Ghost Heart (The PSS Chronicles #3)

by Ripley Patton

  When my heart quieted down, I listened for the sound of pursuit but didn’t hear anything. I knew they were looking for me. It was only a matter of time before my uncle called out the cavalry and tightened the noose again, but it would take a while for him to call in the helicopters and shit.

  I turned to the left and ran that way for a while. Might as well enjoy the freedom while I could and explore a little.

  At last, the corn thinned ahead of me, spitting me out behind an old barn, probably used to store hay for the cows across the road. There was no one around, no vehicles either, but there were some small tire tracks near the front leading to the road. The barn doors were locked up tight with a big chain and padlock, but a peek through one of the wide cracks in its walls revealed three ATVs parked inside, all with trailers attached and piled high with what looked like camping equipment. There was a fourth trailer packed full, but no ATV with it, so maybe that’s what the tire tracks were from. They’d looked to be about the right size.

  I circled back around to the doors and inspected the lock. One of those ATVs could get me away from my uncle pretty quickly. He would never find me if I went off-road. But what then? I couldn’t get to Danielle on my own. I had no resources. No friends. Going forward with my uncle and my aunt was my only hope for getting Danielle back.

  Plus, I needed to know why there was a painting of me at Warm Springs. What did it mean? Maybe my uncle truly had no clue, but I doubted it. If I went to the reservation, I could find out for myself.

  I turned around, ready to head into the cornfield and make my way back when I heard something buzzing down the road. I ducked behind a dilapidated shed next to the barn, peering through its wide slats, and watched as the missing ATV pulled up. There was a guy driving and Passion was on the back, her long hair gusting in the wind and whipping around her helmet.

  The driver was helmetless and he killed the engine, stepping off the machine. I’d seen him before, milling around the farmhouse. I’d noticed him because he was younger than the rest of the Holders, closer to my age, and he always seemed to be turning away when I saw him, as if he was avoiding me.

  Did Passion have a boyfriend and was I about to witness a private moment between them?

  Yeah, it was definitely time to go. I turned toward the cornfield again, just as Passion pulled her helmet off, but her voice stopped me.

  “Why’d you bring me here?” she demanded of the driver, and she didn’t sound happy. “Where did you get the key to the barn?” She didn’t even get off the ATV; she just sat there, stiff and angry, her hair whipping in the wind.

  “Marcus hid a spare, just in case,” the guy said. “And I brought you here because we need to talk, and you know it. Whatever was going on back there was the perfect distraction. No one even noticed us leaving.”

  Marcus meant me. This guy was talking about me leaving him a spare key. He knew me as Marcus, just like Passion did. I looked him over again, but nothing stirred. No memory. Nothing. I glanced at the barn. Had I been here before? With him?

  “Something was wrong back at the farm. Something to do with Marcus,” Passion said. “Don’t you even care?”

  “Marcus can take care of himself.” The guy shrugged. “Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

  I sort of liked him. At least he had confidence in me. Probably more than I had in myself at the moment. Yeah, I definitely liked him.

  Passion didn’t seem to though. She was glaring at him, her eyes blazing. I’d never seen her angry before and it was kind of hot. “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked. “Are you saying Marcus knew what you told me back in the bathroom?”

  Aha, it seemed I’d stumbled onto a conversation about myself and the shit I didn’t remember. This should be interesting.

  “Yeah,” the guy said. “He knew his uncle was in negotiation with the CAMFers over something big, because I told him. And he knew his uncle was in contact with me.”

  My uncle colluding with CAMFers? Why wasn’t I surprised?

  “You said you weren’t spying for Mr. James,” Passion said, her voice almost a hiss.

  “I wasn’t,” Jason said, “but sometimes he sent me messages. Marcus knew that. In a way, I helped him keep tabs on his uncle.”

  That sounded like something I’d do.

  “What messages?” Passion asked, realization slowly dawning in her eyes. “The night at the McMansion when Palmer came and the tapes got changed. That was you covering up a message from him.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was getting the gist this guy had been playing both sides of the fence and probably still was.

