The Hunt

by Stacey Kade

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch.

  After a few seconds, I heard her seat belt unclick, and swallowing the growing lump in my throat, I waited to hear the clunk of the door opening.

  Instead, I felt the sleeping bag shift underneath me, and I opened my eyes to see her kneel down next to me. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered to me, the words aching, raw, and full of fear. That must have been hard for her to admit, being someone who relied on strategy, training, and plans.

  I rolled over and lifted my arm in welcome, and she curled herself against me, resting her head on my other arm. Her tears dripped on my elbow.

  “Welcome to the club,” I whispered back. “It’s called, we’re all just doing the best we can, and it’s better if we stick together.”

  She was quiet for a long moment. “Are there membership cards? Because I don’t think that name is going to fit.”

  Caught off guard, I laughed, surprising myself. “You should try to get some rest while we can. Then we’ll figure out what to do,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “It’ll all make more sense later.” At least, that’s what I was hoping. Because honestly, right now, I had no clue.

  EVEN WITH THE SOOTHING SOUNDS of Zane’s steady breathing next to me and cars rushing by on the road in the distance, as rhythmic as waves hitting the beach (not that I’d ever seen either waves or a beach in person—it was at the top of my list, though), I couldn’t fall asleep.

  My eyes were gritty from being awake for too long and swollen from crying, and the darkness behind my eyelids was a blissful relief. But I couldn’t shut down my brain, and my eyes kept snapping open, studying the molded metal roof above us.

  We needed a plan, a course of action, a goal. Something. Zane was putting up a good front, but I knew that revelation about his mother had thrown him more than he wanted to admit and he didn’t know what to do next. The perils of hearing thoughts even when you didn’t want to. And it occurred to me now, a little belatedly, that even as the strategy expert, maybe I was out of my depth. After all, I’d been designed to follow orders, not create them.

  Tell me to infiltrate a building. Sure, no problem. Perimeter scan and threat analysis. Determine the position of doors and windows relative to available cover. Am I dealing with locks or live security? Identify and disable exterior surveillance cameras. In case of trouble, what other tools are at my disposal?

  I’d seen the inside of almost every building in Wingate that had any form of security. My father had called these little adventures “training missions,” taking me out on the few nights a month he had off from work.

  “It’ll do you no good, even with your abilities, if you don’t know the basics,” he’d said to me, over and over again. “If you can’t beat the alarm or sneak past the cameras, how will you escape if they capture you?”

  Just the idea of being caught, helpless and stuck behind a door that I couldn’t open, had been more than enough motivation for me. I’d had lessons in the lab, of course, but no real-world experience. That had to change.

  We’d started off small. Model homes in an unfinished subdivision on the north side of town. The houses were alarmed to the local police, but no live cams, no security guards. Easy peasy, as the saying goes. Except, of course, I hadn’t counted on a dog, belonging to one of the families in one of the finished homes nearby, barking his head off.

  I’d almost gotten caught my first time out by a nosy neighbor stepping out to see what might be sending the dog into fits. But I’d learned from it, applied it to future training sessions. One more question to ask each time: is there a dog in the vicinity?

  After that, we’d gradually moved on to more difficult targets. The department stores after hours. (I’d bounced on the fake beds in the linen section; they were way harder than they looked.) The houses of the wealthy in town when the occupants weren’t home. (I’d snooped in their pantries and refrigerators.) The same houses when they were home. (I’d hit the medicine cabinets that time; you can learn a great deal from those. Lots of acid reflux on that side of town.)

  The only place we hadn’t ventured anywhere near was, for obvious reasons, GTX.

  But it occurred to me now, for the first time, that they’d probably been very well aware of what my father was doing, what he was teaching me. He may have even been acting on orders, continuing my training outside the lab at their request.

  I shifted uneasily on the van floor, my heart aching at the idea. It was just one more way in which my father had lied to me.

  Then again, he’d also done everything he could to help me escape GTX last night and get out of town cleanly.

  I bit my lip. So, wasn’t it possible that he’d trained me because he’d wanted to, because he’d truly had my best interests at heart?

  Given the choice, that’s what I wanted to believe. And since it was unlikely I’d ever see him again to ask, that was all I had.

  Either way, though, my father had taught me well. And from his very thorough lessons, I knew what questions to ask; how to break down the larger objective into smaller, more manageable pieces; and how to create an action plan to complete each of those steps with the best chance of success for the overall mission.

  I could break, enter, spy, steal, kill…any number of relatively complicated things, including figuring out creative ways around problems.

  But never in all of my years of training—in the lab or with my father—had there ever been a moment when I set my own objective. Even as recently as last week, it had been Zane who’d approached me with the idea of defeating Rachel at her own game and a rough plan of what needed to happen.

  The idea of taking on the responsibility—without the experience of having done it before or any guarantee of success—made me queasy. It wasn’t just my life at stake anymore.

  I looked up at Zane, his arm slung over me loosely and his handsome face peaceful in repose. The police chief’s son. The lacrosse player. The guy that girls, including my former friend Jenna, giggled about. Human.

  How had he ended up here? With me?

