Ordinaries: Shifters Book II (Shifters series 2) (12 page)

Chapter 21

Worst Reunion! Ever.

–TANNER–

The rough burlap sacks are ripped from our heads so quickly that the sudden brightness around me forces me to blink to clear my eyes. Kai looks like he is about to kill someone. Ryland looks terrible. Her wet blond hair is stuck to her face and twisting around at strange angles. Usually that would be enough to ruin her day, but today she is focused on one thing: she is going to kill Lena.

My sister and Lena exchange some unpleasant words. Ryland says something about Lena being a psychotic sadist, and Lena says something about Ryland being a wussy—I replaced that word for your benefit—and both girls scream words I refuse to repeat.

Kai is silent. I hope he’s coming up with a plan. We really need something brilliant. You know, other than relying on Sol
é
to see this and bring our army of Young down on this place. Even with Marcus’s “plan” in place, I don’t trust that we’re safe.

“Your boss will be proud of you,” I say, stalling for time.

Lena scoffs at me. “Let’s just say”—she smiles—“Navin has been relieved of his command.”

“Command or not, I will kill him,” Ryland spits.

“No need,” Lena almost sings, “the council leader has already seen to that.”

My sister looks pained. Most likely because she won’t have the pleasure of killing him herself. Not that I blame her.

While they talk—more like verbal sparring—I take the opportunity to survey the scene. We’re in some kind of warehouse or bunker. Several men look up from the screens they are monitoring, apparently annoyed by our intrusion. There are uniformed men closing huge bay doors we must have driven through. I guess you would call it driving. There wasn’t a driver, and there wasn’t much to this thing but giant monster truck wheels and the box they had us in. I’m not really sure how it worked. My controller mind tried to find the controls behind it, but there were none to find. It must have been controlled remotely. Evidently, remote-controlled vehicle paint jobs are not a priority on Six.

But they did paint the side of the building across from us. D24915. I assume the “D” is for Delfis. We are close.

They cut the bindings off our ankles and pull us to our feet. They make us walk with our hands still tied toward another huge warehouse door. Lena is standing tall as if she were about to walk to the top of an Olympic podium and proudly accept the gold medal.

A uniformed man runs to her and whispers in her ear. She stops and faces us. Her mouth curls into her best villain smile, and she says, “It seems we have found your ship. Come and join us as we welcome them to Colony Six.”

“No!” Ryland screams.

I give my sister a look, feeling as though she may be a bit overdramatic. Then I remember that she doesn’t know it’s a fake ship. Or . . . that it’s supposed to be. I tell Lena firmly, “You didn’t find anything.”

She glares at us and changes directions. The guards push us after her until we start to follow unprovoked.

Kai leans toward my sister and whispers, “We should shift.”

Ryland nods, and I turn around and whisper, “What good would that do? They’re all Shifters. We wouldn’t make it to the door.” They glance at each other desperately with panic-stricken faces, clearly not accepting my reasoning. “Besides, I know where we are.”

“No talking,” one of the guards spits as he keeps pushing us onward.

We reach a table covered with monitors, and Lena asks us to step around it, saying, “You’ll need front row seats for these fireworks.” She winks at Kai.

The largest monitor is displaying an image of a massive boxy ship levitating over the white leaves of the trees. The ship is huge and somewhat similar to the one in which Gale flew us to Canada. I sure hope this is the one Miles was talking about. Otherwise an innocent ship and crew are about to be destroyed. Its rusted hull does remind me of the grimy, dirty rebellion I have come to know here on Six.

Ryland looks at the screen and starts, “That’s—”

“You can’t do it!” I cry. “We’ll do anything you ask. Please! Just contact them. Tell them to come back.” My sister is looking at me like I’m insane. “You don’t want them. It’s us you want.”

Lena smiles coldly at me. She reminds me of a snake, frightened, foreign, calculating. Then, she turns her attention to the men at the controls. “Do you have a lock on them?” Lena asks curtly.

“Affirmative,” the smaller, wiry man replies.

