The Pretender (The Soren Chase Series Book 2) (5 page)

Seeing him brought Sara a pain so intense it was a wonder she could still stand. There Soren was, looking every bit like the grown-up version of the skinny, white boy she’d met more than two decades ago, the one who could charm a free ice cream cone off Mr. Sedar at the drugstore, and ride his bike without holding the handlebars. He had the same tousled, brown hair, the same tall, athletic physique.

Her heart wanted to believe this was still him, but her head understood the truth. Soren Chase, the boy she knew—he was dead.

“Hi, Soren,” she managed to say.

Ken relaxed and holstered the gun. “What are you doing here, Chase? Sara invite you?”

His tone was friendly, if a little wary. Watching him respond to Soren so naturally helped jolt Sara.

“I didn’t invite him,” Sara said, her voice sounding angrier than she meant it to.

“I’ll explain,” Soren said. “But could you get that light off my face? It’s a little blinding.”

Sara reluctantly switched it off as Soren came down the steps.

“You sneak in the back?” Ken asked. “You’re lucky it was me here instead of the Fairfax PD.”

“I would have slipped out a window, but I recognized your voices,” Soren said.

Soren approached Sara and seemed to hesitate. It took her a second to understand why. They were friends, friends who hadn’t spoken since a life-changing event two months ago. And she was standing there like a statue.

She forced herself to smile and hug him, to try to pretend that everything was fine. In the moment she embraced him, she could almost fool herself.

Soren’s alive! He’s right here.

But when she pulled away, she felt her skin crawl. For a moment, it must have showed on her face.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

The answer to that question was easy. “Okay” was so far away, it was a foreign country she didn’t recognize.

She thought she was done crying over John, but over the past two months it had started all over again. Intellectually, she understood why. She wasn’t grieving for her fiancé, but for his best friend. She mourned anew because Soren hadn’t escaped that burning cabin eight years earlier. He’d died there as well.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just a bit weirded out. I’m not used to being around crime scenes.”

Soren looked at both Ken and her. She briefly wondered where his sunglasses were. It was odd to see him without them now. The real Soren—her Soren—had never worn them, but this new version always did.

“Why are you here?” Soren asked. “I can kinda understand Ken, though this isn’t his jurisdiction. But what are you doing here?”

“She didn’t tell you?” Ken asked.

“Tell me what?” Soren said.

“She’s with a supernatural investigation firm,” Ken said. “She was actually hired as its senior vice president, if you can believe it.”

Soren stared at her. “You’re with Wallace?” he asked, incredulity written all over his face.

“He offered me a job when I brought Owen back,” she said. “I didn’t think he was serious at first, but he persisted. Started talking about how he needed someone with my research skills—someone who knew the supernatural was real.”

None of this was true, but Soren seemed to believe it. In reality, Sara had demanded a job, and was surprised when Wallace said yes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Soren asked.

“I tried to call you at your office, but you never answered,” she said.

This was another lie. She’d never called the fake Soren, but she’d had him followed by a couple of her interns. She knew Soren had holed up in his apartment for weeks except for periodic trips to the hardware store.

“Oh,” he said, looking a little hurt.

“She thinks this kid didn’t really kill her family,” Ken said, “She said it was done by a—what’d you call them, Sara?”

“A pretender,” Sara and Soren said at the same time.

She could sense Soren staring at her, so she met his gaze, trying not to betray any emotion.

“You know it?” Ken asked.

“You’re looking at the country’s foremost expert on pretenders,” Sara said. “When I was doing research on them for this case, most of the written descriptions came from Soren. He’s posted about them numerous times on his blog.”

“Oh,” Ken said. “So you’ve run into these things before?”

Sara let her eyebrows do the talking, raising them in an unspoken question to Soren.

“It’s what killed John and our other friends,” Soren said quietly.

Ken looked stunned. “You never told me that,” he said to Sara.

“I didn’t know until a couple months ago,” Sara said. “Soren was worried I wouldn’t believe him. But he knows now that I do.”

