by Sherry Soule
Hayden holds my sweaty hand and squeezes my fingers. “You up for this?”
Discovering a hair-tie left in my pocket, I twist my hair into a high ponytail. “One hundred percent.”
As confident as I sound, my insides tremble. This is risky on so many levels and the probability that we’ll actually pull this off is slim to none. We might all be heading straight to our dooms. Of course, when I die, there’s a good chance my chalk outline will be holding a cupcake.
Hayden parks in a lot near the hiking trails, and we exit the SUV to enter the forest. The silence is heavy and eerie in this dense section of the woods, and even the strains of traffic are muted. Once we get close enough, the boys pause for surveillance. We haven’t breached the Sector Thirteen headquarters yet, and already I’m sweating profusely.
Arcane lowers the pair of high-powered binoculars he brought with him. “Two guards posted at the front entrance.”
“There are more soldiers patrolling along the perimeter,” Zach whispers.
“Arcane and Zach, go around front,” Hayden instructs. “Search for a safe place to enter, but if you can’t find one, I’ve got bolt cutters in the trunk of the SUV to cut through the fence. Make yourself a hole and slip inside. Whoever you find first, teleport to the cottage. Sloane, you stay with me.”
Zach and Arcane vanish as quietly as ghosts through the trees.
“We’re going to cut over to the south side where there’s a dock,” Hayden says to me. “Do you feel confident enough to teleport alone once we find everyone?”
“Sure, but let’s rewind,” I say, my voice squeaking. “Dock? Like in the water type dock?”
He nods. “We might have to swim to it.”
“You do know that there are over fifty breeds of shark in the Bay. Including man-eating Great Whites.” My chest heaves—literally—the mega boobs straining the fabric of my shirt. These mongo breasts have been my ticket to unwanted attention for years. I gaze at my all-black outfit, leather jacket, V-neck shirt, jeans, and boots. Could I possibly look any more like a sea lion—a shark’s favorite snack? “And after watching The Shallows and Jaws, I made a vow to never swim in the ocean.”
He rolls his eyes. “If we spot any danger, I’ll teleport us to the SUV.”
“Well, okay then,” I say. “It’s just…I’m not the best swimmer because I could never go without eating for thirty minutes.”
“Then we’ll take the long away, so you don’t have to go in the water.”
Hayden motions for me to follow him, and we sprint between the trees until we reach a gap in the fence and slip through.
Thank the gods. I’ve been saved from a deadly swim with hungry sharks.
No soldiers in sight as we make our way to the side of an airplane hangar. Hayden presses his back against the building’s exterior and inches to the front. I mimic his stealthy movements, the breath stalled in my lungs. Hayden pulls a gun out of the holster under his leather jacket. He’s dressed in black from head-to-toe like a secret agent. He holds up one hand and I freeze while he peeks around the corner.
Hayden’s head whips in my direction. “It’s clear, but move quickly and stay close. We’re heading to the biggest building on the left, got it?”
“Yup.” I lift an eyebrow. “Damn, you’re extra hot when you act all commando.”
Hayden rolls his eyes. “Just stay close.”
He crouches and takes off. I follow on his heels and we make it to a cement structure without windows.
Two soldiers standing guard outside the entrance stand in stiff Sphinx-like immobility. They resemble GI Joe clones: broad chests, with shiny black boots and stony faces. One of the soldiers wears an excessive amount of cologne, making me wrinkle my nose. Sheesh, girls like a whiff not a wallop. Now I’m the victim of a nasal assault. Maybe the guy wants to attract girls through asphyxiating.
I try not to sneeze—“Achoo!”
Uh-oh. I wipe my nose on my sleeve and shrug helplessly at Hayden. The two members of the Doom Squad look at each other, then move toward the corner where we’re hiding.
“I got this,” I whisper, yanking off my hair-tie and shaking out my purple mane. I unzip my jacket, and push up my breasts so my cleavage is front and center. Before Hayden can stop me, I sashay into view, jutting out the mega boobs and flipping hair over my shoulder. “Oh, hello there, boys. I was looking for the outlet mall, but I must’ve made a wrong turn…” I sneeze again and give them a faltering smile.
