Reborn (Altered) (10 page)

His black hair was longer than I remembered, and curled around his ears. His face was clean shaven. His teeth white as sugar.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “Why now?”

I didn’t see any reason to dance around the question. I wanted to know. I needed to know.

He shifted and looked out the window, the stark light of day making the blue of his eyes almost white.

“That’s a complicated answer. A long one.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He gazed back at me. “A lot has happened since…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant. Since that night.

“Are they…” I wetted my lips, my mouth bone dry, my heart ramming against the back of my throat. “Are they here?”

He shook his head quickly. “I don’t work for them anymore, and from what I can tell, they aren’t around.”

Work for them
. Like he was a stock boy at a grocery store. Or a plumber’s assistant. There was nothing normal about what he did. Or used to do.

“Who are they?” I asked.

Ever since I’d been kidnapped, I’d asked myself that over and
over again. Why had I been taken? What did they do to my mother? Why did they do the things they’d done to me?

I hadn’t told anyone what had happened while I’d been missing. No one would have believed me if I had. But the silence, keeping the secret, meant that the longer it stayed with me, bottled up, the more it seemed like a nightmare, and the more I felt crazy for believing what had happened.

Maybe it hadn’t.

“They’re called the Branch.”

“What are they?”

“A private organization known for creating bio-weaponry, usually for the government.”

The café’s door opened, and a girl walked in, a cell phone glued to her ear. She was talking loudly about a dress she’d just bought. When she got in line at the register, she twisted, catching sight of Nick. Her whole body changed, elongating, back arched, eyes heavy and appreciative.

He’s a killer. I’m sitting across the table from a killer.

My throat constricted.

“What is bio-weaponry, exactly?” I asked.

“Turning the human body into a weapon. Genetic alterations. That kind of thing.”

I straightened. Several things clicked into place. Nick caught my morphing expression, and he frowned my way. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”

I arranged my face into an expression that I hoped was innocent. “Nothing.”

His frown deepened. “If you know something, tell me.”

I’d never breathed the confession to a single soul. I wasn’t going to start now.

“It’s just…” I shrugged. “It’s hard to believe, that’s all. I feel like I’m in an action movie or something.”

“No.” He laughed, but there was no hint of humor in his voice. “That’s just my life.”

“You say you remember me, but how much
do
you remember?”

“Well…” He scanned the coffee shop. “Do you have somewhere we can talk without…” He trailed off.

Without people hearing.

My old wounds pulsed with warning. Gabriel—Nick—hadn’t harmed me that night, but he was still tangled in those memories, and even though he’d saved me, I was still wary.

“The park?” I replied. “We could probably find a bench or something where we’d have some privacy.”

He nodded, and a lock of hair fell across his forehead. He swiped it back. “You lead,” he said, “and I will follow.”

15

NICK

I KNEW WHERE THE PARK WAS, BUT I wanted Elizabeth to feel in control, so I pretended I didn’t know the way. She was extremely wary of me, and for good reason. I was part of a memory she probably wanted to bury.

It took us only five minutes to reach the park. She picked the bench. We sat in the shade of a maple tree, the fountain rushing behind us. The playground was packed, and the sound of screaming kids put me on edge.

Despite that, I pressed my back against the bench and took a deep breath and tried to act like I had my shit together.

For the next twenty minutes, I told Elizabeth half truths. I told her about the flashback, the one in the woods, because that was something she’d already know anyway. I didn’t tell her much about
the Branch, only the barest of details. I made her think that I’d been out of the Branch for a few years, that I’d been piecing together my past since then. I wanted her to think she was a trivial memory on a long list of heavy shit.

I didn’t want her to know too much about me until I figured out why she’d been involved with the Branch in the first place, and why she’d been injured that night in the flashback. If I really had been sent to kill her, I needed to know why. There would have been a very good reason for it—the Branch didn’t go out of their way to kill inconsequential people.

