Enlightenment Read online

  Enlightenment

  By: J.R. McNamee

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2020 by J.R. McNamee

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Any trademarks, service marks, product names or names featured are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if we use one of these terms.

  Editing and Formatting by: C&D Editing

  Cover Art by: Tom Dalston

  ISBN: 978-1-7772081-1-0

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  Acknowledgment

  Dedication

  This book goes out to everyone who is going through a tough time.

  My hope is that Alec can brighten your spirit and encourage you to keep fighting.

  Chapter 1

  I stood in darkness so dense that it was suffocating. I couldn’t tell if my eyes were opened or closed, or if I was on solid ground or floating in empty space. That was when a single droplet of the purest white light bloomed into life and a woman’s face appeared in front of me.

  “Mom?” I gasped.

  The droplet of light slid down her cheek, and I realized she was crying. But she looked at me with her warm smile that always touched her eyes. “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” she said, arms spread wide as if she wanted to embrace me.

  Rushing forward, I raced into her arms, but I passed right through her as if she were only mist.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything,” she said, her eyes so filled with sadness that I could barely look at her. “I’m so, so sorry.” She blinked hard, and the single teardrop dripped off her chin, but it did not fall to the floor. Instead, it hovered in the air, floating. Then it started to shine even more brightly. It beat with tender white light, becoming more brilliant by the second.

  “Where are you?” I asked desperately.

  Slowly, the light floated toward me like a tiny star.

  “I do not know.” My mom sniffed sadly.

  I couldn’t look at anything else as the droplet pulsed brighter and brighter, and the closer it drifted toward me, the more faded my mom became.

  “Mom …” I whispered helplessly.

  The light pressed against my skin, and I could feel its warmth. But it didn’t stop there. It passed right into my chest. I could briefly see my ribs and heart before the light went out and my mom vanished.

  ***

  “Rise and shine, Master Foster. It’s about time you woke up,” said my penguin-looking butler, Cornelius, as he pulled back the drapes to let the sun flood into my room. “Up, up, up. It’s 6:45. You don’t want to be late for your end of the year field trip, now do you?”

  “Come on, Corny; five more minutes,” I begged, throwing the sheets over my head.

  “Absolutely not, sir.” He cleared his throat. “You know there was once a young chap from Wales …”

  “Fine,” I grumbled. “I’m up.” I never liked his endless supply of stories that hid messages of his version of proper etiquette.

  “And do hurry, my young master; the bus leaves within the hour.” He gave a triumphant smirk as he left my room.

  What really woke me up was the tight wrench in my gut when I remembered what I would be doing tonight. I had been planning it for so long. I thought I’d be excited when the day finally came, but now that it had, I just felt nauseated.

  “Oh, and your father instructed me to tell you …” Cornelius started, stepping back into my room.

  Oh, here it comes, I thought, another birthday wish delivered through Cornelius.

  “… don’t get into any trouble.”

  “Why couldn’t he tell me that himself?” I snapped.

  “Due to an emergency, your father thought it best to depart on his business trip to China early.”

  That was the last straw. No happy birthday, son? Not even a goodbye? Just stay out of trouble … But I knew what he really meant. He didn’t want me to do anything that would make him look bad.

  I shook my head and slammed a fist against the mattress. It was almost like he wanted me to leave.

  Pitching off the covers, I got dressed in a black Polo and beige shorts before taking my customary route to the kitchen by avoiding my father’s office, even though he wasn’t there right now. I made my way into the kitchen to pick up one of my chef’s healthy smoothies off the pristine marble counter. Then I heaved my overnight bag onto my back and left the house without ever glancing back.

  It was a beautiful day with the sun shining, cab drivers yelling at Uber drivers, and the smell of fresh pollution in the air. I walked down to the subway, barely paying attention as I did so, having walked this route so many times before.

  My mind started to wander, going over every possible problem that could occur tonight. The patrolling teachers and employees at the hotel that my class was staying at would be hard enough to get past, but the bigger problem would be accidentally running into Bradley, who was sure to be up after curfew, while everyone else was in bed just to think he was cool. Maybe I could use the fire escape?

  Before I knew it, my thoughts changed on me, drifting to the dream I’d had last night. I’d never had a dream like that before. It felt so real. I wished it was. That way, I could have gotten to hug my mom again. But touching her was a sure-fire way to know it was only a dream, because seven months, three weeks, and five days ago, my mom disappeared.

  The authorities couldn’t figure out what had happened. There were signs of a struggle along the pathway that my mom usually took home from work.

  The police had told us to remain calm. Given how wealthy my father was, they had expected a ransom.

  None ever came.

  It was as if my mom simply vanished from the world.

  But I was going to find her.

