Mindsurge (Mindspeak Book 3) (36 page)

If Sandra stole my healing abilities, maybe the rest of my mind powers would go, too. If I could escape from this place and remove the tracker, I’d finally be free to live a normal life, away from all of this mess that came with being a living science experiment. No one would ever want to get inside my head or kill me, because I would no longer have the special powers they coveted.

And I had the money to do whatever I wanted. I could help people—with or without the supernatural healing abilities.

My mind shifted to memories of the little boy in the emergency room at the University of Kentucky Hospital. He had lost so much blood, and I had been able to do a simple procedure to help him. It wasn’t a life-threatening injury, but my abilities had helped him and his father.

And Jonas and Jack were both convinced that without the threat of the IIA and Sandra, we’d find our powers to be useful—life-changing, even. That, without the darkness, we’d bask in the light. We’d find beauty in something created by evil. With my money, we could turn Wellington into a school of future medical geniuses.

But what about Jack? What if he was gone from my life forever? Could I do anything without him? I swallowed hard as I stared down the cliff into despair.

I had risked everything by leaving Jack and coming to Palmyra. I could have healed him all along, and hadn’t realized it. This was all my own fault for not accepting the reality of my destiny sooner. I wouldn’t let the chance I took be for nothing. I wouldn’t let Jack’s sacrifice be in vain.

Now, I seemed to have enough knowledge and money to control my own destiny, and I could help others find theirs. I would find a way to make Jack proud of me.

I would fight back. If I could change a life—heal someone of a horrible disease or injury—I would do it. These supernatural abilities were a gift. They may have come from corrupt intentions, but I would find a way to use them for good.

I would not let Sandra take away any part of me. I was not hers to control or manipulate.

A strange sensation erupted at the back of my neck. My tracker had come to life.
Sarah, I would like for you to put Dr. Mendez on the bed there. It’s bad manners to leave her on the dirty floor.
 

The orders came through loud and clear. I knew it was a test. Yet I immediately realized that I didn’t feel the least bit compelled to do as Sandra had ordered. My mind was stronger than anything she could manufacture.

Still, I couldn’t let Sandra know that she didn’t control me. Not yet. So I proceeded to do as Sandra directed. I lifted the good doctor from the floor, struggling with her since she was at least twenty pounds heavier than me.

“Help her, John,” Sandra ordered. “Show Sarah that we can be a team if she cooperates.”

Dr. DeWeese limped over. Keeping his injured leg straight, he bent at the waist and grabbed Dr. Mendez’s feet while I slid my hands under her armpits. Together we lifted her to the bed. “You really are her pawn,” I said with disgust.

Dr. DeWeese looked up, and the corners of his lips lifted in an evil grin. “You might think that.” He stepped to Sandra and yanked the phone from her hands.

“John, what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m tired of you playing around with these clones. It’s time to end this. The original clones have been nothing but pains in our asses. Do you really think that Jonas hasn’t been helping her since she arrived on Palmyra?”
 

“I found no proof of that.” Sandra actually sounded panicked. “Believe me, I searched. Besides, if he was helping her, she wouldn’t be standing here.”

She had a point.

“Now hand me the phone,” she demanded with an outstretched hand.

Thank goodness Jonas had been smart enough to keep his eyes closed in the server room. Where the hell was he?

“Hand me the phone, John. What are you going to do, kill them all?” Sandra asked. She suddenly lunged at Dr. DeWeese, grabbing at the phone, but he easily held it out of her reach. To my surprise, she actually looked concerned.
 

“Like you murdered my father?” I added, my eyes fixed on Dr. DeWeese.

His grin grew. “Yes. Exactly like that. Except no fiery car bomb this time.”
 

I clenched my fingers into fists, and mentally prepared to take John DeWeese out at the knees. But another knock at the door stopped me.

Two men in scrubs entered. “We have problems.”

“The island is surrounded. Military, it would seem. Navy. Ten ships in various locations off shore.”

My mouth hung open as two IIA agents, disguised as lab techs, explained the situation to Jack’s father and Sandra. There had to be some mistake. The military was not supposed to get involved.

“What do they want?” Sandra asked.

