Fine, I’d play along. I sat. He took the chair opposite mine.
“First, I’m your old stoner friend, Alex, remember?” His eyes went a little glassy and a stupid, slacker expression spread across his face. Made him lose at least ten IQ points. The smile narrowed, became sharper, and his face was suddenly alert, watching mine. My heart beat faster.
“Okay, so you can act the part,” I admitted. “You’d better, or else this is blown and we could both end up dead.”
“It will work. This puts me in close contact with you, and makes me familiar to your roommate and associates. I’m here because I received a low-income housing deal to move in, and yeah, I knew you lived here. I’m the pesky stoner friend that won’t leave you alone. Professional sponge, that’s me.”
I laughed, despite still being annoyed. Alex had that affect on me. “You’ve got the type down pat.”
He gave me another easy grin. “I’ve known a few.”
I leaned back in my chair. “It’s still risky.”
“Sure. But any contact procedure would be.”
“Some more than others.”
He shrugged. “This lets us meet up regularly, so you can keep me informed.” He grew serious. “It will work.”
I snorted softly. “As long as my roomie and my ‘other associates’ don’t get suspicious.”
“Sure. But, I’m a stoner, remember?” He smiled. “If this becomes an actual problem, the money runs out and I get the boot.”
He smiled that confident, oh-so-handsome thousand watt smile of his. His eyes were bright underneath those long, beautiful eyelashes. He reached out and gently squeezed my hand. “I’ve got this.” Not cocky, just confident in a strong, certain way I had a hard time resisting. Except my life and the lives of my family rested on me playing this part and not being found out by my pals in the Scourge. I worked for Support because I had to. I did my job, and they’d make sure my sisters went to a good private school and my grandmother got the super-expensive, experimental drugs she needed to keep Thalik’s from killing her.
I looked out the window at the maple tree branch, reached out to feel its calm murmur as it slept.
“Okay. If you're sure.” I turned and looked back at him, smiled back. It felt a bit forced, but like my friend Lenore said back in Special Corrections: fake it till you make it. Smiling did make it easier to forget for just a moment, that we had to talk about a really shitty topic.
I just let myself enjoy the moment. It wouldn’t last.
It didn’t. We got maybe a minute to hang out in silence. Keisha would show up eventually. Yeah, I know, rooming with the woman who had wanted to carve me up six months ago and feed me to the crows maybe wasn’t the smartest move I’d ever made. God help me though, after we’d tried to kill each other, somehow we became friends.
I took one last look out the window at the night. Took a deep breath. Told him what had gone down in Colombia.
“That’s it.” I didn’t mention the apparition. It had been a hallucination. Those walking meat eaters stinking up the rain forest with their sour stench, they had messed with my senses.
If there was one thing I’d learned, it was you never, ever tell all the truth unless you have to. Saying I was having hallucinations was something I’d rather not share. I just said I was able to summon vines to hold down the monster Venus fly trap things.
By the time I was finished, my chest was tight and my jaw was set.
“Calm down,” Alex said. “It’s okay now.“
I jumped up, knocking over my chair. It hit the floor with a loud bang. Alex flinched.
“Don’t tell me to calm down! You weren’t there. That place was a horror show. Those kids.” I squeezed my eyes shut. I heard him push back his chair. I held up my hand, palm toward him. Stay back and give me room.
Damn it. My heart pounded in my chest. I inhaled, slowly.
There was a little desert cactus in a planter on the windowsill. Without thinking, I just reached into it. Felt its trembling, the creaky sounds it made in my mind. I pushed it to grow, flower. Flower more, until it was covered with flowers.
Alex called my name but I kept pushing at the cactus.
The plant’s scream roared in my mind. The cactus exploded, shattering the planter and making it crash to the floor. Wet chunks of cactus lay on the sink. The water inside spread across the faded linoleum, a green stain.
I’d killed the cactus.
