Closed Hearts (Book Two of the Mindjack Trilogy)

by Quinn, Susan Kaye

  Hinckley hopped off the couch and stepped up to Molloy. “Do you want me to take him, boss?”

  “Take me where?” Molloy asked. “I’m fine right where I am, mate.”

  “No, I’ve got him.” Julian waved Hinckley off in an absentminded way.

  Hinckley glanced in my direction. “So, what’s the plan?” he asked Julian.

  “We’ll make new plans in the morning,” Julian said. “You can turn in if you’d like.” Hinckley shrugged, snagged an apple from the kitchen, then strode to the back of the factory.

  “Yes, plans in the morning sounds right enough,” Molloy said. “Meanwhile, I’ve got a raging hunger. What have you got for food here, Julian?”

  I stepped out of Molloy’s path as he ambled to the kitchen in search of a snack. What kind of jacker was Julian? He seemed to get others to do his jacking for him, and when I pushed into his mind, it was a horror show—something I never wanted to do again. Yet he was doing something to Molloy.

  Julian strolled over to Myrtle, who was softly tapping her fingers on the table next to Raf. “Thank you for your assistance, Myrtle. I’ll contact you on the short comm in the morning, when we have an idea of our next step.”

  Myrtle flicked a look to me. “I think I’ll stay a while,” she said. “Maybe have some tea.” She got up to join Molloy, who was rummaging through cabinets in the kitchen.

  “What did you do to Molloy?” I asked Julian in a hushed voice.

  Julian followed my gaze. “I didn’t think you cared much for Mr. Molloy. He’s not injured in any way, just… calmer. His instincts are quieted so that his strongest urge right now is to get a snack.” Julian tilted his head to tap the base of his skull where it met his spine. “This part of the brain controls instinctual responses. Fight or flight. Survival mechanisms.” The corner of his mouth tipped up. “Mating instinct.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “It’s the oldest part of the brain, evolutionarily speaking,” he said, slipping into his professor voice. “Reptiles have it. We don’t use it to think or feel. It controls how we react, without us ever having to think about it at all.”

  “So, you jacked into that part of Molloy’s brain?” The idea sent a shiver down my back. When I jacked into other people’s minds, I could feel the different parts: the thinking parts, the memory zones, the emotional centers. The part that controls respiration and heart rate. But they were fluid, not necessarily all in the same spot from person to person or one jack to the next. I found them by feel more than anything else.

  “I don’t quite jack in.” He regarded me. “When you jack someone’s mind, you feel something, yes?”

  “Like plunging my hand into a bowl of goo.”

  “Goo?” A tiny smile appeared and then left. “You feel something because you are interfacing your mind field with theirs. There’s a natural resistance between the two fields. An interference, you might say.”

  “A mind barrier.”

  “Indeed.” The smile came back, but my shoulders hunched up. I didn’t want to discuss the finer points of jacking. Julian said he would let us go in the morning, but I didn’t trust him any more than I could jack him, which was to say not at all.

  “So what are you saying?” Impatience crept into my voice. “That it doesn’t feel that way to you?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” he said. “It feels like dipping into an endless bath of dread. Or an infinite sea of joy.” He spread his hands wide. “Or a myriad of flavors in between. Everything in the reptilian part of our brains is a wash of energy on a spectrum from positive to negative.”

  I looked at him like he was demens. He shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve never met another handler, so I’m not sure if it’s the same with everyone.”

  “Handler?”

  “That’s just what I call it,” he said. “When I slipped into Molloy’s reptilian brain, it was inflamed with a protective instinct, to save his brother from Kestrel. The protective instinct is very strong. It’s the kind that makes you run into a burning house to save a child, even though it puts your own life in danger. Mr. Molloy thinks you’re the key to our plan to break into Kestrel’s facility, but his methods of persuasion are more extreme than I’m willing to entertain. So I flipped his protective instinct to its opposite.”

  I had a flash of fear and understood why those jackers on the street fled into their houses when they saw him coming. How could you fight someone that messed with your instincts?

