by Roxie Noir
All she could hear was muffled voices and footsteps, then nothing. She couldn’t even tell what direction they were coming from or where they were going, and she balled her hands up in frustration.
Come on, Zach, she thought. Don’t be stupid, whatever you’re doing.
“Sit down,” Pete said.
She flipped him off.
How many guys ran away? she thought. There were only three guys left, besides the injured ones and Pete.
Did two of them leave?
Was it one, or was it two?
Katrina turned back to the desk in the lab, looking at all the electronics on it one more time, desperate to think of something.
“Sit,” Pete said.
This time his voice was more dangerous, more threatening.
He’ll hurt me, Katrina realized. If I’m between him and his billion dollars, he’ll hurt me.
Knowing that made it easier.
“No,” she said. She rested her hands on the tabletop and tried to keep her heart from beating quite so loudly.
“I’m in charge right now,” he said. He was closer, almost close enough. Adrenaline spiked through Katrina’s veins.
“And I said,” Pete said, taking another step. “Sit down.”
Katrina took a deep breath.
Then she grabbed the heavy steel stand displaying the robot hand, whirled around, and clocked Pete. The hand flew off to the ground and Pete stumbled back, looking baffled and confused. She hadn’t gotten him squarely — not enough to knock him out, just enough to confuse him.
Pete’s glasses fell off and Katrina felt them crunch under her feet. Then she swung again.
This time she connected, and Pete fell to the floor like a rag doll.
Everything went silent.
Katrina froze.
Oh my God I really just did that, she thought, and looked down at the display stand in her hands.
I guess sometimes the simplest solution is the best.
There was a knock at the door.
“Everything okay?” a deep male voice said.
Katrina ran to the door, weapon still in hand. She stood behind it, her heart thundering.
“Help!” she screamed. “He’s in here!”
The door opened, and a head with big ears and short hair came through.
He never even saw what knocked him out.
17. Zach
Zach crouched in the stairwell, naked and human, and pushed the door open slowly.
Nothing.
He crept out and peeked into the lobby, all sleek windows and angles, a single security desk in the middle.
Still nothing.
I wish shifting included pants, he thought, and then he made a run for the security desk, just as the door to to the rest of the building burst open.
Zach dove below the desk, praying that whoever it was couldn’t see him.
He held his breath as the footsteps got closer and closer, running now, and Zach frowned.
They were light and quick, not at all the footsteps he was expecting —
He peeked out of from under the desk as Katrina rounded it.
“Oh!” she yelped, practically jumping in the air and clapping one hand over her mouth.
“Shh!” said Zach. “It’s me!”
“Shit, Zach,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just trying to find you, but I guess we can get out of here, then.”
Katrina shook her head.
“Not just yet,” she said, and a focused, determined look came into her blue eyes. She pointed at the bank of monitors on the desk.
“Can you get the hard drive out of there?” she asked.
Zach glanced at the computer set up. Not complicated at all.
“Sure,” he said.
“Do that,” Katrina said. “Give me five minutes.”
“I don’t know if—”
She was already through the door.
Zach sighed and looked at the computer, hoping the guys upstairs searching the air conditioning ducts didn’t hurry up too much.
18. Katrina
Of course Chuck had his password on a post-it note in his desk. He’d kept a backup badge there, so why not just compromise all possible security measures at once?
Katrina rooted through his desk until she found a USB drive and plugged it in. It didn’t take her long at all to copy over the HTML files of ever email he’d sent or received for the past two years, then pull it out of the computer and switch the monitor off.
As she did, two things happened at once.
The door from the lobby opened and footsteps pounded through, heading in the direction of the labs.
And there was a thump on the office window. Katrina looked outside to see a giant bird holding a hard drive, wires hanging off of it. Moments later, she had the window open and a naked man was helping her to wrench it free of the frame, then helping her climb out and onto the grass.
Once more, Katrina reached into her bra and pulled out keys.
“This feels familiar,” Zach said.
“Don’t fucking quip, just run,” Katrina said.
When she reached the parking lot, she hit the unlock button frantically. The SUV in the middle flashed, and she pointed at it, glancing back at the building.
Two men barreled around the corner, shouting. Katrina yanked the door open and threw herself into the giant car, hands shaking as she scrabbled with the keys.
“It’s that one,” Zach said, already sitting in the passenger side.
Katrina grabbed a key.
“No, that one!” Zach shouted.
“You’re not helping!” Katrina screamed, jamming a key into the ignition and twisting it.
The men closed in.
The engine turned over.
Katrina shoved the SUV into drive and slammed on the gas pedal. In the rear view mirror, one man grabbed a gun and aimed, but the other man slapped it out of his hand. Then she squealed around the corner, two tires coming off the pavement, and they were gone.
“Head for the interstate,” Zach said.
“I am,” Katrina said. Her whole body was shaking, and she looked in the rear view mirror.
Nothing.
