The Golden Couple (The Samantha Project Series, # 2) (17 page)

“Sam, you made his list too easy,” Erik complained.

Colin smiled. “Because she wants me to win, don’t you, sweetie?”

Erik looked back at me. “Sam, did you rig the game in his favor?”

“No. He’s just lucky.”

“There! Right there! A car without a hubcap!” Colin exclaimed. “Now I got three!”

Erik shook his head. “That’s it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. I haven’t been using my distance vision to look ahead, but that’s over now.”

“Bring it on, my friend,” Colin kidded. “Bring it on.”

I rolled my eyes at their competitiveness. “It’s just a game, you guys.”

Erik sat up straight. “So I need a car with Alaska plates.” He leaned forward toward the front window, then sat back and rubbed his eyes.

Colin laughed. “What’s wrong there, partner? That superhero vision not working for you today?”

Erik leaned forward again. “Huh, I guess it’s not.” He rubbed his eyes, then opened them again. “I can only read the plates on the cars right ahead of us. Usually I can read them from at least a mile away. Hey, Sam, how far can you see?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to look that far. I was just looking in the area around the van to make it fair for Colin.”

“I told you she wants me to win,” Colin said to further annoy Erik.

“I’ll try looking farther out.” I hadn’t practiced using my vision skills much. In order to see really far, I had to imagine my eyes and mind connecting. I focused on a car about a mile away. But after multiple attempts, it still looked blurry. I focused on another car. Still blurry.
 

Erik was getting impatient. “Sam, how far can you see?”

“I can only see what a person with regular vision would see.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“Does it come and go?” Colin asked. “Or do you have to do something to make it work?”

“You have to focus, but that’s it,” I responded.

“Kid with a balloon in the car!” Colin yelled. “Got another one!”

“Okay. You win,” Erik declared. “Game over. Maybe I’m just tired. I’m gonna sleep for a few hours.” He went to the back of the van next to Jack.

I went to sleep, too. I woke up four hours later. It was dark out and Colin was still driving. I decided to test my vision again, this time my night vision. I looked out at the dark road. Normally I could see perfectly in the dark. This time everything remained pitch-black. I closed my eyes and tried again. Still nothing but darkness. I didn’t want to worry anyone so I kept quiet about it.
 

“Colin, let’s stop at the next food exit.” Jack’s voice startled me. He leaned up behind my seat. “We’ll get something to eat and switch drivers.”

It was another half hour before we reached an exit. Our only option was a truck stop restaurant, but we didn’t care. Everyone just wanted a break from the van.
 

During dinner, I tried mind-talking to Erik again, but it didn’t work. Our telepathy problems seemed to be getting worse.
 

Erik was sitting next to me. He leaned over and talked quietly. “I told my dad we were having problems with it. He’s gonna run some tests after dinner.”

“Where? In the van?” I asked.

“He just needs to draw some blood.” The waitress was back at our table with the check. “Let’s talk later.”

Before getting back on the road, Jack took some blood samples from Erik and me. Then Erik drove while Jack analyzed the results. Brittany went to sleep on the second-row seat, leaving Colin and I in the seat behind her.

“So what does he think is wrong?” Colin asked.

“I don’t know but I’m not gonna worry about it. We’ve had enough bad news today with Paul. I don’t need any more.”

“Here, why don’t you go to sleep.” Colin put his arm up so I could lean against his chest.
 

“No, it’ll hurt you. You’re still too bruised up.”

“It’s okay. This is my good side. Come on.” As I rested on him, he kissed my head and gently rubbed my arm. The van was getting cold and his warm chest felt good. It put me right to sleep.
 

Hours later I was still in the same spot. Colin was tapping my arm. “Sam, wake up. Jack needs to talk to you.”
 

“What time is it?”

“It’s 9:30.”

I sat up next to Colin. Jack was in the seat in front of me.

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

Jack turned back. He had the laptop open in front of him. “Yes. Putting that DNA in you and Erik has slowed the timer, but it came with a few side effects.”

