The Dark at the End Read online

  He makes a funny little squeal, turns the car hard left, and plows through the grass of the divider, through the gap, and up to the southbound lanes, making a Jeep swerve and honk angrily at us. The tail is well past the gap before they realize what’s going on. Dedushka whips back off the offramp at the 178, over the bridge, and back onto the 95 north again.

  The tail is gone. I see them just making the turn onto the southbound lanes when we blow past them again, way too fast for them to catch up.

  I don’t think they’ll call it in to local police, since they’re trying to be stealthy and all. But they’ll call it in to their people. We switch cars again at the next travel plaza, at the junction with 26. I’m pretty sure they lost us now.

  I high-five Dedushka, even though he’s awkward about it. I really wish I had a video of that whole thing, but the story will have to do.

  Now we can head straight to Maryland. Home. It’s only been about six weeks since I left, though it feels like a lifetime has happened already. Well, it feels like a lifetime since Jake left, and that’s…what, three days?

  We’re going to be with Jake again. I’m not angry with him anymore. I just want to find out what happened, what he learned, and get Abby and Myka back. And then he can take this serum that’s burning a hole in Dedushka’s pocket, and we can….

  I don’t really know what we’re going to do after that. I’m still registered for Berkeley in three weeks. But what happens with Jake?

  I don’t even know what I’m going to say when I see him.

  I roll down the window and let the wind whip my hair, close my eyes. I guess I’ll figure that out later. Right now, I’m going to enjoy the ride.

  29

  MYKA

  Kill Em with Kindness by Selena Gomez

  When I wake up I eat some more Oreos for breakfast—it’s Dad’s fault, since they’re in here—and walk around the room a few times. It makes me feel a little better, but not much. I go look at the books on the shelf. Tempting. He got the new Dorothy Hodgkin biography. She’s a British biochemist, who won the Nobel prize for Chemistry in the 60s. So he does know what I’m interested in, some.

  The door opens, and I turn around, but it’s not Mom. It’s that doctor, Liesel Miller.

  “Hello.” She smiles, with big teeth.

  “I want to see my Mom.”

  She sighs, and closes the door behind her. “I’m working on that.” She points to the chair. “May I?”

  I shrug, and she sits, and folds her hands in her lap. She’s very neat., in a skirt and everything. Her pale hair is smooth, and her skin white. I’m all rumpled and messy.

  “I thought we could have a talk.”

  I lean back against the bookshelf and rub my eyes. “I just want to be with my Mom, and then we can get out of here.”

  “I know. Believe me, I know. I am very against this isolation plan of John’s. And his…other plans.” She tilts her head. “Open your mouth for me?”

  I frown, but open my mouth.

  She laughs, which surprises me. “What is that…Oreos? Your teeth are solid black.”

  I shrug again, but it feels a little less awkward. Like maybe she’s someone I can talk to. “You mean Dad’s plans for me. With this formula.”

  “Yes. Exactly.” She crosses her legs. “You know I worked with Jake, and I believed firmly in that. I still do, if managed properly. Jake can do a lot for the world, for his country, with the skill he was born with.”

  I roll my eyes. “You want to lock him up and use him.”

  She brushes at her skirt. “I want to use his talent, with his permission. I think it also might be acceptable to create such a power in new volunteers.” She leans forward, dropping her voice. “I think it is completely unethical and unacceptable to try to use an untested serum on you, and I will continue to fight John on this.”

  My eyes fill with tears. I don’t know if it’s because she’s being kind—and she wants to help me—or because Dad really wants to do that to me, and she’s the one trying to protect me.

  He wants to experiment on me. Like a lab rat. I think I hate him.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Do…you think Jake’s coming here? Is that why Dad took us really?”

  I don’t want Jake caught up in this. But I miss him. And Dedushka. They could help, against Dad.

  She tilts her head again. I think that’s how she thinks. “Probably. But now that you’re here and this serum has come John’s way…he’s latched onto you as an opportunity. I’m sorry.” She sighs. “Jake spoke of you so warmly, always. He will probably find a way to come.” She stands. “I am fighting the larger war, so I may not push the smaller battle about you being with your mother at the moment. In the meantime, would you like to go to the bathroom? Clean up? Get some fresh clothes?”

