Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Good morning,” he said quietly.
Rowan blinked. She had been dreaming of something very important—a green hill? No, something else.
“There’s breakfast. And coffee.” He ran his hand back through his short dark hair. The light was brighter and showed a scar on his chin, white against his dark stubble.
Rowan jerked up to sitting, bracing her hands on the mattress. The quilt slid off her shoulders. Her mouth tasted dry and odd, and her head felt fuzzy. Her throat ached, and her arm too. She hitched in a breath, as if she was going to scream again.
Delgado held out a coffee cup. The familiar electric prickles ran over her skin. He was looking at her. Really looking at her. “Here, have some. It will help you feel better.”
That made her laugh, a dry, awful sound. Her throat was on fire.
The room was small, and the curious dead quality to the air told her she was in the same place he’d brought her to last night.
Wood paneling, a bed, two chairs, a small table, and a rug—no plants, no bookcases, not even a painting on the walls.
Rowan took this in, and then she looked at the fireplace, which was merrily burning a cement log.
Gas. It was a gas fireplace. The place was like a tomb.
“It feels funny in here,” she said huskily, and took the coffee cup with trembling hands. Her bruised arm twinged.
“That’s the dampers and the shielding. Keeps us safe from the Sigs and also blocks out all the noise of so many people thinking.” He hadn’t shaved, but he was wearing a fresh T-shirt and a pair of dark jeans. His coat was gone, and so was the gun.
Daddy, she thought automatically, and the memory of her father’s heavy body, the last chilling gurgle as he died in her arms, rose again.
She stared down into the coffee cup, her hands trembling even more. The terrible feeling of nakedness was still there, too. “I don’t feel good,” she whispered. “I want to go home.”
“It takes a little while to get used to the dampers. And if I could take you home I would. I don’t like this. But if you went home, or back to your job, or even stayed in this city for very long, Sigma would pick you up. They use people like you as weapons.”
“People like me?” She managed a scalding gulp of coffee. Even though it burned her throat, it did help her feel a little better. Daddy’s dead. The rising wave of unreality swamped her. “But I’m not anything special.”
“You’re psionic, Rowan. We don’t know what you can do yet, but you’re so powerful Sigma probably doesn’t care.
” He picked up another cup of coffee. The mugs were blue lacquer, and very pretty.
He carefully settled down in one of the chairs.
“The bathroom’s through there, if you need it. Want some breakfast?”
“Who are you?” Now was as good a time as any to find out. “You’ve been following me.”
“I was trying to find a good way to make contact with you. Then the Sigs moved in. I’m sorry.”
She watched him over the rim of the cup. “So you spied on me.”
“Would you have preferred me abducting you in a parking lot? Or shooting your family? I didn’t want to frighten you. I still don’t.” His eyes were narrow and flat. The electricity humming over Rowan’s skin had settled into a steady, prickling buzz. Why was he looking at her like that?
“Who do you work for?” she demanded, wincing as her throat reminded her she’d been screaming last night.
“The Society.” Patiently, very calm. “We won’t force you. You can work with us if you want, but you don’t have to. I’m going to be your mentor. Teach you how to control what you do.”
He sounded so matter-of-fact Rowan was almost convinced. “You mean other people… You mean it’s real?”
“Of course it’s real.”
“So you’re saying you’re psychic. Can you read my mind?”
“If I wanted to, probably,” he said quietly. “But it hurts. My talent’s not gentle, Rowan. The people I use it on usually die or go mad.”
It wasn’t the words that convinced her. It was that quiet tone of finality. She looked back down into her coffee cup, the thick black liquid reflecting a shimmer of light. “I can’t go home?” Even to herself, she sounded wistful.
“We can’t stop you. But listen, Rowan. If you go back to that house, Sigma will waste no time scooping you up.”
“What about my f-f-father? And Hilary? A f-f-funeral—” I sound like an idiot. She took a deep breath. This is crazy. This is absolutely insane.
And I should know.
“We’ll do what we can.” Now it was an air of quiet practicality, as if he had this talk with someone every day. “For right now, though, you should have some breakfast. We’re getting ready to leave the house, and you might want to meet some of the others. They’re probably very curious about you.”
“You mean you’ve done this to other people too?” She vaguely remembered an older man and a punk-rock girl, but she hadn’t looked at either of them. Last night was a confused patchwork of terror, screaming and cold—and this man’s flat, dark gaze.
“I was recruited by Henderson. You’ll meet him.
Cath and Zeke were rescued—kind of like you—from holding tanks in a Sigma installation.
Yoshi and Brew were recruited right out from under Sigma about two years ago—they were part of another team until recently.
You’ll see.” He seemed utterly calm, sitting in the chair, sipping his coffee.
