The Darkest Memories: Chapter 1

Telepathy is a funny thing. At least, my telepathy is a funny thing. Some days, the world around me is nothing more than a din, a confusing cornucopia of thoughts that leaves individuals indistinguishable from one another. Some days, I don’t hear anything at all. Then, there are the days where one thought stands out, resonating high above all the other confusing strings of cognitions and flashes of images that assault my mind. It works better on people I know—their magnetic pull, as it were, drawing me in. Sometimes, I can control it. Most of the time, it just does as it pleases. Today was the latter.

How kind of it to have chosen the day I faced a gunman.

I crouched on my hands and knees on a once-white linoleum floor, stained a dingy gray from years of foot traffic. I tried not to think about what my hands touched as sweat from my clammy palms mixed with . . . something.

There were more pressing matters to worry about.

I peered out at a man holding a gun. A display of potato chips and sugary snacks served as my untenable refuge. He hadn’t seen me yet, his eyes—obscured from view by what could only be described as typical robbery attire: dark sunglasses and a nondescript black hat—were fixed on a gas station employee who backed against shelves lined with cigarette packs, hands up and trembling.

My palms practically dripped as I slipped back behind the display. Why did my palms always have to sweat? It didn’t help that the floor was really sticky, and I was convinced the armed man at the counter could hear my heart assaulting my rib cage. It beat against my chest, forcing blood into my ears, which rang with an unbearable, high-pitched tinnitus. Even after five years, I still felt a cold shock when facing a bad guy.

Bad guy. Apparently, my vocabulary hadn’t evolved much over the past five years either. My university classes called them criminals, felons, offenders, culprits—all the textbook words I should have known by now if I had any hope of passing my finals.

Why was I thinking about finals?

I steeled myself. I had to quiet my mind. I had to focus—forget about what was likely spilled soda on the floor. Why did this always happen? I was certain none of the other parahumans, the ones who served as highly trained, competent federal agents, had this problem.

Actually, I knew for sure they didn’t have my problems.

I was a little different from the others.

I sneaked another peek from behind a bag of peach rings. The criminal was becoming more aggressive now. He waved his gun at the ashen gas station employee. The man with the gun wanted something—it was indistinguishable over the hum of refrigerators and my ringing ears. If I had to guess, it was the usual: the gun-wielding man wanted access to a safe or something, but the employee didn’t know the password or combination. Or it was a dispute over payment. Gas prices in California were ridiculous.

Either way, I sensed the shelves were about to become decorated with more than just cigarettes.  

Behind me, a breath expelled against my neck, hot and unmistakable. A chill raced down my spine. Craning my head to find the warm body behind me, I was surprised to find my haven empty. It was just me, the snacks, and the unsanitary linoleum.

Unnerved, I turned back to the gunman.

He was gone. I sat at a kitchen table, an older woman looking down at me. She looked kind, her warm brown eyes wrinkling deeply at their already lined edges as she smiled lovingly at me.

I smelled pancakes.

Hadley . . .

The sound of sizzling bacon caught my attention. I turned my head in the stove’s direction, an old white appliance nestled among a sea of pastel-yellow cabinets and bubblegum-pink countertops. The delectable aroma of smoke and grease told me I’d get my bacon well-done today, and my mouth watered in anticipation.

Wait.   

Where the hell had the gunman gone?

I caught my reflection in the kitchen window and lurched in my chair. When I had woken up this morning, I was a twenty-six-year-old woman. At the moment, a little boy clad in checkered pajamas stared back at me.

Shit . . . This wasn’t real. Well, it was a long time ago and to someone else.

Like I said, telepathy was weird.

Hadley . . .

A hand grasped my shoulder. Startled, I swatted at the sensation but found nothing. The woman—Grammy, I called her Grammy—turned back to the stove, the bacon calling her attention.

Wait, no! That wasn’t my Grammy. I didn’t have a Grammy.

The room spun as my brain fought to keep me rooted in a situation that made sense. The smell of bacon became overwhelming.

It was okay if I stayed for breakfast, right?

“Hadley, get your ass out of there!”

I jumped, and suddenly, reality crumbled around me. Vertigo gripped me as my telepathic link to the other person was severed. The sensation of falling overtook me. And yet, a chair remained firmly beneath me as I found myself behind the one-way glass of the Agency for Parahuman Affairs’ somber observation room. Nails digging into the armrests, I gripped my chair tightly, literally clinging to reality.

