Ghost Heart (The PSS Chronicles #3)

by Ripley Patton

  “Get these people inside!” he bellowed, as forms ran forward, grabbing us and helping us into the building. There were men with guns and a medical team put Pete on a handheld gurney, whisking him away.

  “What the hell was that?” Mr. James demanded, striding up to a guy in uniform, more furious than I’d ever seen him. “This is a guaranteed neutral zone. We came for peaceful negotiations. I have my wife and daughter with me, for God’s sake. Get the CAMFers on the line now, and mobilize all our troops immediately.”

  Apparently, Mr. James didn’t like being shot at any more than the rest of us.

  25

  MARCUS

  I remembered things. Things I didn’t want to remember. I remembered this building, the strangeness and familiarity of it all at the same time. I remembered what it was like to be trapped inside the trunk of a cop car and how, even with the noise and vibration of the axles grinding under me, I could still hear Danielle crying softly in the back seat where they’d thrown her after they’d hurt her.

  That had been my fault, because I’d stolen a car. Because I’d promised to take my sister to Warm Springs for Valentine’s Day, or at least drive by the sign and remember Mom and Dad the way we did sometimes. Just sit and remember together. But we’d never made it to the sign. I’d been speeding a little, racing along the flat desert highway at night, because that kind of road was made for speed. Then, suddenly, there were flashing lights behind us, and a siren, and for a split second I could have made a different choice. I could have tried to outrun them and gone on a high-speed car chase. But I looked over at Danielle’s terrified face and I knew I couldn’t do that to her, not to the girl who still had night terrors about the crash and always wore her seatbelt. She would never forgive me, and it would just get us in more trouble anyway. So, I’d let the cops pull us over. CAMFer cops. Rapist cops. Cops who had pulled their guns as soon as they’d seen Danielle’s hand.

  I’d tried to distract them. I’d tried to deflect them from her and onto me, screaming that I had PSS too, telling them about my chest, but they didn’t take the bait. They weren’t interested in me until later. Until they were done with Danielle and realized they might be able to get something more out of both of us. That’s when they’d thrown me in the trunk and driven us here, to this valley and this building, but from a different approach and to a different door, just like the one in front of me but with no Hold icon on it.

  I had gotten my sister and myself back onto the reservation at last, ironically.

  It was coming back to me in bits and pieces of memory, like a jagged jigsaw nightmare. What they had done to us.

  Now, here I was again, only this time my uncle had brought me, and we’d just been shot at. Pete had been wounded badly. My aunt and Dr. Black had cuts and bruises on their faces and looked like they needed medical attention themselves. Bo and his brothers had gone off with some military-looking guy, rattling off information about the forces we’d encountered outside. The room I was standing in looked like some kind of war-zone headquarters mixed with a LAN party.

  “What is going on? What is this place?” Samantha demanded, slipping out from under my aunt’s protective arm and confronting my uncle again. Sam, undaunted, and in a rage was a terrible, wonderful thing to behold. “You said you’d tell us when we got inside. So, we’re inside.”

  “Samantha, this is hardly the time,” Aunt Chloe said, trying to pull her back.

  “No, she’s right,” my uncle said, looking at my aunt. “You and Sophie should see the medics and get those cuts taken care of. You can fill her in, and I’ll talk with the kids.”

  The kids. He sounded like such a dick when he was trying to act all nurturing and fatherly.

  “Okay.” My aunt put her arm around Dr. Black, who looked in shock, guiding her away.

  My uncle’s eyes swept over the rest of us: me, Passion, his irate daughter, and Jason, the guy in his back pocket. “Come with me,” he said. “There’s a room we can use for some privacy over here.”

  He led us to a typical conference room dominated by a long table with rolling office chairs around it.

  We all sat, except for my uncle. I didn’t know about the rest of them, but I was bracing myself to be served up a full plate of bullshit.

