Fearless

by Tracey Ward

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  She stares straight ahead, nodding jerkily. She’s not going to cry. Her lips are solid lines of determination and annoyance as she imagines all of the horrible things I said could go wrong and probably adding a few scenarios of her own. I kind of wish she would cry, because I know what to do with that. I can console her and make it right, but this bottled up, boxed in, doggy bag of rage that she’s going to keep with her for who knows how long is an unsolvable problem. It’ll be with me for the rest of the day, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I have to wait for it to sit in the fridge for a while until it becomes forgotten about, goes stale, and she throws it out.

  Chapter Ten

  Alex

  I will not cry in front of them.

  I will not cry in front of them.

  I will not cry.

  I don’t know why what Nick said about the Slip bothered me like it did. I know the risks. I think about them all the time. I think about them every day, all day after I come back home from a Slip.

  What if I’d been lost and unable to Slip home?

  What if I accidentally Slipped into a dream and couldn’t get out?

  What if I Slipped into nothing and was lost forever in the cold and the air and the night?

  I think what bothers me is not what he said, but the fact that he said it. He’s hounding me all the time about mastering my fear of Slipping, and there he sat, rattling off some pretty big ones. He was feeding my brain, a brain that for once in my lifetime was flying high over a Slip. A Slip I controlled.

  It wasn’t perfect, I know, but holy crow it felt good to do it! I landed near a state I wanted to be in, and to me that’s massive. HUGE! It’s the biggest thing to happen to me since black hair and green eyes. Since a stone and a bird and a dock.

  I miss the dock. I’d give just about anything to go there with Nick right now. To hide there for one night where no one can find us. Especially not Campbell.

  He’s obnoxious but he’s smart and he’s good for Nick in a different way than Walters was. Walters was a great source of vulnerability and pure kindness for Nick. I think Campbell is something else entirely. He’s the Dark Side. He’s Vader. He’s the opposite side of a coin that balances Nick between right and wrong, leaving him somewhere in an ambiguous gray area. And he's good there. It’s a fine line but I’m sure he can walk it. I’m sure he can do anything.

  I’m so relieved he’s on board with looking for others, even if he does have one foot out the door on this plan. And like it or not, I’m relieved Campbell is here too. They can work together, help each other in ways I can’t because I just don’t know how. They’re brothers by more than blood, and part of it makes me ache for Cara so badly I want to break down and cry, but I try to be happy for them instead.

  It doesn’t come as easy as I’d like.

  When we get to the right neighborhood we have a hard time finding the guy’s house. Turns out he lives on the outer edges of town in a small, old farmhouse on a few acres. Enough land to keep neighbors away. This is all the confirmation I need: dude knows he has powers.

  “Why?” Nick asks skeptically. “Because he likes his privacy? You don’t need powers to dislike other people.”

  “Oh, come off it. He’s living off the grid here!”

  “Hardly. There’s a 7-Eleven two miles back up the road and he has a satellite dish on his roof.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “I read you,” Campbell whispers.

  He’s using far more stealth than Nick and I, actually crouching down behind a bush on the edge of the farmhouse’s property. Nick and I are standing behind some trees, me snacking lazily on a bag of chips I got back at the 7-Eleven down the road. Nick judged me when I bought them but now he keeps stealing them.

  “What? You feel like this is off the grid?” Nick asks.

  Campbell shrugs. “Not off the grid but it’s out of the city limits. He lives alone, never been in a relationship.”

  “You don’t know that,” I protest.

  “It’s what his file says.”

  “Well they don’t know everything,” I grumble, feeling defensive of this stranger for some reason. Maybe because my file says the same thing about me.

  “They don’t see everything either,” Nick agrees with a sly smile.

  I grin, thinking of stolen moments. Of the sweet secrets only Nick and I know.

  His hand dives in to steal a chip.

  I slap it away.

  “Whether he knows he has powers or not,” Nick continues, shaking out his smacked hand, “we need to watch him to figure out if he’s friendly.”

  “He’s not,” a deep voice says behind us.

  “Busted balls!” I shout.

  We all spin around, each of us startled by the guy. He appeared out of nowhere and I’m amazed Nick and Campbell, with all their training, didn’t hear him coming.

  He looks about Liam’s age, his hair long and dark red, falling nearly to his shoulders. He’s broad. Muscular. I look at Campbell, who stands a couple inches taller than Nick, then back at the new guy, and my heart plummets a little. He’s taller than Campbell, bigger than both guys by a good margin. In hand-to-hand I really don’t know who would come out ahead. I’m banking on the fact that there are two of the boys and one of him.

  Well, one of him and one big honking shotgun in his hands.

  Nick frowns at me. “Busted balls?”

  “He has a gun,” I remind him shakily.

  “Yeah, he has a gun,” the guy agrees in a hushed tone. “He has a gun because you’re trespassing on his property. What are you people doing here? Are you casing it? Thinking about robbing me? ’Cause I’ll save you the trouble—I don’t have much. You’re wasting your time.”

  “We’re not thieves.”

  “Whatever you are,” he emphatically jerks the gun toward the road, “get lost.”

