Unforgiven (16 page)

Two of them got up eventually. One excused himself to check something in his bag. Washington said he wanted to go to the restroom before the train left, but he added that he couldn’t wait to come back to Maddie’s beautiful face. She beamed at him, and I wanted to walk him in front of that bus all over again. I watched helplessly as the last man sweet-talked Maddie, and then the train’s explosion blew my heart to pieces.

The model train lay in pieces at my feet. The explosion had not harmed me at all. It wasn’t real, at least, not this time. I looked around in the darkness, tears streaming down my face, when something tugged at the back of my mind.

Two men had left the train. The one who stayed had died with Maddie. So whose memory had I just watched?

The sound of someone clapping echoed through the space, but I couldn’t find the source of the noise.

“Well done, Mackenzie.” A man’s voice slithered through the air around me, making my skin crawl.

Folding my arms over my chest and pulling my sweater tight around me, I tried to protect myself from him.

“You are a rare specimen indeed.” I had to resist the urge to cover my ears when he spoke. Was it Shields? I wasn’t sure who else it could be, so by default, I assumed it had to be. “Your skills are like nothing I’ve ever seen before, not even among our most advanced members.” He made a tsking sound. “Too bad we didn’t find you first.”

“You would’ve killed me if you had, considering who I am. Then you never would’ve known I was such a
rare specimen,
” I spat.

The voice laughed. “I can’t argue that. But I think it’s fair to say that we’ve learned our lesson. We’d like to have you for our side. We believe you would be a very valuable asset. In fact, we’ve been looking for you for quite some time. I had no idea we’d be lucky enough to have you walk right into our latest meeting.”

“A meeting.” I said it as a statement, not a question. “Of course. That’s why so many of you keep gathering here.”

“And yet, you still attempted to get what you came for. Very brave of you.”

“Or stupid,” I said.

The voice chuckled. “A sense of humor to boot. Like I said, you’re a valuable asset.”

“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”

Again, he laughed. “I bet you have.”

The voice was quiet, as if he actually expected me to consider his offer. It was my turn to laugh. “You are all dumber than I thought.”

“Are we?” His tone didn’t seem to show any sign that I’d wounded him.

“I’m not joining you. I’ve seen what that chemical can do, the suffering it would cause. I don’t want any part of it.” By that point, I’d had enough. I tried to break the connection, but alarmingly, I couldn’t. Opening my eyes seemed like a Herculean task. In fact, I had trouble even connecting to my own body. Before my alarm could develop into a full-blown panic, he interrupted my attempts to escape.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” His tone turned dark, making the panic shooting through my body all the more insistent. “Those who are not with us are against us.” Slowly, I perceived the smallest bit of light, a short distance off. I saw Tracy lying in a heap just under the light source.

I ran to her and collapsed by her side. “Tracy,” I whispered. “We have to get out. We’re done here. Let’s go.” But she didn’t respond. Shaking her shoulder, I pleaded with her again. “Come on.”

Just then, the voice started laughing—quietly at first, and then with a maniacal power that made me shake.

Owen and the others.
My mind started to race as their faces popped into view. How could I warn them? Tell them the mission had failed? But trying to help might compromise their position.
So I just let them flounder?
No. I couldn’t just sit idly by, letting them get slaughtered.

Tracy.
I may not have been able to find my own body, but Tracy was right here. It blurred the lines between the mind and reality, but I couldn’t get hung up on technicalities. I had to try.

Ignoring the laughter that grew louder with every breath I took, I tried to infiltrate her mind, but I found only fog.

“Tracy?” I called out. “Tracy! You have to warn them. I think we might die, but you can save the rest of them. You have to call out to them. Do it! Now!” I took a deep breath and yelled. “Owen, run!”

But without any warning, I was thrown headlong out of her mind. When I opened my eyes, I was lying on top of Tracy’s crumpled body. I looked more closely at her. She lay on her side, knees drawn up, her blonde hair spilling every which way. Her face seemed peaceful, relaxed, and almost unrecognizable.

“What have you done to her?” I asked the darkness.

“I’ve eliminated her. She wasn’t useful.”

“You
what
?” My heart pounded in my ears as I turned her onto her back and pressed my ear to her chest, willing there to be a sound. But all I could hear was the man’s laughter.

“Shut up!” I screamed until my voice was hoarse. I began chest compressions on the lifeless image of her body, not knowing how much good it would do, but I couldn’t just let her lie there. Was she still tied to the tree? Had Owen and the others saved her? I could only hope as I pounded on her chest.

“Your efforts are as commendable as they are useless. I’ve commanded her to stop breathing, and so she has.”

“You’re… an… idiot,” I said between compressions. “Do you know how much information she had on the Unseen? You’ve pissed away countless secrets, all in an effort to what? Scare me? Intimidate me? Show me how superior you are and how unworthy the Unseen are?”

