I reached for her hand. At first, she stiffened, but then she relaxed. I threaded my fingers with hers. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
She nodded.
We started walking east, keeping our steps light, but quick. If there were any agents left in the lab, they’d be after us soon. As soon as Riley got his shit together.
Ten minutes into the walk, a twig snapped to the left. We all froze. Sam waved us to the trees, and I dragged Elizabeth beneath a massive oak, shielding her body with mine. She trembled beside me.
Footsteps came heavy and quick. But only one set.
I met Sam’s eyes across the ten feet or so separating us. He motioned to me with three fingers.
On the count of three.
We stepped out into the path of the runner, and the man collided with us, bouncing back.
It was Riley.
Sweat poured down his forehead despite the bite in the night air. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top, untucked from his pants. There were dark circles beneath his eyes.
He staggered back. Brought a gun up. His hand shook.
He was only one man, and there were six of us.
“No. No no no,” he said, and turned around and ran.
“Get him,” Sam said.
“Stay with Elizabeth!” I shouted to Anna, and she nodded as I took off.
Sam, Cas, and Trev fell in step behind me. No way were we letting Riley go this time. No way in hell.
Out of all of us, Sam had the best endurance, but he was lagging because of the bullet wound, and anyway, I was the fastest runner.
And I wanted Riley. He was mine.
My lungs opened wide. My arms pumped at my sides. I was gaining on him.
Riley wove through the trees, trying to lose me. But I felt better than I’d felt in a long time, like I could run for days.
The trees thinned out. The barn came into view again. I had a split second to wonder if this was another trap, but Riley veered away from the barn, toward the road. Where an SUV sat, waiting.
I picked up speed.
When Riley reached the end of the cornfield, he cut right, disappearing from view. I blasted around the corner three, maybe four seconds later, just in time to see him reach the SUV and slide in behind the wheel.
He slammed the door shut, flipped the locks, and started up the vehicle.
I pulled the gun out from behind my shirt. Shot. Missed.
In the center of the road, watching the SUV spin dirt as it took off, I squared my shoulders, held the gun with both hands, and pulled the trigger. The back window shattered, glass plinking against the bumper.
But Riley kept going, and drove out of sight.
41
ELIZABETH
THE BOY NAMED CAS DROVE ALL OF US to a motel on the outside of town. It was stuck beneath a sign shaped like a horseshoe that glowed neon orange in the dark.
We rented three rooms. Sam and Anna in one room, Cas and Trev in another, and Nick and me in the third.
Once we were inside, Nick locked the door, slid in the dead bolt, and shut the curtains. He set his gun on the nightstand.
There was only one bed.
“Elizabeth,” he said.
I looked over at him. In the hour or so since we’d left the barn, I’d been having these flashes, like déjà vu, laced with a rush of knowing and understanding. And then it would disappear again, leaving me with an emptiness that settled in my heart.
Nick had explained to me what had happened. That the Branch had tried to wipe my memories, and that he’d stopped the process before it had been completed. He didn’t know what that meant for me.
The more he used my name, the more it felt right.
My name was Elizabeth, and I lived in Trademarr, Illinois.
And the way my heart jumped every time he looked at me said all that needed to be said about how I felt about Nick.
I liked him. More than liked him. Just as my name felt right, so did he.
“Yes?” I said.
He sighed and scrubbed at his face. “I wish I could make it better.”
There was something else he wanted to say, but didn’t.
I sat on the edge of the bed. He sat next to me. Our knees bumped together. He reached over and took my hand in his. His fingers were long, and covered in scars. They were thick at the knuckles, knuckles threaded with veins. I liked his hands.
“Will I ever not feel empty like this?” I asked.
He squeezed my hand. “Yes. I promise.”
42
NICK
WE HUNG AROUND TRADEMARR FOR A FEW days, long enough for Trev, Sam, Cas, and I to break back into the barn lab and steal whatever information we could. The place had been cleared of people and bodies, but there were still computers intact and filing cabinets stuffed with old logs.
We were still unclear as to what exactly Elizabeth’s mother had done to herself, and therefore to Elizabeth, to change her genetic makeup. And we needed to know everything.
Could Elizabeth die and come back to life like Chloe and I had? So far, we had found zero record of the Branch killing Elizabeth as part of their testing.
I didn’t want to find out the hard way.
Anna also wanted to know what we could expect from me now that I’d been given a dose of the serum. Would I become fearless, too? Would I no longer feel anything?
Anna was good at the research bit, and now that Trev had been accepted back into the group (on probation, though, maybe with a hazing or two), she had a study partner who was good at the whole memorizing-and-compiling-facts crap.
Those two were set for months.
Later, before we left Trademarr, Trev and I broke into Aggie’s house to grab some of Elizabeth’s things. She’d wanted to come with, but I quickly shot her down, knowing it’d do more damage than good.
Anna helped me talk her out of it. Anna was better at talking than I was.
The attack at Aggie’s had made national news, and the house was boarded up now, sectioned off with crime scene tape.
