The Change (Unbounded)

by Teyla Branton

  “The place is crawling with Unbounded. Cort will have to make it without us.”

  “But Delia. She’ll see into his mind.”

  “No. He’s strong enough to keep her out. Don’t worry about him now.”

  A rope ladder with metal rungs fell from the helicopter overhead, the bottom rung clanging onto the rooftop. Panic swept through me. Wasn’t it going to land? No way could I climb that ladder. Ritter might as well throw me off the roof and hope I survived.

  Ritter glanced over his shoulder. “We’re out of time,” he yelled in my ear. “Climb!”

  A shot whizzed by so close, I felt the air against my cheek. That was enough to unfreeze my limbs. Grasping the rungs tightly, I began to climb.

  I WANTED TO WRAP MY arms between the rungs, close my eyes, and scream until I was rescued or unconscious, but Ritter kept pushing me from below. Only the idea of leaving him exposed to Emporium bullets kept me climbing. My breath was coming in rapid bursts, like the irrational fear inside my brain. Each second was an eternity. I made the mistake of looking down and saw Emporium Unbounded disgorging from the roof door, like ants from a hole in the ground.

  Swallowing bile, I forced myself to take the next step. As I finally pulled myself inside, the helicopter rose abruptly, sprawling me onto the hard floor of what appeared to be a cargo area. Ava sat in one of the two seats at the front, her face a mask of concentration. The other seat was empty.

  I looked outside for Ritter and saw people shooting at us from the rooftop. My eyes swept past them all, riveting on Tom’s lifeless body. Fresh tears wet my cheeks before vertigo wiped the scene from my mind. I gagged and shut my eyes, gripping the metal bars under the empty front seat. Loud pings sounded as bullets battered the underside of the helicopter.

  Help him! Ava’s urgent voice said inside my head.

  Digging my teeth into my bottom lip, I crawled back to the opening. Ritter had almost made it, but even as I watched, his body jerked once, twice. One hand came off the rungs.

  “No!” Holding onto the edge of the opening with one hand, I leaned down and reached out to him. “Climb!” I screamed, both aloud and in my head. His eyes met mine as I tried to hold the dizziness at bay. “Climb!”

  Ritter managed to grab the next rung. Slowly, he continued the climb. Finally, he was within reach, and I dragged him inside with strength founded in desperation. We crumpled in a tangled heap. The bright, coppery smell of blood filled my nose.

  The helicopter veered violently, followed by a huge explosion off to our right. Missed, I thought, fighting the urge to vomit.

  I could feel Ritter’s heartbeat, his relief, echoes of the fear he’d experienced—mainly for me.

  For me.

  If I hadn’t been so utterly exhausted, I might have smiled or said something sarcastic. If I hadn’t been mourning Cort, Laurence, and even Tom.

  “Thanks,” Ritter whispered.

  I couldn’t hear him over the noise of the chopper, but I could see his mouth form the word, sense the feeling in his mind. For that brief instant nothing more was necessary.

  I wanted to lie on the floor next to him forever, but he was already moving away, pulling himself into the passenger seat next to Ava. Four holes in his pants poured blood, darkening the black material. He put on headphones and began talking to Ava.

  Images came to me: landing, a safe house, a cell phone. All of us knew that time was ticking away. Justine and Stefan had two hours on us, maybe more, and though they couldn’t have arrived in New York yet, they had likely called in reinforcements who might already be in the city. Once they received word that we were onto them, they would step up proceedings and our allies would begin dying. The faster we landed, the faster we could warn someone. Even then we probably couldn’t save all the Unbounded gathering at the safe house. I could only hope one of those we saved was Stella.

  Cort. The images of him in Ava and Ritter’s minds burned most brightly of all. They were worried about him. I was too. But we could do nothing for him at the moment except pray that his cover held. That he was strong enough to hold Delia from his thoughts.

  I looked out of the chopper. The Emporium building was far in the distance, but I could still imagine Tom’s body lying there.

  He deserved it, I thought. He made a choice.

  Maybe if I said it enough, I’d believe it.

