A Perfect Darkness (29 page)

“The guy's a psycho.”

Gerard had to smile at that. It wouldn't be long before his star Offspring could do more than fill Aruda's head with words.

Olivia returned. “Peterson's shot in the hip. He's conscious. Another man is down, bullet to the upper chest, lost a lot of blood but his pulse is steady. I can hear two men banging on locked doors in the east wing. We need to get them out.” Robbins handed her his keys. She looked at both men. “Is help coming?”

Robbins said, “We've called Pope.”

“Who's Pope?”

“Oh, I thought you knew.”

She looked at Gerard, who said, “He cleans up messes to preserve the classified status of top secret projects.”

Her voice grew shrill. “Is he sending medical help?”

“Yes.”

She ran to the medical supply closet.

Robbins knelt over Hanson, the man Lucas had shot. He was also unconscious, bleeding from a bullet in the shoulder. He tore off his shirt to stanch the flow, then looked up at Gerard. “For God's sake, why are you smiling?”

“We lost a small battle here, but we will win the war.”

A
my thought her heart was imploding. Lucas's breathing was becoming shallower. Now that Eric wasn't driving like a madman, she could check his pulse. Hardly there.
This can't be happening. I can't go through this again.

“We have to get help.”

Eric said, “We can't take him to a hospital. They're kinda funny about bullet wounds, wanting to call the police and stuff. Do you know anyone with medical training who would be willing to treat him and not tell anyone?”

Amy shook her head. She looked at Rand, feeling bad for screaming at him but unable to apologize just yet. It wasn't his fault, not really. Lucas had insisted on going back for him. Now she understood why Eric was so angry when Lucas had risked his life to warn her.

Rand said, “Wish I did.” He meant it, too, as he looked at Lucas. “Why did you risk your lives to rescue someone you didn't even know? Not that I'm complaining, mind you.”

Eric said, “We do know each other. Years ago our
parents were involved in a classified project together. We”—he nodded to indicate those in the backseat—“spent our days together. Your mom took care of us.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “You have a psychic skill, or maybe you see it as an extraordinary ability.” He looked at Rand expectantly.

Rand's face was a mess, covered in cuts and yellowed bruises. He had some kind of a spike through his eyebrow, which was torn and bleeding. Traces of a blond goatee showed through the stubble on his face. “I can see ten seconds in the future.” He nodded ahead. “That yellow car is going to cut over in front of the red car. The driver is going to stick his hand out the window…no finger.”

They watched as just that happened.

“The a-hole back at the hospital was trying to get me to use it to see even further ahead.”

Eric asked, “Did he do that to your face?”

“No, the guys at the casino did most of this.” He gave them a sheepish smile that looked a bit gruesome with the green bruises. “My, ah, skill comes in handy at the roulette table. Casinos don't like guys who win too much.” He narrowed his eyes. “How'd you know I had an ability?”

Amy looked at Lucas again, tuning out as Eric filled Rand in. She felt so damn helpless. Were they just supposed to let Lucas die? She wanted to scream, to cry, but she held onto her grief. There was something she could do, something small. She unclasped Lucas's necklace and put it on him. He needed all the help he could get.

Petra looked just as agonized. She'd spent the wild part of the drive crammed into an awkward position
with her hands gripping the seats to keep her balance. Now she slid to the side and folded herself into yet another awkward position next to Lucas's chest. “I need to touch him,” she said, and Amy wasn't sure she was talking to anyone in particular. Her intense blue eyes focused on Lucas as she held her hands over his chest.

Amy was still pressing down on the wound. “Your hands are hot. I can feel the heat coming off them.”

“That's what happens when I rub people's shoulders.”

Her miraculous massage. How miraculous? Amy doused her hope. No massage was going to heal a bullet wound.

Amy moved her hands away, settling them on Lucas's head, accidentally smearing it with blood. Petra placed her hands on his chest, closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Her forehead creased. Tears followed the tracks already going down her cheeks. She moved her mouth, whispering so softly Amy couldn't hear her words. Several minutes later she could make out, “Lucas, come back, come back…Lucas, your heart is strong, your body is healing. I love you, Lucas.”

Amy closed her eyes, too, and silently chanted the same words. She poured her love down her arms and hands and into him. That love was a double-edged sword, though, cutting deep into her. She had believed in loving and losing, and now she was losing. But at least she had loved.

