Mindsurge (Mindspeak Book 3) (22 page)

I stopped, and curled my fingers into my palm until my nails broke the skin.

Lexi, if she does anything to me, I won’t be able to stay inside your head. You’ll go back to being unconscious, and I’ll be blind.

“Hi, Lexi. Long time, no see.” Addison always sounded older than her eight-year-old body looked.

“Jack’s out looking for you.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

I cocked my head, studied her. She didn’t yet know we’d figured out she was the one getting Sandra and Maya in and out. “Well, he said he hadn’t talked to you in a while. Wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m sure you’ve all been busy. It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. We need to stick together.”

Keep her talking. Invite her to breakfast. I’ll tell Jack.

“Kyle and I are on our way to breakfast. You interested?” My words slurred slightly. I always sounded a bit drunk when drugged and under Kyle’s control.

“Sure.” She wrung her hands, glancing periodically around me to look down the hallway behind me. “What were you guys doing down here? I heard we had Sandra’s clone locked up here on campus.”

Wave your hand like it’s no big deal,
Kyle instructed.
Tell her Maya’s sleeping.

“Pfft. Oh yeah. I just checked on her. She’s sleeping. I’d like to get that tracker out of her. I think she’d be relieved to be away from Sandra and out of her control.”

A wrinkle formed across Addison’s forehead.

Now lead Addison out of here. I’ll do my best to keep you on your feet. She’s not getting inside your head because you’re unconscious. It’s frustrating her. Don’t let on, but I’m having trouble finding Jack.

I reached out and grabbed Addison’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go eat.” Even while I was unconscious, my heart caught in my chest at Kyle’s words. What had happened to Jack?

Kyle kept me walking toward the dining hall, and I led Addison and tried to keep our conversation going. It was early in the morning. Most students weren’t even up yet, and the campus was quiet. We were halfway across campus when she slowed.
 

I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up, Lexi. I’ll go blind the minute I lose my grip on your mind. And once I’m gone, if you’re even the least bit conscious, she’ll know what you’re thinking.

So what do we do?

Speed her up.

“I’m freezing.” I crossed my arms and rubbed the goosebumps that formed there. “Let’s hurry.”

She looked toward the turnaround in front of the dorms, then back at me. “Wait. Jack’s coming.”

I looked up. “From where? How do you know?”

“He just told me, silly.”

She’s playing you. She’s trying to stall. Jack hasn’t answered me.

Just keep me conscious, okay?

Kyle sighed.
I’ll try.

Just as we reached the sidewalk, a dark car sped to a stop in front of us.
Kyle?
Panic sent my heart into overdrive.

I can’t hold on much longer. You have to relax.

It’s Sandra.
I swallowed hard, and glanced at Addison. Her hands shook. She stuffed them in her coat pockets. I decided it was time to stop pretending. “At least you have the decency to look scared. You can stop the games.”

Addison’s crazed eyes found mine. “You knew? Why can’t I read your mind?”

“Because Maya drugged me. I’m unconscious.”

“Kyle’s directing you.” She glanced behind me to Kyle. “But he’s about to lose you, isn’t he? That’s why his face is scrunched up in pain.”

Which was definitely unfortunate. “I brought you out of that coma. I broke into The Farm to save you. And this is how you repay me? Repay Jack? After everything we did for you, you’re working with Sandra?”

“I had no choice.” Her voice was meek, quiet.

“We always have a choice.”

“She has my mom,” she whispered.

Anita had been at The Farm when we were there. “What? Why didn’t you say something? We would have helped her.”

The back door of the car opened, and out stepped Sandra. “Hello, Sarah.”

“You can’t win,” Addison said. “Sandra always wins.”

“That’s right, Sarah. Surely you’re starting to realize this. Addison, where’s Maya?”

Addison glanced over her shoulder. “She’s back at the infirmary.”

Sandra narrowed her gaze at me. “You did something to her, didn’t you?”

“Nothing she didn’t deserve.”

Sandra pulled a stun gun from somewhere behind her, walked up to Kyle and stung him in the arm. As he fell to the ground convulsing, my legs gave out. I had regained a little bit of control over my body, but not enough to keep from hitting my head on the sidewalk as I slumped to the ground.

