Unremarkable (Anything But) (18 page)

Ryder's breathing was ragged, his heart racing in his chest like it had never raced before, but he was being completely honest, for once. For once he was showing his true self. If they were going to die, she had to know. Honor had to know the truth about him and what he felt for her.

Her breath left her in a surprised gasp and he quickly turned back to the door, not wanting to hear or see what was next to come. Honor had a gift when it came to verbally slaying all his good intentions. He'd rather have her silence than her rejection.

Hands pulled at him and twisted him around; Honor's cool palms sliding over the stubble of his jaw to cup his face. He was too surprised to react, silently watching her to see what she would do next. A kiss; soft, fleeting, pressed to his lips. It was only a few seconds in length, but it was monumental in depth and meaning.

She moved away, staring at him with furrowed brows; like maybe she really was,
finally
, seeing the real him, for the first time; like maybe she wasn't too disappointed by what she was seeing either. A grin stole over his lips and he let it, turning away to focus on getting them out of the building.

“
I had all sorts of plans,” he said, reaching for the doorknob. “One was to pretend I didn’t care about you, to get promoted fast and secure my place in the UDK organization.” His hand twisted. “So I could get enough power, have enough influence, to go up against August and beat him, dispose of him, finish him.”

The door swung open.

“But the thing about power is…it’s fleeting. And it doesn’t give you anything, not really. It’s like a hunger you can never sate.” He looked over his shoulder and met her grief-stricken eyes. “I’m done pretending. I can’t do it anymore. Because all of that—it doesn’t mean anything and it wouldn’t have given me you. You are what I want.”

“
That’s…you’re completely messed up. You know that, right?” When she said it, her eyes were soft and sad, not judgmental and icy like her tone implied they would be.

“
Ah, there’s the Honor I know,” he said with a smirk, stepping into the dark room.

He felt the wall to the right and flipped the lights on. The smile fell from his lips at the same time Honor grabbed his arm and dug her fingers into the flesh of his bicep.

“Took you long enough. And why do they always go down when they should be going up, and up when they should be going down? You were being shepherded, but I guess you didn’t know that. You always were a little too arrogant for your own good, like your father. Looks like this time it caught up to you. It always catches up to you—arrogance.” August smiled. “I always know what you’re going to do…before you do it. I
know
you. You would be wise to remember that, Ryder.”

He pointed to the wall behind him. “Elevators. They do wonders.” He tilted his head as he stepped toward them. “I knew if I told you all the bad things Honor’s father supposedly did, you would become obsessed. I knew you’d want vengeance. I knew once you saw her you’d be intrigued by her. I knew all sorts of things.”

The distance shrank between the pair and August.

“
Like I knew you’d fall for her. I knew you’d betray me.”

Ryder’s stomach twisted, nausea rising in him. He had his arms lifted protectively with Honor behind him, slowly walking them backward. Her fingers were knotted into the fabric of his shirt, and though she was silent, he felt her fear and loathing for the man stealthily approaching them. It was like a taint on his feelings for her, knowing August had orchestrated it all, and yet, it didn’t change them. It changed
nothing
.

“
Do you want to know what else I know? And this is the best part out of all of it. I know you would die for her.” A hint of sorrow touched his smile, just enough to add a glimpse of humanity to him. “And now, because of all the ways you betrayed me, as I knew you would, you will.” His eyes went to Honor. “Kill him.”

He felt her balk behind him, heard her cry of, “No!”

Closing his eyes, inhaling and exhaling slowly, deeply, Ryder turned to face her. He smiled at her, trying to show her without words that it was okay, that he cherished her, that he didn’t blame her, and that one day, somehow, he would see her again.

Tears trickled from her eyes and down her cheeks as she stared at him. “No! I won’t do it!”

“Look at you, crying over me. Who would have thought the day would ever come? It makes me think maybe you even care a little for me,” he said softly, brushing the tears from her face.

“
I won’t do it.” Honor shook her head, grabbing for him. “I won’t do it!” she shouted at August.

