An excerpt from Strength by S.M Welles now available here:
Strength (Aigis Trilogy, Book 1)
Chapter 1
The Glass Bottle
That’s it. I can’t stand it any longer. Roxie snuck up the basement stairs and crouched so she could peer through the gap between the door and wood flooring. The plan had been to wait until at least eleven, but she ran out of pen caps after chewing up a fifth one. She narrowed her eyes against the air flowing through the gap and searched for her grandmother, whom she hoped had gone to bed a little early. Roxie didn’t want to be told yet again, her grandmother’s eyes rolling skyward, “Rox, you’re not an alien.” She knew she wasn’t an alien, but from age six to somewhere around eight or nine, she had been thoroughly convinced she was one. Now seventeen, the “alien” idea had cropped back up as a half-serious, half-joking explanation for her latest odd behavior: a compulsion to travel a specific southeasterly route through her home city of Buffalo, New York.
The nightly news delivered its latest story and the living room was dimly lit, two signs to turn around, go back downstairs, and wait until later. But maybe the TV would mask the sound of an opening and closing door. Roxie shifted to one side of the gap and searched for a pair of slippers framed by the coffee table in front of the couch.
No slippers. No Grandma, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in the bathroom, or had simply tucked her feet onto the couch.
Roxie raised herself to a kneeling position on the first carpeted step and touched the doorknob one finger at a time, trying hard to not let her anxious grip jiggle it. Old as her grandmother was, she had all her wits about her, eyes that noticed anything—so long as her glasses were on—and hearing that had only begun to fade now that she’d entered her seventies. A door cracking open, seemingly of its own accord, would garner as much attention as ringing a church bell.
For the last few weeks, Roxie had felt like she was standing at the beginning of a path she’d never taken, but had always wanted to know where it led. A gentle pull originating in her stomach urged her on her southeasterly route, as if a literal gut instinct was trying to guide her to someplace or someone important. Over the last few days the tug had gotten more insistent, so she tried walking around the neighborhood in hopes of discovering where this curious pull wanted her to go. She found herself taking the same turns, wandering a little farther, and a little farther each day, until she decided she’d travelled far enough from home. Stopping herself took some willpower. Turning back generated a cold panic in her chest. The only reason she never lost control was because she found her panic irrational. Yet each time she made it back home, she felt more restless, more out of place, and she didn’t understand why.
She needed to find the answer tonight.
Breath held, Roxie turned the doorknob and eased the door open. The couch lay empty. She exhaled and pushed the door farther open, then froze before she could let go of the knob. Staring back at her was Grandma, all the way from the kitchen table.
“What are you up to, Rox? Your eyes are glowing.” Grandma sounded like she wasn’t in the mood for nonsense.
The sudden surprise of getting caught was enough to cause Roxie’s eyes to glow; they glowed whenever she strongly felt sad, angry or frightened, an uncontrollable external indicator of how she felt on the inside. To her knowledge she was the only person on Earth with glowing eyes, which was why she’d never totally dismissed the possibility of being an alien. The problem with that theory was her parents, who were most certainly from Earth themselves, although they both died the day she was born. There were pictures of them all over the house, and she had spent hours with Grandma leafing through photo albums that showed her parents dating, getting married, Roxie’s mother’s belly getting bigger every month, and even copies of the ultrasounds.
Roxie glanced at the back door, which seemed to beckon to her with its dull brass knob.
“Just go back to your room and read one of your old alien books. It’s too late at night for this nonsense.”
Roxie meant to head back to her room, but instead rounded the couch and headed for the back door. “I’m sorry, I know this is a bad time for this, but I have to go. I feel like the answer is really close this time.” She reached for the door.
“And it can’t wait ‘til morning?”
Roxie thought for a moment. “Sorry. No.” Without realizing it, she’d already opened the inner door and had a hand on the screen door.
Grandma set her pencil down. She frowned and stared at Roxie over the rim of her glasses, her frown lined by wrinkles. “You thought the answer was close last night and the night before. Go back to your room.”
“I can’t!” Roxie blurted, then cringed. Defying her grandmother was something she lacked the gall to do. She respected her grandmother’s judgment, and right now understood that wandering around cities at night was stupid. But tonight Roxie felt like she had no option but to go out.
Grandma rose from her chair, put her fist on her hips, and scrutinized Roxie, who noticed her grip had grown slick on the door handle. She wiped her hand on her capris and braced herself for the incoming berating.
Grandma took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “You’re lucky your eyes glow, or else I’d never believe you.”
Roxie felt the warmth behind her retinas fade, meaning her eyes had stopped glowing.
“Be careful.”
Relief blossomed in Roxie’s chest, but was replaced by an urgency to get moving. “I will.” She slipped out the back door, which screeched in protest as it swung shut, and Roxie headed into the forest, her eyes aglow once again. No wind rustled the leaves, and the crickets and tree frogs hushed themselves as she traversed their part of the forest. Roxie shot her glowing-eyed gaze in the direction of any minute rustling and twig scraping nearby but, to her relief, no raccoons, foxes or opossums decided to give her a heart attack.
Roxie reached the other side of the woods and entered a run-down section of Buffalo, a part she knew well enough from all her recent trips into the city. She wasn’t a big fan of cities, even though she’d been through those particular streets a zillion times without incident.
The pull guided her past the soup kitchen and its flock of homeless people, a collection of ragged dogs waiting for their next meal.
Minutes later, Roxie found an intersection connected to an alley without working lights. She couldn’t recall walking past a lightless street on previous wanderings. Common sense told her to go find another way, but the pull in her mind implored her in that dark direction. Okay, now my brain decides to lead me a different way! The pull had normally guided her to take a turn a couple of blocks ago, but not tonight.
Roxie made it to the middle of the intersection, half in darkness and half in light, when she saw the silhouette of a tall, muscular person that seemed to be looking straight at her. Was that a knife in his hand? The sight of blood all over a sidewalk flashed in her mind. She backed away, then started running.
Roxie just made it onto the sidewalk when someone grabbed her arm and forced her to turn around. She felt the delicate touch of something sharp press against her throat. Before she could contemplate her own mortality, or even how her attacker had managed to sprint across the intersection so fast, she almost went deaf. A thunderous bang from overhead echoed through the entire block, and a wave of wind swept out in all directions from where they stood. Streetlights flickered, then everything returned to normal. What the heck was that?