Chapter Four
Stop.
Nick’s voice shouted in Kitty’s head. It was such an urgent demand that she immediately obeyed.
The lion stood her ground in front of them, and Kitty watched as Nick spread his legs, his arms loose at his side. He was terrified, but tried to work through his panic.
A lion. A lion. The trank gun. Only chance.
He pulled the gun out of his pocket slowly.
The big cat backed farther into the cave, her back up and her teeth on display. She snarled, the sound deafening as it echoed off the stone enclave. Her baby lay behind her, undisturbed by the entire show.
Nick took a step forward, the trank gun raised. He was going to shoot the lion. But what would they do with her then? What about her baby? And what about when the lion woke up?
“No. Stop,” she whispered. “Let me try something first.”
The thought of this lion mother, being tranked, of scaring her baby… Kitty couldn’t accept it. There had to be another way.
She didn’t know if her power would work on the animal. Mountain lions didn’t speak English. But she had to try something.
She closed her eyes, focused on the animal. Leave this place. Leave this place. Leave this place.
Breathing softly through her nose, she continued to recite the words in her head, again and again, the phrase a litany.
“They’re gone.” Nick’s voice broke into her meditation. When she opened her eyes, she found him staring at her, obviously shocked—and a bit horrified.
She tried to ignore that part. She’d become pretty accustomed to people thinking she was weird. It hurt more from him, though, and she wished it didn’t. “I didn’t know if it was going to work.”
He flickered over the memory of what happened. The animal startled, then backed away, closer to her baby, her ears down. Finally, she snagged her cub by the scruff and bolted, as if chased by ghosts.
For a mountain lion, hearing strange voices was probably just as frightening.
Avoiding Nick’s stare, Kitty moved into the now-vacant cave. To her eyes, it was luxurious. He’d set up two sleeping cots, complete with thick sleeping bags. There looked to be a lantern, and there were extra blankets. She shivered. An extra blanket. She’d never imagined in her whole life that she would be so excited to sleep with an extra blanket.
She ran her finger along it. Thick flannel, or maybe wool, even. She sighed in happiness.
“How did you do that?”
She exhaled. Probably best to get this out of the way. “I’ve learned a lot these past months about how my gift works. Thanks to Dr. Fields.”
“Dr. Fields.” Recognition. He knew who Fields was. The guy who poisoned her town.
“Yes. That was him in the corridor.” She rubbed her sweaty palms on her thighs. “Originally, Jeremy sold me out to Goldstone. To Pike. But Fields took me from them. Fields and Goldstone had some falling out. I’ve been with him the whole time, but a while ago, we ended up here.” She paused. She didn’t even know who had funded him. “Who was he working for this time?”
“Goldstone, again.” Nick put down the pack he’d brought from the ATV. “They rehired him last month. Our sources say they were concerned that Fields could still be traced to them, and they wanted to control the fallout.”
Back where he belonged, then. Kitty sighed. “Well, he helped me learn a lot about how my power worked. Stretched it and stretched it. Worked through the headaches and the nosebleeds, even one seizure.” She smiled without humor. “Apparently, it’s like a muscle. As long as you advance slowly, you won’t get hurt. It’s when you try to push beyond your limits that…” She left the rest unspoken.
Nick nodded. “The rats.”
“What?” What rats? They used rats in the labs, but how would Nick know that?
“Oh, that’s right. Maybe you were gone before we learned about this.” Nick put his hands on his hips. “They found some research—lab work Fields had done on rats. The rats advanced with their skills, but then some died, as if it had gotten too much for them.”
She nodded. “They did a lot of work on rats. The rats haven’t got our higher order thinking. We, the human test subjects, can choose not to use the skills. Or to what extent we use them. The rats don’t use that much restraint.”
“No. I bet not.”
She continued. “I figured out yesterday that I could project my thoughts into someone else’s head.”
He remained there in the entryway, blinking. “Project your thoughts into someone’s head.”
“Yes. As in, I think something and put it in their head.”
His mouth dropped open as he stared at her like she’d spoken another language. “How?”
“I don’t know. I did it to the assistant in the lab. When he caught me, I tried to…get away.” The details seemed irrelevant. She changed the subject. “What about you? How did you get here, Nick?”
