by L. B. Carter
"That was my next question." Ace smirked at Henley briefly before facing his sister again. The smile slipped off his face. "I did though. At your request."
She flinched.
"How long have you been impersonating Jennifer Tate, Valerie?" Ace folded his arms.
Henley gawked. A noise escaped Nor.
"Valerie?"
Shit. She ignored all the other responses to her real name and whipped around.
Reed emerged from the blackened maize, a robotic hand held in his. Tear streaks marred the dust on his thinned face, and his paleness made him stand out from the brown of the world around them. All his muscles were slack, and he seemed to be looking at her as if he'd discovered a buried chest. The coffin kind, not treasure. One he'd buried himself.
And she'd disinterred all the emotion he'd hoped to hide in peace.
Chapter Eight
The ride back to the truck was awkward to say the least. Je—Valerie had tried to explain herself a few times, but Reed wasn't ready to listen. He might never be. But he certainly couldn't handle it right now. He was man enough to admit that. He couldn't even look at her. He'd just cried in front of some girl he didn't even know. Once Buster pulled up a picture of what his sister used to look like on his fancy watch, Reed had turned and stalked away from the image of his love without a word, incapable of speaking.
The imposter shut up after a few times of him cutting her off. There were too many others who needed attention first. Her lies were low priority.
He'd let Jen worm his attention from the mission. It was a mistake he had vowed never to let happen again. And with the news, he realized just how far in he'd enabled her, how much he'd trusted her. When he shouldn't have.
Reed returned to mission-mode with a singularity befitting of Ace, and the wide focus—not just on one damn female—his Father had trained him to have.
Nor was staring out the window, tears coursing down his cheeks. Reed hadn't had a chance to explain about Barb in the chaos of the identity reveal. His brother had figured it out though when he saw Reed's face, the necklace that was part tracker, part S.O.S. signal that the Green Solution employees wore in the hand that hadn't been holding Henley's. He would work it out without those details since they were driving away without their family friend.
Reed had buried her like Tio, using a broken piece of metal to dig up the fissile land, under the guise of going off in search of useful materials and supplies evicted to the surroundings when the chopper plummeted in a tailspin. It was the best he could do for Barb.
He'd left... her alone to cobble everyone and everything from the bird itself. When he came back, he'd simply clambered into his baby and taken off. If nothing else was true about the girl he knew as Jen, he could trust her to get everything organized while he was busy.
The trunk was loaded up, and Henley was tinkering with some items in her lap, probably trying to get her hand back in place. The guy who was not named Buster—Valerie's brother—had never been on Reed's favorite list with his standoffishness. However, he'd joined Reed in silencing Valerie a few times, so he'd earned some graces. Reed was conscious that he was using an alias the moment he met the line-backer-shaped nerd and vice versa. They had been upfront about their deception. Reed held no grudges for just doing his job as he'd been instructed.
Now he knew who had directed Ace to conceal his identity...
Reed took a measured breath, counting to ten with the inhale and exhale.
When they pulled up to the Juarez's truck, Reed continued to stare out the windshield, his heart as flayed and lifeless as Barb. He hadn't thought that was possible; it had already been pulverized once. But Valerie—whoever this Valerie was, who clearly was not his Val—had managed to shred it with sharpened claws.
"Valerie will drive this truck with Lindy and Mrs. Juarez back to the house."
"You said the house was gone." Valerie's voice was quiet, uncertain, very unlike her usual self. It added to his discomfort with her, like replacing a weapon holster that chafed his thigh.
"We need to get back to the road, and that's an easy marker." His tone was purposely neutral. "We should also gather what few supplies we had left that may have survived." His face was expressionless. He was resisting unwanted emotion. Now was not the time.
"Reed..."
"Get. Out."
Lindy and Mrs. Juarez followed his command, and with reluctance, Valerie was forced to follow. He didn't care if she could get the bashed truck to work or not. He had an unquenchable desire to abandon her in the middle of nowhere where she couldn't interfere with his life anymore.
