Defector (18 page)

The man jabbed a finger at Devon. “You know nothing about trouble, boy. That girl of yours is getting you into a shitload of it. Better run while you still can.”

“Just tell us!” I shouted.

His small eyes twinkled angrily. “If you want to meet up with your daddy, you’ll have to let him catch you. There is no other way.”

Maybe I should just let him catch me
, I thought. The odds of us finding Holly without being captured were incredibly slim. My mother had made him sound okay, and the photo of him holding me showed a softer side too. But he was still an unknown entity: He had kidnapped Holly, and I didn’t know what his plans were for me. I had to try to get Holly to safety, and then I could decide if I wanted to risk a meeting with my father. “That’s not going to work. He won’t let me leave once he has me. I need to get inside their headquarters without their knowledge.”

“Didn’t you listen? You can’t find them. Very few people know where they’re located. They have their ways of making sure that no one can reveal it.”

“You mean their Variant who can alter memories? Do they make sure that no one can remember where they are?”

He stared at me for a moment. “Not as clueless as you pretend to be, eh?”

We were getting nowhere with this. Devon ran an impatient hand through his hair. “This is all bullshit. Can you help us or not?”

I gave him a warning look. “Tell us what you know. My mother said you knew
something
.”

Stanley glowered at her, but she had curled up sideways on the bed, and her eyes were now closed. “Your mother doesn’t know what she’s saying. But I’ll give you some advice: Get the hell away from here, and stop looking for Abel. If you’re not willing to be part of his army, you shouldn’t get near them. They won’t leave you with any other choice.”

The door was ripped open, and Penny stumbled inside, eyes widened in panic. “They’re here!”

Stanley went very still.

“Who?” I whispered, fear slicing through me. Devon stepped up beside me, and I slipped my hand into his.

“Abel’s Army. One of their cars just pulled up in front of the bar. Benny is sure it’s them. They’re just waiting. They haven’t gotten out yet.”

“They won’t wait for long,” Stanley said.

My eyes flew to Devon. He let go of my hand and hurried toward the window to peek through the gap in the curtains. I pressed myself against his back and peered down into the lot. A black limousine sat right below the window, its engine running.

I whirled around. “Did you call them?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes at Stanley.

He glowered back. “Do you think I’m desperate for trouble? Someone must have recognized you in the bar. With those eyes of yours, it’s no surprise.” He released a harsh breath. “I told you to leave. You should have listened!”

“What do we do now?” Devon asked softly. I glanced at my mother, still passed out on the bed, then at Devon. There was no other way. If I let them capture me, they would leave Devon and my mother alone. They would take me to Holly.

I looked at my mother and then back at Devon. “Hide her or get her away from here,” I told him.

“No, I won’t let you go alone.”

“It’s the only way.”

“What? Letting yourself get captured? Tessa, you’ve got to be kidding!” he said desperately. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. You’ll both be prisoners. How is that going to help Holly?”

I knew he was right. “Is there only one car out there?” I asked.

Penny shrugged. “It’s the only car we can see. That doesn’t mean there aren’t more hiding out of sight.”

I touched my mother’s shoulder, but she didn’t react. She must have spent all her energy talking to me. Now her body needed time to recover from the spittle and the antidote. I couldn’t just leave her here. But I knew she couldn’t come with me. “I’ll keep her hidden,” Penny said suddenly. Stanley, who had been staring into nothing, snapped his head around. But Penny glared at him. “We owe it to her, Dad.” Then she turned to Devon and me. “You should really leave now.”

I pressed a brief kiss against the top of my mother’s head, then followed Stanley into the corridor and down the stairs. Patches of sweat had spread under his arms. “There’s a tunnel in the basement that leads to another bar. I have something of an agreement with the owner, so he doesn’t care who enters or leaves.”

I knew he wasn’t doing this for our sake. He just wanted to get rid of us as fast as possible and without causing a big stir. But Stanley froze the moment we reached the bar area. He stopped so short that Devon and I almost ran into his back.

“What’s—” I never finished my question, because a boy with eyes like mine had just entered the bar. He was unmistakable, even after all these years. My brother, Zach.

