EVO Nation Series Trilogy Box Set

by K. J. Chapman

  Grayson dips his head in defeat. “I’m sorry to hear it.” Then, he turns to me. “I’m disappointed in you.” He could have slapped me in the face and not wounded me as much.

  “Like you said, you’ve got the wrong girl.”

  Grayson shrugs. “No, Teddie. You are the right girl, but you’re scared of that fact. It is easier for you to have the world hating you. If nothing is expected of you, you can’t let anyone down. No expectations- no responsibility, right?”

  Jude squares up to Grayson. “You don’t get to talk to her like that. A rat doesn’t get to talk to her like that.”

  “I’m trying to make amends for my wrongs. I’m stepping up. I’m raising the expectations, because if I fall, then at least I know I tried.” He turns to me. “Running around, playing vigilante is not trying, Teddie. Hiding your face behind a mask is not trying. If something is at risk, but you do it anyway, that’s trying.”

  “You want to talk about risk?” Jude snaps.

  “It’s alright, Jude,” I say, stepping in front of Grayson. “You’re right. I don’t want the responsibility. I don’t want to have anything expected of me, and I sure as hell don’t want an organisation I have no confidence in using me to gain leverage because they are out of options.” Adam smirks at Grayson. The pride oozing from him gives me a little high. “I like you, Grayson. I know you’re trying to right wrongs, and I know you’re a good guy. I even understand what you are trying to achieve, but if Syndicate’s only hope is to pull my face out of the bag, then you stand little chance at making any difference in this war.”

  “This doesn’t affect our agreement,” Crow tells Grayson, leading me toward the door. I’m grateful for the chance to escape anymore scrutiny; unfair scrutiny that I know I don’t deserve. “We’ll be moving out shortly. You can talk communication systems with Kesh, and as long as you keep up your end of the deal, we’re happy to help.”

  Grayson sighs, but shakes Crow’s hand. “Do you require any tents? Food? I can have men deliver supplies here within the hour.”

  “Don’t bother. We’re not staying here. We’ll go somewhere private, safer,” says Crow, brushing fluff from his trousers. “And no, Syndicate do not need to know where.”

  Grayson motions for his men to follow him, and then breezes from the room. He pats my shoulder as he passes. His heart is in the right place, but he is deluded.

  Once Grayson’s trucks pull onto the road, Kesh scouts the warehouse for bugs. It is clean, which I thought would be the case. I don’t have Grayson down as the ‘spying on his allies’ type of guy.

  “So, where do we go? Tents are a bit conspicuous,” says Leoni. “We need somewhere secluded, somewhere no one would think we’d go.”

  “The Leason house,” Jude says. My tummy lurches. “It’s about forty-five minutes from here, and no one would think we’d be stupid enough to take Teddie back there. I’ve been there a few times this week and it’s pretty much forgotten about.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” asks Leoni.

  “No, Jude’s right. We have a Telepath and high grade EVO. We should take the chance.” Crow doesn’t wait for agreement.

  A part of me wants to run screaming from the idea of going back home, but that is overshadowed by my need to be there, to feel close to my Dad once more. “Okay, home it is.”

  ***

  I sit in the window seat with Adam’s arm around my shoulders. Our free hands are linked, and he rubs his thumb over my palm. I shift in my chair to disappear further into his embrace.

  I gently stroke at his bandaged forearm. “What did they do to you?”

  He looks up from his wrist, his face just centimetres from mine. Running my thumb over his swollen lips, I kiss them gently.

  “They tried to break me, but they failed. I thought you were dead, and nothing they did was worse than living with that.”

  “I’m sorry. I really thought—”

  A head pops through the middle of our head rests. “She as good as snuffed it for a moment. I still can’t get over the size of that knife Maggie stuck her with. It went through her like a pin cushion.”

  Adam sighs, turns to face Cooper, and extends a hand through the chairs. “Thank you for being there for her.”

  Cooper shakes his hand. “Someone had to. You know the trouble she gets herself into.”

  Adam nods, but seems reluctant to talk to him further. I can already sense that the two of them are going to be hard work. Well, Adam at least.

