The Butterfly Code

by Wyshynski, Sue

  “Let her go, King,” Hunter says.

  “You think I’d do that for one man?” He laughs.

  “He’s your prize boy, isn’t he?” Hunter twists Jarhead’s arms higher, and there’s a sick cracking sound. He shoves his head closer to the flame. The man’s teeth are pulled back in agony. “Your number one subject? Gotta be worth a small fortune, this one. Won’t be much use if I burn his brains out.”

  “Ease up, ease up,” King says.

  “Then let Aeris go.”

  “It’s no use, Hunter. You’re outnumbered.”

  “You want blood? You can have mine. She walks, I go with you. Deal?”

  “No way, Hunter,” I say.

  “An interesting proposition,” King says. “Do I have your word?”

  “Of course you have my word.”

  “Release my man.”

  “Not until Gage takes his hands off her.”

  King nods at Gage.

  His big arms, arms that once belonged to my best friend, release me. Still, he blocks me from getting back into the kitchen.

  “Go outside and get in my car, Aeris,” Hunter says.

  “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  We glare at each other.

  King swears. His hand is in his vest and out in a flash. He has a second gun. Hunter’s still holding Jarhead down when the shot catches him dead center in his chest. Acrid smoke fills the air. I put both hands over my mouth and scream. And scream. Kicking Gage. Punching him.

  He holds me back.

  A high-pitched wail rips from my throat as Hunter slumps to his knees. Those beautiful warm eyes are on me, and I scream again, driving my knuckles and elbows into Gage’s ribs. “No,” I shriek. Sobbing. “No!”

  Hunter falls forward. He hits the ground face-first and goes still.

  “Hunter!”

  Jarhead straightens, wrenching his own arms back into their sockets. Then he’s dragging Hunter outside, out onto the back lawn and the waiting helicopter.

  “No!” I scream, and try to shove Gage clear.

  “Bring her,” King says.

  Thirty-Six

  I whip around and flee.

  “Hunter,” I gasp, crying and running.

  Down the hallway. Over the fallen armor. Through the shards of the broken nymph. Past the dining room with Charlie’s Etruscan artifacts all tumbled and smashed on the ground.

  Footsteps crashing behind me.

  The front door opening. Men.

  Not that way. Sobbing. Hunter!

  The stairs.

  My hands wrapping around the bannister. My body flies up them. My legs pumping fast. You can’t be dead. I won’t let you be, Hunter. Where to go. Where do I go? A window. Bedroom window. My bedroom. Through the door. Slam it shut. Fast! Gage is here. Sticking his hand through the gap.

  I’m smashing his fingers. Racked with sobs.

  “Back off, dammit! Back off!” I scream.

  I’m so overpowered that the handle pushes straight through the wood and out the other side. My arm goes with it through the hole. I’m yanking it back.

  Caught. I’m caught.

  Gage wraps an arm around my neck and hauls me to the bed. Pins me against the Gothic headboard. My scalp smashes backward and my teeth snap down on my tongue. Blood. Engines outside, the slow whirr of a helicopter coming to life.

  “There you are,” Kings says. He’s got a syringe. “Just in case, you and I aren’t leaving without a sample of your blood.”

  Gage has me in a chokehold. I can’t breathe. I’m kicking. Blacking out. The needle plunges in, but the choking hands don’t let up. I claw at them. Then I’m gone.

  Sirens wail in the far distance, breaking into my consciousness. The blackness fades to the edges and I gasp, grabbing at my throat. King and Gage are at the window.

  King is speaking into his phone. Barking orders.

  Hunter. My chin wobbles and I clench it shut.

  The blood-collection tube is on the bedside table. And there’s my drug satchel. And through the fog I remember another attack—we took Gage’s blood. It’s in there. I fumble for it. I have to switch them. Fingers shaking. Digging. Clamping around it. I have it. This tube is shorter. He won’t notice. My hand is halfway to the table when Gage turns.

  “Shhh,” I say.

  “My blood,” Gage mutters.

  He remembers? I shake my head, frantic, yet it’s too late.

  “Dammit.” King snatches up both tubes. He looks from one to the other, uncertain, throws them to the carpet and crushes them under his heel.

