Adaptive: A Young Adult Dystopian Romance (The Elite Trials Book 2)

by Becky Moynihan

  My brain officially exploded. “Wait, hold on. I may not have my memories, but seeing into the future? Really? That ranks up there with magic—impossible.”

  “Scientifically speaking, it’s been probable for centuries but never confirmed. Seers were known to foretell the future and psychics claimed to read people’s minds. More often than not, though, they were highly intuitive fakes. Then the Silent War happened. Animals mutated before we did, maybe a decade or so after the incident. But humans—call us stubborn, if you will—didn’t easily give up their simple genetics.”

  “When did the first signs of change in humans occur?” I asked, shifting from one foot to the other. Brendan noticed my tic flaring and clamped his lips together. As if I didn’t realize it was a pathetic attempt not to tease me. I rolled my eyes and shifted once more.

  “Dr. Moore is actually the first known case at Blue Ridge Sector. We can’t be sure—records aren’t what they used to be without the internet—but he was born thirty-five years after the war, and he’s now sixty-five, so the timing makes sense. As the name Intellect suggests, he has high intelligence, higher than any recorded in history. He designed much of the Ability Center as you see it today.”

  My next question came out of nowhere. But with all this talk of mutation . . . “Are there any side effects? To having an ability, I mean.”

  The men exchanged a glance, probably gauging how much information to dump into my breakable—or not so breakable—brain. “If you allow your . . . enhancements to control you,” Dominic began haltingly, “they can drive you insane, literally. If left unchecked for too long, the genetics will eventually overwhelm your system and you become a slave to them. When this happens, you’re labeled a Berserker.”

  “I’m pretty sure Lars is one,” Brendan said. When I looked at him quizzically, he further explained. “While you lived in Tatum City, there was this guy who had an unhealthy obsession with you. He was violent and territorial, especially when he felt threatened by my presence. He—” Brendan’s voice lowered as he clenched his jaw. “He was making plans to claim you.”

  Uh. “Claim? What does that mean?”

  “It’s a predator thing. Also a Sensor thing if not kept in check. He probably wanted to gain his alpha’s favor by making you submissive to him.”

  Okay, I was going to throw up in my mouth now. “Do I even want to know who the alpha is?”

  “Your adopted father,” he admitted. At least he appeared as disturbed as I was.

  “It’s why we start training the children here as soon as they manifest, so they learn to control their foreign DNA,” Dominic said, thankfully steering the conversation to safer ground.

  “Manifest?”

  “It’s when you first show signs of changed behavior. Sometimes it’s hard to catch, so Dr. Moore wrote a handbook on what to look for. But generally, when emotions are amplified enough, the symptoms will manifest.”

  “Like the first time I met you,” Brendan quietly added. “Well, the second first time—our very first encounter is a bit foggy.” He was staring holes into my shoes instead of my face, which was probably scrunched up in confusion. “Your emotions were high because you remembered that first meeting eleven years prior all too well. You projected your ability so strongly that I had to switch mine off.”

  A flood-gate of questions swarmed my mind. We had met as children? Was that before or after I’d been brought to live in Tatum City? If that day had been such a pivotal memory for me, why couldn’t I feel a single emotion toward it now? I focused harder, trying to remember a young me and Brendan. Crap. I couldn’t even picture my face, let alone his.

  Pain bloomed behind my eyes and I squeezed them shut.

  “Breathe, Lune.” A large hand gently grasped my shoulder. I pried my eyes open to find myself leaning into Brendan’s touch. Instead of pulling away, I sought out his face. His grown-up face. My brows pulled together. I so badly wanted to remember what a younger him looked like. “You were projecting just now, probably trying to access your blocked memories.”

  I straightened, immediately missing the warmth of Brendan’s touch when his arm dropped. I managed to keep my next eye-roll inward. “Guess I shouldn’t do that then.” The thought tasted bitter. I had a gut feeling that I was too stubborn to give up without a fight though.

