More Than Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #2) (38 page)

I couldn’t believe it. And yet, it made sense. Murphy showed up in the hospital after Teddy had. The device he’d been carrying that I thought had been a recorder looked like the ones Demakis and his team used when they tried to capture us. They’d been following him all along. “It was his fault,” I whispered, finally putting all the pieces together. “I thought you’d found him because of me, but all along you were only there looking for him. He led you to me.”

“He’s led us to them all, Miss Baker. That mind of his is simply amazing.”

“No! Teddy wouldn’t do that!”

Boss Man’s smile filled with pity and he turned to his left. “Come say hello, 4281. I believe Miss Baker is having a hard time accepting the truth.”

Teddy shuffled into view, head hanging low. Boss Man slung an arm around Teddy’s shoulder. Teddy flinched slightly, but didn’t pull away from him.

“Teddy? What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be back at The Lair!”

Teddy met my eyes with a guilty expression.

“But!” I was still in denial. “But you helped me escape them! You kept me hidden!”

I was staring at Teddy, but it was Boss Man who sighed. “Yes, when 4281 discovered you, he ran. I believe he didn’t want to share you with us. It took us months to decrypt his files and figure out where he’d gone.”

“Then what is he doing here now? How did you find him?”

That made the man laugh. “We didn’t have to. He came to us.”

“What?” I felt sick.

“The prodigal son has returned, and we’ve welcomed him with open arms. He brought you to us too, Miss Baker. He said he could get you here with one phone call and, well, here you are. He was the one who suggested simply waiting for you to walk into this room. He knew you would come and he told us to be ready.”

“But—” I was trying to stay in denial, but the betrayal was finally sinking in. “You went through all that trouble to hide us!” I yelled at Teddy. “You built The Lair! You’ve been lying to me, stringing me along about Visticorp for a month! You didn’t want me to know where they were! You didn’t want to come back! Why would you bring me here now?”

The guilt left Teddy’s face. His eyes blazed with hurt and anger. “Because you chose him!” he shouted. “No matter what I did, you still chose your precious Ryan!”

My jaw hit the floor. “You turned us in because of
Ryan
?”

“I did it for us! You couldn’t let him go! But, Jamie, I can’t let
you
go.” His eyes cut to the man still draping an arm over his shoulder. “Donovan promised me that if I came back and brought you with me that we wouldn’t be separated.”

“I’ll keep my word, 4281,” the man assured him. “The two of you can be together.”

I stood there with my mouth hanging open. I had no idea what to say. Teddy shrugged at me. “We may not be entirely free here, but at least we’ll finally be free of
him
.”

When the full realization of what had just happened hit me, I lost it. I unleashed an entire electrical storm, but the walls in my cell held out. I pounded again and again on the window, but it was over a foot thick and didn’t even crack. I couldn’t do anything.

“I hate you!” I screamed.

Everyone on the other side of the window except Teddy laughed. Boss Man, who was apparently billionaire philanthropist James Donovan—though, I had my doubts about the philanthropist part—patted Teddy on the shoulder. “You sure you want her? Looks like it might be a bumpy road for you two.”

“She doesn’t hate me,” Teddy insisted. “She’s mad right now, but she’ll get over it.”

His confidence pissed me off like he’d never pissed me off before. “I will not get over it! If you couldn’t win me over before, what makes you think I’ll ever like you now? I left Ryan stranded on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon! He’s in the middle of nowhere with no way to get back! We left a note saying he was with me! No one will even look for him! He’ll die out there, thanks to you!”

“Oh, please,” Teddy scoffed bitterly. “He’s
Ryan Miller
. He’ll probably walk two hundred miles back and just look better for the exercise. He’ll probably get a movie deal out of it.”

“That is
not
funny! He’ll die out there, Teddy! At least call his parents and tell them where to look for him.”

Teddy crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “Fine. I’ll make a call. I’ll save your stupid boyfriend’s life…if you agree to be my girlfriend.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re stuck in here together now anyway, and I know you don’t really hate me, so you may as well.”

I was so mad now that my electricity was visibly crackling along my skin. I ignored Donovan’s awed gasps and kept my glowing eyes pinned on Teddy. “You’ll do it,” I warned, “or I will kill you the first time you try to get near me.”

Teddy rolled his eyes at my threat. “Even if you wanted to, you wouldn’t.” He smiled and his voice softened. “You’re too soft, Angel.”

“That’s it,” I muttered. “I am so done with this.”

I couldn’t break out of the room, but I could still feel the energy around me. I couldn’t attack the walls of my cell with lightning, but I was pretty sure I could still control the power on the other side of them.

“What are you thinking, kid?” Carter asked. “I’ve seen that look in your eyes before.”

I was thinking that I had to do something.

“Sorry, Carter,” I whispered, “but I will not spend the rest of my life in this cage, and I most certainly will not let these guys keep experimenting on people. If I have to take this place down with us inside it, so be it.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Carter said, but he sounded resigned. “It’s been, well, not a pleasure knowing you, but it’s definitely been interesting.”

I cracked a smile at him. “Deny it all you want, but I know you like me.”

Carter smiled. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

I snorted and closed my eyes. I reached out to the energy around me and shivered. That big old reactor in the control room was such an amazing source of power. I’d never felt anything like it.

“Jamie?” Teddy asked warily when my hair began to whip around my head. “Come on, don’t try anything stupid.”

“This coming from the King of Stupid,” I muttered.

Teddy sighed. “Look, if you’ll just behave, it won’t be so bad here. Please?”

“Have you ever known me to behave?”