He folded his arms over his chest, the muscles of his forearms flexing. A cocky halfgrin split his face. “You aren’t happy to see me?”
“I’d have been happy to see anyone. Don’t be flattered.” The words tripped out so fast, like a slash of a knife. His grin slipped.
What was the matter with her? He’d risked his life to come for her, and she was being rude to him. That wasn’t fair or kind. But she was so edgy. She wanted to yell at him, to strike out.
She was angry, that’s what she was. So incredibly angry.
The realization shocked her, left her reeling. She’d never considered herself an angry person. In her family, she’d been the diplomatic one, the one who softened communications between her parents. But she felt the anger coursing through her. It was red and ragged and nasty. It was completely unfocused. Worse, it filled her up and spilled out over her.
Her legs weak, she dropped to sit on the cot closest to her. “I’m sorry. That was mean.”
“No problem.” He shrugged.
But it was a problem. This wasn’t who she was. Had spending three months as a prisoner changed one of the most basic parts of her? She was kind, caring. The type of person who always saw everyone’s side of the story. She didn’t treat people like this.
She didn’t want to treat people like this.
She couldn’t think about herself and what was left of her, not so close to leaving her cell, or she might break open. What she needed was for him to talk, to distract her. “Why didn’t one of the others come?”
“Jack and Luke split town around the time you were taken. Did you know that?” Nick’s mouth thinned. He didn’t think much of them.
She nodded. That’s right. They’d talked about going to Mexico.
“And Blue blew up Fort Sam Houston a few months ago. I’m not sure the military has forgiven her for that yet.”
“Blue?” Kitty shook her head. “No way. Blue’s as much of a pacifist as, well, I am.”
“Yeah. That’s what she thought. Until they were shooting at Seth.” His mind played over the events of that day, and Kitty watched as Blue brought down the side of an administrative building. As Seth caught and carried her, Kitty witnessed the protectiveness and fear on his face through Nick’s memories.
Seth and Blue were together, then. Kitty had heard their attraction, had listened in on some of their self-doubt. It had been hard to watch them dance around it all. Kitty didn’t like conflict. Apparently Kitty was still enough of a romantic to be happy they worked things out.
“Where are they? Blue and Seth? Are they okay?”
“They’re fine. After Sam Houston, they left for her mother’s house. They wanted to recover away from the military. I’ve kept in touch with Seth.”
Wait, though. “You were at Fort Sam Houston, too?” This had been from his perspective. He’d been running from the explosions, too.
He’d been in danger. She didn’t know if she liked that.
Nick shrugged again. “Seth needed help.”
It was the only explanation he offered, and he said it like it was enough. His friend needed him. The end.
“Why did you come for me, Nick?”
His thoughts jumbled before he focused on facts. “I was the best choice. Seth and Blue are changed. Like you. But I’m normal.”I’m not a danger to society. He left that part unspoken, but it explained everything. Of course the military wouldn’t trust her, or Seth and Blue. The Army didn’t understand them. They didn’t even understand themselves.
“Are Seth and Blue in danger?”
“No.” He pressed his lips together. “At least, I don’t think so. The Army agreed to leave them alone. For now.”
“They’re leaving them alone in Idaho? After Sam Houston?” The Army didn’t want to take them into custody? Press charges? Something?
“I don’t think they know where to house them.” He shrugged.
Kitty blinked, taking that in. Blue and Seth were considered so dangerous, the Army wasn’t sure how to contain them?
“You came for me, then. Because they couldn’t.” Even though she wouldn’t consider Nick and herself friends, he’d done what none of them could do. She didn’t know how she felt about that.
“Are you hungry?”Nick went to what looked like a steel container in the corner. He unlatched it and removed four packages.
He laid them out then turned on the lantern, motioning for her to sit on the cot in front of him.
“MREs. I brought my favorites, but they’re pretty nasty. At any rate, you can choose. Chili macaroni”—he pointed at the first—“rice and bean burrito, pasta Alfredo with veggies of some kind, and this”—he picked up the last one, cradling it in his hand—“is my favorite. Beef enchilada.” He offered it to her as if it was a gift.
Her stomach heaved. Food hadn’t held much appeal in weeks. “Um, no, you should take that one. But I’ll have the burrito, I guess. Thanks.”
