Fourteen
The living room window was dark when I snuck up to the front door, making me hopeful not only that my absence had gone unnoticed, but that Mom had decided on an early night. I checked my cell phone. No missed calls, an excellent sign.
Relieved that I wouldn’t have to tack another fight with Mom to my growing list of the day’s horrors, I dug my key out of my pocket. Tomorrow, I could ask her about the memory—once I had bolstered up enough courage.
But when I reached for the door, I heard something. A muffled moan, male voices.
I froze with the key barely grazing the lock. The TV? Maybe. But it was unlike Mom to watch the one in her bedroom, and the living room lacked the telltale flicker of lights.
Then I inserted the key into the lock, and the door moved. The door—it was already open. Nothing short of a catastrophe or a stroke would make Mom forget to shut the door. Carefully I inched the door open so I could peer inside. Nothing. Quiet.
I crept inside the darkened room . . . and almost fell flat on my face.
My toe, it had caught on something.
Only that patch of floor should be bare.
Keeping my hands steady against the deepening stirrings of fear, I pressed a button on my cell phone. The light was faint, but it was enough to make the fear explode. The thing I’d tripped on was a green plaid pillow, from the couch. A pillow that had been ripped to shreds.
As I raised the phone, the rest of the room came into view. The couch was overturned, the gaping wounds in the green-and-tan plaid fabric spilling puffy white cotton guts. Wooden drawers from the bureau littered the old hardwood floor. And papers . . . papers everywhere.
And then I realized: the room . . . it was way brighter than it should have been, based solely on my tiny cell-phone light.
Visual scan activated.
The red words shimmered behind my eyes.
Without my permission, my vision zoomed around the room, focusing in on tiny details I never should have been able to see, not this up close and personal.
Night vision activated.
As if the red words weren’t bad enough, this time an impersonal female voice echoed in my head, repeating them. A familiar voice.
My voice, I realized as my knees started to shake. Only a smooth, heartless, digitized version.
I reached for the wall to stay upright as terror crashed over me. I fought the words, strained to silence the voice. At the same time, I heard something stir in the hallway. The faintest wisp of a breath.
Reality pounded me from all directions.
Someone had found us.
Mom.
I vaulted over the cushion and flew past the couch. Just as a lean, tall figure emerged from the hallway.
Not Mom. A man.
With my enhanced vision, I saw him open his mouth to shout, and knew I had to silence him before any of his companions discovered me.
I surged forward while simultaneously pulling back my arm. So fast he didn’t even have time to vocalize. And then my fist smashed him in the throat. No thinking involved. Just my left hand, knowing exactly what to do, like I’d performed the maneuver a million times before, slamming into his neck with the velocity of a baseball.
His eyes widened, and a sleek device slipped from his grasp when he futilely grabbed at his throat. I caught the Taser with one hand and snagged his wrist with the other to keep him from hitting the ground. When he fell backward, there was a sickening but soft snap as his arm fully extended and hit resistance. I winced. Shoulder dislocation, at the very least.
I eased him to the floor, and that’s when the red lights, the voice, forced their way into my head again.
Target: Immobilized.
I steadied myself, then crept down the hallway, peering into my bedroom on the right. More chaos in here, much more. My clothes, my papers, they covered the floor like trash, so much that I could catch only glimpses of the red-and-gold rug. Half of my mattress was off the box spring, propped up against it like an indoor slide, a huge slash traveling down the center.
My eyes flew to my nightstand, knowing what I would find. Sure enough, the bronze picture frame was empty. All that showed behind the shattered glass was a brown piece of cardboard. My picture of Dad . . . gone.
I curled my hands into fists, trying to dampen the pain by telling myself they’d stolen a stranger. Dad didn’t exist. Everything Mom had told me—it was all true.
Another strange sound escaped from the back of the hallway. The garage. Mom.
I sprinted down the hall and shoved open the door.
I took in the scene in the blink of an eye. Three men up by the big door—two tall, one short with a wide nose—rummaging through boxes. Mom, tied to the furnace with thin, wiry rope, a splash of gray duct tape over her mouth, staring stoically ahead. And a fourth man in a Windbreaker, standing beside her—smacking a wrench against his palm.
The whites around Mom’s blue eyes showed. The tape turned her words into muffled noises, but I was pretty sure she was trying to say, “Mila, run!” as the guy with the wrench rushed at me, swift and sure.
But not as swift and sure as me. I ran, just like Mom wanted.
Right in her direction.
I reached the Windbreaker guy at the same time he lifted the wrench. Despite having her arms tethered, Mom kicked for his knee, right when my hand lashed out at his nose. Our combined forces knocked him back a step. He crashed into boxes, and all of them toppled to the ground.
Rough arms grabbed me from behind. My head whipped back, and bam! I heard a sharp crackle of cartilage crumpling under my skull. His harsh cry didn’t stop me. I spun—and rammed an elbow into the short man’s left kidney, making him stagger. All it took was one swift kick to the same spot to send him crashing onto a pile of discarded garden tools. His shriek rang out when his head smashed the back of a shovel.