Because somehow, he knew now that she was at the root of Val's—
Reed let out a breath as soon as she was gone, his lungs free to expand for just a second without her presence tingeing the air with tension and confusion. He sped away, his baby letting her dissatisfaction with his abusive treatment be known with a lagging acceleration.
"Reed—" Nor started in a comforting tone.
"No."
Reed's brother shut up, too. He knew to do it the first time, unlike Valerie.
Which just proved how unquestionably she wasn't his Valerie. She couldn't be. His Valerie was dead. And this girl, pretending to be her while going by another name—it was insulting to her memory.
There were a lot of questions spiraling through his mind. A Henley-amount of questions. A tornado-like spiral. Nothing good.
Reed chopped his thoughts off as he drove, snaring on the present. When on a mission, you couldn't dip into the past. Lives depended on your awareness.
He took stock of the situation. They were back in a big group. They were again down to limited and barely-functioning transportation. They did have some water now, but not enough for all of them for more than a few days. They'd have to detour to that water tower and hope it hadn't been uprooted. He didn't know if there was food in the stock recovered from the chopper. They had no shelter besides the cars. Sirena was somewhere between them and a massive forest fire. And Barb was dead.
Reed pulled up behind the pile of wood that had been the Juarez's farmhouse, and his eyes swept the scene, catching on something a few feet behind the house.
This Valerie had gotten her wish about wanting to see dead bodies.
Tio's corpse had been pried up from the fresh grave near the tangled remains of the clothes line and laid out for them all to see.
The metaphor fucking sucked as much as the reality.
"Fuck. Stay here," he ordered his passengers and hopped out, heading off Lindy who'd launched herself from the truck that arrived behind them. He caught her before she could reach her relative. She was blubbering in Spanish, struggling to get past his barrier. Reed didn't let her. The man hadn't been cleaned of the gore coating him. He doubted Tio's countenance had improved by decay or being tossed about like laundry by the devil.
"Lo siento," he intoned, wrapping her tight in his embrace and backing her away from the view. Sorry was never enough when you lost a loved one; Reed knew that all too well. It didn't bring them back. It didn't change the loss. It didn't budge that dark sludge that cut a hollow in your insides and took residence. It didn't silence the whispers the sludge seeped into your mind that you could have done something to save them, could have prevented this outcome.
Nor helped Mrs. Juarez over to her daughter, and Reed passed Lindy off to her Mama, the two sharing the burden.
Reed made eye contact with the searching blue eyes of his brother. Nor had lost his mother when Reed had, but Reed had slammed a door on sharing the horror with his younger brother, tried to heap it all on himself so Nor wouldn't experience the crushing feeling. After all, he was already in pain.
But he knew, watching Nor's face now, that he had never succeeded. He couldn't. No matter how much you wanted to lure that gunk out of someone you loved and fill the cavity with warmth, love and comfort, you didn't have that power. It was up to that person alone to starve the sludge of the emotions he feasted on, such as guilt and
mourning, and learn how to refill that void that would never go away.
That was an ongoing process for Reed. His learning curve was not steep. Especially when fresh incidences kept fattening up that treacly darkness.
Mrs. Juarez was petting Lindy's hair even though Lindy was taller than her mama. She was repeating something over and over, quieting her daughter's whimpers.
Reed shouldn't just close himself off. Barb was a loss to Nor just as much as Reed, perhaps more since she'd babysat him while Reed had been training with Father and Mother had been working in the lab.
"I'm sorry," he told his brother.
Nor knew to what he was referring and gave him a compassionate nod, so much support telegraphed from eyes identical to their mother's. The moment was too serious, and Nor ran a hand through messy hair that was getting so long the strands were starting to drape into his eyes. Impaired vision was dangerous on a mission. "I know. Otherwise I wouldn't have come back for you."
Reed grinned. "You're not done training yet, remember. You need me. I'm just surprised you came for me before Rena."
Nor's eyes slid to the side. He admitted, "Barb insisted."
