Penumbra (Spook Squad 3)

He glanced at her, his smile almost bitter. “We will never be normal.”

“Maybe. But I want to try.” She hesitated. “There’s something else out there for me, Josh. Something, or someone, I need to find. And I need you to give me the time to do that.”

He studied her a few seconds longer, then nodded. “Okay. Destroy that place, and we’ll leave.”

“And Mary?”

“She’ll be safe here on the hill until they find her. She won’t remember seeing us. I’ll wipe out her memory of being rescued.” He hesitated. “We’ll find somewhere safe for you to go, and then I’ll wipe out yours. Completely. But it might cost you your powers…”

“I don’t care. I don’t want them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. More than sure.” She touched his arm lightly. “Thank you.”

His smile was grim. “You know it won’t work, Sammy. Not entirely. It’s human nature to seek the unknown, and in your case, that will be the past.”

“But in seeking, I will also be living a different life. I need that, at least for a while.”

“And what if the powers come back?”

“Do you think they will?”

“They might, once you hit puberty. I don’t know for sure, but it seems likely.”

“Then I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” she told him firmly.

He grimaced and waved a hand toward the boundary fence. “Then let’s get away from this place.”

She glanced at the burning buildings and called to the earth underneath it. Power filled her, stretched her, with a rawness that felt at once so right and yet so alien. She waited, letting it run through every pore, every cell, until it felt as if skin and bone and being had melted away and she was nothing more than that rawness. Then she finally released it. A shudder ran through the ground beneath them, gathering speed and strength. With a rolling, groaning sound, the earth below the hill split asunder and whole buildings began to disappear. When everything had been swallowed, she let the earth rest again. Another shudder ran through the ground, one that echoed through her soul. She rubbed her arms and glanced at her brother.

“Let’s hope we never come back to this place.”

“Let’s hope you never come back. Me, I have every intention of returning. There’s still too much to be done here.”

“Josh—”

“You have your dreams, and I have mine. Leave it at that, Sammy.”

He rose and held out his hand, and she clasped it and let him lead her to freedom.

—

The dream came to an abrupt halt and Sam woke with a start. For several seconds she did nothing more than lie on her bed, staring up at the ceiling as her heart galloped and sweat rolled down her cheek.

Or maybe it was tears.

As her heart began to slow to a more normal rate, she let her thoughts return to the dream in an attempt to grasp all the implications.

Because, as usual, the dream had answered some questions and raised many more. For a start, how had they escaped Hopeworth itself? Sure, their section might have been destroyed by flame and earth, but that quake had been very centralized and wouldn’t have destroyed—and indeed, didn’t destroy—the rest of the base. Plus, there was the fact that she’d had a tracker in her side—a tracker that had been inserted at birth and had been discovered by the SIU when she was being investigated for Jack’s death. Surely that would have been activated as a matter of course, even if they weren’t sure who had and hadn’t perished in the fires and subsequent quake.

A quake she’d brought to life.

God, how scary was that?

She thrust a hand through her sweaty hair and wondered if she still had that power now. If she did, then it was still locked behind the walls of forgetfulness Josh had raised. She hoped it remained there forever. No one should have a power like that.

No one.