Blake wasn’t finished ranting, not even close. “And you showed me something back there, Mike. You showed me that you’re not ready. You can’t control your anger, and it’s going to get the best of you someday, no matter how powerful you become. You tried to kill John Meacham using the death whisper, which could have killed you in the process. I’ve told you a dozen times what could happen to you. And when that didn’t work, you stole my gun and murdered him in cold blood. You murdered a defenseless man in cold blood, and I don’t see you showing one ounce of remorse.
“I didn’t break you out of the NDR to watch you become a sociopathic killer, even if that’s what it takes to bring down Harris Kole. That’s not what I promised your mother, and if that’s what you’re after, I want no part of it. I’d rather see you dead.”
Blake was breathing hard by the time he finished. He was dangerously close to coughing up a lung. Thankfully, he’d been sipping on Midas’s cough syrup all day. The boy was watching him intently, like a scientist musing over a fascinating chemical reaction.
“You tried to help us,” Michael said. “That’s more than anyone’s ever done for me. I’m sorry about killing John Meacham, and I promise I can do better.”
Blake frowned at Michael, deeply unsettled. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“It’s just that…” Michael licked his lips, even bounced slightly in his chair as he spoke. “I think I can do it. Your smoking. I think I can make it stop.”
Blake crossed his arms. He glanced at Midas, who gave him the go-ahead.
“Fine,” Blake said. “Give it your best shot.”
Michael narrowed one eye as he spoke. “Don’t smoke anymore. You won’t like it. Touching a cigarette to your lips will fill you with disgust from now on.”
Midas Ford’s living room went silent. They could hear the wind outside. Michael kept his eyes on Blake, who scoffed as if this were all a bad joke. Smirking at Michael, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes, challenge accepted.
His hands shook as he brought one to his lips to light it.
“Go ahead,” Michael said. “Try it.”
The cigarette shivered. Blake’s face tightened into a grimace as he tried to keep it between his lips to light it. It was disgusting. Utterly revolting, like putting a dead man’s finger in his mouth.
“Pttthhh…”
His lips expelled the unlit cigarette with enough force to send it flying across the room. He shot Michael a wide grin. His eyes seemed to dance.
“I don’t want it,” he said, lifting his arms in the air. “I don’t want to smoke. He did it. The spiteful little prick actually did it!”
Surprisingly, Midas kept silent. He avoided eye contact as he pushed out of the armchair and headed toward the door.
“What’s wrong?” Blake asked his friend.
Midas spoke over his shoulder, not glancing at them once.
“You tell a child not to play with fire,” the old doctor said, “and then you pat him on the back when he lights his first match.”
Michael stood, then spoke firmly to Midas Ford. “Fire can burn a house down…or it can light your path in the dark. And I’m not a child, Doc.”
Midas chuckled. He opened the door and walked through it, laughing and shaking his head. When he was gone, Blake turned to Michael and sighed.
“He’s right, Mike. I shouldn’t be encouraging mental dominance. It’s the dark side of what we do. Plus…” He found the words difficult to say. “I won’t be around long enough to teach you to do it properly.”
“So you’re… Are you dying then?”
Michael could barely meet Blake’s eyes. The boy knew the truth. It wasn’t worth dwelling on it.
“Don’t fail me like that again,” Blake said. “You’re not a killer. If you become one, Harris Kole wins and your mother died in vain. You get me?”
Michael shook his head, eyes downcast. “I do. I mean it, I do. It’s love that’ll shatter the mirror, not hate. That’s the only thing that can set me free.”
Blake was stunned. Even he had forgotten about the mirror analogy. “You’re right,” he said. “You remembered.”
“I love her,” Michael said. “Arielle. I just want her to be okay.”
Blake moved to put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. The boy let him.
“Then you know what to do,” Blake said.
Michael gave him a hard look, nodding.
“I have to kill Harris Kole,” he said, “and bring down everything he stands for.”
Blake squeezed his eyes shut in frustration.
“What is it with you teenagers?” he said. “It’s like I’m speaking a foreign language or something.”
“Right,” Michael said, backing away from him toward the door. “Learn. Defend. Don’t fight. Definitely don’t fight. See you later, sir!”
When Blake was alone again, the first thing he did was send a telepathic message across town to Midas Ford.
We need to talk…alone
They met in Midas’s living room. The old doctor was pacing back and forth by the window, the index finger of his right hand making swirls against his beard. Something he did when he was anxious or deep in thought.
“What do you think?” Blake said. “More training? Empathy drills?”
Midas shook his head. “How far back does your memory go, Louis? I’m talking about back during the experiments. How much of the details do you remember?”
Blake wasn’t sure how to respond. “I have a pretty good memory for an old codger, if I say so myself.”
