The Golden Couple (The Samantha Project Series, # 2)

by Karpinske, Stephanie

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I slumped back on the pillows. “I can’t believe this, Erik. Allie’s mom?”

  “Did you ever suspect anything? Did her mom ever act weird around you?”

  “No. Like she said, I just saw her. Yesterday, when I went to see Allie. And she seemed perfectly normal. She even offered to help Colin and me if we needed it.” I paused to replay the scene in my head. “And Allie. She was so upset about Colin and me leaving. She went on and on about how much she’d miss us and how we were all best friends. At least that’s what she said. But I guess it was all a lie.”

  “Sam, you can’t believe her mom. Allie probably doesn’t know about any of this.”

  “But what if Allie did put a tracking device on me? She could have easily put it on that leather bag, just like her mom said. Erik, why did I go to her house? That was so stupid! I should have never gone over there.”

  “There’s no way you would have known, Sam.”

  “I always wondered why she was my friend. It never made sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just forget about it.” I pulled the comforter over me. “Are they ever gonna turn that fire back on? It’s freezing in here.” Right after I said it, the fireplace turned on again.

  “Yeah, they’re not listening,” Erik said sarcastically.

  “You want something to eat?” I went over to the cart of food and wheeled it next to the bed.

  “Anything. I’m starving.”

  I gave Erik the plate of hot food and took some fruit and a muffin for myself. “So what do you think they’re gonna do to us?”

  He shrugged. “Treat us like lab rats. Drug us. Hook us up to machines and monitors.”

  “Then why are we in a place like this?” I moved closer to Erik so I could whisper. “Why not just put us in a room like I was in before?”

  “I told you, Sam. They’re playing mind games with us,” he whispered back. “Hoping to win us over. They probably think it will make us go along with whatever they have planned for us.”

  “I still don’t get why they’re keeping us together, Erik. Aren’t they worried we’ll come up with an escape plan?”

  ”Guess not. And what’s with the fancy clothes? They gave me suits and ties. That’s it! What’s that about? And what happened to the clothes that we were wearing when we got here? They were right over there and now they’re gone.”

  I didn’t answer. The clothes were the least of my concerns. “Erik, what do think happened to Brittany?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t think they’ll tell us.”

  “Did you hear how everyone talks about her? It’s like she’s some second-class citizen, not even allowed on the same floor as us.”

  Erik set his fork down. “Sam, do you smell something?”

  “I smell the food,” I said, looking down at his plate of eggs.

  “No, something else. Like flowers or perfume.”

  I sniffed the air. “Yeah, I smell it now. It’s flowery, like gardenias. My mom used to have perfume that smelled like that.”

  “Where is it coming from?”

  The smell was getting stronger, filling the entire room. “I can’t tell. It’s almost like it’s pouring out of the air vents.”

  We each took another deep whiff, trying to figure out the source. I suddenly felt so sleepy that I had to lie back down on the bed. Erik did the same. Soon we were out cold.

  When I started to wake up, I could hear conversations around me.

  “She’s much more advanced than the other one,” I heard a voice say. “Now that we’ve removed that fragment of DNA, we’ll be able to observe and test how her abilities are advancing.”

  “Why aren’t we adding the missing base pairs to complete the sequence?” another voice asked. “We’ve got both of them now. We don’t need the timer as a safeguard anymore. Chamberlin didn’t even have us enable their internal locators. He’s convinced they’re never leaving here.”

  “Chamberlin’s not ready to add the base pairs yet. Hell, I don’t even know where they are. I can’t imagine they’d keep the genes here. I’m thinking they’re in Sweden, locked down in some vault. Chamberlin probably has to go get them himself.”

  “Well, he better hurry because the boy’s time is running out.”

  “Hey, I think she’s waking up. Give her more of the drug.”

  I felt myself getting sleepy again. The voices faded as my mind filled with images of the airport from the previous night. I was inside the building as smoke from the explosion filled the room. I heard a whole new set of voices as the scene came to life.

