Control (Shift) (27 page)

I landed face down in thick, stinking mud. I couldn’t breathe and I pulled myself to my feet. Just in time to receive another punch from one of the twins. I couldn’t tell which one it was now.

“This is from me.” Pia smacked me in the face with a clenched fist. I staggered back, just about managing to stay upright.

There was a ripple of a Shift and it was Kia standing in front of me. “And this is from me.” Her knee jerked upwards and pain exploded in my groin. Waves of agony exploded through my body and I fell to my knees. Hot nausea rose into my stomach and settled there. I crumpled forward and curled into a ball, rocking back and forth, fighting back the bile rising in my throat. I heard a high-pitched laugh and watched Kia’s high heels clip clop away through the puddles.

Time passed. It might have been a minute or an hour. I didn’t know. I just lay there in the rain, wishing I could die.

I heard more footsteps behind me. They’d come back to finish me off. And I didn’t care. Not if it meant the pain would go away.

I heard a small sigh and someone bending down next to me. I summoned up the energy to roll onto my back and looked up, ready to face my attacker.

Through eyes clouded with tears I saw a face illuminated by the red glow of a cigarette. It came closer to me and I really hoped I wasn’t dead after all.

“Now you know how I feel,” Aubrey said.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

I reached up a hand and went to touch her face. “Aubrey.”

“Uh uh,” she said, batting my hand away. “We’re so not there. I only came because Rosalie said you were babbling mad stuff and looked set to get yourself killed. And how could I still be pissed with you if you were dead?” She took a last drag of her cigarette and stubbed it out on the ground next to my head. I got the feeling I was lucky she wasn’t stubbing it out in my face.

I tried to sit up and a wave of nausea hit me again. I pulled my knees into my chest and groaned. “Give me a second.”

“You can take all night for all I care,” she said.

“Hey, don’t be like that, Brey,” a second voice said. “You know what they say about kicking a man when he’s down.”

The last person in the world I wanted to see moved into my view.

“Zac?”

Of course it was Zac. Who else would turn up when I had just been kicked in the nuts and was lying in a pool of mud, blood and my own vomit? Zac, the man that Aubrey had made me swear never to mention again, after she said he betrayed her and all Shifters by using his powers to set himself up for life. Zac, star player for Chelsea Football Club and my least favourite person in the world.

“Hey, Scott. You’re not looking too good there. Want a hand?”

“I don’t want anything from you,” I said. Or at least that’s what I tried to say. It actually came out as more of an “urrghna”.

Zac laughed, and patted me on the shoulder. “Come on, Tyler. Let’s get you on your feet.”

Grudgingly I accepted his hand and let him pull me up. I couldn’t straighten, so remained bent over, clutching at my groin. I spat bile and blood on the ground and probed at my back tooth. It felt loose.

“They really gave you a kicking.”

“Yeah, thanks, Zac. I hadn’t noticed,” I said.

“Don’t be even more of a prick, Scott. What’s going on?” Aubrey said.

I forced myself to stand upright and breathed heavily. “It’s Frankie. She’s forcing those kids to kill people.”

“They didn’t look like they were being forced to hurt you. They looked like they were loving it,” Zac said.

“That’s how it works. She puts ideas into your head and you think they’re yours. She controls you. That’s what she did to me.” I shook off Zac and staggered towards Aubrey. “Don’t you see? I would never hurt you, Aubrey. It wasn’t me.”

Her chin lifted slightly, but she stayed just out of reach.

“OK, so let’s say we believe you,” Zac said, stepping up to Aubrey’s side. “We
.
”
I didn’t like the sound of that “We
.
”
“Who’s she killed?”

“The Prime Minister’s daughter.”

“Not this again!” Aubrey said. “The girl is alive, why can’t you just leave it be?”

“It was Ella…”

Aubrey let out a snort of outrage at the mention of her name.

“Ella was with Charlotte Vine on that weekend. Frankie must have sent her to kill the girl, but then she changed her mind and… I don’t know. But she was dead. I swear it.”

“And you can still remember the reality where she was killed?” Zac said.

I nodded.

Zac let out a whistle. I don’t know if he was impressed or what. “Brey said you hold on to the alternatives. Doesn’t that send you kind of loopy?”

