Pack

by Cassandra Chandler

  “If you need to leave to feel safe, that’s fine,” Marcus said. “But you’re not going alone.”

  “Take one of the vans,” Vaughn said. “I can keep you posted on what’s happening here.”

  “Vaughn, you can’t stay.” Tessa let out a breath that was half-sob, half exasperated sigh. “None of you can stay. It isn’t safe.”

  “There’s more at stake here than you realize,” Dexter said. “We can’t walk away from this.”

  “Fine,” she said. “It’s your funeral. Just let me go.”

  He snorted and stepped into her line of sight. She pointed the stingray at him instead of Marcus. It made her feel a tiny bit better.

  “If you run now, you’ll always be running,” Dexter said.

  Shit.

  Maybe they were stupid, cocky, and crazy. Maybe she was, too. Because she knew in her heart he was right. And she also knew she couldn’t leave them with no idea of how much danger they were in. They needed to understand.

  “We all need to go,” she said. “Right now. Please. We can regroup and come back…”

  “You have a chance to stop this,” Dexter said. “To stop him and save yourself. And me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Her arms felt heavy. She lowered the weapon a fraction.

  Dexter smiled, the normal cold passiveness of his face vanishing. He shook his head and half-shrugged. “Come on, Chicken. Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

  The room blurred as her eyes filled with tears. Dammit, she couldn’t afford the lapse in her senses. Especially since she was pretty sure she had just hopped on the crazy train with the rest of the Blades. She wiped her eyes clear quickly with the back of her left hand.

  “You can’t be.” She shook her head again, her panic causing the motion to make her dizzy. “He’s dead. My family… Everyone is dead.”

  Vaughn leaned closer to Marcus. “What is she talking about?”

  “Tessa’s brother,” Marcus said.

  Vaughn looked confused. “Dexter is Tessa’s brother?”

  “No, Brock is.” She pointed at Dexter emphatically with the stingray. “Not you.”

  “Chicken…” he said.

  “Don’t call me that!” Her hands were shaking so badly, she was afraid she’d fire by accident. She let her arms drop to her sides.

  “You can’t be him.” Her voice caught on a sob.

  But she knew. Staring at him, she wondered how she could have ever doubted it. His features, his voice…

  It was Brock. But not Brock.

  “You’re a dweller,” she said.

  Vaughn laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “She’s right,” Dexter…Brock said.

  “Wait, seriously?” Vaughn took a step closer to Marcus.

  “What killed you?” Her voice was so low, she wasn’t sure Brock would hear. She should have known better. He was a dweller, after all.

  “Nothing,” Brock said. “I’ve always been this. Even when we were growing up.”

  “No…”

  “Come on, Chicken. You knew I was adopted. Mom and dad just didn’t tell us the whole story until… Until I manifested.”

  “No. This isn’t—” Her heart pounded, her throat constricting around words she couldn’t force out.

  “It happened when I turned eighteen. Dad was driving me home from school. He knew if mom found out she would…” Brock’s mouth pulled into a thin line.

  “Every dweller is a threat.” Their mom must have told Tessa that a thousand times. It took on a whole new meaning now that Tessa knew about Brock.

  “We thought you were both dead,” Tessa said. “Mom told me that he’d found us. That Edgar found where we lived and killed you both.”

  Brock shook his head. “I’m so sorry. We had to run—after dad explained everything to me. Told me about the deal he made with Mom.”

  “What deal?” Tessa’s voice was shrill. The level of what she could take had already been maxed out. Her sanity was red-lining.

  “My biological mother was a human woman. Edgar married her and… He wanted to know what would happen if an apex ghoul and a human had a child. I’m the result.”

  Tessa let out a half-sob, half-groan, clutching her middle as if she’d been struck. Marcus came to stand behind her. She let herself lean on him. It was that, or fall to the floor.

  “My birth mother found Mom and asked for help. Mom was still a hunter back then. She and Dad were sort of involved, but not serious yet. Mom went to Dad for help delivering me. He was a medical examiner and they’d been investigating cases involving dwellers together.”