  He turned to Samantha. “You asked me what this place is, and it’s difficult to explain, but I’ll do my best. Essentially, this is where The Hold was born.” He was addressing us all now, his voice taking on a nostalgic tone as he geared up for a mini-sermon on his favorite subject. “Here, a group of people first gathered who believed PSS was the next step in humankind’s evolutionary process. They built this structure as a sort of temple, a research facility, and a commune. Unfortunately, not long after the group formed, there was an event that divided it, causing a philosophical split, a parting of the minds, if you will. One faction wanted to revere and honor those with PSS, accepting it as a spiritual mystery to be consecrated, not analyzed. The other faction thought the prerogative should be scientific research and utilization. One side saw PSS as a gift, the other as a resource to be controlled. And so, the two factions parted ways, and the purpose of this facility changed. No longer a headquarters, it became more of a neutral zone, a way for each side to always keep the other in check. The building itself, owned by both sides, was divided exactly in half, each half owned and utilized by one of the factions, with a neutral zone in the middle.”

  “The Hold and the CAMFers share this building?” Samantha asked, appalled. “They work together, and you never told me? You lied to me my entire life?”

  “I didn’t lie,” he protested. “But I couldn’t tell you. Only a small, select number of people on either side know this facility exists. And we don’t work with the CAMFers. We have our side and they have theirs. We’re completely separate entities,” he said, glancing at me.

  If he expected me to be shocked, he was going to be disappointed. At least, I wasn’t surprised by the part about The Hold and the CAMFers sharing the same origins. I’d always know they were two sides of the same coin. But the thing about them sharing the compound? I hadn’t known that. Still, I wasn’t shocked. I was just royally pissed.

  “They held us here,” I said, my eyes drilling into him. “They tortured us.”

  “You remember?” he asked, sounding surprised, maybe even alarmed.

  “It’s coming back to me.” My hands balled into fists under the table. “And you knew it. You let them.”

  “No,” he said, adamantly. “I had no idea you and Dani were here, or that they’d taken you. My men tailing you—they lost you that night. I thought you’d just stolen a car and run off again. I didn’t find out otherwise until weeks later, after you’d gotten away. Even then, I wasn’t sure what had happened to Dani. I’ve been trying to find out ever since, to build a case against them. I even tried to negotiate her return.” His eyes flicked to Jason, only for a moment, but I saw it. “They claimed they didn’t have her,” he went on. “That they’d never had either of you.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I said. “You knew it was bullshit.”

  “Yes, I did,” he admitted. “But I had to be able to prove it, and I couldn’t. My hands were tied.”

  “Your hands were tied?” Passion echoed, her voice flaring with anger. “What does that even mean?”

  “There are guidelines,” my uncle explained. “Rules by which the two sides interact to keep conflict at a minimum. Members of The Hold are strictly off limits to the CAMFers. But Dani and Marcus weren’t officially under Hold protection—”

  “Wait,” Samantha jumped in. “So members of The Hold are protected, but anyone else is fair game? I can’t even believe I’m hearing this. What about the fucking Eidolon? They shot members of The Hold there. But you knew they were coming, didn’t you? You baited them into coming so you could gather evidence against them, save the day, and show everyone you were a better leader than John Holbrook? That plan sort of backfired, didn’t it? You risked everything, and lost it. You
risked me,” her voice broke as she said it. “You let innocent people die just to save your position.”

  “That’s not how it was,” he said firmly, but I could hear the desperation creeping into his voice. “I had security at the park. I had Leo and an entire team ready to stop them and gather evidence. But he turned on me. He—eliminated his own team. He’d been your driver for years. He was one of my best men. I never suspected—”

  “You never suspected he was a double agent?” I jumped in. “You just told us The Hold and the CAMFers are so intertwined they’re practically a human centipede. And you still think you can tell where your head stops and a CAMFer’s ass starts? You’re delusional.”

  “Watch it,” he warned me. “Have some respect.”

  “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” I smirked. “Your own men screwed you. You let the CAMFers massacre innocent members of The Hold. You arranged to have your own daughter shot off a cliff, because you know, that’s great parenting. And then you completely lost control of everything. What’s not to respect?” God, I loved to see him squirm like this. Finally, everyone was seeing what I’d always known about him.

