Awakening (2 page)

A
S I FOLLOWED DR. Davidoff down the hall, I tried to shake off thoughts of whatever had been in my room. I was a necromancer: ghosts were my one and only specialty. So it had to be a ghost, no matter how strongly every instinct in me insisted it wasn’t. All I knew for sure was that I was in no hurry to go back in there.

“Now, Chloe—” Dr. Davidoff stopped, noticing me rubbing the lingering goose bumps on my arms. “Cold? I’ll have them turn up the heat in your room. Your comfort is important to us.”

We started walking again.

“But comfort isn’t just physical, is it?” he continued. “Equally important, perhaps even more, is mental comfort. A sense of security. I know you’re upset and confused, and it didn’t help when we refused to answer your questions. We were eager to start checking those places you listed.”

He hadn’t been gone long enough to visit spots miles away. I knew what he’d really been checking: whether Rae corroborated my story. She would. She didn’t know the real rendezvous point, only that I’d said the guys would meet up with us.

Dr. Davidoff opened a door at the end of the hall. It was a security station, the wall lined with flat-screen monitors. Inside, a young man spun in his chair, like he’d been caught surfing porn sites.

“Why don’t you go grab a coffee, Rob,” Dr. Davidoff said. “We’ll take over.”

He turned to me as the guard left. “You’ll be seeing more of the building later. For now”—he waved at the screens—“consider this the one-stop tour.”

Did he think I was stupid? I knew what he was really doing: showing me how well guarded this place was, in case I was planning another escape. But he was also giving me a chance to study what I was up against.

“As you can see, there’s no camera in your room,” he said, “nor in any of the bedrooms. Just in the hallway.”

Two hall cameras, one at each end. I scanned the other screens. Some flipped between cameras, giving multiple angles of halls and entryways. Two showed laboratories, both empty, the lights dim, probably because it was Sunday.

An older model monitor was propped on the desk, cords every which way, like it had been quickly set up. The tiny picture screen was black-and-white and showed what looked like a storage room, all the boxes shoved along the walls. I could see the back of a girl in a beanbag chair.

She was slumped, sneakers stretched next to a game console, long curls spilling over the beanbag, the controller held between dark hands. It looked like Rae. Or maybe it was an impostor set up to convince me that she was okay, playing games, not locked up, screaming for—

The girl in the chair reached for her Diet 7UP and I saw her face. Rae.

“Yes, as Rae has informed us, that GameCube is terribly outdated. But once we promised to replace it with the latest model, she resigned herself to playing it.”

As he spoke, his eyes never left the screen. The expression on his face was…fond. Weirdly, the very word he’d used earlier for Derek seemed to fit here.

When he turned to me, his expression rearranged itself, as if to say
I like you well enough, Chloe, but you’re no Rachelle.
And I felt…bewildered. Maybe even a little hurt, like there was still part of me that wanted to please.

He waved at the screen. “As you can see, we weren’t prepared to have you kids with us here, but we’re adjusting. While it will never be as cozy as Lyle House, the five of you will be comfortable here, perhaps more so, with all those unfortunate misrepresentations corrected.”

Five of us? That must mean he didn’t plan to put Derek “down like a rabid dog,” as Aunt Lauren wanted. I breathed a soft sigh of relief.

“I won’t apologize, Chloe,” Dr. Davidoff continued. “Perhaps I should, but we thought setting up Lyle House was the best way to handle the situation.”

He waved me to a chair. There were two, the one the security guard had vacated and a second, pushed against the wall. As I stepped toward the second one, it rolled from the shadows and stopped right in front of me.

“No, that’s not a ghost,” Dr. Davidoff said. “They can’t move objects in our world—unless they happen to be a very specific kind, namely the ghost of an Agito.”

“A what?”

“Agito. It’s Latin roughly translating to ‘put into motion.’ Half-demons come in many types, as you’ll discover. An Agito’s power, as the name might suggest, is telekinesis.”

“Moving things with the mind.”

“Very good. And it is an Agito who moved that chair, though one who is still very much alive.”

“You?”

He smiled and, for a second, the mask of the doddering old fool cracked, and I caught a glimpse of the real man beneath. What I saw was pride and arrogance, like a classmate flashing his A+ paper as if to say
top that
.

“Yes, I’m a supernatural, as is almost everyone who works here. I know what you must have been thinking—that we’re humans who’ve discovered your powers and wish to destroy what we don’t understand, like in those comic books.”

“The
X-Men
.”

I don’t know what was more shocking, that Dr. Davidoff and his colleagues were supernaturals or the image of this stooped, awkward man reading
X-Men
. Had he pored over them as a boy, imagining himself in Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters?

Did that mean Aunt Lauren was a necromancer? That she saw ghosts, too?

He continued before I could ask anything. “The Edison Group was founded by supernaturals eighty years ago. And as much as it has grown since those early days, it’s still an institution run by supernaturals and for supernaturals, dedicated to bettering the lives of our kind.”

