Collide (The Solomon Experiments Book 1) Read online

  “We’ll find them,” I say as I attempt to sit, my body wobbling with the effort. My head fills with questions about the attack, my response, how I got into the house—all of it secondary to finding Mom and Dad and removing the anguish in Josh’s voice.

  David steadies me and takes the seat next to me on the couch. I scan the room, noting the dust-free surfaces. The furniture is more modern than I’d expect. Urban, even. Bamboo floors and lightly colored walls give the impression of a classic modern home, not an abandoned farmhouse.

  “Why isn’t there any dust?”

  “What?” Josh turns to face me.

  “The furniture? Why is there no dust on the furniture?”

  David and Josh both look around, seeing the room as I do. Lived in. No dust. No stale odor permeating the air. Someone has been living here. Recently.

  Josh furrows his brow. “David, come on, let’s check things out.”

  “You’re not leaving me!” I scramble to my feet, still steadied by David. Pulling free from him, I head out of the door first.

  The kitchen is as modern as the rest of the house, granite countertops, updated appliances—everything in working condition. I open the refrigerator, expecting it to be stocked.

  Empty. The first, only, sign that no one is here.

  “Are you sure Mom and Dad haven’t been here? Someone has.” I walk to the next room and the next. Everything is the same—clean and well kept. Either this place has great maid service or someone else has been using it.

  We walk back into the kitchen, past the pantry, toward a door that almost appears hidden from view. I look from David to Josh and nod. Josh pulls on the doorknob. The heavy wood creaks its resistance.

  “Help me with this,” he says to David.

  The two of them again pull on the heavy door, forcing its submission. They grunt and strain before the door gives in and opens, releasing a torrent of stale air up from the basement.

  We climb down the steps. My instincts tell me to stop. Go back. I pay no attention and follow Josh and David into a large open space lined with alcoves reminiscent of college dorm rooms.

  “Five beds,” I say as I point to the sleeping quarters within the two rooms. “They were expecting us, I guess. All of us.”

  “Mom?” Josh calls out. No sound returns. “Dad?”

  “Maya?” I yell, knowing no one will respond.

  “They’re not here.” David walks into the farthest room, his eyes wide and a hint of worry in his voice. “I remember this place,” he says with a distant tone.

  “You do?” I ask. I remember it too. I walk into one of the rooms and inhale a sharp breath. Laughter fills my head as distant memories, flashes really, open across my vision. Mari and Maya laugh as we jump on the beds, share secrets, and braid each other’s hair. It’s so normal, so happy. So different from the life I’ve lived since.

  “Yeah. Josh and I slept in this room,” David says pointing to the room opposite mine. “You were in that room. With—”

  “Maya and Mari. I remember,” I say, the images of the girls still fresh in my head. “We came here on breaks from the lab. Lived her over part of a summer.” More flashes of that life bloom through me. “I was happy here.”

  Josh paces the open space, his face contorted with concern. “Come on,” he says without offering more.

  He’s up the stairs and wandering into the back rooms of the house before David and I can reach him.

  “What’s going on?” David asks.

  Josh ignores him as he walks into an office at the back corner of the house. The walls are the same pale yellow as the other rooms. Light streams through leaded glass windows, casting patterned shadows across the wall and floor. The furniture is sparse: A modest desk, two file cabinets in matching cherry wood, and two oversized chairs. Articles and pictures cover the walls, joined together by string in a story web that terrifies me. “X-men: Real or Fiction.” “Man killed by unexplained means.” “Is paranormal activity real?” “Heroes? I think not.” The headlines scream at me, the story of my life, a world I thought only existed in the depths of my dreams, on display.

  “Damn,” David says under his breath, as much taken aback as I am by the scene. “Who did this?”

  “I don’t know,” Josh says.

  “Are we safe here?” I ask. My gifts tell me the place in empty, has been for a while. But the evidence around me screams something else entirely. “Maybe we need to leave.”

