Erased (15 page)

I rounded the kitchen island, raced down the hallway, checked the rooms, the bathrooms, the closets. Nothing. No one. They weren’t here.

I returned to the kitchen to find Dad staring at the stainless steel fridge, at a folded note stuck to the front.

“It’s written to you,” Dad said, handing it to me.

I opened it and recognized the handwriting immediately.

“It’s from Riley,” I said. “ ‘Thank you for your cooperation in this cleanup process. We couldn’t have done it without you. Sam, Cas, and Nick fought valiantly until we told them you were already at Branch headquarters. And then they came willingly. It made my job much easier. PS: The word you’re looking for is
erased
.’ ”

I frowned. “What does that mean?”

Dad walked past me and grabbed the cast-iron stove burner off the living room floor. He said nothing as he swiveled around and stared right at me.

“Dad?”

His eyes were blank, unblinking. His mouth was set in a straight line.

There was no emotion at all on his face as he swung the burner at my head.

I ducked. Stood. Ducked for a second attack.

“Dad!”

He cocked his arm back, swung again. I scrambled around the island backward so I could see the next blow when it came. But I tripped over the detached cabinet door and slammed straight down on the floor.

I saw the burner come flying toward me. I realized suddenly where I’d gone wrong.

The Branch hadn’t brainwashed a code word into the boys.

They had brainwashed my dad.

I FELT THE LULL OF MOVING TIRES
beneath me, but I couldn’t seem to open my eyes.

Voices rang in my head, calling me back into a dream or an old memory. I couldn’t tell which.

There was a flash of auburn hair, spinning and spinning. And my hair, blond like dry wheat, tangled around my face.

“Fly, bird!” Dani shouted. She let me go, and I sailed through the air, landing with a splash. The water filled in the space around me, and I kicked up toward the surface, breaking through with a deep gasp of air.

Dani laughed. “Was that fun?” she asked.

“That was awesome!” I shouted back, and she laughed again.

Sam appeared behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, and I stopped smiling. Because she was no longer looking at me. She was looking at him.

Air bubbles rose to the surface two feet away from me, and a second later, Nick popped up. He tossed his head back, like a shaggy dog, and water droplets hit my face.

Cas ran, leapt off an outcropping, and did a cannonball, fanning water over me.

“Cas!” I screeched when he broke through the surface laughing.

“You’re such an idiot,” Nick said.

“At least I’m a good-looking one!” Cas countered.

I looked to shore. Sam and Dani were gone.

“You think you can make it to that island over there?” Nick asked.

I squinted against the sun as I followed his line of sight. There was a small island several yards off, with a cluster of pine trees and not much else. But I wanted to go, mostly because Nick was challenging me to. And I wanted to show him I could make it.

“Yeah,” I said, and started swimming.

Cas pulled ahead of me. “I’ll beat you both!” he screeched right before he ducked beneath the water and disappeared out of sight.

I dog-paddled over because I didn’t know how to swim any other way. Not like Dani. Or the boys.

Nick swam ahead of me, too, and I paddled faster.

Soon my arms and legs were tired, and the island seemed a lot farther away than it had when I’d sized up the distance.

What if I couldn’t make it?

The doubt wedged into my chest, squeezing my lungs, and I started to panic.

I flailed, hands slapping against the water, but it didn’t do me any good. I sank beneath the surface, and water filled my mouth.

The lake seemed to press against me. I stretched with my foot, hoping to reach the bottom, but found only empty space.

My legs cramped. My lungs were on fire. I needed air.

I was going to drown.

A hand grabbed me by the wrist and hauled me to the surface.

I sputtered and gasped, drinking in the fresh air like I couldn’t get enough of it.

“You okay?” Nick asked, and I latched on to him, arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

“Hey,” Nick said. “Climb on my back, and I’ll swim to shore. Can you do that?”

I nodded and did as he asked, hanging on to him from behind.

Cas swam up beside me. “You all right, bird?”

No. I wasn’t. I felt like crying. “I’m okay,” I said, which made Nick snort.

Cas rushed ahead of us so he could help pull me out when Nick reached the shore. Cas sat me beneath a scraggly pine tree, on a bed of rust-orange pine needles. Nick reappeared a second later with his navy sweatshirt and draped it around my shoulders.

