I remembered how quickly I was able to return to school after Dad died, despite overwhelming grief. “Okay, I’ll buy that.”
“Take a look inside your own mind. Can you imagine different pockets there? Maybe one for love. One for the deep affection you feel for Danielle. Another for whatever thoughts you have when you think of Briana. One for grief.”
“Yes,” I whispered. I was completely buying into this. I could see different imaginary compartments forming in my head.
He lifted his hand and waved me forward. “I want you to practice a series of uppercuts, side kicks, hooks, front kicks, and crosses. Any pattern you wish, but at the same time, imagine placing different thoughts and feelings inside these pockets.”
I began a sequence of punches and kicks, then I did exactly what Jonas ordered. I placed my love for Gram inside one pocket—a feeling that filled me with warmth in one moment and a longing to see her that tore my heart apart in the next. I didn’t like anyone knowing that vulnerability.
Jonas moved to the side. I switched back to slamming my fist then my foot into his gloved hands. “Now, think about Briana. The thoughts you have of her are often ones you’d rather her not know, right?”
“I suppose that’s accurate.” I remembered some of the cruel things she’d done to me, the anger I’d felt, the jealousy of seeing her flirt with Jack when he first arrived at Wellington. I stuffed my own unkind thoughts inside a pocket in my mind. Jonas was right. I didn’t want Briana to know these thoughts, mainly because I wasn’t cruel. She made me angry, but I didn’t find cutting her down worth how that might make her feel.
“Next, think of Jack. I’m sure you think of him in ways you don’t want him… or anyone else… to know.”
Fire flared across my cheeks. I did have some pretty powerful thoughts where Jack was concerned. I went to work on them, stuffing them quickly inside a too-small pocket, like a teenager overstuffing her dresser drawers, unable to keep clothes or socks inside while trying to close the drawers.
“Nice. Not much leaked out while you did that. Now think of me.”
I stopped punching and stared at Jonas. I was sure my mouth hung agape. Jonas raised a brow and stood straighter. Immediately, I snapped out of my trance and closed my mouth. I transformed my face and attempted to swallow all expression.
Jonas’s lips tilted up. “Not the reaction I expected, but not completely disappointing.”
I rolled my eyes, and kicked his right hand hard. “You surprised me, that’s all.” My mind filling up by this point, I pocketed the many conflicted thoughts I had of Jonas—fear of what I still didn’t know about him, admiration for turning his back on his mother, confusion, curiosity. Was he my friend or my enemy?
“You’re so easy to read, Lexi.”
I stopped and turned away from him. This was never going to work, though hiding my face was not going to keep this guy out of my head. Frustration and anger at my own inadequacy invaded my thoughts, and I added those to the many compartments I wished would protect my mind from siege.
Seth had asked me what I wanted from The Program. My first answer, had I concentrated only on myself, would have been to learn complete control over my mind at all times. I wanted control of every aspect of my future and how my abilities would be used—
if
they’d be used. At the same time, the idea that my own thoughts and actions were not safe inside my own mind invoked the desire to run. To escape this life and not look back.
This wasn’t just about me anymore. I needed The Program to teach me not only how to help myself, but to help others affected by Dad’s, Dr. DeWeese’s, and Sandra’s years-ago experimentation into human cloning.
How could I help others, though, if I couldn’t keep this one person—this one confusing boy—from reading my every private thought, desire, or dream?
Jonas’s hand touched my shoulder. “Lexi,” he whispered.
I spun around. “Please don’t touch me.” I was afraid a single touch would reveal every secret, every insecurity, every fear I ever had.
He dropped his hand to his side. Both gloves gone, he flexed his fingers wide. “What I meant, Lexi, is that I read your emotions all over your face. And I read your body language as you turned away from me, but…”
I wrung my hands. I was never able to hide my feelings well, especially the strong emotions that grief, confusion, and Jonas invoked. “But what?” I asked weakly.
“But I couldn’t read your mind—your specific thoughts.” He crooked a finger under my chin and lifted. “Congratulations. You successfully pocketed most of your thoughts. I only heard a couple about Briana, probably because the two of you have such a long past filled with so many powerful emotions. A few more about Jack, which isn’t surprising given how intense the two of you are.” Jonas cocked his head, eyeing me like he wanted to figure something out. “And I didn’t hear anything about me, although your reaction has me quite curious.” He smiled.
