by Juniper Hart
“Do they know about the chips?” he rasped, jumping from his chair to begin his wretched pacing again.
“Probably not,” she replied, trying to sound nonchalant, but even as she spoke, she heard the crack in her tone.
“You put trackers in them without their knowledge? How? When?”
Anatoli held up a pale hand and met his gaze firmly.
“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “Don’t make this sound nefarious, Dex. We spent unlimited resources training them and I have a right to protect my investments.”
Dex’s mouth parted in dismay but for a moment, not a sound escaped.
“They are living, breathing beings,” Dex choked. “Not machines. Not…investments.”
This is exactly why I didn’t want to say anything to him, Anatoli thought warily but the cat was out of the bag now and she knew she needed him to help her locate Sabine. Regardless of how Dex was imagining her, Anatoli did sincerely care about the well-being of the Sleepers, but the program came first. If Sabine had decided to run off, there were measures that needed to be taken to ensure that she didn’t talk to anyone about what she had learned.
And if she’s gotten rid of her tracker, it seems that’s exactly what she’s done. Now I need to find her and eliminate any threat she might cause to the mission.
Anatoli had not escaped capture for decades only to be brought down by her own training. No, Sabine needed to be found and neutralized, one way or another.
Stupid girl. She could have just come home and I would have let her go, Anatoli thought, almost rolling her eyes. She never understood why the Sleepers were so afraid to go to her when they needed something. They much preferred the comfort of the instructors to coming to Anatoli, something the director found rather annoying.
“Where is she stationed?” Dex growled. “How long has she been AWOL?”
“As I said, she’s technically not AWOL,” Anatoli said quietly. “For all I know, she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.”
“I’m going to find her,” Dex hissed, spinning to glower at Anatoli. The contempt in his face was nothing short of what she’d anticipated. But that was also the reason she’d called on him.
“I would appreciate that,” Anatoli said brightly, nodding approvingly. “If she’s where she’s supposed to be, I would ask that you reinstall her chip. It could be that the tracking device was merely faulty.”
Anatoli thought she saw smoke escaping Dex’s nostrils. She hoped he didn’t shift in her office. There simply wasn’t any room and Anatoli despised a mess.
“I won’t!” Dex snorted in fury. “In fact, I insist that you remove them from all the Sleepers.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Anatoli shot back. “How will we know if they defect?”
“We sent them out into the world after extensive training!” Dex barked back. “If we can’t trust them after nine months of vetting and ruling them out, how can we ever be sure?”
We can’t, Anatoli replied automatically. Hence the GPS trackers.
She wisely kept her thoughts to herself and gave Dex a patient smile.
“I’m sure you’re right, that she’s completely trustworthy,” Anatoli said quietly. “But I lost track of her over a month ago.”
Dex’s jaw was almost on the floor.
“A month?!” he repeated. “Why did you wait so long to say anything?”
Anatoli paused.
Maybe this is a bad idea, she thought, gauging his reaction carefully. Maybe he’s more invested in this than is healthy.
She quickly dismissed the notion. If Sabine was missing, Dex would give it his all to find her and she had already wasted enough time waiting for the sorceress to resurface. She could have called on an extraction team but if Sabine was simply lying low in her house, Anatoli would have egg on her face. It wasn’t worth the embarrassment so early in the program. She needed to appear in complete control, even if it was an illusion.
“As you said, Dex, it’s probably nothing,” she lied but that was not the real reason she had waited so long to say a word about the AWOL Sleeper. The truth was, she had known something about Sabine well before the witch had left the compound four months earlier, something she had hoped to keep to herself for a long while.
I can’t risk waiting any longer and I can’t show my face there myself.
It was far too risky for her to go to Europe. In fact, tucked away in the Appalachians, far away from the prying eyes of the shifter government, was the only place that Anatoli knew to be safe. No one but the wildest shifters ventured into the feral terrain and those who did were not apt to speak of what they’d seen there. They each had reasons of their own to fear the governments they had elected. That was why they hid themselves in the first place. Anatoli had spent too much time on the run, dodging the law and the Cabal to put her own neck on the line by looking for a rogue Sleeper—assuming that was what Sabine was. If she was going to go down, it wasn’t going to be like that.
“Where is she?” Dex demanded. “Where is she placed?”
Again, Anatoli turned the pointer toward the map and pointed, the red laser circling a country in middle Europe.
“Bremen, Germany,” she replied. Dex sucked in a breath of air through his teeth and spun toward the door without another word.
“Dex…” Anatoli called out after him as he placed his hand on the knob. Reluctantly, he turned to eye her with thinly veiled contempt.
“What?”
“She will need a tracker put back in her if she’s there.”
“I’m not doing it,” he spat. “It’s barbaric and I don’t care what pretense you use.”
He did not give her a chance to respond as he stormed from the office, slamming the door in his wake.
That’s fine, Anatoli thought smugly, a small smirk on her face. Dex has a tracker in him too. As long as I keep an eye on him, I should be able to find Sabine too.
2
“…eyes, ears, nose, jaw, throat, groin, knees, Achilles tendon. Those are the points you want to focus on.”