“Good choice.” He squatted and opened them, sorting the packets. As he deftly ripped the bags, poured water in some, put some smaller bags in others, she couldn’t help but wonder about the other times he’d done this.
“How often have you had these?”
“I did a tour in the Middle East, two years ago. I had some then. But we end up getting them other times, during training, field exercises, whatever.” He didn’t look up as he focused on his task, thinking of where the pieces fit. “They’re supposed to be better than they were in the old days. Can’t imagine how bad they used to be.”
He unwrapped the packages and pulled out what looked to be a miniature Tabasco bottle.
She studied him. He was too intent on what he was doing. Surely he’d done this enough that he didn’t need to think so hard about the task.
Then it made sense. “You’re shutting me out.”
His head jerked up. “What?”
“You’re thinking about these packets so you don’t have to tell me something.”
She must have surprised him, because she was suddenly bombarded with images. So many images, like a floodgate had opened, releasing bad dreams and fear—boys dressed in camo and carrying guns, like they were playing dress-up, but she knew it was too real. An explosion that he shied away from—
He pressed his hands to his head, taking deep breaths. As he did, the thoughts moved away from her. The food. It’s ready.
“How did you do that?”
Nick’s skilled fingers worked for long moments before he answered. “I don’t focus on those things, not around you. You don’t need me clogging up your head with my bullshit.”
“That’s what he did.” She fingered the edge of the cot mattress.
“What who did?” Then he stilled. “Jeremy.”
“Yes.” She took the packet of food he held out to her. “He misled me, with his thoughts.”
He didn’t let go of her dinner, holding her eyes for a long minute. “I’m not misleading you. But it’s uncomfortable, with you eavesdropping on me.”
She nodded. She wouldn’t want anyone listening in on her private thoughts, either. He let go of her MRE, and she watched him expertly open the container then followed his lead. “Would you prefer that I not listen to you?”
“Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
He considered. “I think it should be up to you. I bet you’re sick of people telling you what to do with your power.”
Her hand shook. He didn’t know how close to the truth that was. She waited for the steam to slow—the meals were incredibly hot—and asked another question to distract herself. “When can we see Blue and Seth?”
He blew into the disposable container. “I kept in touch with them until I came here. Maybe we can meet up with them after you’ve been cleared.”
“Cleared?” Her shoulders tensed.
“Yes.” Nick turned on the light. “They need to verify that you’re not a risk to others.”
No. It couldn’t be. Not again.
She shook her head and stood, abandoning the meal beside her. “No.” She needed to get out of here. If it meant walking, so be it. “Where are the shoes? The ones in your extra set of clothes?”
He held up his hands, still holding his MRE, and stood as well. His expression remained calm, soothing. He’d worn a similar expression when he’d approached the lion, right before he was about to shoot it. Definitely not good. She backed up.
“Kitty, please. I told Martins. He knows what you can do. I told him you didn’t have any offensive power.” He spoke low and fast, as if he knew he only had so much time to convince her. “He only wants you to stay on post for a while. You’ll be free to move around.”
“No.” She wasn’t going to be a prisoner again. She couldn’t. “I can’t. You don’t understand.”
He snagged the sleeve of her ugly orange jumpsuit. “I saw where they were keeping you. I saw how you were living. You don’t think I understand?”
“You saw, Nick, but you didn’t live it. You don’t know.” Her voice was rising, but she didn’t care. Her mother would have told her to calm down, that a woman in hysterics was an ugly thing. But her mother wasn’t here. Her mother was dead.
“So tell me, please.” His voice was soft. “I can understand.” In the light of the lantern, his eyes were darker than usual, like deep wells she could fall into.
“No, you can’t, Nick. You can’t.” She pulled her arm from his grasp, wrapping it around herself as if to hold herself together. She stepped back, needing space, something of limited quantity in the small cave. “No light, Nick. I was kept in rooms without windows, in case I did gain some power that hadn’t presented yet. And drugged, over and over. So many times, I lost count. They’d poke me with needles, take so much blood that I would be black and blue up and down my arms and legs.” She inhaled, trying to stop the words. She’d been trapped behind walls for months, and now when she wanted a cage for her emotions, there was nothing to be found. “One day, I woke and my body ached. I hurt for days. I found out later that they’d pumped me full of adrenalin, over and over, to track if the drug had affected my heart. They shocked my heart, to see if they could force a new power out of me.”
