by Clara Kensie
Tristan said something else, but his words disappeared into the fog. Dark and thick, it beckoned. It wanted me. I could feel it, trembling in its effort to hold itself back.
It would be easier this way anyway, if Dennis Connelly killed me while I was lost in the fog. I called it in, and let it swallow me up.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Nothing.
Darkness.
Whimpering.
Sobbing.
Shrieking.
Screaming.
Screaming.
SCREEEEEEAAAAAAMING!
A prick in my arm.
Then nothing again.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The fog ebbed and flowed, bringing me along with it, sending me tumbling from the depths of unconscious nothingness to the edges of painful awareness and back again.
Eventually, slowly, the fog released me. Silently I protested, calling it back to me. I wanted to stay in the fog. The fog kept me safe.
But the fog retreated, leaving me alone.
Orphaned.
Deceived.
Betrayed.
I remembered.
* * *
He was lying with me. Holding me. Tristan Walker, the boy who’d handed me over to Dennis Connelly.
He tensed even before I did, his eyes shooting open. “Tessa, don’t—”
With a shrieking gasp, I jerked out of his arms. Scrambled off the cot. I tripped and landed hard on the concrete floor, then clambered to my feet. Stumbled to the door.
He leaped off the cot and in two strides stood over me.
My fingers fumbled for the knob, but there was no knob, no way to open it. My eyes darted from wall to wall. No windows. No air. No escape. I was trapped, trapped in this tiny gray cell, a fly caught in a web.
The spider reached for the fly.
I cowered against the wall with a whimper.
Tristan held up his palms. “I’m not going to hurt you, Tessa. I love you.”
At those words, the cold, hollow fear inside me faded, churned, curdled, spun and grew, spitting and howling, into a solid mass of rage that erupted in my explosive roar. “Liar!”
He flinched and backed away.
Teeth bared, I stormed over to him. “You used me. You made me fall in love with you. You made me tell you everything. And then you delivered us straight to Denn—” I couldn’t say it, even now. “Straight to him!”
After each sentence I punched him. He bowed his head and put his hands behind his back, accepting my abuse.
“You can believe me when I say I can keep you safe. A lie!” I mocked his words. “My mother had a dream about you. Another lie!” I hit him, as hard as I could. “Every time I’ve told you that I love you, I meant it. All. A. Lie!” I yanked the pearl promise ring off my finger and whipped it at him. It ricocheted off his chest and flew across the cell.
The memory of pleading with him, of begging him, to go into hiding with my family to protect us, when all along he was plotting against us, made me sick. “Get out of here. Get out!”
He brought his eyes, red and pained, to mine. “No.”
Dizzy with rage, I ran to the door and kicked it, pounded on it. “Let me out of here! Let me out!”
When no one came, I turned back to Tristan, hands in fists. “Tell them to open that door. Make them let me out of here!” I punched him again and again, unable to stop.
He stood there, taking each hit, barely even swaying. That angered me even more. I snarled. “Fight back!” I wanted to fight. I wanted him to hit me. I needed to feel physical pain, anything that would make me forget the memory of those men shooting my parents. Anything that would extinguish this agony, this guilt, this heartbreak.
“Hit me back!” I pounded on him, shrieking with each strike. “Hit me!” I shoved him hard, trying to provoke him, but he stood there, looking at me with wounded and guilty eyes.
I wailed and pulled my arm back, intent on slamming my fist into the cinderblock wall.
He grabbed my wrist before I could swing and held it tight. “I’m not going to hit you, Tessa,” he said. “I’m not going to let you hurt yourself either. You were about to break every bone in your hand. If you don’t calm down, they will come in and sedate you. I see it happening.” He tapped his temple. “And you’re going to kick me now, but it will hurt you more than it hurts me.”
I kicked him anyway and howled in pain as my bare toes collided with his shin. “Stop it! Stop using your precognition on me!”
For the first time in my life I understood how my mother felt while caught in a fit of despair, and I drew up every ounce of will in my body and roared, picturing Tristan flying across the cell and slamming into the wall.
But he didn’t move.
Because I was not psychokinetic.
Because I was nothing.
I sank to my knees, sobbing. “Let them come. Let them sedate me. Please.”
He knelt down next to me and smoothed my hair. “No.”
“How could you do this to me, Tristan?” I buried my face in my hands.
He gathered me in his arms and carried me to the cot, then lay me down and held me against his chest until my breathing slowed.
I wanted to pull away, but I also wanted to stay in his arms. I tried to pretend we were lying in his bed in Twelve Lakes, that nothing in the past few hours had really happened, and he was just comforting me from a nightmare.
But I couldn’t pretend.
“Please don’t touch me,” I said.
Slowly, he unwrapped his arms. Sat up. Put his head in his hands. I slid as far away from him as I could and drew my knees under my chin. I shivered. My arms and shoulders were bare. I had a vague memory of a white shirt—something about a little pink horse?—but all I wore now was my silver dress.
