“The compound is deserted,” I say, hitching a thumb at the miserable building. The sun dims, and gray clouds move in. A sprinkling of rain dampens the sand. The ocean churns and turns a wintry color.
Joe examines the beach and compound. “They could have moved them.”
“Or they could be inside,” Paige says, keeping her wings tight against her body. “Lunch, or something.”
No one says anything for a moment. We all stare at the compound.
“Maybe they’re being experimented on,” Matt says, clicking his fingers.
Paige juts her chin down the beach. “There’s a town a mile or so along. I saw it when we were flying. Maybe we can get some info there.”
“But there’s a price on Silver’s head. If she’s recognized…” Joe steps between me and the compound, a protective shield. My heartstrings ping a little at his words and I can’t help remembering what we almost did. And the way his fingers almost brushed my skin when he helped me with the bandage last night. God, why am I thinking about this now?
I shake my head to clear it. “I need a disguise.”
“Your wings,” Paige says.
I raise an eyebrow. “That’s not a disguise; it’s a big, fat neon sign.”
“Paige has a point,” Matt says, drawing the strings on his backpack and re-shouldering it.
Joe pulls at his chin. “They’re looking for Silver Melody the unadjusted, not Silver Melody the altered with bright blue wings.”
“She could just stay here,” Sawyer says. “With me.”
“I want to go,” I say. “But you don’t have to come if you don’t want to, Sawyer.”
Sawyer looks at the ground and runs a hand through his curls.
“We’ll need ID cards,” Paige says.
Matt steps onto the beach. “We can bluff it.”
Joe crosses his arms. “You think we can bluff a troop of bulks or trolls?”
Matt continues along the beach, walking backwards to face us. “Or we take them out, but I’m not waiting anymore. I need to find my sister.”
The rest of us tumble out of the woods, including Sawyer. I figure he’s more afraid of waiting in the bushes on his own than he is of going into town. Joe and Matt bicker about the approach until we arrive at a bar on the beach. The greasy smell of french fries and stale beer competes with the salt of the ocean. The bar has outside tables and chairs full of soldiers in Bear’s army uniform, chowing down on burgers and fries and racks of ribs. It makes my own rib hurt.
“Wings, Silver,” Paige says in my ear.
I’ve been waiting until the last moment to use them. I don’t want it to run out at the worst possible moment. When the blue wings emerge from my back, I feel like the bright red piece of cloth at a bullfight. My legs tremble a little, but I won’t back away.
We skirt around the wooden clapboard bar until we find the front doors. The five of us enter, and the thwak of pool balls echoes around the room. Rock music plays from a jukebox in the corner. My boots stick to the linoleum floor. More soldiers are stuffed into booths with dim lighting. There isn’t a single unadjusted-sized seating area. Everything is oversized—even the glasses.
A few pairs of eyes turn to look at us as we stand in the doorway. I realize how ridiculous we must look: two girls with bird wings, a bulk, and two seemingly unadjusteds. Maybe we’ll need Matt’s grenades after all.
Matt marches to the bar and hops onto a tall stool. I quickly follow, using my wings to lift me into the stool beside him. Paige and Joe slink off to one of the pool tables and Joe puts money on a table to indicate he wants a game.
“Three whiskeys on the rocks,” Matt says as the barman approaches.
He’s a big, bald man, with a belt cinching his trousers an inch too tight. An open collar shirt reveals a forest of thick, dark chest hair and when he exhales, two small insect pinchers emerge from his nostrils. I don’t even begin to guess what he uses them for. Maybe pinching people who don’t pay their tabs.
“You got ID?” He leans over the polished counter.
I freeze. Our game is going to be given up already. Then I realize he’s asking for proof of age, not altered status.
I don’t have that either. And I’ve never even drunk whiskey before.
