Mindspeak (30 page)

I gasped, almost letting out a loud
shriek. My palm flattened over my heart where I massaged my out-of-control pulse.
I gazed helplessly into the eyes of Seth Whitmeyer.

Chapter
Twenty-Six

“What are you doing here?” Seth
asked, keeping his voice low.

I stared at him, eyes wide.

“He finally told you.”

I shook my head freakishly fast. “Who
is that in there? Is it Sandra?”

“Sandra?” Seth asked, confused. “No.
That’s Addison.”

“Addison?”

“Jack promised me he would tell
you.” He peered around me and inside the room. “Come on.” Seth put his hand on
my back and led me back the way I’d come.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked,
panicked. I could reach out to Jack with my mind, but that would be admitting
to having left Wellington. Again. Without permission.

Besides, I wanted to know all the
things Jack wouldn’t tell me.

Seth flashed the card around his
neck in front of a scanner and opened a door. “My office. After you.” He
gestured with his hand for me to enter.

“You work here?” It all made sense.
His mom had said he worked shifts. And he knew so much about Gram and her
condition. He was a doctor.

“I’m a neurologist.”

His office was small, his mahogany
desk cluttered with paper and medical magazines. Very few personal items.

He removed his white lab coat and
hung it on a hook on the back of the door. “Have a seat, Lexi.”

I sat on the very edge of a leather
chair. My right leg shook. “Who’s Addison?”

“Addison is the reason Jack finally
joined The Program. Addison is the reason he came looking for you.”

I sucked in an audible breath. “I
don’t understand.”

“Addison is Anita’s eight-year-old
daughter.”

“Anita? Jack’s housekeeper?”

He nodded. “A year-and-a-half ago, Addison
and Jack were riding. Something spooked her horse. She was thrown.”

“What happened?”

“She broke her collar bone.
Suffered some other minor injuries, but she couldn’t move. Jack didn’t get to
her in time. After the horse threw her, it backed up and stepped on her head.”

“Oh, God.” I covered my mouth with
my hand. “Did Jack try to heal her injuries?”

“Of course. And he did. Everything
but the brain damage from the horse’s misstep. He almost died. Put himself in
the hospital—he became dehydrated from throwing up so much after he healed her
collar bone and broken ribs.”

I picked a speck of lint on the
floor and stared at it. My mind raced. Jack had made himself so sick. “Why hasn’t
he told me?” I said mostly to myself.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“I guess not. Not to me anyway.”

“Because he loves you, Lexi, and he’s
scared. He’s scared of losing you. He’s scared of what the consequences might
be if you were to use your power the way it was meant to be used.”

“What do you think the consequences
will be?” I asked. Was I seriously wondering if I could use my mind to heal
someone’s brain? Gram? The little girl lying in that bed for the past
year-and-a-half?

Healing either of them went against
everything I believed in. It just seemed that using supernatural abilities to
heal went against God’s plan for the universe—that these abilities were not
created by God, but by arrogant scientists. Maybe that was why the consequences
existed.

“We won’t know until you try. But
Jack says you have pretty bad nose bleeds when you use a small part of your
power.”

“He told you that?”

“He told me that you could bend
minds in your favor.” Seth grinned. “That must be quite a useful tool.”

I nodded.

“Something in your nervousness just
now tells me, though, that this mind bending power extends further than I’m
aware.”

“No,” I disagreed. “You make me
nervous in general.”

He leaned forward against his desk
and clasped his hands. “I’m going to be honest with you. You will become a part
of The Program sooner or later. Jack convinced me to give you time to come
based on your own choice, but eventually, you won’t have a choice.”

“Are you threatening me?”

