[A Thousand Faces 01.0] A Thousand Faces

by Janci Patterson

  Next to Kalif stood an enormous, broad-shouldered man. He stood square on both his legs, so I knew that he couldn't be Mel, who would still be limping, at least, even if he'd managed to clean up his knee.

  I recognized the face the man wore from the headshots of Oliver Carmine I'd seen online. I might not have known who he really was if it hadn't been for his trembling posture; the shock and fear on his face was a mirror image of the look that Aida had given me when she told me about Asylum.

  I'd never seen her this afraid, though. Her whole body quaked, which, when it had taken a form as tall and broad-shouldered as Oliver Carmine's, made for a combination that would have been comical under happier circumstances.

  Aida stood right next to the pane of glass next to the door. She said something to Kalif that was muffled by the glass, but everything in her posture was pleading. She was trying to get him to cooperate, to save his life.

  No doubt to switch sides and bring my parents and me down.

  I was right. It wasn't a trap. I wondered if Kalif had been forced to intercept them to keep them from coming back into the building and finding us. He must have done this on purpose—chosen a corner of the building where I would find him, but they wouldn't be able to see me.

  I couldn't help but be proud of him for that.

  Mom craned her neck over my shoulder to get a look at the group of them. She pushed past me out the door, and took a step in the opposite direction. "There has to be an exit this way," she said.

  I grabbed Dad by the arm, holding him in the doorway. "You promised," I said. "It's not a trap, and they have him cornered."

  Dad paused, assessing the situation. We all held our breath. The Carmines' attention remained fixed on Kalif, and Kalif and Aida's attention were likewise on them.

  Then Dad turned to Mom and pointed down the hallway. "Go out the opposite side and find their car," he said. He turned to me. "Where's the parking lot?"

  "North side," I said. I looked over my shoulder at Mom. "We'll meet you there."

  Mom didn't look happy, and I couldn't blame her. In the sunlight her cuts didn't look as bad, though the Carmines would still recognize her in an instant, and she wouldn't be able to take on any persona without having to give some horrifyingly memorable excuse. She stepped back into the hallway and shifted her hair to be longer and stringier, combing it with her fingers to hang in her face. Then she moved down the hall away from us, to find a way out of the building on the opposite side.

  Outside, Kalif extended his hand, angling it toward the door and away from the Carmines. He had something in it—something small and rectangular.

  His phone. No doubt that's how he convinced them he was going to send the files to the NSA. He had his finger on the button—one touch away from spilling their secret. At least, he claimed he did. And if anyone could pull that sort of thing together in a rush, it was Kalif.

  Dad leaned against the doorway.

  "So," he said. "Do you have a plan?"

  My pulse picked up. This was my dad. He made plans; I followed them.

  And now he was asking me?

  Dad waited, quietly, and I was afraid that if I didn't come up with something, he'd force me to admit that anything I could do was too dangerous.

  I had to think of something.

  Aida's shoulder—dressed in one of Oliver's suits—brushed the glass. The pane she stood by stretched to the same height as the doorframe; if the glass was broken, I could step right through it. My fingers brushed the gun in my pocket. Empty, but still a threat to anyone who didn't know that.

  I checked Aida's hands and the hands of my fake parents. No one had a weapon.

  "Jory?" Dad said.

  I held up a hand for him to wait. I wasn't going to just spout off a plan without thinking it through first.

  He was the one who taught me that.

  If I put the gun to Aida's head, if I tried to use her as leverage, what would the Carmines do? I might be able to use Aida as a hostage to drag Kalif away. She was their daughter; she worked with them. Even if they didn't care about Aida's life, they wouldn't want to startle the maniac with the gun.

  I needed a persona, one they would believe was both competent and dangerous. And I knew of one competent, dangerous person they all ought to be at least a little bit afraid of. A maniac who might be motivated to drag his family out of a dangerous situation, and would be willing to put a gun to his own wife's head to do it.

