The mention of Mari unleashes an unwanted chill that spreads across my back and down my spine. My eyes rest on a bright spot in the distance, two houses down from where I stand. A large lump at the edge of the shoreline bathed in blinding sunlight reflecting off the watery mass. My throat constricts, my brow furrows in concentration.
“What is it?” David asks, his sight aligning up with mine.
My breath catches, the panic surges.
“Dakota?”
I don’t answer, just walk-run toward the motionless lump.
The sun ascends as I get closer to the mass. The heaviness in my chest increases and I can barely breathe. Relax, you don’t know what it is, I tell myself.
A lie.
My legs turn to cement as I move faster toward my undoing. David yells, his words lost in the agony ahead.
No.
The mound morphs into a body, lifeless, eyes bulging and red, mouth open, skin waterlogged.
“No!” The scream rips from me, taking a piece of my soul with it. I can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t stand.
My body crashes to the ground with a hard thud as my stomach clenches with a pain too raw, too feral, too real. I gag on my emotions and empty every ounce of feeling onto the ground ahead of me. Another wave of torment lodges in my throat. More agony empties from me. With each wave of nausea, memories of my forgotten life return.
The training and experiments.
The family and games.
The . . .
Death.
My mind spins away, my heart consumed with a need for vengeance. I stand, fueled by a rage I don’t try to suppress. I walk to Josh unable to breathe. Tears overrun my eyes and trail hot rivers down my cheeks. I chew my cheeks, my hands balled into fists.
“This doesn’t end here, Josh. I will figure out who’s responsible for all of this—for you, for Mom, for everything.” A scream wells in my gut and races up my throat. Lifting my head to the sky, I scream.
The sound says everything I can’t. Every moment of anguish. Every ounce of shame. Every promise of vengeance. The trees shake and move. Rocks swirl up around me, along with pine needles, leaves and anything not rooted into the ground. The cyclone whirls in front of me, commanded by me. “Time for you to pay,” I whisper.
The cyclone grows bigger, taller, faster.
“Dakota!” David rushes to my side. “Don’t do it. You have to calm down. You have to stop.”
“They’ll pay,” I scream. I spread my arms and the cyclone dissipates, sending rocks flying in every direction.
David pulls me into a tight embrace, his face buried into my neck. “I know. I know.” His tears mirror my own, as does his agony. “They will.”
My heart pounds against his body. I don’t want to calm down, relax, think. I don’t want to be in control.
I want my revenge. I want them to die.
All of them.
CLOUDS SWIRL HIGH ABOVE, TURNING THE SKY DARK. They mimic my emotions, relentless and wild. My mind is fueled by rage; whoever killed my brother will find no mercy from me. I pull myself free from David’s embrace, my eyes glued to Josh’s lifeless body.
“We can’t just leave him here,” I say.
David bends down and retrieves a set of car keys from Josh’s pockets. “I wasn’t planning on it.” David closes his eyes as a shallow grave opens near us, tucked between the trees. “Help me,” he says.
I’m not ready to say goodbye. My heart thrums too fast as David again asks for help. Expelling a stiff breath, I focus my thoughts with David’s. We bend down and lift Josh’s lifeless body, both with our minds and our bodies.
More than one sob escapes my lips as we carefully place him in the grave. “I . . . can’t.” Another sob. More tears.
“We have to go,” David says as he scans the landscape. “It’s not safe.” He grabs my arm and steers me back to the car.
“Wait!” I yank my arm free and run back to my brother, now encased in dirt. I swallow back the pain before I gag, my eyes clouded with tears. I never notice the person in the shadows. Never hear David’s warnings.
“Dakota!” David blurs past me, knife in hand. “Go to the car! Run!”
He spins, gripping the knife tightly as two assailants run toward me. Pushing images of both attackers falling to the ground, unconscious, I rush up the small hill to the house. A loud thud tells me one of them is down. I turn to face the other.
“David!”
