by Susan Bohnet
“I think we don’t need another Trebladore to test. I know what I’m looking for.”
“Your eyes look positively wild,” he said with concern and not a small amount of doubt.
“Trust me,” said Beth. “I’ll be able to tell. What will the other aliens do if you are a hybrid?”
“That, I don’t know.” Kai tightened his jaw. A few months ago, he never would have thought actual physical danger could befall him at the hands of the Trebladores, now he wasn’t so sure. And for now, Beth knew enough. He didn’t need to tell her the depths of what being a hybrid meant. He looked at his hands. He looked normal, but he could be the monstrous aberration his kind had gone to great lengths to prevent.
Chapter Fifty-six
Beth sat in silence for several moments. Kai said nothing, afraid that he would break the tentative spell that held her here beside him. He felt the sun shining on his face as it rose over the low buildings and struck him. He could hear the whisper of the leaves as they fluttered in the breeze, and the smell of the early morning dew as it dried. These were all things he knew Beth would be appreciating right now if she weren’t so distracted. He watched her for any sign that she was about to bolt. She seemed to be doing okay, but it was hard to tell.
“Beth,” he said, “Why would you be able to recognize the genetic markers of a Trebladore?”
Beth raised glazed eyes at him and he saw that she was still holding her breath. “Breathe, Beth. Remember to breathe,” he murmured. She took in a large breath and let it out slowly. She swallowed and shivered, and suddenly Kai was very frightened.
“I was working in the lab with Paul. I often took work home with me if I needed to finish for the next day. I find the lights in the lab can make my eyes sore, so I like to do some of the finishing touches on my computer at home.”
Her eyes wavered from his, shifting around the park, resting on nothing in particular. “One night, as we were getting ready to go home, I went to Paul’s office and grabbed the set of folders I had left on his desk. I was taking them home to finish so we could move on to the next phase of testing. When I got home and opened the folders, though, I was immediately confused. In this series of tests, we normally test a set of DNA against two other sets of DNA. Two of the DNA samples come from the parents and the third one comes from a child, and we test to make sure the child is actually a descendant of the two parents. It is important that they are or the control isn’t worth anything. We don’t just trust the people in the study to tell us the truth. Sometimes they don’t even know the truth themselves.
“In any case, I knew as soon as I opened the folder that there was something wrong. These DNA samples weren’t human, or at least two of them weren’t. One was. That was what confused me. I wondered briefly if they had just gotten mixed up somehow and we had DNA samples from two different studies. One with humans and one with another kind of creature, an animal of some kind. But when I looked closer at the non-human samples, I saw that one of them was completely different from the human one. I did not recognize any animal markers either. This was no animal DNA that I had ever seen.
“Then I took out the third one. The child. This one was even stranger. It seemed to have elements of both the other two put together. If I didn’t know that one was human and one was not I would have thought that I did have a mother, father, and child grouping.” Beth’s brow wrinkled and she cocked her head at Kai. “Is any of this making sense to you? It’s very confusing if you don’t understand how genetic DNA works.”
Kai nodded his head. Biology had been his favorite subject in school and he could remember the basics of genetic research. He knew what she had been looking at: the genetic markers for a hybrid child.
“What did you do?” he asked, his eyes boring into hers and a tiny tingling of fear starting across his shoulders.
“I phoned Paul, of course. What else would I do? I wanted him to know that I had mistakenly taken the wrong folder and would not be able to finish the work that I had intended to do. We would have to spend the better part of the next day doing that and it would set us back a little.”
“What did Paul say?”
“That’s the strange thing,” Beth said. “When I told him I would bring the folder back into the lab first thing in the morning, he seemed to get very anxious. He told me he would come by my place and pick it up immediately. Then he stammered a little and finally said he wanted to work on that folder himself that night and had been unable to find it. His words said he was relieved to find it, but the tremor in his voice made it sound like he was incredibly worried that I had it in the first place.”
Kai looked at Beth. “You didn’t just put it aside, did you?”
Now Beth looked a little sheepish, a particularly attractive blush rising up over her face. Kai smiled despite himself, reveling in the feeling that she was here beside him again. He hadn’t truly understood how much he missed her until he heard her voice when she called this morning.
“Well … I gave it to him when he got to my apartment. But not before I scanned the pages and downloaded them into my computer.”
Kai’s eyes widened and he grinned at her. “You could be a great spy if you wanted to, you know.”
“Well, I might need some of those skills since I’m dealing with a bunch of aliens hiding in plain sight.” Kai laughed out loud at that and took her into his arms, holding her close and feeling the beat of her heart next to his. It felt so good to hold her again. He didn’t want to ever let her go. And the fact that he was a hybrid might be an even stronger reason he couldn’t continue this relationship with her. Was he dangerous to her? What if he lost control and got angry enough with her to kill her? Even if that didn’t happen, was it fair of him to want to build a future with her, knowing that they could never take the risk of having children together?
