Authority, page 7
part #2 of The Tracker Sequence Series
It was weird hearing Harlow struggle to find words. He had never seemed to be short on them the entire time I’d known him. But here he was, silently fighting to tell his truth, and I didn’t have the right mindset to help him.
“Was it painful?”
“No, more isolating. Details I should have known, should have remembered, didn’t exist. The more I tried to remember, the bigger the void got.”
“Like the blankness was pushing back?” I asked.
“Yeah, actually. Almost like someone or something didn’t want me to remember.”
“That’s so strange. What would there be to hide?”
Harlow shrugged. His gaze dropped to the floor. “I’m not sure, but this is exactly how it felt when….”
He didn’t finish the thought, but I knew he meant when Rufus Scurry mind-controlled him the night I took down the tracker network.
“A week ago, I started getting flashes: drops of blood, a knife, dark rooms, a high-pitched scream.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a dream?”
“Positive. It was so real, like my mind wanted me to remember something that was buried and shouldn’t come out.” He rubbed his hands on his thighs. “I think I did something bad.” His voice was so quiet I barely caught it.
I threw my arms around him in an awkward side hug. “I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say, but a side hug didn’t seem like enough.
When he finally stopped shaking in my arms, I slid back. “Do you want to know what happened?”
He shook his head. “I want it to stop.”
“I think the Ghosts can make that happen. We just need to understand what’s going on with your tracker. Will you let them study it?”
“Be a lab rat? No thanks.”
Ironic. I’d said the same thing about the authorities wanting to reset my tracker and carve it out of my skull. When the Ghosts wanted to study my tracker, it was no better. It was hard to know who to trust. He wasn’t entirely wrong in this case, either. It would require some level of study, and no one knew what it might do to his tracker or his latent memories.
“I can’t promise everything will work perfectly, but I can promise I won’t let you do this alone.”
He took a deep breath and held it. Then he blew it out slowly. “I don’t think I have a choice, do I?”
“Bailen and Jeremy are relentless. They won’t stop until they figure this out. My dad won’t let anything bad happen to you. You’ll always be mishpuchah.” When Dad had worked for Global Tracking Systems, he stole knowledge and took it to the Ghosts. Their combined technical prowess was bound to get to the bottom of what was happening.
Harlow side-eyed me. I knew this was about Bailen without having to ask. He’d had it out for him ever since he knew Bailen existed, even if he’d never said it. Bailen hadn’t stolen me from Harlow, exactly—I fell for Bailen as much as he fell for me—but it had been awkward, and the timing was all jumbled. We were both just as guilty; neither Harlow nor I waited for the other after I ran, because neither of us knew if I’d come back. After everything we’d been through, we’d grown apart. Regardless, I still cared about Harlow. Those feelings were a jumbled mess now. I didn’t know how to tell him I was here for him no matter what, even if the romantic feelings had changed.
“I promise it won’t be the torture you think it will be.” I smirked at him, but he didn’t seem to notice my spirited demeanor.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Ouch. His ability to stab me right where it hurt the most was so finely tuned. When did he get like this? “How about we take it one step at a time? First, we investigate that signal on your tracker and figure out why you’re forgetting things.”
He nodded, then stood from the bed, eyelids drooping from exhaustion and stress. “I should head home.”
“No.” I popped up from the bed and threw my arm in front of him, a lame attempt to stop him from leaving.
“Really? That gangly arm is supposed to be an obstacle?” Normally, this would have been said in jest, but his tone was more of annoyance.
“I just mean you shouldn’t go home by yourself. You can stay here, and we’ll go to the Coderie tomorrow with everyone.” I couldn’t let him leave. I’d never get him to go to the Ghosts otherwise. And if he wandered off, I wanted to make sure someone was there to witness it. “Stay in Jake’s bed. You’re already here.”
Harlow warred with the idea for a minute, then collapsed onto the bed, eyelids drooping even further. I squeezed his shoulder. He grabbed my hand in a way that said he needed support more than he was willing to admit. I stood there for an extra moment before pulling loose from his grasp, allowing my fingertips to linger in his a little too long. Then I retreated through the open door, flipping the light off as I left.
I returned to my room, where Lydia was half-heartedly turning pages in a book but mostly staring at the package I left in my room.
She shot to a sitting position, crossed her legs, and shoved the book off the bed with a thud. “How’d it go with Harlow?”
I collapsed next to her and rubbed my face. “He’s really messed up. I don’t think he knows what he wants. Which is making it infinitely harder to convince him to have his tracker looked at. Not to mention Bailen.”
“You mean Harlow not wanting Bailen there, or Bailen’s jealous energy toward Harlow?”
I shot her a look and smacked her leg with the back of my hand. “Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.”
She made her seriously face. “You could cut that tension with a knife.”
“UGH!” I buried my face in my hands. “Why do the guys always have to make something so simple, so complicated?”
“Because it’s pretty complicated. Your ex needs your boyfriend’s help to uncover some craziness with his tracker that shouldn’t even work, and your boyfriend is freaking out over the time you’re spending with your ex. The optics aren’t good.”
“There’s no way Bailen is jealous. He knows I want to be with him.”