“Edison Group?”

“Named after Thomas Edison.”

“The guy who invented the lightbulb?”

“That’s what he’s best known for. He also invented the movie projector, which I’m sure
you’re
grateful for. Yet you, Chloe, have accomplished something he dreamed of but never succeeded in doing.” A dramatic pause. “Contacting the dead.”

“Thomas Edison wanted to talk to the dead?”

“He believed in an afterlife and wanted to communicate with it not through séances and spiritualism but through science. When he died, it’s thought he was working on just such a device—a telephone to the afterlife. No plans for it were ever found.” Dr. Davidoff smiled conspiratorially. “Or, at least, not officially. We adopted the name because, like Edison, we take a scientific approach to matters of the paranormal.”

Improving supernatural lives through science. Where had I heard something like that? It took me a moment to remember, and when I did, I shivered.

The ghosts I’d raised in the Lyle House basement had been subjects of experiments by a sorcerer named Samuel Lyle. Willing subjects, at first, they’d said, because they’d been promised a better life. Instead, they’d ended up lab rats sacrificed to the vision of a madman, as one ghost had put it. And that thing in my room had called Brady—and me, I think—Samuel Lyle’s “creations.”

“Chloe?”

“S-sorry. I’m just—”

“Tired, I imagine, after being up all night. Would you like a rest?”

“No, I-I’m fine. It’s just—So how do we fit in? And Lyle House? It’s part of an experiment, isn’t it?”

His chin lifted, not much, just enough of a reaction to tell me I’d caught him off guard and that he didn’t like it. A pleasant smile erased the look and he eased back in his chair.

“It
is
an experiment, Chloe. I know how that must sound, but I assure you, it’s a noninvasive study, using only benign psychological therapy.”

Benign?
There was nothing benign about what had happened to Liz and Brady.

“Okay, so we’re part of this experiment….” I said.

“Being a supernatural is both a blessing and curse. Adolescence is the most difficult time for us, as our powers begin to manifest. One of the Edison Group’s theories is that it might be easier if our children don’t know of their future.”

“Don’t know they’re supernatural?”

“Yes, instead allowing them to grow up as human, assimilating into human society without anxiety over the upcoming transition. You and the others are part of that study. For most, it has worked. But for others, such as you, your powers came too quickly. We needed to ease you into the truth and ensure you didn’t harm yourselves or anyone else in the meantime.”

So they put us into a group home and told us we were crazy? Drugged us? That made no sense. What about Simon and Derek, who’d already known what they were? How could they be part of this study? But Derek clearly was, if what Brady said was right.

What about that thing calling us Dr. Lyle’s creations? What about Brady and Liz, permanently removed from this
study
? Murdered. You don’t kill a subject when he doesn’t respond well to your “benign psychological therapy.”

They’d lied all along—did I really think they’d fess up now? If I wanted the truth, I needed to do what I’d been doing. Search for my own answers.

So I let Dr. Davidoff blather on, telling me about their study, about the other kids, about how we’d be “fixed” and out of here in no time. And I smiled and nodded and started making my own plans.

W
HEN DR. DAVIDOFF WAS done with the propaganda, he took me to see Rae, who was still in that makeshift game room playing Zelda. He opened the door and waved me in, then closed it, leaving us alone.

“Game time over?” Rae said, turning slowly. “Just let me finish—”

Seeing me, she leaped up, controller clattering to the floor. She hugged me, then pulled back.

“Your arm,” she said. “Did I hurt—?”

“No, it’s all bandaged up. It needed some stitches.”

“Ouch.” Rae took a long look at me. “You need some sleep, girl. You look like death.”

“That’s just the necromancer genes kicking in.”

She laughed and gave me another hug before plunking back down in her beanbag chair. Despite our long night on the run, Rae looked fine. But then Rae was one of those girls who always looked fine—perfect clear copper skin; copper eyes; and long curls that, if they caught the light right, glinted with copper, too.

“Pull up a box. I’d offer you a chair, but decorators these days?” She rolled her eyes. “So slow. When the renovations are done, though, you won’t recognize the place. Stereo system, DVD player, computer…chairs. And, as of tomorrow, we’re getting a Wii.”

“Really?”

“Yep. I said, ‘People, if I’m helping you with this study of yours, I need a little love in return. And a GameCube ain’t gonna cut it.’”

“Did you ask for a bigger TV, too?”

“I should have. After the whole Lyle House screwup, they’re tripping over themselves to make us happy. We are going to be so spoiled here. Of course, we deserve it.”

“We do.”

She grinned, her face glowing. “Did you hear? I’m a half-demon. An Exhaust—Exustio. That’s the highest kind of fire demon you can be. Cool, huh?”

