by Tracey Ward
“Did either of them mature?” Nick asks.
Campbell shakes his head. “I can’t tell for sure. Doesn’t look like Fry did. She was supposed to be able to manage telekinesis, but instead of moving things with her mind she could only make them implode.”
“Seriously?”
“No joke. It sounds pretty pimp but she does it on a small scale. Nothing major. It’s more of a parlor trick than anything else.”
“What about Beck?”
“All his file references is strength—and ambiguously, at that. He was in the super soldier thing you were in, but no mention of maturity.”
“We’ll visit Fry first,” Nick says, munching thoughtfully on a piece of cheese. “Beck could be dangerous.”
“Brody said he was cool,” I protest.
“No,” Brody counters softly, appearing in the doorway, making my heart leap into my throat. “I said he wasn’t as likely as the others to kill you on sight.”
“How do you do that?” I gasp.
“Do what?”
“Creep so silently.”
“Practice.”
“His hearing is easily four times stronger than ours,” Nick explains. “If he can manage quiet to him, it’s silent to us.”
“Plus you weren’t listening. You should always be listening,” Brody advises.
“Listening for what, exactly?” I ask.
“Cars rolling slowly. Animals acting strangely. People eating Fritos in your front yard.”
And busted.
“That’s how you knew we were there?” I ask, feeling stupid. I knew what his ability was. I should have known better.
“That and you were talking at full volume. It was like you were here in the living room with me.” He steps inside the kitchen to take a piece of the cheese. “So you’re going to give Kim a visit, huh?”
“We’re going to try,” Campbell tells him. “You think she’ll be cool?”
“I have no idea,” he replies, reaching for another piece of cheese. “Never met her.”
I block his hand, meeting his eyes hard. “Then why would you recommend her?”
“I didn’t. I recommended that you don’t visit anyone, remember? I gave you a list of who was a definite death sentence. Kimberly and Marcus are the only ones I’m not sure about.”
“Did you ever meet Marcus?”
“A few times.”
“So he matured?” Nick asks.
Brody bobs his head back and forth in a noncommittal gesture. “Eh, kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“Just don’t shake his hand.”
“He’s not in total control then,” I clarify.
“He gets excited easily. When he gets excited he gets a little… careless. He’s a good guy—at least he was when we were kids. They put the wrong ability in the wrong hands with him, that’s all.”
“Are you sure you won’t go with us?” I ask, feeling a little like I’m begging and not really caring.
We just met him, but I feel better being here with Brody—like we’re not grasping at straws and shooting blindly into the dark at some nameless, faceless monster trying to kill us. Someone has answers and they’re sharing them, and it’s exactly the feeling I was looking for—family. True, it’s a weird, jacked-up family we’re all part of, but we’re still part of it. Even James, with his hands and his anger, helped me. Feeling his vibrations in the air gave me a hint at what it really feels like to Slip. It helped me recognize it when the serums sent me into it, to find it and hold onto it. To make it happen on my own. It’s too new and I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it again, but every fiber of my being wants to try. I’m itching to do it right now, to Slip from this room to the store down the road and then back again. All in the blink of an eye. Just because I can.
But it’s that itch that stops me. I won’t scratch it just to make the feeling stop. I won’t do it again until I have a reason to, because I finally feel like the scales have tipped and I’m gaining the upper hand over it. I’m not about to lose that footing. Not to a fix. To a feeling. I’m stronger than that; and it wasn’t until Nick that I knew it, believed it, so that’s where I go now. I look at him and his serious face and his brilliant green eyes, and I remind myself of the pure, unwavering faith that this very confident guy has in me.
“Nope,” Brody answers plainly. “You all are running right into a fight I have no interest in getting involved in. I wish you luck, but no way I’m going with you.”
“They know where you are,” I remind him. “They found you once, they’ll find you again.”
“I don’t care if they know about me, so long as they don’t try to lock me up again. They left me alone for years before and they’ll do it again, but not if I don’t get away from you.”
“They might already know we’re here. It was Liam that told us to come to you.”
Brody grins sadly, making a tsk sound through his teeth. “I would love to have a talk with him about why he did that, but I hope I never get the chance.”
“Maybe if you—”
“Shhh,” Brody hisses suddenly. His eyes go distant, focusing on something far off, far outside this room. Something in the darkness outside. “Did you hear that?”
“Not likely,” Campbell breathes.
“What i—” I begin.
Brody puts a large hand in my face, silencing me.
I bite my tongue against the annoyance building inside. I turn a questioning eye to Nick, but he shrugs. Whatever it is, he didn’t hear it either.
“There it is again,” Brody whispers. “I think it…”
He doesn’t finish. He lets his thought trail off, and I don’t know for sure if it’s true silence or if he’s speaking at a level only he and dogs can hear. Then suddenly he’s in motion. He’s tearing through the hallway from the kitchen to the living room until his nose is pressed to the glass. Before any of us can make it into the room, he’s out again. He’s on the stairs, his rushed feet making a shockingly small amount of noise on the old floorboards. A door creaks open, there’s a screech from above across the hardwood, then a jingling of keys.
“He’s unlocking something,” I whisper, staring up at the ceiling as though I can see through it.
