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“Think of it as a science project. All those science fairs I missed out on, what I'm going to build would've gotten me an A and maybe laid by the hot science teacher.” At least with Saul around, my use of incorrect and sexually inappropriate language was improving in leaps and bounds. I grinned at Stefan's bemusement, grabbed my bags of food, and spread it out over my bed, sharing with Zilla when he popped out of the bathroom, dragging one end of the toilet paper in his mouth. I could hear it unrolling as he ran. He passed over the carpet and under the low-hanging blanket, out the other side, up and over the bed, under again, and then back up to perch on my knee, turning my bed into a fairly accurate depiction of a Möbius strip. Spitting out the end of the one-ply, he accepted a French fry with a contented
mrrrp
.

“My science teacher was named Mr. Wilfred Wyatt, but knock yourself out. Do I want to ask what you're going to make or be pleasantly surprised when it explodes, disintegrates the motel, or opens up a black hole and sucks in the earth?” He reassembled the Steyr with practiced ease but didn't slide in the clip. With a curious and thieving ferret around, a loaded gun wasn't a good idea. Stefan slept with the gun and clip under his pillow. He could jam the latter home in a fraction of a second and Godzilla didn't have to face manslaughter charges. It was a win-win.

“I'm not going to blow anything up. Anything else,” I amended around a bite of a bacon cheeseburger. It was good, better than good—the perfect amount of grease and cheese and slathered with mayonnaise. The hell with understanding the mystery of the Brussels sprout. I was never touching another one again. “As for a black hole. . . .” I took another bite, chewed, then swallowed before going on regretfully. “If only I could get my hands on the right equipment.”

“You're kidding, right? I hope you're kidding. You have enough felonies on your plate. Let's not jump straight to Bond villain.” With the gun tucked under his pillow, he lay on his own bed and rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day, especially for someone as breakable as a human. Peter had certainly done his best to break my brother and anyone else with me.

“Black holes are misunderstood. Besides, just creating the conditions a black hole could potentially thrive in. . . .” Those tired eyes were now aimed at me thoughtfully, the consideration of revoking my partner status swimming behind them. “I'm joking,” I grumbled. From now on I'd keep my fantasies to myself.

“I'm going to make a microwave beam gun in case we pick up another enthusiastic cop.” They existed now, but at around one hundred pounds. I could get that down to thirty, maybe twenty-five easily. “Aim, pull the trigger, and it'll fry the electrical system in his car. You won't have to shoot him. I won't have to blow up his car. And best of all I won't have to roll around in the dirt beside my own vomit again. Trust me, that's worth sacrificing a hunk of metal to the microwave gods. Plus maybe Saul will stop calling me ‘double O puke,' because it's getting harder and harder not to maim him. He's the only person in the world who makes me regret I'm
not
a killer.”

Saul had been afraid of me when he'd seen the clip of the Institute video, and he'd stayed cautious all the way up to when we were pulled over by the deputy. In the aftermath was when his love of vomit humor overcame his sense of survival.

I was definitely back to hating him.

“The guy does like to give people a hard time, but he thinks it's harmless. He doesn't know he's hitting all the wrong buttons with you. I could tell him.” He toed off his shoes and yawned, the skin under his eyes gray with exhaustion. “But that would let him know where you're vulnerable. Psychologically. And theoretically.” His lips curled as I snorted at my favorite catchall. “I know how much you love having your weak spots exposed or admitting you have any at all.” My snort was much darker this time.

“And this is part of being an adult,” he continued. “Figuring out who you like and who you don't. Who's worth putting up with despite some questionable qualities. Learning more about them and finding out those qualities aren't so bad when you compare them to all the good ones they have. Or just tuning it out and forcing yourself to get along. That's life.”

“When it rained last week and you couldn't paint, you sat on the couch and watched
Dr. Phil
, didn't you? Admit it. I renounce you. You are no longer my brother.” I went to work on the bean burrito and fed Zilla a bite out of pure spite. The ferret flatulence in the car in the morning might be enough to take out Saul. It would be my own form of chlorine gas. I'd be guilt free—hands clean of anything but innocence and cheap motel soap.

