The Hunt

by Stacey Kade

  The pain in his voice made me wonder what lengths they’d gone to to save themselves. Or how far Dr. Laughlin had pushed them. He couldn’t send all three of them into the trials, and if they didn’t function well as individuals, then he was in trouble, no matter what he’d promised Ford.

  “How will you keep Ford from following us?” Carter asked.

  “We’ll figure that out,” I promised. “I’ve got some ideas.” After all, I didn’t need her to stay away forever. Just long enough for me to get inside.

  Ford gave a small sigh of exasperation, as if it wasn’t even worth the air to explain how stupid I was. “Even if you can successfully imitate me long enough to gain access”—her tone indicated how unlikely she thought this feat—“you will be noticed wandering the halls alone. Alarms will be raised immediately and you will be subject to examination, if only to determine how you broke free of our bond.”

  Not to mention it would completely leave me vulnerable to a double-cross, should she be thinking along those lines. But I wasn’t done yet. Not even close. I wasn’t going to be the only one with skin in the game.

  I smiled at her, letting my teeth show, and my face protested at the unnatural gesture. But it worked, as she swayed back slightly with a frown.

  “That’s where you come in,” I said.

  Ford tipped her head to one side, that evaluating look I recognized. It might have also been faint admiration; I wasn’t sure. “We have only a few minutes before our security team will come looking for us,” she said.

  “It’ll be enough,” I promised. Or so I hoped.

  IT TOOK ME A FEW seconds after Ariane left to work out that she wasn’t coming back.

  She hadn’t just gone downstairs to get air or away from me for a few minutes. She had walked away. To them.

  After days of trusting only each other, she’d just ended it. Chosen them over me.

  The sudden emptiness inside me left me feeling as though I would cave in from the edges at any second. It was, oddly, a familiar feeling of just not being enough.

  I turned and walked woodenly into my mom’s room, where she still sat on the edge of the bed, like a version of her former self with the batteries out.

  She glanced up and then behind me. “Where is 1…Where is Ariane?”

  “She…” She took off? She decided she could do better? I couldn’t make myself say those things out loud. “She’s pursuing other options.”

  Darkness flashed over my mom’s face. “She decided that this mission wasn’t ‘within scope.’”

  I frowned.

  “Oh, she didn’t use those words, but it’s the same idea.” She shook her head. “I told you. They look human, but they don’t have the feelings, the capacity for emotion.”

  “Ariane’s different.” The words escaped before I could stop them. God, why was I still defending her?

  My mom gave me a pitying look and stood with an effort to continue her ineffective struggles with the suitcase zipper. “Even her own mother wouldn’t…” She snapped her mouth shut.

  I stared at her. “What?

  “Nothing.”

  “No, it’s not nothing. You were talking about Ariane’s mother. Do you know who she is?”

  She shook her head. “Of course not. I didn’t have that level of clearance.” But she wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  “Mom—”

  She held up her hand to stop me. “All I was trying to say was that the hybrids aren’t meant for life out here. Expecting more from her or any of them is, at best, setting yourself up for hurt. At worst, it’s dangerous.”

  I stiffened. “Did you say that to her?”

  “Zane…honey.” She turned and reached for me, her cold fingers brushing my face before I stepped away.

  “Did you say that to Ariane?” I repeated.

  “She didn’t argue with me. She knows what she is—”

  “Who she is, Mom. Who. And she knows who she is. She was trying to help you. She was asking questions,” I argued.

  My mom sighed. “I’m not saying that she wouldn’t have helped if it benefited her.”

  “No, she’s more than that.” I knew that to my core. The girl I knew, the one who’d stood up for Jenna Mayborne, who’d taken on Rachel Jacobs and her grandfather, that was not someone who calculated the angles and acted only on those that helped her. If she hadn’t stood up for Jenna, she would never have been in this mess to begin with.

  “Then where is she?” my mom asked simply.

