The Hunt

22

Zane

THE PLASTIC ZIP-TIE RESTRAINTS WERE digging into my wrists, rubbing the skin raw.

It probably would have helped if I could have stopped pacing the tiny and overly warm motel room, but sitting still was beyond my capability at the moment. At least my hands were bound in front of me instead of behind my back. Small favors.

I’d been stuck in here, pacing at the foot of the queen bed with its dingy flowered bedspread, for hours. But it felt like days.

Just as Dr. Jacobs had promised, a van carrying two members of a GTX retrieval team had rolled into the Linwood Academy parking lot promptly, less than half an hour after I called. They must have already been near the border. And speeding.

Even though I’d held my hands up and offered absolutely no resistance, the retrieval team guys had taken me down to the ground in a chest-crushing set of moves and bound my wrists together before hustling me into the van. From there, we’d gone to a cheap motel, not too different from the one Ariane and I had spent the night in. Except, of course, she wasn’t here.

Ignoring the ache in my chest that was more than likely cracked ribs from my sudden collision with the asphalt, I counted off the ten steps to the edge of the chipped tile floor in the bathroom. And then the ten steps back to the mysterious red Tweety Bird–shaped stain near the bolted door to the outside.

The two retrieval team agents had taken up positions on either side of the room, one near the door and the other leaning against the wall next to the bathroom.

They didn’t say it, but I knew they were blocking my escape routes.

Like I was going anywhere. I was waiting for the moment when the call would come, anticipating and dreading it.

Every time one of them so much as shifted toward the phone on his belt, my heart stopped.

I’d given up pestering them with questions about an hour ago. The two agents—a blond guy with a mustache and another dude with a graying buzz cut—just ignored me, though the older guy seemed annoyed with my restlessness.

Or maybe it was because moving around was only making it warmer in here, and they were wearing infinitely more layers with their bulletproof vests, heavy boots, and utility belts with every device known to mankind.

SWAT guys on private authority. Yeah, that wasn’t terrifying. I wondered if they’d known Mark Tucker. If they knew about Ariane. If they knew what I’d done.

My stomach churned. But I kept pacing.

I had my back turned, heading my allowed ten paces to the bathroom, when I heard the rip of Velcro followed by a gruff “Yes?”

I spun around so swiftly that the blond agent lurched forward at me, his hands out as if to tackle me again.

“Understood,” the older agent said into his phone, and I couldn’t breathe for waiting.

But he said nothing more. Just hung up and tucked the phone into the designated pocket on his belt. Avoiding my gaze, he gave a curt nod to the blond guy next to me, who immediately reached out and grabbed my shoulders.

I had a flashback to every mob movie I’d ever seen. I did, after all, know too much. But what good would killing me do? Even if I told the world what I knew, who would believe me? I had no proof. And my story sounded plenty crazy enough to be a hoax, some kid looking for attention.

He shuffled me forward, as the older agent unbolted the door. We were leaving. To a hidden spot in the woods where some hunter would stumble over my body in a few months? Very possibly.

“Where are we going?” I asked, stumbling over the threshold as I tried to twist to look at them. “Did they find Ford? Did Dr. Jacobs talk to Laughlin?”

I got the same answers as before, which was to say, none. And their expressions, beneath the aviator sunglasses that seemed to be standard issue, were carefully blank.

I let them load me into the van again—as if I had a choice—as a sketchy-looking couple in a battered Crown Vic next to us stared.

Watching out the tinted window, it didn’t take me more than ten or fifteen minutes to figure out we were heading north. Back to Wisconsin.

My stomach clenched with dread. What did that mean? Did they have Ariane already? Had they made the exchange? Or had they just given up? I didn’t bother asking this time, knowing it was useless. Either they didn’t know anything or they’d been instructed not to say anything.

Frustration at my powerlessness swelled inside me. Ariane would have been able to pick at their thoughts, to listen in and know something, anything.

