Zero Sight (3 page)

His reaction thrilled me. For once, I didn’t hesitate. I started right towards him.

Tyrone saw me coming. He stood, ready-to-go—but we were interrupted.

Dr. Leeche, my chemistry teacher, intercepted me mid-stride. He was going on and on about the work we were going to do in the lab over the weekend.
The Plan.
My brain reoriented at the word. Schoolwork. College. Gainful employment. Or the alternative: Stuck in Las Vegas. Dicing onions and frying burgers. Going nowhere just like my dad.

The fear of no choices. The fear of no free will. That fear was greater than my sense of shame, greater than my desire to smear Tyrone Nelson up and down that hallway. I faltered, and just like that, my fury ebbed. I walked away. I buried the urge deep inside me. I decided to let it go.

But things are never that easy.

Tyrone wasn’t ready to let it go. He couldn’t really. I had challenged him in front of his crew. In the world we lived in, you couldn’t let that slide. That was weakness, and weakness wasn’t allowed. The Splotches started in on me the very next day. Pushes in the hallway. Snickers in class. Spitballs at lunch. Weeks of silly bullshit. They never challenged me to an actual fight. They were too smart for that. There was no profit in a direct confrontation. It was better to wear me down.

I took it all in stride. With graduation only seven months away, my eyes were back on the prize. Things would be better in college. Toughing it out would be worth it…

Then they torched my notebooks.

For a scientist, notebooks are everything. If it isn’t written, it didn’t happen. It’s that simple. They were the sum total of all my research with Dr. Leeche. I was studying how yeast could be used to generate energy. Dr. Leeche said I had a knack for breeding yeast, and the project had already won last year’s state science fair. If I could reproduce the findings, I’d be able to get published in a major journal. With that victory in hand, I was guaranteed a full ride at an Ivy League school. The data in those notebooks were my meal ticket. Every experiment would have to be repeated. It would set my work back months. Tyrone was telling me he knew where to hurt me. If I didn’t do something, he could ruin me.

And so I set a brilliant plan in motion. I challenged Tyrone to a fight.

I knew the Splotches. They loved to beat down an opponent. It inflated their egos and improved their reputation. But once they did it once, the thrill was gone. I’d never been beaten in a fight. I was a big prize. I figured if I lost to them, they would get their kicks and move on. But for the plan to work, I would have to give them what they wanted: a damn good fight. I was going to throw it of course. I could use my Sight to turn the heaviest hits into glancing blows. I would take a few good punches, land one or two of my own, take one in the chin and go down. It was brilliant plan. I could get bloodied up while avoiding the worst of it, the Splotches would get their ‘justice’, and we all could get back to minding our own business.

I challenged Tyrone right in the center of the cafeteria to a duel at dusk. (My performance was quite badass, if I do say so myself.) I needed people to know about it—and I needed him to be forced to fight me at a time of my choosing. A fight at school would probably get me arrested, but that was the whole point. I wanted the LVPD to intervene. It would give the fight a time limit.

His honor at stake, Tyrone had accepted.

When we met at the back of the school, the whole gang came to watch. I probably should have known what was going to happen next. Probably should have predicted it. As I stood facing Tyrone Nelson, my emotions started going haywire. I should have known they would—and maybe deep down I did. Maybe I needed a contrived situation where I could finally do what I really wanted. All I know is that as I watched Tyrone Nelson swagger up to face me, my mind went rogue. I thought of all those times Mrs. Newmar hustled up the stairs to make a bed for me, how none of them ever asked me where the bruises were from, how Victor never said a word when I cried myself to sleep at night—and I just saw red. When the punches came, there wasn’t a speck of hesitation. I only wanted to make pain. I was going to drop him. I was going to make him suck blood. Tyrone was going to know what it was like to be on the receiving end. He was going to know what it was like to have no control at all…

+

And now his buddies were readjusting my ribcage.

