The Escape (11 page)

“Ooooh!” Mari jumped up from the table. “Every time I even begin to think that you can’t stoop any lower, you prove me wrong.” She looked at me. “Erin, I’m going to find Cort.”

Even as she spoke, Cort appeared in the doorway. He wore nothing but black pants, and his bare chest looked more than twice its real size. His brown hair swept back from his face, and he didn’t look nerdy in the least. “Mari, you called?” he said. “Don’t worry. I’m here. Yes, I’ll give you lessons in the bedroom.”

No real emotion emerged from the apparition, and it acted so unlike Cort that Mari and I both knew it was a fake, despite the heady aroma of expensive cologne that the real Cort did wear, though never so much of it.

“Or how about this?” Oliver snapped his fingers and a new Cort replaced the old. This time he was fully dressed, slightly hunchbacked, and wore glasses. His shirt was buttoned clear to the top and his dress pants were a little short. It was Cort as he might have been if he were a contemporary mortal.

“Mari,” said the image, not quite meeting her eyes. “Would you . . . uh, consider going out with me?”

With a frustrated growl, a flushed Mari ran past the apparition to the door.

“Come back, come back,” the illusion shouted after her. “Please don’t leave me!”

I glared at Oliver. “What’s that all about? Are you ever going to grow up?”

“Why?” He shrugged. “I have enough time, right? Besides, if she’d only admit to herself that she likes him, it wouldn’t bother her.”

Mari liked Cort? I wasn’t aware of any attraction between them. In the beginning, Jace had tried to flirt with Mari, and she’d rebuffed him. I told him she needed time to mourn her jerk of a husband.

“Don’t do it again,” I told him.

“Who’s going to stop me?” He said it casually, not really a challenge. That he should have such a useful and powerful ability made me furious.

I pushed my thoughts out to him, swiping at his shield, which he’d never completely mastered anyway.
I will,
I said in his mind. I was tempted to do more, to thrust my hands in the stream of his thoughts to warn him, but I hesitated at touching anything. I didn’t like Oliver, but I didn’t want to damage him permanently.

Now he was glaring at me, and trying to push me out. I smiled. He couldn’t get rid of me, and I knew just the way to teach him a lesson, one taught me by the master of control herself, Delia Vesey. I concentrated hard on his hand and it shot out toward the juice, knocking it over.

A horrified expression filled his face. “You!” he said, yanking back his hand.

I nodded. “Yes, me. You aren’t the only one with an ability.” I wanted to do something more, but I felt guilty already. He was an idiot, but he was our idiot, and I preferred to practice on people who had consented. Besides, I still wanted to try channeling his ability—when he calmed down—and doing so would be easier if he could walk me through how he created his illusions. I had an idea that might help us free our prisoners, if I could get Ritter and Ava to sign off on it.

“Goodbye, Oliver.” I pulled my thoughts from his, ignoring the anger. A little humiliation was good for the man. Good for all men, in fact. But I’d probably have to apologize later to gain his cooperation. “Try not to annoy anyone else today.”

He brought up his middle finger and flipped me off, a smile plastered on his handsome face.

“How very human of you,” I couldn’t help saying.

In the hallway, I reached out again, searching for Mari’s mental signature. I found her down a floor, probably looking for Keene in the infirmary. But there were no other life forces on that floor. I hurried to the stairs and sprinted down them, taking two at a time. When I emerged, she was already heading back to the elevator.

“Hi, Erin.” She didn’t quite meet my gaze.

“I think Keene is upstairs in Cort’s office.”

“I should have checked there first.”

I laughed. “No, he should be here, but since he’s an idiot, like most men, he’s probably not resting.”

We’d reached the elevator and she jabbed her finger at the button. “I’d say you pretty much described all Unbounded, not just the men.” Her smile returned. “You know, I used to like vacations, but now the idea of sitting around on a beach seems rather dull.”

“Give it a few months.” Because sitting around on a beach without worrying about what the Emporium was up to sounded like heaven to me.

“Okay. Then maybe we’ll go together. Somewhere warm.”

I waited until the elevator opened on the third floor to say, “I warned Oliver to keep his trap shut.”