  I was so fixated on my own thoughts that it wasn’t until I got off the subway when a funny feeling that someone was watching me hit, like a prickly feeling on the back of my neck. As I looked around though, all I saw was the usual hustle and bustle of New York City.

  Shrugging, I yanked on my shoulder straps, raising my heavy field trip duffle bag higher up on my shoulders. I had more than just clothing for the trip in my bag. I’d been packing for weeks, making sure I had everything I felt I would need to survive, which included my father’s precious ancient sword. He had found it the very day I was born, hiking through the Amazon while my mom was alone in the New York general hospital.

  I took the sword simply to spite my father. It felt good taking away something he cared so much about, but a little protection wouldn’t be a bad idea, either, in case I ran into a mugger
or something.

  I looked over my shoulder again, just to make sure I wasn’t being followed, and noticed this beautiful blonde staring at me. And when I say beautiful, I’m underselling her. She had a smile that shone for days, with such deep blue eyes that it made my heart flutter.

  At first, I gave her what my mom would call my “charming smile,” but she didn’t seem affected by it at all. She just continued to stare at me until I looked away uncomfortably.

  Unnerved, I shook the weird, hot girl out of my head and continued on my way to school, marching along, shoulder to shoulder, in the New York foot traffic. I continued for several more blocks, yet that prickly feeling wouldn’t let up.

  As I got back onto the sidewalk, I looked at the reflection in a store window and my breath caught. The girl was glaring at me. My stomach clenched. Was she following me?

  I snorted. What’s gotten into me? This was stupid. There must have been hundreds of people heading in the same general direction as me. I mean, this was New York. I must have just been paranoid about tonight.

  I tried to focus my thoughts, but every few minutes, the girl’s face would pop back into my mind. I felt uneasy about how she looked at me. I swear she looked hungry.

  As I reached my school, I heard my class before I saw them. My cellmates—I mean, classmates—were laughing and talking excitedly about hitting up Boston as they stood behind a large bus parked in front of the school. As usual, when I approached, they shuffled away and ignored me.

  I checked over my shoulder and, to my relief, found the blonde nowhere in sight. See? I thought to myself, Just paranoid.

  Miss Wilkenson, my short, plump teacher, waddled into view, silently trying to count us all, but then the bus driver opened the doors and we rampaged onto the bus.

  I never knew why, but for some reason, the back of the bus was imbued with the power of coolness. Therefore, I took a seat in the middle to myself.

  “Now, children,” Miss Wilkenson started in her overly sweet voice, “remember your manners. We do not want an accident like last time, do we?”

  Many of my classmates snickered as I blushed.

  Last time, Bradley and his gang had thought it would be funny to chase me around the Natural History Museum. I only escaped them by climbing up the T-Rex skeleton, which then fell and kind of broke into a million pieces. You’d think millions-year-old dinosaur bones wouldn’t shatter so easily.

  I lived on the streets for three days after that, preferring that than whatever my father had in store for me once he found out. I had experienced his rage too many times to risk it.

  “Now, everyone, settle down,” Miss Wilkenson said as the bus driver grumbled angrily when the bus doors jammed. “One last headcount, and then we will be on our way.” She raised a clipboard.

  “Jane?”

  “Here”

  “Mikael?”

  “Here”

  “Alec?”

  “Here,” I said, and then Miss Wilkenson continued down the list of students.

  That was when the beautiful blonde with sparkling blue eyes stepped onto the bus, and I nearly jumped out of my seat as she sat down at the front, answering her phone. What was she doing here? And who actually called on a cell phone anymore?

  “Hey, do you know who she is?” I asked my only friend, Devon, who plopped into the seat behind me. Our friendship was conditioned that it remain hushed up because, like all the others, Devon didn’t want to get picked on for hanging out with me by the resident kingpin, Bradley.

  Bradley was a bad dude. T-Rex mishap had nothing on being kidnapped, beaten, and left duct taped to the gym floor in my boxers overnight. They targeted me the day they found out my father was the CEO of a billion-dollar company. Maybe they thought if they broke me like a piggy bank, money would come out.

  “What girl? Where? Is she hot?” Devon asked. He had short red hair, a pudgy face, and his beady eyes were going haywire as he searched for the girl.

  “That girl.” I pointed at the front seat, at my stalker.

  “Um, bro, there’s no girl in that seat,” Devon said, looking confused then disappointed.

  “Come on, man; stop messing around. The blonde.”

  Devon hesitated for a second. “Yeah … Sure. And here’s my supermodel girlfriend sitting right beside me.” He smirked, putting his arm around an imaginary shoulder. “Seriously, there’s no blonde in that seat. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Miss,” I called, “she’s not supposed to be …”

  My stalker looked me right in the eye and said something into her phone that looked a lot like “he will not escape me.”