  “What message did Mr. James send you that night, Jason?” she asked, a tremble of fear in her voice.

  “He told me to go the Eidolon,” Jason said, “and he told me to stop the ceremony before any new initiates jumped. But I didn’t tell Marcus the second part. I wasn’t sure I was even going to do it. And before you knee me in the nuts again, I didn’t know the fucking CAMFers were going to come and kill everyone. I just thought I was stopping the Eidolon, and my instructions were to get Samantha to safety no matter what.”

  “Get Samantha to safety? She got shot. You let them shoot her.”

  “No.” Jason shook his head. “They didn’t shoot her.”

  “What are you talking about?” Passion protested. “I’ve seen the wound. I heard the shot right after you left me in the—” She stopped, her face gone deathly white, her eyes wide and haunted. “You,” she said, staring at Jason. “You shot Samantha. And he asked you to. Her own father asked you to shoot her.”

  “He knew I wasn’t gonna kill her,” Jason said. “Bo had seen me shoot. He knew I could do it.”

  Holy shit. This was the guy who’d shot Sam, and my uncle had fucking asked him to. And apparently, I had been this guy’s friend. Or he’d been mine. Fuck. But something in his explanation didn’t add up. If my uncle hadn’t known the CAMFers were coming, why arrange such drastic measures to get Samantha away?

  “Take me back,” Passion said, her lips pinched together, her nostrils flaring. “You betrayed all of us. They have Olivia because of you.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Jason laughed, but it wasn’t a nice laugh. “I saved her. Fuck, I saved you. I even hid us from the CAMFers and got us back to the Holders and the damn pool so they could fish Marcus out. How is that a betrayal?”

  They fished me out of the pool? Wait, had I been at this Eidolon thing? Was that my memory of water and drowning? That hadn’t been when I was with Danielle. I had been with Passion and Samantha and this guy.

  “How naïve do you think I am?” Passion asked bitingly. “You actually expect me to believe it was just a coincidence that the CAMFers showed up at the Eidolon? Someone told them we were going to be there. Someone with a connection to them.”

  It was exactly what I’d been thinking.

  “And you think it was me?” Jason asked, charging up to the ATV and getting right in Passion’s face. “You think I was working for the CAMFers? For my father who turned me over for extraction? A man who was disappointed he wouldn’t get to shoot me in the head because there was a better use for me?” He grabbed onto the handles of the ATV and shook it, looking as if he was might vault over the machine any moment and attack Passion. “I am going to fucking kill my father with my own hands, and Mr. James is going to help me do it when he overthrows the CAMFers once and for all. That’s what this is all about. This whole thing is a build up to an all-out war between the CAMFers and The Hold. The Eidolon was just a bump in the road.”

  Passion stared at him, unblinking, unmoving, and as far as I could tell unafraid, which was damn impressive because the guy was fucking scary. He had seriously lost it. If he touched her, I’d step in. I wouldn’t let this whacko hurt Passion. But the conversation between the two of them was garnering me more information than I’d gotten the entire time I’d been holed up in the farmhouse, so I didn’t stop him. Not yet.

  “Yale and Nos
e weren’t just a bump in the road to me,” Passion said. “Take me back to the farmhouse. Now.”

  “No.” Jason shook his head, but most of the gusto had gone out of him. “I thought you’d want your things. Your clothes and stuff from before.” He gestured toward the barn.

  “I don’t want it,” Passion said stiffly. “I want you to take me back.”

  “No, get off the wheeler,” he insisted, grabbing her by the arm.

  “Let go of her,” I said, stepping from behind the shed.

  He turned, the look on his face something I will never forget—part shock, part shame, part something-I-couldn’t-name.

  “Marcus,” Passion said, looking over his shoulder, her face lighting up. That was all. Just my middle name.

  “What are you doing here?” Jason asked, dropping Passion’s arm and looking thoroughly confused. “Did you remember the barn?”

  “No,” I said. “Just random chance I guess, but I can say it was pretty informative.”

