Unforgiven (19 page)

I sat up in bed, so drenched in sweat that the sheets were soaked. The room around me was blurry. Blinking a few times did nothing to bring it into focus.

Much to my dismay, no one was sitting at my bedside. The robot had hardly encouraged such attention, but I’d hoped Mitchell wouldn’t leave her unattended. I would have to speak with him about that. And where had David gone? Regretting that I hadn’t witnessed the rest of their conversation, I now had no idea if he’d sent others after Owen. For all I knew, days could have passed.

The room spun as I took my first real steps in weeks. I collapsed a few feet from the door and crawled the rest of the way.

Help.
The word kept repeating over and over in my mind, a constant mantra that kept me moving.

Clawing my way to the door handle, I fumbled clumsily with the lock. Of course the robot had locked it. Why wouldn’t she have? She wasn’t one of the Unseen. She was a danger that had lurked among them.

Finally, the lock released and I tumbled out into the hall, dangling from the door handle. I scanned both directions wildly, not trusting what my eyes saw to be reality. Mitchell’s words echoed in my mind:
They made it very difficult for me to differentiate between the world they’d created and reality. It left me angry sometimes. They’d destroyed the person I was.

Had the Potestas destroyed the person I was? Then I remembered the things I’d done in my grief—the selfish way I’d pursued my own goals and aims. If they had annihilated my past self, was that such a bad thing?

Shaking my head, I tried to focus, but fear suddenly crippled me. What if I were somehow still in Shields’ mind? Could this be one of the Potestas’ games?

“Shields!” I cried out. “You coward! Talk to me!” As I crawled down the hall, my sweaty hand went out from under me and I smacked my face on the ground.

When there was no sign of the voice—no laughter or snide comments—hysteria bubbled up inside me. “Is this your idea of some kind of joke?” I asked, scanning the empty hall. Where was everyone? Was this just another corridor in Shields’ mind? Was I still trapped inside him after all?

“Is this just a new prison you’ve created? Well, bravo.” I rolled over onto my back, but I couldn’t raise my arms to clap like I intended.

Mitchell’s face materialized within my line of site. It was stricken with suspicion, tempered with the tiniest flash of concern. I frowned at him. “You’re an asshole,” I said to the voice.

“I’m not real fond of you right now either,” Mitchell said as he lifted me into his arms, and then everything went dark.

When I woke up, there was a cool cloth on my head. Mitchell leaned against the far wall, while David sat on the edge of my bed.

Mitchell noticed me stirring first, but he just stared at me, saying nothing. I managed to get David’s attention by bumping him with my leg. He was solid. Warm. Real. He turned toward me.

Sitting up too quickly, I threw myself into his arms. He held me as the worst head rush of my life passed over me. “This is real,” I breathed into his chest.

David held me out at arm’s length and searched my eyes. “Of course this is real. What do you mean?”

I leaned back, but nothing was there to support me, and I ended up flouncing back onto the bed. “Where do I start?” I said in a small voice, managing to prop myself up on my elbows. It was all so confusing. Though I wanted to believe this was real—that I’d truly escaped—it was hard to trust that impulse.

“Mitchell,” I whispered. He would be able to tell me if this was real.

David narrowed his eyes. “Mitchell has not exactly been your best advocate lately. I’m surprised you want to talk to him.”

Hope brought a sliver of a smile to my face as my eyes went to Mitchell. He continued to glare at me. “Is that so?”

“He thinks you aren’t to be trusted, that we shouldn’t discuss sensitive matters in front of you. He even went so far as to suggest we expel you from our ranks.” The conflict played out on my father’s face plainly. I could tell he wasn’t willing to expel the daughter he lost twice. But I could also tell he didn’t fully trust me after whatever Mitchell had said to him—it was obvious from his tone of his voice and the way he’d pulled away from our embrace. It was hard to ignore the fact that he was not touching me in any way anymore.

“He’s right. Or at least, he was.” Both men gaped at me. “Please, Mitchell.”

He approached the bed cautiously. “What do you want?”

“Mitchell, what makes a really good ice cream sundae?” I asked, not even trying to hide the desperation in my voice.

He moved closer to me, his suspicion bordering on hostility. “Why should I tell you?”

David interrupted. “You want to talk about ice cream?”

“I could tell you if you asked me,” I begged, ignoring David. This moment had to be real. It just had to be.

He hesitated, either debating his options or my sincerity. And those mere seconds felt like absolute torture. If I were still in Shields’ mind, he’d taken torture to a whole new level, practically erasing the lines between reality and the prison.

After an eternity, Mitchell finally spoke up. “Fine, then. What makes a really good ice cream sundae, Mac?” he asked as he folded his arms over his chest, confident I wouldn’t answer.

“Homemade caramel.”

His arms dropped and his face lit up. His approach was slow and deliberate, but I saw a flicker of hope in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. I imagined the same emotion could be found in my own expression.

“Mac?” he asked as he reached out for me.

“Is this real?” I asked him, tears making it hard to see him, but I refused to blink them away. If I did, he might dissolve into the voice’s laughter.

“It’s real.”

And still the voice didn’t come, and neither did the projection screen. I searched wildly for it in the room, but I came up empty.

“What are you looking for?” David asked.

“The screen. The projection that showed me you.”

“What?” David asked, but Mitchell got quiet, his face turning sad.

“You were in there all along.” Mitchell said it like a statement, not a question.

“Yes.” We sat in knowing silence for a few moments, but then David apparently couldn’t take it anymore.

