Tremble (18 page)

As an entire room full of fearful Nixes watched, the agents exploded into puffs of dust, sending the crowd into a crazed panic. Suddenly the door—the place
we
needed to get to—was the place
everyone
wanted to get to. The entire room rushed the exit, screams erupting. One woman behind me shrieked something about aliens, while a younger man called out a warning about terrorists.

Seriously?

I didn’t know how we were going to explain what happened, but I wasn’t worried at that moment. One disaster at a time. I propelled myself from the building, along with the crowd, and made a beeline for Dax’s waiting car.

21

Ginger hobbled around the table and set the glass of water down in front of Ben. “Feeling better?”

He grabbed the glass with both hands but didn’t bring it to his lips. Instead, he sat there staring over the rim of the cup, mouth open slightly like he expected the liquid to boil and fizz.

“Mr. Simmons?” Ginger tried again, taking the seat across from him.

At the mention of his name, he started, looking up from the glass and flashing us an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I’ve been having a hard time focusing lately.”

“That’s the drug,” I said, tapping the side of my head. “Same thing’s been happening to me.”

Ginger didn’t say anything, but Mom’s head swiveled like a woman possessed. “What?”

“It only just started,” I admitted, focusing back on Ben—I didn’t like the look on her face. Somewhere between fear and anger. Now wasn’t about me. This was about Ben. “What else is different?”

We’d been sitting at the table in the kitchen for the last two hours now. By the time we arrived back at the cabin, Ben was calm and seemed to be more himself again. He’d wanted to rest, saying he felt wiped, but Ginger had to explain things while he was lucid. We didn’t know how long it would last, and if there was any chance he could help things along for Kale, we needed to find out while there was still time.

Ben must have decided the water was safe because he lifted the glass and took a tentative sip. I got the impression he didn’t like being the center of attention because he kept his head down, not looking any of us directly in the eye.

“When I was a kid, I found I could see into people’s heads. Not hear their thoughts or anything like that, but I could get a peek into things that had happened to them. Like, events and stuff.”

“Like memories?” I asked, hopeful.

He took another sip and nodded. “I broke this model my dad kept in his office. Some scale replica of his favorite car. My mom found out. Of course, she planned to tell him when he got home that night and I was terrified. My dad was hardcore. I wanted nothing more than to make her forget the whole thing.”

Ginger leaned back in her chair. “And she did?”

Ben’s gaze rose from the glass. He didn’t look directly at her but focused on the table in front of where she was sitting. “It was like it’d never happened. When Dad came home he found the car in pieces on his desk and flipped. We’re talking nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl—but Mom had no idea what had happened to it. They had this huge fight. I felt guilty and somehow, I gave her memory to him.” Ben snapped his fingers. “Just like that, he knew everything.”

Kale sat at the end of the table, away from the others, watching Ben intently. He hadn’t said anything to anyone since we’d arrived, and vice versa. Truthfully, I think everyone was a little nervous having him at the cabin in his current state. Mom kept sneaking glances his way, hopeful and cautious, while Dax was less subtle. Thankfully Alex was nowhere to be seen. The last thing we needed right now was his snarky barbs and digs.

“A few months ago, I found that not only could I take and transplant memories, I had access to everything. Emotions, reflexes—there was this bully at my little brother’s school. For the big stuff I need to make physical contact, but for little stuff I just need to be in the same general area.” He laughed. “I made the kid piss himself.”

He was talking about a little kid so I shouldn’t have found it funny—but I did. Plus, he was a bully. I hated bullies. “So you’re saying it’s kind of like mind control?”

“I guess you could look at it that way, but it still revolves around memories. For that kid, I made him remember a time he had to take a leak—badly.”

I started to ask about Ben’s parents, but Kale finally spoke up. “The memories you steal—are they gone? Can you return them?”

“Steal is the wrong word, man. I don’t really
take
them. Think of my ability as a copy machine. I make a copy and black out the original. I can unblock the original or wipe it out completely.”

Kale stood. “Try.”

Ben actually looked up and met Kale’s gaze. The poor guy took one look, jumped from the seat, and visibly paled. “You want me to wipe your head clean?”

“That’s not what he means,” I interjected. “Someone else messed with his head. We were hoping there was something you could do to help him. Maybe unblock what they blocked.”

