“What the hell—” Mari began, but Shawn threw up a hand.
“It could be used against us. All of us.” Aaron was saying.
“Yes,” Duncan said slowly. “But hear me out. If we fine tune it, it could be the perfect weapon against Jaxon.”
“That’s one hell of a risk.”
“It is. But what other choice is there? It’s very possible to do this.”
“How?” Aaron demanded. “We have no funding. No lab equipment that isn’t from the early nineties. We have one scientist.”
There was a long silence.
“Oh you have got to be kidding me.”
“They’re not going to like this,” Duncan replied. There were sudden footsteps, and Shawn leapt away from the door moments before it opened. Duncan exited quietly, glancing around the room as if half expecting to find someone already dead on the floor. Isaac and Emma sat on one side of the room, hand in hand, her head resting on his shoulder and his fingers in her hair. He was eyeing Shawn, who, in an effort to look guiltless, stared in their direction with a sad expression that swapped with irritation, then back. Mari paced on the other side of the small area, while Lucas still leaned against the wall and stared out of the window into nothingness.
“Okay.” Duncan clapped his hands together. “We think we have a plan.”
“We?” Aaron said, then barked a laugh.
Duncan ignored him. “Hear me out, please.” Everyone was staring at him. He took a nearly imperceivable step backward. “We may have a weapon to stop Jaxon.”
Eyes turned hopeful. “But, as Aaron pointed out to me,” Duncan continued, “we lack the funds and equipment and staff to perfect it.” He hesitated, then turned to the two criminals in the room. “However, we happen to have a connection to the richest man in Redborough.”
There was silence, then all hell broke loose.
“Are you fucking joking?” Mari screeched.
“There’s no fucking way,” Aaron mumbled, shaking his head and fingering his scar. Lucas and Shawn both said nothing, but the former glared at Duncan while the latter stared at Emma.
“Whose side are you even on?” Mari yelled, her cheeks turning red.
“What weapon?” Lucas said over the anger. “What the hell could be so important that we’d turn to Vance for help?”
Duncan looked at Aaron, who only shook his head, turned away, and ran his hands over his face.
“Something powerful,” Duncan replied, then looked right at Emma. “She’s an Evo.”
Shawn’s heart jumped as silence fell once again. Everyone in the room turned toward Emma. She stared at Duncan, her blue eyes wide and confused.
“Aaron heard it happen more than once,” he said softly, addressing Emma directly. “When you were arguing with Mari just a bit ago, and apparently before.” He took a step forward, then hesitated.
“I...I don’t understand,” Emma said. “I can’t do anything special. I’d know it if I could.” Her hand squeezed Isaac’s so hard, her knuckles were white.
“You can,” Aaron said. “It seems you’re able to persuade people with your mind, convince them to do whatever you want.”
“What?”
“When you told Mari to listen to you, I felt a burst of...power, or something. It was strong, so strong that even I wanted to shut up and do what you said.” Aaron frowned. “I also heard Mari’s reaction. She wasn’t fully swayed, but she was close.”
“What the hell are you saying? That I can make people do what I want just by...talking to them?”
“No, I think it’s a bit more than that, but I can’t be sure.”
“We’d have to study you, Emma,” Duncan cut in. He stepped closer to her, attempting to look reassuring.
“This isn’t possible.” She pushed off of the counter suddenly. Isaac moved with her. His eyes hadn’t left her since Duncan had dropped the news. “This isn’t fucking possible,” she repeated.
“Emma.” Isaac reached for her, but she was already out the door and down the hall.
“Let her go,” Duncan suggested. “Let her think for a bit.”
Isaac stared at him for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face, then he turned and left the room as well.
“You can’t be serious,” Shawn whispered.
“We have no other way to stop Jaxon,” Aaron said. He sighed as he looked at Duncan. “This is why she’s needed.”
“You said she was able to ensnare you in weeks,” Mari spoke up as she addressed Shawn, who flinched and looked away in embarrassment.
“Don't say it like that,” he said.