Sawyer steps onto the rung of my stool and slaps a photo ID on the counter with his name and details. Except the photo’s not of him. It’s of a black man at least fifteen years older. The barman doesn’t seem to care and pours out three whiskeys. I’m so nervous I actually take a gulp but regret it immediately as it burns down my throat.
“That a compound down there?” Matt jerks his head toward outside.
The barman leans over the bar, drying a glass with a stained white rag.
“Yup. It’s brought a truck lot of business to this little seaside town.” He nods his head at the soldiers taking up every square inch of available space. “Plus, it’s keeping us all level.” He winks. “You guys have any problems with those murderous tendencies?”
Matt shakes his head. “I took intelligence. Seems only those with animal DNA are affected.” He eyes the barman’s pinchers as they emerge another inch out of his nostrils and draws back a little.
“What about you?” the barman asks me, wiping the counter between us. “And what are you doing here? I’ve only seen soldiers in here up until now.”
“I’ve been spying from above.” I nod at Paige over by the pool tables as the lie blurts out at me. “We’re on a special recon force.”
The barman nods, accepting.
“Doesn’t seem to be anyone over at that compound,” Matt says, picking up his glass. He eyes the liquid inside with an indifferent air. “They kill ‘em off already?” He pushes a conspiratorial smile onto his lips.
I brace myself for the answer. Sawyer stands beside me, a lit cigarette in his mouth, his head just popping over the bar. He twiddles his glass in his hands and keeps pushing his curls off his face. Then a snatch of color from the TV screen mounted behind the barman attracts my attention. It’s a video of Matt and me running away from school and hopping the fence on our last day in the city. How the hell did they even get that footage? Then I think of all the drones in the sky that day.
I look around the room, but no one seems to be watching. Or if they are, they’re too drunk to care.
“I have no idea what’s going on in that compound,” the barman says. He tilts his head. “But they couldn’t have killed them off. We’d all have gone crazy.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Matt holds his glass up in a toast.
The barman takes an empty tumbler and pours himself a glass. An upbeat song plays on the jukebox and someone across the room starts singing along with a drunken slur. Joe and Paige take their turns at the pool table. Her wings flutter and keep sweeping against people’s faces. Someone curses at her and she sucks her wings tight to her body.
A bulk a couple of stools down looks at me, then at Matt, then the TV. I wince but quickly plaster a smile on my face. I contemplate throwing him a salute or blowing him a kiss, depending on how drunk he might be, but he leans closer and frowns.
I force myself to stay where I am. Subtly, I nudge Matt’s foot with my boot. I down the rest of my whiskey and try not to cough. I have to look like I belong here.
A waitress carrying a tray of empty plates stumbles into me. I turn and reach out a hand to help her, holding on to her arm. The stack of dishes shatters on the floor. Suddenly a flash of pain slams between my eyes and I can’t breathe. I didn’t notice the waitress had a pair of ornate horns. I double over as I feel them form on my head, mimicking hers.
“What the…?” The barman leans over to get a better look.
Matt leaps off the stool. “She hasn’t been well.” He takes off his baseball cap and tugs it onto my head.
Sawyer is already at the door. The soldier near Matt and me is off his stool. He holds out a hand to help, I think, but there’s no way I’m touching him.
He crouches to look cl
oser. My wings disappear as I try to cope with this new ability. The waitress is on her knees, picking up all the broken china.
The barman ogles. “Where the hell did your wings just go?”
“You look familiar…” The soldier frowns again, teetering toward us. Drunk.
On the TV, the story has moved on to some army recruitment campaign about how your country needs you to stand against the evil but clever unadjusteds.
“Not from around here.” Matt tries to wave the soldier away. He tugs me toward the door, where Joe and Paige are heading too.
The change is complete, and the new horns push Matt’s cap off my head. I stumble out the door and trip into another soldier. He’s dragging a girl with red hair behind him.
I stop dead.
Addison.
A pair of electric cuffs contains her wrists and her right eye is bruised and swollen shut. She gapes. “Silver?”
