by Jena Leigh
“Unfortunately,” she said, “yes.”
“Where are you two going?” Trent asked.
“The game is still being played, Trent,” Alex said as she pried opened the driver side door. “You guys don’t know Li like we do.”
“Know him?” asked Nate. “Is that a joke? Up until two days ago, Alex, you were still convinced the guy could be trusted.”
“Yeah, well,” Alex mumbled. “That was before we caught a glimpse of the man behind the curtain.”
“The what?” asked Aiden. “What the hell does that even mean?”
“Nothing,” said Declan, with a pointed glare at Alex. “But trust us. He won’t inject her yet. If that’s all he wanted, then he wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of abducting her. He could just as easily have dosed her and then made his getaway with no one the wiser.”
“Yeah, no,” said Trent. “Still not following.”
Declan sighed, folding his arms on the roof of the Charger as he leaned against it. “He’s waiting for an audience,” he said, his tone grim. “Li wants our Alex there when he injects her past self.”
“That’s… messed up,” Trent said.
“That’s Samuel Masterson,” Alex replied, finally giving in to the urge and saying the name aloud.
The look Declan shot her in the next instant could have frozen a lit welding torch.
“What, Declan?” Alex held out her arms, daring him to protest. “What is the point in keeping it from them any longer? They should know who it is we’re facing. They have the right to know what we’re up against. So we might risk changing the future for the worse by telling them the truth. So what? I mean, isn’t that the entire point of all this? To change things? To stop what’s coming?”
“To change it for the better, Alex,” said Declan. “That was the point of this. And telling them that Masterson’s still alive and kicking helps no one.”
“But it does change things,” she countered. “It has to! Think about it, Decks. Nate and Aiden were just as surprised to learn about Masterson being alive in our time, as the rest of us were. And there is no way you’re going to convince me they faked that shock. They would never have kept that knowledge from us. Not with everything that was happening.”
Declan’s jaw twitched as he digested her words.
“You wanted proof the future can be changed, Declan?” she asked. “I just gave it to you.”
Alex leaned down and popped the release lever, pushing the driver’s seat forward so that she could climb into the back of the car.
It was only after she had one foot lodged in the backseat that she realized Trent, Aiden, and Nate were still standing slack-jawed and silent a few paces behind her, staring at the both of them like they’d just sprouted a dozen extra heads.
“Samuel Masterson’s … not dead?” Nate asked.
“As in, he’s alive?” said Aiden. “Alive, alive?”
“How?” asked Trent.
Declan shook his head. “That’s a long, complicated story that we really don’t have time to get into right now.”
“This whole situation suddenly makes a lot more sense,” said Nate. “Why didn’t you just tell us who he was to begin with?”
“Need to know,” said Declan. “You didn’t.”
Nate scowled. “Channeling your inner Grayson, Decks? Cause I gotta say, you’re doing a damn fine job of it right about now.”
Declan’s expression remained carefully neutral. “I was trying to salvage the situation.”
“No.” Aiden pointed an accusing finger in his direction. “You were trying to get us all killed by burying the lede. I signed up to deal with a scrawny lab rat named Li, who suffered from delusions of grandeur and an inexplicable fixation with Alex. I did not sign up for a suicide mission to take down the most powerful psychopath the world has ever seen.”
“Hang on,” said Trent, his brow furrowing. “Be kind, rewind. Are you telling me that a couple days ago I was standing five feet away from the most infamous whack job in Variant history, and you two didn’t think that was worth mentioning? Christ, Declan, what the hell?! So glad to know you had my back!”
Alex felt a sudden need to defend Declan, in spite of her own mounting annoyance with him. “We didn’t know it was Masterson at that point, Trent,” she said. “We still thought he was someone else.”
“Is that why you two came running out of his office like he’d just lit your asses on fire?” asked Trent. “What am I saying? Of course it is.”
“Can we all just get in the car now, please?” asked Declan. “We can argue about this while we drive.”
No one moved.
“Unless… unless you want to back out?” Alex said slowly. “I’ll understand if knowing who Li really is changes things. I can’t ask any of you to do any more for me than you’ve already done. I owe each of you more than I could ever hope to repay. I appreciate everything you guys have done to help me get this far.”
Before she’d even finished speaking, Nate crossed the street to stand beside her. He turned to the others. “Well?”
Aiden heaved a weary sigh. Trent ran a hand over his face.
And then they both crossed the street to join the rest of the group gathered around the car.
“Alright then, Trouble,” said Aiden. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’d hate to keep the crazed killer waiting.”
Alex blew out a breath of relief. “Thanks, guys.”
Smiling, she turned to climb into the car’s backseat.
After a brief argument about who would be driving (Nate) and who would get to ride shotgun (Declan), Trent and Aiden bent double and awkwardly crawled into the backseat, leaving Alex to sit between them.
Both of the front seats were shoved back into place simultaneously, prompting grumbles from Aiden and Trent about the sudden lack of leg room.
She rolled her eyes. They should talk.
At least they had somewhere to put their legs. Alex settled her feet on the hump dividing the floorboard and wrapped her arms around her shins to hold herself steady.
