The Hunt

15

Ariane

ZANE MEANT WHAT HE’D SAID. That idea rocked me to the core.

I hadn’t detected even a hint of deception from him. Would he really leave and go back to Wingate? Would I let him?

It was all I’d been pushing him to do from the second I’d read the letter from my father and realized that Zane’s life would be in further danger. But that was when I’d been prepared to let him go. At that point, I’d steeled myself against my own feelings. Pulled them back, stuffed them down, buried them under concern for his safety. That had to be the top priority, not my own wishes, not the longings that I couldn’t allow myself to say aloud.

Now, though, after I’d finally become convinced that Zane meant it, that he really intended to stick with me through the insanity that was my life at the moment, I’d stopped holding back, I’d let go and let myself feel. Only to have him pull away. It was like leaning into the wind, counting on it to support your weight, just as it vanished beneath you, dashing you to the ground, leaving you bloodied and bruised.

I drew my knees up to my chest, tucking my skirt around my legs. I felt skinned, exposed. More so now than I had since that night in the lab when the observation wall had turned to glass, revealing the truth about me to Zane.

I didn’t know how to go back. I didn’t know how not to feel these things for him, now that I’d opened the door. And worse, admitted it to him. My face burned at the memory. Not with regret, exactly, but more with the realization of how vulnerable I’d made myself.

I dared a glance at him. His hands were tight on the wheel, his knuckles turning white, the only outward sign of his inner turmoil. He was afraid for me. My whole life I’d longed for someone who would care about me, just for being me. Not because of what I could do for him or because I reminded him of someone he’d lost.

But I hadn’t considered the repercussions. That once you were no longer isolated, alone, but involved in a larger unit, a relationship or a family, there were additional considerations, obligations. Ties.

Part of me wanted to rage at Zane. How dare he muddle this up with his feelings. His worries. If I was willing to take the risk, wasn’t that all that mattered?

Zane hated Ford’s approach, but she’d done exactly what I would have done, if she or one of the others had come to me when I was living in Wingate.

She was being careful and putting safety first. After all, it wasn’t just her life at risk. She was in charge of Nixon and Carter as well, which only made sense. Nixon seemed too distant to be involved, though I had no idea what was going on in his head, obviously. And Carter, with his shy smile, desire to stay in school, and eagerness to talk, might not have the edge needed to make the hard decisions. Looking at them collectively, I was pretty sure I was seeing Dr. Laughlin’s version of a variety pack. Different genes switched on, resulting in a range of human/alien combinations.

Ford, apparently, had the right mix that made her a natural leader. So she was skeptical of me, expecting a trap. In her position, I would have felt the same.

But someone, somewhere, had to trust. Had to make the first move. They had extended that trust to me by not (a) immediately killing us or (b) signaling their guards to contact Laughlin.

If Ford’s intention had been to turn us in to Laughlin, she wouldn’t have taken the risk of letting us leave or allowing us to set the time and date of our return, if we returned at all.

That was only logical.

I watched Zane from the corner of my eye. He was concentrating on the road, his mouth tight. He truly thought that they’d manipulated the situation to take advantage of me.

But in reality, Ford had only accepted the situation as it presented itself. Offering to aid me in developing a plan was pointless. If it was so simple to escape, they would have done so already. And the decision to take the chance had to be mine, not based on their limited ability to help.

It made sense to me. She had not spelled it out, but I understood how she thought, even if I couldn’t hear her thinking. I parsed information in a similar way. To me, she’d done nothing objectionable or even truly surprising during the entire encounter.

Zane saw it differently. He couldn’t help that. He filtered information through his own background and experiences, which were not at all similar to mine.

Fine. We’d encountered that difficulty before and found common ground.

The trouble was, this time, whether he realized it or not, he’d made it very clear that I’d have to choose—not just whether to help Ford and the others but which “side” I was going to take. Human or other? I would ally myself one way or the other and lose something. Or someone. There was no way around that.

Zane slowed to make the turn onto his mother’s street and inhaled sharply. “Shit.”

His adrenaline washed over me, bringing the world into sharp focus.

I sat up, putting my feet on the floor. “What’s wrong?”

“My dad’s here.” He nodded toward the end of the street.

Sure enough, a familiar-looking dark blue SUV, emblazoned with WINGATE CHIEF OF POLICE, sat in front of Mara’s half of the duplex. And, surprisingly, Mara’s little silver Mazda was in the driveway, parked at a dramatic angle, as if she’d pulled in without any care or in a big hurry.

I frowned. She shouldn’t have been back from work for hours yet, assuming she put in a regular eight-hour shift.

The ubiquitous dark SUV, Laughlin’s spy or spies, was here again as well, though parked at a more discreet distance, closer to the intersection where we were than to Mara’s house.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, as I tried to isolate the anxious vibe that radiated from the area, a weird itchy/tickling sensation at the edge of my brain that wouldn’t let up.

Zane tensed. “Is he…is my mom okay?”

Did he hurt her? That was the question in his head, the one he wasn’t asking.