  I nod, and she smiles again. “I’ll take care of it. Know that your mom is fine, and Jake is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Yes?”

  I nod again, and almost smile back.

  She’s not that bad.

  30

  JAKE

  Oh Brother by The Fall

  “You’re my brother.” I say it again, when Lucas doesn’t react.

  His head snaps up this time, his jaw clenched. “Don’t fuck with me, okay?”

  I have a stupid impulse to tell him not to swear, like he’s Myka. Though he’s probably 3 years older than Myka. And she probably swears too, when I’m not around. “I’m not, I promise. Smith told me. I…was surprised too.”

  “No. My dad was a soldier. Air Force. I only saw him a few times.…” he trails off, his forehead puckered. “My mom said he was always on missions. But I did see him. He wasn’t married. He said when things settled down he’d marry my mom one day.”

  I shake my head. Jesus. I never thought Dad was that big a straight-up, in-your-face liar. “Yeah, well, he’s a flaming dick.”

  “Hey!” Lucas jumps to his feet, his hands flat against his sides like he’s going to karate-chop me. His cheeks flush so dark I can see it in the dim light. “You don’t know anything about it. My dad…it was complicated, but he wasn’t…that. And he’s dead, anyway.”

  “Yeah?” I swallow the reaction, try my best to sound curious instead of challenging. “When did he die?”

  “Two and a half years ago,” he says. “January—”

  “28th. In a plane crash, right? In Colorado?”

  He stops, bites his lip. Now his hands are in fists. “How did you know that?” His voice is thin, small.

  I stand up too, tired of the imbalance, and rock back and forth on my heels. “Like I said, he’s my dad too. John Lukin, when he was with us.” I raise an eyebrow.

  He swallows. “Luke Manchester. He said I was named for him.”

  “Dick.” It’s all I can think to say, even if it makes his nostrils flare. “Sorry. Anyway, he isn’t dead. That was a trick, one he pulled on us too. I found him a month or so ago.” I skip a lot of the story, because he doesn’t need absolutely everything piled on right now. “He’s running an underground lab to try to create people like…” I wave between us. “You and me. And he took my mom and sister, right off the street. He’s holding them to try to bring me back. Bait. To get me underground again, so he can use me.”

  Lucas leans back against the wall, arms crossed, like his will gave out and he couldn’t stand up anymore.

  “I promise,” I say. “It’s true, all of it.”

  We’re silent for a while. Slowly he slides down the filthy wall and picks up the noodle bowl again. Absently crunches, staring into space.

  “I don’t think I believe you,” he says to the noodles. He looks up. “No, maybe I do. But I don’t want to.”

  There’s a long silence. There’s not much to say to that.

  “You are named for him, I think,” I add, at last. “But not his first name. Lucas…for Lukin.”

  His lips tighten, but he doesn’t answer. I don’t know him…and I can’t read him. Is he taking this well, or not? Is
there a way to take this well?

  I didn’t even know what reaction to hope for. It’s not exactly a happy family reunion. Hi, I’m your brother—your dad is a terrible person and isn’t dead.

  I sit too, in my spot. Though whatever appetite I had is wiped out. I push away the rest of the peas.

  “He’d use you too,” I say. “I’m surprised he hasn’t. Does he know you have a…an ability?”

  He shakes his head, slow. “I never told anyone. Until he…. Until I thought he died.”

  “Sorry. Again.” I shift, rub one hand over the thick, stiff jeans. I should’ve had Dedushka bring more clothes too. “And then?”

  He swallows hard and coughs, chokes, so hard that I wonder if I’m going to have to give him the Heimlich or something, but eventually he gulps some water and stops. He wipes the streaming tears off his face, not looking at me. “Then I told my mom. Who was having a tiny drug problem at that point.” His voice is small, only dots of sound. “Painkillers. I guess she told Smith, or someone who knew him? Anyway.” He shrugs. “He offered to take me off her hands for some fair amount of cash, and she gratefully accepted.” He half bows. “And here we are.”