She met Soren’s eyes again; he was the first to look away. Good. Maybe somewhere deep inside him there was some shame about what he’d done.

“How did you know one was involved here?” Soren asked her.

“The case had the signs you’ve mentioned,” she said. “Sudden change of behavior, irrational outbursts, abrupt onset of violence. And I was just going to go upstairs and test my theory.”

“How?”

“I had this idea,” she said. “Have you been in Audrey’s room? Can you take us there?”

Soren nodded and walked up the stairs. She and Ken followed, stepping over a large bloodstain in the middle of the steps.

With Ken at her heels, she followed Soren down the hall until they came to a small bedroom. Sara shone her flashlight around the room, looking at the posters and the books on Audrey’s desk. She felt an ache for this girl, the victim of something she couldn’t possibly have understood. And now the rest of the world thought she was a murderer.

She looked over at the bed and saw the large, brown stain on her mattress. Her eyes followed the blood splatter to the dark brown streaks on the wall.

“There,” she said, pointing.

Soren started nodding.

“You’ve done your homework,” he said.

“I still don’t know why we’re here,” Ken said, coming up behind her. “What’s over by the bed?”

Sara crossed the room and pulled a small kit from her jacket. She took out a swab and took a sample of the bloodstain.

“What’s that going to show you?” Ken asked.

“That it’s not actually blood,” Soren responded. “Pretenders don’t bleed. Or at least, not in the traditional sense.”

“Were you up here taking a sample, too?” Ken asked.

“No,” Soren said. “I was just checking out the scene, looking for clues. You never know what the police might overlook.”

“I resent that comment, you know,” Ken said, but he didn’t sound angry.

Soren walked over to the window and looked out.

“Well, either the police are willfully blind to this stuff, or you guys are complicit in covering up the existence of creatures like this,” Soren said, not bothering to look back.

Sara glanced at Ken, shining her light just close enough to see his expression. Soren’s theory was shared by Wallace, who was convinced the police and government knew far more about these matters than they pretended to.

“Look, I just—” Ken started.

“Holy shit!” Soren said.

Sara ran to the window. She could see a person in the yard outside. A teenage girl was standing just below the window looking up. Sara could see the face clearly in the moonlight. But she couldn’t believe who she was looking at.

Staring up at them was Audrey Yong.

Soren unlocked the dormer window, yanked it open, and scrambled onto the roof.

He heard Sara shouting an objection, but he didn’t pause, afraid the pretender who’d taken Audrey’s identity would get away. He crawled the few feet to the roof’s edge and looked down. It was dark out, but pretenders have powerful night vision, something Soren was immensely grateful for at that moment. The pretender stared back at him, her long, black hair blowing slightly in a breeze. She was short, below five feet tall, and Soren was struck by how young she appeared. He knew from the police report that Audrey was fifteen, but the pretender wearing her face looked even younger, more like twelve. She looked back at him with a mixture of surprise and defiance.

“You,” she said.

Soren didn’t know what to make of that. Did she know who he was? Could pretenders tell if another pretender was nearby? Or was this thing referring to his identity as Soren Chase? She turned and sprinted away, and Soren realized he was going to have to catch her to find out.

The drop was steep enough to break human legs, but Soren still leaped off the roof, determined to use his indestructibility to his advantage. He heard Ken yell, and knew he’d have to come up with some bullshit explanation later as to how he could have made it intact. Soren landed hard, bending his knees and putting his hands on the ground to steady himself. But he was able to bounce back up and race after the other pretender, putting in every bit of speed he had.

It was tougher than he’d expected. Soren was one of the fastest people—no, creatures—he knew. But Audrey was just as quick. She was almost out of the yard by the time Soren landed on the ground.

Audrey also had the advantage of knowing the area. She darted through two other backyards, barely pausing to vault a high, wooden fence in front of her. Soren jumped over it a moment later, but when he realized he wasn’t gaining ground, he looked around for something to throw. Spotting an outdoor fire pit, Soren darted toward it, letting Audrey pull away slightly in the process, but found what he was looking for—an iron poker. He picked it up and kept running, awaiting an opportunity to use it.

