“Rosie! Don’t do this!” he yells from inside the closet. “Call Berg! I didn’t mean anything with the pills!”
I turn and chuck Ian’s phone on the couch. I can’t believe how pissed I am. Ian’s a scuzzbag, but the real monster behind everything is Berg. If he has my family, I’ll kill him. This time I really will.
A rattle of a drawer makes me turn. Peggy pulls out a magnifying glass and holds one of Ian’s pills to the light, a red one. “Echo eight. I know a chemist who could take a look at these.”
“Be my guest. Keep the whole box,” I say.
She takes up a yellow pill next. “The idiot is rather compelling,” she says.
“So you believe me now?” I ask.
She lowers the magnifying glass enough so that I can see her eyes over the lens.
“You’re not safe here. That’s clear. I suggest you call up one of your rich friends, Linus or whoever,” she says. “Go hide somewhere far from here, and once I hear from your ma and Larry, I’ll send out a signal.”
I can’t just hide, though, not when my family is in danger. I run through my options. Calling Linus is out. I could reach Burnham if I could get on a computer, but he’s all the way in Atlanta. Thea’s the one I’d most like to connect with, but she just had a baby two nights ago. I’m not even sure where she is. The medic said she’d be okay, but what if she isn’t? Supposing her parents have brought her back to Texas, I can’t exactly show up there. Her parents are looking to buy more Sinclair 15, so going to their ranch would be like saying here, mine me.
A phone buzzes. Make that Ian’s phone. It’s on the couch, visibly vibrating, but the caller name is simply OTHER. I pick it up and swipe the answer button.
“Hello?” I say.
A click and a cool silence reach me before a voice comes on.
“I see Ian found you,” Berg says.
3
A TRADE OF DREAMS
BERG’S VOICE SHOOTS through me like icy poison. I glance quickly at Peggy and then sink down on the couch, pressing the phone to my ear.
“What did you do to my family?” I ask.
“Nothing. They’re perfectly fine. They’re in Las Vegas.”
“Vegas?” I say, surprised. “How do you know?”
“I had a tracking device put on their car,” he says. “I was hoping they’d lead me to a certain elusive prodigy of mine, but I was wrong. Is Ian with you?”
I am not Berg’s prodigy. “Yes.”
“Put him on.”
I glance toward the closed closet door. “Not possible,” I say.
“Rethink possible,” he says. “I need you to put him on, and I need you to stay put where you are. I can be at the McLellens’ in three hours. If you run, it will only be worse when I catch up with you.”
Fear ripples through me, and I cast my worried gaze toward Peggy. Berg knows exactly where I am. Peggy comes and sits next to me on the couch. She puts her arm around me, and I tilt the phone slightly so she can hear, too.
“You need to leave me alone,” I say to Berg. “I’d kill myself before I’d let you mine me again.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Not if I have your family. Wait there nicely now, Rosie,” he says. “It won’t be that bad. We’ll work out an exchange that’s fair to all of us, I promise.”
I let out a tight laugh. “Are you serious? You’ve ruined my life.”
“Actually, you made the choices that messed up our system at Forge,” he says. “Time and again you’ve thwarted me, but we have lives depending on your dreams now, Rosie. Countless lives, today and in the future. I’m not going to jeopardize other innocent people just because you’re being self-centered.”
I can’t believe the way he’s reframing everything.
“You stole my dreams,” I say. “Why don’t you admit you did it for yourself, for your Huntington’s disease? I know about you and your kids. Your daughter hates you, and I don’t blame her.”
He audibly sucks in a breath. I can imagine his ruddy face going bright with color.
“You’ve managed to surprise me, I must say,” he says. “Let me guess who you have spying on me. Linus? Has to be.” He hums a short note. “It hardly matters. I’ll grant your point. I am personally invested in finding a cure for my illness. But you also must see that our research goes far beyond my own needs. If we can truly regrow brain tissue, we’re at a turning point for all humankind, and you’re pivotal to our progress.”
“I don’t care,” I say. I shift the phone to my other hand and stand, turning away from Peggy to focus all my vehemence on Berg. “Just keep away from me and my family, or I swear, I’ll turn this around and come after you myself. I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
Berg makes a faint tapping noise on his end. “Why didn’t you?” he asks.
I balk. In a flash, I’m back at the decision point, when I plunged the syringes into him and he watched me, glassy-eyed, while I tried to decide how much more of the sleep meds to give him. I hated him, but I couldn’t kill him. It couldn’t go over that line. He had a telltale bulge in the skin over his heart that matched mine.
“You had a port,” I say.
“I see,” he says. His voice grows slow and thoughtful. “We’re more alike than you realize, Rosie. Both of us suffer. Both of us are dreamers. How would you like to know there’s some of you in me already? If you killed me, you’d be killing a part of yourself.”
This can’t be true.
“A conscious part?” I ask, horrified. The phone feels suddenly heavy in my hand. It’s excruciating to imagine part of me trying to exist in Berg. “Do you hear my voice in your mind?”
“No, but that would be a welcome side effect, I’m sure,” he says. “Does Thea hear such a voice? It’s a tantalizing prospect. Clearly, we have more studying to do.”
“But I don’t want to be studied. Don’t you get it?” I say. “I don’t want anything to do with you, ever, period.”
“And yet I know where your family is, and you don’t,” he says.
I restrain an impulse to smash everything in reach. “Don’t you dare hurt them,” I say.
“Stay where you are. I’ll collect your family and bring them back to you. We can make a trade.”
I turn toward Peggy to see if she’s following this. Her eyes are wide with astonishment.
“You mean, trade my dreams for my family?” I say.
“Since you put it so crudely, yes,” Berg answers.
I can’t bear to listen any longer. I jab the red button on the phone to disconnect, and then I throw the phone back on the couch. I tighten my hands into fists and squeeze with all my might to stop from screaming.
“Heavens almighty. You weren’t kidding about him,” Peggy says.
“I have to go,” I say. Everything is suddenly very clear. I have to warn my family before Berg kidnaps them, but I’m also near panic because how can I possibly find them? He’s always one step ahead of me. I can’t stand it. “I don’t have a minute to spare.”
“I mean, really. The man’s a raving monster,” Peggy says.
“He says my family’s in Vegas.” I look at Peggy. “What are they doing there?”