Genetically Altered Complete Box Set

by Sarah Noffke

  “Who the hell wrote that?” Rox said, pinching her brow. “That almost made my head explode.”

  “That sounds like something Ren Lewis would say. He often spoke like that,” Trent said with a warm chuckle that made Adelaide want to kill him.

  No! He hadn’t just done what she thought he had.

  Zephyr’s chin shot to the side. “Ren Lewis? The main contributor of the Dream Traveler Codex? He wrote that book? How do you have it?”

  “I-I-I. It’s not mine,” Adelaide said, words not being supplied to her consciousness. “I was simply—”

  “Ren left behind a book?” Trent said, opening his fucking mouth again. “Makes sense he’d leave it to his only daughter.”

  And just like that, Adelaide’s world crashed down on her.

  All eyes shot to her, all but Connor’s. His dropped to the table, regret for her secret being leaked instantly writing itself on his face.

  Well, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck. Adelaide was going to the Lucidite prison now. That would be her sentence after she killed Trent.

  “Your daddy was the famous Ren Lewis, huh?” Rox said, her eyes dazzling like a hooker who has just been tipped for taking it right. “No wonder you get special treatment.”

  Adelaide pulled in an unfulfilling breath. This was exactly what she’d been avoiding. Zephyr and Rio exchanged unreadable expressions. Kaleb perked up, his eyes changing, his expression seeming to say “I don’t know you.”

  “I don’t get special treatment. I’m my own person,” Adelaide said.

  “With the power of mind control, which we knew, but also telepathy linked to touch,” Rox said, having apparently memorized the fucking Dream Traveler Codex, which included her father’s biography. “That explains so much.”

  “It explains so much that I’m about to make your head explode. What you’re all missing is that—”

  “Where is Ren?” Zephyr said, daring to cut her off. “The Codex doesn’t say. No one will say. He’s not at the Institute, from what I can tell.”

  “Well, we all know that you have the detective skills of a plate of bangers and mash, so no surprise there,” Adelaide said, feeling the familiar ache rise to the surface. It had been hard enough to grieve with everyone at the Institute knowing her situation, but not her team, not the pack. Most didn’t know what had happened to Ren, except that he was dead. And still, that was enough to pierce her every time people offered words of condolence.

  “I bet he works for the CIA. I always took him as the traitor type, based on what he wrote in the Dream Traveler Codex,” Rox said, with a laugh.

  Trent opened his mouth to say something. Words Adelaide knew were untrue. Words she hated to hear because they were lies. They were what other people thought. Only Aiden and Adelaide knew the truth; well, and Connor now too. That’s why Adelaide did something she never ever expected to do. She fled the room, unable to take it anymore. Like a sissy of a girl, she did the one thing she’d promised herself she was through with doing. Adelaide ran away.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Once the consciousness links to the location it is deposited into the delivery device. This appears as a silver tunnel. The Dream Traveler does not have to do anything from this point forward except enjoy the ride through space and time.”

  - Dream Traveler Codex

  Connor stood from the table as soon as Adelaide had fled. He didn’t watch her go, but rather directed his hot gaze at Rox. “Trent, why don’t you inform this insensitive diva where Ren is?” he said, watching as Rox’s expression dropped into one full of instant regret. Without Trent saying a word, she knew what his answer would be.

  “Ren is dead,” Trent said, his voice faltering.

  “What?” Zephyr said, leaning forward. “What happened? He sounded like one of the most powerful Dream Travelers to ever live, according to the Codex.”

  “Which he wrote,” Kaleb said, remorse not written on his face like it was on everyone else’s in the room.

  “Hey, pipe down, Runt. That was Adelaide’s dad,” Rio said, taking his familiar role, disciplining the youngster.

  “I think if anyone is in a position to sympathize it would be me, Dimples,” Kaleb said to him.

  “I shouldn’t have teased her,” Rox admitted, “but how was I supposed to know?”

  “You weren’t,” Connor said. “But you shouldn’t have teased her. That’s exactly why Adelaide didn’t want any of you to know who her father was. She’s trying not to live in her father’s shadow.”

  “Oops, that would be my fault,” Trent said, covering his long forehead with his palm. “I just assumed you all knew or that Adelaide was proud of who her father was. He’s why she’s an agent, after all.”

  Connor pressed his spread fingers to the side of his head before sending them out in the air. “Damn it! That’s exactly what she doesn’t want people to misconstrue. Did Adelaide earn her position?”

  “Well, yeah, of course she did. She completed agent training in record time with full marks. It’s just that she never wanted to become an agent, but Ren pushed her. He knew what kind of potential she had and could lend to the department,” Trent said.

  “Then say that. Don’t make it sound like Adelaide was handed her role because of who her father was,” Connor said, storming from the room.

  “Who was Ren?” he heard Rio ask at his back.

  “He was the stuff of legends,” Trent said, as Connor exited the strategic department.

  “Books have always been a great comfort to me, as well,” Connor said, his voice quiet.