I bit my lip. Zane had never specifically said that his dad had hurt any of them. But when Zane had been worried that my father was abusing me, he’d had a certain grim familiarity when checking my arms for bruises. He’d known what he was looking for. And regardless of whether that was based on personal experience or simply supposition, the possibility that his dad might hurt his mom existed in his mind, and that was enough. Chief Bradshaw had been beyond furious when my father had him ejected from GTX. And he’d blamed Zane’s willingness to defend me—instead of turning me over to Dr. Jacobs—on the influence of Zane’s mother. All of that added to a potential volatile situation in Mara’s tiny duplex.

I struggled to tune out the surrounding noise—Zane’s thoughts and feelings, those of the random people in the neighborhood—and focus on the occupants of the building at the end of the block. “I’m not picking up any physical pain.” Pain shouted the loudest of anything, and it was unmistakable, always accompanied by some blend of fear and shock. (Even when people are expecting the hurt, the actual physical sensation is always more intense than anticipated and still comes as a surprise.)

Zane gripped the steering wheel tighter. “If we go in, we might make things worse.”

Assuming that his dad had come to see his mom to shout at her for her role—as the chief imagined it, anyway—in our escape, then yeah. I had to agree. We’d be proving his theory correct, that we’d run to her for help. And if he was here because he hoped to track us down and turn me in to Dr. Jacobs, then going in would make our status plummet from “iffy” to “certain doom.”

“It’s probably best to wait and see what happens,” I said. Actually, there was no “probably” about it. When all else fails, gather more intel and wait for an opportunity—no question. But those were his parents in there, and I wasn’t sure he’d feel I was qualified to dictate in this instance. If it had been my father in potential danger…well, that was complicated, assuming I’d ever even see him again.

“If there’s obvious…distress, we’ll intercede,” I added, taking care with my word choice. Zane had been very careful in what he had not said. I would do the same.

Without waiting for direction from me, Zane accelerated through the intersection and made the necessary turns to take us back to our house.

I caught myself and shook my head. Not our house. The house. The abandoned home for sale where we’d spent the night last night. Somehow in the last twenty-four hours, I’d begun attaching possessive pronouns to it.

A sudden memory of Zane and me standing shoulder to shoulder (well, with my height aided by the step stool of the toilet), peering out the window. That coziness, familiarity, that comfort of having him near when everything else was uncertain and frighteningly unstable.

I wanted that. Wanted him. Needed him.

A dull ache started in my chest. A crappy abandoned house, dirty carpeting, no furniture, in a shady neighborhood. It was a twisted and shadowy version of my Dream-Life vision of suburban perfection. But it was real, actually located in this world. If that was as close as I’d get to my dream, I’d take it.

But what would I have to give up? If Zane forced me to choose between him and what I thought was right…I shook my head.

“Don’t fall in love” had been one of my father’s Rules. And I’d broken it before I fully understood why he’d included it. But it was too late; I couldn’t—wouldn’t—take back the past. The only question now was how it would affect the future, if I let it.

Zane led the way up the sidewalk to the door with more confidence this time, stepping aside only for me to unlock and open the door. Apparently, breaking and entering was growing on him.

Once inside, I closed the door after us. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed since our last visit.

I opened my mouth to say as much to Zane, but he was already bounding up the stairs.

Trying to avoid me? Worried about his mother? Both?

I sighed and followed him. I found him in the bathroom again, staring at his mother’s house as if by intense scrutiny he could divine anything that was going on inside.

“Do you hear anything?” he asked without looking at me.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the gossamer threads of words and feelings emanating from that location. But I couldn’t hear anything other than a distant and furious buzz with the occasional out of context phrase.

…your fault.

If you hadn’t been so concerned with…

…can’t blame me for your inadequacies…

“They’re arguing,” I said. “But other than that…there’s too much emotion,” I said. I could feel waves of fear—lots of it—mixed with anger and suspicion, like water lapping at a distant shore. If we went in closer, I might have a better shot at isolating thoughts or even identifying who was thinking what, but from here, no.

Zane exhaled loudly, leaning against the window frame, tapping his fingers anxiously against the top of it.

I slipped my arm around his back tentatively, attempting in my own less-than-smooth way to offer comfort.

He tensed, surprised enough to glance down at me, but he didn’t pull away, which felt like a victory.

I fumbled, alternating between awkwardly patting and just maintaining the contact. It felt unnatural, as if I were trying out some new skill. And to be fair, it wasn’t like I’d had a lot of practice. For most of my life, I’d done my very best to avoid being touched, which included touching other people. Zane was pretty much the only exception to that rule, the only person from whom I more than just tolerated physical affection. And that had taken time, patience (his), and a situation that hadn’t given me much choice but to challenge the barriers I’d erected for myself. Pretending to be in a relationship, though, hadn’t given me much practical experience in actually being in one.

