Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance) - By Dan Rix Page 0,54

to breathe.

But he felt warm despite the death congealing in his skin. There was light up ahead, conveyed through the water like clairvoyance. But how far? Too far. And how long before his chest was rent wide open? Aaron fought the current and crawled forward, buoyed by the liquid, his brain slurry. Then his breathing reflex took over, his mouth sprang open.

He thrust his head back one more time. But this time, there was no ceiling. His mouth cleared the water and he filled his lungs with air. He felt a breeze on his face, raindrops. A circle of sky glowed twenty feet above him, pearl gray at the top of a vertical maintenance shaft. Fastened inside the shaft, a rusty ladder led to the surface. He grasped the first rung and climbed.

Aaron burst through a layer of roots and sprawled out on the grass under an oak tree, just beyond the meadow behind Dominic’s house. He had never loved the taste of air so much. As rain kissed his cheeks, he gazed at the mansion through the trees. Golden strips of light sprinkled the meadow from tall, radiant windows.

Somewhere in there was Dr. Selavio, the man who could supposedly cure half death and treat a ruptured channel. Now that Aaron was here, he might as well investigate. Today was his birthday, after all. It was now or never. Plus he needed his cell phone back.

Still panting, he untangled himself from the roots and climbed to his feet, but before he took a step, something odd caught his eye off to his right, in a clearing between two oak trees. An oddly shaped mound glistened in the rain.

Aaron breathed in slowly, and he noticed the smell. Odor didn’t carry in the rain. He shouldn’t have smelled anything from that distance, just wet soil. Yet he did—a wretched smell slinking through the rain, impervious. And Aaron was certain the mound in that clearing was its origin.

Aaron edged closer, and details materialized under the raincloud’s feeble silver glow. A glossy plastic sheet had been stretched over a lumpy mass. Droplets splattered on the material and drizzled off in the folds. A shovel stood propped against a tree beside a pile of mud, and an unfinished hole—a grave.

Suddenly, Aaron choked on the stench of rotting flesh. He clutched his stomach as the black fumes pried into his nostrils, scorched his sinuses. His knees jerked and he lost his balance, tripped forward and caught himself inches from the plastic. By then he knew what was underneath, and he realized it would be a mistake to visit Dr. Selavio.

The mound was a corpse wrapped in cellophane and turned on its side, a boy; he couldn’t have been more than seventeen. Blisters festered on his waxy skin.

It was like someone turned up the volume inside Aaron’s head. His heart drummed. The oak leaves crackled beneath him as he stumbled backward.

The boy had to be Justin Gorski.

But there was one thing about the body that disturbed Aaron more than anything else. Under the faint light from a nearly full moon that beamed above the clouds, it was clear.

It couldn’t have been any clearer. Justin’s head had been shaved, and a dark “X” had been drawn across the back of his scalp. And in the very center, scabbed over and crawling with maggots, a hole had been drilled into the back of his skull.

NINE

0 Days, 9 hours, 51 minutes

Justin’s corpse proved Casler had committed murder—no, worse than that. He had punctured the boy’s channel and drained his sacred connection to Emma Mist into a vial, killing them both.

And he claimed he cured half death.

Aaron turned away from the corpse and faced the house. A surge of prickly blood blurred his vision. Rain boiled off his skin, and he stumbled forward and crossed the meadow. He snapped off fistfuls of gnarled stalks, splinters and all, and wiped his face. He reached the door in the east wall of the house and yanked the handle.

The door creaked open, and he stepped inside a laundry room. Murderer or not, Aaron just wanted his fucking cell phone back.

As soon as he was inside, static scampered across his skin. The floor vibrated from the drone of Casler’s machine. Once again, he noticed the sore spot at the back of his head, like a finger pressing out from the inside.

Aaron climbed the nearest staircase. He found Clive’s room empty, but what he saw from the doorway knotted his stomach. There wasn’t a square inch