Free Souls (Book Three of the Mindjack Trilogy) Read online

  Three figures, one in the lead and two flanking him, marched steadily toward us, dressed in drab olive-and-brown camouflage. Their black boots and anti-jacker helmets looked military, but they weren’t any uniform I recognized, not even the black riot gear of the CJPD. But they had black guns pointed at our heads and skintight masks under their helmets.

  Fronters.

  Stupid young men proving how tough they were by hunting jackers. Stupid young men with guns.

  I stepped in front of my mom to protect her. Three of them. Six of us, but one was a reader and one was a kid. I was armed, and I was pretty sure Sasha and my dad were packing, maybe Myrtle, too. We might be able to take them.

  I flung my arm back, pushing my mom to the side of the alley until we were flush against the rough brick wall. As soon as I moved, Sasha, Xander, Myrtle, and my dad all scattered. I tucked up my leg to retrieve my dart gun and fired at the lead Fronter, the sound of their dart guns already popping the air as they shot at us. Xander went down by my feet, and Myrtle crouched over him, firing on the Fronters with a tiny gun gripped in her hand-knit gloves. I resisted the urge to go to them and kept shooting while the Fronters took cover behind the dumpster. Sasha zigzagged down the alley, getting closer to them. My dad flung himself against the wall in front of me, and I nearly shot him as he went by.

  I cursed inwardly but realized that now he could cover my mom.

  I quickly linked a thought to him, Stay with Mom! and pulled out before I could hear his response.

  Halfway down the alley, Sasha was already down, but I saw what he was trying to do. He had been heading for the dumpster, to get into their blind spot, then maybe go over the top to get into close range, where he could get a hand on their helmets. All three Fronters were still behind the dumpster; even if I couldn’t get them all, I might be able to give enough distraction for my dad and Myrtle to sweep in and take the rest. I started to push off the wall, but my dad collapsed in front of me, sliding down the crumbling brick. I hesitated, not wanting to leave my mom. Something bit into my shoulder, sending racing streaks of pain down to my fingers. A dart stuck out of the arm of my ultralite. I fumbled to tug it out, but my hands weren’t working.

  My mom cried out as I fell into her. I dove into my mind, ramping up my already pounding heart and searching for the trigger for my adrenaline, but darkness chased after me. I tried to push on it, but it buried me under an avalanche of horror, pressing on me with realization of what was happening.

  We were caught.

  Something was tapping my face. Roughly, more like slapping. It hurt.

  I opened my eyes and cringed, hunching up my shoulders to protect my sore cheek. One of the Fronters crouched in front of me, his hand pulled back, ready to slap me again. How long had he been hitting me? The stinging told me he'd done it more than once or twice.

  He didn’t hit me again, just stared from behind his skintight black mask. I couldn’t see his eyes, but the way his features moved under the Second Skin made me think he was smiling. Or possibly leering.

  “What’s your name, beautiful?” His voice had the halting, thick sound of most readers, uneven from a lack of use, and it sent chills down to my toes. I looked away, trying to gather my wits and assess the situation.

  It looked pretty bad.

  I was leaned up against a rough wooden post that dug into my back. Bindings bit into my wrists, which were tied behind me, but when I moved, I found they were free of the post. The floor was cold concrete underneath me. Myrtle slumped by my side, still passed out from the tranq dart they's shot her with. My dad lay across a crack in the floor next to Myrtle, his hands and feet bound, also passed out.

  Another Fronter stood behind Mr. Hitter, his arms crossed over his camouflage jacket and his face unmoving under his black mask and anti-jacker helmet. Even though his face was covered, his stare made me shiver. I had a hard time focusing past the two Fronters. Behind them, dim squares of light patchworked the floor between dozens of bare shelving racks. The air was musty and choking, as if every living thing had left long ago and taken the oxygen with them. The Fronters had brought us to some kind of abandoned warehouse, probably not far from the testing station, judging by how everyone was still passed out and they had to slap me awake.

  But why?

