Created (Talented Saga) (25 page)

I was stunned and more than a little hurt.
I’d risk my life to rescue him. I’d sat by his bed, holding his hand, praying for him to wake up, and this was how he repaid me? My temper flared as his rejection sunk in. I fisted my hands at my sides, digging what was left of my ragged nails into my palms to keep from verbally lashing out at Erik. With a glare that I hoped spoke volumes, I turned on my heel and stomped towards the door. Neither man tried to stop me.

The stone walls did little to cool the hot anger and humiliation of Erik’s dismissal.
I rested my forehead next to the door, replaying Erik’s words. I wanted to know what he was telling Crane, what he didn’t want me to hear. The walls were thick and I could only hear snippets of their conversation. Pressing my ear to the door, I concentrated harder. When I still couldn’t make out more than every third word, I reached out for Erik’s mind.

“Eavesdrop much?”
The words echoed in the narrow passage. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned and met Brand’s amused face. I hadn’t even heard him come up behind me.

“
Shhh,” I shushed him. “I have a right to know what they’re saying.” I did, right?

“Oh you have a right, do you?
More like an insatiable curiosity. Or maybe all that spy training is just too hard to forget. Or there is always the possibility that you just hate not being in control. I guess it’s pretty hard for someone who knows everyone’s secrets to be kept in the dark.” His tone wasn’t malicious, but I felt like he’d thrown a bucket of ice water in my face. Brand didn’t know me. He had some nerve speaking as if he did. Incredulous, I opened my mouth to make a snappy retort, but Brand continued before I got the words out.

“Let him have a little privacy, Talia.
Did it occur to you that maybe he’s embarrassed by what he went through? That maybe he doesn’t want the one person that he’s gone to the ends of the earth to protect knowing how badly they tortured him? Not to mention the humiliating things they subjected him to? You really are selfish, you know.”

I backed away from Brand; his verbal assault felt more like a physical one.
Selfish? I wasn’t selfish, I was just trying to help Erik. I wanted him to know I was there for him no matter what. There was nothing he could say to change that.

I crossed my arms over my chest, creating armor to protect my wounded pride.
“What do you know about what he went through?” I hissed.

“I know what your Agency did to Penny.
I know she is broken on the inside, and how hard she tries to keep you out so you won’t see it. Penny, Erik, even Ian, they all want to protect poor, precious Talia. Yet you just keep pushing. Everyone is making sacrifices for you and you don’t even appreciate it. Erik nearly died, and all he wants is keep the more humiliating details from the person whose opinion he values most. Don’t take that away from him.”

Fuming, I dug the jagged points of my nails into my flesh.
How dare he? Did Brand not think I’d made sacrifices? That I hadn’t been hurt in all of this, too?

A nagging voice in the back of my mind reminded me that Erik wouldn’t have needed rescuing if I hadn’t been so rash in running away with Alex.
Had Erik helped me because it was the right thing to do? Or had his love for me blinded him to rational thought?

A thought struck me.
Brand was acting like this was about Erik, but it wasn’t, I realized. This animosity couldn’t possibly be on behalf of a guy he didn’t know. I already knew Brand blamed me for what had happened to Penny and for Penny’s mother’s death. There was more to it, though. I thought about Frederick’s words. He’d said Brand had been through a lot. What else could have possibly occurred in Brand’s life that he could construe to make my fault?

I latched on to Brand’s impossibly green eyes, now blazing furious and hateful.
He guarded his mind just like Crane, but his defenses weren’t nearly as strong. While he might not be as good at building barriers, he was no slouch either. Sweat began to trickle down my forehead with the effort of invading his thoughts. Brand’s eye twitched; he knew what I was doing.

“You want to know how I feel about
you?” His whispered words dripped loathing, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure I did want to know. “Go ahead.” The walls crumbled and a wave of power engulfed me, hot and suffocating like I’d opened an oven door. It took every ounce of physical strength that I possessed not to recoil. Electricity crackled through the air, causing the lights to flicker. Everything went still, as if time had actually frozen.

I didn’t need to read Brand’s mind; his hatred was a live wire, coursing energy painfully from him to me.
The obvious issues between us were at the forefront of his mind: Penny’s current condition and her mother’s death; endangering the lives of Coalition soldiers; Crane choosing me over him. But I was right, there were deeper issues. Ones Brand had buried long ago and rarely let resurface.

The elder Meadows had been strong Talents and TOXIC operatives.
The mandatory testing laws had just passed when Mrs. Meadows became pregnant with Brand. Shortly after he was born, the Meadows decided TOXIC’s goals were no longer serving the greater good. They joined one of the more outspoken rebel factions who opposed the mandatory testing laws. This was where they met Ian Crane. It was agreed that they would continue working for TOXIC as double agents, now spying for the rebels.

Barely twenty-five, Crane organized the rebel factions and declared war against TOXIC.
A fellow operative, a woman named Lanie Reece, who the Meadows had thought they could trust sold them out to TOXIC. Both of Brand’s parents were taken into custody and tortured for information about Crane and the rebels. Neither cracked. Well, not exactly anyway. Brand’s parents never gave in, never gave TOXIC the information they wanted about Crane or the rebels.

Crane and TOXIC struck a deal for the return of all prisoners as part of the peace treaty that ended the second civil war.
Brand’s parents were released to Crane, and returned to what became Coalition territory. But their minds were mush. Brand only saw them once after the war ended. The vacant expressions in their eyes haunted his dreams. The way they drooled when they moved their mouths but no words came out made him sick to his stomach. He hated himself for how disgusted the sight of his own parents made him. But the person Brand truly hated was the Mind Manipulator who’d robbed his parents of their minds, and him of a family.

Mr. and Mrs. Meadows died shortly after their only visit with their son.

