Set Ablaze

by Teyla Branton

  The girl was still studying me. “All the men who attacked your friends in that big vehicle died, except two who were tied up.”

  Big surprise there. “Just give them back their money,” I said to Diego.

  He shook his head violently. “No. They want more. They want the plane.”

  “Geeve me key,” César ordered, holding out his big hand, palm up.

  I backed away. “There is no key. It’s numbers, and I won’t give them to you.”

  “Then you die!” Diego growled. “One man against all them. You no succeed.”

  “You have guns,” I jerked my head at the two rifles standing against the wall. “We can take them together. Or drive them away.”

  “No! No!” César shouted. He glanced out the window where the bandits were still gathered in a clump near a blue truck. “Day keel you! We no help or day keel us too.”

  As if they could hear us, the bandits began piling into their truck.

  Above all, I had to hold the plane. Not just for Stella’s husband, but for our team. The Renegades were all that stood between humanity and enslavement by the Emporium Unbounded, who considered themselves gods to the expendable mortals. The Emporium had murdered my wife and tried to kill the rest of my family to further their agenda. They’d tried to abduct my children for their breeding experiments. Now they were here in Mexico and were most certainly behind the attack on our labs.

  The plane was our way to safety. There was only one choice.

  I lunged for the girl, grabbing her and pulling her against me, my gun pressed into her side. “You will help me fight. You made a deal with us, and you won’t break it. Now pick up those guns, or I’ll kill her.”

  I must have sounded convincing because both men, nodding energetically, started for their guns. Suddenly, it didn’t seem wise to be in the same room with them. “I’ll watch the back door. When they come, I’d better hear shooting.”

  With that, I dragged the girl into the kitchen. It was a small place with only one narrow window opposite a black potbellied stove that looked like something from a frontier movie. Shutting the door to the other room, I shoved her into a chair. “Don’t move.”

  She watched me, seemingly more curious than afraid. “You a good shot?”

  “I guess we’ll see.” I wished I were wearing my body armor.

  I slipped a picture from the pocket of my white T-shirt. My young children stared up at me, Spencer’s thin face covered in freckles and Kathy’s blue eyes looking so much like her mother’s. They were in hiding with the rest of our Renegades until we regrouped after the Emporium attack. Safe for now, but as long as the Emporium existed, they would always be in danger. I slipped the photograph back into place.

  My watch said that only two minutes had passed when the shooting began. I stepped to the back door, almost expecting the girl to bolt, but she remained sitting. As I opened the door a crack, a man came around the edge of the house. I fired, and he crumpled.

  I felt sick. All the practice in the world hadn’t prepared me for actually taking a man’s life. I was a pilot by profession, not a killer. Not Unbounded. Just a regular guy, who chose to work with the Renegades in order to protect my children, to make the world a safer place. That might sound noble, but I’d seen what the Emporium had to offer, and there was nothing noble about fighting them. It was the only way humanity would survive.

  Except these men weren’t semi-immortal Emporium agents. They were mortal.

  A movement inside had me turning my gun back toward the girl, but she already had a pistol in her hand. For a several seconds, we stared at each other while the boom of rifles came from the next room and from outside. I couldn’t shoot her. She was innocent.

  She whirled from me abruptly, breaking the window with her gun and firing at someone outside. I blinked, almost surprised to still be alive. More men were coming around the house, and I fired again and again. So did the girl. The faces ducked out of sight.

  “Is there a way onto the roof?” I asked.

  She started to shake her head, but then nodded. “You can use the window and climb. You will have to do it from outside. I will cover you.”

  If we made it out alive I’d have to ask her where she learned to speak such great English. Her words were accented, attractively so, but completely understandable.

  Should I trust her? She could just let them kill me.

  “Why are you helping me?” I asked.

  Her chin lifted and for a moment she was fiercely beautiful. “Because those men killed my husband.”

  It was good enough for me.