  “Bring her. Quickly.” He marches from the room.

  “Come,” Gage says, wrestling me up from the bed.

  My hand launches at his face. His eyes zone in on the needle in my fingers and then I’m plunging it into his eye.

  “I’m sorry! Oh god, I’m so sorry,” I cry. “Just let me go.”

  He roars. An animal. Enraged. Wild. I’m off the bed, but his hands grab my shoulders from behind, and like that fencepost he tied into a pretzel, I know he’s going to break me.

  A metallic whack sounds at my back. Twice. Three times.

  Suddenly I’m tumbling to the floor, and Gage’s huge form, all two hundred or more pounds, smashes on top of me and I can’t breathe. In the next instant, the weight is gone. I see a rag doll Gage thrown, airborne. He slams into the dressing table, sending wood exploding.

  Ian stands over me, red hair flaming, holding a shovel. He looks as annoyed as he did the day he urged me to take my medicine.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  I stagger to my feet. “They shot Hunter.”

  “Out the window. Now.” He yanks it up and kicks out the screen.

  I get a last glance at Gage, who’s lying broken and still on the floor. Blood trickles through my old friend’s blond hair. The needle juts from his eye. I let out an involuntary sob.

  “Move!” Ian barks.

  Over the sill, it’s all clear. Yet it’s two stories down.

  “Jump,” he says.

  So I do.

  I’m falling, arms going round and round, and then my feet hit, hands second, the breath grunting out of me. Ian lands like a cat. We’re on the strip of lawn dividing Charlie’s house from his next-door neighbors. A sharp look both ways is followed by a wave of his hand.

  We check the back first. It’s swarming. The smaller helicopter is twenty feet up and I catch sight of King, with Jarhead at the controls.

  “He’s got Hunter,” I say.

  “I heard you the first time,” Ian snaps, fury pouring from him.

  We watch it rise higher, helpless. Then we edge around the front and huddle long enough to see the cars and men filling the driveway.

  “Now, while they’re distracted,” Ian tells me.

  “They’ll see us!”

  “No shit. Don’t look, just run.”

  We break from cover.

  For a second, no one notices us. Not for long. Shouts ring out in the storm-charged air. The grass is still dry and soft under my bare feet. I run for my life. We sprint past the first house. Veer around the side. Ian’s just ahead of me, his red hair flaming like autumn leaves in the gray light.

  I skid down a short hill. Spot the hedge. It’s thick and waist high.

  Ian clears it easily; my right leg gets caught in the brambles clawing at my feet. I call out and he wheels back, cursing, and rips me clear. The shouts are drawing closer.

  “Mirror me,” he says.

  “Mirror you?” What’s is he’s talking about? I am mirroring him. Not that I even care anymore. All I see is the bullet striking Hunter’s chest and the bullet hole and his wondrous eyes on me. No, dammit. How can this be happening?

  “Wake up,” Ian barks. “Are you trying to get us both killed? Follow my lead.”

  “I am,” I grind back, running at his heels.

  We weave through a block of smaller houses.

  “With your senses, idiot,” he snarls.

&
nbsp; “My senses? How?” But then, like light pricking through a window shade, I feel his consciousness probing my legs and arms. I nearly falter at the sensation, and gasp, “What are you doing?”

  A bullet zings past, driving into a brick wall.

  “Damn it!” he growls. “Are you stupid?”

  “No, I’m not stupid.”

  We’ve come to a dead end—a long row of attached houses. Ian is on the roof, disappearing over its peak. I scramble up after him.

  “Chimney,” Ian shouts, and we dive behind it as another shot rings out.

  Then we’re climbing across the steeply sloping rooftop, the scratchy tiles ripping at my soles, and I’m terrible with balance. My legs start to tremble uncontrollably. There’s an antenna. I fall toward it and grab on.

  “I’m slipping, shit, I’m slipping.”

  “You’re useless,” Ian hisses. “Mirror me or I’m done with this.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” I’m slipping farther.

  His probing grows stronger, more urgent. It’s not my emotions, though. It’s like he’s trying to catch hold of me physically. There’s a strange sense that my mind is splitting into two pieces—my rational mind that’s searching for a handhold on this forsaken rooftop, and a second piece I’ve never thought about before.

