The Takeover (14 page)

I was late coming in on the first words, “I wasn’t prepared for you,” but with a bit of hurry, I caught up to the rest. “You were a friend and you had my love . . . But then you stole away my heart.” I was amazed at the sound. Full and rich and so . . . not me. I felt the desire to keep on singing, to close my eyes and put my heart into it.

“Louder,” Noah murmured. “Go with it.”

So I did. Noah hummed along, and when I finished, she smiled. “Very nice. A little more anguish on the chorus, okay? And at the end when she gives her heart, I like to make it more breathy.”

Part of me wanted to try it from the top, but my more logical side, the part that wasn’t channeling the singer, remembered I had other duties. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do that. But do you think it’ll pass?” I gnawed off a piece of fingernail as I waited for her response.

Noah put her hand on her hip. “Honey, you sound more like that recording I gave you than I do. I’m constantly changing things. In fact, I might just add that little ripple you put in the word heart. I like it.”

“Good. But I’m still hoping you aren’t a big talker, or I’ll have to channel you for your mimicking ability.”

“Just let me know through the earbuds. I’ll be ready to drop my shield. Now let’s do something with those nails.”

When at last I was prepared, I went out to face the others. For some time, I’d been aware of their life forces gathering in the living room where we’d first arrived. As I neared it, Patrick emerged, his eyes brightening when he saw me. “Oh, good. They want to leave now, to get into place, but I wanted to take a moment to do this.” He reached for me, pulling me close and pressing his lips against mine.

“I wouldn’t let Ritter see you doing that,” I said, pulling away from him. “Noah should be right behind me. She was just putting away a few things.”

Patrick released me instantly, looking chagrined. “Sorry, Erin. Man, I can’t believe it. You really do look like her. You
are
her. You sound like you, though.” He shook his head with a little frown. “Erin, did you ever think that maybe mortals are right to be afraid of us?”

“All the time. Or not us, rather, but definitely the Emporium. That’s why we’re in this fight. Otherwise, I’d be on a beach somewhere sipping margaritas with Ritter.”

He laughed. “Right. Me too.” There was a brief wistfulness in his expression, and I wondered if he ever regretted his decision to become the face of the Unbounded. He’d been kidnapped by the Emporium, almost murdered by a woman he loved, and targeted by newly recruited Hunters who hadn’t been above killing innocent bystanders. I knew I wouldn’t want the job, but Patrick was one of those people who believed sacrificing to help others was not only a worthy endeavor but his duty as a human being. I was happy for whatever joy he might find with Noah.

Ritter stared at me as I entered the living room. With our connection, he knew it was me, but the transformation was apparently difficult to believe. I grinned and sidled up to him, speaking in my best Noah impersonation, which wasn’t very good, seeing as I wasn’t channeling her, “Hey, handsome. Want a kiss?”

“Not a chance,” he said, eyes glittering. “Have you seen how scary Erin is?”

I laughed and switched to my normal voice. “Okay, Your Deathliness, what’s the rundown?” We’d discussed the details at the beginning of breakfast, but Ritter always gave us a summary before we began each op.

Ritter’s gaze shifted to take in everyone. “Mari, Patrick, and Noah will stay at the safe house we’ll be shifting to until it’s time for the luncheon. The rest of us will check out the area to see how many Unbounded are present. When it’s time for the party, Cort, Noah, and I will remain outside waiting for any signals and listening in on your mics. Erin, Mari, and Patrick will go inside, and at some point, Mari will connect Cort’s bypass to Ropte’s security system while Patrick and Erin distract everyone. Stella will then remotely connect to the bypass and disarm or loop the security cameras. From there, getting into Ropte’s computer will be up to Erin. We don’t know yet if she’ll need to channel Patrick to locate the information inside Ropte’s network, or if at some point she can hand it over to Stella. Depends on his setup.”

“Do we have a layout yet?” I asked.

“Should be on your phone.” Ritter looked up as Noah and Patrick entered the room. “Looks like we’re all here. Let’s go.”

I VISUALLY SCANNED THE BUILDINGS
surrounding Ropte’s townhouse. Secret Service was already out in force, and they seemed to be doing a thorough job, even knocking on doors and checking apartments that were facing Ropte’s.
Poor Patrick,
I thought. If this was the drama that filled all his visits, no wonder he looked wistful.

While Cort and Ritter did their own setup, Keene and I went for a walk in the streets. The traffic in this area was nothing compared to the rest of DC, but it was still fairly robust. A cool wind played with the fabric of my dress.

I could feel Keene’s nervousness from his surface thoughts, but I didn’t share his concern. In the past, using his synergistic ability, he’d made me physically lighter, stopped me from falling, helped me transport plutonium, and caused an explosion that took the top off a building. It wasn’t an exact science, and I suspected he’d only scratched the surface of what he could do. This should be easy.

“I just need to reach farther,” I told him. “So maybe let me see if I can channel your power so I can direct it, instead of you trying to guess what I need.”

He was silent for a second before saying, “You’d better stay linked with me, then. It’s not easy to keep control. I’ll need to show you how.”

“All right, but I don’t want anything fancy. I just hope it works the way I want it to.” I reached out to him, only to be met by a mind barrier that had always been strong and was now significantly stronger since his Change. “Keene, you’ll have to drop your shield. Don’t worry. No Unbounded are near, except the ones at Ropte’s, and they’re too far away right now to be a concern.” Sensing Unbounded could mask their life force from me completely, but I’d be looking out for any hint of interruption, and I’d seen nothing for concern. With Keene’s help, I should be able to shield us in all directions but the one we were seeking, even from unseen attackers.

His shield dropped. “Might as well run through that night with Ropte first,” he said. His sand stream was already showing memories of that night, and I had to concentrate to keep up.