“Would either of you care to enlighten me on what the hell is going on here?”

After propping a few pillows against the wall behind the bed, I managed to sit all the way up and get myself comfortable. I knew it was going to be a long explanation. Just before I began, a thought occurred to me.

“Where is Owen?”

Their expressions turned sad.

“He’s in the hospital.”

Panic and hope battled for space in my exhausted mind. He was alive, but not well enough to be with me. “How long was I out? I was hoping I’d free myself in time to go to campus and save him.”

“Coda happened two days ago. You have been locked in your room since our last meeting.,” David said with confusion in his voice..

“Just tell me what happened.”

“We didn’t manage to put a stop to Coda. My contact at Homeland Security refused to cancel the event, or even move it to a more secure location, without more evidence. Their initial investigation of Professor Peterson turned up nothing—rightfully so, as it turns out—so they filed it as a false lead.” The scowl on his face did little to hide his frustration.

I tried not to think about his words.
Unsuccessful
. How many lives had been lost?

“As I understand it, the musicians were never told of the danger. The event went on as planned. Over a thousand people were killed.”

Shock and horror washed over me, but then another thought registered. “Wait, only a thousand?” I asked. The Potestas had hoped for a much larger number of casualties.

“It was still a lot of people.” I thought I heard a hint of frustration in David’s voice. “But Owen and a few other rogue members of our group were able to save most of the people who were there. I still don’t have all the details.”

My heart filled with pride for the man I loved—and also broke for those he hadn’t managed to save.

Looking to Mitchell, I asked, “A few others?”

Mitchell nodded. “I was there. But I got out.”

I nodded, knowing what that meant to him—that he’d gotten out while his best friend was hanging on to life by a thread. He wouldn’t see himself as a hero, only the one who’d escaped unscathed.

“Unfortunately, ISIS is being blamed,” David continued. “They are denying involvement, but their word doesn’t go very far. This could lead to war, Mackenzie, and that may be exactly what the Potestas are hoping for. I’m not sure what their ultimate goal is yet.”

The words
the ultimate position of power
played in my head, but before I could get them out, David went on.

“The world is reeling, as you can imagine. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how devastated the music industry is by the loss. Many of the world’s top musicians were lost in the attack. There have been dozens of memorials over the last few days, with more to come, I’m sure.”

I slumped at that information. Some of the world’s best musicians had lost their lives, and for what? Tears flowed silently down my cheeks, and I buried my face in my hands as David rested a hand on my leg.

“Would you like to see Owen?”

My head snapped up. There was nothing I wanted more in the whole world than to see him. Touch him. Kiss him.

“Take me to him, now.”

Mitchell helped me out of bed, and we walked over to the stairwell. But instead of going up, toward the garage, we went down.

“Where are we going?”

“To see Owen,” David said simply, as if the answer should be obvious.

“But, isn’t he in the hospital?”

“He’s in our hospital, on site.”

I should’ve known. Of course we had our own hospital. Too many wounded in public hospitals would raise questions, not to mention it would leave our patients vulnerable and exposed.

Many of the Unseen we passed stared at me with open distrust in their eyes.

There are many partially burned bridges to repair, I see. The robot did well.

David continued with his explanation as we walked.

“Owen…” He trailed off, and I held on to Mitchell desperately, both because I wasn’t sure I could handle hearing about Owen’s injuries and because I needed help navigating the stairs. “Owen is lucky to be alive. Quite frankly, I have no idea how he managed it. We haven’t gotten his side of the story yet. He’s been unconscious since he was found.”

“Found?” I asked. How had he not been reduced to ash by the chemical if he’d still been at Coda when it was released?

“I have my own theories about what happened,” David explained. Mitchell looked down the staircase, listening but not commenting, as was his way.

“Let’s hear it.” My voice broke, betraying me.

“I believe Owen tried to talk to Professor Peterson and remove her from the school, but he was mistaken about her being a threat. I can only assume the… robot… provided her name because she was on your mind. As you know, she was a complete dead end. After that, he and the other Unseen who were with him managed to stop the performances on two of the three stages. They evacuated that part of the campus rather effectively by pulling fire alarms and calling in bomb threats—old school, but effective in a pinch. Owen somehow ended up being locked in a secure location by campus security. I don’t know if he was caught pulling an alarm or what. But I believe they were waiting for the police to come get him when the festival was slated to start. Because of his proximity to the site, he had minimal exposure to Zero. Those in his building have had a forty percent survival rate so far. He’s included in that statistic.”

Forty percent.
It echoed in my mind.
I came so close to losing him.

“Will he wake up?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

“Most likely, yes. He’s in a chemical coma now, while his body heals from the damage.” David paused as he navigated the stairwell.

“Damage?” I asked, picturing him permanently confined to a hospital bed, nothing more than a vegetable for the rest of his life, all because I hadn’t gotten out in time.

“Third-degree burns cover about twenty percent of his body. His neck, left shoulder, and both hands all the way up his arms were severely affected by the chemical. We assume his arms took the brunt of the outer damage because he used them to shield himself. But he also incurred a fair amount of damage to his lungs. The hospital is working hard to repair it, but considering how they’ve never dealt with this chemical before, they’re having a hard time knowing what to do. It’s a trial-and-error process at this point.”

“Will he be functional?”

“Yes,” Mitchell answered firmly without looking at me.

David tried to catch his eye, but Mitchell continued to focus on the stairs.

“The doctors believe he will. He may not run any marathons, but I don’t think he was too fond of running in the first place,” David filled in. “Unless it involved chasing after you.”