“The situation has changed. We need to talk.”
“How do I know you won’t stand me up again?”
“You don’t.” I waited, twisting his card into a tortured mess.
“Where are you?”
I paused, then made my final decision, and described the location of the donut store I stood outside.
“You’re close,” he said. “I’ll pick you up.”
I bought coffee and a donut and sat on the curb outside to wait. My stomach felt hollow, and the one bite of donut I took sat like a ball of lead inside of me. In between swigging the coffee, I tore the rest of the donut into little pieces and fed it to some pigeons that hovered around in case of this eventuality. I tried to work out how you would tell one pigeon from another, rather than thinking about what would happen next.
After an eon passed, the dark blue Audi pulled up beside me, and the door popped. I took a deep breath, stood up and crossed over to the dark side.
Ryder said nothing, but drove in silence. I didn’t know where we were going. I stared out through the windshield, watching the buildings and trees slide by. I chanced a glance sideways. That sculpted all-American face held no emotion.
Not a hair on his white-blond head lay out of place. He had a suit on like a Fed, but to my relatively untrained eyes, it looked more expensive. As he turned the wheel, cufflinks glinted on his French cuffs. Still, he said nothing.
Dad told me when I was a kid, if the cops ever caught us, this was one of their favorite techniques. Say nothing, and wait for you to fill the silence with nervous and incriminating statements. Ryder and I drove on in our war of silence.
Eventually I felt his gaze on me and fought down the little surge of triumph as he said, “What did you want to talk about?”
“When we met before, you mentioned that you had ways of controlling Talent. Tell me more about that.”
He nodded, turning his face back to the road. “We have a training regime of mental discipline. A cadre of therapists. And if that doesn’t work, we have some experimental drugs.” Casting his gaze over one shoulder as he changed lanes, he remarked almost idly, “Of course, this is all classified. I can’t share the details with you. Yet.”
“How successful are these techniques?”
“About ninety-five percent, cumulatively.”
“And if they don’t work?”
He glanced at me again. “We have shielded quarters to protect certain individuals from themselves, and others from them.”
I added up the facts. “If you brought a Talent back under control…what would be the price?”
The car entered the DC Beltway, and Ryder appeared to be concentrating on merging into the busy morning traffic.
“We are not a charity, Catrina. We exist to give our country an edge in the war against our enemies, terrorists, rogue nations, dictators. However, for those who have been…injured…in service to our country, we provide rehabilitation so they may again become fit for duty.”
“What if they don’t?”
“I already told you what happens to uncontrolled Talents.” He shrugged. “In your brother’s case, I understand he found his former duties somewhat unpalatable. We have many possible roles he could fill once he was back on track.”
I considered. When I’d placed the call I’d felt like I was betraying Eric. Now I actually talked to Ryder, this solution felt like the only logical outcome.
“All right,” I said.
“Does he want to come in?”
“No.”
Ryder turned to look at me again, and for the first time an emotion crossed his face. Confusion. “Why are you here, then?”
I chose my words carefully. “Eric doesn’t want to hurt anyone else, and the techniques he’s tried to bring himself under control have failed. I think he’s out of options. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“Will you help us bring him in?”
I sighed. This was it. The least of a bevy of evils. It was still wrong, and I would probably never forgive myself, but nobody else would die. I wished again I could have talked this over with Jamie, come up with a better plan, but I was out of options. “Yes.”
“Even against his wishes?”
“I will.”
Despite having stepped over what I thought was the line around my internal comfort zone, each step—discussing the plan with Ryder, his phone calls to summon help, him dropping me off outside the gates to the Order to preserve my story about going for a morning run—took me farther down the low road. Ethics be damned, I was trying to save Eric’s life. Once he was under control, perhaps we could come up with another plan, one involving escape from the Institute, but for now I was a turncoat, a traitor, a Benedict Arnold.
I wondered what Jamie would think of me. I wondered where he was, who he was with, what he was doing. I wondered if he thought of me at all. I thought about calling him.
I did a hundred jumping jacks before I ran up the driveway in order to get red faced and sweaty. The plan was for me to suggest we borrow a clean car from the Order and make for a back woods crossing into Canada. I would text Ryder before we left, and as we stopped at the gate, Institute security would descend on us.
Agreeing to appear to be taken by force myself sealed my complicity—that way I had some hope of maintaining Eric’s trust. Ryder thought it might be useful in our quest to bring him back into the fold. One day, I swore to myself, I’d be honest with my brother. But not today. Today I would save his life.
I went in through the French doors and back to Jamie’s room. There was no sign he had returned. I showered and changed into some anonymous clothes that had appeared in the closet of my own floral room. The cargo pants and black T-shirt fit me perfectly. I shivered, still awkward at the idea of being surrounded by Talents. Someone knew I needed clothes, and had guessed my size. Jamie’s comments about privacy came flooding back. That reminded me, and I went back to humming a song in my head, as instructed by Ryder. It was easier to maintain such nonsense than a consciously blank mind, according to him.
