“It doesn’t matter,” Bree said. “I’m just glad to see both of you and know that you’re safe. Kurt told us horror stories about your aunt while you were gone.”
“I’m sure Nadia will tell you some more.” I turned my little sister around, hugged her, and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Do you still have that note I gave you?”
“Yup.” She nodded. “Are you going to promise me you’ll come back safe?”
“Promise.” I kissed her again for good measure before turning to Bree. “I need a favor from you before we leave. I need you to sew up a hole in my jacket because I hate sewing.”
“Really? You’re more concerned about a hole right now? You can borrow one of my jackets if—”
“No! It has to be my jacket. Trust me on this okay? I’ll fill you in while you’re working.” Even though I was on board with Howard’s plan, I had to make one modification and it involved my jacket. Howard might not like it, but it was a risk I was willing to take.
While Bree fixed my ripped coat, Howard chatted with Ian. It wasn’t long after she finished that we left. Howard and I stopped for a quick snack along the way and then continued down the thruway toward Wilmington. I sent one more text message to remind the Kendricks to only tell Kurt an hour of us leaving their home. We would be too close to Wilmington by then for Mason and his crew to meet us and mess things up.
A phone in the far back of the SUV chimed to a BTS’s War With Hormone.
Chapter Twenty-six
Howard glanced through the rearview mirror while I stared from between our two front seats. A couple of thoughts came to mind, but only one made sense.
“Jayden?” I said.
“You’re a smart one.” Luggage shifted in the back before she finally emerged from hiding. “I feel asleep. Thought I had the thing on vibrate, but I guess it was both vibrate and ringtone.”
“What the hell are you doing back there?” Howard asked as he switched lanes and headed up an off-ramp.
“Dad and I were talking.” She tossed her backpack into the backseat and then climbed over. “We didn’t think you guys should be going anywhere by yourselves. Then when I got Nadia alone, I asked her if she would feel better if I came with you. She said yes. Who’s going to deny a little girl’s charm like that?”
“So, it’s Nadia’s fault that you’re here.” I wanted to be mad at her, but let it go so as not to force us off the road by mistake. “Jayden, this isn’t a game unless you call being beaten, drugged, and shot at, fun.”
“I know.” She nodded as though it didn’t take much to convince her of that. “I’m not in this for the thrills, anyway. I came because you need a third person to watch your backs. Plus, I didn’t get a chance to give you the information you asked for about the other highly dangerous people who went to our school and disappeared after they graduated.”
“You found something?” My excitement almost had me leaping into the backseat to join her.
“Hold on.” Howard sighed as he pulled into a gas station and parked. “I don’t care what your lame excuses are. You need you to call your parents and tell them where you’re at. If you don’t, I’ll leave you at this nicely lit gas station with all of the potbellied truck drivers to keep you company.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Jayden narrowed her glare.
I sat back in my seat and crossed my arms. “Try him. The only reason why he gets my respect is because he means what he says.”
I knew Howard wouldn’t do anything like that, but he had a point. Jayden shouldn’t have come. Plus, my grandfather would at least call the cops, first, to make sure she wasn’t harassed or anything.
“Fine.” She placed her phone on the console between Howard and me. “But you should talk to them first. Only another adult will calm them down at this point. Besides, I need to talk to your granddaughter.”
“Whatever.” Howard grabbed the phone and opened the door. He slammed it so hard I was surprised he didn’t break the glass.
“Is he always that pissed?” she asked.
“No,” I replied, somewhat ticked at her. “But he has every right to be. This is dangerous, Jayden. if you wanted to come, you should’ve at least told me. I would’ve talked you out of it.”
“I know.” She held her hand out. “Can I have some of those peanuts, by the way? I missed dinner.”
I shoved them into her hand.
“Onto business. Mr. Savoy found out who was responsible for the data breach into your guys’ records. It turns out it wasn’t just you and Nadia either. It was a targeted breach and twenty-two other students had their information compromised. That’s what he told my parents, anyway. A stupid computer-tech peon sold the information to someone who was interested in it. As soon as he got his money, he disappeared. The money is still in his account, not a penny spent.”
“Really?” I watched as Howard paced back and forth as he spoke into the phone. “He didn’t live long enough to spend it, did he?”
“That’s the going theory these days. Savoy conducted a witch hunt across the tech department after that. I think he knows his job is in jeopardy because of that screwup.”
I wish I could say I felt sorry for him, but I didn’t.
Jayden being here brought on a new complication that I wasn’t sure Howard foresaw. I reached inside my pocket and pulled out a small box about an inch wide and three inches long. I handed it to her.
“What’s this?” Jayden asked.
“It’s a GPS tracking device,” I replied. “Howard had given one to Nadia and one to me. He and Connie do a lot of skiing and hiking in the craziest of places, so he had them for safety reasons. One of them actually saved Connie’s life when she was caught in an avalanche in the Swiss Alps somewhere.”
“Okay, but don’t you need this more than me?”
I shook my head and showed her hole that her mother had sewn closed in my jacket. “This one belongs to Nadia. I took hers during the flight down here and was going to sneak it in Howard’s pocket in case he came up missing. Something tells me you’re going to need it more.”