Ryder gripped her hands within his to still them, leaning toward her. “You have to. He won’t stop until you do. You know that, right? He’ll keep killing and torturing and hurting others until you give in. He wants me dead and he’s too much of a coward to do it himself. He wants you broken. He’s trying to destroy all the good in you. Don’t let him win. If I had to choose how to die, I would rather it were by you than him any day. I’ll think of it as revenge for me shooting you.” Half of his mouth lifted.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. “Ah, right on time. Come here, Cassie.” The satisfaction in his voice didn’t bode well for anyone other than August.

Honor’s eyes widened and flew up. “No,” she mouthed, all the shadows she fought creeping up on her and darkening her visage.

Her nails dug into his arm as she slumped against him and he let them, turning to face August, his arms around a trembling Honor. It wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured their first true embrace to be, but he really couldn’t afford to be picky, what with dying at any second and all.

An older, paler version of Honor stared at them, her clothes dirty, her frame too thin, and her eyes haunted.

“Honor?” she whispered through cracked lips, trying to move for her daughter and being thwarted by August’s arm shooting out.

“
Pick, Honor. Lover boy or Mommy dearest. You have ten seconds. One.”

“
Mom,” she cried, reaching out to her, but unable to let go of Ryder as well.

“
Two.”

He wouldn’t let her pick him over his mom. There was no way.

“Go, Honor. Go to your mother. It’s okay,” he said against her head, pressing a kiss to her temple.

She wordless shook her head, her knees buckling and only Ryder keeping her upright.

“Three.”

“
I won’t choose,” she said in a low, shaking voice. “You’ll have to kill me.”

August paused. “Oh no, I don’t think so. I’ll just kill both of them instead. It’ll fill in the dullness of the evening ahead. Four.”

He dropped a blade to the floor and kicked it. It slid toward them, stopping inches from Ryder’s boots. The silvery gleam of it mocked him, told him his life was about to end.

“
Five.”

Ryder stared down at the knife, seeing his distorted face looking back at him. Even through the reflection on the blade, he could see the resolve in his expression.

“Six.”

He couldn’t chance looking at Honor, but he met Cassie’s terrified gaze, saw the slight shake of her head, and he ignored it, dropping down to his knees and chucking the knife at August. He knew a moment of elation is it hit its mark, directly where the heart should be, and then he knew horror as August pulled the blade from his body and threw it back at him.

It pierced his flesh, tearing through and gashing his throat. The pain was sharp, fierce, and burning. Something warm and thick flowed from the wound and he stared down at the steady stream of blood staining his shirt and the floor beneath his feet. Honor screamed, but it sounded faint, far away. He stared at the man he once thought of as a father figure and later learned to hate as his surroundings turned gray. His body was heavy, too heavy, and he began to fall.

“
Don’t let…him…win,” he murmured to the tear-stained face looming over his.

He smelled blood and knew it was his. She was holding him, trying to staunch the flow of blood with her hands to his neck, though he couldn’t feel her. It was all going numb. He thought she was screaming, but he couldn’t understand her anymore. His hearing was muffled, Honor turning darker and becoming farther away as the gray turned to black. It wasn’t so bad, dying in her arms.

“You might not have been my son, but you were still my child,” was the last sentence he heard, and even as unconscious pulled him away, Ryder was unable to make sense of those words.

“
You’re terrible at this,” Natasha
said with a smirk.

Puffy clouds and skies of blue stared back at him from where Christian lay on the hard ground, trying to breathe. A bird flittered past and another followed suit.

“You…fight dirty,” he gasped.

With a shrug, she offered a small hand. “Do you think any of them are going to fight fair?”

He took her hand and stood, looming over her with a glower on his face. “You kicked me. In the throat.”

She grinned, brushing dead leaves from her short hair. “I know. Pretty cool, huh?”

“No.
Not
pretty cool—especially since we were supposed to be having weaponry training.”

