Mindsiege (15 page)

“Shh. No regrets. We do what we’ve gotta do until we’re on the other side of this.” Whatever
this
was. “We’ll have more time for other
stuff
later.”

“Promise?” he asked, and I nodded. “I knew you were strong the moment I met you.” His voice was almost a whisper and somewhat strained. “But I’m sorry I didn’t run from you when I realized you were like me. I loved you even then, before we met. But if I had run then…”

I cupped my hand over his mouth and stared straight into those intense sapphire eyes. “Then we wouldn’t have met, and I would have been left to fend for myself when the IIA and Jonas found me. And they would have.” I shivered, wondering where I would be now had Jack not eased me into the truth of what we are.

“Maybe.” He hugged me closer. His fingers spread wider against my back.

“No, not maybe. Definitely.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. Jack lifted me in a hug so that my face was even with his. I leaned in and kissed the spot below his ear and continued down his neck. “If you hadn’t found me…” My voice cracked a little.

“Shhh. You’re right. There’s no use playing the what-if game.”

I nuzzled his neck and swallowed against the lump that formed. The warmth of his hand against my bare skin made me want to curl up inside his jacket and let him smuggle me inside his dorm.

I tried to hide a yawn, but Jack was onto me. He let me slide to my feet. “We both could use a good night’s sleep.”

I pulled back. “Until tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow,” he agreed, then leaned in for one last goodnight kiss.

~~~~~

The tingle of Jack’s kiss lingered on my lips as I approached my dorm room. I touched my mouth, unable to contain a smile. How could my life be so messed up, yet so right when Jack was near? I shouldn’t have avoided him this past week, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I were to cause something terrible to happen to him.

Dad had called Wellington a safe haven for the clones he had recently discovered. Only, Wellington wasn’t my safe haven: Jack was.

I dug in my purse for my room key. It was just after the eleven o’clock curfew. The hallways were eerily quiet for a Friday night.

No one was in the common area on my floor. The lights had already been dimmed.

Just as I lifted the key to the lock, I smelled it.

Smoke.

Not now
, I thought.

I immediately began searching the edges of my mind for the invasion. If I was quick enough, maybe I could push Jonas out.

“It’s no use, Sarah.”

The little hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention at the sound of Jonas’s voice directly behind me. When his fingers slid into my hair and grabbed the back of my neck, every muscle along my spine tightened.

“I’m not only inside your head,” he whispered right next to my ear. “I’m right here.” His breath warmed my neck. His fingers spread up through my hair, and he guided my head to face him.

My eyes met his. Instead of the warm amber that I sometimes found in Jonas’s eyes, I faced cold black, his pupils dilated, leaving only a small perimeter of brown.

“What do you want, Jonas?” Though the grip he had on my neck made it difficult, I cocked my head just slightly. Was someone controlling him, forcing his actions the way I sometimes forced others’? “Or… are you ready to tell me who you really are?”

The boy before me smiled an evil, lopsided sort of grin. “You’d like it if you could place another name on this version of me, wouldn’t you, Sarah? You like the kinder, more gentler Jonas, don’t you?”

I was powerless in his grip. I could smell the fear emanating from my racing heart and my trembling limbs. But I answered him. “Yes, I do.” And I did. When Jonas was being kind, he was easy to like.

He leaned closer to me, his face inches from mine. “I see why Jonas likes you, too.”

I searched his eyes for his true identity, but all I saw was Jonas.

Then realization dawned. “Ty,” I whispered, and the corners of his lips tilted farther up, reaching all the way to his dark eyes. His presence glided in and around my mind, leaving me drunk from the quick movements of this complete invasion. “What do you want?” I asked again.

“You will come with me.” He forced me to turn, and gave me a little shove back down the hallway.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

~~~~~

Getting past the security of the dorm and into The Program was not a problem for someone who had one hundred percent control over the mind of another.

Keep going
, he mindspoke. We moved quietly down the hallway in the basement of the infirmary and entered the room I was becoming all too familiar with. Sandra hadn’t moved. The machines around her were silent. Lights blinked to confirm that her heart still beat.

