The Cure

by Teyla Branton

  “Then we’d better keep them unconscious until we talk to Ava.” Ritter glanced at Gaven, who was still with Mari. “Gaven, we’ll need to put them with the others.”

  Gaven strode toward us, and Mari glanced behind her as though preparing to run. Time to get back to work. Breathing in, I began absorbing nutrients from the air. I caught a hint of leaves and something fruity, not so much a taste on the tongue but a smell or a feeling. Strength tingled through my limbs, and the wound in my stomach no longer ached.

  “I’m taking her to the palace,” I told the men. The palace. The name my brother Jace had mockingly given to the sprawling rundown hotel where we’d been living for the past two months. At least it had enough room for all of us. “I’ll leave these guys to you.”

  Without waiting for a response, I hurried to Mari’s side. I could feel Ritter’s gaze on me, but not a hint of his emotions came through. Once I would have been discouraged at the backward step, but for now I was relieved. I hadn’t yet decided how I was going to play this.

  Ava had warned me that Ritter didn’t stick around, and I’d replied that at least he kept coming back. We were both right, but I didn’t know if I could share a man with whatever else held so much fascination for him. I also didn’t know if there was room enough inside him for both his obsessive hatred of the Emporium and his feelings for me. In the end, maybe I was better off without him. He was scarcely more than a killing machine. That was what the Emporium had made of him—what they’d made of us all.

  Mari’s gaze fixed on my bloodied shirt before going to my face. “I don’t understand any of this. It’s like a nightmare. Look, I’m getting out of here. I need to talk to Trevor.”

  It had to be shock that made her even consider going after him. “You can’t. You’re not safe with him.”

  “He loves me!” Tears started down her cheeks.

  I shook my head. “He’s a Hunter. Or at least connected with them. He was paid to watch you—you heard that yourself. Hunters kill people like you and me.”

  “What do you mean? Who are you?”

  The men passed us with the unconscious Hunters. Ritter had tossed the older, heavier man over his shoulder, while Gaven dragged the younger man by the collar of his coat. Mari stared at them, her face nearly colorless.

  “Look, Mari, do you know a woman named Stella Davies?”

  She blinked, her attention coming back to me. “She used to come around when I was young. She was good friends with my mother. They wrote letters and talked on the phone all the time. She still sends me presents for my birthday and Christmas, but I haven’t seen her in years.”

  Stella had stopped visiting because unlike Mari’s mother, Stella hadn’t aged. There were numerous advantages to aging only two years for every hundred that passed, but there were also huge drawbacks. The worst was that eventually you’d see most of your family age and die.

  I was one of the lucky few who had a sibling with the Unbounded gene. I had Jace.

  I tried not to think about our parents who weren’t Unbounded. Or our older brother Chris and his children. That hurt too much.

  “Well, I know Stella, too.” Now the hard part, telling Mari I’d been sent to watch her, that in the past few weeks she’d Changed. I put my hand on her arm and propelled her gently after the men. To my relief, she didn’t pull away—I really didn’t want to force her. “Look, have you ever wondered about your father?”

  “What do you mean? I told you before that my mother went to a sperm bank. I never received any information about him, except his general stats—you know, height, weight, race. That sort of thing.” Her voice lowered. “But of course I wondered. I mean, what kind of man gives away part of himself like that? Isn’t he even curious how his children might turn out?” She frowned, her eyes narrowing. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I know who he is. Or was.” He’d been one of the Unbounded caught in the New York raid, cut into three precise pieces, all focus points severed. No chance of revival. I didn’t add that we still hadn’t discovered where the Emporium was keeping the few Renegades who were missing after the gruesome attack.

  Maybe searching for them is what kept Ritter away.

  “How do you know? Tell me,” Mari said with a hint of demand that signaled an onset of the Unbounded confidence she would eventually possess.

