Chapter 48 - Torrin
Lanny stares at me like I just grew horns. He takes two slow steps back, his expression caught between fear and disbelief.
“Lanny,” I say, hands up, palms out. “I don’t know what the fuck that was. I swear.”
His gaze flicks to where the strangers fled the parking lot, then back to me and my hands. “You told them to leave,” he says quietly. “And they just... did it.”
“I know. I was there.”
“They had weapons of some kind, man. We were fucked. And then you... said that shit and they walked away.”
“I know,” I repeat. My voice sounds strange, even to me.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, with a reluctant nod, he murmurs, “Maybe you were right earlier. About shit changing.”
Then he turns and walks off. Doesn’t say goodbye, just walks back toward the gym where the rest of the team is huddled. A few of them look back at me, eyes wide and nervous like I’m a ticking bomb now.
Fuck. No one has ever looked at me in fear before and it does something to my head. It makes me feel a little too much like my father and that thought devastates me.
The rest of the day passes in a haze. I don’t talk to anyone.
I barely move. I sit on the stadium steps, watching the sky above the field I worked so long and hard to play on.
I think that’s all over now. I watch the cracked moon crawl across it like a bad omen.
I think about Luna. About Jules, Reid, and Gage.
Are they okay? Are they hurt? Are they even alive?
When night falls, I find an unclaimed gym mat and lie down. It’s hard and smells like disinfectant. It takes me a long time to get to sleep when every time I close my eyes, I see Luna’s face. I hear her laugh. Then I hear her screams.
***
As though my dreams brought them to life, the next morning starts with screaming.
I bolt upright and scramble to my feet, already scanning the gym for threats.
“What the fuck?” someone yells.
Lanny rushes past me, eyes locked on something near the treadmills.
That’s when I see what everyone’s freaking out about.
Kyle, our right fielder, is floating. Like, actually floating in the fucking air.
He’s horizontal, about six feet off the floor, spinning slowly and laughing like he’s high as hell.
“Lanny,” I bark. “What the bloody hell is happening?”
He pants beside me. “He was asleep, man! Then he just... started floating. He screamed himself awake, and now he’s laughing like a lunatic.”
Kyle spins again, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes as he giggles uncontrollably. Everyone else is pressed to the walls, even the coaching staff. No one is doing a damn thing.
“Unbelievable,” I mutter and march over.
“Hey!” I snap. “Kyle! Get down.”
Nothing. He doesn’t answer, so I grab his ankle and yank. He yelps, then blinks rapidly as I tug him down to the floor. His body sags when he lands and his laughter dies as he stares up at me with wide eyes.
“What the hell is happening to me?” he whispers.
I don’t have an answer for him. I don’t understand any of this shit. I stand and turn to see every eye on me again. I slap a hand against my face to try and wake up from this fucked up reality. When that doesn’t work, I look at all of my teammates.
“Anyone else turn into Doctor Strange since the moon cracked?” I ask the room.
All I get is silence. I shake my head and walk away, grabbing a protein bar and a warm bottle of water from the supply stash.
“I need to get the fuck out of here.”
The floating incident has everyone shook.
Kyle won’t stop pacing and muttering, “I didn’t ask for this,” like a prayer or a curse.
Nobody’s stepping closer to talk to him, not even the coaches.
I lean and slide down against a wall, chewing on my tasteless protein bar, trying not to feel every pair of eyes on me.
They think I’m the next to snap. Or maybe the one who already did.
Mid-morning, Coach Donahue finally gathers everyone up. The man looks like he aged ten years overnight. His face is grey and drawn with the stress and uncertainty of what’s happening.
“We’ve been advised to stay put,” he tells us. “Emergency broadcasts are saying conditions outside are dangerous. There’s riots, fires, and military checkpoints are going up. We’ll hold here until further instruction.”
His voice shakes. I feel that soft buzz in my head and know that he’s lying. The words crawl over my skin like ants, screaming not true, not true. He’s scared, but not just about outside. About us.
My jaw tightens. I rise and walk straight to him. “Who told you that?”