Nick’s jaw tightened, and his fingers clenched and unclenched at his side. Cool it. She doesn’t need your anger. But he showed no other outward reaction when he asked, “What makes you think I’d let anyone do that to you again?”
“You can’t stop them. And I can’t go from one prison to another, Nick. I won’t.” Kitty bit down hard on her lip, then, to stop talking. She’d already said too much. She didn’t know him. Even the people she knew didn’t know her well. Bottom line, she didn’t share her feelings. With anyone. Ever.
Now, she spilled everything—to Nick, of all people.
She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut. She couldn’t stand it if he pitied her. She’d take any barrier she could get. She put her hands to the side of her head and did the only thing she could.
She closed him out.
Her own thoughts were unmanageable. She couldn’t deal with his, too.
This entire time, she’d started to believe he understood. Obviously not.
She glanced around. Realistically, she knew she had no chance if she left him here. She had no survival training. They were miles from civilization. She had a light jacket, in the middle of November. Even if she found the extra shoes and Nick let her go, she had no clue where she was and no idea how to get out of here. She’d just be walking aimlessly through the forest.
She wasn’t prepared for a prolonged hike in the wilderness.
She was trapped. Again. It was a different situation, but she still had no escape.
Sitting there, doing her best not to meet his eyes, she tried to think of something to say. If she were Blue, she might have been able to blow him off or come up with some sharp response. Something that proved she wasn’t beaten.
But even though her mother was gone, she’d drilled the importance of good manners into her, the art of pretending things were fine when they weren’t. So she said, “Thank you, Nick. For getting me out of there. It means…well, it means everything to me.”
“Jesus, Kitty. It isn’t like that…” His eyes were stricken with pain. I didn’t betray you.
“You should tell your Martins that Dr. Fields planned to test his drug on the group of soldiers that just arrived at Goldstone. I don’t think they know. I’m not even sure when that was supposed to happen. I tried to…escape, I guess, but I don’t know when that was. Maybe yesterday?” She looked to him. They’d knocked her out. When that happened, she never had any idea how much time passed. His mouth thin, he nodded. So, she must have been right—only the one day. “Yesterday then. But those men don’t know. If you can get word, maybe…maybe your Martins can help.”
He swiped his hand over his face. “Okay. Fine. I’ll text Martins. We’ll talk about the rest of this again tomorrow. I swear it’s going to be okay. We’re both tired, and this will look different when we’re out of here.” He reached into his pocket and removed a disposable cell phone. Before he typed, though, he nudged his head toward her abandoned MRE. “But you need to eat.”
He was right. She did need to eat. She reached for the packet. The only sound in the cave was the tapping of his fingers on his phone. She put the food in her mouth, chewed, swallowed, all on autopilot. She didn’t taste it. After she’d eaten every bite, she lay down. The exhaustion was intense, the most complete exhaustion she’d ever felt.
Months ago, when she was first taken, she’d been unable to sleep, constantly on guard against potential threats. After a while, she’d accepted her fate. Things would happen as they would, she knew that. Worrying was useless.
She closed her eyes in this strange and dangerous place, falling into a deep sleep.
…
Luke Kincaid hunched over his laptop at the makeshift desk in the miniscule apartment he shared with Parker Sinclair and Jack Barnett. The apartment would have been fine for only him and Jack, as they’d originally planned. But Parker had arrived on their doorstep a few weeks ago.
The older man made the place small, both physically and emotionally.
Not that Luke didn’t like Parker well enough. He was a smart guy, and like Luke and Jack, he’d lived though Dr. Fields’s experiments in their hometown of Glory. They were connected, bonded over a shared experience of shit.
But Parker’s philosophies… They could be eccentric. Like, conspiracy theory eccentric.
Oh, well. It wasn’t as if they would turn him out. They were in this together.
Outside the window, the moon had risen over the Mexican coast, shining off the water and making the white sands glow. It had to be nearly midnight, and Luke should be in bed. Instead, he stared at the computer screen.
The chemical components of Solvimine twisted on the screen in front of him.
God, if he’d only studied chemistry or biochemistry in school. Or really any kind of science other than computer science. It would have saved him the past few months of intensive chemistry study. Instead, he’d had to give himself a crash course in it, reading everything he could download, including a virtual stack of college-level textbooks on his Kindle.
