Stray (33 page)

“Evie?” he says.

“Um.” I blush and shake my head. I’m hardly going to say all that. “No jeep, then?”

He sighs. “No jeep.”

“There was definitely a jeep last time I stayed here.”

“Not any more.”

“Miriam didn’t mention selling it or anything.”

“How is, um, she?” The word “mom” ghosts in the background.

“If we get the Proxy back in time, there’s a good chance she’ll recover.” I keep my voice even and clinical and explain the Symbiosis, Miriam’s resistance, the self-defence shutdown.

Aiden’s mouth curls in sickened horror. “These people are out of their freaking minds. Poor Miriam.”

I drop my gaze. How do I tell him that if I’d just stayed out of things …?

“It’s not your fault.”

My throat gets tight and I shake my head. I don’t want to hear it. “Why did you stay here?” Change the subject. Real subtle.

He gives a weary sigh; he knows I’m dodging but doesn’t push me. “We didn’t. We bussed to North Carolina. Stayed in a roach motel for a couple of nights freaking out.”

“Then what were you doing here? I said two weeks.”

“You did the mind-meld thing.” He frowns and taps his temple. “You – you showed me the house. You showed me Jamie and the German guy and you in a – in a van and filled it with a bunch of hopeful, peaceful feelings.”

“I did?”

“Twice. Once in the night and again this morning. So we came.”

“I never did that.” My mind turns in circles. The Proxy. She did it? How could she do it without me knowing? Is she that powerful?

“When the van pulled up,” he taps his temple again, “you showed me the guys in black and filled it with danger and basically scared me half to death. You showed me hiding and waiting. A very strong impression to hide and wait. We were up there so long, I didn’t know what to do. I kept thinking you’d signal me again but you didn’t. So that’s when I started trying to reach you but I had no idea what I was doing or whether it was working until everything went crazy.”

“It must have been the Proxy, signalling you,” I say, thinking of her sudden changing moods on the road trip, her agitation when we arrived. Had she been sensing Benjamin’s intent? Did she guess he would attempt to kill Aiden and tried to intervene? It’s too confusing. Is she for us or against us? She could have told Aiden to run. Maybe she knew there was no point; that it would be better to deal with things here and now. “I didn’t know she could do that.”

“The white girl?” he asks. “What is she exactly?”

“She’s what you and I would’ve been if Affinity got hold of us when we were born.”

Aiden’s mouth opens a fraction and he draws his chin slowly back.

It’s still raining, though not as hard, but I don’t want to take any risks so I drop my voice to a whisper. “Synergist kids are claimed by the Project.” I explain briefly about telepaths and Conductors and Wardens and whatnot. I only touch lightly on the horrific implications of the Proxy’s life and the reason for Miriam’s efforts to keep our existence secret.

“Holy–” He shakes his head. “I’m not sure if that’s worse than being a Stray.”

“At least you have more chance of being put out of your misery as a Stray.”

He slumps against the pillow and I can see I’m overwhelming him with information. “Sorry.”

“No. I need to hear it. It’s just–” He splays his fingers at his forehead, miming cerebral implosion and stares into space a moment. “Affinity have a whole alliteration thing going, then?”

I roll my eyes up. “That’s just one of their issues.”

“Striker. Sounds like baseball or hockey or something. What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know.” Or more honestly, I don’t want to know. All that matters to me for the moment is that Aiden is safe.

“You think the German guy would fill me in?”

I’m not sure how to broach the subject of Ethan. Seeing them so close together - the hint of familiar angles, cheekbones, mouths and jaws - had been eerie. Downright agonising. Watching Ethan stitch Aiden up then sit with his son while fate decided the outcome in a cylinder … the ordeal of a father offering his condemned son the last thing he had to give, a painless end. Then the reprieve and the piercing joy of relief. Would Aiden understand? Was it my place to tell him? This might be our last moment alone for ages. He should have all the facts. “About the German guy …”

* * *

“And no one knows,” Aiden says, his startling eyes fixed on me, taking it all in.

“Just Jamie, he heard Ethan and I talking, and let’s face it, Kitty will find out because she’ll force me to tell her, but that’s it.” I help him stand.

“We keep it secret.”

I nod, holding his spare shirt open for him. He winces, negotiating the sleeves, but we get him in and I tie the sling at his shoulder.

“Am I allowed to let Ethan know that I know?”

“Of course.”

