by Sophie Davis
I refilled her wine glass. “And he doesn’t care?”
She smiled affectionately. The faraway look in her eyes made me glad we weren’t having this conversation mentally.
“No, he doesn’t care. I’ve been in love with Brand for as long as I can remember. He knows that. He also knows he’s the only person I will ever be in love with. That’s all that matters to him.”
“What about you? Do you care that he might’ve been with other girls while you were away?” I asked.
“Why, what did he tell you?” Her eyes grew impossibly wider, expression suddenly deadly serious. “I’ll gouge her eyes out.” Penny couldn’t keep a straight face. She dissolved into a fit of giggles. “Kidding. No, I don’t care. Brand has always been mine. He will always be mine.”
She stood, taking her wine glass with her. “I’m gonna go get something to eat. Don’t stay in here all night. And please, go see your dad.”
“Yeah, I will. In a little while,” I promised.
Penny left, and I turned my attention back to the wallscreen. My thoughts had already begun to wander back to Talia and the things Gretchen might do to her. The sound of a glass shattering rang out, followed by a dull thud. I leapt to my feet.
“Penny!”
Vaulting the back of the couch, I dashed to where she’d collapsed in the doorway. Her thin body bucked, her head hitting the wood floor repeatedly. I didn’t want to touch her and make it worse. I didn’t want to leave her to get help either.
“Help! Ian, help!” I screamed. “Anybody! Help!”
I rolled Penny onto her side. Tearing my shirt off, I wadded it into a ball and stuffed it beneath her head.
“What happened?” Ian demanded, sprinting from the opposite end of the hallway.
“I don’t know,” I stammered. “We were just talking. She said she was hungry, and she got up and…I don’t know. She just collapsed.”
“There’s a cherrywood box on the bookcase behind my desk. Get it,” he barked.
“Of course.” I summoned the box and opened the lid for him.
Ian grabbed one of the syringes inside. His hands were surprisingly steady as he plunged the needle into her neck. The convulsions slowed but didn’t stop. Blood dripped from Penny’s nose. Ian stuck a second needle into his niece’s upper arm. With one last horrifying shudder, Penny’s eyes rolled back in her head. She went limp.
“Is she…?” I couldn’t say the word.
“No.” Panting and visibly shaken, Ian sank down beside his niece and stroked her hair. “No. She’s breathing. For now.”
Trembling, I ran a hand down my face. “Tell me the truth; how long does she have?”
Ian shook his head. “Not long. The neurological damage is permanent. Even if Dr. Patel finds the cure tomorrow…we’d only be able to slow the progression.”
“Does she know?” I whispered.
“I haven’t told her how bad it is, if that’s what you’re asking.” Ian sighed. The lines on his weathered face seemed to deepen before my eyes. “But yes, I think she knows.”
I felt like I’d swallowed a sock. Though I wanted to ask if this was my fate, I already knew it was.
“You should get some rest, Erik. I can take it from here.”
“Yeah, okay.” Feeling his desperation, I stood on unsteady legs and left.
When I glanced back, Ian was stroking his niece’s hair with tears running down his scruffy cheeks.
Chapter Forty-Three
Talia
“When you said you found a way out, I thought you meant an actual exit. What am I supposed to do with him?” I demanded, gesturing at the man laying on the ground at Cadence’s feet. In a softer voice, like there was a chance Alex wouldn’t hear me when he was standing right beside me, I added, “Did you hit him over the head?”
Cadence sighed, annoyed. “How else would I have knocked him out? He saw me. I didn’t have a choice. Don’t act like you wouldn’t have done the same thing,” she hissed.
“Do you know who that is?” I stabbed the air angrily with my pointer finger. “And I repeat, what am I supposed to do with him?”
“Of course, I know who he is. I had therapy sessions with him for two years.”
“What? Why?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“They wanted to make sure I didn’t become a traitor after my brother was locked up in Tramblewood.” Cadence poked the unconscious man on the ground with the toe of her boot. “Dr. Wythe diagnosed me with anger management issues and a chronic bad attitude.”