  I shifted my face and body to look like Mel. "Is this convincing?" I asked, turning my profile to Dad.

  He raised his new eyebrows at me. "Good," he said. "Nice sneer. But what are you going to do?"

  I pulled the gun out of my pocket and into my hand.

  Dad looked down at it with alarm.

  "It's not loaded," I whispered. "But I'm going to use it to threaten Aida and get Kalif out. Can you break the window with the axe? And cover my back?"

  While he still eyed the gun nervously, Dad nodded in approval. "That could work," he said.

  My breath left me. "Really?" I said.

  Dad put a hand on my shoulder. "You do good work," he said. "I'm proud of you."

  And even though Kalif was still in danger, I couldn't help but smile. For a split second, I let myself enjoy the squeeze of Dad's hand on my shoulder. He was proud of me. And impressed enough to follow my lead.

  I shook myself. Focus now; preen later. When I looked out at Kalif and the others again, I saw my fake father's foot crunch down on something small and black. Bits of plastic shot out from under his shoe.

  Kalif's phone. His leverage.

  The Carmines had gotten it away from him. Now he didn't have anything to bargain with. There were three of them and one of him; he'd be trapped here. I couldn't let that happen. We were leaving here, together. All of us.

  I twisted Mel's mouth into a cruel smile. It might not fool them, but it was only for effect. The gun was the ticket. I couldn't shoot anyone with it, but I could put on a show.

  And I was a shifter. Shows were what we did best.

  Dad tightened his hands around the axe. I readied the pistol in my palm. We left the doorway and moved up to the mirrored glass. The sun still shone at the Carmines' backs, increasing the glare. They wouldn't be able to see us until we touched the glass.

  Dad shifted his face into a persona I'd never seen—a Hispanic man with a thick brow ridge. He stepped to the side of the windows, hiding in the corner of the building at an angle where he could break the glass, but keep himself hidden.

  I could get a good look at my fake parents' faces now. They looked angry—a sign that things weren't going as planned. They both held their hands at their sides, tense and at the ready.

  "Now," I said.

  Dad nodded, pulled the axe back over his shoulder, and brought the flat butt of it down on the glass with all of his might.

  Aida jumped about a foot as the glass rained down into the courtyard. That gave me the opening I needed, and I counted one second, making sure to follow the falling glass, instead of stepping under it.

  I stepped through the empty pane, my feet crunching on puzzle-shaped pieces of glass as sunlight danced off them and reflected up onto Aida's face.

  And then I wrapped a thick arm around her shoulders, one hand at her throat, the other bringing the pistol up to her head. I turned my voice into Mel's. "No one moves," I shouted. "Or I'll kill her."

  Behind me, I heard Dad swear. A quick glance behind me told me he was watching the reflection of the scene in a broken shard of glass that leaned against the frame of the door. My eyes darted up, looking for what caused him to react.

  I saw it immediately. In the seconds it took me to step through the glass, both of the Carmines had drawn guns, and were pointing them squarely at Aida and me.

  My throat closed up. We weren't supposed to kill people. Why were all of the other shifters carrying guns? Were these people just as sociopathic as Mel?

  Was everyone who was not me a murderer?

 
; I knew I should be talking now, but I couldn't so much as squeak. I stood behind Aida, at the wrong end of not one but two pistols. They were smaller and darker than the one in my hand, but no doubt these two were loaded.

  All the blood drained from my face. I dragged my eyes away from the guns long enough to see the hardened looks on my fake parents' faces.

  They were going to kill us—all four of us—and sort out their cover up later.

  Twenty-five

  I recovered from the sight of the weapons as quickly as I could, but I was sure my look of surprise had been obvious. I was giving away my fear, when I should have been presenting a cool, calm front.

  I tried to talk myself down now. Just because the Carmines could shoot us didn't mean they would. They were supposed to be interested in justice, right? Not killing.

  I didn't believe myself, but at least I kept my gun hand from shaking.

