The Unseen Trilogy

by Stephanie Erickson

  “Stop it. Now you’re just being mean. This isn’t you.”

  “Don’t tell me what is and isn’t me.” He was being so cold, but I kept reminding myself not to take it personally. He was in mourning. But he hadn’t lost a friend or a loved one. He’d lost himself.

  I wanted to take his hand, but the bandages meant I could not even give him that simple comfort. Instead, I rested my hand on his leg. The stony look in his dark eyes told me he wasn’t about to listen, but I had to try. “You don’t know who you are right now. And that’s okay.” He didn’t relax in my grasp, but he didn’t pull away either.

  He turned his head away from me, and when he next spoke, his voice was sad and tired. “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right, I don’t. And you don’t understand the things I went through, the things Mitchell went through, or hell, the things Tracy went through. But I’ll tell you what I do know. You were my rock after I lost my best friend. Now my rock has turned into a solitary statue, thinking he can withstand every storm on his own. And who knows, maybe you’re right. After all, if you’re my rock, what am I to you?”

  He looked at me then, some of the softness returning. “You don’t need a rock anymore, Mac. And you certainly don’t need a monster. You should find someone else.”

  Oddly, his words didn’t hurt me. I knew deep down it was only his grief talking. That was something I understood all too well.

  “Who else would tolerate me?” I chuckled. “Who else would tolerate you?” But he didn’t laugh like I hoped he would.

  “Well, if you’re going to keep calling yourself a monster, maybe I’ll change your name to Oscar, since you’re such a grouch all the time.” The corner of his mouth lifted just a hair, but it was enough to tell me he was still in there under all that grief and anger.

  “Mac, you know they’ll strike again.”

  “Mmhmm. But Dr. Jeppe just finished the formula a few months ago. They can’t possibly have it in mass quantities yet. Besides, the Unseen in Washington are hot on their trail. There’s bound to be a breakthrough soon.”

  “Don’t underestimate them,” he warned, looking down at his mangled body.

  “Owen, that’s not what you did. What happened wasn’t your fault. And if you hadn’t been there, thousands more people would have died. Think of all the families you saved from heartache. Don’t you see how heroic your efforts actually were?”

  “I suppose you’re right. But the cost was high.”

  “It always is,” I said, thinking of Dylan Shields. In order to save the members of the Unseen, I killed the man who’d imprisoned me in his mind. He had a son—an infant, as far as I could tell.

  Knowing he wouldn’t take what I had to say next lightly, I braced myself. “David is anxious to get me back to work, now that you’re…” I hesitated, not wanting to draw attention to his current state. “Doing better. Starting tomorrow, Rebecca and I are going to begin developing some stronger techniques to overcome the Potestas. Do you remember her?” I couldn’t bring myself to say her title out loud. Tracy’s death was still too fresh.

  He nodded. “She stopped by once or twice. Seems nice. Left a couple of little stuffed animals around.”

  Searching, I quickly spotted her crocheted creations on the table next to his bed. One was Chewbacca, and the other was Jabba the Hut. The thoughtful gesture made me smile. Star Wars was Owen’s all-time favorite movie. “She’s a lot different than Tracy, but I like her. You might also be interested to know Mitchell seems to like her quite a bit.”

  “Really?” He couldn’t hide his curiosity, which made me smile. It was good to see him engaged, even if it was over gossip. Our strong, silent friend had taken quite a shining to the bubbly, outgoing woman, and it was the first time I’d seen him express such an interest in anyone. She was his opposite in almost every way, but somehow, they seemed perfect for each other. This was good stuff.

  “Mmmhmm. I left them sitting on the couch when I came down here. They were nearly touching.”

  He nodded to himself, looking more relaxed. Any other time, he would’ve smiled. Instead, he simply said, “Good.” I accepted his answer, knowing it would have to do for now.

  “Anyway, David hopes we can train the others. That way, we’ll be better prepared for the next…” The next what? Attack? Ambush? Mission? Hopefully not the next mistake. “The next time. There are a lot of things we need to work through.”

