Mom has calmed down. We’re sitting in the bathroom and she’s washing her face and I’m watching her.
She pauses. Keeps washing. “Because the man that had your father killed knows about us. And I don’t doubt given a reason, he would kill us both, simply to finish what he started eighteen years ago.”
“Who?” I ask, desperate to know, desperate to not. Because I want to know the face of my father’s murderer, because I want to know the voice of the man who makes my mother suffer, because I want him dead.
Her eyes are stone and her heart must be ice. “Richard Glass.”
I’m gaping, staring, reeling into oblivion. “You work for him?”
“There is something I learned from your father,” she says with a tired smile. “Never let your enemies out of sight.”
“You’re spying on him.”
“A secretary is the best spy there is,” she answers. “The last suspect. Completely overlooked. And I have access to everything. If he’s hiding something, if there’s a shred of proof that he killed your father, I will find it.”
I’ve never heard her so angry, so determined, so vengeful. She wants revenge. She wants justice. She wants Richard Glass imprisoned and miserable.
She’s just like me.
Mom stops washing her face. Turns to me. “I tried to distance myself from you because if Glass found out I know about him and thought I was even a little close to revealing him, he would hurt you to silence me.
“I didn’t want that to be a possibility. I kept my distance, let you think I was cold and apathetic. It was safer.”
And now I really understand. Because I always thought she was so tired, so burdened. I thought it was my fault. And all along it was about Richard Glass, not a rebellious child.
“Why tell me now?”
She reaches over, brushes the hair away from my neck. “Because you aren’t safe either way.”
I open my mouth. Look down as the house fills with a knock on the door.
Mom sighs. “I’ll be right back.”
Her fingertips brush past my shoulder. She walks into the other room and her voice echoes. “What do you want?”
Panic. So few could make my mother angry. And now I’m afraid for her. Does he know? How could he? After all these years? How could he know what she knows?
It’s not him.
A glance into the room and I realize I’m wrong. It’s not Richard Glass. I turn back, still listening, still unseen. Dalton is standing at my door.
“Please, Mrs. McCallister,” he says, “Can I talk to Kate?”
No. No, no, no, no. Say no. Tell him I’m sick. Tell him I’m not him. Better, tell him the truth. Tell him I hate him and I never want to see him again and I will never forgive him.
“What makes you think she wants anything to do with you?”
Exhale. Yes. Good. Thank you.
“Look, I just want to apologize. Then I’ll go.”
Butt Face.
I look around the corner, staring at him, wishing he would drop dead. He’s standing there and maybe it’s just that I’m seeing him clearly now but I think he’s smirking. I want to throw a knife at his face, scar his gorgeous body. Maybe that would keep girls away.
Mom shakes her head. Refuses to let him past. “You’re not sorry. I’ve dealt with boys like you, Dalton Knight. Don’t try to convince me you’re sorry when you’re sneering at me. I won’t have you anywhere near her.”
He crosses his arms. Doesn’t move. “I’m not leaving until I see her.” He looks past her, in my direction. “Stop being a coward and show your face, Katherine!”
I’m going to murder him.
She beats me to it. Steps forward, grabs his arm, forces him to turn away. She pushes his arm higher than it should be able to go. Dalton grunts as she shoves him out the door.
“If I ever see you on my property again, I will get you arrested for trespassing and harassment. Stay away from my daughter.”
She slams the door shut. Faces me. And I can’t speak. Because I’ve never seen so much emotion in her before today. But I’ve seen her cry over my father and resort to violence to get rid of my ex-boyfriend.
I’m shaking my head. Because if there is one thing I have learned today, it’s this: I know nothing about my mother.
Zane
“The Dragon has deemed Zane Rothstein, field agent, dead. He died in action during the infiltration of Glass Tech.”
-The Dragon obituary
Sixteen
Seven hundred and thirty meals have passed since I last spoke.
Mute. So long since I spoke that I don’t know that I can anymore. Is it possible to lose the ability to speak by choice? I don’t know. I’m not sure it matters. If my voice works, I will not use it.
Because I swore I never would, because it makes me wild, because she would be afraid of uncontrollable words that would befoul my lips. I will not speak, will not curse, will not scream.
I will keep my vow.
I sit on the floor. Lean back against the wall. Three others surround me, lined with metal bars. I turn. A steel wall rests behind me and there are long tears in it. Three in each direction. Down, up, left, right, everywhere. I look at them, shake my head, wonder how I sunk so low.
I will never forget it.
Close your eyes, her voice whispers. Don’t you dare forget where you come from.
And I close them. Because I owe her everything and I could never disobey her and I can’t remember who is real and who is dead.
The world is different with my eyes closed. Black and empty and my thoughts are like drums, forcing themselves to be heard.
I break. Lose myself to the memory.
There is a monster inside of me.
I feel it in my bones and in my head and in my lungs. It rips apart the man that is Zane Rothstein and threatens to overpower the broken shell of an old legend. Maybe it already has. Maybe it’s too late to fight off the instincts I know will eventually destroy me.