Keeping an eye on what little I could see outside—the windowsill was just below eye level for me—I moved my hand aimlessly over Zane’s back, trying for a soothing motion. Rubbing at the knots below his shoulder blades, tracing the hollow at the small of his back and the rise of muscle on either side of his spine through the slightly damp and scratchy fabric of his shirt. I hadn’t realized the material was this unpleasant; no wonder he’d been so miserable in this outfit.

Eventually, I realized he wasn’t watching out the window anymore, but staring down at me.

I glanced up and caught my breath. His gray-blue gaze was dark with emotion.

“You know I’m just worried about you, right? I would never try to keep you from them for any other reason.” The urgency and pleading in his voice was hypnotizing, pulling at me.

Biting my lip, I nodded.

He lifted my hair away from my cheek—any taming I’d done earlier was long gone—tucked it behind my ear, and brushed his thumb over my lower lip until I released it.

I’d heard the phrase “time stood still” but never understood it until that second, when every thud of my heart seemed to expand, taking hours to complete the contraction and move on. All my attention was focused on the feeling of the connection between us, like a live wire completing a circuit—his thumb grazing the lower edge of mouth, my hand clutching at his back. Round and round we went, a circle of sensation that called to me to forget everything except for this feeling.

I inched closer to him, drawn by the almost magnetic urge to fit myself against him. Then, following a bold impulse I barely recognized as my own, I tugged at his shirt with shaking fingers until it came free, giving me access to his warm skin.

My bravery only went so far, though, and my palm just grazed his bare side before I pulled back.

His breath caught in his throat audibly, a funny little sound between a sigh and a groan. Then he leaned down—so fast I barely had time to register the movement—and his mouth closed over mine.

His tongue tangled with mine, and I wrapped my fists in his shirt, trying to pull myself closer still and out of the awkward angle caused by our height difference.

Then he bent down and lifted me up, one arm around my back and the other behind my knees.

I gasped at the feeling as much as the sudden movement. The back of my knee was not a particularly secretive or private place as far as I knew; I mean, it had been exposed all day long while I was in this skirt. And yet his fingers tight against that vulnerable skin sent fire zipping through my veins.

Now, this…this is why humans did such stupid things for love. To feel this heady sense of belonging and connection, this temporary abatement of perpetual loneliness.

The new level of intensity probably should have frightened me, but instead it had a strange grounding effect, as if this were what was keeping me here instead of floating away. As if, despite how fuzzy and out-of-focus these feelings made me, they also certified my reality.

Without breaking the kiss, Zane turned to set me on the edge of the bathroom counter. The van keys, which had been balanced on the edge, fell into the sink behind me with a loud clatter. Then he moved to stand between my knees, a sensation that stole my breath.

I slipped my hands beneath his shirt, my courage returning in a hot rush of feeling. It felt so good to touch and be touched. He was the one who’d taught me that. And it seemed like the more I had, the more I craved.

His hands were gentle on my face, at the back of my head under my hair, and then tracing a line from my jaw down my neck, under the collar of my shirt and the T-shirt beneath it.

His fingertips skidded to a stop on the first button of my shirt, and I shivered in anticipation.

“Okay?” he whispered.

“Yes,” I whispered back, trying not to sound as breathless and desperate as I felt.

He released the button slowly and then moved to the next, again so slowly. Giving me time to think, to object.

But I didn’t want that. Didn’t need it.

I pushed his hands out of the way and he froze, an apology written across his face. I got my remaining buttons open in seconds, and I was struggling with my sleeves before he caught on enough to help me pull the cuffs free over my wrists.

I still had a thin T-shirt on—and he’d certainly seen me in less when he’d bandaged my arm—but the heat in his expression told me this was different. More, somehow.

I pulled at the front of his shirt and he needed no further encouragement, releasing the buttons as efficiently as I’d dispensed with my own.

Beneath, he was all lines and muscle where I had curves. (Okay, not many curves, but enough, evidently.) His skin was darker than mine, but not so much that I couldn’t see the faint blue of veins in his chest. The rapid moving of his ribs as he breathed at an increased rate fascinated me almost as much the precise alignment of the muscles beneath.

I knew I was staring, but I couldn’t help myself.

Then he touched the hem of my T-shirt, just at my waist, which set off a barrage of conflicting messages to my brain about where I wanted him to touch next.

“Okay?” he asked again, sounding hoarse.

This time, I reached up and pulled his head toward mine, kissing him fiercely as my answer, wrapping my arms around his neck as his hand slid under my T-shirt and up.

His thumb brushed over the front of my breast, and I wanted to curl into the caress like a cat, but my position on the edge of the counter, with the sink directly behind me, was already precarious.

He leaned in farther, bringing us almost chest to chest, and my head sang with the near-skin contact. Without thinking, I pulled him closer. He braced one hand behind me to keep his balance…and accidentally turned on the faucet.

I squeaked involuntarily in surprise at the sound of sputtering water and scooted forward directly into him. Which was a whole new sensation.

“Crap. Sorry!” he said, pulling his hand from under my shirt and fumbling for the knob behind me. Once the water was off, he let out a slow breath and rested his head on my shoulder. Then he gave a muffled but chagrined laugh against my neck. I shivered at the vibration of his voice against my skin.

