Inertia (Gravity Series, 3.5) (The Gravity Series) Page 4

  “Make sure that’s the case this time. Go now.” Vanderlip said.

  McPherson glared at all of them for a minute before departing. Warwick was surprised he didn’t have a harder time being talked down to by his subordinates, but it just proved McPherson’s inferiority complex.

  Phillip had told the teachers that he wanted them to handle the kidnapping of Susan Briggs. But it was going to be dangerous—they would be in the middle of school, and despite their costumes, could easily be seen and recognized. They had to slip her out when no one was looking.

  The teachers had formed a sort of side group. Phillip wouldn’t want to know about the lower ranks organizing.

  After Warwick had kicked the others out for the night and cleaned up as best as he cared to, he pulled out his notebook and sat on the floor. It took him a second to grip the pen with the horrible cramping in his hand. He began to write, and relief washed over him as the cramp eased.

  He would need another notebook soon.

  ###

  His normal face was slipping, slipping. He was sitting in the Donovan’s house, a place he’d been welcomed as family many times before. Trying to laugh with Hugh. But feeling like every move that he made, every odd utterance, gave him away. He was completely paranoid. Once they got through dinner, he just kept shoving nuts into his mouth and laughing nervously to avoid real conversation.

  Despite the loud movie, he thought he heard something. A banging from below his feet. There it came again. The other two didn’t acknowledge it, riveted by the bad acting onscreen. How could anyone else pretend they didn’t hear it? Hugh and Claire’s twin laughs looked distorted and wrong, like demons. Maybe they were demons wearing the familiar human skins of Warwick’s friend and his wife.

  The banging grew louder and louder. He scratched the side of his face as both of his hands began to cramp and ache. Flames danced across his eyes. He wanted to ask them, confront them. Surely they were just pretending not to hear it, but why? To catch him. To get him to admit that he was lying.

  He knew it must be the Reed girl or Alyssa, banging to warn them that he was an intruder. He could practically hear his name being spelled out in Morse code. W-a-r-w-i-c-k. He did it. He crunched the nuts and felt like he was crunching up bones.

  Ariel came bolting upstairs and raced into the living room.

  “There is something downstairs,” she said, both cheeks glowing red and her breath shallow. She was quite pretty in her distress: long, black hair falling over her shoulder, pale skin dewy and flushed. Like Snow White after she’d eaten the poison apple. Warwick wondered what it would be like to cut her smooth skin.

  “What?” her father asked, bringing Warwick back to reality.

  “The light went out. It was just gone. And something was there, banging to wall,” Ariel explained.

  “Just wait here, hon,” Hugh said to Claire as he stood up. “Pause the move and I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay, sweetie,” Warwick said. No one laughed, and he just waited for them all to turn and point an accusing finger in his direction. Then he realized that the thudding sound had ceased. Ariel and her father disappeared from the room.

  “I don’t know what to do with that girl,” Claire muttered from beside him. “Her imagination is running wild.”

  Warwick calmed down and eased back into his chair, pushing away the bowl of nuts and feeling nauseated but relieved. “Teenage girls. Can’t live with them or without them, right?”

  Claire glared at him and turned away.

  ###

  There was a knock on Warwick’s apartment door. He had missed the last few days of school due to what he said was the stomach flu. The nausea wouldn’t let up. Even writing hadn’t helped; it was losing his power to soothe him.

  “Who is it?” Warwick croaked, clutching a faded plaid blanket around his shoulders to keep out the chill.

  “You know who it is,” Phillip Rhodes growled from the other side.

  Warwick undid the latch and stepped aside to let him in. Rhodes tried flicking the switch without success. “Why is it so dark in here?”

  “I took out the lightbulbs. The light hurts my eyes, way deep inside my head.”

  Phillip glared at him through the faint light of the shuttered window.

  “You need to dispose of the bodies,” he said.

  “How?”

  “The incinerator. My son is going to set off the fire alarm to stop the electrical crew from going downstairs. The school will be evacuated. Then a few days from now, you slip downstairs, and take care of the remains.”

  “Do you think it’s the girls messing with lights at school?”

  “I don’t know what else to think. All kinds of weird and wonderful things are possible. I’m counting on you to do this, Warwick.”

  “Can you make the pain stop?” Warwick bleated, letting go of the blanket. His scrawny shoulders stuck out of his sweater. He’d lost a good ten pounds already.

  Phillip regarded him, his chiseled features softening at the pathetic sight before his eyes. “I think so. For a little while. It’s only temporary. Until the transformation.”

  “If you can stop the pain, I’ll do it,” Warwick said. Phillip nodded and in the next instant, he was gone. Warwick barely registered whether the interaction had actually taken place.

  He would show them. If it would make the pain stop, he’d do an extra good job. The fire alarm wasn’t enough. He’d set a fire, too. All he saw now was a field of twisting red flames, charring and obliterating everything else. Burning the meat. I’ll bring the fire in my head out into the lights. Fire to destroy, so that the Master could be reborn.

  4. HENRY

  HENRY DIDN’T HAVE the slightest idea of what to do. The email was staring him in the face on his computer screen. He’d been getting them for a while now, but he’d just thought they were a practical joke.