Apparently, along with his ability to move things with his mind, he’d also gained the ability to speed-read. He could consume a four-hundred page paperback in less than an hour. Another perk of being special around here.
Whatever. If it helped him do what needed to be done, then he’d accept this bonus gift happily. Because as far as he knew, he was the only one outside of Dr. Fields’s research group that had access to Solvimine.
It was up to him to find a cure.
Except, there was no cure, as far as he could tell. The drug caused irreversible changes to the brain, the creation of extensive neural pathways where they hadn’t been before. From his extensive reading into electrophysiology, once the body knew how to create new pathways, it had a hard time unlearning the ability.
Sort of like riding a bicycle.
If his conclusions were correct, it wouldn’t matter if he figured out the entire makeup of the drug. What had been done couldn’t be undone.
At least, it couldn’t be undone through further study of Solvimine. They would need a new drug. Something to block pathways…or destroy them. While he had a huge intellect and the ability to read and decipher material in an instant, he didn’t know much yet about drug synthesis.
Seemed he had a new path of study to trip down. Yippee.
He pushed back from the desk and ran his hands over his face. He’d need another run tonight, it seemed, if he intended to sleep.
He’d started running soon after he and Jack had arrived in Mexico. He’d had to. He hadn’t been able to sleep. The soldier he’d killed in La Junta haunted him. Every time he closed his eyes, Luke saw him, hanging outside that hotel window, his face full of horror and confusion.
So he’d jogged, hoping he could outrun the images. Or, if that didn’t work, at least his body would be so tired that he’d have to sleep.
At first, the short jogs worked. But before long, he’d had to go farther, faster, longer if he wanted any reprieve at night.
Now he’d moved to taking two runs a day.
It was during one of those first jogs that he’d decided that he needed to work with Solvimine. If he could find a cure, maybe he could undo some of the damage that had been done since Dr. Fields decided to turn them into case studies.
Parker had a couple of vials of the drug. He’d overheard him talking to Jack about it, saying he got them from spending some time with Fields. But when Luke pressed him about it, Parker had closed off, only smiling. All he said was, “Brilliant man, Fields. We only differ on the ultimate goal.”
Luke had no idea what the hell that meant, but it creeped him out.
When he’d asked to study the drug, Parker had agreed, saying that the amount wasn’t enough for his plan anyway. Luke didn’t know what Parker’s plans were, exactly, but if they involved large quantities of Solvimine, they probably weren’t going to be good for anyone. Luckily, Parker didn’t have large quantities of Solvimine. But if Luke knew anything about the old man, he’d bet he was working out a plan to rectify that.
“Yes. I am.”
Luke closed his eyes. Parker. He’d overheard him. That hearing people’s thoughts gift must be useful sometimes.
“It is.” Parker joined him, leaning on the desk beside him, his arms folded over his chest. “You’re trying to find a ‘cure’”—he made air quotes—“for Solvimine.” He shook his gray head. “But there is no cure, Luke. Can’t you see? This isn’t a disease. It isn’t something that we’ve ‘caught.’” Again with the quotations. “We’ve become our best selves. The selves we are meant to be.”
Luke gritted his teeth. He’d heard some variation of this argument many times over the past weeks. It had become Parker’s gospel. “No, Parker. If this was who we were meant to be, we wouldn’t have needed a drug to make us this way. We’ve been…modified. Like GMOs.”
“No. We’ve been improved. We’ve been given the gift of our full potential. This isn’t a problem, Luke. It’s a solution.”
“It doesn’t feel like a solution.” Luke leaned back in his chair. He glanced around the dingy two-bedroom apartment they were renting. “Look around you. This apartment, this life. This is no solution. We’re in hiding. We can’t return to the United States because we’re afraid we’ll be captured and poked at like lab rats. Like they’re probably doing to Kitty now.” Blue had emailed him after she and Seth had left San Antonio, explaining that Kitty had been taken by Goldstone and they couldn’t find her.
One more thing to add to Luke’s guilt pile.
“That’s because they’re afraid, my boy. They’re afraid of what we could do.” The older man stood. “And they should be.”
Parker pushed away from the desk and headed for the door. Luke watched him go.
He didn’t like the sound of that.
It might be time he and Parker Sinclair parted ways.