He relaxed some and sank back into the chair. “I’m sure I can figure out what they did, but I’m not one hundred percent sure I can fix someone else’s work.”

“Would you be willing to try?” Mom asked. She motioned for Kale to come forward and pointed to the empty seat beside Ben. “Please?”

Ben didn’t look too sure of himself, but he nodded.

Kale hesitated, like moving closer to the group might be some trick, but finally relented, eager for Ben to work his magic. “What do I need to do?”

Ben twisted so he faced Kale. He looked uncomfortable, and when he spoke, his voice had a slight wobble to it. “I guess just relax. Try to clear your mind.”

The room held its breath as Ben pressed his right hand across Kale’s forehead and closed his eyes. Moments ticked by, feeling like an eternity. Even Kale was restless, tapping the fingers of his right hand against the tabletop.
One. Two. Three. One Two. Three.

“Wow,” Ben breathed, eyes still closed. “Who did this?”

“What did they do?” I was out of my seat and around the table, hovering over Kale in the blink of an eye. “What can you see?”

Eyes still closed, his lips twisted into a confused scowl. “It’s a little hard to decipher. I think… Wait. Say something, Dez.”

“Huh?”

“Talk. Anything. Working with a theory here. Just speak.”

“Um, okay,” I said. “Is this a good theory or a bad one?”

Ben’s hand slipped from Kale’s head, and he opened his eyes. Kale did the same. “Well?”

“It’s like burned pea soup in there, man.”

“That’s not encouraging,” Kale growled. His fingers stilled, wrapping tightly around the edge of the table until his knuckles went white. “And it also doesn’t tell me anything.”

“When I peek into someone’s head, any memories I see usually have this kind of faint glow. Like a backlight.”

“A halo?” I asked.

“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Exactly like a halo. So like I was saying, normal memories have this whitish halo. The ones in Kale’s head are dark. Almost black. There are others—the ones with the white glow, too—but they’re dim. Like the dark ones are pushing them out.”

Kale looked away from Ben, eyes falling on me. “Why did you have her speak?”

“I noticed when she spoke, the white ones got a little brighter. It was like something was fighting to break free.”
Kale seemed vindicated by this answer, and nodded, “Can you make the dark ones go away?”

“No way, man. Like I said, someone else’s work. But I think they might fade on their own.” He nodded in my direction. “If the sound of her voice makes the real ones fight for dominance, I’d say just keep her talking. Think of her as your North Star. It looks like they’ll fight their way free eventually.”

Aubrey had been right. The daily meetings with Dad’s Six had been to maintain control over Kale. By keeping him away from her, we were slowly breaking the hold.

…

Kale crossed the room to Dax’s computer, then stopped, staring at the machine like he’d never seen it before. “I— What do— Where…” The CD clunked to the desktop, and Kale brought his hands to his head, fingers wrapping in his dark hair. “What is wrong with me? Why can’t I remember how to use this thing?”

I didn’t know what was on the disk, and that scared me. All I wanted right now was to curl up in oblivion and sleep till next spring, but Kale was antsy because of Aubrey’s claim for the truth. The minute we left the others, he asked about playing the disk. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t put it off.

Gently, I pulled his hands away and picked up the CD. “Because you’ve never used a computer, Kale. Your vocabulary is…different. You’ve spent time with Kiernan and the others so you’ve picked up some slang, but I guess they couldn’t imprint practical knowledge. You remember watery things about people and events, but this is different. You don’t remember because it’s something you’ve never done.”

I dropped the CD into the drive and gave the door a small nudge. It closed, the computer monitor blinking to life as the disk started spinning.

The moment the picture flickered to life, I knew we’d made a horrible mistake.

On the screen, Kale was chained to a wall in a small room. He wore black sweatpants and a dark gray T-shirt wet with perspiration. Weary eyes trained ahead, he stared at something off-camera with unadulterated hatred. Bruises decorated the right side of his face, and he was exhausted—it was evident in his half-lidded stare and slumped posture—but there was still a spark of fierceness to him. Determination.

To his right stood a man I’d never seen before. Wearing a white lab coat and standing impossibly tall, he had salt and pepper hair and cold, dead eyes. He motioned to someone off-camera, and a slip of a girl stepped into view. She stopped in front of Kale and cupped his face on either side. If not for the chains, it would have looked like a loving embrace. The softest touch of two people with deep feelings for each other.