Beth stiffened and pulled out of his arms. Kai wondered for a second if she had suddenly remembered who he was. But she didn’t go far, only far enough to lift her head and kiss him. A warm, happy, welcoming kiss. A kiss that lingered and that felt as hungry for him as he felt for her. He returned her kiss, marveling at her reaction to the news. She had just discovered he was an alien and she was still here, still wanting to be a part of his life. His soul was bare before her, and yet she accepted him … loved him. It was more than he had ever hoped there would be between them.
Beth looked at him, worry etched across her face. “We need to find out if you really are a hybrid. That hybrid baby from the folder died very young.”
“What?”
“The hybrid child in the folder. It was a female and it died mysteriously at the age of four months. When a baby dies without apparent reason and the autopsy shows no signs of any violence or murderous evidence, we call it a SIDS death. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. No one knows what causes it and no one knows when it will strike. This child died of SIDS.”
Kai loosened his hold on her. This was what happened to hybrid babies but why didn’t it happen to him? If his father was human how did he survive? Maybe he wasn’t a hybrid after all.
“What if being a hybrid might be the cause of SIDS?” Beth continued. “There are many species crosses that produce offspring that just don’t survive very long. There is something missing in the DNA that makes the offspring die before it can reach reproductive age.” Beth’s voice was low. She pulled back out of his arms completely and stood up from the bench. “You had better take me to the university. I’ll talk to Richard and I’m sure he will let me use the lab for the testing. I just need a swab from the inside of your cheek. As it happens,” and with this she almost simpered at him, “I have a kit in my purse.” He could tell she was enjoying this and the thought that she would make a good spy flickered through his mind again.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Fifty-seven
Seated in his car in a mall parking lot, Kai dialed Beth’s numb
er for the third time since he dropped her off at the lab. She answered on the second ring. “I’m sorry,” he said, before she even said hello. Then he waited expectantly. Either she would tell him to be patient, as she’d done the last two times, or she would lose her temper and say, ‘Let me work’ … or maybe she would know something.
“I’m finished,” she said. “I should have called right away. I’m sorry. I’m just cleaning up the lab before I go. I thought I should tell you in person … but that’s not necessary, is it?”
“No,” was all he could say.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice soft. He remembered that she was also dealing with some seriously surprising news.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I feel a little numb, like I’m living someone else’s life. It doesn’t seem real. And yet I’ve managed to put away the materials; my hands aren’t shaking. Can I really believe I’m dealing with truth and not science fiction?”
“The truth is science fiction.”
“Uh huh.” She paused. “You were right, Kai. Your results look exactly like the child in my computer file.”
“So. I’m a hybrid.”
“Are you okay?”
“Mostly. It’s what I suspected.” There was a long pause as Kai’s skin seemed to crawl. A hybrid. He had felt so open with Beth telling her he was an alien but it was an illusion. He had held back all it meant if he really was a hybrid. He was lying again. She didn’t know that those rare hybrids that lived to be adults became monsters that killed humans for sport. He pictured her reaction if she found out. She had taken the news of his alien status rather well, considering. But she doesn’t know what she is truly dealing with, he thought. She doesn’t know that her boyfriend is about to turn into a serial killer! Kai smiled, the irony of the situation striking him as somehow, irrevocably, funny. He was a killer already. He was an assassin for a rebel group of aliens.
“I’m about ready to go.” Beth’s voice brought him back to himself. He nodded and then realized she couldn’t see him.
“I’ll be there in five minutes. Love you,” Kai said before he hung up. He took a deep breath. His biological father was a rapist. Besides creating a hybrid, what else was in the genes of such a person? Kai hung his head, then rested it on his arms draped over the steering wheel. He sat there for several moments, the thoughts swirling through his mind. Finally he raised his head. He had better get going if he was going to meet Beth.
Kai turned the key and put the truck into gear. His phone rang. He pushed the button to answer. A second before he got it to his ear, someone spoke. “Come to Headquarters immediately.”
“Who is this?” It sounded like Anthony.
“We have Beth.” The line went dead.
Kai gasped. He threw the phone on the passenger seat, tugged the gearshift into place, pounded on the accelerator, and squealed the tires backing out. Then he stopped. He’d just talked to Beth. That was less than three minutes ago. Maybe this was a trick to bring him in.
He dialed Beth’s number. She answered. “You okay?” he said.
“A little blown away but…”
“They said they…”
“What?” Beth’s voice was loud and a notch higher than normal. “Who are you? Get away from me!”
Kai could hear the sounds of a struggle coming through the phone. “Beth?”
“Kai!” she screamed. Then her phone went dead.
Kai slammed the truck into drive and sped toward the university. The Trebladore Headquarters was closer, however, and that’s where they would take Beth. He made a sharp right that would lead him to Headquarters.
He should have told Beth how non-violent they were. Then she wouldn’t panic quite so much. How could they be non-violent, however, and physically grab someone and take them away against their will? And what was waiting in store for him at Headquarters?
Kai parked and started toward the main entrance. Halfway to the door, Anthony and Charles appeared in front of him. “This way, Kai,” said Charles, his voice low and dry. Silently Kai looked at Anthony and then followed Charles. They led him to a side entrance. He hadn’t known there was a side entrance. “Where’s Beth?”