H
e was tall and slender, with the same auburn hair and turquoise eyes as me. His skin was milky, but not quite as pale as mine. He wore black from head to toe, right down to his sneakers. Two men entered the bar after him, also dressed in black. But they hovered somewhere behind Zach, so I couldn’t make out their faces or see if they were armed. I’d have to be careful. Slowly Zach scanned the room, his face like steel, until he found me. Devon grabbed my hand in a painful grip and tugged. But as my eyes locked with my brother’s, I couldn’t move. His face softened, and something stirred in me. I had a brother. He really existed. He gazed at me with warm eyes. It reminded me of the expression I’d seen in the photos and in the recent memory.

“Damn,” Stanley muttered.

Zach’s lips pulled into a tentative smile, as if he was happy to see me. But my face was frozen, unsure of how to feel. He was part of Abel’s Army. Maybe he was responsible for Holly’s kidnapping. The softness of his expression made me want to believe otherwise, but I knew better than to trust someone’s face. One of his men—I recognized him as the guy with the red hair who had disappeared with Holly—said something, and every hint of happiness slipped off Zach’s face. His eyes cut through the room, and my heart stopped as I followed his gaze toward a booth at the end of the bar. Tanner and Kate were slowly rising from the blue leather seats.

Where was Alec?

Bitter realization set in. After what I’d said to him in Detroit, he was done with me. The FEA still wanted to rescue me, but not Alec. He no longer cared what happened to me.

The other customers started to whisper nervously, and most of them got up and moved closer to the only exit, which Zach and his men were still blocking. Where were Benny and Finja? Was there no other form of security?

“This is all your fault,” Stanley said miserably. His hands hit my back, and I stumbled into the middle of the room. “Here, take her. She’s why you’re here. Take her and leave.”

I caught my fall with my hands and slowly straightened. Stanley and Devon were fighting. Punches were flying, and Devon was trying to get the older man in a headlock. Stanley was spitting, probably to put Devon in a drug haze. But that wasn’t my main problem. Devon was a good fighter. And it was better for him to be part of a brawl with Stanley than to get into whatever was about to go down between Kate and Tanner and Zach and his men. I could only hope that Penny would stay with my mother upstairs. My eyes darted between my brother and my former agent colleagues. Whatever I did, escape was unlikely. One of them would inevitably triumph.

Maybe the FEA was the lesser evil or maybe not. After everything I’d learned, I couldn’t be sure anymore. Abel’s Army was the great unknown. Could what awaited me with them possibly be worse than being thrown into the FEA’s loony bin and having my life controlled by Major? The unknown held the potential for danger, but it also held hope. And my brother was my ticket to Holly.

Tanner held out his hand. Today his mohawk was blue. Good old Tanner—but his face was missing his trademark grin. “Come on, Tessa. We can get you home safely. This can all be over now.”

“What home?” I retorted bitterly.

“Home is the FEA, where you belong. Major wants you back. Alec is waiting for you,” Tanner said, his eyes flitting between me and Zach, on the other end of the room.

“Major just wants to control me. And if there were a chance for Alec and me, he’d be here with you. Don’t start lying to me too, Tanner.” I really wished Benny hadn’t taken my gun when we’d entered the bar. Even when it came to fighting Variants, I’d have felt much safer with it in my hand.

“We’re your family,” Tanner said. Kate rolled her eyes, and I almost wanted to do the same. Strangely enough, she was the one person in the FEA I resented the least right now. Without her, I’d still be clueless. She had set this whole thing in motion, but at least she had told me the truth.

“A family doesn’t do what the FEA did to me,” I said quietly. And yet part of me still wanted my old life back at headquarters, that feeling of belonging, of having a place where I was safe. I longed for my life the way it used to be: movie nights with Alec, banter with Tanner, laughter with Holly, and breakfast with Martha cooking in the kitchen. Maybe I could have forgiven everything if Major had apologized, if he hadn’t planned on locking me away, but even then, broken trust was hard to mend. Especially if there was a lack of trust on both sides. As Abel’s daughter, Major would never trust me completely.

Everyone in the room had fallen silent. The tension was so thick I could almost reach out and touch it.

Zach’s eyes focused on me with strange intensity. “You have a real family, Tessa. You don’t need them.” He nodded toward Tanner and Kate, resentment hardening his eyes.

