The Spark Read online

  THE SPARK

  R. J. Wade

  Copyright © 2021 by R. J. Wade

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  All rights reserved.

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  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Book cover design by Stuart Bache at Books Covered.

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  ISBN 978-1-9160692-4-4 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-9160692-5-1 (hardback)

  ISBN 978-1-9160692-3-7 (ebook)

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  www.RJWadeBooks.com

  Contents

  Your Free Exclusive Content

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Your Free Exclusive Content

  You can get a free copy of the Aura Extras PDF featuring exclusive content when you sign up to join my Reader’s Group.

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  Visit my website to get started:

  www.RJWadeBooks.com/extras

  Chapter 1

  The air in the menagerie is rank with the smell of blood and vomit. The floor of the cell feels unsteady beneath my feet.

  I stare blindly at the tray of food Aldrich just slid into my cell.

  Nothing makes any sense.

  “Aldrich, what do you mean?” I scream after the doctor’s retreating form.

  My voice cracks with fear.

  Aldrich’s phone rings and he answers it. He doesn’t pause in his retreat.

  “No. Just a fall,” he snaps impatiently at the person on the other end.

  Why would he be trying to hide what I did from anyone?

  He sounds harassed. Anxious. “Nothing to worry about.”

  He kills the call and drops the phone as he tries to pocket it with shaking hands. It skids across the floor.

  I pound my fists on the walls of my prison, my head pounding.

  “Aldrich, stop!” I shout desperately. “What have I set in motion?”

  My mind races over what Aldrich just told me:

  Edward’s son is a Savant.

  Edward wants to assemble The Triptych.

  Our memory disks synced when we met.

  Aldrich bends down to pick up the phone, his momentum carrying him closer to the Menagerie exit.

  I can’t let him leave me down here.

  I need answers.

  Now, Aura.

  I try to focus on his panicked, scattergun thoughts, pushing through sickening pain to get inside of his head. I wince at the exertion. If I’m not careful, I’m going to pass out again.

  The connection is thin, but for a second, I'm able to push the doctor off course.

  He stumbles like a man with vertigo, grabbing for the wall of the closest cell for balance, but I’m not strong enough to knock him down entirely.

  The connection breaks.

  Aldrich looks at me in disbelief as I sag against the wall of my cell, fighting to stay upright.

  “Are you trying to kill yourself?” he wheezes. “Did you not hear a word I said to you?”

  Right.

  He had been remarking on the kamikaze way I use my Gift… Why would he even care?

  I throw up again, wiping my mouth on my bloodied sleeve.

  “Please,” I say, pressing my palms and my forehead against the glass, ignoring both the vomit and the doctor’s rebuke. “What happens if Edward assembles The Triptych? What do you mean I don’t know what I’ve started? What are you so afraid of?”

  He rubs his forehead with a shaking hand, only half-talking to me. “Edward Law isn’t a stable man. The Triptych in his hands could destroy everything.”

  He looks at me directly, his eyes hooded. “We need to find Edward, Aurora. Before it’s too late.”

  I glare back at him.

  “I know you hope you can save your parents,” he says. “And you may. It may only be a matter of time before Robert Wolfe is removed from power. But there are other elements at play that you know nothing about. And if Edward Law assembles The Triptych, no one will be safe.”

  Fear curls in the pit of my stomach.

  Aura, aura, aura, aura…

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  Mum’s reaction when I told her about working with Edward swirls around in my head with Aldrich’s unspoken ‘cataclysm.’

  I don’t know what to think.

  I just know I have to save Dad.

  I open my eyes.

  Aldrich is still on the other side of the glass, staring at me. I meet his gaze, pushing down my doubts, and fire back at him defiantly.

  “I’m the Influencer. Edward can’t do anything without me – and I’m not about to help him create a cataclysm.”

  Aldrich’s eyes flicker.

  He didn’t know I’d heard his thought before.

  “I just want my family safe,” I tell him.