He jabs at the assailant, unable to hit his target. His mind is focused, his eyes pinned to the attacker. I ram into the assailant’s mind. Nothing. I can’t reach him.
The assailant pulls his own knife and slashes the space between them. David spins and thrusts. The assailant screams as a gash opens his shoulder. He retaliates and David ducks, sweeps his leg forward, and knocks the assailant to the ground. I force new, disturbing pictures into his mind. No resistance inhibits my attack. In moments, the attacker screams. Fresh blood drops from his nose, his mouth.
“No, Dakota. Stop. Don’t kill him.” David rushes to me and shoves me toward the car. “Let’s go.”
My eyes dart from David to the assailant now quiet on the ground.
“Come on. We need to get to the car before more of them show up.” I nod, and we run to the car. Josh’s bag is hidden under the seats. Relief comes as David pulls the bag free. Everything we need to survive is in his hands.
Except for Mom . . .
Josh.
A sob sticks in my throat and David grabs my hand. “We have to go,” he says.
“I need to find whoever’s after us.” No kindness exists in my voice. No emotion at all.
“My guess, they’ll find us.”
Before I can respond, the air explodes in rapid gunfire.
“Dakota!” David yells.
I drop to the ground and crawl behind the car. The shots come from everywhere. We’re surrounded.
“Get in,” David reaches to open the door. “Drive.”
I do what he says as he grabs a gun from the glove compartment of the rental. My mind flashes scenes from my past in rapid succession: training with Glocks and daggers, hand-to-hand combat. We are lethal. “What are—”
“Shut up and drive.” He shoves me into the driver’s seat.
I start the car. It fishtails onto the paved road as I slam my foot on the gas pedal and create as much distance between us and the shooters as possible. Gunshots hit the trunk and back window. A river of black sedans pours onto the road behind us.
My heart slams against my chest for only a few minutes before my brain clicks off and instinct takes over.
“Shit,” I growl. “We have company.”
David sticks his hand out of the window and fires over and over at the stream of cars. They don’t slow.
“Come on,” I yell to the car, urging it to go faster.
The wall of sedans pushes us harder, faster, as a steady shower of bullets riddles our rental.
“We need a way off this highway,” David says as he checks the landscape before emptying his clip into the caravan behind us. “There, ahead on the left.” He points to a small dent in the nerve-ending rows of corn. “Turn.”
I spin the wheel, jerking onto the unpaved road that cuts into the cornfield. The cars follow and I can’t help but feel boxed in.
They come at us faster, harder. I slam both feet onto the gas pedal, trying to speed the car up by sheer force of will. David shoots at the tires of the first car, bam-bam-bam.
Screeches followed by metal colliding with metal and shattering glass. The accident splays across the rearview mirror. The lead car swerves as every other one joins the accident like dominos.
The distance between them and us increases and my thoughts begin to clear.
“We need someplace to lay low,” David says. “Figure things out.”
“What’s to figure out? If those guys catch us, they’ll kill us.”
Refusing to slow down, I turn from road to road, making our way out of
the fields and onto another stretch of deserted highway. I have no idea where we are. I don’t care, as long as no one follows.
“Do you know where we are?”
David grabs the map from the bag, “Let me check. This road leads to. . . Syracuse, I think.”
“I guess we’re going to Syracuse. We’ll need gas.”
“Let’s get a little distance between us and them first.”
“Agreed.”
We drive until the sun arcs overhead. The car is dangerously low on fuel. “Next stop,” I say. “Gas.”
David nods, looking over the files we stole. “Do you think someone from the experiments is behind all of this?”
“Mom did.”
“So did Josh,” Josh. His name hits me like a punch to the gut. I clench my stomach and ease the knot of pain threatening to tear its way through me.
David tucks the file back into the bag before tossing it on the back seat. “Turn at the intersection. There’s a gas station on the left.”
“You’ve been here?”
“We grew up here.”
Don’t remind me.
