by JL Terra
Maybe he would listen and then leave. Daire had hoped Ben would come with them. Maybe he’d have to persuade his friend to rejoin the group. Surely together they’d have a better shot at figuring out who kidnapped Ben.
Daire motioned to the trail behind him. “We could find somewhere to get a cup of coffee. Talk it out there. It’s pretty cold.”
Ben shifted his head.
Mei glanced at Daire, then said, “I can just tell you what she found.” She scanned the note, though Daire had seen her study it long enough she probably had it all memorized. “It’s all medical, you know that. Roger was looking for specific genetic markers. He was testing blood. Trying to find a link between the subject and someone named Charlota Katzova.”
In the moonlight, Daire saw a muscle beside Ben’s eye twitch.
Whoever that female was, Ben knew her.
“He never found what he was looking for.” Mei went quiet for a second. “Not even with me, though that’s not a surprise since you’re not my biological father.”
She wanted to do this now?
“Is Taya even my mother?”
Ben stayed silent.
“I have the proof of what I’ve known for so long. It’s in the journal,” Mei said. “You aren’t my father, because Roger didn’t find what he was looking for in me. And Remy doesn’t think he found it in anyone else, either. Whatever Roger wanted, it was Charlota Katzova…and you.”
“The life is in the blood.”
“I guess that’s moot,” Mei said. “Because there’s no blood between you and I, is there? We have nothing between us but a lie. And maybe we don’t even have that.”
Daire knew she would never cry, but he could hear it in her voice. “Mei.”
“No. Its past time for being detached. He has to engage with us. Now. Or we’re all at risk from these people.” She glanced back at Daire. “I want an explanation. He made me think I was his daughter.”
He said, “I think you are, in any way that counts.” Didn’t she know that?
Ben was so still. Probably hiding the hurt Mei had dished out. Daire certainly wouldn’t let her see it if it were him in this situation. He had a niece he loved. If she found out he’d lied to her for years, he didn’t know if he could face down the pain on her face. Let alone the cut of her words.
The truth often hurt more than any wound.
Ben had darkness in him. Daire had seen as much over the years they’d been friends. Ben worked to push back the encroaching tide of who he could be. He trusted Daire to pull him back from the edge, and Daire had—on several occasions. Right now his demeanor had nothing to do with anger, and likely everything to do with pain and hurt of an entirely different kind.
“We’re not related, remember? I don’t know what I come from, but it isn’t Ben Mason.”
“There will be time for this later. When everyone is at full strength.” He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. She might be upset, but Ben had been kidnapped and likely tortured. Who knew what injuries were beneath the surface. He turned to Ben. “Come with us.”
“No time.” Ben’s voice was flat. Weird. Like he had no emotion.
“Why?” Mei asked. “Where are you going?”
Ben stepped forward. He said nothing, just made his way toward them in steady strides. A little too considered to be natural. It clicked then. His body language. The way he’d stayed apart from them. Ben wasn’t exactly a hugger, but he wasn’t an emotional robot, either.
Daire reached a hand across Mei’s front. Instinct made him shield her from what was coming. And something was coming.
Ben stepped closer. A shaft of moonlight glanced over his face.
Mei screamed. She scrambled backward, pulling Daire with her. “You.”
Ben picked up his pace. Longer strides. Faster.
Mei yanked on his arm. “Run.”
Daire didn’t think about it. He raced after her, down the hill. Behind them, Ben’s footfalls were almost silent. Daire had to concentrate to track the man’s movements. He was coming up fast behind them. Mei’s reaction made no sense, but now wasn’t the time to ask her why the sight of Ben’s face made her run screaming. He knew this was all wrong.
She tore down the path. If she wanted to get away from Ben they couldn’t follow the hiking route they’d taken to get here. He would catch up before they reached the car parked at the beginning of the trail.
Daire took a deep breath and pushed his pace. Ben was right on their heels, but he would reach Daire first.