  “What did you—you heard all of that?” Passion asked, sounding concerned.

  “Yep. But don’t worry. My brain hasn’t exploded or anything yet. And apparently,” I turned back to Jason, “I know you.” I’d considered him valuable once. If he had a connection to my uncle and the CAMFers, he still was, even if I’d have to watch my back around him. Better to keep your enemies close, especially if you could convince them they were friends. “Nice to meet you again, Jason.” I held out my hand. He looked like a handshake kind of guy.

  He stared down at it and glanced back up at me. Then he grasped my hand and gave it a strong shake.

  “You have PSS and your dad is a CAMFer,” I said, squeezing his hand. “God, it must suck to be you.”

  “At least I can remember shit,” he returned the jab as we dropped each other’s hands.

  “How long have we known each other?” I asked.

  “We met a month before the Eidolon. You don’t remember me at all?”

  “Nope, sorry. Don’t take it personally.”

  “As long as you don’t take it personally that I shot your cousin.”

  I did, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  “Look, I hate to break up this little reunion,” Passion said from the back of the ATV, “but I think they’re coming for us.” She pointed down the road to a cloud of dust rising in the air and heading in our direction. Trucks. Probably several of them.

  “What do you want us to do?” Jason asked me. “Because they’re about to find our stuff unless we get out of here.”

  I had no idea what was in the stash in the barn, what evidence there was that my uncle might use against me, but I’d obviously hidden it for a reason.

  “Get off,” I told Passion, grabbing the helmet from her.She didn’t even hesitate. She was off in a second.

  “Put this on,” I told Jason, shoving the helmet into his hands. “Take the ATV. With any luck, they’ll think you’re me. Keep them busy as long as you can. If they catch you, tell them you stole the ATV and went for a joy ride.”

  He jammed the helmet on, jumped onto the ATV, and fired it up. Again, not a question and no hesitation. They both followed me like it was what they were meant to do. It was weird. The only one who’d ever really listened to me was my sister, and she barely had. But when Jason had asked me what to do, I’d known. And I’d known they’d do it.

  Jason peeled out, spitting up a cloud of dust around Passion and me as he turned right onto the road, away from the oncoming trucks.

  “Let’s go.” I grabbed Passion’s hand and we ran toward the cornfield.

  And we made it, slipping between the tall stalks just before the trucks went barreling by, tearing after Jason.

  19

  OLIVIA

  I woke to darkness and thought I must be dreaming. The cell was never dark. It was constantly bathed in the perpetual flicker and buzz of an inset fluorescent light. In fact, the buzz had been getting louder and more insistent lately, like a bug trying to drill into my skull, and I’d begun to think it was a unique kind of torture designed by our captors to break us. Grant thought I was paranoid and the bulb was just failing. I’d suggested where he could shove the light bulb and the word “paranoid.” Paranoid was a word reserved for people who hadn’t been kidnapped by militant CAMFers. I wasn’t paranoid. I was a realist. Except now it looked like Grant had been right and the bulb had gone out.

  Slowly, my eyes adjusted, aided by the gentle blue glow of my ghost hand. At least the horrible buzz was gone, silenced at last.

  Grant was still snoring, his arm thrown over me. We slept side by side for warmth, and comfort, and safety, the handcuffs and key nestled between us, ready. But Anthony hadn’t come back for us.

  We thought it had been three days, based on how often some random guard had left trays of food just inside the door. It was hard to know for sure though. It was hard to tell anything abandoned in a cell deep beneath the earth.

  Abandoned. Even my enemies had lost interest in me, and it pissed me off. I felt myself losing the will to fight in the absence of anyone to fight against. Anthony’s hate had been the wall I’d banged against. Even Dr. Fineman’s experiments, as horrible as they were, had taught me things about my ghost hand I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. Was it sick to miss that? Was this how Stockholm syndrome started? By feeling betrayed when the bad guys finally left you alone?

  No, not alone. I had Grant now. Grant and I, living and breathing within the same four stone walls. Sleeping together. Pissing together. Shitting together. Getting on each other’s nerves. Arguing over what we should do if we ever had an opportunity to do anything.

