“Yup, Jill is one of them!” Maggie offers between bites.
“But, I… Well, you didn’t have those a few days ago!”
“Makeup.” Jill’s voice is flat.
Before Eve can get more answers, the red door opens and in walks Luca, followed by Tate and Rowan.
Eve’s aching chest tightens.
The three brothers have showered and changed. Outfitted in another version of black, which Eve guesses is more or less their uniform, she is instantly self-conscious. Touching her dirty, matted hair, she longs for some shampoo and something other than the formless fabric she is currently sporting.
“Look who’s awake. Rough night?” Rowan flirts, grabbing a cookie for himself.
“She just woke up. Nothing has been explained,” Jill snarls, hostile.
“We need to go,” Luca interjects, all business all the time.
Luca and Eve’s eyes meet. The intensity of his gaze sends heat to Eve’s cheeks, causing her to flush. But she doesn’t look away, or back down.
“Go where?”
“We can explain in the car. Everyone ready?”
Maggie, helping Eve to her feet once more, escorts her out into the bright sunlight. Squinting, Eve clings to her as their party of eight makes their way to the front of Jill’s Coffee Shop. The other businesses are open, as it is midday. Strangers drive past, rolling carts full of groceries and talking on their cellphones as they continue to live their blissfully ignorant lives.
An elderly woman in a pretty yellow dress, holding a paper bag with her purchases, crinkles her nose at the site of Eve, spotting the eldest Abbott as she passes. Eve is not surprised—she agrees with yellow dress lady’s assessment of her current state.
What is surprising is Luca’s car parked in front of the café, now covered in dirt and grime. Maybe he had taken it off-roading? Parked beside it, a large Humvee with a metal grill and roof rack. Upon closer inspection, sporting what looks to be corn husks stuck to the inner edge of the windshield. Eve is too tired to ask as she’s guided to Luca’s car and belted by Maggie into the front passenger seat. Then her sister and Martin hop into the back, joining her in Luca’s cramped two-door.
Looking to her right, Tate, Rowan, and West are contained within the Humvee as it roars to life. The only person left is Jill, who walks to Eve’s window and taps on the glass.
Rolling it down, she shields her face from the sun and looks up at her aunt.
In the short time they’ve been in Saintsville, Eve has grown fond of their quirky relative. She doesn’t know what part yet she played in all of this, or why their parents and Jill had their falling out, but Eve just knows she can trust her.
“Aren’t you coming?” Eve asks.
“Sorry Evie, I can’t. My assignment is here. But you’re in good hands.” Jill hesitates, not quite believing this herself.
“Assignment?”
“They will explain. I love you girls. I will see you soon.”
Jill’s sentiments are cut short as Luca reverses, leaving Eve and Maggie’s aunt waving at the curb. Rolling up her window, she watches from the side mirror as Jill gets smaller and smaller, disappearing entirely.
Hurt. Eve is so sick of hurting. She is sick of caring that she’s hurting. She is sick of finding a sliver of happiness, or a human connection, only for it be taken away. She is sick, most of all, of not knowing. Suffering from the burden of so many questions…but maybe now, she will finally get some answers.
And she feels like Luca, of all people, might just be able to help her understand.
“Wait, I thought we were going back to our house first. What about our stuff?” Maggie whines, realizing the direction they are heading is out of Saintsville.
“You can buy whatever you need when we get where we are going,” Luca states gruffly.
“Can I buy you a personality? Because that would be first on my list….”
Surprisingly, Martin lets out a low chuckle.
“Those roller suckers are long gone, correct?” Maggie continues. “Don’t be a prick, turn around!”
“Maggie, please. Can all of you help me to understand? What happened last night? What was that in my room? Why were you mad about the stupid necklace I found? Who are all of you, and why are we involved in all of…this? And where the heck are we going?”
Luca raises a free hand to silence her. He pauses, gathering his thoughts.
“Maybe we should start with your parents,” he states cautiously.
What little color is left in Eve’s tired cheeks disappears.
