CHAPTER NINE - THOMAS
“Sadie,” I say as we drive out of the forest and back onto the roads. “What’s your last name?”
“What?” She’s nervous. Very nervous. And she’s got a confused look on her face.
“Relax. I’m just making conversation since you’re so quiet. What’s your last name?”
“Scott,” she says. “And sorry. I’m pretty sure I’m not a very good socializer. Are you sure it’s safe to go into town?”
“It’s the edge of town. Barely counts.”
“You don’t think they’re looking for us?”
“They probably are. Maybe even seriously. But they don’t have this vehicle on their radar. It’s not registered to me. And we came out the tunnel, so even if they’re watching the towers, and I doubt they are because no one in their right mind builds a Batcave under a tower, they won’t know what car we’re in. I left the one we came in back in the forest. It’s covered up so they can’t fly a drone over and spot it.”
The confused look is even more pronounced. Like I was just speaking a foreign language. “How long have you been out?” I ask.
“Out?”
“Of the school, Sadie. How long have you been away from them?”
“I have no idea what you’re even talking about, Thomas. I really don’t.”
Hmmm. I reach over her lap, open the glove box, and pull out a map of Cathedral City. “Here. Can you read this?”
She takes the map from my fingertips with an annoyed huff. “I know how to read a map.”
“OK. So tell me where we are.” I point to an upcoming sign, just before the entrance to the freeway. “This is Meadowlark Boulevard and that’s the Ninth Street Freeway. Find it on the map.”
She knows what I’m doing. But she also knows how to read a map. So she takes a few seconds to orient herself and points. “Here. We’re right here.”
“OK. So they at least taught you things.”
“I’m not stupid, either.”
“Sadie,” I say, cocking an eyebrow at her. “Don’t be so damn defensive. I can’t ask you anything because you don’t remember. I’m just trying to form an opinion on things. You don’t know anything but your name. Which I find interesting. Because most amnesiacs lose all memories.”
She frowns. “Do you think I’m lying?”
“Not at all.” I laugh. “If you knew who you were we would definitely not be going out to breakfast right now.”
“Why?” She’s still scowling. “And you never said anything about going out to breakfast.”
“Because they sent you to kill me, Sadie. And I’m pretty sure if you were faking it, you’d have completed that mission last night. And I did say we were going out to eat. I just changed my mind on how to go about getting food. You look like you need a meal now. We can shop after.”
She laughs this time, which is a nice change. “Why the hell would anyone send me to kill you?”
“Because we’re Prodigy, right? You didn’t come to that hospital to check me out and take me home.” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “If you know what I mean. You came to kill me or take me back to them so they could do it themselves.”
She sighs and shakes her head, but she doesn’t deny it. She feels it to be true, even if she’s not a hundred percent sure. “I don’t know,” she finally says. “I know I’m different. I know what illusionist means. I know I can make people hallucinate, so I know I’m not normal.” She pauses for a second. “I know I’m not supposed to talk about that. I know my name.” She looks at me. “I know your name.”
“And deep down you know they sent you to finish me. It’s OK. I’m not taking it personally. It’s my fault you got left behind anyway. I can’t blame you for what they did after I failed to save you.”
She practically snorts. “I don’t know why you think I needed saving.”
“Because it’s Prodigy School, Sadie. They are evil incarnate.” It comes out rougher than I intended. Which makes her look at me, then quickly look away. “Have you come up with any ideas about why you’re blocking your memories?”
“Blocking?” She huffs again.
“I’m not saying it’s on purpose. But the chances are high that you lost your memory due to… what they put you through.”
She looks out the window at the last part. Stays silent.
“I know what they put me through. My friends through. My brother and…”—it takes me a second to spit out the word—“sister too. And none of it’s good.”
“You have a brother and sister?” she asks, taking the conversation in a new direction.
“Yes. Sort of. My brother, Atticus, and I were in Prodigy together. My sister, Molly, was there too, but she and I were never close.”
“They’re… still alive? You saved them?”
“No,” I say, changing lanes on the freeway to get off at the next exit. “No. Atticus never needed saving. Our father didn’t want him in the program like me. He was the… heir, right?”
Her lips make a tiny o. “And your sister?”
“I tried to kill her but Lincoln, my friend, he was… attached. So he helped her escape. She made it. Barely, but she did. She’s still around, at any rate.”
She’s quiet after that. Even when we get to the restaurant. She looks at the menu like she’s never eaten at a restaurant before, but orders pancakes by pointing at the picture. I expect her to scarf them down since she’s obviously in need of food, but she doesn’t. She eats slowly. Watching me. Almost mimicking my motions. She says no to coffee, tea, and juice, but drinks the ice water they have on the table.