While my two big assets distract the soldiers, Hayden sprints into action with a Taser gun and strikes each man in the chest with two metal probe darts faster than I can inhale a king-sized Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup.
Hayden drags their limp bodies into the bushes. When he returns, I twist the metal handle on the entrance. The thick steel door creaks open, and we freeze. No alarm blares a warning like in the movies. No overhead spotlights blink on. No soldiers come barreling down the hall.
I count to thirteen, then nudge Hayden with my shoulder. We slip inside and enter a long corridor, the stench of disinfectant clogging the air. Closed doors line the hallway and another set of heavy steel doors are located at the other end, with a red flashing exit sign above them.
We move further inside, the florescent lights flickering. The hum of an air conditioner and the ticking of a clock echoes against the cold steel walls.
I tiptoe behind Hayden, who glances around like a CIA operative on a covert mission. Each door has a square observation window and a high-tech keyless pad near the handle. A clipboard hangs from a hook on the wall beside each room.
“These must be the holding cells,” I say, “and not the bunker where my parents are holed up.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to break into these rooms,” Hayden says quietly, removing a toolkit from an inside pocket of his jacket. “These locks look more advanced than the devices I’ve hacked into before.”
“Let’s find Delta’s room first, then we can worry about getting her out.”
He shoves the toolkit inside his pocket. “We need the code, Sloane.”
“We’ll figure it out. Now move your butt!” I order, scanning each clipboard for Delta’s name.
Hayden checks the left side, while I tackle the right. Minutes pass. We move quickly without speaking. Halfway along the corridor and we still haven’t found her cell. Nearly every room is empty, although I do find an older man sleeping on a cot, and in another room, a woman sitting on the floor playing with a deck of cards. Chills race down my spine. Who are these people and why are they here? Volunteers for ST’s perverse experimentations?
I sigh. “This is useless and we’re running out of time.”
“You want your family back, don’t you?” Hayden places a clipboard on the hook. “Don’t give up—”
A door clicks open behind us. My breathing stops. Light spills into the corridor.
“It’s just us.” Arcane pokes his head through the opening. “We couldn’t find your parents.”
Zach and Arcane enter the building, shutting the door quietly behind them.
“Are they still here?” I ask.
Arcane spreads his hands. “I think they were moved to another building.”
My heart sinks, but I keep my emotions in check. Hayden gives me a reassuring hug.
“Did you find Delta yet?” Zach asks.
Hayden shakes his head. “No. She’s in one of these rooms.”
“We’ll team up to search faster,” Arcane says. “Hurry.”
We keep checking and I’m worried that we’ll never find my parents or their sister.
Hayden peeks through the glass square on the next room. A quiet gasp exits his lips. “Zach! I found her.”
Zach shoves his brother aside to peer through the window on his tiptoes. He bangs on the door with a fist. “Delta! We’re here! We’re going to get you out.”
Arcane and I rush to their side and stare at the high-tech door lock.
“How do we open it?” Zach ask
s.
Silence claims the hallway. Arcane scratches his head and Zach paces. Hayden glares at the pad as if mentally willing the device trapping his sister to magically open. I move past him and peek inside. A slender body lies on the bed under a thin blanket.
What’re these noobs waiting for?
“Can’t you teleport into the room?” I ask, frowning.
“I already tried!” Zach snaps. “The walls must be reinforced with titanium.”
I touch Hayden’s shoulder. “You have to hack it somehow.”
He nods but doesn’t speak, just burns a hole in the lock with his stare. The veins in his forehead throb and he clenches his jaw tight. We stand there in defeat, and my heart clenches.
“I’ve got an idea!” Hayden exclaims, causing the rest of us to flinch. “There’s a slim chance this might work, but try punching in the number five four times. It’s the default code on most devices like this.”
Zach enters the code, but the light stays a blinking red. “Now what?”
The murmur of someone humming has everyone alert. A bald man in a long white lab coat turns the corner and strides down the corridor with his head lowered while he reads a file. In a flare of blue fiery luminosity, Zach teleports behind the man. The scientist startles and drops the folder, the documents scattering on the floor.
