Absolute Zero (23 page)

But, God, he was so beautiful. The light behind me bounced off his bronzed skin. His clenched jaw made his face muscles bulge and twitch. Yet, his forehead was smooth, like he was calm.

And now that I thought of it, he never really fought me. He didn’t even try to defend himself when I sprayed him. He only tried to explain. Jasmine and I just went off half-cocked. The image of him staring after my car when we zoomed away from Zach’s house had haunted me ever since. The surprise I saw in his eyes when he put it together that I was The Daughter seemed so genuine.

Had he been doing what Scott and I have been doing over the years? Just trying to find a new life. Find some piece of normalcy?

“How can you not know how old you are?”

“Amanda. I was—” He raked his fingers through his hair. “God, how do I say this?”

“You know what? Just spit it out. It’s like a band-aid. Rip it off fast. That’s the best way.”

A slight smile curved the corner of his mouth. “Band-aid?”

“It’s stupid. So, out with it.”

“Okay. You asked for it.”

Oh great. I fisted my hands waiting for the blow.

“I was created by the scientists at The Center.”

That wasn’t so bad. “Right, like I was. Experiments, parents having children, we’re born with funky powers, I get that. But how can you not know how old you are?”

He turned his focus downward, and my nerves shot up. Something big was coming, and I didn’t think I would like it. I felt like putting up an ice shield around my skin six inches thick, then whatever he was about to say would just bounce off.

“Amanda, when I say I was created by the scientists of The Center, I mean,
they
are my parents. I wasn’t born to a mother and father in a traditional sense.”

“I’m a little dim, tired, and
really
hungry, so I could be misunderstanding, but—” I moved a couple steps away. He shoved his hands in his pockets, then looked up. “But do you mean you were
created,
as in, made out of some cocktail and put in a Petri dish?”

His moist-eyed gaze met mine. His head bobbed up and down. “Yes.”

Chapter 30

“N
ow would be a good time to sit,” I said, as my legs turned to wet noodles.

Nate had been created in a Petri dish? I’d been joking when I’d said it. Even when I said it to Andrey while fighting him in California. People could be created like that? Was Nate even human?

The grass felt cold, even through my jeans. It was still August, but the chill was beginning to creep in up here in Northern Arizona, slowly but surely. Nate reached for me while I was descending, but I shrugged him off.

Surprisingly, he didn’t push it. Even sat a couple of feet away. Had to admire his dedication to what he said about keeping his hands in his pockets.

This guy had to be on the up and up. I felt it with ever fiber of my being. Just hard to get over the being-created-in-a-Petri-dish-thing.

Not to mention the fact that he’d played a role in murdering my parents.

“You’re not human?” I finally squeaked out.

“I am, for the most part.” He glanced at me. “Amanda, I—they took the egg—well, they manipulated the DNA, making a
better
human.” He used air quotes around better. “It’d failed many times, but with me, it didn’t.”

“But then what? I didn’t do so well in school, Nate, but I know how babies are born.”

“After they finished manipulating things, they implanted the fertilized egg into a human. So, technically, I guess you could say I have parents, but really, I don’t. After they were finished with their manipulating, changing, and adding, all essence of the human donors pretty much vanished.”

“Oh my gosh, Nate.”

“It’s okay. I fought with it for a while, but I’m okay with it now.”

“But then—I mean—if you were born from a woman, then you
do
have a birth date, you
do
know how old you are.”

“
Technically
? Yes.”

“I’m starting to get sick of that word
technically
.”

He let loose a crooked smile again. “The human who carried me in her womb came to term within
four
months. Then, I grew and matured at an accelerated rate. When normal children are one year old, I had the physical and mental capabilities of a six year old. It was rapid like that until I reached three or four years old. By that time, I looked as I do now. And I knew so much more than—well—than most people.”

“How?”

“How did your mother get the powers she did from the experiment? How did they get passed on to you? Genetics is an amazing thing, Amanda. We think we know a lot, but we really don’t.”

“You sound just like my mom.”

“You knew about this while growing up?”

“I’m still asking the questions, remember?” I shook my head. “So, when were you
born
then?”

