Willpower

by Anna Durand

  She must look. She had looked, a little, and none of the information she saw made sense.

  How could she expect it to? Nothing added up anymore.

  Thoughts spun in her brain with almost dizzying speed. Invisible assailants. Telepathy. Neuroscience. Digital Prognostics.

  Something destined to change humanity.

  Her grandfather, a neuroscientist, had studied something so earth-shattering that dangerous people would kill to possess it. For the first time in days — no, months — she understood the root of her problems. The data on the flash drive, combined with everything she'd experienced, added up to one thing.

  Her grandfather, and her parents, had studied psychic phenomena.

  And someone wanted their research. Someone who would kill to get it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Grace rubbed her neck. Her eyes felt gritty, her mouth dry. She sipped water from the cup on the bedside table and then she returned her attention to the document on-screen. Though she'd unplugged the flash drive, her computer was still logged onto the mystery site. She scrolled down the list of names until she found the one she wanted.

  Traveler: Sean Vandenbrook. Designation: TK (Level 9). Accuracy: 93.725.

  Clicking the link, she waited for the web page to load. When it did, she read the status report that, like David's, consisted of one short paragraph.

  Status as of 0800 hours: In transit at main facility, Mojave Desert, California. Vital signs normal. Excursion ends 0900 hours.

  In transit. At the facility. David's status report had said the same thing. It made no more sense now than it had a few minutes ago.

  She reached for the touch pad, intending to close the browser window. A line of text at the bottom of the screen flashed. She hesitated. The text, a link to another page, flashed again. View current excursion data (real time).

  She clicked the link.

  The page switched to a chat-room style window. As in a chat room, the text appeared line-by-line on the screen. But, rather than being attributed to the screen name of the person typing the text, each segment was attributed to an abbreviation. The text was apparently a real-time transcription of a conversation between someone designated TK24 and another person identified as LEAD.

  "I can't do it," TK24 pleaded, "I want to sleep."

  LEAD seemed unconcerned. "Time's not up. Keep going." After a pause, LEAD added, "You're restrained. You can't get up, so stop trying."

  "I can't do this anymore. Please."

  "Tears accomplish nothing." Another pause in the text, and then: "Give him the lorazepam. He's useless now."

  "Please no," TK24 begged. Grace could imagine the fear in his voice, despite the sterility of the typed words.

  Suddenly, LEAD asked, "Who's logged on?"

  A third individual, TECH3, responded. "JT's monitoring."

  "Who else?"

  "Nobody."

  "What's that?" LEAD demanded. "Someone else is logged on."

  TK24 said, "I'll do it. I'm okay now."

  "No, it's too late," LEAD told him. "Session terminated."

  The page went blank. A message glowed on the screen in bold, red letters. "Unauthorized access. Tracking … "

  The last word blinked.

  The message changed: "Re-initializing real-time link."

  The chat window reopened. A single line of text, sent by LEAD, glared at her from the screen: "Identify yourself."

  The cursor blinked on the screen, below the text. They demanded a response. She hovered her fingers over the keyboard. This could be a trap. Refusing to respond communicated weakness, fear. Responding would let them know she had control, or at least that she wasn't cowering under the bed. Even if that's what she felt like doing right at this moment.

  But they didn't need to know that.

  She typed two words. They appeared on-screen identified as GUEST. They could, no doubt, track her IP address or something. Better keep this brief.

  "You first."

  "Did you really think you could sneak in here?" LEAD asked.

  "Looks like I did."

  "You don't understand what we can do to you."

  "The ignorance is mutual."

  "You're not as clever as you think. Give up. It will be much easier on you."

  She punched keys one by one, mouthing the words as she typed. "Go to hell."

  "Hello, Grace."

  She stared at the letters on the screen. He was up to something. He used her name, as if he thought it might intimidate her — it did not — but she couldn't figure out why he waited until now to show that her knew her.

  Why did she assume DIR was a man?

  The person on the other end of the virtual conversation entered another phrase.

  "We have you."

  Tilting her head, she considered the words. He wanted her to think they'd located her. But had they really?

  With everything that had happened lately, testing her fortune seemed unwise. She tried to close the browser window on-screen. Nothing happened. She tried again. Nothing.

  In the chat room, another message appeared. "We have control of your computer. Stop fighting us."

  To the screen, she muttered, "Screw you."

  "We have you surrounded. Give up."

  Although they might've been lying, she couldn't take the risk. She tried to shut down the computer. It ignored her commands. She held down the power button for five seconds, which should've turned off the computer no matter what. Nothing happened. For several panicked seconds, she didn't know what to do.

  Then she tossed the computer onto the bed, grabbed her gun, leaped to her feet, and bolted out of the motel room. Her purse she nabbed on her way out, slinging it over her neck. The room door slammed shut behind her.

  A car swerved into the parking lot. The headlights raked over her as the sedan braked hard and whirled toward her, tires screeching. The car rocked to a halt, angled across the two empty parking spaces in front of her.

  She spun to the left and ran.

