Supernormal (22 page)

“Christ, Cole,” Brody muttered.

“Just taking the opportunity to have a conversation,” the director said.

“While you’re at it, maybe we could give each other manicures and braid each other’s hair?”

“I simply want to take the opportunity to assess for myself how Miss Garrett is doing.”  The director crossed his legs and folded his hands on his lap.  “I haven’t had the chance to speak with you since you were initially placed with the Lieutenant,” Director Cole continued, turning that slightly smiling mask back to her.  “I only have Brody and Dr. MacNamara’s reports to assure me that your situation was improving.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Ashley said.  “I’m better.”  She thought she was better.  It had been easier lately, with Cam.  With Cam everything was easier.  She looked down at her lap, where her hands had clenched themselves into fists, so tight her nails were cutting into the palms.  She got them to open.  The red half-crescents faded away, and she wiped the blood off on her shorts.

“I’m very glad to hear it,” Cole said.

“Bullshit,” Brody put in.

“I was disappointed to hear that you had chosen not to return to our program.  Naturally,” the director went on.  “Knowing what I do, however, I cannot say that I am greatly surprised.  Not that we expected you back any time soon.  In fact, before Mr. Brody informed us that you had decided to continue residing in Sugar Beach permanently, we were seriously debating the merits of Dr. MacNamara’s latest recommendation.”

Ashley felt herself frown.  She glanced at Brody.  “Recommendation?”

“She thought it’d be better if you stuck around for a bit,” Brody said.

“Her last report was quite insistent, as a matter of fact, that if we decided to continue with the project, we should extend your stay for ‘at
least’
another eighteen months,” Cole said.

Ashley had to work past her tight throat.  “Dr. Mac…wanted me to stay?”

“Yes.  She was very vocal on the subject.  Dr. Proom objected, of course.  He thought her recommendation excessive.  We had words over it.  Quite a number of them.”

“But…”  Something uncurled in Ashley’s chest.  Something tight and tense and a little sad.  “She works with you.  For you.  She’s supposed to patch me up so I could go back.”  And,
god,
she hated how her voice broke on the last word.

“Her object was only ever to help you, Ashley,” Director Cole said.  “To deal with some of what was done to you.”  He met her eyes and didn’t blink.  “What we did to you.”

Ashley squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head against this, against the pressure building in her chest.  She latched onto the one thing she could process safely.  “‘If.’  You said ‘if’ you decided to continue the project.”

“There had been some discussion about the viability of the program, even before Mr. Brody informed us you would not be returning.  There was concern that the cost was too high.”

“You lost a lot of money on us,” Ashley agreed.

Agent Phillips spoke.  “Fourteen children died.”

“Because of what we did to them,” Director Cole said.  “It was not the result we were looking for.  Nor was it one we were comfortable with.”

“Fifteen,” Ashley said.  “If you had to kill me, too.”

Agent Phillips’s mouth twisted, but Cole said, “Yes.”

“But that’s not going to happen,” Brody said.

“It does not appear to be necessary,” Cole concurred.  “At this time.  Besides,” he remarked as the plane begin to dip, “we have more pressing concerns to address.”

He glanced out the window.  The sky was gray and clouded, but far below she could see the ground stretch out, bleak and white.  “Not long now,” the director said.

Good, Ashley thought.  Her friends were waiting.             

Ch. 25

Cam remembered.

When he was eight.  On vacation in St. Bart’s.  His mother had smiled then.  Naomi was six.  Five.  Six.  Cam had begged for a wind-surfing lesson, begged and begged, and for once his father had given in.  His mother and Naomi played in the bright sand while Cam and his father waded out into the water where the instructor showed them, mostly, how to fall off the board.  The water wasn’t that deep.  His father had held his arm, and Cam hadn’t thought they were that deep. 

And then Cam had scrambled up on the board when his father was distracted, put a foot wrong—his vision had been bothering him even then, but it would be two years until he understood why—and the waves slammed into him and he fell.  The waves pushed him under the water, and he hadn’t been able to get up. 

Cam remembered.

Fiercely, vividly, even now, he remembered fighting to claw his way to the surface, kicking out for a sandy bottom that wasn’t there, lungs screaming as his head broke through the waves, gasping for a relief that never came because the moment he pushed through one wave, there was another, forcing him back down, forcing his head under the water, until he choked on it.  He remembered, even now, the sheer, bewildering panic.  The feeling of being overwhelmed, of being completely, staggeringly helpless.  He remembered the elastic endlessness of that moment, stretching on forever.

Cam had been living that moment for…ever now.  The panic, the desperation.  The sense of reason, sanity, just outside his grasp—there, and waiting, but his head was forced under over and over again before he could reach.  It was a struggle to hold onto anything,
one
thing, when the tidal wave of everything was crashing down on him.  Every person, every possibility, every moment that could or might.  The levee had been broken, and the current was strong.

He thought he’d stopped screaming.  His throat was raw, but that could be because he’d thrown up twice.