  “No,” Josh says before my words fully form. “Mom and Dad said to come here.”

  “And they aren’t here, are they?”

  “They will be. They have to be.” The fear in his voice sends chills down my spine. I’ve never heard that desperate tone before, never known Josh to be afraid.

  My eyes roll back and I scan the house, the cornfields surrounding it, the lake. There is nothing here; no evidence of Mom and Dad, nothing of Maya. No danger of any kind.

  Not yet.

  “Besides, the best chance we have of figuring out what’s happening is here. We stay.” There was no point in arguing, the finality of Josh’s words complete. “Help me look through these files,” he says as he opens the top drawer of the nearest file cabinet.

  Afternoon quickly passes to dusk, as the sky changes from blue to deep hues of crimson and orange, washing the walls in a dusky haze of color. We’ve spent the last several hours poring through every scrap of paper in the office. Nothing new screams up from the pages. Mom and Dad worked for the CIA, scientists for Project Stargate and later, the Solomon experiments, both designed to prove the existence of paranormal abilities and develop their use for the military. Several pictures and newspaper articles chronicle their work, their meetings with White House officials, interviews with hungry journalists. They look so young, wide-eyed and optimistic. The papers called them radical. Crazy, even. The notes from the actual research tell a different story, validating much of their rhetoric.

  The experiments had proven the existence of psychic phenomenon; like I really needed any more proof. My little game with the soap was more than enough to turn me into a believer. What the articles and papers did not disclose is why the experiments ended. One day they existed, and the next—nothing, as though they’d never happened at all. No follow-up reports, no innuendos about a government cover-up. Everything just stopped.

  “There’s nothing here,” David finally says, voicing my thoughts.

  “Keep looking.” Josh starts to go through a large stack on the desk for the fifth time. “We have to find something, anything, to tell us where to look for them.” His desperation is palpable.

  “We’ve gone through everything for the past four hours, Josh. I’m telling you, there’s nothing here. You need to let it go.”

  “No!” He snaps.

  I walk toward him and push aside the papers on the desk. “Stop, Josh. It’s over,” I say, my concern echoed in his eyes. “Wherever they are, we aren’t going to find the answers in these papers.”

  “What about this?”

  We turn to David who’s waving a large plastic bag filled with papers he’d retrieved from the second file cabinet.

  “I found this taped to the top of the drawer. The plastic snagged on the file hangers and loosened enough for me to grab it.” David drops the bag on the desk in front of us.

  I scoop up the bag, ripping through the plastic to get to an old journal.

  “That’s not all,” David says. “I found this, too.” He holds up a micro-recorder. “It was lodged between the file cabinet and the wall, tucked aside like it was pushed or kicked.”

  I snatch the tape and toss it to Josh. “Find something to play this thing,” I say as I return my focus to the old leather-bound journal. I lean on the edge of the desk and carefully open the book, noting every smeared and coffee-stained edge. “Mom’s journal.”

  Josh is too busy looking for something to play the micro tape o to register my words. David isn’t. He stands behind me, reading the stained pages over my shou
lder. My body reacts and a chill spreads across my shoulders.

  “This is her journal? From the experiments?” His warm breath tickles my ear as he leans closer.

  “Yes,” I say. My treacherous voice reacts more than I intend, something not lost on David as he steps even closer.

  David lays his hands on mine and turns the pages. Each page is dated, starting in June of 2002 and ending several months later. Mom chronicles the experiments, picking the subjects, her pride when Josh and I were chosen.

  A few pages into the journal, her tone changes from elation to something else, something darker. I’ve managed to keep their identities hidden from him for now. Kyle plays his part of the farce well, but how long with he continue to believe that I love Kyle and not him. How long until he riddles out the true lineage of his favorite recruits? I feel his connection to them both. Part of him already knows the truth, regardless of what Kyle and I do to hide it from them. I can’t even imagine what would happen if he decided to ask the children themselves—if they understood the truth. The fear laced in Mom’s words is unmistakable. David turns the pages as we read more, riveted by her words . . .

