by James Moore
“I agree.” Hunter squinted and looked around. “I just wish I knew where they’d left car, because we might not have any way to take care of business if the money and weapons are gone.”
Cody let out a groan and sat down on the sidewalk. “What the hell were they thinking?”
“Who?”
“Our other selves . . .”
“Look, let’s just get back with the others and see if they know anything we don’t.”
Cody stared hard at him for several seconds before he finally stood back up and shook his head. “Hope one of them knows how to dodge bullets.”
Back inside the hotel room things were little calmer. Poor Tina was still staring at her arm, trying to understand how she could have a permanent mark on her body without any recollection of how it got there.
Gene looked toward them as they entered the room. He was in the process of putting on his shoes. “We need food. Then we need to discuss what we’re doing next.” Kyrie nodded her agreement from where she sat next to Tina.
“The car is gone. We’ve got five motorcycles outside instead.”
Gene nodded. “I already found the money and the weapons,” Gene said. “They were stowed in the closet and under the bed.” He pointed toward the door they’d just entered with his chin. “I told the maid we didn’t need the room cleaned. Would have been hard to explain.”
“So where are you going for food?”
Gene looked at Cody for a long moment. “I was thinking a restaurant would be good.”
“Well, yeah, but where are there restaurants? We’re in the middle of nowhere.” Which was true enough. The hotel they were staying in was along the interstate and didn’t seem to have much by way of choices unless you counted the liquor store across the eight lanes of traffic.
“Got a bike. I’ll figure it out.”
“You can’t go alone.” Hunter blurted the words out before he knew he was going to talk. He pressed his lips together, wishing he had a better edit button.
“I wasn’t planning on it.” He jerked his chin toward the girls. “Kyrie’s coming along.”
“What?” For an instant there was an unexpected flare of jealousy that rose from his stomach. He did his best to crush that sensation.
Gene got an irritated look on his face. “I need someone to get my back and you and Cody were busy. So Kyrie volunteered.” That desire to take charge came back to Hunter along with the annoyance that Kyrie was leaving, but before he could make a comment, Gene spoke again. “We need food. Deal with it. When we get back, we can discuss what else we need to get done.”
Without another word Gene moved toward the door, and despite an irrational desire to step between the boy and the door, Hunter let him get where he was going.
Kyrie shot a dark look in his direction as she brushed past and Cody chuckled.
“What?” He waited until the door was closed behind the couple heading for food before he asked Cody what was on his mind.
“Just thinking you better make sure Kyrie’s your girl before you start acting all possessive about her.” Cody’s smirk was deeply annoying.
“What are you talking about?” Did he sound defensive? He didn’t think so.
Apparently Tina disagreed. “He ain’t wrong. I thought you were gonna start flexing your muscles and beating your chest when Gene said Kyrie was going along with him.” As always, her tone left little room for disagreeing.
“But I wasn’t. I didn’t . . .” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
Tina waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t have to defend yourself to me. I don’t really care.”
He looked to Cody for backup, but he was wasting his time. Cody shook his head and that smarmy little smirk on his face only grew more pronounced.
“Whatever.” He felt himself blush though he wasn’t quite sure why. Or if he was sure, he didn’t want to admit it, not even to himself.
It took almost an hour for the two to get back with food, and during that time Hunter had to suppress the jealousy he refused to acknowledge on a dozen different occasions—a jealousy that he hadn’t even been aware of until that morning. He kept peering out the windows and pacing, telling himself he was merely worried about them getting apprehended, which was partially true.
It was Tina who responded first when they came through the door, her voice a harsh crack. “Beginning to think you two had eloped or something. How far away from restaurants are we?”
Gene blinked, surprised by the attitude from Tina. Kyrie carried in bags of Chinese takeout and shook her head. “We had to wait for the restaurant to open. It was this or the diner we found next to Royal Gardens, and the diner looked like maybe it was closed.”
“Closed?”
She frowned. Even unhappy, she looked cute. “It wasn’t actually closed, but the parking lot was empty. Never eat at a diner that doesn’t have a few cars in the parking lot.”
“So what did you get?” Cody stared hungrily at the bags. He was a scrawny thing, but always hungry. Even as Hunter thought that, his stomach let out an audible growl. The scent of the Chinese food had awakened the hunger inside of him. Changing shapes—becoming Joe Bronx—took a lot of energy. The only way to replace the calories burned was to take in more calories.
Gene shrugged. “Five house-fried rice boxes and a five-person family sampler.” Hunter looked around the room and realized they were all hungry, close to ravenous. The change affected them all the same way.
Kyrie swung a particularly ponderous bag onto the bed and it sloshed. “Got some sodas too.”
For the next fifteen minutes, the conversations were kept to a minimum. Everyone was too busy shoving food down their throats to talk. Cody hammed it up on how good everything was and got everyone laughing—which, really, seemed to be his specialty. Hunter liked the skinny kid. He wasn’t so sure about the monster hiding inside of him, but he definitely liked Cody. They ate. They ate to the point where they should have been groaning in pain because the portions were huge, but instead of being in pain they were merely sated.
