She frowned, shaking her head. A fine sheen of sweat covered her pale forehead; the use of her energy had drained her. Lewis stood near Jake, who was kneeling upon the floor looking partly terrified, partly irate.
“You took the last few guys down on your own,” Cameron said. “Did they not have a chip?”
“I don’t know…I think…they must not have.”
When Cameron continued to stand there staring at me, I grew nervous.
“Come on, we need to get the hell out of here.” Lewis grabbed Jake by the collar and jerked him to his feet. “Are there any others?”
Jake shook his head, blood trailing from his nostrils. I wasn’t sure if someone had hit him or mentally broke him. I didn’t care. He’d betrayed us, betrayed Helen, and loyalty meant everything to me; it was all I had.
“Jake?” Cameron whispered, apparently needing answers. “Why?”
Because some people just sucked.
“I’m sorry, Cameron.” His lower lip quivered. How dare he beg for sympathy. “I had to.”
I shoved my way between them, in no mood to feel sorry for this kid. We’d lost enough people, wasted enough time. “Where is he? Where’s Maddox?”
Jake didn’t answer, just glared at me. I threw my fist forward, connecting with his chin. His head snapped back, his cry instantaneous. I ignored the pain rippling through my knuckles and hit him again before he could escape.
Cameron rested her hand on my arm. “Nora, don’t. Please.”
But I couldn’t stop. It was as if everything had broken free, every single emotion I’d been trying to contain. He’d betrayed us, all of us. He was the reason they were all dead. I jumped at him, grabbing onto his shirt. “Where is he?”
Suddenly Lewis was there, wrapping his muscled arms around me and pulling me back, away. The contact broke my resolve, and I sank into him, depleted. I could have killed Jake. I would have. He was a reminder of everything I’d lost, a reminder of the betrayal. Gone. They were all gone. Everyone I had ever loved.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Lewis said softly, pulling me toward the sofa and settling me on the cushions. I hadn’t even realized I was crying until he handed me a tissue from the box on the coffee table. I was crying? No. I didn’t cry. I hadn’t cried in months. I balled up the tissue and threw it across the room then surged to my feet.
“I’m fine. We need to go.”
“Are you sure?” Lewis asked.
“Yes.” I started toward the door and waited on the front porch. The night air cooled my flushed skin. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, letting the breeze dry my tears. It had been a happy house once; now it only held nightmares, like so many other places I cared about.
“Don’t, Lewis, please. Just let him go,” I could hear Cameron whisper from inside. “He’s only trying to save his family. You’d do the same for me.”
I glanced over my shoulder. She had her hand pressed to Lewis’ chest, calming him with her energy. I could sense it from here. I knew Cameron would get her way, as she always did where Lewis was concerned.
“If we see you again, I will kill you,” Lewis growled at Jake.
The respect I felt toward Lewis grew. We seemed to be the only rational mind readers left. Sometimes Cameron’s good heart angered me. But then again, I didn’t really know Jake like she did. Hell, the guy had practically been her stepbrother.
Lewis took Cameron’s hand and led her from the house.
“Keys,” I snapped. “I’m driving.”
He reluctantly handed them over.
I glanced one last time at the house. Another battle won, but at what cost? More lives lost, more battles to fight. But who would die in the end? Or maybe this war would go on forever.
The sudden urge to escape, to leave the death behind, overwhelmed me. We didn’t look back but got in the car and left, headed for North Carolina and maybe, just maybe, our own deaths.
Chapter 4
“It’s empty,” Cameron said, her voice heavy with an emotion I didn’t really understand.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure I possessed that kind of feeling. I’d always been taught, or maybe I’d learned through experience, that emotion equaled weakness. More than one person, Maddox included, had called me a cold, heartless robot. It had never bothered me before, so why did I feel uneasy now?
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Lewis asked from the back seat.
Cameron nodded slowly, scanning the front yard and house, as if searching, hoping, for signs of life. “Yeah, they’re gone.”
