Collide (9 page)

Too still.

“Who lives here?” I ask again.

“Mari.” Josh stares at the house, his eyes unblinking.

“Mari? From the hospital? The one in my vision?”

“Yes.”

Before I can ask more, Josh is out of the car. “Stay here.” He walks up to the porch and rings the bell.

I stare, breath held. The world clicks by in slow motion as I watch the door open. Josh speaks with the older woman in front of him, nodding before returning to the car. He slides in and starts the ignition without a word.

“What happened?”

Josh turns around and drives, his eyes barely leaving the rear view mirror. Flashes of my last drive with Mom and Dad fill my mind. The SUVs, the gunfire, Mom’s screams.

“Josh?”

“Mari died, just like you said.” His voice is steady, but not calm. “We have to get to the others as soon as we can. Then we need to find Mom and Dad.”

We drive down the bluffs. Images of two SUVs with blackened windows weave through my thoughts.

“It’s too late for them,” Josh says before I can voice my concerns. “If we go back, we’ll wind up like Mari.” Josh speeds down the hill, pushing the car faster and faster.

I close my eyes . . .

And pray.

TOO MANY THOUGHTS CROWD MY HEAD AS WE DRIVE TO THE AIRPORT; CLIPS OF MEMORIES BEST FORGOTTEN
. I can’t tell what’s true anymore, who I can trust. The images stream forward and I mentally close each picture, tucking them into a file deep inside my mind. With a stiff breath I lock away the last of the memories and thoughts, the feelings for Elaine and Mari, Gabe and David, everything. Grief can come later, when we’re safe.

Will we ever be safe again?

The car bounces along the near empty highway. No black SUVs follow us.
Yet
.

“We’re going to New York?” I ask as much to break the silence as anything else.

“Yeah, Upstate. We’ll ditch the car at the airport and rent something when we get to Syracuse.”

“And then?”

“We’ll find the others and get to the safe house.” Josh glances at me. “We lived there once, or so I’m told.” His voice is distant.

“How long since you figured out the truth?” A million accusations linger with my words.

Josh’s heavy breathing speaks volumes.

“Josh? Please tell me. You owe me that much.”

He clears his throat before whispering “A couple of years.”

“Years?” I choke on my anger. “You never said anything! What the hell, Josh?”

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Guess what, sis? We’re in hiding.’” Josh blinks slowly and shakes his head. “I overheard them speaking about WITSEC. They didn’t know I was listening.”

“Two years ago? The argument?” I pause and replay the night Josh left: the yelling-match with our parents, the door slamming as Josh stormed out. “You left because of this?”

“Yeah. I . . . I didn’t handle the news well.”

“I remember!” Memories of that night pull forward. I thought Josh was such a jerk, getting mad for his own mistakes, running out instead of dealing with the truth. “You talk about me being a brat.”

“I never said I didn’t understand what you’re going through.”

The banter with Josh normalizes the situation somehow; if fleeing to a safe house the day after assassins have chased you and you mentally witnessed the death of someone you used to know could ever be considered normal.

“Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to be okay, right?”

“Everything will be fine. We’ll find the others before anything can happen to them. Mom and Dad will be waiting for us, I’m certain of it. Then we can all start over. Move on.”

I smile, instinctively reaching into my pocket and fingering the warm metal chain from David’s locket. Josh never liked David. He told me I deserved someone better.

He was right.

We reach the airport faster than I expect. Josh pulls the tickets and fake IDs from his backpack. We pass through security to the gate and to the plane with no problems. As we make our way through the crowd, their thoughts fill mine; their fears join my own. The noise increases as the moments click past. I try to block the sound out, ignore the constant onslaught of questions and pleas. But the chatter won’t abate. We take our seats in the mid-section of the plane, my ears filled with the endless sounds of those around me. I grab my head and close my eyes, wishing for a peace that refuses to obey.

Josh takes my hand. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

At first I think his words are just another thought filling my mind, until he asks again and squeezes the life from my fingers.

“Dang Josh,” I bark at him as I pull back my hand. My brows knit into a line across my forehead.

“Sorry, I needed to get your attention. You were grabbing you head and rocking back and forth like you were in pain.”

“I was!” I take a slow breath. “How do you make it stop?” I whisper.

“What?” Josh asks, clueless.

“The noise?”

Josh looks around, noting every passenger. “You can hear their thoughts?”

“Yes. They’re screaming at me. I have to make it stop.”

“Good luck with that.” A sarcastic smile creeps through his expression as he closes his eyes.

I punch him in the arm. The cacophony continues and I grab my head again. I rock back and forth, trying to find something, one thing, to focus my attention toward. Mari’s voice rises to the surface.