  “Jesus.” He looks so fragile suddenly, so thin and small and lost, that I want to give him a hug. I don’t. I don’t think he’s ready for that. “That’s messed up.”

  He nods, looking at his dirty, bare feet, but doesn’t answer. I wonder if he’s had shoes at all in those two and a half years. If he’s left that god-forsaken apartment. Ripped out of school and his only family at 13, Myk’s age, for that life I saw…I’m suddenly really glad I punched Smith. I should’ve done worse.

  We’re quiet again, long enough for the sun to slip down through the twisted blinds.

  “You said you saw your dad, though?” I ask.

  “Sometimes.” He finishes the last of the ramen, scraping his fingers through the container for crumbs intently. “Five times. He’d swing by, bring me a whole bunch of presents—say they were for all the holidays and birthdays he missed—stay for a few days, and then take off again. I still remember him bringing me the red bike. How happy I was.” He snorts. “Like I had a real dad, for that day.”

  My gut twists, foreboding. “A red bike?” I ask, carefully.

  “Yeah. When I was five, I think. Red, with blue grips and cards stuck in the spokes. No training wheels.”

  My hatred for Dad bursts, seeping into my blood like poison, hardening me as it spreads. That was my bike. The one he taught me to ride on, up and down the street in Herndon. I put cards in the spokes so it would make just the right sound. Mom and I were going to give it to Myka, when she was ready, but we couldn’t find it in the garage. We could never figure out where it went, and he said he didn’t know.

  He gave it to his other kid. The kid he hid from us, and treated like crap, like an afterthought. And it’s not Lucas’s fault at all. But still it burns in my veins. My bike.

  I close my eyes, try to let the poison melt away before I talk to Lucas again. Before I take it out on him.

  “You okay?” he asks, his voice high.

  I breathe: one, two, three. Four. “Yeah.” I open my eyes. He’s still there, this little brother of mine. His eyes don’t look like mine. They’re dark, more rounded. But his nose does. And his ears, sticking out too far. I think he is my brother. God. I wish I could go back and take all this shit away from him. I wish we could’ve been a family or something, without Dad. Him and Mom and Myka and me.

  Maybe we still can, kind of.

  We talk about boring, non-personal stuff after that. Nothing that means anything for real. Sports—he used to play hockey, before everything. Tennis for me. Video games. TV shows. He was allowed to watch TV at Smith’s, as much as he wanted. He goes on and on about Supernatural, which I’ve never seen. Two brothers fighting demons and angels together. He doesn’t look at me or even pause when he says that, and I know it’ll be a long time before we feel like brothers, if we ever do. We have our own demons to fight first.

  I don’t realize until after it’s dark, and he’s asleep sprawled out on a flattened box, that I never even asked him what his power was.

  *

  I wake up in the pitch dark and know instantly that something is wrong.

  There’s a little stream of yellow from the streetlights coming through the dusty blinds, but that’s the way it was when I fell asleep. Lucas is still there, sleep-breathing, so it’s not him. I must’ve heard a sound that woke me up.

  I push up against the wall slowly, holding my breath, listening. It won’t help much. I don’t know this building, what it usually sounds like. It might just have been creaking in the wind. Or mice.

  I would really not be surprised if it was mice. I close my eyes, half-expecting a squeak, or for one of the little freaks to run over my feet. I wait.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Then a scrape that is not shifting or a rodent. It’s a step on the wooden floor. Another. Not close, but still.

  Coming.

  I get to my feet in one movement, shake Lucas awake the next. He’s groggy, moaning at me, but I poke him hard, hold my finger to my lips until he understands.

  “Someone’s coming,” I whisper.

  There’s a voice now, too far away to hear more than a murmur. Low, though. Male.

  Christ, could Smith have found us? How? Did he install a tracking chip in Lucas? Or me?

  I should’ve thought of that. The bastard is definitely smart enough for that. Something we ate or drank? Or injected with that shot? Something attached to our clothes?

