by Lena North
I blinked because this was not the reaction I expected.
“Not gonna go all ballistic on you for having them in your life, honey. Not when they are the reason you still have that life.”
Oh.
“I’m not stupid, Hawk,” I said. “I know I can’t talk to them about this. Cim and Shiv might not be the only ones involved. I don’t know exactly who to trust, but I do know one thing – there are three of them who aren't involved.”
“Absolutely,” Nick agreed, and when I turned to him, “Bones, Jeebs and Graw. No way they’re involved. Bones because he loves you, and Jeebs because I heard her cry when she was trying to stop me from bleeding out. Graw because it’s not who he is, and besides, if he’d been involved then he would have run up that wall with you earlier tonight.”
I smiled at him, happy that he felt the same way as I did about our friends. Then I locked on to the one thing in his statement which was ridiculous.
“You think everyone loves me, but they don’t. Bones doesn’t, and Jamie said he doesn’t either and never did.”
“Bones absolutely loves you, but in a comfortingly asexual way. Like a baby-sis, Snow. And Jamie might have told you he doesn’t love you. He told me the same shit, and we’ll go with that story because it’s how he wants to play it. Saves his face, and I don’t mind.”
“But –”
“You just saved me a massive headache,” Kit muttered.
“What?” I asked.
“I hired the three of them a few weeks ago.”
“What?” I repeated.
“They’re good people. Have skills we need in my company. Bones and Jeebs are working tonight.”
“Really?” I smiled. “With what?”
“They’re trying to break into a house we’ve set up security for. Made it into our client’s bedroom in fifteen minutes, shocked the shit out of my guys. We changed some things, and by now they have failed four times. They’re still attempting to get in, won’t give up just yet.”
If I’d tried for a week, I couldn’t have come up with a better job for them.
“That’s –”
“Aren’t we deviating from the topic of someone trying to kill Snow?” Dante asked lazily although I suspected that his calm demeanor was a façade when I saw how Jiminella moved her hand slowly on his leg.
“What else is there to say?” I asked quietly and leaned forward to put my empty coffee mug on the table. “There isn’t any –”
I dropped the mug, and it bounced off the edge of the table and landed on the thick rug.
“What?” Nick asked and leaned forward to look at me.
I kept staring at the papers in front of me.
“Snow, what?” Dante prompted.
“Are these the names of the people in the research program?” I asked.
Dante picked up the paper at the top of the pile, and his face hardened.
“Byron, Cameron, Thomas, James, Domenico, Heather, Jinx.”
“Yes,” Nick said. “That’s the names.”
“But –” I stopped and thought about the names. “I could be wrong.”
“Snow, what?” Dante repeated, slightly louder and a lot more irritated.
“Cameron,” I said. “Is he still alive?”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “By shot himself, but Cameron was still alive a few months after the program was canceled. Haven’t talked to any of them since. Not sure if Jamie knows.”
“He doesn’t,” Jiminella said. “We talked about trying to find the others, and he didn’t know.”
“We call him Cim,” I said. “It’s an abbreviation of the nick he used when he joined the group. He joined the group as Cimarron.”
“Cimarron. Cameron,” Kit murmured. “It’s a stretch, but not a long one, to think there’s a link.”
“Huh. I didn’t know, he must have changed it before I joined,” Nick said.
“It was a couple of weeks before we let you into the chats,” I said quietly. “We ribbed him some about being lazy when he shortened it to Cim because he said it was too many letters to type. Nobody thought anything about it, though. We all called him that anyway.”
“If it was Cameron, wouldn’t you have recognized him?” Jiminella asked.
Nick was silent, and as I watched his eyes change while he filtered through his memories, I moved closer to him.
“I can’t say for sure but it could be Cameron. I never realized that he hid his face but when I think back… He was late when we went out with the boats. Ran straight to a boat we weren’t in and jumped into it quickly. Had a ball cap. He’s been late or left early the other times. We come and go as we please, so it wasn’t unusual in any way. He was also injured, and pretty badly, so he hasn’t been there –”
He stopped talking, and his face hardened.
“I saw him walking away once and noticed that he opened the door to his car with his bad hand. Assumed he felt better and hoped he’d be able to join us. But if it was Cameron, then he wasn’t injured at all. I joined the group, which must have been a shock to him. He changed his nick, went out with us a few times, and then he and Shiv lied about an accident.”
“Oh, God,” I whispered. “What did Cameron look like?”
“Neutral,” Nick said but elaborated when he caught the look in my eyes. “Average everything. Not pale, but not brown skin. Not blonde, but not dark hair. Brownish, gray eyes. Average height. Average built. Nothing special at all. I bet Jamie wouldn’t recognize him if they met on the street now, more than six years later.”
“But you would?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “If I looked him straight in the face, I’d know.”
“I need you both dead,” I whispered. “That’s what he said. He wanted you dead because you’d recognize him, and he’d know that. So why does he want me dead?”
“The bird,” Mary said. “When I was kidnapped, they told me they’d kill everyone who had a bird.”
“But why not just shoot me?”
