by Leigh Walker
THE DIVISION 4: DIVINATION
Leigh WALKER
CMG PUBLISHING
Copyright © 2018 by Leigh Walker.
Published by CMG Publishing
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Sign up for Leigh’s mailing list at www.leighwalkerbooks.com.
V.AMZ.4.21.2018(2)
Contents
1. Look Before You Leap
2. Contagion
3. All The Rage
4. Game Face
5. Doppelgänger(s)
6. Just Too Close
7. Raison D’etre
8. Sense Of Urgency
9. Long Way Down
10. While The Getting’s Good
11. Eyes On The Prize
12. Never Surrender
13. Nobody Pray For Me
14. What The
15. Duplicity
16. Both Sides Now
17. All For Nothing
18. A Short Leash
19. The Secret
20. Uncomfortably Numb
21. Prime Motivating Factor
22. Friends Upstairs
23. How To Save A Life
24. Cry Me A River
25. Lost…And Found
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
IF YOU LIKED THIS BOOK, YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Fifth Wedding
The Invitation
Girl On The Train
Also by LEIGH WALKER
1
Look Before You Leap
I sat up straight in my bunk. “Wait! What’s that?”
Finn squinted one eye open at me. I swear, he hadn’t slept for weeks. “What’s the matter, babe?”
“Oh…nothing.” I scrubbed my hands across my face. “I guess I was just dreaming.”
He sat up a little, watching me from his nearby bunk. “What was the dream?”
“I had a dream we lived happily ever after.” I shook my head, then climbed back under my covers.
“Huh.” Finn smiled at me in the semi-darkness, then reached for my hand. “That would be something, wouldn’t it?” His voice was thick with emotion.
“Sure would—but hey, I’m psychic. So maybe it’s a prophecy.” I kept my tone light and squeezed his hand.
“Yeah, right.” His voice went back to its normal tone of late, filled with despair.
I snuggled beneath my blankets. “We should get back to sleep. Tomorrow’s you-know-what.”
“Ah, I can hardly wait. Goodnight, Hanover.” Finn put his head down on his pillow.
“Goodnight.”
And even though tomorrow was You-Know-What, and I was still worried about Finn, for the first time in a very long time, I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
By the next day my lovely dream had vanished, right along with my smile. Nicole Maines, my new boss, was about to make me jump out of a plane.
She pushed her stylish rectangular glasses up, waiting patiently. But when I clutched the strap and refused to move, she sighed.
“Riley, you can fly. Remember? So it’s not like you’re going to break your neck out there.”
I peered out the open door as the wind whipped my face. The ground was down there somewhere—I just couldn’t see it. “I’m not feeling very confident about that.”
“I’m not sure that your feelings are relevant.” Nicole put her hand on my back, her impressive bicep bulging beneath her fitted flight suit. “See you on the ground!”
And wouldn’t you know it? Bitch pushed me!
I shrieked as I sailed through the air, my arms and legs spread apart as if I were a flying squirrel on a kamikaze mission. The rest of my team was already on the ground, hopefully all in one piece.
We’d been through parachute training, so I should have been able to do this, ‘should’ being the operative, possibly pain-in-the-butt word—the word that might undo me. I reached for the cord I eventually needed to pull, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do next. I couldn’t think straight as I plummeted down, still screaming my head off.
Finn had said this would be fun. Just wait till I get my hands on you, buddy…
He laughed inside my head. If you don’t figure out the parachute soon, that’s going to be a pretty empty threat.
Sometimes having a telepathic boyfriend was so annoying. But at least he was talking to me, and joking. After what he’d told me recently about his involvement in the death of my father and sister, I’d worried that we would never be the same. And we weren’t, but…
No time for that now! I jerked my thoughts back to the present, trying to remember the training. What were we supposed to do? Pull the cord when we saw the—
Holy curse word that rhymes with truck! There’s the ground!
I pulled the cord, and my parachute sprung open, gloriously slowing me down. I took a deep breath as I floated in the air. No longer plummeting to my death, I enjoyed the view of the fields stretching out all around me, green as far as the eye could see. Being so high in the air made the real world seem tiny. For the first time in a long time, my problems seemed far away.
But as the ground got closer, I panicked. Still stretched out like a flying squirrel, I didn’t know if I was supposed to land on my stomach.
I screamed again, but this time, my telekinetic powers kicked in. I stopped before I slammed into the ground and just hovered there. I tentatively let go of my power then inelegantly thudded to the ground, knocking the wind out of myself. “Oof.”
Nicole glided down a few moments later. She hit the ground running, gracefully and athletically making it look like no big deal. She detached her parachute and peered down at me. “You need to work on finishing strong.”
I glared, noticing the golden highlights of her ponytail glinting in the sun. “I’ll try to remember that the next time I’m falling to my death.”
