“Sick like Nan gets?”
“Sometimes sicker. Sometimes they have fevers—they get really hot and sleep a lot, and sometimes they throw up.”
“Like Nan’s flu that time.”
“Yeah, like that.” Selene shifted her bag to her other arm.
As they trudged toward town, she stayed silent, hoping he wouldn’t ask more questions. She stepped around clusters of wildflowers and tried to concentrate on avoiding ruts in the uneven ground. But all she could think of was Nan, near death.
A few winters ago, Nan had caught the flu from a family who stopped by the stand. Vaccines and medications weren’t effective against the flu anymore. At least, none that they could afford.
Selene had lain awake beside Nan’s bed at night, worrying about what would happen if she died. Who would want to hide two Defective kids? Sleep-deprived, she’d hallucinated the hum of engines, imagined Infinitek troops breaking down the door to arrest them all and take Selene and Eli to a camp. Nan was in her seventies now. Healthy, but she’d seemed healthy before catching that flu, too.
“Were Mom and Dad ever quarantined?” Eli piped up. No hint of emotion in his voice, just curiosity.
“I have no idea.” Selene said tightly.
Maybe it was a blessing Eli had no memory of their parents. Selene had memory cubes full of family footage, but the holo gear died almost as soon as they got to Georgia. Now those memories were buried at the bottom of her trunk. Where they belonged.
“Well, did our parents ever get sick?”
“Why you asking all these questions, buddy?”
“I just… I don’t want you or Nan to get sick.”
Selene bit her lip and stopped walking. She knelt down until she could meet his green eyes. “I’m not gonna lie and say Nan won’t ever get sick again, but you know we won’t. Okay? We’re strong. We can’t get sick.”
Eli shifted from foot to foot. “Why can’t Nan be like us?”
Selene cleared her throat. “’Cause… we’re special. We were born this way, but she wasn’t. We’re different.”
“You mean… because we’re Protected?” Eli asked.
“Shh,” Selene pressed her palm to his cheek. How much had he overhead? “Don’t use that word.”
Eli furrowed his brow. “But if that’s what it’s called—”
“We don’t say it. It’s our little secret. Now and forever.”
Eli didn’t look convinced, and Selene found herself wanting to ease the worry she could feel emanating from him. So she began parroting what Nan used to tell her. Lies. “Almost everyone else gets sick. And when they find out that we don’t, it makes them feel bad. It makes them wish they were special like us. And we don’t want to make them feel bad, right? That’s why we keep to ourselves. That’s why we don’t tell anyone we’re Protected. It could make some people very upset. Do you understand?”
“I don’t want to make anyone feel bad.”
“Good. Me neither. So let’s keep it a secret.”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah.”
Selene stood, taking his hand, and they continued their long walk through the heat, trudging toward town.
Lying to Eli made her nauseous. But it was better than telling him the rest. He would change when he knew the whole truth. And she didn’t want him feeling what she felt every day damn day.
Trapped and afraid.
And too defective to do anything about it.
Maybe Nan wasn’t the only one with double standards.
Selene squeezed Eli’s hand lightly, her throat thickening as she remembered her words to Nan earlier. How could she have thought, for even one second, that she’d be relieved for Infinitek to find her? If they found her, they’d also find Eli. She might feel trapped and afraid because of the truth about them, but it would be nothing compared to Infinitek taking them both away from Nan and imprisoning them in a Protected District.
The best outcome she could hope for was to remain hidden until someday in the future when maybe Protecteds would be free again.
Bas didn’t believe in God.
Enlightened, intelligent humans were the only higher power. The saviors of humanity would be visionary men and women who reached for more, who subverted the system from the inside in order to change the world.
Determination, diligence, and dedication were the holy trinity that would save humanity. God had nothing to do with it. So why was Bas’s brain looping on God right now?
He never expected a mission to be flawless, but it was too early for things to have gone this wrong.
Bas shook himself and wiped a gloved hand over the stubble on his face, trying to ignore his own body and looping brain. But every aching muscle screamed at him as he continued his patrol through the muggy forest, and each slight movement caused his fatigues to stick to him, triggering goose bumps along his sweat-soaked skin.
Rory was resting with Nova while she worked on fixing their busted transmitter, but Lex had gone ahead to scout nearly an hour ago.
Too long. A holovid flickered on in his mind, and he witnessed the Pandemic Control soldiers finding her and Lex slipping the poisonous film from her fatigues, dropping it on her tongue so they couldn’t torture anything out of her. They’d toss her boyish, childlike body in a ditch. Her Path would end before it had even really begun.
Stop. The amphetamines and lack of sleep were making Bas paranoid, because he couldn’t shake the morbid feeling that this would be his last mission… that he should be dead already and the only explanation for why he’d survived was that something or someone was looking out for him. He hadn’t come that close to dying since… It had been a long time.
None of them should have made it out of that burning forest alive. Yet somehow, after hours of running and nearly getting trapped as the flames closed in… they’d escaped.
But making it across the quarantine line and into Georgia alive was only the first obstacle of many.
As he finished his arc through the silent woods, his ears perked. Was that a low hum?
