Mindsurge (Mindspeak Book 3)

by Heather Sunseri

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  A Note From the Author

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  MINDSURGE

  Heather Sunseri

  http://heathersunseri.com

  Copyright © 2014 Heather Sunseri

  eBook Edition

  Sun Publishing

  This work is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review or article.

  Cover by Heather Plunkett

  Edited by David Gatewood

  To Maggie and Robert. Together you remind me of what matters in this world. You are the best of what God created through me. You make me proud every single day with your amazing accomplishments and with the caring and thoughtful way you approach life. I couldn’t love you more.

  Chapter One

  Two weeks, two days.

  A whopping sixteen days of normalcy before that raging psycho Sandra wedged herself back into my life. I stared at her note in disbelief.

  “Hi.” Jack touched a finger to my chin. I hadn’t even heard him approach.

  I quickly folded the note and tucked it into the small back pocket of my running shorts, along with the thumb drive that had accompanied it. When my eyes met the blue of Jack’s, I managed a smile that I knew couldn’t hide my worry.

  Jack quirked a brow and leaned his head to the side as if to see whatever it was I hid. “What was that?”

  We stood in the middle of Wellington’s campus post office, in the student center. My evil DNA donor had actually used snail mail to send me a package.

  “Oh… just some files I needed for an English Lit project.”

  “They were mailed to you?” Then he shrugged it off and gave his head a little shake. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you texted me.”

  I had invited him on a jog as a sort of peace offering, after barely speaking to him the past two weeks—since the day he’d led me into a trap and forced me to face the one person who had deceived me more than any other—my mom, Alyson Roslin.

  “Are we running or not?” I swallowed hard. The thumb drive felt heavy in my pocket, throwing me off balance.

  As we left the post office, Jonas nodded at us from a table just inside the coffee shop across the way. His dark hair lay haphazardly across his forehead. His slightly cocked head and smart-aleck smirk told me he hadn’t missed what had just happened.

  Jack saw him, too, but only lifted his head in acknowledgement, then reached down and laced his fingers with mine. “Where do you want to jog?”

  “In the woods behind the stable, I guess?” The warmth of his hand threatened to burn through my skin at the same time that Sandra’s words chilled my very core. I pulled my fingers from his, then attempted to play it off by stretching my arms and shoulders out.

  His side-glance told me I hadn’t succeeded.

  Ten minutes later, I was sprinting through the woods behind Wellington Boarding School, leaping over tree roots and dodging low-hanging branches. The fall breeze smelled of apples and of the horses living nearby. Cool air hit the back of my throat while the contrasting heat of the sun occasionally broke through the changing leaves to warm my face. The filtered light played with my vision, making it difficult to keep steady footing as I sped up.

  Jack was behind me somewhere. He had let me run ahead. I knew this because he could run twice as fast as me on any given day. But I was determined. Determined to outrun Sandra’s ongoing mischief, and determined to outrun the emotions my mother’s reappearance had stirred.

  As I ran, I thought back to my recent encounter with her. I still remembered the feel of the wood on my knuckles as I knocked on the door to the safe house—a house I had known as a very young child, but had few memories of. I knew that Dad still owned the house before he died, but I had refused to visit for fear that the longing for a life and a mother I never got to know would surface and burn—the way my father’s and my best friend’s deaths now simmered in my heart.

  My mom smiled when she saw me. I did not.

  She opened the door wider, inviting me in. I recognized her from the many pictures I had seen over the years. Her blond hair was styled differently, short and just above her shoulders, and her eyes showed a few additional years in the creases, but she was still the attractive woman I’d longed for ever since I was old enough to understand she was missing.

  Jack’s hand had pressed into the small of my back, encouraging me to enter, but my feet were cemented to the brick porch, my eyes glued to my mother’s.

  “Why are you here?” My voice was a choked whisper. Before coming here, I had assumed the house would be home to nothing but old furniture covered in white sheets, brass light fixtures draped in cobwebs. But as we’d driven up the drive, I’d somehow known—but didn’t believe—whom I would find inside.

  I continued. “I thought you were dead.”

  More like hoped. The only thought that had gotten me through years and years of missing a mother I never knew was the assumption that she had died—that she couldn’t get back to her one and only daughter. Finding out that she chose not to be a part of my life… it just made me resent her even more.

  “I’m here to help you,” she said.

  “Help?” A laugh escaped my throat in a hysterical sound that was foreign to me. “I don’t want or need your help.”

  “Lexi,” Jack said, a warning in his voice. “Don’t you want to hear what she has to say?”

