He’s staring. Of course, he’s staring. Why wouldn’t he stare? His best friend has a tail and claws and their argument was faked by a woman with the voice box of a tiger. He has every reason to stare.
I run my fingers through dirty hair, look down at the street below us. “This is crazy,” I say softly. “It didn’t feel crazy when I was there but now, explaining it all, it feels insane.”
Alec looks over. “It is crazy,” he agrees, a pause stopping his thoughts. “But crazy is good. Crazy means you’re alive still.”
I smile. Wink. “You can’t get rid of me that easy.”
Alec rolls his eyes, shakes his head, laughs to himself. “Same old Kate.”
“I’m never going to change, Alec. No matter what. They turned me into an insane monster but it doesn’t matter. I won’t ever change.”
And now we’re both quiet. I’m looking at my hands and he’s looking at me and neither of us are talking.
“So, what happens now?” he asks at last.
I shake my head. Sigh. Bite my bottom lip. “I don’t know. Obviously, I have to keep an eye on you. I doubt Glass will risk me turning myself into the police and exposing him, but I have to be sure.”
“What about your mom?”
I’m shaking my head again. “She can’t know I’m alive. Glass has left her alone this far. And he thinks we still don’t get along. He won’t expect me to care about her. He’ll leave her alone as long as I leave her alone.” A tired sigh. “I wish I could do the same with you. Everyone is safer without me around.”
“I’m not.”
“Alec, if you didn’t know me, you wouldn’t have almost been shot today.”
“And because of you, I wasn’t.”
A frustrated growl. A hand over my eyes. Tense muscles and a flaming heart. I can’t do this. I can’t talk to him. I can’t protect him. Not even from myself.
The insanity and instability has begun to set in. Not like Zane’s. Not like any other experiment’s. No hallucination, no voices in my head.
Emotions. Scrambled up, far too intense to be human, too strong to be felt. And anger is more explosive than ever before. It’s still a balloon. But it explodes so easily now, always full of too much air.
“I saved you from mere soldiers, Alec,” I whisper. “Just a couple of humans. But I don’t know how to protect you from myself. I’m not human. I’m not a girl. I’m too dangerous. And if I’m not careful, I could kill you, without even realizing what I’m doing.”
There’s an arm around my shoulders. “Kate, you and I both know you are far too stubborn to hurt me.”
An exasperated sigh and my head is in my hands. “I’m dangerous. Don’t you see? If I lose control, even for just a second, I put everyone around me at risk. That includes you.”
“Kate.”
I look up, see his serious eyes, that soft smile.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he says. “And it wouldn’t matter if I was. You’re my best friend.”
“You should be afraid of me. I’m afraid of me.”
There it is again. Fear. Because I don’t want to be a monster, because I don’t want to be crazy, because I already am.
“You’re not afraid of anything.”
“Maybe before, but not now. They forced me into insanity, Alec. I don’t know how to fight that. It’s a part of me now. I can’t fight it.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
I scowl and a small hiss escapes. “I am not. I saw broken experiments and insane monsters in there. I am no different.”
Maybe I should leave. Maybe I should watch from afar. I could keep an eye on him, from a safe distance. I’d be alone. And everyone else could be safe. I—
Alec grabs my arm. He knows me so well. Better than the back of his hand.
“Don’t go,” he pleads. “I just got you back. Don’t leave. Let me help you.”
I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
The world is so tense and my heart is so angry and my head is so violent. I could hurt him and I can’t live with the possibility. But I can’t abandon him, can’t leave him, can’t disappear. Not after what he’s already gone through, not after losing me once, not after getting shot at because I escaped, not after my threats to Richard Glass. He is safest by my side.
And he might be able to help me. He might be able to help me control myself.
Don’t lose yourself to anger or insanity. Control yourself and you will be practically invincible. This is Richard Glass’s Invincible Project. Use that supposed invincibility against him. Make him wish he’d never even considered using you.
I close my eyes. Zane. He told me I would have to learn how to control myself, that I would have to learn to be invincible, that I would have to fight my own insanity to beat Richard Glass. And Alec is the only one who can help me do that out here.
“Okay,” I whisper, sigh, breath. “I’ll stay. But we have to be careful. I have to keep my anger in check. And you have to help me learn how to do that.”
“You? Control your anger?”
“Shut up.”
Alec smiles, gives me a hug. “I’ll help you. You’re going to be okay, Kate. We both are.”
My returning smile is weak. “Here’s the deal. I need to learn more about what they did to me, what DNA I have and how crazy I am. I won’t run off and I will protect you. But my existence has to stay between you and me. Kate McCallister stays dead. She really died that night. She’s gone.”
“And who took her place?”
“I’m not sure yet.” A pause. “But she wants to stop Richard Glass.”
Thirty-Two
Alec studies my faces, watches me like the insane woman beginning to show. “How?”
“Well, I promised myself and another experiment that I would bust him out. And then I’m going to wage war against Glass. He can’t keep doing this to people.”
“Bust who out?”
“A guy.”
“Oh, I see.”
