Loyalty

by Carrie Butler

  George uncrossed his arms to gesture. “I was fortunate to have been born into an Augari line that valued our history and place in the world. My uncle, my guardian, was well acquainted with people from a particular Dynari line, the same that helped found this place of refuge. Back then, they intended it as a means of practicing our special abilities in private, away from the eyes of the world.”

  “But then things changed.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “It became us versus them. Fear found a hold in every corner, as communication improvements made our close calls a little too close. The old council decided it was time we close our ranks—so, I packed up and left.”

  I pulled my legs up to my chest. “Where did you go?”

  “West,” he answered in a quiet voice. “Shadowed a bounty hunter, learned the trade, and made it on my own for nearly a decade. Then my uncle got sick. I came back to the place he’d come to think of as home. I guess, after he passed, I couldn’t bring myself to walk away from the group again.”

  “And you became invested,” I ascertained. “Made it all the way up to representing Augari on the council.”

  He nodded.

  “I’m guessing things changed again…”

  George ducked his head down and pressed his palms against his temples. “Did you know there are many accounts where Hitler studied the US government’s mistreatment of Native Americans? Some say it helped him plan his own encampments. I cannot help but wonder if this Faye woman has taken a page from that book, relocating and isolating a sect of people, acting out solely on her own twisted beliefs. Instead of torturing and murdering those in her so-called sanctuary, she’s eliminating everyone on the outside. Viruses, manufactured disasters—we cannot abide by it.”

  I saw it then, the fire burning in his eyes. It was that spark of determination that had seen us this far. What he was telling me wasn’t a ruse. This man had been waiting for us longer than we knew. “So, join us.”

  “That’s not quite how it works.” He shifted around and stretched his legs. “You’ve seen my hand. Now it’s time for you to tell me about yours.”

  An unladylike snort escaped my nose. “All right, but if you’re recording this as evidence for when they want to burn us at the stake later, you’re in deep shit.”

  His lips twitched again. “Noted.”

  With a deep breath, I began to relay every relevant piece of information I could think of. It didn’t pay to hold back at this point—not when we had so little to lose and so much to gain. If bringing George into the fold helped us take down ERA, it was well worth the risk.

  Besides, Wallace had already told him most of it…

  “And so I got a ride and ended up here,” I finished with a shrug. “We’re trying to stay ahead of the game, but it’s proving to be impossible.”

  He pressed his fingertips into a steeple and narrowed his eyes. “What if I could get the SAGEs off the island? What would you do with them?”

  “Set them up in the tunnels, I guess. It’s the only secure location we have right now. At least, until we take care of things with Faye.”

  “Take care of things…” he echoed. “You’re sure about that?”

  I stood up without asking and brushed off my shorts. “I told you before, George. We’re all in.”

  He followed suit and reached out to grasp my hand with a serious expression. “Then I am, too.”

  A new alliance had been forged.

  CHAPTER 13

  « WALLACE »

  The only thing more maddening than being separated from Rena was having a babysitter.

  Cam stayed close as two SAGEs beat me, cuffed my hands behind my back, and threw me into an old storeroom. For the first time in my life, I felt threatened. The cuffs were tight and inescapable. Her Nullari powers made sure of that.

  She watched me from across the room, seated atop a stack of boxes. “You know, there are some here who believe Dynari powers are sentient.”

  “Oh yeah?” I rolled my shoulders and dipped my head, trying to work out a kink in my neck. “How exactly would that work?”

  “Well, look at you.” She gestured to my face. “Bruised and bleeding. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a rare occurrence.”

  Until lately. I scoffed. “And you think it has something to do with my having a living supernatural companion?”

  “Perhaps. How consistent is your ability to withstand blows?”

  My mind raced against my will, triggering a jumpy reel of memories—the log Maverick tried to attack me with, Cole getting a shot in during our scuffle, even Rena blacking my eye in the middle of the night. I’d never considered it, but she did have a point. My durability came and went, almost as if following my guard. Did I fear my own power so much that I made a subconscious effort to suppress it around my family?

  “Not very,” I admitted. “But I’m not sure that means anything. Who’s claiming this?”

  Cam shrugged. “Just one of the groups.”

  “What groups?” My patience wouldn’t last long here. I could already tell.

  She threw a look at the light bulb affixed to the ceiling, like it would commiserate with her situation. “Do I have to spell it out for you? Origin theorists, religious types, et cetera. We have as many guesses about our beginnings as humans do about their own coming into existence. No big shocker there.”

  “So…you guys don’t know for sure, either?”

  “Is that not what I just said?”

  “Oh.”

  The tiny spark of hope I’d felt at the subject died. It wasn’t in the plan, but the thought of figuring out something that had plagued me for years was tempting. “What else have you heard?”

  “What haven’t I heard?” she asked, clearly bored with the topic already. “They’re gifts from God, we’re descended from deities of folklore, we’re descended from aliens, we’re government experiments, our ancestors uncovered a magical artifact—seriously, if you can imagine it, there’s someone here who believes it.”

  “Oh,” I said again, leaning back against a metal shelving unit. “That sucks.”