Lydia cocked her eyebrow. Maybe she was right. Was I too close to Harlow still? Either way, I couldn’t leave him to deal with this on his own.
“Hey”—she nodded at the foot of my bed—“what’s with the package?”
I shot up and snatched it, thankful for the distraction. “I’m not sure. Why is Jake getting mail now?” I blinked away an impending tear to maintain my composure even though my insides were starting to quiver.
“That’s a great question, but you won’t know until you open it.” Lydia nodded at the padded envelope, silently inviting me to answer the question hanging in the air.
“Maybe I should turn it over to my parents and let them deal with it,” I said, second guessing my initial thought that the package was meant for me. Just because Jake died in my arms without my parents around didn’t mean they should be left out of all the things related to him after his death.
“No.” She snatched it out of my hand. “I think it’s meant for you, see?” She pointed to some letters on the bottom of the label I hadn’t noticed before. FFOB. “I think that message is for you.”
She was right. FFOB: found family over blood. Mishpuchah. “Huh,” was all I could manage to get out. We were family, so that didn’t entirely make sense. Then I remembered the poem he’d painted on the wall at school for his senior project about how family wasn’t always blood related. While I was family to Jake by blood, he’d also chosen me to be in his life, making me found family. But one thing nagged me. “What if it’s for Peyton?”
Peyton was the one person of Jake’s found family I hadn’t known about until it was too late. Sure, she was around when I ran to the Ghosts, but she’d kept her relationship with Jake a secret until her walls came crumbling down and the admission of how much she missed him came spilling out. Her connection to Jake made it equally probable that she needed to know about the contents of a package with FFOB.
“Then why send it here?” Lydia asked. She always had a unique way of logically lining up all the facts into an undeniable truth.
“Good point.” I tried to come up with a better reason, but more questions formed. “Why is it addressed to him and not me?”
“We won’t know until you open it.”
I paused to weigh the consequences of opening my brother’s mail. The timing of it couldn’t be a coincidence. The hole in my heart ached for a deeper connection to him. “I guess you’re right.” I tore the top of the padded envelope and dumped it onto my bed. A single USB drive tumbled out.
“That’s it?” Lydia asked, sounding a bit disappointed there wasn’t more to the mystery.
I nodded, but several questions stirred inside me—the biggest being, what was on it? The only computers with USB drive access were at the Coderie. I’d have to sneak away and find some time to explore the contents when no one else was around. Easier said than done.
I shoved it in my pocket and turned back to Lydia. “I can’t do anything with it here.”
Her shoulders slumped. “So anticlimactic.”
I nodded but knew deep down there was more to the story to uncover, like who sent it and why now?
But Lydia’s disappointment differed from mine. She’d been a great sport after I’d run out on her mid-conversation to escape the authorities before going dark and not responding to her thousands of messages. She could have easily written me off, but when we finally reunited, it was like no time had passed at all. No hurt feelings or drama. She helped me through the emotions that came after Jake’s death. That’s one of the things I loved best about Lydia: she accepted me, flaws and all.
I made a silent vow to myself to keep her in the loop this time, no matter what secrets this drive held.
But so many questions swirled in my head, so many words left unsaid. “I’ll have to find a computer to read this away from prying eyes.”
“Oh, no you don’t. You have to tell people about this.”
“You just told me it was meant for me and not to turn it over to my parents. Which is it?” When had everything in my life become a moral dilemma?
She lowered her gaze. “I just meant you should see what it is. You can’t go back to hiding everything from everyone. The secrets didn’t turn out so well the last time.”
I shuddered as she hit a touchy nerve. She was right. I didn’t have to do this by myself, but this one felt personal.
“I promise to clue you in when I figure out what’s on the drive.” I held out my hand.
“Deal.” Lydia accepted. We did our secret handshake to cement the agreement.
The tension in my shoulders released slightly. I had more allies than I did before. But after Rufus Scurry killed my brother and turned innocent people into his own personal mind-controlled zombies, it was hard to know who to trust.
It seemed likely there was something else going on that we’d missed. If it wasn’t Scurry, someone else out there had the ability to exploit trackers against a person’s will. We’d have to be careful who we trusted. I was sure Lydia wasn’t an unknowing mole, but that could change at any moment depending on how all this worked. And there was a chance I had a potential rogue under my roof right now. We needed to uncover the mystery behind Harlow’s blackouts. Hopefully, Bailen could get his equipment up and running before whoever was behind this struck again.
Eight
A scream ripped me out of a deep sleep. I bolted upright, eyes adjusting to the sparse light in my room. Slowing my breaths, I looked over to the spare bed in my room where Lydia’s breathing was even and unaware of the noise. I blinked my eyes to get the time before remembering to glance at my watch. It was an hour that no human should have to witness. Maybe I’d dreamed it.
A second scream tore through the air. Lydia’s quiet breathing continued, but that definitely wasn’t a dream.
A third scream interrupted my scrambled thoughts.
“What in the world?” Lydia groaned and rolled over.
“Harlow,” I said as I remembered he was still here.
