Читать книгу Run to You Part Three: Third Charm - Clara Kensie - Страница 7

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The door to the cell slid open and I startled, lowering the fog, certain it was Dennis Connelly. But it was just a guard, holding a plastic tray. A gun hung in a holster on his belt. I’d seen him before somewhere; his yellow spiky hair looked familiar. I raised the fog again but kept it close.

Spiky Hair nodded to the tray. “Breakfast.”

Breakfast. It was the next day. I’d been in this cell for over twenty-four hours.

Tristan took the tray and placed it on the cot. “Thanks.”

“Congrats on the mission, Connelly,” Spiky Hair said. “Nice job.” His gaze flickered to me in the corner.

Tristan’s face reddened. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

The guard left, the door sealing itself shut behind him. Tristan held out a plate for me, but I shook my head. “How do I know it’s not poisoned?” I was imprisoned by a killer, after all.

He took a large scoop of scrambled eggs from one plate and ate it, then did the same with the other. “Nope. Not poisoned.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and moved from the floor up to the chair. He placed the plate on my lap. I looked with distaste at the eggs, toast and orange slices. “Are my parents getting the same meal?” Mom would hate this breakfast. Rubbery yellow eggs and white bread. She would’ve used egg whites and whole grain.

“They’re probably still unconscious. It takes a long time to neutralize someone.”

“What does that mean?”

“Their psionic abilities are being taken away.”

“You mean, so they can’t escape?”

“And so they can’t hurt anyone.” He looked pointedly at me, as if silently adding, So your mother can’t fly you into a wall anymore.

I blinked. “She didn’t mean to hurt me, Tristan.”

He swallowed his eggs. “I know.”

“She would never hurt anyone. There’s no way my parents did any of the things you said.”

He said nothing to that.

In a display of loyalty to my mother, I pushed aside the eggs and toast, and ate only the orange slices. But because I was weak in both body and spirit, I betrayed her again by eating the eggs. “Does it hurt to be neutralized?”

“No. It’s like blowing out a candle. In fact, your dad’s headaches will probably stop.”

That, at least, was a tiny bit comforting. But my mom’s PK was as much a part of her life as me, or air. She couldn’t survive without it, or want to.

Thank God Jillian and Logan weren’t here. My parents were right to send them away before driving up here. They wouldn’t want to live without their PK either.

The cell door opened again and I jolted, my fork clanging to the floor, and again I lowered the fog. A dark-skinned woman in a lab coat entered, a thick green binder in one arm. “Hello, Tessa. I’m Dr. Sheldon. Do you remember me?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She was the one who’d put her palm on my forehead and looked inside my mind. She was gentle. Warm. “Can I see my mom and dad now?”

She tilted her head. “Sweetheart, do you understand why your parents are here?”

“No.” I didn’t understand anything anymore.

“I told her,” Tristan said. “But she won’t believe me.”

Dr. Sheldon clucked. “I wouldn’t want to believe something like that about my parents either.” She patted the binder. A series of letters and numbers was printed on the spine: CARS0520. “But we have evidence.”

So Dr. Sheldon was a liar too.

“Any news about Tessa’s brother and sister?” Tristan asked. “Did we find them yet?”

They were still looking for Jillian and Logan?

“Let’s see.” She opened the binder and flipped through the pages. “Their parents gave them all their cash before sending them away on foot. We have an agent watching the house in case they return, but so far no one knows where they are.”

“We’ll find them for you, Tessa,” Tristan said. “I promise.”

Impossible. Jillian and Logan were too smart to go back to our house. They knew better than to return to Twelve Lakes. With all our money, and without me to ruin everything, they could run forever.

“Poor kids,” Dr. Sheldon said. “They must be very frightened.”

Terrified, I was certain. Jillian was probably disguising her terror with anger. Logan was probably not bothering to hide it. But the important thing was they weren’t imprisoned in this horrid APR place, being neutralized. As long as they weren’t here, they would be okay.

Dr. Sheldon held up her palms. “Stand up for a minute. I need to examine you again.” She placed one hand on my forehead and one on the back of my neck, then closed her eyes.

I tried to think about nothing. Just empty space. Fog. As nice as she was, I didn’t want her inside my mind. Tristan was being nice too, and I couldn’t trust him.

After a few minutes, she took my chin in her hand, a frown on her face and alarm in her eyes. “I don’t know what it is that I’m seeing deep in that mind of yours, Tessa, but I don’t like it. You have me very worried. I’m afraid you’ll have to stay here for a while.”

She made some notes in the file. “Completely neutral,” she muttered with a pitiful shake of her head, then closed the binder and tucked it in the crook of her arm. With a warning to Tristan to watch me carefully, she left, taking the binder with her.

* * *

Hearing all those awful lies about my parents and the guilt over causing all this misery to everyone I loved made me despise myself. Before Tristan could even offer a comforting word, I went into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. It was the only place I could go to escape from him.

I shed my clothes and stepped behind the shower curtain, then started the water. I washed myself again, scrubbing as hard as I had last night.

When I was five and Jillian was six, we were on a softball team. The Dragonflies. We were the best team in the league, and my sister was the star player, no surprise. She hit every ball. It wasn’t until I hit three home runs in a single game that our parents realized Jillian had been using her psychokinesis to control the ball the entire season. They made her stop. It wasn’t fair, they’d said. It wasn’t right.

My parents were ethical. Moral. Honest.

They had not blackmailed anyone. They had not murdered anyone. They had not lied to us this whole time.

They had not.

I ran my fingers over the scars on my belly.

Shattered glass.

No.