by JA Huss
She sighs and shakes her head, but she doesn’t deny it. She feels it to be true, even if she’s not a hundred percent sure. “I don’t know,” she finally says. “I know I’m different. I know what illusionist means. I know I can make people hallucinate, so I know I’m not normal.” She pauses for a second. “I know I’m not supposed to talk about that. I know my name.” She looks at me. “I know your name.”
“And deep down you know they sent you to finish me. It’s OK. I’m not taking it personally. It’s my fault you got left behind anyway. I can’t blame you for what they did after I failed to save you.”
She practically snorts. “I don’t know why you think I needed saving.”
“Because it’s Prodigy School, Sadie. They are evil incarnate.” It comes out rougher than I intended. Which makes her look at me, then quickly look away. “Have you come up with any ideas about why you’re blocking your memories?”
“Blocking?” She huffs again.
“I’m not saying it’s on purpose. But the chances are high that you lost your memory due to… what they put you through.”
She looks out the window at the last part. Stays silent.
“I know what they put me through. My friends through. My brother and…”—it takes me a second to spit out the word—“sister too. And none of it’s good.”
“You have a brother and sister?” she asks, taking the conversation in a new direction.
“Yes. Sort of. My brother, Atticus, and I were in Prodigy together. My sister, Molly, was there too, but she and I were never close.”
“They’re… still alive? You saved them?”
“No,” I say, changing lanes on the freeway to get off at the next exit. “No. Atticus never needed saving. Our father didn’t want him in the program like me. He was the… heir, right?”
Her lips make a tiny o. “And your sister?”
“I tried to kill her but Lincoln, my friend, he was… attached. So he helped her escape. She made it. Barely, but she did. She’s still around, at any rate.”
She’s quiet after that. Even when we get to the restaurant. She looks at the menu like she’s never eaten at a restaurant before, but orders pancakes by pointing at the picture. I expect her to scarf them down since she’s obviously in need of food, but she doesn’t. She eats slowly. Watching me. Almost mimicking my motions. She says no to coffee, tea, and juice, but drinks the ice water they have on the table.
When we get to the mall a few miles closer to town, she looks utterly lost and doesn’t protest when I take her hand and place it on my arm as we walk across the parking lot. When we step through the door, she grips me. Tight.
I don’t bother asking what kind of clothes she prefers. She obviously has no idea. Instead, I take her to the women’s department and begin to choose. A salesperson helps us, a young girl who looks at Sadie like she’s a homeless person who just walked in off the street. But then she looks at me, and pastes the fake smile on her face as she helps her make decisions.
The two of them disappear into a dressing room and an hour later she’s wrapping up the packages.
We leave the mall with Sadie clutching my arm again.
“Well,” I ask. “How was it?”
Sadie takes a deep breath as she looks over her shoulder at the department store entrance. “Frightening.”
“You did good though,” I say, holding up the packages. She got a few shirts, a few pairs of jeans, and a new pair of shoes. Sneakers. Which is almost cute. But she refused to change into anything new, so she’s still wearing her uniform.
“That lady called me Phil the entire time.”
“Your name tag says Phil.”
“It does?” she says, looking down at her shirt. “Oh. It does.”
“Did you correct her? Tell her it’s your boyfriend’s shirt?”
When I look down, her eyebrows are all scrunched together. Like she’s thinking about this very hard. “No.”
“It’s OK. Work shirts are kind of… in vogue.”
She bites her lip, making me smile, but only says, “Mmm-hmmm.”
Grocery shopping is a similar experience. Sadie is wide-eyed with either fascination or fear, I’m not sure which. She walks alongside me as I push the cart, grabbing things off shelves and placing them inside. I wait for her to grab her favorite foods, but the only item that catches her attention are the oranges stacked in a neat pyramid in the fresh food section.
We buy a whole bag of them.
“You didn’t want juice at breakfast but you like oranges?” I ask, fishing for insight.
She doesn’t answer. In fact, she’s silent the whole time I check out at the little kiosk in the front of the store. She watches me scan items one at a time with such intensity, I find myself smiling.
I should not let my guard down. In a few hours she will get her memory back and want to finish her job. In a few hours I might have to kill her.
But I like her.
I decide I don’t want to kill her. She cannot kill me, so I’m not even worried about that. But she might be a whole other animal when those memories come rushing back. I need to keep that in mind.
When we get off the freeway at Meadowlark Boulevard again, the morning is gone. She hasn’t said a word to me since that comment about her name tag in the mall parking lot. But when I pull into the long tunnel that leads to the tower, she seems to relax. Her shoulders press into the seat back and drop.
“Thank you,” she whispers in the dark. “You’ve been really nice to me.”
Yes. I really have. I’m not called nice often, but I am being extremely nice to her.
The drugs, I decide. Or lack thereof. It’s been a long time—very long time—since I was this person she’s seeing today.
I think it has something to do with the mind blast back at the hospital. It was a rush of relief when I finally let go and unleashed my power. Like a dam breaking.
