Mania (12 page)

Fifteen
Jack

Libby's exhaustion after the events of the day actually helped, and she was asleep in only a few minutes. Knowing she could be our best hope of finding Parker, we all stayed as quiet as possible to avoid waking her up before she had a chance to get us the answers we were so desperate for. Still, I couldn't stop myself from glancing again and again at my rear view mirror to make sure she hadn't woken up too early.

Chloe sat completely silent in the front seat. She looked like she feared that if she breathed too hard someone might kick her out.

At least we were on the road now, and I was more than relieved to be out of Cypress Crest. There was nothing else I could do for them. Nothing else I could do for Marisol or even for Libby. More importantly, there was nothing else I could do to help Parker … at least not there.

The only thing I could do right now that held hope for any of us started with finding Wendy King and ended with completing my dad's new formula. As much as I missed Dad, at the moment I wished I could punch him. This time, of all times, couldn't he have just given me all the information? Why did everything have to be so complicated?

Beneath my anger, I remembered that this was one more piece of insurance we'd get out of the base alive. If they tried to kill us, they'd never have a chance to live. His paranoia had saved us time and again over the years.

Still, right now, with Parker's life at risk. I just wanted answers.

As soon as we were on the road, Finn proved how helpful he could be by immediately running a search for all Wendy Kings in the Brimley Terrace area. There were three. He quietly called all of them, pretending to be collecting information for the local school board.

“Why the school board?” I asked.

Finn gave me a sad smile. “It's something Parker taught me once. He said most adults are more willing to help if kids are involved. It ties in to some kind of survival instinct.”

I nodded, impressed.

Before we were even halfway through the hour drive, Finn had eliminated one of the Wendys because she'd died last year. He eliminated the next because the number was disconnected—she was still a possibility, but since she'd just became much harder to find, we hoped she wasn't the right one.

So now, thanks to Finn, we had an address for the best candidate
and
we knew she was at home. Parker had only been gone a few hours, but with a deadline of only ten days, every minute counted. Finn had saved us at least an hour.

“Thank you,” I said softly without looking at him.

I could hear the surprise in his tone when he answered. “You're welcome. But I did it for Parker.”

“I know.”

Brimley Terrace was where Dad had grown up. Maybe he and Wendy had known each other for a long time. Maybe she'd known Dad before he'd become the man I knew. Maybe he'd known Wendy before he had to hide and run all the time to stay safe.

I couldn't even imagine my father as a man without secrets.

Casting a glance at the others in the van, it was pretty obvious I wasn't the only one feeling distracted. Finn was staring so hard out the window that he could've been trying to shoot lasers out his eyes to blast the road before us. Chloe kept peeking back at Libby like she thought she might suddenly wake up and decide to pounce on her again.

My eyes were starting to feel the strain of too many nights without a Builder. I blinked hard and rubbed them with the back of my hand. I honestly didn't know how Parker had survived like he had with just Mia—and then I swallowed back a fresh wave of guilt. I'd never really told him how sorry I was, or how terrible I felt, that he'd become Divided on my watch. Dad had told me to keep an eye on him, and I should've watched him closer. But he hid being a Watcher so well. Most of us couldn't go on functioning that long without sleep. Parker had still been going to school and making passable grades. He'd looked a bit like a druggy, but so do a lot of the guys in high school.

And then he'd managed to do the impossible and somehow merge his mind back together. It had literally never happened before. Not that I'd ever heard of anyway.

I gripped the steering wheel so tightly the leather creaked under my fingers. If any Watcher could survive being held captive by the son of Steve Campbell, it was Parker—the son of Steve's worst enemy, Danny Chipp.

My brother would be fine, and I would make sure of it by getting to him this time before it was too late.

“Did that steering wheel offend you in some way?” Chloe whispered.

I blinked and looked over at her, but didn't respond. Chloe just rolled her eyes and peeked into the back at Libby again.

