An Army of One: The Extraordinary Series

by Eaton, Pam

  I step away from him and transport to the spot high up on the walkway of the water tower, right next to Tony. He only makes the slightest flinch, signaling that I surprised him with my sudden appearance.

  “You get them?” Tony asks, his eyes looking out into the distance. I know he can see for miles, because that’s his power. I wonder what he sees. I stopped asking a while ago. It seems like such a long time ago that we were lying on a rooftop and he was talking about the astronauts on the space station. He would point things out to me that I’d never see with my own eyes. Any time I asked what he saw, he would tell me.

  “Don’t we always?” I ask.

  He makes a humming noise. “Set another fire?” he asks.

  I don’t bother answering. He knows the answer. I slide down and plop my butt next to his.

  We both look out into the trees, staring at the setting sun. My mind keeps wandering to the little girl we found in the cage tonight. Her eyes followed me everywhere I went in that lab. What was really odd though, was that she made no sound, showed no emotion when Lucy picked her up so we could leave. The other two kept thanking me in Spanish, but that little girl stayed quiet, watchful.

  Tony clears his voice, dragging me back into the present. “It’s been four months, Becca,” Tony says to me—like I don’t already know that. And it hasn’t been four months; it’s been four months, thirteen days, and five hours. “You haven’t mourned.” He’s trying to be comforting, but there’s no point.

  “You’re being reckless,” he states.

  Did these guys have a meeting earlier in the week? Because this is the second time in only a few hours I’m being lectured about this.

  “I’m waiting for the day you don’t come back from one of these missions.” His voice drops, letting me hear the pain he’s in.

  I turn away from him and look out over Fordlandia from our perch on the old water tower. It’s definitely not the safest place to be sitting—there’re more rust spots than paint—but I hardly give a damn about my safety anymore. That’s not what I’m living for now.

  “It’s only a matter of time.” He’s begging me, just like Walter has and Tiberius have, to care more about myself. But it’s like that part of me died with Gregory and my grandparents. And I don’t think I want to revive it. The only time I feel anything is when I’m on that edge between death and success on our missions.

  He lightly touches my arm, and I rip it away, bringing it close to my chest. “Don’t,” I warn him.

  “This isn’t living!” The words burst out of him with the most feeling I’ve heard from him in a while. I’m not the only one who hasn’t moved on. I haven’t even gotten him to leave the compound since I transported him here months ago.

  “You’re one to talk,” I tell him in a calm, controlled voice. There’s no point in yelling back at him.

  “It’s not—”

  “It is the same thing,” I say, cutting him off, finally looking at him in the eye for the first time. He’s too thin, and in desperate need of a haircut. “I’ve asked you to come with me repeatedly. You know exactly what these guys are capable of. You’ve seen the people I’ve brought back here. I’ve been patient, but I need to know what went down in Myanmar.”

  His shoulders cave inward, and he looks down at the ground far below our dangling feet. “Talking about it won’t do any good,” he says, and I know not to push him more, otherwise he’s going to lock himself in his bedroom for the next three days.

  “Well, aren’t we a pair,” I say, and he huffs out a harsh laugh.

  We’re a mess. And we both know it. Both of us self-destructing in our own ways. He’s hiding, and I’m putting myself in the path of bullets.

  Voices carry up from below. I look down at my watch. “You coming to training today?” I don’t know why I bother asking, because it’s been no every time.

  “What’s on today’s agenda?” he asks, like he actually cares, when I know he doesn’t.

  “Firearms,” I say, my voice getting a little more animated from the anticipated rush of pulling the trigger and hitting the target. It’s basically its own high.

  “Is that the only thing that gets that scowl off your face these days?” He may not like it as much as I do, but if he would only try, with those eyes…he’d be amazing.

  “Why don’t you come watch? You don’t have to shoot; you can just help me work on my aim.” It’s an olive branch I know he won’t take, and I’m proved right as he shakes his head.

