“Life will always throw you curveballs; it’s how you react to them that counts.” Matt wears a neutral look, but I can see the smile wanting to release.
“You sound like a fortune cookie.” I stick my tongue out at him. “That really doesn’t help. We can’t all be perfectly adjusted to change.”
“I know.” He takes my hand and rests it on his thigh. “But we need to try. Especially when there’s nothing we can do about it.”
After those words leave his lips, my wings shrink and fold into my back.
“What just happened?” I whisper.
Matt examines my back. “Did you put them away?”
I shake my head.
“Try and bring them back.” He pokes the skin around my shoulder blades.
I grit my teeth in concentration, thinking of Paige’s green wings, the mesmerizing quality of color. Straining all my muscles, I will my wings into existence, but nothing happens. A single blue feather floats above my head.
Matt’s fingers continue to press around the length of my shoulder blades. “At least you don’t have to exhibit an ability permanently.”
“But what does that mean?” I spread both hands. “Am I an alt or not?”
Matt digs a finger into my ribs. “Oh, you’re an altered all right.”
I flick his nose.
“Too soon for jokes?”
“Way too soon.”
I rest my head against his shoulder, exhausted as the dwindling anger at what my parents have done to me fades. “I don’t want anyone to know.”
“There are about ten people up there who do know.” Matt points in the direction of the platform, where soft conversations weave toward us.
“Besides them,” I say. “I don’t think I can deal with everyone looking at me funny.”
Matt rests his chin on top of my head. “No one’s going to look at you funny.”
“You say that,” I grumble.
“I know that,” he says. “Do you look at Paige or Joe any differently?”
“No…”
“Exactly.”
I pull at the hem of his T-shirt. “I need some time.”
“Of course you do.” He cups his hands around the backs of my elbows. “Take all the time you need.”
“Does it make you feel differently about me? Does it change me as a person?” Unable to look at him, I brace myself for the answer.
“A pair of wings doesn’t make you an alt, Silver. It’s your mentality. You could have all the abilities in the world and still be an unadjusted.” Matt ruffles my hair. “Just think of Diana. She didn’t ask for any of it and we still loved her.”
“You did love her, didn’t you?” I keep winding my finger in Matt’s shirt until he snatches the misshapen material back and wraps his hands around my twitching fingers.
“Of course I did. We both did.”
“No, I mean. Love her, love her.”
Matt pulls back for a moment. “What, like, in love with her?”
I nod.
The blue in his eyes brightens. “No! I was never in love with Diana.”
“I just thought, the way she looked at you…”
Matt rakes his hand through his hair. “She might have looked at me, but I never saw her like that.”
“Oh.” I stare at my scuffed boots. “I guess I’m like her now, right? We loved her for who she was, and we looked past the nanites she’d taken.”
“Exactly.”
I sigh and shift my numb butt away from the hard ground. “It just makes me feel weird. I’ve always considered myself an unadjusted, when all along, I’m actually an altered.”
“But you’re not. Your genes were modified before birth, not with a nanite pill. This ability is actually part of you. It always has been, whether you were aware of it or not.”
I sigh. So I’m the same in Matt’s eyes. Will everyone else share his view?
A lightbulb moment sparks in my head. “Maybe after we rescue my parents, I’ll ask them to take it out.”
He drums his fingers against his thigh.
“After,” Matt speaks softly. “I’ve been thinking, and please don’t be mad at me…”
I look up and catch a calculating look in his eyes.
“What?”
He crosses his forefingers like an anti-vampire cross. “Hear me out.”
I’m tempted to stick my fingers in my ears.
He seems to read my thoughts, because he rushes on. “If I could take on abilities—abilities I could use at will—it would give us an advantage.”
“Us?”
“The unadjusteds. Everyone in the cave.” He grabs my arms, pressing his point into me. “I wouldn’t think twice. I’d take on more. I’d use them to rescue Lyla.”