Longer strides caught him up to Mei, huffing like she was in the middle of a killer HIIT workout. She would keep going until she dropped. He’d seen her working out once. It was the one and only time he’d challenged her at anything, and he regretted it still.
Daire pulled on her hand and got her going faster, but he still kept himself between her and Ben. She shot him a look.
It hit him again that it was Ben who was chasing him. “He—” Daire panted.
“That isn’t Ben,” Mei called back to him.
Daire glanced over his shoulder. “We can talk to him. Why are we running?”
The dark figure looked like his friend. Talked like his friend. Okay, not completely. Yes, the thing he’d noticed about Ben that felt wrong was the fact he’d seemed…stiff. Daire jumped a tree branch and pulled Mei to the side of the path looking for a spot where they could change direction.
He doubted they could outrun Ben all the way to the car.
“No talk,” she said. “He’s just going to kill us.”
A gap he remembered from the hike was coming up fast. If he could get them around the grouping of trees, Daire would have a second to ready himself before Ben stepped close enough. He might have a split second, but it could give him the edge he needed to take his friend down. Daire didn’t understand who this person was that looked exactly like his friend. He trusted Mei enough to know she believed they were in danger.
The trees came up fast.
Daire called out, “Mei.”
He grabbed the tree and swung her, left to right, so that she changed direction into the trees where she could find cover. She could have pulled her gun and shot Ben if that’s what she wanted. But she hadn’t. Which meant this was up to him.
Splinters cut into his forearm as he rounded the tree. At the last second, before he let go, Daire felt something touch him. A tiny point of pressure. A fingertip.
Blazing hot.
It rushed through him like a volcano had erupted from that one spot on his arm to every nerve ending in his body. One second, systems normal. The next, five-alarm fire.
Daire took one step. Another. He went down on one knee on the dirt. The pain eclipsed everything. He forced himself to suck in a breath. Push it out. He couldn’t pass out and leave her unprotected.
Mei whirled around. “Daire!”
“Go,” he croaked. She didn’t need to stay for him.
Fire sucked the words from him. He planted both hands on the dirt and tried to breathe. Tried to stand.
“Daire. He’s coming.” He felt her hands on him. He hissed at the chilled sensation against the rush of heat running through his body.
His elbows gave out. Daire twisted his shoulders on the way down, and his head landed on the ground, facing Ben. Mei got in front of him.
“Go,” he croaked.
She didn’t move.
“Mei. Leave.”
“No.” She faced down Ben. “Don’t do this. I won’t let you.”
“You must die.” Ben’s voice rang through the night. An oath. A proclamation. The truth of it undeniable.
Daire pushed against the pain. Tried to think. Was this going to kill him? His whole body was on fire, like nothing he’d ever felt. Which, considering his life, was saying something. Seriously, would this be the end?
“Mei.” She would face down this killer-Ben just to protect him. The same way he wanted to do for her.
She backed up, close enough her legs pressed against him. Daire hi
ssed.
“Unless you’ve got a flaming sword of righteous vengeance in that leather jacket of yours, we’re pretty much screwed.”
Chapter 32
Shenandoah National Park, VA. Friday, 23:02hrs EDT
Mei’s scream echoed through the trees. Taya grabbed his hand as they ran up the path, still almost a mile from where the meeting was supposed to take place. Ben gritted his teeth. Stupid city traffic had made getting out of the airport take forever.
They climbed the winding trail at a muscle-burning pace. He’d been backed into a corner. He hated corners. Especially when the corner was occupied with only hard choices that resulted in the life or death of the people he cared about most. He was going to have a serious talk with Remy after they found—and solved—whatever was going on.
“Go,” Daire yelled. He sounded in pain.
“No,” Mei called back. “I’m not leaving.”
Finally, they came into view. Ben’s jaw hurt from clenching his teeth so hard, but the pain was nothing compared to the scene before him. It ripped through his mind as he processed it. Rending everything he’d believed for so long and all his good intentions. Daire was on the ground. Mei had backed up against a tree. A man dressed in the exact clothes Ben had worn the past few days stood before her. His hair was the same.