  I turned on him so fast that he dropped his hand and backed up a step. “No, Jack, I don’t.” I stepped past him, knocking him with my shoulder. At the motorcycle, I pushed the helmet back on my head, climbed on, and waited.

  It didn’t take Jack long to admit defeat. From the corner of my eye, I saw him offer some sort of apology, which only added more ice to the blood running through my veins.

  And that was that; we left. Five words from my mother, and it was already too much.

  Now, barely two weeks later, I was still angry with Jack for keeping my mother’s reappearance a secret, but I owed him the chance to explain and apologize.

 
And I missed him.

  Besides, most of my anger wasn’t directed toward Jack. No, it was Alyson—the mother who’d stripped me of the opportunity to live any semblance of the normal life I had craved for so long—who’d earned the brunt of my fury.

  Of course, nothing went according to plan these days.

  It had been sixteen days since Sandra Whitmeyer murdered my best friend, Danielle Gray. And as if mourning the death of my father and now my best friend wasn’t enough, I now had to deal with these packages from Sandra, taunting me with evidence of who killed my father.

  I ran harder. I was almost to the edge of the woods, a hundred yards from Wellington’s horse stable. I couldn’t keep up this pace forever. I couldn’t keep running, dodging obstacles, both on the trail and in my heart.

  As soon as that thought entered my mind, my foot hit a small dip in the path, and my knee buckled. Pain shot through my leg as the world around me tilted off kilter. Unable to stop my forward momentum, I hit the ground with a thud and a grunt. My leg and right arm broke my fall, but not without significant pain.

  Rolling over, gasping for breath, and attempting to recover before Jack reached me, I discovered blood dripping from my elbow, through dirt that caked the skin.

  I heard his footsteps before I saw his face. He stopped, towering over me. Not an ounce of humor showed in the hard line of his jaw or in his eyes. “Are you okay?” His voice was uneven as he tried to slow his breathing.

  Did I look okay? I pushed myself to my feet, wincing from the pain in my knee. “I’m fine.” I tried to brush some of the dirt off my leg, only to discover more blood from another scrape there. Jack just stood, staring, as if wondering whether he should help me or not.

  I turned and walked slowly in the direction of campus, trying with everything in me to hide my limp.

  Dried leaves crunched beneath his feet as he followed closely. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around my uninjured arm. “Just stop, all right?”

  I stared down at his hand, and as I did, he loosened his grip, but didn’t break contact. It was the third time he had touched me—that I’d allowed him to touch me—in two weeks. I savored every touch, because, based on Sandra’s message, I never knew when one touch might be the last.

  “I thought we were finally getting somewhere when you asked me to run with you today. But you won’t even look at me.” He glanced behind him. “And what was that? You were running like a maniac. That wasn’t a friendly workout.”

  I studied his eyes. There was no anger there, only concern. Sweat dripped from his earlobe. His long-sleeved shirt was soaked and clinging to his body. I placed my unharmed hand on my hip, letting my fingers graze over the lump where the thumb drive was safely tucked into the pocket in my shorts.

  “We are getting somewhere.” It was a step forward, I argued inside my head. Could I make my anger be about my mother? Was that fair? He had known my mother was in town, but kept it from me. He’d said nothing when he found me inside The Farm on the University of Kentucky’s campus. He’d said nothing after we’d fled the burning lab. And he’d said nothing for two days after that. He’d said nothing, and I’d had to discover my mother with my own eyes.

  But that wasn’t what this was about.

  Now, I was the hypocrite. I had received a package—a lone thumb drive—and a message from Sandra, and I couldn’t tell Jack. The message from Sandra, a handwritten note, still echoed in my head:

  Sarah, On this thumb drive is the evidence you need to prove John DeWeese murdered your father. Only Jonas can give you the password to unlock the video. The password is tied to the gift you’ll receive tonight. Just in time for your special day. ~S

  P.S. I wouldn’t show Jack. I don’t imagine he would take the news that his father killed your dad very well. And, to be honest, I don’t like you hanging around Jack. Break up with him. Or the next gift I send will be aimed at Jack.

  I could easily imagine the evil smile that came with this note. My “special day.” Somehow that monster knew it was my birthday. Not even Jack realized that today was my birthday.

  “How many times do I have to apologize?”

  Jack’s voice brought me back to the present. He released my arm and, leaning his head into his shoulder, wiped dripping sweat from his brow. The hurt in his eyes made my heart constrict. I blamed and hated Sandra for always inserting herself into our lives. I decided that I wouldn’t hurt Jack with Sandra’s note until I confirmed that whatever “evidence” she sent me on the thumb drive was real.

  When I didn’t respond, Jack asked again, “How many times, Lexi?”

  “You don’t,” I whispered. My heart ached at the thought that I would hurt him further.