  Tessa couldn’t believe it. Her mother had explained about being a hunter before settling down with their dad and starting a family. But she hadn’t told Tessa any of this.

  “After I was born, my birth mother…changed,” Brock said. “She attacked them. Mom killed her and wanted to kill me, too, but Dad stopped her. I seemed human, so he was able to convince Mom to spare me—unless I manifested. They got married and raised me as their own to keep an eye on me. Then they had you. They tried to give us a normal life for as long as they could. They didn’t know when or if I would manifest a dweller nature.”

  Tessa shook her head, the motion setting tears running down her face. “What are you?”

  Brock shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m the only one of my kind.”

  “Excuse me,” Vaughn said. “Two of your kind. Because, you know… Porter.”

  Brock laughed harshly. “You’re right. Except that there are more than two of us.”

  “How many more?” Vaughn asked.

  “Counting my original body, there are nine of us, total.”

  Vaughn’s eyebrows hitched up his forehead. “Nine?”

  “Mom did kill Edgar’s wife,” Brock said. “But not his child. Tessa, it’s me. Edgar Eaton is my father.”

  “This is too much.” Tessa’s right arm had gone numb. She managed to pass her stingray to her left hand, and slid it into one of the pockets of her cargo pants. She was shaking too bad to use it safely.

  “This is so messed up.” Vaughn sank back into his chair.

  Tessa wished she could sink through the floor.

  She wanted to scream or laugh or hit something. But she was frozen in place, her mind reeling. And then, Brock sent her further over the edge.

  “Dad’s alive.”

  “What?” The word came out as a gasp.

  “He took me away when I manifested,” Brock said. “He knew that Mom would kill me if she found out I was more dweller than human. Edgar had nothing to do with us leaving. We didn’t think you’d go on the run.”

  Tessa shook her head. She wished she could say he was wrong, but she knew better.

  After Brock and Dad had died—left—her mother had changed. She’d told Tessa everything about dwellers and hunters, and how it was time to learn about the “real world”.

  Tessa had always thought her mother was putting on a brave face while training Tessa to be a hunter—that their real life was the one with soccer games and nail polish and family board game night. But her mother had never seemed more at ease than when she was training Tessa.

  Their normal life had been the lie.

  How much more could Tessa take before her sanity snapped once and for all? Her family—at least part of it—was alive. And nothing like what she’d thought.

  “We still need to run,” she said. “Edgar is more dangerous than you could possibly imagine.”

  “I know he’s dangerous,” Brock said. “But we need to study him.”

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  “Tessa, I’m dying. We’re all dying.” Brock shook his head. “Edgar might hold the key to saving me. To saving all of my replicants—saving the Blades. We started this organization to try to find a way for dwellers and humans to live in peace together. To prove that it could be done. If I die—if we all die—I don’t know what will happen. All our progress could be lost.”

  “If
Edgar gets to us, it won’t matter,” Tessa said. “We’ll all be dwellers, and I promise you, Edgar doesn’t give a shit about peaceful coexistence.”

  “We’ve been watching him the whole time he’s been here,” Vaughn said. “He hasn’t even moved since he sat down.”

  Vaughn tapped on his desktop and zoomed in on Edgar sitting in his cell, eyes closed. He was in the exact same position as when she’d first seen him. Even his expression seemed frozen on his face.

  Tessa’s panic reached a new level. “I’ve seen that look before. He’s husked.”

  “What does that mean?” Vaughn leaned closer to the monitor.

  “Turn up the vents,” she said. “Direct the air at him if you can.”

  Vaughn typed in a few commands. Edgar’s hair stirred in a gentle breeze that grew stronger. His face collapsed on itself, his body turning to dust that sparkled before vanishing in a blue haze.

  “Oh,” Vaughn said. “That’s not good.”

  “Edgar is not a distinct life form,” Tessa said. “He’s a Hive Father. Hive. His dwellers exist as a sort of collective consciousness. He can control them over hundreds of feet.”

  “But they’re still too big to fit through the vents.” Vaughn didn’t sound very confident. “Right?”