Aubrey let out a small, mean laugh. “Look at him. Does he look sane?”

I ignored the sting of her words. “Then there’s Ken-ze, President Tsing’s son. You must have seen that. It was all over the news. He was killed at a charity ball. A charity ball that Frankie and Kia just happened to be at. Don’t you see? She’s behind it all!”

There was the crash of a bin being hit from a nearby alley followed by drunken singing.

“We need to talk. Can we go back to your flat and–” I started.

“Brey’s staying with me at the moment,” Zac cut me off.

“Oh, is she now?” I said, rage overcoming the still aching pain deep in my stomach.

“Don’t you dare, Scott Tyler. Don’t you dare!” Aubrey said.

She was right. I nodded and backed down. It wasn’t as if I was in any state to do anything about my anger anyway.

“How about we all head back to mine? Unless you like hanging about on street corners?” Zac gestured to the road with a wave of his hand. “My car’s just over there.”

Aubrey strode off in the direction he motioned and I limped after them both.

When I saw Zac’s car, I almost decided just to give up and go home. It was a matt grey sports car, lying about an inch off the ground. It bleeped as Zac approached it and started to purr like a tame panther happy to see its owner.

“That’s your car?”

Zac opened the passenger door and Aubrey slid in. “Sure,” he said. “You’ll have to squeeze in the back if that’s OK. It’s technically a two-seater, but I’m sure you’ll be fine.” He opened the driver’s door and pointed at the back seat. I peered into the space at the back. There was probably room for a small child. Or maybe a dog. I poured myself into the space, hitting my head on the roof as I did. I was still trying to find a way to get comfortable when Zac slammed the door and hit the accelerator, pushing my face into the shiny leather upholstery.

After five minutes of being thrown about in the back seat, we arrived. I guess Zac’s car should have been an indication of what to expect from his house. Even so, I was speechless.

As the car rumbled up a gravel drive, lights came on, illuminating a three-storey building made of silver wood and glass. A fountain erupted into life next to us as the car rumbled to a stop: jets of water chasing each other like fireflies.

“Here we are,” Zac said.

He got out of the car and pulled his seat forward. I crawled out onto the gravel on all fours. I got to my feet and dusted myself off, as Aubrey rolled her eyes at me.

“So, looks like the footballer’s life is paying off, Zac,” I said bitterly. “Shame you had to cheat your way into it.”

Zac laughed and slapped me on the shoulder, harder than I thought necessary. “Come on in. Make yourself at home. Aubrey has.”

I made faces behind his back as I followed him up the drive and into his palace of a house. The hallway was bigger than my entire house. He clapped his hands and lights came on, revealing an enormous staircase, spiralling up three flights.

“Through here,” he said, turning left into an open plan living room. Another clap of his hands and the lights dimmed and soft music played through invisible speakers. God, I hated Zac.

I collapsed onto a leather sofa, that practically sighed as I sat in it, and pulled one of the soft pillows from behind me and pressed it into my lap. Kia, Pia, whoever it was, had a lot to answer for.

“You want a drink?” Zac said, pushing a panel in the wall. It spun around revealing a drinks cabinet. I
really
hated Zac.

“Water, thanks,” Aubrey said. And I mumbled I’d have the same.

I didn’t know if it was because I’d swallowed a mouthful of mud and blood, or because Zac had special water shipped in from the Tibetan mountains, or something like that, but it tasted unlike any water I’d had before. I had to admit, it was damn good. Not that I was going to tell Zac that.

“OK,” Aubrey said, perching on the arm of a chair opposite me. “Tell us what happened. From the start.”

I took another sip of the water and started talking. I began with the evaluation on Frankie and how everything had started to go weird. I told them about how I’d run thirty miles home, simply because she told me to. I told them about the connection between the unidentified Shifts, the deaths and accidents and Frankie’s kids. And finally, I told them about confronting her tonight and getting my arse kicked.

“About that,” Aubrey said. “You’re too good a fighter to let yourself get knocked about like you did. What happened?”

“I can’t Shift,” I said quietly.

“What?” Aubrey and Zac said together. And their unison grated on my nerves.