“Look at me,” Cas said, nudging my chin with his thumb. “Who am I?”

“Cas.” My teeth chattered together.

“What day is it?”

“Saturday.”

“She almost drowned, you idiot,” Nick said. “She didn’t get hit by a bus.”

“Yeah, which means her brain was starving for oxygen, which means brain damage, dickhead.”

“I’m okay,” I said again, still shivering.

The boys stared at each other.

“We can’t tell Dani what happened,” Cas said.

Nick tugged on his T-shirt. “I was thinking the same thing.”

I looked up at them hovering over me. “Why?”

“Because she’d kill us,” Cas answered, running a towel over his head. His blond hair stuck straight up. “Kill us dead. And then kill us again.” He ducked down and ruffled my hair. “There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for her little bird,” he said.

We stopped moving. I opened my eyes to blinding sunlight and shoved myself to an upright position. Something tightened against me. A seat belt. Country music played softly through the car speakers.

Dani was behind the wheel.

“Hey,” she said.

I tensed. “Where are we?”

“You’re safe.”

“Where’s my dad? And the boys?”

“They’re safe, too.”

My head throbbed just above my left eye, and I reached for the spot, not thinking, and winced when I felt a lump. Old blood came away on my fingers. My stomach rolled, and I had to bite down on my lower lip to stop from barfing.

Concussion, for sure. My dad had given me a concussion.

“Where are we going?” I tried again.

“To a secure location.” Dani hit the blinker and turned down a side street.

“Why did you betray us?” I asked, because I needed to distract her while I made a plan.

I had no weapons. I was injured. I had no idea where we were. Or where the boys were.

First I needed information. Then I’d act.

“I didn’t betray you,” she said, her voice laced with sadness. “I did what I had to do to get you out of there.”

She turned left. Warehouses and factories lined the street. Gravel from the snowplows crunched beneath our tires.

“Get me out of where?”

“The Branch.” She pulled into a parking lot behind a three-story brick building that said
WATCHCASE
on the side in old, fading letters.
Windows ran from east to west, some panes of glass smashed or missing.

She stepped out of the vehicle, taking the car keys with her. I scanned the interior, looking for anything I could use as a weapon, but the car was clean.

I fumbled with the door latch and nearly fell out of the vehicle when I managed to open it. Dani was there in an instant, holding me up by the arm.

“Are you all right?” Concern was pressed into the creases of her mouth.

I weighed the possible answers. I could lie and say I was fine, but if I was honest and told her I was in pain, she’d think of me as vulnerable. I could catch her off guard later when the time was right.

With a frown, I fingered the knot on my forehead again. “I don’t feel so well.”

“I’ll get you something when we’re inside.” She tightened her hold on me as I hunched over. “We’re almost there.”

She led me around the building to a set of double doors stuck in an alcove. Mint-green paint peeled and curled at the edges. It was unlocked, and we strolled right inside.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“It’s a laboratory. I used to work here.”

It didn’t look like any laboratory I’d ever seen. The hallways were dirt-crusted, the ceilings decorated with cobwebs. Graffiti marked
the walls in a rainbow of colors. The place was entirely empty, and the wind whistled through holes in the windows.

“Here,” Dani said, steering me toward an office with a door marked
ACCOUNTS PAYABLE
.

At the door, she tapped a finger against a tiny silver panel, and a screen slid out of the wall. She pressed her entire hand to the glowing green glass, and it scanned her print.

When she passed the verification, the door opened with a hiss, and a man—a fully uniformed agent—stepped out.

“Afternoon, Ms. O’Brien,” he said, holding the door for us.

I backpedaled. “This is a Branch location?”

Dani looked at me. “It’s safe. Come on.”

“No. I’m not going inside there with you. I might never come out.”

“Cal,” Dani said to the agent. “Some assistance.”

Cal grabbed my wrist and hauled me inside. Dani shut the false panel and locked it.

The hallway was lit every three feet with white orb lights screwed into the brick wall. But the lights stopped at an elevator bank. The doors stood open, waiting.

I stiffened.