“The human will be here shortly,” said Charles.
They led Kai to a room about twenty feet into the building. It was large with several padded swivel chairs scattered about and a couple of couches along the walls. It looked like a large waiting room at a dentist’s office. Seated at a small desk to the left, looking regal with his silver-toned hair, was Jessip.
“Where’s Beth?” Kai said, approaching the desk. “What do you want with her? How did you find her?”
“We’ve followed her since she left your old residence,” said Charles behind him.
“You two looked quite lovely in the park this morning,” added Anthony. “And oh, so serious.”
So, as he’d been thinking about what a good spy Beth would make, they were being spied on themselves. Rather ironic.
“I’m here now, Jessip,” said Kai, choosing to ignore the Trebladores behind him and appealing to the older man. “You don’t need Beth for anything. Call them off.”
The door burst open and two Trebladores named Jordan and Rick, both of whom Kai recognized but barely knew, urged Beth into the room. “Kai!” she called and ran toward him. The two men flanking her reached out and grabbed her arms, holding her back, and suddenly Anthony and Charles were next to Kai as well, with firm hands on his upper arms. Quickly on the heels of Beth and her captors, Lincoln, Leo, and another Trebladore Kai didn’t recognize stormed into the room, closing the door behind them. Kai watched the Trebladore he didn’t know. He was young, maybe eighteen, with long, shiny dark hair that fell into his eyes.
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Jessip, standing and coming around the desk. His eyes were on Lincoln. “What gives you the right to come in here? And why are Leo and Cole here with you?” Jessip’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Lincoln. His color was high and Kai saw the veins standing out in his neck. “Cole isn’t even old enough to do mission work yet … why have you brought him to Headquarters?”
“What do you want with Kai?” said Lincoln. “We saw you take him from the parking lot.”
“Answer me!” snarled Jessip. “What are these two doing here?” Kai felt the tingle of fear rush through his veins. He had known Jessip his entire life and had never seen the man so much as blink in anger. The day Jessip had sent them on the mission to deal with Billie he had a strange, almost worried, expression. And then later, when Kai had visited Jessip, anxious over the disappearance of Beth, Jessip had been calm, even when Kai told him there was a rebel group making decisions that went against Society rules.
“They are here with me,” Lincoln said.
“You can’t keep Kai here. He’s one of us,” interjected Leo.
“You’re the rebels,” Jessip said. Then turning to Lincoln with a satisfied smirk he added, “And you must be their leader! Now it all makes sense.” Jessip’s gaze settled on each of them. “I never thought I’d live to see the day a Trebladore would sink so low.”
Kai thought that Jessip had no idea just how low the rebels had truly fallen. And the fact that he openly called them Trebladores in front of Beth did not bode well. Kai shuddered.
Jessip stepped toward Lincoln and shook his head. “We’ve taught you the ways of the Trebladores since you were babies. Lincoln, I showed you the workings of Headquarters, gave you special training. You were one I thought might someday be my successor. Instead, you turn against me, your upbringing, your family, and even your species. And for what?”
“For a better way!” snapped Lincoln.
Jessip motioned to Charles. “Escort these young men from the building. Lincoln can stay.”
Charles moved from Kai’s side. As he approached Cole, the young man glanced once at Lincol
n, received a nod from the other man, and then swung his gaze back to Charles, the gold fleck in his right eye glinting in the light. A sharp tingle ran down Kai’s spine and surprised looks crossed the faces of Jessip and his men. Jessip had just enough time to gasp before Charles dropped to the floor as if all life had been drained from his body. Out of the corner of his eye, Kai saw Leo partially supporting Cole as he lowered him to the floor. Leo’s eyes darted between Lincoln and the other Trebladores; both his eyebrows raised in trembling arches. His eyes met Kai’s and then danced sharply away. Lincoln’s was the only face that didn’t register complete surprise.
“What did you do to him?” yelled Jessip. “Charles! Charles!”
Kai fought down the rising panic that threatened to heave his lunch onto the floor. Cole is a hybrid. Another hybrid with Trebladore markings. And he had just killed a Trebladore. Kai focused on Beth; her skin had drained of all color, her eyes stark and wide. He glared back at Lincoln.
Anthony’s grip on Kai’s arm was tight now and he could feel the other man shudder. Jordan left Beth in Rick’s grip and approached Charles, kneeling on the floor to cradle Charles’ head in his lap; his hand went to Charles’ neck.
“You won’t find a pulse,” Lincoln said, his eyes still on Jessip. “He’s dead. There’s nothing you can do.” Lincoln paused. “I warned you. Cole is with me and he isn’t going anywhere.”
Jessip shook his head and the word “no”‘ was silently on his lips. “What about Cole?” he said eventually. His gaze turned to the young man lying on the floor and Kai saw him take note of the steady rise and fall of his chest. “What happened to him?” his expression seemed a mix of interest and fear.
“This is what happens when a hybrid kills with his mind,” Lincoln said. At the word hybrid the Elites in the room sucked in their breath. Jessip glanced at Kai, but looked away again before their eyes could meet for more than a fraction of a second.