by Skye Genaro
My eyes flew open. In one motion, I swept the blanket aside and sprang out of bed. For one, beautiful second, I thought I was back in my bedroom. A swift glance at my surroundings made my heart plunge.
This bedroom was painted soft yellow. Lightweight curtains hung over tall windows that filled the wall. A plush chair, the kind you'd curl up in to recover from the flu, or from a friend's funeral, sat on an ornate rug. A door next to the bed led to a bathroom.
Any resemblance to niceness, to normalcy, was erased by the framed paintings on the walls: a girl with a monarch butterfly pasted over her mouth seemed to hide unspeakable secrets behind her desolate eyes; men and women modeled unnatural poses with marionette strings leading from their limbs to an unseen controller. One picture showed nothing but rows and rows of chains, some rusted, some polished, all unbroken.
I did not remember anything after the pinprick in my arm. The gray daylight streaming into the room told me I had slept through the night. My suitcase sat on a low table. Everything I had packed the day before was there except for my cell phone. I tried the bedroom door but found it locked from the outside. No problem, I thought, I'll unlock it myself, and I shoved my hand into the wood.
Instead of plunging through the door and to the other side, my fingers hit the solid surface and folded.
"Ouch." I shook out my stubbed fingers.
I tried to go through the door again with my fist but bruised my knuckles when they smacked into the wood. What was up? I should have felt Mutila energy, too, but I wasn't picking any up.
"Weird," I said. Or maybe it wasn't. My ability never worked well when I was frightened.
I went to the window and looked down. My stomach flipped. Ten feet or two hundred, it was all the same to me, but I guessed I was at least twenty stories up.
The building sat near the edge of a river. On the near shore, I spotted a small ferry made for carrying cars across the water. My mind rolled back to the magazine article that had featured Keenan. Feller Industries was located on a private island in the Columbia River upriver from Portland. I bet that was where I was now. We would have used that ferry last night, but I had been so alone in my misery, I'd given up trying to process every bump in the road, every unfamiliar sound.
Far below, a tugboat chugged through the river's choppy brown waves.
"Up here! Help! Help!" I slapped the glass in time with my cry for help.
My voice echoed through the bedroom. It was unlikely that anyone could see or hear me from the river, much less understand that I was being held against my will.
Aside from Carina, nobody knew what had happened to me. In a futuristic laboratory, one hundred sixty years away, Carina would be at the portal controls, frantically searching for Connor's auric essence. His father, Mr. McCabe, would no doubt be at her side.
"Carina," I called out. "Can you hear me?" I set my intention on connecting with her. That's how time-jumping worked: you gathered your focus to a pinpoint and set it on the person or place you wanted to go. That allowed the portal to find you, if anyone was looking, and they would be.
I held this intention for as long as I could. No column of light materialized in my room.
Absentmindedly, I scratched my wrist and winced. The skin was red and dotted with tiny blisters, like I'd gotten a bad case of poison ivy. I went through my suitcase again, looking for anything I could use to get me out of there. No luck. I hadn't packed with escaping in mind.
I was betting that Connor was somewhere in the building. I blanched at what might be happening to him, and before panic made my head spin, I set my mind to small, simple matters.
I still wore my clothes from yesterday. My pants were muddy from the hike and my shirt stunk with adrenaline and sweat. I pulled my blouse over my head, and the fabric brushed against something papery on my left shoulder blade.
Reaching back, I felt a square of gauze taped to my skin. I didn't remember getting cut and could not imagine why I needed a bandage. Carefully, I peeled the tape away and checked myself in the mirror.
"What the--?" A monarch butterfly tattoo stared back at me.
This had to be a sick joke. Connor and Manny had called me Butterfly with love and adoration, and now someone had marred my skin without my permission.
Tears sprung to my eyes. "No," I ordered my reflection. "You will not cry. You've lived in gang territory. You stood up against drug dealers when they wouldn't let you walk to school. You will not let these people get to you."
