The Whole Truth (The Supercharged Files Book 1)

by Jody Wallace

  What kind of evil, and where did Lou draw the line? Litterbug evil? Cheating on your taxes evil? Using your suprasense to make your life easier evil? Or evil like saboteurs who go around blasting everyone with...whatever that machine was going to blast me with?

  This could burn me out. Put me in a coma. Kill me.

  And it seemed I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  “I wish we didn’t have to burn Cleo,” Rachel said. “Mom likes her. She’s been so good for Beau, Mom says he’s almost friendly now.”

  “It’s probably because we took his abilities away,” Lou said.

  “You know, I got the impression he was better,” Rachel mused. “Wasn’t his burn supposed to be permanent? Herman must have given me the wrong frequency.”

  “You screwed it up yourself,” the old man snapped at her. “Wrong setting, I bet. You were supposed to get Cleo.” My friend. The note. It should have been you.

  “I am telling you, it wasn’t working on Cleo.”

  “I knew we should have sent the twins,” Herman said.

  “The wonder twins were otherwise occupied,” Rachel said. “Everything would have been fine if Beau hadn’t spotted me when that puppy dog was going nuts and Cleo kept hearing the machine. Your levels for hearing sensitives still suck. I had to improvise.”

  Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. Everything was starting to add up, and I wasn’t even good at math.

  Beau had been hit in Atlanta. Rachel had apparently done the deed. While we were at Wyse, we’d all had headaches, and I’d kept hearing a malfunctioning computer outside the conference room. Beau had recognized someone right before he came down with a bad case of the burns. Rachel was a chameleon, obviously better than YuriCorp realized if she could go invisible like Beau. Or avoid John’s nose. Or conceal Clint’s and my departure from the picnic.

  Rachel stuck a hand on her hip. With her pink T-shirt, she wore khaki shorts and a bouncy ponytail. She looked like a cheerleader, not a terrorist saboteur. “There’s something weird about what Beau can do. I’ve thought so ever since he trained me.”

  “That little stinker has a secret.” Lou clucked her tongue. “It was really hard to erase Atlanta out of his head. We’ll have to look into that.”

  Beau had secrets, plural. Lou thought he’d forgotten Atlanta, but he’d asked Clint about Rachel at the dunking booth. Lied about having seen her lately. Why would he do that—because he wanted to make idle conversation?

  Hardly. If he’d connected her to the sabotage and to Clint, there was hope for me, wasn’t there? The question was, would Beau bother to do anything about it?

  Clint cleared his throat. “We should take out Psytech’s tri-sensor. We aren’t sure what he can do, and Cleo hasn’t hurt anybody.”

  “But she could,” Lou pointed out. “Sees lies, knows everything. I can’t always be there to erase her when somebody slips up. She’s a problem. This is the solution.”

  “Nah,” I mumbled. I was dumb enough to walk right into this trap. Dumb enough, evidently, to have been erased by Lou on more than one occasion. How dangerous could I be?

  “Sammie likes her,” Clint said. “Sammie and Jolene have a good nose for people.”

  “She’s not bad,” Herman agreed, shocking the hell out of me. “Complains too much, though. Eh, she’ll live.”

  Herman wasn’t lying, but I wasn’t reassured.

  Rachel smiled at Clint, her eyes slightly protruding like many of the Lampeys. “Samantha’s judgment about you is way off. She’s not that great a judge of character. Yet you’re still protecting her.”

  “Don’t go there,” Clint warned, his fingers on my head twitching.

  Despite the fact I’d normally be curious enough to pry, I didn’t want her to go there, either. It was my important body part between Clint’s throttling fingers.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Lou said. “We haven’t softened up Psytech’s schedulers enough to trace individual employees. It took forever to get somebody we could trust in there. That place is riddled with corruption and misdeeds. I almost want to bring them down, but it’s not our place. We’re only here to protect the innocent.”

  My abilities were not reduced by the Clint effect, because Lou masked so deeply when she claimed pure intentions that I knew she, for one, wasn’t so pure.

  She had every intention of destroying anyone who stood in her way of being judge, jury—executioner.

