Mania (18 page)

Thinking about that made me grip the steering wheel even tighter again.

Veronica #2's house was a pretty condo in a nice part of Franklin. A little girl who couldn't have been more than six or seven years old answered the door. She had giant brown eyes just a shade lighter than her skin. Her hair was pulled up in a bun on top of her head, and she was wearing a purple ballet leotard.

There were only three of us on the porch, since when Chloe climbed out of the van, Libby decided to stay behind. I wasn't at all surprised, although I'd hoped at some point she might start warming up to Chloe a little.

“Is your name Veronica?” Finn asked the girl with a smile, bending down. I rolled my eyes at Chloe. We wouldn't have found this Veronica in the phone directory, not to mention that my dad probably hadn't left his deepest secrets with a tiny ballerina.

“No, I'm Ruby!” She grinned and showed us her missing front tooth. “Veronica is my mommy's name.”

“Can we talk to your mommy, then?” Finn straightened up and raised his eyebrows at me like he'd proved some kind of point. “Is she at home?”

Ruby bounced up onto her toes and then disappeared into the house, yelling, “Mommy! The door people are for you!”

A couple of seconds later a woman walked down the hall toward us, holding a large spoon in one hand and a phone in the other. She had Ruby's exact eyes. “May I help you?”

I stepped forward. “Veronica?”

“That's me.” She hit a button on her phone, slipped it into her pocket, and looked at me expectantly.

I introduced myself, explaining that she might have known my Dad and I was looking for information.

Veronica looked bored at first. But she stopped fiddling with her spoon and looked horrified when I told her that Dad had died. “Oh, honey, I'm so sorry. The name doesn't ring a bell, but do you have a picture with you or anything that might help me remember?”

My heart stung with a quick, piercing stab. I wished I had a picture of him. He'd never let me take one …

“I have one,” Finn said quietly, giving me an apologetic look. “Well, it's not of him, but it's his other son, and I guess he looks a lot like a younger version of their dad.”

Finn pulled a picture out of his wallet. In it, Parker, Addie, and Finn were sitting at the table in Finn's kitchen. They were all laughing so hard it looked like they could fall right out of their chairs at any moment. It was a great photo. It made me miss both Parker and our dad, all in one glance.

Veronica studied it closely. “Yeah, he looks familiar, but … ”

“Picture him in his forties,” Chloe jumped in, and I glanced at her in surprise. She shot me an apologetic look, and I remembered that she and her family had spent a decent amount of time at the base while they were holding Dad. I looked down with a shake of my head as she continued. “He had graying hair around his temples, and—”

Veronica suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth, grabbed the picture, and pulled it closer before letting out a small squeak. “Oh no!”

“You remember him.” The answer was obvious from the look on her face. I felt a spark of hope that at least we now had the right Veronica.

“Yes.” She nodded, lowering her hand. “He went by Dan, but I swear he said his last name was Richards. He used to live in my building. He seemed like a nice guy … ”

It was quiet for a few seconds before she got a look of sudden panic on her face.

“Why did he change his name? Was he dangerous?” She leaned back and looked into her house to make sure Ruby wasn't close enough to hear, then put one shaking hand to her heart before asking, “He spent time with Ruby … he wouldn't have hurt my daughter, would he?”

“No, no, no,” all three of us said in unison, and Veronica looked significantly relieved.

I stepped forward. I'd spent all night pushing away my fears about what might be happening to Parker, and I'd come up with what I hoped was a better way to get answers from these strangers. Now it was time to try it out and hope for the best.

“We're trying to puzzle together some stuff he was looking into,” I explained. “He left a bunch of papers behind and it doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe you can help us?”

Finn threw me a surprised glance behind Chloe's back, but I pretended not to notice. I just needed them to let me play this out.

Veronica shrugged. “I don't know what help I can be, but if I recognize anything, I'll tell you.”

“Good. That's all I need.” I smiled and felt genuinely relieved. “My father had some strange words jotted down near your name on the papers I found.” I tugged my phone out of my pocket and pretended to read off of the notepad app. “Do the words ‘NWS,' ‘Night Walker,' ‘Eclipse,' or ‘Type 1, 2, and 3' mean anything to you?”

I spoke slowly, watching Veronica's eyes closely for even the slightest spark that she'd heard something familiar. If there was one, hopefully we'd see it without tipping her off.

She bit her lip like she was thinking hard, but I didn't detect even the slightest flicker of recognition on her face. Then she said, “Maybe he was … a diabetic? Aren't those called type 1 and type 2? Could it be something like that?”