It scares me a little. I’m not sure what kind of consequences I’ll have to face. Everything has consequences. You can’t bottle up your emotions for more than a decade and not expect there to be consequences.
Not to mention the drug Yasmine injected me with just before all that shit happened. I think I know what it was. Some kind of antagonist that counteracts all the drugs in my system. Ever since Case shot me with—whatever the fuck it was—back at his house a few months ago, I’ve been different. I’ve had feelings.
But it’s different now. It’s like… I feel almost… normal.
Not that I know what normal is. But it feels good. And Sadie. She’s something good, I think. Killer instincts aside. It’s not her fault she’s a product of her environment.
We could make a good team. Case has Lulu and Lincoln has Molly.
It’s almost a natural progression of things that I should get someone too.
I’ve been telling myself that since yesterday. I deserve a partner too. And I don’t have many options. Case is lucky he found Lulu. She’s not Prodigy but she gets him. Completely. And Molly and Lincoln were genetically made to be partners. Literally. Molly is bonded to him and he is bonded to her. Even if they ever stopped being in love, they are meant to be together because he is her Alpha and she is his Omega. They complete each other.
I don’t have an Omega. I killed them all a long time ago before they could kill me first. Lincoln is lucky, I decide. I almost feel envy.
“Good God.” I laugh. I cannot believe I’m envious of Lincoln.
“What?” Sadie asks as I stop the car and turn off the engine. “What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Just irony, I guess.”
CHAPTER TEN - SADIE
I only know a few things to be true at this point.
First, I came from Prodigy School. I feel this. The name means something to me. Obviously, Thomas came from there too, which makes us… somewhat similar. He wasn’t lying about that stuff. I really do believe I was sent to kill him.
Second, I’m an illusionist. Which makes me… abnormal.
But I don’t seem bothered by it.
Third, I feel calm. It’s weird because there is some kind of cell or muscle memory inside me that knows… I’m not usually a calm person.
This is the part that’s bothering me. Because I get the feeling that Thomas isn’t normally this calm either.
There’s a dark side to us both.
And then the memory of the nightmare is back. His lips on my lips. His hand on my hip. How it slipped between my legs and made me wet—
“Are you getting out of the car?”
I look up and find Thomas standing at my side, the passenger door open, two thick brown paper bags in his arms filled with our food.
“Yes,” I say, letting the dark side drift away as I step out of the car, grab the bags of clothes, bump the door closed with my hip, and follow him down the long, dark hallway to the bunker entrance.
That’s what this is. A bunker. Real end-of-the-world type stuff.
“Do you think something bad is going to happen?” I ask, following Thomas into the corner of the large open room that acts like a kitchen. There’s one long counter, a cooktop stove, and a refrigerator. It’s all new, but nothing matches. Like he pieced this place together from leftovers.
He empties the two large bags and puts things away. “I’ve never done this before,” I say, mostly to myself.
“How do you know?” Thomas asks, not looking at me.
“I just know.”
“Are your memories coming back?”
“No.”
I catch him looking at me from the corner of his eye. I don’t think he believes me. “You’re very quiet, Sadie. It worries me.”
“Why?” I ask
“Because quiet people are often thinkers. So you’re thinking right now. What are you thinking about?”
“The nightmare,” I say, then wonder why I said it.
“Tell me about it,” he says, finishing up with the groceries and walking over to the large bank of screens. They are all maps. Satellite maps. He sits in his chair and nods his head at me. “Pull that one up so I can try to explain a few things.”
I look over at an office chair along the wall, walk over to it, and wheel it back to his desk. I sit. Breathe through the silence as I watch him pull up new maps.
“Do you know what this is?” he asks, pointing to the center screen.
“Cathedral City,” I say. “City Park.”
“How do you know that?” he asks.
I point to the screen. “The town towers. I recognize them now. I know I said I didn’t during our escape, but I do now. It’s coming back, I think. My memory.”
“Interesting,” he says. “That you recognize them but not a grocery store.”
“Look,” I say, becoming frustrated and maybe even a little mad. “I don’t know how, OK? I don’t understand anything that’s happening to me. If you don’t want me here—if you don’t trust me—then I’ll leave. I’ll figure it out on my own.”
“Settle down,” he says, still working with the maps. “I’m not saying that at all. I’m just trying to make you think about things. You can’t kill me, Sadie. So let’s just get that out in the open right now. If you try, you’ll die. I don’t want to hurt you, so I’d prefer that you don’t try.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Which part don’t I know? Because I’m the one with all the memories, Sadie. I’m the one with perfect recall of what they did to me. What they made me. What I’m capable of. And you saw it back there at the hospital. You saw what I can do.”
“It had no effect on me.” I shrug.
“No effect?” He laughs. “I knocked your fucking programming right out of your mind. Wiped it away. You’re a shell right now. I did that to you.”
I look up at him. He’s staring at me with an intensity I haven’t seen before. Granted, I’ve known him like one day. But so far he’s been calm, collected, and completely in control. This new look says he might not stay that way. “It’s only temporary.”
