Altered

by Marnee Blake

  This girl continued to impress him. So much courage in such a small package.

  “Well, then, let’s go.” He crawled toward the opening. “I’d say after you, but chivalry seems overrated right now.” He didn’t wait for her answer before he ducked out.

  As he got to a standing position, Jack stepped through the trees.

  Once again, Seth experienced immediate distaste. The guy had that swagger about him. Like he owned the world. Or would someday. He hated guys like that.

  He didn’t look quite as cocky now, though. In fact, he looked downright skittish.

  Blue must have sensed it, too. “Jack? What are you doing here?”

  “You guys can’t go to Trinidad.” Jack stepped closer, and Seth saw that he was covered in dirt and he was limping. “They’re watching the town.”

  Blue stepped forward to fuss and scold, somehow managing both at the same time.

  Seth sighed. He had been afraid of this, that whoever was chasing them would be waiting for them. It’s what he would do. When tracking quarry, you pen them in and tighten the noose. He didn’t like that he was the quarry in this particular metaphor.

  They’d have to go back the way they came. He wished he had a map. Even if his phone had some juice, he was sure he couldn’t use it now. There had to be another way out of this godforsaken corner of the world. Maybe they could jack someone’s car. Nah. The roads would be blocked for sure.

  What did those fuckers want, anyway? Why had they waited so long to round them up? Why hadn’t they been standing outside his door, waiting for him to stop barfing, and then brought him in?

  Something hadn’t gone as planned.

  He almost laughed at himself. Yeah, something hadn’t gone as planned. Like, he’d bet they hadn’t intended to kill most of a town.

  “What happened?” Blue asked as she led Jack to the ATVs. His limp was more pronounced. Something had happened to his right leg. Seth absently turned his own sprained ankle, remembering his jump from the helicopter yesterday.

  It felt fine. Better than fine. Like he hadn’t done anything to it at all. Strange.

  “I went to my aunt’s house.” It must be closer to dawn than Seth thought, because he could see Jack’s face in the waking light. “She was surprised to see me. And upset about my parents. My mom’s sister…” He shook his head. “Anyway, she was making me a sandwich, and they showed up. Banged on the door. I told her to hide, and I went out the window. She lives in an upstairs apartment. Had to drop three floors. I think I broke my foot.”

  Seth stepped forward and gathered the front of Jack’s shirt in his fist. “Did they follow you?” This idiot could have given them away. This kid was no brain trust, but this was a new level of stupid.

  Jack snorted. “Not unless they can fly. I can run faster than some cars. Now get your hands off me.”

  They stared at each other for a long time. Seth really wanted to punch him in the face. Didn’t he know he’d threatened them all? He should have insisted he stay last night, but the guy was a punk.

  They didn’t have time for this shit. If Goldstone was coming, they had to get out of here. Now. Sooner than now.

  He let go of Jack’s shirt, giving him a little shove. “What do you mean you can run faster than some cars?”

  “I mean, I’m fast. I used to be fast, but this is nuts. These two dudes started to chase me, and I didn’t think, I took off. And it kicked in. I hauled ass down the street and out of town. They didn’t have a prayer of catching me.”

  “That was hours ago. Where have you been?”

  “I wandered around. I didn’t dare go back to Trinidad. I took off north, up the John Kennedy Highway, and doubled back. Took me a while to find you guys, but I finally did.”

  “Lucky us.” Seth turned and found Kitty and Luke watching them. Kitty, as per her usual, looked completely baffled and out of her element. Luke stared at them all, his expression unreadable. Seth’d like to play poker with that kid. He seemed easygoing enough but gave the impression that there was more under there than anyone suspected.

  As he looked over their ragtag group, Seth couldn’t help his disappointment. Not one of them had any survival experience. The closest he had was Kitty, who could set up a tent. With help.

  The rest of them were a huge liability.

