Murder Genes (50 page)

"Kyle?
 
What are you doing here?
 
You shouldn't be here," she said.
 
"Callie?
 
Is everything all right?"

"Get out!" Callie screamed at the top of her lungs.

Leena took a step in but Kyle glared at her.
 
She stepped back out and closed the door.
 
A few seconds later he heard her voice, talking on the phone.
 
Didn't matter, Andre already knew where Kyle was.
 
He had the cameras, and he'd just heard what his daughter thought of him too.
 
Kyle hoped it
hurt.

He hugged Callie harder.
 
"I hate him, too," he said.
 
"But he's our Father now, and we have to try to understand him.
 
He has a reason for everything he's doing.
 
And even if we don't like it, we have to understand his reasons."
 
He said it to show Andre that he was still playing his part, giving him what he wanted.

Callie gave him a horrible look.
 
"What are you doing?" she gasped.

"What?" Kyle said.
 
"I'm just saying..."

"He got to you too, didn't he?
 
Jess and Ryant would say the same things, that dad was a good person and that he had a reason for doing the bad things that he did.
 
And then they would lie to me to trick me.
 
They always talked in the same voice, saying the same things that you just did."
 
She stood up.
 
"They lied and told me things so that I would do things that I didn't want to do.
 
That's how they got me to tell lies to you, even though I didn't know I was.
 
He's tricked you, hasn't he?"

"No Callie.
 
Your dad didn..."

"Then they aren't dead, are they?
 
You're lying just to make me act a certain way like I'm part of an experiment, aren't you?"

"No Callie.
 
They
are
dead.
 
I'm not lying to you."

Her eyes snapped to the stuffed bears on the bookshelf.
 
"Those are cameras, right?"
 
She ran to them and grabbed the bears, opened the window above her bed and threw them outside.
 
She stopped moving and stared out the window.

"Callie!
 
Look at me!" Kyle said.

She kept looking out the window.

"Callie.
 
I don't know if those are cameras.
 
But what I do know is that your brother and sister are really dead, and that Father doesn't even know I'm here.
 
I came to make sure you were OK because I was worried for you.
 
That's it."
 
He felt the lie through his teeth.
 
He'd come for other reasons, but he needed her to believe him.
 
Because if she believed him, it confirmed that she trusted him and cared for him--even if he was a liar.

The truth, of course, was that Kyle would never kill her.
 
He just wanted Andre to think he would, to get Andre back for killing Del and playing with his head.
 
Andre wanted science so Kyle was giving him science.

But also...for Callie.
 
Because he loved Callie more than he had any other person and because she was the only one who actually cared about him and wasn't trying to hurt him.
 
Now that Del was dead, Callie was all Kyle had left.

"Callie.
 
Do you remember?
 
We're going to get married and have kids of our own someday.
 
We just have to be extra honest to each other so that we can fall in love and grow old together and your father won't be able to stop us.
 
It'll just be us.
 
You and me, Callie."

Callie turned around from the edge of the window and searched his eyes.

"Callie, I haven't been completely honest with you.
 
But I'll tell you everything if you trust me."

Her eyes flickered emotions.
 
Deep things that made Kyle worry.

"Callie.
 
Don't."
 
He walked toward her.

She rocked backwards, just a little.

Kyle jumped at her as fast as he could, his arms open wide.

She leaned back again.

And then she fell forward into Kyle's arms.
 
Crying.

They were both crying.
 
Hugging each other and crying.
 
"You promise, right?" she asked him.
 
She bit her shaking lip.
 
"We'll get married and be happy and extra honest with each other starting now?
 
And you'll be different than Dad is?
 
No experiments?"

Kyle nodded.
 
"Yes.
 
I promise."

She nodded and bit her lip again and went back to hugging him.

Kyle reached for the window and closed it with one hand.
 
They held each other and cried, both of them together.
 
Kyle felt good about crying, because he hadn't cried for Del yet and now he finally was.
 
He told Callie how he missed Del, and how much he hated their father and how much he wished the experiment was over and how hard it was to be a duck, especially now.
 
It felt like his heart was suddenly free.

But he didn't tell her that he'd killed Jess and Ryant, not yet.
 
He would, but right now it just didn't matter.

"I love you, Kyle.
 
Even if we don't get married, we'll always be best friends."
 
She pulled away only after it felt like they'd been crying together forever.

Kyle nodded and spoke, meaning every word.
 
"And I'll always love you, too."

Public Security came through the door holding tasers.
 
They surrounded Kyle and Callie with bug eyes, scared behind their thick uniforms and helmets with visors.
 
One of them edged forward.
 
"Kyle Mollinda?" he said.

"Kyle Alexander, or Kyle Nelson.
 
Not Kyle Mollinda," he answered.
 
Is this it?

"It's him," another one said.
 
"We've seen him on TV.
 
Should we rush him?"

"No," the first answered.
 
"Shut up, Kenner.
 
