The Takeover

by Teyla Branton

  Noah laughed and perched on the armrest of the couch, ignoring the room I’d made for her. “No, he’s not ready, but he will be by tomorrow. And Mari shifted us to our base in New York earlier when she brought the Unbounded from the Mexican compound, so we didn’t have far to drive.”

  I wondered how many other side trips Mari had made. No wonder she looked so beat.

  Noah stood up again, bouncing slightly. “Anyway, we have great news and couldn’t wait to tell you. Brody Emerson, our blaster—you know, the one whose father is a Hunter?”

  The older Emerson was not just a Hunter, but one very high up in the organization. Or had been the last time we were in New York. “Yeah,” I said cautiously.

  “Well, he’s offering their help.”

  Jace and Oliver froze, each with a handful of weapons. Jace laughed. “You gotta be kidding,” he said.

  Patrick grinned at our expressions. “Brody’s told him what’s going on—meaning what really is going on—and they seriously did offer their help.”

  “They’d sooner run us through than help us.” Oliver plopped onto the couch next to Patrick. “If I remember correctly, they almost cut Brody in three.”

  “Yeah, I can just see them mowing down all our ex-Emporium Unbounded.” Jace swirled a sai in one hand. “We wouldn’t have anyone left to help us take over the Emporium.”

  “I know,” Patrick said. “And Emerson agreed that most of his people would take a lot of joy pretending to help and then turning on us, but he said there is a growing number of them who finally understand that Renegade and Emporium Unbounded are not the same.”

  “About time,” Jace mumbled.

  I grinned at him. “So, maybe you and Ritter sparing all those Hunters is finally paying off.”

  “About time,” Jace said again, this time mimicking Ritter’s voice, and we all laughed.

  “Emerson did mention that some of those he had in mind have had run-ins with us,” Patrick said. “He might be able to come up with as many as fifty volunteers who fit into that category. Well? You think Ritter and Ava will go for it?”

  With a glance at me, Jace shook his head, but when he spoke, his words weren’t exactly a rejection. “My feeling is to tell Emerson to get his people ready. But only those he’d be willing to trust with his own son’s life. Even if it’s only a handful. Then find someplace maybe five minutes from Emporium headquarters, and tell them to stand by. Ritter will let them know if and when we need them.”

  A shudder crawled up my spine and across my shoulders because Jace’s solution sounded exactly like something Ritter would come up with. But if Hunters were our backup, we had truly hit bottom.

  Jace smiled at me. “Maybe this is the day the world changes.”

  “About time,” I told him with a smirk.

  He rolled his eyes. “Very funny.”

  I wished it was already morning. I felt anxious to get started, even though that meant facing Stefan. Because maybe after tomorrow there would be no more Emporium as it was today. For the moment, though, it was a torturous waiting game.

  “Come on,” I said to Jace and Oliver, “let’s get these magazines and the extra weapons down to the cars.”

  “I’ll grab the medical supplies,” Oliver said. Of course he would since those weighed less.

  We met Mari and Keene in the hallway as we headed to the elevator. Cort was with them, his brown hair standing slightly on end and his face creased with worry.

  Somehow Mari and Keene had managed to rid themselves of their red hair and the rest of their old disguises. Keene was back to his normal light brown with no beard while Mari was now sporting dark blond tresses, and she wore contacts that turned her brown eyes—which had been green for her last disguise—into a grayish blue. The blond hair looked too light to me, compared to her natural black, but Mari at least looked significantly rested. Keene, however, was still pale, and his face appeared more narrow than usual.

  “I’m all right,” he said, not flinching under my stare. “You’re just not used to me without the beard.”

  “No, it’s the idea of seeing our old man that makes you look like a ghost.” Cort’s voice was too tight to carry the joke.

  “You have enough weapons?” Jace asked Keene. “They’ll expect you to be armed.”

  Keene’s hand went to his holster. “I’m all set. But Cort’ll bring my good stuff. I’m not donating those to the Emporium arsenal.”

