Chapter Ten
“I don’t care what he says, Jack. We need to go.”
Jack kicked off his flip-flops in the corner and ran his hand through his hair. He’d been spending so much time in the sun that the dark brown strands were streaked with gold. “Parker says that it’s too risky.”
“Parker’s not my father. And he’s not yours, either.” Luke argued. “Remember our fathers? I want to go help bring down the guy who killed them.”
Jack tensed. Good. Luke hoped the guy was mad. He’d been acting like they were on a permanent vacation since they’d arrived in Mexico. It was starting to piss him off.
“So, what do you want to do, Luke? You want to go back to the States? Turn ourselves in? How do you think that will help?”
“I told you. Blue and Seth have agreed to work with the Army.” Blue had been right. If they were going after Kitty, he needed to be there.
“Yeah. I heard that part.” Jack unbuttoned his shirt. He couldn’t have looked more uninterested if they’d been discussing molecular biology.
Jack had been a history major.
Luke gritted his teeth. “We need to go back.”
When he and Jack had agreed to come to Mexico, it had been a relief. Luke couldn’t deal with the realities of how he’d changed. But things were different now. Kitty needed him. And he was sick of running away.
“I agree.” Parker stood in the door, leaning with his arms crossed.
“You agree?” Luke narrowed his eyes. “You said it was too risky. You said that we should wait, to see what happened. You said that if Blue and Seth made it, then we could consider going back.”
“I know.”
“So what’s with the change of heart?” There had to be something else here. Parker didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do. If he’d decided they should go back, there was a reason.
“Of course there’s a reason.” He snorted. “I’m sick of hiding. If they’re ready to accept us, then we should go back. We can always return here, if we choose.”
“That’s true.”
“And you’re right. Miss Michaels and Mr. Campbell will need our help.”
Parker always spoke formally about people he didn’t know. Strange. “Yes. They will.”
“Then, we should pack.” He turned, leaving before they could say anything else.
Luke turned to Jack. He was staring at the door, confusion on his face as well. Then he shrugged.
Standing, Jack reached under his bed and pulled out the duffel bag he’d purchased before they came to Cancun. It had carried the few clothes and supplies they’d brought. They hadn’t known what would be readily available in Mexico so they’d brought the basics.
Now, he began to fold his few clothes and put them in the bag.
“What are you doing?”
“You heard him.” Jack continued folding without looking up. “He said it was time to go.”
“When I said we should go, you didn’t want to hear it. But you’re on board now?”
Jack shrugged again and didn’t answer, just continued to pack.
Luke watched, wondering how taken Jack was with Parker’s “We are the chosen people” propaganda. Considering Luke had rarely seen Jack agree to anything without a fight, he suspected the answer was…pretty taken.
It wouldn’t help him to argue. It was what he’d wanted, after all, so he shouldn’t complain. Only it didn’t feel right.
He should be happy about going back. It’s what he’d been hoping for over the past days, to get back into the thick of it. To help Kitty. Instead, he couldn’t help wondering if maybe this wasn’t the right decision after all.
…
Nick finally stopped vomiting.
She’d never seen someone throw up that much, heave and shake like that. Months ago, during her change, she’d probably looked similar, but she hadn’t exactly had a chance to look at herself in the mirror. Or even care what she looked like. She’d been too busy wishing she would die.
Well, Nick hadn’t had that luxury.
After he threw up the first time, she tapped into his misery as the drug swept through his body. She remembered the despair—the pain and discomfort—but hearing it from his perspective had been difficult. She’d listened to her parents muddle through the effects of the drug as well, but she’d been so sick herself, she hadn’t dwelled on it. Now, she only had Nick and his wretchedness in this cell.
As the illness progressed and the night lengthened, he stopped noticing she was there. His mind became less focused, tripping from memory to memory, thought to thought.
His parents were there. His mother, a vivacious brunette, and his father, a robust man who said little but had kind eyes.
His sisters. Five of them. They were beautiful, like him. Dark hair, dark eyes, honey skin. Their smiles were infectious, like their brother’s.
He thought about Seth and a handful of other soldiers she didn’t know. He thought of them as family.
And he thought about her.
Seeing those parts was difficult. If he’d been lucid, he wouldn’t have allowed her this much access to his thoughts. But she refused to back away from him, to leave him his privacy. If he needed her, if his thoughts turned dark, toward giving up, she needed to know.