The tattoo was scabby and oozed clear fluid. I replaced the gauze and checked myself over. I didn't find any other out-of-place markings.
I finished dressing and heard the deadbolt click. Jaxon stood in the doorway, rail-straight. His eyes drifted onto mine, lazy and possessive.
"About time you woke up. Did you sleep well, Princess?"
A depth of hatred that I had never experienced until that moment made me lunge for him. Before my fists could land, he grabbed me by the wrists.
"I trusted you! How could you do this to me?" I yelled.
"Oh, settle down. You were so desperate for a friend you would have sold your soul if I asked you to. Oh Jaxon," he imitated in a high voice, "nobody understands me but you."
He freed my wrists.
"I never said that. I never said…" I stopped because what was the use in arguing? My blood steamed. I rubbed the red circles where his fingers had gripped me and concentrated on driving white-hot electricity into my palms.
He leaned against the wall, his arms loosely crossed. "You know what Connor once told me? He was convinced I had power that I could develop if I worked hard enough. It's the ultimate rush, he said, moving objects with your mind, or levitating for the first time. He was wrong. This is the ultimate rush. Handing you over to the Mutila. Wait, I take that back. It was the look on his face when I told him we had you."
I jabbed my palm forward and waited for the bolt to blast him in the stomach. He flinched and his smile faltered, but the electric charge never materialized. I tried again.
"Don't waste your time, Princess."
My face heated. What was going on? "Connor will get us out of here. He's stronger than all of you."
Jaxon laughed, hard. "His Highness's superpowers aren't working so well right now. If you want to do your prince a favor, you'll keep your mouth shut. Keenan thinks he's nothing more than a low-grade psychic."
I read the scheming in his eyes. "And what if I tell Keenan the truth?"
"Go right ahead. See what Keenan does to him and carry that around for the rest of your life. Connor is here because of you, and what happens to him next is up to you." He leaned in close enough that his breath left condensation on my cheek. "Have you ever heard Connor scream? You will if Keenan finds out about his abilities. I wouldn't mind hearing it myself, but I have other plans for him." The corner of his mouth twitched. "How do you like the tat? That was my idea. The monarch is the Mutila's symbol, and you know how much I love ink on a girl."
He turned down the hallway, expecting me to follow.
"Mr. McCabe is going to kill you for what you've done," I yelled after him.
Jaxon huffed. "The portal can't find you here. There is no knight on a white horse coming to your rescue. You are property of the Mutila now, and the sooner you accept that, the better."
Chapter 30
I kept up with Jaxon's clipped pace. To keep from falling to pieces, I memorized my surroundings. A half dozen doors in this hallway, a corridor to the left. Connor and I might use this knowledge to escape Keenan's tower.
The hallway opened to a wide-open living space. Opulent artwork hung on white walls. White furniture sat on white wall-to-wall carpeting. I'd seen this space before, pictured in the financial magazine. I was in Keenan's penthouse. I made a mental note of the elevator door on the far wall.
The wall nearest me was covered with what must have been a hundred photographs, all showing Keenan hugging and shaking hands with various people. Some of them were celebrities. One of the
m had run for mayor recently. All of them found a way to discreetly flash the upside down peace sign. If what Gianna said was true, I was looking at a Mutila Hall of Fame.
Keenan was waiting for me. "Good morning. You're looking well." He said this without an ounce of sarcasm. The psychotic glint in his eyes was gone, replaced by stone cold calm.
"I want to see Connor now," I said, trembling. Hearing Keenan's voice again reminded me how easily he had sent Mr. Crane into the woods with his soldiers. How little human life meant to him.
"You will. I guarantee it," he answered.
"What does that mean? What have you done to him?"
"Every time you ask, you will prolong the reunion." He noticed my incessant scratching. "Jaxon, get her some ointment and a cuff." Jaxon exited the room.