I put the car in park but left it running, still not trusting the silence of the place. She’d stayed at my dad’s home for only a month at a time when she’d thought he was her father as well. It was obvious she was mourning that memory; the stepmother who should’ve been mine, the half-siblings who had vanished, the life that for a few days anyway, had been perfect. I felt oddly numb about the entire thing.
Lewis slid me a glance in the rearview mirror. He knew Cameron was emotional at the moment, and that emotion might be clouding her judgment. He was looking to me for affirmation.
“I don’t feel anything either. Not like in Pennsylvania.” Without waiting for their responses, I turned off the car and pushed open the door. It was a picture-perfect white Victorian house, although the yard was now overgrown and the windows dark, deserted. It felt…sad. Abandoned. Lost.
For Cameron, this had been a home for a short time; to me it was a dream. Vaguely, I realized that it was the place where I should have grown up with a loving family and a father who cared. My family. I shivered, even though it was warm. Maybe it was the emotions trying to escape, but the realization hit me hard. I had a stepbrother and stepsister somewhere out there. But I had the horrible feeling I couldn’t save them, that they were lost. Still, maybe, just maybe, I could save Maddox. I smiled wryly at myself, realizing the ridiculousness of that thought. Save Maddox. Who would’ve thunk it.
Cameron pushed open her door and stepped outside. “There’s no energy.”
Maddox had broken my heart and had handed me over to S.P.I. No, not broken my heart—had ripped it out and stomped on it, crushing it to smithereens. Maddox had practically killed me emotionally. Hell, I was a heartless robot because of him. So why, I wondered for the hundredth time, was I here? I bit my lower lip. But I knew why. Because even I, after all that had happened to me, actually had a conscience. And because not even Maddox deserved to go through the torture at the hands of S.P.I. that I had endured.
“Norman Rockwell,” Lewis muttered, as he pushed open his door and stood.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Freaking perfect.” My ass of a dad had been living it up, pretending to have the ideal American life, while I’d been in hiding, merely trying to survive.
“I know,” Cameron said, her tone indicating she’d felt the exact same way when she’d first arrived. But I didn’t want to have a heart-to-heart at the moment, even if she was my sister and understood more than anyone how I felt.
“Can you unlock the door?” I asked Lewis. “Or do I get to smash a window or two?”
Lewis slid me a wry glance. “I think I can manage.”
“Damn.”
I followed Cameron and Lewis up the wide steps to the front porch, the boards creaking with age and neglect. Definitely no one here. I reached out, pulling a curl of paint from the wooden siding and watching it flutter to the porch floor. In only a few moments Lewis had already managed to unlock the door with his special mind ability to manipulate mechanics. He and Cameron moved inside, looking for a safe place to stay the night, but for some reason I paused, as if crossing into the house was going to take me to a place I had no desire to visit…a place of childish hopes and dreams. Of sadness and loss.
“Empty,” I heard Cameron say. “But the belongings are all still here. Dusty and neglected, but still here. Just like they all vanished.”
I released the breath I hadn’t even realized I held, and moved into the house. A table rested across the foyer wall
, holding a vase of dried and brittle roses, long since dead. While on the opposite side was a stairway that curved up to a second floor. Sadness, anger, confusion, I expected to feel all of them. Instead I felt nothing. It was a nice place, a family place. Not as large as our mansion in Maine, but homey. A home. What I had imagined having as a child. But no, Mom and I had spent most of my childhood running. Until I’d been caught.
I pushed aside the memory, the scar on my head tingling as it did anytime I thought about those months in the compound where they’d tested my abilities. Cameron was speaking with Lewis, planning our next move. But I was being pulled by some odd curiosity upstairs and started toward the steps.
Pictures still hung on the walls, my father and his wife smiling on a boat. Another at Christmas time, the happy couple kissing under mistletoe. I drew my finger along the frame, the tip covered with gray dust. They looked happy, and that was what baffled me most of all. He could have had a life, a family, love. I knew Dad was dead. If my stepmother hadn’t died in the fight, she was most likely rotting in prison somewhere. So many had died for our side, for our fight. And more probably would. Heck, maybe I wouldn’t make it out this time. Maybe not Cameron or Lewis. If my mom could die, any of us could. But what choice did we have?
