Chimera

Seven The Call

Three hours later, we had exactly zero leads on Ethan’s whereabouts and enough shared anxiety to keep Hackensack General’s psych ward busy for a month. No clues at the crime scene, no contact from the kidnappers, and no witnesses besides a couple of alley cats who weren’t talking. Teresa assigned Lacey’s squad to stay in New Jersey and continue searching (more to feel like we were doing something than because she expected actual results), while the rest of us headed back to HQ.

Minus Marco. He wasn’t in Lacey’s squad, and despite his valuable skill with computers, he chose to remain in raven form and search on his own. A tiny part of me hated him for that ability. Even if he didn’t find anything, he was doing something.

My stomach was doing something: rumbling, reminding me to feed it. I wanted to know what was going on with Double Trouble, but despite that and my hunger, I didn’t follow the others inside after we landed. I headed through the archway to the back field and sat down on the same bench Ethan and I had sat on—hell, was that really just this morning? A lifetime had passed since then, and we still felt miles away from solving this case.

Okay, so not completely true. Our suspects had names and backstories, but those things did us a fuck lot of good if we didn’t know where to find said suspects. They obviously had zero trouble finding us, and they knew exactly how to hurt us. If Teresa was the mothering heart of our group, then Ethan was everyone’s big brother. He had friends here and in Manhattan who were willing to fight for him—few of us could say the same thing.

No one was on the field now, and I had a clear view of the prison and its walls. For a while I’d been angry at Ethan for changing his mind about the Banes. He’d come to Manhattan a month ago to help Simon find a few missing prisoners, and he’d returned home with a new perspective on their situation. I’d lost my only ally in that argument, and I’d resented him for it. Resented everyone, actually, for being so willing to let go of everything the Banes had done. For forgiving them and wanting to work alongside them as fellow Metas.

Shades of gray scared me—black and white, Bane and Ranger, was easier. But how did I start to see those shades of gray, and see the Banes as my fellow Metas, when doing so felt like betraying the very thing that once saved my life?

A long shadow fell on the grass right before I heard fabric rustling. Someone was approaching from a wide angle, taking care to make sure I knew they were coming before they scared the crap out of me. I shifted around, intending to thank that person, until I saw Derek Thatcher walking toward me with a plate in his hand. My heart did a funny little leap that was probably just nerves.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

“Would it matter if I did?”

He smiled, and in the odd golden haze of twilight, I realized again he was actually kind of handsome. “Not in the least, since I’m outside and technically in your care.”

“Then join away.”

“Thank you.” He sat on the opposite end of the bench, leaving a comfortable space between us. “Teresa insisted I bring you this.” He held out the plate.

I eyeballed the roast beef sandwich, and my empty stomach clenched with want. I took the plate. “Thanks. I don’t know what Teresa would do with her time if she didn’t have us to mother over.”

“Difficult to guess. Possibly settle down and become a mother to her own children?”

The comment stopped me cold. Teresa had made an offhand comment to me a few weeks ago about wanting a family with Gage one day, when it was safe for us. I’d said that I doubted it would ever be safe for us to be parents, when it wasn’t even safe to be ourselves. She’d bitterly agreed.

“She’d make a great mom,” I said, then stuffed my mouth full of roast beef. Heaven on rye.

“She does seem to have that instinct, despite her past.”

“What do you know about her past?”

He draped one arm across the back of the bench, angling his body toward me. “A lot of stories have been floating around the Warren these last few months. No one ever told us what happened to you kids after that final day in Central Park, not until January when our powers came back. Even then it’s only come to us in dribs and drabs.”

“So you know that since you and your pals killed all of our parents and mentors, we ended up in foster care?” He flinched, and instead of that giving me a sense of perverse satisfaction, I felt a pang of something else. Something kind of like guilt. But I didn’t let up. “And that some of us, like Ethan, were stuck in horrific situations until they aged out?”

