but though he used them to cover eyes that did not see, you would never know it from the way he golfed…or fought. Or just about anything. “This game irritates me.”

“Oh?”

“Once we have a direct path to the hole,” Rajel began, “each of us can sink the ball in only one swing. Because how could we do otherwise? Spatial awareness makes it all but second nature to us. But these traps…”

Jack shrugged.

A moment later, Cassi joined them, taking her hot-pink ball from Rajel. She tossed it up and caught it in one deft hand. “I believe the traps are the point.”

Jack led them to their next challenge – a straight line of AstroTurf where the only thing that stood between you and the hole was a mechanical crocodile that opened and closed its mouth every few seconds. Seeing it almost made him laugh.

Rajel came stomping over with a petulant sigh, grimacing as he shouldered Jack out of the way. “Let me try first,” he said. “I want my turn over with.”

He dropped his ball and hit it too hard.

The damn thing rolled so fast you almost expected to see a trail of burnt turf in its wake, but even with all that speed, Rajel's timing was off. The crocodile snapped his jaw shut, the ball bounced off his snout.

“Gods forsake me!” Rajel growled. “I hate this game!”

“Excellent!” Jack said. “Now, you've had the complete Earth experience.”

Cassi put herself right in front of Rajel and looked up to glare death into his eyes. “The problem is not the game,” she said. “The problem is that your mind is clouded with frustration and pent up anger.”

Rajel went red and turned his face away from her. A shiver went through him as he let out a breath. “Yes,” he said. “You're right.”

“You wanna talk about it, bro?” Jack offered.

“Not really.”

Pressing his lips together, Jack looked up toward the sky and blinked. “He doesn't want to talk about it,” he muttered under his breath. “Well, here's the thing, dude. You've been extra grumpy since we got back from Antaur; so, I'm thinking it's share time.”

Rajel shuffled over to the weeds and crouched down with his back turned. “It's not the sort of thing a grown man should fret about.” He retrieved the ball with a grunt and then stood up straight. “Bruised feelings.”

“Adults can't have bruised feelings?”

“They can,” Rajel said with some reluctance. “But in general, they deal with those feelings better than I have.”

“You'll get no argument from me,” Cassi grumbled.

Jack shot a glance in her direction, narrowed his eyes and then shook his head. “It's been my experience,” he began, “that even the most calm and collected person sometimes loses his cool. So, what's up?”

With extreme reluctance, Rajel turned around and shambled back toward them with his head down. “Keli,” he said. “I…seem to have developed feelings for her. Feelings that she can't return.”

“Well…” Jack replied. “I gotta say I'm impressed.”

“You're impressed?”

“Yeah, it takes a special brand of courage to go barking up that tree.” Jack blushed as soon as the words were out of his mouth – not the most sensitive response he could have offered; Summer was quite annoyed – but he put his chagrin aside to focus on the issue. “She's asexual, isn't she?”

“You could tell?”

“I had a suspicion.”

A grunt from Rajel confirmed those suspicions.

Jack reached out to lay a hand on the other man's shoulder, and that seemed to ease some of Rajel's tension. “It's okay, dude,” he said. “I won't give you the 'plenty of fish in the sea' speech – 'cause no one actually likes hearing that when they're hurting – but until you do find that special someone, you can always count on us. We got your back.”

“You have my back?” Rajel asked. “What exactly do you intend to do with it?”

“It's an Earth expression,” he said. “The point is you can count on me. And on Cass. And on Anna…”

“Where is Anna today?” Cassi inquired.

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

Blinds on Crystal Hunter's kitchen window segmented the sunlight into thin bands, but despite that, the place was still bright and cheerful. It was a simple room with wooden cupboards and an old fridge decorated with dozens of colourful magnets, all shaped like Earth letters.

Anna was on her knees in front of the pantry, loading up its lower shelves with cans that Crystal had purchased at the supermarket. Paying for food. She had spent the better part of a year on this planet, and that was still a foreign concept to her.

Anna wore jean shorts and a thin, white tank-top, her strawberry-blonde hair done up in a nubby little ponytail. “There,” she said, setting the last can in place. “That should be all of it.”

Jack's mother was only a silhouette in her mind – an image painted by the spatial awareness that every Keeper gained after Bonding a Nassai – but the other woman was close enough for Anna to make out the smile on her face. “You know, you didn't have to do this,” Crystal said. “You could have spent the afternoon with your friends.”

“Nonsense,” Anna replied. “I wanted to spend some time with you.”

She stood up and turned around, wiping her damp bangs off her forehead. It was warm in Crystal's little apartment, and she had worked up quite a sweat carrying those groceries up from the car. “I thought, maybe we should get to know each other.”

“Well, it's appreciated.”

Crystal sat in a wooden chair with one leg crossed over the other, drumming her fingers on the kitchen table. Her soft laughter was almost musical. A short woman with golden hair that fell in waves to her shoulders, she looked nothing like her son. Well, at least, not in terms of colouring. Jack had his mother's cheekbones. “But sweetheart,” Crystal went on. “You don't have to impress me.”

“Was I that obvious?”

