"You're letting them out?"
"I'm sending them away, telling them to find a field. I don't know what Mr. Z will do to them," Anna said. "I don't even trust Joyce anymore." Joyce Piper was the parapsychologist who actually ran the Institute for Mr. Zetes, the one who'd recruited Kaitlyn. Even now, Kaitlyn couldn't think about her without feeling a twinge of betrayal.
"Okay, but hurry. We don't have time to waste," she said and moved restlessly back into the hallway. Lewis was tugging at his baseball cap nervously.
Gabriel, in the small bedroom beyond, was going through Joyce's purse.
Gabriel! Kait said. She could feel her shock reverberating in the telepathic web, and she tried to muffle it.
He merely slanted her an ironic glance. "We need money."
"But you can't—"
"Why not?" he said. His gray eyes were so dark they looked almost black.
"Because it isn't… it's not…" Kaitlyn could feel herself sagging. "It's wrong," she said finally.
Gabriel didn't admit to concepts like "wrong."
"Joyce is our enemy," he said shortly. "If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be running away in the middle of the night in the first place. It's necessary—and you know it, don't you, Kait?"
It was dangerous to look into Gabriel's eyes for more than an instant. Kaitlyn turned away without answering, then turned back to hiss, "All right, but don't take any credit cards. They can trace those. And don't let Rob know, or he'll go ballistic. And hurry."
That one word had begun to pound relentlessly in her brain: hurry, hurry, hurry. Faster than a heartbeat. She had a feeling—no, a certainty—that every second they stayed here was too long.
A premonition? But she didn't have that kind of premonition. It was only by drawing that she could get an image of the future.
Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
Trust yourself, she thought suddenly. Go with your feelings.
"Gabriel," she said abruptly, "we've got to leave now." She added in an urgent mental shout, Lewis, Rob, Anna—we have to leave! Right now, this second! Something's going to happen—I don't know what, but we've got to get out of here—
"Take it easy." She felt Gabriel's hand on her arm and only then realized how agitated she was. As soon as she'd spoken her feelings out loud, she'd realized how strong they were, how urgent.
"I'm all right, but Gabriel, we've got to go…"
He looked into her eyes briefly and nodded. "If you feel like that—come on."
In the hallway Rob was hurrying out of the open panel with an armful of file folders. Anna was emerging from the lab.
"What's wrong? Is someone coming?" Rob asked.
"I don't know, I just know we have to hurry—"
"We'll take Joyce's car," Gabriel said.
Rob hesitated, then nodded. "Come on, out the back door." He hustled Lewis and Anna ahead of him. Kaitlyn followed right on his heels, feeling she couldn't move fast enough.
"We'll just use the car to get out of the area," Rob was saying, when a wave of adrenaline broke over Kaitlyn. It left a metallic taste of fear in her mouth.
Behind her the front door burst open.
Chapter 2
Kaitlyn looked back.
Mr. Zetes.
Light from the porch shone behind him so he appeared as a dark silhouette, but somehow Kait could still see his face. When she'd first come to the Institute a week ago, she'd thought that Mr. Z was a handsome, aristocratic old gentleman—like Little Lord Fauntleroy's grandfather. Now she knew the truth, and the leonine head with its shock of white hair appeared completely evil to her. Those piercing dark eyes seemed to burn like—
Like a demon's, Kaitlyn thought. Except he's not a demon, just an insane genius, and we've got to get out of here…
They were all paralyzed. Even Gabriel, who was in front of Kaitlyn now that she had turned around, closer to Mr. Zetes. Something about the man stopped them all dead, drained the will out of them.
They were held by pure fear.
Don't look at him, Rob's voice said in Kaitlyn's mind, but it was faint and distant. The terror reverberating in the web was much stronger.
"Come here," Mr. Zetes said. His voice was strong and rich and utterly commanding. He stepped forward and Kaitlyn could see him more clearly in the living room lights. There was blood in his thick white hair and on his starched shirt collar. Gabriel's mental attack had done that, knocked him out, made him bleed. But Gabriel was exhausted now…
As if he were part of the web and could hear her thoughts, Mr. Zetes said, "You're all tired. I don't think you can use your powers any further tonight. Why don't we sit down and talk together?"
Kait had been too frightened to speak, but this struck fire in her. "We don't have anything to talk about," she said caustically.
"Your futures," Mr. Zetes said. "Your lives. I realize that I was too harsh earlier tonight. It was a shock to find you'd gotten yourselves into a permanent telepathic link. But I still think we can work together. We'll find another way to break the link—"
"You mean besides killing one of us?" Kaitlyn snarled.
Don't stick around and argue with him, Gabriel said, his cold mental voice cutting through the thrumming fear in the web. You four go—start heading for the back door. I'll keep him here.
"No," Kaitlyn said aloud, before she could help it. Even in the middle of this danger, she felt a wash of emotion. Gabriel, who'd always claimed he didn't care about anybody, was risking himself to protect them…
And he was moving now, putting himself directly between her and Mr. Zetes. Once she could no longer see Mr. Zetes's face, she felt her paralysis break.
But we can't leave you, she told Gabriel. You nearly died once tonight already—
Gabriel didn't glance back. His posture was wolf-like, his attention fixed on Mr. Zetes. Kessler, get them out. I'll handle the old man.
But Rob's mental voice was sharp. No! None of us can stay. Don't you see, he wants to keep us here—and we haven't seen Joyce yet.
The instant he said it, Kaitlyn knew he was right. It was a trap.
"Come on!" she shouted, both mentally and aloud—but even as she was shouting it, a shape appeared in the kitchen doorway beside her. Hands grabbed for her.