Chimera

Ten Positional Awareness

Ten minutes later we emerged from the woods up the road from the platform. I avoided looking at it, too disgusted by its existence to risk another meltdown. Ethan headed for another wooden shack, this one slightly newer than the buildings in town. It was squat and square, more like a shed than a house, with only one window. The front door swung open and Thatcher stepped out into the sunlight, not even hiding his relief.

“Are you all right?” he asked as he came forward. For a split second I thought he might hug me.

“Just needed some air,” I said.

“And a run through the woods?” He gave my scratched forehead a pointed look.

“Well, I was sitting in a car for hours on end. It felt like a good time for some exercise.”

Thatcher scowled, then asked Ethan, “Is she ever serious?”

“Not when her guard is up.”

“Hey,” I said, poking Ethan in the arm. “Shut it, Wind Bag.”

“Was it that platform?” Thatcher asked me.

The short hairs on the back of my neck prickled. “It just dragged up some old shit, but I’m fine now. We need to talk about that.” I pointed at Ethan’s collar.

Thatcher looked at the collar like he hadn’t noticed it before. He touched his own throat, tracing the faint scar from the security collar he’d worn for fifteen years as a resident of Manhattan Island Prison. “Where did that come from?”

“Bethany put it on me,” Ethan replied.

“What? How did she get one?”

“That’s what we’d like to know,” I said. “How did an eighteen-year-old thief get her paws on a piece of technology used by both our federal government and a bunch of whack-job Recombinant clones?”

Thatcher blanched. “Clones?”

Crap, we hadn’t told him about that part of our adventures before and during last month’s earthquake. Only a select few in our entire HQ knew about the twenty-year-old clones of our dead relatives and friends: two mothers, two fathers, and a brother, complete with their original superpowers. The clone of Ethan’s mother was killed during our final encounter with them, and we hadn’t heard a peep from the other clones since.

Their silence made all of us incredibly nervous.

“I’ll tell you about them later,” I said. “The long and short of it is that either the government is funding the Recombinant experiments, or someone is playing for both teams.”

“Playing for both teams?” a familiar female voice asked. “Someone looking for me?”

Bethany Crow waltzed out of the shack, her short, unnaturally red hair spiked up like a porcupine, back in the same ripped jeans and layered tanks as that first night. She gave me a long, appraising look from head to toe and her singsong comment made more sense.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re not my type, sister.”

“Shame.” She winked as she slunk forward, like a cat wanting to rub up against someone’s ankle. “Blue’s my favorite color.”

“Sorry, but I like dick.”

Thatcher made a choking noise. Ethan snickered.

“Me, too, honey,” Bethany said with a saucy come-hither grin I’d perfected back in my Vegas days. “But not all the time. Variety is the spice of life.”

“Too much spice can give you the runs.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“A bad case of the clap?”

Ethan turned away, his face bright red from trying not to laugh out loud. Thatcher’s eyebrows were arched so high they threatened to jump right off his face. Bethany stared at me for a moment before dissolving into giggles.

Legit giggles, in a pitch so high that my own vocal range was a little jealous. “Oh, my God, I love her.” Bethany looked over her shoulder at the open shack door. “Bro, why didn’t we kidnap her instead? She’s totally cooler than Captain Grumpy-Puss over there.”

“I’d wager Ethan was pretty calm with you, considering that most folks object to being kidnapped,” I retorted. “Or were you expecting him to entertain you?”

“Well, I was hoping we could entertain each other, since we had all night, but he’s taken, or so he insists. Is he really?”

What were we? Teenage girls at a sleepover? “Yep, he is taken. And his boyfriend’s pretty damn cute, too.”

Bethany’s face fell, then immediately brightened up again. She gave Ethan a hopeful smile. “You two ever consider a threesome?”

“Enough!” Thatcher said, with enough force to make all three of us jump. He took a few steps closer to Bethany, dwarfing her slight size with his much taller, bulkier frame. “Where did you get the collar that you put on Ethan?”

She wasn’t the slightest bit cowed. She planted her hands on her hips and craned her neck to stare back up at him. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“From the man you call Uncle, the one who raised you.”

“Give the man a teddy bear.” She clapped her hands in mock applause. “So what?”

