Page 20

20

I’m Harmless and I’m Here to Help

I ’d barely had time to register that Jude was a total sap, and that my friends seemed to have received notes with similar apologies and warnings, when footfalls crunched through the forest.

Bobo launched himself front and center across my thigh to bark out a warning none of us could hear. Hurriedly, I urged him to hide beneath my clothing so whoever was approaching wouldn’t see him. I couldn’t tell if he responded to my spoken commands or to my frantic gestures, but either way, he obeyed. Bless my sweet boy and his constant obedience, no matter how unlikely the situation.

As my friends hid their notes, I stuffed mine down into my cleavage before Fanny, along with several armed guards, came tromping toward us.

“What are you doing out here?” Fanny shouted ahead. “We were worried.”

“Yeah, right,” Layla snorted so only we could hear. “Worried when you lost sight of your precious, obedient pets, more like.” Her lips twisted. “Wait, erase that. Forget I ever called us the dipshit’s pets. Yuck . I’d rather die than be his pet.”

“Well,” Brady said with a scowl directed at Fanny and the others as they continued advancing, “let’s hope that choice isn’t about to be on the table.”

Fanny plodded awkwardly across the uneven forest floor. “Joss, you should still be in bed.”

“Sure, and whose fault is that?” I asked.

Fanny pretended I hadn’t said anything against her perfectly twisted boss or about the person he’d wielded as a weapon.

“You need to be checked out before you have the all-clear to move about.”

“I’m fine,” I told her. She was now fifteen feet from us and closing in. “Just needed some fresh air.”

“It’s non-negotiable. Part of the agreement of you getting to live and study at this beautiful campus and in this beautiful house completely free is that you’re to show up for your check-ups when they’re required.”

“Uh, we didn’t make such an agreement,” Brady said. “Not quite like that, anyhow,” he mumbled.

Up close now, with half a dozen armed security guards surrounding her—none of whom I recognized—Fanny’s face was flushed, her eyes jumpy. “Joss, I need you to come with me right now. It’s urgent that I get you to the lab.”

Griffin, Hunt, and Brady silently shored up to stand in front of me. Layla rolled her eyes at our guys and leaned her head to whisper to me, “When will they ever learn we don’t need their protection? Jeez.”

“Maybe when I haven’t recently had the crap zapped out of me?” I muttered back as Brady told Fanny, “She’s not going anywhere right now.”

“She is.” With two fingers, Fanny waved a pair of soldiers forward. They drew their sidearms and pointed them at us. “Your only choice is: we do this the easy way, or we do this the hard way. Personally, I don’t care which you choose. I’ve had quite the day already, and I think I might just appreciate the opportunity to vent some of my frustration.”

“By killing a bunch of teenagers?” I hissed before I realized I was going to. “This pointing guns at us is getting real old, lady. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself. You told us you were some cool, fun aunt who just wanted to help us. Fuck you for thinking you have the right to treat us this way. Where’s your sense of human decency?”

Fanny stared back at me, her rising anger coloring her neck until it matched the pink of her cheeks. “I’m doing this for humanity , you entitled, selfish, narrow-minded brat! You could be offering yourself up for study to rid humanity of all its suffering and torment. But nooooo , we need to threaten you to do the right thing, because if not, you can’t be bothered.” Her voice pitched to a mocking taunt, and I half wanted to punch her straight in the face. The other half understood that, if she actually believed that crap, Magnum had brainwashed the fuck out of her.

“You’re coming with me right now,” she snarled with a curl of her lip that made her appear feral, so unlike the facade of the professional, composed woman we’d first met.

Griffin wove his arm through mine. “She’s not going anywhere without us.”

Fanny glared at him until her eyes shone, revealing the crazed maniac I was starting to see she was. Then she jerked her hand in the air between us. “Fine. But you’ll all be getting checked too, then. We need all the data we can get to speed things up.”

“Speed what things up, exactly?” Hunt asked.

She whipped her head in his direction—just to better sneer at him, apparently. “And I was told you were the smart one.”

Hunt’s brows arched. “You weren’t well informed then. We’re all highly intelligent.”

She tsked . “Not smart enough to see that the five of you have the power to fix every wrong in the world.” Without so much as glancing my way, she pointed at me. “Her especially.”

“Wait,” I said. “Why me especially?”

Fanny smiled and batted her lashes, taking her taunting—for whatever reason—to the next level. Now I really wanted to punch her.

“You’re somewhat different from the others,” she eventually answered. “Which is why you need to get to the lab immediately so we can figure out all the ways you are. Now, final warning. Move out or we’ll move you out.”