Audrey was closing in on another fence that was at least ten feet high. Even she couldn’t leap over it in one bound. She went up to it and jumped, grabbing the top of the fence and starting to pull herself up.

Behind her, Soren grasped the poker like a javelin. In a single, smooth motion, he hurled it at Audrey. It hurtled through the air with incredible speed, crossing the distance to her while she was still struggling to pull herself up. The poker pierced her back, impaling her on the wooden fence.

She screamed and began reaching around with her right hand to pull the rod out of her body. As Soren closed in, he could see a gaping hole in her back for a moment before it started to heal itself, closing up as if it was never there. By then, it didn’t matter. Soren had caught up.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Soren said. “Did that hurt?”

Audrey turned and faced him, an angry look on the teenager’s face. Suddenly, Soren realized the flaw in his plan. The pretender now had a weapon—the poker—and Soren didn’t. He had an extra gun in his car for emergencies like this, but he hadn’t thought to bring it with him.

Audrey swung at Soren’s head, but Soren ducked in time. Audrey jabbed at him, forcing Soren to step back.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Soren said. “Why’d you kill that family? Boredom?”

Audrey didn’t respond, though a quizzical expression passed over her face, and then was gone. She advanced, taking several more swings at Soren. He dodged out of the way and then ducked down and rushed Audrey, hitting her in the stomach. She smacked Soren on the back with the poker, but he shrugged off the blow and succeeded in shoving her to the ground. From close by, Soren heard a police siren start up. It likely meant Ken was attempting to find him. Soren tried to pin Audrey to the ground, intending to shout for help. But Audrey kicked out with her legs, knocking Soren off balance.

Rolling away from him, she sprang to her feet and swung the poker at Soren’s head. Soren tried to duck, but didn’t make it in time. The blow caught Soren on his temple, and he fell to the ground, dazed. His vision blurred, and he waited for the next hit to come.

Instead, Audrey threw the poker over the wooden fence and began running away again, this time toward the front yard. Soren’s eyesight was still out of focus, so she seemed to be a fuzzy blur that disappeared into the distance. By the time he’d recovered and climbed to his feet, Audrey had already fled out of sight.

Soren ran into the front yard and spotted her two houses down, heading for a parked car. If she got into that car, he’d lose her for sure.

Soren pushed himself even harder, desperately trying to get there in time. But as he raced, he watched Audrey yank the car door open. She spared one look in Soren’s direction, and then jumped into the vehicle and turned on the ignition.

The car started to pull away and Soren managed an extra burst of speed before leaping into the air. He landed on the car roof with a heavy thud. He grabbed the edges as tightly as he could as the car abruptly accelerated.

The car sped off like a rocket and Soren hung on for dear life. He couldn’t guess exactly how fast he was going because he was afraid to look up. He kept his head down and concentrated solely on maintaining his grip.

He was just starting to feel secure when the first turn came. Without warning, the car jerked left and Soren’s entire body was pulled to the right. His grip on the edge of the car started to slip, and he barely managed to hang on.

The vehicle accelerated again and this time Soren looked up. He knew what road they were on—Old Dominion Drive, a road that cut through the heart of McLean and lead into Great Falls National Park. The road was unusually straight, but incredibly narrow, with steep ditches on either side. Soren wasn’t sure if that helped or hurt him.

When the car picked up even more speed, he decided it hurt him. As bad as turns were, the long, straight road allowed Audrey to floor it, letting the car reach dangerously fast speeds. They were going at least ninety miles an hour. The wind whipped around him with a force that threatened to tear him off the car. Soren looked to the side to see the trees and other scenery were little more than a blur of motion.

As the car sped down the road, Audrey began shaking it, jerking the steering wheel slightly to make the car shudder beneath Soren. It went first to the left and then to the right, and Soren couldn’t keep his legs braced. They swung wildly from side to side. He wasn’t going to be able to hang on much longer. He needed to go on offense if he was going to survive.

As the car continued to jostle, Soren brought his legs up so he was kneeling on top of the car.