by Pam Eaton
My breathing starts to slow and I focus on the image of Tony and me in my room. The impression becomes clearer as I keep picturing us.
When I open my eyes, he’s still there in my arms, and we’re in my room. I hug him tightly. I’m so excited that we did it. I want to go tell Ania, but as soon as I let go of Tony, he slumps to the floor with a loud thud. “Tony!”
Ania and Gregory race up the stairs at the sound. They look over Tony and check him for injuries. He’s just lying there on my floor, his skin as white as my sheets. I don’t know what went wrong, but soon Gregory’s doing CPR on him. After a few agonizing moments he begins to stir, and Ania grabs hold of him and lifts him onto my bed. “Tony, are you okay?”
He tries to lift his arm, but it slumps back down. “Where’s Becca?”
Gregory clenches his jaw, but motions for me to come over to the bed.
“I’m right here.”
He breathes in a deep, ragged breath and winces. “When you started breathing slowly, it was like my life was being drained from me. I could feel all my energy being depleted. When we were finally in your room, my body just shut down.”
Gregory turns and grabs my arm, dragging me to the hallway. “What were you trying to do?”
I try to rip my arm out of his grasp, but he hangs on tightly. “He asked if I could only transport myself, and I told him I didn’t know. We decided to try and see if I could bring both of us.”
“Why didn’t you transport to a main room where Ania or I could have been? Better yet, why didn’t you wait to do it around one of us?”
“We wanted to be alone.”
And that was the wrong thing to say. His nostrils flare and he begins to breathe faster. “To your bedroom? You sat on that couch earlier crying and kissing me, and then raced to the next guy?”
I finally rip my arm away from his hold, disgusted at his presumptions. Apparently he’s going to think the worst of me. “You get no say in what decisions I make. That was made perfectly clear to me this morning. As far as what happened with Tony, I didn’t even know there was a chance of this happening. I don’t have those same effects after I transport myself.”
He’s fuming now. “Do you think it’s easy for me to be in this house with you, let alone know that you’re off with him?”
I turn away from him. I can’t bear to look at him anymore. “I really don’t know, Gregory. Maybe you should think about what Ania said to you earlier; it’s your own fault.”
He grabs me by the shoulders and forces me to look at him again. “How do you know about that conversation?”
“Tony saw.”
Gregory’s eyes begin to shift nervously. “What else did he see?”
I look at him curiously, trying to figure out what he’s hiding. “He didn’t tell me anything else.”
Ania peeks her head out the door. Her sad eyes shift between the two of us. “I’m going to take Tony to his room.”
“Doesn’t he need to go the hospital?” I ask.
Gregory rubs his hands over his face. “No, he’ll be okay. We’ll just watch him tonight. It’s too risky to take him anywhere.”
“Becca, he’s wondering if you’d come with us,” Ania calls out to me.
“Yes, of course.” I open the door wider so she can fit through with Tony. I smile at her, because I sometimes forget how strong she is, and seeing her carry a big guy like Tony makes me want to laugh. Gregory heads to his own room and we walk down the hall toward Tony’s.
Once he’s all situated in bed, Ania excuses herself and we’re left alone again. The feeling of guilt washes over me like a tidal wave. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea—”
Tony cuts me off. “Becca, I asked you to try it. This isn’t your fault. At least we know now and it didn’t happen in a serious situation.”
He pats the open space on the bed next to him. “Will you stay with me for a while? I’m still a little shook up.”
“How can I say no? I might have killed you back there. I guess I owe you.”
I climb on the bed and lie right next to him. He brushes my hair out of my face and I lean in and kiss him on the forehead. “Go to sleep. Hopefully you’ll feel better in the morning.”
Thirty
As the sun’s rays stream through the window, I almost forget whose room I’m in. Tony lies next to me, still entranced in his dreams. Last night was a dreamless night for me, and thank goodness for that. Ever so gently, I slide out of the bed and back out of the room, only to bump into Ania.
