The 4400® Promises Broken (30 page)

“This is it,” she whispered in his ear. “He’s alone. We’ll never have a better chance.”

His sweaty right hand closed around the grip of the pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back. With his left hand, he knocked on the door.

From the other side, Jordan replied, “Come in.”

Taking his hand off the weapon, Kyle pushed open the door and stepped inside Jordan’s living room. Its furnishings were spare but comfortable.

Jordan stood in front of a long window that looked out on the Center’s landscaped garden. In one hand he held a saucer, in the other a teacup. He wore loose-fitting, unbleached linen pants and a matching shirt, and his feet were shod in plain leather sandals. Outside the window, the sun was setting behind the lush boughs of Interlaken Park.

He turned and regarded Kyle with a serene expression. “What can I do for you, Kyle?”

Cassie’s voice was sharp with anger. “Do it now! While his hands are full!”

Beads of sweat traced paths down the side of Kyle’s face as he forced himself not to react to Cassie’s malevolent commands. To Jordan he said, “We need to talk.”

Perhaps reacting to the urgency in Kyle’s tone, Jordan furrowed his brow and asked, “What about?”

“About Cassie,” Kyle said.

She stepped between him and Jordan. “What are you doing, Kyle? Don’t wuss out on me now.
Shoot him!”

Jordan set his cup and saucer on a ledge in front of the window. “Is something wrong with her?”

“She wants me to kill you.”

Cassie slapped Kyle’s face. His eyes blinked in shock and his head snapped sideways from the blow.

Looking confused and worried, Jordan said, “Kyle? Are you all right?”

Ignoring his dark muse’s hate-filled stare, Kyle said, “She just hit me.” He touched his tingling cheek and grinned. “Guess I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”

Furious, Cassie retorted, “Gee? You think?”

Folding his hands together and steepling his index fingers, Jordan began to pace in front of the window. “Did she tell you why she wants you to kill me?”

“She said the Movement’s falling apart. That you’re not the leader it needs in wartime. She wants me to take over.”

Jordan nodded. He looked calm. Pensive.

“I see,” he said. Then he examined Kyle. “Did you bring
a weapon, or does she want you to kill me with your bare hands?”

There had been no anger or sarcasm in Jordan’s question. His strangely sanguine reaction horrified Kyle and put an evil smirk on Cassie’s face. Kyle reached behind his back and drew the pistol. “I brought this,” he said, showing it to Jordan.

“Good. At least it’ll be quick.” Jordan stopped pacing, faced Kyle, and let his arms fall at his sides. “I’m ready.”

“Well, I’m not,” Kyle said.

With a push of his thumb, he released the ammunition clip, which fell from the pistol and clattered across the floor. He kept the weapon pointed away from Jordan as he pulled back on the slide and ejected the last round from its chamber. Then he hurled the unloaded pistol past Jordan, through the window. It fell in a flurry of shattered glass to the garden below.

Cassie glared at him. “That was stupid of you, Kyle.”

Jordan looked out the shattered window, then back at Kyle as he asked, “Why did you do that?”

Kyle understood Cassie’s reaction, but Jordan’s baffled him. “What’re you saying? You really want me to shoot you?”

“If that’s what Cassie told you to do, then she must have a reason,” Jordan said. “She’s never been wrong before.”

“Listen to him, Kyle,” Cassie said with a smug sneer.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Kyle said. “The sinking of that ship? The use of force on Harbor Island? Cassie told me to make those things happen.”

She punched him in the gut. He doubled over, unable
to inhale for several seconds. As he forced himself upright, Cassie said, “Shut up and do what I tell you, Kyle. There’s a knife in the kitchenette, in the drawer next to the stove.”

“Right now she’s telling me where to find a knife,” Kyle said. “Sometimes she uses me as a puppet. She speaks, but the words come out of my mouth.”

Her foot slammed into the back of his knee, and she pushed him forward. He fell on his knees in front of Jordan. “You’re weak,” Cassie said, circling like a shark. “You make me sick.”

Jordan said, “Kyle, if I need to die for the Movement to go forward, then we should accept that.”

“No,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “I think she’s
lying
, Jordan. Killing you has nothing to do with the Movement.”

Stepping closer, Jordan asked, “Why do you say that?”