“Yes, I know that.” His gray eyes burned with grief and anger, and I had to look away. “I lost everything in the War, too, you know. My wife and son, my freedom, my identity as a Meta. Gone.”

I put the plate down between us, no longer interested in the half-eaten sandwich. “I know that.”

Who are you, and what have you done with Renee?

“I remember you from that day,” he said softly.

“I’m kind of unforgettable.” I put my hand on the bench next to his and really saw my blue for the first time, so glaringly different from his rough, tanned skin. “People generally remember having seen the blue girl.”

“Something tells me no one has ever really seen you, Renee.”

My insides clenched up tight. I tucked my hand back into my lap, but couldn’t muster up any anger over his comment. Hell, he was probably right, and hadn’t I done that to myself? Built up the exterior persona of the confident, curvy dancer with the sharp tongue and high-pitched laugh? I’d had those walls up for years. Without their protection, I’d be defenseless.

“I wasn’t much older than some of you,” Thatcher said when I didn’t respond. “Many of us were barely in our twenties when we were imprisoned. We weren’t fighting for a cause anymore, we were fighting for our lives. Specter could have killed any one of us with a thought, and we knew it. It’s how he controlled us, got us to fight for him.”

“Kill or be killed?”

“Yes. I doubt he was even in New York that last day.”

Following a general who was too chickenshit to make a personal appearance in his own campaign? I was doubly glad to have a leader who charged forward at the head of the line, who would take a metaphorical bullet for any one of us (and had taken a literal bullet for Dahlia).

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

He hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Go ahead.”

“If you hated Specter so much, then why did you keep an innocent locked up in his place? Why pretend for so many years that Specter was in Manhattan with the rest of you?”

“For the same reason: fear.” He scrubbed his hands across his face, then through his hair. “None of us had a clue what happened to our powers, if it was temporary or if they’d come back. We were still afraid of Specter, and we knew that if the authorities believed he was free, he’d be hunted down and tossed in with the rest of us. We were terrified of what he’d do to us if our powers came back. As the years passed, the ruse became part of our daily lives. Even when we gave up hope of ever getting our powers back, we feared reprisal from the warden if he discovered we’d lied about Specter. So we kept the secret.”

I studied Derek Thatcher for a moment, trying to see the younger man he’d once been—the man so afraid of another Meta that he’d done horrific things. He was there, beneath the crow’s-feet and threads of silver in his hair. Beneath the hardness that living in prison for so long had created around him. I knew about hardness and walls and fear, so much more than I could ever tell him.

“Needless to say, the warden was furious when he discovered what we’d done,” Thatcher added. “It’s part of the reason why we stayed away from the Warren for years, until Simon and Ethan made contact. It’s why I’m positive that I’ll never receive my pardon.”

“Helping with this case may sway Warden Hudson’s opinion.”

“Doubtful.” He gave me a sad smile. “Honestly, this case may be my last chance to see the outside world, and I’m okay with that. All I want now is to save my son.”

Something tender squeezed at my heart. I tried to ignore it. I didn’t want to have sympathy for Thatcher, or to experience genuine regret that he’d already given up hope of ever gaining his freedom. Feeling those things were just too dangerous. “I hope we can,” I said. “Save your son, I mean.”

“Thank you. And I hope we find Ethan safe and sound.”

“Me, too.”

“He tried to save us the day of the helicopter crash, and he nearly died for his trouble.”

“Ethan would stand in front of a speeding train to protect someone from danger, even if he didn’t know them. It’s what the Rangers taught us.”

“That it’s somehow noble and heroic to die protecting a stranger?”

Why did it sound stupid when Thatcher said it like that? “Yes. It is.”

“Wouldn’t you rather die knowing you’d saved someone you love, instead of a nameless person who probably won’t remember you when you’re gone?”

“Janie Muldoon.”

Thatcher blinked hard several times. “Who’s she?”