Layla grabbed my free hand and started leading me back toward the house, Griffin walking with us, his hold on my arm tighter than before.

“Damn, lady,” Layla called over her shoulder at Fanny, “you’re a real psycho bitch. You know that, right?”

Fanny didn’t bother to answer as Hunt and Brady fell into line behind us, the armed soldiers still pointing guns at our backs.

Apparently, just another Tuesday around here.

Though I still didn’t understand pretty much any of the nuttiness that was going on with Bobo, he seemed to comprehend my verbal commands. I’d stared at him across my thigh—yep, that wasn’t getting any less weird—told him there was “danger” and that he was to “hide.” Instantly, he’d run up my leg—still ever so strange, especially since I didn’t feel a thing—leapt over another of my tattoos, and then scrambled to hide under my shirt.

Even so, I’d dressed in jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt to make sure no one saw him. I had no idea what Magnum and the zealot Fanny would make of him wandering my epidermis, and I had no intention of finding out.

Though my friends and I were firmly inside the lab, Fanny stood watch with several of her sentinels, as if we’d shimmy out the shoebox-sized windows and make a run for it. Even if we did manage some miraculous escape from the heavily monitored lab, Magnum and his staff of loony goons were making it all too clear there was nowhere we could go that they wouldn’t retrieve us from.

Once again, I sat atop a stool at Jude’s workstation, only this time Lynne stood beside him as he dutifully checked my vitals. Lynne leaned against the counter, very much in the way of Jude’s keyboard, which he needed to input my results. When she crossed her arms and ankles, settling in, I realized she was deliberately blocking the nearest camera along the ceiling line.

Jude didn’t even glance at her, proceeding with my examination as if nothing were amiss, showing me once again how very good at acting the two of them were. No wonder none of us had suspected a single thing over the years. They were so smooth; they were like superspies.

When Jude leaned in to examine my face, actually measuring the breadth and height of my features—merely for show, I hoped—he spoke softly and without moving his lips, making him sound like a ventriloquist. Still, it was far from the weirdest thing that had happened to me so far today.

“Don’t react to me speaking,” he said in that very bizarre, stilted way. “They can’t know I’m talking to you when they can’t hear.”

“Mmmm-hmmmm,” I hummed without moving my lips.

He shone a light across my eyeballs next. “Things are about to get worse. Magnum’s worried about something big. He’s moving the timeline up.”

“Timeline of what?” I asked. Unlike him, I hadn’t practiced ventriloquism. I sounded like a toddler with a lisp and no good handle on consonants. But he got the message.

“Not sure. Think someone maybe found out what he’s doing.”

“This is taking too long,” Lynne complained, picking up the blood pressure cuff and telling Jude, “Trade places.”

Jude huffed at her in annoyance but did as she asked, likewise positioning himself to block the view from the nearest camera. He pretended to reach for a pen, using the movement to ensure Fanny and the soldiers remained by the door.

Smooth operators indeed. My faux parents would have me fooled if I were Fanny.

Lynne bent over the blood pressure cuff, allowing the sheet of her loose hair to obscure much of her face. Even staring at her mouth, I didn’t see it so much as twitch when she said, “No time. Need to help.”

What the fuck? Had they taken ventriloquism classes while I was at school? Dudes were freaking pros.

“Restore your memories while you still can. Okay with you?” she asked.

What, now they were asking for consent? That was fresh—and also appreciated.

I nibbled at my bottom lip. I had a metric shit-ton of questions about that, and I couldn’t ask a single one without possibly giving away what they were doing. But I couldn’t just say yes without knowing more either. Were these potentially missing memories what Brady’s nightmares had been all about?

Think, Joss, think .

“Can I ask some questions about some of the upcoming experiments I’m guessing you’ll be doing on me?” I asked in a normal voice.

Lynne met my stare, her eyes sharp. She understood what I was asking. “Sure, honey,” she said, also normal, for our surveillance. “Anything I’m allowed to tell you, I’ll be happy to.”

“Well,” I fumbled. “I actually have no idea what you guys are planning on doing to us. What are the possible risks and side effects of some of these procedures?”

“Oh,” Lynne said with a smile that conveyed: I’m harmless and I’m here to help . I had to swallow a snort. “All of what we do here is cutting-edge and exploratory. No one else in the entire world’s doing what we’re doing. But this team’s truly the very best and the most capable of doing any of this, including Jackie, who is absolutely a top expert on the brain.” She paused so that last point would linger and settle in.

Brady and Layla’s pretend mom was indeed supposed to be the foremost expert not just on the brain, but on its memory functions in particular. Whatever process Lynne and Jude were offering up to restore the memories they’d stolen from me originated with Jackie. Did that mean the same offer was being made to my friends?

