Overtaken (17 page)

An array of fancy appetizers was out on the steel and glass coffee table. There was hummus, green and black olives, and a spread of exotic cheeses. Chase quickly cornered my dad over the Spanish goat cheese. As if my palms weren't sweaty enough from their man-to-man, I was also left alone, face-to-face, with Richard Cochran.

“So, Nica, how's school?” he asked innocently, like any other father might inquire. I tried to play it cool and pretend that the question wasn't loaded with a million ways I could tip him off to things he didn't know about my friends or me.

“Good. Chase and I have a project together—” My sentence ground to a halt as Oliver suddenly walked into the room.

Cochran couldn't have been happier to see him. “Oliver! I thought you'd left already.”

Oliver just smiled, enjoying the look of shock on my face.

“No,” he said. “Chase and I had just finished studying when the bell rang.”

“Then stay for dinner!” Cochran said with a bright smile.

“Thanks, but I really can't.” Oliver's refusal sounded pretty weak.

“Nonsense,” Cochran retorted. “You're staying.”

Cochran's insistence was so forceful and definitive that I had to wonder whether this accidental run-in hadn't all been neatly orchestrated.

What kind of game was Cochran playing? Whatever it was, Oliver was in. He agreed to eat with us. This night was already off the rails and careening for disaster. Maybe I never should've come. It was too late to change my mind though. The Cochrans' private chef whisked us into the baronial dining room. It was time to eat and time to dig for info.

The food was amazing: grilled Colorado leg of lamb, roasted-beet salad with arugula and pistachios, and risotto with pea tendrils. Truly, for as much as I distrusted most of the people around me, I couldn't say that the meal was anything less than a symphony in my mouth. My dad even looked the other way when I sampled some of the Napa pinot noir wine. I needed it to get through the stilted conversation, the small talk, and the tension of sitting at a table with my ex–best friend, my wannabe boyfriend, and my worst enemy. It could've been the alcohol's gauzy lens, but Cochran didn't really seem so bad when he wasn't strutting around as a money-grubbing, DNA-altering, corporate monster. He sounded just like any other dad as he boasted about Chase's achievements, how his grades were up this year, and how his future was bright.

Oliver chimed in a handful of times to compare the ways in which he was excelling too, and each time, Cochran beamed. Chase didn't seem as thrilled. There was an undercurrent of competition, and I had to wonder how aggressively Oliver was trying to ingratiate himself into this family. Was Oliver just trying to be part of the conversation? Or had he already told Cochran the truth? There was no way he'd already said something, right? When that particular bomb went off, it could take the entire family with it.

Besides a rundown of Chase's grades and accomplishments (I had no idea he'd almost received Student of the Month twice) that seemed to impress even my own father, there was very little useful information to be gained from dinner. I blamed myself. I'd worked every angle I could think of, short of standing on my chair and shouting that I knew someone in this room could tell me more about Blackthorne. I was hoping that maybe Dad and Cochran would load up on brandy over dessert and something might spill out, but otherwise I was ready to get going.

A caramel
budino
was presented for dessert, and I used the opportunity to take a breather. Excusing myself, I headed down Cochran's labyrinthine halls in search of a bathroom.

“To the right.” I jumped at the sound of Oliver's voice and spun around to find him following me.

“And you just happened to be tutoring here tonight?”

“No. I planned this,” he admitted quite baldly. “I wanted to be here as soon as Chase told me you were coming.”

“Why?”

“I wanted you to realize Cochran's not the monster you think he is,” declared Oliver.

This still felt so incredibly wrong, but by getting Chase's hair I'd given my implicit blessing to the whole thing.

“How long has Cochran known?” I asked.

“Since I started tutoring Chase a week ago. Once I told Cochran, he wanted to make sure he had a way to help support me.”

“What about Chase?”

“You can tell him, I guess.”

“I'm not getting in the middle of this.” I shook my head, not wanting any part of this family drama.

“He'll figure it out eventually.”

I was stunned by Oliver's uncharacteristic coldness. He was acting as if no one else would have feelings about any of this, as if he were the only person was mattered. In fact, he was acting—more than a little bit—like Dana. I felt queasy at the thought. Could she be involved in this as well? I knew she'd driven a wedge between Oliver and me, but could she have pushed him into Cochran's orbit? Could she be influencing Oliver right now?

“He doesn't know about . . . your power, does he?” I asked with trepidation.

Oliver couldn't lie to me. He didn't even try to hold back his grin.

My voice went quiet. My heart started to palpitate. I wanted to scream. “Why would you tell him?”