I shifted in the seat, twisting my wrists around within the binding, trying to get the plastic away from my fraying skin. But everywhere it touched, it hurt.

My thoughts were in similar condition. No matter who I thought of—Ariane, Quinn, my mom—there was pain or shame or despair.

What if my GTX-provided babysitters were just driving me home? What if they’d received an all-clear signal and I was going to be dumped off at the foot of my driveway in Wingate, like nothing ever happened?

That was almost as bad as my death-in-the-woods scenario.

I’d wanted a moment, a few minutes with Ariane. A chance to explain, even though I knew it wouldn’t make a difference.

But you didn’t bargain for that, scolded an inner voice that sounded like a perfect replica of Ariane’s.

Stay calm, be confident, and ask for more than what you want, she said in my memory. It was good advice. I wished I’d remembered it before now. It didn’t take long, forty-five minutes or so, before I saw a sign welcoming us to Wisconsin. I didn’t recognize these back roads; this was not the way Ariane and I had come.

We passed through several small towns, each nondescript in its small-townness—one gas station, an old brick courthouse, and a smattering of Victorian houses in various states of disrepair and peeling paint.

Until finally, after one last turn on another county highway, the van slowed.

A lake, complete with a parking area and picnic benches, seemed to spring up from nowhere on the right side. The sun was sinking into the tree line, turning the water into a brilliant orange slash of light that made my eyes water.

To my surprise, the lake was deserted, except for one guy in a bright yellow jacket fishing from a pier on the far side. The light turned him into little more than a shadow with rumpled hair.

Unlike the lake, the parking lot was quite full. A pair of black luxury SUVs on one side faced off against two black vans, identical to the one I was in.

I couldn’t imagine what anyone driving by would think. The world’s most depressing family reunion? A mob picnic? Maybe a lost Secret Service convoy.

But it wasn’t, of course. It was GTX in the vans and Laughlin in the SUVs. And maybe, somewhere in one of them, Ariane.

I sat forward on the seat, as if that additional few inches would allow me to find her behind the tinted glass of one of the other vehicles.

We pulled into the lot and stopped, the agent placing our van between the two lines of vehicles. Like someone about to step between two dueling parties. That couldn’t be good.

My dad’s SUV, dark blue and emblazoned with WINGATE CHIEF OF POLICE, was directly across from us. I could see my dad sitting stiffly in the driver’s seat. He wasn’t happy about this. Well, who the hell was?

For several long moments, nothing moved in the parking lot except a few dead leaves and a paper cup lifted by the breeze. Tension seemed to seep in through the van’s air vents until I couldn’t breathe.

At some signal I didn’t see, the blond agent cut the engine, and the older one turned to me. “You’re here to keep things calm during the exchange.”

The exchange. So that meant Ariane was here. And so was Ford. It had worked. I felt an immediate thrill of triumph, followed by a wave of nausea. What I’d done—imprisoned Ariane with GTX, at best, or guaranteed her death in the trials, at worst—had worked. But she was alive for now. She wasn’t being dissected and put on microscope slides somewhere. I had to feel relief about that, even if it was mixed with misery.

“Dr. Jacobs doesn’t want it getting out of hand,” the retrieval team agent continued.

I stiffened. By “it,” did he mean Ariane or the situation? Either way, I wanted to shout at him, punch him. She was not an “it” and this was not some situation to be handled. This was life and death, the end of hope and the beginning of something far worse.

“You understand?” he pressed when I didn’t respond.

“Yeah,” I said tightly. “I get it.”

“Good. Out.” He reached behind himself and popped open the door closest to me.

I didn’t move. “Where’s my brother?” I said, my throat dry and tight with fear. But I wasn’t going anywhere without him. I’d negotiated his freedom for my participation, and I may have done a shitty job of it, but I was going to get what I’d been promised.

As if he’d been expecting that, the gray-haired agent punched something into his phone.

And then the door on the van farthest from me opened and Quinn stumbled out into the open area between the vehicles, his pale skin shining with sickly sweat.