  “Sounds like.” He didn’t hide the sadness in his voice.

  “Listen, don’t think you’ll get out of helping us while you’re in here. I’m going to be over here constantly to pick your brain and ask for pointers. You’ve been here longer than me, so you better be ready to contribute.”

  He perked up a little, and I thought I saw a flash of the old mischief in his eyes. He held up his bandaged arms. “I’m just an invalid. I need to rest.”

  I dramatically rolled my eyes and sighed. Picking up the remote and pointing it at Owen, I said, “This channel is getting boring. How do I change it?”

  He snatched it from me and unmuted the television. We watched in companionable silence for a long time, but I didn’t even register what was on. I was too wrapped up in my thoughts about Owen, Zero, Shields, and the Potestas’ quest for power. They’d already proven they were willing to take lives without mercy or apology in pursuit of their goal, and somehow, I was caught up in the middle of it.

  As I sat there with Owen, I had no idea what I could or would do about any of it, but unlike the girl I had been, who’d been so lost in mourning for Maddie she could barely function, I knew I would do something. I wouldn’t bury myself in that haze of depression ever again. I would take control of this situation, affect a change, and be Unseen. And Owen would do the same, if I had anything to say about it.

  Two

  Our new training facility was top of the line, not that we had wanted for anything before. But this was different. All the equipment was brand new, complete with digital screens that measured everything from the efficiency of your workout to caloric burn and heart rate, as well as big screen TVs that broadcasted workout videos and displayed how certain equipment should be used. But the pièce de résistance was an incredible system of holographic trainers. You wore headphones when you exercised with one of them, so only you could hear your trainer, and the hologram could be tailored to meet your needs. You could make it a man or a woman, a drill sergeant or more of a hand holder, whatever your preference. It was odd to walk through the gym and see all the holograms pointing, gesturing, getting in people’s faces, and sometimes even working out alongside them.

  Even the training rooms seemed nicer. They were much larger, with digital white boards instead of actual white boards, and plush chairs. These rooms were built for use, unlike the small, cell-like rooms I trained in with Tracy. I found myself actually looking forward to the long days ahead.

  A pang of guilt washed over me, and I thought of how excited Tracy would’ve been to see the new facility, and how she and I would’ve put everything to good use. But she wasn’t here, and she never would be again. I’d failed to properly protect her—or myself—in our confrontation with Dylan Shields. I sighed as I crossed the open gym, filled with people who were either lifting weights or working out with a holographic trainer. She wouldn’t have wanted me to mope around. She would’ve wanted me to get to work.

  As I put my hand on the door to the training room where I’d arranged to meet Rebecca, I decided that was exactly what I would do.

  “I suppose there’s no better place to start than the beginning,” Rebecca said, tucking a strand of long, wavy brown hair behind her ear. “I know Tracy was a bit guarded about her personal life, but you know I don’t operate like that. We’ve spent a fair amount of time together over the past few weeks, but we haven’t shared too many details about ourselves yet. What with the move, Owen’s recovery, and the new attack, there just hasn’t been time to get down to the nitty-gritty of who we are. Now’s the time
to change that!” She smiled as she said it, as if the prospect of obliterating this social boundary between us excited her.

  “I’m almost thirty, so I’ve been working with The Unseen for over fifteen years—gosh, is that right?” She thought for a moment, looking a bit wistful. “Yeah, it is. Makes me feel old.” She chuckled. “My family died when I was young. Believe it or not, it was of natural causes.” Perhaps in some conversations, this disclaimer would be unusual, but many members of the Unseen had lost family to the Potestas. While the two organizations were both large groups of organized mind readers, the Potestas often worked for their own personal gain, while the Unseen strived for justice as best as they could. As a result, many members of the Unseen had lost their families in the struggles.

  “They were older anyway,” she continued. “I was their miracle child—their one and only. Dad went first, and Mom followed not long after. They were both in their seventies, but I was barely a teenager, so I couldn’t cope. The Unseen found me and took me in.

