Habeas Corpus: Black Womb (Black Womb Collection Book 1) Read online

  HE WILL SURVIVE . . .

  CHAPTER ONE:

  SMALL TOWN

  15 YEARS LATER

  “So, you going to Julian Grendel’s party on Friday?” she asked him, paying little attention to his response or even if he gave one. It was one thing he almost admired about Sara Johnson; she had a way of controlling you without even letting you know you were being controlled. Maybe it was her lips, or how she subconsciously played with her curly blonde hair all the time, but she always did it. She was good at it, and she knew it.

  “Uh, I’m not sure. I was thinking about hitting the Factory with Mike,” Alexander Drew replied, half concentrating on her and half watching out for Grendel himself. For whatever reason, Grendel didn’t like people not coming to his parties. He brushed a hand through his dark brown hair. His eyes darted about skittishly, meeting those of every person who walked past the two of them, then immediately dropped to the floor. Finally, they found her. Her perfect body, not too thin, those lush pink lips, short blonde hair and the way her blue eyes looked right through you, slicing at you.

  “Oh, come on, Xander,” she whined. She said his name like it was some kind of a joke.

  He didn’t remember the orphanage, but he remembered how he got stuck with the name Xander. Every child had been named after a saint. There were three children who had been given the name Alexander by separate caretakers. For identification purposes, one was Alexander, another was Alex, and he was just plain Xander.

  He hated the name; it was just another thing to make him stand out that tiny bit when all he wanted was not to be noticed… and the one person he did want to notice him said his name as if it were a joke.

  “Alright, I’ll come. But you have to promise me you’ll make sure Mike and Cathy don’t ditch me like the last time,” he reasoned, heaving a massive sigh as he gave in.

  “They didn’t ditch you.”

  He gave her a droll, tired look.

  “They didn’t!” she laughed, slapping his arm playfully.

  He frowned, then rolled his eyes and nodded.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t sulk. You know I’m right. They love you.”

  “They do,” he agreed finally. “They really do. They love me and they’re there for me and they are the best of friends - except in public. In public, it’s like we never met.”

  “Drama queen.”

  “Oh, I’m not saying they try it or anything... it’s just the way things are. I get it.” He forced a smile, making eye contact with her. “I don’t even think they realize they do it.”

  She gave him a little smile, the right corner of her lip curling just enough to make her irresistible as she fixed her black tube top, even though it hadn’t really needed it. In all honesty, it was not so much a tube top as it was a strip of black tape going across her chest. That was the other thing about Sara. Besides having the looks of a goddess and the voice of an angel... she dressed like the devil. Skimpy tank tops and hip-hugger jeans. Fishnet stockings wrapped around her hands and covering her forearms. Large hoop earrings, at least two rings on each finger (silver on the left and gold on the right) and all that was just one outfit.

  “I promise,” she said, after she had spent enough time fiddling with her attire to make him twitch. “They’ll be good little boys and girls, as long as you are.”

  He snorted, rolled his eyes, and closed his locker door with a clang. He pulled his book bag onto his back as the two of them started walking toward the front exit of Coral Beach High, the flat-out boring high school in the mediocre town of Coral Beach, getting ready to walk home together just like they did every day.

  “So, what’s new today?” he asked, shooting her a smile. “Anything scandalous going on?”

  Now it was his turn to know the answer before she gave it. He asked something like that of her every day, because to her there was always something scandalous happening. Everywhere. Always. But to be fair, scandalous things seemed to happen around her anyway.

  “Well,” she started, smirking to herself proudly. “I heard from Julie Peterson today that the reason Derek has been so on edge lately is because Theresa had to take the test.”

  “Yeah,” Xander nodded. “That Family Living test was bad news. I think I must have only gotten an eighty-five or something...”

  She turned and gave him a little slap on the arm. “Not that test, you halfwit. A pregnancy test.”

  Xander’s eyes went wide for a moment as he held open the front door for her, which she barely acknowledged. “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why would Derek be messed up over that?” he asked naively.

  She shot him a look.

  “Ah. Forget I asked.”

  “Done.”

  “Wasn’t she supposed to be with Jamie?”

  “They broke up.”

  “Why? I mean, besides the ‘she may be pregnant from another man’ thing?”

  “That’s just a rumor. The real reason was because he cheated on her,” she smirked to herself coyly.

  “With who?” he moaned, feeling a relationship headache coming on.

  “Me,” she said proudly, and he realized that this would become a migraine before it was over.

  Xander finished walking home with Sara, like always. They lived next door to one another, and had since either of them could remember. Since they were children. Every day he’d remember little things like where he’d fallen out of the tree trying to sneak up to her room when they were six, when she had been sick and wanted to play. Or on his lush, green lawn where she had found out how he felt when they were twelve.

  He had had a huge crush on her that summer and had been sitting on the sidewalk between their houses, burning their initials into a piece of wood. She had started toward him on roller blades and he had dropped the wood and ran into his house. She’d picked it up and looked at it, then thrown it into the trees on her way down the road, never actually speaking of it. He could still remember the scent of the wood as it burned every time he thought of it. It was the way love smelled.

