The Prince's Trap Read online

  “Celia!” Landon began to rock back and forth. “No, no, no, no. Not again. Not again,” he kept repeating softly. “Not again.” He pulled Celia’s limp body closer as he continued to rock. Tears fell from his eyes as he continued to repeat, “Not again. Not again. No, no, no, no. Not again.”

  Professor Tzu rushed over to Celia and Landon and crouched down. His head bobbed and weaved this direction and that as he tried to assess the situation. Landon was in full-blown hysterics—his eyes red, his body trembling, tears streaming down his face—but Professor Tzu was more concerned about Celia. He reached down, but the moment he got close to her, Landon yelled, “No!”

  Amid the screams of surprise from several students, Professor Tzu flew across the room and collided with the back wall—launched by Landon’s raw telekinetic strength. He was losing control of himself again, the transference of emotion from his apocratusis tragedy causing a resurgence of not only his guilt, but also his unbridled strength and need to protect.

  Every student’s eyes locked onto Landon, but he failed to notice as he continued to rock back and forth. Then, an unexpected person raced through the door and made a beeline for Landon. She lowered herself behind him and with a delicate touch, pulled him toward her in a secure embrace.

  “Landon,”—her voice was soft and soothing—“Celia’s fine.” Landon didn’t react to her in the slightest. “Celia’s fine,” she repeated. “You need to let her go, so we can take her to the medical wing. You can do this, Landon. You need to let her go. She’s okay, but we need to get her help.”

  Landon could feel the fear and panic begin to subside, and his grip on Celia slackened. He understood he needed to let her go.

  “That’s it, Landon. She’s going to be fine.” Her voice continued to comfort him as he released Celia’s body.

  The instant he let her go, a pair of doctors from the medical wing appeared, and within moments, had Celia on a stretcher and out of the room. Another doctor came in after them and went to check on Professor Tzu, who was slowly regaining consciousness.

  Landon’s body continued to tremble as the adrenaline and panic worked its way out of his system, but as he began to regain his sanity, he became aware of the countless eyes staring at him, each with an expression of fear and horror, many of them whispering; “Oh my God, what’s wrong with him?”; “Did you see that?”; “I knew that guy wasn’t normal.”; “What a nut-job!”

  The words registered in Landon’s mind and he became extremely self-conscious. Exposed and mortified, he turned back to get some needed reassurance from the person who’d pulled him back from his hysterical state. He was surprised to find Sofia Petrovanya, with her piercing blue eyes and wavy blonde hair, holding him. How did she always seem to show up every time he was in need?

  Sofia slowly rose to her feet while helping Landon off the ground. He rose and wiped the tears, sweat and spit from his face. With the gentlest of pressure on Landon’s back, Sofia guided him out of the training room. The eyes and whispers of the students followed him with every step.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ALEA IACTA EST

  By five o’clock the following morning, Landon had neither slept nor ate in nearly twenty-four hours. After being escorted from the Tactometry training room, he was taken to the medical wing, and since then, he hadn’t left Celia’s side.

  As Sofia had said, Celia was fine . . . medically. But she had yet to wake up. Even after a series of tests, the doctors said they weren’t sure when she’d wake up or why she was unconscious.

  Landon was relieved she was alive. But he knew that he had somehow caused this. He had no idea what he’d done, but it happened after he’d lost his temper and tried to force her out of his mind. He felt so guilty.

  As the hours went by and Celia’s condition didn’t change, Landon began to wonder what would happen after he left the medical wing. What questions would people ask? Given his reaction, would people pity him, or fear him? What about his friends, Riley and Katie Leigh? Would they be afraid of him too?

  Landon looked up at Celia’s unconscious body, her chest rising and lowering with every breath as the steady beeping of the heart monitor echoed in the sterile room. He instantly felt even guiltier for his selfish thoughts. Celia lay helpless with no hint as to how to help her; none of the other stuff, especially whatever happened to him, mattered.

