Absolute Zero (24 page)

Zach opened his mouth, but then snapped it shut again. His cheeks turned crimson, and he shifted his weight.

“That’s what I thought. Look, if you really want to help me, then just shut up and do what I tell you, okay?”

He nodded.

“I’m taking Georgia with me because she’s strong. If Nate tries anything, she’ll fry him. She won’t let anything happen to me.”

“Why can’t he just go get his little electronic toys and come back here?”

“Because I need to grab some stuff from my apartment, and I have a few more things to find out as well.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Too bad. It’s what we’re doing. You’ll stay here with Scott and Jasmine and work on fixing that Samantha problem. Jess will help, too.”

Zach nodded, obviously hearing the finality in my voice. I turned to walk away, but his warm hand grabbed mine, and I faced him.

“Please. Just be careful, Mandy.”

“You, too.” I pulled away from him and moved toward the main room.

Despite how annoyed I was with both Nate and Zach, I cared for them both. Zach and I had history. Nate and I now had history. Mostly because he worked on my parents, and even knew about me through their file. Hell,
technically
—oh great I sounded like Nate—he’d known me longer than Zach.

So he should care more about me, right?

If he was capable of caring. Born from a mixture in a Petri dish…I shivered.
No, don’t go there, Mandy.

I turned the corner into the main room and found Nate and Jasmine talking off to the side while Scott and Georgia sat on the couch. When I rounded the corner, Georgia shot up. Her face aglow, not literally, but just aglow.

“You ready?” she asked.

Nate turned from facing Jasmine and looked at me. Yes, his eyes melted my heart. Man, I was hopeless.

“Come help me, G.” I waved her to me. She hopped up and scurried over. I grabbed her hand and pulled her to our room.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m looking for a change of clothes for us to bring along, just in case. And I need to tell you what’s going on with Nate.”

I rifled through the drawers, found a change of clothes for us, threw my hair in a ponytail and grabbed a backpack from the closet all while I told her nearly everything Nate shared with me outside.

Georgia sat on the bed, her mouth open, and eyes wide the majority of the story. I wished I could have just zapped her the information from my brain, because it sliced through my heart a little as I told her everything. Especially the part with Mom and Dad.

“I want to go with him back to the apartments so he can check me over, then we can grab stuff from our place and come back here. You stay alert, okay? Just in case Zach’s right and Nate is a load of lying crap.”

“He’s not,” Georgia said with a whisper.

“How can you say that?” I froze in the doorway of the closet, holding the backpack to my chest. “How can you be so sure?”

“You know how you and I latched on to one another right away when you first moved to Trifle? You know, the first time I ran up to you in the lunchroom to say hi?”

“Yeah?”

“I got a sense about you. You know, that you were a great person. I didn’t believe the rumors that you’d killed a teacher at your last school or that you were a lost cause just trying to graduate. I followed that gut feeling, and look, we’re sisters. Twins!”

“Oh, God, does that mean that Nate might be our brother? And I totally made out with my brother?”

Georgia laughed. “No. I’m just saying it’s a feeling I get. You know? I can tell he’s legit.”

“I think I’ll add psychic or ESP to your list of powers. What feeling do you get about Zach?”

“Oh, yeah, he loves you all right.”

“Nate?”

“I see love there, too.” She winked.

“What’s that look like, exactly?”

“Rephrase. I
feel
love there.”

“Tim?”

She nodded with a smile, and her cheeks reddened.

“This totally sucks. How can I even be thinking of love and guys when I might have some freaking techy thing wedged beneath a layer of my skin that’s giving off a signal for everyone in the whole freaking world to see?”

“Let’s get out of here so he can see if you have one and get it out if you do.”

I threaded my hand through the backpack. “This sucks.”

“Hey, so, Nate said Tim was involved. Did he say how?”

“I never got the details of that yet. We’ll ask him on the drive.”

Georgia stood up and walked over to me. She gripped my shoulders and stared me straight in the eye. “Don’t worry, sis. I got your back.”

“Thanks.”

We strolled out of our room and within a few minutes we were back in my car driving toward our apartment with an ex-Agent from The Center who had a hand in Mom and Dad’s murders.

