Resilient (33 page)

“You know what?” He stops by the door without glancing back. “At one point, I was jealous of Adam. I wanted someone to love me the way you seemed to love him. I wonder what he would think if he could see you right now, hiding yourself behind your broken heart, letting him fight on his own. As it turns out, that love wasn’t worth my envy.” He walks out and I hear him shutting the front door and stepping outside. 

As his words sink in, my own anger grows. I imagine Adam fighting for his memories, for his life, to keep me safe, to keep them away from me. I imagine him screaming my name and them torturing him for information that could lead to me. He is fighting for me, and Dan is right—I need to fight for him.

I bolt out of the cabin and chase after Daniel. It’s dark and I can’t see, but I can hear his feet hitting the ground. I run faster and I can hear his heart pounding. I hear his lungs. I pass him and I abruptly come to a stop, extending my arm out. His body collides with my hand. But I am the one that stands still and unharmed while he falls to the ground, unconscious. 

“Rule number one. Never turn your back on your enemy if she’s faster than you.” I look down at him. “Now, I’m ready.”

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She speaks softly close to his ear, gently touching his face. 

“Are you still sleeping?” she asks. When he doesn’t answer, she adds, “I’m sorry for hurting you, but I have to do what they tell me.”  She waits to see if there are any signs of awareness.  She didn’t want to hurt him, but he wouldn’t let her in his mind any other way.  

When she realizes he’s still unconscious, she lets her hand fall to her side and turns away from his bed. 

“Livia?”  He whispers. 

Brooklyn freezes at the door.  He had called for Livia, and at that moment, she knows all the pain she caused him was in vain— he still remembers.  She walks back to his side.

“What did you say?” she urges with a feverish whisper. “Who is Livia?” She hoped he wouldn’t remember, even though she knows she didn’t succeed in erasing all his memories, especially the ones of the girl.

Brooklyn is puzzled; she has never encountered a situation like this before, and now she doesn’t know what to do. However, if she wants to keep him safe, she can’t share this information with anyone. She knows the agency has to believe her manipulation was successful, but if he asks about the girl one more time and she isn’t the only one there to hear it, she won’t be able to hide the truth. She won’t be able to protect him.

She sits down next to Adam, folds her hands over her lap, and looks up to the ceiling, doing what she has seen other people do before. Even though she doesn’t believe there’s someone watching over her, she asks for help anyway.  Brooklyn has never had trouble manipulating a person's memories. Her ability allows her to completely recreate someone’s past or just a few seconds of their lives.  However, Adam’s memories can’t be manipulated as easily.  He blocks her, it doesn’t matter how hard she tries. 

When Adam first arrived at the agency, Brooklyn was given copper to use in the manipulation process.  The agency was certain that copper was Adam’s element. It was supposed to weaken him enough for her to reach his deeper memories, but she has only been able to reach the surface of his mind and insert new memories. She wasn’t able to erase all recollections from his past, especially the most recent ones. She hoped his real life’s memories would stay hidden, lost somewhere in his unconscious, only retrievable when asleep. They would be as faint as dreams and that’s what he would believe they were—just dreams.

“Where am I?”  Adam asks suddenly, opening his eyes. 

Brooklyn sighs, frustrated. Accordingly with the memories she inserted in his mind, he’s in the infirmity recovering from bullet wounds from his last field mission. He should remember that, when he gets shot too many times with copper-plated bullets, he’s not able to heal until they are removed. 

“Don’t you remember?” she asks cautiously. “You were shot in the leg last night during a mission.” A mission that Adam had never been to, only Brooklyn, but she made him believe otherwise. “How are you feeling?”

“Brooklyn?” Adam mutters. “Is that you?” He wipes off the sweat dripping down his face. Using all of his effort and grunting between movements, he pulls himself to a sitting position on the tiny metal-framed bed. “Am I in the infirmity?”

Relief washes over Brooklyn and the corners of her lips pull up into a smile—it worked. “Yes, but I think they’ll let you go to your room today. Are you still in pain?”

Adam frowns. “Kind of, but before you woke me up, I was in paradise.”

She tilts her head. “Paradise?”

He nods. “I was having a dream, I think; a good one.”