Tristan slid a duffle bag from under the cot and pulled out a bright blue hoodie. “Here. Put this on.”
I slid it over my head. It was thick and soft and warm. The sleeves were longer than my fingertips. The soapy, fresh scent reminded me of the Tristan I knew in Twelve Lakes.
“If I ask you something,” I said, “will you tell me the truth?”
“I swear to God, Tessa, I will never lie to you again.”
“Are my parents really alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
“Down the hall in high security.”
“Can I see them?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“What about Jillian and Logan?”
“Nobody knows where they are. We think they slipped out on foot before your parents drove up here.”
Good. At least two of us were safe. My parents should have escaped with them. But they came to save me and drove into an ambush.
I leaned my head against the wall. Anger, such an alien feeling for me anyway, was ineffective. I’d lost control. And fear just paralyzed me. That strange mental fog numbed me and made everything disappear. But if I could keep the fog at the level it was now, maybe I could figure out what was happening.
I’d always known Dennis Connelly would find us, but not like this. I had assumed he worked alone in his mission to eliminate my family. But he had precognitives, telepaths and guards by the dozen under his command. An army. An empire.
We’d never had a chance.
“If you knew we were coming to Twelve Lakes,” I said, “why didn’t you just take us the day we moved in? Why did you wait so long?” I wanted to add, Why did you make me fall in love with you first? But I bit off the words before they left my mouth.
“You evaded us so many times before, and we never knew how you knew we were coming. We took it slow this time so we could learn exactly what you could do and what
you couldn’t. We had to figure out the best way to apprehend your parents so no one else would get hurt.”
“I got hurt, Tristan.”
With a guilty look, he reached for my cheek, but I swatted his hand away. Kellan punching me was not the kind of hurt I was talking about. “So you coerced me into telling you exactly what you needed to know,” I said. “What did you do, take a class called Advanced Interrogation Methods or something?”
With a sigh, he nodded. “I went through training, yes. Interrogation and trust-building techniques, things like that. You still took a lot longer to open up than we thought you would.”
Was that supposed to make me feel better? “Where is he?”
“Kellan?” Tristan shrugged. “He’s probably around here somewhere. Or maybe he went home. I don’t really care, as long as he stays away from you.”
“Not Kellan. Where is...” I closed my eyes. Took a breath.
Licked my lips, swallowed.
But I still couldn’t say Dennis Connelly’s name out loud. “Where is he?”
Tristan understood now. “He is probably at home. He came to check on you a couple times.”
“He did? He was here? Right here?” I pictured him standing above my unconscious body, cackling with victory. “Why didn’t he kill me?”
Tristan sighed. “Because we don’t kill people, Tessa.”
I shook my head. Tristan might not kill people, but the people he worked with did. Big tears slid down my cheeks. He reached to wipe them, but I turned away.
Last night—was it last night?—we’d been dancing at Winterball. We’d been in love.
But Tristan had never loved me. He’d been lying the whole time. He’d been lying to me since the day we met.
“Did you know this was going to happen?” I asked him, gesturing around the cell.
“Not like this.”
“But you knew my family was going to be captured.”
“My assignment was to learn if anyone in your family had psychic abilities. That’s all. I didn’t know what was really going on until a few days ago, and even then, I didn’t know that Kellan was so vindictive that he’d kidnap you.”
“You still lied to me the entire time.”
“I only lied when I had to. You, of all people, should understand why lies are necessary.”
I huffed. “I lied to protect my family. You lied to destroy us.”
He said nothing, just heaved a slow sigh and nodded.
“Just leave, Tristan. Get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Tears squeezed from my eyes, and I turned my head so he wouldn’t see them. “Is that doctor coming back?” I asked.
“She came back a couple times already. Don’t you remember screaming?”
I was screaming? I never, ever, ever screamed. That was a rule. But my voice was hoarse. My throat felt raw. Like I’d swallowed razor blades.
I’d broken the rule: I screamed. And now, just like my mom said, Dennis Connelly was coming.
“We couldn’t get you to stop,” Tristan said. “She had to sedate you. She came back again to bring you some clothes. Amy and Heath came with her. Amy healed your cuts and bruises. You had some frostbite on your feet. She healed that too.”
“Who are Amy and Heath?”
“Melissa and Philip.”
“Your aunt and uncle?”
“They’re not really my aunt and uncle.”
I succumbed to sobs again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“What time is it?” I asked a while later. Neither of us had moved from the cot.
“It’s about three in the morning.”
I did a quick calculation. My parents had arrived just as the sun came up. I’d been asleep almost a whole day.
And not just sleeping. Apparently I’d been screaming, too.
I sniffled and rubbed my eyes. My fingers came back stained with dirt and makeup. My whole body felt dirty. Contaminated. Used. “Can I ...am I allowed to take a shower?”