I clench my hands into fists, pace the cage. Three days. Miserable pacing and screaming and fighting against the creature I am. I can barely function now, barely do anything at all.
“Come on,” I mutter. Run my fingers through my hair. “Keep it together, Zane.”
But I don’t know how and I don’t want to and everything is a mess of dangerous fury. It will not be long until there is nothing left inside of me. Nothing left but the need for blood.
Oh, Zane, don’t you see? We can’t be together until you let go.
I’m shaking my head. Because I’m hearing her and believing her but I know it’s not real. She’s not here, she’s not safe,
she’s dead.
Don’t be ridiculous.
No. I am delusional. I am crazy. I am hallucinating.
But I see her everywhere, hear her whisper to me, feel her kiss my neck. Because she deserved more than she got and I just want to
LET GO.
Any sense of control, any stability, is gone. Her name is echoing through my head. Misti. Misti. Misti. Misti. MISTI. MISTI. MISTI.
Tremors shake my bones, turn them to ash. No. I can’t—
She’s everywhere now. In the cage and out of it and in my head and right in front of me and all I can think is I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.
The shaking is worse. I’m trembling so much, too much, and nothing will contain it now. My whole body is anger and it needs release in the only way it has left.
Gone.
The shaking stops so suddenly and I throw myself against the wall in agony. Pain is splitting my skin, ripping apart man and replacing it with monster.
Sharp claws sound across the wall, tearing through metal, shrieking in anguish. And now I can hear the growl escaping my throat and I know it will destroy everything I am, everything I was, everything I could ever be.
I have lost myself to the monster.
I shake my head. No. I will not go there again.
You want to.
Nothing. I
will not respond to the ghost that is not there.
Schizophrenic.
I know I am. I know these hallucinations. And that knowledge silences me. Because I know better than to accept that love is back, that she could ever return to me.
Even in insanity, I know what is real and what is not.
How could—
The hallucination ends. She’s gone. Her lips on my shoulder are gone. The door slams open and I’m looking at Pelletier, waiting for him to speak, watching him so wearily I wonder where that old arrogance that belonged to me wandered off to.
“How are you today, Zane?”
Nothing. Why does he even bother? Why speak to the man who will never break his silence? What is the point? They should kill me. Why continue to torture me with life I don’t deserve? I am wasting their space and food and science. They will learn nothing from me.
“Still mute, then?”
Silence is his only companion.
“This is doing nothing for you,” he says. “Silence will not save her.”
I KNOW, is what I want to scream. She’s already dead. She’s already gone. I already failed to save her. But he’s watching me now and I’m realizing he’s not talking about Misti Fort.
“Surely you know,” Pelletier says. “It’s time for the next Project.”
I’m shaking and clenching my hands so tightly they might break and I haven’t said a word.
No. They can’t make another monster. They can’t make someone else like me. They can’t put another human through that agony. They can’t.
But they will.
“I thought you’d like to see her,” Pelletier says. “She’s quite beautiful.”
He’s snapping his fingers now and there’s a girl projected on the wall and I decide he’s doing this to torture me.
I stare. Because I’ve seen her before, because it’s the girl from Glass Tech, the woman who watched me so carefully, watched them drag me back into this pit. And he’s right. She’s very beautiful. A river of blonde hair, dark skin almost brown, eyes like jade. Somehow, there’s something in her that is like me. Haunted and tired and weak.
She’s not like me. She can’t be. Not yet. Not until they force her to be.
I’m trembling so hard now and it feels like I will explode with the power within my body and I don’t know why I haven’t freed the monster yet.
“You want to protect her,” Pelletier says, “But you don’t know her. Why is that Zane?”
I don’t answer. I don’t know. Just leave her alone.
“She’s an interesting choice for a Project,” he continues. “Her name is Katherine McCallister, The only child of Jackson McCallister.”
I’m ice. Jackson McCallister. He’s right. She is an interesting choice. This girl is the daughter of a legend. And it seems like a sin to turn her into a Project. Because she’s the daughter of the man who would have done anything to stop these experiments, because there is something about her that I have to protect.
I remember seeing her in Glass Tech. Even in her surprise, shock, terror, there was fierceness inside of her and I want to protect it. I remember that feeling, the invincibility, strength, power. I don’t want her to lose it.
I growl before I can stop myself.
Because this is wrong. Wrong to do this to anyone. Wrong to do this to her.
I deserved this. I was snooping around places I didn’t know, looking for things I didn’t understand. But she is innocent. Merely his daughter, merely involved by her parentage. She did nothing to ask for this.
I can take no more.
Lunging forward, feeling the monster rip out of my skin, I’m snarling. There is the sound of claws on metal and fading laughter and slamming doors.
I don’t care. There is nothing. Because I am not Zane Rothstein anymore. I am the monster and I have been set loose.
And now there is only the instinct to kill.
Kate
“I thought I understood my family. I thought I understood myself. But I’m not so sure. Because my father died trying to uncover something dangerous about Richard Glass and my mother isn’t the soft kind woman I thought she was.”
-Kate McCallister’s journal
Seventeen
I’m paralyzed.