  “How did we start talking about me?” he asks, genuinely sounding confused.

  I shrug my shoulders. “Gotta stop hanging around and doing nothing all day. Your brain’s going to mush.”

  He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, I salute him and transport to the ground below. “Hey, I wasn’t done talking with you!”

  “Come join me at range then!” I yell back, flashing him what is probably a strained smile.

  He turns his head away, eyes scanning the treetops. “Maybe later.” His reply isn’t shouted, but I can still hear it and the lie he’s telling both of us. He won’t come, just like I probably won’t ever finish this conversation with him.

  * * *

  I head down the dirt-lined streets, waving at all the people calling my name, trying to keep my emotions in check. Because that talk with Tony has me a bit rattled. I’d gone at least a couple hours without thinking about my grandparents or Gregory. But with that one conversation, my reprieve of the constant heartache was obliterated. Mourning isn’t going to bring them back. Nothing will.

  I make a turn down the main avenue of houses. Even though I’ve been here for four months, this place is still surreal. It looks like a war-torn Californian suburb, but we’re smack dab in the middle of a Brazilian jungle. I don’t know what the Ford Company was thinking putting small-town America here, but it’s been a refuge for those of the Blessed Many.

  “Ciao, Becca,” a deep Italian voice calls to me from the front porch of the house I’m walking by.

  “Hey, Luca,” I say, stopping at his fence. “How’s it going?”

  He steps out from the cover of his porch, and I steel myself not to flinch. Luca is one of the prime reasons for this place. The teal scales on his exposed skin gleam in the sunlight as he makes his way closer to me. He scans the street, probably looking for the kids who run around here. They’re still not used to him and usually run screaming when he’s spotted.

  “Same old, same old,” he says in his thick Italian accent. He keeps his body angled, like at any moment he’s going to run back to the cover of his porch.

  We found him a month ago, trapped in a cage in the bowels of some abandoned warehouse in Rome. I’m pretty sure they’d left him there to die because he wasn’t a success, and the lab was completely cleared out. We had been a day too late. Tiberius had found them, and by the time we’d organized to go, they had deserted the place, leaving Luca there alone. It’s not very often I see a grown man cry, but when we opened that cage he stumbled out and fell to his knees, tears raining down his face.

  We haven’t found who’s taking DNA from the one hundred yet and trying to create more of us, but I’ve burned down every lab I can find, and save the people I can. I know Luca’s life has changed forever, but I’m hoping he’ll find a life here.

  “I’m headed to the range if you want to tag along,” I offer him.

  His tongue peeks out to lick his lips, and ugh, that’s disturbing. I didn’t know it was forked. Luca has got it rough, but he needs this place. He’d never survive out in the real world. We’re pretty sure they tried to morph the genes of someone who can shift into any creature with his, but it’s like he’s locked in this half-human, half-scaly-reptile state. And every time I talk to him about working with me so we can get him to try and shift, he freaks. Can’t really blame the guy. It took me twenty minutes to convince him to leave the filthy lab and come with us.

  His eyes keep scanning the area, searching.

  “The more t
hey see you, the faster they’ll get used to you,” I tell him.

  The more I talk to Luca, the more I learn he’s the kindest guy I’ve ever met. Oddly enough, talking with him helps temper the rage that consumes me on a daily basis.

  “Si, I’ll come.” He squares his shoulders a bit and walks past his gate, joining me on the dirt road.

  We head to the clearing, thankfully not encountering anyone on the way. Either that means we actually didn’t walk by anyone, or they looked out their windows and stayed inside. It’ll change in time; Luca just happens to be the first to have his power on full display.

  “Have you ever shot a gun?” I ask him, trying to ease some of the tension that’s coming off him in waves.

  “Never,” he says as we approach the small range I helped build two months ago. Guess I’ll have to teach him some safety tips first.