“Can we try that ag—” he began.

The distant sounds of shouting outside caught our attention then. Zane’s head swiveled toward the window.

“It’s my dad,” he said after a second.

Zane stepped away to the window and shoved it open. Part of me wanted to kick my feet against the cabinet in frustration. But he was right. Whatever was happening with Mara—and by association, his father—had to take priority.

With a sigh, I tugged my shirt into place and slipped off the counter to follow Zane.

Ascending onto the toilet once more, I could see Mara’s yard fairly clearly, where it wasn’t blocked by the house in between us. Chief Bradshaw, out of uniform and looking a little disheveled, was in the middle of the grass, shouting up at his former wife in the doorway.

“You’re destroying his life, Mara. I hope you can live with that,” he spat at her. “You might as well pull the trigger yourself.”

Mara flinched but remained silent, looking a pale and hunched imitation of herself. She was ridiculously shrunken for someone of her height.

“He’s really upset,” I said, disconcerted to see that level of emotion from the chief, especially in regard to Zane. Chief Bradshaw had made it very clear to Zane on countless occasions that he considered his second son exactly that: secondary. Or worse. At GTX, when Zane had stepped in front of me to protect me from his father, there’d been a moment when I wasn’t sure whether his father would consider his presence sufficient enough reason not to shoot me. And yet, right now, the waves of desperation radiating off him had to be obvious even to those who weren’t telepathic.

Zane frowned. “Yeah.”

Zane’s dad gave one last inarticulate shout of disgust and hurtled something thin and flat at Mara. It landed on the small porch, narrowly missing her legs, but she didn’t move, either to avoid it or pick it up.

Then he turned and stalked off toward his SUV without looking back. A few seconds later, the engine revved and his tires screeched as he whipped around in an impressive 180-degree turn before accelerating down the street in clear defiance of the posted speed limit.

The chief’s car hadn’t even reached the corner before the unmarked black SUV, Laughlin’s spy vehicle, pulled smoothly away from the curb in pursuit.

Great. Although the absence of surveillance was a benefit for now, I wondered what it meant. I reached over and pulled the window closed. How much of that fight had Laughlin’s guy overheard and/or understood? If Laughlin learned we were here and in contact with Mara, that would not be good. Clearly, they were now following the chief for a reason. I didn’t know what it was, but I kind of doubted it was general curiosity. Maybe they were hoping he’d lead them to us.

Already buttoning his shirt, Zane looked over at me. “If you’re determined to talk to her, this is probably our best chance, right?” he asked, his forehead wrinkled with concern.

He was right about this being our best chance…except what we were walking into? I didn’t know and couldn’t predict it, which made me very uncomfortable. Mara had no way of reaching us, so she didn’t know where we were. We could have fled town, gone into hiding, or, heck, been killed by Laughlin’s hybrids, for that matter. Would Mara insist on calling the chief once she realized we were here? I had no idea what kind of ties remained between them. They didn’t like each other—that much was obvious—but the joint goal of keeping their son safe and/or away from me might yet be a common bond.

I hesitated and then nodded, with a sigh. No matter what else was going on, Mara was our best and only source of information.

Zane reached over and touched the bottom of my lip. “Stop,” he said gently.

I knew he was talking about my biting my lip, but it felt like he was talking about everything. The whole situation. Everything from the moment since I’d exposed what I really was by lashing out at Rachel Jacobs at that party. It had been only a few days ago, but it seemed like years. And I really, really wished we could—stop, that is. Just end all of this and find some kind of peaceful space, preferably together, without worrying that someone would find us. But that was just not an option right now.

Maybe ever.

The trip across the backyards for the second time wasn’t nearly as perilous or adrenaline filled, but I felt strangely exposed. Watched.

I wasn’t picking up on anybody noticing our presence, no lonely older person or bored soccer mom staring out a window, so it was likely my own self-consciousness, but still. I didn’t care for it and pushed for a faster pace to reach the back door of Mara’s condo as swiftly as possible.

The security bar across the sliding door still dangled loose against the glass. In fact, the little metal lock lever was still up, indicating that the door itself wasn’t even locked. So Mara hadn’t been home very long, or else she’d been too distracted to resecure her home after our interruption this morning. Either way, it didn’t bode particularly well for us. After all, she shouldn’t have been home at all, and if something was big enough to keep her from obsessively locking her doors…well, if you asked me to guess, I’d have said that nothing was of the magnitude to cause that kind of disruption in her routine.

Through the glass, I could see that the kitchen was empty. A plate with crumbs was on the counter next to the toaster, and a chair was turned on its side next to the table.

I raised a questioning eyebrow at Zane, and he shook his head. It hadn’t been like that when he’d last seen it.