His lips curved into a grin. “No, I’m
not. I’m finally giving you all of the facts. Eventually, the people who killed
your father will be coming for you. Or you’ll find the journals that explain
everything. Then you’ll be begging to be part of The Program.”

~~~~

I had three texts and four missed
calls when I got back in the car. The three texts and two of the calls were
from Jack. The other two calls were from Wellington’s main line.

“I’m sorry, Kyle. I hope I didn’t
get you in trouble.”

He shrugged. “I knew what I was
getting into. You needed a ride, right?”

I stared out the window. Trees
whizzed by on the back road that led to school. What would I tell Jack? That I
knew about Addison?

No. I couldn’t. Not yet.

“You hungry?” Kyle asked.

“What?” How could he think about
food right now? We were going to be in so much trouble when we returned to
school.

“Well, there’s no way we’ll make it
back for dinner. I’m stopping for a protein bar and an energy drink.” He turned
into a gas station with a small country store and parked near to the doors. “Want
anything?”

I shook my head.

Kyle shut the door and disappeared
into the mini-mart. Something flickered out of the corner of my eye. Kyle’s
cell phone lay in the seat beside me. A new text lit the screen. I craned my
neck to see any signs of Kyle returning. When I didn’t, I grabbed his phone and
began punching buttons and scrolling through texts.

He had been texting someone by the
name of R.W. I scrolled through the texts.

Kyle: We r at UK Hosp. She’s not
talking. Should I say something?

R.W: Don’t do or say anything!! Keep
ears open. Get her to talk about who she visited. Any mention of journals?

Kyle: No journal talk. Picking
her up now.

R.W: Just get back to school.

I darkened the phone’s screen just
as Kyle turned away from the checkout counter. He pushed through the door with
an armful of snacks and a couple of drinks. I struggled to get a couple of deep
breaths in before he opened the door and let some of the snacks fall into the
seat on top of his phone.

“I got you something anyway.”

I took a drink and some of the food
from him, giving my hands something to do before Kyle noticed how badly they
shook.

After watching the fence line sail
past me along the country road for twenty minutes, Kyle finally said, “Who was
this friend of your father’s that you visited? Someone he worked with?”

“Uh, yeah. A colleague from a long
time ago.” Too many questions. I wanted to cry.

Kyle’s phone sounded. He reached
behind his back. He looked at the text, and then over at me.

I stared out the window, counting
the light poles. Think, Lexi. Think. Who was R.W.? How did Kyle and this R.W.
know about the journals?

“How the hell did he get my cell
phone number?” Kyle held his phone up so that he could see it and the road at
the same time.

“Who?” I shrugged.

“Jack.”

“Text?”

“Yeah. He says that if you’re with
me, to call him. ‘Now!’ There’s lots of exclamation points.”

I scrolled through the names on my
phone. What would I say to Jack? Especially with Kyle in the car. Finally, I
jabbed at Jack’s name and brought the phone to my ear.

“I don’t have much time,” he said
when he picked up. “Father’s here. And he’s pissed you’re not.”

“What do you want me to do about
it?” I asked. Kyle was back to thumping his hand on the steering wheel. “I have
an idea.”

“You better think of something,
because security was instructed to search Kyle’s car as soon as he enters the
main gate.”

“What, like I’m some sort of
fugitive?” This was ridiculous. Why was Jack allowed to leave campus, and I
wasn’t?

“No, but like I thought your coach
made clear earlier, the school takes their lock-downs very seriously.
Especially when a student’s legal guardian shows up looking for the person he’s
responsible for and she’s not there.”

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

Kyle pulled along the side of the
road at the very back of Wellington’s property. I jumped out with my backpack. “Go.”

“Are you sure about this? I don’t
care about getting into a little bit of trouble.”

“I’m fine. Now go.”

I darted toward the shrubbery and
searched for the hole Kyle, Danielle, Briana, and I had carved out when we were
freshman. We thought it would be a brilliant idea to sneak out of Wellington
and go to a party with friends from the public school near Wellington. We’ve
used it a few times since, but the hedges filled back in nicely. Too well,
actually.

I followed the path beside the
overgrown shrubs, and fearing snakes and ticks, I pushed through the dense greenery.

“Ouch.” A branch sliced my shin.