  An electric sparking sound and a muffled cry snapped my attention to my left. I blinked rapidly and Sasha came into focus, tied to another wooden post like mine, his body convulsing as the third Fronter held a Taser to him. The Fronter paused, then zapped him again. The current coursed through Sasha’s body, and mine twitched in response, every hair standing out in horror. The Staring Fronter tapped the shoulder of Mr. Hitter and jerked his thumb toward the Fronter who was torturing Sasha.

  Mr. Hitter barked out, “Hey! We’re just supposed to bag and drag.”

  Bag and drag. They had already “bagged” us, but where were they “dragging” us to?

  The electric arcing cut off, leaving a faint smell of singed air in its wake. “Yeah, yeah,” the third Fronter complained. “Just having some fun here before we take 'em in to the DC.” He shrugged and stepped back, taking his Taser with him. The DC… the Detention Center.

  Sasha slumped, held upright only by the rope tying him to the post. His dark, curly hair fell into his face, the rest of him deadly still. I hastily reached out to brush his mind. He was alive, just stunned to unconsciousness. My throat closed up, unsure if I should try to wake him. At least he wasn’t moaning anymore.

  My heart squeezed when I saw a large red J inked on his cheek.

  Jackers who were captured by Fronters simply disappeared, never to be seen again. I had assumed they were killed, but maybe not. Maybe the Fronters were working with Vellus’s Detention Center, rounding up jackers and dropping them there for incarceration. Which was better than outright killing, but that meant the Fronters and Vellus were somehow connected.

  Staring Boy turned his mask-covered eyes back to me. His knuckles turned white as he clenched his hands, folded into his arms. Whoever he was, I had a feeling he would rather use the Taser on me than Sasha.

  The bitter taste of fear and hatred stewed in my throat, pooling saliva in my mouth.

  The Hitter still crouched in front of me, inspecting me. I spit my fear-fueled excess saliva straight into his face. He hit me again, sending a blinding wave of pain across my face. My cheek was on fire, like it was stung by a hundred angry ants. My assailant reached up between his helmet guard and the black mask, trying to wipe away the spit, but only managing to smear it. A crazy grin broke out across my face.

  Mr. Hitter made a sound of disgust, then stood up and took a step back. I reined in the mania that was telling me to roll after him and bite his ankles. I needed to keep calm and find a way out of this. I blinked a couple of times and shook my head. It stayed fuzzy. I stepped up my heart rate to fight off the residual tranquilizer from the dart.

  As my vision cleared, I realized all of a sudden that someone was missing. I jerked my head around, straining to see. Relief and fear grabbed equally at my throat when I didn’t see my mom or Xander anywhere.

  “What have you done with them?” I asked, my voice still raspy from the sedative. “What did you do with the reader and the boy?”

  Mr. Hitter tilted his head and chuckled. “Had to throw the kid back. The DC won’t take 'em that young, but don’t worry. Sooner or later he’ll join you there.”

  So they let Xander go. “What about the reader?” I asked, my voice stronger this time, but he didn’t say anything more.

  I sent up a fervent prayer that my mom was okay. Fronters loathed jackers, but they held readers in the highest esteem. I told myself they had no reason to hurt a reader like my mom, even if she was caught with jackers. They would think they had rescued her. Especially since she had just been to the testing station and was proven innocent of being a jacker. Whatever mark the test left on her shoulder, the lack of a red J on her cheek should be proof enough for the Fronters.

 
; If wishes were granted on the strength of wanting them, my mom and Xander would be back home safe already.

  Staring Boy’s face was still unmoving, not even a blink underneath the fabric.

  Mr. Hitter turned to him. “You want this one? You can have her. She’s a spitter.”

  Staring Boy didn’t say anything, but his knuckles cracked as he clenched his fist tighter. Mr. Hitter seemed to notice the tension rippling through Staring Boy’s body as well.

  “Hey,” Mr. Hitter said, batting Staring Boy’s chest with the back of his hand. “You want some privacy for this one?” He was leering again, and his words sent fear gushing into an icy pool in my stomach.

  Staring Boy turned sharply to Mr. Hitter and shoved him in the shoulder. Not overly hard, but enough to take Mr. Hitter by surprise.

  “Whoa!” he protested, throwing up his hands. “What’s got you all riled up?” Then he looked back at me, peering closer this time. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and snapped a picture of me. Then he examined the image, or maybe something else, on his phone.

