Freaks of Nature (The Psion Chronicles)

  FREAKS of NATURE

  Wendy Brotherlin

  Copyright © 2014 by Wendy Brotherlin

  Sale of the paperback edition of this book without its cover is unauthorized.

  Spencer Hill Press

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Contact: Spencer Hill Press, PO Box 243,

  Marlborough, CT, 06447, USA

  Please visit our website at www.spencerhillpress.com

  First Edition: May 2014

  Brotherlin, Wendy, 1967

  Freaks of Nature : a novel / by Wendy Brotherlin - 1st ed. p. cm.

  Summary:Seven psionic teenagers travel by jet to an unknown location, all of them in trouble with the authorities for escaping their assigned government detainment facilities.

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this fiction: Barbie, Chanel, Cheerios, ChristianLouboutin, Godiva, Pooh, Starbucks, Superman, Taser

  Cover design by Lisa Amowitz

  Interior artwork by Mike Corriero © 2014

  by Wendy Brotherlin

  Interior layout by Jennifer Carson

  ISBN978-1633920-06-4 Paperback

  ISBN 978-1-63392-007-1 Ebook

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my parents, who always encouraged me to follow my dreams

  The unnatural—that too is natural.

  –Goethe

  Prologue

  THE global Ebola-X pandemic of 2022 lasted five months, two weeks, and six days before a cure could be found. People died.

  A lot of people died.

  For the survivors, there were side effects from the vaccine.

  One in particular, really. The one that changed everything.

  Women gave birth to babies born with intense blue eyes. Eyes that swirled with vibrant color due to the abundant indigo blood vessels that ran outward from the pupil and throughout the sclera.

  The eyes were as arresting as an exploding supernova. Starburst eyes, people called them.

  As the babies grew, there were other signs of mutation.

  Disturbing, potentially dangerous signs.

  The public was alarmed, despite this mutation being found in a very small percentage of the population—one in twenty thousand births.

  These children had astounding mental abilities. They became known as psions.

  But such unbridled power could not be trusted to mere children.

  The government stepped in. Laws were passed. The starburst children were separated from their families and sent to special boarding institutions. Institutions that appeared far more like prisons than schools.

  That’s when those incredible starburst eyes began to signify something altogether different for the baseline homo sapiens and the psion alike…

  Fear.

  Chapter One

  DEVON McWilliams gripped his broken arm firmly to his side as he made his way down the steep slope of a towering butte. The badlands of North Dakota, with their inhospitable terrain and deathly cold nights, were the last place on earth he wanted to be on the brittle cusp of spring. His legs ached from exhaustion, but sheer terror pressed him onward. He struggled to make it to the rendezvous point before the authorities closed in. To complete this nightmare, Devon had stupidly made his escape from the North Central Psi Facility without a coat. It was a totally lame move he’d regretted the instant he leapt to freedom, but there was nothing to do about it now. He had to keep moving. He was exposed up here and the temperature was dropping quickly.

  Devon’s eyes swept over the rock-strewn wasteland that surrounded him. A storm gathered in the distance, and lightning flashed ominously within billowing black clouds. A thunderstorm tonight would make his desperate situation downright dire. Heavy rainfall would mean the flooding of hundreds of dry riverbeds within minutes. With daylight waning, he would have to keep the storm in mind as he searched for a safe place to rest.

  “That’s why they call it the badlands, stupid,” Devon grumbled. “And not a flipping plant in sight.”

  Of all the idiotic psychic abilities to have, talking to plants rated right up there with navel gazing and gelatin juggling—neither of which were a particularly useful or dangerous talent to possess. But it was his calling. His special gift.

  In other words, Devon’s psionic powers made him the laughing stock of the entire North Central Psi Facility. Even the facility scientists had seemed to think Devon’s powers were a joke. After his initial testing, during which there had been much snickering, Devon had never once been recalled for further training. Apparently, those in power had no use for his abilities, other than tending to the headmistress’s creeping charlies.

  There wasn’t a single person at North Central who would have believed that a loser like “Plant Boy” McWilliams would be the first-ever psion to successfully escape from their fortified facility.

  Better yet, he’d only gotten this far across the badlands because of the plants he had stumbled across. It was his rotten luck that he’d made a bad decision, listening to a pair of disoriented yuccas awakening from their winter slumber instead of the whiny hood phlox. The yuccas’ directions had led him to this particularly perilious butte, where Devon had found an utter lack of helpful vegetation.

  A few feet away, he spotted a scraggly-looking clump of little bluestem growing along the edge of the trail. But Devon knew better than to ask the grass family anything. They produced an endless psionic shriek at being touched, or trod upon, which happened, like, all the time! No, he’d just have to wait until he got down off this butte before he asked for directions.

  Movement deep in the canyon drew his attention to a hawk soaring soundlessly over a patch of prairie grass, hunting for its dinner. The hawk didn’t appear the least bit concerned by the approaching storm as it lazily circled below Devon, making its way closer to the canyon floor. Perhaps it had spied a fat field mouse, or a prairie dog pup wandering too far from its home.

  Home.