Reed nodded a tad too exaggeratedly, encouraging his vocal chords to start working again. "Bros before 'hos." Nor scowled at the term for his... Reed hesitated to call Rena Nor's girlfriend, even mentally. He was still holding out hope his little brother wouldn't repeat his mistakes.
"Did you bury her?" Nor asked, intently studying what was left of a porch railing.
"Yeah," Reed croaked.
Nor nodded. "Carbon recycling. She'll enrich the soil. She'd like that."
"Yeah." Though he managed to speak, Reed didn't seem able to say more than that word.
Nor's exhale was deep. "We're gonna have to tell Tom. You know that right?"
"Yeah." Reed wanted to say something else, anything else. But all he could come up with was, "Fuck."
"And Father."
"Double fuck."
"What's going on?"
Henley and Ace had vacated the Jeep and were eying Lindy and her sobbing Mama.
"Trust you to have questions. I thought I told you to stay in the car?"
Ace grinned and Reed blinked in surprise, unsure if he'd ever seen the guy smile. Reed had suspected he wasn't human for a while. Not the Sirena-style of inhuman. The BSTU-robot-impersonating-a-human-but-not-getting-the-emotions-algorithm-quite-right kind of inhuman.
"She's not big on following directions," Ace said of Henley, smiling at her affectionately.
"Not when I'm treated like a dog," Henley shot back with a playful scowl.
"Shit," Reed groaned watching their interaction. "You two have coupled up, haven't you? Fuck's sake, I'm surrounded by nerds in love. And I'm the one not getting laid? It's like the universe has flipped on its head or something."
Nor laughed. "What, you couldn't woo Jen?" His face fell as he realized his mistake. He quickly covered. "Well, it kinda does feel like the world is ending, so who knows what can happen?"
"That's what I was just about to ask," Henley piped up, smoothly reading and shifting away from the moment of awkwardness. "I think we shouldn't hang around here. Tempting nature or fate or whomever. What's the plan to get Sirena?" She looked eagerly from Reed to Ace, making it clear she knew who would be dominating the decisions.
"I'm assuming you can't rebuild the chopper like you did your hand or the truck's fuselage?" Reed raised a brow.
Her nose scrunched, and she lifted her hand. "Not feasible on my own. It's actually not running at full capacity." She flexed each digit, touching each tip to her thumb in turn. "Can't feel anything in these two." She tapped the ring and pinky fingers a few more times, frowning at them in frustration. "The nerves will need more refined tools than the chopper had stocked."
"What about the truck?" Reed nodded at it. It occurred to him he had faced Valerie, but thankfully the spider crack across its windshield distorted the view, preventing eye contact that would just make him angry again. "I doubt it's got much of that biofuel you engineered left."
Henley's non-bionic fingers twisted her hair. "I'll need to check what engine the chopper was using. I doubt diesel, but I might be able to modify it to work with the truck. It'll definitely eat up the space in the truck bed though, so don't count on that for seating anyone," she said with a grimace.
"It appears your Jeep is running again," Ace noted. "That seems to work for fitting us all in."
"Yeah, how'd you coax your baby back to life?" Nor asked with a smile.
"Long story short, we found a water tower at an abandoned farm." He nixed the guys from the story. He hated being indebted to Valerie for saving his ass. "I intend to stop there on our way out. We'll have to take the jugs of salt-water Lindy got out of the back of the truck if we want space in the back of the truck though, so I vote dump that useless shit and we'll fill whichever containers fit in my baby's trunk with freshwater if it hasn't been sprinkled around the fields by that twister. So, I'll leave you—" He nodded at Henley. "—to rifle through whatever you scrounged from the chopper for what you need for the engine. After she's done that, Ace, get rid of anything superfluous. I want to do a quick tour of the house for any last supplies. Did you by chance bring food?"
Ace shook his head. "We didn't have time, and my mom sent all the government's storage with her team."
"Your mom?" Reed was confused.
Nor filled him in on what had clearly transgressed since their group split up. "The Valerie Acton we were heading toward, who works for the government, isn't dead."