“Aaron heard it happen to Mari,” Duncan said again.
“Fine, she’s an Evo, who gives a shit?” Lucas finally spoke. “What I want to know is how we can use her to stop Jaxon, and how we can be sure she won’t turn it on us.”
—-
“Emma, talk to me.” Isaac shifted on their air mattress next to her curled up form. She lay with her back to him, facing the off-white wall, and had been silent since they’d shut themselves in their room twenty minutes ago. The movement he caused jostled her slightly, but she didn’t respond.
“Emma.” He rested a hand lightly on the curve of her waist. “Please.”
“It’s all fake,” she mumbled.
“What’s fake?”
“My life.” Emma rolled over and sat up in a ferocious motion, shrugging off his hand. “Everything I’ve done so far, everything I’ve accomplished. The jobs I’ve succeeded in. Alex’s attraction to me. Shawn’s.” She looked away from him. “Us.”
“Us?” Isaac said, baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“Think about it.”
“I am. I don’t understand.”
With a frustrated sigh, Emma scooted off the mattress and stood. She began to pace, and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Isaac, apparently I have some kind of power to persuade people into doing what I want,” she said, her voice raised slightly. He watched her stalk back and forth, took in the anger on her face, her fingers squeezed into fists at her side, and gradually realized what she was going to say.
“That means,” Emma continued, “that everyone was just under my fucking spell. Shawn developed feelings for me because of my power, not because of who I am. Alex fell for me and look what happened there. He was unstable, but he wasn’t insane until I came into his life and played him. I knew that was my fault before, but now it’s so much worse.” She continued to pace, her speed picking up. “I could have stopped Jaxon on the roof. I knew, I knew, deep down inside I should have done more, and now I know I could have. Do you know what that feels like?” She stopped and stared at Isaac. “And then you profess your love for me because of my curse. I made you love me because I wanted it, forced you into it like a fucking monster.”
Isaac’s heart dropped slightly. “That’s not true.” He got to his feet and went to her. She looked away but otherwise didn’t move. He took her face in his hands and gently pulled her lips to his. “I’ve loved you for years and years,” he said when she pulled away, frustration in her gaze.
“No, I’ve ensnared you for years and years,” she said harshly.
“Emma, listen to me.” She tried to pull out of his grasp, but he slid his hands down to her waist and held her close before she could wrench away. Warmth trickled through his heart and down to his stomach at the impact the words he was about to speak would have.
“Isaac, just stop,” she said.
“Emma.” She ceased her fidgeting and looked at him when she heard the tone of his voice. “Emma,” he said, softer. “When’s the last time Vance threw himself at your feet?”
“What?” Her eyes held doubt, and he continued.
“You said Shawn fell for you fast. You’ve worked for Vance your whole life. Why hasn’t he fallen, too?”
She didn’t speak, simply stared at him.
“And Grant? You two never got along.”
“Yeah, but I never tried to seduce them.”
“An
d you never tried to seduce me.” Isaac let what he said sit with her a moment. “Think about it. You spent nearly every day actively trying to avoid your feelings for me. You yourself said that even when you flirted, I didn’t take the hint.” A smile played on his lips as realization came to her gaze.
“But...” she said.
“But nothing. That tells me that it doesn’t work if you just want the person to do what you want. There’s the proof right there, and that shows you that I fell for you on my own. All by my little self.” He reached a hand up and caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “The decision to topple head over heels for you and you alone was mine. The fact that I can’t picture my life without you in it is because I’ve fallen for you so hard, it’s a physical emotion. My fantasies about growing old with you, wanting to spend every waking hour with you, feeling the need to tell you as often as I can how perfect you are, all of that.” He kissed her softly. “All of that is my doing.”
The disturbed look on Emma’s face had melted away as he spoke, and she choked out a laugh. She looked into his eyes with a love so fierce it stopped his heart, and before he knew it, he was on his back on the air mattress with her legs straddling his hips, her lips against his.
