"Olivia, tell Jim to go to my cabin if we don't arrive by six o'clock," Blake tells her. He can't see her, but knows she's there. Astral projection has always been one of her prime powers, both in this life and the one before.
She just stares at him as she says to her brother, "Zack, I'm feeling kinda scared here. I don't understand."
"Olivia, it's going to be okay," Zack says. "Just warn Mom and Dad, get ready to leave town, and go to Blake's cabin if anything seems out of place. We need to find Amy and keep her safe. I'll contact you in a bit, I promise. I need you to be strong right now, okay?"
As Olivia's concentration begins to fade, so does her spectre. "I'm on my way. Please be safe and hurry home."
❖❖❖
Olivia arrives home and finds her parents in the kitchen listening to jazz on the home stereo system. When Jim sees his daughter's expression, he orders the house AI, "Jarvis, music off."
"Princess, are you all right?" Isabella asks.
"I don't know, Mom. I just spoke with Zack and Blake; they're near the forest fire. They said we need to leave town as soon as possible, because we're all in grave danger. That they'll be coming for us after they find Amy, but if they're not here by six, we need to go hide at Blake's cabin until they can meet us there. I'm scared."
"Everything' s going to be fine, honey," Jim says soothingly, though he doubts that's true. "Did they explain why we're in danger?"
"No, Zack just said we have to find Amy," Olivia replies, sighing. "I guess she ratted us out or something."
Jim looks at Isabelle and nods. Flipping a light-switch on the kitchen wall, he opens the basement door and hurries down the stairs. Meanwhile, Isabelle tells Olivia to go upstairs and get ready to leave. She then instructs Jarvis to turn the music back on, and to raise the volume to its highest level.
Jim takes a sledgehammer from the tool rack and starts pounding the pavement until a small section of the floor caves in. Jim drops the hammer, kneels, and removes chunks of concrete and dirt until he's able to retrieve a long, black duffle bag from a depression in the ground. He stands, places the bag on a work-table, and turns its combination lock until it opens. He unzips the bag, takes a deep breath, and takes out a shotgun, a .45 Desert Eagle IV pistol, and boxes of rounds for both.
Both guns are antiques, but both will work just fine.
Chapter 19
Amy's exhausted from her brutal commute. With the roadblocks the police have set up in the aftermath of the forest fire, it's taken her forever to get home. She places her thumb on the scanner beside the front door and hangs her coat in the closet. She then walks to the kitchen — and someone grabs her from behind and locks her in a chokehold. The man jabs her arm with a needle, and she slumps to the floor. He pulls a badge from his back pocket and flashes it in front of Amy's face. "Amy Harper, I'm Special Agent Franklin with the U.N. Special Task Force. I apologize for this, but I promise you, you are in no danger."
Amy falls forward and lies on the floor, unconscious, having barely registered what he's just said. He doesn't care. He cuffs her and rolls her onto her side in the recovery position, just in case she has a negative reaction to the sedative.
With the kid out of the way, Franklin walks up the stairs to Amy's room and pulls out his phone. A click of a button connects him to Helms. "Sir, Amy Harper has been captured. Everything went as planned; you can send the rest of the team to the house."
After his boss's curt acknowledgment, Agent Franklin hangs up, activates the phone's video camera, and starts sending images of Amy's room to HQ.
❖❖❖
Amy comes to slumped over the dining room table. After a confused moment, she remembers a little of what happened earlier, and, opening her eyes, lifts her upper body from the table. That's a mistake; her head swims and she wants to puke. She especially wants to puke when she realizes her hands are cuffed behind her. She blinks rapidly to clear her vision, wondering what the heck is happening to her.
A man in a suit sits in front of her. She looks around and realizes that she's not at her dining table after all. She's not even in her home. She's inside what seems to be an interrogation room like those she's seen on old cop dramas. That mirror across from her is no doubt a one-way window, hiding the coward who ordered her taken from her home.
She's been kidnapped, though she's sure the drone across from her would say she's been "detained" or "taken into custody."
Now that she's obviously awake, he goes right into it, like some kind of soulless robot. "Hello, Amy Harper," the man says, and opens a white folder. He takes out some drawings and places them in front of her. "You have artistic talent, Ms. Harper. Who are you in this picture?" The man points to one of the pictures she drew of the alien kids she saw in her dreams.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Amy says. "I made those drawings for a science project at school. I want to call my father. You had no right to kidnap me."
❖❖❖
As Director Helms observes the interrogation from behind a one-way glass, Agent Franklin walks into the room and hands Agent Helms a tablet. "Sir, here are the DNA testing results for the girl. We've identified an unknown strain in her DNA, but every other result comes back as fully human."
"Interesting," Helms says. "And her medical files?"
Agent Franklin tabs the