When I was finished, Elizabeth stared at the grass glowing in the sunlight beyond the reach of the tree.

I cracked a knuckle. And another. I needed a drink.

“So this Branch,” she said, “they were the ones who took me?”

I tried to get a read on her face, tried to gauge whether or not she was playing me. Did
she
know why she’d been taken? Was she playing dumb to fool me?

Her eyes were squinted against the sun, her mouth relaxed, lips wet, shoulders drooped. I couldn’t read her very well, which was either an indication of my shitty-ass perception, or of her talent for hiding things.

“I don’t know for sure,” I said, “but they were involved. Especially at the end.”

What I didn’t tell her was that I’d been tasked with killing her.
Me
, specifically. Once I found out her name, it hadn’t taken a lot
of deduction to figure out that the Target E named in my file was Elizabeth.

I didn’t plan on telling her that part. Ever. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t gone through with it. If I’d been given the order once, I could be given the order again. No matter what I told her, she’d never trust me. And I needed her to trust me.

“Was I the one who took you to the hospital when you escaped?” I asked her.

She nodded. “Yeah. You found me in the woods that night.”

“Had you been shot?”

She drew her hands into her lap and rubbed at the knuckles on her right hand, over and over again.

She was fidgeting. That I could read.

“No,” she answered. “I didn’t have any injuries.”

She was lying.

Son of a bitch.

“I could have sworn—” I started, but she cut me off.

“There was a lot of blood on me, but it wasn’t mine.”

“Oh.” I nodded, like that made sense. “I thought I was the one who shot you.”

“No,” she said quickly. “You didn’t hurt me. Ever. At all.”

I ran a hand through my hair. She had no idea how relieved I was to hear that. I’d been ordered to kill her, and I’d gone against the order. Maybe there was some humanity left in me after all.

“You still haven’t answered my first question,” she said as she pulled her hand away. “Why are you suffering from amnesia?”

“The Branch. They altered my memories. I’m trying to fill in the blanks.” Default answer. Might as well stick to it.

“They can do that?” she asked, frowning with disbelief.

“They can do a lot of things that seem improbable.”

She sat upright and angled her body toward mine. I couldn’t help but eye her, and not her face. I hadn’t considered how different she’d be from my memories. How much older she’d be.

My body was reacting in the way it always reacted when I was talking to a pretty girl. And right now I considered it a fucking traitor.

“So you came here,” she started, looking over at me, “to find me?”

I nodded.

“And now that you’ve found me?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. And that was the truth.

“Are you staying?”

That wasn’t what she wanted to ask. What she wanted to know was if I was leaving. But what I couldn’t tell was if she wanted me to.

“There are still a lot of missing pieces,” I admitted. “I don’t know why I was here in the first place. Back then.”

Partial truth. I knew the why, but why her? What threat had she posed to the Branch?

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“Nowhere yet.”

She stood up quickly. “You’ll stay with us.”

I stood up, too, unable to hide the shock spreading across my face. “What? No. I’ll be fine.”

A woman walked past on the sidewalk, two kids trailing behind her. She was buried in her cell phone, ignoring the kids. But when she caught sight of me, she slowed and pulled the phone away from her face.

My shoulders tensed. I couldn’t get through the day without suspecting everyone I passed of being part of the Branch.

But then I figured a Branch operative would not go undercover with two kids. Too many variables. And too much risk.

“You’re staying with us,” Elizabeth said again. “Because whatever answers you’re looking for, they involve me, too. We can help each other.”

I couldn’t tell if this was a good idea or not. Sam would say not. But if I wanted to know who Elizabeth was, then I needed to keep her close. That seemed like a good enough reason to accept.

“All right,” I finally said. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

16

ELIZABETH

WHAT WAS I DOING?

Every part of my brain said I was being reckless, that Nick’s good looks had me seeing stars.

But that wasn’t it. Was it?

