I hug Yana, tears falling into her hair. “I’ve always thought she was.”
The three of us are in our own little bubble. I don’t want to release them. I want to keep them right here with me forever.
“What happened to you?” Yana sobs. “Adam said about the fight house.”
Now is not the time for discussing that festering hell hole. “These guys rescued us. This is Shift” I say. “Guys, this is Adam and Yana.”
“Yana?” asks Crow. He pulls off his mask, the shock at seeing her written all over his face.
“Ian,” she squeals, throwing her arms around Crow.
Ian? Yana’s mentioned an Ian before. My brain fires, trying to recall the memory. At Facility One she mentioned a Pyrokin who escaped Roscoe before he could get his claws into him; her friend who she thought had taken Roscoe up on his offer of EVO training. The man she blindly followed, only to find out she was wrong.
“I had no idea,” he gasps, holding her to him in pure relief.
The other’s stand around in bemusement- guns stills poised- masks still on. Leoni steps out from behind Cooper, taking off her own mask. I step aside, allowing Adam to see her. He instinctively takes a step toward her.
“You’re so handsome,” she says, choking on her tears.
Adam’s chest heaves and his hands shake, but he rushes her, scooping her up in a bear hug.
“I thought you’d hate me,” she sobs.
“You’re my Mum,” he replies. The tell-tale crack of tears in his voice cuts through me. I’m glad he’s let her in. What am I thinking? Of course, he would. Adam’s an open book and that’s one of the many reasons why I love him.
Leoni holds his cheeks in her hands, taking in every inch of his manly face. “I’m so sorry, Sweetheart…for everything.”
He doesn’t reply. I can feel his energy coursing through me: euphoria, hurt, relief. He’s got a lot to work through. I place a hand on his back, so he knows I’m here for him.
Footsteps grind on the gravel from behind us. All guns spin in the direction of the noise. Jude approaches. He’s unshaven and his hair is lank and hanging about his face. He pats Cooper on the back, but continues over to me. The closer he gets, the clearer the dark circles around his eyes and the stress lines etched into his forehead.
“I’m sorry, Princess” he says, his voice breaking. I hold him in the tightest embrace I’ve ever experienced from Jude. Silent sobs rack his body and he buries his face into my hair. “I lied to you,” he whispers. “I knew the centre had been evacuated. That’s why I thought it was safe for you to check it out. Then, we lost contact...You’re all I’ve got, my little Telekin. You have no idea how much that scares the shit out of me.”
The others start removing their masks, introducing themselves with their nicknames only.
“Where is everyone?” Kesh asks.
Realising our emotional reunion is being watched, Jude straightens himself out. “Grayson moved base as soon as you guys went AWOL. I’ve been camped out here since. I guessed that if you came back, you’d come here.”
“Where is this Grayson now? We need to talk?” asks Crow.
Jude shrugs. “I’m not part of Syndicate any longer. I broke the man’s nose.”
“Well, we need to contact him. There’s a mini bus full of EVO up the lane all looking for sanctuary,” I say. “Wait... why did you break his nose?”
“Because he persuaded me to lie to you, and promised you’d be fine. Then, the son of a bitch wouldn’t give me the fight house locations.”
“I want to talk with Grayson, right now,” Crow snaps.
Jude looks him up and down. “Ian, right? You look just like your father. How is the miserable, old git?”
“Dead.”
“Who isn’t these days, right?” says Jude. Crow just glowers. “Okay, so you’ve got no sense of humour like your father too. I’ll get the word to Grayson.”
***
I sit on the table in the side room, swinging my legs and half listening through the closed door to Crow explaining how Shift can help Syndicate. Grayson talks loudly- animatedly. Shift are offering to do the dirty work if Syndicate, aka Grayson, offers up his intel.
Ingrid pings some latex gloves on her hands. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Shift are murderers. Grayson told me that they killed over twenty Non-EVO just to rescue you. You’ve heard about the E.N.C attacks, I presume? How do we know Shift are any different?” She lies me down, injecting anaesthetic into the skin around the wound. “I’ll make it as tidy as possible, and over time the redness will fade, but you’ll always have a scar.”