He’s smiling and I growl. “It’s not like that.”
I wish it was.
“Uh, huh. Who is this guy anyway?”
“Now, that is the question, isn’t it, Alec?” I smile. “Zane Rothstein. Former spy, follower of my father, an experimental werewolf, the man who taught me how to fight ruthlessly and the man I promised to get him out, even if he refuses to help me fight Richard Glass.”
“So basically,” Alec says, “You want to break into Glass Tech to help a dangerous experiment who won’t help you. And then you want to start a war against the most powerful man in the city.”
“That basically covers it.”
He’s grinning. “You really haven’t changed, you know. Same old Kate trying to save the world all on her own.”
“You make me sound like a hero or something.”
“Maybe you are.”
I shake my head. Time for a new subject. “I need to lay low. No one can know I’m alive or where I am. I caused a disturbance at Glass Tech when I escaped. Made a lot of people angry.”
“Typical.”
I roll my eyes. “I need somewhere to hide, Alec.”
“You can hang out in the basement of my house,” he offers. “No one is ever down there.”
“You sure?”
I can’t afford to be noticed. Not by anyone. Not the butler or the maid or his parents. No one.
“Positive. Kate, that house has too many rooms. The basement doesn’t even have anything down there. The door is always locked and the house is mostly empty all the time anyway. The butler will be in the house but he certainly won’t go down into the basement. He has better things to do.”
Rich kid problems. Too many rooms, not enough people.
“Okay. Let’s go to your place. Will it be empty right now?”
“Yeah. The butler is taking a couple days off for family business. Why?”
“Because I need a mirror.” I touch my hair gingerly. “And a shower.”
T
hirty-Three
“Yeah, I was wondering about that,” Alec says. “Did you forget all about hygiene when you were gone?”
I shove him. “Excuse me? I was a prisoner.”
“Excuses, excuses.”
“Shut up.”
He laughs and I roll my eyes. “When did you become such a nuisance?”
“You died. I didn’t think I was ever going to get to tease you.”
“Isn’t the teasing usually my job?”
“Usually,” he agrees, still smiling.
I shake my head. “You’re too happy, Nerd. Can we leave now? I don’t like being out in the open like this.”
Serious now. “Meet me at the back door of my house. I’ll let you in, after I double check that no one is home. Just to be safe.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
I snort. Because he will never beat me there, because he doesn’t realize how fast I am now, because the differences in speed is ridiculous.
“No,” I disagree, grinning. “I will meet you there.”
Confusion. Bewilderment. Uncertainty. Alec is staring at me.
And now I’m running. Across buildings and through dark alleys. Across rooftops. My speed propels me off a building and onto the next one.
I’m laughing. Because nothing can challenge my speed. Not dance, not the thrill of a fight, not even Zane’s icy eyes. There is nothing like this freedom, this adrenaline, this speed.
Across the street from Alec’s house now. Things get tricky. Because there’s nothing but open highway down there. If someone is going to see me, if I’m going to get caught, it will be down there. I’m going to have to be very fast.
If only I wasn’t doing this barefoot.
I leap off the building, catching myself into a crouch, and start running. Faster. And now I feel like laughing and screaming and crying. The music I no longer feel deep in my bones could have comprehended this feeling.
Across the street, I lean against Alec’s back door, panting, chuckling, waiting. No sense in knocking, no sense in going in, when there is no one there.
Five, ten, fifteen minutes have pass me by. And now Alec opens the door and leads me inside.
“You’re so slow,” I complain. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
Alec studies my face. “Either you are very impatient, very dramatic, or very fast.”
“How about all three?”
I’m grinning as I step inside the room. A glance thrown across the room. Alec is right. There’s nothing down here. Just an empty, very cold room. Good. It will stay undisturbed, I will remain a secret.
Alec’s brain must be on fire. His eyebrows are scrunched together and he’s frowning at me and I think he must be thinking hard enough to bust a vein. Thinking is dangerous.
“You’ve got to be really fast.”
Lame response for so much thinking.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
Alec’s face is split in a scowl. “Seriously, Kate. There’s no way you should have been able to get her so fast. Especially while trying to remain unseen.”
I step further into the room, close the door, turn in a circle. “There’s also no way I should have a tail or claws or be able to roar, Alec,” I say absentmindedly. “My body is an impossibility, Alec.”
“You seem oddly calm about that.”
“Well, how long have I been…gone?”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Six months.”
Half a year. Six months. Weeks and weeks of fighting and nightmares and conversations with a mute. So long. So short.
“I spent all that time in a cage with a man who turns into a wolf when he gets too angry. Nothing surprises me anymore.”
Alec stops. Studies my face. Thinking again. “Kate, who is he? Really. Because you claim he won’t help you but he taught you how to fight. And you want to help him, even if that might risk your chances of stopping Mr. Glass. Who is this Zane? Why is he so important?”
I sigh. Lean back into the wall. And now I am thinking dangerous thoughts. Because he was entrancing. Because he pulled me in without meaning to, without wanting to.