I raced to Mom before the last two guys could reach me, freeing her from the rope and tape with two powerful yanks of my hand.
Mom lashed out, her elbow catching a nose. She ducked away, but he didn’t try to grab her. No, both men were now completely focused on me.
They came at once. One lifted a sleek metal Taser and took aim. And it was like someone flipped a switch inside me, triggering me into total fight mode.
The moves flew through my head first, and I executed with perfect synchronicity.
Drop to ground, foot sweep to target’s ankles.
The Taser’s prongs flashed and ripped through the air, hitting the ceiling as the man stumbled back.
Target: Vulnerable.
Spin.
One hand to his wrist, other on his Taser. Snap backward. Ignore crunch and scream, continue to incapacitate.
Block target’s attack with right arm.
Left hand, slice to crichoid cartilage. Right knee to left kidney. A final chop, to back of target’s neck.
Target: Immobilized.
“Mila, behind you!” Mom yelled.
But I was already on it. Like I was performing a carefully choreographed dance, I swooped down, scooped up the discarded Taser, and whirled, all in one continuous motion. I aimed just as the fourth man was reaching for his holster. One flick of the switch, and the white light shot out like an electrical tongue. His entire body convulsed, the coppery smell of burned metal searing the air.
Target: Immobilized.
I turned to do a quick inventory. Four men down. And I wasn’t even winded. Maybe it was impossible for me to be winded. It was like I was a fighting machine.
Reality crashed over me. A fighting machine.
“Mila?”
I looked over to see Mom still staring at the fourth target, the one I’d stunned. He hadn’t moved. I knew what she was asking, and the truth was . . . I didn’t know. I didn’t know, and I was afraid of the answer. Because the Taser hadn’t been set to bring down a human; it’d been set much higher. It’d been set to bring me down.
She shook her head as if to clear it. And that was all it took to spring her back into action. “The car!”
I staggered back, horrified at the damage I might have done, but Mom grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the door. “Let’s go. Now.”
I stumbled along in her wake, in a daze.
Mom didn’t stop once, just vaulted boxes, pulling me along until we’d made it outside and were rushing for the SUV.
I slowed before we jumped off the porch. “Wait, what about our stuff? The iPod?”
She yanked. “Out here.” Before we made it to the end of the dirt path, she swerved, toward the line of stepping-stones that ran along the side of the house and the driveway. She squatted down and, with a strain of her shoulders, pushed the third one to the side. Underneath wasn’t dirt, like you’d expect, but a hole. And inside that hole was a small metal lockbox.
She grabbed it and started for the SUV once more. “Suitcase is in the car.”
And with a stab of realization, I understood. The dark-blue suitcase that was always in the back of the SUV, it wasn’t part of some weird grieving process for Dad. How could it be, when that person didn’t exist? No, all along, Mom had been ready for this moment.
And now it was here.
Mom wrenched open the door and vaulted into the driver’s seat, jamming the keys into the ignition.
“Move over.” I jumped into the car after she scrambled over to the passenger side. I pulled the door closed and gunned the gas pedal into reverse. The SUV shot out of the driveway backward.
As the familiar sight of Greenwood Ranch faded in the rearview mirror, the same thought whirled through my head, around and around like the tires below us.
A fighting machine.
The voice on the recording, my mom’s outlandish story—all of it was real.
My fingers squeezed the wheel, so tightly that I felt the metal underneath the padding start to yield. No matter what, I wouldn’t let anyone change me. I wouldn’t let them strip away whatever tiny parts of me were human.
. . . a fighting machine . . .
Assuming I had any humanity to lose.
It wasn’t until we’d driven through the residential streets and onto eastbound 94 that I realized I hadn’t turned on the headlights. No headlights to pierce the streetlamp-devoid Clearwater country roads, and yet I could still see perfectly. I’d noticed every slight curve of the road, every leaf on the trees swaying lightly in the breeze, even the license plate numbers on the old trucks and cars parked at the far ends of long driveways. I could see all of it, clear as day.
I shook my head as I snapped on the lights so we wouldn’t get pulled over. I’d been out at night before but had stumbled in the dark just like anyone else.
Up until yesterday.
Something suctioned at my stomach, leaving a strange emptiness to creep into its place. Night vision wasn’t the only thing I’d acquired over the last twenty-four hours. There was also the way I’d calculated the precise distance to the targets at the carnival and shot them without a single deviation. How I’d taken down five armed men with minimal exertion. The “Target: Down” and “Target: Immobilized.” Glowing red evidence behind my eyes.
I drove on, trying to push the thoughts away, trying to erase the dawning, awful certainty of what must have happened. I’d always been different, part of me argued—the part that still desperately needed to believe in the woman sitting beside me, despite everything that had happened. After all, I’d heard Hunter speak all the way across the Dairy Queen, picked up the thump of Maisey’s bucket from an impossible distance. I’d hurt Kaylee when I could have sworn I barely touched her. All those things had occurred before the accident.
