by Mikayla Lane
Chris scanned the file on his comm for a moment before he flicked it onto the wall, replacing the images that Siggy had projected.
“It looks like there have been other sightings of the Mothman or another similar entity around the world. Dad has a note on here that he wants you to think about where you were and what you were doing when those sightings occurred. He thinks that you may be doing something inadvertently to draw him out and bring him to you,” Chris said before he looked up at Mikal with wide eyes.
“Dad’s noted on here the times he was with you when the Mothman was sighted nearby,” Chris said with surprise.
Mikal stared at the timeline on the screen that his father must have hastily put together when he saw the information in the files from the lab.
“Are these all of the documented sightings?” Mikal asked.
Siggy and Dante began tapping on their comms and Dante nodded his head.
“Yeah, Dad was thorough, as usual,” Dante said.
Chris stepped up to the wall.
“Bro, we’ve been on missions in some of these places. Here, here, and here,” Chris said as he pointed to them on the wall.
“Look at all the ones here in Toronto,” Cole noted.
Mikal nodded his head in surprise at all the times he could remember being in or around the same locations where sightings occurred.
“I’ve been here in Toronto during those months. If we’ve been so close so many times, then how the hell do we keep missing each other?” Mikal wondered aloud.
“Do you remember feeling anything different or unusual about those times or locations? An energy change or shift?” Lara asked.
“A prodding at your energy? Anything?” Angel asked, hoping to help her brother find answers.
Mikal shook his head, trying to remember anything at all about any of those times, but he was drawing a blank. He knew a lot of it had to do with being overwhelmed. The last two days had been quite a shock, and he knew he needed time to take a step back from it all so he could think more clearly.
Gun leaned forward to pat Mikal on the shoulder.
“Man, you need to take a break and walk away from this for a while. Once you do, all the connections will fall into place. Just give it time,” Gun said reassuringly.
“He’s right; walk away for now,” Chris said before he turned to the others.
“Alright, we’re on info gathering and recon on our list of DNA donors. We missed something pretty big if they were able to get crossed off our list of bad guys,” Chris said, his anger over their mistake still evident in his voice.
“There were no entertainers on our list the last time, only the politicians,” Angel said.
Declan chuckled.
“What’s the difference? They all lie and pretend for a living. Besides, did you look at this list? To say these idiots entertain is a serious stretch. This jerk tools around the ocean in a yacht that emits more carbon emissions in a month than entire countries in a year, and he doesn’t donate a dime to any charity, yet tells everyone else in the world they need to cut back on their lifestyles because they’re ruining the planet,” Declan said as he put up the image of a ‘famous’ actor on the wall.
“I can’t believe anyone thinks he’s attractive. He looks so . . . greasy to me,” Angel said with a grimace.
Dree and Lara nodded their heads in agreement.
“He’s a troll,” Lara added.
Chris whistled to get their attention before things got out of hand.
“I agree the guy sucks, so it’s not too surprising that he is the DNA donor of one of the subjects—as is every other person on this list. We need to dig deep guys. We missed something the last time. Money like that doesn’t just change hands without a trail, and we need to find it,” Chris said, determined to rip apart the lives of these people until he uncovered all of their secrets and the people involved.
“What are we looking for?” Dree asked, the information blurring for her since she wasn’t familiar with the documents on her comm.
“Friends in common, places in common with the others, anything that coincides with someone else on the list,” Siggy said offhandedly.
Liam put his arm around Dree and tapped on her comm, bringing up a document as he quietly explained in more detail what they were looking for and how to spot it.
Chance looked around her, unsure what to do. She didn’t have a comm and she didn’t want to interrupt someone to ask what she could do to help. She was surprised when Mikal leaned closer to her and put his comm in between them so she could look at it too.
Chance smiled up at him in gratitude, but when she looked at the information on the comm, she too was confused by what it all meant. Moments later, Mikal surprised her by pulling her to her feet and quietly from the room.
“What?” she asked as he gently led her down a few hallways.
Mikal chuckled softly as he easily navigated the dark hallways. It was one of the reasons why his father always built these bases the same way. Everything was in the exact same place so you could walk in and know where everything was from the medlab to the kitchen.
“We’re going to make some coffee. I don’t know about you, but I could use a gallon or two of the stuff,” he said.
Chance grinned broadly. She’d never been able to have coffee in the lab. The doctors saw no benefit in allowing her to have the drink, but when she was on missions she drank it all the time. It wasn’t that she particularly liked the taste as much as she enjoyed the slight humming in her energy and the awake feeling she got.
Mikal led them unerringly to the kitchen and headed to the coffee pot as the light came on automatically. He pulled the coffee from the cabinet and pointed to the fridge.
“Why don’t you grab the creamers while I get a pot going?” he asked.
Chance nodded, headed to the fridge, and scanned the contents. Seeing the various foods had her stomach growling loudly, causing her to chuckle.
“Sorry,” she said with a blush.
Mikal laughed.