"The itching should go away in a day or two," Keenan explained. "Your body isn't used to the chip we inserted under your skin."
I jerked my fingernails away from the raw patch. "Chip?"
"It sends an electromagnetic pulse through your system to prevent, shall we say, unwanted outbursts?"
My mouth fell open. "You cut off my ability."
"The chip ensures you won't give us any trouble."
What a sad irony, that the gift I once hated was gone when I needed it most.
Jaxon returned with a tube of ointment. He tossed it at me. "Smear that on your wrist," he commanded.
It was a common anti-itch remedy. I spread a gob over the red area. The ointment stung on the open blisters, but the irritation eased.
Next, Jaxon held out a metal cuff. "Give me your arm."
"No."
The look Keenan gave me was a silent reminder that my resistance was pointless and my attitude was not appreciated.
I extended my wrist and Jaxon clasped a metal cuff over the chip. The cuff was about two inches wide and the color of tarnished silver. It was heavy, like it was made from the same iron you'd find on prison bars.
"Good girl," Keenan said. "You'll notice a tingling in your arm. I understand it's bothersome but not painful. Am I right?"
"Yes," I answered obediently.
"The cuff overrides the chip," Keenan said.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning you shouldn't have to dodge this."
Keenan snapped his fingers and a heavy crystal vase flew at my head. I ducked out of its path. It splintered against the wall.
My eyes bulged. He was telekinetic!
"Just so we're clear, you have full use of your paranormal talents as long as you're wearing that cuff," Keenan said.
"Where do you think she'll fit in? Coercion? Destruction?" Jaxon asked.
"We'll see how she does during the next round of testing," Keenan replied.
Coercion. Destruction. I remembered these types of agents from my research on the Internet.
Suddenly, I was sliding out of control across the marble floor. I smacked into a wall and began to spin in circles.
"Stop it," Keenan said.
"It's not me. I don't know what's happening." I skidded into another wall.
"I've got control over you. Override my telekinesis and regain control of yourself."
I got down on my knees, because dizziness was about to topple me. "I, I can't."
He sighed and released me. "Either we've met one of your limitations or you're holding back on us."
"She has a problem with fear," Jaxon said. "It makes her weak and scrambles her energy field or something."
"Is that true?" Keenan asked.
I gave him a tight nod. "What do you want from me? I showed you what I could do last night, now please let me and Connor go." I scoured his pale eyes for a hint of compassion. "Please. My family will be looking for me. They'll go to the police if I don't call." I forced certainty into these words that, in reality, gave me little faith. Kimber would have seen my note telling her I'd taken a bus to Seattle. She would be mad that I hadn't called, but she wouldn't be worried yet.
Keenan pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and I recognized the red and black swirly pattern on its case. It was mine. He tapped a couple of buttons. Kimber's voicemail message came through the speakerphone.
"Echo, I wish you would have talked to me before you left for Seattle," Kimber's voice scolded. "That boy you had trouble with didn't show up at school today. Call me when you get this message."
"We don't want your parents to worry about you," my tormentor said lightly. "It's not that you've gone missing, you're…emotionally taxed and need some space after my foster brother's rude behavior at his apartment."
Jaxon shot him a foul look. "She was supposed to be mine until I was done with her."
Keenan ignored his foster brother and dictated a text message into my phone. "Hi Kimber, don't be mad that I left town. I just need time to myself. Oh," he added as he looked straight at me, "I'll call you in a few days."
A few days?
He sent the text and pocketed my phone. His complete lack of expression summed up the extent of his control. His carefully crafted lies would keep my parents from searching for me.
Frustration heated my neck and spread across the room in waves. The lineup of celebrity photos jumped off the living room wall and flew at Keenan. He dodged them, and, quick as a flash, he unclipped the cuff from my wrist.
"See what I mean? She's got plenty of force when she's mad," Jaxon smirked.
