Biting my lip, I kept pretending to be asleep to avoid an awkward situation. With a deep sigh he got out of bed, kissed me in the same spot Ethan had, and left the room.
I stayed in bed a while longer, drifting in and out of sleep, until my two bedroom companions burst into the room.
“Morning, my little panini!” Ethan was carrying a plate containing not a panini but homemade French toast.
“Morning . . . coffee.” My voice was still croaky from sleep, and whatever new nickname I’d been about to call him was forgotten as soon as I saw the little takeaway cup in Josh’s hand.
They sat on the end of the bed, watching me enjoy my French toast and latte and nursing massive cups of their own. I didn’t hold back on the moans and compliments. I was feeling spoiled. This was the second morning in a row I’d woken up to breakfast and good coffee, delivered by my boyfriend. Boyfriends? Bondmates? Ugh! It was too early to get into all that.
We didn’t talk about the previous day, just enjoying a light and easy morning together. Before long it was time for me to head back to campus. Ethan said he would wait for me downstairs, and Josh said he had “a date with pain and a yoga mat” and left soon after.
On my way to the bathroom, I paused, noticing the bundles of bedding the boys had abandoned were now spread out on Josh’s couch and the soft rug next to the fireplace. Had my hazy dream of someone talking last night been real after all?
I could understand Tyler coming in to check on us and deciding to sleep on the couch. I was still his Vital, and after what I had pulled, wanting to stay as close to me as possible was a natural reaction. But the second lot of bedding, the one that suggested Alec had stayed too, had me scratching my head.
Maybe what Josh had been hinting at during our whispered pillow talk wasn’t so far from the truth. Maybe Alec really did care, but he was too messed up to know how to deal with it.
I wanted to hunt him down—I was pretty sure he would be doing yoga with Josh somewhere—and sort this mess out, but I knew better than most that when it came to running away from things, especially emotional things, explaining it, or even understanding it, was rarely easy. I’d spent my whole life running with my mother, and I still didn’t know why.
Which was another thing I hoped the guys could shed some light on, considering they had known her. Us. I couldn’t believe we had known one another when we were kids! I was having trouble imagining it. I had so many questions.
But first, I needed a shower, a change of clothes, and to check in with my roomies.
The plan was for Tyler to drive me back to campus, but Ethan volunteered to come along too, obviously not ready to be away from me.
It was a quiet ride, the pattering rain and rhythmic back and forth of the windshield wipers lulling me into a contemplative silence. We hadn’t even made it out of the driveway when Ethan reached over from the back seat to caress the back of my neck, leaving his fingers there for the duration of the ride. After asking how I’d slept, Tyler didn’t speak much, lost in his own thoughts. He looked as if he wasn’t nearly as well rested as me.
What had he and Alec talked about last night?
Too soon, we were pulling up behind my building, and it was time to say goodbye.
Tyler grabbed my hand tenderly. “I’m glad you’re back where you belong, and I hope we can gain your trust.” The rain and his quiet tone made me feel cocooned in the car.
“You already have. It’s just Alec . . .” He smiled warmly, waiting for me to finish, but I didn’t know how. My feelings were all over the place. “I just don’t know how I’m supposed to believe anything he says.”
A heavy, thoughtful look fell over Tyler’s features, and he turned to watch the rain hitting the windshield. “My ability is more passive than the others. It can’t hurt them no matter how much I use it, so they’re not ever going to be immune to it. I can’t speak for the others, but I promise to always be truthful with you, Eve.”
He gave me a meaningful look, his gray eyes serious. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but I was pretty sure he was telling me that if I asked, he would share whatever his ability allowed him to learn.
I nodded, and he smiled again, looking back to the front. I was starting to realize the burden Tyler must carry—it couldn’t be easy to know so many secrets and have no one to share them with. Maybe, eventually, I could be that for him. He could ease my worry, and I could share his burden—if he let some of his walls down, that is.
With one last squeeze of my hand and a satisfied nod, he released me.
Ethan jumped out of the back seat and opened the door for me, wrapping me up in a massive hug as soon as I got out. “I don’t want to let you go, baby cakes,” he muttered into my hair after we’d been standing in the rain for far too long.
I chuckled. The silly nicknames were back in full force, and the mood between us was getting lighter again. “Come on, you big teddy bear. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m getting soaked.”
When he still didn’t let go, I pulled away slightly, gently grabbing his face between my hands and forcing him to look at me. “I’m going inside to hang out with the Reds. I’m not leaving. I’ll be right here, and you can check in with me on the phone anytime. OK? I’m not leaving. I promise.”
He nodded and leaned down to kiss me. I wanted to deepen it, but the rain was making me pretty cold. Luckily, I didn’t have to choose; Tyler barked at us to hurry up, and with matching wide smiles, we pulled apart, Ethan taking my place in the front seat and me running for the cover of the entrance.
I took the stairs instead of the elevator, needing the few extra minutes to set my thoughts straight. I would need to speak to the guys about letting the Reds in on the secret. Charlie and Dot already knew some of it, so why couldn’t the Reds? I trusted them, and I really hated lying.
When I entered our little living area, they were both on the couch, mugs of coffee in their hands and some morning show on the TV.
