Collide (4 page)

I glance over Mom, searching. There is no phantom now, no pictures of familiar children in a sterile lab. Whatever happened, the memories have disappeared as swiftly as the girl.

If she was even here.

The car ride is quiet, nothing but the relentless tap of the rain against the windows and the hum of the tires as they speed along the highway to break the silence hanging in the air between my parents and me. I don’t know what to think. The visions, the memories, I need to believe they didn’t happen; they’re just a by-product of stress like I said in group. I imagine what the others would say. Cutter Girl would understand. Maybe even Mari. They’d both say I’m losing my grip on reality; anyone would. One problem: everything inside tells me it’s real.

The hallucination.

The memory.

Mari’s phantom appearance in the lobby.

I should be freaked out again, begging for a long-term stay at the nut-house. Instead I’m intrigued. I want to understand what the visions are telling me, let them answer the unyielding questions now circling my thoughts.

I stare out the window, searching for meaning. Shades of grey, varied and complex, paint the sky. The rain continues to pour. A slate-colored ocean stretches out to my right, matching the imposing skyline. My mind blurs as Dad pulls off the near empty highway and the car winds up the road to our home.

We live on one of several bluffs in this quiet town. Dad slows the car with each turn, his hands wrapped tight around the steering wheel. He’s warned me about these roads since before I can remember. “You have to pay attention here,” he’d say every time someone sped past us. “These turns come fast and that guard rail won’t stop you if you miss one of them.”

He wasn’t wrong. Each year we’d read about at least a few crashes, usually by drunks or teens racing down the hills that define this part of Cambria.

I refocus my eyes as Dad continues up the hill in silence. I stare at the front console. A newspaper sits between Mom and Dad, crumbled and damp. “Mental Health Crisis in California Rages On as Another Teen Suffers a Breakdown In A Small Central California Town.”

Crap. I’d made the news.

“Say something you guys.” My voice cracks the fragile silence. “Yell, scream, cry. Anything.”

Dad sighs his annoyance.

“What do you want us to say? We’re worried about you?” Mom’s voice trembles. “Well, we are, okay? Happy now?”

“This isn’t my fault, Mom.”

She spins around and pins me with her glare. “Is that what you think?” she yells.

There’s no way for me to answer her questions without making things a lot worse, so I let the silence engulf us and count the minutes until we’re home and I can hide away from Mom’s expectant glare.

“I’m speaking to you, Dakota.”

“What am I supposed to say, Mom?” My voice is strained and hollow. “I saw something weird and it freaked me out. This doesn’t mean I’m crazy.”

“And in the lobby?” Mom won’t let this go. “What happened?”

I wish I could disappear, get swallowed up by the back seat of the car. I guess silence is better than her version of the Inquisition.

I stare back out of the window, noting the thick forests as we reach the top of the hill. This isn’t our street; we aren’t headed toward our house.

“Where are we? Why aren’t we going home?”

Dad clenches his jaw.

“Mom?”

She grabs the paper and hands it to me. I read the newspaper headline again, noticing the large San Francisco Chronicle across the top. National news. About me and my
little
breakdown. Great. I scan the page and pull out the highlights:

Screaming about a man dying, her head exploding, the young woman threw scalding hot coffee at the barista and several patrons before trying to flee the scene. Friends and family have refused to comment on the situation. The injured barista stated that the girl is a regular and has never “acted strange” in past visits to the coffee shop.

The words form a noose around my neck, making the event more and more real. I get why Dr. Donaldson wants me committed, why my parents are pissed. I’m nuts.

Crap times two.

“So?” I ask again. “Did you decide to send me to Mountain View after all? I didn’t do anything!” I crumple the paper and throw it on the seat.

“Dakota,” Dad says in his most authoritative voice. “Your incident made the national news.”

“I know,” I say as I wring my hands. “It’s ridiculous, with all the craziness in the world you’d think there’d be something more interesting to report about.”

“The article poses a serious problem for us, Dakota.” Dad grinds his teeth, a strange mixture of concern and anger pushing through his expression. “Ten years ago your mom and I went into witness protection.” His voice is too controlled, too rehearsed.

My brain struggles around each word, every syllable. “What are you talking about?”

“You made the news. We’re exposed now. In danger. We can’t stay here anymore.” Dad’s words come out in an angry huff. “We have to leave Cambria. Now.”

I open my mouth to object and the words die before they are spoken. There is just nothing I can say that will make any of this make sense.

