The Dark at the End

by Susan Adrian

  MYKA

  Eyes Open by Taylor Swift

  They’re taking me for blood tests.

  I know what that means. Dad’s decided to give me his green formula, and start trying for powers.

  Without Mom or Liesel or Dedushka to talk to, I don’t know how I should handle this. Should I fight every step of the way, even if it’s “just tests,” because of what will happen next? Or do I let them do it, give them all the medical info they want about me, and try to find things out myself while I’m out of my room?

  Do I try to talk to Dad again, if I see him? Do I try to slip away and escape?

  I’m probably not going to be able to do that last one, especially without Mom. But I decide I’ll keep my eyes open for escape routes, at least.

  What I really want to do is go curl up somewhere and pretend this isn’t happening, cry my eyes out, and have Mom tell me it’ll all be okay.

  The woman with the fat bun pushes me down the hall and past the lab I toured with Dad. People in lab coats are still working away, using beakers and Bunsen burners and microscopes. They look happy and oblivious. Do they even know what their work is used for? Do they care?

  I wonder what Dorothy Hodgkin would do in this situation. I would never work there. Not now, after seeing Dad go crazy.

  The soldier brings me into an office at the end of the lab, asks me to sit in the plastic chair, and tells me she’ll be right back with medical staff.

  I look at everything. There’s got to be something here that will help me. It’s pretty basic, though: two doors, a computer, filing cabinets, a long counter with a tray with syringes and lots of empty vials. There’s a blood pressure cuff on the counter too, and an ear thermometer.

  It’s making me creeped out, actually. I hate doctors. You’d think I wouldn’t mind them, since I want to be a scientist. But they make me feel helpless. Like a baby. Mom always has to drag me.

  And I still don’t see anything useful. I could steal a syringe, I guess. But what would I do, stab someone with it?

  Then I hear something, on the other side of the far door. Someone talking, loud. Upset.

  I slide off the chair and tiptoe to the door. I put my ear against it. Better, but I still can’t understand any words. There are two people talking, the loud one—male, and young I think—and a woman, talking in soothing tones.

  That’s Liesel, I swear. And maybe Jake. I fling the door open wide, and they both look up at me, startled.

  It is Liesel, standing in the middle of the room. But it’s not Jake. It’s a boy, a little older than me, skinny. With a huge Adam’s apple and short hair, sitting on a chair that matches the one in the other room. He looks a little like Jake.

  Oh my God. This must be Lucas.

  “Myka!” Liesel says. “What are you…” Her eyes narrow. “Are they taking blood from you too?”

  “Yes,” I say, shortly. “I couldn’t exactly stop them.” I stand there for a minute, awkward, staring at Lucas while he stares at me. My brother from another mother, literally. Weird. Then I come in and offer my hand, because I don’t know what else to do. “I’m Myka. Your sister, I guess.”

  He flushes, his whole face and neck going red. He shakes my hand. His is cool. “I’m Lucas.”

  I laugh, nervous. “I know.”

  We both go quiet, looking at Liesel. She shakes her head. “They’re testing both of you, apparently. But there’s more news.” She sighs. “Jake’s here, imprisoned. We were working on an arrangement, so you all would be let go and Jake would work with John from outside…but John reneged and brought Jake in. By force.”

  Anxiety fills my chest, sour. “Is he all right?” I say. “Where is he? Can I see him?”

  “I can’t even see him.” She pulls out her ponytail suddenly and runs her fingers through her hair, letting it fall on her shoulders. It makes her look totally different. Almost pretty. “I’m not even supposed to see any of you. Only John and his ‘loyal’ staff.”

  The anxiety wall gets stronger, pushing my lungs. Maybe I don’t trust Liesel, but I like her more than anyone else here. At least she’s tried. “No,” I say, small.

  Liesel looks at me strangely, but then she nods. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let all this just happen. I’ll help however I can.”

  “Excuse me? Miss?”

  The medical staff is there for me, in the other room. Not happy I’m not there. A guy in a white coat busts through the door, takes one look, and grabs my arm. “You need to leave now.” He raises his eyebrows at Liesel, but she doesn’t say anything.

