Chapter 83: Return to Miami

Chapter 83: Chapter 83: Return to Miami

Chapter 83: Return to Miami

Someone had spent eighteen years turning Carrie White’s life into a pressure cooker. Axel Vance closed the leather-bound book and looked toward Carrie, who was still trying to comfort Margaret White after everything she had just learned. The girl remained timid, but some of the lifeless despair Axel had seen earlier was finally gone, as though she had spent her entire childhood trapped beneath a rock and had only now discovered there was sunlight outside it.

The problem was that whoever had planted the seed might still be waiting somewhere in the dark for the result. Axel had no proof yet that Carrie’s father had deliberately engineered her upbringing, but the timing, the book, and Carrie’s extraordinary power fit together far too neatly for him to dismiss the possibility. If his suspicion was right, then the man had not merely abandoned Carrie; he had spent eighteen years waiting for Margaret’s abuse to finish shaping her.

"This book can’t stay here," Axel said, interrupting the fragile moment between mother and daughter. Carrie and Margaret both looked up, still emotionally exhausted and clearly unsure what he meant. Axel offered no further explanation and carried the book downstairs into the dim living room.

He took out the Blessed Bible and opened it with one hand while holding the corrupted book in the other. A low passage of Holy Reading left his lips as Psionic Power flowed through the words, and the Bible responded with a soft silver-white glow. Margaret and Carrie stood several feet away, staring as the light intensified around Axel’s hands.

The moment the sacred light touched the leather-bound book, black smoke curled from its cover. The dark red cross stamped into the leather twisted as though something trapped inside the material were trying to pull away from the purification. Axel’s expression hardened, confirming that the book contained more than ordinary hateful writing.

He increased the flow of Psionic Power.

The silver-white radiance brightened.

Under Holy Reading Lv.3 — MAX, the corrupted pages began breaking apart from the edges inward. The twisted markings burned away first, followed by the leather cover and then the paper itself, until the entire book collapsed into a drifting cloud of gray ash in Axel’s palm.

Margaret and Carrie stared in stunned silence.

Carrie had already seen Axel use supernatural power in the forest, but Margaret had not. Combined with the authority naturally carried by Righteous Words, the sight of Axel standing beneath the pale light with a Bible in hand made him look far more like the priest Carrie had claimed he was than Axel particularly wanted to admit.

Axel brushed the ash away and looked at Margaret. "Mrs. White, if faith still matters to you after today, then tomorrow you should walk into a real church and talk honestly with a legitimate priest or pastor." He kept his tone firm but controlled. "No more hiding in this house, no more private punishments, and no more using fear as an excuse to hurt your daughter."

Margaret lowered her head.

Axel continued, "Carrie needs a mother who loves her, not someone waiting for the devil to appear every time she makes a mistake." He then pulled out a card with his Miami Police Department contact information and held it toward Margaret. "I’ll do what I can to keep both of you safe, but whether this family changes is ultimately your choice."

Margaret accepted the card with trembling fingers.

Axel turned toward Carrie. "Pack what you need and come with me. Leaving Greenville for a while is probably the safest thing you can do."

Carrie looked at her mother.

Reluctance crossed her face, but so did relief.

For eighteen years, this house had been the center of every fear she had known. Now she finally had permission—if only from herself—to step outside it.

Margaret began crying again.

Carrie hesitated before embracing her briefly.

Then she pulled away.

A short while later, Carrie followed Axel through the crooked front gate with a small bag in her hands. She looked back at the old two-story house one last time, her expression carrying grief, fear, and something dangerously close to freedom. Axel said nothing as they walked away because some things needed silence more than advice.

When they returned to the Greenville police station, the heavyset desk officer was half asleep behind the counter. He startled awake when the door opened, rubbed his eyes, and immediately recognized Axel. "Officer Vance, you’re back."

Axel walked to the desk. "Any word from my people?" The officer nodded and reached for the notes beside him.

"Yeah. Some young guy named Lionel came by asking if anybody had seen you." He yawned and added, "Sounded pretty desperate."

Axel blinked.

Lionel had actually found him.

Considering the Creeper had carried Axel through the sky for an absurd distance before dropping him into Louisiana, he had expected Seth and Lionel to spend hours—or days—trying to work out where he had gone. "Where are they now?"

