Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (60 page)

“They are my sons,” he continued. “But to Weatherfield, they were still projects. Objects, owned and operated, and about a month ago they decided the project no longer had merit. With the Metas reactivated, our research was meant to go in a different direction. They told me they could no longer justify the expense of the Hybrids’ training program. In short, they were to be terminated.”

“You mean killed?”

Kinsey nodded. “Put down like unwanted strays, and nothing I said could change their minds. The board didn’t understand my feelings, so we four came up with an alternative to death. We decided on freedom.”

“An alternative to death? By killing Ronald Jarvis?”

“His death was an unfortunate circumstance, but it became unavoidable. Voice recognition software is used on all except the main entry gates. Their powers do not allow for voice change without the full possession of the host. It was the only way to get them out, and for that, I am truly sorry.”

“I don’t think a judge is going to care that you’re sorry.”

The snide remark rolled right past. “We thought the escape through very carefully, planning contingencies for any unforeseen emergencies. Everything was going well. Noah and James were in place, but Aaron was nowhere to be found. We had King’s cover prepared, and no body with which to veil him. The other boys had to pretend for a bit.”

In place. Covers and veils. He spoke with such clinical detachment, he could have been discussing cold symptoms. These were the lives of human beings, not toys to be played with. But, as with a three-car pile-up on the 405, I found it impossible to ignore the things in front of me.

“Where’s the real Aaron Scott?” I asked.

“We aren’t certain. He was tightly wound even before the death of the boys’ parents, and he lived his life selfishly. He couldn’t be bothered to leave a circuit party to attend their parents’ funeral. Six weeks ago he told Noah he was going to Colorado with a group of ex-boyfriends to do some mountain climbing. He hasn’t been heard from since.”

“So he could just show up at any moment?”

“Yes.”

I waved one hand at Jimmy. “And he won’t notice that his little brothers aren’t his little brothers anymore?”

“We
are
his brothers,” Noah snarled. His words struck like punches, furious and intimidating. “It’s impossible to explain, Dahlia, but this is me. This person I am, he’s both Noah Scott and Ace the Changeling. You don’t stop being one to be the other, you become an amalgamation of the two. I am me, brother to Jimmy Scott and to King, in whatever form he has chosen.”

I wouldn’t look at him. Looking at Noah made me want to throw hard objects in his general direction—which was not a good idea while surrounded by people I didn’t really know, one with a gun and a temperament to kill. But I might as well press my luck while they were talking.

“So if Aaron shows up in an hour, what happens?” I asked. “King just takes him over, whether Aaron agrees to it or not? They become some amalgam of two people and he gets no say?”

“Our lives change without our permission, Miss Perkins,” Kinsey said. “You of all people should understand how that’s possible. You weren’t given a choice about your powers. Aaron Scott will become greater than he was as an individual. He was selfish, distant from his family, and a recreational meth user.”

“By choice.”

“He made the wrong choices.”

I snorted, blowing air hard through my nose. “And you get
to judge him? To take away his free will to blow his brains on meth and probably die young from an overdose?” The “group of ex-boyfriends” comment came back to me. “Are you going to take away everything that makes him an individual?”

“His life will become more than it was. My boys made the choice to embrace the personalities of the Scotts. Everything Aaron is, so will King be, but stronger and wiser, and with amazing abilities. The Aaron who destroys his mind with crystal meth will thrive in this partnership.”

“What gives you the right to decide he needs to change?”

He didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t know how to explain what was so obviously correct in his mind.

“So how long will they make good use of the Scotts?” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder at King-Ortega. “Because King there doesn’t seem real keen on keeping one body for any lengthy period of time. What happens when he’s bored with Aaron, or maybe decides he doesn’t like being gay, and leaves his skin in a back-alley trash heap?”

King-Ortega didn’t speak until Kinsey nodded. “Everything Aaron Scott is, so will I be.”

“You make it sound like being gay is a choice.”

“Hardly. It’s just not something to be afraid of. Aaron will be my last identity. Unless we’re hunted”—he gave me a hard look—“I won’t need another. None of us will.”

“So you say. And while we’re on the subject of bodies in trash heaps,” I continued, “who exactly was the John Doe we found yesterday?”

