Inescapable (Talented Saga #7) (43 page)

Cressa simply stared, unable to follow the
convoluted connection between Ritchie and Kev Leon.

Whatever, it doesn’t
matter,
Cressa told herself. She hadn’t
joined their excursion because of Kev, anyway. Cressa was risking
her parents’ disappointment and possible dismissal from the program
for answers, not some guy. Even if that guy was Kev
Leon.

A scurrying noise drew all five girls’
attention towards the corner of the atrium. Cressa blinked as the
smooth, stone wall began to move. Before she could react, a section
of the wall swung open and three boys tumbled through the doorway,
giggling loudly.

Lyla sighed and rolled her big brown
eyes.

“
Could you toads be any
louder?” she demanded.

A tall, slim boy with skin the color of café
au lait crossed over to where Lyla was standing with her hands on
her hips, and slung an arm around her shoulders.

“
It’s all good, Ly,” he
drawled. “All the floor captains are out for the night—the Dame is
having them watch Gracia become a clone. So, we’re free and clear.
We have the run of this place.” He directed a dazzling smile at
Cressa. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.”

“
Hartley, this is Cressa,
she’s the newest 2P,” Lyla explained, then pointed to the other two
boys in turn. “And that’s Jacob, and Jacob.”

Cressa gave a little wave, and the Jacobs
nodded.

“
It is very nice to meet
you, Cressa, I’m so glad you’re up for a late-night romp around
this old place,” Hartley said. He turned to the rest of the group.
“Where do we want to start?”

“
Where’s Kev?” Ritchie
demanded. “You promised to bring him along.”

Hartley rolled his vibrant indigo eyes.

“
Sleeping, the ninny. The
kid barely speaks. I think the head docs are giving him something
for his ‘adjustment disorder,’” he said, using air
quotes.

“
Aren’t we good enough for
you?” one of the Jacobs asked, sticking out his bottom
lip.

“
No, you aren’t,” Ritchie
snapped. “This is dumb, I should just leave.” Despite her words,
she stayed put.

“
I say we start in med
bay,” Lyla declared with a mischievous smile.

“
Are you mad?” Daphne
demanded. “Hartley just said that’s where everyone is tonight.
We’ll be seen for sure.”

“
Not likely, as long as we
stick to the shadows and use our invisibility. We’ll be fine.
Besides, don’t you want to see your sister’s transformation? I know
I do,” Lyla said. “Unless, of course, you’re too
scared?”

Daphne took the bait. “I’m not scared. I’m
just not stupid, either. But,” a shimmery light appeared around her
small frame, “I have all but mastered invisibility.” With a nearly
inaudible pop, Daphne blinked out of sight. “Can you say the
same?”

Cressa felt a tug on her ponytail. An
instant later, Daphne reappeared by her side.

By the uneasy expressions on the others’
faces, Cressa surmised that they weren’t nearly as adept at using
light manipulation as Daphne.

At least I’m not the only
one
, Cressa thought.

Hartley chuckled nervously. “Med bay it is,
then. Follow me.”

The group, including Ritchie, who evidently
didn’t want to be left out of the fun, clamored through the opening
in the stone wall.

Inside, the passage was dark and smelled
like mold.

“
I can’t see a damn
thing,” Lyla whined. “Hartley? Is that you? Get your hand off my
butt.”

Buzzing came from somewhere in the distance,
growing louder by the heartbeat. Suddenly, a soft yellow light
brightened the passageway. It wasn’t bright enough to banish every
shadow, but it was a huge improvement over the pitch darkness.

“
Who did that?” Ritchie
asked.

The cadets all stared at one another, Daphne
wearing a smug smile.

“
This place is an old
boarding school, from before the Great Contamination. It’s been in
the Dame’s family for generations. She only had it overhauled like
ten years ago, when she first opened the Institute. Daddy’s firm
did the renovations. These secret tunnels were part of the original
structure, and the Dame asked daddy to keep them. I bet she uses
them all the time.” Daphne pointed to the row of lit antique lamps
affixed to the stone walls lining either side of the tunnel. “I
happen to know all of those are connected to the same switch.”
Triumphantly, the little canary gestured to a panel next to the
entranceway they’d come through. “That one.”