“Of course.” Tristan took my elbow to help me stand, but I jerked my arm away. He sighed and handed me a plastic bag from under the cot. “Here are the clothes from Dr. Sheldon. There’s soap and stuff in the bathroom.”
I took the bag and, without another glance at him, closed the bathroom door behind me. I shed his hoodie, then my dress, which was now more filthy gray than sparkly silver.
A dingy white curtain on a flimsy metal rod hid the minuscule shower. I turned the water hot, much hotter than comfortable, and forced myself to stand under the burning stream. A wire basket stocked with shower supplies hung from a hook. I washed myself, wishing the washcloth was sandpaper, scrubbing hard, in between my fingers and toes and every square inch of skin, even my cheekbone and chin. My bruises and cuts were completely healed.
The scars on my stomach were still there.
I turned the temperature all the way up, as hot as it could go. The scorching water and the fog I had called in with it, almost kept my mind off the fact I was showering in the lair of the man who had given me those five jagged, twisting scars.
The fog receded when the door opened, and Tristan knocked on the door frame. “You okay?”
“Go away, Tristan,” I said as icily as I could. The water, I realized, had become cold as ice too.
Enduring the freezing water, I called the fog in deeper, and deeper still. But that made the world spin and fade.
I sent it away, but that made everything too sharp, too clear, too painful.
I brought it back, just a little. Then a little more. Then a little less.
Perfect.
After turning off the water, I forced myself to stand in the cold air, wet and shivering, before drying off. Despite subjecting myself to the temperature extremes, I was able to keep the fog under control—just heavy enough to keep myself from feeling too deeply, but light enough so I wouldn’t lose myself again.
Inside the bag from Dr. Sheldon were crisply laundered gray cotton pants and a top, white underwear, white socks and white tennis shoes.
A prison uniform.
I pulled the drawstring tight to keep the pants from falling, but I still had to cuff the bottoms so I wouldn’t trip over them. I put on the socks, and even they turned gray on the bottom with my first steps on the concrete floor.
Instead of the gray top, I slid Tristan’s blue hoodie back on. It was large enough to hide in. The logo on the front read Lilybrook High Tennis in faded white letters.
Tristan was on the tennis team at his old school. Lilybrook High. That could be the first true thing I knew about him.
And now I had to learn the truth about everything else, so I could find my parents and get us out of here.
I stepped out into the cell. Tristan sat on the cot with his head in his hands.
“Tristan, what is this place?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Tristan patted the cot, inviting me to sit next to him. I sat, but as far away from him as I could. His arm wavered in the air for a moment, like he didn’t know what to do with it if it wasn’t around me. Finally he just let it drop.
“What is this place?” I asked again.
“Most people think we’re a research facility called the Northern Wisconsin Science Laboratory,” he said. “But really, we’re the Agency for Psionic Research. The APR. We’re funded by the federal government.”
“What’s ‘psionic?’”
“That’s what we call people with psychic abilities. We find them around the country and invite them to come here. There’s a lab up on the ground floor where we study them.”
“You want to study my family? Like, test us?” That couldn’t be right. “You didn’t invite us, Tristan. You hunted us. You forced us to com
e here.”
“We also,” he said, rubbing his eyes and releasing a heavy breath, “have a division called Investigations. That’s where I work. I’m an agent. A junior agent, actually. This was my first case.”
“So you’re not really a high school student,” I said.
“No.”
I exhaled hard. Tristan wasn’t even in high school. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” he said. “I postponed college to stay on the case.”
Only a year older than I thought. That wasn’t too bad. “What’s your real name?”
“My real name is Tristan. My alias was supposed to be Mason, but Amy messed up the first day. She introduced me as Tristan to the neighbors, so I had to stick with it.”
I was glad his real name was Tristan. It comforted me, somehow. But it didn’t change anything. He was still a liar, still working for Dennis Connelly.
That made me think of something else. “What’s his real name?”
“You mean Dennis Connelly?”
I nodded.
“That is his real name. Recruiters didn’t start using aliases until after they ran across your family.”
Funny, that’s when we’d started using aliases too. “Did your parents really move to Malaysia?”
“No.”
“Do they know you’re working for a killer?” I said it with a slight growl, hoping to rattle him and break his calm demeanor.
It didn’t work. He just sighed and hung his head. “Dennis Connelly is not a killer. He doesn’t even work here anymore. He was on the recruitment team, then he was executive director. He retired last year.”
“But he kills people, Tristan. You said this place is funded by the federal government. Someone from the government sent him to kill my family. My father saw him kill the people who tried to help us,” I said. “You don’t know as much about that man as you think you do.”
“Tessa.” He looked at me then, with eyes so filled with pity and sympathy it sucked all the air from my lungs. I was suddenly very, very sure that whatever he said next would shatter every truth I’d ever known.