The Vanishing Girl

  “You should’ve also received some information about the first simulation and what was expected of you,” he continued.

  “You mean like hurting people?” I shot back at him.

  He glanced down at a sheet of paper in front of him, his eyes moving across the page. “It says here you weren’t expected to—that’s why you weren’t equipped with a weapon—so no.”

  He set the paper aside and leaned forward. “But don’t expect to keep that bleeding heart attitude of yours. This is what you’re being trained to do—protect national security no matter the cost. Sometimes that means resorting to violence. And no, you don’t get a choice—unless you’d like to risk thousands of American lives because you’re too squeamish to hurt one thug?”

  I lifted my chin. “What if I just refuse to participate in any missions?”

  Richards laid his hands flat on the desk and pushed himself out of his chair. He looked menacing. “You’re thinking of breaking your contract? Considering what you know about our government, how do you think that’s going to go?”

  Not well. I swallowed and stayed silent. Damn him.

  “That’s what I thought. The truth is that you’re no longer just a civilian. You’re being trained as an asset—a spy. Your knowledge of classified information makes you both valuable and dangerous. If you decided to not cooperate, the consequences would be grave.”

  He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  He’s taunting me. Silently he was daring me to cross the government. And he knew I wouldn’t. Why would I trade potential death during a mission for certain death or imprisonment if I challenged them?

  I placed my hands in my lap where I could fist them without him seeing. “Understood,” I said, making sure that I kept my own expression neutral.

  “Good.” He straightened up the papers in front of him. “You are to visit Debbie this week to be debriefed. I hope this doesn’t happen again. You are free to go.”

  I stood to leave, but I had to ask him one last question. “Why are you sending any untrained teleporters on missions?”

  The skin around his eyes tightened. He didn’t say it, but I could tell he didn’t like a young girl like me questioning his authority. “I already told you,” he said. “You are a weapon Ember. You were born to do this.”

  I walked into my room, exhausted and ready to crash for the night.

  Caden lounged in a chair next to my bed, looking way too comfortable and flipping through a romance novel my parents had packed in my suitcase.

  “When did you get here?”

  He held up my book, his thumb marking the page he was on, and ignored my question. “I still don’t understand why people go for these things.” He brought the novel back down to him. “I mean listen to this line: ‘He took me under the waterfall. His throbbing co—’”

  I felt my cheeks flush. “Caden, what are you doing in my room?”

  Before he could respond, he vanished, and the novel fell onto the now-empty seat.

  Caden hadn’t walked over to my room. He’d teleported here. Which meant that, right at this moment, I could find him asleep on his bed.

  I picked up the book and placed it on my nightstand, still embarrassed that he now knew some of the smut I read. I then changed into my pajamas, clicked off my light, and slid into bed.

  As I waited for sleep, a grin began to spread along my face. Caden may have discovered my smutty reading material, but I’d also discovered something myself. Before Caden had fallen asleep, I knew the last thing he’d been thinking of.

  Me.

  I stretched my arms and looked around. I was back in the dusty office and back in the same Big Brother T-shirt. I checked my pockets and found another tiny flashlight and a note.

  Same key. Second drawer from the top.

  Had the government sent me to this office again? And if so, why would they want me to snoop around in here?

  I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and index finger. All this espionage was getting to me. If I wanted to keep my sanity, I’d have to not question what was going on.

  At my feet rested the tiny metal key. During my last visit I had vanished before I had time to reattach it to the bottom of the desk. The drawer I’d previously flipped through still hung open, its files gaping out. I slid it closed and picked up the key.

  I inserted the key into the lock fixed on second drawer, turned it, and pulled the drawer out.

  I clicked on the flashlight and shined it in. This drawer contained several files, but nowhere near as many as the one I’d looked through last time. I pulled out a manila folder with the name Claire Dunning written along the tab and flipped it open.

  Name: Claire Dunning

  Age: 18

  Sex: Female

  Status: Paired

  Pair: Matthew Simmons

  Next to these someone had paper-clipped a photo. A sweet, sun-kissed teenager smiled at the camera. But it wasn’t her happy expression that made me drop my flashlight. It was her rounded stomach.

  Claire was pregnant.

  Why had the facility filed information on a pregnant teleporter? Why did they care?

  But I already knew the answer to those questions. If Claire was anything like me, scientists would likely be interested in how successfully she could reproduce. And how the child turned out. The thought disgusted me.

  I flipped through the following pages and found out Claire’s pair was the child’s father. The file was last updated when Claire was thirty-five weeks pregnant. I did the math—that was roughly around eight months into the pregnancy.

  The file said nothing about whether Claire or her baby had made it. The final entry was dated over a year ago.

  I studied her photo again.

  A morbid thought came to mind. I slid the file back in the drawer and moved down to the drawer filled with deceased teleporters.

  My hand shook as I pulled out another file with the same name. Claire Dunning.