  A soft thunk sounded on the table. Tessa’s skin began to crawl—literally, under her wristband.

  “Edgar…” She turned toward the sound, knowing what she’d see. A small maggot-like creature, wriggling on the table near Vaughn.

  “Look out!” Marcus leapt at Vaughn, pulling him from his chair.

  “Shit! How did it get in here?” Vaughn said.

  Everyone looked at the ceiling, where long string-like filaments were filtering through the vents. As they fell, they shortened and plumped into the same kind of wriggling creature that was crawling on the table.

  “We need to leave,” Marcus said. “Now.”

  Brock nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Final-fucking-ly.” Tessa ran to the door.

  Vaughn let out a shriek. She turned back to him, her heart in her throat. He was shaking his head oddly, then started beating at his hair.

  “One’s on me!” Vaughn screamed, shaking his head harder.

  Marcus grabbed Vaughn’s cheeks and turned his head side-to-side, looking for the dweller. But Tessa knew that if Vaughn could feel it, it was already too late. She fought back the tears that tried to fill her eyes, the despair and nausea that threatened to dull her focus.

  “We have to move,” she yelled. “Carry him if you have to.”

  Vaughn would change. There was no getting around that. But she wouldn’t give up on him. If they could keep him away from Edgar, maybe some semblance of Vaughn’s personality could be saved.

  Marcus tried to pull Vaughn’s arm over his shoulders, but Vaughn swatted him away. It seemed too soon for Edgar’s influence to be asserting itself. With a grunt, Vaughn typed something into his watch.

  “The vents are sealed.” He wrapped an arm around Marcus as they staggered toward the door.

  Porter was waiting for them in the hall. His eyes were wide. “The garage isn’t an option. It looks like Edgar’s dwellers dropped down from the ceiling onto the vehicles. There are hundreds of them.”

  “He can spread himself out, but is stronger as a collected entity,” Tessa said. “We need to escape through the house if the elevator is clear.”

  Vaughn groaned as he stretched his arm to type on his watch again. He was rubbing his left ear against his shoulder. A muffled whoosh came from the elevator. Its doors opened, belching a ball of fire into the hallway. The fire dispersed quickly, leaving scorch marks on the walls.

  “It is now,” Vaughn said.

  By the time they reached the elevator, Vaughn was practically hyperventilating. His face had broken out with red spots and his ear was bleeding. She’d never seen someone have a reaction like that before, and she’d seen Edgar infect plenty of humans.

  “Tessa…” Brock’s voice was faint.

  She tore her gaze from Vaughn and looked down the hallway.

  Edgar was walking toward them, a smug smile on his face. He straightened his tie, the light gleaming off of his teeth.

  “Hello, darling,” he said.

  They crowded into the elevator. Tessa’s heart was pounding hard against her ribs. She was close to hyperventilating herself. The doors closed. She felt infinitesimally better as the elevator started to climb.

  She tried not to show her fear, to put on a brave face, but she knew the truth.

  None of them were getting out of this alive. Not unchanged.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “How do we kill Edgar?”

  Marcus forced his voice to sound human, even though all he wanted to do was throw his head back and howl. He could smell Vaughn’s scent changing, the mustiness of the dweller integrating with his body.

  If Marcus lost it and changed, he wouldn’t be able to help anyone. He would go on a rampage.

  Tessa was staring at Vaughn, eyes wide. Her chest heaved with each breath.

  “Tessa, how do we kill Edgar?” Marcus said again.

  She shook her head. “We don’t. Even a flamethrower won’t work on him when he’s separated. All it takes is one of his dwellers to survive, and they can last outside of his body a lot longer than a dweller that’s already integrated into a human. It can find a new host and take over its consciousness. Slowly change its physiology to match his.”

  “I thought when it was only one dweller it just turned humans into…” Brock didn’t finish his sentence. He glanced at Vaughn, then looked away.

  “Only if the Hive consciousness is intact,” she said. “He explained it to me while trying to convince me it wasn’t a bad thing to be infected. He said he was offering me immortality.”

