The Change (Unbounded)

by Teyla Branton

  “Get dressed. I’ll wait out there.”

  A few minutes later he came from the bathroom, wearing jeans and pulling on a T-shirt. His hair was still wet and he was smiling.

  “What’s going on?” I asked “Why are you here?”

  “Because of you.”

  “How did they find you?”

  “They didn’t. I found them.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you working with these people? Do you know they kidnapped me?”

  “Come sit down. You’re shaking. Is any of that blood yours?” He felt odd to me, more so than the night I’d come to his house to tell him I was alive, but I couldn’t pinpoint the difference. Of course Justine’s death and funeral couldn’t have been easy on him.

  I sat down on the bed because my knees were feeling unsteady. I drew up my bloodstained dress to examine the bandage. My scuffle with Keene hadn’t helped the wound, and the previously white bandage was soaked with crimson. “Nothing serious.”

  “Looks serious to me.”

  “Not for an Unbounded.” I didn’t mean to do it, but that put a wedge between us as surely as if I’d confessed I’d kissed Ritter—and that a part of me hoped to do it again. I was glad for the wedge. Once I would have loved being in a room alone with Tom, but that was before. Our old relationship was over, and I didn’t know if we could salvage anything from the wreckage—or if I even wanted to try.

  “You said on the phone that the Renegades weren’t what I thought they were,” I continued. “What did you mean? What did you find out? And why are you here?”

  Tom sighed and gazed at me unhappily. “Look, I wasn’t honest with you the other day at your parents’ house.”

  I felt a chill. “You made it clear you didn’t want anything to do with my new life.”

  Tom’s jaw worked a moment before he said, “Seeing Justine dead was hard, as hard as seeing you lying in that hospital. She’s all the family I’ve ever known.” His eyes dropped from mine.

  “You’re lucky to have had her. Not all sisters would feel responsible for an eighteen-year-old brother about to age out of foster care.”

  “She was like a mother to me.” Tom sat next to me on the bed and for the space of several heartbeats there was restfulness between us. “Without her I might never have finished college. And she certainly kept life interesting. You know, every time I started dating someone steadily, she’d say it was time to move to another state. That didn’t bother me because I wasn’t ready to settle down, but if it weren’t for the million boyfriends she always had panting at our door, I would have thought she was jealous.”

  “She liked me, though.”

  “Yeah, she did. The first day we met she said you were the woman I should marry. In fact, she was the one who gave me the courage to ask such a stunning woman out.” Tom hesitated, as if wondering how to go on.

  I extended my hand and laid it over his. Images of Justine filled my head. Justine standing in the nightclub, Justine biking with us. The images shocked me with their clarity, and I had to fight to breathe. I pulled my hand away and came to my feet, unable to bear thinking about Justine for another minute.

  “I don’t care how you got here,” I said, forcing myself to hobble to the window, “or what lies they’ve fed you, but we have to get out of here. Look, no bars. The window seems to be stuck, but I bet we can get it open if we both pull.”

  “Wait.” He stepped close, his chest against my back, arms wrapping around my body. I felt a flare of emotion, but it wasn’t mine: love, desire, uncertainty. All Tom’s. Nothing from my own heart. I wanted to cry aloud at the loss.

  “Erin.” His mouth was by my ear, his voice low and husky. “Please forgive me for the other night. I didn’t mean any of it. It doesn’t matter that I’m not Unbounded. You and I can still make this work.”

  I shook my head, trying to block the rising wave of his emotions. “No.”

  “But a few days ago you—” He broke off, his arms falling away.

  I’d lived a lifetime in those few days.

  The emotions that weren’t mine ceased when he released me. I turned slowly around to face him, wanting to offer him—and perhaps myself—some excuse for my emotional withdrawal.

  “The Emporium attacked my family tonight. Jace and my father were shot—my father might not make it through surgery. Lorrie’s dead. Murdered. And I don’t know about Chris and the kids.” For all I knew, Cort had killed both Chris and Laurence, and the children as well.

  Tom’s face showed shock. “Lorrie’s dead?”