“
Your leg and foot can be a weapon.” She blinked innocently at him, a streak of dirt on her high cheek adding to the false vulnerability her physique and features gave her.

The cigarette and mint gum smell Christian used to associate with her was gone, replaced with sunshine and fresh air. Her skin was tanner, glowing, and though it was begrudging, she seemed to like being with their makeshift family. Hollows were gone from under her cheekbones and the hunted, defensive look in her eyes when they’d first met up was no longer there. The last few weeks of being a fugitive seemed to agree with Natasha Becwar. Christian would never admit it, but he sort of liked having her around.

He cocked his head. “You know, I think you enjoy being our prisoner.”

She scoffed and looked away, a faint reddening of her cheeks belying her reaction. “Better than being dead, I guess.”

“Don’t sound so happy about it.” Irritated, Christian began to walk away.

“
Wait!”

He paused when she grabbed at his tee shirt, her hand swiping against his abdomen with the motion. His stomach instinctively concaved at the touch. Lifting an eyebrow, he gazed at her. A blush, darker than before and spreading across her cheeks and neck, formed and her hand dropped away.

“I
am
happy. I mean, I’m not
happy
, but…thank you. I really do appreciate what you did, what you’re still doing. You could have killed me and you didn’t. You could have made me go with Burns and you didn’t. I will always remember that. Although, you were kind of a prick. Well, you still are, but at least I’ve adapted to it.”

She grinned when Christian’s eyes narrowed. “And anyway, this isn’t so bad. I mean, I get to kick UD butt on a daily basis and call it training. It’s my dream come true.”

“You’re vicious,” he told her, a smile playing at his lips.

“
Good thing I’m on your side, right?”

“
Right.” He paused, and then blurted, “What was it like? Your life before all of this?”

Natasha went still. “All of this has always
been
my life. Just different circumstances, but the same things always happen. Anyway, Dominic’s motioning me over. I better go see what he wants.”

“
Yeah. I’ve got…stuff to do.” He didn’t. He didn’t even really want to leave Natasha. Something about her intrigued him, probably more than it should. He thought maybe it was her instinct to survive no matter what—he had much the same inclination.

A faint voice called his name, growing louder as a form became visible over the small hill.

“Christian! Christian, come quick!” Juli sprinted across the wooded field toward him, her eyes filled with apprehension or excitement, he couldn’t tell.

He glanced at Natasha. She shrugged and went back to showing Dominic the proper way to hold a gun—an unloaded one. He turned his attention back to Juli, moving to quickly close the distance between them.

“What’s going on?” he asked, squinting under the glare of the sun. She wasn’t injured, she wasn’t screaming, so it couldn’t be anything too worrisome.

“
Just—come with me! All of you too,” she called to the UDs training, not even pausing to see if they were following as she took off back toward the most heavily wooded part of the forest they were temporarily calling home.

His footsteps slowed as he took in the scene. At least a hundred of what could only be UDKs were gathered around the UD camp. Christian gazed from one guarded face to the next, bemused to find unknown UDs smattered in with the supposed enemy. Trees wove around them, splashes of brown and green against their dirtied clothing and haggard stances. They looked tired, resigned, disillusioned. They looked like they’d just found out everything they’d ever been told was a lie—and maybe they had been.

“What is this?” he asked as he glanced at Juli.

“
It appears UDKs and UDs are forming an alliance, in the name of Christian Turner. They’ve heard about you, about us. Small as we are, we apparently have some influence.

“
Things are bad, Christian," she said, lowering her voice. “Things are really bad. Even some of the UDKs are seeing it now. They want to help us train; they want to fight with us against August and anyone who follows him.”

He wished it was that easy. He wished he could believe their intentions were pure, but he couldn’t afford to. Their group was compromised now. How had they even found them? If he allowed them to stay, he would be suspicious of their real goal, constantly on guard, waiting for a betrayal that was sure to come. Of course, that wouldn’t be much of a change from how things already were. He trusted few and the ones he trusted he didn’t trust much. But did he have a choice? No. UDKs outnumbered them and were better than them, at least in combat. And they needed them and their knowledge, though he was loath to admit it.

