Chimera m-4

by Kelly Meding

  I tried to watch the fight, but pain kept blurring my vision. Nowhere near as horrific as those burns had been, but bad. I’d lost my Coltson, too, on the floor about ten feet away. Gage moved off to join the fight, and I felt, as usual, useless to my team. Deadweight.

  Ignoring Gage’s order to stay put, I scooted toward my gun.

  Something streaked across my line of sight that shocked me into stopping. One of the kids had shrunk down to a perfectly proportioned twelve-inch-tall version of himself, and he ran like a very large rat through the fray, unnoticed. He raced between Teresa’s legs, then suddenly grew into a massive, twelve-foot-tall version of himself. The size shift knocked Teresa backward onto her ass. She blasted him with an orb that hit right in his gut—where her head had been a moment ago—and he crashed backward with a thud that shook the floor.

  The other girl from their group was down, too far away for me to see where she was hurt, but her stomach was definitely bleeding. Had she been shot by one of those stray bullets? Tate crouched near her, protective. Guarding.

  Teresa was trying to tell everyone to stop, even while coordinating us in a defensive way. I admired her determination, but it was a losing battle. The kids were on the offense in a major way.

  Firework Boy sent a couple of his blue babies right at Teresa, who threw up a haze of orb energy that worked as a force field. They bounced off and one hit the Incredible Growing Boy. The other firework slammed into Sebastian, which knocked him into Gage, and the pair went tumbling against a pile of debris.

  My hand closed around the grip of my Coltson.

  Wings was back on his feet, creeping toward Teresa from her blind side. She was concentrating on Firework Boy, who was doing an excellent job of distracting her by tossing twist after twist of blue at her shield. Panther-Marco leapt from the pile of debris and crashed into Wings with a snarl.

  Gage climbed out of the debris without Sebastian, only to be knocked down again by Sasha as she whirled past him.

  I couldn’t use my left arm to steady my aim so I did my best. Sasha moved fast, almost too fast to track her, and she was erratic as hell. But she was hurting my friends, and she seemed to be in charge of the Junior Meta Squad, so taking her out felt like a good plan. Ethan hit the air again, and then he and Sasha created a blast of wind that knocked Teresa and Firework Boy flat.

  The Incredible Growing Boy had shrunk again, and I couldn’t see him. Marco seemed to have Wings well in paw, holding him by the neck with his powerful cat jaws.

  Ethan swooped low to the floor. The Incredible Growing Boy shot up in size fast enough to grab Ethan by the throat. I aimed at IGB’s arm and squeezed the trigger. Blood spouted from his wrist. He screamed and dropped Ethan.

  The shot caught everyone’s attention, including Sasha’s. Her whirlwind spun at me. I changed my aim. Sasha yelped and hit the gym floor in a heap. Behind her, Teresa was on her knees, hands out in our direction.

  Nice shot, T.

  “Retreat, now!” Teresa shouted.

  Ethan and Gage dragged Sebastian out of the pile of rubble. Teresa helped me up, and we ran together, with Marco by our side. Retreating felt wrong, and we ducked a few more blue fireworks on the way out. The Junior Meta Squad didn’t chase us, though, once we were through the gym doors and heading for the outside of the building.

  The police car was still parked next to our two Sports, but the cops were nowhere to be seen. I hadn’t seen them inside during or at the end of the fight, either. Probably hiding in the janitor’s closet, the wimps.

  The thought made me giggle, which earned me a concerned look from Teresa. She stuffed me into the backseat of one of the Sports, next to Sebastian. He had a wide cut on his collarbone and a large knot on his temple. My arm was bleeding all over the place—another ruined uniform.

  Marco shifted back to a man and drove our Sport, putting Teresa, Gage and Ethan in the other vehicle. None of us talked on the race back to Governors Island. We were under orders to report directly to the infirmary. I wasn’t about to argue. Every movement sent stabbing pains up and down my arm, and I was having a hard time not bursting into tears from the agony. I’d been stretched, burned, and beaten, but this was my first bullet wound.

