Threader origins, p.31
Threader Origins, page 31
DON’T MAKE ME DO IT FOR YOU AGAIN
THE SCENE IN front of Darwin unfolded in slow motion. Teresa looked up from the floor, the look of dismay on her face matched by the intensity of her scream. “Get out!”
Red Threads appeared in the air, arcing toward him, reaching over the QPS, planning to envelop him in pain. He reacted, blocking the multitude of Threads with barely a thought. The QPS beneath his hand pulsed in time with his heartbeat, picking up the pace as the realization of what he had just done hit him.
A Thread raced toward Teresa, hitting her in the leg, and she screamed in pain as the muscle spasmed and the skin broke. Darwin imagined a solid shell, sending navy blue Threads over her body, completely encasing her, barely stopping another barrage. It wasn’t a prison, but a shield made to keep out any more attacks.
The Threads stopped, and Rebecca stood looking at him, making no attempt to cover the hatred etched into her face. Her voice was cool and collected, the sound of someone who knew they had won.
“Welcome back, Darwin.”
He remained silent, staring at her, watching every Thread in the room with a clarity he had never Seen before. The increase in his perceptions made all of his training seem sophomoric.
“There are four of us here, and soon we’ll have all thirteen of us. You don’t stand a chance.”
“Teresa. Can you come over to me? Is the leg bad?” Darwin asked.
Teresa lay on the floor, her leg useless. She raised herself on her arms and moved toward him. As soon as her leg straightened, she screamed again and fell back to the concrete floor.
He moved to reach her. The moment his hand left the QPS, half of the Threads in the room disappeared. He barely saw the powerful crimson Thread surging across the floor toward him, only deflecting it at the last possible moment. He put his hand back on the QPS and the room jumped back into sharp focus. He’d known the QPS was the source of the Threads, but he’d had no idea how direct contact affected his abilities.
The familiarity hit him again, and this time he recognized it, felt his mom’s arms around him holding him tight. What the hell? Teresa cried out in pain and he was back where he needed to be. Where he could help her.
“I can’t come to get you, Teresa. I’m not strong enough to keep us both safe if I leave the QPS. You have to come to me.”
Teresa raised herself up again and moved another few inches, the blue mesh moving with her.
“You can do—”
“Darwin,” Rebecca interrupted, “the rest are coming. You don’t have a chance. If you come over here, we’ll let the girl go.”
He barely had the time to give Rebecca’s offer a thought before the rest of the disciples walked into the QPS room, forming a semicircle behind Rebecca. A fourteenth person followed them. One more than he had seen last time Rebecca and her disciples had gathered around the QPS. The disciples parted and the fourteenth figure picked its way through the gap.
“Elizabeth, your son is here with us,” Rebecca said.
The figure gasped and stumbled to a stop. Rebecca strode over, roughly pulling the figure forward.
Darwin’s mom stood before him, Rebecca’s hand still clutching the back of her jacket. It felt as though time stood still, and the room narrowed into a tunnel. Threads ripped through the space, hazy and out of control. The years of therapy he’d had after her death fell away in a rush, leaving him scared and raw.
She was just like he remembered her, just like the photo on the wall in his house—the house—earlier today. He breathed deeply and could almost smell the apple blossom and vanilla over the stench of the unwashed bodies.
“M . . . Mom?”
“Darwin? I thought—”
“Yeah, great reunion, isn’t it?” Rebecca asked, her voice dry and sarcastic. “You walk over here right now, and they both live. You don’t, and they die right before your eyes.”
Darwin’s palms rose off of the QPS, leaving only his fingertips brushing the cool metal of its casing. A scream slashed into his brain, shattering the tunnel and bringing the room back into focus.
“No!” Teresa screamed again.
“Now, Darwin. Come here now.”
His world spun and tears fell freely down his cheeks. “Mom?”
“Darwin, my baby. Please, do as she says. She’ll kill us both if you don’t.”
“I . . .”
“Oh god, please, Darwin. I don’t want to die,” his mom cried.
A scene popped into Darwin’s head—one that he had recreated over and over again, trying to change the outcome of his actions. His mother’s car swerving on the dry concrete road, the steering wheel slick in his hands as they impacted the railing and spun across the highway, flipping end over end down the concrete.
His knees almost buckled and he moved to the side of the QPS, his fingers still resting on its surface.
