“Easy,” I said, stepping over Kiernan’s still form and wedging myself between the two boys. “You took him by surprise, that’s all. Kale, this is Ben Simmons.”
He looked at Ben for a moment as if sizing him up, then turned to me. “We need to go. I took care of two agents, but not before one was able to call for help. They know we’re here. They’ll come prepared.”
I followed his gaze to Kiernan, lying motionless on the floor. Her head was at an uncomfortable-looking angle with her right arm wedged beneath her. I was betting she’d wake up with one hell of a stiff neck. “She’s fine,” I said, a pang of jealousy shooting through me.
He tore his gaze from her and met mine with a look that sent the butterflies in my stomach moshing up a frenzy. “I don’t care about her.”
“Right,” I said with a nod. He didn’t care. I was reading into every little thing he did, and that needed to stop. Creeping to the door, I opened it a crack and peered around the frame. The hall looked deserted. If we were going to make a break for it, now was our chance. I waved to Ben. “Come on.”
He shook his head, skin slightly pale and eyes alternating between Kiernan and me. His hand rested atop his stomach and, judging from the expression on his face, there was a good chance he was going to be sick. “You go ahead. I think I’ll wait here for the cops.”
Kale moved toward him. “If you don’t start moving toward the door, Supremacy will be the very least of your problems.”
I grabbed Ben’s arm and pulled while giving Kale the stink eye. “What he means to say is the cops won’t get here in time. If you don’t come with us now, there won’t be a later to worry about. Trust me on this; we’re trying to help you.” I’d done the hardass routine with Ashley, and she ended up dead. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. “Please, Ben. Trust us.”
His eyes widened, then kind of glossed over. Suddenly his breath came in short, shallow pants. “The bloody people. That’s who you’re talking about?”
I had no clue what he meant, but I nodded with great enthusiasm. I would have told him Santa Claus was real and rented an apartment with the Easter Bunny in sunny California if it got him moving. “Yes. Bloody people. Bloody people who want to kill you.”
Technically I wasn’t lying to him.
Ben’s expression was a mask of utter panic, but he followed me to the door and out into the hall. Before starting forward, I gave Kale a neener-neener grin and couldn’t help the spike of happy I felt when his lip twitched in amusement.
We were a few feet from the end of the hall when an angry voice came from behind. “What the— Stop!”
A quick peek over my shoulder told me the security guard I’d sent to the office had returned. He stood in the doorway of the room with his radio out, presumably to call for backup. “Great,” I snapped, pushing Ben forward. “Just great.”
As the three of us wove our way through the crowd, trying hard to stay at its thickest to avoid detection, I dialed Mom. “Please tell me you’re almost here,” I huffed when she answered. In the background, a horn blew and Dax’s muffled curse, along with the distant squeal of breaks against blacktop, rang out.
“About ten minutes away,” she replied. “Why? What happened?”
“We had a little hiccup.” Beside me, Ben kept pace, but he didn’t look good. Sweat beaded against his brow, and his eyes darted back and forth. He’d wrapped both arms around himself like he was terrified to touch anyone and had started whispering incoherent things under his breath. I couldn’t catch much of what he said, but I did hear the words spike, death, harpoon, and space. “Actually, it’s more like a stinky butt burp than a hiccup.”
Mom groaned. “Can you make it outside? We’ll pull up right in front.”
I looked to Kale for confirmation. “Front door?”
He shook his head. “Blocked by security.”
A quick look over my shoulder showed more guards fanning out to canvass the room. They were getting closer. “I’ll have to call you back,” I barked and ended the call, almost dropping the cell. “If we can get someplace out of the way, I can try mimicking us and we can walk right out the front.”
“No,” Kale said. “Three people? That will take too much out of you.”
Of course it would. Focus, Dez! Focus.
It was stupid, considering the situation we were currently in, but I froze, staring at him like he’d just spouted the lyrics to a Powerman 5000 song in ancient Greek. “What?”