  Footsteps pounded behind her, advancing with each thunderous clap. She pushed her legs to move faster, her muscles to strain harder, until her thighs burned and her breaths shortened into gasps. It wasn't enough. The footsteps echoed louder and closer.

  Further away, tires squealed and an engine roared.

  A powerful hand seized her hair. White-hot pain ripped through her scalp. The force of the action flipped her feet out from under her. Another hand, as big and powerful as the first, clamped around her upper arm, holding her up with bruising strength. Her feet hit the ground again.

  The man holding her yanked her head backward. Pain shot out across her scalp and lanced into the backs of her eyes. She gritted her teeth. Darkness flitted at the edges of her vision. No, no, no, she would not pass out.

  The man gripped her right arm. Her left arm was free.

  She rammed her elbow backward into flesh hardened by taut muscles. The man grunted but held his grip on her. She raised her arm for another try.

  He let go of her left arm. Just as she slammed her elbow down, he clamped his arm across her torso, pinning her against him. She recognized the feel of him, the unyielding hardness of his body, the steel-bar quality of his arm fastened over her.

  "Waldron," she hissed through clenched teeth.

  His voice growled so close to her ear that she felt his breath on her cheek. "Did you think I'd let you go that easily? Your lovely body has quite a bounty on it, you know."

  Her scalp burned. Tears welled in her eyes, squeezed out by the pain rather than her emotions. Oh she felt plenty emotional right now, but she refused to let it show. She would not cry, even from the pain.

  Blinking away the tears, she said, "Bounty? What the hell are you talking about?"

  "My employer will pay me a great deal of money to bring you i
n."

  The sedan pulled up in front of them. They stood at the end of the building, where the sidewalk dead-ended at the grassy strip that separated the motel property from the interstate on-ramp. The sedan had veered onto the grass to stop directly in front of, but sideways to, the pair of them. The jaundiced glow of the parking lot lights revealed the car's driver. It was the man she'd seen parked along her street, inside the same nondescript sedan he drove now.

  A smattering of stars glittered overhead. Only the brightest ones could punch through the secondhand smog from Fort Worth and the radiance of Lassiter Falls.

  She still held the gun. In her right hand. The one pinned tightly under Waldron's elbow.

  The memory of their previous encounter flashed through her mind. Except for the setting, that incident was virtually identical to this one. For a couple seconds, she wondered if she'd slipped through a crack in time and emerged back in that very same moment. Apparently, she'd learned nothing from the first time Waldron attacked her.

  Or maybe he hadn't learned. The bastard seemed to have a limited playbook when it came to assaulting women.

  She couldn't shoot him in the foot this time. Her arm was too tightly pinned, and her own foot was in the way.

  "Stop fighting," Waldron murmured, his tone almost seductive. "You can't keep running forever, and when you stop I'll be here to catch you."

  If anyone else had said those words, she might've taken it as an offer of aid and comfort. Okay, if David had spoken those words she would've taken it that way. From Waldron, the words echoed as a threat rather than a promise.

  The car door swung open. The dark-haired man climbed out of the sedan and trotted to them. The new guy held a syringe in one hand.

  Grace's throat tightened. She swallowed hard.

  Waldron jerked her hair, tilting her head sideways, exposing the tender flesh of her neck.

  The new guy lifted the syringe and stepped closer.

  She wriggled in Waldron's grasp.

  He cinched his arm tighter around her and leaned close again to whisper in her ear. "Relax, dear child, soon you'll be with David again. Well, you'll be in the same facility — but you'll never actually see him again. You belong to someone else now, and he has great plans for you."

  The man with evil eyes. Grace shuddered.

  Waldron chuckled softly.

  The night felt colder, despite the warm wind, thick with humidity.

  "What about the flash drive?" the new guy asked.

  "It's either in the room or on her person," Waldron said. He ran the back of his hand down her neck and across her shoulder. "We'll search every inch of both until we find it."

  Nausea swelled inside her. She choked back the bile. No time for revulsion. She must find a way out of this. Right now.

  First, she needed to ask a question. "Was that your boss on the website? The one who calls himself LEAD?"

  "He detected your clumsy attempt at espionage." Waldron nodded to his cohort. "Now, Lopez."

  The other man lifted the syringe to her neck.

  Panic shot through her. She could not let them inject her. Even if the drug simply knocked her out, that would give them a chance to do anything they wanted to her. Anything. She would be defenseless.

  The needle grazed her skin.

  She kicked out, but sandwiched between the two men, she couldn't get enough leverage.

  Lopez flinched. The needle scratched her but didn't penetrate her flesh.

  Waldron snatched the syringe from Lopez.

  Grace squeezed her eyes shut, wishing with every ounce of her willpower that the needle would break or Waldron would drop the syringe or —

  Waldron jerked and gasped.

  She opened her eyes.

  Lopez stared, wide-eyed, past her shoulder.

  Waldron's hold on her slackened. He stumbled backward, out of her peripheral vision.

  Lopez shook his head, slowly at first, then faster and faster.

  Thump.

