False Memory (16 page)

Her words hang in the air. I know what it feels like to say them.

Noah gave her the vial. It should’ve been enough. Maybe too much time elapsed since she was the last to see Conlin; maybe her metabolism burns hotter; maybe using her fear to guide us in the forest was too taxing.

“She was the last one Conlin saw,” Noah says softly, barely shaking his head. “She was the last one to get a real shot.”

“But how long were we asleep for?” I say. “How long did she go between shots?”

“
I don’t know
. I don’t know. It was close. Sometimes . . .”

“Sometimes
what
?”

His lower lip trembles, and for a second I think he might cry. But he just presses his lips together. “Sometimes Tycast gave her a little extra. Her body temp was higher, he said.”

My stomach flips and I think I’m going to throw up. When I thought she was doing a superb acting job...she wasn’t. She truly had no clue. And I knew it, too, deep down, but I told myself it was the stress that made her different.

I remember the look in her eyes when she confessed her love for Noah...

All of that gone now. She doesn’t know us. She’s in the same place I was. Or worse, because I had Peter to guide me.

It’s not fair. That’s all I feel. This pervading sense of injustice. For her, for all of us.

Then again, what if it’s another trick?

It could be Nicole, Beta team’s version of Olive. Instantly I harden. It’s so much easier than actually feeling something.

I keep my finger tight on the trigger, and my rifle tight against my side, not quite raised, but not lowered either.

“You gave her the vial, right?” I ask Noah.

“I watched her take it,” he says. His gun points at the ground. Sloppy.

In a blur, Rhys pulls the long revolver off his waist. I prepare to fire, to squeeze just another fraction, but his gun points between me and Noah. He fires a single shot. Behind me, a helmeted soldier falls on his face in the street.

My trigger finger relaxes a millimeter.

“A little warning next time?” I say. I don’t mention how I almost shot him on reflex.

“Sorry, go on,” Rhys says.

“Who
are
you?” I say. Part of me wants to kill him, just for being the reason Noah wanted to “protect” me in the first place. But if he hasn’t killed us yet, maybe he can help.

“That’s a bit complicated. For now, trust that I’m a friend. Otherwise, you’d be dead already, right?”

It’s true. But I can’t rule out some larger game just yet. No way to tell if this is the rogue, or some other version. The speed with which he drew his gun leaves no doubt he’s faster than me
and
Noah.

“Where did you find her?” I say, picturing the map in my head.

“In the care of two of those guard types on the south side. She was using her fear waves until I stopped her.” Rhys slips the gun back into his belt. His left hand rests on the hilt of his sword.

Of course. Olive wouldn’t know what she was doing. She would just follow instructions, thinking it was a real experiment.

Noah’s eyes are wet with tears. His feelings must be familiar; now both of us don’t remember him. Unless enough phantoms of Olive’s love remain inside her, like they do for me. The thought makes me dizzy and sick all over again.

And yet, Rhys could still be lying. He could know where Olive was, where the other version of her was too. There’s no way to be sure. Except to let my guard down...

I lower my weapon all the way. Rhys and Olive don’t make a move, which isn’t conclusive, but it’ll do for now.

“Listen,” Rhys says. “While I’d love to introduce myself properly, I’m afraid one of your friends is in danger. Peter.”

“Where is he?” I say. The dizziness evaporates.

Rhys tilts his head to the right, south. “He’s being chased by Nicole and Tobias as we speak. Saw them enter the baseball stadium. I came here to gather you, seeing as you were on the—”

I don’t hear the rest because I’m already running. South of Public Square is the arena and stadium, then the highway. I sprint down the empty street, dodging bodies in the road. Some of them are clumped, as if they fell together. Wait—by the freeway ramp a quarter-mile ahead, I see a few survivors standing together calmly enough. With Tobias and Nicole pursuing Peter, I guess the waves have finally abated. Now I just have to keep it that way.