I glanced at them, spread out across the lab, and noticed nothing beyond the expected examination from their faux parents.

Lynne pressed a stethoscope to my chest beneath my shirt. With her face so close to mine, she continued for our audience.

“Everything has an intrinsic risk because this is an entirely new, unexplored part of science, which is what makes it so incredibly exciting. But I promise you, we’ve done absolutely everything within our power to minimize any possible risk or side effect of every single procedure we’ll ever perform. Plus, thanks to Magnum’s funding, we have every possible piece of state-of-the-art equipment we could need.”

Jude piped up: “We promise, honey, we’d never recommend a procedure or test for you if we didn’t truly, with all our hearts, believe it was the best path for you and the others.”

He sure was throwing around this “all our hearts” shit a lot lately.

Softly, reverting to ventriloquist-speak, Lynne added, “It’s gonna be rough. A lot of info coming in for you all at once.” She moved the stethoscope around my chest, her hand beneath my shirt. “But this may be our only chance. And you need to know, if you’re going to fight back.”

Fight back ? Surprised, I jerked my stare to hers. Immediately, she rolled the stool away, taking the stethoscope with her. She sat next to where Jude now stood, neither of them showing any sign they’d be moving closer again. Their message was clear. If they pushed it more, someone would suspect—and if someone would suspect when they’d been this careful, this pristine in their performance, then we were being monitored even more carefully than I’d imagined.

It was a big decision to make, and surely it would have been wise to measure the pros and cons carefully, to really study the risks.

But everything about our stay at the new Institute for the Advancement of Immortals was a risk. Magnum was open about his intentions to kill me and my friends. I’d bet everything I had to my name, including the bones of Cleo, my soon-to-be-beautiful-and-purring 1999 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra Coupe, that this place was designed entirely for the purpose of advancing Magnum’s desires to achieve superhero status. All risks to us were acceptable to him on his way to gaining what amounted to paranormal abilities.

Normal risk assessment went out the window. These weren’t normal times. We weren’t dealing with a normal man or his normal goals.

I saw only one reasonable path forward, and it actually felt quite unreasonable.

As Jude removed the cuff from my arm, I asked them, “Okay, so what’s next? I felt pretty crappy after being zapped by that lightning light stuff.”

Jude put on a smile that said, I’m compassionate and I’m paying attention to you. Ventriloquist style, he whispered, “He’s gonna steal powers. More students arriving. He’ll take. You must be ready.”

“Do you have something that could help me feel better?” I asked. “I understand the risks of new procedures.”

Jude and Lynne looked at each other. Lynne actually brought a hand to her chin as she feigned considering what procedure they could do to help and study me next.

Jude scratched his neck, as if distractedly, before suggesting to Lynne, “Hmmm, maybe something along the lines of hypnotherapy? To diminish the trauma of the incident?”

Lynne tipped her head this way and that before shrugging. “Yeah, that might help. Plus, then we’ll get more insights into how her brain reacts to interaction with the powers of others.” I was guessing Lynne was dangling that tidbit to win over Magnum.

“It could give us data on how different powers can assimilate in a subject’s brain,” she added.

Jude’s eyes widened. “Wow, Lynne. That’s a great idea.” He stood. “Let’s get it set up with Jackie right away. It’ll help Joss, and we’re bound to learn something new.”

When Jude and Lynne continued the charade by leading me into an adjacent room, I followed. But when they guided me to lie down as Jackie entered, nerves pulsed under my skin.

Ultimately, I didn’t trust them. I might trust them a smidge more than Magnum, Fanny, and their trigger-happy security force, but only because at least I didn’t believe our faux parents actually wanted to watch any of us die.

As a standard, it wasn’t all that impressive.

“I want at least one of my friends in here with me,” I said. “Someone to look out for me.”

“We’ll look out for you,” Jude said, his eyes as earnest as I’d ever seen them. But dude had also just proven he was an amazing actor, worthy of a freaking Oscar.

I met the earnestness in his gaze. “Griffin, Hunt, Layla, or Brady, any of them will do. But I’m not doing a single thing more unless one of them’s in here with me.”

“Well?” Lynne snapped at Jude. “Go get one of them. Seconds matter right now.”

And with that, Jude rushed from the room even as Lynne dimmed the lights to prepare me for a process I guessed I wasn’t near ready for.

Apparently, when it came to our lives recently, we learned like baby chicks did. I was about to be pushed from the nest to see if I could fly.