  I now knew why they hadn’t updated Claire’s file. They hadn’t needed to. Both Claire and her child were dead.

  I could taste bile at the back of my throat, but I willed myself not to vomit. According to the file, she hadn’t been on a mission, she’d just teleported into a dangerous situation and left injured.

  I knew from personal experience that my injuries tended to stitch themselves back up after I teleported—the healing process sped up. But it seemed that the more extensive the injury, the harder it was for the body to appropriately piece itself back together.

  I flipped through the folder, thankful at least that this one hadn’t included any gruesome images. I couldn’t have handled that. I closed the file and jammed it back in with the others.

  Claire’s file had mentioned that she had a pair—Matthew Simmons. I scoured the folders in the third drawer to see whether he was still living or not. If he was, I might be able to ask him some questions about the project.

  Unfortunately, I found his file. He’d died shortly after he turned nineteen, about three months ago. Again, splicing.

  I only had minutes left before I’d be sent back, but I wanted to see a few more files in the second drawer. A grabbed another manila file and opened it without checking the name.

  This time when I glanced at the paper-clipped image, I did a double take. A headshot of Desiree smiled up at me.

  Name: Desiree Payne

  Age: 16

  Sex: Female

  Status: Single

  Pair: Charles Schwartz (deceased)

  I skimmed over the rest of the notes on the first page until a word caught my eye. Pregnant. My eyebrows shot up.

  Desiree had been pregnant?

  I glanced at the other files in the second drawer. A series of female names decorated the tabs of each folder. As fa
r as I could tell, no male teleporters had files in here. And I bet if I looked into each folder, I’d find the same word—pregnant. This drawer was dedicated to expectant teleporters.

  I took a deep breath and flipped through the pages. The father of Desiree’s unborn child was unknown—either because she didn’t know or she wouldn’t say. But it wasn’t her pair; that I could tell. The entries ended at eight weeks into her pregnancy. I scanned the notes, and two sentences caught my eye.

  Patient miscarried. Child’s genetics seem to be incompatible with mother’s ability to teleport.

  Despite my dislike for her, my heart clenched. She was right to have a chip on her shoulder. She’d had to grow up too fast.

  And then my skin felt clammy.

  Could Caden be the father?

  “Rise and shine, princess. Time to train.” I groaned and opened my eyes. Caden leaned over my bed, looking way too awake, as usual. Outside the sky was a deep purple, which meant it was some ungodly hour.

  I rubbed my eyes and sat up, making sure my blanket covered my naked body. Not that it mattered at this point. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t keep barging into my room,” I said.

  “And yet you keep forgetting to lock the door.”

  “That’s not an excuse,” I mumbled. I gazed absentmindedly around the room. Then last night’s excursion rushed back to me.

  I swiveled my head to face him, now hyper alert. “Did you get Desiree pregnant?” I asked, watching his expression.

  Caden’s face lost all its humor; his expression hardened. “How do you know that information?”

  “Oh God.” I looked away from him and scrubbed my face with a hand. “You were the father.”

  “Whoa, backup,” he said, getting onto the bed. “I was definitely not the father. I’ve never been even slightly romantic with Desiree. She’s like a sister to me.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “She makes it seem as though you two have some sort of history.”

  Caden scooted himself next to me so that he could lean back against the headboard. I pulled my bed sheet closer to my naked skin. Not that there was anything there that he hadn’t already seen a few times over. “We’ve been friends for years—we were some of the youngest teleporters to arrive at the facility. Desiree, because her parents work here, and me because …” his expression darkened, “well, that’s a different story.”

  The way he avoided his past made me suddenly want to know everything about it. But he clearly wasn’t ready to tell me, so I wouldn’t ask.

  “We’ve had each other’s back for years,” Caden continued, “and when Desiree’s pair died about three years ago, she changed. She ran from her pain, usually into the arms of some good-for-nothing guy.”

  Caden’s eyes got a faraway look to them. “She didn’t tell me she was pregnant until she lost the baby. At first I thought the miscarriage was a good thing—she was young and irresponsible after all. But the way she acted … it was like her pair had died all over again.

  “That’s when I realized she wanted someone to love her unconditionally. The way her pair had before he died. I think she thought a baby would give her that.”

  Caden shook his head. “Once I figured her out, I stepped it up as a friend. I was there for her like she needed someone to be. She might’ve wanted more than just friendship, but I never felt that way about her.”

  Everything about the way Desiree acted began to make sense, and it was hard not to feel bad for her situation. She’d lost two people at such a young age. And now she went from having a close friend who she thought she might eventually date, to watching that same friend redirect his attention towards another girl—me. I’m sure the fact that Caden and I were a pair didn’t help.

  At the thought of pairs, I remembered Claire from the file. Unlike Desiree, she hadn’t lost her baby. The baby had only died because Claire had.

  Suddenly the taste of bile was back. I pushed the covers aside and ran for the bathroom.

