by Rush, Lynn
The surprise and awe he showed when he’d called me The Daughter was genuine. I wasn’t exactly sure how I knew, but I felt it.
“Jasmine. You think I can talk to him outside, in private? Meaning, plug up those freaking ears of yours?”
“Sure. We’ll stay in here and watch over the two humans.” Jasmine smiled. “Just don’t wander too far. You’ll trip—er—maybe you won’t, Nate probably disabled them.”
I stepped toward the small door and disengaged the lock. I sucked in a deep breath, then looked at Georgia. She nodded.
Man. I hoped she was right about him because my heart was all over the place. I didn’t know who to trust.
Or who to love.
I cranked the handle and pulled open the door. Nate stood a few steps away from the door, hands clasped behind his back. His cheeks flushed. His gaze met mine, and he let out a long breath. “Mandy.”
“How’d you find us?”
“Tagged the car.”
“Tagged?”
He glanced past me in Jasmine’s direction. “Tracker. I stuck it on your bumper outside Zach’s house. Jasmine should have searched the car before bringing you here. Anyone could have tracked you.”
I turned and faced Jasmine. Red painted her cheeks. She slouched and planted her hands on her hips.
“Great.” I nodded off behind him. “Walk?”
He arched an eyebrow. “You want to walk with me?”
“You have some stuff to tell me, right?”
Sure, my first instinct was to ditch the guy, well, okay, freezing him was actually my first instinct, ditching was a close second. But, for some reason, what Georgia said, about him being a good guy, rang true to me as well, and I had to check it out.
Of course, my mind was still reeling from Zach’s little bombshell and major kiss.
In battle, everyone always stood behind me since I appeared to be the strongest freak of nature in our little Scooby gang. If that was the case, then I was going to take charge.
First order of business, to find out what the hell was going on with Nate or Josiah, or whoever he was.
I glanced at Jasmine. She dipped her head. “You’re clear.”
Georgia nodded as well but threw in a wink.
Zach, on the other hand, glared past me at Nate, eyebrow arched and arms crossed over his chest.
“I ran a perimeter check, we’re safe,” Nate said.
“That status tends to change pretty quickly around me,” I said.
“I see no other tracers on the car. I don’t believe your Agent friend planted one. But if anyone had contact with him, check their bodies and clothing,” Nate said.
I turned toward Jasmine. “Jas, check Georgia and vice versa. Scott, check Zach out. I’ll be back whenever.”
Zach straightened. “Mandy, I don’t think—”
“Remember, Zach. You don’t get a vote,” I said, then stepped through the doorway and pulled the door shut.
A cool breeze greeted me, and I drew it deep into my lungs, hoping my throbbing heart would settle down to a slow trot.
Nate stepped out of my way, and I clomped down the three stairs. Bright floodlights clicked on as I moved onto the sidewalk. A long, sprawling yard lay between the house and the trees. I couldn’t believe the grass was so green in the desert.
Regardless, I was thankful for its softness as I stepped off the cement sidewalk. It felt like walking on pillows.
Nate came in beside me. “I’m sorry, Mand—Amanda, for lying to you.”
“For the record. I still don’t trust you.” I couldn’t really fault him too much, could I? I mean, I’d lied to him from day one, too, right?
“I’m sorry. I had no choice.”
“I know. It just really sucks. I mean, an Agent?”
“I’m not. I swear.”
“But you were, Nate. You captured my mom on several occasions I understand.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I get to ask the questions tonight, buddy.” I looked at him. “And you know I’m not scared to use my powers on you.”
“I won’t make you. I promise. Hands in pockets the entire time.” He twisted his body toward me to demonstrate. “I won’t hurt you. Even if I could, which I know I can’t, I wouldn’t.”
“So, what’s your story, then?”
“The name The Center gave me was Josiah Mirius, but Josiah died three years ago when he escaped from The Center.”
“Died?”
“Me and two others had a come to Jesus moment and realized what The Center and its Agents were doing to innocent people was wrong. I couldn’t be a part of it any longer.”
“Come to Jesus?”
“Just a phrase we use when things click on. Like a light bulb, right?”
I kept walking. The lights dimmed more as we navigated away from the house. Nate walked close to me, even bumped against my arm a couple times but kept his hands in his pockets. What surprised me was how my body reacted to his touch. Despite the lies and despite the fact that he had been an Agent for an organization that killed my parents and kidnapped me twice…my skin still tingled when he brushed against me.
Could I get any more effed up?
“The first Jesus Moment was when Sarah and Josh were killed.”
Okay, that stung. My chest tightened.
“Something clicked within me. I played a role in their deaths. Although it wasn’t me doing the killing, what I did at The Center aided in it.”
Tears pricked at my eyes, and I drew in a deep breath. Okay, so, the guy I started dating, really enjoyed kissing, and had just come to accept as my boyfriend had a role in killing my parents.
Not really doing very well in the dating department.
“Why didn’t you leave back then?”