At a stoplight she finally buckled her seatbelt and adjusted the seat. Surrounded by other cars on the road, she felt better. They probably wouldn’t try anything with witnesses around.
As far as she could tell, they hadn’t even bothered following her.
“Police?” Zach asked.
Katrina looked over, then burst out laughing, even though her nerves were totally shot.
He’d found a stash of fast food napkins in the glove box and had covered his lap with them.
“I don’t have a lot of options,” Zach pointed out.
“We’re going to my place first,” Katrina said, still giggling. “Then the police. You can borrow some sweatpants.”
Katrina made copies of the USB drive with the emails, but ended up having to turn the whole hard drive over to the police. They were at the station until nearly two in the morning, telling the same story in separate rooms.
At Katrina’s apartment, they’d decided on what to say: the truth, without the parts where Zach turned into an eagle. Katrina painted Pete as a good boss who’d had some kind of break with reality, thinking that a video of someone turning into an eagle was real.
Zach played the innocent guy who just wanted a summer job. It worked beautifully.
Afterward, they went to Katrina’s apartment in Salt Lake and fell asleep the moment they hit her bed.
The next morning, the alarm went off at 6:30 a.m., and Katrina hit the snooze button.
Then warm arms draped themselves over her, and she smiled.
“Shit,” muttered a voice in her ear. “I have class today. I never finished my homework.”
“I bet the police can write you a note,” she said, snuggling back into him. “If you leave now, you could make an eight a.m. class.”
Zach just squeezed her
tighter, the entire length of his body pressing against her.
“I’ve got perfect attendance so far this semester,” he said. “And I can think of something better to do right now.”
Epilogue: Katrina
“This is it,” Zach said.
Katrina put on her blinker and turned right onto the long gravel driveway. To her left, a massive red sandstone formation hulked, high over the town of Obsidian.
“That’s Copper Mesa?” she asked, pointing.
“That’s it,” Zach said.
He reached over and put his hand on the back of her neck, leaning so he could see out her window.
“And it belongs to you guys?” she asked.
“Not for long,” he admitted. “A lot of the land around here is going to be declared a National Monument, and we agreed that Copper Mesa should be protected. So the Bureau of Land Management is going to own it pretty soon.”
“It’s probably for the best,” Katrina teased. “It sounds like the two of you already proved you can’t be trusted to keep it safe.”
“Hey,” Zach said, grinning at her. “It’s still there, right?”
She pulled her car next to a big, ugly truck that had to be older than she was, and she and Zach got out, stretching. Miraculously, she’d gotten her car back — it had been impounded in Coyote County, where they’d left it, but all Katrina had had to do was go pay the impound fee.
Testifying against Pete, Carol, Chuck, and the rest of MutiGen was going to be a lot less fun, but she still had a while before that had to happen. Court cases moved at a snail’s pace.
“This is where you grew up?” Katrina asked, as she and Zach walked over the gravel driveway toward the big white farmhouse.
“Sure is,” he said, taking her hand in his. “That’s the roof where I smoked way too much when I was twenty, and around back is the bedroom I used to sneak out of.”
Zach paused, glancing at the door.
“Seth sort of doesn’t know about that whole... drug part of my life,” he said, his voice low. “I probably should have mentioned that earlier.”
Katrina opened her mouth, but instead the screen door swung open and a slightly older, darker version of Zach stepped out.
“You must be Katrina,” he said, holding open the door with a grin.
“You must be Seth,” she said, coming up the porch steps.
“Zach talks about you nonstop,” Seth said.
“Stop it,” Zach muttered.
“Good things?” Katrina asked, grinning at Zach.
“Mostly,” Seth said, laughing.
He had Zach’s eyes, and the same sparkle in them when he was teasing.
Katrina squeezed Zach’s hand.
“I’m looking forward to the embarrassing stories,” she said.
Zach groaned.
“Is Jules here?” he asked. “Can I at least talk to an adult?”
“Kitchen!” a woman’s voice called out.
“Oh, I thought I’d had a psychotic break,” Jules said. She and Katrina stood on the back steps of the farmhouse, watching two huge eagles circle and spar in the sky above. “I was totally convinced that I’d finally lost my mind, and I was really in a psych ward somewhere.”
“Thank God,” Katrina said. “I thought my crazy boss had given me psychedelics, and I was a part of some experiment, or something.”
“I’m just glad Zach was there when Seth first shifted,” Jules said. “At least he saw it too, you know?”
Katrina nodded.
“Apparently my ex-boss saw a video of Seth shifting,” she said. “So they all believed it was possible. I thought they were loony, though.”
They watched Seth and Zach circle and spar for a little while longer, and then Jules spoke up.
“Of course, the first thing they do is roughhouse,” she said. “Boys.”
When Seth and Zach finally got tired of play-fighting, they landed as Jules and Katrina turned away, letting them put their clothes back on.
“You want a drink?” Jules asked.
“I’d love one,” Katrina said, and they went inside, followed by Seth and Zach.