  Cort could have lied, but I didn’t see why he would, so I nodded. “If I don’t get out of here, they might do the same thing to other families of potential Unbounded. The Renegades are moving tonight to Oregon. We have to warn them.”

  “But this doesn’t make sense. They’re the people you can’t trust.”

  “Well, I certainly can’t trust the men who brought me here.” If he wouldn’t help me, I’d do it without him.

  First, I needed more energy. Turning to the window, I closed my eyes, absorbing everything I could. Somewhere I could feel curequick, and though I didn’t want to risk an addiction, I let myself take the bits of it floating from the air. I also breathed in plants and the faint sensation of unripe apples without the sourness. There was an advantage in not using taste buds.

  “What are you doing?” Tom asked.

  He didn’t need to know. “Are you going to help or not?”

  “No.”

  I glared at him. “Why?”

  “You’ve got it all wrong. The Emporium is the one who upholds order and protects the world. The Renegades are the troublemakers.”

  “I saw what the Emporium did to my family.”

  “It was a setup, then. Something contrived by the Renegades to make you believe in them.”

  I clenched my fist, the fingernails digging into my skin. “It wasn’t a setup! That man out there—Keene—he was at my parents’ house. He attacked my family.” I stepped closer to the window, exasperated with his stubbornness. “Fine. Don’t help me. I’ll do it myself.” I gave a mighty tug and the window came open. I pushed out the screen, wondering briefly what kind of security Cort had set up, but decided it really didn’t matter. I needed to get out of here now, especially with a deluded Tom staring down my back.

  A stab of icy pain spread through my arm. I turned and saw the needle in Tom’s hand. “Sorry, love. Can’t let you leave.” Sorrowful brown eyes met mine, eyes that had once pulled me into their depths so far that I’d never wanted to leave.

  My limbs were quickly losing all strength. I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t form the words. He caught me before I fell.

  As he carried me to the bed, I thought of a dozen self-defense moves that would get me away from him. Unfortunately, Ritter hadn’t taught me a defense against drugs.

  My breathing was shallow and I wondered if I was going to suffocate. The horrible pressure in my chest felt like I was. If I died, would I awake when my body healed itself?

  “Tom,” I whispered. My vision was going dark. I seemed to have to claw for each breath.

  “What, darling?” He kissed my cheek, my neck, and smoothed my hair with his hand.

  “I’m . . . going to . . . kill you.”

  He laughed, though I could sense nervousness in it. “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t kill people. Besides, when you know everything, you’ll thank me. I did it to protect you.” He kissed my lips lightly, and I was powerless to stop him.

  Too bad he wasn’t Unbounded. I’d kill him twice.

  He walked to the door and spoke to someone outside. Within minutes I heard pounding at the window as it was nailed shut from the outside.

  The pressure in my chest was leaving now, and I could see again. Either whatever Tom had given me wasn’t lasting, or my Unbounded genes knew how to dispose of it. I struggled to a sitting position.

  “Slowly, there.” Tom sat next to me, but far enough away so that we didn’t touch. Luc
ky for him.

  “Have you been a part of this all along?” I demanded.

  “I swear this is all as new to me as it is to you, but I’m convinced the Renegades will do anything to get what they want—including hurting you and your family.”

  “Who told you that?” I kept my voice low and steady, though I felt like screaming. Or strangling him.

  “I did.” There was a movement in the doorway and a slim figure came into view. The woman wore a scarf over her head, tied gypsy-style, which emphasized her enormous hazel eyes and gave her a wide-eyed, childlike appeal.

  I’d know her anywhere.

  Justine.

  She grinned with fun-loving innocence. “Surprise!”

  My arms curled protectively around my stomach as I tried to take it all in. I’d seen Justine burn, but she wasn’t dead and that could only mean one thing: she was Unbounded. I didn’t know whether to rejoice or feel betrayed.

  “But . . .” I came to my feet, feeling slow and stupid. Justine being Unbounded explained a lot—her notable confidence, my admiration of her, her tirelessness when it came to physical activity, and even her lack of appetite. No other woman I knew had less interest in chocolate. She’d fooled us both for a very long time. Compared to what must be her several lifetimes of experience, Tom and I were children.