  I get one last look at Lucas, his face still red, before I get shoved through the door.

  They take a lot of blood, but I barely notice, my brain spinning out of control. Jake’s here, in a cell or something. Dad is mad at Liesel, at Mom, at Jake, and probably me and Lucas too. But he’s going ahead with his plan of testing us.

  I wonder why he’s doing that now, if he has Jake back?

  42

  JAKE

  Unreasonable Things by American Speedway

  Dad leaves me alone in the cell for hours.

  I don’t know if he knows it, but it’s probably the most effective way to mess with me…other than threatening something to Myka. It was the confinement that got to me in the end, in Montauk. My hands aren’t trembling now, but only because my head hurts so badly that I can’t focus on anything else. It feels like the garbage compactor scene in Star Wars, like the walls are squeezing my head so hard it might pop. I lie there sprawled on the cold bench and hold my head between my hands like it will help anything.

  A while later, when I’m also hungry and have to piss, he finally comes.

  He stands outside the cell and stares at me. I rise, slowly, to my feet, battling through the pain with every ounce of willpower. I don’t want to be lying down when I talk to him.

  “You okay?” He sounds like he really means it.

  I don’t answer.

  He sighs. Then he drags a plastic chair from the corner and drops into it. He looks tired. “You’re probably hungry. You’ll get to eat soon.”

  “When?” My voice is raw. “After you make me do something for you? After you break me?”

  “After we take a blood sample.” His voice rises again, a little. “It’s called fasting.”

  I pinch my lips together. “You’re still desperate to make this serum to duplicate me. To make yourself a power.”

  “To solve this riddle,” he snaps. Like he’s mad at me for not getting it. “To figure out why you have this extraordinary gift, why my father did. It’s my life’s work, Jake. Can’t you see that?”

  “No, I can’t see that. I’m trying to escape from that. From it. From you. That’s why I took that serum. Why I don’t have any power anymore.”

  There’s a long silence. It’s so still. I don’t think a particle of air moves, for a long minute. Like I’ve frozen him with my words.

  The veins stand out in his neck. “I don’t understand why you did that. Are you insane?” he asks, quietly.

  I don’t answer.

  “Why would you throw it away?” It gets steadily louder, each word. “Why would you get rid of the one thing that made you unique, that could help the world?” He’s shouting now, his eyes burning with crazy, and I step back. He shakes his head. “You’re a fool. You never knew how to use it right. What you could do.”

  He turns his back, and we’re quiet for a long time.

  I have to admit, I feel strange, knowing that I couldn’t tunnel if I wanted to. That I can’t reach Dedushka. That I can’t ever save those people on the plane, or anyone else. It feels…empty. Blank.

  But I had to.

  “Is Smith really coming?” I ask. “Is that true?”

  He sighs again. “Yes, Jake. Because of what you did, Smith is really coming. I think my people have disabled the tracker. But it’s done enough damage. He’s on his way.”

  “We can’t leave Rachel to him.” I don’t want Rachel here, not at all
. But I don’t want her out there alone more. The image of Bunny comes again, bright red on the white carpet. Dead in bits because I wouldn’t tunnel for him. He’s a psychopath. If he really gets hold of Rachel, I can’t even…

  “She is not my family,” Dad says, cold. “So she is not my concern. All I’m worried about is now in this facility. And you’re the one who left her alone out there. So I’d say this is on you, right?” He paces, back and forth, in front of me. He looks wild, feral. Obsessed. “All you.”

  “Don’t,” I growl. “Don’t go there.” Anger flares before I can rein it in. “I’m not six and you didn’t send me to my room for breaking a plate. I’m in a cell here. I nearly got a broken rib from your soldier kicking me.”

  He raises one eyebrow, which pisses me off more because it makes him look like Dedushka. “It’s just a difference in scale. You took that stuff of Ivan’s. Clearly you’re not being reasonable.”

