Unseen

by Stephanie Erickson

  “Why do you care so much about me? Is it just because of my talent? That I’m a prodigy?”

  “No. It’s because of how valuable you are.”

  “You said that before. I’ve only been here for a couple of weeks. Explain my value like I’m a two-year-old.”

  Sighing, he opened a drawer in his desk. He looked down inside it while he spoke. “Mackenzie, do you know my position with the Unseen?”

  “Um…” I hadn’t exactly been expecting that comment, so I scrambled to come up with something intelligent, failing miserably.

  “Let’s just say I’m very high up. I answer only to the head of Homeland Security, and of course, the President, but that’s rare.”

  I gulped. “I assumed this was just a small satellite group of a larger, nationwide organization.”

  “It is. I specifically requested this station.” I didn’t have time to wonder why. “Because of my position, my family is extremely vulnerable, and the Potestas are constantly searching for them. I spend much of my time keeping them hidden.”

  “I… you have a family?” I blurted it out before I could think of making it more tactful.

  “I do.” He pulled out what was in his drawer, looking at it lovingly. It appeared to be a picture frame. “My wife…” He paused, pain etched on his face. “My wife was killed by the Potestas. But my daughter has recently come back into my life. And I’m not willing to let her go for a second time.”

  He turned the frame around, revealing an image of a baby. The image took my breath away once I realized the baby was me.

  24.

  I gasped. A bit dramatic, I know, but I couldn’t help it. Of all the things he could have had tucked in that drawer, a picture of me was about the last thing I expected him to pull out. I didn’t have any memories of my dad. I’d always been told that both of my parents had died when I was an infant. How could this man in front of me be my father?

  The world spun around me, and I sat back in the chair, resting my head on one hand. “This is all too much. I lost my only real family on that train today.”

  “I’m happy to tell you that isn’t true.”

  I perked up. “Maddie survived?”

  He frowned. “No. I meant that you didn’t lose your only family.”

  The way he’d always treated me like I was a special case—and not just because of my talents—started to make sense. But my distrust of him and the Unseen was still fresh. “How do I know you’re not lying? As far as I know, my parents died decades ago. Do you think you’ll get some kind of promotion or kick back if everyone thinks you’re the father of the ‘prodigy’? Why would you screw with someone like this?” Tears threatened. I felt like I was drowning in lies, and all I wanted was something true to hold on to.

  He took a deep breath, and just like that, he let down his defenses. A barrage of images flooded my mind. In them, I recognized my mother’s face—she looked just like she did in the one picture I had of her, but so much lovelier. She had wild, dark hair, just like mine, but her skin was lighter, almost porcelain. Her eyes were positively bewitching, dark blue with flecks of green. I could immediately feel his attraction to her. Memories of their wedding flashed through our connection next. It was a small but beautiful affair in a small church I didn’t recognize. There were stained glass rainbows on the floor, and Mom’s dress was made of antique lace. She looked lovely as she walked down the aisle toward my dad. His feelings for her overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t help but smile. She smiled back, and the expression transformed her into something straight out of a glamor magazine.

  The next flash was brief. Mom was pregnant. Dad rested his hand on her huge belly while they both looked at it in a full-length mirror in their bedroom.

  Then I was being placed in my dad’s arms for the first time. Wiggling and crying, clearly displeased, I fussed and searched for my mother with my mouth.

  Last was a funeral.

  The pain was crushing. It sucked the air from my lungs. He’d told her family and friends a lie—she’d been killed in a car accident. He convinced himself it wasn’t that much of a stretch. She had been killed in a crash, but it was no accident. The Potestas had targeted her to get to him. He was becoming too powerful, too high up with the Unseen. His daughter was next.

  The image of me in a bassinet in the corner of the living room surrounded by people in black flashed through my mind, followed by a feeling of resolve.

  Then I was left alone in my mind once again. I put my face in my hands, letting the revelations of the last few hours crush me. I couldn’t breathe. The room was spinning around me. I gasped for air.

  “Mackenzie?” he asked, but his voice seemed far away.

  When I woke up, he was holding me, brushing the hair away from my face. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I am the furthest thing from okay,” I said, sitting up slowly.

  He offered me a glass of water. I took a sip, and the cold liquid snaked deliciously down my throat. He helped me back into the chair and leaned on his desk, facing me.

  “I failed your mother, Mackenzie. I couldn’t fail you too,” he said as he stared at another picture he’d pulled out, this one of my mother.

  “So why not take me with you? Raise me here at the facility? Anything but leave me with her sister. She never loved me… not for one minute.”

  “She isn’t your aunt.”

  “She… what?”

  “She’s a member of the Unseen. Trained to keep you safe and hidden.”

  He said it like it was nothing more than a fact. Like throwing one more little tidbit out there didn’t totally change my life and who I was.

  “I was an assignment for her?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought for a moment about the woman who had raised me—the closest thing to a mother I’d ever had. Her thoughts had always been very short and to the point, and suddenly, it started to make sense. “She knew I was a reader, didn’t she? She guarded her thoughts against me. But not so much that I would suspect something.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did she let me just muddle through? Why not help me deal with it?”

