by K. J. McPike
Keeping the photo in one hand, I closed the folding knife and slipped it into my pocket with the other so I could take hold of her wrist. We appeared in front of Cade, who stood with his arms crossed. He tapped his shoe on the floorboards as our captive steadied herself on the wall.
“Got it,” I said over the echo of the rain overhead. I waved the picture once, my heart thumping as I flattened it in my palm. With the flickering light, I could see the photo was clearly older than me. It was wallet-size and folded down the middle—right through what little could be seen of a redheaded girl’s face. Beside the crease, a younger-looking Xiomara laughed, her likeness faded but still visible. It was the person I wanted to see who was little more than a curtain of hair and a blur of pale skin.
I growled at the image. “What am I supposed to do with this? I can’t even see her face.”
“Wh-what?” Xiomara panted, still holding onto the wall. She blinked at me as if she had no idea what I was talking about.
“Give me that.” Cade snatched the picture from my hand, his hollow cheeks reddening as he examined it. Throwing the photo to the ground, he advanced on Xiomara until he’d backed her into the corner opposite where I stood. “Do you think this is a game?” he bellowed.
She winced and turned away, her face bunched as if she expected him to strike her. But he just flattened his palms against the wall on either side of her head and leaned in so close I was sure she could feel his breath on her skin.
“Make no mistake,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You will not leave this place until we find the others and undo the sink. It would serve you well to do as we say.”
“That picture is all I have,” she moaned. “It’s a fluke it’s even still around. My husband only kept it all these years because he likes how I’m laughing in it. There’s nothing else.”
My fists balled at my sides. She’d played me. She only mentioned the picture so she could leave a note for her family and pack her stupid little bag. And I’d been dumb enough to let her.
“Well, that’s too bad.” Cade pushed off the wall and gestured around the cramped container. “It looks like you’ll be living out your days in here.”
Xiomara kept her face turned away, and I took that moment to frown at my uncle. He couldn’t be giving up that easily.
“Uncle Cade,” I started, but he kept talking like he hadn’t heard me.
“It is rather poetic really.” He stared up at the ceiling as if it were a gorgeous sunset instead of a chipped white surface glowing in the quivering light. “Trapping you the way you trapped me in this wretched realm, keeping you away from your home the way you kept me from mine—it’s a beautiful metaphorical take on justice.”
Xiomara straightened up and tugged at the hem of her nightgown. “You’re not the only one who ended up trapped here. The rest of us lost our abilities, too. We had to adjust to life here just like you did.”
“Ha!” Cade dropped his chin and leveled his glare on her. “I’m no fool, Xiomara Vauhn. You wanted to escape from Alea. Your little crystal trick claiming your own astral energy was nothing but an unexpected perk. You were a traitor from the very beginning.”
I looked between them, feeling the tension like a thick cloud. I had no idea what my uncle was talking about, but his words made Xiomara’s shoulders shake.
“A traitor?” she spat. “Because I didn’t hate semmies like you did? If anything is poetic here, it’s that you’re depending on a semmie to get what you want!”
I couldn’t stop my eyes from shooting over to my uncle. As soon as they reached his face, guilt stabbed at me. Why was I even entertaining the idea? Cade didn’t hate semmies; he wouldn’t have volunteered to take care of me if he did. He only worked for the Eyes and Ears briefly, and it was before he realized what they were really about. They were the ones who banned Astralii from having children with non-Astralii. They were scared because there was no way of knowing how semmies’ powers would turn out.
But Cade had nothing to do with that. He was the only person in this world who cared about me, the only father figure I’d ever known. I wasn’t going to let Xiomara make me question that, no matter what she said to try and turn me against him.
Cade stared her down for a long moment before speaking. “You have until tomorrow morning,” he told her. “Come up with a way to find the others, or you will find yourself missing a child.” He extended his wrist behind him, a silent instruction for me to take us home. I was all too happy to oblige. I needed to get away from Xiomara’s mind games before my uncle caught me considering anything that came out of her mouth.
Once we appeared in our living room, Cade yanked his arm out of my grasp and whirled around to face me. “What was that stunt with the stuffed animal all about?” he shouted. “I told you to get the kid.”
I bowed my head. Of course he was upset about that. He always got upset when I let my conscience control me. He’d been trying to teach me to overcome it for years, but somehow it still managed to turn up at the most inconvenient times.
“Well?” he pressed.
I sighed. “I thought it would be more dramatic.”
“Dramatic? I’m not stupid, nephew. I know exactly what you were doing. You’re worried about her kids.”
I didn’t deny it. I couldn’t deny it.
Cade kicked the leg of the sofa behind me, and I flinched. “You don’t owe them anything,” he roared. “You don’t even know them.”
“Exactly!” The word flew out of my mouth, harsher than I’d intended. I made myself look into his disapproving face. “They didn’t do anything to deserve—”
He grabbed my shoulders so hard I thought he might dislocate them. “That’s weakness! We talked about this. And in case you didn’t notice, your little stunt didn’t scare her. Why do you think she gave you a useless picture?”