I tugged at the splintery wooden handle on the door, using my ability to keep the security bar from making noise against the glass. I couldn’t hear anyone other than Mara inside—her emotional and chaotic thoughts a roaring ocean of noise—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t drowning out someone else’s much quieter thoughts. Plus, given her wobbly mental state, I thought it might not be a good idea to scare her into thinking someone was breaking in. Which, okay, we technically were. Although it was more of a walking in, but still.

Zane crossed the threshold first, before I could stop him. I glared at him, which he ignored, searching the room for signs of his mother’s whereabouts.

When he finally looked to me, I gestured toward the doorway that led to the hall. Going to the left would lead us to the front door, but the noise of Mara’s thoughts felt more like it was coming from the right.

Zane nodded, his expression grim, and started in that direction without waiting for me to take the lead.

I followed, gritting my teeth against the urge to call out for him to stop. Hadn’t we had enough nasty surprises in the last few days? Did he really need to charge ahead as if he were the one with superpowers, so to speak?

I could have stopped him, against his will, but I suspected that no matter how much that option appealed to me from a practical standpoint, he wouldn’t appreciate it.

As I passed the kitchen table, I noticed a tablet computer placed with care in the center, on a dish towel. It gleamed dully under the fluorescent lights. The corners were battered and cracked, and the glass screen bore an ugly set of parallel scratches as if someone had skimmed it across a gravel parking lot. A very expensive Frisbee.

I frowned. Wait, was this what the chief had thrown at Mara? It was about the same size and shape. She must have picked it up before coming inside.

But what the hell had driven him to throw something so pricey at her? The Bradshaws weren’t poor, but they weren’t the “toss crystal goblets into the fireplace in a toast” type either.

And why had Mara then taken it inside and treated it not just as item to be returned or thrown away, but with a certain respect or reverence? I wasn’t familiar with her relationship with her ex, but I had trouble with the idea that she’d take something hurled at her in anger and idolize it simply because it belonged to him. After all, she’d had the courage to leave him in the first place.

I shook my head. Something wasn’t making sense.

Acting on an impulse that I didn’t completely understand, I scooped up the tablet from the table and tucked it under my arm before scurrying out to follow Zane around the corner into the hall.

The staircase that I’d noticed earlier curved in a tight right angle, making it impossible to see upstairs or even beyond the first five steps.

But of course that didn’t stop Zane. He took the first three steps as one.

I sighed inside. When this was all done…

Don’t you mean if? If you survive. If he survives. If he is still speaking to you. A melancholy voice whispered in my head.

I ignored it.

When this was all over, I was going to have to teach Zane some very basic sneaking-around skills. And not charging ahead into a blind corner would be Lesson 1.

Fortunately, this time, the curve on the staircase was empty of anyone lying in wait. As was the tiny landing at the top.

Peering around Zane’s back, I could see four cheap, wooden doors, the flimsy kind that cave in at the slightest pressure. More a suggestion of a barrier than the real thing. Two were closed, and two were open.

Zane paused a second on the landing and then headed for the second door on the right, one of the open ones. Mara was up here somewhere, but in this small of a space, I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where. When I stopped to listen with my ears instead of telepathy, then I could hear the rustling movement of quick steps on the carpet coming from that room.

Moving swiftly on his heels, I reached the doorway only a second after him.

Leaning to the side of him—he really made a better door than the actual doors—I could see an open suitcase in the center of a bed with rumpled covers, overflowing with clothing hastily tossed inside.

Clearly Mara had had enough, and she was headed out. But where? To meet someone? Or was she just fleeing town, her resistance worn to the breaking point from the events of the last day?

And where was she now? The room, other than the bed and a tiny TV on a stack of plastic milk crates, was empty.

Then, before I could voice the question or tap Zane on the arm, the click-clack noise of hangers being shoved aside came from an open doorway parallel to the one we were standing in. A closet. A second later, Mara bustled in with an armload of clothing.

“What are you doing?” Zane asked in what felt like an outrageously loud voice but was probably only slightly above normal.

I winced.

She spun around, dropping the clothes on the floor and revealing a large butcher’s knife clutched in her right hand.

Lesson 2 for Zane: never startle jumpy—and potentially armed—people.

I lunged around him, elbowing him out of the way, and raised my hand to direct the power already tingling in my fingertips. I didn’t know if she’d try to throw it or simply lurch at us, but either way I had it covered by clamping down on her wrist and fingers. That knife wasn’t getting anywhere near us.

As soon as she saw it was her son, though, Mara released the blade without a fight. With a little direction from me, it landed point down in the thin carpeting, where it promptly listed to one side under its own weight.

“You’re okay,” she breathed, eyes only for Zane.

Then her gaze fell on me.

“You.”

I flinched and then steeled myself for whatever stream of invective would follow.

“You have to come with me,” she said.

I blinked. That was not what I’d been expecting. “Go with you where?”

“Back to Wingate.” Then she bent down to scoop up the clothes she’d dropped and hastily piled them onto the mound already in her suitcase before slamming the lid closed. Or trying to, anyway. Sleeves in a variety of colors oozed out the edges, like invisible hands raised in protest at their treatment.