I don’t reply. I’m still trying to listen to the muffled conversations outside.
“Cooper did well to cauterise his fingers, and it’s his left hand, so it shouldn’t affect him much.”
I nod and go back to eavesdropping on the discussion outside. She’s forcing conversation on me, and I have to bite my lip to stop myself telling her to shut up and let me listen. I don’t feel pain as she stitches, just a tugging sensation. I stare at the yellow-stained ceiling tiles. The shabby office chairs and the table stacked with about twenty ashtrays says that this was probably a smoking room moons ago. Now, it’s a make-shift surgery.
“I have a sterile, clean surgery on base, but that Crow guy insisted that Shift be kept separate from Syndicate. You’re not allowed to step foot on base. It’s probably for the best. Those masks are enough to terrify the life out of anyone. No, I don’t like this at all.”
“Please be quiet,” I snap. “Ingrid, I like you, but you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Those Non-EVO they killed to rescue me and all the other prisoners in that slaughter house were Taggers. Do you know what those people were doing to the EVO in the fight houses?” Ingrid hesitates for a moment, catching words before she says them. “Can we just fix my eye and agree to disagree.”
She leans back against a table, the bird design on her cardigan reflecting the light. “I’m scared. I hate trying to guess people’s motives. I hate having to look over my shoulder. I hate the things I have seen; the things that one human being can do to another. I don’t sleep more than a few hours at a time because I can’t un-see them.” I take her gloved hand as tears spill over her cheeks. “I hate feeling weak.”
“You’re not weak, you are kind. That is your gift, Ingrid.”
I hear a creak from the wall behind us. The old warehouse is draughty and infested. I hate to think what is living in the walls. There’s the creak again. This time, Ingrid looks up. We both eye what I first thought was a cupboard door. The door knob twists slowly and Ingrid steps away. I spring to my feet, shove Ingrid down behind the table, and push myself up against the wall behind the door.
I could shout out, draw the attention of everyone just feet away in the other room, but then I’d lose the element of surprise with whoever is stood the other side of that door. I need to know who it is.
I push my finger to my lips, and Ingrid nods from her hiding spot. The door slowly opens, and a foot steps out; a foot in an ugly, beige court shoe. I launch myself from the wall, grab the mystery person from behind, and place my blade against their neck.
Lizzie gasps, staggering into me until I have her in a choke hold, the knife still pressed into her jugular. “Why are you creeping about, Roscoe?”
A hand closes over my mouth, and breath warms my ear. “Shush, Teds. It’s me.” Wheeler’s shaggy, black hair falls across my cheek. “Keep quiet, okay?”
I release Lizzie and spin into Wheeler’s arms, hugging him tightly. He picks me off my feet, squeezing the air out of me.
“How?”
He puts his hand back across my mouth and shakes his head. Ingrid pops up from behind the table, and Lizzie gestures for her to come with us. Wheeler pushes me through the door, closing it behind us without making a sound.
We half walk- half run through room after room until we’re in the main, open plan floor of the warehouse. The door at the very back is ajar,
torchlight flitting in through the crack.
Wheeler continues to glance at my eye. “Are you okay, Baby Girl?”
“I am now I’ve seen your beautiful face. What about the others?” He pushes the door open and Emiko, October, and Seth wait outside with nervous anticipation.
I throw myself at Emi, and she jumps up and down, bouncing me along with her. Seth and October join in; the four of us dancing around like lunatics.
“How did you get out of the detention centre?” I gasp, going in for another hug.
“Lizzie got us out,” states Wheeler, his face deadly serious.
“I was at the centre when Towley’s evacuation order came through. He’s been on edge. Something must have spooked him. I took advantage to release your friends, but I couldn’t get to Adam and Yana in the isolation cells. I was being monitored.”
“We barely made it out alive,” says Emiko. “TORO are terrifying, but they helped us.”
“I ordered them,” says Lizzie.
