Poisoned Pearls (12 page)

“Your life is so great now?” Josh asked, spreading his hands
wide across his empty desk.

He had a point, but I wasn’t about to give up without a fight.
“My test results haven’t come back yet,” I pointed out.

Or they had and Josh had squirreled them away, so I’d never
know.

“No,” Josh said, frowning. “We want to provide all of your
testing and training. It’s part of our conditions, actually.”

That made sense to me. The records would be doubly buried
that way, in case I did turn out to be a failure. They could just dump me,
claim no knowledge of me.

This was just getting better and better.

“Look, this is a huge decision,” I said. “I can’t make it right
away, not like this.”

Josh shook his head. “Sorry. Deal is only valid for today.
This morning, really.” He paused, then added, “Believe me, we understand your
reticence. It’s part of your nature as one of the
blessed.
You’ve been in denial for so long. It will feel better
once you admit your abilities, once you start to use them.”

I’d actually heard that.

Still didn’t trust the fucker as far as I could throw him
out his generic office window.

“Can I at least have a smoke? Calm my nerves?” I asked.

“Of course,” Josh said. He stood and opened the door. “You
can go out onto the balcony and have your cigarette. I hope when you come back
inside that you’ll do the smart thing and agree to our conditions.”

I’d had that conversation already this week, about how my
mother always said I was more stubborn than smart.

I didn’t need to repeat that to him, though.

I wrapped my scarf around my neck and zipped my jacket high
before I stepped onto the second floor balcony. Then I went the obligatory
twenty-five feet from the doorway and got myself out a smoke.

Was I really contemplating this idiot’s offer? No, I
couldn’t be.

Restitution, my ass. They’d ruined people’s lives. With
government approval and support.

And now they were doing it again. Looking for people like
Hunter. Like me. Planning on using us.

Well, they’d find out exactly how amenable some of us were
to being
used
.

I knew they were watching me, up here on their patio. Could
I jump, reach the ground without breaking my leg? Was there a fire alarm I
could pull, create a distraction?

Just inside the door stood two burly security guards. They
were hired for their muscle, not their abilities, I could tell.

While I leaned over the railing, contemplating my fate, I
saw a figure down on the sidewalk below me staring up at me.

He stood, unmoving, frozen as a statue.

I finally recognized him.

“Yes,” I told him softly, assuming he could hear me.

Hunter started to climb the outside of the building. All I
had to do was delay for another minute or so.

The cavalry, such as it was, was on the way.

***

The guards didn’t know what happened. One minute I was
standing there, taking a long, slow drag on my cancer stick, the next minute, I
slipped over the edge of the railing.

I looked up only once, seeing their dark heads silhouetted
against the pale blue sky. At least they weren’t pointing guns at us. Just
talking on their walkie-talkies.

Hunter smelled as bad as the homeless guys who came into the
store sometimes, the ones who hadn’t bathed in days and days. But at least he
didn’t stink of urine or booze. Just his own masculine smell.

Kind of gave me the creeps.

Of course, Hunter didn’t put me down, let me walk like a
normal human being once we reached the sidewalk. He took off at his manic run,
me tucked beneath his arm.

I’d never met someone who was this super strong. I really
wasn’t sure about it at all.

Though the sidewalks were clear, Hunter didn’t run in
straight lines. Was that part of his military training, to
zig
and
zag
unexpectedly? Or was it just part of his
crazy? It wasn’t like anyone was going to be shooting at us.

Besides, Josh knew where Hunter lived.

Then again, Hunter knew where Josh lived.

I wasn’t about to start betting who would be safer from
whom.

After more than two blocks—further than I could even
have run at the speed Hunter moved, he slowed down.

“I can walk,” I told him.

Hunter grunted and spent a few moments looking over first
one shoulder, then the other, checking every inch around him, before he finally
set me down.

“Thanks,” I told him as we started walking. Bastard wasn’t
even winded.

I didn’t want to even think about the type of training he
must still be maintaining to be able to do that kind of thing.

“It was Josh, wasn’t it?” Hunter asked, his voice gruff.

