Lethal Engagement

by Teyla Branton

  “Okay.” I dipped my head toward Keene, slipping my arm around him, mostly to ease the plastic bacon into his back pocket. We could be facing more than we could handle, and just in case, I wanted him to have it. I hated the possibility of never knowing how our game might end. “I’m ready.”

  Power rushed through my body as I folded Lucinda’s location around us.

  A GLANCE UP AND DOWN the hallway told me Lucinda was alone. Yellow caution tape blocked off one end of the hall, but I couldn’t tell if that was to keep people out of this area or from crossing into the next. I still couldn’t see Patrick’s location.

  Lucinda’s back was toward us when we appeared, but she rotated unsteadily as she heard our arrival. One hand went out to the wall for support. “How did you get here?” she demanded sharply.

  “Where’s Patrick?” Noah asked. “Why are you out of bed?”

  Lucinda’s nostrils flared. “He doesn’t need you anymore. Any of you.”

  “Who has him?” Noah flew across the ten feet separating us from Lucinda. She placed her hands on the taller woman’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Please!”

  “Has him?” Lucinda gave an unladylike snort. “Like I’d tell you anything.”

  Noah’s arms dropped. “But I’m your friend—and Patrick’s.”

  “Patrick’s. Yeah, right.” Lucinda’s jaw thrust out. “I know all about your friendship. Mooning over him until I grow old and die and he turns to you for comfort. Tempting him, seducing him, with your voice. Stealing all his attention—and that of everyone else who listens to you sing. Not the kind of friendship I need.”

  “You have it all wrong,” Noah said, pain evident in her voice. “I’m the one who urged him to go to you when everyone else said to let you go. Please, Luce, think of Patrick. He loves you.”

  “I am thinking of Patrick!” Lucinda continued to glare at Noah. “I’m only thinking of him! You don’t deny it, do you? That you’re in love with him?”

  “Lucinda.” I took several steps toward them, feeling as if my legs weighed seventy pounds each. Shifting too many people in too short of time. I should be helping Keene, who was opening doors near us and peering inside, but for now I’d have to leave it to him. Besides, I was sure that Lucinda was the key to everything. “We went back to the house, and Emporium agents were there looking for Patrick. They tried to kill everyone. And there were snipers at the school today. Their guns weren’t something ordinary people can buy. Not even Hunters. Whatever these people told you, that’s their plan—to kill him.”

  “She knows that.” Keene’s chin lifted in challenge, his hand pausing on the next doorknob. “Don’t you, Lucinda? You didn’t go to the school today because you knew about the attack. When it didn’t succeed, you killed the agent in the kitchen so you could put the poison in the food.”

  “Luce?” Noah’s eyes beseeched hers. “It’s not true, is it? You were poisoned yourself.”

  “She didn’t think it would happen that fast,” Keene continued. “Not until we all ate it. She didn’t know I planned to check our food.” To Lucinda, he added, “I bet they said they’d give you an antidote.” A flash of something in Lucinda’s face told us he’d guessed right.

  Noah’s hand came up over her mouth. “Oh, Luce, no. They weren’t going to. They never do! The Emporium doesn’t care about mortals. What have you done? I know you love Patrick.”

  “You know nothing!” Lucinda’s voice rose to a screech.

  Noah didn’t back down. “That’s why you ate that chicken. You didn’t want to see what they were going to do to him!”

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Lucinda clamped her hands over her ears.

  “Where is he?” Noah grabbed Lucinda’s arms and shook her.

  Lucinda slumped against Noah as if she needed to lean on her for comfort, but the next instant she was upright again with a knife in her hand. She whirled Noah around and pulled her close, holding the knife against her throat. The quickness of it and her crazed eyes froze me into place. She put her mouth close to Noah’s ear. “Never expected that I’d use your own knife against you. You really shouldn’t be carrying any weapons. You’d never have the stomach to use them.”

  “Luce, what are you doing?” Noah was still calm, but fear laced the words. “We’re friends!”

  “We were never friends. The Hunters are right. We’re nothing but animals to you guys. The only way the world will be safe is if there are no more Unbounded.”

