Tremor (14 page)

Clara stepped closer, staring down at Gretchen from her lofty six-foot-two height. She had that reckless look in her eye. This girl was about to do something monumentally stupid.

“How about we bring out the hoses for our next training session? Do some real damage.”

Gretchen flashed a look at Dylan that lasted a split second and was gone.
There! Right there!
Dylan thought. Something was revealed that should not have been.

“Lay off, Clara,” Wade said, giving her a look that revealed all too much.
Mixed company, what the hell are you doing?

“This training session is over,” Gretchen said. She glared at Dylan. “Take him back to the cell, then come to Andre's office. We've got things to discuss. I'll have the single pulses sweep the field of debris.”

Gretchen drifted up in the air, staring bullets at Clara before turning her attention to the gun turret in the prison yard. Dylan turned that way, too, and saw the shadow of a man—Andre—and wondered how many puppet strings his dad was pulling on.

Once Gretchen was gone, Clara shot Dylan a smile with a raised eyebrow. She'd told him something valuable there and wanted him to know it. But why?

Dylan's curiosity was seriously piqued. He was also wondering if he'd bruised a rib that ran beneath his right arm. He hated it when his second pulse was breached. It was the only time he felt vulnerable. The thought crossed his mind that it had been exactly the kind of situation that could end him for good.

 

An hour later Clara and Wade finally knew the plan.

There were days, many of them, when Clara wondered if she would be kept in the dark forever, lost in a haze of training and curiosity that would simply go on into eternity. Hadn't the secrets been there, in one form or another, her entire life? Always more training, never being told what it was all for or when it would all end. It had long felt like her purgatory, or worse, her hell, with only two people who could unlock the gates and set her free: Andre or Gretchen. Maybe that was why, when she was finally told what the plan was, it worked like a lever on a great machine in her Intel mind, setting a series of thoughts in motion.

It was possible that some of what Andre and Gretchen had told her was a lie, but it had felt like the truth. They'd brought her and Wade into the warden's office, sat them down, and spilled the beans. They took great pleasure in the unfolding of their long preparation, the surprising details, the essential agenda. Wade had responded in the expected way: whooping like a linebacker set loose on a quarterback.
Let's do this thing!
But like all good Intels, Clara had calculated everything as if the plan itself was laid out flat on a table like a diagram, each naked element examined under the brutal power of her mind.

At long last Clara had been given the details for which she'd been waiting. Now it was just a matter of using them to her fullest advantage.

She saw herself as setting a series of bombs that would go off at different times and locations. The first of these involved Gretchen, who she hated almost as much as Faith Daniels. Clara felt, rightfully so, that her mother had never cared about her. Not from the moment Clara had been born. Gretchen had only ever seen Clara as competition, someone to be molded and, ultimately, ruled over. Knowing this was true at the very core of her being made it a lot easier to reveal Gretchen's weakness to Dylan. Now that she knew the entire plan, the next order of business was pitting her two most hated enemies against each other. She'd wondered how this was going to be possible until her twin brother unexpectedly provided the solution.

“There's no way Dylan has switched sides,” Clara said as they walked away from the warden's office. “It's cool we have him locked up and all, but he's not with us. He's with her.”

“Yeah, well, Meredith is tricky. Doesn't matter. Gretchen and Andre aren't buying it anyway. They're smarter than that.”

“I'm not talking about Meredith.
God
, you're dense sometimes.”

“Who, then?” Wade asked. He hated the way his sister was always making him feel inferior. So what if she got the smart gene out of the twin arrangement?

“Look, brother, I love you,” Clara said. “But you have to stop crushing on Faith Daniels. It's pointless. She's in love with Dylan, always has been.”

“You don't know what you're talking about. Besides, I'm not crushing on anyone. I'm focused on the plan, like you should be.”

Clara stopped walking, which had the desired effect of getting Wade to stop, too. She didn't say anything.