“Something my dad said. He told me that promicin gave him powers that seemed to reflect who he was inside. The real him. And I thought about other people’s powers. Shawn was always trying to make things right between other people; now he heals. Heather wanted to teach people; now she brings out their hidden talents.”

Jordan nodded, apparently understanding. “And what was it you wanted, Kyle?”

“I thought I wanted answers,” he said. “But now I see that what I wanted was attention. I wanted respect.” He glowered at Cassie. “But not like this.”

She locked one hand around Kyle’s throat and squeezed. “You need to stop talking now, Kyle.”

He tried to pull her hand off, but she was stronger than
him. Choking out his words, he said, “You have to stop her.”

Jordan moved to Kyle’s side. Cassie let go of Kyle and retreated. Jordan said, “What are you asking me to do, Kyle?”

“I want you to take away my power,” Kyle said as he fell forward onto all fours, gasping for breath. “Please.”

Jordan covered his mouth and sighed through his nose. Lowering his hand, he said, “I don’t know, Kyle. Cassie’s been vital to guiding the Movement. Without her—”

“Listen to me,” Kyle said, looking up. “She’s more than a little crazy, and she’s got a mean streak. But what scares me is that she’s
stronger
than me. One of these days she’ll use me to do whatever she wants. I’m begging you: don’t let that happen.”

The request seemed to leave Jordan taken aback. “Kyle, I need to make sure you understand what you’re asking for. If I neutralize your power, it’ll be gone forever.
Cassie
will be gone forever. You’ll never be able to get your power back, and you’ll never be able to get another one. Is that something you can live with?”

“Yes,” Kyle said. Recalling his possession years earlier by an agent of the Marked, he continued. “I’ve already been used once by a nutcase living in my head to try to murder you. I’m not letting it happen again.”

“Fair enough,” Jordan said. He placed his hands on either side of Kyle’s head. “I won’t lie to you: this will hurt.”

“That’s okay. It ought to.”

From across the room, Cassie shrieked like a terrified child then screamed, “Kyle, stop! Don’t do this! We can make a deal! I’ll behave! Please … !”

Crushing pressure seized Kyle’s skull, and all his thoughts turned red. Cassie screamed like a heretic being burned at the stake. Her howls of agony sent a chill through Kyle, who wept not only in pain but in mourning.

Cassie ceased her doleful wails long enough to cry out, “Kyle! Please! I love you …”

He shut his eyes and felt Jordan’s exorcising power knife through his mind, cutting away every trace of Cassie with the subtle violence of a surgeon’s scalpel. Her frightened cries diminished to a pitiful whimpering.

As Jordan released him, Kyle thought he felt Cassie’s hand on his back. He turned his head as the sensation faded away—

There was no one there.

Wiping the tears from his face, he picked himself up and nodded once to Jordan. Then he shuffled in trembling steps to the door. As he opened it to leave, Jordan called out to him.

“Are you okay?”

Kyle looked back. “She’s gone.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He gave a small nod. “I know.”

He left and shut the door behind him.

Walking away down the empty corridor, Kyle felt the difference in his soul: Cassie was dead, and he was alone.

T
OM FLOPPED ONTO
Diana’s couch with a satisfied sigh. “Great dinner,” he said. “When did you learn to cook like that?”

“I’m not
totally
useless in the kitchen,” she protested. “Though, to be honest, rigatoni Fiorentina’s kind of easy. It’s just pasta, chicken, fresh baby spinach, and vodka sauce from a jar.” Holding up the mostly drained bottle of Pinotage, she asked, “More wine?”

“Please,” Tom said, lifting his glass.

She refilled it with half of what was left, then poured the rest of the robust red wine into her own long-stemmed glass. A distinctive aroma of candle smoke still lingered from the just-snuffed tapers on the dining room table, and a faint jazz melody drifted from the speakers beside the TV as Diana settled onto the opposite end of the sofa from Tom.

Cocking his head toward the music, he asked, “What are we listening to?”

“Ella Fitzgerald,” she said.

He grinned. “From Maia’s collection?”

She smiled back. “How’d you guess?”

They sat back, sipped their wine, and listened to Ella’s soft and sweet crooning for a while.

During a lull between songs, Tom sighed. “What a day. Did I tell you Meghan called this morning?”

“No,” Diana said. “What’d she say?”