Teresa screamed again. A red Thread had crept through Darwin’s watch and jabbed itself into her already damaged leg, ripping the wound wider. Blood welled up from the exposed meat.
He jerked back behind the QPS. The Threads in the room shifted at his command, and the protection around Teresa reasserted itself, doubling the number of deep blue Threads, killing the red one. At the same time, a barely visible pink Thread wrapped itself around the material grasped in Rebecca’s hand. The blue smock tore at the seam. His mother, leaning against Rebecca’s pull, lurched forward, leaving Rebecca with the ripped jacket in her hand, and his mother free. Without hesitation, she ran toward him, passing Teresa without a second look.
Keeping one hand on the QPS, he moved again, holding an arm out to catch his mother. She fell into him and he gave her a fierce hug. He barely noticed the lack of apple blossom and vanilla.
Pain pierced his side and he stumbled, letting go of his mother and falling against the QPS. He reached down and felt warmth and wet. His hand came away bloody. Darwin slid to his knees and fell sideways onto the floor.
“Mom?”
Blood covered her hand as she knelt down beside him. He registered the knife she gripped, still at the ready.
The look on her face was one of sadness and pain. “I’m sorry. They—” She raised the knife again, ready to plunge it into Darwin’s chest.
Instinctively, he pulled Threads toward him, forcing them to change from the wispy gray of normal Threads to the blue of protective ones, visualizing a suit of armor. The knife plunged down, stopping at his armor, and rose again. Somewhere in the distance, he heard another scream from Teresa.
Threads moved off to his right, the pattern different from what was around him. It looked vaguely familiar, but he was drawn back to his mother. He saw the pain in her eyes, and loss, as the knife came down again and again, each time bouncing off the shield he’d created.
A red Thread pushed her hand away, slicing into her palm, and the knife clattered to the floor uselessly. Someone grabbed Darwin’s shirt, dragging him away from the QPS, before he was plunged into bitter cold.
The cold ended, and he was next to Mellisa on the back lawn of his house.
* * *
• • •
The world came back into focus, shifting levels of gray dissipating in waves. Darwin watched as soft white Threads pulled away from him. It took him a few minutes to remember where he was as the fog lifted from his brain.
Reality came back in a sudden, painful rush.
He pushed himself upright, a wave of nausea pulsing through his body. Two hands reached gently for his shoulders and pushed him back down.
“Nice and slow, Darwin. You’ve just been through major surgery. Everything is healed, but your body needs to rest. This isn’t magic, you know.”
It was Dale’s voice. Firm in its commands, yet soft and caring.
“Rest for a bit longer, sleep if you can. It will take a couple of hours for the pain blockers we used to fully release. Until then, stay put. We don’t want you to trip and reopen the wound.”
Darwin lay his head back on the pillow and stared at the wall. He recognized the posters. His old clock, the LEDs dark and lifeless, sat on the dust-covered nightstand. This was his bedroom, his house. He shook his head, bringing another wave of nausea, and closed his eyes.
No. No, it wasn’t.
Sleep took hold before he realized it. His last thought was of Teresa, her cries echoing in his head. When he woke up, the sun shone low in his window, resting in between a layer of dark clouds and the horizon. The red glow coming through the curtains made the walls look like they were running with blood. He blinked, bringing everything back into focus.
He reached a hand under the sheets, gently probing where the knife blade had entered. The skin just around the wound felt smooth before it puckered into a tight scar. It didn’t hurt. He struggled to sit up.
The scar was barely visible, whether due to the dim light in the room or Dale’s skill, he didn’t know. He shook his head slowly, then more rapidly, waiting to see if dizziness swept over him. When nothing happened, he pushed his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up.
The house was quiet. He could make out some soft talking from downstairs, but nothing else. Were the others still fighting it out at the Qabal headquarters? He grabbed a Thread and rode it down the stairs, not trying to be subtle. There were three people in the living room, and from what he could tell, no one else.
The conversation stopped, and Carlos’s voice echoed up the stairs.
“You may as well come down.”
Darwin found his clothes on the foot of his bed, a new t-shirt replacing the one with the hole in it. His jeans still had blood clinging to the deep seams of the material, making the waistband coarse and hard. He opened the door and headed down the stairs.
Carlos and Mellisa sat on the couch with Dale on the loveseat across from them. Moving to the armchair, he lowered himself into it and stared at the faces around him.
Dale watched him, and he could See white Threads move toward him and start prodding at his scar. Carlos and Mellisa looked on, concern written clearly on their faces.