He didn’t laugh like I thought he would. But he didn’t bring her back to life either. Instead, he let me sit in silence as I pounded on the chest of my lifeless friend, wondering how I’d come to find myself in this new and terrible version of hell.

The voice did not return. I had no way of marking time in the darkness, and even if I did, time passed differently in the mind than it did in the real world.

Tracy’s body hadn’t faded with the voice, and I continued to give her CPR until exhaustion finally overwhelmed me. I gave in to the tears and collapsed on her chest.

“I’m sorry, Tracy. I knew we shouldn’t go in, but it was too late by the time I realized it. I couldn’t stop you without endangering everyone else. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

But her lifeless body had nothing to say. No reprimands. No
stop your blubbering
—nothing but silence.

I didn’t have anything to cover her with, so I couldn’t shield myself from the reality of her death. Folding her arms over her chest, I tried to make her look comfortable again, at peace. But I knew better. I knew she’d died horribly, and it was my fault. I tried not to think about what Shields might have done to her, how he’d probably tortured her, but the darkness didn’t offer many distractions.

After a time, I found myself wishing the voice would’ve taken her with him. As soon as the thought formed, I regretted it. Once she was gone, I would never see her again. But this wasn’t even her. It was a shell of who she’d once been.

Regret became my companion for a little while, simply because there was no room in my heart for more grief. So I blamed myself. I shouldn’t have agreed to this mission. I wasn’t ready or prepared. I had too many distractions on my mind, too many burdens on my heart. I was too new. Maybe with more training, more skill, I could have succeeded, but I’d ruined everything instead.

Because of me, the Unseen had lost one of their most valuable members. Tracy was the best of the best. What on Earth would we do without her?

Once the questions started, there was no stopping them. How could I have prevented her death? What could I have done differently? The number of Potestas milling around should’ve been a clue that we couldn’t handle the job. But if we couldn’t, who could?

When the answers didn’t come, I got up and ventured away from Tracy. Now that I knew I couldn’t save her, it was time for me to once again search for either a way out or a way into the mind that had trapped me. I struck out in a random direction and just put one foot in front of the other, always keeping the light source at my back. Strangely though, no matter what I did, I couldn’t make much progress in distancing myself from it. I could hear my shoes hitting the floor, so I knew I was walking, but the space between Tracy’s body and me never seemed to grow any larger.

After a while, I gave up and went back to her. Sitting down beside her, I decided a more internal approach might work better. Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm my racing thoughts. What had become of Owen and the others? Did they manage to get out? Did my warning work? What if Owen had been killed right alongside Tracy? What if all the others were gone?

No,
I thought, taking another deep breath and making myself lightheaded.
Get out. That’s what you need to focus on doing. You’re no use to anyone trapped in this bizarre purgatory. Just concentrate on getting out.

Hoping to shut out the few distractions that surrounded me, I closed my eyes and searched for myself. It was an odd feeling, being so separated from my body. I knew I still existed, that somewhere on Earth I was still breathing, but I didn’t know where, when, or how. I had no idea if I was still tied to that tree in the park, if they’d moved me someplace, or if Owen or one of the others had rescued my body and I was safely back at the facility.

No.
I sent out the questions swirling in my mind. But I couldn’t stop the rising desperation that held the peace I sought just out of reach. That was when the if-onlys started to plague me. If only I’d saved Tracy, if only I’d left Owen and the others out of this, if only I’d… what? What else could I have done to prevent this situation? And what could I now do to fix it?

The answers continued to evade me, and, suddenly, a voice interrupted my thoughts. A voice I’d recognize anywhere. A voice I’d been listening to for over eighteen years.

“Ah, Mackenzie. I’d like to say it’s good to see you again, but I never did much care for you,” Amanda said.

My mouth hung open as a giant image of her was projected against the darkness.

She occupied most of the frame. Her makeup was precisely applied—not too much, just enough to make her look polished. She looked exactly as I remembered her, but there was something in her expression I’d never seen before. Was she happy? What was she happy about? Had she wormed her way into the man’s mind to save me?

Then another question occurred to me. Could I address her directly?”

“Hello…” I trailed off, not sure what to call her. We both knew she wasn’t my aunt. She didn’t respond, so I had no idea if she’d even heard me.

“Perhaps I should explain the… situation before we get into why you’re here. I don’t expect you to understand because honestly, I don’t think you’re capable, but I’ll tell you anyway. I’ve left the Unseen. After squandering my life with them, I was offered a rather high position with the Potestas. Given the amount of inside knowledge I had about you, they were happy to forgive my transgressions and accept me into their ranks.”

Her brown, perfectly styled, shoulder-length hair bobbed as she shrugged. “The Potestas take very good care of me. I have everything I could ever want. And I’m able to use my abilities to their fullest extent. The Potestas can do things the Unseen are too backward to even imagine. Naturally, I was more than happy to join them after the way I’d been treated by the Unseen.”

David was right again,
I thought.

