NOT OKAY

Paranormalcy

I tried to connect back to Lish on the vid screen, but the channel was busy. Punching Raquel's number on my communicator as I pulled on one of my boots, I swore. It was busy, too. I yanked on my other boot, nearly falling over in my haste, then grabbed Tasey and my knife. I sprinted down the hall, praying my hunch was wrong, that it was just a weird coincidence. No alarms had gone off yet; surely that meant everything was okay. Everything had to be okay.

As I turned the corner to Central Processing I slipped, flying backward and hitting my shoulder hard against the wall. The floor was covered with water and my leggings were now soaked. I couldn't breathe. Everything was not okay. Pushing myself up, I ran the last few feet, nearly slipping again, and palmed open the sliding doors.

“No,” I whispered, so shocked it felt like everything around me had slowed, disappeared, stopped. I knew I had to move forward, but my body wasn't working anymore. All I could do was stare at the jagged hole smashed into Lish's aquarium. About a foot of water remained in the bottom and lying there, near the hole, was Lish.

She couldn't be dead. She couldn't. Lish was forever. She was my friend, my best friend. There couldn't be a reality in which Lish wasn't. She was probably just hurt--I needed to get her more water, right away.

I ran forward. “Lish! It's okay. I'm here, I'm going to help!” I ducked through the hole and sloshed over to her. Her eyes, her beautiful, beautiful eyes, were wide, the clear eyelids half shut. She wasn't moving. And on her chest was a handprint of golden flame, slowly fading. “Lish?” I dropped to my knees next to her, picking her up and cradling her in my arms. She wasn't gone, she couldn't be. I stroked her hand, the webbing between her fingers finer and more delicate than I had ever noticed. Her iridescent scales glistened.

She didn't move, she wouldn't move, she couldn't. Lish, my Lish, was gone. There was nothing I could do and it was my fault. I had left the ankle trackers that became bait; I was the reason that thing got in. I leaned over and kissed her on the head. “I'm so sorry,” I said, my voice breaking into a sob.

I was shivering already, soaked through. I didn't want to move, ever, because if I didn't leave, if I didn't let her go, then she wasn't really gone. Shifting position, I gasped. Something sharp and hard had gone straight through my leggings, cutting into my thigh. Red seeped into the water, and it was enough to jar me out of my stupor. Kissing Lish again, I laid her gently back down. I stood and pulled the shard of glass out of my thigh, wincing.

It was here. I ran out of the tank and to the wall where there was an emergency panic button. Smashing through the glass cover with my elbow, I pushed it down. The overhead lights went a notch brighter with strobes going off and a loud alarm shrieking.

Raquel--Raquel had to know about this. I pulled out my communicator and punched in her number while I ran for her office. “What?” she said. “I'm trying to contact Lish, we don't know what the alarm is.”

“Lish is dead,” I sobbed, still running. “It's here. It's here.”

The line was silent for what felt like forever. “Heaven help us all,” Raquel whispered. Then, her voice hurried and panicked, she said, “Meet me at Transport. I'll message all the personnel. It doesn't go after humans--we should be able to get out.”

I changed direction and started running for Transport. Then I stopped. “What about the paranormals?” What about Lend?

“There's no time. Get to Transport.”

I hesitated. Everything in my body was screaming for me to run, to get out. Death was walking the hallways and I needed to escape. “No,” I whispered, turning my communicator off. I ran back the way I came, headed for Lend's cell. He was trapped. He'd be completely helpless, just like Lish.

Oh, Lish.

No one deserved to die like that. I was running past the gym when I stopped dead again. There were over a hundred werewolves in there, sleeping. Charlotte was in there, and Jacques--he should have been in there, too. I wanted to throw up. I couldn't wake them, tell them to run. I couldn't carry them out. What could I do? Then it hit me.

“Denfehlath!” I shouted. After a few seconds a door opened in the wall and she stepped out, ruby eyes blazing with excitement.

“Save the paranormals, starting with the werewolves,” I commanded.

Her smile disappeared. “What?” she hissed.

“Start now. You've got a lot of sleeping bodies to move!”

She glared at me, trembling with fury, but entered the gym. She couldn't disobey. After the gym doors closed behind her, I palmed them, holding my hand there for a full fifteen seconds. The pad turned red and I hit a combination, locking it.