They should have been on the move, Hunter knew that, but he needed time to think. Everything that had happened in the last few days had been so frantic and fast that he needed time to think. All he had to do was look at the others, and he knew they felt the same way. Still, there was that old saying about the elephant in the room and how everyone tries to ignore it, and he could also see that though no one was looking right at the problem, they all wanted to talk about it just the same.
So when they finished eating, he finally put it on the table. “We were attacked yesterday. I’m still a little fuzzy on the details.”
Cody stuck his hand up in the air and started speaking immediately. “Bunch of goons attacked. Then they became bigger, badder goons. We got attacked by Successes.”
“’Successes?’”
“Yeah, you know. If we’re the Failures, they were the Successes.”
Gene frowned. “I’m not a failure. I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I’m not a failure.” His tone was petulant.
Cody shook his head. “According to Joe Bronx is all I’m saying. And either way, dude, I’m a big fat zero, so you can feel just as special as you want to.”
Gene started to say something, but Tina cut him off. “Hey! Let’s just find out what Hunter has in mind and we can all get bitchy later. Right now, I want answers.” She glared blue-murder at both of them as she snapped her words in their direction. And just that quickly, they reined in their emotions.
Hunter cleared his throat. “Thing is, we know we’re being hunted by these other ‘Successes.’ To make matters worse, if Cody’s right, we just pissed off a serious group of heavyweight hard asses called the Road Kings by stealing their bikes, at the very least.”
Cody almost opened his mouth to say something else, but instead he only shrugged.
“So I have to think we were set up. I’m having serious doubts about this address in my pocket, and I think we need to check it
out. Not all of us, just a couple. I think we need to know if we’re in for another confrontation or if we have a chance of meeting this Evelyn Hope lady.”
The TV had been playing in the background throughout their meal, and Kyrie’s eyes widened as she looked at the screen. “Guys! Guys! Look!” She pointed and nearly jumped up and down as she reached for the remote with her free hand, increasing the volume.
Hunter looked, and as he did, he felt his stomach fall away, as if he were on the top of the highest peak on a roller coaster and was suddenly dropping, heading down the steep hill at nearly impossible speeds and leaving his stomach somewhere behind him.
Gene stared at the screen and Hunter saw the color drain from the other boy’s face.
On the screen were three pictures of Gene, all of them relatively recent. He smiled nervously in all three images.
And the announcer on the TV spoke in calm, precise tones. He looked like a retired model who’d found a second career. “Once again, the young man in these images, Eugene Alexander Rothstein, has been missing for the last three days from his home in upstate New York. It is uncertain if he has been abducted or if he has left home voluntarily, but his parents have offered a substantial reward for information leading to his safe return.” The man looked at the papers on the desk in front of him and the image changed to a shot of two people Hunter had never seen before. Gene had seen them. He flinched.
The man was dark haired and athletic though getting up enough in years that it was obvious his biggest days as a jock were in the past. The woman had long dark hair and dark brown eyes and she was pretty, but her features were sharp and harsh. He couldn’t easily imagine her smiling. The names of the couple were printed at the bottom of the screen, but aside from the last name of Rothstein he’d forgotten them as soon as he looked.
It was Gene’s mother that did the talking, reading off an index card, “Our son Eugene is missing, and we don’t know for sure if he was abducted or forced to leave or if he left of his own volition—but whatever the case, we want our son back. To that end, we are offering one hundred thousand dollars for his safe return.” A toll-free number scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Even though it was obvious that the woman had more to say, the screen cut back to the anchorman, who was smiling toothily for the camera.
The pictures shown previously popped up on the screen again. “One hundred thousand dollars for information leading to the safe return of Eugene Rothstein to his family. We here at Channel Seven hope that one of our viewers might recognize the young man and be able to help reunite him with his family.”
Gene reached for the remote, turned the TV off, stood up and started pacing in tight circles. His face was almost expressionless.
“Gene? What the hell?” That was Tina, who always seemed determined to get straight to the heart of the problem.
“My parents. We’re screwed.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic? All of our parents are probably on the news and trying to find us.” Kyrie was moving even as she spoke. Probably moving to try to keep him calm, because his face was serene but his body language said he was ready to explode.
Gene shook his head and stared hard at her. “Not all of the parents out there are offering a hundred grand as a reward. No. You don’t get it. She’s not going to stop until she has me back at home. There’s no halfway with her. She’s like the Terminator, only meaner.”
Silence reigned for several seconds. While everyone absorbed the information, Cody rubbed his hands over his arms and shivered. “Is it cold in here?”
Gene didn’t even look at him as he responded. “No. That’s just my mom.”
Despite himself, Hunter laughed. A moment later the others joined in. They were in deep, and sometimes the only way to survive the craziness was to laugh about it.
Chapter Fourteen
Evelyn Hope
MOST EVERYONE WHO KNEW Evelyn Hope was intimidated by her. She was a hard woman who disliked being kept waiting.
There was one exception, a man who was her equal in power and had known her since she was in high school. He understood her, knew exactly how her mind worked and had founded Janus with her.
