Riser (Teen Horror/Science Fiction) (Book #1 in The Riser Saga) ((Volume 1)) (42 page)

The dead roots might just become my best friends.

I wasn’t sure
what
I could do with them, but it was starting to look like I’d have to figure it out soon.

“Why am I here?” I asked, trying to fish out the truth from him.

“Why indeed,” Turner said, smirking.

He was definitely stalling. It was driving me bonkers and it was starting to scare me.

The man in white walked over to Turner and whispered something in his ear.

Turner smiled as wide as I’d ever seen.

My heart sank. Something just went his way and anything that went his way was never good.

With a sparkling glint in his eyes, he turned to me. “You, my dear, are no longer useful to me.”

Hundreds of guns clicked and clacked in readiness to mow me down.

My whole body shuddered.

I was really going to die if I didn’t do something right now.

Now it was my turn to stall.

“Can’t you tell me what just happened?” I asked desperately.

Turner laughed at my horror, reveling in it like I was a swimming pool of retribution. “It will give me great pleasure in telling you how you were duped before I kill you.”

Duped?

“You thought you were this special creature that I had an ounce of interest in? I’ve wanted you dead since you were born. Your mother was very clever in marrying the one man I couldn’t track.
Bruce Lenton
one of my first experiments in tracking devices. It was a complete failure and ended up making him and anyone in a two-mile radius of him disappear entirely from the map. Franklin knew about Bruce and must have told your mother before she killed my son. My only tiny bit of satisfaction was knowing that Bruce was a violent man and I hoped that he beat that murderer regularly,” he seethed.

Sudden realization brought tears to my eyes. Mom didn’t marry Bruce to punish herself, she did it to save me. That day I killed him it wasn’t disappointment or judgment in her eyes, it was fear that Turner would find us. A love even deeper than I could ever imagine surged through me.
Everything
Mom did was about saving me.

“When my scientists finally discovered how to find Bruce they were very surprised to find that he was, in fact, dead, and yet living. It wasn’t hard to figure out that one of you was keeping him that way. It
was
a surprise to find out that you had this power innately, but nothing special.” He was gloating now.

While he was rubbing in his superiority, I took the time to connect to every tree root I could underneath him and his army.

“I can do everything you can do with Vodun and Wicca, but what I
can’t
do is solve complex formulas and theorems,” he said as if revealing something wicked.

What? I can’t do that either.

Ryan.

It wasn’t me he wanted. It was Ryan.

Duped was an understatement.

I should have realized it when I saw how Roberta was salivating all over him.

The parking lot of the Population Control Headquarters was
way
too public to kidnap Ryan. Turner had to come up with this elaborate ruse just to separate us, knowing I’d never let him take Ryan without a fight.

“Ryan,” I whispered in shock.

“He’s ours now, I just got word. He should have been ours years ago, but he was more clever than we gave him credit for. He can’t replace our Franklin, but it’s a start. And we won’t have history repeating itself by having his whore take him away from us again.” Turner was simply beside himself with happiness. “It’s over now. You lost.”

He motioned his men to take aim and suddenly all the guns were pointed at me.

“Wait!” I yelped. (Yes, I would actually categorize what came out of my mouth as a yelp; I sounded like a thirteen-year-old boy in puberty.) “I’m about to die anyway, just tell me he’ll be okay.” I felt the roots of the trees beneath them like they were an extension of my own limbs, but I needed to trick Turner into giving me some clue as to where Ryan was being held.

Turner actually sighed as if I was an annoying fly he couldn’t swat. “Of course he’s fine. He’ll be treated like a King as he should be. He’s ours now.”

Ours. Roberta’s and his. Replacing Franklin.

Ryan was at their house. I knew it from the depths of my soul. I’d find him there.

“One more thing,” I said with confidence this time.

“You’re stalling now.” Turner’s eyes narrowed with sinister glee. “This will be the last thing that comes out of your mouth, so make it good,” he almost cackled with triumph.

“It’s not just corpses I can bring back,
Gramps
.”

BOOM!

The ground shook as hundreds of thick gnarled roots burst through the ground beneath Turner and his boys. I made them wrap around their bodies like vises. The guns clattered to the dirt as I squeezed the black roots around the soldiers until they couldn’t move an inch.

I had fallen from the force of the dead trees bursting through the soil, but stood up and brushed myself off.

I walked up to Turner whose face was fuming from betrayal and anger, but his body was ensnared like the others so he couldn’t touch me.

I smiled. “I guess you don’t know everything about my powers, now do you?”

His eyes flashed with the same curiosity they did in Principal Weatherby’s office. I surprised him.
Again.

I whirled around to see the man in white standing by the hover-truck, terror in his eyes. His hands went up in supplication before any words had come out of my mouth.

“Please, don’t kill me,” he uttered in panic.

“I didn’t kill
him
, why would I kill you?” It was taking most of my energy to keep the roots strong and in place, but I tried to sound as strong as possible. “Get the keys.”

