Liquid Lies (41 page)

The watch in her pocket had grown hot from her clutching it so consistently.

“What’s the plan?” she asked.

Griffin gestured through the windshield. “Copter’s up there. We’re working your plan, Gwennie.”

The one she’d outlined for him in the diner. The one he’d shot down.

She gasped. “We can make it work?”

He patted her hand next to the headrest. “We’re going to have to.”

Three additional Ofarian soldiers waited in the helicopter. Gwen knew them by face but not by name. They nodded deeply to her, almost reverently. Their courage and sacrifice overwhelmed her. The helicopter started up, a great whine and a blast of wind stealing her words.

As everyone donned bulbous sets of headphones, Griffin’s voice crackled in her ear. “Three others are already in Nevada, working the plan from their end. We’ll rendezvous upon touchdown. Listen up. Here’s what’s going to happen…”

He’d changed the plan somewhat from how she’d imagined it in her head, but then he was the soldier and she was the executive. People were given jobs for a reason, and Griffin was excellent at his. Every layer to his revised plan excited her. Every layer increased her fear. Inside her pocket she tightly clenched Reed’s watch, then realized she didn’t have to hide it anymore.

She pulled it out and slipped it on. A welcome weight, a big and beautiful reminder. Griffin saw it and looked away, but she couldn’t concern herself with how he felt about Reed. Not when she was hours or minutes away from getting Reed back.

After a ride that felt both agonizingly slow and incredibly swift, they touched down and immediately splintered into groups. David sped away in a nondescript four-door with the waiting three soldiers. Zoe prodded two of the men who’d ridden in the copter into a brisk jog, and they melted into the night.

The helicopter lifted off and disappeared into specks of light blinking in the blackness. They’d been dropped in the center of the Nevada nothingness. She could barely see her hands in front of her face, but she recognized the feel of the expanse around her, could taste the briskness of the air.

A black pickup truck waited for them. An Ofarian soldier—Sam, she learned—slid behind the wheel. She guided Genesai into the cab and Griffin hopped in the bed. The vehicle jounced along the rough terrain with only its parking lights on. Gwen tried desperately to make out any distinguishing landmarks—how close were they to the Plant?—but to no avail. Genesai pressed his cheek to the cold window and drew lines between the stars with his fingers, his limbs continually twitching.

The truck stopped in a cloud of dirt on a ridge overlooking a two-lane road. Griffin opened the cab door from the outside and took Gwen’s arm when she exited. He pulled her to the lip of the drop-off. From inside his soldier’s vest he produced a cell phone.

“Turn it on.”

She did. And stared down at the color screen in all its high-def glory.

“They’re all on there. And everything else you wanted, it’s all loaded up.”

“Griffin…” Her whole life had been made up of words—she’d been born to talk—and he’d rendered her completely speechless.

He waved off her unspoken gratitude. “You don’t have to go down there.”

She rubbed gentle fingers over the Cartier. “Yes, I do.”

Clenching his jaw between thumb and forefinger, he stared down the steep slope. “For me, Gwen. For our friendship. Stay at the truck with Genesai. There are so few of us; I can’t say for sure you’ll be safe.”

For our friendship
.

“If there’s so few of you, you’ll need me. And I could never, ever live with myself if I sent you and the others down without fighting myself.” When he refused to look at her, she added, “You, of all people, should understand that. Could you give the order to fight and then step back to watch?”

“Gwen…”

Griffin’s radio sputtered to life and Zoe’s voice crackled, “They’re coming. From the south. Ten minutes out.”

He loosed a small set of night-vision binoculars from his plethora of vest doohickeys and peered south into the darkness.

“Teams A and B,” he barked, “move into position.”

She and Griffin were Team C. Sam was staying behind with Genesai. If anything were to go wrong down there, Sam had orders where to take Genesai to keep him safe.

“Team C,” Griffin murmured to her, radio off. “You ready?”

She took a deep breath and nodded. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, his lips lingering. As if realizing what he was doing, he broke the contact fast, like ripping off a bandage.

The way he cleared his throat was simultaneously awkward and endearing and bittersweet. “See you down there. Stay covered.”