“Why would we trust you? You could just as soon kill us as fight beside us,” he called out.

“
But we haven’t,” a stocky boy with black hair and glasses responded, moving toward the front of the UDKs. “You need an army if you’re going to succeed against August and his minions. We’re the first to sign up and there will be others. Even now masses of UDKs and UDs are making their way to you.”

“
Who are you?”

“
I’m James.”

“
I know him.”

Christian glanced down.

Natasha stared at the new arrivals with distrust etched into her elfin features. “He was at the UD facility at the same time Honor was. Smart kid, kind of nerdy, harmless.”

“
Thanks for the compliment.”

Natasha scowled at James. “Which one was supposed to be a compliment?”

James ignored that, looking at Christian. “May we stay?”

“
Are you in charge?”

He hesitated, and then shook his dark head, briefly looking down. “No.”

“Then who is? Because that’s who I want to talk to before anything is decided.”

“
Isaac Nealon. I was hoping he was here, with you.” Features pulled down with apprehension, James waited for him to answer.

Christian took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Innumerable eyes were locked on him, watching. He looked at Juli, who looked away. Natasha did the opposite; she wordlessly stared at him. He didn’t know how to say it. There was no way to ease the blow of what he was about to tell him.

He swallowed and met James’s gaze. “He’s dead.” The tone was flat, undeniable.

No one moved. The whole forest seemed to go silent, still.

James blinked. “He…how?” He swallowed. “You’re sure?”

A short burst of laughter, brittle and harsh, left him. “Yeah. He was shot by August. I tried to help, but I wasn’t fast enough. We didn’t get there in time. He held on for as long as he could, but…he’s gone.”

It had been close to suicide, blasting into the underground of the facility like they had, but it had been necessary. They’d lost three of their number; a remorseful occurrence, but even that wasn’t enough to make Christian regret doing it. He’d had to take a chance. He’d known Honor was there via a reliable source and he’d wanted her.

Wherever she was, he had a feeling that side would win in the war to come. He also wanted to know what exactly she was. But then stupid Ryder had shown up, like he always managed to, to muck things up for Christian. He was honestly repentant that he hadn’t been able to help Nealon more. Agent Isaac Nealon had helped him once and Christian would have liked to have returned the gesture. He got him out of that cell, but that was all he did. He had told him it was enough, but he didn’t think so.

Christian turned his attention to the unusually quiet boy. It was obvious he was grieving. James didn’t speak for a long time, his chest lifting and lowering as he struggled to breathe. He stood in a circle of people and yet he looked so alone. When he raised his head again, his eyes were rimmed with red, but his voice was even. He, Christian decided, was a fighter. Maybe not physically, but inside, where it mattered. Possibly it wouldn’t be so bad, having him on their side. The rest of them were debatable.

“
There are sympathizers in all the facilities. I get a lot of my information through them. I had heard he was shot, but I hoped he…was okay.” James’s voice broke and he cleared his throat, glancing away.

“
You may stay.” His head lifted and Christian grimaced at the hopeful look on his face. “You may stay, but if one single, even if insignificant, thing happens that I don’t like, you’re gone. All of you.” He scanned the many faces, meeting the eyes of men and women, taking in their nods of acquiescence. He stopped on James. “Come with me, James. We have much to discuss.”

“
But I’m not…I’m not in charge,” he stuttered, carefully making his way to Christian.

“
You are now.” He clapped him firmly on the shoulder, ignoring the boy’s wince, and ushered him away from the mass of people. He knew the UDs would hear him no matter where he went, but that didn’t mean the UDKs would be able to. “It would appear you brought me an army. Do you trust those with you?”

James tripped over a rock, grabbing at the base of a tree to steady himself. He turned and slumped against it, shoulders heavy with weariness. “I don’t know. I trust them to fight against August, but anything else…I can’t guarantee. Some of them don’t want to have anything to do with…your kind…but they want vengeance more. He’s destroyed families and he is still is. What he is truly like is finally leaking out.”