Glancing at the monitors in front of me, I blinked against the harsh light of the screens. Dim overhead lights cast everything outside of the monitors and the window before me in long shadows. The hum of equipment droned in the background. If I hadn’t been able to see into the interrogation room in front of me, I might have felt claustrophobic in the small stark space.

On the other side of the glass, three men sat uncomfortably around a table, too-bright fluorescent lights making their features appear harsh and washed-out. An older man with a smooth, shaved head sat with his arms crossed, a distinctly pissed off yet anxious vibe emanating from him.

He was a stranger, though my intimate peek inside his mind revealed more about him than I ever cared to know. The two men opposite him could only be law enforcement based on their attire. From their haircuts, polished navy suits, and perfectly knotted neckties, at first glance, the only differences between Special Agents Tom Hartman and Glenn Rowlins might be Glenn’s dark skin and sunglasses. The glasses likely appeared painfully cliché to anyone who didn’t know their true purpose.

My nontelepathic colleagues also emitted a vibe that made me shift uncomfortably in my seat, yet the surrounding atmosphere was tinged with defeat as well.

“Jesus, Hadley,” a woman’s voice—Special Agent Brittany Whittaker, I remembered—said behind me. “It’s been half an hour! I thought I was going to have to get Anna in here to get you back.”

Glancing back, I noted her crossed arms. She was cast in shadows, her normally pin-straight blonde hair tousled from running her hands through it. Her blue eyes appeared harsh with a mix of concern, exasperation, and exhaustion, the light reflecting off the computer screens only amplifying her severe look.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, still grappling with the disorientation resulting from my telepathic connection to the suspect being severed. It didn’t help that we were doing this in the middle of the night.

And for the love of all things, why could I still smell bacon and pancakes?

“You got anything? This asshole’s about to walk.”

Squirming uncomfortably, I turned my frazzled attention to the file in my lap. A few sheets of paper had dropped to the floor during my time lost in the ether of our suspected criminal’s memories. I stared at the top sheet, which outlined James Noack of Santee’s impressive list of priors. Gang life had treated him well apparently.

Brooding in silence, Jimmy sat on the other side of the glass. One monitor revealed a close-up of his face, courtesy of a camera in the far corner of the interrogation room. The camera’s pulsing red light indicated it was recording, though I doubted the realization would loosen Jimmy’s lips. Suspected of either planning a hate crime against Mercy Rehab, the go-to rehabilitation center for parahumans struggling with their abilities in San Diego, or having knowledge of the intended crime, Jimmy had already expressed—quiet loudly—that he wouldn’t be snitching on anyone tonight. Hence Counterterrorism’s presence at this hour. The FBI tipped off the Agency, since it involved a potential hate crime against parahumans, and both the FBI and Homeland Security were waiting for an update to coordinate a response.

My ass was on the line. I absolutely could not shit the bed on this one.

I needed to go back in.

Too bad I couldn’t remember what I was after. There might have been mention of a chat room and the Sons of Gaia, who sounded sweet but placed a bullseye on anyone they deemed to have “impure, unnatural genes.” To put it simply, almost everyone made their shit list, and historically, they weren’t afraid to air their grievances violently. I flipped through Jimmy’s list of priors, but he might as well have been in every gang or hate group in Southern California, as if he had tasted almost everything on the gangster sampler plate.

I couldn’t focus. My head throbbed. God, how I hated it when I ended up too deep in a stranger’s mind. My brain had a bad habit of weaving me into the narrative, a process that was hardly flawless and might be comparable to an acid trip, much like what I just experienced. It was once explained to me as my mind trying to “rationalize an irrational experience,” but nothing was rational about it, and the encounter usually left me with the desire to scrub myself clean with steel wool. 

Telepathy was weird.

“Hadley?” Brittany asked, her voice a mixture of concern and impatience.

Dammit, I was all over the place! I didn’t have the focus to go digging through this guy’s brain again tonight, but I had to give her something. Letting down three federal agencies was not an option.

“You know that gas station robbery from a few weeks back? The one off Brant and Washington?”

“That’s the guy?” Brittany asked incredulously, tipping her head toward the former gunman on the other side of the glass.

“I’d show him the surveillance images and see if it catches him off guard,” I responded. I never made promises based on telepathy.

Brittany turned toward the door.

“Hey,” I said before she could disappear. She craned her head toward me, eyebrows raised. I licked my lips as my mouth grew dry.

“If he still won’t talk, they might be able to disarm him with his grandmother. Pretty sure she raised him.”