“You’ve already mimicked yourself twice in the last hour. The attendant and the police officer. You won’t be able to change all three of us and walk out of here on your own. If I have to carry you it will attract too much attention.”
When my brain was functioning on all cylinders, I knew that, but memory-impaired Kale didn’t. I’d never told him. “How did you—”
“My head,” Ben said, stopping short and crouching low to the ground. We were in the middle of the crowd, and several people slowed to stare. “My head is going to float away!”
“Oh, shit.” The guard said they restrained Ben during the flight because he’d become delusional and violent.
“Is…is he okay?” a tall woman asked, pulling her small child behind her. The boy wouldn’t be pushed aide, though. He shrugged her off and pulled back the legs of her pants to get a better look at Ben.
“Yeah, he’s fine. He just doesn’t—”
“They’re inside my head!” he cried, curling tight on the floor.
People didn’t pass slowly anymore. They stopped. The woman jumped back, startled, and pulled her son into the crowd as others joined her.
With each word, Ben’s voice grew louder and louder, overcoming the noise of the terminal. “Inching their way through my gray matter and trying to eat out my eyes!”
“What’s he talking about?” Kale asked, trying to drag him off the floor. But Ben kept going limp, folding like overcooked spaghetti.
“He’s having an episode. His symptoms are further along,” I whispered, bending to help Kale pick him up. “Worst timing ever.”
We managed to get Ben upright, but he wasn’t responsive so I kind of panicked. Taking a deep breath, I backhanded him. Sprained my middle finger doing it, too. He stumbled backward into Kale, eyes wide.
“What the hell?” he snapped.
“Seriously?” I blinked down at my hand. “That actually worked?” Huh. Chalk one up for melodrama in Hollywood!
Kale grabbed my shoulders and spun me toward the door. “They’ve seen us.”
They had us surrounded—at least five at our back and three in front. Kale on one side of Ben and me on the other, we dashed forward.
Agents hovered around the edges biding their time, and security charged full-speed ahead. Typical Denazen. Let someone else jump in and get their hands dirty while they waited on the sidelines to swoop in. There wasn’t much time to think, much less get out of their path. We separated, Kale tugging Ben to the right and around a large pillar to avoid two of the men coming at our front. The third was on me.
The crowd shrank back, giving us a wide berth as a collective gasp rolled through the room. Kale decked one guard square in the head and sent him crumbling to the floor as the other made an inelegant swipe Kale easily danced away from.
Kale was fine. He had Ben, and he’d make sure he stayed safe. I needed to focus on the guard flying toward me. I waited until he was several feet away, speed never decreasing, before bending low like Mom had shown me in one of our training sessions. I angled my shoulder just below his waist and jumped up with every ounce of strength I had. The movement sent him flying headfirst over my shoulder to the ground.
I stopped for a second, shocked it’d actually worked. I’d tried it several times on Dax, and the most I’d managed was a sprained shoulder and a ton of embarrassment. My lips twisted into a goofy grin, thrilled over my accomplishment, before I realized I was doing it again. Losing focus. But it was too late. One of the guards came running up from behind and thre
w his arms around my torso, pinning both arms stiff at my sides. Head back in the game, I didn’t hesitate. In one of our training sessions, Dax showed me a trick to throw an opponent off balance. I drew my knees up, forcing the guard to support all my weight as well as his own. He didn’t anticipate it, and the move sent him teetering—as planned—and stumbling forward.
We hit the ground in a heap and I wriggled free, but he refused to give up. Clutching a handful of hair, he yanked back, and a painful scream built in my throat. I couldn’t remember the last time someone pulled my hair. Kindergarten maybe? And definitely not a guy.
I twisted and kicked out, catching his shoulder with the heel of my sneaker. I couldn’t hear anything above the noise the crowd made—people were screaming and talking all at once—but I felt something give, accompanied by a sickening crunch. The guard released my hair and let out a scream that would have done an opera singer proud.