  It felt as if this was some kind of moment clipped from a normal existence and spliced into mine. Like maybe he’d fallen asleep after I’d come over to watch a movie at his house or something, and I’d have to wake him up to take me home in a little while. But not yet.

  The thought of such a normal moment—the idea of having it, the fact that we couldn’t, not now, maybe ever—made my chest tight with longing and fear. I wanted that for him, for us, and I was terrified to the point of being paralyzed that thinking about it, being foolish enough to hope for it, was asking for more than I deserved. And that would only make fate or God or karma or whatever come down that much harder to make sure the point was clear.

  I reached up and touched his chin lightly, feeling a day’s worth of stubble against my fingertips, and even in his sleep, he turned in to my touch.

  I’d thought he was a coward before I knew him, someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t think for himself, but now…I was beginning to suspect he might be the bravest person I’d ever met to throw his chips in with me. I wasn’t sure I even trusted me to figure this out.

  Blinking back hot tears, I let my hand drop. Zane trusted me, regardless of whether I thought that was the smart choice. He was counting on me.

  I couldn’t mess this up.

  Taking a deep breath, I refocused my efforts on the trouble at hand. I knew what I wanted. I wanted us to be free, to live our lives—whatever they looked like—without the threat of interference from the government or evil megacorporations.

  But that was too abstract. There was no step-by-step plan for that. I wasn’t even sure if I was looking at it the right way. Maybe freedom wasn’t even the right objective; after all, destruction of your enemy would bring freedom as a by-product of success, right? But the steps to accomplish that—as if it was even possible—would be completely different.

  I blew out a loud breath in frustration, and Zane stirred next t
o me.

  I froze until his even breathing resumed.

  Start with what you know, my logical side spoke up. Take stock of your strengths, weaknesses, and resources, and then potential courses of action. Evaluate each against your current position and factor in likelihood of success.

  We were alive and free…for the moment. Strength.

  We were away from Wingate and GTX. That was good.

  Zane’s mother, a potential vulnerability for us, wasn’t hurt, at least not physically, nor did she appear to be in any immediate danger. Not any more than she had been before our arrival, anyway. Also, good.

  Zane’s mother happened to be Mara, the former GTX lab tech. I put that in the neutral column. I wasn’t sure whether that would work to our advantage or not. Mara did not like me, nor did she care for her son’s involvement in all of this. But she did seem to have his best interests at heart. Of course, that might mean she’d sacrifice me to accomplish that goal. I just didn’t know.

  Weaknesses…oh God, too many to count. We had multiple enemies—the equivalent of a war on several fronts, never a good idea because it divided your attention and your resources—with near unlimited funds and a burning desire to see me dead or recaptured, with Zane as collateral damage or potential bait.

  As for courses of action…fleeing the country—our primary plan until an hour or so ago—was probably no longer an option, if Mara was to be trusted. And I didn’t. Trust her, that is. But she’d made a good point.

  Zane had suggested going to the media, which was, at least, a possibility. Albeit a difficult one. I had no doubt that I could convince someone—a single individual—I was telling the truth, but getting a legitimate news source to run the story without proof beyond the tattoo on my back and my word might be a little tricky. I could use my abilities to read thoughts and float things across the room, which might convince those physically present. But Internet trickery and special effects were too prevalent for anyone to take such a demonstration seriously on TV or the Web. And we didn’t exactly have time for a cross-country road show.

  The trouble was, I needed to create a stir, but people were kind of immune to “alien” claims.

  In any case, I wasn’t entirely sure that the idea wasn’t fatally flawed—freedom from harm by simply telling the truth. Yes, okay, pulling the curtain off my existence might prevent our enemies from taking action against us because the world would be watching, or whatever.

  But that “freedom” also looked a whole lot like exposure.

  After all, how easy was it to make one person disappear? It wasn’t just GTX and its competitors involved in this, but the government. To what lengths would they go to hide that they’d been lying, not only about human experimentation but also the existence of extraterrestrials? Talk about bad press.

  On top of it all, I had no idea which way public opinion would swing. Would they see me as an underdog, someone deserving of their sympathy, or a threat to all of humanity that the government had been trying to contain? I knew which way the Department of Defense would try to spin it. They’d stuck to that ridiculous weather balloon cover story for Roswell for more than half a century. Issuing official bald-faced lies was not new territory.

  But if I took going public off the table because of the risks, that left us with what? Pretty much nothing, other than driving around the country in aimless circles until our luck or money ran out.

  I held in the scream of frustration building in my throat. Even out here, GTX and the others were controlling me—limiting my choices and forcing me to react to their moves, like a stupid pawn being chased around the board. Vulnerable and powerless, worthy only as a sacrifice.

  I hated this. Hated them. Jacobs. GTX. Even Laughlin and Emerson St. John, neither of whom I’d met.

  They hate us so much. Mara’s words echoed in my head. She’d been referring to Laughlin’s hybrids, but it might as well have been me. She’d sounded wounded, almost surprised, by this, but I could well imagine it, if their experience was anything like mine.