“Chronologically, I’m about ten years old, but I’ve looked like this since I was about four. Most people say I look like an eighteen year old so that’s how I came up with that age.”

“You never age then?”

“Slower than normal. I mean, since I stopped aging while in The Center, I’ve changed a little, just slower.”

“So, you’ll live a super long time? Like an immortal, right?”

“I’m not immortal. I still get hurt, sick, all that stuff a normal human gets. I just have other certain gifts.”

“Speed. Strength. Night vision.”

“And, I use more of my brain than most. That’s how I learn so fast. I’m sorry I made up all those things about my life that I told you. I—”

“I think
my
brain is going to implode.” I leaned forward and picked a blade of grass and glanced to the side.

We had walked to the side of the house, and it was a little dimmer here, but at least there weren’t any figures in the window, watching. Or, at least that I could tell.

“You always did seem different. I mean, in a good way. How you talked. How mature you were. Remember? I even questioned you about your age. You’re so not eighteen.”

He smiled.

“And you didn’t know about me? Really? That I was The Daughter as you called it?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t. I knew Sarah and Josh had had a child. I saw pictures, learned their history. Technically—”

I groaned.

“Sorry. I knew of you through a case file. Just paper. A few baby pictures, but nothing from later, when you were older. When I asked why, they mentioned that Josh and Sarah had vanished. If found, the Agents usually didn’t return. So we couldn’t get a description of The Daughter.”

“Mom killed them?”

“The Center sent many Agents to their deaths in their pursuit of Sarah and Josh.”

My heart crumbled. To think of Mom having to live like that. Hell, I’d had to live like that already.

“She had to, Amanda. Or they would have killed her.”

“Didn’t they want to study her? Learn how she’d become so strong?”

“Well, yes. Of course, they would have done that first. But she wouldn’t have been allowed to exist if she didn’t comply with The Center.”

“What did they want with her?”

“To make more like her. Once they learned all they could from her, she would be the parent of future models.”

“Sick.”

“Having that kind of scientific power makes an entity very greedy. And not just to the American government. Other countries could be involved as well.”

“Andrey.”

“Can you tell me who he is?”

“How do you not know? He was at The Center when I was there.”

“When? They got you?”

“You don’t keep up with The Center to see what they’re doing? If they’re close to you?”

“We try, but they’re good at covering and hiding, despite my knowing a lot about how they do things.”

I shook my head. “They showed up at my graduation and took me. Had me for about seven days.”

Nate’s eyes widened. “When was that? You just graduated right?” He glanced around, eyes narrowing as they scanned our surroundings.

“What?” I sat straight, looking around. “You see something?”

“No. How’d you escape?”

“I froze the hell out of everything. Jumped from the building. Then me, Jasmine, and Georgia went back and blew the place up.”

“Georgia?”

“She’s my twin sister. She’s fire. I’m ice.”

“A twin?” He hopped to his feet, hands instantly went to his head, and his fingers filtered through his dark mane.

I stood. “What is it? You’re freaking me out.”

“They know about your twin? Is she as powerful as you?”

“She only has fire. No strength and no healing.”

“Oh, yes. You heal. I saw that. And you have strength as well?”

I nodded.

“No wonder you held me so long on the balcony. And in the woods, your ice came so naturally and intensely. I remember your mother healing herself. They brought her in seriously injured on one occasion. I saw a video of it.” He paced and he looked around again.

“Georgia just came into her powers a few months ago. She may still get strength and healing but doesn’t have them yet.”

“Tell me.” He stopped and faced me. “Did Jasmine scan you for implanted tracking devices when you broke out from The Center?”

“No.”

“Then you’re not safe here. None of you are.”

Chapter 31

“I
mplanted tracker?” Jasmine said, as she plopped into a leather chair. “No! I just got this place decorated, too. And now they’re going to storm in and trash it, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know if she has one, Jasmine, but she may. I found some in me and the two who left with me,” Nate said, as he paced in front of the fireplace in one of the sitting rooms.

I sat on the coffee table facing Georgia who sat on the couch next to Scott. Zach paced near the bay window overlooking the front yard.