I expected a snarky, heartless answer, but instead Oliver seemed hurt. “He's my father, Nica.”

“You're going to get us all rounded up and used as guinea pigs!” I warned, thrusting a nasty finger in his face. “This is the man who's been responsible for what's happening. He's been using us as guinea pigs. God knows what else he has planned.” I didn't feel safe anymore, not around my friend and definitely not in Cochran's house.

“You don't know what you're talking about,” Oliver blurted back. “There's so much more.”

My face registered confusion, and I was primed to ask another question when Chase interrupted.

“There you are! Dessert's almost gone.”

“Actually, I've got to go,” I said, leaving Oliver behind. Chase was rightly confused, but I hit him with a kiss on the cheek and it shut him up.

“Nica's leaving,” he announced as I pulled him into the dining room with me.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “I have a paper due tomorrow.”

My dad read the fury in my eyes and knew to play along. Our good-byes were fast and polite. I felt bad leaving Chase hanging, but I pulled him aside and assured him this had nothing to do with him. I told him I'd see him at school.

The next time I saw him, my world would be in pieces.

•  •  •

School rolled around, and I dragged myself from class to class, sticking to the fringes where I was eking out my increasingly isolated existence. My goal was nothing more than to get through the day without getting my heart broken or spirit crushed by some new turn of events. I was closing in on freedom when I rounded a corner right into Dana Fox. She smirked, and I got the sense she'd been waiting for me.

“You shouldn't be so mean to Oliver.” Dana's tone was so insistent and demanding that it sounded like a veiled threat or warning.

I tried to brush past her, but she stayed in my way. I tried to avoid her eyes. I didn't want a repeat of my history-test disaster. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“He said he saw you at Chase's last night and that you weren't very nice to him.” Nothing escaped Dana. Clearly she knew all.

“I'm glad you're so concerned,” I shot back, continuing on my way.

“If it's because of who his dad is . . .” She deliberately left it dangling, like a wayward participle.

I stopped in my tracks. “He told you.” So much for not having my spirit crushed. It was like Oliver was determined for our secrets to get out—or at least to spread to the people who wanted to exploit us the most.

“Oliver's my best friend, Nica,” Dana proclaimed. “We tell each other everything.” It was said with a certain amount of unmitigated glee.

“That's adorable. Make sure to tell him Nica says ‘Hi,' and ‘How could you?'”

“Not everyone has a good relationship with their father,” Dana remarked. “It's a very special thing, what you have. Let Oliver make his own decisions.”

“Oh, that won't be a problem.” I wasn't going to stand in Oliver's way any longer.

“And work on your empathy, Nica. You'll need it.” Dana turned and shuffled off to her class, leaving me with an uneasy feeling that I hadn't heard the last of this.

•  •  •

I returned home to a front door hanging wide open. For a split second, I feared the worst: Bar Tech had come and taken my father. My characteristically quick walk turned to a trot and nearly a sprint as my mind processed the possibilities. When I hit the front step, I breathed a sigh of relief. My dad stepped out with two duffel bags. No one had taken him. No one had hurt him. He was safe after all.

“Dad!” It was a relief to see him. Dana could be a bitch, but there was the slightest sliver of truth to what she said. I didn't always appreciate my relationship with my father as much as I could.

He didn't even look at me. I should've known something was wrong the second I opened my mouth. Was he angry with me again? I followed him out to the driveway, where he was loading the bags into the back of his car.

“What are you doing with two duffel bags?”

“Sorry. Do I know you?” My dad asked with a perplexed expression.

The sound I made in reply was a mix between a laugh, a snort, and some granular
hoccck
in the back of my throat. The only appropriate response. In the span of a second, I went from assuming he was kidding to realizing he wasn't to checking myself. This was my house, right? And this man—I recognized him—he was my father, correct? I fell into a feedback loop and couldn't answer.

“Dad. It's me. Nica. Your daughter.”

“I don't have a daughter.” His eyes got wide as he eased his way to the driver's door, backing away from me like I had rabies.

Nothing—nothing—had prepared me for that moment. What could? Turning invisible for the first time wasn't even a comparison to the shock wave that hit me when he said that.

“Listen,” he said, continuing to back away. “You look confused. Is there someone you want me to call, or . . . ?”

This was really happening. My own father had forgotten who I was. How was that possible? Had he hit his head? Not that I could see. Early Alzheimer's? I doubted it could happen so suddenly. It had to be Dana's fault. My rage boiled over into a gasp and a choked scream. She'd convinced him, controlled him, manipulated him into thinking I didn't exist. And where was he going? Where was she sending him? Would he ever come back?

