by Abby Blake
* * * *
“Contact Dana,” Davin ordered. He hadn’t meant to be bossy, but saving their own asses no longer seemed to be the biggest priority. “At least someone will know that Jenkins is a traitor.”
Sandra sent a brief hint of relief his way and closed her eyes. They were a long way from Dana, so Sandra would need a chance to concentrate. He turned away from her and headed back to the table. As hungry as he was, he didn’t trust the food they’d delivered. It was likely laced with hallucinogens or sleeping tablets. Mild doses of either would lower their mental defenses and let even an average telepath into their heads.
“Dana is going to help,” Sandra said with no small amount of relief in her voice. “She’s already contacted Theresa, explained the situation, and hopefully, hopefully she can get us some help.”
“Okay,” Davin said as a small spark of hope flickered to life in his chest. Their chances of getting out of here seemed slim at best, but he and Darrick would do everything they could to keep Sandra safe until her family could get here to rescue her.
“Not fucking likely,” the woman said angrily. “No way am I going anywhere without you two, so don’t even think of trying the hero route. We stay together and we get out of here alive.”
Davin felt the strange need to salute. He hadn’t been spoken to like that since leaving the professor’s research facility, but he couldn’t deny how much pride he felt in the woman he loved. She was everything he’d ever dreamed of for a wife, and if by some miracle they lived through this, he’d spend the rest of his life making up for every shitty thing that had ever happened to her.
“It goes both ways,” she sent into his mind.
* * * *
The waiting was the worst. Sandra had never enjoyed the lead-up to a planned raid. She’d much rather be in the middle of the situation, acting and reacting to the things happening around her rather than imagining everything that could go wrong and trying to make contingency plans.
Ironically, she was grateful for the time to make those contingency plans. She just didn’t like it. When Dana contacted her again, Sandra was surprised to realize that she was at least a hundred miles closer than before.
“Where are you?”
“In a helicopter—I think it might be one of those black hawks. Anyway, Theresa doesn’t want me to give you too much information in case you’re compromised, but I wanted you to know that help is coming.”
“Why are you coming with them?” Sandra asked, feeling very nervous for her sister-in-law. Sandra’s brothers adored their wife. They would be devastated if anything happened to her.
“Relax,” Dana sent with a hint of annoyance. “I will be staying in this contraption when it lands. Pete is beside me, Theresa across from me, and Jason on the other side. If the first two somehow let me get hurt, the other is capable of healing me. And besides, I seem to have developed a skill I wasn’t expecting.”
“What skill?” When she didn’t immediately answer, Sandra asked again in a more frantic voice, “What skill?”
“I’m sorry, Sandra. Theresa said to tell you it’s a surprise.” In other words probably central to whatever they were planning.
“Stay safe,” Sandra sent telepathically, feeling desperately guilty for getting Dana involved.
“Of course,” her sister-in-law answered smugly. “And I was involved long before I met you. Relax, Sandra, everything is going to work out fine.”
As Dana ended their telepathic connection Sandra was surprised to realize that she actually felt that everything would be all right.
* * * *
Theresa still couldn’t process the revelations of the past few days. Learning that the professor was hers, Dana’s, Alana’s, Jason’s, and Jenna’s father had been uncomfortable. But thinking that her half brothers, Davin and Darrick, were implicit and privy to all of his secrets had been devastating.
But Theresa hadn’t once doubted Sandra’s loyalty to The Agency, and it had been the only thing to keep her from condemning the trio’s actions. Sandra was a highly skilled agent. Nothing they’d known about Davin and Darrick would have made them strong enough to take Sandra with them against her will.
Theresa glanced around the people seated in the helicopter. Every one of them was related to her in some way, either by blood or marriage. It seemed kind of appropriate that the people here to arrest the two men behind all of it—from their mother’s abduction to Jenna’s near death and everything in between—were the same people they’d created in an effort to build a threat the world just wasn’t prepared to face.
“Ready?” Theresa’s husband, Caleb, asked them all as the chopper came in for a landing. She nodded once, glanced at Dana, and smiled when she realized her sister’s excitement. Dana hadn’t had a chance to use her recently improved telekinetic abilities under battle conditions. Considering that her skill had been growing exponentially since Jason healed her bullet wounds, and she was now stronger than Theresa in many skills, the woman had a good reason to be confident.
Theresa sensed the launch of antiaircraft missiles and almost laughed out loud when she realized Dana already had them under control. The missiles wobbled off course and exploded high in the atmosphere.
Then Dana turned her newest ability to manipulating the atmosphere to create a shield around the aircraft as they came in to land. They set down between the derelict buildings, but Theresa could sense the aircraft sitting on the shield so that it hovered an inch or so off the ground.
“Can you drop just part of the shield to let us out?” Jason asked, seeming a little worried. Everyone on this flight was a significant part in Jason’s life. He’d lived so long without a family that once he’d found them, he’d worked extra hard to make certain he was close to his four sisters and their partners. He’d been thrilled to learn of their half brothers and devastated when Davin and Darrick had gone missing with Sandra.
