“I have an L on my hip and a V on my knee,” Cas said.
“I have two Rs and two Es,” Trev said.
When I glanced at Nick, he sent a withering glare my way and I shifted back around.
“Don’t mind him,” Cas said. “He doesn’t know how to spell.”
Trev suppressed a snicker.
“Nick has an I and an E,” Sam said. He flicked on the blinker as he switched lanes and sped past a semitruck.
I ran over the scar letters in my head, counting them. Twelve total. Four boys. That was three letters per boy, if they’d divided them up evenly. But they hadn’t. Trev and Sam had four; Cas and Nick had two. I wished I had a pen to write the letters out. Though I suppose Sam must have already done that a thousand times.
“Could they be a code?”
He shook his head. “Not one I’m familiar with.”
We drove for a while longer before Cas’s complaints of hunger became too much to bear. Sam pulled off at the next freeway exit, following the signs that directed us to the closest gas station. He parked at a gas pump, with the brightly lit store in front of us. The clock in the vehicle’s dashboard said it was ten after seven. The sun had set a good hour before, leaving the sky a drained shade of blue.
Cas was the first one out of the vehicle. He bounded inside.
“Here,” Sam said, handing Trev two twenty-dollar bills. I didn’t want to know where he’d gotten the money. “Put some gas in the truck. Use the rest on food.”
Nick climbed out the back to fill the tank. Trev crammed the money in his pocket and said to me, “Need anything?”
“A bottle of water? Maybe some crackers or something.”
Trev glanced at Sam and Sam nodded.
I unsnapped the seat belt and arched my back, stretching my sore muscles. When I settled back in, the silence settled in next to me. The car’s engine ticked as it cooled. Sam didn’t move an inch. The uneasy quiet slithered along my skin, making me restless, until I couldn’t take it anymore.
“When the boys ask for your permission,” I said, “does it have to do with the gene manipulation?”
“I think so.” The store lights illuminated his profile. This close to him, I could see a tiny bump in the bridge of his nose, like it’d been broken before.
“Are you the leader or something?” I asked, remembering the term alpha from his file.
“In a sense.”
“What exactly did the alterations do? Do you even know?”
He looked away, toward the far edge of the parking lot, and a sigh escaped his lips. “It made me something more than human, but I can’t know how, exactly, until I know who I was before.”
“And you think the address my dad gave you is a start to finding your past?”
“Yes.”
Through the store windows, I watched Cas and Trev approach the counter and drop armfuls of junk in front of the register. Cas threw in some jerky for good measure before turning his attention to us, in the car. I could also feel Nick watching us from the gas pump. They could tell Sam was uncomfortable.
“You’re all connected,” I said, realizing it only then. “It’s like you know what the others are feeling without actually saying anything.”
It reminded me of when Sam and I first started playing chess. He’d fed me tips every now and then because I knew absolutely nothing. He was a genius when it came to strategy.
“It isn’t just about the game,” he’d said to me one night in the dead of December. That was long before I had permission to be down there, and every breath I took felt amplified in the lab, as if the sound of it would travel through the vents and wake my dad.
“The pieces are only a small part,” Sam went on. “You have to know your opponent, too. Study them when they’re calculating their next move. Sometimes you can tell where they’re going before even they know.”
I smirked. “That’s not true.”
He draped an arm over the back of his chair. “Then try me.”
“I always lose. It’s hard to prove you’re right when we have nothing to compare it to.”
A sliver of a laugh had escaped him. “All right. I suppose you have me there.”
I looked at him now, his eyes hooded in shadow. He’d always been good at reading me. Better than I was at reading him. But now I wondered if it had more to do with the alterations than with reading facial expressions. Or knowing me in a way that was important, a way that made us friends.
I wanted to ask if he could sense what I was feeling, especially now, but deep down I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to suffer the embarrassment.
“What is it like? The connection. How does it work?”