  My motor mind.

  The mind that allows me to walk without planning each step. To breathe without thinking, to speak without focusing on each articulation. A giant part of how I move through life exists, and I’ve never given it a single thought.

  Now, however, it’s drifting farther apart until it forms its own continent in my brain.

  My right hand releases the antenna and anchors into the roof tiles. My torso moves upright. My legs stop flailing and my feet catch against the bumpy surface. I’m doing it. I’m doing something. I glance at Ian.

  He nods. And I realize our motor skills are beginning to lock together into a single unit.

  Is this how flocks of starlings move in those giant, mesmerizing patterns? Not by observing one another and trying to guess the next move, but by communicating via a shared pathway? Why not? Just because humans don’t doesn’t mean animals can’t. Humans think they know everything about this world. We assume other species are like us yet stupider. We have no idea what goes on in a bird’s mind, or a wolf, or a butterfly.

  I spot hands at the edge of the roof. They’re here. King’s men have caught up.

  “Come on,” he urges. “We don’t have time for this.”

  He’s right. I force my frantic mind to try to reach out an ethereal hand to him. To my astonishment, a part of him takes hold of it.

  “Finally,” he grunts, annoyed.

  I release the antenna. I stand, arms up at my sides, balancing precariously. I can feel it. I’m harnessing his power. He turns and runs, and suddenly I’m running, too. Keeping pace. We’re connected. Completely connected. We’re doing it. I’m doing it. My feet hit the sandpaper tiles with certainty, with total confidence. My arms pump at my sides and accelerate me toward the edge. It’s his skills I’m using, his training coded into his motor mind. He’s sharing it with me, and I’m able to harness it as if it were my own.

  We’re at the far side. Up three floors. Ian’s jumping. I’m so jarred by the sensation, the realization of what I’m doing, that panic sends me snatching at control, trying to stop, trying to take my limbs back.

  We’re tied too tight, though. My legs keep going, clearing the rain gutter, landing on a garage, and then leaping to the ground. There’s a row of attached houses ahead. I spot several SUVs weaving down the street toward us. Thugs are running across the tiny connected yards, catching up.

  We clamber up a trellis, my hands and feet acting in complete coordination, moving me in ways I’ve never moved before, like a trained Marine, like a soldier, like a hero from an action movie. Like Ian. We reach the roof as one.

  We sprint across the top, past deck chairs and watering cans and potted plants. Ian’s ahead of me, and then he’s gone, leaping out of view. I follow, running blindly, leaping and landing beside him on a busy road.

  We’re standing in oncoming traffic.

  A station wagon is closing fast.

  My eyes widen, seeing it all in slow motion. The driver, a woman with blond hair. The child in the backseat. The woman’s hands clutching the wheel. Her mouth opening to scream.

  I don’t act. I can’t act.

  Instead, I close my eyes. This is it, and I don’t want to see it.

  Ian grabs my wrist. My legs leap into the air. My bare feet slam down onto a hot, smooth surface and keep going. Metal, metal, angled glass—the windshield—then flat metal. I open my eyes and we’re dashing across the station wagon roof, a moving automobile, and flying clear of the back.

  “Don’t fail me now,” Ian snarls, still holding my wrist as we leap to the next car and then a third, the drivers’ shocked eyes widening as we go.

  That’s when I see Gage. He sprints out from between two houses.

  Dried blood stains his blond hair and face.

  “Woke up, did you?” Ian yells as we hit the pavement.

  We sprint to the far sidewalk. The sound of a train clacks and whirs beyond the last row of houses. It’s the ravine with the train tracks and the bridge Hunter and I crossed over on our way to Charlie’s.

  We’re about to be trapped by the moving train.

  “We can’t get over the tracks this way,” I cry.

  Ian keeps running.

  Frantic, I try to sense Hunter. It’s all a mass of churning energy; is he alive? Am I sensing him or the agony in my own heart?

  We burst out past a cluster of dilapidated row houses and onto a wide gravel area. It stretches like a vast wasteland, a barrier between the homes of the living and the roaring commuter corridor that houses the train tracks ahead. In the approaching ravine, the cars whiz at high speed, a deadly, moving wall with no beginning or end in sight.

