The Warrior

by Rebecca Royce

  Chad stared at the empty machines. They looked like giant water basins, but inside of them, Icahn grew life because he liked to think of himself as some kind of god.

  “Was I in one of these?” Chad asked as he walked toward the devices, leaving Deacon at the door. I would have preferred Chad’s sharp ears by the entrance, but I wouldn’t argue with him. If I’d come out of one of those, I’d want to know about them, too. Chad seemed much calmer than I would have been.

  When I’d stumbled upon the cryogenic status chambers, I’d freaked out. I shook my head. Here and now, Rachel. Here and now.

  “You were in the one in the center. You were unconscious. Just your body had been brought back. Icahn took me in here to show me what could be if I played ball with him.” I bit down on my lip. Not a good memory. “I guess you were right. He manipulated me to take myself out of your memories. The last six months I’ve been making it work, or pretending to.”

  Chad moved toward me until he stood directly in front of me. “It beats. That’s why you touched me there yesterday, right? Because you wanted to make sure? Since you’d had to stick a stake through it.”

  I nodded.

  “You staked him?” Deacon turned from checking out the hallway back to us. “Wow. You’re really badass, aren’t you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I can’t believe you’re remembering all of this. No one else has.”

  “Not me.” Deacon called back. “You’re still a total stranger to me. As far as I’m concerned, Chad has just lost his marbles and you’re some psychopath.”

  “Thanks, Deacon.” I took the bomb out of my backpack. Turning toward him, I decided I had one more thing to say. “Because once upon a time I was the love of your life. Or so you said. It would make sense for you to give your heart to a crazy, psychotic lunatic, considering how well matched we’d be.”

  “Oh.” Chad laughed, backing up a step. “She got you.”

  “Funny.” Deacon shook his head.

  “Although I’m not sure I like you making moves on my girl.”

  My heart stuttered. I didn’t know if Chad should say such things. Those were old memories. He wasn’t obligated to feel them anymore.

  Deacon raised his hand. “Can’t fault me for what I can’t remember.”

  “Quiet.” I took the shirt off the bomb. “I really don’t want this going off in my hands.”

  As far as bombs I had created, this one fell into the more advanced category. When Micah, Deacon, Glen, and I had been building them to blow up the Vampire lairs, we had used good old dynamite. We’d lit the fuse and run like hell. But this was going to require a little bit more nuance if I didn’t want to go bang in the process.

  In fact, I didn’t want anyone to be hurt. I’d set off the fire alarm before I let it go off. Everyone would have ample time to get out, even Icahn.

  My father had known a little bit about remote controls and hooking them up to bombs. Not enough for us to have been willing to give it a go when screwing with the Vamps. But I’d had six months to read the Icahns’ how-to manuals. A few loaded questions to Liam and Noah and they’d filled in the gaps.

  “How do you know how to do this?” Deacon had moved away from the door. These guys really didn’t follow directions very well.

  “You knew how to make a bomb, too. Did he take his explosives-making knowledge?” For a man who couldn’t seem to solve the Vamp virus, Icahn really manipulated the human brain beautifully. If only he devoted some of the time he spent being a megalomaniac, he might actually get us out of this situation.

  “Yes. I have no idea what you’re doing.”

  “Now is not the time for a science lesson. But basically, I put the TNT inside here. When I remotely turn this switch”—I held up the remote control—“it should set off a fire, and boom. Assuming it all works appropriately. If I had more time and about a thousand wires to work with, I could have rigged something more complete than this.”

  “You’re really smart, aren’t you?” Deacon’s eyes met mine. “Like really, really intelligent?”

  No one had asked me before. Ever. In the past, for everyone but my parents, they’d wanted to talk about how pretty I either was or was not, whether I should be with Jason. Then when I’d awoken a Warrior, it had been about my talent. Was I strong enough to handle the life? Strong enough emotionally to cope?