  “I’m not being reasonable?” I lunge for the bars closest to him, like that will do anything. “You stole Mom and Myka off the street. And now you kidnapped me.” I think of Vladimir, my promise to him. “You…you killed an old man who didn’t do anything to you, didn’t do anything wrong, didn’t you? You’re way off the border of reasonable.”

  He flinches when I mention Vladimir. It was him. I don’t know why, how he could go that far, but it was. He stands, turns his back, and walks towards the door. “I had nothing to do with the old man. My team went out of control, off orders…" He shakes his head. "Clearly you need more time.”

  Panic pounds on my chest. No, no more time. I take a breath, grip the bars. “And shall we talk about Lucas? How you had another family you didn’t tell us about?”

  He whips around. “Lucas is none of your business. You shouldn’t have brought him here. And this serum of yours? We will overcome this hiccup. I happen to have a drug that I think will work, this time. That will induce power like it did with Ivan. I’ll use it on you, after some tests, and see whether it works. Whether it restores your power, or gives you a different one. I even wonder if it will erase this headache you’re trying to hide from me. A side effect of your little red serum, yes?” He stares at me like I’m vomit on the sidewalk. “I think I might try my activation serum on Myka first.”

  “No,” I say. Desperation strangles me. “NO.”

  “She’s smarter. Younger. And once she gets over her initial qualms, I think she’ll make a more willing subject. Lucas too, since he’s here.” I see the crazy again, stamped in his face. “Yes, I like this plan. We’re doing blood tests first, of course. Make sure we have everything lined up. But don’t worry, Jake. I’ll keep you down here, as back-up. I’ll want to trigger you too, eventually. Then I can have all three of you working at once.”

  “You can’t!” I shout, hoping he’ll listen. Hoping it will go through to the Dad that I remember, instead of this madman. “You can’t experiment on Myka!”

  He shakes his head again, slow. “You just gave her your spot on the team.”

  He slides the chair into the corner, straightens it so it’s perfectly neat. “My people will be here in a minute to draw your blood. It would be really smart if you don’t resist them, Jake. Then I’ll let you have some food, and something to drink. That’s all you get for now. I’m sorry, but your time has come and gone. I hold all the cards. I tried not to involve you at all, but you were too stupid and foolhardy to stay out of it. Then you wouldn’t stay safely with me. Worse, you endangered them, Abby and Myka, and I had to bring them here to be safe from that maniac, from other people after you. And now you laid in bed with Smith, and Rachel’s going to pay the price for it, and Myka’s going to get her own power. All of this, every bit of it, is on you. And right now you’d better start listening to me, and do as I say.”

  He turns, and walks out the door. The lock clicks behind him.

  I sink to the ground, tears sliding down my face. Taking the serum didn’t help at all. All that work to find it. Somehow, in trying to be free, I made it all worse.

  I didn’t think it could get worse. But this is my nightmare.

  43

  JAKE

  Grandfather by Afficionado

  A little while after Dad leaves, two new people come in. Both are wearing lab coats and carrying medical bags, as if that’s going to make them any less threatening to me. One’s a white woman with a tiny red bun and freckles, and one’s a Hispanic man, small. Smaller than her. They stop outside the cell and peer nervously in at me.

  I stare at them. My head pounds in steady rhythm.

  “Mr. Lukin, if you could go sit on the bench, please,” the woman says, in a polite-to-patient voice. “We need to take a blood sample.”

  “And if I refuse?” I ask, my hands clenched.

  “Then we go get more people to hold you down,” the man says, blunt. “As many as we need.” He meets my eyes straight-on, challenging.

  I don’t have enough energy to fight this, these people. I’m not even sure it would do any good. They’ve got a shit-ton of my blood from when I was in Montauk anyway. It’s not going to matter if I let them have more now.

  I sigh, back up to the bench, and sit on it, cold on my butt.

  The man pushes some buttons and the door slides open with a clang. They both come in carefully, like I’m a tiger or something, and approach me.

  “Stay still,” the woman says. “You don’t need to do anything.”

  I briefly consider shoving her into the bars, punching the man like I did Smith. Bolting out of here. But the outside door is still shut, presumably locked. It would give me a couple minutes of feeling better, strong, but that’s all.