  “Ember?” he called after me.

  I lifted the toilet seat and heaved.

  I knew why Claire’s baby made it while Desiree’s didn’t. The father of Claire’s child was her pair. We’d been paired for breeding.

  Chapter 18

  A hand touched my back. “Ember, are you okay?”

  Caden happened to be the last person I wanted next to me right now. After flushing the toilet, I pushed his hand away and instead reached for my bathrobe, which hung next to him, and put it on.

  I moved over to my sink and opened a bottle of Listerine. Only once I’d rinsed my mouth out a few times did I decide to face him.

  Caden leaned in the doorway of the bathroom, waiting for me to say something.

  “Do you even like me?” I finally asked.

  He crossed his arms and furrowed his brows. “What kind of question is that? Of course I like you.”

  My eyes moved over his bulging arm muscles. “So you aren’t just interested because you’re supposed to be interested in me?”

  “Ember, what are you talking about?”

  “Us. Pairs.”

  A line formed between his eyebrows. “What about it?”

  I studied his features as I spoke. “Isn’t it curious that the government paired us in male-female groups—which happen to be genetically viable—and then encouraged us to get to know each other?”

  The crease between his brows deepened. “So?”

  “So, they’re setting us up to perpetuate our genetic mutations.” I paused to watch Caden’s expression change, but it didn’t. This wasn’t news to him. “Why spend money making more of us when more can be made for free?”

  Caden’s face still hadn’t changed, and damn, my heart hurt because of it.

  “You knew,” I said.

  Caden must’ve seen some unpleasant expression flitter across my face because he grabbed my shoulders and gave me a gentle shake. “No. Ember. That’s not it at all. Just because I’ve known about the true purpose of pairs doesn’t mean that I’ve been forcing myself to like you. You don’t think that this disgusts me? It’s fucked up. I like you in spite of—not because of—our status as pairs.”

  I shook my head, remembering the way he’d looked when we talked about my file last week—like I had mattered to him. He cared because pairs were genetically created together—they had to be.

  “Please Caden,” I said. Regardless of his words now, I couldn’t shake the memory. “Just … I think you should leave. I need a little space.”

  “We need to train,” he said, his voice all business.

  “I’ll do it alone.”

  He shook his head, his jaw working. “Fine.” He turned and walked out of the bathroom, and a few seconds later the door slammed.

  I slouched against the wall. My life was a damn soap opera.

  “So how did seeing the woman get shot in the club make you feel?” Debbie sat on the plush chair across from me, studying me intently. A notebook and pen rested on the arm of her chair.

  I’d finally come in for my debriefing, and it was every bit as awful as I’d imagined it would be.

  “Um, awful. Can I go now?” I asked from where I reclined. I was discussing my issues on a couch. I had no idea psychologists really did this—used couches to make their patients feel more at ease. It was physically comfortable, sure, but I wouldn’t say it made me feel any better.

  Debbie folded her hands in her lap. “If you don’t talk this out with me now, you’ll have to come back again and again until I feel you’re mentally fit.”

  A small sigh slipped out of me, and I fell back into the memory. “I felt awful, but I also felt guilty,” I said, seeing the events unfold all over again in my mind’s eye.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I set off the chain of events tha
t led to several people getting shot.”

  “How do you think events would’ve played out if you hadn’t done what you did?”

  I shrugged. And on and on it went. I discussed my feelings about the mission for almost forty-five minutes, and I begrudgingly had to admit, it helped. I didn’t hate myself so much for events that I largely couldn’t control. Talking about it made me realize that.

  “Okay Ember,” Debbie said, “I’m going to shift topics slightly. How is your relationship with your pair?”

  Just as I was starting to find the couch a truly comfortable and safe place to be, she had to ask about Caden. My body went rigid.

  “Good.” My voice sounded strained.

  Debbie raised an eyebrow. “Why is it good?”

  “Because he helps me train and he looks out for me.”

  Debbie smiled at my description of Caden, and I remembered back to when she introduced me to him. They must be close.

  “Is that all?”

  I’d rather get a tooth pulled without Novacane than elaborate, especially considering how Caden and I had parted yesterday. But I really didn’t want to do this again next week. At the back of my mind I realized that I hadn’t even thought of trying to escape for a couple days now, even with how screwed up my life was.

  “No,” I said, defeated. “Caden’s really, really good to me. And I don’t feel as though I deserve it. I’m rude and selfish, and I don’t get along well with others. Yet despite all my attempts to push him away, he doesn’t give up on me. I don’t know what to do with that kind of loyalty.”

  Debbie nodded. “That’s what being a pair means. He won’t give up on you.” It was the first time she’d offered her opinion—not as a suggestion, but as a statement. Her words didn’t make me feel better.

  I hesitated before I spoke again. Giving up the kind of information I was about to, even to a counselor, made me feel vulnerable—if no one else knew how I felt, then they couldn’t use it against me.