Her face whipped to mine. “You threatened him?”

“Kind of.” My muscles tightened waiting for her disapproval.

“Oh, Erin. You’re the best!” She hugged me before exiting the elevator.

“I don’t know about that.” I wanted to ask about her and Cort, to know if she really did have a thing for him, but I’d just pay attention and wait for her to come to me. She’d been seriously broken up by her husband’s death, and I wasn’t about to add to her pain. Hopefully, his betrayal was helping her get over him quickly.

In Cort’s office, Keene sat on the shiny brown leather couch, fully dressed in gray jeans and a long-sleeved, white V-necked T-shirt, topped by a gray suede vest. I was relieved to see him looking so well after last night’s adventures.

Cort looked up from his desk and cleared his throat. “Ah, there you are.”

I took a seat on the couch while Mari ignored the chairs and perched on the arm next to me. “Missed you both at workout this morning,” I said.

Cort shrugged. “I did it last night. Couldn’t sleep with all the excitement.”

“As for me,” Keene said with a lazy expression, “I was just playing hooky.”

I stifled a smile. “How do you feel?”

“Fine, thanks to Dimitri and Cort.” He met my gaze briefly before looking away.

“Should you be up?” Mari asked.

“Well, we have a visit to make, don’t we?” Keene stared down at the phone in his hand. I couldn’t see what was on it, but apparently it was fascinating.

“Sorry,” I said. “You’re not going. Ava’s orders. Mari and I can shift out if we have to, but you’ll be a liability.”

“Then you grab me and take me with you. I know shifting is limited to what you can carry, but if you’re linked with Mari and shifting together, the two of you should be able to take us at least to the next room.”

During our practice the past few weeks, we’d been successful at doing that with Jace, but it hadn’t been easy. Alone, Mari hadn’t shifted Jace more than a few steps. “What if that’s not far enough? You can’t fight anyway. Not with that hole in you. What if you get us all killed?” Or worse, captured.

Keene’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t. But if that’s the way you want to play it, good luck. Let me know how it goes.” He shut off his phone, put it in his pocket, and arose, the stiffness in his body belying the casual words.

“What about the introduction?” Mari said.

Keene smiled. “Only if I go with you.”

“No,” I said at the same time Mari said, “Okay.”

I glanced at Cort, lifting a hand in appeal, but he shook his head with obvious enjoyment. “I’ve given up trying to talk sense into him. He has never listened to his older and wiser brother.”

“My
ancient
brother is too conservative,” Keene retorted. “Besides, you need me, Erin. There are certain handshakes and so forth that you don’t have time to learn.”

I rolled my eyes. “What are they, Masons?”

“Kind of.”

I came to my feet, facing him. “You almost died last night. You should be in bed, not visiting Hunters. What if that Unbounded with Emerson attacks us?”

Keene took a step. “Then I’ll watch you dispatch him.” He shook his head and blew out a sigh. “Look, with me there, nothing will go wrong—we’ll be their allies not their enemies. Besides, Dimitri patched me up great. I’m at least as well as I’d have normally been in three or four days with any ordinary doctor.”

“Really?” This I put to Cort, because while Keene didn’t lie, he might not understand Dimitri’s ability.

Cort nodded. “Dimitri is that good, and my brother is that stupid.”

Mari let out an amused snort.

“Besides,” Cort said, hesitating, “we also tried out some other things we’ve been working on with nanites and regeneration since he couldn’t protest.”

It was Keene’s turn to roll his eyes. “Guess I’m a guinea pig. So what’s the verdict? Are you coming or am I doing this alone?”

I could call Ava and she’d set this to rights in an instant, but I didn’t want to be someone who always went running to her. I had to learn to fight my own battles, and that meant weighing Keene’s stubbornness against my desire to fulfill the mission. The mission had to come first.

“Okay,” I said. “You come. But after we’re in, you follow my lead. I’ll know what they’re thinking.”

Was that worry emanating from Cort? Did he feel I’d made the wrong decision? Or was he simply tired of losing siblings?

Cort caught my gaze and the emotions vanished. He had one of the strongest shields in our group, and if I wanted, he’d let me try to break in, but now wasn’t the time to practice.