  “What’s the opposite instinct?”

  “Peace,” Julian said. “It’s the opposite of almost any negative instinctual response. It’s not unlike the love he no doubt feels for his brother, but I don’t traffic in emotional manipulation.”

  “Right.” I laid the sarcasm on heavy. “Because that would be beneath you.”

  He laughed in a lighthearted way, which rubbed raw against the nerves strung tight throughout my body. “No. Because I don’t know how. I don’t jack like you do, keeper, or like most other jackers.”

  “No, you just play around with people’s instincts for survival.”

  “Yes, precisely.”

  Suddenly I wondered if he could control me. If so, why didn’t he just jack, or handle, me into doing whatever he wanted in this crazy attempt on Kestrel? Then I realized Julian must have already tried.

  “Wait. You were planning on handling me into turning myself in to Kestrel, weren’t you?”

  His lips pinched in. “No, I wasn’t. Even if I wanted to, it doesn’t work that way, not for something so complicated.” He examined me again. “Although I was surprised to find that I couldn’t access the primal parts of your brain, keeper. Even Anna wasn’t able to keep me out, not that I ever would handle her. No, I thought… I thought that you would be different. That you would be more interested in the opportunity I had to offer.” He drew a long look along my Dutch Apple apron. “Obviously I was wrong about that.”

  My heart twisted at his insinuation that I didn’t care about freeing the changelings. But I didn’t need to explain myself to someone who was effectively holding me and Raf hostage. “So you’ll let us go?”

  “In the morning,” he said roughly, looking away from me.

  “What about Raf?” I said. “If you’re going to make him sleep, at least move him to the couch. I don’t think I’ll be sleeping much, anyway.”

  Julian was about to speak when banging at the front door made us all jump, even him. Then he calmly called to Myrtle in the kitchen. “Would you answer the door, please, Myrtle?”

  She pulled her cardigan a little tighter and focused on the door. I felt a little sorry for whoever was on the other side, having been on the receiving end of a mental push from Myrtle.

  She turned back to Julian. “It’s a contractor. He’s looking for the keeper. Has business for her.”

  “Let him in,” Julian told her. He shook his head at me. “Well, it didn’t take long for word about you to get around. Don’t worry. I’ll send a message that you’re not available for business. I don’t need every contractor in town looking to make a few spare unos.”

  Myrtle’s slipper shoes made swishing sounds on the concrete floor. She punched in a code at the keypad and pulled open the door. A man in a jacket with the hood thrown back stood on the other side. He was wearing a Second Skin face mask, the kind that hugged the features of his face, only this one was all black and covered his eyes and mouth as well. He could surely see through the thin film, but not an inch of skin showed. He bent his head and the mask moved with his lips as he spoke words I couldn’t hear. Myrtle swept her hand out, inviting him in. His stride was firm as he stepped across the threshold. He surveyed the room, pausing at Raf, still passed out at the table.

  Then he found me, and his eyeless face stayed trained as he came to a stop just short of the carpeted patch of the kitchen. The way he was staring at me unnerved me, so I reached out to surge into his mind, like the jackers on the street had done, to get him to back off. When his name popped up auto
matically, I had to clamp my mouth shut to keep myself from blurting it out.

  Dad.

  In the middle of the mages’ lair, sheathed in a black contractor mask, stood my dad. I linked fast into his mind. Dad! What are you doing?

  Stay calm. I’m getting you out of here. His thoughts roamed the room, taking in all the players: Myrtle behind him, Julian standing near me, Molloy settling in by Raf at the table and biting into an oversized sandwich.

  “Either you’re a very stupid contractor,” Julian said, “who thinks strolling into a mage cell is an easy way to hire out jackwork, or you’re reckless and looking to prove something to your crew. I hope for your sake that you’re merely stupid.”

  “I have jackwork for the keeper,” my dad said. I held absolutely still. “What’s her price?”

  “She’s not doing business,” Julian said. “She’s a guest under the protection of my crew.”

