The Dark at the End Read online

  Maybe it’s just a Lukin male trait to do stupid things to save people.

  At least Dedushka was on foot for a long stretch too, and we walk faster than he does. We shouldn’t be that far behind him. Maybe we can stop him before he goes in there.

  Maybe. I think of him in the surf, Santa with his pants rolled up, laughing, and I walk faster. My heart pounds like I’m running a marathon, even at a walk.

  Lucas has been dead silent since Dedushka left. I have no idea what’s going on in his head.

  When Vladimir’s GPS says we’re near the right place, the three of us stop and check it out. There’s a small valley between two hills, a dirt track winding through it that shows definite signs of traffic. Jake and I lie on our bellies and spy, carefully, from the top of one of the hills. I don’t see anything on the ground, no trap doors like in John’s desert base. No suspicious mounds.

  I kind of expected there’d be wire fence and guards, honestly, and a big metal building. Not another actual hidden base. This is weird.

  “There,” Jake says. He points to another hill across from us, farther down. “Do you see a square shape in the side there? An outline?”

  It’s hard to tell—I squint—but I think I see it. A secret door in a hill. It’s like we’re in a book. I blink. Yep, it’s still there.

  “Dad couldn’t have built that in the time he’s had,” Jake whispers. “It had to have been here before. Crazy-ass government agencies.”

  “How many of these do you think there—”

  Suddenly I see movement. I grab Jake’s arm, point. A dot, moving towards the door. A dot with hair glowing white in the sun.

  “No,” Jake whispers. “NO.”

  I just hold his arm, watching. Helpless. We can’t stop him now. There’s got to be surveillance by the door, probably in the whole valley, and he’s smack in the middle of it.

  It’s too late.

  He stands in front of the square door, arms crossed. No waving, or demands as far as I can tell. Just standing there, waiting.

  “What’s he doing?” I whisper.

  And then Lucas is over the hill and in the valley too, sprinting towards the door, towards Dedushka. Jake lunges to stop him, but misses.

  We weren’t watching, either of us. We’d almost forgotten he was still standing there. And he’s too fast. Too determined. We can’t yell after him either, without giving ourselves away and getting us all stuck.

  “He wants to get to John,” I say, low. “Did you hear him, at Denny’s? He just wants to see John again.”

  Jake drops his head in the dirt and swears, but I keep watching. I have to see.

  After a couple seconds Jake lifts his head to watch too.

  The white dot that is Dedushka turns and watches Lucas pelting towards him, unstoppable. I can imagine the defeat in him, even though I can’t see it. No, I don’t have to imagine it. I feel it, tears in my eyes as the door behind them slides up, revealing a dark tunnel into the hill. You could drive a truck through it, which is probably the point.

  Two soldiers in desert fatigues with rifles come barreling out.

  They bark orders we can’t hear, and both Dedushka and Lucas sink to their knees, hands behind their heads. It takes ten seconds for them to be handcuffed, pulled to their feet, and dragged inside. Five seconds more and the door is shut again, sealing them inside the hill. Puffs of dust swirl around, the only evidence that anything happened.

  “Now Dad has every single member of my family in there, captive,” Jake says, slow.

  I hiccup a sob. It’s true. Just like that. Now we have no leverage left. The only one still out here is Jake. “I’m sorry,” I say. Though it’s useless.

  He slumps against the hill, his back to it all. “I’m not giving myself up. Not again. Not this time.”

  “NO.” I wipe my face and sit back too, next to him. I grab his hand like I can keep him here myself, by force. “You’re not. I don’t know what he—what they—were thinking. But you being in there too isn’t going to help anyone.”

  “And then there were two,” he says, bitter.

  We started with five. Down to two, up to four. And now we’re back to two. Me and Jake. That’s all we have left.

  33

  MYKA

  Family Portrait by P!nk

  A soldier comes and gets me to have lunch with Dad. I’m happy. I’m past ready to talk to him, and tell him how upset I am. I need to see Mom. He needs to let us stay together. This isolation for days plan, whyever he’s doing it, is dumb. It’s not going to work.