  Or it could be building security. At this point I’m hoping for that. I could handle being thrown outside, no problem. Or maybe they won’t find us at all, sweep on past. Why would they, in a dark room on the fourth floor?

  Unless there’s a chip.

  We move, glacially slow, towards the door. I want to hide behind it in case anyone opens it, looks in. It could give us a second of surprise.

  I hope it wasn’t stupid to bring Lucas here. That I didn’t overlook something, and Smith is going to drag us back again, way more pissed and insane than he was before, if that’s possible. I don’t want to see that.

  The stairwell door bangs shut, too loud. There are footsteps on our floor. Whoever it is isn’t trying to be quiet. Two sets of footsteps, getting closer. They stop. The silence stretches long, so long, but it can’t last…

  “Yakob? Are you here?”

  Oh my god. I almost collapse against the door in relief. It’s Dedushka, early. And two sets of footsteps…Rachel.

  I’m out of the room in a hot second. She’s there, standing uncertain in the dark hallway, a flashlight in her hand. I can barely even see her.

  I want to run and hug her, bowl her over right there, kiss her until I’m sure she’s real and I’m real and we’re both in the same place, together again.

  But I stand in the hall, my feet chained to the floor, like a dumbass.

  Dedushka doesn’t have that problem. He takes the two steps and wraps his arms around me, and his familiar tobacco smell nearly kills me with happiness.

  “We decide to take the faster way,” he says, gruff. He doesn’t say how glad he is to see me, but he doesn’t have to. I know it in my bones.

  When he lets go, Rachel’s moved closer. “Hi,” she says, soft.

  “Hi,” I answer.

  Dedushka makes a disgusted noise and we laugh, and then I hug her. It feels like it’s been months, years. She’s soft, and her hug is fierce. She smells like ocean and car and Rachel. I drop my face into her neck, just for a second, and breathe her in. Her skin is warm.

  “I’m mad at you,” she says, her breath hot against my shoulder. She pulls away, tilting her face up towards me. I still can’t see too well, but she’s frowning. “I thought I wasn’t anymore. But God, I’m mad at you. For leaving like that. For doing that.”

  “I’m that much of an idiot.” I try to smile.
<
br />   She punches me in the arm, hard.

  It’s not that easy, of course. It shouldn’t be. I stop her, touch her hand. “Sorry. I was stupid. I should’ve stayed with you.”

  “Well. As long as you admit it.” Her eyes shine wet, but she does smile, a little.

  “Who’s this?” Dedushka asks, more gentle than usual.

  I’d almost forgotten, with everything. Lucas is in the hall, one foot still in the room like he’s ready to dash back and slam the door if he has to. I don’t blame him. He looks young, and skinny, and his hair is poking straight up like a brush.

  “This is Lucas. Smith was holding him too, and he escaped with me. Lucas, this is Dedushka, my grandfather—” Dedushka growls at the word. “And Rachel. My…” Man, what do I say? I don’t want to say ‘girlfriend’ since I just abandoned her and I don’t know how we’re going to just step over that. My girl? No. “My Rachel,” I finish.

  She laughs, and punches me in the arm again, then side-hugs, pulling close to me. I guess that was all right.

  Lucas nods hello, and Dedushka shakes his hand. It’s awkward, but not as awkward as it’s going to be in a couple minutes.

  “We think,” I say, slowly, “that Lucas is also my half-brother.”

  Dedushka raises his eyebrows, but that’s all. “We talk of that later. And Abby and Myka?”

  I sigh. “That’s the crappy part. They’re with Dad. Dad took them. He’s holding them at a base in Green Bank, West Virginia.”

  Rachel gasps. Dedushka drops his head and swears in Russian. “I did not think it could be so, that he would do this.”

  We all stand there, silent. Reflecting on how far Dad has gone.

  Lucas’s stomach growls again, and Dedushka grunts. “Yakob did not feed you, I see.” He gives me a glare—though I know he doesn’t mean it—and hustles Lucas down the hall, down the stairs, without another word. Rachel and I follow. We don’t exactly hold hands, but our hands are near each other. Bumping, knuckle to knuckle.