“Rachel.” His face hardened with my words.
I rolled my eyes. What? Did he want me to be excited we were going to have to talk about what happened? Would he have preferred if I had handled it myself? Not come to them for help?
I took my seat and attacked my food. I guess I was hungry.
“Your mother should really be having this conversation with you, but she had three conference calls this morning and they couldn’t be delayed. So I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
I shook my head. “Dad, you always do this part of parenting. This isn’t really Mom’s zone. She’s never been Donna Reed. You’re much more up to the role.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have woken you. But think before you get snippy. Considering I took a punch in the face from a crazed Jason Kenwood, I think you’d be better served to be kissing my butt and losing the attitude.”
I hated when he was right.
“Do you want coffee?” Mom didn’t let me drink it but Dad sometimes did when she wasn’t looking. The fact he offered had to be some kind of I-still-love-you-even-though-you-screwed-up statement.
“No.” I shook my head. If I went through the day feeling a little fatigued, maybe it would hold off some of the pain I knew my exhaustion and shock held back from me. A thought to his earlier statement made me add, “But thank you anyway.”
“No problem.” He tapped his hands on the table. “Listen, like I said, I’d rather your mom did this but it’s going to be me, okay?”
“Okay? Do I have a choice?” I held up my hands. “I apologize. I shouldn’t be talking like this. I’m just crazy or something, Dad.”
“God help the fathers of teenage girls.” I knew he didn’t really speak to me, just aloud. He did sometimes talk to himself, like some entity in the universe would listen to his words.
“What do you want to say, Dad?”
“How long have you and Jason been having sex and have you been using protection?” He put his hands over his chest. “Your mother says we need to know today; it’s too important to wait to find out.”
I closed my eyes. This couldn’t get any more embarrassing. Well, maybe it could but I wasn’t really sure how right then.
“We’ve never had sex.” I opened my eyes. Was it too late for coffee?
“Rachel, I won’t have you lying to me. You’ve been deliberately deceiving us for the better part of a year. Now it’s time for the truth. We can help you if you let us. Deception is never the right answer.” He pointed to his eye. “Sometimes it leads to someone getting hit.”
No wonder my mom had wanted him to be the one to have this conversation with me. He could point to his eye each time I objected to something and the sheer sickening feeling I got when I saw my dad’s injury would lead me to tell him whatever he wanted to hear.
In this case, I happened to already be telling him the truth. “I’m not lying. Jason wanted to, of course he did. But I….” Oh heavens, this was hard to talk to my dad about. “I wasn’t ready. I don’t know. Sex seems complicated. These girls get obsessed and hurt. I don’t know, Dad. I just don’t. I said not yet. We waited.”
“Are you telling me this boy is so crazed about losing you, he hit me in the eye—and you’re not having sexual relations with him?”
The way my dad said “sexual relations,” I wanted to die. “I don’t know how to explain it. I didn’t like it, either. Well, I didn’t like it when I wasn’t with him. In his presence, I couldn’t seem to get enough. Jason is like some kind of drug or something.”
“I guess I’m relieved you weren’t sleeping together. Well, actually I’m enormously gratified you used good sense.” He scratched his head. “Confused even more by Jason Kenwood but glad. Maybe Mom and I should meet with his parents.”
“No.” I choked on my bacon. “The Kenwoods are weird, Dad. His mom’s okay but some of Jason’s issues have to come from his family. His dad gives me the creeps.”
“Me, too.” My father laughed. “It’s like he’s not quite right.”
Things had clearly gotten better as soon as he realized I wasn’t having sex. But no way did I think we were done with this conversation. I’d never get off easily.
“So, what’s my punishment?” I might as well cut to the chase.
“You lied to us and you deliberately met with Jason in your bedroom, which you knew we didn’t want.”
I nodded. “Yes, I did all those things.”
My parents liked it when I fessed up to things. My dad called it taking responsibility for my good and bad actions.
“I appreciate you owning up to it. The fact you came to us for help, even though you knew it might get you into trouble, impressed your mother and I.”
Great. They’d listed all my good qualities. The punishment would come now. It wasn’t like I made a habit of getting into trouble, but when I did, it tended to be a doozy.
“Well, obviously you’re not seeing Jason anymore.”
I held up my hands. “Done, although how I’m to totally avoid him at school is going to be another issue all together.”
“You’ll do your best. I know you broke up with him so it gives me hope you’ll use your good sense to stay away from him.”
Maybe he was correct. Jason and good sense didn’t always go hand in hand but I wasn’t going to tell my father.
“And you’re grounded. But your mother and I don’t want you stuck at home. We think Jason’s done a good job of isolating you from your friends. So, you can go out if you’re with a girlfriend or a group of girls. No boys. Not for a while.”
I scratched my head. Tia Lyons’s cell phone number had been saved in mine. I wasn’t really sure when. At some point in the confusion of the day, she must have stored it for me. I didn’t have girlfriends, not really. My friend Kayla was always looking to go out and get drunk. Tia didn’t seem like that. She and I had texted a few times. They didn’t live far. If someone could give me a ride, we could get together.
“No boys?”
My father leaned over the counter. “None.”
