He swallowed hard. “Power surges, like an EMP pulse, but they leave me drained, and I have a knack with animals. That one I can do in my sleep, it never leaves me,” he said.
Decent enough abilities, and the fact that I couldn’t smell him like I could smell an abnormal of a weaker ability was enough to recommend him to me. He was strong, even if he was young and inexperienced.
“They’re going to put a blocker on you, something that stops you from using your abilities, and a tracer.” I could feel him sliding out from under my hands, his body no doubt being prodded awake. It had happened to me more than once, yanked out of this place of safety before I was ready.
“We’re going to break out, aren’t we?” he whispered.
I gave him a quick nod. “Yes. But don’t do anything until I say so. I’m going to try to get through to someone else.” Someone I’d been working on for a long time. Someone who couldn’t be taken down like most abnormals.
I let him go and he slid away from me, but his eyes dipped as he was wrenched out of the mist. A slow grin slid over his mouth. “You look good, Phoenix. Better than I’d ever thought a boogeyman could look.”
Before I could tell him to keep his fucking eyes to himself, he was gone, back to his body, and that left me alone with my thoughts, the water swirling around me.
Back on my feet, not remembering standing, I paced the darkness and fog.
More facilities? How many? Cowboy was right about our numbers, far larger than the normal population would ever really know. So caging us all wasn’t going to work. They would kill off the weaker ones, keep the ones they could use somehow. Especially if they were operating legally. The three abnormals in the Senate were influential and well-liked, which meant they were either dead or they’d failed to block this law. That was the only way this made sense.
“It can’t be. I’m missing something.”
I’d been in the facility a long time, almost a year, and I still didn’t really understand what they wanted from us. There had been a few blood tests, some psych tests, and the constant probing of our minds, but no training. No cutting into our bodies.
Were we going to be killed off? That was possible. But if that were the case, why hadn’t they done it yet? We were sitting ducks, and while a few of our kind had been killed, they’d kept the rest of us in stasis.
Were we going to be turned into some sort of abnormal army, weaponized to fight the normals’ wars?
Also possible.
But neither option felt quite right.
There was something under it all, like the currents I saw in my mind and they slid through my fingers just the same as the fog.
“Who the fuck is behind this all?” My voice echoed into the nothingness around me.
No one offered any answers, not that I’d expected one.
Although my father had been an enemy to other abnormals, that had been a power play to keep his side of the mob intact. And he was dead, gone.
According to what the kid had said, all the other big players in the underworld of our society were gone too. I would have no idea where to start on the outside, once I was out. Because I had to believe I would get out, or I’d lose what was left of my goddamn mind.
The faces I loved came to me, one, two, three, and I pushed them away, terrified that I wasn’t completely safe, even in this place, and they’d be found because of me. I was almost certain that was how this was happening. That the handlers could see our very thoughts, and I suspected they were using them to track down our loved ones that were also abnormals.
I didn’t think any of the other abnormals could feel the handlers, the fingers in their minds, the thoughts in someone else’s voice, but I didn’t dare ask. My son’s face surfaced in my thoughts again, though, insistent, and this time I couldn’t deny the pull to him. Dark hair and eyes like mine, his face was starting to look more and more like my brother and my father. Handsome, but it was hard to see those genetics become dominant. Not that he was anything like them. Or really even like me. Which was good. I blinked and . . .
Bear was right in front of me, on his knees, his hands on his face. Shoulders shaking, he sobbed, rocking in place. I’d seen him before in this place. Always in flashes. Laughing, smiling. Safe. And I’d always pushed him away to keep him safe. But never had I seen him like this. Not an extended vision of him.
It took everything I had to hold my tongue. I didn’t know how safe this was, if he could be found this way. I dropped to my knees beside him. His clothing was torn, and blood trickled down one arm.
Someone had hurt him.
3
Rage curled through me, clarifying everything. I’d waited long enough, now was the time to move. My son needed me and that was all it took to solidify that I had to make the breakout now.
Killian, the man I’d loved, had let me down the night I’d been taken. While my memories of the night were more than a little jumbled and broken, I knew one thing for sure. He’d let me go without a fight. Part of me understood, yet it hurt me in a way I didn’t like to admit. All that aside, I knew without a shadow of a doubt he would never let anything happen to Bear. He would have protected him with his own life before letting Bear be beaten. Which meant Killian had likely been taken into another facility.
And my son was on his own, fighting for his life in a world that wanted to destroy him.
“I’m coming, my boy. Hold on,” I whispered, daring to touch his head, but my hand went through him as he disappeared.
Someone called my name and I looked upward, through the current to the surface of the water. Above me I could see my naked body sitting on the bed, eyes closed, hands resting on folded knees.
Easter (I refused to call her by her captive name when I was here in this place) tapped my physical leg. “Wake up, Fiona.”
I blew out a breath and pushed off the bottom of the river, through the current and to the surface of the water, then through that as well, feeling the safety of my sanctuary slide off my skin.
I blinked once and stared up at Esther, fighting the thoughts that wanted to come with me. “Hey, what time is it?”
“Nearly dinner. You’ve been meditating this whole time?” She didn’t arch an eyebrow, just looked at me.
Blank, she was blank. I smiled, forcing the same blankness into my eyes. “The doc said it’s good for us to let our minds be empty. Don’t you meditate?”
Her eyes didn’t change. “I lie quiet on my bed and that is as close as I get. Is that what you mean?”
There was nothing for me to do but nod in agreement even though my stomach twisted with nausea again. The fingers in my mind were back, trying to soothe the anxiety that I couldn’t still on my own. I pushed them away as carefully as I could. No need for alarm, just worried about the new kid.
You aren’t the monster they say you are. You are good and kind.
She tugged on the end of her braided hair, twisting it around her fingers. “Do you want something to eat?”
I didn’t but agreed to go with her. The food in the cafeteria was poor, though everyone else seemed to like it. The main dish was always the same, a type of gelatinous pudding that had a variety of vegetables splattered through it, and an undistinguishable meat on the side that was always overcooked with a faint bitter tang that I knew was the sedative. A barbiturate, no doubt.