  But whether or not I was really bright? Yeah, Deacon’s asking constituted the first time anyone had ever bothered before.

  “I am.” I stood up. Some things I could be confident about.

  “Yeah, I thought so.”

  “Why?” It was time to get moving.

  “Because I’m just wondering how someone with your clear intelligence could have fallen for the act Chad and I just gave you?”

  “What?” I looked between him and Chad. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “There’s no way we’re letting you hurt the great doctor. If you want to blow something up, you can start with yourself. Or maybe Dr. Icahn has a better idea.”

  “Deacon.” Chad spoke out but I never got to hear what he would have said.

  A hard, blunt object slammed me down into the floor. My ears rang. I couldn’t make out a thing except a high-pitched squeal. I was stunned and my muscles refused to work.

  Deacon and Chad said something over my body. I tried to hear but the world blacked out.

  ***

  I woke up alone, in a Vampire cage.

  My head ached. I’d been hit a lot. In the old days before Icahn had done to us whatever he’d done, I would have had five or six concussions by now. But my Warrior abilities kept me strong.

  This time, I felt lucky to wake up at all. Tears stung my eyes. Wow, I had been so pathetic and foolish. I’d wanted to believe I was there somewhere inside of them. It had never occurred to me, not for even a second what I should have realized: they could have been playing me.

  I groaned. When they’d hid from Andon it had been show. Chad’s memories of the ice-skating? Icahn had probably told him what to say. And the way he had played me with the “my girl” line. I shook my head. Micah had left with Tia to take her away from the whole thing. They’d never believed me or wanted to help.

  Icahn had programmed them to be the perfect, loyal soldiers. He’d removed the Rachel Clancy factor from Genesis. The one girl who could never seem to get along.

  He’d won. How could I even have thought I stood a chance?

  I put my head in my hands and cried without restraint. It felt good to get all the tears I never let myself shed out of my eyes. They were going to be feeding me to the beasts.

  I couldn’t help but see the irony of my situation. Deacon had been trapped in one of these things once. I’d risked everything to save him and now he’d been the means to have me shoved in my own.

  The air smelled stale and the creaking pipes above my head told me I’d been brought underground. The darkness lit only by the subtle light of faraway torches confirmed my fears. I was in the Vampire lairs underground.

  No one would be coming to get me and unless I could, by myself fight off an entire collection of hungry Vampires, I wouldn’t be getting out of my dilemma alive. I didn’t want to be a creature of the Undead. I didn’t suppose Chad would be living up to our deal to kill each other. Not since he didn’t know me, and he’d stuck me in this cage.

  A bang sounded somewhere in the distance. Not a good sign. If they were up and moving, then they were awake. Nighttime had hit. The Vamps moved around below ground in all hours but a lot of them were sluggish. Too much activity when the sun was out proved impossible for them.

  Once the moon hung in the sky, all bets were off.

  “Rachel?” someone whispered out into the darkness.

  I didn’t move to respond. Better they should think me still sleeping. I’d fallen for the worst kind of deception. I didn’t intend to again.

  “Are you awake?”

  The more he spoke the more I knew the voice addressing me. Chad.
I really wasn’t going to answer him. Had he come to gloat? Meanness didn’t seem like him but then again I didn’t know this Chad at all. Maybe he’d been reprogrammed to be a jerk.

  “Are you up and just not answering me?” Chad strode forward, staring up at the cage. I kept my eyes down and watched him in my peripheral vision. Unless he came up to my level, he wouldn’t be able to see my eyes.

  “Hell, how hard did he hit you?”

  Tears still fell from my eyes but now I let them go silently. I wished Chad would just go away. Bad enough they were going to let the Vamps eat me. Did they have to torture me, too?

  Chad called up to me. “There has to be a lever to lower the cage.”

  Why did he want to let me down when he’d helped to put me in it?

  “Chad, did you find her?” Micah entered the room.