I probably should've just gone invisible there and then. Let my amnesiac pseudo-dad figure out what happened later. Instead, I charged him, still insisting. I hadn't meant for it to seem crazy. I was literally throwing myself at him.

“Dad, please. You've got to remember me.”

But he didn't remember. His brain had been wiped clean of me—the good and the bad. I was so sorry for breaking into his files, for breaking his trust, for breaking his heart. I hadn't meant to lie, I didn't want powers, and I didn't want things to end like this.

He just saw a whirling, weeping maniac and jumped in his car, cranking the engine. He rolled the window down. “Get the hell off my property or I'll call security.”

I was stunned into silence. I didn't need that grief, so I backed away, apologizing. “But where are you going? What am I supposed to do?”

He stared at me, looking confused until the
waaaaahnk
of a Range Rover's horn in the distance broke it. The instant he turned to look at the car, I vanished. When he looked back, I was gone.

He didn't know it, but I was still standing in the doorway watching him as he sped off toward the unknown. Invisible to my own father.

•  •  •

The rest of that night was a total blur. I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I thought staying in the house would be fine. Who knew where my dad was going? I was in a daze, alternating between tears and standing at the threshold of the front door, daring myself to slip into the night and go after Dana. My thoughts became dark and twisted. More than once I stared at the kitchen knives, jutting from their wooden block, and told myself to just take one. Bring it to Dana's. She'd never even know I was there. . . .

She didn't know who she was messing with.

As much as I wanted revenge, I also knew that I wasn't a monster. I reached out to Jackson and Oliver. Neither answered my calls or texts. Were they just avoiding me? I couldn't be certain. I tried reaching out to my mother, too, knowing that she was well out of Dana's grasp, but was met with an automated message informing me that extreme weather conditions had disrupted communications at the base. I had no one left to talk to. Dana had, essentially, iced me out of my own existence. In a cruel twist of fate, I'd truly become the invisible girl.

Night turned into day, grief turned into sleep, and I woke up to the bright morning sun and someone pounding on my front door. The incessant
thumpthumpthump
felt like it was smashing directly into my brain as I got up and stumbled down the stairs. I fumbled with the lock and paused. What if it was Bar Tech Security? I almost didn't care. Whoever it was, it was at least another human being, some kind of company. I figured I'd take my chances and opened the door.

My visitor was a girl about my age, but the sun hit her from behind and silhouetted her face. I couldn't see who it was until she stepped forward to give me a hug.

“Hey, girl. Miss me?”

It was Maya. She was back.

I poured a stream of hot, black coffee into a purple ceramic mug and handed it to Maya. She clutched it, happy for the warmth and the pick-me-up. I poured a second cup for myself, hoping that the caffeine would help me refocus. In the ten minutes since Maya had arrived, I'd begun to feel better. Less alone, at least. Her presence was comforting, familiar. In a way I felt like I was back at the beginning, just arriving in Barrington and being pulled from my loneliness by Maya's kind hands.

At first I hadn't even known what to say. When I'd answered the door, my moorings were loose. I had nothing to hold on to, and I felt the darkness closing in. The hug that she offered as soon as she stepped forward was so genuine and full of love that a spark lit deep within me. I didn't know how long it would stay aflame or if it would spread and catch and bring me back, but in that moment it was enough.

“Come in,” I said, barely getting the words out. Maya crossed the threshold and entered the house. I closed the door behind her and locked it. Neither of us knew what to say next.

“You look exhausted,” she said, concern etched across her face.

Maya looked remarkably rested, at ease, and more beautiful than I'd remembered. She was a far cry from the terrified girl who'd left town in the middle of the night so long ago.

“I can't believe you're back.” We stuttered over each other's words, each trying to be the first to explain, but got nowhere. She laughed. Then I laughed. Just a chuckle, but that little flame in my soul grew. I'd never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

I settled in kitty-corner to Maya at my kitchen table, ready to hear her story. “Okay,” I said. “You first.”

She sipped her coffee. “The first few weeks I stayed with my sister in Chicago. But people around the university began to talk and ask too many questions. So I thought it was best to keep on the move.”

“You've been traveling all this time?”

“Mostly in the east,” she admitted. “Trying to stay off the grid.” She'd also taken the opportunity to strengthen her abilities during her self-imposed sabbatical.

“How,” I asked, eager to hear if her methods were like mine, “did you even get your powers to stay around without the pulse to activate and reactivate them?”

