Premonition (The Division Series Book 1)

by Leigh Walker

  “This is disgusting,” Kyan complained.

  “It’s taking so long,” Morgan moaned. “And no amount of twin telepathy is going to make this move faster. You think Cranston could have devised something more on point.”

  In front of us, Maya kept struggling. She bent over, trying to free her foot from the sludge, when the ground opened up in front of her.

  “Oh!” She stumbled and crashed down into the crevice.

  “Maya!” Morgan tried to sprint through the mud, but she couldn’t speed up.

  Rachel teleported herself ahead of us and materialized at the edge of the ditch. She peered down, putting her hand over her mouth. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, no. Hurry!”

  Maya screamed bloody murder then went quiet—too quiet. Rachel leaned down, whispering encouragement to her as we finally reached the edge of the ditch. I looked down. Maya writhed underneath a crawling mass of spiders, thousands of them, in all shapes, colors and sizes.

  A large, hairy one crawled across her face, and the ground spun beneath me.

  “Oh, my God!” Morgan looked stricken. “I can hear her thoughts. She’s going into shock. We need to get her out of there!”

  Finn reached his long arm out toward the stricken girl, who remained just out of reach. “Maya, listen to me. Give me your hand. I’m going to pull you out.”

  She looked at his hand, eyes wild with terror, but didn’t move.

  “She can’t move—god-dammit!” Maya closed her eyes and started shifting her arms, as if willing her twin’s body to respond in kind. “It’s not working. She’s too stressed. Her heart…Oh, my God, I’m worried she’s going to have a heart attack.” Tears streamed down Morgan’s face.

  Josh stepped up. “I’ll calm her down.” He leaned down, closing his eyes and concentrating.

  It didn’t seem to be working. Maya looked on the verge of passing out.

  “I’m going down there.” Finn looked around for something to hold onto.

  “Wait—just wait. Let me see if I can help.” I closed my eyes and focused on…the spiders. I thought about the air around them, the dirt underneath them.

  “Hurry, Riley.” Morgan’s voice was thick with fear.

  I squinted one eye open. The dirt around the ditch started to shake and fall into the hole.

  Morgan’s head whipped toward me. “Don’t bury her!”

  “Shh.” I closed my eyes and focused on the air, swirling atoms, crashing energy together. I started to lift the spiders. And Maya.

  “It’s working,” Finn said, his voice level and calm. “Keep doing what you’re doing.”

  I focused on the air around Maya. I hoped the spiders fell off her and went…anywhere else. I knew how I’d feel in Maya’s place.

  I visualized lifting her all the way out and out of the ditch and placing her gently on the ground. I didn’t stop until Morgan said, “Oh, thank God! I’m here honey. Everything’s going to be okay. Get those god-damned things off her!”

  I opened my eyes to find Morgan tending to Maya, whose eyes were wide open, staring into space. Finn quickly swept all the spiders off her, back into the ditch. Josh bent down, taking Maya’s hand in his and whispering softly to her. I watched Finn corral the last of spiders back into the ditch.

  He looked back at Maya then at me. “We need to get her out of here—but Cranston won’t let us leave until we deal with these spiders. It’s the last part. I know it. Can you help me move dirt back into the ditch to cover them up? We need to incapacitate them so we can be done with this.”

  “Are they all in there?”

  He kicked in a couple of stragglers. “They are now.”

  “Back up.” I turned to Morgan. “Make sure Maya’s safe. Cover her up.”

  “What’re you doing?” Finn asked.

  I closed my eyes, clenched my fists, and concentrated my surroundings. One of the good things about growing up in backwoods New Hampshire was that we learned some crunchy, survivalist things in science class. A few of my AP teachers were crazy-smart doomsday-preppers, who taught us some weird stuff—things I’d taken for granted at the time, but was oh-so-grateful for now. For example: if you were stuck out in the woods with no source of fire and happen to stumble upon a marsh, bingo. Decaying organisms contained in marshes release methane, also known as ‘marsh gas.’ Methane, along with another swamp-ish compound known as diphosphane, can lead to spontaneous combustion—i.e., a nice little burst of fire from ‘nothing.’

  A little bit of marsh gas was all I needed to get something going. I concentrated on the methane and the diphosphane emanating from the marsh around us. I pictured warming it, a trillion molecules changing and gathering energy, bouncing of each other. I clenched my fists, concentrating.

  I mentally collected the gas and shot it into the ditch, a torrential flood of hot energy and matter.

  Boom! Heat warmed my face.

  I scrunched one eye open. All the spiders were on fire.

  Rachel’s eyes shone as she stared at me from across the ditch. “Yeah, girl!”

  I smiled at her for the first time ever then turned to Finn. “I am officially done with this test.”

  He looked at the fire and arched his eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure you passed.”

  20

  Follow The Leader

  Cranston was on me the second I came to. “I thought you couldn’t set things on fire.”

  I looked around the sauna, utterly disoriented. “I didn’t…I didn’t know I could.”

  His eyes glittered. “That was nice work, soldier. Your potential’s shining through.”

