“Pretty soon you won’t have a choice. You ever wonder what happened to your mother?”
Michael listened.
“She was killed in cold blood by the dictator of this unholy country, Harris Kole himself.”
“No way.”
Dominic nodded. “It happened during an escape attempt. She managed to smuggle you out of a military research facility in the mountains northwest of here, but she had to sacrifice herself to do it.
“She was a telepath, Michael, like you and me. A powerful one. The government was looking for a way to weaponize the ability, and she was their first success. You were their second.”
Michael could only stand there, stunned. Moths flew in circles beneath the lamp, seeking warmth from the dim light. Dominic flinched as one bumped the side of his head. He waved it away with a sour look.
“And what do you want with me?”
“I want to help you,” Dominic said. “Give you a chance of survival, because out here”—he looked around at the brick walls—“you’re up for grabs.”
“So they’ll kill me, too? Like they killed my mother?”
Dominic shook his head. “Worse. They’ll paralyze you from the neck down so you’ll never be able to run away. Then they’ll test you, see what your mind is capable of. Finally, they’ll open up your skull, drill holes in your brain to see what they find. Maybe then they’ll kill you. Or maybe that’ll just be the beginning.”
Michael took a deep breath and stood his ground. This was beginning to feel like some sort of intimidation tactic. He made fists out of his cold fingers.
“Who do you work for? The Liberators? The Revolters?”
Dominic shook his head and looked at his watch.
“I work for Louis Blake, the man who helped your mother smuggle you out in the first place.”
“The terrorist.”
“All revolutionaries are terrorists at first, wouldn’t you say? Besides, what they say about him on the news is a lie meant to keep the system in place, and the men who run it in power. They’ve turned him and the rest of us into bogeymen to scare children at night, to keep them worshipping the One President like they’ve been doing for decades. Are you afraid of the bogeyman, Mike?”
Michael stepped toward the door. “I have a family. They need me.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dominic said, taking a step toward him. “They’ll slaughter your family like cattle. That’s the first thing they’ll do.”
“And if I leave, they’ll do the same.”
Dominic looked off at the empty parking lot and shook his head. Michael wondered what the man would do now. Would he kill Michael for resisting? And why shouldn’t he? He couldn’t just let him live after telling him all this—could he?
“Please don’t come here again,” Michael said. “I—I mean, thanks for your help, but after what you showed me in there, I think I can take care of myself now.”
Dominic leaned toward Michael a little, shoulders squared like he was going to challenge him to a fistfight.
“What, you’re such a tough guy now? Just because you took care of one telepath and a bunch of cops, you think you can protect your family from the Fatherland Security Department? Listen to me, kid. All hell is about to crash down on your shoulders. Don’t be stupid.”
Michael had opened the door and was backing through it.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
When the door was shut, he slid all seven locks into place and listened for the sounds of Dominic’s footsteps leaving the lot.
He heard nothing at all.
Chapter 9
That night, a hand clamping over Michael’s mouth pulled him out of a hurried, anxious dream he immediately forgot. He became aware of a dark room, the foul warmth of someone’s breath wafting over his face, the roughness of calloused hands on his lips and chin.
Dominic had come back for him, to kidnap him; that was the only explanation that came to mind.
A flashlight clicked on, creating shadows that yawned across a broad face. It was one of the two men who had come into the restaurant that day with Uncle Sal to eat and drink and fondle Jolene. Michael even remembered their names: Boyd and Welcher.
“Shhh…” Welcher, the bigger of the two, said, pulling the flashlight away so his face was again hidden in darkness. “Be real quiet.”
The light swung, smashing into Michael’s head and knocking him out cold.
The sensation of his bare feet thumping down the basement stairs woke him.
Michael’s heels were sore when they finally dropped him into a chair and handcuffed his wrists together behind him, followed by his ankles. He was dressed in a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else. The men had strung up a battery-powered lantern they must have brought with them. It filled the basement with a weak, piss-colored glow.
