Alia is on the lake at Kevin’s house, in a canoe that his sister, Vita, explains belongs to her father.
“He never uses it,” Vita says, “but Kevin was always out here. Where do you think he is now?”
Alia shrugs. She has no idea and she has not been able to reach his mind. But she has been thinking that her current interest in finding him has more to do with meeting his sister, meeting Vita, though it isn’t clear exactly why. The two enjoy spending time with one another, and they often meet up with Gertrude for walks in the park or long drives. They all share a silent friendship. Both Vita and Crude enjoy being around Alia, and Alia has never felt better than she does in her current life.
Alia and Vita have been spending a lot of time at her family’s house, mostly because it is remote and beautiful and Vita enjoys the excuse to return.
“Is that him?” she asks, suddenly pointing past Alia.
“Is it?”
Kevita paddles the canoe to the shore and when they are standing next to the lake, they see a guy approaching them.
“That’s not him,” Vita says, and Alia doesn’t notice her slip both her hands into her pockets.
Alia waves when the man is close, and then she hears Vita cock a gun next to her.
“Whoa!” the man says with his hands up and Alia looks to Vita nervously.
“What do you want?” Vita asks.
“Not to get shot!” the light skinned man with bushy eyebrows says. “I’m looking for somebody named Alia.”
Alia backs up behind Vita and eyes the young man suspiciously.
“That’s you, right? You look just like my friend said you would. You don’t need no gun.”
Vita doesn’t take her eyes from the man. “I can shoot his earring out of his earlobe if you say so,” she says to Alia.
“Do it,” Alia says and she startles when the gun fires and both women watch the man double over in pain, grabbing his ear.
“Fuckin bitch!” the man says angrily, but then he calms and without warning, a bandage appears around his head that stops the bleeding. It appears from thin air and both Alia and Vita are intrigued. He seems to have the same preternatural ability as Kevin.
“Dr. Eakran sent me. I’m Yuri. And I can’t hurt you, so tell your friend to put the gun down before I have to hurt her.”
“Fuck you!” Vita says.
“How about I find you later,” Yuri says. “We can talk. I’m not here to hurt you, honestly, Eakran would kill me.” Yuri imagines a pen and paper and he scribbles his number and leaves it on the ground as he turns to leave. “Please call me when you can talk alone.”
Yuri imagines a motorcycle that appears, and he jumps on, then speeds off.
“Who was that?” Vita asks, her gun still aimed at the fading spot of Yuri.
“I don’t know, but I have an idea where we can find Kevin,” Alia says. “I can’t believe you shot him.”
“Right in the earlobe too,” Vita says coolly, replacing the gun in her pocket. “Something about him I just didn’t like.”
“Well now we have to investigate.”
Yuri curses loudly to himself as he speeds away from the rural home amidst mid-sized, grassy hills to the home about fifteen minutes away that belongs to a drug dealer/purveyor of prostitution known as Jamar. When he arrives, he takes the steps in the back of the house up to the second floor of the home and knocks firmly on the door. When it swings open, he is greeted with anger.
“Why you knocking like the police!?” Laura, the mother of the drug dealer’s son, yells out.
“Bitch!” Yuri yells and he pushes past her and inside the dining room. “Where Jamar at? I told him I ain’t dealing with yo dumb ass.”
Laura is furious but holds her tongue. Yuri has lived in a room on the second floor since arriving at their home a couple days ago, and Jamar had been bending over backwards to accommodate him. This can only mean one thing; a man like Jamar only shows respect to men that he owes his livelihood, and Yuri is probably a decade younger than him. Laura assumes that the young man who left dirty dishes in the bathroom every morning – it seemed that he liked to eat breakfast on the toilet – and thought of her as his housekeeper, is the man who supplies Jamar with illicit drugs so that his drug pushers on the corner could sell locally. Everyone in their business had been rocked by the death of three legends over a year ago which had seemingly left a vacuum of power that was waiting to be filled. Laura never knew those men, only in stories and she thought that the names they called themselves were ridiculous, but they were necessary in order for her family to enjoy the life that they led. Conspiracy theories continue to swirl about the deaths of the men, many believing that they were assassinated by the government with the hopes of ending the drug trade. Jamar never seemed to worry, and his supply was never compromised, so Laura barely listened to the gossip.
Yuri had better be the new boss, Laura thinks. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill the boy if he continues to disrespect her, and in her own house of all places. She daydreams about the ways as she watches Yuri make himself at home, rummaging through her refrigerator.
“What happened to you?” Laura asks when Yuri is sitting at the dining room table making a sandwich. She sits across from him and points at the bandages on his head.
