Legacy (28 page)

The door to Building Four remained locked for the two seconds it took Trevor to pop the inside handle. The air-conditioning hit us like a cold wave—we’d become acclimated to the outdoor heat. A long hallway with light grey walls and granite-colored industrial carpeting spanned the entire building. The faint scent of cleaning chemicals hung in the air.

I felt out with my mind. Four people worked in rooms at the far end. Their thoughts focused on the tables of data on their computer screens and charts of dosage efficacies from clinical trials.

Trevor opened the nearest office and we locked the door behind us. Muted light fell through the slats of the blinds at the window and a layer of dust coated the desktop. The roller feet of an upside-down chair splayed in the air like the legs of a dead insect. We dragged the covering sheet off the burnt-orange couch against the far wall.

Trevor pulled me into his lap as he sat.
Alone at last.

I smiled.
Now what can the two of us possibly do for the next few hours, all alone in a dark room?

He kissed me
. I have a few ideas
.

You read my mind
. Normally, soulmating was something we did—excuse the greeting card sentiment—as an expression of our love. Today, I intended to make my connection to Trevor as strong as possible. I wanted to be able to shield and protect him as much as I could. A smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. If rocking his world as pure energy was the way to keep him safe, so much the better.

He nuzzled my neck.
Ah, the sacrifices we make.

The thought
one last time
seemed to float between us. Neither of us knew who’d put it out there. It added a tender sadness. If anything went wrong—

Trevor captured my eyes with his own.
If anything goes wrong, I’ll meet you on the other side
.

I remembered something that might’ve been from the Bible, a story of a widow who’d remarried several times, and the question of whose wife she’d be in heaven. There was something about how, when we die, we become like the angels—that the connections between people were not based on a sexual bond. That story resonated with me right now. Between Trevor and me, it wasn’t about the
physical
connection. We connected as
souls
. I could believe fully in souls now—I’d felt Trevor’s with mine. If we didn’t survive this physically, I knew we’d still go on somehow—and we’d still be together.

The dusty office fell into the darkness as the energy swelled between us, bright and iridescent, pulling us into a single, pulsing entity. We were one, a shimmering, cascading intensity that shattered softly and lowered us back into each other’s physical embrace, content and whole and warmed with inner light.

My head lay against Trevor’s chest. I felt his heartbeat drop slowly back to normal. The outside light slanted through the slats of the blinds. Neither of us moved. We didn’t want to disturb the beautiful peace of this moment. We both knew it wouldn’t last forever, but right now we felt no fear, no tension-filled waiting. Finally, a rumble from Trevor’s stomach reminded us both of our hunger.

He moved his head slightly and checked his watch. It was nearly 6 p.m.
Maddie? Maybe we should try to grab some food before facing down our mortal nemesis.

Yeah, dinner and a show. We could make it a full evening!

The workers had left the building and only the mechanical hum of moving air in the vent system broke the stillness. I wondered if Ann was within range.
Ann? Can you hear me? Ann?

A few seconds later, my phone rang. I recognized the number; this was one call I could answer myself.

“I’m shielding now,” Ann said, “but it’s probably better that I stay out of your range.”

But you can hear me
. Really, I had the tiniest telepathic range compared to every other minder! It was almost enough to give me a complex.

“Sure can. Don’t get a complex. Everything’s just about set. Claire’s RVing Isaiah now that he’s so close. He landed in Newark a little while ago. It looks like he’s heading to Peapack again, but the rush-hour traffic is slowing him down. We’ve cleared out the remaining Allexor employees, too.”

Do we have an E.T.A. for him? How much longer?

“Not sure.”

Any way we can get something to eat before this showdown?

“I’ll ask Claire or Hannah to take something over to you. They’re in the administrative building with me.”

Thanks.

“No problem,” she said, imitating Zack.

I laughed, but the sound carried more anxiety than amusement. A few minutes later, Trevor unlocked the doors for Claire, without leaving the sofa.

“Sorry for the meager pickings.” She dropped a small stack of energy bars and a couple of sodas on the desk. We winced at the sudden brightness when she flipped the light switch. “This is the best we could do from the vending machines over there.”

She seemed cheerful and relaxed—
too
cheerful and relaxed—and her eyes seemed overly bright and extra blue, for some reason.

Is everything on track?

“Everything’s fine. Dave’s going to be safe.”

She’s been charmed
, Trevor and I thought in-synch. We both sat up straighter on the couch.

Why would Zack—?
I thought to Trevor.

Was she upset before
?

Oh.
Rachel’s ability shorted out with intense emotion. Perhaps Zack’d just charmed Claire to calm her down. Something seemed…
off
about that, though. Trickles of yellow anxiety squirmed up the back of my neck and I felt Trevor tense next to me.

“Claire, where’s Isaiah now?”

She focused for a moment; the reflective tubes shot out from her mind. She slipped her consciousness into the one that connected to Isaiah. “He just finished loading the gun. Now he’s checking something on his cell phone.” Her casual tone creeped me out. I saw Isaiah in her thoughts, and sick dread squeezed my gut into a cold fist. He was in the Peapack house again—the mansion of glass. An open wall safe spewed its contents across a cluttered upstairs room. The gun rested on one of his thighs as he sat on a bare mattress and fiddled with the functions on a fancy smartphone. Wait. Why did
he
have a phone? Weren’t they as useless to him as they were to me? A wave of ice shuddered through me—had we missed something? Oh, God. Did Isaiah have his voice back? Could he charm again?

Claire’s vision suddenly cut off, flicking me back into the little office and leaving me dizzy. Trevor shook his head like a wet dog—he’d been along for the mental ride.