  “No, you should,” Dominic said, as if sensing my latest emotion. Was he a mind-reader too? “But you need conditioning first.” He grabbed a handheld device from a cubby bolted to the stone wall behind him and tapped its glass-like surface. The screen brightened, and if my piqued curiosity were any indication, this was my first time seeing such an object.

  With one final tap, he said, “There. Starting tomorrow, every day after breakfast, you’re scheduled to train with me, plus meditation for unblocking those memories.” He glanced at my ankle boot, then at Brendan. “When can she resume physical exercise?”

  “Dr. Stacey said that by next week, light exercise should be okay. Why? Have you seen something new?”

  Dominic shook his head, shooting me a searching look. “No, but now that we have Elite Tatum’s prized possession, the clock is ticking. The sooner she’s prepared to do her part, the better.”

  My mind was reeling by the time lunch rolled around. If I overheard one more cryptic statement involving me and my mysterious past, I was going to lose it. Maybe I’d punch a tree. I eyed the cluster of trees standing regally in the middle of The Center like arrows stuck in a target. Bullseye. Strangely, the comparison made me want to smile.

  Standing in the long lunch line with nothing to do but wait, I decided to test the water and see if Brendan would answer a few of my burning questions. He seemed lost in thought, so I spoke a bit louder than planned. “We knew each other as kids then?”

  He flinched as if my voice had startled him. His arm jerked up and he rubbed the back of his neck, looking more than a little uncomfortable. “Uh, yeah. Briefly. I, um.” With a sigh, he met my eyes. Something was definitely bothering him. A big something. “Look, Lune, maybe it’s best if you don’t know about our past—”

  “Bren!”

  A blur of wild, dark brown tresses and pale limbs streaked past me and smacked into Brendan. The impact would have tipped a smaller man over, but I already knew how hard it was to move that boulder. The image before me sharpened and I immediately stiffened. A pretty girl maybe a year or two younger than me had her arms wrapped around my guard’s waist in a tight squeeze.

  It was as if the hug were squeezing the air out of my lungs, not his. Feeling unsettled, I took a step back, promptly bumping into the person waiting in line behind me. They hissed incoherently and I muttered a quick apology, not daring to turn around. I couldn’t bear an unfriendly face right now, not when my heart was beating off rhythm and I had an uncontrollable urge to bolt.

  The girl was speaking, her hands on Brendan’s sides and his on her shoulders. Her upturned face held a look of complete adoration. I wanted to wretch. “I know you said to keep my distance for a couple more days, but I couldn’t stay away another minute! I’ve only had you back for two weeks and I miss you.”

  Okay. The pouty lip did it.

  I turned tail and ran. Well, more like a wobbling fast-walk. This was weird. Really weird. Why was I having this absurd reaction? I made it halfway across The Circle when my name was called. His familiar voice was definitely not comforting right now. I picked up the pace, gritting my teeth as my ankle started to throb, but I was no match for his long strides. He caught up to me a moment later, halting my escape with a hand on my arm. I shook off his touch, but stayed put, scrambling for an excuse as to why I’d left. “I have to use the—”

  A feminine gasp drew my attention. It was the girl again, standing a little behind and to the side of Brendan. Her hands were over her mouth. “I’m so sorry,” I heard her whisper, then watched in shock as her amber brown eyes filled with tears. Her arms lowered, revealing a quivering chin. What was happening? “I—I know what you’re feeling,
but you’ve got it all wrong.”

  She looked at Brendan pleadingly. He put an arm around her, but she pushed it away, shaking her head in warning.

  “What am I missing here, Bells?” he said with a frown. Even her name was pretty.

  Sighing exasperatingly, she rolled her eyes. “Boys. So clueless.” She turned my way again, and before I could stop her, she launched herself at me. Instinct warred with common sense as her arms pulled me into a hug. I ended up holding still, frozen as an icicle instead of maneuvering her into a chokehold. Was I capable of a move like that? When she stepped back, a gigantic grin stretched her full lips wide. “Let’s try this again. I’m Isabella Bearon. Bren’s sister.”