  “No way,” he said. “It’s her.”

  I swallowed through the tightness in my throat. They knew who I was. This was, in no way, a good thing. Mr. Hitter turned to the Fronter by the post where Sasha was hung. “Hey, come check this out! You’re never going to guess who we bagged.”

  Staring Boy’s hands dropped to his side. His chest rose and fell, small puffs of air inflating his skintight mask where it stretched over his mouth, now slightly parted. This sharpened the fear in me even more. With my dad and Myrtle passed out and Sasha tied up, the only hope was me somehow getting us out of this. But it looked like Staring Boy had an issue with me.

  Which meant he might have a special party planned just for me.

  A quick check of my ankles and the back of my pants showed the Fronters had taken all my weapons. Of course. Maybe if I surged up a crazy amount of adrenaline, plus my fast-twitch muscles, I could leap up and catch them off guard. Run at them, or maybe simply run away. That was it: I needed to run. I could come back with reinforcements. Or at least weapons. It made me sick to think of leaving, but getting dragged to the Detention Center wouldn’t help either. If I even made it that far.

  Myrtle, lying next to me, let out a low moan. Maybe she was waking. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Her jacking skills were extraordinary, but they meant nothing as long as the Fronters had their helmets on. Then she was just a frail old woman.

  I brushed her granite-like mindbarrier, hoping like crazy she would let me in. Myrtle, it's me!

  Kira? She stirred, her face grinding into the dirty floor, but her mindbarrier relaxed a little, letting me in. She was struggling to open her eyes.

  Play possum, Myrtle! I have a plan! I linked it so hard and fast that she reflexively pushed me out again. But she got the message because her body relaxed into the floor.

  I closed my eyes, trying to quell the hitched breathing that was taking over my lungs. I didn’t know if I could take Myrtle with me, but playing dead would keep her from being abused, at least for a while. Running was still our best hope.

  I needed to focus, ignore the drumbeat sound of blood pounding in my ears and the shuffling of footsteps. Dive deep into my mind, go down the elevator. I amped up my adrenaline along the way, and the heat of it coursed through my system, readying my body for the run of its life. I dug down deeper, finding the thread, following the pathway, and hoping I could get away before the blowback hit. The Fronters’ voices fell around my ears. I tried to ignore them, but they beat their way into my consciousness, slowing me down.

  “Wow,” one said. “It really is her.”

  “Are you going to just tag and drag her?” another one asked. “She’s on the Most Wanted list, like the other two…”

  “That’s the protocol,” the first one said. “But hey, man, I can understand if you’d like to, you know, do something a little different here.”

  “Yeah,” one chuckled. “Maybe show her a good time, huh? A little payback for what she did?”

  There was a scuffle on the floor in front of me. “Okay! Okay. I was just joking.”

  My body trembled with the adrenaline overload. The shaking of my body and the pounding of their words were distracting me. The Fronters were silent for a moment, and I kept following the thread to the center where my fast-twitch muscles were controlled. A couple of more seconds…

  “We’ll tag her just like the rest,” Staring Boy said. “You take care of the old woman. Leave Kira to me.” His smooth and practiced voice saying my name made my heart stutter and ripped my focus out of my head.

  My eyes popped open, and I gasped in a breath.

  “Raf?”

  Staring Boy whipped his head to me, and I knew it was Raf, even though I couldn’t see his face. Same build, same tall, trim soccer physique. A single dark curl of hair poking from beneath his mask, right at the nape of his neck.

  All feeling drained into the deep pit in my chest. Adrenaline still sang through my body, crying out for me to kick, scream, run—something—but all will to move had emptied out once Raf’s voice jerked me from the depths of my mind. His face was obscured by the skintight mask, but his jaw visibly worked underneath it.

  “How…” I said. “Why…” The words were a jumble in my mouth and in my brain. “How did you find me?” I finally spat out.

  That seemed to unleash whatever invisible force was holding him back.

  “Find you!” He dropped to one knee, leaning forward and curling a fist. I stared at it, wondering if he was planning on hitting me with it. I was too dumbfounded by that thought to do or say anything.

  “I never wanted to find you!” He was so close that his words reached me on huffs of air. “If I never saw you again in my entire life, it would be too soon!”

