Erased (17 page)

“What did you do to her?”

I clutched harder at Dani’s hand as the woman with blond hair peered down at me. “Is she high?”

“No, Mom,” Dani said. “She’s just tired.”

Mom. This woman was our mother. Yes, I knew that. And the man looming behind her, the man with the straight-edged shoulders and the coppery hair and the slash for a mouth was our father.

Everything felt so disjointed. Like I was stuck in a dream where I knew these were my parents but they didn’t fit the image of my parents.

“I’m packing her a bag,” Dani went on. “We’re taking her for a few days, if that’s all right.”

Dad stomped over to us and yanked me out of Dani’s grip, his fingers tight around my wrist, so tight that I worried my bones might snap beneath the pressure. “You’re not taking her anywhere. You think I don’t know what you’re up to? Will called, you know.” He looked past Dani at the boys lined up behind us. “You’ve gotten my oldest in a hell of a lot of trouble, and you’re not taking my youngest with you, too.” Air wheezed out of his nose as he clamped his mouth shut and seethed.

“I’m taking her,” Dani said again.

Dad shook his head. “No. You’re. Not.”

I didn’t know whose side I should be on. I wanted to go with my sister and with Nick. I knew that much. But if they were in trouble like Dad said, I wasn’t so sure.

I looked over my shoulder and met Nick’s stare. I always thought his eyes were the color of my sky-blue crayon, the one called ice. It was a color that meant strength to me, indestructible.

If he was going, then I wanted to go, too.

I tugged my arm out of Dad’s grip and crossed the room, stopping at Nick’s side. I fitted my hand in his. He squeezed just enough to be reassuring.

Dad turned fire-engine red. “I’m calling Will,” he said, and his boots thudded into the kitchen.

“Wait!” Mom called.

Sam and Cas started after Dad.

“Get Anna out of here,” Dani said.

Nick pulled me down the hallway and into my room, past the four-poster bed and then the dresser. He grabbed my backpack off the hook on my closet door and shoved clothes inside. “Take this,” he said, sliding it over my shoulder. He yanked the closet door open and gave me a nudge.

“Wait here. Lock the door.” He pointed at the dead bolt that’d been installed on the inside of the closet.

“Don’t come out for anything,” Nick ordered. “I don’t care what you hear. I’ll come get you soon.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.” He shut the door, and I immediately clicked the lock in place.

There was a flashlight somewhere in here. I knew that much. I rooted around on the wood floor until my fingers grazed the edge of a box. Inside I felt paper and something glossy, something hard, like rock, and a flashlight.

I clicked it on and breathed out with relief as the closet filled with a soft golden glow.

Shouting sounded from the front of the house. I cowered in the corner, legs tucked up to my chest. I looked inside the box now that I could see.

There was a picture of Dani and me. A necklace. A smooth stone, like a rubbing stone. A handful of coins. And a flattened paper crane.

I pulled the crane out and puffed up his body.

Nick had made it. The errant thought came to me suddenly, completely, in a way that felt more real than anything had since I’d woken in some medical office with a headache and wires stuck all over my head.

Nick had been there. He’d been the first person I’d seen after opening my eyes, and he’d immediately seemed familiar.

I’d lunged at him, wrapping my arms around his neck. He smelled like oatmeal and coffee and brown sugar and soap. And his return hug was enough to tell me my jumbled mind hadn’t been wrong about him.

“It’s all right,” he said, patting my back awkwardly. “Things will be confusing for a few hours. It’ll come back.”

“Where am I?” I’d asked. I’d nearly said, Who am I? But the name Anna came to mind. “Is something wrong with me?”

“Temporary amnesia,” Nick said. “Leaves you feeling like shit, but you’ll be okay.”

“You’ve had amnesia before?” I’d asked.

Nick just stared at me, and I quickly realized he hadn’t meant “you” in the general, second-person sense. He’d meant me. That I’d gone through temporary amnesia before, and it left me feeling like crap.

“Am I sick?” I’d asked, which made Nick smile.

“No, bird. You’re fine.”