  We all laughed, except Mari, who frowned and began removing her arm sheaths. “Guess you’d better bring these too, Cort. I don’t want to lose them. My others are replaceable.” Mari wore a minimum of four knives at a time, and sometimes double that. She also had a gun, but she didn’t like to use it.

  “Ava and Ritter should be back in a bit,” I told them. “We’re just taking the weapons to the vans.”

  “I can’t believe this is finally happening.” Mari leaned against Keene for assurance. His arm snaked around her.

  I thought Jace might make a comment about Mari getting into her role already, but he closed the last foot between him and the elevator, punching the button. “Tomorrow it’ll be a whole new world.”

  Down in the cavernous underground parking beneath the building, we divided the duffels between the five vans our group would be stashing around the Emporium headquarters, so our troops could restock as needed. The vans could also be used to hold any Emporium prisoners we might take during the op. Metal rings were embedded in the van at intervals for the purpose of securing any captives.

  I was turning from throwing in my bags when Jace hit against me, knocking me partially inside the van. Before I could protest, he had zip-tied me to one of the metal rings. “I’m sorry, Blondie,” he said. I could feel his regret in his surface thoughts, but his voice was thick with determination.

  My heart thudded against my rib cage. “Jace, what are you doing?” I reached out to his mind but found his shield a tight, swirling black. Shoving my free hand into my pocket, I pressed the panic sequence on my phone that would alert all our Renegades that there was a problem. The phone in Jace’s pocket began buzzing.

  “Don’t be angry,” he said, tossing the phone into the van and backing away. “This is probably the only chance I’ll have to meet him. I know what ‘by any means possible’ implies. I need to do this.”

  “Jace, no! He’ll never let you go!” I drew out the imaginary version of my machete and hacked on his mental shield. If I could get through, I could make him stay. I didn’t want to flash light to his mind for fear of doing permanent damage, but I could control his body for at least a short time. Maybe by then Oliver would have found us and could free me so I could channel Jace and fight him with his own combat ability until someone arrived to help.

  “I know what you’re probably trying to do,” Jace said. “But we’ve been working for months on strengthening my shield. I figure I have at least three minutes before you break through, and that should be enough time to get beyond your reach.”

  “Please,” I said. Why hadn’t I seen this coming? I’d never imagined Jace would do this to me. Try to sneak away, yes. Or maybe fight Oliver, who we’d privately appointed to shadow Jace until tomorrow. But never to lock me up and leave like this.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t ruin the op,” Jace continued, ignoring my plea. “I’ll tell Stefan I spotted Jeane talking to you and that when you went missing, I suspected she’d take you to him. I’ll tell him I wanted to meet him and that you told me all about him. With so many years passing and so many things that can happen, Stefan should believe there was enough of his stolen sperm for both of us. It’ll work, and we’ll be there together. You won’t have to face him alone.”

  “You can’t do this!” I hacked harder with the machete. “It’s not only about you. This will hurt everyone!”

  “No, it won’t. Go talk to Ritter. He’ll tell you I’m right. And when this is over, I’ll still be your favorite brother.” With that, he dived into a small car next to the van, started
it up, and squealed across the parking lot, heading toward the garage door that began opening onto a ramp leading up to the street.

  I slammed harder at his shield, but as he left, it became harder to maintain contact. My one stroke of luck was that the garage had no electronic grid to keep me from following him. Almost there, I thought, grasping after him. Slam! Hack! Slam! As if from far away, I heard my phone emit the vibration pattern I’d assigned to Ava’s number.

  Jace slipped farther away. He must be breaking every speed limit to put so much space between us this quickly. I kept him for one block, two, and even a third. All the other thoughts from the crowds of people he passed threatened to break through the connection I had with him, but somehow I clung on. Yet the farther he went, the less impact my machete had on his shield, until I finally let the weapon disappear and simply held on to him. Two breaths later, his presence abruptly cut off.

