On the way there, Lucy filled Luke in on what had happened to Drake.
"While we're in there, Sam, try to ferret anything you can from the staff's minds. Lucy, you ask some questions, see if anyone is lying. Sam said Missy knew something, so ask her. I'll see if I can discreetly slip through a few locked doors and find anything."
The twins left me in the care of Dr. Sato and went to do their spying. I tried to make contact with Drake but still couldn't reach him. What if they'd already moved him somewhere too far away? What if they'd hurt him? And as always, my mind kept coming back to the same questions. Why? Why bring him in now? They couldn't rent him out, because he was a loose cannon—but he wasn't a true danger. So what use did they have for him?
And what would they do to me when I turned eighteen? These days, my grief over my art had been replaced by fear for my life. What a change a few months could make.
I clutched my stomach as another spasm rode me. Dr. Sato rushed to my side and led me to a bed. While she helped me change into a hospital gown, I tried to scan her thoughts.
My language skills had improved enough that the dialect wasn't too hard to understand now. Still, people usually don't think in coherent sentences, which made context very important.
'She's sick... hope baby okay... color... yellow... the boy is trouble... but strong powers... their baby is good... fear... I want....'
I didn't know what to make of it all. What baby? What was she talking about? As I reclined on the bed, she got out an ultrasound machine.
"I check your belly for sickness," she told me, her English more broken than normal.
'Shouldn't feel it yet... can't let her see....'
Can't let me see what?
She hid the screen from me as she squirted my abdomen with cold jelly and rubbed the camera over it.
'Baby too big... growing too fast... definitely pregnant.'
"Pregnant?" I spoke out loud before thinking.
She flinched. Only slightly, but enough that I knew I had hit the mark.
"Where you hear about pregnant? I not pregnant," she said, clearly trying to deflect the conversation.
'This girl reading mind?... never reads mine... what tell them?'
Her thoughts froze me. What the hell? I couldn't be pregnant. I'd never even had sex! It's not that I had anything against sex, but when your every move is watched and recorded, it kinda takes the romance out of it. Besides, I'd never met a guy I was really into until....
Oh, my God. Drake, a boy I hadn't even met in person yet, had already taken over my thoughts and my heart. I needed him. And he needed me. Where was he?
"Drake?" Still nothing.
He'd been a part of my waking and sleeping consciousness for months. With him gone, so completely gone that even his trace mental signature didn't register, I felt like an empty vessel. A terrifying loneliness and fear gripped me.
My head swam with conflicting realities.
This couldn't be happening. This wasn't real. I must have misunderstood her Japanese. For nearly two months I'd spent every spare moment I could studying her dialect, but there was so much to learn. I probably misinterpreted the entire thing and panicked for nothing.
Logically, this made sense, but my body knew the truth. Even as I denied it, I could feel the new life growing inside me.
And suddenly my being pregnant made a horrible kind of sense.
They needed more kids. If we were right, and they basically ran a paranormal human trafficking ring, they needed as many of us as they could get. And what better way to get more paranormals than to breed them? Is that why they'd gotten rid of Mr. K? Had he come too close to the truth? Is that why they'd burned down the art studio? Of course, I could never succeed in public. They never meant for me to have an art career or go to Sarah Lawrence.
Dr. Sato glanced over her shoulder at me as she left the room, closed the door and.... Did she lock it? Oh crap!
I scanned all the minds in the Clinic that I could find. Missy talked with Lucy. She was nervous, lying, thinking about Drake. He'd been moved to another facility. They'd gotten what they needed from him, but she didn't know what that was. She'd overheard something she shouldn't have, and it scared her.
I searched for Luke. I usually stayed out of my friends' minds, out of respect. No one wants to be best friends with someone who is always spying on their thoughts. But I didn't think he'd mind me sneaking a peek under the circumstances.
I found him. His mind sorted through information, breaking into fragments—worried about getting caught, looking at records. My records.
'Sam is pregnant?... what?... what the hell have they done to her?... oh my God... Drake... that's why they took him... wanted his powers to breed with... Oh Sam... how will I tell her?... what are we going to do?... oh shit... Lucy... she'll be eighteen soon... sons of bitches... I'm going to kill them all....'
I stopped listening, paralyzed. It was true. I was pregnant, and it looked like Drake was the father.
Chapter 16 – Sam