She grinned. “Good. Because we’re planning our strike against Althea, and we need to be ready.” She hustled off to check in with the others, who’d landed in an adjacent field.
I needed to go to them, to see Finn. But I just stayed where I was for the moment with my face planted on the grass.
I had some pressing things on my mind—and not just the ground, lol.
My head spun with everything I needed to figure out. The Division. Finn had told me that the secret agency I worked for had killed my father and my sister. But why?
My mother. She was alive, for now. But the agency had her, and they refused to release her until I dealt with…
Althea Remington. The eco-terrorist had single-handedly instituted global warfare. Millions of people were dead, and millions more were in hiding. Remington had stolen top-secret artificial intelligence technology from the United States government. And she had something else—something crucial—that my bosses in the government wanted bad.
So The Division had a job to do. A big one. We had to find Althea Remington and take back what she’d stolen. If we succeeded, the agency would let our families go.
At least, that was what they’d said.
I flipped onto my back and looked at the sky. From here, in this peaceful field located somewhere in remote northern California, one would never know the world had fallen apart.
But I knew the truth—at least some of it.
Sighing, I got up to join the rest of my team.
Back at the base, Nicole had changed from her jumpsuit to a tight-fitting black sheath. She stalked the front of the room, hands on her hips. “I’m going to drill this into your heads again and again:
understand your objective. Understand the parameters of how your powers fit into building a moat for the team unit.”
Kyan raised his hand, somehow flexing his bicep in the process. “Nicole? Can you say that in non-tech speak for us?”
Kyan had finally let the lightning bolt shaved into the side of his head grow out, but he still prissily fussed with his bleached hair—again, making sure his bicep was on prominent display—as he waited for the answer.
Nicole smiled at him. “Of course. I keep slipping back into Silicon Valley jargon. What I mean is, we are going to have a clearly defined plan. Each of you has a specific role to play. Be prepared to follow a strict directive to help secure the whole team. You certainly have the capabilities, but too often in the past, this unit has been flying blind.”
Finn looked at me. Understatement of the year.
I nodded. When I first joined the team, we’d had a different leader—Sergeant Cranston. Cranston was currently serving time in the brig for violating direct orders, lying to his superiors, and killing another officer.
Cranston had never led us effectively. In fact, we’d deserted him on several occasions, fending for ourselves and trying unsuccessfully to take on Althea Remington.
Nicole crossed her powerful arms over her chest. “I know I’m asking for a lot. It will be a leap of faith for you to trust me. But I promise, I’m equal to the task. If you show me your allegiance, I’ll show you mine.”
Kyan looked at her dreamily. “You got it.”
Emma, my psychic best friend, frowned at him—but not too much, lest her lipgloss smudge.
“Emma?” Nicole asked. “What do you think?”
Emma ran her hands over her faux-leather leggings, tucked into knee-high combat boots. “I think you’re better than Cranston, even though you are Nora’s daughter.”
Nora, our admiral, was the one who’d taken our families hostage. She was not on anyone’s “nice” list. But she was Nicole’s mother—news that had rocked all of us.
“You can’t hold me responsible for my family ties,” Nicole said. “But it might work in our best interests. You never know.”
Finn sat back and raised his hand. His muscled forearm momentarily had me staring. Hearing my thoughts, he chuckled, but kept his attention on Nicole. “How could it be good for us?”
“She’s my mother, and she wants me to survive. Maybe even more than that, she wants me to succeed. She’ll help me in any way she can.” Nicole started pacing again. “If I’m successful, so are you. And I promise that I will do everything in my power to make sure your families are returned to safety after we complete this mission. You have my word.”
She stopped and turned to us. “I know you haven’t had a leader you can trust. But I’m different, and I am going to lead us—all of us—to a brighter future. Now, let’s hit the gym. We have some serious training to do while we wait for the intelligence report about Althea’s location.”
Emma groaned and shuffled up next to me. Her strawberry-blond pixie haircut was spiked prettily, and of course her makeup was perfect, but she had a sour look on her face. “Between all the skydiving and the weight lifting, Nicole might kill us before Althea Remington ever gets a chance.”
“Suck it up.” Finn punched her lightly on the arm. “You can see the future—you’re going to survive this workout, right?”
Emma started to retort, but the door slammed open, and Nora hustled through. Although she looked immaculate as always in a gray suit, her silver, chin-length hair neatly arranged, her eyes were too bright. “Riley, Finn, come quickly.”
We rushed after her. My heart thudded in my chest as we booked it down the hallway to catch up.
“Admiral?” Finn asked. “What’s going on?”
“It’s your families,” Nora said in a clipped tone. “And it’s not good.”
