The Mind Keepers (The Mind Readers) (5 page)

“Nora?” Cameron touched my arm,
jerking me back into the present moment. I spun around to face her. More than
seven agents lay unmoving upon the floor. Some were unconscious, some might
have been dead.

“What happened?” I gasped. “Did
you kill them all?”

She frowned, shaking her head. A
fine sheen of sweat covered her pale forehead; the use of her energy had drained
her. Lewis stood near Jake, who was kneeling upon the floor looking partly
terrified, partly irate.

“You took the last few guys down
on your own,” Cameron said. “Did they not have a chip?”

“I don’t know…I think…they must
not have.”

When Cameron continued to stand
there staring at me, I grew nervous.

“Come on, we need to get the
hell out of here.” Lewis grabbed Jake by the collar and jerked him to his feet.
“Are there any others?”

Jake shook his head, blood
trailing from his nostrils. I wasn’t sure if someone had hit him or mentally
broke him. I didn’t care. He’d betrayed us, betrayed Helen, and loyalty meant
everything to me; it was all I had.

“Jake?” Cameron whispered,
apparently needing answers. “Why?”

Because some people just sucked.

“I’m sorry, Cameron.” His lower
lip quivered. How dare he beg for sympathy. “I had to.”

I shoved my way between them, in
no mood to feel sorry for this kid. We’d lost enough people, wasted enough
time. “Where is he? Where’s Maddox?”

Jake didn’t answer, just glared
at me. I threw my fist forward, connecting with his chin. His head snapped
back, his cry instantaneous. I ignored the pain rippling through my knuckles
and hit him again before he could escape.

Cameron rested her hand on my
arm. “Nora, don’t. Please.”

But I couldn’t stop. It was as
if everything had broken free, every single emotion I’d been trying to contain.
He’d betrayed us, all of us. He was the reason they were all dead. I jumped at
him, grabbing onto his shirt. “Where is he?”

Suddenly Lewis was there,
wrapping his muscled arms around me and pulling me back, away. The contact
broke my resolve, and I sank into him, depleted. I could have killed Jake. I
would have. He was a reminder of everything I’d lost, a reminder of the
betrayal. Gone. They were all gone. Everyone I had ever loved.
 

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Lewis said
softly, pulling me toward the sofa and settling me on the cushions. I hadn’t
even realized I was crying until he handed me a tissue from the box on the
coffee table. I was crying? No. I didn’t cry. I hadn’t cried in months. I
balled up the tissue and threw it across the room then surged to my feet.

“I’m fine. We need to go.”

“Are you sure?” Lewis asked.

“Yes.” I started toward the door
and waited on the front porch. The night air cooled my flushed skin. I tilted
my head back and closed my eyes, letting the breeze dry my tears. It had been a
happy house once; now it only held nightmares, like so many other places I
cared about.

“Don’t, Lewis, please. Just let
him go,” I could hear Cameron whisper from inside. “He’s only trying to save
his family. You’d do the same for me.”

I glanced over my shoulder. She
had her hand pressed to Lewis’ chest, calming him with her energy. I could
sense it from here. I knew Cameron would get her way, as she always did where
Lewis was concerned.
 

“If we see you again, I will
kill you,” Lewis growled at Jake.

The respect I felt toward Lewis
grew. We seemed to be the only rational mind readers left. Sometimes Cameron’s good
heart angered me. But then again, I didn’t really know Jake like she did. Hell,
the guy had practically been her stepbrother.

Lewis took Cameron’s hand and
led her from the house.

“Keys,” I snapped. “I’m
driving.”

He reluctantly handed them over.

I glanced one last time at the
house. Another battle won, but at what cost? More lives lost, more battles to fight.
But who would die in the end? Or maybe this war would go on forever.

The sudden urge to escape, to
leave the death behind, overwhelmed me. We didn’t look back but got in the car
and left, headed for North Carolina and maybe, just maybe, our own deaths.

Chapter 4

“It’s empty,” Cameron said, her
voice heavy with an emotion I didn’t really understand.