She smirked. “Since when did you become a precog?”
“Since never.” I returned the smile. “So what did you learn about those other missing hub students?”
“You mentioned someone named Crothers, right?” She shoved the GPS tracker in her pocket.
“Yeah. Did you find anything?”
“No. But, there was one weird thing.” Jayden brought up a notepad app on her phone. “I had to hit up some of my parents’ contacts in the underground for the information and they took a while getting back to me.”
“So your parents are a part of a supernatural underground. Kurt told me.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t know that I know about their contacts, so don’t say a word to them. Ever. They don’t normally talk about it for obvious reasons.”
“How did your parents land that job?”
“As usual, Dad poked around the supernatural community too much and asked enough questions to make people nervous. Word got back to those involved with it. They thought he might make for a good contact on the outside as a result. They even offered to stash Vanessa there if it came to it. Those guys have been around since the seventies.”
“Hold on. You said the seventies.”
“Yeah, why?”
“That’s the same time frame as when the Babcock Building ditched part of their name. I can’t explain everything right now, but suppose the underground originated within the Babcock Building on campus? Like they wanted to hide because too much attention was being drawn to them? And before you ask, the Babcock Building is where they debunk paranormal activity at Cornerstone. I thought it was just the psych department, but I guess there was more to it than that.”
“Sounds a little counterintuitive, but I’ve heard of that place.” She slid her finger upward on her cell phone and read from her notes. “Everyone super powerful left a trace of their whereabouts here and there, even if the information might
be a little sketchy. All of them spent some time at a place called Babcock. At some point, a few of them reported having been approached by the government for their help with a problem. All of them refused, of course, except for a pyrokinetic named Riley Cavanaugh who happened to be the dean of the department at the time.”
“Wait. What? A pyro?”
She nodded. “I thought that was one hell of a coincidence, too. But can you believe this guy was also the dean of the psych department for a little over a year? After that, he left. No word or anything on his whereabouts. My guess is he got swallowed up by a Think Tank.”
“But he’s a pyro, which means he can start fires with his mind.” I dug through my memories. My grandfather mentioned something about a fire starter and I had no idea what he meant by that.
As if on cue, Howard opened the door and got into the SUV. He opened his mouth to say something, but there must have been something on my face that stopped him. Perhaps it was my backing closer to my door. I wanted to believe Howard was on our side. That Kurt hadn’t misplaced his trust in him. But the longer I kept my mouth shut, the more my apprehension built inside me.
“What?” He asked, holding out his hands. “Did I do something?”
“Don’t mess with me, Howard.” I gulped. “I need to know what you know about fire starters.”
“Huh?”
“Fire starters, Howard. Fire starters. Because if what Jayden told me is right, then you know something about Riley Cavanaugh.”
Confusion continued to mar his face as he shifted in his seat. “What are you talking about? I don’t know any guy by the name of Cavanaugh. And if you want to know about Firestarter, you need to read the book. It’s by Stephen King, remember? Man, you guys are from the clueless generation. That was one hell of a book.”
“What was it about?” Jayden asked. “And no, we’re not trying to change the subject from my parents being pissed that I’m with you guys. We just need to know in case it plays into whatever we’re about to encounter at Cornerstone.”
Howard told us about the story from beginning to end. By the time he was done, the reference he made about me pulling a Firestarter made sense now. It was on point, too. I’d be more than happy to burn down the entire campus if it meant I’d get any part of my family back.
Chapter Twenty-seven
When we reached Cornerstone University and parked outside the Babcock Building, Kurt had all of the details and freaked out as we had predicted. He didn’t want us going anywhere around the Babcock Building if there was the slightest chance it might be dangerous. As he had also pointed out, we didn’t have a plan in case we found our mom here. So, we left him in the SUV to finish venting his frustrations to Jayden. When she said, “So, tell me how you really feel,” he went off. Howard and I laughed and shut the door.
The building was much like many of the buildings on campus in that there wasn’t a receptionist area. You came to the facility, took your classes for the day, and left. I glanced at the directory on the far wall and just as I suspected. Nobody was named Crothers. Being so late in the evening, there wasn’t anyone to ask either. The only thing open was a sleep lab.
Something else caught my attention. There were various labs throughout the building, but there were also off-site labs. Two were located downtown at the New Hanover Hospital and a third was on the outskirts of Chicago.
“Oh my god.” I tapped Howard on the arm and showed him. “I wonder if this place had anything to do with the place where Nadia and I were being held.”
“You think your mom’s there?” He pulled out his cell phone and started searching up the address. After a few minutes, he showed me a picture of the house. “This it?”
“Oh man.” Every organ inside of me wanted to spill onto the floor. All of us came here most likely for nothing. If they were going to take my mom anywhere, that would be the place.
“The funny thing is that the address I put in doesn’t exist.” He slid his fingers across the screen and pinched them for closer shots. “The actual address is a piece of land that has nothing on it. This house is the closest thing to it.”
“I guess that’s a good way to hide it.” I paused to work through the logistics. “Maybe they did that on purpose in case someone showed up who didn’t belong. But why list them at all? Isn’t that like giving themselves away?”