I understand the logistics of TORO, and they would have only listened to a person who they believe to have authority. They would have obeyed Lizzie’s commands without second guessing her.
“Okay, but why are you sneaking around?” Ingrid asks.
Lizzie hands her a piece of paper. She reads it, and then drops it as if it’s burning hot to the touch. I snatch it up, unsure of what I’m looking at. There’s a list of names written in untidy scrawl. It’s only when I get to the bottom that I notice Leoni’s name.
“It’s a list of the Shift members dated fourteen years ago. This is how the government knew who was in the organisation.” Lizzie turns it over and points to a name written in capitals and underlined several times- Rafe Lloyd. Then she points to the scrawl at the bottom- ‘Signed by Grayson James’.
My mouth goes dry and I feel physically sick. “Does Adam know?”
“Adam’s here?” Wheeler asks, gawping. All of them become more alert, more animated. “Is he okay?”
I can’t help but smile to be the bringer of good news. “Yes. Adam and Yana.”
Wheeler turns his head to the skies and thanks the heavens, and Emiko squeals her excitement.
“We knew you were close by because Seth could sense you,” says October.
“You’re st-st-stronger than I-I-I remember,” Seth adds.
Emiko hugs me again. “We had no idea what had happened to Adam and Yana. They were taken from us on day one.”
“Why did you come back if you thought it to be dangerous?” I ask Lizzie.
“We’ve been monitoring Syndicate’s base. It’s all we could do.”
“We hoped one of you would return. We thought Jude was long gone,” says Wheeler. “Then, I intercepted the radio call Jude made to Grayson about Shift and we had to come and check it out.” Wheeler readjusts the radio hanging from his belt.
“Grayson isn’t the man we thought him to be,” says Lizzie.
Ingrid holds a hand to her throat in disgust. “He’s a rat.”
“Are these new Shift guys straight up people?” October asks.
I pull the mask from my back pocket and slide it over my face. “They’re our people,” I say through the synthesiser. “But they could be in danger if Grayson is still an informant.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We race back through the warehouse; adrenaline and anger courses through my veins. Grayson is a traitor. That sentence doesn’t sit well with me. Everything he has done until now has been for the benefit of other people. I know he was sneaky, allowing me to check out the centre, but he must have thought it was safe, and I can’t blame Grayson if I don’t blame Jude. Since when do rats turn into good Samaritans.
We slip back into the surgery room, and I don’t wait for introduction, bursting into the meeting room in a blaze of anger. I don’t even give Adam or Yana time to greet Wheeler and the others, I run up to Grayson and swing at his already swollen nose, knocking him clean off his feet.
“You lying bastard,” I shout in his face. “Who the hell are you?” I smack him again, this time in the stomach. Cooper has taught me well.
Crow grabs me from behind, latching his arms through mine, so I can’t do anything other than thrash about.
Grayson jumps to his feet, wiping blood from his nose. “Teddie? What are you talking...” He sees the paper in my hand and hangs his head.
“Do you recognise this? You should, because it’s got your signature on it.”
Adam wrestles Crow away from me. “What’s this about?”
“Grayson is the reason your Dad is dead. He’s the reason Rafe and every other original Shift member is dead. He ratted everyone out.”
Leoni snatches the paper from me, her eyes darting over the list of names and Grayson’s signature. The paper floats from her hand and she stands motionless for a moment before pulling the gun from her waistband. “My husband is dead because of you. I had to abandon my son because of you. And you have been looking me in the eye, calling me a friend!”
Grayson raises his hands in surrender, backing away from us. “It isn’t how you think. I know it looks bad- it is bad- but I have reason.”
“Get talking,” says Jude. He hasn’t moved from his spot against the wall, but his hand now rests on his own gun.
“I first met Rafe when he hired the security company I was employed with. He was hosting an event for a load of rich aristocrats and entrepreneurs. He had a sensor working for him, and by the end of the night, I was a member of Shift.”
“Give me a reason not to kill you right here, right now,” Leoni snarls.
