“You keep saying that,” she muttered under her breath, and I expected her to leave, but she leaned on the table and crossed her arms.
Jack raised an eyebrow at her. “Anything else you need?”
“No, but I’m going to stay here and make sure you don’t make a mistake again.” A smile played on her lips.
“Great.” A tick started in Jack’s jaw. “Moira, get in that chair, please.”
I settled myself in the chair and waited.
“Is Asya sure this is what she wants? I never tested if the serum is safe to use so quickly again after it was already administered.” Jack eyed Kira, and I wondered who Asya was.
“It’ll be fine, just give her a smaller dosage.” Kira waved her hand, then seemed to catch herself and looked at me. “Don’t worry, Moira. Nothing bad will happen to you.”
Yeah, I was sure it wouldn’t. All I needed was to get this over with and find a way to get to Jaiden, or maybe talk to Jack and get him to help me with Jaiden and tell me what he knew. Maybe I could mind-control Kira, but I wasn’t sure if she was one of us or not. She looked slightly older, but I didn’t want to risk it. If it turned out she was more powerful, I’d put the whole mission at risk. For all I knew, the lab would go into a quarantine of some sort and I wouldn’t be able to do anything.
“I know,” I said, flashing her a smile.
“Let’s do this.” Jack attached the pads and secured me to the chair, then slid the needle into my skin. It took some time for the serum to start working. The power was slightly less intense this time, but when the machine was turned on, I struggled against my binds, my whole body shaking. My breath got stuck in my throat, pressure started to build inside my chest, and my elements felt as if they were trying to curl up inside me.
“That’s enough.” Jack shut down the machine and handed his tablet to Kira, and I could breathe again, my elements still alive enough inside me. Had he stopped the machine a bit earlier than he should have so I could keep my strength?
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She put down the tablet just as the door opened, and two guards came in, Jaiden trailing behind them.
“Take her to her room,” Kira said as Jack removed the straps. I got to my shaky feet, and the guards grabbed me by the arms, keeping me up. Jaiden watched me from across the room, his brow creased. Just as we were passing by, I closed my eyes and let myself fall to the ground. The guards hadn’t expected it because I slipped from their grasp and nearly hit my head, but one of them managed to catch me in time.
“Is she okay?” one of them asked, panic filling his voice.
“She’ll be fine. Just put her here for a moment,” Jack said, and I felt them lifting me and placing me into a chair. Calling to my air, I squeezed it through my skin and let it slither along the floor. Hopefully, the tiles were white enough that no one would be able to spot it, even if one of them actually turned out to be a tainted elemental. All I needed was to find Jaiden, so my air wandered across the floor in what I thought was Jaiden’s direction and rose up until I could see the brain signals.
They were darkened too, so I captured them and started to bring them to life, one by one, surprised that there was no resistance on Jaiden’s part. He’d never liked anyone going into his mind, and it was natural for us to fight an intrusion, but this time was different. I willed him not to make a sound, even though I knew he was having one hell of a headache while I was doing this. But if he cried out in pain, everyone would know something was wrong. Once all the signals were healed, I cracked my eyes open and let my air swish back into me.
Jaiden’s dark brown eyes searched mine from across the room, and he gave me a little nod. Jack placed a glass of water to my lips and I took a sip.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine.” I started to get up, and the guards gripped my arms again.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Kira said, her face red with anger as she faced Jack. “Always something happens! Why did she faint? Did you screw up the serum or did you turn off the machine too late?”
“It isn’t my fault that she fainted. You’re keeping her in that room all the time without fresh air. And has she even eaten something?” Jack actually snapped at Kira, but I was sure it wasn’t out of concern for me. He was probably just annoyed that Kira was constantly bugging him. I didn’t even know what he was doing here. He preferred to be the boss and have people working for him. And if he’d actually been kidnapped too, then I could see why he was upset.
Kira licked her lips, then focused her furious gaze on me. “You should go eat something.”
“Okay.” I looked at Jaiden over her shoulder.
“You too,” she turned around and pointed at Jaiden. “After you’re done here.”
“Sure.” Jaiden said, but his eyes were on me, and I gave him a quick nod. If we were both supposed to go eat something, then we could talk in the lunchroom without it looking overly suspicious. We were the only ones who could understand each other, after all.
“Good.” Kira started for the door, and I trudged after her, followed by the guards.
“Can I go to my room first to lie down for a while? I promise I’ll go eat something after that.” It would take at least twenty minutes for Jack to be done with Jaiden if they were doing the same thing to him that they had been doing to me. If I ate my lunch too slowly, it would draw attention.
“Yeah, of course.” Kira finally smiled at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes, and I wondered if it was because of Asya. Still, I refrained myself from trying to enter Kira’s mind to find out. At least Jaiden and I were ourselves again, and we knew the truth, so now we had to be careful and find a way to complete our mission.
