The Hunt

16

Zane

QUINN AND I HADN’T GOTTEN along in a long time. Scratch that, we’d never gotten along. We are brothers, three years apart. We would have fought over who had two more inches of room in the shared misery of the backseat on family excursions, who was getting more air, anything and everything.

But that was normal sibling stuff, as far as I could tell. It had changed, turned into something worse, only when we were older. One day, it was as if he were suddenly miles ahead of me, even when we were in the same room. He was a stranger I happened to share a house and a bathroom with.

I didn’t know when it started or why, but I remembered when I finally figured out that something was different and it wasn’t good.

We’d been in the backyard doing throwing drills with my dad. (There was no “tossing the football around” with him.) I was nine and Quinn was twelve, and for once I must have done something right, because my dad was in Quinn’s face for a change.

“Even Zane did better than that, for God’s sake,” my father shouted. Those words, and that tone of disgust, would be permanently carved on my heart after that.

I was drowning in fury and humiliation, and then Quinn…Quinn glared at me, as if I was doing something wrong.

It was in that moment when it had finally clicked for me. We weren’t on the same side anymore. When we’d bickered and beat on each other before, we’d always still teamed up against our parents. To get out of trouble, to weasel another hour of television, to find our Christmas presents in the weeks before the holiday.

But in one of those quick flashes of insight, where everything else seems to stop for a second while you struggle to absorb some screamingly obvious revelation, I’d known that Quinn and I were done. We weren’t brothers anymore, just two people fighting over the same resources.

Seeing him in that video, though, he’d looked so vulnerable, so broken.

I swallowed hard. That wasn’t the Quinn I knew. I didn’t remember the last time I’d seen him cry. Or apologize to me for anything.

He really thought he was going to die.

You okay? The memory of Quinn checking on me at that party suddenly filled my head. At the time, I’d been embarrassed and angry and just wanted to disappear, and his question had only exacerbated those feelings.

But he’d been trying to look out for me, making sure I was all right. An overture, not of peace exactly but maybe an acknowledgement of his role and responsibilities as an older brother, something I thought I’d never see again.

I should have been more grateful for the attempt.

My eyes stung suddenly. We had to save him. We couldn’t just leave him in there.

The bed beneath me shook with my mother’s sobs. I tentatively put an arm around her too-thin shoulders. She didn’t react to the contact, her hands covering her face as she curled into herself, elbows resting on her knees.

I glanced up at Ariane, who continued to stare down at the tablet, but with a blankness to her expression that suggested she wasn’t actually watching anything but thinking instead.

“Ariane?” I asked.

Her gaze flicked up to meet mine. I thought I saw a quick flash of fear and then something, sadness, maybe, before the emotion and expression drained from her face, leaving her as unreadable and unknowable as she’d ever been.

She pushed the button at the top of the tablet, putting it to sleep with an audible click; tucked it under her arm; and stepped toward my mother with a precise economy of movement.

“What’s at that exit, Mara?” Ariane asked flatly.

My mom dragged her head up from her hands to stare up at Ariane blearily. “What?”

“Exit 340 on Interstate 94. What’s there?” Ariane repeated, not exactly with patience. More like a robotic evenness. You could almost see the cogs and wheels turning in her brain as her personality and emotion and humanness, for lack of a better word, took a backseat to the military-type training and alien instincts that lived within her as well. She looked…well, she looked more like Ford than ever in that moment. It sent a chill through me.

My mom cleared her throat and straightened up, responding unconsciously to Ariane’s crisp and expectant tone. “The Cheese Palace,” she said.

I frowned. The what? It took a second longer for a few vague memories to emerge. A castlelike building, a giant cheese emporium, with a huge plastic mouse statue wearing a Packers jersey and holding a beer-scented candle just inside the door. Cheese, beer, and football. Pretty much the three major exports of Wisconsin.

Concentrating on it, I had another dim recollection of Quinn and me running around the store, going long with one of those little circles of cheese in red wax as our football. Then my dad had gotten ahold of us. I could still recall the feeling of his fingers digging into my shoulder when he caught me with the “ball,” doing that thing where he was red-faced and shouting but only with his eyes.

Clearly, I’d been inside the Palace at some point. Maybe a family vacation, like our one disastrous attempt at camping years ago. The memory of the Cheese Palace seemed to be tied to that of a campground swimming pool with a metal edge, superheated in the sun, that burned my palms when I tried to haul myself out.

To my surprise, Ariane nodded at my mom, as if she’d somehow been expecting this answer. “A tourist attraction, in a high-traffic area.”

Glad it made sense to her. It seemed insane to me. All those people watching, both at the Cheese Palace and in vehicles passing on the interstate. “Isn’t that riskier?” I asked.