Crystal stood up in one graceful motion and flowed across the tiles on bare feet. “A little.” Gently, she took Anna by the shoulders. “But it's appreciated nonetheless. I'm glad you and Jack got together. I've been wishing you would for, like, years now.”

Closing her eyes, Anna felt a blush singeing her cheeks. She took a deep breath. “I guess we're both a little dense,” she mumbled. “But it means a lot to me to hear you say that.”

“Love's hard sometimes.”

“Yeah.”

It felt so nice when Crystal pulled her into a tender hug. Anna found herself leaning her cheek on the other woman's shoulder. She could not remember the last time she had been this close with her own mother. “As far as I'm concerned,” Crystal whispered. “You are part of the family.”

“Thank you.”

Sometimes family sucked.

Claire sat at a picnic table in her uncle's backyard, holding a piece of corn on the cob in both hands. Her mouth was open, but she paused halfway through the act of taking a bite. Her eyes flicked to each of her cousins. “What?”

There were three of them on the opposite bench – all pale; these were kids from her mother's side of the family – and they all stared at her as if she had grown horns on the top of her head. Logan was the oldest, a young man of fourteen with a mop of blonde hair and a nose too big for his face. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

His younger sister, Lisa, was closer to Claire's age. A pretty girl with long, golden hair and freckles on her pale cheeks, she leaned in close over the table. “What they said about Melissa,” she whispered. “Does she really have an alien living in her body?”

“Yeah,” Claire snapped. “It's called being a Justice Keeper.”

“That's so messed up,” Logan muttered.

“I don't think I could do it.” That last response came from Brendan, a tall boy with a cleft chin and clear blue eyes. He shuddered as he completed his thought. “Let an alien live in my body? What if it takes over, or something.”

“It doesn't work that way,” Claire said.

“Yeah, but, like, it's still weird.”

Instead of arguing with him, Claire went back to her dinner. The corn crunched as she bit into it. So good! When was the last time she had had corn on the cob? It had to be a year ago. She couldn't recall ever having it on Leyria.

“At least you're still normal,” Logan said.

Claire scanned the backyard for her elder sister and found Melissa standing by the wooden fence with a glass of fruit punch in her hand. She had spent most of the afternoon doing that, hanging back, keeping her distance, talking to aunts and uncles who came up to exchange pleasantries but not really seeking them out. Melissa had always been soft-spoken, but never this reserved. But then, when your cousins were all whispering about you behind your back, what else could you do?

Normal.

At least Claire was still “normal.” If they only knew…Tentatively, Claire reached out with her senses. Fear seemed to radiate from the three kids on the other side of the table. Or…Well, not fear exactly. Keli had been teaching her to sift and sort through the different emotions she picked up from other people. Precision was important. There were flavours of anger, flavours of joy and flavours of fear. This was more like mistrust mingled with a strong desire to keep their distance.

A thought leaked through from Logan. Claire had a vivid image of Melissa trying to give him a hug and Logan backing away with his hands raised defensively as if he thought she might infect him with something.

Slamming her hand down on the table, Claire looked up to glare fire at the i***t boy. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What?”

Claire stood up, and her lip twitched as she tried to stuff the anger back down into her belly. “She's my sister!” Her words were harsh, but she didn't care. “Not some victim of the plague. If Melissa tries to give you a hug, shut up and take it!”

Logan was staring at her with an open mouth, and his face had gone deathly pale. “How did you…” He shook his head so fast it must have made him dizzy. “I guess you're turning into a freak too.”

“And proud of it.”

“That's what you get when you live among these aliens,” Lisa said. She was looking at her hamburger as if it might bite her. “Mom always said so. They'll fill your head with their messed up ideas.”

“Your mom's an i***t!” Claire growled.

Her mind was still open to the impressions of everything around her, and she felt a distinct change in the mood. The easy-going atmosphere that had permeated the backyard was suddenly dark and hostile. Or…well, that wasn't it either. Not hostile, exactly. There was nothing to indicate that they meant her any harm, but there was anger simmering just beneath the surface.

“Claire Carlson!” Aunt Sasha wailed. “What has gotten into you?” The woman was not exactly tall and not exactly short, not exactly skinny and not exactly plump, but her round face and blonde curls were unmistakable.

“Your kids are rude,” Claire began. “They keep telling me that my sister's a freak, and they don't seem to care that literally hundreds of people owe her their lives. But why should any of this surprise me? Your kids pick up all your racist bullshit.” At least half a dozen people gasped, but Claire kept going. “So, of course, they're gonna have problems with aliens too.”

Sasha exchanged glances with her husband Bill, and when she turned her attention back to Claire, her face was red. “Della,” she said in a stiff voice. “What do you have to say for your daughter?”

Claire's mother was sitting in a lawn chair with a beer in her hand, sunlight glinting off the dark lenses of her glasses. She stood up slowly. For half a second, Claire thought she was in trouble, but telepathy had its benefits.

“Well,” Della replied, “I'd say I'm glad my kid has learned to stand up for herself. Don't blame Claire for seeing what's right in front of her nose, Sasha. You are an i***t!”

