Revelations (21 page)

I walked quickly through the rows of metal tables and unmoving bodies. The camera had not been replaced so was one less thing for me to worry about. Christian followed me slowly, looking at all the bodies in the room. I heard him ask, “What are they doing?” He got no answer and ran to catch up to me.

Jonas had already decided he’d stay in the experiment room. He’d be our guard if my mind failed for some reason. Not that he believed it would, he just felt better keeping an eye out for trouble, especially after what had happened the last time. Remember, I hadn’t seen Hermione coming before she entered the room, and I should have. While Jonas wandered around, looking into blank faces, Christian and I began searching through files.

I had a good pile going—having known where Jonas stashed the files we’d taken out the first time; thankfully they were all in one drawer—as did my father, when Jonas suddenly poked his head into the room.

“Chris,” he said, “I need to show you something.”

“What is it?” I asked, not bothering to pry into his mind.

“You aren’t going to believe it,” Jonas said. “Come on.”

I got to my feet. Christian remained where he was, still flipping through files and putting aside those of interest. Jonas led me through the bodies all the way to a far corner of the room. I kept my eyes on his back, not wanting to look at the people lying there. The poor people never had a chance at life. All those I desperately wanted to save.

Jonas stopped, and I ran into his back. He grabbed my arm and dragged me around him. What I saw stilled my heart.

“They tricked us,” was all Jonas said.

There, lying supine and on a metal table was Starch.

“Oh, my gods,” I said quietly. Jonas let go of my arm and I bent over the unmoving form of our friend. “They switched them.” My voice became a whisper. “They switched the bodies.” I bit my lip, breathing hard. I reached out and put my hand on Starch’s shoulder. My eyes closed, and I took a mind dive into our dear friend’s sleeping brain.

“Can you help him?” Jonas asked me when I opened my eyes.

I turned to look up at him, and I nodded. “We need to get him out of here. I can’t do anything here without risking us all.”

Jonas nodded. “Go get your dad and bring everything you’ve found. I can carry him.”

I ran away from Jonas as he ripped wires away from Starch’s body. A machine began to beep, but he silenced it somehow; I didn’t bother to look. I stopped in the doorway of the file room. “We need to leave,” I said to Christian.

Christian didn’t question. He helped me gather up the files we’d set aside and got to his feet. With paperwork in our arms, we left the file room and found Jonas in the experiment room. Jonas had Starch slung limply over his shoulder.

“What is this?” Christian asked when he saw Jonas with a body.

“He’s our friend,” I said simply, and Christian, gods love him, didn’t question.

Together, with one extra piece of baggage, we left the base under the cover of my mind.

Chapter Forty

I wouldn’t let Christian take us back to his house. I made him drive us to a hotel. Inside the room, we laid Starch on one bed and spread the files out on another. I itched to try and wake Starch, but I knew this would be a hard trick. He was alive. I could see him breathing and that was enough, so I saved him for later. Besides, I was too anxious to see what other information we’d brought back with us this time.

This was how I discovered the truth about my mother’s supposed death. Christian found the file, and, as we hadn’t talked during our search, I didn’t know he’d found it. He recognized her picture inside the cover. It was the first file he handed to me.

I learned my mother’s twin sister died in her place. It was only through a microchip—implanted upon her during her time as a lab rat to tell the two of them apart—that the gov learned what happened. Since the women were identical twins, their DNA was a perfect match. She carried my mother’s ID, and this was enough for authorities to confirm her identity. I didn’t know my mother had been micro-chipped. Hell, I hadn’t known she’d been a twin. I wondered about myself, in both aspects, but that could wait. I assumed they didn’t know where I was because they had no way of tracing me, which meant no chip inside of me. As for the twin thing, well…I was pretty certain my mother died and could not be asked, and I was an only child. I think I would notice another me wandering around when I was a kid.

I put aside the file and the thought of microchips and twins, and rifled through the rest. I learned details about people I loved, and people I never knew. Starch had been taken in alive. Everyone else lost their life out there in the desert on that day which felt so long ago. The only one missing, and the one I really wanted, was Alendra. There was no file on the lycanthrope, but other files my father pulled included information on other lycans. I knew I’d get plenty of time to go through the files, and I also knew of one other thing I needed to do.

“Christian,” I said as he was flipping through a file.

“What, sweetheart?”

“You need to go,” I told him.

“Why?”

“Because you have a family,” I said. “You have to go back to them.”

“What about you?”

I looked over at the man lying still and supine on the bed. “I need to fix him and then we need to leave. It isn’t safe here. Once someone finds out he’s gone, they’ll know it was me. They’ll look for me.”

Christian understood. Somehow, someway, he always understood.

It was hard to say goodbye to him. I did it alone, leaving Jonas in the room with Starch. I kissed Christian’s cheek and said I was sorry.

“Why do you say that?” he asked me.

“For coming back into your life and for disappearing again so quickly.”

“You’ll come back,” he said. “I know you will. Call me?”

“I will,” I said. “Whenever I can.”

“I just want to always know you’re safe.”

I smiled. It felt so good to be so loved. He kissed my cheek, and I went to get Jonas, who was going to ride with him back to the house to get the truck. That would give me enough time to pull Starch out of the undead state he was in.

If I could.

I didn’t mean to be a doubting Thomas–what does that really mean anyway?–but I’d certainly never done anything like this before. Starch was in there; I just had to find him.

When Jonas and Christian left, I sat on the end of the bed at Starch’s feet. He was lost deep inside his mind, and it would take a lot to draw him out of it. I knew I’d end up unconscious after this, so I made room for myself on the bed. No matter how I fell, I wouldn’t end up out cold on the floor and risk hitting my head against something hard or pointed.