  I explained it all—about Stella being her ancestor and becoming friends with her mother and arranging things at the sperm bank so an Unbounded became her father. How we’d come to Oregon to watch her for signs of the Change and how she might live for two thousand years. I didn’t mention the protecting part or how we could be killed. Time enough for that later. “So Stella is actually your fifth great-aunt or something like that. But she’s only lived a couple of centuries—that’s rather young in Unbounded terms.”

  “She’s here in Portland?” Mari’s voice shook and her face still resembled the color of paste. In all, I thought she’d taken it rather well. Better than I had.

  “She’s with a cousin of yours now—a fourth cousin. Oliver Parkin. He also Changed.” His missing finger had miraculously regrown last month, and Stella had stepped in to prevent him from announcing it to the world.

  Mari blinked and mumbled, “I have a cousin?”

  “Several, in fact. But only one Unbounded.” I certainly wasn’t as good at this as Stella had promised I’d be. I wished I could reach out and soothe Mari’s mind—it would be easy enough since I knew her so well and was still touching her arm—but I respected Mari too much to try to control her reaction. Instead, I erected a partial block in my own mind. Not thick enough to cause a total blackout, but enough to protect me from her confusion. Besides, I needed to focus my awareness on the darkness, in case any more surprises lurked there unseen.

  The men headed toward a clump of trees where a jumble of other figures lay heaped on the frosted grass. I could tell from the position of one man that he was dead, but life forces still radiated from the others. Gaven released the younger Hunter and took a syringe with a needle from Ritter. Making sure their captives stayed unconscious and quiet. A man dressed suspiciously like Trevor lay with the men, but I caught Mari’s attention before she saw him.

  “We were relatively certain you’d be Unbounded with your parentage,” I continued. “Well actually, not all that certain, but very hopeful. Your cousin has two siblings who didn’t Change, and a younger brother who may or may not. It’s too soon to tell. But we’re sure now about both of you, and we’d like you to join us.”

  Mari stopped walking. “Join you?”

  I held out my hand, palm up. “Trust me, okay? I know this is like nothing you’ve ever heard, but it’s all true.”

  She put her hand on top of mine, her head tipping forward slightly. “I—I want to see Stella.”

  I smiled. “Ask her to show you her ring.” I turned her hand over to show the ring’s intertwining yellow-gold leaves. “She has one exactly like it.” I hoped the connection would help Mari realize where she belonged. A proof of sorts.

  Mari let her hand fall from mine. “If I’m going to live for two thousand years, what about Trevor?”

  Even though I disliked him, I understood her pain. It was a lump that sat on your chest, invisible until from one moment to the next, it threatened to suffocate you. “Let’s talk about that later, okay?”

  She nodded, releasing a puff of air. “So that’s why you’re never winded when we go jogging. Because you’re Unbounded? Your body is always healing itself?”

  The grueling daily training in the wee hours of the morning had something to do with my physical condition, but mostly it was because of the gene. “You haven’t been out of breath, either—at least not compared to last month.”

  I put an arm around her and led her in the direction of the parking lot, taking a wide circuit around the sprawled bodies and keeping up a steady conversation so she’d look in my direction instead of at the men. There was no way to hide all of them, but there was only one she
really cared about and so far luck was on my side.

  “Are your friends going to kill those men?” Mari asked.

  “No. They’ll just wake up with a bit of a headache. We don’t kill people.” Unless we had to, of course. I’d once killed a man I’d loved—or thought I had at the time. His belated Change meant I hadn’t killed him after all, though death might have been better for him than his final fate, seeing as he now worked for the Emporium.

  Silence fell between us, but it wasn’t full of tension this time, and I relaxed slightly. The night seemed to be growing colder, which should keep people away from this remote area of the park, but I hoped Ritter and Gaven could finish up before some guy came to walk his dog.

  When we reached my new Jeep Compass, I beeped the door unlocked, but she hesitated before opening it, staring down at the shiny red surface. True darkness had fallen now, and her face was illuminated only by the lights in the parking area. I hoped she wasn’t thinking about retrieving the car she shared with Trevor, which they’d left on the other side of the lot.