  END OF SAMPLE. Mortal Brother is separate from the main Unbounded series and can be enjoyed at any time. However, the events take place in the Unbounded timeline simultaneously with The Cure (Unbounded Book 2) and extend several days past that novel. To purchase Mortal Brother from Smashwords, please click here. To learn more about the author and her books, you can visit the About the Author page.

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  1

  I looked both ways as I headed into the back alley behind the store, not because I was embarrassed, but because I didn’t want to get Payden in trouble for slipping out to meet me there. The boy was going to a lot of effort to help me, and my runaway girls always needed the food he donated. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my car today, and I was already balancing two bags of groceries I’d purchased when I’d gone inside the store to signal Payden that I was here. So whatever he had for us would make my walk home that much more difficult.

  He was already outside in the alley, waiting at the back door by the green Dumpster, his round, heavily-freckled face grinning as always. The roundness made him look younger than his seventeen years, and rather innocent.

  “Hey, Lily,” he greeted me, shifting the large box in his arms so he could give a friendly wave. His blue apron was splashed with something that had turned it purple, and the sagging material made him look chubby. He puffed a breath upward to blow away the straight-cut brown hair that hung like a shield over his brown eyes.

  “Hey, Payden.” I hooked the grocery bags over my wrists and pushed them toward my elbows, freeing up my hands so I could take the box from him. “Thank you so much.”

  “Got bread, bagels, muffins, and cookies today. Should last if you freeze them.”

  I could also see dented cans, a few vegetables that would make a fabulous soup, and a gallon of expiring milk. “This is great. Are you sure you won’t get into trouble? That other clerk in there was looking at me kind of strange.”

  He shrugged. “Makes no sense to throw it in the trash if you’re right here.” He laughed. “I can always say you wrestled me for it.” His smile dimmed slightly, and he waited only a second to add, “How is she?”

  “Elsie’s doing great. Really. The bruising is almost gone. I’ll try to bring her next time, if she’ll come.”

  His smile returned. “Then she didn’t run away again.”

  “Nope. She still thinks whoever she’s running from is looking for her, but no one’s tracked her down yet. Plus, she’s worried child services will find her and make her go back.”

  He folded his arms, looking for all the world as if he wanted to do battle for her. The expression sat oddly on his young face. “They probably would. She’s better off with you.”

  If going back to her family or staying with me were the only options, I was the better choice—one glance at the picture I’d taken of Elsie after finding her in this very alley three weeks ago was proof of that.

  I’d heard Elsie’s pitiful sobs from the main street and hurried to find her collapsed on the ground near the Dumpster, which she’d apparently been trying to open to find food. Her numerous cuts were old, but not healing, and a deep black and green bruise mottled most of her feverish face. When I’d lifted Elsie up, her battered ribs showed through a gaping rip in her shirt.

  That’s when Payden had found us and given me that first box of expired groceries. He was a kindred spirit. Too bad he wasn’t five
years older. But then, even men my age seemed too young these days. All they cared about was partying, scraping by in their university courses, and more partying.

  “Thanks again.” I didn’t tell him Elsie hadn’t gone outside at all since last week when our neighbor on the second floor had seen her in the stairwell and questioned her about where she lived. Knowing would only make Payden feel bad, and it wasn’t something he could change.

  “You’re welcome.” He turned to go inside but hesitated at the door. “Hey, you should really talk to my cousin. I told you he’s working at a place here in Phoenix that helps troubled kids. Teen Remake, or something. He’s got connections, you know? He’s dropping some stuff off for me soon. If you wait just a minute, I could introduce you.”

  “I don’t think so. I can’t betray Elsie’s trust. She’s been through enough.” I could probably be charged for harboring a minor, and if my own family found out, I suspected they would come down on the side of the law. Well, all but my sister, Tessa, who had helped me out more than once in the past few months. Anyway, it wasn’t likely Payden’s cousin could do anything more than I could about helping Elsie.