“The Ranger who died saving my life when I was eight years old. I was a stranger to her, a kid she’d never met. She died that day, burned to death.” Tears stung my eyes as old memories clawed at the veil I’d put over them almost twenty years ago. Memories dredged up three months ago when I was burned so badly I wanted to die rather than live with the agony of healing.

I’d almost gone crazy during my recovery, startling awake night after night from horrible dreams of Janie’s death, and of my own physical and mental torture before the Rangers found me. I hadn’t told anyone about those nightmares—not Teresa or Gage, and not any of my doctors. So why in the charred blue hell was I opening up to Thatcher?

He didn’t say he was sorry, and I was glad for that—I hate empty sympathy. I’d rather have directness and honesty.

“You weren’t born into the Rangers?” he asked instead.

“No, they found me when I was eight, a few months after my powers had only begun to manifest. I wasn’t born blue.” I bit down hard on my tongue to cut off the flow of words. No way was I going into any more detail with him. Details about the Montana compound I was raised on, or the deeply disturbed people who lived there and believed that Metas were all possessed by demons.

Demons that could be cleansed.

Fucking abusive lunatics, the lot of them.

His hand touched my shoulder, and I didn’t flinch away. Instead, I met his gaze and was surprised to see a quiet intensity there that seemed directed not at me, but at the people who hurt me. Or was it my imagination?

“I’m glad the Rangers were there when you needed them.”

“They always were. Seeing the old Ranger HQ destroyed was . . . it’s like moving one step closer to forgetting.” Those damned tears were back, and I blinked the sheen of water away. “Nowadays everyone thinks of the War first, and no one remembers all of the good the Rangers did. All of the lives they saved.”

“You remember, Renee. As long as one person remembers, their legacy won’t die.”

He squeezed my shoulder, and then the hand started to slip away. I reached up and pressed it back down, grateful for the touch and unable to thank him for it. We sat in silence for a while, until the sun had set completely and it was time to go back inside.

I was awake with the sun (not that I’d slept much anyway), and after checking for an update (nothing), I went outside to run for a while. I didn’t run fast or often, but this morning it felt like the thing to do, and I ran until my legs and lungs burned. After a quick shower, I returned to my room to get dressed. I was just running a comb through my short hair to sleek out some of the tangles when my cell phone rang.

The name on the display sent my heart into double-time: Ethan.

“Hello?” I said.

“Is anyone else in the room with you?” a male voice asked. Landon. “Ethan’s life depends on your honesty.”

“I’m alone.”

“Put your phone on speaker, then put it into your pocket. Go find Derek Thatcher. I want to speak to him.”

“I want to know Ethan’s alive.”

“He’s alive, Flex. How long he stays that way depends on your following my directions.” The snide tone of his voice suggested he didn’t think I could follow his directions with a map and a flashlight, but I bit back a flippant response. I didn’t know this kid or his temper, and I wouldn’t risk him taking out my lack of restraint on his hostage.

“Fine,” I said.

I did as he asked, careful not to disconnect the call, then strode down the hall to the room Thatcher had been assigned last night. No one else was in sight, so I didn’t knock. I yanked open the door and went inside.

Thatcher spun around with a pair of pants in his hands, dressed in only a pair of briefs that showed off every single muscle and line of his body. I didn’t stop long enough to either admire his physique or be embarrassed at catching him in his underwear, and he seemed too flustered to form a coherent sentence.

“You have a phone call,” I said, holding out the cell.

His eyes narrowed as he slipped into his pants. “From?”

“Good morning, Chimera,” Landon said over speaker. “Or should I call you Dad?”

All of the color leached from Thatcher’s face. He stared at the phone in my hand like it might explode and kill us both. “Landon?” he said, the single word more a plea than a question.

“In the flesh. Although I guess technically not, since we’re doing this over the phone.”

“They told me you were dead.”

“I know.”