He turns to face me, hesitating. “I guess that was a fairly intense situation for him too, just now.”

I nod again.

“I thought he seemed, you know, invested … for a stranger.”

I release a small gust of air, not quite a chuckle.

“
The dad
, huh?” He lifts his eyebrows. “What’s he like?”

My shoulders winch up. “I don’t know. Okay, I guess. He’s pretty serious. Doesn’t talk much. Kind of a big deal at
the office
. He loves Miriam.”

He opens his good hand. “Which is something.”

“Except they can’t be together.”

“Because?”

“Of the rules.”

“Right. I don’t get that.” He drops his hand and thinks some more. “So, he’s … intense.”

“German.”

We both grin a little and he asks, “What’s Miriam?”

“Irish – mainly.”

He snorts and waves his hand over my general vicinity. “That explains all this.”

I screw my nose up and try to pat my hair tufts down. “Have you looked in the mirror?”

“I guess we take after her, then.”

His use of “we” ignites a burst of happy in the pit of my stomach. “I can be intense.”

“No kidding.”

I punch him gently in the good arm and he makes a show of wincing and protecting his injured shoulder. I go to the door, take hold of the handle. “You sure you want to go out there?”

He smirks. “No.”

We make our way into the hall, the attic stairs folded up again. I feel like I’m holding my breath and glance at him. He looks like he’s holding his breath too.

“Hey,” he nudges me with his elbow and whispers, “don’t tell Kitty what I said, about kissing her. I don’t want it to creep her out.”

I snort. “Trust me, Wolfman. It wouldn’t creep her out.”

He looks at me. “Really?” Then his grin splits wide and seeing it lights me up.

It’s the cool, papery slip of her fingers sliding beneath mine that I feel first. The fine birdlike bones of the Proxy’s hand and then the clamping in the base of my skull and the harrowing pause before fire.

She must have been waiting for me by the opening to the hallway. I didn’t notice her, my focus on Kitty and Jamie at the entrance to the kitchen, watching their faces as we come into the living room. Kitty, her thigh tightly bandaged, leans on Jamie’s arm, her face open and expectant the moment she sees us. Jamie cautious, his frown restrained. I can’t see Ethan. I don’t register Davis still sitting against the wall, or Benjamin still lying on the ground. I have no idea where Felicity is but here is the Proxy beside me, her hand tightening around mine, taking me out of my stride. I feel only briefly the jangling sense of discord in my stomach before I feel nothing, her system overriding mine. No fight, just numb paralysis.

Aiden walks on; he doesn’t see the Proxy either, watching Kitty as she steps away from her brother. She limps towards him, her smile curving out and up.

Cataclysm comes all at once.

Precognition, lightning reflexes, speed, strength and the plastic toys of a Shield’s arsenal don’t stand a chance because she has all the power. The Proxy has all the power and it hums and crackles through me.

I watch as Aiden and Jamie explode into action. It’s that sudden. From relative ease to full alarm though I can’t see at first what the danger is. My view is Aiden’s back, Kitty’s face and shoulders and beyond her, Jamie’s head. Kitty doesn’t see the danger either and her expression is one of perplexed surprise, not even reaching fear before Aiden has grabbed her and thrust her aside.

A hair’s-breadth. Is that the measurement? Something microscopic. Something breathtaking in its closeness that changes everything. Though she falls, Kitty is saved. Her pain will be bruising all down her side and face because she won’t be able to break her fall.

In the hair’s-breadth, Aiden catches the bullet with his temple. It opens a tiny hole just beside his left eyebrow and a slightly bigger hole out the top of his head. His blood splatters the side of my face, a warm wet spray, but I can’t even blink. As he falls, I finally see the danger. Benjamin, his arm outstretched, gun raised from the floor, and with seeing, I feel the Proxy’s will for him to act humming through me. Jamie arrested mid-kick, too late to dislodge the weapon from Benjamin’s hand. It’s not because Jamie’s slow. It’s simply that he’s lost the use of his limbs and like Kitty he won’t be able to break his fall.

The Proxy tries hard to break
my
fall, though she’s tiny and I’m a dead weight. We make a crumpled heap against the corner where the wall meets the hallway. The sharp edge digs into my shoulderblade. She sits back on her heels, panting, her fingers still tangled in mine. Her eyes are bloodshot, bright red capillaries pattern the tender skin beneath and blood seeps from her nose in the aftermath of strain. She shifts beside me, her arm bumping mine. We sit like kids, legs splayed, fingers twined, Aiden’s blood only inches from our feet, a glistening ruby halo in the light, his eyes blank.