“Spent the whole night, I see.” She stands there with her arms crossed over her chest. “Nothing happened, I swear.”
She smirks. “Oh, I know. I just wanted to give you a hard time.”
My body slumps, the weight of the past few days taking its toll on me. She tries to force a smile, but it falls short. “Why don’t we have some breakfast and you unload on me? It might do you some good.”
I nod in agreement. Maybe she’s right, and getting all of this off my chest will help. Not to mention that in a few short days we’ll be on an important mission and I need to be focusing on that.
On any other day, the breakfast Ania made would probably taste amazing, but my mind is spinning so much that I can’t focus on anything. Gregory appears in the doorway to the kitchen. “Becca, you’re working with me this morning. Be ready to go in twenty.”
Ania begins to protest, but he waves her off and turns out of the room, heading for the front door.
She looks back at me confused, but I’m fuming. “Really, he has some nerve.” I say.
He infuriates me to no end. One moment he kisses me, the next he’s barking orders at me. I know he has my best intentions at heart, but can’t he cut me some slack? All I know is that if we’re doing any hand-to-hand combat, I’m going to kick his trash. Forget waiting twenty minutes; I’m ready to have it out with him right now. I stand up so fast my chair goes crashing across the kitchen floor.
Gregory stands there waiting for me at the foot of the porch steps. He starts running down the usual path and I follow suit. Instead of heading for the clearing, he turns right, into a part of the woods where I haven’t been yet. We keep going deeper and deeper into the trees, but I’m not backing down, because I can outrun him any day. We come upon another clearing and he comes to a stop. His eyes are like daggers. I size him up, trying to remember all that Ania has taught me. He breaks the silence. “Maybe you should be a little more discreet about where you sleep at night.”
Are you kidding me? “Nothing happened.”
I’ve had enough, so I take a swing at him and he blocks my punch. And then it begins.
I continue swinging, jabbing and kicking, but he just blocks me and doesn’t bother to fight back. I try faking a left hook and come up with my right fist, but he just swats me away. My muscles are screaming in pain and begging for a break, but I need to land at least one blow. The frustration keeps building and I start moving faster. Every kick or punch I try he continues to block. Is he trying to wear me down? It’s working, because I’m almost out of strength.
I bend over, trying to regain my breath. I feel him step closer to me, maybe to comfort me, but I have no clue. But he’s given me a golden opportunity and I’m going to make the most of it.
I turn away from him and clear my mind, still bent over, but with my fist clenched. As he reaches for my shoulder, I turn as fast as I can and hit him square in the eye. He stumbles backwards to the ground, looking completely stunned. I fall to my knees, because I’m still grasping for my own breath.
We both lie on the ground, not speaking. All I hear is our panting, and an occasional moan escapes my lips. I’m still raging inside.
“You want to hit me again?” he asks.
The question startles me. “Actually, yes, I would love to hit you again. I’d love to give you two matching black eyes.” But that’s all a lie. I feel sick that I sucker punched him.
He starts laughing and I manage to roll on my side. I don’t know what he find
s so funny, but I’m certainly not laughing. He makes me want to scream.
He crawls over to me and grabs the front of my shirt. I lie paralyzed with fear. I close my eyes, waiting for a blow to come, but it doesn’t. Because suddenly I feel the firm pressure of his lips. I open my eyes and meet his as he pulls away. All thoughts flee from my brain. “I know that I told you we can’t be together, but I can’t do it.” He stares in my eyes, not saying anything else and I really want to shake him.
“Where are you going with this?” I ask, because I don’t know how much more my heart can take. And I’m impatient.
“I’m falling in love with you, Becca, and I suck at pretending that I’m not. I don’t know what we’re going to do. We can’t let anyone know about us, because I don’t even want to think of the consequences.”
He’s falling in love with me? Whoa.