  The word alone caused Devon to choke back raw emotions that he didn’t have time to deal with. It had been eighteen months since he had last seen his family. He hadn’t wanted to leave home, but there had always been extreme pressure from the government and local officials for Devon to attend a national psi facility. Nobody seemed to care that Devon wasn’t a danger to anyone. Then, two years ago, the powers that be threatened to revoke his father’s medical license, and that’s when Devon pleaded with his parents to let him go. What he hadn’t known at the time was that the North Central Psi Facility would be hell on earth for a kid who talked to plants.

  As he swallowed his rage and sadness, he ripped his gaze too quickly from the canyon floor and promptly slid on a patch of loose rock. He reeled, stumbling backward, and the pain from his arm rocketed through his body. White spots burst before his eyes, obscuring his vision. Teetering on the brink of disaster, he managed to regain his balance mere inches from the cliff’s edge by plopping on his butt.

  Breathing hard, Devon pinned his throbbing arm to his chest as he got a good look at the seventy-foot drop to the boulder-strewn ground below. He gulped hard. There would have been no surviving that fall.

  Mindful of the drop, Devon slowly rose and turned back toward the trail. Before he could take a step, the ground beneath his feet gave way.

  He cried out as he slid straight dow
n the butte’s face only to land squarely on another ledge eight feet below.

  A bolt of pain shot from his injured arm like he’d grabbed a live wire, and his vision swam. He thought for sure he was going to hurl, or pass out and tumble to his death.

  Cursing, Devon spit dirt from his mouth and leaned his forehead against the cool rock face as he fought to control his breathing. His legs trembled with the effort of keeping him upright on the tiny lip of rock. His limbs turned to lead, and his movements introduced him to an unparalleled level of exhausted torment. But he wasn’t about to give up. Not when he had come all this way on his own. He’d give just about anything to have his friend, Colton Weaver, here with him now.

  Badass Colton. The coolest, most levelheaded and self-possessed kid at the North Central Psi Facility. His roommate. Well, dead roommate now—dead because of their botched escape. Dead because of the deafening burst of gunfire that had torn his friend apart—the blood blossoming across Colton’s chest—his look of utter surprise—

  Devon moaned. He couldn’t think about this right now! His lack of survival training meant that he had to remain focused and get his ass back on that animal trail if he wished to survive the night. Time was running out.

  Looking up, Devon saw that the trail was definitely within reach. All he needed was to find a decent foothold.

  Beads of sweat dotted his brow, and Devon grunted with each jostle of his arm. He was pretty sure that he had broken both of the bones in his forearm. He just hoped that, once he met up with the Psionic Underground Network, they could fix it.

  By the time his sneakers had found a sturdy rock outcropping to balance on, Devon was squinting into the gray of twilight. It was getting harder to see, and as the shadows grew, so did his fear. If the psi facility’s guards caught him now, he knew that he would never be allowed to see his family again.

  “No, not gonna happen,” he said to himself through clenched teeth.

  With his good arm, Devon reached blindly above his head, searching for a firm handhold. He mistakenly grabbed a little bluestem. The psychic screech blasted through his brain, sending him reeling. He released his grip on the thin brown grass, but in his haste he lost his foothold and shot down the canyon wall with all the grace of a flailing water buffalo.

  He screamed as the ground rushed up to meet him. Jagged rocks and sharp brush tore at his flesh and clothing. This was it—the end of Devon McWilliams, the boy who could talk to plants—for all the good that ever did him.

  Devon’s descent was cut short by the outstretched limbs of a juniper tree, which violently plucked him from the canyon wall with the strength and resilience only a cliff-dwelling member of the cypress family could manage. Devon slammed into the gnarled trunk face-first and an explosion of stars filled his vision.

  Curse words tumbled from Devon’s lips as he slid down the juniper’s slanting trunk, his face painfully scraping against the rough bark. He managed to stop his descent using his legs and one good arm, and gripped the tiny little tree for all he was worth. His heart pounded against his ribcage with adrenaline-charged ferocity until he was quite certain that it would burst.

  The wind…it carries the scent of spring…and so shall I carry you…

  “That’s certainly kind of you,” he said to the juniper, using the most respectful tone he could muster, while at the same time trying not to gasp in pain. “But I can’t stay long. I have, uh…friends to meet.”

  Devon frowned at his own stupid lie as he clung to the tiny juniper thirty feet above the ground. Still reeling from the fall, he struggled to get his bearings. It was dreadfully cold up there. The icy wind burned his skin, especially along the right side of his face, where he had collided with the tree.

  The tree that had just saved his life.

  Life! Life! Water and sun are life! Turn your face to the sun, young one, and you too shall shine!

  “Mmm-hmm,” Devon mumbled as he fought to calm a sudden wave of nausea. It wasn’t unpleasant talking to trees, because their voices held the soothing, deep richness of the earth. Flowers, on the other hand, were like talking to a gaggle of know-it-all great-aunts—no matter what one said, they were always right and they would never shut up about it.

