The Forbidden Trilogy (68 page)

Lightning crackled outside. A storm brewed to match my mood.

Father Patrick had left numerous messages for our contact at
IPI but hadn't heard anything. Desirai had tried to find her via dream walking,
but apparently babies didn't dream the same way adults did, so even if she
found Ana, it might not tell us much. We'd accounted for everyone at the
mansion, and no one had seen anything out of the ordinary. Susie had no idea
how someone could have gotten to Ana from outside the house. She'd been taken
from her crib in my bedroom and just disappeared.

We live in the middle of nowhere. How the hell could
someone come onto our property, kidnap my kid, and vanish without a school full
of paranormals seeing something? Anything?
I would tear apart minds, if
necessary, to find the answers.

My reaction frightened me. I had been protective of Ana
during the pregnancy, but I'd always held my powers back out of moral concerns.
I realized that holding her in my arms, feeling her tiny fingers wrap around
mine, the sweet smell of her skin after a bath—all of this had bonded me to
her.

I would do anything for her, ethics be damned.
Mamma
bears have nothing on me.

Bernard and the others wouldn't let me conduct a full-on
mind raid tonight, not with everyone still in pain from my recent mind probe.
They did, however, concede on waking Mary and bringing her down for a talk,
after I told them about her standing in my room with the baby after the birth.

She appeared in the hall, a practiced look of indifference
on her face. "What?"

I walked up and slapped her hard. "What did you do to
my baby, bitch?"

Mr. Steele sat in the center of a large empty room. It had
only one chair, and natural lighting that bounced off the all-white soundproof
walls. A soundless cooling and heating system kept the temperature at a perfect
65 degrees.

Nothing can touch me here.

Beleth chose that moment to walk through the door with a
scrawny boy in tow.

Correction, nothing
should
be able to touch me
here.

"What do you want? Have we finally made tangible
progress with our experiments?" Mr. Steele had little patience left for
the fools in his employ. If they couldn't master this after so many years, he'd
kill them all and find someone who could.

"The side effects are still a problem. The lab needs
more time before you can attempt an extraction from the baby. If you try now,
the baby will die, and you will not get the powers you desire."

The stillness of the giant man unnerved Steele, though he'd
never admit that to anyone. How any being could embody such calm, he didn't
know, but someday he would own Beleth's powers and finally understand.
"What of the new specimens?"

"We pulled those who had useful and active para-powers.
The undesirables are in a separate facility, awaiting your word." Beleth
clutched the hand of the sniveling child next to him.

Why bring that rodent into my sanctuary?
The child's
large brown eyes stared into Steele, but he turned his gaze back to Beleth.
"Sell them to the human traffickers. The girls can be sex slaves, the
boys... well, they can too. Whatever you get for them, use that to make more
Blue Power. We need more bodies to experiment on."

The air in the room shifted, and Beleth's mouth turned down
in a slight frown. "There are other uses for them, other means of
releasing them."

"None that will pay so high a price. Are you getting
soft on me, Beleth? Do you no longer believe in our mission to empower humans
and raise up the enhanced as rulers?"

Beleth said nothing for a moment, then pushed the boy
forward. "He was slated to go out with the other disposables, but I
believe his para-power could be useful to you."

"Step forward, boy. What's your name?"

"Tommy Beaumont."

"And what is this para-power that Beleth seems to think
is so special?"

"They said that I'm an empath, that I can sense
emotions."

Steele didn't know whether to laugh or curse. "And what
do you sense in me?"

The boy's eyes widened. "Nothing. There's nothing in
you. It's all black." He shivered, weak and afraid.

Steele sickened at such a pathetic excuse for humanity. To
think he had been like that boy once—shoved into lockers, too weak to defend
himself against his own father's fists, too powerless to leave. Never again.

He turned on Beleth. "What makes you think I'd want a
heightened sense of people's feelings?"

Steele had never been able to intimidate Beleth, who now
held his gaze without fear. No matter how many memory modifications he'd
performed on the dark man's subconscious mind, he couldn't break him. He'd find
a way, eventually.