They dressed Starch, and some of the other male bodies, in hospital style pants. He wore no shirt, and his feet were bare. I put my hands on his feet and rushed up into his mind.

There was nothing physically wrong with him. The gov scientists pumped him full of drugs, inducing this comatose state, and they kept him there. They probably took blood from him along with tissue to see how it was Starch could light himself on fire and not burn to a crisp. If they even had the knowledge of what he was capable of. Initially, as I dug deeper into his mind to find his consciousness, I thought this might be why Starch survived the fire at the Commune. I thought upon finding him that they tricked us, as Jonas said. Maybe our friends still lived somewhere and those bodies in the desert had not been our friends.

I was wrong.

Starch went looking for Jonas and me. Not knowing where we’d gone, he drove around and around the area of the Commune, searching, not going any farther than a thirty mile radius. He slept in his car at Primm, Nevada then headed back to the Commune. He saw the smoke on the horizon and came across the place before the gov’s soldiers left. They shot him with a tranq dart and took him with them. There were no other recent memories in his head.

I also discovered why he never used his powers. Starch, when he was just a kid, had been at the gas station with his mother. He’d never known the lab and his mother was an escapee who was never caught. He didn’t know who his father was. Anyway, she was inside the station paying, and she’d left Starch in the car. He was three or four. He wanted to help so he got out of the car while his mother was inside, and he pulled the gas pump out. Gas spilled out onto the ground when his mother came out.

She was a beautiful woman, slim and tall like Starch. Her eyes were as blue as the sky. She wore a loose fitting sun dress. Her hair hung below her shoulders and was as black as Starch’s.

She ran over to her son and snatched the gas pump from his hand. “Never do that,” she yelled at him, scolding him.

Starch had been told repeatedly never to use his powers in public. She showed him how to do it, snapping her fingers in the living room of their house and had him do the same. She made it a game and taught him to control it. He was only a child, barely more than a baby. He snapped his finger over the spilled gas, and he didn’t know any better. A spark fell, and the gas station went up in a massive fireball. Starch, being small, was blown clear of the explosion. His mother was not so lucky. He woke in a hospital. He ran away a week later and lived as a street kid until he was fifteen, when he got beaten up so bad he again ended up in a hospital. When he woke that time, Philip Morris was standing over him.

This was about all I could discover as I began to slip under. I drifted into darkness as I drew Starch out of his coma, pulled him back into the land of the living and into the light.

Chapter Forty-One

I woke on the opposite bed, curled up into a ball. It took a moment for me to realize where I was and to remember what I did. When I sat up, I don’t know what I expected to see. What I did see was Starch and Jonas sitting at the small table with a deck of cards.

I saw Starch nod in my direction and Jonas followed his friend’s gaze.

“Welcome back,” Jonas said, giving me a relieved smile.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

Starch also smiled at me. “I should be the one saying thanks.”

“Are you okay?” I asked him, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

“Groggy, but fine,” he said. “You?”

“About the same,” I said. I rubbed my eyes. “How long was I out?”

“About two hours,” Jonas said, glancing at the bedside clock. “At least since I’ve been here.”

“Add a half to that,” Starch said.

I stretched my arms to the sky then got up to test my legs. I walked around for a minute to regain my bearings. I went over to Starch, put my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. He leaned his head against my arm and gripped one of my hands.

“Do you remember anything?” I asked Starch when I let him go.

He shook his head. “Not much. I vaguely remember what happened at home. Smoke and fire, mainly. They killed everyone, didn’t they?”

Jonas nodded at him, gathering up the deck of cards they’d been playing poker with. He absently began to shuffle.

Starch sighed. “I knew when I saw the place what they were there for. Chris...I—”

“Don’t,” I said quickly. “I know it was my fault. I shouldn’t have ever healed that girl.” I let go of my friend and paced the room.

Starch took a moment before saying, “You can’t blame yourself. Jonas told me about Hermione. It was her.”

I believed what was in my head. Hermione may have called them out there, but it was my fault she did it. It was still my fault everyone was dead. He couldn’t change this.

Ten minutes later, after continuing to pace a rut in the carpet, I made a decision. Starch and Jonas listened to me and agreed. Starch would go back to California to find Philip. He was in no shape to do what Jonas and I were going to do. He didn’t protest. We gave him what money we had, forced the files upon him and sent him on his way an hour later, after saying more difficult good-byes. I knew he’d be safe.

Jonas and I then checked out of our hotel room and headed back to Cannon Air Force Base one last time.

Chapter Forty-Two

It was stupid. I know it now and I knew it then. Sometimes I get things in my head and they won’t leave. I knew what I wanted to do. I should have known they’d be waiting, and they’d be ready for me. I had to do it.

We left the pickup where we had the first time. We walked to the base with the intent to save as many as we could or to simply burn it to the ground. The place seemed empty at first. There were no soldiers on duty outside. It was easy to get in, but they were waiting. Gods in hell, they were waiting.

We climbed the fence.

We walked past no one.

We made it a hundred feet from the doorway.

Twenty of Holt’s blank minded soldiers rushed out at us.

I should have known they would be waiting, and they would be smarter this time. Yet I didn’t lock onto a single mind. Holt had to be watching, in control like always. I was stupid. I was filled with a desperation I could not control, one that should have ended with Cannon becoming a smoking hulk like the Commune. It didn’t end this way.

Being stupid is what got everyone killed at the Commune and is what got Jonas taken from me. Not that he didn’t fight tooth and nail.