  If he’d been smart, he’d have left them behind. He didn’t grow up in Glory. He wasn’t even supposed to have been there. Far as he could remember, Mrs. Keilman, the bed-and-breakfast owner, hadn’t written his name anywhere. He wasn’t even sure he’d given her his name. She’d smiled, shaken his hand, and accepted the wad of cash he’d given her.

  Yeah, if he’d been smart, he’d have run. But looking at the four of them, he couldn’t. If he left, he might as well drop Goldstone a note with their location. Did he think Kitty would last one minute against the guys from Goldstone? Or Luke? Jack might have a big college boy attitude, but he was no real fighter. He had a healthy rage going, but if Seth had wanted to hurt him last night, he would have.

  And Blue?

  She stood back, away from the group, studying him. In the waking light, she looked solid, as if in the past twenty-four hours she hadn’t lost the woman who raised her and run away from her home.

  Their eyes met, and she waited for him.

  Yes. Blue was a fighter. He didn’t know all the details yet, but he could tell she hadn’t had it easy. She was a bitty thing, but she was a survivor. It was there, in the jut of her chin and the steel in her eyes. Wrapped in her compact and curvy package, Blueberry Michaels was incredibly appealing.

  When she lifted her eyebrow at him, he realized he was staring at her. He looked away, only to find that the other three were looking at him, too.

  So he’d been elected the unofficial leader of their little posse, he supposed.

  He sighed. Yeah, he couldn’t leave them. He’d been left with no one to rely on too many times. And after Bobby…

  If he left them, he’d be as responsible for their fate as he’d been responsible for Bobby’s.

  He wouldn’t abandon anyone again. Even a ragtag, bungled-together team like this. It’s what made him such a great soldier. Leave no man behind and all that shit.

  Hooah.

  What the hell were they going to do?

  He turned, rubbing a hand over his buzzed head.

  There weren’t that many ways in and out of Glory. He’d already discarded driving out of here.

  He also eliminated air escape, for practical, we-haven’t-got-a-helicopter reasons, and boat escape for obvious, there’s-no-water reasons.

  So what did that leave them?

  The ATVs might have another five, ten miles of gas in them, give or take. But even if they got to a gas station to refill, they wouldn’t be able to carry enough extra gas to get them all to safety. He had no idea how far each of the vehicles went on a tank, and two would be carrying two passengers. If they ran out of gas, they’d be left walking, and he disregarded that. These kids weren’t prepared to go days in the wilderness on foot.

  The train was their only option.

  “It has to be the train.”

  “Dude.” Jack pushed away from the ATV. “I told you. They’re in Trinidad. They’ve seen me now, and they knew who they were looking for.”

  “I heard you,” Seth gritted out, “dude.” He snorted as he scanned the materials they’d brought with him, writing off all of it. Nothing here would help them. “But it’s all we have.”

  Blue cut in before Jack could go on. Her eyes narrowed on him. “What do you have planned?”

  The words sang through his chest. Not the question, exactly. Not even her tone, which was as straightforward and no-nonsense as he’d come to expect from her.

  But that question said that she believed in him. That she had faith that he’d get them out of there.

  It meant more than he could have imagined.

  “I have an idea. A crazy idea.” He stared at each of them, the plan beginning to firm
up in his strategic mind. It was a long shot, for sure. But it was all they had. “Blue. I know you can lift a person off the ground, but can you lift yourself off the ground?”

  She really hoped this worked.

  The train was coming—she could hear it—and there was no turning back now. No other option. They only had one chance at this. And if they missed, they’d die. Probably. Or be maimed. Whatever.

  No pressure.

  She closed her eyes. No room for doubt now. She’d listened to Seth’s analysis of their situation, and she’d believed him. The train was the answer.

  Luke huddled next to her in the brush, his jaw set and his knuckles white against his knees. As her safety depended on him being solid, she decided it would be fine to check in. “You okay?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. Great.”

  She smiled, despite the sickness in her own stomach. “I trust you. We’re going to be fine.” As she reached over and gripped his hand, she met his eyes and realized it was true. At least in this instance. She knew Luke wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. At least not on purpose.