  I grimaced. “She’s trying to help Quinn. In her own way.” But I sounded defensive, unsure, even to my own ears. I was certain she would try to save Quinn, but Ford, Nixon, and Carter…they would come first. She’d admitted as much.

  My mom gave me a knowing look. “If she’d been willing to intervene directly on Quinn’s behalf, I would have accepted her help. They are very good at what they do. But honey, you can’t get attached. To begin thinking about her as more than what…who she is. Trust me, I made the same mistake, but once you see what they can do…” She shuddered.

  “What, Mom, what horrible thing did she do?” I asked, getting very tired of all this paranoia without proof. She’d been against Ariane since the second we’d arrived. Well, as soon as she’d figured out Ariane wasn’t Ford.

  “She killed an animal because Dr. Jacobs told her to. Just stopped its heart.”

  I frowned. That didn’t sound like Ariane at all. “Because he told her to,” I said slowly. “What does that mean?”

  “I mean he ordered her to do it and she did.” My mom hauled the suitcase off the bed and, seemingly as an afterthought, scooped up the butcher’s knife, tucking it the suitcase’s outer pocket.

  “Right then, without argument?” I asked. I couldn’t even picture that in my head. Ford, yes. Ariane, no way.

  She made an exasperated noise. “She couldn’t really argue and she tried to resist for a while, but—”

  “How many days, Mom? How long did she resist?” A new idea struck and my stomach turned, but I made myself ask. “What did he do to her when she did?” I didn’t know everything about Ariane’s lab days, but I knew enough to guess that any form of rebellion had been met with swift and severe punishment.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she snapped. And I saw the genuine fear in her eyes. She’d gotten pulled in over her head and stayed too long. Her world would never be safe now that she knew about the existence of the hybrids and their alien progenitors. “She did it, Zane. That’s the point. And she can do it to any of us.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she will,” I said. Just because someone could do something didn’t mean they would. We were all capable of horrible violence and cruelty, but that capacity didn’t turn us all into abusers and serial killers. “I saw her save someone by refusing to do that same thing.” Rachel Jacobs was alive today only because Ariane had refused to kill her, even though she’d been cruel to Ariane and it would have benefited Ariane to end her life.

  That was who she was.

  And instead of trusting that person, I’d let her walk out. Worse, I hadn’t even tried to hear her out about the hybrids. Instead, I’d let my own fears get in the way.

  That realization struck with such force that it made me take a step back. She hadn’t given up on me; she’d turned away when I’d stopped believing in her.

  How could I blame her for that?

  The urge to find her, to help protect her from the risk she was taking, overwhelmed me. I turned and headed for the door, desperation moving my limbs before conscious thought kicked in.

  “Zane, where are you going?” My mom sounded alarmed. “If you come with me to meet Dr. Jacobs, maybe we can—”

  I didn’t stop. “I promise, I will find a way to get Quinn out of there.” But first, I had to catch up with Ariane before she took a chance she couldn’t untake.

  The van that had been our home base since the start of all of this was parked at the front of the school, and just the sight of it sent a sweet rush of relie
f over me, leaving me to sag back in the cramped driver’s seat of my mom’s Mazda.

  I wasn’t too late. She was here somewhere.

  The rest of the parking lot was empty but for a handful of cars. Including a black SUV gliding to a stop in front of the main entrance.

  Shit. I pulled into the nearest parking space, shoved the gearshift into park, and ducked down, hiding as best as I could across the seats. Were they here for Ariane? Or just picking up Ford and the others for the day?

  After a long moment, when there were no shouts or pounding footsteps in my direction, I peered cautiously over the edge of dashboard. And got my answer. From my angle, I had an unobstructed view of the doors, so I saw when Ford, flanked by Nixon and Carter, marched out.

  I searched her face for signs that Ariane had found her, but I couldn’t read her any better than Ariane. She could have been pissed, bored, or her version of ecstatic. It was impossible to tell.

  One of Laughlin’s hired men got out and opened the SUV’s back door for them. Carter climbed in, but Ford hesitated for a second.