“I probably don’t want to hear this, do I?” I leaned over the seat. “What it is now?”

“Well, the DNA continues to disrupt the timer. You can see that right here.” Jack pointed to the screen, which showed a bunch of coding. He scrolled down. “But then if you look here, you can see that it’s also affected the switches in your DNA that give you your abilities. It’s trying to turn them off.”

“So my abilities will go away?”

“If it continues like this, then yes. Erik said you already noticed them weakening.”

“Yeah. I’m having trouble hearing his thoughts. Both of us have lost the ability to see far away. And I’ve lost my night vision.”

“If it’s happening that fast, then in a few days, you may no abilities left. Same for Erik.”

“Are there other side effects?” Colin asked.

“Not that I can tell,” Jack replied. “Just the loss of abilities.”

I noticed Erik was still up front driving. “How did Erik react to the news? He’s had these abilities his whole life. It’s gotta be strange for him to not have them anymore.”

“Yes but he’d rather have more time than have his abilities. Still, it’ll be an adjustment for him. You two should talk later.” Jack turned back toward the front of the van and continued working on the laptop.

Colin slipped his hand in mine and rested it on the seat. “How do you feel about this?”

“Okay. I only had my abilities for a few weeks. So I guess now I’ll just go back to being normal.”

“You were starting to like them, weren’t you?”

“Kind of. They made me feel a little safer. Like I might be able to protect myself.”

“I can tell you’re gonna miss the telepathy the most.”

“Why do you say that?”

Colin lowered his voice so Jack wouldn’t hear. “Because you can talk to Erik without people listening.”

It was true that the telepathy was my favorite ability. And it
was
because I could talk to Erik. But how did Colin know that? Was it that obvious?

“I really don’t talk to Erik that much. I mean, with my mind.”

“Yeah, you do. I can tell when you and Erik are doing the mind-talk thing. I knew you two were doing it today, before it stopped working.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Yeah, actually it does,” he admitted. “It’s like you guys have this secret language or something. And I don’t want Erik taking advantage of that. I mean, seriously, did you think I believed Erik when he said that crap about seeing you as his little sister? But I trust you, Sam. So I don’t make a big deal about it.”

The van was coming to a stop. Erik had pulled off the interstate and parked at a gas station.
 

I leaned up and tapped Jack on the shoulder. “Hey, Jack, I can drive. I’ve been sleeping for hours. I’m wide awake.”
 

“All right. But I need to get some gas before we take off again.”

Everyone piled out of the van. Erik and I stood outside while the rest of them went in the gas station to use the restroom.

“So what do you think?” I asked Erik.
 

“About our abilities? I’m kinda bummed to tell ya the truth.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“I’ve had them for so long that it’s weird to think they’re going away. I always thought having them made me some kind of freak. But then I met you and I started to think it was cool that I could do this stuff. Plus, I finally had someone to talk to, telepathically I mean.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna miss that,” I confessed.

“I know. I’m gonna miss that one the most.” He paused. “We could get them back someday.”

“How would that happen?”

“You know the part of our DNA that has the missing base codes? My dad was saying that if those were filled in, the timer would stop and our abilities would be restored.”

“But we’ll never get those base codes,” I reminded him. “You can’t exactly buy alien genes at your local drugstore.”

“Yeah, I know.” Erik’s voice trailed off and I immediately knew that I’d said the wrong thing.
 

I nudged Erik’s arm. “Hey, I don’t know why I said that. There’s always a chance that—”

“I should use the restroom before we go.”

“But wait—”
 

Erik left before I could say anything more.
 

We got back on the interstate. I was driving and Colin sat next to me. “Do you need me to keep you awake? Pick a topic. I can talk about anything.”

“That’s all right, Colin. I’m not tired. You can sleep if you want.”

“Okay, maybe just a couple hours. But wake me up if you want me to drive.”

Within an hour, everyone was asleep. There were hardly any cars on the road. Occasionally a semi would startle me as it roared past on its way downhill. The silent van gave me time to think. My thoughts kept going over all the sad things that had happened that day. Losing Paul. Losing my abilities. Losing my communication with Erik. It was a day of losses.
 