  And how far would I get, with my head like this? I’m judging everything—every light, sound, breath—by whether it makes the headache less or better. I kind of wish for T-680.

  She kneels next to me, stretches out my arm, and squeezes my hand between her knees. She takes a syringe he hands her. I look away when she pinches my skin with a needle, when the blood starts flowing into capsule after capsule. Five, I count. I don’t move until they’re done.

  They pack up, labeling the vials of blood, putting everything away neatly. Slowly. Giving me time, I realize. To make sure I don’t pass out.

  “All done,” she says at last, and stands, looking down at me. She’s entirely too cheerful. Almost pretty, with dark eyes like Rachel. When she holds out a hand to me I’m almost not sure what to do.

  “You’ll get food soon. But Dr. Miller gave us an order too,” she says, low. “We’re to take you to another room now.”

  I frown—I still trust Liesel as much as I trust a snake—but I take the woman’s hand, let her pull me up. Wobble a little. She navigates me gently by the arm: out the cell, out the door, down three doors to the left in the hallway, and then through another door.

  Dedushka looks up when we come in, from a metal chair in the middle of a plain metal room. His grin, yellow through the familiar white beard, makes me hope again. Lucas is there too, sitting awkwardly next to him, his hands hanging between his legs.

  I'm to Dedushka, wrapped in a big bear hug, in seconds. He doesn't smell like cigars anymore, or even fish–just stale, lifeless air. I probably do too.

  It doesn't matter.

  “Why did you do that?" I ask, squeezing his arms. I pull back. “Why did you turn yourself in?” I look at Lucas. “And you. Both of you.”

  Dedushka looks ashamed, a little. Then he shrugs. “I thought it worth a try, to not involve you. Not all my plans work, malchik.”

  “Mine either.” I sigh, and we share a look.

  “I wanted to see him,” Lucas says, quietly. “I thought maybe you were keeping me from him, that he’d want to see me…”

  He looks up, his eyes dark.

  I pull over another chair and sit across from them, quiet.

  “How did he react to seeing you?” I ask.

  He shrugs, and it’s so full of helplessness, sadness, that I want to scoop him up and take
him out of here right now. “He was excited to find out I had a power. Really excited. But then he tested me, and he told me I was practically useless. ‘Who wants to know the past?’ he said. ‘I want to know the present. And the future.’”

  Dedushka lays a hand on his knee. “He is wrong.”

  “He’s a raging prick,” I say. “I told you.”

  Lucas laughs, a bark. “You did. That’s true.” He sighs, long and loud, then sucks in his cheeks. “So what now?”

  I kick my heels against the metal chair. Lean in. “I took the serum,” I say. “My power is gone.” I don’t tell them about the headache. Maybe it will go away on its own.

  Dedushka’s eyebrows crawl up high. “Thanks to God.” He grins, wide. I smile myself—I can’t help it—before it falls off my face, and I have to tell him the rest.

  “But he says he has an activation serum to counter it, and it’s ready. And now he’s going to test it on Myka. She’s a ‘better candidate’ anyway, he says.” I gesture between me and Lucas. “I guess we’re the B team now. He’s all focused on her.”

  “That’s true,” Lucas says. “I met her. He was testing her blood.”

  The lines in Dedushka’s face multiply. “He is a devil.”

  I nod. “We have to stop it. Also, he said Smith has some sort of tracking device on Lucas. He’s headed this way.”

  “No!” Lucas stands up, and starts pacing around the room. “No. He can find me anywhere?” He bangs his fists against his legs. “I told you we’d never escape him. Not really. That he’d come after me.”

  I lean over to Dedushka. “Rachel—” my voice breaks. “She’s out there alone.”

  Dedushka is quiet for a bit, tugging on his beard. Hard. “Milaya will be all right. She is smart, da? She will hide from him.”

  I don’t know whether he believes it, but I’m grateful to him for saying it. For caring, unlike Dad with his ‘she’s not my family.’ She’s my family. And Dedushka’s. He’s frowning again.