“I wore a collar like this for fifteen years. It was almost identical, so I have to wonder where this Uncle of yours acquired technology that’s under a federal patent.”

“How would I know? Landon and I don’t ask questions. Uncle gave us two collars in case we ever needed to restrain other Metas, and let me tell you, they’ve been useful.”

Ethan harrumphed.

“Bethany, are there any other kids like you and Landon?” I asked. “Raised by Uncle?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. Landon and I take care of each other. We don’t need anyone else. And you can save your breath asking, too, because neither one of us would ever sell out Uncle. He saved us.”

“Because your biological mom was an evil, child-murdering monster, right? Like Thatcher over there is an evil, child-murdering monster?”

“Basically.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“About what?”

“Everything, but we’ll start with your parents. You’ve heard of Specter, right? Psychotic telepath who can take over your body from a distance and kill you with his brain?”

“Of course I’ve heard of him.” Bethany tossed me a look that clearly said I was an idiot. “He led the Banes.”

“Oh, I’m sure he led some of them. The rest he threatened to kill unless they fought on his side.”

“Bullshit.”

Landon appeared in the shack’s doorway. He leaned there, listening, out of Bethany’s line of sight. Likewise, Ethan and Thatcher were somewhere behind me, and I’d bet Ethan’s eyes were bugging out of his head as he listened to me defending the Banes. I half expected to be struck by lightning.

I jacked my thumb over my shoulder. “Thatcher didn’t have a choice about following Specter, but he did have a choice to hide his wife and son so Specter couldn’t hurt them. Your mother probably gave you up for the same reason.”

I was reaching with that last comment, but it was a logical deduction. Alice Stiles could have ended her pregnancy, but she didn’t. She disappeared during the War to give birth, then gave the baby to the biological father. Daddy Dearest may have dumped Bethany in an orphanage, but that was on him.

“You must be really desperate,” Bethany said with a snarl. “You should have chosen better lies.”

“What if they’re not lying?” Landon said.

Bethany spun around, startled. “Don’t tell me you’re buying this. They’re trying to manipulate you.”

“It’s the truth,” Thatcher said. “I swear on your life and mine, Landon, that it’s the truth. Once Specter found us, once he could sense our individual energies, there was no place on the planet we could hide from him for long.” He came forward, stopping next to me. Hurt and regret etched lines on his forehead and deepened the crinkles around his eyes. My hand jerked, as if to reach out and comfort him, and I froze.

Thatcher continued. “I was afraid of Specter, and I was too much of a coward to end my own life. So I went to war and I killed, and eventually I was punished for that. I regret so many things, but I don’t regret that I’m alive, because I got the chance to meet you, to see the man you’ve grown into. If you believe only one thing, please believe that I love you, son. Unconditionally.”

Landon’s face crumpled, then smoothed out as he caught himself. But I’d seen the first chink in his armor, and I bet Thatcher saw it, too. Landon was eighteen, raised to believe his father was some sort of scary monster, only to come face-to-face with a completely different kind of man.

And Landon wasn’t the only one seeing a new side to the Banes today, either, and that scared me. Scared me a lot.

“Dinner’s ready,” Landon said, as if his father had never spoken.

“Dinner?” I parroted.

“Yes, dinner,” Bethany said. “You know, that evening meal most of us like to have? Don’t worry, the food isn’t stolen or anything. I bought it on the way here.”

I rolled my eyes. The five of us went inside the shack, which was as comfortably furnished as I expected—which was to say, not. A folding table and chairs were set up in the middle of the room. Two inflated air mattresses stood up against the far wall, their linens stacked neatly on top of a wooden crate. A little gas camping stove was set up on another crate, next to a few bags of groceries and a cooler.

“We don’t stay here often,” Landon said, “but when we do, they wanted us to have privacy.”

“So Bethany’s libido doesn’t disturb the neighbors?” I asked.

My comment wasn’t meant to be remotely serious, but the way Landon’s cheeks flushed as he looked away made me think I’d hit close to home.

An awkward silence ensued.

“So what’s for dinner?” Ethan asked, jumping in to play peacemaker, as usual.

“Canned stew,” Landon replied. He ladled some chunky brown goop into a Styrofoam bowl, then held it out to Thatcher. “Spoons are on the table.”