Grunting in approval, Keene swept up his coat from the couch and headed for the door. He moved carefully but without any visible sign of pain. His torso had more bulk than I remembered, probably from the layers of bandages under his shirt. Mari hurried after him.

I followed them, pausing at the door. “You watching Oliver today?” I asked Cort.

His mouth twitched. “Yes. We’re going to run through a few practice illusions before we take our turn at the compound.”

“That’s actually something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” I glanced at Keene and Mari. “Can I have a moment? I need to run something past Cort. I’ll be right down.” Curiosity peeled from both of them, but neither voiced it, so I pretended not to notice.

“Sure, I need to get a gun anyway,” Keene said.

“And how about more of those nano knives?” Mari suggested.

Keene shook his head. “I doubt he’ll have a metal detector, so regular knives will do, and if I give him the right codes, we may not even be searched.”

“After what happened at the hotel last night, he might be more careful,” Mari said.

“We’ll see.”

I shut the door as they turned away. Cort leaned back in his seat, watching me as if I were one of his science projects, which I supposed I was. He’d been a constant in my life since my Change, drilling me on my experiences as a sensing Unbounded, teaching me about my new life, and planning multiple tests for my ability. But most of all, he was my friend.

“About Oliver,” I said, walking to his desk and placing my hands on top. “I’ve been thinking how Stella can change her appearance by communicating directly with the nanites in her body, which in turn are the only things that can keep up with our regeneration and healing abilities.”

Cort cleared his throat. I didn’t usually notice how many times he did that before he talked, but sometimes it could be annoying. “Nanites have been used on other Unbounded but simply aren’t advanced enough to work on programming alone. We’ve been able to keep our bodies from rejecting the tracking chip, but it’s too complicated for so many nanites to change someone’s appearance without constant updates.”

“Basically, you need a computer in your head.”

He grinned. “Yep. Or to be a technopath. Or in your case to be connected to one. But even then the appearance doesn’t change much. That would require more sophisticated nanites, which is still far down the road, even for us.”

“Okay, but in that same vein, what about an illusion instead of a physical change? Could Oliver create a realistic enough illusion over his own body to pass himself off as someone else?”

Cort rubbed his chin, his gaze intensifying. “And could you do the same by channeling his gift?”

“Exactly. As a temporary measure, or course, like during an assault. Or some other operation.”

“I don’t know. It’s been so long since an illusionist existed that no one really knows what they’re capable of. I’ll do some research and a few experiments with Oliver.” He coughed. “I might have had an answer for you already if we hadn’t been so occupied since Oliver and Mari joined us.”

I understood. He’d been presented with two new abilities, plus my own developing one. Unlike Stella with her connection to computers all over the world, Cort had to find information the old-fashioned way, a piece at a time. “Maybe Stella could help?”

He rubbed his chin. “Maybe.” He was already lost in thought, studying patterns that only he could see. If anyone could help Oliver do what I wanted, it would be him.

“Thanks, Cort.” I was pretty sure he didn’t notice me as I left. Five hundred years, and you’d think he’d be a little better with women. Perhaps he’d given up. I knew he’d been married several times and had children, including two Unbounded who lived in Europe. I wondered if he might decide to try again with Mari. She wouldn’t die and leave him like the mortals had.

Unless the Emporium killed her.

Pushing back the thought, I strode to the elevator. I could sense two life forces heading for the garage, so I punched that level and waited for the doors to close.

My mind shifted to the pending meeting with the Hunters. If they had any idea who we were, they’d shoot us on sight. We had to be ready. Whatever happened, we couldn’t leave the Unbounded bodyguard with them for long, even if that meant exposing his nature. The choice didn’t leave much room for my conscience since revealing that he was Unbounded to the Hunters he was infiltrating was the equivalent of ordering his death. The alternatives were almost as brutal. I didn’t know if I would ever become accustomed to choosing not between good and evil but between evil and worse evil.

Regardless, the Unbounded bodyguard could be close to retrieving the Hunter records that would lead him to Renegade posterity. We had to protect them at all cost.