“Dani, please—”
“You know how they say a baby bird shouldn’t be handled by humans too soon after birth for fear of the bird becoming attached to the human?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of that.”
“I always told Sam that’s what happened with you and Nick. The first time your memories were tampered with, it was like you were reborn, and Nick was the first person you saw. Sam thought I was crazy, but…” She closed her eyes and several tears ran down her cheeks. “I should have been there when you woke up. I never should have left you alone with Mom and Dad to begin with. I should have been with you every second of every single day.”
I grabbed her shoulders. “None of that matters to me now. Just tell me where the boys are. Please?”
She opened her eyes and finally looked at me. “I can’t. Uncle Will won’t come after you if he has the boys. You should go. But there is…”
The tendons in her neck went rigid as she struggled for another breath.
I shook her. “Dani?”
Nothing. No response. Her eyes were vacant, unblinking, and the room took on an eerie stillness.
“Dani!” She was limp weight in my hands, and her head flopped to the side.
“Where are they?” I screamed.
Only the echo of my voice bouncing off the walls answered back.
I shakily rose to my feet. One of the techs stirred.
I had to get out of here before they woke up. I was exhausted and bruised and broken. I didn’t know how much fight I had left in me.
Probably not enough.
I spied the agent’s gun on the floor near his body. I scooped it up, checked the clip.
I had just started for the door when it burst open and agents flooded the room.
Suddenly I was surrounded, with a dozen guns trained on me.
“Put the gun on the floor,” Riley said from the center of the pack. I eased the gun down. “Thank you,” he said. “Now shoot her.”
Someone pulled the trigger, and a dart hit me in the chest. I had only enough time to think I was totally screwed before a woozy feeling swept over me and my legs gave out.
29
“What did you do to her?”
I clutched harder at Dani’s hand as the woman with blond hair peered down at me. “Is she high?”
“No, Mom,” Dani said. “She’s just tired.”
Mom. This woman was our mother. Yes, I knew that. And the man looming behind her, the man with the straight-edged shoulders and the coppery hair and the slash for a mouth was our father.
Everything felt so disjointed. Like I was stuck in a dream where I knew these were my parents but they didn’t fit the image of my parents.
“I’m packing her a bag,” Dani went on. “We’re taking her for a few days, if that’s all right.”
Dad stomped over to us and yanked me out of Dani’s grip, his fingers tight around my wrist, so tight that I worried my bones might snap beneath the pressure. “You’re not taking her anywhere. You think I don’t know what you’re up to? Will called, you know.” He looked past Dani at the boys lined up behind us. “You’ve gotten my oldest in a hell of a lot of trouble, and you’re not taking my youngest with you, too.” Air wheezed out of his nose as he clamped his mouth shut and seethed.
“I’m taking her,” Dani said again.
Dad shook his head. “No. You’re. Not.”
I didn’t know whose side I should be on. I wanted to go with my sister and with Nick. I knew that much. But if they were in trouble like Dad said, I wasn’t so sure.
I looked over my shoulder and met Nick’s stare. I always thought his eyes were the color of my sky-blue crayon, the one called ice. It was a color that meant strength to me, indestructible.
If he was going, then I wanted to go, too.
I tugged my arm out of Dad’s grip and crossed the room, stopping at Nick’s side. I fitted my hand in his. He squeezed just enough to be reassuring.
Dad turned fire-engine red. “I’m calling Will,” he said, and his boots thudded into the kitchen.
“Wait!” Mom called.
Sam and Cas started after Dad.
“Get Anna out of here,” Dani said.
Nick pulled me down the hallway and into my room, past the four-poster bed and then the dresser. He grabbed my backpack off the hook on my closet door and shoved clothes inside. “Take this,” he said, sliding it over my shoulder. He yanked the closet door open and gave me a nudge.
“Wait here. Lock the door.” He pointed at the dead bolt that’d been installed on the inside of the closet.
“Don’t come out for anything,” Nick ordered. “I don’t care what you hear. I’ll come get you soon.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” He shut the door, and I immediately clicked the lock in place.
