Mania

by J. R. Johansson

  “Is it ready?” She ignored my question and her voice came out hoarse, like it was rough with exhaustion.

  “Nearly, but I’m not sure what to do with it now.” I pushed my hand up through my hair. Should we just trust Dad that this was his new formula and show up at the Takers’ base with it? If we got there and somehow convinced Cooper to take it—a nearly impossible feat all by itself—and then it didn’t do what we claimed, Parker’s life would be on the line. Could we risk that? What other options did we have?

  “What else do you still have to do to it?” Chloe sat forward and tucked one knee up under her chin. Her hand hung loosely across her knee and I saw it trembling. She was worse off than I’d thought. I wondered if the experience with Eclipse and being separated from Finn last month had worn her down in ways we didn’t understand. Maybe she had even less time than I thought.

  Just the idea made my hands sweat with panic.

  This drug would work. It had to.

  “It just needs to sit a minute more, and then it’ll be ready.” I tried not to focus on her shaking hand and how small and vulnerable it looked.

  Finn poked his head in the door. “So now that we have a completed formula … ”

  “It really does need a name,” I finished for him, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “What about something tough, like Terminator?” Finn spoke the last word with his best Austrian accent before crossing to stand by us.

  “Not that I haven’t loved all of your ideas, Finn … ” Chloe stood up and walked to the table. Finn took her seat as we watched Chloe kneel down so she was at eye level with the blue liquid. Light from the setting sun outside shone through the window across from her, bounced off the glass vial, and left a rainbow pattern of light across her hand. “But how about … Spectrum?”

  I looked at Finn and we both nodded. From the Night Walkers to the normal Dreamers, a “spectrum” represented us pretty well. And all of us working together toward something better. Just like we were right now. It was what Dad had wanted … it was perfect.

  “Spectrum it is,” I said.

  “And how many doses is this?” Her voice sounded stronger now, and she stood up beside the table.

  “Each vial is one dose, so we have five doses, but I can make more.” I gave her a feeble smile. “Just wanted to make sure this first round didn’t explode or something before mixing up more.”

  “Good. Because I’m taking this one.” Chloe turned to grab one and I stumbled out of my chair at her words, getting there just in time to move the tray of vials out of her reach. Finn sat forward in his chair but looked like he wasn’t sure who to help.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed, trying to keep my voice low as I placed the tray on the table behind me.

  She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “This was the plan the whole time, Jack. Who did you think we were making this formula for?”

  “No, Chloe.” She tried to reach around me and I grabbed her wrists, holding them against my chest. “I want to use this to save you, but I’m not like your brothers. I won’t let you be a lab rat this time.”

  She stopped struggling for a minute and looked surprised. “Thank you for saying that,” she finally said, yet then added, “but I need to take this now. Not for them or for you … but for me.”

  “Why? Why can’t you wait until we’ve tried it out on Cooper?” I relaxed my grip on her hands, now just rubbing my hands along the back of hers, enjoying the feel of my warm skin against her hands, which never seemed to be anything but chilled.

  “We don’t even know if we can convince Cooper to take it,” she said. “We have to know it works if we want to have any chance of getting him to listen to us. These are my people, and my father messed everyone up.” Her voice was soft and pleading. “This is the best thing I can do for them … maybe the only thing. You want to save your brother. I want to save my kind. Let—me—help.”

  “Chloe, you’ve already helped.” I saw Finn slip out of the room and hoped he might be going for reinforcements.

  “No … it isn’t enough.” Her palms went flat against my chest, like she wanted to push me away but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

  “It’s completely untested. We have no idea what this could do to you.” I looked straight into her swirling gray eyes and my throat tightened. “It could kill you, Chloe.”

  “Here. Take it.” I heard Libby’s voice speak from behind me, and saw her move quickly to the other side of Chloe, holding out a vial.

  “Libby, what are you doing?” My alarm showed, even though I was fighting to stay calm.

  “I’m helping her,” Libby stated simply. She went on to say the exact words that would make certain Chloe drank the formula whether she was really ready to or not. “If she doesn’t, she’s going to die anyway. Chloe says she wants us to believe we can trust her, that Takers can be more than just murderers who use everyone to get what they want. Let her prove it.”

  Chloe blinked, like the sting from Libby’s words had momentarily stunned her. As I tried to move closer, she grabbed the vial from Libby and stepped into the hallway. Turning, she gave me a weak version of her tough smile and lifted the liquid like a toast before bringing it toward her lips.

  “Chloe, no!” I shouted, but before she could drink it, the vial was lifted from her fingers. We all watched in shock as Mason downed it in one gulp.

  He grinned down at her. “You can’t expect to go first when I put in all the work fixing this up. I’ve been waiting too long for this, girly.”

  We all watched in stunned silence as he cleared his throat and said, “It’s got a bit of a strange aftertaste there, Jack.” Then he stumbled against the wall. Chloe only managed to slow his descent a little as he fell down hard onto the hallway carpet.

