Neve strides over and holds Young’s hand-written note right up to Dylan’s face.
“Her Syncing is triggered by extreme duress,” she paraphrases.
Dylan snatches the note out of her hand. “For you to be put under duress, you need to be exposed to real danger.”
“Romer!?” Neve looks to him.
“I’m Switzerland,” Romer backs up with his hands in the air.
“Look,” Neve pulls up her shirt to show Dylan her stomach. Her formerly pink bruise is now purple and spanning across her entire abdomen. “You see this? I can handle it.”
“What happened?” Dylan’s eyes widen, emitting a soft, amber glow.
“The guy that jumped me at Galen’s,” she pulls her shirt back down. “He completely lost it when I fought him back and started punching me in the gut. That’s when I started to Merge.”
“Did you see his face?” Dylan’s frown deepens.
“Just let it go. Okay? It’s done.”
“It’s not done till I get my hands on him.”
Neve’s shoulders slacken as her intensity wanes. “He’s dead, Dylan.” I crushed him to death. “Now will you just hit me, please!?”
“I’ll do it,” Romer steps up and starts to crack his knuckles.
“You better be fucking kidding,” Dylan warns.
“She’s our only shot,” Romer says. “She survived a crash, remember?” He forms a fist, but before he can throw it Dylan shifts in front of Neve and shoves him back against the wall.
His impact makes their metal cage quiver. And as the air soaks up the reverberations, Neve wonders if she has just triggered something she won’t be able to contain.
Rustling sheets of paper fall to the floor as Romer pushes off the wall and starts to bridge the gap.
“Dylan,” Neve rests her hand on his shoulder, but he doesn’t even budge. “I’ll be fine,” she says, then jerks back as Romer’s powerful punch knocks Dylan to the floor. “ROMER!”
Romer dives down and starts pounding on Dylan.
“What is the matter with you!? STOP!” Neve tries to pull Romer off, but he pushes her away.
Regaining her balance, Neve looks down at Dylan who’s barely recoiled to shield himself from Romer’s blows.
“Why aren’t you fighting back!?”
“Three YEARS!” Romer hoists Dylan up and knees him in the gut. “Three FUCKING YEARS!”
Prison…
Neve’s flesh starts to tighten at an unprecedented rate. Almost instantly, it feels like she’s sinking into a sea of pins and needles, and she’s too heavy to tread the excruciating waters.
She is at the verge of collapsing when her nervous system ceases fire, banishing all mental and sensory confusion. And then she is one with her Proxies.
Solid, and indestructible.
An ear-splitting squeak shakes up the space, and becomes worse and worse by the second. And Neve realizes that despite having surpassed the threshold of pain, her density is still rising, causing the metallic storage unit to deform under her weight.
“NEVE! THE DOORS!” Dylan shouts.
Neve snaps to attention and looks to the far end of the room. But taking a step towards it, the floor starts to fold under her foot with a deafening groan.
The entire space suddenly trembles violently, and the middle of the room dips down by a few feet.
Dylan and Romer lose their balance and slide to the center fold along with the bagged corpses.
Papers, photos and maps peel off the walls as all six planes deform, collapsing inwards. The room is crumpling like a box made of aluminum foil.
Neve is terrified. Her anxiety is exasperating her Merging. At this rate, the entire space will implode onto itself, crushing Dylan and Romer.
MOVE!
Neve explodes into a sprint towards the exit, each stomp denting the spot where her foot lands. Romer and Dylan take cover as she leaps over the entangled pile of dead and living bodies, and THRUSTS herself against the doors like a small wrecking ball.
Upon impact, whatever locking mechanism had secured the place rips off the back, and the deformed doors dislodge from their frames.
Neve’s momentum propels her through the fresh air, and she plummets with an earth-shattering bang onto a cold, metal surface. An enormous dent forms where she lands, and then all she feels is the entire world atremble.
“NEVE!?” Dylan calls out from higher up.
Neve opens her eyes and looks up through heavy fog at a mountain of cargo containers stacked on top of one another.
The one Dylan is peeking out of is dark blue, and irreparably disfigured, thanks to her. The yellow one directly below is not in too good a shape either.
Neve pushes up into a heavy slouch and scans her surroundings.
She can’t help but marvel at Young’s genius. What a brilliant spot for him to lock up his abductees: an anonymous cargo container on a secluded industrial harbor. With his ability to jump through walls, he can come and go as he pleases without ever having to compromise the integrity of his cage.
“She alive!?” Romer’s voice beckons her attention back up.
Even through the veil of sunken clouds, Neve can detect Dylan’s wide grin as Romer triumphantly pats him on the back.
“That was a stupid stunt, you guys!” she yells, her irrepressible smile sweetening her tone.
“Hey—it worked!” Romer says gleefully.
Dylan gauges the drop and jumps down, landing a few feet shy of Neve.
