Collide (11 page)

Josh releases a ragged breath. “I’m not sure.”

“Then guess!”

Something dangerous filters through the words and Josh finally turns. “Fine. Alright. I remember them with us. Part of . . .”

“What?”

He grinds his jaw, clutching the wheel until his knuckles are white. “We, all of us, were part of a government project. An experiment.”

I have no response.

“They were testing our abilities.”

“What the heck are you talking about, Josh?”

“The government recruited us to be part of some secret government experiments focused on studying psychic phenomena.”

I can’t process his words. My hands begin to shake as my thoughts fracture. “So, let me get this right, all five of us in the picture can read minds and crap?” The quiver in my voice won’t abate. “Move objects with our minds?”

“I think so, yes.”

“And we were all part of some government experiment our parents were involved with?”

“Yeah.” Josh’s voice grows more distant with each answer.

I shake my head, refusing to trust his words. “We’re all in hiding now, running from a bunch of people who want to kill us?”

Silence fills the gap between us.

“This is crazy!”

“Dakota, I’m telling you the truth,” Josh says, and I know he’s telling me the truth. In fact, part of me has known for a long time. “Mom and Dad took us out of the experiments and brought us into protective custody, all of us.”

“Why? What happened?” My gaze shifts from him to the road and back.

“No idea.”

I riddle through his story. Everything he says fits into the scattered memories that are still part of me.

“David’s part of this?”

Josh says nothing.

“You should’ve told me. That night, when I cried on your shoulder, you should’ve told me the truth. You know what he means to me.”

“Yes, I do, which is why we agreed that he had to leave to protect you; to protect all of us.”

“
We
?” I flash to the night Josh first met David in vivid detail. The day after Winter Formal, David and I met at the Coffee Shake. David left as Josh walked in. Josh’s expression was so worried when he came to the table, so angry. He watched David get into his car and ordered me to stop seeing him. A few days later, David left without a word. “You had no right!”

“You and David always had something between you, even then. He used to tell me that he was going to marry you. When you found each other again, he was determined to continue the relationship. But being together . . . it was a risk none of us could afford to take.”

“So that’s why you hate him? Because he remembers our past? WITSEC, the experiments, my abilities?”

“I don’t hate him. I just don’t want him with you. And I’m pretty certain he only remembers as much as I do, which isn’t a lot, trust me.”

I don’t trust anyone anymore. There’s so much more to the story, so much I can’t riddle out. No matter how hard I try, nothing more than fragments of that life gel in my memories.

I look at the map, focusing on the bold “D” next to the star. Anger crawls against my skin. I want to scream, run, something. My hold on reality cracks. I can’t handle any more. The car begins to shake with my emotions just as the radio suddenly begins to blast country music through the old speakers.

“Dakota, you have to calm down.” The windshield wipers begin sweeping frantically back and forth, back and forth. Josh pulls the car over to the side of the road. “I’m serious. Calm down or we’re gonna crash.”

“I . . . can’t . . .” I say, half frightened, half intrigued by the power of my anger.

“You must.”

His words bind to me and I stare into his eyes.

“Take a deep breath. Settle your thoughts.”

“I can’t.” The car continues to shake.

Josh’s voice booms in my head.
Let go, Dakota. Release the anger you’re feeling. The fear. It’s the only way
. My mind whirls. Panic seizes my lungs.
Dakota! Relax!

I follow his command before I comprehend what’s happening. I take a slow and steady breath.

Josh grabs my shoulder and stares into my eyes.
That’s it. Take another slow breath.

More deep breaths, more coaching from Josh. Finally, the car quits shaking, the windshield wipers stop, the radio turns off.

“Better?”

Like anything will ever be better now.

Clouds dot the afternoon sky as we continue the drive toward Geneva. I watch the barns and farmhouses stream by, my thoughts filled with David. “I’m still mad at you, Josh.”

“I know.”

“Both of you.”

Josh laughs. “I’d expect nothing less.”

We drive along the edges of endless cornfields buttressing up to thick forests. I think of my time with David, replaying every moment, every kiss.

“When did he figure things out?” I ask. “When did David know about WITSEC?”

The question floats too long without an answer.

“No idea,” Josh finally says.

“Would you tell me if you knew?” I stare at Josh, his eyes fixated on the road ahead. He’s the only one I trusted with my feelings for David.

Josh held me when I cried over David’s departure. Josh read the endless texts I sent and helped me destroy David’s silly notes he’d leave in my locker when I finally accepted David wouldn’t be coming back.

I confessed my love for David to Josh.

“I don’t think he knew much before he left. He wouldn’t have hurt you that way.”

“You did. So did Mom and Dad. Why wouldn’t David?”