My face must have reddened from the fire that flared there. I took in a long breath and let it out slowly, studying the quizzical look in Jonas’s eyes. How would I know if he was telling me the truth? Was I capable of hiding thoughts from him? Could I, for example, pocket the thought that I was wondering where that tracker that Ty gave him went? Could I hide from him my constant questioning why Sandra allowed Jonas to live if she had the ability to terminate anyone with an implanted tracker? Maybe she still had a use for him. And maybe he knew it.
“Let’s take a break.”
“What? No. I can’t afford to take a break. Dani and Addison need me.”
“You need a break. We also can’t afford to keep going while you still don’t trust me.”
“What do you mean?” I looked down at the floor, focusing on a used band-aid wadded up against a floor mat.
“Don’t even bother denying it.” Jonas sighed. “You did a great job just now, and I’m positive you’ll only get better and better at pocketing your thoughts. But you’re afraid I’m not being completely honest with you.” He stepped close to me. He slid a hand behind my neck, and forced me to look up. “And you’re definitely not being honest with me. Tell me you’re not afraid of me.”
I blinked. Stared into those dark brown eyes, dilated to the point of total darkness. “I’m not afraid of you, Jonas,” I whispered. My mouth ran dry. “I…”
“Are you sure?” He wrapped a strand of hair around his forefinger, while simultaneously rubbing the skin beneath my long hair, a touch more intimate than I was comfortable with. “I’m not here to hurt you, Lexi. Only to help you.” He tilted his head. His eyes narrowed, and I was certain he saw straight through me.
“Help me what?”
The expression on Jonas’s face changed ever so slightly. Had I blinked, I would have missed it.
“Help you realize the fate you’ll eventually face. You know I can make you accept it as well.”
“What fate would that be?”
His lips twitched, lifting upward at the corners and sending a chill over me. I concentrated hard on the pockets I had just formed and immediately tucked away my latest observation: Ty had just slipped inside Jonas’s head and taken over. I pulled Jonas’s brain up as an image inside my own mind, and examined the fiery neurons ablaze there. I knew what Jack and Jonas looked like inside my head, but what did Ty look like inside Jonas’s head?
“What
is
going on in that head of yours?” Jonas/Ty stood close enough that his breath warmed my cheek, and I could see my reflection in his eyes.
“Welcome to the party, Ty.”
His grin grew. “Very good, Lexi. I wondered when you’d finally learn to recognize me.” He suddenly leaned in and kissed me, forcing my lips to open. His arms hugged me close, and I squirmed to get away. My eyes widened.
A growl vibrated from my throat as I brought my hands up and pushed hard against his rock-hard chest, but failed to budge him at all. Suddenly, he shoved me away hard enough that I stumbled backwards into a body bag and fell to the floor. The breath was knocked out of me. I gasped for air.
Jonas’s chest rose and fell in rapid movements. He bent over at the waist as if catching his breath. When he looked up, pain filled his eyes as he examined me where I fell. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t me.”
“I know.”
Wrinkles formed across his forehead. He approached me slowly and reached out a hand. My gaze lowered to it, then back up to his bright amber eyes. “Please take my hand.”
Without thinking, I slid my palm into his. He wrapped his fingers tightly around mine and pulled me up, our eyes never leaving each other. “Looks like we both still need a little practice,” I said, my voice low.
“Yes, but… it’s time we shut my mother’s operation down.”
I studied the look in Jonas’s eyes—the look I had been searching for since I left Jack and found Jonas. The look that said, “I’m on your side—not the side of the crazy woman running the IIA.” This was the Jonas that Jack swore existed. “Good. Then you can start by teaching me more about the trackers.” I tried to drum up enough saliva to swallow, my heart still beating from the hold Ty had had on me. “And you can teach me how to get inside The Farm. Alone.”
“I’ll teach you more about the trackers, but there’s no way in hell I’m allowing you to enter that IIA freak show alone.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
I cocked my head and examined the tracker from a different angle. The small object made from a combination of metal, plastic, and wire was lodged at the base of the skull where the cerebellum meets the spinal cord.