“Really? What was it about?”

“Blue eyes, it was about blue eyes.”

Seven and two are the cards I’m holding in my hands.  Combined with a queen, a nine, and a five lying on the poker table, I have nothing.  Daniel looks at me for a fraction of a second.

“Fold.” He says in my head. “You’ve lost enough money already.”

“You’re the one taking all my money, anyway.”  I roll my eyes and fold my cards. I hate poker; it’s not about knowing your game, it’s about luck. Daniel wins because he can see the near future. Well, he’s good at bluffing, too. The guy next to him, who likes to call himself Chuck, thinks he has Daniel all figured out.  And that’s how he makes his biggest mistake.

Daniel has been bluffing all night, but this time he’s got it: one king and an eight of diamonds. The same kind as the rest of the cards on the table, and that is going to lead him to a flush.  Chuck, who is still betting against Daniel, is confident that he has a better hand; I would guess a pocket queens, and he thinks three of a kind will get him the money lying on the table.

I watch as Chuck’s security man hands him his scotch. The guy looks more like an armoire than a person. I admit he’s huge and kind of scary, but why be afraid of him when I could break him in half without breaking a sweat?

“Can you get this over with? I’m bored already!”  I prod Dan’s mind. He ignores me and keeps on betting higher and higher and Chuck follows—just like prey walking into a trap.

The dealer puts the fifth card on the table, a two of hearts.  Daniel bets higher.  Chuck stares at him, checks his cards again, and puts out another five thousand. Daniel’s face is unreadable, not even a sparkle in his eyes. How is he able to control his emotions so coolly? If I knew I was suddenly fifty-thousand dollars richer, I’d be jumping up and down.

Chuck refuses to be the first to show his cards.  Without hesitation, Dan puts his two cards down and Chuck gasps. He’s just lost the thirty-thousand dollars he had initially won early in the night, plus another twenty-thousand that he bet on these last couple hands.

I was right when I guessed Chuck had a pair of queens.  My ability to empathize with people has developed to another level.  Lately, I’ve been able to precisely guess what someone is thinking. I can’t really see the thought in its details, but I can sense it through their emotions.

With that, the game is finished. I stand up from my green velvet chair and I walk out of the poker room, just one of the many poker rooms in this building.  Daniel knows about all of the illegal underground poker joints in Vancouver. That’s how he got by after leaving Emily’s house—playing poker and stealing people’s money.  I say stealing because his ability allows him to cheat easily.  Since I can read people, Dan thought we could win some cash and travel around the country in pursuit of the other three kids genetically enhanced like us.  That is, if the agency hasn’t gotten to them yet.

I walk outside the building; the strong wind hits me, bringing the smell of rain with it. I jog into the street and hide in the nearest alley where I wait for Daniel. He didn’t think it was a good idea for people to see us together, just in case.  This entire weekend, we pretended we didn’t know each other.  

We’ve been in Vancouver for the past four days, planning our next move.  After Akiak, my uncle’s friend, dropped us off in Anchorage, we made our way back into Canada and down to Vancouver.  Our next stop is Columbus, Ohio.  We need to find a girl named Jordan Sanchez.  If she has the ability Dan thinks she does, she’ll be able to lead us to the others.  He believes she’s clairvoyant and that makes her capable of finding distant people and objects.

I see Dan jogging towards me and he slips into the alley. “Hey, sorry it took me a while to get out of there.” He pulls his hood over his head and a smile takes over his face. “Happy birthday to us!” He hands me the backpack unzipped so I can look in it. “Fifty thousand dollars!”

“Yeah, happy eighteenth birthday.” I say but my smile is not as big as his. I’ve tried to avoid thinking of my birthday all day. This doesn’t feel like it, not when my parents aren’t here to wake me up with my favorite chocolate cake. No, it doesn’t feel at all like my birthday.

I wonder what Adam is doing and if he even knows that it’s his birthday.

Dan puts his backpack facing forward on his chest. He wants to protect the money in it, but I don’t think anyone could steal that from us. Even if they put guns to our heads, we could disarm them faster than they could pull the triggers.

We start walking down the road. “I need to go shopping tomorrow,” I say. “I need some new clothes, something other than jeans and this hoodie.”

