‘Ryan … you scared me,’ I accuse, making my way over to him.
‘Sorry about that,’ he responds. ‘Where are you going?’
I shoot a nervous glance in the direction of the park. With the added restrictions April imposed last night, I’m lucky to be allowed out of the station at all.
‘Just walking to the lookout point down the street,’ I respond. I quickly rush on before he can question why I’m heading for the park instead. ‘I haven’t talked with you since before the fire took the camp. Where have you been?’
He eyes me gravely and completely ignores my question. ‘You should be staying within sight,’ he says. ‘No one can see you when you’re in the park.’
I sigh. ‘Yeah, I know’
He stands and walks down the steps to stand beside me. ‘You need to take better care of yourself.’
I grimace. ‘I’m guessing you heard about what happened last night.’
He nods. ‘Yes, I heard. What you did was foolish and very dangerous.’
‘It was an accident,’ I reply.
‘You can’t afford to have accidents. Your talents are not a toy and running around the city with them out of control is a hazard to you and everyone around you. Especially given the things you can do.’
I look down at my feet and nod, trying to keep tears from my eyes. Everyone else had said how brave I was. He’s the first person who’s honed in on the truth of the matter. My lack of control is dangerous and I know that, but hearing it hurts all the same.
‘I’m trying to get control of them,’ I reply.
‘Not hard enough,’ he responds. Each word is like a slap across my face and I feel like a child who’s being told off by a parent.
I take a deep breath and push down the wave of disappointment I feel in myself in response to his words. All I know is, I will prove him wrong. I will get control of my talents.
When I look up, my face is a mask hiding the emotions I feel swirling within me. I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he’s affected me with his words.
‘Why haven’t you been around?’ I ask, still not looking him in the eyes. I’ve seen him around the place a couple of times but not once has he talked to me. Whenever he does appear he disappears just as quickly. It’s like he’s a ghost, only materialising when he wants. I would have thought he’d have been here more since M was missing and our world was thrown into turmoil.
When he doesn’t answer me, I continue. ‘And you somehow managed to find me in the hospital to get me out of there. Why didn’t you teleport into Headquarters for M?’
‘I haven’t been here because I didn’t need to be and I didn’t attempt to retrieve M because getting him out of Headquarters is not important right now.’
‘I’m pretty sure we could have used you here. And getting M not important? Are you crazy? He’s the most important one of us all and they were going to kill him,’ I respond.
Ryan sighs. ‘Actually, he’s not, but it would be too difficult to try and explain to you why. Besides, M didn’t need my help, he was always going to escape.’
I shake my head. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘M was never going to die there.’
‘How do you know that?’ I ask.
He looks away uncomfortably. ‘I’ve told you before, I have some insight into these events.’
‘What does that mean? You can teleport and tell the future?’
‘No, I can’t tell the future, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some idea what will happen.’
I shake my head at him. He’s just as cryptic as ever. ‘When will you ever answer me for real?’
‘One day you will know the truth about me, but until then…’
‘Until then, I’d much rather be left alone,’ I respond. I turn from him and continue on my route to the lookout point. I don’t know what to believe about Ryan and it’s clear he’s hiding so much from me. Deep down I feel I can trust him, but right now my brain keeps telling me otherwise. This man is hiding one too many secrets and I worry about why.
CHAPTER TEN
The moment I’m relieved from keeping watch, later that afternoon, I feel a strong urge to return to the park. It’s a strange sensation and, as I return to the subway, the closer I get to the park the stronger the feeling gets. I feel drawn to it in a way that’s hard to explain. It’s almost like the thought of avoiding the place is painful and my feet can’t help but walk towards it.
When I reach the park I glance at the steps of the building Ryan had been sitting at earlier. I feel a wave of relief to see they are empty. I’m not sure if I’m up for another dressing down like I received before. He’s always been cryptic, but never mean. The things he said to me before hurt. I feel like he doesn’t trust me, but expects me to blindly trust him. It makes me angry that he thinks he can act that way.
As I approach the park my pace seems to naturally slow. The place is quiet today and not a breath of air moves through the long grasses by the swings. Shivers run down my spine as I consider the place. I know I need to keep going to the station, but I can’t seem to get the park out of my mind.
I cautiously make my way out into the open grass area that leads to the swing set. The small hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I almost feel a feather-like brush against my mind.
‘Who’s there?’ I say aloud. Despite the fact I’m alone, it doesn’t feel like a stupid question, even though my words hang unanswered in the empty air. The silence makes the back of my arms crawl and when I look down I notice a thin layer of icicles forming on my arm hairs.
‘Who’s out there?’ I repeat, louder this time.
I hear a scuffle of movement behind me and I whip around to look at the bushes nearby. The leaves rustle as someone emerges from behind the shrubs.
‘Hunter?’ I ask.
He turns and grins at me. ‘Winters. I knew you’d come,’ he replies, taking a step towards me.