  He leaned forward in his chair and grabbed Celia’s hand. He could feel her pulse quicken between his hands. Did she know he was there? He shut his eyes and concentrated, focusing on their connection, hoping that by touching her, he’d strengthened that bond. With all of his strength, he reached out and attempted to communicate with her.

  “Celia, can you hear me?” Landon asked telepathically. “Please tell me what I need to do to help you. How can I make this better?”

  He sat silently, waiting for a response that never came. He clenched her hand more firmly in desperation, trying to will her to answer.

  “Celia, tell me how I can fix this,” he pleaded. “Give me some sign that you’re okay. Wiggle your finger; shake your leg; do anything to tell me you’ll be all right.” Landon’s head dropped lower. “I need you to be all right,” he said aloud.

  Landon opened his eyes and scanned Celia’s body from head to toe, looking for any sign of awareness. None came. He felt he was on the verge of another breakdown. He didn’t know what he could do. How he could help her?

  He pulled his hands away from Celia. With his elbows resting on his knees, he slowly dragged his fingers through his hair, but stopped halfway, pressing his palms against his forehead to hold his head up. He had to find a way to fix what he knew he was responsible for causing.

  “They told me I could find you here.”

  Landon yanked his hands away from his head to see who was there, which instantly made him look like a mental patient, his hair sticking out in every direction. The dark, tired circles under his eyes intensified his crazed appearance. Dr. Brighton stood against the doorway.

  “Dr. Brighton,” Landon started, fumbling his words slightly, “you’re back.”

  “So it would seem,” Dr. Brighton returned, as he walked into the room and took a seat beside the table. He seemed pleased as he crossed one leg over the other. He bore a kind expression with a slender smile that accentuated the slowly developing age lines on his face around his mouth and eyes. The mission must have gone well, Landon surmised. “How’s she doing?”

  “Better,” Landon replied. Ever since he’d witnessed Celia’s past, he never could quite figure out how to act around Dr. Brighton. He knew things now, things that were obviously meant to stay hidden, and which he really wanted to ask Dr. Brighton about. He was positive Dr. Brighton would have a reasonable explanation, but how could he ask without implicating Celia or himself? “The doctors say they don’t know what’s wrong with her, but she’s stable.”

  Dr. Brighton’s forest green eyes looked curiously at Landon. “They told me you haven’t left her side since it happened.” He paused for a moment as he guided a few strands of his long black hair off his face with his thin fingers and secured them behind his ear. Since last year, Landon had begun to notice the emergence of some grey hairs that streaked his dark brown locks. “Is there something, eh, you haven’t told me? Is there something going on between you and Celia?”

  Landon felt a thin film of sweat build up over his body as his face flushed. He didn’t know how to answer the question right away. The truth was that there was something going on between Landon and Celia, but it wasn’t anything like what Dr. Brighton seemed to be implying. Landon hesitated, trying to figure out the best way to respond, but before he could get a word out, Dr. Brighton interrupted.

  “You know, that’s really none of my business,” he said, dispensing with the subject. “And it’s definitely not the reason I came to find you.”

 
; “Why then?” Landon asked as his nerves settled.

  “I’m not sure if you’ve met him yet, but there’s been a new arrival to the Gymnasium. His name’s Washington, and he’s from a special psychic unit of the Pallas Corporation, called the Sentries. Think of them as our rendition of Internal Affairs, except made up entirely of psychokinetics, who are particularly gifted and trained in the many applications of the psychic side of our abilities.”

  Landon tried to stay silent while he listened to Dr. Brighton talk.

  Dr. Brighton continued, “I don’t know if you know this, but the Pantheon has been dealing with an inordinate number of mission failures over the past year. Well”—he paused slightly as he realized—“I guess you do know a little. You saw what happened at Metis Labs.” His tone shifted, denoting that he was back on track with what he wanted to say. “But that is only one instance. And the company sending a Sentry here can only mean one thing: There’s a mole in the Olympic Tower.”

