“Henri has been down here?” I asked skeptically. Henri had been my team leader during my pledge period with the Hunters. He was way too straight-laced to go gallivanting around restricted areas.
“Once or twice,” Erik replied evasively.
I narrowed my gaze, glaring at Erik’s back. There was something he wasn’t telling me. “Once or twice?” I mimicked back.
Erik didn’t take the bait, so I let it drop.
“Come on. We don’t have much time,” he said, tugging my hand and urging me to move faster.
We rounded the corner at the end of the row of dilapidated machines. The room exploded into a cavernous expanse. The ceiling was close to fifty feet above us and rounded. Another set of escalators stretched twenty feet down on to a lower platform. Two sets of metal rails extended the length of each wall, disappearing into pitch black tunnels at the far end of the room. The sheer size of the station overwhelmed me. I’d never seen anything quite like it.
The rank odor of decay and disuse became stronger. Cold, damp air engulfed me like a wet blanket, making it hard to breathe normally. I shivered in my thin cocktail dress and lightweight jacket. Erik released my hand and worked his arms out of his own coat, wrapping it around my trembling shoulders. I smiled, grateful for the extra layer of protection against the cold and grime of the metro station.
Erik led the way down the remaining escalator steps and out on to the lower platform. Several stone slabs that served as benches for long forgotten waiting passengers lined the space between the two tracks. I followed Erik, watching with undisguised skepticism as he sat on the edge of the closest bench.
The beam from Erik’s flashlight emphasized large fissures in the stone, making me doubt the structural integrity of the bench. It looked as though it would give way at any moment. Erik beckoned me over, his amused expression seeming out of place in such a desolate station. Deciding that if the bench held him, it would hold me too, I gingerly sat down.
The stone was cold against the backs of my thighs and the thin dress provided little protection. I pulled Erik’s jacket tighter around my body. His eyes were on me, his mind reading my thoughts as I surveyed the surroundings. I tried to imagine kids my age drinking and laughing, playing music, dancing even. Try as I might, my imagination wasn’t that good. Everywhere I looked, I saw abandonment.
“So, are you going to tell me why you brought me down here tonight?” I asked, returning my focus to Erik.
“Privacy. This is the only place I know of without cameras or listening devices or people watching our every move. I feel safe here. Like I can be me.” Erik sounded wistful and a little sad.
I stared at him, questioning his sanity. The metro station felt the opposite of safe. Shadows lurked around every corner. The unmistakable squeak of rodents echoed off the cavernous walls. Water trickled somewhere in the distance, the steady drip grating my nerves. I scooted closer to Erik.
“I can’t even begin to understand how hard the last couple of weeks have been,” Erik began, speaking aloud for the first time.
“I’m okay,” I mumbled quickly, turning away from his imploring gaze. I was so used to people asking me how I was doing or assuming they knew how I felt, the response was automatic.
“It’s just us down here, Tal. You don’t need to pretend you’re fine,” Erik replied, gently. “Want to tell me what happened in the courtroom?”
In the days that followed the scene in the courtroom, I lived in a state of shock. If nothing else, the counseling sessions with Dr. Wythe helped bring me back to the present when all I wanted was to sit in my room and lose myself in the memories of my parents. I hated that the psychotherapist was the only person I was allowed to talk to about Penny and what she showed me. When Mac finally allowed Erik to come visit me, he made sure we were never alone. Either Mac or Gretchen hovered within earshot at all times. I was so paranoid that I didn’t even trust that our mental communications were private. Fear that Gretchen might be listening in or that my out of control emotions would affect my ability to project my thoughts only to Erik kept me from sharing with the only person I actually wanted to confide in.
But now sitting in that filthy, decrepit subway station with Erik, I couldn’t find the words. So much had happened, I didn’t even know where to begin. Panic constricted my lungs, making my breaths come out in ragged gasps. My stomach felt as though it was on the spin cycle.
“Look at me, Tal.” Erik’s words were barely a whisper, but they sounded like shouts breaking through the silence. I turned to face him. Calm poured over me the instant I met his eyes.
