Fearless

by Tracey Ward

  “Was this all the same day?”

  “Yes. I was exhausted and still he pushed me. By the end of the night I was in the next town. When I came back home I was shaking, my heart hammering in my chest. My fingers and toes were going numb, my sight was blurring. I was sweating and freezing cold.”

  “What was wrong?”

  “The adrenaline,” Nick tells me. “It was too much. He was going into shock.”

  Liam casts Nick a strange look.

  “What?” Nick demands.

  It’s a long time before Liam answers and when he does it’s cryptic as crap. “I forget about you sometimes.”

  “What exactly do you forget?”

  “That you’re not a Neanderthal.”

  “That’s almost a compliment.”

  “Please don’t take it as such. It was merely an observation.”

  “Did he give me your training wheels?” I ask urgently, pulling Liam back on track.

  “No. When he realized I could only move to locations I was familiar with, he worried it was because of the injections. He was determined to do right by you where he had gone wrong with me. He started work on you at a younger age. You were denied the injections I was given.” He turns to me, his entire face falling into shadow. When he speaks, his voice is different. Heavier. “You were his pride and joy.”

  I shiver down to my toes. The exhaustion or his tone—I don’t know who’s to blame, but it shakes me to my core.

  “Are there any injections here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want them.”

  “You don’t.”

  “How else are we going to get out of here, Liam?”

  “You don’t. You sit. You wait. They’ll contain you and bring you in.”

  “Then what? Your dad trains me to be an assassin? You really think I’ll go along with that?”

  “Wait here, Alex. Don’t try to run.”

  “Were you waiting for us in here? All of those soldiers we got past and your dad left you here to try to overpower us?”

  “You need to stop. Let them take you in.”

  “Not a freaking chance in hell, Liam. I won’t be part of your dad’s program anymore.”

  “You haven’t much choice. They can find you anywhere. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Your dad is that connected that he can track me anywhere?”

  “I’m not talking about my father.”

  Nick and I share a quick glance. He nods slightly, urging me on.

  “Who, then?” I insist.

  Liam sighs, shaking his head. “You’ll find out soon enough. Do what you will. You can have the injections, you can have the files, only so long as you leave me my one.”

  “Who are we running from? Who’s really in charge?”

  “Your chance to listen is over, Miss Mills,” he replies harshly. “You’ve made your choice, you’ll have to live with it and all of the consequences. Now, do we have a deal or do we not?”

  I feel sick. I’m tired and beat down, but I also feel heavy in my gut, like I’m missing something but I don’t know what it is.

  “Why don’t you want us to run? Is it so your dad can have his projects, back or is there something else?”

  He stares at me in the shadows, his face invisible. He doesn’t answer me.

  Nick juts his head toward the safe, his eyes steady on Liam. “Open it. Take one file, then walk away.”

  Liam does as he’s told with more speed than he’s used around us so far. I watch Nick’s chest rise and fall evenly as he watches him, his hands now clasped together on the gun held out in front of him. He looks eerily… comfortable.

  “Is it yours?” I ask, unable to stop my curiosity.

  “No,” Liam mutters absently as he pulls out a small drawer and flips through plain manila file folders.

  “Is yours in there?”

  “More than likely.”

  “Is mine?”

  Liam’s fingers pause over the labels he’s skipping over. He glares at me over his shoulder. “Would you like me to read every name on every file?”

  “It’s a simple question.”

  “It’s a series of simple questions, each one leading to more.” He turns back to his sifting. “I’ll tell you this and no more: all of our files are in here. What they say, however, will be of little use.”

  “Why?”

  That question was just for fun. Just to piss him off.

  He groans slightly. “Because there’s nothing in them that you don’t already know. Nothing you haven’t already been told.”

  “So then why are you taking one away? What’s in that one that we’re not supposed to see?”

  “There you are,” he whispers to a file as he pulls it out.

  It’s surprisingly thin and unassuming. I don’t know if I expected it to glow or sing a song, like the Sword in the Stone coming out for Arthur, but whatever it was I wanted, I don’t get it.

  When Liam backs away, Nick holds out his left hand. “Give me the key ring.”

  He frowns. “Why? The safe is open.”

  “Give me the key ring,” Nick repeats slowly, like he’s talking to a child.

  “I can’t. There’s a room I need access to before I leave.”

  “Have you ever been there before?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you don’t need a key.”

  Liam pauses, considering. He shifts on his feet. “I told you, pistols make me—”

  In the blink of an eye the gun is gone. There’s a quick click, probably the safety going on, and then it’s nothing but a strange bulge sticking out under the back of Nick’s shirt.

  He holds his empty hands up to Liam. “What pistol?”

  I hold my breath as Liam eyes him. He could come at him, try to take the gun, and get control of the situation. I really have no idea what kind of training Liam has beyond Med and Charm school. Whatever it is, though, I know it’s nothing compared to what Nick has been through. Not much is.

  “Brody Daniels,” Liam says suddenly.

  I blink, surprised and confused. “Who or what is Brody Daniels?”

  He nods to the safe. “You’ll see. Go to him first. Tell him I sent you.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause I’m looking to get shot. Where are the injections? The ones that can make me Slip?”