“Do you have equipment to scan her?” Nate asked Jasmine.

“No.”

“Amanda, after you returned from when you captive, did you have any strange marks on you? Weird, itchy spots that weren’t there before?”

“Not that I can tell, but I was unconscious most of the time because I wouldn’t cooperate.” I looked at Scott. “Maybe that’s why they kept finding us. Maybe I’ve had one from when they grabbed me a couple years ago.”

“No Agents had found us for two towns before Trifle, though,” Scott said.

“They could have just been observing.” Nate shook his head.

“I watched them their entire stay in Minnesota. I never saw a
Coat
there, observing. I would have picked up on that.”

Nate arched an eyebrow at her. “Really? Would you have? So far I’m unimpressed with your security and negligence about the imbedded tracking devices.”

“Hey!” Jasmine bolted to her feet. “I left when I was sixteen. I guess I didn’t get to that chapter, huh, teacher?”

“True. You didn’t have clearance for that level of training at the age of sixteen. I’m sorry, Jasmine. I’m just worried for everyone’s safety.”

“Jasmine’s done fine. Survived on her own since she was sixteen, and has taken great care of us since we met her.” Scott stood and walked to Jasmine. “So, Nate, what do we do to see if Mandy’s tagged?”

“I have the equipment at my apartment.”

“Oh, no. She’s not going anywhere with you.” Zach strode across the room toward Nate.

Nate looked at me. So did everyone else in the room. Nothing like the pressure of five pairs of eyes staring at you, waiting for you to decide. Since when did all the decisions get dumped on a mutant nineteen-year-old college girl?

So not fair.

I stood, my gaze flitting from each and every face, well, except Zach’s. He didn’t know crap about anything, but I zeroed in on Jasmine’s, then Georgia’s. She gave a nod. I looked at Scott. He had an arm draped around Jasmine and stared at Nate then back to me.

I nodded and he did, too.

“Okay. Georgia, you and I are going with Nate.”

“No. Mandy, don’t do it,” Zach said. He moved toward Nate, fists clenched. “He works for The Center. He’ll drug you and take you back there.”

Nate didn’t even flinch. He merely looked at Zach, then to me. The confidence oozing off Nate’s shoulders empowered me even more than the supportive looks I’d gotten from Jasmine, Scott, and Georgia. They trusted me, I needed to trust myself, too.

Even more encouraging, they trusted Nate. Of course, I hadn’t told Georgia and Scott he had a hand in hurting and killing Mom. That might change their outlook of him, but what mattered most was that
I
trusted Nate.

But at the moment, Zach was pissing me off beyond belief.

I formed a big snowball and tossed it at his chest. He stumbled to the side and looked at me. He’d stopped two feet from Nate.

I stormed around the coffee table and toward him. He stepped back, eyes wide. “Excuse us, please.”

I grabbed his wrist and yanked him down the hallway toward his and Scott’s rooms.

“Okay, buddy. You just need to sit back and listen.”

“Mandy, wait—”

“No. You wait. I just spent the last two hours out there talking to Nate about everything. You don’t have the whole story. Right now, we need to go find out if I’m the reason those stupid
Coats
keep finding me. Or how Andrey is.”

“I want to go, too. I want to be there, just in case.”

“In case what, Zach?” I released my death grip around his wrist and stepped back. “You can’t do anything. You have no powers.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I know. I’m the weak human boyfriend.”

“Ex-boyfriend, remember?”

He flinched. “Oh what, Nate’s back in the picture now?”

“None of your business. Maybe I’m just not going to have a boyfriend for a while. Ever think of that? I don’t need a guy to exist.”

He turned his gaze downward.

“Look. Zach. I know you mean well. And what you did with Samantha—well—I understand why you did it. You were trying to protect me and Georgia and Scott.”

“I did it because I love you, Mandy.” He reached out to my face, his wide, gray eyes pleading.

Man he was cute. The memory of the kiss he planted on me earlier tickled my brain, and my stomach. I ducked and stepped to the side. “You think of me while you were kissing Sam these last few weeks? Holding her hand? Going on dates during your protecting-thing?”