Josh Warburton smiled tightly as she climbed from the corporate jet. He could have merely had a driver waiting to pick her up, but he preferred to see his old friend in person.
Warburton was a short man, all of five feet, seven inches in height; he was also portly, with a thick waist and a round face. His smile was easygoing and his fair skin was covered with a smattering of freckles. His dark green eyes and his light auburn hair led many people to think he looked a little bit like a leprechaun. No one in their right mind ever said as much to his face. Not even Evelyn, who could have probably gotten away with it.
The two of them smiled as they hugged. “Good to see you in person for once, Josh.”
“It’s been too long.” She sighed as she held the man. They had been through so much together. When it came to business on the phone, they were cordial. Business was business and always came first, but on those rare occasions when they got together, she could look at the man who was practically family and she could let herself relax just a bit. It was a wonderful feeling that she seldom experienced.
“So.” Josh looked away from her and broke the embrace. “Subject Seven? Really, Evelyn?”
“No one was more surprised than me, Josh. I thought he’d fallen off the face of the earth.” She looked away from him, forcing back the emotions that threatened to surface. She could not think of Seven without thinking about Tom and Bobby, the husband and the son lost to the monster she’d helped create.
“We’ll find him, Evvy. We’ll find him and we’ll capture him.” His voice was soft, kind. He knew everything, of course, understood every aspect of what she was going through, because he was the one who’d helped make everything possible. She and Tom had been the brains behind the work. Josh had been the one who took care of the money, the legalities and the everyday events. Josh was a genius when it came to money and paperwork, just as surely as she was a genius when it came to genetics. He had also learned enough from her that he could keep up with her on the discussions of the processes they used, even if he couldn’t exactly work out all of the details.
“Have you heard anything about them since the attack?” Josh’s question drew Evelyn out of her small reverie.
She arched an eyebrow and allowed another smile. “You mean aside from the massive reward offered for bringing one of them back to his parents?”
Josh grinned. “I thought you might have heard about that.”
Evelyn waved a dismissive hand. “Please. As if anything of that nature would escape George.” Even as she spoke, she could see her assistant slowly climbing from the private jet, already engaged in conversation with God knew who.
Josh looked at the man and nodded. George, despite being in the middle of a heated debate on his cell phone, immediately nodded and waved a greeting.
“He’s a bit of a lifesaver, isn’t he?” Josh knew the score. He understood exactly how much Evelyn depended on George. He also knew that she would drop her assistant off a cliff in a heartbeat if it meant furthering her goals in life. She did not allow herself the luxury of love, with very few exceptions.
“Tell him that and I’ll kill you myself, but yes.” She smiled and stepped past him. “What do we know about Eugene Rothstein?”
“He’s the right age. His paperwork is in perfect order. He could have been adopted from any number of legitimate agencies.” Josh shook his head. “The good news is I recognized the signatures on the paperwork. Hanson and Clarkson.”
The two men who had started all of this madness by selling the kids in an adoption scam. Now, instead of relaxing, Evelyn and Josh were trying to clean up a mess started by a couple of dissatisfied ex-employees who had already been taken care of apparently, since they could not be found.
“What about his family?”
“Old money and lots of it. Th
e offer is legitimate.” Josh’s face was calm; his eyes were lit up with excitement. He had information and there was little he loved more than sharing his secrets with Evelyn. “The thing is, he’s not the only one. We have to figure out who the rest of them are.”
“Well, yes, that would be one of the reasons I called you, Josh. You were the one who tried to warn me before.”
He almost said I told you so. She could see that he wanted to, but he was wise enough to keep it to himself. “I’ve got a list. Twenty names all told. We just need to figure out which names were contacted by Subject Seven.” Twenty names? The thought was unsettling. She’d hoped for no more than four or five. Twenty of the monsters out there? All of them as unpredictable as Subject Seven? It was enough to make her palms sweat.
“Well, I think we can safely assume one of them is the Rothstein boy.”
“I’ve already got people working on finding the rest of them and establishing surveillance. As soon as we know who’s with him, we can round up the rest of them and get everything back to normal.”
Evelyn looked at George as he hung up the phone. “How did it go?”
George looked at her and nodded, not saying a word. He didn’t need to. She understood his simple gesture. That was another of the reasons she kept him around.
Josh did not understand what his nod meant and looked like he wanted desperately to ask. Evelyn smiled. Let him keep guessing. She’d tell him when everything was set up. Until then, she felt like keeping a few secrets to herself.
Chapter Fifteen
Cody Laurel
“HI, MOM.” CODY’S HEART hammered in his chest as he heard his mother’s voice. Maybe she wasn’t his biological mom, but he didn’t care about that. Oh sure, it was going to be an issue at some point in the future, and it was already on his mind a good deal, but the simple pleasure of hearing her voice eliminated his worries about everything else. She was his mom. That was enough. He missed her. Worse than that, he felt like he was coming down with something, and that only made him feel more homesick. His mom made the best chicken soup in the universe and swore it could cure almost any illness. He believed it, too.
