The Prince's Trap Read online

  “Fair enough,” Washington conceded. “I found myself on more than one mission wondering as you do, but I was never so brazen as to forget my place. You should be careful, Landon Wicker. We may have an agreement with Susano-o Industries, but you must tread warily. Theirs is not a web you want to find yourself tangled up in. Some of your actions in the field are quite suspicious.”

  Landon didn’t respond.

  “Not willing to defend yourself, huh? You leave me no other option.” Washington stepped away from the chair.

  “Why don’t you just move on to the next level and just make me live my nightmares?” Landon asked. He had grown tired of Washington’s games. The exhaustion and pain had sapped any ounce of patience he had left. “You aren’t going to find what you’re looking for by hacking into my mind.”

  “Ah, so you know more about my talents than you’ve let on. Dream projection, however, is reserved more for torture than anything else, so it really has no place in this setting.” Washington strolled around the table and moved behind Landon as before to initiate another attempt to probe his mind. “And what might I be looking for?”

  “Whatever it is you need to peg me for.” Landon looked up at Washington. “I thought the Spanish Inquisition died a few centuries ago—but do your worst.”

  Landon didn’t know from where he was pulling the courage. Apart from the high stakes of this interrogation, there was just something about Washington Sykes that really irked him. He was a sadist, hell-bent on tormenting anyone fortunate enough to need questioning. He took pleasure in knocking people down a peg, ensuring his victims knew that on the ladder of strength, he was a rung above. Landon wondered if Washington had been bullied as a child. Only someone with a vendetta could so willingly participate in such a deplorable profession. Washington’s wretchedness only strengthened Landon’s resolve. He was now determined to prove that Washington was the one who should be worried. He was not going to get another thing from Landon’s mind; Landon wouldn’t allow it.

  “Don’t tempt me, Landon Wicker. I’m sure I’d quite enjoy that little nugget of your subconscious.” Washington rested his hand on the top of Landon’s head and dug his fingertips into his scalp. “But I imagine after few more rounds of this, your mind will be like putty in my hands.”

  The jolt of pain, like lightning, reignited in his mind. He could feel Washington’s consciousness claw at him, working to break through any wall Landon pulled up. Through the exhaustion and the pain, Landon gritted his teeth and worked to defend his weakened mind.

  But Washington was a Sentry for a reason. Every time Landon deflected an attack, Washington returned with unfathomable force. Landon, however, didn’t give up. He stopped focusing on himself and trained his concentration on Washington’s invading consciousness, figuring if he could stay with him he might be able to defend his mind. The process was painstaking and even more painful than before. He hoped he wasn’t screaming; he didn’t want to give Washington the satisfaction. But he couldn’t be sure. Tears streamed from his eyes uncontrollably; his muscles tensed and convulsed from the shots of agony. Yet, he held firm.

  Landon lost all sense of time. In Roman times, a Sentry was a defender of the citadels, but in this instance, it was Landon who was charged with protecting the fortress of his mind and the sanctity of his thoughts—and the secrets he guarded.

  He felt his defenses weakening. He was just too tired. There was no way he could hold off Washington much longer. But just as he thought his time had run out, Washington withdrew. Once the psychic link was severed, Landon’s senses were overwhelmed.

  Washington paced the room, but with a much quicker gait. Lost in thought, he appeared to be paying no mind to Landon, who took the momentary reprieve to regain his composure.

  He was in worse shape than before. The problem derived from his brain becoming so preoccupied with fending off its aggressor that it let his body fall into a state of utter neglect. It forgot the simple tasks of breathing or regulating his blood flow. The reset of his entire body’s vital systems was less than pleasant. As he fought to regain his breath, spit, sweat and the remnants of tears dripped from his body.

  Meanwhile, it appeared as if Washington was becoming unhinged. His lips moved slightly while he conversed with himself, and his hand pointed and circled in the air as if he was calling out key bits of information from notes on an invisible piece of paper.

  Suddenly he turned to Landon and with his finger pulsing accusatorily, he maniacally said, “You need to stop whatever it is you’re doing! You’re hiding things, and I know it! There are whole parts of your mind that I can’t access!” Before Landon could respond with even a word, Washington turned away again and continued his quick pacing of the floor. His shoes clicked against the tile in rapid staccato.

  Unsure what to do, but certain any retort would only worsen the situation, Landon waited to see what Washington would do next. Was he the first to ever deny Washington the right to his thoughts? Had he succeeded in blocking him?

  Washington did not speak again until just before he dove back into Landon’s mind with a force unimaginable. He stormed over to Landon, slapped his hand on his head and said fervently into his ear, “No one blocks me out! No one!” Then he bombarded Landon’s mind.

  It happened so fast that Landon wasn’t prepared. Flashes of his childhood sped through his mind. Visions flew past—his mother cooking in the kitchen, playing with him in the park, laughing with him on their vacations—unrelenting images of a former life. Then Sofia Petrovanya beckoning him onto the SUV; his first glimpse of the Gymnasium while exiting the car at sunset; the odd feeling he got when he first saw Celia, with her strong and powerful demeanor; Riley and Katie Leigh’s incredulous expressions after Landon botched his first Telekinetics lesson; the stormy session with Dr. Brighton in the Secret Garden where he finally accepted his mother’s death; Brock’s body covered in snow after Landon beat him in the First Frost Frenzy—it all paraded through his consciousness like a marching band.