“He just wouldn’t.”

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

We ride in silence for several more miles, past Lake Cayuga, and the quaint towns folded into the landscape between the different finger-shaped lakes in this part of New York State.

“How much farther?” I ask. The sooner we get this over with, the better.

“A few more miles.” Josh turns the car down a long stretch of highway.

My heart beats harder than I want it to as I remember meeting David in Honors Chemistry. He came late and took the only seat left in the class, right next to me. His piercing green eyes were enough to draw my attention, but it was his voice that captivated me. One word and I was his.

David asked me out by the end of class. I was seeing Gabe so I refused. David asked me out every day after that, telling me I deserved more than Gabe could ever be. After the fiasco with Gabe at Homecoming, David picked up the pieces of me. But by then, I’d sworn off boys. Until Winter Formal.

David’s gift of the locket was surprising; we hadn’t even been on a date before the dance. But, I liked him more than anyone I’d ever met. There was a comfort in his eyes, a familiarity I craved. We met for coffee the next day, and he was gone the day after that. No goodbyes. Nothing.

Now I know why.

Josh winds the car through an old housing track near the center of town, turning down a small cul-de-sac banking up against more cornfields and a deep forest. He stops at the second house and waits.

The house is nothing like I expect. Old and rundown, it reminds me of something from an old Hitchcock movie. Fitting, I guess.

“I’ll go and get him,” Josh says. “It’ll be easier.”

“Not going to happen. I’m going with you.” I’m out of the car before Josh can disagree. Apprehension climbs up my spine as I walk the long drive. My legs wobble.

Josh steadies my arm. “It’ll be okay.”

I inhale deeply and release the tension as we climb the porch steps and knock on the door.

The farmhouse is larger than it I’d imaged from the street, but just as run down. White paint peels from the porch’s banisters and shutters. The screen door is fragile. Any strong wind would pull it straight off the hinges. Josh knocks again.

“Hello,” I call out. “David?”

Nothing.

We walk around the porch to the back of the house. The place is empty. Deserted. “Hello,” I say again. There is still no reply.

“I thought you said he was here.”

“He should be,” Josh says. “What do you want to do?”

“Are you sure we’re at the right house?”

“As sure as I can be, yeah.”

A cold fear bores through me. “Josh . . . do you think . . .” I can’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

“David’s fine. We’d have sensed if he was taken or worse.”

I’m not so sure.

We walk back around the house and my skin erupts in chills. Duck! The word boomerangs through me. Without another thought, I flatten myself to the ground, taking Josh with me.

“What the—”

“Shh,” I say. Or maybe I only think it.

A series of loud bangs shatter the space around us as bullets slice the air.

“We have to get out of here.” Josh pulls me into the fields behind the house.

MORE SHOTS RING OUT AROUND US
. Acting on instinct, I imagine us both enveloped in a bullet-proof armor.

“They went into the fields. I think they’re headed for the woods, sir. There.” The words are too loud behind us. Too close.

“Proceed with caution,” says a voice that sounds like it’s coming from the other end of a walkie-talkie.

Footsteps crunch the dry corn behind us. We move quickly through fields until we reach the edge of a thick forest. Tall trees covered in moss darken the sky. I pull Josh close to me and we press ourselves against the largest of the trees.

My finger to my lips, I motion for complete silence. My eyes roll back and I imagine ourselves disappearing into the tree, untraceable, almost as though we’d somehow concocted Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. I hold my breath, staring at Josh. He’s envisioning a shield, same as me. My brain flashes to other moments when I’ve “disappeared”—the time at school when I wanted to sneak out with David, my arrival at the hospital, just after my “episode”, when the staff tried to inject me with some mind-numbing drug and one other time during my childhood.

The memory is clear now. I’m in the lab with the others. Mom and Dad instruct the group, asking us to utilize both our supernatural abilities and our understanding of warfare. We had practiced making ourselves appear as the landscape around the lab, fading into the background at will. A smile creeps over my face for only a moment as I remember Josh’s skill and the games of hide and seek we used to play.

Josh squeezes my fingers. Armed assailants enter the woods. They’re directly in front of us, inches away. I push myself into the tree and my arms tremble. They’ll find us here for certain, capture us. Maybe even kill us. I take a slight breath, desperate to stay hidden against the tree. My eyes water with fear as Josh grinds his teeth. We stare at the assailants and wait.

Endlessly.

“Have you found them?” The rough voice clicks over the walkie-talkie, startling me. I suck in a sharp but silent breath, afraid and focused at the same time.

“No, sir. They’ve . . .”

“They’ve what?”

The man with the gun swallows hard. Sweat trickles down his temples; fear pulses through his cells. I sense it all.