Hell, I wasn’t even sure I
possessed that kind of feeling. I’d always been taught, or maybe I’d learned
through experience, that emotion equaled weakness. More than one person, Maddox
included, had called me a cold, heartless robot. It had never bothered me
before, so why did I feel uneasy now?

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Lewis
asked from the back seat.

Cameron nodded slowly, scanning
the front yard and house, as if searching, hoping, for signs of life. “Yeah,
they’re gone.”

I put the car in park but left
it running, still not trusting the silence of the place. She’d stayed at my
dad’s home for only a month at a time when she’d thought he was her father as
well. It was obvious she was mourning that memory; the stepmother who should’ve
been mine, the half-siblings who had vanished, the life that for a few days
anyway, had been perfect. I felt oddly numb about the entire thing.

Lewis slid me a glance in the rearview
mirror. He knew Cameron was emotional at the moment, and that emotion might be clouding
her judgment. He was looking to me for affirmation.

“I don’t feel anything either.
Not like in Pennsylvania.” Without waiting for their responses, I turned off
the car and pushed open the door. It was a picture-perfect white Victorian house,
although the yard was now overgrown and the windows dark, deserted. It
felt…sad. Abandoned. Lost.

For Cameron, this had been a
home for a short time; to me it was a dream. Vaguely, I realized that it was
the place where I should have grown up with a loving family and a father who
cared. My family. I shivered, even though it was warm. Maybe it was the
emotions trying to escape, but the realization hit me hard. I had a stepbrother
and stepsister somewhere out there. But I had the horrible feeling I couldn’t
save them, that they were lost. Still, maybe, just maybe, I could save Maddox.
I smiled wryly at myself, realizing the ridiculousness of that thought.
Save Maddox
. Who would’ve thunk it.

Cameron pushed open her door and
stepped outside. “There’s no energy.”

Maddox had broken my heart and had
handed me over to S.P.I. No, not broken my heart—had ripped it out and stomped
on it, crushing it to smithereens. Maddox had practically killed me
emotionally. Hell, I was a heartless robot because of him. So why, I wondered
for the hundredth time, was I here? I bit my lower lip. But I knew why. Because
even I, after all that had happened to me, actually had a conscience. And because
not even Maddox deserved to go through the torture at the hands of S.P.I. that
I had endured.

“Norman Rockwell,” Lewis
muttered, as he pushed open his door and stood.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Freaking perfect.”
My ass of a dad had been living it up, pretending to have the ideal American
life, while I’d been in hiding, merely trying to survive.

“I know,” Cameron said, her tone
indicating she’d felt the exact same way when she’d first arrived. But I didn’t
want to have a heart-to-heart at the moment, even if she was my sister and
understood more than anyone how I felt.

“Can you unlock the door?” I
asked Lewis. “Or do I get to smash a window or two?”

Lewis slid me a wry glance. “I
think I can manage.”

“Damn.”

I followed Cameron and Lewis up
the wide steps to the front porch, the boards creaking with age and neglect. Definitely
no one here. I reached out, pulling a curl of paint from the wooden siding and
watching it flutter to the porch floor. In only a few moments Lewis had already
managed to unlock the door with his special mind ability to manipulate
mechanics. He and Cameron moved inside, looking for a safe place to stay the
night, but for some reason I paused, as if crossing into the house was going to
take me to a place I had no desire to visit…a place of childish hopes and
dreams. Of sadness and loss.
 

“Empty,” I heard Cameron say. “But
the belongings are all still here. Dusty and neglected, but still here. Just
like they all vanished.”

I released the breath I hadn’t
even realized I held, and moved into the house. A table rested across the foyer
wall, holding a vase of dried and brittle roses, long since dead. While on the
opposite side was a stairway that curved up to a second floor. Sadness, anger,
confusion, I expected to feel all of them. Instead I felt nothing. It was a
nice place, a family place. Not as large as our mansion in Maine, but homey. A
home
. What I had imagined having as a child.
But no, Mom and I had spent most of my childhood running. Until I’d been
caught.

I pushed aside the memory, the
scar on my head tingling as it did anytime I thought about those months in the
compound where they’d tested my abilities. Cameron was speaking with Lewis,
planning our next move. But I was being pulled by some odd curiosity upstairs and
started toward the steps.