  This is escalating quickly and we’ll be run off his property in about two seconds, so I decide to go all in, play all of our cards.

  “Are you Brody Daniels?” I ask tentatively.

  The shotgun is suddenly leveled at my belly. I breathe in sharply through my teeth as Nick inches closer.

  “How do you know that name?” the guy asks, low and severe.

  “So it is yours,” Campbell pushes.

  “It was my name. It hasn’t been since I was fifteen. No one knows it anymore, no one outside that prison, so I’ll ask you again and you all better think long and hard about how you answer—how do you know that name?”

  “We got it from Dr. Evans,” Nick answers calmly.

  I flinch as Brody’s face quivers with rage. His lip twitches, his temples pulse, and I worry he might have bitten through his tongue, he’s clenching his jaw so hard.

  “This is your last chance to get out of here before I kill every one of you,” he growls slowly.

  I think we should leave. Message received—we aren’t welcome here. We played our cards and the house won. That’s life. We’ll get ‘em next time.

  I’m turning to Nick to tell him it’s time to go, but his face is so surreally calm that I hesitate. I follow his eyes to find them fixed tight, staring straight at the barrel of the shotgun.

  It’s shaking.

  Brody isn’t just angry. The guy is terrified.

  I swallow hard, lick my lips, and take a foolish step forward. The gun stays with me, sending my heart into my throat.

  “Listen,” I tell him with as much calm as I can muster, “we don’t want any trouble with you.”

  “Show him his file,” Nick tells me evenly.

  I nod, feeling jittery. My hands are clumsy as they rifle through the plastic bag, but I’m able to pull his file out quickly. It was right in front.

  When I hold it out to him he stares at me blankly, his anger fading and morphing. It turns to something else—something distrustful, a little hateful, and a tiny bit curious.

  �
��Look at it,” Nick insists. “They’ve always known where you are. They may have left you alone, but you were never off their radar. None of us have been.”

  I open the file for him and show him the first page. He stares at it from a good five feet away but I watch his eyes scan the small print.

  “They found me a week after I ran,” he whispers. His voice is so soft I read his lips more than hear his words.

  “They’ve been watching all of us,” Nick confirms. “Even failures.”

  Brody eyes Nick warily. “Failures?”

  “I’m one of them. They wrote me off. Tossed me in the discard bin, but they never stopped watching me.”

  “What’d they do to you?”

  “They went into my brain. Turned off my fear response, cranked up my reflexes.”

  “Super soldier.”

  “Exactly. What they did to you with your vision and your hearing? That was all leading up to me, wasn’t it? You were the first attempts. I saw it in your file. They did a lot of the same things to me that they did to you, only they knew more with me. They were more careful.”

  “How did you get my file, anyway?”

  “Liam. He gave them all to us when we escaped.”

  Brody tenses, making me worry we’ve lost him, and I wish Nick hadn’t mentioned Liam. But then he sort of flinches and slouches, his shoulders sagging under some unknowable weight.

  “Liam helped you?” he asks tightly.

  I nod slowly. “He was working with Dr. Evans in the clinic where we were held. He tried to help me control my ability, then he helped us escape.”

  It’s a pretty strong stretch of the truth, though it’s not a total lie. There’s something about Brody’s reaction to Liam’s name, though, that makes me take the risk. I remind myself that even though Liam and I have our differences right now, I was a little charmed by him at the start, and he and Brody are about the same age. If they were in a clinic together they would have seen each other around a lot. Two lonely boys trapped in a boring building? Some kind of friendship would be almost inevitable.

  Brody looks me over thoroughly. “You were in his group? You’re one of the geniuses?”

  “No,” I chuckle nervously. “Not even close.”

  “Then you weren’t in the same trial.”

  “Do you know what Liam can do?”

  “Besides long division,” Nick jokes, surprising me.

  Brody’s not laughing. In fact, he looks uncomfortable. “He has an ability?”

  “Yeah,” I reply softly. “We have the same one. We’re the only people who can do it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Teleportation.”

  He barks a loud laugh that makes me nearly jump out of my skin. “You’re shitting me.”

  “No.”

  “You’re for real?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Show me.”

  I sigh, rubbing my hand over my forehead. “Everyone wants a demonstration. I’m not Vince Shlomi, people.”

  “Who?” Nick asks.

  “ShamWow guy,” Brody immediately answers. “Infomercials. Slap Chop.”

  “You’re gonna love his nuts,” Campbell deadpans.

  Nick glares at him. “What the f—”

  “Watch TV,” I sigh. “I’m not going to tell you again. Brody, I can’t do it easily. I don’t have control of it—not like Liam does. Not yet. That’s why he was helping me.”

  He looks me over, as though some part of me will give him a hint as to whether I’m lying or not. “How long you had it?”

  “Almost my whole life.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  I point at Nick. “So has he.”

  He jerks his chin toward Campbell. “What about you? What’s your deal?”

  Campbell shrugs. “I’m wicked smart.”

  “You’re from the genius program, then?”

  “No, he’s a natural born freak,” I correct. “He was never in the program.”

  Brody shifts the shotgun in his hands, his eyes wary. “How do I know this isn’t a trick to take me in?”