  To say this day was full of surprises didn’t even begin to scrape the surface. It wasn’t so much the bits of news that kept cropping up but my unexpected reactions to them. Especially when they pertained to Brendan. I was fairly certain by now that he was hiding our past history from me. Did we have a falling out? Did the old me hate his guts? Somehow I doubted that.

  The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to know everything about him. About us. The past us. Because staring at the current him across the table as he teased Jaxon for viewing a “painful-to-watch” vampire movie for the umpteenth time was doing weird things to my insides. It made me feel out of control again, which was exactly what I didn’t want, but I needed to know what he was to the old me.

  “Which is why you made sure everyone calls me Bells and not Bella,” Brendan’s sister was saying as I tuned back into the conversation.

  “Because I can’t have my best friend’s kid sister sounding like a brainless vampire wannabe.” Jaxon pointed his fork at her and winked.

  “Wait, I thought you liked those movies.”

  “No way, girl, they suck—”

  “What sucks?”

  Everyone stilled. Whatever was on Jaxon’s extended fork plopped onto the table. He cleared his throat and sat ramrod straight. “Just the peas, my sweet. They have a weird chalky flavor today.”

  I glanced up to find dark, almond-shaped eyes glowering at me. I blinked, feeling the urge to look anywhere but at her. She dropped her food tray onto the table with a clank and sank into a chair next to Jaxon. As soon as she did, her expression changed to one of casual boredom. Flicking black strands of spiky hair out of her eyes, she said, “That’s funny. It sounded to me like you were dissing my favorite movies.”

  Jaxon laughed nervously. “Now why would I do that, baby cakes? It’s not like I have a death wish. Hey, I thought you were supposed to be on patrol all day?”

  “I was. Control pulled us in when the weather got nasty. Said the blizzard should hold off any unfriendlies for the time being.” She snorted, which made the piercing in her nose wink, then looked at me again. “Besides, I wanted to check up on our guest. She behaving herself?”

  “Yukiko,” Brendan said quietly, his voice laced with warning.

  “Oh, that’s right. The poor girl doesn’t remember me or how she got here.” The young woman sneered. Bells squeaked softly.

  “Okay okay, let’s all simmer down,” Jaxon said, waving his hands in front of Yukiko’s face until she snapped her gaze to his. “Crikey! You couldn’t cut this tension with a chainsaw. Hey, Lune, this is my girlfriend Yukiko Chen. She’s a Sensor and can smell fear, but they say staring into a predator’s eyes shows it that you’re unafraid, so I can’t look at you right now. Did you know her name means ‘happy child’?”

  “Cut it out, Jaxon,” his peach of a girlfriend said, whacking his chest. “Eat your peas.” She picked one up and shoved it past his lips.

  He grinned, flashing those star-bright teeth at her before throwing a wink at me. “And that is how you tame a beast.”

  I jerked awake, inhaling sharply as the bad dream fled my system. Details were obscure, but I remembered . . . a knife. A shiver shook my shoulders as I whipped my bed covers back and padded to the bathroom.

  One week. One week had passed with no progress. My memories were still blocked, Dominic hadn’t unlocked my abilities, Brendan wouldn’t talk to me about his past, and Yukiko continued to hate-glare at me from afar. And with each day came an undeniable restlessness. At first, it was a simple tic, my leg jiggling away to its own beat. Then the feeling had hit my bloodstream, humming a tune I couldn’t unhear. It called to me, begged me again and again to listen, to answer the cry.

  Ugh.

  I splashed cold water on my face, jarring any trace of tiredness from my limbs. Tipping my head upside down, I gathered my hair into a high ponytail, then slipped into a thin thermal shirt and black cropped pants. The only real progress I’d made was having my ankle boot removed yesterday. The injury still twinged on occasion, but I was pretty good at pushing aside the dull pain. Besides, I didn’t plan on going for a run. During one of my tours of this gigantic place, I’d spotted a small workout room on the second floor that was hopefully not locked up at night like the Ability Center.

  Just thinking of that room with its shiny exercise equipment made my body sing with anticipation. “Strange,” I muttered, then tested the door handle. It was never locked from the outside, but I always expected it to be. Maybe I should start locking it from my end. What if someone, say Yukiko, felt like murdering me in my sleep? She never threatened me with actual words, but the looks she slid my way practically skewered me to the wall.

