The Unseen Trilogy (23 page)

His comment gave me pause, and we sat in silence for a few moments.

David sat back in his chair, his eyes looking at me without seeing me. His hands tented around his full mustache. “Yes, well, thank you for your work,” he said absently.

“I’m not sure how much help it was,” I said, somewhat startled by his abrupt dismissal. Atypical or not, I was still convinced the scientist wasn’t much of a threat.

My comment snapped David back to our conversation. “I won’t know for sure until I’ve read your report, but I’m sure I’ll find it very useful. Thank you, Mackenzie.” He leaned on his desk, all business now. “You’re to return to your training with Tracy this afternoon.”

“I am?” A mix of excitement and nerves washed over me.

David smiled as I squirmed in my chair. “You are. Don’t be late.”

I stood up immediately, not wanting to give him time to change his mind. “I won’t. Thank you.” I rushed from his office, only to realize it was only eight thirty in the morning. My afternoon training session with Tracy was still hours away, and I knew Owen and Mitchell were both busy working on their own jobs. I paused at the library, but my demons were already sitting on the piano bench. There wasn’t any room for me, so I moved on.

For the first time in a while, I didn’t really want to be alone, but the only company I had was my haze. I ended up in my room listening to a Royal Concertgebouw recording of one of Mozart’s concertos, letting the strings sing away the seconds until I had to meet Tracy again.

Tracy was sitting in her usual chair when I entered the training room. Her outfit of cargo shorts and a dark green T-shirt was completely wrinkle free, and I found myself wondering if she ironed her cottons. It didn’t seem outside of the realm of possibility.

“Please,” she said, gesturing toward my chair. Her tone was upbeat and friendly, and it unsettled me. Where was the stern, let’s-get-to-work Tracy I’d come to know?

Eyeing her nervously, I took my seat and fidgeted with the drawstrings on my hooded sweatshirt.

“First of all, I’d like to apologize for my behavior.”

My eyes shot off the floor and straight to her face. “What?”

She didn’t repeat herself. “I was unprofessional. Moving forward, I will strive to not allow it to happen again.” She eyed me. “Despite the surprises you are sure to throw my way.”

I nodded, not sure what to think. To my mind, her behavior had hardly been unprofessional. I was the one who’d overstepped my bounds by invading her memories. Clearly, the mistake was mine.

“I’m sorry I overstepped.” I hesitated. “And I’m sorry about your sister.” The words came out almost in spite of myself—I needed to say them.

Tracy cleared her throat. “Yes, well. What’s done is done.” I wasn’t sure if she was referring to my invasion of her mind or her sister’s death, and she didn’t give me a chance to sort it out before she started talking again. “I’d like to talk about why you didn’t make it all the way into my mind.”

“How would I even know if I did make it all the way into your mind? I was seeing your memories, your thoughts during those memories. What more is there to see and do in someone’s mind?”

“Lots of things. Hear someone’s live thoughts, for one thing. Controlling them for another. But those are lessons for another day. Today, I want you to tell me what went wrong.”

I hadn’t really considered that something had ‘gone wrong’ as Tracy put it. To me, I made it past all of her defenses. That had been my only goal, and I hadn’t given any consideration to what might be past that. But when I thought back to the moment I was torn from Tracy’s mind, I knew immediately why my time inside her mind had ended with that memory.

“I was upset.” That about summed it up.

“Upset?” She frowned at me, as if she were unfamiliar with the emotion.

“By your sister’s death.”

“I see.” She hesitated before moving on, as if searching for just the right way to help me. “Mackenzie, the people we hunt will have far more disturbing things locked away in the corners of their minds. You must guard your heart against whatever you may see, or you will be found. If you are found inside the enemy’s mind, you could be lost to us forever. Worse, the things they would do to you would make whatever you had seen seem like child’s play.” Concern etched lines around her eyes. “I fear this may be your fatal flaw. Sympathy.”

I snorted. “It could’ve been empathy if they hadn’t hurt Maddie.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Be careful of your grief. I think you’ll find vengeance a terribly unsatisfying path to follow.”

“How do you know? You never pursued your sister’s killer.” I clapped my hand over my mouth. My tone was judgmental and almost accusatory. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

“Yes. And that’s why I advised you to be careful of your grief. It can turn on you in a flash.”