Maybe the run had affected him.

“
Yeap
,” I said. I told him
everything Josh had told me about Jacobson Consortium. How they’d manufactured
the drugs that had screwed Hunter up in the first place.

Hunter shrugged. “I was in the Army. In the program.
P-training and everything. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Dude. I thought you’d be pissed,” I said, surprised.

“Josh is right—it did expand my area of knowing,”
Hunter said. “They just couldn’t know all the side effects.”

“Sure they could have,” I said. “They could have waited.
Tested more.”

“The drugs work only on human subjects,” Hunter pointed out.

“Why are you being so reasonable about all this?” I asked,
frustrated. I expected Hunter to be furious, and rightly so.

I’d wanted this well-trained war machine to go after them.

“I am pissed off,” Hunter said. He gave me one of his rare
grins. “But I’ll deal with them later.”

“First?” I said. When Hunter didn’t reply, I prompted him
again. “If you’re dealing with them later, that means you must have something
else to do. Something that’s first.”

Hunter finally nodded. “First, there’s you.”

I must admit I didn’t see his fist coming. All I saw was the
warm darkness rising up.

***

I didn’t know where I was when I woke up. I was warm, at
least. That was an improvement on most of my day. It took me a few moments to
pry open my eyes because my head was still spinning. But I needn’t have
worried; it was dark in the room, hazy cloth covering the window above the bed
so the direct sunlight couldn’t get through.

My hands weren’t tied, which was good. I’d been lying on a
bed that had an iron bedframe, similar to mine, so I was doubly glad they were
free.

It left me free to strangle Hunter. Because that was first
on my list of things to do.

The place smelled of damp concrete and pine. As my eyes
adjusted, I could see a single door in the corner, leading out. Outside the
room, I heard a furnace kick on.

I sat up carefully on the bed.
Damn
. My head hurt worse than that time I drank that jar of
moonshine on a dare. My stomach settled after a moment, but I held onto that
feeling of vertigo. Did I have a concussion? Seriously. I was going to kill
Hunter.

I kneeled up on the bed, lifting the rough cloth that
covered the window—not a proper curtain, but a hunk of fabric that had
been tacked to the top of it. Snow was piled up against the window, completely
covering it. The window was new, and couldn’t be opened, with thick,
double-paned glass that was energy efficient and fucking hard to break.

No escape that way.

There wasn’t anything else in the room. Just a bed. I stood,
heading toward the door, wanting to verify that it was locked. Because Hunter,
while he was crazy, wasn’t stupid enough to leave an easy escape route.

A shadow detached itself from the wall.

“Fuck, Hunter,” I told him. I hadn’t seen him at all. He’d
blended in perfectly.

In addition to my pounding head, now my heart was going
triple time. Then I swallowed my fear. “Let me out. Asshole.”

“What do you mean?” Hunter asked. He seemed startled.

“You hit me. You knocked me out. Why did you do that?” I
asked. “Aren’t I your blood brother or something?”

Even in the dim light, I could tell Hunter looked ashamed.
“I didn’t want to,” he whined. “But I needed to get you here. To get you safe.
And you wouldn’t have come with me if I’d asked.”

“Are you sure?” I challenged him. “You’d just rescued me
from the bad guys. I might have come.” I knew he was probably right, that I
wouldn’t have gone with him, but he should have given me a chance.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Hunter said sternly. “I can’t always see,
but I knew that.”

I didn’t nod my head—hurt too much. But I had to
concede the point to him.

“You still don’t do that to people,” I told his back as he
walked away from me, going over to the bed.

He didn’t reply.

“Fuck you,” I said. It was locked, of course. I yanked on
the door handle. Made my head hurt worse.

With a sigh, I turned back toward my captor.

Hunter had placed a small glass vial on the bed, along with
what looked like an asthma inhaler. Beside that was a string of pills, each
encased in its own packaging, round and glowing with pearlescent luster.

“What’s that?” I asked, though I knew.

Hunter was going to keep me here until I went tripping with
him.