  Grace stood motionless, afraid to move. She wanted to look behind her, but at the same time, she did not want to see.

  Lopez had stopped shaking his head. He choked back a whimper as he focused his gaze on her.

  She opened her mouth to speak, only to realize she had no clue what to say.

  Lopez whirled and ran for the car. He flung himself into the driver's seat, slamming the door.

  As if in slow motion, Grace turned around to look at Waldron.

  He lay crumpled on the concrete walkway, eyes closed. The syringe protruded from his neck. She knelt beside him. Her hand trembled as she reached out to feel for a pulse in his neck. The blood surged against her fingertips in a slow-but-steady rhythm.

  She had wished for a miracle. And it happened.

  David must've done it. Or Sean.

  Yet if one of them had helped her, he would've shown himself. Wouldn't he?

  Rising, Grace turned away from Waldron. Fifteen feet away, inside the sedan, Lopez stared at her from behind the glass of the driver's window.

  She ran past the car, across the parking lot into a grassy expanse that separated the motel from a little strip mall. Lopez didn't pursue her. She kept running, aiming for the strip mall. The back of the building looked bleak and lifeless. The sickly glow of sodium vapor lights, mounted on tall poles surrounding the mall, guided her to her destination. What she would do once she got there, she hadn't a clue.

  A small loading dock stuck out from the mall's backside. As her feet hit pavement, she veered toward the loading dock. No vehicles were parked back here. The place looked dead. She halted at a set of steps that led up the side of the loading dock. Breathing hard, she sat down on the second step.

  What now?

  "I don't know," she muttered.

  Leaning her head against the metal railing, she stared at the pavement beneath her feet, without really seeing it. Her vision had drifted out of focus. Her nap earlier had done little to relieve the exhaustion that seeped into every cell of her body and left her feeling like a cotton ball floating on the ocean. Soaked through. Limp. Adrift.

  "You don't know what?"

  Grace jumped. She jerked her head up, rotating her head to the left, toward the voice that had startled her. She knew the speaker's identity without looking at him, though.

  "David," she said, because her brain refused to cough up anything better. Her conversation skills were mediocre on a good day. This was not a good day.

  "Are you hurt?" David asked.

  "No … "

  He walked toward her, stopping a couple feet in front of her. Even in the yellowish light from the sodium vapor bulbs, his eyes flared a bright sky blue. The color was unnatural, almost inhuman. Every time she saw his eyes like that, it set off a chain-reaction chill inside her.

  As he crouched before her, the strange radiance in his eyes dwindled. The irises were blue now, bright blue, but they lacked the burning quality.

  "Thank you," she said.

  He scrunched his eyebrows. "For what?"

  "Helping me escape. Waldron deserved to get a needle jammed into his own neck for a change."

  David just looked at her, brow furrowed.

  "What?" she demanded.

  "I didn't help you. I only got here a minute ago."

  "No." The world listed beneath her, and she clamped a hand around the railing. "You must have. He didn't stab himself with the needle and syringes don't move on their own. Maybe Sean … "

  David shook his head. "Sean can't. Not without help."

  The ground settled back onto the horizontal. She still felt a little light-headed.

  Leaning closer, David rested a hand on her knee. "It was you."

  She blinked slowly. "Excuse me?"

  "You must've moved the syringe."

  "I never touched it."
<
br />   He squeezed her knee. "Not with your hands maybe."

  "What?" She shook her head with such violence that her hair lashed her face. "No, it's impossible. Even if I understood what you're saying, which I don't, it would be absolutely impossible."

  He smiled just a little. "You wouldn't be so upset if you didn't understand what I mean. You have the power."

  She didn't want to ask, but the words came out anyway. "What power?"

  "Extrasensory mental powers."

  "Huh?"

  He patted her knee. "Psychic abilities."

  "Psychic … " Her voice trailed off, along with her thoughts. Several seconds ticked by before she collected her normal sensory abilities enough to speak. Then, in a tone far more confident than she felt, she declared, "That's insane."

  He laughed. The sound was low and masculine, devoid of mockery. In fact, if she had to describe the quality of his laughter, she would have to label it affectionately amused.

  She pursed her lips. "Why are you laughing at me?"

  "Because you know it's true. You used your telekinetic ability to save yourself." He smiled — not just a little this time, but a full smile that made his beautiful features even more attractive. "It's a good sign. If your powers are coming back, then maybe your memory will come back too."

  He looked entirely too happy about the prospect. Something stirred inside her, a feeling akin to dread mixed with anticipation. Right now the dread was stronger, but she felt the anticipation blossoming.

  David slid his hand over hers.

  She swallowed against the lump in her throat. "Do we know each other? I mean, did we know each other before you showed up in my house the other day?"

  "Yes."

  "How well?"

  "Very well."

  His throaty tone set her stomach to fluttering. She tried to withdraw her hand, but found she couldn't move or breathe. Her heart raced. He caressed the back of her hand, igniting an ember of heat there. The warmth flooded through her entire body in the space of three very fast heartbeats. She felt her cheeks flush.

  "What do you mean?" she asked.