I took another step up. Most of the photos were of two children, a little girl and boy. My step-siblings. Gone as well to who knew where. A brother and sister I’d never know. My stomach clenched as the hollow feeling in the pit of my belly gave way to a heated ache. Were they dead, or were they being used? Tortured. I dampened down the sudden nausea that rippled across my stomach and continued up the steps to the landing.
I didn’t know them, so why did I feel as if I’d just lost my mom all over again? Heart pounding, I opened the first door I came to, revealing a monstrous creation of bubble-gum pink. A large castle rested near the far wall, open as if someone had been playing when they’d been interrupted. Against the opposite wall was a four-poster bed with canopy and near the windows a pink and white gingham chair. I could practically hear their ghostly chatter, an echo of what had been. I closed my eyes, overwhelmed.
“Maybe she’s still alive,” Cameron said from behind me. I’d been so lost in unfamiliar emotions that I hadn’t sensed her arrival. She brushed past me and moved into the room. “She was a sweet girl.” A sad smile washed over her face. “Most likely she’s still alive, right? They’d want to use her for her powers.”
I shrugged. I didn’t dare mention the feeling I had, she, along with everyone else who had lived in this house were gone. Dead. I hadn’t known them, not like Cameron, and I didn’t want to destroy what little hope she clung to.
“Her brother was sort of a brat, but she was sweet. You…” Cameron swallowed hard as she brushed her fingers over the turret of the castle. “You would have liked her. Maybe when we find Maddox…”
Oh God, I knew where she was going with that statement. “Dead,” I blurted out, unable to take her naive comments any longer. Yeah, I’d been harsh, but what was the alternative? Let her live with hope, only to be destroyed later on?
She stiffened, her face going pale. “What?”
“She’s dead. They’re all dead.”
Cameron shook her head. “You don’t know—”
“I do.” I paced the room, feeling agitated, confused. A headache was working its way up the back of my skull. I felt weird, so very off. “It’s as if…as if I can feel it in the energy of the house.”
Truth was I didn’t know how to explain, I didn’t want to explain, I just wanted out.
“But…”
God, I couldn’t stand the look of utter devastation on her face. The walls felt suddenly too close, the house falling down around me. I spun around and started toward the door. “I need air. I’ll take first watch. Besides, I need to check and make sure there are no cameras we missed along the drive.”
I rushed down the stairs, past Lewis and out onto the front porch before either of them could respond. I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt tight. Frantic, I braced my hands on my knees and leaned over, sucking in the cool, crisp air. Hell, was this what a panic attack felt like? I released a wry laugh. Now, of all times? I’d been tortured twice, watched my mom and dad die, and this was the moment my nerves decided to betray me, over a family I didn’t even know? With a groan I sank onto the front stoop. They didn’t deserve to die, didn’t deserve the pain I knew they would’ve felt when S.P.I. had broken into their minds. The same pain I had experienced. They were only children. Little children.
I rested my head in my hands. So many dead, so many faces that flashed through my mind. Some of the faces I recognized, some I didn’t…Mom, Dad, my stepmother, her children.
“Stop,” I hissed to no one in particular. I could no longer control my own freaking mind. What the hell was wrong with me?
Angry, I shoved the heels of my hands into my temples and lowered my head to my knees. Something was off, terribly off. I hadn’t been feeling right for weeks. Hell, for months. Maybe they were all right and I was going insane.
A twig snapped, breaking into my manic thoughts. I jerked upright, scanning the woods. Thoughts of insanity fell to the wayside and instinct took over. Darkness was approaching fast and it was hard to decipher shadows from forms. But I didn’t need to see, I knew. Something was wrong. Someone was out there. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as a warning chill ran over my body. Not just out there. No, someone was watching me. Slowly, I stood.
