The Children of Prometheus
Chapter 1
The sudden rattle of her cell phone vibrating on the bedside table jerked Lacy out of her light doze as effectively as an air raid siren. She pounced on the jitterbugging device, quickly silencing it and plunging the bedroom back into darkness. Her heart was pounding from fear her mother might have been alerted by the noise.
She listened intently to the silent house while getting her breathing under control, then giggled softly as she realized the absurdity of her reaction. The sound had been startling to her, but wasn’t really all that loud, certainly not loud enough to awaken her mother on the other side of the house beyond two closed doors.
Lacy’s alarm had been set for 1 a.m. After a ten-hour shift working as a Customs Inspector at the Port of Houston, Lacy knew her mom would have come straight home, taken a shower, and gone to bed. The woman’s habits were consistent and reliable.
By Lacy’s calculations, her mother had been in bed for about two hours now and was undoubtedly in deep sleep. The established curfew for Lacy was 10 p.m., even on a Saturday night like last night, with very few exceptions. Lacy was seventeen and a high school senior.
She rebelled at these overly protective restrictions. There were no real dangers awaiting her when she slipped outside after her mother was asleep. Her Clear Lake neighborhood was practically crime-free.
Still, the act of sneaking out for a rendezvous with her boyfriend added to the thrill, just knowing she was breaking the rules. She was usually such an obedient daughter and student in all other ways. This one small act of defiance was the only time she felt free of the demands and expectations of others.
It was one of the few decisions she made that was entirely her own.
Tossing the covers back, Lacy sprang out of bed, already fully dressed in baggy warm-up hoodie and dark jeans. Feeling around in the dark with her foot, she located her favorite running shoes, slipped into them, and laced up tight. Quietly moving to the end of the bed, she used her foot to search for her skateboard.
A well-practiced flick of her foot popped the board into the air. As always, it snapped firmly into hand without the need to see it, just as she intended. She slipped into the dimly lit hallway as silently and gracefully as a cat on the prowl.
Light spilled into the hall from the display case in the den, light that her mother never allowed to be turned off for any reason. She paused just long enough to allow her eyes to adjust.
When Lacy walked through the den, she attempted to avoid looking at the garish trophy case her mother had created. For most of Lacy’s life that wall had been a built-in bookcase filled with a wide assortment of adult and children’s books. From the age of twelve to fourteen, Lacy won so many sports trophies, her mother decided they needed a trophy case more than a bookcase.
It was now an entire wall of glass shelves strategically illuminated to show off a collection of over a hundred trophies Lacy had acquired from age twelve to her current age of seventeen. For Lacy, the wall was both a source of pride and of embarrassment. While being proud of her many victories, she felt the display was over the top.
She never felt comfortable having visitors in the den dominated by the ostentatious trophy wall. It was divided into sections for each of the many sports in which Lacy excelled: tennis, skateboarding, bowling, archery, and golf. The largest trophy was also the most recent.
Her mother had spent the entirety of one of her precious days off rearranging the shelves so the two-foot-tall trophy, topped with a nine-inch obelisk, was centered in a place of honor. It was the first-place trophy for this year’s Women’s U.S. Open Golf Tournament, which Lacy had won just three months ago.
This year had been her first opportunity to compete in it, when the tournament had come to Houston, and she was able to face off against the country’s best professional women golfers. Her seemingly effortless defeat of those seasoned veterans had catapulted Lacy to instant international notoriety. In the few months since, she had been featured in Sports Illustrated, besieged by advertising agencies wanting her to make commercials for golf equipment, and hounded by various television and radio shows wanting her to be a featured guest.
Becoming an internationally famous sports prodigy was a bit overwhelming for a girl her age, but Lacy thought she was dealing with it far better than her mother. In the past, Janis Cole never missed an opportunity to boast of her daughter’s achievements to anyone who would listen. Now that Lacy was more than just a local sports star, her mother had gone curiously silent.