“You don't have to watch her. She won't attack you again—not right now anyway.” My eyes were mostly back on the road, but I could still see Chloe's eyebrows shoot up to nearly hide behind her bangs.

“I'm not afraid of her.” Her tone made the idea sound completely absurd.

“Then why do you keep looking back there?”

“Because I just wonder … ” She hesitated as she again turned to glance at Libby. “I just wonder what it's like to be able to sleep like that. And to control their dreams the way they do. You know?”

I frowned, my eyes straying from the road over to Chloe's face, but she seemed sincere. “I guess so.”

“I don't know.” Chloe settled back into her seat and tucked her legs up under her chin, wrapping her arms around them. She looked very small and vulnerable in that position, especially when she continued. “I just think that out of all of us, the Builders definitely got the best deal in this whole scenario.”

I barely hid my reaction. To have a Taker, the daughter of a man who compared their kind and their abilities to gods, sitting here saying that the Builders had it better? Even after everything else, Chloe continued to surprise me.

Finn's phone rang and we both jumped. He pulled it from his pocket and held it forward to me in a panic. “It's Parker's mom! What do I tell her?”

“Send her to voicemail,” I answered quickly, hoping we could avoid waking Libby if we didn't have to. Finn frowned deeply and shook his head, but then did as I asked before the phone had a chance to ring again.

“Okay, done. But we don't have long before she calls back. I guarantee it.” Finn looked at me in the rearview mirror, keeping his voice low to match mine. “We can't just ignore her calls for ten days.”

“I know we can't,” I muttered. My mind raced for answers. What could we tell Mrs. Chipp? If we told her the truth, wouldn't she want to go to the police? The police would only cause problems here, as we'd already seen. The Takers had the advantage in every way when it came to Dreamers. Why hadn't I already been thinking about this problem? Because I'd never had to deal with a mom before? Because my mom was—well, because my mom was dead. Because of that, she hadn't been around to worry about me when I'd gotten into trouble … I had no clue what to do with a worried mom.

“Text her.” I focused my eyes on the road. “Tell her Parker's phone is dead and the reception is bad, but that we're fine and spending the night at the camp with the other Night Walkers. Pretend to be him. You can do that … right, Finn?”

He didn't respond, but I could hear him punching the message into his phone so I knew he was doing as I asked. After a few seconds, I repeated, “Right?”

Finn gave me a non-committal grunt before hitting one final button and putting his phone away. “You know that is going to buy us one day at best, right?”

“I do.”

“Well then I hope you have a better plan for tomorrow.” Finn sighed and slouched back against his seat to look out the window.

“I think I do.”

In the mirror, I saw his head swivel to face the front and then he leaned forward again with interest.

“What is it?”

“Look.” I put my blinker on and moved the van toward the freeway exit that said
Brimley Terrace
. “I don't know anything about moms. That should be obvious to everyone. So, my plan is to put you in charge of the problem.”

“Me?” Finn's voice squeaked a little.

“Yes. I've seen you convince both Parker's mom and your mom to do something they weren't originally ready to agree with. You get them. You're the expert. You tell me.” I held his gaze in the mirror. “Tomorrow, when we talk to her again, what should we tell her?”

Finn's mouth pressed into a firm line. I was surprised when he and Chloe answered in unison: “The truth.”

Chloe clamped her lips shut and her cheeks flushed red, but Finn's expression went quickly past surprised and onto validated.

He nodded and continued, “She isn't just any mom. She isn't in the dark anymore. Parker has told her everything about his dad and about being a Watcher now. She knows about how his dad died. We can tell her this. She'll be terrified, she'll want to help, but she won't cause problems if we tell her it will risk Parker.”

Then Chloe spoke again from her seat, but her words were barely loud enough to hear. “Parker trusted you, Jack. So she will trust you.”

“Exactly!” Finn nodded, and then shot Chloe a weird look. Chloe was staring at the floor, the door handle, anywhere but at Finn. This conversation was taking a really strange turn.