My fingers and hands were numb, and I couldn’t move my legs; and in my state of impaired consciousness, I couldn’t even mindspeak. Kyle rolled back and forth on the ground in pain, and I knew that when his pain subsided, the blindness would prevent him from helping me. I was caught, helpless.

“Addison, go get Maya, now.”

Addison’s gaze ping-ponged between me and Sandra before she turned and sprinted toward the infirmary. For someone so little and young, she was fast.

Sandra stood over me. “This would have been much easier had you simply accepted your fate. Maya understands this already. What happened to you?”

My eyes opened a little. I brushed my fingers across my lips. “I guess you messed up my genes when you altered them.”

Sandra laughed. “That’s funny.” A frightening chill moved through my body. Sandra knelt beside me and traced my cheekbone, my chin, and ran her fingers down my neck. “You’re my masterpiece, Sarah. There’s nothing imperfect about you. You’re the key to the future of stopping the world’s most deadly diseases. We’re going to make a great team. You can either participate willingly, or I can force you. You thought it was rough having Jonas in your head before? Wait ’til you see what changes I’ve made to his tracker. It’s going to be brilliant.”

My heart constricted.
Oh, Jonas, I’m sorry.
I hadn’t heard from him since earlier that morning. How could I help him, help the other clones, if I was under Sandra’s control?

Sandra opened the door of the car and said something to the driver. He exited the car and circled the hood. He was a tall, bulky man, not someone I had any desire to mess with. He bent down and started to scoop me up off the concrete.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Mr. Bulky paused.

Sandra snapped her head in Jack’s direction, followed by the slow rotation of Mr. Bulky, who had one hand up, one hand reaching under his sports jacket.

Jack. He’s got a gun.
Finally, I was able to use my mind to reach out to Jack. I tried to reach Mr. Bulky.
Do not touch that gun,
I ordered.
Raise both hands and turn around.

He did as he was told.

“Nice trick, Sarah.” Sandra looked about as worried as a cat taking a nap. What game was she playing?

Jack held out a hand to me. “Can you stand?”

“I think so.” The drug seemed to be wearing off. I reached out and grabbed hold of his hand and let him pull me to my feet. I swayed slightly then touched my hand to the back of my head. My fingers came away bright red. “Shit. I hit my head pretty hard.”

Motion to the left caught my eye. It was Addison and Maya, running toward us. I pulled on Jack’s arm, supporting myself while he continued to watch Sandra and the driver for any movement.

As Addison and Maya got closer, they slowed, both seeming to take in the situation. Addison refused to look at Jack or me, but Maya’s eyes shot daggers.

“Okay, Sarah.” Sandra had been calmly gnawing on her cuticle, but now she dropped her hand. “This is your chance to choose to come with me.”

“What crazy planet do you live on that you would think I would come with you?” Although I’d go to her island eventually. I’d rescue Jonas, take control of the clones she was growing, and make her pay for the pain she’d caused. But I wouldn’t go there with her. When I went, it would be on my terms.

She stepped closer to me, ignoring the gun Jack had pointed at her head. “You will join me eventually. I can be patient for now. But if you come now, I won’t send my next gift.” She smiled.

Don’t listen to her. You know this is a trick.

I stepped even closer, rotating my shoulders back. “Your gifts don’t scare me.”

Laughter erupted from deep inside her. “Oh, Sarah. This one should.” She reached up and patted my cheek. “You call me after you receive it, okay? We’ll talk then.”

One blink later, Sandra, Addison, and Maya vanished.

Days later, we still hadn’t received any messages or “gifts” from Sandra. And I was pissed at myself for constantly glancing over my shoulder and jumping at every sound. Meanwhile, I was moving forward with what I called “Operation Sandra Smackdown.”

The only problem: I still needed to tell Jack the plan.

He held my hand tightly as we walked across campus. He had reverted to touching me a lot since Sandra came for Maya.
 

“I know what you’re doing,” I told him. I sipped my tea. The sky was overcast, and the warmth of the tea and the soothing effects of the honey comforted me.

“You do?” He placed his free hand over his heart, feigning shock.

