Dark Legacy

by Anna DeStefano

  “We’re a centuries-old secret society,” Metting finally answered, his tone as ragged as Jarred felt. “Committed to watching psychically powerful family lines like the Temples’. We’re charged with maintaining balance, tracking, and remaining uninvolved unless it becomes clear intervention is required.”

  “You’re…” Jarred’s first instinct was to laugh. But something in the solemnity of Metting’s explanation stopped him. “So that makes you…”

  “A Watcher.” Metting pointed at the fluctuating patterns scrolling across the monitor. “A noninvolved protector. At least I was until a year ago. We’d known about the government’s interest in Sarah for a while. Ever since she was transferred to the center. But a year ago, funding was approved for a black-ops testing program, with the ultimate goal of projecting Sarah’s psychic abilities into other people’s dreams. And through those dream hosts, into the world as untraceable daydreams.”

  “Daydreams?”

  “Lucid dream states a host would have no control over, that a powerful psychic like Sarah could program, then trigger at will as—”

  “Right. Daydreams.” Jarred’s head was going to explode. “You expect me to believe the government would bankroll something that—”

  “Consider if the dreamer were to walk into an unsuspecting crowd with a bomb hidden in her purse. A bomb she doesn’t remember building or testing, because each time she worked on it, she was dreaming. But she finally has access to a target the government needs eliminated. Maybe years after her programming was embedded. And since she’s an everyday person with access to the mark, and she’s on no agency’s radar as a threat, she’s become the perfect direct-strike weapon that can be remotely triggered from anywhere in the world.

  “She’s an innocent. She doesn’t remember the dreams, or what they’ve trained her to do—because the mind is predisposed to forget troubling dream behavior. In her everyday life she wouldn’t be able to build a bomb. But fueled by countless untraceable REM simulations, she can be trained to do anything. And the fuse for Dream Weaver? That’s the kicker. It’s simple human emotion—the conduit through which human dreams connect with real-world experiences. Heightened by the collective unconscious that exists all around us—a vast repository of the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual experiences of every living being, and those who lived before us. All a psychic projector like Sarah has to do is isolate the specific emotion that will trigger a desired action, and a walking time bomb has been created.”

  “How…close are they to getting this done?” Jarred asked.

  “They’re there, except for execution of a weaponsgrade field test. For that, they needed a scientist with psychic abilities to complement Sarah’s. The Brotherhood made sure they got exactly what they needed—me.”

  Jarred tried to speak. Then tried again. No luck. The image of Maddie holding a gun to her head kept replaying in his mind. Her slicing him open with her mother’s paring knife.

  “So…” He cleared his throat and glanced toward Metting’s monitor. “When Maddie isn’t in control of things she’s doing?”

  “It’s most likely because Sarah has embedded programming directing her to—”

  “To try to kill me? You? To kill herself? Why would Sarah do that if she really thought she needed her sister to break free of you and the center?”

  “Most likely the shadow programming intended the command to kill to be for Sarah’s other host. But once Sarah was linked with Maddie—”

  “Most likely! You’re the expert in all this. You’re the center’s go-to guy. And the best you can give me is your guess is as good as mine?”

  “I’m Sarah’s Watcher, not her shadow control. I wasn’t involved in—”

  “Well it doesn’t sound like watching for a year has helped you figure out jack about what’s going on!”

  Metting actually smiled.

  It wasn’t reassuring.

  “I’m learning more by the second, Dr. Keith. Such as how strongly you’re linked, emotionally, with Madeline’s dreams.”

  “And you know that, how?”

  Metting nodded toward his laptop.

  “Madeline’s brain activity spikes each time your agitation increases. Her emotional state tracks yours, even though she’s unconscious and two rooms away.”