“Everything is too complex. Either he’s just crazy, and likes to make things ridiculously complicated, or there’s something we don’t see.”
“If it’s Cameron, it’s probably both,” Nick said. “He has to be insane, but he always liked complex problems. Cam’s talent was the same as yours, Jinx. Same as Jamie’s. Science, mainly. He was a genius, but rumors among the staff were that he was nowhere near Jamie. And you… You were in another league completely.”
“You had defined talents?” Hawker asked.
“Yeah,” Nick sighed. “Cam and Jamie were good at science. Math, chemistry, that kind of thing. I see details, you know that.”
I thought that was understating his geniusness massively, but he went on before I could protest.
“By and Heather were all about logic. Patterns. Tommy was their opposite. Artistic, emotional.”
“What about me then?” Jiminella said when he stopped talking.
“Most of it, I suppose. Science and logic for sure, we all knew that. They talked about that part a lot.”
“There’ll be more information in the documents,” Wilder said. “Maybe –”
“Perhaps I should read this out loud,” Dante interrupted.
He was looking down at the paper he’d picked up, but he was pale and held Jiminella’s hand in a firm grip. Then he turned to her, and I knew they spoke quietly in their minds.
“Yes, Dante. You need to read it,” she said, but she had paled too.
“It’s gonna hurt,” Dante said, looking at Nick.
“I’ll deal,” he replied.
“Dante!”
I rarely tried to make my cousin listen to my thoughts and his hand shook a little when I reached out to him.
“If there’s anything horrible on that paper – don’t read it out loud. Don’t hurt him, Dante,” I thought.
Our eyes met, and his face softened. Then he nodded once but turned to look around the room.
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“It’s a kind of status report, written by the Professor in charge. Considering the date, it’s probably one of the last ones he wrote. He’s written some comments about each of the kids, and a few additions in the margin, like reminders of what to do.”
The silence was so thick it felt as if there wasn’t enough air in the room when Dante lowered his eyes and started reading.
“Byron. My oldest is not as strong as I expected, and the escalation of failures is disappointing. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to explain his mental weakness to his parents, although Byron himself insists on staying in the program, primarily due to his obsessive attachment to Heather. He volunteers to take invasive tests to protect her, and for now, I let him. I find it likely that his self-destructive tendencies will solve the problems I'm having with him, permanently.”
Dante swallowed and added, “He’s written suicidal and a question mark in the margin.”
Nick was so tense his body almost vibrated, and I worried that he’d make himself sick so I murmured, “Nick, you need to calm down, or we’re leaving.”
He exhaled, and I felt him make an effort, relaxing his muscles. Then he nodded, and Dante went on.
“Cameron. I'm reevaluating my previous decision to take him off the program. His intelligence is high, although far from the level I projected, but he has responded exceptionally well to amplification treatments. He shows no remorse at this stage, for any of the actions we ask of him. Unexpected flashes of pleasure in the treatments makes me wonder if I should slow down.”
He raised his eyes and said, “Killer. That’s what it says on the side.”
“He was cruel,” Nick whispered. “But never to us. He’d pull the wings off a fly, and laugh about it, but then he’d go and get cocoa for everyone, pulling out a deck of cards and asking us to play with him.”
“It gets harder now, Nicky,” Dante warned, but didn’t hesitate. “Thomas. My fantastic empath, amplified to take on everyone’s problems. He is struggling, but so far I have managed to keep him on the edge for what he can manage.”
Dante swallowed, and his eyes were so sad when he continued, “James. This –”
“No,” Nick said. His voice was a low rasping sound, and his eyes were bright, but he went on, “I love you, Snow. You probably asked him to skip things for me, but it needs to be said. What’s in the margin for Tommy?”
“No,” I said.
“Yes.”
Nick and Dante looked at each other and then Dante nodded.
“One more round, to see what happens,” he said. “That’s what it said.”
Oh, God. He’d deliberately pushed Thomas over the edge, and we all knew what had happened.
“Okay,” Nick said and swallowed. “Don’t tell Jamie,” he added quietly.
“We won’t,” Jiminella said and wiped her cheeks.
“James,” Dante went on, reading the text faster. “He is intelligent, beyond Cameron although not to Jinx’ levels. He and Heather are the ones who won’t respond to amplification treatments. I promised to let him stay, but I’m unsure what to do with him.” Dante paused, and added, “It says backup and a question mark in the margin.”
I braced, knowing who would be next.
“Domenico. I have now almost managed to turn him into the leader I need. Thomas will cater to everyone’s emotions, Cameron will follow orders, but Domenico will see what needs to be seen, and lead everyone with a firm hand. A leader can’t have feelings, and he has none. I thought Jinx would be the leader, but she resists influence, and I’m unsure. One more year and I will introduce them instead, and we’ll see.”
Dante bent his head to his chest and murmured hoarsely, “Give me a sec.”
“Dante, what?” Jiminella asked when he kept staring at the paper.
“It says in the margin… Will breed them. Their offspring will be exceptional.”
“What the fuck?” Wilder exploded and jumped up.