“But you hate nanites,” I say, shuffling back a little. “They’re the antithesis of evil, that’s what you said.”
Matt shakes his head. “Not all of them. Not the ones that help people. We need what you have.”
My mouth drops open. “I’m not a weapon.”
“You’re not just a weapon.”
“Matt…” I hold up a hand. “Stop.”
“Do you want your parents back?” he asks. “Because I want my sister, and damned if I’ll let anything get in my way.”
A shot of loneliness weighs heavy in my chest. I can see what he’s saying, but I don’t know if I can do what he suggests. The world has changed, and a resistance is blooming. The hopes and dreams and measuring sticks of morality must change with it. But embrace abilities? Can I?
“I don’t want to take any more abilities.” I cup my face in my hands.
Matt’s hand floats to my shoulder. “So we work with what we’ve got.”
“Whatever that is,” I snap. “Did you not see the wings just disappear from my back?”
“So you have limitations,” he says gently. “We’ll figure them out. Please, Silver. Trust me.”
“I trust you with my life, Matt. I always have.” I look away from his eyes. The blue of them is too piercing. Too pleading. Too hopeful. “But this is different.”
Matt tucks my hair behind my ear.
“I need some time to think about it,” I say.
Matt nods and drops his hand. “Of course.”
“If President Bear finds out…”
Matt’s voice turns to steel. “We need to keep it a secret.”
“But everyone else has seen.” I flick my gaze to the end of the aisle.
“So we swear them to secrecy, and no one else in the cave can know.”
I lean my head back against the wall. “If the reward on my head wasn’t high enough already…”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you. President Bear isn’t going to find out.”
I match his serious gaze, then smile. “I appreciate the sentiment, Matt, but that’s something you can’t promise.”
A loud, metallic clang rouses me from where I’ve fallen asleep on Matt’s shoulder. A series of shouts, followed by the unmistakable thwack of one of Erica’s arrows sailing through the air.
Matt and I leap to our feet and run back toward the others. Joe and Hal storm down the metal steps. Paige flies overhead, shortly followed by Erica, who releases another arrow through the now open warehouse door. The arrow must have found a target, as it’s followed by a groan and a heavy thud.
“What’s going on?” Matt asks.
“A troop of trolls,” Joe yells over his shoulder, bringing his machete high and charging toward the door.
Trolls. The footmen of Bear’s army. Not particularly intelligent, but they’re capable of following an order and scaring prisoners into revealing their deepest secrets with just a flash of their murderous eyes. And they don’t live under bridges.
Kyle runs in and out the door, holding fingers high to indicate how many enemies are out there. He runs back outside and I catch a blur of a front jump kick in the morning sunshine.
I release my knife from my belt and speed after the others. Jaco
b is there too, now dressed in Joe’s T-shirt, sleeves rolled to fit his arms. His tongue slithers back and forth and his arms punch as fast as Kyle’s.
Matt grabs my arm and whirls me toward him. His face drains of color.
“I don’t know how to fight,” he says, a hint of desperation in his voice. “All I have are my homemade grenades, and I can’t use them with all of you out there.”
I glance at the door, then lay a hand on his chest. “Stay here. I need to go help them.”
Matt nods. “Be careful.”
“Always.”
I dash outside, faster than I thought possible. The speed ability is back, maybe because I had a chance to rest. Erica’s arrows sail by my head. Paige flaps high above, shouting warnings. Bullets speed through the air, one grazing close to my cheek, but there is another element to this speed ability. Not only am I faster, but I can also watch fast things as if they’ve all been slowed down. I step to the side as a bullet whizzes under my nose and slams into the warehouse wall, creating a small puncture.
Joe hacks with his machete, nearly decapitating a troll with one slice. Hal fires a pistol and marches toward the rain of incoming bullets, his armored skin protecting him. I pray one won’t find the weak spot at his throat.
I turn and find myself face-to-face with a snarling troll. Its nostrils flare as it barks a guttural command, my name harsh on his bulging lips.
