Quantum Entanglement Read online

  Quantum Entanglement: Part One (Legion of Supernatural Academy Series)

  Copyright © 2019 S.R. Watson & Ryan Stacks

  www.watsonandstacks.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction. The publication of these trademarks is not associated with or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the authors at [email protected]

  Cover Design: Joolz & Jarling Book Covers

  Editor: Editing4Indies

  Photo Credit: RplusMphoto

  Cover Model: Ryan Stacks

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Quantum Entanglement: Part One Playlist

  Other Books by S.R. Watson & Ryan Stacks

  About S.R. Watson

  About Ryan Stacks

  Prologue

  Series Foreshadow

  What is the meaning of life? That is the big question, and it truly is a complex debate. It’s a question for a higher power, no doubt. The world has multiple opinions, but one idea makes the most sense. The idea parallels human emotion and the workings of the universe. This idea is that we were created for relationship, created for love. It’s hard to ignore all the signs the universe puts right in front of us. Love can be seen on a large scale as well as a subatomic scale. It can cross worlds and feel almost magical. It can be found across time and throughout every living species. Everywhere you look, love is a natural thing. It’s in you, and it’s in me; it’s in our chemistry. But we all view love as something different based on our experience with it. These experiences could be blissful, painful, or even unknown. But it’s a feeling that helps a species survive. All humans are 99% the same even though we have come to believe we are all so different from one another. Yet some out there are different than others. They are special. Something along the lines of “supernatural.” Special or not, we all have so many moments that happen in our life appear to us as unpredictable. But what if these stories weren’t as unpredictable as they seemed? What if the world was exactly just that…? A story. Our lives could already be pre-planned. Every action has already been written on paper. What if every person we are supposed to come in contact with was held together within the pages of this book? Every life we are destined to touch has already been determined. One will begin to wonder if their life is really their own. These are the mysteries we all live with on the daily. Some will question the secrets of the world, but few will get the opportunity to discover the truth.

  Chapter One

  Genesis

  “Are you on drugs?”

  Wait … what? The question is so asinine, it borders on insulting. I’m probably the most strait-laced person he knows at this university.

  “Genesis, are you even listening to me?” Cooper tries again to get my attention. He’s been my boyfriend since last semester, but the past few days of our relationship have been shaky at best.

  “Yes, I’m listening, and no, I’m not on drugs. What kind of question is that, anyway?”

  “The kind that tells me you haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said.” His voice escalates a bit, causing me to look around the crowded campus coffee shop. “You’ve been avoiding going out with me, and when I do manage to get you out of your dorm, I get this version of you—distant.”

  I tug at the Ace bandage on my left wrist, knowing he’s right. We’ve been growing apart for a while, and I’m just tired of pretending. “Well, I’ve been buckling down for exams. The semester just started, and I don’t want to piss away the GPA I’ve worked all these years to earn. We’re seniors now. There’s no room for error if I want to graduate with honors next semester,” I argue.

  He rolls his eyes at my futile attempt at an excuse. “That’s not it. You study more than anybody I know and have aced every exam up to this point. Don’t bullshit me. If you’ve grown tired of our relationship, then just tell me.”

  I tug at the bandage once more as my teeth gnaw at my bottom lip. I don’t know what else he wants me to say—that I’m spiraling? That unexplainable stuff is happening to me, and I think I’m losing my mind? Unexpectedly, he stills my arm on the table while simultaneously unwrapping the bandage. Before my brain can acknowledge that he’s about to reveal one of my reasons for concern, the bandage lies in a heap in front of him. I grab my wrist, but he pries my hand away. Too late.

  “What the hell is this?” he asks, now staring down at the infinity symbol embedded into my flesh and raised like a brand.

  The truth is, I have no answers. It wasn’t there three nights ago. I woke up in a cold sweat—disoriented and naked at Lake Chelan. I had no recollection of how I got there or how I did so without clothes. Worst yet, I had lost a whole day. The last thing I remembered was attending class here at the University of Washington, and then I woke up almost two hundred miles away. I don’t do drugs, but had someone roofied me? I’ve been a basket case ever since, trying to make sense of it all. How do I explain that to someone? How do I decipher between the ugly choices that either I’m losing my mind, or I was intentionally abducted for ill purposes? Steve and Jan had to come pick me up. They’re my adoptive parents … a fact that was kept from me until it was time for me to go off to college. Replacing their titles of mom and dad with their first names is my rebellion. My whole life has been a lie. Still, they were the ones I called to come and get me. Fear overrode logic and grudges. I needed them. What if my birth parents were mentally unstable? Was this a sign of a manifestation within me? I dare not tell the guy I’ve been dating for the past six months that I may be certifiably batshit crazy.