  But this one said that the sender had evidence that could destroy his father’s career, and possibly his marriage. He couldn’t just sit by and let that happen.

  Don’t talk about this to your father…or anyone else. Doing so will put you and those you love in danger, read the bottom of the email. Attached were security camera photos of Henry with Ariel in school. We are watching were the file names to each of them.

  He emailed the blackmailer back and said he would follow instructions. They were detailed, yet simple enough that with a quick run through he was sure he’d memorized the plan.

  ###

  It was almost impossible for him to sit still during art.. He’d always enjoyed the free hour, thinking of it as a blow off class. But this time nerves had tangled him up in knots. He kept checking the clock, waiting for the time that the blackmailer had set.

  Finally the infernal clock hands rolled around. He had to pace himself so as not to dart up from the desk and startle Ms. Vore. He couldn’t help but glance at Ariel one last time in the back row. She looked up at him, her eyes questioning. He didn’t check himself in looking away. They stared at each other across the room.

  What would she think of him? He couldn’t worry about that right now.

  He rushed into the hall, trying to run the blackmailer’s instructions over in his mind. He went up to the third floor, to an area of unused classrooms. The security camera here was disabled, electrical tape plastered over the lens.

  He took a deep breath and pulled the fire alarm. Red lights began flashing from down the hall. The sound was nearly deafening, a great bleating horn. He heard classrooms from farther down begin to evacuate.

  Back down the stairs he ran. He didn’t know this part of the school as well as he thought. He ran down the hall and then had to stop, narrowly avoiding a class that was filing out. He turned and kept running, looking for an exit without anyone there.

  He wound up in an area of the school still under construction. Then the lights went out.

  “Just great,” he whispered under his breath. His heart was hammering in his chest. He was sure he was going to ge
t caught. Maybe this was a trap, after all. The emergency lights hummed and came on, glowing red along with the flashers.

  He could see the end of the hall again and went to the corner. A girl ran into him and stumbled back, beginning to fall. Henry took hold of her forearms and lifted her up.

  “Careful,” he said.

  “Henry,” she moaned, and that moan set off a thrill of pleasure inside his belly as he recognized her in the gloom.

  “Ariel? You’re not supposed to be here.” He frowned as she stared up at him.

  She tried to explain, but fire erupted around them. Grasping her hand, they fled the school together. He was angry with her for being there, but at the same time endlessly grateful that it was he who found her and not someone else. He clutched her hand tightly as they reached the front entrance.

  When they were outside, he made sure McPherson left her alone, then found her a safe place in the crowd. But he was too distracted by now to help her out. He needed to make sure that he wasn’t seen with her, in case the blackmailer was watching.

  And it was his natural reaction to shut down. He’d trained himself over the years to divorce his emotions from his logic. All the time he’d fought with his father, and Phillip had punched him or shoved him into a wall, he’d learned to shut himself off.

  She seemed a bit shaken, possibly sick from the smoke, but otherwise okay. He left her by herself, standing beneath a tree on the lawn.

  He disappeared into the crowd, careful not to talk to or acknowledge anyone else. His eyes scanned the other people and the trees, and he wondered if he was being watched at that moment. As soon as school was released, he went back in to get his things and left, snagging a seat in the back of the bus he usually didn’t ride on.

  As soon as he arrived at his house, he slammed the door shut and locked it. Pulling out his phone, he checked it.

  Good work, the blackmailer had written. Henry let out a sigh of relief and sunk to the floor, still clutching the phone, and hung his head between his knees. What had he been pulled into?

  ###

  Being in the office next to Ariel was torture. It had been hard enough to ignore her during school when they had a lot of space away from each other. He was trying to keep himself composed, and he didn’t want to draw Ariel into things. The problem was, every time he saw her, he wanted to confess all of his secrets.

  Not to mention their shared kiss at the dance kept playing through his mind. When he spoke to her, his eyes trailed down to her lips. He couldn’t help but remember what her kiss had felt like—soft, tentative, but full of attraction. The moment he’d touched her face in the commons after her nose was broken, he’d almost kissed her then, too.

  He didn’t need to be thinking about any of that now. Thinking like that would get both of them in trouble.

  “I just want to get this over with. I have things to do,” he said. McPherson was wasting his time, making him wait. Henry hadn’t set the fires, and he was beyond pissed that the blackmailer had set him up.

  “This is serious, at least to me,” she whispered. “I don’t have lawyers for parents.”

  He felt a little offended at that, sick of being compared to his father when no one really knew his true persona.

  Again he felt the urge to tell her the truth about the blackmail, but he knew it was better to prevent her involvement. To push her away. He’d known that getting her was too good to be true, she was too different from the girls he’d dated, not something his father would approve of. The only thing he didn’t understand was why she wasn’t being pushed. His cold and indifferent act had worked before.

  Of course, he’d never had a relationship like he had with her. He’d never felt as close to a girl as he did to Ariel. And that made him feel vulnerable.

  McPherson finally came in and sat across from them, tenting his fingers and looking like this was the most interesting event of his day. Henry didn’t have much patience or respect for him. He had a growing suspicion that McPherson might be the one who emailed him, but he still couldn’t find him very threatening in real life.

