The Forbidden Trilogy (47 page)

I tried to keep my voice calm, to choke back the tears that
threatened to consume me. "But you hurt kids. You impregnate girls against
their will, and then watch as they die when your experiments go wrong. Now,
kids at school are being whipped and shot in the back of the head. You're
harming the paranormal population more than society would have. You are the beast
you claim to want to protect us from."

He lowered his head. "It is a shame you feel that way.
We are so close to the final piece that would save us all. Your friends
retrieved a valuable weapon in our fight for freedom. Combined with you and
your child, we will be invincible. We cannot allow any rebellion, not when our
rightful place in the world is at our fingertips. We must maintain control. Do
you not see? Our methods, though severe, are all for the greater good."

I softened my voice. "Is this the legacy you want to
leave when you die?"

He looked up and his eyes widened in shock. "How do you
know that? I have not allowed you access to those thoughts."

"It wasn't hard to figure out. The nosebleed, your
frailness... and I can feel the presence of death on you. What are you dying
from?"

His laugh held only bitterness. "I was not so fortunate
as you in the genes. My powers are great, but they have come at a great price.
My brain is eating itself. Even if I stopped using all of my powers, I would
not live long. So I have done what I can to further the cause until I could
pass the reigns to you, my sister."

His unnatural calm returned. "Are you beginning to see?
This is why we risk lives in genetic experimentation. Too many para-powers kill
their hosts. Many of your friends will not survive past their twentieth
birthday. But we have made advances, and with you and your baby's help, we can
save the others and breed new children."

My universe tipped and rebalanced. Everything I knew,
everything I'd experienced now needed an entirely new labeling system. Right
and wrong had ceased to be black and white. It had balled up into so many
shades of gray that I couldn't decipher anything anymore.

Could evil be justified by good intentions? Or was that
truly the road to hell, as the saying went? My hand went to my belly. My
thoughts went to Ana and the professor and Mary and Drake. No, evil is never
justified, no matter the intention.

"I understand what you're telling me, but there has to
be a better way. Having the right motives doesn't justify what you're doing. Do
you have any idea what kind of violation you are perpetrating on these girls
when you impregnate them?" I moved closer to him and held his eyes.
"Help me, brother. Help me set this whole business back on course. We can
give these kids real freedom, not this tyranny you've created. We can create a
new environment for them, one where they won't be beaten and killed and
experimented on against their will."

The only way he could see, the only way he could truly know
what he had done was to show him, to make him feel what I felt. I had to merge
with him the way I had merged with Drake, but to do so I had to become
completely vulnerable.

I hesitated. My sweaty hands clenched and unclenched. As
much as I wanted it to, time did not stand still for this. It moved inexorably
forward, carrying the safety of my friends with it.

Without further thought, I reached for him, opened myself
and allowed him to merge completely with me.

Every memory, ever fear, every tear I'd cried and all my
broken dreams, even every joy—I poured them all into the light of his
consciousness.

The betrayals and the pain, both psychical and emotional,
threatened to engulf me, but still I poured. Still I opened.

My first kiss with Drake, the feeling of love between us
when finally we met in the flesh.

My terror and fear at discovering I was pregnant.

Drake's hands, covered in the blood of the man the Seeker
had sent to hunt us.

My hope and joy when I read my acceptance letter to Sarah
Lawrence.

The loss of realizing I would never have any of that life
that I'd spent years cultivating in my mind.

Ana, dying in my arms—for me.

I fed him the thoughts and fears and memories of others—of
Mary as her mind collapsed, of Luke and Lucy when they lost their mother, of
the countless Rent-A-Kids whose lives he'd taken away.

He fell to the floor and curled up into a ball. His pleas
were neither mental nor verbal, but I understood nonetheless.

'Please, stop. It hurts. So. Much. Pain. Stop.'

"I'm not trying to hurt you out of spite. I need you
to see the real effects of what you and your father have done. I need you to
understand it's not worth it, not the way you are doing it."

Being open at this level created a two-way link. Just as he
had access to my emotional and mental dump, so too could I feel and see his.

Fear of death colored everything. He had always been valued
by his father because of his para-powers, and now those very powers were the
cause of his death.

He feared his father's disapproval, his withdrawal of love
and pride. He craved family and connection, friendships not driven by fear,
greed or compulsion.

In that moment, I saw past the enemy and into the man….

***

A small boy sits alone in a dark, locked closet. He cries
and cries, but no one comes. He knows he must perform. He must find the other
minds like his—minds with special gifts. "The darkness will force you to
focus," his father had said.

Has it been hours? Days? He doesn't know anymore. Filth
and urine stick to his cramped legs. He tries to find them, tries to see where
the others are.

And one appears, like a star in the night. He sees the
other mind. "Father! Father! I did it. I know where one is."

A hand grips him and pulls him out. His eyes can't open
in the light, and his legs don't work, but he tries to tell what he saw.

The hand crashes into his face and sends him across the
floor. His father's voice fills the room. "That's not enough. Find more.
We need more."

And so he does….

The boy is older now, a teenager with a love of his own.
She has red hair and freckles he likes to trace with his fingertip.

Myra. Myra who can calm oceans, who can also calm his
soul.

They sit at the Hub, eating and laughing and talking.
It's her birthday, and they want to sneak off campus to see the real world. The
boy knows he can do this; his father has made sure he is powerful enough to do
anything, even though he pretends to be a normal paranormal kid at the school,
like everyone else. Only Myra knows his true identity.

But the memory is corrupted, and the sky rains down blood
as the boy cries and holds the broken, dead body of his love.

A door stands at his side. The door to memory. The door
to truth.

He can't open it, but he must.