“Christyn!” Dad says as he stares hard through the rear-view mirror. “They’ve found us.” His voice compels me to turn. A large black SUV with windows black as night rushes up the winding road, closing the distance between us.

Panic floods Mom’s expression, replaced by a foreign steely resolve. “Dakota, unbuckle your seatbelt and do exactly what I tell you to do.”

“Mom?”

“When the car slows, jump out and run to your brother’s house. You know how to get there from here, yes?”

“W-what?” My throat closes around my fear.

“Dakota, you have to do this.” Mom grabs my hand and squeezes hard. “Unlock the door.”

I follow her instructions as the black SUV rams into the car, jolting me forward.

Dad grips the wheel tightly and we begin to swerve off the road and toward the tree line. “Find your brother.” He says before retrieving a gun from the glove compartment.

“Dad? Mom?”

“Just go. Run. Don’t stop. No matter what happens.”

Mom opens my car door and my world spins away from me.

I throw myself from the car, rolling along the hard dirt.

The black SUV pushes our car into the trees.

Gunshots ring out around me.

I SCRAMBLE TO MY FEET AND LOOK BACK
. Our car is bent at odd angles, wrapped around a tree. Two men in dark suits emerge from the black SUV, guns drawn. There are no signs of life in our car. Everything tells me to run, to follow Mom and Dad’s instructions and find my brother. But I can’t just leave my parents.

“Get the girl,” one of the men says. “I’ll take care of them.”

I run into the forest beyond the tree line, crouching down in the thick brush as an imposing figure of a man walks toward me, gun aimed where I hide.

“Come on out, Dakota. I don’t want to hurt you.” His jaw clenches, his finger twitching on the trigger.

My senses sharpen. Every sound, every movement, intensifies around me: the steady, rhythmic beat of my pulse as it throbs, the crunch of pine needles as the man walks ever closer, the echo of gunfire signaling my parents’ possible demise. A moment passes and my brain quickly orchestrates the easiest way out. I imagine the gunmen struggling to breathe while the blood supply to their brains is cut off by invisible hands pressing down on the carotid arteries pulsing along their necks.

Another heartbeat and the large gunman takes a step closer. His face pales as he grabs his throat and drops his gun. His eyes roll back and he passes out on the hard ground. My head swims, my fantasies come to life within that moment.

I edge out from my hiding spot. Another gunshot rings out above my head.

“Run, Dakota. Run.” Mom’s voice ends too fast.

“Mom!” I scream.

More gunshots.

Grunts and groans.

Screams.

I take a tentative step toward the car. My parents’ voices scream through me, commanding me to run and find Josh. I focus on our car. The other gunman turns and raises the gun toward me.

Panic seizes my throat. On instinct, I run back into the thicket. Twigs and brambles tear at my skin. My throat begins to tighten. I force air through my lungs, pushing myself harder and harder.

Until there are no more sounds behind me. Eventually my legs refuse to take another step and I stumble. I grab a small tree and stop, my breath coming too fast as my lungs cramp. Tears overtake my eyes. My mind replays the week’s events: the breakdown and the hospital, my parents’ confession and the gunmen. My knees begin to wobble. A combination of tears and sweat blur my vision. Mom and Dad witnessed a crime. They, we, were in hiding. I’ve put everyone in danger.

My mind continues to spin as I picture the attack, the blank expression on the gunman’s face as he passed out and the sound of Mom’s scream as it mixed with gunfire. I sink to the ground and my body shakes. They’re dead.

They’re all dead because of me.

T
HE ARCHITECT PACED THE CRAMPED SPACE OF HER ONE-ROOM STUDIO, UNSETTLED
. She hadn’t enjoyed killing the doctor as much as she’d thought she would. She’d found no release, no purpose; nothing of what she was assured. She clenched her jaw and her back stiffened with apprehension. No one had honored her kills yet. The Order hadn’t invited her home.

A few jobs
, the Creator promised.
Loose ends you need to tie. Then you will join us permanently.

The Order was formed by the Creator a few years after the accident that tied the Architect to her fate, an organization dedicated to protecting the world from terrorism. The group promised her safety in return for her loyalty, something she was all too willing to give. Before.

Now, she doubted everything. Each kill proved more difficult. Every day that passed left her more uncertain.

She needed the Order’s adoration, the Creator’s. More, she needed the chance for vengeance they promised her.

Unable to clear her head, the Architect walked to the small desk crammed in the corner of her room, opened a drawer and grabbed the old photograph on top. Shoving it into her pocket with a mixture of both contempt and reverence, she left the studio, ran down the stairs and out to the noisy streets below.