  “Including Patrick?” Seconds clicked by in my mind. Each one that passed meant an increasing chance that Patrick would be killed, if he hadn’t been already. But we couldn’t abandon Noah to Lucinda, not if there was any chance she’d end up captured by either the Hunters or the Emporium. Since no hospital employees or security had yet come to investigate our very loud exchange, it wasn’t likely their officers would be any help. I would have shifted to Lucinda then, but Keene’s hand on my arm stopped me. His face was drawn as he stared at something past me down the hall. I risked a quick glance behind but saw no one.

  “Please,” Noah said to Lucinda, “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  I’d started wondering why Noah didn’t try to free herself from Lucinda, who still had to be feeling the effects of the poison. Noah wasn’t great at fighting, but she was trained, and we’d certainly jump in to help. Guess that was my answer—she really did love Lucinda.

  “I don’t care what happens to me,” Lucinda cried. “Patrick’s different now!”

  I shrugged off Keene’s hand and inched closer. This hospital was large and she had information that I was going to get from her one way or another. “He’s who he’s supposed to be.”

  “No! He’s not!”

  “Changing doesn’t mean you become someone else,” I said. “It’s like growing up or learning a new language. Inside, Patrick’s still who he always was. He still loves you.”

  “That’s right!” Noah jumped in. “He still likes Mexican restaurants and long walks on the beach. He still hiccups funny. He buys you flowers and remembers your special dates. He knows you hate chocolate but will eat anything with salt. He’s the same man.”

  “No, no,” moaned Lucinda. “He’s different. He’s stronger, more confident. Not afraid of anything.” Her voice began to rise with each point. “He doesn’t get sick. He barely needs sleep. He doesn’t age. He can do a dozen things with his mind at the same time.” She was nearly screaming now. “He never forgets anything because he files it away and can access it with that stupid neural transmitter. So don’t tell me he’s the same. He’s not! And he’s still changing. The Hunters are right. He’ll become a monster just like the one who murdered my baby and destroyed my life.”

  “He won’t!” Noah twisted her neck, struggling to look at Lucinda, unheeding of the knife at her throat. “Not Patrick. He’s one of the good guys! All those changes you talk about are good ones. You know him. He’s a good man. He’s sacrificed his own goals to help the world. How can you say he’ll become a monster?”

  Lucinda’s face hardened, becoming something ugly. “He sacrificed us too. Always in the limelight. Always the stares.” Her attention flicked past us down the hall.

  Keene followed her eyes. “Is that where they have Patrick?”

  “Don’t move!” Lucinda ordered, her voice no longer moaning or uncertain. “Or I’ll hurt Noah. I swear it. She’s so thin, so fragile, much weaker than the agent I killed at the house. All those self-defense classes Patrick made me take, you know. I may be weak from the poison, but I promise, I can stop her long enough for the Hunters to get her. After they’re finished with Patrick.”

  “You mean, after they cut him into three pieces.” Keene took a step toward her, his face a mask of fury.

  I thought Keene would jump at her then, but he leaned close to me, his words coming so faint I had to strain to hear. “There’s something odd about one of the doors near the end of the hall. Some kind of energy. Patrick might be there.” I hoped he was right.
Because if they’d left the hospital altogether while Lucinda distracted us, we might never catch up to them in time.

  “Go see!” I said to him.

  “Stop!” Lucinda shouted as Keene started to turn. “I’m. Saving. Humanity!” With each word she pushed the knife deeper into Noah’s neck, perhaps intent on cutting out her gift of music. Blood sprang up around the blade. Keene hesitated. “Hunters are the only way we’ll survive!” Lucinda continued. “If Patrick was his old self, he’d agree this was the only way.”

  “You’re wrong. Patrick knows he’s the only hope we have of uniting humanity before the Emporium takes control. The president needs him to help pass laws that will protect everyone.” I glanced at Keene, brushing my hand against his so he’d know what I intended. We needed to end this now. His head dipped a fraction. Letting my knife slip into my left hand, I reached for the numbers, and sluggishly they obeyed.