“How are you feeling?” Dale asked.
Darwin stared at Mellisa, allowing his anger to build before he spoke. “Why did you do that?” His voice was quiet with the harsh edge of fury behind it.
“Do what?” Mellisa asked.
“Pull me out of there.”
Carlos cleared his throat and responded. “Darwin, with Rebecca concentrating on you, we managed to punch a hole through the shield. As soon as we did, Mellisa tried to find you. She realized you had been hurt.”
“They were going to let them go.”
“Them?” Carlos and Mellisa responded in unison.
“Teresa and . . . and my mom.”
“Your mother was there? I only saw the Qabal and Teresa.”
“She was right beside me; she was forced to—”
Mellisa leaned back on the couch, shock on her face. “The one with the knife? She stabbed you, Darwin. She tried to kill you. She’s part of Rebecca’s inner circle.”
“She’s not! Mom was just following them. She just happened to be there. Rebecca was controlling her.” Darwin’s voice rose to a feverish pitch.
“Darwin, think about it. Did you See any Threads controlling her? Did Rebecca attack her or threaten her in any way?”
“You weren’t there! You don’t know!” Darwin pushed himself to his feet and strode to the back door, only stopping at the fence to stare into the deepening shadows. His gut still ached where the knife—where his mom had stabbed him.
Had she been under Rebecca’s control? He thought back to the QPS room. The look of shock on her face when she saw him, how Rebecca had grabbed her jacket to hold her back. He remembered those things, could still see them vividly in his memories. But he couldn’t remember the Threads. Was she being controlled? Darwin couldn’t—didn’t want to—think of any other possibility.
The house door opened and closed behind him. He followed the Threads and knew Dale was walking toward him before she laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Come back in, Darwin. You lost a lot of blood today. Your body still needs to rest.”
Everything left him in a sudden rush, the anger, the hope, the tears, leaving him hollow and lifeless. He slumped against the fence, suddenly too exhausted to stand.
He let her lead him back to the house and up the stairs, his mind a mess of contradictions. On the way up, he removed the picture of his mom from his back pocket. He unfolded it as he lay on the bed, staring at the face he knew, noticing how age had changed it, until the picture blurred and his body finally took the rest it needed.
* * *
• • •
Darwin woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in his bed. The harsh remnants of his nightmares pushing at the edge of his senses. His mom sitting in the passenger seat of her car, sliding across the highway divider. Her face morphing into a mask of terror, and from there, into a creature from hell, with horns that blew fire and eyes that were pits of lava. He rubbed his eyes, trying to force the images out of his mind. It didn’t work.
The house was quiet, and through the window Darwin saw stars in the night sky. He followed the Threads through the dark hallways and rooms, finding Carlos and Mellisa asleep in his dad’s bed, their deep breaths disturbing the quiet of the room.
He roamed further, coming to the perimeter of the property, jumping Threads to remain in the confines of the men and women assigned to protect the house. Their main job was to disguise the house’s use and make it appear empty to anyone who might have been looking for them. In case that failed, they could protect in other ways as well.
He pushed the blankets aside and stood, bending over to grab his shoes. He would put them on once he was outside. Creeping through the house in his socks, he stepped over the parts of the floor that creaked, using his years of living there—no, he corrected himself—living in a house just like this one, for years. The two universes were similar in most ways, but not where it counted. His mom was alive here. He paused in mid-stride. His dad wasn’t. The thought almost took over, threatening to pull him back into the deep dark pit.
As he moved, he duplicated the Threads of the people standing outside, mixing turquoise and pale green into a bubble around him, hoping they’d obscure him from Carlos and Mellisa the way theirs hid them from the Qabal.
He opened the back door and stepped out to the patio, sitting on the stairs to tie up his shoes. Three more had died because of him. They had gone into the lion’s den with him, and he didn’t even know their names. He’d been too scared to ask. Maybe scared wasn’t the right word, but it didn’t matter. He’d shown them the way in, and they’d paid the price for that.
And he knew he had to do it again.
He couldn’t beat Rebecca alone, that much he knew, but with the QPS’s help he’d be more than capable. All he had to do was touch the machine and he would have already won. If the Threaders could get him close enough, he’d be able to take it from there.
He sat in silence, the only sound outside made by the animals that thrived at night. The Milky Way slashed across the night sky, brilliant in its color and detail, reminding Darwin how much the world had changed.