With another mumbled curse, Trent pulled a wad of fabric out from beneath him.
He held up the jacket. “This yours?”
And she’d thought the Charger felt cramped before.
“Where are we heading?” asked Nate as the engine revved to life.
“For now,” said Declan, “just go back toward downtown.”
The cool chill of Trent’s illusion faded from Alex’s skin as he dropped his ability and allowed the group to become visible now that they were on the move.
Trent rested heavily back in his seat, sweaty and exhausted. He took a long, deep breath and exhaled in obvious relief.
“If we’re going on the assumption that Masterson is waiting for us to find him,” Aiden said, “then shouldn’t he be holed up someplace obvious?”
Someplace obvious.
Seemed logical enough. But where?
It would need to be a location Masterson would know was familiar to Alex, but was also isolated. He wouldn’t want to be interrupted.
“What about the dock?” Declan asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “But that’s assuming he made the other me tell him where she was originally headed before he grabbed her. I mean, how else would he know about it? He only just arrived in Bay View. I don’t know. The high school seems more likely to me.”
Trent shifted uncomfortably in the seat beside her, leaning forward to catch Declan’s attention. “I take it you never told her,” he said.
“Told me what?” she asked.
“It didn’t exactly come up,” said Declan. “And to be honest, I hadn’t really planned on saying anything.”
“Never told me what, Decks?” she repeated.
Declan turned slightly in his seat, not quite facing her. “Masterson hired a PI to keep tabs on you here in Bay View while he was in Seattle. From what the guy said, Masterson has been watching you by proxy for years. Getting reports on your progress, w
aiting to see what ability you inherited. It’s probably how he figured out you were dosed with the VX-1 as a little kid, when years passed and your ability never manifested. It’s how he knew all those things about you when we met with him the other day. He’s going to know about the dock, Lex. He’s going to know about everything.”
Alex felt suddenly, horribly violated.
“He was… watching me?” she asked. “For how long?”
Declan shrugged. “Probably since the moment he escaped cryo and took control of Li’s body. A few years, at least.”
The revelation made her sick to her stomach. The thought of some creeper with a telephoto lens snapping pictures of her without her knowledge made her skin crawl. The sort of things he must have seen…
Days on the beach with Cassie, dates with Connor, Aunt Cil’s gallery showings, her school functions, the swim meets…
Swim meets.
“Nate, turn around!” she yelped.
At the sudden order, Nate slammed on the brakes and executed a tire-squealing U-turn, resulting in a cacophony of horns from other drivers on the road and a chorus of surprised exclamations from everyone inside the vehicle.
“Whoa!” Trent’s hands flew forward to grip the back of the Nate’s seat. “Where’s the fire, Alex?”
“Jesus,” Aiden mumbled, pressing gently against Alex’s shoulder to keep her from sliding into his lap at the force of the turn. “I knew I was going to die in this freaking deathtrap of a car.”
“The Rec Center!” she said breathlessly.
“What?” asked Declan.
As they finished the turn and Nate hit the gas, Alex leaned forward, edging between the seats. “He’s taken her to the pool at the Rec Center, Decks, I’m sure of it!”
“Where is it?” asked Nate.
Declan pointed out the windshield. “Take a left at the next light.”
“What makes you think that’s where he took her?” Aiden asked.
“Because back at the house, my hair was wet,” she said, distracted. “This is it, Nate… turn here!”
“Your hair was wet?” Aiden echoed. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
She sighed. “It was wet, because Cassie and I had just come home from swimming at the Rec Center pool. We only came home because that afternoon they kicked everyone out early and closed the main building for some private function. Except that when we asked Pauline, the Rec Center’s event coordinator, why they were closing, she said that she had no clue. Some rich guy had basically walked in off the street and paid them a ton of money to have the facility to himself for the rest of the day.”
At the time it struck her as exceedingly strange, since the Rec always required reservations to be made weeks in advance. Last minute bookings just didn’t happen.
Not that rules and regulations would mean jack to a guy who could control people’s thoughts and actions at will.
But that wasn’t all. The indoor pool had been closed for nearly a month afterward as the Rec Center repaired extensive damage to the walls and windows of the main building from that night.
The management blamed a bizarre weather occurrence—hail and a freak tornado. No one had been there to actually witness the event, however, so the real cause for the destruction was never explained.
“You’re thinking the rich guy was Masterson?” Aiden said.
“It makes sense,” she said. “There! See those tennis courts up ahead? The entrance is just past them on the right.”
“And the pool?” asked Nate. “Inside or outside?”
“Inside,” she said. “He’d pick the indoor pool. Less exposed.”
“Main building,” Declan said, pointing toward the looming white structure at the back of the property.
The parking area was surprisingly empty. Except for a couple of vehicles parked at the very edge of the lot, there were no other visitors. None of the outdoor facilities appeared to be in use either. The baseball diamonds, the soccer fields—even the tennis and basketball courts stood vacant.
The dark clouds building overhead might account for keeping some of the patrons away, but Alex was certain she’d never seen the center quite so deserted.
Where was everyone?