“Silver Melody.” It reaches for a walkie-talkie on its belt.
I slide my knife up into its guts. Warm blood spills over my hand, and the stench of copper rushes up my nose. Bile rises into my mouth.
“Silver, watch out!”
As if by instinct, my wings erupt from my back, taking me up just as one of Erica’s arrows streaks through the space my head was seconds ago. The arrow pierces the eye of another troll.
Matt hovers by the warehouse door, using the shotgun we found in the office to take pop shots at the attackers. My wings take me higher. Flapping violently, the scene below shrinks as my friends battle against a handful of trolls. Joe and Hal lead the charge, bullets merely ricocheting off their armored skin. Erica releases three arrows, two of them finding marks before a bullet punctures a small hole through one of her wings. She stumbles in the air, her wings flashing a tangerine orange.
My own wings continue to beat uncontrollably until I find myself level with the warehouse roof, some fifty feet above the ground. Panic licks through my limbs, muting the noises below.
One of the trolls spots me and raises his gun. I lift my knife, trying to keep my body steady against the buffeting of my feathers, which seem to have a mind of their own. The troll squeezes the trigger. I throw the knife. Bullet and blade spiral toward each other. The hilt glances off the bullet, but it’s enough for the bullet to tear off in a new direction. My knife spins to the ground.
I kick my legs as my wings take me over the roof. Turning upside-down, I reach for the corrugated surface, trying to grab hold before my wings take me all the way to space. I strain against the panic.
I have to get control of my wings. My fingers grasp the edge of a metal rail running the length of the roof, and for a few seconds my arms and wings fight against each other.
Everything is so small down below. My friends like dolls. An attack of vertigo threatens the measly breakfast I ate. Then I remember to breathe and not fight against the panic, but let it flow through me.
The strain in my biceps lessens as I finally isolate the muscles that control my wings. With a flash of triumph, I bring them close to my back so that I’m no longer in danger of floating into the clouds. I release the metal bar, and my feet hit the roof.
Now I just have to figure out how to get down.
On the ground, her injured wing bleeding, Erica kills the last troll with another arrow. Ten bodies lie dead on the tarmac.
Paige flies to my side. “Do you need help getting down?”
I’m about to reach for her hand when I shake my head. “I need to learn how to control these abilities on my own.”
She smiles. “I’ll stay by your side.”
I blow out a long breath and step off the side of the warehouse. I plummet. My hair flies upwards as I try to concentrate on my wings and my arms circle, trying to grab at the empty air.
“Silver, no!” Matt screams. He runs into the car park, trying to reach me.
But before I hit the ground, my wings unfurl. I flap them once, twice, and manage to slow my very inelegant landing. At least I manage to stay on my feet.
“Do not scare me like that!” Matt rushes at me and throws his arms around me. A line of blood drips down his cheek. I touch my fingers to the wound, and he winces.
I pull back. “You OK?”
He nods. “Just a graze. Looks like we got them all.”
Retrieving my knife from the tarmac, I grasp the warped hilt and join my friends gathering in a loose circle, sheathing weapons and offering fragile smiles. Joe pats peoples’ shoulders, but I step out of his reach before he can touch me. No way do I want to be a bulk right now. His lips lift into a sad smile as he walks away and starts loading goods into the jeep.
“Nine assault rifles, six handguns, three grenades, and two knives.” Hal makes a pile of weapons requisitioned from the dead trolls.
“Reckon that’s enough for a rescue mission?” I ask.
Hal looks at me. “Rescue mission?”
“My parents. They might be able to find a way out of this mess. Genetically speaking.”
A couple of mouths drop open. Kyle does a double take.
“Seriously?” Hal asks.
Matt steps in. “It’s something Francesca and I have been talking about. We don’t have much hope against an army of bulks without the doctors.”
Hal grins and cocks the hammer of one of the guns. “I’ll be damned. And here I was planning out the rest of my days in a dark cave, with a little sideline in revenge too.”