  He chuckles at me. “The injections are in a locked cabinet in your quarters. You had them with you all along.”

  “You’re the worst,” I snarl at him.

  “Do svidaniya, darling.”

  My blood boils at the Russian phrase, but then my heart is in my throat when Liam’s hand jerks forward. There’s a light jingling before Nick snatches something out of the air in the dark. The keys. I never even saw them, but Nick caught them cleanly.

  I open my mouth to tell Liam to shove it, wishing I could say it in Russian, but then I gag in shock and amazement and not a little bit of fear.

  It’s a strange thing to watch—his disappearance. Partly because a human person pulling a flawless vanishing act is weird to begin with—especially without a cape, wand, or rabbit—but also because it’s something I know I can do. It’s something I’ve done millions of times, but I’ve never seen it. I’ve never known what it looks like to Slip. Not until now.

  It’s hard to see it in the low light of the room, but his body shimmers slightly just for a moment, like heat waves on asphalt. Then he’s gone. Simply and completely gone. It makes my blood run cold as ice in my veins but it also makes me itch with envy.

  Nick blinks, his hand clenched tightly around the keys in his palm. “Was that what I think it was?”

  I nod, feeling suddenly numb. Like I just saw Santa Clause in his underwear and the reality is too much to process. “Yeah. That was Slipping.”

  “We’ve done that.”

  “More than once.”

  “I don’t know if I like it.”

  “Join the club,” I mumble wearily. I nod toward the safe, coming around the desk. “
Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Nick lets me do the honors, probably because it was my bright idea in the first place, but I think it’s also because he’s keeping guard at the door.

  I collapse gracelessly on the floor in front of the dark monster. The inside is smaller than I thought it would be based on the size of the exterior, but I’m guessing that means extra security. Probably bulletproof walls.

  When I pull out the same drawer Liam did, I feel immediately let down. It’s pretty empty, way less information filling it than I thought there’d be. Far less hope. Less help. I guess I was hoping to find a ton of people like us, because maybe then we wouldn’t be such freaks. We would be part of a greater community scattered around the world, and all we would have to do was bring them together to make the world feel a little less lonely.

  Looking down at that nearly empty drawer makes me feel more exhausted and alone than I have since Cara died.

  “What’s wrong?” Nick asks.

  “There aren’t that many.”

  “Were you hoping for more?”

  “Kind of.”

  “You wanted more lives destroyed by this man? That’s what you were hoping for?”

  “No,” I protest, worrying that that’s actually what it equates to. “Maybe. I was hoping for more help.”

  “Help doing what? Bringing down the good doctor?”

  I don’t respond to his joking statement, and he doesn’t laugh when he realizes he’s right.

  “Alex.”

  I look at him hard. “Tell me you’re not already thinking of how you’re going to take care of it alone.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m thinking about keeping you alive. That’s all I’m worried about right now.”

  “What better way to do that than to get rid of the threat?”

  “I will. Not today, but I will. When you’re somewhere safe.”

  I bristle at the idea of being tucked safely away while he goes out and fights for us. It’s not only about him—it’s about me too, and every other person in each one of these files. It doesn’t matter if there are five or fifty. Lives are in this drawer. Lives that may have been ruined. Lives that could be saved.

  “We could do it.” I point to the drawer. “All of us. Together.”

  He points to the outside, toward the guards and the gates. “There are way more of them than there are of us.”

  “But we’re way more of everything than they are. They’re just regular old crazy people. We’re… I don’t know. Superheroes.”

  “Most of these people probably don’t know they have an ability—and if they do, they probably can’t use it very well. Neither can you.”

  I flinch. “Ouch.”

  “A spade is a spade,” he tells me, unaffected.

  “Well you can’t take the whole place down alone. What if there’s someone in here that can really help us? You want to just walk away from that?”

  Nick shrugs, glancing at the doorway. “Grab the files and we’ll find out.”

  I pull them out, quickly checking names as I do. I’m intrigued and annoyed when I see a file for Brody Daniels.

  “He’s actually in here,” I breathe.

  “Who?”

  “Brody. And Liam. And me. Hey, here’s you.” I pull lightly on the tab carrying his name, and I read it aloud. “Nicholas Kian Carver. I like your middle name. It’s different.”

  “It’s old,” he replies seriously. “A family name. It belonged to my great-great-great-great-great-uncle.”

  “He must have been something for your family to keep his name alive for what—over two hundred years?”

  “He was the leader of a clan. He freed them from some kind of slavery or servitude. No one knows anymore.”

  I hug the files tightly to my chest with a crisp crunch as I stand up. “You come from a long line of heroes, Nick.”

  He grins at me briefly. “Stop trying to butter me up. I said we’d talk about looking for others. That’s all you’re getting for now.”

  “I’m just saying more help can’t hurt.”

  “And I’m just saying I’m not worried about finding others half as much as I’m concerned with finding the guy pulling the strings.” Nick pokes his head out the door slowly. “We’re clear, let’s move.”

  I trip through the hall after him. “‘Pulling his strings’? You mean the guy Liam mentioned?”