  “Okay. Right off the bat, never point a gun at anyone. Don’t care if it’s loaded or not, don’t do it.” My voice is very firm, because I need him to realize how serious I am. Walter may be an amazing doctor, but he’s not God.

  Luca nods his head, his face matching my serious one.

  “This is a 9mm Glock,” I say, drawing the side arm from the holster hidden under my shirt. “We’ll start with only five rounds in the magazine.”

  I show him how to hold it, how to stand, how to line up the two sights on the gun with the target. It’s an odd thing seeing his scale-covered arms hold the gun. I wonder if the shifter in him makes his grip better.

  After his first time pulling the trigger, he places the gun down with the slide pulled back and the magazine out like I showed him. He looks down at his shaking hands and then up to me.

  “Adrenaline rush, huh?” I ask him.

  He nods slowly, hands still subtly shaking.

  “In some ways it’s the scariest thing. You realize the destruction and power you’re holding,” I tell him, eyes on the handgun. “But at the same time, it makes you hyper focused on what’s around you—it makes you feel alive. It’s a balance of feeling powerful but respecting what you’re holding and what it can do.”

  He lifts the gun up, not as shaky, and empties the clip. He’s an awful shot, but not everyone can be a natural.

  “Grazie, Becca.” He only says two words, but in those words, I hear everything he isn’t saying. Maybe he’s regaining the control he lost, maybe he’s feeling acceptance—but he’s not running scared, and that’s the most important thing.

  “Hey, Becca, Lucy could really use your help,” Tiberius says as he comes walking up behind us. “Hey, Luca,” he says, raising a hand.

  I take the gun out of Luca’s hand, take out the magazine, and after putting them both down, turn towards my uncle.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “It’s the little girl we found in Barcelona. She’s at our house right now.”

  “I’ll head right over,” I tell him. I pick my gun back up and put it back in my holster.

  Three

  “She hasn’t said anything. Not one word,” Lucy tells me, her voice lowered so it won’t carry.

  “Really?” I ask, looking at the door that separates us from the little girl.

  Lucy crosses her arms, eyes focused on the door. “She hadn’t been in that lab long. There aren’t that many needle marks on either of her arms,” she tells me in a hushed voice.

  “She let you check her?” I ask, surprised.

  “She understands what I’m saying, she just won’t respond. She kept showing me the locket around her neck. I’m assuming the pictures in it are of her parents; she looks just like her mom.”

  “Was she kidnapped?” I ask.

  “I have no idea,” she says, shaking her head.

  “What did the others say?” I ask, referring to the two other people we found in the lab in Barcelona.

  Lucy runs her hands through her hair, eyes still fixed on that door like she can see through it. “They can’t remember when she got there. These guys were so heavily drugged, I’m not surprised. They’re the roughest we’ve ever rescued before. Thankfully Adriana helped get them settled.”

  I want to ask if they were worse off than her, but I bite my tongue. Lucy’s the real reason behind the start of these missions. If Tiberius hadn’t found her when he was walking down the street in Miami—no, I don’t want to go there. She’s a part of us now, and I’m so grateful she’s here. I missed out on having an aunt for years, and I don’t know if aunts and nieces typically spend their Saturday afternoons at the shooting range, but I love it.

  “What do we do now?” I ask.

  She finally turns away from the door and looks at me with pleading eyes. “Would you go talk to her?”

  Wait, what? “Me? What am I supposed to say?” This is not my area at all.

  “You rescued her, maybe that connection will make her talk.”

  I stare at the door now too. I doubt she’ll talk to me. This is probably a huge waste of time.

  “Please, Becca,” Lucy says, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “I’ll give it a shot, but no promises.”

  She nods, a small smile gracing her face.

  I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I knock lightly on the door. It creaks slightly as I open it gently. The little girl with the piercing blue eyes stares back at me from her spot on the bed. In one hand I can see the chain from the necklace she’s clutching. In the other she has a stuffed giraffe.

