Deceived

by Heather Sunseri

  She turned to me. It’s the same functionality Sandra was trying to develop with the trackers—what she finally accomplished with Raven’s tracker.

  Exactly. Question is: What does your dad want to do with the technology?

  Bree turned back to Lora. “Has it been tested?”

  “Yes,” she answered quickly. I didn’t even have to prompt her to answer that time.

  “On whom?”

  “Vance,” she whispered. “And… on me.”

  “What? So, it can be taken in and out?”

  She nodded, smiling. A wave of excitement passed over her face. Her heart rate had slowed to a normal rate. “That’s why I had it with me the morning Vance was killed.” She knotted her fingers together. “While I had that inserted in my eye, I was able to examine people. I actually discovered a small cancerous tumor in my mom. I may have saved her life. That device… it gives you overwhelming knowledge and abilities.” Lora stepped forward and grabbed Bree’s hands. “If you’re able to do a fraction of what that device can do, but without the device, you have been given an incredible gift.”

  Bree pulled her hands away. “Who knows about these oracles?”

  Lora frowned. “Vance and I worked with your dad to develop the functionality. I never told anyone else. But Vance did. Someone wanted to purchase that prototype, but the one you’re holding is the only one that works so far. I’m trying to replicate it with those.” She pointed to her worktable. Fear returned to her eyes. “I was hoping to create a second oracle before Vance’s contact demanded delivery of that one. Vance tried to keep it from me, but his contact scared him. Vance was always very jumpy, and his temper flared any time he heard from his contact.”

  Vance was really jumpy outside the bar the night I met him at Bar 325, Bree mindspoke.

  “Do you know who his contact was?” I asked, thinking of all the people we’d met over the past year who would love to get their hands on this technology, including the ring of people I’d just discovered in Costa Rica—some of whom had eluded authorities and escaped capture, like my clone daddy, Dr. Jeremy Porter.

  “No. But Vance claimed they were willing to pay a lot of money for it. Enough for both of us to never need to work again.”

  So either my dad killed Vance because he shared top-secret knowledge from BioTech, Bree mindspoke to me, or someone else was pissed when they tracked down Vance and he didn’t have the oracle with him.

  Suddenly an alarm sounded, and lights blinked outside the glass windows in the hallway. I ran to the door and pushed on it, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Lora looked shocked, terrified. “We’re on lockdown,” she said. “They’ll be coming for me now. I told you too much.” She once again retreated into herself. Her eyes darted back and forth.

  “Who’s coming for you? My dad? Do you think my dad killed Vance?” Bree grabbed Lora’s arms and shook her.

  Lora’s eyes locked on Bree’s. “I told Vance it was too dangerous to keep taking the oracle out of the lab. But he insisted that the oracle was much bigger than Howard BioTech. He said your dad would never do with it what should be done.” Her eyes were wide with fear; she shook her head in quick, jerking motions. “I’ve said too much. Why did I say so much? They’ll kill me.”

  “She’s in shock,” Bree said.

  Lora raised a shaky hand. It held the sharp tool she’d been using when we entered. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Lora, no!” Bree tried to reach for her, but it was too late.

  In a single cat-quick motion, she jabbed the object into the side of her neck and ripped it back out, tearing open the carotid artery. Blood shot halfway across the room in a pulsing arc. Before we even had the chance to react further, Lora’s eyes rolled back in her head and she fell to the floor in a heap. Blood continued to spray, forming a shocking crimson contrast against her pristine white lab coat.

  Footsteps thundered on the tile floor outside the lab. Men in suits arrived at the door.

  “What do we do?” Bree screamed over the sound of the alarm.

  Why is it I’m constantly having to save the two of you? Addison’s voice filled my head.

  The doors opened and security entered, weapons drawn. “Hands where we can see them.”

  “Just do it!” Bree yelled.