  “So, I’m affecting her rest? What does that—”

  “Her dreams, actually.” Metting’s gaze registered regret, then resignation. “It’s clear after what happened in the motel and at the rendezvous that her shared dream states with her twin are out of control. She’s been without the pharmacological cocktail I designed for Sarah, to sustain the nonactive sleep periods required to recover after dream simulations. And so is Sarah now. Which means both sisters are degenerating into continuous dream cycles.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “Sarah and Madeline Temple’s psychic abilities originate in their emotions, more strongly than any other projectors I’ve studied. Watchers have tracked their family line for generations. Back to a distant aunt who was burned at the stake for supposedly holding half a village in thrall.”

  “Hence this curse Maddie’s been trying to figure out?”

  Metting’s stare warmed with interest. “Their legacy, yes.”

  “Okay.” Jarred stared, waiting for the rest.

  “Absorbing her sister’s emotions and Dream Weaver skills,” Metting continued, “without the training and control I’ve given Sarah, means—”

  “The twins’ link is becoming more volatile every time their minds join.”

  “Which they’re no doubt attempting to do at this very moment. They’re feeding on each other’s fear and psychosis, and it’s unclear which twin, if either, is in control now.”

  Jarred’s lungs wouldn’t take in air. “But why would this Wolf want the sisters to damage each other this way?”

  “He wouldn’t have.” Metting sighed. “I assume the intention was for Sarah to harvest Madeline’s abilities, not the other way around.”

  “But…”

  “The Wolf clearly didn’t count on the extent of Madeline’s gifts. More information got through than expected, and Sarah couldn’t completely control their link. If Madeline can heal now, if she could join her consciousness with yours and take on your body image, then she’s absorbed her twin’s ability to commandeer another consciousness. To direct another’s reality at will. And she’s found her own source of balance and control to draw on—from you.”

  Jarred swallowed, trying to understand. To believe. He studied the escalating peaks of brain activity on Metting’s monitor.

  “I thought you sedated her,” he demanded.

  “Madeline’s dissociating, even under the influence of drugs I’ve found successful with her sister. There’s no time for me to do more invasive work. She’s beyond my reach. Until we have Sarah under control and I can stabilize Madeline’s barriers, until we can prevent further Dream Weaver projections from damaging her mind, your presence will likely be the only thing that can get her back.”

  Jarred shook his head in denial, but he forced his mind’s eye to see healing white. Maddie’s white and blue—the restorative colors that had dominated her apartment.

  “Good.” Metting nodded without taking his eye off his monitor. “You’re learning. And through you, Maddie will, too.”

  “And you?” Jarred demanded, his voice tight with the strain of not pummeling the jackass. “How are you going to fix this? How are you going to stop the Wolf that you’ve let set all this into motion? Or are you giving up on Sarah?”

  Metting’s attention snapped to Jarred.

  “She’s not just my patient, Dr. Keith, any more than Madeline is merely your medical charge. And I’ll sacrifice whatever it takes to bring the real Sarah Temple back. Make no mistake. Sarah’s gifts will not be further manipulated by this Wolf.”

  “You won’t let her be manipulated by anyone but you, you mean?” Jarred would be damned if he understood what made this bastar
d tick.

  Metting blinked before answering. “I won’t allow her to continue suffering, even if that means doing the unthinkable.”

  The man was talking about having to kill Sarah. Contemplating the possibility was clearly ripping him apart. His hands were shaking as he resumed typing.

  “Surely that’s not an inevitability,” Jarred reasoned with a hint of incredulous sympathy. “Not yet.”

  Metting turned away.

  “My men outside will take you to Madeline,” he said. “You have to reestablish your link with her. Pull her out of the fractured dream state she’s locked into.”

  Jarred’s surprise at being free to move about whatever complex they’d been taken to didn’t last. He was beyond caring where he was or how he’d gotten there or what was going to happen next with Metting or his mysterious Brotherhood or Sarah’s maniacal Wolf. He had to hold Maddie again. He had to reach her mind again—her soul.

  “How much chance do you have of helping her if I fail?” he asked at the door, curbing the compulsion to run, not walk, to Maddie’s side.

