Twisted Sisters (The Orion Circle Book 2) (24 page)

“Morning, princess,” Blake says, waking me from a sound sleep.

I roll over looking for Logan, but he’s gone. Rubbing my eyes, I gape at Blake wondering not only how he got in my room but why he’s here. Bright sunlight floods the room as he opens the curtains on both windows. Stretching my arms over my head, I yawn while testing the sore spots all over my body. Not too bad. I still have bruises from a few collisions with a wall or two, but the pain is a manageable ache. After stretching, I realize that I’m no longer hooked up to the IV. Yay.

“What’re you doing here?” I ask, looking around the room for Logan. “Where’s Logan?”

“I’m your chariot, milady,” Blake says with a bow. “As for Logan, he’s in your theater room with the others. Everyone’s here now, only waiting for you.”

“I need to brush my teeth first.”

Blake leans down and scoops me up in his arms. I squeal in alarm.

“I can walk! I can walk.”

“Actually, you can’t, not yet.” He laughs when I give him a pouty face. “Doctor’s orders. No exertion until Dr. Hayes has cleared you.”

“Put me down,” I say as indignantly as I can manage through a grin. “You are not going into the bathroom with me.”

“Hurry up, breakfast is waiting.”

“Pancakes?”

“Maybe.”

I walk into the bathroom and shut the door, leaning my forehead against it to catch my breath. How can my body still be so exhausted? When I turn around to head to the counter, I smile and my heart melts just a bit. My brother left clothes in here for me to change into. I toss aside my nightshirt covered in tigers and slip Gavin’s
Theory of a Deadman
t-shirt over my head. It falls to my thighs which actually looks cute with my favorite leopard-print leggings folded up with it. I huff and puff while pulling the leggings on, falling against the counter when I’m done. Maybe it’s a good thing I have a werewolf lackey this morning. After brushing my teeth and running a brush through my wild hair, I decide that I’m as presentable as I’ll be today.

“Ready?” Blake asks when I return.

I nod, and he sweeps me off my feet into his arms. He carries me to the theater room, where our friends are gathered talking over one another. Typical Circle meeting. Rebecca’s voice carries over the others as she lectures Carl about shadow people. Raven and Daniel are huddled together in the corner whispering. Perhaps they bonded last night while she protected him. I don’t miss the jealous look that crosses Blake’s face for a brief moment when he sees them. He hides it behind a bright smile as he sets me on the sofa beside Logan.

“Morning,” Logan says before stuffing a bite of pancake drenched in syrup in my mouth.

I savor the syrup-soaked sweetness. “Now that’s something worth getting up for.” I glance at him, taking in his unharmed appearance. “You seem to be in one piece. I guess Dad never discovered you in my room last night.”

“Yeah, not so much,” Logan says through a grimace. “Dr. Hayes came in this morning around five to check on you and remove your IV. She must’ve said something to your dad because he showed up right after she left. He came in all pissed, but the moment he saw how peaceful you were, sleeping soundly in my arms, he sighed, scrubbed his hand over his face, and backed out of the room.”

“It’s not like we were really sneaking or anything… Gavin left the door open.”

Logan chuckles. “Yes, and you’re dad is always so reasonable when it comes to boys in your room.”

Dad appears in the doorway like he heard us talking about him or something, but he has a plate in his hands. He sets it down on my lap, and I have to fight wiggling in happiness. Chocolate chip pancakes covered in maple syrup. Man, life doesn’t get much better than this!

“Thanks, Dad,” I say before cutting off a large piece and devouring it. “Sorry about Logan and breaking the rules.”

“You slept peacefully last night. No nightmares.” Dad rubs the back of his neck with his hand. “Besides, Gavin admitted to being the guilty party. He couldn’t stomach another scream.”

I hang my head. “I’m sorry I kept you up two nights in a row.”

“What, no!” Dad sits on the arm of the sofa and kisses my head. “I’m relieved you finally slept in peace last night. Hearing you cry out in the middle of the night was torture. Logan is always welcome here, with my permission.” He pauses and looks at the door. “Or Gavin’s. No closed doors, though.”

“No closed doors,” I repeat, studying my plate to hide the bright flush spreading across my cheeks.

“Bed rest until Tammy has a chance to check you over.” He smooths my hair back, ruffling the top of my head like he did when I was little.

“I can walk, you know.”

“Not until you’re cleared.” He pauses and gives me stern eyes. “Promise.”