“Well, well. Look who finally decided to grace us with her presence.” Zara gave me a mocking grin.
“Hey, Eve. Want some coffee?” Beth did her best not to laugh while taking a sip of her own. They both knew very well how I felt about their “coffee.” Beth had taken to amusing herself by offering me a cup every chance she got.
Scrunching up my nose in disgust, I shook my head. “How was your weekend?” I asked, dropping my bag and plonking myself on the couch between them. I wanted to get them talking and keep the attention off me. Naturally, it didn’t work.
“Um, no.” Zara poked me in the ribs. “How was your weekend?”
“Yes, I want to know all about the gala. And where did you get that dress? Dot posted a photo of you guys, and you looked freaking incredible.” Beth started firing a litany of questions.
But before I had a chance to answer any of them, the door to our room burst open, startling us all and causing Beth to slosh a good portion of her coffee all over the place.
Tyler and Ethan barged in, slamming the door closed and locking it.
“Hey!” Zara jumped to her feet. “What the fu—”
“Get away from the windows!” Tyler’s authoritative voice cut across her, and we all obeyed immediately, jumping up from the couch to go stand by Ethan, who was trying to make a call by the door.
Tyler took two long strides to the window and peered outside before drawing the curtains half-closed over it.
“They’ve jammed the signal.” Ethan cursed under his breath, tucking the phone into his back pocket and reaching for me.
I let him pull me against his side, watching Tyler closely.
Zara tried again. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Someone is invading the campus,” Tyler answered, keeping an eye on the window. “We saw vehicles and heavily armed people setting up positions at the east gate. It looks like the Human Empowerment Network, but that doesn’t make sense . . .”
“Oh my god.” Beth sounded panicked. Zara had her phone out, but she put it away quickl
y after confirming with a huff that Ethan was right about the cell service. The two of them held hands and looked to Tyler. He was the adult in the room, the person with authority, the Bradford Hills staff.
My breathing had become quick and shallow. Every horror story I’d seen on the news about American mass shootings and lax attitudes toward gun control came flooding back. Statistics assaulted my brain.
It is estimated that there are between 270 and 310 million guns in America—almost one for every person. There were more than fifteen thousand gun-related deaths in America in 2017, and that was just deaths—it didn’t even include the more than thirty-one thousand injuries.
I held on to Ethan a little tighter. The muscles under his damp T-shirt were taut with tension.
“I don’t think the staff know what’s happening yet.” Tyler was still looking through the window. “They haven’t advanced past the gates. I think they’re securing the perimeter. It’s too organized for a renegade group of humans. What the hell is this?”
He was trying to assess the situation, but he didn’t have all the facts. I knew how incredibly frustrating that was.
Then it hit me—we had a way of getting more information without even leaving this room. He’d told us about it just last night in the car.
I straightened and gasped. Everyone turned to look at me.
“Ty, we need more info.” I didn’t wait for a response, extracting myself from Ethan’s protective hold and walking over to him. As I placed my hand in his, understanding fell over his features, and he gave me one decisive nod.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and dropped any attempt at stemming the flow of Light. He pivoted to face me and grabbed my other hand as the Light flowed freely into him. After only a few moments, I opened my eyes and gave him a questioning look.
“Let’s find out,” he murmured, dropping one of my hands to pull the curtain back slightly.
Ethan stepped up behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders, both of us waiting with bated breath to see if it would work.
“Oh my gosh!” Beth breathed at the same time Zara said, “Holy fuck!”
I turned to them in surprise, having almost forgotten they were in the room. I guess my secret was out.
“They’re going after the alumni event. They’re waiting until all the exits are blocked before moving in. But this isn’t just the humans. Variant Valor is here too. Are they working together?” he asked in disbelief, speaking more to himself than any of us.
“No,” he continued. “Variant Valor is just using the chaos to . . . it’s unclear. The bulk of the force is going to come up through here.” He pointed to the main avenue winding up from the east gate and toward the admin building, behind which the event was to be held. “At least a hundred Human Empowerment Network and a much smaller force of Variant Valor assailants. There are a lot of angry people down there. This is going to get violent very fast.”
“We have to do something.” I couldn’t wrap my brain around why the human extremists were allowing themselves to be manipulated by the Variant extremists, or why the Variant extremists were trying to get Variants killed. Politics and strategy were not my strong suits, but even I knew people were about to die needlessly. “We might be the only people who know about this.”
“We need a distraction,” Ethan growled from behind me. “Something to take them off track. Buy us a little time. Maybe we could somehow alert . . . the authorities.” He was talking about Melior Group. The local law enforcement would be severely out of their depth.
“If you can cause a distraction, I can make it down to the event and warn everyone,” Beth said with determination, but when I spun around to face her, there was fear in her eyes.
Zara looked as shocked as I did. Then she rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “Fuck! We. We can warn everyone.”
“No.” Tyler was using his adult voice. “It’s too dangerous.”
I couldn’t let him talk us out of it. We had to do something.