My stomach twisted as her eyes flashed in understanding, and then I stared at empty space, the door hanging ajar. A high-pitched whistle faded as Brittany’s inhumanly quick speed carried her away. Sitting back in the chair, the empty room pressed in on me. Using people’s deep, personal thoughts against them left a foul taste in my mouth, but I had an obligation to do my job. Besides, the guy really was an asshole. A gang sign on the back of his neck was clearly visible, though I couldn’t make out which group it was for. Not to mention the bigoted banter rattling around his brain.

At least, that’s what I told myself as a knock on the interrogation room’s door caught Tom and Glenn’s attention. Tom stood, a wave of triumph emanating from him as he cast a glance at the interrogation room’s dark glass. Brittany’s blonde hair was visible on the other side of the door as he took a folder from her before returning to his seat.

I chewed my lip. It wasn’t the information they wanted, but maybe they could use it to succeed where I failed.

I heard Brittany before I saw her, a sharp whistle signaling her swift return.

“You were right about the grandmother,” Brittany said, closing the door behind her. “Court records show she was granted full custody when he was six.”

I chewed my lip with greater enthusiasm but said nothing, focusing instead on the interrogation room. This guy couldn’t get away because of me.

The former armed assailant glanced irritably at the door as Tom focused on the folder.

“When can I leave?” the surly interrogee asked, his crossed arms tightening across his chest. Jimmy Noack’s back was to me, but his neck grew progressively redder as Tom made a point to slowly flip through the file. The camera caught Jimmy’s expression, up-close and personal, as his scowl deepened. The camera inside the observation room caught mine, and I cringed. How wonderful that my incompetence would be catalogued as evidence . . .

Lowering his sunglasses, Glenn looked past the manila envelope, his otherworldly vision revealing the documents within. He finished reading before Tom, fighting a grin. Jimmy didn’t notice.

To anyone who didn’t know Counterterrorism’s dynamic interrogating duo, Tom and Glenn’s professional facade never dropped, but I had worked behind this pane of glass for years, and I could read their minute changes in expression as easily as I could read their minds.

My heart beat harder as Tom spread enlarged, grainy photos across the table. Images of a masked gunman and a terrified attendant were unmistakable.

Here we go . . . I thought as a chill spread across the room. The former gunman attempted to maintain composure, but his back straightened conspicuously. The camera caught a flicker of fear in his eyes. A trap was being laid, and he knew it.

“I understand your grandmother has some medical bills,” Glenn said slowly. His eyes met Jimmy’s—at least, they would have if not for his glasses. I felt a shot of panic run through Jimmy Noack as if it were my own. I imagined a deer might feel the same just after the crack of a rifle. My head swam for a moment. I blinked, trying to steady the room.

A feeble old woman, her hands curled in her lap, smiled at me. She had the same kind eyes as the woman from the distinctly 1950s-style kitchen.

I cringed inwardly. My job would be much easier if I could only see the criminal memories.

“Whittaker! Gordon!” a male voice—Tom’s—called for Brittany and me, respectively, ripping me from the man’s memories.

I looked up in time to see Jimmy’s oversized fist sailing toward Tom. It passed through Tom’s torso. Jimmy’s eyes widened as his momentum carried the rest of his hulking body through Tom’s now-transparent form. Jimmy crumpled under his own weight on the other side of Tom, but he wasn’t going to stay down.

I leaped from my chair, knocking it over. Telekinetically reaching out, I grabbed hold of the belligerent man beyond the glass. By the time Brittany burst through the interrogation room door, Jimmy was subdued, dangling upside down from his ankles. Judging from the whites of his eyes, he never suspected a telekinetic was on the other side of the glass. Why would he? It’s not like we were common.

“Huh,” Brittany said, nodding in my direction in acknowledgment.

Beads of sweat forming on my brow, I tried to take satisfaction in a job well done as I lowered the enraged criminal to the ground. He flailed, and the effort it took to keep from unceremoniously dropping him was undoubtedly going to give me a headache. Well, a bigger headache.

“Freaks!” the man spat. “You’re all goddamned abominations!”

Brittany fastened handcuffs around his wrists in a blink. Tom and Glenn dragged him from the room as he spewed profanity that would have made his grandmother blush.

Then, the drama was over. Brittany nodded in my direction as she closed the interrogation room door behind her. We were done, at least for the night. I stood there awkwardly for a moment, adrenaline slowly draining from my body.

Between the robbery and assaulting a federal agent, Jimmy wouldn’t be released any time soon. He’d most likely be interviewed again in the morning after a long night in a cell, though I doubted he’d be any more cooperative after a night on a thin lumpy mattress. Maybe he’d be flustered enough to slip up, and the Agency and the FBI would get the information they needed?