Instead of telling Erik what had happened, I decided to show him; I grabbed both his hands firmly in mine. The physical contact wasn’t necessary, but the feel of his skin on mine gave me strength.
“Open your mind,” I whispered hoarsely. He complied without hesitation. I closed my eyes and allowed all of the memories I’d spent the last few weeks suppressing to surface.
Starting from the very first encounter I’d had with Penny in the Hunters’ Village, I showed him how she’d used my own powers of Mind Manipulation against me. I recounted the times I was sure she persuaded me into telling her things I hadn’t originally wanted to, and the times she cajoled me into decisions I wouldn’t have otherwise made. I recalled the times that, in hindsight, I knew she’d accidentally mimicked other Talents. Like the time she used Ursula Bane’s telekinesis to catch a glass in mid-air. And the time she was helping me train Kenly for her placement exams and mimicked Kenly’s abilities to keep me from breaking my ankle.
Erik knew about my interrogations of the four other Cryptos, but not wanting to leave out any detail, I replayed each in my head so that Erik could see and feel what I’d experienced first-hand. I reminded him of Penny’s intake evaluation that was seared into my brain, the final clue that had cinched Penny’s guilt for me: the indication that she was a Light Manipulator, which contradicted what I thought I knew to be true: She was a Higher Reasoning Talent.
I jumped to the confrontation with Penny in the Crypto Bank. I heard Penny’s words in my head as she urged me to believe that Mac wasn’t who I thought he was; that Donavon wasn’t the only person lying to me; that I knew what she was saying was true; and that I just needed to look inside myself for the answers, whatever that meant. Erik was there when she was actually arrested, so he probably knew better than I did what actually transpired. I’d been too distraught to process most of it.
Finally, I relived Penny’s sentencing day. I was too caught up in the memory to bypass the reading of the evidence I’d provided for the formal record. Erik gently rubbed his thumbs across my palms. His touch was a salve to the reopened wounds of Penny’s betrayal.
My parent’s faces swam through my mind, swirling into undefined shapes. I wanted to hold on to the memory, remember the way they appeared in the vision, but I couldn’t. A tear leaked from the corner of one closed eye and trailed down my cheek. Why couldn’t I bring up the exact vision? Why couldn’t I remember the way my parent’s looked? What had my parents been doing with Crane? Where had we been?
The harder I concentrated, the fuzzier the images became. It was like there were mental blocks in my brain, keeping me from the memories. The pain reached a tipping point, my heart ripped in two, and suddenly I didn’t want to remember anymore. I tore my hands from Erik’s grasp, covered my face with sweaty palms, and sobbed.
Erik drew me closer, wrapping his arms protectively around my body, a shield against the torment and confusion of the outside world. He held me so tightly that air had trouble reaching my lungs. I’d been waiting three long, agonizing weeks for this moment. The moment when Erik would hold me and tell me that everything was okay. The moment that I could stop pretending I was happy that the girl I once called my best friend was going to die. The moment when I could tell someone I trusted that I believed Crane knew my parents, just like Penny said. Just like Crane said.
Dr. Wythe and Mac had tried to convince me that everything
Penny told and showed me was a lie; that she’d fabricated the memories; that none of it had actually happened. They said she was one of the few people who knew how precarious my mental state was since Nevada, and she concocted the images of my family to unhinge me further. Dr. Wythe told me that she was a sociopath and took pleasure in watching me unravel. Mac argued that Penny was trying to lure me back to Crane by dangling the temptation of his alleged friendship with my parents like a carrot.
In the beginning, I actually bought into their convoluted theories. I was so mad and hurt by her lies that I was vulnerable to the suggestions. During my therapy sessions with Dr. Wythe I even agreed she was a monster. But deep down a part of me always knew she was telling the truth. In my heart, I knew the images were real and not just because I desperately wanted to find some connection to my parents as Donavon had suggested the one time I brought it up to him. I couldn’t explain how I knew they were real; I just did. They had to be. The pain of loss I felt each time the memories faded further from my mind was too powerful.