Hollow thuds filled my ears. Their boots were playing my lungs like drums. I struggled for breath as blows exploded my belly and sides. A particularly brutal one caught a kidney. I gagged as that special pain stretched down the length of my left side. I was going to be pissing blood in the morning. My eyes rolled backwards. My shoulders sagged. And then, just when I thought I couldn’t bear anymore, the cheers of the Splotches were replaced by quietly shuffling feet.

Whispers and gasps filled the air.

I could hear sirens closing in.

I blinked my eyes. I had made it. They were finally finished with me. I should have been relieved, but something was wrong with my insides. Air was seeping out of my mouth. My body was screaming for air, but even as I tried to draw it in, it leaked back out my mouth.

For some reason the Splotches were walking in a circle around me. Looking at them, I felt like I was at the center of a merry-go-round. Why had the gang gone
West Side Story
all of a sudden? They whirled about, faster and faster…

“
Oh,” I thought to myself. They probably weren’t the ones spinning. The rock to the head must have caused a concussion. I blinked twice to try and clear the haze.

Like at the end of a really long exhale, the leak from my lungs trickled to a stop. I could manage small breaths now, but the strangest thing was happening—only the left side of my chest was rising. That explained the leak. They must have popped one of my two balloons. Still, why hadn’t the Splotches made a run for it yet? I was toast, and the cops were coming. Why were they still hanging around? They were looking at something, something over to my left.

I turned my head and looked.

I really wished I hadn’t.

It was Tyrone. He was walking towards me. Crusty gunk covered his face, and his shirt was soaked straight through with blood. But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, the grand prize went to Tyrone’s right hand. It was dangling like a wet noodle. He wasn’t going to be pitching fastballs anytime soon. But all was not lost. Tyrone still had his left, and that hand looked just fine. Better than fine, actually. It was still able to palm a rather large rock with ease.

I swallowed.

Tyrone noted my attention.

The blood-crusted smile complemented the murderous vibe coming from his eyes.

Razor-nails girl walked over to him.

“
Tyrone,” she said. “Step off a second. We gotta get you to a doc.”

Tyrone looked at Miss Scratchums, glanced at his wrist, and then drove his forehead into her face.

Miss Scratchums crumbled to a moaning heap at Tyrone’s feet.

“
Shut the fuck up, bitch,” he growled. He looked around. Some of the Splotches were averting their eyes. The dangling wrist was a bit much for them. “Go buzz the PD. I need a tic.”

The fellow who had just deflated my lung turned to Tyrone. “Are you sure, man?” he asked.

Tyrone nodded. “Hell yea. Kick it.”

The Splotches ran off to run interference.

I tried to move my legs, but I wasn’t going anywhere. They were totally numb.

I heard the gravel crunch under Tyrone’s feet. He walked over and looked down at me. He said something, but the lack of oxygen was getting to me.

I could hardly pay attention.

Tyrone noticed. He kicked me onto my back and stepped on my chest.

A mixture of pain and panic rushed over me. The bastard was choking off my air supply. As my heart sped up in my chest, my Sight flickered back online.

If I could, I would have shrieked at the sight. A faint red cloud was hovering around Tyrone’s body. At first I thought I was just going hypoxic, but the longer I stared, the more certain—the red mist was real. I had never seen anything like it. The mist floated about like an aura of sorts, and it felt…mean. As I examined the strange haze, a wave of energy burst from the core of Tyrone’s body. I grimaced as it blanketed over me. This wasn’t normal at all. I wasn’t just Seeing these lights; I was
feeling
them too.

I had never figured out what my Sight really was. It was a talent I had long ago given up trying to explain. I had acquired my Sight when I was a child. It was thanks to my father. His beatings had given birth to my Sight. The fights would always start with my mother. He would get to thinking of her, and the rest of the night was predictable. A binge to start. A bitter swirl of words to follow. He’d say things he’d never dream of saying sober. Then his garbled rants would retreat into a language I didn’t even know. But while I couldn’t parse his phrases, I understood his pain. My gut reaction was to try and help him. His gut reaction was to punch me in the face. I was a stupid kid. I never ran. My dad was all I had. He was hurting, and I loved him. I’d step into the punches. I couldn’t bear to run away.

