by C. C. Bolick
He reached in a black bag at his feet and pulled out a folded paper. “When we land, I drive you to your apartment and erase your memory. We’ve already contacted the H.R. director of your hospital to let them know of your accident.”
“Accident?”
“You went on a three-week vacation to clear your head and had a nasty accident zip-lining in South America. You didn’t just clear your head; you lost your memory.”
“That’s a hell of a story. I would never get on a zip line.”
He held up the paper. “Here’s the proof. Someone will be by from the hospital to check on you later today. After I erase your memory, I have a return flight scheduled for noon.”
“So, it’s that easy.”
“None of this is easy, but it’s what you want. Sylvia hired you because of your skills as a doctor. She won’t make you stay if the agency isn’t the life you choose.”
“Good.” Erin closed her eyes.
A little more time and she’d be asleep. I could break into her head… I cursed myself for not asking Mama how.
Agent Lockhart lowered his voice. “Anything you’d like me to tell Tyler?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She opened her eyes. If only they would stop talking. “Did you know Tyler?”
“I trained him when he first joined the agency. Travis and I took turns helping him sharpen his power. That’s how he and Travis became friends.”
“What…” Erin took a deep breath. “What did you think of your student?”
“He was a great agent, loyal to his friends and family, but haunted.”
“Haunted by what? Was it the incident from the Army when they said he died?”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of what haunted him, but who.”
“Who?”
“Can’t you guess who?”
She turned to the window.
“He never stopped loving you.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I thought you should know, that it might matter—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Erin said in a tense voice.
Agent Lockhart sighed. “After all those years, I hoped what he felt might one day be returned. Loving in vain is a waste.”
“If he loved me, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. Tyler joined the Army and traveled the globe.”
“If? As long as I’ve known Agent Greene, he’s never given a woman a second look. At first, I thought it was odd, until we talked. He told me about the girl back home who got away.”
Again, Erin closed her eyes. “I wasn’t the one for Tyler then and I’m definitely not the one for him now.”
“Probably just as well. Tyler deserves a woman who loves him as much as he’s loved her.”
She wiped a tear that slid down her cheek. “I never stopped loving him.”
“Then why leave? Sylvia believes you can make a difference at the agency. You and Tyler could work together to save lives.”
“How do you think that would work out? An agent and a doctor?”
“Fine, as long as you make time for each other,” he said. “Saving the world is a heavy burden, but that doesn’t mean you should give up living.”
“I can’t go back to what we were.”
“The door is still open. There’s still time to get off this plane. Even when we land in Chicago, there’s always time to change your mind before I wipe your memory.”
“I’m not the same person I was when Tyler and I… I’ve changed.”
“There’s nothing wrong with growing stronger.”
Erin said nothing as she leaned against the window. Agent Lockhart shook his head and looked as if he wanted to hit something. He had a point about Tyler, but I didn’t have time to question her motives. All I cared about was getting her to sleep.
“There,” Mama said, appearing down the aisle. She disappeared for a woman walking down the aisle. I stepped out of the woman’s way and Mama reappeared. “If she goes to sleep, her brain will drop the barrier as her consciousness fades. You can enter her mind.”
“How?” I asked.
“Touch her head while she’s sleeping. If she’s deep enough along, you won’t feel the electricity. Instead, you’ll appear in her dream.”
“I don’t get how this works. How can I appear in her dream?”
“It’s part of our power. I was able to visit Travis in his head while in the coma. Afterward, he was able to see me in this form while awake.”
I moved into the empty seat behind Erin and held a hand near her head. “Why did he see you after you were in his head but not before?”
“Most people don’t believe in ghosts, even if they claim to. Their minds reject the notion of a ghost on the most basic level. When I visited Travis in a dream, he accepted me without question. Since he remembered the dream, he was able to see me and believe I existed.”
“What if Erin doesn’t remember the dream?”
Mama chuckled. “I doubt she’ll forget seeing you.”
“Do you think she’s asleep yet?”
“It takes seconds for the barrier to drop. That’s all you need to break into her mind.”
Seconds to break into someone’s mind.
This was going to be interesting.
Chapter Four
Travis
After Dad left, I sat on the couch and stared at the laser next to me. He’d offered the laser as a test. Dad wanted to know if I’d use this weapon to kill someone, if I’d use it to kill him.
The numbness had begun to wear off. Somewhere inside of me pain returned in increments. A kick to the gut or a burning along my hand where I’d touched her. Not burning from my power but from the realization I’d never hold Rena again.
“Rosanna,” I called. “Where are you?”
I waited in the eerie silence. Could Rena’s mom be in this room? Had she found a way to help Rena back to reality? I shivered as I thought of Rena’s fear of the darkness. I’d promised to protect her. When she’d fallen from the sky the first time she’d flown, I’d stayed by her side while the doctors worked to save her. Angel gave a drop of blood to heal her from the inside.
