by Tracey Ward
He lost his mom when he was young. His dad turned his sister into a vegetable, then he experimented on Liam until he was nearly broken, blaming Liam for every failure. He kept Liam in his shadow. Kept him leashed by caging his sister. And when he pushed him too far, threatening to kill the only thing left on this earth that Liam ever loved, he snapped. He killed his own father, and now he has to live with the legacy of madness the good doctor left behind.
With the exception of Campbell, none of us have had it easy, but Liam has definitely had it harder than most, and every knife he put in our backs, every lie he told, was for his sister. I’m not saying I condone it, but I understand it because what has he done that I wouldn’t do for Alex?
“What does she do for you now?” Brody asks Liam, mercifully changing the subject.
Liam frowns, lifting his eyes. “She’s one of my security, though that will be changing soon.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s not good at it,” Justin replies honestly. “I’m the other half of the team, and even though I die on the regular, I’m still better at my job than she is.”
“What does that mean?” Campbell insists irritably, desperate for answers. Excited as a kid on Christmas about this new, mysterious ‘skill’ Justin has. “Are you a zombie? A cyborg zombie?”
Beck kicks his stall open. He kicks it a little too hard, never totally in control of his strength. It bangs against the wall next to him, knocking a chip of white tile to the floor like a bit of tooth off a prize fighter.
He looks hard at Justin. “Are you dangerous?”
I smile down at him proudly. Dude’s always on the lookout for threats to squash. It’s why I wanted him on Alex’s team when we split up. He’s a pussycat in general, but when it comes to her and her safety, he’s a lion guarding his cub.
“Not as much as some,” Liam answers slowly, eyeing the hole in the wall before taking in Beck’s sweat soaked face. His arm looped around the back of the toilet seat like he’s moving in on a girl at the movies. “Are you still ill from the Slip?”
“He has the flu,” Alex answers, her voice thick with sympathy. “He’s been sick for three days.”
“Headache? Ear pain? Pressure? Congestion?”
“All of the above,” Beck mumbles.
“I’ll get you a Zpack. You’ll feel right as rain in a day or so.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“Of course.”
Brody crosses his arms over his chest, eyeing his old friend closely. “You brought us here with you and you say you’re changin’ your guard. Does that mean you want us to stay?”
Liam nods. “I do, yes. As I told Fry, and I’m sure you heard, there’s safety in numbers. They’ve found us. They’re coming for us. We’re safer together than separated.”
“But are we safe here?” I challenge. “They know about this place, right? It was a major part of your dad’s operation while he was working for Sandrine, and she said there were others. Her buyers Andre and Gustav. Do you know who they are or where we can find them? Are they the only ones or are there more of them? How many heads does this Hydra have?”
“You have a lot of questions.”
“I always do. But for once, I get the feeling you don’t have many of the answers I want.”
He shakes his head minutely. “Next to none.”
“Then we’ll find someone who does.”
“How do you propose we do that?”
“We go back to the house in Mullion,” Campbell answers, picking up exactly what I’m thinking.
Liam laughs at the absurdity. “Are you mad? You just escaped and you plan to go back?”
“It’s the only way to take the fight to them,” I explain. “If we go back tonight, they’ll be searching the place, looking for leads on where we’ve gone. We can get the drop on them. Snag one of their people, Slip them out of there, get our answers.”
“You can’t bring them back here.”
“No, of course not. They can’t know we’re here.”
“Assuming they don’t already,” Alex points out, looking at Liam suspiciously. “You never answered Nick. Why did you come back here? Don’t they know about this place?”
“Sandrine’s people did. She was funding my father. The guards who were here were hers. But they’re all gone now. Dead on the other island at the hands of the monster or defected after you unleashed your dragon and dropped the bird from the sky. We didn’t have many men left after that.”
“Enough to take the bird apart,” I point out meaningfully.
I’m not letting that go. I want a piece of that bird. Bad.
Liam looks at me with persistent patience, refusing to rise to the bait of the topic. He won’t tell me where the pieces of the bird are stored, and it feels strangely good that he’s withholding something from me. It’s familiar. It gives me a place to start digging.
“I came back here as a last resort,” he continues, answering Alex’s second question. “With my home in Belfast overrun, I had nowhere else to go. I kept this place in my back pocket as a last resort, and now that I’ve been forced to use it, I’m appealing to you to help me keep it. I’ve no more ground to give. If they take this from me, they’ve taken everything, and I’ll never be able to help anyone hurt by my father.”
“Is that what you’re doin’?” Brody prods. “You’re tryin’ to help people?”
“Everyone in my care has an ability that is of little use to them or implicitly hurtful. What I do is try to help them control the power and take control of their life. It’s a therapy of sorts.”
“That’s nice of you,” Alex mumbles, genuinely surprised.
Liam shakes his head. “I stood behind my father while he experimented on child after child. I could have, should have, stopped him sooner, but I didn’t because I was afraid of what would happen to Naomi. Whatever it is I’m doing, I’m doing it for selfish reasons. It’s a cleansing of my own soul. Nothing noble.”