So, she watched herself from his point of view.
The first thing she noticed was that she was prettier to him than she was to herself. Her eyes were softer, more understanding. Her skin was creamier than she knew it to be. Her limbs looked graceful, here in his mind, instead of lanky and awkward as she’d always expected.
It was hard, seeing herself this way.
While she’d believed he felt bad for her, she sensed none of that here with his guard down. Instead she got his lingering feeling that it was his fault she was here. That, and his uncertainty, his belief that he was messing everything up with her.
It was that uncertainty that made her pull him closer.
Now, though, he hadn’t thrown up in some time. He was even less focused than before.
That’s when she heard it.
Let this be over. Make this stop.
I’m going to die.
Icy fear sliced through her stomach. She shook him, her fingers digging into his jumpsuit. She was barely able to move his big body, but her fear gave her strength.
“Nick.” No response. She gripped his face, turning it toward her. He was dead weight. “Nick!” she said louder, trying to get through to him.
Nothing. And his mind was quiet, full of pale light streaked with darkness.
“No, no, no,” she muttered. She clutched him closer, touching her forehead to his. “You stop it. You stay with me.”
He couldn’t leave her. She refused to let him go.
She closed her eyes and allowed that thought to fill her mind. She sent it out to him.
Some people believed they could put an idea into the universe, that if they wished for something hard enough, they could make it so. Kitty didn’t know about controlling the universe, but she’d had some luck controlling one person at a time.
She thought out to him. If that made her manipulative, so be it.
You stay with me. You can’t die.
Stay with me. Stay with me.
He exhaled on a groan. He pulled away from the pastel haze, and it became spiked with dark colors again, with reds and blacks. She didn’t know if she was helping, but she kept it up.
Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me.
Nick’s head turned from side to side, and his eyes squeezed shut. Her face played through his thoughts, and he latched on to it.
She kept up the litany, more determined than ever to get through to him.
After the longest minutes of her life, his breathing became more regular, if still labored.
He was fighting again. She could hardly think around her relief.
Kitty sat there on the floor next to him for a long time, coaxing him along. You can’t give up. It’s almost over. You have to fight.
She bullied and cajoled, did anything she could to get him to keep going. The minutes stretched on, taut and pregnant with her fear.
She counted his breaths with her eyes closed…praying.
She hadn’t always bought into her parents’ religious ideals. Her mom had been raised Catholic but when she’d met Kitty’s father, she’d renounced her own faith to be with Kitty’s dad. When Kitty was a girl, she remembered attending a non-denominational, fellowship-based faith community. One day, her father had decided that church was being corrupted by the outside world, and he’d abruptly moved their family away from civilization.
Luckily, her father had allowed her to go to school in Raton. She didn’t know what she’d have done if she’d had to be homeschooled…alone in that tiny house with her parents without any respite.
Religion had always been a huge part of their lives. They prayed every day, read the Bible together. Yet while Kitty read a fairly forgiving and loving God in the New Testament, her father tended to quote the more unyielding aspects of the Old Book. If she or her mother didn’t follow his rules, he would twist the Bible to prove he was right.
It had soured her.
But today, as she wrapped her arms around Nick’s shaking body, she prayed.
Apparently, someone somewhere had heard her.
Slowly, so slowly, his thoughts made more sense. People returned to his memories, their faces becoming clearer. She sat beside him on the floor in front of that toilet, rubbing his back, coaxing and cajoling, even outright threatening him. Anything to keep him from giving up.
When he rolled and called her name, she made him sip water from the cup on a chain at their sink. She stroked his hair, telling him the things she’d never have said if he’d been lucid.
Like how afraid she was. Like how much she’d come to care about him in the past week.
Finally, when her shoulders sagged with exhaustion and her back ached and she wanted to cry with the strain of it all, she pulled and tugged his limp body to the cot. He was either semi-lucid or he followed her instructions instinctively because his limbs weren’t as heavy as she expected, and she got him onto the cot.
She curled against him, holding him as the pain receded.
His body stilled. He opened his eyes and sat up.
He was alive. He’d made it.
Kitty didn’t hesitate. She threw herself at him.
He caught her against him with a soft oomph. His arms circled her, and she held on tight. He shushed her, and only then did she realize she’d been crying.
