Tara's open-mouthed shock is almost funny, and our eyes nervously meet. “Wow, why isn't every chick on this world trying to get knocked up?”
I turn around and face the road. Things are getting über awkward.
“Well for starters, a lot of the guys can't get us pregnant, and lots of girls are mules.”
“Mules?” Tara enunciates slowly.
Dee's lips curl. “That sounds bad, I know. But donkeys are sterile, right?”
“Yes,” she agrees slowly.
“The world population has been really negatively affected by the lack of births, so women are precious. That rape scenario?” Dee says.
I do an internal cringe.
Tara doesn't say anything. Her silence is loud to me. But Dee doesn't seem to notice, pressing forward. “It wouldn't happen here commonly.”
I glance at her quickly then away. “Bullshit, Dee. Just two words: Brad Thompson.”
Jonesy speaks for the first time. “He was an inbred circus freak.”
Dee barks out a laugh then gives me a dark look. “And an energy drain.”
“Who is Brad Thompson?”
We shift our attention back to Tara.
I swipe a hand over my hair, temporarily getting it out of my eyes. “Long story.”
Tara tosses her hands up then slaps her thighs. “I've got time. Clearly, I'm not going anywhere.”
Dee begins to tell Tara, and we’re almost to Sanction as Dee wraps up the story.
“That is awful.” Tara's voice is horrified.
Dee shivers. “I barely survived him—Brad.”
“I guess I misjudged you.”
She hangs over the seat, giving Tara a slightly defeated look. “Lots of people do.”
“To make shit worse, Dee's a numbered IQ.”
“So? Everyone has a number for their IQ.” Tara gives a little laugh, and the sound fades as she reads our expressions. “What does ‘numbered’ mean?”
“It means not only can Dee do the zap-o-matic—”
Dee rolls her eyes. “God, Pax.”
I'm kinda an asshole. But I'd go to the ground for Dee. Anytime, anywhere. She knows that. Deep. “But she's smart as fuck.”
“You've got a real potty mouth.”
I smile. “Yup. Don't care. For the record, I'm not a dull tool in the shed.” Another Grampsism.
“But you're not numbered?” Tara asks.
I shake my head. “No. That's a special distinction.”
“Probably because Grandpa Kyle was a geneticist.” Dee's voice is thoughtfully mournful.
“I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance,” Tara says, patting Dee's shoulder. “I just thought you were this spoiled chick that'd never had anything to deal with except trying to raise the right corpse. And you have to admit, making people disappear is a pretty cool thing. I have a list,” Tara says wistfully.
I turn and look at her. “A list of people to make disappear?”
She nods, and it's the happiest I've seen her in the short span of time we've known each other.
Except one other time.
“That's macabre,” Dee says with a laugh.
“No,” Tara says fiercely, and her eyes flash at mine with sapphire fire. “It's justice.”
I smirk. We might have more common ground than I thought.
*
The hover rises when Tara gets out last. Her eyes follow the upward sweep of its undercarriage with clear suspicion, and I can't help but laugh.
Tara turns to me. “It's all super weird. The hover, this world... all of it.”
“Hey,” I say, casting a surreptitious glance around me.
“What?” she asks nervously, glancing around like the sky will fall on our heads.
Hover cars are lined up like perfect sardines, and we walk between ours and another parked close by.
Hopping to the curb of a broad quartz sidewalk, I turn to Tara.
I restrain myself from touching her. But I want to, for a lot of reasons. I want to grip her shoulders and make Tara realize how dangerous this whole mess is—the information she now holds.
My hands stay at my sides, though. Doesn't help that she's hot. And vulnerable. All the male instincts I have are pinging.
“It's not common knowledge that Dee and I blink.” Actually, Dee's blinking doesn't teleport us, but Mitchell's proof that she could.
Tara stares. “You told me Deegan made some dudesʼ hands disappear.”
And other shit.