  “Sorry for the shock. Don’t blame Tom. I told him to stall and let me explain everything.” She dropped the shopping bags she held in both hands and came forward to hug me, her signature spicy scent filling my nose. In typical Justine fashion, she wore black pants and a bright green fluttering duster blouse that emphasized her figure. Her ankles were clad in strappy, ridiculously high heels.

  Gladness quickly eclipsed the shock. My friend was alive!

  I hugged her back. She’d always been several inches shorter than me, and thin, but she felt smaller in my arms now, and I wondered how badly she’d been burned.

  She held me back and eyed me critically. “Baby, your hair’s marvelous! Or will be once we even it out a bit. Didn’t I say you’d look great with a short cut? Nice dress. Too bad it was ruined. But that color is fabulous on you. Did you pick it out?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t. Not until I knew about you for sure. Tom didn’t even know.”

  He was grinning. “All those questions I asked at your parents’ house? It wasn’t because of you. I started thinking about Justine and how she never changed in all these years. How sometimes she’d go days without eating and still beat me in a bicycle marathon. All the long business trips she’d take without telling me where she’d been. The final proof was when I remembered the death certificate listing her age as thirty-five. But Justine was thirty-five when she came to get me at the foster home all those years ago.”

  “You were furious.” I shivered at the memory of the moment when I’d realized I didn’t know him as well as I thought.

  “Because she’d lied to me.” He cast a dark look at his sister that she met with a bland smile. “So I went looking for her. I tried to break into the funeral home and was arrested by police. At the precinct I called a number she’d given me for emergencies. In the morning two guys showed up and got me out. I had a little argument with them”—he touched his bruised jaw—“but they finally took me to her.”

  “Bet you wished you would have taken those self-defense classes I’ve always wanted you to take.” There was a hint of spitefulness in Justine’s tone. Those classes were the only continuing source of irritation between them, and the only time Tom had ever ignored one of her requests.

  “The Emporium got you out of the hospital, didn’t they?” I asked Justine, remembering the tampering Stella had found.

  Justine grimaced. “The morgue, you mean. They would have gotten you out, too, if we’d realized you were Unbounded.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “Not until the restaurant.” She pulled off her scarf to expose a beautiful length of auburn hair. “It was all I could do not to throw my arms around you, but I didn’t want to spook you.”

  Now I knew why the woman at the restaurant had taken such pains not to let me see her face, and why she’d seemed familiar, but I hadn’t been looking for my blond friend who was supposedly dead and buried.

  “I was almost certain you would be Unbounded,” Justine continued, “but it’s really hard to tell in the beginning, even for people who know what to look for. They wanted proof. Because my face isn’t well known to our enemies, I was sent here to look after you until you Changed. Or until you didn’t. Like I said, it was hard to tell because you had nothing wrong with you.” She grinned. “Well, nothing a little fun couldn’t remedy. I kept waiting for you to ask me about changes you might be experiencing.”

  So her choosing me from a crowd at the club wasn’t coincidence. Ava’s people had watched over me, and now it seemed Justine had been recruiting, too—for the other side.

  I should have known, I thought. According to Ava, I might have been Unbounded for a month or more, but my sensing ability either hadn’t kicked in, or Justine had carefully held her feelings in check because I’d believed she was exactly what she’d presented herself to be. Even if I’d felt something odd from her, like the incredible confidence of the Unbounded, I wouldn’t have known what it meant.

  What else had she lied about? The numbness in my leg had spread to fill my entire body.

  “I take it that getting hit by that van wasn’t part of the plan,” I said.

  The first hint of a frown tugged at her lips. “I noticed a few Hunters following us earlier, but something like that crash isn’t usually their style. They must have done something to my car to cause it to explode when they hit us because the impact wasn’t that great. Plus, the police never found the van. That alone tells me it wasn’t really an accident.”

  Great. More Hunters.

  “What are Hunters?” Tom asked.