“What if she has brothers and, you know, seeing her would mean seeing them and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it?”
***
Now
I pointed at Redemption. In the dead center, Icahn’s sons were sure to be found hanging around their lab. Their sister would be there, also. And the answers to Chad’s and Deacon’s questions.
The end of my journey would have to take place there, too. One well-placed bomb, already made and stored in my bunk there, would do the trick. No more cloning devices, no more control.
“Over there’s where you can find the whole operation. I’m going to blow it sky-high. In about an hour. So, my suggestion would be, boys, you are out of there before the explosions happens.”
I wouldn’t blow it up if they were there. But if my words made them take me seriously, even better.
“You’re not coming with us?” Deacon still didn’t trust me.
“I have to go get the bomb. Do you want to trample through Redemption with me and risk all of us getting caught? I can go in here as I please. I live here now.”
Chad grabbed Deacon’s arm. “She has a point. I mean, this isn’t even supposed to exist. It’s not on any map. Technically, it doesn’t exist. I don’t think she’s led us here to kill us. She’s too worked up. Someone with nefarious intent would be taking better care to hide how upset she is and—”
I interrupted. “Chad, before this all happened, you had such an incredible future ahead of you. School, dreams becoming reality. When this is over, I’m hoping we’ll all be able to make plans again. Not the ones we had, but others. Of our own choosing.”
“The other Chad did.” He shook his head. “I’m just his clone, right?”
I couldn’t answer him. I didn’t have to live with the knowledge. But my heart sank with his words. “If you two want to go ahead and follow me like you’ve been doing every time I’ve asked you to leave me alone, then you’re going to find yourself in big
trouble. You won’t get to put your injuries on my shoulders.”
“You’re what? Done with being responsible for us?” Deacon sneered. “And what was my future? No gallant speeches about what I might have done?”
“I’m completing my goal. I can’t let you get in the way. I don’t think you want to, either. Or you won’t once you see.” I turned to go but stopped. “As for what you were doing, Deacon, when Chad was getting ready for school and driving a car he rebuilt himself around the highways of New Jersey and Connecticut? My guess is you weren’t even born yet. I’m not sure how long we cryogenically slept but if it was as long as I think it was? Then Chad and I are old enough to be your grandparents.”
Leaving them with one of the thoughts that had plagued me at night for six months, I went back to my bunk to retrieve my bomb. A few feet in, I started to run. No one would think it odd. I did strange stuff all the time and the fact I’d been gone for over a day wouldn’t cause alarm, either.
I walked into my small room, nodding at the guard at the end of the hall. I never knew what purpose arming the residential halls provided for the Icahns. But then again, they showed force in everything they did, even if people didn’t recognize it.
With a whistle to act like nothing was amiss, in case they watched me on video or some other means of spying, I had to look like all I was doing was changing my clothes.
I’d prepared for this, assembling the bomb one piece at a time over months. Laundry could be a wonderful cover and the Icahns were sloppy with their stuff. Supply closets were easily broken into. Micah and I had built so many makeshift explosives when we’d been destroying the Vampires I’d hardly even had to pay attention to do it.
Now I just had to get it in my bag. Picking up the sweatshirt I’d wrapped it in, I walked over to my backpack and shoved it in. There was always the chance it might decide to explode around me. We’d known every time we used the things they might blow. But the risk of death felt small in comparison to the huge benefit of being able to destroy large amounts of stuff in a short amount of time.
I flipped the bag over my back. Icahn had worried enough about our being able to fight but one of his first and only rules had been it was illegal to teach or know how to make bombs. For years we hadn’t questioned it but then again for years I’d not questioned anything he did.
My hands tingled while I walked toward the main compound. No alarms went off and soldiers were not charging in my direction. Hopefully, they hadn’t caught Deacon or Chad.
But I never knew what was going to happen. I could be walking into some kind of elaborate trap.
Entering the building, I stared at my feet while I moved. Not making eye contact made everything easier.
“You’re back.” Darren ran up behind me. He grinned from ear to ear like his best friend had returned home after a long stretch away.
“I’m here.” Damn it. Why did he have to be there? Well, I’d known some people would die. Darren had been on the list of people I wanted gone. But he’d make my sabotaging the equipment and hiding the explosive more difficult.
“Where did you go? Did you kill the pup?”
“Jason got away from me.”
He hissed in his breath. “Damn. Did you rekindle your relationship or something?”
I laughed. “No. I tried to take off his head and I failed. I’m a big, giant screwup.” I looked up and patted him on the arm. “I think what I actually need is more training. Would you be willing to help me?”
Darren wanted from me to need him. He craved to feel important and wanted. If I gave him a task to perform, it would likely keep him out of my way while I took care of business.
“Machete training?”
Back in the day, we would have said he resembled a kid at Christmas.
“Exactly. I need to go see Liam for a bit but then I can train. Could you go get the stuff?” Please, please, please go.
He nodded. “Absolutely. I’ll meet you outside.”
“Perfect.” I stood still and waited until he ran off. I didn’t know if he’d more disappointed when I blew up the building or when I didn’t show up for training. That was, of course, assuming he didn’t die in the explosion, which was a distinct possibility.