—-
Emma lay awake, tangled in Isaac’s arms. His breathing was steady, his eyes closed. She had been awake for the better part of a half hour after they’d made love, louder than they had meant to. She couldn’t help her side of it; Isaac’s admissions had brought out an even deeper adoration for him, and she had pounced on him, craving the feel of his body against hers, how his hands clutched her waist as she moved her hips on top of his, their eyes locked together. They had nearly lost each other after the events on the roof, almost died in Boston, then spent two days trapped in a vehicle with what could be considered their enemies, and all of their emotions had been pent up since. When they finally were able to release it their cries were unstoppable as they moved on the mattress, sweat dotting both their bodies in the soft glow of the room’s single lamp. After, they held each other close. Isaac had passed out quickly, leaving Emma to stare at the ceiling, worry and fear creeping into her mind once more.
An Evo, she thought. What Aaron told me about on the drive from Boston. She looked over at Isaac, his face impassive as he slept, exhausted from the trials of their life together. She lightly trailed a fingertip over the scar on his stomach from when Alex stabbed him. Also my fault, she thought with a gnawing fury.
Emma gently eased her way out from Isaac’s embrace and stood, distraught, and dressed quietly. She needed to get some space, needed to breathe, and she made her way along the hallway and down the stairs, intent on heading outside.
“Midnight stroll?” a kind voice sounded to her left. She whirled to find Duncan sitting at the kitchen table, one hand curled around a steaming mug.
“I need some air,” she replied, harsher than she’d intended.
“Mind if I join? I can’t seem to sleep, either.”
“Aren’t you terrified I’ll kill you? Torture you in the middle of the woods?”
Duncan chuckled. “Not at all.”
“Turn you against your friends? Make you kill yourself?”
At that, the man’s smile faltered, but didn’t fade. “I trust you,” was all he said.
She shrugged and made her way out the front door and sat on the steps of the front porch, eyes toward the dark and starless sky. Footsteps sounded to her right as Duncan came up to her and settled nearby, cup still in hand. They sat in an oddly comfortable silence, with only the steady hum of a single cricket filling the air.
“Everything is my fault,” Emma said suddenly, quietly.
“That can’t possibly be true.”
“It is. If I hadn’t worked for Vance, I wouldn’t have met Alex, wouldn’t have ensnared him. I played him, and because of my power, he fell into a trap of insanity. If I hadn’t done that, my dog would still be alive, Isaac and Shawn wouldn’t have been nearly killed, Cassie would still be—”
“You’re wrong.”
“No, I’m not,” she snarled. She lowered her face, knees drawn up to her chest.
“Emma, you worked for Vance, but if he didn’t run an underground crime ring, Alex wouldn’t have turned into the man he was, either.”
She scoffed into her palms. “Real convincing.”
He took a sip from his mug and continued. “You played him, but did you tell him to kill Cassie? No. Kill your dog? No. Hurt the ones you loved? Nope.”
Emma looked up from her hands.
“Alex was weak and, from what I hear, batshit crazy.”
She laughed, and he smiled at her over his mug, steam framing his eyes.
“Come on, what else?” he asked. “I can do this all night.”
Emma shook her head and looked away, lips still turned upward.
“You told Isaac not to look for you, but he did,” Duncan continued.
“I played Shawn.”
“But you also cared about him.”
“Not right away. He fell for me so fast because of what I can do.”
“That’s true.” Another sip. “I wonder...if you told him to stop, would he? Or maybe he cares about you regardless by now. Isaac does without your persuasion.”
Emma didn’t respond, her thoughts on Shawn. Maybe I should try to make him stop caring, she thought, but quickly discarded the idea. If it weren’t for how much she meant to him, she wouldn’t be sitting where she was, would be crushed beneath a fallen building. It was selfish, but that protection meant her survival.
Duncan interrupted her thoughts. “I think it would be wise to test your ability, Emma. Figure out its limits, as well as exactly how it works, and how you can and can’t control it.”
She rested her chin on her arms but didn’t reply.
“With the proper funding and the right tools, we could fine tune you, make you unstoppable.”