Bird. That was familiar, too.

Still crouched in the closet, I twirled the paper crane by its points between my fingers.

More shouting sounded from the foyer. Something crashed to the floor. Nick cursed. Dani screamed. I wanted to see what was happening. I didn’t want to cower in the closet and wait for it to be over.

I wanted to be sure they were all right.

The lock clicked loudly when I opened it, and I waited a second to see if anyone had heard. But they hadn’t. I pushed the door open enough to slip through and tiptoe down the hallway. I peeked around the wall into the foyer.

Dani, Nick, Sam, and Cas were lined up with their backs to me, their hands in the air. Dad had a gun trained on them, but there was another man. He had a gun, too. Someone who I thought I knew, but whose name I couldn’t remember. He was tall, blond, pretty in a way I’d never seen in person.

Like a movie star, I thought, and when he smiled, a chill of fear shuddered down my back.

“Where is it?” the blond man said, that bright smile still in place. “Tell me where you stuck the documents you stole, and you can go and take little Anna with you.”

Dad blinked and looked at the man, dropping the gun at his side. “No, they can’t. They’re not taking my daughter!”

The man turned to Dad. “Shut up, Charles.”

Dad shook with rage. “I’m not one of your trained monkeys, Connor. You can’t boss me around.”

The man—Connor—said, “Oh, can’t I? What exactly do you plan to do to me? Maybe slap me around a little? Give me a good shake? Maybe slam my head into the wall?”

Dad flinched.

“Let me remind you exactly who I am. I’m not your wife. I’m not your daughter. And you can’t outfight me. So shut your goddamn mouth, Charles, and take a step back. I’ll handle this.”

Connor delivered the entire speech through gritted teeth, but with the smile still plastered on his face.

Which made Dad even madder.

He lunged at Connor, brandishing the gun like a club. He threw a backhanded swing, but Connor ducked and landed a solid blow to Dad’s side. Dad keeled over and lost the gun. It clattered to the floor. Mom and Dani both dove for it, but Mom was faster.

Dani recovered, putting herself in a balanced crouch. She swiped a leg at our mother. Mom landed hard on her butt, the gun still clutched in her hand. She pointed it at Dani, but Cas swooped in and punched her.

The gun went off.

I gasped.

Nick clutched at his gut, and Sam caught him as he stumbled.

No. No. Not Nick.

I raced down the hallway, rounded into the bathroom, not bothering to flick on the light. I climbed on the closed toilet seat and, with a grunt, pulled off the tank lid. I saw the outline of a plastic zipper bag submerged in the water. I plunged my hand in, gasping at the cold.

When I pulled the bag out, into the light spilling in from the hallway, I saw the barrel of the gun Dani had hidden there. She’d told me where it was, in case I ever needed it. I didn’t know how I remembered that, but I did. And I remembered her teaching me how to use it.

I pulled the gun out, dropped the bag. Double-checked the clip to make sure it was full of bullets.

I hurried down the hallway. My feet weren’t moving fast enough.

Nick was lying on the floor, outlined in a pool of blood. Cas was having a hard time standing upright and blood poured from a deep split on his forehead. Sam was on top of Connor, strangling him with his hands until he finally passed out.

And Dad was pointing a gun at Dani.

“What happened to you?” Dad said. “You grew up into nothing but a little bitch.”

I brought my arms up, the gun clutched in both my hands.

It didn’t take Dad long to notice. He swiveled around, training his gun on me. “And you’re turning out just like your sister.”

I pulled the trigger. Dad staggered back from the hit and sank to his knees. Mom screamed. She barreled toward me.

She looked like a wild thing, like a ghost or a monster or both, with pale skin and hollow eyes and a mouth twisted in a way that was anything but human.

I shot again.

My breath came too quickly. I squeezed my eyes shut and heard Dad swear beneath his breath.

I thought it was over.

I thought we had won.

“No!” Dani yelled.

Another shot sounded. I opened my eyes the very second the bullet hit me and slammed me to the floor.

