Sandra made that annoying clucking sound with her tongue. “You sound like you’re giving up, Sarah. That’s the last thing I want.” She leaned in closer to the camera so that her face filled the entire screen. “I have a deal for you, Lexi. Jonas is already here. But if you and the other original clones come to Palmyra, I will make sure we get Jack and Georgia all fixed up and back to normal. And not only that: if you work with us, then I promise we’ll allow all the other clones around the world to live normal lives.”
I scoffed. “Why would I believe you? The last time I entered your web, you murdered your own son in front of me.” And my best friend.
“He was malfunctioning; it needed to be done. However, you can rest assured that I will not kill any of the original clones. But beyond that… you have no idea what I’m capable of, Sarah.” Her words were coated in infinite threats. And I believed each and every one.
“No deal. I will come. Just me. I’m the one you want. Leave the others alone. But first, you have to tell me how to make Jack and Georgia better. Then, and only then, I’ll do whatever it is you need at Palmyra.” The horrible taste of bile rose to the back of my throat. I was selling my soul to the devil. But I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to Jack. What had she done to him? And why couldn’t I see whatever it was?
I wanted to find Maya and Addison and punish them for their part in this, but I knew in my heart that this was all Sandra’s doing. She had found ways to control both Maya and Addison. I honestly didn’t think either one of them had a clue what Maya had done to Jack. That’s not to say I could completely trust either of them. That they were under Sandra’s thumb was reason enough to be wary. But I needed Maya and Addison to help me get inside Palmyra. I had to trust them at least that much.
“Deal,” Sandra said. She sat back, crossing her arms in arrogant triumph. “Except… you come first, and then I’ll give you the cure. And you’d better come soon, dear… or Jack and Georgia will die.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Can you do it?”
“Yes, but Lexi, this is a terrible idea,” my mother said. “We might not be able to remove the tracker after it’s been implanted.”
I’d worry about that if and when I ever got away from Palmyra. “It’s the only idea I have that protects everyone else.”
“I’ll be right back,” my mother whispered. “I’m going to check on dinner. The others will be here soon. And you still need to figure out a way to tell them the plan.” By “them,” I knew she meant Jack.
Alyson turned quickly to go, but before she got to the kitchen door, I heard her pull in a labored breath. She swiped at her face. My heart squeezed at the sight of her crying.
I leaned back into the oversized chair, my feet propped up on the ottoman in front of me. It was difficult to admit this to Alyson, but it was nice to be in a comfortable home instead of the cold, stark infirmary basement.
I lifted my flattened palm in front of my face. The tracker sat on its edge in the middle of my hand. From this angle, I had a view of its tentacles. If Alyson could program this tracker to mirror Maya’s, but trim the tentacles to give them less gripping power, she could then place it at the base of my skull and make it indistinguishable from Maya’s implant. Then all I had to do was make sure my appearance and personal knowledge were identical to Maya’s. We’d have an eleven-hour flight to go over the details. Of course, I still needed to entice Maya to cooperate.
The theory was that if I could pretend to be Maya, then I could get inside Palmyra. And if I could do that, then somehow I would find Jonas, and the cure for Jack and Georgia, and then get out. Easy, right?
I sighed. It was impossible. But I had to at least try.
And unfortunately, I would have to do it alone. Georgia and Jack were still ill, seeming even sicker than before, and I’d never get Fred to go to Palmyra without Georgia. And I needed Kyle to hack into the system and be my voice from the outside. I might be able to use Briana, but she was so very new to using her abilities, and I wasn’t sure I could risk something going wrong.
The doorbell rang. Alyson passed from the kitchen to the foyer behind me. When she returned, Kyle, Jack, and Briana followed. They all glared at me as if I’d told them Wellington would no longer serve dessert in the dining hall.
“What?” I asked.
Jack traded glances with the other two, then stepped forward. His face was pale, and a grey hue darkened the skin under his eyes. “You’ll go inside that place by yourself over my dead body.”
I crawled out of the chair. “Jack, I—”
“Save it. Alyson called. She told us what you’re planning.”
I glared at my mother. Snitch.
She wrung her hands. “I didn’t come back into your life to help you walk into a death trap. I knew you’d listen to your friends before you’d listen to me.”
“Tell me what this is about.” Jack linked his pinky with mine. “What’s changed?”
I stared down the laces of my running shoes a moment before I found the strength to meet his gaze again. “Sandra… she did something permanent to you and Georgia. Well, Maya did it, but it was Sandra who forced her to do whatever it was.”
“What do you think she did?”
“I’m not sure. I examined your head, but I couldn’t find anything.”
“Then how do you know she did something?”
“Because she told me. That was the ‘gift’ she mentioned.” This was my fault. If I had just listened to her after she’d sent the very first “gifts” on the night of my birthday party. She had warned me to leave Jack out of it.
“What exactly did she tell you?” His jaw hardened.
“That if I’ll join her inside Palmyra, she’ll reverse whatever it was she did to you and Georgia.” I left out the part about what would happen if the effect wasn’t reversed—that he and Georgia would die. I’d make sure that didn’t happen.