“All right. If you're sure, then that's what we'll try …tomorrow.” I took my second left and parked thirty feet up the street from the house that currently belonged to a woman named Wendy King. It was small and gray, but there was a fresh coat of green paint on the fence in the backyard.

“So Wendy King has an ingredient?” Chloe asked.

“Or, she
is
an ingredient?” Finn's eyebrows shot way up. “Maybe
people
are the missing parts of the formula?”

Chloe rolled her eyes and ignored him, so I followed suit and said, “I'm hoping Dad gave her the information we need.”

Finn leaned back in the front seat and muttered something about being underappreciated in his time.

It was hard to believe that Dad had stayed in touch with someone he'd known growing up, but maybe that's why she wouldn't have been at risk. He could have known her before he was even aware he was a Watcher. “Let's go see if we're any closer to solving this formula.”

Sixteen
Parker

The cot was exactly as worn as it looked. I'd tested the weight with one foot and it collapsed into a pile of rags and bent metal. Gathering the pieces of cloth, I spread them out across the grimy concrete floor and made a spot to sit or lie down on. It wasn't much, but it didn't make my skin crawl as much as the ground around it.

“Hello? Is someone in there?” The man's voice felt like it was coming from the wall behind me. For a moment I wondered if I'd imagined it, then it spoke again. “Please tell me if you're there.”

“I'm here,” I whispered softly in response, keeping my eyes on the door. “Who are you?”

“Oh, thank God … ” His voice cracked with emotion. “No one has spoken to me in over a week. I feel like I'm going crazy in here.”

I waited for him to actually answer my question, wondering if this could be some kind of trick or Taker mind-game they were playing.

“Sorry, my name is Shawn.” He spoke quickly. The poor guy sounded afraid of the silence when I didn't answer.

“You've been in here for a week?” I asked, careful to keep the skepticism from my tone.

“No. I've been in here since we moved here a month ago.” His words came so fast I had to focus to understand him. “The silent treatment they've been giving me has lasted a week … before that, they tried different things.”

Even though I was already cold, this last part made me shiver. “What kinds of things?”

There was a long-enough silence that I was afraid he might have decided he preferred silence to conversation with me. When he spoke again, his voice sounded haunted. “I hope you don't ever find out.”

I didn't know what that meant, but from his tone alone I knew that I hoped the same thing.

“Listen, I'm going to go to sleep for a bit, but I don't expect I'll be going anywhere anytime soon.” My voice was gentle. I didn't want to upset this man if he was the only person I might have to talk to over the next ten days. “Can we talk more when I wake up?”

“You can sleep? You aren't like them?” he asked, sounding hopeful.

“What do you mean, ‘like them'?” I decided not to actually answer the question until I knew more about him.

“You aren't someone who can take over other people while they sleep?” His voice sounded scared and I couldn't blame him.

“No, I'm not like them,” I said, before finishing with, “Good night.”

“Good night.” His whisper sounded dejected, and I couldn't help but pity him.

For now, though, it was time to sleep. I was still surprised I'd managed to make it all the way to this cell without making eye contact with anyone. I was still connected to Libby. And even though I no longer had any intention of telling them where I was—for the sake of their safety—I could at least make contact with Libby, let them know I was okay, and ask her to get a message to Jack.

And the sooner I accomplished that goal, the better.

I tried to settle my long legs into a comfortable position on the small piece of floor. It wasn't easy. Cold seeped through the floor and into my skin. I couldn't help the shivering. I tried sitting up against the wall instead and it was slightly better … even if I could hear the skittering movements from rats in the wall behind my head. Finally, the stress and outright exhaustion of the day caught up to me and I drifted off to sleep.

Libby's dreams were chaos, and she sat at the very center of it. The only Builder whose dreams I'd been in was Addie, and she always strived to make them controlled and peaceful.

Libby's couldn't have been farther from that if she'd been trying.