“Promise. By the way, where is Dr. Hayes?” I’m betting Dr. Tammy Hayes is curled up in Dad’s bed. I still haven’t quite adjusted to the… uh… intimate side of their relationship.

“In the shower,” Dad says like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Eww, and weird in my book. But Dad’s really happy, and I suppose that’s all that matters. “She’ll be in shortly.”

“Hey, Cici.” Daniel plops down on the sofa arm the moment Dad vacates it. “Good to see you up and about.”

“I need to get out of here. I’m bored out of my mind!”

“Yeah, well ‘out of here’ is school. It’s Tuesday.”

My mind immediately goes into panic mode. “Oh, no! I missed the chemistry test.”

Daniel sighs and does a fake face-palm. “No, it’s, ‘yay, I missed the chemistry test’.”

“You got an exemption for the test,” Rebecca says, leaning over the back of the sofa. “Showed Mr. Martinez your notes. He was impressed.”

“How did you get into my locker?”

“I’ve been working on my B&E skills.” She says it like it’s an accomplishment to be proud of… criminal activity. “You never know when we’ll need to break in somewhere for an investigation.”

“And I’m sure Mr. Kincaid sanctioned this,” Logan says with a snicker.

“Raven’s dad did.”

I glance over at Raven who is leaning against the wall talking to Blake. Her dad is a higher-up in the Circle, and it’s common knowledge that he has unorthodox tactics. I heard that he’s put Raven in danger more than once in pursuit of the vampires who killed her mother. It’s been a sore spot with Blake since he got here.

“No, starshine, just no,” Blake says, his hands clenched in fists at his side. “I can’t let—”

“Shh,” Raven hisses. “Not here.”

“This isn’t over.” Blake bangs his fist on the wall before storming across the room.

“Well, on that note,” Rebecca says, making a big show of opening her laptop and organizing some papers. “Let’s get to the wrap up. Mr. Kincaid only cleared us through third period today. We need to get the case notes done. Kacie, we’d like to add your, uh, experiences to the file. Unless it’s too…”

“No, I can do this.”

Logan takes my plate, leaving me to fidget by wringing my fingers. When Daniel places his hand on mine to stop my nervous movements, I grab onto the lifeline.

“Hey, it’s good to see you breathing,” I say, squeezing his hand.

“It’s good to be breathing.” Daniel stares at me with a slight smirk, letting me know he’s well aware of my deflection.

“No problems?”

“Not even a whisper of anything paranormal,” Raven says with a frown. “I missed all the action to babysit him, and he was never in any danger.”

“Yeah, about that…” I trail off searching for the right words. Daniel needs to know, but it’s going to upset him. “Tracy had no intention of killing anyone. I was in her head, I mean she was in mine.”

“For someone who didn’t want to hurt us, she and her cronies managed to do a lot of damage,” Logan says, holding up his broken fingers.

“They were throwing tantrums.” I take several even breaths, hating that I have to tell one of my best friends such awful news. “I don’t think the threat to Daniel was Tracy. I think Logan’s premonition was of something else still to happen.”

“Crap.” Daniel jumps off the arm of the sofa, backing away from me like I’m the danger to him. “Crap.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say, holding my hand out to him.

He takes it and returns to his perch beside me. “It’s okay, Cici, really. I need to know.”

“We
will
figure this out, Daniel,” Rebecca says, her eyes downcast. “I promise.”

Daniel nods. “I know we will. Let’s move on, wrap this up.”

Guess that’s my cue. I take a deep breath and let it out in a ragged sigh. Maybe sharing will help ease the nightmares. I doubt Dad will let Logan sleep over indefinitely.

“Tracy was keeping a pretty big secret from her friends. It was all in a journal we found under her mattress which I… well, she in my body, burned. When she possessed me, I got lots of her memories, emotions, relived her death.”

Logan wraps his arms around me, and I fall against him, snuggling into his warmth. Gritty, awful images flicker through my mind, remnants of Tracy that won’t go away. Closing my eyes, I lean my head on Logan’s shoulder and bite my lip to keep from crying out. My nose burns. Tears will soon follow if I can’t stop the horror movie in my head.

“Let’s focus on something else,” Rebecca says, pulling me from the nightmare images. “Do you know where they went? Between the first cleansing and their return. Was it Purgatory?”

