True Born

by L. E. Sterling

  I point down the hall. Built in the shape of a giant “H,” the Clinic’s half dozen testing rooms are tucked away in the hallway that stretches through the middle section. Jared holds me roughly by one arm, as though I can’t walk on my own. Every few paces he stops, his head swiveling around. Looking, listening. His movements are so quiet it’s as though I’m with a ghost. I hold my belly with one hand as tiny, razor-like licks nip into my skin and tiptoe awkwardly beside him, trying my best not to stumble. The rest of the team is nowhere to be seen.

  He slows when we reach the corner. Over Jared’s shoulder I catch a glimpse of a big man in a crisp white uniform, a goofy grin on his face as he whistles down the hall. Jared hauls me back with a look so dark it’s painful. Then he slips out as the attendant puts his finger to the identi-pad outside a door. I hear the sickening crick of the man’s neck as it snaps. He falls in a heavy pile on the thinly carpeted floor. Jared holds open the door and motions me over. I try not to gag as he lifts me over the body and into the room. I tell myself I should be better at this. I see dead bodies all the time. Dominion is riddled with them—although rarely this fresh. I can’t even blame Jared. I would do anything to save Margot, and I’m grateful to him. Still, I’m struck by how unmoved he is, how routine this seems for him. As he ushers me into a small control room where the Clinic processes paperwork for the samples they take, it’s as though the death means nothing to him. He moves around the room with the stealth of a professional soldier, eyes glowing with bloodlust. I shiver and wonder not for the first time who it is I’ve gotten tangled up with.

  Jared cocks his head like he hears something. His nostrils flare as he sniffs the air. All I can hear is quiet-quiet, the pounding of my heartbeat, the faint tinkling of piano music outside the room. He mouths at me, what’s in there? and points to a nondescript door leading from the anteroom. I mime a needle sinking into an arm. Protocols, I mouth back. He nods and pulls me back to the side of the door.

  His breath tickles my ear. “Stay here.” He bends into a half-crouch.

  A second later he explodes into motion, so fast I can’t see his limbs move. The door splits, partially tears from its hinges. Through the splintered pieces I can see into the samples’ room. A tall man in white turns in surprise from an examination bed, holding a slightly bloodied syringe on a pan. A second man with a slack-jawed expression, also in the crisp white linen uniforms of the Clinic, gawps at us from behind a third. I can only see the top of his head, a scrap of his white uniform. A syringe with extra long tubing. And two slack, lily-white legs.

  “Just one more,” coaxes the man before my sister. He draws the words out, long and thin. “One more.”

  The cramping in my belly intensifies, as does the dreamy sense of floating outside my body as I stare at the pale face of my sister. She’s on an operating bed, both hands stretched out and loose above her head as she cries out in pain. It takes me a second to process the thick bands holding her in place, the bright, cheery pink hue of her hospital gown in sharp contrast to the black leather of the bed. A purple bruise kisses the skin on her jaw. With her eyes closed, I can’t tell if she’s passed out as the man pulls the long tube of the syringe, glistening with fluid, from my sister’s body. My belly feels so heavy with cramps it feels like death.

  It takes me a second longer to place the blank and hungry look of my sister’s captor to the plain face of the man we’ve known for years. The man who’s brought us flowers every year since we were ten and the testing started. The jocular, chivalrous Protocols nurse. Clive.

  A growl fills the small room, a low bass rumble that sets my teeth and hair on edge. Jared lunges at the men. I see only pieces of him: teeth extruding in long, sharp points as he tears into the necks of the two uniformed men. The ripping of sinuous throats into long pink ribbons left to dangle from thick holes. He moves so quickly that, as Jared turns his feral attention on Clive, the big man is still busy disentangling the syringe from my sister’s hospital gown-clad body.

  Jared’s hands have sprouted into wicked-looking claws. He swipes, ripping a jagged line into Clive’s chest before reaching in and pulling out the heart in one swift motion, then throwing it against the opposite wall with a thick splat. Clive’s body keeps moving, the light in his eyes dying slowly before he crumples on top of the other two.