I needed to get all three of us out of here as quickly as possible, before one of the resident telepaths snooped and discovered my betrayal. They might not care, but I didn’t want to take the risk of Dorian interfering with my plan. They respected privacy here over security, Ryder had said scornfully, so I ought to be able to keep my secret for a little while, as long as I could keep my emotions under wraps. Not everyone here had the best control, he’d told me, which meant I needed to be careful and act quickly to minimize risk.
The quasi-military clothes gave me pause, taking me back to a thousand adolescent training sessions, and wondered if someone was trying to send me a message. Paranoia. No one would believe what I was up to, not even Jamie. Especially not Jamie.
I sat down on the bed one more time, and typed in the text I’d been composing in my head for the last few hours.
Going to turn Eric in to the Greys.
I paused. Shit. I’d probably never see him again, because after this he wouldn’t want to speak to me, even as a friend. I typed a few more words, hit send before I could change my mind, and shoved the phone in my pocket.
I headed down the corridor to the other guestrooms. All of the doors stood open except for one. I knocked on it.
“Eric?”
Justine opened the door. “He’s still asleep.”
“I came up with a plan. We need to get moving.” I filled her in on the Canada story.
She nodded. “It makes sense,” she said. “Mexico is too far away. I tried again last night to convince him he should go back to the Institute, but he’s dead against the idea.”
A pang of guilt tweaked at my heart, but I was comforted by the fact that Justine agreed with me, even if she didn’t know it yet.
“I’ll wake him up. I’ll see you in the dining room in half an hour?”
I headed down for a second attempt at breakfast, but the smell of eggs set out on the sideboard turned my stomach. Openi
ng the French doors, I found an uncomfortable iron chair on the patio and waited. Thirty minutes dragged by before Eric and Justine appeared.
In the garage, I picked out a yellow Chevy to match my cowardice, and while the others loaded their bags, I hit send on the text I’d composed while waiting for them to come down to breakfast. It read simply, Now.
Wiping the cold sweat out of my eyes with the back of my hand, I climbed into the driver’s seat and headed down the driveway.
I paused at the gate to look both ways. No one in sight. I fiddled with the stereo before looking both ways again.
“There’s nothing coming,” Eric said from beside me.
“I hate this radio station,” I said. “Damn listening to dance music in the morning.” Still nothing. I pulled out, headed in the same direction Ryder had taken yesterday, hoping they’d find us.
Through the quiet streets in this expensive subdivision, it was obvious to me that no one followed. Butterflies danced in my stomach until we pulled onto the beltway, and then the adrenaline began to drain from my system. As I took I-95 north, my hands trembled on the wheel. With each mile that passed my mood lightened. I’d escaped from the weight of what was probably an awful decision. We were going to Canada.
I glanced over at Eric. He stared through the windshield, watching the world go by. He looked less stressed than he had for a few days. Like me, my brother liked having a plan.
A muffled bang broke my train of thought. I swerved uncontrollably across four lanes of traffic, hit the edge of the shoulder, and uncomprehending, watched the world turn over and over and over until I hit my head on the roof of the car and everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Opening my eyes didn’t change the incredible pounding in my head. My hand went up to my forehead to touch the center of the pain and found a bandage. I lay on something—a bed, by the feel of it—and considered moving my head to see more of the room than the darkened ceiling. It didn’t seem like a good idea right now. The room lurched a little and I closed my eyes again.
Time passed. I dozed on and off. Once I woke up and had to be sick, which I managed to do off the side of the bed rather than on myself. This felt like an achievement.
Later—an hour? A day?—someone turned the light on, making me curl into a fetal ball like a night flower. Hands picked up my wrist, checked my pulse, then moved on to put a cuff on my arm and take my blood pressure. The tight cuff on my arm made me sick again. The hands took my shoulders, rolled me onto my back, and pried one eye and then the other open enough to shine a bright light into each. I moaned.
“You’ll live,” a woman’s voice said brusquely. “Your pupils are the same size, no bleeding inside or out, no broken bones. A minor concussion. You did well.”
“Jamie,” I said.
“I don’t know who that is, but your brother Eric is also fine. He has a broken collarbone. You should rest. You can see him later.”
The light retreated, although she left dim lights on in the room. They didn’t keep me awake.
Later, she was back with Jell-O and a cup of apple juice. I wondered why the kid-meal until I threw it up again. Despite that, I started feeling better and even sat up on my own between naps.
At last, I woke feeling clearer. Like death, but clear. This time I made it to the bathroom in the corner before I threw up.
My surroundings looked more like a Spartan hospital than a prison cell, but the door was locked from the outside. I explored. No windows, no clocks. I didn’t know what time or day it was.
I wore a hospital robe, open in the back, over my underpants. My clothes turned up in a plastic bag in the bottom of the closet, folded carefully. I took them out. Although the cargo pants were fine, the black T-shirt was stiff with dried blood, and my hand went again to the bandage on my head. Bar work taught me facial cuts always bleed like hell and here was personal proof. There were no mirrors in the room to check how gruesome I looked, but I had a feeling the answer was “quite”.
I took my weak pathetic self back to bed, and the next time I woke up, it was because the woman whose voice and hands I already knew was back, this time with sandwiches, which I ate. And felt human.