Kyle Mollinda, you're under the arrest for the murder of El Sanderson, Marke Davis, Sam Borne..."
 
Sam Borne?
 
Ah.
 
The cowboy-man he'd left for dead.
 
"...Jeff, Jess, and Ryant Mollinda, and," the man glanced at Callie before continuing.
 
"The attempted murder of Callie Mollinda."

Callie stepped in front of Kyle with her arms barred open.
 
"That's a lie!
 
Kyle didn't try to murder me and he didn't kill Jeff on purpose, that was an accident, and Kyle didn't kill Jess and Ryant either!
 
My
dad
made him kill the other people, so go arrest DAD."

"Callie," the Public Security man said.
 
"Get behind me.
 
Whatever this boy's told you, it hasn't been the truth.
 
We have proof that says that he's a mass murderer and has been at large for years.
 
You can't trust someone like him."

Kyle's heart sang.
 
This was it.
 
Revenge.

Callie shook her head.
 
"No.
 
It's wrong.
 
My dad's the one who's the mass killer, not Kyle.
 
He's bee..."

"Girl, get behind us
now
," he interrupted her, edging forward with his taser leading the way.

"Callie," Kyle said.

"I won't be a duck!
 
Don't make me," she stomped a foot stubbornly.

"Callie, let them take me.
 
Think about what this means."
 
Kyle'd done it.
 
This was what he'd wanted from the start.
 
Andre HAD a heart.
 
Enough to care about his last remaining child and enough to give up science.
 
Kyle had taken science from Andre.
 
"Think Callie.
 
We won!
 
Your father has ended the experiments--they're finally over.
 
He turned himself in because he cares about
you
more than the experiment.
 
He sent the men to arrest me as soon as he knew where I ran away to in order to protect yo..." Kyle froze, realizing his mistake.

Maybe she wouldn't notice.

She'd been the top of her class, skipping grades, and she was the daughter of a famous scientist.
 
Of course she noticed.
 
Her arms dropped and she turned around.
 
When she did, a security man lunged out and grabbed an arm, pulling her behind them.
 
He heard her questioning voice float over the men as they came at him.
 
"Why were you running?
 
Why would Father think that you'd kill me?
 
Why..."

"Just remember, we won, Callie!" Kyle shouted.
 
But he couldn't answer her anymore because the tasers hit him and zapped him into black.

Chapter 31

free will

-noun

1. free and independent choice; voluntary decision: You took on the responsibility of your own free will.

2. Philosophy. the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.

-free will. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. From Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/
free will

"Bitch," Jay whispered.
 
"You awake?"

Of course Bitch was awake.
 
You couldn't sleep when the world was about to end.
 
"Yeah Jay."

“Can you get me some water?”

Bitch came over with the jug and tried to prop him up. Jay screamed at the pain shooting along his stitches. In the end, Bitch was only able to lift his head and half-pour half-drown Jay with the water.
 

"It isn't over, you know,” said Bitch

"What isn't over?"

"I can get Immortal Leader to fight me.
 
I know I can do it, and then I can blow him to shit with the Tag while we're fighting."

"It's stupid Bitch.
 
There's no chance you'll be able to Tag the bastard and get far enough away in a hand-to-hand fight."

"You remember Plan C?”

“Fuck Plan C,” said Jay, shifting his weight a little to feel the comforting poke of the hidden Tag.
 
“Remember how bad that went last...”
 
He stopped.
 
Squirmed more, nothing.
 

“The Tag’s gone!”
 
Jay panicked, his stitches sending him back flat on the ground, gasping.
 

“Maybe Karah stole it,”
 
Bitch offered.
 

“No.
 
It was here before I slept, I made sure to check after she left.”
 

Silence.

“Bitch?”

“Hum?”

“Give me the Tag.”

“I can’t.”

"Why?"

Bitch was silent.

“Bitch!”

"Ok, ok!
 
I activated the Tag.
 
It's in me right now."

"You activated?" Jay propped himself up despite the excruciating pain, staring at his friend.
 
"Fuck Bitch!
 
How the hell are we gonna get it out?
 
What if you fucking pass gas?
 
What then?
 
You'll kill both of us!"
 
What the heck are you thinking?

"I stuffed it firmly up, Jay.
 
It's not coming out unless I rip it out."

“Don’t believe you. Come here.
 
Bend over.” Jay shoved down the boy’s pants.

“What are you doing!” Bitch protested. “You’re suppose to be dying, not raping young boys,
ahowwch
!”

Jay ignored the nausea swimming through him at the effort.
 
“Hush, you want the guards to come in?”
 
Jay edged a finger into Bitch’s ass, probing around and Bitch hollered, screaming rape at the top of his lungs.
 

There.
 
One knuckle in and Jay’s finger brushed the edge of a sharp barb.
 
“It’s activated!” gasped Bitch.
 
“I swear, it’s activated!”
 
Fucking hell.
 
Jay pulled his finger out and Bitch scrambled away on all fours.