To my right, Noah keeps pace. We move onto the sidewalk and round a corner that brings the stadium into view. We’re at the fence a few seconds later. I leap onto it and pull myself up, then jump off the top and land on my feet. We’re at the left field entrance of the stands. A quick jog to the railing reveals the entire field, and the timing couldn’t be worse. All I can think about is how if Rhys had told me about Peter a minute earlier, I might’ve been able to help.

Peter stands alone on the pitcher’s mound, holding a staff in both hands. In front of him, closer to second base, is Tobias. Behind Peter is Nicole, the girl Olive fought in the forest. They move in like closing jaws, as Peter raises the staff. He spins and twirls and whips the staff back and forth, but he’s outnumbered. They have four striking points total, while he works with two. Nicole snaps her staff behind Peter’s knee, buckling it to the dirt. Peter barely blocks a downward strike aimed for his head.

“
Peter!
” I scream. All three look. Peter uses the distraction to shove his staff point into Tobias’s neck. Nicole strikes him between the shoulder blades.

The staff slips from Peter’s grasp.

I run down the aisle, preparing to leap from the stands to the field. Noah is right beside me. Then, the familiar background buzz of a helicopter grows louder as one crests the stadium wall behind right field. The black helicopter swoops low over the grass and rotates, showing us its side. In the open door a soldier sits behind a minigun. I see the orange flash and throw myself against the barricade at the bottom of the stands. Behind me, chairs splinter and snap into shards, filling the air with hot powdered plastic. Noah lands hard next to me, hands covering his face.

“Are you okay?” I shout. The minigun is deafening, filling up the stadium with its terrible whine.

“I’m fine! Can you see Peter?” Noah shouts back.

The stream of bullets sweeps across the stands, away from me, and I’m safe to peek for a moment. The helicopter touches down on first base. Peter slumps between Tobias and Nicole, who hold him upright and carry him toward the waiting helo. His feet drag on the dirt. My ears ring. I stand up and scream with all the air in my lungs. Tobias turns around like he can hear me, but it’s impossible over the roar of the helicopter. I see the white of his smile. Then everyone is inside, and the helicopter takes off, rising across the stadium and out of sight.

Now the stadium is eerily quiet, just the muted drone of sirens far away. I stare at the pitcher’s mound, the grooves his feet made in the dirt, and overlay Peter in my mind. Watch him spin the staff in his expert hands.

Noah’s hand on my shoulder startles me. “We’ll get him back,” he says.

“Now
that
is unfortunate,” an already familiar voice says behind me.

I turn and stalk toward Rhys, who looks somber even though his tone is all snark. I try to punch him but he deflects with the edge of his forearm, puts his other hand on my throat and shoves me backward. Noah catches me before I can fall on my butt. He helps me upright.

“That was rude,” Rhys says. Olive hops the fence behind him and walks toward us.

Noah moves like he’s going to attack, but I grab his arm, if only to save him the embarrassment. It’s sweet he wants to protect my honor, but Rhys has us outmatched. And besides, he’s not our enemy.

I keep my voice steady. “Why didn’t you tell us right away? We could’ve made it before the helicopter.”

“Or got caught on the field, mowed down by the large machine gun. Either way, I’m glad they took him.”

“Why?”
Noah says.

Rhys smiles, and I want to punch it right off his face. “Because I know where he’s going. And now we share a goal.”

What goal?” I say.

Rhys begins climbing the fence. “The end of the creators and their work. If you want your Peter back, you’ll help me destroy them. I’ll tell you more when we’re less exposed.”

I remind myself he’s the rogue. Not to be trusted. He had no way of knowing they would capture Peter, not kill him. It makes sense for them to keep Peter alive, but Rhys couldn’t be
sure
. “Why should we trust you?” I say.

Rhys heaves himself over the side and lands in a crouch, where he stays, scanning the empty street. “Because you need me, and I need you.”

He turns around, putting his back to the street. “I’m from the original Alpha team. I said hold the questions, all right?”