A couple of vamps came out of a side hall, seeing me. “What's going on?” Vlad asked. He was with the guy from before who'd tried to hit on me.

“You need to hide! It's here!”

The end of the hallway filled with light; a figure turned the corner. It was shaped like a person, but made entirely of living gold fire and burning so brightly the image was seared into my retinas. It walked toward us, beautiful and terrible as the sun made living flesh.

“Run!” I shouted to the vamps. They hadn't reacted. How did they not notice the light?

They turned toward the creature just as it got to them. Neither one of them looked frightened. “Run!” I screamed again. The creature cocked its head, turning toward me as it lifted both hands and put one on each vampire's chest. I watched in horror as the vampires stiffened, for a brief moment glowing brightly. Then it was like someone turned off whatever was inside them; they dimmed and fell motionless to the ground, nothing but corpses now.

I couldn't move. The thing turned in my direction. It was only fifteen feet away. My eyes watered. It was too bright, too much.

It glided toward me. A scream, no doubt my last, built in my throat. I couldn't make out any features as it paused a few feet away from me; everything blurred together in the sheer brilliance of its light and heat.

“I love the boots,” a woman's voice said playfully.

I turned and ran, sprinting as fast as I could, waiting for my own life to be sucked dry. I looked back. She was walking after me. At least she hadn't gone in the gym. I turned into a hall and ran straight for a door, palming it open and leaving through a door on the other end. I was almost to Lend's cell. If I could get Lend out, if I could get him to Transport, I could leave. The faeries were at Transport--that was the set evacuation plan.

I nearly ran past his door, skidding to a stop and darting into his room. He was standing there, looking anxious.

“It's here!” I panted. “It's here, in the building--we have to go now.”

“I can't!” He pointed to his ankle. “Leave without me, go!”

I knelt down next to his leg, grabbing the ankle tracker. This would be my last action as a member of IPCA--what I was about to do qualified me for permanent lockup. I placed my thumb in the middle of his tracker, thanking whatever deities I could think of that I had been the one to put the tracker on Lend. That meant I could take it off, but it would be recorded in the computer systems, marking me as a traitor.

“What are you doing?”

“Don't move.” I concentrated on holding perfectly still. After twenty seconds, a green light flashed. I leaned down and blew gently on it and the light turned red. There was a small hiss as the sensors retracted. I reached around and unlatched it.

“Come on!” I took his hand and put the tracker in my pocket. “We have to get to Transport now.” We went into the hall and turned--and there she was, walking toward us. “No, no, no,” I whispered.

“What?” Lend asked, looking over. “Oh, that's weird.”

“Run!” I shouted, tugging on his hand and running in the opposite direction of the burning woman--and the opposite direction of Transport. I racked my brains, trying to think of alternate routes we could take.

“Who was that?”

“Who was that? What are you talking about? That was it--the thing--the life sucker!”

“What?”

“Did you miss the whole on fire part?” I panted, turning another corner. Clearly Lend was in shock.

I wasn't thinking straight. We hit a dead end.

“Evie, she wasn't on fire.”

“She's so bright it burns my eyes!” I slammed my fist into the wall. “Come on. This way.” We ran back across the connecting hall and down another passageway. Everywhere in the Center looked exactly the same. Brilliant floor plan. Perfect for getting lost and trapped. Normally I knew every inch, but in my rush I had gotten turned around. Taking another hall, we stopped. Four bodies were slumped on the ground.

“This way,” I whispered, unable to take my eyes off the bodies as I palmed open a door to cut through. When we got out into the next hall it was clear--and another dead end. I realized to my horror that I didn't know where we were. “Maybe one of these rooms connects somewhere.” I desperately opened doors, looking for any way out. They were all storage rooms. There was nothing. “Back, back,” I said, trying not to sob. I opened the door and we ran through the room and turned into the hall. She was already there.

“Here you are,” she said. I heard the smile in her voice--her bizarrely normal, pleasant voice.

I screamed, pulling Lend back into the room and waiting for the door to lock. We ran back through and into the small hallway and I locked that door behind us, too.

“That won't stop her!” She could probably melt straight through the door. They weren't designed to withstand attack or fire.

“Evie, are you sure that's her?” Lend asked, out of breath and confused.

“Yes! What's wrong with you?”

He was quiet for a second. “She looks totally normal. Like a person. Like--” he paused “--like you.”