“Rafe got me a security job in a government research centre. I had been collecting intelligence for Shift for six months, but someone must have cottoned on. Some government types drove me off the road one night after work, took me to a barn in the middle of nowhere, and beat me half to death. Then, they brought my wife out. They threatened her life.”
The room is silent. Even Leoni has lowered her gun an inch or two.
“Nadine was seven months pregnant with our baby boy and she was so scared. They had blindfolded her, gagged her, and tied her to a chair. I gave up the names because they threatened to kill my wife and unborn child.”
Grayson cries now. The memories clearly hurt and are so strong that he imparts them on me without me having to consciously tune in. I can see Nadine on the chair with a gun pressed into her temple.
“What would you have done? What would any of you have done? I gave them the names, signed the paper, and I watched as they put a bullet in my wife’s head, and then her belly. They killed them anyway to teach me a lesson.”
The gunshots are so clear in his mind that I physically jump. I lurch forward, gagging as the vision of Nadine with blood seeping over her white maternity dress floods my mind.
“Stop it,” I scream at Grayson.
Adam catches me before I hit the floor. “What’s happening?”
“She has no control,” says Leoni, helping him steady me.
Grayson sobs uncontrollably, hysteria in his voice. “They killed them both anyway! I’m sorry for what I did to you and yours, Leoni. I tried to get hold of Rafe... I tried.” He slumps against the desk. “By the time I contacted him, Stuart was dead. I warned Rafe of what I had done.”
The only image in Grayson’s mind is of Nadine slumped in the chair. The image fades, enabling me to finally breathe.
“Did you see it?” Grayson asks. He sounds childlike and vulnerable.
I’m crying now. “I saw it. I’m so sorry that you had to go through that. No one should have to go through that.” I hold him, and he cries into my hair.
Jude pushes himself away from the wall with his foot. “I’ll go get some brandy.”
***
Grayson holds my hand as he sips his drink. He physically shakes in the chair, desperately clawing back his composure.
“How do the E.N.C attacks affect Syndicate?” I ask, changing the subject to encourage Grayson to think about something other tha
n his pregnant wife’s murder.
He shakes his head. “I really do not know. We need to gain more ground, get a better footing. We’ve got the hardest job of all, taking on both the government and the E.N.C. I had to appoint new Council members since you all went AWOL, but we have continued planning something big. We would like your permission to announce your allegiance to Syndicate, Teddie. Many EVO are joining the E.N.C out of fear from the government, not a hatred of Non-EVO. If we can show them what we represent, and that we have the worlds’ most powerful EVO working for—”
“No,” says Adam without so much as a blink.
“No,” says Jude.
Yana and Cooper both step forward at the same time. “No,” they say in unison.
Crow laughs out loud. “Cub is Shift, not Syndicate. You lost her the minute you told her about us.”
Grayson raises an eyebrow. “I never realised we were in competition.”
“Hey, do I get a say? This isn’t a Teddie tug of war,” I say. Grayson leans closer, eagerly awaiting my decision. “No.”
“May I ask why?”
I hesitate to think up a kind way to tell him what I need to. Sometimes fast and quick is the best way, like ripping off a plaster. “You know how I feel about Syndicate. I love what you’re trying to do, but I want to be on the pro-active team. I’m put to better use on Shift’s squad. I can be of more benefit actually doing something than pretending that Syndicate can handle their shit.”
“Your face can do more good than you know. That’s all I need, Teddie- your face. You can do what you like with Shift, but we need your support. Do you not care about your reputation? We can put the truth out there.”
“It’s not happening, end of story,” Crow barks at Grayson. “Cub is with us. We will take any intel you have on the detention centres and fight houses, and we will deliver any EVO and Non-EVO who need sanctuary to you under the guise of Syndicate. You can take the credit, but don’t expect us to bow to your rules. We have our own way of doing things, and handing over a valuable member of our team isn’t one of them. Shift is in Teddie’s blood. That’s all there is to it.”
EVO Nation Series Trilogy Box Set Page 46
