Unleashed

  Caden spots me over Tabatha’s shoulder and stops. He frowns, his gaze skimming me as I jog in place. His disapproval reaches me, palpable as smoke in the stale, recycled air. I stumble and catch myself. My face burns hot as I recover and continue running. I try to look straight ahead, but my attention strays back to him, trying to see if he’s amused over my clumsiness.

  He’s not. He only looks more disapproving.

  Tabatha follows his gaze and frowns, too. He makes a move toward me, but she stops him with a hand on his arm. I almost wish she would let him approach. It would ease my boredom at least. Talking to him might give me a headache and drive me crazy and make me feel things in general when I’m trying my best not to feel anything, but I can’t stop the flicker of longing.

  Tabatha says something, motioning to me. Caden shakes his head no, but she keeps talking. Finally, he gives a single nod and stalks off, leaving her smiling. She comes toward me, her every movement satisfied, confident. I can’t help myself. My gaze drifts to Caden, watching his back as he walks away, wondering what he wanted to say to me and why he changed his mind—what she said to change it.

  At least now I know. He’s avoiding me. My chest tightens. I shouldn’t care one way or another. I’ve given him every indication in word and action that I’m not interested in a friendship . . . in anything with him.

  Tabatha stops in front of me. “Hey, there. You’re looking better.”

  “I am,” I reply, determined to appear strong. I punch off the machine and slow to a halt. “Sling can come off in a couple days.” Phelps said a week, but I see it otherwise. The sling will come off tomorrow. Day after at the latest.

  “Great. You should be ready for travel then.”

  “What?” Surely I didn’t hear her correctly. “Really? I’m leaving?”

  “Junie just got word. Your friends are at refuge number four.”

  Everything inside me slumps and tightens all at once. It’s a combination of relief and a jolt of adrenaline for the trip to come . . . the reunion ahead. I’m actually going to see Sean again. Gil and Sabine. It’s really going to happen. Until this moment, I didn’t recognize that a part of me doubted that it would.

  “When?” I demand.

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  I frown, disappointed it’s not sooner.

  “Hey,” she adds, smiling, but there’s nothing nice about it. It’s judgy, tinged with contempt. “We have to get the group ready that’s been waiting to go out. This isn’t all about you.”

  I clench my teeth, resisting the impulse to defend myself. She doesn’t care about me, so what I say doesn’t matter.

  Marcus appears then, moving to her side. “So this one is finally leaving.”

  “Yep. Heading out Wednesday.” Tabatha nods.

  Marcus steps closer and looks up at me where I stand on the treadmill. “Watch yourself out there. The world isn’t as gentle where you’re going as it is in here.”

  “You think it’s a gentle world in here?” I snort. “Your cousin trying to choke me out wasn’t bad?”

  “You don’t know bad,” Ruben voices from behind Marcus.

  I feel my lip curl over my teeth. I know I shouldn’t rise to his bait, but I just can’t seem to help myself. Maybe it’s what’s in my blood, coursing along with my DNA, that sets me apart from the average person and marks me as someone capable of killing. “I’ve had to deal with my share of thugs who lurk behind someone bigger and stronger because they’re really nothing but cowards.”

  He snarls, attempting to step around Marcus. “You think you’re so tough.”

  Tabatha laughs, her body lifting with the motion. Clearly she’s ready to watch some action.

  Marcus holds Ruben back with a hand on his chest. “Easy there, Ruben.”

  Ruben stops in his tracks, looking from Marcus back to me.

  Marcus stares at me grimly. “You don’t belong here. You know that.” My skin prickles as his words sink in. It’s like he knows that Caden asked me to stay. “Why don’t you just keep your mouth shut and stay in your room until you leave. If you want to get out of here in one piece . . .”

  It’s no empty threat. I see that in his steady gaze. And I can’t imagine this is just because he doesn’t trust me. It’s more than that. More than that Caden smuggled me in here minus a blindfold. I killed one of his men. His cousin. Never mind that the guy attacked me, I killed him. He won’t forget the fact. The sooner I leave here the better.