Leaning forward, she rested her elbows on her knees. “Today, I want you to try again. I want you to show me that you can maintain your control and successfully worm all the way into my mind. But…” Her eyes turned deadly. “If you so much as breathe a word about anything you find there, I will personally flay you.”

Swallowing hard, I nodded. “I wasn’t aware you knew how to do that.”

“I would learn,” she said, her voice low and menacing. In response to my nod, she said, “Let’s get to work.”

“Tracy, I…” I hesitated, uncomfortable with the arrangement. “Couldn’t we do this exercise with someone else? That way you could guide me along. And your secrets wouldn’t keep me awake at night.” Hopefully, I could choose someone whose secrets weren’t as heavy as Tracy’s, though I knew too well that everyone had some kind of darkness in their past. The muted sound of the gunshot that had killed her sister echoed in the back of my mind, making me shudder.

“No. It should be just the two of us.” But she didn’t say why; she just quirked her brow and gave me an expectant look.

Apparently, the discussion was closed, so I figured I’d better suck it up and get to work.

This time, I found my way to her wall much more quickly. I also worked my way through her memories faster, trying not to stay too interested or focused on any one thing. It helped me make better progress, and it also saved me from learning anything else that might haunt me.

When it came to watching her sister get shot again, I still couldn’t guard myself against the force of the memory. It was too much, too needlessly violent, too heart wrenching. So I focused on maintaining my control instead. Tears streamed down my face as I worked past that brick in the wall. Birthdays, school days, summers, vacations… I watched all of it stream past until I finally found myself in a dark space. I didn’t want to call it a room, because I could see neither the walls nor the floor. My feet rested on darkness, and it also surrounded me. But somehow, I could see myself clearly, as if some dim, unknown light source hung over my head. I searched for it above me, but there was nothing there.

“Tracy?” I called, not sure what to do or where I was.

She’s done it.
I heard her, but it was more of an echo than her actual voice.
You’ve done it,
she corrected.

“Now what?” Just then, a snowplow appeared out of the darkness. I tried to run from it, but it was surprisingly agile. Oddly, it didn’t dismember me as I’d expected it would when it literally plowed into me. I landed softly in the front shovel and was pushed back out onto the battlefield, just on the other side of the barbed wire.

I opened my eyes to find her grinning at me. “Now we move on.”

“Why did that snowplow work on me? I knew it wasn’t real.” I paused for a moment. “Actually, that isn’t true. It came at me so fast, and my immediate impression was that it was going to kill me. When it didn’t, I was so relieved that I let it carry me wherever.” I laughed at myself. “You have to teach me some of those added defenses. Apparently, the element of surprise is invaluable.”

“Of course. We will start with that tomorrow. Those are things you can constantly change and evolve as you see fit. They’re not as important as making sure you keep your wall strong. But they help serve as distractions. Plus, you already know how to effectively push someone out, you know. You did it to me.”

“That seems like a long time ago,” I said as I sank back into my chair.

“Yes, well, tomorrow we will have some fun. Then the real work starts.”

I hate it when she says that,
I thought as I made my way to the door.

That night, Owen grilled me on the day’s training while the three of us ate dinner. “How did it go?”

I wasn’t sure how much detail to give them. Tracy had only requested I not say anything about
her
; she hadn’t asked me to keep quiet about how far I’d progressed with my training. But how could I tell them I’d gotten all the way into her mind without divulging what I’d seen there?

Taking a breath to try and calm my internal war, I tried to relax, not sure why I felt so unsettled about the hurdle I jumped. “It went really well.” I knew he wouldn’t leave it at that, but I hesitated anyway, still searching for the right words.

“Great! And?”

“And, I got all the way into Tracy’s mind.” I hadn’t exactly planned to tell him—at least not yet—but I’d never been too fond of lying.

“You
what
?” he shouted at me. I glanced around, smiling at the others at the table, trying to encourage them to go back to their own conversations. Mitchell smiled almost approvingly, but he refrained from commenting and shoveled another bite of his salad into his mouth.

Owen leaned in closer and whispered, “You what?”

“You heard me.” I stabbed at my noodles instead of making eye contact, suddenly feeling coy. Why should he be so surprised? Hadn’t I shown him I could accomplish anything I, well, put my mind to?