  “You don’t. But even if it is, they already have you in their sights. What have you got to lose by talking to us?”

  “And what exactly is it we’re talking about? Why are you here?”

  “We want your help.”

  “Help with what?”

  I look sideways at Nick, unsure how to phrase this. Take down the bad guys? Shut down the clinic? We already kind of did that with the Jabberwocky, but look what good it did us. Dr. Evans is still out there hunting us. There are more clinics, more offices, more trials going on—ones we know nothing about. We can’t go around cutting the heads off the Hydra, though. It will never end. We need to do what Nick said: find the guy pulling the strings and shut him down.

  “We’re putting an end to the program,” Nick tells him. “Permanently.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Nick

  Brody’s house is sparse. He says he’s been here for over eight years, and as I look around I’m kind of impressed. The living room has a small TV on a crate and a large lounger facing it. There are no pictures, no mementos. There’s not even a rug. I glance through the doorway to the kitchen and all I see is a toaster and a microwave on the counter. This guy is ready to roll out at any time, and I have a feeling that even if we leave here without him, he won’t be staying.

  I like his style.

  Alex stands in the middle of the living room, looking around for somewhere to sit besides the lounger. She frowns when she comes up dry. “Do you know why Liam would send us to you first?”

  “Because the rest of the people from the trials were psychos,” Brody answers bluntly.

  “How many did you know?”

  “Too many.”

  Alex holds him steady with her hazel eyes, waiting. She’s trying to intimidate a man nearly twice her size, and it’s so ballsy it’s hot. The girl has backbone for miles.

  Eventually Brody sighs, giving in. He crosses his arms over his chest, settles into his stance, and shrugs. “Six or seven. I don’t remember all their names.”

  “What about their powers?” Campbell asks.

  “A few. Some people never matured.”

  “Is that what they called people coming into their abilities?”

  “Yeah. Once you mastered them you were considered mature. People struggling, people like you,” he gestures to Alex, “were considered toddlers. You had abilities but you still pissed the bed sometimes.”

  “This is what Dr. Evans called his patients?” Alex asks dubiously.

  “No, it’s what the ‘patients’ called each other, but only the ones who were mature. Anyone not in total control of their abilities wasn’t allowed around anyone else. They never knew what was really going on at the clinic.”

  “And they were never put to work?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Brody lies.

  I can see it in the hard set of his mouth, the too-easy nature of his tone. The guy knows exactly what she means.

  “They tried to recruit me,” Alex continues. “They wanted me to work for them.”

  “What do you mean you’re shutting down the program?” Brody asks me, changing the subject and looking away from Alex. “It was already shut down once. It didn’t seem to take.”

  It’s that moment that I notice he has an accent. It’s southern and it’s subtle, like he’s been trying to hide it for years, but there’s a cadence to his speech that says down South. I wonder where Brody was from before he went into hiding here in the Northwest.

  “I mean we’re shutting it down for good,” I tell him, leaning my shoulder against the doorframe. “I want to know who’s running the show, then I’m coming their way.”

  “You think it will be that easy?”

  “I’m going to make it that easy.”

  He sizes me up, probably taking in my smaller size compared to his. He’s a big guy—broad and built—but I know I’m faster. I know
it the way I knew I was stronger than James. I can feel it deep down in the blood in my body and the breath in my lungs.

  “Do you know who’s in charge right now?” Alex asks, perching on the edge of the lounger. “Who’s above Dr. Evans?”

  “No,” Brody replies. “Last I knew it was being run by the government.”

  “Which government?”

  “U.S.”

  Alex sighs, her shoulders slouching. “Yeah, we knew that too. Were you friends with Liam? Is that why he told us to come here?”

  “Yeah. Us and James. Liam probably knew I’d ask questions first and shoot later. Most everybody else you have in that bag won’t extend you the same courtesy.”

  “When you say ‘James,’ do you mean James Richards?” Campbell asks curiously.

  “How’d you know that?” He nods to the bag at Alex’s feet. “He in there too?”

  “That and we’ve met him.”

  “Twice,” Nick adds.

  “He tried to kill me,” Campbell says evenly.

  Brody grins. “If he tried to kill you, you’d be dead.”

  “So you know what he can do?” Alex asks.

  “Oh yeah. He matured early. He’s been good with his hands for as long as I’ve known him.”

  “But you never knew what Liam could do?”

  “All I knew was he was part of the genius program. He was already smart but he said they were trying to make him smarter.”

  “His dad wanted to make him smarter than even he was.”

  “See, now, I didn’t know about that—that the Doctor was Liam’s dad—until after I got out. James actually told me about that.”

  “Liam hid it?”

  “He kept that secret close. James only found out on accident when he overheard them having a fight when Liam was about sixteen. He was hung up on some girl named Naomi and Doc kept telling him to forget about her. Told him he was his dad and he would respect him. That he’d follow his rules.”

  “Was she there at the clinic with you?” Alex asks eagerly.

  “If she was, I never met her.”

  I glance at Campbell who frowns, shaking his head slightly. “There’s no Naomi in any of the files.”

  “None that we have,” Alex says, catching my eye.