“You’re going to make me heal her, aren’t you?” I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. My heart beat so fast, I thought I might faint. “This is never going to work, you know.”

Quiet.

I tried to speak again, and no sound came out. So far, I’d been unable to refuse his commands.

Lexi?
It was Jack.

Jack! Help me. I’m in The Pro
—

The pressure to my throat came fast and hard.

Ty, in Jonas’s body, lifted his hand from my throat and placed it over my mouth. Sliding his palm to the small of my back, he brought me closer. “Try something like that again, and I will terminate you. But not until the job is complete.”

The smell of smoke on his breath made me nauseated. I squeezed my eyes closed. I knew what the job was. What I didn’t know was, could I do it? Was I capable? And if I was successful, would I survive the consequences?

“Now,” he said, forcing me to face Sandra. “Let’s get on with it.”

I stared down at the woman before me. Her hair was tucked neatly behind her ears. It had been brushed recently. The nurse? Seth, maybe? Her skin was a pearly color, much paler than mine, but she
was
lying in a hospital bed. I wanted to like this woman who looked identical to me, only older. Was I supposed to? She was the reason I existed. Was I somehow supposed to respect her for that?

Before I had a chance to answer my own question, he reentered my thoughts. “Show me her brain.”

Without hesitation, I pulled her brain up, just like a doctor displayed an X-ray or CT scan. As before, the fluid pooled at the base of her brain, and was most likely the culprit for keeping Sandra in a coma.

“Now, heal her.”

Lexi, don’t react to my voice,
Jack said.
Kyle and I are on our way. Just keep Jonas busy until we can get there.

I couldn’t risk telling Jack that it wasn’t Jonas who had control of me, especially since he didn’t even know about Ty yet. I directed my attention back to Sandra’s brain. I could see the small holes that allowed the cerebral fluid to leak. I thought I could heal her—but at what cost?

I tried to turn, but met a wall. Jonas wrapped his arms around me, keeping me pinned to the ground in front of Sandra. His presence slithered into my mind, and immediately shoved Jack out.

My hands trembled at my side at the thought that healing Sandra might kill me—if not physically, then mentally. Healing someone this way was not natural.

Stop stalling.
He squeezed my body again, forcing my attention back to his commands.

There was no way out of this. I honed in on the tiny holes. As if using a blowtorch, I welded the holes shut, one by one, until the brain looked intact physically.

Amazing
, the voice inside my head said.

As with Addison, pain began to pulsate behind my eyes and around my temples.

I’m here, Lexi. It’s really me. It’s Jonas.
His voice was smoother, gentler.

Jonas?
I whimpered.
I don’t know what to believe anymore.

I closed my hands into fists. My arms tightened under the hold Jonas had on me. Only, I was supposed to believe it wasn’t truly Jonas hurting me and forcing me to heal Sandra.

You have to finish this. If you complete the healing and get rid of the fluid, the person controlling my mind and yours will leave.

How do you know this?
I asked. I never thought I’d feel relieved to have Jonas inside my head. There was only one thing left for me to do to complete the healing: get rid of the fluid causing the coma.

They want Sandra back. Give them that, and they’ll go away. For now, at least.

Fear of Sandra waking compounded the growing headache, but fear of the person controlling Jonas practically paralyzed me. I brought up Sandra’s brain again. The only way I knew to get rid of the fluid was to flush it out the same way I’d flushed the drug from Jack’s brain last week.

I wrapped my mind around the fluid, gathering it. I sent it through Sandra’s body and out.

Liquid spewed from her mouth, spreading all over the white sheet and blanket that covered her. Like a river, it ran in the creases of the blanket, spilling onto the floor. Sandra coughed, choking on her own vomit. Jonas shoved me to the side with such force that I fell to my knees.

The pain in my head forced me to collapse fully onto the cold floor. The room spun out of control. The presence inside my head—Jonas, or the person controlling Jonas, I wasn’t sure anymore—was gone. And so was the calming force that had steadied me while I healed Sandra.

