I jabbed my thumb into my assailant’s eye socket, causing him to release my neck, screaming in pain. Grabbing his arm, I wrapped my legs around his neck and pulled tightly on the elbow joint until it popped. He dropped to the floor in agony as I rolled off the car bonnet.
The man who hadn’t introduced himself to me was already walking away, and Jessica was yelling at Bryce, who had pinned Daniel up against a car. He punched Daniel in the stomach and turned to me just as my fist met his cheek, snapping his head to the side and knocking him to the ground. I dragged him upright as Jackson got back to his feet, a blade in his good hand.
Letting Bryce fall with a thud, I moved back toward my attacker, who swiped at me with his knife, leaving him open to a kick in the balls. A second kick, and he dropped the knife before falling back into a sitting position, whimpering. I drove my knee into the side of his face, knocking him out.
“Enough,” a voice commanded. I turned around to see Bryce back on his feet, his gun out, as Brooke stood in a shooter’s position ten feet away, her own gun aimed at Bryce.
“You going to arrest me?” Bryce asked with a sneer, looking over at the deputy. “You know what’ll happen once I get out, right? You know what I’ll do. I’ll send you pictures if you like.”
I looked over at Brooke and saw the anger and fear on her face.
Bryce laughed viciously. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He got into a nearby Dodge Charger with the mystery man at the wheel, and they screeched out of the car park.
“What the hell is going on?” Brooke asked.
“I think this Nazi needs a hospital,” I said. “And I could ask you the same thing. Why did you let them go?”
“Just don’t kill anyone,” she said and walked away to presumably call in what she’d found.
“Nate, you shouldn’t have involved yourself,” Daniel said, getting back to his feet. “They’ll come for you now.”
“I tried to keep you out of it,” Jessica said with a sigh.
“And what is ‘it’?” I asked.
“That was Robert Saunders,” Jessica said. “My ex-partner. He thinks he’s Simon’s father.”
“Is he?” I asked.
Jessica shook her head. “But that won’t be enough for him. He wants DNA evidence.”
“Then give it to him and tell him to do one.”
Daniel leaned against the car bonnet. “I don’t think he even cares what the result would say; he just wants to hurt us.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I left him,” Jessica said. “For another man. He didn’t take it well. And then I moved back here and forgot all about him while he served time in jail.”
“And now he’s out and pissed off?” I asked.
Jess nodded. “He wants to be there when the DNA is given, when the test is done, and I don’t trust him not to just take Simon.”
“Okay, so why Nazis?”
“No idea,” Jess said as Brooke returned.
Brooke looked at the semiconscious Nazi and then at me. “You do this?”
“He slipped,” I said with a who, me? expression on my face. “It’s very icy out here.”
Chapter Four
NATE GARRETT
There was a rhythmic knocking at my front door. Blinking to remove the sleep from my eyes, I groggily looked over at my clock. It was just after nine a.m. I sighed before swinging out of bed and going to the door.
Ava was standing on my porch.
“Eh?” I asked.
“I want to talk to you,” Ava said.
I looked down at my T-shirt and shorts. “Come in. Get coffee or whatever it is you drink while I get dressed.”
Throwing on some clean underwear, a pair of jeans, and a black jumper, I returned to find Ava sitting in my kitchen, a cup of coffee in her hands.
“Are you even old enough to drink coffee?” I asked.
“I’m fifteen,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Not six.”
“The question still stands,” I said. “Would your grandparents let you drink coffee?”
Ava glared at me, shaking her head. I removed the coffee mug she held in her hands and made her a cup of green tea instead.
“I have this stuff at home all the time,” Ava said with a sigh.
“That’s because green tea is nice,” I told her. “Also, it won’t get me yelled at by your grandmother. Why are you here?”
“There’s something wrong with me,” Ava said, obviously awkward and looking down at her drink. “I overheard a while ago that you used to work for Avalon. My grandparents were talking about it. I thought maybe you could help.”
“This about the not being able to sleep?”
She nodded. “You know about it?”
“Donna mentioned it to me yesterday.”
“It’s not just being unable to sleep. It’s something else.”
“Nightmares don’t mean there’s something wrong with you.”
“These aren’t nightmares. I dream of people dying. I don’t know who they are—I can’t see faces or know what gender they are, things like that—I just see the aftermath of the death. I see the body. And after the dream, someone dies. Someone always dies.”
I had to admit that certainly wasn’t usual. “You think you’re not human?”
“I think I’m not normal.”
“Nothing wrong with not being normal,” I said, taking a drink of tea. “Normal is highly overrated. Trust me on this.”
“I just want to know. My grandparents, they . . . well, they keep telling me I’m fine, but I don’t know if that’s to help me or them.”
“You ever had a near-death experience?” I asked.
She nodded. “When I was little, barely a few months old, I had meningitis. I died—so people tell me—and then I got better. I’ve had these dreams on and off since I was a little girl. I know I was only three when my parents died, but I’m certain I saw it. I don’t know. My grandfather told me a few months ago that just before the crash I kept talking to people about seeing ghosts when I slept.”
That was definitely not usual. “There’s a test,” I said. “But it won’t tell me what you are, just if you have power of some kind.”
“Let’s do it,” Ava said, sounding ready.
“Ava, you need to know a few things. If you’re not human, I couldn’t even begin to know where you’d have gotten your power from. And how are you going to react if it turns out you’re not human? There’s nothing wrong with not being human.”
“Will Avalon come for me?”
“I wouldn’t let them,” I told her with absolute certainty. “But you would have to keep this to yourself when you’re around people you don’t trust.”
“People at school say that Avalon keeps us safe, but I’ve seen the videos online. I don’t think they do. I think they subjugate us, lull us with a false sense of security while they destroy our freedoms. Granddad said they weren’t to be trusted.”
“He’s right,” I told her. “Once I thought they were the good guys, but not anymore. Like I said, if it turns out you’re not human, then you’ll have to be wary about who you tell.”