The entire dream was a storm. The wind blew and there was the tang of coming rain in the air … but no actual drops. Lightning cracked and the ground shook. It was more than just a dream of a storm, though. Something more was happening here, and it physically hurt me to be in the middle of it. My brain ached. It felt like sandpaper was being used inside my skull. What was so wrong? What was Libby doing?

Then I realized she wasn't just building a chaotic storm dream. The chaos was a by-product of a much more intense kind of damage. Every dream had layers—this was one of the first things I'd learned about them. The only exceptions had been Mia's self-hypnosis dreams, or Addie's dreams when she was in control and forced them into one layer so I could sleep.

Libby was using the layers in a completely unnatural way. It was something I wouldn't have even thought possible if I wasn't seeing it myself.

She was separating the dream into more and more layers. Shredding it into so many I couldn't even keep track—and then smashing the layers violently against each other.

This entire dream was like the ocean during a massive storm. Each layer was a wave crashing this way and that, smashing into other waves and shattering them apart.

My brain hurt as it was being pelted by bits and pieces of fragmented dreams. Libby was unleashing all her pain and anger on this dream, and the devastation from it was mind-boggling.

Several memories of a significantly younger Jack came through, and the emotion tied to them was intense. She loved him, but that strong emotion was blended with a longing and sadness that could only mean one thing—to Libby, it was more than just a sisterly kind of relationship, and it had been for a long time.

I knew that feeling too well. I was just lucky that Addie had loved me back.

Another bolt of lightning struck nearby. The ground shook as memories of Jack shredded before me. I pressed my hands against my head in an attempt to stop the pain.

Libby was only a few feet away. Her back was to me, her body curled down on the floor with her head resting against her knees. I stumbled closer and could see her fingers. They were gripped in her hair in tight fists of fury. The pain in my head became excruciating. It was unbelievable that she could hurt me this much using only her mind.

Focusing on touching her and not letting my fingers pass through, I rested my right hand on the back of her head. Desperate, I yelled her name. “Please, Libby! You have to stop!”

Immediately, everything around us went still and quiet. I withdrew my hand and fell to one side as I tried to catch my breath. My head was still pounding, but it wasn't with the same ferocity as a minute ago.

Libby shifted around slowly to face me. Her eyes were wet and she still looked devastated, but she was focused on me now instead of bent on destruction.

“I didn't feel you enter the dream … I'm sorry.” Her shoulders hunched forward and her entire body trembled like it was trying to let go of something dark that had attached itself to her. “Very smart, by the way, you meeting my eyes before they took you.”

“It was the only thing I could think of to do.” I rubbed at my temples with my fingertips, willing the headache to fade even more, but it didn't.

“Where are you? You're still with
him
, right?” Libby stared at me, and her brown eyes looked darker and colder than I remember them being. “Has Jack trained you?”

“If by ‘with him,' you mean I'm being kept locked up in a cell by Cooper, then yeah.” I lowered my brow and finished. “Trained me how?”

“Can you kill Cooper?” Her words came out too fast, too eager.

Her words shocked me. “
Kill
him? You think Jack has trained me to kill people?”

She watched me for a minute before her shoulders slumped so far forward I worried she might cave in on herself. “No … he wouldn't.”

“No,” I responded firmly. “And even if he had, I wouldn't do it … not unless I had no other choice.”

Libby obviously didn't want to talk about this anymore. “What do you want me to tell Jack?”

“Tell him I'm okay for now, but it is too dangerous to come in here to get me.”

“Where do they have you?” Libby squinted at me like she didn't quite understand what I was saying.

I dropped my chin and stared at her. “You know if I answer that then he'll come in after me. I'm trying to keep all of you safe too.”

She frowned. “You know he isn't going to like that you're taking this out of his hands.”

I shrugged. “That isn't new. He doesn't like a lot of things I do.”

“At least tell me why it isn't safe?” Her gaze was appraising.