Zach puts a finger to his lips, smiles at the quivering man, and snatches the badge hanging on a lanyard around his neck. “Thanks. I needed this.”
The scientist staggers backward into the wall with his hands raised in surrender.
“Sorry, dude.” Zach punches the man in the head so hard he collapses to the floor unconscious, looking deader than disco. He strolls back over to us.
Arcane slaps Zach on the back. “Well done.”
Hayden’s brother uses the badge to swipe the electronic lock and the light flickers to green as the door hisses open.
Zach goes in first, and Hayden follows. Arcane and I wait outside while the siblings have a private family reunion. I’m dying to meet Delta, but an introduction can wait until we are safely far from here.
A minute passes, then two. Three. Finally, the siblings emerge, the brothers on either side of a slim girl in a faded hospital gown. Delta’s about five-foot with stringy, dark green hair and skin so pale it’s almost translucent. Her arms look normal, except she only has three fingers on each hand. When she steps forward, her legs move oddly as if she’s double-jointed and her strange cat-shaped eyes are all pupil. Whatever blend of DNA the Sector Thirteen scientists used to create Hayden and Zach’s adopted sister, they didn’t bother including many human genes.
The building’s alarm shrieks to life like a yowling cat in heat.
ELEVEN
The five of us—Arcane, Hayden, Zach, Delta, and I—stand in the corridor. Distinctive clicking sounds echo beneath the blaring alarm. My heart executes an erratic beat that has to be unhealthy.
Zach races along the hall to try the doors. “They’re locked!” he exclaims, rushing over.
“We must go,” Delta says softly. “Bad men coming now.”
A sharp hiss creeps out of the vents above us and a smoky gas seeps through the air-ducts. My knees buckle as the fumes hit my face, making me dizzy and lightheaded.
“We need to leave. Now,” Arcane says.
“Sloane!” Hayden shouts. “Can you teleport?”
My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. I slump to the ground enveloped in a deep fog of sleepiness.
The doors bang open and footsteps pound the corridor.
“Freeze! Or I’ll shoot,” a male voice threatens.
The noise of a scuffle and guns firing fill my ears. My vision is hazy. Someone roughly grabs my arm and yanks me backward.
“I’ve got the girl,” a gruff male voice declares.
“No! Sloane!” Hayden roars.
My eyelids flutter closed, like the Sandman has hit me over the head with a dose of snoozing dust. The hand clasping my arm drags me across the floor like a limp rag doll.
“Leave her! There’s no time, Hayden!” Zach calls from far, far away. “We have to go—”
The lights blink out and everything fades into nothingness.
My head thumps like a mosh pit when I blink open my eyes, squinting into the glare of fluorescent lighting. My tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth and a sour taste coats my tongue. The room comes into blurry focus—cold, sterile, white chamber—as I sit up slowly. I’m lying on a gurney in the middle of a high-tech laboratory surrounded by the Doom Squad. Ack!
“How delightful, you’ve captured a fresh test subject.” General Athens, aka General Tall, Dark, and Stupid says, entering the room through the only door and marching over to me. “You’ll be a marvelous asset to the team, darlin’.” He smiles big and wide like a deranged clown. “First, we require new recruits to undergo a series of tests to ascertain what your abilities might be, and then we can all enjoy a short coffee break. I brought a box of donuts!”
While normally the offer of a dozen Krispy Kremes would’ve made General Tall, Dark, and Psycho my new bestie, holding me and my parents hostages in his evil lair is another matter entirely.
Swinging my legs over the side of the gurney—autopsy table?—I take in Sector Thirteen’s freaky lab. The space contains tables with microscopes, beakers, Bunsen burners, test tubes, and glass cabinets above each workstation. My senses are still playing catch up as the sleeping gas wears off, but unusual odors, vinegar blended with overripe fruit, almost cloying in its sweetness, take my nose on an olfactory adventure. To my left is a whole tray of stainless steel instruments—bone saw, knives, scalpels, needles, a hammer, and what looks like pruning shears—of torture.
“Who said I was a recruit?” I laugh at the absurdity, and once I start giggling, I can’t seem to stop. Clutching the ache in my side, I stand on unsteady legs.