  What would Justine do when she returned and learned of his death? Tom had been her only weakness, the tiny bit of good left in her that I could see. I’d killed him, and she would never forgive me.

  Which was fine; I didn’t think I’d ever forgive myself. Worse, I knew if I had it all to do over, I would make the same choice.

  Ava began calling the instant we landed, even while the chopper blades were still slowing. Marco from our security detail helped Ritter to a waiting rental car. I followed, my sickness completely gone now that we were on solid ground.

  “What’s going on?” Ava demanded into the phone. Her face paled as she listened for a long while. “What about Stella? Okay, let me know when you hear something. Look, Tenika, don’t use any of your usual places. We’ll be there as soon as we can. We’ve had some problems ourselves. Can you contact John Halden and delay the exchange? We’ll need to convince him to move the location as well. I know your hypnosuggestion doesn’t work as well over the phone, but do what you can. No, I can’t call—he suspects me. But if the Emporium had access to the safe house and our people, I’m one hundred percent sure they’ll be staking out his warehouse, and we don’t want another blood bath. No, don’t even hint why we want a change. That man’s more paranoid than we are or he wouldn’t still be alive. Make up something. If you have any problems, call me. I’ll let you know what our plans are as soon as they’re in place.”

  She hung up and gazed into space, her face tight.

  “What happened?” Ritter asked from the backseat of the car where he and Marco were busy bandaging his injuries. I caught myself staring at his legs and the black boxer briefs that were so tight they defined every curve.

  “Ava?” Ritter said a little louder. “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, sorry.” Ava gave her head a shake. “The safe house was attacked fifteen minutes ago by a large force of Emporium Unbounded. At least twenty of our people were killed, including Shaddock.” She glanced at me. “He was their leader. The fighting was over in a matter of minutes, but Tenika and some others escaped. She thinks they kept a few prisoners alive, but they killed everyone else.”

  “You mean really killed?” I grimaced as Marco, kneeling by the open car door, extracted a bullet from Ritter’s leg with oversized tweezers. Ritter’s face was white and his teeth clenched, but he didn’t utter a sound. I’d seen Marco give him a shot of anesthesia and could only hope there’d been enough time for it to take at least partial effect.

  Ava nodded. “They shot the mortals, but all the Unbounded they found in the safe house were cut.”

  I felt sick. “Then that means . . .” I couldn’t finish. If only the Unbounded had been slaughtered, that meant someone like me had been there, someone who could tell Unbounded from mortals at a glance.

  Ava nodded. “Our people are trained not to divulge information, but depending upon the strength of the sensing Unbounded the Emporium obviously brought with them, those they captured might break during examination or torture. We have to assume they know where the exchange was to have taken place, and we’ll have to abandon all our safe houses for the time being.”

  “What about Stella?” I had no idea if she’d kept our original flight to New York, or if that had been delayed when I’d gone missing.

  Ritter and Marco both paused in their ministration of Ritter’s wounds, awaiting the answer. Ritter caught me staring and gave me a nod that made my heart jump a little.

  I am so in trouble, I thought.

  “No word yet.” Ava’s face showed no emotion, but her voice betrayed her concern. “But she’s not among the victims. I’m betting your escape f
orced the Emporium to attack early, so some of the Renegades hadn’t arrived yet, Stella and Gaven included. However, their flight touched down an hour ago and she still hasn’t checked in. Our friends don’t know if they arrived during the fight and were captured, or if they got away and are hiding out somewhere until we regroup.”

  At least Stella might still be alive, and Gaven as well. I remembered him from the mortal security force, the thin black man with rope-like muscles that stood out under the skin. I was glad Stella wasn’t alone even if he wasn’t Unbounded.

  “She’s resourceful,” Ritter said as Marco took a needle from the suitcase of medical supplies and injected the area around one of his wounds with a yellow substance. Curequick, I assumed. Marco had a heavy hand, but Ritter didn’t even flinch, so either the anesthesia was working well, or he was as tough as I thought.

  “Unfortunately, they don’t have enough manpower to search for her,” Ava said. “But Tenika will try to change the meeting time with Halden. Anyway we look at this, it isn’t going to be easy. The Emporium wants that technology as desperately as we do.”