“Hey, don’t be. I’m pretty hungry myself. Why don’t you grab some stuff that we can make sandwiches with? Knowing my family, we aren’t the only ones who are starving,” he said as he measured out the coffee and started what he knew would be the first of many pots.
Chance had never made sandwiches before; the only time she’d seen them was when they were given to her for her meal in the lab, but she’d eaten enough to pick out what appeared to be similar items from the fridge, and she laid them out on the large island counter behind her.
Mikal grabbed a few trays and laid them on the counter then went into the fridge and pulled out a few condiments and another bag of lettuce before he stood beside her.
“What kind of sandwich do you want?” he asked with a smile.
Chance looked around at the items they had on the counter, took the two slices of bread Mikal handed her, and put them on a small plate.
Mikal saw her hesitation, put bread on his own plate, and started piling it high with vegetables. He handed each one to her when he was finished with it and watched her add everything but pickles to her own bread. He did the same with meat and cheese until their sandwiches were made.
“Let’s throw everything on some trays and bring it in to them. They can fight over making their own,” Mikal said with a grin.
Chance helped him pile everything on two trays and followed him back down the hallways to the conference room. She wasn’t sure at what point she’d become so comfortable around Mikal and his unusual family, but it was hard to ignore when they walked into the room and Shane took the tray from her and kissed her cheek.
She smiled and blushed at the easy affection between them all and the fact that she was included in it.
Like a real family, she thought.
“You’re an angel! I’m starving!” Shane said as he put the tray on the table, grabbing some bread in the process.
“I’m getting the coffee! I can smell it!” Dree said as she sprinted
out of the room.
Liam chuckled and followed the little Tezarian from the room.
“I’ll grab the cups,” he said as he left.
Chance looked up as Mikal handed her the sandwich she’d made and sat them down in the chairs they’d been in earlier. She watched in amusement as the siblings passed around the food items, arguing and teasing each other as they did so.
As if reading her mind, Mikal smiled at her, and Chance’s heart melted. He was the reason she felt so comfortable among them. It was what she felt in his energy that amazed and frightened her at the same time.
Chapter Fourteen
Mikal looked around the nearly empty streets and held tighter to Chance’s hand. It wasn’t that he was nervous for their welfare—he didn’t need to be concerned with his siblings spread out around the area keeping an eye on them. He was more worried about the fear and hesitation he could feel in Chance’s energy.
He had to admit: the place took a little getting used to, and he had to smile at the startled, wide-eyed look on Chance’s face.
“Just remember, these people make themselves look like this. They aren’t our people,” he whispered quietly in her mind as they passed another Goth couple.
Chance couldn’t help but stare at everyone they passed. She’d never seen such a large group of people who looked so much like them. They’d passed dozens of people with white eyes and very pale skin. Some even had large white fangs accentuated by dark black colored lips.
Everyone was wearing black, almost from head to foot, with little color deviation among them. The only thing that really stood out differently was the midnight black hair the humans had, which was so different from her own normally white hair. She was really glad she’d changed the color to black before they had left the compound, as Mikal had suggested. It allowed her to blend in more easily among the humans here.
“How do they have our eyes?” Chance asked on a whisper as she stared at the white eyes of a female standing outside of a nearby shop.
“They don’t. They use contact lenses to change their color. It isn’t a real color for them,” Mikal explained as he led them into a shop.
Chance looked around, not really surprised that all of the clothes on the racks in the store appeared to be black. She noticed that all of the jewelry and trinkets in the store were adorned with macabre symbols like skulls, daggers, and others she didn’t recognize.
“Mikal! Oh man! Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in a while. How long you back?”
Mikal turned at the sound of a familiar voice and pulled Chance towards the speaker. He stood in front of the man with a grin on his face, drawing Chance protectively to his side.
“Henry! It’s great to see you, my friend. I’m only here for a few weeks, but had to come by and see you,” Mikal said, holding out his hand.
Henry took Mikal’s hand, his eyes riveted to Chance.
“Oh my . . . You are truly exquisite. Where did you find such a magnificent creature, Mikal,” Henry asked Mikal, his eyes never leaving Chance.
Mikal chuckled.
“Watch it! This is Chance and . . .” Mikal said, then cleared his throat. “And she’s mine, so don’t be rude.”
Chance looked at Mikal with a startled expression on her face. It was obvious to her that he was refusing to meet her gaze, but she didn’t know why—especially after he made such an outrageous statement to someone who was a complete stranger to her.
Chance was so caught up in wondering why he’d called her his, that she didn’t really pay any attention to Mikal’s conversation with his friend until they were saying their goodbyes.
Mikal led her out of the small shop and back out onto the street. She waited until there were no people close by before finally asking him what she was dying to know.
“Why did you say such a thing?” she asked, keeping her eyes ahead, unwilling to look at him.
“Say what?” Mikal asked as he scrutinized the people around them.