“Well done,” he reaches out with a big smile.
Neve squints at him with a tight smirk, and then takes his hand.
Dylan pulls her up, but overcompensating for her weight, she winds up slamming into him.
“Whoa, sorry—” he chuckles. “Guess you’re back to normal.”
Neve’s gaze drops to the bruise on his lower lip, her smile vanishing. “Are you okay?”
Dylan smiles. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
σ
The world below was more obscure, so they sought out the summit. They climbed the mountain of metal, and now stand atop the topmost container as the fog weaves through the gaps below.
Along the waking horizon, Vancouver is sprawled on a blanket of clouds, its glass towers soaring up to the sky like a crystal crown.
If only the three of them weren’t gazing at this heavenly sight from a drifting purgatory. From atop a cargo ship so monstrously big, they can barely feel it moving.
“We’re too far out,” Romer says. “No way we can swim this distance back to shore.”
“Think of what we’d be swimming back to,” Neve says, her gaze glued to the streaks of pink breaking along the horizon.
“We need to dump those bodies,” Dylan glances at the mangled container several levels below.
“I’m not doing Young’s dirty work,” Romer says.
“If we leave them, they’re gonna rot,” Dylan fires back, his patience wearing thin. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck on this ship. We don’t even know where we’re headed.”
Romer’s gaze lingers on Dylan for a few moments, and then he looks back out at the view. “It would be better than being caught with them.”
“Do you think Young planned this?” Neve asks.
Dylan exhales a heavy sigh. “I think it would make sense if this was his backup plan… in case we didn’t trust him enough to go with him willingly.”
“He hid us well, I’ll give him that,” Romer says.
Neve looks back out at her city, and all she sees is the landmine the three of them navigated through with sheer dumb luck.
Or was it luck?
They were a team of three against an unknown many. And yet somehow they managed to overcome all the obstacles without even knowing the rules?
No way.
None of this is random. It can’t be. If anything, it’s looking like everything that’s happened, good or bad, has been instrumental to bringing the three of them to this very juncture.
Almost as though someone has intentionally kept them apart, only to reunite them when the time is ripe.
But ripe for what?
She looks at the boys. At Dylan’s bloody nails and Romer’s bruised knuckles. At scars, and scars-in-the-making.
At a broken duo with a mending bond.
Immersed in this peaceful moment of uncertainty, she just can’t bring herself to burden them with even more questions they won’t be able to answer. So she stands by them and beholds her gleaming city… until it’s become a spec on an endless spectrum.
Chapter 34
The Reaper
The city is awakening to a gloomy morning. To dark and empty streets vanishing into ghostly fog. Today the sun’s rays will not penetrate the threshold of sunken clouds. Today, all will be seen, heard, and felt through a gray filter of uncertainty.
On the green, secluded grounds of Mountain View Cemetery, a dark figure lurks within the silver mist. He’s a svelte silhouette—young to the bone, but host to a weathered soul. A timeless art-piece, marred by neglect and consequence.
Beautiful, androgynous, and unimaginably lethal.
A chilled gust of wind tugs at his dangling tresses, its freshness stinging his face.
He pulls up the back of his loose-fitting charcoal sweater, reaches into the pocket of his black skinny jeans, and retrieves his pack of smokes.
He draws the last drag, and expertly throws it up to his mouth, catching it with his lips. And with the slightest flicker of his lashes, his pupils constrict to a pin-prick, and the tip of his slender cigarette ignites a passionate red.
He secures the cigarette between his long fingers and inhales the toxic fumes. His demeanor is so calm and collected, it demands to be seen.
His wild, piercing gaze slithers through the trees, searching for something, but the fog is so thick that it’s impossible to see beyond fifty feet. So he closes his eyes and searches with his mind’s eye, instead.
And as though he’s just heard a whisper in his ear, he turns his head slightly, then sets off on a new path onto the dew-laden grass.
His brown locks brush onto his broad shoulders with each stride. And soon he finds himself standing before the mound of a newly-filled grave.
But something feels off.
All around, rectangles of fresh grass have recently been laid. But in contrast to this unnaturally ordered green quilt, the tombstones in the Reaper’s vicinity are weathered. Their surfaces are grimy, and soot is caked inside their engravings.
Something big happened here, and it was quickly swept under the rug. And although he can’t know for certain what this green carpet was meant to conceal, he is certain that it’s got something to do with his vision of a tar-haired girl on her knees, wishing upon a dandelion. An anonymous girl whose pink, pillowy pout parted with awe, and whose big, brown eyes widened at the sight of him. A girl whose energy has become embedded within this very spot. Energy so dark and so irresistibly alluring, it seduced him from halfway across the world.
And now that his quest has brought him here, he is that much closer to finding her.
To demystifying her powers.
If only the fog wasn’t proving so inconvenient.