“I never said you were noble. I said you were nice.”
“I’m not even that.”
“Take it easy on the self-loathing,” Alex warns with a small smile. “If you go all emo on us, there’s no way we’re sticking around.”
“You will stay then?”
“For now,” I reply curtly, meeting Alex’s eye. “At least until we figure out what our next move is.”
“After we make a run back home and clean house,” Campbell adds.
“Right. We can manage that with just you, Alex, and I. Beck and Brody, you stay here and go to the meet and greet. Find out what we’re working with here. Get a read on what abilities people have. Who wants to kill who. General first day, new kid in school stuff. Break the ice with Fry without Alex there. Be charming, if you can be.”
Brody grins. “Brother, I’m Southern. I was born charmin’.”
“I’m counting on that, because Campbell and I are not.”
Campbell scoffs. “I’m charming.”
“You’re relentless,” Alex corrects him. “You wear people down, not win them over.”
“If my success rate is high, what does it matter how I got there?”
“Maybe you should hang back with Liam. Hear more about this whole cleansing the soul thing.”
“Trust me, SB. We don’t have the time it would take to scrub me clean. I’m a very dirty boy.”
“Gross.”
“Can I go with you?” Justin asks me hopefully.
I look him over. He’s not packing, not that I can see. Not a gun. Not a knife. Not even a flashlight. What kind of security is Liam running here?
“Can you handle yourself?” I ask him.
“Better than you’d think.”
“I’m not giving you a gun. No offense, man, but we just met you. I don’t trust putting a pistol in your hand yet.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know how to shoot one anyway.”
“Does Fry have a gun?”
“No one here does.”
I look at Liam i
mpatiently. “I know you’ve got hang-ups, but that’s insane. If we’re going to be here, anyone in security is carrying a gun. No negotiations.”
Liam nods in deference. “I leave it to you. All of security will be under your direction.”
That takes me back a step. He’s willing to put me in charge of keeping him safe. Of keeping his sister safe. That’s a huge pass of power, one I wasn’t ready for. I don’t know that he is either. “You really are desperate, aren’t you?”
Liam nods to the outside; to the massive mountain behind him. “My back is quite literally to the wall.”
CHAPTER SIX
ALEX
Marcus and Brody go with Liam to meet the rest of his people while Nick, Campbell, Justin, and I form a circle, hold hands, and get ready to rip through time together.
I lift an eyebrow at Justin. “How do you handle Slipping?”
He looks confused. “What’s Slipping?”
“What Liam does. What I can do.”
“Oh, right, yeah. I’m cool with it?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“I think I’m asking. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Does it make you sick?” Nick clarifies for me.
Justin shakes his head. “No. Never.”
He smirks knowingly. “That might be about to change.”
“Huh?”
No one has time to answer him. I’m already humming, pulling from deep inside myself to find that low vibration that’s always there. To pop the cork on the champagne bottle of my power.
We leave the island by degrees. I watch it fade from everything to something to nothing, then we’re flying. Gliding. Spinning. Bursting and bubbling until we’re landing. Until the cottage comes into sight along with the hillside behind it, my heart rushing in my chest happily with the thrill of the Slip. The ocean on the other side of the hill is rushing in my ears along with my blood, like wind off a bird’s wings. I feel the soggy squish of mud under my feet. The sticky, humid air against my skin. It doesn’t smell like the ocean like it’s supposed to. The heavy scent of copper still hangs in the air, along with something else. It’s a smell I can’t place, but if I had to name it, I’d say it’s the saccharine scent of death. Of something rotting in the mid-morning sun.
Probably the gazillion gallons of O-negative Nick poured down from the sky.
Justin lets go of me, immediately falling to his knees on the grass. In the mud that looks like red clay. He heaves violently, the splat of his breakfast loud in the quiet of the countryside.
I’ve brought us in behind a grove of trees on a neighbor’s property. We’re hidden from the cottage. Maybe a half-mile away. Nick and Campbell are quick to go to the trees, guns holstered but always close at hand. Campbell pulls a thin scope from his belt, aiming it at the house.
“The trucks are gone,” he mutters, his face scrunched up as he squints into the scope. “The windows are dark. No movement.”
“Do you think they’re gone?” I ask anxiously. I’m worried we missed our window. Getting answers is going to be a lot harder if we don’t have anyone to interrogate. We’ll need to go on the defensive again, and I’d really rather not. I want my life back. I want to live on the same schedule as Nick. I want to get a job. I want to drive a car and have a real relationship. I want to marry my love, have babies, and hold them without worrying someone will steal them from me.
I’ve never said any of this to Nick before. I’m scared to. We’ve never said a word to each other about children before, and the only thing worse than not being able to have what I want, is finding out he doesn’t want it at all. It’s a truth I’m not ready for. Not today. Probably not tomorrow either.
Or the day after.
“I doubt it,” Nick replies quietly. He looks around slowly, taking in the landscape. “They’re probably watching it the same way we are. Waiting for us to come back. They’ll jump us the second they see us inside.”
“So, what do we do?”
He looks at me with a sly grin. “We go inside.”
