"Looks like Mary finally learned her lesson after the cafeteria and bathroom scenes. It's about time."
Before I could reply, an achingly familiar voice interrupted my thoughts.
'Sam, can you hear me?'
"Drake! Oh, my God, I've missed you. What happened? Where are you?"
'In another hospital. I don't know where. I've been trying to talk to you, but you haven't replied.'
In my hospital, they'd given me an IV. Could it have been something to control my powers? I could still read Dr. Sato's mind, and kids on campus, but maybe it prevented me from linking long distance.
"I think they did something to me so I couldn't talk to you. I'm out of the hospital now, but I'm at my going-away party. I'm supposed to be leaving for New York tomorrow."
'You were in the hospital? What happened? Are you okay?'
He had no idea about what I'd been through or that I was pregnant. What to tell him? Ahh... I so did not want to have this conversation.
My hand went to my stomach again.
"Sam, you okay? You look pale. Come sit down." Luke guided me to a chair and Lucy brought me some punch. Gar hovered nearby, trying without success to blend in.
"Hey. I have to talk to my friends for a minute."
'Sure.'
I spoke in our language. "Drake's okay. He's in some hospital. But I... I have to tell him about the baby."
They nodded sympathetically and watched over me while I linked back to Drake. "I need to talk to you about something, but I don't know how to say it."
'What's wrong? Are you okay?'
What could I do? I just blurted it out. "I'm pregnant. And it looks like you're the father."
And that is how I turned the whole world quiet for a moment. Drake sat in mental silence. Luke and Lucy looked heartbroken. And the rest of the world disappeared.
Drake broke the silence first.
'I believe you. And I think you're right. I think they're... um... harvesting me for reproductive purposes.'
Despite how horrible everything seemed, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at his choice of words, at how proper he was trying to be. Lucy and Luke eyed me curiously. I explained what Drake had said. Lucy smirked, and Luke laughed.
I sobered up pretty quickly, though. How could he be so certain? "What did they do to you?"
'I can just tell that things were done to... parts of me. I didn't know what to make of it until now. How do you know you're pregnant though? They didn't tell you, did they?'
"No, but I overheard some of the doctor's thoughts. And Luke saw the records. That's why they took you. You have incredibly strong and rare para-powers. And I can tell. My body is different."
Luke and Lucy interrupted our conversation with a glance over my shoulder. I turned to look.
My bodyguard headed our way. "Is everything okay?"
I smiled as sweetly as I could. "Of course! Just tired from all the partying."
Gar nodded and walked back to stand in my shadow.
He may have been committed to protecting me, but he still worked for them.
***
The night crawled on. After the formal dancing, the music picked up and included songs our age group actually knew. I declined all offers to dance, instead spending my time with Lucy, Luke and Drake. His presence was like finding a fresh water lake in the middle of the desert. I couldn't get enough of his voice, his thoughts, the weight of his mind in mine.
My headaches had become less severe the more I practiced remote linking. My powers were getting stronger, more controlled. Before, everyone's thoughts inundated me, but now I could tune out people selectively. Such a relief from all the inane clattering. Most people didn't understand, bombarded with their own thoughts, unable to find peace in even that. To have that multiplied by everyone around me was hell. And people generally weren't very interesting. Most of their thoughts were recycled, replaying on an endless loop.
My appetite improved halfway through the party, and I ate a little bit of everything on the table, finally satiating my craving for chocolate.
The party wound down after 1 AM. All of our friends said their goodbyes and wished me luck. Envy and hope surfaced in their eyes. Everyone yearned for the time when they could be free to live the life of their choosing.
For a moment, I longed for the false peace that accompanied their ignorance. They all had such hope—the hope I tore from my closest friends, who now had to stay here knowing that their future would not be the one promised. I pushed away the twinge of guilt that crept into my heart. They needed to know. I needed to know. We couldn't escape the truth by remaining blind to it. Now that the truth had been forced on us, maybe we could find a way out of this mess.
What would they do to me once the baby was born? Would they keep using my body for more and more pregnancies, until I became a useless shell? Then what? Kill me? Being a Rent-A-Kid prisoner seemed a much better life compared to a future as a baby factory, all the while knowing that my children were here, rented out like property, awaiting the same fate as me.
I couldn't let that happen. I wouldn't let that happen.
'Neither will I,' Drake said.
We arrived at my room with Gar right behind us. Would I be locked in tonight to keep me from trying to escape?
Where would I go? How would I save Drake? I had too many questions, no answers, and no idea what to do.
Lucy and Luke came in, and we all sat on my bed, with me in the middle. I lived in the manner in which my many personas would have expected to live: in luxury. No doubt, my new quarters would not be this fine. After all, my new role didn't require me to be comfortable and at ease in wealth, did it? I just had to ovulate properly.
"What do we do?" I spoke out loud in our made-up language, but English in my mind. Confusing, but I didn't know who might be spying on us.
"You should try to escape tonight," Luke said. "We could help you get out. There's a fence by the north field that had a short last night. We could get through that."
"You don't think they're monitoring those too? And what about the brick walls past the fence? And whatever is beyond that? And the guards, and the trackers in our arms?"