That’s when she got mad.
“You stupid, stupid idiot.” Her voice cracked, full of tears. “You have no idea what you put me through.”
“I’m so sorry, baby. So sorry.” He dropped his head and kissed her shoulder. While he might be sorry, mostly he was thinking about how she felt in his lap.
“I was scared to death. Have you any idea what that was like?” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.
“It wasn’t much fun on my end, either, if it makes you feel any better.” She could hear the grin in his voice, and she pulled back to glare at him.
“Well, it doesn’t make me feel better.” She scowled. He looked perfectly fit, as healthy and strong as ever. Certainly not like he spent the last twelve hours throwing up, wanting to stop living.
The memory of that was still too fresh in her mind.
He sobered, sensing her seriousness. “I’m fine. I swear. And I won’t do it again. I promise.”
“That’s right. You won’t.” She cocked her head, studying him. “You made it. You’re changed.”
He dropped his arms, but didn’t let go of her completely. Her hands rested on his shoulders, his splayed across the small of her back. She stared up into his dark eyes as uncertainty played through his mind. “Do you think? That I’m changed?”
She took a deep breath. They better find out. Kenny would be back tomorrow. “Well, can you hear what I’m thinking?”
She filled her head with thoughts of him, of how much she liked his mouth, of how the V of his broad shoulders and narrow hips was the hottest thing she’d ever seen.
His brow creased. “I don’t think so. What are you thinking about?”
“Trust me, you’d know.” She grinned, amazed how good it felt after the strain of the past day.
“Oh yeah?” The corner of his mouth tilted up. He wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “I’d like to hear more about that.”
In the face of his teasing, her face heated. She looked down. Her hands were still on his shoulders, and her leg was draped over him. She was practically lying on him.
Like a hussy, as her mother always warned.
She dropped her hands and her gaze. She’d thrown herself at him. She stared at her fingers, worrying them, as the tips of her ears felt like they were on fire.
“Oh no, you don’t.” He scooted closer, folding her against his chest. He tucked her head under his chin. “I have no idea what just played through your mind, but I don’t like it one bit.”
“I threw myself at you,” she blurted.
He laughed. “And I loved every second of it.”
“I kissed you.”
“Again, not sorry.”
“I’m sitting on your lap.” Her voice dropped. “Like some hussy bimbo.”
That sobered him. He glared at her, his teasing gone. In fact, he was outraged. “Where the hell would you get that idea?”
She shrugged. She didn’t have enough time to count the ways she was messed up.
He finally spoke as if he was choosing his words carefully. “I’m holding you. People need to be held sometimes. Right?”
That was so reasonable, it made her feel even worse. Of course he was right. They were hugging. If anything, he seemed to need to know she was all right as much as she needed to make sure he was fine.
She listened, but she could tell he was guarding his thoughts again. It was funny, how she was starting to know him.
She’d overreacted. If he didn’t know she was inexperienced before, he definitely figured it out.
He watched her, waiting for her to say something, as if he was afraid to spook her. His thoughts remained quiet, focused only on rubbing his hands along her arms to soothe her. She had no idea how much to tell him. So, she offered what she hoped would make her sound the least crazy. “My parents. They were very religious. They didn’t think girls should throw themselves at boys.”
He took that in. She wanted to sink into the ground. She was a nineteen-year-old girl. She bet he didn’t know a lot of nineteen-year-old girls who felt guilty about hugging someone.
Finally, he snorted and pulled her closer, the hug so tight she felt like her ribs were being squished together. “Well, then they wouldn’t have anything to worry about. You didn’t throw yourself at me. I’ve had a hard day. I’m shaken. You were comforting me.” He rubbed his chin against her hair. “It’s very Christian of you.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed.
As she let herself relax, she wondered where her awkwardness had even come from. Her parents were gone, and she’d always secretly scoffed at their puritanical views on dating. Oh, she’d never fought them. There hadn’t been any reason to, really. There hadn’t been any boys who wanted to date her, and it was easier not to argue with them unless it was necessary. She learned early on to pick her battles, and that wasn’t one she chose, but she never thought she believed any of that stuff.
Maybe she didn’t believe it. Maybe she just didn’t know much about easy displays of affection, even how to recognize them. Her parents weren’t the hugging sort, not with her and not with each other. Kitty was surprised they’d gotten close enough once to reproduce.