  Jared roars, a sound so filled with primal rage that I cringe and step back, knocking loudly into the doorframe behind me. It’s not the annoyed, grubby Jared that turns to glare at me. This is a demon. Even the shape of his face has changed: the chin elongated, his eyes gone a luminescent green, bright with blood lust, and four-inch claws drawn like daggers. Panther? my mind whispers. Sleek and beautiful and deadly. I cling to the wall, unable to move, certain that if I do he’ll maim me.

  “Jared,” I whisper. His lips pull back with a snarl. I watch his features melt, the claws retracting an inch in the blink of an eye, the face reshaping itself into the striking features of the tousle-haired young man. “Jared,” I croak again. We stare at each other across the space of the room, now liberally decorated with sprays of blood from the arterial wounds of the men. Thick red puddles ooze from beneath the bodies on the floor.

  An alarm begins to shriek. I try to cover my ears, but it’s too loud, the wailing of an air raid siren. The outer room door leading into the hallway slams shut and locks.

  Jared turns his attention to Margot like there’s nothing wrong. “Let’s get her out of here. The others are on their way.” The words come out slightly slurred, as though his tongue is too thick and no longer fits in his mouth. His eyes flash sinister as he rips at her restraints.

  I try to collect my wits. Margot’s clothes are piled neatly on a counter. I bring them over to her, slipping them on her unconscious form as quickly as I can with Jared’s help, making sure to tuck the hospital gown against the seeping wounds on my sister’s lower belly. I’m careful not to touch him, and I notice he’s just as careful not to touch me. Every so often I see him shudder and draw in long breaths, as though he’s taking in a bundle of scents. My sister is still unconscious when he scoops her up and starts heading for the door. It has sealed behind us. I’d forgotten it does that.

  “We’re locked in,” I say unhelpfully. He doesn’t even look at me, just stops at the three-inch thick steel reinforced door. His nose twitches, and he sneezes. He places Margot carefully on the floor beside the door, then motions for me to stay in the shadows with her. He has his ear to the door when the first bang comes, strong enough to knock Jared back and make him shake his head. Seconds later the outer door buckles and collapses.

  In its place stands a monster. Jared springs for its face, ripping into it with freshly cut claws. It wasn’t the prettiest face to begin with. The monster has got to be close to seven feet tall, draped in the baggy white uniform of the Protocols attendants. But that’s where normalcy ends. The thing Jared attacks is a nightmare come to life: misshapen lips curled into a snarl, black piggy eyes set far back in a face covered by thickly ridged eyebrows. The arms are too long, forearms absurdly muscled. I watch the tendons in its neck stand out like ropes as it raises a ham-size fist and swats at Jared as though a six-foot panther man is no more bother than a fly.

  Jared snarls as he rakes the thing’s face, going for the eyes, and jumps away. The monster is strong, but even I can see how much slower he is than Storm’s man. Jared is mid-leap at the monster’s jugular when a slim figure appears from behind it and zaps Jared in the back with an electric gun. Jared lets out a high-pitched cat scream that makes my guts hurt before crumpling at the monster’s feet.

  I’m so shocked I don’t realize I’m just standing there, dumb and staring, until the monster has grabbed hold of me with a hammy hand. “Don’t struggle,” the other man orders. He’s skinny to the point of Plague-struck, his bones jutting into knots at the joints. The slim fit of the white Protocols suit makes his thinness even more pronounced.

  “Who the hell are you?” I ask rudely, trying to put
together what’s wrong with his face. No eyebrows, no eyelashes to cover his red-rimmed eyes, the whites pink against pale blue irises. He has hair, but it’s almost as pale as his skin. Albino, I reckon.

  “Be quiet, Lucinda. My orders are to make sure you and your sister are safe. But accidents can always happen.” His voice is high pitched, with a strange lilt that reminds me of some of the foreign dignitaries who have dined with my parents.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I back up, mentally screaming at Jared to wake up.

  Behind me and tucked against the wall, Margot stirs and twitches, but it’s not until the albino asks, “Where is your sister?” that I realize he hasn’t spotted her yet.

  “I was going to ask you the same question,” I reply. It’s a brazen lie, but I’d do anything for a few seconds to think. The albino steps over Jared like he’s a suit of clothes. “Do you work for the Clinic?”