  Dr. Brighton watched Landon’s reaction closely, searching for some sign of his innocence or guilt. Luckily, Landon was genuinely dumbstruck, an indisputable look of shock and angst registering on his face. His surprise in knowing that he might have been made as a double agent was similar enough to the surprise one might exhibit when they learn that someone they trusted had betrayed them. It seemed at least enough to cause Dr. Brighton to relax in his chair.

  But there was something else that bothered Landon about the situation. “Professor,” he started after a prolonged period of thought. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Fair question,” Dr. Brighton replied with a nod. “It’s just that, I—I wanted to prepare you for what’s about to come.” His brow creased as he donned a concerned expression. “These Sentries will do whatever they can to get what they want. They will burrow into the deepest recesses of your mind, hack into your darkest secrets, make you relive your worst memories and experience your greatest fears . . . all to break you down.

  “I know where you came from, Landon. I know how hard we worked to get you to the place you are now, and I’m afraid that when Washington goes to question you, the tactics he’ll use, and the things he’ll draw up, might send you into an even darker place than before.”

  “But isn’t that his job?” Landon asked. “How can you be sure I’m not the mole?” Aside from the internal panic he was experiencing as he thought of the truth Washington could uncover, Landon was having a hard time figuring out Dr. Brighton’s intentions with this conversation. Was there an ulterior motive? Or was he actually concerned for Landon? Was their friendship not the lie Celia made it out to be?

  “To tell you the truth, I’ve suspected a mole for a long time—long before you joined the Pantheon. There’s been suspicious activity going on since before you arrived at the Gymnasium. Beyond that, I’ve studied the file of every Pantheon member to dispel the possibility of his or her betrayal. And nothing in your life before or since your apocratusis points to even the slightest possibility of you being compromised.

  “Neither you, nor your parents, have any known connections to the Pallas Corporation or its enemies. You had no training before you arrived here, and when we told you about the Pantheon and the Olympic Tower, you seemed genuinely surprised. So either that was real, or you’re the greatest deceiver the world has ever seen. And your first active mission was only a few weeks ago. Who would have had the opportunity to turn you? There is just nothing pointing to you. And you’ve got to trust someone, don’t you? If you suspect everyone, you start to become paranoid.”

  Landon felt confused. “You trust me that much?”

  “I guess I do,” he replied, looking almost surprised by his own answer. “I’ve told you before that I see a lot of myself in you. I, too, had a rather violent apocratusis, and it took me a long time to come to grips with what I was. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m actually the first psychokinetic. There were no others before me.”

  Is Dr. Brighton really opening up to me right now? Landon thought as he listened to his professor talk. He just knew Celia was wrong about him. If only she would give him a chance.

  “But my abilities aren’t as physically powerful as yours and those of your peers. I’ve had to rely on my wits to gain the advantage.”

  Something about Dr. Brighton’s openness endeared him to Landon. At his core, Landon wanted to go back to when he was training in the Secret Garden, when he and Dr. Brighton would joke and talk about their childhoods—before he knew about the Pantheon, or the Pallas Corporation, or the lies.

  But Landon also realized that he was privy to information he wasn’t supposed to be aware of, like Project Prometheus, which was the government experiment that developed the Prometheus gene to give psychokinetic abilities to people when they received the gene during gestation in their mother’s womb. Even though Landon was enjoying their conversation, he’d have to choose his words carefully to not give anything away. “So how long have you been at the Gymnasium?” he asked, thinking it a harmless question, but one that might garner a bit more information.

  “Well, the Gymnasium wasn’t the first facility for people like us. There’ve been a few before this, but I’ve been in the ‘system’ for a long, long time.” Dr. Brighton really seemed to have his guard down as he reminisced about his early years. “Actually, I was one of the founding members of the Pantheon,” he said, playfully gloating. “And if you could believe it, there’s actually something else we have in common. You inherited my old code name. I was Apollo before I became Zeus.”