“I was torn. The Center created me, I felt…obligated. When I voiced my concerns, they explained them away so efficiently, although, not entirely. They’d raised me, for that I felt loyal to them. To their cause.”
“What is their cause?”
“Further human development. Assist humans in using more of their brain. Learning. Making people better, stronger. You name it. They have many intentions and many projects.”
“Stupid scientists and their meddling.”
“Most science is helpful to the universe. But The Center? They aren’t. They’re focused on bettering humans to sell secrets for whatever reason. War. Power. Money. Political reasons.” He shook his head and scanned the grounds again. “It may have started out well-intentioned back in the 1980s, but it’s morphed into something bigger than even they know how to contain.”
“Fantastic.”
“I tried to find those who also questioned what The Center was doing. I absorbed as much as I could, information-wise, and built my case to leave.”
“You just walked out of there? How is it they don’t hunt you?”
“No. I killed myself.” He smiled.
Someone shouldn’t smile as widely as Nate did when he’d mentioned killing himself. It was creepy, yet not. Now that I thought about it, there was a little child-like innocence about Nate. His eyes were constantly filled with wonder. He never let much bother him. And he went after what he wanted. I’d seen all of that already.
The way he pursued me, then how he was with me. So tender, caring and…curious. And when Zach was being the jerk he was, Nate brushed him off. Didn’t let Zach get to him.
I cleared my throat and glanced around. “Killed yourself?”
“I went on a mission to detain another subject some Agents had found in Nebraska.” He shrugged. “I called it field study, to try out something I was developing.”
“What?”
Nate studied the ground a long few seconds. “A new tranquilizer formula for the field dart guns.”
I swallowed hard. I’d had plenty of experience with that damn stuff.
“I went with the two others who’d decided to leave with me and staged our deaths. For all intended purposes, we burned in
the building explosion. With our deaths we were free to take on new lives. And we did.”
“Nice story about the college in three years, police records, crap like that.” A shiver slid down my back. The darkness held a chill that seeped into my bones. T-shirt and jeans might not have been the best attire to walk around at night in. “So, Tim’s in on this?”
Nate nodded, then slowed his pace. “We shouldn’t get too close to the trees. Want to keep walking or sit?”
“Keep walking, we’ll do a lap.”
“And yes, I’m sorry, I had to make up a story and stick to it.”
Yeah, well, he’d fooled me for sure. “So, you really taught all the spy crap to Jasmine?”
He nodded. “She was a great student.”
“How’d you learn it?”
Nate glanced at me with dark eyes. “I’m a quick study. Plus I went on a lot of missions, read a lot about it, things like that.”
“Jasmine said your IQ is off the charts.”
“You could say that. I tend to pick up on things just by reading about them. Even more so if I do them.”
We veered to the left. I glanced back at the house. It was still lit up, almost to the point where it seemed like it was mid-day instead of two in the morning. A silhouette in a window on the left side of the house shifted. It looked like Zach’s shadow.
I hated that I knew his gait. Well, I didn’t hate it. It just bugged me now because we weren’t together. I shook my head free of Zach’s image and turned my focus toward the darkness.
“You’re not eighteen are you?”
He drew in a deep breath and looked out ahead of us. We neared another bank of tall, dark, shadowy pines. Not a breeze out here, so they stood eerily still. The ink-black sky twinkled with millions of stars. I almost felt like I was at Thunderbird Trails with him again.
Although, not.
“Nate? Or, should I call you Josiah?”
“Josiah is dead. I’m Nate now.”
“Okay, Nate. How old are you?”
He grasped my elbow and gently tugged me to a stop. “I don’t really know.”
Didn’t expect that. I pulled out of his grasp and stepped back. My mind and heart warred with each other. I swear they fought with dull steak knives for how much everything hurt inside.
But, God, he was so beautiful. The light behind me bounced off his bronzed skin. His clenched jaw made his face muscles bulge and twitch. Yet, his forehead was smooth, like he was calm.
And now that I thought of it, he never really fought me. He didn’t even try to defend himself when I sprayed him. He only tried to explain. Jasmine and I just went off half-cocked. The image of him staring after my car when we zoomed away from Zach’s house had haunted me ever since. The surprise I saw in his eyes when he put it together that I was The Daughter seemed so genuine.
Had he been doing what Scott and I have been doing over the years? Just trying to find a new life. Find some piece of normalcy?
“How can you not know how old you are?”
“Amanda. I was—” He raked his fingers through his hair. “God, how do I say this?”
“You know what? Just spit it out. It’s like a band-aid. Rip it off fast. That’s the best way.”
A slight smile curved the corner of his mouth. “Band-aid?”
“It’s stupid. So, out with it.”
“Okay. You asked for it.”
Oh great. I fisted my hands waiting for the blow.
“I was created by the scientists at The Center.”
That wasn’t so bad. “Right, like I was. Experiments, parents having children, we’re born with funky powers, I get that. But how can you not know how old you are?”
He turned his focus downward, and my nerves shot up. Something big was coming, and I didn’t think I would like it. I felt like putting up an ice shield around my skin six inches thick, then whatever he was about to say would just bounce off.