“Where Jamar?” Yuri asks, ignoring her question.
“He should be back any minute. You got what you came for yet? When you planning on leaving?”
Yuri glares at her as he bites into the sandwich. Then he ignores her completely.
“I don’t know why you’re here,” Laura says, “but whatever it is must be pretty dangerous. I know someone who can help you out. Jamar definitely can’t, he the back office type, you don’t want him beside you in a gunfight.”
Yuri is listening, but pretends not to.
“You heard of Desperation Jackson? You must have.”
He has. His uncle Fire had used Desperation to attack the businesses of the man Smoke. It was a grizzly attack, almost a dozen prostitutes murdered in Baltimore, Maryland. Desperation was professional enough to avoid law enforcement and to confound Smoke who had suspicions of Fire’s involvement, but no proof.
“He in jail.”
Yuri looks at Laura sideways and cocks an eyebrow. The Desperation he knows doesn’t go to jail.
“I know, I know, but the last time I talked to him, that crazy motherfucker in there training, starting fights on purpose and beating people up. He just got two years for shooting that gun in the playground, and he done managed to avoid getting more time added on, I guess everything he doing is self defense. It’s a crazy story, but he doing it to get this superhero faggot Jamar hired him to kill. That nigga is something else.”
Yuri is very intrigued.
“Anyway, the last I talked to Desperation, he called me and asked if we could do anything to get him out, he found something in prison and he ready for that faggot now. He even sounded different on the phone. Lawyer say he’ll be out before he can appeal anything, unless there’s something they overlooked.”
Laura stops and allows her words to hang in the silence. Yuri is thinking about it all. The woman with Alia shot him faster than he could protect himself with the new abilities that Eakran had given him, and she had shot clean through his earlobe and taken out his earring just as she had said. The whole thing had rattled him to his core, she could have just as easily killed him. He would need to be prepared, but it would help to have reinforcements to watch his back.
And Yuri knows people who know people who people now. Eakran could do almost anything, and Yuri leaves the dining room to call him.
Laura smiles. Two birds with one stone. She has to see the faggot die, and Desperation could get Yuri out of her house. It was a win win.
Vita drives Alia to Clay’s house as the sun sets.
“So you’re extraordinary like your brother,” Alia says before Vita pulls off.
“No, not at all,” she says mournfully. “I just know how to protect myself. His kind of extraordinary made him weak I think.”
“How long have you been shooting that gun? You’re impressive.”
“I just bought it last month. Some guy thought he knew me ‘cause he was a fan of Kevin and it freaked me out. He was at my house. I can fight, but he was big and I had to protect myself.”
“There’s no way,” Alia says, “no one can learn to do what you do that fast.”
“I did. Have a good night Alia.”
She watches Vita drive away and then she goes inside where she uses Ivan’s cell phone to call Yuri.
“Does he have Kevin?” she asks when he answers.
“I don’t know who that is. Why he want you so bad? Y’all more than friends?”
“He wants me because I’m the Alia, Yuri, and I’m pretty sure he wants to use my brain to enslave humanity. I might be wrong about the last part, but it seems like he used my friend’s brain to change you. You’re just a lab rat to him.”
“Oh really,” Yuri says, suddenly smitten by the woman’s candor. “You seem to know a lot about me.”
“I’m speaking as a former lab rat, though maybe I was only that by choice, or maybe everything I thought I was doing was nothing. My point is, I’ve been where you are, and it wasn’t by choice.”
“Well I made my choices, and the doctor wants to see you. So will you come nice or do I have to storm the castle? I got powerful friends too, we can double date next time.”
Alia giggles. “I’m not going back with you, but I’d like to see you again. I want to save your soul Yuri James. It’s heavy.”
Yuri inhales slowly. It’s like the woman is poking around in his mind and stirring up guilt over murders that he has properly buried as justified, but she isn’t judging him for it.
“Anywhere, Alia, just tell me when.” He doesn’t know if he is speaking as the hand of Eakran, who should definitely set up a meet and ambush her and forcefully take her to Georgia, or if he is speaking as a man in want of the salvation that she is offering. It makes sense to buy some time, though; he has already talked to Eakran who knows a man named Dr. Roy Worthington, whose secret organization of mad scientists is a member of the Consortium of Human History, that is powerful enough to keep a monster outbreak under wraps, which they did about a year ago when Alia and her friends saved Gertrude, aka Crude, from captivity.
It is already in the works. The Consortium is a secret organization with many tendrils, and Desperation would be freed soon enough. It is enough time for Yuri to assess his opponent, if he doesn’t fall madly in love first.
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