Breaking angelina (Paranormal investigations # 1.5)

  Breaking Angelina

  Rita Webb

  TJ Webb

  Robot Playground Inc

  First published by Robot Playground Inc

  Copyright © 2013 by Rita Webb & Thomas J. Webb

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States

  by Robot Playground Inc

  This is a collection of works of fiction. Names,

  characters, places, and incidents are either the

  product of the authors’ imagination or used

  fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, events or locales is entirely

  coincidental.

  Cover Design by Regina Wamba

  Mae I Design and Photography

  www.maeidesign.com

  Chapter 1

  ~ ANGELINA ~

  Green and gold pom-poms in hand, I wait for

  Sarah to signal us to move onto the court, the

  anticipation coiling tightly in my gut. No matter

  how many times I perform with the Seawolves

  cheerleaders, I’m still terrified of the crowds.

  Nineteen years old and going to college at the

  University of Alaska Anchorage–you’d think I’d

  have gotten over stage fright by now.

  The other girls plaster smiles on their faces, and

  I pretend I’m just as happy to be here as they are.

  Here at the away game in Idaho, the stands are

  packed in a gym twice as large as ours. So many

  people rooting for their team, cheering, screaming,

  laughing, yelling, booing.

  All their emotions swirl around the room—hope,

  excitement, fear, anger, pain, disappointment, lust,

  hate, worry—crawling over me, digging into me,

  like snakes biting at my skin.

  I try to gulp fresh air, but everything squeezes

  tighter over me.

  And over it all, I hear the cackling of the voices,

  laughing at my despair.

  You are weak.

  Ugly.

  Stupid.

  Broken, desperate girl.

  My deepest, darkest secret. The voices haunted

  me since I was twelve, ridiculing me when I talk to

  friends, threatening to kill me when I’m alone,

  demanding my undying loyalty to their will. I’ve

  gotten good at faking being normal.

  It’s never been this bad before. I could always

  endure it, push it away and pretend it wasn’t there.

  What’s wrong with me?

  “Get your head in the game, Angelina. We’re

  almost up.” Cyndi elbows me, and a shiver ripples

  down my back and settles uncomfortably in my

  stomach. I never like Cyndi touching me. The color

  of her aura is a sickly green, like a gangrenous pus

  eating into her soul.

  Nodding, I step back. She can’t possibly hear me

  over the roar of the crowd. I can’t even hear myself

  think; it’s as if all that noise explodes inside my own

  head.

  The cheerleaders for the other team finish their

  last cheer, and the crowd roars, chanting their

  team’s name. I don’t even remember who our

  basketball team is playing against this time.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath, shoving

  all those emotions away from me, until finally I feel

  alone in my head. Just me and the dark voices I

  carry around with me.

  “Ready? Let’s go.” Sarah jogs onto the floor and

  the other girls move forward as one.

  On auto-pilot, I follow. We’ve trained until I

  could do these cheers in my sleep. Busy moving

  through the steps, I forget everything as I leap,

  dance, shout, cheer, shake my pom-poms and my

  butt, and back flip in perfect timing with my team.

  At the end of the routine, the two girls on either

  side of me lift me up, but as I rise into the air,

  smiling at the crowd, a wave of dizziness rolls over

  me.

  I fall in front of everybody. My head hits the

  hardwood floor.

  Cyndi stifles a giggle, her hatred nipping at my

  skin.

  Groaning, I roll onto my side and look at the sea

  of faces surrounding us. All their emotions slam

  into me, breaking down my walls. I lose myself in

  their pain, hopes, hatred, and love.

  The faces spin, and the whole room whirls

  around me in a dizzying array of colors and shapes.

  Then everything goes black.

  “… Concussion,” someone is saying.

  I wake to find a woman with gray hair and a

  pinched face, shining a light into my eyes.

  “Who are you?” I say, but that’s not what comes

  out. It sounds more like, you what who are.

  “Definitely a concussion. Take two of these and

  keep some ice on that bump. Don’t go to sleep.”

  Lying on some sort of bench, I shift, trying to sit

  up to take the pills. The wooden slabs dig into my

  bones, and my head pounds as I sit up. Well, one

  part pounds. The other side is numb as if nothing is

  there.

  “What?” I hold the pills in my hand and study

  them. I want to ask more, but I can’t figure out the

  words I’m supposed to say.

  “Only some Advil. It will help with the pain and

  the swelling. Keep the ice on it.” She picks up the

  bag of ice off the seat beside it, shoves it into my

  hand, and directs my hand to my head, and then I

  realize I had been lying on the ice before I sat up.

  I’m a little slow.