“You…know what happened to our mom and dad?” the eldest Abbott whispers.
Glancing at Eve, Luca’s expression is unreadable.
“I do.”
Chapter 16
“Your parents are like us. Or were like us. We are part of the Electric Mutation Task Force, EMTF, eliminating compromised citizens from the general population. The military slang word for us is ‘Zappers,’” Luca says.
“Do you ‘zap’ zits too? Because that would be amazing….”
“Maggie, shut up. I want to hear this,” Eve scolds.
“Do you want me to continue?”
With that, Luca adjusts the rearview mirror, staring Maggie down. She huffs, crossing her arms, and looks out at the endless sea of trees as they drive.
“Adel and Orion headed up the research and development side. But they were trained combatants, just like us. And yes, the United States government funds our operations so we can keep all of this under wraps.”
“My brain hurts,” Eve mutters. “Okay…so our parents were just like you. But what do you do? I mean all of you, what do you protect the rest of us from?” She pauses, her thoughts running a mile a minute. “Wait…did one of those things kill our parents?”
Eve’s voice squeaks on the last part. Her fists clench, wanting to know, but also fearing the truth. Finding answers could be a double-edged sword—any possible explanation was bound to cut deep.
“Those ‘things’ were once like you and me. The scientific term is Hominum mutata, or ‘changed man.’ Almost all of our cells can generate electricity—electrical charges cause our heart muscles to contract, to beat. But what happens when your cells are overloaded?” Martin chimes in, unable to resist.
“Like X-men, sis, except Wolverine isn’t a hot hairy old guy, and there is no such thing as a good mutant,” Maggie adds.
“So, the mutation in my bedroom…was once like you and me?” Eve asks, surprisingly fascinated.
Peeling her now-blue nail polish off piece by piece, Maggie teases, “She catches on!”
“Correct. Changed, but unchangeable. Once a Snapper turns, we haven’t—in our extensive research—been able to find a solution. Many argue within our sect that Snappers are the next form of evolution,” Martin explains grimly. “That nature is preparing us for a pending natural disaster that will once again cleanse the planet, where only the strongest will be able to survive. They are the alpha species. The perfect killers. No conscience, they feel nothing. They desire nothing. Their only motivation is to hunt, to feed, and to eliminate. These mutations must be destroyed.”
“They are bad mamba jambas!” Maggie snorts, unable to stay serious for very long.
“But with science, we are just as bad….” Martin smirks.
“What? Was that almost a joke? Martin, I think I’m starting to like you,” Maggie retorts.
As Martin and Maggie continue to bond in the back, Eve shuts out their voices, too overloaded with information. So much of her and Maggie’s childhood is starting to make sense. The importance of her parents’ work, their constant absence. They weren’t just trying to hack the DNA of plants to improve modern medicine…. Their parents had been working toward saving the entire human race. Or unchanged human race. Were the mutants still considered human? Or another species entirely?
Feeling eyes upon her, she looks over as Luca quickly snaps his attention back to the road, giving Eve a chance to study him in retur
n.
His blonde eyelashes are thick, long, and soft, at odds with the severity of the rest of his features. She can see a small, moon-shaped white scar by his right eye, and a shadow of blonde stubble encasing his angular jaw. Wearing a long, solid black shirt, he had pushed the sleeves up to his forearms. The vivid red tattoos that had been alive the night before are back to black and dormant on his wrists.
She feels herself reaching up to fix her bangs but stops mid-gesture. Ridiculous. Her mild attraction to him needs to end—now. She reminds herself that the entire Quinn clan are murdering sadists. Technically they’re killing humans who are already beyond redemption—but murder is murder, right? Unless it’s a “kill or be killed” situation. In that case, are they doing the world a service with their particular set of skills?
Eve is too exhausted to argue with herself. Either way, Luca has to be a hard pass. If she wanted drama in her life, she just had to spend time with Maggie.