“It was an accident,” Dee says automatically.
I nod.
“Still,” Tara says, giving Dee a look that says, “Really?”
“They're not going to ignore that.”
I shake my head. “No, they won't. But Sanction's not in control of what's happening with the Randoms. And these guys who showed up at Jonesy's before we were jettisoned to bot—they weren't Sanction.” That's a no-shitter.
“Then who are they?” Tara asks.
“Well, there was this group back when our parents were our age—Helix Complex.”
My face swivels to her. “We don't have time for that story, Dee.”
“I know, I'm just getting the name out for point of reference.”
Tara gives Dee a studious look. “You are smart.”
Dee nods. “Not that it helps my situation. In my short life experience, being a smart female is a detriment. Men are intimidated because they want me because of our desperate populations situation and basic male impulse, of course, and they don't like that I hold the intellectual upper hand.”
Tara laughs. “You're not full of yourself?”
Sadness sweeps Dee's face. “No. Too busy surviving what I am to care about who I might be.”
“Wow, that's deep.”
Welcome to my world. Literally.
“So the HC has been wiped out. But that doesn't mean there's not some pack of weasels vying for round two,” I say.
“Your government might have a covert group trying to... what?”
“Recruit,” I say. “That's where this whole lot of bullshittery began, if you remember me talking about it.”
Tara shakes her head. “No, I got that you guys were in a”—she glances at the hover behind us—“hover-wreck, but I never really understood what the cause was. I mean, you guys didn't drive here.” She gives a delicate snort. “You mind-commanded the thing to arrive here.”
I grin at her phrasing. “True, and the anti-crash features should have disallowed the wreck from happening. But these putzmiesters have been after me for months, pulsing me constantly about joining their unique ʻteamʼ of people who make the Randoms into their full potential.” Another toilet paper ream of primo bullshit.
Dee adds, “So when we crashed, they were going to forcibly remove Pax, make him have an interview for their entity whether he wanted to or not.”
“Yeah”—I nod—“Dee's got it. Ignoring them hadn't worked. I busted my arm bad. Had to get to an Organic, couldn't think. They had weapons out and at the ready, and my sister was unprotected, so I got us outta there. Pronto.”
“Okay,” Tara says, shifting from foot to foot. “You stopped the crash?” She frowns.
I explained how I stopped the roof of the hover from flattening us like insects.
“Ah... how?”
“I'm a Body.”
Tara blinks as though vaguely remembering. “Like strong?” Her pale-blond eyebrow arches.
I try not to be insulted she didn't notice my physique. She should have been paying attention with the up-close-and-personal.
“Really strong. Four times stronger than the average man,” Dee says.
Not really helping. Because now Tara sees me as even more strange than she did before. Which was pretty fucking weird anyway.
All my hot-girl fantasies fly out the window. Nice.
I don't shoot Dee the glance I want to, but she gets some blowback.
Seriously, Pax? Are you, like, hot for Mitchell's sister?
Not answering that
mental tidbit from the sib. She's on a need-to-know basis. As far as Tara's concerned, the less she knows, the better.
Dee's lips lift in a triumphant smirk.
Bitch.
“And... he's a three-point Organic.”
God. In. Heaven.
“Dee,” I seethe. “Thanks,” I say through my teeth.
Tara snaps her fingers. “So that's why you're always trying to fix me.”
I chance a look at Tara, and she's not looking at me like I've got the plague.
Tara's looking at me like I might be doing something right.
That tight, shitty feeling in my chest loosens.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Being an Organic means a compulsion to heal.”
“You do a lot of damage even with that instinct running through you,” Tara says.
“Yes.” Can't deny what she says.
“Let me see, Pax?”
I don't ask what she wants to see. I'm a really low-level Empath. Hardly even a one point, but I know Tara wants to see me heal.
“You have a cut, Dee?” I try to get out of touching Tara.
Got a feeling about it. Like if I start, I might not stop.