I wanted to reach through the phone and throttle Landon for the casual way he was talking about this—about the agony Thatcher had suffered believing his wife and son had died, being locked away and powerless to save them.

Thatcher’s expression shifted from pained shock to suspicion. “What do you want?”

“That should be obvious, even to you,” Landon replied. “I’m willing to trade Ethan Swift for you.”

“Absolutely not.”

I nearly dropped the phone, so startled by Thatcher’s flat refusal.

“Excuse me?” Landon asked.

“No trade,” Thatcher said.

“Are you insane?” I asked.

“Think, Renee. I am under your supervision. If I trade myself away, no matter the reason, Hudson will throw you in jail. Probably Teresa and Ethan, too, for that matter.”

“So your solution is to let Landon kill Ethan?”

“My solution is to not send the three of you straight to jail. I won’t. But I am willing to meet with him and talk.”

“Talk?” Landon said. “What makes you think I want to talk?”

“Because if you wanted to kill me, you’d have done so by now. With your abilities, you’ve had plenty of opportunities.”

“Then why didn’t I kidnap you?”

“You’re trying to prove how smart and badass you are by kidnapping a powerful ex-Ranger. It’s time to quit the showboating, son, and get down to business.”

I could almost see Landon’s face falling on the other end of the line. He’d been put in his place by his old man, and it was awesome. The brief silence from his side added to Thatcher’s verbal victory.

“Fine,” Landon said. “I want to meet face-to-face.”

“I’m under Flex’s supervision. She comes with me.”

“Just her. No one else even knows where you’re going or who you’re meeting.”

“Agreed. When and where?”

“Get on the Jersey turnpike and head south. The old J. Fenimore Cooper service area, between exits four and five. It’s been abandoned for years. Wait there.”

“Okay. For how long?”

“Until I’m sure you aren’t being followed. I’ll call back from a different phone, just in case you’re tracing this one. Don’t answer any calls unless it comes from a four-one-two area code.” Landon hung up.

“It might be a trap,” I said as I put my phone away.

“We’ll have to take that chance,” Thatcher replied. “He has your friend, and he seems willing to compromise.”

“He’s an angry teenager with daddy issues. He’ll do whatever it takes to get you into whichever position he wants you.”

Thatcher shrugged. “Look on the bright side. If he kills me, you’re free of your babysitting obligations.”

“Funny.” The idea of him being killed did not cheer me up. In fact, the joke irritated me.

“I’m not afraid of dying, Renee. I haven’t been for a long time.” The calm, factual way he said it underlined the words themselves, and a chill wormed its way down my spine.

“Well, I’d prefer it if no one died today. Not even you.”

His lips twitched. “How do we get off the island without arousing suspicion?”

“Easy enough. We leave.”

“Just like that?”

“Sure. Once we’re in the air, I’ll com back and tell whoever’s monitoring the channel that we’re following up on a lead.”

“And they’ll let you go?”

“The beauty of this plan is that we’ll already be gone.”

“I see.”

“Get dressed. I’ll meet you by the main doors in five minutes.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get us a backup plan.”

I wrote a brief email to Teresa, nutshelling the conversation with Landon, as well as our destination, then set the email to send in exactly two hours—enough time to arrive and talk to Landon without spooking him. Landon hadn’t said no weapons, so I also grabbed a loose jacket to hide my holstered Coltson.

Everyone was too busy looking for Ethan to object when I took one of the puddle-jumpers—blessing for me. Thatcher and I were in a Sport, on 95 and ten minutes south, before the first call from Teresa woke up my cell phone.

I ignored the call, as well as several others from different people. Thatcher watched me silently while I drove. We didn’t chat. I hated that I was doing this alone, without my friends backing me up. I wasn’t a leader, and I sure as hell didn’t make the game plan. I followed other folks’ plays as best I could and hoped it all worked.

Ethan was counting on me, and as our exit loomed, I sent a silent prayer that I didn’t royally fuck this up.