Kale’s eyes met hers, and his lips moved, but whatever he said was too low for the microphone to catch. A smile followed and then his eyes squeezed closed, lip twitching and body going rigid. He tried to pull away, but the chains prevented him from moving out of reach.

“Tell me the name of the girl you love,” someone on the other side of the room, out of the camera’s eye, said in a commanding voice. I didn’t need to see him. That voice, so full of vile and lies, was embedded in my memory as sure as my own name.

Dad stepped forward, his back to the camera as Kale’s eyes opened. With a taunting smile and a sigh, he said, “Deznee.”

“You’re making things harder on yourself by fighting the process. Mindy tells me this can be quite painful.”

“Then I have nothing to fear. If there’s one thing you’ve taught me over the years, it’s to deal with pain. There’s nothing you can do that will take her away from me, Cross,” Kale said, voice low.
“Nothing.”

Dad’s anger was evident in his stiffened shoulders and fists clenched tight. “Again,” he barked. “Do it again.”

I didn’t realize who he was talking to until the girl took Kale’s face in her hands again, this time with more force.

“What is the name of the girl you love?”

“Dez,” Kale spat, eyes still closed.

The girl’s fingers twitched, knotting through his hair.

“What is the name of the girl you love?” Dad asked, rage dripping from every word. I’d never wanted to physically harm anyone as much as I did him in that instant.

“Dez!” Kale screamed. A tremor ran through him, body trembling.

Mindy let go for an instant, eyes wide with surprise, but had him back in her hands in seconds. “He shouldn’t still know her,” she cried. “This is impossible—”

Dad kicked a small rolling cart to his right. It wobbled, toppling to the ground with a loud clatter as metal instruments—sharp-looking ones—spilled from its insides. “Again!” he screamed. “The name of the girl you love is…?”

The sound of Kale’s voice as he bellowed my name stole all the air from the room. The reason we were here, the possibility of someone walking through the door, all vanished as I fought with the picture on the screen in front of me. His voice broke, throat more than likely raw, as he screamed it. Over and over.
DezDezDez
. The force of it sent the girl backing away and made the man in the lab coat cringe.

Beside me, Kale’s eyes stayed glued to the screen. I made a move to remove the disk from the drive, but he grabbed my hand, fingers wrapping tight.

Onscreen, Dad and the man huddled in the corner with the girl, who had to be Mindy. Kale had slid down the wall. He would have fallen to his knees had the chains stretched that far. Instead he was hanging, the metal cuffs digging into his already battered skin and making me sick.

“Any more and I risk destroying his mind,” the girl said. She’d turned toward the camera. Long straw-colored hair and innocent brown eyes. On the outside, a normal-looking girl. On the inside? A Denazen bastard with no soul. “I could easily kill him by accident.”

“Ninety-eight cannot be given Domination until I know this can be fixed. I can’t risk him remembering Deznee. If he survives the drug, he’ll be even more dangerous afterward than he is now.”

“Are you sure you want to risk his life?” the lab-coat man asked. “One forty-three expired last night. Incompatible with the drug. He was quite strong.”

Dad ignored him and nodded to the girl.
“Make it work.”

The screen flickered, and when it came back, everyone was standing in a different place. Dad was directly in front of Kale now, hand on his chin, tilting it toward the light. There was a glazed look in Kale’s eyes. “What is the name of the girl you love?”

Kale didn’t answer right away, and my heart gave a small squeeze. Eyes rolling back, his head lolled to the left as the fingers of his right hand twitched. “Blo—blond hair. Black pieces.” He tried to stay upright but his knees wouldn’t hold the weight. He collapsed, sending a rattle through the chains that echoed in the room. “Brown eyes…beautiful…ez…”

“This will have to do,” Dad snapped, pulling his hand back. Kale’s head jerked to the side as my dad stepped away and turned to Mindy. “I think I can make this work. Follow the rest of your instructions and come find me when it’s done.”

The screen went black.

“Kale?” His eyes hadn’t moved from the screen even though the picture was gone. The look on his face scared me. “Kale, tell me what’s on your mind.”

Slowly, he turned to me, expression nearly ripping my heart in two. “I
remember
that day.”

Hope was a fragile and dangerous thing. It had the ability to build you up higher than the clouds—and then drop you. A free-fall at a million miles an hour headed straight for solid, crushing ground. Still. I couldn’t help it. “You remember?”