  “Dammit, Genesis. You’re doing it again, and I’m beginning to think it’s intentional.”

  The sharp edge in his tone has me pulling my arm away from him. “I don’t know. I don’t remember,” I confess honestly.

  “I can’t believe you’re lying to me. Either you’re doing drugs and don’t remember getting your wrist branded, or you just don’t want to tell me. Either way, you’re not the woman I thought you were.”

  “What are you saying?” I ask nervously. The words nearly get caught in my throat.

  “I’m saying I’ve had enough of your flaky behavior and lies. Tell me what you’re hiding from me, or this is over.” He gestures back and forth between the two of us.

  “I went to my parents’ house in Spokane this past weekend.”

  “And …?”

  “And that’s all I remember.” I leave out the part about waking up naked at a lake.


  “What do you mean, that’s all you remember? How did you get this?” he asks, grabbing my arm and turning it over once again.

  “I don’t know, and that’s the truth. Take it or leave it.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself. I’ll leave it. Thanks for wasting six months of my time.”

  By this time, the stares around the small coffee shop are unmistakable. Some of the students have the decency to pretend they aren’t fully engaged in our shitshow but others, not so much.

  “Whatever … good riddance,” I dismiss with false conviction. I slam my fists on the table before us, and the room goes still.

  I mean literally. Fucking. Still. I slow blink a few times, willing myself to wake up. This has to be a dream—like the naked at the lake thing. The people in the coffee shop are frozen in whatever posture they were in before this phenomenon occurred. I slide my chair back from the table to stand, but nobody else moves. The clock’s secondhand doesn’t budge. The milk being poured into the latte behind the counter looks like it’s in a solid state—midair. My eyes finally look toward the door where students pass casually along the sidewalk, oblivious to the mind fuck going on inside. What if someone comes in and witnesses this? What have I done? Why am I the only one who can move? Is any of this real? Thinking quickly, I pull out my phone to record it. I need proof that I’m not crazy and that this is actually happening. I record for a solid ten seconds, ready to run if anyone walks in. After I slide my phone back into the pocket of my jeans, I weave through the still frozen people toward the exit. I exhale once I’m finally outside. The splattering sounds of shit falling to the floor inside piques my interest. I look through the window at the now unfrozen students, shaking their heads in mutual confusion. Cooper looks around the coffee shop just as confused. I don’t know what just happened, but I’m more than a little afraid of what these unsolved, unexplained events are escalating to. Even scarier is that I don’t know how I go about finding out.

  A man bumps into me on the sidewalk as I attempt to run away. “You need to come with me,” he urges. Quickly perusing him, I find him blond, clean cut, and professionally dressed. Was he a professor here? Did he witness what just happened? He opens the door to the coffee shop. Leaning inside midway, he snaps his fingers at seemingly nothing before closing the door and looking me in the eyes. “I have the answers you seek … Now come.”

  He begins to walk off, but I’m hesitant to follow. Who is this man, and what kind of answers does he have? It would be ludicrous to follow a stranger just because he said so. But then again, none of this is logical. I watch as his retreating back gets farther away from me as my own feet refuse to move. I’m the one frozen now. I’m conflicted. I want answers, but at what cost? I begin to take indecisive steps in the same direction as the stranger. Left foot … right foot, one in front of the other, but my feet feel like lead. What am I doing? Am I really going to follow this man?

  “Yes,” a man’s gruff voice answers inside my head. I shake it to clear it. “Don’t be afraid. I know you can hear me, so please do as I say. And whatever you do, don’t look back. Just keep following me.”

  Now I’m even more convinced I’m losing it. I want to look back, but I’m afraid. Being told not to be afraid is futile. This is not real life. “Where are you leading me? And why can’t I look back?” I ask within my mind, desperate to see if the stranger can hear my thoughts once again.

  “I promise to explain the logistics of it all, but for now, I need you to focus on what I’m going to tell you next. You’re being followed. It’s important they don’t get a good look at your face.”

  I pause mid step. I need to see who is behind me. You can’t tell someone not to look and expect them not to want to. Fear, however, is a hell of a deterrent. Compliance with his instructions doesn’t dissuade me from conjuring all the horrible ways this can end, though. Is my life in danger? This man just read and answered my inner thoughts from at least thirty yards away. This doesn’t comfort me. It petrifies me.

  “Don’t stop and don’t look back,” he warns again a little more sternly. He disappears to his left up ahead. “When you get to the Hillshire Bank, there is an alley to your left. Be ready to sprint toward the light. Your life depends on it.”