“Is it entropy?” Aubrey asked.

“No, that’s what I’ve been saying. It’s Frankie. On that morning…” I paused, remembering the broken look on Aubrey’s face. “Frankie told me not to change. She made me promise not to change. And well, since then I’ve not been able to Shift.”

“So that’s why you didn’t undo what you’d done? I’ve been wondering,” Aubrey said. “I guess I’m lucky, otherwise I’d have never known about what you were up to with Ella.”

“I wasn’t up to anything with Ella. She kissed me and when I tried to stop her I couldn’t. I was frozen in place because of a thought Frankie had put in my head. I promise you. I swear on my sister’s life, I’m not interested in Ella. She’s nothing. Nothing compared to you. Please, Aubrey, what do I have to do to convince you?”

Aubrey picked at her flaking nail varnish and didn’t say anything.

“And this Ella girl, she’s a murderer?” Zac said.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think Frankie makes them do it, like she made me run home.”

“And does she make them change their minds, so that people can come back to life?” Aubrey said, sounding cynical.

“That’s the bit I can’t work out. The kids of important people are in near-miss accidents and then they’re not. Like tonight. I saw Hamid go to inject this Lord something or other. I thought he was going to kill him, only he didn’t. I don’t know if he really didn’t want to or if it’s a decision he can undo later. It’s like Frankie’s putting her pieces in place for something. Like the President of China.”

“Who’s still alive,” Aubrey said, with a sigh.

“Only I watched him die! A kid, I’m pretty sure it was Kushi, gave him a toy and he started choking to death. But his Little Guards Shifted and saved him. But then, two days later, his son dies of poison at another party where Frankie just so happens to be with one of her kids.”

“Have you told Sir Richard?” Aubrey said.

“Yeah, and he told me I wasn’t to go near the woman or I would be fired. So I quit.”

“You quit ARES?” Aubrey stood up from the chair.

“I told you I would. I said once all the stuff with Project Ganymede was over I’d leave.”

“I just never believed you. ARES is your life.” She paced back and forth between the chair and the sofa.

“Well, it’s not any more. Stopping Frankie is all I care about now. That and you.”

I stared at Aubrey, but she looked away. Zac, lounging on a bar stool and sipping a dark drink, looked from me to her and back again. “I’m going to leave you two alone.”

Aubrey looked up in protest, but he stopped her with a wave of his hand. “Brey, all you’ve done for two nights is talk about him. Frankly, I’m bored of it. Sort it out. Or you can both sod off.” He slid off his bar stool and wandered out of the room.

Aubrey avoided looking at me as she continued to pace back and forth.

“Tell me what to do. Tell me what I need to do to make this better,” I said.

She stopped and looked up at the skylight far above our heads. It had started raining again. “You can’t do anything, that’s the point. It’s done.”

I pushed myself up out of the sofa and got unsteadily to my feet. “You’re right. I can’t change what I did. You have no idea how much I wish I could, but I can’t. Even if I could change it, I’d still have to live with knowing I’d hurt you. That’s why it’s what I do next that has to matter. It has to outweigh what I’ve done.”

“Life doesn’t work like that. You can’t make the bad stuff go away just by… by doing lots of good stuff. It’s not some great big balancing act. You make mistakes and they’re made,” she said.

“Unless you can Shift?”

She sighed. “Unless you can Shift.”

“And even then, Aubrey, I’m not so sure. That’s what’s been scaring me so much lately. Even if we can make the bad choices we’ve made go away, aren’t they still there? Somewhere? Some stain on our cosmic balancing sheet,” I said.

“No. That old reality collapses. It’s gone. Taking your mistake with it.”

“Then why can I still remember?” I shouted and Aubrey flinched a little. I wanted to run to her. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and hold her till it all went away.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

“Because somewhere, it is still there. That reality.”

“I don’t… I don’t want to believe that,” she said.

“Why not?” I said.

“Because I’ve made mistakes too, Scott,” she snapped. “I’ve done things that were bad and wrong, I’m sure of it. I can’t remember them like you, but I know me. I know I always make the wrong choice first. And if I wasn’t a Shifter then… I just don’t know. And what’s going to happen to me when it all goes away?”