  I’m going to tell him that.

  They take me to his office. He’s got lunch all set up on his desk, places for two. Mac and cheese, and canned peaches. He smiles when I come in. “There she is!”

  I drop into the seat and fold my arms. “I don’t just eat cheese, you know.”

  “But you still like cheese. Don’t pretend you don’t. Eat.”

  “Dad. You can’t keep me and Mom locked up separately like this. It’s kidnapping. You’re holding us against our will, and—”

  “You’re my family,” he snaps. His voice rises. “That’s ridiculous. You just need to understand.”

  I shake my head. “No. You need to let us go.”

  “EAT YOUR DAMN LUNCH.” He shouts it, spit flying from his mouth, and I bite my lip to keep from screaming.

  My hand shakes as I lift the fork and put a bite of mac and cheese in my mouth.

  He really wasn’t like this before. He never yelled at me. He just got quiet when he was mad. What happened? Why is he…

  A horrible thought hits me, and I stop chewing, staring at Dad, while I think of it. Did he try some experimental medicine on himself? He’s trying to affect the brain. If it went wrong, that would affect the brain too. That might make him crazy.

  The macaroni sticks in my throat.

  “Have you thought about the serum?” he says, casually. His voice is normal again, reasonable.

  But now I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to set him off again. I take another bite and chew, slowly. It tastes like sand. “I…uh…” No, I can’t pretend, or lie to him. I never could. “I’m not interested. I never will be. I don’t want a power, and I don’t want you to experiment on me.”

  His lips press all thin, and I’m afraid he’s going to go off again.

  “Dad,” I say, as soft as I can. “I’m not a subject. I’m Myka. Your daughter. You don’t want to—”

  His phone beeps, and he snatches it up and holds it to his ear. At first he’s irritated, but then he leans into the phone, interested. “I’ll be right there,” he says. His eyes lock on me. I can see the excitement in them. Something new is happening. “Isolate them. Don’t talk to them until I get there.”

  Them? Who’s them? My breath gets fast. Jake? I don’t know if I want him to be here or not.

  Dad hangs up the phone and grips the desk, staring at the wall.

  “Is Jake here?” I ask. “Did he come to get us?”

  He focuses again, smiles wide, and shakes his head. “Not yet. Soon. He slaps his leg. “But the next best thing. Two of the next best things.” He points at the food. “Stay here and eat your lunch. When you’re finished, one of my people will take you back to your room. I’ll talk to you later. I may be…busy for the rest of the day.”

  He strides to the door.

  “Dad! Wait!”

  He pauses, and turns half-around, his hand on the door handle.

  “Will you let me be with Mom? Especially if you’re not going to be there…”

  He doesn’t even answer. He just goes out the door and pulls it shut behind him.

  34

  JAKE

  Kiss by Prince

  The two of us decide we should leave, get out of the area while we figure out what to do next. Dedushka left the keys in the car for us. We drive back out of town—the trees overhead flipping past the windshield in rhythm, flip, flip.

  “Take the serum,” Rachel says, low.


  I hold onto the steering wheel tight, watching the trees. “I can’t. Not now.”

  She scoots closer. She has dirt powdered in her hair, smeared on her cheek. “Take it. Before John has a chance to get hold of it. Before anyone—” she looks hard at me “—thinks of trading it. Or tricks you into going in there, to save them. Take it, stop your power, and all of this can be done. You can still walk in and ask him to let them go, once you don’t have the ability anymore. Once he can’t use you.”

  I touch my pocket, where the vial is hidden. Maybe that’s what Dedushka wanted, leaving it with me. Down it, be done.

  “But I can’t,” I say, barely out loud. “There’s Lucas. What if he needs it? I can’t take the only dose.”

  Rachel leans in, her eyes intense. “He didn’t ask for it to stop. Your dad might not even know he has a power. He’s not the one John wants.”