I could hear the soft murmur of conversation from inside the house where Lewis and Cameron were discussing what to do next, but I barely cared. We had more important things to worry about, like finding out whoever was following us. If I called out to Cameron and Lewis now, the man watching would know and bolt. Carefully, I made my way down the steps, cringing when the stairs creaked.
From the corner of my eye I noticed something shift in the trees. Crap. The perpetrator knew I was after him. I leaped down the steps and raced toward the woods, determined not to let him escape. When I hit the forest, the branches snapped like gunfire—pop, pop, pop—warning of my approach. My mind cleared, any emotion fled. I was a trained solider once more, the feeling familiar and welcome. I darted toward the shadows, leaping over fallen logs. He would not escape. If there was one thing I was good at it was tracking. I darted behind an elm, pressing my back to the rough bark and waited. The woods were quiet. So quiet. Not even birds sang in the branches above.
There it was again, the snap of a branch to my left, so soft it was barely audible. The instinct to react tightened my muscles, urging me to attack, but I knew better. Be smart, be patient, and the culprit would eventually show himself. Mom had taught me well. I reached out with my mind, attempting to read the man’s thoughts. Not surprisingly, there was nothing there. Another mind reader who knew how to hide his thoughts or an S.P.I. agent who had an implant in his brain?
Cameron! I sent the mental warning, hoping she’d catch it, but this far away it was doubtful.
A branch snapped, closer this time. I stiffened. Whoever it was stepped lightly. A female then? I waited, breath held, my thoughts blocked, waited until the branches snapped ever closer. When I heard the last break of a branch, directly behind the tree where I hid, I jumped out, preparing to do a roundhouse kick to the culprit’s face. My foot met empty air. I stumbled, had just enough time to realize that the ass had tricked me, when I was tackled to the ground from behind.
The weight, the scent…I knew immediately it was a woman. With my face pressed to the damp earth, I could barely hear, let alone breathe. She knew how to fight, that much was clear. It was also obvious she was a mind reader. I could make people hear things that weren’t real and apparently she could too. I shoved my elbow up, meeting nothing but air.
“Calm down,” she hissed, using her weight to hold me in place.
“Who the hell are you?” I growled, spitting leaves from my mouth.
The heels of her palms were pressed into my sho
ulder blades, crushing me to the ground. “I’ll tell you when you calm down.”
I squirmed, attempting to break free. “Go to hell.”
“Nora?” Cameron came crashing through the trees, skidding to a halt only a few feet away. “Let her go!”
“Both of you just relax.” The weight lifted as the woman shifted, standing. “Get up.”
I rolled over, tucked my legs underneath me and jumped to my feet, fists raised, ready to fight. Yet, something gave me pause. She stood in the shadows of twilight, barely recognizable. Familiar, but not. Thin, obviously fit, dark hair…
Bemused, I lowered my fists. When she stepped into a fading patch of sunlight that pierced the leaves above, suddenly I knew. I thought I didn’t look like my mom’s family; I had been wrong.
“Who are you?” Cameron demanded.
“Your aunt Lindsay,” she said.
It was at that moment that I realized Mom hadn’t survived after all. She hadn’t miraculously come back to life. She was still at the bottom of the sea, still dead.
Two days ago at the grocery store, I’d seen her sister.
I turned and started toward the house, numb, destroyed, all hope gone.
****
“Can I come in?”
I lay on my side of my half-sister’s bed and didn’t move, didn’t even respond. Not even when a chill breeze burst in through the open window, billowing the curtains and sending my hair tickling across my face, did I flinch.
She sounded like Mom, and unwillingly for the briefest of moments my heart fluttered in reaction. But it wasn’t her. Would never be her. Yeah, as pathetic as it sounded I suppose I’d always wished deep down that some miracle would happen and Mom would walk through the door saying, “Surprise! I’m not really dead, it was merely an elaborate plan to keep the bad guys at bay.”
But not even Mom could escape death.
I heard the creek of floorboards as my aunt entered the room. My body instinctively stiffened, preparing for attack. But that’s how it was when you grew up learning to be on constant guard, you could never relax, never trust. I had sleeping with one eye open down to a fine art.