“Jonas said you know that Addison is close by,” Lexi said.
Bree flicked a piece of lint off her black sweater, then refolded her arms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut the shit, Bree.” Lexi threw her arms out to the sides and let them slam against her thighs. “What is wrong with you?”
I crossed my legs at the ankles and settled further into my spot on the bed to enjoy the show. Lexi was the only person I knew—besides myself on a good day, maybe—who could go toe to toe with Bree and remain standing after.
“What is wrong with me? What is wrong with the lot of you? You think you can show up in Portland and I’ll just automatically want to get involved with whatever clone crisis of the day you’ve got going? Well, here’s a news flash: I have my own problems.”
“Oh yeah? And what about Addison? You don’t care that she’s bouncing around Portland, playing the disappearing act? None of us knows what she’s capable of.” Lexi mirrored Bree’s crossed arms and jutted out a hip. Bree gnawed on her lower lip and lifted her brows, but said nothing in response. They were in a staring war. One, two, three beats passed.
“Is this how they always are?” Raven asked.
“This is nothing,” Kyle answered. He’d known Lexi and Bree for more than six years while they were each other’s arch nemeses at Wellington Boarding School. “I’ve seen these two go at it in the swimming pool and nearly drown each other over who’s going to bring up the rear of a relay.”
“All right, that’s enough.” Jack grabbed Lexi by the elbow and pulled her back. “Let’s just agree that we did pop up in Portland with no warning.”
“Thank you, Jack,” Bree said. “A little warning would have been nice.”
“Would you have answered my call, if I had called to tell you I was here?” I asked. She and I already knew the answer to that, because she’d been ignoring my calls ever since she’d left the island.
“I answered Lexi’s call two nights ago,” she said, as if that were answer enough. “That’s how I knew about Raven.” She turned to our newest friend. “So, how is it you can’t track down this group of clones? I thought that was your ‘special power.’”
Raven shifted beside Kyle, whose brows tilted inward as he evil-eyed Bree. “I don’t know why I can’t pinpoint their exact location. I only can sense that they’re near. And that there are many of them.”
Bree squinted her eyes as if trying to figure out whether Raven was to be trusted. After a few more beats she said, “Well, I’m sorry that this is our first meeting. I promise I’m not usually like this.”
“Yes, she is,” Lexi, Jack, and Kyle all said at the same time.
I chuckled. Bree backed up a step, and for the briefest of seconds looked like a cornered runaway puppy. Two vertical lines formed between her eyes, and she honestly appeared hurt. But that quickly disappeared, and she rotated her shoulders back like she was preparing for round two of a verbal assault.
I pushed myself off the bed. “Look, we’re not going to solve anything tonight. Fortunately, thanks to a little creative persuasion with the motel clerk, Jack and I used Lexi’s money to get a couple more rooms next to this one. Let’s get some sleep and meet up for breakfast in the morning.” I guided everyone but Bree toward the door.
If you think you’re staying in this room with me, you’ve lost your mind, Bree mindspoke behind me.
I closed the door when everyone was out. Without turning to look at what I suspected would be a cold, hard expression, I said, “I don’t have to stay here, but you and I need to clear the air. And I’m not leaving until we do. That can be in an hour, sometime in the middle of the night, or tomorrow.” I faced her. Her hair had mostly air-dried and was drawn up in tight curls. More importantly, the barrier she’d erected between us appeared unbreakable. “I’m sorry I snuck up on you tonight.”
“No you’re not.”
“You’re right. I’m not. I knew you’d disguise yourself if you knew I was close. And you would have run. I just don’t understand why.”
“So, you want to clear the air? Well… then, clear it.” She started digging through her bag, then threw a T-shirt and silky pants on the bed, which I assumed were for her to sleep in, and I lost all concentration.
As she dug further in her bag, I stepped closer and placed a hand over both of hers, stopping her search. “Talk to me, Bree. Why did you leave without saying goodbye?”
“My plane was there, and I knew you’d be tied up with healing the two clones.” She met my gaze. “Are they okay?”
The sincere concern in her eyes for the two young clones threw me off a bit. It’s not that I was surprised that she would care for the two boys, it was what the little Addison-clone had said: that Bree had acted weird when she saw Tane. That she’d called him by the name Boone.
“I’m sorry I didn’t let you examine Tamati sooner. I had no idea you’d learned more of your own special skills.” Seth hadn’t bothered to tell me that Bree was discovering her own abilities.
Her face hardened, and she pulled her hand from mine. “No, you didn’t. But what’s done is done. Now, is that all?” The coldness had returned to her voice.
I backed up and leaned against the dresser. “No, as a matter of fact, that’s not all.” I had to keep her talking. “What’s in Portland? Besides this Vance person.”
Her lips lifted. “And you’re not jealous?”
“If it makes you feel superior to think of me as jealous, so be it. But I’d like to know why you were with some jerk who couldn’t keep his hands off you and talked to you like you were his little pet. Not to mention he tried to drug you.”
Her expression faltered a bit. She knew I was right. I didn’t need to read her mind to recognize that.
“Vance is Vice President of Operations of my dad’s company.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “You’re in Portland to see your dad?” Bree had never spoken of her father before.
She looked away, went back to digging through her bag. “Yes. I wasn’t going to see him or my mom this summer, but Dad’s been pressuring me to come home. He wants me to go to school here in Portland. And to work for him. Thinks I’m without direction.” She put air quotes around “without direction,” as if her father had berated her with the phrase many times.
“If you’re in Portland to see your parents, why are you in a motel?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it.”
