Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1) (34 page)

And make her care. When it was just too goddamn dangerous for her to risk it.

Falling in love was all she needed to make her destruction complete.

Chapter 24

“Hey.” Hannah shoved her way through the door with difficulty, what with all the shopping bags. The expensive kind made of fancy thick paper with silken cord handles. Silver, cream, pastels, embossed with velvety patterns. Matching tissue paper poked out of their tops.

“What are you doing here?” Noah demanded. “I said to have stuff delivered!”

“It is being delivered. By me.” Hannah looked around. “Where is she?”

“Resting upstairs. She needs peace and quiet.” He looked at the size of her haul with disapproval. “Holy shit, Hannah. Seriously?”

“Just following orders,” she said. “ Everything a girl needs, Zade said. She just went through hell on earth. The least I could do was get her some nice lingerie. A little high end denim. Some cashmere and silk. It soothes the soul.”

He glanced at the bags, feeling vaguely that this was going to get him into trouble with Caro, causing more problems than it solved. His own damn fault for involving Hannah, who always had to put her own stamp on everything.

“Besides, you never give me anything to do. If I don’t get to kick some bad guy ass, I’ll kick the living shit out of your credit card instead. And I didn’t just buy clothes. There’s toiletries, perfume, hair stuff and makeup. Hope you have nice big shelves in that bathroom, buddy.”

Noah sighed. “Did you have to take this as a personal challenge?”

She gave him a cold look. “You didn’t call me to help.”

“Of course not. I had no idea what we’d be getting into—”

“Neither did Zade or Sisko,” she said. “But they came because you called. Exactly like I would have.” Her whiskey brown eyes were full of hurt.

“Hannah, don’t,” he said, frustrated.

“You think I’m still nine years old,” she said. “And you still feel guilty about taking me to Midlands. But you know what, Noah? I survived. I’m as tough as the rest of you.”

She fell silent, waiting, but Noah was spared the necessity of a reply by Caro’s voice, floating down from above them. “Hey, you two
.”

Caro stood on the landing above, bundled up into the thick terrycloth robe she’d found in the bathroom and leaning over the railing, her hair dangling down. “What’s all that stuff?”

Hannah held up her bags. “Your interim wardrobe,” she explained. “And there’s more on the way. Hope you don’t mind.”

Caro watched Sisko stagger in, barely visible beneath bales of plastic-swathed goods. “Hannah, a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from Target would have been fine!”

“No way,” Noah surprised himself by saying. “You need nice things.”

Hannah turned a startled look on her brother, and laughed. “Finally, something we agree on,” she said. “Caro, look at it this way. If you’re going to do battle with the powers of darkness, you should look as hot as possible while you’re doing it.”

Caro rolled her eyes. “That’s just silly. And extravagant.”

“No, it isn’t,” Hannah said firmly. “So pick out whatever fits and looks best on you, which I bet will be everything, because I know what I’m doing.”

Caro tried to catch Noah’s eye without success. Hannah noticed.

“He’s totally on board with this,” she assured her. “Right, Noah?”

He gave his sister a pained look. She ignored it, turning to Sisko. “Did you get everything out of the car?”

Sisko lay down the bundles. “Yup. Want me to take it upstairs?”

“I’ll do it.” Noah loaded himself up with Hannah’s purchases, tossing a big, puffy bagged thing perched precariously on top. “What the hell is that? It’s really light.”

“An excellent down parka,” Hannah said. “And mukluks.”

He whipped his head around. “What the fuck are mukluks?”

“Snow boots.” Hannah followed him upstairs with a stack of shoeboxes. She stopped at the landing and rested her hand on Caro’s shoulder. “Don’t say no. I shopped my ass off for you.”

“I appreciate it. I really do.”

Hannah smiled. “And Caro, in case you haven’t noticed, my brother is rich. He makes huge money, and then his money makes more money, while he’s not even looking. He’s insanely good at generating money. In fact, he’s insanely good at a whole lot of things.”

“Yeah, I noticed that today,” Caro said. “Is that because of Midlands, too? I mean . . . the incredible combat skills?”

Hannah stared at her, and dropped two shoeboxes. “He told you about Midlands?”

“Of course I told her.” Noah pushed past her, kicking aside the spilled shoes and packaging. “She saw the video with Mark and Luke. What was she supposed to think? That he used a voodoo spell?”