There was a flashlight somewhere in here. I knew that much. I rooted around on the wood floor until my fingers grazed the edge of a box. Inside I felt paper and something glossy, something hard, like rock, and a flashlight.
I clicked it on and breathed out with relief as the closet filled with a soft golden glow.
Shouting sounded from the front of the house. I cowered in the corner, legs tucked up to my chest. I looked inside the box now that I could see.
There was a picture of Dani and me. A necklace. A smooth stone, like a rubbing stone. A handful of coins. And a flattened paper crane.
I pulled the crane out and puffed up his body.
Nick had made it. The errant thought came to me suddenly, completely, in a way that felt more real than anything had since I’d woken in some medical office with a headache and wires stuck all over my head.
Nick had been there. He’d been the first person I’d seen after opening my eyes, and he’d immediately seemed familiar.
I’d lunged at him, wrapping my arms around his neck. He smelled like oatmeal and coffee and brown sugar and soap. And his return hug was enough to tell me my jumbled mind hadn’t been wrong about him.
“It’s all right,” he said, patting my back awkwardly. “Things will be confusing for a few hours. It’ll come back.”
“Where am I?” I’d asked. I’d nearly said, Who am I? But the name Anna came to mind. “Is something wrong with me?”
“Temporary amnesia,” Nick said. “Leaves you feeling like shit, but you’ll be okay.”
“You’ve had amnesia before?” I’d asked.
Nick just stared at me, and I quickly realized he hadn’t meant “you” in the general, second-person sense. He’d meant me. That I’d gone through temporary amnesia before, and it left me feeling like crap.
“Am I sick?” I’d asked, which made Nick smile.
“No, bird. You’re fine.”
Bird. That was familiar, too.
Still crouched in the closet, I twirled the paper crane by its points between my fingers.
More shouting sounded from the foyer. Something crashed to the floor. Nick cursed. Dani screamed. I wanted to see what was happening. I didn’t want to cower in the closet and wait for it to be over.
I wanted to be sure they were all right.
The lock clicked loudly when I opened it, and I waited a second to see if anyone had heard. But they hadn’t. I pushed the door open enough to slip through and tiptoe down the hallway. I peeked around the wall into the foyer.
Dani, Nick, Sam, and Cas were lined up with their backs to me, their hands in the air. Dad had a gun trained on them, but there was another man. He had a gun, too. Someone who I thought I knew, but whose name I couldn’t remember. He was tall, blond, pretty in a way I’d never seen in person.
Like a movie star, I thought, and when he smiled, a chill of fear shuddered down my back.
“Where is it?” the blond man said, that bright smile still in place. “Tell me where you stuck the documents you stole, and you can go and take little Anna with you.”
Dad blinked and looked at the man, dropping the gun at his side. “No, they can’t. They’re not taking my daughter!”
The man turned to Dad. “Shut up, Charles.”
Dad shook with rage. “I’m not one of your trained monkeys, Connor. You can’t boss me around.”
The man—Connor—said, “Oh, can’t I? What exactly do you plan to do to me? Maybe slap me around a little? Give me a good shake? Maybe slam my head into the wall?”
Dad flinched.
“Let me remind you exactly who I am. I’m not your wife. I’m not your daughter. And you can’t outfight me. So shut your goddamn mouth, Charles, and take a step back. I’ll handle this.”
Connor delivered the entire speech through gritted teeth, but with the smile still plastered on his face.
Which made Dad even madder.
He lunged at Connor, brandishing the gun like a club. He threw a backhanded swing, but Connor ducked and landed a solid blow to Dad’s side. Dad keeled over and lost the gun. It clattered to the floor. Mom and Dani both dove for it, but Mom was faster.
Dani recovered, putting herself in a balanced crouch. She swiped a leg at our mother. Mom landed hard on her butt, the gun still clutched in her hand. She pointed it at Dani, but Cas swooped in and punched her.
The gun went off.
I gasped.
Nick clutched at his gut, and Sam caught him as he stumbled.
No. No. Not Nick.