From what seemed like a distance she heard Rand ask, “What are they doing back there?”

Eric said, “Beats me.”

Amy didn't know either. Their voices faded again, and in her mind she heard one of her favorite songs
by Fuel: “Hemorrhage (In my Hands).” She had fixed many a hard drive with that song pounding through her earphones. Now the words about love bleeding in his hands, asking someone not to fall away and leave him to himself, resonated through her.

She cracked open her eyes. Petra was hunched over, as though in physical pain, even gasping as if experiencing pain. One of her hands was splayed over her chest. She was breathing heavily and her face was contorted.

“Petra?”

She shook her head.

Baffled, Amy shifted her attention between the two. Petra let out a breath and became completely still. Her expression relaxed, looking almost peaceful. Just seeing her that way instilled an odd peace in Amy. She looked down at Lucas. He, too, now had a peaceful expression on his face…or was he gone? The thought strangled her.

He wasn't breathing anymore. A gasp of grief escaped her mouth. He was gone. She was alone, because even with Eric and Petra, without Lucas she was so alone.

Lucas's eyes fluttered open and looked right at her. She blinked, sure she was imagining it. He took a deep breath and…smiled. A faint smile, but a smile! Petra opened her eyes, too, and the surprised look on her face morphed to joy.

“Lucas,” Amy said, cradling his face.

“Why are you upside down?” he asked, his voice weak.

She laughed. “You're in the car, on my lap.”

He looked at Petra, her hands on his chest. “What happened?”

“You were shot,” Petra said. She lifted her shaky hands, which were covered in blood.

He tried to sit up.

Amy said, “Maybe you shouldn't—”

Too late. He lifted her wadded-up shirt and looked. His shirt and chest were covered in dried blood. He ran his hands over a red welt.

A welt?

Eric jerked the car into a parking lot, threw it into Park, and twisted around in his seat. “Am I seeing things? Maybe I
am
crazy.”

Petra put her fingers over the welt. Her face was suffused with red, her eyes shiny with unshed tears.

“I don't understand,” Lucas said, looking around at the stunned faces staring at his chest. “Where was I shot?”

“Here,” Petra said.

“But—”

“It's healed,” Amy said in an awed whisper.

He blinked, rubbing his hands over his face. “I remember…” He looked at Rand. “You said Amy was going to be shot. I ran, pushed her out of the way…”

“And got shot,” Eric said.

“How long have I been out?”

Eric looked at his watch. “Forty minutes.”

Amy put her arms around his shoulders. “That's why we're all looking at you with incredulous expressions, Lucas. A few minutes ago you were dying. Petra put her hands on you, and now…you're healed.”

Petra couldn't stop smiling. “I can heal. I can heal!” She rubbed her hand over the same place on her chest where Lucas had been shot.

“Your miraculous massages,” Amy said. “You said
people claimed you healed them. And your hands, they were burning hot when you put them on Lucas.”

“I felt a need to touch him. I couldn't explain it; it just came over me.”

“What happened?” Amy asked. “You doubled over.”

“I felt his pain. Like I took it on.” She looked beneath her shirt. “It still hurts but there's no mark. I actually expected to see one.”

Lucas took Petra's hands in his. “I feel like I'm in a dream. It's amazing. You're amazing.”

“No shit,” Eric said to him. “I can't believe it, and I'm looking at you.”

Amy reached out and gripped one of Petra's hands. “It's like your ability to hear from a distance. You thought it was just a really good physical ability. Those massages you gave to people actually healed them.”

Petra glowed. “I have abilities! And I saved my best friend.” She hugged Lucas. “And I'm so tired. It's like my energy is draining right out of me.”

Lucas pulled her against him. She closed her eyes and within seconds her face was slack. Amy curled up against him, too, awash in relief.

Lucas twisted around a little and touched Amy's bare shoulder. Then he lifted the shirt, but it was covered in blood. Rand pulled his shirt off and handed it to her. “It's a little less bloody than yours.”

Eric pushed it back at him and removed his shirt. “Mine's cleaner.”

“Thanks.” Amy laughed at all the chivalry and pulled it on.

Eric put the car into gear. “Let's get back to the shelter.”