  Sharing a tent with Marcus had never been this hard. We’d understood each other’s moods and needs without even voicing them. God, how I missed him. I wanted him with me, as selfish as that was. Maybe Grant was my new torture, not the light bulb. That was unfair to Grant. I knew it was. But I still felt it.

  He inhaled, loudly, then snorted out and rolled away from me, unpinning me with his arm but also jamming me against the wall. He had rolled onto his stomach, which quieted his snoring, but now I was fully awake.

  When I heard the scratching at the wall, I extracted myself from the slab, careful not to wake him.

  I crossed the cell, sliding down next to the hole, and I knew she was there. I could hear the rustle of her clothes on the other side. I could feel her presence and relief washed over me. Where had she been for the last few days? Why hadn’t she scratched until now? I’d been worried she was gone, scared off by Grant for good. Or that they’d caught her helping us and moved her, or worse. I’d even begun to suspect she didn’t exist. What if it was really Anthony, or Palmer, or Dr. Fineman sticking their finger through the hole and laughing at me? Let’s send her a note offering to help. Let’s give her the key to the handcuffs and leave her there to die, clutching it hopefully. I wouldn’t have put it past them.

  But now she was back, and I believed in her again.

  I couldn’t call to her. It might wake Grant, and I didn’t want him messing things up again. So, instead, I slipped my finger into the hole, accidentally jamming it right into hers.

  I felt her jerk her finger away in surprise. There was a soft rustling on the other side of the wall and she touched my finger, gently pushing it back to my side. I bent down, putting my eye to the hole and found another eyeball staring right back at me, the iris dark brown and curious. Then her eye disappeared, followed by more rustling. All I could see was a small blur of light, and then sudden darkness as a piece of paper came ramming toward my eye.

  I moved my head and grabbed the paper. It was another page out of The Bone Road, page forty-seven this time, with three lines of writing scrawled between the text.

  The first line read, Don’t trust the boy.

  I glanced over at Grant. She must be referring to him. He’d freaked her out when he’d yelled at her, just as I’d suspected. Was that why she’d waited to come back until he was asleep and snoring loudly?
She trusted me, but not him. Could there be more to her mistrust than just his yelling through the wall? Did she know something about Grant that I didn’t?

  I looked down at the next line she’d written.

  They are coming for you. Soon.

  Great. I guess I should be careful what I wished for. There I’d been, pining away for Anthony and Dr. Fineman, and it seemed they were on their way to pay me a visit. Or did she mean someone else? And how did she know? Who was this girl, and what was she doing here?

  I glanced down at the last line of her note. Trust me, it said.

  Um, okay. I’d been doing that, as much as anyone could trust someone they’d met through a wall and only touched fingers with. But I was going to need more. I still wasn’t absolutely convinced this wasn’t another one of Fineman’s mindfucks. What if the warning to not trust Grant was just another way to mess with my head? Then again, I kind of didn’t trust him already. He’d tried to talk me into helping the doctor. Fuck. How could I trust anything or anyone in this fucked up place?

  Was this what Marcus had gone through in foster care? This paralyzing fear, this suspicion shrouding every interaction and decision? How had he lived like that? No wonder he’d had so much trouble confiding in me, trusting me. I thought I’d understood before, but I hadn’t. His entire life had been this guessing game of how others would betray him. Not if, but when and how. And it had only gotten worse when the CAMFers had taken his sister, the one person he’d ever been able to rely on.

  Danielle.

  I looked down at the note in my hands and then at the hole in the wall. I remembered that brown eye staring at me through it, curious and vaguely familiar.

  Dr. Fineman had sworn to me he still had Danielle. He’d shown me video of her on one of the first days of my captivity. He’d tried to use it to convince me that Marcus was working for him and always had been, that the CAMFers were using Danielle as leverage to bend him to their will. I hadn’t believed it. I couldn’t. Marcus had not been lying to me when he’d told me his sister was dead. There was no way he could have feigned that agony. He had believed it.