  “Only if you care.” She crossed her legs.

  “Right.”

  I’d tried to get her to open up about what was going on when we first got left here, but she’d clammed up whenever I asked. Apparently, the only things she wanted to talk about were unrelated.

  “I like your mark,” she told me, breaking the silence. “It’s better than Darien’s. I hate all the cutesy little swirls in his.”

  “Thanks.”

  A few seconds ticked by before it dawned on me. The more I found out about this place, the better I’d be able to plan our escape. I cleared my throat. “So, other than Rena and me, and Darien and his partner, does anyone else here have the Mark of Nexus?”

  “Nah, from what I hear, it’s pretty rare. It can’t just be any Augari and Dynari trying to fake their way into a power boost. There has to be some type of genuine connection forged.” She picked at her nails. “Personally, I think it has to do with changed levels of bonding chemicals in the brain.”

  “That would make sense,” I agreed.

  If Rena were here, she’d be eyeing the storage area for makeshift weapons. The first chance she got, she’d probably rush Cam, even with her hands bound behind her back. I chuckled under my breath.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head. “Sorry, I think I’m losing it being locked up in here. Any idea when your boss is going to let us out?”

  Cam’s eyes narrowed. “Franklin is not my boss.”

  “Okay, the man you take orders from.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Maybe if emotional spikes interrupted Dynari powers, the same held true for Nullari. I wished I had practiced on Corynn first…

  “Well, he’s running the show, isn’t he?” I asked. “He had you negate my abilities and charged you with the task of babysitting me. Why? Because he’s a human who underwent an experimental procedure and came out
with a god complex. You’re enabling him. You’re a sheep.”

  She hopped off the stack and stormed over to me. “You don’t get to talk to me that way. Let’s not forget our positions here.”

  Close, but I needed to get closer. To get under her skin, I’d have to channel my inner Cole.

  “Oh, I have a good idea of the positions you’ve been—”

  Smack!

  My cheek stung where she’d slapped me, but it caused something to spark. Somewhere, deep inside, I felt the balance between us shift ever so slightly. It was working…

  “Fine,” I relented. “Just tell me this, why are you guys working for Faye? The money? The promise of power?”

  “The promise of a future without hiding.”

  “No one is making you hole up here.”

  Her eyes widened and she thrust a finger toward the door. “We can’t be ourselves out there!”

  “We?” My jaw dropped. “You’re a Nullari. What do you have to worry about? At your most demonstrative, you’re preventing someone else from standing out.”

  “Shut up.”

  “What’s the matter, Cam?” I taunted her, both disgusted and impressed by my performance. “Did I strike a nerve? Do you have some kind of power envy I’m not aware of?”

  “Oh, like I’d want to be you.” She rolled her gaze toward the ceiling again. “You think having the Nexus means you can look down on me?”

  “No, I think our heights mean I can look down on you.” Momentum was on my side here. Another few quips and she’d be an unstable mess. I could do this…

  Her lips disappeared into a thin line. “You know what? I think you’re just projecting your own insecurities onto me. I don’t have obvious powers, so I could go out into the world if I wanted to. Hell, I could get a job, raise a family, and live like a normal person. That’s more than I can say for you and your girl.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Uh, last time I checked, the Mark of Nexus was a harbinger of infertility.”

  My blood ran cold. “What?”

  “Mr. High and Mighty didn’t know that? Well, it’s in our documentation here. No instance of the Mark has ever produced an heir. People speculate it’s because any child born of that union could be too powerful. It’d upset the balance.” A smug smile found its way to her face, and she crossed her arms. “Not such an honor now, is it?”

  I stared down at the floor, trying to gather even a fragment of thought. “No…”

  Cam faltered. It might’ve been my chance, but I couldn’t manage the will to muster my strength. She didn’t have a reason to bluff about something like this. It meant, if these people were right, Rena and I…we couldn’t have kids. We weren’t even married yet. How the hell could someone just kill the possibility out of nowhere?

  “Okay, I see that might’ve been a bit much,” she backtracked with a grimace. “Sorry, that’s not my usual style. I’d rather snark you to death than go for the jugular.”

  “It’s okay,” I mumbled, still distracted. How could I confirm this? Would I have to tell Rena first? Cam said herself they rarely saw the Nexus. Maybe their records were skewed somehow, their lines carrying some kind of hereditary disposition. We could be completely different. We could be the other side of the statistic.

  Right?

  “All right, look.” Cam plopped down in front of me, crossing her legs. “Let’s just drop everything we said before. We’re not real enemies here. You guys just happened to walk in with an agenda opposed to a hostile majority. That’s all.”

  “Great.”

  She bent to meet my eyes. “Hey, I’m trying to say this situation is temporary. Once Franklin gets a hold of Faye, she’ll figure out how we can proceed.”

  “Great,” I repeated. The last thing we needed was our cover blown now—separated from our family and friends, surrounded by sheep with superpowers. Despite my reservations, it was time to take more drastic measures.

  “Don’t be such a sad sack.” Cam reexamined her nails and buffed them on her shirt. “It’s not like she’s going to execute her great-nephew.”