Role models like that, well, it was no wonder she might be dysfunctional.
And Nick… In his dreams over the past day, she learned his family was her family’s polar opposite. His parents, his sisters, their extended relatives—they touched constantly, their eyes full of love. They hugged, kissed each other’s cheeks, filled each other with food and laughter.
She smiled, remembering his memories, and allowed herself to sink into him. Under her ear, she could hear his heartbeat, and the sound reassured her. As she listened to that steady beat, she focused on that, not her weirdness.
He had made it. They were still together.
But…they needed to get out of here.
“We should figure out what your new talent is. Kenny is coming tomorrow, and we need to be ready.”
“You’re right.” He gently moved her off his lap to sit on the cot next to him. He stood, doing a few arm crosses to stretch his shoulders. “I guess I can’t hear thoughts.” He grinned at her. “More’s the pity. So, what else could it be?”
“Most people apparently get either telekinesis, or increased strength and ability to strategize.”
“Huh.” His brow furrowed. “Why is that do you think?”
Kitty shrugged. “Fields seems to think that the drug enhances personality traits you already have. Like, Blue and Luke are in tune with their surroundings. They’re active. Doers. A bit typeA, even. Tactile.” She fiddled with the sleeve of her jumpsuit. “The ones who get the strategy and the strength are usually in their heads. Watchers. Thinkers. They sit back more often and observe. They’re thinking of the next step, of how it fits together.”
“So what about you?”
“I don’t know if anyone else is like me.”
“What?” His eyes widened. “Really?”
She shrugged again. She knew it was strange, but having it pointed out didn’t exactly make her feel good about herself.
“Huh.” He rolled up his sleeves. “Well, I suppose it makes sense.”
“What makes sense?” Nothing about this situation ever seemed to make sense.
“You.” He smiled, his eyes softening. “You’re the most sympathetic and empathetic person I know. I bet the drug enhanced that. You are so in tune with the people around you, so sensitive to their emotions… The drug gave you the ability to see inside them.”
Her chest felt tight. Is that what had happened? She had always been sensitive…too sensitive, as if she could feel other people’s embarrassment, their anger and fear. It’s why she kept to herself. She felt raw.
She’d spent her life trying to make people happy because their happiness made her happy.
Was that what she was doing? Trying to make Nick happy? How could she know what she felt for him was real?
They’d only met a week ago. Granted, she’d listened to how he felt about her, but was he seeing her clearly? The girl she saw in his head…she wasn’t sure she knew that girl.
Bottom line, Nick felt something for her, and she admitted she felt something for him. But everything felt so jumbled. She’d always worried how everyone else felt, playing peacemaker, and doing the right thing. She trusted too easily, and she cared too much.
Maybe this was too fast. Her mother would have warned her—she would have told her that her thoughts were lustful and bad or some other nonsense.
Kitty had been impulsive a few times since her parents died. Each time, it had gotten her into trouble. When she’d followed Jeremy, when she’d tried to escape with no plan, when she’d lashed out in the laboratory. She might be being too careless. Maybe a little caution wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Nick could break her heart, and she didn’t know how much more she could take.
Apparently Nick didn’t realize how much his offhand observation had rocked her. He was stretching, his face taking on that intent look he got when he focused. In his mind, he was preparing himself to tackle this problem, to work hard and perfect his new abilities. The way he worked hard and perfected everything.
“Let’s see. Any idea about the strength and strategy gift? Know how they harness it?” he asked.
She shook her head, still unable to speak.
“Huh. Well, let’s try the other thing, then. Moving stuff. How’d Blue say she did that?”
“She…” Kitty cleared her throat. “She said she asked stuff to move. That she thought it, and it happened.”
“Right.” His brows furrowed, and he rolled his shoulders and stared across the room.
A long moment passed. Kitty tried not to stare, not wanting to stress him out. Nothing happened.
Finally, she said, “No worries, it’s probably…”
But her words died as the blanket on the other cot lifted in the air.
When Nick turned, his eyes wide, she nodded. “I see. Well, we have some work to do, then.”
In the meantime, she needed to rein in whatever was spiraling between them. The room was small, pushing in on them. She only had to hold it together for another day, then they would be gone.
Only another day.