Claire gave us a cheerful little wave as she headed for the door. “Okay, I’ve got to go now. Isaiah will be here soon so you should finish eating. Ann’ll tell you when to get into position.”

We finished off the food in a few minutes, but my stomach felt like it was churning the meager dinner into cement. I kept clenching and unclenching my hands, so I sat on them to force them into stillness. Trevor slid an invisible arm around my shoulders, as though practicing to protect me. Not a bad idea. I touched his hand and pulled a mental shield up around us both.

It’s too pretty right now for someone to die.

We got to the chalk line and lined our toes up behind it, like children playing a playground game. The guard station seemed deserted. I knew that Zack must be crouched down within it already, shielding strongly.

Shielding.

I pulled up the strongest shield I could around our minds, feeling the steely intensity of it. I’d protect Trevor with my life. Invisible arms wrapped me in a wall of solid sunlight. His chest pressed against my back with each of his rapid breaths. My senses seemed to be in overdrive—every detail around us seemed distinct and too-sharp, as though each piece of the world had been outlined in razor cuts. I felt like I could smell the approaching confrontation.

Where was everyone else? I glanced back at the yellow manor house but didn’t see any signs of life in the dark windows. No cars drove on the road outside the gate. Had Zack set up some kind of roadblock or detour to keep others away?

I looked across the overly-perfect lawn, with its mowing-pattern stripes of slightly lighter and darker green. Trevor’s thoughts were the only ones I could feel, although I vaguely sensed the little rustling thoughts of some burrowing moles beneath the grass. I smiled weakly—the groundskeeper had more to worry about than the damage we’d been doing to the area behind Building Sixteen.
Don’t worry about that now. Focus.

Trevor and I drew closer to each other. I sent him a wave of adoration, silvery and glowing.
I love you.
Just in case I didn’t have another chance to say it.

I love you, too
. He turned me in his arms and gave me a toe-curling kiss.
And I’m going to tell you that again later tonight, once all this is over and we’re both safe.

Promise?

I promise. And you know how important it is to me that I keep my word.

I do.
That actually made me feel better—more confident—that this was going to be okay. It would end tonight. Isaiah would be gone and Trevor and I and everyone else would be safe again.

I felt the cold, oily-black touch of a familiar mind at the edge of my range. My heartbeat thudded in the lump in my throat as I turned to face the guardhouse. A golden glow flared to life around me.

Isaiah knew I was here.

The navy blue rental sedan turned off the otherwise deserted road.

CHAPTER 13

My stomach tried to flutter into a different time zone. I pushed more energy into our shared mental shield, making sure we were protected from Isaiah. Trevor’s invisible embrace tightened around us. Both of our faces slid into cold masks—our game faces.

He can’t hurt us. He can’t hurt us.

Isaiah’s thoughts were so loud! I exhaled in sudden relief—he hadn’t brought a hostage. I could see his lone silhouette in the driver’s seat. His headlights illuminated the place where we stood, cut by the dark bar of the security barrier.
I can’t read any thoughts off of either of them—just like last time. How am I supposed to deal with them if I can’t get a good fix on their thoughts to kill them? I could ram the gate and try to run them both down. But I still need the drug.

TELEPATH!

The power behind his mental voice made me gasp. He’d never framed a thought to me before. Hatred speared out through the windshield to where Trevor and I stood in the middle of the road like High Noon sheriffs. Isaiah and I were outside each other’s killing ranges, and we both knew it.

He wanted to talk.

No, he wanted to threaten.

Zack? Any time now!
I couldn’t send it to the invisible mind inside the little structure because I was still shielding.

TELEPATH!
Isaiah repeated.
Can you hear me?

I nodded slowly and deliberately. I wasn’t going to drop the shared shield to communicate with him.

Give me sixty ccs of dodecamine or I send links to THIS to the government and the news media.
Isaiah played a series of images across the screen of his smartphone, knowing I would see them though his eyes.

Oh. My. God
.

The world seemed to spin, and I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. Lists of people’s names, addresses, and abilities flashed across the screen. Jon Williamson. Trevor Laurence. Nina Dunn. More names.
Remote Viewing. Pyrokinesis. Mind-Control.
Hi-res scans of the basal ganglion of Charles Fontaine—Rachel’s Uncle Charlie.

Video clips showed the sparks playing Fireball, pulling helicopters from the sky, and practicing the flamethrower technique. Another set showed healers laying hands on people in the infirmary. The angle in all the medical clips was the same, as though the camera sat in the ceiling above the exam table. Heather McFee cut into Archer’s chest, extracted some tissue, and then touched either side of the wound. It bubbled blood then sealed closed without a scar. The next clip showed a lifeless Archer as Matilda tried to revive him. Trevor’s heart lurched at the sight and he choked back a sob-tinged breath. The final video showed me floating mid-air, twenty feet off the ground. Trevor flitted in and out of the bottom of the frame beneath me, with Archer briefly in view walking beside him. I remembered when it’d happened, the day before Archer’s surgery.

Oh, God.
How had Isaiah gotten all this information—and this footage—from
inside
Ganzfield?

Isaiah has hostages, after all. WE’RE his hostages.

I could feel the desperation in his mind—he wasn’t bluffing. If he couldn’t get dodecamine—if he couldn’t keep his own abilities—he knew it was only a matter of time before we’d track him down and destroy him. His plan was to blackmail us—or expose us and take us all down with him.

I used to be in politics.
Isaiah’s glee at the dismay written on our faces painted him in pale-green light.
I know EXACTLY the right people to send this to
.

“Where did you get all that?” Trevor couldn’t keep the tremor out of his voice.

Wouldn’t you like to know?

Someone had helped him. Someone inside Ganzfield had sent these clips to him. Isaiah didn’t have a face or a name in his memories—and that was completely intentional.