Rand was still facing the backseat, looking at Lucas. “Eric told me a little about this Offspring stuff. About how we all knew each other. This all blows my mind. And then what she did.” He nodded toward Petra, who was out. “But what totally rocks me is that you risked your life to get me out of there. Eric said it was your idea. That you insisted. Man, you saved my life.” He reached his hand out, and Lucas shook it. “I understand why you'd throw yourself in a bullet's path to save these two. Even Eric. But why me?”

“You're one of us.”

Rand nodded, letting those simple words sink in. “Now what?”

Eric said, “We get hold of one of those bastards and find out why we're the way we are and what happened to our parents.”

Amy added, “And what they injected into Lucas. Did they give you shots?”

“They slipped me some mind-altering shit, LSD or something. The nurse dude said it would open my mind, expand my abilities. All it did was wake me out—freak me out,” he explained at their puzzled expressions. He scrubbed his fingers through hair that was dark at the roots and bright blond at the tips. “So we all have abilities. She can hear and heal. What about the rest of you?”

Lucas said, “I get premonitions.”

“And you get into people's dreams.” He pointed at Lucas. “That was almost as weird as the acid, seeing you.” He turned to Amy.

“I talk to dead people. But I don't see them. I
do
see people's glows. ‘Auras,' some call them, but the colors are a little different than the aura charts I've seen.”
Rand's was the same muddled mix of colors as the rest of the Offspring.

Rand turned to Eric. “And what about you?”

His mouth twitched. “I set people on fire.”

Rand's eyes widened. “Seriously?”

Pride seeped into Eric's voice. “Yeah.”

“Was that what you were trying to do when you were twitching in the hallway?”

Lucas added, “Yeah, what
was
that about?”

Eric's slight smiled fled. “The enemy Offspring got into my head. He was saying stuff, telling me I was going to die. I was too busy trying to get the bastard out of my head to start a fire.”

That gave Amy a shiver. “That's a hell of a lot worse than someone just watching us.”

“Tell me about it.”

Lucas said, “You've got to stop that intrusion or function despite it. You can't let it sideline you like that.”

“I know, I know. I wasn't expecting it. And it wasn't just voices. I could
feel
him in my brain, this weird, tingly pressure. They've got the government on their side and they've got at least two people like us. This guy who got into my head, he's probably an Ultra, too.”

Amy tightened her hold on Lucas. “They might be powerful, but so are we. And we'll get stronger with more of us. We have two names from Cyrus's computer. We'll contact them.”

Lucas rubbed the welt on his chest. “We've got to be careful, though. We don't know who the enemy Offspring are. Or how many work for Darkwell.”

Eric said, “Talk to Cyrus, Amy. See if he can give
you more names. We're going to need as many of us as we can get.” His fingers tightened on the wheel. “So we get them before they get us.”

 

Gerard studied the old case files for BLUE EYES. He wasn't psychic—he wished he was—but he had a feeling there was something buried there. The attack on the facility and rescue of the prisoners was only a setback. The injured men were being treated, cover stories had been created, and now that the facility was cleaned up, he would forge on to victory.

At the knock on his door, he looked up to see Pope walk in. He stood to shake his hand.

Pope was imposing, six-foot-five, a slick, shaved head, and well-defined features. He was striking, not the kind of man to blend in.

“Thanks,” Gerard said. “You saved my ass, but more importantly, you saved the program.”

Pope settled into the chair, which was way too small for his tall frame. “Is this related to BLUE EYES?”

“The offspring of those subjects.”

“No mysterious substances being injected into them, I trust.” Pope had been there for that clean up, too. Oddly, he didn't look as though he'd aged a day since then.

“The Offspring already have enhanced powers, inherited from their parents. We're onto amazing things here, Pope.”

“Tell me.”

“Are you sure you want to know? Usually you prefer to stay in the dark.”

Pope's smile was colored by a childlike curiosity, an odd thing on a man like him. “I'm intrigued.”

Gerard hoped he didn't want to get involved as he filled Pope in on the current program, leaving out the fact that he'd managed to get hold of the essence of the Booster. “Next time I'll be ready for them. I hope I won't need you again.” He waited for Pope to leave; he was never one to sit around and chat.

Pope didn't leave. He sat in silence for a few minutes, giving away nothing of whatever he was thinking about. Finally he said, “You have files on the Offspring.”

“Yes,” Gerard replied, drawing out the word.

“I'd like to see them.”

Gerard hesitated. “May I ask why?”