The officer pointed toward the back of the station. "Their truck’s in the rear lot."

Axel immediately headed outside with Carrie following close behind. Several cars sat scattered across the small parking area, but Seth’s dirty utility research truck stood out easily beneath a thick coating of road dust. Before Axel could reach it, one of the doors flew open.

A figure launched itself out.

"Axel!"

Lionel Cosgrove crossed the distance in seconds and wrapped both arms around him. "You’re alive! I knew that ugly flying bastard couldn’t finish you."

Axel stiffened beneath the unexpected hug. "Good to see you too."

The opposite door opened more calmly.

Dr. Seth Brundle stepped down from the truck and leaned against the side with his arms folded. He looked Axel up and down without much expression, but the tension in his posture was noticeably gone.

"I told him you were too hard to kill," Seth said. "Apparently Death keeps losing your paperwork."

Then his eyes moved past Axel.

He noticed Carrie.

One eyebrow rose.

A slow grin appeared. "Not bad, Axel. You vanish for half a day, survive being kidnapped by a flying corpse, and somehow come back with a teenage girl."

Carrie’s face turned bright red.

She immediately retreated behind Axel and peeked around his shoulder with only her eyes visible.

Axel shifted sideways until he completely blocked Seth’s view. "Cut the crap. Her name is Carrie White, and her situation is complicated."

Lionel leaned around Axel with open curiosity, then immediately softened his expression when he saw how frightened Carrie looked. "Hi. I’m Lionel."

Carrie gave him a tiny nod.

Axel did not waste time on introductions. "Carrie has extremely strong telekinetic power. She lost control once today badly enough to throw around heavy objects and influence the emotions of everyone around her."

Lionel’s friendly smile froze.

Seth’s eyes lit up instantly.

"You’re saying she generates genuine psychokinetic force?" Seth straightened away from the truck, scientific fascination immediately replacing the joke on his face. "Then she qualifies as an actual superhuman phenomenon."

Carrie shrank farther behind Axel.

Seth noticed and restrained himself.

"Sorry," he added. "Occupational problem."

Axel nodded toward Carrie. "She’s powerful, but she’s young and has almost no control. If nobody helps her understand what she can do, she could hurt herself or a lot of other people without ever meaning to."

Lionel and Seth exchanged a glance.

Neither laughed this time.

During the past several weeks, they had seen too many impossible things to question Axel simply because the explanation sounded insane. A frightened teenage girl with destructive telekinesis barely ranked among the strangest things they had encountered anymore.

Seth rubbed the stubble along his jaw. "So you’re taking her with us."

"That’s the plan," Axel replied. "She needs help, and we need people who can actually survive the kind of things that keep finding us."

Leaving someone with Carrie’s potential alone and unstable in an abusive household was asking for disaster. With guidance, however, the same power that could eventually destroy a room full of people might instead become one of the strongest defenses the group possessed against the cult and whatever supernatural threats came next.

Lionel looked toward Carrie again.

Something in his expression changed.

He remembered what it felt like to watch Vera Cosgrove become something monstrous, to have his own body changed by forces he had never understood, and to live with powers he had never asked for. Carrie’s frightened silence probably looked more familiar to him than either of them expected.

"I’m fine with it," Lionel said. Then he shrugged. "Not that anybody waits for my approval anyway."

Seth gave a small laugh. "I’m mostly the driver and the guy who gets excited about impossible science, so you people can make the personnel decisions." He pointed toward the truck. "I’m just saying right now that sleeping arrangements are becoming a problem."

"Someone can sleep in the cargo area," Axel said.

"Hey."

Lionel looked offended.

Axel ignored him and opened the truck door. "Carrie, get in. Sit with Lionel."

Carrie hesitated for only a moment before climbing into the rear passenger area. Lionel immediately shifted over to give her more room, keeping his movements slow enough not to make her nervous. Seth walked around toward the driver’s side while Axel took the front passenger seat.

Axel closed the door.

He looked through the windshield toward the quiet streets of Greenville.

Then he gave the order.

"Back to Miami."

Seth turned the key, and the battered utility truck rumbled to life. A moment later, it rolled out of the police-station lot and began carrying the four of them away from the oppressive little Louisiana town.

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