  Over the Carmines' shoulders, I saw movement between two buildings. Mom had made her way from the parking lot. She was behind them, but too far away to reach us in a hurry. Her eyes widened as she looked over my shoulder at Dad.

  I knew what she had to be thinking. What the hell had we done?

  I swallowed, hard. This could still work. It depended on my performance, now. It depended on Kalif, and on Aida.

  I tightened my hand at her neck, the way that Mel had done to me. "I'm taking my son," I growled in Mel's voice. "You people are crazy. You've always been crazy, and we're not working with any of you anymore." I jabbed the tip of the pistol into Aida's temple, hoping to influence her to plead my case, but she didn't. She just let out a pitiful mewling noise, like a frightened kitten, and her knees buckled from underneath her.

  I tightened Mel's arm around Aida's shoulders, and prayed that it was me she was afraid of.

  But what happened next made me certain that it wasn't.

  The Carmines held their weapons steady, and started shooting.

  Later, I would realize that Dad must have already been moving. I don't know what he'd seen that I hadn't—some subtle twitch of her arm muscles, some near-imperceptible shift of his stance. Some indication that the Carmines were ready to shoot that motivated even my pacifist father to violence. Dad flew around me with his axe raised, his feet sliding on the bits of glass as he careened toward them.

  A crack deafened me. The next thing I knew, Dad fell backward, and I shoved Aida aside, putting my arms out instinctively to catch him.

  Afterward, I would try to count the gun shots, but I'd never be sure if there was one or many. All I felt was his weight bearing down on me. I stumbled back, dropping my father on top of a squirming Aida, whose massive frame seemed to shrink under his weight. I blinked as wet droplets flew into my face, and I stared down at the red, sticky mess that speckled my shirt, Dad's neck. Shards of metal had lodged themselves in his jaw, tearing away the flesh from the bone.

  The bullets might as well have hit me, because I could feel them tearing my own heart to shreds, leaving a bloody mess where my family should have been.

  When I looked up at the spot where I'd seen Mom, she was moving toward the car. I could see her mouthing something, but silence rang in my ears. It was only when the Carmines turned toward her that I realized she must have been shouting. She must have been telling me what to do.

  Over the tide of panic that welled up inside me, I knew what she wanted.

  She was telling me to run.

  As my hearing returned, I became aware of Kalif shouting at me as well, though I couldn't tear my eyes away from Dad's face. His eyes didn't so much close as shrink, pulling back into his head. His nose retracted, cartilage flattening. His lips shriveled together, leaving nothing but twisted flesh where they had once been, ending in a bloody torn hole where one half of his chin should have been.

  "Dad!" I shouted.

  Then I felt a tug on my arm as Kalif ripped the gun from my hand and pointed it at the Carmines. I looked up in time to see their guns point at him, their faces hardened, ready to shoot again. I scrambled toward him, trying to block their shot to him the way Dad had done for me.

  But Aida got there first. Her body had shrunk to her normal size, her face shifted into a bizarre mix of her own and Oliver's. Soaked in my father's blood, she threw herself bodily at my fake mother, clawing at her gun. The impact knocked them both into my fake father, throwing him off balance.

  Kalif grabbed me by the arm, pulling me physically from Dad. His hand found mine, and we exchanged signals faster than I ever had before in my life. "Run," he said in my ear. "Just run."

  My real Mom ran toward the parking lot, pointing furiously at me to show me where to meet her. I could feel the wave of anguish drawing up to its peak, ready to crash down on me, pulling me under into oblivion.

  I couldn't let it. I had to keep moving. I stood on shaking knees, and forced my body to move.

  Fake mom buffed up her arm and threw Aida to the concrete behind her. Kalif and I turned toward the parking lot just as the copy of my father regained his footing and brought his gun up to shoot us. My shoes pounded the pavement, leaving behind a trail of Dad's blood. Shots rang out behind us.

  Behind me, I heard Aida scream: "Stop it! Leave him alone!"