  “Well, everyone can’t have him.” Lucinda shook Noah. “She can’t have him! This Unbounded slut is just like all those women with the signs, wanting his favors, offering the baby I can’t give him. I won’t let any of you have him! He’s mine!” With a fluid motion, she raked the knife over Noah’s throat. Blood gushed down into the front of Noah’s dress. Noah cried out, but the wound apparently wasn’t fatal—not even temporarily so—and Noah remained on her feet.

  Anger fueling my energy, I shifted, appearing behind Lucinda. My bad arm slid around her waist to hold her in place, a bite of pain stealing my breath. My knife pierced her clothing near her left kidney. “Let her go or I’ll put this inside you.” I kept my voice light but pushed the point of the knife into her flesh, letting the metal speak for me. I could smell the sour stench of her body, vomit mixed with expensive perfume. I could also feel her fear because she was shaking with it. There was something intimate about the moment; I understood her as I wouldn’t if I’d simply pointed a gun at her head. My knife begged to go deeper.

  “Oh, I get it,” Lucinda said, mocking now. “You’re not Homeland Security, are you? You’re one of them.” She looked around at me, her blue eyes as pale and cold as ice. No wildness there now. Only calculation.

  I gave an insincere chuckle. “Finally, something you got right. You know what? Maybe Patrick is different. Maybe like me, he’s happy he’s Changed. Maybe like me he feels alive for the first time in his life. Now let her go!”

  Lucinda loosened her hold, and Noah nearly fell from her grip. Sighing, Noah leaned against the wall, her hand going to her neck, her breath ragged.

  I stepped even closer to Lucinda until our bodies touched, still keeping the knife in place. Lucinda betraying Patrick hurt me in ways I didn’t know I could still feel about Trevor. “You may think you’re Patrick’s one great love, but you know what? Next year you’re going to be nothing more than the woman who betrayed him to a murderous cult, the unhinged woman he wished he’d never met. I know because that’s all my dead husband is to me now—eyes I can barely remember, a pretty face I wish I hadn’t wasted time on.”

  “Mari,” Keene said. His synergy crackled through the air, an offer of help if I needed it. Or perhaps a warning.

  I released her. “Right. Let’s find Patrick.” I started down the hall.

  “Monster!” With a cry, Lucinda raised her knife and plunged it toward my back, but Noah was there, pushing me out of the way.

  The knife sliced deeply through the flesh and muscle of Noah’s shoulder. That should have been it, but instead of stopping there, the blade continued on with force, down in an arc until it embedded in Lucinda’s own stomach. She gasped and pulled out the knife. Let it clatter to the floor.

  For an instant no one moved. An agonizing second filled with horror and realization. Then both women collapsed, the back of Lucinda’s head slamming sickeningly on the tile. Keene caught Noah before hers did the same. His face was devoid of color, and I could no longer feel his synergy. I knew that meant he’d used his ability on Lucinda, to enhance her strength after she’d plunged the knife through Noah’s shoulder. Otherwise, she might have stopped her thrust in time to save herself.

  What’s more, I knew he’d done it to save me, both from being hurt and from having to hurt her. He might not have meant to give her quite that much energy, but he’d chosen to use his ability, and now he’d have to live with it.

  “Is she . . . ?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” Lucinda was bleeding badly, but I was more concerned about Noah. Not because she wouldn’t heal, but because she was more vulnerable now to whatever group was here at the hospital.

  Keene removed his shirt and balled it against Lucinda’s stomach, placing her hands over it. Her eyelids fluttered but she remained unconscious.

  “Go get Patrick,” Noah said as I knelt beside her. Her voice sounded odd, whistling and wet. Air bubbled the blood welling from her throat, and looking at it twisted my insides, reminding me of Trevor.

  I dragged my eyes away and nodded at Keene. “You go. I’ll stay with her. They might have someone watching the monitors.” I removed my own jacket, exposing my bare arms and arm sheaths, and began tying it awkwardly around Noah’s hurt shoulder and under the opposite arm to stem the copious flow of blood.

  “I’ll be back.” Keene turned and sprinted down the hall, his face angry and determined.

  “Go with him.” Noah’s dark eyes pleaded. “If Hunters or the Emporium were coming, they’d already be here. It’s Patrick they’re after, not me.”