“The chemistry lab!” I blurted, and they all looked at me as if the stress had broken my capacity for thought. “It’s just south of here, and it’s close enough to the avenue to draw them away from the admin building for at least a little while. I can think of six ways to cause a massive explosion just off the top of my head. That should be distracting enough, right?”
Tyler still looked skeptical. “Well, yeah, but . . .”
“We don’t have time for this!” I got in his face. “I know you want to protect me, but people are going to die. We have to do something.”
A resolute look crossed his features, and he dropped my hand, reaching behind his back. “Right. You two,” he addressed the Reds, “come down to the ground floor and wait for the explosion. Then—only then—run for it. Raise the alarm and then hide. That’s it. Don’t go off script.”
They both nodded emphatically, eyes wide.
He turned to me and pulled a gun out from behind his back, cocking it and holding it by his side. “Eve, juice him up.” He nodded in Ethan’s direction.
“Is that a gun?” It was a stupid question, but in my defense, I had never seen a gun before. All of a sudden, the gravity of the situation hit me. “Why do you have a gun? Oh my god!”
“He said juice me up, babe. No time for freak-outs over firearms.” Ethan spun me around and planted his lips on mine.
It was what I needed to snap me out of it. I plastered myself to him and let the Light flow freely. Then, as quickly as he’d initiated the kiss, Ethan pulled away and dragged me toward the door, where Tyler was waiting with one hand on the knob.
“Stay close to me and do exactly as I say.” Tyler didn’t wait for a response. He cracked the door open and peered down the corridor, then made for the stairs. We all followed, much more noisily.
At the back door, he again checked that the coast was clear before nodding once to the Reds and darting outside.
I squeezed Zara’s hand in goodbye and reached out to Beth, but Ethan was already pulling me through the door and my fingers only just scraped hers. She gave me a shooing motion before pulling the door closed.
My heart was hammering in my chest as I scrambled to keep up with Tyler, keeping my eyes peeled for danger.
We rushed over to the next building and huddled in its entranceway. The solid door was locked, and the chemistry building was on the other side, so we would have to go around.
Before we could keep moving, however, two people came around the corner. I was so startled I jumped on the spot, my heart leaping into my throat. Tyler raised his gun but lowered it immediately when he saw it was Dot and Charlie.
“Charlie!” he hissed in their direction.
Charlie looked over, registered the gun in Tyler’s hand, and immediately grabbed Dot by the elbow, dragging her over to us.
“Hey! What . . .” She was slower to pick up on the situation, but once she saw us, her heavily lined eyes widened in panic.
Tyler gave them the rundown. “Campus surrounded. Comms down. At least thirty armed at east gate. More at other entry points, plus heavy vehicles. It’s humans, but there is more at play here. They’re going after the Variants at the event.”
“Where do you want us?” A hard mask had fallen over Charlie’s face.
“We’re on our way to create a distraction and delay them, but we need backup.”
“I can do that,” Dot piped up. I’d never heard the confident girl sound so quiet and unsure. “Write a note on something.”
Moving with the kind of ease that comes from having done something your entire life, Dot and Charlie held hands, and I could almost smell the Light Charlie was pushing to his sister. Before he was even done transferring, Dot’s face tightened into a look of concentration. Next to me, Ethan pulled a scrap of paper out of his wallet and started scribbling a note on the back.
By the time he finished writing, Squiggles was scampering up Dot’s leg and onto her shoulder. Tyler passed Dot the note, and no sooner had she handed
it to the ferret than Squiggles was off again, the paper held gingerly in her teeth.
Tyler gave Dot a nod of thanks. “Stay out of sight. Go up to Eve’s room and hide.”
Dot’s brow creased in defiance, but Tyler didn’t give her a chance to argue. The boys were already on the move again.
Twenty-Five
A few tense minutes later, we made it to the science building—which was locked.
“Dammit!” I cursed, but apparently Ethan had run out of patience for locked doors. He picked up a rock and smashed it through the glass by the old-fashioned doorknob, reaching through and unlocking it from the inside.
With Tyler in front, we scaled the two flights of stairs and ran down the corridor to the chemistry lab. As we came to a screeching halt at the door, it swung inward, a very surprised professor in a lab coat standing at the threshold.
“Gabe? What is this?” His eyes flicked down to the gun, and he stepped back.
“Peter, the school is being invaded by armed gunmen. We need access to the lab.”
“What?” The older mad looked terrified. “Why?”
“There’s no time for explanations.” Tyler’s tone brooked no arguments. “Go down to the basement level, lock yourself into a storage room, and stay there.”
The man nodded and rushed past, heading for the stairs. We were lucky to have run into him. The labs had secure doors, and you needed a key card or a code to enter.
We burst into the room and Tyler ran to the window, yelling, “Do your thing!” over his shoulder. “We don’t have much time.”
I needed something that we could explode fast. I considered dragging the hydrogen tanks downstairs and having Tyler shoot them from a distance, but they were bulky and awkward, and it would take ages. Then I toyed with the idea of combining nitric acid with an organic solvent in a closed container of some sort, but I would need massive amounts of both for the kind of explosion we needed, and again, it would take time to set up. In the end, I decided the simplest solution was the most effective.
Variant Lost (The Evelyn Maynard Trilogy Book 1) Page 29