Damage (20 page)

We burst out into the cold, blinking in the sudden light. We’re only a few feet from where we entered. The back of the hospital is as deserted as it was an hour ago, and the tail end of the dragon-trashed car still peeks out from behind dumpsters. As I follow Dani across the stained asphalt, I offer up a prayer that the engine will turn over on the first try. We aren’t safe yet, but we’re a hell of a lot closer than we were a few minutes ago. There’s no way the fake FBI could have made it down to the ground floor yet. It feels okay to let my guard down for a second, to dig my fingers into my back pocket searching for the key.

I should have known better. I should have realized the car could be a trap. But I don’t. Not until a man with wild brown hair down to his shoulders jumps from the space between the driver’s side and the dumpster and throws himself at Dani. His arms wrap around her and she screams, a wounded sound that makes me want to smash his face in.

The key falls from my hand, tinkling onto the ground as I run for him, right fist lifting, pulling back behind my head. Dani shoves at his chest, giving me a perfect shot at his face. I go for it, thinking I’ll smash his glasses and give us an advantage, but he ducks to the side, surprisingly fast for an old guy. Now that I’m closer I can see the gray streaking his hair, the bald spot near the back of his skull, and the wrinkles around his brown eyes.

Brown eyes that are … weirdly familiar.

For a split second I think I know him from somewhere, but then Dani yells for me to stop. She fists my shirt and pulls me back as the man lifts his shaking hands into the air and I suddenly realize where I’ve seen those eyes before. They’re Dani’s eyes, the same melted chocolate brown.

I know he’s her dad even before he turns to Dani and demands, in a perfect TV-sitcom-dad voice, “Give me your cell phone. Right now.”

His daughter nearly died in a bus crash, and her blood is smeared all over his right hand, and he’s worried about taking away her
cell phone
?

“Right now, Danielle. I won’t ask again.” He holds out his hand, meeting my glare for a second before dismissing me with a flick of his eyes that says I’m not worth the effort it takes to focus.

I’m nothing, his daughter is his property, and he really doesn’t give a shit about anything but himself. I see it all in a glance. Dani was right. Her dad is a total bastard.

I decide right then to punch him out if I have to.

I kind of hope I’ll have to.

Dani

“Dad, you don’t understand,” I shout, ignoring the needles stinging through my left shoulder as I work my cell from my pocket. Dad’s hug-attack ripped the healing skin apart, but I can already feel the wound getting better again. It’s knitting up like a miracle, just like Jesse’s did after I pulled the glass from his leg.

God, that seems like a hundred years ago. I feel like a different person than that girl who crouched in the cold sand shivering with fear. A stronger person, one who doesn’t plan on letting her father get away with lying to her any more.

“Why are you here?” I demand. “What have you done, Dad?”

“Don’t talk back to me, Danielle. We don’t have time. Now give me the—”

“There are men trying to kill me and Jesse!” I fight to keep my volume down even though I want to scream, want to shove at his chest and demand he quit treating me like a child. Or a science experiment. I know he has something to do with all the bad things that are happening. His presence here confirms it. “They could be here any second. We don’t have—”

“They
will
be here any second if you don’t do what I tell you,” he says, snatching the cell phone I’ve finally wiggled out of my pocket.

He turns and throws it into the dumpster behind him. My jaw drops. No matter how wealthy Penny is or how much he makes as one of the head honchos over at North Corp, Dad has always been frugal to the point of being cheap. And that phone cost over a hundred dollars.

“There’s a tracking device inside,” he says. “There was one in mine, too. I found it a few hours ago, right after two men ran me off the road on the way to work.”

“What?” Someone tried to hurt my dad, maybe even kill him?

My anger drains away, leaving me so cold I can barely feel my fingers when Jesse wraps my hand up in his. “We should go,” Jesse says. “If there really is a tracking device in that phone, throwing it in the trash two feet away isn’t going to help us.”

He makes a move toward the car, but Dad stops him with a hand on his chest. “My daughter’s not going anywhere in that death trap. Both of you need to come with me.”

“I don’t know you.” Jesse’s chest puffs beneath Dad’s hand. “And I don’t trust you.”

“I’m Dani’s father,” Dad says. “And I’m the only person who can help you.”

“I think you’ve
helped
me enough already, sir.” There’s enough venom in Jesse’s last word to send a roomful of adults into toxic shock. Usually that kind of disrespect would make my dad crazy angry.

Instead, his hand falls to his side, boneless and shaking. For the first time in my entire life, I see fear thin my dad’s lips, tug at the edges of his eyes. He looks older, fragile. I’m suddenly aware of how small he is. This man who’s always loomed so large in my mind barely comes up to Jesse’s shoulder. He’s nearly as thin as I am, with delicate wrists that Penny teases him about when they’re shopping for dress shirts.

And he really is afraid. Because Jesse’s called his bluff.

Actually, it’s more like Jesse made a bluff of his own. One Dad falls for—hard and fast, a giant falling from the sky, crashing to the Earth at the bottom of the beanstalk.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, his throat working. “We needed healthy children for the trial and I … I was just trying to save my daughter’s life.”

Oh no. Oh God. I can’t … Even though I suspected, even though I told Jesse my theory that Dad could be a part of all this just fifteen minutes ago, I hadn’t really believed it. Deep down, I’d still hoped my dad was one of the good guys and there was some other logical, less-than-horrific explanation for all this. But now he just keeps talking, slamming more nails into his coffin with every word.

“I never meant to hurt you or Dani or anyone else,” he says. “We didn’t know the medicine would have these kind of side effects. Real, documented examples of telekinesis were unheard of until the Dream Project. We never thought—”

“Get out of my way,” Jesse says.