I follow David’s instructions and turn into the gas station before we’re out of fuel all together. David fills the tank while I use the restroom and get water. I don’t know when we’ll stop again. Or where.
“I’ll drive, you rest.”
“Thanks,” I say as I slip into the car. “I could use a little sleep.”
Visions of Josh’s murder cycle through my mind over and over, until the guilt and rage become too much and I detach. Go numb.
My eyelids begin to grow heavy as the car speeds along the highway. My eyes close, but my thoughts continue spin, desperate to figure out who’s behind Josh’s murder. Images of Josh from my childhood grow and morph into pictures ripped from this year. Josh has always been the one to balance my world. How will I survive now? Without him? How will I quell the urge to kill the person reasonable for everything?
“Dakota.” David reaches into my dreams, changing my nightmares. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I sit up and shake the sleep from my body. Climbing back into the front seat I expel a harsh breath. “How are we going to find them?”
“Who?”
“Whoever did all of this. Do you remember where the lab is? Can you sense these people at all?”
David grabs my hand and kisses it. “What if we didn’t go after them?”
“No!”
“Just hear me out. What if we just left? We have the passports, IDs, money. We could run, leave like your mother wanted. Like Josh wanted.”
“He wanted us to find Mom.”
“I don’t think he was willing to accept her death.”
I pull my hand from him and hug my knees to my chest. “You can’t be certain she’s dead.”
“If you were honest with yourself, you’d know he was.” A tear spills from David’s eyes. “I loved them too, Dakota. This is hard for me, too.”
Before I can think to respond a car rams us from behind and I lurch forward. “Hold on,” David says. He expertly steers the car, speeding away from our pursuers.
Gunshots buzz around the car. In moments, we swerve. David grips the steering wheel with both hands, desperate for control. The car skids and turns before landing in a thick row of corn.
David takes the gun from the floor, opens my door and pushes me out. “Run!”
Flashes of Mom and Dad, falling out of our car, Mom screaming at me to run, eclipse my thoughts.
“Go,” David says again, sharpening my focus. “Now!” He climbs from the car amid a shower of gunshots.
We run deep into the fields. Stiff stalks of corn lash our faces, arms, legs as we try to evade the assailants.
“Stop them,” I yell back to David.
“I’m trying,” he says.
More bullets cut through the space around us.
“Try harder.” Corn splatters around us as the air whooshes too close to my ear. “They’re getting closer.”
“I know. Help me,” David says. “Focus on stopping them. In your mind.”
I center my thoughts and imagine the same cyclone I created when Josh died. Husks and corn begin to swirl behind us. Gravel and dirt join the corn. It rises up, up, up into a whirlwind before disbursing into the fields behind us, leveling several rows of corn. Screams bounce along the wind, followed by silence.
David runs. I hesitate and listen for the proof I need.
No more shots. No sounds of corn husks moving.
“David, listen.”
He stops and the silence remains. David bends over, his breath heavy and hard. “Thanks,” he forces out.
“I owed you.” I lean on David’s back. My lungs cramp from the run.
“We aren’t safe here.” David grabs his side, panting.
“I know.” I stand and look around. Nothing but endless rows of corn in every direction. “Where are we?”
“No clue.” David takes my hand and leads me across several rows until we reach a recently plowed section. “This is bound to lead somewhere,” he says, nodding toward the plowed rows. “Come on.”
We walk until the sun is in our eyes, marking mid-afternoon. The fields are endless. “We need to find the highway again.”
“Agreed, but where?”
I close my eyes and attempt to create a mental picture of our location. My thoughts rise and I see a large circle of plowed corn, David and me in the middle. A lonely road stretches just beyond us.
Sharp sounds pop and yank me from my thoughts. David drags me back toward the tall stalks, away from the relentless gunfire. Bullets collide with the ground behind us as we run.
“Where are they?” I can’t sense them at all.
“I don’t know,” David’s voice is tight with frustration. “They can hide from us.”