With terror, with shock, with confusion. Because he’s here and he’s holding a gun to my head and he’s going to kill me. I never expected to see him again, not here, not in Glass Tech, not ever again. The man I saw there in Glass Tech, the man too weak to stand, the man with the sharp blue eyes.
“Don’t move,” he says, cold and harsh and lifeless. “Hold perfectly still.”
I am, I think. I have been this whole time. Fear has caught hold of me again and I can’t shake it away this time. I don’t know how.
He’s stepping forward now, so close I could touch his lips. Even in this twisted world we’re tossed into, I want to. I want him to kiss me, to touch me, to let me live.
He pushes the gun against my skin. Presses it to my bruised throat.
I can’t breathe and I’m staring at a starless sky and it seems so cruel, seeing nothing but dark clouds the night I die.
His lips are on my cheek, grazing past my jaw, almost touching my cheek. “Dead.”
The gun goes off and a bullet goes through my head and that’s it. Game over. I’m falling, slipping, tumbling.
I’m screaming and clutching my head and
I’m awake.
A fist in my mouth, fire in my throat, poison in my stomach. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. I’m rocking myself into a fetal position, clutching my bones together, dragging myself into reality.
It’s not the first time I’ve dreamed about being killed. It won’t be the last. Nightmares are so common now. I can barely sleep without them.
But I do remember nightmares without him in it. The man from Glass Tech. And I don’t understand why he would haunt my dreams. He was beautiful. Not frightening. He shouldn’t play a part in my nightmares.
I run my fingers through my hair. Sit up in bed. The room dances before my eyes and I blink. It stands still.
Sighing, sliding out of bed, I step into the bathroom. My hair is a crown of sandy disarray and my eyes are masked with tired circles and my skin is painted black and blue. But the cut on my cheek has healed.
Starting to get ready, splashing cold water on my face, brushing through the mess on my head, I think about everything I have learned. A father murdered by a businessman. A mother acting as his avenger. A daughter haunted by the attacks of strangers.
A broken family.
Eighteen
“Mr. Glass needs me to work late tonight.”
Those eight words say so much. She’s working late again. She’s spying a little longer. She’s working on avenging Dad more tonight. I hated those eight words. I hated knowing she wasn’t going to be around, wasn’t going to be my mother, wasn’t going to be anything. But now they scare me.
If she’s staying late, has she found something? Will she get caught? Will he hurt her?
“Be careful,” I whisper. “You know what happens to people that fight him.”
“I will,” she promises. “I’ll call you again when I’m leaving.”
“Okay.”
“I love you, honey.”
“I love you, too.”
She hangs up and I set my phone next to me. Put my head in my hands. Close my eyes.
Because terror has returned. And it is vengeful.
My arms crush my body into itself. My head is between my knees and my arms are around my own stomach and my body is shaking with too much force to be human. I’m trembling hard. Shivering with so much fear.
Because my mother is spying on my father’ murderer and it’s dangerous and she can’t get caught. Because somewhere outside there is a man watching for me, waiting for me to leave, readying himself to attack. Because everything is different today and the world is frightening and I don’t know how to be brave, don’t know how
to be bold, don’t know how to be Kate.
“You’re pathetic.”
I stop. Stop rocking myself. Stop shaking. Stop thinking. Stop because I’m not alone and I should be along and why am I not alone?
I look. See him standing there. Shrink back into the couch.
“How did you get in here?”
He’s grinning, leaning against the door frame, taking a handgun from its holster. And my heart is thrashing in my ribcage and my head is warring against truth and my body is still, so still, too still.
He shuts the door. Locks it. “Fear does not become you, Miss McCallister,” he says. “What happened to that spunky fighter?”
She’s dead.
You killed her. You killed her the day you grabbed her throat and dragged her into an alley. You killed her the night you shoved her into a wall. You killed her with violence and attacks and dangerous eyes.
I say nothing and he shrugs. “Ah, well, it does make my job easier.”
Fight back.
Two words. So simple, so complex, so important.
Don’t let him take you, don’t let him hurt you, don’t let him turn you into something you’re not. Because I know I am not the frightened child he’s turned me into. Because I am not the confused woman Dalton forced me to be for so long. Because I will not be forced into fear. I am Kate McCallister and no one will force me to feel something I do not want to feel.
I will shatter through my terror.
He’s talking but I don’t hear a word. I have to get help. Because I’m not strong enough to disarm him. I’m not strong enough to do anything but hold onto newfound courage. I reach for my phone and he shoots.
I scream, drawing back my hand. The bullet strikes through the couch, driving a hole into the fabric, knocking my phone onto the floor on impact. I’m holding my hand to my heart and he’s laughing and now I’m glaring.
He crosses the floor. Shoves the gun into my forehead. Puts his lips by my ear.
“Don’t scream,” he whispers. “Open your mouth and it will be the last thing you ever do.”
A shudder escapes my lips and I grit my teeth. No. No fear.
The Invincibles (Book 1): Trapped: A girl. A monster. A hero. Page 8