  Ritter shifted so Marco could tend to a wound on the side of his leg. “If they don’t have anything to offer, Halden won’t deal with them.”

  “They could always kill him,” Ava said.

  Ritter nodded. “That would be a real tragedy. All this time protecting him and then we cause his death.”

  “Not us,” I said. “Laurence.”

  Ava nodded solemnly. “The good news is that the attack in New York was put together hastily, and we had a lot of survivors. The group from Italy hasn’t even arrived, so they missed the attack altogether.”

  “We need to get there soon.” Ritter finished taping a wound and passed the tape to Marco so he could wrap the last one.

  “We have a plane,” Ava said, staring at her cell phone. “We just need a pilot. I’ll check into that now.”

  “You flew the helicopter.” I looked over to where the rented chopper had been pulled next to a huge hanger. Someone was examining the bullet holes and dents on the bottom, and I wondered if they would ask about them.

  “You learn a few things after three hundred years,” Ava said. “Flying a helicopter is one thing—a plane is quite another. Cort flew us here. Dimitri could do it, too, but even Ritter here hasn’t gotten around to learning how to fly my plane.”

  “How hard can it be?” Ritter asked.

  “No way.” I was relieved to have a problem to focus on, especially one that coincided with my secret worries about my brother. “I’ve flown many times, and even had a few lessons, but you’re talking about crossing the entire continent. For that we need a real pilot. We need Chris. You said he got out, but where’d he go? Did Keene say?”

  Ritter shrugged. “He said you’d know how to find them.”

  The surge of hope building inside me crashed. “I have no idea what he’s talking about.”

  “Think,” Ava said.

  They looked at me expectantly, while I racked my brains. During my conversations with Keene, had he mentioned a place here in LA? Or had I? Nothing came to mind.

  “Erin.”

  I looked up to see Ava holding out her hand. I knew what she wanted, and I felt some gratitude that she was at least asking permission. Placing my hand in hers, I thought back through all my meetings with Keene, feeling uncomfortable when we got to the part in the elevator when he’d kissed me. At least it had been an honest kiss.

  She dropped my hand and shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Wait.” I held up a finger as I searched my memory again. For some reason I kept going back to how Keene hadn’t exposed me when he’d discovered I’d removed the tracking device. “Do you have something with you that can track that chip you put in me?”

  “Yes, it’s right here.” Ava opened the pack she carried from the chopper and withdrew a piece of equipment the size of a laptop. “But your chip stopped transmitting this morning, probably when you got to the building. Even if they didn’t disable it, they have jamming signals in place around their buildings. Without Cort, we wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint your location.”

  “Check it now,” I said.

  She didn’t ask stupid questions. After several long seconds, her lips curved in a smile. “It’s here. Strong, too. Not more than fifteen miles away.”

  “I planted my transmitter on Keene, but he must have found it and given it to Chris.” I felt a new respect for Keene. If he’d told Ritter a location and Ritter had been captured, Chris and the children would have been at risk. Or Keene himself might have been taken and forced to reveal his whereabouts. But this way, only someone who knew what to look for and had the right frequency could find Chris wherever he chose to go.

  Ava’s gaze fell on Ritter’s bare legs. “Are you finished yet? Let’s hope we have something left in your size in the supplies.”

  Marco laughed. “I made sure we did. They’re in the trunk.”

  Minutes later, Ritter sat next to me on the backseat as Ava steered us through traffic. The stocky Marco had taken shotgun. His gun was drawn and his dark eyes scanned every car we passed. His hair was thinning in the back, and I wondered if he at all resented the fact that if he’d been Unbounded he wouldn’t have lost the hair, or at least not until the end of two thousand years. His brown eyes met mine briefly, his square chin dipping in a nod, the hint of a smile on his lips, and then the eyes rolled away again, ever searching for a potential threat.

  “Looks like we’re coming up on a beach,” Ava announced.

  I grinned. “Chris was always talking about taking the kids to see the ocean.”

  “Good place to hide.” Ritter stared out the window, searching the faces walking along the sidewalks. “The busier, the safer.”