The two lab techs and four soldiers, along with General Tall, Dark, and Wacky, each turn wide-eyed gazes in my direction. Except one man standing in the corner. He resembles a mad scientist with white hair sticking up in all directions, wearing a rumpled lab coat. His whitish eyebrows arch, and he studies me with an icy, gray stare.
Nope. Not creepy in the slightest.
My giggles get worse and I clamp a hand over my mouth.
“Stop laughing!” General Tall, Dark, and Douche-y orders. “I’m serious. If you do not stop, then we cannot be Facebook friends.”
My laughter turns borderline-hysterical, the kind that makes me feel like I’m gonna pee in my Old Navy panties. I lean over, hands on knees, trying to contain myself. “Quit it, you’re gonna give me a cramp.”
“I gave you a directive!” the general shouts. “You will not be allowed to have any refreshments—”
“Stop it, you’re freaking hilarious.” I snort-laugh, leaning one hand against the gurney for support until the giggling dies away. “But I’ll still take a donut on my way out.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” the freaky Mad Scientist guy says quietly.
“Yeah…I am.” Straightening, I shake my head with an eye roll. “While this has been fun, kids, it’s time I blow this taco stand.” I inch closer to the closed door.
“Please don’t make this more difficult, Miss Masterson,” Mad Scientist says with a slight Russian accent, removing a needle from his pocket. “It will only get worse for you and your family. And we’ll need to know where young Jonah is…”
“Why?” I pause near the exit. “You want Jonah and me to breed more hybrids for you? This isn’t gonna be a remake of Flowers in the Attic, butthead.”
“Breed? No, no, no.” Mad Scientist shakes his white head, like a freaky Einstein bobblehead minus the bushy moustache. The old man’s practically a fossil. “Let me introduce myself, Miss Masterson, I’m Doctor Vlad Krilova, and I run this operation. While I appreciate the offer, we have no interest in producing any more of your species…quite the opposite, in fact.”
“Then why am I here? Why did you
take my parents?”
“To study them before their impending extinction. Sector Thirteen now considers the hybrids a very real existential threat from a rival species—humans,” Doctor Krilova says. “The Meleah have become a menace and represent the next stage in human evolution. The instant, I give the order, General Athens will eradicate all hybrids from the planet.”
I wipe at my damp eyes. “Oh, that is entertaining. Well worth the price of admission. But you’ll never catch the Meleah. So good luck with that.” I move to the exit, shuffling backward.
General Tall, Dark, and Loony points a finger at me. “Shoot her!”
One of the Doom Squad takes a cautious step closer, brandishing a Translocation Neutralizer gun and points the weapon at me. My stomach and its contents have ceased to be friends. Bile rises in my throat. Before I can make a hasty exit, the soldier pulls the trigger and sprays weird orange goo all over my chest.
“Hey, you suck!” I stumble back and gasp. “This is gonna ruin my shirt. You’re lucky black hides stains or I’d so kick your camouflage ass right now.” I swipe at the icky goo that attaches itself to my hand like sticky cobwebs. Yuck.
The soldier aims again and I teleport in a bright flash of blue light to the other side of the room. The Doom Squad and General Tall, Dark, and Evil huddle in the far corner—except Mad Russian Scientist—wedged as far away from me as they can get.
“B-but you’re, um, a hybrid,” a soldier stutters, then looks at Doctor Krilova with wide eyes. “Isn’t she?”
I roll my eyes. “Thanks for the newsflash, but I figured that out when my dad teleported into our house and exposed the family secret.”
“Sloane, how did…you…uh…” General Tall, Dark, and Asshat sputters.
I frown. “Why are you guys staring at me like that?”
Doctor Krilova tilts his head and says cool as the chill of a fresh grave, “Because you teleported.”
“Yeahhh,” I say mockingly. “That’s what hybrids do…” Then it dawns on me why they’re freaking out. “You’re ray gun doesn’t work on me! Ha!” I proclaim like I’ve just solved world peace. “This is so awesome. And the best part of teleportation? It burns a lotta calories. Now I can eat whatever I want and just teleport to burn it off. Guess I’ll be leaving now.”