“You can’t,” Ryland argues. “They’re innocent.” She must have caught on. It’s better to pretend that ship is ours than to alert them to the fact that our ship is still out there somewhere, unaware that they are being hunted.

Lena talks with my sister, giving me some time. She makes snide remarks about her weakness. She dares to bring up Peanut.

I don’t allow myself to be distracted; I stare at the screen and find myself searching through files. I scan through a series of time stamps, looking for something relevant to our landing. They don’t tell time exactly how we do (which makes sense considering that each of their colonized planets would revolve around its star at a different rate), but I start to relate a series of events and calculate the time between.

I am looking for our ship’s signature. I am looking for the code they have labeled our ship with. If I can find it, I can fool them into thinking this ship is ours.

I’m focused on the ship files when I see some information that appears to be flagged. I search through the file and note a series of numbers. I’m hoping I have it right as I memorize the series and return to the latest time frame. I find a similar series. Hoping this is the ship’s identification, I tell the system to override it with the other numbers, the numbers I am sure belong to our ship.

When my consciousness brings me back to the room we are in, I see the slightest twitch in the operator’s lips. I hope that means what I think it means.

Lena turns to the operator and asks, “Have you confirmed the signature?”

The operator looks up and nods his head. “Affirmative.”

We all stare at the screen, watching the lumbering ship rise. It seems to creak and groan as it shudders into the air.

“Shall we say goodbye to your little group?” Lena taunts.

“You can’t just kill them. They have no idea . . .” Ryland trails off. She may know that this is not our ship, but she doesn’t realize it’s empty, either. She must think it is full of innocent Ordinaries doing some routine trade mission. Or rebels, working with us.

“Please,” I beg her—not even sure if this is the right ship or if I just condemned a thousand people to death. “They are all we have.” I fall to my knees, crying and pleading, knowing my actions will seal the fate of this ship.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Kai tells her. “That’s not even our ship.”

Lena looks between Kai and me, and then she smiles broadly. “Your little friend here has told me all I need to know. There’s no point in trying to bluff now.” She places her hand on the operator’s shoulder and commands, “Fire at will, Commander.” He hits several keys, and lights converge on the hopefully unoccupied ship.

Without a sound, the huge ship bursts into a fireball. The screen whitens as the light expands. The picture finally returns as the rumble from the blast reaches us. The building shakes, causing dust to fall from the metal rafters and gleam in the streams of green light that flood the small windows.

“No!” I cry, as if I had just watched my family murdered. I fall to the ground, weeping uncontrollably.

–RYLAND–

At first I had wanted to call Lena’s bluff, to gloat about how foolish and gullible she is. It would have been so pleasant, but I realize Tanner is right. If I call her bluff now, there is a chance she may find the real ship.

I think of Alice, Clay, Sol
é
, Fluffy, and all of the others I have come to love and admire. I have to protect them, which, in this moment, means swallowing my pride and groveling in front of this despicable piece of trash.

“It’s over,” I say hollowly, allowing my eyes to glaze over. “Do whatever you want with us.”

Lena smiles, her grin widening into a face which reminds me of someone I once saw on the news for escaping from a mental hospital, and twirls around.

Kai just stares at her as though she is a slimy, greasy, disgusting enchilada served to him when he ordered a salad. “What is
wrong
with you?” he asks Lena. I have to force myself to keep a straight face. I want to laugh so badly at the genuine curiosity and wonder in his voice. It almost reminds me of the way he looked at Sol
é
when we all found out she’d never had a donut before.

Lena whips back to him, her lips curling into a snarl. “Your friends, family, your entire army is gone. You’ll be tortured and executed. What’s wrong with me? I just single-handedly won the war!”

“Just get it over with,” I say flatly. “Kill us.”

“Please,” Tanner begs through his sobs, “Please just spare Devon.” I never would have imagined that Tanner could be such a brilliant actor. I shudder to think what fighting against him would be like and force my mind away from that word “traitor.”

“Devon?” Lena’s voice becomes a sing-song, happy Disney-esque voice. “Why would I hurt Devon?”