  “It’s coming.”

  She nodded. “Are you ready?”

  He snorted with half a smile and shrugged. “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Let’s do this, then.”

  They rose together as the train came into sight. She stood in front of Luke, her feet apart as if preparing for battle. They each took a deep breath and held each other’s eyes.

  They’d been practicing all day. At first, Seth thought they would be able to lift themselves. Like flying, but not. Blue had proved she could move objects, and she’d shown she could hold someone in a tree. He’d assumed she could lift herself.

  But no matter how she and Luke tried, neither could master it. They could move other people, but not themselves.

  They hadn’t had time to figure out why, though. With time running out, Seth gave up on them “flying” and decided Luke would basically have to throw Blue onto the train and vice versa.

  Seth was right. She knew it, deep down. And she believed that this was their best—maybe their only—option.

  The problem was that they didn’t have enough time to throw each other separately. The train would be here and gone in less than a minute. So she would have to move Luke while he moved her.

  Even considering it, she wanted to throw up.

  But the train was coming, sick stomach or not. She took a breath and lifted Luke in the air. He nodded, and her feet left the ground.

  At least she and Luke had used their practice time to master holding someone still without making them suffocate. Good thing, too. She liked breathing.

  They rose, up and up, as the train trundled closer. When the locomotive passed below them, they cleared it by at least thirty feet.

  During practice, they’d talked about the train. How loud it would be. How much it would vibrate. How much it would affect the air around them. But all that chatter hadn’t prepared Blue for how the wind whipped against her. As they dropped down, slowly, closer and closer to the roof, the airstream messed with their holds, whipping them back and forth, tossing them in the breeze like feathers.

  And the noise. God, the noise.

  The train wasn’t moving full speed. It had only left the station in Trinidad a few miles away. But it was still fast enough to screw them up.

  They hovered, both of them a foot or two above the train. In front of her, Luke pitched sideways and back, and she scowled, concentrating, trying her hardest to hold him steady as she dropped him the last inches to the train. A gust of wind tugged him sideways, and she panicked then rushed to pull him back on target.

  Suddenly, pain exploded behind her eyes, taking her sight. She cried out with it, grabbing the sides of her head with her hands. The agony pulsed and throbbed in her skull, shooting down her back like fire.

  She was going to die. It wasn’t possible to hurt like this without death.

  Her stomach pitched as she dropped fast and hard, her knees hitting what she assumed was the moving train beneath her. She rolled, twisting, and could feel herself approach the edge of the moving train.

  She clawed, still blind from the piercing pain, desperately searching for a hold. Heart pounding, her nails scratched against the metal roof, and dimly she heard Luke calling her name.

  As her foot reached the edge of the roof and then fell into dead air, her fingers finally caught. A metal box of some sort, a vent shaft or something. She didn’t question, only grabbed and held on, still struggling to think around the stabbing pain in her head.

  “Blue. God, Blue!” She barely heard Luke over the wind and the noise. “Hold on. I’ll pull you up.”

  The pain lessened enough for her to see him instead of the white light that had consumed her vision moments ago. Above her, he knelt, his knees spread apart to brace himself, his shaggy hair whipping across his terrified face.

  “No.” She shook her head. He shouldn’t risk himself if she could help herself. And she didn’t want him to try to lift her with his mind again. Not with this wind. Not in the panic he was in. “Wait, I’m fine,” she yelled to him.

  As she dangled over the side of a train, she tried to see how she would be fine. She took a breath, tried to calm down and think through her options. To her left, about three feet out of her reach, was a ladder made of bars. Probably an emergency or service ladder.

  “Luke!” She nudged her head at the ladder. “I’m going to let go. You’re going to hold me long enough to catch that ladder.”

  “Oh, shit. No! I already almost got you killed.”

  “No, you didn’t.” She could feel her fingers slipping. “Please. I need you to do this.”

  Luke’s mouth opened and closed, and she could feel his indecision, his doubt.

  “I can’t hold on!”