He propped an elbow on the arm rest of the door. “It seems to be based on instinct, and it is hardest to ignore when one of us is uneasy or in trouble. I usually felt something when you drew blood from the others, like I needed to be there to protect them, whether I liked it or not. It’s hard focusing on what I want to do when I have to think about everyone else. Ultimately, the decisions I make have to be what’s best for the group.”
He’d used me all those years, knowing that eventually my trust would aid him in their escape. As much as it hurt to know this, I could see the logic. I could see how far down his need to protect the others reached. And it was because of the alterations that had been programmed into him. He had no choice.
“And now?” I said. “Who are you thinking about now?”
He parted his lips and I stilled, wanting to hear his answer more than anything. I wanted to know if I was under his protection. Though if I was, I wasn’t sure what that meant for me, or even how it would make me feel.
Mostly I wanted to know if he thought of me at all.
Just then Cas bounded up to the SUV. “Sweet Baby Jesus, look what I found!” He slammed into my door with a gigantic grin on his face and held up a package of Twinkies. “See?”
I laughed. “I see.” I turned back to Sam as he started the car. “What were you going to say?”
“Nothing.”
The boys climbed in back. The radio cut in, playing the pop music Cas loved, and I could see Sam shutting down again.
Maybe he wouldn’t have answered, anyway.
As we traveled farther south, I flipped through my mother’s journal, trying to pass the time, even though I had memorized the entries a long time ago.
I drew my fingers over the slant of her writing, the pen’s indentation a leftover piece of her.
Went to the lake today. It was nice getting away from work.
Lately, I feel less connected to what I’m doing.
What would they do if I left?
Dad had told me that she used to work for a medical company.
I flipped to the last page she wrote on, a few dozen pages from the back.
I am quitting. For good. I have to believe in what my heart is
telling me, and it’s telling me to go. I am both scared and happy.
I am liberated.
“Turn right,” the navigation system intoned. “In. One. Point. Two. Miles.”
Sam turned as instructed.
There weren’t many houses on Holicer Lane. As we drove the road climbed higher, winding back and forth like a snake. Trees hung over the street, creating a tunnel that darkened the night. The vehicle’s headlights caught reflective tape on the next house’s mailbox, and it shone metallic yellow as we passed.
I read the address: 4332.
“Turn left,” the navigation said a few minutes later. “You have reached your destination.”
Sam stopped in the middle of the street. The house we were looking for was dead and black. Not a single light blazed in the windows. The driveway was empty, the garage door shut tight. An old Jeep sat beside the garage, but the grass around the tires was tall, like the Jeep hadn’t been moved in a while.
Our vehicle idled, the engine the only sound between the five of us.
“Now what?” Trev said.
Sam pulled
into the stub of a driveway and left the car running. Just in case. He didn’t have to say it for me to know the line of his thoughts. Maybe this wasn’t a safe house after all. Maybe my dad had set him up.
“Stay in the car,” he said.
“It’s empty,” I said. “The house.”
He leaned out the open door and threw a look over his shoulder at me. “How do you know?”
I didn’t. I didn’t even know why I’d said anything. But instinct told me it was empty. “I’m not sitting in the car.”
As if my stubbornness gave him an excuse, Cas bounded out of the vehicle. “Yeah, dude. We’ve been driving for an eternity. Time to stretch the gluteus.”
Sam shut the SUV off and started for the house.
The boys and I followed.
The house was a plain two-story with little character and even less paint. The shadows deepened beneath the flakes still clinging to the old wood siding. A rickety screen door had been propped open by a rusty milk can, the screen torn in one corner.
Sam tried the inside door, and it popped open without complaint. We filed into a laundry room. The scent of soap hung in the air. Sam slid his gun out from beneath his flannel shirt.
Farther in, a dining room chair lay on its back. A cupboard door stood open, like someone had rummaged through it and hadn’t the time to slam it shut. The hair at the nape of my neck bristled. The floor creaked beneath our feet. A faucet dripped in the kitchen and an old grandfather clock ticked in the hall.