His muscles tightened as he glanced up at the blue sky.
Still empty. Remnants of an earlier storm dripped through the canopy, and a drop splashed his bare face.
X might assume they’d failed when Val never returned with the hover and Nova never sent the first scheduled transmission. The Pandemic Control hovers had chased them off course, but at least they’d lost the bastards. As soon as Lex returned, this mission would be on track again.
Bas kept his gun ready, staying low as he completed his perimeter sweep and reached an area of dense foliage where they’d made camp—this was also the place where the green undergrowth turned brown. Just ahead, the plants were half-dead in strange, withered clumps, wet from the earlier storm, rotting where they stood. It looked like some kind of blight… These plants weren’t dying from drought… Bas’s vision blurred. He didn’t have the time or mental clarity to waste on diseased vegetation.
He needed another stim. Now. He turned and pushed back into the thicket.
Nova and Rory both had their guns out and on him as he reached their hiding spot.
“It’s all clear,” Bas said quietly. “I just need another stim.”
Rory holstered his gun and tossed Bas a dose of amphetamine from the medkit. Bas swallowed it with a quick swig from his canteen.
Bullets had shattered the transmitter’s casing, and Nova was still working on it, a scowl on her face. Her black hair had fallen out of her ponytail, and it hung in her eye as she shined her flashlight on the loose parts arrayed in front of her.
“That thing’s in more pieces than when I left,” Bas said, keeping his voice low. “How long?”
Nova blew the hair out of her face. “Go ahead and ask me one more time.”
“Work faster. Then I won’t have to.”
“Bas,” Rory said. “You eat?”
Bas forced himself to uncl
ench his jaw. He’d been grinding his teeth from the stims. “No. I need to do another sweep.”
“When Lex gets back, we all need to be ready,” Rory replied. “Eat. I can stand watch.”
Rory looked even more exhausted than Bas felt. His red-blond hair was dirty and matted in places, his freckled face was smeared with soot, and the wound on his head had scabbed over. He’d been in the middle of changing the bloodied bandage on his arm when Bas had come back. At least he’d heal quickly—another Protected perk.
“Your head feel better?” Bas asked.
“No more damaged than usual.” Rory tried to grin but grimaced as the wound moved. He tore away the rest of his bandage, exposing the gunshot wound on his right arm. “At least it went straight through. Thought I was done for when I went down.”
“Couldn’t leave ya there,” Bas said gruffly. “Who’d save my ass the next time?”
“Good point.”
Bas watched the trees with his gun raised, wishing the pill would kick in already. His gaze darted to the exposed tattoo on Rory’s wrist: the symbol of Haven—a five-pointed star. It covered up an older scar—a raised infinity-symbol shape left by the machine they’d had to use to safely remove his Protected disc.
Rage stirred in his blood for a half second before he calmed that shit down and shoved it back into the box where it belonged. What the hell was wrong with him today, remembering all the things he’d resolutely put behind him? As X always said, “Every second spent focusing on the past is a moment stolen from the fight for a better future.”
Rory started rifling through the medkit with his other hand and nearly spilled it.
“What do you need?” Bas asked, stooping to help.
“Uh, I’m kind of a pro at field medicine,” Rory raised his brows at Bas and pulled the medkit closer. “I got this. Plus, there’s the fact that I don’t accept help from shrinks. Especially fake shrinks.”
“Hmm.” Bas waved a finger in front of Rory’s eyes. “He exhibits paranoid delusions. The head injury suggests a possible concussion.”
Rory batted his hand away with a growl. “You’re fired.”
“Can’t.” Bas said, turning away again to scan the woods. “I quit.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Nova ripped a wire from the transmitter. “Can you two shut up, so I can focus?”
Bas’s stim began to work. His mind cleared, everything around him coming into focus as a sense of calm flowed through him. He raised his weapon, watching and listening for any sign of Coalition troops… but hoping to catch sight of Lex.
His “fake shrink” gig had been part of his last big mission eleven months ago. At a secret Protected research facility in New York, Bas had posed as Michael Monroe, an entry-level psychologist with barely believable security clearances. X had gone through hell lining that up, but he’d had confidence Bas could pull off the job. And he had. He’d stolen, then deleted, an enormous amount of Infinitek’s Protected research, including every back-up.
What he hadn’t planned on was Lex. He’d rescued her against protocol, compelled by some kind of… gut instinct. He didn’t have another explanation for why he would do something that reckless. Bas must have sensed something important and strong in her, plain and simple.
As a test subject, Lex had endured things no human should have to endure, yet she’d done it without losing her mind. Bas had risked the mission to free her, but he never expected her to attack Oliver Dalton, the lead Protected researcher, as revenge for the way she’d been tortured. The New York Protected District was closed down right after Bas’s infiltration, and Xavier had really let him have it, in private.
Bas had helped Lex recover and turned her into a valuable member of the team—one of the best scouts they had. She’d grown up in rural Georgia… she’d be in her element here.
So where the hell was she?
Rory leapt to his feet, bandage changed, and waved an MRE at Bas. “Haven’s finest.” He dropped it on top of Bas’s pack and headed out to do a sweep.