“I don’t know.” A soft answer, quiet words, uncertain letters. “He says he was more like me when they first captured him. He was angry and defiant and wanted to ruin them. But something happened to him.”
I look up. “He’s so broken, Alec. He doesn’t want to fight because he’s afraid to. He’s more afraid of hurting innocent people than I am.”
I shake my head. “It’s confusing. He helps who he can but he’s afraid to fight directly.
“It’s like he feels this need to stop Richard Glass but he can’t bring himself to do it. So he helps someone else be strong enough to take his place.”
“He trained you to do what he won’t.”
“Yes,” I agree. “But I’m not going to leave him in there. He doesn’t deserve to be a prisoner like that. And I think that cage is only making him worse. Whatever it is they did to us, whatever they did to me, I think being around it at all is only making Zane worse. It has to be making it harder for him to function.”
Alec leans back. “I’ll help you,” he says. “We’ll find a way to get him out of there. I promise.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
I still feel so guilty about leaving him, I can still feel his fingertips on my lips, I miss him so much more than I should.
Alec smiles. “Come on. There’s no one here. You can take a shower upstairs.”
I follow him, but my thoughts are still on Zane. Until then. He’s afraid but he didn’t try to talk me out of going back for him. He could have been just trying to get me to hurry but I don’t think he was. I saw his eyes. Hopeful, bright, blue.
Maybe he wants out. Maybe he’s tired of his broken existence. Maybe I can bring him back to life. Maybe he doesn’t have to be broken anymore.
Thirty-Four
I’m afraid to look in the mirror.
Showered, I’m standing in front of a foggy mirror. Waiting for it to clear. Waiting for my reflection to reveal the monster-woman I am. I’m not sure if I want to see it.
But I have to look.
I can see it now. And I understand why Alec had such a hard time recognizing me.
My hair is the same color and my face is the same shape and I’m the same height as before. But that’s where the resemblances end. Katherine McCallister really is dead. I don’t know who this person in the mirror is. She’s different.
Her skin is pale, white from the darkness of a cage. Her body is strong, muscled from months of sparring, scarred from that first day as a prisoner. Tortured for protecting the person I called, for protecting Alec.
Her eyes, though, her eyes are startling. Molten amber, bright gold irises. Practically glowing in the bathroom lighting.
And there are the claws on her fingertips, the black tail flicking behind her.
Not human, an animal, a monster.
I keep staring at my reflection, keep blinking at the girl in the mirror. Expecting to look like the woman I was before. But I won’t.
I sigh. Get dressed. Yank a brush through my hair. Leave the bathroom in search of Alec. I find him in the dining room, watching out the window.
“Anything interesting out there?”
Alec jumps, turns, smiles. “I forgot you were here.”
“I can see why you had a hard time recognizing me.”
“I should have recognized your voice.”
“You thought I was dead.” I shake my head. “We see what we expect to see. And I was the last person you expected to see again.”
“I can’t tell you how many nights I spent trying to figure it out. Why would anyone want you dead?”
I’m a jerk. I’m rude. Why wouldn’t someone want me dead?
“Blindness is bliss, Alec,” I say. “My mother would have known who ‘killed me’ and I’m sure it’s driving her crazy.”
“What? She knew?”
I sigh. Explain a
bout my father’s murder, about her vow to avenge him. “She must think Richard Glass had me killed, too.”
Alec shakes his head. “You and your mother. Both of you wanting to destroy the same man.”
I attempt a smile. I think I fail. “Like mother, like daughter.”
Thirty-Five
Three days have passed me by.
The basement is different now. There’s a cot in the corner, a treadmill in the other, a punching bag at the center of the room, other equipment throughout the basement.
Alec has been getting everything down here in secret. Using limitless amounts of allowance money to get what I need to prepare, to stop Glass, to understand this new body of mine.
It’s time to start testing.
“Okay,” Alec is saying, “So what do we know for sure?”
“Whatever DNA is now in my body, it includes inhuman speed, a black tail, claws, gold eyes, and a lot of hissing, growling, snarling, and the occasional roar.”
It sounds crazier out loud.
“Your tail and claws are definitely feline traits,” Alec comments. “As well as the sounds. Some kind of big cat.”
I frown. “And the speed?”
“Well, if we’re going with feline, Cheetah would fit with your speed. But the tail looks more like a panther’s tail.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Honestly, Kate, I’m not sure how to test any of this.”
“Well,” I say, “Pelletier would look at our DNA through a blood sample. Could we the same? Draw some blood, stick it on a slide, check it out under a microscope?”
Alec studies my face. “We could try that. I have a microscope upstairs and some blank slides. I’ll go get those.”
He runs upstairs and I sit down on the cot. I’m thinking about Zane. I can’t get him out of my mind, can’t escape the quiet man with the ice blue eyes. Because I understand him now, better than I did before, better than I could before. He’s afraid to fight. He’s afraid of what he is. And now I’m the same. Because we are dangerous people who must fight every breath to stay sane, to stay human.
The Invincibles (Book 1): Trapped: A girl. A monster. A hero. Page 14