I sat down hard on my butt, banging my tail bone. “Those kids.” I whispered the words. Having to go over this again, after reliving it the day before in order to fill in Ashula, that sucked big time.
Alex knelt beside me, ignoring the remains of the cactus. “I’m sorry. You have every right to be angry.”
He knew better than to help me up. I could stand on my own, thank you very much. I got to my feet, looked him in the eye. He and I were the same height, six one.
“There’s more,” I said. My chest tightened and I coughed.
Alex righted my chair and I sat at the table. He took my empty glass, refilled it from the tap, and put it in front of me.
I took a few gulps, put the glass down. Looked him straight in the eye. “The company behind that belongs to Brandon Ellis.”
“Brandon Ellis?” He whistled. “That’s…”
“True.”
“But how do you know?” He cocked his head to one side. “I mean,” he began, then stopped.
“What?” I gave him a hard look.
He shrugged. “Okay, how do you even know who Brandon Ellis is? You aren’t focused on industry or technology.”
“Hey, I catch the news,” I said. “From time to time.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“The other cell leader, Red Witch, told me over the link, when they were under attack.” She’d said the name of the company but nothing about Ellis, but something kept me from telling him I’d met with Ashula. If I told him that, he’d immediately be on me about the Inner Circle, and I didn’t have any more information. Not yet, anyway. I was working on it. He should know that.
“So she found information that Brandon Ellis’s company operated that factory?”
“Yeah. And the warehouse, and the village.” My hands gripped my glass. “This needs to be stopped. Now. It’s an abomination.”
His eyes widened at the word.
“Yeah, I can use big words,” I said.
“No, it’s just, you are so…” He nodded. “I believe you about what you found. I’ll tell Support about Ellis.”
My shoulders relaxed and I released the glass. “Thank you.”
His smile was gentle. “Absolutely. And you’ll have a chance to talk to Support yourself soon. They’ll want to speak with you.”
“They?” Usually it was just Winterfield and Alex.
He hesitated.
“What’s this they? You didn’t say we?”
He glanced away. “Not for me to say. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Soon enough. Typical. I was still a mushroom to Support, even to Alex. I got up from the table, and took an insta-meal from the cabinet. Chicken something-something with rice and beans.
I pulled the heating tab on the meal box. “You’d better head back to your place unless you want to test your stoner neighbor act tonight when my roomie comes back.”
He looked sad for a moment, then got all business and nodded. “Fair enough. See you later.” He went to the door, turned back toward me. “Get some rest.”
“Yeah, I will.” He left, closing the door softly behind him.
I could have been nicer, but he could have told me what the deal was with the Support meeting.
While the insta-meal warmed up, I picked up the remains of the cactus. It was an exploded mess. I threw it in the garbage, wiped the floor with a rag, still hearing its screams in my head.
Keisha got home about an hour later. I was stretched out on my bed, still in my clothes, my bedroom door open a crack. I couldn’t sleep, remembering those people
, those kids, thinking of all the ways I could kill the people responsible.
“Hey, you okay?” Keisha asked, standing in the doorway.
“Not really. You?”
She sat down on the bed next to me. “No. I can’t stop thinking about those kids down south.” A tear ran down her face.
I sat up, held her close. “Me neither.” Keisha didn’t show her caring side much. I hugged her.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“Figure out who did that and stop them.” I was going to put the screws to Support about that shit show, and keep after the Scourge, too.
Someone had to take action. I was going to make sure someone did.
Chapter 6
The next day ended up being one of those crisp fall Oregon days I wish I could put in a bottle and drink when the winter rains wouldn’t stop.
Keisha was going to go shopping. I didn’t ask what for. She acted all tough again, but I could tell from the look in her eyes that she was still thinking about those kids.
I gave her the keys to the Lion, and drove the Dasher across the river and through the tunnel to Beaverton. My grandmother Ruth and my sisters now lived in a house in south Beaverton, where Support had moved them. I made sure to keep under the speed limit, and that the Dasher’s tail lights worked. Didn’t want to get pulled over by a cop.
