Yeah. That’d work.
“Did you plan on telling her about all this?” Mecca asked.
“Maybe? I’m not sure. Once she told me about the Visci—the ones besides us, anyway—I thought our relationship would change. That she’d… I don’t know. Trust me more. Include me more?” Her voice had gone sullen, hurt. “But she’s still keeping secrets.” She raised her gaze, her hazel eyes clear. “So if I have some secrets too…” She shrugged again.
Mecca knew that feeling. She knew it really, really well. Her dad had kept some terrible secrets. Really horrendous ones. She could never decide which of his secrets was the worst. But the one that had hurt her the most was the one where he’d lied her entire life about their family Gift. About how he didn’t have it.
She wanted to hug Jenny, but she wasn’t sure their new relationship allowed for it. So she only nodded and said, “I feel you.”
“Could we, y’know, go please? I think I…” Sara’s eyes rolled back in her head. She slid down the wall and listed to her left.
“Shit!” Will rushed to her, but Jenny was already there, easing her to the floor. She’d moved so fast. Jenny leaned Sara against her own chest to stabilize her.
Movement caught the corner of Mecca’s eye. She whirled and found scientist guy out of his chair and inching toward the front door. She pointed at him, hoping he’d seen her kill his boss, hoping to scare him. “Do…not…move.”
He froze.
That was cool.
His dark eyes blinked rapidly in his ashen, pallid face. Mecca could feel his terror.
She pointed to his empty chair. “Sit.”
He took the five steps back to the chair in jerky movement.
“Don’t you worry,” she said. “You’ll be leaving very soon.”
Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, and he dropped his gaze to the floor.
Her chest tingled. She could get used to that sort of reaction.
“Ah, damn it,” Will said from behind her. “Mecca, here take this.” Will held the gun out.
Mecca shifted her body so she wouldn’t lose sight of the frightened man in the chair and took it from him. It felt dangerously heavy in her hand.
Will had leaned Sara forward a bit and was looking at the back of the bandage on her arm. “It’s soaked with blood. I didn’t realize she was losing it so fast. Change of plans. We have to get her to the hospital right now.” He glanced around until his gaze rested on Zoey and Jorge, who’d only made it to the hall before Sara had passed out. “Zoey, you need to drive. I’ll go with.”
“No,” she said. “I’m taking Jorge home. We can drop her off at the hospital after.”
“We can’t wait that long. She’s losing blood too quickly. Jorge can go with the others.”
Before Zoey could protest, Jorge said, “I’ll be fine. Go.”
“No,” Zoey said to him. “I’m not—”
Jorge’s soft voice became stern. “This isn’t a debate.” He disentangled his arm from Zoey’s. “She got shot helping to save me. I don’t even know her. Take her to the hospital.”
“What if they come after you?” She’d dropped to a whisper, and Mecca had a hard time hearing, but she couldn’t believe this was even an issue.
“Would you just take her to the hospital?” she shouted at Zoey. “God! Jorge is fine. Sara is dying because she wanted to help your damn friend.” She waved her hand in Jorge’s direction. “A perfect stranger! The fuck is your problem?”
Jorge squeezed Zoey’s hand and said softly, “Go.”
She nodded to him and shot Mecca daggers with her eyes. Mecca didn’t care. If Sara didn’t make it through this, Mecca wouldn’t forgive Zoey. Or herself.
“Make sure everyone going in his car wears gloves,” Will said as he stood and hefted Sara into his arms. “We don’t need to leave fingerprints behind.”
Mecca hadn’t even thought of that.
“Good luck,” Jorge said.
That seemed to startle everyone. Will gave him a nod, gratitude in his eyes. “Come on,” he said as he passed Zoey and headed toward the door.
“Will,” Mecca called.
He turned.
“Text me when you know something.”