  He nodded once. She didn’t wait. “On three. One, two, three.”

  With a silent prayer, she let go. And when she feared she would drop like the dead weight she was, she felt the now familiar tug in her midsection that said Luke had caught her.

  Thank God.

  She barely had time to think before her fingers were on the ladder. But the transition wasn’t as smooth as she expected. Her left hand slipped off the rung, and she swung out, her head cracking the side of the train with a sickening thud. Luckily, her foot found the ladder as she slipped down, and she managed to grab on and right herself again.

  Shaking her head, feeling dizzy, she crawled up the ladder and Luke helped her at the top. The dizziness intensified, and her sight faded in and out.

  As she braced herself at the top of the train, she gasped, trying to catch her breath.

  “Blue?” Luke swam in her vision. She clutched her head, opening and closing her eyes, trying to get a grip. When she pulled her hand away, though, she saw blood. Was that her blood? That didn’t make sense. Did it?

  “Blue?” This time, Luke’s voice seemed far away. “Shit, shit, shit. Blue, hang on.” As she faded out, she thought she heard him say, “Seth’ll be here soon. Hang on. Seth is coming.”

  It’d be okay, then. Seth was coming.

  She gave in to the darkness, more comforted than she should have been by that thought.

  Chapter Seven

  As much as Seth hated to admit it, Jack had been right about one thing: running like this was sweet.

  Having the new gifts was cool, if he didn’t factor in the horror that had accompanied it. The jumping, the new super spidey hearing, the added strength, the super healing. Jack’s foot had healed up in a matter of hours, as Seth’s ankle had. Pretty amazing, really. But Seth loved speed. And this…this was speed.

  Even with Kitty on his back, hanging on for dear life, he was fast.

  The plan was to run at the train at a forty-five-degree angle. That way the conductor wouldn’t see them coming and they could leap up on the roof to meet with Luke and Blue, who they assumed were already aboard, if all had gone to plan.

  Which of course it had. It had t
o have. He wouldn’t allow anything else. He’d feel better when he could see Blue for himself, that was all.

  As he dodged around some brush and jumped a small ditch, he tried not to worry about how much he was coming to care about her. Watching her today had been insightful. She’d wanted to fly so badly. She’d tried over and over, never giving up, never losing heart. Even when he told her they needed to think of something else, she’d wanted to keep going. If they hadn’t run out of time, she would have gone on.

  When he told her that she would have to move Luke instead, pure fear lit her face before she managed to hide her feelings again. Then she’d started in on him. The idea was stupid. Too dangerous. Wouldn’t work. She hemmed and hawed, fighting tooth and nail.

  But she couldn’t fool him. It had been fine when she only had to worry about herself. But she was afraid to hurt Luke.

  So he’d given her a lot of leeway. He’d let her rant and bitch. She’d pushed and pushed and finally, he reminded her gently, “You should practice. Luke’s depending on you.”

  Her mouth snapped shut, and he watched uncertainty flicker in her blue eyes. So tough sometimes, and then these moments of vulnerability. She was something else. He’d dropped his voice so none of the others would hear him. Unable to stop from touching her, he took her hands. “I believe in you.”

  She stared up at him for a long moment and then whispered, “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t know me.”

  He smiled at her, squeezing her fingers. “I think I’m starting to figure you out.”

  Her mouth snapped shut, and she swayed toward him. Then, as if catching herself, she’d spun away, joining Luke without any more fuss. Seth had chuckled. He was starting to get her, all right. How strong, how loyal. And he liked it all. Very much.

  Now, as he and Jack tore across the ground, he forced himself to stop thinking about her. He shouldn’t have been thinking about her at all right now. He knew better. Distractions could kill you.

  The train approached in front of them. He relaxed, allowed his brain to easily calculate the distance that remained before he overtook it. A quarter of a mile, less, maybe. He adjusted his trajectory and realized Jack had as well. He increased his speed by a fraction, holding a fairly steady thirty to thirty-five miles per hour.