Damage (23 page)

He looks afraid, but not of me. He’s afraid of something else, something—

“I would do anything to protect my daughter,” he says.

Dani sucks in a breath.

That son of a bitch. That lousy son of a bitch. No wonder those men at the hospital disappeared. They must have known that Dani’s dad was on the job and we’d be delivered right into their hands by the end of the day. Way back in the woods, where no one will care how many times they fire their weapons or how loud we scream.

“Dad, no.” Dani cringes as far away from her dad as her seat belt will allow. “What have you done? What—”

“Listen. You have to listen.” Dr. Connor ignores Dani, his eyes all on me. “You seem to have feelings for my daughter. If you really care about her, then you have—”

“You don’t know what I feel! You—Shit!” I slam my fists into the back of my seat. The car suddenly feels too small. I need room to move, to rage, to work out the betrayal squirming inside of me before I smash this bastard’s face in.

I grab the door and open it only to slam it shut again with a growl. There isn’t time to get out and punch at a bunch of trees. We have to get out of here. We have to get off this isolated road and headed for someplace the people after us won’t think to look. But where?

I rack my brain, trying to think of the best way out. It’s hours back to the main highway and what if we run into Agent Bullock or the Man in Gray on the way? They have to know this is where we’re headed. But I have no idea how far this road goes on from here, or if there’s a border crossing station when it finally runs into Canada, or if we’ll be able to get
across
the border without passports if there—

“Please,” Dani’s dad says. “Please. Just keep driving.”

I laugh, a nasty sound I don’t bother trying to keep inside. “You’re insane.” I reach for the gearshift, but freeze when something cold and hard presses against the base of my skull.

“Keep driving north, Jesse. Make the turn into the Evergreen Retreats and find cabin thirteen.” Dr. Connor keeps the gun tight against my head. “Or I will shoot you. These people already have some of the others. They don’t care if you come to them dead or alive. I’d rather not kill you, but in the end … that’s your choice.”

My choice. As if this man has ever given me a choice.

Dani

My dad is a bad guy. My dad is a bad guy. My dad is a bad guy.
The litany thrums dumbly through my head as Jesse shifts the car into drive. I can’t make sense of it, can’t believe that my bicycle-riding, organic-food-eating, “I refuse to use a cell phone because technology is bad for the brain” dad has really pulled a gun from his coat pocket and plans to deliver Jesse and me to the people who’ve been hunting us.

It’s only after Jesse eases the car back onto the road—moving us closer to the other bad guys waiting at the end of the ride—that I remember how to speak.

“Dad, please. Put the gun down,” I say. “You can’t do this.”

“I’m sorry, Dani.” He sounds like he really
is
sorry, even as his finger whitens on the trigger. I can see the indecision twitching around his jaw. He’s thinking about putting a bullet in Jesse’s brain, whether that might be easier than letting him live.

Dad likes things easy. It’s why he dumped Mom and married a relentlessly upbeat, old-fashioned woman like Penny who devotes herself to him when he’s home but doesn’t care if he’s really married to his job. It’s why I’ve done my best to fly under his radar, to be the good girl who gets good grades and doesn’t make trouble. I didn’t want to live with Mom, and a part of me knew that Dad would only keep me with him if I was easy.

Jesse isn’t easy. At all.

The sour taste of fear rushes into my throat. “Don’t do it, Dad. Don’t shoot him! I’ll kill you if you do, I swear to God I will.”

“No, Dani. You’re not going to hurt anyone,” he says, turning to me with tears shining in his eyes. “I’m not going to let them turn you into something you’re not. There’s no way to reverse the changes in your DNA, but we’ll find a way to put you back into remission. We’ll get your head on straight and—”

“My head
is
on straight.” Anger burns brighter than my fear. My hands ball into fists I’m not sure I know what to do with. With Vince, sure, but with my dad … Can I really hit him? Can I risk the chance that lashing out at him might make his finger squeeze a little tighter? “Dad. This is murder. Think about it.”

“We’ll start a new life somewhere, just you and me, far away from everything,” he says, ignoring me the way he always has. “Maybe South America. Or Alaska. You said you wanted to go to Alaska and see the whales, when you were little. Do you remember that?”

“I’m not going to Alaska. I’m not going anywhere with you. I won’t let you do this to Jesse!”

“I don’t have a choice.” The hopeful note in Dad’s voice withers and dies. “They were going to take you both. The only way I could keep you safe is to give them all my research on the Dream Project and a test subject.” His gun twitches to the right and then back again. “Turn up there. Just after the sign.”

“Jesse is not a
test subject
. He’s a person. Please, listen to yourself. You—”

“Danielle, don’t—”

“And I love him, Dad.” The car slows. Jesse looks at me. The barrel of Dad’s gun now presses right up against his cheek. “I love him,” I repeat, staring into those bright, clear eyes that let me right into the heart of him. I know that he feels the same way. He loves me too, no matter how crazy it seems to fall so hard for someone you barely know.

But I feel like I’ve known Jesse forever, like I’ve been waiting for him my entire life. He’s what was missing when I lay awake in the dark, wondering if I was crazy, praying that someone would see the monster that came in the night. He’s the only person who knows what that feels like, the only person who has ever believed in my weakness and my strength and made me believe that I’m tough enough to fight back. With Jesse, I know that I can banish the nightmares and become something more than a damaged person ruled by fear.