Cressa followed Daphne’s finger towards the
panel. The stained glass mosaic was too fancy for the stone walls
and earthen walkway. Squinting for a better look, Cressa saw three
interlocking circles that formed a triangle at the center, with an
unblinking eye in the overlap. There was something unsettling about
the image, sending a chill up Cressa’s spine that settled uneasily
at the base of her skull.

It’s just decoration,
you’re being silly,
she told herself.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the eye was watching
her.

The others didn’t seem nearly as bothered by
the strange picture, save Ritchie. She kept shooting the panel
furtive glances, as though expecting to find the eye following her
as she hopped from one foot to the other.

“
Well, guess that makes
this sort of useless,” Hartley said sheepishly, pulling a
flashlight from the waistband of his pants. The other two boys also
produced flashlights.

“
So you were just using
the darkness to cop a feel?” Lyla rolled her eyes. “Such a
charmer.”

“
Can we just go already?”
Ritchie asked, hugging herself to ward off the chill only she and
Cressa seemed to feel. “This place is super creepy. And there are
freaking cobwebs.” She nodded to shimmering tangle of webbing in
one corner of the low ceiling. “Are you lying, Daphne? Because the
Dame would have had these tunnels cleaned if she used them. No way
that woman slinks around in here with the spiders and who knows
what else.”

“
I’m not lying,” Daphne
protested. “You’re just jealous because your family isn’t tight
with the Dame. Once the Privileged take over, the Beaumonts will be
rewarded far above your lot. My sister is about to be the Dame’s
most prized disciple, and I’ll likely be next. Dr. Masterson
said—”

“
Oh, please,” Ritchie
retorted, rounding on Daphne. “Gracia becoming a clone is simply
dumb luck. It has absolutely nothing to do with your
family.”

“
Shut it, both of you. I
think I hear someone,” Lyla snapped.

The group went silent. Cressa concentrated,
listening for an indication that they were not alone. She heard
what sounded like running water, and possibly rodents scurrying
about, but nothing that made her think other people were farther
down the passage.

“
It’s nothing, you’re just
paranoid. Let’s go,” Shyla said, elbowing her twin.

Hartley took the lead, using his flashlight
to point out cracks in the steeply sloping ground so the others
wouldn’t trip over them. The twins followed right behind, Lyla
asking him question after question about Kev Leon, much to
Hartley’s annoyance.

Cressa hung towards the back with Daphne and
one of the Jacobs, who was also using his flashlight to illuminate
the path beneath their feet.

“
Does he know where we’re
going?” Cressa asked the other two, after Hartley chose to turn
down a tunnel off of the main passageway.

“
Down,” Jacob said with a
smirk, indicating the gradient that was carrying them ever
downhill.

“
Wow, that’s really
helpful,” Daphne shot back.

“
Yes, he knows,” he
replied, rolling his eyes. “Med bay is one of our favorite haunts.”
A mischievous grin spread across Jacob’s face. “You can see into
certain of the rooms from inside the tunnels. We’ve seen all kinds
of crazy stuff. Never a clone being made, though. This will be a
new one for us.”

A pit of dread formed in Cressa’s belly.

“
What sort of crazy
stuff?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer. Had the
boys, and possibly other trouble-making cadets, watched her
injection procedures? Had they seen her panic attacks inside the
incubation chamber?

Jacob’s smile grew impossibly wider. “Want
to take a detour?”

Before Cressa could answer, Jacob yelled up
to Hartley. “Hey, Hart, let’s take them to the farm. We’ll make it
a quick trip.”

The
farm
? It sounded benign, but Cressa
somehow doubted that they would find adorable piglets and fuzzy
lambs in the Institute.

“
Yeah, sure. The turn’s up
here on the left,” Hartley called back.

