Lucas Ryan Versus: The Hive (The Lucas Ryan Versus Series)

  “Hi, you must be Lucas. O’s talked nonstop about you, lately,” Sophia said, politely. She had the same confident tone in her voice as her big sister, only a little more relaxed. I scratched at the back of my head as it filled with a dozen new questions. Quickly, her words sunk in. She said Olivia had been talking about me, lately. That had to be good news...right?

  “Sophia, nice to meet you.”

  “You too!” she chirped.

  “Soph! Get back down there, it’s not safe!” Olivia scolded. Worry filled her face.

  “Chill out, big sis. It’s dirty under there.” Sophia quickly looked over her clothes for any missed dirt or dust. “Besides, you said we could trust him.” She smiled at me with approval. I almost fell over with shock. Olivia trusted me.

  “Wait a sec...what is Sophia doing here? And what does she know about my locker?” I asked, stumbling over my words. Olivia placed her arm around Sophia and shot me an angry glare.

  “I was in a hurry this morning and had forgotten to...” Olivia started to say.

  “Your phone!” Sophia chimed in. It irritated Olivia, immensely.

  “My phone?”

  “Yes, your phone!” Olivia snapped a little too loud. The guards outside the door rustled in curiosity. Sophia rolled her eyes and stuck out her hand. My phone was in her fingers, flipping around like a magic trick. I gently placed it into my pocket.

  “Thanks,” I smiled, unsure.

  “Anyway, I had forgotten to bring your phone this morning and Soph was kind enough to run it over to me. Unfortunately, she arrived just as the police did. It’s obvious something isn’t right. Something big is happening.” The two sisters looked at each other with the same crazy cool calmness.

  “The cops are everywhere, Lucas,” Sophia added.

  “I thought it would be better if Soph stayed with me until the detention teacher got here, but Mr. Parker never showed up.” Olivia let out a soft sigh. She pulled her little sister even closer to her. Sophia leaned in as if she had done it a thousand times before. They had obviously shared more than one disaster. I could see it in their eyes, deep down where their demons hid.

  I walked toward the room’s windows. “The whole school is on some kind of lockdown. They’re loading most of the faculty and students into the gymnasium and the auditorium, like cattle,” I halfheartedly joked. It made my blood boil thinking about my friends being treated like that. All because of my wild secret.

  I could see half of the school parking lot from the window and it was filled with black and silver vehicles. All of them unmarked, with jet-black windows. The bright and colorful emergency lights from the nearby police cars reflected off of their metallic surfaces, like a dance rave. The mystery deepened.

  “What do you two know about my locker?” I asked, calmly.

  “Just that they think something’s in there,” Sophia spoke up first.

  “Like what?”

  “Like a bomb or something. I’m not really sure. It’s been kind of a madhouse from the beginning. They seem very confused and scared. Every time one of the cops would get within ten feet of your locker, something weird would happen.” Sophia’s greenish-brown eyes searched mine.

  “A bomb?” I asked myself.

  ~ No bomb. ~

  I had at least figured that out already. Bombs didn’t usually speak to you through your thoughts. Olivia stepped up next to me.

  “What’s in your locker, Lucas?” she asked, softly. Her eyes watched me closely.

  ~ Tell her. Trust her. ~

  “I don’t know.” Even though it felt like I wasn’t telling the truth, it wasn’t a true lie. I didn’t really know what it was. She looked at me disappointed, and I instantly felt bad about it. I shifted on my heels, leaning slightly closer to her.

  “But I think I should go find out what’s going on.” I cleared my throat, lightly. “We should find out...together,” I said, uncertain. Olivia looked at me for a quiet second. Sophia smiled at her big sister with absolute trust in me.

  “Okay,” Olivia nodded. Sophia giggled silently, and nudged her sister in the side with a pointy elbow.