‘Don’t come any closer,’ I warn, holding my hands out in front of me. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Well, I can’t exactly go home right now…’
I shake my head. ‘No. Why have you come here?’
‘Because you’re the only person I can trust.’
I laugh darkly under my breath. ‘After the things you’ve put me through? Unlikely.’
The grin on his face drops and he runs a hand through his hair. ‘I can explain…’ his voice trails off.
I wait, as the silence grows longer. ‘Well?’
‘It’s a long story,’ he replies. ‘I don’t know where to begin…’
‘How about with the part where you tortured me in the hospital? Or when you had Lara taken away and you tortured her too? There was that time you handed us over to Joseph. There’s also the time you took me to North Hope, raised an alert for my capture and left me to be abducted by recruiters. Take your pick.’
The colour drains from his face as he listens. ‘When you put it like that, it sounds pretty bad.’
‘Pretty bad? I thought you were my friend and you left me to become a lab rat for your father. You helped him do it. In what world would you think you could trust me after that?’
‘We are friends,’ he replies.
I glare at him. ‘I tried to kill you with my talent. In case you didn’t realise, that was me terminating our friendship.’
He takes a step towards me and lifts his arm out as though to comfort me, but I quickly step away. As I do, a small surge of talent pulses through me and the ground frosts over and icicles begin to grow on the small shoots of grass by my feet. ‘Don’t come near me.’
He nods and steps back again. ‘I know you may never forgive me, but will you at least listen to what I have to say? It might make you understand.’
I nod for him to go ahead, but he hesitates. ‘It’s freezing out here and I’ve been waiting in that damn bush since sunrise. There’s a house I’ve been staying in since last night on the other side of the park. Can we go th
ere to talk?’
I eye him closely. He seems sincere, but I don’t know if I can trust him. I thought he was completely sincere when I met him at East Hope High and look how wrong I was. It could easily be a trap. His lips are blue from the cold though, so he’s definitely freezing out here.
‘I’ll come but only if you answer one question. Why have you been helping me?’ First he spotted me here in this park and led the recruiters away, and then at Headquarters he helped us all escape. Those weren’t the actions of the same Hunter who tortured me when I was in hospital.
He looks down at his feet. ‘I’ll explain that when I tell you everything…’
I fold my arms across my chest, refusing to budge unless I get even a small explanation.
He sighs and glances up at me. ‘Because I care about you and I couldn’t let my father hurt you again. Look, it will all make a lot more sense if you let me tell the whole story.’
‘Fine,’ I agree. ‘I’ll come. But, if this is a trap, I will finish the job I started in your father’s office…’
Hunter shudders and a look of terror flickers over his features. He appears to remember being frozen when I found out he’d betrayed us quite clearly.
‘It’s no trap,’ he replies, when he finds his voice again.
I follow him at a distance across the grass to the other side of the park. The houses here are large and incredibly nice. April had considered setting us up in one of them initially, but quickly decided against it. Staying in the nicest abandoned houses is the first place the recruiters would probably look.
Hunter has, of course, chosen the largest and most obnoxious looking place on the block. It is several stories high and is set back from the street behind a tall wrought iron fence. Bushes and shrubbery grow wildly in the front yard much like the rest of South Hope.
I slow as I follow Hunter through the gate. The hinges squeak loudly as he pushes it open. This place feels deserted, but what if I’m walking into a trap? I close my eyes briefly and extend my senses out to see if I can hear anything from within the house walls.
There’s nothing to be heard other than Hunter’s soft breaths and the crunch of leaves under his shoes as he continues towards the house. It appears to be abandoned, but this wouldn’t be the first time my senses have deceived me.
As he pushes open the front door, the nervous tension I feel increases and my heart beats faster. He stands just inside the doorway and looks back at me.
‘You coming?’ he asks.
I hesitate but then nod my head and cautiously approach, walking past him and into the house. I eye the place as I enter, making certain there’s no one else here. I refuse to let my guard down.
The foyer has an old world charm to it, with dark wooden floorboards and a cobwebbed chandelier that hangs just inside the doorway. A large archway to the right leads through to a huge open room, which holds a majestic grand piano and chairs that are covered in an ornate red fabric.
I can almost imagine the kind of exclusive parties that would have been held in such a space once upon a time. The type of people who lived here would have been well above my station in life. Much like those who lived in the West Wing of the ARC.
Hunter moves past me and into the room, taking a seat on one of the couches. I follow him quietly and sit across from him, making certain to keep my distance.
‘So, your explanation?’ I say.
He smiles. ‘Straight to the point, Winters?’ he asks, in an attempt to lighten the mood.
I refuse to respond in kind and merely nod my head.
He moves forward on the couch, leaning his head into his hands as he gathers his thoughts. When he looks up at me again there’s a kind of tormented pain in his eyes. He looks haunted in a way I never would have expected and I worry about what is to come.
‘You know about my talent,’ he starts. ‘How I can manipulate the minds of others. I wasn’t always so confident in my skills and when I first surfaced my father was very hard on me.’ He almost spits the word ‘father.’
