Eventually, Jillian broke the silence. “Sorry I was held up after dinner. There was a bird I had to see about another bird. So, is this about McDonald?”
“It’s about what happened when I went to San Quentin,” Teddy said. She glanced at Molly, sitting cross-legged on Jillian’s desk. Molly nodded as if encouraging Teddy to continue.
Teddy took a deep breath. She started at the beginning: What had happened when she entered the prison. How Derek Yates had pushed into her head. How he’d told her to ask about Corey’s handwriting and ultimately pointed her to the clue about Corey’s Bruins hat. How he’d mentally influenced the correctional officers so he could meet Teddy face-to-face. How Yates had trained at Sector Three—a program that had gone disastrously awry—alongside Clint, and how they had gone their separate ways: Clint, to Whitfield, and Yates to a secret organization of psychics who assassinated world leaders. He hadn’t been too clear on the particulars of his work, but when he’d refused to kill again, they’d set him up. And then Clint had tracked him down and withheld evidence that proved Yates’s innocence.
Teddy left out the part about her parents being at Sector Three. Part of her hoped that if she presented the story without personal involvement, they’d be more inclined to help; if she sold the story without emotions, they might agree on facts alone. They should help Yates because something was happening at Whitfield. She told them that Yates believed his organization was behind the theft on Halloween. But the fact that Whitfield had their blood at all, according to Yates, suggested that the government would use psychics for secret purposes. Something about Yates’s words from that day cut her to the bone: To them, we’re weapons, to be used and discarded at will.
Jillian tucked a tangled curl behind her ear and looked at Teddy. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” she asked.
“I didn’t want to involve you in this mess if I could help it.”
Dara stood up to pace the crowded room but quickly recognized the futility of even trying—the space was barely large enough to accommodate them all. She sat back down. “My grandmother was right all along about Sector Three.”
“What did you really think—the government wanted to help us develop our psychic powers, no strings attached?” Pyro asked. He let out a low laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“If that’s what you think,” Jeremy said, “then why are you here?”
“I need to learn to control my abilities,” Pyro said, slapping one palm against his chest. “But I didn’t sign up for indentured servitude.”
“So what do we do now?” Dara asked.
“We need the file Yates told me about,” Teddy said. “That’s where we start.”
Jillian blinked. “I thought you already tried. The video isn’t on Nick’s laptop, right?”
“It isn’t,” Teddy said. “But that doesn’t mean the FBI doesn’t have it.”
All eyes turned toward Molly; she seemed uncomfortable, picking at the hem of her sweater. “So, I guess we’re going to hack the FBI,” she said.
“No freaking way,” Pyro said. “Generally, I think you’re all out of your goddamn minds, but you’re really out of your goddamn mind.”
“Just listen before you make a decision,” Molly said. She spoke now with a confidence that Teddy hadn’t seen from her in weeks. Even when Teddy had been pushing her to hand over the hard drive, she’d seemed on the breaking point, but now Molly seemed focused, calm. She walked the Misfits through a rough plan. The video file resided on an air-gapped computer located somewhere within the FBI building. Extracting that file was possible only if they could get inside. They wouldn’t need physical contact with the actual computer, just proximity. With the right hacking programs and tech devices, as well as a crew stationed nearby to handle the transmissions, they could pull it off.
“Last time I checked, even breaking in to the FBI building is a federal crime. As in five years to life,” Pyro said.
Molly shook her head. “You’re forgetting something. We won the McDonald challenge. Teddy gets a personal tour of the San Francisco FBI building.”
“So technically, we’re not breaking in at all,” Teddy said.
Jillian shook her head “Either way, it’s wrong. If we get caught, we’ll go to jail.”
“Not jail,” Pyro said. “Federal penitentiary.”
“So you’d rather, what, forget this whole thing?” Teddy asked. “Maybe you can do that. But I don’t want this place to turn into the next Sector Three. And if I can do something to help a psychic—” She still wasn’t telling them the all the reasons she needed to do this. She felt for her parents’ picture in her pocket.
“Help a criminal, you mean,” Pyro said.
“No,” Teddy said. “A psychic who was treated as a weapon, not as a human. That doesn’t bother you, Pyro?” She directed this line of reasoning at him, since his ability could easily be turned destructive. “It doesn’t make a difference to any of you that we’ve been misled by the guy who’s teaching us Empathy 101? He broke his cardinal rule—he tampered with evidence to benefit the outcome of a case.”
At that, Pyro fell silent.
“Aren’t there legal ways to get the information?” Jillian asked. “Couldn’t we use the Freedom of Information Act and formally petition—”
“That could take years, and that’s if we ever see it at all,” Teddy said.
“Putting in the request would also reveal that we know something we shouldn’t,” Molly added. “That could end up being even more dangerous than what I’m suggesting.”
At that, even Jillian fell silent.
“No,” Pyro said. “So, Clint lied. Everyone lies. I can’t risk