Threads drifted through the empty spaces and his thoughts shifted to the QPS. Even now, he could feel it, creating and sending out its Threads for the world to use. He knew it was the source of his and everyone else’s abilities. He hadn’t been able to See Threads until his dad had turned the damn thing on. Distance didn’t seem to matter; he didn’t feel or See the Threads any stronger now that he was closer to the source, even though he could feel the machine itself. He saw things differently, but that was mainly due to the training he’d received while they were traveling.
But when he’d touched the QPS, everything was different. He could remember feeling the machine pulse under his fingertips, and it was as if the Threads were a part of him—his slightest whim could change them, make them do whatever he wanted them to. There was something familiar when he’d made contact with the machine, a comforting blanket that lay over his shoulders, carrying the faint scent of apple blossom and vanilla. What was it about the machine that made him think of his mom?
Did Rebecca have the same connection? Maybe with someone else who had died, someone close to her? If so, it was obviously the reason the Qabal stayed in the building. Away from direct contact with the QPS, she would be no stronger, and no weaker, than anyone else who knew Threads.
It was as if touching the QPS pushed the limits away, opened the person’s mind to all the possibilities. Did it protect them from the insanity that threatened Thread users? Rebecca sure as hell wasn’t right. Her creation of the Skends, how she wanted to rule over everyone. Her grab for power. And now that she knew there were other worlds, controlling her own wasn’t enough. She wanted it all. That was why she wanted him, wanted to peel back his mind layer by layer until she found what she thought was there. Those weren’t the actions of someone in their right mind.
He pushed himself off the fence, the decision that had been nibbling at the back of his brain solidifying. He would do everything he could to get his mom and Teresa out of the Qabal’s—out of her—clutches. Once they were safe, he would worry about Rebecca and himself. He doubted she would willingly let him get close enough to the QPS to touch it again. She couldn’t risk the advantage it would give him. Yet it was obvious she still feared him and what he could do. He had no idea why. What he did know was that he would do whatever he had to do to stop Rebecca and the Qabal. And if he was lucky, if he survived, maybe he could move back to San Diego with Teresa and his mom.
If he was lucky.
The plan was to convince Carlos to send in another team. This time, he’d follow his first instinct. They would hole into his old room and find Teresa, hole her out and then follow her through.
THE SCENE IN front of Darwin unfolded in slow motion. Teresa looked up from the floor, the look of dismay on her face matched by the intensity of her scream. “Get out!”
Red Threads appeared in the air, arcing toward him, reaching over the QPS, planning to envelop him in pain. He reacted, blocking the multitude of Threads with barely a thought. The QPS beneath his hand pulsed in time with his heartbeat, picking up the pace as the realization of what he had just done hit him.
A Thread raced toward Teresa, hitting her in the leg, and she screamed in pain as the muscle spasmed and the skin broke. Darwin imagined a solid shell, sending navy blue Threads over her body, completely encasing her, barely stopping another barrage. It wasn’t a prison, but a shield made to keep out any more attacks.
The Threads stopped, and Rebecca stood looking at him, making no attempt to cover the hatred etched into her face. Her voice was cool and collected, the sound of someone who knew they had won.
“Welcome back, Darwin.”
He remained silent, staring at her, watching every Thread in the room with a clarity he had never Seen before. The increase in his perceptions made all of his training seem sophomoric.
“There are four of us here, and soon we’ll have all thirteen of us. You don’t stand a chance.”
“Teresa. Can you come over to me? Is the leg bad?” Darwin asked.
Teresa lay on the floor, her leg useless. She raised herself on her arms and moved toward him. As soon as her leg straightened, she screamed again and fell back to the concrete floor.
He moved to reach her. The moment his hand left the QPS, half of the Threads in the room disappeared. He barely saw the powerful crimson Thread surging across the floor toward him, only deflecting it at the last possible moment. He put his hand back on the QPS and the room jumped back into sharp focus. He’d known the QPS was the source of the Threads, but he’d had no idea how direct contact affected his abilities.
The familiarity hit him again, and this time he recognized it, felt his mom’s arms around him holding him tight. What the hell? Teresa cried out in pain and he was back where he needed to be. Where he could help her.
“I can’t come to get you, Teresa. I’m not strong enough to keep us both safe if I leave the QPS. You have to come to me.”
Teresa raised herself up again and moved another few inches, the blue mesh moving with her.