“They’re not saying, but if it’s the U.S. military, there are enough of them that they could take this entire island off the map if they wanted to.”

While Sandra discussed the situation with the two agents, Dr. DeWeese continued to type on Sandra’s phone. Was he killing the original clones? Removing my medical abilities? I had to do something. I wasn’t ready to part with my medical powers. Not when it wasn’t my choice. And I certainly wasn’t going to let him hurt more of my friends.

Stop typing, Dr. DeWeese,
I commanded, and he complied. I slipped into his brain and began diverting some of the blood flow from his frontal lobe, hopefully disrupting his problem-solving ability. Two could play at this frontal lobe game, and apparently the Omega Directive didn’t prevent me from harming him.

I searched through his brain until I found the nerves connecting the prefrontal cortex with the thalamus, then used my mind to clamp down on the nerves, partially severing the connection and thereby inflicting a near lobotomy on Dr. DeWeese.
Put the phone away.

He slid the phone in his pocket, and I directed my attention back to the conversation before me, looking for any hint that someone other than the military had come to help. I knew that if it came down to it, the military would take out this island if they even suspected that the clones being created or the trackers produced here were designed as weapons.

Sandra was still talking with the agents, oblivious to what had been going on between me and Dr. DeWeese. “You’re IIA,” she snapped, lifting her hands in frustration. “Surely there’s something you can do!”

The man who appeared to be the spokesperson of the two took a deep breath. “Dr. Whitmeyer, our orders are to not get caught covering up what’s going on at this facility. As far as we’re concerned, the IIA has nothing to do with what’s happening here.”

“Well, isn’t that just perfect. And what about the other boat approaching the island?”

“They were just members of your staff.” The man’s brows knitted together. He was confused about something. “They said they didn’t hear us when we radioed them.”

Strange
, I thought.

“My staff? Who?”

Both men shrugged.

“Any sign of members of the Nature Conservancy?”

“None.”

“I want to know if those boats get any closer or if you see anything strange from them. And I want men watching each and every boat. Something moves, I expect to hear about it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The men left.

Only one thing comforted me in that exchange. I was pretty sure that if the military had intentions of coming on this island or of destroying the labs here, they would have done so already. Act first, take names later.

Sandra turned to face me again. “
You
did this. They’re here because of you.”

I smiled. “It doesn’t matter what you do now. We’re in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There’s no escape.”

“Hand me the phone.” She held out a hand to Dr. DeWeese, who just stared at her. His face had paled, and his eyes were unfocused and glazed over. Sandra didn’t appear to realize that I was the reason for his silence—that thanks to me, his brain was barely functioning.

“What’s wrong with you?” She pulled the phone from Dr. DeWeese’s pocket, dialed a number, then raised it to her ear. “Seal up the main incubator lab. No one gets in.” She hung up, typed something else, then turned again to me.

“Now, my dear Sarah, it’s time for you to say goodbye to your supernatural gifts forever. Control is mine. You will be my puppet.”

As she punched buttons on her phone, I took in a breath and prepared to tackle her. The Omega Directive had stopped me before, but maybe—maybe if I used every ounce of my mind power, I could overcome the Omega Directive and take her out. I had to try.

I lowered my shoulder and leaned forward. Just as I made the decision to launch myself at her, a loud boom broke through the quiet. The ground shook. Small vials on a nearby shelf clinked together like chimes.
 

Both Sandra and I turned our heads in the direction of the only window in the room. She darted to it and raised the blinds, giving us full view of a fiery explosion on the south side of the building.

I took in another breath as I waited for something more to happen. Was it the military? Were they obliterating Palmyra? Was I going to die right here, right now, along with everyone else on the island?
 

Sandra spun around and shoved me hard. I fell backward against the bed. A growl erupted from somewhere deep inside her chest, and she returned to punching buttons on her phone. After several seconds, she raised her head and just stared at me.

Was that it? Had she just wiped my DNA and my mind of all its special abilities?

I slipped inside Dr. DeWeese’s brain. I could still see the damage I had inflicted. Would I be able to see his brain if I no longer had abilities? No. Whatever Sandra had just done, my mind, and my abilities, were still my own.