“Gun cabinet,” Nick guesses.
Campbell nods in curt agreement. “His shotgun is on the mantle. He’s looking for something bigger.”
“Which means it’s time to go.”
“We can’t just leave him,” I argue.
“You heard him,” Campbell counters seriously. “He doesn’t want to go with us.”
“But if it’s Dr. Evans out there it’s our fault that he’s here. We led them right to him. We can’t just abandon him.”
Brody’s soft tread beats down the stairs. He glances into the kitchen, his brown pinching when he sees us. “Are you idiots still here?”
“That was up for debate,” Nick answers absently. He’s eyeing the rifle in Brody’s hand. I’m no expert on guns, but I recognize the scope on top. Whatever this thing is, it has range.
“How close are they?” I ask him.
“Too close for my liking,” he replies before using the butt of the gun to smash out the window.
I stifle a scream as my body jolts in surprise.
Nick comes to stand beside me, his hand warm and calming on my lower back. “Debate over. We’re out of here.”
“But what about Brody?” I whisper urgently.
“Don’t worry about Brody,” Brody answers. His back is to us, his knee on the floor, and the rifle resting on the window sill in front of him. “He’s going to be just fine.”
He fires a shot before promptly pulling back the hammer, prepping for another. His eye barely leaves the scope and the motions are so violent but fluid that it looks as natural to him as walking.
“Did you hit someone?” I ask warily.
“No. It was a warning shot. I put a hole in the gas tank of their truck.”
“Shouldn’t that have made it expl
ode?”
“Only if this were a Michael Bay film,” Campbell tells me.
Brody goes still with his eye pressed to the scope. “That hole should vent fumes from the gas into the air around the truck. Not a lot, but hopefully enough…”
He fires another shot, making me jump again.
Nothing happens. I wait breathlessly for a decision to be made. For us to run, for another shot to fire, for a return shot to burst through the broken window and tear through my body. But there’s nothing. Only silence and stress.
“Incendiary round firing…” Brody breathes, his voice so quiet I’m not a hundred percent sure I really heard it. It makes me tense even more, the waiting killing me inside. “Now.”
It feels like it happens all at once. Like the gunshot goes off, Brody rises, Nick grabs my arm, Campbell bolts for the back door, and a burst of orange fire and black smoke erupts in the distant darkness. I’m stunned by the violence of the explosion and the sudden rush in the room that was so still just a heartbeat ago.
It’s not until the cold, outside air hits my face that I catch up with the world. I shake off Nick’s hand on my arm and sprint beside him at full speed. The wind rushes through my ears along with my blood, thrown into overdrive by my screaming heart, and I feel deaf and blind as I run. All I can see is the ground about a foot in front of me, Campbell ahead of me, and I feel Nick beside me more than anything. Even at my best and fastest, rushing on adrenaline and fear, Nick could still outrun me. He holds back to keep pace, though, as we run wildly through the night behind Campbell. I want to turn to look for Brody, to see if he followed us out, but I’m worried I’ll trip over a raccoon or a twig so I keep my eyes forward and I pump with all the strength I have in my legs.
There’s a black mass looming ahead of us. If I didn’t know any better I’d say it was The Void. The cold snap in the air and the fear choking my lungs gives me that horrible nightmare feeling. It reminds me of being in the clinic. Of the nightmares that came at me again and again. I try not to think about them the same way I don’t think about Russia, but it all creeps in now and then, and right now I’m vividly reminded of a dream about nothing. Of being in the dark and the cold. Being alone. Being scared.
Being no one.
There’s a sharp pinch in the back of my leg. I cry out in surprise and pain, my step faltering. It feels like a bite, and I have the terrible thought that they unleashed dogs on us, but then there’s another in my shoulder. It hurts worse than my leg and I stumble in pain, falling on my hands and knees in the dry grass and coarse dirt.
“Alex!” Nick calls.
He’s coming back for me. I want to shout to him to keep going. I try to stand up so I can run, so he can run, so we can all get out of here before they tie us up and shove us in a van bound for superpeople jail, but I can’t speak. I feel sick and woozy, like the world is spinning around me. I can’t run, I can’t be anything but dead weight to him that will slow him down and get him caught, so I try to escape the only other way I know how.
I try to Slip. I reach out for the familiar feel of the hum in my blood but I can’t find it in time. I’m spinning too hard. My face is rushing toward the ground.
The last thing I hear before I collapse is my name on the wind and the crack of a gun nearby.
Chapter Thirteen
Nick
“Is she hit?!” Brody shouts.
He’s running through the field heading toward us. Up ahead Campbell has stopped, his gun in his hands, fixed on the back of the farmhouse. His sharp eyes are scanning the area, focusing hard on the lit house behind Brody and the burning pyre in the distance beyond it.
I slide to my knees over the rough ground next to Alex. I don’t for a second think she’s shot. She went down strangely, falling in staggered degrees to the ground, moaning and mumbling incoherently as she went. More like she was passing out.
When I skim my hands over her body and find the tail of a tranq dart, I’m not surprised. Angry, but not surprised.
“She’s not shot,” I tell them. “But she is down.”