“His name was Joel Stevenson,” King-Ortega said. “He was supposed to be my veil until we found Aaron Scott.
He came into the shop that first day to get an outlet in his apartment fixed. Noah did the job, asked questions. Joel lived alone, didn’t have many friends. I didn’t want to hide in the apartment without a face indefinitely, so I became him.”

He spoke carefully in Ortega’s moderately accented English, but the tone belonged to someone else. A tone so detached it frightened me. Something about King was different from the other two boys, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. “How is that not murder?” I asked. “Taking over someone’s life and then discarding their body when you’re done?”

“Because Joel isn’t dead, not really,” King said. “When we take a host, we take their memories and traits. We know things they know, possess their skills. I still remember everything about Joel’s life. You found his skin, but his . . . I don’t know, his essence? It’s still in me.”

“And that makes it okay?” At the very least it was violent assault.

He shrugged. “Maybe not, but it is what it is.”

“Why did you leave Joel’s skin behind and take another?”

Silence. It hung over us like a humid blanket, stifling and thick. Everyone looked away, including Kinsey. I’d struck another nerve. We were getting to the heart of my business here, and suddenly no one wanted to talk. I knew I wasn’t going to like any of the answers (not that I’d liked them so far).

“Well, somebody is going to have to answer the question,” I said. “You knew I’d ask it, so stop pretending you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. Why did King possess Arnold Stark and try to kill me?”

Noah choked, a strangled sound from deep in his throat. He wrapped his arms around his torso, hugging tight, still staring at the remains of his shattered coffee mug. The odor of it tingled my nostrils and churned my stomach, reminding me of its emptiness.

I tried to glare, to intimidate, but no one would look at me. “Well?”

Their silent consensus meant either they weren’t ready to answer that now, or they weren’t answering it at all. The former I could work with. The latter? Not a chance.

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s try an easier question, since you’re having a hard time with this one. Why was Nadine Lee here yesterday?”

Noah’s head turned, his eyes drilling holes through me.

I stared right back, unfazed by his surprise. “What? You thought my memory was so bad I wouldn’t remember her? You saying she looked like a hooker? Or was she another one of King’s veils?”

Jimmy slumped lower in his chair, eyes focused on his lap. He worried his lower lip with his teeth. They were very telling signs.

“That was you?” I asked.

He ducked his head lower. Noah ran a hand through his spiky auburn hair and blew hard through his nose.

To Kinsey I said, “I thought they couldn’t hold more than one host at a time?”

“Only Joker can. Their training always focused on producing a physical glamour from touch, as it was less invasive and not permanent.” Kinsey’s eyebrows furrowed. Tense lips
communicated his annoyance at this conversational turn. “Joker discovered his ability to possess two quite by accident. King had taken over Stark and discarded Stevenson the night before last. Nadine was a very jealous sort, and when Stark didn’t come home, she tracked his car down. She found it parked on the street outside.”

He shot another withering look at King. “She beat on the apartment door until Jimmy opened up. She assumed . . . well, something, and she attacked him.”

“It
was
an accident,” Jimmy said. “I swear it happened while I was trying to get her to stop. See, I’m a telepath and I was trying to connect with her mind and calm her down and it just kind of happened.”

The plaintive tone hurt my heart. Venom still fueled my response. “So Nadine is dead, too?”

His chin trembled. He seemed so young, almost innocent—too innocent to be a murderer. Maybe it had been an accident. Noah approached and squeezed his brother’s shoulders, genuine affection in the gesture. Brother. The identification was easier to stomach, if still confusing. Unreal, even.

“Where’s the skin?” I asked.

“Gone,” King replied.

I swiveled around, no longer afraid of him and his gun. He’d had a chance to kill me once and failed. “Same place this one will go when you’re finished? Some backyard incinerator or garbage dump on the other side of town?”

“You’re a mouthy broad, you know that? Want me to wear you next?”

“King!” Noah roared.

The instant fury lit a fire in the room, changing the tone from tense to downright aggressive. The pair shared a silent exchange across the table, communicating on a basic level I couldn’t share. Almost a full minute passed. Jimmy started nodding along, and I got it—telepathy. They were talking right in front of me and doing a terrible job of hiding it.