I let out a quiet breath of relief. His right arm was in a slightly larger makeshift sling than in the video, and he obviously still hadn’t received medical attention. But he didn’t seem any worse.

I scrambled out of the van, just as my dad stepped out of his SUV, opposite of me.

Quinn didn’t seem to know where to look first. His gaze bobbed from me to my dad and then back again. He was dazed. “What are you doing here?” he asked, turning to me, his voice rusty from disuse or screaming.

Before I could answer, my mom emerged from the same van Quinn had come from, blinking in the light. She followed his path into the center and laid her hand gently on his uninjured shoulder. He didn’t at all seem surprised to see her.

My heart stopped. She’d gone after him, turned herself in with the expectation of never returning. And that had worked about as well as I’d figured. She’d just given Jacobs one more hostage to work with.

Dr. Jacobs followed her, easing down from the van as though his joints hurt. His white hair was ruffled and uncombed and he looked older, as though he hadn’t slept in days. But he was calm, revealing nothing in his expression. “I would prefer that all parties remain in place, obviously, until our…meeting is complete,” he said.

I gritted my teeth. Meeting, yeah, right. He just wanted to make sure he had leverage over me, and therefore over Ariane, until the end.

“It will be safer for everyone,” he added.

“Bullshit,” I muttered, probably a little too loudly.

My dad glared at me before nodding at Dr. Jacobs.

Quinn, confused, looked to me. “Zane, what the hell is going on?” He stumbled over his own feet, trying to move toward me.

My mom moved swiftly, catching him by his good arm. “Just stay,” she said, her gaze watchful on Dr. Jacobs. Her expression softened to something like regret when she looked at me.

I glanced away. I understood now better than ever why she’d done what she’d done, but I couldn’t handle that right now. Not on top of everything else.

The passenger door on the farthest SUV opened, and Dr. Laughlin swung down to the ground. I recognized him from the pictures Ariane had found online. His dark suit was perfectly pressed, cuff links glinting at his wrists. He brushed his hair back with an impatient hand.

“Well?” he demanded. “Can we be about this already or what?”

“Hello, David,” Dr. Jacobs said evenly.

“Arthur,” Laughlin said with a sneer. Their history thickened the air between them. I didn’t know what it was, but I could guarantee it was more than that of colleagues or even fierce competitors.

I waited, holding my breath against the expected sharp words that would trigger God only knew what.

But apparently, any nastiness that would have been dispensed was negated by the fact that they were both here against their will. Jacobs couldn’t compete in the trials at all without Ariane, and clearly Laughlin wasn’t willing to take his chances with one of his other hybrids. So neither one of them was coming out of this ahead of the other. No winner, no loser.

Behind Dr. Laughlin, Nixon and Carter climbed down from the vehicle, accompanied by a set of guards. The four of them made their way toward the front of the vehicle to join Laughlin, Nixon and Carter moving slowly and unsteadily as though they were in shock or drugged or something.

I frowned. Why had Dr. Laughlin brought them? Was he going to try some kind of power play, three hybrids against one? Or was he just rubbing it in Dr. Jacobs’s face that he had more hybrids? Jacobs didn’t look pleased, that was for sure.

A half-smothered cry drew my attention to the second SUV. Ariane was making her way slowly to the empty space between the vehicles. She appeared so small and defenseless, sandwiched between Laughlin’s version of security and her hands bound in metal restraints. She wore part of her school uniform, but the long white sleeves of her shirt were smudged with dirt and splotches of blood.

My legs shook with relief and fury. They’d hurt her.

I took a step toward her without realizing it.

“No,” one of her guards said, raising his weapon in my direction.

I stopped, fear shooting electricity through my veins and holding me in place. That was an M16, a military-grade weapon. Not one of the tranquilizer guns Jacobs used.

Ariane’s gaze found me and locked on, but her head was lolling to one side slightly and her eyes seemed dim. They’d drugged her.

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed slowly, whether to make certain I’d understand or because that was only what she was capable of in that condition, I didn’t know.