  “He’ll know. If Lucas doesn’t tell him, he’ll figure it out. And then he can use Lucas too.” I take a curve on the road, let myself consider the possibilities. “I shouldn’t. In case…”

  “Leave a little, then. For making more later. We’ll hide it. But Jake. You don’t need your power anymore to find them. You know where they are. You don’t need it anymore at all.” She breathes in, deep. “You need to use this—or we got it for no reason. You need to do this for everyone.”

  I pull over, in a little clearing off the side of the road. I take out the vial, look at it. It’s cool against my fingers.

  I think of the tunnels Smith made me do, that desperate little girl in a cage. The ones he wanted me to do, controlling people. He’s still tracking me, I’m sure of it. I think of Dad right behind that door, waiting like a spider to bring me in, wring every last tunnel out of me. Of Liesel, making me hunt people. Of everyone, friends like Chris, thinking I’m dead.

  I think of Mom and Myka and Dedushka and Lucas in there, all because of this power

  I could do it.

  But then I think more of that girl. If it wasn’t Smith I was tunneling for, if it was Liesel or someone, we would’ve saved her. I have saved people. And yes, I don’t need to know where my family is, but I can still use tunneling to control people.

  “I can’t,” I say. “What if I need to control Dad? I have his tie tack. I could. I can’t give up my only advantage right now, when I might still need it. We’ll rescue them, and then I’ll take it. And then I’ll be done.”

  I tuck the vial back in my pocket. She nods, slowly.

  Then she lunges across the seat and kisses me. Hard, demanding, nothing like the soft kisses we’ve had before. Nothing like ever before.

  I like it. I kiss back, joining her frenzy. My hand slips to her neck, and I stop thinking. My brain explodes in a fire of kiss, of her. Of need. A while later she pulls away, her hand over her mouth. I try to follow—I can’t do anything but follow—but she stops me, one hand on my leg.

  “I wanted to do that for a long time,” she says, a little breathless. She shakes her head, like she’s clearing it. “Okay, you keep the power. But keep that in your pocket, as insurance. Let’s go to Green Bank, get something to eat, and then we can plan what to do. Yeah?”

  I don’t even answer. I stare out, my thoughts on a loop now that I’m not kissing anymore. No power. Normal. Safe.

  I wonder what that would be like.

  We risk going through the border into Green Bank—though they don’t even look at us, just ask about cell phones we don’t have. There is nothing in Green Bank. It’s very green, and very rural. Church, school, houses, giant telescope, smaller telescopes. Kind of a perfect place for a secret base.

  We end up finding a General Store a little north in Arbovale, stock up on chips and beef jerky, crackers and water, and hole up in the car again parked off a dirt road. A huge blue water tower looms over us, the kind kids climb in movies and scrawl graffiti on, but this one’s graffiti-free. I try to eat, but I don’t want to. I want to do about five different things at once. I want to go rescue Mom, Myka, Dedushka, and Lucas from that damn base. I want to punch Dad, both for Mom and Myka and for how he treated Lucas.

  Maybe more than punch him, but I won’t let my mind drift that far.

  I want to shake Lucas, and then Dedushka, and then Lucas again, for going in. And I want to kiss Rachel again. We’re alone, and we haven’t been alone very much at all, and she’s close to me and her knee is touching mine. It’s warm. I can feel the point of warmth through my whole body.

  But I have to focus on the first one first. Rescue.

  Rachel’s reading a Washington Times she picked up at the store, devouring the political section before we settle in to plan. It helps her focus, she says. I forget sometimes she wants to be a poly sci major when all this is done. When—if—we go back to real lives. I pick up the front page she’s discarded, scan the headlines.

  A plane’s gone missing. A whole plane, with 180 people, took off from China and vanished off the radar, somewhere over the ocean. They don’t know if it went down, or landed somewhere, or was taken hostage. It’s been missing for two days. I read the whole article. It’s bizarre. They simply have no idea where any of those people are.