Chapter 8
After what I thought was about twenty minutes, I headed to the lunchroom. Keeping my head down, I passed by some scientists, but they didn’t pay any attention to me. Once I reached the lunchroom and picked up a tray with food, I took a seat at the empty table far from everyone, but not so far that it would look suspicious. Everyone was eating in silence again, and I was doing my best not to show my annoyance. Someone had mind-controlled them all. I doubted there were any real volunteers in here.
A few minutes later, Jaiden placed his tray on the table across from me, and I let my hair shield my face from view. We’d done this enough times by now to know how to make sure no one could read our lips.
“Thanks for clearing my mind,” Jaiden whispered.
“No problem. What do we do now?” I lifted my fork and took a bite of a piece of meat.
“Find the boss and tear this place down.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know that part. But how do we do that? The cameras are almost everywhere. Did you see any element blockers or any devices that could stop us from using our elements?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have them. Still, pretty much everything here seems to be based on mind control. Have you seen someone who could be doing that?”
“Nope, but your father mentioned some woman named Asya. I think she’s in charge.”
“Then all we have to do is get someone to take us to her.” He gulped down his juice.
“Yeah, and let her mind-control us again when she realizes we’re looking for her,” I hissed.
“We should talk to my father. He has to know something.”
“Yeah, but how are we going to do that? And what about the cameras?”
Jaiden glanced around. “We’ll have to get someone to make it look like they stopped working by pure accident. A glitch or something.” A shimmering thread jumped out of Jaiden’s arm and disappeared under the table. “Let’s see if someone here can be of use.”
“What if they feel us?”
“They will, but they won’t make a sound or resist, just like I didn’t when you got inside my head. I’m sure Asya, or whoever, has done the same with everyone.”
I nodded and guided my shimmering air toward the floor and let it fin
d its way to the girl who was sitting only two tables away. When my air slipped inside her head, she didn’t even flinch and I willed her to act normal and not to even think about this little intrusion. The signals in her mind were all darkened, just like mine and Jaiden’s had been, and a frown line creased my brow.
“We have a problem. They won’t know anything unless we heal their brain signals. Even if someone was lucky enough to overhear something, I doubt it’s very useful,” I said. I could make the girl drink her juice if she knew something, or keep eating if she didn’t, but I was sure that wouldn’t help us much.
“I know, but maybe someone figured out things like you and I did.” He grimaced. “Except we can’t suddenly start talking to anyone even if they know something, because their knowledge of any foreign languages has been blocked.”
“Yeah, and maybe even their own language.” Some people hadn’t been speaking at all, as far as I could tell. “What do we do then?” I groaned, pulling my element back.
“We could send one of them to try and draw the boss out.”
“I’m not putting innocent people in danger!” I shot him an angry look.
“There aren’t many people here. They wouldn’t kill anyone just for snooping around.” He shrugged. “And as long as there’s no connection to us, everything’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. We should try controlling Kira or one of the scient...” My lips parted as I saw the blonde woman who serves lunch smiling at one of the guards. They were hiding behind one of the boxes that was on a table, unaware that someone was watching them.
“What’s going on?” Jaiden asked.
“Don’t turn around,” I said. “The woman who serves food is being very friendly with one of the guards. I think I know who we’ll mind-control to turn off the cameras and make it look like an accident.”
“Okay. You mind-control the woman, and I’ll take care of the guard.”
“There’s just one tiny issue. What if we’re taken for testing or harvesting when cameras are down?” I assumed we’d see when the blinking red light on the cameras would go off, but if we were occupied or too tired to even think, our best opportunity would go to waste. And since we didn’t have a watch or any indicator of time, we couldn’t exactly schedule when the woman and the guard would mess with the cameras.
“Doesn’t matter. One of us will be fine.”
“Okay, let’s do this.” I felt my air welling up inside me and guided it toward the woman, carefully hiding the shimmering under the tables.
“We’re so going to get them fired.” Jaiden grabbed his tray and got to his feet, and I couldn’t see any shimmering, but I knew his air was probably well hidden. Keeping my head down, I kept pushing the thread forward until I could sense the familiar tug of brain signals nearby. My air slipped inside easily, especially because the woman wasn’t a tainted elemental, but when I saw her signals, I realized they were darkish too.
What the hell? Even the employees were mind-controlled here? But why? We’d find out eventually, but right know we couldn’t raise any suspicion, so I ordered the woman to get friendlier with the guard than usual and to go to the control room for the cameras when no one was there. All she and the guard had to do was pull out some of the wires and make it look like they’d gotten entangled in them by accident. I really hoped the wires weren’t in an unreachable place because that would be hard to explain.
But as my element slammed back into my body, I noticed a girl staring at Jaiden with wide eyes, her mouth hanging open. She must have lifted her head at the wrong moment and spotted Jaiden’s shimmering thread. Maybe the person who had mind-controlled her hadn’t made sure she wouldn’t see any shimmering because they were sure she wouldn’t resist if they entered her mind again.
My air shot out and I dived into her mind, willing her to forget she had seen anything out of the ordinary. Her brain signals were already darkened and I hated to add to that, but I had no choice. When this was over, I could erase all that had been done to her.