  “If your memory disk synced with Edward’s as you suspect,” Aldrich says. “We don’t know what he’s capable of, even without you.”

  “Then let me out. Let me help you,” I try.

  I need to see Mum.

  I can’t keep her safe if I’m a prisoner down here.

/>   If Aldrich would just let me out, if I could talk to her again... I’d be able to figure out what to do.

  “We’ll find Edward together,” I say. “You need me to help you –”

  “No. I need you to be quiet,” Aldrich snaps, anger overtaking his fear.

  “I need you to say and do nothing unless and until I tell you to.”

  More of his unspoken thoughts hiss over the static in my mind, barely audible:

  … all-out war…

  … neutralize the threat…

  … can’t let him know…

  Again, he turns to go.

  “Wait. Please. You’re not going to leave me here?” I almost choke on the fear clogging my throat.

  He doesn’t look back as he drags himself to the menagerie exit like a man wading through tar.

  “Aldrich! When are you coming back?”

  Ignoring me, he heaves himself up the short flight of steps and out of my view.

  “Dr. Aldrich!”

  The door to the menagerie creaks open and clangs shut again, leaving me with no answers to push away the fear he left behind.

  Trembling, I pace my cell like one of Robert’s mutant creations.

  How did everything get so messed up?

  Did Edward lie to me?

  Why didn’t he get Dad out of the Eden Wing while they were rescuing Rivers?

  He had your father arrested…

  Was that why Mum was afraid when I told her about Edward?

  I shake my head, trying to discount Aldrich's words.

  How can I believe anything he says? He’s the man who created The Chair, who imprisoned Edward and Neeve in the bunker, and who has kept Robert Wolfe in power since the Great Unrest.

  No. I won’t believe him. Edward is not a danger to me.

  But while Aldrich might be playing me to protect himself from some kind of revenge from Edward, right now, he's my only hope for an ally.

  I examine my prison with eyes burning from exhaustion. There’s no lock on the cell door to pick. No AI with a thought pattern I can alter. No blade, gun, or grenade to fight my way out.

  Ignoring Aldrich’s order to keep quiet, I kick away the food tray he left, grab the plastic water bucket from the floor of my cell and crack it against the glass wall in frustration.

  The bucket shatters.

  The glass remains flawless.

  Chapter 2

  Every cell in my body aches, and my hair is plastered to my face with a veil of sweat. I'm hot one minute and cold the next, in the grip of some kind of fever.

  It feels as if hours have passed since Aldrich left.

  Huddling on the floor, wrapped in a scratchy old blanket left in the cell, I stare blindly at the crusty pool of bloody puke in the corner. I sweat and shake, hoping to recover – or at least conserve – something of my energy.

  A snow-white, eight-limbed cat watches me with mild disinterest from the opposite cell.

  In my woozy semi-consciousness, I fantasize about what I'll do to whoever comes for me.

  And I know they will come for me, regardless of Robert’s anger. The President will have to put me back on display sooner or later. The press will wonder where their headlines went, especially with The Assembly coming.

  I wonder what they would think if they could see me right now.

  ‘Aurora Jax. The girl everyone is talking about…’

  I grit my teeth.

  As soon as the cell door opens, I’ll summon up every last ounce of my Gift and hurl whoever is on the other side as far away from me as I can – and then I’ll run.

  Or maybe I can knock them out enough to let me crawl out of here, at least.

  I’ll go get Mum.

  We’ll figure out how to rescue Dad and get out of The Society once and for all.

  There’s only one gigantic flaw in that plan: I already used the last ounce of my strength to influence Aldrich, and I don't know how long it will take me to recover without Edward’s help.

  I’m trapped inside this unbreakable glass box, and only Aldrich knows I’m down here.

  The cat stretches all eight of its legs and yawns, revealing tiny, pointed teeth. It walks to the front of the enclosure and sniffs the air.