I raced down the hallway, rounded into the bathroom, not bothering to flick on the light. I climbed on the closed toilet seat and, with a grunt, pulled off the tank lid. I saw the outline of a plastic zipper bag submerged in the water. I plunged my hand in, gasping at the cold.
When I pulled the bag out, into the light spilling in from the hallway, I saw the barrel of the gun Dani had hidden there. She’d told me where it was, in case I ever needed it. I didn’t know how I remembered that, but I did. And I remembered her teaching me how to use it.
I pulled the gun out, dropped the bag. Double-checked the clip to make sure it was full of bullets.
I hurried down the hallway. My feet weren’t moving fast enough.
Nick was lying on the floor, outlined in a pool of blood. Cas was having a hard time standing upright and blood poured from a deep split on his forehead. Sam was on top of Connor, strangling him with his hands until he finally passed out.
And Dad was pointing a gun at Dani.
“What happened to you?” Dad said. “You grew up into nothing but a little bitch.”
I brought my arms up, the gun clutched in both my hands.
It didn’t take Dad long to notice. He swiveled around, training his gun on me. “And you’re turning out just like your sister.”
I pulled the trigger. Dad staggered back from the hit and sank to his knees. Mom screamed. She barreled toward me.
She looked like a wild thing, like a ghost or a monster or both, with pale skin and hollow eyes and a mouth twisted in a way that was anything but human.
I shot again.
My breath came too quickly. I squeezed my eyes shut and heard Dad swear beneath his breath.
I thought it was over.
I thought we had won.
“No!” Dani yelled.
Another shot sounded. I opened my eyes the very second the bullet hit me and slammed me to the floor.
“You asshole!” Dani screeched.
My side was suddenly on fire, soaked, sticky and warm with blood. I tried sitting up, but I couldn’t seem to move my legs to get enough leverage.
Dani scrambled to my side. “No. No. Anna.” Her hands hovered over me like she was afraid to touch me. “Can you hear me, bird?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you see me?”
I rolled my head toward her voice but was having a hard time making out her face. “Is he dead?” I asked. I was afraid he’d shoot me again. Or someone else. Like Dani.
“Yes. I think so. Cas, will you check him?”
“You know how they say a baby bird shouldn’t be handled by humans too soon after birth for fear of the bird becoming attached to the human?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of that.”
“I always told Sam that’s what happened with you and Nick. The first time your memories were tampered with, it was like you were reborn, and Nick was the first person you saw. Sam thought I was crazy, but…” She closed her eyes and several tears ran down her cheeks. “I should have been there when you woke up. I never should have left you alone with Mom and Dad to begin with. I should have been with you every second of every single day.”
I grabbed her shoulders. “None of that matters to me now. Just tell me where the boys are. Please?”
She opened her eyes and finally looked at me. “I can’t. Uncle Will won’t come after you if he has the boys. You should go. But there is…”
The tendons in her neck went rigid as she struggled for another breath.
I shook her. “Dani?”
Nothing. No response. Her eyes were vacant, unblinking, and the room took on an eerie stillness.
“Dani!” She was limp weight in my hands, and her head flopped to the side.
“Where are they?” I screamed.
Only the echo of my voice bouncing off the walls answered back.
I shakily rose to my feet. One of the techs stirred.
I had to get out of here before they woke up. I was exhausted and bruised and broken. I didn’t know how much fight I had left in me.
Probably not enough.
I spied the agent’s gun on the floor near his body. I scooped it up, checked the clip.
I had just started for the door when it burst open and agents flooded the room.
Suddenly I was surrounded, with a dozen guns trained on me.
“Put the gun on the floor,” Riley said from the center of the pack. I eased the gun down. “Thank you,” he said. “Now shoot her.”
Someone pulled the trigger, and a dart hit me in the chest. I had only enough time to think I was totally screwed before a woozy feeling swept over me and my legs gave out.
29
“What did you do to her?”
I clutched harder at Dani’s hand as the woman with blond hair peered down at me. “Is she high?”
“No, Mom,” Dani said. “She’s just tired.”
Mom. This woman was our mother. Yes, I knew that. And the man looming behind her, the man with the straight-edged shoulders and the coppery hair and the slash for a mouth was our father.