I released my breath, the tension in my shoulders relaxing. I hadn’t ruined our shot.

I wandered out of the observation room and down the still, quiet hall leading to a stairwell. On my way out, I passed a corral of cubicles. A dark sea of monitors, save for a handful of glowing screens scattered around the room, populated Counterterrorism’s space. Brittany, Tom, and Glenn would likely work late, digging up more information to use against Jimmy, assuming he cooled off enough for round number two in the morning.

My desk, devoid of the stacks of papers and office supplies that cluttered the others, sat neglected in a distant corner. Desks were meant for field agents, not girls who read minds from the safety of an observation room.

I didn’t pass anyone as I left. Pushing the stairwell door open, I descended the numerous stairs. Elevators weren’t my thing.

Shoving my sweaty hands in my pockets, I kept my head down as I walked out the front door of the Agency’s elegant seventeen-story fortress on the water. I descended the concrete stairs, the smell of salt and brine greeting me. Sprinklers had just gone off, and the scent of petrichor intermixed with the smell of the sea and the water park down the street. The smell of chlorine still lingered from the public park, though the fountains cut off after sunset. I would always associate the strange fusion of scents with the Agency. 

Spotlights illuminated the front of the building, a hulking structure of enormous dark glass windows and polished steel. The glass caught the light, making the structure swell with iridescent importance. As I turned down the sidewalk, flags snapped in the wind: American, the State of California, and the Agency, all billowing high and proud. They, too, were lit up, a beacon to anyone within their line of sight.

Nothing about the Agency was subtle. Even the blindfolded could peg the building as a federal agency.

I walked down a sidewalk lined with palm trees. White streetlights, sets of two spiraling around each other in an artistic display, cast long shadows. Few people passed me, and those who did focused on the waterfront with its display of impressive boats and the occasional cruise ship. A handful of cars rushed by. No one so much as glanced my way.

When I first started the federal agent gig with its infrequent acts of bravery—from behind glass, of course—it had seemed so strange to walk outside the Agency’s grand building and see the world continue apathetically around me. No one cheered. No one noticed my heart still raced, adrenaline from taking down a bad guy just starting to clear my system. The average person—the people I protected—really didn’t give a damn who I was. I’d received a handful of curious glances over the years, but nothing that would inflate my ego. Granted, I wasn’t supposed to be flaunting my association with the Agency. It was for my safety, they said, since I was a little . . . peculiar.  

I didn’t work for the Agency for the recognition though. I didn’t expect people to rush up to me and beg for my autograph or ask to take a picture with me like they did with the city of San Diego’s superheroes. It was selfish, but for me, being a federal agent wasn’t even about protecting people. I mean, it was, and I liked making a difference, but I wasn’t deluded enough to think it was the real reason I did it.

I just wanted a purpose. People didn’t need to acknowledge me to have that.

Right now, I did need to study. I would have preferred settling my mind with music, but I dutifully put my earbuds in, a recording of Dr. Griffin’s lecture on victims’ rights filling my ears instead. How I could take only one class a semester and still fall behind was an art.

Well, maybe not. Most people majoring in criminal justice didn’t work for the Agency for Parahuman Affairs. They weren’t required to read criminals’ minds, day or night. That didn’t include the brutal physical training regime, among other things. As it was, I had been up since 5:00 a.m. for my gym routine with Courtney, and I felt it. Why a girl who sat on her backside and dug around people’s brains for a living had to be in peak physical condition was lost on me.

I walked, listening to Dr. Griffin lecture on the law of restitution as the spiraling streetlights transformed into gas lamp–styled streetlights, the old Spanish-style Santa Fe Depot in the distance and the bus station just beyond. It was early May. While the days in San Diego were pleasant, I found the nights to be rather chilly, especially by the water. I rubbed my arms as the wind blew from the direction of the ocean, tossing my hair, and I berated myself for leaving my hoodie at home. I always forgot the stupid thing.

A warm glow emanated from the wide windows of the cute café on Lusk Boulevard. It was always open late. The people inside talked and laughed. My stomach growled as I eyed their late-night desserts and steaming coffees, but it was a short walk across the train tracks to the bus stop, and it wouldn’t take long to get to my apartment. I could wait another half an hour until I got—

Home. Until I got home.

That’s when it dawned on me.

Where was home?

Dammit.

Want to read more? The Darkest Memories is available in eBook and paperback format at Amazon.com.

Check back for updates on The Darkest Memories’s sequel, The Brightest Nightmares.