“You think you can protect me from Sandra just by shielding me.” We had discovered that Jack had the ability to keep people like Jonas, Ty, and Maya out of my head as long as he was touching me. The issue, though, was that it wasn’t feasible for him to be touching me at all times. Although that didn’t stop him from trying.

“Mmm.”

As we approached Wellington’s admin building, we passed a few government vehicles—some black Crown Victorias and a smaller SUV, all with official government license plates. My guests had arrived.

Squeezing my hand, Jack halted my forward motion. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

“It’s okay. I invited them.”

Jack maneuvered his body to stand in front of me, keeping me from proceeding. “What do you mean, you invited them? Who are they? What’s going on?”

“Just some government peeps I thought could help.” I was purposely vague. “It’s time we take Sandra, your father, and their operation down.”

Jack twisted his neck, popping it twice. “What are you talking about? How are
you
going to do that?”

“I have some ideas.”

I sidestepped Jack, but held on to his hand and pulled him behind me. “I’ve been resisting everything we’ve been dealing with since the beginning. But now it’s time to face it head-on. We’ll never be free to move forward with our lives with Sandra constantly trying to brainwash me, trying to steal me away from my life here at Wellington.”

“So what’s the plan, then? Are you going to let me in on it, or do I have to stand in the background and make the have-you-lost-your-mind face?”

“I haven’t lost my mind.”

“Okay then, let me ask you this: how did an eighteen-year-old girl talk a team of ‘government peeps’ into showing up for this meeting?”

“I got Coach to help.”

“You asked Coach Williams.”

“And I may have threatened them a little.”

“Right. You threatened them. With your paralyzing ring?” He chuckled.

“You think this is funny?”

His smile only faltered a little. “No. I don’t think it’s the least bit funny. More like terrifying.”

I dropped his hand and sped up. Before I reached the door to the building, he grabbed my arm. “I’m just wondering how you might have ‘threatened’ a group of government officials. Officials who have done
nothing
to help us with anything that’s happened so far, and who we’d rather not know that much about our gifts. So what do you have that made them listen?”

“Information. And money.”

“Money? Your inheritance.”

“I’ve tried telling you. We keep getting interrupted. My father left me a small fortune when he died.”

“I gathered that. What kind of small fortune are we talking?”
 

I turned my head into the breeze, and the cool air blew some rogue strands away from my face. I took a deep breath in, preparing to blow Jack’s mind.

Jack touched my cheek and directed my gaze back toward him. “How much?”

“Three point two.”

“Three point two what? Million?”

“Billion.”

Jack dropped his hand and took a step back. He cupped his chin, rubbing his hand back and forth across his five o’clock shadow. The vein in his neck began pulsing rapidly.

“Say something.” I couldn’t hide the shakiness from my voice.
 

He opened and shut his mouth three times, then turned away from me, looking out across campus.

“Jack?”

He whipped back around. “Let me get this straight. You’ve known since the day those attorneys came to meet with you that you were the heir to a few
billion
dollars? Do you have any idea what kind of money that is?”

I didn’t even bother answering those questions. The last one didn’t even deserve an answer. How could anyone—especially a teenager sheltered inside a boarding school wearing uniforms half her life—comprehend what that kind of money meant? All I knew was that it meant
power
. I just wasn’t sure how much power.

“Are you mad I didn’t tell you? I tried. I wanted to. It was just, you were angry at me. And I was mad at you. And then people were shooting at us. Someone
did
shoot two of us. Jonas was taken. Maya tried to kill me. Twice. Then Sandra almost kidnapped me.”

Jack closed the distance between us. He slipped an arm around me and raised a finger to my lips. “Shhh. I’m not mad that you didn’t tell me.”

“You’re not?” I searched his eyes. “This changes everything, doesn’t it?”

“Money doesn’t change things between you and me. I just wish you would have trusted me with this sooner.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. I wanted to tell you the other night. I started to, but then Jonas was taken. I tried again when we got back to my room. But you fell asleep while I was in the shower. And—”

“I would have protected you better had I known. This is why Roger wants you dead, isn’t it? He stood to take over more than just the school if he got rid of you.”