“Lexi.” Kyle sat his laptop on a nearby writing desk. “Briana and I have studied the layout of the full lab. It’s not very big. It’s not as intricate as the lab she had at UK.”
Briana nodded. “I’ve memorized the faces of the doctors and lab techs that appear to be current residents of the island.” Her voice was low, which was strange for her. “There aren’t many.”
“And security seems to be light,” Kyle added.
“Maybe because it’s on an island that’s supposed to receive very few visitors, and never ones who aren’t announced by the government.” Jack spoke as if he’d researched the island himself.
There was a knock on the door, and Alyson answered it.
“We brought dessert,” Seth announced as he lifted two large grocery bags. Coach walked in behind him with a couple of oversized black briefcases.
“What’re those?” I asked.
“New toys.”
An irrational excitement bubbled up in my chest; I loved the unique weapons that Coach came up with. And this time, I was going to need something inconspicuous. I would never enter Sandra’s lair packing a gun—I might as well just announce that I was the enemy.
“You guys start without us,” Jack said. “I need to talk to Lexi a minute.”
Jack pulled me toward the door. On the front porch, he dropped my hand and turned to me. “Did you search my entire body?”
“No. I didn’t have time. I knew you were off a bit, so I did a quick search of your head before you left to take a nap. When I didn’t find anything, I Skyped Sandra. She was expecting my call.” I averted my gaze from Jack’s. I couldn’t stop the moisture from pooling in my eyes again. “I can’t lose you,” I whispered. “I’ll do whatever I have to.”
Heat radiated from his feverish body as he pressed himself against me. His arm snaked around to my back, bringing me even closer. He leaned his forehead against mine. “You are not going to lose me. We’ll figure this out.”
I let his lips find mine. After kissing him, I snuggled my face into his chest and breathed in the scent
of the ocean. “I want you to help me figure this out, and I want you close, but I need to enter Palmyra alone. Jonas is already there. He knows how to control his actions and fight anything Sandra is doing to him.” I hoped so, anyway. “He can help me find the cure for you and Georgia.”
Jack pulled away and ran a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t we kill them when we had the chance?”
I knew he spoke of Sandra and his father. “Because that’s not who we are.”
“I’m not sure I’d make the same choice if given the chance to do it over. We’re in constant danger. Why won’t they just leave us alone?” he asked, exasperated.
“Because they want something from me. But Sandra made a mistake.”
He cocked his head. “What mistake?”
“When I first returned from The Farm, I wanted nothing but revenge. Dani was dead. Sandra sent me evidence that your father killed mine. I would have been happy to go in, guns blazing, to take out everyone on that island and in the lab. And then disappear forever.” I paused, thinking about how angry I’d been—how angry I still was.
“What changed your mind?”
“Sandra’s mistake was showing me just how low she would go. She showed me how she had cloned my best friend just to get back at me—for no other reason than to punish me for not giving her what she wanted. And she’s not going to stop experimenting with human life. She’s producing more clones.” I gritted my teeth. “And a division of our government is letting it happen.”
“The IIA.”
I nodded. “I’m pretty sure the IIA killed Dad and made sure it looked like your father was involved. I think Sandra orchestrated it that way, the same way she’s playing me at every turn.”
“You don’t think my father killed Peter?”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “I just don’t know. I don’t think your father is innocent…” I met Jack’s gaze. “I’m sorry. But the way the agents seemed to surround him in that surveillance video… your dad’s face was the only face visible in that video. Everyone else looked like anonymous agents who never looked at the camera. Like they knew where not to look.”
“Still, he’s been a large part of Sandra’s team.”
“True, but a murderer? He was shocked when Sandra killed Ty. I saw his face when he found out.”
“It doesn’t even matter if he murdered Peter. He’s still heavily involved in Sandra’s plan to produce these healing machines. And they’re killing innocent lives every day in that process.”
“And they must be stopped. But instead of making them face a firing squad—because that would be letting them off easy—I want to take them down bit by bit. And I want Sandra, John, and everyone else involved to watch me do it.”
~~~~~
The University of Kentucky campus was dark, and the dropping temperatures sent everyone inside. I had told Maya and Addison to wait for me inside The Program. I’d be surprised if they had, but one could hope.
I rounded a corner and made my way along a sidewalk between two buildings. The wind picked up along this dimly lit walkway between two rows of thick evergreen trees. Leaves from neighboring maples blew in a swirling pattern. A plastic bag was caught against the leg of a nearby bench.
A presence entered my mind. Where’ve you been? We’ve been waiting for you. It was Maya, her words reeking of entitlement and abruptness. Can you get this tracker out of me?
We’ll discuss it. I would not be removing Maya’s tracker until Jack was better and Sandra and John were safely in prison. I continued along the sidewalk.
An unexplained shiver moved down my spine, and I shuddered. I looked right, left, and behind me. I didn’t see anything, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. I sped up.
Addison, are you and Maya inside the building?
Yes, why?
I’m almost there.
I reached the side door to the building, the entrance closest to the steps of the basement where The Program had been temporarily located before the move to Wellington. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have come alone, but I’d needed everyone working on their part in tomorrow’s trip, and I wanted Jack to rest.
