"I felt the death in him when he touched me. We don't have much time. Can you break the door down?"
'Yes, but what then? I'm pretty sure this whole building is heavily guarded.'
I slumped into the couch. The recent revelations of my and Drake's births left my head spinning. The Seeker was my brother? And Drake's brother? I pictured our family tree and imagined my branch hovering dangerously close to Drake's.
"This family thing—it's a bit creepy, right? It's not just me?"
Drake sat next to me and held me in his arms. I rested my head on his shoulder and for a moment allowed myself to get lost in his warmth and comfort.
'No, not just you. This is definitely off the charts. But, good news, we aren't actually related. So, there's that.'
"Yeah, I guess. Of course, we are related to the Seeker. That's bad enough. And— Oh crap! My father is the evil mastermind behind this whole organization. Isn't that what the Seeker implied? Daddy Dearest is behind all this? Oh my God, Drake, does this make me evil?"
'You, my love, could never be evil. It's a choice, not a birthright. You are who you choose to be.'
Those words sounded good, in theory, but in reality I was a designer test tube baby, made from God-knew-what bits and pieces. Those parts could have been custom-made, Grade-A evil, and I'd never know until it was too late.
"Drake, I don't know how long we have before he clamps down on our power. I wish I knew what to do to fix all of this."
He sat up and held my eyes with his. 'I have an idea, but I'm not sure you'll like it.'
"What?"
'Mary. We mind-jack her and use her to escort us out as though the Seeker had ordered it. We find Luke and Lucy and help them with their get-out-of-jail-alive plan.'
"You're right. I don't like it."
'Can you think of anything else? Anything we can do to save your friends, and not die in the process?'
Unfortunately, I couldn't. I thought about what the professor and Father Patrick had both said about morality. Could mind control be just a tool, to be used for good or evil? And if Mary was already under the control of the Seeker, couldn't this actually benefit her in the long run?
"Okay, we can try it, but carefully. We don't know what damage he's already done to her."
With the mind link already in place, we scanned for Mary. I knew her signature and found her easily—she was just outside our room.
I expected a wall to block us out, but she had something else going on inside her mind. Rather than a shield to keep others out, what I felt was more like an energy source attached to her mind, growing into it.
It meant the difference between a demolition and brain surgery. It also meant a seriously high risk to her and us.
'We have to at least try, Sam. We have no other way out.'
"I'll see if I can pry the other energy off her mind without damaging her, but if it looks too dangerous, we're pulling out."
Tendrils of power brushed against mine. Rather than bash my way in as I normally would, I surrounded each tendril with my own power and ever so gently brushed it aside.
The whiplash slammed into my mind so hard I nearly tumbled off the couch. Pain pierced through my eyelids and blurred my vision.
Mary's mind remained unchanged.
"Drake, I can't do this. That thing is attached to her for good. We could kill her, or ourselves, trying to get it off."
'Let me try, just once. I'll be careful.'
He used the same approach, but instead of picking pieces to pull away, he created a cocoon around the entire power source before pulling back.
Blinding white light. Fierce and fiery pain. "Drake, stop! You're killing her."
'I'm nearly there, and it's our last hope.'
I could feel pain flood his brain, but he ignored it, unwilling to let go.
"No. You can't. She's innocent. We can't risk it."
He didn't stop.
I felt her mind splinter into fragments.
Her pain swam through me. Her confusion and fear, her anger and her hopelessness—it all hit me.
Heat flared in my belly. I felt my baby's power activate and merge with mine, pushing away my own pain and compounding my power until it swelled bigger and stronger and brighter than ever. No longer in control or fully aware, I knew only that I had to save Mary, an innocent, from being destroyed. Too many had already died to save us.
My power coiled inside me, coalescing into one great ball of unfathomable force, and I knew I could no longer pull it back, no longer stop what I had started. It needed a release, a command in which to dissipate, and so I gave it the only one I had to give. "Drake. Stop, now!"
As though someone had taken scissors and severed the connection between us, my mind emptied of everyone but myself. A loneliness I could have never imagined swept through me and settled into my heart, cracking it into shards of pain. I slumped forward and cried out.
Drake tumbled forward off the loveseat, and his head hit the floor.
My mind probe revealed no trace of Mary, and when I tried to connect with Drake, I couldn't.
And not in the power-on-the-fritz way.
Somewhere inside me, somehow, I knew.
I had destroyed his power permanently.
And he would never forgive me.
Ever.
Chapter 54 – Lucy
"You'll never get away with this. You have no idea what kind of power you're messing with." Mr. Black's voice grated on Lucy's last nerve.
She jabbed him in the ribs with her fist. "Shut up."
Students marched toward the front gate, following her and Mr. Black.
Like an avenging army of gods, they destroyed everything in their path. Gary pulled a metal and glass building apart, and threw it into a crowd of guards who'd aimed their guns into the crowd.
Luke followed behind Lucy as close as he could, worry and fear lining his face. She could feel the field of power her brother formed around her for protection.
Another group of guards surrounded the students and fired. Luke raised his hands and conjured a giant force field against the bullets.