Landon continued dishing up the stew. We settled around the table, but he didn’t sit with the rest of us. He ate standing near the camping stove, his face perfectly neutral. I choked down the salty stew, grateful for the meal since I hadn’t eaten the night before. I washed it down with water from a plastic jug.

“There’s a clean spring nearby,” Bethany explained. “It’s one less thing the town needs brought in.”

“Speaking of which,” Landon said, “we should talk about what you’re going to do next.”

“In regards to what?” I asked.

“Us. Turning us in now that you’ve seen the people we help. That’s why I brought you here.”

“Well, first I need to call and talk to Trance.”

“About?”

“To let her know we three are alive and unharmed, as well as make sure she hasn’t reported you both yet.”

“And if she hasn’t?”

“I think you should both come back to New York and talk to her. Tell her what you’ve told us.”

“Fucking forget it,” Bethany said. “No way.”

“Why not?” Landon asked her.

“Are you insane? They’ll lock us up the minute they see us.”

“And if I promise that won’t happen?” I asked.

“No,” Bethany said.

“What if we bring Trance here?” Thatcher asked. “Let her see everything we’ve seen.”

“I think she would agree to that,” I said. “She’s a good person, and she’s fair. She’ll give you a chance to explain.”

“Even though we kidnapped Ethan?” Landon asked.

“Even so.”

He and Bethany shared a long look.

“Fine,” Bethany finally said. She reached into her layered tanks and produced a slim cell phone. “Put it on speaker and call her.”

I took the cell and powered it up. “Where should I tell her to meet you?”

“Tell her to get on the Pennsylvania turnpike heading west,” Landon said. “Pull off at the westbound service plaza in Elverson. I’ll meet her there at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, tomorrow.”

“And if she wants to bring someone with her?”

“Forget it,” Bethany said. “Just her.”

“Okeydokey.” I dialed the number and waited.

She picked up on the fourth ring. “Trance.”

“It’s Renee,” I said.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m with Ethan and Thatcher, and we’re all okay. No one’s hurt.”

“Where are you?”

“I honestly have no fucking idea. Landon blindfolded us.”

“Okay. Are you still with him?”

“Yes. We’re kind of his and Bethany’s, um, houseguests.”

“Houseguests? Is that a code I don’t understand?”

I smiled at the phone. “No. Listen, T, like I said, we’re fine. But I need to know if you passed along any details of our investigation to the interested authorities.”

“As in names?”

“Bingo.”

“No, I haven’t. I was waiting for word from you.”

Good girl. “Don’t. Things are more complicated than we thought.”

She sighed. “Aren’t they always? What do you need?”

“You. They want to speak to you in person.”

“Done. When and where?” Someone on her end made a noise. My bet was that Gage was listening in and actively hated the idea.

I gave her the information. “Landon will meet you. Please trust him and come alone. I wouldn’t be asking if this wasn’t legit.”

“I know that, Renee. Do you guys need anything?”

I glanced down at my dirty uniform. “Clean clothes would be nice. And tell Aaron his boyfriend is safe and sound, not a scratch on him.”

“He’ll be happy to hear that. Is Ethan nearby?”

“I’m here,” Ethan said. No one told him he couldn’t talk during the call. “I’m fine, promise.”

“Good.” I could hear her smile through the relief in her voice. She worried about all of us so much.

Bethany made a slashing gesture across her throat.

“Listen, T, I gotta go. We’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Be safe,” she said.

I shoved the phone back across the table at Bethany. “Happy?”

“Whatever,” Bethany said.

“So now that we’re giving you the benefit of the doubt,” Ethan said, “how about taking this collar off? It itches.”

“Forget it.”

“Why not?”

“Because the minute it’s off, what’s to stop all three of you from making tracks out of town and then sending in the cops to ruin everything?”

“We won’t do that,” I said. “You have my word.”

“Beth, maybe we—” Landon started to say.

“No!” She stood up too fast and her chair toppled over backward. “I am putting my foot down on this one, Landon. The collar stays on.” She glared at the three of us. “And don’t even think about stealing the key, because I’ve already warped it, and I’m the only one who can bend it back into shape.”

Great. Another intelligent teenage sociopath.

Ethan glared right back at her, but he didn’t protest further.