“How?” he said, leaning in so close that I could feel his hot breath on my hand as I twirled my spaghetti around my fork.

“That’s something even Tracy is struggling to understand. She wants to learn, though—probably so she can teach the rest of you to do it.”

He sat back in his chair and nodded, his jealousy—or whatever that had been—passing just as quickly as it had flared up. A smile made itself at home on his face, making my heart leap. It felt good to have that sensation again. “My girl, the prodigy. The only one to hack into Tracy’s mind.” He nudged Mitchell with his elbow, and our friend nodded at me, raising his glass in a silent toast.

The desire to beam at his compliment was outweighed by my desire to not get flayed by Tracy. “Pipe down, will you?” I snapped.

Lucky for me, all the people around us were still absorbed in their own conversations.

His smile didn’t break. “So, now what? Control?”

“She pushed me out of her mind with a freaking snowplow, so I asked her to teach me how to build some extra defenses. I think I need one of those machines in my head.”

Mitchell chuckled, and I went on. “Then she said after that, the ‘real work’ starts.”

Owen laughed out loud. “She’s right. Control is hard to master. It was a strange task for me. It didn’t feel right, controlling someone else.” He shrugged, keeping his tone lighthearted. “But it saved my skin more than a few times, so I’m glad I learned it.”

Finally, Mitchell chimed in. “Control can be a slippery slope. Make sure you keep your footing.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, so I decided not to dwell on it. “Well, that’ll be for another day. Tomorrow, I beef up my defenses.”

“You can do better than a snowplow,” Mitchell said without looking up from his plate.

“Like what, Mitch?” I asked.

“Anything you want. Use your imagination.” He said it so matter-of-factly and didn’t elaborate on my options.

“What’s yours like?”

Mitchell smiled out of one side of his mouth. “You’ll never have to find out if you know what’s good for you.”

Owen laughed. “We all know better than to go traipsing through your cobwebs, Mitch. I already feel sorry for the poor sap that tries to get into your head, Mac.”

I looked up at him and smiled; he’d already gotten into my head, and without having to scale a fence or deal with death by puppy. Despite the way I’d basically ignored him since Maddie, I couldn’t imagine having to go through any of this without him. Maddie’s death had ended the burning infatuation that had kept him at the forefront of my mind constantly, but it hadn’t snuffed the flame out completely. Instead, it had left slow, burning hot coals that kept me warm at night.

Reaching across the table to grab his hand, I simply said, “Indeed.”

The next morning, Tracy started teaching me about building up my defenses, adding traps, and pushing people out. “I don’t usually spend special lessons on this, since most people just adapt things they’ve seen other people do, but I thought we might have fun experimenting with it.”

I nodded, and she went on. “Your defenses are only limited by your imagination. Mine have a military feel because that’s how I was trained. It’s what I respond to best, and where I feel most at home. Yours don’t have to look like that.”

“Is there anything special I should keep in mind?”

She shrugged. “Your defenses must serve one purpose: keeping intruders out. It doesn’t matter how. Fear of harm, confusion, and the feeling of sheer defeat are all capable of repelling your enemies.”

The word confusion caught my ear. I didn’t care to have some terror-riddled landscape in my head, so the idea intrigued me. My haze could add to the confusion. Despite the fact that I didn’t want to keep it around forever, I might as well get good use out of it while it was there.

“But, if I confuse someone badly enough for them to get lost in my head, wouldn’t they just remain there indefinitely?”

Tracy nodded. “Assuming you didn’t know they were there. But the main point of your defenses is to arm yourself against unknown attacks. You already know how to push someone out. If you confuse them long enough to find them, you should be able to get them out yourself.”

“Assuming you know to look for them.”

She nodded, and we were quiet for a few moments.

“How are you feeling?” Tracy asked me, changing gears rather abruptly.

“Fine, why?”

“As I told you the other day, I hesitate to enter a grieving mind.”

“Why would you have to?”

“To test your new defenses, of course.” She thought for a moment. “I’m going to get a third party observer in here. Someone who can talk us through a rescue if needed.”

A rescue? I didn’t want to hurt her. “Tracy, we don’t—” However, she’d already walked out of the room. My mouth dried as I considered all the things that could possibly go wrong that would require a third person to step in and help. The original excitement I felt over this “fun” training day turned to dread as I waited for her to come back.