Zane gave me a worried frown, and I lifted a shoulder in a shrug, my mouth tight. It was the same song from before. Go back, you don’t belong here, you’ll never have a normal life, etc., etc. The only thing new was this overwhelming sense of urgency radiating from her. And I had no idea what might have triggered that.

“Mom, listen, I don’t know what Dad told you, but I’m fine. We’re fine,” Zane said, emphasizing the “we” of that statement by gesturing back and forth between us.

Mara paused in her frantic attempts to zip her suitcase. “You saw that? You were that close?”

Zane stiffened at the pain and near accusation in her voice and then nodded slowly. “He’s just angry because of Dr. Jacobs. He missed his chance to get in good with GTX.” But he didn’t sound quite as convinced of that as usual, which was evidenced by his next words. “I’m fine. He doesn’t have to worry about me.” His voice held a note of wonder, amazement that his father would worry about him. Which made my chest ache for him. Zane deserved so much better than that.

Plus, it wasn’t exactly true, what Zane had said. There were still plenty of reasons to worry about him, despite my best efforts. But Mara already knew about those, even if the chief didn’t. Which meant we were still missing something.

“Mara,” I began, and her eyes focused on me for the first time for more than a second.

Her face paled the second she saw the tablet pinned between my arm and my chest. She darted forward and snatched it away, clutching it to her body as if it were an infant I was somehow threatening.

2 P.M. Tuesday. I can make a trade…the information is valuable…not enough, not enough…has to be enough. She has to come with. MY FAULT. I can’t save him…

The stream of panicked chatter was accompanied by equally nonsensical images. A castle, a flag with a cartoon representation of an orange cheese wheel, a parking lot, a blond baby sitting up unsteadily on a patchwork blanket.

I shook my head in frustration. Enough already. “What’s going on, Mara?” I asked.

“They took him.” She turned her back on us and continued trying to zip her suitcase one-handed.

“Who?” Zane asked, bewildered.

Then the pieces clicked. The blond baby, Mara’s new determination to return to Wingate, Chief Bradshaw’s sudden and unusually intense distress over his son’s well-being.

When I lived in the lab and in the years after with my father, I’d suffered through any number of lectures and lessons about questioning your assumptions and how making the wrong leap could cost you the mission or your life.

Although no one would admit it, war was a guessing game, all about trying to know your opponent better than he knew himself.

And sometimes, no matter how hard you tried, one or two of the blanks got filled in incorrectly. You just had to hope it wasn’t one of the vital pieces that would alter your entire understanding of the situation.

In this case? It was.

I kicked myself mentally for not catching it sooner: We’d been focused on the wrong son.

“It’s your brother,” I said to Zane quietly. “They took Quinn.”

Zane paled. “What?”

“He goes to school in Wisconsin, right?” I asked.

He shook his head as if trying to wrap his brain around this development. “Madison, yeah. Why?”

This had Dr. Jacobs written all over it. He couldn’t get to me or Zane (thereby getting to me through Zane), so he’d gone for the next best thing. Except it was so much worse. Quinn had not elected to get involved in this mess, unlike the rest of us. He’d been drafted. Which probably meant he had no idea what was going on and was likely terrified.

At best.

At worst…I remembered the determined, almost fanatic gleam in Dr. Jacobs’s gaze when he’d sent his own granddaughter in to me to be killed, all for the sake of this project. So it might very well be much, much worse.

“That’s why Dad was so upset,” Zane muttered to himself with a bitter smile. “Of course.” His shoulders slumped. After all of this, he still cared what his father thought, and his father never seemed to miss an opportunity to crush him, even when it wasn’t intentional.

I wanted to reach out and comfort him, but I was too worried about what we didn’t know. “What’s on the tablet?” I asked Mara. I could feel the tension building in my arms and my nails digging into my palms. Dr. Jacobs could have hardly chosen better, which almost made it worse. He did know me.

I’d never met Quinn before and felt no great love for him based on all that I’d heard from Zane. But this scenario, an innocent caught up in something much larger than he realized and against someone with all the power, was my weak spot. The injustice of it, the helplessness it created in the victim, the disregard for the individual as anything more than a pawn in a bigger game—it sent this huge, roaring fury through me. One that screamed at me to charge in and destroy.

I felt the heat soaring through my veins, warming my face and my hands until I felt I was glowing with it.

At times like this, the cool stir of my alien abilities felt like an entity unto itself. It whispered to be set free, to address the issue, to eliminate the emotional confusion and chaos that upset our normally harmonious system. It wanted to restore the balance in a very logical, efficacious manner. If X is the problem, then we simply eliminate X.

And in the meantime, my human side was screaming with the urge to crush, kill, avenge. If Dr. Jacobs wanted my attention, he would certainly have it. In blood, broken bones, and destruction.

I was the two worst halves of my disparate heritage. Clinical, dispassionate logic—no compassion or sympathy—triggered by overwhelming emotion. A hammer driven by intense strength and feeling.