  “What?” Samantha blurted, her face white as a sheet.

  Fuck. I’d gotten carried away and forgotten Sam didn’t know about the shooting.

  Passion was staring at me, her mouth hanging open, her head shaking a horrified “no.”

  Even Jason was glaring at me, his hand on the table flicking a quick middle finger in my direction.

  “You shot me?” Samantha turned to Jason, her voice trembling “And you arranged it?” She looked back at my uncle, tears spilling down her cheeks.

  “Samantha,” he said, full desperation in his voice. “It isn’t what it sounds like. I was just keeping you safe.”

  “No!” she yelled at him, standing up and backing away from the table. “You are not who I thought you were. Not even a little. Everything you taught me about The Hold, about protecting the Marked, it was all a lie. This is just about power for you. You’re some kind of narcissist or sociopath or something.”

  “Everything I’ve done,” he insisted, “has been to protect you and The Hold and the Marked. Why do you think your mother and I risked our marriage to sway them? The Hold was going to split over CAMFer aggression even before the Eidolon. Can’t you see what’s going on around you? I brought an army here, and so have the CAMFers. There is going to be a war. The truce between the two factions is over. They made sure of that the moment they took David and Dani. In fact, I think it’s what they’ve been pushing for even before that. But it’s complicated. There are things hanging in the balance you have no understanding of.”

  “Oh, I understand completely,” Samantha spat. “You weren’t protecting other people. You were protecting yourself. I don’t want to have anything to do with you or The Hold ever again. I don’t even want to be in the same room with you,” she finished, walking out and slamming the door so the walls shook.

  The room filled up with silence.

  My uncle stood there, staring after her, his face a mask of mixed emotions.

  He must have known Sam would find out about the shooting. If he’d really wanted to hide it, he would have eliminated Jason. So, he’d wanted her to find out. That was the only explanation. My uncle was a smart, diabolical man. He’d know what was going to come out in this discussion with Jason, Passion, Sam, and I all in the same room, and not just the shooting, but all the dirty laundry about The Hold and the CAMFers and this building we were in. Sam’s sense of justice was fierce, and always had been. She wouldn’t get over this for a very long time. My uncle knew that. Of course he did. Which meant, for some reason, he’d upset her on purpose. He’d intentionally created a distance between himself and his daughter. The question was, “why?”

  And I still didn’t know why he’d brought us to this building in the middle of a valley in the middle of a war. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about hostages, I knew that much. If he hadn’t cared about Dani and I being here, he certainly didn’t care about Olivia and Grant. Maybe they were already dead, and the whole hostage thing had just been a ruse to get us to come with him. And then there was the deal he’d made with the tribes, the thing he’d been arguing with Reiny about. No, he wanted something here, something he’d only hinted at. There was a reason he hadn’t moved against the CAMFers until now. Something had changed to destroy all those years of stalemate between the CAMFers and The Hold. Something big.

  Whatever it was, it was in this building, still barely holding the two sides together like the nucleus of an unstable atom.

  And my uncle had come to take it.

  “Sir,” a man said, sticking his head in the room. “Sorry to interrupt, but the CAMFers are insisting on meeting with you immediately.”

  “And what about them firing on us out there?” he asked angrily. “What are they saying about that?”

  “They denied responsibility, sir.” I could tell the guy was embarrassed even relaying that information. “But we’ll have proof soon enough. Our men are moving into position as we speak.”

  “Then it’s time,” my uncle said. “How is Pete? What’s his condition?”

  “Serious but stable, sir.”

  “Good. Tell Bo and his brothers to meet us in the corridor.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll let them know,” the guy said, shutting the door behind him.

  My uncle turned to me. “You’re coming too.” It wasn’t a question. “Otherwise, you won’t believe a word I say about what goes on in there. And Samantha will believe you. I need an objective witness, and you’re about as objective as they come.”