  Were they all having fun with this sick joke? I finally couldn’t stand it anymore. The tears I’d silenced came back on full force. So what if it made me pathetic? At the end of my life, with nothing but failure behind me, I got to be whiny if I wanted to be. I was going to die before I got to do a lot of things I’d dreamed of.

  In my past life: college, a car, losing my virginity. Now, I would take the losing my virginity to someone I loved. And the chance to rid the world of Icahn.

  “Rachel, are you crying?” Chad looked at Micah. “She’s crying.”

  “I heard you the first time, big guy,” Micah called out to Chad. “Go tell the others we have her.”

  Others? Were they going to have a party while I became lunch?

  Chad swore, which he almost never did. “I’m not leaving her up there. She’s crying. I’ve never heard her cry before.”

  “I’m going to get her down. You’re going to let me. Go. Tell Keith to stop killing the Vamps and get the others back outside.”

  His words didn’t make sense but Chad stomped off. Silence remained in the room after he left. If Micah had something to say, he wasn’t going to say it anytime fast.

  With barely a grunt, he rushed forward, taking a leap in the air. I gasped while the cage shook. He swung his legs under him in an impressive maneuver before hoisting himself up until he stood up straight, outside the bars.

  “Clancy, you’re crying.”

  I looked up at him. “Can you just do whatever terrible thing you have planned while I’m in here?”

  “We’re here to get you out.”

  Wiping my eyes, I sniffled. “Liar.”

  “Why would I bother?” He cocked his head to the side.

  “Why would Chad and Deacon do what they did?” I stood up, which made the cage shake. Micah had to hold on tighter. “Why not just turn me over to Icahn? Because this is all some kind of game. I’m not going to play it anymore. Am I clear? Whatever the end result you want happens to be, go ahead and get there. The mess-with-Rachel days are behind us.”

  “Now, I think you’re going to have to speak with Chad about what happened there. I guess I can see how you’d think he had something to do with it but Deacon hit you over the head and then he put you here under Icahn’s instructions.” He leaned back, making the cage swing. “Took us forever to find you.”

  “Why would you want to? You don’t even know me.”

  “Not true. Chad remembers you quite well. And I have some memories, too. Not sure which ones are true and which ones are planted. Either way, I care about you. My whole family does.” He shook his head. “So how about you brace yourself to get out of the cage and we can all go home tonight.”

  “I don’t have a home.”

  Micah pressed his face against the bars. “You do. Even if you tried to throw us away. That’s the thing about home; it’s the place you get to go even after you screw up really badly.”

  “I go home with you. I take a deep breath. I start to believe. And then you all burn me alive for Icahn.” How was I supposed to know what to do? No one had given me a manual to tell me who could be trusted in these circumstances and who couldn’t be.

  “Not going to happen. Some things have changed back in Genesis. Those of us with access to our previous memories have moved in one direction. The others went with Icahn. Deacon among them. My guess would be he’s so put out he can’t remember what other people seem to be able to he’s just acting the way he is out of spite.”

  “Micah….”

  He shook his head, stopping me from continuing on. “I want you to come home, Rachel, because I miss my best friend. Okay? I mean I know you’re Tia’s girlfriend. But, I think you’d agree it’s really always been you and me. Different than you and Chad.”

  His words made my insides warm up. Micah was my best friend. Blowing up things together could really bring a friendship around.

  “Do you remember the time-that-was? Or just the time before this one?”

  He grinned. “It’s all really screwy, isn’t it?”

  “Ah…yeah. Good word choice.”

  He reached through the bar and took my hand. “I remember I hit on you and you got barreled into by a Wolf, who had to be Jason. Other things, most of them have nothing to do with you whatsoever. Running on streets, skinned knees, and learning to fly an airplane.”

  “Micah.”

  He leaned back. “Yes, Rachel?”

  “If you are screwing with me, I’m going to kick you hard right in the balls. Am I clear?”

