by Ashley Maker
“Nothing.” I avert my gaze, refusing to look at him. “I’m not hiding anything.”
“I know it isn’t nothing.”
Despite myself, I glance up, hands falling to my sides. His brows are drawn, and it’s the unwanted concern in his eyes that makes me say, “Fine. You really want to know? Maybe I want to hate you. Maybe I hate this place, and I can’t wait to get out of here. Is that so hard for you to believe?”
Breathing hard, I wait for him to lash out at me, because the words should make him hate me back. They should make him bristle and puff up the way Chris always did. But instead, his voice softens, and he says, “No, it’s not.”
“Stop it!” I press against my stinging eyes before glaring at him again. “Just stop. You’re not supposed to be nice.”
“What are you expecting me to be like? Is all of this about what happened with the tape recorder?”
I don’t answer. He can believe whatever he wants to.
“Clare, I hurt your feelings, and I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention.” He runs a hand through his hair and tugs at the ends. “Here’s what I can tell you. I work here. That means I follow their rules, even when I don’t want to.”
I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that. His voice is as sincere as the look in his eyes, and that’s what bothers me the most. Because I really want to believe him, even though I know I shouldn’t.
My breath stops when he takes a step toward me. The look in his eyes is so intense it sends goosebumps prickling down my arms.
Voice soft, he says, “I really am sorry.”
The breeze seeping in through my jacket suddenly feels too cold. Looking away from him, I breathe in and rub my arms. “Whatever. It’s not like it matters anyway.”
“It does matter,” he says, stepping even closer. “I know you think I’m that guy, but I’m not.” He stops right in front of me, bringing us face to face. “I’m not that guy.”
My gaze meets his and I’m breathless, trying to think of what to say, when it happens. One second, everything is fine. The next, my eyes blur as the strange fuzzy vision pushes in at the edges. I don’t have time to get away from him, to hide. His eyes change with a shimmer. Ringed by a glowing golden band, the green and brown of his hazel irises separate until the colors are no longer some muddy mixture of the two. A surge of panic goes through my entire body. Pins and needles bristle along my arms and fingers. It’s just like in the bathroom. This is really happening again.
My body jolts and it’s gone. I stumble back so fast I slam into the tree trunk behind me. Before I can slump to the ground, Kade is there. One long arm wraps around my waist, holding me up, and the other is on the side of my face, pushing back stray wisps of hair. He leans close, and we stare wide-eyed at each other, both of us breathing hard.
Hazel. Just hazel.
I blink and realize our bodies are only an inch apart. His rapid breaths fan across my face, touching my cheeks, and—my gaze flickers to his lips. I swallow and force myself to look at his eyes again, where I see that same intensity, the same heat I feel coursing through my veins.
Then I blink again and he’s letting go. The warmth of his arms leaves with him, and I shiver.
I stare at him, a sick, heavy feeling sinking through me like cement. I’m in so much trouble. That wasn’t supposed to happen in front of anybody else. Kade searches my eyes, and I open my mouth, trying to come up with an excuse.
“We need to go back,” he says, already turning toward the trail. “Something’s not right. I have to take you back.”
“No, wait.” I reach out and grab his hand to stop him. “Kade, please. Don’t make me go back until we talk about what happened.”
He rubs the other hand across his eyes. “I have to. We have to. Your eyes turned gold. Gold and black.”
Fear claws at my throat, making me sound desperate. “Look, I don’t know what happened, but I’m not ready to talk about it with anyone else. You say you’re not that guy. Prove it. Prove it to me right now. Don’t make me go back. Please. I don’t want anyone to know.”
He doesn’t immediately answer. It’s like he’s frozen, eyes still riveted to mine.
Slowly, he steps toward me again, away from the trail. I can’t move—can’t think—as I wait for him to make a decision. He’s close enough to touch me. Then he does. He reaches out and gives my arms a gentle shake.
“Breathe, Clare.”