I hadn’t been that Manipulator, obviously, but whenever Brand looked at me, he thought about his parents and the person who’d destroyed them. What I’d done to Penny, providing the testimony that had sentenced her to death, reminded him of the woman who’d done the same to his parents. He hated me for what I was. He despised me for what I’d done.

Each new accusation sent a fresh shock to my system.

I tried to break the connection, except it was physically impossible. I’d heard about people being electrocuted, how their muscles tensed and they lost control of their bodies. That was how I felt now.

My mind and body were at odds, the former screaming to make the torture end, the latter unable to obey.
But the panic, the true terror, that I felt was for how much I craved his power. Part of me was drawn to him, yearning to experience more of his talents.

Abruptly the connection broke, leaving me empty and drained.
I blinked rapidly to clear the fog. I reached out to steady myself, only to realize that I was on the floor. My skin still tingled, and I had an odd feeling that if I touched another person, I’d shock them.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” I whispered, barely managing to get the words out.
My jaw was a vice, and I feared that I might have to physically pry the halves apart.

“No, Talia, you didn’t.
But you did nothing to stop it. Since the night your parents were killed, Ian has been willing to do anything to get you back. He let his sister die to get you back. Then he let Penny go through with that ridiculous plan to go undercover. I begged him to pull her out so many times. But he insisted that once she got close to you, she could convince you to run. After she was arrested, he thought for sure you’d see the truth. But you were too damn dense, too damn selfish to open your eyes! You let them take her!” Brand screamed.

The door to Erik’s room burst open.
I knew it was Crane, but I couldn’t see him through the tears blurring my vision. The anger Brand’s rant evoked helped me regain control of my limbs. I stumbled to my feet and ran.

He was talking about Penny, but the raw emotion that made his voice crack was for his parents.
He didn’t know who had tortured his parents, so he couldn’t take out his anger on that person, which only left me. Had the creation drug not been messing with my emotions, I might have been able to be reasonable, understand that he needed an outlet for his anger and I was his best option. I might have been able to commiserate with him. I, of all people, understood the need for revenge. But I wasn’t in control. Brand’s rage was contagious, infecting me, sending my temper northward.

In the days since I’d stopped taking the suppression drug, I’d been more in control of my emotions.
That wasn’t to say I didn’t feel like I was losing control half the time, but I was better at keeping the struggle internal. As I rode the elevator and tore through the atrium, I felt like the ticking time bomb Brand had accused me of being. If I didn’t make it outside before I exploded, I’d take out the heart of the Coalition. Victoria would have no choice but to contain me.

I tripped in my haste to get up the metal staircase to the main level, banging my shin against one of the stairs.
Pain shot down my leg, and a small part of my brain registered the blood soaking my pants. Get outside, get outside, I chanted. The trapdoor blew open before I touched it. Hurdling myself through the opening, I dashed for the front door.

Black spots dotted the parts of my vision not blinded by a red haze.
Navigating the path to the beach was near impossible, and I fell several times before I reached the sand. The wind picked up, sending grains of sand swirling around me. Brand’s accusations ran around and around in my head, chased by the one he hadn’t known to add: Donavon’s death. Everyone I loved was hurt or dead because of me.

My mother and father died to protect me from Mac, and I repaid them by becoming his pawn.
Crane tried to tell me the truth, and I attacked him. Penny risked her life to open my eyes, and I sat by while TOXIC sentenced her to death. I let Erik put himself in danger without even considering the ramifications, and now he’d been tortured and experimented on. Donavon gave his life for mine. It was my fault that Alex was now an orphan. Even Kandice’s death could have been avoided. Hindsight might be twenty-twenty, but looking back I saw all the decisions I could have made for the situation to turn out differently. Had I not lost my mind, forcing Erik to waste time calming me down, Graham’s team wouldn’t have gotten antsy and acted on impulse. Had Kandice not been so frightened by my reaction to Alex, she wouldn’t have been standing next to the window. She might still be alive.

Raindrops splattered the beach, soaking my hair and clothes until they were plastered to my skin.
The waves swelled, cresting, before crashing feet from where I stood. I pushed them back before they could swallow me whole. I should let them drag me out to sea, I thought.

When the next wave stormed the beach, I stepped forward to meet it.
I held my arms wide, closed my eyes, and welcomed the watery embrace.

I stood like that for a full minute before I realized that I was unharmed.
The rain still poured from the sky, but the ocean hadn’t claimed me as its own. Tentatively I cracked one eye. The water had retreated, and the waves were nearly back to their normal size.

Fatigue settled in every bone, every muscle,
every inch of skin until I was liquid inside. I sank to the sand, incapable of stringing thoughts together. For several long moments I lay there uncaring, unfeeling like a zombie.

Anger lit up one corner of my mind.
“What is wrong with you?”
A voice inside my head screamed. Within the empty void where my brain should have been, the words echoed. Only instead of growing fainter with each reiteration, they grew louder.
“You are stronger than this, better than this! Killing yourself is a pretty shitty way to repay all the people who care about you!”

I wondered if I’d finally buckled under the pressure.
Was this voice inside my head a version of myself? She was confident and powerful. Above all, she was furious at the girl lying in the sand.

“We will get through this.
We will stop Mac. We will make things right. But if you don’t start acting like the girl I met two years ago, you won’t be around to see TOXIC fall, or to avenge your parents.”

We?
Oh my god, I thought. I really am losing it. My multiple talents were splitting my personality, and the various versions of myself were fighting. I should be put down like a rabid animal. That was what I was becoming, anyway. The creation drug was driving me truly insane.

Next I knew, I was hauled to my feet with superhuman strength.
I never saw her palm, it moved too fast. But I felt the sting, amplified by the wetness of my skin.