That little shit did something to Bree, and all I could do was lie there.
I was paralyzed. I couldn’t even open my eyes. When Bree spoke inside my head, I couldn’t speak back. I tried to let her know I would find her, no matter what, but I couldn’t form the words in my head, let alone reach out to her mind.
And then she was gone—carried out of the house by two people who were going to wish they were dead if they harmed a single hair on her body.
Minutes, maybe hours, passed before my eyes finally fluttered open. When they did, Addison was in my face. “Sheesh! What the freak did they do to you?” she asked.
I stared at her. I licked my lips slowly. They were dry; my mouth felt like cotton. After several more blinks, I finally said, “Do you know where they took her?” My voice came out in a crackle. I stretched my fingers and tried closing them into a fist. My legs felt heavy. I could barely wiggle my toes.
“I can think of one place.”
“Building B?”
She nodded. “Can you move?”
“I’m working on it.” I slowly bent my knees, then straightened them again. “The IIA isn’t holding Dr. Howard.” I wasn’t sure why I trusted Addison with that information, but I had gotten inside Janice’s mind while I was lying there on her floor, paralyzed and pissed. Maybe I shared with Addison because she was the only one here. Maybe it was because I needed her, and I might not have a chance at getting past BioTech security to reach Bree alone.
“I know. I read minds too, you know.”
“Mrs. Howard said Janice told her Dr. Howard had been taken into custody.” I started to push myself up. “And Janice has a tracker at the base of her skull.” I had discovered it when I searched her mind. I had no idea what it meant exactly, but in my experience having a tracker was never a good thing.
Addison put a hand to my upper arm and helped me sit up. “I searched Janice’s mind while I pretended to stay knocked out. The last place I saw Dr. Howard in her mind was inside his own office. He accused her of betraying him and the company.”
“What else?” I asked.
“She was working with that Vance Carrington sleazeball to bring clones here.”
“But why? Was Dr. Howard involved?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t been able to figure that out. And I couldn’t get a trace on him beyond his office.”
“That woman will pay for what she did to Bree.”
“So will that asshole clone who thought it was a good idea to take the two of us down.”
We agreed on that much. “After all you’ve done, why are you helping us now?” I asked.
Addison shrugged. “You and I are a lot alike. Sandra experimented on us both. You’re pissed off. I can relate to that.”
“I think we’re all a little bit angry.” I closed my eyes tight, feeling slightly dizzy.
“Some of us more than others. Jack and Lexi, and the other original clones, they weren’t experimented on inside Sandra’s farms. They got to live their whole lives outside the labs. I saw firsthand how Jack was raised. And Lexi…”
“Lexi saved your life.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said, regret in her voice. “And I owe her for that. But she was also reckless when she fried Sandra’s brain. We might’ve needed Sandra again.”
I didn’t share Addison’s opinion that Lexi shouldn’t have lobotomized Sandra, but I couldn’t argue with the idea that Sandra’s brain had held a lot of information I’d love to have. “But why did you follow Bree to Portland? Thank you for saving her from Vance, but…” I shuddered just thinking what would have happened if Addison and I hadn’t been there to protect Bree from Vance when he’d tried to slip that drug into her drink.
“Bree is different. She truly felt pain when she saw the suffering of the kids on Palmyra, and not just because they were clones of her brother. She took the time to help Tane and Tamati, and she was so sweet to Aleigha.”
I closed my eyes, remembering how Bree fled Palmyra. She couldn’t get away from me fast enough after my rejection. I had hurt her. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. We would find our way out of this mess, and I hoped I hadn’t ruined the chance she would choose me again.
I rolled over and pushed up to my hands and knees. Every little movement made my joints ache. “Whatever that asshole injected me with, it infected my entire body. He really meant to slow me down.”
“Looks like he succeeded.”
While I stretched out my sore muscles, Addison moved to sit on the sofa in front of me. After a moment she said, “Something’s bothered me since I first visited Howard BioTech.”
I raised my head to meet her eyes. “Only one thing?”
She ignored my weak attempt at humor. “I can trace clones’ whereabouts if they’re within a mile or so of me. But when I was inside BioTech, I could track you and Bree, but I couldn’t locate any other clones, although I’m sure they’re there. And that Raven chick can track the exact location of all of us, but even so, she was only able to say that there was a group of clones in Portland. She couldn’t pinpoint their locations the way she could with Bree.”
“You still think they’re inside Building B?”
“I have no proof, but yes, I’m certain of it. I think there’s something about that building that scrambles my ability.”
And therefore Raven’s ability. “You think that’s where Dr. Howard is, too? Do you think he’s in charge of the operation?”
“I don’t know. If he is, wouldn’t we have seen Dr. Howard in Janice’s or Rai’s mind as they planned what they were going to do next?”
“Unless something or someone is blocking some of their thoughts.” It was possible the tracker at the base of Janice’s skull prevented me from reading her mind completely.
“Good point.” Addison held out a hand. “Think you can move now?”
I tested my strength by pushing myself to my feet. But just as I started to straighten, gunfire rang out, and I dropped back down to my stomach and rolled behind the sofa. Addison scrambled to me, covering her head. Glass shattered and lamps flew from tables. There was nothing we could do but stay pressed to the floor.
Finally there was a break in the gunfire. Addison made us invisible, and we ran—or limped, in my case—through the kitchen and out the back door.
I should have known Addison and I hadn’t been left behind to simply recover and walk away. We had been deemed useless, and thus needed to be terminated. The questions now became: How long before they decided Bree was useless, too? Who was ‘they’? And what levels of torture would they use to convince her to hand over the oracle?