He nodded again and stepped through the still-open door. Zoey followed.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Jenny
As they parked in front of the garage, Jenny, seated in the passenger seat, turned to their captive driver and said, “We’re going to take you inside. Don’t give us any problems, and we won’t give you any problems, okay?”
He didn’t look at her, only stared straight ahead and nodded.
Mecca, sitting behind him with the dead Visci’s gun pointed at the driver’s seat, added, “Get out, slowly. And don’t make any sudden movements. Open your door now.”
Jenny hated the idea of the gun. She’d have argued against it if she’d known Mecca had it. She’d never seen Mecca like this. Of course, nothing in their high school years involved kidnapping or a gun, either.
The man did as told, and Mecca opened her own door at the same time. Jenny got out herself and helped Jorge to stand from the back seat.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Just a little wobbly.”
Mecca walked their captive around the car, and then they all moved to the door in a small huddle. As Jenny fished for her keys, the man dashed from between them and ran in the direction of the garage, on the other side of the car they’d driven.
“Shit,” Jenny said, under her breath. She took off after him, putting on a burst of speed that let her easily overtake him. She launched onto his back, and they both toppled half on the grass on the other side of the driveway.
Her hip screamed at her, still tender from her earlier landing on it. Tomorrow was gonna suck.
The man grunted beneath her and scrabbled to get away. She grabbed him by the back of his coat and hauled him to his feet. She spun him around and got in his face.
“I can knock you out and toss you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.” She focused on his dark eyes. “You know I can do that, right?”
He tightened his jaw but nodded.
“I don’t want to do it, but I will if you don’t cooperate. We don’t plan to hurt you. We only want information.” She shoved him toward the front of the house. “Let’s go.”
She wasn’t sure where all that bravado came from. Perhaps she was just afraid that her mom would hear and come out demanding answers. How would she explain all this?
“You should have gone out for track,” Mecca said. “We’d have won every meet.”
Jenny smirked.
He didn’t give them any more trouble as they entered the house. Jenny had them stop inside the doorway. She passed the closed door of her dad’s office—neither of them had been able to go in there since they’d been back—and down the front hall to the kitchen. When she saw the way was clear, she motioned them forward.
She led them through the kitchen and into the laundry room in the back. The door there, the one to the wine cellar, always remained closed and locked. She turned the deadbolt, yanked the door open, and flipped the light switch on the wall just inside.
A faint yellow light shone up from below. “Go on,” she said to their captive.
He moved down the stairs with slow steps, Mecca behind him, still holding the gun. Jenny hated that they had to use it.
Jorge went next and Jenny came behind, pulling the door shut.
The wine cellar wasn’t a place Jenny usually spent time. The rest of the house was well-appointed and clean and bright. But the cellar was more like a cave. Not that the walls were stone—they were concrete block—but the floor was rough cement and it reminded her of something out of a horror movie. So she’d always avoided it.
The temperature dropped as she descended, and the single light hanging from the ceiling created weird shadows among the boxes and old things her parents had stored down here. She suppressed a shudder.
“I’d forgotten how
creepy this is,” Mecca said. “Remember when we tried to come down and tell ghost stories that one Halloween and we freaked ourselves out so much, we ended up running screaming up the stairs?”
Jenny laughed. She hadn’t thought of that in a long time. “And I ran right into Mom bringing down apple cider. I ruined her new silk blouse.”
The men stood looking at them, and Jenny shook her head. “Never mind.”
Boxes piled high along the walls, some of them big plastic tubs, others cardboard moving boxes. A stack of extra patio chairs stood in one corner beside an old footlocker her dad had said was from college. The musty smell of old paper hung in the air.
Everywhere, Jenny saw memories of her dad. The tricycle she’d ridden when she was a kid. There was a picture in a photobook of her toppled over and crying, with him crouched beside her. She didn’t have any memory of that, only the old photo.
Even her dad’s old aquarium stood on its side nearby. He’d gotten into his head that he’d wanted saltwater fish, but ultimately decided it was a lot more trouble than it was worth.