  The gravel rips into my toes, making me gasp as Ian and I hurtle toward the speeding metal snake.

  I glance back and see Gage, eye bleeding, his long legs eating up the distance between us. Behind him are the SUVs, bearing down fast. It’s only moments before they reach us. I might be able to follow Ian’s movements, but I’m slowing Ian down.

  There’s almost no distance between Gage and us at all.

  Ten feet.

  Five feet.

  From above, a whump-whump-whump of helicopter blades slashes the air.

  King peers out one chopper window. Jarhead is at the controls. Hunter’s not visible, yet he’s in there. The metal bird swoops lower. They’re fifteen feet overhead. King leans out the back door with a gun. He aims at Ian.

  And I leap.

  Impossibly high into the air. Flinging myself toward the helicopter. Nearly there. Not close enough. Jarhead angles the chopper toward me as if welcoming me, and my palm fastens around the landing skid. King breaks out into a smile so genuine it’s startling. He takes my left hand and hauls me up until I’m standing outside on the narrow metal slat. He’s still holding my fingers, crushing them almost, grinning in disbelief and pleasure.

  “Hello,” I say.

  With my free hand, I reach into my waistband. I find the thing I grabbed from the garden rooftop. The shaft of wood is long and smooth. It’s weighted heavily on top with metal. A hammer.

  I swing it up.

  With a crack, the steel head makes contact under his jaw. His head snaps straight back. Whiplashing skull to vertebrae, chin to chest.

  Wind pummels through the open door. The air smells of blood and dust and engine fuel. King slumps in his chair with a clatter of his prosthetic limb. I climb over his body. Behind him, Hunter is shackled to the floor with wire ties. His chest is a mass of wet blood.

  His head rises up. Half grimacing, he smiles at me. He actually smiles.

  “Nice one,” he grunts.

  I choke back a sob in reply. I’m already working to free his hands w
ith the hammer and my fingers, one eye on Jarhead at the controls. His lips are peeled back in obvious indecision: fly or attack me. I’m ripping with such frenzy that blood is oozing and it’s unclear if it’s mine or Hunter’s. So close. Almost there.

  Jarhead jerks the chopper sideways, superhard. It sends me sliding toward the open door, flailing to latch on until I’m hanging half inside, half outside the gaping hole. My legs brace hard. On the ground below, Ian and Gage are a tumble of fists and kicks.

  Crawling clear, I loop my arm through Hunter’s and work from underneath. King groans. He’s coming to. Then Hunter’s hands are free and Jarhead is out of his seat, one heavy boot slashing toward my head. I grab his ankle and try to wrench him off balance. He’s not falling, though. He’s reaching for my throat. His bone-crusher hands are fastening tight. I’m choking.

  Hunter’s ankles are still tied down, yet he’s on King and reaching into his vest. He comes up with the gun and fires, and Jarhead falls sideways. The cockpit rumbles as he smacks down.

  Hunter squeezes off a shot between his ankles and he’s free. The commotion rouses King to his senses, and he dives for the gun and they’re fighting. The chopper is out of control. Clouds and sky spin outside the windows. I leap into the pilot’s seat. I have no idea how to fly this thing. The ground is coming up fast.

  “Jump!” Hunter screams.

  I wrench a lever and we angle hard, still going down.

  “Jump!” Hunter yells again.

  I glance back.

  “Go, I’m right behind you. Go, dammit!”

  Flinging open the pilot door, I jump. The abandoned dirt lot rises up with sickening speed. Sixty feet. Fifty-five. I can’t survive this, can I? The metal bird descends with me, whipping up a small tornado from below. A sudden spinning motion takes hold of the aircraft. Long blades hammer the air. Hunter, get out! The engine lets out a sickening whine, and the helicopter turns faster and faster, gyrating and rolling almost upside down.

  Hunter’s dark head appears through the door.

  It’s keeling farther, the angle precarious.

  King’s got him in a headlock. Hunter’s hands latch onto the doorframe, and he extends one leg out. They’re standing now, both struggling on the landing skid. The helicopter continues to whirl and they disappear and reappear at dizzying speed. Dust and gravel fly up around them, a wild cloud of grit. We’re ten feet from the ground. They’ll be pulverized.