“Why do we call the changed humans ‘Snappers’? Well, their DNA has quite literally snapped, fractured, and changed, triggered by a traumatic electrical event. They were rare. Only one or two occurrences per year due to natural causes. Then came appliances, outlets, power cords. Before Thomas Edison, or the invention of automobiles, the only real documentation in history of electric mutations was via lightning….” Martin continues but is interrupted by Maggie.
“And guess what? Badass Benjamin Franklin was the very first Zapper! He came up the grand idea of the lightning rod, to lure the naughty mutants out. Give them a nice zing, overload their already overloaded system, and boom! Mutant dust! Ha. Failed to teach us that part in history class, right?” she informs her little sister, smugly, before adding, “You should tell her about the necklace! That part is good….”
Crunch. Maggie dives into a bag of chips. How she could be hungry right now remains a mystery.
“What do you know about the lure you had around your neck?” questions Luca, his mood turning dark at the change in topic.
“Only that it was old looking. Did it belong to June?”
Eve touches her chest where the pendant had come to rest, feeling oddly naked without it.
“A lure is just that. A lure. What it attracts are Snappers. When it’s turned on, the pulse it emits is irresistible—but it also protects the wearer. We had most of them destroyed, as you can see how that kind of power could be tempting. It not only lures, but it also controls. The electromagnetic pulse it emits is like a drug, and each pulse is like taking a hit. It addicts the Snappers to the possessor, giving them unequivocal domination.”
“Domination, huh? Sounds a-lure-ing…” Maggie interrupts, sounding out “alluring” and laughing at her own joke.
“Do you ever stop?” Eve asks grumpily, but then asks, “Question. If I had the lure, and it was on, why did the Snapper attack me?”
“It didn’t, it attacked Luca, who it thought was attacking you. But Luca wasn’t aware of your possession of the lure in that moment, and thought he was intervening.”
Martin’s explanation makes perfect sense. Eve remembers having some sort of connection, as terrified as she had been. When it had been eliminated in the field, before the poison had taken over, she had a moment of sadness for the creature. The lure had not only been messing with the Snapper, but her as well.
“Imagine if a foreign government got ahold of that kind of technology. To have ultimate say over superhuman creatures, with no sense of right or wrong, the inability to question orders….”
Luca is cut off by Maggie, changing the subject.
“Did you know that the Snappers feed on electricity? They are voltage vampires!” As fascinating, informative, and exhausting as this conversation has been so far, Eve’s patience is wearing thin. Her further questions about Snappers and Zappers are sure to be extensive, but Luca and Martin hold the key to the one thing that has haunted Eve and Maggie for the past four years.
Eve takes a deep breath and re-asks the most burning question of all.
“Can you tell us what happened to our parents?”
Luca doesn’t answer right away, hesitating. His eyebrows furrow. Looking over again, Eve is surprised to see a new emotion on Luca’s ever-stern features.
Worry.
“Alive,” he admits finally. “Very much alive.”
Of all the things Luca could have said, Eve was not expecting this. Eyes wide as saucers, she whips to look at Maggie behind her.
Of course, Maggie already knows, adding bitterly, “And they faked their deaths, murdered a bunch of Zappers, and are currently wanted fugitives.”
Maggie’s words send chills down Eve’s spine. “Not possible…” she utters, shaking her head in disbelief.
“Yes possible,” Maggie continues, “Oh yeah, I’ll explain later. They also sent the rollers, you missed that part. Apparently, Mom and Dad are now trying to kill us too….”
Turning back to look at her baby sister, Eve and Maggie communicate wordlessly, both thinking the same thing.
Why?
Chapter 17
After the rough explanation by Maggie about their mom and dad being evil villains, the entire car falls silent. Each person seems lost in their own story. Eve is struggling with the truth, finding it hard to believe that their parents would harm anyone intentionally. If anything, she just pulled further into her shell.