But yet, I liked the guy.

I was mentally bruised from all that had happened to me over the years. I just knew it.

“So, Nate. How’s Tim involved in all this?” Georgia asked from the back seat.

Nate looked at me as he drove my car. “When will I be allowed some questions?”

“You asked a few when I told you I was grabbed in June.”

He laughed, then glanced in the rear view mirror. “He’s one of us. So is Martin.”

“No way!” Georgia shot forward. Her hand rested on the back of my seat, and her head popped into view between me and Nate. “How?”

“He and Martin are like you two. Children of parents involved in the experiments The Center did years and years ago.”

“How many of us are out there?” I asked.

“Not sure. We all hide well if we escaped, and not everyone inherited abilities from their parents.” He glanced at me then the road.

“Why’d they do it?” Georgia asked.

“Ultimately, they wanted to create more adaptable humans. For instance, the DNA injected into your mother’s lot of experiments were extremophile organisms. Their hopes were to develop humans who could survive in extreme situations.”

“But why?” I asked.

“It’s multifaceted. Exploration of other planets, extreme work environments to search for more fossil fuels, and…” He glanced at me. “Because they wanted to see if they could.”

“Assholes.” I pounded my fist against my thigh.

“Like me, it didn’t work for everyone. Many survived the injections without any alterations. Some didn’t survive and some—”

“Turned out like mom and produced freaks like me and Georgia.”

“I wouldn’t say freaks, but yes.” Nate nodded slightly. “I think you turned out to be a beautiful work of art, Mandy. Someone to be treasured.”

The tenderness and awe lacing Nate’s voice when he’d said that took me by surprise. Where I’d always thought myself a freak, he didn’t. He saw me as a thing of beauty? I wanted to be angry with him, The Center, hell, the world, for what I was, but I’d never once considered myself a work of art. Hell, I was just starting to grasp the idea of having these super powers for a reason to help others, like superheroes or something.

“You, Martin, and Tim…what’s your story?” Georgia asked.

“Boy, you two are sisters, aren’t you? I can’t wait until it’s my turn to ask questions.” Nate smiled. “Tim has enhanced vision and Martin has strength.”

“Why didn’t he just hoist us up quick when the balcony fell away?” I asked.

“Same reason you didn’t. Brings attention.”

“And we just happened to move into the same apartment complex as you guys. Three mutant boys.”

“I hate it when you call us mutants,” Georgia said, as she plopped back against the seat. “Makes me sound like an animal or something.”

“Sorry. So, us moving in to this place, was that a coincidence?”

“Martin had a place there, and it’s great because it backs up to a nature reserve. Lots of escape routes. Lets us come and go pretty easily. Probably the same reason Jasmine picked it for you guys.”

“Come and go for what?”

“Remember when I had to leave for those few days after we first got together?”

My body instantly remembered our first ‘getting together’ moment in his room at the party. “Um. Yeah.” I shifted in my seat, hoping he didn’t see my hot face in the darkness. Then I remembered he had night vision, so he probably did.

Man my body was one big betrayal. Were all nineteen-year-old chicks like this? I thought it was guys who were supposed to be dictated by their body’s desires.

So not fair.

Nate smiled, then went on. “I told you about our ‘coming to Jesus moment’, right?”

I nodded.

“Tim, the level-headed one he is, thought we should use our powers for something good. Not to make money and sell to the highest bidder like The Center wanted to use them. Or does use them.”

“Meaning?” Georgia asked from the darkness behind.

“We help people. People who are in trouble.”

Georgia gripped the back of my seat again. “Like superheroes?”

Nate laughed. “I guess. Look, it’s a long, long story, but in a nutshell, Martin, despite not looking the part, is very agile, quick, and really, really strong. Maybe even stronger than you, Amanda, but Tim, he’s got the scanners and connections to police monitors, fire departments, everything. When he hears of stuff, he lets us know and we go help. If we can, that is. So, I disappeared a couple days with Tim to help out in a town nearby. There was a search party for a missing kid.”

I remembered the time I pulled that chick out from the burning car. It felt amazing to help, to use my powers for a good reason.

“I knew it! See, Mandy, like I said. We can be superheroes.”