“What?”
Wade asked.

And that was when Clara had set off the first bomb.

“I know she's out there, Wade. I saw both of you, together. And you know what was really difficult to watch? How hard you're falling for this girl and how little she cares. From my vantage point overhead, it was obvious. She's not into you; she's into Dylan. He told me as much.”

Wade didn't see the point in lying any longer. His sister knew. She'd stayed out there and seen them together. And yet he had come to hate it when she cornered him. What he really wanted to do, right at that moment, was punch her in the face.

He stepped in close.

“Stay out of my business.”

Clara wasn't one to back down, especially when she had the upper hand. She had the annoying habit of smirking when she had someone where she wanted them, and this she did as she moved even closer, their faces nearly touching. “Our enemy is in the woods, watching our every move, waiting for us to make a mistake. I think that's everyone's business whether you like it or not.”

Wade took one step back, at once furious and helpless.

“Did you tell anyone else?” he asked.

“No. Didn't figure you'd want me to. But it's pretty damn risky. How many more are out there?”

“Just her, that's it.”

“You sure about that?”

Wade wasn't precisely sure about anything anymore, including how Faith felt about him.

“You remember that hairy son of a bitch, Clooger? He's out there,” Clara said. “And so is your little Wire Code buddy, Hawk.”

“No way.”

Clara took out her Tablet, snapped it to its largest size, and cycled through a selection of photographs. She'd been doing plenty of recon of her own in the woods outside the prison and had taken the pictures to prove it. There were a series of photos from above of Wade and Clara, others of two figures standing by what appeared to be a giant boulder. She'd flown high above where any radar could detect her movement and used the digital hyperzoom feature on her Tablet. The resulting images were grainy, but there was no mistaking the big guy with the bald head or the kid standing next to him.

“That's not Clooger,” Wade said, as if it mattered.

“Oh, it's him all right. He's lost the dreads and the beard, but it's definitely him. And there's no doubt the pip-squeak is Hawk.
That
head of hair is unmistakable.”

Wade was livid. Not only had Faith lied to him big-time, Clara had come to him with information he should have found on his own.

“She lied to you about this,” Clara said, snapping the Tablet back to its pocket size. “What makes you think she wouldn't lie about Dylan?”

Wade didn't want to believe it.

“She's using you, so let's use her back.”

Wade wasn't completely convinced, but he wanted the ammo in case everything Clara was saying panned out. If Faith really was using him and the whole thing was a setup, he wanted to turn the tables.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

And then she lit the fuse on the second bomb in her plan.

“No one uses us, least of all a single pulse who has no idea what she's doing. Tell her when we're leaving and where Gretchen is going. Then tell her Gretchen's weakness.”

Wade didn't quite understand at first and then he did.

“You want Gretchen dead?”

Clara feigned surprise.

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“She's our mother. That's a little much, don't you think?”

Clara rolled her eyes, but she could tell: her brother was taking the bait.

“Faith couldn't kill Gretchen in her wildest dreams. She's a single, Wade. It won't take much for Gretchen to finish her off. All I'm saying is, maybe she can get in a shot or two before our dear old mom puts her in her grave.”

“Sometimes I think this is all a little too much fun for you.”

“Do whatever you want. Just don't forget: when this thing is done, Gretchen will be one more step up the power ranking. You and me? Our situation only changes if we make it happen.”

Wade thought about everything Clara had said as she moved past him, leaving him standing alone in the corridor outside the warden's office. Women angered him—his sister, his mother, and the girl with whom he thought he'd been in love. They were all of them in their own way trying to control him. They were like a long chain linked together and wrapped around his neck, synching tighter and tighter. He expected the deceit and gamesmanship from his sister and Gretchen, but Faith? She'd totally lied to him. She wasn't alone; she was with that Neanderthal, Clooger, and that tiny jerk of a kid, Hawk. What did she see in these people? They were nothing compared to him.
Nothing!
And Dylan Gilmore? What a joke. Mostly he was hurt that Faith was using him. Wade Quinn hated feeling betrayed by someone he liked, which was why he liked basically no one.