“You asshole!” Dani screeched.

My side was suddenly on fire, soaked, sticky and warm with blood. I tried sitting up, but I couldn’t seem to move my legs to get enough leverage.

Dani scrambled to my side. “No. No. Anna.” Her hands hovered over me like she was afraid to touch me. “Can you hear me, bird?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you see me?”

I rolled my head toward her voice but was having a hard time making out her face. “Is he dead?” I asked. I was afraid he’d shoot me again. Or someone else. Like Dani.

“Yes. I think so. Cas, will you check him?”

There was a shuffling of feet. Cas said, “No pulse.”

The house was suddenly silent.

Dani took in a breath and pressed her hand against my side. The pain was a flash of light in my head and in my eyes. It hurt so bad I couldn’t summon enough energy to scream.

“Call Will,” Dani said.

“Do you have any idea what he’ll do—” Sam started.

“Call him!” She pressed her face against my chest. I could feel her breath on my neck. It helped root me in my body. “It’ll be okay. I swear it. Uncle Will is gonna fix you.”

And Nick? Who was going to fix him?

“I can carry her,” Sam tried one more time. “Cas can get Nick. We can make it out of here.”

Dani shook her head. “She’ll die before we’re able to get her somewhere safe. And even then… no one has the medical technology that the Branch does.”

Was she talking about me? Was I going to die?

“Will is family,” she said, her voice a buzz in my ears.

The floor creaked. “You’re going to make a deal with him, aren’t you?” Sam asked.

“I don’t have any other choice.”

Sam sighed.

“She’s my sister,” Dani added.

“Cas, get Will on the phone,” Sam said.

“Got it.”

Sam crouched by my side. He pushed the hair away from my face, his fingers gentle as he coaxed me to look at him. “She’s losing a lot of blood. And her vision is unfocused.”

“I know.”

“She might not—”

“Don’t.” Dani squeezed my hand in hers. “Don’t.”

Cas flipped his phone closed, dropped it on the floor, and smashed it with his boot. “Douche bag is on his way.”

“You should go,” Dani said. Sam hesitated only long enough for Dani to clench her teeth and yell at him. “Go, Sam!”

“Call me when you have an update.” He knelt by Nick, grabbed one arm, and hoisted him over his shoulder. Nick groaned.

“Be safe,” Sam said.

Dani nodded as the front door creaked open and closed a second later.

“Anna?” she whispered. She didn’t wait for my reply. “Listen. When Uncle Will gets here, let me do the talking, okay? Don’t say anything. I’ll fix this. I promise.”

Connor started moving in the corner.

“Everything’s going to be all right.” Dani smiled and ruffled my hair.

The pain was fading. Maybe I was okay after all.

Connor sat up. “What…” he croaked, before pulling out his phone. “Get me backup. I want a perimeter set up around Port Cadia and get out APBs.…”

Dani put a hand on the side of my face, forcing me to look at her. Her eyes were bloodshot and bruised, but I could see my sister, more than anything else. I did feel something for her. Love and admiration. I felt safe here next to her.

“I’ll do whatever it takes, bird,” she said. “Always.”

I KILLED MY PARENTS.

It was the first thought to come to me upon waking.

Followed by a sadness and desolation so complete I worried it was now part of my DNA, a virus of guilt I’d carry around with me forever.

The second thought to come to me was that I had been shot five years ago.

I sat up and lifted my shirt. My stomach was devoid of any imperfections. No scars. No puckering of the skin. Nothing.

A breath eased out past my lips. Maybe it wasn’t a flashback. Maybe it was a nightmare.

But deep down, I knew I was just making excuses.

I killed my parents.

I was shot.

“You were legally dead for three minutes.”

I sat up too fast at the sound of the voice behind me and instantly regretted it. My skull pounded on all sides, and I covered my face with my hands, wincing, as I set my feet to the floor.

“You’re safe here,” Will said. “Relax.”

Sensing his movements, I forced myself to focus. I couldn’t let him out of my sight.

“If I was dead,” I said, “how did you save me?”