I kept silent, unwilling to further provoke their wrath. They’d possessed people without their permission. They had killed, even if they described it more as a forced partnership. Everyone in the room had a problem with the extra hosts, except King. He showed little remorse over the people he’d destroyed—certainly a point of contention among the quartet of men.

King grunted and stalked to the other side of the kitchen, where he sat down on a step stool. Tension remained in the room, but a bomb had been defused, and I didn’t take it for granted.

“Please understand something, Dahlia,” Noah said. “They were going to kill us. We are living beings, as deserving of freedom as you.”

The abject misery in his voice and stance cut like a blade. On the outside, I saw the teenager I once knew and wanted to go to him—to offer comfort, to tell him I understood. But I didn’t; he wasn’t really Noah. Was he? Unable to answer that, I turned to Kinsey and asked, “Why didn’t you go to the authorities?”

“Weatherfield would have denied their existence. They have no birth certificates, no social security numbers. To
anyone outside of the Recombinant project, they are ghosts. Objects on paper. Part of the inventory, not living and feeling people. At least as the Scotts, they were protected. No one could detect them, no one could force them out. It was the only logical choice.”

Dr. Kinsey did what he had to do to protect his sons. The two Scotts were sacrificed—in the most bizarre interpretation of the term, since both were still technically alive—so Ace and Joker could live. An argument could be made for the Changelings acting in self-defense in the cases of Jimmy, Noah, and Nadine. Maybe even Ronald Jarvis.

I could not, however, excuse Joel Stevenson, Arnold Stark, or Miguel Ortega. Not to mention the giant coincidence that I’d stumbled back into Noah Scott’s life right around the same time that he was taken over by a Changeling. Or the fact that Noah and Jimmy hadn’t been given a choice in their possessions.

“You did what you had to do to save your family,” I said. “I get it, I really do, Dr. Kinsey. And I think my friends would get it, too.”

“But?” Kinsey prompted.

“But King tried to kill me yesterday, and instead, he shot Trance. She nearly died because of him, and no one in this room will tell me why.” I stood up, knocking my chair over backward with a hard thump. I pivoted and kicked the chair away with my boot, then glared across the room at King. He tensed but didn’t stand. “Why?”

Nothing.

I drew the heat around me inward, pulling it out of the
air. King sensed the change and cocked his head to the side, observing. “Why?” No answer. The heat filled me, pooling in my core, creating a pulse of energy I had every intention of blasting at King’s smug head. “Why, dammit? Why did you try to kill me?”

Power coiled. Pulsed. Ready to be expelled. It felt good—the buildup to a release of energy and emotion that I desperately needed right now.

“Stop!” Noah slid into my line of sight, blocking my straight shot at King. Muscles rippling, jaw set, Noah took a single step toward me, so close he could reach out and touch. “Just don’t, please.”

My power dissipated, blown out like a candle’s flame. Fatigue and frustration replaced it, filling the void created by the need to simply shatter something. Tears stung my eyes, and I blinked hard. I would not show weakness in front of them. I held Noah’s gaze, caught in its spell, eyes both familiar and foreign. I fisted my hands, keeping them pressed to my sides so I didn’t punch him in the face.

“Why won’t you tell me?” Something new came through in my voice, propelled by the gamut of emotions roiling around in my head: despair. “Please, just tell me why.”

He reached out, his hand ghosting the air near my face. “I could give you a thousand reasons, Dahlia, but none of them would make you feel better.”

“I don’t want to feel better. I just want the truth. Don’t I deserve that?”

“You deserve that and more.”

I pushed him, hard. He stumbled backward, tripped over
his own ankles, and hit the floor flat on his ass. “Go to hell.”

Over him, toward the living room, I bolted down the short hall. The door to the shop downstairs wouldn’t budge. I kicked it when panic set in. There had to be a way out of here. Window! I turned around. Noah stood at the opposite end of the hallway. I darted into the nearest room—bathroom, of course—and slammed the door with a satisfying crunch. I fumbled for a light switch. Two shaded bulbs blazed to life. No windows.
Freaking figures.