  I tried to open some of the classroom windows, but it was no use. They didn’t budge at all. I’m betting they hadn’t been opened in ten years. I think they might have been painted shut. As I yanked at them like a caged animal, the girls watched each other with a new uneasiness. They looked worried. I needed to get them out of here. I needed answers. Whatever was happening with my locker was my responsibility, no matter how much that scared me.

  ~ Just wait. It’s not time yet. Wait. ~

  “Wait for what?” I said, aloud. Olivia and Sophia looked at me as if I was crazy.

  “What?” Olivia asked.

  ~ Trust me. Wait. ~

  I closed my eyes tight, trying to shut out the haunting voice. “Sorry. Just thinking out loud. I do that when I’m under pressure, I guess.”

  Sophia smiled. “Funny. O does that too.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Olivia asked, annoyed from Sophia’s statement. I waited a moment for my inner voice to speak up. It didn’t.

  “I guess, we wait.”

  “What? Why?” Olivia was upset.

  “There’s no way out at the moment, unless we break a window. We should sit tight and try to stay calm. We wait for someone to come get me and when they do, we get her out of here,” I said, pointing at Sophia. “Somewhere safe.”

  “I’ll take her home,” Olivia added. Sophia’s face filled with a frown. She hated being talked down to. I tried to calm her feisty spirit.

  “Sophia, there’s something...umm...crazy going on here. You have nothing to do with any of it. I don’t want you to get hurt.” I’m not sure why I put it that way, it just came out. Deep down, I knew we were in danger. Sophia was having a harder time grasping the severity of the situation.

  “No way!” she snapped, much too loud. A loud pounding came from outside the classroom door.

  One of the guards barked, “Who else is in there? Who are you talking to?”

  I ran to the door. “I was just...uhh...talking on my phone...”

  “That’s a lie! The phone lines are down.” The guard began to unlock the door. My fingers wrapped around the doorknob and I tried to stop him. The door swung open quickly, nearly knocking me to the floor. Both guards had large black, extendable batons. Like the kind of weapon a police officer would use. For a split-second I wondered why they didn’t have their guns. The guard stepped forward and I steadied myself. Even though I was extremely scared, I stood my ground, shielding the girls.

  “They have nothing to do with this,” I warned. He looked past me at the girls and his face fell heavy with worry. He turned and nodded to the other guard, just beyond the doorway.

  “General, we have an issue,” he said, into his shoulder holstered walkie talkie.

  “Is the boy cooperating yet?” General Love sounded unfazed. The guard turned to me with a sigh.

  “I’ll do whatever you want. Just let the youngest girl go home. She’s here by mistake,” I promised, and waited for a response.

  “We’re all here by mistake!” he grumbled, and slammed the door shut again, leaving us three alone, in the dark. The soldier’s words crawled down my spine like a spider.

  “Olivia, I promise I’ll get her out of this,” I said, hoping to get Olivia’s approval. “We get her out of this craziness and then we find out what’s going on.”

  Olivia watched me hard. She seemed to be struggling with the idea that I would put her sister before myself. It hurt that she thought so little of me.

  “I agree. We get her away from here and worry about the rest later,” Olivia said, calmly. Sophia stomped off toward the corner of the room in a pout. She was tired of our overprotective ideas. A horrible thought caught Olivia in its grasp as she watched her little sister cross the dark room. She slowly stepped up to me and leaned in close enough to whisper in my ear.

  “What if they won’t let her go?” Her breath was
sweet and warm on my cheek. I melted accordingly and slid in, even closer.

  “They will, if they want me to open my locker,” I whispered, in a shy authority. She let my cheek graze hers for a moment, before pulling away from me. Her eyes locked onto me.

  ~ Pick me up. Tell her. Save Sophia. ~

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  TEN MINUTES LATER...

  “Just ask...” Olivia said, out of the blue.

  “What?” I fumbled. I had been caught.

  “I can tell when someone has something they want to ask me about, but are afraid too. Call it a sixth sense kind of thing,” Olivia smiled.

  “Well, that’s kind of spooky...” I mumbled. How did she known I was dying to ask her something?