  He thinks the experiments are a success, believes he’s finally found someone who can fulfill his mission. Someone he can train. I shudder when I think of his plans for them, for her. He’ll turn her into a monster, I know it. And she isn’t, no matter what he thinks she’s capable of. I need to get her away while I can. Kyle’s onboard. So is Jason. They both sense the same danger. But our plan . . . it’s risky. I’ve never been one to trust the government to police itself. I have no choice now. I must get the children out. Mine, Jason’s. All of them. Before it’s too late and they’re too far gone to be rehabilitated.

  David turns the page. And another. Nothing but wrinkled coffee-stained pages.

  “Josh,” I say, desperate for more answers. “Did you find a player? Anything?”

  Josh riffles through the desk, opening and closing the drawers with increased vigor. “Hold on,” he says as he continues the search. “Got it!” Josh waves a small micro recorder in his hand, pushing buttons. His smile fades. “Batteries. I need batteries.”

  More drawers and cabinets open and close. Josh leaves the room grumbling to himself. David takes the journal from my shaking hands and carefully places it back into the ripped plastic bag.

  “She’s okay, you know. They both are. I’m sure of it.” His voice holds a promise I won’t—can’t—acknowledge.

  “Don’t say things you can’t be sure of, things that may not be true. I heard the gunshots, her screams. They’re dead.” The detachment in my voice startles even me. “Probably.”

  Before David can respond, Josh runs back into the office. “Guys! Listen.” He pushes the play arrow on the small micro-recorder. Mom’s voice emanates from the small speaker. It fills the room as water overtakes my eyes.

  “Hi Josh and Dakota.” My heart clenches at the sound of Mom’s voice. “If you’re listening to this tape then something bad has happened and the safe house is now compromised.”

  Her voice is strong, confident. She sounds exactly like my mother, not a younger version of her, but the way she sounded at the hospital when she challenged Dr. Donaldson. Or in the car when she ordered me to run the day my world imploded.

  “You have a ton of questions, no doubt, and I want to answer what I can. Help you, if possible. I’m sure you’ve figured out by now about your gifts. I need you to know that neither of you should feel scared or ashamed of them. They are gifts. Things to be explored and celebrated, not feared. Not everyone in the world will agree with me. Many will hunt you because of what you can do. Exploit your talents. I tried to protect you from those people. Sadly, I fear I’ve failed. You are all in grave danger if I did.

  “The experiments I allowed you to be part of were only supposed to train your abilities, bring them under your control. They were not supposed to be dangerous in any way. I wanted you to become comfortable with all you could do or be, avoid the fears I lived with in my youth. I wanted all of the recruits to feel such confidence. But there were others with different agendas. They saw your gifts as a source of power to be controlled. They sought to turn you into soldiers, to destroy the beauty of your precious abilities and train you into monsters. They wanted assassins.

  “I refused to let that happen to any of you. So I did . . . we did . . . things, desperate things, to keep you safe. Your memories, your life, everything you believed to be true—we changed it all. I needed to make sure they’d never find you. I had to ensure that he couldn’t find you again, that your own dreams and thoughts wouldn’t lead him to you. I wanted us to start over, without your gifts and without the threat of violence for which you were all so well trained.

  “Outrunning your destiny, if it is even possible, comes with a hefty price. I’m afraid the debt of our decisions so many years ago is now due. The people coming for you will stop at nothing to reclaim their property, to bring all of you back under their control. They will hunt you until you are forced to join them. Or, you’re dead.

  “Don’t be persuaded by them or the lives they promise for you. Don’t let them get you and take away everything that you are, everything that you can be. I love you both very much. I don’t regret any part of my life with you, other than the lies I was forced to tell—the lies I had to believe in order to keep you safe.

  “No matter what happens, please remember this:

  “You weren’t born killers. You can choose not to be killers now.