He stepped back, whispered Ofarian words, and collapsed into water. She watched his liquid form splash and burble overland, swift as whitewater, down toward the road at the bottom of the quiet valley.

A piercing scream cleaved the night.

She whirled. Genesai, ten paces behind her, had gone skeleton white, his eyes wide as moons. One shaking hand pointed to where Griffin had turned liquid, and he screamed again. To make a sound so anguished, so potent, he must have reached far, far back into his past. Into his former self. It didn’t sound entirely human.

She started for him, arms outstretched to soothe. Stupid move.

He stumbled backward as if she were on fire. “Ofarians! You’ve aligned me with Ofarians!”

How could she have let it come to this?

“Genesai.” She dropped her arms and advanced carefully. “Please let me explain.”

Dust plumed under his bare feet as he scrambled for the truck. The doors were locked and he fell to the ground, huddling near the wheel well like a wounded and trapped animal. His terror froze her.

Sam hopped out of the pickup cab, but Gwen waved him back inside. The last thing Genesai needed was another Ofarian in sight.

“You’re one of them, too, aren’t you?” Genesai hugged the rubber now, his eyes squeezed shut as if bracing for an execution. “I listened to your words. I trusted you. And you are my enemy.”

“No, Genesai, no. I am not your enemy.”

“If I hadn’t listened to you, I would already be with her. We would be in the sky. I should be with Nora.”

Another step closer. Genesai flinched.

“Everything I told you back in your cabin is true. The Ofarians who forced you to come to Earth and the Ofarians who are still keeping Tedrans as slaves, they are my enemies, too. The few of us who brought you here tonight, we are fighting them.”

Genesai was shaking his head, not hearing anything she said. “You’re not going to let me leave this awful planet, are you?” Tears drew wet lines down his dusty cheeks and glistened in the moonlight.

“Yes! Yes, I am. I want to send you and your ship back to the stars, just like we talked about.”

“I don’t believe you.”

As she stepped closer, he winced as though she held a bullwhip, ready to strike.

“Nora is the one who kept you captive all these years. She wants to free her people, and so do I. But her motives are not all good. That is why Griffin and I are here right now. There are only eight other Ofarians with us. We are not with the Tedrans or the Ofarian majority. But we know what’s right, and we want to help you get back to your ship.”

At last he opened his eyes and peered up at her through their wetness. “We were so close. I touched her. I was
inside
her.”

She sighed and crouched down before him. “The Ofarians and Tedrans are still at war. I am caught in the middle.
We
are caught in the middle.”

He must have picked up on the despair in her voice, because suddenly he stilled and looked at her with what she could only hope was empathy. Then he peered down the hill.

“What’s happening down there? Why are Ofarians attacking Ofarians?”

“Because I want the Tedrans freed, and the other Ofarians—the ones who kept the slaves—don’t like that.”
My father doesn’t like that
. “Griffin and I, we’re trying to do what we believe is right for the Tedrans, not what Nora wants and not what the Ofarian leaders want. I want to end the war, Genesai. Nora does not. I didn’t tell you this before because I really, truly wanted you to take the freed Tedrans back to their homeworld. I didn’t tell you what I am because I desperately needed your help.”

A line of headlights appeared on the road in the distance. She needed to get down there. Fast.

Genesai at last released his grip on the tire and stood. “And now? Now that you’ve declared yourself for no side, what happens to me? What happens to us?”

The approaching headlights reminded her of being deep, deep in Lake Tahoe, where the light pierced the dark in wavering spots. For a brief moment she was transported back there, surrounded by the thick movement of the water and the dullness of sound. The narrow valley fell away from the present and she pictured Genesai’s beautiful ship looming before her.

“What happens?” she said. “What happens is that I’m going to get you back where you belong.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

Gwen threw her watery body down the hill. Scrubby, itchy grass
flew beneath her. She flowed around large rocks and bridged broken parts of the land. She stretched herself thin, parts of her trailing behind, but she had to hurry. The world passed quickly, too quickly to watch the progress of the caravan barreling toward them on the road.