No sign of a Hero Council surveillance blimp. Must be elsewhere. I parked the car next to an oak tree with leaves turned golden, and the ground below covered with them. I heard a boom and looked up to see the needle-like form of a scramjet boosting hypersonic.
Must be nice if you had money to be able to fly to Tokyo in like three hours.
I stood and stared at Ruth’s house, the little split rail fence, the dried out but still well-kept lawn. Ruth’s old car was parked in the driveway.
I stepped onto the sidewalk and the front door opened. My sister Ava came out and strode across the lawn to meet me at the fence. Her hair was now super short, a buzz cut.
“Hey,” I said.
She lifted her chin. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” she said.
Leave it to Ava to pull no punches.
“Glad to see you, too, sis.”
Her lips curved into a sneer. “You aren’t much of a big sister, Mathilda.” She knew I hated my full name, so whenever she wanted to add a little dig, she shivved me with my full-name.
I looked away. I’d nearly gotten killed taking out that bastard Mutter in order to win a place in the Scourge, which was the price Winterfield and Support had put on helping my family. Bastards. Ava knew zilch about that.
“So sue me for wanting to see how you guys are doing.” I looked back at her. She was so angry, so sure of herself. “Self-righteous much, Ava?”
She jabbed a finger at me. “Hey, you are the one that screwed up again and are a crook, again.”
What the hell could I say to that? Nothing, unless I wanted to “compromise” my “covert status,” as hard case Winterfield would put it. As far as Ava, her twin, and Ruth knew, they’d gotten low-income school grants to attend a private school, and that Ruth’s super spendy meds were from an experimental program she’d been placed in to find a cure for Thalik’s. They didn’t have a clue I was responsible. Because I was a criminal, again, as far as they knew.
I looked her straight in the eye. “Fine. Just tell me how everyone is. Ruth. You. Ella.”
The anger fell away from her face. She glanced down at her feet, suddenly looking younger than seventeen, and very worried.
“Ruth’s okay. The treatment’s working. She still has bad days, but mostly she’s better. She’s working in the backyard.”
“What about you?”
She shrugged. “School sucks, and I don’t have any friends, but other than that, I’m fine.”
She hadn’t lost her sarcasm. “No friends?”
She looked disgusted. “None that count. I hate this new school. All the rich kids think they own the world.”
I wanted to hug her then, but that would have been the wrong thing to do.
“What about Ella?”
Her shoulder’s slumped, and suddenly the wall went down and she looked vulnerable, worried. “Ella’s been sick a lot.”
“Sick a lot? With what?”
“She sleeps all the time, she’s missed almost two weeks of school already.”
Ella was the brainy one. She loved libraries, loved learning. Ava was like me, she hated school. But Ella lived for school. She’d never miss it.
Worry wormed its way into my gut.
A bizarre thought hit me. “It’s not Thalik’s, is it?” The bastard disease that had been stealing Ruth’s life. The mystery sickness no one seemed to know much about.
Ava jerked her head up. “No! No, it’s not that.” She glared at me. “Don’t you think I’d know if it were?”
I raised a hand. “Okay. I get it. You’d know.”
She exhaled loudly. “Good.”
“Then what do you think it is?”
“Do I look like a frigging doctor? I have no idea.”
“I’m just asking. Ruth won’t let me inside, how the hell else am I supposed to find out how you, her or Ruth are, for fuck’s sake.” I met her angry stare. She and Ella were almost as tall as me now.
The tall girl. I used to get ragged all the time about that in Special Corrections—got in a few fights until I figured out it wasn’t worth decking other inmates over something I had no control over. Besides, I actually liked being tall.
Ava clenched her teeth, then looked away. “Why can’t you freaking Empowered cure people?”