  “Colin, stay close to the ground where the air is clearer!” The voice sounded like Jack’s. “Crawl forward and to the right!”

  “Jack, where are you? I can’t see anything.” I heard Colin say.

  “Something fell on my leg,” Jack said. “I’m stuck. Just go!”

  “No, I’m not leaving you here! Tell me where you are.”

  “The smoke is getting worse, Colin. Just get out of here!”

  In the light of the flames I could see someone moving along the floor. “Hold on, Jack. I can get this off you. Don’t move.”

  A loud thud sounded as Colin pushed what appeared to be a heavy desk off of Jack’s leg. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Jack coughed from the smoke. “I don’t think I can walk on it.”

  “Then I’ll drag you. Grab my arms.”

  The room was black with smoke now. The windows had been blown out, sending smoke billowing into the night sky. Suddenly I saw bright headlights coming toward the building. A car approached, stopping suddenly. A shadowy figure jumped out of the car and ran into the smoke-filled building.

  “Who are you?” I heard Colin yell between coughs.

  “Don’t talk. Try to hold your breath till we’re out,” a voice said. I couldn’t identify the voice, but it sounded like it belonged to a man.

  I could see Colin crawling out of the building, dragging Jack with the help of the unknown man. Soon Colin and Jack were both in the back seat of the vehicle. The car sped away from the burning building.

  “Tell me who you are,” Colin said, still coughing.

  “I’ll tell you everything when we get there.”

  I slowly woke up. I opened my eyes to find that I was still in bed, wearing the same men’s dress shirt. The breakfast cart sat next to me, right where I had put it. I rolled over and bumped into Erik, who was starting to wake up as well.

  “Sam, what happened?” Erik had on the same pajama pants as before. It was like nothing had changed, except that the gardenia smell was gone.

  “Did you fall asleep?” I asked Erik.

  “I guess I did. But for how long?”

  “I don’t know. The breakfast tray looks new. Like it hasn’t been touched. When we fell asleep, we’d eaten part of it.”

  “Sam, I think it’s a whole different—”

  “Shhh,” I hushed Erik, not wanting GlobalLife to hear our theory about what had happened. The less they heard, the better. “So you want some breakfast, Erik?”

  “Why is she talking about breakfast? We just woke up from being drugged and—”

  “What did you—” I quickly shut up, realizing that I’d just heard Erik’s thoughts for the first time in days.

  “Erik, listen. Do you hear me? In your head?” I picked up a plate on the breakfast tray, trying to act normal for the cameras that I assumed were somewhere around us.

  He smiled. “Loud and clear, Sam.”

  “Yes! Now we can talk without them hearing. Listen Erik, I think they took us and did stuff to us in the lab.”

  “Yeah. I think so, too. The flowery smell must have been some type of drug they put in the air to knock us out.”

  “Whatever they did to us restored our abilities. But we can’t tell them we can do this. They’ll have to find out on their own. For now just act normal.”

  “I’m really hungry,” I said aloud. “I think I’ll
have some eggs.”

  “Me, too,” Erik said. “I’m starving.”

  We took our food over to the sitting area on the other side of the room. I used our newly restored telepathy to tell Erik about the conversation I heard when I was knocked out. But I didn’t tell him anything about my dream of Colin and Jack being alive. I didn’t want to get his hopes up if it wasn’t true.

  Erik tried to remain outwardly calm after hearing the news that the timer was still going but his thoughts were angry. “So they’re gonna wait until the last minute to turn it off? And nobody even knows where this alien DNA shit is?”

  “That Chamberlin guy knows where it is. At least that’s what it sounded like.”

  “Did they say when he was gonna go get it?”

  “No. But maybe we could listen to their minds and find out.”

  “Be real, Sam. They know we have the telepathy back again. They’ll find a way to make sure we can’t hear their thoughts.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Hey, before we passed out, I was thinking about how we should play this thing out.”

  Erik got up to refill his plate. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I think we should try to go along with whatever it is they’re doing here.”