It was easy to get in, though.
Trev and I stared at the bloodstain on the hardwood floor where Aggie had lain before the coroner took her away.
I regretted not having talked to Aggie more. She must have known a lot of incriminating things about Riley and the Branch, having worked for them in the past, and later becoming a Turncoat. Trev said we’d ask the Coats for info on the Angel Serum once we settled in somewhere.
In Elizabeth’s room, I stood in the center, wondering what she’d want. Realizing that I didn’t know her well enough to know. Wishing like hell I did.
I found a bag in the bottom of her closet, and tore a few things from the hangers. Tossed them inside the bag. I went to her dresser, grabbed a fantasy book that had been marked off with a bookmark, and threw that in, too.
I went to the desk, picked a few things that seemed important. I glanced up. The blue glass bottles looked black in the dark. When Elizabeth had explained them to me, she’d said scent was a strong trigger, tied to memories. Maybe it was true for her.
I grabbed the CARNIVALS, AGGIE, MERV’S, and NICK bottles. Last, I decided to grab two newer bottles—I could tell they were newer because the labels weren’t faded. One was marked HOPE and the other SECRETS. I wrapped all of them in a few pillowcases and packed them in the bag, too.
Back in the kitchen, where Trev was on lookout, I stepped over the bloodstain on the floor again, feeling something old stir in my gut.
I hadn’t really known Aggie, but I knew what she meant to Elizabeth, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the loss would do to her once she remembered it.
Because she would. No matter how good the Branch technology was, the memories always came back.
I had a flash of my dad, angry and drunk, and quickly pushed it away. Turns out, I’m nothing like him, and no way was I wasting another second thinking about the man.
“Ready?” Trev whispered.
I nodded.
We ma
de our way out the back door, around the carriage house, and through the gate to the alley.
No one ever knew we were there.
43
ELIZABETH
IN A DARKENED HALLWAY, NICK PICKED at a locked door with furrowed-brow concentration. A second later, the lock clicked, and Nick pushed the door open.
I stepped inside Chloe’s apartment.
Only a few days had passed since we’d escaped the barn lab. Certainly not enough time for Chloe to pack everything.
Except her apartment was empty. Only dust remained, swirling in the filtered sunlight. I took a step inside, an eerie sense of déjà vu washing over me. Her bed had sat against the far wall, her dresser directly across from it. A couch had been pushed into the corner where a little TV had sat on a rickety stand. Now there was nothing.
I wasn’t sure how I remembered those things when I had a hard time remembering the girl who’d lived here. But there it was: some random, unimportant detail burbling up from the locked rooms inside my head.
Nick had told me who Chloe was. She was the mysterious girl who broke me out of the barn lab six years ago. She was the whole reason I’d been in the forest that night when Nick saved me.
But she’d also double-crossed us, delivering us to Riley so she could secure her own freedom.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. In some ways, I owed Chloe so much. But she owed me, too. We’d been friends for so long, and she’d never breathed a word of the secrets between us.
“Have you heard anything from her?” I asked Nick.
He took a few tentative steps inside. “Nothing. Trev’s looking into it. Maybe find out where she’s hiding.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Let her stay hidden.”
I walked to the far window. The glass was frosted and glowed silver in the light. I pulled a cobalt bottle from my sweater pocket and turned it over in my hand. The label on the front read SECRETS. A word scrawled carefully in my own cursive handwriting. A label I didn’t remember making.
The oil inside was pure lemon, and whenever I uncorked the bottle and took in a deep breath, I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being trapped, of things being buried and lost.
I set the bottle on the windowsill. “No more secrets,” I whispered, and wondered if Chloe would ever return here, and if she did, what she’d think of the message I’d left her.
“We should go,” Nick said.
I nodded at no one and gave the bottle one last look before walking out the door.
44
ELIZABETH
FIVE WEEKS. IT’D BEEN FIVE WEEKS since I’d gone through a memory alteration. But it felt like months.
Pieces were coming back, little by little. I remembered Evan, and Merv’s. I remembered Aggie and Dr. Sedwick and the Victorian house.
But mostly, I remembered my mother, and what she’d done to me, and what I’d done to her, and I wondered if, in a cosmic sense, we were somehow even. Or if my actions far outweighed hers, and if I’d be repaying that debt for an eternity.
I took a sip from the Pumpkin Spice Latte in my hands and stared out at Lake Michigan in front of me, the wind from the lake biting and crisp. It smelled like nothing I’d ever smelled before. Something I needed to chronicle as soon as I bought some new oils and cobalt glass bottles.
A strand of hair came loose from my messy bun and fluttered in front of my face. A hand reached over and tucked the strand behind my ear, and I smiled before I looked at him.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” Nick said.
The others, Sam, Cas, Trev, and Anna, had gone in search of dinner. I just wanted to stare at Lake Michigan a little while longer.
Fall was coming, and the trees lining the sidewalk of the park by the lake had started bleeding with the colors of autumn. Away from the lake, the world smelled like the eventual death of the seasons, and the promise of rebirth.