I smirked.
“Oh, shut it. You have no room to talk. Didn’t you see him for years, too?” she countered.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Though, I think he messed me up more than helping.”
Dr. Wythe, the head-shrinking doctor Mac had made me see regularly, groaned and rolled onto his back. He stared up at us with his weird, colorless irises.
“Cadence, what am I supposed to do? How is he our way out?” I squeaked.
Dr. Wythe had always made me uneasy, and not just because he liked to play inside my head. There was something off-putting about him. Considering he was in league with Gretchen, maybe it was just an evil vibe I’d always felt.
“Read his mind. Compel him to show us how to get out of here. Do whatever it is you do. Just hurry,” Cadence insisted. She glanced over her shoulder, toward a passage opposite the one we’d down. “More might be coming. The observation cavern is down there.”
Observation cavern? There wasn’t time for questions, but I had so many. I didn’t want to read Dr. Wythe’s mind. It just seemed like it would be a creepy place.
“Talia? Do something,” Cadence pressed.
The doctor chuckled, which quickly turned into a hacking cough.
“Natalia Lyons, I was just on my way to see you,” Dr. Wythe wheezed.
My lip curled involuntarily. The doctor tried to sit up, but Cadence placed her boot on his chest. I took a deep breath and met his eyes.
“Is there an exit on this level?” I demanded.
“This level?” He cackled like he’d just told a joke. “We’re twenty stories below ground.”
He was telling the truth, though not entirely. There was a way out. Against my better judgment, I dove into his mind. Cadence had said it was like a maze down in the tunnels, we needed the info. If Dr. Wythe knew of a passage that led to an exit, he’d also have a map stored somewhere inside his thick skull. I just need to find it.
“You are no match for me, Natalia,” he said softly. “I know your mind much better than you do.”
Cold fingers crept up my spine, but I refused to show him my fear. He’d taken enough from me already. Instead, I smiled smugly and was rewarded with a trickle of unease from the man at my feet.
“Maybe you do,” I conceded with a lazy shrug. “But I don’t care if I break yours.” Without taking my eyes off Dr. Wythe, I spoke to Cadence. “Take Alex toward the observation cavern. Wait halfway up the passage. I’ll meet you there.”
She didn’t hesitate. Alex held up his arms, and Cadence scooped him up.
“It’s okay, Alex. I’ll be right behind you,” I promised him.
Once Cadence’s footsteps grew faint, I stood over the doctor with one foot on either side of his torso. “You’re the reason that my memories of my parents are muddled.”
It wasn’t a question, because I already knew the truth.
“You’re the reason I didn’t remember Penny or her parents.”
“How is Penelope?” Wythe asked, a knowing glint in his eye. “Twelve abilities must be very difficult for a Mimic. You know, it is not very different from giving a norm that much power. Mimics do not actually have their own talents, so they have a very hard time coping. Tell me, how advanced is your friend’s deterioration?”
Control. Focus. Breathe.
He was trying to get a rise out of me, and I couldn’t let him. I had one goal: find the exit map inside his head. Slowly, carefully, and painfully, I peeled back the layers of
his mind like an onion. The doctor resisted. I pushed harder. Instead of taking his memories, I erased them. One by one.
Maybe it was cruel. Maybe it would’ve been more humane to kill him once I’d found what I was looking for. Maybe he should’ve considered the consequences of torturing a teenage girl and then leaving her to slowly lose her mind.
“Penny is doing well,” I half-lied. “Much better than you’ll ever feel again.”
Almost there, I thought. The complicated labyrinth of tunnels started to form in his mid.
“You don’t have it in you, Natalia.” Sweat coated his face from the effort of trying to keep me out. His cheek twitched. And still, he fought me.
“You overestimate my character,” I replied dryly.
“No, no,” he wheezed. “Killing is much different than torture.”
So close. Focus.