“You can do—”
“Darwin,” Rebecca interrupted, “the rest are coming. You don’t have a chance. If you come over here, we’ll let the girl go.”
He barely had the time to give Rebecca’s offer a thought before the rest of the disciples walked into the QPS room, forming a semicircle behind Rebecca. A fourteenth person followed them. One more than he had seen last time Rebecca and her disciples had gathered around the QPS. The disciples parted and the fourteenth figure picked its way through the gap.
“Elizabeth, your son is here with us,” Rebecca said.
The figure gasped and stumbled to a stop. Rebecca strode over, roughly pulling the figure forward.
Darwin’s mom stood before him, Rebecca’s hand still clutching the back of her jacket. It felt as though time stood still, and the room narrowed into a tunnel. Threads ripped through the space, hazy and out of control. The years of therapy he’d had after her death fell away in a rush, leaving him scared and raw.
She was just like he remembered her, just like the photo on the wall in his house—the house—earlier today. He breathed deeply and could almost smell the apple blossom and vanilla over the stench of the unwashed bodies.
“M . . . Mom?”
“Darwin? I thought—”
“Yeah, great reunion, isn’t it?” Rebecca asked, her voice dry and sarcastic. “You walk over here right now, and they both live. You don’t, and they die right before your eyes.”
Darwin’s palms rose off of the QPS, leaving only his fingertips brushing the cool metal of its casing. A scream slashed into his brain, shattering the tunnel and bringing the room back into focus.
“No!” Teresa screamed again.
“Now, Darwin. Come here now.”
His world spun and tears fell freely down his cheeks. “Mom?”
“Darwin, my baby. Please, do as she says. She’ll kill us both if you don’t.”
“I . . .”
“Oh god, please, Darwin. I don’t want to die,” his mom cried.
A scene popped into Darwin’s head—one that he had recreated over and over again, trying to change the outcome of his actions. His mother’s car swerving on the dry concrete road, the steering wheel slick in his hands as they impacted the railing and spun across the highway, flipping end over end down the concrete.
His knees almost buckled and he moved to the side of the QPS, his fingers still resting on its surface.
Teresa screamed again. A red Thread had crept through Darwin’s watch and jabbed itself into her already damaged leg, ripping the wound wider. Blood welled up from the exposed meat.
He jerked back behind the QPS. The Threads in the room shifted at his command, and the protection around Teresa reasserted itself, doubling the number of deep blue Threads, killing the red one. At the same time, a barely visible pink Thread wrapped itself around the material grasped in Rebecca’s hand. The blue smock tore at the seam. His mother, leaning against Rebecca’s pull, lurched forward, leaving Rebecca with the ripped jacket in her hand, and his mother free. Without hesitation, she ran toward him, passing Teresa without a second look.
Keeping one hand on the QPS, he moved again, holding an arm out to catch his mother. She fell into him and he gave her a fierce hug. He barely noticed the lack of apple blossom and vanilla.
Pain pierced his side and he stumbled, letting go of his mother and falling against the QPS. He reached down and felt warmth and wet. His hand came away bloody. Darwin slid to his knees and fell sideways onto the floor.
“Mom?”
Blood covered her hand as she knelt down beside him. He registered the knife she gripped, still at the ready.
The look on her face was one of sadness and pain. “I’m sorry. They—” She raised the knife again, ready to plunge it into Darwin’s chest.
Instinctively, he pulled Threads toward him, forcing them to change from the wispy gray of normal Threads to the blue of protective ones, visualizing a suit of armor. The knife plunged down, stopping at his armor, and rose again. Somewhere in the distance, he heard another scream from Teresa.
Threads moved off to his right, the pattern different from what was around him. It looked vaguely familiar, but he was drawn back to his mother. He saw the pain in her eyes, and loss, as the knife came down again and again, each time bouncing off the shield he’d created.
A red Thread pushed her hand away, slicing into her palm, and the knife clattered to the floor uselessly. Someone grabbed Darwin’s shirt, dragging him away from the QPS, before he was plunged into bitter cold.
The cold ended, and he was next to Mellisa on the back lawn of his house.
* * *
• • •
The world came back into focus, shifting levels of gray dissipating in waves. Darwin watched as soft white Threads pulled away from him. It took him a few minutes to remember where he was as the fog lifted from his brain.
Reality came back in a sudden, painful rush.
He pushed himself upright, a wave of nausea pulsing through his body. Two hands reached gently for his shoulders and pushed him back down.