It was fitting, considering my own rebirth.
No longer was I Elizabeth, the frightened girl, the crazy girl. I wasn’t her, but I didn’t know who I was yet, and I wouldn’t until all of the pieces came together.
I began to shiver from the cold, and Nick moved closer, winding his arm around me. In the weeks since we’d left Trademarr, he’d been kind and gentle, keeping his distance when he thought I needed it, but there right after, when the trauma came rushing back and being alone seemed to crush my ribs until I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
He’d kissed me a handful of times. And every time it left me dizzy and grinning like a fool. Anna said she’d never seen Nick so happy. I didn’t know the difference between happy Nick and unhappy Nick. But I hoped he’d stay just the way he was.
As if he’d read my thoughts, Nick leaned over and kissed the top of my head. I went up on tiptoes and brought my lips to his. One kiss. Two kisses. “Much better,” I said.
He smiled. “You taste like pumpkin pie.”
I grinned and hoisted my coffee cup. “’Tis the season.”
“I guess so. Coffee is best black, if you ask me.”
I let my mouth drop open. “Take back those words. They’re practically blasphemy during Pumpkin Spice Latte season.”
His smile grew wider.
Suddenly, all I could think about was returning to the house where Nick and the others lived, and curling beneath the blankets with him and feeling his body pressed against mine. Who needed dinner? I didn’t.
Nick shifted and grabbed my hand, tucking both of our hands into the pocket of his coat. “How are you today? I just realized I hadn’t asked yet.”
He asked every day.
I shrugged. “Better than yesterday. Every day is better than the last.”
He nodded. “Good.”
“I just wish things had been different. I wish there’d been a bit more closure.”
Nick’s expression hardened. He knew I was talking about Riley. The man was a cockroach (Cas’s word); no matter how many times the group went up against him, he always seemed to get away.
And if he’d dragged my mother and me into the Branch’s fold once, he could do it again. To me or someone else.
I had this constant fear in the back of my mind, like I could never relax until Riley was gone for good. Anna said that was normal. They all felt that way.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I started, turning back to the lake. Asking what I wanted to ask seemed somehow easier if I wasn’t looking at Nick, at his unsettlingly blue eyes.
“Yeah?” he coaxed.
“Why did you save me that night in the woods?”
I’d thought about that night a lot. Nick had later told me he’d been in the woods chasing Chloe, since his order had been to kill her. He could have easily left me in the woods and continued with his mission. Or he could have given up my hiding spot, and the Branch would have taken me back.
Nick thought for several beats, and I waited impatiently for him to answer.
“I saved you,” he said, “because you needed saving.” His jaw clenched and his eyes grew watery. I could tell there was more he wanted to say, things left unsaid about who he was, and who his father was, and whether or not they were the same.
He’d told me only scant details about his life before the Branch, about his family, and Anna had filled in some of the missing information. But I could tell that always, every day, he was fighting to be a better man than his father had been.
Without warning, tears burned my eyes, too. “Thank you,” I said quietly. He pulled me in closer. “So now what?” I asked.
“Now we go home,” Nick said. “And we…” He tried to read my face. “We watch TV?”
I shook my head.
“We eat dinner?”
Another shake.
“We… read a book?”
“Think cozier.”
He ran his free hand through my hair, drew me in, and kissed me, long and eager. His lips were warm, gentle. So good.
“We go to bed,” he s
aid finally, with a glint in his blue eyes.
I nodded. “You lead, and I will follow.”
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are always a gazillion people I want to thank when it comes to completing a book.
My husband, JV, for putting up with me.
My agent, Joanna Volpe, for putting up with me.
My editor, Pam Gruber, for putting up with me.
All my friends and family—for putting up with me.
In all seriousness, these books would not be written without these people.
JV takes care of me when I’m an emotionally crippled mess.
Jo has all the answers, and tons of patience.
Pam has the wisdom to make these books better (and trust me, she helps me make them TONS better).
And my friends and family have always supported me, with encouraging words, home-cooked meals, cookies (thanks, Mom!), and good humor.
Writing a book is not a solitary experience. It takes a village to make it happen.
And lastly, thanks to all the readers—for buying the books, for reading the books, and for spreading the love! Anna, Sam, Nick, Cas, and Trev would not be where they are without you.
Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
CHAPTER 1: NICK
CHAPTER 2: ELIZABETH
CHAPTER 3: NICK
CHAPTER 4: NICK
CHAPTER 5: ELIZABETH
CHAPTER 6: ELIZABETH
CHAPTER 7: NICK
CHAPTER 8: ELIZABETH
CHAPTER 9: ELIZABETH
CHAPTER 10: NICK
CHAPTER 11: NICK
CHAPTER 12: ELIZABETH
CHAPTER 13: NICK
CHAPTER 14: ELIZABETH
CHAPTER 15: NICK
CHAPTER 16: ELIZABETH
Reborn Page 21