  God, my life sucks sometimes.

  It felt like half the people at HQ were waiting when the puddle-jumper landed, including Dr. Kinsey and Jessica Lam. They hustled me and Sebastian off to the infirmary, while Teresa and Gage tried to explain to Aaron, Alexia, and a dozen others what was going on without really telling them anything.

  The bullet had gone clean through my arm without hitting bone, which meant I got stitches, antibiotics, and a nice, thick bandage. And another scar for my personal collection. Not that this one would be very visible through the preexisting burn scars. After Dr. Kinsey left my cubicle, I stared at my arm while I waited for the painkillers to kick in. The best part of my long-sleeved uniform was that it hid those scars, but Kinsey had cut off the entire left sleeve before stitching me up. I couldn’t hide the scars from myself or anyone else.

  The curtain around my cubicle parted and Thatcher appeared. He stared at me with wide, concerned eyes, his mouth open in shock. “I was with Landon, I just heard,” he said, a little breathless.

  I blinked at him, curious why he was fuzzy around the edges. “You should be with him.”

  “Jessica said you were shot.” He sounded like saying the words physically pained him. It was . . . sweet.

  “I was shot.” I pointed at my bandage with my good arm. “See?”

  He came inside the curtain and stopped in front of the table I sat on. He wasn’t as fuzzy close up.

  “I’m fuzzy?” he asked.

  “Did I say that out loud?”

  “You did.”

  “I got the good drugs.”

  “Ah. Are you in a lot of pain?”

  “Not like before. Everything’s a little floaty right now.”

  “I’m sorry you were hurt, Renee.”

  “Isn’t your fault. The Junior Meta Squad got feisty when the cops showed up.”

  “Junior Meta Squad?”

  “Long story. Those kids have pretty cool powers, by the way. One of them got shot, too. Fucking cops.”

  “A police officer shot you?” His expression went dark, fierce, and protective in a way that made my heart flutter.

  “By accident. I think.” The details were getting hard to recall. “How’s Sebastian?”

  “I overheard Dr. Kinsey mention a concussion.”

  “Bummer.”

  He cupped my chin in the palm of his hand, a sweet gesture that sent warmth flooding through my insides. He looked at me with such tenderness that I nearly kissed him right then and there, just to see what it was like. “I wish I’d been there to protect you,” he said softly.

  “You probably couldn’t have. It was a wild shot.”

  “Not from the bullet.” He sighed. “Well, yes, from the bullet, but from all of it. The entire fight. It sounds ridiculous, I know, when we aren’t even friends.”

  “We’re friends.” He’d brought me a sandwich, twice. We had pleasant conversations. How could he not think we were friends?

  “I thought I was just a Bane you had to babysit until the job was done.”

  He was really challenging me on this when my brain was mushy with painkillers?

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did.” He shifted a little closer, until he seemed to consume my entire world with his size and sheer presence. “You’ve gotten under my skin, Renee. I don’t even know how that happened.”

  “I’m sorry.” I didn’t even know what I was apologizing for, only that he looked so sad that it felt like the right thing to say.

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s been so long since I’ve felt anything for a woman that I’m being selfish.”

  He feels something for me. Oh, shit.

  As much as I wanted to be scared, I couldn’t get there. A
ll I felt through the funny fog of drugs was happy. Happy that someone saw me again.

  The curtain jangled, and Thatcher pulled back. The loss of his warm touch made me flinch. Teresa stepped inside the cubicle. She gave Thatcher a curious look, then fixed her purple gaze on me.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Floaty,” I replied. “How’d we do?”

  “Sebastian has a slight concussion, bruised ribs, and needs some stitches on his chest. Everyone else has bumps and bruises.”

  “How about you?”

  She shrugged. “Like I said, bumps and bruises.”

  “Bullshit, they pointed a gun at you.”

  Her eyes narrowed briefly. “I’m fine.” She didn’t react well to guns, not since she was shot back in June. And she was getting really good at hiding her emotions from the rest of us. She didn’t want us to see her upset.