“Oh, my,” I said, staring at the eight lit-up MRI images in the basement of the infirmary. Jonas and I were alone. Only one nurse was on duty, and she was upstairs on the other side of the building. Jonas was giving me a lesson in trackers. “It’s practically touching the spinal cord. I could paralyze her if I tried to remove this thing.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Jonas stuffed both hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Mine is in the same spot.”
“Why there?”
Jonas shrugged. “Maybe to make it near-impossible to remove. It runs on tiny electric impulses.” He approached the screen. The images of the skull glowed a bright blue color against the black background. Very pretty, actually. Jonas pointed a finger at the back side of the device. “There’s a microchip right here. That’s the data center.”
“Data center?”
“Sandra or her agents are able to send out instructions over any cell network. The messages are collected here. The device itself then sends out radio waves throughout the brain.”
“Giving them complete control of whoever has one,” I whispered.
Jonas tilted his head side to side. “More or less.”
“But in your case, she doesn’t have as much control as she wants.”
“More like as much control as she
thinks
she has. She uses Ty or another clone to get to me fully and to disguise the invasion. Fortunately, she hasn’t realized that I’m learning to detect when another presence tries to take over my mind.”
“You’ve found a way to keep Ty out.”
“Mostly.” He flashed me a weak smile, one with an unspoken apology for the uninvited kiss earlier. “That doesn’t mean I’m not constantly watching out for him. And sometimes I miss him. Like earlier.”
“So, you pocket your thoughts—but when you do detect him, how do you keep him from forcing you to act against your will?”
“That’s a little trickier. Like I said, I’m always on the lookout for anything foreign entering my brain. If I don’t catch the person inside my mind, things like Kyle sticking his arm in the fire happen. And let’s not forget how you’ve seized control of my mind—twice now.”
Oh, I hadn’t forgotten. I walked closer, analyzing the actual device. I pointed to the opposite side of the object from where the microchip was located. “What are the little prong-like things on this side?”
“Exactly that. They only come out when the tracker is implanted. Those little legs, or prongs, weren’t there before the tracker was implanted.”
“Strange. What do they do?”
“That’s what holds the tracker in place.” He glanced sideways at me with a grim look. “Those small prongs are what keep us from removing the tracker.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you tried to take the device out, the prongs would pull and scrape at the base of the brain. Those tiny legs are designed to puncture the cerebellum and cause massive brain hemorrhaging. Or they’ll slice at the spinal cord, or the many tiny nerves along the spinal cord, causing paralysis.”
“Neither outcome would be good.” I backed away from the pictures and leaned against an exam table. “What if when I removed the device, Jack was here to heal the spinal cord?”
“Can he heal spinal cords? Has he ever done that?”
“No, not that I know of,” I answered, slightly deflated. Was I capable of removing the device and healing the brain? What if I passed out in the middle of it? Dani or Addison would die for sure. “There has to be a way to remove it without harming the host.” I needed to see an actual tracker. “What happened to the tracker that Ty gave you the day we were on campus?”
Jonas walked over and turned off the monitors. “Why? What are you thinking?”
“Not sure. But I’d like to hold one of those in my hand and see how those prongs come in and out.” I refused to believe that removing these tiny objects and freeing victims of Sandra’s invasion was impossible.
Jonas slipped inside my head and poked around.
I narrowed my gaze. “That was obvious. Why are you intruding when I’m standing right here?”
“That was no more obvious than I’ve always been. You’re just becoming more aware.”
“Huh. Interesting.”
“So, are you going to tell me what you’re thinking, or do I need to keep sorting through your thoughts?”
I smiled. “How about we see if you can figure out what I’m thinking as you hunt down that tracker, and I’ll put my plan into motion while you’re gone.”
I needed to find Jack. I had to tell him that I was pretty sure I knew how to extract the trackers from Addison and Danielle, not to mention from the other clones and from Jonas. Surely he wanted to be rid of that thing. I was almost certain that once I removed the tracker, Ty would no longer have access to Jonas’s mind, therefore blocking Sandra from further manipulating Jonas.