He rolled his eyes and frowned. “If the U.S. mail still came to Promise City, I think she’d have sent me a ‘Dear Tom’ note, instead.”

With genuine sympathy, Diana said, “She dumped you?”

“Like a load of garbage,” Tom said. “She actually had a list of reasons. A
list!
Can you believe that?”

Diana perched her elbow on the back of the sofa and leaned her head on her shoulder. “What was item number one?”

“She tried to make it sound like a three-way tie,” he said, staring down at his stockinged feet. “Homeland Security read her the riot act and told her to end it, and that was probably part of it. The video of you and me shooting soldiers didn’t sit well with her, either.” Looking up at Diana, he continued. “But I think what pissed her off the most was that I lied to her in order to help you.” With a dismissive wave of his hand, he added, “Anyway, it’s not like we had much of a future at this point. She’s out there with a warrant for my arrest, and I’m in here, playing sheriff to Jordan’s insane-asylum utopia.”

Raising her glass, Diana said, “Let me know if you need a trusty deputy, Sheriff.”

“Consider yourself volunteered.”

As Tom sipped more wine, Diana said, “I have an odd moment of my own to share with you.” She shifted forward to the middle of the couch, reached over to the coffee table, put down her glass, and flipped open the lid of a cherry-wood curio box.

Inside the velvet-lined box was the syringe of promicin that her daughter had given her a few days earlier.

At the sight of it, Tom sat up and moved to the middle of the sofa, beside Diana, facing the box.

“Maia handed me this after I woke up from our Yellowstone op,” Diana said. “She says she won’t come home until I take the shot. When I told her I was immune, she said this was a new formula, something stronger. Is this what she gave to you?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I think it is. She wasn’t kidding about it being potent. It gave me an ability in under an hour.” Throwing a worried look at Diana, he asked, “You’re not thinking of taking it, are you?”

“Maybe,” she said, more defensively than she’d intended. “I mean, I want my daughter to come home, and if this is the only way …” She let her voice trail off, since she was certain that Tom understood. “Besides, you’re hardly one to talk. After all your rants against promicin, and all your speeches about choosing free will over prophecy, you still stuck the needle in
your
arm.” Narrowing her eyes with mock suspicion, she pointed at him and said, “What I want to know is, how the hell did Maia talk you into taking it when you wouldn’t listen to your own son? Why trust her vision instead of his?”

Tom averted his gaze. Diana imagined gears turning
inside his skull as he considered his reply. Then he took a deep breath, turned his head, and looked into her eyes.

“I did it for you,” he said. “Maia said if I didn’t take the shot, I’d have to watch you die.” His voice faltered as he added, “I took the shot so I wouldn’t lose you.”

Awkward silence fell between them. Staring into his eyes, Diana suddenly became aware of just how close together she and Tom were. A romantically charged, almost-magnetic sensation passed between them. As they drifted incrementally closer, Diana suddenly wasn’t sad to know that Maia was miles away and not coming home tonight. She kept waiting for Tom to pull back, but he seemed to be as swept up in the moment as Diana felt …

She blinked and recoiled. Even though they were no longer NTAC agents, and no longer partners, a sense of taboo persisted in her mind, and it was a line she wasn’t ready to cross … yet.

Standing and backing up a step, she pushed wayward coils of her dark hair out of her eyes and smiled politely at Tom. “Well,” she said, “it’s getting late.”

He shot an amused look at the clock and was apparently too polite to point out that it wasn’t even eight-thirty. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said, putting down his wineglass on the table.

“So, I’ll see you at the Center tomorrow morning?” she asked, while watching him pull his still-laced shoes back on.

“Yup,” he said. Then he got up and followed her to the door, which she opened ahead of him. They did an awkward shuffle-step around each other as he slipped past
her into the doorway then turned back. “G’night,” he said with a friendly smile.

“’Night,” she said, leaning forward. They planted chaste pecks on each other’s cheeks, then backed apart. He gave her a quick half nod, then walked down the hall, toward the stairs.

She started to close the door, and had almost pushed it shut, when she surrendered to a silly impulse. Silently, she cracked the door open just a sliver, and peeked out at Tom.

At the same moment, Tom slowed for just a step and cast a look back over his shoulder at her, with a gaze of wistful consideration that mirrored her own.