“
Does the Dame keep horses
here?” Daphne asked, clapping her hands together excitedly. “Back
home, we have a racing stable. There’s a professional breeder on
staff that flies all over the world to find the best mares to carry
our stallions’ foals. Daddy lets me ride the slow horses—the ones
who lack the mutation that makes them run real fast. We can trace
our horses’ lineage all the way back to the Contamination, to the
very first racing horse with the mutation,” Daphne finished
proudly.

In that moment, Cressa finally saw the
familial resemblance between Daphne and Gracia. Like Cressa and
pretty much all of the other cadets, the Beaumont sisters were from
an affluent family. Unlike most of the cadets, they liked to boast
about their wealth and social status.

“
There are a few horses,”
the other Jacob, who was walking beside Ritchie, replied with a
chuckle. “And plenty of livestock.”

Something about the way he said it gave
Cressa the impression that ‘livestock’ was an euphemism. She
couldn’t imagine what Jacob was eluding to, but felt queasy.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have to wait long
to find out.

The entrance to the tunnel that housed the
farm was hidden. Had Hartley and the Jacobs not already known the
location, the group would have walked right past the moveable stone
slab.

“
All the doors down here
can only be opened using telekinesis,” Hartley explained, pressing
his palm flat against a section of stone. He screwed up his face in
concentration, and there was a slight stirring beneath his hand.
The thick slab slid an inch or so to the left, just enough to emit
a thin beam of light into the tunnel.

“
Here, I got you, Hart.”
The Jacob with Cressa and Daphne elbowed the others aside to stand
beside Hartley.

Together, the two boys focused their energy
on the section of stone. It moved another couple of inches, before
refusing to go any farther.

“
I don’t understand,”
Hartley said, wiping a trickle of sweat from his cheek with the
back of his hand. “Usually I can open it by myself.”

“
Maybe it’s been
reinforced to keep flunkies out,” Ritchie said, sounding relieved.
Besides Cressa, Ritchie was the only other member of their illicit
excursion team showing reservations about entering the
farm.

“
Or maybe your powers are
fading,” Lyla suggested snidely. “I hear that can happen. Better
watch out, Hart. It might not be your nighttime wanderings that get
you dismissed.”

Hartley laughed, but Cressa could tell
Lyla’s flippant remark bothered him.

Dr. Masterson’s serum did not give them
indefinite power. In order to retain their abilities, they needed
regular injections, some more frequently than others. The timing
simply depended on how well the individual’s body retained the
foreign genetic material.

“
Let Cressa and me try,”
Daphne called, grabbing Cressa’s hand and dragging her forward. “We
both advanced recently, so our telekinetic powers were just
boosted.”

Daphne pressed her palm to the wall as
Hartley and Jacob had done. When Cressa hesitated to do the same,
Daphne shot her a pointed look.

“
What are you waiting
for?” she hissed.

Cressa really didn’t want to visit the farm,
whatever it was, but she also didn’t want the others to think her
childish or scared. And wasn’t this what she wanted? To uncover the
Institute’s grisly secrets?

With a heavy sigh, Cressa complied,
positioning her hand beside Daphne’s on the stone.

“
On my count,” Daphne
instructed, and then began counting down from three.

Part of Cressa hoped they wouldn’t be
successful. That way, she could feign disappointment right along
with the others, and then move on.

No such luck. The girls’ combined efforts
made the door fly open as though someone had greased the
tracks.

“
Nice one,” Hartley said,
clapping Cressa on the back. He slid past her through the opening.
The 2P boy smiled down at her as he went, though the friendly
expression didn’t quite reach his eyes.

I’d be worried,
too,
Cressa thought.

Since she knew absolutely nothing about
Hartley, Cressa wasn’t sure how long he’d been a 2P, or how he
rated power-wise among his classmates. Nonetheless, an obvious
deterioration in ability strength was never a good sign.

The Jacobs followed Hartley. The twins and
Daphne were only steps behind, just as eager to see the farm as the
boys were to show it to them. Ritchie hesitated in front of the
entrance, indecision playing across her expression. After several
long beats, she finally darted through the opening.