Everything felt so disjointed. Like I was stuck in a dream where I knew these were my parents but they didn’t fit the image of my parents.
“I’m packing her a bag,” Dani went on. “We’re taking her for a few days, if that’s all right.”
Dad stomped over to us and yanked me out of Dani’s grip, his fingers tight around my wrist, so tight that I worried my bones might snap beneath the pressure. “You’re not taking her anywhere. You think I don’t know what you’re up to? Will called, you know.” He looked past Dani at the boys lined up behind us. “You’ve gotten my oldest in a hell of a lot of trouble, and you’re not taking my youngest with you, too.” Air wheezed out of his nose as he clamped his mouth shut and seethed.
“I’m taking her,” Dani said again.
Dad shook his head. “No. You’re. Not.”
I didn’t know whose side I should be on. I wanted to go with my sister and with Nick. I knew that much. But if they were in trouble like Dad said, I wasn’t so sure.
I looked over my shoulder and met Nick’s stare. I always thought his eyes were the color of my sky-blue crayon, the one called ice. It was a color that meant strength to me, indestructible.
If he was going, then I wanted to go, too.
I tugged my arm out of Dad’s grip and crossed the room, stopping at Nick’s side. I fitted my hand in his. He squeezed just enough to be reassuring.
Dad turned fire-engine red. “I’m calling Will,” he said, and his boots thudded into the kitchen.
“Wait!” Mom called.
Sam and Cas started after Dad.
“Get Anna out of here,” Dani said.
Nick pulled me down the hallway and into my room, past the four-poster bed and then the dresser. He grabbed my backpack off the hook on my closet door and shoved clothes inside. “Take this,” he said, sliding it over my shoulder. He yanked the closet door open and gave me a nudge.
“Wait here. Lock the door.” He pointed at the dead bolt that’d been installed on the inside of the closet.
“Don’t come out for anything,” Nick ordered. “I don’t care what you hear. I’ll come get you soon.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” He shut the door, and I immediately clicked the lock in place.
There was a flashlight somewhere in here. I knew that much. I rooted around on the wood floor until my fingers grazed the edge of a box. Inside I felt paper and something glossy, something hard, like rock, and a flashlight.
I clicked it on and breathed out with relief as the closet filled with a soft golden glow.
Shouting sounded from the front of the house. I cowered in the corner, legs tucked up to my chest. I looked inside the box now that I could see.
There was a picture of Dani and me. A necklace. A smooth stone, like a rubbing stone. A handful of coins. And a flattened paper crane.
I pulled the crane out and puffed up his body.
Nick had made it. The errant thought came to me suddenly, completely, in a way that felt more real than anything had since I’d woken in some medical office with a headache and wires stuck all over my head.
Nick had been there. He’d been the first person I’d seen after opening my eyes, and he’d immediately seemed familiar.
I’d lunged at him, wrapping my arms around his neck. He smelled like oatmeal and coffee and brown sugar and soap. And his return hug was enough to tell me my jumbled mind hadn’t been wrong about him.
“It’s all right,” he said, patting my back awkwardly. “Things will be confusing for a few hours. It’ll come back.”
“Where am I?” I’d asked. I’d nearly said, Who am I? But the name Anna came to mind. “Is something wrong with me?”
“Temporary amnesia,” Nick said. “Leaves you feeling like shit, but you’ll be okay.”
“You’ve had amnesia before?” I’d asked.
Nick just stared at me, and I quickly realized he hadn’t meant “you” in the general, second-person sense. He’d meant me. That I’d gone through temporary amnesia before, and it left me feeling like crap.
“Am I sick?” I’d asked, which made Nick smile.
“No, bird. You’re fine.”
Bird. That was familiar, too.
Still crouched in the closet, I twirled the paper crane by its points between my fingers.
More shouting sounded from the foyer. Something crashed to the floor. Nick cursed. Dani screamed. I wanted to see what was happening. I didn’t want to cower in the closet and wait for it to be over.
I wanted to be sure they were all right.
The lock clicked loudly when I opened it, and I waited a second to see if anyone had heard. But they hadn’t. I pushed the door open enough to slip through and tiptoe down the hallway. I peeked around the wall into the foyer.