I breathe. The cool air stings my lungs. Or maybe it’s somewhere in my chest that’s stinging. The small amount of pain snaps me back. There’s an explanation for all of this. There has to be. He knows what it is, if I can just get him to tell me.
But, even more important, I have to keep him from telling anybody else.
19
Kade doesn’t tell me where we’re going, only that it’s somewhere we can talk and not freeze to death at the same time. I follow without much complaint since the path we’re on is still at an incline. If he were secretly taking me back to turn me in, the path would be downhill.
“Has this happened before?”
I wrap my arms around myself in the tightest self-hug I can manage. “Only once. In the bathroom my first night.”
“You weren’t going to tell anyone?”
“No.”
The curiosity in his gaze sparks into something else, like he’s amused or maybe impressed. I honestly can’t tell. We keep walking. The temperature has dropped to a chilling degree by the time Kade finally stops in a small clearing. Nothing seems particularly spectacular—or warm—about it, unless he plans to build a fire.
He grins at my lack of enthusiasm. “Look up and to your right.”
My chin tilts over and up, throat exposed to the cold, and I do a double take. “How in the world did I miss that?” I squeak.
Kade’s grin widens. “You’re not supposed to notice the Tower. That’s the whole point.”
No kidding. Built into a tree is a gigantic mirrored box that blends almost seamlessly with the forest, reflecting the ground, sky, and trees all around. Thin cables provide support, and the mirrored sides are built around the tree trunk, as if it’s a part of the tree itself. If I didn’t know it was there, only dumb luck would have revealed it.
“Do you want to go inside?”
“You brought me to the coolest treehouse ever, and you really have to ask that question?” I wave my hand at it. “Why is it even out here? What’s it for?”
He closes a hand around mine and tugs until I follow him across the clearing. Then he lets go and crouches at the base of the tree. “In the spring and summer, we use the Tower for sniper and surveillance training. Hardly anyone comes all the way out here during winter.”
I eye him as he digs in the snow. “What are you doing?”
“You want to go in, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah…”
His fingers thunk against something, and he digs faster. Within seconds, he uncovers a tiny black box. He flips open the lid, revealing a key pad, and punches in a code so fast I only see the first number is a five.
Something clicks above our heads. I shrink back, chin jerking up. The smooth mirrored side of the Tower’s base splits and opens into a dark, square shape big enough for someone to crawl through.
I look around for some way to get up to the gap but can’t find one. I’m about to ask Kade what the point of all of this was when he stands and takes off his jacket. He wraps it around the trunk, braces against it, and starts heaving himself up the trunk one step at a time, sliding the jacket up as he goes.
My lips part as I stare at him. The muscles strain in his shoulders and back, their chiseled lines visible through the cotton shirt, and his jaw is clenched tight. He’s like a ninja lumberjack the way he climbs up the tree. There’s no way I’ll be able to follow that.
“Um, Kade?”
He grunts and gives one final push toward the square hole. His hands grasp the edges. “Hold on. I’ll send the rope down.”
Ah, so th
ere’s a rope ladder. I wait while he hauls himself through the hole and disappears. A few seconds later, the ladder drops to the snowy ground at my feet.
Kade’s face is shrouded in darkness, but his voice carries down to me. “Can you climb up without help?”
Maybe?
My legs feel like jiggling water, but I don’t want to look weak in front of him. After all, he just scaled a tree trunk with nothing but a jacket. Surely I can climb a little ladder. It even has foot rungs. The thick fibers rub against my fingers.
With both hands firmly gripping the sides of the ladder, I step onto a rung about a foot off the ground. The ladder immediately sways, and I grip the rope tighter, closing my eyes for the briefest second. Pathetic. I must look so pathetic. I open my eyes and take a step up the ladder, focusing on that little square hole.
“You okay down there?”
I frown and realize I’m barely two feet off the ground. “I hate heights.”
“Just hang on then, and I’ll pull you up.” His hands appear through the opening.
“Wait, what—”
Everything around me starts shaking. No, the ladder is shaking. And moving up. My stomach drops and I close my eyes again, gritting my teeth and hanging on for dear life.