I shook my head, blinking rapidly to keep from crying. She shouldn’t apologize to me. I was the one who’d done this.

On the other side, doors on the second GTX van opened and Ford, sagging in similar restraints, was tugged out by a GTX retrieval team, with another team immediately behind them as backup.

The two groups, Ariane and Ford with their accompanying guards, inched toward each other.

It might have been fine—well, as fine as it could have been in that situation, meaning that Ariane would have been returned to GTX and Ford to Laughlin without more fuss than had already been generated. But as they drew even with each other, Ariane staring holes through Ford, blaming her without words, Ford suddenly straightened up in her restraints.

“You accuse me, but it was your human who called them on us,” she hissed at Ariane, but it carried across the silent parking lot like a shout. “He told them where I was.”

Ariane’s gaze shot to me, hurt and shock making her eyes look even larger in her pale face.

“She was leaving,” I said. “Taking your bag with her.”

“Because he’d given away my hiding place, shouting for you and drawing the humans,” Ford snapped. “I was meant to provide a distraction.”

I stopped, my next words caught in my throat, horror washing over me. Was it possible? Had that been part of their plan?

“He sent them after me,” Ford said, jerking her head toward Dr. Jacobs and the GTX vans. “They were already searching the area before I even had a chance to make the call. They tracked it and me before I could get away.”

“If you were working with Ariane, then why were you tied up?” I demanded but weakly. I was so afraid she was right.

“To keep her from following,” Ariane said, her words thick, and tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving shiny white tracks. “They are a unit. We couldn’t risk that the network between them would pull her along.”

She and Ford switched places, their security shuffling around them, and I stumbled back a step, my stomach pitching violently, hot acid rising in my throat. I’d done this. Oh my God. It was even worse than I’d thought.

“Yes, it is,” Ford hissed. “Thank you for that, human.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Laughlin said in exasperation, as Ford and Ariane cleared the center of the open space. “The fault lies with all of you for even trying. You should have known better.”

Then, in a smooth motion that I didn’t see coming, he removed the sidearm from the security member nearest him and fired it at Nixon’s head.

I jerked at the noise, instinctively hunching against it.

The hybrid stiffened and fell to the ground, followed immediately by Carter and Ford.

Ariane froze, and my mom gave a barely muffled scream. Chaos erupted then, guards rushing in on all sides and everyone yelling.

“Stand back! Nobody move!” That seemed to come from one of the guards, but I couldn’t tell which one, or even which side he was on.

“Welcome back, Ford,” Laughlin said in a bitter but triumphant tone. But Ford, lying on the asphalt, gave no sign of consciousness, let alone hearing him, and Ariane remained locked in place, the shock holding her still.

“Is that really necessary, David?” Dr. Jacobs shouted. “We’re trying not to attract attention—”

“What kind of game are you people running?” my dad demanded, his voice booming above the fray.

“Showmanship is part of it. You’ve never understood that,” Laughlin snapped, handing the weapon back to his guard.

“—but you always have to have the big dramatic moment,” Jacobs continued.

“Form a perimeter, maintain visual contact on the subjects,” another security team member barked.

Ariane gave a low, keening cry, swaying where she stood.

A strange electrified feeling slid over my skin, and the hair on my arms stood on end. Then the headlights on all the assorted vehicles began to flicker.

Oh shit.

“Ariane?” I ventured, moving closer. But she didn’t seem to hear me, her head cocked to one side as she took in the sight before her. I could see only bits and pieces between all the security team members as they moved.

A flash of white and blue that was Ford, still in her school uniform, on the ground. The red that was slowly spreading from around Nixon’s collapsed form. Carter’s pale hand flung forward, as if he’d tried to reach out for Nixon even as he fell.

“Stay back!” one of Laughlin’s guards shouted at me, aiming his weapon my way.

My heart leaped into my throat, almost choking me as I raised my hands instinctively.

“Leave him alone,” Ariane said, without even looking back.

