“Because endings like this always come in fire.”
They followed Walt’s design and planted the devices along the walls close to the baseboard. Grace took the second floor. Sammie stayed below, placing the first of her devices by the breakfast nook. She started toward the den when a shiver gripped her. She swung around, stepped gingerly to the back door, crouched down and peeked through the corner of the door’s flowered lavender curtain. She ducked.
The trespasser wasn’t more than ten feet from the door. Sammie stayed low, the flashlight pointed to the floor as she ran upstairs. She stumbled into her mother, who was leaving the master bedroom having planted the fourth of her devices.
“Mom. Out back. Trouble. He’s got a gun and he’s wearing night vision. Can’t tell who because of the goggles.”
Grace nodded. “OK. They must have been tracking Jamie. Saw your father leave. Suspected something. How many?”
“Just one that I saw, but I haven’t looked out front.”
“I’m sure there are others. Agatha wouldn’t send just one to go up against us. She’s not that bold.” Grace handed a key to Sammie. “They probably don’t know what they’re facing. That’s why they haven’t entered. Open the cabinet. I’ll scout for any other assassins. Give me the devices. I’ll place them.” She stroked her daughter’s hair. “You’ve rehearsed this, dear. You’ll do fine.”
Sammie hugged her mother. “I won’t let you down.”
Sammie and Grace went in opposite directions. Sammie opened a small utility closet with the key and surveyed the family’s arsenal. She loaded two shotguns with efficiency and strapped them over each shoulder. She opened two metal boxes and slid clips into four pistols, equipping each with thin, black suppressors. She made sure the safeties were turned on as she tucked two of the weapons behind her belt. She carried the other guns in her left hand, leading with the flashlight in her right. She raced downstairs and found her mother, who rushed to plant the final devices.
Grace grabbed two pistols and a shotgun.
“I saw another out front. Take position. You know where to go?”
“Yes, Mom. I’m ready.”
“Good. It’s time you had a chance to validate your field training. Remember, no hesitation. If you have one in your sights, pull the trigger. But take care with your aim: Ben may be on his way.”
Sammie nodded, returned to the top of the stairs, and heard her mother on the cell phone.
“We’ll do our best,” Grace said. “Don’t come back for us.”
Sammie could not contain the rush of her heart. She turned off the safeties. She was ready for this. She remembered the broad smile on her father’s face when she finished field training.
“You will be respected as a soldier of the Guard,” he told her.
She wondered whether she would ever get a chance to see the Earth where her parents were born. Ultimately, she focused on her ability to survive the next five minutes.
12
J AMIE CAME TO, blind and sweating. He felt a cloth sack over his head and a plastic cord binding his legs and arms, chafing at his wrists and cutting off circulation. Nothing terrified Jamie more than the duct tape over his mouth. His lungs burned; he tried to breathe steadily through his nose.
His mind became a blank slate; he felt no pain, no anxiety, as if a resignation took hold. All hope vanished, and Jamie was left with a single, gnawing sensation, the one that stalked him for two years. He sensed Mom and Dad trapped in their bedroom, staring down the barrel of a hunting rifle, a single question on their lips as their killer pulled the trigger. Why?
Suddenly, he smelled perfume. The aroma was subtle, like a soft, scented pillow, not the splashed-on, belt-me-upside-the-head variety every girl in school wore to impress the guys. A hand pulled the sack off his face.
He gasped. “You.”
Lydia the mentor patted her lips into a reassuring smile, like a grandmother doling out chocolate chip cookies and milk to a scared little boy. She caressed him on the cheek, her fingers warm and feather-soft. “There, there,” she whispered before disappearing into the shadows. She returned seconds later with a chair and sat next to him. She was cast in a glow.
“I knew,” Jamie stammered. “I knew you were with them. That’s how they tracked me.”
“Sweet child, I fear my answers are far more complicated than you’re prepared to accept. First, please know that I am neither human nor a figment of your imagination. I am part of you, but I have only now begun to behave as my creators intended. I was designed to have a phantom presence in your life, starting five years into the redesign. I was to manipulate your subconscious, whisper to you as you slept, or appear in spectral form to comfort you while in pain. I was to be a second mother.”
Jamie tried to sit up. He wanted to knock Lydia off her perch.
“Mother? Don’t you dare. You didn’t know my mother, and you sure as shit …”
“Not on a personal basis. But I was able to observe.”
“You are out of your freaking mind. Who brought me here? What is this place?”
Lydia crossed her legs in the opposite direction and sighed.
“Alas, dear child, I must apologize for my ramblings earlier. The program was excited to be unlocked, and I tried to say too much too fast. I can see why you thought I was unbalanced.”
“You know something, lady. If I told folks about what’s happened to me tonight, nobody on this rock would believe me. I don’t think Sammie even believed. Why won’t you just level with me?”
“Ah, yes. Samantha Huggins. Tricky, that one. As I was saying …”
“Don’t try making me think I’ve gone round to the nuthatch. You’re just
