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  RENASCENT

  A Phoenix Dragon Novel 01

  Max Andren

  AnCor Press

  In loving memory of my Andrea.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Enjoy this book?

  A Note From Max Andren

  Also By Max Andren

  Acknowledgements

  About Max Andren

  1

  I wasn’t always a bad-ass soul seeker.

  Through years of confinement, I’d been conditioned to accept the inevitable until my voice had been silenced by apathy. Until I no longer had the will to fight and I refused to beg. I was so dead on the inside that I eventually died in truth.

  In that moment of death, I embraced freedom once again.

  For fifteen years, I’d been shuffled between various private asylums and hospitals in an attempt to find a cure for the voices that whispered and sometimes screamed through my mind.

  My parents had put all their faith in these various institutions, convinced they could help me. However, after my first admission, I was only allowed home a handful of times during that first year.

  My parents wanted their perfect little Snow White back—the eight-year-old me, before I had that first episode…

  I was eight years old and the United States was celebrating its freedom and independence from mother England. I can remember sitting on the cafeteria floor at an assembly and singing songs in celebration with my classmates and my best friend, Jenny. It’s a cherished memory—a moment when I was happy and carefree.

  Jenny sat next to me and played with the ends of my long black hair as it pooled on the floor around me. This would be the last moments of our friendship. If only I’d known, I would’ve done something different, found some way to make it special.

  This would be my last day of freedom and I would never see Jenny again.

  The following night my parents, Sebastian and Helena, hosted a party for the Chicago elite, something they did on a regular basis. My father was in the finance industry and my mother sat on the board of several charity organizations. They were well connected and deeply revered.

  They looked so handsome together. He was tall with brown hair and grey eyes and towered over most of the guests. Tonight, he was dressed in a grey corduroy suit. My mother had on a light-blue chiffon pants suit that complemented her petite frame, blonde hair and midnight-blue eyes.

  They were an older couple or at least compared to my friends parents, as they were in their midforties. I loved watching them interact with each other and their guests. They were always so attentive to each other, their love was deep and solid.

  It had been just the two of them for so long. They bonded over their struggle to conceive—bringing them closer together, instead of driving them apart. The love they shared for each other was easy to see and to feel—extra senses weren’t necessary.

  Other couples tended to look at them with envy. I completely understood. I was blessed to be allowed into their private world.

  The evening of the party I wore a tea-length powder-blue dress with a white satin sash tied at my back, white anklet socks that had a matching blue bow and black patent Mary Jane shoes. My hair was adorned with a white ribbon and left down to curl below my waist.

  Typically, I was brought downstairs by the nanny at the beginning of the evening to play the piano for the guests. My parents loved to show me off. I was a bit of a protégé and their perfect little Snow White, as they liked to call me.

  I had crystal blue eyes and black hair, a nod to my Scottish heritage—or so I’d been told. My parents were open about the fact that they had adopted me from Scotland. They’d always wanted a house full of children, but hadn’t been able to conceive, and so they had given up hope of ever having a child to raise.

  While vacationing in Scotland with their friend, Dr. Darren Hanley, an opportunity for adoption became available. Dr. Hanley arranged everything for my parents. They were lucky that the international laws and adoption regulations from that time, were nothing like what they are today.

  Money could buy a lot—including silence, no matter the era.

  My mother loved to tell the story of what their first glimpse of me had been like—apparently, I had made quite the impression. I was screaming and crying as Dr. Hanley walked out of the hospital with me in his arms.

  I was six months old.

  He warned them that I was a very colicky baby, but he assured them that a change in my diet would fix the colic right up.

  “Your cheeks and lips were chapped red from your constant crying,” she would tell me, “and your eyes were tightly closed, so I had no idea of their color. And your wild black hair was sticking straight up! But as Darren started to hand you over to me—your bright blue eyes flew right open and you practically jumped into my arms!”

  She always recounted the memory with a smile and a happy little giggle. Even as an infant, I could feel her emotions and I knew how much she loved me. According to Helena, once I was held securely in her arms, I immediately stopped fussing and started cooing.

  When I came downstairs to play the piano, my parents and their guests were socializing in groups and drinking martinis. They fawned over me as I made my way, slowly, to the piano.

  They told me what a beautiful little girl I was—touching my hair and pinching my cheeks. I loved being at the center of their adoration and of my parents’ world, but I hated to be touched by so many strangers.

  I could feel their emotions when they touched me. Sometimes, I could hear them too, as their thoughts floated painfully through my mind.

  I tried to explain this to my parents, but they didn’t understand. They believed this sensitivity was due to my creativity and aptitude for music. They felt I was being overly emotional and imaginative—precocious even.