Christian crossed his arms, eyeing the boy. He chose to ignore the “your kind” reference. For now. They all had the same virus; it had just affected them in different ways.

“
How are people finding out this information? From you?”  

Running a hand through his curly hair, James shrugged. “Maybe. And others. I have bugs in a lot of the facilities, and like I said, there are UDKs like me, ones who wanted nothing to do with the organization and don’t agree with its policy. The number of rebel UDKs grows daily. I, uh, have been one of the sources of information to your group.”

He studied him for a moment. “Huh. What is its policy anyway? I’ve always wondered.”

“
From what…Nealon…told me, it’s to act as a sentinel, to watch over the UDs, report any instabilities, and to make sure there is order and balance in our reality so that the rest of the world remains undisturbed and clueless about ours.”

“
Hmm.” He tapped a finger against his lower lip. “Do you think the UDKs have been doing that? Because from what I’ve seen, they don’t. From what I’ve seen, they do nothing but bad.”

“
Some. Not all. It’s like anything; you can’t clump multiple individuals into one group and pronounce them all as being one way. There’s always good and bad with anything.” James heaved a deep sigh and removed his glasses from his face. “It’s all gone to shit recently. I mean, worse than it used to be, even. August isn’t covering his tracks as well and UDKs are rebelling, UDs aren’t conforming so willingly.

“
And I’ve found out some things that I haven’t told a single soul. I was waiting to tell Nealon, but…” he trailed off, rubbing his eyes vigorously before setting his glasses back on his face. He wouldn’t look at Christian.

“
So you’ll tell me instead.”

James met his steady gaze. “I suppose I will.”

Christian nodded. “Good. I need the UDKs to train the UDs in combat, to get them prepared for the showdown. I want complete allegiance—”

“
To what, exactly? We’re here to help defeat August and the organization. Anything else, we’ll have to decline.”

He took in James’s fierce expression and was reminded of Nealon. “I’ll take it. For now. Tell me what you know.”

The shorter boy began to pace before him. “The chip that was implanted in your neck? Speaking of which, anyone here has had theirs removed.” He paused. “And they
all
had one in the left side of their neck. Anyway, the GPS chip is not just a tracking device. It alters your perception, makes you see things or masks things, depending on who you are.”

“
Like?”

“
If UDs have it activated, they cannot sense one another. When it’s removed, they can see the glowy eyes and gray shadowing of one another. They can recognize their kind. When it’s activated in a UDK, they can see the eyes and shadows of a UD
if
a UD has the chip implanted as well, but if it isn’t and they don’t, a UD appears to be a normal person, albeit with gray eyes. I think the chip is implanted in babies and then it activates itself when a person reaches a certain maturity level, or hormonal level, generally between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. I can’t figure out how else the chips would unknowingly be implanted into so many people.”

Mind racing, all Christian said when James paused was, “Go on.”

Heaving a sigh, James sat on a fallen log and let his hands dangle over his knees. “The virus—whatever was unknowingly, accidentally unleashed—I don’t think it was an accident. I think it was planned. I don’t know by whom, only that it couldn’t have been an accident.

“
They, the UDKs or whoever’s really in charge, are messing with human DNA, altering it, trying to reproduce the part of a person’s genetics that begins to age faster once a person reaches the age of thirty-five or thereabouts. They want to have immortality. Why, I’m still not sure. Just because? Doubtful. But I also think…they’ve had success. Maybe not the kind they’d hoped for, but some kind at least.” He looked up, his sad, dark eyes locking on Christian.

“
With?”

“
Honor. When August got ahold of her, he infused her blood with a substantial dose of the virus, repeatedly, and she is some kind of hybrid being, not really a UD, or a UDK. Her blood is dangerous, to summarize. If he did that to her, he can use her blood to produce more like her. The last update I got was that he had and the results were unsuccessful.”