Outbreak (22 page)

I shake my head and the bile threatens to undo me. I run to the bathroom and pour every ounce of shame, the regret and the pain, into the basin.

My knees wobble. My body shakes.

More shame spills on the floor.

David lifts me from my pain, starts the shower and helps me clean up. My emotions fall away with the water until my mind is finally clear. I stay in the shower, relishing in the heat and water that surrounds me. David cleans the floor, washes out my shirt and blows it dry. Silence grows between us. I don’t know how to tell him what happened, how to face him after nearly killing my brother, the person I’m trying to protect.

Will I ever be free from this nightmare?

“I’m getting us some food before Liam wakes. Want anything?”

“Not really.”

David nods and kisses my forehead before leaving.

I towel-dry my hair, my gaze drifting from Liam to the mirror. I see our resemblance easily now. Same angled features, same general build, same round eyes. His eyes are like Josh’s and his hair like mine. It’s his skin that makes him look more fragile.

I walk to the window and stare out at the parking lot. The sky shifts from dusk to night, bathing everything in an inky blanket. Street lights reflect off puddles, an indication of the storm I never heard, never saw. I swallow hard and think. How am I going to make my brother understand the truth? LeMercier is all he knows, all he remembers. I am nothing more than his enemy.

Liam rolls his head to the other side as he shifts his body weight. I stare, ready to strike if necessary. But he settles back into a deep sleep within moments and I turn my attention back to the blackened sky and unseen storm clouds.

“How am I going to do this?” I ask the silent darkness.

I walk back to the bed and retrieve Mom’s journal. It feels cool in my hands, the pages crisp. I steal a glance at Liam, satisfied that he still sleeps deeply.
Please remember,
I push into his thoughts.

I thumb through the journal’s pages and allow the words to blur.
How do I do this, Mom?
No answers come. Only more doubts. Liam will never believe me. My father ensured that. There is no way out of this, nothing I can do to severe Liam’s ties to that monster.

Unless . . .

Grabbing a pen from the nightstand, I flip the pages until I reach a blank one. The crisp page calls out, urging me to write the words that scare me. I know this is the right thing, the only way I can protect my brother. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

David won’t approve. He’ll beg me not to.

I don’t have a choice.

Words pour through me on to the page. Every thought I can’t repeat, every word I dare not say. It’s a risk leaving it in the journal. But David will find it. He’d know I would leave him something, a clue or a message.

I hope.

“Hey,” David says as he walks into the hotel room, bag in hand.

I slam the journal shut, heat rising in my cheeks. The scent of In-N-Out fries wafts through the room. I glance at Liam to make sure he hasn’t stirred. The fries smell good enough to wake the dead.

“Gosh that smells good,” I say as I toss the journal aside.

David nods at the old book, his eyebrows cocked.

“I was rereading Mom’s journal looking for something to help us,” I lie. My cheeks still sting with heat.

David’s mind brushes against mine. I secure a shield between us, locking my thoughts away. “I miss her,” I whisper as I walk toward him.

“I know you do,” he says.

I cover his hand with mine and take a fry from the bag. “I need to thank you for everything,” I say. David fills my thoughts, only David. “You’ve always been here for me—through the craziness, my nightmares, Josh’s death. You believe in me even when I can’t find a reason to believe in myself. You deal with my death wishes and my demons.

“You deal with all of it.”

David puts the bag on the desk and pulls me into a tight embrace. “Dakota,” he says. “I love you. This is what people do when they’re in love.”

Tears form before I can stop them. “I don’t think there’s a way to save Liam.” The words stick in my throat and come out with a sob.

“I can’t think of a solution either,” David says.

I pull away from his embrace and turn back toward the window. “I have to keep trying. For Mom. For Josh.”

“I know.”

Silence grows between us. My mind swirls on everything I wish I could say, everything I know he needs to hear.

“Let’s run away,” I say after a long pause. “Let’s pretend none of this happened, the experiments don’t exist.”

David stands behind me and slips his arms around my waist. “We could do it,” he says. “We could leave right now. Hide.”

I release a deep sigh. “I can’t, not really. You know I can’t.” A new gulf extends between us. “It’s not his fault. He deserves more than this life.”

“Who? Liam?” David asks as he tightens his hold on me. “It’s not your fault either.”

“I had choices he didn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do,” I say. Everything in me tells me that I’m right—his life was dictated to him from the second he was born. “Regardless, my brother deserves better.”

David kisses my hair. “Okay,” he whispers in my ear. “What are we going to do?”

Tears fill my eyes and drift down my face. “LeMercier has to die. It’s the only way this ends.”

David’s body stiffens against mine as I feel him inhale a tight breath. “No!”

“I have to push aside my ethics and become everything he trained me to be. You know it’s the only way.”

“I won’t accept that. We can kill him without you being his assassin. This is about justice, retribution for what he did to your brothers and what he’s doing to you. This isn’t about random killing, or shoving aside your ethics or becoming a mass murderer.” David spins me around and wraps me into a tight embrace. “You are so much more than you realize,” he breathes into my neck. “Please have faith in yourself. See the
you
I see.”

“I’m trying,” I whisper.

David tilts my chin and covers my mouth with his. The kiss deepens, speaking a truth that scares us both. Every word we refuse to say, every feeling I can’t express comes through our lips.