Blood stained the area around a tear in my jeans.

A bird fluttered on a branch in
front of me, mocking me, I was certain. I ducked under a tree limb and faced
yet another obstacle. A tall chain-link fence that appeared electrical.

Fantastic. When did they put this
here? And why?

I looked around for something to
throw at it. That’s what they did in Jurassic Park. Did that only work in the
movies? Bending over, I found a small branch and tossed it at the fence.

Nothing.

Next, I stepped closer. My heart
pumped fast and hard. I raised my hand. Like a cobra poised to attack, I darted
it forward, slapped the metal, and drew back.

Nothing.

Finally, I curled my fingers around
the metal of the fence and counted my blessings that I wasn’t electrocuted. I
leaned my head backwards, studying the height of it, and then I looked down at
the flip-flops on my feet.

This was going to hurt. I massaged
my right shoulder—the one hurt in the car accident last week. The one Jack had mostly
healed. With a deep breath, I climbed.

The climb up wasn’t a problem, but
my stomach churned acid when I looked down to the other side.

I tossed my bag to the ground,
hurled the first leg over the top, then the other.

I moved one foot at a time. A foot
slipped, causing me to grasp tighter with my hands. Halfway down, both feet
slipped, and I was left dangling, the wire cutting into my palms. I started to turn
my head to see how far off the ground I was when two hands eased around my
waist.

My body tensed.

“I’ve got you.” Jack sounded
irritated, just like I imagined my knight in shining armor should. “Let go.”

I did and slid down into his hold.
I turned and threw my arms around his neck. “He knows, Jack. I’m so glad you’re
here.”

“Who knows what? What are you
talking about?” He smoothed out my hair.

“The journals. Kyle knows.” I told
Jack about the texts between Kyle and R.W. It seemed everyone was now looking
for journals I didn’t even know existed until recently. “Do you think my father
was killed because of these journals?”

“I don’t know.”

“Thank you for coming to rescue me,
by the way.”

“Yeah. Speaking of…” His tone
changed from kind to chastising. “You should thank me for not blowing your
cover to the dean and my father.” He removed my arms and stepped back. “There’s
a house arrest cuff with your name on it in Coach Williams’ desk drawer.”

I winced.

“You told me you wouldn’t leave
campus again.”

“No, I didn’t. You asked me not to,
but I never said I wouldn’t. Where were you? I looked for you when I decided to
leave. You were nowhere to be found.”

Jack cocked his head, considered
me. “I told you I’d take you to see you grandmother tomorrow.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie if he
avoided the question all together.

I brushed dirt off my jeans. “Well,
I’m fine. Back safe and sound.” I glanced down at my leg. “Mostly sound.”

“Don’t you get it, Lexi? You’re
reckless. Someone is trying to kill you, and you go off wild and out of
control.”

“Reckless? I am far from reckless.
And I’m completely in control.” I tossed my backpack on my good shoulder and started
walking away. I made it all of five steps before he grabbed my arm and spun me
around. I stared straight into his eyes. They were passionate. Daring and
inviting. All I could see, though, was the image of him bowed at that little
girl’s bedside. My heart shrunk at the thought that I might be capable of
helping that defenseless girl. “Don’t be mad. Please.”

He brushed hair away from my face
and tucked it behind my ear. “What am I going to do with you?” He stood so
close that a light breeze would slam him into me. The intensity of his blue
eyes slowly stripped away the bricks of defense I managed to cement around me.

I slipped my arms around his waist
and leaned my head against his chest. I could feel the muscles in his arms
relax. How could I tell him that I knew why he wanted me, needed my power? If I
didn’t have the power to heal that innocent little girl, would he still love
me? “There’s just so much going on. I miss my dad.” I needed Dad here to guide
me.

I shivered.

“I know you do. I’m sorry.” He
leaned in and kissed my forehead. His lips were soft, his touch gentle.

“I think he was trying to tell me
everything when he was killed. From a young age, he used to talk to me in
riddles. See if I could figure things out. He’d send me coded emails. I’d have
to break the code before I could read them. Sometimes, I’d have to go on a
scavenger hunt across the internet to find out what my Christmas gift was. And
he sent me the most amazing gifts—like these puzzle boxes.” I looked up at Jack
who had gone silent.