Closed Hearts
Authors: Susan Kaye Quinn
Text copyright © 2012 by Susan Kaye Quinn
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. For information visit
www.susankayequinn.com
Summary: Now that seventeen-year-old Kira Moore has revealed the hidden mindjackers in her mindreading world, she has to fight to keep her family safe from dangerous jackers and evil anti-jacker politicians.
May 2012 Edition
Cover and Interior Design by D. Robert Pease
Edited by Anne Victory
“The worst prison would be a closed heart.” - Pope John Paul II
For my mom,
who has dedicated her life
to breaking people free of their closed hearts.
“Being a fan of dystopian and sci-fi in young adult books this was exactly the type of book I was hoping to fall in love with and absolutely did …YA readers who love authors like Ally Condie, Veronica Roth, Lauren Oliver and others would be missing out if they failed to pick up
Open Minds
by Susan Kaye Quinn. Join Kira on her journey to save her fellow mindjackers and potentially change the landscape of her world forever.”
—
Danielle Smith
, book blogger at
There’s a Book
“Susan plunges readers into a compelling and frightening world where nearly everyone can read minds when they come of age. The very idea makes me shudder. This is easily one of the best books I’ve read not only this year, but in recent years.”
—
Heather McCorkle
, author of
The Secret of Spruce Knoll
“Susan Kaye Quinn’s
Open Minds
is an edge-of-the-seat YA sci-fi, where sixteen-year-old Kira dodges psychological bullets from all sides.”
—
Catherine Stine
, author of
Fireseed One
“This is really a great followup to
Open Minds
. It’s exciting, it advances the plot, it’s heartbreaking, it perfectly sets up the next book, and it pushes Kira into the position of heroine once again…whether she wants to be, or not. There are some truly heart-wrenching scenes in this book and plenty of exciting ones as well. Again, Susan Kaye Quinn knocks my socks off in so many ways, she leaves me breathless. The end of the book was PERFECTION. Frankly, I can’t wait until the next one!”
—
Rhiannon Frater
, author of
As The World Dies
No one called me Kira anymore.
“Lucy, dear.” Mr. Trullite worked hard to think of me as his granddaughter
Lucy
, and lying wasn’t easy for a mindreader. “Would it be possible for you to check on the protesters at the gate? I’d like to know if we’ll have any trouble.” His voice was halting and thick, but it carried in the luxurious quiet of the limousine to the driver up front. Speaking out loud shattered the illusion that I was a mindreader like everyone else, but the driver had seen enough to know I wasn’t a mindreader
or
Mr. Trullite’s granddaughter. He still didn’t suspect who I really was.
Which was a good thing.
“I’m in range now, sir. I’ll check to see if there’s any change from when we left.” Mr. Trullite’s mansion was nearly a quarter mile away along the crazy-rich North Shore, well outside the range of most mindjackers. But that wouldn’t be a problem for me.
I mentally reached for the minds of the protesters camped outside the wrought-iron gate and easily pushed into the soft Jell-O of their minds. They were all mindreaders, waving their banners to protest the export of Trullite Electronics jobs to Canada. Each had their own mind-scent, and the flavors clashed in the back of my throat: wild berry from a radical teen girl; wood shavings from an older factory worker; and a musky smell from the leader. A new protester stood separate from the rest, probably because they couldn’t tolerate his scrambled thoughts. Dipping into his mind was like riding the Tilt-A-Whirl at Six Flags, and his mind-scent burned with the peppermint taste of someone driven mad by the change into a mindreader at adolescence. In the city, there were lots of demens that roamed the streets instead of being locked up in a demens ward, but it was unusual to find one here in the suburbs of Chicago New Metro.
Just what I needed. No sense in alarming the boss, though.
“The protesters are still there, Mr. Trullite. No jackers, though.” I could easily mindjack the demens guy if I had to—it wouldn’t be difficult so much as unpleasant—but a mindjacker would be a lot worse. It had been a while since I’d tangled with another jacker, and I was out of practice. I hoped to stay that way.
I smoothed my hands down my tailored dress pants, and the seats adjusted to give me a mechanical hug as I sat taller. The fabric of the seats was like silk, if silk warmed to your touch and rippled like water when you moved. The not-quite-realness of the fabric matched the fake stone lantern by the limo door and the holographic koi pond below our feet. The scent of rainwater wafted through the spacious interior, too fresh to be the water exhaust from the hydro engine.
Mr. Trullite sipped tea from a delicate white cup trimmed in gold, then set it down on the bamboo tray between us. “What about the gentlemen joining us today?” He meant the trio of high-powered executives in the limo behind us, along with my dad and two of Mr. Trullite’s bodyguards. They were coming to the estate to negotiate a big business deal. “Are you sure there are no lurking mindjackers? This merger is important, and I want to make sure we’re not unduly influenced on either side.”
“I’m sure, Mr. Trullite,” I said. “Besides, my—I mean Mr. O’Reilly—would have already alerted us if there was a problem.” My dad had changed his name too. He couldn’t be Officer Patrick Moore of Naval Intelligence anymore, not with a famous mindjacker for a daughter. I skimmed the minds of the executives again, just to give Mr. Trullite a heads-up. “Although the skinny guy in the seat next to him is planning on robbing you blind in the…” I plucked the term from his mind. “…securities package transfer exchange.”
“Yes, I know.” His thoughts drifted to the delicate mental dance he would perform to secure the merger deal.
I could easily jack the executives to do whatever Mr. Trullite wanted, but he had never asked me to influence a business deal. When he hired my dad and me, he made it clear he wanted mindguard security, not jackworkers to mind control his business partners. And when the jacker clan attacked our home in Gurnee, Mr. Trullite offered to create our own personal witness-protection program, with a move to Libertyville and new identities for my family—it was Mr. Trullite’s idea for the granddaughter cover story. He seemed like a guardian angel sent to protect us from the fallout of telling the world that mindjackers existed.
As we closed in on the compound, the driver focused his thoughts on the mindware interface to switch the limo off autopath. We slowed down, waiting for the gate to open. The protesters surged forward and pounded the hood and darkened windows. The demens guy’s scraggly face smashed against the flexiglass next to Mr. Trullite, who flinched and leaned away. I reflexively jacked into the demens guy’s head, but the gibberish and rage swirling through his thoughts made me gag. I quickly knocked him out, and the man’s eyes rolled back as he slimed down the window, leaving a trail of saliva from his gaping mouth. I heard him thump the ground, even through the limousine’s shock-absorbent paneling.
I bit my lip, wishing I had jacked him to walk away instead, but it got the job done. Mr. Trullite straightened his high-collared shirt, and the limo whispered forward so smoothly it didn’t even ripple the surface of his half-filled teacup. I scrambled to jack the other protesters to pull the demens guy out of the limo’s path.
Once inside the compound, I took a position flanking Mr. Trullite while he waited on the granite entranceway steps to welcome his guests to the mansion. The second limo pulled up, its bullet-diffusive armor shimmering purple in the late afternoon sun. The bodyguards climbed out first, muscles bulging under their custom navy jackets. They radiated hostile thoughts in my direction, as usual. They didn’t like having mindguards among them, certainly not a girl who was barely seventeen and looked about as terrifying as a kitten.