  “What? No way!” He practically shouted it in my head as he came back to sit down.

  “Listen. We need to learn things. Figure out how this place works. We need people to tell us stuff. And they won’t do that if we fight them. We need to act like this is normal. Maybe even pretend that we like it here.”

  “Are you crazy, Sam? No. I’m not doing that.”

  “Do you wanna escape or not? If we go along with them, we might get answers. But if we fight them, they’ll punish us. So which do you want?”

  Before we could finish, the door opened. It was Allie’s mom again, along with a young woman. The woman was tall, thin, and exotic looking with long black hair.

  “Good morning. I’m glad you’re both up.” Eve walked toward me as the other woman followed behind. “This is Natalie. She’ll be helping you get ready, Samantha. I know you’re not good with basic grooming, like proper makeup application or hair styling, so Natalie is here to teach you. She’ll get you ready today. Tomorrow you can attempt it yourself. You need to make yourself presentable each day. That means hair done and makeup on.”

  Natalie came over and extended her hand to me. “Hello, Samantha. Follow me, please.”

  “But I’m still eating—”

  “Samantha, listen,” Eve interrupted. “You, too, Erik. We have a very important man here today. He’s our largest investor and has been with the project since the beginning. He’s crucial in helping us attract new investors to the project. But he won’t do so unless he continues to see proof of its potential. And you two are part of that proof. So he will be meeting with each of you today. Separately.”

  “What happens at this meeting?” Erik asked suspiciously.

  “He has a series of questions for both of you. He has seen your files and knows what you’re capable of. He’d love for you to show him your abilities, but since you’ve just had the procedure done, I doubt you’ll be able to just yet.”

  “What procedure?” I asked, as Natalie pushed me toward the bathroom. “What did you do to us?”

  “Can’t you tell? You should notice some of your abilities returning by now. You’ve been asleep for a day. It’s Tuesday morning. We had our team remove that inferior DNA from that one section of your genes.”

  Erik and I didn’t respond because it was what we assumed had happened.

  “And yes, we know about your telepathy. That’s why we all wear these devices.” She held up a small, circular piece of metal with a green light in the center. “It scrambles the brain waves in the air so you can’t read them.” Eve went back to the door. “I’ll be by later to retrieve you for your interviews.”

  After she left, Natalie ordered me to shower. While she waited outside, I tried talking to Erik. But my telepathy wasn’t strong enough yet to reach him in the other room.

  “Are you ready?” Natalie called.

  “Yes. Come in.” I waited by the sink in my skimpy robe.

  Natalie started going over how to apply all the makeup that was stashed in the bathroom drawers.

  “You see, the eyelid is your canvas and this is your palette.” She held up a tray of eyeshadow, then applied some to my left eyelid. “This darker color goes in the crease. You try.”

  I took the eyeshadow and started putting the color on the eyelid that wasn’t yet done.

  “No, no. Like this.” She grabbed the eyeshadow brush and redid it.

  “I’m not really into makeup,” I said, thinking how ridiculous it was to be worrying about makeup at a time like this. “I usually just wear a little blush and mascara.”

  “That’s child’s makeup, Samantha. You need to look like a woman. A woman of status and culture.”

  Natalie continued with the makeup lesson. An hour later we were finally done. I knew that by tomorrow, I would forget everything she’d taught me. And I didn’t care. Why did I need to look good to sit in a GlobalLife prison all day?

  Next Natalie worked on my hair, showing me what to do with all the bottles and sprays under the sink. It appeared that they were specially chosen for my naturally wavy, and sometimes frizzy, hair. The hair lesson took another hour.

  When it was over, Natalie stood back to look at me. “Now the clothes. I’ll be right back.” She left, then returned holding a deep blue dress and some black heels. The dress was a perfect fit, almost like it had been specially made using my exact measurements. I walked out of the bathroom to find Erik still sitting in the chair, looking completely bored.

  “What took you so—” Erik stopped when he saw me. My form-fitting dress, makeup, and flawless hair took him by surprise.