  Adelaide didn’t look up from the book she was reading, De Profundis by Oscar Wilde. The author wrote it while imprisoned, and like her father’s book, it wasn’t published until after his death.

  “You know libraries are where people go to be alone?” Adelaide said.

  “I’ve never been alone when in the company of a book,” Connor said, taking a seat next to her on the couch.

  “Can we save the attempt at clever dialogue for another time? I’m busy,” Adelaide said, pulling the book back up to her chin, reading it like how she read her father’s: randomly.

  “I now see that sorrow, being the supreme emotion of which man is capable, is at once the type and test of all great art.”

  Wilde and Ren also had their writing styles in common. They both seemed to be saying something profound, while not saying anything at all.

  “I think we both know that I’m unable to just turn off my clever dialogue, so you’ll have to suffer through it,” he said, casually leaning back and depositing his feet on the coffee table in front of them.

  Adelaide knew Connor was just here to comfort her and she wanted none of what he had to offer. Why hadn’t she gone to her room, which had a lock and a door and a way of escaping others… Connor?

  “So a little light reading to take your mind off your troubles,” Connor said, pointing at the worn book cover.

  “My only troubles involve a bunch of hairy beasts and their maker,” she said, rereading the passage she’d just read.

  “Some find De Profundis to be incredibly sad, because Wilde speaks so much of the life he lost, and his tone is often morbid in the long letter,” Connor said, like they were sitting in a literary analysis class discussing the elements of the story.

  “He was in prison when he wrote it,” Adelaide said, trying to not appear as astonished as she felt. The fact that Connor could discuss one of the more obscure works of Oscar Wilde’s was beyond the framework of her mind. Most weren’t so well read.

  “Yes, but I’d argue that Wilde found himself while in prison. He at least found meaning,” he said.

  “True. Wilde had found peace in his sorrow,” Adelaide said, her eyes roaming over a set of sentences.

  “…sorrow seems to me to be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye… but out of sorrow have the worlds been built…”

  “You seem to be lost in the book,” Connor mused. He was still there, just watching her, l
ike that was a natural thing they did together every day. Sit. Enjoy each other’s company. But that was not an experience Adelaide knew. She’d never been the type for such things.

  She turned, putting her feet under her and facing him. “My father used to say, People automatically think being lost is a bad thing, but only that which is lost can be found.”

  “Untraditional thinking is how most should think,” Connor said, musing on the thought.

  “I know why you’re here,” Adelaide said after a moment of silence.

  “Because I could use a nap and there’s no better place to sleep than right here?” Connor said.

  Adelaide turned her eyes back to the book in her hands. “I like napping in the peace of a library too,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact.

  “That’s not what I meant to say actually,” he said, trying her patience. She knew he’d been suicidal before, but thought the urge had passed. Apparently not.

  “I know it was a git idea to think I could hide my identity from those wankers forever, but I wanted to try. It’s hard enough…” Adelaide trailed away, not wanting to admit the next part, and surprised she’d just rolled straight into that set of sentences.

  “It’s hard enough…” Connor said, waving his hand in a circle to encourage her to keep going.

  “It’s hard enough to feel like I’m adequate at this position and lead you dogs and Hooker Shoes without everyone knowing who my father is,” Adelaide said.

  “That’s not at all what is going on here and I’m surprised that someone with your intelligence refuses to see the truth,” Connor dared to say.

  She gave him a long look that she hoped communicated her hostility appropriately. Meaning that it screamed of her anger. “If you get up right now and leave the Institute, never to return, then I’ll allow you to live. That’s the only deal I’m making. No negotiations.”

  “I’d rather die here than live a lowly existence outside these walls, so do your worst to me,” Connor said, a half-smile on his face.

  The sound of books being pulled from shelves filled the air around them. The fire that burned in the large fireplace a bit farther down from them crackled. Adelaide kept her eyes on Connor, wondering things about him she’d never wondered about another. Namely, how to dispose of his body.

  “I get the idea that other people thinking you’re riding Ren’s coattails is a problem for you. He created the strategic department and has quite the reputation in this place,” Connor said, swiveling his arm at the walls, meaning the Institute. “However, on another level, I don’t think you want the team to know about your father for the simple fact that you haven’t individuated yourself from him. For others at the Institute, it’s just something they’ve come to accept. You’re an extension of Ren. You say his lines as if they were your own. You follow his practices, since they are exemplary. And you’ve inherited his snarky nature. However, isn’t the real concern you have with the group the fact you don’t want them thinking you’re an imposter? Now that they know about him, they’ll know you’re impersonating. The power you pretend to wield is his. Isn’t the issue that you can’t let him go as long as you refuse to be yourself rather than him? Who is Adelaide Lewis? She is the daughter of Ren, but she isn’t him. Have you asked yourself how you’d act if you weren’t trying to keep him alive inside yourself?”

  Never. Not once had someone said a series of words that pulled a thread that undid her. This was an absolute force. And every response she could think of was something Ren would say. Every response was one she’d learned. So she didn’t respond, but sat rather still and stared at the wall of art in front of her until her eyes blurred.