  And I’d never suspected.

  We locked gazes. She smiled at me. Her slightly crooked front teeth gleamed in the light from the naked overhead bulb. If she knew what I could do, did she know what I’d just seen in the patina of her lies?

  “Herman, are we ready?” she asked.

  “Not much longer. I’m uploading the settings I tested on her this week. She can still hear the lower registers, but who cares? They’ll work. Now everyone shut up or I won’t be able to tell if somebody’s coming.”

  “The twins will take care of intruders.” Lou did not have crazy eyes. Weren’t villains supposed to have crazy eyes? Like Clint? Like Alex? She looked like the same Lou who’d shared casseroles with me, who’d gossiped with me, who’d taken me under her domineering wing.

  Had I solved this stupid case the first time I’d asked her about it only to have my knowledge wiped? How could I, how could Yuri and Al, never have wondered if our on-staff eraser was erasing her tracks?

  She had fooled us all.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this anywhere near hearing sensitives,” Clint said. “Even ones like Cleo sometimes notice the machine. This is risky.”

  “We’re creating too much of a pattern.” Lou sounded like she was tired of her flunkies’ grievances. “We have to perfect the device so we can move forward.”

  “Psytech’s tri-sensor is here. We don’t often have access to him.” Clint’s voice was detached but his thumbs rubbed my skull. “I’d be happy to trade Cleo for him. I’d be happy to burn him in his house.”

  “You’d be happy to burn down his house,” Rachel said.

  “Not this again.” Lou heaved a deep sigh. “The hits have to look like corporate infighting. It keeps them suspicious of each other and off our backs. It’s one thing to go to somebody’s house selling magazines. After I get through with them, they don’t remember anything but the fundraiser. It would be another if we hit them in their personal spaces. That would escalate things in a way that would interfere with what we’re trying to achieve.”

  Clint’s fingers tightened on my scalp again. “Today is hardly going to look like corporate infighting.”

  Rachel removed an amber pill bottle from her pocket and shook it. “That’s why we have amp.”

  “Cleo doesn’t do drugs,” Clint said. “You’re the one who amps.”

  “Like you never touch it.” Rachel grinned again. That much smiling during a situation like this had to be screwy. She was another with crazy eyes. Crazy amp eyes. In addition to the effect amp could have on supra abilities, I’d been told it behaved like a mild dose of ecstasy. “Everyone knows how stressed Cleo’s been. Aunt Lou did a fantastic job singling her out. On top of that, Yuri and Al and the rest realize how much she doesn’t want to do those interviews. They’ll hardly be surprised when she panics into an amp-fueled burnout.”

  Rachel snapped on a pair of rubber gloves as she talked. I thrashed with all my might. This amounted to my head flumping sideways, giving me a view of the machine. It had several dials, a screen in the middle, speakers on either side, and no probes or scanners. No spooky trays with surgical knives or needles. Why did she need medical gloves?

  Clint righted my head before I could inspect the gizmo further.

  “I see everyone’s point,” Lou announced to her flunkies. There was no doubt in my mind, after seeing Lou in action this week, hell, for the past several months, she was in charge of the whole operation. I had no idea how many people were involved besides the four in the loft plus the twins, but it didn’t matter. She was the boss of them
all.

  And then she lied. “Since Cleo’s a fan favorite, we’ll compromise.”

  “Luh,” I moaned and flopped my head to the side again. I still had my ability. So far.

  Lou and Herman exchanged a glance. “We won’t make this permanent. She might not have a stroke. Right, Herman?” Lou said. “Use the express setting. It’s noisier but we’re short on time.”

  “You’re the boss.” Herman rotated a dial all the way to the right. A small screen displayed what looked like sound waves, but I heard nothing. Was it already happening? No one who knew me would believe I’d popped amp, but amp in my system might distract them from thinking it was the standard sabotage. And it wasn’t like I’d remember anything to tell them.

  “We’ve got thirty minutes before the next hayride, and they need to find Cleo in the maze,” Lou told Rachel. “Amp her up, sugar.”

