Unremarkable (Anything But) (11 page)

He released her and she fell to her knees on the floor. “You need to eat. You’ll be no good to anyone dead.”

“I’m already as good as,” she rasped, a crack in her composure finally visible.

He cocked his head. “And why is that?”

Eyes blazing, she spat, “Why do you think I was in the tunnels? To get some fresh air? I’m not wanted, because my mother is a UD. I had to run away from a training facility in the middle of the night. I overheard my fellow UDKs discussing how they were going to dispose of me. And I doubt I’m the first or that I’ll be the last.”

Christian’s hands fisted, but his voice was even as he asked, “And how did you end up underground?”

“There are channels near all the facilities, all over the United States, connecting them beneath the surface. I found one and I walked. Not hard to figure out.”

“
Your mouth…is really annoying,” he ground out.

“
So is your existence.”

He stiffened, for the first time in his life seriously thinking of hitting a girl. Instead he stormed from the house, kicking the door shut behind him. When the glass window in the door splintered and shattered, grim satisfaction swept through him, fleeting and anticlimactic.

“Go inside. I’ll take over,” he barked at the UD standing guard.

Lee Michaels jerked to his feet, his blond head swinging around. “You scared me.”

“I don’t think I’d be admitting things like that to too many people,” Christian wryly told him, some of his anger fading.

He nodded. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

A small grin flashed over Christian’s mouth. Lee was simple and that had to be appreciated. He was also naturally jumpy, a side effect of being on the run most of his adult years. Twenty-five years old with seven years spent outwitting and outrunning UDKs, he didn’t trust anyone or anything, not even his own shadow.

According to Lee; who didn’t know the meaning of secrets, his father was a UDK and since the moment he transitioned into a UD, he was loathed by his dad and told he was dead to him. His dad beat him to the point where a normal human being probably wouldn’t survive, then shackled him up, drove him to the nearest facility, and kicked him out of the car, leaving him in the road to be found by UDKs.

Lee never told anyone what happened after he was discovered, but they knew he’d been running since. The scars on his face; courtesy of his father, were jagged slants over his cheeks and forehead that hid the man’s true features from any who didn’t look too closely at him.

“
Good evening, Juli,” Lee said as he slid past Christian.

Christian turned, catching the bright smile Juli bestowed upon Lee before he entered the house. One of his eyebrows lifted when she turned her attention to him. “What was that?”

She avoided his eyes when she answered, “What was what?”

“
That.
” He pointed a finger at the closed door.

“
The broken glass? That is the result of some idiot who can’t control his temper.”

“
Touché.”

Juli placed her hands on the railing of the porch, it creaking as she flexed her fingers. Looking out into the forest of trees, she said, “It’s personal.”

Christian moved to stand beside her. “What is?”

A cool breeze picked up, playing with the tendrils of her hair, sweeping them up and out. Juli grabbed a handful of hair and held it still. “This grudge you have against Natasha. You were almost polite with Honor and that’s saying a lot for you, but with Natasha…you act like you
hate
her. Why?”

“
Honor helped me.” He shrugged.

“
No. It’s more than that. What is it about Natasha, specifically, that bothers you so much?”

Christian turned so that his hips rested against a pillar, crossing his arms. “When I was turning, I was kept locked up, and every day I was there, she came down and stared at me. She wouldn’t speak; she would just look at me with this expression on her face.”

“What kind of expression?”

He searched his brain for the right words to describe it. “I don’t know. It was part pity, part hatred, and part fear, but also almost sympathetic. It was strange, hard to explain.”

“
That’s
why you hate her?”

“
No. I hate her because she reminds me of me. She’s like me, yet she acts like she is better than me, even though deep down she knows she isn’t, which is why she tries so hard to distance herself from us. It’s a circle of self-righteous vindication. She’s trying to convince herself of something she'll never believe, because it isn’t true, no matter how much she wants it to be. She wants to think, to believe, that she is better than us, than me, but she knows she isn’t. And however hard she tries, she will never convince herself otherwise. I may be shit, but at least I don’t pretend I’m not. All she does is pretend.”

“
So you’re saying she’s messed up?”

“
To summarize.”

“
And you’re not shit. You’re fierce, strong. You’re brave.”

Christian glanced at Juli. “All that and more,” he softly mocked.

She opened her mouth and he tensed, straightening as his eyes searched the dark woods around them. Christian cut his hand through the air when Juli tried to speak again. He put a finger to his lips and jerked his head toward the countryside before them. Her lips thinned and she gave a brusque nod, silently tiptoeing into the house to warn the others they had company.

The darkness sparked to life with flashlights and voices, booted feet thundering on the earth as a group of two dozen or more swarmed for the house. Christian cursed and stormed through the front door. Everyone was ready, awaiting his command.

“We need to split up, form into groups of three or four, and decide on a meeting place. What time is it now?”

“
Almost ten,” Jax answered.

“
How did they find us?” Angela asked.

“
I don’t know. It doesn’t matter right now.” Christian’s eyes cut to Natasha and away. She was the only new one to the group. “Twelve hours from now, meet back here. They should be gone by then. If you see anything suspicious, you leave, head back into the woods. Approach from the back. Get your partners and let’s go. They’re almost to the house.”

“
Why don’t you fight?” a voice spoke up.

Christian’s head swung toward the corner of the room and he eyed Natasha’s slim frame. “We will. When we’re ready.”