“But I . . but you . . .” Her voice trailed off for a bewildered moment. “But you just met her!”

“That’s true. But she’s one of us by now,” he heard himself say.

His sister’s wide brown eyes darted from him to Caro, shimmering with tears.

He heard a car outside, which was as good an excuse as any for a quick retreat.

“Sounds like someone’s here,” he said. “I’ll be downstairs.”

The door flew open as he got to the bottom of the stairs. Zade shoved through it, loaded up with takeout bags that smelled amazing.

“What the hell is this?” he complained. “Why did you come back?”

“You need fuel,” Zade said. “I found a good taqueria. Eat with us or starve alone, you ungrateful son of a bitch.”

“I want the place quiet for Caro. She’s still in shock.”

“Hannah’s taking care of her. And we’ll be as quiet and gentle as fluffy little lambs,” Sisko said, emerging from
the kitchen. He grabbed the
taqueria bags. “Go back to the car and get the beer,” he told Zade. “I’ll just get this food set up in the dining room.”

Noah stood there for a while, at a loss. Activity bustled around him. Soft female laughter came from the bedroom upstairs. The popping sound of beers being opened eventually came from the kitchen. Zade and Sisko clinked bottles.

Bizarrely, the place had taken on a party mood.

Zade appeared, and shoved a beer into his hand. “Drink up. You did good today. We were just toasting the fact that your life has finally begun. And about fucking time.”

“Huh?” He stared blankly at his friend. “What is that supposed to mean?”

The other two men exchanged telling glances.

Sisko finally took pity on him. “It means we’re tired of watching you knock yourself out trying to protect us. Especially since Luke got taken. Here you are, finally doing something for yourself. We’ve never seen you do that. Since we’ve known you.”

“That’s bullshit,” he mumbled.

“True thing,” Zade said firmly.

“And we like this new development,” Sisko announced.

“Which one?” He was baffled. “You mean, me almost getting myself killed? Putting us all in danger?”

Sisko waved away that inconsequential detail. “I mean, you going nuts, kicking ass, giving a shit. It’s great. A messy, stupid, all-around bad idea, but we like it. A lot.” Sisko took a long swallow of his beer, wiped his grinning mouth, and added, “We are entertained.”

“Drink,” said Zade. “Here’s to fucking up your life like you mean it.”

Noah was too tired to think of anything to say in reply. He lifted the beer. Drank.

It tasted great.

Chapter 25

“What was that all about?” Caro asked. She didn’t want to go through all the bags and boxes dumped on the bed where Hannah was sitting.

Hannah sniffed, and dabbed at her eyes. “It’s just that Noah’s always been so intense about keeping the Midlands story a secret,” she said. “He’s so paranoid.”

“Knowing him, there has to be a good reason,” Caro said.

“Yeah, there is. He’s afraid that Obsidian will come after us. He’s never told a single soul about what happened, or allowed any of us to tell, either. And he spilled the whole thing to you, after what? Two days?”

“Today makes three, I think,” Caro said, distractedly.

Hannah shook her head. “It’s strange, that’s all. That he trusts you. Noah never trusted anyone. Not even when he was a kid. That was how we survived.”

“You mean at Midlands?”

“And before,” Hannah said. “He kept me and Asa alive for months, before we ended up there. They scrounged money or stole stuff to sell. Then he amped it up. Wouldn’t tell me how. He’s crazy smart. This was before Obsidian jacked his brain up to the stratosphere. And they were going to euthanize him.” Her expression was stony. “Almost all the boys in our group were on that kill list.”

“But why? Why kill him? Or any of you?” Caro asked.

“They went too far,” Hannah said. “They got scared. Noah was light years smarter than those assholes to begin with, and they just kept maximizing him. When they realized what they’d done, they panicked. But Noah made his move just in time. Saved our asses.” She shook her head. Her eyes were haunted. “That was a bad day.”

Caro’s neck prickled with horror as she imagined it, all too vividly.

“Noah’s a natural leader,” Hannah went on. “And he’s a good guy. He saw kids exploited and hurt, and he fought back. Kinda got to be a habit with him, I guess.”

“I don’t doubt that for one second,” Caro said wryly.