But the bigger part of me, the more certain part, rejected that rationale as bogus. Those things were minor. Too minor, when compared to combat fighting and gun handling. It was almost like . . .
My throat constricted as I allowed the realization to fully surface.
. . . like someone had switched me into a different mode.
I remembered Mom, back at the house after the accident. Tinkering with my arm, my neck, all while a stranger chipped away pieces of my life with every brutal word.
Tinkering with my neck. When my arm had been the only part damaged.
The crunch of plastic under my hands alerted me to how hard I clutched the steering wheel. I relaxed my grip. I needed the truth before I permanently maimed the car.
“What did you do to me? Press some kind of activation switch after you stitched me up?”
I felt that same tiny flare of hope from before, when I’d first shown her my arm. That same rise of breathless anticipation that maybe, just maybe, I’d come to the wrong conclusion, even though I knew better.
“I’m sorry, Mila.”
Three words, I realized with a choked sob. That’s all it took for hope to die.
When her hand settled on my shoulder, I shook it off, making the Tahoe swerve. “Don’t,” I said. “Just tell me what you did.”
Despite my resolve to stay focused on the twin glow of taillights ahead, I caught the way she deflated against the seat and the weary drag of her hand down the back of her neck. “I kept your hardwired defense system inactivated until you injured your arm . . . at which time I worried we’d find ourselves in a situation exactly like this.”
I flinched, repulsed by what I knew was coming next but still needing to hear her admit to the details. “So, what? You turned me into some kind of psycho killer without telling me? And I’m supposed to be okay with it?”
“No.”
At that unexpected reply, my head whipped toward her. “No, what?”
“No, you’re not a psycho killer, and I didn’t expect you to be okay with it. But I did reactivate your defense mode. You should be fully functional after forty-eight hours.”
So there it was, plain as day. Another betrayal in a whole string of them. One thing became blindingly, painfully clear: there was no one I could trust.
A single tear slid down my cheek. I dashed it away, angered by my weakness.
Mom sighed. “I know you’re upset, but I was trying to keep you safe. You have to realize: that wasn’t the regular military after us—that isn’t their MO. They would have come after us en masse, guns blazing, no sneaking in the middle of the night. No, this reeks of Andrew Holland.”
“Who?”
“General Holland, the cocreator of the MILA project—the man you heard on the iPod. He’s in charge of SMART Ops.”
“SMART Ops?”
“Secure Military Android Research and Testing, a clandestine military operation run by Holland. And there’s a reason for that. The man is a coldhearted megalomaniac. I didn’t see it at first, but—”
“Stop!” A general? SMART Ops? A clandestine military operation? Was this all for real? I shook my head before another question could tumble out. “I don’t want to know.”
“But—”
“I mean it!” I flung my open palm at Mom, hoping the visual cue might silence her if words couldn’t. “I can’t take any more, not tonight.”
I felt her gaze search my face but refused to acknowledge it. I couldn’t. I was too afraid that even a single trace of concern would push me over the edge. Turn me into either a screaming lunatic or a bawling wreck.
Besides, as far as I was concerned, this was all her fault. Nothing she could tell me about this mysterious SMART Ops would change anything. Not our course of action, or our inability to turn around and return to our old life in Clearwater. Return to Hunter. It wouldn’t magically enable the man stored in my memory to really become my father.
It wouldn’t make me real.
Beside me, Mom’s blond head bowed over her hands.
“Where are we headed?” I snapped.
“Toronto,” she said. “Pearson Airport. Holland will have us flagged at every U.S. airport. Our chances are much better in Canada, and from there, we’ll head abroad.”
I heard her explanation, but all I could think was Canada. We were going to Canada, and then boarding an airplane to some other foreign country. At this point, it didn’t really matter where. All that mattered was that Clearwater, even the U.S., would be out of reach for good.
Loss clawed at my chest as an image of Hunter’s blue eyes flashed before me. His quirky smile. I’d known we were leaving the state, but another country? That seemed so final. Now I’d never have another chance to make the fairy tale real.
Desperately needing the distraction, I reached over to plug the information into the Tahoe’s GPS system. Mom stopped me.
“Wait, they might be able to track the car’s GPS system. But—” She broke off and turned toward the passenger window. The struggle back at the house had caused blond strands to escape her ponytail and hang haphazardly down her neck, ruining her usual illusion of perfection.
“But what?”
After a large sigh and one more glance at the dead night streets of rural Minnesota, she swung back around to face me. “You have built-in GPS. And yours has stealth mode.”
My lips parted, but no words came out, just a strangled gasp. Compliments of the rocklike lump stuck in my throat. GPS. Stealth mode.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, Mom shattered any chances I had of being human. Over and over again.
“Mila—”
I flashed her my palm again. “Later. Please,” I whispered. The ache in my chest expanded, stretched, until I was sure it would distort my skin beyond repair.
I’d lost Hunter, I’d lost my family, and now, with every new ability that revealed itself, I was losing me.