  At that age, most children were confident of their own immortality. That they could do anything, and go anywhere. But it was then that he realized how different he was from his friend. She was a princess in their school. Other kids wondered why she lowered herself to talking to him. He was… abnormal. Subnormal. Less than human. Those who actually took notice of him could barely stand him. But when he was around her, none of it mattered. On that ten minute walk from home to school and back again, the world could fall down around his ears and crush him every day, and he wouldn’t care. He would ask for more.

  “So, about the party...” Sara stared, looking up at him, her eyes sparkling.

  “Yeah?” he said, his voice rising with the smallest speckle of hope.

  “Jamie’s going to be coming with me, so you better not get all weird with him... okay? I like him.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said softly, his eyes fading back downward.

  She walked up her driveway and through the off-white door into her house.

  He watched it for a second after she was gone as if she were still there, then walked into his own house.

  He went straight up his stairs and into his room, passing by his father quickly to avoid the usual barrage of questions.

  He logged onto his computer and suddenly he wasn’t a loser anymore. He wasn’t anybody’s doormat. He was the king of everything. He was everything. The ultimate hacker.

  A sly smile spread over his face as he turned on the screen, illuminating his face in bright blue in the dark room, his eyes alive with vindictive excitement as he opened up all of his programs.

  The Factory.

  A local arcade/club/dance hall where all the teens went when there was nothing else to do. Located in the scenic downtown of Coral Beach, which was roughly a five minute walk from ‘up’ town, the Factory jutted up from the otherwise calm landscape, always loud and exciting and neon.

  Jamie Dawkins leaned over one of the many p
ool tables that adorned the club, raising an eyebrow as he tried to figure out his shot. His leather sports jacket crumpled and scrunched noisily every time he moved, impeding his ability to shoot. Many times he had pushed up the sleeves in an effort to alleviate the inconvenience, but they always fell back down almost immediately. But he dared not take it off. His brother had worn that jacket when he was captain of the Coral Beach Cougars, and his father before that. Now that he was finally captain, it barely ever left his back. Some even said he showered with it on.

  As good as he was at football (almost undisputed as the best in the entire region), his abilities did not translate into every sport. Pool, as it turned out, was not one of them. His face began to turn red as he huffed in frustration. Standing back up and grabbing the chalk, he fumbled it over the top of his stick and smeared a little onto his hands as he had once seen some pool champ on ESPN do. Nervous and more than a little agitated, the bulky teen rubbed a hand over his close-cut hair, accidently leaving some of the blue powder there as well.

  Across the table his opponent, Mike Harris, snickered a little at the sight. Mike nearly had all of the high balls sunk, but Jamie was still on his third low. It was probably a good thing that this wasn’t one of the high profile tournaments that were held here once or twice a month, or Jamie would’ve been the laughing stock of the school for at least a week.

  Mike glanced into the large, circular mirror that was mounted in the top corner of the room, watching a cute black-haired girl without her even realizing it. She had an adorable round face with rose-red lips and wore a tight top over her slim figure to match them. Her eyes were almost almond shaped, a trait accentuated by how she wore her eyeliner. She wore loose, relaxed jeans with frills going down the sides, and held her Coke near her breasts, playing with the straw a little with her tongue.

  Smiling, he turned back to the game.

  On the other side of the room, Cathy Kennessy sipped on her soda subconsciously. She wasn’t really paying attention to the game. She was watching Mike. Very intently. The way he moved with his large, square shoulders and tall frame. The way shocks of his blonde hair fell over his brow, touching his sky blue eyes in places. The way his freckles dotted his cheeks. And his arms, she couldn’t forget his arms. Those large, muscular arms that he used to pick her up and spin her around and hold her when she was cold.

  From across the room, Grendel watched Cathy from the bar, smirking to himself. He was wearing a ratty button-down shirt as a coat over his tee shirt, the sleeves of which extended well over his hands, absorbing moisture from the bar into their tattered fibers.

  He took one last swig of cola from his glass, feeling it sizzle as tiny flickers of it connected with his cheeks. He took notice of the waitress as she wiped a ring of condensation from his glass away even as he picked it up, throwing her a wink. She rolled her eyes at him.

  Wiping the pop from his face, he started across the room.

  He popped up next to Cathy, producing a smile so large it made his ears wiggle.

  “Great music, huh?” he said cheerfully, looking her up and down.

  She turned to him, glancing at his large, innocent eyes for a moment. His bald head and his attempt to grow scruff along the sides of his face and chin made him look just a little silly, enough to make her laugh whenever she saw him.

  She stopped for a second to acknowledge the very music he was talking about. She had been so engrossed in watching her boyfriend that she had barely even noticed it. They were a local band called Ragnarok, playing their own rendition of Superman’s Dead by Our Lady Peace. It was good, but not as good as the original and definitely not as good as the band’s own music.

  She gave Grendel a little nod.