  A sickening smacking sound followed, but not a gunshot. They might have been willing to kill her to get to me, but now they were going to beat her. Why ruin a perfectly good tool, I supposed, when they could keep her to use another day.

  We left him there. Everything in me wanted to go back for my father. His face might be gone, but it was still his body. We couldn't leave him there.

  I forced myself not to turn back.

  If I went back for him, I'd join him. That wasn't what he would have wanted.

  As we reached the curb, Kalif looked back over his shoulder, and I was afraid that he would turn back for his mother—I could tell from her cries that she was still very much alive. But instead, he wove across the parking lot in a zigzag pattern as more gunshots followed behind us.

  My training came back to me—the things Dad had told me about how to avoid getting shot. I could hear his voice in my head, steadying me, rehearsing the things I'd been taught: Hand guns aren't that accurate. Don't run in a straight line. Get behind obstacles, preferably the kind you can't shoot through. Above all, keep moving.

  So we did. I waited for the pain in my back, for the force that would sprawl me out onto the pavement, for the bullets that would rip through the flesh of my back and leave me as empty and blank as my father's dead face.

  My stomach twisted and my mouth watered. I was going to be sick.

  Ahead of us, I saw Mom climbing into the driver's seat of an SUV that was parked along a curb. Mom leaned far forward in her seat, scanning for us. When I turned to look over my shoulder, I could see the fake version of my father following, gun raised.

  Mom didn't wait to check our hands. She just threw open the rear passenger door as we raced for the car. Kalif and I leapt across the bench seat in the back, and Mom wheeled down off the curb and across the parking lot before we managed to get the door shut.

  My hands felt sticky. I looked down to find them smeared with blood. The whole front of my shirt was splattered with it. As I sat there, I became aware of the droplets clinging to my face, my hair, my eyelashes.

  Dad's blood.

  If I washed it off, what would be left of him?

  I had nothing, not a picture, not a sentimental gift. We couldn't afford attachments like that.

  But that meant all I had left of my father was the way he stained me.

  I shivered.

  The whole car reeked of copper, with the extra burning edge of gunpowder. As Mom peeled out of the parking lot, I became aware of the blood on Kalif's arms, probably from when he pulled me away. Wind rushed through the missing driver's side window, and Kalif rolled his down, creating a cross-breeze, clearing the air.

  Kalif took my hand, not even reacting to the blood.

  After she hit the main road, Mom exte
nded her hand back and we all exchanged signals. She opened the glove box and came up with a packet of Kleenex. "Try to get clean," she said to me.

  I had to. Trying to hold onto his blood would be seriously warped. I stripped down to my tank top, spitting on the tissues and trying to get rid of the blood. "Stop that," Kalif said. "You're just smearing it."

  I twisted around in my seat, scanning behind us. But no more cars tore out of the parking lot.

  My heart began to slow. We'd done it.

  "They'll be following us," Mom said.

  I searched the road again, but the cars following us had all come from farther up the road. We turned one corner, and then another.

  "I don't think so," I said. "We took their car. It probably took them a moment to find another one."

  "We need to keep moving," Mom said. Her voice raced, as if trying to outrun the truth along with the Carmines. "They won't stop that easily."

  "Mom," I said. "I think we've lost them for now. We should slow down. Make a plan."

  Mom shook her head so hard that her hair tossed over her shoulders. "They said no one escapes. They said—"

  I turned back around in my seat, and put a hand on her shoulder. The bottom of our lives had dropped out from under us and we were in free fall.

  Mom would be feeling it even more than I was. "Mom," I said. "I'm sorry about Dad."

  In the rearview mirror, I saw Mom's lip quiver. That's what this was about. She wanted to stay in crisis, to use the adrenaline to push through, to numb the pain. We both knew that as soon as we stopped, we were going to feel it.

  But we had to think through this situation clearly, just like always.

  That's what Dad would have done.

  I glanced over my shoulder one last time. "They may not be following, but they'll be able to track the car. We need to park it somewhere."

  "The train station," Kalif said. "We can leave the car and go anywhere from there."