“But—”
“Listen to me!” He shook me once, digging his fingers deeper into my skin. “How many times do I have to say it? Compassion will only get in the way of finding your sister. Do you want to get Kala back or not?”
I pulled out of his grip. Studied the carpet. I knew he was right, and I’d wasted enough time as it was. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I just didn’t want to hurt a little kid. She’s already going to wake up tomorrow without a mom.” I fought off the onslaught of images from the day my own mother was taken from me. Permanently.
Cade exhaled loudly. “You can’t torture yourself with imagined parallels. I know you want to be a good person, but there’s no room for a morality struggle right now.” I heard the thump of his hands dropping to his sides—the telltale sound of his disappointment in me—and I wanted to sink through the floor.
“I’m only pushing you because I want to save my niece,” he went on. “I wish I could be the one to do it, but I can’t. I’m depending on you. Kala is depending on you. You can’t even imagine what the Eyes and Ears are doing to her.”
He might as well have pulled the knife out of my pocket and stabbed me in the heart. Not only had I disappointed the person who’d dropped everything to take me in, but I was also failing my little sister. My chest tightened, and I had to focus to breathe. In, out, in, out.
I clutched the arm of the sofa. This was why I needed Cade. Despite his attempts to toughen me up, I was still too sentimental. But that was going to change. I silently vowed to prove myself, to do whatever it took to find the rest of XODUS. No more weakness.
“I’ll do better,” I said, still struggling to control the tremors racking my body.
Cade studied me, as if looking for proof of my claim. After my pitiful display tonight, I couldn’t blame him.
“I mean it,” I insisted. “What’s our next step?”
“We wait. One night trapped in the cage away from her family and Xiomara will crack. She’ll have something for us tomorrow. And if she doesn’t…” His green eyes darkened. “You’ll have to make good on that promise.”
I frowned. “What promise?�
�
“To remove one of her children from the picture.” He didn’t seem to notice that I staggered backward. “We should get some rest,” he said, his voice suddenly lighter. “No matter what happens, tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”
…I was never really going to hurt your brothers and sisters. In fact, I did everything I could to make sure that didn’t happen. As much as I respected my uncle, I couldn’t be okay with dragging innocent kids into our mess. That was a big part of the reason I was praying your mom would come through with a plan.
Obviously, I wanted to find the others so we could undo the energy sink, too, but I hoped it would make Cade ease up about going after you and your siblings in the process. In some ways, it did. Just not in the ways I was expecting…
Chapter 7
Plan
Cade and I went to retrieve Xiomara first thing in the morning. She was awake and sitting up on her makeshift bed when we got to the shipping container. Her short, dark brown hair was matted on one side as if she’d spent a good while lying down, but the bags under her eyes made me wonder if she’d slept at all.
Not that I cared. Thanks to her, I hadn’t gotten much sleep either. My masochistic brain seemed to think it was okay to make me dream about her kids finding the note she’d left. Over and over, I’d been forced to witness the imagined scene of a devastated family sobbing in a big heap on the floor, and each time I woke up panting and sweating. I hadn’t bothered glancing in the mirror this morning, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if I looked just as wrecked as Xiomara did.
As soon as she saw us, she jumped to her feet. “I have an idea,” she blurted out, tugging her nightgown down over her thighs. She probably had it rolled up in an effort to stay cool. The rain had stopped, and the tight space felt hot and sticky. “I have a way we can try to find Delta.”
Her words lifted an invisible weight off me. Delta was the “D” in XODUS; the group’s name was an acronym of all their first initials.
Grinning, I turned to look at my uncle. He had his back tucked into a corner, his gloating smirk aimed at our prisoner. “Is that right?” he replied. “Well, by all means, do tell.”
“It’s nothing definite,” Xiomara said, wringing her hands in front of her. “But at least it’s something to go on.”
“Spill already.” I mimicked Cade’s pose, as if I could absorb some of his toughness by resting my back on the wall, too. The metal’s warmth penetrated the thin material of my t-shirt immediately. “What’s the plan?”
Xiomara let out a shaky breath and wiped a trickle of sweat from her temple. “Delta always talked about returning to her family’s farm.”
I felt my brow bunch. “There are family farms in Alea?” Cade told me everyone there lived in trees.
“Delta isn’t from Alea,” Xiomara explained. “She was one of the test subjects the Eyes and Ears kidnapped from this realm. They took her and her cousin, Brendan.” Her voice quivered on his name, and something clicked in my head.
Before we started with our plan, Cade had given me the history of what happened with him and the members of XODUS. Xiomara convinced the group to steal my uncle’s astral energy because she blamed him for getting her old boyfriend killed. She’d fallen in love with one of the test subjects in the lab, and Cade found out. Knowing the affair would taint the study, he reported it to his superior so Xiomara would be transferred. But instead of moving her to another department, they killed the guy to punish her, and Xiomara insisted it was all Cade’s fault.
Was Brendan that guy? When my uncle said test subject, I never imagined it was someone they abducted from here. I had assumed it was a volunteer, like the people who signed up for clinical drug trials.
I turned to Cade, my jaw slack. “They kidnapped people?”
