Read Online Arise (Book Three in The Arson Saga) by Estevan Vega - Free Book Online Page B

tied the cloth around Lamont’s throat. “You’re a terrible mess.” Blood seeped into the fabric quickly, but the makeshift tourniquet proved suitable for the task of lapping up the excess so the clumsy agent could focus on driving.
    “Just do what we’re told, eh, Doc.?”
    “Keep your cesspool mouth shut. That should l-lim-l-limit the amount of blood oozing out of you.”
    Lamont nodded, pure hatred sketched across his eyes. He pressed his foot against the accelerator, and the luxury sedan lurched forward.
    “At the end of the next block, m-m-make-make a left,” Krane said, rubbing his enflamed ankle, but the pain wouldn’t cease.

Chapter Eight
    They reached an area Arson had never seen before. It was found by trespassing through one of the classrooms: Mr. Harmon’s eleventh grade lit. Period four. Arson had always been a fan of novels and stories, but having an arrogant teacher who lorded over students every chance he got, and often quoted inane things a teenager would never say, sucked the enjoyment right out of reading. In one academic year, the fantasy was nearly killed. But in this reality, it was very much alive.
    Odd that this was the room that led to a secret chamber.
    “I hated that guy,” Arson remarked, looking back at a classroom full of bored teenagers. Well, mostly. There were the few exceptions sitting in the left corner at the back, a few book lovers who posed as pseudo-intellectuals. They swooned over everything Harmon did, even complimented him on the routine pop quizzes because they claimed such things forced them to study the material. In the center sat a cute girl Arson had tried to dance with in junior high. She turned him down, as did Mandy. Mixers never were his scene anyway. In the front there was a kid drooling on his notebook. The metallic spirals had already begun to leave an imprint on his cheek. Harmon saw but refused to comment on the student’s lack of interest. The unlucky victim ended up flunking the midterm, and Harmon obtained his satisfaction.
    “Follow me,” Adam said at length. “We should go this way.”
    “Where are we?” Arson wanted to know, once the door closed behind them and they had abandoned Harmon’s lecture.
    “Somewhere new to you.”
    Arson felt spied on.
    “You feel it too?”
    A nod.
    They glanced around suspiciously, saw nothing. One breath. Two breaths. Something wasn’t right.
    Deep blue light outlined the walls, a beautiful glow trimming the black space. The floor was warped, the ceiling sagged, but the walls were a marvel. Arson was entranced by the fluid motion of color. And a whisper incited him to trespass.
    “This is incredible,” Arson marveled. “Beautiful.”
    “This is just one of the rooms. There are others like it, I imagine.”
    “How many?”
    Adam’s brows narrowed into the top of his nose. “I don’t know for sure. But one of these rooms is gonna get you outta here.”
    “Why couldn’t I find it before?”
    “You probably weren’t ready for it. Some gibberish about the hero’s journey, I’m sure. I’m just here to guide you. For someone like me, someone used to escaping inside another person’s head, I don’t know… I can pick up on mental frequencies a little easier than most, figure out where stuff is hiding.”
    Adam abandoned the center of the room and approached one of the walls. He touched it gently. The wall remained black, the outline never deviating from its path. “Hmm. The data won’t transfer into me. Maybe it’ll only work on the host.”
    “Data?”
    “Knowledge. Power. Each one of us, the ones who can do what we can, is born with codes in our minds. Like I said, the powers exist in the blood, but they are made flesh in the mind. The mind is the hub, like a massive control panel. It dictates the rules, what you can and can’t do.”
    “Okay, I get that.”
    Adam went on, “Our abilities are stored—imprisoned, for lack of a better term—in locations like this one. Mine were locked away