Mags & Nats 3-Book Box Set

by Stephanie Fazio

  “As in Zachary Quinto, the god,” A.J. corrected.

  “Isn’t he like a hundred years old?” Bri asked.

  “Ninety-three, to be precise.” A.J. said. “And looking fabulous.”

  “He was my favorite Spock.” Yutika sighed. “The eleven other Star Trek remakes since just haven’t done his version justice.”

  “Twelve,” Smith corrected. “But who’s counting?”

  Yutika’s sketchpad had just produced a dog bed that looked big and comfy enough that I might just curl up in there with our dog.

  “Don’t we have more important issues to be dealing with right now?” Michael asked.

  “Nothing is more important than Sir Zachary,” A.J. replied. He waved a hand, and pans began shuffling themselves in the kitchen. Seconds later, the sound and smell of sizzling meat came from the kitchen.

  “What’s that?” Michael asked, giving A.J. a suspicious look.

  A.J. put his hands on his hips. “You didn’t think you could hide hamburger meat in my freezer without me knowing about it, did you? And Sir Zachary wasn’t made for a plant-based diet.”

  “Neither was I,” Michael grumbled.

  Yutika gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze.

  A.J. was vegan, and since he was the only one in the house who actually enjoyed cooking, that meant we were vegan too. Some of us were more used to our diet than others.

  “Jenny Yang’s seriously paranoid,” Smith said in a change of topic. His eyes were closed as his screens flickered.

  “Takes one to know one,” Yutika sing-songed.

  Smith ignored that. “It might take me a little while to track her down.”

  “I’ll make lunch.” A.J. twirled a hand, and the refrigerator opened and began spitting out ingredients.

  Graysen turned on the TV. Unsurprisingly, the news networks were consumed with what had happened at the courthouse.

  “And here it is again,” the blonde news anchor said excitedly.

  My hands stilled on the bandage I was pressing to Gray’s back as a familiar image filled the screen. It was…me. The clip showed the courtroom’s wall blowing in. Sounds filled the feed, but Graysen calling my name was audible over all of it. Then, Gray appeared from the side of the recording and tackled me. I winced as chunks of plaster and wood rained down onto his back. Part of a brick struck the back of his head.

  “Ouch,” Gray said, reaching back and fingering the lump at the back of his head.

  The camera shifted, displaying Valencia racing right by the two of us as she escaped.

  “Some are calling Graysen Galder’s actions romantic,” the news anchor said in a bubbly voice. “Others are asking whether we can trust him to have Boston’s interests at heart when his loyalties clearly belong to a single woman.”

  “Seriously?” Bri demanded, glaring at the TV.

  The news station ran the clip again, this time in slow motion. They zoomed in, showing the moment when Valencia passed within touching distance of us. Graysen could have reached out a hand and grabbed her without even getting up.

  If all of his attention hadn’t been fixed on me.

  “That was super adorable,” Yutika told Graysen with a sigh. She turned to Michael. “Would you have taken a brick to the head for me?”

  “I would,” he said in his low, serious voice.

  “Oh, you’re totally getting in my pants later for that one,” Yutika said.

  Underneath his scruffy beard, Michael’s cheeks reddened.

  A smile broke out over my dust-cracked lips. Yutika and Michael had been dating in secret for months…or at least, they’d thought it was a secret. The rest of us had known from pretty much the first day, since Yutika and Michael couldn’t lie to save their lives.

  “Edwardian Remwald, Valencia Stark, and a dozen of the Super Magics are still at large,” the anchor on the TV said. “Members of the public are urged to notify the authorities if these dangerous individuals are seen.”

  My vision hazed out for a second when I realized what the reporter had just done.

  “They’re lumping the Super Mags in with Remwald and Valencia like they’re criminals,” I said, not bothering to hide the anger in my voice.

  They were kids…victims of atrocities so unspeakable a warning popped up on every news story that described MagLab.

  “Enough of this.” Graysen grabbed the channel changer and switched to a different news station.