“Don’t look down,” Kade says, his voice much closer than before.
I whimper and keep my eyes sealed tight. A tremendous jolt is followed by my body brushing against something hard. Hands pull on my shoulders, then my waist. The edges of the hole scrape against my legs. Then it’s over and I’m panting and scrambling to get away from Kade’s warm hold.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you were scared of heights,” he says.
“It’s okay. I’m fine.” I’m so not. My insides are as wobbly as my legs. “I really wanted to see what was up here.”
“Hold on. Let me get the light.”
I don’t move. I’m too afraid to. Afraid that somehow I’ll slide toward the hole and fall to my untimely death. It’s totally unrealistic to think that, but I can’t help it. The hole gapes at me like it’s going to swallow me whole and spit me back out onto the forest floor. What was I thinking coming up here? There’s no way I’ll be able to get back down.
A soft, yellow light flares on, brightening the inside of the Tower. With the light on, the opening doesn’t seem as threatening. I’m at least three feet away from it, but I still don’t move. “Can you close that thing?”
Without a word, Kade re-seals the square door.
Only then am I able to stand up and look around. The Tower is surprisingly large on the inside. There’s plush carpet under my feet and floor to ceiling windows on all four sides. A few stools and what looks like crates of various supplies—water bottles, blankets, a tiny heater, and other stuff I can’t identify—are stacked in the middle of the square room. There’s even a cot against one wall.
Kade plugs the little heater into a portable battery. He stands and rubs both hands together before positioning two of the stools in front of the far window, the one overlooking the edge of the clearing that crests the mountain valley below. The view is beautiful with the sky starting to darken into the first orange-red hues of early sunset.
“We need to talk about what happened,” Kade says, shattering the peaceful moment.
Pretending I didn’t hear him, I walk over to one of the windows and place my palm against the cool glass. The sun hovers near the horizon, almost ready to slip out of sight. “Can’t people see the light inside from the other side of the windows?”
“No. All of them are two-way mirrors. We can see out, but nobody can see in.”
“You guys really like your mirrors, don’t you?”
He smirks and hits a button on the wall. A black, mechanized sheet comes down from the ceiling, extending to the floor on all four sides, shuttering the mirrors. “Nice try changing the subject.”
I avoid his gaze and blink against the sudden change to artificial lighting. The Tower suddenly feels much smaller, as if the walls themselves are shrinking. “Why am I here? What will Mathias do if he finds out about my eyes?”
“Listen, I don’t know what I’m allowed—”
“Do you have any idea how much the not knowing terrifies me?” I spin to face him with both hands up. “They practically drag me here, but nobody will tell me what they actually want from me. I can deal with the truth, but I can’t deal with this.”
Eyes narrowed, he doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his voice sounds detached. “The world isn’t what you think it is. Maybe before the Experior serum it was, but whatever they put in that changed people. It altered them. You heard what was said about the two strains? What Mathias didn’t say was the second strain, Strain B, didn’t only alter their genetics. It did something to their humanity. Rogues don’t care about anybody but themselves. They’ll kill you and not think twice. Most of them want to kill you because you’re not like them.”
“That’s not really a revelation. I’m pretty sure hate groups and gangs have existed for centuries.”
“You don’t get it.” He steps closer. “Humans have hate groups, but they’re small and usually confined. They might have money and weapons, and sometimes they do a lot of damage, but they don’t have what the Rogues have. Rogues are faster, stronger, and more deadly than any human you’ll ever come across.”
“You say that like they’re not human.” Our eyes meet and my stomach knots up. “Tell me you’re joking.”
Kade’s lips purse and he shakes his head. “The serum changed us all. Scientifically speaking—chromosomes and all of that genetic stuff—we aren’t human.”
“That’s not possible. You have to be joking.”
“I wouldn’t joke about this. Trust me, I know how it sounds, but that’s a fact. I can prove it, but do I really have to? Think about everything you’ve seen. Think about what you saw on the trail.”