Finn's shoulders relaxed and Chloe looked at me with one brow raised.

I acted like this could be important even though it seemed pretty clear Veronica didn't have a clue about our world. “Hmm … he wasn't a diabetic, but we'll check out if someone he knew was. Thanks for your help.”

“Sorry, again, about your dad,” she said, shaking my hand.

“Thank you.” I made sure to make solid eye contact with her one last time before we started back toward the car.

Ruby came out to wave goodbye and I saw Chloe bend down to smile at her and tell her what a pretty ballerina she was. Ruby was beaming by the end of their short conversation. I'd never seen a Taker who could really relate to people. One more surprise about Chloe.

When she walked in my direction, I looked away and slipped on my sunglasses. Before I got a chance to speak, Chloe sighed. “I know.”

That stopped me short. “You know what?”

“I know you're worried about Ruby, and I promise that when I take over her, I will not harm her in
any
way.” She looked hurt that we were even having this conversation.

I actually hadn't been thinking that at all, and it made me wonder if I should've been. Did I trust her more than I should—or less? Every day, Chloe threw something I thought I knew about Takers out the window. Until I could figure her out, I'd probably be better off just keeping my mouth shut.

So I didn't say anything about her plan for Ruby. I just shrugged and led the way back to the van. When I got there, I saw that Finn was already in the driver's seat.

He had a determined look on his face. When I jumped into the back next to Libby and shut the door, he said, “We're staying in real beds in a motel tonight. I miss pillows and showering. I don't want to hear any arguments about it.”

Twenty-Four
Parker

Time passed so strangely. It could've been hours or days or weeks … I couldn't keep track. I was in the white room for a long time, the lights off until I started to fall asleep and then they would all come blaring to life. If I started to doze off into the Hollow, even with the brightness, then a loud horn would go off and wake me up.

They came in with so many injections. Sometimes it was the black goo that made me feel like I was a living, breathing echo of myself. Other times it was different chemicals that seemed specifically designed to make my body freak out in various ways. I swear one was straight adrenaline; my heart would pound so hard it felt like it was trying to break free from my chest and I couldn't get enough oxygen to keep up with it.

I longed for the days when I was simply exhausted. I'd never thought that could be possible.

They always gave me the injections in the white tile room. When they were done, they moved me back to my filthy old cell, dumping me there before the adrenaline-like medicine fully wore off. I opened my eyes in confusion each time I was moved. In the old cell, my blood remained on the floor, but now it was old and dried.

Whenever I had a moment alone, my thoughts went back to the last thing Cooper had said to me. They were trying to turn me into a Taker? I'd never imagined something like that could even be possible.

But apparently, if what they said was true, then Dad had originally come up with an idea about messing with our brains—and now Dr. Rivera was trying to make it a reality.

So far, I was still a Watcher—so maybe they hadn't really figured out how to do this yet. And I would hold on to that hope until they proved otherwise.

In the quiet of my cell, I heard the whispers. Shawn spoke to me sometimes. He encouraged me, told me I was strong enough to handle this, that I would be okay. I began to believe he wasn't real, but I appreciated the company anyway. He was kind and patient, and he never showed up in my cell and tried to kill me … and that was really all I needed to know.

Besides, even if Shawn was a hallucination, I much preferred him to the hallucinations I had of Addie. In those, she kissed me and then told me she was disappointed in me; she said she loved me and then said she hated me. If I told her I knew she wasn't real, she would sometimes laugh and sometimes attack. Once, she stabbed me. I felt the pain, saw the blood … and then it was all gone, including her.

I began to really resent my own mind and the cruel tricks it was playing on me.

The next time I woke up in my cell, my head was pounding so hard I couldn't lift it. My mouth felt so dry I wondered if opening and closing it could rip something. I pressed my forehead against the cold cement, fighting to catch my breath. My heart was racing and I felt like I might throw up or pass out.

“Parker.” Shawn's voice reached out to me through the wall. “Take slower, deeper breaths. I know it feels like your body can't get a full breath, but you need to focus on slow breaths first, okay? In through your nose and out through your mouth.”

I did as he said and within a minute my reaction to the medicine eased. “H-how … how did you know what to do?”

He didn't answer for so long that I called his name, afraid he might have actually disappeared this time.

Finally, he let out a long breath and answered. “Like I told you, I worked for them before I ended up in here. I've had a lot of medical training. I used to be Dr. Rivera's assistant … ”

I felt the wind get sucked out of me. This person, who'd helped me so much, had helped Dr. Rivera do these same terrible things to other innocent people.