  Her eyes lifted to me—large and brown. Tears made them shine in the reflected light. “Even though it all went really bad, I stood up to Trevor tonight. I wasn’t even afraid. For a moment I thought he might start yelling or even hit me. I saw the stick—you know, that stick we’ve seen by the bench all week when we go jogging and keep wondering if someone’s going to throw away. I pictured myself grabbing it and whacking him right back. But he didn’t yell or try to hurt me. He just stared and pretended to listen until those men came, and then he left like he didn’t care.” Her face crumpled. “How can I still love him?”

  I knew only too well. It had been like that for me with Tom. Almost worse was the dying of hope—which she’d realize soon enough.

  Mari hiccuped. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  Becoming Unbounded means you really do Change—not only physically but also mentally. Everything is different, including your dreams and all your relationships. Sometimes the new dreams were better than the old. I thought of Ritter and frowned. At least they should be.

  “It’ll be okay,” I told her. “I promise.”

  I drove as quickly as I dared to the palace on the bank of the Willamette River, through traffic that was busy for a Thursday night. Pain flared beneath my temples. I was tired after my mental delve into the Hunters’ minds, and I wanted nothing more than to get home and close my eyes until my body recovered. It was supposed to get easier, but my sensing ability wasn’t increasing as quickly as I’d hoped. Or at all, if the truth be told. Ava had warned patience, but after showing so much initial promise in New York, where I’d reached down a long hallway to ask a Renegade for help, I’d expected more.

  I guess once you become accustomed to being different—special—you crave even more. Purely a mortal reaction, I assured myself. Maybe after a few hundred years, I’d get over myself.

  The palace had been used as a warehouse at one point, and huge metal storage containers, layered with a mess of peeling paint, loomed near the dilapidated dock. A single rowboat floated there, awaiting attention from my niece and nephew. I would be glad to leave Oregon just so I didn’t have to worry about them drowning. They were so fragile, and though all of us kept an eye on them, it wasn’t the same as when their mother had been alive.

  Maybe I was more like Ritter than I realized, because Lorrie’s death was one of the things I craved to avenge.

  I parked my Compass in front of the ugliest container next to the other half dozen cars already there, all of which faced forward so the vehicles were ready in case of emergency. When everyone was home, we looked like a small auto dealership—a fancy new dealership. The neighbors probably thought we were running drugs.

  Which, if you thought about Dimitri’s experiments, maybe we were.

  “Welcome to the palace,” I said, flipping off the engine.

  “This is where you live?” Mari studied the two-story structure doubtfully.

  Seeing it through her eyes, I could understand the reservation. It was exactly what it seemed—a small, fifty-year-old hotel that hadn’t undergone major repairs or upgrades for several decades, except for the gleaming bars over the windows and the new steel-reinforced doors. There was no yard to speak of, only dirt packed under a load of gravel Ava had ordered to prevent our vehicles from sinking into the mud during the wet season. A single pathetic street lamp illuminated the area with a weak, grungy light. The exterior clapboards had been patched, and were currently three different colors of green. A sagging porch ran across the front length of the house, but at some point part of it had been walled in to make a small office, which we used now for storing anything we didn’t currently need. Most of Ritter’s belongings were there, stacked in boxes up to the ceiling. The rest was in the room we’d saved for him, and I’d made sure the room was the draftiest one at the far end of the hotel. The only welcoming thing about the palace was the front door, which my niece had insisted on painting a bright yellow.

  “Yep. Home, sweet home. Looks even better inside.”

  Mari laughed, a short staccato burst, and then bit her lip guiltily. She’d get over it.

  As we started across the gravel to the door, a man with deeply bronzed skin ran out from behind the metal storage container to our right. “Geeve me your purses!” he demanded in heavily accented English. He waved a pistol. A small one. Not nearly as big as my nine mil.

  For half a second, I thought he was another piece-of-garbage Hunter, who must have followed us, though I’d been careful to double back several times during our drive from the park. But a Hunter wouldn’t care about our purses, unless he wanted to verify ID, and this man certainly wasn’t an Emporium agent. His dark hair was lank and shaggy, his swarthy face unshaven. The jeans sticking out from under his ripped down jacket looked as if they hadn’t been washed in a year.