  I put the pills in my mouth, but I don’t have a

  glass of water to swallow them with.

  “Here, Angelina.” Sarah hands me a water

  bottle, and when I can’t open the lid, she smiles

  and does it for me. If it were Cyndi, she’d sneer, but

  then Cyndi wouldn’t bother to stick around to see if

  I’m all right.

  “Feeling better?” Sarah asks.

  “Yeah. Fine,” I lie.

  The gray-haired woman checks my vitals again,

  my pulse, my eyes, and whatever else it is EMT’s

  do, and then with a nod and a pat on the shoulder,

  she heads out, the door swinging shut behind her.

  I look around. Brown lockers line the narrow

  aisle on either side of me. The sound of the game

  roars from the hall, through the walls, and into my

  head, pounding against the insides of my skull.

  I must have hit my head harder than I thought.

  “I’ve got to go back to the game,” Sarah says. “If

  I turn my back for five minutes, someone will be

  doing a strip tease rather than cheering. You’ll be

  okay here?”

  I try to nod, but that only makes the pain worse.

  “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  She disappears around the corner.

  I groan, covering my face with the crook of my

  arm to hide from the glaring lights. What

  happened? One minute I was feeling faint and I fell.

  Th
en I remember all those faces, hundreds of

  people staring at me, all their emotions bashing

  against me, like a wave breaking against the beach.

  “You survived,” an unfamiliar voice says.

  I open my eyes to find a blue-skinned woman

  standing over me. Delicately pointed ears, blue hair

  short and spiky, eyes white as if she has no iris or

  pupil, and she’s staring right at me, like a lioness

  fixated on her prey.

  Her skin is blue!

  I blink quickly, trying to clear my eyes, but when

  I stop, she’s still blue. She smiles at me, and her

  teeth, a brilliant white against the dark blue, are

  pointed.

  I hit my head harder than I thought.

  Kill her! Traitor! Murderer! KILL HER NOW! The

  voices screech in my head, and I sit up to obey. The

  room swirls and my stomach churns, and she grabs

  my arm and helps me ease back into my place on

  the bench.

  Like I could actually kill her anyway. Sharp claws

  as long as a knife grow from her fingers. Even if I

  wanted to, what would I kill her with? Her bare

  hands alone could probably tear my heart out of

  my chest.

  The door bangs open, and the two cheerleading

  teams come into the room—I know we lost by how

  quiet ours is. They walk right past the blue woman,

  completely ignoring her. My brain must be really

  messed up right now. I never heard of concussions

  causing hallucinations.

  Sarah stops by my seat. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine.” The words aren’t as slurred as they

  had been earlier.

  “Good. We’ll get you back to your hotel room

  shortly. You can get some rest, and in the morning,

  we’ll head home.” She pats my shoulder before

  going to her locker.

  I glance at the blue woman to see if she’s still

  there. An amused expression plays across her face,

  one corner of her blue lips turning up slightly.

  “They can’t see me,” she says. “Or perhaps it

  would be more accurate to say they choose to look

  elsewhere.”

  Before I respond, I wait until the girls have

  gathered up their towels and toiletries and then

  disappear around the row of lockers to head for the

  shower.

  Close up, her skin seems to be made up of blue

  scales. Her face is thin and angular, her almond-

  shaped eyes are more of a pale blue than the white

  I thought they were, and the short hair on her head

  is soft like downy feathers.

  Her hand still grasps mine, the nails pricking my

  skin. “Ah, so that is why I could not read you. You

  are blocked.”

  Traitor. You doomed us. You stole our power and

  imprisoned us beneath the earth. We will make you

  pay.

  “But imprisoned, you can’t harm me.” As she

  studies me, her eyes darken, shining with an

  iridescent blue. “I see, you use the girl’s power to

  amplify your own, what little you have left.”

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “I am called Saffyra, the last fae half-dragon. My

  brethren were destroyed in the Purge.”

  “And you betrayed them? The voices?”

  “That is only what they told you, child,” she

  says. “Interesting. I can see why they like you. How

  ironic, to use my own power against me. All these

  years, all these generations, how odd to find power

  as strong as yours. It should be more diluted.”

  “What?” I try to pull away, but her fingers

  tighten, her sharp claws digging into my skin.

  “So young. So naïve.” She cocks her head to one

  side and studies me as if I’m a bug in a jar. “You

  have come in contact with the imprisoned Rune

  Emperor, child. It explains much.”

  “The Rune Emperor?”

  “He’s nothing more than a wraith now, his

  power stripped away.”

  I look down at my hand, turning white where

  she squeezes, and notice a bracelet on her wrist.