“I have glimpses, images only… you have to understand it’s all so hard to…” I trail off, trying to focus on the time before their arrival. “I see gray, like fog or lots of clouds. Dark figures. I don’t see any faces, but I know there are others there. It’s like a gray desert. Rocks. Crags. Endless as far as I can see. I feel despair. Awful, gut-wrenching anguish. Time doesn’t move forward here. There’s no escape. No hope—”

“Stop!” Logan’s shout brings me back.

I cling to him, shaking from the overwhelming emotions still coursing through me. Without a word, Raven holds a tissue to my nose, and I realize it’s bleeding. Taking the tissue, I lean my head back to stop the flow. Psychic overload. The room spins. I close my eyes, but now I feel like I’m on a ship. My eyes fly open, and I stare at the white ceiling, waiting for it to stop moving.

Rebecca’s face appears above me, concern radiating in her eyes. “Look, I think we have enough for the report. You don’t need to do this.”

Though I want to take the out offered so badly, I can’t.

“No, let’s do this. Maybe the images will fade once I’ve shared Tracy’s secret.” I pause, trying to organize my thoughts, but everything is still a jumbled mess. “She had a psychic gift. Tracy could read thoughts in life and death, but only negative ones.”

Logan groans. “Well that’s one mystery solved.”

“And I thought my power was bad,” Daniel says, staring at his hands.

“Why couldn’t she read the professor’s intentions?” Rebecca asks. “She should have seen his evilness from a mile away.”

I slump a bit as I remember the utter joy she felt at meeting someone she couldn’t read. “She couldn’t read him and was ecstatic about it. It was so sad…” I trail off, unable to continue as Tracy’s leftover emotions overwhelm me once again. All of her feelings about Jeffrey rush forth in an emotional tsunami: admiration, love, curiosity, dread, anger, fear. They batter me relentlessly, pulling at me, begging my understanding. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t—”

“Let me help,” Blake says as he leans against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. His posture doesn’t look helpful at all, but I can’t tell if he’s angry or upset. “I overheard your conversation with Tracy Saturday night. Basically she was in love with Professor Evil and was in on his plotting. I heard her say, ‘it was supposed to be Angela.’ I’m guessing that dick used both girls. He enjoyed playing on their fears. What I don’t know is whether Tracy knew what he planned to do.”

“She didn’t. Not completely.” I let out a pained groan and rub my head. Sorting through the myriad of confusing feelings and memory pieces I experienced while merged with Tracy’s spirit is difficult at best. Everything is jumbled, strange. “He had the same plan with Tracy that Angela described to us. Experiment with LSD and other drugs in an effort to secure our country’s supremacy. His words not mine.”

“I’ve done more research on the MKUltra experiments. There’s not a lot out there that hasn’t been redacted.” Rebecca stares at the ceiling and blows her bangs from her face. “It kind of struck a chord. I mean Angela, she reminded me so much of myself. I can understand young, naïve girls falling for such a scam. They would view the professor as an authority figure. It was a different time. I’m making excuses.”

Carl wraps his arm around her, drawing her into a brief hug. “No, you’re right. It was different back then. What happened to Angela, I can’t see that happening to you. You only see her academic side. But that’s only part of a person. Angela was fresh-faced, innocent, um… no street-smarts. Not you. I could see you setting up and exposing the professor for the rat he is but never falling for it.”

“Oh, Carl.” Rebecca leans against him, slapping his shoulder. “When did you get so smart?”

Carl’s mouth opens and closes a few times, but no words emerge. A red flush creeps over his cheeks.

“So the creepy professor got additional kicks playing Angela and Tracy off of each other,” Blake says coming to Carl’s rescue.

“Why did he choose to spare Angela?” Logan asks.

Rebecca sits back up. “Was she spared or was she the ultimate victim?”

The others gape at her, but I know exactly what she means. “To a manipulative bastard like the professor, long-term emotional torment is more of a high than a one-time murder, no matter how bloody that murder is.”

Rebecca nods. “Angela was the picture of innocence. From a small town, sweet, naïve, the first in her family to even dream of attending college. To take that rosy outlook and completely destroy it… I think that would be the ultimate high for someone like Dr. Rosenthal. She was at the trial every single day until her breakdown. She testified, she cried, she broke. He got to relive that night whenever he saw her.”

“That’s sick!” Raven says, her fists up as though she can fight the long-dead professor.

“Salt and iron for ghosts, not fists,” Blake says. Raven sticks her tongue out at him and he laughs. “Maybe later.”