I rounded a corner into the living room. Sam went down a hallway. Cas shadowed me, while Nick disappeared with Trev to the back of the house.
“What do you think happened here?” I asked.
A half-full cup of tea sat on an end table next to an easy chair. A stack of magazines had been knocked over and fanned out like cards across the coffee table. A folded newspaper lay on the floor. I checked the date: yesterday.
“I don’t know,” Cas said. “If this was a safe house, it isn’t anymore.”
A sticky note had been stuck to an end table right next to a cordless phone. I ripped it from the glass top and instantly went numb.
The writing. A tight, cursive slant. I knew that writing.
Check in with P @ 6PM
I returned the note to its spot on the table and inhaled deeply. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t.
I started for the kitchen but froze when I passed a collection of art on the wall above the couch. My skin prickled. The framed piece at the far right was a watercolor painting of the birch trees tattooed on Sam’s back.
“What is it?” Cas asked.
“That’s Sam’s tattoo,” I said, realizing Cas probably hadn’t seen the real thing, since the boys had never been allowed out of their rooms.
I snatched the frame from the wall and inspected the back. It was sealed on all sides.
Cas gestured at the end table. “Smash it.”
“But…” I wasn’t sure what stopped me. There was no one here, and this was clearly a clue. But breaking something that wasn’t mine seemed wrong.
“Fine.” Cas grabbed the painting. “I’ll do it.”
With one swift move, he whacked the frame against the edge of the table and the glass shattered. The picture slid out, and with it a note. The crisp half sheet of paper fluttered toward the floor and I plucked it from the air as the others clustered behind us.
“What happened?” Trev asked. “We shouldn’t touch anything, just in case.”
“Anna found something.” Cas nudged me, like we were teammates who’d scored a goal together. “So, what’s it say?”
I ran my eyes over the note and gasped.
9
A FEW HOURS EARLIER, I’D RUN MY fingers over the familiar words written by my mother in her journal. Here, now, were new words, foreign words that I hadn’t memorized but were eerily similar. It looked like her handwriting.
“Anna?” The look Sam gave me—pinched brow, pursed lips—said he knew something was wrong. So I started reading aloud, purposefully dodging the questions before he had a chance to ask them.
“ ‘Sam, if you’re reading this, it means I’m not there to give you the message myself. And if I’m not there, that must mean I’m either dead or I had to leave in a hurry.
“ ‘Since I am not there, I will give you the key you gave me. You’ll need a UV light. There’s one in the kitchen. First drawer on the right.’ ”
I met Sam’s eyes. “That’s it.”
As he reached for the note, a car turned into the driveway, the glare of its headlights shining through the front window curtains, illuminating us. There was a split second when no one moved. And then everyone moved but me.
A car door shut. “Mrs. Tucker?” someone called. “You home?”
I hurried after Sam, keeping my steps light, silent.
A knock sounded on the door. “Mrs. Tucker? Chancy said you didn’t show for tonight’s potluck.”
I poked my head into the kitchen. Sam hid inside the laundry room doorway, the overturned chair now in his hands, hoisted over his shoulder. Blood rushed through my ears as the back door creaked open.
I caught movement inside the bathroom. Nick, crouching, ready to strike. My mouth went dry.
“Mrs. Tucker? You in here?” the man said, his voice now on edge. He made slow progress through the laundry room, up the one step to the kitchen, and then: “Hands up!”
Sam swung the chair. It exploded when it hit the man, slivers plinking against the floor. A gun smacked against the countertop, then dropped to the floor. It wasn’t Sam’s. It was the man’s gun—the cop’s gun.
The cop sank to his knees. Blood ran from the split flesh on his forehead. He scrambled for the gun, now lying four feet behind him, as Nick stepped out of the bathroom brandishing a metal wastebasket. He positioned it low to the ground, cocked back like a golf club, aiming for the cop’s head.