“Coffee?” I said, my voice cracking.
“Let’s see how you do first. But you seem to be doing a lot better. Are you well enough for a visitor?”
I nodded, hoping for Eric, but it was Ryder. Now I knew for sure where I was. My mind came to life and I was suddenly cold.
“Catrina,” he said, pulling up an uncomfortable-looking visitor chair.
I looked toward the woman but the door clicked shut behind her.
“I’d like to apologize for the method of your arrival,” he said. “We wanted you to get farther away from the mansion so as not to arouse suspicion. We had planned on catching you at your first stop, but one of my men got a little carried away.”
“What happened?”
“He shot out your tire.” Ryder’s jaw pressed closed and something inside it twitched. In another man, I would have said it was a muscle, but in him it could have been titanium gears. “He has been disciplined.”
I wondered what that meant, but I nodded dumbly. The gray matter still wasn’t at a capacity enabling wit.
“Are you up to walking? I’d like to take you to see Eric.”
I swung my legs off the edge of the bed, ignoring the way the room lurched and spun around me. “I need a shirt, but yes.”
Ryder spoke to the nurse and she brought me a scrub top. They waited outside while I dressed myself cautiously, slowly, like an ancient woman. After that, I wanted to lie down again, but I wanted to see Eric more.
For all his cold demeanor, Ryder offered me his arm. I shook my head. It would be a cold day in hell before I accepted his help again, and I didn’t want him touching me. Instead, I shuffled slowly down a maze of gray hallways, a few steps behind him like an oppressed wife in a primitive civilization.
Leaning on the wall made me notice the color-coded strips that ran along it. Medical was red, apparently, as that line led us to the elevator, and other colored strips ran off in different directions.
We got in the elevator and I watched as Ryder swiped a card and pushed a button many levels down. From the outside, the building had only looked to be about five stories high, but there were at least twenty floors on the elevator panel. The car headed deep underground, until at last the doors slid open once again.
The wall stripes down here were dark amorphous gray. Ryder led me through a door, past a desk staffed by a group of people that I couldn’t pigeonhole either as guards or nurses, and stopped at another door. Again, he swiped his card, and swung the door open.
“I’ll come back in a little while,” he said, and I went into the room.
Eric sat at a small steel desk, writing. His left arm was in a sling. Small mercy that it wasn’t his dominant hand. Guilt surged through me. He turned to face me, and gave me a hesitant smile.
“Hi,” I said.
“They told me you were coming. Are you all right?”
“Not much in here to damage, apparently,” I said, touching my head. “Do you mind if I sit?”
“Not at all.” He gestured at the bed.
I sat. “How are you doing?”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I’m not going to kill anyone else. They’ve been feeding me Talent-suppressing drugs. When they want me to do something, I will get the amplifiers, and at the end of the experiment I get the suppressors again.”
“And that’s working?”
He nodded. “I’m in control of my Talent again. It’s not much of a way to live, but I’m fairly sure I won’t accidentally burn anyone to death. Mixed in with all of that, they have me on a good dose of antidepressants, and a nice sedative to sleep. Better living through chemicals.” His mouth formed itself into the shape of a smile.
“At least you’re alive.” I sat back against the wall, and put my knees up in front of me. “How’s you
r arm?”
“My arm’s fine. My collarbone, on the other hand, hurts like you wouldn’t believe. I can’t take any worthwhile painkillers with all the other drugs, or so they tell me.” He paused, looking at my head. “You look worse off than me.”
“This is nothing,” I said, touching it, hiding my wince.
“Cat,” he said, “you did the right thing, bringing me back here. I’m not mad at you.”
I froze. “How did you know it was me?” After all my subterfuge.
He smiled weakly. “I guessed. I know you. Always trying to do the right thing, even after all these years.”
I felt like such a fool. “You forgive me?” My face hurt with the tension in my jaw, and my heart was breaking.
“It’s fine. It’s not as bad as I made it out to be in my head. And this way, no one else has to die.”
I nodded. He was right. I’d done the right thing. So why did I feel like Judas?
“What will you do now? Go back to…where was it you said you were living?”
The world fell away from me as I considered properly for the first time a life without fear of being hunted. A life I’d dreamed of for years. A life alone. I wondered again where the hell Jamie had gone. Had he taken off somewhere, or was he keeping his head down, knowing Dorian wouldn’t be happy with him? The fact that he hadn’t cared enough to call me back, even to yell at me, didn’t exactly inspire me with confidence.
Enough of that. I brought my focus back to Eric.
“Can I come and visit you?” I asked. I couldn’t believe I was considering voluntarily coming back here. But for Eric, anything. We’d been too long apart.
“I’d like that,” he said. “Would you do something else for me?”
“Sure,” I said. “What’s that?”
“Can you ask if Justine will be allowed to visit me? I haven’t seen her yet. They told me she’s fine, but you’re the first visitor I’ve had.”
I nodded. “I’m sure Ryder can tee something up.”
As though his name had summoned him, a knock came at the door and then it opened immediately.
Talent to Burn (Hidden Talent #1) Page 19