“You said that?” Nate flinched. “Oh, sorry, no questions.”

My turn to laugh. “And yes. She said that maybe we were created and given these powers for a reason. You know, to help people.”

Georgia slapped the back of my seat. “Ha!” She wove her arms around Nate’s neck from behind and squeezed. “You suck for lying, but we totally understand why. Can we join your team?”

“Georgia.” I was mortified. “We totally still have Andrey to deal with, and the two Agents who stormed the smoothie shop the other day.”

“What? Recently?”

Georgia released her grip around Nate’s neck.

“When I locked you in the supply cabinet.” I shrunk against my seat. “I totally iced you in on purpose. Thankfully I’m a klutz and tripped on the doorframe as a dart splintered the door above my head.”

“You’re kidding.”

“We got them, Jasmine did her thing, and we learned about some stuff. But mostly, we learned that no one seems to know anything about Andrey, but they do know Mom kept a book of The Center and they were there trying to find the book I guess.”

“You’re right. Don’t know Andrey. And what’s this about a book?”

“How can you not know Andrey? He’s an agent. He was at The Center in California that I escaped from in June. He has this wicked steel weapon made out of the metal that kept me hostage. He’s super-fast and super-strong. He said I was too dangerous to live. He got away just after we trashed The Center in California.”

“You two did that?”

“Blaze and Kelvin,” Georgia said. “We burnt it to the ground.”

“Sorry to rain on your parade, but that place in California wasn’t The Center.”

Chapter 32

W
e rode in silence for the last few minutes of the drive to the apartment. I thought my brain was going to melt. Nate just kept dropping bombshells.

The car rolled to a stop in the back parking lot of the apartment. So, we hadn’t destroyed The Center? Which meant Andrey didn’t work for them?

Nate glanced around, through the windows, then landed his gaze on me. He reached for me, but retracted his hand before he made contact. Through the darkness, he must have seen the confusion contorting my face.

I probably looked like such an idiot.

“Let me have a look first before you get out.” He cranked his door open and stood, half his body still in the car while the rest craned out and looked around. “Clear.”

I shot a look at Georgia, then grabbed my bag and pushed open the door. Nate looked at me over the hood of the car. “Ready?”

“I guess.” I had no idea what I was in store for. Examining me for an imbedded chip? Sounded gross. But the car ride here confirmed what Georgia had already mentioned.

We could trust Nate.

I slammed the door shut, grabbed Georgia’s hand, then followed Nate upstairs. He jammed his key into the lock and pushed open the door. We were barely through when Tim ran out from one of the bedrooms. “Dude! I—” He skidded to a stop in the middle of the living room when he saw me and Georgia.

“Ahh—hi. Um. Mandy. Georgia. Didn’t expect—”

“It’s okay, Tim.” Nate shut the door behind us.

I still gripped Georgia’s hand, but she let go of mine and hustled to Tim. She threw her arms around his neck and planted a whopper of a kiss on him. He hugged her close, then lifted her up off the ground and spun.

I shifted my weight from foot-to-foot. Looked like she was more than okay with Tim’s little secret. But why shouldn’t she be? He was doing just the same thing me and Georgia had been doing when we lied about our powers.

My backpack slid off my shoulder, and I turned to the side. Nate pulled it down. “Here. I’ll set it on the couch.”

I shrugged out of it, then shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to avoid looking at the PDA Georgia and Tim were displaying.

“Everything okay?” Tim asked, now holding Georgia’s hand. “I was wondering what happened when I couldn’t reach you, Nate. Um, were you guys out at the bars or something?”

“It’s okay. We know everything.” Georgia rested her hand on his chest as she leaned into him. “Nate brought us here because Mandy might have a tracer under her skin somewhere and we need help finding it.”

Tim’s bottom jaw dropped, and his green eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He slouched his already fairly short five-foot-ten frame and stared at Nate.

I suppressed a laugh. I was deliriously tired for that to be funny. Any other time, I’d be pissed that our lives were so irrevocably jacked up.

“Tim.” Nate stood beside me. “This is The Daughter.”

His jaw opened even more. I seriously saw every filling he had.