I turned to him. “You only want me because of my Variation. When you thought I was normal, you didn’t even come looking for me.”

Zach took a step toward me, and Tanner and Kate tensed. “That’s not true,” Zach said. “We didn’t have the same resources we have now. Dad never stopped searching for you.”

I wanted to believe him, and maybe it was true. My mother had said that Abel would never forgive her for taking me away. What if that meant he really cared for me? Devon appeared at my side, hair rumpled but otherwise uninjured. When our eyes met, it took him a second to focus. “Did Stanley hit you?” I asked.

Devon shook his head and blinked once, hard. “No, the bastard just spit on me. His spittle is strong stuff.”

“But you’re okay?” I whispered, never taking my eyes off Zach and Tanner, who had both taken a few steps toward me. Stanley had disappeared.

“I’m fine. My Variation can take care of the stuff.” Devon’s gaze settled on Tanner. They had joked around a lot in the time they’d spent at headquarters together, and now they were facing off like enemies.

“Why should I believe you?” I asked, turning my attention back to Zach. He opened his arms in a disarming gesture. “Blood’s the strongest bond in this world. You should be with the people who love you for being a sister and a daughter and not for the value of your Variation.” He sent a brief glare toward Kate and Tanner.

“Don’t let him manipulate you,” Tanner warned, taking another step in my direction.

I snorted. “Because you and the FEA would never do that, right?”

Devon’s body brimmed with tension beside me. He was eyeing the redheaded guy with the transport Variation, and I felt stupid for having almost forgotten about him. He looked relaxed, the way he was standing with his arms crossed in front of his chest, but I didn’t buy his act. “What about him? Will you let him kidnap me the way you did with Holly?”

Zach’s face looked puzzled, and for a horrible moment I was sure he didn’t know who Holly was because they’d killed her the moment they’d found out she wasn’t me. “Jago won’t touch you. I won’t force you to join us. I want you to come because you want to,” he said. Jago gave a small mocking bow, his red hair falling into his eyes.

“Enough already!” Kate hissed. “This is ridiculous. Tanner, now!”

My gaze flew to Tanner. He looked reluctant to do whatever Kate wanted him to do.

“Now!” Kate snarled. The guns that Benny had taken away from us soared over Zach’s head and landed in Kate’s and Tanner’s outstretched hands.

One of Zach’s men guffawed. “How very human of you to use guns!” he exclaimed. Now that he wasn’t half-covered by Zach anymore, I realized he was the suspicious-looking guy who’d watched me while I had been giving my speech as Senator Pollard.

“Shut up, Will,” Zach hissed. But Kate raised her weapon and fired at Zach as all hell broke lose. My chest constricted with fear. What if Kate had hit Zach?

A few Variants started scuttling through the room in panic, but others joined the fighting. Bolts of electricity shot through the room, taking out several light bulbs and whoever was in their way. The smell of sulfur flooded my nose. More shots were fired, and knives soared through the room. Kate tried to make her way over to me, but other Variants and bolts of electricity kept getting in her way. The light flickered, turned from blue to red then back again. Someone bumped into me and sent me flying to the ground. My tailbone collided with the stone floor, sending a twinge of searing pain up my spine.

Devon gripped my arm and pulled me to my feet. “Come on. We have to find the tunnel and get away.” But some part of me didn’t want to run—the same part that wanted to believe that Zach’s words had been the truth, that he and my father had been searching for me for all those years. The part of me that wished we could be a real family.

“Tessa, come on!” Devon urged. Fighting was happening all around us, but Kate had almost reached us. Zach and Will were crouching on the ground. But I couldn’t see Jago anywhere. Suddenly Zach nodded in Will’s direction. Will sprang to his feet and thrust his arms outward. Every mirror and glass in the room shattered with an ear-splitting shriek. A crack tore through the thick glass of the aquarium, the sound like nails on a chalkboard, and then the ground began shaking, just like it had done when I’d pretended to be Senator Pollard.