  “Hey, I saved your ass on more than one occasion,” I add. “Don’t you go forgetting that.” Cooper ruffles my hair and sits back in his chair.

  Rio opens a window and a rush of cold, sea air gusts through the mini bus. The familiar scent fills my nostrils and I know we’re close to home. We pass the crooked tree; a tree that, as a child, I would imagine was a withered hand stretching from the earth.

  Crow asks me to read the area. There are fourteen people in the bus, and Kid follows behind in the truck. The thought of all those voices and thoughts makes me nauseous. I look for Leoni again. As if pre-empting my thoughts, she gets up from her seat and makes her way over. Adam is a little put out when she asks him to move, but I need Leoni’s guidance.

  She takes the seat beside me and places her hands on my shoulders. “Remember what we’ve practiced. Use your deep breathing and reach out beyond everyone in the vehicles. All you’re doing is listening.”

  I inhale deeply and allow my telepathy loose. The thoughts are so fast and furious that they jumble and grow to fever pitch in my mind. “There’s too many,” I say, fighting away the urge to vomit.

  “Push passed us, Teddie. What is out there? Just listen, Sweetheart. You only have to listen.”

  It takes everything in my composure to reach out further. The thoughts of everyone on the bus grow quieter, and then there is silence. “There is nothing. I’m not picking up on anything.”

  Leoni hugs me again until my shaking subsides. “Well done. You’ll get the hang of this soon. I’m sure of it.”

  “I never knew you could read on that scale,” Adam says, returning to his seat.

  Wheeler turns in the chair in front. “Yeah, you seem stronger. When Seth sensed you at the warehouse he said your strength felt unlike anything he’s sensed from you before.”

  “I’ve been un-manipulated,” I say. “You were right. My memory flashes were exactly like yours, Adam. After Tess stretched my ability, I started to un-manipulate my own memories, but it was getting dangerous and manifesting itself in episodes like I used to get before. I still can’t master the new strength of telepathy; the thoughts overwhelm me. The only thing I can control is our link.”

  Everyone is listening; only Jude, Cooper, Leoni, and Kesh know the story of my un-manipulation.

  Leoni has taken a seat across the aisle from us and pivots to face us, resting her elbows on her knees. “If you don’t mind, Teddie, I think I need to explain this one myself.” Her eyes flit to Adam, and I happily hand the conversation over to her. I don’t want to step on her toes where Adam is concerned. I need to get used to sharing him with her.

  “It was me who manipulated Teddie’s memories as a child. Her mother contacted Rafe for help when Teddie started showing signs of telepathy at five years old. Rafe thought memory manipulation might have held off any further development and protect her from exposure. This was just weeks before Dad was killed in the accident. I manipulated you too. You knew things that might have jeopardised your safety. It was wiser that you thought I was dead, and that I wiped any memory that may have linked you to Shift.”

  “I want those memories back,” he says. There’s a bite to his words.

  “As soon as we get somewhere safe, I promise,” she says. “They won’t be pretty, Sweetheart.”

  “The truth never is,” he says, quietly. “But I want to remember everything.”

  Jude bumps the van down the lane at speed. My stomach cramps as I remember every bump and dip in the old track.

 
“Jude, slow down, there’s a pot—” The van launches down and up, throwing everyone around in their seats. “Hole.” I finish my sentence with my brain rattling in my skull. I could drive this lane with my eyes closed.

  Instant memories of Dad teaching me to drive on the lane and in the fields grip at my heart. I’m mentally preparing myself to have my heart ripped from my chest as soon as I step foot in that house.

  Dad’s shed is the first building I see. It’s more of an outbuilding- fully renovated with electricity and heating- or at least, it was. He never worked on his architecture from home, but he did paint. We called it his man shed, but it was his studio for all intents and purposes. I would sit on a paint splattered stool for hours, chatting, singing, and watching the portable television, whilst he painted my portrait, or just to hang out with him away from Shana. She set fire to it when Dad moved out. She threw in anything from the house that could even remotely remind her of him, even the pictures from my bedroom. Mum had given me sleeping pills that night, and I awoke to a scorched mess.

