Power Trip: Double Helix, Book 1 by Miranda Baker

well-appointed living area. Floor to ceiling bookshelves lined two walls. The other wall was taken up by a huge flat-screen TV. Although the furniture was broken-in black leather, the warm hues of the rug, the throw pillows and the comfy-looking blanket on the couch lent the room a cozy air. She settled onto the couch and Jake took the arm chair. He braced his forearms on his knees, leaning toward her.
    “I have to start at the beginning,” he warned. “It was before our father…left. It was night, but something woke me up, a sound. I got out of bed and crept down the hall. I heard it again. I went into Mom and Dad’s room. He wasn’t there and Mom wouldn’t wake up, so I went to your room and you were gone. I was crying. Then I heard you scream.”
    Audrey was cold and she was glad when Cal dropped down beside her. She leaned into him as Jake kept talking. “I found you in the basement, sitting in a chair. You were so small, barely two, and he had you blindfolded and strapped into a car seat. I didn’t know what he was doing to you, but it was making you scream. I screamed too. I told him to stop. He grabbed me, and I looked up at him. I yelled stop, leave her alone, go away! ” Her mountainous brother shivered, dwarfed by the big black chair. “He left, Audrey. He walked right up the stairs.”
    “He was the first person you hypnotized,” Audrey said, horrified by the realization.
    “Yes.” The anger in Jake’s voice sent a chill down her spine. “You were hysterical. I took the blindfold off of you, got you out of the car seat and took you upstairs to my bed where you sobbed for an hour before you fell asleep. Then I went back downstairs and I took everything he had on the table and I put it in the garbage can outside—the blindfold, the rope, the lighter, needles…there was some other stuff, too, but I didn’t know what it was at the time. I got back in bed with you. When Mom woke us up in the morning, I pretended nothing had happened, and I waited for our father to come home.”
    “But he never came home,” she said.
    Jake shook his head. “And if you expect me to be sorry about that, I’m not. I think he was experimenting on you Audrey, trying to discover a talent, just like you used to do when you were a kid.”
    “Did he do it to you too?”
    “I can’t remember. If he tried anything, I probably just told him to stop. Depending on when I actually came into my talent, he might have thought I didn’t have any power. But you, you were screaming. He was hurting you.” Jake’s voice was choked. “He left because of me, Audrey. I made him go away, but I’m not sorry because he was hurting you.”
    She slid off the couch and onto her knees in front of his chair, reaching up to wrap her arms around his thick shoulders. Peripherally, she was aware of Cal leaving the room.
    “It’s okay. You kept me safe.” She tugged Jake’s glasses from his eyes. They were wet, regretful and furious. She clasped his cheeks. “You did what you had to do, Jake. We’re safe.”
    “Not anymore,” he said. “But at least we’re not children. You are a brilliant scientist and I have connections in places most people don’t know even exist. Hiding isn’t going to work anymore, Audrey. We need more information. And then we need to find the bastards who are looking for you—before they find us.”
    “We’ll get information,” she promised him. “As soon as I figure out how to get back into the lab.”
    “No problem.” Cal came back into the room, balancing a tray of coffee mugs, cream and sugar. “We’ve got an unusual skill set.”
    Audrey laughed in spite of the dread filling her. He was right. If she’d had Jake with her today, the security guard would have opened the door for her. As a backup plan, Cal could probably work some magic with the lab’s electronic lock. And the security cameras. Oh God, could they really break into Genecorp? She was almost certain her research subjects would give