“Oh, I don’t plan on torturing you, Dr. Wythe.” I waved a finger in his face. “I plan to leave you with just enough partial memories that you’ll spend the rest of your life torturing yourself. You’ll spend every hour of every day feeling as though simple things are on the tip of your tongue. You’ll never truly remember any of them, not even your name. You’ll know you’ve lost something, but you won’t know what it is.”
He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists in a last-ditch effort to keep me from the final pieces of the maze.
“Although, you’re sick, right?” I taunted. “That’s why you’re having trouble breathing. You’ll remember that.”
The doctor’s eyes bulged as I extracted the last bit of information I needed.
“You will also remember her name. Penny. Say it.”
His lips trembled as they formed my best friend’s name.
“Every strained breath you take will be filled with guilt and shame for what you did to her,” I finished. “As tormenting as that will be, it is far better than you deserve.”
I walked away, leaving the doctor on the dirty stone floor trapped in his own mental hell. I wasn’t proud of myself, but I did feel some vindication for Penny. For myself, too, and the childhood memories he’d robbed from me. I could live with what I’d done, because it was a favor to the world. Even if we didn’t defeat Gretchen, at least her sadistic doctor would never harm another person again.
“Did you get what we need?” Cadence called. I jogged up the passage toward her and Alex.
With a rush of relief, I nodded. “I got what we deserve, too.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Erik
“Erik? Hey, time to get up.” Dad shook my shoulder. “Ian’s mobilizing the troops. If you want to be part of this fight, you’ve got to get up.”
I rolled over and groaned loudly. “What time is it?”
“Time to get up,” he repeated.
“Just a few more minutes,” I mumbled.
My father swatted me lightly in the back of the head. “Now, Erikson.”
Full name. He was serious. I stretched, and all my joints cracked. Barely opening my eyes, I tumbled out of bed and trudged to the bathroom.
Five minutes and a very cold shower later, I was more alert. I followed my father through the house to the helipad. We’d stayed up late talking, which was a better use of my time than sitting in Ian’s study getting drunk by myself. All I had to deal with was exhaustion and not a hangover—a good thing considering the next few days promised to be long and arduous.
The helipad was packed despite the predawn hour. Most of my friends were going to Switzerland with us, though not all would take part in the raid on Interlaken. Even Dad was coming, since he wanted to be as close when we figured out how to free Talia and Alex from Gretchen’s castle.
Still, there were a few people I was surprised to see.
“Penny, what are you doing here?” I asked uneasily.
She and Brand, who clearly hadn’t slept, were huddled together off to one side. Penny shot me an anxious glance.
He doesn’t know about her most recent episode, I realized.
“Please don’t say anything to him,” she sent, a note of pleading in her voice.
“Do you really think you should be coming?” I asked in lieu of an answer.
“Talia and Alex are in France. I want to be there when we get them back.”
I didn’t know how long it would be before Ian decided there was sufficient intel to raid Gretchen’s Privileged Institute, or if I could wait for him to make that decision. I did that know that only a small team would go on the mission, since Talia was still a fugitive from Vault. She was also still wanted for Victoria’s murder, which was ludicrous. My presence in Switzerland was going to be dicey enough. Penny could prove crucial in freeing Talia.
“Your uncle is okay with this?” I asked Penny.
“He agreed to it,” she said carefully.
Which, of course, wasn’t the same. And we both knew it.
I caught Ian’s bloodshot eye. He was a man on the edge. The stress of running a divided nation and the pressure of being responsible for the protection of our kind were both things he could handle. Losing Penny was not. It was killing him to see her struggling so much. Oddly, he did seem to be in better spirits than when I’d left the study the previous night.
“Erik? Please don’t say anything? Brand doesn’t need to worry about me right now,” Penny sent.
“Yeah, okay,” I agreed after another moment of hesitation.
Penny smiled at me and slipped an arm around Brand’s waist.