Mac got up too and murmured quietly to her until she sat down again. Jiminella and Nick stared at each other. The professor had planned to… Breed them?
“Keep reading Dante,” I urged. “We have two more names to go, and then it’s done.”
“Heather. She is my back-up if Byron fails. There is something about her that I don’t understand yet. She is somehow fooling us, and I let her for now, but we will push her harder next time. She is fond of Byron and very worried about him. I can use that. Maybe I can let Cameron help, he would find pleasure in it.”
Dante exhaled and leaned back.
“Remember the tapes, it says in the margin, with an exclamation mark.”
“What about me?” Jiminella asked.
“Okay, Nellie. Here we go,” Dante said. “Jiminella. My prize. My shining star. She beats all the odds, and the possibilities are endless. She will work well with James, I think, they are very alike. Amplification is partially unsuccessful so far, but she is starting to bend. Empathic tendencies are surprisingly well developed for someone of her intelligence, I will have to do something about that.”
He sighed, and added, “Under the text he has added, using another pen; She can be pushed much, much harder next time.”
“Well shit,” Hawker said, and we all turned to him. His face was a hard mask when he added, “Pity the man is dead. I’d have wanted to kill him.”
“We all do,” Wilder added.
“He was sick,” Jiminella said. “Out of his mind. What did he mean with amplification? And why would he need a leader?”
“Don’t know why he wanted me to be a leader,” Nick rasped out. “But the amplification treatments were meant to change us. And they did. He was right, I would have –”
He cut himself off and got to his feet.
“I need a moment,” he said.
I moved to follow him, but Jiminella put a hand on my arm.
“No, Snow. Please, can I talk to him? They were going to…”
She was crying silently, and I wanted desperately to go to Nick, but I couldn’t say no to the pain in her eyes, so I nodded. Nobody spoke as she walked out on the porch and touched Nick's arm. They looked at each other for a long time, and then Jiminella stepped into his arms. He held her, lowering his head to the side of hers. They were both crying.
“He was building a group for a purpose,” Hawker said into the silence. “A leader, intelligence, enforcer, killer… This was more than a research program to study geniuses.”
“Yes,” Dante said. “And it’s not a stretch to think that Cameron was aware of that.”
“But –” I said, cut myself off, and started again, “Cameron wants to kill everyone with a bird. Are you saying that the professor was building a group to kill the legacy from Norton?”
“Yes,” Hawker said. “That’s exactly what we’re saying, although why that boy would pick it up after he was out of the damned program is beyond me.”
“Hawk,” Olly murmured, watching his phone intently. “I just got word from my friend. I have a name for Snow’s buddy Cim.”
He looked straight at me, and my belly did a flip when I saw the look in his eyes.
“Cameron Strachlan,” he said. “Professor Jonathan Strachlan was his grandfather.”
Chapter Twenty-four
I really need a vacation
It was just a few hours until dawn when we went to bed, and Nick was quiet. I didn’t talk either because he looked drawn, and the dark shadows under his eyes made me wish I’d suggested that we waited until the morning to look at the documents. It had been a shock to us all that the professor who we’d thought was the devil incarnated had been even worse than we imagined, so discussions had continued for a while. What he’d done was crazy, and it didn’t matter how much we turned it around, it was also godawful. He’d brought his own grandchildren into that program. Had tortured them and pushed them so hard that one of the boys had killed himself and the other had become a monster.
“Do y
ou need to be alone?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t think I can be alone,” he retorted. “Or do you want to sleep somewhere else?”
“Why would I want to slee –”
“Jesus, Snow,” he roared. “He planned to make me the leader of a killing squad. Planned for Jinx and me to…”
He looked hard, and the lines in his narrow face had deepened.
“If he’d succeeded, then yes. I would have wanted to sleep somewhere else. Since he didn’t, I want to sleep here,” I said, trying to keep the mood even and calm.
I worried about his injuries so I wanted him to go to bed and for us to talk when he’d rested, but he kept glaring at me.
“You know how I like my coffee,” I whispered and watched his brows go up. “You hold me at night when I have nightmares. You made me wear a helmet on the scooter, and you brought breakfast to Jamie and me when we needed to talk.”
His face softened a little, so I went on, “You’re a godawful cook, but you call your father papi, and you have your mother’s smile. When I needed someone to be strong for me, you had my back. Now you got a hard blow, and here I am.”
I stepped closer to him and put my arms around his waist, resting my cheek on the ugly scar crossing his chest.
“Here I am, Nicky, ready to have your back. Because I love you. Not for your past. I love you for who you are now, and who we’ll be together. Please let me?”
“Oh, baby,” he whispered, and I felt his whole body relax. “Let’s go to bed. I need to hold you.”
“Okay.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too. Now go brush your teeth.”
His grin wasn’t his usual wide and happy one. It was a small twitch of his lips, but it was there, and it felt like a small victory.
He fell asleep within minutes, but I lay there, staring into the darkness and thinking about what the evening had brought, straight into our lives. Slowly, I moved away from Nick, grabbed his tee from the floor, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind me.
I went via the living room out the front door and reached out to my bird as I crossed the open area outside.