The original Alpha team. I turn the phrase around in my head. So he’s a Rose, but not a copy of anyone from the Alpha and Beta I know. Not sure what that makes him, besides a rogue.

“Excuse me,” Olive says, hands on her hips. “I’m done following you guys until someone tells me what the hell is going on.”

No one speaks.

“Really? That’s great. Because first I wake up in a plastic cube with three people I don’t know, and then this guy”—she points at Rhys—“is telling me we’re all super soldiers with the ability to inflict psychic fear on others.”

“That’s pretty much it, yeah,” Noah says.

Olive raises her eyebrows. “So, what, you’re a fellow psychic soldier?”

Noah shrugs, but his face doesn’t match the gesture. “You could say that. And now the people who raised us want to enslave us, and...we’re not sure what they want to do.”

Two gunshots echo off buildings in the distance. Rhys shakes his head and begins to walk off. “Fine, stay in the street, wait till they come scoop you up with a helicopter too.”

“We follow him?” Noah asks me. To Olive he says, “Will you stay with us? I can explain more, but please don’t go.” Olive swallows, nods. “I’ll hold you to that.”

We take off at a light jog through the empty streets, passing a few stragglers too disoriented to get in much trouble. We check nearly every body for a pulse, but there are fewer and fewer the farther we move away, and some are so trampled it’s obvious they’re dead.

We pass burning cars and empty storefronts. Glass scattered over the street. The scent of roses is gone, but who knows how long it will be until people return. I wonder what they felt, what they saw. What terrors their mind showed them.

We run the entire distance, but not fast enough to blur the death and ruin.

Rhys has a luxury apartment on the Cuyahoga River, which curls around the west side of Cleveland. The building is tall and made of blue glass. I’m breathing hard by the time we get there.

“How can you afford to live here?” I say as we approach the massive glass doors. The bulk of downtown is to my right, empty and silent. Two black helicopters circle the city, the same kind that picked up Peter. I think it’s a good idea to seek cover.

“It’s amazing what you can rent with a down payment,” Rhys says. His carefree attitude grates on me. He’s obviously not blind to the destruction around us, and if this is his way of dealing with it, well, that says something about him. I’m too tired to figure out what, exactly.

He opens the door and holds it for us. I know none of us feels comfortable going inside, but there isn’t much of a choice. We ride an elevator that looks over the flat, gray river. Rhys’s condo is on the top floor. He ushers us into one big room with a vaulted ceiling. The far wall is made entirely of glass, providing a huge, wide view of the river and the city.

“Don’t think I indulged,” Rhys says. “I chose this apartment because it’s the last place the creators would look.”

He’s probably right. My instincts would be to go to ground, not settle down in the open.

“Where’s your medical kit?” Noah says to Rhys.

Rhys lifts one blond eyebrow. “You hurt?”

“Where is the kit?”

“Bathroom, below the sink. Just down the hall.”

Noah takes my arm. I’m too weak to fight when he guides me into the bathroom and shuts the door. Everything is made of creamy marble. The lights are a little too bright.

“What are you doing?”

“Crack your suit, please,” Noah says, bending down to pull out the kit.

Then I remember. The knife wound in my back. I turn away from him and pull at the suit near the nape of my neck. It splits open, and Noah is all business. His gently pushes the suit off my shoulders and I cross my arms over my chest, even though I’m facing away from him. I look at his face in the mirror as he studies my back.

“It’s not too deep. Stitches will work, but you’ll need a tetanus shot and some antibiotics to be safe.”

“Whatever,” I say. It’s not his fault I’m hurt; I just want him to get it over with.

“Excuse me?”

I don’t want to get in another argument. I don’t want to see his hurt puppy dog eyes and hear his apologies. It should be Peter here stitching me up. It should be Peter scolding me, telling me I should’ve been more careful.

Yet, if Noah never changed my shots, this would make sense.

If, that night on the train, I had told Noah I didn’t trust him. Told him to purge any crazy thoughts he had. Or made him tell me the truth before giving him vague authorization to alter my identity.