“Mike.”
He looked to his right and saw Benny, also bound to a chair, apparently unharmed. Sweat was pouring down his face and had soaked his white undershirt, leaving the armpits stained bright yellow. Like Michael, he was also dressed in his boxer shorts, but in addition, he wore a thick pair of cotton socks that Michael had often teased him about.
“Mike,” he said again, trembling.
Welcher slammed his elbow into Benny’s face. The effect was unlike anything Michael had ever seen, as if Benny were not a real person but a doll. His head bobbled and his eyes rolled up to reveal their veined underbellies. He blinked a few times and whimpered. Blood ran from one nostril and gathered along his trembling upper lip.
“Just shut up,” Michael told his brother. “Do exactly what they say.”
Welcher grunted. “You should listen to him, Benny-boy. You’re not the one we want anyway, so shut it.”
Michael remembered Welcher clearly from that day in the kitchen, with his head like a block of wood and his big, meaty fists. The smaller one, his cheeks as pockmarked as before but now sporting a glossy sheen of sweat, was Boyd. During their previous stop at the restaurant, both men had worn suits. Tonight they wore black T-shirts tucked into jeans. Civilian outfits.
Michael began to shiver.
“Please,” he said, casting his eyes up at the men. “Don’t hurt us.”
Boyd and Welcher kept silent. They seemed uneasy about how to go forward. Maybe they wouldn’t hurt them after all. Maybe they just needed help with something…
“It was you,” Boyd said. “You turned him off, didn’t you?”
Michael glanced back and forth between each man multiple times, trying to decipher their meaning. “Turned—turned who off?”
“Your Uncle Sal,” Welcher said. “I know what you did to him. I saw it that day in the kitchen when you were looking at him with those ment eyes, trying to read his mind.”
After a brief pause, Welcher continued. “We went ahead and did some research at the station. We know about your mother. Your real mother, Claudia Cairne. They locked her up for being a ment, didn’t they? For being dangerous, like you.”
His mother. They knew about her, and about his telepathic attack on his uncle. Michael had taken these men for dumb grunts. How wrong he’d been.
SMACK.
Welcher’s meaty hand swung into him, sending his vision reeling. Michael’s neck made a popping sound and his cheek burned as if someone had smeared crushed glass all over it.
Boyd took over. “Answer the question, you little shit,” he said with the sneering, resentful voice you’d expect from a man who had been small all his life, who had joined the FSD so he could get back at the world for looking down on him.
“No,” Michael said. “It wasn’t me. I—I—I wasn’t…”
SMACK.
His head spun again, and Michael found himself gazing at an extra-large can of tomato sauce on the shelf. A question filled his mind as if the blow had dislodged it.
Where were his parents?
“We know all about you, telepath,” Welcher said, crouching to better examine Michael’s face. Michael made eye contact with th
e man and regretted it when Welcher spit squarely into his eyes. “Don’t look at me, look at the floor. Or my shoes. Or down at your shriveled little dick. There we go. That’s better.”
Benny groaned. Michael kept from looking at his brother in case it inspired another beating.
“Answer the question,” Welcher said. Behind the bigger man, Boyd lifted a bottle of warm beer from a crate and tore off the cap. “Did you turn your uncle into a vegetable?”
Michael nodded.
“The truth,” Boyd said and guzzled down half the beer, smacking his lips afterward.
“Good to know,” Welcher said, easing back a little. “Now we want you to undo it. You see, Mike, we were up for promotion next week. Your Uncle Sal was going to add us to his personal staff. We’re talking a salary increase of forty million koles a year, you know what I mean? And the benefits—wow. The FSD looks after its own, I gotta tell ya.”
“Amen to that,” Boyd said, guzzling the rest of the beer and tossing aside the empty bottle. He plucked another out of the crate and opened it with a hiss.