  I debated only a few seconds. “Okay, but text Jace, if you can. Let him know what’s happening.” I put Noah’s phone into her right hand and placed her gun on the floor next to her, removing the silencer. “Use the gun if anyone comes. I’ll hear and shift back to help you.”

  She nodded. “Just find him.”

  I SHIFTED NEXT TO KEENE, who’d stopped at a door just before the yellow caution tape where the hallway intersected another that ran both left and right. Peering around the corner, I saw a nurses’ station far down the hall where three women seemed to be at work. A man with an untrimmed beard sat behind them, awkwardly dressed as a doctor, one hand hidden by another white smock puddled in his lap. Definitely not Emporium.

  “Hunter,” I whispered.

  “Something’s strange here.” Keene had his hand flat on the door.

  He was right. When I tried to call up numbers that would get me into the room, nothing came. There were simply no coordinates available except maybe a foot or so beyond the door. “Definitely, something’s blocking me. There’s a tiny bit of space. I might be able to shift just to the other side.”

  “We have no idea what’s there.” Keene tried the knob and found it locked. “We’ll go in the old-fashioned way.”

  “Why don’t we just knock? Don’t they have a special pattern?”

  “Yeah, but my info will be way out of date, especially if an Emporium agent has infiltrated their group. They’ll have changed protocol.”

  “Try it anyway.”

  He gave a series of taps that sounded rather juvenile instead of cool. We waited, hearing low murmurs. Footsteps, and then the doorknob turned.

  Keene shoved hard on the door before it opened more than a few inches. As he pushed inside, two men pounced on him. He threw them back, knocking one down with a punch and pistol-whipping the hand of the one who held a gun. I sprinted past them all, seeing that Keene had it under control. He didn’t move as fast as Jace, but every punch was carefully placed and accelerated by his synergy. I was pretty sure the first man he’d hit wouldn’t be getting up again, but the other, dressed in the jeans and T-shirt that were typical Hunter garb, moved like a combat Unbounded. He had to be an Emporium plant.

  The part of the room I could see was empty except for a few beds and several odd, three-foot metal poles emitting streams of yellow light that intersected one another. The far part of the room was curtained, and the lights from these transmitters continued through this curtained area, the plastic-backed material was pulled slightly aside fo
r that purpose. The instant I passed through the light stream in front of the doorway, I could feel Patrick’s color and calculate the numbers that would take me to him.

  Clicking the release on my left arm sheath to slide the knife into my hand, I shifted across the room and past the curtain. On the other side, it looked as if a tornado had ripped through the place. Overturned chairs, scattered medical instruments, and red trash cans with DANGER printed on them spilled everywhere. Blinds had been pulled from the window and several machines smashed. Papers, needles, and wrappers mixed in with tongue depressors and alcohol wipes. The single bed had been pushed up against the wall and in it was Patrick, cuts and bruises on his face, his eyes filled with terror. His hands and legs were secured to the bed with silver duct tape, his mouth had a swath over it, and more tape layered his chest and secured him to the bed. Evidently he’d fought hard.

  A tall, thin man in green scrubs stood over him, a needle in hand. On a tiny table next to him was a large saw that was stained dark with old blood. Definitely a Hunter, I thought. No doubt about what he’d been intending, though usually Hunters didn’t sedate their victims, believing that the suffering freed their souls from their vile natures.

  The man was staring blankly at the curtain when I appeared, obviously worried by the racket Keene and his opponent were making. His face was closely shaven, except for the droopy brown moustache. His untrimmed eyebrows resembled caterpillars marching across his ruddy brow. When he saw my knife, his face paled.

  Patrick also saw me and renewed his struggle, the panic fading from his face. The Hunter looked between me and his needle. I could almost see his brain working. Then, thrusting his jaw forward, he dived at Patrick, who jerked up, bashing his forehead into the side of the Hunter’s skull. The man stumbled backward.

  Go, Patrick!

  I reached for numbers, intending to shift behind the Hunter, but a sudden dizziness prevented my fold. The second time I got it right. The Hunter whirled on me as I appeared, the needle aimed at my eye. Instinctively, I brought my wounded right arm up to block. His arm crashed into mine. For an instant, my vision went red with agony as something ripped inside my arm.