“Exercise,” she declared. “Not physical, but mental. By the time I hit the road, I already felt my telekinesis fading, but I was determined to hold on to it. I spent a lot of time practicing.”

“I'm impressed,” I said truthfully.

“Anger's a great motivator, Nica. All I could think about was how pissed I was at Bar Tech and Cochran and Chase. At having to leave Barrington—even if it was just for my own safety. And then rage at feeling my powers draining away. I'm one pissed-off chick.”

“Glad you got in touch with your inner demon,” I joked. This seemed to be the fuel Maya needed, the raw materials that she could burn to keep her strong. “Do you ever worry that it's dangerous?” I asked. “Using your emotions as a catalyst?”

She shook her head, defiant. “It's a release. Almost therapeutic.”

I nodded, able to relate to that very feeling. How many times had my jealousy or anxiety resulted in a flutter of invisibility that I had to hope no one was witness to? The practice had helped me concentrate to get to the place where I could control it myself.

“You picked a helluva time to come back to all this shit,” I joked.

“It was weird, but it was almost like I felt your anguish two thousand miles away. Drawing me back.”

I spilled my guts out to Maya about every crazy thing that had happened since she was gone, capping it off with Dana's miraculous return and the terrifying way Dana not only turned Jackson and Oliver against me but my own father as well. Luckily, no one knew Maya was back. This seemed to be my trump card, to be played very cautiously.

Maya wasn't surprised by what I recounted to her. What was most important was that she and I work together. Her intense emotions had pulled her back home without thinking about how dangerous it could be. The first thing she noticed was Bar Tech's pervasive presence near her house. Security wasn't heavy, per se, but there were enough agents afoot to raise a red flag.

“Will you go check it out?” Maya pleaded. “Without anybody knowing that you were there.” She raised her perfectly arched right eyebrow.

“I will”—I leaned over and grabbed Maya's wrist—“if you help me with my dad.”

Maya finished her coffee and started to spin the cup in a slow circle. “How?”

“I don't know exactly,” I admitted, “but you're the only one I can trust. Dana doesn't know you're back, so I know you aren't under her control.”

“How do I know you're not?” Maya shot back. “You're cooped up in this house. Your dad supposedly just walked away and left you alone. . . .”

I could see her growing nervous. We were both in a precarious position.

“Sorry,” she said. “Maybe that was harsh. I don't doubt Dana's up to something, but I'm not just going to drift around Barrington waiting to get caught up in whatever it is. If we could fight back, that might be different.”

“I'm not sure exactly how I've been able to dodge Dana's power and influence other than by my own sheer force of will,” I explained. “From the moment she returned, I've suspected she wasn't telling the truth about where she'd been and what happened to her. Perhaps my doubt and mistrust protected me just enough from falling under her sway. I can't prove anything to you right now, but if you can trust me—for just, like, twenty-four hours—maybe I can.”

“I don't know. . . .”

“Stay here and give me the day to find proof. If I can't, I won't hold it against you if you decide to just go under the radar again. But you and I might be the only ones who can stop Dana.”

In my gut I knew that the other benefit of keeping Maya around was for her sheer power. Invisibility was amazing, but it wasn't a weapon. I was stealthy—and sure, I knew how to throw a punch—but I couldn't go up against a real enemy the way she could when she was unleashed.

Maya looked at me and nodded. “It's time we take those bitches down.”

•  •  •

I didn't bother going to school that day. I couldn't be sure it was safe for me to walk the halls of Barrington High anymore. If Dana could get my dad to walk away, what else was she capable of? I didn't see the situation escalating to violence, but I didn't want to put myself in a situation where it was unavoidable. I had plenty of absences I could burn through before they would start to affect my future potential, and weighed against the possibility of Dana destroying my future, I'd choose absences time and time again.

Maya didn't stick around to talk. She didn't tell me where she was off to, but after settling in, she said she'd be back later. I assumed she was snooping around town. I could only hope that she meant it when she said she'd stay away from her parents' house. Her emotions were as fragile as they were volatile, and I was afraid she might do something regrettable if Bar Tech Security spotted her.

But at the moment—5:19 p.m., to be precise—that was all out of my hands. I was back in my father's office. I'd been here most of the day, going through every document and shred of paper in his files. Blackthorne came up nowhere. I couldn't find anything about any projects—private, public, or otherwise—with that name. I even did a computer search using my high school's account for a LexisNexis database. If the mystery were an assignment, my teachers would be proud of how thorough my research was, but I'd still flunk without evidence or a conclusion. How hard I tried was not going to win me any points in this situation.