She refused to be interviewed on camera or even be photographed with her daughter. For reasons Lacy could not understand, reasons she could never get her mother to explain, the woman flatly refused to contact any of the people offering fortunes for endorsements. The two of them had a huge argument over it yesterday when Lacy demanded her mother explain her recent unreasonable reticence.
Lacy had pointed out how she could purchase a brand-new car with just one of the many offers. Her mother had said Lacy didn’t really need a car yet. Her own car was available most of the time.
She insisted her daughter take things slow but refused to explain why. It was as if Lacy’s sudden fame outside Clear Lake frightened her mother for some inexplicable reason. It made no sense at all to Lacy.
Her mother had actually attempted to prevent Lacy from competing on a national level at all. In the weeks leading up to the golf tournament, they had argued about it incessantly. None of her mother’s objections made the slightest bit of sense to Lacy.
Her mother had always been a very rational parent. She had taken pride in it. She had always taken the time to explain things to Lacy in great detail, needing her daughter to fully understand the reasoning for every decision that affected her life.
Even when Lacy was a little girl full of questions about everything, her mom had always patiently explained the why of things, never just issuing edicts and demanding unquestioning obedience the way many of her friends described their parents doing regularly. This was the very first time in their lives Lacy’s mother demanded she accept something without debate or explanation. Lacy rebelled, entering the tournament behind her mother’s back and even forging the woman’s signature on forms required for a minor to enter.
Fortunately, it was held in Houston and no travel was required. Lacy had expected anger and punishment for her defiance, but her mother’s reaction was an odd mix of sadness and withdrawal. During the last three months the two of them had barely communicated at all.
Lacy was totally clueless as to why her mother was behaving in such a strange way. Nothing in life seemed to make sense to Lacy anymore.
Lacy forced her mind away from the dizzying array of issues she faced and quietly slipped out the front door into the cool night air. Being outside always helped to clear her head and awaken her senses. She wasn’t the sort of girl content to be cooped up indoors all the time.
It was a dark night with overcast skies hiding the full moon, but it was never really dark on her block. The dead-end street intersected NASA Rd 1, a brightly illuminated six-lane boulevard that fronted the Manned Spacecraft Center. The Hilton Hotel on the bank of the lake behind her house also provided constant light to the short street, dappled with shadows caused by the intervening trees.
Lacy had no trouble spotting Lewis. Her boyfriend was awaiting her in his own driveway, leaning on the trunk of his car. His house was across the street and four doors down, closer to NASA Road.
Lacy dropped her board to the pavement, mounted it, and coasted down the street to stop at the foot of his driveway.
“Hey Superstar! What took you so long?” Lewis joked. His eyes scanned over the petite, shapely body of his girlfriend.
As usual, her attire was calculated to downplay her curves under a loose, oversized hoodie, but her skintight jeans prevented her from totally succeeding at hiding her shapely curves. For a brief moment, the clouds parted, bathing her long blond hair in moonlight that made it seem to glow. Lewis felt like the luckiest guy in the world to have Lacy as his girlfriend.
“I’m right on time. You’re just early and impatient.” She smiled and blushed slightly. The way he was gazing at her made it obvious he had more on his mind than just skateboarding tonight.
She gathered her hair at the back of her head and secured it in a ponytail with a tie from around her wrist.
“Your eyes betray your naughty thoughts, Lewis. You are going to have to catch me if you want to get your paws on this,” she playfully taunted while running her hands suggestively down her body. Then she laughed and took off skating swiftly down the street.
Lacy never looked back. She could hear his frantic struggle to keep up with her. Lewis was without doubt the most talented and strongest skater she knew, except herself.
Everyone said she did things with a board that were freakish, often seeming impossible. All the guys in their skating clique were intimidated by her skills, except for Lewis. It was the primary reason she had taken to wearing baggy clothes during puberty, attempting to downplay her femininity.
