Negative Zero: Soldier of Light Chronicles Book 1 Read online

  She glared at me. I could see the extra Jager kicking in, and it wasn't going to be pretty. “My type?” Oh crap. “And what would you even know about my type, Evika? You don't even know your own damned type!”

  I thought before speaking. “Brit, I'm sorry. I just mean we should stick together on the dance floor. You know what those guys are after. Let's just dance.” I tried explaining the best way I could and making a conscious effort not to wobble so much. I felt the warmth of the last shot consume my body.

  “Well, just listen to the high and mighty Virgin Mary! She's calling the shots now!”

  Getting agitated, I shook my head. “Brittonia, you're not making any sense at all. Please, just come dance.” The other girls had stopped dancing by that time, and surrounded us along with the rest of the small crowd forming.

  “Oh, Evika. Get off your high horse. You have an excuse for everything. Don't lecture me about what's right and wrong or what I should be doing.”

  Confused, I looked at her. Most of what she said I could hear clear as a bell, but part of me just wondered if the music was making the conversation a bit more intense than it really was. At least, that's what I'd hoped.

  “Brit, what are you talking about?”

  “Ugh! Forget it.” She shooed me away. “Come on, Clara,” she said as she grabbed Clara's boa and started walking back to the V.I.P. section, dragging Clara like a puppy. A drunk, wobbling puppy.

  I could have just let it go then. It would have been forgotten. Whatever the hell that outburst was, it would have been done with. It was just Brittonia and her subconscious thoughts surfacing after the plethora of poisons we'd been drinking the whole night, but the idea of her walking away unscathed started to make my blood boil.

  “Hey!” I yelled to her. Brit turned slightly, losing her balance, and gave me her attention. You know that turning point in a conversation when you could just end it and be done with it, but there is that window of opportunity that presents itself to you, coaxing you to take it a step further? That moment when the don't-do-that guy just happens to be on vacation? This was one of those moments.

  “What the hell is up your ass all of a sudden, Brittonia? I mean, besides one of their dicks later tonight,” I gestured to the V.I.P. section. Oh, my mouth.

  Her jaw dropped. Oh, crap...again. I just didn't know when to keep my trap shut sometimes. She darted over to me, and I almost flinched, thinking I would have to block a punch or some kind of cat-fight cheap shot, but she only bore her eyes into mine, staring me down. We could hardly focus on each other anymore, but what she said to me next hit me harder than a blow to the face.

  “At least I know how to move on in life, Evika,” she said through her teeth.

  I looked at her, my eyebrows raised. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh please. You've put everything in your life on hold because you can't get over her. Three fucking years, Evika. It's time to move on for God's sake!”

  I wasn't expecting her to say anything like that at the club, on my birthday and in the middle of that crowd. Was this whole night out a ploy that involved more than just herself? Was her plan to get me out so I wouldn't stay home and sulk, thinking about my mother? Yes, in her own weird, funky way, it was believable. For me, at least. Still, she pushed me over my limit, and aside from that, I was over my limit. I was done. I needed to go home to get away from the crowd. The night had taken a turn for the worse, and I was partly to blame.

  I composed myself, battling with my arms not to rise up and strangle her. It took every ounce of energy I had to contain my rage; I had no idea what it was that was stopping me from throwing her to the floor and beating the crap out of her face. Then my senses reminded me that Brittonia had lost her mother to cancer while we were still in high school, right around the time everything changed. There were so many things I could have said to hurt her, so many things I could have mustered up to just get her where it hurt, but I managed to fight back my emotions and said only what I could.

  “Wow, Brittonia. You sure as hell know how to throw a birthday party.” I glared at her. “But you know what? You're way better at ruining one.” Then I started walking away. I gave the other girls my “I'll see ya” look and headed for the stairs.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Brittonia shouted through the music.