“Stop!”
Nick froze mid-stride and frowned at me.
“He’s a cop,” I blurted. Like that somehow explained it.
“So?”
The man spat blood onto the floor, then wiped the excess from the corner of his mouth.
“He’s innocent.”
“We don’t know that,” Nick countered.
Cas popped up behind me. “Clear outside,” he said, and Sam gave a definitive nod. Where was Trev?
“Trust no one,” Nick argued, still holding the wastebasket like a weapon. A lock of hair fell across his forehead.
Sam grabbed the cop by the collar of his jacket and hauled the man to his feet. He slammed him into the fridge, pinning him in place. The man grimaced.
“What are you doing here?” Sam bit the words out.
“I came to check on Mrs. Tucker.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t show up to the town potluck.” The man looked from Sam to me, and then back to Sam. “Never misses one without letting someone know.”
If Mrs. Tucker was the woman Dad had sent us to, and she was gone, had Connor gotten to her? Was she somehow connected to the Branch?
Trev came through a side door. “I didn’t see anything down the street. No stakeouts.” Sweat glistened on his forehead.
Nick tossed the wastebasket into the bathroom. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“I don’t usually side with Ol’ Crotchety Pants,” Cas said, “but I’m on board with that.”
Sam’s grip on the cop loosened. “Someone grab the UV light. And see if one of you can find a set of keys for the Jeep by the garage.”
Cas went to the row of keys hanging from separate hooks near the door. Trev squeezed past me and tugged open the first drawer in search of the light. He pulled out a small box and checked its contents. “Got it.”
Cas shook a set of keys. “I’ll see if I can get the Jeep started.” He disappeared outside.
The cop slumped against the fridge. He wasn’t very old. Mid-twenties, maybe. Buzz-cut hair, like Sam’s, except the cop was blond, tan, and slig
ht in build, whereas Sam was tall and broad-shouldered.
“We don’t know Mrs. Tucker,” Sam said, “and we didn’t come here intending to hurt anyone. We’re going to walk out of here, and you’re not going to follow.”
The cop acknowledged the order with a slow nod, and Sam let him go. Trev and Nick made their way to the door. Sam motioned me forward. I sidestepped the pile of splinters, skirting around the cop. As I passed he reached for me, but Sam was quicker.
Sam snatched the man’s wrist, threw a punch. The cop crashed to the floor with a howl.
“Go,” Sam said, pushing me through the laundry room. Out the door. Down the driveway. “Get your mother’s journal.”
I grabbed it from the SUV while Cas wheeled the Jeep around.
Sam popped the hood of the cop car and yanked at the hoses; something hissed in return. Nick tore out the computer, smashed the radio.
Trev slid into the Jeep as Cas abandoned the driver’s seat for Sam. I climbed into the passenger side.
Five seconds later, Sam was behind the Jeep’s wheel. He tore through the yard, kicking up clumps of grass with the spin of the tires. When we were out of the hills, far away from the house, he slammed on the brakes.
I braced myself with a hand on the dash. Trev hit the backside of my seat with an umph. A cloud of dust swirled past us, dancing in the glare of the headlights.
“What the hell?” Nick said.
Sam twisted sideways. He leaned toward me and I took a shuddering breath. “What aren’t you telling me about the note?”
My mouth went dry. “Nothing.”
“Don’t play dumb.”
I couldn’t tell him what I thought I saw, that the writing was similar to my mother’s. I was too tired, too stressed. I was seeing things.
“I’m not playing anything.”
I wiped any shred of emotion from my face as Sam analyzed me. Before I knew what he was doing, he had my mother’s journal open in his lap, the note spread out over its pages. I scrambled for it, but he pushed me away.
Now he would see how crazy I was. He would know I saw my mother where she couldn’t possibly be. It was wishful thinking.
Altered Page 6