  Right. Using the shelf as leverage against my back, I pushed myself up. My knees protested the sudden jolt, but I was able to stand before she did. With a preemptive prayer, I kicked her square in the stomach.

  She skidded back across the dirty floor with a grunt and tried to scramble to her feet, but I was already barreling past her. Her shock rattled the subconscious hold she’d had on me. By the time I reached the door, I had enough strength and distance to snap my handcuffs apart. “Sorry.”

  “Y-You…”

  I tugged on the door, her influence regrouping around me. Locked. Damn it!

  She coughed and grabbed a fistful of my shirt from behind. “How dare you.”

  “I have to go,” I explained, desperately trying to convey the urgency I felt with my eyes. “You don’t understa—”

  Something scraped at the other side of the door and it banged open, springing back on its hinges. I jumped back just in time to see two silhouettes fill the doorframe. The smaller of the two raced past me.

  “Ahhhh!” Rena cried, launching onto Cam.

  Oh shit.

  George stepped forward and laid a hand on my shoulder. “You ready to go?”

  “Yes.” I wasn’t sure I’d ever meant the word more in my life.

  “Good. I am prepared to take you to Zvoni.”

  I cast a quick glance at Cam to see if she’d heard the plan, but Rena already had her laid out on the floor and was dusting herself off. “All better.”

  Was it normal to find the threat of your future wife arousing?

  Clearing my throat, I slipped back out into the hallway. “Mind if I ask what changed your mind?”

  “I think we both know the answer to that.”

  Rena. I just hoped it was due to Augari kinship or some persuasive argument—not her threatening him with a pipe or something.

  ~

  It wasn’t easy skulking around the complex undetected; it was even harder tracking Zvoni down in the dark. We ended up finding her seated on the edge of the mall’s roof, staring out over the lake.

  “Zvoni?” Rena asked, cautiously approaching from behind.

  We’d nominated her to go in first, seeing as how two men confronting a girl on a roof could be misconstrued.

  “Rena Collins,” she acknowledged. “It took you a while.”

  Rena faltered. “How did you—”

  Zvoni turned around, giving us a glimpse of the tablet she was holding. “Cameras.”

  “Oh.”

  “Let me guess,” she started in a dry tone, “my father sent you.”

  Rena stopped a good six feet from her. “Good guess.”

  I could see the resemblance now. Zvoni had her father’s height and olive skin—even traces of his accent, though I suspected she had grown up in the States. “I came here of my own free will, I assure you.”

  “So, you’re on board with the SAGE program?” I asked, stepping out from around the stair access. “They recruited you to help?”

  “What is this, an intervention?”

  “More like an obligatory visit.”

  She sighed and flipped her dark hair back over her shoulder. “That program was in play well before I got here. I just helped them upgrade their tech.”

  “In exchange for what?” Rena asked, eyeing the edge. We were three stories up, and the lake breeze was getting violent. “Money? Safety?”

  “Access.” Zvoni slung her bag across her chest and tucked her tablet inside. “Sanctuary Island holds the most records of our people that I know of. Their library is ridiculous.”

  “What are you going to do with all of the data you collect?”

  She smiled in lieu of an answer.

  George stepped out from behind me, then. “Zvoni, you should listen to what these people have to say.”

  Her brows shot up. “The final conspirator reveals himself.”

  “ERA
has your father,” he told her, not sparing the blow. “They’re torturing him for information.”

  “Information on what?” She faltered. Her precious collection of data had not yet amassed that little detail. “They’re the ones sponsoring the SAGE reservation here.”

  “My guess?” George dared a step closer, the moon reflecting in his braid. “His loyalties. They want someone with a flame ability to act as warden.”

  “He doesn’t believe in Sanctuary, let alone its new affiliations.”

  "That's why they'll break him first, remold him to suit their needs.” He spread his arms apart. "Or maybe they’re just trying to figure out who’s been accessing their network. Who knows?"

  Zvoni stiffened.

  “We’re going to bust him out,” Rena assured her, closing in, “but we need your help. He wants to see you.”

  She backed away. “H-How do you know?”

  “My brother risked his life to help him,” I cut in. “Now we’re running out of time. You can either come with us, or you can continue to enable these monsters. I don’t care. Just make your allegiance known so we can figure out our next move.”

  George almost smirked.

  I rubbed the back of my neck.

  Zvoni’s gaze darted all over the place, seemingly lost in thought. She moved to the edge of the roof and drew a breath so deep it arched her back.

  “Hey!” I yelled, snapping out of my embarrassment. “Take it easy. I was just trying to move things along.”

  Her brows lowered and rose in one movement. Then her lips tugged upward. “I’m not going to jump, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  My face burned, but I tried to play it off. “I-I know.”

  “Right.” She eyed me. “I just needed a little space. I get claustrophobic when I’m boxed in, and I can’t think.”

  Rena was careful not to approach her this time. “What’s there to think about? He’s your dad.”

  “He won’t let me go a second time,” she said, casting a sideways glance at George before continuing. “I haven’t finished my work here.”

  He crossed his arms. “If you are worried I will tell the council, your concern is misplaced.”