Cam lived in the memory, and for it.  For the brief moments when his brain snapped into focus and honed in on the past with a wonderful, wonderfully quiet kind of tunnel vision.

Except that day had ended with a hand on his arm and his dad had lifted him bodily out of the water, and slapped Cam on the back as he’d coughed up the water out of his lungs, and then his dad—who didn’t touch anyone if he could help it, who barely spoke to Cam then, who didn’t speak to him at all now—his dad had hauled Cam in for a hug, so hard, so tight that Cam, still trembling inside with the aftershocks of terror, had known he was safe.  Cam hadn’t cried, because even then he’d known that Scotts didn’t cry.  But he’d held on.

Cam tried to hold on now as the next wave of vision threatened to drown him.  It was the last time he could remember his father hugging him.  There had to be other times, he felt this, because he hadn’t realized what was going on with his head until a couple of years later.  Though once he had, he’d more or less told his parents right away, probably because some stupid, childish part of him remembered that hug.

He shouldn’t have.  He should have remembered being alone, and choking for air.  He should have remembered the water.

After the plane, there was a helipad, and a helicopter.  Ashley paused as she stepped out of the plane, as the cold hit her, and the wind that was more ice than air sliced into her, and the scent of the evergreens.  Close now.  Ashley could smell it.  The smell of the ground, and the trees, and the sharp, cold air.  It wasn’t the same, but it was close.  It was so close.

“He’ll hear us coming in on a helicopter,” Brody said to Cole.

The director nodded.  “And he’ll see you driving in, in a car.  He has cameras on the outside of the building, and there’s a half-mile of open space between the building and the tree line.  I supposed you could always stroll on over and hope Dr. Proom takes you for a simple mountain man out for his morning constitutional.”

Brody’s mouth pressed together in a thin, tight line.  Then he let out a hard breath and rolled his eyes.  Director Cole seemed to take this as a sign to continue.  “A helicopter is fast, and our goal here is speed, not subtlety.  We are not interested in keeping Dr. Proom in happy ignorance.  In fact, I would consider it a personal favor if you let Zachary know I am considerably displeased with his behavior.”

“I’ll make sure to give him a time-out.”  Brody cocked an eyebrow.  “Thought you liked to express your displeasure yourself.”

“I do.  But I thought you might enjoy warming up the crowd, as it were.  Just this once,” Cole added, shifting his smile to Ashley.

Brody eyed the director, then, setting his shoulders, waved Ashley over to where someone had neatly stacked supplies.  She jogged over, the ground hard and brittle underfoot, and was surprised when he dug up a Kevlar vest.  “I don’t need that.”

Brody yanked it over her head.  “I say you do.  Hold still.”  He circled, tugging at the straps until it was plastered against her like a second skin.  “Proom’s men will have guns.  And they won’t be fucking around.”

There was the tear of Velcro.  A little ways away, Agent Phillips was carefully adjusting his own vest.  He had taken off his jacket, in spite of the cold, but had left his tie.  He very pointedly did not look over at them.

Ashley turned her attention back to Brody.  “Neither will I.  I don’t need it.”

“Yeah, well, this isn’t about what you need, Ash.  It’s about what I need, and what I
don’t
need is to see you in the hospital—again—with more holes in you.”  Brody gave it one last tug into place and stepped back.  “How does it feel?”

Ashley shifted, twisted, stretched out her arms.  “I can’t move in this thing.”

“Too damn bad.”

“I need to be able to move.”

“You’re wearing the fucking vest, Ashley, or else you’re not coming along, and that’s a damn order.”

Ashley bit back the automatic
I don’t take orders from you
, because that wasn’t her thinking, that was her just reacting.  And she could
think
.  She would take orders from Brody, because she trusted him.

So she said, “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t suppose you want a weapon.”

She shook her head.  “I can smell them.”

Brody raised an eyebrow, and she nodded northeast.  He turned to stare in that direction.  “How far?”

“Not that far.”

“Okay, then.”  He turned back to her.  “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

The helicopter ride was short.  It was a large helicopter, with open sides, and the wind had turned bitter as they cut through the arctic blue of the sky.  Ashley could see the tall, dark evergreens stretched out below her and, farther in the distance, mountains.

She could see the facility.

It looked a little odd, with its long, clean lines, but only because of where it was, set in the hollow of a small clearing.  It could have been any other building in any other place.  But it was hers.  It was cut out of the frozen ground like a dagger, sleek and silver against the icy sky.

Ashley heard the shout over the headphones.  Snow was on the horizon.  A lot of it.  The helicopter would have to drop low enough so that they could rappel onto the roof, and then they’d be on their own.

She caught the pilot’s reflection in the windshield as he said it. 
On your own
.  She saw the grim, apologetic look.  Ashley glanced around the helicopter, at Agent Phillips’s silent, determined expression.  At Brody, right next to her, watching the facility grow closer, his mouth pressed into a thin, unsmiling line.