  “Where’s Maya?” I peered past him. Like I gave a crap about my potential—my friend had almost had a heart attack. I darted around him, legs wobbly, and found everyone in the hall outside.

  Maya was slumped on the floor, visibly shaking, but alert and drinking water. “Riley,” she croaked, “my hero. Glad I made up with you before test.”

  I crouched down next to her. “Are you okay?”

  A wan smile lit her face. “I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life, but that’s to be expected. You were awesome back there. Thank you.”

  I shrugged. “I’m sorry it took me so long.” I winced, the image of the spider crawling across her face coming back.

  “I have a feeling Cranston’s going to have a field day with your performance,” Maya said.

  “He already seemed pretty excited.”

  Maya nodded. “You should get some water. We usually all feel sick after levels, and water’s the only thing that helps.”

  I stood up then leaned heavily against the cool cement wall. My legs were jelly.

  Finn came up and handed me a bottle of water. A huge bruise ran from his collarbone to his jawline. “Take it easy.”

  “Jesus, you’re hurt. The things in our hallucination can bruise us? How does that work?”

  He grimaced. “Cranston showed us a tape once. Sometimes, we throw our bodies around in the sauna, acting out what’s happening in the test.”

  I shook my head. “This is messed up.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.” I need to talk to you, but we need to play it cool. That’s very important.

  “I think I need to go take a shower and lie down,” I said, feeling miserable. I had a million questions, but it wasn’t safe to ask them, and I didn’t understand why.

  Finn nodded. “Yeah, go get some rest. I’ll see you at dinner.”

  I hustled past Kyan, and he shot me an I-told-you-so look. Ugh. I needed to deal with him, but I barely had the energy to nod as I passed.

  I showered, the hot water running over me, cleansing the imaginary river mud from my hair and body. I shivered in spite of the warm water. That river had felt real. Those spiders had seemed real, too, and the mud…and my father.

  I dried off and grabbed the blow dryer, beginning the arduous task of drying my hair.

  My heart ached. My father…my father… Why had he been in the hallucination? Who could be that crue
l? And how did they know he called me Pumpkin and the type of clothes he wore? And what about all the crazy things he said to me?

  I still have friends, though, people who believe what I believe.

  What on earth did that mean? I went over every word he said to me. I wanted to believe some of it, especially the part where he said he and Katie were still together. My eyes filled with tears. I yearned for that to be true. But the image and its words weren’t my father. They were a chemical presentation of my father, designed to elicit a response from me.

  Someone was messing with me.

  Someone knew my deepest wish—to be reunited with my family, to be together forever—and they were playing me the way they’d played me by making me watch Finn with Rachel, attempting to get me to unlock my power.

  Cranston was behind this, or his superiors were. The Division. Why had I accepted this new life so easily? I fumed at myself as I finished drying my hair and brushed my teeth. The blame lay squarely at my feet. I’d liked the feeling of belonging and the tiny taste of special-snowflake status my new powers gave me. I’d wanted more.

  I’d wanted more, and I’d gotten more than I could handle.

  I shuffled into the dorm. Thankfully, the others hadn’t come back. I crawled into bed, feeling queasy from the drugs and my own thoughts.

  If the hallucination could be believed, my father knew about the agency, and he knew Cranston. But nothing in my memory supported this. Dad had never done government work, and he’d never mentioned anything about an agency that even remotely resembled The Division. I knew all of his friends and most of his co-workers. I didn’t believe he had some sort of secret background.

  I struggled with what he’d said—rather, what he’d said via telepathy. Had my dad been a telepath? Did he have secret powers I didn’t know about? His words were troubling, inscrutable: I understand if you can’t ever forgive me. I’m prepared to accept that. But there is someone who needs your forgiveness. Try not to get so broken that when it’s time to search your heart, it’s too jagged to find the right answer.

  I rolled over, pulling the blanket over my head. Really Dad? What the what?

  Exhausted and wanting to escape my thoughts, I fell asleep. In my dream, I was back at the river’s edge, and Finn was further down the beach, heading toward me.

  “Don’t go in there,” he called.

  “I have no intention of ever setting foot into a river again.”

  He finally reached me. “Good.”

  “Hi.” I grinned at his handsome face. “You’re so pretty.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” He grinned back. “But Riley, I should tell you—this is real. I mean, I’m really here. In your dream.”

  I coughed. “Oh.”

  “It’s okay. I already know I’m pretty.”

  “Ugh.” Finn talking to me like this reminded me of something, but I couldn’t place it. “What do you want?”

  He laughed. “I have to tell you about the test, and this is the only safe way to do it.”

  “But what if I don’t remember what you tell me? I never remember my dreams.”

  “If I think it seems like you don’t remember, I’ll come back. I’ll keep coming back until I’m sure you’ve got it. But I can’t ask you about this while we’re at Freel. We’re being watched. I need to limit my telepathic statements to you because I’m worried the activity’s going to show up on my monitor.”

  “Who’s watching us? What’re you afraid of?”

  “Who said anything about being afraid? I just don’t want you getting involved.”

  “You’re telepathically transporting yourself into my dreams to tell me something. I think I’m already involved.”

