Deviant (Karma Police Book 4) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Deviant

  Dedication & Copyright

  Deviant

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Epilogue

  Want to Know What Happens Next?

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  About the Authors

  — dedicated to anyone who has ever been afraid to jump —

  DEVIANT:

  KARMA POLICE BOOK FOUR

  SEAN PLATT

  &

  DAVID WRIGHT

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The authors have taken great liberties with locales including the creation of fictional towns.

  Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  The authors greatly appreciate you taking the time to read our work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends or blog readers about the book to help us spread the word.

  Thank you for supporting our work.

  eBook Edition v 1

  July 4, 2017

  Copyright 2017 Collective Inkwell an imprint of Sterling & Stone LLC

  www.CollectiveInkwell.com

  PROLOGUE

  This time it’s different.

  I don’t wake up in my new host’s body so much as I’m hurled into it. The young girl sprints through a forest of shadows, branches whipping her skin as she runs for her life.

  Flashlight beams bounce in the night behind us — people hunting for her.

  A pack of dogs is panting and growling, huffing into the night.

  The moon is barely a suggestion, giving me only enough light to see that the girl is wearing a hospital gown. She is barefoot, slick grass cold on her feet, rocks ripping into her skin.

  “Help me.”

  It’s a girl’s voice, with a slight Russian accent.

  I’m confused, looking around, thinking someone is with me. But I’m all alone.

  Except I’m not.

  “Help me,” she repeats, this time in my head.

  Who are you?

  “My name is Irina Pochenko, and you’re in my body.”

  This isn’t the way it normally works.

  I usually wake up in someone's body while they’re passed out or sleeping, smoothly stepping in and taking over. When I leave, they regain control, unaware that I was ever there.

  I’ve never popped in like this, while my host is still conscious, aware of my presence.

  But Irina is now talking to me like I’m a hitchhiker.

  I try to get a feel for details on my host, but everything is vague. All I can tell is that she’s around twelve or so, and I’m not even sure of that.

  What’s happening? How did I get here?

  “I don’t have time to explain. I need you to help me escape them. I can’t focus on their brains and control my body at the same time. I need you to take control.”

  Why me? Do I know you?

  “You can swim, can’t you, Ella?”

  How do you know my name?

  “They made me look for you after what happened.”

  What do you mean after what happened? You know me?

  A gunshot punches the night.

  “Here,” she says.

  And then I’m in control, stumbling at first as her feet hit the cold ground.

  My instincts take over.

  I roll to the ground, sliding down an icy river embankment, narrowly avoiding the rapidly moving water.

  “I can’t swim. You can, right?”

  Yes.

  “Jump in. This river leads to a waterfall. It’s our only chance.”

  I dive into the water and am immediately freezing, down to my marrow. Water this cold is dangerous, but a hell of a lot safer than the people and dogs charging behind us.

  We go under for a moment. I fight to get her head above water, gasping for air before going back under.

  I feel Irina’s panic.

  I have to keep us alive. I don't know what she meant when she said that she’s focusing on their brains, but I hope she’s fast and can lose them because I’m not sure if I can help us escape them and their dogs.

  I manage to get her head back above water before the current shoves us down the river, around a winding bend, and out of our pursuers’ line of sight.

  I can’t see the waterfall, but the water’s moving faster, and it’s harder to keep my head above the surface.

  I look at the riverbank — a lighter swath of sable against the inky black woods.

  I’m not sure how far we’ve traveled, but it feels like we’ve put enough distance between us and our pursuers to safely exit on the other side, and find our way to wherever Irina is going.

  But then I hear the barking. Too close.

  I turn around just long enough to glimpse the lights following us along the riverbank.

  Before I can formulate a plan, the current drags us back under.

  In the rushing movement, something hits us, hard.

  At first, I think we’ve been shot, but then as I feel movement scraping across Irina’s back, I realize it’s only one of the many branches trapped in the current.

  We pop back up, Irina’s long dark hair clinging to her face, getting in her mouth as we gasp for air, moving faster toward the crest of the waterfall.

  Who are these people?

  “The Hospital. But not a normal hospital. They do things to us.”

  What kinds of things?

  “Terrible things.”

  I want to press for more, but her resistance to discuss what happened, or even think about it, is strong.

  I wonder if this has something to do with Chelsea. Was her hospital part of some clandestine operation? And did it have anything to do with the Karma Police Jumpers?

  We go under again, then back up in time to see the waterfall ahead. It’s too dark to judge our height and determine if survival will even be possible.

  Not that it matters.

  We’re moving too fast to escape our trajectory.

  We approach the crest, and I can’t help but panic. Somehow, I stay cogent enough to remember that I’ll need to gulp some air before we plummet over the drop.