  At least this channel wasn’t showing the looping footage of Graysen’s heroic/unpatriotic rescue. This one showed something far more disturbing.

  A group of UnAllied stood outside the courthouse, holding up signs and chanting. The camera focused on a giant flag that needed ten people to hold it up.

  It read Death to Nats.

  “In response to the recent rash of anti-Mag violence throughout the city,” the reporter on screen said, “the UnAllied have declared war against the city’s Nat population.”

  “Valencia doesn’t have the authority to declare war,” Bri said, incredulous.

  “She doesn’t need the authority.” Graysen motioned at the crowd of hundreds on the screen. “She’s got enough of a following to work all her people into a frenzy. The cops can’t arrest everyone.”

  “Even once they have Valencia back in custody,” Michael added, “it won’t stop her followers from being violent in her name.”

  “It’ll probably encourage them,” Smith said.

  The guys were right. And if an end wasn’t put to this nonsense, the tension brewing between Mags and Nats would erupt into full-on violence.

  My fists were clenched so tightly I was digging half-moons into my palms.

  “Damnit,” I groaned. “We had Remwald and Valencia. We delivered them to the Alliance on a silver platter.”

  And the Alliance had ruined everything…just like a part of me had known they would.

  I’d repressed my instinct to fight against, rather than with, the system. Graysen had convinced me that it was the right thing to do. Now, here we were, with Remwald and Valencia on the loose. And her followers were stronger and more determined than ever.

  The dog—Sir Zachary—licked his empty bowl and padded over to me. He jumped up on the couch and nudged my hand with his cold nose. His tail thumped the cushion when I started scratching his neck.

  I’d never had a pet, even though my cousins and I had begged for a dog since about the time we could talk. Ma probably would have given in at some point, but Grandma Tashi always said it was hard enough keeping humans alive.

  Michael was eyeing the dog’s empty bowl with a wistful expression.

  Bri flipped off the TV, and we all sat in silence and stared at the black screen. I slid down the back of the couch until I was sitting next to Gray.

  “It gets worse,” Smith said from behind his screens. “Other countries are saying the Alliance has gotten so weak we can’t even apprehend our own criminals. Pockets of UnAllied are springing up all over the world in response to what they’re saying is Boston’s failed experiment on unity.

  “Not to mention, the territory rulers throughout the US are getting emboldened. The Nat ruler of Providence has already announced that he plans to be the next leader of Boston.”

  A hard knot of ice settled in the pit of my stomach.

  After the Slaughters, the US government lost control over the country. The central government still wielded power because they had access to the Nat-only military, but the country had been divided into territories where powerful Nats and Mags killed each other to gain control.

  The territories were unstable, and fraught with bloodbaths when one ruler decided to challenge another.

  Boston was the gold standard for peace and unity. If we lost our standing as the most progressive city, the ripple effect would be felt country-wide.

  “This can’t be happening,” Yutika moaned, letting her head fall back and thud against the wall.

  I started when Smith stood up so fast his laptops went flying. A.J. rescu
ed them by floating them carefully down to the coffee table.

  “Time to go,” Smith announced, heading for the door.

  The rest of us exchanged a puzzled look.

  “Where exactly are we going?” I asked.

  “Jenny Yang just called the cops,” Smith said over his shoulder as he headed for the garage.

  “What’s going on?” Graysen asked, as we all scrambled for our shoes.

  “A lot of screaming,” Smith replied. “If we don’t hurry, there’s not going to be anything left of her.”

  CHAPTER 6

  It was a twenty-minute drive to Jenny Yang’s house in Cambridge. We got stuck in traffic in Harvard Square, so Yutika created a police siren that we put on top of the van so we could cover the distance in record time.

  Smith had the Mag cops’ internal communication coming through his laptop speakers. Since every cop in the city was on the hunt for Remwald and Valencia, no one had responded to Jenny’s emergency call yet. That meant we would be the first ones on the scene.