I took the steps up to the building two at a time. As I reached out my hand to pull on the metal handle, I heard a noise behind me. I didn’t even have time to turn around before a large hand clamped down over my mouth.
Instinctively, I screamed through the fingers, but it came out in a muffled cry. An arm wrapped around my body and dragged me back down the steps. I tried to dig my heels into the sidewalk as I felt for my ring. It wasn’t there. I had forgotten to wear it, and I’d left my new weapons back at school because I hadn’t thought I’d be needing them until I got to Palmyra.
A man’s hushed voice whispered in my ear, “I’ll remove my hand, but don’t scream. No one’s out this late to hear you anyway. And if you scream, I’ll be forced to shut you up sooner rather than later.”
His hand dropped slowly from my face and joined the other in its hold on my body. He continued to drag me backward. “What do you want?” I couldn’t hide the shakiness in my voice.
The only other sounds were of his feet shuffling against concrete. I squirmed and fought against his strong arms. I was being carried backward in the direction from which I had just come. I had to relax. Think.
I tried mindspeaking. Who are you? What do you want?
The person stopped and stood me on my feet, but didn’t loosen his grip on me. I felt his head lean in closer. “I want you. Dead, if necessary.” He shoved me away from him.
Once I regained my footing, I spun around. “Dr. Wellington?” The muscles in my back and neck clenched.
“Apparently if you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself. But first, we need to talk.” He held up a tranquilizer gun and pointed it at my face. “Your father made a big mistake when he changed the terms of his will. He should have left me Wellington Boarding School and the money to run it, like he promised.”
I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You want me dead because you want the school?”
A deep laugh reverberated from his throat. “Not just the school. The money to own the clones inside of it, too. And I want his journals.”
“The clones are people. You can’t own them.” And why did everything always come back to those journals? Had I missed something?
“You always were naïve. You think the parents of those freaks care about them? No, they’re all for sale. All I had to do was locate them and convince the parents to let me take them off their hands. And with you dead, I can finally have the school. This school that I built, with my own hands.”
And with my dad’s money. I curled my fingers into fists. I wanted to punch him in the throat and cut off his air supply. “Why do you need the journals?”
“Your father and I gathered extensive data on many of the clones created in the last ten years. As recent as Addison’s group. But your dad kept the records.”
So it was my fault that Dr. Wellington wasn’t smart enough to keep his own set of records? “And you think I would just give you my dad’s journals? Why? Because you asked nicely?”
He lowered the gun. “It doesn’t have to be this way. You have so much to gain from partnering with me and Cathy. You and Jack, along with Cathy and me… We could create a medical empire with clones trained to use their healing abilities.”
“Why do you think Cathy would want any part of your scheme? You almost killed her son.”
A grin lifted the corners of his lips, sending a chill down my spine. “You don’t really believe Cathy didn’t know about the hit put out on you, do you? She knew the risks. She’s just Oscar-worthy at playing the victim.”
“Are you saying she knew that you sent snipers into the gorge where we were hiking?”
He laughed. “Of course she knew. She never believed the snipers would shoot at anyone but you, though.” He raised the gun again, pointing it at my leg. “So what’s it going to be, Miss M
atthews? You can agree, and come with me willingly… or we can do it the hard way.” His finger shifted, then curled firmly around the trigger.
Just as I’d had enough of Roger Wellington and was about to tell him to drop his gun, I saw a shadow of movement behind him. Roger must have noticed my quick look, because he turned, waving the tranquilizer gun around.
“Who’s there?” he asked. He turned back to me and, grabbing my arm, pulled me into a headlock while redirecting the gun to my arm.
Giving me no time to use my own mindspeak ability, Jack emerged from the trees with a real gun pointed at us. “Let her go.”
Roger pressed his weapon harder against my arm. “I’ll give you to the count of three to drop your gun. One… two…”
I squeezed my eyes tight and held my breath.
“Three.” A girl’s voice came from my right. The tranquilizer gun flew from Roger’s hand. He turned in a circle, but no one was there.
Addison.
“Over here, jerkface.” Definitely Addison’s voice, but she remained invisible.
Roger spun toward the sound, then fell forward in pain and grabbed at his knee. I assumed Addison kicked him.
I smiled. “Roger, I’m afraid you’ve been had by a kid.”
Coach appeared from behind me and pointed his own gun at Roger’s temple. “And now you’re going back to jail. Police are already on their way.” Coach had handcuffs on Roger in a matter of seconds. He eyed me like an irate father. “Jack stays with you.”
I nodded.
Jack took a few steps forward. “You’ll tell the feds what Roger claims about my mother?”
Coach sighed, but agreed.
“If she’s guilty of what Roger says, I want her locked up.” Jack swayed slightly, apparently still off-balance from Sandra’s handiwork.
A couple of police officers came running up the sidewalk. Coach shoved Roger in their direction, forcing him to walk toward his fate.
I grabbed Jack’s hand to steady him, then put my arm around his back for support. How did you find me?
Mindsurge (Mindspeak Book 3) Page 21