He hesitates and I push. Not physically, not with words. With that same strange pressure I used in the parking lot.
“Coach,” I say quietly. “Tell the truth.”
His pupils dilate. His lips twitch. “No one. We haven’t had any contact with anyone since yesterday. The phones are dead and there’s no cell service or internet.”
“So why are you keeping us here?”
“I don’t know what else to do!” he snaps, voice cracking. “Half the team’s showing signs of... of something. I’ve got a kid freezing water with his fingers. Another one shocked himself unconscious. I’m just trying to keep people from panicking!”
A murmur rises behind me. I turn slowly, eyes landing on a rookie pitcher, Benji. His fingertips are rimmed in frost. He’s shivering, even though the gym’s muggy with all of us in here and no air conditioning running.
More of these powers are manifesting. More cracks in the world that no one has any idea how to deal with.
I back away from the coach. “You’re not wrong to be afraid,” I tell him. “But locking us in here isn’t going to stop what’s happening.”
“Then what will?” he asks, and for the first time, his fear is plain to see and I feel it wash over me. I try to shake that feeling off so it doesn’t swamp me and pull me down so far that I start screaming.
“I don’t know.”
I turn back toward the doors, then stop when my senses spike again. Behind me, someone’s edging closer. Intent, curious, but not hostile. I have no idea how I can feel that. I turn slowly and face Benji, who’s now only a few steps away.
“You made him tell the truth,” Benji says in awe. “Can you do that to anyone?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” I shrug because who fucking knows right now and then frown at the ice on his fingers that he holds in front of himself. “Listen, try to not… touch… anyone with your hands, okay? You don’t know what that might do to them.”
I can feel the fear and uncertainty that I see cross his face. I lift a hand to squeeze his shoulder in comfort but when I see the ice growing over his hands, drop it back to my side. “Try, try and focus on that,” I nod at his hands. “See if you can get some control over it.”
His expression settles into determination and then he nods at me and goes to a corner and sits down, staring at his hands. I shake my head and plow a hand through my hair, then go and find my own corner to sit in and think, wondering how any of us are going to control this shit.
The rest of the day drags as tension coils tighter in the room. Nobody knows if they’re going to wake up floating or on fire or who fucking knows. I watch them all, my teammates, my friends, unraveling at the seams.
That night, I sleep in my clothes near the exit, my eyes constantly popping open, ears straining. Every creak of the floor, every rustle of a sleeping mat puts me on edge. When I finally fall into a restless sleep, I dream of Luna. Her light, her smile.
I dream of the first time she and the guys came here to watch me play.
Out in the field, I couldn’t keep the grin from my face at having people who cared about me in the stands for the first time.
My father, my only blood family, hasn’t come once.
Not that I’d really want him to. Knowing they were in the stands cheering me on had me playing harder than I ever had before and the game ended with a win for our team and two runs for me.
I was on such a high after the game as I waded through the fans and all the cleat chasers looking for my attention as I tried to get to my friends.
Luna looked at me with so much pride that my chest filled with a deep ache for her.
“That’s quite the fan club you’ve gathered, Ballboy.” She teased, causing me to groan.
“Help a guy out, love. Be my fake girlfriend so they’ll leave me alone?” I begged teasingly right back.
She threw her head back and the first real, genuine laugh I’d heard from her since the funerals had me catching my breath at how beautiful it sounded. How beautiful she was.
When her eyes met mine again, she tossed me a flirty wink and snapped out, “On it! Catch me.”
Luna dashed the few steps between us and launched herself into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist when I caught her with one arm and hoisted her up.
She tucked her face into my neck and I could feel the silent giggles she was suppressing against my chest. Having her in my arms was one of the best feelings I’ve ever had and there was no stopping me from burying my face in her gorgeous hair and just breathing her in.
My whole body came alive at the feel and smell of her.
Then the dream fractures like the moon and she’s falling through shadows, calling my name. I wake sweating and out of breath and sit up. I can’t do another day without her.
Today, I leave.