Psych Investigation Episodes: Episode 1 (A Young Adult Scifi / Fantasy) (36 page)

Jack nodded, knowing that “Sexy” could actually
see the situation too. Somehow, the device gave him a visual as
well. Some stuff was just so amazing. Jack didn’t bother wondering
how it all worked, but he was still grateful that it
did.

He crept down the stairs at a casual walk,
entering the kitchen and taking care not to give the two ladies so
much as a single glance. He opened the fridge and leaned in to grab
the carton of milk. He stopped.

“
Not today, Stud,”
Sexy
began,
“you’re a bad-boy now. We need something a bit more
dangerous if we want to impress Melissa.”

Jack reached for the bottle of
Patron
Café
his mom kept in the lowest fridge-shelf and took it out.
He closed the refrigerator and spun around, walking over to the
table and taking a seat across from where Melissa and Alana were
sitting. They stopped speaking and gave him an odd look, but said
nothing.

Jack took a plastic cup off the stack in the
middle of the table and looked down on it in confusion. After
a few seconds of remaining motionless, Sexy came to the
rescue.

”
Oh! I see what’s going on,
Stud. You don’t know how much to pour. I forgot you’ve never had
alcohol before. Okay, fill it up about one-third the way, and that
should be good enough. The stuff is powerful though, so watch
out.”

Jack continued to remain motionless. The voice
on the other end sighed.
“One-third is the same as saying,
‘imagine if you could divide the cup into three pieces’, each piece
is one-third. Come on, Stud, even I know that
much.”

Jack ignored the slight feeling of bitterness
he felt as he poured a small amount of the liquid into the plastic
cup.

He thinks he’s so smart and perfect just
because he knows fractions,
Jack thought, annoyed.

Jack refocused himself on the task at hand,
making himself forget the annoyance at the demeaning tone that Sexy
had used with him.

“
Umm, sweetie?” Alana said. She and
Melissa raised an eyebrow at each other. “Why are you pouring
yourself alcohol?”

“
Yeah,” Melissa added. “What
gives?”

Jack took a deep breath and prepared himself.
The voice in his ear chimed in as well.

“It’s now or never, Stud. Just
do it exactly like we rehearsed. You’ll be fine,
bud.”

Jack reached into the pocket of his black jeans
with a shaking, nervous hand, and took out a pair of black
sunglasses. Placing it over his face, he forced himself to wear his
most confident and cocky grin, as he met Melissa’s gaze.

“
Because, honey, I need to get my
freak on,” Jack said, draining the black liquid in one massive
gulp.

Wow
,
t
his doesn’t taste
that bad, it’s actually not bad at …

Jack had to use every drop of willpower not to
spit out the burning black liquid. It was awful, it was painful,
and it was among the worst things he’d ever tasted!

Oh dear god,
he thought.
This is
awful! Keep it together, Jack. Keep it together
!

Jack didn’t think his internal struggle showed
on his face, so he was probably still in the green. He got up and
put the bottle away and returned to sit down at the
table.

“
So, Melissa, did you get your nails
done? They look lovely, I mean, they’re just so
incredible.”

Melissa gave Jack a suspicious, inquiring look.
She turned to Alana, who seemed to be doing the same. For a brief
moment, a look of amusement entered Melissa’s expression, but it
was replaced soon after by a grin.

“
So, Jack, what’s with the glasses?
What’s with the drinking?” Melissa asked.

Jack repeated out loud what the voice was
telling him. “Babe, sometimes I like to play on the dangerous side
of things. I’d show you, but I don’t think you could handle it.
Some people are just too hot to handle, sweetheart, and you just
stumbled on one.”

“
Oh yea, is that right?” Melissa
gave Alana a wink and stood up from the table. She walked over to
where Jack was sitting and came to stand in front of him. Jack’s
heart beat faster as he wondered what she was up to.

She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed
both him and his chair out a bit, so that it was no longer under
the table. Jack croaked out loud as she sat on his lap, facing
him.

IS THIS HAPPENING?
Jack was screaming
on the inside.

She ran her hands along his face. She lifted up
his sunglasses and made him meet her beautiful, blue eyes. She
ruffled his hair and moved her hands to hold the side of his face.
Melissa tilted his head to the side, and before Jack could stop
her, in one quick swipe she plucked the Comm-unit out of his
ear.

“
I can explain!” Jack cried, his
voice high-pitched and broken.

Melissa got off Jack, and Alana burst out
laughing. Melissa joined in soon after. “Did you know, Mrs.
Harris?” she said in between laughing fits.

“
Oh yeah, that was painfully
obvious.”

Jack sat paralyzed with shame. Melissa raised
her palm to her mouth with the small device resting inside her
hand. “Nice try, Michael. I wonder what Paro’s going to think when
he finds out you and Jack stole expensive technology for such a
stupid reason.”

Even from where Jack was sitting, he could hear
the voice shouting out of the other end, in a fake Russian accent.
“Is no Michael, girl, my name is a Vlad.”

Melissa put the device in her pocket and
silenced the voice, causing Alana to burst out into another fit of
laughter. They looked at Jack, a look of both disappointment and
amusement in each of their eyes.

“
Really, Jack? How dumb do you think
I am, trying to seduce me with such stupid lines?”

Jack stood up and blushed. “That’s not what
happened, Melissa, I was only—”

For some reason Jack lost his balance and
almost tripped over his char. “I was-was only, umm, what was I
saying?”

“
Haha! Look, Melissa, our little
Jack is drunk.”