Griffin wouldn’t wait for her, and he didn’t. She was still a good distance away from where she needed to be, when a spout of water shot up from the ground, as powerful and determined as the man who controlled it. The shimmering liquid expanded to Griffin’s familiar, lean silhouette, then hardened into his true shape.

His re-formation gave the signal to everyone else.

Gwen stopped where she was, still twenty yards up the slope from the road. Touching the water, speaking its language, she commanded it to return to her true body. Up the road a bit, out of sight, Zoe and her team would be assuming form, weapons trained. Across the road, lining the shoulder, David and his team spouted into being.

Griffin told them the Ofarians driving the caravan used heat-seeking and night-scope vision whenever they traveled in the dark. That had been the reason for staying in water form. But it had taken a bit of a toll; Griffin gritted his teeth and caught himself from swaying on his feet. Changing the molecules of clothing was one thing. Altering weaponry and ammo and other articles sapped strength. The more you changed, the more it took. And every soldier was loaded down.

Gwen didn’t have a gun, but she wasn’t there to shoot.

David reached over his shoulder and slid out a long-range rifle. Impeccable timing. A huge black SUV crested a rise, charging toward them. Just behind it came a gray van, then a giant semi-truck rumbling like an earthquake. Another black SUV brought up the rear. Their headlights were no longer fuzzy points in the distance. They were clear and close, and Gwen’s stomach leaped into her throat.

David lifted the rifle scope to his eye, aimed, and fired.

The single bullet snapped like a whip, the great
crack
echoing off the hills. The gray, windowless van swerved violently. It crossed the yellow line. Veered back. The rubber of its left front wheel flapped.

The semi’s brakes squealed and hissed, the trailer bobbing as the whole thing tried to avoid hitting the erratic van. The van skidded to a messy stop halfway onto the shoulder, right in front of Zoe’s team.

The semi jackknifed, straightened, and then halted across the deserted road with a considerable jerk. The lead SUV slowed, screeched around a U-turn, and doubled back. The tail SUV sped up, passed the semi, and stopped alongside the tilted and disabled van. Smart of Griffin. Taking out one of the guard SUVs would only send the caravan fleeing. But handicap the van carrying the entire supply of
Mendacia
and everyone would have to stop.

Ofarian guards poured from every vehicle, moonlight glinting off their drawn weapons. They sprinted for the downed van—protect the product at all cost—equipment jingling on their person, boots slapping the asphalt. They shouted for status reports, bellowed orders to search the nearby area.

They never got the chance. Griffin fired first.

The
nelicoda
-laced bullet exploded from the barrel and found its target in the leg of a
Mendacia
guard. The guy crumpled, howling in pain. The
nelicoda
bullets had been Griffin’s suggestion; she hadn’t even known they existed. The order to disable, not kill, had been at Gwen’s insistence. But as the world exploded in gunfire, she began to second-guess herself.

She dove behind a rock just barely big enough to cover her curled-up body. A bullet struck its top, tearing off a chunk. Another bullet buried itself in the ground by her ankle. The ungodly noise of violence and shouting sent her hands flying to her ears.

She managed to peer around the rock. The semi stood huge and unprotected. Inside was her purpose in the form of three hundred innocent, defenseless people. If they had Reed, if they’d obeyed her orders to keep him with the Tedrans, that was where he would be.

Griffin had retreated up the hill, higher up into the dark, away from the headlights. Fifteen feet from Gwen, he flattened himself to the ground, propped himself on his elbows, and fired away. His arms jerked with every shot. He was fast but careful, taking aim, using the benefit of higher ground and the advantage of the shadows.

Another of their own wasn’t so lucky.

“I’m hit!” Even from that distance, Gwen heard the pain and fear in Zoe’s cry. The
Mendacia
guards weren’t aiming to injure.

It should have made Gwen cower. It should have made her regret joining the front line. It should have made her want to turn to water again, flow back up the hill and hide with Genesai.

“Griffin. Throw me a gun.”

She couldn’t sit there in a shaking, useless heap. The fight wasn’t going in their favor. She didn’t have to be a soldier to know that.

“What?” He didn’t look at her, and got off another shot. Someone down at the caravan wailed. “You don’t know how to use it!”