“Someone's gonna pay,” Wade said. “And it's not going to be me.”

Clara, thinking only of her own endgame and how she'd gotten exactly what she wanted in the transaction, smiled. “That's the spirit.”

 

“What's the deal, Officer John McClane?” Hawk asked. He was lying down on his stomach, binoculars in hand, watching as the single pulses started cleaning up the disaster zone in the field. “I thought we weren't intervening?”

“Who's John McClane?” Faith had no idea who Hawk was referring to as she noticed the sun dip below the tree line on the far side of the prison. A couple more hours until dark, then she'd have to sneak away and meet up with Wade again.

“Chrome-dome action hero?” Hawk said, pulling his head away from the binoculars and looking at Faith as if she had failed to pass the easiest pop culture quiz ever. “Die Hard movies with Bruce Willis. There were nine sequels. Come on, that character was a legend.”

Faith registered no clue and no interest.

“It's on the retro station. And while you're there, check out
Avatar
. Good stuff.”

“You're a weird kid, Hawk,” Clooger said. “But I like you anyway.”

“I can't tell you how much that means to me. But seriously, why'd you do it?”

“Because sometimes you have to choose between two lousy options and in doing so change your mind.”

Hawk turned this over in his mind. “So you're saying the rules are the rules until someone breaks the rules, and then those rules become the rules.”

Clooger slowly ran the formula through his head and nodded. “Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But it doesn't apply to you. Or Faith. Only me.”

Faith found the conversation exhausting and not terribly entertaining, and decided to take a short nap in the HumGee. She hadn't slept nearly enough and felt it was her best shot at catching up.

Two hours later, the sun down and a chill in the air, Faith talked to the guys.

“Mind if I go for a walk? I'll be careful, and I won't go far.”

Clooger looked up from his Tablet, which held a digital copy of
Moby-Dick
he'd been slowly plowing through for weeks, and eyed her warily.

“I'll go with you,” he said.

“No way you guys are leaving me here alone,” Hawk said. He didn't look up from his Tablet. “Let's all go.”

“Really, you guys, I'd rather go alone. I need space to think.”

“Plenty of room over there,” Clooger said, pointing to a grassy section about ten feet away from the camouflaged HumGee. “We promise not to talk to you.”

Hawk was deeply embedded in whatever he was doing on his Tablet, some hugely complicated problem well on its way to being solved, Faith imagined.

“Look, you guys, I enjoy hanging out and all, but a girl needs a little breathing room.”

“What about the skunks?” Clooger asked. “And the potential search parties?”

“Yeah,” Hawk asked without looking up. “What about it?”

Faith couldn't tell them about Wade. No way, not yet. It crossed her mind that this didn't make her much of a team player, but teams had never been her strong suit. She was more comfortable going it alone.

“You guys should be worried about genetically altered wolves, not me. I don't even know why you're sitting out here. They could be just past our field of vision, waiting to drag one of us away.”

This got Hawk's attention, and he finally looked up. “I'm the smallest one. They'll take me for sure.”

Hawk crawled a few feet toward the HumGee, lifted the cover, and disappeared underneath. Faith and Clooger heard the door open and shut.

“We should all get inside for the night,” Clooger said. His head was cold, too, and inside the HumGee was warm. “It's the safest place.”

“I don't need safe; I'm fine. And what if they make a break for it in the middle of the night? Then what? We wake up and the place is deserted, Dylan gone right along with them?”

Clooger had thought of this possibility plenty of times, but it wasn't something for which they hadn't built in contingencies.

“Hawk can track the sound rings. We're not going to lose Dylan.”

“Do whatever you want,” Faith said. “I'm going for a walk and taking a pee in the woods, and I'd rather not have company.”