  “Name your price.” My dad’s hand flexed, like he was itching to do something besides talk. “My patron has plenty of money.” His brow twitched as he took in Molloy’s noisy eating.

  “I told you, she’s not doing business.” Julian stepped so that he blocked the line of sight between me and my dad. “You’ll simply have to explain to your patron why she’s not available. Or perhaps you could persuade him out of his desire to use mindjackers for his dirty business. I suggest you go now before my patience runs out and my friend here,” he inclined his head to Myrtle, “decides to dump you in the street with your memory wiped.”

  I peered around Julian in time to see my dad twist toward Myrtle, his hand in his jacket. Myrtle crumpled to the floor. I gasped, but before Julian could react, my dad had his dart gun trained on Julian’s head.

  “I’m only here for the girl and the reader.” His voice froze all the air in my lungs.

  “I see.” The tendons in Julian’s neck flexed. “I take it you’re not actually a contractor.” He turned his head to the side and said, “So, this is your father, then? You’re turning into a lot more trouble than I expected, keeper.”

  My dad lowered his gun, his hand slack at his side. He had the same confused look that Molloy had earlier. I linked into my dad’s mind, but there was no hard marble, nothing I could jack or get hold of, no presence of Julian that I could push out of my dad’s mind. Just a swirl of jumbled thoughts wondering why he had felt it was so important to come get me.

  “Stop it!” I cried, taking a step toward Julian. “Leave him alone!” He twisted around to face me and threw up his hands, taking a half step back. Until that moment I hadn’t realized I had balled up my fists in front of me, like I was about to pummel him.

  His jaw worked, like he was chewing on the words he wanted to say, but he kept them inside. He lowered his hands and straightened. “Your father just shot my strongest jacker. And pointed a gun in my face. Are you planning to hit me, or can we stop now?”

  I wanted to hit him more than ever, but my dad’s mind was in Julian’s grip and hitting Julian wouldn’t help things.

  I forced my hands to lower and unclench. “He was only trying to bring me home.” Tears stung my eyes. Now my dad was embroiled in my mess, which just seemed to get more horrible by the minute.

  “Obviously.” Julian took a breath and rubbed his face. “For the time being, your father’s lost that great urgent need he was feeling to take you home. You certainly manage to complicate things, you know that?”

  My dad holstered his gun and grabbed the bottom edge of the mask, pulling it up and off, leaving his hair mussed. He stuffed the mask into his pocket and stared at the floor as he puzzled through the conflict in his head. He was trying to figure out why he was pointing a gun at Julian when an all is well feeling filled his mind.

  I blinked back the tears. “Look, my dad is here now. You can let us go. You don’t need to send any of your mages with us. I’m sure my dad has a way out of town.”

  “Oh yes. Absolutely.” Julian’s dark chuckle hollowed out my stomach. “You truly don’t understand anything about Jackertown, do you? From your hideout as a rook in the suburbs.”

  His insult felt like a cage that was growing smaller and smaller.

  “You know, he’s right, Kira,” my dad said casually, as if he were talking about the Cubs’ chances this year. He rolled up on the balls of his feet and bounced slightly. “Traveling through Jackertown at night is pretty dangerous. There’re lots of people out there that would probably kill you first and check your pockets second. Might be better if we stayed here. Yes, definitely better.” He nodded to himself.

  Julian ignored my dad and flung his hand out toward the town beyond the cracked brick walls. “I just paraded you past half of Jackertown, letting everyone know you are under our protection. If I let a contractor come in here and whisk you away, I’ll have no end of trouble from the gangs that are waiting for a sign of weakness. There’s a balance of power here that’s very delicate, and I’m not going to upset all of that simply because your father came in here, guns blazing.”

  “You said you would let us go!” The tears were close to falling.

  “In the morning!” His face pinched in and he took a deep breath. “I wasn’t the one who called him here in the first place, keeper. That was your mistake.”

  Molloy startled me by speaking. “You’re the one who’s making a mistake, Julian.” Molloy’s confused face had regained focus. When did that happen? Julian was controlling my dad now, so maybe he couldn’t control Molloy at the same time? “We need her to get inside Kestrel’s horror shop. The plan only works with her.”