Lucy fought tears. "You can't let them take you, Sam."
My body numbed. "What else can I do right now? We can't escape with so many people watching. And I can't leave Drake, wherever he is. They'll probably put us in the same facility, right? I mean, if they're using him to breed, then we should be able to find each other. Maybe we can escape from there, and then we can get help for you guys."
'I will do everything I can to get us out of here, Sam. I swear it. I need to get off these drugs, and I think I know a way. If you're brought here, you can help. We can do this. But if there's any way for you to escape before getting here, you have to take it!'
"I'm not leaving you alone there. I'll find a way to get us both out, and we'll find a way to save the rest."
"I have to go. I have to get evidence of what's happening here." I scooted off the bed and went to my backpack. Inside, hidden in a secret pouch, lay a tiny camera. I'd kept it out of impulse, though it was against rules.
I palmed it and brought it back to the bed with me. "Look discreetly at my hand. I have a camera that I stole from my last job."
Luke's eyes widened. "You stole a camera?"
I nodded. "It has pictures of me and Tommy on it. I gave him the pictures I had, and I just wanted to keep these."
"How were you ever planning on developing them?" Lucy asked.
"I wasn't thinking about all of that. I just had to have something to prove I knew him."
Lucy sighed. "So you want us to take pictures of this place?"
"Yes, I have artwork depicting everything and everyone here, but I doubt that will count as hard evidence. Especially get pictures of the kids with obvious para-powers."
Luke scratched his head. "Assuming we can get those pictures without getting caught, what would we do with them?"
"We need to find a
way of getting this to Drake's friend." I gave them Brad's email and phone number, and handed Luke the camera. "Get this to him. Tell him everything we've told you and everything you've experienced. At least someone on the outside will know that we exist and need help."
A knock at the door startled us all. Luke slipped the camera into his pocket.
The door opened. "It's time to go," Gar said to me.
"I thought I was leaving in the morning?" Panic rose in my chest. This was too real, too fast.
'Relax, we'll find a way to get out.'
I wondered what it would be like to meet Drake in person. He filled my imagination—his voice, his scent, the feel of his skin. He'd taken up residence inside my body, somehow. Would that change when we really could touch, when I could actually smell him and feel him for real?
"Plans changed. Get your stuff and say goodbye." He grabbed two of my biggest bags. I picked up my backpack and a small suitcase—all of my worldly belongings. Apparently, they'd packed everything while I was in the hospital. How thoughtful.
I checked my backpack to make sure my sketch pad and the box from Mr. K were still there. I'd kept the cash I'd earned from assignments in Mr. K's secret compartment. That would come in handy if we found a way to escape.
Lucy's tears finally fell. Even Luke's eyes watered. From the time we were little, we'd only been apart during assignments. Now we might never see each other again.
I hugged them both, then threw on my jean jacket and backpack, and walked out of my room for what would likely be the last time.
Gar closed the door behind us, leaving Luke and Lucy in the room alone.
I turned to him as we walked down the hall. "Don't I even get a chance to change my clothes?" I wiped my eyes carefully to avoid the makeup raccoon look.
"You can change when you get to your new home. Your flight was changed. We leave now."
Could Gar know what fate he was leading me to? I slipped into his mind.
'She'll be safe in New York... will make sure she's looked after... finally out of here....'
He had no idea. At least my own guard hadn't betrayed me on purpose.
No one from the school administration came to give me a final farewell. Strange. Usually they made a big showing, but I guess at 3 AM it didn't matter. And I suspected no one wanted me that close to their thoughts right now, even if they didn't know the whole truth.
"Drake?"
'I'm here,' he said in a gentle voice.
"I'm scared. What if they don't put us in the same hospital? What if we can't escape?"
Even my mental voice wavered from unshed tears. We risked so much, banking all our hopes on an untested possibility. We could be wrong. So very wrong.
'I'm scared too, but we have to believe this will work out. What choice do we have?'
He was right. Even if this plan—hell, it wasn't even a plan, really, more like a pipe dream inspired by desperation—but even if we knew for a fact that it wouldn't work, what else could I do? We had no way to escape, nowhere to go, no one to call. This had to work.
Gar loaded my luggage into the limo, ushered me into the back seat, and hopped into the driver's seat. As usual, we headed to our private airstrip.
'Sam, he doesn't know what's going to happen to you. You have to tell him. He might be able to help you escape.'
"But I need to find you first. I can't go now."
'You must take this opportunity. There might not be another one. Once you and the baby are safe, I'll find a way to get to you. Please, Sam, you have to try.'
"He has a little girl. What if we get caught? It could ruin his career."
'Let him decide what he's willing to do. Don't make him complicit in your fate without giving him a choice.'
My hands shook in fear. He had a point. If Gar really was trying to keep me safe, shouldn't he know the truth, even if that knowledge placed a heavy burden on his soul? More than my life was at stake.
We had maybe ten minutes before we'd reach the plane. Once there, I'd lose my chance.
"Gar, I need to tell you something."