Pictures still hung on the walls,
my father and his wife smiling on a boat. Another at Christmas time, the happy
couple kissing under mistletoe. I drew my finger along the frame, the tip
covered with gray dust. They looked happy, and that was what baffled me most of
all. He could have had a life, a family, love. I knew Dad was dead. If my
stepmother hadn’t died in the fight, she was most likely rotting in prison
somewhere. So many had died for our side, for our fight. And more probably
would. Heck, maybe I wouldn’t make it out this time. Maybe not Cameron or Lewis.
If my mom could die, any of us could. But what choice did we have?

I took another step up. Most of
the photos were of two children, a little girl and boy. My step-siblings. Gone
as well to who knew where. A brother and sister I’d never know. My stomach
clenched as the hollow feeling in the pit of my belly gave way to a heated
ache. Were they dead, or were they being used? Tortured. I dampened down the sudden
nausea that rippled across my stomach and continued up the steps to the
landing.

I didn’t know them, so why did I
feel as if I’d just lost my mom all over again? Heart pounding, I opened the
first door I came to, revealing a monstrous creation of bubble-gum pink. A
large castle rested near the far wall, open as if someone had been playing when
they’d been interrupted. Against the opposite wall was a four-poster bed with
canopy and near the windows a pink and white gingham chair. I could practically
hear their ghostly chatter, an echo of what had been. I closed my eyes,
overwhelmed.

“Maybe she’s still alive,”
Cameron said from behind me. I’d been so lost in unfamiliar emotions that I
hadn’t sensed her arrival. She brushed past me and moved into the room. “She
was a sweet girl.” A sad smile washed over her face. “Most likely she’s still
alive, right? They’d want to use her for her powers.”

I shrugged. I didn’t dare
mention the feeling I had, she, along with everyone else who had lived in this
house were gone. Dead. I hadn’t known them, not like Cameron, and I didn’t want
to destroy what little hope she clung to.

“Her brother was sort of a brat,
but she was sweet. You…” Cameron swallowed hard as she brushed her fingers over
the turret of the castle. “You would have liked her. Maybe when we find Maddox…”

Oh God, I knew where she was
going with that statement. “Dead,” I blurted out, unable to take her naive comments
any longer. Yeah, I’d been harsh, but what was the alternative? Let her live
with hope, only to be destroyed later on?

She stiffened, her face going
pale. “What?”

“She’s dead. They’re all dead.”

Cameron shook her head. “You
don’t know—”

“I do.” I paced the room,
feeling agitated, confused. A headache was working its way up the back of my
skull. I felt weird, so very off. “It’s as if…as if I can feel it in the energy
of the house.”

Truth was I didn’t know how to
explain, I didn’t
want
to explain, I
just wanted out.

“But…”

God, I couldn’t stand the look
of utter devastation on her face. The walls felt suddenly too close, the house
falling down around me. I spun around and started toward the door. “I need air.
I’ll take first watch. Besides, I need to check and make sure there are no
cameras we missed along the drive.”

I rushed down the stairs, past
Lewis and out onto the front porch before either of them could respond. I
couldn’t breathe. My chest felt tight. Frantic, I braced my hands on my knees
and leaned over, sucking in the cool, crisp air. Hell, was this what a panic
attack felt like? I released a wry laugh. Now, of all times? I’d been tortured
twice, watched my mom and dad die, and this was the moment my nerves decided to
betray me, over a family I didn’t even know? With a groan I sank onto the front
stoop. They didn’t deserve to die, didn’t deserve the pain I knew they would’ve
felt when S.P.I. had broken into their minds. The same pain I had experienced. They
were only children. Little children.

I rested my head in my hands. So
many dead, so many faces that flashed through my mind. Some of the faces I recognized,
some I didn’t…Mom, Dad, my stepmother, her children.

“Stop,” I hissed to no one in
particular. I could no longer control my own freaking mind. What the hell was wrong
with me?

Angry, I shoved the heels of my
hands into my temples and lowered my head to my knees. Something was off,
terribly off. I hadn’t been feeling right for weeks. Hell, for months. Maybe
they were all right and I was going insane.