Hell if I knew. That would actually be a godsend. There was Medico Blue, an Empowered who was a healer, but I assumed she couldn’t cure diseases. It suddenly bugged me that I didn’t know.
“Maybe she’s just in a funk.”
Ava was angry again, practically hopping from foot to foot. “Ella? No way.”
“I want to see her. She’s my sister, too.”
“Yeah, but she’s my twin, and I don’t know what’s wrong with her.” Ava’s eyes were wide, and I thought I saw tears swimming in them. She held herself, squeezed her eyes shut.
Screw it.
I pulled Ava close. Let her sob into my chest. Stroked her hair. We stood like that for a while.
Then Ruth came out of the house.
She walked steady, didn’t look nearly as frail as last time I’d seen her. Her eyes were bright. She wore a sweater and slacks—the first time I hadn’t seen her in a house coat in forever.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Ruth said. Just like Ava had.
Ava stepped away from me, wiped her eyes.
“That’s your rule.” I suddenly felt twelve again. It wasn’t fair, but I’d done what I had to do, so I’d face her consequences. “I just wanted to see how everyone was doing.”
“Everyone’s fine.” Ruth didn’t blink.
“Really? Everyone’s okay?”
Ava scrunched her face up, turned and walked back into the house, the screen door banging behind her.
I crossed my arms. “Doesn’t look okay to me.”
Ruth looked away, bit her lip, then looked back at me. “There’s lots of emotion at their age.”
“Ava says Ella is sleeping a lot, and missing school, that she’s sick with some sort of illness.”
Ruth shook her head. “She’s had the flu.”
Not like Ruth to lie to me.
“She see a doctor?”
Ruth nodded. “I had her examined. She’ll be better soon.” She lifted her chin, stepped close. “You need to go.”
She was angry. It oozed ice cold just under the surface. Ruth never yelled when she got pissed, never waved her arms or stomped her foot.
I wanted to yell at her. My anger wasn’t ice cold. It was molten. But I kept my mouth shut as I stormed back to the Dasher. I jumped in, slammed the door, and drove off without looking back.
Chapter 7
; A couple of days after my screwed up visit to Ruth’s, my cell phone rang, three times, then a hang up. It was just after dinner. Keisha was watching TV. It was a show called Rogue Hunters, about some group of vigilante normals who helped the Hero Council look for rogue Empowereds. Rogue Empowereds like Keisha and like the one I was pretending to be. Like the one teenage me had been.
I wanted to gag after just watching a minute of it. What a load of bullshit.
I pulled on my coat, pulled the hood up over my head.
Keisha was sprawled on the couch. “You’re going out?”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t ask where. We had an unspoken agreement not to ask. That way we could room together and not kill each other. Pretty convenient that it also helped my secret spy work for Support.
Funny though, there’d been no sign of Alex since that first night.
On the TV a hidden normal watched some rogue Empowered asshole threatening old folks at a big picnic at some fancy Lake resort. Of course the normal was a clean-cut guy in a wetsuit, hiding in the lake with binoculars, peering through reeds at the asshole Empowered woman who pranced around the shoreline in a low cut dress, cheesy lightning coming out of her eyeballs.
I looked at Keisha. “How can you watch that crap?”
She shrugged. “Something to do.”
“You gotta have better things to do than that?”
“Not really.”
“That’s gonna rot your brain.”
“You got any better suggestions, Mathilda?” Now she sounded annoyed.
Change the channel. Or read. But Keisha didn’t read. She was bored. Probably wanted to do something with me. She was out of luck in that department. Like I said, if one of us was going off on our own the other one didn’t ask what was up, or if they could go.
I drove to the nearest Night-and-Day Mart and made my call to Winterfield on the wall-mounted payphone. That was the deal. No cell phones when calling Support.
He answered on the fourth ring. “Winterfield.”
“Brandt here,” I said.
“You ready to meet us?”
Stupid phone protocol.
Empowered: Traitor (The Empowered Series Book 2) Page 6
