Erased (Altered)

by Jennifer Rush

  “I don’t know,” the woman said. Her name tag read MARGARET, but I thought she looked more like a Maggie.

  I sensed her wavering, so I charged on. “Please? I miss her so much.” I let my voice hitch at the end, my eyes water.

  Her keys jangled in her hand. “All right. I suppose we’re not hurting anything. Follow me.”

  She led us through an unlabeled door near the front of the store, just past the checkout lines. On the other side was a small office. There, two black-and-white TVs played security footage from several cameras spread around the store.

  Margaret took a seat at the desk and unlocked the lone computer. “Do you know what day it was that your sister supposedly came in?”

  “Thursday,” I answered.

  Sam hovered near the desk, arms crossed in front of him. I could just make out the shape of his gun holster slung over his shoulders, hidden beneath his jacket. Before all of this, when I was just a normal girl living a semi-abnormal life, seeing someone with a gun always made me nervous. Riley, the Branch’s second-in-command and the one who usually made the checkup visits to the lab, carried a gun with him at all times. Maybe that was why I’d avoided him. Well, that among other things. He was a weaselly, unpleasant person who’d do anything for the Branch. He didn’t question what the entity did and how they did it, which made him that much more dangerous to us.

  I was glad for the gun now strapped to my shoulders. Going anywhere without it would’ve left me feeling vulnerable and naked. We’d learned that Riley had the unfortunate ability to pop up at any time.

  Margaret queued the footage from Thursday and fast-forwarded through the afternoon, starting at one o’clock, when Nick’s “friend” had been working. Several people came and went through the checkout lanes. The time readout on the screen said over an hour had passed on the footage.

  And then, finally, we found what we were looking for.

  “Wait. Go back,” I said. A girl fitting the description Nick relayed had come and gone on the footage. I’d seen only a flash of her face, but it was enough to put me instantly on alert. Trepidation crept up my spine. “Can you play it here?”

  Margaret pressed a button and the footage slowed to real time.

  The girl came through the checkout lane, long hair loose down her back. She faced away from the camera at first and handed something to the clerk. A picture, I thought.

  The clerk scanned it and nodded quickly before handing the picture back.

  After a few more words were exchanged between the two, the girl finally turned toward the exit, toward the camera.

  A startled breath rushed down my throat.

  “Shit,” Sam said.

  I blinked back the sudden welling of tears and covered my mouth with my hand to stop the choked sound of surprise threatening to escape me.

  Dani.

  It was her.

  Margaret glanced over a shoulder, a smile spread across her face. “Is that your sister?”

  The reply to that question was just one word, easy enough to say but impossible to get out. Because saying it brought her back from the dead. Saying it meant I was no longer the last remaining member of my family.

  I wanted it to be true more than anything, but after what I’d been through in the last few months, the cautious, rational side of me said don’t believe it just yet. This could be another trap. Another lie told by the Branch. They were capable of anything. Had the security feed been tampered with? Had they somehow added Dani’s image to the footage?

  I couldn’t allow myself to give in to the hope.

  “I can ask my employee if the girl left any contact information,” Margaret said.

  Sam gestured to the screen. “You got cameras on the parking lot?”

  Margaret frowned. “Well, yes, but…”

  “Bring it up, please? Find the time stamp for directly after this one here, with the clerk.”

  “All right.” Margaret typed in a few commands, and new footage replaced the interior shots. Dani emerged from the store, crossed the parking lot, and started for the alley. So she wasn’t driving. Or if she was, she’d parked out of sight.

  “Should I rewind it?” Margaret asked and moved to type in another command when Sam stopped her.

  “Wait.”

  A black sedan pulled up behind Dani. The taillights glowed red against the slushy asphalt. Someone got out from the passenger side.

  Dani kept walking, hands shoved in the pockets of her coat. Did she know someone was behind her?

  The man pulled a gun from a hidden shoulder holster.

  “Oh my God,” Margaret said.

  Dani whipped around.

  The man didn’t have enough time to react, and Dani caught him in the nose with a left-handed punch. He spun back, facing the camera.

  Even in the static of an old TV screen, I knew the man was Riley. Dread knotted in my gut.

  Another agent eased out of the sedan. He came around behind Dani and kicked the back of her knee. She buckled forward. Riley brought down the butt of his gun, catching her across the cheek. Blood poured from her mouth.

  Margaret gasped. “We need to call someone,” she said, and reached for the phone, knocking over a cup of pens. They rolled off the desk, clattered to the floor. “Oh, that poor girl! I can’t believe no one saw it happen. She could be dead by now.…”

  Sam hit the receiver button. Margaret looked up at him. “What are you doing?”

  “Listen very carefully.” He gently pulled the receiver from her hand and hung it up. “You can’t tell anyone what you just saw.”

  “But… her sister…”

  Sam set his hands on the arms of her chair and spun her toward him, caging her in place. “That girl isn’t her sister,” he lied, crafting a tale quickly. “She’s a fugitive on the run from the Russian government, and those men are two of their agents. If they know what you saw, they will hurt you and anyone you care about. Do you understand me?”

  “What? Are you—”

  “Do you understand?” Sam repeated.