  Tears ran down my face. I wanted to weep and cry and swear and pound Jace’s face, but instead I reached for one of my knives and began hacking away at the tie on my wrist. The plastic had thin lines of metal reinforcing it—Cort’s special design—and I hadn’t begun to make progress when Keene and Mari appeared with a soft pop near the stairwell and ran to the van. Cort and Dimitri were close behind, bursting from the stairwell like water from a high-pressure hose. Only Stella remained upstairs, and she was probably monitoring the garage with cameras through her neural headset. Some part of my mind was glad she wasn’t willing to risk her baby—not after what happened last time.

  “What happened?” Mari asked.

  I dropped my knife and faced them, my hand still tied. Hope ran through me. Mari could find people’s locations even farther away than I could trace thoughts. “Find Jace. He’s gone to Stefan. We have to stop him!”

  Placing my free hand on Mari’s arm, I shut my eyes and reached out for her mind. Her thoughts immediately flooded me as her shield dropped. “Keene,” she whispered. At once, I felt Keene’s power pulsing, plenty for both of us to use.

  But Jace was nowhere.

  “Reach for the street in front of Emporium headquarters,” Keene said.

  I saw in Mari’s thoughts that visiting the headquarters had been another side trip they’d made earlier, partly by car, as they’d scoped out the location so she could fix it in her mind.

  In the next instant, the street was shimmering around us. Mari pushed out her mind through the connection and so did I, using both her ability and my own, and drawing from Keene’s power. Nothing. In fact, a very big nothing met us where the building stood, though we could plainly see it with our physical eyes as Mari folded space. All around, thoughts from the people in the buildings next to it assaulted me, but within the Emporium headquarters, I felt nothing.

  “He’s nowhere,” Mari said.

  “He can’t be inside yet. He hasn’t had time.”

  “Keep looking,” Cort said. “Pull all the locations you’ve been to near here.”

  Mari nodded and pushed on, with me clinging to her mind, trying not to think the worst. One by one, the places she’d visited materialized before us, and I sent my thoughts through the fold in space, searching for Jace.

  After a long while, Mari shook her head at me sorrowfully. “I’m sorry. Earlier when we got here, he was asking how I felt not knowing my father, if it bothered me that I wouldn’t ever meet him. I told him I’d always thought he was some nameless sperm donor, and I hadn’t ever thought about having a relationship with the guy. I didn’t know he was a Renegade who’d been killed until just a few months ago. Jace didn’t like my answer. I should have known he was upset.”

  I remembered how Jace had leaned toward me in the hallway back at the Fortress, as if trying to drink in any knowledge of his father. He hadn’t bought my promise to keep the man alive. Of course his ability would have told him that “by any means possible” left too much to chance when dealing with a member of the Triad.

  The garage door opened, and a van careened down the ramp and across the parking garage, screeching to a stop before us. Ritter jumped from the driver’s seat, and Ava from the other side. Her phone was in her hand, but my phone was no longer vibrating with her call.

  “What happened?” Ritter barked.

  “Jace is gone.” My voice sounded like broken glass crunching beneath my feet. I opened my mind to Ava and pushed my thoughts at Ritter, letting them see for themselves.

  Ava’s mouth pursed so tightly she appeared to have aged decades. “Any trace of his location?” she asked Mari.

  “No,” Mari whispered.

  Ava was tapping on her phone. “Can’t find his signal. He must have deactivated his transmitter.”

  Ritter leaned into the car and finished freeing me with a snip of wire cutters he pulled from an interior pocket. “Where’s Oliver? Isn’t he supposed to be with Jace?”

  “Oliver!” Mari snorted.

  “It wasn’t his fault.” Dimitri’s voice made us all look around. I hadn’t even noticed him after Mari and I began searching, but apparently he’d been looking for Oliver, who now leaned on him heavily. One of Oliver’s eyes was reddened and fast growing a bruise that stood out on his dark face like a spill of oil on concrete. His short, tightly curled hair had a heavy brush of gray on one side, as if he’d slid over the dusty floor. Given his expression, he’d probably done just that.

  “I’m sorry,” Oliver said, and for once his arrogance wasn’t showing. “I didn’t see it coming.”