  He grinned, showing his dimples. The look had been the downfall of more girls than I could count. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Okay. Then just one more question. Well, maybe two.”

  “Are these things I could answer for you once I have you down?” Micah looked down at the floor below.

  “No. Still not sure I trust you.”

  “Rachel!”

  I could hear his frustration but he was just going to have to deal with it. “How did you find me here?” It seemed awfully convenient they could just locate me in some random Vampire lair.

  “Chad followed Deacon. He would have overtaken him but he had a bunch of guards with him.”

  I nodded. Against monsters we could win hands down; against each other the normal rules of combat applied.

  “And how did the others recover their memories?”

  “I went back with Tia and told everyone what you had said to us. It turned out a lot of people had little things in their heads not making sense. Unlike Tia, they had the good sense not to say anything.”

  “Micah,” Chad called, coming into the room. “If you aren’t going to get her down already, then I am.”

  I looked at Micah. “You know you have to basically break this from the ceiling with me inside.”

  He nodded. “Yep. Brace yourself, Rachel. You’re going to go boom.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Then

  Tia landed on her rear, hard, on the ice. I covered my mouth and tried not to laugh. She’d tried to get up three times and wouldn’t accept any help.

  “Why did you want to go skating if you don’t know how to skate?”

  She blew the hair out of her eyes and groaned before finally taking my hand to get back on her feet. “Because hot guys go skating, Rachel. Not all of us are just getting out of relationships with blond pseudogods. You’re crazy to give up such a stud.”

  “Groan.” I skated forward, keeping her unsteady body up against mine so she wouldn’t fall over. “First of all, my ex-boyfriend, who was hot, I grant you, beat up my dad. You can’t have a future with a dude who hits your dad. And what was even stranger was when he did it…he growled.”

  “He growled?”

  We skated together, coming into a partnership rhythm where I decided might not fall on her face if I let her go.

  I nodded. “He did. And as to the hot guys skating in this rink….” I shrugged. “They aren’t going to be much into us if we keep falling on the ground.”

  She suddenly grinned and I knew it had nothing to do with what I’d said. I followed her gaze to where a guy leaned up against the side of the rin
k, tying his skates. He smiled back at her. With brown, curly hair and blue eyes, he defined the term “boy next door.”

  I stared down at my friend and then back up at him. They would be cute together. With a tug, I moved us in his direction so we could skate near him. He stood up when we approached.

  “Rachel.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “What are you doing? They’re supposed to come to us.”

  “Who says?” I felt like living dangerously and besides, it was her love life, not my love life I messed around with. “Let’s be adventurous women. Men like it.”

  “They do?” She stared at me with wide blue eyes.

  I had never been adventurous in my whole life except for the way I’d disobeyed with Jason. But it seemed like fun and the guy clearly had eyes for her.

  “Hi.” He smiled, nodding toward my partner. I might as well have not been there. Without Jason, I’d have to get used to the feeling. “We know each other.”

  Tia blinked rapidly. “We do?”

  “Yeah. I’m Glen. Our dads work together at the Bureau. Only mine is a geek. He does forensics and your father is the man over there.”

  “Right.” She shrugged. “It’s all really dull, don’t you think?”

  Glen laughed. “Some of it. I saw you last year. At the holiday party.”

  “You did?”

  I wasn’t needed for this. With a swirl, I went out of my way to embellish, I took off to skate in a circle. I’d had lessons when I was younger. I could do all sorts of tricks. If I’d had more space, I would have done a jump.

  “Looking good.” Chad sipped hot chocolate and stared down at me from above.

  I grinned. I felt…free. Jason wasn’t anywhere around to stop me from being exactly who I wanted to be. I could take deep breaths. Or scream. Or flirt. Or do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to. Well, within reason.

  “Do you want to come down and skate with us?” I would have loved the company. I hadn’t gotten to chat with Chad except in the hospital room. He seemed nice. Not as good-looking as Micah but he seemed like he could be another friend.