Mikal didn’t want to admit it, but he’d been a little more than intrigued to think that his biological father had been trying to find him for years, but they’d simply missed one another. Grai discovered dozens of close encounters when he compiled the timeline.
Chance looked up at him to see if he was even paying attention to her and saw that his eyes were darting around them as if looking for something. Or someone.
“Do you feel him? Or anything unusual?” she asked softly, hoping that he would.
Chance knew that Mikal wanted to find his biological father, that he was curious if the man had truly been looking for his lost son. No one wanted to believe that their own parents didn’t want them.
She knew what it was like to feel like you were the only one in the world and had felt that way most of her life—until she’d found Mikal, or rather, until Mikal had found her.
She was having a hard time explaining it to herself, but there was something about him that made her feel like she’d already found home. Chance had never felt more comfortable or safe around anyone, even her sisters, and she wanted Mikal to be happy.
Mikal smiled down at Chance, squeezed her closer to his side and was getting ready to speak when he was interrupted.
“Dude! Where’d you get those contacts? They look so real!” a young man asked as he walked towards them on the sidewalk.
Mikal could feel the heightened energy of his siblings as the man came closer, and he waved his hand to let them know the man wasn’t a threat.
“I order them online,” Mikal said as they passed the man, “getfunkywhiteballs-dot-org.”
Chance looked up at him with a startled expression as Mikal heard his siblings chuckling in his mind.
“Thanks, man!” the guy said as he continued in the opposite direction.
“Can he really get eyes like ours?” Chance asked fearfully.
After finding out that her people were being used as organ donors for rich humans, she wasn’t sure if Mikal had told the man the truth or not.
Mikal chuckled and smiled down at her.
“No, I made up the website name just now. I get asked the question a lot and I found that it’s much easier to distract them than to explain that they are my real eyes. That usually leads to a lot of questions that I can’t really answer,” Mikal admitted.
Even hanging out in Toronto’s Goth community, it wasn’t unusual for others to ask him where he got his contacts or his body glitter. Mikal had learned long ago that it was much easier to give them something to distract them from their curiosity than it was to encourage it.
“Have they found anything about that energy barrier yet?” Chance asked, changing the subject.
Although she didn’t want to admit it, she was becoming really worried about their inability to shift. Sergei and Amun had assured them after breakfast that the elements in their body were rapidly reproducing and that they should be able to shift again soon, but Chance hated being out in the open without her ability. It had saved her life more than once in the past when she was on a mission, and it felt strange to not feel the energy for the shift readily available to her.
Mikal gave her a reassuring squeeze while his eyes darted around them, looking for anything that looked . . . like him.
“Trust me, if Sergei and Amun believe it’ll come back soon, then it will. Sergei knows more about our physiology than anyone, and he wouldn’t lie to us,” Mikal said, shielding his own concern from her.
He was also becoming increasingly worried that their shifting ability was still compromised, but he didn’t want to frighten Chance any more than she already was. She’d been hesitant enough about leaving her sisters and coming out with him to begin with.
He was surprised when his siblings suggested the excursion, and Chance had immediately balked at the idea. Mikal had felt sure that after spending most of her life locked in a lab that she’d want to get out and see the world, but he’d been wrong.
It had taken hours of determination to get her tell him why she di
dn’t want to leave, and it broke his heart when she told him that she didn’t know how to interact with the world. Her only experiences had been brief and only as long as it took to complete her mission.
There was always the threat of someone detonating the charge in her neck, or killing her sisters if she didn’t return on time, so she didn’t bother with learning anything more than what she needed to survive. Besides, any spare time she’d had was spent doing whatever she could to save and plan for the day she could free her sisters.
Mikal had wanted to show her how wonderful it was to mingle with the humans in the city, but instead he’d almost completely ignored her as he looked for any sign of Indrid Cold. He was determined to make it up to her.
“Come on, I’m starving,” Mikal said as he led her to one of his favorite restaurants in the city.
Chance grinned, glad to feel the light and happiness that infused his energy and illuminated his smile. He had the most beautiful smile that she’d ever seen, and she wished he smiled more often. It was contagious, and she found it hard to feel anything but his happiness driving her own when he smiled.
Enjoying his mood, she followed him into a busy little restaurant hidden among larger shops on either side of it. The place was so small that Chance didn’t even get to see the name of the place before they were inside and standing at a counter.
“Mikal! It’s so good to see you again!” the old man behind the counter crowed when they walked in the restaurant.
“Pierre, it is good to see you as well. As always, you are the first place I come to for food,” Mikal said with affection for the older gentleman.
Chance watched the older man study her with curiosity before he spoke again.
“I will get you double your regular order for you and your beautiful lady,” Pierre said before he disappeared behind a swinging door behind him.
Chance heard the older man speaking to someone else in French about cooking something as she turned to look around the small place with its two tables and six chairs.
Mikal grinned as he looked around the restaurant trying to see it through her eyes. It was definitely a place that would be considered a “hole in the wall,” even though it was extremely clean and well maintained.