  “Think about it,” Payden urged.

  “I will.”

  I trudged up the alley, tripping once on an old tire someone had left in the way but catching myself before I fell. Lugging the groceries all the way back to my apartment on foot wasn’t something I was looking forward to. Saffron, the oldest of the runaways who lived with me, had chosen a rotten day to borrow my car, but her job interview this morning had to come first.

  Cars honked and whizzed past as I reached the main street. Downtown Phoenix was never quiet, it seemed, and today was particularly busy. The air already felt hot and dry on my face.

  “Lily!”

  I turned at the voice and saw Payden, but this time he stood in the front doorway of the small grocery store. A man I’d never seen before was with him, and I hoped Payden wasn’t in trouble for helping me. Would they take back the groceries?

  As I watched, the man pushed past Payden and stepped out onto the wide sidewalk. My heart stopped. He was a good two heads taller than Payden and handsome enough that I remembered I wasn’t wearing makeup, and that my messy ponytail had to be more mess than ponytail.

  “My cousin’s going to help you get those to your car,” Payden said, nodding encouragingly. He jerked his head to the side, as if listening to someone from behind him. “Gotta go.”

  The relief inside me that Payden wasn’t in trouble was canceled out by the amused smile on the man’s face. Without introducing himself, he reached for the box. “So, where’s your car?”

  His black hair was short except on top in the front, where it partially waved, arching up and then down in a way that I found compelling. His eyes, also dark, spoke of something exotic. Up close, not even one freckle marred his face, but there was a bit of a five o’clock shadow, as if he’d missed shaving today.

  This was Payden’s cousin? If I’d known he was this attractive, I might have hit him up for help a long time ago.

  I kept hold of the box. “I didn’t bring it. Sorry. But it’s okay. I don’t need help.”

  “I don’t mind walking to your place. Where do you live?” He tugged again gently on the box, his bronzed arms brushing mine. I couldn’t tell if his skin color came from heredity or the sun.

  “Are you sure you’re Payden’s cousin? Because you don’t look like him.”

  He laughed, a sound that warmed me clear through to my stomach. “People say that a lot. But we are cousins—our mothers are sisters. I just have a bit more variety in my gene pool from my dad’s side.”

  Definitely a combination that was working for him. “Well, I’m used to carrying the boxes Payden gives me. But thank you.”

  He lifted the box from my arms anyway. “What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t walk you home?”

  “Maybe you just want to know where I live.”

  Again the laugh. “Actually, I do want to know. That way I’ll know where to pick you up when we go out.”

  When we go out? A thousand butterflies took flight in my stomach. “Who said I’m going out with you?”

  He gave me a slow grin that only increased my heartbeat. “You’ll come around. Now where are we going?”

  All at once, I wanted to let him help. I’d been doing this alone for so long, and I couldn’t recall when I’d last been on a date—or flirted with a guy. Certainly not in the past six months.

  “Okay,” I said. Letting this gorgeous stranger carry a box ten blocks wasn’t going to hurt either of us. “But keep up. I have stuff to do. And my roommates are waiting for me.”

  “Roommates, huh?”

  “I have a few.”

  Six to be exact. Girls living on the street seemed to have some kind of internal radar where I was concerned. They appeared in my vicinity, obviously in need, and I couldn’t help taking them home. Elsie, our newest addition, had been the last straw for my old roommates, but I was still trying to see getting kicked out of their apartment as a good thing. My new place was a dump, but at least the girls didn’t have to hide in my room or sneak in only at night to sleep. And there were no complaints about them stealing food.

  “So, have you lived here long?” I asked him.

  “Five years. I came for school, but I love it here and I don’t think I’ll ever leave. I’m from Tucson originally. You?”

  “Flagstaff. I’ve been here for most of three years. It’s a nice place—well, not downtown so much but the city in general.” I wouldn’t tell him what I liked best was being away from Flagstaff and my parents. “Is your whole family here?”