“If you did that to me, I’d be a danger to everyone. Just a single command would turn people into slaves.”
“But you wouldn’t do that.” He smiled. “You’re a good person.”
“You don’t know me at all.”
“No. But knowing you worked for Vance, that you were a criminal, doesn’t sway my opinion. You were worth the risk of death to Shawn. Isaac worships you without your power. You also spent two days with your enemies while driving here, tensions high, and neither you nor Isaac hurt the people I care about. All that aside, Emma, you’re here. You care whether Jaxon attacks us.”
“Of course I do,” she said without hesitation.
“Like I said.” He tipped his mug in her direction and smiled. “A good person.”
They sat in silence for a brief moment as Emma let his words soak in, then she turned toward him on the steps. “Why aren’t you afraid of me? Of Isaac? Mari sure doesn’t trust us, and neither do the others in varying degrees. You’re the only one who has been completely open and kind to us since our arrival here. Why?”
Duncan stared into the woods quietly for a moment, then set his mug on the step next to him and regarded her. “Another Synth, Naomi, she had the capability of seeing the future. Her premonitions were rare, but when they did come, they were never wrong. The most detailed one she had was of Jaxon completely losing control of his powers. His wraiths annihilate him.”
Emma’s eyes grew eager. “So? Let him destroy himself.”
He shook his head. “You were there, as were Isaac, Aaron, myself, Lucas, and Shawn. Jaxon...he kills us all. Horribly. Only when he kills his brother does he snap out of his murderous rage, but by then, it’s too late.”
“If Naomi’s premonitions were always right, then is it even possible to change it?”
“Well for starters, she was there in the vision, right? I mean, she was witnessing it, so she must have been there. But Jaxon killed her when he escaped. Look.” He turned on the step and fully faced her. “You and Isaac are there. Helping us. Trying to stop Jaxon from hurting me and the
others.” He smiled. “That tells me enough. I trust both of you because of that.”
Emma felt a faint warmth in her heart for the man, and returned his smile.
“I know Mari doesn’t act like it, but she does too,” Duncan continued. “We all do. She’s been through a lot with her fiancé dying. Because he, too, was a clone of Shawn, having both him and Lucas around is greatly disturbing her. But she’s damn strong. Hell, if she didn’t trust you two, she would have never sprung Isaac.”
“Yeah, that. He explained his capture on the way here.” She crossed her arms. “If you trust us so much, why would you have taken him?”
An uncomfortable look came over Duncan’s features. “I wasn’t happy about that. Aaron, Mari, and Lucas heading into town to restock on food. Aaron overheard Isaac’s thoughts, and, because they knew eventually he’d be helping us, captured him. They believed him to be dangerous at first, which is why they locked him up before even telling me. Had I known, I might have gone about it differently, but might not have. I don’t know. The thought of a criminal wandering my house was unsettling. We kept him fed, kept him safe, but we had no idea at the time if he was to be trusted. We had to be sure.”
Duncan stood, mug forgotten. “The incident with Jaxon hurting Isaac was not something in our control. We had no idea how unstable Jax already was, as he’d just come to us. We trusted him, and failed our entire group because of it. Especially Naomi.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “We let Isaac go because they knew Jaxon would kill him, and that we would need him later on.” He shrugged. “They saved his life, although I truly wish I could go back and do everything all over again. Maybe I could have done something to keep Naomi from being killed, or even found a way to restrain Jaxon entirely, but I can’t regret the choices of the past.” Duncan moved up to Emma and gazed at her. “Just like you can’t be afraid of the ones you need to make for the future.”
She nodded slowly.
“To be honest,” he said, “I haven’t told the others the entire truth of that premonition. I explained that we go up against Jax and lose, but I never told them that not all of us are in it. Mari isn’t there at all. Neither is Vance, actually, now that I think about it. Does this mean Mari is killed before it happens? Does Vance not help us? I don’t know. But I want to try my hardest to make sure nobody else gets hurt or killed, even if my fate stays the same.”
Grim Judgment Page 28