  In the next instant, we disappeared.

  chapter twenty-one

  Briana

  We slipped past confused members of security and didn’t stop running until we reached the gold elevator that would take us to my dad’s office. We needed a place to hide, and talk, and with Dad away, his office was the perfect place.

  Thankfully there was no sign of my dad’s personal assistant, Marla. She probably wasn’t very happy with me, seeing as the last time I saw her I paralyzed her and closed her in her office. Well, she thought it was Vance at the time, but Dad had probably explained it to her by now.

  As soon as we were safely inside the office with the door closed behind us, Addison let our invisibility drop. “There are no surveillance cameras in your dad’s office. And no one is currently headed this way.” Thankfully, Addison had the ability to sense the whereabouts of people close by, including security, who by now was surely scouring the building looking for us.

  I studied her as she bounced around the office, checking things out. I would never get used to her ten-year-old appearance—long stringy hair, currently tied into a ponytail, a gangly body not even remotely close to hitting puberty, and sky blue eyes that held a naïve curiosity in them, though I knew from experience there wasn’t a naïve bone in her body.

  Part of me wondered if the reason why she mostly stayed invisible around us was so that we wouldn’t see her as a child. She didn’t sound like a child inside our heads, and she certainly didn’t act like a child by the way she got around.

  Jonas crossed his arms and leaned against the sofa. “You do realize that someone forced Lora to kill herself, right? She must have been under the control of a tracker. Do you think your father had one inserted into her skull? Or did someone else? Is he manufacturing them here, or did he get them from Sandra?” He fired questions so fast, I wasn’t sure he expected answers.

  “I don’t know.” I massaged my temples as frustration grew. My head was back to aching, and I couldn’t get the image of the blood gushing from Lora’s neck out of my mind. Had my dad caused her death?

  Addison stood gnawing on a fingernail. She didn’t look nervous, just bored. Jonas and I both stared at her, and she dropped her hands. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know who’s using these trackers or where they got them. Seems like same ol’ story, different doctors, different town.”

  Jonas held out his hand. “Give me the oracle.”

  I stared at him, hesitating. “What are you going to do with it?” I asked as I slowly pulled the pouch from my pocket.

  He snatched it from my hand, surveyed the office, then marched over to one of my dad’s expensive paintings and tucked the oracle behind it. He faced me. “Someone has already killed two people because of that thing. I don’t want you to be a third.”

  I nodded. “What now?”

  “Let’s start with why you’re here,” Jonas said to Addison.

  Addison continued circling the office. “Where does your dad keep the booze?” she asked.

  I raised a brow. “Why? You think I’m going to let you get drunk?”

  Addison smiled. “Let’s get one thing straight right now. You don’t have any say in what I do or don’t do. I don’t even have to help you.”

  “What do you want, Addison?” Jonas asked again.

  “Bingo,” Addison said as she discovered the liquor cabinet. To one side of it was a small fridge, from which she took a canned lemon-lime drink and popped the lid. “I have a nervous stomach,” she said in answer to our raised brows.

  It wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d gone for the alcohol, but I was glad she hadn’t.

  Jonas was losing patience. “Addison, I will get inside that
head of yours and force you to talk.”

  “Try,” she challenged, smirking. She actually appeared to be enjoying herself.

  By the way Jonas quickly backed down, I could tell he knew Addison’s mind was stronger than ever, and he knew it wasn’t worth the risk of exertion.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Would you both cut it out? Addison, Lexi and Jack don’t trust you. And because I trust them, I’ve got to admit, I’m a little nervous to be around you.”

  “I’ve saved your life three times now. Surely that says something.”

  “Addison, talk!” Jonas yelled.

  She took another sip of her drink. Swallowed. “Fine. The clones that went missing from Palmyra are inside this facility.”

  Jonas straightened. “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I can get inside places you can’t. I’ve heard people talk about the clones.” She matched his stance. For someone so small, there wasn’t an ounce of fear in her body. Either that, or she was an excellent actress. “And you have no one to blame but yourself if they’re being used in some sneaky scientific experiment.”