Joe claps him on the back. “Oh, brother, we can do better than that.”
I like the way Joe is with Hal. Hell, I like the way he is with everyone, like everyone’s big brother. But as soon as I think the word ‘brother,’ I feel myself blush and my gaze lingers too long.
“Now we just need to figure out where my parents are,” I say.
Hal’s smile drops and everyone goes quiet.
Addison emerges from the warehouse marching a troll in front of her. Her hair trails down her back like a ribbon of blood as she shoves the troll to its knees and kicks it in the back. Then she slices its neck with one of her throwing stars.
“Make that ten assault rifles,” Hal says.
“We really could use that kid with the telekinesis right about now,” Joe says, eyeing the towering mountain of food we somehow need to fit in the jeep.
“He didn’t want to come,” Paige says. “Only just arrived. I think he went through something getting here. Looked scared witless.”
Joe picks up a sack of flour, then glances down the street. “Could use a couple of sentries while Hal and I load up.”
We agree and take our positions. Matt and Kyle head around the back of the warehouse. Jacob and Erica walk toward the woods. Addison goes across the street and Paige and I join together. Trash billows on the pavement, mostly a series of dissolvable cups made from yucca roots. They’re stained in neon colors, typical of keg parties.
“It’s like a ghost town,” Paige says, keeping her wings close to her body. Public restrooms up ahead have larger entrances that bulks and winged adjusteds can fit through. They’re not divided by gender anymore.
Nearby, the door of an empty drug store stands open to my left. Pills are scattered and crushed all over the floor. Looted. Probably the junkies looking for more nanites. I’m briefly wondering if it’s worth going in to check for anything useful when Joe whistles. I doubt anything meaningful would be in there anyway. Most of the nanites you can buy from a pharmacy are class one. White teeth and permanent tan kinds of stuff.
Paige and I head
back. As we enter the lot of the warehouse, a shorting holographic billboard catches my attention. It’s advertising a new car for altereds with headdresses. Anyone with horns or antlers.
When we get back to the jeep, Hal and Joe have it loaded with sacks of flour and dried pasta. Cartons of soup, tinned fruit, crackers, another box of chocolate, pasta sauces and condiments. Kyle adds a box of Twinkies on top, and Hal emerges from the warehouse carrying a couple of bottles of whiskey.
Matt raises an eyebrow. “Not sure that’s a necessity.”
Hal grins. “People need to let off a little steam.”
Matt chuckles. “The drinking age is twenty-one.”
“According to what government?” Hal asks. “Looks to me as if the whole country’s fallen to pieces. I say we make new laws.”
“Hell yeah!” Kyle points both forefingers skyward, celebratory.
Joe wags a finger at him. “Not for you.”
“Aw, man.” Kyle throws a lightning-quick punch, but Joe catches it in his hand. The whole group bursts out laughing.
Erica’s damaged wing hangs askew and crumpled. There’s no more blood, but sunlight shines through a quarter-sized hole in the color-changing membrane. Joe offers her a hand to climb back into the jeep. Eyeing that small contact between them reminds me of the fact that Joe and I have never touched. Not skin against skin. Even though I swear we did, in our days in the forest, walking so closely together. But we can’t have, or I would have his bulk ability. All those hours trekking through the woods and our only contact had been to yank each other out the way of danger, by backs of shirts and sleeves.
We tumble back into the jeep, and Matt does a quick head count. “Where’s Addison?”
We all look around but can’t spot her red head or tall frame anywhere.
Joe hops out of the jeep and starts walking back to the warehouse.
“I’ll do another circuit round back.” Kyle blurs off to the corner of the large building.
“She wasn’t with us,” I say. Paige shakes her head.
I jog across the road and pass a fancy office block with tinted windows. I feel eyes watching me, but I’m probably just being paranoid. Behind the office block is a rolling field and then trees beyond that.
The Unadjusteds Page 12