  Then we’re in free fall, hurled off a one-hundred-story building, plunging, surrounded by water as we race toward the waterfall’s base.

  The drop takes forever.

  Untold tons of water pressure bears down on us, throwing us through a void and into the earth below.

  I pray that the water isn’t shallow and that there aren’t rocks waiting to smash her body to pieces.

  We hit the water.

  We plunge.

  Deep.

  The force of the waterfall us pushes us deeper.

  Lungs tight.

  Need air.

  A new fear now — we won’t be able to surface for air quickly enough.

  I kick with Irina’s legs, pushing us away from the torrent, desperate to reach the surface, now violently craving oxygen.

  I can’t tell which way is up.

  The water is pitch black.

  I am disoriented, getting dragged farther under the surface, yanked toward the riverbed.

  Lungs are burning.

  Irina wants to open her mouth, desperate to breathe.

  No! We’re almost there.

  I push harder with my limbs, trying to slice through the water, yearning for the surface.

  No, no, no, no.r />
  It feels miles away.

  Come on!

  I can’t hide my panic.

  I’ve failed her.

  We’re going to—

  We break the surface.

  And gasp, sucking in deep mouthfuls of air.

  “We did it! Thank you, Ella!”

  Suddenly, darkness.

  **

  What the hell happened?

  Where is Irina?

  Where am I?

  I’m in a void, undiluted darkness in every direction.

  I can’t see anything.

  I have no eyes, nor body.

  I can’t see — or sense — a thing.

  And somehow, I’m here, nowhere, wondering what happened.

  One second I was in Irina, and the next here.

  Wherever here is.

  **

  “Wake up,” says a man over a speaker.

  I open my eyes.

  I’m back in Irina. She’s wearing a fresh medical gown, and is dry, though chilled in the cold room.

  We’re tied to a metal chair in a small, bare room. Blinding lights above us. Beyond the glass walls, I see shadows in the dark, people sitting behind a giant control panel. There are three of them, two men and a woman, I think, and I can barely register what seem to be lab coats.

  The Hospital.

  They caught us, but how?

  How did we get back here?

  No answer.

  I can’t sense Irina in her body. Is she checked out to wherever people go when I’m in them? Or is she here but unable to respond?

  I haven’t been in her long, but I feel a strong connection after surviving such a harrowing ordeal. Perhaps there’s some other reason I feel a bond. Irina said she’d been watching me. Though I didn’t know I was being watched, maybe some part of me was aware and felt it, making our connection all the more solid while I was in her body, no matter the brevity of our union.

  To not have her here with me now makes me feel alone, and scared.

  A square black metal pedestal, about a foot wide, slowly rises from the floor with a mechanical whir.

  I feel a chill, not sure if it's some residual memory of Irina responding to the pedestal or something from my memories.

  This place is oddly familiar.

  Are these memories mine or Irina’s?

  Have I been here before?

  Have I been tied to a chair like this, with people staring from behind menacing glass walls?

  The pedestal stops its rise, standing about four feet tall. The top unfolds, like a box opening itself, to reveal a gleaming black globe, shiny enough that I can see Irina’s terrified reflection staring into it.

  What the hell is it?

  The globe hums.

  The pain is instant, sharp blades piercing my skull from every direction.

  I start screaming, and cannot stop.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 1

  I wake to someone shaking me and yelling. “Come on, Darius! Get up!”

  I open my eyes.

  I immediately choke.

  There’s smoke everywhere.

  Fire burning to my left and right, surrounded by long, tall rows of computer servers, most are on fire, an acrid, noxious, chemical stench worming its way into my throat.

  I’m not sure where we are. Behind the walls of flame and smoke, it looks like a giant warehouse, filled with servers.

  What happened?

  Why are we here?

  My head is throbbing. The world is askew as I sit up.

  A twenty-something-year-old black woman is wearing a backward Mets cap, a black long-sleeved shirt, and jeans. She is kneeling down and trying to lift me up.

  Janet.

  Her name pops into my mind.

  She’s Darius’s girlfriend. And she’s terrified.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer.

  She’s helping me stand.

  My head throbs harder.

  I reach back and feel a giant knot.

  “What happened?” I pull my hand away. It’s covered in blood.

  “Come on, work with me!” She grabs my right hand, coaxing me to walk.

  We stumble toward a doorway in the distance.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, coughing.

  Her shirt is pulled up over her mouth. In a muffled voice she says, “You don’t remember? They must’a hit your head real bad.”

  “Who?” I cover my mouth, trying not to inhale the thick black smoke.