Remember
, she whispers over and over.
Be honest with yourself.

I focus on the words, allowing her presence to wipe everything else away. Within a few moments there is no sound but her voice, no images but the picture of her flaming red hair and deep set green eyes telling me to not to forget who I am. I examine the minute details of her skin, nearly translucent and marred only by a deep scar extending from her nose to her lip.

The image fades as my thoughts clear, replaced by sleep . . .

The dream starts quickly, images of lab coats and a house tucked away in a thick forest of pine and maple trees, flanked by a narrow lake. The trees are painted in bursts of yellow and gold. Five children dance and play in an underground room. A familiar boy walks over to me, smiling. Black hair cut at odd angles, light skin, green piercing eyes, and a voice that compels me to do whatever he asks.

David
.

He smiles at me and takes my hand. “We’re supposed to be together, you know. I’m sure of it.” He smiles and leans in, whispering. “You and me forever, okay?” It’s not really a question. He squeezes my hand and kisses my cheek. “Forever.”

His image fades, replaced by Mom and Dad smiling as I twirl with two other girls, one with wild hair and skin like the night, and another with green eyes that can see through me.

Mari.

The girl joins hands with me and we spin faster and faster.
Don’t trust them
, she chants as we twirl.
They cannot see. Don’t follow them. They cannot lead.

She stops, no longer a child but the girl from the hospital; the girl from my visions.
Don’t believe them. They all tell lies.

The images spin forward, childhood games replaced with scenes of a car crashing through guard rails and exploding into flames as it collides with the rocks below.

They all tell lies.

I wake with a start. Josh stares at me. “Dakota? What’s wrong?”

I barely process the words, my mind filled with Mari’s haunting expression as she continues to mouth the phrase
They all tell lies
. I shake her image away and focus on Josh. “I’m okay. Where are we?”

“The plane is landing. Here, you’ll need these when we get the car.” Josh hands me a New York driver’s license and two credit cards.

The name on cards is Dakota Marshall, same as the license. “Marshall? Seriously?” The irony is something I expect from Dad, assuming I could ever imagine this situation in the first place. Not exactly typical.

“I didn’t choose the name,” Josh says with a laugh. “Just make sure you use it.”

I nod, still staring at the picture on the ID. “The picture’s recent,” I say more to myself than to Josh. When did they take this?

Josh nods, oblivious. Figures.

The plane lands in Syracuse by the time I get the cards put away. We disembark with our bags and make our way to the rental counter. I stare at everyone who passes, unable to filter out clips of their thoughts, snippets of guilty conversations and plans best left unspoken. Everyone looks suspicious to me. My senses run on hyper-drive and my skin prickles with the energy coming from the crowded airport.

“Where are we going first?” I ask Josh when he returns with the keys.

“The map.” He pulls the old, folded paper map from his backpack. Large red stars mark several locations within a few hours’ drive, each labeled with a name:
D
, M
,
SH
. “Here,” Josh says pointing at the star marked with a
D
. “We’ll go there first.”

The star marks a point just outside of a town labeled “Geneva” that sits at the top of a long lake that resembles an outstretched finger.

“At least the name is nice,” I say.

Josh smiles. “It’ll take an hour or so, I think.”

I nod, unable to process any more information. There’s no way I could’ve prepared my mind for the past couple of days. The hospital, even Mountain View, may have been better. At least it would’ve been believable. This is surreal.

I hitch my backpack higher on my shoulder as Josh shoves the map into his bag. “You ready?” he asks.

“I guess.”

We walk out of the airport, past the sleepy passengers seated on their luggage as they wait for their rides. I stare at each person, half convinced they’re watching us. It’s an odd feeling, unnerving. The most innocent of actions, a smile from a child or a nod from a stranger, carry a different, more sinister meaning.

Outside the morning fog starts to clear, allowing the sun to shine through the patches of clouds. Too-bright rays blind me for a moment and my apprehension grows with every step, every not-so-innocent nod.

“Everything’s going to be fine, Dakota.
We’re
going to be fine,” Josh says.

If you say so
.

The drive to the tiny town takes longer than I expect. The clouds have thinned and the sunlight reflects on endless fields of corn, occasionally dotted with cows and farmhouses. The landscape is so different from the mountains and ocean vistas of Cambria. I can’t imagine myself living here. I can’t image anyone living here.

“I don’t remember any of this. Do you?” I stare out of the window as more cornfields stream past. “We should remember something, right? We weren’t
that
young.”

“I don’t recognize anything either.”

“Are you sure we lived here before? What if they lied to us again?” My voice cracks on the last words as Mari’s incessant warning reawakens in my head.