Within minutes, Jude returned with all four of my friends—along with the rest of the pretend-parents. They all squeezed into the windowless room that had felt spacious enough moments before, but now was crammed full of people.

“We have to hurry,” Jackie said, gesturing them to shut the door behind them and then fiddling with some dials on an odd-looking sound system and plugging headphones into a port.

She was already extending the headphones to me where I lay atop a padded medical bed. I sat up to stare at my friends even as Jude tucked a thin blanket around me. “Watch my back.”

Layla huffed. “Dude, obviously. But what the fuck’s going down here?”

The parents looked at each other, cracks showing in their usual cool facades. Finally, they all looked at Jackie.

Her eyes widened as an idea plainly dawned. “Joss is going to undergo a proprietary sort of hypnosis I developed that will help her accept any new adjustments to her powers. I’ve prerecorded a quick explanation of what’s going to happen to put her at ease with the procedure. Here, sweetheart, why don’t you have a quick listen while I finish getting Joss ready? We don’t have much time before you have to head to your classes.”

As far as I knew, we weren’t going to classes today. But I lay back down as the already low lights dimmed further, probably to make it more difficult for the cameras to make out our expressions. First, Layla listened. Then, eyes wide as saucers, she passed the headset to Hunt, who passed it to Griffin, who in turn handed it off to Brady.

When all of my friends had listened to whatever Jackie had recorded, they looked to each other and to me, then Hunt announced for them, “We’re doing it too.”

Immediately, Jackie shook her head. “There’s not enough time today. We—”

Brady stepped forward. “ Mom , make it happen. This hypnotherapy to feel better about the process will help us too.”

When Jackie hesitated, he added, “I know you can make it happen.”

Jackie winced but then jerked her head at the other adults. “I need a headset for each of them that can be jacked in, and audio jack splitters. Mark, there are some in my bottom drawer.”

As the adults hurried out the door to fetch the required items, Jackie told my friends. “There isn’t time to get you properly set up—we don’t want you to be late for your classes. So if you still want to do this, lie down on the floor and position your heads close to the sound system so you can be plugged in.”

Griffin stalked over to lie right beneath my bed so he could reach me if he needed to, and the others plopped down beside him.

“Who’s gonna have our backs though?” I asked them.

Jackie was the one who answered. “ Us . We’re going to have your backs. No one’s going to hurt you while you’re under.” She was so ferocious about it that I actually believed her.

Besides, our choices were, yet again: A: shit. B: shittier. C: royal shitstorm. And D: all of the above.

As the adults rushed back in with the supplies, so did Tracy.

“What the hell’s going on here?” she demanded.

As one, the adults visibly calmed for her benefit—fucking masters of illusion they were.

Jackie smiled beatifically at Tracy. “I’m doing a group hypnotherapy session to help ease the trauma of Magnum having the subject apprehended in front of them. I’m not sure if you’re aware, Tracy, but Joss was also hit by that beam. She slept for three days after, and they’re all a bit shaken from the experience. I’m going to smooth things over for them and, while I’m at it, also smooth the path for future experiences that have the potential to be traumatic for them. Give them more coping abilities for what’s to come, so to speak.”

Jackie sounded like an infomercial. Calm, collected, and convincing.

Tracy peered at the scene with suspicion. “I’m going to call Magnum.”

Jackie’s beatific smile barely faltered as it spread across her face. “Of course. I’m sure he’ll be happy to learn what we’re doing here.”

The very instant Tracy prowled off to tattle, Marisa closed the door and locked it.

Jackie lined her face up directly over mine on the bed, as if she might be about to kiss me on the cheek. She breathed, “I have to delete the explanation the second you hear it. You’re going in right now. Keep your eyes shut at all times.”

Then, before I could so much as squeak in reply, her voice, pitched to be soothing, rang out through the headphones.

“ When I altered your early memories, I didn’t delete them. I simply built a pathway that bypassed them and then constructed other memories along that bridge to replace the ones you no longer accessed. What I’m going to do now is delete the bypass. What will remain are your original true memories of your early childhood, before we got you out of the lab and went into hiding with you. Since time is of the essence and we want this process to stick, I’ll be injecting you with a drug I developed that makes you susceptible to suggestion and will rapidly lull you into a theta state. Don’t resist the process. It will be painless, though it will likely still be shocking as you adjust to the reality that we’ve kept hidden from you all these years. Be gentle with yourselves afterward. It’s a big adjustment. Now, let’s begin. ”

I felt the cool wipe of what I guessed was an alcohol swab, then the prick of a needle.

Within moments, I felt my breath deepen, my muscles relax, and then I knew nothing at all.