I know what it’s like to be on your own, Ashley thought, still looking at Brody.  This wasn’t it.  And the realization that she wasn’t on her own—that she hadn’t been for a long time—that she wouldn’t ever been again—cut through the numbness she had built around herself like armor in one brutal stroke.

Ashley had to cling to her seat to steady herself.  She couldn’t fall apart.  Not now.

The helicopter came to hover over the roof of the building.  “There’s no way he doesn’t know we’re here!” Brody hollered over the beat of the helicopter blades.  “We have to move fast.”

Phillips was already clipping a rappelling rope onto his harness.  He caught her eye and swung over to her.  “Do you need help, miss?  With your harness?”

“No,” Ashley said.  “Thank you.”

Brody clapped a hand on her shoulder.  He hadn’t bothered with a harness either.  “Me, you, Phillips.  Got it?”

“Got it,” Ashley said.

He grinned at her.  “Ready kid?”

Ashley took a breath, in, then out.  She nodded.

“You look ready.”  He squeezed her shoulder, then stepped out into the open air—

—and landed.  Snow billowed up under the impact.  He stood, rolling out his shoulders.

A door at the far end of the roof burst open.  Underneath the beat of the helicopter blades, Ashley could hear an alarm blaring as guards rushed out—two, no, three of them—and she could see a red light flashing inside before the door slammed back into place.  Somebody had activated lockdown, then.

Agent Phillips tossed out a length of black rope.  It raced down towards the roof and danced as the helicopter bucked against a rush of wind.  He clipped himself in place and nodded to her.  “Ready?”

Ashley jumped.

There was snow starting to fall as Ashley hit the roof.  She tried to roll, mostly managed it, and felt the impact shudder through her.  She stood, quickly, braced for—Brody, pulling the unconscious guards off to the side. 

Because she didn’t want to, because there was a voice inside her screaming for her to walk away and leave them, unconscious and bleeding in the snow, Ashley forced herself to go over to them, help Brody check their pulses and their pupils, and drag them into a comfortable position, secure their hands behind their backs with the restraints clipped to their belts.  “Didn’t want to wait for us?” she asked casually.  Trying to sound casual.

Brody shrugged.  “You were taking your sweet time about it.”

“You didn’t kill them,” she said.

“No, Ash.”

She looked up at him.  “I won’t.  I’m not going to kill anyone.”

“I know.”

No, but she needed to say it.  “I’ll hurt them, but I won’t kill them.  I promise.”

He smiled at her, but his eyes were serious.  “I know, Ash.”

Agent Phillips was inspecting the access door.  “Reinforced steel. 
And
there’s a retinal scanner.”

Brody pulled a knife out of his pocket and flicked it open.

“Lieutenant—”

He didn’t stop at Phillips’ objection, but he did when Ashley put a hand on his arm.  “I didn’t promise not to hurt anyone,” Brody told her.

“It won’t be necessary, Lieutenant,” Agent Phillips said in a slightly louder voice.  He was rolling up his shirt sleeves, and Ashley caught sight of something…silver.  It glinted in the muted light; it looked almost like a computer panel, melded into his arm so well it wasn’t clear if it was more arm or circuits.  Agent Phillips pressed his fingertips against the door’s lock and tapped the circuits in his arm with his free hand.

“I don’t remember them offering us that upgrade,” Brody remarked.

“It’s new,” Phillips said, his fingers working fast.  “I’m also a wifi hotspot, in case you’d like to check your email.”

“Proom did that to you?” Ashley asked quietly.

Agent Phillips glanced over at her.  “No.  This was—in house.  I volunteered, Miss Garrett,” he added.  “I am an adult, and I understood exactly what I was signing up for.  And the director stopped when I told him to.  And…”

There was a buzz, a click, and the door drifted open like a white flag.

Phillips smiled.  “It does come in useful.”

Ashley nodded.  She went to the open door, and stepped inside.

Inside, an alarm was screaming.  Ashley winced at it, the sound battering into her.  She could feel the vibrations of it coming through the floor, and red alert lights were painting bloody flashes against the walls.  The white walls, just as she remembered.  Just as she knew would be there.  And the smell of antiseptic and bleach and machines and rubber gloves; it swam in her head and threatened to choke her.  Just the same.  Just the same—they hadn’t stopped, they had to be stopped—she couldn’t breathe.  Her heart climbed into her throat and threatened to choke her.

She felt Brody’s hand on her arm and shook her head.  She could breathe.  She could focus.  She knew why she was here.  And she could smell…Ian.  And Liz.  And others.  The scent of them hung like ghosts in the recycled air.

And through it all was the smell of mint, and sawdust, and the cool, clear scent of
Cam
.  The scent that had come to mean safety and comfort and the warmth of his skin.  It filled every breath until it soaked through the fear and the fog.  She could think—she was in control—and she could smell Cam.  The beautiful blue ribbon of it twisted through the air, and showed her the way.