Devon pushed me to the ground and threw himself on top of me. My breath whooshed out of my lungs. Screams and the hissing of water burst through the room. I lifted my head, only to see a wave crash over our heads. The water swept over our bodies, rushing into my nose and mouth, leaving us soaked. Devon rolled off me, and I pushed myself to my knees, disoriented. My hands, which hadn’t been protected by Devon’s body, stung. Small splinters of glass stuck in my skin. I brushed them off as best as I could. Luckily the wounds they left were tiny. One of the water twins lay curled into herself a few steps away from me, cuts littering her back. They didn’t look life-threatening, but she’d probably have scars.

I stumbled to my feet and turned to Devon. My heart skipped a beat. His shirt was ripped, and his back was far worse than that of the woman. It looked like someone had dragged a rake across him. I helped him to his feet as he surveyed the scene. The room was a mess. The lamps and the glass bar shelves had exploded. Only a few of the spotlights on the floor seemed to have survived the shockwave and gave off an eerily bluish light. It was hard to make out much. Broken glass crunched under my feet as I turned around to get my bearings. Some people huddled against the wall, while others were motionless on the ground. The smell of chlorine and copper hung heavy in the air. Had people been killed by the flying shards? I stumbled forward, looking for Tanner and Kate. Even if I didn’t trust them, I didn’t want them dead or injured.

I detected Kate on the ground. She was sitting with her face in her palm. I stumbled toward her to see if she needed help. Suddenly someone gripped me from behind. I twisted around, ready to punch whoever it was, but I found myself looking into turquoise eyes. Devon came up to us, shoulders squared. Zach’s gaze leveled on the wounds on Devon’s shoulders, which were rapidly healing themselves, and realization settled on his face. Then he turned to me. “Come with me, please,” he whispered.

“You could have killed people. Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t start firing. I didn’t have a choice. We were just talking, and, as usual, the FEA attacked.” I opened my mouth to argue, but what he’d said was true. “Please, Tessa. There’ll be enough time to explain it all, but not right now. And I knew nobody would die. The shards Will’s shockwave creates are too small to do any major damage, and Devon can help the injured, right?”

I didn’t say anything, but I never looked away from his eyes—they could have been my eyes. His hand on my shoulder was warm and soft. “I’ve been waiting for this day for so long.”

“Me too,” I said, because it was true. I’d always wanted a loving family, had looked everywhere for it, except for the one place where I was most likely to find it: with my real family.

Zach smiled, and I could tell it was an honest smile, without pretense. A figure was staggering toward us. Zach’s head turned. “We have to leave now,” he whispered. “The agents will have called for reinforcements. Major could arrive at any second.”

Devon stepped up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. His grip was warning. “Tessa—”

“I have so many memories I want to share with you,” Zach said quickly. “Memories of our dad and how we spent our first Christmas together. You have a family, Tessa. Whatever the FEA told you about us, it was a lie to secure your loyalty.”

I searched his eyes in the dim, bluish light. He took my hand gently. “We could be a family and have a real home.”

A home. A family. Devon’s expression reflected uncertainty but also determination. “Have you ever met a Variant by the name of Ryan?” he asked suddenly. “He could make fog.”

Zach frowned. “Never heard that name.”

“He claimed that your Army turned him into a raging killer. He murdered my sister.”

Surprise flickered in his eyes. “We didn’t turn anyone into a killer,” he said. “Have you ever considered that whatever happened in Livingston was staged by the FEA? That they needed a mission for Tessa, so they set up a mystery for her to solve? Don’t kid yourself. Major always knows what he’s doing. And he doesn’t give a damn about normal humans.”

Devon shook his head. “But why would he do that? That doesn’t make sense.”

A male voice screamed out an order, but I couldn’t make out the words over the crackling of electricity. It was a miracle that we hadn’t all been fried. People began to emerge from their hiding places.

“We have to leave,” Zach urged. “Holly is waiting for you. Once you talk to her, you’ll see that Abel’s Army isn’t what Major made it out to be.”

Tanner came into view, the display of a phone glowing in his hand. He searched the area around him until his eyes settled on me. In the distance, I could hear the sound of helicopter blades.

“Tessa, quick!” Zach hissed. I gave Devon a pleading look. I needed to do this. I had to find out if it was true. If a family had been waiting for me all those years, if everything I thought I knew about Abel was just a web of carefully constructed lies.