  “We’ll find another way!” Julian’s words bit the air, but he quickly calmed. “Mr. Molloy, would you be so kind as to take our reader guest to a spare bunk?”

  Molloy’s face mottled a color almost as red as his hair, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he lifted Raf out of his chair as easily as Sasha had picked up Ava and threw him over his shoulder. My throat closed up, watching Molloy carry Raf away. When he reached the racks, he dropped Raf onto a vacant bed. His body lay curled on his side.

  Would Julian really let us leave in the morning? He seemed to hold all the cards, and the feeling of being trapped was cutting off my air. I sucked in a couple of quick breaths. To have any hope of getting my dad and Raf home safe I needed to stay calm and not give Julian any reason to keep us here. Or make him any angrier than he already was.

  I turned away so I wouldn’t have to look at Raf’s unmoving form. My dad meandered to the kitchen and poked through the cabinets one by one. Julian sank into the chair where Raf had just been, the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes. The chair creaked when I eased into the seat next to him, and I gripped the rough edges of it to keep my hands from shaking.

  Julian had Myrtle, whose jacking strength was unlike anything I’d ever felt, plus Molloy, Ava, and Hinckley’s puppeteering hands. I didn’t know what Sasha could do, but he was one of Julian’s mages. He had to have some special skills.

  “Why do you need my help so badly?” I asked.

  Julian dropped his hands from his face and spread them on the battered table. “We need a keeper to get close to Kestrel without him knowing what we’re planning. Anna would have been the perfect person, but she went missing—”

  “Wait,” I said. “I thought you were breaking in to get your sister out. If you were planning on breaking into Kestrel’s facility before that—”

  “Anna’s disappearance,” Julian said, cutting me off, “brought a certain urgency to our plans. But we’ve intended for some time to finish the job you left undone, back in the camp. To liberate the rest of our brothers and sisters who are being tormented under Kestrel’s needles.”

  I blinked. This wasn’t only about rescuing his sister, which I could understand. I’d done the same thing for Laney, and she wasn’t even my sister. He wasn’t just after the changelings either. Julian wanted more—to liberate his brother and sister jackers. He was some kind of jacker revolutionary.

  He took my silence for
something else. “Are you now reconsidering my proposal?”

  “No.” Rescuing changelings was one thing. Liberating all the dangerous jackers that Kestrel had locked up wasn’t worth risking my life, or anything else. I’d left people like Molloy behind in the camp for a reason.

  The flash oven beeped as my dad put in a teapot. He watched as the light went on and it heated the water, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Even the tiny lines in the corners of his eyes had disappeared in Julian’s artificial peace.

  I clasped my hands on the table and watched them turn white at the knuckles. All the risks that I had taken were catching up to me at once. It wasn’t fair for my father to fall into the mages’ net, but I could see how that would have happened regardless. There was no scenario I could imagine where my dad wouldn’t have come looking for me. Guilt and happiness for that fact wrestled around in my chest, causing my ribs to ache as if they were actually battling in there.

  But Raf… if I had stopped seeing him when we moved, like I should have, he wouldn’t be here, trapped in the mages’ lair. Guilt for that stabbed my heart like a red-hot poker.

  The flash oven dinged its completion and my dad dipped a teabag in the pot.

  Up and down. Up and down.

  I jumped up from my chair and snatched the steaming teapot from him.

  “What’s the matter, Kira?” my dad said. “I thought you liked tea. Maybe your friend would like some?”

  “I’ll do it.” The hot ceramic of the teapot scorched my hand, but I grasped it tighter and grabbed a chipped cup from the cabinet, then stalked over to Julian and slammed the cup and pot down in front of him. My dad drifted over and gently placed a second cup in front of me. I shuddered and slowly sank into the seat again. I stared as Julian poured the tea into my cup.

  “If you’re not taking the couch,” Julian said to me, “maybe your father could make Myrtle more comfortable.”