  “I’ll do that,” I whisper, holding Marcus’s gaze because I know that he’s the one who matters. Not his goon.

  I step down between him and Tabatha, careful not to let any part of us brush. Almost like if we were to touch, we would ignite in an electrical reaction. We’re two properties that should never meet. And yet here we are, thrown into a fishbowl together.

  Just two more days.

  I suck in a breath as I head to the room I share with Junie. I find her there, removing stuff from her pack.

  She smiles when she looks up. “Hey, did you hear the good news? Your friends are okay, and they’re at refuge number four.”

  I smile. “That is good news.”

  “I bet they’re going to be relieved when they hear that you’re all right and coming to join them.”

  “Yeah.” I sink down on the bottom mattress.

  Her smile slips. “You don’t look too happy.”

  “Of course I am.”

  She stares at me, disbelieving. Sighing, I admit, “Just had a little run-in with Marcus and Ruben.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Those two. Don’t worry about them. They’re just in a perpetual bad mood because everyone looks to Caden first. You would think Caden is older. That makes it even more of a sore point for Marcus, I think.”

  “Why does everyone trust Caden so much?” I ask, even though I already suspect. Caden has a way about him. He’s the kind of guy who makes you believe in silver linings. The kind you trust your life to. That is, if you were the kind of person given to trust anyone.

  She looks at me blankly. “Wouldn’t you trust Caden first? I mean, between the two of them?”

  I smile and nod grudgingly. Without a doubt. “Yeah, but then I might be biased.” Caden did save my life, but I don’t remind her of that. “Marcus hasn’t exactly been warm and fuzzy with me.”

  She gives me a look that says, Yeah, well, you did kill his cousin. Instead of going there, though, she says, “Marcus wants to rush out guns blazing.” She shakes her head. “Some of the schemes he has suggested . . . I mean, they’re suicide missions. He might be a badass soldier, but he’s no military strategist. The only reason we’ve made it at all these last couple of months without General Dumont is because of Caden’s good sense.”

  The hero worship is evident in her tone, and I can’t help but smile. I remember feeling that way when I met Sean. Well, not at first, but eventually. He’d been marked as a carrier for most of his life. He knew how to handle living with the circumstances that had suddenly been thrust upon me. All the misery and injustice . . . he endured it all and seemed stronger for it. Honorable. Proud. If I had to be a carrier, I wanted to be one like him. He gave me hope.

  And now there’s Caden. He’s all that and maybe even more. Because he refuses to run. He’s staying and fighting. With his faith in carriers, in mankind. In me.

  Now he’s the one. The one whose smiles pull at something inside me and make me want to smile, too. The one I wish I could be more like.

  * * *

  BOERNE HERALD NEWS

  Obituaries

  * * *

  Victoria (Tori) Samantha Chesterfield died Saturday afternoon while attending a peaceful protest outside the state capital, one of four victims senselessly shot by a lone carrier sympathizer. A life cut down much too early, she died standing up for her beliefs, a true patriot for her country who will be greatly missed. She is survived by her parents, Eric and Hannah Chesterfield, a younger brother, Brandon, and countless friends. The service will
be held at Sleepy Hills Memorial Home Wednesday afternoon at four p.m. In lieu of flowers, her family requests donations be made to any anti-carrier group of your choice.

  FIFTEEN

  I’M IN THE INFIRMARY WITH RHIANNON THE NEXT day, helping her catalog the new supplies, when Caden finds me.

  Even though the infirmary was the location of my attempted murder, I gravitate toward it now. For the most part, I’ve been cared for here. It’s been safe, quiet. Fewer prying stares. Usually it’s just Phelps and Rhiannon. Only an occasional patient.

  Rhiannon has come around, treating me almost warmly as I read off the names of the medicines for her to enter into the computer and then stacking them neatly beside me.

  “There you are,” Caden murmurs, the door clanging behind him. His gaze shifts from me to Rhiannon. “Mind if I borrow your helper?”