  The muscle in his jaw jumped. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Why not? Is your concern for me some sort of civic-duty thing? Or something else?” Dream-me was more daring, less self-conscious, than awake-me.

  He sighed. “You really are annoying. No, it’s not my civic duty. It’s something else.”

  I smiled, even though he hadn’t said anything particularly promising. “Good.”

  “Let’s stay focused. Your dad said something to you today, during the test. What was it?”

  “You couldn’t hear what he said?”

  He looked down. “I heard most of it, but I stopped listening. I figured you deserved some privacy.”

  “Thanks. You probably didn’t miss a lot. He just said I needed to be careful who I trusted and that he and my mother had made mistakes, but that they loved me and Katie.” I crossed my arms against my chest. “Then he said something about someone needing my forgiveness…that I needed to make sure my heart didn’t get so broken that I couldn’t forgive this person. At least, I think that’s what he said.”

  Finn kicked a pebble. “What do you think he meant?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t even know if that was actually a message from my father—who, I might remind you, is dead. So I don’t know what the message meant, who it’s really from, or why the agency is messing with my head like this. I was sad earlier, but now I’m just pissed.”

  He nodded. “The reason I came tonight is to tell you I believe that message was from your dad. I’ve never seen a telepathic communication like that in a levels test before. I’m not saying it’s impossible that the agency planted it, but I don’t believe it.”

  I knew Finn was trying to help, but he shouldn’t make assumptions. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

  “I’m trying to tell you I think that message was legitimate.” His gaze reached mine, and I felt that pull toward him. “I knew your father. He’d want you to know those things. The Division would not.”

  The edges of my vision blurred. “You knew my dad?”

  “A little.”

  “How?”

  “Remember when Emma told you we’d been waiting for you for a long time?”

  I nodded, feeling as if I were about to be sick.

  “Well, we knew about you, and we knew about your family.”

  “What did you know about them?”

  “It’s not important—”

  I threw up my arms. “Don’t you dare say that! My family means everything to me!”

  “I knew who they were.”

  “Did they know who you were?”

  “They knew about the agency.”

  I opened my mouth and then closed it, my vision tunneling.

  “Easy.” Finn wrapped his arm around me, catching me before I fell.

  I sank down onto the sand, my mind whirling. “They knew about The Division?”

  Finn sat next to me and stared straight ahead. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  Finn opened his mouth to speak but then looked up, as if he heard something. “Someone’s coming. I have to go. Remember, don’t talk about this stuff when we’re awake. It’s not safe.”

  “Wait!”

  He leaned over and kissed the top of my head, sending shockwaves through me. “You never remember your dreams,” he explained, flashing his dimple. Then he disappeared.

  I jerked awake, breathing hard and tangled up in my sheets.

  “You okay?” Emma asked. “You were having a nightmare, I think.”

  I sat up and realized I was thirsty, starving, and nauseous all at the same time.

  “It’s normal to have weirdness going on after levels. The drug’s a shock to the system, and you dealt with a lot of other stuff, too.”

  I sat up and grabbed some water off the nightstand. “Yeah, I feel lousy.”

  Emma nodded. “How did it go with your father…the image of your father? Did they make you fight him?”

  “No!”

  She looked relieved. “Thank God. They do that, sometimes. They might do it to you someday, but I’m glad you were spared this time.”

  “They make you fight your family?”

  “Not your real family,” Emma corrected me quickly, “simulations designed to mimic your family.”

 
“That’s terrible.”

  She shrugged. “I know it makes them sound like monsters, but think about it. What if our enemies were able to manufacture something similar? A likeness of people we care about? We would have to fight them and kill them while dealing with the shock of it. The Division wants us to be prepared for every ugly possibility. It’s tough love, but it’s still love.”

  I wanted to ask how she was sure, and I wanted to tell her what my father had said, but I held back the specifics. Still, I wanted to know where my friend stood. “Do you…do you trust them?” I asked quietly.

  She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Has Kyan been trying to recruit you?”

  I exhaled shakily. So she knew about his objections. “He mentioned something.”

  Emma sat back next to me, propping herself up. “He has a lot of concerns—questions we’ve all asked ourselves. But he goes about it like a bull in a china shop. You need to watch out for him, Ri. He’s not careful. One of these days, it’s going to get him into trouble.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I reminded her.

  She looked me in the eye. “That’s because I don’t know how to answer it. Do I trust everything I’ve been told? Not necessarily. Has the agency given us enough information to fight a war? Hardly.”

  “But?”

  Emma tilted her chin. “But Cranston’s the one who showed me how to harness my power. He saved me from myself. What would I have done if my visions had come on, and I’d been out in society? I would’ve lost it. I would’ve thought I was crazy.”

  I nodded, taking in her words.

  “The people on our team are my family now. I would die for them.”

  “But are we…safe? With The Division?”

  Emma’s blue eyes grew larger. “I don’t know. But I do know we’re safer if our team sticks together.”

  I picked at some lint on my blanket.

  “What do you think?” Emma asked.

  “I think…I think I’ve finally made some friends.” It should seem silly how important this was to me, but after being lonely for so long…