“So where are we going to sleep?” Thatcher asked.

“Anywhere you want, as long as it’s not on my mattress,” Bethany said.

“Renee can have mine,” Landon said.

One look at the warped wood floor of the shack and I was not too proud to decline the offer. “We have extra blankets in the back of the Sport,” I said. “May I go get them?” I hated asking permission, but I also wanted the chance to walk around a little bit. Get a better lay of the land, so to speak.

Landon nodded. “Fine.”

“I’d like to go, too,” Thatcher said.

“Don’t even ask,” Bethany said to Ethan. “One of you is staying put. I don’t like the idea of the three of you alone.”

“What do you think we’re going to do?” I asked. “Start planning our escape? We’ve seen what those collars do to people.”

“Well, I haven’t, so don’t give me an excuse to test them out, Blue.”

The sky was clear when Thatcher and I left the little shack. The sun cast a lovely golden hue on the valley below us, giving it a surreal quality. Like something out of an old movie, untouched by the horrors of the outside world. Until we got closer to the platform, and the horror intruded like a gut punch.

Thatcher moved to my left side, walking close, as if he could block the platform’s very existence from me with his body. It didn’t work, but I was grateful that he tried. Once we were past the row of barns, I relaxed a little. Breathed slower.

“You scared me when you ran off before,” he said softly as we walked into the park.

I’m sorry. The words didn’t make it past my lips, though. “Bad memories.”

“So I gathered. You ran away like the devil himself was chasing you.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

We weren’t alone in the park. A few clusters of people sat at tables, or played on a nearby swing set. No one approached us, but no one looked overly suspicious, either. Being ignored was nice.

“Thank you,” he said after a brief pause.

“For what?”

“For giving Landon a chance today, and for bringing Teresa in.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” The comment came out harsher than I’d intended, and I didn’t miss the way his lips pressed together.

“I know that, Renee. But thank you, anyway. You and your friends are in a very tough spot right now.”

“Tough seems to define every spot we’re in, with occasional upgrades to deadly and impossible.”

“But this time you’re deliberately withholding information from the state police. You could face charges for that.”

“So could you.”

“What are they going to do? Put me in jail?”

I started to reply, then realized a beat too late that he was teasing me. Only it wasn’t funny. “They could deny you parole, like, forever.”

“There are worse things. As long as Landon is safe, I don’t care as much what happens to me.”

I’d care.

Only I wasn’t supposed to care—when the hell had that changed? “You’re sharp and you’re smart, Thatcher. You’d make a good addition to our teams.”

He smiled warmly. It must have been the glow of the sunset on his face, but I swear I saw something else in that smile—something gentle that made my insides go a little soft. “I appreciate the compliments. And please, call me Derek.”

“Derek.”

We reached the Sport and stopped at the back door. Neither one of us opened it right away. Something strange and awkward was hanging between us, holding us in place. I didn’t know what it was, but it scared me to death.

“I haven’t given the future any real thought for a long time,” he said. “I fought for other people, but not for myself.”

“You have Landon to fight for.”

“I do. That’s enough for now.” His hand brushed mine, just a gentle ghost of a touch. “Everything else I’ll have to play by ear.”

My heart pounded. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t pulling away or shutting him down. I could list a hundred reasons why I should have taken a step back, or told him he’d be playing with himself for the foreseeable future unless he wanted to go keep Bethany entertained. Logic refused to accept this was happening—I was blue, I was scarred up, I was an emotional train wreck, take your pick.

Instinct and biology told logic to go fuck itself.

“Playing it by ear is a good start,” I said.

He smiled, and that same warmth flitted through my insides. His hand brushed mine again . . . and then he popped open the back door. I stepped away and the spell was broken. We grabbed the spare blankets from the storage bin, as well as two flashlights. I hadn’t seen a bathroom at the shack, and if I was going to pee outdoors tonight, I wasn’t doing it in the dark.

We walked back to the shack a little more slowly, not chatting about anything in particular, just enjoying the twilight stroll. On our first trip through the park, Thatcher’s attention had wandered, his gaze moving everywhere, observing everything. This time, he watched me—not in a creepy way, but in an I-see-you way. Like no one had watched me since William died.

And for the first time since William died, I felt the faint stirring of hope.