"To read a person's deepest feelings and desires is
great power, Steele. If you dismiss that, you are more short-sighted than I
thought."

"Get rid of him. He goes with the others."

Beleth moved forward, as if to object.

Nerve endings twitched as Steele fought to maintain control
over Beleth. He didn't have the power to beat the larger man in direct combat,
so he couldn't risk losing the small edge he had with his mental compulsion.
How he hated feeling powerless.

Before he'd been modified with para-powers, Steele had hated
his life as a nobody, worthy only of the bullies' attention. But science had
gifted him with a new life and a new start. The program they'd been a part of
had been pulled, but he and Beleth continued the work they'd started so long
ago. Back then, Beleth didn't balk at what they had to do to enhance humanity,
but Steele had seen a change come over his former partner. That meant he had to
complete his preparations soon, before Beleth broke free of his control and
altered the course of their undertaking.

Steele's power held, and Beleth stepped back, ready to do
what he was told.

No matter, for even had Beleth broken free, Steele kept
another ace in the hole, one which nobody knew about: his daughter.
"What's the status on Drake?"

"He is free and will likely attempt to free the boy. I
don't understand why you haven't sent guards for him. You know he's going to
head straight to Sam, first chance he gets."

Drake. So like his mother. Strong, stubborn and willful. If
only the Seeker had been blessed with more backbone, he might have survived.

Mr. Steele smiled. "And how do you know that's not
exactly what I want?"

As Lucy meditated, her mind buzzed with thoughts.

Finding a way out of the valley proved more difficult than
she'd thought. They'd built a camp, and spent hours exploring the clearing, to
no avail. They did, however, find some of the tastiest fruits ever, as well as
savory vegetation that worked well in a stew. Mr. K had been instrumental in
helping them find food sources that were safe.

Lucy's mind wandered, the scent of rainbow flowers, as she
called them, stimulating a recent memory with Hunter.

***

In the distance, the setting sun glinted off the hard shells
of the beautiful beetles. Lucy felt no compulsion to chase them. Not after last
time.

She stood alone under a tree and let her mind wander. So
many small decisions had led her to this moment. For better or worse, Lucy's
life began to feel like a series of impulsive leaps, none of which actually led
to what she expected. She'd been instrumental in leading the resistance at
Rent-A-Kid, but so many had died. Could she have done things differently? Could
she have saved more of them?

The scent of honey and rain and sweet perfume filled the air
around her. Hunter stood next to her, holding out a star flower.

Lucy took it and inhaled deeply. "How do you sneak up
on me like that? You're so quiet."

His I'm-not-going-to-tell-you grin should have irritated
her, but it didn't. Not much, at least. She enjoyed how mischievous and
charming it made him look.

"I'm a secret agent. It's in my job description to be
stealthy."

"Uh-huh. Thank you for the flower. It's
beautiful." Of all the amazing and magical things they'd seen since
entering this Wonderland, she liked the star flower most, with its deep blue
petals and diamond sparkles. But how did Hunter know that?

A slight breeze caressed his disheveled black and silver
hair, and a faraway look crossed his face. "I always liked making wishes
on stars as a kid. I thought...." He shrugged in the self-conscious way of
a man not used to intimacy. "I thought this could be a wish for you."
He plucked it from her hand and slid it behind her ear, then he leaned forward,
his face inches from hers.

She braced herself for a kiss that never came, at least not
as she'd expected it to. His soft lips brushed so gently against her forehead
she could have imagined it.

"It looks lovely in your hair."

With a snort that totally broke the mood, Lucy laughed.
"Yeah, sure. My nasty hair that hasn't been washed with real soap in who
knows how long!"

"Doesn't matter. A beautiful woman is a beautiful
woman, no matter what her hair looks like."

***

Mr. K's voice popped her memory like a bubble. "Earth
to Lucy."

She opened her eyes and sighed. "Sorry. I tried, but
it's so hard not to let my mind wander."