“Of course,” Dana said with an annoyed huff. “I have it under control.” She may have mellowed since getting married, but she was still a prickly person to deal with most days.
“Thanks,” Jason said with such heartfelt emotion that Dana smiled and nodded in return.
As soon as the door opened, Theresa set up a shield several feet in front of them. The last thing they needed was to be shot even before they could reach the inner core of the facility.
Bullets peppered the shield the moment Ethan stepped off the chopper. He turned back, his hand out to help her down, a wide grin spread across his face. “Can you remember when we used to do this stuff without shields?” he asked Caleb. Alana’s husbands, Rafe and Gabe, both laughed out loud as they followed Theresa. Jenna and her husbands, Rick and Zane, weren’t far behind. Jason and Cody were the last off the chopper, and Dana stayed on board with the pilot.
“Let’s do this.”
* * * *
Davin knew from Sandra that a helicopter had landed on the ground above the facility, but the building was so far underground that he couldn’t hear anything at all.
“How long?” Darrick asked as he tried to feign casual relaxation. They had to assume that they were still being monitored on the cameras, so they needed to keep their cover just a little longer.
“The facility has gone into lockdown, so they’ve had to use the emergency stairs.” She kept her head down, but Davin caught the slight movement that accompanied her silent giggle. “Apparently, Theresa just used her telekinesis to rip the doors off their hinges. I would’ve paid to have seen that.”
“Me too,” Davin answered sincerely. Everything he knew of his siblings told him they were highly skilled, but unlike their father, they all had a strong moral compass dictating their actions. They tried to do what was right, every time, and it gave Davin hope for himself and Darrick. Too often he’d worried that their father’s genetics would somehow affect them no matter how hard they tried to do the right thing. His siblings proved that untrue.
The door opened so unexpectedly that Davin stepped back befo
re he could control his response. When his father walked in, he had a moment to wonder whether he would be able to render the man unconscious before somebody’s telekinesis slammed him into the wall. He noticed that Darrick hit the opposite wall just as hard. He couldn’t see Sandra.
Every hair on his body seemed to prickle, and Davin recognized the ionized atmosphere that had inhibited their telepathic and empathic abilities back in The Agency’s cells. That meant that they were now blind to what was happening in the rest of the base.
“I trusted you! I vouched for you, and this is how you repay me. You brought them here!”
“Of course we did, Dad,” Darrick said in a taunting voice. “You’re a menace to society and should be put down like a rabid dog.”
Davin shook his head as best he could against the invisible force holding him against the wall. Why would his brother say something like that? They wanted their father to face justice for what he’d done, but they had never wished him dead.
Panic was starting to drill through his brain. If they were dead, they had no way to protect Sandra. Why would Darrick purposely try to enrage their father?
But then, as if a lightbulb suddenly switched on in his brain, Davin finally realized what his brother was doing. As long as they held the men’s attention they were liable to forget that Sandra was in the room. He couldn’t move enough to see where she was, but he was fairly certain she was still kneeling between the beds.
“Fine,” the professor said as he turned toward the other man. “You were right. They’re traitors. Just get it over with so we can get out of here.”
Davin felt the pressure increase and realized that the second man planned to crush the life from both of them. Darrick looked calm, smug almost, and it was obvious that he intended to annoy the hell out of their father even as he was dying. Davin tried to follow his brother’s example.
But just as he accepted that he would at least die with a clear conscience, the man suddenly flew backward, almost like someone yanked him viciously from behind. The door slammed closed a moment before he hit it hard, very hard. The man crumpled into an unconscious heap, and Davin felt the telekinetic hold dissolve.
He dragged in a couple of deep breaths as his feet finally touched the ground.
“Traitor?” Sandra said as the professor lifted into the air and seemed to dangle like a puppet on a string. “Your sons believed you were one of the good guys until they were shown irrefutable proof that you’re a monster. That man,” she said, pointing at the crumpled figure on the floor, “is worse than a traitor. He infiltrated The Agency and has been protecting you bastards for years. Not anymore.” She moved the professor closer to Davin and nodded.
He didn’t need to ask what she expected. Davin grabbed his father’s hands in his own and got to work downloading every memory the old guy had stored. Each memory seemed more horrifying than the last, but finally he came to the ones they needed right now.
Thirteen people ranging in age between seven and thirty-six were being held as test subjects on the lowest floor of this facility. Davin flipped through memory after memory until he finally found the unlock codes and details of each prisoner’s current medical status.
“Got it?” Sandra asked with a wide grin.
“Yup,” he said as his father looked at him as if he’d grown a second head.
“It worked?” he gasped out. “You can see my memories.”
“Yes, Dad,” he said, feeling his father’s fear increase exponentially. “But your injection would have killed me if The Agency hadn’t been there to save my life.” He didn’t bother explaining Jason’s skill. None of them were sure how the professor had escaped, and he couldn’t guarantee they would be able to hold him this time either. The last thing they needed was this man knowing more than he already did. Although, judging by Sandra’s reaction to the man who currently lay in a heap on the floor, it was possible that the professor was privy to all of The Agency’s—and, therefore, Davin’s and Darrick’s siblings’—secrets.