In the end, Rena heard my voice. It brought her back. “Rena,” I said in agony. “I want to help you. Please, can you hear my voice?” Tears filled my eyes. Dad wouldn’t see me like this but I wished she could. Anything to get Rena back.
“Come back to me. Follow the sound of my voice.”
A tick sounded and the air switched on. I put my hands over my face and leaned my head over the cushions behind me. Rena’s body was gone, but I knew she wasn’t lost. She couldn’t be.
I lifted the thin metal device at my side and aimed the barrel at the kitchen. It was lighter than the gun I usually carried. While on Golvern, I’d learned how to fire a laser, though I preferred my gun.
Van used one of these lasers to wipe Rena from existence. Had it only been an hour ago? Maybe less? I took a deep breath as the pain spread through me. He’d killed Rena and she wouldn’t walk through that door ever again. No matter how many times I said the words, it still felt like a fresh cut.
Too bad I no longer had the power to teleport. With one thought I could appear back at the conference room and make everyone with a hand in hurting Rena pay. They probably sat around the large wooden table scheming about their plan to save the planet.
Like good agents, they’d follow Sylvia’s direction.
Sylvia. My chest tightened as I thought of the woman who raised me. After Dad left, she’d made sure I grew up training as an agent. In all those years, she never mentioned she knew about my powers. It took me almost dying to learn she knew all along what I’d become.
I’d be an alien like my father. Even though my mother was human, and one of the best damned agents that ever worked for Earth Under Fire, according to Sylvia, I was only half-human. At thirteen, I’d realized my power to teleport and soon after learned I could see a person’s future by touching the
ir skin.
The touch part didn’t always work, and it became useless when a botched experiment forced two other powers on me. Now I could also burn a person by touching their skin and cause an earthquake by slamming my fists together. Sylvia didn’t seem worried about the fact I had four powers, which put me at the top of the agency’s list of deadliest people.
At least until she had me locked in a room on the isolation floor. Maybe I shouldn’t have threatened Senator McCall, the man who made sure funding was appropriated for the agency.
Although I’d often wondered how much my dad really cared after he left me to be raised by the agency, I couldn’t deny the fact he’d used his future power to buy tech stocks and stack a mutual fund that would leave me rich beyond my wildest dreams. When Sylvia gave me that news on my eighteenth birthday, I’d been floored. Even with the news, I’d insisted on continuing my job as an agent.
I didn’t lie to Rena when I said money would never be a problem for us.
Us.
With a sigh, I lowered the laser. No amount of money would bring her back, though I’d give every last cent to erase the last hour.
Sylvia probably expected me to play by her rules. After locking me on the isolation floor in a coma, she’d made it clear who was in charge. I gripped the laser closer. Did she know about this plan to kill Rena?
If so, she was dead to me. I didn’t know if the thought of her betrayal felt worse than Dad’s. He’d left me at nine, but she knew how I felt about Rena. She’d given me the mission to save Rena and help discover her powers.
The small group of people I considered family had dwindled to less than I could count on one hand. None of them would understand how I felt, except for Angel.
A knock came from the door and I opened my mouth. The pain in my chest had become so intense, I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even call Rena’s name. Forget answering the door. The knock sounded again.
The intensity exploded like a bomb in my head. I shoved the laser under my chin. Agent Lockhart, the man who trained me and kept me from Angel while growing up, once told me there was an optimal way to commit suicide. How often he considered this fact I never asked.
Wood cracked as the door fell to the floor, ripped from its hinges. Angel stepped into the room and looked in my direction.
Her face said it all. Anger. Pain. Disgust. “Please tell me you weren’t about to pull that trigger.”
“I thought about it.”
“Taking another life isn’t the answer.” She reached for my hand and lowered the laser. “At least I know your powers haven’t returned yet.”
Angel was the only person who could stand my touch. I pointed the laser at her. “When they do, everyone here will know.”
“You planning to test that theory about me living forever?”
“I’m not a killer.”
“Good.”
She was the only person left I couldn’t lie to. I let her take the laser while knowing I couldn’t fight her super-human strength. The only upside I knew of from being a vampire, except maybe the ability to live forever.
“Sylvia is waiting for you in the conference room.”
“Waiting to lock me up again?”
“We don’t have time for that. Get on your feet or I’ll carry you there myself.”
The spark in her eyes told me she wasn’t joking. I stood and followed her into the hall. Angel tucked the laser into a holster on the inside of her suit jacket. She rarely carried a gun; I wondered at her carrying an empty holster.
Against the wall next to my door, Agent Mason leaned with his arms crossed. His face was blank. He’d killed many people over his years of special ops in the Army and then as an agent, usually the bad guys, but sometimes that line seemed to fade. He couldn’t be dealing with Rena’s death any better than I was.
“I get it now,” I said. “The three of us are going to take down the agency.”
“No,” he said in a voice without emotion.
“No?” I got in his face. “Rena was your daughter. You can’t be okay with what happened to her.”
“For the next twenty-four hours, I’m an agent and nothing else,” he said.