The five of us are now outside, plus Addison and her captor and a soldier who’s followed us out. The rest of the street is deserted.
“Silver… Melody?” The first soldiers reaches for his gun.
Even though I’m exhausted from the change, I swivel out of the way. Paige flies above our heads and Addison twists her arms free, but her wrists are still tied together.
Joe goes for the troll soldier who followed us and grabs him in a headlock. Sawyer uses his telekinesis to hurl the soldier’s gun into the ocean.
The bulk grabs me, squeezing his arm around my neck, and I can’t reach the pistol tucked in my waistband. “You’re worth a lot of money. Dead or alive.”
There’s no flash of pain as he holds me in place. I’m too exhausted to take on any more changes. Matt whips out a gun and aims it at the bulk, but I don’t think his aim is good enough to go for the weak spot. He points it at us, hesitating.
Addison leaps, raising her electric cuffs. She brings them down on the bulk and he twitches as a current of electricity spasms through him. Joe sharply jerks the troll’s neck.
Both soldiers drop to the sidewalk.
Panting, I look at Addison. “What happened to you?”
“Not now,” Matt says, holstering his gun. “We need to get out of here.”
A soldier taps on the window of the door then tries to push it open. I realize Sawyer is using his ability to hold it shut.
The six of us run. I can barely make my legs move, but I know I have to keep going. When I fall behind, Matt grabs my hand and tugs me along. Soldiers burst onto the street.
Matt grabs something from his bag and tosses it to Joe. “Needs a bulk arm.”
Joe pulls the pin on the grenade and tosses it behind us. An instant later it explodes, causing a whirlwind of sand and shrapnel to fly toward us. We dive into the tree line as the stench of burnt plastic hits the air. My legs buckle and I collapse in a heap of ferns, but Joe picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.
“We can’t leave,” Matt says. “My sister is still in that compound.”
“So are Silver’s parents,” Addison says around a split lip.
The words penetrate the fuzzy haze of my exhausted brain, but I can’t grasp their meaning.
“We don’t have the firepower,” Joe says, marching a determined path away from the beach. “We’ll come back when we do.”
The trek back to the cave passes by in a blur with Joe carrying me most of the way. My ears ring from the explosion and my mind reels from the information about my parents. Joe plants me on my feet when we reach the cave door and I’m finally able to stand without my knees buckling. Before Matt can open the door, Francesca thrusts it open, wearing a stony expression. She looks like she wants to ground us all.
Francesca leads us to the weapons chamber. Once there, the six of us sit on a ledge along the back wall. Matt sits next to Addison, removes something from his backpack, and disables the electric current on her cuffs. Then he uses a screwdriver to release her arms. Francesca stands before us with her hands on her hips, and Claus comes across the passageway from the small area where Matt keeps his radio equipment.
“We heard about the explosion on the radio,” Claus says, leaning both hands on his cane. His eyes burn with disappointment. Even his mustache looks limp.
“Of all the asinine ideas!” Francesca takes a breath, presses thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose, and starts again. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Matt meets her challenging stare. “I wanted to see my sister to make sure she’s OK.”
“What if someone followed you back?” Francesca wrings her hands. “What if someone had recognized you?” She points at me. “You put everyone in this cave in jeopardy!”
I stand. I’m tired of being told what I can and can’t do. Claus flashes me a warning, which I ignore.
“My parents are in the compound too,” I say, the calmness of my voice surprising me. I take a breath. “I get that you’re an adult. A teacher. You’re used to having kids do what you say, but I can make my own decisions.” My hands fist as I glare at her.
Francesca blows out a sigh. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but people arrive here injured every day. Food is still going missing and we don’t have a doctor. Someone must step up. Someone must organize this place and make sure we’re safe. I wasn’t trying to do it on my own.” Her ‘r’s roll thick and heavy in her Spanish accent. “I thought we were a team.”