Chapter 17 – Sam
The car slowed to a stop by the side of the road. Gar hadn't said a word while I told him everything—about Mr. K, Higgins's lies, the evil doctor... my pregnancy.
As hard as it had been to talk to Luke, Lucy and Drake about the baby, telling Gar had been one hundred times harder. He could report me, turn me in, betray me. But then, would I really be any worse off?
No.
So I waited for him to speak.
"Gar?"
He turned to face me, his hazel eyes and hard face revealing nothing. "What do you want to do?"
What did that mean? "Do you believe me? Did you already know?"
I knew the answer, but I wanted him to tell me he had nothing to do with this mess.
"I've known for a few months that something wasn't right. I've been keeping an eye on you ever since we returned from your last assignment. When I found out about the art studio fire, I looked into it, and some things didn't make sense, but it doesn't pay to get too curious about the people we work for. I have a family to consider, but I also knew I had to keep you safe. I thought getting you off campus and to New York would be enough."
"So now you know. I'm not going to New York." Saying it out loud made it feel much too real. I wanted to swallow the words back into my throat and pretend it wasn't true, that none of this was really happening, but feigned ignorance would not save me.
My mind flashed to an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon I'd seen years ago. They were sliding down a mountain on a sled as Calvin spouted that the value of ignorance is bliss. Once we know something, he argued, we are forced to consider personal change in order to fix the problems that we see. If we persist in ignorance, we can stay cocooned in our beliefs—we can remain happy. At the end, when they fly off a cliff and crash, Hobbes remarks that he can't handle this much bliss.
In my heart I knew that to stay blind would not lead to any happy endings, and my fall off the proverbial cliff would not result in a witty barb, but rather an end to everything that mattered to me. No matter how unpleasant the truth, I had to face it and change my life to fix the problems.
Gar studied me as if searching for words he rarely used. I could imagine him opening up the container in his mind that held language, and dusting off all those unnecessary sentences and paragraphs.
Before he could respond, his walkie-talkie blared to life. "Do you need assistance? Our monitors indicate you've stopped."
I sucked in a breath. "Who's that?"
Gar looked around as if we were being watched. "Like you, the car has a tracker, and so do I. They monitor when we leave, to make sure we go straight to the airfield without incident."
Nausea bubbled up in my stomach, and I willed myself to keep my party food down. Between the utter exhaustion of leaving in the middle of the night, the emotional drain of keeping up a façade at the party, and saying goodbye to my friends—and now this—I was surprised I could sit up on my own. I didn't realize they embedded trackers in the guards as well. Did the teachers and all the staff have them?
That could help explain why Mr. K hated it there. He wasn't the type who would like being tracked like a stray dog.
So even just pulling over for thirty seconds triggered a response. We had to respond with something that wouldn't raise their radar. "Tell them I'm sick, that you pulled over so I could throw up."
He nodded and spoke into the walkie-talkie. "The girl got sick. I pulled over so she could puke. Will be at airfield about ten minutes behind schedule."
"You're taking me there? Even knowing what they'll do?"
The car jerked into drive and Gar pulled back onto the street. "If we try to escape now, they'll find us before we reach the highway."
With trackers in our bodies and on the car, we didn't have any chance of making a run for it. There had to be another way. "What about removing our trackers? If they can't track us we could escape, right?"
The movie scene played in my mind. We cut ourselves open and remove the trackers. Gar finds the tracker on the car and disables it, then tosses his cell phone and we drive off like James Bond, never to be heard from again. Easy.
Gar eyed me in the rear view mirror and frowned as though he could read my mind. "I could remove our trackers, but with your pregnancy and without proper medical supplies, I don't want to risk that. They're buried pretty deep, and I could do more harm than good. Besides, there aren't many roads we can hide on. They'd find us."
I grunted in frustration, my James Bond fantasy destroyed by the onslaught of reality. "So what, we give up and you just hand me over as a human breeder?"
His face hardened. "No. We don't give up. We think of a better plan. We'll have a greater chance of escaping once we're in the air. The trackers don't work in flight. I can hijack the plane, which has a stock of medical supplies. I can then remove the trackers and get you somewhere safe. But we need more than just an escape plan. Do you have anyplace to go?"
"Yeah, kind of. But we need to find Drake first. They're keeping him prisoner at another facility—the one they're taking me to. He has friends on the outside who can help us."
Gar shook his head. "Nope. My job is to keep you safe. We can't risk going after your boyfriend right now, not with a half-assed plan and no back up. So, where do you want to go?"
Drake had been listening and chimed in. 'Go to Father Patrick's church. Tell him what's happened. He'll find a way to help.'
"I don't want to leave you there. What if they hurt you when they find out I've escaped?"
'I'll be fine. I heal fast. Just get to the church. Please!'
This plan had too many holes in it, but it was all we had and we were running out of time. "Fine. Can you get me to Venice, California?"
Gar nodded.
I stared out into the dark. "What about you? Where will you go when this is over? Drake's friend can probably help you too."
He turned right and slowed down as much as possible without stopping. "We'll figure that out when and if this works. You have to know, Sam, that the odds are stacked against us. Now, I need to make a call before we get there."
The Forbidden Trilogy Page 12