A series of images begin to flicker through my mind. I can see Hunter, younger, with his face overjoyed as he’s reunited with his father. Joseph doesn’t hug the boy back though. The next image shows Hunter in a white room with his eyes closed, his brow furrowed as he uses his talent, while Joseph watches on. Another shows the two of them in Joseph’s office. Hunter’s father is shouting down at him as the young boy cowers, tears welling in his eyes.
‘He was consumed with jealousy when he saw what I could do,’ Hunter continues. ‘He wanted control of my talent and he pushed me in ways I would never wish upon anyone. He scared me more than I care to admit. He wouldn’t let me go to school and kept me hostage in our apartment in North Hope, pushing me further and further each and every day. One day, I snapped. I couldn’t take his treatments anymore, so I escaped.
‘I ventured deep into East Hope and started a new life for myself. With my talent, I managed to easily avoid recruiters and even the school had no idea who I truly was. I thought I’d finally managed to get out.’ He laughs sadly to himself. ‘And for a while I had.
‘When I first met you I read your mind, just like I did with almost everyone, and I found myself surprised. Your thoughts were kind and I saw you’d escaped from your ARC to find one of your friends. It was refreshing to be around someone like that, who didn’t care about talents or being talented, and I found myself wanting to help you. It had been so long since I’d had a purpose, and I wanted you to trust me. I wanted you to want to be around me the way I wanted to be around you.’
The images enter my mind again but this time they’re visions of me—the way Hunter sees me. He shows me the moment he first saw me in the park in East Hope and the time he used his talent to draw on my tablet in class. I see myself fall to the ground in the darkness of the loft party and watch him come to my aid. There are flashes of me smiling at him, laughing at one of his jokes. Through his eyes I am beautiful and I look down at my hands, uncomfortable with seeing myself this way. The images stop and when I look up at him he’s frowning, but he continues with his explanation.
‘When I suggested we go to the Reintegration Centre it was partly because I wanted to help you find your friend, but also, I’d heard rumours of a man who was opposed to my father. I’d caught thoughts from people about a group who wanted to fight against him.’
‘M,’ I whisper.
He nods. ‘Little did I know, M was actually my uncle.’ He shakes his head and runs his hand through his hair. ‘So, that’s when I took you and Lara to the Reintegration Centre. She was after her father, you were after Sebastian and I wanted to find any clue I could on how to contact M.’
‘But you said you took us there so Lara would get caught…’
‘That was a lie,’ he says softly. ‘I wasn’t myself when I said those things.’
‘Why would you lie?’
‘I’m getting to that,’ he says. ‘When we went to North Hope for Sebastian I was severely weakened. The recruiters caught me and I couldn’t fight back. They took me to my father and I will never forget the evil look on his face when they brought me in. I felt like I’d been returned to the devil and he was welcoming me back to Hell.’
I clench my teeth as I wait for him to show me in my mind, but thankfully the images don’t come. His return must have been too terrible for him to share.
‘He locked me up again, returning me to life as a prisoner. But this time he was angry with me. He wanted to punish me for my ways. He wanted to teach me to become just like him.
‘He kept me weak, feeding me little and having his men beat me so I couldn’t escape. I always thought I was a strong talent, but I was so fragile after his torture that I was easily controlled by another mind manipulator he has working for him. He had complete control over my mind and I couldn’t escape.
‘It was a week before I saw you again. You were in the hospital and looking so ill, I wanted to get you out of that place, but it was like that small part of my
brain was trapped in a cage and the person who spoke and talked was no longer me.
‘I was an empty shell doing my father’s bidding and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop a single thing I did. He had me torture you; he had me torture Lara and countless others with my talent. It wasn’t until you froze me in Headquarters, and I was healed, that I managed to get free.
‘It was like a bar to my cage had been wrenched open and I could finally speak my own words and move my own hands. My father didn’t realise what had happened, so I had to keep following his orders, biding my time as I rebuilt my strength—waiting for a chance to escape.
‘Then, when I saw you on the roof, I knew I couldn’t pretend any longer. You and Michael were going to die if I didn’t do something. So I did…’ He stops, as though he’s run out of words, and watches me closely.
I take a deep breath and consider what he’s said and the images he’s shown me. The whole time I’ve known Hunter he has seemed so sure of himself, so free. I never imagined that anything so terrible could have happened to him. The thought of him being locked away and tortured by his own father is awful. It sounds like he was as much Joseph’s prisoner as I was. It’s such a terrible story I can’t believe he would lie about it. But can I really trust that he is telling the truth?
‘How can I believe any of this?’ I ask. He could so easily be lying and I’ve been foolish enough to believe him once before, to my detriment. Am I stupid enough to trust him again?
He sighs. ‘I don’t expect you to believe me right away, but I will prove myself to you. To the others…’
‘You think I’ll take you to them?’ I guess.
He nods. ‘I can be of help. They need me as much as I need them. We want the same things. My father can’t be allowed to get away with this anymore.
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