“Now, here’s what’s going to happen,” Welcher said, rising so he could look down at Michael. The lantern was shining behind his head, casting his face into a dark, grimacing mask. “You’re going to come with us to the hospital and undo whatever the hell it was you did to your Uncle Sal. Then, once you wake him up, Boyd and I will bring you back here like nothing ever happened. We’ll even convince your uncle to go easy on you. But if you try and run, or if you say anything to anyone…”
“My parents,” Michael said. “Where are they?”
“You mean your aunt and uncle?” Welcher tilted his big head. “They’re not far, believe me.”
Boyd chuckled at this.
“I want to see them now,” Michael said, his voice trembling. “Please.”
Welcher looked at Boyd and shrugged. “Give him what he wants.”
Boyd dropped his unfinished beer back into the crate and crossed the room to the refrigerator, where he pulled the door open in one massive sweep. He disappeared into the fridge and came out a moment later, dragging a chair along its two back legs.
Michael’s mother was strapped to that chair. She was alive, dressed in her cotton pajamas, eyes rolling with fear. Her face was deathly pale, her lips purple around the filthy rag they had used to gag her.
“Oh God,” Michael said.
“God can’t help her,” Welcher said in a cheery voice. “But you can.”
Whistling, Boyd turned in a circle until he had his back to the refrigerator. He proceeded to drag Michael’s mother back inside. When he came out again, he was rubbing his hands together from the cold. He kicked the refrigerator door shut, cutting off her moans of terror.
“Your dad’s in there, too,” Welcher said. “They stay too long and it won’t be good for their health. You already realized that though, didn’t you?”
Michael looked over at Benny. His brother was gazing down at the floor and drooling. He appeared to be only half conscious. Then, to Michael’s surprise, Benny looked up at Welcher and uttered a single word.
“Fascists.”
Smirking at Benny like he was glad to accept a challenge, Boyd picked up his half-empty beer bottle and brandished it.
“You want to say that to me again, kiddo?”
“Boyd,” Welcher said. “Just wait, will you?”
“Little brat,” Boyd said, lifting the bottle over his head.
“No,” Michael screamed.
It was over in a second. Boyd sliced a diagonal line through the air with the butt end of the bottle, shattering it against Benny’s face. Michael closed his eyes as shards of glass tickled his right cheek. He heard a loud clack followed by a meaty thump and opened his eyes to see that Benny had toppled onto the floor, still bound to the chair.
The bottle had cut a gash across his neck, just under the line of his chin. He struggled against the handcuffs and whimpered as blood puddled on the floor. An artery had been severed; Michael could tell by the way the blood pulsed out of him.
“No,” Michael said, and then he began to sob. “Benny, oh, Jesus, Benny.”
Now do you want my help?
It was the voice from the other night. Dominic.
Yes! Michael said, shouting through a pair of invisible lips that had torn open inside his mind.
Benny let out a gasp, and then his body settled and his head came to rest on the floor, his eyes open and blank.
Michael almost tipped his chair over to get to him.
“No,” he kept saying, “No, Benny, wait! Wait a minute!”
He could hear Boyd snickering. The man was laughing as the blood poured from Benny’s neck.
Rage boiled inside Michael’s chest, constricting it so his entire ribcage felt like a fist getting tighter and tighter, ready to explode outward.
The bridge of his nose wrinkled. He was snarling.
“You killed my brother,” he said in grinding whisper, a sound like pebbles in his larynx.
“What are you gonna do about it, kid?” Boyd said, pointing a finger at Michael while grinning at Welcher. “Look at him, all tough all of a sudden.”
Michael turned his attention to Welcher, who was shaking his head at Boyd in disappointment. He saw a string—almost invisible, but it was there—vibrating in the core of Welcher’s brain. It looked foggy, as if the skin and bone of his forehead had gone semi-transparent.
A tickling sensation slid down Michael’s face, along the grooves on either side of his nose; a feeling like a wax pencil drawing lines down his cheeks. He looked down and saw spots of blood on his boxer shorts.