I blinked. “You’re kidding me. After all those years on the run from the agency to protect Rena, you watch while Van takes her life.”
“I did what I had to.”
“You knew?” I asked.
When he said nothing, my rage overflowed. I threw a punch that landed square on his jaw. He stumbled backward while my hand began to throb.
“Did you know when you came to take us to the meeting?” I asked. “Were you part of this plan?”
Agent Mason watched me in silence.
“You knew my dad was coming back; it’s why you never told me what happened the night he disappeared. You knew he was alive and you went along with his plan.”
“I did what had to be done,” Agent Mason said.
“You stood by and watched Van kill your daughter? You’re one hell of a dad.”
He didn’t move, only watched me while his eyes filled with tears. Something came apart inside of me. I leaped forward and wrapped my hands around his neck. Angel grabbed for me, but not before I battered his face with my fists.
In seconds, Angel knocked me to the floor with an elbow to the back of my head. I laid across the cold tile while gripping my head.
Next to me, Agent Mason gripped his nose. “I’ll let you slide on that one since I deserved it. Next time, I’m back to being an agent.”
“Have you ever been anything else?” I asked.
“I’ve been many things but never a conformist. The outside world isn’t for me.”
“You should be in prison for murder.”
He nodded. “You’re right. I’ve killed enough in my career that I can’t remember their faces. It’s downright scary, but it’s too late for me to change.”
“She was your daughter.”
“Can we get going?” Angel asked.
The skin on her face was paler than normal and her eyes were red and puffy. It was hard to look at her skin and not think of the fact she was a vampire like her father. But she wasn’t evil. Angel helped me to my feet.
“I’m not following this plan,” I said.
“At least hear what the queen has to say.”
Agent Mason walked to the elevator. I reluctantly followed behind Angel and climbed on when the doors opened.
As he punched the buttons for the largest conference room at the base, and the floor closest to ground level, she said, “Be honest. How are you holding up?”
“How do you think?” I said. “Why did you come and get me? No one in that room wants to see my face.”
“The senator is demanding to move forward with the meeting for his trade agreement,” Angel said. “Sylvia thought you might like to watch the circus.”
I crossed my arms. “If that’s the only reason you came, you wasted your time.”
Guilt reflected in her eyes. “I came to check on my brother. I want to help you deal with whatever is going on in your head.”
“My head is fine. It’s my heart that’s broken.”
She reached for my hand. “I thought you would kill Van back in the conference room. Or the queen. I wouldn’t have blamed you.”
I stepped away from her. “There’s still plenty of time to make them pay.”
Angel stopped the elevator. “Holding a grudge only hurts one person.” She pointed at my chest. “You’re lucky Tyler hit you over the head and no one had to shoot you.”
I forced a smile. “You would’ve used your blood to save me again.”
“Do you blame me for not stopping Van?” she asked.
“Rena deserved better than to die like that, but I don’t blame you. Van pulled the trigger because his queen gave the order. Not sure which one I hate more.”
“I miss her already.” She turned to Agent Mason. “How long do you think it will take Rena to come back like her mother did?”
“Rosanna
is working on that as we speak,” Agent Mason said.
I leaned against the wall of the elevator. This conversation was getting weirder by the second. Had he been in contact with Rosanna? Were they somehow working together? “Dad told me Rena’s power would save the planet. What do you know about this plan to stop an exploding star?”
When Agent Mason offered nothing more, Angel said, “I talked with your father.”
Since Angel was the tallest woman I knew, I barely tilted my head to look into her eyes. It was always hard to see her and not think of our mother. “What did he say?”
“He regrets what happened to Rena.”
“That’s not all,” I said. “You sound guilty. Why?”
“I didn’t want Rena to die. If they’d shot her with a normal gun, we could have saved her life. A drop of my blood would have saved her from the inside. Instead, Van used a laser and disintegrated her body.” Angel covered her mouth. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Van knows about your power,” I said. “Why do you think this was a sneak attack?”
Agent Mason restarted the elevator. “Better to get this over with.”
I laughed at the irony of his words. “Rena deserved so much more. Honesty is the biggest thing.”
“Yes,” he said. “But there’s no going back. Only forward with our duties.”
Angel leaned close to me. “Please don’t go crazy and try to kill everyone in that room.”
“How would I kill them? I don’t have my powers.”
“They’ll return. Pade said the serum lasts for twenty-four hours at most. Since you took it last night, your powers should be back by this evening.”
“Before the world ends?” I rubbed my hands together. “Maybe I will attend this meeting. If I can’t hurt anyone yet, I’ll make my plans while I wait. This could be fun.”
“You’re not serious about killing people, are you?” she asked. “You’re an agent and you’ve always devoted your life to saving innocent lives.”
“My agent days are over. When I see Sylvia, I’m turning in my badge.”
“And your gun? You’re starting to sound like a cheesy TV detective. You know that no one walks away from this agency without a memory wipe. No way is Sylvia going to let you leave this base. She’ll lock you back in a room on the isolation floor the second she feels you’re a threat.”