“You’ll never be ready if you keep running,” was her scornful reply and it grated on him that she was right. Still, right then was not the time. It would be a slaughter if they attempted to fight when they were so obviously unequipped.

“
Does everyone have their buddies?” Heads nodded. “Good.” Christian strode toward Natasha. She drew herself up when he stopped inches from her. “You’re going with me.”

“
I’d rather stay here and face my chances with whoever is out there.”

“
I bet you would. Which is why you’re going with me.” He smiled. “We’re going to have such a good time.”

“
I doubt that.”

He grabbed her bound wrists and yanked, Natasha stumbling behind him to remain upright. They cut through the open space behind the house and headed for the forest. She kept falling back and Christian finally had enough.

He backtracked to her. “You need to keep up.”

“
Untie me,” she gasped out.

“
I don’t think so.”

“
I can run faster if my hands aren’t tied up. It’s logical.”

“
You’ll run. That’s logical.”

“
So what if I do? You’ll have one less UDK to worry about. I won’t run. If I go to them, I die for sure. With you,
maybe
I die. It’s a slight advantage.”

Christian snorted before he could stop himself. Reaching down, he pulled a dagger from his boot and with one smooth upward motion, sliced the rope free from her hands. Natasha rubbed her wrists, shaking out her hands.

“I have to do one more thing with this knife.” He moved for her.

“
What are you doing?” Her voice turned high as she went strangely still. Only her eyes, large and shining in the dark, moved as they followed his hand.

“
You have something I need,” he said, grabbing her jaw and turning her head. “Hold still.”

Her pulse thrummed against the palm of his hand, but she didn’t move, either too frightened to, which he doubted, or resigned to whatever was about to befall her, which was probably right. Christian touched the soft skin under her left ear, feeling around until he found a nodule.

“You’re being tracked. This might sting.”

She tensed as the knife cut into her flesh, a small grunt leaving her as he detached the metal from her tissue.

He ripped off the right sleeve of his tee shirt and pressed it to her neck. “Keep pressure on it. It might need stitches, but should be okay if you don’t jostle it too much and can manage to get the bleeding to stop. We have to be fast, but try to take it easy, as much as you can anyway.”

When it was evident she wasn’t following him, Christian turned around. “Now what?”

Holding a portion of his shirt against her neck, her eyes big in her pale face, Natasha said, “I don’t understand. Why—” She took a deep breath. “How did you know? Why would I have a tracking device in me?
When
did I get one? And your eyes…what happened to your eyes? I never noticed it before, but…”

“
What
about
my eyes?”

“
They don’t glow anymore. They used to glow. At the facility. What happened to them?
None
of your eyes glow.” She was silent for a moment as she digested that bit of information.

Natasha finally straightened, her lips thinning as her backbone returned. “What is going on?”

“Good question. And one day, I hope I know. Come on. Even with the GPS out of your system, they already know we’re here.” He chucked the device into the darkness and began to walk. “And I knew you had a tracking device on you because you were the only addition to the group and suddenly we had visitors.”

Leaves crackled under his boots, and as he walked, he realized his footsteps were the only ones he was aware of. Christian paused, shaking his head as he turned. “Really, Becwar?”

“Christian.” The voice was urgent, choked.

He looked to the left, his body stiffening. Natasha was standing near a tree, held in place by a hand fisted in her short hair. Her expression was fierce, her jaw clenched as she struggled against the arm banded across her chest, locking her immobile.

He took a step toward her and she shook her head. “No. Just go. Leave me.
Go
.”

“
If you go, she dies,” the man stated calmly, his voice like sandpaper. Christian cocked his head at the familiar tone.

The light of the moon showed a bald head and short, stout frame. Burns. Icy calm invaded his senses, freezing his veins into calculated vengeance. He and Burns had a history, one he wanted nothing more than to sever.

“If you stay, we both die,” she said urgently, flinching when her head was jerked back by her hair.

“
I always wondered about you, with your UD background and all. Turns out I should have followed my instincts. You’re more UD than UDK. I’m going to enjoy breaking you, like I enjoyed all the others before you.

“
Do you know what happens to UDK rejects like you? They get sent to me before they go in for testing. Oh, the fun we have,” Burns murmured close to Natasha’s ear, his gaze directed at Christian.

There was an unholy gleam in his squinty eyes as he pressed his body against hers. The look on her face was of repulsion, her body stiff. Christian’s fingers flexed, imagining them wrapped around his neck and squeezing.

Burns was dead—he just didn’t know it yet.

The knife was out of his boot and in his hand, soaring through the air in less time than it took to process what he was about to do. It hit its mark. A grunt left Burns and a shocked expression filtered over his scarred features before he fell to his knees face-down in the grass.

Natasha stood rooted in place, staring at him. “I thought you didn’t know how to fight.”

Christian knelt down and shoved Burns’ heavy body over, pulling the blade from his heart and wiping it in the dewy grass before shoving it back in his boot. “That wasn’t fighting. That was killing and it was instinctual.”

Standing, he glanced at Natasha before heading thicker into the woods. “You’re welcome.”

Usually stealthy, she noisily stomped after him. “What am I supposed to be thanking you for? Do you want me to thank you for taking your time? Or should I thank you for almost fileting me with a knife? Or maybe for letting Burns grope me a bit before you decided to end my torture? Just curious about what exactly I should be thanking you for. You know, so I get it right and everything.”