A warm glow of power pulsed from the sphere in Lucy's backpack. Though no one else appeared to notice, the students around her lost the weariness and fear that had plagued them since their earlier attempt to break free. They stood taller and stronger, their energies renewed.
Gary stood next to Luke, who dropped his shield for a split second, and sent the bullets flying back toward the guns that fired them. The group of guards fell, killed by their own bullets.
A guard that had managed to slip inside Luke's field charged Lucy. Gary used his power to fling the soldier's gun to the side, but his aim was off and it crashed into a propane tank and exploded in a shower of fiery light. The guard flew back from the impact and landed, unconscious, to the ground.
Lucy shook uncontrollably even as she tried to press the gun to Mr. Black's head. Everywhere around her the world erupted in chaos and death. Righteous revolutions were supposed to be victorious and moral, not bloody and horrifying.
The kid with ice power, Larry, ran to the flames from the explosion. He held his hands to the fire, but nothing happened.
What little confidence the rebel students had diminished with their powers. No one had any, and so went their tactical advantage.
A cold emptiness filled Lucy where once the sphere had warmed her. It no longer pulsed. Like all the powers around her, the sphere was blocked.
Mr. Lancaster and a few other teachers intervened to defend the students as the guards rushed in to beat them. Like true cowards, they only bullied and abused the defenseless and weak, preying on those who couldn't fight back.
Some students panicked and ran away from the gates. Others wrestled with the guards, or threw rocks in misguided attempts to defend themselves. Before Lucy could react or respond, a young girl, no more than thirteen, fell to the ground in a lifeless heap. Carey. She had the power to make things grow, and now she lay dead with blood pooling
around her.
And more followed. For every student who stood fighting, another lay dead at their feet.
Lucy screamed as bullets that had been held by Luke's force field now shot through the air and hit their targets. "Luke! Get out of the way!"
She pulled her gun away from Mr. Black long enough to take aim at a guard firing at them. Her bullet found its target, eliminating one threat but leaving so many others. She pressed the gun back into Mr. Black before he tried to get away, and repressed the fact that she had just killed a man. She didn't have time to let the horror of it all hit her.
Mr. Black sneered. "Still think you're going to escape, bitch?"
Lucy may have underestimated the Seeker's powers, but she refused to give up.
She forced Mr. Black to walk the last few feet to the gate. Guards lay beaten on the ground or had already fled their post.
"The party's not over yet, you bastard. We're still getting out of here, and I still have a loaded gun to your head."
Chapter 55 – Sam
The distance between us had never been so vast. Oceans and countries could settle in the space and we'd still have room to move.
And to cry.
What felt like hours had passed, and the tears kept coming. Blame the hormones or the whole being captured thing, but none of that mattered anymore. Every few minutes, with the tenacity of an OCD victim, I tested my mental link with Drake.
Nothing.
He breathed with a steady rhythm on the floor. I couldn't move him, and he wouldn't move himself. He didn't sleep, he didn't talk, he didn't do anything except lie there. No amount of coercion could get him to so much as look at me.
But I couldn't give up. "Drake, it might not be permanent. I mean, everyone's powers are spurting on and off. It could be temporary. Please, just say something."
Finally, he moved into a sitting position. "Don't you think I can tell the difference? It's like you tore a limb from my body or removed a vital organ. It's not inactive. It's gone. Completely gone, Sam. It's not coming back."
His once loving eyes had hardened over with anger. His features no longer resembled the man I loved.
I kicked the wall in frustration. I was so done with this. The Seeker will tell me what I want to know—no more nice Sam.
The Seeker's mental signature blared forth like a beacon of light to ships lost at sea. I used my most commanding internal voice. "We need to talk."
His mental voice sounded amused. 'We are talking, little sister.'
"In person."
The silence lingered beyond what was comfortable, but I waited.
'I shall send someone to escort you.'
On the last syllable of his thought, the door to our room opened and revealed a guard. 'Please do not harm him. You will not be able to reach his mind, but trying would only do to him what was done to poor Mary.'
Guilt sloshed inside my gut like sickness, but I ignored it, or tried to, until I saw her.
Mary lay crumpled by the door, blood oozing from her nose and ears.
What had we done? I had destroyed Drake to save her, and still I had failed.
I stumbled at the sight, and the guard caught my arm and led me through the building and into the library. This room, too, had only candlelight for illumination. With so many books lining the walls, I would've thought they'd avoid the whole fire thing.
My eyes adjusted in increments to the low lighting, until I could see the Seeker sitting in an overstuffed chair with his feet propped up on an ottoman. I took the seat across from him, my spine rigid with fear.
His voice had an ethereal quality to it. "You have been crying. Are you hurt?"
He closed his eyes. A presence, like a ghost or a cold wind, swept through my mind and was gone before I could block it.
"No, not hurt. Not physically, at any rate. You have had a falling out with my brother. Let it not worry you, my dear. Time heals all wounds, even those of the heart."
I held his pale gaze. His face betrayed his illness; I would've seen it even if I hadn't felt it in him. Sunken cheeks and dark circles around his eyes—death stalked him.