That’s when I realize I never loved Noah at all. And he never loved me. He loved some other Miranda, whomever I was before. I’m sure that Miranda loved him, but I’m not her now. I’m someone else.

These echoes of my love for him, they don’t truly belong to this new person I’ve become. Claiming them would be selfish, because Noah obviously still thinks of me as the Girl Before. Who knows how he’ll feel when he realizes she’s long gone.

I tell myself these things to make it easier, but it would help if I could completely believe them. Again I wonder if Olive shares this with me, if she’s destined to fight with shadows of love. Which means I have to keep her secret, assuming Noah has no clue. What good would it do if I told him,
Oh, by the way, Olive? She was in love with you. That’s why she left with you in the first place
.
Thought you should know
.

“Miranda,” he says.

“I didn’t mean it like that. Please just stitch it.”

He kneels down and I feel his fingertips on the small of my back. The sound of his rummaging in the case. The sharp prick of a needle. Again. And again. I bite my already-cracked, already-swollen lower lip. The rhythm of the needle scatters my thoughts, and I feel myself slipping into the past again. You’d think I would be used to this by now....

I’m running in an autumn forest. The sky is cornflower blue, the trees aflame. Feet stir the leaves behind me—I’m being chased. A wide tree ahead has branches ten feet off the ground, bloodred leaves. I run straight for it, then push off the tree and leap, fingers grasping for a branch. Swing myself up. Set my feet. Leap to the next branch. Mechanical, yet graceful, that’s how I have to think of it. See the next action in my mind, then make it a reality.

I kick my heel on the wood to shake free a cloud of leaves. Climb.

The wind buffets the tree, clacking the smaller branches together. Leaves catch in my hair, crackle in my ear. My pursuer is close. I hear his breath, the scrape of his boots on bark. Then I see it.

The neighboring tree is orange and just as big. Its branches mingle with those of my tree. I run down the limb, feet gripping the rough bark easily, then jump to the orange tree. My left foot slips off the smoother bark, making a zipper sound. Without thinking, I hook my right arm over the branch to catch myself. Too slow. My fingernails drag on the bark, then on nothing.

I’m falling. Branches tear into me like teeth; they snag and tear my clothes. The red and orange leaves rush upward like a film reel. I hit the ground hard, touching down with my right heel first. A bone bends, then snaps. Pain lances from my ankle to the top of my head, then down my right arm. I lie in the scattered leaves, groaning, curled on my left side. My ankle weighs a thousand pounds.

Behind me, I hear two boots land on the forest floor. A combination
thump
and
crackle
in the leaves. My pursuer, come to finish me off.

Peter kneels at my spine, places his wide hands on my right arm. He gently eases me on to my back. Leaves tickle the skin beneath my hairline. I look up into his ice-blue eyes, notice they’re the same shade as the sky behind him. Wide with worry.

“Where does it hurt?” he says.

“Everywhere.”

“Come on, Miranda.”

“My ankle.”

The dull pain is now fire, brighter than the trees around me. Peter fishes something from the pocket of his vest.

“Open up,” he says.

I part my lips and he slips a pill between them. I swallow it. His hands roam down my leg tenderly, easing their pressure as he nears my ankle. He touches it with his fingertip. I moan. Squeeze my eyes shut. Hear a knife snap open. Fabric tears. Cool air on my exposed ankle. His warm fingers on the swollen skin. The pill is working now, dulling the pain.

“I have to carry you,” he says.

I suck in a breath. “We’re miles from home.”

“It was my idea to come this far. Tycast is going to kill me for leaving the perimeter.”

The pill works harder. I wiggle my back up the tree until I’m sitting. “I’m not letting you carry me. This was my fault.”

Peter smiles at me while I talk.

“What?” I say.

“I don’t think that pill is going to give you an option.” My mouth falls open. “What was it?”

But I know. I feel the tug on my eyes. My muscles relax. “Why are you so good to me, Peter?”