  Blood rushed to Jonas’s face at Addison’s harsh words.

  “You should have asked for help,” she continued.

  “What are you taking about?” Bree asked. “If it weren’t for Lexi and Jonas, every one of those clones on Palmyra would be dead. Sandra would have terminated them.”

  “She did terminate them.”

  “Meaning?” Jonas asked.

  “The tumors are real. Sandra put them there. All the manufactured clones from Palmyra are set to expire unless they are specifically healed.”

  I stared at Addison, wondering what kind of game she was playing. “You’re lying. Sandra can’t hurt them. Lexi made sure of it.”

  “Lexi ruined everything.” Her voice rose an octave. “If she’d just left well enough alone—”

  “If she had ‘left well enough alone,’ we’d all be dead,” I said. “Jack would be dead.”

  “Sandra never would have let Jack die. She wouldn’t have killed Lexi. She needed the clones. She only made empty threats.”

  “She killed Dani!” I screamed.

  “Dani was of no use to her. She only proved a point by killing her. One death for the greater good.”

  I took three quick steps toward Addison. But just when I raised my hands to strangle the little brat, Jonas swooped in and pulled me backward.

  Addison didn’t even flinch. Her lips twitched into a cunning smile.

  “I can heal the clones,” Jonas said once he’d successfully restrained me. “I did heal two of them. Doesn’t seem like Sandra’s best plan.”

  “You only healed them after Bree told you where the tumors were. Don’t you get it? Your abilities were meant to work in succession with each other. Together the original seven can heal anything out there, but not one of you can heal everything.” She tilted her head, considering. “Except maybe Lexi.”

  “But I know where to look for these tumors now.”

  “They won’t all be the same. You got lucky with Tamati—that his tumors were like Tane’s. You also got lucky that Bree showed up when she did. Otherwise you would have lost those two clones.”

  “Wait,” I said with a little head shake. “If Sandra did what you’re saying, then how is it that the clones inside this facility haven’t died?”

  “Sandra always had a backup plan for everything. In the case of the clones manufactured on Palmyra, if they didn’t reach their final destination, they would self-terminate. Tane and Tamati were supposed to be shipped to Portland weeks before they fell sick.”

  “How do you know this?” Jonas asked.

  “Because I listen. And I can read. Sandra talked about her plans with the clones during the days leading up to Lexi lobotomizing her. It was the first time I’d ever seen or heard Sandra making plans in case she didn’t make it out of a bad situation.”

  “Lexi said you were helping Sandra,” Jonas said. That was why Lexi and Jack had stopped trusting Addison.

  “Of course I was helping Sandra,” Addison said, like it was no big thing. “She’d proven time and time again that my life was in her hands. She made my injuries from the accident with the horse worse. She inserted a tracker into my neck—the same tracker she used to kill Dani. Don’t you get it? She’s in charge. We don’t know what was programmed inside our DNA. We don’t know what ‘hidden features’ will haunt us for our entire lives. Only Sandra knows that. And thanks to Lexi, now we might never know our fates—or at least, not until it’s too late. Jonas, you of all people should know the lengths Sandra would go to make sure she has the final say.”

  “That’s just fear talking,” I said. “You should both be thanking Lexi for what she did.”

  “Maybe.” Addison shrugged. “But my fear is based on real damage and destruction I’ve seen Sandra cause.”

  “Why were you hiding out on Palmyra?” Jonas asked. “Why didn’t you tell us any of this sooner?”

  “I had nowhere to go. I was going to tell you everything. I was about to the day Bree arrived.”

  Jonas and I traded looks. Was he buying into this little brat’s excuses?

  “You were close to figuring it out,” Addison said to Jonas. “You had the papers all over your desk. That’s where I discovered Vance Carrington’s name. Sandra was sending clones to Vance.”

  “Why Vance?” I asked. “He had to have been just a contact. Someone else must be in charge.”

  “Your father?” Jonas suggested.