“Oh, man. I’m seriously sorry,” I said as I scrambled to my feet. He was just doing his job, and I felt bad. He didn’t understand what was going on.
The Denazen agents, on the other hand, did.
I made it to the edge of the crowd as they closed in. Four of them, one approaching from each corner of the mob.
“Everyone calm down,” the one to my right called out and the crowed hushed. “We’re Homeland Security. We’ve got this under control.”
Homeland Security? Were people really that stupid?
The crowd shrank back ever farther, quieting, and I had my answer. Yes. Yes they were.
The agents came within four feet, and the one who had addressed the crowd spoke in a voice only loud enough for me to hear. “Where’s Ben Simmons?”
“Ben Simmons,” I said, tapping my chin. “Simmons. Hmm. Doesn’t ring a bell. What’s he look like? Is he hot?”
“Don’t play games, little girl,” he growled. “Simmons is dangerous. You’re not doing yourself any favors by helping him.”
I shrugged. “I like danger.”
“Do you?” He took a step closer, grin stretching to remind me of a freaky clown I’d seen as a child. Good thing Kale wasn’t seeing this. He hated clowns. “Do you like pain as well? This is your last chance. Tell me where Ben Simmons is.”
I was about to tell him to check all the spots the sun didn’t shine when a woman from the crowd let out a horrific shriek. Everyone’s attention went from me to the front of the room. I didn’t see it at first and wondered what the big deal was as the crowd scampered to either side of the room like the floor was on fire. But when I did, I was filled with an even mixture of fear and elation.
On the other end of the room, crouched low by the door, was Kale. Moving away from him—and speeding toward us—was a dark, churning thing just below the tile floor. It reached the brim of the crowd and separated into four distinct trails, zooming around me and settling beneath each agent.
As an entire room full of fearful Nixes watched, the agents exploded into puffs of dust, sending the crowd into a crazed panic. Suddenly the door—the place we needed to get to—was the place everyone wanted to get to. The entire room rushed the exit, screams erupting. One woman behind me shrieked something about aliens, while a younger man called out a warning about terrorists.
Seriously?
I didn’t know how we were going to explain what happened, but I wasn’t worried at that moment. One disaster at a time. I propelled myself from the building, along with the crowd, and made a beeline for Dax’s waiting car.
21
Ginger hobbled around the table and set the glass of water down in front of Ben. “Feeling better?”
He grabbed the glass with both hands but didn’t bring it to his lips. Instead, he sat there staring over the rim of the cup, mouth open slightly like he expected the liquid to boil and fizz.
“Mr. Simmons?” Ginger tried again, taking the seat across from him.
At the mention of his name, he started, looking up from the glass and flashing us an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I’ve been having a hard time focusing lately.”
“That’s the drug,” I said, tapping the side of my head. “Same thing’s been happening to me.”
Ginger didn’t say anything, but Mom’s head swiveled like a woman possessed. “What?”
“It only just started,” I admitted, focusing back on Ben—I didn’t like the look on her face. Somewhere between fear and anger. Now wasn’t about me. This was about Ben. “What else is different?”
We’d been sitting at the table in the kitchen for the last two hours now. By the time we arrived back at the cabin, Ben was calm and seemed to be more himself again. He’d wanted to rest, saying he felt wiped, but Ginger had to explain things while he was lucid. We didn’t know how long it would last, and if there was any chance he could help things along for Kale, we needed to find out while there was still time.
Ben must have decided the water was safe because he lifted the glass and took a tentative sip. I got the impression he didn’t like being the center of attention because he kept his head down, not looking any of us directly in the eye.
“When I was a kid, I found I could see into people’s heads. Not hear their thoughts or anything like that, but I could get a peek into things that had happened to them. Like, events and stuff.”
“Like memories?” I asked, hopeful.
He took another sip and nodded. “I broke this model my dad kept in his office. Some scale replica of his favorite car. My mom found out. Of course, she planned to tell him when he got home that night and I was terrified. My dad was hardcore. I wanted nothing more than to make her forget the whole thing.”