I tried to connect students' social network pages to e-mail addresses and then tried common passwords on the offhand chance anyone was dumb enough to use “password123” in the year 2014. No one was. The strangest piece of all was just that Dana had no online footprint. Her name came up in relation to her disappearance, but she had no Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Snapchat and no e-mail account that I could find. She was playing it smart. She knew that if someone like myself tried to link anyone to her, they'd follow the threads back to a gaping void. In Dana's world, all roads led to nothing.

I put my feet up on the desk and leaned back in my dad's office chair. It squeaked ever so slightly as I swiveled back and forth, my eyes searching for an answer. I didn't want to disappoint Maya, and I didn't want to disappoint the mystery texter. My back was completely to a wall. It was time to come up with something, and fast. What was I missing? What path had I not yet traveled? There had to be a clue I'd missed. With a hearty shove, I sent the chair spinning in a circle. Think, Nica. The small divots and imperfections in the ceiling blended to a blur, and when I closed my eyes, I saw a flash of pink.

I'd overlooked something. I snapped forward with a start. My brain knew it. I'd seen something and missed its significance. Pink. I stood up, my senses at the ready. I had to find it. I scoured over the desk and reopened the broken, unlocked cabinet. Didn't see anything remotely pink. I spun back around to the computer, the monitor . . . nothing. I got up and walked around to the other side of the desk, the side I would've faced walking into the room. There it was.

A pink pad of sticky notes.

I grabbed it and expected to find something written on the top piece of paper, but it was blank. Then I looked again: No, it wasn't. That's why I'd overlooked it the first time. Whatever my dad had written down, he'd peeled off and taken with him—but I could read the imprint of what he'd written on the chunk of pad he'd left behind. It was faint, but the top line clearly was one word that started off “BLAC” before the press of his pen became too light to make out. This same word appeared to end with “NE.” My heart started to race. He'd discovered and written down something about Blackthorne? The next line down read . . .

Dammit. It was so hard to tell. Definitely a number. Looked like “37.510” followed by “98.333.” What the hell did that mean? I fell back into the chair. Another wall. Maybe even completely unrelated. What if the word wasn't “Blackthorne”? What if it was but the numbers were from something else?

This was useless. I needed something more direct. It was Friday night. While I sat here struggling to put the most basic pieces together, there was an overnight trip for Ski Club Dana and all her friends would be gathered up on Whiteface, probably plotting against the entire town as they raced down the mountain and drank hot chocolate. As soon as I had that thought, I knew exactly what I had to do.

I had to go straight to the source. If this all revolved around the members of Ski Club, I'd have to go back.

•  •  •

This, I thought, arms wrapped around my body as I slouched my way up a slushy, icy service road, had somehow sounded much more heroic in my head. When I'd first been struck with my grand plan, I thought I'd just drive to Ski Club, go invisible, and see what I could see. In the space of a minute, I realized that wasn't going to work. First of all—no car. Hadn't helped my social life; wasn't helping now. On top of that, anyone I'd be comfortable enough to borrow a car from, like Oliver or Jackson, was no longer in my corner. What was I going to do, steal Oliver's mom's? I honestly considered it, but it was too much trouble. I couldn't very well bike to Whiteface, and—at almost six in the evening—the school's buses had long since taken the kids to their destination and were probably still up there, waiting to bring them back in the morning.

Probably.

I couldn't remember. Did they wait, or did they head back to the school and send a different driver to pick us up? School wasn't too far to walk, and it wouldn't hurt to find out. I decided that was my best play. I knew I couldn't wear layers, since only the stuff that touched my skin would stay invisible, so I threw on some sleek Under Armour that offered the best chance of keeping me warm and headed off into the dark, cold night. The only other thing I brought was a small GoPro camera I'd picked up overseas, so that I could record whatever I saw. One way or another, I was coming back from this trip with proof.

•  •  •

Out the office door I went and off to find Bus 18. Sitting on the cold cement floor for an hour and waiting for one of the drivers to open the doors to the bus was the worst. By the time I followed him on board, I was freezing and ready to call this whole adventure off. Luckily, he was a big fan of a heated bus and cranked it up well into the seventies. Not so luckily, he also turned out to be a reggae fan who really liked singing along.

I sat in the very back, doing my best to ignore the deluge of sharp upstrokes and lilting backbeats as I warmed up. What would I find up on Whiteface? Some horrible experiment? A plan to go to war with Barrington, using mutant teenagers as weapons? Or just a girl who was so lonely and desperate to be popular that she was willing to force her totally unaware peers into surrounding her with warmth, praise, and friendship?