"I want to know everything. Tell me about our... father." The word stuck in my throat, but I forced past it. "And about this organization. Why are you doing this? Why are you hurting so many kids?"
"Hurting? My dear Sam, we are saving these kids from a life of testing and scorn, from a society that does not appreciate the genetic advances of our kind. As I told your friend Lucy—"
"You talked to Lucy? What did you do to her? Is she okay?"
"I did nothing but speak with her. She is a remarkable girl with amazing gifts of her own. I can see why she is your best friend. I explained this all to her, or the parts she needed to know, at least. She is not family, so I could not tell her everything. But you, my dear, you are primed to help our father run the next generation of this Organization. We are the next evolution of humans. That baby you carry is key."
As if on cue, she kicked inside me. My hand hovered over my belly protectively. "What do you mean, she is the key?"
"Have you not figured it out yet? Genetic mutations such as ours are natural, but flawed. We are at the forefront of a shifting genetic pool from which Darwin's fittest will emerge. But we are no longer at the mercy of unseen gods to propel us forward. We now have the god of science to speed along the process. We have discovered a way to breed out the weaknesses of our kind, and breed into them the best of all powers.
"You were our first successful venture, but we knew we could do better. Combining the genetic material of our father, you, me, Drake, his mother, and some extra ingredients for fun, we created your child, the being you call Ana. What a quaint name, by the way. A lovely way of honoring the woman who helped you escape. Quite a nuisance that was, but it is in the past. We shall think nothing more of it."
The Seeker's madness had escalated to grandiose ambitions of taking over humanity, and yet our father stood at the head of this insane scheme. Was he even madder than the Seeker? What kind of genetic material had shaped me and my child?
I tried to keep my voice calm, to choke back the tears that threatened to consume me. "But you hurt kids. You impregnate girls against their will, and then watch as they die when your experiments go wrong. Now, kids at school are being whipped and shot in the back of the head. You're harming the paranormal population more than society would have. You are the beast you claim to want to protect us from."
He lowered his head. "It is a shame you feel that way. We are so close to the final piece that would save us all. Your friends retrieved a valuable weapon in our fight for freedom. Combined with you and your child, we will be invincible. We cannot allow any rebellion, not when our rightful place in the world is at our fingertips. We must maintain control. Do you not see? Our methods, though severe, are all for the greater good."
I softened my voice. "Is this the legacy you want to leave when you die?"
He looked up and his eyes widened in shock. "How do you know that? I have not allowed you access to those thoughts."
"It wasn't hard to figure out. The nosebleed, your frailness... and I can feel the presence of death on you. What are you dying from?"
His laugh held only bitterness. "I was not so fortunate as you in the genes. My powers are great, but they have come at a great price. My brain is eating itself. Even if I stopped using all of my powers, I would not live long. So I have done what I can to further the cause until I could pass the reigns to you, my sister."
His unnatural calm returned. "Are you beginning to see? This is why we risk lives in genetic experimentation. Too many para-powers kill their hosts. Many of your friends will not survive past their twentieth birthday. But we have made advances, and with you and your baby's help, we can save the others and breed new children."
My universe tipped and rebalanced. Everything I knew, everything I'd experienced now needed an entirely new labeling system. Right and wrong had ceased to be black and white. It had balled up into so many sh
ades of gray that I couldn't decipher anything anymore.
Could evil be justified by good intentions? Or was that truly the road to hell, as the saying went? My hand went to my belly. My thoughts went to Ana and the professor and Mary and Drake. No, evil is never justified, no matter the intention.
"I understand what you're telling me, but there has to be a better way. Having the right motives doesn't justify what you're doing. Do you have any idea what kind of violation you are perpetrating on these girls when you impregnate them?" I moved closer to him and held his eyes. "Help me, brother. Help me set this whole business back on course. We can give these kids real freedom, not this tyranny you've created. We can create a new environment for them, one where they won't be beaten and killed and experimented on against their will."
The only way he could see, the only way he could truly know what he had done was to show him, to make him feel what I felt. I had to merge with him the way I had merged with Drake, but to do so I had to become completely vulnerable.
I hesitated. My sweaty hands clenched and unclenched. As much as I wanted it to, time did not stand still for this. It moved inexorably forward, carrying the safety of my friends with it.
Without further thought, I reached for him, opened myself and allowed him to merge completely with me.
Every memory, ever fear, every tear I'd cried and all my broken dreams, even every joy—I poured them all into the light of his consciousness.
The betrayals and the pain, both psychical and emotional, threatened to engulf me, but still I poured. Still I opened.
My first kiss with Drake, the feeling of love between us when finally we met in the flesh.
My terror and fear at discovering I was pregnant.
Drake's hands, covered in the blood of the man the Seeker had sent to hunt us.
My hope and joy when I read my acceptance letter to Sarah Lawrence.
The loss of realizing I would never have any of that life that I'd spent years cultivating in my mind.
Ana, dying in my arms—for me.
I fed him the thoughts and fears and memories of others—of Mary as her mind collapsed, of Luke and Lucy when they lost their mother, of the countless Rent-A-Kids whose lives he'd taken away.
The Forbidden Trilogy Page 34