Her eyes prickled.
“Hey,” Mecca whispered from beside her. “It’s just stuff.”
Jenny nodded and pulled in a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. We need a chair.” She got one from the stack and put it on the cement floor with a thunk. Pointing at their captive, she said, “You. Sit.”
He did as she told him but didn’t break eye contact with her.
“What’s your name, anyway?” When he didn’t respond, she sighed. “I can keep calling you ‘You,’ or I can use your name. It won’t kill you to share your name.”
“Oliver,” he finally said.
“Huh. Oliver. That’s a good name. So, Oliver, we’re going to have to tie you to the chair,” she said, as she looked around for something to do that with.
Jorge saw what she was doing and began searching boxes too. Mecca kept the gun trained on Oliver.
“Hey,” Jenny said as Jorge rooted through a box near her. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
He gave her a smile. “Me too. Thanks for coming to find me.”
“Well, we still need to find Helen, so I couldn’t be losing you, right?” She didn’t want to make a big deal about it, so she continued her search.
She found a ball of twine in a box labeled Old Dishes. Why twine would be in a box of dishes she wasn’t sure, but she also wasn’t going to complain, either.
She tied him as best she could and stepped back. “Okay, Oliver, we need some answers. Why did you kidnap Jorge?”
Oliver only looked at her. His mouth remained closed.
Mecca wagged the gun in front of him. “Answer her!”
He cringed away, but still said nothing. His hands shook.
“He might not be able to answer,” Jorge said.
Oliver’s dark gaze darted to Jorge.
“What do you mean?” Jenny asked.
“He might be under the control of a Visci.”
“He is,” Mecca added.
Jenny couldn’t make sense of what they were saying. “Hang on. Are you saying that some Visci is controlling him right now?” She looked between Jorge and Mecca.
“I only know that there are signs of Visci in his soul,” Mecca said.
“That doesn’t add any light to the situation,” Jenny said, her voice flat. She didn’t understand any of this. Feeling this confused made her angry.
Jorge’s chestnut brown eyes turned to her and held concern. “You really don’t have any idea about what you are, do you?”
Jenny flushed and then frowned at her reaction. “You don’t have to keep throwing it in my face.”
“What? I’m not—” He scrunched his nose and continued, his tone level. “I didn’t mean to throw it in your face. I’m sorry. It’s not direct control, like a puppet, but he probably has a Visci he answers to who can directly influence his behavior.” Jorge looked at Oliver. “If I were doing something horrible and had to bring a human in, I’d have a standing order on him about not speaking of whatever I am doing to anyone outside the project.”
Oliver’s eyes glistened.
Mecca stepped forward and put the gun barrel to Oliver’s temple.
Jenny gasped, her heart suddenly pounding. “Mecca!”
“So even if I did this,” Mecca said, “he wouldn’t say anything?”
“He wouldn’t be able to. Even if he might really want to.”
Oliver hadn’t stopped staring at Jorge, but the trembling in his hands had traveled to the rest of his arms.
Mecca pulled the gun back. “I wouldn’t shoot him. I can’t believe you think I would.” She gave Jenny a pointed look.
What was she supposed to think? She swung her gaze back to Jorge. “So how do we get him to talk?”
“We bind him more tightly to one of us than he is bound to the other Visci.”
Terror traveled through Oliver’s eyes.
Jorge’s brows knitted together. “It’ll be kinda gross,” he said to Oliver. “But it shouldn’t hurt.”
“It always hurts,” Oliver whispered.
Jenny hadn’t expected him to speak, and he surprised her. He seemed more afraid of the process than of them doing something to him directly. It occurred to her she didn’t actually know what the process was. So perhaps his fear was logical.
“How does it work?” she asked, a bit wary of the answer.
“Blood,” Mecca said.
The surprised look on Jorge’s face pulled a wry laugh from Mecca.
“What? You think you’re the only one with super-secret Visci knowledge?”