  Washington moved through his life with unbridled vigor, and Landon was powerless to stop him. Before long, Washington would know everything.

  Landon saw himself in the Palaestra of the Olympic Tower. He was being introduced to the team, soon followed by Peregrine as she descended the lift with Dr. Wells. Peregrine—there was something about her that had always struck the core of Landon. She was the one who first understood Landon’s problem and helped him through it; she was the one who helped him harness his abilities. Her violet eyes that always enraptured him.

  Time was running short. With his pent-up aggression, Washington had plowed through Landon’s memories with ease. Landon now saw himself back in the medical wing days before Dr. Pullman revealed the truth about Landon’s abilities.

  Then he felt this strange burst of energy in his mind. It flooded his entire body, reviving him. The power he held back so consciously at his core erupted like Mount Vesuvius, riddling his body with the fiery rains of his abilities. But when the surge reached the very tips of his being, it released into the world around him. Like a comet colliding with the ocean, Landon’s psychokinetic perceptions spread from him with the force and tenacity of a tsunami.

  The world opened up to him; he perceived everything from Washington standing behind him to a blue jay flying into a tree beside the lake. The information consumed his senses and his mind, making it hard to fully grasp what was happening. The overflow of images was hard to follow and the sheer wealth of information was too much for him to process.

  And it didn’t feel like it usually did. Not only could he perceive them, but around every psychokinetic, he could see this sort of aura—a light pulsing through them, radiating out from somewhere near the center of their bodies. The sensation was unbelievable.

  He wasn’t even sure if the images were real or hallucinations. Not only had his tactometric sphere extended well
beyond his normal twenty-five meter reach, but his perception was clear and concrete. He could truly see all these things around him as if he were looking at each person individually with his own eyes. It wasn’t like the fuzzy sensations he normally got when he engaged his tactometric abilities. He saw Katie Leigh reading a book on her bed; Peregrine sitting under the large oak tree in the Atrium, staring up at the sky; Brock and the Cranes playing tele-pool in the Rec Center; Riley walking the halls with a few friends; and Celia lying alone in the medical wing. Landon wondered if this was some aftershock of Washington taking full control of his mind. Had he failed; was this the result? A final look at the world around him before his life ended? He focused his vision on Celia; something was different about her, something different from all the others.

  It seemed the brightness of everyone’s aura varied greatly from one person to the next. Brock beamed as one of the brightest in Landon’s mind, his glow almost enveloping Joshua and Jeremiah Crane in a shroud. Dr. Brighton, sitting alone in his office, reading one of his ancient books, appeared to have the dimmest light of all, flickering like a dying light bulb just minutes before the filament burned out. Celia’s light seemed solely concentrated in her brain. Her body was dim, almost nonexistent, but a single point of radiance, shining like a beacon, beamed from within her mind. Why was her glow in her head and not near her heart?

  Suddenly, the world of full awareness flitted away almost as quickly as it had arrived. What Landon had experienced so vividly faded to black. He wasn’t sure what had happened. Perhaps Washington had dug too greedily into his mind and opened something that Landon didn’t even know he’d hidden.

  When he opened his eyes, the sight of Washington sitting in front of him at the table startled him. He wore this curious but icy look on his face as he stared at Landon—one that had an odd resemblance to veneration. He was breathing heavily, and there was a gleam of sweat on his brow.

  “What . . . are you?” Washington asked slowly.

  “What?” Landon’s mind was still reeling from the strange visions that had overpowered his mind. “What happened?”

  “Do you really think I’m stupid, boy?” His aggravated tone didn’t bode well for Landon. “I’m supposed to believe you can manage to push me—me—out of your mind and not know it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Landon retorted. Washington’s words were news to him. Had he really managed to push him out?

  “In the history of the Sentries, I don’t think anyone has encountered a subject as unique as you.” Washington was behaving schizophrenically, appearing to be fighting an internal struggle of whether he should be furious with Landon, or fascinated by him. His face kept shifting from frustration to intrigue, making Landon uneasy. “You have an odd ability to hole things up in your mind unlike anything I’ve ever seen. And no one has ever done what you did. . . . It’s wondrous. Once a Sentry has hold of a mind there’s no breaking his grip. Yet you did, and when I was so close to getting it all.”

  “So am I guilty or what?” he asked, tired. Landon couldn’t care less about Washington’s impression of him. He wanted out of the dark, suffocating interrogation room, and to know his fate.

  “As far as I can tell, you’re innocent,” Washington answered. “Dangerously curious, but innocent. You’re still hiding things. And I’m certain you’re probably guilty of something. . . . It may not be what I’m searching for, but something.”

  “Well, can I go?” Landon fought to contain himself. Had he really done it? Had he passed Washington’s test?