  I shrugged the renewed thought of knives from my mind and cracked open the door. The hallway was blissfully silent. Without the sun to help me tell time, I could only guess at how early it was. Most of the people here had handheld devices that told the hour, but I hadn’t been given one. Yet. I was sure they’d give me one once they knew the extent of my abilities. When they knew I was stable and that I could be trusted with their technology.

  Bells let me play with hers sometimes when she saw me savagely drumming my fingers on any available surface I could find. The preprogrammed games helped soothe the itch under my skin. As an Empath, she could always feel when I was agitated. She would tease that it was because of Brendan, but whenever I’d ask her about his past, she’d groan and say, “That stupid fool needs to tell you himself.”

  Well, he hadn’t. And I was not agitated right now because of him. It was that bad dream. Nothing more. Working up a fine sweat sounded like a great way to settle my nerves so I could face another day of disappointment. I barely made a sound as I glided down the hallway and stairwell instead of risking the elevator.

  No one had explicitly said I couldn’t leave my room in the middle of the night, but I didn’t feel like explaining myself. What would I say anyway? “Oh, I just felt this incessant urge to punch something” might scare people, maybe even convince them I was crazy and should be locked up.

  Nope.

  Skulking in the shadows undetected was the right decision.

  I arrived at the second floor landing and pulled the stairwell door open. One second I was walking and the next pressed against a stone wall with a callused palm over my mouth. I tried to scream but the sound was so muffled, no one would hear. Blind panic set in when my large assailant stepped close. I expected a knife to the heart would follow. I clawed at the bare forearm within reach, but no matter how much I scratched, the hand over my mouth didn’t budge.

  “Have you forgotten your training completely?”

  The low, gravelly voice in my ear was all too familiar. Brendan. I froze and he pulled back, just enough that I could see his shadowed face in the dim lighting. I squinted. Was he smiling? I grabbed his shoulders and shoved, which of course did nothing. He took his sweet time removing his hand, brushing a thumb across my cheek before allowing me a foot of breathing room.

  Yup. He was smirking. A clash of emotions wrestled inside of me at the sight. I wanted to smack it off, but I wanted to kiss it, too. Holy crap, did that thought really just pop into my brain? My eyes widened when his started to glow. It didn’t scare me anymore, not after spending almost every minute of an entire week wit
h him. What scared me now was how my body was reacting to having him so close.

  And maybe I was imagining things, but Brendan seemed affected too. I could hear his unsteady breaths, feel his hand tremble where it rested on the wall next to my head. After what felt like a timeless eternity of staring into those eyes, wishing for something to happen but scared out of my mind that it would, he dropped his gaze and exhaled slowly. “Num occidere me hoc est.”

  “What?” I croaked, then carefully cleared my throat.

  “Never mind.” He pushed away from the wall, taking his body heat with him. Okay, I really needed to stop being a creep now. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Am I breaking a rule?” I shot back, which only made his lips twitch. Stop thinking about his lips! I was blaming this on Jaxon and Yukiko. I had caught them kissing each other’s faces off yesterday and couldn’t get the image out of my mind. That must be it. Residual scar tissue from witnessing such a thing.

  “No,” he drew out the word, prolonging my torture. My foot rhythmically tapped at the ground. “Not technically. But you shouldn’t go anywhere without me. It’s—”

  “It’s not safe. I got it.” My eyes narrowed. “How did you know I was awake?” If there was a camera in my room, so help me . . .

  He shrugged offhandedly. “I heard you. My room’s right next to yours.”

  My jaw dropped. How come I hadn’t known that?

  “You never asked,” he said, answering my unspoken question. “And when I saw what you were wearing, I put two-and-two together and took the elevator down here.” His expression turned smug, and now all I wanted to do was make it disappear.

  “Remind me what your ability is again? No wait, you’re an Egomaniac, right? I’ve heard they’re very rare, and highly dangerous. Their heads have a tendency to explode when they get too full of themselves.”