“In an isolated area, I have greater freedom to take action against them. Dr. Jacobs is worried about that. He should be.” Ariane’s tone darkened with something that sounded a lot like grim pleasure.

In other words, it would be a lot easier for her to use her training and abilities, go all badass assassin on them—hey, man, you reap what you sow—if she didn’t have to worry about innocent humans getting in the way.

So, Jacobs had set up the meeting, intending to use families, honeymooners, and random drivers with a tiny bladder or a taste for Baby Swiss as human shields.

I grimaced.

Ariane returned her attention to my mom. “You said Quinn’s roommates haven’t seen him since Sunday. Do you know when on Sunday? It would be helpful if we could narrow the time window.”

My mom shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t…I wasn’t the one who talked with them.”

Ariane cocked her head to one side, considering. “When did the chief receive the video message?”

“This morning. Early. He called and told me he was coming and I’d better meet him.” My mom stared down at her folded hands, examining the white points of her knuckles as if they held more information.

Ariane nodded, her face a blank, but I could almost hear the wheels in her head turning.

She was gathering data, trying to put the pieces together. Why that exit had been chosen as the meeting point, how long Quinn had been gone, and when he’d likely been injured.

She was planning. Ariane was going to save Quinn. Somehow she was going to get him out of there.

A rush of relief washed over me, followed almost immediately by bile-filled frustration. She was going to risk herself to save him, and I needed her to because I couldn’t fix this.

In the small world of high school, I knew my way around. I’d been bored, restless, feeling like I’d outgrown it. I was just biding my time. But that meant I’d been the expert, the one who’d guided Ariane through our elaborate scheme to get even with Rachel.

Now I was nothing. Goddamn it. I was tired of feeling useless.

I stood up and stalked past Ariane to stand in the doorway. I needed to move, to do something, anything just not to feel like a lump of clay. I didn’t expect to be able to do the same things she could do, obviously, but just to have a purpose, a way to contribute to the situation.

To be fair, not many people could have done something to help in this situation. Well, not many humans, anyway.

The hybrids, though, they were a different story.

I flashed on a mental image of the four of them crowded together around a whiteboard, their pale heads tipped together as they studied a series of Xs and arrows.

Which was ridiculous. This wasn’t a game, and they probably wouldn’t use a whiteboard anyway. They’d communicate in that eerie silence, either through telepathy or simply by knowing one another well enough, as Ariane seemed to understand them within seconds of seeing them.

It was that sense of unity, the thread that bound them together as the only (as far as we knew) aliens on the planet, that plucked at my nerves. They belonged to each other, somehow. Certainly, Ford, Nixon, and Carter, but also Ariane, too. Jealousy was sort of new to me, but I was pretty sure that’s what this was. I’d been jealous of Quinn for years, and the feeling was similar.

They wouldn’t be helpless in this situation.

I leaned against the doorway, resisting the urge to drum my fingers nervously against the wall.

“What can you tell me about Quorosene?” Ariane asked my mom, startling me out of my thoughts.

“I don’t…you’re talking about Ford and the others?” My mom sounded confused at the transition.

“Yes,” Ariane said. “What can you tell me about Quorosene?”

I shifted uneasily against the doorjamb. She wasn’t seriously considering this. She couldn’t be.

My mom frowned. “Not much. It’s part of the hybrids’ treatment plan.”

“What is your security clearance?” Ariane pressed, kneeling down in front of my mother to keep her attention. “Is it sufficient to get access to the Quorosene?”

“N-no.” My mother shook her head. “I don’t have—”

“Can you confirm that Dr. Laughlin keeps a supply in his office?” Ariane asked.

I straightened up, my heart pounding too hard.

“It’s possible. He doesn’t trust many people with—”

“Ariane, can I talk to you for a second?” I asked. The words came out too harshly, all broken edges and sharp.

Ariane turned to me and gave a brief nod before standing up and heading toward me.

She had to know what I was going to say, and yet she followed me into the tiny hallway without a word of protest.

I raked my hand through my hair. “You’re kidding me with this, right?” I burst out. Okay, not the best approach. I took a deep breath and tried again. “Why are you asking about that stuff now?”

Emotion flickered across her face before she contained it. “You know that even if I trade myself for Quinn, that will be no guarantee of his safety or yours. If anything, it might be worse. He knows I’ll do whatever is necessary to protect you from hurt or harm, and if I refuse to cooperate with him…” A tiny furrow appeared in her forehead, a big expression for her when she was in this battle-ready mode. A sign of how much the idea distressed her.

“That’s why I don’t want you to do that.” But I wanted, needed, her to do something.

She nodded, clearly picking up on what I was thinking but offering no more.