  “Not what it’s cracked up to be,” Vaughn grunted out each word. He was trembling violently, but still trying to make a goddamned joke.

  “I’ve never seen someone react to one of Edgar’s dwellers this way,” Tessa said.

  “Could it be an allergic reaction?” Porter said.

  He and Brock were keeping their distance from Vaughn. Tessa should be as well, but either she wasn’t worried or she cared about Vaughn more than she feared for herself. Marcus was betting on the latter.

  “I’ve never heard of human physiology rejecting a dweller,” she said.

  “Maybe it’s…rejecting me,” Vaughn said.

  The elevator doors opened on the ground level. Marcus blew out a quick breath—not really feeling relief, but just trying to keep himself human. Or as close to human as he could manage.

  They poured out of the elevator, heading for the front door. Rain pelted the window across the library from them, darkening the sky to an unnatural gray.

  “I don’t want to become a ghoul,” Vaughn said.

  Marcus tightened his grip on Vaughn’s waist. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “No. Marcus, I don’t want to change into that. Please—”

  “Forget it.” Marcus knew where this was heading. There was no way he was killing Vaughn. They would find a way to save him. “No matter what you are, you’re part of my pack. I’m not letting you go so easily.”

  Vaughn actually chuckled. “Glad to know you still care.”

  He let out a pained grunt as his legs gave out. Marcus tried to hold him up, but Vaughn was writhing against him. Marcus lowered them both to the tiled floor of the kitchen. Tessa knelt beside them.

  “This isn’t right,” Vaughn said. “This isn’t…”

  Vaughn started to scream. He rolled onto his back, clutching his head. His body shook violently all over, like he was having a seizure. Marcus held onto him, trying to keep Vaughn from hurting himself as he thrashed on the floor.

  “What the hell is happening?” Brock said.

  “I don’t know,” Tessa yelled.

  The red splotches on Vaughn’s skin were growing, white lines forming between them in a large sc
ale-like pattern. His skin suddenly turned ashen gray, then the center of each sectioned area turned pink. The white lines faded as Vaughn’s normal skin tone spread over his face, neck, and arms—everything that Marcus could see.

  Vaughn arced his back, taking in a huge, gasping breath, then collapsed.

  “What the fuck?” Tessa said.

  Blood was pooling beneath Vaughn’s head, trickling out from his left ear. Marcus heard a splat as the dweller wriggled out, its body blackened. It thrashed around a few more times, then curled up and stopped moving. Within seconds, it glowed with a soft blue light and vanished.

  “What does that mean?” Porter asked.

  “I don’t know.” Tessa was shaking her head, her eyes wide with shock. She kept repeating, “I don’t know.”

  “Is he infected or not?” he snapped.

  Marcus growled at Porter before saying, “Watch your tone.”

  “I don’t think he is,” Tessa said. “I can’t explain it.”

  Vaughn stirred, slowly opening his eyes. He looked around at the people hovering over him. “Um… Hi?”

  Tessa and Marcus helped Vaughn to his feet. He was still unsteady, so Marcus draped Vaughn’s arm across his shoulders again.

  “What happened?” Vaughn said.

  “We can figure that out later,” Tessa said. “Right now, we need to get as far from Edgar as possible. If we run through the woods, he won’t be able to follow us with one of the cars and maybe we can—”

  “Oh, sweetie, it’s much too late for that.” Edgar was standing in the archway that led to the dining room, blocking the way to the front door.

  Tessa let out a little yelp and backed away from him. Her scent grew thick with terror.

  Vaughn let go of Marcus’s shoulders and stumbled toward the counter, leaning on it to stay upright. Marcus stepped forward.

  “You can’t have them,” Marcus said. “They’re mine.”

  Edgar just smiled. “Is that so?”

  Tessa bolted for the other door. If Marcus could hold off Edgar, she could escape. All of them could.

  “Everyone, run,” Marcus said.

  He let the change flow over him, tearing his clothes from his body with hands that already ended in claws. He dropped the tattered fabric on the ground as he stepped right in front of Edgar and roared a challenge.