In the midst of his punches, when I thought my whole body would break, I began to see strange lights. They weren’t the normal stars. They told me how to turn so that his blows would only glance. They told me when to dodge so that his punches would fly wide. They taught me the principles of angles, reach, and speed. They only came when I needed them most, only when I was really scared of dying, but they gave me hope.

I thought the lights were angels. My grandma loved talking about angels. She said that some were guardians, guardians sent to protect those in need. Grandma said that I had one too, that all children did, and that all I had to do was listen close to hear it. I thought it was just as grandma said, that a guardian had come to protect me. The idea that something out there wanted to protect me—it kept me sane.

As I grew older, I decided the waves of light were nothing mystical, just pure, reliable streams of data. Maybe this Sight of mine was a sixth sense that other people lacked. Some people were colorblind, maybe I could just see more than normal. Or maybe my Sight wasn’t a sixth sense at all. Maybe I just had a knack for anticipating forces. My Sight might just be an artifact, a creative way my brain had decided to represent information. I reasoned that lots of famous fighters claimed they could anticipate an opponent’s moves, and that maybe that’s all I was doing. Whatever my Sight was, I learned early to never bring it up in public. That only brought strange looks and whispers. I kept the knowledge to myself and was just thankful it was there.

But as Tyrone stood over my battered body, I realized all those theories were wrong. The silver wave erupting into my Sight was like nothing I had ever Seen before. It was no simple vision, no stream of data to be interpreted. It was something entirely different…and it made my skin crawl. It wrapped itself around me. Groped me. Probed me. I didn’t know it’s nature, I didn’t understand where it came from, but deep in my gut I knew it was alive. As alive as I was. As alive as any of us are. The silvery thing rested on me like a thousand tiny blades waiting to cut, and my skin went numb. I strained my Sight for answers and tried to peer beyond the blanket’s icy burn. I found nothing but one solitary desire: This thing wanted inside me.

My Sight screamed a warning. It spoke to me in a language beyond words. Everything would end if I let it in.
Everything.
I stared into it. I stared right past the blades. They were simply the fringes of whatever it was. And it was massive. And it was dark. And it was painful.

Tyrone stood above me smiling. He pressed more of his weight onto my chest.

“
Dieter, Dieter, Dieter,” he cooed. “What on earth were you thinking, man?”

My lungs were empty. I was in no position to respond.

“
You fucked up my arm pretty good,” he said. The fact his henchman broke it while he tried to jump me from behind seemed to be lost on Tyrone at the moment. I looked at the goofy smile on his face—perhaps it had something to do with him losing his fucking mind.

“
We have something in common, Dieter. You and me both want to get the fuck out of this shithole of a town, don’t we?”

“
It’s you and I, asshole,” I thought to myself.

“
Too bad my way out just got shattered,” Tyrone said, looked down at his arm. His wrist was flopping around like a rubber chicken as he spoke.

I grimaced at the sight. Those movements must have seriously hurt, but instead of being overwhelming by pain, Tyrone just started laughing harder. Tears moistened his eyes, but he just kept on laughing.

He took a long cleansing breath.

I would have killed for that breath.

“
Oh well, sucks for me and sucks for you. An eye for an eye and a dream for a dream.” Tyrone raised the rock high into the air. Palming the boulder, he looked down at me serenely. “You’re a thinking man, right, Dieter?”

He couldn’t be serious…I stared at him in shock.

“
Oh come on, man. All’s I’m asking for is a fair trade. Your brain for my arm.”

My heart skidded. Tyrone was serious. He was going to kill me.