  Margaret, eyes wider, lips devoid of color, nodded without a sound.

  “Erase that footage, got it?” Sam ordered. She didn’t move. “Margaret?”

  “Yes. Okay.” She started tapping randomly at the keyboard. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Sam eyed me while he spoke next. “Margaret, we need to go. Are you going to be okay?”

  She sniffed, still tapping at the computer. “Yes. I’ll be fine. I mean… yes…”

  Sam nodded toward the door. I went out ahead of him, and as we left, he whispered, “This is why my way was better.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  7

  WHEN WE REACHED THE CABIN THIRTY minutes later, we all went our separate ways in a flurry of activity. Nick was in charge of the laptop and any information we’d printed off about the Branch. Cas was in charge of the first-aid kit. Sam was in charge of weapons. I was in charge of the food supply and double-checking that we didn’t leave any clues behind.

  “Because you’re good at noticing details,” Sam had said when he’d first assigned us to the tasks.

  I’d planned ahead, and already had an emergency food supply bag packed and waiting in the laundry room. I immediately went upstairs to start checking the house, beginning with Nick’s and Cas’s rooms, then the bathroom.

  We’d always been good about picking up after ourselves, though Cas sometimes forgot about the rules or was just too plain lazy to follow them.

  The last room on the top floor was the room I shared with Sam. I tore down the three sketches I’d taped on the wall above the bedside table. One was of Cas and Sam playing a game of chess, another of Nick running, and the last one was of Dani. I didn’t know when it was in the time line of our life, but it felt like a real memory versus a made-up scene. She was sitting on the floor, holding me in her arms, stroking my hair.

  Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I could almost hear her whispering to me.

&
nbsp; “Anna?”

  I startled at the sound of Sam’s voice. “Hey,” I said. “I’m almost done.”

  He nodded and looked at the sketch in my hands. Something guarded crossed his face. Guilt, I thought.

  “We’re leaving in ten minutes,” he said without meeting my eyes, and hurried down the stairs.

  I held the sketch up to the light. Sam had never commented on the drawing before. He never talked much about Dani at all, even though I was almost certain he was having more and more flashbacks about her and their life before the Altered program. I wanted him to open up so badly, to know his secrets and his thoughts and worries.

  I gently laid the sketches in my journal and slid it into my messenger bag. Next, I checked the dressers, the closet, and the nightstands. Mine was empty, so I went around the bed to Sam’s and opened the tiny drawer, crouching to peer inside.

  It was bare, as I thought it would be, and I was just about to shut it when I heard the faint scrape of paper against wood.

  I looked again but saw nothing, so I pulled the entire drawer out. As I did, a folded piece of paper came with it and dropped to the floor. I set the drawer aside and scooped up the paper. It was a list of names scrawled in pencil in Sam’s handwriting. Some had been scribbled over and rewritten. Others had asterisks next to them, and some question marks.

  Anthony Romna

  Joseph Badgley*

  Sarah T. Sarah Trainor

  Edward van der Bleek?

  The list went on. It took up the entire page and then some. There had to have been at least thirty names. I scanned all of them to see if I recognized anyone and found two at the bottom. Names I knew well.

  Melanie O’Brien?

  Charles O’Brien?

  My parents.

  What were my parents doing on a list of names in Sam’s bedside table?

  “Yo, Anna!” Cas called.

  I flinched and shoved the paper in my back pocket. “Yeah?”

  “We’re ready, and you haven’t even checked the downstairs,” Nick yelled.

  “I’m coming! Sorry.”

  Although I was on a completely different floor, I could still hear Nick grumble in response.

  I jammed the drawer back in place and hurried downstairs.

  When we climbed into the SUV, I looked out the windshield at our third house in two months. I wished I could say I would miss it, but it was hard to grow attached when you knew you were going to be moving soon anyway.

  Sam turned on the engine and backed up. Five minutes later, the house was nothing but a speck in the rearview mirror.

  “Now what?” Cas asked. “Dani is alive. Riley got her. And they clearly know we’re in the area.”

  “They’re using her as bait,” Nick said. “They knew we’d see that security footage one way or the other, once we found out someone was asking about Anna.”

  I twisted around between the front seats. “They couldn’t have known you’d go slutting around with the store clerk who just so happened to mention someone was asking about me.”

  Cas chuckled. “Slutting around. That’s funny.”

  “Either way,” Nick went on, teeth gritted, “they knew once you found out your sister was still alive that you’d come looking.”

  I turned back in my seat. Truth was, I wasn’t sure what I wanted our next move to be, or whether I wanted to risk our safety in order to go after a sister whom I couldn’t remember, who’d supposedly been dead.

  How had she survived? Why hadn’t she found me before now?

  I cringed, recalling the beating she’d suffered at the hands of Riley in the alley behind the grocery store. I could imagine the pain and the fear that’d gone along with it. And if that’s what they were willing to do out in public, what they would do to her in private would be so much worse.

  “Sam?” I looked over at him. “Weigh in, please?”

  He slowed for a stoplight and merged into the left-turn lane, the blinker clicking in the silence of the car. He took a breath. “Nick is right.”