“Tal, Penny lied about so much. How do you know she didn’t lie about knowing your family, too?” Erik murmured softly, his mouth right next to my ear.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I just feel it.”
“Have you ever had somebody show you fake memories before?” he asked tentatively. He was working hard not to sound argumentative. He was afraid that I might explode if he openly disagreed with me.
“Not that I know of,” I admitted reluctantly.
“So how can you be sure hers aren’t?” Erik asked gently. I was about to protest, but Erik hurried on before I could open my mouth. “She was obviously unusually adept at using her Mimicry. She clearly mastered your manipulation, as well as several other Talents.”
“You don’t believe me,” I accused him, pulling back from his embrace, hurt that he wasn’t reassuring me that I wasn’t nuts. Erik was the only person I truly trusted and if he didn’t have faith in me, well, that I couldn’t handle.
“No,” he said firmly. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. I am just not sure you’re being objective. You loved her, she was your friend, and you want to believe she knew you and your family, but that doesn’t necessarily make it true.” He smoothed my wild curls away from my face and locked his eyes with mine.
“The memories just feel so real,” I said weakly, my resolve weakening under the loving gaze.
“I know, Tals. I can feel they do, too. But you can implant false memories in other people’s minds and make them believe anything you want. If she had been mimicking you, then she could have done that, too.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “But, Erik, she didn’t implant false memories. She could have, and I would have believed them unquestioningly because I would have thought they were my own. But she didn’t. She showed me her memories. Penny knew my parents. Crane knew my parents.”
Erik’s eyes softened, a flood of mixed emotions swirled like a tidal pool in his confused head. He was on the fence, unsure of what to make of my insistence.
“Tal, if what Penny showed you really happened, why don’t you have any memory of it? You said you were young, but not a baby. Don’t you think you would remember if you’d met Ian Crane?” Erik asked skeptically.
I swallowed hard. I’d been wondering the same thing. I remembered most of my childhood, or at least I thought I did. If my parents had met with Crane and I was there, I should have my own memory of the encounter. But I didn’t.
“No......Yes......I don’t know, Erik. I was really young. How far back can you really remember?” I shot back, becoming defensive. The rational part of me knew Erik was trying to remain impartial, be the voice of reason. But the part of me that needed validation that I wasn’t crazy for believing Penny felt as though he was attacking me, purposely poking holes in my logic.
Erik held up his hands in surrender, although he didn’t seem all that surprised by my reaction. “Okay, let’s say for arguments sake that Penny’s memories are real. What does that actually prove? At one time, maybe Crane was friends with your family.” Erik shrugged as if to say, “so what?” “It doesn’t change the fact he killed your parents.”
“For me, it does,” I said quietly. “I need to know why. If they were friends, then why did Crane order the hit?” I boldly met Erik’s gaze, daring him to come up with some answer. I could feel several formulating in his mind, but he pushed them aside and shook his head. “Crane had me strapped to a bed, Erik. He could have killed me, but he didn’t.”
Erik inhaled deeply. “No, I guess not,” he said, giving a short snort of laughter. “He gave you seizures instead. Let his men shoot you. Neither of those is much better.”
“Crane tried to keep his men from shooting at me,” I replied absently.
I didn’t know why I felt the need to defend Crane. Everything Erik said was true. There were even days, particularly when the seizures first started and I was still recovering from the bullet’s damage that I thought I would have been better off dead. Now only in moments of extreme weakness did I revisit those feelings.
“And what if it weren’t the injections that made me sick?” I continued.
“The blood transfusion?” Erik guessed.
I nodded. Something about the blood transfusion I’d received didn’t sit right with me. Donavon insisted there was nothing wrong with him; that Mac didn’t want me to know Donavon had given me his blood because it was against protocol. But I knew there was more to it than that. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any clue as to what in Donavon’s blood could be making me sick. He wasn’t sick, he didn’t have seizures.