  The house looms ahead of us in all its sentimental, horrific glory.

  “You lived here?” Pug asks me. “Your folks must have had some money? “

  “Her Dad inherited this place from a great Aunt just after Teddie was born,” Jude says, scanning the area through the windscreen with squinted eyes.

  Everyone starts to get out of the van. I wait, unable or unwilling to move. Adam fusses with the rucksacks and guns. Still, I sit staring straight ahead at the dark windows and the door covered with police tape.

  Adam sits back down beside me. “We can stay right here if you want to. Me and you, set up camp right here in the van, or we could go to the cove if—”

  “No.” The word barks out of my mouth. “I can’t go to the cove. I’ll be okay, just catching my breath. A lot happened here.” I take his hand and allow him to lead me from the van.

  The rhododendron bush has seen better days. The twigs have been bent and the earth around it stamped down. The frozen earth has preserved a boot print. I stop dead, examining the bush, the boot print, and the bare footprint beside it.

  “Judging by the foot size and the depth of the impression, I would presume it’s yours,” Lizzie says from behind me. “Why were you bare foot in a rhododendron bush?”

  “We were hiding from your father,” I say. Awkwardness ripples throughout the group. Lizzie may not be one for social cues, but she knows to shut up at the mention of her old man. I turn from her and stare out to the cliffs. “Then, we ran to the cove. TORO appeared from nowhere, and... and ... well, you know the rest.”

  I can’t stand out here going over everything. I’ll go mad. I rip the tape from the front door, grab the key from under the mat, and force it open. The stink inside catches in my throat. Adam enters into the dark hallway behind me, covering his nose and mouth with his forearm. Jude tests the lights and they flicker on, illuminating the striped wallpaper and mine and mum’s coats hanging on the rack. Bodies bustle pass me, gagging on the smell, and commenting on the flies.

  “What the hell happened here?” asks Pug.

  I follow him into the kitchen, or what was a kitchen. It resembles a bomb site. The window has been boarded up by the government, or Roscoe’s people I presume, but everything else is exactly how I left it that night: the table smashed to smithereens, the fridge upturned, nothing intact.

  “I happened,” I say, looking around at the disarray. “I couldn’t control my telekinesis because Mum had been drugging me.”

  “We’ll get this cleaned up,” says Yana, lifting the bin back to position and taking the broom from its new home- embedded in the back of the dresser. “And you guys can cover the windows. We don’t want to draw attention with the light once it gets dark.”

  The others set to help her, and Crow barks orders about watch shifts and securing the perimeter. I slip out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and into my bedroom.

  Nothing has changed. My bed is unmade from where Dad woke me the night Roscoe came for me. I lie down, gathering the sheets around me. I can still smell our fabric softener. I reach under the bed to pull out the wooden box I stashed chocolate in. I check the use by date, and it dawns on me that it has only been about four weeks since I was last here. It feels like a lifetime ago.

  The wardrobe door is ajar, bursting with clothes and shoes. I pick up my fox slippers and drop them just as quickly. None of this seems real. None of this seems connected to me. I thought those fox slippers were the coolest thing since sliced bread, now they’re insignificant. Who gives a shit about fox slippers when the world is falling apart?

  I shut the door and start at the sight of Adam standing behind it. “It feels like I’ve stepped into someone else’s life,” I admit, sliding my arms around his waist.

  “I felt like that when I first stepped back into the club. It gets easier.”

  “I don’t want it to. Things are forever changing and we don’t have time to get sentimental over anything.”

  His lips purse when he is thinking. It’s his tell, and I like being able to read him without ‘reading’ him. “Except each other. I worry when you talk like this. I worry that you’re allowing yourself to be swallowed up by it all.” He links his fingers with mine, pulling me to him.

  “I don’t know who this Teddie is,” I say, gesturing to myself. “And I don’t know who this Teddie was.” I grab the bobble head toy on the shelf and hold it up between us.

  “What the hell is that?” Adam asks, and then we both burst into fits of laughter.