Brody is next to us, his breathing labored. He’s obviously been practicing with that gun, but cardio was clearly not on the rotation. I hope he can run faster and farther than this if he wants to avoid being picked up by these people.
“What’d they hit her with?”
“Tranquilizer dart.” My hands run over her legs one at a time, pausing when they snag on another tail. “Two of them,” I growl.
I yank them out of her body and toss them across the ground. When I flip her over, her body rolls like she’s dead. Her arms flop to the side, her head lolls carelessly, splaying her dark hair over the ground. She’s out hard.
It worries me. I wonder if she’ll Slip—and if she does, where will she go? I told her I’d find her anywhere she went, but it’d be easier if I didn’t have to. It’d be better if she stayed with me.
“Is she critical?” Campbell asks, his tone clipped.
I sit back on my heels. “No. Just unconscious.”
“Then pick her up and let’s roll. That guy won’t be the only one with a tranq gun, and I only have four bullets left.”
I go to wrap my arms under her shoulders and legs, but Brody stops me.
He has his rifle strapped to his back, both of his hands empty. “I got her. You and Campbell cover us.”
“I can carry her.”
“But I can carry her longer and you have a pistol. This rifle ain’t easy to fire on the fly.” He picks her up easily, her lifeless limbs dangling at disturbing angles. “No time to argue about it.”
“They’re coming,” Campbell pushes.
I fall in step behind Brody, covering his back and cargo. “We’re gone.”
We head into the trees, deep into the tight, dark branches that scratch at our clothes and skin. They grab us, trying to slow us down, but they also hide us. I don’t ask Brody where we’re going. I follow his silent footfalls over logs and moss-covered rocks, through thick brush and into a cold stream. He’s been ready for this every day for most of his life. I have no doubt he has a plan.
Besides, he has my girl. I don’t care where he’s going; I’ll follow him anywhere.
“Are they still with us?” Campbell whispers to Brody.
I watch his tall figure pause in the near perfect darkness. He hesitates only a second before picking up the pace again, his head bobbing up and down sharply.
We go at least four miles, and I take back my judgment on Brody and his cardio. He carries Alex the whole way without slowing. His upper body strength is beyond mine, that’s for sure, and without his enhanced vision we would never be able to navigate these woods this quickly. Unless the people following us brought someone with them that’s part wolf, we should make it out of here tonight.
An hour later we burst into a small clearing beside an overgrown dirt road. Grass grows high on the left and right of the worn tracks and everywhere in between. Sitting at the end of the road, looking like a lawn ornament from Alabama, is a rusted, beaten truck. It’s small, with a single cab and a short bed, but if it runs it’s all we need.
Brody lays Alex down gently in the bed of the truck as I jump in beside her. Campbell leaps into the cab.
“Thanks, man,” I mumble quietly to Brody’s dark, sweat-soaked face.
He nods as he stretches his arms over his head briefly, his back cracking audibly. “No problem.” He frowns suddenly when he looks inside the truck. “Campbell, what are you doing in there?”
“Hotwiring the car.”
“I have the keys.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” he asks impatiently.
Brody shoves Campbell aside as he climbs into the driver’s seat. “We’ve got a man down—or didn’t you notice?”
“Pfft,” he snorts. “Carver has her, believe me. Besides, she’s Charlie at best.”
“What’s Charlie?”
“It means she’s not critically injured,” I answer through the busted-out back w
indow. “She’ll be fine.”
As long as she doesn’t Slip away.
The little truck roars to life, the sound of the neglected engine echoing loud and angry through the trees. Whatever lead we had on our pursuers may have just withered up and died in the cloud of oily smoke pouring out our tailpipe.
Brody throws the small beast into gear and we’re gone, bouncing down the rough road at easily forty miles per hour.
And he’s doing it without headlights.
“You can see, right?” Campbell asks nervously.
Anxiety is a strange color on him. For some reason it makes me grin hearing him sweat.
“Better than you can in perfect daylight,” Brody assures him. He cranks the wheel, sending us sideways through a corner no one but him and the Cheshire Cat saw coming. “You might want to buckle your seatbelt.”
Campbell looks down. “There is no seatbelt.”
“Then you might want to shut up and hold on.”
Surprisingly, he does.
I do too. I get down low, lying in the bed of the truck beside Alex so I can hold onto her better—keep her from flying out or bouncing off the bed walls like a pinball. I wrap my arms around her tightly. I keep her warm with my body, protected with my strength, and as her hair whips around my face smelling like hay, pine, and strawberries, I whisper over and over in her ear to wait for me. To stay with me.
∞
An hour passes before we leave the forest. An hour before we see something other than black tree trunks flying past us like mile markers to the morgue at a solid fifty miles an hour. Before we pull off the rut road to merge onto a back country highway.
It’s another hour before Alex starts to wake up.
I held onto her the entire time, and it reminded me of the first night I knew she was real—the night in the hotel in Colorado when everything changed.
She blinks her eyes against the wind whipping around us tucked in the back of the truck, her hair flying across her face and making her flinch. “Where are we?” she asks groggily.
“Still in Oregon, but we can’t be in Salem anymore.”