“I think we have enough money for a shopping spree.” He pats the backpack. “You’ll need a hat to cover your face from public cameras. The agency can track you like that.”

I take that into consideration as we walk the dark streets of Vancouver, heading back to the apartment we’re staying in.  It’s one of those rent-by-the-day places. It’s disgusting, but safe.

“We should leave town soon, maybe tomorrow,” Dan says.

“Yeah, we need to figure out a way to get out of here. We should get a car.”

He nods. “We can look for one for sale by owner and pay cash; that would be safer.”

We reach the apartment building and I hurry into the shower.  We’ve been out at that poker place all night, and the smell of smoke is stuck to my hair and clothes. Once I turn the shower on, I just stay still, letting the water fall on me.  I close my eyes and think of the day we’ll be ready to confront the agency and get Adam back.  It has been thirty-two days since I last saw him, and I can’t wait for the day that I do.

I put on my clothes and walk out of the bathroom expecting Daniel to complain that I took too long, but he’s nowhere to be found. I slide my shoes on and creep outside down to the road.  It’s late and the sky is overcast with no moonlight to illuminate the dark streets.  I walk a mile south from our apartment, but I don’t see a trace of Daniel.  I wonder where he could have gone, considering everything is closed, and no one is out in this cold.

Right before I turn around to head back to the apartment, I hear Daniel’s voice and I spot him on the other side of the street using a public phone—“What the hell?” I whisper, but it was loud enough for him to hear.  He quickly puts the phone back on the hook.

I hurry across the street.  “Who were you talking to?  I thought you said it wasn’t safe to use a public phone.”

His shoulders sink low. “I know, but I had to.”

“Who were you talking to?”

“No one.”  He glances at the phone.

“Daniel!”

His eyes darken when he shoots me a look. “Look in my mind, see if I’m lying.”

“I’ve told you I won’t invade your privacy, and don’t plan on starting now.” I cross my arms. “I just need you to tell me the truth.”

“I dialed Emily’s number,” he admits. “I just wanted to hear her voice.  I’ve been worried about her lately and I wanted to make sure she was alive. When she didn’t answer the phone, I panicked. That’s when you heard me.”

I sigh. “You have seemed a little worried lately.” I walk closer to the phone and I feel Daniel’s hand on my shoulder.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling my uncle.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I can’t do any more damage than you’ve already done by calling Emily.”

He steps back. “Fine, but you can’t talk to him.  Hang up after you hear his voice.”

I pick up the phone and dial uncle’s cell phone number.  It rings two times and his voice comes on.  “Livia?”  Uncle Henry says with hope to his voice.

My heart swells. “Uncle.”

Daniel moves fast, trying to disconnect the call. I hold his hand out of the way, but he pushes me to the side and the phone line goes quiet.

“I told you not to talk,” he hisses. “The agency can track your voice!”

I rub my face. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.” 

Daniel grunts. “Let’s go; we’ve gotta get out of this town first thing in the morning.”  

“Maybe you’re overreacting about this.”

“I’m trying to keep us alive, Livia!”

“You were the one who came here to use the phone in the first place,” I snap and turn away from him. All I want is to know how my family is doing; I need to know they are all right.

I stomp back to the apartment and Daniel hurries to catch up. We walk in silence, and on the way back, I noticed two other phone booths closer to the apartment.  It makes me wonder why Daniel walked all the way down the street, out of my hearing range.  “Why didn’t you use one of these? They’re closer to the apartment.”

“They’re broken,” he explains, and I glance at him. For a minute, I contemplate reaching into his mind, but I don’t. If Daniel had the ability to know what I was thinking and feeling and he used it on me, I would feel violated. I don’t want to do it to him.  Daniel hasn’t done anything for me not to trust him; quite the opposite. I’ll never be able to repay him for all that he has done for me.

When we reach the apartment, I’m drained and I head straight to my room. “Goodnight.” I tell him before I shut the door behind me. 

When I wake up in the morning, Daniel is staring at me.  I frown and he looks away.  His emotions are changing fast, making me confused and unable to grasp onto his feelings. “What’s the matter?”  I ask, sitting up in bed.