  Sophia laughed from the other side of the room, “Yup, she’s not the most social of butterflies!”

  Olivia ignored her little sister’s joke and asked again. “So, what is it?”

  I took a quick moment to gather as much courage as I could. She softly tapped her fingers on the worn desktop she was sitting behind.

  “Who was that guy last night? The one with the anger issues...” I asked, cautiously. She immediately shriveled up in her seat.

  “My ex,” she sighed. Great, the ex-boyfriend. That would explain why he had such lovely words for me.

  “Dax was at the show?” Sophia gagged from across the room. “He’s such a jerk.”

  “And that’s why he is my ex-boyfriend!” she made quite clear.

  “Oh,” I felt stupid for asking.

  A painful silence circled the room. We could hear the General’s men shuffling around outside the door, but not much else. More awkward seconds passed by. More silence surrounded us. It felt as if it would last forever.

  Olivia finally broke the ice. “Can I have my phone back?” She leaned forward in her chair, slightly reaching out with her hand, in front of me. I smiled, embarrassed. I had forgotten all about her cell phone. I reached into my backpack and handed it to her with a fresh coat of pink across my cheeks.

  “Here. Sorry again, for the mix up with our phones.” I was just glad to be off the subject of her ex, Dax.

  “No harm, no foul.” She flicked it on and started flipping through her different applications. She stopped abruptly and looked at me sharply, pointing to a new icon on the shiny screen.

  “What’s this?”

  Oh, that...” I gulped. “It’s an application that syncs all your songs and lyrics by category.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Umm...yeah. I thought it might come in handy for your song writing. For your band,” I said, nervous. She shifted in her seat, enjoying my uneasiness. She searched my face for a moment.

  “You can learn a lot about someone from their phone,” she smiled. I cringed a the thought. I tried to remember if I had anything embarrassing or incriminating on my phone.

  “Like what?” I asked, sheepishly. She gently tapped her blue fingernail on the face of her phone.

  “Pretty much everything. Your friends, your family...things you like. Things you don’t like. Pictures...secrets...” she trailed off. I sat still, with a large lump wedged in my throat. Had she seen the pictures I had taken of the stone in my locker?

  “Oh, yeah.” I set my phone down on the fake wood of the desk. My hands grew warm with sweat. What had she found on my phone?

  “Did she run? Through the still of the night. Her cantered whisper. A hopeless no win fight...” she spoke, softly. The words paralyzed me. My words. She had found my writing, my poetry. I thought I might die inside.

  “You read that, huh?” I mumbled. She had found my dirty little secret. My precious, unknown hobby. Only one other person on the planet knew that I wrote poetry.

  “You wrote that?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes.”

  “I read them all. That one is my favorite,” she said, looking back toward Sophia, who was watching the outside world through fogged windows. Olivia turned back to me with wanting eyes. She was too beautiful. I had to look away. When I finally gathered enough nerve to turn back toward her, she had placed her face directly in front of mine. Close enough to kiss her. I froze. She smiled.

  “Thanks for taking care of my phone,” she said.

  I held my breath, petrified. “You’re welcome.” Instantly, I found myself lost in her synthetic blue eyes. I wondered what her natural color was. Time slowed in my personal heaven.

  ~ Big bang. ~

  What? Not now. Not this moment.

  ~ Warning. Big bang. They’re here. ~

  Get out of my head! I yelled back, inside my brain.

  ~ Goodbye. ~

  What?

  ~ Trust no one. ~

  Wait! What are you talking about? It felt crazy to ask without using my voice.

  ~ Trust no one. ~

  “Lucas, what is it?” Olivia asked, worried. I ignored her and concentrated harder. Our moment was gone now anyway.

  What do I do? I asked, in my skull.

  ~ Trust no one...but her. ~

  The power flickered on, brightly, and then clicked off again. The room fell black.

  “Lucas?” Olivia grabbed at me. Sophia ran up to us. Her face was pale and nervous.