He nodded at the group but Sabine couldn’t stop staring into his eyes. He was trying desperately not to look at her but she could tell he wanted to.
“Or we could shift and go for the jugular every time,” the smart-mouthed man at the back chirped. “You know, what comes naturally.”
Sabine turned in slow motion to rest her eyes on him, the haze of the dream making her confused.
I know you, she thought, her eyes widening as she stared at the man. You and I spent time together.
“No!” the handsome instructor growled, his ebony eyes flashing. “You cannot shift. You cannot use your magic or abilities in these situations. What is the number one rule?”
“To blend in,” the group chorused, if not a little listlessly as though they’d intoned the words one time too many.
Sabine’s head turned, her sooty, gray eyes studying each of the beings with confusion.
What does that mean? What magic? What shifting?
“I was just joking,” the prankster muttered, folding his arms over his chest. “I know the rules too.”
“It won’t be funny when you’re face to face with danger,” the instructor insisted, his gaze falling onto Sabine’s face. “Do you understand?”
Is he talking to me?
The question in her subconscious went unanswered as she was abruptly roused from sleep, her head pounding slightly at the loud noise outside her window.
“Bananen! Apfel! Fruhstuck!”
The loudspeaker was obnoxious at any time of day but before the crack of dawn, Sabine was sure she would never get used to it, despite the fact that it happened every morning.
With a slight groan, she draped her legs over the side of the cot and ambled toward the window. She peered down at the winding street below to glare at the vendor riding through the town in his cart, selling his fresh fruit. It defied reason that anyone would wake that early to eat an apple but the man wouldn’t be doing it if he wasn
’t making sales.
Or maybe he’s just miserable and enjoys the company.
The sun was struggling to pop over the horizon but there was a gray heaviness to the air which made her wonder if the sun’s rays would make it through at all. Despite the dreary start to the day, Sabine marveled at the loveliness of the town below. She always felt like she had stepped onto the set of some children’s movie, the picturesque town barely believable with the cobblestone streets and chickens roaming about.
Across the laneway, another window opened and Sabine stared at her neighbor, a pleasantly plump widow with a sharp tongue but ready smile.
“Guten Morgen!” Frau Schiller called. “Wie geht es dir?”
It was the same question the woman asked every morning and it always caused Sabine to blush with humiliation. The query was loaded with one of the few recollections that Sabine had gathered in the past weeks. In fact, it always brought her back to the first point she could clearly remember. It had been Frau Schiller who had found her that day, unconscious and bleeding from her head. She knew the kindly woman felt a certain responsibility for her but she silently wished that Frau Schiller wouldn’t always remind her of that terrible incident.
“I’m feeling fine, Frau Schiller,” Sabine replied in German, smiling wanly at her. “And you?”
“Oh, you know,” the woman sighed. “Ungrateful kids, spoiled grandchildren, too much work to do. The usual. You should be grateful you’re young, beautiful.”
She followed up her complaint and compliment with a warm smile and Sabine could not help but return her expression.
“However, I wish that hollering fool would give it a rest for once down here,” Frau Schiller continued. “No one ever buys his rotting fruit anyway. Does it look like any of us have money?”
Sabine laughed aloud.
“He’s only trying to make a living,” she replied lightly but Frau Schiller was not impressed by her contention.
“He can make a living in the rich neighborhoods. I don’t see him waking up the Muellers and Zimmermans, do you? They have all the money and we take all the grief! He’s only trying to bother us, I swear it.”
Sabine snickered again.
“Have a good day, Frau Schiller,” she called out.
“Sabine…”
Sabine raised her eyes to regard her neighbor pensively, her disheveled black hair falling back over her shoulders. She had a feeling she knew what was next to come out of Maria Schiller’s mouth but she couldn’t very well ignore the older woman despite her instinct to slam the window shut and pretend she hadn’t heard her.
“Ja, gnadige Frau?” she asked politely.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
Sabine felt her back stiffen and she forced a tight smile onto her lips. She knew the woman was only trying to be helpful but her constant meddling made Sabine increasingly uncomfortable. It also made her wonder if she had once lived a very solitary life.
“Ja, of course,” she lied.
I did see a doctor, she reminded herself. I saw a doctor when Frau Schiller found me.
Frau Schiller eyed her skeptically.
“That’s not what Dr. Schwartz says,” she replied shortly, catching Sabine in the fib. Sabine stifled a groan of annoyance.
Damn this small town and their nosiness, Sabine thought, her good mood dissipating. She should have known there was no such thing as confidentiality in a place like that.
But how? How would I know?
She forced herself not to focus on the million unanswered questions she had floating through her mind that day and every day.
“Sabine, I know this is difficult for you—” Frau Schiller began but Sabine cut her off.
“I’ll go see him,” she promised the woman. “I’ll make an appointment today.”
She gave Frau Schiller a winning smile which seemed to temporarily appease the woman and Sabine seized the opportunity to bid her good day again before ducking back into the one-roomed apartment.