My head tilts back against the tree. My eyes are too heavy to keep open. I feel the vague sensation of his hands sliding under me, weightlessness as he lifts me up and settles me against his broad chest.

On the edge of sleep, I hear him whisper. “That’s for me to know, and you to never find out.”

I open my eyes, feel the prick of the needle. My ankle tingles. The memory fades slowly, leaving me with an aching emptiness. It couldn’t have come at a worse time—I don’t want to think about how Peter is gone, I want to think about getting him back.

If Noah took notice of me checking out of reality, he doesn’t say so.

“How were you able to get those vials,” I say, the first question that pops into my head, “if they were waiting for you?” I feel the skin tug as he pulls the stitches. 

“I found the crate easily enough. Opened it. Got a handful of vials. Then two hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back. Guys in scuba gear. I managed to elbow one, and there were bubbles everywhere, so I crammed the vials into my mouth. It just

happened to be four.”

Four. But it didn’t matter for Olive, who was unlucky enough to go last in her one-on-one with Dr. Conlin. Makes me wonder how close the rest of us cut it.

He puts his hand on my shoulder and uses me to boost himself up. “All done.”

“Thank you.” I slide my arms through the suit and Noah pushes the self-sealing seam together.

“It was a little different last time I had your shirt off.” 

“You had to say something, didn’t you?” My cheeks and ears burn.

He grins. That same grin. I refuse to smile with Peter still out there, with the city shattered the way it is. “I guess so,” he says.

I pat him on the chest once and leave the bathroom, feeling the stitches tug in my back. But they don’t hinder my movement, and that’s the important thing. The view hasn’t changed at the long floor to ceiling window. The sky is hazy with smoke from dozens of fires.

I turn away. The whole room is wide open—on the left side are leather couches and a TV, on the right a massive dinner table. Between those and farther back is an open kitchen with a marble island. You have to step down to get to the couches.

I put my hand on a couch, not willing to sit down. Rhys is at the island, preparing some kind of meal. Noah sits Olive down on the couch and talks to her in quiet tones, probably telling her more about who we are, like Peter did for me. I stare at Rhys until he looks up. “We’re here now, safe. I think we deserve an explanation.”

He sucks a bit of red sauce from his finger and wrings his hands together in a rag. “Right. What’s your first question?” He leaves the island and walks over to me. His irises are reddish-brown, and I’m struck with the memory of looking in the mirror at Elena’s house. How my eye color had deepened since the mall.

“Who are you?” I say.

“Already answered that. Said I was from Alpha team.”

He cocks his head to the side, looking directly into my eyes.

“C’mere, let me see you.” He grasps both sides of my face, gently, and I fight the urge to pull away.

His eyes narrow; one of his fingers twitches against my cheek. 

“When did you use the machine?” he says, not kindly. 

“What machine?”

“Don’t play with me.” He’s still holding my face. All that easygoing nature has evaporated. “Your eyes have changed from green to red, or didn’t you notice?”

“Let go of her,” Noah says from the couch, injecting false calm into his voice.

“It’s fine,” I say.

Rhys turns me toward the big window, examining me in the better light. “Tell me,” he says.

I speak slowly since he didn’t understand the first time. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Noah stands up. “You have five seconds.”

Rhys looks at him, still holding my face. “Oh, does this bother you?”

“It does.”

Me too, but I won’t pull away. Something has him spooked and I want to know what.

Rhys faces me again, close enough to feel his breath on my cheek. He rubs his rough thumb over my chin. “Say
ah
.” I open my mouth and he says, “Interesting.”

“What?” I say.

“You have exceptionally beautiful teeth.” As Noah takes a step closer, Rhys says, “I could snap her neck, you know. One twist, and she’d be gone.”

“Enough,” I say, refusing to let him scare me. Standing still as a statue in his grasp. “You know where Peter is. Tell me now.”

“I believe you don’t know why your eyes have changed. I can usually tell when someone is lying.”