“Is this from Garrett?” Zach asked. Katrina looked over her shoulder and watched him pick up a postcard from the kitchen table.
Seth looked over.
“I think so,” he said.
Zach flipped it over and read it, silently. Katrina could see the front: just a picture of two horses in a pasture, blue mountains behind them.
The Bluegrass State, it read.
“Huh,” Zach said.
“What’s it say?” Katrina asked. She’d always been curious about the third brother, the one Zach and Seth hadn’t seen for all those years.
“It says, ‘Great whiskey and fast horses!’” Zach said.
Katrina blinked, then looked at Jules.
“Beer?” Jules said, her head in the fridge.
“Thanks,” Katrina said, then turned back to Zach. “That’s it?”
“What it really says is, ‘I’m still alive,’” Seth said. Jules got three beers out of the fridge, popped their tops off, and handed them to Katrina, Zach, and Seth. Then she got herself a glass of water.
“I guess that’s nice,” Katrina said.
She didn’t want to badmouth the third brother the first time she met Seth, but a postcard? About whiskey?
“We’ve gotten two of those in a month,” Jules said.
“Two?” Zach asked, his eyebrows lifting. “Something must be going on.”
“Who can tell with Garrett,” Seth said, shrugging. “Do you remember how you used to come downstairs in the morning and sometimes he’d just be sitting here, in the dark, staring at nothing?”
“Weirdo,” Zach said, then looked at Katrina. “He always had trouble sleeping, and it got worse when our parents died.”
“So he’d sit quietly down here until one of us got up,” Seth said. “He was what, fifteen, though? We all did some weird shit.”
He put on arm around Jules, then kissed the top of her head in a way that seemed oddly protective.
Katrina narrowed her eyes, taking a sip of her own beer.
Maybe this is how they are all the time, she thought. And maybe Jules is drinking water because she just doesn’t like beer.
She looked at Zach, but it was a moment too late.
“No beer, Jules?” he was already saying.
“I’m not in the mood,” she said, shrugging like it was no big deal.
A very faint blush crept up her cheeks.
“Want some of mine?” Zach asked. “It’s really good, you should try it.”
“I’m okay,” she said.
“Not even a sip?”
“Dude, come on,” said Seth, frowning.
Zach grinned.
“Bullshit,” he said. “How far along are you?”
Jules and Seth looked at each other. Katrina stood against the counter and took another sip of beer. She had no idea where she fit into this particular family drama.
“Nine weeks,” Jules finally said. “We didn’t tell you yet because—”
Whatever she was going to say got lost in Zach’s shout as he lunged across the kitchen and then hugged her, very gently, as Jules finally laughed.
That night, after Seth and Jules had gone to bed, Zach and Katrina sat on the back steps and had one more beer, Zach’s arm around Katrina.
“I can’t believe Seth’s just jumping back into raising kids,” he said. “I feel like he just got done raising us.”
“I think this is different,” she said. “I mean, I hope this baby doesn’t smoke on the roof and cook meth.”
“Me too,” Zach said.
There was a long silence, and they watched the moon rise over the mesa.
“What do you think of Obsidian so far?” he asked.
“I like it,” Katrina said. “It’s gorgeous here. Peaceful. You can see all the stars. We should come here more often. Especially once you’ve got a niece or nephew.”
> “God, that’s gonna be weird,” he said. “Good weird, but weird.”
Katrina laughed.
“Don’t think about it too much,” she said. “It’ll happen no matter what you think.”
Zach laughed.
“Yeah,” she said. “I like it here. And I like Seth and Jules.”
Zach only had one more semester of school, and he was moving into her apartment in two weeks. He’d commute to Meadows, Utah for one more semester, and after that, he’d look for a job in Salt Lake. She didn’t know what, exactly, was going to happen, but she hoped that it was like this.
“Good,” Zach said. His fingers traced circles on her shoulder. “I like that you like it.”
Katrina leaned her head against him, and together they watched the stars over Obsidian.
The End
(Up next: Protector, the final Copper Mesa Eagles book…)
Part IV
Protector
1. Garrett
Garrett wished he’d written the address down. He could have sworn it was 1714 West Main Street, but apparently not, because the numbers on the stores skipped from 1712 to 1716.
Just in case, he went all the way to the intersection of Main and 6th, then glared across the street at the 1800 block.
This is because you left your phone at home, he thought. You’re just being paranoid. No one’s watching you, and they’re sure as hell not tracking you with your phone.
He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and decided to retrace his steps one more time before he gave up and went back to his apartment. He walked quickly, watching the numbers count down. 1728, 1726.
But what if they really are watching? he thought.
Logically, he knew it was crazy. He knew he was just looking into a car crash that had happened years before and driving himself nuts with the what-if questions.
But lately, he hadn’t been able to shake that feeling, that prickle that someone was watching him. He’d be sitting alone in his apartment and suddenly feel eyes on the back of his neck. His computer screen would blink for a split second.