  My fear vanished. One common mortal thief was no match for any trained Unbounded—or even a partially trained one like me.

  I arched a brow. “Uh, we don’t have purses.” Mari must have left hers in her car, and I didn’t carry one.

  “Your wallets then.”

  I shook my head. “Sorry.” I couldn’t help sounding amused. If he wanted my wallet, he’d have to take it from my coat pocket.

  Mari clutched my arm, her body shaking. Her fear screamed in my mind. Apparently, she hadn’t understood my brief explanation about our near immortality in the park. I wanted to remind her it was okay, that if he shot us, we wouldn’t die. You even grew somewhat used to the pain. But she might not believe me until she experienced it for herself. Maybe that should be a requirement for all new Unbounded—to be shot through the heart so they realized what they had become.

  “Geeve me the rings. Both rings.” The man jabbed the gun in the direction of Mari’s hand where it clamped my arm. The cheap wedding band wouldn’t be missed, I suspected, but the other ring was the family heirloom that had belonged to Stella’s little sister, who had died at least a hundred and forty years ago.

  Pulling away from me, Mari began fumbling at the rings.

  “Stop,” I told her. No way was I going to let this jerk take them. Mari hesitated, her hands retightening on my arm like a vise.

  The man waved the gun, his other hand going to the side of his head, as if to hold it steady so he could aim. “I’ll shoot. I swear!”

  With Hunters and possibly the Emporium on our tails, and whatever was going on in Mexico, we didn’t have time for this, but I wasn’t close enough to lunge at him without some kind of distraction, even if I could disentangle myself from Mari. Too bad my Sig was out of convenient reach in my holster. The knife in my boot could be a good option, if I pretended to reach for some money hidden there, but truthfully, I wasn’t that good at knife-throwing, and I might kill the man.

  The only thing left was my ability. As a sensing Unbounded, I should theoretically be able to influence the actions of a single man. In fact, I’d done it before—just barely and with
great effort. That this man was alone and anxious worked in my favor, but the fact that he was a complete stranger and I wasn’t touching him were definite drawbacks. A gift in combat or speed at this moment would have come in a lot handier.

  I pushed out my thoughts, my head aching as it had in school after staying up all night cramming for a law exam. He’d been drinking, and I could feel his unbalance. The drunkenness would help since he’d be less likely to fight me. I pushed a little more. My head screamed.

  Looking through the memories of a conscious person was far more chaotic than with someone who was unaware. There was no placid lake or thought bubbles. There were only images from the current world around us, and ideas that felt like sand running through my hands. Glimpses that I couldn’t hold and study, but only peer at as they rushed by at lightning speed. Finding the right place to jump into the stream to observe was the challenge.

  “Does your family know where you are?” I prompted.

  Yes, that did the trick. As he considered my question, disjointed scenes rushed at me in the sand, like cars on a freeway. “What about your mother?” I asked. “When you call her in Dallas from the pay phone tonight, what are you going to tell her? And your grandpa? Your abuelo? He’s a hero, isn’t he? What would he say if he knew you were doing this? He gave up his life to save his town from being overrun by a Mexican drug cartel. You know he wouldn’t approve.”

  The bum’s eyes widened and his face paled. His gun lowered slightly. “How did you know?” Was it just me or had his accent suddenly diminished?

  Something else in the sands of his memory, caught my attention: the bum lying under a sink, a wrench in hand, stopping to grin up at a raven-haired girl whose face radiated happiness. Then later, sitting on a paint can in a garage, drinking from a beer bottle and watching the same girl, tears streaming down her face, stalk to a small white car and drive away.

  Fixing a sink? Garage full of paint cans and tools? It was embarrassing that those things were every bit as compelling to me as the story of his grandfather. I was sick of dripping water from my bathroom sink keeping me awake at night.