  This was how it always was. She had her outside image, she attended the games, listened to the music, put on the face. But all she really cared about was her boyfriend and her friends. Friends like Sara and Xander.

  Poor Xander.

  She called him that so much that some of the juniors had actually started to believe it was his name. She’d always thought he and Sara were perfect for one another, but Sara had, like, serial boyfriends. She went through them like popcorn. Cathy always warned her that she would eventually hit a kernel and get a bad one, or she’d pass over a really good one.

  “So, what’s going on?” Grendel asked, leaning against the counter next to her. He followed her gaze until he was watching the game as well.

  “Not much,” she said, an evil smirk spreading across her lips. “Mike’s kicking Jamie’s ass.”

  Grendel laughed. “What else is new? Jamie’s about as good at pool as he is at football.”

  “That why he’s captain and you didn’t make the team?” she poised playfully, raising an eyebrow in his direction. She turned away from Mike for the first time since the conversation began.

  “Hey, I just couldn’t take the politics of the game, is all.”

  “How is a bunch of testosterone crazed idiots running around and slamming into each other wearing glorified coconut shells and pouring Gatorade over each other political?”

  “I see no differences between what you just said and what goes on in government.” He paused. “Except football players usually have more going on for them upstairs than your average president.”

  Across the room, Jamie finally parted with his jacket, laying it on a hanger near him. He leaned in for his shot as Mike, Cathy and now Grendel all watched. He tried to get the seven ball in the side pocket with an easy straight shot, but the table was old and the cloth was lumpy and torn in spots. The cue missed the seven completely and ended up bouncing harmlessly off the side.

  Smiling, Mike leaned in quickly (almost before the cue had stopped rolling) and finished the game with a bank shot that sunk the eight ball into the side pocket.

  Jamie looked enraged, but he suppressed the anger and calmly put down the pool cue.

  “Good game,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “Yes, it was.” Mike laughed, shaking his opponent’s hand curtly. “Now pay up.”

  Jamie sighed, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a five, grumbling as though he had expected Mike to forget.

  “Wanna play again?”

  “Ha,” Jamie smiled. “Not likely. I think I’m just gonna head home and call Sara.”

  “Cool,” Mike shrugged, putting his stick away and walking over to where Cathy and Grendel stood. He placed the five down on the counter and waited for Roxanne to come around so that he could buy Cathy a snack before they left.

  “You won!” she chirped happily, spreading out her arms as though she were cheering him on from the sidelines of the Superbowl.

  “I did,” he laughed, placing a hand on her hip. “Wait, was that in doubt? Did you have doubt-face?”

  “Never once,” she assured him, glancing from the five dollar bill to rack of snacks and goodies behind the bar. She knew what it meant. She’d seen it before.

  He gave her a quick kiss, then extended it into a longer one.

  Jamie shrugged, justifying his loss with the fact that the money would be put to good use buying Cathy and Mike dinner, but more importantly, some much needed alone time. Life was busy, even if their parents would argue that they were lazy.

  He grabbed his leather Cougars jacket and waved a goodbye to Mike and Cathy, although they hardly noticed. He smirked to himself as he opened the door and walked out.

  Grendel looked away from Mike and Cathy as they went deeper and deeper into their kiss. As he glanced back at them, a disgusted look coming over his face. His eyes slowly fell down her backside until he found himself looking at things he knew that he shouldn’t. He turned toward the door and smiled a little. “I think I’ll head out, too. You two seem like you wanna be alone.”

  They didn’t answer, each of them too deep in the other.

  He got up and walked for the door, slamming it behind him.

  Neither of them noticed or cared.

  Jamie started to walk down the stre
et. It was getting dark, and he lit up a cigarette and took a long draw. Then he looked down at it and got suddenly revolted with himself. He’d smoked for years. He knew what it was doing to him, why he was having trouble running the whole distance of the field now. He finished the smoke on the corner and threw the smouldering butt down onto the sidewalk, swearing to himself that he’d never touch another one of them.

  He thought he heard something behind him, then started walking again, zipping his jacket to protect himself against the harsh cold of night. He could see his own breath as it swirled up around his head like a wreath.

  A dark figure stepped out of the shadows behind him and stepped in time with him, squishing the discarded cigarette beneath his heavy feet.

  Jamie heard it now, he was sure of it. The footsteps were getting closer and closer to him. He started to pick up his pace, and so did the second set of footsteps. He broke into an all out run, hearing the second set do the same, close behind him. He got to the end of the block and made a sharp turn, beads of sweat already forming on his forehead. He got to the end of the next block and bent over from the pain in his side. He shouldn’t have gotten such a painful stitch already. He ran three times this far on the football field every day. Yet his lungs heaved, each breath brought agony, and he made a small grunt from the pain. He looked up, turning around to face his attacker for the first time.

  There was nobody there. He searched the streets and doorways around him with his eyes, seeing nothing.

  Suddenly, he started to laugh.

  He stomped his foot down onto the black pavement, listening to the echo of the sound returning to him. He’d been running from noises, shadows. He laughed once more at his own stupidity.