I’d only been with him less than an hour, and already I was acutely aware of how often women, girls, even older women, checked him out. Something I’d forgotten about him in the years that had passed—he was gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that was hard to ignore, that almost seemed unnatural.

You’re doing the right thing
, I told myself.
Nick has answers that you need. It’s a good idea for both of you.

A totally crazy, completely risky, good idea.

Or maybe a bad idea masquerading as a good idea.

Aggie’s house was a fifteen-minute walk from downtown. Close enough to reach everything by foot, but far enough away that it was quiet. She lived in an authentic Victorian decorated in the traditional “painted lady” style. I loved her house. It was large and old and well preserved. Aggie had taken great pains to keep up with the house as it aged right along with her.

And even better, especially now, she’d kept the apartment above the carriage house (as she called it) functional. I hoped she would agree to let Nick stay with us.

When we reached the house, he kept two paces between us as I led him up the front steps, across the large porch, through the double front door, and down the hallway to the kitchen. That was where I could always find Aggie.

And she didn’t let me down today.

I came through the doorway first. She looked up and over her glasses at me, and smiled. She was making something—she always was—and had a cup of flour in her hands.

“Hello, dear,” she said, and then Nick walked in.

Aggie moved to set the cup of flour down, and as she did she rammed it against the bag of sugar, knocking it over. Sugar spilled across the counter and poured to the floor.

“I’ll get the broom,” I said, and moved toward the closet.

“No.” Aggie waved me away. “I’ll take care of it.” She wiped her hands on the towel tied to her apron. “Who’s this?”

In Aggie’s house, in the bright white kitchen, among the cat
paintings and the vintage rolling pins hanging on the wall, Nick looked extremely out of place. Like a brand-new truck trying to blend in on a used-car lot.

He was large and pretty and overwhelming.

“This is my friend Nick,” I told her. “He needs a place to stay and I was wondering if he could sleep in the carriage house for a few days.”

Aggie set her hands on her wide hips and looked from me to Nick. “Hmm,” she said. “I haven’t heard you talk about a Nick.”

“That’s because—”

“I used to go to school with Elizabeth,” he cut in. “I transferred out in the ninth grade, but I’m back in town for a bit. Just visiting.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and hunched his shoulders. He seemed to shrink by five inches. Had he done that on purpose?

“I told Elizabeth I could stay in a hotel,” he went on. “I don’t want to trouble you.”

I held my breath as I waited for Aggie to respond. I really wanted her to say yes. I was afraid that if I let Nick out of my sight again, he’d disappear. I couldn’t go another six years wondering where he was, who he was, what answers he might have.

Please, Aggie
, I thought.

“All right,” she said, and nodded once. “We have plenty of room around here. No sense keeping it all to ourselves.” She came around the counter and sized Nick up. “You related to the Vermont family? You look like Old Man Vermont.”

The Vermont family? I didn’t know anyone by the name of Vermont.

Nick shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

“Hmm,” she said again, and turned to me. “Can you get him settled in? I need to finish this batch of cookies for the fair this weekend.”

“Yes.” I went over to her and kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Aggie.”

She smiled, and a bit of tension left her shoulders. “No need to thank me, dear. Now go on so I can get back to work.”

Nick called good-bye to Aggie as I led him out the back door to the carriage house.

The stairs to the apartment started at the front of the building and twisted around to the back, where a small deck overlooked the garden and storage shed beyond. I grabbed the spare key from under the mat and unlocked the door.

It’d been a while since I’d been inside the apartment. Dust swirled in the sunlight pouring through the large windows. It was a studio, one big open space. A queen-sized bed sat between the two biggest windows, across from the entrance. In one corner was a kitchenette, with a rickety laminate-topped table and matching chairs.

To the far left was the living-room area, with a couch and an old traveling trunk used as a coffee table. The bathroom was tucked between the kitchenette and the “living room.”

If I didn’t love my room so much, and being near Aggie, I would have taken the apartment in a heartbeat. It had a good vibe.