Ben’s foot landed on a branch and so it snapped, an audible crack. The man spun around. Gotcha. Ben stared at his own face. Words died on his tongue as his brain tried to process the mirror image of himself.
The person turned back to Mei, fingers outstretched. He was going to touch her.
Ben’s mind flashed with images. Memories he’d seen during his captivity. However they’d called them up in his mind, he now knew exactly what that thing was going to do. Mei would be his next victim, and Ben would have to live the rest of his life with two new memories.
One of killing her.
One of watching her die.
“No.” Taya cried out and raced to her. Ben matched her pace. When Taya moved in front of Mei, Ben moved in front of Taya and faced down this thing. She said, “If you want to kill her, you’ll have to kill me as well.”
Ben hated the fear in Taya’s voice. She’d raised Mei, cared for her. Taught her. Lost her. Found her. Let her go to live her own life.
The lookalike cocked his head at her words. His gaze moved through them, surveying. Trying to figure out what this was. Ben was seriously confused, too. Beyond it, Daire fought for breath. If they didn’t get out of here soon—and get Daire to a hospital—he probably wasn’t going to make it.
“Go.” Ben echoed Daire’s command to Mei.
Neither Taya, nor Mei, moved.
“Both of you, go.”
“No.” Taya shifted, and he felt her hand on his back. “We’re not leaving.”
Now she wanted to act like a family? She’d deemed it too risky for them to stay in the same place. If we all live together, someone will find us. The CIA, or a bigger threat. It didn’t matter, not during that time. He’d been hunted for close to five years before he turned the tables and eliminated the danger. By then, Mei had no idea who he was.
Fear had ruled Taya’s decision to separate him from Mei’s life. Ben had allowed her to make the decision anyway.
“Daire?”
His friend didn’t respond.
“That’s the thing that took me.” Mei’s voice shook. “He touched me. I couldn’t move, but I knew what was happening.”
So the creature could touch without killing? Ben stored that in the mental bank of what he knew about this thing—which was slightly north of nothing that would actually be helpful. He figured the blow to Daire was meant to be deadly. Though, Ben could see slight movement in his chest.
Taya’s touch on his back turned to a grip of his T-shirt. “Roger is dead now. I stabbed him through the heart myself. There’s no one commanding you.”
Ben stared down the creature. “You aren’t going to kill Mei.” He wouldn’t let Taya live with more guilt than she already had.
They were at a standoff. If he got Mei away from it, would it return later to take her out? Everyone who knew about this thing’s existence had been sent from this world by its hand. Gone on to the life beyond this one.
He wasn’t going to let that happen here. Mei was more than a name on a list in Roger’s notebook that had yet to be scratched out. More people knew about this thing now. A whole group were hunting it. In his illness, Roger had failed to comprehend the extent of the threat.
Ben wasn’t going to be so naïve.
Taya shifted behind him. Her grip loosened from his shirt, and she pressed a hard thing into his back. Ben reached back and palmed the gun. Thoughts warred for dominance in his mind, questions. Mysteries. Memories. Ben forced them to part like the Red Sea and lifted it. He aimed and fired so fast the creature didn’t have time to blink. If he was even capable.
Ben put six rounds center mass.
Click. He stopped firing.
The creature just stared. The skin around its nose crinkled for a second, and it looked down. The hole over its heart was bigger, at least two bullets had gone in there. Liquid mud oozed from the holes in its chest.
Ben’s own chest sparked with a dull ache. He blew out a breath, touched his sternum. “Ouch.”
He’d succeeded in hurting himself. At least vicariously.
If he discovered a way to kill this thing, would it kill Ben as well? Or would they both live on? It could end the life of everyone he cared about. Currently no one was controlling it, still on orders from dead Roger. He and this lookalike had a connection Ben couldn’t begin to fathom. The list of things he didn’t know but needed to, in order to deal with this, was longer than the Nile River.