I flew out of bed and slammed open my door. At the end of the hall, Dad flipped on the light, bleary-eyed and barefoot. He gave me a questioning look. I nodded at Jake’s door as a fourth scream erupted. After a handful of steps, I swung open the door to Jake’s room without knocking. Dad followed at my heels.
I rushed to the bed and shook Harlow. He jolted awake and pulled away until he was able to focus on me.
“It’s Kaya. You’re okay. You’re safe.” I squeezed Harlow and rocked him back and forth in an attempt to calm him, but he struggled underneath my hug and shoved my arms away, knocking me off the bed. Dad caught me before I toppled to the floor.
I stood in the middle of the room, unsure how to proceed. Unsure if he was in full control. I couldn’t help but think of the nights I woke up screaming in pain after Jake died. But this pain sounded different. It had an element of guilt behind it. More than just sadness, it included a mixture of remorse.
Lydia knocked on the doorframe and peered inside. “Everything… Okay, never mind.” She backed away slowly and shot me a what-can-I-do look.
I could barely focus on her. Harlow drew my attention back, but my body was powerless to act or know what to do. There was no rulebook for this kind of thing, no right answers. It hurt to see him in such pain. To struggle so much.
“Harlow?” Dad asked with a hint of more than one question in his single word.
“What?” Harlow snapped in a low tone.
The way he responded made me shudder, but at least it proved he was in control of himself.
My dad nodded at me, silently encouraging me to help get him talking.
“It’s okay,” I whispered and approached him with outstretched arms, like trying to get near a stray dog.
When I was able to get close enough, I wrapped my arms around Harlow, burying my head in his shoulder. I kept rocking him, shushing him softly so only he could hear. We needed to figure out what was happening to him for everyone’s sake, especially before Harlow lost who he was and couldn’t fight the pain anymore.
My dad cleared his throat. He wanted me to say something. Bad dreams don’t always stick around, and without tracker access, it would be harder to rewind and figure out what happened. I rubbed Harlow’s back, then took a deep breath and pulled my head back from his shoulder.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Harlow nodded, but hesitation filled his face. Dad sat in Jake’s chair. “I know this will be extremely difficult, but I need you to tell me everything you remember. Spare no detail. It might help me figure out what’s happening to you and your tracker.”
Harlow collapsed in my arms, but his ragged breaths slowed as he gathered the strength to do what he had to. He was always strong, but I didn’t know how he handled this alone for so long. Even with people willing to help, this had to be impossible. But then I thought about everything I’d done alone six months ago: ran from everything I knew and everyone I loved, eventually ran to find answers, endangering the Ghosts and their whole operation. Getting captured by Rufus Scurry himself before figuring out the truths I had on my tracker all along that allowed me to destroy the network. Now it might have all been for nothing, because the world wasn’t better. People were still hurting, their privacy still violated in new and different ways.
“There was so much blood.”
Harlow’s voice was so quiet, but the word blood jolted me from my thoughts. I’d heard it from him before, but if he was remembering more of what happened in the past, then maybe he was involved, a witness—or something worse.
“I know this is difficult, but whose blood?” Dad prodded.
“I… I don’t know.” Harlow pulled back and rubbed his face. “I don’t think it was mine.” He paused, face straining as he fought to remember what came next. “It was all over my hands.” He closed his eyes for longer than usual, then opened them wide. “There was a girl there, but I don’t know who she was. I tried to help her. She had tiny cuts up and down her arms and legs.” He shook his head, then let out a long breath. “That’s it. I can’t remember anything else.”
“Good. Is this the first time you’ve seen the girl?” Dad asked, nudging him down a path that would hopefully unlock some hidden secrets.
I continued to rub Harlow’s back to keep him calm.
“This is the first time I’ve seen her, in a memory… dream… nightmare…” He let out another long breath that didn’t calm his breathing. “This is so messed up. I don’t have the right words to explain this.”
“What about—”
“Wait.” Harlow’s face lit up, not in an excited, happy way, but in a way that said something was coming together. “I haven’t seen her before in my visions. I still don’t know the word, but it’s not important because I’ve seen her before in real life.”
“Where?” I asked.
“The night you took down the tracker network. Mr. Scurry made me put an authority weapon to her head.”
“Emily!” I grabbed Harlow’s shoulders and shook him as fear ripped through me. “Is she okay? What did you do to her?” I didn’t know whether to be mad at him for potentially hurting a part of my family or sad for his unexplained pain from trying to help her.
Dad shot up from the chair and pulled me from the bed before I could get any answers. “Sit here and take a deep breath.” He stared me right in the eyes until I obeyed. He gave me a reassuring nod before turning back to Harlow.
I glanced at the doorway where Lydia still stood in the hall. “I’ll have your mom reach out to Emily’s uncle,” she said as though reading my mind, then disappeared down the hall toward my parents’ bedroom.
I knew Emily’s uncle wouldn’t be pleased to get a middle of the night wake up call, but I needed to know she was okay.
Dad sat on the edge of the bed, preventing me from moving back to support or possibly strangle Harlow. Maybe I needed a few more deep breaths.
Dad put a hopefully comforting hand on Harlow’s knee. “I need you to think hard. Does this feel like it happened, like a memory, or does it feel like you were watching a movie?”