Even as that thought passed through his own mind, the memory of the professor reading an encrypted communication popped into his head. Devastated to realize that his father knew all about the others’ skills, Davin fervently wished that there was some way to keep those memories hidden from the professor.
But even as he thought it the memory disappeared, almost as if it had been erased. Worried that the professor had found some way to counteract his skill, Davin went looking for more information on the professor’s offspring. He even found a folder on Sandra. File after file of information on their skills came to the forefront of his mind and just as quickly disappeared.
When he found the information on himself and Darrick, he was almost relieved to see it go. To learn that his father thought so little of them even as children—though not surprising—was still quite painful. Finally, Davin let go of the old man’s hands. They had the information they needed right now. He’d figure out the rest later.
“Who are you?” the professor asked, sounding rather annoyed. He glanced over at the man who was still out cold. “Gordon,” he exclaimed and tried to take a step toward him. Sandra still held him in a telekinetic grip, and he glanced around the room in panic. “Who are you people? What did you do to Gordon?”
“We’re here to help,” Sandra said out of the blue. “Go with me on this one. I think whatever you just did erased the memories you were looking at,” she sent to Davin telepathically.
“Gordon just tried to kill you,” Davin said as he scrambled for an explanation for their presence.
“That’s right, professor. You’re lucky we were here or he might have succeeded,” Darrick said stepping closer to the old man. “We need to get you to your test subjects. Is there a quick way to the lower floor?”
“Two of you? Twins?” the professor asked as he glanced back and forth between Davin and Darrick as if he’d never seen them before. He looked confused for a while, but then nodded suddenly as if he finally understood the question. “Of course, there is an emergency elevator. It has its own generator, so it won’t be affected if the others are out.”
“Good. Lead the way.”
Sandra released him from the telepathic hold, and the professor turned to the hallway. He glanced both directions before turning to the left and heading to the end of a long corridor. He stopped at a door labeled “JANITOR,” turned the knob, and stepped inside. The small room was cluttered with cleaning supplies, and Davin was beginning to wonder if he’d fried his father’s brain along with his memories, but then the old man pressed a button that opened the panel on the back wall. Elevator doors opened soon after, and the four of them stepped into the claustrophobically small space.
The professor punched in a number that seemed too long to be a simple destination, and they started to move down. Mere moments later the elevator opened into another small janitor’s closet cluttered with cleaning supplies. They managed to find their way out and finally stepped into what appeared to be a rather typical hospital ward.
“Professor?” A man wearing a doctor’s white coat walked toward them and smiled. “I’m glad to see you. Obviously stories of your capture are greatly exaggerated.” He glanced at Davin and Darrick, but seemed to overlook Sandra as if she weren’t there. He turned and walked over to a bed where a man in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, lay strapped down and on life support. “We’re still having trouble perfecting the formula you gave to your test subject the day your facility was raided, but we seem to be making progress.”
“Don’t they know what’s going on upstairs?” Sandra asked telepathically.
“It doesn’t seem so,” Darrick replied. “Davin, can you get any information out of this guy?”
“I’ll try,” he said as he walked over and touched the doctor’s hand. He didn’t even try to hide his touch behind a polite handshake. “Damn, the good news is that there is no security on this floor. The bad news is that this floor is completely isolated from the levels above. The
only way in or out is via elevator, and they’re all out except the one we came down in.”
“That’s okay,” Sandra said, sounding like they’d just learned something worth knowing. “The elevator is big enough. We only need two people. Theresa and Jason are already on their way to the elevator we used.”
“Best news I’ve heard all day,” Davin sent her, feeling very relieved. Even if only half of the professor’s information had been true, Theresa was capable of freezing every person on this level with her telekinesis, of influencing the thoughts of others, and was an above average precog, so she would see if anything went wrong before it went wrong and be able to counter it. If this were a team sport, he’d choose Theresa first.
“Hey,” Sandra sent with a laugh in her telepathic voice.
“Sorry, honey, I meant you first, and then Theresa?”
“Better.”
“What were the side effects?” the professor asked the doctor, clearly unaware of the communication between his companions.
“Convulsions, brain hemorrhage, and heart attack. I doubt this subject will live through the night. We had planned to keep him on life support so that his brain would still be fresh when you’re ready to do the autopsy, but since you’re here now, we can get started. We should learn a lot once we cut into his brain.”
“Good, prepare the autopsy room. I’ll get started as soon as I check on a couple of my other experiments.”
“Jason, hurry up. There’s a guy here needs the same sort of surgery you did for me,” Davin sent to his brother urgently.
“Just exiting the elevator now.”
The doctor began unplugging equipment, and Davin couldn’t stand by and let this innocent man be murdered in cold blood. He was still alive, and with Jason on the way he had a chance to survive. Darrick moved to plug the equipment back in as Davin grabbed the doctor’s hand and deliberately erased every scrap of medical knowledge from the man’s memories. Davin wasn’t even sure how he managed to do it, but they dissolved like computer files being deleted from a hard drive.
