Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (125 page)

“I couldn’t tell,” I teased, forcing a smile I didn’t feel. My insides twisted up at the idea of being a hostage again.

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, as he worked out whatever he was trying to (or trying not to) say. I waited, anxious and curious and scared as hell.

“The hell with it,” he said.

A warm mouth pressed gently to mine, a flutter of lips and heat. The vaguest taste of coffee and man hit me in the gut, and a noise deep in my throat broke loose. Something needy and wonderful and embarrassing all at once. I cupped the back of his neck and pulled him closer, opening for the kiss that didn’t deepen right away. His lips played at mine, tasting and teasing, until the tip of his tongue swiped across my teeth, and then it was over.

My heart slammed against my ribs, and I clung to his shoulders, breathing hard despite the gentleness of the kiss. I wanted more, but couldn’t make myself ask for or take it. I’d lost that courage somewhere these last few months, lost confidence in myself as a sexual person. In some ways, I felt like a teenager getting her first kiss from a forbidden older boy. And it was awesome.

He brushed his lips across my forehead. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I said, “Disappointed?”

“Hardly.” He pulled back a few inches. “Are you going to slap me for taking liberties?”

“Taking liberties?” I laughed, genuinely amused at his words and his concern. “No, I’m not going to slap you. I’m impressed you made the effort.”

“You can’t see your own beauty beyond your old injuries, can you?”

I pulled away, and he let me go. A few feet of safe distance between us shattered the spell of that lovely kiss, and it brought back up a nice, defensive wall. “We should get back. We’re on a timetable.”

“Right.”

He called HQ while I drove. Teresa was, as expected, pissed about us losing Bethany. She was less angry about the trade for Maddie, because she understood the decision I’d made—“I’d have done the same thing,” she said, and that made me feel better about the whole deal. She told us Dr. Kinsey would be ready when we got back to the parking lot.

Derek and I made the rest of the drive in silence.

Eighteen

Dirty Outs

W
arinanco Park was easy to find. As soon as he heard the destination, Marco shifted into his raven form, then flew off to find the place so he knew exactly where to go later. He would be driving the Sport containing me, Teresa, and Dr. Kinsey. Teresa had insisted on being part of the exchange, not just for security but in case Kinsey needed assistance with Maddie on the drive back to HQ.

My entire body hummed with kinetic energy, with the need to stretch and flex and use the power that my damaged skin no longer allowed. Mostly it was from nerves. I was scared to go out there without my friends. Scared to be a prisoner, even if it was with a bunch of teenagers. Their powers rivaled ours and they knew it. So much could go wrong so easily.

So what else is new?

Teresa twisted around in the front seat and looked back at me, her eyebrows arched. I stopped tapping my fingers on the door, starting tapping on my thigh, then just sat on my hands. Her sympathetic look made me want to burst into tears. No one knew how long the swap would last. Dr. Kinsey needed to assess Maddie’s wounds before he could guess at her recovery time.

The entrance to the park loomed like a table at a high-stakes poker game—one wrong move, one tell, and it was all over. I shivered.

“Learn everything you can,” Teresa said for the third or fourth time since the trip began. She was nervous, too, if she was repeating herself. “Try to get on their side.”

“I was the way wrong person for this job if it requires being friends,” I said. My attempt at levity fell flat, because it was so often true. I wasn’t the diplomat of our group, and I never would be.

Why had I volunteered to do this again?

Marco met my gaze in the rearview mirror, his glowing green eyes warm and sincere when he said, “You will succeed, Renee.”

His vote of confidence meant more to me than anyone else’s. Marco didn’t offer encouragement very often. Hell, he didn’t talk much anymore, period, but he had a quiet strength he couldn’t hide, even if he tried, and I liked knowing he believed in me.

“Thanks, sweetie,” I said. I reached up and squeezed his shoulder. The muscles under my hand tensed. Relaxed. He patted my hand, then returned both of his to the wheel.

The park was no longer used—like the rest of the town of Elizabeth—and vegetation had begun to retake the grounds. Our headlights bounced off trees and bushes, casting creepy shadows all over the damned place. Marco drove toward a large lake that reflected the moonlight. He stopped when the lights fell on the same rusty oiece-of-shit car from the rest stop. He shifted into park, but left the engine running so the lights stayed on.

Teresa opened her door first. The rest of us followed suit. I almost fell over when I hit the ground. My knees were watery and I wanted to barf up the sandwich Teresa had forced me to eat before we left HQ. I made my feet take forward steps and met my group at the Sport’s fender.

The two front doors of the car popped open. Sasha emerged from the driver’s side, clutching a linen bag in her hand. I expected Rick again, but it was the Incredible Growing Boy, sporting a red-stained bandage on his wrist. The pair of them came toward us.