  “Yeah. Evans isn’t working alone. He’s not even working for himself. He’s being funded.”

  “He said initially it was by the government.”

  “He also said that funding ran out. So who’s holding the purse strings now? Who’s ordering up assassins on the black market? That’s what I have to find out.”

  “And do what?”

  My question is met with a very telling silence.

  “You’ll kill a man?” I ask sadly.

  I don’t know why this bothers me the way it does. Men and women have died here today in the collapsing halls of the clinic and the crushed parking lot outside. They’ve died because of the beast I brought to them. It’s my fault the Jabberwock killed them. But it’s different somehow. Less personal. I can’t imagine hunting a person down, pointing a gun at their head, and pulling that trigger. I couldn’t do it. I’d never do it.

  He takes a slow step toward me. “This is what they made me, Alex. I’m faster than I should be. Smarter. Deadlier. This is what they wanted. This is what I’ll give them.”

  “They could kill you. You can’t do this alone.”

  “I’ll get it done. I’ve pulled the trigger before, Alex. This is no different than my job as a PJ. I’ll get in and get out. It’ll be easy.”

  I feel like I’m falling. Like I’m in the dream with the Jabberwocky after he’s pulled me into the air, pierced my body with his dagger claws, and is dropping me to my death on the hard-packed earth below us. It’s disorienting, painful, and I feel so helpless I want to scream.

  I take a deep breath before nodding stiffly. “Okay.”

  Nick watches me patiently, waiting for me to crack and say more.

  I do not.

  Finally, he turns away. “We have to move.”

  Chapter Three

  Nick

  We get the injections out of the closet no problem. Liam’s key ring holds a lot of small keys similar to the one that opens it up for us, and I wonder what other secrets are hidden here that we could easily get our hands on.

  I keep that thought to myself. I also keep the key ring.

  Alex sits heavily on her bed, where she rolls up her sleeve. “Let’s do it.”

  I hide my surprise, but I feel it. That and reluctance. “You’re sure you’re ready?”

  “No reason to wait. Dr. Evans is probably still in the air somewhere, Liam is off doing something weird. They won’t have had time to send people to my house yet. This is our only shot to get in there.”

  “Unless they have people still in Nebraska. Maybe people watching your parents.”

  “Do you think they do?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  She chews on that for a second. “Then do you think we shouldn’t go?”

  “Probably not, but it’s worth the risk. You’re right: we’ll need money, and they’ll be watching our bank accounts. If you’ve got cash, we need it.”

  “Then why are you stalling?”

  “I’m not.”

  I am. I don’t like this. I don’t want to give her something they created. I definitely don’t want to give her something Liam gave us, and I absolutely don’t want to give her something I’ve been told is heavily addictive.

  “I’m wondering how this is going to work,” I tell her, giving up a half-truth to evade a lie.

  “You stick me with a needle full of Slip and we get up out of here. Simple.”

  “What if you accidentally Slip us to Switzerland?”

  Alex rolls her eyes impatiently. “The odds of that just got way hi
gher. That’s on you.”

  “Noted.” I square my shoulders, far from all right with any of this, but I don’t see another way. And the clock is ticking. “Are you ready?”

  “Have been for the last five minutes. Let’s go.”

  I take a steadying breath before plunging the needle into her skin, finding the vein immediately. She doesn’t make a sound, doesn’t move a muscle. Either she’s incredibly brave or she’s no stranger to needles.

  I think it’s probably both.

  When I pull the needle out, holding a small cotton ball to the injection site, I lie down carefully beside her on the bed. It feels cramped, and my pockets are clinking with the vials I stowed inside them—a lot of them Alex’s serums. Too many of them, in my opinion. More than I’ll ever put into her veins in a lifetime.

  “Now what happens?” I ask as I wrap my arms around her tightly

  She smiles, her face only inches from mine. “Now we wait. We sleep and we wake up anywhere but here.”

  “What about me? I’m not sleeping anytime soon. Does that mean I might not go with you?”

  “I have no idea,” she replies groggily.

  “Not very reassuring.”

  “What’s the matter?” she asks with a lazy grin. “Scared?”

  “That’s hilarious,” I deadpan.

  “Too soon?”

  “Implying there will be a time in the foreseeable future when that will not be a low blow?”

  “Oh, Nick,” she trails off, “lighten up…”

  And she’s gone.

  Just as she’s going, just as the world goes insane around and inside us, I see the picture on the wall—a huge painting of an angry bird bearing down on us, its claws sharp and greedy. I don’t feel fear, but when I see that painting I feel uneasy. Something about it—be it the color or the tone or just the image of a big bird at the end of the bed—sets me on edge. I don’t like it and I seriously doubt Alex, someone who hates birds to begin with, likes it either.

  I don’t have time to worry about it too much.

  Slipping while conscious… It’s definitely something, though I’ll never be able to put into words exactly what it is. My last vestige of fear disappeared with the Jabberwock, so I have no idea if it’s scary. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say that yes, it is. I’m gauging this by whether or not I think I should tell Alex what it’s like. The fact that I decide not to the instant that it happens—that tells me something. It tells me it’s probably freaky.