Talia’s best friend wasn’t the only surprise on the rooftop. Both Kip and Emma were there, too, dressed and ready to go. While Ian had agreed to Kip’s participation in New Mexico, that had been a very specialized mission where his skillset was a huge bonus. Reclaiming Interlaken wasn’t the same.
As for Emma, her talents were more of the defensive variety. A girl with the ability to block and mute other’s powers was neither necessary nor advantageous in this scenario; she couldn’t control it. Plus, Emma was so young.
“Hey, Earon. Glad to have you along.” Ian clapped my father on the back. “From what I hear, this is going to be a family affair?”
“What?” I asked, confused. “Are Edmond and Evan in Switzerland?”
“On their way now,” Ian replied with a nod. “Our most recent intel suggests Gretchen is sending even more soldiers to Interlaken. Just two hours ago, another ten buses of refugees were brought in. It looks like she really plans to use the town as her main recruiting grounds. We need all the help we can get if we’re going to retake it.”
I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about my brothers being a part of the fight. They were capable, and they’d been working with UNITED for a little while. Still, I’d always think of them as my little brothers in need of protection.
“Is that why you agreed to let the children come play?” I asked. With a jerk of my head, I gestured to where Emma and Kip stood with Alpha, Epsilon and the other Clearwood children.
“Only Alpha is coming with us to Switzerland. The others are going to West Bank. They’ll be safest there while we’re away.” Ian hesitated, clearly having more to say but not sure he should.
I didn’t press the issue. Whatever they were, Ian would’ve had good reasons for withholding the information.
“I’ll look after ‘em,” a gruff voice interrupted.
“Yeah, who’s gonna look after you?” I asked Miles.
He chuckled softly. Clutching his left shoulder, he winced. “That doctor friend of yours…Patel, I think? He’s gonna fix me up.”
“There’s your ride now.” Ian pointed to the sky, where the first in a fleet of choppers was just crossing over the property line.
“I’ll see you soon,” I told Miles.
“Yeah, you take care of yourself out there, kid. Don’t let me hear you did anything stupid,” he replied.
I laughed. “Me? Never.”
The chopper landed. Alpha hugged her little brother tightly, whispering something in his ear that made Phi smile. Fiv
e of the Clearwood children and Miles climbed onboard.
“Wait, one more,” Ian called as the chopper doors started to slide shut.
Riley rushed across the roof from the access door.
“I’m here. I’m here.” He had a knapsack slung over one shoulder and a somber expression on his face. With a little wave and a nod to me, Riley jumped onto the chopper.
“Riley’s going to West Bank?” I asked, frowning. “I thought he was doing okay? Are Kenly and James going, too?”
My father and Ian exchanged glances.
“Physically, Riley is fine,” Dad told me after a pause. “It’s his girlfriend, Willa.”
“What happened?” I asked, trying to recall the last information I’d heard about her. When had that been?
“Search and rescue found her off the coast of Eden,” Ian replied.
“Is she alive?” After days lost at sea, it seemed unlikely.
“In the loosest sense of the word,” Dad confirmed. “She’s not going to make it. Riley wants to take her home to London.” There was an unspoken “to bury her” at the end of his statement.
“That’s awful, I can’t imagine how much pain he must be in.” I’d met Willa once and barely knew Riley, but the loss hit hard. A lot of people had died already. There would also be a lot more casualties in the future. Still, this was the closest tragedy had come to our friends recently.
How much longer can the luck last? I wondered.
“To answer your other question, Kenly and James will be joining them to California,” Ian informed me. “They’re flying on a medi-hover with Bryn. She’s doing fine, but there have been a few complications with her recovery,” he added before I could ask. “It’s nothing serious, but the staff at the hospital thought it best she travels with medics.”
“Why are they moving her to West Bank?” I asked.
“I had her transferred, actually. Kenly asked me to; she wants to go out and see if she can be of any assistance with the search for the cure,” Ian answered.
I arched an eyebrow. “Kenly? How is she going to help? And isn’t she afraid they’ll contain her?”