I sighed, feeling years older and weary suddenly. “So what am I missing?”

Her gaze focused on a distant point beyond me. “They’re holding Quinn at GTX. In my cell, in fact. I recognized the wall behind him.”

I closed my eyes, feeling that slip of gravity that always accompanied devastating, unexpected, and unwelcome news. If Quinn was at GTX, getting him out would be next to impossible. I’d only succeeded with Ariane because we’d had help and no one had been expecting it. We would not have that luck a second time.

“I don’t know if Dr. Jacobs is trying to warn me away or lure me into coming after Quinn. But either way—”

I opened my eyes. “We’d be walking into a trap.”

She nodded again, a slight inclination of her chin more than anything.

“So, what are you thinking?” I made myself ask, even though the tightening in my gut told me I already knew the answer to this.

Hesitation flashed across her face, her emotions breaking through. “There’s only one option that makes sense,” she said.

“You want to try to free the hybrids first,” I said dully.

“It’s more than that,” she insisted. “This is our one chance to stop the trials. If we’re all free, then the competition is over. And Dr. Jacobs won’t have any reason to hold your brother or come after you.” She moved toward me, as though she’d touch my arm.

I backed away.

She froze, her hand in midair.

“And what I think doesn’t matter?” I demanded, frustrated. It seemed we were a team, but only when I agreed with her tactics.

“What other option do you suggest?” she asked calmly, which somehow made it worse.

“I don’t know!” I shouted. “I’m not the master strategist here. Just a regular old human.” It was a low blow and not fair but the only way I could express this growing sense of being out of my league. I was an object to be worked around, extra baggage to be shuffled.

She trusted them more than me. That’s what it felt like. And why shouldn’t she? On the surface, they had more in common, they were advanced in ways I’d never completely understand, let alone be able to compete with.

Ariane’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak.

Never one to stop when the stopping was good, I kept going. “Even as ‘limited’ as I am, though, I can tell you that anything—even strolling through the front entrance at GTX—is better than walking into the trap Ford has set for you.”

“Zane—”

“Mark my words, you walk in the door at Laughlin’s place and they are going to make sure it swings closed after you,” I said darkly. “For good.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know them,” she said, her tone gentle.

Neither do you, I wanted to scream. But that wouldn’t help my case. “Ford has more reasons to work against you than with you. And I know plenty. I saw the way she reacted to you. To us.” The words escaped before I could stop them, and I grimaced.

A frown appeared on her forehead. “Is that what this is about? What she said?” She lifted her chin up, challenging me.

“No, no.” I shook my head fiercely. I didn’t want the conversation to take this turn. In my mind, Ford’s sneering implication that Ariane was lowering herself to be with me only proved that Ford didn’t respect Ariane or her decisions. But to bring that up now would seem like nothing more than insecurity on my part, and I had a valid point beyond that, which was that Ariane didn’t know jack shit about these people. If they were even people. They were so distant and freaking strange.

I caught myself, but not in time. Watching Ariane, it was as if a curtain dropped across her face, wiping away all expression. “Because she’s not human,” she said flatly. “Or, not human enough for you, anyway.”

Fuck. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” she said in that same even, dead tone.

“Don’t do this,” I said quickly. “Ford is nothing like you. She is—”

“—exactly like me, except for the years of training myself to look and act like the full-blooded. I take it you prefer that.”

I threw my hands up. “Compared to Ford? Hell, yes, but that’s not my point.” Absurdly, I could feel my eyes burning with tears. Where was the girl who trusted me? Who thought I was worthy? I could feel her slipping away from me, no matter how hard I tried to tighten my grip. “I like you for who you are.”

She stiffened. “Good to know you like me.”

And I didn’t realize why she was upset until I played back my words in my head.

I’d downgraded her from love to like.

“I didn’t mean…I wasn’t taking it back.” I fumbled for the right words. God, they had to be here somewhere, right? Something to convince her. “I was just trying to make a point.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Point made.”

I wanted to grab her arms and shake her, but I suspected that wouldn’t go over so well. So I kept my hands firmly locked at my sides. “This is what she wants. Don’t you see that?” I pleaded. “She’s manipulating. She wants to turn you to their side.”

Ariane took two quick steps toward me. “What side? Whose side?” She poked her finger at my chest. “As far as I can tell, there’s only the people who want to use us, abuse us, and keep us in cages, and everyone else.”

“You’re lumping me in with Jacobs now?” I stared at her, aghast. “I just want you to be safe.”

“So does he, I’m sure.” With that, she turned and walked away, down the stairs.

Stunned, I just watched her go, words pounding on the inside of my brain, begging to be set free. But I knew already that none of them would have made a difference.