  “I hope that you can all forgive me—”

  Mom’s voice is cut off mid-sentence. I stare at the micro recorder unable to move. Tears, hot and angry, spill from my eyes.

  “We can’t stay here.” Josh speaks first as he quickly shoves the recorder, the journal and some other files into his backpack. “We have to go. They’re probably watching the place.”

  “W-what? Who?” My brain refuses to process the events.

  “Come on,” Josh urges. “We’ll find a motel or something and stake out the house until someone comes back.” Josh grabs my arm and pulls me out as David follows. “Then we’ll follow them to Mom and Dad.”

  “Good plan,” David says, closing the door to the office behind us.

  “That’s not a plan. Were we listening to the same tape?”

  “I’m not arguing with you about this. We’re finding a place to stay and staking out the house. Period.”

  I want to scream my protests, force Josh to admit what I already know. Numbness prevents any action, so I follow Josh and David to the car, mute.

  You aren’t killers. Mom’s voice circles in my thoughts. Her words confirm every fear and acknowledge the truth I’ve been running from . . .

  I am a killer.

  The worst kind.

  Night falls by the time we are checked into the motel in Union Springs, a few miles up the road from the house. Josh gets two rooms for us and orders pizza. The air is unusually cold, reflecting the chill in my mood. Goosebumps cascade over my skin with each passing breeze, causing a slight shudder. David opens the door to my room and tosses my backpack on the bed. He sets the key on the dresser before opening the adjoining room for Josh. He places his hand on the small of my back and moves me into the room. I collapse in the closest chair, still unable to speak.

  “You should eat,” David says, nudging a piece of pizza in my direction.

  I say nothing, looking ahead, my sight, blurred.

  “Dakota.” Josh assumes his familiar brotherly tone. “You haven’t said anything since we left the safe house.”

  Silent tension builds between us.

  “Say something.” Josh reaches for my hand and I pull away, turning my back to them both.

  “None of this is our fault,” David says. “This isn’t your fault.”

  Yeah, right.

  “At least eat something.” Josh shoves the pizza box in front of me. My traitorous stomach growls as my focus shifts from mindless oblivion to my hunger. />
  “Fine,” I mumble, grabbing a piece and shoving it into my mouth.

  Satisfied that I’m at least fed, the boys go back to talking about the journal and the tape. Josh has listened to the tape three more times since leaving the house. David’s read and reread every page of the journal.

  “I’m certain the house is being watched,” Josh says between bites.

  “Then they know we’ve been there.”

  “Maybe, but I doubt they know about the journal or the tape. They would have taken them if they’d found them first.”

  David nods and inhales more food.

  “Do you think they took Maya?” Even as I ask the question I know the answer—Maya’s fate is tied with mine. I just don’t know why. Or how.

  “Probably. We didn’t find her body. There’s nothing in the news about her death.” Josh stares through me and I can almost hear the gears in his brain shifting. If anyone can figure out what’s really happening here, it’s Josh.

  “Why would they take her but kill Mari? I don’t remember Maya being any stronger than Mari” David chews his lip, clearly struggling with his thoughts. “Why would they want any of us?”

  “They want our power,” I say. “They’re gonna kill us, too.” My voice trails off as I take another bite of pizza. “Kill us or enlist us as assassins again.”

  “You don’t know that we were ever actually used that way.” David’s voice is low, soothing.

  “Don’t I?” I think of the dreams, the fragments of death and murder ever present in my thoughts. I reflect on the memories of hurting Josh and David. “I can’t speak for the two of you, but I am positive I was trained to kill. Certain.”

  An awkward silence fills the space of my words as I wrestle with the knowledge that there is no happy ending to any of this. My mind again detaches and separates from the overwhelming emotions that bubble to the surface. I shift my gaze between the boys, paying little attention to the new conversation. Mom messed with our memories, uprooted our lives, and who knows what else. She did it to keep us safe, she’d said.