“I’m sorry,” she says, breathlessly. “But this is going to hurt.”

It begins with skull-splitting static. Fire erupts in my spine. Vice-like clamping at my temples and in the back of my neck. Bolts of electric energy, cramping my muscles, seizing my joints. It goes on and on, the roaring static, a synaptic scourging erasing me from time and space. Then it stops and I’m released from the grip of the monster’s hand. I slump, aching, my eyes stinging at the light, the taste of blood in my mouth and completely unable to move.

The Proxy spasms next to me. A long low moan. She shakes herself and draws a steadying breath. She lifts my hand and presses it to her clammy face, wetting it with hot tears. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep a hold of them all without you. It was hard enough managing Benjamin all day, by myself, but I could never have tapped multiple signals without your help.” She rocks her head back and forth, bouncing her forehead softly on the back of my hand. “You have such a pure signal, Evie. Even with Jamie’s layering you’re like a rainbow. I wish you could see it. It’s beautiful in the bandwidth, like music in colour.”

Her body quakes and she hums a single minor note. She tips her head, resting it on my shoulder, her white-blonde hair spilling over our linked hands. “I knew the moment I saw you. I knew you’d help me. You’re my knight, Evie. You’re the hero, the dragon slayer. You saved Kitty. You saved your brother and now you’re saving me.”

She tilts her chin up and kisses my lips, once, twice. “Thank you.” She sniffs to clear her running nose and untangles her fingers from mine. Shuffling away from me, she says, “Look. It holds. Even when I’m not touching you. Isn’t it wonderful? They sent me to boost your signal but they didn’t understand that it goes both ways. You give me strength. I mean it. I could never have done this without you.” She shifts to kneel in front of me and touches her fingers to my forehead. “It will be different for you now. Clearer. Your senses, your reach, your control. I’ve unlocked you, Evie. Matured your signal. I’m sorry that means you’ll never deactivate, but that was unlikely anyway. At least now you won’t
faint
any more. I hope that’s okay, but I wanted to give you something. To thank you for this because you deserve good things. You do. You deserve to be happy.”

Her face crumples. “I know you’ll be sad at first, about Aiden. Of course. It will be very hard for you to understand, but in the end you’ll know that I am saving you too.” She cups my face with one hand and closes her eyes and knowing fills me. Aiden would suffer, used in ways the Proxy cannot stand to show me. She is generous and good, making the most of Benjamin’s natural prejudice to take Aiden’s life and save him from unthinkable suffering, and me from crippling grief, endless regret. She shows me how thankful I am for this. How thankful I will be. She also shows me that Aiden would never keep our parents’ secret. He would not be able to hide the truth in his mind. Affinity would root it out and claim us both as property. She shows me the isolation tank. She lets me feel the closing of my lungs, the suffocating choke of fluid cutting off air. The vision lifts. My panic lifts. Showing me is for my own good. She helps me see that by taking Aiden’s life she has saved him, saved us both. It’s for the best. She cares. She trusts me to understand.

The knowing ends.

Her hand comes off my face and she sits back and watches at me tenderly. “You’re going to be okay. It won’t be long before they come.”

She rises shakily to her feet and walks through Aiden’s blood, past Kitty and Benjamin to the kitchen, out of my line of sight.

Images blink and pop in my mind. At first I can’t make sense of what I see. It’s disorientating and everything seems turned on its head and I finally realise this is because I’m seeing the kitchen from Jamie’s perspective. He’s on the ground, his head cocked forwards, jammed against the skirting board. There’s pain in his body. His shoulder.

I make out a heavy booted leg near the fridge door. Ethan and his equipment bag open next to him. Jamie’s afraid. Terrified. He thinks of Kitty. Aiden. Me. Me. His fear for me, ripe to bursting. Fear like a grenade. The Proxy appears above him. She looks from Ethan to Jamie, back and forth. She licks her bottom lip before catching it in her teeth, deciding. Jamie. She bends down, slow, awkward, straddling his hips. Her legs are so short that her knees barely touch the ground either side of him. She studies his face, gently tracing brow, cheek, jaw, then she leans forwards on all fours. The neck of her shirt falls open, revealing little white breasts and fine blue veins beneath the almost translucent skin of her chest.