“Then you remember how they called Michael T1-07 during the experiments. Lucky number seven. It was a miracle. The boy succeeded where the previous six had failed and expired. But do you remember the other boy who came close? The one before Michael? I believe his codename was T1-04. They called him Rico in the lab because he used to make the scientists empty their wallets, so he could take their money.”
Blake shifted in his seat, avoiding his friend’s inquisitive stare. “I remember.”
“Rico found he could use telepathy to create a mirror domination effect. He would take out his own pretend wallet—one he’d constructed out of patches of fabric—and anyone watching would do the same. Boy was only five years old. We thought he was the one.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“I’m saying it was perfectly normal what he was doing. He would hoard the money under his mattress until nightfall, then he would bribe the security guys—again, using his ability and the power of suggestion—into bringing him snacks back from the vending machine. No matter how much he was punished, he did it again and again. It was fascinating to watch.”
“Michael’s not like that,” Blake said. “He hasn’t shown any inclination, any desire at all, to use his ability for deception. Violence maybe, but not the thrill of manipulation itself.”
Midas shook his head, staring out the window. “He hasn’t had to. Boy already has an outlet. Since he got here, he’s had training sessions, missions, even a minor coup d’état. But what happens when all of that’s gone? When he no longer has an outlet?”
“It’ll build up inside of him,” Blake said, staring off into empty space.
“You remember what happened to Rico?” Midas asked.
Blake shook his head.
“Of course not,” Midas said. “You were gone by then. You weren’t there when they removed the vending machines to see what would happen. Rico went crazy.”
Blake’s face softened, revealing his surprise. “You never told me this part.”
“I didn’t think much of it until now. Rico knew he was different from us—special somehow. His sense of entitlement shot up ‘til he thought he had god-like powers. When they took out the vending machines and the scientists stopped carrying their wallets into the development centers, Rico started throwing tantrums. One night, it took four security guards to restrain him. That triggered the episode that killed him, just like all the other Type Is died after their f
irst episodes. But you know what Rico did before he died?”
Blake leaned forward, his hands clasped. They were cold, and his palms had begun to sweat. “No,” he said softly. “But I’m sure it was terrible.”
Midas nodded slowly. “He made the security guards empty their pockets. One of them, the poor bastard, had a pocketknife. Rico made the man open the blade, then saw off his own tongue with it. Then he passed the knife around…and the others did the same. They were so quiet while they were doing it that the guards down the hall thought Rico had been put back to bed. When the boy finally died of a brain aneurism, the guards walked out of the room and acted like nothing had happened, even as their mouths poured blood all over the floor.”
There was a moment of silence in which the shadows in the room seemed to deepen.
“Why would a five-year-old boy do something like that?” Blake asked his friend.
Midas gave an ominous half-smile, more a warning than a sign of amusement.
“Because he could.”
Chapter 24
William was having the time of his life without even knowing what he’d done to deserve it.
Earlier, he’d been trying to force down his lunch—a bowl of oatmeal with grains and berries his mother had prepared for him—when Dominic entered the house carrying a wooden stick and tossing a ball up and down. For some reason, his mother had been upset by what she saw. Maybe she had thought Dominic would hurt him with the stick.
“What the hell are you doing here, Dominic?”
His grin widened. “I’m going to teach the boy how to play baseball.”
After much arguing—during which William shouted and hopped on his good foot to be released from his nasty lunch so he could play—his mother gave in and allowed Dominic to take him into the front yard and no further so she could keep an eye on them, as she had put it.
They’d been outside for an hour now, William squinting in the sunlight, trying to hold the stick—or “bat” as Dominic had called it—high up so he could swing it. Over and over, Dominic tossed the ball at him. William missed every throw for the first twenty minutes, convinced the entire time that Dominic would get angry and leave, but the man kept smiling and telling him it was normal, that he just needed some practice.
William had never seen Dominic act like this. Usually, the man walked around with a scowl on his face, not talking to anybody except Michael and the other boys. It was almost too good to be true. First, Michael had become his friend, and now Dominic was, too. What had he done to deserve such a reward?
The game was fun, and William felt himself getting better. He even managed to hit the ball once, though it only glanced off the side of the bat, but still. His bad foot never got in the way, either. All he had to do was stand there and swing.
“You’re a fast learner,” Dominic said. “A really smart kid.”
“Like Michael?” William asked, grinning.
Dominic winced a little. William worried he had said something bad. He was always saying dumb things. His mother even told him so.
“Yeah,” Dominic said finally. “Like Michael. Come on, it’s time for you to go inside.”
“Can we do this again tomorrow?”
Dominic’s hand felt warm as he cupped it around the back of William’s head. He gave it a small shake, mussing up his hair.
“Sure, Will,” he said. “We’ll play every day until you get tired of it. I’ll even teach you how to catch the ball.”
William had never felt so excited. Then, thinking he finally had something to brag about to the other boys, he did what was probably the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life.
He told Aidan about it.