  “Nnn!” I protested. How did they think they were going to get away with this?

  Because they’d gotten away with the rest of it, despite the fact the opposing team had a ringer. A ringer whose talent, whose way of life, was about to be permanently neutralized.

  While I obviously didn’t want a stroke, for the first time in my life, I also didn’t want to lose my ability. Why me? I hadn’t done anything wrong. Not to them, anyway. There were better guinea pigs out there, like the trisensor at Psytech I was willing to bet my cats was Alex Berkley.

  Rachel opened the pill bottle and removed a thin purple square with her rubber-clad finger. “Hold her head still,” she instructed Clint before she poked the paper at my lips.

  When I refused to open my mouth, she waved the paper enticingly. “It’s gra-ape.”

  I tightened my jaw. Rachel tapped me on the nose with the drug. “If you don’t take the amp, I’ll do an injection. This is so much easier.”

  The longer I resisted, the more likely Samantha or Beau or somebody would find us. I fought, but between Clint and Rachel, they pried my mouth open. She shoved the paper onto my tongue. When I tried to spit, it had dissolved already.

  “Swallow. If this is your first amp, honey, you don’t want the injection,” Clint said.

  Slimy grape coated my mouth like cheap cough syrup. With rubbered fingers, Rachel pinched my lips shut. I could have dribbled saliva out the corners, but I didn’t want her poking me with needles. I swallowed. Then I nipped Rachel.

  Rachel snatched her hand back and glared at me. “That wasn’t nice!”

  “Fuuu,” I said.

  Clint patted my head. “Good girl.” I wasn’t sure if he was complimenting me for taking the amp or biting Rachel.

  Herman rustled in his duffel bag and withdrew several sets of bulky headphones, which he placed on the bale next to his contraption. He snapped a set on.

  “Cover up,” he yelled before he flipped a switch on his supra burner.

  A piercing, eyeball-splitting whine shot through my skull. I sneezed.

  “Jesus, Uncle Herman, give us a minute.” Rachel yanked on her set before handing Lou hers. Herman grinned at them both.

  Clint stretched for his headgear, one hand on my neck. He didn’t have enough reach and the earphones clunked to the floor. Cursing, he bent to snatch them.

  My torpor lifted even as my head threatened to explode. I lurched forward, knees and palms absorbing the brunt of my fall, and scrabbled for the exit. A sneeze nearly buckled me to the dirty planking.

  “Dammit, Clint!” Rachel tackled me, clutching my lower legs. I kicked her in the gut. She rolled off with a moan. This put her head within reach, so I let her have it, and I only held back a little.

  The wet cat maneuver was working.

  As if in retaliation, pain engorged my face and ears like the world’s worst sinus infection. My back teeth throbbed. My vision blurred.

  “You left the trap door open,” Lou yelled at Clint. “Idiot!”

  I rolled to the exit, took a deep breath, and grabbed the first rung I could reach. Then I let myself slide.

  My arms nearly wrenched out of their sockets. Something may have popped, but I was moving too fast to dwell. I banged into the ladder. A hand snatched at me from above, and my grip gave way.

  I fell. My chin hit a rung, hard. After another terrifying second, my feet nailed the floor.

  Not being a cat or even physically fit, I crumpled instantly, pain cycling between my head and my ankles. My breath whumped out of me. I released it in a shriek I hoped to hell was loud enough for somebody to hear.

  As I screamed, I looked up. Clint stared down at me with a grimace before he repeated my summersault, albeit more adroitly.

  “Fire! Murder!” I screeched. “Help, Al, help!” I tried to crawl away but I didn’t get far. My palms and knees were raw, and my skin tingled. I could feel the air on it. My hair hung in my face in a tangled mess of straw and sweat.

  “Cleo, honey, that’s a good way to get yourself hurt.” Clint scooped me up. Where his bare skin grazed mine, it was almost unbearable—hot, itchy, overly sensitive.

  As soon as he was touching me, the fight left my body and my vocal cords ceased to respond. My brain was still feisty, but it hurt too much to concentrate.