Crap.
“Come on.” David grabs my arms and pulls me down a new row. “Stay low.”
Another bullet whooshes overhead, too close.
An opening stretches in front of us. “There!” I say pointing ahead.
David’s speed increases. I pump my legs harder and harder, willing them to keep up. My body screams in protest.
Just a few more st . . .
Deafening shots ring out.
Burning hot pain sears through my right shoulder.
I scream, unable to think, speak, move. I grip my shoulder with my left hand. A hot sticky mess coats my fingers. My stomach clenches as nausea threatens to consume me. “David,” I say. Think. “Help.”
My mind blurs. I stumble and fall, my knees grinding into the husk-littered ground. “David.”
More gunfire soars overhead. “Got her,” someone says in the distance.
“Bring her to me.” a different voice commands.
“We can’t stay here,” David says as he pulls me up and half-drags me toward the opening in the corn.
Blood trickles from the jagged spot where the bullet grazed my shoulder. I press against it hard and bite down on the inside of my mouth. You can do this, I tell myself. You’re stronger than this.
Lies. All lies.
“There they are,” one of the assailants says. More gunshots cut through the fields. “Get them.”
I focus on the voice as I bite back my pain.
“Almost,” David says. “A few more feet and we’re clear.”
I barely register his words, my focus on nothing but the voice behind me. I picture a mouth as it creates the assailant’s sounds, the brain that chooses the words. In my mind, I imagine his head in a vice grip and I am squeezing it shut.
“Ahh,” the scream is loud. Absolute.
I’ve got you now.
I squeeze harder until the scream intensifies. Ends.
That one’s for Josh.
David pushes me through the cornfield and onto a road, as another black sedan fishtails to a stop.
“Get in.”
MAYA’S GAZE MEETS MINE. Her hair is more wild than I remember, her skin l
ess vibrant. Her eyes carry the biggest change. No longer filled with the joyful life I remember, Maya’s eyes are hard. Cold.
Dead.
“Get in,” she says again.
“Maya.” My eyes widen as I force the bones of her skull together with my mind. “You killed Mari.”
“Stop,” she says through gritted teeth. “I can help you.”
I continue to squeeze. The effort takes more energy than I posses and my mind begins to blur.
A fresh wave of gunshots rings out around the car. Blood, hot and sticky, trickles down my arm. “David . . .”
“You need help. Get in, quick.”
My focus leaves. More banging sounds surround me. Something crashes into my thoughts. My world blackens.
“Come on!”
My body floats away, and everything . . .
Ends.
White hot agony brings me conscious. Liquid fire burns through my shoulder and my stomach leaps into my throat.
“Stop.” The word comes in a garbled mess. “Stop,” I say again.
“Shh. Let me clean your wound.”
Events come back in a rush. Bullets whiz around us as we run through endless rows of corn. My shoulder explodes into a million pieces. Maya orders us into her car.
I shake my head, forcing a thin focus. My gaze meets Maya’s in the rearview mirror. David tends to my shoulder.
“Pour more alcohol over the wound. Wrap the bandage around her arm and shoulder. Not too tight, though, let the injury breathe.”
David pulls supplies from a first aid kit and complies with every instruction. Worry carves into his features.
I inhale my pain as more fire blazes through my shoulder. “I’m okay,” I say, more to myself than to him.
He covers the wound with gauze and ties it off, touching me like I’m a china doll.
“She’ll need antibiotics. I can get them for her.” Maya lifts her chin toward David. “Okay?”
He nods in agreement.
“Wait,” I say to David. “Why are we trusting her?”
“I know who killed Josh.”
“Don’t,” I mumble. “Don’t listen to her.”
A smile curls Maya’s lips. “A thank you would be nice. You’d both be dead without me.” Maya slams on the gas and the car screeches along the highway. The motion unnerves me, challenging my ability to focus again.
Collide (The Solomon Experiments Book 1) Page 13