Then something clicked into place. This was exactly what kept happening with the Addie hallucinations. She would show up, pretend to help or say something nice, and then end up hurting me.

“You aren't real,” I said.

“What?” Shawn sounded extremely confused, but so did Addie every time I confronted her.

“It doesn't matter.” I sighed and rolled over, trying to close my eyes and rest now that my pulse had slowed down.

“It was awful. I couldn't live with myself after I saw what some of the medications could do.” Shawn sounded like he was pressing himself up against the wall, trying to force his voice in so I could hear it. “They threw me in here because I finally refused to help them anymore.”

“Uh huh … I'm going to try to sleep for a minute now.” I did my best to sound bored. This conversation didn't matter. If Shawn was real and telling the truth, I didn't want to talk to someone who'd ever inflicted this kind of torture on anyone. If he was a hallucination, my time could be much better spent clinging to whatever bits and pieces of rest I could get.

“Okay,” Shawn said after a minute, and then, “I'm sorry. I wish I could help you.”

I didn't reply. I just closed my eyes and let the exhaustion sweep over me.

It could've been minutes or hours that passed before the door to my cell swung open again. It was impossible to tell. All I could feel was fear closing up my throat; I ignored the pain that came with each movement as I scrambled further into the corner.

It was Thor who had stepped into the open doorway. He swore, quiet and low, before bringing in a paper bag and closing the door behind him.

When he stepped closer to me, I growled instinctively and hunched lower. Thor stopped. He opened the top of the paper bag and pulled out a bottle of clear water, a sandwich, and a banana, showing each to me slowly before putting them back inside and tossing the bag to a spot on the floor next to me. Then he backed up and stood by the door. I watched him turn to stare out the window before I ripped the bag open and poured some much-needed water into my mouth.

My stomach snarled, but I forced myself to take slow, small bites of the sandwich so I didn't get sick and throw it back up. I sipped some more water, watching Thor's back.

“Why are you helping me?” My voice was raw and quiet, but I
could tell he'd heard me by the way his back stiffened.

“I'm just trying to keep you alive,” Thor grunted.

He'd always been such a silent, scary force on our soccer team, and he'd never really spoken to me before. Now that he was actually talking, I was afraid to interrupt him in case he decided to stop again.

“There won't be a trade if you're dead,” he added.

“Maybe we're more alike than you think … ” I said finally. He'd been the only one to help me in here. Maybe I could convince him to help more.

“We're not.”

“You're Steve Campbell's younger son, right? Cooper is older … ” I ate slowly and spoke softly, doing my best to think through each word.

Thor shifted his weight and peered out of the window in the other direction.

“At least your dad raised you, though,” I continued. “Mine went back to my older brother and left me behind.” I took another small bite, trying to mask how much it stung to speak those words aloud. No matter how much I tried to believe that Dad's choice didn't mean anything, there was still a fear deep inside me that it did.

Thor turned away from the window to look at me, but I couldn't read the expression in his eyes.

“I didn't even know my dad was still alive for four years,” I said, fighting not to let exhaustion and the emotion from my own words overwhelm me. Maybe this had been a bad idea—trudging up this pain that I'd been fighting so hard to put behind me. But I instinctively felt that Thor might relate somehow to that side of me … although I could be wrong.

I tried one more time. “He was always there to help my brother … but not me.”

Thor flinched like my words stung him, and then turned back to the window again.

“Shut up and eat.” His voice was softer now, but I couldn't miss the way his hands clenched—maybe my words had hit their mark after all.

Not wanting to push him too hard, I finished the food and water in silence, afraid to anger the only person who didn't appear to want me dead. As soon as I held out my garbage, Thor took it and was gone.

Then I was alone for a while, but as always, it was impossible to tell how long I'd been here or what time it was when there was no natural light in my cell. Had it been two days? Three? More? Was Jack making any progress figuring out the new formula?

As much as I fought my doubts, my conversation with Thor about fathers had hit closer to the mark than it should have. Here, in this dark and horrible cell, it was hard not to question what Jack was doing. Had Jack turned his back on me, just like Dad had so long ago?

Or was I doubting someone who would never betray me—just like Dad doubted Jack when the Takers locked him up in a cage not much different from this one?

Later, Cooper showed up with his minions to drag me back to the white room again. The food and water Thor had brought gave me a little more strength, but I didn't let Cooper see that. The last thing I wanted was for Cooper to know I wasn't quite as weak as he thought … or for Thor to get in trouble. That could cause me to lose the only ally I might have in here.