Teddy tried to stand, but Christine swung the barrel of the gun directly at her. “I said, don’t move.” Her finger found the trigger. “We’re wasting time.”
Jeremy stepped between them. “No,” he said. “We have orders to protect her. Marysue—”
Teddy’s head snapped up at the mention of her mother’s name. Everything Yates had promised her. “How do you know my mother?”
“Your mother’s with us, Teddy,” Jeremy said. “Do you know what I would give for more time with my mother? Anything.” He bent down on the ground so he was eye-level with her. “If you join us, you could see her again. If you only knew what we could do together. If you only knew your potential.”
Her potential. For recruitment. She was the third name on that list. Brett. Christine. And Teddy. Three children of psychics, experimented on at Sector Three.
Before he could continue, she saw a burst of light from the corner of her eye. Suddenly, the scrub brush beside her was on fire. Jeremy stood and spun right, looking for the source of the attack. As he did, a seagull swooped down, diving at Christine’s head.
My friends, Teddy thought through the pain. They’re here.
“Hands where I can see them,” Nick said.
From behind her, Teddy felt another burst of heat as Pyro launched another attack of fire at Jeremy. Then Jeremy leaped off the cliff into the churning waters below, followed by Christine and Brett. Pyro sprinted down the trail after them, but the boat’s motor roared to life before he could reach them.
Nick helped Teddy to her feet but said nothing. Teddy wanted to thank him, but he turned back to campus, presumably to repair the damage of their misguided heroics before she could.
From the top of the cliff, Teddy, Jillian, and Dara watched the boat peel away, waves in its wake.
They’d gotten away.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
JUST AFTER DAYBREAK, THE COAST Guard spotted Jeremy Lee’s abandoned speedboat drifting near Alcatraz Island. No sign of Jeremy, Brett, or Christine. Still no word from Molly.
Those facts weighed on Teddy’s mind as she made her way back to UCSF—the same hospital that had treated Molly—on her way to visit Clint. But nothing weighed as heavily on her mind as the opportunity she had lost: to find her mother. Yates knew where she was. Jeremy knew, too. Both had vanished. If Teddy wanted to look for her, she wouldn’t have any idea where to start. And she had the feeling that the organization her mother was somehow involved with knew how to hide people and keep them hidden.
Teddy knocked on Clint’s door and stepped inside only to pull up short at the sight of Rosemary Boyd standing by his bedside.
The sergeant acknowledged Teddy’s presence with a brisk nod, and Teddy waited for her to say something about what had happened the day before, maybe even praise her for saving Clint’s life. But she simply grumbled something about the inefficiency of the hospital staff, and Teddy understood that it was as close as Boyd could come to expressing affection for a colleague.
Clint turned his head toward Teddy. “I’m glad you came.” Their eyes met and held. What had passed between them couldn’t be fixed with four words. Or a single look. But it was a start.
Boyd said nothing, in fact had turned her back on them to stare out the window. It was as if she sensed an emotional moment was transpiring in her presence, and it was too much for her to bear.
To Teddy’s relief, Clint didn’t look too worse for the wear. His left shoulder was bandaged, and his other arm was hooked up to a blood pressure cuff. An IV needle was threaded into his wrist. But other than that, he appeared fine. Terrifying to think how close he’d come to dying. Dara’s vision could have proved correct. The idea that Teddy had saved Clint’s life—by using her astral telekinetic ability, no less—was overwhelming. She still hadn’t fully processed it.
“You’re going to be okay, huh?” she asked.
Clint attempted a shrug, then grimaced. “I might not be able to toss a football for a while,” he said. “But my shoulder will be fine.”
“You did good, Cannon,” Boyd said, as she turned back from the window. “Stuck to your training.”
Teddy looked at her. Was she getting a compliment from Boyd? “Training?”
“That’s what we learn to do in law enforcement and in the military. Protect and serve. We obviously trained you right. Something clicked into place for you to step up to save Corbett.” She set a meaningful stare on Teddy. “You weren’t just looking out for yourself in that tent, Cannon.”
Boyd turned to go. Teddy braced herself for another slap on the back as Boyd passed her. But instead, Boyd just squeezed Teddy’s shoulder. Teddy wasn’t sure whether she preferred Boyd’s praise or punishment. The door clicked behind her.
“Any news from Molly?” Teddy asked.
Clint shifted, adjusting his position on the pillows behind him. “We have no idea where she is.”
“But you think she’s with”—Teddy paused, struggling to remember what Brett had called it—“the Patriot Corps?”
Clint nodded. “We don’t think she went voluntarily.”
At the end, Molly had fought against the Patriot Corps’s interests; otherwise, she wouldn’t have sent the file to Teddy. Just in case. Just in case they tried to kill her? Teddy felt sick. “I can’t help feeling responsible,” she said. “I knew something was off all year.”
“I missed it, too,” Clint said. He sighed. “I think Molly was trying to protect you. Wanted to save you from them in the end. But Jeremy had other ideas.”
Teddy’s heart broke a little more as she thought about how far Molly had gone to protect her, when she had failed so badly to protect Molly.
“It’s just a theory,” Clint continued, “but it adds up.”
“And now she’s