“I have something,” Tara says softly.
My hesitation gets snuffed. Rage seizes me when I see what she lifts into view—and I hadn't noticed before.
Pulling back the sleeve of her loose long-sleeved borrowed T-shirt, she reveals an ugly bruise bracelet circles her slim forearm. An angry deep-purple fingerprint edged by chartreuse mars her fair skin.
Our gazes lock, and I drown in the sea of her eyes.
“That guy did that?”
Tara nods. “Yes.” Her answer is a soft hiss.
“Wish I could go back and kick his ass again.” I lick my suddenly dry lips.
Her eyes shine like midnight skies felled by the rain of her grief. She whispers her answer, “I wish it too.”
My smile is grim as I reach out, wrapping my hand around her tiny arm, thinking about a man that would hurt a girl.
Unreal.
Brad Thompson is an anomaly. A disease to be wiped. It's the one good thing that came from the blink.
And Tara, I realize.
Our skin makes contact, and my breath stalls from the sensation of bright sensual tension that the touch creates.
Her large eyes widen in acknowledgment, and heat drives through the contact, warming the tender area of injury.
“How?” she gasps.
I don't know how it works, and I sure as hell don't have this sexual flavor to healing when I've done others.
Must just be her.
Jezebel could have taught me a lot. Unfortunately, her ass was toasted in bot, and she became a murdering zombie. But I keep the cure for cancer locked in my head.
For the right time.
For humanity to accept my borrowed wisdom from a world I shouldn't have visited.
“Pax,” Tara says softly.
I didn't realize I did it, but I gathered Tara close to my body. And a gigantic hard-on is pressed between us.
Holy. Shit.
I try to pull away, and she shakes her head softly. “It's okay.”
I'm so embarrassed that my brain's stopped thinking. Sometimes my wood just chooses whatever time sounds good to stand up at attention.
Timing could have been better.
I release Tara's arm, and she rises on her tiptoes, her healed arm twining my neck.
Fighting every natural impulse I own, I move my face out of reach. Her lips, having been headed for my own, land on my throat instead of their intended target.
That soft, hot press of flesh against my neck does me in—searing her to me like glue.
With a groan, I sweep Tara against me in front of my sister and the headquarters of the scariest police that rule the lands.
This is why I'm not a numbered IQ. I follow my impulses to the letter.
“Pax!” Dee screams, and I begin to turn with Tara in my arms.
Too late.
The baton lands with perfect precision at the back of my neck, and my vision trembles. Then the scene goes to triplicate.
Where are my parents? I think with stupid delay.
Tara falls away from me, and I can hear Dee yelling at someone.
Then blackness descends with criminal swiftness, sucking me into the abyss of my lack of judgement.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Deegan
“Pax!” I shrill as the stick makes contact with my brother's thick skull.
Sanction police descend on us. The insignia at the breast of their uniforms catches the morning light perfectly, reminding me eerily of the Reflectives we barely escaped from in the Roman world.
Each officer, including a single woman, carries a solid piece of squat, tapered wood.
As those batons rise, adrenaline pounds through me, making every vein in my body feel like it'll bulge out of my skin. The fine hairs on my body stand on end.
The batons sail downward as they begin to beat my brother, who is defenseless.
Tara turns in what seems like slow motion.
“Do something,” she mouths.
Oh yes. Heat slams through me, the floodgates of my talent overwhelming the drawbridge I normally contain it behind.
I am the girl. That's why they went for Pax.
He was the apparent threat.
I give a relieved sigh when the first fiery tendrils of my power whip out.
At first, only the batons disappear, winking out with an audible pop.
One minute, those bashing weapons are rising like a river of wood to crash on my brother's unconscious body. The next, horror appears on the faces of the Sanction officers. They turn, looking for the source of what made their weapons disappear.
Their eyes fall on me then Tara.
They raise their empty hands, then clench those weaponless hands into fists.