With an effort, I clamped down against the emotional response, my human side reacting before all the facts were known, and breathed slowly, in and out, until the power quieted to a more manageable tingle rather than the state of near overflow.

“The tablet,” I repeated.

“You’ll come with me?” Mara asked, turning the computer outward so the screen faced us but making no move to turn it on. She wanted a guarantee first.

This can’t be good, a panicked voice inside me cried. “Just show me,” I said firmly.

Next to me, Zane closed the distance between us, his hand wrapping around my wrist for reassurance when my fingers wouldn’t unclench to take his.

Mara pressed the wake button on the tablet and the screen lit up, revealing a single icon—a movie clapboard—floating in an ocean of serene, and artificial, blue.

She took a deep breath and, with a shaking finger, tapped on the icon.

The screen shifted immediately to a much dimmer image, a view of a much darker room with white walls. In the center, under a spotlight, one person sat alone in a chair, his blond head bent down, hiding his face, and his body a blur of frozen motion.

“Quinn,” Zane confirmed in a whisper.

Before he could say more, the video kicked on.

“Oh God, I told you, you have the wrong guy,” he screamed from his bent-over position, obviously in agony. The side of his face, visible only as he tried to curl into himself, was red, the tendons in his neck popping out like cords beneath his skin.

Next to me, Zane inhaled sharply, his hand tightening on my wrist.

On the screen, Quinn lifted his head with a struggle, staring at someone or something past the camera, and with a jolt I realized I recognized him. Yes, in that vague way as someone who’d been a senior when I was a freshman.

But it was more than that. It was the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, albeit currently from pain rather than laughter. It was the exact manner in which his mouth turned down, carving those precise lines in his face, the right not as deep as the left. It was how he set his jaw when he was obviously determined.

My heart gave an uneven thump.

He looked like Zane. Not in his lighter coloring or stocky build—he was a younger version of the chief in that way—but in those flashes of expression. That brotherly resemblance tore at me. It wasn’t Zane, thank God, but it could have been, and I could see him in Quinn.

Quinn managed to reach an almost upright position, revealing for the first time his arm strapped to his chest in a makeshift sling. “It’s not…I’m not…My parents don’t have any money to pay you,” he panted through clenched teeth, directing his words to someone off-camera. Even with the awkward angle, you could see something wasn’t right with his arm. It was bent in strange places, like he’d developed new joints between his wrist and elbow. One of them appeared to have broken through the skin, leaving a bloody gash and a flash of white bone.

Nausea rose in the back of my throat. I’d had my arm broken. Multiple times. Sometimes by accident, sometimes deliberately. The sharp pain—and the sound, oh God, the sound was the worst, that horrible crack that took you apart at the seams, signaled you were mortal, frail, and broken.

The screen bobbled, Mara crying as she tried to hold the tablet steady, and the image of Quinn froze and then broke apart smoothly into blocks, a fancy fade to black.

I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached. Clearly, someone fancied themselves a filmmaker, concerned about effects and appearances in what amounted to a torture video. Oh, I would show them all kinds of effects when I got ahold of whoever had stood by and filmed this.

Words appeared on the screen in a slow scrawl, each line bumping up the next, Star Wars style.

His arm appears to be fractured in two places.

His ribs may be cracked.

He resisted.

That is unfortunate.

With timely medical care, a full recovery is likely.

Provided infection doesn’t set in.

It was like a horrible (and misguided) attempt at poetry. The video started again immediately, but it was impossible to tell how much time had passed since the previous segment.

Quinn was calmer now, swaying slightly in his seat. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about school,” he mumbled. His eyes were glassy, his skin now an unhealthy shade of grayish green. Either they’d given him something to address the pain or he was moments from passing out. “I was going to…Maybe you can send the tuition check to these bastards instead.”

Zane sent a questioning look to his mom.

“He was having trouble adjusting, failed a few classes,” Mara choked out. “They cut his scholarship last semester. Your dad found out when he called the school after he got this video. Quinn wasn’t answering his phone, and his roommates haven’t seen him since Sunday.” Her voice dissolved into a barely contained sob.

“That’s why he didn’t come home this summer,” Zane said, more to himself than either his mother or me.

“And tell Zane I’m sorry,” Quinn said, his words muzzy with exhaustion.

Next to me, Zane jerked as if he’d been struck. I slipped my hand into his, and he squeezed it tightly.

“I should have been a better brother,” Quinn said as his head dipped down to his chest—whether he was succumbing to the drugs or passing out, I wasn’t sure. The screen faded to black again—this time by making the image ripple and wobble into nothingness—and my stomach clenched in anticipation. Another message was coming, no doubt. They hadn’t yet gotten to the point, but they would. They weren’t going to all this effort just because they could.

And sure enough, seconds later, the word scrawl started again.

Ariane Tucker:

Exit 340 on Interstate 94

2

P.M.

Tuesday

Even though I’d been expecting to see my name eventually—what else could this be about? It wasn’t like Quinn was a highly desirable ransom target in any other situation—it still sent a shock through me, the familiar letters in such a strange context. And that punctuation after my name, one little colon, made my stomach fall.