  “I guess.” And that broke my heart. I didn’t want to believe he’d aligned with Sandra. It was bad enough that he and his partners from more than eighteen years ago had kept the truth from most of us our whole lives, but to think he’d been experimenting on clones and thinking of ways to use human beings in his laboratories… “Addison, do you know exactly where the clones are being held?”

  “I’m assuming Building B. I’ve been all over this building and have seen no sign of any young children.” She talked as if she wasn’t a young child herself. “But Building B has tighter security. I haven’t been able to get inside, but I know they’re there.”

  Jonas walked over to the window that looked out onto Building B. “Well, we’re not going to get close to it today. Cops are everywhere.”

  “Looking for you. Did you kill that Vance guy?” Addison asked.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’ve been following me closely, right? Were you with me the morning Vance was killed?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. I just assumed you offed him,” she said matter-of-factly. “You had time before you met up with the rest of your boarding school friends.”

  Jonas was clear across the room and didn’t have time to restrain me when I went after Addison this time. I grabbed her by the little jean jacket she wore and pulled her to me. “Listen to me, you brat. You want to know why no one trusts you? Because of things like this. You need to decide whose side you’re on.”

  She held her hands out. “I don’t really care if you killed him. He got what was coming to him, as far as I could tell. I saw what he did to you through Coyote’s mind—and yours.”

  Jonas had walked closer, but he stopped short of coming to Addison’s rescue. He was staring at me as Addison spoke, and I could see the pain on his face as he was reminded of Vance’s assault against me. He reached out a hand and touched my forearm, urging me to let her go.

  I did, then rotated my shoulders and shook off the frustration. As much as I hated to admit it, we would probably need Addison’s help. “We need to figure out a way to get inside Building B. Any ideas?”

  “The only person I’ve recognized going in and out of that building the last couple of days has been that woman who worked for Vance. Maybe she can help?” Addison walked over to my dad’s desk, lifted herself up on it, and swung her legs.

  “Maybe,” I agreed.

  Behind us, the elevator dinged. Jonas and I traded panicked looks.
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  Addison pushed off my dad’s desk. “It’s the police. I wasn’t paying attention. Follow me.”

  Before the elevator doors opened, we slipped into an emergency stairwell and raced down the stairs.

  ~~~~~

  “I think we’re downtown,” I said to Jonas, poking my head out of a pile of dirty laundry and peering out the window.

  We had escaped the building through the service entrance, and Addison had snuck us unseen onto the back of a linen service truck, which had taken us off the property. Somewhere along the way Addison had managed to ditch us—or who knows, maybe she was still right beside us, invisible. We never knew with Addison, which was beyond irritating.

  The linen truck pulled to a stop, and I peered out a window. “Let’s get out here.”

  Jonas didn’t argue. He opened the back doors, and we had barely gotten out and darted to the sidewalk before traffic began moving again.

  “How much money do you have?” I asked Jonas. I was out of cash. I had planned to pull out what little I had sometime today before returning home, but I was afraid to now. The police could be watching for activity on my accounts and credit cards.

  “Enough.” He reached down and grabbed my hand—the smoothness of his skin a welcomed sensation. “Look.” He pointed up at a sign. “The library. Let’s do a little research.”

  The loud horn of a food truck, followed by the screeching of tires from a yellow taxicab, made me flinch. Jonas’s fingers tightened around mine. Toughen up, Red. We’re going to be fine. But it’s time for us to come up with a better plan.

  We crossed the street and walked east two blocks to the Portland Public Library. But before we walked through the front entrance, Jonas stopped and pulled me close. He lifted both hands and smoothed my long hair, tucking errant curls on either side behind my ears. Can you disguise us to others, but leave your appearance the same for me?

  I hadn’t considered that, but I guessed I could. I nodded. “Of course.” I just had to remember to keep it up.

  He continued to run his fingers through my hair and massaged my neck. “I need to see your red hair and those lips I’m only pretending to want to kiss.”