  I fall in and out of waking nightmares, my mind racing, losing track of time.

  The clang of a door jerks me into the present.

  Tripping over its legs, the cat scrambles to the back corner of its cell and curls up into a quaking ball. I stagger to my feet, pulling the blanket around my thin pajamas, preparing myself to take on whatever is coming.

  I hear footsteps.

  There’s more than one person.

  I listen for the thought imprints, but there is only static in my head.

  The smell of rotting meat merges with the scent of vomit in my cell.

  Cogs.

  Instinctively, I reach down to grab a sharp piece of plastic from the broken bucket and hide it in the folds of the blanket. It’s not much of a weapon, but it’s better than nothing.

  The footsteps stop outside my cell. I look up defiantly and suck in the foul air, stunned to see the last face I expected staring in from the other side of the glass.

  “Seb,” I whisper, searching my friend’s bloodshot hazel eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  So much for my plan to disable Aldrich’s henchman with a blast of white-hot energy to the cerebral cortex.

  For a moment, Seb looks shaken at the state I'm in, but he recovers quickly, hiding his reaction behind a mask of indifference.

  He is flanked by a pair of fully-armed Cogs.

  Whoever sent him isn’t taking chances.

  “We’re here to escort you to a Clinic Inc.,” Seb says brusquely, gesturing with the small black medical case he’s carrying. His voice is muffled through the glass.

  “Why?” I ask, alarmed.

  He swallows and then glances at the tattoo on my wrist. "Your barcode is being removed."

  I blink.

  “Now?” I frown. “What time is it?” It must still be the middle of the night. “Where’s Aldrich?”

  Seb won’t look me in the eye. “Dr. Aldrich is waiting for you.”

  My stomach churns.

  He’s lying.

  Why?

  They’re going to recalibrate me, just like Robert promised.

  "No, wait." I back up, away from the door. "Aldrich said we could make a deal."

  “Don’t fight this, Aura,” Seb says, his voice low.

  I shake my head.

  This isn’t happening.

  “Get a move on,” one of the Cogs says, and Seb nods.

  As he does, I notice a flashing piece of metal embedded into the side of his neck, partially hidden by the collar of his shirt.

  My gaze jerks up to meet his. What is that?

  Seb squeezes his eyes shut for a second and then looks at me. “Hold your hands up where we can see them.”

  I do as I'm told, dropping the shard of plastic. I can't take my eyes off the flashing silver implant.

  He’s a prisoner.

  I should never have pulled him into any of this.

  Seb holds his Telepathe ID against the key panel at the side of the cell. There is a mechanical clicking sound as the door slides open.

  As Seb steps into the cell with me, the Cogs raise their guns in unison, ready to shoot if I make any false moves. The door closes behind him.

  He puts his medical case down on the floor.

  “What did they do to you?” I ask under my breath.

  “Not now, Aura,” he mutters, bending down and opening the medical case. He takes out a long silver needle and a small vial filled with pale gray liquid.

  “What are you doing?” I ask as he fills the needle with the liquid. “Seb?”

  “It's to keep you calm.” He replaces the vial and then moves slowly toward me as if I might be a wild animal. “So we can transport you safely.”

  I wish my head weren't full of static. I wish I could hear his thoughts.
I wish I could understand what is going on.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “This is going to hurt.”

  I try to remember a time when something wasn't hurting. That morning at the food bank, maybe, when Seb told us we could get out of The Society.

  The day all of this started.

  It feels like a lifetime ago.

  He moves closer, and I can smell his aftershave.

  Gently, he brushes my sweat-soaked hair away from the side of my face.

  “I’m sorry,” he says again quietly, pushing the needle into the side of my neck. I close my eyes as a burning pain floods my body.

  My mind numbs, and my thoughts fall away. There's a whistling sound in my ears.

  I sag against the cell wall, breathing heavily.

  Seb puts the needle away.

  A pair of handcuffs appear from somewhere, and he clips them around my wrists.