Suddenly she spun and narrowed her eyes, the color of brown sugar just not as sweet. She stepped closer. When I breathed in, the scent of some exotic flower from her shampoo intoxicated me. I wanted to put my arms around her and close the remaining distance between us. But I knew she’d fight me.
Surprisingly, she lifted a hand and ran her fingers along the length of my arm, following the touch with her eyes. When she reached my hand, she looked up and into my eyes again. “You don’t want complicated, Jonas? Want me to make everything a little easier between us?”
“That would be nice.” I tried to take in a breath without letting her know how difficult it was to breathe right then.
She moved closer—so close that I could feel her breath feather across my lips. Her fingers lingered on my hand. They were warm and smooth. She blinked once, twice. “Tough!” she spat. “You want uncomplicated, go find some other girl to spend time with, to protect, or whatever it is you think you’re doing here. You’re not getting easy or uncomplicated with me. And I certainly don’t need your warning about Addison. You were right. I already knew she was here. I can handle Addison.”
She grabbed the clothes off the bed and turned toward the bathroom. With her back to me, she paused and said, “I wish you guys all the luck in finding your mysterious pack of clones. But I have other problems I need to deal with. I want you gone before I come back out.”
I flinched when she slammed the door.
~~~~~
Lexi opened the door. Her face fell when she saw mine. “Wow! You guys are a hot mess! I don’t know what you did to her on Palmyra, but…” I shot her a look of warning. With a heavy breath, she turned and grabbed some of her things. “I’ll stay with Raven tonight. You, Jack, and Kyle can have a boys’ night.”
I thought a boys’ night sounded good, because boys knew not to kick their friends when they were down. And since everyone was tired from travels, we pretty much went to bed immediately.
Except I couldn’t sleep, and three hours later I found myself sitting in a chair, watching a hypnotic neon light in a diner across the street flash on and off. I couldn’t stop analyzing where I’d gone wrong with Bree. Well, besides the insensitive comments about seeing her topless. That probably hadn’t helped matters. I raked a hand over my face, partly trying to erase that amazing image, but also trying to stamp it to my permanent memory in case she never let me get anywhere close to her again.
But besides that fortunate incident, I thought I had done the right thing by her. I had saved her from a relationship with me—a messed-up individual who had nothing to offer her—on an island that she would have grown to hate once she realized how trapped she was. It was stressful there. It was lonely. And it was no place for a woman like Bree who was ready to go be somebody in this world. Bree should have the chance to have the time of her life at college, not be forced to be a surrogate mother to dozens of troubled clones.
When I promised Lexi I would run the labs on Palmyra, I knew it was something I had to do. I had to make sure Sandra’s clones had the chance to become human beings with real lives. As much as I wished my mother hadn’t grown human clones the way a botanist grows plants, she had—and for some insane reason, I had decided it was my job to clean up the mess she left behind. It was the same for Jack and Lexi. They had agreed to run Wellington, to help clones discover the abilities that were hidden in their genes when Sandra Whitmeyer and the other crazy doctors created them, because that was something they had to do.
But Bree… she didn’t yet know what she wanted to do. She didn’t know where she fit into this world yet. And I didn’t want to be the reason she chose wrong.
I leaned my head back against the chair and closed my eyes. Was I wrong to push her away? Seeing her tonight—seeing the fire in her eyes, the determination in her expression to keep her reason for being in Portland a secret—I was reminded that Briana Howard didn’t do or say anything that Briana Howard didn’t want to do or say.
But what was done was done. Now I had to find a way to help her move past it and tell me how she found the tumors in Tamati and Tane. If that happened to any more kids, I needed to be able to help them. I couldn’t have these small children dying on my watch.
These thoughts continued to turn over in my mind as I rested my eyes…
~~~~~
The sound of a car door startled me. I lifted my head and realized I must have fallen asleep. I raked my hands over my face to clear the cobwebs. Then I heard another sound—three distinct pops. I pulled the curtain back and looked outside just in time to see Bree’s rental car speed away and two people dressed in dark clothing standing in the middle of the road shooting after her.
“Jack, Kyle, get up!” I said in a loud whisper.
In seconds, both were peeking out the window. “IIA agents?” Jack asked.
“That would be my guess,” I said. “Warn the girls.”
“Already done.” Kyle cocked his gun.
The men outside turned—and came running right toward our ground-floor window. When they raised their weapons, we hit the floor. Gunfire rang out. Glass shattered above us. Wood splintered. Debris showered us for a good thirty seconds before I was able to get inside one of their heads and stop him. The other man stopped firing as well, and I assumed Lexi had managed to penetrate him. She had the same power I did, to control the actions of others with our minds.
Sirens sang in the distance. Police were on their way.
I grabbed the gun from Kyle’s hand, and after struggling with the door’s locks, I bolted outside and pointed the gun at one of the men. He was young, early twenties maybe, dressed from head to toe in black. His blond hair, spiked in the front, contrasted with his dark suntan. He looked like a stereotypical California guy more than an Oregonian.
Drop the gun! Put your hands up! They both did as I ordered. Who are you? Who do you work for?
Mr. California breathed heavily. Beads of sweat formed along his hairline. His partner, a thirty-something with brown hair tied in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck, said, “We have a message.”
“And what might that message be?” I cocked the gun.
“Get out of Portland. Or the next time you face gunfire, you won’t escape it.”
Both men’s eyes rolled back into their heads, their legs buckled, and they fell to the ground, their heads hitting the pavement with a thud.
Lexi ran over. “Trackers. They’re dead.”