When we get to the mall a few miles closer to town, she looks utterly lost and doesn’t protest when I take her hand and place it on my arm as we walk across the parking lot. When we step through the door, she grips me. Tight.
I don’t bother asking what kind of clothes she prefers. She obviously has no idea. Instead, I take her to the women’s department and begin to choose. A salesperson helps us, a young girl who looks at Sadie like she’s a homeless person who just walked in off the street. But then she looks at me, and pastes the fake smile on her face as she helps her make decisions.
The two of them disappear into a dressing room and an hour later she’s wrapping up the packages.
We leave the mall with Sadie clutching my arm again.
“Well,” I ask. “How was it?”
Sadie takes a deep breath as she looks over her shoulder at the department store entrance. “Frightening.”
“You did good though,” I say, holding up the packages. She got a few shirts, a few pairs of jeans, and a new pair of shoes. Sneakers. Which is almost cute. But she refused to change into anything new, so she’s still wearing her uniform.
“That lady called me Phil the entire time.”
“Your name tag says Phil.”
“It does?” she says, looking down at her shirt. “Oh. It does.”
“Did you correct her? Tell her it’s your boyfriend’s shirt?”
When I look down, her eyebrows are all scrunched together. Like she’s thinking about this very hard. “No.”
“It’s OK. Work shirts are kind of… in vogue.”
She bites her lip, making me smile, but only says, “Mmm-hmmm.”
Grocery shopping is a similar experience. Sadie is wide-eyed with either fascination or fear, I’m not sure which. She walks alongside me as I push the cart, grabbing things off shelves and placing them inside. I wait for her to grab her favorite foods, but the only item that catches her attention are the oranges stacked in a neat pyramid in the fresh food section.
We buy a whole bag of them.
“You didn’t want juice at breakfast but you like oranges?” I ask, fishing for insight.
She doesn’t answer. In fact, she’s silent the whole time I check out at the little kiosk in the front of the store. She watches me scan items one at a time with such intensity, I find myself smiling.
I should not let my guard down. In a few hours she will get her memory back and want to finish her job. In a few hours I might have to kill her.
But I like her.
I decide I don’t want to kill her. She cannot kill me, so I’m not even worried about that. But she might be a whole other animal when those memories come rushing back. I need to keep that in mind.
When we get off the freeway at Meadowlark Boulevard again, the morning is gone. She hasn’t said a word to me since that comment about her name tag in the mall parking lot. But when I pull into the long tunnel that leads to the tower, she seems to relax. Her shoulders press into the seat back and drop.
“Thank you,” she whispers in the dark. “You’ve been really nice to me.”
Yes. I really have. I’m not called nice often, but I am being extremely nice to her.
The drugs, I decide. Or lack thereof. It’s been a long time—very long time—since I was this person she’s seeing today.
I think it has something to do with the mind blast back at the hospital. It was a rush of relief when I finally let go and unleashed my power. Like a dam breaking.
It scares me a little. I’m not sure what kind of consequences I’ll have to face. Everything has consequences. You can’t bottle up your emotions for more than a decade and not expect there to be consequences.
Not to mention the drug Yasmine injected me with just before all that shit happened. I think I know what it was. Some kind of antagonist that counteracts all the drugs in my system. Ever since Case shot me with—whatever the fuck it was—back at his house a few months ago, I’ve been different. I’ve had feelings.
But it’s different now. It’s like… I feel almost… normal.
Not that I know what normal is. But it feels good. And Sadie. She’s something good, I think. Killer instincts aside. It’s not her fault she’s a product of her environment.
We could make a good team. Case has Lulu and Lincoln has Molly.
It’s almost a natural progression of things that I should get someone too.
I’ve been telling myself that since yesterday. I deserve a partner too. And I don’t have many options. Case is lucky he found Lulu. She’s not Prodigy but she gets him. Completely. And Molly and Lincoln were genetically made to be partners. Literally. Molly is bonded to him and he is bonded to her. Even if they ever stopped being in love, they are meant to be together because he is her Alpha and she is his Omega. They complete each other.
I don’t have an Omega. I killed them all a long time ago before they could kill me first. Lincoln is lucky, I decide. I almost feel envy.
“Good God.” I laugh. I cannot believe I’m envious of Lincoln.
“What?” Sadie asks as I stop the car and turn off the engine. “What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Just irony, I guess.”