Read Online The Serophim Breach (The Serophim Breach Series) by Tracy Serpa - Free Book Online Page A

the part of his mind that felt pain had separated away from the rest, and suddenly he was lifting his clenching fists again.
    When his vision cleared, he was kneeling between two growing pools of blood. To his right, Trent’s body lay still, the left side of his skull caved in. To his left, Brandon was shivering on the ground, his face pressed into his arms.

Four
    From the kitchen, Sarah heard the couch creaking when Lani shifted her position. Chuckling to herself, she thought of all the snide remarks her brothers would make. As she scraped the last of her chow mein into the garbage, she glanced at the kitchen clock again and wondered briefly when Kai and Brandon would be coming home. It had been nearly five hours since they had left the house to drop her father off at the airport.
    “Hey, Sarah?” Lani whispered from the front room.
    She stepped out into the doorway to look at her friend. Lani was kneeling on the couch, peeping out the front window down at the driveway.
    “Why are you whispering?” Sarah asked in a full voice.
    “Shhh. I’m serious,” Lani whispered again. She lifted her face a little higher for a better view and pointed. “There’s a weirdo outside.”
    Sarah’s stomach tightened involuntarily, and she picked her cell phone up off the TV before walking quietly to the couch. Leaning forward cautiously, she peeked over the windowsill just enough to see where Lani was pointing. Out on the driveway she recognized the jogger that Paul and his friends had nearly run over earlier in the day. The heavyset man stood facing their barn, his face in profile to the window. What little hair he had was plastered against his scalp with sweat, and his chubby face shone from sunburn. It looked as though his legs were shaking, and Sarah wondered if he might be having some kind of stroke. He began jabbering loudly to himself and swiping at the air as if he were standing in the middle of a gnat cloud.
    “What’s he doing?” Sarah whispered.
    They watched for a few more moments; the display had become almost comical when suddenly all his muscles contracted at once, and a thin line of spittle welled over his lip and dribbled down his chest.
    “I don’t know,” Lani replied, chewing on her lip. “Call your brother.”
    Sarah opened her cell phone and dialed Paul. As the phone rang in her ear, they watched the jogger take a few paces forward, then wrap his arms around himself and hunch over, as if his stomach hurt.
    “Do you recognize him?” Sarah asked quietly.
    “No, I don’t think so. He looks gross,” Lani answered in a shaky voice.
    A realization dawned on Sarah, and she frowned. “Is he drunk?” she said, her voice getting louder.
    Lani looked up at her and said, “I don’t know. He’s been barfing.”
    “He’s drunk,” Sarah decided. She had seen Jones black out drunk more than once. Standing up, she cracked the window open and shouted, “Hey! Get off my property!”
    She knew she had made a mistake as soon as he turned his head. The motion was quick and unnatural, and his eyes narrowed as he searched the wall of the house for her voice. It was clearly difficult for him to focus his eyes as they rolled and shuddered in their sockets, and he staggered slightly to the left as he turned to face the house. He ground his teeth together, letting out a strange keen; something in the noise sounded lost, like a child trying to find his bearings. Gripped by the sound, Sarah ducked an instant too late, and the jogger caught sight of her; he shouted, both gleeful and enraged, and charged straight for the house.
    Lani screamed and fell back onto the couch. There was a loud thump as the jogger threw himself against the house directly beneath the window. Frightened, Sarah watched as he dug his fingernails into the wood siding; it looked as though he wanted to climb up to the window. He scrambled at the wall, fingernails shredding and beginning to bleed as he tried to yank himself up to no avail. Furious, he