The leaves around her rustled in what sounded like laughter.
"You actually did surprisingly well. A full five minutes of inner
stillness before your boyfriend took over your thoughts."

"He's not my—"

A branch slapped her gently. "Hush, girl. I have eyes
and ears everywhere. Call it what you want, I know what it is."

"Fine. Whatever." She scowled on the outside, but
glowed a bit on the inside in a teenage-girl-crush way that made her want to
throw up a little.

Time to focus on something else.
"I think I can
go longer. I'd like to keep trying." If being still would make her
stronger, more focused, and more capable of finding a way out and rescuing
those kids, she'd master it, no matter how hard.

"I know you're anxious to progress in this, but right
now I want to teach you something new. Meditate again, only this time, instead
of focusing inward, I want you to focus outward."

Lucy closed her eyes again, but didn't know how to start.
"What do you mean?"

"Pick out each sound. Identify what each is. Become one
with all that is around you. Let it become a part of you."

She smiled. This would be way easier than trying to still
all her thoughts.

She centered her breath and relaxed her body, then allowed
her mind to sense the world around her. A slight buzzing, soft at first, became
louder the more she focused on it. Probably a firefly. She followed the sound
as it flew through a world that must seem far different than what Lucy
experienced.

Footsteps pulled her from the buzz.
Hunter or Luke?
She listened more deeply. It was Luke. A soft scuffle accompanied each step.
His limp sounded different than Hunter's walk.

The more attention she paid to the sounds around her, the
more they exploded into her consciousness. The sway and crackling of Mr. K's
branches, the scurry of tiny bugs under the rocks, the sound of the waterfall
in the distance—the world felt smaller and bigger, louder and quieter.
Impossible to explain, but so alive and present.

"Good." Mr. K's brown, bark-like eyes looked
straight into her. "Excellent. Do you feel the difference when you open
up?"

She nodded. "Yes, but I don't know how to describe
it."

"It's about expansion verses contraction. You, and
quite honestly most humans, spend all of your time contracted. Like a roly-poly
bug or a snail stuck in its shell, you crawl into yourself and shut yourself
off from the world. From that vantage point, everything looks isolated and big
and scary, and you think you have to defend yourself. But, when you expand, you
realize how connected things are. Life becomes much friendlier as you realize
that you are not alone. Does that make sense?"

It did, sort of, but thinking about it made Lucy's head
hurt. She understood it for moments, like glimpses into eternity, but they were
fleeting. Intellectually, it eluded her.

Mr. K shook himself, and flower petals fell from his
branches and onto her head. "It's not something you can use your brain to
understand. You have to feel it in your body, in your soul. Only then can you
learn and grow. And... only then will you succeed at your mission."

That got Lucy's attention. "At freeing the kids? Or
getting out?"

"At everything, Lucy. At life."

Lucy's stomach grumbled so loud, it startled a white bird
with gold-accented feathers that pecked at the rock next to her.

Mr. K shook with a deep laugh. "Looks like it's time
for you to eat. One of the perks of being a tree, I receive constant
nourishment through the sun and soil. No hunger pains for me."

"Yeah, I'm starving. Didn't realize how long we'd been
here. Time flies when you're meditating. Ha!" Normally time seemed to
stand still, so Lucy appreciated the change. "See you later!"

The branches parted as she ran toward the camp they'd set
up. Mr. K had taught them how to weave the weeping willow branches into tight,
basket-like huts that they lined with layers of leaves to sleep on. In the
center of the camp, they'd built a fire pit, which they'd taken solemn oaths to
guard carefully, lest the sparks injure Mr. K or any other plant life around
them.

Luke sat by the fire pit with his foot resting on a bed of
leaves, and Hunter leaned against a tree and carved a stick into a point.
Several other pointy sticks lay in a pile by his feet.

"Hey, guys, I'm starving. I need food!" Lucy's
pants hung loose around her hips—and she'd been petite before the start of this
trip. All of her curves would disappear if she didn't get something of
substance into her.