Della strode across the grass at a leisurely pace and offered Claire her hand. Claire took it, and then they were walking to the gate. Melissa joined them half a moment later, and the smile on her face was priceless.

Claire had a permanent bedroom in her mother's house, and even though she hadn't seen it in over a year, nothing had changed. The walls were still a soft pink with adorable cartoon elephants painted on them. She was a bit old for that sort of thing now, but the consistency was comforting. The window still looked out on a large backyard dotted with apple trees.

In PJ bottoms and a blue tank top, Claire sat on the bed with her legs curled up, hugging her knees as she gazed out the window. A knock at the door got her attention, and she didn't need her talent to know who was waiting in the hallway outside. “Come in, Mom.”

The door opened, and she found Della standing there in green track pants and an old t-shirt. Her mother was frowning, and there were loose strands of blonde hair falling over her face. “So,” she said, “I'm guessing this has discouraged you from coming back to live with me?”

Claire squeezed her eyes shut, stiffening as she wrestled with the guilt of having to tell her mother something she really didn't want to hear. “Part of me wants to,” she began. “And part of me is happy on Leyria…But, Mom, they're never gonna accept me here.”

Things just weren't the same since her father made that deal with the Overseers. Oh, he was the same Harry that she remembered – kind but stern, overprotective to a fault – but Claire had no idea what the cost of her new powers was. What did her father have to give up to save her life? What would the Overseers make him do?

When they arrived on Earth a few days ago, Claire had asked to stay with her mother instead of going with her father and sister to Uncle Mark's house. She wanted to see her cousin's on Harry's side of the family – they always treated her better than Logan and Lisa and the others – but she needed a break from Harry.

Maybe a long break.

Two nights ago, while she was eating a quiet dinner with her mother, everything had come spilling out of her. She had cried for the better part of an hour. And that was when Della had offered to let her move back home.

“At least there are other telepaths on Leyria,” Claire said. “Not many, but some. Here, I'm just a freak.”

“You're not a freak.”

“Yes, I am.”

Della paced across the room in a fury, shaking her head in disgust. “No, you're not, Claire!” she spat. “Don't let your i***t cousins get inside your head. There are millions of people out there who wish they could do what you do.”

Sniffling, Claire tried to ignore the fat tear that slid down her cheek. “You didn't see what Logan was thinking,” she croaked. “You didn't feel the fear and disgust coming off him when he looked at Melissa.”

Della sat on the edge of the bed, her blonde hair dangling in waves as she glowered into her lap. “I wish that I had never let you go to Leyria,” she said. “No, not because I hate Leyrians, but I should have never trusted your father to take care of you girls.”

“It wasn't his fault.”

“Claire, he brought you to a place where men with guns tried to kill you. And when you miraculously survived, he used that alien thing to change you.”

“He was trying to protect me.”

Della was on her feet again in an instant, throwing up her hands as she paced to the opposite wall. “Well, isn't that always his excuse?” She spun around to face Claire with her arms folded. “Your father is a control freak, Claire.”

Hearing that left Claire feeling numb inside. It was a strange sensation. With her new powers, she was always picking up stray emotions from other people. Add that to the typical drama of being a preteen girl, and it was safe to say that she was always feeling something. But that last one just flattened her.

Was her father really a control freak? She might have said that in moments when he was trying to enforce one of his unreasonable rules, but Claire was old enough to know that kids were always saying stuff like that. Hearing it from a grownup, though… “What do you mean?”

“I shouldn't have said anything.”

A frown tugged at the corners of Claire's mouth, but she forced herself to look up at her mother. “I'm not a little kid anymore,” she muttered. “I deserve to know what's going on with my parents.”

With a heavy sigh, Della shuffled back to the bed and knelt on the carpet. She took Claire's hands in hers. “All right,” she said. “But if you repeat this to your father or your sister, I'm gonna be mad.”

“I promise.”

“Your father is a control freak.” Claire saw terrible sadness in her mother's eyes as she said that. “Look, I know I wasn't always the best mom. I used to drink too much. And your dad was always taking care of you when I couldn't. I'm sorry for that, baby, I really am. Your dad had to pick up the slack when I screwed up, and maybe that turned him into the man he is today.”

“I don't understand.”

“Look at how he is with Melissa,” Della said. “Your sister chose one of the most dangerous careers in the world, and from everything I've heard she's very good at it. I couldn't be prouder, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't lie awake every night, worrying.”

There were tears on Della's cheek, but she sniffed and wiped them away with the back of one hand. “The difference is that I accept it,” she went on. “I know I can't protect my little girl; so, I trust her to protect herself. Your father doesn't. He goes with her on dangerous missions. Because he can't accept that she might get hurt, and there's nothing he can do about it.”

Claire hugged herself, rubbing her arms for warmth. She turned her face away from her mother. “Okay, I get it,” she whispered. “But what can we do to help him?”

“We can't do anything, honey,” Della replied. “Your father thinks the world should be a certain way, and sometimes it doesn't even occur to him that anyone might disagree. Once upon a time, the worst thing you could say about him was that he was hard to live with. But now…Now, he has the power to make the world the way he wants it to be. Or he thinks he does.”