He came around the couch and sat at the far end, elbows on his knees, hands folded together. His shirt was rumpled, his sleeves unbuttoned and rolled back.

“I have the best medical team in the state,” he said, “and yet, when I saw you there on the lab table, I worried not even they could bring you back.”

I met his eyes and tried to ignore the sadness etched into the fine lines.

“But they did,” I said.

He nodded. “They were able to stabilize you and stop the bleeding. Afterward, I had them repair the scar so that it looked as though it were never there in the first place. I didn’t want you carrying around that reminder that your own father had shot you.”

I swallowed against the lump forming in my throat. Was he telling me more lies? Stories made up to make him seem like the good guy?

That’s what I wanted to believe, because it was easier to see Uncle Will in only shades of black. But the flashback seemed real, as real as any of the others.

And more than that, it felt like a missing piece finally clicking into place.

“You should have something to drink.” Will nodded at the coffee table in front of me. There was a bottle of water there, along with a packet of crackers and a bottle of ibuprofen.

I eyed the offerings suspiciously.

“I have no reason to drug you,” Will said. “You’re already here.”

As I first nibbled on the crackers, I took the time to scan my surroundings.

I was in a loft. Vents ran across the high ceiling. In front of me were several bookshelves made of rusted pipes and worn wood. They were the kind of thing that looked old but were probably made last year and cost several thousand dollars.

The couch I was on was twice the size of any normal couch. It was upholstered in a dark green velvet, so dark as to almost be black. The floor was stained concrete.

Leaded-glass windows looked out on a span of woods. Nothing distinct enough to tell me where I was.

I took a drink of water, then shook out three pills from the bottle into my palm.

An image flashed in my head. Of Dani. Of her blood on my hands.

She was dead. I killed my mother, my father, my sister.

What kind of person kills their whole family?

Was I a psychopath?

“Where are the boys?” I asked.

Will stared at me for the longest time, and it struck me then how sharp and angled his face was, like a fox’s. “You killed Dani,” he said finally. All of the emotion had left his eyes.

It made him so much more frightening.

“Where are the boys?” I repeated.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?”

“If you had left us alone, there wouldn’t have been a problem.”

The telltale twitch of a smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. He unrolled his sleeves. “I can’t move forward when the past is out there, threatening to ruin everything I’ve worked for.”

“We weren’t threatening you. We were just trying to live our lives.”

“Which I gave you.”

It was true. In some twisted way, I owed everything I was and everyone I knew to this man. Did that give him the right to take it all away?

“Do you want to know how you ended up in the Altered program?” he asked.

I swallowed. Yes. But I didn’t want to admit it to him.

“I was shot,” I said. That seemed like a good place to start. “And Dani made a deal with you to save me.”

“She did.”

My pulse crept to a nervous beat. I suspected I already knew the answer to the question I was about to ask. But I didn’t want it to be true. “What was the price?”

He steepled his fingers. “Sam and the others.”

Even if I’d known that was the answer, it didn’t make it less painful hearing it.

Dani had set them up. The boys. That’s how they were eventually captured.

“And me?” I said.

“Dani and I decided you were better off in a stable home with someone who could look after you.”

“The farmhouse.”

“Yes.”

“And while I was there, why not make me part of the program?”

“You were only supposed to be part of the testing. You were never supposed to take part in the action.”

I glanced away, bit at my lower lip. I wanted to be mad. I
wanted
to hate him.

“Now you and I are all that remain of the O’Briens.” He rose to his feet and dug inside a cigar box.

Because of me, I thought, but I couldn’t focus on that now. Later. When I was safe I’d deal with the despair and the guilt and the sadness. For now I had to concentrate on escaping.

With Will’s back to me, I checked my surroundings again. I needed to find a weapon. There was a metal spherical statue on the bookcase on the far right, and straight through the middle of it was an arrow.

If I remembered correctly, it was called an armillary. It would suffice as a weapon.

Will turned, a cigar tucked in the crook of his bent index finger. He flicked the wheel on a lighter and lit the cut end of the cigar. The air instantly smelled of sweet tobacco.