Keenan was not amused. "Striking out against your superior is a mistake an agent makes only once."
He dismissed Jaxon with a nod and led me to the elevator. He called the car to our floor with a key. The elevator didn't have any buttons on the inside, either, just a series of codes etched into the panel and a keyhole next to each one. Keenan keyed one of the floors and from the way my stomach floated against my lungs, I knew the elevator was dropping.
"What was it like when you discovered you could move objects with your mind?"
I squeezed into a corner, as far away from him as possible. My head hung, and I let my hair veil my face.
"Horrible," I mumbled.
"Were you frightened?"
"A little," I lied. I'd been horrified.
"Fear is a form of weakness. My talent came on when I was three years old. I was terrified of it. My father forced me to develop it."
A ribbon of a conversation unfurled in my head. Jaxon's foster father, Keenan's father, had been a soldier. Those odd meetings Jaxon witnessed in the garage must have been some of the testing for paranormal ability. I shuddered to think what those children would have gone through.
"Sessions with my father were severe," he continued. "No matter how hard he pushed, I never gained talent beyond telekinesis. However, I learned to never let fear control me."
The expression on his face was chilling. His father had abused him and probably used him to get promoted in the Mutila. Now Keenan was building his own army of gifted kids. If he expected me to soften because he shared his sad story, then he wasn't the mastermind he thought himself to be.
"The testing labs will identify that single key inside you that will overcome fear under every circumstance. We will drill for it, go as deep into your psyche as needed. Anger, hate, revenge—these are the gems we will mine. They will allow your power to thrive beyond your emotional barriers."
Testing labs? I squirmed. "I know what you do," I said. "Your soldiers use their psychic ability to kill people or coerce them into working with you."
His eyebrows raised in appreciation. "Doing a little Internet research, were you? I'm flattered you cared enough to learn about us. Ivan loaded those Web pages. If I remember correctly, anything about the Mutila comes up under Conspiracy Theories. Nice touch, don't you think?"
You can't make me do any of those things, I wanted to add. I kept my mouth shut.
Keenan continued. "Paranormal power is the new perfect weapon. The ungifted are frightened of phenomena they don't understand, which makes them exceptionally cooperative when I send in a gifted soldier to, say, influence them."
&n
bsp; The elevator doors opened to a dark hallway. Our footsteps squeaked on the tile floor. Young voices came from somewhere nearby.
The madness in Keenan's eyes returned. "You are not like everyone else, Echo. You are the elite of society. The non-gifted are simple creatures. They hold more power than they fathom. Not paranormal ability, of course. Nonetheless, they could change the world, but what do they do? Nothing. They hide behind phones and computers and televisions and hand over the most important decisions of their little lives to those who will use it for their own gain. And you know what? Whether they're gifted or not, I will gladly make their decisions for them. This country will reach its peak when the Mutila and its sister factions are in control."
"No," I said quietly.
"Pardon me?"
"I'm not better than anyone else."
He shook his head, ever patient. "Come. It's time to see where your weaknesses lie."
Chapter 31
We entered a room divided into different sections. Racks of barbells sat along one wall. A glass case held swords, knives, and spiked mallets.
Dozens of kids my age worked in groups, practicing training exercises. The telekinetics juggled knives with their minds and flung them at dummies marked with red and white target symbols. The pyrokinetics launched arcs of fire and set their own bunch of dummies ablaze. They all must have been forced recruits like me because they each wore a metal cuff on their wrist.
Gianna was off to the side, out of range of the flying knives and fire. Her hand rested on a boy's shoulder, her eyes shut in concentration. He sat rigid with anticipation, the muscles in his arms taut as he braced himself for whatever misfortune Gianna was about to deliver. Gianna's body swayed. The boy quaked into a full-blown seizure. Spittle foamed at the corner of his mouth. She released him, and the boy crumpled to the floor.
"Gianna," Keenan called. She came out of her trance and marched over to us.