Ginger leaned back in her chair. “And she did?”
Ben’s gaze rose from the glass. He didn’t look directly at her but focused on the table in front of where she was sitting. “It was like it’d never happened. When Dad came home he found the car in pieces on his desk and flipped. We’re talking nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl—but Mom had no idea what had happened to it. They had this huge fight. I felt guilty and somehow, I gave her memory to him.” Ben snapped his fingers. “Just like that, he knew everything.”
Kale sat at the end of the table, away from the others, watching Ben intently. He hadn’t said anything to anyone since we’d arrived, and vice versa. Truthfully, I think everyone was a little nervous having him at the cabin in his current state. Mom kept sneaking glances his way, hopeful and cautious, while Dax was less subtle. Thankfully Alex was nowhere to be seen. The last thing we needed right now was his snarky barbs and digs.
“A few months ago, I found that not only could I take and transplant memories, I had access to everything. Emotions, reflexes—there was this bully at my little brother’s school. For the big stuff I need to make physical contact, but for little stuff I just need to be in the same general area.” He laughed. “I made the kid piss himself.”
He was talking about a little kid so I shouldn’t have found it funny—but I did. Plus, he was a bully. I hated bullies. “So you’re saying it’s kind of like mind control?”
“I guess you could look at it that way, but it still revolves around memories. For that kid, I made him remember a time he had to take a leak—badly.”
I started to ask about Ben’s parents, but Kale finally spoke up. “The memories you steal—are they gone? Can you return them?”
“Steal is the wrong word, man. I don’t really take them. Think of my ability as a copy machine. I make a copy and black out the original. I can unblock the original or wipe it out completely.”
Kale stood. “Try.”
Ben actually looked up and met Kale’s gaze. The poor guy took one look, jumped from the seat, and visibly paled. “You want me to wipe your head clean?”
“That’s not what he means,” I interjected. “Someone else messed with his head. We were hoping there was something you could do to help him. Maybe unblock what they blocked.”
He relaxed some and sank back into the chair. “I’m sure I can figure out what they did, bu
t I’m not one hundred percent sure I can fix someone else’s work.”
“Would you be willing to try?” Mom asked. She motioned for Kale to come forward and pointed to the empty seat beside Ben. “Please?”
Ben didn’t look too sure of himself, but he nodded.
Kale hesitated, like moving closer to the group might be some trick, but finally relented, eager for Ben to work his magic. “What do I need to do?”
Ben twisted so he faced Kale. He looked uncomfortable, and when he spoke, his voice had a slight wobble to it. “I guess just relax. Try to clear your mind.”
The room held its breath as Ben pressed his right hand across Kale’s forehead and closed his eyes. Moments ticked by, feeling like an eternity. Even Kale was restless, tapping the fingers of his right hand against the tabletop. One. Two. Three. One Two. Three.
“Wow,” Ben breathed, eyes still closed. “Who did this?”
“What did they do?” I was out of my seat and around the table, hovering over Kale in the blink of an eye. “What can you see?”
Eyes still closed, his lips twisted into a confused scowl. “It’s a little hard to decipher. I think… Wait. Say something, Dez.”
“Huh?”
“Talk. Anything. Working with a theory here. Just speak.”
“Um, okay,” I said. “Is this a good theory or a bad one?”
Ben’s hand slipped from Kale’s head, and he opened his eyes. Kale did the same. “Well?”
“It’s like burned pea soup in there, man.”
“That’s not encouraging,” Kale growled. His fingers stilled, wrapping tightly around the edge of the table until his knuckles went white. “And it also doesn’t tell me anything.”
“When I peek into someone’s head, any memories I see usually have this kind of faint glow. Like a backlight.”
“A halo?” I asked.
“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Exactly like a halo. So like I was saying, normal memories have this whitish halo. The ones in Kale’s head are dark. Almost black. There are others—the ones with the white glow, too—but they’re dim. Like the dark ones are pushing them out.”