“What in the hell?” Welcher said, his face contorting in utter shock.
Boyd lost the smile and studied Michael. “Well, look at that.”
Both men had strings now; thin, almost invisible strings dancing and trembling inside their heads. Those strings were waiting for Michael’s whisper. They wanted to be told what to do.
Michael knew what to say. A long time ago someone had shown him how this worked.
“Open your throat with the bottle,” he told Boyd, his voice low and calm.
Boyd’s eyes flew open. He blinked three times, then lifted the bottle he’d smashed across Benny’s face and started sawing at his own neck with it. He didn’t slice the skin the way a person might do with a knife. Instead he ran the sharp angles of glass across several times—up, down, diagonally—forming red lines that parted like tiny mouths opening all over the skin, releasing bloody spittle, a pulsing geyser of blood.
“Boyd, stop! What are you doing?”
Welcher smacked the bottle out of Boyd’s hand.
It was too late. Boyd staggered back, eyes staring at nothing. The front of his shirt was dark red, almost purple, with blood. He slumped against the wall and slid down, throat hissing and bubbling as he tried to breathe.
Michael watched the whole thing in silence, feeling oddly detached. He recognized the existence of two people inside himself, one watching the other.
Michael Lanza, Michael Cairne; one was aghast while the other wanted to destroy everything in sight.
The door to the basement burst open. Michael turned his head slowly to watch the stairs.
That bastard Dominic had no reason to be here. Michael had this under control; he would take care of these men by himself, with no one’s help, no one’s interference. These men would die. He would taste their fear while he did it.
Welcher shot a look up the stairs and pulled a pistol out of the back of his pants. As he got ready to fire, Michael caught another glimpse of the string dancing wildly in the man’s head. It was time.
He was about to issue a command—a “death whisper,” the scientists had called it many years ago, in a memory that rushed back to him—when Dominic flew down the stairs, moving so fast he was little more than a streak.
He split into three people at that moment. Or that was how it seemed.
One version of Dominic tripped Welcher, kno
cking him flat on his back. Another version snatched the gun out of his hand and tossed it aside, while the third version took a needle out of his jacket and began to prep it.
It was all a trick—a stupid trick.
Michael breathed fiercely as he struggled to pinpoint Dominic’s presence. It was too difficult, and that made him angry. Dominic would go with them. He would die with these men.
Control yourself, came Dominic’s mental voice.
Michael roared, his teeth bared. Welcher was still alive, clutching a wound in his chest. Dominic had stabbed him. Dominic had tried to take the man’s life when it was Michael’s to take and no one else’s.
Die, Michael told Welcher with a voice that reached outward from the core of his mind, dissolving all reason.
The big man began to jerk and shake. A moment later his life blinked out of him. His body lay still, his face motionless. Michael had tasted the life slip out of him, and it was delicious. He wanted more.
Dominic was next.
Die, he told him.
Oh no you don’t.
Dominic lifted the needle, then stuck it into Michael’s arm.
“No,” Michael screamed at him. “You’re just like them! You killed Benny!”
Dominic smacked him across the face. When he pulled his hand back, Michael could see blood on it. He had cried blood. He could see the red in his vision, along with glittering points of light. He expected them to make noise, like fireworks. Instead a boiling sensation spread inside his skull.
Michael opened his mouth to let loose a howl of anger, but was distracted by hundreds—no, thousands—of tiny strings shivering all around him. He could see them through the walls. There were two in the refrigerator and one in Dominic’s head, but there were countless others, too, outside the restaurant, down the street, in the surrounding buildings and alleys, floating before him like dust motes sewn into the still air.
Mom…Dad…no…
Michael, control yourself!
One by one, and then by the dozen—and finally by the hundreds—Michael slashed at the tiny strings with his mind, unable to stop even as Dominic shook him.
“Stop it, Michael. Get a grip!”
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