“Seriously? We’re going to walk right into their trap?”
“What cage can hold you, Alex?”
I sigh, reminding myself to relax. To trust him. “None.”
“That we know of,” Campbell counters.
I point at him, holding Nick’s eye. “That. Right there. That’s what worries me. Who knows what tricks they might have up their sleeve to stop me? What if they dart me with the same crap Liam was giving me to stop my Slips?”
“Liam doped you?” Justin asks in amazement. He’s standing behind us. The knees of his jeans are stained reddish brown. He wipes his dirty palms on his legs, spreading the stain higher. He’ll want to throw those pants away when we get back.
“More than once,” I bite bitterly. “It was kind of his favorite thing to do.”
“Alex, be fair,” Nick pleads calmly.
“I am being fair. I didn’t call him a douche, did I?”
“Not today,” Nick chuckles, turning to Justin. “When his dad was holding Alex for study, they were giving her a serum that stopped her from Slipping. She physically couldn’t do it. There’s another serum that forces her to Slip, but as far as we know, it’s gone. I’d assume the same is true for the inhibiter.”
I snort derisively. “Assume all you want. To be safe, I’m going to assume it’s still out there and that the second I land us in our living room, they’ll dart me in the neck like a gorilla gone wild.”
“Then we play body armor for you,” Justin suggests. “We circle around you, you Slip us inside, and we see what’s what. If they dart anyone, it will be one of us and what will it matter? We can’t Slip anyway. Alex can immediately get us out of there and we can regroup.”
Nick and Campbell exchange an appraising look.
Campbell offers Justin his fist. “Welcome to the party, Rook.”
Justin smiles proudly as he bumps his knuckles against Campbell’s.
Nick pulls his gun from the holster, pointing it at the ground. “Here’s what’s going to happen. We go in together, circled like Justin said, but once we’re inside, Alex backs against a wall. Justin, you go with her. You’re not armed, so your function in this is to be a human shield. You stand in front of her covering as much of her body with yours as you can.”
“You got it,” Justin agrees with a sharp nod. He’s not offended to be a meat suit. In fact, he looks excited to be part of a legit operation. If I could see his eyes through those glasses, I imagine they’d be glowing.
“Campbell and I will sweep the house. We’ll look for anyone lying in wait. If there’s no one there, we’ll make it obvious that we are. Then we’ll fall back against the wall with you two and watch the doors.”
“Where do you want me to Slip us?” I ask.
“The living room. Get as close to the corner as you can.”
“You mean without putting us in the walls?”
“Can that happen?” Justin asks me nervously.
“Hasn’t happened yet.”
“Let’s try to keep up that streak.” Campbell pulls his pistol as well. He knocks back the safety, holding it firmly in both hands.
I step into the center of the group. They fall in around me, their backs to me. Their butts bumping against me. Justin is in front of me, standing as tall as he can to cover me under our identical heights. Campbell and Nick are at my back. I link arms with them, taking hold of Justin’s elbow with my right hand.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Set,” Campbell replies curtly.
“Go.”
I make it as smooth as I can. I’m trying to keep Justin’s stomach in place because a human shield does me no good if it has to bend over to vomit the second we get there. I take my time, focusing the hardest on him to make sure it’s an easy ride for him, and when we land, I keep hold of his elbow tightly.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer.
“Justin?”
; He stumbles on his feet, wheezing loudly. He slides out of my grip. He falls face first to the ground, his body bouncing painfully off the scuffed hardwood. Once he’s down, he’s motionless.
“Nick!” I gasp in fear.
“Campbell, cover me,” Nick barks as he kneels down next to Justin.
Campbell steps over the body on the ground to get in front of us, his gun drawn high. Nick rolls Justin over. His head lolls loosely to the side. His mouth falls open. His glasses slide off.
I yelp, my hand going to my mouth.
Justin’s eyes are opaque. Dead. They’re staring unseeing at the ceiling as Nick puts his fingers to his throat, searching for a pulse. He waits silently.
Finally, he shakes his head, removing his fingers. “He’s gone.”
“What the hell?” I whisper shakily. My stomach is in knots, my head swimming. “What happened?”
Campbell sneaks a glance over his shoulder at the body. “He’s seriously dead?”
“Very seriously,” Nick mutters distractedly. He’s thinking, trying to solve this puzzle, but there are so many missing pieces.
Like what the hell happened?!
I blink, my eyes stinging sharply. “Did I kill him?”
Nick looks at me with earnest, reassuring eyes. “No. Not directly.”
“He said he does this,” Campbell reminds us, his voice tight.
“Yeah, but…” I shake my head. “But why? And how do we bring him back?”
“It sounded like he does it himself. Or his robot parts do. Whatever. We’ve got other things to worry about.”
“Jesus, Campbell! The guy just died.”
“Yeah, and he said gets back up. Stop mothering everyone and let the man do his thing.”
“But he’s dead!”
“What do you want me to do about that, SB?”
“I don’t know. You’re PJs. You’re medics. Do something medical.”
Nick stands with a sharp shake of his head. “I can’t cure dead, Alex.”