“You’re the doctor?” Sasha asked, looking right at the man in question.

“Abram Kinsey,” he replied. He lifted the shoulder supporting the strap of his travel medical kit. “May I see Maddie?”

“Barry will take you.”

The Incredible Growing Boy, aka Barry, led Kinsey over to the car. Kinsey opened the back door and leaned inside to do his thing.

“Thank you for trusting us to help her,” Teresa said.

“I don’t have a choice,” Sasha replied. “Maddie and I haven’t know each other very long, but I can’t let her die.”

“You don’t have to know someone well to know you’re connected.”

“True.” She tossed the linen bag at me, and I almost dropped the thing. “Put that on, please.”

My insides clenched up tight when I pulled a collar out of the bag. “This wasn’t part of the deal,” I said.

“Would you rather be tied up?”

“Fuck, no.” I detested the idea of being collared, but I couldn’t handle the alternative. The collar was the same as Ethan’s—slim, black, cool to the touch. I didn’t understand how it worked, only that when Teresa helped secure it around my neck, a gentle buzz of energy crept along my bare skin everywhere it touched me. It was tight without choking, and the scariest damned necklace I’d ever worn.

“Maddie is as stable as she’s going to get,” Dr. Kinsey said from the car. “We need to move her to the Sport.”

“I got it,” Barry said.

Before any of our crew could question him, Barry grew to an eighteen-foot-tall version of himself, creating hands the size of manhole covers. He reached into the car with surprising grace and carefully lifted Maddie out. She was wrapped in blankets, her face ashen, eyes shut. Marco opened the rear compartment of the Sport, and Barry placed her there in a nest of pillows and blankets.

He shrank back down to a more average five-eight or so, and then leaned into the Sport to kiss Maddie’s cheek. The gesture was more brotherly than romantic, and he glared at us when he pulled back. I’d put all my chips on him being the Landon to Maddie’s Bethany. This might have been the first time Barry and Maddie had been separated since they were children.

“Take care of her,” he said to Dr. Kinsey.

“I’ll do my very best, you have my word,” Kinsey replied. He got into the back with Maddie, and Marco closed the hatch.

“Time for you to go,” Sasha said to Teresa.

“Keep that phone handy,” Teresa said. “I’ll call with updates.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“Sit tight, and keep your friends out of sight, okay?”

“Duh.”

I didn’t hug Teresa or Marco good-bye. We’d done all that before leaving HQ, getting and giving last-minute bits of advice so when the time came, they could leave me behind without fanfare, like it was something we did all the time. I stood beside Sasha and Barry and watched two of my best friends drive off without me. A phantom chill settled in the space they had once occupied, and the cold crept into my guts. I didn’t know where I was going, or what would happen when I got there.

Thatcher and I hadn’t really said good-bye. I didn’t know what to say to him after that kiss, and we had no privacy anyway. His final words to me rumbled around in my head like the warning they’d been intended as:
“Never forget they’re young. They may not act rationally. Be ready for anything.”

“Let’s go,” Sasha said after we’d waited a few minutes in silence.

They directed me into the backseat, still warm from where Maddie had lain. No blood on the seat, though, which was a good sign. From the front, Barry handed me something. A necktie.

“Blindfold yourself,” he said.

I swallowed a protest. This was their show now. I gave him my very best Is-this-the-best-you’ve-got, kid? look and tied the strip of cloth around my eyes. Maybe the bravado didn’t impress him, but I felt a little bit better.

Even though my arms and legs were free, I was still bound by that fucking collar. I was at their mercy. I hadn’t felt this helpless since Specter drugged and pretzel-tied me to a pommel horse nine months ago.

The car engine rumbled to life, and we were off, destination unknown.

•  •  •

Tracking time in the dark doesn’t get easier, no matter how many chances you get to try it. At some point, after at least one hour but less than five (because the sun wasn’t up yet), the car stopped moving and Barry told me I could take off the blindfold. We were parked in a dirty alley behind a long row of brick residences. Most had broken windows, falling gutters, and fenced-in yards long overrun with weeds and waist-high grass. The skinny three-story row homes suggested we were close to a large city.

The only large cities within reasonable distance of Elizabeth were Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Scranton in Pennsylvania, or Wilmington down in Delaware. I doubted that Sasha would go much farther than that from Manhattan.

The air was thick with the odors of vegetation rot, wet cement, and pollution fumes—strong enough to make my nose tingle. I followed Sasha and Barry out of the car, down at least eight homes from the car, and through the broken gate of one backyard. They wove a path through the overgrowth, careful not to trample it and make it obvious that someone was living—squatting?—here. Sasha unlocked a rusty, once-white metal door and went inside.