He walks through the door and sees his father, holding
the bloody knife that killed his Myra.

***

The connection broke and both the Seeker and I fell to our
knees.

He whimpered. "No. No, it can't be. Not my father. No,
No!"

We stared at each other, and I knew he remembered. His
father
had
killed Myra, not some secret organization that hated paranormals.
His father had manipulated him and wiped his memory of the knowledge, so that
he would work for the good of the cause.

I reached out to touch his hand. "I'm sorry. I'm so
sorry."

He wiped the tears on my cheek that I didn't know were
there. "How could I forget? How could I let him do that to my mind?"

I opened my mouth to answer. "It's not—"

A fire alarm rang in the distance. Tendrils of smoke crawled
in under the door of the library.

The Seeker's eye grew wide. "The building is burning
down. We have to leave, now."

My mind tumbled with thoughts of my safety and care for my
child, then landed on the most burning fear of all.

Drake.

"He's locked in a room" I said, "and won't be
able to get out. He's still hurt from what happened to him."

"There's no time. For the sake of your child, you have
to leave."

I had to choose? My life for Drake's?

I couldn't live with either outcome.

Lucy shoved Mr. Black into the guard shack that connected to
the main gate, and forced him to sit down. She explored the small cubicle-like
area. It had been designed for two men on duty, with two chairs, a computer
console, the gate keypad, a speaker, and a garbage can with empty cans of soda
and trash from vending machine junk. She used one hand to hack into the system
while she kept the gun pointed at Mr. Black.

Everything she tried created an error message. Sweat beaded
on her hand holding the gun, but she couldn't stop to wipe it—couldn't give Mr.
Black an edge.

She slammed her fist on the small desk in frustration.
"How do I open the gate?"

Mr. Black shrugged. "You need a password, and I'm not
giving it to you."

She waved the gun in front of his face, then aimed it at his
forehead. "You do realize I still have a gun, right? I mean, I'm more
deadly with this than with my para-power."

His laugh lacked any humor. "You think I care if you
kill me? The only thing that matters is my daughter, and if I help you and your
friends escape, she'll die. So go ahead, pull the trigger."

Without her powers, Lucy had to rely on her instincts once
again. She hated this feeling of uncertainty and emptiness, but she'd seen Mr.
Black with his daughter, and knew that connection was real. The daughter was
the key to getting him to cooperate.

"I'm surprised at you, Mr. Black. You've obviously had
some military training, been around the world a bit. I'd think you would know
when you're being played. These people pride themselves on being genetically
superior to everyone else. Do you really think they'd give you the cure for
your daughter's illness, even if they had it?"

His lips twitched slightly.

"We—my friends and I—are this organization's idea of
the perfect human specimens, and still they've lied to us, imprisoned us and
impregnated many of us. You really think they're going to treat you and your
daughter any better? If they were going to save your daughter, they would've
done so by now."

Her words settled into him, but she could see the fight
behind his eyes. "You think I'm going to listen to you, Bitch. You don't
know what I can do, what they've promised me."

"You're right, I don't. But I know it's all lies. Why
would they help someone they think is inferior? Have they done anything but
barely keep her alive? Have they given you any reason to think you can trust
them?" She stepped back from him, but kept her gun aimed as she leaned
against the desk behind her. "You're an ass, but you're not stupid. Think.
Whose side do you want to be on now?"

Outside, guns fired, people screamed, friends died. Lucy
hovered on the brink of irrational behavior, struggling to keep herself calm
while Mr. Black thought. And thought. And thought.

She shoved the gun against his head again. "My friends
are dying and I'm losing patience. Decide."

Lucy could see as he reluctantly accepted the truth of her
words, a truth he very much did not want to believe. Letting go of the lie
meant letting go of the last hope his daughter had to live. A small twinge of
empathy floated through her, but it changed nothing. Too many were already paying
for his indecisiveness.

"If I let you out, are you going to shoot me?"

"No, Mr. Black. I'm not you. If you open these gates,
I'll help you get your daughter out of here."

"Sure, like I would trust you. I know you want to
punish me for the things you think I've done. Why would you help me?"

"First, I'm not going to let your daughter suffer alone
in there. She needs you and she's a true innocent in all of this. Second, I'm
not a monster."

"Fine. The password is 4321978."

Lucy raised her hand and began typing in the numbers, but
something in the shift of his eyes and the shuffle of his stance stopped her.
"You're lying."

His eyes widened. "You have your powers back? But
how—"

"No, I don't. But as someone once told me, humans can
tell right from wrong, even without powers. I assume a false code will trip
some kind of security shut-down? Nice try, but you need to give me the correct
code, or things are going to get ugly here. I'm not going to let all of these
students die for you."

Mr. Black nodded and typed in the correct code. "I
underestimated you."

Lucy laughed as the gates rolled open.

Time ticked by in my head with each heartbeat. Save myself
or save Drake?

That would have been easy to answer. The real question was
much harder. Save Drake or save our child?

I jumped for the door. "I can't leave him to die. We
have to go find him." My mind could only hold one thought:
Drake is in
trouble.

I should have made room for a few more thoughts—like
doorknobs hot enough to brand a human's skin.

A scream tore out of my throat, and I pulled back my
blistered hand. The Seeker tsk-tsked and tore a piece of cloth from his white
robe, but his hands fumbled and shook. He tried again, though the pained
expression on his face showed that the effort cost him. "Here, use this as
a bandage."

"How are we going to get out?" Panic gripped my
heart. I reached out to find Drake, but he existed as a black hole in the
universe—invisible to me and my powers. Instead, I hunted for Lucy's mental signature.

'Fire! Must run. Sam... Sam? Help us. Our powers don't
work. The guards will kill us.'