Just to be sure, I proceeded to change how the blood was flowing in Dr. DeWeese’s brain. Not enough to do any damage, just to give him a slight headache—while maintaining the lobotomy already in place.

Dr. DeWeese touched a gentle hand to his head, and his brow remained crinkled in confusion.

Sandra looked from me to Dr. DeWeese and back. “What’s happening?”

Suddenly a familiar presence slipped in and around my head like silk, and I welcomed it like I never had before.

Jack!

The door to the exam room burst open, and Jack, Jonas, and Briana bolted inside. Jonas marched straight up to Sandra and stopped in front of her. “Take one for the team, mommy dearest.”
 

Jonas raised his rifle, and as the butt of the gun made contact with Sandra’s face, she gasped, and her eyes bulged in a look of shock and disbelief I’d never seen.
 

She bent forward, cupping her injured cheekbone. “How did you do that?”

Jonas shoved her into a chair and proceeded to tie her to it. But I knew that what he had just accomplished was much more than an injury to the woman who’d delivered and raised him, but a direct annihilation of the Omega Directive.

Dr. DeWeese collapsed into a chair across from her, his eyes empty, lost.
 

I flew at Jack, jumping into his arms.
 

“Whoa.” He stumbled backward, then leaned his face into my hair. “Miss me?”

My body began to shake as I cried into his neck. “I thought you were dead. I’ve been going out of my mind.”
 

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I’m here. As are several very influential people from the president’s staff. Apparently you made quite an impression on his deputy chief of staff.” He pulled his head away and glanced toward Jonas, whose lips tugged downward. Jack’s head fell forward.

“What’s wrong?” I searched their faces.

“I couldn’t heal him.” Regret filled Jonas’s voice. “He’s unconscious.”

“What?” I clutched Jack’s cheeks. “I don’t understand.”

Jack smiled weakly. “I’m sorry.” He leaned his forehead against mine. “Kyle’s got control of me. The yacht is close. But he can’t keep it up much longer. He’s losing his hold on me, and… Lexi, I’m fading.”

Tears blurred my vision. “You tried everything?” I asked Jonas.

He nodded, looking away. “I was able to help Georgia, but Jack’s condition is far worse. I… I’m sorry.”

I searched Jack’s eyes.
What do I do? I can’t lose you.

He stroked my hair. Our eyes were locked.
It’s okay.

Jack was giving me permission to let go, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I shook my head.
It’s not okay. Nothing about this would ever be okay.
If Jonas couldn’t heal Jack, how was I supposed to?

“Lexi,” Jonas said behind me. “You can do this. You have all the tools you need to heal him. You’re the strongest of any of us.”

Slipping my hand into Jack’s, I pulled him over to the gurney. I eased him onto the bed, laid him flat on his back, and leaned over him. “I’m going to need Kyle to let go of you.”

His eyes struggled to focus on mine. Reaching a hand to my cheek, he wiped the falling tears from my face. “I love you. I want the very best for you. Don’t stop searching for the good in what we were created to do.”

More tears streamed down my cheek and landed on his arm. “Never goodbye.”

“Never goodbye. I’ll see you soon.” His head relaxed into the pillow, and his eyes closed.

~~~~~

The neurons inside Jack’s head were firing, but at a sluggish rate. They were the color of a dull, smoky blue, unlike anything I had seen in his head in the past. Still, nothing looked out of place. I continued my scan down his neck and spine, checking carefully, vertebra by vertebra.

My heart pounded at an alarming pace, but all tears were gone. If I had any hope of Jack surviving, I had to get it together.

Jonas entered my mind. He was watching how I searched through Jack’s body.
You can do this. I know you’ve got the power to help him, Lex.

When you inflicted him with this illness, what exactly did you do?

She had me play with the bacteria that are produced naturally in our bodies. I moved it around as she directed. Through his organs, along his spine, and even into his legs.

I turned my attention back to Jack’s body. His brain looked normal other than the fading neurons and low activity. I examined his other organs—heart, lungs, kidneys, stomach, spleen, liver. Everything looked normal. Nothing looked diseased, but his white blood cell count was overwhelming.