  “Is all this really necessary?” Henry finally asked.

  “I assure you it is, son,” McPherson replied. Then he looked at Ariel. “Why were you still inside the school after the alarm went off? Why didn’t you stay with your class, or at least go out one of the other fire exists?”

  Ariel bit her lip and seemed like she had no idea what to say. Her hair was slung over one shoulder, and her hands were kneading together in her lap, showing her nerves. Henry was curious himself, but he was also irritated by McPherson’s insistence.

  “I need an answer,” McPherson snapped.

  “I went to find Henry,” Ariel admitted, looking down at the desk. A frozen part inside of Henry thawed and melted, and his protective feelings for her bloomed again. That was foolish, trying to save him. He wasn’t a good person like she thought. If she knew about his past…he had to keep pushing her away, for her own good.

  “Basically, her behavior was stupid, but well intentioned,” he said. Why is this so hard?

  “No more stupid than whatever you were involved with.” There was finally a spark of anger from her.

  “You have no idea what I was doing. Stop pretending like you do.” And to stop pretending like she had to be involved when it had nothing to do with her.

  “What I do know is that I did nothing to you to make you act this way towards me. So why the change?” Ariel asked, sitting up straighter in her chair and leaning towards him. He couldn’t answer her, for one because he didn’t want to talk about it in front of McPherson, and for two, because she wouldn’t understand.

  “Enough bickering,” McPherson interrupted. Henry glared at him, and McPherson didn’t back down. He knew something, Henry was sure of it.

  “I believe you’ve already spoken with my father,” he said, invoking Phillip even though he hated to. “He’ll give you any answers that you need.”

  “Go back to class for now,” McPherson said, handing out hall passes. “But don’t get too comfortable.”

  Henry hoped Ariel would be angry enough that she’d go directly to class, that that would be the end of it and he could go sulk. But if he was learning anything about her, it was about her damn stubborn persistence.

  She confronted him when they left the office, her hazel eyes angry and accusing. “What is it? Hello? I asked you a question.”

  She was beautiful when she was furious, even more so than usual. He felt the passing urge to grab her and kiss her again, but he pushed it away as ridiculous at a time like this. A selfish part of him wanted her to go away, because their little romance complicated things. Complicates things so much. I can’t just not care.

  “You’re acting like a totally different person. What happened to make you so cruel?”

  “I don’t always have to explain everything to you,” he said, floundering and not coming up with any answers.

  “What would you suggest I do?” The pleading tone in her voice was unmistakable. “I can’t get in trouble. My parents would ground me for the rest of my life.”

  There she went again, making it about her. “You’re not going to get in trouble. You will be fine.” Why did he have to feel so protective of her?

  “How can you possibly know that?” Her eyes were searching desperately, and she was so close that he could see her shoulders rise and fall as she breathed. The urge to grab and kiss her—just once, just to satisfy the increasingly irresistible urge—hit him again, but he bit the shit out of his lip so that it wouldn’t happen. The faint taste of blood filled his mouth.

  “Just leave me alone from now on. You’ll stay out of danger that way.” He thrust his hands in his pockets and rushed away, falling apart inside.

  ###

  2 weeks later…

  Henry was already agitated by the time his father’s Lexus rolled up in the driveway. He had been staring out of the windshield the entire ride home in uneasy silence. He knew a bit of what was
in store for him, but not everything.

  “Let’s go into my study.” It was a command, not a suggestion, as they swept into the house, dropped their coats off in the closet. Henry him down the marble floor to the locked study door, watching Phillip thrust his key in and turn on the lights.

  Phillip immediately went behind his desk, not looking at his son. Instead, he picked up a few papers and glanced at them in a maddeningly casual way.

  “I didn’t tell them anything,” Henry said, not able to stand the waiting anymore. “Not like I know anything. But I was getting emails from someone threatening to blackmail you if I didn’t pull the fire alarm, and—”

  “I’m not worried about that,” Phillip said, staring at him calmly over the broad face of his desk. “I’m worried about your involvement with that girl.”

  Henry frowned in confusion. “Ariel?”

  “Yes. She’s not Thornhill stock.”

  “I know she’s not the type that you saw me dating, but I really like her,” Henry said. “It’s like we click. I’ve never felt that way about anyone before.”

  “She’s a beautiful girl. I thought you were stronger than to be distracted by a pretty face and a nice ass.”

  Henry cringed. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

  “I’ll talk about her any way I damn well please,” Phillip said, still with the same dead calm voice. His eyes were intense, though, boring into Henry. “If circumstances had been different, she could have been my daughter.”

  “What…” Now confusion was all he felt. Where was this conversation going? “How is that possible?”

  “Her mother and I had a fling, back in my youth,” Phillip said dismissively. Henry sensed rare emotion emanating from his father. There was more that he wasn’t telling.

  “We’ve been through a lot these past few months,” Henry said. “I see no reason we can’t stay together now.”

  The smile that crept across his father’s face was spooky. The right side of his lip curled up, followed by the left, leaving him grinning in an off-putting, unnatural way.