“My point is,” he growls, “you don’t stand a chance against me one on one. That’s all. I’m not worried about you killing me. But I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I don’t need his protection, I decide. I have nothing to back up this feeling, but I know it. I’m surer about this guess than anything else.
I am something unique. Special. Capable, and strong, and… deadly.
I don’t need his protection.
“I thought we were talking about maps,” I say in a cool, calm voice. “You had something to tell me.”
He lets out a long, frustrated exhale. “OK, so you know this is City Park in Cathedral City and these are the City Towers. But do you know what they do?”
I shrug. “Broadcast,” I say. “Some kind of wave. Obviously. That’s why one builds towers.”
“Yes,” Thomas says, his eyes brightening at my deduction. “Yes. My towers broadcast signals.”
“What kind of signals?” I ask.
He doesn’t look at me, but I can see the corner of his mouth turn up in a smile. “Dangerous things.”
“Like radiation?”
“No,” he says, turning his head slightly so I can see him in profile. “Like… well, it’s complicated. Sound and light are strange things, Sadie. Powerful things. We’re just at the very early stages of understanding them. But they are weak in some respects. You need a receiving device. Like a phone. And…” He turns his head to hide his smile. “A tablet, in our situation.”
“Whose situation?” I ask.
“My friends and me. Do you remember—” Then he stops. “No, you wouldn’t. Several months ago, terrorists blew up all the cell phone towers around Cathedral City. But lucky for the citizens of this great city, I had others in place. What I didn’t have was a cell phone company. I deal in satellite phones, you see. So in order to restore wireless phones to the area, I gave everyone in the city one of my sat phones and put them on my network.”
“Sounds pretty ominous, Thomas.”
“Oh”—he laughs—“it gets much better than this. You see, in order for a phone to be useful you have to have access to the satellite and you have to have a way to communicate with the satellite. Which is why I gave everyone in the city a free terminal.”
“You’re going to hurt these people?” I ask. He hesitates, and in those few seconds I realize—even if he says yes, I won’t be bothered by this admission.
Why do I feel this way?
“Not really,” he says. A noncommittal answer if ever there was one. “I am trying to hurt certain people. But not all people.”
“Which people?” I ask.
“Who do you think?”
“Prodigy people,” I say.
“Yes.” He turns to fully face me and the smile is back. “I’m going to hurt them, Sadie. And I’d like your help.”
I sigh. “I’m not much use like this. I know I have certain capabilities. But I get the feeling I have certain parameters that contain me as well.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do,” he says, chuckling. “But I can fix that. I can fix you, Sadie. I can take the parts they own and set them free. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
It’s my turn to laugh. “Maybe you’re just one more really bad guy and I should leave all of you behind and find my own way in the world.”
“That’s one option, for sure. But if you stick it out with me we can rip the world apart and put it back together. Make it new, Sadie. Make it ours.”
“You realize you sound like a madman, right? This calm demeanor isn’t fooling me one bit.”
“I’m quite mad, yes. But not any more than the people who control you.”
“I’m not on your side,” I say.
“You can be on your own side. What a novel idea, right?”
“Why were you in that hospital?” I ask. There’s something really wrong with this man. Really wrong.
“They… compromised me. A few months back. When the cell towers were blown up. I have a unique body chemistry tha
t requires careful manipulation.”
“Your mentalist capabilities?”
“Exactly. But they compromised my friends. One of them shot me with a drug that disrupted my brain chemistry. I went… a little mad. And then they had me locked up. It was the perfect opportunity for them to try to get the upper hand.”
“Who?” I ask. “Who did all this?”
“Yasmine, I think. But I’m not sure.”
“The doctor?”
“Her. And others I haven’t identified yet. You see, there are two sides to this story. Us and them. But both sides are trying to do the same thing. Albeit for very different reasons.”
“Why do you want me?”
“Because you’re special, Sadie. So obviously special.” His hand comes up to my cheek, petting it. The way he—whoever—was petting my hair last night. It was him. I’m sure of it. Thomas Brooks drugged me and touched me, then tried to pass it off as a nightmare.
“Don’t,” I say, slapping his hand away. “Don’t do that. I know what you did.”
He pulls his hand back. Chastised. “I’m just trying to give you options.”
“By taking off all my clothes and tying me up? By… violating me?”
“What?” He laughs. This time the smile is different. Real. Not on the verge of diabolic. “I didn’t tie you up. When the fuck would I have done that? You were sleeping for twelve hours.”
“While I was sleeping,” I say, angry at his manipulation. “You touched me.”
His eyebrows knit together as he squints at me. “Touched you… where?”
Asshole.
But I stay silent. I’m not going to describe what happened last night and give him a thrill. I refuse.
“It was a nightmare, Sadie. I’m sure those things probably did happen at some point in our past, but I wasn’t the one who did them.”
Could it be true? I have no idea. Was it him? Was it just a sad, lost memory floating to the surface under trauma?
The fact that I’m considering this—that I’m so confused about it—leads me to believe him when he says the Prodigy people are cruel and mean. I know that, just as I know the few other things about myself without actually remembering them.