We stepped into a kitchen that hadn’t been new in at least fifty years and had the yellowish stains to prove it. The silence surprised me, and I figured out why—no hum of electricity anywhere in the house. A kerosene lantern on one of the warped countertops was the only light source. More golden lantern glows came from the next room.

The living room was an interesting disaster of single mattresses and sleeping bags jumbled together along the various walls. The windows were papered over and the staircase was blocked by what looked like boxes of groceries. Tate, Rick, Bethany, and Wings (name still unknown) were sitting together on one of the mattresses playing cards. The trio of boys watched as we entered, all eyes on me.

I felt a bit like I’d interrupted the worst sleepover ever.

Barry scuffed over to one of the sleeping bags, dropped down, and curled up around a flat pillow. Worrying, mourning, or sleeping, I didn’t know.

The cell Teresa had given to Sasha chimed with a text. She glanced at the screen. “Maddie is back at the Meta HQ,” she reported. “She’s in surgery to remove the bullet.”

“Good news,” Tate said.

“As long as she survives.”

Sasha said it to Tate, but I couldn’t help but feel that the statement was directed at me.

“Bathroom’s over there,” Sasha said to me, pointing to a closed door beneath the stairs. “The water’s off, but we fixed it to drain right down. If you have to take a shit, go outside into one of the yards.”

Oh, lovely.
“Thanks,” I said.

“Bottled water’s on the stairs. Help yourself. Ask before you eat anything.”

“Okay.”

To the others she said, “This is Flex.”

“Renee is fine,” I said.

They all said their names, which I mostly knew. Turned out Wings’s name was Nicolas. We all stared at each other, waiting for someone else to say something. As I stood in the dim light, knowing it was at least two a.m. and probably closer to dawn, fatigue crept over me. I cracked a yawn, which had the adverse effect of making everyone else start yawning.

“You can sleep there,” Sasha said, pointing to a bare mattress in the corner by the bathroom. She dropped down onto another mattress and pulled a tattered blanket up over her, not even bothering to take off her boots.

“Thank you,” I said.

Everyone scattered to their individual sleeping spots, and one by one the three living room lanterns were turned off. I stared at the water-stained ceiling, barely visible from the glow of the kitchen lantern, and listened to six strangers breathing. My arm throbbed, my chest hurt from stress, and my neck itched from the collar. My eyes drooped shut, but my mind was racing with too many things.

I rested, but did not sleep.

A ringing phone snapped me out of my dozing. I shot upright and blinked across the dim room, out of sorts from the lack of sunlight. Sasha sat up as she said, “Yes?”

Some of the others stirred while she listened.

“Okay, thanks.” She hung up. “That was Trance. Maddie is out of surgery and resting. She’s getting blood and antibiotics. Trance will call again in a few hours with another report.”

Various voices mumbled things I didn’t understand. Sasha rolled off her mattress and retrieved a bottle of water from the stairs. She saw me watching her and tossed one at me, which I caught without fumbling.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“A little after six.” She plunked down on the mattress next to me without an invitation. “Tell me about the Rangers.”

“Like what? I was twelve when the Rangers ceased to exist.”

“But you still believe in the idea of the Rangers, right? What they did and stood for?”

“Mostly I do, yes. We genuinely want to help people.”

“Why?” She didn’t seem to mind carrying on a conversation at full volume while four other people were trying to sleep, so I went with it.

“Why do we want to help people?” I asked.

“Yeah. You don’t know them. I don’t understand it.”

“You might understand better than you think, honey. Bethany and Landon helped people, using the skills Uncle taught them. They stole food and gave it to strangers who needed it.”

“That’s different.”

“How?” I glanced at Bethany, whose eyes were open, watching us from across the room.

“Giving them food isn’t the same as jumping in front of a bullet for someone.”

“Sure it is. The act is different but the intent comes from the same place.” I could see her face screw into an epic frown, so I grasped for something she could identify with. “You’d take a bullet for any of the kids in this room, right?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“They’re important to me. They’re family.”

“You understand better than you think, then.”

More of the kids were waking up, listening, lighting the lanterns. Only Barry didn’t seem to have noticed the conversation.

Nicolas sat with his wings wrapped around his shoulders like a blanket. “Were you always blue?” he asked suddenly.

I paused, thrown by the left-field question, until the reasoning behind it made a little bit of sense. For most Meta kids, powers and accompanying physical changes developed in childhood and early adolescence. Nicolas’s wings should have started growing sometime after the age of eight or nine, but I knew from talking to several other young Metas, ones whose powers didn’t appear until last January, that that hadn’t happened for them. Overnight, Kate Lowry went from a French manicure to thick claws she had to hide with gloves.

“No, I wasn’t,” I replied. “I was born with ordinary skin. I began to turn blue right after my eighth birthday.”

“Did it hurt?”

Fear coiled around my spine. “The physical change didn’t hurt, no.”