  I turned to give her one, last look and a clear view of my middle finger. “Nowhere with you.” I stomped my way through the crowd to the stairwell and pushed through the bodies of people on my way up. It was like being lost in a herd of cattle. People were coming in, but I just wanted the hell out.

  I finally made it to the main level. Cooler air hit my face but still not enough to bring me back to sanity. I started to feel the heat rise in my blood. Did the night have to turn out this way? Should I have just stayed home and not given Brittonia a chance? What was I thinking?

  She'd brought up my mother, and that was what stung the worst out of anything. It was the pain I'd tried to tame for those few hours, and now it was thrown back to the forefront. The hurt I was trying to avoid, along with the alcohol, was a horrible combination only waiting to see what I'd do next. I didn't disappoint.

  I'd finally made it to the outside and leaned against the wall of the building to catch my breath. I felt flustered and closed in. I took in the air as if it were something new to me. I filled my lungs, and when I inhaled I smelled the smoke from a group of people nearby. It was a habit I had kicked for almost a year, but tonight was an exception. I stumbled over to the group. There were three guys and a girl.

  “Listen, I know it's annoying when people bum cigs, but can I please have one?” I asked them.

  Two of the guys who were facing the other direction turned to face me and looked me over from head to toe.

  “Sure, cutie,” one of them said as he pulled out one of his Marlboro Lights. At least, I think that's what it was. “You need a light, too?” he asked as he handed me the cigarette.

  “Yeah,” I answered as I placed the smoke in my mouth.

  He lit the tip for me. “So, you probably quit and can't stand it, right?”

  “You guessed it. Tonight is just not my night.” I turned to walk away. “Thanks, again.”

  “Not a problem.” He raised his cigarette as if saluting me. “Glad I could help a fellow smoker,” he said with a laugh.

  “I quit,” I muttered to myself.

  I continued walking down the sidewalk, trying to map out through my head what the best route home would be. Either way, it was a long walk. I figured it would be okay for me to use that time to cool down. I was still huffing. Inhaling the smoke deeply into my lungs, I felt a new buzz overthrowing my old one. I was angry at Brittonia for being her stupid, drunk self. I was angry at myself for letting her get to me. I even started getting angry at the other three girls for acting like puppets and doing whatever Brit wanted them to do. In fact, she didn't even have to say anything to them anymore; they just followed suit with whatever she did.

  After replaying the night's events in my head, I felt a new rage overtake me once again, one of mixed feelings that I couldn't dissect. It was a feeling of anger, meshed with guilt, hurt, and pain and it enveloped me, mostly in my chest. I blamed it on the cigarette, but I knew it was because I was thinking of her. My mother would have been so furious with me that I'd been smoking that cigarette. I could see her disappointed expression, shaking her head at me and looking concerned.

  “What?!” I yelled into the air. “You can't grant me this one vice for right now?” Tears came to my eyes, and once I blinked, the image was gone.

  I thought about the people who passed me on the street. I'm sure they thought I was a total nutcase. For one, I was yelling into the air at my imaginary mother, and second, I was a young girl in a short skirt walking downtown, alone, sort of aimlessly.

  Yes, alone. Did I mention alone? I was such a great target for disaster. I'd almost wished someone would just come and snatch me up and take me away. A few blows to the head and I wouldn't feel a thing. I'd be out cold for a while. Maybe they'd kidnap me, make me change my name and I'd get that weird Stockholm syndrome. Wow. That'd be a story. However, I thought about it, and honestly, I would have preferred the scenario where they just did what they wanted with me while I was drunk, then killed me, and dumped me off into the nearest ditch. That was what I really wanted, an excuse to die, an excuse to stop the pain that I couldn't drown out with the vices I normally used.

  I continued walking toward home and finally came to a street I recognized. I was getting closer, but home was only secondary to what I yearned for after realizing I was near the liquor store closest to my apartment. I checked my phone. It was almost one o'clock, but if I hurried, I'd be able to get in there and grab something. I remembered my wadded-up twenty Brit had placed in my bra. It had been poking at my breast since we were at Throb.