  Metting looked up from his readings, regret consuming his features. “None at all, Dr. Keith. If I tried, with as little training as she’s had and my limited understanding of the symbols and programming Sarah’s embedded into her mind, I might irreparably damage your patient’s consciousness. If you want the Madeline you know back, it’s up to you to find her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Power surged through Maddie. The rage that she needed to keep going. Propelling her through the woods as she ran toward a cry of pain that had been seething for ten years.

  A still-sane part of her realized the emotions weren’t all hers. They weren’t all Sarah’s, either. Which meant neither one of them was in control of this. But Maddie couldn’t stop. No more hiding from the truth. Even if the truth was that she was darkness. She was insanity. She was lost and afraid now, just like her sister. Destined to be alone. Forever.

  Except she wasn’t alone. He was there. Jarred. He was part of her light now, even in Sarah’s dreams. Her mind clung to his healing calmness. Jarred would keep her from slipping away completely. He’d promised not to let her go.

  So she kept running through the dream’s dense forest. Underbrush crowded her, choking off any chance of escape. A flock of ravens circled, high above ghostly trees. Each shadow was a reminder of the accident from Sarah’s memory. Of a rain-slick road and her father’s car skidding in a deadly arc. Of Sarah’s lie that the truck driver had taken malicious aim.

  Maddie was sick and tired of the lies.

  “It won’t work, Sarah!”

  She sprinted faster. Jarred’s mind raced with hers, shock mixing with his growing concern. He could see it. The insanity that was inside Maddie, too. The lack of control. But he was helping her anyway. He understood that she had to do this. She was done being used. Done feeling guilty.

  “You tried to make me kill Jarred,” she screamed into the darkness. “You tried to make me kill your Raven. And you failed both times. Is that all you’ve got, Sarah? Really? Because I’m not afraid anymore. I’m pissed as hell. You’re not getting away until you tell why you really came back to me. Tell me what these people want from us. Your Raven and your Wolf. What is it going to take to get you and these maniacs out of my life!”

  Maddie was ranting. She was stumbling over fallen trees. Shoving through undergrowth. Wincing at the sting of briars and jagged twigs. Her mind reached for Jarred’s, shamelessly using his energy so she could track Sarah farther. The same way Sarah had tracked Maddie, preying on her for months. Whatever Sarah could do, Maddie somehow could now, too. Their dream links had taught her that. The secret? All Maddie had to do was believe in her abilities—the gifts she’d been terrified of all her life.

  And Maddie was starting to believe. It was the only way out of this dark place, she realized. Fighting to get the truth from her twin. Fighting to hold on to Jarred, who was still there, his mind clinging to hers. Maddie wasn’t going to let him go. Ever. Not because of a sister who was—

  “—too much of a coward to face me!” Maddie screamed. “What’s wrong, Sarah? Too much of a sore loser to face the music? Who’s the chickenshit now!”

  “Fine!” a weak voice hissed. It was sandpaper thin, like the dry, dead leaves kicking up from the forest floor and blowing into Maddie’s face. “Come and get me, you Goody Two-shoes bitch!”

  The connection Maddie had been following suddenly grabbed hold of her. Hard. Brutal. Unrelenting. Maddie was spiraling downward, racing away from Jarred. Freefalling into her sister’s demented mind…

  Landing hard…

  Stunned…

  Maddie dragged herself back to her feet and tried to find her bearings in her sister’s mind. A miniature house appeared through the trees, at the edge of a clearing. Maddie stumbled closer, realizing it was their childhood playhouse, from their home near the mountains on the other side of Massachusetts. It was painted bright white with blue shutters. Gone was the faded, peeling gray that had covered the structure by the time Maddie and Phyllis moved away.

  The house had been Maddie and Sarah’s sanctuary when they were little girls. A private world no one else was allowed to enter. They’d talked in secret there, about the things their mother had said weren’t real. They’d supported each other. They’d fought when the strangeness of what they were got to be too much and the only way to deal with it had been to beat away at each other until they could handle the secrets again.