  “Mason!” By the time I got to him, Mason’s entire body was convulsing. Finn helped clear some space and we dragged him into the living room. While Libby and Finn were trying to help me, Chloe stood frozen in the corner, watching. I couldn’t blame her. Her face paled, and her fingers clutched in tangled knots against her chest as the drug that was supposed to save the Takers ravaged through Mason’s body like a tsunami across the shore.

  He took one long, ragged breath … and didn’t take another.

  Thirty

  Parker

  The smell of rubbing alcohol, plastic, and medicine surrounded me. All I could hear was the thrumming, beeping, and humming of machines. Something was on my face and I wanted to push it off, but I couldn’t move either of my arms. The machines were medical, I realized, and the sound was my heartbeat. I was in some kind of hospital-type room now.

  I struggled against whatever was tying me down, feeling stronger than I had in days … and so confused. Drugged—I recognized the feeling. I’d been drugged, but it wasn’t with the black goo. It was something more normal—painkillers. I struggled more forcefully against whatever was binding my hands down and pain shot through my entire body.

  Apparently, not enough painkillers …

  There was a metallic sliding sound, and then Dr. Rivera was bent over me. He looked in my eyes and shone a light in them. He looked at a couple of the machines by my bed before injecting something into the I.V. bag hanging next to me. Immediately the haze of sedation washed over me. This was much better. Whatever they had me on, it was strong and felt amazing.

  I stopped fighting the rest that my body so badly needed and floated off into oblivion again.

  When I woke up again, my back hurt from being hunched over a desk. I sat up straight and stretched, amazed at how good everything else about my body felt. A paper from the desk was stuck to my face and I brushed it away with a yawn. I heard a voice and spun in a quick circle, but there was no one there.

  I shook my head, but something felt different. No … everything felt different. My hair didn’t fall against my neck. I reached up wi
th my fingers to touch it, but it wasn’t there. It had been trimmed in a short, straight line against my neck. They’d cut my hair?

  And my arm … didn’t I get shot? I reached up with my left hand for my right shoulder, but then I saw my left hand and froze. It was older … wrinkled, with sunspots on it. My chest felt so tight it ached. I heard a voice again, but the words weren’t clear. I spun out of my chair and stood up, backing toward the wall in a full-on panic. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. What was happening?

  When I got to the wall, I waited, trying to sort it out. Could this be a dream? Were the painkillers making me dream? That couldn’t happen, could it? What was going on? I glanced over at the silver side of the desk I’d been sitting at and caught a warped image of my reflection … only it wasn’t me. It was Dr. Rivera.

  I held up one hand and waved, and the reflection waved back.

  Then I remembered what Cooper and the doctor said they’d been trying to do with the black goo injections. My stomach sank and my thoughts spun through this new reality. It had finally worked … they’d succeeded in flipping the switch in my brain.

  I was now a Taker—and I’d just taken over Dr. Rivera’s body.

  The voice came through clearer this time, and I realized it was Dr. Rivera’s voice. If I focused in on it, I could hear his thoughts, dreams, and memories. I imagined that if I practiced, I could find out almost anything I wanted from him. He was like a puppet and I was pulling his strings.

  I shuddered and felt suddenly, violently sick.

  “Well, this is different.” My own, normal voice spoke up, and I lifted my eyes to see myself standing across the room. From the way Darkness faded in and out, I immediately knew it wasn’t my actual body. Even though I looked like I’d been to hell and back, I was pretty sure he didn’t compare to the way the real me looked right now.

  I’d become Divided again.

  I sat back down in Dr. Rivera’s chair and laid my head down on the desk, trying to process all of this. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

  Even though Darkness kept his voice soft, there was a growl to the edge of it. “Well … I’d say we don’t waste another second of time doing this. What do you think?”

  “It’s surprisingly nice to have you back.” I smiled for the first time in what felt like forever.

  “I knew you’d miss me.” He gave me a dark grin.

  “We have to find a way out of here—or at the very least, try to call Jack. To tell him if he can’t get here quick, then it might be useless to come at all … ” I got to my feet and looked around the room, but it looked like it was mostly a place to take notes. There wasn’t even a phone in here.

  Darkness stood up straight and took a step forward. “Finally, you’re starting to make sense to me.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but for now I’ll take it,” I muttered as I moved toward the door, but hesitated and turned back toward Darkness.

  “Wait. This is exactly what they’ve been trying to do—turning us into a Taker, right?” I gestured back toward the door and lowered my voice even further. “So why didn’t they set up any safeguards against it? Why aren’t they prepared for their plan to work?”

  Darkness nodded like he was thinking. “Even if they are … what can they do? Make sure no one makes eye contact with our body? Then they wouldn’t know if it worked. And if there are people in the hallway keeping watch … they won’t be able to tell that you aren’t the real thing.”

  “Not if I don’t clue them in.” I took a slow breath and hunched my shoulders just slightly the way Dr. Rivera always did. “Here we go.”

  Walking into the hallway, I gave a slight nod to the guard across from the door, who looked directly at me but didn’t react. Mimicking the way I’d seen the real Dr. Rivera behave, I moved further down the hallway. Anytime there was no one around, I checked every hall for an exit and every room for a phone. The place felt like a maze. Who knew all this was underground here? After a few minutes, I finally found a room with a phone on the desk.