It changed everything.

This message was addressed to me. I’d known this was my fault, but seeing it spelled out so clearly made me want to throw up.

They’d sent to this to the chief, counting on him to get Mara involved, which would then, eventually, lead to us.

The worst part was that they couldn’t have known I’d get the message or even that I’d be close enough to meet their deadline. There were any number of places where their plan could have fallen apart. But Dr. Jacobs didn’t care. He was arrogant—or desperate—enough to take Quinn and hurt him anyway.

Zane’s fingers tightened on mine, and I realized I’d already begun backing up, heading for the stairs.

“You aren’t going,” Zane said, his voice rough. “We’ll find another way to get him back.”

Before I had a chance to respond, the words vanished from the screen and another image of Quinn appeared.

I froze. I’d thought the video was over. Threat implied, message received.

But Dr. Jacobs wasn’t done with me yet. No, that would have been too kind.

On screen, the frozen image blinked into movement and Quinn bent over, retching from the pain and moaning every time his arm and ribs were jostled. But he couldn’t stop. It was an awful, vicious, escalating cycle that devolved into hoarse screams and whimpers within seconds.

Even the cameraman seemed affected, the focus on Quinn slipping momentarily to the wall before fading to black.

But the screaming continued. It was a loop, I was pretty sure, of previous audio, but it was horrible just the same.

The color washed from Mara’s face, and tablet slipped in her grip, dangling from her fingers.

Zane grabbed the tablet and thrust it at me before taking his mom’s arm and helping her to the edge of the bed.

I fumbled with the device to pause it. The sudden silence in the room made my ears ring.

“It’s okay,” Zane murmured to his mother, who had her face buried in her hands. “It’ll be okay.” He gave me a helpless, pleading look. One that begged me to make the words he’d just said true. His family might have been messed up, but it was still his family. His brother suffering and his mother in pain because of it.

But I couldn’t respond. Something was gnawing at me. Something wasn’t right. Obviously. But beyond Quinn and the message and the entire situation.

I’d missed…what? What was it that had triggered this additional unease, the growing sense of dread in the pit of my stomach?

I frowned. It was in those last few seconds of footage; it had to be. Right when the otherwise unflappable auteur had lost his cool and gone to the wall. Something about that didn’t sit right with me. Why include it when the rest of the video had been ruthlessly edited? Clearly it wasn’t an accident or a lack of skill.

I found the volume buttons on the side of the tablet and turned down the sound all the way before pulling the slide bar back on the video to the final segment.

Somehow it was more gruesome without sound, possibly because there was nothing to distract from the image on screen. But I forced myself to watch.

And…there. Flash to the wall. I hit pause.

“Ariane?” Zane asked with a frown.

“Hang on,” I said tightly.

The walls were nondescript, but upon closer inspection a very specific kind of nondescript. One I recognized.

And I should. I’d spent enough hours staring at those walls. They had a plastic sheen, likely for easier cleanup and sanitizing, but with a nubby texture to them that was faintly visible in the close-up.

At night, I used to lie on my cot and put my feet up on the wall to experience the texture (everything else in my cell was relentlessly smooth). I would pretend I was Outside and it was grass.

In fact, if I squinted hard enough at the image on screen, I felt I could almost see the slightly darker spots on the wall where I’d put my feet, night after night.

Quinn was in my cell at GTX.

And Dr. Jacobs wanted me to know it.

I closed my eyes, my breath slipping away as my chest tightened in fear and frustration.

“Ariane?” Zane asked again, sounding more alarmed.

The wall was another message, one more subtle than the words.

I wasn’t sure if it was a warning—you know how hard it is to break out of GTX, forget about breaking in—or a lure. Maybe I was supposed to pick up on that clue without realizing that they’d planted it deliberately and head in to save the day, thinking that I was pulling one over on them.

Either way, the result was the same. They’d be expecting me to try to get Quinn at GTX. The already impossible security would be double or tripled.

And yet, going to the designated meet and attempting to get Quinn without being captured would be even more difficult.

I’d been trained to assess situations like this and determine the best action to take, even when the best action was none. Especially when it was none.

Surrendering serves no purpose, my logical half pointed out.

Except to save Zane’s brother!

My two sides clamored back and forth, vying for dominance.

It’s bait, temptation to your weaker self. You know that. Once you give in, they will have you forever, both physically and mentally.

Which was true. If I went to GTX, I wasn’t coming back out. But even that wouldn’t be a guarantee of Quinn’s safety or Zane’s. If anything, it might only make things worse. Dr. Jacobs would turn to them every time he wanted something from me.

Once again, caring only served to hurt me and others.

But doing nothing, is that really an option?

I looked at Zane, sitting next to his mother on the bed, the strain and fear written on his handsome face. Just a couple weeks ago, he’d had a regular life, worrying about tests, lacrosse games, and college essays. I’d done this to him.

And yet when he noticed me watching him, he met my gaze with confidence and, God help me, hope.

In me.

Crap.