Blood rushes to my head, beating steady in my ears like a heartbeat. “That was…I don’t know what that was, but there has to be an explanation. Fatigue or stress or a hallucination, which isn’t that far-fetched considering my dad’s crazy.” I sink down onto one of the stools, but can’t sit still and end up standing again. “Maybe it’s hereditary and I’ve started losing my mind—”
“Clare—”
“That would make sense. Because there’s no way, absolutely no way, there’s some nonhuman thing…being…out there that can be all those things you said. Aliens, maybe. I’ve always wondered if there could somehow be life on other planets, even though honestly the odds are dismal, and—”
Kade grabs my shoulders. Not hard, but firm enough I freeze. I stare up at him, horrified by the gravity—the utter sincerity—in his expression. Neither of us blinks. I gulp in a huge breath, the air whistling into my throat. My vision blurs at the edges, and this time I realize what’s about to happen. What’s happening. The gold ring starts bleeding into place around his eyes, and the colors—
Ripping away from his grip, I force my eyes closed and shake my head violently back and forth. I press the heels of my palms into my eyelids. A scream surges up my throat, rising until it unleashes in a guttural shriek. Letting it out, I scream and scream, fighting the feeling that’s pressing in all around me. My eyes are burning. When I open them, the sound of my screaming chokes off, because I’m no longer in the Tower. Except, I still am. Mouth set in a grim line, Kade steadies me with both hands back on my shoulders. But I don’t feel them, and I barely feel the carpeted floor under our feet.
Every single wall is gone.
Vanished. Where the two-way mirror behind Kade is supposed to be, towering pine trees stand tall against the glow of sunset. The black shutters, the corners of the walls, the ceiling—all of them are gone, like I’m staring at the horizon from a balcony instead of from the inside of a room. When I look up, the tops of the trees reach toward each other, blanketed by the darkening sky. A rush of sound fills my ears, mixed with the low hum of Kade’s voice. He’s saying my name over and ov
er, and I finally look at him.
I catch a glimpse of his shifted eyes before I suck in a breath.
The air crashes painfully into my lungs, and the walls start dripping into place all around until they’ve become solid and impassible once more. Light from the fixture on the ceiling blinds me. I sway, only staying upright by Kade’s continued grip on my arms. His face slowly comes back into focus, his normal hazel eyes searching mine.
“Kade—” My voice catches, dissolving into a tear-filled whisper. “What is happening to me?”
His voice is calm, but his eyes are anything but. “This is normal. You’ve started phasing, but you’re not in the true expertus yet.”
A sob hitches in my throat. “This can’t be normal. You don’t know what I saw! I think—I think I just—”
“It’s okay.”
“No,” I moan, covering my eyes with shaking hands.
The walls…the trees…the sky….
“Hey,” he says, but I can’t look at him.
His eyes—those hypnotic, shifting eyes—make all of this too real, and I don’t want it to be real. I don’t want to believe I really could be changing. Phasing. But I don’t want to believe I’m crazy either. Tears slip through trembling fingers and slide down my cheeks. He gently tries to push my hands away from my face, and after a second attempt, I let him. My hands end up clamped around his wrists, but I still don’t look him in the eye.
“Hey,” Kade says again, softer this time. He cradles my face, wiping tears away with his thumbs. “I know you’re scared.”
Some of the tension seeps out at his touch, and that’s when I realize Kade, virtual stranger that he is, somehow makes me feel calm. Calm, when everything else is a violent, raging storm. Calm, even though the storm is in me, and I should be hysterical.
“I don’t want to change. I want to stay me.”
“Everybody changes, but that doesn’t mean you’ll stop being you. You don’t have to be afraid of this, Bambi.”
He’s standing so close now I have to crane my head to see his face, and he has this look in his eyes. A look I can’t describe. One that makes my heart beat a thousand times per second because a guy has never looked at me like that, never held my face in his hands before. So I blurt out the one thing I thought I couldn’t say.