Being a half-demon
was
cool. But being a half-demon lab rat, teetering on the brink of extermination? Definitely not cool. As much as I longed to tell her the truth, though, I couldn’t. Not yet.

Just last night, Rae had been lying on her bed at Lyle House, trying to light a match with her bare fingers, desperate for proof she had a supernatural ability. Now she’d discovered she was a special kind of half-demon. That was important to Rae in a way I couldn’t understand—in a way that I just had to accept until I had more proof that this wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to her.

“And you know what else?” she said. “They showed me pictures of my mom. My
real
mom. None of my dad, of course, being a demon. Kind of freaky when you think about it. Demons aren’t exactly…” For the first time, worry clouded her eyes. She blinked it back. “But Dr. D. says that it doesn’t make you evil or whatever. Anyway, my mom? Her name was Jacinda. Isn’t that pretty?”

I opened my mouth to agree, but she kept rambling excitedly.

“She used to work here, like Simon’s dad. They have pictures of her. She was gorgeous. Like a model. And Dr. D. said they might even know where to find her, and they’re going to try. Just for me.”

“What about your adoptive parents?”

The clouds descended again, lingering longer, and I felt bad, being the one to bring her down. First telling Liz she was dead, then making Brady relive his final evening, now reminding Rae of her parents…I was trying to get answers to help all of us. But it felt cruel.

After a moment, Rae said, “They aren’t supernaturals.”

“Oh?”

“Nope, just humans.” She gave the word an ugly twist. “They said when my mom left here, she cut off all ties with the group. Somehow I got put up for adoption. Dr. D. says that must have been a mistake. Jacinda loved me. She’d never have given me up. He says that story my adoptive parents told me, about her not being able to keep me, was a lie, and if the Edison Group had known about the adoption, they’d have found me parents like us. By the time they tracked me down, though, it was too late, so all they could do was monitor me. When they found out I was having problems, they contacted my adoptive parents and offered me a free stay at Lyle House. I bet it’ll probably be weeks before my folks even notice I’m not there anymore, and then they’ll just breathe a big sigh of relief.”

“I can’t see—”

“I was at Lyle House for almost a month. Do you know how many times my parents came to visit? Called?” She held up her thumb and forefinger in an O.

“Maybe they weren’t allowed to visit. Maybe they left messages that you never got.”

Her nose scrunched. “Why wouldn’t I get them?”

“Because your adoptive parents aren’t supernaturals. Having them interfering would complicate things.”

Her eyes grew distant as she considered this. A spark flickered through them—hope that she’d been mistaken, that the only parents she’d ever known hadn’t abandoned her.

She gave her head a sharp shake. “No, I was trouble, and Mom was glad to get rid of me.” Her hands gripped the beanbag tight, then released it and patted out the creases. “It’s better this way.
I’m
better this way.”

Better a special half-demon embarking on a new life than a regular girl, sent back to her regular life with her regular parents. I reached over and took her game controller.

“How far have you gotten?” I asked.

“You set on beating me, girl?”

“Absolutely.”

I had lunch with Rae. Pizza. Unlike Lyle House, here they seemed more concerned with keeping us happy than keeping us healthy.

Maybe because they aren’t planning on keeping us alive?

Talking to Rae, hearing her excitement, I had enough distance from the pain and betrayal to face a very real, very disturbing possibility.

What if I was wrong? About everything?

I didn’t have any evidence that the people here had actually killed Liz and Brady. Liz had “dreamed” of being in some kind of hospital room, restrained. For all I knew, she’d died in a car crash when they were bringing her here. Or she’d committed suicide that night. Or, in trying to restrain her, they’d accidentally killed her.

Liz and Brady just happened to both die accidentally after leaving Lyle House?

Okay, that was unlikely.

Rae’s birth mom and Simon’s dad both happened to have a falling-out with the Edison Group and fled, taking their study subject kids with them?

No, there was definitely something wrong here. I needed answers and I wasn’t going to find them locked in my cell. Nor was I eager to meet that thing in my room again.

Just as I thought that, Dr. Davidoff arrived to take me back there. As I followed him down the hall, I scrambled for an excuse to go someplace else in the building, any way to add details to my mental map of the place.

I considered asking to speak to Aunt Lauren. I’d have to pretend I’d forgiven her for lying to me my entire life, betraying me, and tossing me to the mercy of the Edison Group. I wasn’t that good an actor. And Aunt Lauren wasn’t that stupid. There was a reason she hadn’t tried to see me. She was biding her time, waiting until I got lonely for a familiar face, desperate for excuses. Until then, she’d stay away.

There was one other person I could ask to speak to….

The thought made my skin crawl almost as much as the thought of seeing Aunt Lauren. But I needed answers.

“Dr. Davidoff?” I said as we approached my door.

“Yes, Chloe.”

“Is Tori here?”

“She is.”

“I was thinking…I’d like to see her, make sure she’s all right.”