  “Maybe I’m off base. Maybe it’s impossible to not act like our parents to some degree. But I just sense that—”

  “You’re not completely wrong,” Adelaide said, her voice almost a whisper. “However, when I came to Ren I had a bad attitude. That is inherited.”

  “And who are you now?” Connor asked, turning more toward Adelaide, pulling his leg up and folding it in front of him on the sofa.

  “Lost,” she said simply.

  “I can’t think of a better place to be in order to find yourself,” Connor said, leaning forward, a clever glint in his eyes.

  “Did you feel lost after your mum’s death?” she asked.

  “Yes, for a long time. But I think what made it easier for me was that I knew she was never coming back. You don’t have that same certainty with Ren, so you stay stuck in it. You’re haunted in a way,” Connor said.

  “Yes, I think closure would help. I keep thinking he can see me. That he’s watching me somehow. Not from heaven, but from wherever he is,” she said.

  “Which is why you’re acting in ways he’ll approve of. But what if you just forgot he might be watching? Judging? How would you be different?” he said.

  “I don’t quite know,” she said, pondering the idea.

  “Well, I have every hope that you will. Use the pain. I think it will help. It was Wilde who said that through his suffering, he came to know himself,” Connor said.

  “Yeah…” Adelaide said, chewing on the inside of her cheek. Then she turned so her back was to Connor, but not completely, pulling her knees up to her chest as she did.

  “Adelaide?” Connor said, and she sensed his eyes on her.

  “Huh?” she said, her mind working through his words from earlier.

  “I know you really want to kiss me again, like you did the other day. I’m certain it’s all you think about,” Connor said, the playful edge to his tone making her almost laugh as she spun around to face him.

  “How dare you?! I wasn’t the one who… well, you know,” she said.

  “Not so loud, missy. You’re in a library, you know,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his face. “And I know exactly how it played out, just like I know how to get your attention.”

  “By telling gigantic and dirty lies,” she said.

  “Well, now that I do have your attention, I wanted to say that I get that you have a lot going on. I can’t say I don’t want to be a part of it. I know relationships are complicated and I won’t even pretend that I’m good at them. But I kind of want to screw up one with you if you ever want to give me a chance,” Connor said.

  “Tempting offer, the way you put that,” Adelaide said, wearing on the other side of her cheek with her teeth.

  “Yes, I’m certain I can piss you off on a regular basis and fail to meet your expectations often, but only if allowed,” he said.

  “I’m fairly busy and don’t think so,” Adelaide said.

  “I figured you’d say that, but I want to point out that I was able to make that rather brilliant observation about you because for some reason, I do know you so well. It’s like you’re a book I’ve read a thousand times without ever picking it up. Your prose that effortlessly falls off my tongue and yet, I’ve never rehearsed your words. Your—”

  “Oh gods! I’m going to be sick if you don’t stop,” Adelaide said, covering her mouth and making a show of trying to keep the contents of her stomach down.

  “Okay,” Connor said, nodding casually. “You’re not ready yet. I get it.”

  “I don’t think it’s a matter of being ready,” Adelaide said. “It’s more about trying to stomach you.”

  “Uh-uh,” Connor said, shaking his head like her son would in protest. “You like me a lot better than those other wankers.” He did his worst show of a British accent, which actually made a real laugh pop out of her mouth. She hadn’t laughed since before…

  His hand extended next to her shoulder, making her tense. Then he snapped his fingers. “Hand over the book. I want to read you one of my favorite passages,” he said.

  Adelaide studied him, the green of his eyes. The way his features were strong, not one overshadowed by another. Finally she laid De Profundis in his outstretched hand. “Fine, but read in a British accent and I’ll never talk to you again,” she said.

  “Consider that the last time
I ever speak with my awesome British accent then,” he said, brandishing a full smile, one that tightened her stomach and made her strangely think he’d found her. Both at the library that afternoon, and in this life. Still, she wasn’t ready for this, and yet she wasn’t sure that tearing herself away was a good idea. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t ask herself what Ren would do; instead, she asked herself what she wanted.

  I want to be happy, she decided. Life was always like that. Easy and infinitely complicated at the same time.

  Rox had paused when the voices came into range. Connor had obviously beaten her here. She knew Adelaide would run off to the library. That’s where girls like her spent their time, needing the company of books, which refused to judge, but held an awful lot of judgments.

  In her mind, Rox would apologize to Adelaide. She could admit that she’d been rude. That she’d taken the joke too far. And teasing about someone’s dead parent was wrong, even for Rox, who never took herself that seriously. However, at the sound of Connor’s and Adelaide’s voices she’d paused for some reason and only listened, hiding behind a shelf.

  With a proud smile she turned for the exit. Zephyr and she had been careful, having been threatened many times by Adelaide. She’d hidden her affection for the alpha wolf, not wanting to risk losing her position at the Lucidites. And now the greatest hypocrisy had happened. And although Adelaide hadn’t been especially warm to Connor, it was obvious something was going on between them. Had been going on. They kissed. This was the perfect bait that Rox needed to get what she desired most. Well, not most, but close.