“It’s possible,” Erik conceded. Pain drew heavy lines on his beautiful face as he absorbed the fear and confusion that I’d been living with for the past year. He leaned in close, pressing his forehead to mine. “I promise you we will figure all of this out. Okay?”
My lips found his. “Okay,” I murmured against his mouth. The night had been so exhausting, I couldn’t think straight anymore. All I wanted was to forget about everything except Erik, to lose myself in him.
The cold, odorous underground station vanished. Thoughts of Penny and Crane and even my parents disappeared. I wrapped my arms around Erik’s neck, pulling all my hundred pounds into his lap as I kissed him deeper. Erik’s hands slid between my jacket and dress, gently kneading the tension knots in my lower back. When we finally drew apart, we were both short of breath. I pulled one of his hands from my waist, placing it over my heart. He ran his fingers lightly over the material of my jacket, the warmth of his touch penetrating through the fabric and making my skin tingle.
He leaned towards me again, resting his chin just above my collarbone. His breath tickled my neck and every tiny hair on my body stood on end as he whispered, “I love you,” into my ear.
“I love you, too,” I croaked hoarsely, so overcome by emotion that I was surprised the words were audible.
Erik held me in his lap for a couple more long minutes before I remembered Arden’s warning. The next train was due to come through very shortly and conductor or not, I didn’t want to be in the station when it did.
Chapter Six
The vibrations in the stagnant air gave me a split second warning before a horn drowned out the sound of our footsteps. Lights I hadn’t noticed earlier came to life along one side of the platform’s edge. Fear made my hand go clammy in Erik’s. We were so going to get caught.
I found Erik’s eyes. The train’s headlight illuminated the alarm he was trying hard not to show. Uncertainty turned his thoughts anxious. Before I knew it, he was dragging me across the slippery tiles towards the tracks that weren’t illuminated by the headlight of the approaching train. Without hesitation, he leapt on to the tracks, pulling me over the platform’s edge after him. Erik hugged the inner wall, careful not to touch the rails themselves. I struggled to keep pace in my slippery ballet flats, not bothering to be quiet as I followed him into the darkened tunnel.
Metal
screeched against metal as the train pulled up against the platform we’d just vacated. Curiosity mingled with the growing fear in my stomach as we crouched in the blackened space. Erik tried to exude calm, pretending that he was in control of the situation. It wasn’t working. I could feel his anxiety, and it heightened my own. Despite the cold, he started to sweat. My sense of smell seemed enhanced and the faint odor of his deodorant mixed with his sweat filled my nostrils. I tried in vain to dull my olfactory senses and breathed only through my mouth.
The train doors emitted a mechanical whine when they slid apart. Heavy footsteps echoed through the stale air. Beads of cold sweat weaved their way down my back, plastering my dress to my skin. All the surety that I’d had when we told Arden not to worry about us getting caught was gone. I no longer felt confident in my ability to talk our way out of trouble.
“I thought you said the subways were automatic? That they weren’t manned by conductors?” I sent, my growing unease making my mental voice sound strained.
“They usually aren’t. The train usually just passes through the station,” Erik’s mental voice sounded as stressed as I felt.
“Why did they stop?” I demanded, even though I knew that Erik was no more clued in to the situation than I was.
“I don’t know, Tals, but I’m sure they’ll be gone soon,” he promised. His hand was cold and clammy when he squeezed mine in an attempt to calm my nerves.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten, inhaling deeply. Relax, Talia. Worst case scenario, they find us. We weren’t doing anything wrong really. Sure, we weren’t exactly supposed to be down here, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’d been caught someplace I shouldn’t be. And it certainly wasn’t the first time that Erik had been caught in a prohibited location. Fine. We were going to be fine. I hated having to give myself the mental pep talk.
Several more sets of footsteps clamored down the metal stairs of the escalators as they descended to the platform. I gripped Erik’s hand tighter and he hugged me tight against his side.
Hunted (Talented Saga # 3) Page 5