  Keeping the light off, I went in and picked up the receiver with shaking fingers. Darkness watched me, looking almost as nervous as I felt.

  “This is bizarre. It’s crazy watching you … when you look like that,” he finally said.

  “Tell me about it.” I punched in the last digits of Finn’s number and waited as it rang once—twice—and I heard him pick up.

  “Hello?” He sounded the way he always did when he answered calls from a number he didn’t recognize.

  “Finn!” The relief in my newly nasal voice was extremely clear. “I know this doesn’t sound like me, but it’s Parker. I need to talk to you and Jack. Are you with him?”

  “I—I don’t—” Finn sounded beyond confused, but apparently he decided the best move might be to sort it out with Jack’s help because I then heard, “Hang on and I’ll get him.”

  There were footsteps and muffled conversations in the background. I caught a few words like, “doesn’t sound like him” and “no clue” and “thought you might know” before it sounded like Finn put me on speaker phone and I heard Jack’s voice.

  “What was the name of the first person we were sent after?” His completely and utterly flat voice sent a chill through me.

  I looked up at Darkness and he returned the same panicked expression. “I, uh … I’m trying to remember.”

  Jack’s voice went cold. “Nice try.”

  “Wait!” my voice squeaked. The line was still live, so I kept going. “I’ve been through a lot here, Jack. I don’t remember the name anymore. But I can tell you something else maybe … ”

  “Last chance. Where was the hidden message Dad sent you?”

  “In the lining of Dad’s wallet,” I spat out the words as fast as I could. “It was behind the stitching that was different and I never would have noticed it, but you did.”

  “Parker … ” Jack’s voice was so full of emotion now that I began to wonder if I should be testing him to be sure he wasn’t someone else. “What’s going on? Where are you? What did they do to you? Libby lost you in the dream and I was so afraid that … that … ”

  Someone yelled Jack’s name in the background and I heard him cover the mouthpiece and say, “Yes. You stay there with him in case he needs CPR again.”

  “What’s going on there?” Everything in me went cold. “Who’s hurt?”

  “It’s no one you know or need to worry about. It’s nothing … ” But Jack didn’t sound like Jack. He sounded more like me than ever—he sounded terrified. Then he pushed on without leaving me time for more questions. “Why do you sound so strange, Parker?”

  “It’s been rough. They’ve been giving me drugs, Jack, awful drugs.” I tried not to worry about what I’d heard on the phone. I spoke the words as fast as I could, knowing we could be interrupted at any moment. “They said Dad gave them the idea. They figured out how to flip a switch in our brains and turn us into a different kind of Night Walker. It isn’t that easy, because it took them a while with me … but they did it.”

  “What do you mean?” Finn asked, his voice coming from the background now; I realized Jack must have put me on speakerphone. Finn sounded on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. “A different kind … they turned you into something … oh my god.”

  I could tell that my meaning sank in for everyone on the other end of the phone, and it was silent for seconds that felt like they stretched on forever. Finally I spoke again. “Yeah. I took over the doctor who was experimenting on me. That’s how I’m calling you.”

  “We’ve got the new formula now, and we’ll figure this out too.” Jack’s words were quiet and fierce. “I promise to find a way to turn you back.”

  “That doesn’t matter!” My voice cracked with desperation and I clutched the phone with both hands as I heard footsteps coming down the hall. “I don
’t care about that right now. Don’t you see? None of that will matter if I’m not alive—if I don’t get out of here. I won’t survive much more of this, Jack. They’ve shot me, they’ve been torturing me. They have me at some abandoned amusement park called Funtopia. In tunnels that run deep underground. But I don’t know anything more than that. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t … I can’t.”

  Cooper pushed the door open and two of his thugs came to pin my arms to my sides. The phone fell, swinging beside the desk. I heard Jack yelling my name. I considered pretending to really be Dr. Rivera, but it was clear from the smile on Cooper’s face that he’d heard enough to know their black ooze had finally done its job. He lifted the handset and smiled as he spoke into it. “You hear that, Jack? Now you have even more reason to get back here with the Eclipse right away, because believe me, he’s right … he won’t live much longer without it.”

  Cooper sat down on the desk and turned to stare at me with a smile. “I’ve made certain of that.”

  “We have what you need, Cooper,” I heard Jack say into the phone. “We’re ready. If you touch him again, I swear I will kill you first and then destroy the drug second.”

  “Ah, brotherly love. How tender. The amusement park is an hour outside of Madison. If you don’t know where to look, just ask Chloe.” He hung up even though I could hear Jack still swearing into the line on the other end. He looked at me. “Well, I couldn’t have worked that out better if I’d told you exactly what to do.”

  I stopped struggling and Cooper nodded for the guards to release my arms. “What do you mean?”

  “There were questions I couldn’t get the answers to: How close was Jack to having Eclipse ready? How could I get him to speed things up a bit?” He rubbed his eyes, and it took him a few seconds to open them again. “You’re running out of time … so am I. I needed answers about Eclipse and I need him to hurry, but letting you call him makes everything simpler. He wouldn’t lie to you.” His smile was positively triumphant but his tone dripped sarcasm. “Thank you so much for your cooperation.”