  Maddie shoved against the closed door, banking on there being another grudge match tonight. The dimness of the woods hadn’t prepared her eyes for the total lack of light within. She blinked the shadows into focus.

  “Where are you!” she demanded, weaker now.

  She couldn’t feel Jarred anymore. She was alone in this place from her past. Pissed, she scanned the single room in jerky sweeps that revealed only emptiness and cobwebs and decay. The outside of the playhouse had looked as charming as the day their father had built it. But the interior was a broken-down, brittle mess.

  “Sarah, I swear to God if you don’t come out right now, I’m going to—”

  A muffled whimper stalled Maddie’s rant. It was a weak play for sympathy. A familiar combination of tears and selfpity coming from behind her. Spinning, Maddie found the door she’d just entered closed and secured with a wickedlooking padlock. A six-year-old version of her twin sat huddled on the floor in front of it. Sarah had wrapped her arms around her middle. Her head was buried against skinny knees that were bruised and bleeding. She looked as scraped up as Maddie felt, as if Sarah had just run through a vengeful, unforgiving forest.

  “Don’t start with the pity party.” Maddie’s warning emerged too soft and young to be her own voice.

  She looked down to discover that she, too, was her childhood self. Complete with wearing a duplicate of her twin’s pink and yellow sundress—one of the matching outfits their mother had hand sewn when they were six.

  More sniffling filled the playhouse. Sarah’s body shook, and then she began bawling. Maddie dropped to her knees beside her sister.

  “Stop it!” she scolded in her little-girl voice. “It’s not going to work. I won’t feel sorry for you, no matter how far back you take us. It doesn’t change what you’ve done. What you’ve destroyed. What you’ve let these people do to me. You’ve taken away my life. Again!”

  Sarah’s next hiccuping sob halted midwhimper. Her head jerked up, her expression a mixture of lost innocence and hatred.

  “You?” little-girl Sarah screamed. She exploded into motion and tackled Maddie with an adult’s rage. “It always has to be about you, doesn’t it. This isn’t my fault, you freak. You’re the weak one. You’re the cry baby who couldn’t keep this to yourself. You just had to tell that doctor. You just had to fall in love and drag him into this. Why do you always ruin everything!”

  “Get off me!” Six-year-old tactics returned in a rush. Maddie grabbed hair and pulled. Her l
egs kicked for all she was worth, trying to dislodge her sneaky sister before Sarah could do any real damage.

  “Perfect Maddie,” Sarah mocked. She pushed Maddie to her back, sank a knee to the grimy ground on either side of Maddie’s legs, and proceeded to pummel the shit out of her. “Maddie never messes up. Maddie always gets straight A’s in school. And she’s still perfect, while she whines all over the damn place because she got to have her make-believe life for ten years before it started to fall apart. Poor, pitiful, perfect baby…”

  “I live a make-believe life?” Maddie ranted back. “Look at this place! Look around your spooky forest. At your bloodthirsty obsession with Daddy’s death.” Maddie yanked hard on Sarah’s hair and rolled until she was on top. “What the hell are you doing, Sarah? You’re the one who needs a swift kick back to reality. I know you hate me, but haunting me? Sending me perverted nightmares that make no sense? Throwing your dreams in my face, until my world is crap, just like yours? What’s the point!”

  “They’re your stupid dreams, dumb ass. Haven’t you learned anything?” Sarah was still fighting, but not as hard. And the tears in her eyes were less fake and more tragic by the second. “I just get to play with them once I’m inside you. You’re the one who’s repressed all your whacked-out memories about that night, so you can have your perfect life. You saw the accident. Through me. But you refused to accept that, didn’t you? You forgot it all so you didn’t have to know who you really are. But you felt everything I did then, just like you’re feeling me now. Like you know everything I know now, even though your mind isn’t supposed to be strong enough. Because you’re just like me. Admit it!”

  “You wound up in a loony bin, not me. You think you killed Daddy, not me.”

  “No. You just blame me!”