“Um. No. I wasn’t… I didn’t…”
Mecca waved a hand at him.
“Would someone clue me in, please?” Jenny asked. She was so out of the loop even Mecca knew more than she did.
“He has to drink your blood.”
Drink her blood? That seemed gross. Her mom had been feeding her blood for years, but that didn’t feel as disconcerting as sharing her blood with a stranger.
“How much he must drink to override the other Visci’s power will have to be determined.”
“Or you could inject your blood directly,” Mecca added.
Jenny stared at her. Gross. And not particularly practical. “Where would I get something to do that with?” She skimmed her gaze over the rest of the room. “Unless we find needles and syringes in a box of dishes down here.”
“It was just more information,” Mecca said.
Dread uncoiled itself in her gut. “Do we really have to do this?”
“If we want to figure out why they took me, I think so,” Jorge said. His voice was calming. “I would do it, but I don’t know what they drugged me with. I’m not sure if that would affect him.”
“You’re not up to one hundred percent anyway,” Jenny said. This was going to be her lone responsibility. “It could hurt you more than it would me.”
“Okay, so we’re going to do this?” Mecca said.
“We?” Jenny didn’t feel much like it was a group effort.
“We’re not a team?” Mecca asked.
That had been unexpected. They’d always been a team before, but Jenny thought maybe now that the truth was out, they wouldn’t be. She wasn’t sure whether Mecca would accept her anymore. She’d already said as much. But… Maybe something had changed?
Jenny nodded. “All right. Let’s do it. But I’m going to need a knife. I’m not interested in cutting myself with any old dull pocketknife we might find down here.” She went to the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”
When she got into the kitchen, she stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh. Hey, Mom.”
Her mother was at the stove, taking the water kettle off a burner. A mug sat on the counter beside the stove, with a tea bag inside and a spoon right next to it. “Hi, honey. I’ve got something to share with you.” She poured steaming water into the mug, and the scent of peppermint came to Jenny’s nose.
“Okay,” she said. She wasn’t sure what else to
say.
When her mom turned, Jenny was surprised at the excitement coming off her.
“Don’t ask me how, but I got hold of Emilia Laos’s computer. I’ve been doing some digging—”
“How do you know how to dig on a computer? I had to teach you how to do the coffee pot.”
“Computers are easier for me than coffee pots. Someday, I’ll tell you about the work I did in the earliest days of computers.” She put the kettle back on the stove and waved her hand at Jenny. “But anyway, I found evidence that Emilia knew about the disappearances.”
A jolt of excitement hit her. “She was behind them?”
“No. She was tracking them, though. It looks like she was trying to figure out what was happening to the hybrids as well.” She put half a teaspoon of sugar into her tea and stirred. “But that’s not all. She had some information about full bloods being taken too.”
“Did she find out who was taking them?”
“No. But Emilia suspected that someone was doing something with them and killing them after. She also suspected that whoever was behind it was trying to feed into the idea of a war between hybrids and fulls.”
Jenny thought about this. “So it’s not actual targeting for the war?”
“Well, I don’t know, but Emilia thought not. I’m still working through it upstairs.” She lifted her cup and headed toward the hall. “I’m going to get back into it. I’ll let you know what else I find out, okay?”
Jenny nodded absently.
After her mom had left, she remembered why she’d come up here. She grabbed a knife from the block on the counter and headed back to the basement.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Mecca
Oliver hadn’t moved the entire time that Jenny had been gone. He’d only sat there and waited in silence. Mecca still didn’t understand how she’d gotten caught up in helping Visci. She sighed.
“Okay, got it,” Jenny said as she came down the stairs. “And Mom was in the kitchen. The Visci apparently knew about hybrids disappearing. And the fulls.” She said this last while looking at Jorge.
“Hybrids?” Mecca asked. Why were they talking about cars?
“There’s someone or some group, more likely, kidnapping Visci like me: half human,” Jenny said.
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