  “The power’s out all over...like...everywhere. Everything just went black, outside and in!” she panicked. I looked out the window in a hurry. She was right, everything was dark now. The sky, the parking lot, the school. Even the familiar colored lights on top of the police vehicles had stopped flashing. What the heck was going on?

  “Something’s wrong...I have to get to my locker. Now.” I jumped up and ran to the door. I braced my footing, ready to pull on the door handle as hard as possible. With a twist and a jerk of my hand, I fell backwards onto the floor, as the door flew open. It wasn’t locked anymore.

  “Mr. Ryan! Time for you to come with me,” General Love called out, with glee. Standing in the dark hallway, his long shadow looked like a snake. His eyes pulled together into ominous slits as they glared down on me. He didn’t look human.

  “Lucas! Your phone!” Olivia called out. My phone flashed alive with a bright burst of yellow light. It flickered violently in a stunning strobe effect. The flashing sped up so fast that it began to resemble a solid, blinding beacon. Our shadows danced along the walls of the detention room. I ran over to my phone, scooping it up in my hand, hoping to extinguish the manic explosion of light.

  A strange voice came from over the shoulder of the General. “He has the same spectrum as the package, General. He’s giving off the same energy.”

  “Well, isn’t that interesting,” General Love smiled. “Tag him and bag him!”

  “No!” Sophia wailed, as the first wave of electricity ravaged me from the stun-gun. Stars spun before my eyes and all I wanted to do was sleep.

  LEVEL 10: No One Knows

  Dizzy. So dizzy. My head was pounding with a building headache. My eyelids pulled together as I tried to focus on my surroundings.

  “He’s waking up, General,” a voice spoke from behind me. I sat up carefully, realizing where I was. The school’s medical room. I had been in the Nurse’s Office a couple times before, but never like this. It was cold and dark, except for my flashing cell phone. There were a half-dozen glow sticks littered around the room, two along each side of me and a few more on the sink counter, just out of reach. They shined bright green...I think. It was hard to tell, exactly. My sight was still fuzzy and my phone’s waves of yellow light weren’t helping the situation. The strobe effect seemed slower and more obvious now. Why was it slowing down?

  “Welcome back, Mr. Ryan. Lovely little gadget you have there.” General Love pointed at my phone. It was wrapped inside my right hand. I tried to set it down, but it was stuck to my skin. Locked tightly against my flesh like the mysterious stone had done the day before. I tried not to panic.

  “It’s just a phone,” I coughed. I pulled the phone to my chest, blocking the bright pulses of light, just a little.

&nbs
p; “Just a phone?” he asked, with an eyebrow raised.

  “Yes,” I gulped.

  “A phone that just so happens to be attached to you like a second skin. A phone that can only be removed if I chop off your hand,” he rumbled, like a promise. He leaned forward, pressing his fists down onto the table I was sitting on. The knuckles in his hands all popped in unison.

  “So what?” I pouted. My head hurt and I was in no mood for threats.

  “So, I’d chop your wretched fist off if I could,” General Love screamed, filling the room with fear.

  “Shut up and do it then!” I dared, clutching my phone tighter to my chest. An angry smile curled at the sides of his lips.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I dared again, even louder. He leaned back, shocked by my lack of respect for him. I was so scared at the moment, I thought for sure he would see through my tantrum.

  “Because, there are no knives left,” Olivia said from behind me. She sounded angry.

  “Olivia...” I gasped, happy to see her. For a brief moment my headache disappeared. I searched the small room, quickly. “Where’s Sophia? Is she all right?”

  “I don’t know. They took her away. They won’t tell me where!” she cursed, ready to fight all of them. The guards stepped forward in defense of the General. I jumped to my feet to try and calm her, but found that I was still very lightheaded. I began to fall sideways and Olivia slid next to me. She gently steadied my stance before turning her anger back to General Love.

  “Where is she?” she demanded. A giant and gurgly laugh poured from his mouth. The sound made my skin crawl.