“Am I wrong?”

“Go to sleep already.” I pelted him with a fry. “You're twenty-seven. Almost as old as Saul. I'm pulling the weight in this geezer parade. You need your rest.”

“Nineteen and already you don't want my advice. They grow up so fast. Like a stake through the heart. Sharper than a serpent's tooth. Soon you won't let me hug you in public anymore.”

He was unbearably smug and I had no problem with tossing another fry at him. “Ass. I never let you hug me in public. We're guys. Even Institute-trained know better than that. Did you ever hug anyone in the
Mafiya
?”

“If by hug, you mean choke into unconsciousness . . . all the time. I'm not afraid of my emotions, Misha. Embrace yours.” The words were dripping with enough amused sarcasm that I knew there was no winning this one. I finished the last burrito, balled up the final paper sack, and headed for the microwave with my tool kit.

“You're a disgrace to mobsters and ex-mobsters everywhere.” I unplugged the unit, put it on the floor, sat next to it, and started to strip it down to its basic components. As I worked, I finally admitted, “But I'll always listen to your advice. You know that, right?” Stefan had led me through almost three years as if I were blind, and basically I had been. The world had been an illusion inside the Institute. Stefan had been my guide through the reality of it; he'd taught me to be part of it. I wasn't sure I'd have made it without him. Hell, I knew I wouldn't have. I tossed the microwave door to one side and repeated, “You know that, right?”

A quiet snore answered my question. I studied him for a moment, sprawled on the bed—a very dangerous man who was anything but that to me. The shadows of weariness stained his face. I got to my feet and walked over to him, my hand hovering over his chest. He was healthy and whole. I could feel that sensation running through me, tickling my nerve endings. He was fine. He needed rest; that was all. I went back to the microwave and kept working. A half hour later I was at the door. As soon as I turned the seventies-style knob, Stefan woke up. “Where you going?” he muttered, his hand moving in an automatic reach for the gun under his pillow.

“To the vending machine outside. I need more parts.” I shrugged off my backpack—great for hiding said parts—and pulled out a heavy roll of cash. I waved it at him reassuringly. “I'll leave money inside what's left of it when I'm done to reimburse them. I'm not a thief.” I was everything else under the sun, but not a thief.

That had Stefan's eyes opening wider. “Jesus, Misha, how much do you have there?”

“Oh,” I shrugged, “a couple of hundred thousand. It's escape cash I kept tucking away every few weeks from the offshore account. If we're on the run, we can't always rely on finding a bank that accepts wire transfers from the Cayman Islands. You have to think about these things.”

He stared at me as if not certain he wasn't dreaming . . . or having a nightmare; it was a difficult thing to interpret which of the two when it was someone else doing the wondering. He then sat up and jammed the clip home in his gun. “Okay then, Mr. Prepared. Let's go defile that vending machine.”

“I don't need a bodyguard. I'm the Grim Reaper walking, remember?” I stuffed the cash back into my bag. No sense in paying until I saw approximately how much I was going to rip out of the machine.

“Yeah, a pacifist Grim Reaper who uses his sickle to hang wet laundry on. Scary shit. I think I'll go along for the ride anyway.” He swung his legs over and stood. “And bring the rat with you.”

Godzilla? “Why?”

“Because when you're not around, he pisses on my bed. Why do you think I keep my bedroom door closed at home? To keep him from sneaking in to read my
Playboy
s? Take the damn rat.”

Picky, picky, picky. I scooped up Zilla and draped him around my neck, and the three of us spent the next fifteen minutes cannibalizing the vending machine for parts and Ho Hos. The parking lot was empty except for cars, and all the windows were dark. No one saw us. Back in the room, I finished the microwave gun while Stefan sacked out again.

When it was done, I had a fleeting wish I was home and had access to some nice paint that would go over metal—metallic blue or candy apple red. But it was functional and that would have to do the trick. I peeled off the necessary cash to pay for the vending machine and started back outside. I paused at Stefan's bed where he lay flat on his stomach, buried in the deep sleep he needed more than I needed a bodyguard. I touched the back of his calf with the lightest graze of a fingertip. It would keep him sleeping through the noise of my opening the door. Looking over my shoulder, I whistled lightly and Godzilla bounded off my bed, climbed my leg, and curled up in the pocket of my jacket. Stefan wouldn't be happy when he did wake up if he had ferret urine soaking his sweatpants.