The blonde had returned to her spot and was cleaning up some trays, and Jaiden strode toward the door, not even glancing at me. Now all we had to do was pay close attention to the cameras, and once the woman’s shift was over, she’d go find the guard. When the cameras were off, Jaiden and I would hurry to find his father, and I hoped Jack would be somewhere in that big lab.
I hadn’t seen any rooms for the employees, but I doubted they’d let Jack out, so he probably had a room somewhere at the back of the lab. He’d entered through a different door when they brought me to him for my testing, anyway. If Jaiden’s and my plan failed, we’d have to find a different way. Although mind-controlling one of the guards or scientists might be the easiest way to get to Asya or the person in charge, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t see us coming and use tranquilizers or something on us before we could even talk to her.
I stood up, picking up the tray, and wished time would go faster. This place was hell, and even worse than Elemontera.
Chapter 9
Looking casual while glancing up at cameras wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to do, especially when you were trying to not look suspicious in a place where everyone usually stared at the ground while walking through the hallways. But as I was closing the door of my room behind me, I realized the camera was just across from it. Leaving the door wide open, I settled on my bed, positioning myself so I would have the best view of the camera. Luckily enough, I could still see it as long as the door stayed open.
“Moira, why is the door open?” Kira poked her head into the room, her eyebrows arched.
“I’m getting slightly claustrophobic inside. I thought it was fine if I just left the door open.” I offered her a shy smile. “I can close it if you want.” Although, I would really, really hate if I had to do that, because then I’d have to go back to lurking in the hallways.
“No, it’s fine.” Kira blinked in confusion, then strode off. Sighing in relief, I focused on the camera again and on the annoying red dot flashing underneath it. The cameras were kind of old-fashioned, actually. They didn’t move in any direction; they were just there, blinking with their silly little light. I wondered if they could record sound too. Maybe getting out of here wouldn’t be so difficult... but first we needed to get the mind controller out of our way.
When the camera’s light didn’t go back on, I stared at it for a few moments, barely breathing and waiting for the light to reappear. For all I knew, I’d been staring at it for so long and so hard that I was starting to see things, but no, the camera was actually off. Finally!
Jumping to my feet, I hurried into the hallway, but had to slow down when I saw people in white coats approaching and whispering among each other. At least they were allowed to talk. When I pushed at the door of the lab, it didn’t budge, so I knocked on the glass, hard. The door opened and Jaiden grabbed me by the arm and pulled me inside. He must have been closer to the lab once the cameras had gone off.
“It took you long enough to figure out what’s going on and to come talk to me.” Jack crossed his arms, sounding bored.
“Well, we’re here now, so talk.” I met his eyes, then glanced at Jaiden. “Were you here already or...?”
“No, I just got here.” He looked up at the camera, which was still off.
“What do you want to know?” Jack asked. “I assume that since you let yourself get caught that you have a plan, but I’m not sure what it is since most of the time you seemed happy to donate your elements for the greater good.” His lip twisted at the last sentence.
“We were undercover,” Jaiden said.
“Yeah, so undercover that even you didn’t know you were undercover.” Jack rolled his eyes.
“Enough!” I snapped. “We don’t have time for this. How are you even here and why are you working for these people?”
“They kidnapped me.” A vein pulsed in Jack’s neck. “I was about to leave town, and I was driving toward the highway when two SUVs stopped right in front of me, bloc
king the whole street. When I tried to turn around, there were two more behind me. I got out of the car and tried to run, but they got me with one of their darts. Next thing I knew, I woke up in one of the rooms here, and the boss, Asya, was upset that she couldn’t mind-control me, so I told her about the protection I have. I’m glad it works against every tainted elemental and not just the ones whose energy was scanned with the device.” There was a hint of pride in his voice. “She wanted to take out my blocker, but I told her that wasn’t possible if she wanted me alive. So she concluded that she needed me to make various serums for enhancing elements and for converting elemental energy, so she put a chip inside me.” He turned around and pointed at the lump at the back of his neck. “If I leave the facility or refuse to do something for them, the chip will blow up.”
“Shit.” Jaiden’s eyes widened. “Do we have those too?”
I immediately felt the back of my neck, and although there wasn’t such a big lump like Jack’s, there was something. Fuck. “I think I have it too.” Probably protection in case everything else failed. We’d have to disable this first or anyone could blow us to bits.
“Yeah, me too.” Jaiden clenched his jaw. “Perfect.”
“So that woman, Asya? Is she a tainted elemental?” I asked. “Is she in charge of this whole place? Do you know what her goal is?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “As far as I could find out, this facility used to convert elemental water into potable water, but since that could only be done with pure water elements, the business was dwindling. Then the owner, Asya’s father, died in an accident, and Asya took over. She’s young, like you, and her parents wanted to ensure she had a pure water element, so they manipulated her genes before she was born, but as you can see, the small mistake happened here too, so she’s one of you. Asya is trying to continue her father’s legacy, but in a different way. She wants to find a way to turn the elemental energy of any element into potable water, and not just of a water element.”
Resilient (Tainted Elements, #6) Page 4