It was just best for all concerned if they saw her more as just one of the guys. She even avoided the slightest public display of affection with Lewis, unlike most of the girls her age at their school. He often complained about never being allowed to touch her in public or enjoy her showing off her beauty the way all the other girls did.
He felt her body would put other girls to shame, but he had to admit he appreciated the lengths she went to in order to better fit in with his friends.
As always, Lewis was amazed and dumbfounded by her speed, skill, and agility. The sharp corners she took at high speed seemed to defy the laws of physics. He enjoyed watching her even though he had to struggle to keep up.
She was beauty in motion. Often, he felt certain she was still holding herself back even when they were alone to avoid shaming him too much.
They turned right onto NASA Road and flew past the Hilton Hotel. In spite of there being sidewalks on this side of the road, Lacy took the street. It was much smoother there than the sidewalk.
It felt incredibly reckless to Lewis to be skating in the middle of the road, although he had to admit it was relatively safe at this hour. The road was extremely well lit and without traffic. Thus far, they had only seen two cars out.
Without a car in sight, they crossed over the bridge that took them over the outlet between Mud Lake Preserve and Clear Lake. For Lewis, this was the worst part of the route. If they were to see a police car approaching, there would be nowhere for them to hide.
He imagined the cops taking them in to question why two teenagers were out on the street at this hour. It would be a horrible scene if his attorney father was called to the police station to secure the release of his wayward son. The man’s anger would be epic.
His mother’s expression of disappointment in her only child would be even more difficult to endure.
Once over the bridge, Lacy led him across the wide road and onto the sidewalk fronting the County Park. After about a hundred yards, they reached the far edge of the park frontage. The side fence plunged into dark, tangled underbrush and trees.
Lacy had her board in hand seconds before Lewis arrived and engulfed her in an embrace. He was gasping for air and marveled over Lacy not being even slightly winded by their race.
“Got you!” he cried out in victory.
“Doesn’t count if I’m on foot already, silly boy.” She giggled, then pulled his head down for a short kiss. He tried to make it last, but she wiggled out of his grasp and ran into the brush, moving down a nearly invisible trail alongside the fence.
“Hurry up. We need to get out of sight before a cop drives by and spots us,” she said over her shoulder, moving away.
“Good plan, boss. Just lead the way. I’m willing to follow that cute butt anywhere you want to take me.”
They pushed slowly through the thick undergrowth encroaching on the trail. The dense bushes snagged on their clothing constantly. Lewis suffered the most, with Lacy forging ahead and frequently releasing branches that would swing back to swat his face and arms.
She kept tossing back apologies, but the amusement in her tone made her sound less than sincere. They stumbled along through the darkness for about twenty yards before arriving at a slight depression in the ground that provided a gap under the fence they could crawl beneath. It was their secret entrance into the park whenever the gates were closed and locked, provided it hadn’t been recently flooded by rainwater.
The teens spent the next hour doing a variety of stunts on the roads, stairs, ramps, and railings around the park—many being of the sort they would be unlikely to get away with when the place was open and filled with families. Grinding rails on their skateboards during the day nearly always resulted in some anxious mother calling the police. Conversation during that hour was minimal—mostly just taunts, challenges, and congratulations after particularly gnarly stunts.
Lewis made a real effort to match Lacy’s moves, but as usual she always managed to do things just a little bit better and with lots more style. These alone times, when his friends weren’t watching, were the only times Lewis saw how truly skilled she was when she didn’t hold back. She always avoided showing off when it might outclass him too much.
After about an hour of such exertion, even Lacy grew tired. She led the way to their favorite live oak tree near the water, a place they often lounged while making out. Her immediate focus after dropping to the ground was on devouring a super-sized candy bar she produced from her hoodie pocket.
She was always overcome with hunger after intense physical activity and never seemed to be without a snack for such occasions. Lewis was amazed that such a small girl could consume so much food every day without ever gaining weight. Her high metabolism burned it all off.