  “Thank you,” Nick said.

  “But…” He flicked his attention to me. “She’s your sister. If you say you’re willing to die to find her, I wouldn’t blame you.”

  Was I?

  I wanted to know my family and, in a way, know myself better through them. But the simple fact that Dani was alive when she shouldn’t be raised a dozen red flags. Just what was the Branch planning to do with her? Where had she been all this time? And more important, did she know I was with Sam? If she didn’t, what would she think about it?

  “I guess the first step is finding out where they took her,” I said.

  Sam made a left turn. Snow and salt thudded against the wheel wells as the car picked up speed.

  “Sure, let’s do that.” Nick cracked a knuckle. “Why don’t we just call up Riley and ask where he’s storing her?”

  “Just say the word,” Cas added. “Riley’s my bro. I got him on speed dial.”

  “You’re such a dumbass,” Nick said.

  “Or,” Cas said, “we could call Trev. He left us that emergency number on the flash drive. Might as well use it.”

  Nick snorted. “Further illustrates my point that you’re a dumbass.”

  Sam glanced at me briefly. “You want to go down that road?”

  I looked out the passenger-side window. Snow melted on the glass, droplets sliding down. “Trev would probably help us,” I said quietly, afraid that if I spoke too loudly, it would somehow not be true. What was he like now, months later? I was afraid to find out. But more than that, I was afraid of him turning us down. If he did, there was no greater proof: He was gone from me for good. The thought left me feeling hollow.

  “He’ll just set us up again,” Nick said.

  There was that, too. That was worse than turning us down.

  “You don’t have to be a part of this,” I replied.

  I wanted our group to stick together. Strength in numbers and all that. But this was my family we were talking about. If I couldn’t save Dani, then I was no better than the Branch. Maybe I wouldn’t be the one causing her pain, but was leaving her in their hands when I could save her somehow worse? I couldn’t imagine all the things they would do to her in order to find out what she knew.

  And, more than anything, I wanted to see her with my own eyes, to see that she was real.

  I had a sister out there somewhere. Blood was blood.

  I couldn’t turn my back on her.

  8

  I HELD THE PREPAID CELL PHONE IN my hand, staring at the blank screen. Sam sat next to me, Cas across from both of us. We were in a little diner called Elkhorn Original, at a table in the back. All the booths near the windows were open and booths generally gave a person more privacy, but they were also hard to get out of when you were in a hurry. Another Sam lesson.

  Nick sat outside on a bench across the street, on point. I couldn’t see him, but I trusted he was there. Even though he’d been against this, he was still with the group on most things. Majority vote. We won.

  Three mugs of coffee sat on the table between Sam, Cas, and me, but none of us was feeling particularly thirsty. Sam bit into the mint candy he’d been sucking on.

  “When he picks up, if he picks up,” Sam said, “you have two minutes, tops. We don’t want to risk being traced. Ask him what you need to ask him, and if he doesn’t give you the answer you need, hang up. No hesitation.” Sam leaned forward, closer to me. I was still staring at the phone. He set his hand on my knee beneath the table and squeezed.

  “It’ll be fine,” he promised.

  When Trev gave us the flash drive, he’d included a document titled IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. It was a text file with a phone number, nothing else. That was the number we were calling now.

  I punched it in, brought the phone to my ear. I could barely hear the ringing on the other end over the fierce beating of my heart. Trev had once been my best friend. Talking to him had been easier than talking to anyone else. And now I felt like
I might vomit at the thought of hearing his voice. Or maybe it was that I worried it wouldn’t be him. If the Branch ever found out what he’d given us, they’d either wipe his memory or kill him.

  As angry as I was with him, he didn’t deserve either of those punishments.

  Cas fidgeted across from me and accidentally bumped the table. Coffee sloshed over the rim of his cup and puddled on the table.

  “Sorry,” he muttered at the same time the line picked up and Trev said, “Hello?”

  I looked over at Sam, nodded. He started the timer on his watch. Cas sopped up the coffee mess with a wad of napkins.

  “Anna?” Trev said, his voice hitching.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Yeah. It’s me.” Take charge of the conversation. You only have two minutes. “I need a favor.”

  He didn’t say anything for what felt like much longer than two minutes. Finally, a breath, another pause, then, “What kind of favor?”

  “Dani is alive and the Branch has her and I want to know where I might find her.”

  “What?” There was shuffling through the line, the creak of a door and it closing a second later. “How do you know she’s alive?”

  “We saw her on the security footage at a grocery store.”

  “And the Branch, how—”

  “They attacked her in the alley there. Riley and another agent.”

  Trev cursed. Wind whistled through the receiver. There was a dinging noise, like the sound a car made when the door was open. “Give me an hour. You in Michigan?”

  Sam shook his head. He must have heard Trev through the line.

  “No,” I said.

  “Sam tell you to say that?” I didn’t answer. “Meet me at the wind turbine field in Hart in two hours.”

  “We are not meeting him,” Sam said.

  “Anna,” Trev said. “Don’t use this number again. Okay? It’s only good for a one-time use. Meet me. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

  “We are not meeting him,” Sam repeated. We locked eyes. He shook his head again.