In the near distance, a street light has painted the fog champagne-gold. With the faintest vibration, the Reaper vanishes and reappears atop the light-post.
From where he stands, twin rows of street lights run up the hill, punctuating the cool hues of early morning with their warm aura.
With his sights set on the summit, he Glitches from atop one light-post to another. He jumps from node to node all the way up the hill, until he has emerged from the ambiguity of the fog.
Standing atop the top-most post, he turns around and beholds a vibrant downtown slowly awakening to another ordinary day.
At the foot of this gleaming congestion, thick fog is laden like a blanket of snow. And in one spot, in particular, it is enlivened by the oscillation of pink and blue hues.
The Reaper pinpoints the tower sprouting from the colored fog, and his gaze soars all the way up to its rooftop. He gathers his focus, and in the blink of an eye, Glitches to his intended destination.
Six miles in a split-second.
He hops onto the rooftop ledge and stands at the brim. He leans forward and looks all the way down to street-level.
At his current altitude, the fog is still impeding his vision. But it’s a nuisance he quickly dismisses when the remnants of a dark energy reach him from down below.
Energy not unlike what he felt at the cemetery.
He Glitches down to the heart of a barricade, a few feet shy of a wide, shallow crater.
He looks down the street at what appear to be a mangled vehicle, an idling tow truck, and multiple police vehicles.
Judging by the scarcity of onlookers, it must have been quite a while since the incident occurred—an incident which originated from the crater by his feet.
He walks down the shallow slope and stands dead center of the pit, where the girl from his vision had stood not too long ago.
But as he stands here, all he sees is an aftermath. A conclusion without a story.
And he is compelled to connect A to B.
His pupils constrict.
His irises radiate a golden gleam.
His heart starts to race, pumping an abundance of adrenaline through his system.
And then, faster than a thought, he’s in Sync with thousands of his Proxies, his powerful mind linked to all the shared alternate realities.
He has become detached from time and space.
He is no longer just standing in a crater on a foggy morning. He is standing in gridlock during early rush hour. He is on a wet street with cars zooming by in the pouring rain. He is surrounded by half-a-dozen construction workers drilling into the pavement.
He is everywhere: experiencing multiple realities simultaneously.
He is everywhen: before the incident, after, and every snapshot in-between. Snapshots he intends on stitching into a cohesive whole.
A low, metallic groan shakes up the air.
The SUV starts to slide backward as though being pulled by invisible cables. In front of it, the scraped asphalt bows back down and reunites with the earth. Inch by inch, the damage to the road is being erased.
With his wild eyes aglow, he steps out of the way.
The approaching SUV passes by him, and once its front becomes flush with the crater’s center, an ear-splitting screech devours the morning calm. The car uncrumples as the ripples in its snout expand like an accordion. As it stretches back to its original length, the engine and front bumper slide forward to where they used to be. Glass shards leap off the ground and swarm the windshield, snapping together like pieces of a glass puzzle—until the seams vanish, yielding a smooth and reflective surface.
The mended vehicle returns to its original spot by the sidewalk. But the Reaper’s focus remains on the crater—on the spot where the mysterious girl from his vision altered her own destiny.
He begins to circle her, taking in the details of her face. Though her features are delicate, the conviction in her ruby eyes is unshakable. Simply looking at her rouses in him an excitement he has not felt in years.
He follows her line of sight upwards—up to a man suspended in the sky. To a powerful Kinetic who—in an attempt to save his own life—nearly took hers. To the panicked Kinetic screaming her name.
An insidious smile creeps onto his lips.
“Neve.”
~ End of Book 1 ~
Preview of Book 2
Amalgam
With Synchrony and the Reaper on their trails, Neve, Dylan and Romer must devise an immediate survival strategy. But upon arriving at their destination, they quickly come to understand just how extensive their enemies’ reach can be.
In an unexpected turn of events, escape brings them to a crossroad, and they find themselves faced with the ultimate dilemma: should they continue to evade the most powerful syndicate in the world? Or ris
k becoming pawns in pursuit of unimaginable power?
Letter to Readers
I am beyond grateful to have had the opportunity to share my very first novel with you! If you’ve enjoyed The Fray Theory, please take a few minutes to write a review on Goodreads and Amazon. Reviews are truly the best way to support a debut author, and I assure you that my Proxies and I will be forever grateful!
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Love,
Nelou
Author Bio
Nelou Keramati was born in Shiraz, the city of wine, poetry, art, and literature. At the age of twelve, her family moved to Vancouver, Canada, which she has since proudly called her home.
Following six years of studies in Biology, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Psychology, Nelou obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from UBC—the University of British Columbia. Four years later, upon obtaining her Masters in Architecture, she once again switched gears and embarked on the pursuit of acting, art, and writing.
She has spent the last two+ years working tirelessly on her debut novel, The Fray Theory, and is beyond excited to finally share it with the whole world.
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