Don’t murderers give clues as to their true nature? Adel and Orion hadn’t been violent or cruel. They had been strict but loving. Bedtimes and curfews and the implantation of manners, most of which Maggie had undone the moment Eve was left in charge. But they had game nights, and frisbee tosses in the park, and Orion was always helping them with their homework.
Eve wonders what she and Maggie had done so wrong that their own flesh and blood would throw them away. How could they be rejected by their own parents?
Or was all of this some sort of giant misunderstanding?
Maggie seems resigned to the fact that Orion and Adel are alive and have sinister motives, but Eve can tell that she’s also furious. A typical Maggie move, covering her rage with humor. The more that Maggie is in pain, the more sarcastic she becomes, hiding her true feelings behind her laser-quick wit.
Not that she can blame her younger sibling for her fury.
Their dear parents have been alive all this time and haven’t reached out once. More than likely observing from afar. They have watched their daughters run out of money, sell most of their possessions, and hit a point of desperation, forcing them to leave the only home they had ever known.
But if they’re hunting them, why now?
What had changed? As her eyes begin to droop, the questions never stop bombarding her consciousness.
Eve doesn’t remember falling asleep. The throbbing of her chest wakes her up occasionally. Every time her eyelids part, the landscape has changed. From trees and forests to desert once more. From morning to night. Luca never seems to tire, a constant driving force carrying them away from Saintsville.
What are Eve and Maggie to do now?
The few possessions they had brought with them they would likely never see again.
Maybe Jill could forward Eve’s books? Gather them up, stick on some postage, and pop them in the mail? But Eve has a feeling that wherever they are going, the postal service more than likely doesn’t deliver.
Still in the same borrowed clothing, Eve hardly noticed that someone has loaned her a hoodie as well—one she doesn’t remember putting on. The faint scent of aftershave leads her to believe that the owner is probably one of the guys located within the two cars.
As the vehicles climb, heading to a higher elevation, the terrain changes once again. Woodsy, like Saintsville but colder. She can feel the temperatures dropping and is grateful for the oversized warmth the sweater lends. The clock on the dash reads 4:30. Eve assumes a.m. because of the absence of sunlight and Martin and Maggie being fast asleep in the back. Maggie’s soft, whistling snores are Luca and Eve’s current soundt
rack.
Luca has noticed that Eve is once again awake, but she takes to reading the mile markers for companionship.
“Are you thirsty?” Luca offers her an unopened water bottle, removing it from a convenience store bag. They must have stopped for gasoline and bathroom breaks, but she must have slept straight through.
Licking her lips, she notices they’re dry and cracked. He’s right to offer water, and she gladly accepts with a mumbled, “thanks.” Turning the cap slowly until the seal breaks, she starts to take small sips, thinking their interaction is over.
“You should probably know that we followed you from Seattle. Most of us were assigned to your surveillance after…the attack at the lab, with Orion and Adel.”
Eve starts choking, some of the water in her mouth accidentally entering her windpipe. Shifting at the noise, Martin adjusts his jacket he is using as a pillow but doesn’t wake. Maggie is still out cold.
“Four years? Enough! Seriously, enough revelations!” Eve whispers through her coughs.
Luca taps his fingers against the steering wheel. Small talk is definitely not his strong suit. “I thought you would take comfort in knowing.”
“What? How is that comforting? That you’ve been ‘keeping an eye on us’ for quite literally, years? I already have enough of my past to rethink, without having to sift through my memories and see if any of you somehow look familiar. That maybe I saw you, or Rowan, or Tate at the movies and didn’t realize you weren’t just there to watch a flick. That you were there as an insurance policy, because God forbid anything happened to us.”
Eve keeps her voice low, but her words are venomous.
Luca shrugs. Unperturbed. “We had our orders.”
“Orders? To keep us alive? Ha, such a waste. If you haven’t noticed, we’re nothing special….” Without warning, Eve is crying. All of it, everything, is just too much.
She quickly wipes away her tears, only spreading around the dirt, creating muddy lines on her smooth skin. Tucking her knees to her chest, she pulls up the hood and leans against the chilled window glass.
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