  The albino’s thin lips curl in an amused half-smile. “Something like that.”

  “May I inquire what your plans are for us?”

  He laughs, sounding like a little girl. “Don’t you just have such good manners,” he drawls.

  My attention is diverted by the monster, who holds up Jared’s unconscious form and shakes him like a rag doll. Something protective rears up inside me. “Don’t hurt him,” I warn. Jared may be a stranger, a merc, but every cell in my body goes crazy when I think of him being hurt—protecting us, no less. I’ll not leave him to be harmed. The albino’s eyes turn sharp. “You want to rescue your friend here, do you? I’ll tell you what. We’ll make a deal. You get your sister and come with us without a fuss, and we’ll consider letting your friend live.”

  No one is looking when Jared cracks open an eye with a bright green glow. “But I don’t know where she is. We came in here looking for her,” I whine.

  “I think you do.” The albino advances a step, something so incredibly off about him that I step back, realizing a second too late that it will expose Margot.

  But in that second all hell breaks loose. The albino’s back is turned when Jared sinks four-inch claws into the monster’s chest. The big guy bellows and tries to shake off the attack as Jared leaps again. With a snarl and roar, Jared plunges his teeth into the monster’s thick neck, the blood spraying across the whites of their uniforms and coating the albino’s hair.

  “Siggy,” the albino barks. But it’s too late. The monster crashes around in a blind, dull rage, knocking the albino off his feet as the blood pumps from his wound. They both land with a thud in a growing pool of red. I throw myself back. Still in the corner, Margot twitches and moans softly. I shake her, willing her to open her eyes, but they remain shut.

  “Margot, please,” I whisper, kissing her cheek and telling her everything is all right but that we’ve got to move. Nothing.

  I turn my attention back to the spectacle before me. The monster’s eyes are dull, lifeless, as he slumps over the albino. Jared straddles a beefy leg and brings his fist down on the albino’s head again and again, until I hear a crack and the soft sighs coming from the albino cease.

  Jared’s head snaps up like he can feel me watching him. His arm halts mid-blow, and he pushes the albino’s messy face down and leaps up, blood soaking his shirt so now the letters read, “Girls -re f--.”

  He doesn’t so much as glance at me as he rips the rest of the reinforced door off its hinges and slings Margot up into his arms. She looks like a fragile doll as he hurries down the hall, like she’s no weight at all. The minute we’re out of the small room I’m no longer swamped with the iron-tinged scent of blood. I take a deeper breath, feeling slightly less nauseous.

  Mohawk and Storm approach as we turn the corner.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Mohawk flashes a quick grin. A hint of gray floats over her eyes as she takes a deep whiff of the three of us. “Never mind,” she says darkly.

  Beside her, air shimmers around Storm’s uncannily still body. His fists clench as he tersely orders, “Get her into the van. Lucy, are you all right?”

  I nod automatically, but I consider revising my answer. My legs are shaking badly. I sag against the nearest wall. Jared sighs and hands Margot to Storm before plucking me up into his arms. He glances down at me only briefly. It’s not an expression I understand: annoyance and a dollop of confusion mixed with something territorial and just a bit smug, like I’ve been indelibly stamped as his property but he can’t figure out how it happened. If it helps, I can’t either.

  We head back toward the loading bay doors. I don’t say a word, even though he’s got me pressed against his gory shirt, and neither does he. My arm curls around his neck instinctively. I want to close my eyes and disappear, but I’m too jacked up, my heart hammering away inside my chest, so I stare at the spot in his neck that pulses frantically and listen to the slow, steady beat of his heart. The deserted hallways echo with the tinny, generic sound of horns and strings as we walk.

  I expect Jared to dump me outside the van and get as far away from me as he can. So I’m surprised when he opens the back door one-handed and settles me in the middle of the seat so gently I want to weep. He crawls in after me, his body hot and pulsing as he presses himself up along my side. A second later Storm buckles Margot in place beside me and hops into the driver’s seat while Mohawk slides into the front passenger seat. Margot’s head lolls back. I put an arm around her. The car jumps to life, and I start whispering in her ear, telling her she’s safe, that we’ve got her. But despite the furnace of Jared’s heat beside me, a coldness spreads inside my body. I am frozen to the core, and it starts in Margot.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” I say to no one in particular.