“Don't touch her—or my brother.” My voice is low, controlled.
After an almost comedic and collective stagger, they come for me.
“Tara,” I call.
She sprints the three meters to my position.
Then Dad's suddenly there.
“Deegan!”
“Daddy!” I scream, tears clogging my throat. The power is a suffocating throbbing heat at my temples—I'm a nanosecond from disappearing them all.
The ground between the officers and me erupts, heaving jagged pieces of quartz at our feet like stone vomit.
Then the dead come.
“Live,” Dad says in a melodic voice, hands raising to the sky.
My own talent spills over, meeting his like a perfectly fitted puzzle piece.
“I'm sorry,” I say as Pax rolls over, groaning.
“Holy shit.” Tara's voice shakes.
“Yes,” I say.
Every creature that died between me and the Sanction now lives.
I lose my balance as the ground bulges, burping up an animal that's not been seen in millenniums.
When the prehistoric animal rises, I fall on my butt with a yip, jarring my tailbone.
“Oh dear,” Mom says, her hand covering her mumbled words.
“I'll be damned.” Gramps.
The Columbian Mammoth sweeps its head to the side and wipes out the Sanction officers with its tusks like a bunch of human bowling pins.
“Nice work, Dad,” Pax grunts as the ground continues to split, pouring creatures that break from fossilized amber casings, folding and spreading wings that shed crystals like rock salt.
It's beautiful.
Frightening.
The winged insects rise in a wave of soft black, hovering over the remaining officers.
“Oops...” Jonesy snickers as he jogs to the scene. His eyes can't miss the mammoth. His gaze travels up and up.
“Hart, this is—even for you—mammoth.” He chortles.
At least my power has begun to recede.
More Sanction police pour from the doors, followed by brutish zombies.
Poorly raised, if I say so myself. A ton of them have a solid case of black mouth.
I frown.
“Stand down, or we will shoot to kill,” the guy at the head of the pack says. He's tall and skeletal, as old as my dad.
He holds an illegal cigarette. That in itself is rare.
“Not going to bum a smoke from that chump,” Gramps says, standing a few meters from where I sit on my ass.
Tara's hand appears in front of me, and I take it. She jerks me to my feet as the mammoth roars, shaking its wooly coat.
Its gaze goes to Dad. Then it waits as only a zombie can.
Dad shifts his attention to me. “Are you okay, Pumpkin?”
The old nickname floods my eyes with tears again, but I bite them back. “They were hurting Pax.”
“It's okay to defend Brother,” Mom says, her chin lifting slightly.
I nod.
There are exception to the no-zap rule. If the family is threatened, I could zap.
The skinny guy taps his forehead, and a long chunk of ash floats to the ground. “I'm thinking,” he says with casual frankness, “that you must be the infamous Hart family.”
None of us say anything.
“We have something you want.” His fingertips are yellow from the nicotine.
How come Gramps can smoke, but I never think of him as dirty and this guy's somehow filthy.
I swallow hard when his dark brown eyes find me.
“Are you the one who made our weapons disappear?”
I stay as quiet as a church mouse.
“No, shit just disappeared, chode,” Pax says from his hands and knees.
“I don't think you're in a position for clever repartee, Paxton Hart.”
Pax lifts his chin, fixing his eyes on the guy and shooting him a hard look. “Well, fuck right off, pal, because I was busy, and suddenly, I was getting my ass kicked for no reason.”
Skinny Guy's eyes slim down on my brother. “Oh, we have every reason.”
The mammoth bellows, and the creeper says, “Kill it.”
“It's already dead,” Dad states in a flat voice.
This is choice, as Pax would say.
“You illegally raised this?” he asks, voice light.
Challenging.
“Imminent threat,” Dad answers with the barest shrug. He reaches out, touching the mammoth, and it nuzzles his head with its jaw.
The tusk brushes the top of Dad's head, and I shiver.
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