  “Is anything broken?” he asked in a loud voice. He glanced at my knees. “You’re banged up.”

  “Nuu.” I had no idea. My head felt broken, but that’s what they wanted. To break me, to destroy me, for what? To test some horrible machine? To train supra vigilantes? To force the supra world to establish a police unit? I agreed we needed police. It didn’t seem fair I had to sacrifice for the bad version of the greater good.

  We needed police to protect us from people like them.

  My emotions swelled. A piteous tear dribbled from the corner of my eye and tickled into my hair. I wanted to scratch it, but my arms were boneless.

  “Is Cleo close enough or do I have to bring her up there?” Clint called up to the loft.

  “What?” Herman peered down at us, his head distending and retracting as my eyeballs pulsed.

  Clint gestured to his headphones, and Herman lifted one side. “Are we close enough down here?” Clint yelled again.

  Herman let his headgear snap back into place, and in turn, Clint lifted one side of his. They were being so careful, it’s like the sound waves splitting my head open were dangerous or something. Ha.

  “Bring her up,” Herman yelled. “When I get sub woofers installed, we should get sixty feet, but right now you need to be within fifteen.

  No more, no more! No stroke, no coma. No dying. Come on. Wasn’t I normal yet? So ironic normalcy had been my dream for years and now it felt like the hugest forfeit I’d ever made in my life.

  “Are you going to cooperate?” Clint asked me.

  Well, duh. No.

  Rachel clambered down. Between the two of them, they got me into a fireman’s carry on Clint’s back. When my head banged the ladder, I only knew because I heard the thunk. I hurt so much it made no impact.

  My skin blazed where Clint’s hands touched me, like branding irons. I whimpered and tried to struggle.

  “Not much longer,” he told me. “With the right frequency, it goes quick. Lou will make you forget the pain.”

  “She’s so little.” Rachel picked up one of my arms. “Look at those tiny wrists. You know who she reminds me of from this angle? Samantha. Something about her profile.”

  Clint seemed to understand Rachel without removing his headphones. “Shut up.” He shifted me toward his back and approached the ladder.

  I think I blacked out for a minute. Next thing I knew, Rachel was cursing, and I heard a low, dangerous voice order Clint to put me down. Was that...Beau? As my head bounced, I could see several sets of feet. One set had on Samantha’s flip flops.

  “We’ve got company!” Clint yelled, backing toward the other side of the barn. Feet circled him.

  “Herman, you old bugger, weren’t you listening for prowlers?” I heard Lou screech. “Flip the machine to broadband.”

  “You t
old me the twins had it covered,” Herman hollered back.

  Static. Yelling. The intense whine of the supra burner escalated. Several people cried out.

  “What’s that horrible noise?” It was Samantha’s voice. I guess she was wearing her own flip flips. “Knives in my eardrums.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” John’s voice replied. John was involved too? Had they drawn him into the investigation or just the rescue?

  “Muuh,” I said cleverly. I swung to the side and realized I was face to face with a cow, who’d wandered into a stall to check out the action.

  “Muuh,” the cow responded.

  “I’m touching her skin, Sammie,” Clint warned. “Back off.”

  A scuffle of feet, and he danced to one side, moving lightly even though he was carrying me. I couldn’t see the cow anymore. One of his hands smacked the back of my bare thigh, which stung like crap. Amazing that I could sense it above the pain in my head, but every inch of my skin was tender. The amp or the situation? I pinched his arm, not as hard as I wanted because my fingers had no strength.

  “Don’t you hurt her!” I’d never heard Samantha so pissed. Or so loud. Everyone was bellowing like bulls to get through Clint’s headphones. “Dammit, Clint, what’s going on? Is this because I broke up with you?”

  “Samantha, the world doesn’t revolve around you.” Rachel, to my right. I twisted. She appeared to be handcuffed to the wall, and her headphones were gone. “Nobody had to get hurt until you showed up.”

  “You don’t have a chance, McAdams,” a male voice gloated. At top volume, of course. “There’s no way you can get away with this. You’ve got too many witnesses”

  “Fuck you, Berkley,” Clint snarled. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”