  Ava pulled the car to a stop. “I can’t park here, but it looks like he’s down by the water. Marco, go with Erin. Just head southwest of our position. About a hundred yards. Erin, you go find him, and we’ll circle around and pick you all up right here.”

  “I’ll go with her.” Ritter opened his door.

  “You’ll limp,” Ava said. “It’ll be noticeable.”

  He scowled. “This is California. Anything goes.”

  Marco laughed, and I couldn’t help smiling.

  Ritter was right. People dressed in colorful clothes, or almost no clothing at all. I saw a green and orange Mohawk, piercings in every imaginable part of the body, and even a man in what I was reasonably certain was a Darth Vader outfit.

  “We could walk behind him,” I said to Ritter. “Everyone will be too busy staring at him to notice you.”

  “Until he collapses from heat exhaustion.”

  Ritter wasn’t exaggerating. The heat was intense, focused even more because of the black clothing we both wore. My short hair was already sticking to my head and my underarms were wet with perspiration. My arms at least were bare to the sun, but I could feel the discomfort of dried blood on my skin from the shattered glass, though I’d rubbed off as much as I could from the nearly healed wounds. Each step on the sidewalk was an effort. Chris’s watch said it was nearing five o’clock, but I felt as if I’d been awake all night.

  Slowing to a standstill, I closed my eyes for a moment, absorbing the sustenance from the air around me, giving my body the nutrients it needed to repair whatever was making me so tired. I felt the distinct taste of salt on my tongue. Interesting. Within seconds I began to feel better.

  Ritter had gone several paces without me. To his credit, he wasn’t limping much, though the fluidity of his movements was severely hampered. He resembled any other person on the beach, except for his confident bearing, which screamed out his real identity as Unbounded. At least to me. I wondered how that translated to a regular mortal. Could they see a difference? No one seemed to be giving Ritter a second glance, except a group of high school girls who stared at him with longing eyes and whispered as they passed.

  “You coming?” he asked, turning to see why I’d stopp
ed. His hand went to where I knew he had a gun stashed in a holster sewn inside his pants.

  I hurried to catch up. “About Keene. How was he when you saw him?”

  Ritter’s glittering eyes met mine. “Limping, but I left him alive, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “He’s not like the others. He proved that by helping Chris.”

  “He kidnapped you, so in my book that makes him someone we can’t trust. Next time I see him, I will kill him. Especially if something happens to Cort because of him.”

  I thought about that and nodded. If Keene somehow managed to cover up his part in Chris’s escape and continued his loyalty to his father and the Emporium, Ritter would have no choice.

  “What is he to you?” Ritter asked.

  It was an unexpected question. I shrugged.

  Ritter stopped and put a hand on my arm. “Don’t make the mistake of trusting him. You’ll be better off.”

  “Better off if I keep everyone at arms’ length like you do? Is that what you’re saying?” I searched the hard planes of his face for any softening. We were inches apart and the closeness was doing odd things to my heart. That and the emotions of jealousy and desire I sensed even from behind the wall he’d erected to keep me out. I wondered if I was the only one who caused him so much turmoil and frustration that he couldn’t always mask the feelings. Presumably he’d had enough years to perfect his mental barriers.

  I took a step away, lengthening the space between us. “Maybe you’re right. Every single man I’ve ever cared about outside my family has turned out to be nothing more than a spineless, self-centered lump of flesh.”

  The muscles in his jaw tightened. “Seems like you’ve learned a good lesson.”

  “Maybe.” I wanted to bash in his self-satisfied face. “But keep in mind that not being able to deal with loss is what pushed Laurence over the edge, what made him willing to betray us. Living like that is no way to spend fifty years, much less two thousand. Then again, maybe after my first century, I’ll be like you and bury my emotions so deep nothing will matter except revenge.” I shook my head. “No. I don’t want that. For now, I think I’ll keep on dreaming of finding a man so crazy about me that I’m all he thinks about—even if it ends badly like with Bronson and Stella. I’ll keep hoping for the chance to love someone so much that I feel like dying if he doesn’t love me back. Whatever I do, it doesn’t concern you. If you don’t like it, well, you can just . . .”