2
Contagion
“What happened?” I asked breathlessly as we careened around another corner in the nondescript underground base. “Is my mom okay?”
Finn came even with me. “What about my mom? My sister?”
Even though we were both upset, Nora didn’t answer. She ushered us into a small conference room with a flat-screen then closed the door.
She turned to face us, her bright-pink lips set in a grim line. “Have a seat.”
Finn and I warily sank down onto the metal chairs behind us.
“Riley, your mother has come down with a virus, and she’s being seen at the base’s medical facility. Finn, same thing with your sister. They’re both in quarantine.”
Finn leaned forward, his hands clenched together. “How did they get sick? Haven’t they been secure?”
From what we knew, our families were being held in a secret government base in upstate New York.
“Yes, but they both became infected yesterday. We quarantined them as soon as possible. It’s…serious.”
I almost leapt out of my chair. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a respiratory virus, very similar to influenza. But this is a toxic strain.” Nora pursed her lips. “I’m afraid neither Gail nor Tess is doing very well.”
Finn went pale. “I want to see them.”
Nora nodded. “I have a video feed for you.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” But Finn stopped arguing as the flat-screen came to life. The image showed two hospital beds, side by side, separated only by clear plastic.
They were being kept in sealed-off pods.
The camera zoomed in, and I could see my mother on her bed. Her eyes were closed. She looked frail, and she was hooked up to a ventilator.
The floor tilted underneath me. “Why is she on a ventilator?”
“This has hit her hard.” Nora tapped something on her tablet, and the image shifted over to Tess, Finn’s sixteen-year-old sister. She was on a breathing tube, too. Her chest rose and fell with an orchestrated rhythm. “Same thing with Tess.”
I reached over and gripped Finn’s hand.
Nora nodded at him. “Your mother isn’t showing any symptoms, at least.”
Finn’s hand was rigid beneath mine. “Explain to me how they contracted a super strain of the flu when they were being kept away from everyone. Explain to me how they got this sick while you were holding them.”
Nora turned off the screen. “I don’t know. None of our staff are ill. I don’t know how they got exposed, but they were in close quarters, so it passed between them quickly. Both Gail and Tess came down with this within an hour of each other. They needed immediate medical care, and we’re doing everything we can for them.”
“I need you back with your team now,” Nora said. “But I wanted to let you know what happened. I promise to keep you updated.”
“Can we go see them, Admiral?” I asked. Begged. “They seem really sick.”
“Perhaps, after your mission’s been successfully completed.” She opened the door, dismissing us.
Finn didn’t speak as we made our way back to the team. He must have been so upset about Tess. This was the first time he’d seen her in years, and now his baby sister was sick.
The fact that they’re both on ventilators within twenty-four hours of contracting this…that’s not good, Hanover, he thought-spoke into my head.
“But that happens with the flu, right?” I kept my voice low. “It’s a respiratory virus. Maybe the ventilator’s just an added protection.”
He gave me a look that said I was kidding myself, which I already knew.
I shook my head. “I just… I can’t… My mom…” She was all I had left.
“I know.” He stopped and gripped my hands. “Trust me, I know.”
Finn had begged off lunch, citing a headache. Smart move. I couldn’t even eat my favorite chocolate cake.
Emma peered at me as I pushed the cake around my plate. “What’s going on?”
I put my fork down. “My mom’s sick. So is Tess, Finn’s little sister. They both have the flu. They’re in the infirmary at the
ir base.”
“Are they going to be okay?”
Tears pricked my eyes. “They’re both on ventilators.”
“Oh my God.” Emma leaned closer, looking around the base’s busy cafeteria, making sure no one was listening. “What happened?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Nora said no one else is sick, but they both got it within an hour of each other. They’re being quarantined. She didn’t know how they contracted it, but she said it’s really serious.”
Emma bit her lip. “I remember my grandmother had the flu. She ended up in the hospital with pneumonia.”
Too scared to hear the answer, I didn’t ask if she got better.
“How’s Finn taking it?”
“Not good.”
Emma took a bite of my cake. “I think you need to keep an eye on him. He’s been through a lot, and you know him. He takes it hard.”
Between Finn telling me about what happened with my dad and Katie, and now Tess getting sick, it was too much. “I know. I’m worried about him, too.”
My friend’s brow furrowed. “Were you surprised that Nora told you?”
I frowned. “I didn’t even think about that.”
She finished my cake and pushed the plate to the side. “It’s just that Nora never tells us anything.”
“Maybe that’s changing.” I stared, unseeing, out at the cafeteria. “Or maybe it’s just pretty serious.”
Emma’s pretty face puckered. “I’m so sorry, Ri.”
Still reeling from the news, I made my way to our afternoon meeting. Word had spread quickly through the group. My friends hugged me, telling me they hoped my mother felt better soon.