  And then there were the shrubs, which were a bit trickier to communicate with. Shrubs, it seemed, never had much to say. Devon had to work hard to get a shrub to open up. They were so doggone slow to trust anyone. However, his efforts were almost always rewarded with astute and accurate information. Shrubs didn’t miss a thing. They were, it seemed, the polar opposite of the useless grasses, which merely screamed all the time. That’s why Devon stuck to sidewalks and paved roads and avoided flower shops. The cries of freshly cut flowers were as irritating as the whine of a dentist’s drill inside his head. The sensation made him wince just to think about. Botanical gardens were out of the question too, as he had found out two months ago when he and a shapely blonde waterwielder named Shelby were asked to find the reasons behind a failing wetlands exhibit. The sheer presence of so many different varieties of plant life completely overwhelmed him.

  In short, he’d passed out. Cold.

  That’s not the best way to impress girls at fifteen.

  Or, like, ever.

  “Shelby Weizerman sure wasn’t impressed,” Devon muttered under his breath. He was starting to feel better. Scanning the rocky surface below, he located a deep crevasse cut into the rock face about five feet away that gently sloped down to the canyon floor. It was a pathway to safety.

  Shell-bee Wise-man… Does she drink of the sun? Does she dip her roots in the cool mountain pools of knowledge?

  “Probably not,” Devon said to the tree as he fingered a newly formed leaf bud on a branch. “But she sure was hot.”

  Aaahhhh, the juniper sighed as if in understanding. The sun… Divinity.

  Devon grinned. Talking to trees was like talking to his crazy cousin Pete when he went off his meds—profound one minute, spouting nonsense the next. Still, there was comfort in hearing another’s voice. Even if it was all in his head.

  He had spoken to a cluster of leopard lilies shortly after he had emerged from the facility’s back gate. They had kindly pointed out to him which direction to run. Yesterday, a rather scraggly-looking choke cherry shrub had told him where to find water, and a copse of cottonwood trees had stood sentry over him last night. He had fallen asleep to their deep voices humming, in chorus, an elaborate tune set to a beat driven by the wind. As the cottonwoods swayed, their voices moved and turned in complex runs that at once contrasted and blended in magnificent ways. It was the kind of music that stirred Devon’s soul and, at the same time, produced a lingering sadness. No one else on the planet would ever hear it but him. Nor was he able to recreate it for others. It was a blessing and a curse. It reinforced the fact that Devon was different. And that difference made him lonely.

  The juniper started humming, its deep psychic baritone rising and falling to the pulse of the chilly canyon wind. It was utterly beautiful and incredibly forlorn at the same time.

  “I must leave you,” Devon said, stroking the tree’s bark with his good hand. “Thank you…for everything.”

  Stay the night… My branches will cradle you… Have no fear…

  Devon nodded. Trees had such big hearts, but they hadn’t quite the same concept of cold as humans did. “Nevertheless, my friend, I must depart.” He patted the bark, and to his surprise, the entire tree erupted with buds. Exhaustion was impairing his mental discipline. His power was getting away from him.

  He slid off the juniper’s trunk and stepped onto a rocky outcropping below. His arm hurt like hell, but if he had clung to that tree a moment longer, he would have caused it to fully bloom. If that happened this early in spring, the juniper would surely perish.

  Devon wasn’t about to be responsible for any more death.

  Half-sliding, half-walking, he managed to clumsily navigate the five feet to the crevice. His entire body ached from the beating it had taken
over the last two days, and he’d torn holes in not only his sweater and jeans but along the sides of his sneakers as well. He had gotten used to the feeling of tiny rocks rolling around in his shoes, but the minute he dropped down into the crevice, to his consternation, he discovered sand.

  “Oh, you gotta be kidding me!” he cried as his feet sank into the crevice floor. Sand poured into his shoes, and Devon found himself flailing to keep his balance. Moving his broken arm had been the wrong thing to do, and the ensuing pain was enough to send him crashing into the wall.

  He reached out his good hand in an effort to steady himself, and a sharp rock snagged his sweater. It was just what he needed to stop his momentum. He grabbed the side of the wall and steadied himself before pulling his sweater free from the rock. The sky above was now a deep indigo. He had only minutes before the last of the sunlight was gone for the day.

  Ignoring the sand in his shoes and the throbbing pain that terrorized his body with every beat of his heart, Devon felt his way along the crevice. He thought that he must appear every inch the madman with his greasy brown hair matted to his scalp, his wild starburst-blue eyes, and his lips curled back in a feral grimace. He held out his good arm before him as he stumbled toward the opening.

  Devon freaked as a tacky silk covered his face and filled his mouth. He cried out while spitting and clawing at the spiderweb covering his face. Staggering blindly out of the crevice, he tripped and landed in a heap on the hard canyon floor. His good arm had broken his fall, but the jolt to his body had him seeing stars again. He groaned as nausea crashed over him in waves.

  This time, he did puke…all over a spindly-limbed skunkbush.

  Warm rain? The little bush sounded confused.

  Devon whimpered. His arm ached so badly that he couldn’t move. He could hardly draw air into his lungs.

  Oh! The rain has stopped so soon!

  Devon was in too much pain to reply to the skunkbush. The sun had set and the cold wind blew with devastating authority over the canyon floor. It wouldn’t take long for him to freeze to death if he stopped moving.