  And it seemed as though Ford had been taking action in her own way, playing a cat-and-mouse sort of game in the absence of the ability to really hurt or punish Mara for what she’d done. Laughlin would have likely forbidden that, as he probably considered Mara an asset, but mental games seemed like a potentially gray area. I didn’t condone it exactly, but I understood it. I might have even done the same thing, if I’d had the freedom.…

  I sat up, making Zane’s arm fall to my lap. What was it Mara had said about them? That unless Dr. Laughlin had given the hybrids strict orders, they pursued their own interests. She’d also said something about them being in school and/or in public, an attempt to mimic the cultural immersion portion of my training. Either one meant the hybrids were at least sometimes outside of what was likely some pretty formidable security at Laughlin Integrated.

  If I could find them, I could try to talk to them.

  The idea sent chills skittering over my skin, in both excitement and uncertainty. They were, in all likelihood, the closest thing to blood relatives I had. But I knew from watching full human families, including Zane’s, that shared DNA was no guarantee of kindness or even similar perspectives.

  And technically, I was a competitor. They might want to kill me. That had to be a consideration. Approaching the other hybrids, assuming I could find them, would mean gambling that they hated Laughlin more than they wanted to beat me.

  But to have any hope of winning this game—and freedom for Zane and me—I needed to get on the board as a player instead of a pawn, and that would be a lot easier with allies, some extra hybrid help. If I could, for once, act instead of react, and take GTX, Laughlin, and whomever else by surprise, Zane and I might have a chance.

  Of course, I wasn’t really sure mutual hate was a solid basis for a potential alliance, but it was worth a shot, right?

  It wasn’t like I had any better options. Or, for that matter, any options at all.

  Zane shifted in his sleep, pulling his arm tighter against me, and I lay back down.

  Especially not with everything I had to lose.

  I’D NEVER SLEPT WITH A girl before. Not actual sleeping, anyway. So I didn’t have anything to compare it to, but waking up and finding Ariane still next me was one of the best moments of my life.

  The van was hotter than hell. Ariane was curled up against my side, making her seem even smaller than she was, which was a feat.

  Her pale cheeks were flushed with heat, and her whitish-blond hair appeared darker, sticking to her skin in funny ringlets and waves. It probably wasn’t good for her—for either of us—to be so warm. We needed to get out of here. To where, I wasn’t sure. But not here was a start.

  I sat up and shook her shoulder gently. “Hey,” I whispered to her. “Ari.”

  She blinked at me, the blue tinted lenses in her eyes slipping a little with the motion.

  “Hey,” she said, the word raspy with sleep.

  “Don’t you need to take those out?” I asked, frowning.

  Ariane stared up at me befuddled, as if she wasn’t quite awake.

  “Your contact lenses,” I said with a laugh. Evidently she wasn’t a morning person either. “Aren’t you supposed to—”

  She reached up and touched my face, her fingertips tracing the outline of my mouth lightly, and I stopped talking. Stopped breathing.

  Then she pulled away, her eyes wide as if her action had taken her by surprise as well. But she didn’t retreat completely, her hand hovering between us, as if she wasn’t sure what to do.

  I didn’t move. We were on the edge of something. She hadn’t let me kiss her at the motel. I didn’t know if she wanted me to now; we hadn’t since before GTX, since before that awful party at Rachel’s when Ariane had stepped up to help me and revealed herself.

  And I wanted her to choose. She was a mind reader. She knew what I wanted, but it was up to her. Things were infinitely more complicated than they’d been before, when we were pretending to dat
e to fool Rachel, and I wouldn’t hold the precedent over her head. We were, in effect, starting over.

  Ariane sat up slowly, her pale and heavy hair loose and sliding around her shoulders. I could hear my breath rushing in and out as she moved closer, and I could see the pulse throbbing in her throat.

  She curled her fingers hesitantly in the collar of my shirt, and keeping her gaze fixed on me, she leaned in.

  Her lips brushed lightly over mine. So light, in fact, it felt more like one of those accidental mouth brushes when you go to kiss someone on the cheek and miss.

  It was still electrifying, oddly enough, ramping up the tension and anticipation I could feel building between us, but I didn’t understand it.

  She did it again, watching me carefully, her expression serious, cautious.

  And it finally clicked with me. She was afraid. Afraid I’d pull back or run away. Afraid I’d panic. She was giving me an out.

  I didn’t need one.

  I slid my hand to the back of her head, my fingers tangling in her hair, and angled my mouth against hers, tasting her deeply, showing no hesitation, no fear. It was easy. I didn’t feel any.

  Ariane clutched at my shoulders, her breath escaping in a quiet gasp, sending a gratifying thrill through me.

  Then she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled herself into my lap.

  Blood rushing away from my head, I promptly forgot about pretty much everything except for her tongue in my mouth and her body against mine. I’d seen those slight curves before, in the motel, but feeling them pressed up against me was an entirely different sensation.

  Framing her face with my free hand, I could feel the delicate bones of her cheeks and jaw under my questing fingertips. When she tipped her head back, I pulled my mouth from hers and pressed my lips against the pulse fluttering frantically at her throat, beneath damp skin.

  Then she shifted her legs, moving them to either side of my hips, which shot the intensity level up from about ten to a thousand, and I swallowed a groan, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her closer.