A series of loud pops sounded, followed by the delicate rain of glass on the ground. All the windows breaking out.

“Zane!” my mom shrieked, and through the crowd I could see her waving me forward even as she shoved Quinn toward my dad’s vehicle.

But I couldn’t move, frozen in place by the sight of Ariane. Small and vulnerable, even though she was powerful beyond measure, being surrounded by the black-clad security forces from both companies.

This was it. I was going to watch Ariane die from a hundred different wounds, shot by those who were too afraid to understand. She couldn’t stop all of them. There was no way.

“Wait, please,” I shouted at the guards.

“Stand down,” Jacobs screamed at them, his face turning a dangerous shade of reddish purple.

Just outside the circle of guards surrounding Ariane, Ford pushed herself to her feet, unnoticed by everyone but me, it seemed. They were all too busy focusing on Ariane.

I held my breath, not sure whether to shout a warning or to keep my mouth shut.

Ford reached out with her bound hands and flicked the closest clump of guards away from Ariane with an easy gesture. It seemed at first that she was trying to help Ariane, but as soon as she started toward Laughlin, her steps slow and shuffling at first, then growing stronger, her intent became clear.

The SUV closest to me suddenly rocked on its wheels and then flew backward, end over end into the lake, as if it had been flicked away by a giant invisible hand. I stared at the sudden waves lapping at the shore and making the fishing piers shudder, as the SUV slowly took on water.

Ford or Ariane? Which one of them was responsible? I wasn’t sure. Nobody else seemed to be either, the security personnel shifting their attention back and forth between the two hybrids.

Then I watched as Ariane took a step after Ford, and a new idea occurred to me. Maybe it was both of them, working together. I couldn’t see Ariane’s expression with her back to me, but I recognized the stiff set of her shoulders, the tilt of her head. She’d shut out everything else, drawing deep into herself, into that distant mode where she was both more and less Ariane. She was, in that moment, exactly what they’d created her to be.

Hope flickered inside me. With the two of them together, maybe Ariane would have a chance. Maybe she could get away.…

“Stop her. But don’t kill her,” Laughlin ordered, sounding a little nervous as he backed out of sight behind the first SUV. Like that would be any protection. It wasn’t even clear who he was talking about, Ariane or Ford.

“I said, stand down,” Jacobs shouted.

But one of Laughlin’s jittery guards had had enough, it seemed. The one closest to Ford aimed at her, his finger on the trigger.

And then everything happened so fast, too fast.

Ford lifted her bound hands, her gaze suddenly a lot sharper, and shoved at him. His weapon arm swung wide, in my direction, and my mom screamed again.

A second shot echoed loudly, and at almost the same time I was knocked to the ground with bone-jarring force.

Ford, throwing me around again. That’s what I thought at first.

I tried to sit up and found it hurt more than it should have. A white-hot pain shot up my middle. Ford had probably broken something, damn her.

Then I looked down.

Oh.

It seemed like there should have been more to say or think in that moment, a rush of curses, a wave of panic and pleading and prayer. But that was it: Oh. A single word in silence, like a drop of water into ocean.

There was just so much blood, more than I’d ever seen in real life, bright, slippery, and spilling warm across my hand, where I’d pressed it instinctively against my stomach. A loud buzzing started in my ears, and my lips went numb.

Whether that guard had intended to shoot Ford or not, I didn’t know. Maybe when she’d used her power to shove his arm away, she’d squeezed too hard and he’d pulled the trigger inadvertently.

Or maybe Ford had done it deliberately, shifting his weapon to aim at me. The one she blamed for all of this. I couldn’t argue with that. I blamed myself too.

Regardless, one thing was inescapable: all bullets, even ones released accidentally, have to go somewhere, and this one had found its final destination.

I coughed, choking on a sudden flood of liquid warmth that I suspected was more blood, more life pouring away. I’d been so worried about Ariane’s survival, it had honestly never occurred to me to consider my own.

Too late now.