  “What? I didn’t hear you. Because it sounded like you said I don’t have to apologize again.”

  “You don’t.” I risked another look at him. I had to find a way to be with him and hide this new information at the same time. But could I? “I’m the one that’s sorry. I’m just worked up about this party tonight.” And about whatever was on this thumb drive that I couldn’t access without Jonas. And the bonus gift Sandra promised to send later.

  Jack sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Then another, as if he was ordering himself to calm. “Are we still going to the party together?”

  I cocked my head. “I assumed so.”

  “Well, I hadn’t. You’ve barely spoken to me the past two weeks, and you still refuse to discuss what’s at the heart of our feud.” He touched a cool finger to my chin and lifted. “Are you not even going to mention your moth—”

  I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t. Can we just go to this party and not discuss my mother?” She was becoming the least of my concerns.

  “I thought that was what this run was about.” He raised his hands to the side in frustration before he dropped them, and his face softened. His eyes narrowed in on mine. The warmth behind them about did me in. “I’m on your side. I’m always on your side. You know this.”

  I averted my eyes and watched some squirrels playing in the fallen leaves behind Jack. How could I look at him, knowing that I was now the one not being honest? That I could very well be the one who would hurt him? This run was supposed to have been about forgiving him.

  I squeezed my eyes tight, pushing back the pain of tears that I knew wouldn’t come. Sandra would pay for what she’d done to us—for constantly screwing up our lives, for Dani’s death, for my dad’s death. Even if her gift proved she wasn’t directly responsible, I couldn’t accept that she wasn’t involved at all. One way or another, I would repay her.

  And I couldn’t forget that I’d watched her kill Dani with my own eyes. All the evidence in the world wouldn’t change that.

  “I know. I’m trying.”

  “We’ll keep trying together.”

  I nodded—though I didn’t believe we’d get that chance—then turned my arm to see the thick and now dried blood on my elbow. “I guess I better get myself cleaned up.”

  Jack stepped in close to me. He lifted my wrist and studied my arm. “I can fix this. And your knee.”

  “I know you can, but I’m still not convinced we should be using these powers that came from such evil.” It felt wrong to let him heal me when I could feel myself throwing up barricades to distance us. “Besides, I’m pretty sure I can suffer through a couple of scrapes.”

  “It’s me, Lexi. You don’t have to be tough with me.” Jack’s thumb rubbed against my forearm. His touch was warm and addictive. “Just because our abilities rose out of Sandra’s evil intentions, we can still find ways to use them for good. And I think keeping you from bleeding all over your dress or from limping in high heels on our date tonight qualifies as a good deed for the day.”

  “I don’t want you to be sick for the party,” I said. “Briana would never let me hear the end of it if I was the reason any one of us didn’t show up. And on time.”

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t think these small injuries will make me sick
. Nothing’s broken or dislocated. Besides, I’m getting better at controlling the nausea.”

  It was true. I was making a lot of headway with the nosebleeds, too. Many of us had been working hard to improve how we used our minds while minimizing the side effects. Jonas had been working with me daily. I mindspoke to a teacher earlier in the week—when I’d failed to turn in some homework—and my upper lip had remained one-hundred-percent dry. Sandra had fooled us into thinking we needed her to cure our side effects. But we were starting to discover that our own minds held the keys to controlling the repercussions of using our abilities.

  “Are you sure?” I glanced down at my swollen knee.

  “Just a strained ligament.” He had already examined my injuries.

  Jack brushed loose hair off of my face. “Let me do this for you. I want tonight to be good for us, and I can’t have my girlfriend limping around with an open wound on her arm.”

  Girlfriend. I still wanted that title.

  Finally, I nodded.

  Chapter Two

  Holding my masquerade mask to my face with one hand, while clenching the other into a fist, I backed up against the far wall. As I scanned the room for Jack, I saw her again—a girl with a certain familiarity, dressed in black from head to toe. Her hair was pulled away from her face, and strands of brunette with streaks of cherry hung over her shoulders and down to her chest. Her skin was pale, her lips were blood red, and an intricate lace formed a mask that covered her eyes and nose.

  The ballroom had been transformed. Layers of dark fabric had been draped across the ceiling to a point in the center where a chandelier hung, dimmed to romantic perfection. Twinkle lights were strung around the outer perimeters, providing enough light to make out most faces, but dark enough for me—dressed in black and deep green—to fade into the background.

  Briana had been instrumental in planning the Halloween gala, including the decorations and the music. She even took it upon herself to pick out the gown and mask I wore. She wasn’t convinced I’d show up if she didn’t plan my ensemble. I wasn’t either.