  “I’ll go first,” Bri said, opening the van door and hopping out before Michael had come to a complete stop. “Which house—”

  A bloodcurdling shriek came from a nearby open window.

  “That answers that.” Bri’s skin flashed silver as she sprinted toward the house.

  The rest of us were close on her heels.

  We filed through the front door, which was cracked open. As I climbed the short flight of steps that led into the main part of the house, I felt…something.

  There was a whisper of a breeze, even though the hallway was completely closed off. I thought I saw the smallest flicker of a shadow across the wall.

  Then, Jenny Yang cried out again, and I forgot about everything else.

  We raced up another flight of stairs and followed the whimpering sounds to bedroom at the end of the hall.

  I smelled the iron tang of blood before I even stepped into the room. I crossed the threshold and froze.

  For several seconds, we all just stood there. I couldn’t do anything except stare at the horrible sight before us.

  Jenny Yang was kneeling on a white carpet that was stained crimson. Her blood-slicked hand was curled around a large chef’s knife.

  Jenny cried out as she raised the knife. Her arms twitched, and the knife came an inch closer to her. She had both hands wrapped around the knife’s handle. It looked like one hand was trying to drive the knife closer to her body while the other was fighting to wrench it back.

  It reminded me of the stiff, uncoordinated way Remwald had moved out of the courtroom. Like he hadn’t been in control of his limbs.

  “Don’t—” I began.

  Jenny drove the knife into her own stomach.

  “Stop it!” Yutika screamed.

  Jenny pulled out the knife and plunged it back in again.

  Bri raced forward and yanked the knife out of her hand. Michael crossed the room in a few steps and sank to the blood-soaked carpet beside Jenny, who was soundlessly reaching for the knife Bri was holding away from her.

  “Please stop trying to hurt yourself,” Michael murmured, resting his fingertips against Jenny’s cheek.

  Jenny’s dark eyes fixed on Michael’s face for a second. The tension in her body seemed to ease a fraction. Something dropped out of her pocket and fell onto the carpet. She reached for Michael’s hand.

  His palm swallowed hers. Michael Whispered a few words to Jenny as her eyelids fluttered closed. The last of the tension in her body melted away as she sagged against him.

  “She’s dead,” Michael said in a quiet voice.

  For several seconds, the only sound in the room was our harsh breathing.

  “Why would someone do that to themselves?” Bri asked in a whisper. Titanium tears glistened on her eyelashes.

  “Her mind felt wrong to me,” Michael said, reaching out for the object Jenny had dropped. It was a cell phone.

  Michael’s hands and the knees of his pants were now rust-colored.

  “Could you get any sense about why she did that to herself?” Graysen asked in a hoarse voice.

  “She was terrified,” Michael said. “I’ve never sensed so much fear in someone before.”

  Bri swept the room, opening the small closet and peeking into the bathroom. She shook her head after her brief investigation.

  “If there was anyone else here,” Bri said, “he was long gone before we turned up.”

  I thought again about that strange sense I’d had when we came into the house. There was nothing tangible I could put my finger on. I wasn’t even sure whether I’d imagined the entire thing.

  “We need to call the police and tell them about this,” Graysen said.

  Maybe they’d bother showing up, now that there was a dead body to attract their attention.

  “We’ll call them when we’re on our way out,” I replied.

  The police would have questions we couldn’t answer. And there was no way we were staying in this house when we had no idea what we were up against.

  I illusioned all of us to look like a cleaning crew as we left the house. If any of the neighbors were watching, they wouldn’t be able to tell the police anything that would lead them back to us.

  We piled into the van and just sat there for a few minutes, too stunned and sickened by what we’d seen to do anything else.

  Michael started the car, and Smith pulled a laptop from under his seat.

  “Why would she have done that?” Yutika asked in a shaky voice. “Why would she have called the cops if she was going to take her own life?”

  “Desperate cry for help?” A.J. suggested.

  I didn’t have any other ideas. And yet, I couldn’t shake the sense that we were missing something.