“Nice and slow, Darwin. You’ve just been through major surgery. Everything is healed, but your body needs to rest. This isn’t magic, you know.”
It was Dale’s voice. Firm in its commands, yet soft and caring.
“Rest for a bit longer, sleep if you can. It will take a couple of hours for the pain blockers we used to fully release. Until then, stay put. We don’t want you to trip and reopen the wound.”
Darwin lay his head back on the pillow and stared at the wall. He recognized the posters. His old clock, the LEDs dark and lifeless, sat on the dust-covered nightstand. This was his bedroom, his house. He shook his head, bringing another wave of nausea, and closed his eyes.
No. No, it wasn’t.
Sleep took hold before he realized it. His last thought was of Teresa, her cries echoing in his head. When he woke up, the sun shone low in his window, resting in between a layer of dark clouds and the horizon. The red glow coming through the curtains made the walls look like they were running with blood. He blinked, bringing everything back into focus.
He reached a hand under the sheets, gently probing where the knife blade had entered. The skin just around the wound felt smooth before it puckered into a tight scar. It didn’t hurt. He struggled to sit up.
The scar was barely visible, whether due to the dim light in the room or Dale’s skill, he didn’t know. He shook his head slowly, then more rapidly, waiting to see if dizziness swept over him. When nothing happened, he pushed his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up.
The house was quiet. He could make out some soft talking from downstairs, but nothing else. Were the others still fighting it out at the Qabal headquarters? He grabbed a Thread and rode it down the stairs, not trying to be subtle. There were three people in the living room, and from what he could tell, no one else.
The conversation stopped, and Carlos’s voice echoed up the stairs.
“You may as well come down.”
Darwin found his clothes on the foot of his bed, a new t-shirt replacing the one with the hole in it. His jeans still had blood clinging to the deep seams of the material, making the waistband coarse and hard. He opened the door and headed down the stairs.
Carlos and Mellisa sat on the couch with Dale on the loveseat across from them. Moving to the armchair, he lowered himself into it and stared at the faces around him.
Dale watched him, and he could See white Threads move toward him and start prodding at his scar. Carlos and Mellisa looked on, concern written clearly on their faces.
“How are you feeling?” Dale asked.
Darwin stared at Mellisa, allowing his anger to build before he spoke. “Why did you do that?” His voice was quiet with the harsh edge of fury behind it.
“Do what?” Mellisa asked.
“Pull me out of there.”
Carlos cleared his throat and responded. “Darwin, with Rebecca concentrating on you, we managed to punch a hole through the shield. As soon as we did, Mellisa tried to find you. She realized you had been hurt.”
“They were going to let them go.”
“Them?” Carlos and Mellisa responded in unison.
“Teresa and . . . and my mom.”
“Your mother was there? I only saw the Qabal and Teresa.”
“She was right beside me; she was forced to—”
Mellisa leaned back on the couch, shock on her face. “The one with the knife? She stabbed you, Darwin. She tried to kill you. She’s part of Rebecca’s inner circle.”
“She’s not! Mom was just following them. She just happened to be there. Rebecca was controlling her.” Darwin’s voice rose to a feverish pitch.
“Darwin, think about it. Did you See any Threads controlling her? Did Rebecca attack her or threaten her in any way?”
“You weren’t there! You don’t know!” Darwin pushed himself to his feet and strode to the back door, only stopping at the fence to stare into the deepening shadows. His gut still ached where the knife—where his mom had stabbed him.
Had she been under Rebecca’s control? He thought back to the QPS room. The look of shock on her face when she saw him, how Rebecca had grabbed her jacket to hold her back. He remembered those things, could still see them vividly in his memories. But he couldn’t remember the Threads. Was she being controlled? Darwin couldn’t—didn’t want to—think of any other possibility.
The house door opened and closed behind him. He followed the Threads and knew Dale was walking toward him before she laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Come back in, Darwin. You lost a lot of blood today. Your body still needs to rest.”
Everything left him in a sudden rush, the anger, the hope, the tears, leaving him hollow and lifeless. He slumped against the fence, suddenly too exhausted to stand.
He let her lead him back to the house and up the stairs, his mind a mess of contradictions. On the way up, he removed the picture of his mom from his back pocket. He unfolded it as he lay on the bed, staring at the face he knew, noticing how age had changed it, until the picture blurred and his body finally took the rest it needed.