My body trembles as we pull away. My eyes blur and more water streams down my face.

“I love you, David,” I say through my tears, my fear.

David kisses me again. Our minds intertwine.
I love you, Dakota
fills my thoughts.
Forever and always.

“I love you, so much that it scares me.”

“I know,” David says between kisses. “I’ve always known.”

Seven’s mind blurred. The fire running through his veins coiled around his spine, his brain. He pushed against it, desperate to break free from the fire’s hold. The harder he tried, the more his mind fractured, the more his body refused to work.

Seven fell backwards in his thoughts. Fresh pictures sprang up around him. Images of children, parents, a life he never knew.

The images morphed and twisted until a single picture clarified in his mind. A woman and a baby.

Seven focused all of his energy on the picture, noting every detail. The picture moved and looped. It joined with other pictures until a movie formed against the backdrop of Seven’s mind.

The movie of his life. If he could trust it.

A baby with deep set blue eyes squeezed his mother’s finger. Terror gripped his thoughts. He looked at his mother’s face, noting the tears that welled in her eyes. His body was stiff, her jaw set. She spoke in tight clips to a hard looking woman. Seven didn’t understand what was happening. His mother’s voice filled him with a terror he’d never known. Even the arguments that happened at home ever since his birth didn’t scare him as much as his mother’s tone did now. Seven watched as several heartbeats passed. His mother’s eyes grew dark with each moment. She pulled Seven close to her chest and kissed his forehead. “I love you, Liam.” She said before she passed him to the harsh-looking woman
.

Anxiety mixed with fear in Seven’s mind as the fire continued to coil around him. The movie continued to play, tugging at his deepest fears.

The baby tightened his grasp on his mother’s fingers. He opened his mouth and screamed
. No, no, no, no,
he said in his thoughts, willing his mom to hear him. Seven’s mother loosened his grip on her fingers and pulled her hand away. Expelling a deep sigh, she kissed the top of his head once more and turned. Seven screamed until his voice was raw. His mother hesitated, wobbled on her heels, and walked away without glancing back. Sobs wracked his tiny body.

The movie sped through Seven’s mind. Clips of a past he couldn’t remember streamed forward and Seven felt as though a piece of his soul had died as his mother walked away.

The images continued. They blurred together and spun away. Until his thoughts settled. A single picture pulled into focus. The Creator and a three-year-old Seven. A movie formed from the vision and whirled to life:

“You’re safe,” the Creator said to Seven. “You’ll always be safe with me.” The Creator lifted Seven into his arms. “No one will ever love you like I do.
She
abandoned you. They all will desert you. But not me. I will never leave.” Seven looked from his master to the kind-faced woman he had begun to consider his mother. Her eyes filled with tears. She reached for Seven and pleaded with the Creator not to steal her son. Seven reached for her. Seven’s master pulled him away. Seven screamed
. Please,
he pushed into the Creator’s mind.
Please don’t take me from my mother. Not again.
The Creator’s brow furrowed. Anger tugged at his mouth. Seven began to cry and his master grabbed his chin, hurting him. “Do not cry,” he barked and the child. “Never cry.” Seven released an unearthly scream as fresh tears streamed down his face.

Seven jerked in his thoughts. He pushed against the vision and dreams, begging for the fire to wash him away.
Lies,
he screamed in his mind.

Trust your instincts, son.
The voice was more thought than sound. Seven’s body reacted and his heart clenched.
Please. Have faith.

Mother?

I never wanted this for you, she says. Let me help you now
.

Seven fought against the sound, desperate to ignore the thoughts, the hope, in his mind.

Your sister, Dakota, is trying to save you,
the voice continued.
Don’t resist her. Your master, LeMercier, he is not who he claims to be. He wants to hurt you.

Liar!
Seven screamed inside.
He’s the only one who loves me, the only one I can trust. The Creator needs me. I need him.

No,
the voice said in soothing tones.
He doesn’t. That’s what he wants you to believe. He’s using you the same way he uses everyone—for his own desires.

No!
Seven’s mind filled with rage.
Help me, Creator,
he screamed. His mother’s voice faded back.

Seven drew an image of his master in this thoughts.
Help me,
he pleaded again.

His eyes snapped open. Gritting his teeth, he broke free from his binds. Blood stained his wrists and ankles.
Get out of my head,
he thought. “Get. Out.”

Seven lunged toward the Assassin and knocked her off the bed. The Samurai grabbed his arms, pulling hard. Seven shrugged him off and unleashed his anger on the Assassin. “You can’t beat me,” he growled as his fists collided with her jaw.

She grunted, screamed, clutched her face.

Images bloomed across Seven’s mind. The nightmares, his mother’s voice. The Assassin crawled backward, her gaze locked on him.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” Seven taunted.

The Samurai shoved Seven away from the Assassin. The cool metal of a blade edged toward Seven’s throat. “I told you what would happen if you attack her again,” the Samurai said.

Seven raised his hands, growled.

The knife flew across the room. Seven rammed images of the Assassin’s death into the Samurai’s mind. “Who’s going to stop me,” he taunted. “You?” He flooded the Samurai’s mind with more pictures until a feral cry raged from his mouth.