“No. Please, you don’t—”

“Get in the car or get out of my way,” Jesse repeats, shoving my dad back against the dumpster when he refuses to move. His hands fist in Dad’s brown sweater, his knuckles turning white with the effort it takes to be gentle. He
is
being gentle. No matter how scared my dad looks, I know Jesse is holding back, being careful with this monster because he’s mine.

My monster. Our monster.

My dad did this. He treated Jesse like a lab animal, put a healthy little kid in the hospital and stole his sanity, his sister, and God knows what else from the boy I love.

This is definitely what love feels like, this sensation of being ripped apart because of another person’s pain.

I put a hand on Jesse’s shoulder. He relaxes beneath my touch and releases my dad with a guilty look. I take his hand in both of mine and hold on, letting him know I don’t blame him for losing his temper. I’m not mad at him. I love him, and I’m not going to let Dad—or anyone else—hurt him again.

“People are trying to kill your daughter.” Jesse edges back toward the car. “We don’t have time for you to say how sorry you are for ruining my life.”

“Please.” Tears rise in Dad’s eyes, a wet sheen that makes me sick.
Now
he’s crying for us. Now that it’s way too late for his tears to matter. “You can drive my car. I’ll give you the keys. We’ll never get there in that thing.”

“Get where?” I ask, my voice as cold as my hands.

“There’s a safe house about three and a half hours from here, near the Canadian border. More like a safe hotel, a compound-type situation,” he stammers as Jesse snatches the keys from his hand. “The FBI is gathering all the kids who were part of the experiment there to keep them safe.”

Everything he says seems like a joke. But it isn’t. This is all for real. Deadly for real.

“The same FBI that put a bullet in my shoulder a few minutes ago?” Jesse asks. “Because if those are the guys who are supposed to be keeping us—”

“No. Those men are part of a terrorist group, they—”

“Come on. You can explain on the way out of here.” Jesse backs away from the Oldsmobile, apparently having decided to trust my dad enough to take his superior mode of transportation. “We have to move.”

Dad’s head bobs loosely on his neck as he hurries in front of Jesse. He points toward the front of the hospital. “I’m parked in the physician’s lot. They won’t look for you there, and we can take the exit out onto Fourth Street and get on the highway going north.” He breaks into a run that seems absurdly slow after how fast Jesse and I have been moving the past few hours.

It takes forever to reach the staff parking lot, but we finally make it to Dad’s beige Mercedes without any shots being fired. The main entrance to the hospital is just visible from the lot. I stand on tiptoe to get a better look, but I don’t see either of the fake FBI agents standing outside.

Where have they gone? They’ve had plenty of time to get to the ground floor. Did the hospital security hear the gunshots and go investigate? Did they call the police? Even if the Coffee Nurse is in on this, surely the entire hospital isn’t cool with people shooting guns in a place of healing.

Coffee Nurse. My dad knows her. Or
did
know her, anyway, back when I was in the hospital. How did she get involved with terrorists? And what do terrorists have to do with me and Jesse? I make a mental note to grill Dad on everything as soon as we get on the road. I need answers before I’ll go to any “safe house” with him. So far he’s done a pretty lousy job of keeping anyone safe.

Which reminds me …

“Where’s Penny, Dad?” I ask as I circle around the car. It would be just like Dad to forget my stepmother could be in danger, too. “Did you call—”

“Penny’s already on her way to the safe house,” Dad says. “She’s calling some of her old FBI friends to see if we can find out more about the people involved in this. Apparently someone hired Vince to steal some of my old research.”

“We know,” I say. “We saw him at the house this morning. He tried to kidnap me and Jesse at the bus station.”

“But Dani broke his nose and we got away.” The pride in Jesse’s voice makes me stand up straighter as he opens the passenger’s door for me and runs around to the driver’s side. I guess Dad is stuck with the back seat—another thing he’d usually never tolerate. But when I glance over my shoulder, he’s sliding in and buckling his seat belt. I meet his eyes and he smiles that rare smile he reserves for me and Penny, the one that softens him into someone who looks like part of a family, a man who knows how to love.

That smile has never seemed so much like a lie.

“I’m glad you fought back. I’m so glad I found you, Dani,” he says as Jesse starts the car and backs out. “I was scared to death that you … that something had happened.”

I turn back around to face the front, not trusting myself to speak. I’m too angry and confused and sad. How could he have done this? How could he have lied to me for years, how could he have let me think …

“Did you know the truth when I was little?” I keep my eyes on the road as Jesse pulls onto Fourth Street and steers the car toward the freeway. “Did you know that I wasn’t crazy? That Rachel was real?”

“Rachel isn’t real.” His voice takes on that condescending, I-am-a-brilliant-scientist-and-you-can-barely-pass-Algebra tone that I know all too well. I grit my teeth until my jaw aches. “The things the Dream Project kids believe they see are psychic projections, a form of subconscious telekinesis accredited to the—”

“The Dream Project,” Jesse interrupts. “That sounds like more people than just me and Dani.”

“Yes, there are … others.” Dad has the decency to sound a little ashamed of himself. But only a little. “We needed a diverse group to accurately evaluate the results of the medication, but I promise you we never imagined this was going to happen. We thought the treatment was going to be the best thing that happened to any of you. The best thing that ever happened to the human race. That’s why we called it the Dream Project. We had a dream that the children we treated would never suffer from sickness or disease again. We wanted you to be the healthiest, happiest, strongest generation the world has ever known. A superior race of people.”