Then she felt it.
An overwhelming sensation of wrongness. An almost primordial instinct for self-preservation immediately awoke deep in her thoughts. A feeling that—had she not immediately recognized its source—would have sent her straight back out of the parking lot and far, far away from the Rec Center.
Masterson was doing something that no normal pusher should have been able to accomplish. He was using the ability to maintain a field of influence that cloaked the entire complex in a noxious shield of pure negativity. Anyone without an express reason to be there would immediately feel compelled to vacate the area.
Even though they all understood what was happening, the mood in the car immediately shifted. They exchanged uneasy glances as the Charger rolled to a stop outside the glass enclosure that housed the main lobby.
“Am I the only one that…?” Trent began.
“No,” everyone said in unison.
“Oh, good,” said Trent. “That’s good.”
“I think it’s safe to say we’re in the right place,” Nate said, opening his car door and stepping out into the afternoon heat. Not bothering to let the others out, he slammed his door closed just as Declan exited the car.
Alex, Aiden, and Trent remained trapped in the backseat as Aiden struggled in vain to push the passenger seat forward using the seat controls.
“Oh, for the love of…” Aiden thumped the back of the headrest with his palm. “These knobs are freaking useless.”
Alex sighed and shooed him out of the way, forcing him to lean back so she could get to the lever.
She released it on the first try, slinging the seat forward and climbing over Aiden as she stepped out of the car.
The sky above was a hazy gray. That same in-between color it assumed when the clouds weren’t quite sure if they wanted to rain, but were determined to block out the sun anyway.
“Clearly, that’s what you get for calling the car a deathtrap, Aiden,” said Trent from somewhere behind her.
Alex jogged to catch up with Nate and Declan at the end of the walkway. They were already giving the sealed entrance a cursory examination. Nate tugged at the locked handle of the double doors, while Declan scoured the ground nearby.
Nate gave one last pull at the door, then stepped back. He’d only just raised his arm—presumably with the intention of using his TK to release the lock—when Declan loosed the rock in his hand, sending it crashing through the plate glass of the door and shattering it into thousands of pieces.
The deafening sound of a security alarm filled the air.
“Or we could do it your way,” Nate muttered.
“So much for sneaking up on the guy,” Trent said.
Declan reached his arm through the hole where a door used to be and flipped the deadbolt. Pushing the frame open, he stepped inside, the soles of his boots crunching on broken glass.
He approached the alarm panel set into the wall to his right and disabled it with a wave of his hand. Silence fell.
Inside the main lobby the lights were off, leaving only the dim glow of the overcast skies outside to brighten the space.
“There’s no point in stealth, Trent,” Declan said. “Masterson already knows we’re coming.”
“Yeah,” said Aiden. “And now he knows we’re here.”
“And what a terrible host I would be,” came an echoing voice, “if I weren’t present to greet my esteemed guests upon their arrival.”
The speaker stood in the shadows lining the far end of a hall that branched off to the right; a passage Alex knew led to the indoor pool.
The man took a few, slow steps forward. The pale sunlight shining from outside illuminated his face in a sliver of light.
There was no doubt, now, about whether or not he’d managed to
perfect the serum. It was Samuel Masterson’s form, not Dr. Li’s, that stood before them.
His eyes scanned the group slowly, focusing for the briefest of moments upon each of their faces, until at last he fixed his gaze directly on Alex.
Masterson smiled. “Hello, pet.”
Twenty-Five
Let’s face it. There are few things in this world more unsettling than being smiled at by a man who has already butchered dozens of innocent people, and who was likely to kill dozens more in the very near future.
Had she known what a monster her captor truly was, the younger version of Alex would probably have been unnerved to the point of mute silence.
This Alex, however, wasn’t about to hold her tongue.
“Where is she?” Alex demanded, taking a step forward—only to be brought up short when Declan gently snagged her by the elbow. She yanked her arm loose, but reserved her stony glare for Masterson alone. “Where are you keeping her?”
Masterson’s smile faltered for the briefest instant, then doubled in intensity. “If by ‘her,’ you mean you, then I’m happy to report that she’s waiting patiently poolside. Entirely intact, of course. Still the same weak and defenseless creature you came running to protect. Though how much longer she’ll stay that way shall remain entirely up to you.”
He turned on his heel and headed back toward the metal doors at the end of the hall, stepping through them and into the darkness that lay beyond.
This time, Declan didn’t try to stop her when she broke into a run.
As she passed through the double doors and into the massive room that held the Rec’s indoor pool, Alex was greeted with damp, chlorine-laced twilight.
Anemic, late afternoon sunlight filtered through a frosted picture window. Before her eyes could fully adjust, the underwater pool lights were turned on, filling the space with an azure glow.
Her younger self sat cross-legged on the ground at the far end of the pool, staring blankly into the water. Masterson teleported himself across the room in a blinding flash and now his lanky form loomed just a step or two behind Past Alex.
The metal doors slammed closed.
Turning, she found that only Declan and Trent had made it through the entrance in time. Going from the angry shouts and the sound of pounding fists, Nate and Aiden remained trapped on the other side.