  “Well, what’s plan B?” A.J. asked the silent van.

  “We have to track down Remwald,” Bri said. “I have questions about DAMND, and that bastard is going to answer them. I don’t trust the cops not to mess this up again.”

  Bri’s newborn niece died five years ago, supposedly because she’d been exposed to a DAMND baby. Now that we knew there was no deadly genetic mutation that came from Mag-Nat babies, I didn’t blame Bri for having question about how her niece had really died.

  “Okay,” I said, letting out a slow breath as my pulse continued to skyrocket. “Let’s find Remwald and get some answers.”

  “That might be a problem,” Smith said.

  “Why?” several of us asked at once.

  Smith looked at us over the top of his screen.

  “Because he’s dead.”

  CHAPTER 7

  What?” I demanded.

  “It’s all over police chatter,” Smith said. “Someone in South Boston reported strange noises coming from an abandoned building next to a gas station. The cops just got there.

  “Are they sure it’s Remwald?” Graysen asked.

  Smith nodded. “It’s definitely him.”

  Bri swore and covered her face with her hands. I wanted to say something comforting, but I had nothing. This whole thing was surreal.

  “Do the cops have a suspect?” A.J. asked as he scratched the little dog’s ear. “How did he die?”

  “The cops are talking to people in the area, all of whom are clueless,” Smith replied. “But I just found this from the gas station’s security camera.”

  Smith turned his laptop so the rest of us could see the grainy recording on his screen.

  The video showed Remwald approaching the building. His face was turned away from the camera, so it was impossible to see his expression. The recording was a poor enough quality that I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like Remwald was moving in that same stiff, jerky way he had when he was leaving the courthouse. I once again got the impression that he wasn’t in control of his own body.

  The building door closed behind Remwald. We were left staring at random cars coming in and out of the gas station.

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Smith muttered, as he fast-forwarded th
e recording. He tapped his space bar, and the video returned to normal speed.

  “This was twenty minutes later,” he said.

  The door to the building opened, and a crumpled figure fell out. The man’s limp body held the door propped open.

  Even with the poor camera angle and black-and-white, I knew it was Remwald.

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  “We have to call Pruwist,” Graysen said.

  My gut reaction was an emphatic no. Just because I’d collaborated with them once, my instinct to keep as far away from the Alliance as possible hadn’t disappeared. But Graysen’s instinct was the exact opposite of mine.

  He turned to look at me. “Maybe someone at that gas station saw something. We have to tell the Alliance about this recording. Maybe their detectives will see something we missed.”

  Several scoffs, including my own, filled the van.

  “The Alliance already foo-cocked up everything with this trial,” A.J. said. “Why would we involve them when we could do it better ourselves?”

  “The better question is why are we involving ourselves at all?” Smith asked. “This isn’t our problem anymore.”

  “It damn well is,” Bri snapped, showing a flare of temper that was so contrary to her usual demeanor. “Whoever did this to Remwald might know something about the whole conspiracy behind DAMND and how my niece really died. That whole lie existed long before Remwald, and that means he wasn’t the only one who knew the truth.” She glared at all of us, as though daring us to challenge her. “I’m not letting this go until I have answers.”

  “And neither are we,” I assured her.

  I knew that pain in her eyes only too well. It was the same look Ma wore whenever Atlanta or my father was mentioned. It was what I saw in my cousins’ eyes whenever someone asked them where their parents were. It was an expression full of helplessness, grief, and a sense of failure.

  It tore at my heart.

  I turned my attention on the others. “This whole thing is bigger than Remwald and Valencia. Bri deserves answers, and so do the thousands of other people who were told their loved ones died because of DAMND.”

  There was another reason I was so eager to get to the truth behind the lie. The protesters outside the courthouse today proved that the prejudice against Mag-Nat couples hadn’t disappeared. Maybe, if we could give people the truth about how their friends and family had really died, then the hatred toward Super Mags would fade more quickly.