After she finished stuffing her face, she looked up to notice Lewis watching her intently. Lacy grinned sheepishly from slight embarrassment over her appetite, then cuddled in close with him.
The full moon came out from behind the clouds, reflecting off the smooth lake surface. It enhanced the romantic feel of the setting and of their moods. It felt like they were alone in their own private Garden of Eden.
Lacy’s worries receded as she relaxed into his embrace. Soon gentle caresses led to heated kisses. The couple gave vent to repressed desires, hands soon slipping under clothes to explore intimate, forbidden places.
Their heavy petting soon had them perilously near the point of no return. It was a line they had promised not to cross as casually as most of their friends had done. With a mutual sigh of frustration, they reluctantly pushed away from one another.
“I really hope this agreement to hold off on sex until after high school is driving you as crazy as it is me,” Lewis whined.
“Probably not as much, but I admit I’m eager for it. I’m just not sure it would be the right thing to do at our age. I DO know for sure this is not the time and place for it.” She gazed thoughtfully at the placid lake, yearning for equally calm emotions.
“This is really hard for me, Lewis. I want my first time to be something special, to make a cherished lifelong memory. Rutting around on the damp grass in this park doesn’t fit that image for me. I feel strongly that I want you to be the one, but I admit I’m not really sure.
To be totally honest, I still wonder at times if this is just a high school crush that won’t survive graduation. Do you ever wonder if this is true love, not just lust and infatuation?”
“You’re saying we don’t have a future together, that you don’t love me as deeply as I love you.” His tone made it clear it was a statement rather than a question. Lacy saw an expression on his face that was a mixture of anger and disappointment.
“Don’t put words in my mouth. That isn’t at all what I said. I just don’t know where my life is going anymore!
Not so long ago, I was certain of where we were going, but now I’m not sure of anything. My life has become way too complicated and confusing lately. Nothing seems to make sense anymore.
I always expected to make a career in professional sports, but I expected that to come after high school, probably even after college. Now I’m already getting sponsorship offers where I could earn in a few days what Mom makes in a year! Now when I need her most, Mom has gone all weird on me.
She has totally shut me out and barely even talks to me anymore! Trying to think about our relationship right now is just too much to handle with all the other stuff going on in my life.”
“So you’re saying you are about to be too rich and famous to be tied down to an average guy like me, someone whose future prospects are so much more limited than yours,” Lewis groused.
“Damn it, Lewis, this isn’t about you. It’s about my life suddenly becoming so confusing. I’m overwhelmed by everything and need your support.
Life is just coming at me too fast to process. I need your understanding, not more things to worry about needing to deal with on top of everything!”
“After two years of being my girl, you still aren’t sure of me. I’m the only guy in our entire school who isn’t too intimidated to approach the great Lacy Cole. I’m an above-average guy in most things, but you best me all the time.
I cope with it, but do you have the slightest idea how difficult a thing that is for most guys to handle?”
“This conversation is becoming pointless. I came out tonight hoping to relieve some stress, hoping for a little comforting, to get my mind off all the things weighing on me. You are making this all about you without any effort to understand my feelings.
It’s making me feel worse instead of better,” she sighed.
“Yeah, you’re right. Talking is pointless. It’s getting late as well.
We should be heading home.” Lewis rose and walked away without even offering a hand to help her up as he usually did.
The homeward journey was somber, not at all like the exhilarating trip out to the park. Their pace was slow, with neither attempting to show off. Lacy trailed morosely behind instead of leading the way.
When they reached the foot of the driveway where Lewis lived, he gave Lacy a quick peck on the cheek and went inside without looking back. Lacy was too stunned to react before he was gone. Lewis was obviously deeply upset.
This was the first time he had ever failed to watch her until she was safely inside her house.
Saddened by the mood of their parting, Lacy coasted slowly up the street toward home. She came to a sudden stop after passing just one house, surprised by the sight of a strange vehicle on the street, parked directly across from her home. For the first time in her life, Lacy felt unsafe on her own street.