“Not necessarily.” Howard tried to pull up other images on his phone. “Places like that don’t run on their own. If it’s tied to the university, then it has to have the funding or grant money. If it’s not listed, then how does anyone know it exists?”
“But I thought Crothers was funding this psychotic operation. Surely, he has enough money to foot the bill.”
“He probably does. But if he needs the help of anyone at this university, someone higher up has to know about their extracurricular activities and approve it. There has to be a paper trail for audit purposes. I didn’t say the paper trail had to tell the entire truth.”
“Can I help you, folks?” A security guard who looked so lean and wiry that he could wrap his body around a pole approached us with his hand on the trigger of what looked like a stun gun. “You lost or something?”
“Looks like we’re on,” my grandfather mumbled.
“We were looking for my mother, Bethany Thorne.” I fished my student ID out to show the security guard. “She was seeking treatment here for her schizophrenia.”
Howard cut a quick glance at me. I raised my eyelids to tell him to go along with it. I had walked into a hungry lion’s den and we knew it. If putting my mom’s name out there didn’t garner a reaction, then we knew she wasn’t here.
“I doubt that.” He looked at my ID for so long that I thought he was memorizing it.
“Why?” Howard asked.
He finally looked up and stared emotionless as he handed my ID back. “I think you know why, Ms. Thorne. Do you have any ID on you, sir?”
“He’s my grandfather. Why does he need ID if he’s with me?”
“It’s okay, Phaedra.” Howard reached in his back pocket and pulled out his driver’s license for him. “I wouldn’t want to get us in any more trouble then we’re already in.”
Banging at the window behind us jerked us around. Jayden was slamming her knuckles on the glass and mouthing the words “get out.”
When I turned back to the security guard, Howard was already diving for his gun hand.
“Get out of here!” Howard yelled. “Get out.”
Damn it. I didn’t want to leave my grandfather. Everything inside me welled up into a ball of emotions about the burst like an overfilled water balloon. I wanted to focus my powers, but I couldn’t. There was too much happening. Too much interference.
Jayden hauled tail away from the window and disappeared out of sight.
The glass shattered outward and sprayed across the pavement. Not one piece remained around the frame. It was as though a bomb went off. I sped through the frame and ran across the wet grass toward the rental. Jayden was already in the driver’s seat and ready to speed off.
Something stung me on the side of the neck. My legs buckled and the rest of my body slumped onto the ground. I managed to roll over onto my side just enough to see Jayden pop the door open. When I waved my hand, it shut.
“Get out...of here,” I said, exhausted more than I had ever been in my life.
I waved my hand again and the SUV back up, tires squealing because it was still in the park position. I wanted Jayden safe. As if she got my hint, she shifted the SUV into drive and sped off.
What was left of my power, I turned my focus toward the five or six security guards heading toward me with two barking German Shepherds who were eager to get their teeth around anything dangerous.
They yelped. Aw crap. I didn’t want to hurt the dogs. Damn my powers to hell.
My eyes closed and the world darkened around me. All I could do was hope...hope… Jayden. Howard.
#
Fogginess lifted from my brain an
d my eyelids opened. I was lying on a sofa underneath a window with mesh between the glass panes. A table and four chairs were at one end of the rectangle room and a bookshelf with several books and a computer desk were on the other side of the room. Despite the uneasy situation, my plan had worked. How good was anyone’s guess because I had no idea where Howard or I were and our location was especially important.
Gripping the armrest of the sofa, I pushed myself to stand on my wobbly legs. Using the wall for leverage, I made my way to a laptop sitting on the desk. I opened it up and pressed the power button. It powered up. The login window had a button that read “sign on”. I clicked it and was able to get onto the PC.
I glanced around the room again and finally noticed a large glass window that looked more like a mirror. The last thing I needed to see was myself, so it had to be one-way glass.
I tapped the browser icon. It came up, but so did a “Cannot connect…” page. The computer wi-fi had all of the bars lit. So, it was getting a signal. They must have been blocking it, which made sense.
“So much for going to my stash of X-rated websites,” I mumbled.
I went to the mirror and ran my fingers along the sides. There wasn’t any give. It was as though the four to five-foot mirror had been glued directly onto the wall. I glanced around the room again and noticed a sheet folded in the corner on a shelf along with some pillows and a blanket. I grabbed it, snapped it loose, and tucked the bedsheet around the edges. If that didn’t get anyone’s attention, then nothing would.
Someone knocked at the door but didn’t wait for me to tell them to come in. The door opened and a handsome guy with a very friendly smile leaned inside before coming in all the way. He was wearing a pair of workout sweats and a sweater—not much of a dresser I suppose. He had thick lips with a thinned goatee, dark eyes, and trimmed eyebrows that somehow gave him a hooded appearance. He looked like someone I knew, but my brain drew a blank.
“Hi.” He closed the door and held out one hand for me to shake. A tablet was in his other hand. “I’m Tobin Crothers, but I’m sure you’ve already figured that much out on your own. ”
Silent Scream (Bittersweet Series, Book 2) Page 22