I can’t help it; my eyes refocus, and my expression changes. I watch as Lena’s demeanor melds into a soft, willowy dancer rather than a slithering serpent.

“My pet?” she calls. “Come and meet our guests!”

From the shadowy doorway of the room, Devon emerges with a brilliant smile on her face. She breaks into a dead sprint in our direction. She must be so happy to see Tanner, even given the circumstances.

But instead, she flies into Lena’s open arms, wrapping her in a warm embrace.

My heart stops. Right then and there, I am no longer alive. This is no longer happening. Nothing in the world makes sense.

Devon. Traitor. Devon.

Tanner.

I look to my brother, and the agony is etched into his face as he whispers, “Devon?”

Devon turns around with a vicious smile on her face. “Hello, Tanner,” she says coldly.

“Devon, are you alright? Have they hurt you?” Tanner asks, fighting through the pain and confusion.

“Oh, Tanner,” Devon says. “They would never hurt me. Not like you have by betraying the cause, by turning against our own people.”

“Devon,” Tanner says, pure bewilderment on his face. “We came here to rescue you.”

“See?” Lena says sadly, like a mother watching her child’s heart break. “I told you they would lie to you, would try to manipulate you. They’re monsters.”

Devon’s eyes tear up. “Why would you do this to me, Tanner?”

“Devon, I love you,” Tanner says, his tears real now.

Devon’s face contorts with rage and pain. She lets out the snarl of a wounded animal. “You, liar!” she spits.

None of this makes any sense. Devon thinks Tanner is the traitor, but she’s the one fighting alongside Lena. She is the one who has turned her back on the world she grew up in.

“Shhh, my pet,” Lena coos as she pets Devon’s head as though she were a dog or cat. “Don’t let their deceptions get to you.”

“I want to hurt him,” Devon hisses, venomous green eyes glaring at Tanner.

“We must leave him, my pet, for Rian. He will be made an example of,” Lena whispers soothingly.

Devon turns her eyes up to Lena’s and pleads, “Just a little, Mother? Please?”

Lena’s eyes soften as she looks down at Devon. “Okay, my pet, just a little.”

Before I can process what is happening or why Devon is calling Lena her mother or why on earth Devon would want to hurt Tanner, Devon has a blade in her hand. As she plunges it as hard as she can into Tanner’s stomach, I let out a scream of rage and horror that sets the world spinning.

Chapter 22

Why Does Everybody Treat Us Like Children?
Hello! We Did Just Travel through Space.

–TANNER–

Ryland is screaming. I can’t figure out what Devon is doing. She punched me in the gut. She pulls her hand back, and I feel a warm gush from my stomach. When I lift my hands up to my face, both my hands and the rope holding them together are soaked in blood. The warmth spreads down my body, and my legs become weak.

Devon has the same look on her face as she did when she killed the Shifter in Washington DC. How could she look at me like that?
None of this makes sense!

“Devon!” I cry out. She looks down at me, and I see her face soften. I must be on my knees now. I didn’t feel myself drop. My mind is swimming with questions. I remember what Marcus told me to do when I found Devon. I reach a finger into my pocket and try to push something, anything on my iPhone.

“Devon,” Lena says sharply.

I may be losing it, but I swear Lena was looking at some other guy when she said that. The guy nods and Devon stiffens, then turns to walk away. My vision clouds and goes dark. There is the sound of guns, explosions, and shouting. Then nothing.

–RYLAND–

I can still taste the scream in my throat long after my voice has died. It has an acrid taste like bile or something rotten. For too long, my eyes are glued to Tanner’s crumpled, bleeding body.

My mind is frozen. I have already lost my sister, my parents . . . I can’t lose Tanner too.

By the time the rage sets in and my world turns red, Lena and Devon are being escorted out of the doorway to my right by a tall, willowy man. As he glances back at me, his reddish eyes bore into mine; a sly smile spreads over his face as he winks at me.

Before I can react, a concussive explosion rocks the building, and I’m knocked off my feet. Suddenly everything clicks into place: Lena and Devon are abandoning us here. We are not prisoners to be carted off and murdered by Rian. There’s a reason for that.