“It’ll be all right, bird. I swear it.” Dani looked over at me, her expression open, readable. I believed she wouldn’t hurt me, at least not physically, but the farther underground I was, the harder it’d be to escape. The hallway here was narrow, and there was no other exit that I could see. The agent had a rifle slung over his back, and a handgun
strapped to his hip. He was big enough to bar the doorway with only his body.

“Come on.” Dani coaxed me inside.

There was only one button on the control panel, and Dani hit it with her index finger. So the laboratory was down only one level, which meant it probably wasn’t too far underground. Maybe there was some kind of return air vent I could access. Or a supply route. They couldn’t possibly haul in laboratory equipment through that door.

The elevator doors slid closed, and the car lurched downward.

“What’s going to happen to the boys?” I asked.

Dani leveled her shoulders as the elevator came to a stop. “I honestly don’t know. Not yet, anyway.”

The doors opened with a
ding
, and a bustling laboratory came into view.

I stepped out behind Dani.

There were long work counters near the front, with beakers and microscopes and vials in trays. In the far corner, behind a wall of glass, there were several treadmills with monitors surrounding each one.

A row of computers took up the back of the space, and each station was manned by someone wearing a white lab coat.

It was too clean, too sterile, and gooseflesh rose on my arms.

Dani wound through the place, and everyone we passed stopped to say hello. They called her Ms. O’Brien, like she was someone important.

We passed several desks, where lab technicians were scribbling notes and reading reports and generally looking busy.

A thin, freckled man met us halfway through the lab, his arms burdened with files. “Ms. O’Brien,” he said. “You’re early.”

He wasn’t much older than us. Twenty-three, maybe. He tripped over a circuit pad, stumbled forward, kneed the edge of a desk, and gritted his teeth.

“Are you okay?” I asked, and he finally looked at me.

“Oh. It’s you.” He nodded once, twice, swallowed. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” He shuffled the files to his other arm and held out his hand. “I’m Brian Lipinski.”

I stared at him. I was a prisoner here, wasn’t I? I wasn’t about to make nice with anyone inside.

“Umm… okay.” He pulled his hand back. “No handshakes. That’s cool.”

Dani snapped her fingers. “Brian.”

“Oh. Yes? OB is in the back room waiting for you.”

OB. I knew that name from somewhere.

Dani muttered a thank-you and motioned me through a door, down another hallway, and into a small office.

I froze when I saw Uncle Will.

Why was he here? There were no other agents in the room, so it wasn’t as if he was being held against his will.

Wait.

All my alarm bells went off.

OB.

The name had been mentioned in one of Dani’s files. Something about OB requesting a shift in the time line.

OB.
O’Brien.

As in Will O’Brien.

“Oh my God.” I staggered back and slammed into the door, fumbling for the knob, and finding none. I turned around, patted at the crack in the door, but nothing happened.

“You didn’t give her a sedative yet?” Uncle Will asked.

“No. I wanted to talk to her first.”

“Without the sedative, how did you think she would react to seeing me here? You think you can talk to her when she’s like this?”

A hand clamped down on my shoulder. I grabbed the wrist, whirled, stomped down with the heel of my boot, pinning Uncle Will’s ankle beneath me. I twisted his arm around and up at an unnatural angle. Pain contorted his face.

“Anna,” he said. “We just want to talk.”

My heart drummed a steady beat in my head. Sweat beaded at the nape of my neck. I tried to control my breathing, like Sam had taught me.

I let Will go, and he eased back.

“Have a seat,” he said as he shook out his arm.

I looked at the overstuffed leather chair. This was more an office
than it was a medical room. Dark wood bookcases lined the wall to my left. There was a desk in the rear, which Uncle Will had been sitting at when we arrived, and four leather chairs in the center of the room.

“No, thanks.” I clasped my hands behind my back, wishing there was a gun there, hidden beneath my shirt. I didn’t like how vulnerable I felt without a weapon.

“Very well.” Uncle Will crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn’t a large man, but not small, either. Maybe six feet and an even build. I was confident I could take him but not confident I could take him
and
Dani. At least not yet.

I needed to know my surroundings better, and their weaknesses And I needed to find the boys.