  Now, my lipreading wasn’t amazing, but what she’d said, coupled with the evil wink she gave me, made me edgy. What really made me grip the front of the seat and made my mouth dry, however, were her eyes. I swear they had just flashed a poisonous green, if only for a heartbeat. Then she smiled and looked out the front window.

  “Alec dear, what were you saying?” Miss Wilkenson asked.

  “N-n-nothing. Um, never mind.” I gulped, watching the depressions of my fingers on the seat fade.

  “All right, Gus, take us to Boston!” Devon yelled to the bus driver, causing many people to whoop excitedly.

  I turned toward Devon. “You really don’t see the blonde in the front seat?” I whispered, trying to keep a pleading note from entering my voice.

  “No, man.” With that, he started belching the national anthem. He was weird like that, but I was glad he was here. He was the only person who at least tried to fight the friendless curse that Bradley had bestowed upon me.

  The bus ride to Boston was as you would expect a bus full of sugar-high teens to go. Within the first five minutes, a ferocious eraser war started at the back of the bus, which then grew to include spit wads and elastic bands. The class joker, Rose, stood up on her seat and shouted dramatically, “For Spa—”

  I’m assuming she wanted to say, “For Sparta,” but a chunk of eraser shot right down her throat, and she gagged.

  The people at the back of the bus were forced to stop when a spit wad the size of a quarter smacked Miss Wilkenson square on the forehead. Man, did that little lady hold a lot of anger. By the end of her tirade, she was beet red and a vein was pulsing in her temple.

  After that, things calmed down. Devon made faces at pedestrians as we drove by, and I laughed at their reactions; Bradley was flexing for a bunch of girls who were staring at him with googly eyes; and Rose was telling a scary story in a hushed tone. Things were going all right considering the “apparently” invisible blonde girl in the front seat. She would glance back at me on occasion, but she mainly kept her focus on her phone.

  Under normal circumstances, I would like to get a girl’s attention, but I had a funny feeling she wouldn’t want to go catch a movie. The way she leaned over the aisle while sitting, it seemed like she was trying to block anyone from leaving. The worrying part was how she looked at me. Same crazy eyes that my father gave an apple pie on Thanksgiving. And let me tell you, the pie never survived the night.

  It might seem weak on my part, but this girl started to worry me. I knew I was in danger, but what made it worse was not understanding why no one else could see her. Miss Wilkenson even briefly sat beside the blonde without making any indication that she was there, but then the spit wad had hit her, and she had taken a seat right at the very back, becoming a human buzzkill to the students.

  Purely out of instinct, I started forming a plan to escape a speeding twenty-ton vehicle. It was a skill I had picked up after seeing my father holding a glass of scotch.

  Quickly scoping out all the exits, I tried to figure out which way would be the fastest way out of danger. Miss Glowy Eyes had the doors covered, which left the push out glass halfway up the bus and the roof hatch. I thought long and hard about a plan of action, but it was only when New York was long gone did I have a plan fully prepared. The best part was, if done right, it could advance my plans without anyone being the wiser.
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  There was something very wrong about this blonde girl … Shadows clung to her in a menacing way, which made me think it was too dangerous to try to escape by the bus doors. Nevertheless, I had a feeling my plan would work. Although, I had to let Devon in on the plan, to have my back once they realized I was gone.

  At first, he argued, but when I slipped him a couple of bills from the wad of cash that I had brought with me, he changed his tune.

  “Hey, everybody,” I said, standing up on my seat.

  The blonde girl frowned as she tried to figure out what I was up to.

  “Alec, sit down!” Miss Wilkenson said sharply, but I ignored her.

  “I had the worst school year ever, thanks to you all. Some of you made memories I’ll never forget.” I glared at Bradley. “But, as I’m using you all as tools right now, I would like to thank you and give you this.” I tossed my runaway money high into the air then threw open a window.

  The reaction was unbelievable as the bus turned into a giant tornado of money, with the whole class exploding into chaos. With money in the balance, friend turned on friend as hair-pulling and shoving started in an attempt to get as much money as possible.

  I didn’t stay to watch the carnage. I ran straight for the roof hatch, knowing my teacher would notice an escape window missing … Well, she would if she ever stopped wrestling money off the foreign exchange student. So, as long as I closed the escape hatch in the roof, I should be fine, especially if Devon held up his end of the bargain.

  I jumped onto the backrest of a seat, duffle bag slung over my shoulder, and pulled on the latch, opening it. Then I started pulling myself out, only to be thrown against the side of the opening as the bus jerked violently. Losing my grip, I dropped and landed awkwardly on a seat.

  The blonde girl shoved my classmates aside as she bore down on me. Her tongue lashed out, and I realized with a shudder that it was long and forked. Then the whole bus jerked again, sending Blondie to the ground with several classmates and Miss Wilkenson on top of her.