The dead-end lane was only a single block in length. It was the sort of place where the neighbors all knew one another, the sort of place where crime and danger were totally foreign. The vehicle looked out of place and menacing.
Lacy glanced behind her, wishing Lewis hadn’t chosen this of all nights to leave her alone. Using the next driveway, she got off the street and rolled slowly toward her house, keeping a wary eye on the suspicious vehicle. Lacy was certain there had been no vehicles on the street when they had left earlier. No one ever parked on her street overnight. It violated HOA rules and would get your car towed if seen by the wrong busybody.
Besides, she was sure no one on her street owned a vehicle like this one. She had never seen it on the block before. She recognized it as a Lincoln Navigator because her school coach, Ms. Powers, owned one. Hers was white, while this one was jet black.
With the exception of the windshield, all the glass was too dark to permit seeing inside. Through the windshield, she could barely make out that someone was sitting inside.
Lacy kicked her board up into her hand so she could cross the lawn to reach the safety of her front door without getting any closer to the creepy SUV.
As she started across the grass, the light from a cell phone illuminated the face of the man inside. He appeared to be sending a text message. The dim light enabled her to make out his features.
He was Hispanic, with a shaved head and pointy goatee. He had a sinister look about him that awakened a visceral fear inside her. Lacy fumbled the door key from her jeans and rushed for the sanctuary of home.
Looking over her shoulder with dread resulted in taking several attempts before she successfully inserted the key into the lock. She hurried inside and felt a moment of instant relief when she secured the sturdy door between her and the mysterious man outside. That sense of relief was short-lived.
She discovered a new concern inside.
Lacy could smell cigar smoke. Mom never allowed anyone to smoke inside their house. As she moved past the darkened living room, she could see all the lights in the den were on.
Was Mom waiting in the den with someone? Was she so freaked out by discovering Lacy was missing that she wasn’t even objecting to them smoking in the house? Realizing she would have to face whatever this strange situation presaged, she took a deep breath and walked resolutely into the family room.
Nothing in her short life had prepared her to cope with the terrible scene awaiting her. The sight was so horrific and unexpected, Lacy froze in her tracks as she sought to process it.
Her mother was seated on the couch directly across from the trophy wall. Her hands were obviously restrained behind her back somehow. The nightgown she wore had been violently slashed to tatters, cut away in a fashion that left several superficial yet bloody nicks on her chest and torso. She was moaning in pain, but the sound was muffled by a gag fashioned from a red bandana.
Men were seated on either side of her. Each had a leg draped over one of hers in order to hold her legs spread wide apart. As Lacy watched helplessly, one of the men ground the cherry-red tip of his cigar into the tender flesh of her mother’s unprotected inner thigh.
The woman’s eyes were wide with terror and the gag only partially masked her scream. Lacy could see more than a dozen burns on her tortured mother.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Chica. Come in. Join the party,” the cigar smoker said with a heavy accent.
The sound of the man’s voice revived Lacy from her terror-induced paralysis. She turned to run for the front door, only to find her way blocked by two hulking men coming out of the dark living room where they had hidden when she passed earlier. With nowhere to run, she took a deep breath in preparation for an ear-shattering scream.
One of the men took a step forward and slammed a ham-sized fist into her belly, turning her stillborn scream into a quiet expulsion of all the air in her lungs. While she was bent over gasping to take a breath, a man wrapped her ponytail around his fist, dragged her into the den, and threw her onto the loveseat beneath her trophy display. Still struggling to suck air into her lungs, she was helpless to resist having her hoodie yanked over her head, leaving her upper body exposed in only a sports bra.
One of the men painfully yanked her hair tie off so he could run his fat fingers through her long, silky blond hair like a caress. Her two captors loomed over her, laughing and bantering in Spanish. From the leers, she didn’t need a translation to understand the gist of the words.