  My gaze shifted to the van automatically, looking for whatever had distracted Ford. I half-expected Ariane to burst out, shouting for Ford and throwing the guards around.

  But nothing happened. Ford got into the vehicle, followed by Nixon, both of them moving as if this was routine.

  The SUV pulled away a few seconds later with a squeal of tires on the new asphalt.

  I let out a slow breath of relief. Well, if Ford and the others were gone, but Ariane’s van was still here, then that meant she was still here somewhere, right? If I caught up with her now, before she had time to implement whatever plan she’d cooked up with Ford—assuming she’d had a chance to talk to Ford and Ford had agreed to participate—then Ariane would be safe.

  The tight knot in my stomach eased slightly. I’d have a chance to talk to her, to apologize, to try to figure out another option or, hell, even help with whatever she had cooked up.

  All I had to do was find her.

  Filled with renewed determination, I charged out of the car and headed for the van. That would be the easiest place for her to await Ford without detection, but if that was the case, then she’d just missed her chance.

  The van was seemingly unoccupied. The doors were locked, so I couldn’t check the secret compartment, but I felt fairly certain that if she’d come this far, she wouldn’t be hiding in there.

  “Ariane?” I whispered against the passenger-side window, just in case. My breath fogged the glass, but nothing moved on the inside. I could see the map we’d used, neatly folded up and tucked into a cup holder. Napkins from one of our Culver’s visits overflowed from the glove box, where I’d stuffed them. The hotel key card Ariane had kept was resting on the shelf beneath the speedometer and other gauges. The dairy fairy—a mini stuffed cow with pink gauze wings and a tiny wand in one hoof—that I’d bought for Ariane at the convenience store where we’d gotten our Illinois map dangled from the rearview mirror.

  I backed away from the van, a little unnerved at seeing it empty, almost abandoned looking. It was a capsule of our time together since leaving Wingate, which was kind of awesome. But seeing the van like this, without either of us in it or preparing to get in it, it felt more like a sealed exhibit, as if the life had been drained out of it. Now it was one of those dinner scenes you see in pictures from Pompeii. The plates were still on the table, chairs pushed back. But the people were just gone.

  I shook my head against the tide of superstitious and stupid thoughts. She wasn’t gone. She just wasn’t here.

  Inside the school, then. That was the next logical choice. I headed toward the door, fists at my side, determined to fight my way in if necessary.

  But unlike earlier, nobody seemed to notice my presence or care. I crossed the threshold, watching the office warily, now that I knew where it was. Postschool, it held quite the collection of teachers, chatting and laughing. I could hear the hum and thump of a photocopier, and the phone was ringing.

  After hours, none of them seemed to be concerned about someone walking in. The few students I saw passing through the hall ahead of me moved with purpose, to practices, rehearsal, or tutoring, presumably.

  I headed off down the hall, following the same route Ariane and I had taken before. There were dozens of rooms and an unknown number of closets and hidey-holes in this place where she might have taken refuge to avoid being seen. Ariane? I focused on her name and imagined projecting it throughout the school, bouncing off the walls like a sound wave.

  No response. Because she didn’t “hear” me or because she didn’t want to?

  I grimaced. She might be angry enough at me to stay away.

  ARIANE! I tried again, even louder, imagining myself shouting. I’M HERE. I’M SORRY! CAN WE TALK? PLEASE?

  Still silence. No movement.

  The doors were open to most of the classrooms, as they were now empty except for teachers hunched over laptops or wiping whiteboards clean, which made searching a little easier. But no more successful.

  I opened the few closed doors I could find, and in the process I discovered the practice room we’d used for our conversation with Ford. The same kid we’d scared off earlier sitting at the piano, glumly picking out notes.

  He looked up at me and froze.

  “Sorry,” I said hastily, and backed out.

  I continued down the hall, checking rooms and nodding to the few people I passed as if I belonged. When I reached a dead end, I retraced my steps and found a different branch to check.