I opened the door, stepped outside, and walked the fifteen feet down to the vending machine. I was considering more sugar—candy bars this time. I reached a hand into the guts of the machine and then . . . nothing.

The night gobbled me up and took me away.

All those monster movies had been right. You shouldn't go into the dark alone.

 

I woke up instantly, not in fits and stages. Once I healed, I returned to fighting form immediately. Jericho would've been proud of how I'd managed to accelerate the process and how I'd perfected what he'd begun. The thought left a bad taste in my mouth and when I opened my eyes, that bad taste went straight into an extremely bad mood as my pupils adjusted to the low light.

“Raynor,” I said flatly. He was the government's dog panting at the end of the Institute's leash. He'd tortured and murdered Anatoly, ruined Cascade—our home—and yet, after we assumed we were free of him after Saul had killed him in the mall parking lot, he was back for more. “Even death doesn't want your malevolent ass.”

I recognized him from the sliver of profile I could see from where I was slumped against the door behind the passenger seat of a car humming smoothly over concrete. The pictures I'd taken of him off the Internet had been crystal clear and his threatening to shoot me in the mall parking lot even more so. He turned enough to reveal the short dark hair brushed forward, a faint pallor under his skin, and his impeccable suit's collar open to show a half-inch tracheostomy tube in his throat. The tube was covered with a small, clear Passy-Muir valve that let people with trachs talk. Raynor tapped it. “Thanks to your friend, I'll be needing this bugger for a while.” His voice was perfectly understandable, if hoarse. “My bad luck. Your bad luck happened to be an eager-beaver doctor with a penknife in that parking lot. Your extremely bad luck indeed.” He shifted his attention back to the road. “Did I mention that an impromptu tracheotomy whilst not under anesthesia isn't particularly pleasant? No? Perhaps we'll discuss it more later.”

I looked down to see handcuffs around my wrists and a chain securing them to the metal bracing under the passenger seat in front of me. I had four to five inches' slack at the most. I was strong, but not strong enough to shatter metal. And Raynor, more careful now than before, had also shackled my ankles. I could dislocate both of my thumbs and slip the cuffs, but there was nothing I could do about the restraints holding down my feet. I looked back up to see the car clock reading 4:23 a.m. Stefan would still be asleep. He wouldn't know I was gone. If Raynor had used a silencer, and I knew he had, neither would Saul.

“Speaking of pain, how's your head? I was a good ways down the parking lot when I made that shot, but a rubber bullet would fracture the skull of anyone normal—anyone human. Kill them outright most likely. But I know how you chimeras heal and I crossed my fingers for you, although you were out for a few hours. When I dragged you into the car, I gave it a feel. And there it was—a nice fracture down the back of your skull. Not a hairline one either. A definite kill shot, again, for anyone normal. Yet here you are. You didn't disappoint, Michael. I have to give you that.”

If I'd been out for two hours, he had come close to killing me. It was a hard thing to do, but not impossible and the brain was a delicate organ in a human or a chimera. I didn't have enough reach to lift my hands and feet, so I bent my head low and ran fingers through my hair. It was spiky with dried blood. He wasn't lying. He'd shot me while I'd been contemplating Milky Ways over Three Musketeers, damn it. He'd shot me right in front of the vending machine. . . .

God.

He'd shot me while I stood fifteen feet from our room where I'd left Stefan asleep—where I'd made sure he would
stay
asleep, unguarded and unconscious, an easy target. I hadn't locked the door on my way out because I was only fifteen goddamn feet away. “Stefan,” I demanded. The blood in my hair was dry, but the tinfoil taste of it in my mouth was fresh. Invisible blood for a not-so-invisible desperation. “Where's Stefan?”

“Ah, Stefan Korsak, your brother.” The way he said “brother” told me he knew something.