Although she wasn’t yet as indecently exposed as her mother, she felt undressed and vulnerable without her hoodie. She whimpered as she crossed her arms protectively over her chest.
“No use trying to hide, Chica. You gonna put on a nasty show for your mamacita. She needs to understand how your life as a puta for the Cartel will be if we are forced to take you away.
When we are all done with you, you will beg her to do as we say,” the man said while stroking her hair and face intimately. Lacy felt on the verge of throwing up. She and her mother were both helpless in the hands of four brutal men.
Janis Cole frantically attempted to communicate through her gag. From the look on her face, she would be willing to promise them anything to spare her young daughter from what was coming. The men laughed at her, not wanting to talk with her yet.
They were intent on the perverse pleasures they were planning to enjoy with Lacy. They planned to make an example of the pretty teen girl while her mother was forced to watch.
Each of the men standing over Lacy put a knee on her thigh to pin her down with her legs spread, then they each took a slender wrist in hand to spread her arms. Lacy could only watch in terror as the man took out a flip knife and cut away her sports bra. Rough hands pawed and pinched her tender, exposed breasts in a sadistic show meant to cause pain and humiliation. They both carefully positioned themselves so her mother had a good view of every brutal grope.
Lacy yelped in pain, struggling vainly to escape. Her fear transformed to rage over the abuse being inflicted on her and her mother. She fervently longed to lash out, to retaliate.
The abuse continued while she looked up at the worthless trophies. What good were they to her now? She twisted and bucked ineffectively, hoping to free a hand so she could grab a trophy to use as a weapon. Lacy closed her eyes, indulging in a pointless fantasy, envisioning the heavy trophies launching off the shelves to defend her.
She imagined them circling the room, battering the four evil men, pounding them into bloody heaps. When she felt the rough hand shoved between her thighs, she became even more enraged by the outrageous indignity she suffered. Her shrill scream was followed by an instinctive release of mental energies.
In a flash, her imagination became a reality.
Hundreds of trophies flew off the glass shelves in unison, moving in a chaotic whirlwind of destruction, caroming off hard surfaces and embedding into soft ones. She felt a tug on her wrists, then the restraining hands were gone. So was the weight holding down her legs.
In her rage, she was only dimly aware of the screams and cries of pain, of the sounds of bones breaking and bodies slamming into walls. With the brutal men no longer touching her, the anger subsided, as did her mental image of the trophies circling the room. Those trophies not embedded in something fell to the floor in a clatter. The room seemed unnaturally quiet after the cacophony of impacts and screams.
The only sound Lacy heard was a soft feminine moaning.
Lacy’s eyes flew open. At first, she could only stare incredulously at the wreckage in the formerly tidy family room. With the exception of the loveseat where she was seated, the furniture was all broken and ripped.
It was like a tornado had materialized in the room that only affected trophies. There was even a circular pattern to the damage. Trophies were scattered everywhere, most of them broken.
Some were stuck in the walls and furniture. Some were stuck inside their bodies. Copious amounts of blood had sprayed everywhere, sprinkling over everything, including Lacy herself.
The level of destruction occurring in a few short seconds was incredible.
The two men who had been abusing Lacy lay against the wall, like broken toys tossed aside by a petulant giant. Their limbs were twisted at odd angles, clearly fractured in numerous places. Both had trophies protruding from their dead bodies, as well as faces so battered their own mothers would not have recognized them.
The men torturing Lacy’s mother were equally battered and lay sprawled dead on the couch beside her. Although it was unintended, her mother had not escaped injury from the maelstrom either. She had been impaled on a single errant bit of broken trophy.
The nine-inch crystal obelisk that had topped the most recent addition to the collection had stabbed deeply into her mother’s abdomen. She was bleeding profusely but still clinging to a few final moments of life.
“Mom! Oh my God, Mom!” Lacy screamed as she rushed to her mother. She didn’t know what she should do.