  “You know, I met Tracy years ago, in a training meeting. We were learning the latest training techniques and brainstorming methods of sharpening our forces. She was formidable, even then.” She smiled at the memory, and I smiled right along with her. Formidable was the perfect adjective for Tracy. “She kept her distance, but I liked her. Her knowledge and skills were impressive. I knew she had a lot to offer, so I aligned myself with her right away. I could never tell if she found me charming or annoying.”

  “Probably both,” I said with a chuckle.

  Her smile warmed me, gave me hope somehow. “I don’t mind telling you that I’m very excited about getting to work with the Mackenzie Day. I can’t wait to see what we can teach each other.”

  It was refreshing to be around her, energizing even. I found myself sitting forward in my seat, just as excited as she was to get to work. I hadn’t told Owen, not wanting to reinforce his dark mood, but I completely understood his distaste for stagnation. My fingers twitched with the desire to move, to help, to make music of the mind.

  “All right, let’s get started. Tell me what they did to trap you in Shields’s mind, what the prison was like, and how you think we can use it to our advantage.”

  “I can tell you until I’m blue in the face, but I think it would be better to show you.” If Tracy had taught me one lesson, it was that. And now that I’d been through hell, I wasn’t as frightened of it. I was strong enough to show her what had been done to me without hurting her. I always had been—the difference was that now I knew it.

  As soon as I allowed her into my mind, I created a prison for her. Though I had been free of Shields’ prison for weeks now, the idea of it still captivated me, as if holding me in its thrall. I often imagined what a prison of my own creation would be like, and who might occupy it. I never imagined putting my imaginings into practice, particularly not on a friend. But she needed to see what we were up against.

  Swallowing hard, I captured her in our own little prison. I tried to make it pleasant, with plenty of crocheting supplies, a lovely view similar to the mountainside we now occupied, and several dashing pictures of Mitchell scattered around. This last detail made me smile to myself.

  At first, she didn’t touch anything; she just stood still, her eyes slowly examining her surroundings. Then she started to explore. It was odd for me to be on the other side, watching her, knowing Shields had watched me the same way. The thought gave me the willies. “All right, you get the idea,” I said, ready to stop.

  “No, not yet,” she said, her voice distant, like she was deep in thought. She started to walk around, running her hands over the piles of yarn as she went. “This is nice yarn. Very high quality.”

  “I thought you’d want the best.”

  “Mmm.” Moving over to the windows, she stood there for a moment, taking in the mountain view. She stood there for several moments.

  Suddenly, something occurred to me. The projection screens that had been such a huge part of my hell were missing from Rebecca’s prison. While I was in Shields’ mind, those screens had served as my only connection to my body and the outside world. How had they shown those to me?

  “I think for you to be able to see the projection screen I saw—the one that showed me what my body was seeing—someone else would have to take control of your body. But I could also see what Shields was seeing on a separate screen. That’s how they showed me they had me.” I let the comment drop off, as I considered how I could show her what I was looking at without freeing her from the prison.

  The only method that seemed to make sense was for me to open my eyes. So I did. And it severed our connection less than gracefully.

  We both moaned and I doubled over, holding my head in my hands and bracing myself on my knees.

  “What happened?” Her question was muffled behind her hands.

  “I opened my eyes.”

  “Why?” It wasn’t a why-is-the-grass-green kind of why, but more of a why-on-Earth-would-you-do-such-a-thing kind of why.

  “Because I was trying to show you what the projection screens looked like. I wanted you to have the full experience, and I figured it could also help us understand what they’d done from the other side. Maybe we can use some of this.”

  She nodded. “Maybe.” I could tell by her tone there was more to that maybe. What did she know that I didn’t? But I didn’t push it. She’d voice her mind when she was ready.

  “Put me back in the prison,” she said.

  “What? Why?” I asked, fairly certain I wasn’t ready to do what she’d requested. My head still ached from our last attempt.

  “Because I want to try to find a way out. You can tinker with the projection if you want.” But it was more of an afterthought, something to keep me busy while she did the real work.

  I chuckled. “If I want?”