A hand grabbed my arm as I rounded a corner. Deacon held on to me tightly. Chad had paled in the time since I’d left him. Maybe he’d seen the cloning machines. They’d made me ill the first time I’d seen them.
“How did you guys get past the people up front?”
Using his chin, Deacon indicated the window.
I nodded. They were silent. Had something happened? “What is going on?”
“Dr. Icahn is here.”
Okay. Unexpected but not too bad of a deal, actually. He could watch his whole cloning operation go up in flames, too. “And?”
“And everything you said is entirely true.” Chad bit out the words. “I’m a clone. What does that even mean?”
I touched his arm. He didn’t know me and I had no right to touch him just because I wanted to. But I did it anyway.
“You’re Chad, okay?” I needed to make this clear. “You have all your memories, your soul, your whole life. Who cares which body you’re walking around in?”
“And you did everything you did to get me back. Because you loved me.”
I could barely breathe. “Go wait outside.” I couldn’t talk to him about this at the moment. I had something to go blow up. We could discuss it on the walk back.
Or never. Telling a person who did not love you because he could not remember you that you’d done something huge out of love for them felt a little bit like banging one’s head against the wall for the fun of it. I couldn’t see myself ever telling him on purpose.
“We’re not going to leave you here, Rachel.” Deacon shook his head. “I can help you. So can Chad, even while he’s having a nervous breakdown.”
Chad rolled his eyes. “He’s not wrong, even if he’s a jerk. I want to blow this place. I don’t want him manipulating anyone else into doing something he wants.” He bent over to stare at me. “And make no mistake, Icahn manipulated you. None of this could have been your idea, any more than it could have been mine.”
“How do you know? You don’t even remember me.”
Chad shook his head. “The last time you and I saw each other, before it all went to hell, before we stared at each other through the glass in the cryogenic room with Micah screaming holy hell, we went to an ice-skating rink. Well, I chaperoned you and Tia because you were grounded and my mom was completely overprotective of her only daughter.”
I staggered backward. Deacon looked between us. “What’s an ice-skating rink?”
I opened my mouth to answer him but no words came out. Chad remembered? How was it even possible?
“Yes.” My words were strained. “It was one of the greatest nights of my life, right before the end. Things felt possible again.”
“They were.” Chad smiled, his dark good looks so staggeringly handsome it hurt to even stare at him. “Come on. You’re going to show us how you blow this stuff up.”
Chapter Twelve
We strode down the hall together. Fortunately, Chad’s amazing hearing kicked in and he noticed the other people approaching before Deacon and I did. He grabbed Deacon by the arm and pulled him into a room, leaving me alone in the hall, which was okay since I was allowed to be there and they weren’t.
Two guards, armed to the teeth with guns and knives, one even holding a machete, strode in front and back of Andon Kenwood. I sucked in my breath. Yes, of course he’d be there. They’d brought him back to work on their research.
The guards indicated he’d been less than thrilled about the whole thing.
His eyes widened as he saw me. But his reaction didn’t make any sense. He should have scented me a long time before he saw her.
“Rachel.” He hissed the word. “Where is my son?”
“I have no idea. Keeping track of Jason is not my top priority.” Although I’
d wanted it to be.
“He’s not dead?”
I shrugged. “Not the last time I saw him. He could have gone and gotten himself dead. But not at my hand. I turned out to be half the girl I thought I’d be.”
“No. It’s because you’re a good person. And you have feelings for him. I know you do.” Andon smiled. “They’re keeping me locked here, dosing me with something keeping my Wolf side asleep. I can’t smell like a Wolf, can’t shift into one. I’m basically a human in chains.”
“Welcome to the club.” My father wouldn’t have liked my snarky response. Or maybe he would have. He’d never liked Andon Kenwood to begin with.
***
I made my way into the room with the cloning machines.
“Icahn was talking about doing the procedure on someone. He yelled at his sons if they continued to act without thinking, he’d stop bringing them back.” Chad sighed. “It was how I knew it had all been true, what you’d said.”
“We didn’t even know he had kids. I guess it wasn’t in our rewrite.” Deacon spit out his last word.
“I’m sorry this bothers you so much, Deacon. In some ways you came out better after the redo. Although they seem to have brought out all your most annoying qualities, too. Your family was practically dead, had to be rescued from the Vamps. You were lost, never feeling like part of the group.” Maybe I shouldn’t have told him, or I could have found some kind of a way to be more generous and patient. But those traits were not part of my personality. I didn’t know if they ever would be.
“Watch the door.” I moved forward to the machine. The room resembled something out of an old, black-and-white World War II movie. Lots of buttons, lots of flashing lights, and large computers. Whatever had happened to the miniaturization of machines, I didn’t know. If I’d bothered to ask, I would have gotten a lengthy explanation from one of the Icahns. In any case, the huge computer would be my target.
“Is it possible they’re watching us right now?” asked Chad, always the pragmatist.
“I suppose anything is possible. But they tend to keep the goings-on in this room really quiet. No one knows who will and won’t be cloned. This is the Icahns’ domain.”
The Warrior Page 69