“Two options,” Hunter replied. He pointed to the aerosol. “A
version of PHS, Psychic
enHancement
and Stimulant,
provided courtesy of our friend Josh.” Then he pointed to the other. “Street
version of the same. Goes under the name
Ghost
Tripper
currently. Has also been called
the
blood
,
peacemaker
, and even
blues
, though the pills are always
white, like pearls.”

I shuddered. “What makes you think I’m going to take either?
The junkie inhaler or the poisonous pearls?”

Hunter turned to look at me. In the weird half-light of the
room, his eyes shone almost pale. “I saw the man killing your friends,” he
said. “You’ll never be able to find him, to stop him, unless you can see him.
That’s why I brought you here. To help you.”

Shit
. “Where was
he? Who is he?” I asked. Hunter’s confirmation settled something in my gut. I
knew
it had been a single john, handing
out drugs to people.

It also confirmed what I’m sure the tests had shown—I
had abilities.

I wasn’t one-hundred-percent mundane.

Hunter shrugged. “Haven’t seen anyone like him before. He
isn’t a man,” he warned.

“What do you mean?” I asked. Not a man? What crazy delusion
did Hunter have? Had he actually seen the guy? Or was he lying to me?

I never knew when people were lying to me. Look at the train
wreck of my life, most recently Natasha.

Hunter sighed, then drew himself up straight, standing at
attention. “One of the reasons why Josh and his company continue to monitor me
is because I see more than just the future. Or at least, that’s how I’ve come
to understand it. I see several futures. Several worlds. Ghosts of future
possible.”

I looked at him, curious. “How can you tell the difference?”

“Ghosts,” Hunter said sharply. “They started bleeding
through. Keep coming into this world.”

“And the ghosts are different than the pre-cog stuff?” I
asked.

“Yes. No.” Hunter shook his head. “Sometimes the paths merge
and the ghosts cross over. Sometimes the worlds are so far apart they can’t
touch me, can’t get to me, can’t slide over.”

“Hunter, do these ghosts attack you?” I asked, incredulous.
Was that why he’d been running in a zigzag as we’d left the health center? Not
because of imagined bullets coming from behind, but because he was seeing
ghosts crowding the sidewalk in front of him? Beings that weren’t actually
there, not even in a recognizable future?

“Sometimes,” Hunter said, defensively. “They notice me. And
attack. Sometimes they help. Some of them have continued my training. Taught me
how to move. How to fight.”

Hunter was impressively trained. I’d seen evidence of that
more than once.

However, I had a hard time believing that his ghosts had
done that for him. It must have been the Army. Or online videos. Or something.
I didn’t care that I’d never seen anyone move like Hunter did. Not even those
crazy guys who did
parkour
. There had to be a more
rational explanation.

“So if I take this enhancer of yours, you think I’ll start
seeing like you do?” I asked. “That I’ll start having ghosts visiting me as
well?” No, thank you. My life was hard enough as it was. I didn’t plan on going
insane on top of everything else.

Hunter sighed and sat down on the bed, his weight perfectly
placed so nothing on the bed was disturbed.

“This is why we’re here, in a neutral space. So that you
don’t get overwhelmed. So that you don’t end up going crazy. I’m here to help
you, to guide you, to train you.”

Hunter looked away from me for a moment, before he finally
turned back to face me again, his pale eyes pleading. “No one was there for me
when my sight started changing. No one could explain what I was seeing. All
they did was label me as crazy. Insane.
No
longer highly functioning.
”

I could hear the quotations around the last one. Figured it
was part of an official diagnosis that still burned.

“I don’t want to be addicted to some drug.” I already had
enough things that I craved. Like smoking. Like good sex with pretty girls.

Hunter shook his head. “Only the original version was
addicting. The new versions aren’t. The sight itself is addicting, but that’s
it. It’s less addicting than, oh, say, cigarettes.”

I was impressed. I’d never heard Hunter be sarcastic before.
I didn’t know he had that level of subtlety in him.

“Still—why would I want that?” I asked reasonably. “If
I don’t take any enhancer, I won’t have any vision. I’ll stay sane. And I won’t
be addicted to some drug.”