  Not once did they believe me, but in their defense, I was outside their realm of understanding and beyond the confines of their perfect little social stratosphere. I kept the ability to hear and feel people a secret.

  I was different and different meant odd and odd was frowned upon.

  Playing the piano had always been easy for me, but eventually it became an obsession. It was a necessary means of expression as I grew older. Music allowed me to focus on something other than the confusion of these random voices and the pain I felt from them.

  The compilation that I had created specifically for tonight was playing through my mind as I made my way over to the piano. I thought the piece would make for a fun surprise for my parents and their guests. I’d blended several classical arrangements with some current hits to create something unique and quirky. I was fairly proud of the results.

  A few of the guests touched me and gave me encouraging words. I tolerated it with a smile, but the onslaught of emotions was almost crippling.

  Dr. Hanley had been out of the country for several years. The last time he saw me, I was a toddler. As I passed by where he stood chatting with some other guests, he placed his hand firmly on my shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze.

  I took my place next to the piano and waited for my father, Sebastian, to introduce me to their guests.

&
nbsp; “Welcome everyone!” he said, as he settled his left hand on the same spot where Dr. Hanley had inadvertently bruised my shoulder. I tried not to flinch and smiled through the discomfort. He reached out with his other hand to beckon my mother forward.

  When she joined us next to the piano, he continued to say, “My wife, Helena and I, would like to introduce to you, our daughter. She will beautifully serenade your ears off and magically prompt you to empty your pockets for Helena’s latest charity.”

  Everyone laughed, just as they always did. And I curtsied, just as I always did, but for some reason, my heart was pounding tonight.

  I looked down to see if it were noticeable under my dress and it wasn’t, but it was strong enough that I placed my hand over my heart, as if to control the runaway rhythm.

  All eyes were on me—waiting and staring because I made no move to sit at the piano.

  I could hardly breathe through the incapacitating fear that suddenly moved through me—a fear that was not my own. I’d felt other people’s emotions before, but nothing like this and never this strong or this acute!

  I was lost and drowning in the intensity.

  Urine ran down my legs to puddle on the snowy white carpet below me.

  I could feel my parents’ mortification just before they yelled at me, but I was beyond their voices—lost in a maelstrom of terror and agony.

  I grabbed the sides of my head with my little hands and pulled at my hair. I could hear a young boy screaming for mercy. I could feel his little body writhing in pain. His mind was saturated in chaos and confusion, and so was mine.

  I screamed and begged with him until my voice was so raw I could no longer speak and tears poured from my unblinking eyes. I was tethered to him, as he suffered—feeling everything that he felt as he was tortured.

  Mercifully, I passed out and dropped to the wet floor below me.

  2

  How quickly adoration turned to disdain.

  Dr. Hanley jumped right in and took responsibility for my care. He had one of the guests carry me to my room, when my parents couldn’t be roused to pick me up, as they had been too shocked by my outburst to move.

  That was the first time I was medicated and the very last time I was touched with compassion.

  Dr. Hanley had recently returned to town to take a position as the physician administrator at a small private asylum for the affluent. I was admitted to his facility and placed in his care for observation and a battery of tests.

  I submitted to every treatment, Dr. Hanley and all of the subsequent doctors, put me through—all in an effort to make my parents happy. I believed they loved me and wanted me better so that I could come home.

  My parents were very passionate in the beginning and completely involved with my treatment plans. Initially that is, but I knew the truth. I could feel exactly how they felt. They couldn’t hide their true emotions from my unusual and unwanted ability.

  They didn’t want me to come home again—not ever!

  For appearance sake, they continued to come to the asylum on a regular basis. These visits followed a similar pattern—they would admonish me for making things up and I would deny that I was.

  “Stop this nonsense, and behave like the daughter we know you to be!” Sebastian would demand, his face a mask of worry.

  A mask that hid his true feelings, of shame and frustration, from everyone, but me!

  “We want you to come home,” Helena said, looking out the window, as if she wanted to escape.

  We had that in common, I wanted to escape from here too.

  “Don’t you miss your things? Or playing the piano?” she asked.

  My nose itched with the noxious scent of her fear. It was palpable from across the room and crawled through me in sickening waves of nausea.

  It was obvious they didn’t really want me back. There was no place for this new, odd me within their perfectly coiffed, color-inside-the-lines world. They just wanted their Snow White back.

  I still begged to come home, despite knowing how they felt. They believed this would be the best place for me to get the help and intervention that I needed.