  Made of antique silver with strange symbols etched

  into it, it’s something I would love to wear. The

  pinkish red stone in the center is beautiful, the

  colors almost seem to swirl. I could get lost in it.

  “A sister, hmm. Does she have the same

  abilities? I wonder …” Letting go of me, she covers

  the bracelet over with her other hand. “Careful.

  Activating this would unleash a horror you could

  never imagine. The monsters in your mind would

  love to get their claws into this power. Inside this

  bracelet, I hold everything they want, but in their

  hands, they would destroy the world. They nearly

  did once.”

  The key. Give it to us! All the voices demand at

  once, sounding like a gong vibrating through my

  skull. I cry out in pain and grip my head, trying to

  hold it together.

  The blue woman watches me. “Over a thousand

  years have past, and I have faithfully guarded this

  prison. I will not relinquish my duty. Not until I find

  someone worthy.”

  We will be free. One voice speaks now, louder

  and stronger than the rest.

  She laughs, flashing her sharp teeth.

  You were a half-breed, only the one voice

  speaks, his voice louder, more commanding. All the

  rest fall silent as if in respect. We tolerated your

  presence in our kingdom. You owe us your

  allegiance. Bow down to your emperor, half-blood.

  “You have no power to control me. Not even the

  little you’ve stolen from this child.”

  We can punish her for your insolence.

  “That would sadden me, but not for long. I will

  remove your influence over her soon enough.” She

  grips my hand harder, her nails drawing blood.

  Give it to us now.

  “Enough,” she says.

  The pink stone on the bracelet brightens, and

  the voices grow silent.

  I tear my gaze away from the bracelet to look at

  her. The blue of her eyes blazes brightly.

  “What are you talking about? What do they

  want?” I ask.

  “I imagine you will figure it out in time. Tell me

  about your sister. This Emma.”

  “You’ve been asking around about me?”

  “Your mind is unshielded.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She smiles, her lips peeling away from sharp

  teeth, but doesn’t let me go. Blood trickles down

  my arm.

  I try to pull away, but her grip is firm. “Who are

  you?”

  “I am the one who saved the world from

  madness.” Letting go, she rises and leaves.

  Once she is gone, the strongest voice whispers

  in my mind, Now you will pay.

  White light blinds me, piercing through every

  pore in my skin, ripping my flesh from my body,

  burning my bones to ashes. I scream and tumble off

  the bench before slumping to the ground.

  Chapter 2

  ~ HUNTER ~

  “I’ve flown all over the Caribbean, but working />
  for her is the best job I’ve ever had. The fringe

  benefits are worth it, if you know what I mean.”

  The pilot waggles his eyebrows. “Believe me, when

  you meet her, you’ll like what you see.”

  “Great.” Suppressing a sigh, I try to squirm

  without bumping anything. My muscles cramp from

  folding my frame into the tiny cockpit. This

  glamoured body is almost as large as my real one.

  “There it is.” A sleazy grin spreads across his

  face. Poor foolish human. He’s already addicted to

  the sorceress’s charms, but it won’t be long before

  she’s sucked down so much of his soul he won’t

  even know how to smile, let alone fly this plane.

  I watch the island grow closer as the pilot

  prepares to land on the water. The crystal palace

  shimmers in the sunlight, a dazzling display in the

  midst of an exotic garden. It makes my flesh crawl.

  “You’ll be back in about an hour?” he asks.

  “Yeah. Shouldn’t take me long.”

  The sea plane docks, and I step out onto the

  tropical island in the middle of the Caribbean. Every

  instinct in me says to turn and run. But I have a job

  to do.

  Get the details on what the sorceress wants me

  to find and get the hell out of here. As a chimera,

  the wolf and hawk in me make me a natural

  hunter. Whatever someone wants, I find.

  So long as they pay my fee.

  The island is beautiful. Vines with exotic flowers

  climb up the cliff side, colorful birds flit among the

  treetops, and luscious greenery shades the cobbled

  stairs leading up to the cliff face. Sammi would

  have loved it here–at least for a little while. The

  tropical breezes keep the heat from becoming too

  oppressive.

  But me—I’ve only been here a few minutes, and

  I already hate this place. I miss the bracing chill of

  Alaska, the frozen wonderland I now call home.

  The heat makes my fur itch under the shoddy

  witch-made glamour, and while I don’t mind taking

  a swim every now and then, I’m part wolf and

  hawk, not fish.

  My people, the chimera, are a blend of human

  and at least one animal. Few refugees and fugitives

  have migrated to this mundane world—Earth; the

  portal is difficult to find and dangerous to attempt.