  She nods to our left, and I see two burning husks of what were once men, one still clutching a gun, for all the good it did him.

  “Who did that?”

  She shakes her head, pulling me through the thick smoke.

  There’s a crash behind us, twenty feet from the door.

  We don’t stop. Or look back.

  Instead, we run.

  We race outside the door and into a parking lot alongside the building: large, industrial, two stories.

  I look for a car but see nothing.

  The building is surrounded by barbed wire fence. The main gate is closed, with a manned guard booth. There are men in uniforms and rifles approaching. I’m not sure if they see us, or if they’re rushing the building.

  Sirens roar in the distance.

  We’ve got to get out of here.

  “Come on!” Janet points toward a gaping hole in the fence where it looks like the metal has melted away.

  Lights bleach the night from above, the rapid thunking of chopper blades adding to the cacophony of trouble coming our way.

  A man’s voice booms from above: “Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head.”

  “Run!” Janet yells, grabbing my arm.

  I’m frozen in the spotlight, staring up at the chopper, wondering what the hell is going on.

  “Why are they after us?” I ask, wondering if this has anything to do with Irina. Though it doesn’t seem to, I’m sure that it somehow does.

  “Come on!”

  Gunfire erupts all around us.

  They’re shooting us?

  I spin around, angry, searching to see our attackers.

  A stream of security guards, or hell, a small paramilitary group in black gear, are storming toward us. I count at least six, two dozen yards away.

  “On the ground!” one of them yells.

  Janet grabs my arm again, urging me to run with her. “Come on!”

  I don’t know why, but my host’s legs refuse to obey. I can’t move. I’m not sure if it’s fear, a miscommunication, or something else, something worse.

  But I can’t move, and they’re about to catch me.

  “Go!” I yell at Janet.

  Her eyes are wide with terror. I can tell she doesn’t want to leave me, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to die. There’s something bigger at play, some mission we’re on that just went south in the worst of ways.

  Someone needs to return to tell … I don’t know who.

  A name teases the tip of my tongue, but it's ephemeral, gone before an associated memory can fill me in on any of this.

  The only thing I know with certainty is that one of us needs to get back to tell our boss?

  Our leader?

  Janet runs toward the gaping hole in the fence. Just beyond sprawls dark woods as far as I can see. I’m not sure how far she’ll get before the chopper finds her, but at least she’s going to try.

  More gunfire, from the men coming towards us, now trying to shoot Janet in the back.

  I turn towards them, rage boiling inside me, eager to draw their attention, to put myself between Janet and their bullets.

  I scream.

  Three men in black, rifles in hand, raise their guns and turn them on me.

  I raise my hands, not even sure why.

  And then it happens — fire explodes from my palms, arcing towards the men and engulfing them in flames.

  What the hell?

  I hear another step behind me
.

  I try to turn, but I’m too late.

  Something hits me, hard.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 2

  I wake up to a screaming alarm.

  I reach out in the darkness, find the phone, then grab and silence it.

  I lay in the cozy bed, waiting for information on today’s host.

  But little is coming. Only a name, Brooke Sumner, age twenty-five. Then I see that she lives alone in an apartment in Anchor Harbor, Washington.

  Everything is fuzzy beyond that.

  I’m still trying to process what happened with Darius before he was knocked out, or killed, and to Irina before that. I feel like I’m back in that waterfall, plummeting towards something I can’t quite make out — something that’s waiting to hurt me.

  I flash back on the fireballs streaking from Darius’s hands.

  Did that really happen?

  It sure as hell seemed like it. Maybe Darius caused the fire and killed those men in the warehouse before getting knocked out the first time before I jumped into his body. Maybe that’s why those men were after him.

  I wish I had been in him long enough to make sense of what was happening, so I could learn more about both Darius and his enemies. Or maybe figure out his connection, if any, to my situation or Chelsea’s kidnapping.

  There seem to be two kinds of people I Jump into: random people who have nothing to do with me, and those who are connected in some way to the Mystery of Me.

  These last two Jumps feel super connected. I’m not sure how Darius is linked, but Irina said that “they made me look for you after what happened.”

  Who are they? And what happened?

  Are they Darius’s group?

  Did Irina pull me into her body, or was it some mysterious hidden hand, whether it be nature or a mystical force, that put me inside her?

  If Irina is connected to me, then Darius must be too. He’s a freaking man who can shoot fire out of his hands.

  Pyrokinesis?

  It doesn’t make sense, but then again neither do body jumping assassins. This is a strange new world, and the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know anything.

  I look at the phone again.

  It’s 7:04 AM and I need to get ready for work, even though I’m not sure what Brooke’s job is. I only know that she leaves the house at promptly 7:45 each weekday morning.