I chose my words carefully, knowing Jack would analyze each and every one of them. “The Takers are heavily armed and have me in a place where it will be nearly impossible to get to me.”

Libby watched me for a minute before nodding. “And you're sure you'll be okay in there for a few days?”

My brain wasn't so sure, but I gave a firm nod anyway. “Yes. Just tell Jack to spend his time working on Dad's new formula instead of worrying abou—” Then I couldn't finish speaking.

Libby's eyes went wide. There was a violent yanking sensation in my gut and I heard her scream my name just as I was dragged forcefully out of the dream.

“I don't remember saying it was naptime.” Cooper's face was so close to mine that I could smell something that reeked of over-ripe tomatoes on his breath. My body sputtered at the water he'd dumped on my head, but I remembered to keep my eyes closed so I wouldn't lose my connection to Libby.

“How long was he out?” I heard him asking someone else in the room.

“Maybe an hour.”

“That should've been long enough … ” He shoved me against the wall so hard my forehead smacked against it and my headache was back to full force immediately. I slid to the floor and raised both hands as I coughed and sputtered, wiping the water off my face. Keeping my eyes closed wasn't an option if I wanted to be able to protect myself. I opened them, but kept my gaze down on Cooper's black sneakers.

“Did you get a chance to chat, then?” He sounded satisfied. “Got to catch up with your big brother, did you?”

My blood ran cold. “You wanted me to talk to them?”

Cooper chuckled. “Let me guess. You told them you're okay and that he shouldn't try to come save you?”

I didn't answer. The long maze-walk down to my cell, all the armed guards we'd passed on the way … he'd orchestrated this whole thing. I'd done exactly what he'd wanted, played right into his hands.

I'd made sure that my brother had no other choice than to work as hard and fast as he could on the formula—but Cooper didn't know that Jack was working on the new formula, not Eclipse.

Well, at least he wasn't the only one who had secrets.

Cooper watched me, waiting for a response. But I'd be damned if I was going to give him exactly what he wanted again today.

Waiting in silence worked just fine with me.

The seconds stretched to minutes. My eyes grew heavy. I wanted to close them again, but I only did so when he came close enough to threaten eye contact. I forced myself not to act on all my impulses to attack him. No reason to add fuel to this fire.

“You know this isn't going to work anymore, right?” Cooper surprised me when he spoke, because he didn't sound angry or even frustrated now … he sounded like he was trying not to laugh.

“What?” I growled out the word.

“We take over people's bodies by making eye contact with them.” Cooper did laugh now, but it sounded more crazed than amused. “Come on. You honestly think we haven't perfected ways to force people to meet our eyes?”

My spine straightened as I wondered what kind of methods he might be referring to.

I heard additional footsteps and knew other people were in the room. Closing my eyes again, I braced myself for whatever they had in mind.

Out of nowhere, they grabbed me. Someone held me down and another person opened my mouth and filled it with some kind of rancid-tasting liquid.

My body spasmed and I coughed, fighting to stay calm and breathe through my nose. If I stayed calm, it would be fine. Until someone clamped their fingers over my nose. Instantly, my eyes and my throat opened in panic. I locked eyes with Cooper before I even had an instant to think about it … but that didn't matter anymore. I was drowning. I couldn't breathe, and they dumped more and more of the liquid into my mouth. My head was pounding even harder and my throat burned. Each breath that I couldn't get made my chest ache like an empty pit I could never fill.

Jerking my arms and legs against their grip, I got one shoulder free and hit Cooper hard with my right fist before my vision started to blur. There were voices from what felt like a long distance away, but my body suffered from tremor after tremor as they argued. This was the last of the fight left in me, the last of my life, and they were washing it away with this putrid water.

Forcing my consciousness to stay aware was too difficult when the smooth oblivion that wanted me instead felt this welcoming. My last thought was to hope Jack might watch out for my mom when I was gone … and to wonder why I'd never asked him to do that before Cooper threw me into the back of his car.