  “He was knocked out behind that van.” Dimitri indicated the farthest van with a wave.

  “You won’t find Jace,” Oliver said. “He had those devices in the car, the ones he and Cort took from the hospital where the Emporium was trying to hide Patrick.”

  “The portable electric grid!” Mari said. “That explains how he could disappear like that.”

  I knew it was my fault. “I didn’t see this coming at all. Jace seemed okay with everything.” I slammed the back doors of the van shut and started kicking the concrete pillar next to it—again and again until my booted foot ached. “Stupid . . . idiot . . . kid.” I wasn’t sure if I meant me or Jace.

  Ritter put his hand on my arm, and I turned into him, burying my face in his shoulder. His hands ran through my hair, but for once they brought me no comfort.

  “He’s an adult,” Ava said. “This is no one’s fault but his own. Short of locking him up, we couldn’t stop him.”

  I pulled away from Ritter’s shoulder, my head feeling as if it weighed a hundred tons. “Whatever his feelings about Stefan, he shouldn’t have endangered the op!” I retorted, wishing that was the only reason I was angry. “We’ll have to abort and figure out how to get Jace back.” It all seemed too impossible. When I did catch up with him, I was going to kick him to the next state. Then I’d never let him out of my sight again.

  “Maybe we don’t have to abort,” Ritter said.

  I recoiled from him. “What?”

  “Depends on how he explains his presence once he’s there.”

  Against my will I repeated what Jace had said about telling Stefan he was looking for me and that Jace wanted to meet him. “It doesn’t matter how he spins it,” I concluded. “Stefan’s never going to let him go, and with Jace there, he can use us against each other. I won’t be able to do my job.”

  I waited for Ritter to tell me I was right, that we had to abandon the plan and focus on retrieving Jace, but he only looked shaken as he dragged his gaze from mine to Ava. “If Stefan buys it,” he told her, “it should work. Maybe it’ll even be better than just sending in Erin and Keene and Mari—we can never have too much backup. There’s no doubt that Jace will play his part perfectly, since it’s mostly true.”

  “No!” I punched his arm hard enough to hurt my hand, but Ritter didn’t flinch as his head snapped in my direction. “His Deathliness just doesn’t want me there without a combat Unbounded!” I accused. “He never did. He’s glad Jace did this. But we can’t just carry on the op as if nothing has
happened.” As if my brother didn’t matter. “We have to get Jace out of Stefan’s reach, or I won’t be able to do anything against the Triad.”

  When Ritter spoke, he used a hard tone he rarely used with me anymore—not since we fell in love and got married. “Are you saying you won’t do the op? Because there is no one else.” He closed the step between us and put his hands on my upper arms near my shoulders. “If you want to help your brother, you have to go through with the plan. If you want to take over the Triad, we have to act now. There’s no other way except the frontal assault we all decided was suicide. You were willing to have Jace participate in that. How is this any worse?” He shook me once, but gently, almost a caress.

  “Fine!” I pulled away from him, knowing he was right but furious at him anyway because there was no one else to be angry at.

  Except Jace, who wasn’t here. And myself.

  Ritter nodded and turned to Keene and Mari, who watched us with dismayed expressions. “It’s time for you two to leave. You have everything you need?”

  “We each have a couple bags,” Keene said. “To make it look like we’re planning to stay awhile—not that they’d let us leave anyway. The bags are still upstairs.”

  “Cort and I will get them.” Ritter motioned to Cort.

  Cort looked relieved, and I knew that was exactly why Ritter had asked. It never got any easier saying goodbye, and this way Keene and Cort’s farewell would be shorter.

  Ava waited until Ritter and Cort left before saying to Keene and Mari, “When you get there, try to find a way to contact us. Post that last signal phrase we gave you if you see him.”

  “Jace will know enough to pretend not to recognize you,” Dimitri added. He had a hand on Mari’s arm, helping her regain her strength, and I was glad since she looked drained again.

  I didn’t share his confidence, not after what Jace had done.

  Ava moved to my side, her arm slipping around me. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “No, it’s not okay, and you know it.”