  He just confirmed the outcome my thoughts had wavered to. What word comes after petrified because that would be the rabbit hole that my feelings have sunk in to. Run toward the light? My life depends on it? Doubt and angst consume me. Still, I know I will follow his instructions to the letter. Whatever all these twilight happenings have been leading up to is currently unfolding. I can hear footsteps a little too close behind me now that I’m focused and hyper alert. My pace is brisk, so I’m definitely being pursued. Adrenaline pumps through my veins as my fight or flight response kicks in. I quicken my steps; the bank is in sight. The second I reach it, I sprint left toward the alley as the stranger instructed. A huge blinding light orb confines the narrow space. I no longer have time to think or second-guess whether I’m making a mistake. Running through it, I feel the instant the strange man grabs me by the shoulders to pull me through even more, but I’m distracted by the jolt of pain that pierces my body. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Excruciating. He catches me as I fall limp into his arms. I’m at his mercy. My eyes slide closed as the light still dance behind my eyelids.

  Chapter Two

  Elysian

  The music thumps underneath my feet, echoing off the confined space of the gym. The university does offer a more state-of-the-art gym on the other side of the campus, but it’s usually saturated with pretentious jocks more interested in showing off for the women than actually working out. My wrestling buddies and I prefer the privacy of this best kept secret. I continue to load more barbells onto the bar, but none of it seems sufficient. I bench press a few reps, growing frustrated by the minute. Not with the workout really, but with all the crap plaguing my thoughts—finals and the recent fire at my apartment. I went to bed after a night of partying and woke up to alarms blaring and my place going up in flames. Thankfully, my downstairs neighbor called 911 in time. Fire trucks were dispatched before the blaze could move on to the other units. The origin and cause for the fire have yet to be given, but I’m freaked out about the dream I had prior to the incident. The specific details are hazy due the alcohol I consumed that night, but I remember shooting balls of fire from my hands. The why, at who, and how are the foggy bits. But how coincidental that I wake up to fire surrounding me and smoke so thick, the contents in my bedroom were no longer visible. The fireman didn’t know how I escaped, and if I’m being honest, I don’t know either.

  “What the hell are you doing, bro?” My buddy Josh’s voice interrupts my thoughts as I add another barbell onto the bar. “Going for some sort of record the team doesn’t know about? That’s some Olympic weight you got going on there. No way you’re lifting that. Are you trying to injure yourself before wrestling season even starts?”

  I look … I mean really look at the bar for the first time since I started bench pressing. The amount of weight I have loaded makes my eyes bulge. I pushed out four reps before I decided it still wasn’t enough weight on that last set. That means I just bench pressed 225 kg … Shit, I just benched 495 lbs. I back away in awe. To say that is a personal best is an understatement. That would be the personal best of our entire Penn State wrestling team. I’m not an Olympic athlete, and I’ve never benched more than 275 lbs.

  “I was just kidding around. I was going to snap a pic for inspiration. It’s a goal I’m working toward.”

  I surprise even myself at how easily that lie rolls out of my mouth. The truth is, I have no logical explanation of how I was able to bench that much, so I’m going to pretend that I didn’t. For now.

  “Dude. That amount of weight is not necessary to get the job done. What is necessary is to keep you injury free so we can have another undefeated season.” He shakes his head, and I can only grin at him as I pat him on the shoulder. He is one of my cl
osest friends and not just because he’s letting me crash on his sofa until I find another place.

  “Crap, I gotta get going. If I’m late to Mr. Seymour’s economic class one more time, he’s going to kick me out. I need to take all the notes I can from this lecture because his last exam was almost word for word from my notes. Buying the textbook was a waste of money.” I grab my backpack off the floor and throw it over my shoulder.

  “You’ll never make it.” Josh chuckles behind me.

  He isn’t kidding. The economics building is across campus, and I only have a couple of minutes to get there. I take off in a sprint anyway. Maybe if I can minimize how much I’m late, I can arrive before he locks the door. I kick up dirt, grass, and debris as the wind whips through my drenched shorts and tank. I can only imagine what I must smell like as I plop into my seat, barely out of breath.

  The students turn in their seat to stare at the disturbance because my entrance was anything but graceful. Beads of sweat drip down my chest and forehead. I wipe it away before realizing I still have my wrist straps on. I undo them, only to be met with another phenomenon—an infinity symbol branded on my left wrist. When did that get there? It couldn’t have been there before this morning … could it? Before today’s events and the fire, I would have allocated this to a college hazing gone wrong, but some freaky shit has been going on. Mr. Seymour interrupts my thoughts with the close of the door. It’s one o’ clock on the dot. I’m not late? How is that possible? I left the gym a couple of minutes to the hour. Is his clock wrong? I look down at my watch, and it reads the same time as the clock. How did I make it with time to spare? Too many unexplained things are happening with me—increased strength, speed, the brand, the fire. What’s going on?