  “Just Payden and his mom. His dad died a few years back. That’s one of the reasons I moved here, to help them out. My family’s still in Tucson. I have three brothers and two sisters.”

  “That many?”

  He laughed again, and it made me smile just to hear it. “Yeah. You have any?”

  “One sister. She’s here, too. Across town.” Tessa didn’t know I’d moved, and I was a little embarrassed to tell her. She’d warned me it would happen, but how could I have left Elsie in the street?

  No, Tessa would understand, and she’d volunteer to help, if I needed her. She managed the swing shift at Crawford Cereals, our dad’s factory, so our hours overlapped, and it would be easy enough to pull her aside and tell her there. If my parents got wind of it, however, there would be repercussions. They’d wanted me to come home after the college semester ended and, when I’d stayed, had barely let me continue my part-time job at the factory.

  They didn’t know about the girls, or that I was their only support. Now that school was out, I was thinking about finding a second job. The twenty hours at the factory weren’t cutting it, and I’d already used much of my savings account.

  Beside me, Payden’s cousin slowed. “Hey, where’d you go?”

  I refocused on him. “Sorry. Just thinking about something I have to do later.” Then before he could probe further, I said, “I don’t even know your name. But I can keep calling you Payden’s cousin, if you want.”

  “If I tell you, will you go out with me?”

  “If you don’t tell me, I won’t go out with you.”

  “That’s not exactly a yes.”

  “Nope.” I gave him a slow grin.

  “Okay, my name is Mario Perez.”

  An unexpected laugh burst through me. He didn’t look like a Mario Perez. “Mario? You mean like the game?”

  “No way, you play video games?”

  “Of course I play video games.” Games were one way to connect with the girls, so I learned to play, and sometimes I even enjoyed it.

  “Well, that’s really my name. I’m named after my grandfather who came from Spain.”

  Europe. So that explained the olive skin and exotic features. “You don’t look like a Mario.” I studied him more closely. In the video game world, Mario was short and, well, a cartoon.

  “My midd
le name is Jameson,” he offered. “But only my mom and my aunt call me that. Everyone else calls me Mario.”

  “Okay. I’m sure there’s a story behind that.”

  He grinned, and once more that strange heat curled through my belly. If he asked me to go out again, I was definitely saying yes.

  “My mother named me, but she changed her mind about calling me Mario after the birth certificate was filed and began using my middle name instead. But my dad said that if Jameson was the name she’d wanted, she should have put it first.” He laughed. “It’s become a friendly little tug-of-war between them. Basically, I’ve learned to answer to just about anything.”

  “Sounds fun,” I lied. Not if their wars were anything like the ones my parents waged. Those always sent both Tessa and me running for cover. “You do look more like a Jameson to me. But maybe I’d better pick something safer. Like MJ.” I regretted the words the minute they escaped my lips because MJ didn’t fit him at all.

  His grin grew wider. “A nickname. Does that mean you’ll go out with me?”

  I was prevented from responding as a motorcycle roared by, and when I could hear again, the moment had passed. I jerked my head toward the four-story apartment complex. “That’s where I live. I can take it from here.”

  “I don’t mind walking you to your door.”

  As long as it was only to the door. With seven of us crammed into the one-bedroom apartment, I had no idea what to expect of the inside. I’d given the girls chores, but this early most of them would still be in bed, except Saffron, who was at her job interview, and the two sisters I had guardianship over, who were in school.

  “It’s on the fourth floor,” I warned, “and there’s no elevator.”

  “Of course there isn’t.”

  He’d obviously taken in the peeling paint, the planter boxes filled with weeds, and the litter on the ground. But it was cheap, and the owners didn’t mind the girls “visiting” me. Or at least as long as we didn’t make too much noise or come in large groups around the other tenants. Mostly, the place was so run down that they were eager to accept just about anyone.