Jack yelled at the two. “You-you don’t know
what it is … what it is you’re trying to know!” Jack wondered if
his words made any sense. After a moment in thought, he realized
they did. Melissa pulled him in and gave him a playful kiss on the
cheek. “Try something a little more creative next time, Jack.” She
returned to her seat next to Alana.

Jack went to sit down and instead fell to the
floor, landing with a thud on his bottom.

Oh yeah,
he remembered.
The chair
was over there.

“
So, this is where the Harris-kid
lives, is it? Not bad, not bad at all.” Cemmera scanned the house
with hungry eyes. It was almost time for her to have some
fun.

Her team took turns looking through the
binoculars outside the only window in the back of the truck. The
home looked like a cute place to live, in a decent and quiet
neighborhood. Neil and Santos discussed the entry plan while the
two Telekinetics remained silent.

“
Santos, give me a read.” Cemmera
looked over to him. He disengaged his chatter with Neil and turned
his face to the ground, gathering data.

“
As far as I can see there are three
in the house and all of them are Psychs. Looks like we got a
Reinforcer, a Kinetic, and a … that’s odd. I can’t tell what the
Harris-kid is. This hasn’t happened before. I mean, it feels like
he’s,” Santos paused. “It feels like he’s
nothing
. But
that doesn’t make any sense either.”

Cemmera grunted. “We already know he’s a
Telekinetic—don’t worry about it.”

Santos was unlike most other Telepaths, in
fact, most of her team members were unlike any other. Cemmera
demanded greatness and strength. She made sure that each member of
her team could pull their weight in any situation.

Few Telepaths could tell a Psych’s affinity
simply from sensing them. It was one of the reasons she allowed
Santos on the team, despite only possessing a mediocre amount of
power.

“
As you say, Captain.” Santos
resumed peering through the back-window of the van.

“
Cemmera, I really think we’re about
to make a very big mistake here,” Neil said. He had a look of worry
on his face, which Santos mirrored. The two Kinetic twins had blank
expressions, which was pretty typical of them. Daniel and Joseph
Remos rarely had much to say, often following along and agreeing
with whatever Cemmera wanted. It was always Neil and Santos that
gave her trouble.

“
I agree with Neil, Cemmera,” Santos
said. “If the most updated report is to be believed—and I believe
it is—Jack Harris is now an official member of our organization,
and we already know that Melissa Sayre, age sixteen, Reinforcer, is
a member as well. Cemmera, if we attack them, we might be signing
our own kill-orders.”

Cemmera trembled with anger. Nothing bothered
her more than when her team was being stupid or acting like
cowards. And right now, they were doing both.

“
Listen up, you idiots! It’s our
responsibility to make sure that criminals like Jack Harris don’t
get to roam this Earth. You’ve all seen the evidence, and I know
you’ve all seen the probable links. Once we force the Harris-kid to
confess, he’ll be within our jurisdiction to eliminate. And as far
as the two with him go, well, we’ll offer them the chance to
surrender. If they give us a hard time, then we are well within our
rights to execute them as well on the grounds of aiding and
abetting. You two are really starting to drive me nuts. I mean,
come on already guys! Will you just wake up and look at the
evidence for crying out loud? Our investigation clearly shows
that—”

“
Investigation?” Neil interrupted.
“Cemmera, with all due respect, it is
not
our job to
investigate. We are operations. We just get the kill-order and act
on it. We’re taking things into our own hands, things which we
don’t even have the right to. Furthermore, even if we did, we still
don’t have nearly enough evidence to say for certain that Jack
Harris is linked or involved in any way with the
killings.”

Cemmera tossed Neil a petrifying glare. His
eyes lit up in fear as he realized what he had just done. “Neil,
did you just interrupt me?”

Neil held out his hands in a surrendering
gesture. “I’m very sorry, Cemmera. Please, forgive me.”

“
Your arm, now.”

“
Please, I promise it will never
happen again, I was only caught up in the heat of the—”

“
Your arm, Neil.
Now!”

With a whimper, Neil rolled up his sleeve,
revealing numerous dark red scars leading from his wrist to his
shoulder. He made his way over towards Cemmera and sat down in
front of her, his eyes closed.

When Cemmera’s boys misbehaved, they were
punished. That was the way it was, and that was the way it had to
be.

“
Open your eyes, Neil. I want you to
see it. Don’t aggravate me further, or I’ll give you two
punishments instead of one.”

Neil opened his eyes and watched in horror as
Cemmera prepared to add a sixth scar to his growing collection.
Cemmera had an idea of what it must feel like to be on the
receiving end of one of her punishments. It only made them so much
more fun to administer.

Grabbing Neil’s arm with her right hand, she
raised her left pointer finger and gently stroked his arm up and
down, from wrist to shoulder. She liked to tease them first, never
letting them know when it was going to begin. Her finger glided
along his wrist and back up again, causing Neil to wince each time
in anticipation. Cemmera figured it was the worst part of the
entire punishment, never knowing when the pain was going to
start.

Finally, after thirty seconds—which probably
felt more like an hour to Neil—she began. Starting from his wrist,
she slowly ran her finger across his skin, leaving behind a
bubbling, smoking, trail of red-scarred flesh. They never did
bleed—the wound was cauterized in an instant.

Neil whined like a wounded animal, causing
Cemmera to feel a sense of pride. There was no higher indication of
a person’s strength than their ability to make a brute cry. Looking
into his eyes, Cemmera could see that Neil was just on the verge of
tears. She leaned over and bit his ear, while her finger slid the
last of the distance, completing his sixth punishment. It was then
that the middle-aged brute wept, sniffing and trying his best to
hold back the tears.