I swallow hard, thinking over her words.
Matt comes to my side and looks at Francesca. “I never wanted to put anyone in any jeopardy. I’m sorry for that.”
Francesca’s shoulders lower a couple of inches.
“We need to launch a rescue mission,” I say. “Not just for Lyla and my parents, but also for everyone in that compound.”
“How do we know your parents are there?” Francesca asks.
Addison steps forward, her swollen eye no more than a slit. “That’s what the soldier said to me.”
Before anyone can reply, Erica flies into the room and throws her arms around Addison. “What happened to you?”
“When we were at the warehouse, I thought I saw something in the woods nearby, so I went to check it out. Then someone hit my head and the world went dark.” Her hand floats to her swollen eye, prodding gently. “When I woke, I was in a beach hut with a couple of soldiers playing cards on a table.”
“What did they want with you?” Erica hovers in the air. Her wing seems all healed and flutters a golden yellow.
“To know who all of you were,” Addison says, resting her head on Erica’s shoulder. “I think they were planning on following you back to the cave, until I got in their way.”
“What did you tell them?” I ask. From the looks of it, Addison went through hell and back. We’re not trained soldiers. Anyone would be tempted to spill with the threat of pain and torture.
Addison smirks and points to her eye. “Does it look like I told them anything?”
“Thank goodness for that,” Francesca says, rubbing her hands together.
“But they told you about my parents?”
Addison nods. “They thought I was out of it, but I heard them talking. They mentioned ‘the famous scientists’ being kept at the beach compound.”
Matt frowns. “Why there? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Claus taps his cane for attention. “It makes perfect sense. Everyone will assume they’re in the city and any rescue attempt will be focused there. At the beach, they’re out of the way. No one would suspect them being there.”
“That was my thinking too,” Addison says, rubbing her wrists. The electric cuffs have left angry red lines.
“We need to go get them.” I’m already moving toward the weapons lining the far wall.
“Slow down, Silver.” Francesca walks over to me. “You just set off an explosion in the very place you want to go back to. Security will be tight. They’ll be looking for trouble.”
I kick at the ground. “We can’t just leave them there.”
�
��Give it a couple days,” Francesca says. “Let things die down a little.”
She’s right, but I still don’t like it. I know where my parents are. Now I know exactly how Matt feels.
Francesca beckons me back to the group. “Plus, if we’re really serious about launching a full-scale attack, you could use all the abilities you can get.”
I look from Claus to Francesca. “You told her?”
Claus stares at me for a good five seconds before he says anything. The kind of stare that says if I think about it long enough, I’ll see his logic and can’t possibly be mad at him.
And it works.
Francesca has stepped up to organize the chaos in the cage. She’s just trying to help. And if I didn’t have abilities, or the potential to amass more, she might not let me join the mission.
Claus’s voice is firm but reassuring. “Of course I told her.”
“Does everyone know?” I snap.
“Of course not.” Francesca touches my hand, but it gives little comfort. “Though it will be a hard secret to keep. I’m not sure you should.”
As I think of everyone learning this secret, the ground teeters, but I can’t worry about what people think anymore. I have a rescue mission to plan. “You really think I need more abilities? Wings and speed aren’t enough?”
“What do you think?” Francesca splays her hands. “Your parents are the most protected prisoners in the entire country, guarded by a president with black widow DNA and bulk guards. Look at Joe and Hal. Do you think you could get past them on your own?”
One of them, maybe, but not both. “I won’t be on my own.”
“I understand you want your parents back, Silver. We all do, but let’s make you as strong as possible first.”
It makes sense. Of course it does. Matt and I share a look.
She’s right. Again. In that moment, I hate her for it. My parents need me, and ironically, it’s their very creation that will save them.
Joe steps close and offers me his hand. A twinge of apprehension dries my throat.
Matt steps to my other side. “Want me to be there?”
The Unadjusteds Page 17