“Amanda, when I say I was created by the scientists of The Center, I mean, they are my parents. I wasn’t born to a mother and father in a traditional sense.”
“I’m a little dim, tired, and really hungry, so I could be misunderstanding, but—” I moved a couple steps away. He shoved his hands in his pockets, then looked up. “But do you mean you were created, as in, made out of some cocktail and put in a Petri dish?”
His moist-eyed gaze met mine. His head bobbed up and down. “Yes.”
Chapter 30
“Now would be a good time to sit,” I said, as my legs turned to wet noodles.
Nate had been created in a Petri dish? I’d been joking when I’d said it. Even when I said it to Andrey while fighting him in California. People could be created like that? Was Nate even human?
The grass felt cold, even through my jeans. It was still August, but the chill was beginning to creep in up here in Northern Arizona, slowly but surely. Nate reached for me while I was descending, but I shrugged him off.
Surprisingly, he didn’t push it. Even sat a couple of feet away. Had to admire his dedication to what he said about keeping his hands in his pockets.
This guy had to be on the up and up. I felt it with ever fiber of my being. Just hard to get over the being-created-in-a-Petri-dish-thing.
Not to mention the fact that he’d played a role in murdering my parents.
“You’re not human?” I finally squeaked out.
“I am, for the most part.” He glanced at me. “Amanda, I—they took the egg—well, they manipulated the DNA, making a better human.” He used air quotes around better. “It’d failed many times, but with me, it didn’t.”
“But then what? I didn’t do so well in school, Nate, but I know how babies are born.”
“After they finished manipulating things, they implanted the fertilized egg into a human. So, technically, I guess you could say I have parents, but really, I don’t. After they were finished with their manipulating, changing, and adding, all essence of the human donors pretty much vanished.”
“Oh my gosh, Nate.”
“It’s okay. I fought with it for a while, but I’m okay with it now.”
“But then—I mean—if you were born from a woman, then you do have a birth date, you do know how old you are.”
“Technically? Yes.”
“I’m starting to get sick of that word technically.”
He let loose a crooked smile again. “The human who carried me in her womb came to term within four months. Then, I grew and matured at an accelerated rate. When normal children are one year old, I had the physical and mental capabilities of a six year old. It was rapid like that until I reached three or four years old. By that time, I looked as I do now. And I knew so much more than—well—than most people.”
“How?”
“How did your mother get the powers she did from the experiment? How did they get passed on to you? Genetics is an amazing thing, Amanda. We think we know a lot, but we really don’t.”
“You sound just like my mom.”
“You knew about this while growing up?”
“I’m still asking the questions, remember?” I shook my head. “So, when were you born then?”
“Chronologically, I’m about ten years old, but I’ve looked like this since I was about four. Most people say I look like an eighteen year old so that’s how I came up with that age.”
“You never age then?”
“Slower than normal. I mean, since I stopped aging while in The Center, I’ve changed a little, just slower.”
“So, you’ll live a super long time? Like an immortal, right?”
“I’m not immortal. I still get hurt, sick, all that stuff a normal human gets. I just have other certain gifts.”
“Speed. Strength. Night vision.”
“And, I use more of my brain than most. That’s how I learn so fast. I’m sorry I made up all those things about my life that I told you. I—”
“I think my brain is going to implode.” I leaned forward and picked a blade of grass and glanced
to the side.
We had walked to the side of the house, and it was a little dimmer here, but at least there weren’t any figures in the window, watching. Or, at least that I could tell.
“You always did seem different. I mean, in a good way. How you talked. How mature you were. Remember? I even questioned you about your age. You’re so not eighteen.”
He smiled.
“And you didn’t know about me? Really? That I was The Daughter as you called it?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t. I knew Sarah and Josh had had a child. I saw pictures, learned their history. Technically—”
I groaned.
“Sorry. I knew of you through a case file. Just paper. A few baby pictures, but nothing from later, when you were older. When I asked why, they mentioned that Josh and Sarah had vanished. If found, the Agents usually didn’t return. So we couldn’t get a description of The Daughter.”
“Mom killed them?”
“The Center sent many Agents to their deaths in their pursuit of Sarah and Josh.”
My heart crumbled. To think of Mom having to live like that. Hell, I’d had to live like that already.
“She had to, Amanda. Or they would have killed her.”
“Didn’t they want to study her? Learn how she’d become so strong?”
“Well, yes. Of course, they would have done that first. But she wouldn’t have been allowed to exist if she didn’t comply with The Center.”
“What did they want with her?”
“To make more like her. Once they learned all they could from her, she would be the parent of future models.”
“Sick.”
“Having that kind of scientific power makes an entity very greedy. And not just to the American government. Other countries could be involved as well.”
“Andrey.”
“Can you tell me who he is?”
“How do you not know? He was at The Center when I was there.”
“When? They got you?”
“You don’t keep up with The Center to see what they’re doing? If they’re close to you?”
“We try, but they’re good at covering and hiding, despite my knowing a lot about how they do things.”