  “Okay,” I said to the wrinkled twenty as I tried flattening it out over my knee. “You're all I have left, Mr. Jackson. But if you can be enough to get me one last hoorah in a bottle for my birthday, you will go down in history. I promise.”

  What the hell was I doing? Talking to a dead president? Bribing him to pay for even more poison? I knew I was done. Gone. Finished. Completely and utterly annihilated. But I did not care.

  The little bell chimed as I walked in. I didn't even bother gesturing a “hi” to the clerk. I just scoped out the shelves for something that would be worth my efforts. I contemplated arguing the ridiculous pricing of some of my favorite hard-cores, but then I just settled for a couple of mini-bottles of flavored vodkas and actually had enough left over to buy a lighter and some Basics to smoke along the way home again. I couldn't tell you what the clerk looked like. I don't think I even looked up at him.
The counter was very blurry, and so were his hands when he placed the seventeen cents in my palm.

  A good man would have stopped me and asked me questions, because I highly doubt that I was looking even close to sober. He didn't stop me.

  A decent man would have, at least, called the authorities on me and given them my description, but no third-shift officer drove by me on my way home.

  However, a wise man, like the one I'd just encountered, would mind his own business and go about his shift, not questioning the actions of a young girl walking in the night buying alcohol and cigarettes, right?

  Nonetheless, a bit more sobered up after the walk home and the six chain-linked cigarettes, I was ready to battle my demons, ready to get angry again. I thought about the neighbors and how much they were going to hate me for blaring my music. I laughed. Oh, it was a dark laugh I hadn't heard from myself in a long time. I decided to dig up some old favorites and pulled out a dusty CD - Stabbing Westward: Darkest Days. I could never part with that album. It spoke to me and was often what I'd listen to as I wrote some of my best prose and poems, but writing wasn't what I planned on doing.

  I opened my bedroom window, wanting to be able to hear the music once I went up to the roof. I cranked the volume of the stereo up to its highest, knowing full well I'd not have much time left before people started beating on my door. I rolled my eyes at the thought.

  I grabbed the mini bottles of vodka and my cigarettes, and sloshed up the metal stairs. As I lit a new cigarette, I hastily twisted off the cap of one of the bottles and tossed it onto the cement. What was I becoming? Was this my call for help? No one would be able to hear me over my damned music. I'd reached my breaking point. I was losing it. That is, if I hadn't lost it already.

  I thought about loss and that empty feeling it left in those it touched. I thought about the part of my heart that was ripped out of me when she was taken away from me. It had been three years to that very day. They hadn't found the shooter, and I was left with a mess of a life, living it without her and living every damned birthday for the rest of my life, being forced to remember the agony of that excruciating day, a day I would re-live over and over and over again. A day that kept me from a different life that could have happened if only we'd walked out a few minutes sooner, or even a few minutes later. It would have just been somebody else. Not her.

  I know I was being selfish and irrational, but my heart was still bleeding, and I couldn't move on. After her death, my direction was lost. I was undeniably lost. She was my compass, and she was taken from me. And for God's sake, on my birthday?

  My eyes glared into space and filled with the relentless tears that I'd succumbed to. I threw my head back and downed the bottle. It went down like water, like nothing. I swallowed and kept my head toward the night sky, suddenly fixated on a new focus.

  I pointed up to the air. “You!” I yelled as my throat closed. “You were the one who took her away from me! What is it that people say about you? You'll close a door, but leave a window open? I'm sorry, but I don't see it! Maybe you should be a little more clear about your plans for me because I don't see how the hell I'm supposed to carry on like this! Do you hear me?!”

  I became frustrated when I didn't hear an answer, not that I was being rational. I didn't see what I was looking for...whatever that was. I tried being careful as I stepped up onto the edge of the wall. I didn't look down, knowing it would only make me sick and I'd lose my balance. Nine stories? Was I really doing this?