  The next time my parents came to the asylum, it was for an unscheduled visit. Surprised, Dr. Hanley personally escorted me to the reception area.

  Despite being nauseous, sweaty, and shivering, I vowed to be strong. I would not beg to come home again.

  Despite my best intentions—I did just that.

  “Please…Please, may I come home?”

  My voice stuttered through my sobs as I tried to explain to them that I was in pain. How my back felt raw. I even reached between my shoulder blades to show them where it hurt.

  Dr. Hanley explained to my parents that the drugs were playing tricks with my mind, so they completely discounted my complaints. There was nothing to see, they reassured me, but I wasn’t reassured, not in the least.

  “I don’t see a thing. It’s completely clear, except where you’ve been rubbing at it just now,” Helena told me, after inspecting back.

  “But…but, it burns terribly, like it’s raw.” I told them through my tears.

  “It feels like when I fell off my bike. Remember? You put that stuff on my skinned knees and I cried ‘cause it hurt so bad. Remember, you blew on it until it felt better?”

  I was completely shocked when they told me I could come home for a trial visit.

  “Thank you,” I whispered with my head lowered—afraid to look at them in case they changed their minds.

  Once I was home, I tried to do as my parents asked. I tired to be what they wanted, their little Snow White, but the voices inside my mind had other ideas.

  They relentlessly cried for mercy and begged for help. I couldn’t control them, nor could I shut them out. The constant noise was painful and debilitating. I cried often and occasionally screamed out in my sleep, which seems to be when they were at their worst.

  My parents didn’t know how to handle me or my supposed voices, and gave up trying. They had me readmitted, but this time to a different asylum. Dr. Hanley would no longer be my doctor, to which I was extremely thankful. Whenever I thought of being in his care, fear would flash through me and pain would ghost over my back.

  That was my final trip home. I’ve often wondered if my parents would have rescinded my adoption, if they could have. Would they have sent me back to Scotland for a refund on damaged goods?

  They were all about appearances, so of course, that would never do. Instead, I was all but forgotten. Their circle of friends were informed that I was away at boarding school, but my parents were fooling no one, least of all their friends. They all knew the truth—I was crazy.

  However, in the event that a miraculous cure happened to be found, my parents made sure that I was well educated. I had the best tutors that their money could buy. I would meet with them in-between my various therapies and tried to pay attention through all the drugs the doctors fed me.

  They didn’t want me to be ill-bred and backwards or unable to hold a sophisticated conversation.

  Who were they kidding?

  It felt as if they lived in an alternate reality and it was one that I would never inhabit. None of that would matter—I would never go home again.

  I had zero control over my life. None. So, I took what control that I could and that was my voice, I refused to speak. Not one word has been spoken since my final trip home.

  It was during this dark, lonely time that my secret friend came to me. She kept kept me sane over the years to come. I didn’t know what her name was for the longest time. We didn’t really need them, but eventually she told me her name was Mia.

  I cherished the fact that she trusted me with something so precious, and yet, I felt guilty because I didn’t share mine too. I just couldn’t.

  Eventually, my parents quit trying and quit visiting. They gave the doctors free reign to implement the treatments they felt were necessary. Whatever was needed to cure me of the voices crying for mercy and whose pain was palpable,
as if it were my very own. Consequently, I’d been through hundreds of cures over the past fifteen years, yet the voices remained and the emotional pain was still just as crippling.

  The asylums and hospitals, I had been admitted to, were all private institutions and as such, the staff only reported to my parents. Each new doctor and every new facility did as they pleased. They loved to remind me that I belonged to them and that I was utterly worthless.

  They called me a freak.

  I paid for that distinction by becoming their personal lab rat. For years they tested every new drug on me in hope of finding a cure. Some of those drugs were helpful, they kept my mind quiet and the voices distant. But, some of the other drugs, stole my control and that was when my tormentors loved to strike!

  I lost days and occasionally weeks at a time, with no idea what had been done to me or by whom. I would be covered in bruises and I could feel the staff gloating and I could see their spiteful, smirking faces.

  I hated being so vulnerable—unaware and unable to protest or protect myself. I hated every single one of them for abusing me.

  Once the drugs finally wore off and their hold over my mind lessened, I struggled to remember the lost time. But I was rarely able to recall anything and I usually gave myself a wicked headache for my troubles.

  Helplessness would wash over me and I would drown in despair.

  Money and influence had bought silence, stole my freedom and eventually stole my will to live…

  A new administrator had been hired to oversee the asylum. He had spent his first few weeks reviewing every treatment plan implemented. Now he was in the process of assessing every patient individually to decide whether or not their treatment plan was the correct one.