  Storm glances at us through the rearview. “Fifteen seconds,” he says enigmatically. As if on cue, Torch opens the back and rolls himself in before pulling the hatch down over him.

  “Go.” There’s an urgent note to his voice. Storm steps on the gas, and we race down the long road that winds back into the heart of the city. Margot shivers fiercely. I hug her close to me and shiver myself. Jared stretches an arm around us both and with his other hand produces a blanket. He unfurls it one-handed and settles it over my sister, then me. I can’t look at him as I murmur, “Thank you.”

  Jared says nothing. My body is such a confused mixture of heady awareness, shock, and terror that I keep my gaze, wide-eyed, locked on my sister. I will her to come back to me. I need you, Margot, I whisper into the space between us, the now silent and empty room of our bond.

  Chapter Seven

  It never occurs to me to ask where Storm is taking us. Still, I reckon I’m not surprised when his van pulls into the underground parking garage under the immense cobalt skyscraper in downtown Dominion. Storm takes my sister again, and we all climb into a private elevator. Mohawk opens a small black keypad, punches some numbers into the identi-pad, then puts her thumb to the scanner. The doors close silently. As we zoom toward the 60th floor, I try to stop my knees from knocking together. Jared holds my upper arm like he’s certain I’m going to fall down. I don’t pull away.

  My throat is raw as I croak, “Do you think they’ll come after us?”

  Storm cocks an eyebrow at Torch. For the first time I notice the small box he carries in his hands, like a miniature banker’s box. He sends me a lopsided grin and shrugs.

  “Recording devices and security are kind of my thing,” he tells me with sheepish pride, picking up what looks like a mini disc.

  “For crying out loud, Malcolm, don’t burn it.” Mohawk slaps his hand so the disc falls back into the box. “We need that.” His fingers smoke and leave tarry blue afterburns on the disc.

  “It’s Torch.” He glares at Mohawk, who flips him a dimpled smile.

  “Whatever, Einstein.”

  As the elevator beeps I catch her glancing at me, undisguised curiosity stamped on her exotic features. Her sharp eyes linger on Jared’s firm grip on my arm, his body closer than it needs to be. Jared ignores her. I decide to do t
he same, repressing the blush creeping its way onto my face.

  We’re alive. Right this minute, that’s all I can handle.

  ...

  It seems like days later, rather than hours, that Margot is finally settled and Storm calls me into his office. I haven’t slept, and at the moment I wonder if I ever will again. Every few seconds terrible scenes flash behind my eyes, each more incredible than the last. I sleepwalk over to the couch and stumble to a sitting position to stare at walls a color our mother would describe as “buff.” My face is numb, covered in grit. I rub at it, hoping to stir myself enough to get what I need. Answers.

  “It will get easier,” a gentle voice tells me. “You need some sleep.” Cracking open my eyes I see a pair of ultra-expensive brown leather men’s dress shoes poking out from under black tailored slacks. I crane my head up to see Storm peering down at me. Around his head floats a ball of energy, crackling lines of lightning that dart out from his brain. I blink. The faint luminescent glow fades. Storm frowns and sits across from me.

  “You must have a lot of questions,” he says.

  “Do you know where my parents are? Have you called them?”

  I don’t like the way he studies me. “Do you want me to?”

  “I don’t think… Margot…” I bite my lip.

  He nods like he understands. Maybe he does. “They’re in Europe. An emergency business trip,” he lies smoothly.

  We both know the real story goes so much deeper. “This is the first time they’ve both gone away without telling us,” I reply like a true politician’s daughter. And hanging in the air between us is the unspoken question of a business partner, someone from Russia that we’re supposed to be impressing. Look how impressive we’re being now, I think with bitterness. If word of this gets out, it could put whatever plan our father is cooking up in jeopardy. And then he will kill us.

  I start a silent staring contest with Storm, but I’ll lose every time. The merciless winter of his eyes is terrifying. But then a small smile breaks across his handsome face. “You’re a very smart young woman, Lucy. I think if your parents knew how brave you’ve been, how you protected your sister, they would be very proud.”