* * *
• • •
Darwin woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in his bed. The harsh remnants of his nightmares pushing at the edge of his senses. His mom sitting in the passenger seat of her car, sliding across the highway divider. Her face morphing into a mask of terror, and from there, into a creature from hell, with horns that blew fire and eyes that were pits of lava. He rubbed his eyes, trying to force the images out of his mind. It didn’t work.
The house was quiet, and through the window Darwin saw stars in the night sky. He followed the Threads through the dark hallways and rooms, finding Carlos and Mellisa asleep in his dad’s bed, their deep breaths disturbing the quiet of the room.
He roamed further, coming to the perimeter of the property, jumping Threads to remain in the confines of the men and women assigned to protect the house. Their main job was to disguise the house’s use and make it appear empty to anyone who might have been looking for them. In case that failed, they could protect in other ways as well.
He pushed the blankets aside and stood, bending over to grab his shoes. He would put them on once he was outside. Creeping through the house in his socks, he stepped over the parts of the floor that creaked, using his years of living there—no, he corrected himself—living in a house just like this one, for years. The two universes were similar in most ways, but not where it counted. His mom was alive here. He paused in mid-stride. His dad wasn’t. The thought almost took over, threatening to pull him back into the deep dark pit.
As he moved, he duplicated the Threads of the people standing outside, mixing turquoise and pale green into a bubble around him, hoping they’d obscure him from Carlos and Mellisa the way theirs hid them from the Qabal.
He opened the back door and stepped out to the patio, sitting on the stairs to tie up his shoes. Three more had died because of him. They had gone into the lion’s den with him, and he didn’t even know their names. He’d been too scared to ask. Maybe scared wasn’t the right word, but it didn’t matter. He’d shown them the way in, and they’d paid the price for that.
And he knew he had to do it again.
He couldn’t beat Rebecca alone, that much he knew, but with the QPS’s help he’d be more than capable. All he had to do was touch the machine and he would have already won. If the Threaders could get him close enough, he’d be able to take it from there.
He sat in silence, the only sound outside made by the animals that thrived at night. The Milky Way slashed across the night sky, brilliant in its color and detail, reminding Darwin how much the world had changed.
Threads drifted through the empty spaces and his thoughts shifted to the QPS. Even now, he could feel it, creating and sending out its Threads for the world to use. He knew it was the source of his and everyone else’s abilities. He hadn’t been able to See Threads until his dad had turned the damn thing on. Distance didn’t seem to matter; he didn’t feel or See the Threads any stronger now that he was closer to the source, even though he could feel the machine itself. He saw things differently, but that was mainly due to the training he’d received while they were traveling.
But when he’d touched the QPS, everything was different. He could remember feeling the machine pulse under his fingertips, and it was as if the Threads were a part of him—his slightest whim could change them, make them do whatever he wanted them to. There was something familiar when he’d made contact with the machine, a comforting blanket that lay over his shoulders, carrying the faint scent of apple blossom and vanilla. What was it about the machine that made him think of his mom?
Did Rebecca have the same connection? Maybe with someone else who had died, someone close to her? If so, it was obviously the reason the Qabal stayed in the building. Away from direct contact with the QPS, she would be no stronger, and no weaker, than anyone else who knew Threads.
It was as if touching the QPS pushed the limits away, opened the person’s mind to all the possibilities. Did it protect them from the insanity that threatened Thread users? Rebecca sure as hell wasn’t right. Her creation of the Skends, how she wanted to rule over everyone. Her grab for power. And now that she knew there were other worlds, controlling her own wasn’t enough. She wanted it all. That was why she wanted him, wanted to peel back his mind layer by layer until she found what she thought was there. Those weren’t the actions of someone in their right mind.
He pushed himself off the fence, the decision that had been nibbling at the back of his brain solidifying. He would do everything he could to get his mom and Teresa out of the Qabal’s—out of her—clutches. Once they were safe, he would worry about Rebecca and himself. He doubted she would willingly let him get close enough to the QPS to touch it again. She couldn’t risk the advantage it would give him. Yet it was obvious she still feared him and what he could do. He had no idea why. What he did know was that he would do whatever he had to do to stop Rebecca and the Qabal. And if he was lucky, if he survived, maybe he could move back to San Diego with Teresa and his mom.
If he was lucky.
The plan was to convince Carlos to send in another team. This time, he’d follow his first instinct. They would hole into his old room and find Teresa, hole her out and then follow her through.