  “I’m not sure. I liked it because it was a little freaky. My kindred spirit, I guess.”

  “Well, then, it’s beautiful,” he says, grinning.

  “Nah, he’s an ugly, little weirdo.” We start in hysterics again. “How do you do that?” I ask him. “How do you make me laugh when I want to cry?”

  “Because I’m your kindred spirit too. Me, you, and creepy, bobble head dude,” he scoops me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist. He sits on the bed, so I’m straddling him. “What is that?” He pulls the box full of chocolate from under him. “Wow, that’s a lot of chocolate.”

  I laugh at his wide eyed, comedic expression. “Don’t judge me. Chocolate was my only friend.” I snatch the chocolate from him and stroke the wrappers. “Did the bad man scare you?” I joke.

  “How are you not thirty stone? Okay, I’ll make you a deal. I won’t breathe a word of this to the others if you promise to share with me,” he drums his finger on the edge of the box before taking one and tucking it into his pocket.

  “Deal. I’ll hide them back under the bed.”

  Adam grins and a mischievous glint sparks in his eyes. “You’re one of those girls, huh? A ‘hides stuff under the bed’ type.” He throws me off him and lifts the edge of the duvet. He pulls out my sketch pad and pencils, eyeing the pages with awe. “Did you draw these?”

  I instantly flush red. Not even Dad was privileged enough to see all of my sketches. I drew him working in his studio and gave it to him as a gift, but otherwise, my sketches were private. Adam continues to flick through page after page. “Um, yeah. It was kind of my thing, but it doesn’t matter anymore.” I take the pad and close it quickly.

  Adam snatches it back. “These are amazing, Baby, of course it matters. This is who you are.” A slip of paper slides from the pad and lands on his lap. It was one of my earlier sketches and not totally finished. “Is that... lightning?” he asks.

  I take the picture, examining every stroke of my pencil. I had drawn lightning, and not ordinary lightning, but lightning emanating from a palm. I laugh out loud to myself. “I had forgotten about this. Oh, my god, it makes so much sense now.”

  “What does?”

  “Even back then, I was trying to un-manipulate myself. I just never understood what was happening. These are my memories.”

  “Teddie, you’re talking crazy. What memories?”

  I jump to my feet and rush down the stairs to find Leoni. Adam bou
nds down behind me. “Once Leoni un-manipulates you, you will understand.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A gentle stroke of my thigh and crackle of electricity wakes me with a smile on my face. Adam kneels at the side of my bed with a tired but gentle look in his eyes.

  “So, you’ve not turned into a chicken, yet?” he says, taking my hand and placing it against his own. His electrokinesis caresses my skin. “I guess we know why you find comfort in this. And why you were drawing pictures of electrokinesis.”

  “How are you feeling?” I ask. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m alright. Knowing is better than imagining. Now, I can deal with it and move on. I’d rather talk about us. Since I saw you on the floor in that isolation cell at Facility One, I’ve always thought there was a reason it was you. This perfect girl was sent to me at the exact moment I needed her most. You have no idea how much I think about that, or how grateful I am for you. Then, to know you were given to me twice is just a mind trip. My Mum and Dad were scared of me, I started to fear myself, and then here was this kid like me who looked at me with wonder- who said I was gentle- who said I was her only friend.”

  “Have you noticed that even without un-manipulation, it’s my important memories that were trying to break themselves free?” I pick up the sketch and hold it out to him. “This is for you. You were important then, and now, well, you are my life. You think that I was sent to you when you needed me, but you’re wrong. You were sent to me when I was drowning. You saved my life.”

  Sliding his hands either side of my face, he brushes his lips against mine. He doesn’t take his eyes from me. There is the most intense connection between us, so intense I can feel it around me like a burning heat. I stroke my fingers down his cheek and across his lips, still not breaking eye contact. I know he feels it too. His hands spark uncontrollably, but I don’t pull away. I allow the electricity to reach into me. My telepathy flutters between us. His emotions roll through me, just as mine through him. Still, we don’t look away. We’re not harming each other; I don’t think we physically could. We’re linked in the most extreme way I have ever felt.