  “We decided it wasn’t safe for you to know about the Unseen. We tried to keep you as uninformed as possible, since it was the best way to keep the Potestas in the dark as well.”

  “But she was so horrible to me. Right before I left for school, she told me I’d stolen her life from her.”

  He sat back in his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’d hoped over time she would soften to you.” He sighed. “To her, you did steal her life. She was a very gifted member of the Unseen. She thought she would go far with our organization and imagined a life spent pursuing and eliminating terrorists. When she learned she was to be a single mom for the rest of her life, she wasn’t too pleased. She couldn’t see the big picture.”

  I exhaled, as if all the lies that made up my life were leaving my body, making room for the truth. “But that wasn’t my fault. I didn’t choose her.” I looked at him, hurt in my eyes. “You chose her, didn’t you? There wasn’t anyone better? Perhaps someone with an ounce of kindness to their name? You thought it was better for me to be raised by some heartless bitch?”

  My own hurt reflected back at me in his expression. “Believe me, Mackenzie, it’s not a choice I took lightly. She was incredibly gifted, and I knew she would keep you safe. After your mom was taken from me so brutally, that was my priority.”

  I knew how grief-stricken he’d been after experiencing the memories he’d shared with me. “But if they found Mom, they would’ve known about me. How exactly did you make me disappear in their eyes?”

  He didn’t look at me. Instead, he reached behind him and pushed a newspaper clipping into my hands. It was the front page of the Tallahassee Democrat, dated over twenty-five years ago. The main headline read—Grief blamed for murder suicide. The subhead read—Local man kills infant daughter, then self.

  “Oh my God.” It was all I could say. He�
��d made everyone—their friends, their family—think he’d killed me and then himself. He’d given up his life as he knew it. For me.

  “I’ve killed a fair number of people in my time with the Unseen, more than anyone else in this office. But fabricating your death at my hands was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.”

  I was at a total loss for words. Everything I knew—or thought I knew—had been turned upside down in one day.

  “Of course, the Potestas found out that I was still alive soon enough.” He retrieved the newspaper and put it back on his desk behind him, out of sight. “That’s when the hunt started for you. And it’s never stopped.”

  “And now they’ve found me?”

  “And now they’ve found you.”

  Confusion clouded my mind as I tried to digest everything. “Why did you come to me now? I was happy. I had a plan for my life, even a job offer. But you’ve turned all of that upside down. For what?”

  “Actually, it was an accident. I intended to keep you hidden indefinitely. In the event that I died, someone else would take over for me, but I was determined that no one else would ever learn about you. But when you met Mitchell in the park that day, he told me how desperate you were to meet other readers. And Owen confirmed it for me after watching you that day at the bar. But you already knew that much at least.” He sighed heavily.

  “So that part was true.” He nodded and waited for me to digest everything.

  “Honestly, Mac, I would’ve preferred to keep you safe from this world. You seemed happy, like you had purpose and direction. But when Mitchell told me about seeing you, the temptation was too great for me to ignore. If that was wrong, I apologize.”

  I laughed a bit maniacally. “So, now I’ve got a band of killers after me as a result of the world’s worst first date.” Tears suddenly sprang to my eyes. “But they killed Maddie instead of me. And I led them right to her.”

  He reached out for my hand. I looked at it and him for a moment, wondering what it would feel like to hold it, to be part of a family. The tears streamed down my face as I carefully placed my hand in his, cautious. I still wasn’t sure I could trust him, but I wanted to desperately.

  “Maddie’s death was not your fault.”

  “Was it yours? Could you have stopped it?” I looked into his eyes, willing him to tell me the truth.

  “No.” He said it simply, but it was anything but a simple answer. “I didn’t know they were coming until it was done. If we could have done anything to stop them, we would have. I promise.”

  The resolve in his voice did nothing to quell the anger rising in me. “I don’t understand that. You’re a mind reader, for God’s sake. How could you not know their plan?” I jerked my hand from his.

  His frown made the lines in his face deep and harsh. “It is certainly a disturbing turn of events. There is an entire department of the Unseen dedicated to tracking the Potestas. That they didn’t see this coming implies the Potestas have developed some new methods. We need time to reveal the true nature of what we’re facing.”

  I sighed, feeling defeated in more ways than one. “Time is all I have left. It’s stretching out in front of me like some cruel joke… like it was taken from Maddie and handed to me.” Tears threatened, making my voice thick.

  “I don’t agree. I’m here for you, as are the rest of the Unseen, if you want us for your family.”

  Silence reigned in the room for a few heartbeats. David, my father, broke the silence first. “What will you do now?”

  I looked up at him, thinking of my mother and him, of Maddie and the Potestas. The rage burned new, like nothing I’d ever felt before. But then again, I wasn’t who I thought I was. I was a new person now, with a new history, and a new future ahead of me.

  Maddie’s death was unjust, untimely and unthinkable, but it would be avenged. “I will be one of the Unseen.” The anger inside me made my voice low and menacing. “And I will make those responsible for the destruction of my family pay.”