  I watched his mouth move under the taut fabric of the mask. It mesmerized me. The words washed over me like a hundred shards of glass that were somehow painless, even while they sliced me to ribbons. I would feel the cuts later.

  Raf’s memories—his life—was a Swiss cheese of randomness, all because of me. It made sense for him to hate me, given all the lies his parents had told him, but to join a hate group?

  A small voice inside me said, You should have known this would happen. After what you did to him.

  But it was so far from the boy I loved—who I still loved, even though that boy didn’t exist anymore—that my brain couldn’t process it.

  Next to us, Mr. Hitter had pinned Myrtle to the floor, his beefy knee punching deep into her stomach. Her legs kicked, landing nothing but air. He covered her mouth with one enormous hand. My heart clenched, wondering if Myrtle could even breathe. He twisted her head to one side and pressed his other hand flush against her cheek. I couldn’t see if there was a synth-tattoo film under his palm, but I was sure that was what he was doing.

  She’s on the Most Wanted list… I thought the Fronters' attacks and the testing station summons were random, but apparently the Fronters and Vellus were working together with a list of some kind. And how did Fronters get hold of government-issued jacker tattoos? You couldn’t get those at the local synth-parlor; they had special anti-counterfeiting measures built in.

  Even though Myrtle struggled, the Fronter held her head still for the thirty-second transfer. She made no sound, just glared hatred at her attacker.

  This was what Raf had become?

  Molloy had taken all Raf’s memories of me, but he hadn’t rewritten Raf the way Sasha could. Somewhere under the Second Skin mask was the boy I grew up with. Raf’s mask blew in and out with his labored breathing, his face near mine. Blood and adrenaline pounded through my body, but there was only one thing that was important to me. And it wasn’t running away.

  “I don’t blame you,” I said, nodding, “for never wanting to see me again. That’s why…” My voice cracked. “That’s why I left, so you wouldn’t accidentally run into me.”

  Raf leaned back, his br
eath hitching a little, then a scowl bunched the fabric on his forehead.

  “If you weren’t looking for me…” My voice faded. Was it just random? Was the universe simply that cruel to me? It wouldn’t surprise me, if that’s all it were.

  “We were looking for him.” Raf jerked his head toward my father. The third Fronter hooked his hands under my dad’s arms and dragged him toward the far end of the warehouse. My throat closed up, watching my dad’s boots bump against a shelving rack as the Fronter pulled him out of sight.

  I swung back to face Raf. “Were you trying to get back at me by going after my family?” I didn’t want to believe he would take it that far.

  Raf rocked back on his heels, still squatting in front of me. That’s when I noticed he had a tattoo film clenched in his hand. A bright red J was stamped across the clear sheet.

  “And how did you know?” I asked, my voice gaining strength. “How did you know that my dad would be at the clinic?”

  He didn’t answer me. A moan from Myrtle drew our focus. The Fronter who had tagged her was done. He rose and lumbered over to Sasha. The third Fronter had returned, without my dad, and together they worked to take Sasha down from the post. They were going to drag him away, like my dad. To the DC.

  Raf waited until they were busy, then whispered to me. “The name Moore came up. We weren’t going to take them in to the DC. I just… I just wanted some answers.”

  “Answers?” So Vellus hadn’t sent Raf after my family; Raf had done it for his own reasons.

  “Why?” Raf demanded. “Why did you do this to me? Was it some kind of sick joke to you?”

  “I didn’t jack you, Raf. I never would—”

  “You punched holes in my mind!” His voice had turned from whisper to hiss. “There are whole pieces of my life that are missing now!”

  The pieces that had me in them.

  “I didn’t do it, Raf, I swear to you.” I blinked to clear the blurriness, but that only rolled the tears down my cheeks. Raf turned away, disgusted. “But maybe I should have.” That made him swing back. “Maybe if I had jacked you to forget about me, you wouldn’t have had this.” I gestured with my chin to Myrtle, who had recovered well enough to work her way up to sitting. “All of this wouldn’t have happened to you. They attacked you because of me. They took out the pieces that… that had me in them. I’m sorry you were caught in the middle, Raf. I’m so sorry.”