  But the school wasn’t that big, and once I found my way to an auditorium with actual velvet chairs, like in one of those old-time movie theaters, I was running out of obvious places to check.

  I returned to the hall, near the atrium, which seemed to be the approximate center of the building, all the hallways spiderwebbing around it. An atrium in northern Illinois? Why? So they could stare at snow for half the year? These people had more money than sense.

  “Ariane?” I called. “Are you here? I just want to talk.”

  Now the quiet was taking on a punishing quality. Or maybe that was just my guilt talking.

  “Ariane.”

  “Ariane!”

  A couple heads poked out in the hall to stare at me, but I glared and they retreated. One advantage of my height is that people rarely want to challenge it.

  “Ariane!” I bellowed again.

  Then a door somewhere nearby banged open, and I started in the direction of the noise.

  I rounded the corner and saw a door shuddering from its impact with the wall. One of the bathroom doors with the fancy clouded glass in the upper half.

  A paper sign flapped on the outside of the door.

  IN DISREPAIR. DO NOT USE.

  I rolled my eyes at yet another instance of the Linwood Academy putting on airs. Because “broken” just wasn’t good enough for them.

  I felt myself pulled toward the door. Not drawn in the sense of intrigued or curious, but physically pulled.

  My shoes slipped on the wood floor as I automatically leaned away from the force.

  Only there wasn’t much room for leverage. The force around me held fast, dragging me forward and squeezing maybe just a little too tight.

  I stumbled into the bathroom, my shoes catching on the threshold as the power around me dissipated. And then the door banged shut after me, almost smacking into my back.

  Ariane stepped out from one of the stalls, and my immediate rush of relief vanished when she opened her mouth. “You are determined to be a menace, aren’t you?” Her voice was cold and harsh.

  I gaped at her. No matter how upset she’d been with me before, she’d never looked at me like that. Not since the first day we’d talked and even then…

  As she tipped her head, seemingly waiting for a response, I saw the vertical line carved into her cheek. And those eyes, dark and bottomless, as if they were void of all feeling.

  Not Ariane. Ford.

  I
shook my head, my thoughts in a nauseating whirl as I struggled to catch. If Ford was here, that meant Ariane was…not.

  A horrible feeling rose up in me as my brain replayed the scene I’d witnessed, in sharp HD quality. The trio of hybrids climbing into their big, black, Laughlin-provided SUV. And that strange momentary hesitation from Ford before she’d climbed in.

  Ariane’s plan was simple and brilliant…but incredibly risky.

  And I was too late to stop her.

  THE DARK INTERIOR OF THE SUV reeked of new leather and too much men’s cologne, a mixture that would now forever be associated in my mind with blinding terror.

  I was in the middle seat, close enough to see the precise line of the haircut on the driver’s neck, smell that he was the source of the offending musky odor, and notice the plastic communication bud in his ear when he turned to check traffic before pulling out.

  So close. Agent Blonde, as I nicknamed him, was so very close. And though I hadn’t had the chance to confirm it, I suspected he, too, was carrying concealed under his jacket. I’d seen a gun on Lando, the other guard, when he’d held the SUV door open for us. (I named him after the Star Wars character he vaguely resembled. I may have been slightly punchy with panic.)

  That gun—and Agent Blonde’s presumably as well—was the real thing, not the kind with tranquilizer darts like I’d seen on Dr. Jacobs’s retrieval teams.

  Theoretically, these men and their weapons were here to protect the hybrids (a.k.a. Laughlin’s investment), but I was willing to bet they’d been trained with scenarios that would involve turning those weapons on their charges.

  Carter’s shoulder pressed against mine on one side. Nixon was folded up on the other side of me.

  I imitated their position. Staring straight ahead, hands resting neatly, palms down, on their knees. Three little statues in a row.

  But on the inside, I was screaming.

  I’d messed up. Years of training for covert operations—not exactly like this one but similar enough that it shouldn’t have been an issue—and I’d hesitated.