“What do you think you’ll accomplish in there, Miss Baker?” Donovan asked curiously.

“I’m not trying to do anything
in here
,” I said. “It’s what I can do out there. That pretty little generator in your control room’s not nuclear, is it?”

“Cold fusion, actually,” Donovan boasted.

“That’s not supposed to exist.”

“Neither are superhuman abilities, Miss Baker.”

“Very true. So, is cold fusion radioactive?”

“Not in the sense you’re thinking.” Donovan paused. “Why?”

I shrugged. “Lots of innocent people in Las Vegas. Don’t think they’d appreciate nuclear fallout. Are you ready to meet your Maker, Mr. Donovan? My conscience is clear.”

“Jamie?” Teddy asked again. His worry had escalated to fear.

By now, I had so much energy inside me I was shaking. Donovan’s eyes sharpened on me. I smiled at him, even though I was terrified on the inside. I didn’t want to die, but I had to stop him and I didn’t see any other way.

“Last chance to let me go.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Fine.”

With a sigh, I began redirecting all the energy I had in me straight back at Donovan’s cold fusion reactor. Not that anyone could tell what was going on besides me, but almost immediately alarms began sounding throughout the building.

“What are you doing?” Demakis shouted.

“Hopefully, causing a meltdown.”

“Jamie, what are you doing?” Teddy gasped when the walls began to shake around us. “You’ll bury us all!”

I ignored him and thought of Ryan. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid to leave him there. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that I’d get caught. So much for being a superhero. All I did was get the people closest to me killed. Maybe, I thought as the men outside the window began scrambling in panic, I deserved to go down with this ship. Maybe the world was better off without me. At least I’d helped the others escape first. It hadn’t been a complete waste.

“She’s not going to stop!” Demakis shouted. “I told you she was unstable! The freak is going to kill us all!”

“Get in there and stop her!” Donovan barked. “Tranq her! She can’t bring the place down if she’s unconscious!”

“She’s too powerful!” Reynolds argued. “We need to terminate her!”

“No!” Teddy shouted. “You can’t kill her! We’ll move her somewhere else. Outside the mountain. I’ll find a way to develop something that breaks her connection to the electricity.”

“I want her alive!” Donovan said. “She’s the first subject ever to have been created instead of born. She’s the key to everything we’ve been trying to accomplish!”

“She’s too fast. The second that door is open, she’ll be gone.”

A spark of hope burst through my heart. “Demakis is right,” I whispered to Carter. “I only need them to open the door. Give me your hand.”

Carter gave me a skeptical look. “You’re going to drag me out of here at superspeed?”

I blinked in surprise. Was it possible there was something about me Carter didn’t know? Well, he was going to like this. Assuming I got it right, anyway. I’d been practicing with Teddy over the last month, but I was still unpredictable at transferring my power.

My power responds to my desires on a subconscious level. The problem was I’d been too defensive for too long, so my power almost always responded in a defensive way. Right now, while I was in total crisis mode, Carter’s odds weren’t looking too good—but I had to try.

“Not exactly. Give me your hand!”

Carter frowned, but warily held out his hand. I took it and tried to concentrate. I told myself not to hurt him, to help him and give him my power, but the instant I pushed the energy away from me to him, he ripped his hand away and cursed up a storm.

“Why are you zapping me?” he asked, his voice actually sounding a little betrayed.

“I wasn’t
trying
to. I’m sort of under a lot of stress at the moment!”

Outside, I heard Donovan ask what I was doing.

“She’s trying to give him her power,” Teddy explained.

“She’s
what
?”

“Jamie can share her energy with people and it temporarily gives them her powers. She’s done it to me a few times. It’s amazing.”

Donovan gasped and stared at me with a new animalistic gleam in his crazed eyes. He wanted my power. He looked like he could practically taste it. Great.

“Geez, Teddy! Why don’t you just tell him all of my secrets you stupid, lying, betraying jerk!”

“Can you really do that?” Carter asked.

“Yes, but it usually only works when I kiss someone, which I am
so
not doing. I’ll take you with me to hell before I make out with you, Carter.”

“Likewise,” Carter said dryly.

With that, I got mad and sent another wave of energy through the building. The whole place shook again, and in the distance a number of small explosions rocked the complex.

“Forget the freak, boss. This place is going to blow,” Demakis said, tugging Donovan’s sleeve. “That much power is better off destroyed, anyway.”

“Jamie!” Teddy shouted, banging desperately on the glass. “Why are you doing this? Just stop! Please! Before you get yourself killed!”

“Screw you, Teddy!” I trained my glare on Demakis. “If I have to go down, I’m taking you all with me!”

Another explosion shook the building, one I hadn’t caused. I’d done enough damage that the place was starting to destruct on its own now.

Frantic shouts came out of a radio Demakis held, informing them that the fusion reactor was melting down and there was no stopping it now. Everyone was evacuating and they strongly suggested Donovan do the same.

“We need to go, boss,” Demakis said. “We have ten minutes tops before this whole place goes up like Hiroshima.”

“Not without the girl.” Donovan looked at me again. I didn’t know what he suddenly had to smile about, but he certainly looked pleased with himself about something. I saw him pull a small black box from his inside breast pocket. I barely had time to curse before I dropped to the ground.

Apparently, Donovan had an upgraded model of his supersonic torture device. It hurt so much worse than the first one had. It felt like the sound waves were shaking apart my brain.

Carter stood over me, shaking me out of concern. He didn’t know what was going on. He was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. It took everything in me to keep my thoughts focused. Any second now, they were going to open that cell door and shoot me with very powerful tranquilizers.