  “Really? But back then, how did they find you in the first place?”

  “My father,” he replied. A hint of resentment tinged his voice. “He’s a scientist—a very connected scientist.”

  “Dr. Wells,” Landon blurted out before he could catch himself. Owning his outburst, he continued, “Dr. Wells is your father, right?”

  “How do you figure?” Dr. Brighton asked, intrigued.

  Landon couldn’t tell Dr. Brighton why he’d suspected; his knowledge of Dr. Pullman and everything he was shown during their synaptic sync were things he guarded closely. He would have to improvise. “Well . . . you two don’t really look all that much alike,” he started. “But you guys have the same way of holding yourselves. And the way you speak to each other—it’s only how a father and son could.”

  “Quite the observation, and to answer your question, yes, he is my father.” Dr. Brighton’s response was short and to the point, and his whole demeanor changed. Landon could see in his body language that his walls had gone back up. His father was obviously a sore subject. “Anyways,” Dr. Brighton continued, “I believe it is time for the both of us to get some rest. Walk with me.”

  “Nah, I’m gonna stay,” Landon replied.

  Dr. Brighton looked at Landon sternly. “Have you seen yourself? You’re going to bed,” he ordered as a smile stretched across his face. “Celia is stable, and you need rest. I even give you permission to skip your training sessions today.”

  Contemplating this, Landon looked at Celia’s resting body and then at Dr. Brighton, who gave him another commanding look. In the end, he knew Dr. Brighton was right. His body was on the verge of shutting down for want of sleep—the edges of his eyelids even stung from exhaustion—and his injured back was exponentially stiffer and sorer since he’d been holed up in a chair for a day. He needed the comfort of a warm, soft bed.

  Landon rose from his chair and met Dr. Brighton at the door. Together, they began to walk out of the medical wing, but just before they exited the area, something struck Landon.

  “So what can I do?” Landon asked. “About the Sentry, I mean.”

  “There’s nothing, really. Just be vigilant . . . and be prepared.” Dr. Brighton stopped and turned to Landon. “Alea iacta est, Landon. The die has been cast. Things will begin changing around here very soon. Some of
it, a long time coming. But be patient and prepare yourself—only time will tell where it all will land.”

  Landon nodded and the two started down the hallway, chatting jovially. As they left the medical wing, Landon asked, “So one more thing, . . . if you checked all our files, is there someone we should be worried about?”

  Dr. Brighton only replied with a smirk and a sly glance out of the corner of his eye.

  • • • • •

  When Landon entered his dorm room to get some much-needed sleep, he was having a crisis of conscience. He viewed Dr. Brighton as a confidant, a friend, a person who had his best interests at heart. He tried to protect Landon from the dangers and responsibilities of the Pantheon; he helped Landon cope with the greatest tragedy of his life; he treated him with respect. Dr. Brighton was like the father Landon always wished he’d had.

  But at the same time, Landon couldn’t disregard the convincing case Celia made against his seemingly noble character. Not only had Dr. Brighton murdered her parents in cold blood, but Celia was convinced he knew the truth of the Prometheus gene and the Pallas Corporation’s nefarious intentions, and that he selectively chose to keep those secrets out of allegiance to the organization.

  Even still, a part of Landon wanted—needed—to believe that perhaps Dr. Brighton didn’t know the true origins of the Prometheus gene, or that the Pallas Corporation was a part of an organized criminal network. He wasn’t sold on the possibility that Dr. Brighton was capable of knowingly participating in such disreputable activities. Why couldn’t he have been fed the same lies as everyone else in the Gymnasium and be an innocent bystander just taking orders? Being locked away at facilities like the Gymnasium his whole life must have trained Dr. Brighton to not question his superiors, subconsciously forcing him to disregard the discrepancies, desensitizing him to the deception. Landon chose to believe that this argument was the truth, and he was determined to show Celia.