  “You’re not fine.”

  “I’m fine for now, okay? I have to deal with the Jersey police before I can deal with myself.”

  “Have they already called?” Thatcher asked.

  “Several times.” Teresa pinched the bridge of her nose. “Explaining this without throwing Landon and Bethany under the bus won’t be easy, but we’ll manage. I don’t want to turn those other kids against us any more than they already are.”

  “Angry teenagers with grudges are scary,” I said.

  Hey, it sounded profound in my head.

  “And they’re unpredictable,” Teresa said. “If Uncle hadn’t called the police in and forced a fight, we might have been able to reason with them, maybe even bring them in with us.” Some of her veneer cracked, and her genuine anguish at failing to get those kids on our side flashed through.

  “What can I do, T?” I asked automatically.

  She smoothed my hair back from my forehead in a motherly gesture. “Go upstairs and rest. Please?”

  “Okay.”

  “Make sure she does?” she said to Thatcher.

  He nodded. “Certainly.”

  Teresa left the cubicle. Thatcher cleared my leaving with Dr. Kinsey, then led me out of the infirmary. The world wasn’t quite solid or on an even keel, so I ended up leaning pretty heavily on Thatcher as we went upstairs.

  It didn’t really occur to me that he was in my room until he was helping me unzip my bloody uniform. The gentle attention felt nice. He got the sleeve off my right arm, then slipped out of the room with a promise to be right back. I yanked the skintight material off and left it in a heap on the floor. The tank top and shorts I usually slept in did shit to hide the worst of my scars, but I didn’t care. My arm was throbbing by the time I sat back down on the bed.

  Thatcher returned with two damp washcloths, which he used to wipe my face and neck free of dirt and blood. I let him, unable to fight or protest that I could do it myself, because I couldn’t. I didn’t mind letting him help me. I watched his eyes as he cleaned me up, curious. Not once did I see shock or disgust—only concern. And something else, something I couldn’t define.

  Something that, if I did define it, would scare the shit out of me.

  He tucked me into bed. It felt amazing to lie down and relax, even though my arm was alive with a heavy, persistent throb. Thatcher knelt by the bed, his head so close to mine I could smell his soap.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You’re very welcome. Get some rest, Renee.”

  “M’kay.”

  I closed my eyes and let the drugs carry me off. But I didn’t go far enough to miss the light brush of lips against my forehead, or the softly whispered, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Sixteen

  The Odds

  Quite a lot happened while I was sleeping off the heavy dose of painkillers, and I got the rundown later that night at dinner. My arm still ached like someone had clamped it into a vise that kept getting tighter and tighter, but I’d spent way too much time wounded on the sidelines lately. A bullet hole was nowhere near as debilitating as those burns had been, so after a long (slightly awkward) shower, I threw on some sweats and wobbled downstairs to the cafeteria.

  The usual suspects were gathered at one of the long tables: Teresa and Gage, Ethan and Aaron, Marco, plus Lacey and Bethany. I helped myself to a bowl of what looked like chicken noodle soup—didn’t want to tempt vomiting with anything heavier—and plopped down next to Marco.

  “So what did I miss?” I asked.

  “How’s your arm?” Ethan asked back.

  “Still attached. Hurts like hell. What did I miss?”

  Teresa shoved food around on her plate, her exhaustion plain to see in her pale face and the dark smudges under her eyes. Next to her, Gage became her mouthpiece. “Mostly we’ve bought some time to keep figuring things out,” he said.

  The short version: New Jersey police had a fit about our fight at the high school and the two dead bodies left behind. Teresa hadn’t corrected the detective when he suggested the two dead kids were the same wanted in Pennsylvania for a string of burglaries, which was a temporary positive for Landon and Bethany. She also spoke with Warden Hudson about keeping Thatcher out of Manhattan for another week to help us find other Meta kids, to which Hudson agreed. The job will probably take longer than a week, but Teresa won’t push her luck too hard. Extensions are easier to ask for than an unlimited release.