  Jason stood up. Apparently, he was coming as well.

  “And I’m coming,” Passion said, a look of determination in her eyes. “Olivia and Grant are my friends. I want to be there for them.”

  “Very well,” my uncle said.

  When he didn’t argue I knew it had been his plan all along to take us. Us and not Sam. Which meant he was leading us into serious danger, and he knew it.

  “She shouldn’t come,” I said, wanting to protect Passion from my uncle’s schemes. “They’ll have minus meters. Think of what that would do to her. She has PSS blood.”

  Passion was glaring at me, but she’d thank me later. She didn’t understand him the way I did. She didn’t know what he was capable of.

  “She’ll be fine,” he dismissed my concern. “You’ll all be fine. Minus meters are the least of our worries.”

  Easy for him to say. He didn’t have PSS.

  “This is finished today,” my uncle said. “The CAMFers just don’t know it yet. Our military force is three times theirs. We can take this compound and everything in it, but we must secure the hostages before they realize it and get desperate. Timing is key. This is about psychology, not brute force. So, we have to keep our heads. You going to be able to do that?” he asked me.

  “Yes,” I said, noticing the sweat beading on his upper lip. My uncle didn’t get nervous. Whatever was about to happen, he knew it was a gamble, a high-stakes gamble with the CAMFers. And if this was his poker game, Jason and Passion and I weren’t his fellow players.

  We were his chips.

  26

  OLIVIA

  Six armed CAMFers led by Dr. Fineman escorted me and Grant down a long hallway. They’d searched us, but not handcuffed us. They’d also put gloves on me, the right one rubber-banded around my stump and stuffed with something to make it appear, at least from a distance, like I still had a hand. They’d also made us put on black hooded robes, exactly like the ones we’d worn at the Eidolon.

  “Oh, put up the hoods,” Dr. Fineman said, looking smug. “It makes you seem so mysterious.” He was mocking us, reminding us he’d killed our friends, and we were powerless against him. Even as he traded us away, he wanted us to carry that fear with us, to wear it like a mantle. I could see the gleam in his eyes. He thought we were subdued, all the fight gone out of us.

  Grant and I did our best to l
ook the part, heads bowed, feet shuffling, eyes straight ahead. Little did the doctor know, I had an ace up my sleeve, or rather, an entire hand up my sleeve, plus Grant’s cube at the ready. Of course, I had no idea what would happen if I used it, and I’d need something to combine it with. That part might get a little tricky. There was no guarantee any of the guards had PSS. They were too far away for me to tell and, for this to work, I’d have to get close enough to reach inside one of them. Still, if I had to use Fineman like a hand puppet and pop him back into a coma, I would. Whatever would free Grant and me, I’d do it.

  We arrived at the end of a hallway, standing in front of a metal door with seriously heavy security on it. There was a large camera over the door trained on us and two video monitors up there as well. The left monitor showed what must be the other side of the door, just a cut of a small portion of the room beyond, with someone on the other side guarding it and facing away from us. The monitor on the right showed a hallway exactly like the one we were in with a door identical to the one in front of us, but we weren’t up there on the screen. That other hallway, the mirror of ours, was empty.

  On the door there was a huge security panel and Dr. Fineman punched a code into it. He also did some kind of thumb and retina scan, and the door still didn’t open, but part of the security panel slid aside, revealing a keycard slot. Then, he reached up and pulled out a keycard strung on cordage around his neck. Still, he didn’t put the card in the slot. He just stood there, holding it and looking up at the monitor on the right, waiting for something and tapping his foot impatiently.

  “Where are they?” he demanded, turning to one of the guards. “You said they were on their way.”

  “They’re here, sir,” the guard said, pointing above the door.

  I looked up, and the empty hallway on the right monitor wasn’t empty any longer. Alexander James walked up to the door and looked up at the camera. And he wasn’t alone. Marcus was next to him.

  Marcus, his dark eyes peering down at me, curious, suspicious, cautious, mesmerizing.