“So now what?” I asked. “What about the boys? Me?”

“The whole reason Dani and I began this mission was to free you from this life.”

I scooted forward on the edge of the couch. “You what?”

“We had to be careful, obviously.” He puffed on his cigar, blew the smoke out in a rush. “We knew the boys would never let you go without a fight, and sadly, the Branch was good at what we did, at turning biotechnology into weaponry. We made the boys smarter, stronger, faster. The only way to get to them was through you.”

“But why?” I curled my fingers into fists. “If you only wanted me, why go after them at all?”

Will furrowed his brow. “Did you not just hear me say the boys would never let you go? Even if I’d spared them and wiped their memories, they would remember eventually. And we’d be back where we are now. I can’t run a business like this.” He raised his hands up, exasperated,
only to let them drop. “It took me over a decade to build this company. We started as a small weapons design firm, and from there I made the Branch into one of the leading dealers in bioweapons.”

He shook his head. “And it was my mistake, mixing family with work. I never should have gone down that road. It made me vulnerable, and it made you a victim. For that I apologize.”

I tried to process everything he was saying, but something stuck out in my head. Something I couldn’t let go. “You said, ‘if I’d spared them.’ About the boys.”

Will turned to me. “That’s right.”

My throat constricted. “Past tense.”

“I—” He was cut off by the ringing of a phone from somewhere in the loft.

“Excuse me.” He disappeared into another room, leaving the question unanswered between us.

Anger became my fuel. I took the opening, tiptoeing over to the bookcase and snatching the armillary from its shelf. I went to the doorway Will had gone through and pressed my back against the wall, cocking the statue over a shoulder so the first thing that hit when I swung was the pointed end of the arrow.

Will’s voice was a discreet murmur. “They what?” he said in a tone that was less questioning than it was irritatingly shocked.

I tightened my grip.

“Find who helped them escape and bring them to me. Do you understand?”

Had Sam and the others escaped? Was that who he was talking about?

Hope fluttered in my chest.

“Trev,” Will said with a sigh, “I thought I told you to keep your eye on him.” Another pause. “That’s because he’s a goddamn trained assassin! When I gave you the orders, I meant put a team on him and make sure he doesn’t come within a hundred feet of Samuel!”

He blew out a breath. “Well, then find them.”

The phone was slammed down on a counter.

I pressed my bare feet firmly into the floor, trying to get as much force as I could.

Will started back toward the living room. I braced myself, counted to three, and swung.

Will caught the armillary with his left hand, grabbed my throat with his right, and shoved me into the wall.

I gasped for air.

He wrenched the statue out of my grip and tossed it to the side. It left a gouge in the floor and nearly knocked over a tall vase.

“Now listen,” he started. This close, I noticed that not all of the marks on his face were freckles. Some of them were scars, tiny dots of discolored skin, like old burn marks. “We can do this the easy way—you cooperate and come with me, no fighting—or the hard way. Are we clear?”

“Yes.” I would take the easy way only until I found another opportunity to escape.

“Good.” He let me go. “Then we’re leaving. You will find shoes and a jacket on the hook behind the couch.”

As I tied my shoes, Will produced another cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number. “Ready the jet,” he said. “I’ll be there in less than a half hour.”

“Jet?” I muttered.

“I’m taking you out of the country until this thing with Sam blows over.”

He said
this thing with Sam
as if it were nothing more than an argument over who left out the milk.

I steeled myself. “I’m not leaving the country.”

“Yes, you are. You’ll be safe there. I’ll have someone tend to your injuries.”

“I’m not going.”

“You are.”

We had a silent standoff. His threat loomed over me. Now was not the time to argue.

“Will you wipe my memory?” I asked.

The center of his brow clenched with sadness. His voice cracked when he spoke. “It’s for the best.”

Of course he thought it was. He and Dani. They thought they’d wipe the slate clean with a memory alteration, as if that would fix everything forever.

It wouldn’t.

I couldn’t let him put me on that plane.