  “Do you hear me?! Why can't you just show me what the hell you want from me? Why did you have to take the one person I needed the most? She was all I had! Whatever damn merry-go-round you have me on, I want off! Just end it now, and show me what you want from me!”

  My throat burned. I'd had enough. I just wanted to go to bed, cry myself to sleep, and deal with whatever consequences were in store for me in the morning. I wanted peace.

  I took one last hit of my cigarette, looked at the empty bottle in my hand and started to cry again. The real tears of the ending night coming to release themselves. The token tears that fell along my cheeks would leave me tasting like salt in the morning. I lifted my foot to step down from the ledge that no drunken idiot should even be near, but I lost my footing.

  It was at that very moment that I'd felt the jolt of fear surge through me like an unstoppable current. A rush that scared my nerves into complete and utter alertness. My senses were awakened, and my body felt a new high as I'd reached the moment of realization only too late. It was one step, and I'd missed it, falling backwards into the night air from that concrete ledge. I whipped past my window and watched it get smaller and smaller, leaving the sound of the music behind as one hundred thousand thoughts and images pounded through my mind.

  I felt the fear.

  I felt the denial.

  But suddenly, I accepted it all in a matter of seconds; I was falling to my death, and there was nothing and no one there to save me.

  3

  Death Becomes Me

  It was strange how fast my mind worked in the small amount of time it was given to sort through its thoughts when forced to conclude a certainty. Everything was clear once I knew I was falling. Oh, it was going to hurt so badly, this death. I didn't want it, but I readied myself. I closed my eyes, preparing my mind and my body for what was coming next. I had no choice. I just thought of her and the comfort I'd feel once again when I first saw her, the one I'd hoped to see again once death claimed me. However, no matter how hard I tried, I still could not cage the scream that was within me. The wind whooshing past my ears was louder than the cry I made. Unable to hear myself, I shut my eyes tight.

  “Evika,” I heard a voice, a familiar voice. Why did I know that voice? I kept my eyes closed as I continued to fall. That soothing voice I'd heard before was what I focused on, and then I hit; I hit hard. I felt everything break along with the concrete. My body throbbed, and my heart beat faster than it was ever meant to beat.

  Then I blacked out.

  I saw nothing.

  I heard nothing.

  I felt nothing.

  What seemed like moments later, I felt something over me, calming the senses as the pain peaked. “I'm taking the pain away.” I heard that voice, his voice, quietly whispering into my ear. Then I felt what I thought was a pair of hands, one on my chest and the other on my forehead. A wave of comfort washed through my entire body. I concluded I must be in the hospital by now. I wondered how it was even possible that I'd been rescued so quickly.

  I hadn't opened my eyes yet; I was too afraid. I was surprised at how alert my mind was. There is no way my mind should be have been working after that fall, and there was also no way I should have been in anything but a body bag. I was unsure of how I was able to come to these conclusions rationally. I decided to muster my courage to at least open my eyes.

  I viewed my surroundings by peeking through a small slit between the lids of my right eye. I saw only a bright light hovering over me. A round, blinding sphere of light pierced my sight and illuminated above me. Everything else was dark. I felt the warmth it radiated. Where am I? I thought. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak, and I couldn't grasp my environment enough to know exactly where I was. I became frustrated and stricken with panic. What is this light? Oh my God. Am I dead? Is this the light everyone talks about? I must be dead. The pain is gone, but why can't I move? Why am I not moving?

  The panic took me over, and my heart raced once again. At least, I thought it was my heart. It felt like my heart, and it beat like one. It worked hard, but it was beating. What did that mean? Why am I alone? No sooner did the thought hit my mind that I felt the dark closing in on me once again. The peace washed through me, like morphine flowing through my veins. My eyes shut tight once more, almost forced. Even though it felt impossible to open them again, I vowed that I wouldn't even try. I just wanted to go to wherever it was I was supposed to be. Please God, take me, I thought. Then it was black and silent.