A place he had never been but remembered nonetheless.
“What are you?”
The creature just stared.
“Fix what you did to my friend.” Even if the thing couldn’t reverse it, Ben had to say it. “Undo it. Now!”
The creature did nothing.
“We’re going to leave.” Running would yield nothing. The lookalike had to let them go. Still, Ben commanded it just in case it would obey. If he believed he had authority to tell it what to do, would that be enough? He could only hope. “You will not come after my family.”
It stared right back at him. No expression, save a mild kind of curiosity. No emotion. No movement necessary. No shift of the leg, or twitch of fingers. There was nothing in this thing but what was done with full comprehension. Function. Meaning. It all had a deadly purpose. A trained dog would show on occasion a will to move beyond what had been commanded. Even if it was just to scratch. With this thing there was nothing. Did it feel?
Could it think for itself?
Ben gritted his teeth. “You will not harm them.”
The lookalike shifted.
They all braced.
Taya moved. Her shoulder clipped Ben’s, but he grabbed onto her. She said, “You’re not going to hurt her. Leave her alone! She hasn’t done anything to you.”
Ben hauled her back until she was behind him again.
The lookalike shifted his gaze to study Taya. Cold moved through Ben, a wave break in the continual heat that brought with it a chill which had nothing to do with the low temperature of the night.
Ben sucked in a long breath.
It shivered.
Goosebumps rose on Ben’s arms. The fire inside him flared a little, and heat filled his body. Was that thing warming him?
“What are you?”
There was something otherworldly about it, but also had an air of stillness. Like that second after a person took their last breath, when the realization their end was imminent turned to acceptance that death had come. And after that, nothing.
It was why Ben believed something more existed past death. He had watched that moment of…absence was the best word he had to describe it. Over and over again he’d witnessed it. Every time it felt like they were leaving. Why else mour
n a person now gone? Their body was still present, just in a state of decay. But if some part of them—spirit or soul—was gone, it made sense to be aware of an absence.
If he could remove or halt whatever gave this thing life, would it decay?
Daire lay still now.
Ben stood there, powerless to help his friend. “Taya, take Mei. Daire, too, if you can. Go.”
“No—”
He shoved her back. “Now.” She wanted to face this thing by his side. That simple comprehension was enough to give him the resolve to get her far from it. “Take them. Protect them.”
She had to know he needed her to help him by protecting Mei. By taking Daire away from here. That was the way their team had always worked. Distant, yet with a common goal: the protection of those they loved most.
Now wasn’t the time for her to change the play. Not when it had been working for years. Yes, he went on from here alone. But he went on knowing they both did their parts. He couldn’t face the threat and protect his family. He would need her help.
Taya touched his hip. The smallest sensation. Then she and Mei moved around him. Ben moved in step with them, his back to his family as they headed toward Daire. The lookalike rotated, his focus over Ben’s shoulder. Taya. Mei. His task. Ben’s will. They were all at work here, but Ben had the most to lose if this went wrong.
“Taya.”
She stopped.
“A clip.”
She didn’t question it, though he knew she wanted to. Just slid one from wherever she’d been keeping it and placed it in the hand he reached back with. Ben switched his empty for the full one and pulled back the slide. Released it. “Go.”
His ears tracked their movement as they retreated. How they got Daire up and out of there was testament to their strength. He probably weighed more than both of them combined, considering his height and theirs.
The lookalike took a step, forward. Diagonal.
Ben moved in front of him.
Standoff.
It stared at the gun. At him. “The command has been given.”
“I won’t let you kill her.”
Silence. Study. “The command has been given.”
“Roger is dead. No one’s in charge.” He wanted to ask it what protocol there was now. Surely there was an eventuality in place for something like this. Maybe not. He would scour the world if that was what it took to neutralize this thing.