The man in white practically jumped at the command and hurried over to the ensnared driver, grabbing the keys from his pocket. He ran over to me and handed me the keys. Just to be safe I exerted more of my energy and brought up dead roots to capture him, too. He squealed in fright, and proceeded to whimper once the cage of limbs was in place.

I turned one last time to Turner. “I’m going to get Ryan.”

“Good luck with that,” he said with such a condescending attitude that I wanted to squeeze the life out of him with one of the roots. It was the second time I had the chance to kill him. It would mean the safety of the people I loved and mine as well. So easy. Thirty seconds ago he was going to kill
me
. His soldiers had been about to mow me down with bullets. Why couldn’t I do it? No one would blame me. They’d probably congratulate me.

But I couldn’t.

I just couldn’t.

It would be the worse mistake of my life. I might regret it later with every fiber of my soul, but right now, I couldn’t do it. My grandparents were the only tie I had left with my father and even though that meant nothing to them, it meant something to me. It made me nauseous to admit that, but a part of me wanted Turner and Roberta alive. A very small part, but still. I wasn’t ready. Honestly, I hoped I never would be.

But in this case, for Ryan’s sake, I did need to bluff.

“Oh, I won’t kill you, dear Grandfather, but Grandma is expendable. No one knows she exists anyway the way you keep her ugly cat face out of the media. You killed my mother, I’m killing your wife. Even Steven.” And then I grinned in the most vicious way I could contort my face.

It must have worked because Turner looked downright terrified. “You wouldn’t.”

“Really? Remember, I am
your
granddaughter.” And I turned and walked to the hover-truck before he could figure out I was deceiving him.

“NO! I’LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING! ANYTHING! I PROMISE I’LL NEVER TRY AND HURT YOU AGAIN!” Turner screamed and his voice was laced with anguish.

I whirled around before I entered the truck. “We’ll see.” I threw back his own words in his face and he roared like a caged lion.

I was about to vomit as I sat in the driver’s seat. Thank goodness there was auto pilot. I turned on the holo-GPS, gave it Nancy’s address and whizzed away from the scene. I knew my connection with the tree roots would end as soon as I hit the four-mile mark, but at least they’d stay in place. I hoped it would take a while for the soldiers to break out of the crusty old branches, but I didn’t want to delude myself. At least it bought me some time.

Hopefully, the team was at Nancy’s and we could rescue Ryan together. I needed all the help I could get.

As the car followed the holo-GPS’s directions, I tried not to think about what I just went through. I needed to keep focused on saving Ryan. I had absolutely no idea how that was going to happen and frankly, I was secretly hoping that the team would have some suggestions. At full speed the car landed in front of Nancy’s house in about twenty minutes.

I flew out of the vehicle and ran to the front door and stopped dead in my tracks.

The steel door was off its hinges and laying inside the house.

This was where they kidnapped Ryan.

I ran inside the house.

“Hello?!” I called out, hoping to hear
anyones
voice.

Silence.

The house looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. The couch was flipped over, glass and wood splinters everywhere.
Please let everyone be okay.
If my adrenaline hadn’t been at full throttle I would have broken down right there.

“Hello?! George! Vianne!” I called out again, frantic for any response.

“Chelsan?” It was George and he sounded like he was in the kitchen.

I hurried as fast as I could and practically fell into George on his way out to find me. He embraced me in a desperate hug. “Thanks goodness you’re all right. They told us…” His voice started to break up, “They told us you were dead.”

I pulled away and wiped the tears from my face I hadn’t even noticed were there.

“I almost was,” I admitted with a lump in my throat. “What happened? Turner said they took Ryan.”

Vianne came hurrying out of the kitchen and nearly toppled me over as she drew me in for another embrace. “Oh Chelsan, we were so worried.” She let go of me to inspect me thoroughly. “Any injuries?”

That’s when I finally noticed the two of them. They were covered in small cuts and bruises. I held my hand to mouth in shock. “Forget me, are you guys okay?”

Vianne held my hand warmly. “We’re fine, dear, nothing that won’t heal, but Ryan… he put up such a fight.” Tears came to Vianne’s eyes. “They took us by surprise. The man who said he was here to offer Ryan a job turned out to be one of Turner’s soldiers. He had a whole team with him. We made Jason take Nancy out the back before things got too ugly. He has the tornado footage, Chelsan, he’s on his way now to get it on the air. Bill’s been hysterical trying to find you, he’s pretty beat up as well. You should have seen him trying to protect Ryan…” She trailed off, trying to hide her emotion.

“I need to call Bill.” I was trying to keep my head clear.

George handed me the phone almost immediately after the words came out of my mouth.

I dialed quickly.

Bill picked up before the first ring had finished its chorus. “George? I’m going to Jill’s to see where she dropped Chelsan off.” Bill’s voice sounded determined through the phone.

“Bill, it’s me,” I said before he could continue.

“CHELSAN!!! Where are you? Are you okay? Tell me where you are, I’m coming!” Bill went from composed to frantic in about a millisecond.