Bas reluctantly holstered his gun, and his muscles complained as he sank to the ground. Haven’s finest tasted like cardboard seasoned with salt, and he bolted it down.
Nova let out a quiet string of curses, ripping another wire from the transmitter and squinting at it. Bas’s teeth started grinding again without his permission, and he shot to his feet.
His stim and meal had charged him up, easing his aches and bringing everything into focus. He needed to act. Not be stuck sitting here waiting.
“Vasquez,” he said softly, walking over to her, “you said an hour, tops.”
“It got shot through.” Nova bit her full lower lip and scrunched up her face as she violently ripped another wire from the handheld transmitter. She dropped it onto a sheet of plastic with the other parts. “I said I’d try to fix it. I didn’t say it was possible.”
“We have no idea what kind of shape Jeremiah will be in when we find him,” Bas said. “We need to comm Haven to set up an extraction point.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
Sherlock? Nova was a great tech, but maybe if she spent more time working on her skills and less time in Haven’s archives, she’d have the transmitter fixed by now. “If you can’t do this, now is the time to tell me.”
Nova jumped up and crossed the short distance to her pack. She took a drink from her canteen, not looking at him.
Bas followed her, his jaw tight. “You can fix it. Right?” He grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn toward him.
Nova looked up at him with defiant brown eyes. “Don’t fuckin’ touch me.” She ripped her forearm from his grasp and shoved him away, eyes blazing.
Bas’s heart hammered his ribcage unevenly as he stared her down. Just palpitations from the stims. She was still the same stubborn kid she’d been when they found her four years ago. Bas and Rory had been twenty, then, out on a patrol.
She’d lurched onto the dirt road, half-dead from hunger, wielding a knife at them. “Gimme your food, and maybe I let you live.” Famous first words for a fourteen-year-old kid with two guns pointed at her head.
Rory had been the one to talk her down. Good thing. Bas probably would have shot her on sight.
“Can you fix the transmitter or not?” Bas asked, drawing the words out.
“Val…” Nova sucked in a breath and looked away.
Bas took a deep breath and repeated what he’d told the entire team earlier, when they’d first made camp. “Valerie walked the path and died well, doing exactly what she was meant to. We need to focus on our mission. We can celebrate her life and her sacrifice once we’re back at Haven.”
“I know. That’s not…” Nova shrugged out of his grasp. “Val sacrificed herself and our transport out of here! Even if I get the transmitter working, how’s Haven supposed to get another hover in here to extract us? The Coalition knows we’re here. If—”
“No.” Bas shook his head, cutting her off. “Xavier will send another hover, and they’ll make it in. He won’t leave us here, and we will make it back over the line with Jeremiah. You just worry about fixing that transmitter.”
Nova pressed her lips together, brow furrowed, and Bas watched her carefully.
“Take another stim,” he said. “And a half dose of grimp to get yourself under control. Your emotions are affecting your ability to do your job.”
“I never knew you were such an expert on feelings.” Her eyes widened, too bright, and she cocked her head to the side. “Do you have any more advice for how I can better control mine?”
Bas opened his mouth to insist she take the grimp, but an odd half-smile suddenly curved on her lips, and she looked back at the transmitter.
“Actually, I don’t think I can fix it,” she said in a rush, her smile turning into an outright grin. “Bas—”
“And you’re smiling, why?” His jaw tightened. “Failure isn’t an option. What do you need?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Nova n
arrowed her eyes. “A time-traveling toolbox full of specialized gear from a hundred years ago?”
Bas wiped a hand down his face, trying to think.
“Bas, just listen to me—”
He held up a hand as a distant sound reached his ears. “Wait.”
Nova pushed his raised hand down. “I’m trying to tell you—”
“Shut up.”
Bas grabbed Nova’s sleeve, twisting the fabric, and her deep brown eyes glanced up through the trees.
A low hum.
And this time it wasn’t a hallucination.
The Coalition had found them.
The hum intensified, so loud Bas could feel the vibrations buzzing in the air.
Aircraft. Not one. A lot of them, moving fast.
Too many, too close to outrun.
Bas wrapped an arm around Nova and shoved them both up against the nearest tree. The wind picked up, and the hum quickly grew to a deafening roar.
Adrenaline surged through him as he glanced around for a better hiding spot. He pulled her down low and dove to the right, dragging her beneath a thick, leafy plant.
Side by side, they stared up through the leaves. The fir trees high above rocked in the artificial breeze, and the wind whipped strands of Nova’s dark hair into Bas’s eyes. He reflexively wrapped his arms around her, clutching her to his chest, his muscles tight. His heart pounded unevenly, threatening to burst from his chest. Or maybe it was Nova’s heart, beating out of sync with his.
Darkness blotted out the sun—and Bas’s eyes adjusted as he sought the cause.
A sleek black Pandemic Control hover had appeared directly overhead.
Another followed behind it.
Then another.
Oblong silver ships—Medicports—coasted into view after them, blocking out even more of the sky. The Coalition gunships were escorting transports filled with Pandemic Control supplies and personnel.
There would be no escaping this fleet if one of those pilots noticed them down here.
Defective (Fractured Era Book 1) Page 7