  Justine’s gaze rested on her brother’s face. “Just a few nasty pests that pop up from time to time. They hunt Unbounded. Fortunately, they’re mortal and die rather easily.”

  Tom blanched, and I thought the better of him for it. “We should be leaving,” he said. “We almost lost Erin to those Renegades, and this is going to be one of the first places they’ll look once they realize she’s gone.”

  Justine nodded agreement. “I have a private plane scheduled for the morning, but it’s a bit of a drive to reach it, so as soon as Erin has a chance to clean up, we’ll be on our way.”

  A private plane? I didn’t know her at all.

  “Renegades won’t hurt me,” I said. “Their leader is one of my ancestors.”

  “Forget that. Your place is with the Emporium.” Beneath Justine’s sweetness, there was a steel edge. “Darling, you know me. I’m your best friend. I wouldn’t lead you astray.”

  After what I’d been through this past week, I knew I’d be a fool to believe anything she said. “You didn’t tell them about my family, did you?”

  Her brows creased. “They weren’t supposed to be hurt. I know it looked bad, but everyone’s going to be okay. Your father’s stable now. I checked myself.”

  “What about Lorrie?”

  “What about her? She’s fine.”

  For a brief instance, I felt an inconsistency in her words, but the feeling vanished so quickly, I wasn’t sure I could trust it.

  Justine put a hand on each of us. “The important thing is that you and Tom are together again. Your father and the rest of the Triad will try to convince you to choose an Unbounded mate, but they’ll see reason enough if you insist. Our mother was Unbounded, so Tom carries the latent gene. With a little help from our genetics lab, your children will have a very good chance of being Unbounded. They will be the future leaders of the Emporium.”

  “I want nothing to do with the Emporium after what they did to my family.” I backed away from her and Tom.

  Justine arched a brow. “I told you, they’re fine. Everything is f
ine.” A sense of calm radiated from her, but I didn’t want to be calm. I knew what I’d seen.

  “That’s enough, Justine. Leave her alone.” Tom stepped near me and put a hand on my back, a show of solidarity, a glimpse of the man I’d admired. Too late.

  I shrugged off his hand. “Don’t touch me ever again.”

  I was rewarded by a brief explosion of hurt before his face hardened.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Erin,” Justine said. “You and Tom were meant to be together.”

  “No, we weren’t.”

  “Tell her, Tom.”

  He glared at her. “I love Erin, but she’ll make her own choice once she understands everything.”

  Justine’s lips curled as she lifted her eyes to his. “Everything I do, I do for you. You had every bit as much a chance to be Unbounded as I had, but you didn’t Change, and now you need to do this right. For me.”

  I realized Justine wasn’t simply disappointed that Tom was thirty-five and hadn’t Changed. She was furious. No wonder she’d leapt at the chance to throw me and Tom together. From our chance meeting to his subsequent pursuit of me, just how much of our relationship had she engineered?

  Maybe the real question was why had she gone to such effort? Why would it matter to her if Tom and I had Unbounded children? I knew the Emporium wanted new Unbounded, but why was she so particularly interested in Tom succeeding with me? I tried to sense the answer, but nothing came past the dull aching in my head.

  “Let me go,” I said. “Please, Justine.”

  “Before you’ve met your father?” She gave me her wide-eyed, innocent stare. “Of course not.” She bent down to get the bags. “I’ve brought some clothes I picked up for you yesterday.”

  Anger squashed the hurt. “I don’t care about meeting the monster you think is my father. I want to leave.”

  “It really doesn’t matter what you want,” Justine said in the calm voice that grated on my nerves. “Like it or not, you are a member of the Emporium now. You’re better off accepting that because if you don’t you won’t stay alive very long.”

  WITH POORLY HIDDEN IRRITATION, I WENT through Justine’s shopping bags, finding a sleeveless, one-piece body suit made of black stretch material that promised comfort if not the familiarity of my usual jeans. No place for weapons, but I knew they weren’t about to give me any, so that hardly mattered. Justine tried to insist that I wear a red half blouse over the top, but I refused. Mostly because it made her angry.