  “Well, seems to me like it was a focus and control issue that broke our connection so…abruptly. Everyone could benefit from working on those two things. Give it a go.”

  So, we settled in and got back to work.

  She wandered around the prison, quietly taking everything in, and I tried to concentrate on focus and control. Twice more, I broke our connection. By midday, we both had raging headaches.

  “Do you want to press on? I feel like my nose is going to start bleeding at any moment,” I said, cradling my head in my hands.

  “Yes, let’s keep at it. Remember, the pain isn’t real,” she said with a smile on her face.

  “That’s a load of BS, and you know it. Every time I touched Tracy’s fence, it shocked the hell out of me.”

  “You touched it more than once? Sounds like you’re a pretty slow learner.” She couldn’t even get it out without smiling.

  “Fine,” I said, rather indignant. “Let’s just get back to work.”

  But the pain in my head was becoming overwhelming. While she just meandered around, concentrating and focusing were becoming more and more difficult because of the pounding. It’s not real, I told myself. It didn’t help. The pounding still kept a rhythm with my heartbeat, but instead of ignoring it, I used it. It was a steady beat, almost like a metronome. Instinctually, I started remembering how Gaspard de la Nuit went, letting my heart sing the tune.

  When my eyes came open this time, I managed to hold on to our connection.

  “This is a little overwhelming,” Rebecca said in my head. She sat in front of me silently, eyes closed, head bowed, not speaking. And yet, I could hear her voice clearly and feel her moving around inside my prison. I knew exactly what she was doing without closing my eyes, almost as if I existed in two realities at once.

  “What part is overwhelming for you?”

  “The music, seeing myself sitting in that chair. It’s all really odd.” Her voice was a bit distant, almost as if I’d created space between us by opening my eyes.

  “You can hear the music too?”

  “Yes. It’s a lovely tune. In fact, it sounds a lot like the one you were playing th
e night we met. It’s just a bit much at the moment. It would be good for a foe though. Anything to throw them off-guard.”

  Watching her body take slow but steady breaths, I grew increasingly unsettled. I didn’t like having her locked away inside my mind.

  “Great, another weapon for the enemy. You about done? This is really uncomfortable. It’s like watching you sleep sitting up.”

  “I suppose I am dreaming, in a sense,” she said as she continued to run her hands over random objects in the house I’d created for her. “Dreams are nothing more than a different state of consciousness, right? Here I am, active, alive, and well, just not inside my body.

  “But what does it take to wake up? Is the only way out of this for me to kill you?” she asked suddenly.

  “Don’t get hasty. I can let you out, too.” I’d meant it as a joke, but it wasn’t really funny. “Yes,” I added after letting out an uncomfortable chuckle. “It was the only way I could get out. Maybe someone else could find a more elegant solution, but I was feeling pressed for time.”

  “No, no. I’m not criticizing you. I’m just assessing the options.” She baffled me. Tracy never would’ve said such a thing to me. She was always criticizing, always trying to improve, but Rebecca took a totally different approach.

  As she walked around her prison, she smiled at a picture of Mitchell before moving on. “These are a nice touch, by the way,” she said, barely above a whisper.

  “You know, when Owen and I started dating, everyone knew about it. It bothered me to no end that I didn’t know how to guard my thoughts. But I guess it didn’t matter much; you’re not broadcasting your thoughts, and everyone knows you and Mitchell hit it off.”

  Her laugh helped me relax. “No, I suppose it didn’t matter at all,” she said, taking one more look at the picture of Mitchell before setting it back down.

  She spent what little time was left in the day unsuccessfully trying to find a way to escape.

  When I finally pushed her out at the end of the day, she was shaken. She pushed her chair away from me just a tiny bit, enough for me to feel the larger space between us. “That was a truly terrible experience. I knew it wouldn’t be permanent; it was just weird to be so absolutely trapped. This could be an excellent self-defense mechanism when dealing with an adversary, Mac. You could trap an enemy until reinforcements arrive, or until you get away…” She trailed off, mentally ticking off all possible applications for the tactic.