  I run a hand over the page, my heart beating fast. I could solve it in two minutes, with any item from any one of those people. I could say whether they are dead or alive, where they landed, what they’re seeing. There would be no mystery at all.

  And if they are alive, stranded somewhere, I could maybe save 180 people without breaking a sweat.

  I pull my hand back. That won’t happen. I’m not going to do that anymore. Soon I won’t be able to.

  There’s a rumble, and a car comes slowly into view behind us. I squint, trying to see better. It’s a black car, a Buick, with a woman driving. In a suit, with her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. She pulls over in front of our car, steps out, and leans against the door, her arms folded.

  My blood freezes. “God. It’s Liesel.”

  35

  JAKE

  Know Your Enemy by Green Day

  I can barely think, my brain stuck playing a hundred remembered incidents. Liesel in my room at home telling me about DARPA that first time, and our deal. In my cell, once she got me to Montauk, trying to act like everything was fine. Livid after she found out I was tricking her, and busting her gut when she saw me escape using Eric’s body.

  Standing over Eric with her gun at her side, after she saved me by shooting him. That’s the last time I saw her.

  “What should we do?” Rachel asks. “Should we take off?”

  I shake my head, slow. “She must be working with my dad. She wants to talk.”

  My heart thumps a drum solo, loud in my ears. I stare at Liesel staring at me.

  “Stay here, get in the driver’s seat. Turn the engine on. If I give you the high sign, go, okay?”

  “No,” she says, frowning. “You’re not giving yourself up anymore. You just said…”

  “I’m not giving myself up. If I tell you to go, it’ll be because it’s something bad, but it’s not my plan.” My voice is low. “I don’t know what she wants.”

  She presses her lips together hard. “You have the serum now. You could be useless to her in a second. Remember that.”

  I nod, get out of the car. Liesel hasn’t moved, arms still folded. She looks exactly the same. My hands start shaking just looking at her. But I make myself walk forward, step by step. The wind blows across my face, smelling of grass and cows, and I remember that I never have to follow this woman underground again. I can keep breezes and sun and places without walls.

  I stop a few feet away, like she still might grab me.

  “You’re working with him now?” I ask, when I’m close enough to talk. “What happened to your own project?”

  She shrugs. “I had no project without you. And your dad is continuing the work. It seemed natural.”

  I shake my head. “I wouldn’t have thought it. How’d you find me, anyway?”

  “Please.” S
he laughs, her old laugh, and I fight the urge to shiver. “We have drones, Jacob. We followed you from the base. You had to be nearby, with your grandfather here. And this is a secured area. You went through a border.”

  I swallow hard. Drones. And spy satellites. I always forget to look up. “What do you want?”

  “I want part of what your father wants: you working for us. Making a difference. Not vulnerable to people like Gareth Smith. I can’t believe you were working for him.”

  I shift. I hate her voice. Soft, insistent, always with the judging.

  “This Lucas told us already, about how he was with Gareth, how you were. Jacob. That is precisely what I was trying to avoid.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” I snap. “I thought he had my family.”

  She rubs a hand across her forehead, tiredly. Her ponytail swings. “No, John had your family. For safety. And he will, until they’re not in danger anymore.”

  “You can’t do that!” I shout. “Let them go!”

  She doesn’t answer, just looking at me. I know that look too well. Like a cat eyeing a mouse.

  “Why are you working with him?” I ask. “You know he’s insane. Unpredictable. He stole my family off the street. He probably killed someone.”

  She sighs. “It’s complicated.”

  “I won’t work for you.” I say, short.

  “Listen. The General, John, they don’t know where you are, yet. I haven’t told them. But they’ll want to take you in by force. They think they can convince you once you’re in custody.” She smooths her hair, a gesture I remember. “Or force you. But I don’t think so. I got to know you a little bit, didn’t I, Jacob? You’re one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met. I don’t think you will work under pressure. I think you’ll be useless if they do that. And let’s just say…I don’t agree with everything they’re doing.”

  “So?” I rub one hand against my leg, over and over, just to be doing something.