  Teresa seriously had Hudson wrapped around her little finger. I needed to learn how she did that.

  “So what’s the plan with Thatcher?” I asked. Knowing he was here for another week caused a small flare of happiness, tempered only by it driving home the point that his stay was temporary. A conditional release. Period.

  “Sooner or later, Warden Hudson will feel compelled to tell the authorities what he knows about Landon and the robberies,” Gage replied. “Once the Jersey police run DNA tests on Louis Becker, they’ll figure out the body they have is not Thatcher’s son.”

  “Unless . . .” Teresa trailed off. The sour looks that passed between them flashed Argument! in bright neon lights. This was not something they agreed on.

  “Wait,” I said, “you want to mess with DNA tests? Make the authorities believe Bethany and Landon are dead?”

  “It would keep them safe,” Teresa said. “This Overseer will know the truth, but at least the human authorities won’t be after them anymore.”

  “What about Louis and Summer? Their families deserve to know they’re dead, don’t they?”

  Her purple eyes sparked with anger. “Of course they do, Renee. We’ll keep looking for their surviving family. That’s not in question.”

  “What’s in question is the ethics of using their deaths to our advantage,” Gage said.

  I glanced around the table, a little lost and hoping to gauge the opinions of the others. Mostly they were eating, eyeballs on their plates. Only Bethany was paying close attention, and when she met my gaze, I swear she looked ready to burst into tears.

  “What do you think of all this?” I asked her, baffled why I even bothered.

  “Those guys are dead because of me and Landon,” Bethany said, her standard bravado completely gone. “The others? They’re all alone now. They hate us. We don’t deserve your help. You should have let those clones kill us on the side of the turnpike.”

  She ducked her head, hiding her face behind a fall of hair. She was on Gage’s left, between him and Lacey. Lacey gave the teenager’s shoulder a squeeze.

  “Letting the clones kill you was never an option,” Teresa said. “Sometimes good guys and bad guys are a matter of perspective, but not in this case. You and Landon were used, manipulated, and lied to for a long time. What’s happening now isn’t your fault, okay?”

  Maybe it was a little their fault, but I wasn’t about to say that and interrupt T’s moment with the mouthy brat.

  Bethany sighed, then reached into her pocket for something. She tossed it across the table, and it clanked next to Ethan’s plate. “That’s the key to your collar,” she said.

  Ethan stared
at the slim black piece of plastic like it might explode. Aaron picked it up and studied it, while still managing to scowl at Bethany.

  “Stick the skinniest end into the slot at the back of the collar,” Bethany said. “It will click open, promise.”

  Aaron did as told, and the collar fell into Ethan’s lap. He picked it up with two fingers and put it on the far end of the table. Ethan rubbed at the red ring of irritation around his throat, then nodded at her. “Thank you,” he said.

  She shrugged.

  “No, really.”

  “Whatever.”

  Aaron squeezed the back of Ethan’s neck, his scowl a little less fierce, but still there. I didn’t think it was meant for Bethany anymore, though.

  “I want to talk to them,” Bethany said. “Sasha, Tate, and the others you met today.”

  “Why?” Teresa asked.

  “Because they think we’re traitors.” The teenage whine was back in full force. “Maybe me and Landon can convince them we’re not. We can tell them why we came here. That we believe you about our parents. Maybe they’ll believe it, coming from us.”

  Bethany finally believed us about her parents? Halle-fucking-luiah.

  “They’d never agree to come here, and Landon is too weak to leave the island.”

  “So I’ll go. He can talk to them over the phone.”

  “Sasha did seem willing to listen before the cops showed up,” Gage said.

  Teresa nodded. “I like the idea, but first Sasha needs to contact us.”

  “How’s she supposed to do that?” I asked. “Carrier pigeon?”

  “No, I left a few phones behind at the gym. I’ve called them all with no answer. Hopefully she took at least one with her.”

  No one could ever accuse Teresa of not thinking ahead.

  “So if Sasha calls, we can talk to her?” Bethany asked.