Without him …

I can’t imagine life without him. I
won’t
imagine it.

“Stop this, Dad. This is the last time I’m going to ask.”

It’s all I can do not to reach for the gun and pull it from his hand. But what if he shoots Jesse before I can get it? The thought of losing Jesse, of those blue eyes closing forever, is more terrifying than anything. More terrifying than dying of diabetes, more terrifying than Rachel and her mouth full of blood.

Rachel.

“Keep driving.” Dad’s sole focus is the gun trained on Jesse’s neck. “Turn here.”

My throat gets tighter and tighter as Jesse pulls down the dirt road. Evergreens grow thick on both sides, pressing in on the car, smothering the last of my options. This is it. Dad has given me no choice. I can’t let him do this, I can’t let him bring us a second closer to cabin thirteen and the people waiting to take Jesse away.

Rachel. Rachel!
I scream her name in my mind, willing her to show herself. I imagine her shining hair, her mean little eyes. She came to me when I needed her in the hospital.

Still, I’m shocked when she winks into sight above my dad’s shoulder. I’m even more shocked by how
happy
I am to see her. After so many years of dreading her appearance, it feels wrong to be grateful to see that gaping red mouth, those cunning hands that reach out to flick Dad’s collar.

Dad jumps and turns to look over his shoulder. His finger tightens on the trigger, making my heart surge into my throat.
If you make him hurt Jesse, you will never come out to play again.

Rachel sticks out her tongue.
Who says I like to play, stupid? I’m not a baby anymore.

You love to play, and I know the games you like best.

I meet Dad’s eyes, trying to remember his face, some part of me certain this will be the last time I’ll ever see it. No matter how many horrible things I’ve found out about him in the past few hours, tears still sting the backs of my eyes and my voice trembles as I say, “Good-bye.”

Really? Daddy dearest?
Rachel’s giggle ties her words up with a bow.

“Danielle, don’t even think about getting out of this car,” Dad warns. “Stay right there.” I don’t answer, just blink, sending tears running down my cheeks.

Get the gun and get him out of the car. Hurt him as much as you have to,
I tell Rachel.
But don’t kill him … unless there’s no other choice.

Ah, not fair. You never let me kill anything!
Rachel wrinkles her nose, but I can see the excitement dancing in her eyes.

Seconds later, she has Dad’s wrist in her fists. She jerks his hand toward the ceiling before wrenching it in a sharp circle. I hear the snap of cracking bone and the gun falls to the seat as Dad starts to scream, a raw, tortured sound that rips at things inside of me. He’s in horrible pain. It’s clear in every tight line of his body, in his clawed hands, pale face, wide wailing mouth.

And it’s my fault.
I
am doing this.
I
broke my dad’s wrist and now I’m slamming his head into the car door, again and again, wringing more pitiful cries from his throat every time his skull collides with the leather-covered metal.

I’m not consciously telling Rachel what to do—which bones to break, how many times to bash Dad’s head before throwing open the car door—but I’m in control. If what Dad told us is true, my mind—or my messed-up immune system, or
something
inside of me—made Rachel. She’s a part of me, a deadly, awful part that laughs as she hurls my father out onto the ground, sending blood spraying across the white snow.

“Call her off, Dani.” Jesse lunges over the seat, grabbing the door Rachel opened and slamming it closed. “You’ll hate yourself if you kill him.”

“I told her not to kill him,” I whisper, wiping at the tears rushing down my face. “I just … I don’t think I can stop her.” I watch Rachel grab fistfuls of Dad’s hair and lift him like he weighs less than the dolls we once played with together. She hurls him deeper into the forest. He hits a tree trunk and slides into the snow, but there isn’t time for him to regain his feet before Rachel has skipped over to greet his face with her fist. I can feel how full she still is—full of hate and anger and the need to punish this man for playing God. “She’s not finished.”

Jesse cups my cheek and gently turns my face toward him. “She’s finished when you say she’s finished.” His eyes meet mine, penetrating the fog. “You’re the boss, right?”

I nod. His touch makes me stronger, the way it has since the second I sat down next to him on the bus this morning, back when I was a semi-normal girl feeling anxious about being abandoned by my best friend.

Now my best friend is dead along with half my school, and my dad threatened to kill the boy I love right in front of me. Anger—white hot and pure in its intensity—flares inside me again. It isn’t Rachel who isn’t finished.
I’m
not finished. A part of me wants Rachel to keep hitting Dad until he hurts more, until he pays a bigger price, maybe the ultimate price. But the rest of me knows Jesse is right.

I want to get away from the scary people. I don’t want to become one.

I turn back to Rachel, focusing on her flying fists, willing her to stop. After one last blow—a punch to the face that sends Dad arcing through the air to land on his back—she does. She wipes her hands on her clothes, smearing bloody fingerprints over her softly rounded belly like a kid who’s just finished a messy piece of pizza.

But that red turning black against the fabric of her dress isn’t pizza sauce.

Way yummier than pizza sauce.
Rachel lifts a finger to her mouth and licks.

For a moment, I swear I can taste the metallic flavor of my father’s blood on my tongue. I gag, dry heaving as my hands fly to cover my mouth.
Go away! You’re done. Go away!

Now who’s the baby?
she asks. But when I open my eyes, she’s gone, vanished into the cold air. A few feet away from where she stood, my dad pushes up onto his hands and knees and lifts his swollen face to watch Jesse drive away.