“Yeah, well, he still tries to do most of the fighting, even though we’re all grown up, more or less. And then you came along. Looks like he feels responsible for you, too.” She wiped her eyes and gave Caro a tremulous smile. “You’re lucky. We were lucky. Believe me, I know.”

So, Caro thought. Noah was used to being a hero. Nothing more personal, or specific, to it. Like love. Clearly not a Noah concept.

“What about you?” she asked Hannah. “What did they do to you in that place?”

Hannah let out a short, harsh laugh. “Oh, plenty. Noah didn’t say anything to you about our mods?”

“Just about his eyes,” Caro said. “And some ominous hinting.”

“Yeah, it would take a lot of telling. His mods are extreme. My main thing is frequency processing. I have brain implants that let me send, receive and jam various frequencies with my mind. I don’t need any hardware.”

“You mean inside your skull? Right in your brain?”

“Yeah, they drilled a lot of holes in my head. Not fun. But I wasn’t on their kill list yet when Noah busted us out. Me and some of the others were younger, so the researchers held back a little. We got a shitload of implants. Intensive brain stims.”

“It’s a miracle you’re alive,” Caro said.

Hannah shrugged. “I try not to think about it. So when did he tell you about Midlands?”

“After you left last night,” Caro said. “I saw his scars the night before.”

“Yeah, we all have them,” Hannah said ruefully. “Some are from rebellion day. Some are from the do-it-yourself surgery right afterwards.”

“I’m not sure I want to know.” Caro looked at her apprehensively.

“You might need to know someday,” Hannah said.

It sounded like a warning. Caro nodded. “Go on.”

“Noah and Sisko and Luke had hacked into Obsidian’s computer system, and memorized all our geotagged implants. After we escaped, I jammed our internal frequencies until Noah could get bandages and disinfectant, and sterilize his pocket knife. Then he cut them out.” She shuddered. “There were a lot.”

“My God,” Caro whispered.

“Yeah. But Noah got it done, and he kept us all in one piece afterwards. I don’t know how. Figured out how to damp down our augmented sensory processing so that we wouldn’t go batshit. We survived, more or less sane. Most of us. We lost a few.” A shadow flitted across her face.

“Did you still have . . . any . . .” Caro’s voice trailed off. “Sorry. Shouldn’t ask.”

“Yeah. Some. There was nothing Noah could do about the implants inside my skull, but I could jam those myself at will, so they were no big deal. I had four implants on each shoulder, six on each of my upper arms, a few on my thighs. Nothing compared to the boys.”

Part of her didn’t want to ask more questions, but the rest of her won out. She sat down on the bed next to Hannah. “Tell me,” she said.

Hannah exhaled slowly, shaking her head. “They went absolutely nuts on the boys,” she said. “Plugged them full of anything and everything. No long-term strategy. We weren’t scientific experiments so much as toys that they didn’t care about breaking. Nobody was looking. The psychos did whatever they wanted.”

Caro could think of nothing to say that wasn’t hopelessly inadequate, but Hannah didn’t seem afraid of silence. In fact, she almost seemed to have forgotten that Caro was there. She was deep in the grip of some haunting memory.

Caro sat next to her and waited quietly.

After a few moments, Hannah shook herself out of her reverie
. “Sorry,” she said. “
Didn’t mean to stress you out with that old shit
. I’ll go downstairs
and see if the boys are on top of dinner prep. Come down when you’re ready.”

“OK.”

Caro sat for a while after the bedroom door shut, trying to make space in her mind for this new info. Noah had told her the story the night before, but she’d been too angry to let it in before. To feel any of it. Now she felt everything.

She got up, jittery and restless, and rummaged through the shopping bags, pulling out stuff at random. Underwear. Some jeans. Socks. A bra, just the right size. A warm sweater.

The clothes felt good when she pulled them on. Good fit, top quality. Hannah had even nailed her shoe size. She dabbed on some minimal makeup, brushed her hair, and looked into the mirror, trying to connect what she saw to how she felt. Her face was thinner, and she had assorted cuts and bruises, but she looked very like her old self.

But from the inside, she barely recognized herself. Everything was different. Everything she had been before was gone. She’d felt so empty.

But not now. After that intense encounter with Noah, she was feeling a sense of . . . well, she could almost call it hope for the future. If she dared to.

But she didn’t, really. That would be tempting the gods. She’d rather not be noticed by them right now. She was getting enough attention already.