Chapter Twenty-Four

"Should we follow him?" Audrina snapped her head around to look at the rest of us. "It doesn't feel right to let him go alone. He may need one of us with him."

I grabbed Theo's shoulders. They felt different than before, as if he had been lifting hundreds of pounds. "Something's changed." I gulped. "What did she do to you?"

He jerked away. "Stop touching me!"

"Fine. Why does Dr. James want Samuel?"

He shrugged. "It has something to do with what you have been calling 'the Hunter' and her plans to trap it. That's all she told me."

"How is she going to trap something she can't see?"

"I don't get it. Why does she want Samuel when any of us could help her?" Nothing was making sense. Dr. James, Paul, Troy, Luther. Their names kept swirling around inside my head.

"What did she do to you while you were with her?" Gave walked up to inspect Theo. "Can you tell us what happened after you fell into the water?"

"I don't know. All I remember is falling backward into the icy cold. The water felt like thousands of tiny pins piercing my skin. When I awoke I was sitting in a room. Several people gave me blankets and food, but I didn't really see her. I only heard her."

"What does that mean?" I asked, but I already knew the answer.

"She would talk on the intercom and ask me if everything was okay. She mentioned she wanted to have me do some training, but then you arrived." He looked over at me.

"Hmm...that's not a lot of information," I said. "You've been gone for several days."

"Why do you say it like that?" Theo had an odd look on his face. I had never seen him make the expression before, but suddenly he looked like a lost little boy.

"It's nothing. I just wonder what she's up to right now. I feel like we should follow Samuel, but I don't want to put the team in jeopardy."

Just as I was staring at the wall behind Theo, trying to get some clarity, I saw it: a tiny little glimmer of light coming from Theo's cheek. It was the size of a pinhole, but it definitely caught my attention and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Suddenly, I knew it had all been too easy. She had tricked me again, and I had brought the enemy into our home. This wasn't our Theo. This was someone, or something, else. I had to keep calm, but it was taking everything for me not to touch its face. I wanted to know why the tiny pinhole had been created, and what was underneath.

Audrina looked at me wide-eyed. I tried to tell her through my thoughts not to let on about what we were seeing. We had to get this version of Theo out of here. He had already seen too much, and we didn't know what he was capable of.

"Maybe we should go back near Artek, by the large water hole," I said nonchalantly, trying to see what kind of reaction my statement might get out of this thing standing next to me with Theo's face.

Fake-Theo looked me squarely in the eyes. "Are you trying to get me to fall into the water again? Why?"

"N-no," I stammered, caught off-guard by the tone of his voice. "Not at all. I just thought we might want to go up there and be on standby, in case Samuel needs us. We are all he has left."

"I don't want to go back there. I don't want to be anywhere near Artek. Dr. James is an evil witch." Theo spat out the words.

"What did she do to you?" I asked him, holding my ground, wanting to know what else this thing wasn't telling me.

"She changed me, Esa. She has been changing all of us!"

"What did she do to you?" I asked, a little louder this time. "Are you even the Theo Marcus we all know?"

"Yes! It's me. Do you really want to see what your wonderful Dr. James did to me?"

"Yes!" I screamed back at him, feeling as if I were about to lose my mind. "What happened to you while you were at Artek?"

Suddenly, Theo raised his hand. He slapped it hard against his chest, and then he was gone.

"Where did he go?" Audrina scanned the room.

"Theo? Are you still here?" I asked into the empty space in front of me.

"Yes," he responded. "Are you happy? This is what she did to me. She destroyed my life!"

"You're invisible." I rubbed my hand over the space in front of me. I couldn't see him, but I could definitely feel him. I traced his arm and then his shoulders, up to his head. I could feel him shivering.

"Esa, she's planning on doing this to all of us."

"No! She's definitely not touching me!" Audrina huffed as she swiped at a long lock of her hair.

"She's already started the transition on the two of you. It's only a matter of days before you become like me. She was able to speed up the process since I was being held in the lab, but I heard her talking...she's already put the serum in your bodies."

"That's impossible," Audrina said. "I wasn't being held there. I was held at OnyxFive, with Paul."

"No, you're wrong." Theo looked into her eyes. "You were both at Artek. That's why we couldn't find you. Paul moved your bodies back to OnyxFive before you woke."

"How do you know that?" Audrina asked.

"Because I overheard a conversation between Dr. James and one of the other workers. They were talking about you. Don't you get it? Paul and Dr. James are definitely working with each other...against us."

Paul had told us that he could do whatever he wanted to us. We were no longer normal humans, we were special soldiers who had unfortunately been stupid enough to give up the rights to our own bodies.

"Esa, three years ago I overheard your parents talking about NorthStar. I tried to figure out what they were after."

"You went to NorthStar?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"To find out what was going on."

"Did I follow you?" I asked, thinking back to Paul's earlier words about Theo visiting NorthStar.

"I didn't think you had until recently. Your mom tried to use me as the excuse for you being hidden in 2007."

Gave approached. "I guess I'm the unique one now. They haven't done anything to me."

We stared at each other silently.

"Hmm. I wonder if they are somehow increasing our abilities. It doesn't make sense to reduce them," I responded.

Gave shook his head. "If I know one thing, neither Paul nor Dr. James want to be behind Troy. They are all so competitive, they've destroyed one planet and now they want to go and destroy another."

"We can't let that happen," I said. "We've got to find a way to stop all of this."

"There's one way, Esa."

I could instantly see in Audrina's thoughts what she was trying to say. If we all disappeared, or died, then the scientists would have nothing, except for Luther. It was the one thing that we had over them...our lives.

"No, we can't do that yet." I looked back at Audrina. "There's too much at stake. There are other lives we need to protect. Besides, they seem to constantly be able to find us."

"That's right," Gave said. "We need to remove our trackers."

"I agree. I also want to know why they haven't created more soldiers. It seems like they would easily be able to do that," I responded.

"I've wondered the same thing about the team for a while. Why didn't they create more? But maybe they have. Maybe there are more soldiers; we just haven't met them yet."

"Who knows? I don't even want to pretend that I understand the way she thinks, or how she prioritizes things." My shoulders sagged.

Audrina let out a soft laugh. "Yeah, that's true. She definitely didn't have her priorities straight when she went and hid her daughter in a completely different year."

Theo said, "I really don't want to return to Artek, but I think we all have too many questions. Maybe we should go."

"The good news is, no one can see you," Gave said as he tried to figure out exactly where Theo was standing so he could slap him on the back. "I've missed you, buddy."

"Yeah, I can tell. I've missed you too," Theo responded. "Are we all ready? Esa, please do the honors." I tapped my medallion with two fingers opening the Jump Line. I nodded to the rest of the group, and then we all ran forward, unsure what would be waiting for us on the other side.