No shit. That much was obvious, but hearing it tightened Reed's muscles all over as if he'd had a really tough workout.
Nor hurried to continue his explanation. "Turns out she has vacated her position, though, which, by the way, is Director of Disaster Management in the United States Geological and Climatic Society. So, we were essentially heading for a contact who wasn't there, as we suspected. Luckily, however, she left her mom in her place. Marissa Acton. I've surmised that she was originally in that position in the first place, before her daughter took over.
"Anyway. Valerie's brother, Ace Acton, is some kind of geologist climate modeler person, who took the name Buster while he went undercover at BSTU to, I guess, steal their secrets—which wasn't Sirena, in case you were wondering." Nor took a breath after that extensive monologue.
Reed tried to follow all the circuitous tangles, his mind reeling like it'd been sucked up by the tornado, torn up, and vomited back out in a revolting mess.
Ace remained impassive. "I was not privy to the news that my sister was going to show up at BSTU in disguise and drag the Tate lab experiment with her when she left." He shrugged. "This is what I've always looked like. You'll have to ask her why she completely altered who she is." His displeasure with Valerie was a fraction of Reed's. But it was another thing they had in common besides their mission-focused demeanors and alpha personalities.
Reed addressed the aspects important to the mission. "What's your mom doing about the dust devil? Is she sending help?"
Ace shook his head. "All eyes are on the coastal disasters. We contacted her by radio from the chopper to inform her of its presence. She's already using all her resources on the forest fire and the bridge collapse along with the storm surge that hit Sirena's hometown. That's why we couldn't get more aid or supplies for our rescue operation. Your colleague was a last resort contact for a chopper."
Nor jumped in, knowing Reed was going to ask. "Barb tracked the locket. We were right that someone from our organization would, but it wasn't Father."
"Unless it was both of them." Reed huffed out through flared nostrils.
"Meaning we're being tracked still?" Henley inferred.
"And BSTU," Ace commented mildly. "Professor Tate may regroup, or the university might send someone else."
"Professor Tate," Henley spat. "Humpf."
Reed rocked back on his heels, glancing at the truck. "So, was Valerie fooling Professor Tate
too? Seems like a mother would be able to tell her daughter."
"Like a brother should identify a sister?" Ace asked with heavy sarcasm. That was a new feature.
"You hadn't seen her for years though, right? This was a swap." Reed's eyes flashed between Nor, Ace and Henley. None of them had answers.
"Ask Valerie." Ace's deep voice was a growl.
Fuck. If he wasn't in hell before, he was now. "Let's finish here and get to Sirena first. If there's a fire coming, we can't wait around."
Reed's boots made thudding impressions in the fresh sand, soot and rubble of the place that had been home for the last few days with an impostor.
If he salvaged any protein powder, he was so not sharing his allotment with Valerie anymore.
◆◆◆
Never underestimate a brainiac. Reed knew that, working on a research compound. His job was to protect intellectual property and the super-genius brains who came up with the world-improving ideas, discoveries or inventions. His mother had been one of those intelligent brains. Nor, too.
Nor was working on Father's and Reed's side of the organization now. Rookie mistake to attach himself to their latest specimen in need of a bodyguard: Rena. Their contract was defunct since it was let by someone who was now dead; Mark had not survived the crash that stranded Rena in podunk nowhere. Reed's colleague, Lynn, had also been taken while aiding Mark, who was Professor Tate's... boyfriend and student or some fucked up incestuous, inappropriate fuck-buddy.
Well, that was all according to Valerie, back when they'd thought she was Jennifer Tate, Professor Tate's daughter and a student at BSTU who'd helped design Sirena.
Reed had no idea now if Valerie was as smart as the BS-TUrtles as Henley called herself, if she'd even done any work at the university, or if she'd just made the insane decision to become Jennifer Tate for the sole purpose of breaking Rena out. He recalled she did have some knowledge of geology; she'd have to, being employed by the USGCS. "Director" suggested she was more on the administrative side than the science side of the system.