Dani, Nick, Sam, and Cas were lined up with their backs to me, their hands in the air. Dad had a gun trained on them, but there was another man. He had a gun, too. Someone who I thought I knew, but whose name I couldn’t remember. He was tall, blond, pretty in a way I’d never seen in person.
Like a movie star, I thought, and when he smiled, a chill of fear shuddered down my back.
“Where is it?” the blond man said, that bright smile still in place. “Tell me where you stuck the documents you stole, and you can go and take little Anna with you.”
Dad blinked and looked at the man, dropping the gun at his side. “No, they can’t. They’re not taking my daughter!”
The man turned to Dad. “Shut up, Charles.”
Dad shook with rage. “I’m not one of your trained monkeys, Connor. You can’t boss me around.”
The man—Connor—said, “Oh, can’t I? What exactly do you plan to do to me? Maybe slap me around a little? Give me a good shake? Maybe slam my head into the wall?”
Dad flinched.
“Let me remind you exactly who I am. I’m not your wife. I’m not your daughter. And you can’t outfight me. So shut your goddamn mouth, Charles, and take a step back. I’ll handle this.”
Connor delivered the entire speech through gritted teeth, but with the smile still plastered on his face.
Which made Dad even madder.
He lunged at Connor, brandishing the gun like a club. He threw a backhanded swing, but Connor ducked and landed a solid blow to Dad’s side. Dad keeled over and lost the gun. It clattered to the floor. Mom and Dani both dove for it, but Mom was faster.
Dani recovered, putting herself in a balanced crouch. She swiped a leg at our mother. Mom landed hard on her butt, the gun still clutched in her hand. She pointed it at Dani, but Cas swooped in and punched her.
The gun went off.
I gasped.
Nick clutched at his gut, and Sam caught him as he stumbled.
No. No. Not Nick.
I raced down the hallway, rounded into the bathroom, not bothering to flick on the light. I climbed on the closed toilet seat and, with a grunt, pulled off the tank lid. I saw the outline of a plastic zipper bag submerged in the water. I plunged my hand in, gasping at the cold.
When I pulled the bag out, into the light spilling in from the hallway, I saw the barrel of the gun Dani had hidden there. She’d told me where it was, in case I ever needed it. I didn’t know how I remembered that, but I did. And I remembered her teaching me how to use it.
I pulled the gun out, dropped the bag. Double-checked the clip to make sure it was full of bullets.
I hurried down the hallway. My feet weren’t moving fast enough.
Nick was lying on the floor, outlined in a pool of blood. Cas was having a hard time standing upright and blood poured from a deep split on his forehead. Sam was on top of Connor, strangling him with his hands until he finally passed out.
And Dad was pointing a gun at Dani.
“What happened to you?” Dad said. “You grew up into nothing but a little bitch.”
I brought my arms up, the gun clutched in both my hands.
It didn’t take Dad long to notice. He swiveled around, training his gun on me. “And you’re turning out just like your sister.”
I pulled the trigger. Dad staggered back from the hit and sank to his knees. Mom screamed. She barreled toward me.
She looked like a wild thing, like a ghost or a monster or both, with pale skin and hollow eyes and a mouth twisted in a way that was anything but human.
I shot again.
My breath came too quickly. I squeezed my eyes shut and heard Dad swear beneath his breath.
I thought it was over.
I thought we had won.
“No!” Dani yelled.
Another shot sounded. I opened my eyes the very second the bullet hit me and slammed me to the floor.
“You asshole!” Dani screeched.
My side was suddenly on fire, soaked, sticky and warm with blood. I tried sitting up, but I couldn’t seem to move my legs to get enough leverage.
Dani scrambled to my side. “No. No. Anna.” Her hands hovered over me like she was afraid to touch me. “Can you hear me, bird?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you see me?”
I rolled my head toward her voice but was having a hard time making out her face. “Is he dead?” I asked. I was afraid he’d shoot me again. Or someone else. Like Dani.
“Yes. I think so. Cas, will you check him?”