I shouldn’t be so rude to her, Sabine thought, biting on her lower lip. After all, where would I be without her? Probably dead, that’s where.
Even the tiny unit in which she sat had been because of Frau Schiller. When she had awoken in the tiny village clinic a month earlier, Sabine had had nothing on her. There had not been a purse or any form of identification to speak to who she was or how she’d come to be in the small town of Hude. Money had been a foreign concept. If she had a bank account or credit cards, she certainly had no way of accessing any of them.
The police detective who had interviewed her explained that she had been a victim of a robbery and left with a terrible gash on her head.
“If not for Frau Schiller, you might have bled out in the gutter, Fraulein,” the young woman told her. “We want to catch the man who did this to you. What can you tell us?”
Sabine had stared blankly at the policewoman, the entire event a blank. In fact, she could not remember what had happened before the moment she had woken, bandaged and disoriented.
“Your memory will come back,” Dr. Schwartz assured her. “Retrograde amnesia is common after a traumatic incident. It has less to do with brain injury than it is the body’s defense mechanism against a terrible event.”
“But I don’t remember anything at all!” Sabine had cried out, aghast and horrified by the realization. She had recalled her name but only her first name and while she spoke German fluently, her thoughts were predominately in English, something she did not tell anyone. The locals didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with her dialect. Inherently, she felt like she needed to keep the bit of knowledge she had to herself, at least until she could figure out what she was doing there.
Am I still in danger or was this an isolated incident? Do I have a family looking for me? Or do I belong around here somewhere?
So far, no one had come asking for her and the police insisted that there was no missing person report with her likeness but Sabine couldn’t help but feel that she wasn’t alone, that someone out there was wondering where she was.
The police had wanted to put her face in the local media but Sabine had convinced them to wait, at least until they were sure she wasn’t in any more danger.
“Someone left me there to die,” she reminded them. “Will he come back to finish the job when he realizes he failed?”
“But you didn’t die,” Frau Schiller had insisted. “Don’t you think he’ll eventually figure it out when a mysterious death didn’t make the papers?”
“Eventually is better than tomorrow,” Sabine replied stubbornly. She needed to buy as much time as she could afford. She had faith in the doctor’s words, that her memory would eventually return, and until that happened, Sabine intended to keep a low profile and figure it all out.
In the end, the police had been convinced to keep her whereabouts private, possibly believing the domestic violence angle, but Sabine knew that she would only manage to keep them at bay for so long. Sooner or later, someone would open the can of worms that she was there and she would be forced to deal with the aftermath, whether or not her memories had returned. The townsfolk liked to gossip and Sabine was the most interesting thing that had happened in a decade or more.
She had healed much faster than she had expected but her memory remained foggy. Still, at night, she had vivid, colorful dreams about who she had once been, even if they made no sense to her.
One day, I’ll put it all together, she vowed, turning to wash up for the morning. It was still early but she had a shift at The Sonne Café, a job she had picked up over the past two weeks, thanks in part to Frau Schiller also. The lady had undoubtedly strong-armed the surly owner into giving Sabine a job but Hans Koppel had begrudgingly accepted her hard work ethic and given her decent shifts for her to get on her feet.
“Don’t you disappoint me, girl,” Hans had growled at her when she first started, his cold, blue eyes raking over her suspiciously. “I’m going off instinct since you haven’t got any references.”
<
br /> Sabine knew the man was taking a risk but she assured him repeatedly that she was solid and he eventually came to see that for himself. She had won the owner over. He was surprisingly young for such a curmudgeon. She guessed he wasn’t older than thirty but he certainly seemed like a man who had been through a world war or two.
She thought about this as she stripped off her clothes and stared at herself naked in the cracked bathroom mirror, examining her body critically.
Staring back at her was a woman of average height, her long mane flowing over the high curve of her full breasts. Soulful gray eyes regarded her with secrets she had yet to uncover but that was not where Sabine looked.
Her gaze traveled along the contours of her chest toward the lines of her stomach where the slight bulge of her abdomen told a story she hadn’t heard but of which she was painfully aware.
This happened well before the attack, she thought grimly, her hands falling to protectively embrace the baby inside, her mouth curling inward in dismay. Shouldn’t the father be wondering where I am?
It was a question that had haunted her from the moment she’d opened her eyes that fateful day but one she was no closer to answering than she had been a month ago. But for the doctor and Frau Schiller, no one else knew about the pregnancy.
At least not yet.
Sabine knew she wouldn’t be able to hide it for much longer and when the fact came out, she feared that she would be out of a job again.
There was so much to process, so much to discover, but Sabine wasn’t sure she wanted to know the truth.
What if the father did this to me?
She swallowed her concerns and turned toward the shower head dangling over a plastic drain. The shower wasn’t enclosed and sufficed only to rinse her off. In the corners of her mind was an apartment with a clawfoot bathtub and glass sauna shower but was it something she’d dreamed or a place in her memory? She couldn’t say. Nothing was certain in the fragile cracks of her mind.
Whoever she had been, wherever she’d come from, Sabine knew that she was someone else now. She was just going to need to learn to deal with that.