  I sit on the edge of the bed, as far away as I can get. I don’t want to freak her out. We stare at each other. She’s not cowering; her eyes are more curious than anything else. “My name’s Becca,” I tell her.

  She stares at me. I reach out and softly touch the giraffe. “I had one of these growing up. His name was Jeffery. I slept with him every night.”

  A sharp pain hits my heart. He burned up in the fire, along with everything I owned, loved. I lost so much that day. And I’ll never get any of it back. I take a shuddering breath and push the memories out.

  “Do you have a name for your giraffe?” I ask her, my voice a lot more hoarse than before.

  She shakes her head.

  “Do you have a name?” I ask, hopeful she’ll answer.

  She tentatively reaches out her hand and grabs mine. She opens my fingers and I hold my breath as she places her locket in the palm of my hand. “Is this yours?” I ask her quietly. I don’t know why I lower my voice, but this feels like something sacred to her.

  She nods.

  I open it and bring it closer to my face. Inside is a picture of a young woman who has matching spiral curls like the little girl. On the other side is a man in an army uniform. “Are these your parents?”

  She stares at me, not answering the question either way.

  “Are they your family?”

  She reaches out and slowly pulls the locket back to her. She looks at the pictures, her eyes full of a haunting sadness no little kid should ever feel. She closes it, and then softly kisses the locket. She places it around her neck and hugs her giraffe closer to her.

  We sit on her bed in silence. I don’t know what to do.

  I’m looking around for something when I hear my stomach growl. “Are you hungry?” I finally ask her.

  She nods, so I rise from the bed and step back out of the room. Lucy’s standing on the other side, her arms folded tight across her chest. Her head snaps up at the sound of the door.

  “Anything?” she whispers once the door is closed.

  “No more than you got. She nodded her head when I asked her if she was hungry.”

  “What are we going to do?” Lucy asks, but I think she’s talking more to herself than to me. “I’ll go make her a sandwich.” She walks out of the room.

  I sit down at the dining room table. There has to be some way we can help her, figure out who she belongs to.

  And then it hits like lightning. And the name that pops into my head makes me break out in a cold sweat.

  Xavier.

 
; I need to find Tiberius.

  * * *

  “His power is to be able to touch something and to see what’s happened with that object for the last three days. I got him to see to four days once, but that was before I worked on my enhancing power,” I tell Tiberius.

  He rubs a hand across his jaw. “Are the risks worth it?” he asks me, his voice measured.

  I haven’t seen Xavier since my life imploded. I have no idea where he is, but with Tiberius’s power it won’t be a problem finding him. But I can’t go back to Project Lightning. I won’t go back. And what if Mr. Smith wants him to make me come back?

  I see those bright blue eyes in my mind again, and the decision is made. “We need to help her, and I don’t know any other way to. She’s not talking—I don’t even know if she can. Plus, maybe if we take Xavier to that warehouse, he can find out who’s behind all of this.”

  “You know him better than I do. I’ll leave it up to you,” he tells me.

  I need to help this little girl. I need to know who’s kidnapping these people. But being here in Fordlandia, in the middle of the Amazon jungle, under the secrecy of Lucy’s inventions, has allowed me to drop off the face of the planet. “Time is not on our side,” I tell him. The longer we wait, the less information we’ll get.

  “What if they find us here?” I ask, voicing my biggest fear. I can’t put all these people in danger.

  “They won’t, and even if they did, I would know they’re coming,” he assures me.

  I bite my lip, trying to think of any other option, but nothing is coming. “I can’t think of any other way,” I tell him.

  “Well, let’s see where in the world he is,” Tiberius says as he reaches out his hand.

  I grab it and close my eyes, picturing Xavier. His long raven hair. The well-worn jeans he always wears. And the soft smile he readily shows. Images bombard my mind, like stills in a movie. I haven’t let myself think too much about him, or anyone at Project Lightning. My mind wants to drift, but I strain to keep the image of Xavier at the forefront.