Narrowing my eyes at the projection, I walked closer to it, trying to get a feel for what I was seeing. Her image was bigger than life, and as I walked closer, I had to look up to see her face. Was it a recording, or was I watching this live through Shields’ eyes?

She appeared to be inside, but the frame was so entirely filled by her image, I couldn’t discern much else. As she shifted in her seat, I thought I caught a glimpse of something behind her, but I couldn’t tell exactly what.

“Now…” A smile crept across Amanda’s face—a rare expression for her. “I can let you in on a little secret. I think you’re familiar with a gathering called Coda?”

I shifted my weight, growing more and more uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was going.

“Of course you are. You always dreamed of going to it. Even had the gall to ask me to fund a little excursion for you and that pathetic friend of yours.”

“Now wait just a minute—” I said, unable to sit silently while she prattled on unchecked.

But she interrupted me, and I still couldn’t tell if I was even being heard. “At any rate, I’m sure you know some of the details of our plan. You know what we’ve allowed you to know—enough to make the Unseen panic, but not enough for them to do anything about it. It’s actually quite entertaining to watch you all scramble.

“But, I’m getting off track. Dux Ducis was a trap, a made-up role played by Dylan here, a few others, and me. That idiot scientist had no idea what Dylan was doing when he planted the defenses, nor did he know Dylan was one of the ones playing Dux Ducis. Not only were we able to control Jeppe with the alias, but the person we created was untraceable, and he led you right where we wanted you.

“Our plans for Coda are merely a test run, you see. Nothing more than a distraction for the Unseen while we plan strategic, global distribution of the chemical we’re calling Zero. I don’t want to give you all the details—after all, the surprise is half the fun—but Zero will help put our organization into the ultimate position of power.”

Strategic, global distribution? Position of power?

As I contemplated what she’d said, the frame panned out, revealing more of the room my former aunt occupied. A person sat just behind her, a woman. A woman who looked a lot like me. Her likeness startled me so much that I choked, halting the tears in their tracks.

Soon, a second projection appeared. It was fuzzy at first, and it blinked in and out a few times before becoming clear. I glanced over at the first projection and saw that my former aunt was taking a seat in front of the woman.

“You, Mackenzie, are going to play a large part in this plot, whether you like it or not.” She smiled again, but it was a wicked smile, full of evil.

I looked again at the woman who was near my former aunt. Suddenly, I realized she was wearing the same outfit my physical body had last worn. In fact, I was still wearing it.
That can’t be me… can it?

My eyes darted back to the second projection, struggling to make sense of it. This image was much blurrier, and it continued to blink in and out rapidly. Still, I could make out a seated figure.

Returning my gaze to the original projection, I narrowed in on the mess of dark hair obstructing the face of the mystery woman. I reached up and touched my own messy hair. Desperation overtook me as I frantically glanced back and forth between the two screens, trying to convince myself that what I knew to be true wasn’t.

The original projection panned around, so that its new vantage point was behind my former aunt. “You are our greatest weapon, you see.” She looked at the woman sitting across from her, who was motionless except for the steady rise and fall of her shoulders.

Dread filled my body the way water fills a cup. It rose from the pit of my stomach until I was nearly choking on it as the original screen got closer and closer to the girl—the weapon. I couldn’t look away.

Then my face filled the screen, and no amount of denial would erase it. They had me. They’d captured my body. I railed at the screen, thrashing and tearing at the image, but nothing happened. The terrible truth lay there before me.

Now what did they plan to do with it? As if on cue, my former aunt began explaining my part in their horrible plot.

“That day when you thought you could pull one over on Shields here,” the second projection showed Shields’ face, while the first still showed my own. Slowly, I pieced together what was happening. The first had to be what Shields could see, and the second displayed my own line of vision. “I couldn’t be more pleased. David’s arrogance about your skills played to our advantage. Perhaps if he had waited, let you hone your skills a bit more, let you sort out your… issues, you would’ve been more formidable. But because your focus was so,” she searched for the right word, “divided, we took you easily.”

Shields cleared his throat.

“Well, perhaps easily isn’t the right word. At any rate, you’re ours now. After a carefully choreographed struggle, we allowed the others to escape, but not without damage,” she said through another smile that made another scream tickle the back of my throat as I struggled to keep my mouth shut.

“And now, you will help us defeat the Unseen for good.”

I collapsed to the ground in front of the two projections, unable to bear the weight of the freight train barreling down on me.

“You will be sent back into their facility. You will tell them exactly what we want you to tell them, and in so doing, you’ll help us pull off our attack on Coda, as well as our later, larger attacks. And we will wipe out your little friends while we’re at it. You will get the Unseen in position, and then you will mysteriously disappear to safety. You will be where we want, when we want.”

My former aunt leaned back in her chair, a satisfied smile on her face. “You’re on our side now, Mackenzie, whether you like it or not. And even better, you’ll get to watch your friends die.” Her laughter followed her footsteps as she walked out of the room, and the original projection went dark, leaving me alone with the empty shell of myself.