“Yes,” he said, still looking at Xiomara. “They wanted to understand what made semmies’ powers manifest differently. Part of what made Astralii think interbreeding was dangerous was the fact that they couldn’t predict how semmies’ abilities would turn out. So they wanted to see if they could manipulate non-Astralis DNA to mimic semmie DNA. Their goal was to cultivate astral projection abilities in those who weren’t born with them.”
“So Delta is just a regular person?” I hadn’t even considered the possibility that any of the members of XODUS were non-Astralii.
Xiomara nodded. “I was charged with monitoring her and a few other test subjects while they recovered from the injections.”
Injections? I shuddered, picturing Kala—at least how I imagined she looked now. What if she was dealing with the same cruel practices?
“Delta always blamed herself for the kidnapping,” Xiomara continued. “Even though she couldn’t have known what was going to happen, she felt guilty for convincing her cousin to sneak out the night they were abducted.” Her voice shook, and I heard her swallow. “During her recovery, Delta always insisted that if they ever made it out of Alea, she would go home to South Creek. It’s a small town in Arizona.”
“So you think she’s there now?” I asked, sharing a skeptical look with Cade. A gust of wind rattled the walls, making me wish we were having this conversation outside instead of in this hot box.
Xiomara shrugged. “It’s worth a look, isn’t it? Even if she’s not there, South Creek is small enough that it shouldn’t be hard to ask around and track her down. I’m sure we could find a family member, or someone who’s in touch with her.”
“Then that’s where we’ll start.” Cade pushed off the wall and tugged his slacks from the backs of his thighs. I knew they must be sticking to his skin the way my clothes were sticking to mine. “We’ll need a story,” he said, running his hands along the sharp point of his chin. “We can tell people that Delta is Kai’s birth mother.”
My head jerked back. “What?”
“Yes, that will work,” he muttered, more to himself than me. “Xiomara and I will pretend to be your adoptive parents. We’ll say we’re trying to support you in your quest to learn about your ancestry.”
“Whoa, why are we bringing her with us?” I asked, jabbing a finger at Xiomara. After last night, I didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.
Cade sighed. “It will look a little suspicious if two men go asking around about a girl who vanished without a trace twenty years ago, don’t you think? People are much more likely to trust us if we have a female with us.” He gave Xiomara a once-over. “But not if we let you go looking like that.”
I couldn’t disagree. She was still in her sweat-stained nightgown, her flushed cheeks were streaked with the crusted remnants of tears, and her wild hair made it look like she’d spent the morning wrestling an alligator.
She glared between us. “Well, it was a bit challenging to clean up in this hole.”
“We’ll take you to our place so you can shower and make yourself presentable,” my uncle announced. “Then we can see about the best way of getting to South Creek.”
I nodded, trying to look confident despite my doubt. It seemed like a long shot to me, but I was willing to try anything if it could help get us to Kala.
Chapter 8
Guilt
I took Xiomara and Cade back to the house, and my uncle instructed me to show our captive to the shower in the basement. The home we’d purchased last year came with an in-law apartment below the living room, but the thought of leading Xiomara down there was just plain weird.
Even if she was going to help us, she was still our prisoner. After last night, it was obvious she didn’t take me seriously. Now I was supposed to show her around like she was a welcome guest?
Scowling, I opened the door to the basement and gestured for her to follow me down the steps. The in-law housed a queen bed tucked in the corner to the left of the staircase, a living area with a sofa and a couple overstuffed chairs, and a small but complete kitchenette along the back wall. Cabinets lined the space above the sink, and a refrigerator stood to the right of the tile countertops. The little apartment had everything except
a private entrance.
I trudged through the unit, opened the bathroom door, and flipped the switch on the wall. The vanity lights flickered twice before coming on with a soft buzz. Remembering all the beauty products I’d watched her slather on last night, I turned to Xiomara and said, “You have ten minutes.”
She nodded. “Okay. But I need to go home and get clothes.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Like I was going to take her to her house again.
“Well, I can’t go in this.” She gestured to her gold satin nightgown that had clearly seen better days. She had a point, but I still wasn’t taking her home.
“I’ll just bring you your handy dandy duffel bag,” I snarled. Even if it was going to be helpful now, it didn’t change how annoyed I was that she’d had the nerve to pack it in the first place.
Shutting my eyes, I pictured her bedroom and let the preview play through my mind. Her husband sat on the edge of their bed, his square-shaped glasses perched at the end of his prominent nose. He stared absently past the five skinny, dark-haired kids of varying heights standing in front of him with only their backs visible to me. One of two boys yanked a paper from the man’s hand, but his blank expression hardly changed.
I snapped out of the preview and, suddenly, I was three years old again.
I stare at Mommy and Daddy. Something is wrong with them. They lay on top of a big red stain on the floor, and they look like they are scared. But their faces don’t change. I feel my toy fall out of my hand. Grandma Naida bumps into me, and her shopping bags crash to the floor, but I keep staring at Mommy and Daddy. Something is wrong with them.
Xiomara’s hand touched my arm, and I jumped. “Kai, what’s wrong?”