  Natalie smiled. “She looks lovely, doesn’t she? I’ll be leaving now, Samantha, but Jonathan will be here soon to coach you on what to say.”

  She left and I went over to Erik. He was still staring at me. “You look really good, Sam.”

  “As opposed to what? How I normally look?”

  Before he could answer, the door opened again and two well-dressed men walked in. The first one greeted us. “Hello, I’m Jonathan and this is Kendall.” The men looked nearly identical. Both were young with short blond hair and dark suits.

  “Erik, you’ll be coming with me,” Kendall said. “I’ll show you how to do a proper shave, then we’ll clean up that mop of hair on your head.”

  “I already know how to shave. And what’s wrong with my hair?”

  Kendall gave Erik a look that implied he had no choice in the matter. The two of them left for the bathroom and Jonathan sat down next to me.

  “So you’ll be meeting with Mr. Owens today.” Jonathan sounded as if I’d won a prize. “He’s our biggest investor. Very powerful man. And an excellent dresser. Has all his clothing handmade using the finest of fabrics.”

  “When am I meeting him?”

  “In an hour. But before that, we need to go over some things. For instance, just look how you’re sitting. All hunched over, legs twisted up like a pretzel. Sit like this.”

  He sat sideways on the small velvet sofa, his shoulders and head upright. His legs were together but not crossed and his hands rested on his knees. “This is how a lady sits. Now try it.”

  Jonathan spent the next 50 minutes lecturing me on proper body language and how to answer questions. He gave me words and phrases to use that seemed to come from the GlobalLife employee handbook. “As you know, GlobalLife is a leader in tomorrow’s technology. And I’m honored to have such an important role in shaping the future.” Jonathan spoke like he was recording a commercial. “Now repeat that back to me.”

  “I can’t even remember what you said. Why can’t I just answer his questions?”

  “Just repeat it back to me. Hurry up.”

  I sighed. “GlobalLife is a leader in—” I stopped when I saw Erik.<
br />
  He came out of the bathroom wearing a dark suit, white dress shirt, and tie. He was cleanly shaven and his hair had been trimmed.

  Jonathan stood up. “Excellent job, Kendall. Much improved. Samantha, I hope you memorized what I said because it’s time for you to leave for the interview. Erik, come over here so I can go over what I just told her.”

  Erik walked past me and I got a whiff of his cologne. He smelled as good as he looked. I felt an indescribable attraction to him once again. Just like I had when we first met back in Texas. Even more so.

  “Just look at them together,” Kendall swooned. “Aren’t they a wonderful couple? A perfect match.”

  “Yes, they certainly are,” Jonathan agreed.

  The door opened and Eve walked in. “Samantha, you look so much better. And Kendall, you’ve done a splendid job with the boy.”

  Kendall smiled, reviewing his work again.

  “Samantha, let’s go. Mr. Owens is in the conference room.” She took my arm and led me out. The office was buzzing with people, a much different scene than when Erik and I had arrived there. It felt strange to not be cuffed or secured in any way. But it’s not like I could like make a run for it. Armed guards stood at the building entrance and a few more were scattered around the lobby.

  Eve took me to a hallway in the back of the building. We entered a room with the longest table I’d ever seen. Tall leather office chairs surrounded it. At the end of the room was a wall of windows that displayed a stunning view of snow-covered mountains.

  A man in a black suit was standing with his back to us, looking out at the wintery scene. He turned when he heard us enter.

  “Mr. Owens. Sorry to keep you waiting. This is Samantha.” Eve pushed me toward the man. “Samantha, this is Mr. Preston Owens.”

  The man appeared to be in his mid-seventies. He was taller than average and had a full head of gray hair that was held in place with some kind of hair product. He had a very distinguished look. I could tell that he was used to holding the power in the room. In fact, Allie’s mom seemed almost fearful of him. She tried to cover it up by standing straight and smiling a lot.

  “Well, I’ll let you two talk,” Eve said. “I’ll be just down the hall. Call me when you’re done.”