  Washington continued to scrutinize him. His eyes were squinted slightly; he looked intent on discovering Landon’s secrets. “For now.”

  But Washington wasn’t the only one curious to understand Landon; Landon had new questions of his own. Had Washington released some hidden power within him? Were there facets of himself he didn’t even know existed? Were there secrets about him even he didn’t know? What hadn’t he discovered yet?

  Landon braced himself on the steel table as his legs nearly collapsed. The incredibly intense, hours-long interrogation, coupled with his empty stomach, had taken its toll on his body. He was physically and mentally exhausted; he felt weak, sore and shaky. Landon hoped it wasn’t too late to grab some food from the cafeteria; he figured it was well past dinnertime.

  Collecting himself, he started to push off the table to walk out of the room, but before he broke free, Washington reached out and slammed his hand down upon Landon’s, grasping it so he couldn’t walk away. Startled, Landon looked down at him. Washington glared at him under his heavy brow, which cast an ominous shadow over his brown eyes. Through thinned, grimacing lips, he said, “I don’t know what you are. . . . I don’t know what you did, . . . but I will find out. Rest assured, I will find out.”

  Tired of the constant threats, Landon yanked his hand from Washington’s grasp and assumed a stoic demeanor. He realized suddenly there was nothing to fight about or argue over. From the moment Washington had started his interrogation, Landon knew he would not stop until he’d uncovered every secret about him, either in this session or after it. Washington was convinced of his guilt before they’d even begun. This knowledge filled him with a strength he had not known before, and he searched for the right response.

  Summoning all the physical strength he could muster, Landon held his body tall and rigid; his face chiseled into a defiant expression. “Get back to me, then. You know where to find me,” he said quite simply, unabashedly throwing down the gauntlet.

  He turned to walk away, squelching the strongest urge to laugh, and knew that in Washington’s sudden silence that he was victorious.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE TICKING

  CLOCK

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  Landon stood outside Katie Leigh’s dorm room. He needed to talk to her right away. Since leaving his interrogation, he hadn’t been able to stop his mind from running through all the things that had transpired and it was reeling with questions, in particular about the odd expansion of his tactometric awareness when Washington invaded his mind. Was this some other splinter ability? he wondered.

  After he had closed his locker and started to leave the Olympic Tower, he decided that waking Celia was now a necessity—priority numero uno. He saw no other option but to put her plan into action and get her on the Pantheon with him. With all he’s seen going on in the Olympic Tower and on his mission, and after Washington’s unsavory interrogation methods, he knew they had to be up to something serious. Two on the inside would definitely improve their odds of figuring out what the Pallas Corporation was planning, and unearthing the truth.

  But he still didn’t know how to wake Celia. She’d been in her coma just shy of a month, and the medical staff still said they had no idea when she would come out of it. So Landon had to alter his plan. The first thing that came to mind was Katie Leigh. While he worked to figure out what might raise Celia from her extended slumber, he could at least get Katie Leigh to add some new topics to her ongoing search for information. Asking, though, would pull Katie Leigh deeper into the deception and put her in more danger. When she initially told Landon that she knew about the Pantheon and had access to the its internal systems, including A.R.G.O.S., Landon guessed that she knew everything, but it turned out that her knowledge was only surface level.

  She knew what was going on in the Gymnasium as far as the research they were doing and what was available on the system, but she had no knowledge of the grander conspiracy. Landon, unfortunately, was the one who had to break the news to her once he realized she didn’t know. It was only a few days after they’d decided to investigate Project Herakles together, and Landon really wasn’t sure he should tell her, but he thought it necessary given their new working relationship, but when he explained that the Gymnasium was actually a branch of the Pallas Corporation and a member of a cr
iminal organization, it took all of his power to convince her not to go off the rails and destroy everything.

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  Landon started to wonder if his entire heightened tactometric episode was actually a hallucination. He’d seen Katie Leigh in her room, reading. If so, then why wasn’t she answering her door? Maybe it was all just a strange vision.

  Knock, Knock!

  “What?” Katie Leigh asked, obviously annoyed, as she flung open the door in frustration. “Oh, Landon, it’s you.” She proceeded to peer around the door into the hallway, quickly glancing to her left and right, before asking in a whisper, “How did the mission go?”

  “We need to talk,” Landon replied as he boldly stepped into Katie Leigh’s room.

  “Yes. Please. Come in.”

  Landon missed her sarcasm. He sat down on the edge of Katie Leigh’s bed while she closed the door and plopped into her desk chair.

  “First, do you have anything to eat?” Landon asked. “I’m starving, and the kitchens are closed.”

  Katie Leigh looked at him with an are-you-serious expression before opening up a drawer of her desk and tossing him a box of crackers. Landon immediately pulled open the top and started to shovel crackers into his mouth. Katie Leigh just watched him, her annoyance growing with every moment she had to wait.

  “Seriously, Landon! What happened?” she asked.

  Landon spoke but his words were completely unintelligible with his mouth full. As he talked flecks of half-chewed crackers spurted from between his lips.

  “Landon, I don’t speak full-mouth,” she replied, now noticeably irritated. “You need me to do what?”