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling before closing my eyes tightly. At least I hadn’t passed out like last time. Seconds passed. I slowly become more aware of the other two people in the room.

“Oh my God! What happened?” the only other female in the room asked.

My eyes sprung open at the sound of her voice.

Sandra’s voice.

Chapter Seventeen

“Mom, what were you thinking?” Jonas’s voice came out breathy.

Mom?

My head ached. It hurt to move, but I had to. I rolled onto my side and pushed myself up on my elbows.

Jonas was bent over at the hips. His breaths came out labored. He balanced with one hand on his knee and dug his other palm into his chest.

I recognized a panic attack when I saw one.

Sandra lifted the vomit-soaked sheet and moved it to the side. Her nose scrunched up in disgust. “Where am I?” she asked. She moved her legs to hang off the side of the bed.

“Wait.” Jonas moved to the other side of the bed and stopped her from moving. “You’ve been in a coma.”

“A what? For how long?”

I sat up, scooted away from the two of them, and leaned against the far wall. If I had the strength, I’d do whatever I had to do to run from that room. Why had Jonas called her “Mom”? It wasn’t possible. I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“A month. Maybe a little less.”

Sandra seemed to think on that. “Then, how—” Her words were cut off. Jonas’s eyes drifted from Sandra to me. She slowly turned, and I wanted to shrink to nothingness.

Sandra’s eyes widened. She slid off the bed, stood, and turned to me, falling into Jonas.

“Careful,” he said, steadying her.

She grabbed onto his elbow and walked slowly around the edge of the bed, hesitating at the foot. “Did you…” she paused. “Did you bring me out of the coma?”

I didn’t expect her voice to sound exactly like mine—with a little less Kentucky twang, maybe. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. What was I supposed to say to this woman? My eyes darted around the room, then back at her.

“You don’t have to be scared,” she said, taking another step closer.

Scared? I cocked my head.

Behind her, Jonas sucked in a deep breath. He was slowly coming down from the panic attack.

She stepped closer. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Like I believed that.
Stop. Don’t come any closer.

She immediately stopped.

My eyes darted around the room a second time. That’s when I saw the scissors lying on a counter on the far side of the room.

Jonas, grab those scissors.
I directed him with my eyes. He followed my order without question. Obviously, his guard was down, much like it had been the day I forced him to hold a scalpel against his own heart.
Now, grab Sandra, and point the sharp end of those scissors into her neck.

He pulled Sandra—this almost mirror image of me—against his chest, then pointed the sharp tip of the scissors at her jugular. Sandra’s eyes widened. “Jonas, what are you doing?”

“I’m sorry, Mom.” His hand shook. Jonas didn’t enjoy being controlled any more than I did, as was evident after I manipulated his actions once before. “Her power is strong. Without help from
Central
, I can’t stop her.”

Sandra’s eyes narrowed on me. “Okay, I’ll play. What do you want?” she asked me.

I pushed myself up the wall to stand. Blood began to trickle from my nose, pooling just above my upper lip. I heard noises from somewhere out in the hallway.

Lexi? Can you hear me?

I pulled tissues from a nearby Kleenex box and held them to my nose.
Jack, I hear you.

Oh, thank God. We’re almost there. Are you okay? I couldn’t reach you with my mind. I’ve been trying.

I’m fine. Who’s with you?
I asked.

Kyle, Seth, and Cathy. Why do you sound funny?

I walked to the three doors and locked each one. They were all heavy, steel doors, with prison-quality locks.
You’ll have to wait outside.

My hand was still on the last lock when the door handle jiggled.
What’s going on, Lexi? Did you lock the doors?

Yes.
I backed away, staring at the door, and still pressing the tissues against my nosebleed.

“So, it wasn’t fear I saw in your eyes, was it, Sarah?” Sandra asked.

“Don’t call me that.” I turned and faced Sandra. “He called you ‘Mom.’ Why?”

“Because I carried him for nine months, gave birth to him, and raised him.”