He wore boots, and he stretched his legs out as if he wasn’t used to sitting for very long.
“You were recruited?” Rowan took a scalding gulp of coffee. The hot liquid burned all the way down into her stomach. “What do you mean, recruited?”
“Henderson found me and told me about the Society. I decided to join up, haven’t looked back since.” His eyes narrowed. She got the idea there was more to that story.
Rowan started to shiver. The prickles intensified, running down her arms, and she had to close her eyes to shut him out. I could reach out, touch him, just like I do with the patients. “You say other people can do these things?”
“Probably not to the same extent that you can. You work at Santiago County, don’t you?”
“So?” Plenty of people worked at the mental hospital. It proved nothing. She kept her eyes closed, the warmth of the coffee cup sinking into her hands. She was beginning to feel as if she might be alive.
Why do I feel so numb?
“Did you know that your hospital has statistically less violence than any other mental hospital in the country? Especially your ward? Despite the fact that some of the most violent offenders in the western half of the U.S. are housed there?”
She could tell he was looking at her. Staring at her.
He knows, she thought miserably. He knows what I can do, that I’m a freak. Dear God.
“We have state of the art techniques for—” she began.
“Ninety percent,” he said. “Ninety percent less, Rowan. And that started the exact month you began working there. Think about it. If you can pacify an entire hospital of mentally ill patients, think of what you could do with a Super Bowl crowd. You could incite riots, or stop them. You could start revolutions.”
“Is that what you want me to do?” Her throat threatened to close with panic.
“No,” he said. “The Society wants you to do what you want with your gifts. We’ll help teach you to control it, so it will work for you instead of screwing up your life and crippling you with fear.”
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You know I am.” He set his cup down on the table.
“How long have you been spying on me?”
“Two days.” At least he didn’t have to stop and think. The answer was instant. “Since you blew the circuits on our security perimeter at the house that night.”
“I did what?”
“You shorted out all the security equipment.” Even more patience. “Henderson thought you were an excellent candidate for recruitment. I was supposed to watch over you and make sure the Sigs didn’t snatch you.”
“How would they know where to find me?” she challenged.
“Because of us. I’m sorry, Rowan.” He even sounded faintly sorry.
“They killed my father. Did you know they would do that?”
“No, I thought they’d try to kidnap you again. If I had known they were that desperate… look, I thought they were just sloppy the first time. If I’d known, I would have tried to save your father.”
His gaze met hers. Rowan’s back roughened with gooseflesh again.
Dark, level, and utterly focused. She wasn’t used to people really looking at her.
Most people’s eyes just slid past her, judging her as pretty but brainless.
It wasn’t bad. She preferred being ignored and concentrated daily on making herself invisible.
“I defied direct orders to stay with you. Henderson ordered me to get out of there. I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay and make sure you were all right. I won’t let anyone force you into anything.”
“Why?” She glared at him, lifting her chin. This is insane. This guy is telling me the government’s chasing me because I’m psychic? And that he’s part of this secret society that wants to “save” me? Good God.
He shrugged, then stretched, the stretch turning into a graceful movement that brought him to his feet. She noticed abruptly how smoothly he moved—no wasted motion, every gesture economic and efficient.
She took another deep, jagged breath and finished the coffee in two hot gulps. “Justin?” she said, tentatively. “That’s your name, right?”
He went absolutely still, looking at her. “They call me Delgado here.”
“Okay. Delgado. Those… those men in black. The ones that killed my father. They were in the kitchen. How did we get past them?”
His jaw set and his eyes glittered. “I killed them both.” Nice and direct.
He certainly wasn’t pulling any punches.
“Look, I’m going to go find you some clean clothes.
The bathroom’s in there, and there’s breakfast on the tray.
I’ll be back.” He swung around and stalked across the room to a big, heavy wooden door.
She sat there, stunned, while he opened the door. He vanished, but he didn’t close the door behind him. He left it open, and she heard his footsteps going down the hall.
It was that single thing—the open door—that convinced her afresh that he was telling the absolute truth. If they wanted to keep her captive, he would have locked the door, wouldn’t he?
Then again, maybe she couldn’t escape the house. And if what he said was true, where would she go?
His voice echoed in the air. I killed them both. He said it like it was no big deal. Like he did it every day.
For all she knew, he did.
Rowan dropped the empty cup onto the bed.
Jesus. It was as if the entire world had twisted off its axis, all because she’d been curious about lights in the windows of the Taylor house.
I thought there were a bunch of teenagers messing around in there.
If I would have just left it alone, maybe Dad and Hilary would be… alive.
She buried her face in her hands. Her father was dead. Hilary was dead.
And her? She might as well be dead too.