A memory comes to the forefront of my mind, my nightmare about Mr. Smith punishing me for kissing Gregory. But it’s not just the nightmare—didn’t he say something about wiping my mind? “What do we do, then?” I ask.
“You need to act like nothing has changed. If you suddenly reject Tony, it’ll throw up all sorts of red flags. You need to be angry and indifferent toward me.”
“Wait, so you’re okay with me flirting with Tony?”
He strokes the side of my face. “No, not in the least bit. I never want anyone else in this life flirting with you but me. Just back off it slowly, so slowly that he has no idea. Do you think you can do that?”
I look into his gorgeous green eyes. I don’t think I’ll really ever be able to say no to him.
“I know I can, but you can’t keep changing your mind. If you pull this stunt again, I’m done.”
He stands up, brushes off the dirt from his clothes, and helps me to my feet. His eye is beginning to swell. I reach up and caress his face. “I’m sorry about the shiner.”
He wraps his hand around mine. “I deserved it.”
I won’t argue with that, because he’s been driving me crazy.
We head back toward the cabin and as we reach the porch, Ania is waiting for us. She stands up and immediately takes note of Gregory’s black eye and my red, swollen hands. “What’s wrong with you two?”
“It’s okay Ania, we were just sparring. We’re both all right, nothing broken. I think it was a good way for Becca to release some tension.”
She shakes her head, throws her arms up in the air, and then turns around. “Tony’s asking for you upstairs,” she says and walks into the house.
When I reach Tony’s room, I automatically enter, figuring he’ll still be in bed, but he’s not. He hands me Gregory’s phone. “Becca, Mr. Smith would like to talk to you.”
My voice freezes with fear in my throat. I grab the phone and step out into the hallway, walking away from Tony’s room. “Hello.”
There's a moment of silence, but I can hear him breathing. “I know, Becca.”
What can he know? Millions of thoughts and ideas are swirling in my mind. I know I have to be very careful of my choice of words with him. I decide to ask the most obvious question. “What?”
Laughter comes across the phone. What the hell? “I decided to call and ask Tony how training was going. He told me about you trying to transport him. Let’s not do that again, okay?”
Even though Mr. Smith’s answer isn’t what I was expecting, I still can’t release the tension in my body. I let out a fake laugh. “Yeah, we definitely won’t be trying that again.”
“And how is everything else going that we spoke about?”
My eyes widen and I realize that I need to be so, so careful, or everything will come crashing down. I decide to be completely blunt and honest when it comes to Tony. “Nothing has changed yet in regards to Tony, but I wouldn’t be too concerned. Everything is going well. I actually sparred with Gregory today.”
He breathes a deep sigh of relief into the phone. “How did that go? Did you wipe the floor with him?”
I laugh, but it’s more a relieved sound than anything else. “No, but I did give him a nice shiner.”
He laughs harder into the phone and my body relaxes, but only for a minute. Because I don’t like this banter with him; it feels forced. “I’m glad to hear everything is going well. Keep it up. I’ll be talking with you again soon.”
He hangs up before I have a chance to say anything else.
I knock this time on Tony’s door and he tells me to come in. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better than last night.”
The guilt weighs so heavy on me. “I’m sorry,” I tell him again, but he waves his hand like it’s no big deal.
Tony must have finally gotten a good look at me, because his lips tense and he starts breathing harder. “I’m okay, Tony. I just did some sparring with Gregory. I actually went at him pretty hard. He didn’t even hit back, just blocked.”
This seems to diffuse him for a moment, but not long enough, because he decides to go down to the kitchen. No matter how much I protest, he’s determined.
When we reach the kitchen, Gregory and Ania are sitting at the table. Gregory’s nursing his black eye with a bag of peas. Tony laughs at the sight of him. “See you got your butt handed to you by a girl.”
Ania clears her throat. Tony backpedals. “No offense Ania, you’re not your average woman. Your strength and abilities are your powers.”