The explosions now make sense. We are being rescued! Lena must have determined it wasn’t worth it to stay here and fight.

Which means Marcus couldn’t have betrayed us. Had he, we would be on our way to Gaia now. This was all a ploy to rescue Devon, to capture Lena, to find a Shifter base. We were the bait.

And it worked.

Despite my relief at not being abandoned by the leader I have come to love and respect, I feel an emptiness settle in as I look to Tanner’s unconscious form. At what cost? Will he survive this?

I don’t mean the wound. It is bleeding profusely, but Lena intended to keep Tanner alive. She would not have allowed Devon to stab him in a way that would kill him. No, I mean will he survive the betrayal of his first and only love?

Shifters and Ordinaries appear out of nowhere, sweeping us up and carrying us toward Viktor’s ship. There are still battles raging behind us, but we are carted away. Kai is cursing, spitting on, and fighting his rescuer, trying to return to the battle. Tanner’s body hangs limply from the arms of a large, weathered man in gray-brown overalls.

Mona appears at the entryway to the Wizard. “That wound will need cauterizing. I will prepare a med kit.”

“Move aside!” Corey shouts. Despite his age and tousled, dirty blond hair hanging in his eyes, the authority in his voice makes Mona’s form vanish. I can’t help but smile.

Corey turns to the large man holding my brother and shouts, “Mica, lay him down here,” pointing to a cleared space on the floor of the ship.

Sol
é
comes fluttering out of the shadows. Her willowy form seems shaken by the sight of Tanner’s body. I think the only thing holding her up is Fluffy’s body pressing against her legs, trying to comfort her.

Mica sets Tanner on the ground with surprisingly gentle hands, smoothing Tanner’s raggedly long hair from his face before rising. I wonder if he has children. His tender touch suggests that he might.

Corey leans over Tanner for a few moments, concentrating hard with his eyes closed tightly. After a minute or two, sweat begins to bead across his forehead. My stomach knots with every passing minute as Tanner’s clothes grow heavy with the blood no longer helping to keep him alive.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Corey slumps to the floor in exhaustion and sighs, “He will be fine, but you must let him rest.” His voice is a hoarse whisper, but no one questions him.

Sol
é
still flutters around Tanner, placing a damp cloth on his forehead. Fluffy lies down next to him, trying to warm him with his own body. Mica helps Corey to a nearby seat before wandering away.

In my relief, I finally turn to see Kai, sulking against the wall by the now-sealed doorway. He looks up at me and says, “So, Devon is a traitor.” There is no venom in his voice, just a quiet bitterness.

I nod slowly, not wanting to believe the truth, but knowing I must be strong for my brother. This will break him. “I don’t understand. She acts as though
we
are the traitors, as though they aren’t trying to kill us, as though we aren’t fighting in self-defense.”

Kai shakes his head. “Those who are evil, truly wicked, always believe what they are doing is for the good of all, that their enemies are doing wrong.”

“So, everything she said and did before was an act?” I remember the tiny attic closet that was her bedroom, and a part of me simply cannot believe that is the truth. She was so genuinely kind. Then I think about how telling her that she is special, that she is above the Ordinaries, might appeal to someone who has always been made to feel like less than enough. “I just don’t know.”

Sol
é
is muttering quietly to Tanner. I can’t tell if she is whispering the truth about Devon’s strange behavior or merely trying to console him. Whatever she says, she doesn’t share it with us.

Kai growls as he stares out the window. I walk over to join him, seeing that the fighting has all but ended. The last few Shifter prisoners are being rounded up by our new Ordinary allies.

“How can we be some sort of messiah without being allowed to fight or help or do anything at all?” Kai shouts as he slams his fist into the glass-like window of The Wizard.

“They want to protect us,” I say softly.

“I don’t want to be protected!” Kai yells. “I want to fight! I want revenge!”

My heart aches for him. I think of the bitterness and darkness inside him. I wonder if he will ever find room in there for light or love again. I wonder if anyone will be enough.

“I know,” I say softly, “Me too.”