Later, as the boys beat him in an empty parking lot, William felt something go tight inside his skull, like a muscle clenching beneath an enormous weight.
Aidan grinned like a pale devil as he stomped on William’s legs and stomach while the other boys watched and laughed. At the exact moment Aidan’s shoe crashed into his mouth, numbing his jaw and lips, William seized upon the tightening sensation. His mind expanded, issuing a wordless cry for help.
A minute later, his cry was answered.
“Get away from him,” a woman screamed.
It was his mother, coming to rescue him. She grabbed Aidan’s hair and yanked, bending the boy like a sunflower stalk in a windstorm. She loosed her fist again and again into his back and shoulders, pummeling him, until Aidan cried like a little girl for her to stop.
The boys ran off, Aidan squealing and holding his face like it was about to detach. Charlotte watched them for a moment. When they were gone, she bent over William to study him, eyes wide, concerned, full of a love he rarely saw. William would have basked in the attention if the pain running along his body hadn’t been so raw.
“Here,” his mother said, touching one side of her head. “Let me make it better.”
Invisible hands extended from his mother’s brain, reaching for the part of him that hurt the most. Like a bear trap, his mind snapped down on those invisible fingers.
“William,” his mother said, shooting upright. Her face was a mask of reproach like all those times she had walked in on him doodling on the walls of the house.
But then her expression changed to one of curiosity.
“I don’t believe it,” she said.
She tried using telepathy once more to connect with him. William’s mind blunted it. He didn’t even mean to do it. Suddenly, he was very tired.
“My son,” she said.
His mother’s eyes filled with love once more. She kissed him on the forehead. Surprisingly, it made the pain go away.
Chapter 25
Michael stepped into the pink house on Silo Street, carrying a sack of potatoes he wanted to give to Arielle. He was startled to see William lying on the couch, right leg up across the cushions, the other hanging down with the heel of his special shoe on the carpet. The boy was covered in dirt and his face was puffy, one of his eyes swollen nearly shut.
Michael dropped the sack and ran to the boy’s side. “William, look at me. Are you okay? What happened?”
He rotated William’s head to get a better view of his face, then lifted the boy’s hand off his belly to inspect the damage. There were bloody scrapes and smudges all over his palms.
“Was it those boys? Aidan and his friends?”
William nodded, looking up at the ceiling as if too ashamed to meet Michael’s eyes.
“It’s okay,” Michael said. “I can help you.”
He focused on the boy’s forehead—on what lay beneath the skin and bone.
You won’t be afraid anymore, William.
The almost invisible, spider-silk string in William’s head went tight, something Michael had never seen before. It stayed that way, even as he urged it to give in so he could at least relieve some of the boy’s pain. Nothing.
Michael blinked and swallowed, trying to keep a sense of helplessness down. It wasn’t working. It was like his ability had suddenly abandoned him.
William turned his head to tell him something. Michael leaned in close.
“Uncle Dominic taught me to play batball.”
Michael gave him a sad smile. “Was it fun?”
The boy nodded, wincing at the pain the movement caused. Michael tried once more to relieve the boy’s discomfort using telepathy. But the thread in William’s mind went tight, apparently an automatic response. That could only mean one thing.
William was blocking him.
Michael slid his hands under the boy, intending to lift him so he could deliver him to Midas Ford’s clinic, when a woman’s voice reached his ears.
“What are you doing?”
Charlotte stood at the other end of the room, holding a steaming bowl of what smelled like chicken soup.
“Look at him,” Michael said. “Why don’t you do something about this? He needs help.”
She walked past him and set the bowl on the table next to the couch. Then she bent and put a
hand on William’s forehead. Her shirt lifted in the back, exposing a patch of skin, the taut outline of muscle. Michael tore his gaze away.
“Everything feel okay?” Charlotte asked her son.
William gave a distant nod.
Satisfied with the boy’s condition, Charlotte stood and motioned for Michael to follow her into the next room. Something about her mood seemed off. Michael put himself on guard. He sat at the kitchen table, watching her prepare two mugs of coffee. When she was finished, she set them on the table and sat close to him—a little too close.
“Is there something you needed to tell me?” Michael asked, grabbing a mug.
“Yes,” she said. “This.”
She slipped her hand up his thigh, over his jeans. Michael was so startled by the sudden movement that his shoulders jerked upward, spilling coffee onto his shirt. The heat bit into his skin.
“Get your hand off me,” he said.
“Make me.”
Michael set the mug on the table and shook coffee off his fingers, keeping his eyes on Charlotte’s. They were a deep brown color. He remembered that time in the town hall when they had been blue, like Arielle’s, just for a second. He wanted to leave immediately, but his curiosity held him in place.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to know what it’s like.”
“What what’s like?”
“Dominance. The kind only you can do. I want to know what it feels like to be your puppet.”
“You’re sick.”
When he tried to push out of the chair, Charlotte gripped his belt and held him in place.
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