The Midnight Stand (The Elysia Saga Book 1) by Louis A. Affortunato Page A

him
some time, but not a lot. She will call again and he’ll have to pick up or it
will really set off her nervous alarm.
    There had been some tension between them for the
past few months. Jasper was getting to the age when he would be placed in the
School of Human Growth and Learning, a place Harley didn’t want him to be a
part of. Instead, Harley insisted on having Jasper home schooled. He wanted to
teach Jasper how to take care of himself and survive on his own. He wanted to
teach his son a trade such as carpentry or mechanics, like Ancil did for him. Sara
fought him on the idea arguing it would hinder his development and socially
stunt him by not being around other children. He would never find a place if he
wasn’t accepted by others at an early age.
    They couldn’t resolve the issue and Jasper ended
up missing the first year of classes. Sara didn’t speak to Harley for weeks
after that. He apologized and promised to get him in for the next year, but
this was just something he said to calm her down. He didn’t have any intention of
putting Jasper in classes.
    Harley picked up the box and felt his lower back
strain from the weight of it. The box must have been fifty pounds at least. It
was filled with all types of discarded metal and scraps that he found through
the years, along with more useful items like chargers and detonators.
    He carried the box up the stairs and dropped it
the kitchen floor, breathing heavy. Harley could feel his heart pounding in his
chest at a jack hammer pace. He had started to feel more and more out of breath
and anxious since he got the final letter in the mail, almost like a man on death
row who knew his final date was approaching. There were days when he woke up in
a sweat with his heart racing and what felt like an iron knot in his stomach.
Some days the feeling was so bad he would have to take a tranquilizer just to
make it through the day. The last few days, however, Harley found himself
having to take two or three.   
    He quickly checked the phone ID and sure enough
it was from Dana’s house. He could only imagine what the two of them were
talking about. Dana no doubt was badmouthing him and telling Sara how she had
ruined her life by marrying him.
    He always despised his wife’s sister, a Stepford
Wife if he ever saw one. She embodied everything he hated about the Project.
She was vain, superficial and more interested in a new addition to her house
than raising her only child, a duty which she has fully given over to the Council.
Her husband was no better. A sycophant and a schemer were the kindest ways that
Harley could describe him. He had no use for either of them, but he needed to
get Sara and Jasper out of the house somehow and Dana was the easiest and most
logical option.
    Sara questioned why he wanted her to visit Dana
tonight in the first place. She knew how he felt about her and any reason had
to be a believable one. Harley played it off that he felt bad that Sara
couldn’t see her sister more often and that Jasper never had the chance to see
his cousin. Once Jasper heard that he would be seeing Lucas he pleaded with
Sara for them to go. Even despite any reservations Sara had, she couldn’t say
no to Jasper.
    He packed them into his truck, one of the last models
still to not have GPS auto drive, and drove them to Dana’s. When he said good
bye to them Sara kissed him. It was a soft kiss on the lips. She held his face
in both her hands and looked directly in his eyes, trying to search for
something. She asked if anything was wrong. He assured her there wasn’t but he
could tell from her expression that she didn’t believe him. That was three
hours ago.
    He dragged the box into the living room and
dumped it onto the floor. He then grabbed a wooden crate that was next to the
couch and pulled that over. The crate had no cover on it and anyone who knew
what they were looking at could plainly see the C4 explosives lined up inside.
He had enough to blow up the entire