  Owen was waiting for me outside David’s office. He silently took my hand and led me upstairs to the piano. Sitting next to me on the bench, his hand rested warmly on my knee as it bounced on the pedals. I imagined Maddie leaning against the edge of the piano, tapping her foot to the music, humming along. I would always keep her with me. Gaspard de la Nuit flowed from my fingers to the keys, to the hammers, to the strings, filling the small room with music, with peace. It was peace I desperately needed at this moment.

  I was no longer alone at the piano.

  Unforgiven: Part 2 in the Unseen Trilogy

  is coming July, 2015

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  The following is an excerpt from Stephanie Erickson’s dystopian novel, The Cure.

  The Cure

  1.

  “I gladly sacrifice my life for the good of others. One life will make the difference, and that life could be mine. For this reason, I’m devoted to finding the cure.” I said the words out loud, but I wasn’t thinking about them. A couple of squirrels chasing each other held my attention more securely than the pledge we’d been forced to say since kindergarten. By tenth grade, the thing had lost all meaning.

  I sat back down among the rows of desks, still eyeing the squirrels. I folded one of my legs under me and let the other one swing. At five foot three, I wasn’t the tallest member of my class, but I wasn’t the shortest either. My violet eyes followed the dance of the squirrels while I toyed absently with a lock of my jet-black hair.

  My teacher was blabbing about our latest reading assignment, but those dang squirrels were so cute I couldn’t focus on her.

  “Macey?”

  I turned to face her. She was one of the younger members of the faculty, but dressed to try and fit in. Her loose-fitting floral print blouse was tucked into her high-waisted navy skirt. She stared at me over half-glasses perched at the end of her nose. I imagined she referred to them as spectacles and liked to put the end of them into her mouth while pondering literary stuff.

  “Hmm?” I asked.

  “Care to answer the question?”

  I glanced out the window to curse the squirrels, but they were gone. “Could you repeat the question?”

  She half-smiled as she leaned against the front of her desk, knowing she’d caught me. “Certainly. Why do you think Billy has a stutter?”

  “Oh jeeze, I don’t know. I didn’t understand a single page of this book, Mrs. Whitehead.” A few snickers escaped from some of my classmates. “Hey, guys, don’t throw me under the bus here! I couldn’t have been the only one who didn’t get anything from this!” A few faces turned to Mrs. Whitehead and nodded. “Look, I know this was the shortest thing we’ve read so far, but it was all moon language to me. Quite frankly, I hated it and think it was a waste of time.” I nodded to accentuate my point.

  A couple of kids clapped, but soon it died down under Mrs. Whitehead’s unceasing gaze. The bitter taste of regret worked its way to the back of my throat. It burned a little like a vurp.

  Mrs. Whitehead frowned. “Fair enough. Let’s go over it, then, and maybe you’ll get more out of it.”

  Even after talking about it for the next hour, I still didn’t get it. I mean, Mrs. Whitehead seemed to find Billy Budd very enlightening, and if all that was in there, great. I didn’t see it. Sometimes I wondered if people overanalyzed a book. Maybe the writer didn’t really mean all that stuff, and you saw something that wasn’t meant to be there, ya know? In this case we’d never know. Melville had been dead over two hundred years, so asking him wasn’t really an option.

  When the bell rang, I gathered my things quickly, hoping to escape the classroom without confrontation. With her gaze burning a hole in the back of my head, I kept my eyes glued to the floor. I was pretty sure her spectacles magnified her stare, the way the sun’s heat is more intense through a magnifying glass. I reached up to scratch my scalp, making sure she hadn’t
given me a bald spot. I rounded the front row of desks and, by some miracle, made it out into the hall where I disappeared among the sea of bodies.

  Once I was a safe distance from Mrs. Whitehead’s room, I leaned against a row of lockers. One of these days you should really learn to hold your tongue, I thought. I took a deep breath, checked the top of my head one more time, and continued on to my next class: History.

  Mr. Garvillick was explaining the American Revolution to us. “It was a unique time in history,” he said. He tossed his salt-and-pepper hair out of his eyes with a flick of his head. I thought if he kept his comb-over a little shorter it wouldn’t be in his eyes in the first place, but then part of his bald head might show.

  “The Americans rose up against their perceived oppressors, and…” He searched for the right word. “Well, they won their freedom.” Freedom was such an archaic term to me. We still lived in what was known as America and were told we had our freedoms, but there was so much control, all in the name of the cure. So many had died that no one thought twice when our freedoms were claimed alongside our family members by the disease.

  A mousey girl in the front row snapped me back to the discussion. “Mr. Garvillick, what is this picture on the bottom of page 332?”

  I flipped ahead to that page to see what she was questioning. There was a rectangle with a dark blue square speckled with white spots in the top left corner, and horizontal red and white stripes were displayed in the bottom left corner of the page. The image was small, a mere column of text in width. Mystified, I stared openly at the picture. I’d never seen anything like it before.

  “Oh, that.” He cleared his throat. “That’s nothing, just their flag. They became unnaturally obsessed with it, and many years later when a more sensible government took over, they removed the symbol in the interest of…well, because it was the right thing to do.”