She felt sure she should avoid disturbing the wound. Seeing a knife the men had used on her mother’s nightgown, she used it to cut the zip-ties and remove the gag. Lacy dropped to the bloody floor on her knees, overcome with feelings of guilt and a sense of helplessness.
She had done this terrible thing to her mother somehow and had no way to fix it. Even at death’s door, the loving mother reached out to comfort her little girl. She gave her daughter’s hand a reassuring squeeze.
“Don’t blame yourself, honey. I should have prepared you for this day. Your dad warned me before you were born…talked about the danger of not training the gift you have.
You needed practice…held you back…had a fantasy of you living a normal life. Just a crazy dream…but good while it lasted, wasn’t it?”
“Hush, Mom. Lay still while I call 911. Don’t try to talk,” Lacy pleaded.
“Don’t bother with the call…have things to say…don’t have long now. Tell them you weren’t here when all this happened. Don’t admit your abilities to anyone.
They will lock you up like a lab rat…use you…like they did your father. Expect government people to come for you now. This, added to the golf mistake, will bring them…run, Sweetheart.
Run if you can…fight if you must. I only wish I had time to tell you about your father…wonderful man…not a one-night stand. I love you, Sweetie…sorry I failed you.
Please forgive me…try to be strong.”
Lacy felt a final squeeze of her hand before the limpness of death. She watched in stunned silence as her mother exhaled her last breath. Tears streamed down Lacy’s face as she studied the room, scanning the wreckage of her once normal life.
Memories of that life flashed through her mind like a runaway slideshow. Her spinning mind matched the chaos of the room as she struggled to comprehend her mother’s final words, attempting to make some sort of sense of the bizarre situation.
Realization came as a complete paradigm shift that forever altered Lacy’s perception of self. She had envisioned trophies flying around the room and it had happened. Her desire and will had somehow killed people when she gave vent to rage without control, even killing her own mother.
In a sudden burst of understanding, she realized she had unconsciously been using paranormal abilities since she was twelve years old! That was when she began to excel at sports almost overnight.
By the age of thirteen, her softball pitches included extraordinary curves and were clocked at speeds equal to college athletes. She had never thrown a wild pitch in her life. In tennis, billiards, and bowling her coaches said she did inexplicable things they had never seen before.
In archery and golf she was always on target, unless the shot seemed so impossible she was unable to visualize it happening. By the age of sixteen, her golf drives often exceeded adult professionals. Everyone was amazed that such a petite girl could do such things.
On top of all that was her speed and skill on a skateboard, outperforming any boy who ever dared to challenge her.
She saw now that everything exceptional about her was a fraud based on some sort of unnatural advantage. Her entire life was based on a lie!
Lacy sat back on her heels surrounded by carnage, her thoughts and emotions a similarly chaotic jumble. It was far more than any seventeen-year-old girl should ever be expected to make sense of on her own. Her mind reeled as she tried to process and cope with this new reality.
She had just viciously killed five people, including her own mother. There was no doubt she had the power to move objects with her mind. Her mother knew she had this power or at least knew of her potential for it and wasn’t surprised by anything that had happened.
Apparently, her mother knew this because her father had been able to do the same sort of things and was somehow involved in a secret government experiment. What did this mean and how was it going to affect her future? How was she to face such a revelation on her own without her mother alive to offer guidance?
Who could she ever even discuss her new secret with now?
Her daunting introspection was interrupted by the alert tone on an unfamiliar cell phone. The cracked device was on the floor in a pool of blood. There was a text message displayed.
Although she couldn’t read the language, she could tell it was Spanish. She realized it was probably from the man across the street, the creepy stranger watching her house. He was probably the leader of these men, the one who put this entire tragedy in motion in the first place.
She was on her feet in an instant, running for the front door. The rage she felt suppressed a brief second of reasonableness when her mind urged caution. She was too angry to be held back by fear.
The man outside had orchestrated the invasion of her home, destroyed her innocence, and shared responsibility for her mother’s death. Lacy meant to make the man pay.