The past few months had been such a roller coaster of good and bad. The good was finding Brittany. And Erik. And seeing Colin again. But there were also so many bad things that had happened. My parents’ deaths being the worst. I found it ironic that some of the best moments in my life had occurred during the absolute worst time of my life.
 

I kept driving into the morning. As the sun began to rise everyone started to wake up. I heard Jack’s voice from the back of the van. “Sam, have you been driving all night? We need to stop. Get off at the next exit.”
 

Colin was waking up beside me. “Where are we, Sam?”

“Wyoming. We’re almost in Nebraska.”

Colin checked the view from the window. “I’ve been asleep that long?”
 

I stopped at a large travel center. Jack got out of the van and came over to the driver’s side. “Why didn’t you wake someone, Sam? I didn’t want you driving all night. That’s a dangerous stretch of road.”

“I felt good so I kept going. Besides, I practically had the road to myself. And we haven’t hit any weather problems.”
 

We were extremely fortunate that it had been the driest and mildest winter on record for the middle of the country. Normally, that stretch of road would be nearly impossible to drive on during that time of the year.
 

Jack opened the door, motioning me to get out. “I’ll take over driving now. Everyone up. Take a restroom break. And we might as well get some food while we’re here.”
 

After our brief stop, we hit the road again. I went to the back of the van to sleep. When I got up, we were almost through Nebraska. I heard Erik digging through some boxes behind my seat.

“What are you doing back there?” I asked him.

“Going through Luke’s stuff. Can you move over?”

I sat up, giving Erik a place to sit. He set the box down between us.
 

“Luke didn’t have much,” Erik said, sifting through the box.
 

“Well, it sounded like he moved around a lot.”

Erik picked up one of Luke’s surfing trophies, then tossed it back in the box. “I wonder how long he lived like that. He was basically homeless.”

“We don’t know that. All we know is that he was living with that guy. Before that, he could have been living with someone else.”

“If he had a home, he wouldn’t have asked the old man if he could stay there. And he would have had more stuff than this.”
 

Erik took a book from the box. “It’s a surfer’s guide. Lists all the best beaches for waves. He’s got stars by some of them, like he was rating them.”

As Erik flipped through the book, a photo fell out. He didn’t notice so I picked it up. There was a nice-looking young couple in the photo. They were smiling and the man and woman each held a baby. It was an old photo and had yellowed a little. It’d been folded and the crease had distorted part of the image. I looked closer at the faces of the man and woman. They looked familiar. Very familiar. The man looked just like Erik, but about 10 years older. The woman had Erik’s eyes and smile.
 

“Look at this photo, Erik. It fell out of that surfer’s guide.”

Erik put the book aside. “Yeah, it’s an old photo. So what?”

“Look at the man in the photo. Don’t you think he looks familiar?”

Erik looked but didn’t react.
 

“Erik, he looks just like you. Well, like you in 10 years. And the woman. She has your eyes. Don’t you see the resemblance?”

He held the photo up to the window. “No, not really.”

“And they have two babies. Twins. Do you get what I’m saying?”

“Yeah. And they’re not my parents, Sam. Why would Luke have a photo of our parents?”

“But they look just like you.”

Erik checked the photo again. “Okay, so they look a little like me. But it doesn’t matter. Even if it is them, what do I care? They were part of the GlobalLife project. They gave their kids to a corporation. Like I really want to think about them, Sam.” He tossed the photo back in the box.

“But Erik, don’t you want to keep that somewhere?”
 

“Hey, check this out.” Erik picked up a small leather-bound book with a string tied around it.
 

“It looks like some type of journal. Open it up, Erik.”
 

He undid the string and looked inside. “There’s a bunch of equations in here. Math equations.”

I scooted over to see what he was looking at. “That’s not basic math, Erik. That’s like really advanced math.”

“I know. I used to work on stuff like this back in Texas. It was kind of a hobby. Some people do crossword puzzles. I figure out math problems. I know, it’s nerdy.”