“Nothing, sorry,” I said minutes later when the scenes rolled to a stop. Except that he was beating himself up inside for not catching sight of Stefan. “He was careful, that’s all,” I told him.

“Stefan is always careful.” Bitterness filled his voice. “Except where others’ lives are concerned. He and my father have to be made to take responsibility for what they’ve done.”

His comment revealed a door I had to open. “What about your father? How does he fit into the Emporium’s plans?” Keene and Cort’s biological father, Tihalt McIntyre, was the third member of the Emporium Triad. He shared Cort’s ability to see how things worked on an atomic level and, from what I understood, was the core of the Emporium’s scientific research and progress.

“My father . . .” Keene stopped walking and faced me. “It’s because of my father’s willingness to hurt others that the Emporium has the strength it does today. Without him, they wouldn’t own so many patents or businesses. And they wouldn’t have been able to increase their Unbounded numbers as they have. I used to think he turned a blind eye to what they did to mortals, but I realized before I left that he knew very well but didn’t care. Because to him mortals are like animals or machines.”

Including his own son—Keene didn’t need to say it. I could see it in his mind.

For years, we’d been playing catch-up with the Emporium’s nanites, inventions, and genetic manipulations. This was in large part because of the lines we refused to cross, lines the Emporium gleefully ran over and crushed into bits with their razor-edged heels. But the knowledge and advancements that allowed them to harm so many people, even their own Unbounded, came directly from Tihalt, the brains of the Triad.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Keene, who had once again instinctively pulled his shield tightly around him, this time with me still inside. I tried not to look at his private thoughts, but despite my attempt, I caught a glimpse of a woman I knew was his mother. She’d been “taken care of” years ago by his father after she’d fallen ill. Keene once believed Tihalt had done it out of compassion, but some months back he’d recognized a stark truth: Tihalt hadn’t wanted Keene to be around her or to be associated with her weakness.

Guiltily, I pulled my thoughts away from Keene’s to say, “I think I understand at least a little. When I’d thought Stefan was my father, the weight of responsibility felt . . . impossibly heavy, like a black mark on my family that I could never erase or atone for.” A burden Jace would now bear once he knew the truth.

“I am not my father, but I did a lot of things to please him.” Keene hesitated before continuing. “I don’t feel I have to atone for him, but I do for my own actions. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of.”

My heart ached with him. “I’m not so sure you really had a choice about your assignments, but from this point, we can only go forward. There’s nothing left for us in the past except—”

“The lessons we’ve learned. I know.”

He smiled, and in that minute I loved him every bit as much as I loved my brothers, and maybe with something more—something that might not have stemmed from our personal relationship but from Mari’s mind. If my feelings for Ritter hadn’t burned so much stronger than anything I’d ever experienced, this emotion I felt for Keene might have been the death of any romantic relationship for me.

Pushing the oddness away, I reached out and began searching the life forces around us. I felt Keene’s shield drop again. “Okay, we’ll begin searching in that direction.” I sent him a mental picture of the buildings to our right. “But let’s walk over to that bench under that tree, okay? We’ll look a bit more natural sitting.”

We walked together in step, our minds connected. “You’re cold,” he commented.

“A bit.” Noah’s flowing dress didn’t offer much protection against the spring breeze.

Keene shrugged off his blazer and put it around my shoulders, and I let him because I needed to concentrate.

“Thanks.” Silently, I showed him the life forces inside the building I’d targeted. “A bunch of people inside, but there are so many that it’s hard to tell them apart.”

“Try taking in a bit of my energy.”

I tentatively dipped into the power Keene held ready, and the life forces became so clear that I could see several buildings beyond the one we’d targeted. I wasn’t sure if I was so much channeling him, or if I was showing him how to enhance my ability. It didn’t really matter.

The first person I looked inside was a woman late to work, hurrying to get her kids ready for school. She wasn’t a likely suspect, but I released a thought near her sand stream to see if it triggered any evil thoughts against Patrick or plans to crash Ropte’s party.

Normally when I spoke mentally to others, my thoughts appeared in their heads as an obvious intrusion, not as a part of their own thought process. But carefully planting a small thought near a sand stream, allowing it to be sucked inside on its own, made the thought appear to come naturally, as if it originated inside the person. Only those who had ample experience with our abilities ever suspected meddling, and even then only a sensing Unbounded could confirm the interference.

The woman was exactly what she seemed. Methodically, I passed to a widower who was planning to wrangle a dinner invitation from the new widow he’d met at a senior citizen’s event sponsored by the police department. Next was a college student crashing at his parents’ townhouse, wondering how he’d tell them he was failing school. Mind after mind revealed similar stories. Nothing to cause alarm.

It helped that this was a wealthier area in DC, which meant the townhouses were larger and held fewer occupants. The real worry was the apartment building one street over that rose higher than the townhouses. But this checked out too, even when we walked around the block to get a closer look.

Hours later, and after several breaks to connect with Patrick to make sure my nanites behaved, I called Ritter on my phone. “Everything checks out. We just have the final location to survey, so we’re heading there now.” Which was code that meant no Unbounded or anyone plotting murder in the area, with only Ropte’s residence left to probe.

“We’re good on this end. Don’t have too much fun.”

I smiled at the laughter in his voice. He knew me too well. My Unbounded genes had definitely kicked in, and I was eager to get inside and start saving those families. “Oh, I plan on it.” I hung up and texted Mari to let them know we were on our way.

We backtracked a little so we could get a good glimpse of Ropte’s house without being noticed as we waited for Mari and Patrick to arrive. I used Keene’s ability again, dipping into the heady power with anticipation. “Easy,” Keene cautioned.

I’d forgotten we were still linked—I must have made some kind of mental exclamation. “Hey, it’s not every day I could blow up something with a thought.”