It’s time to step in. “Enough, I’m tired of all of this. Now, we have a mission to prepare for and I would really like to survive it. So let’s work together so we can all make it back home safe and sound. And hopefully be a help with finding those missing kids.” Everyone pauses and then I see the resolve in their eyes.
Training is grueling. Gregory has Ania and me out in the cold woods multiple times a day on some sort of treasure hunt. Apparently this is the best way to have Tony direct us where we need to go, because he guides us through an earpiece. Not only are we hunting through the woods, but I’m running at least ten miles a day. Ania times me, trying to push me faster each time.
The biggest training exercise, though, is getting me to transport somewhere that I’ve only seen a drawing of and have never been.
Gregory pulls up a map on his phone. “Okay, so we’re here.” He points at the blue dot on the map. “I want you to go here.” He makes the map smaller and a red pin appears.
“It’s an abandoned water treatment plant.” He taps his phone again. “Here are some recent photos.” I scan the aerial photos with him.
“Don’t worry about getting inside. I just want you to get to the front gate,” he says, pointing at another photo.
Of course it’s abandoned; it looks like a serial killer’s paradise. They could have filmed those Saw movies there.
“It’s isolated; that’s why I picked it,” he says, like he’s picking up on my discomfort.
“And what if I end up somewhere else?” I ask.
He slides his phone to me. “Take this. I can track you on my tablet.”
I look at the photo one more time and then put it in my pocket.
“You’ve got the image in your mind?”
“Yeah,” I tell him.
He puts his tablet on the table. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I close my eyes and picture the creepy gate with its bent barbed wire. I think of the X on the map, the arch of the roof from the photos, and how it kind of reminds me of the photos I’ve seen of Auschwitz.
The phone vibrates in my pocket. I open my eyes to a night sky and a freezing breeze. Where the hell am I? The vibrating continues in my pocket and I finally answer it. “Becca, why are you in Germany?”
Germany? I look up at the infamous gate above of me that I can just make out. Auschwitz.
“Becca?” His voice raises in volume.
“Apparently, thinking about Auschwitz right as I’m transporting is not the smartest idea.”
And man does this place feels heavy, but with what happened here I’m not surprised.
I shake my head. “No, I’m going to try that place again.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I can do this.” I hope I sound a lot more confident than I feel.
“Good luck,” he says, and hangs up the phone.
I shut my eyes tight and put all my focus on the images Gregory showed me, and nothing else.
I slowly open one eye. Success. I would drop to my knees if the ground here wasn’t filled with trash. I pull out the phone, anticipating the ring. And it only takes ten seconds.
“I think you’re ready, Becca. I have faith that you can do this. Come back to me.”
Thirty-One
“Well, that’s strange,” Tony says.
I look toward Tony from my perch near him on the porch. He’s looking out across the forest before us. His head tilts to the side. Suddenly his body goes straight and stiff. I jump to my feet. “What is it? What do you see?” I ask.
He squints his eyes like he’s trying to focus even further. “Dirt is getting kicked up like a car is at the end of the drive.”
My heart starts pounding. “What does the car look like?” I slowly ask.
He narrows his eyes at me and then turns back to the woods. “I think it’s a gold sedan. Hard to tell.”
Everything stops for a minute. Tony fades; the sounds of the birds in the trees are cut off abruptly. The only thing that I can focus on is the freight train that once was my heart. “They found me,” I whisper.
Tony jerks at my comment. “Who—what are you talking about, Becca?”
I walk down the porch steps, controlling each movement of my body. I don’t know how they found me, but they did. I haven’t seen the car since joining Project Lightning, so I thought they’d lost interest in me. They’re going to keep coming, and I don’t even know why. I’m done with this. Done with the constant fear.
Tony calls my name again, but I’m too far gone to really register it. Ever since my mom died, I haven’t felt completely safe unless I’m with Gregory. Everyone keeps making decisions for me, but no more. I’m going to find out who these guys are.