  Rhiannon shakes her head.

  Caden offers me a hand and pulls me to my feet. He holds on to my hand for longer than necessary. We’re almost to the door before I slip my hand from his. I tuck a short strand of hair behind my ear as if I needed my hand free to do that. Which is a little lame. It’s not as though I need an excuse not to hold his hand. Why would we be holding hands? We’re not a couple. The very idea makes me drag a deep, shuddery breath into my lungs.

  I keep pace beside him. He leads me down the narrow hall into the controls room.

  Terrence looks up from where he’s sitting at a table full of several high-tech-looking computers and equipment.

  “Hey, T.” Caden nods at him. “Can you give us a minute in here?”

  Terrence almost looks like he’ll refuse, but then he sighs and removes a pair of headphones from his ears. He exits the room, and I feel a little uneasy as he shuts the door behind us. We’ve been alone together before, but not since I turned him down when he asked me to stay.

  I uncross my arms and force a smile. “Did you need something?”

  “Actually, yes.” He moves past the computers to stand before a large map on the wall and waves a broad hand at it. “Before you leave, you could help me.”

  “Help you? How?”

  “Well, help us. You’re not the usual carrier passing through here.” His amber eyes roam my face, and something warm blossoms in my chest and spreads through me. For a moment I think that maybe he really sees something in me that sets me apart from everyone else here. That he might think I’m special. That I’m not my worst nightmare but still a normal girl. Crazy, I know. I might believe my carrier status doesn’t define me, but it definitely makes me anything but normal. Although he’s a carrier, too, and it doesn’t appear to stop him from . . . well, from anything. He’s here, living, fighting. He’s not full of shame. He’s determined to carve a future not just for himself but for others.

  “Your special camp . . . can you show me where it is?” he asks, and I deflate. Just because I was in a special camp does not mean I’m special to him. “It could be useful to know.”

  I step up to the map and study it. Several flags of different colors riddle the country, most concentrated in the Southwest, but some flags reach as far north as New England. “What are all these?”

  He points to the red flags, which are the scarcest. “The red flags are known Agency checkpoints and headquarters.” He moves to the green flags scattered throughout the country. “These are detention camps.”

  I point at the concentration of yellow flags along the border. “Those?”

  “Border checkpoints. And these.” He motions to the little black tacks. “These are the locations of known resistance cells.”

  I look at him sharply. He stares back at me, so open and forthcoming. He trusts me enough to show me this.

  Nodding, I turn back to the map and point to New Mexico and wave west of Albuquerque. “We were about an hour west of here. I don’t know more than that.” I didn’t exactly take note when we were brought there, and I especially was in no frame of mind to pay attention when we left. Plus, it was the middle of the night then.

  “Were there other camps? Like the one you were at?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so. At least they made it sound like we were the only one. There was always the threat that if we didn’t cooperate or perform up to level, they’d send us to a detention camp.”

  “What were your supplies like there? Food? Weapons?”

  “Plenty of both. They trained us with all kinds of weapons, and we were always well fed.”

  Frowning, he stares at the map, and I take advantage of his distraction and study him freely. The dark fall of his hair against his forehead. The straight bridge of his nose over well-carved lips. He doesn’t have dimples exactly, but twin brackets dent his cheeks, right beside his mouth. My chest tightens.

  Shaking my head, I follow his gaze. “I’d leave it alone.”

  He looks at me again.

  “The camp,” I add. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I wouldn’t mess with it. There’s a reason we ran from there.”

  “And what was that?”

  “It was changing me. And that was the point. Their goal. They wanted to shape us. You’re thinking you might find carriers there with training . . . special skills. Right?”

  He nods.

  “Well, you’ll find that, but you’ll also find something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They’re taking away their hearts. Training them to be machines. Some of those carriers there . . . they were only too happy to become mindless assassins.”

  He assesses me for a moment before saying with conviction, “They could never have done that to you.”

  I snort. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I’m a good judge of character. My father always said I could size a person up. It’s a particular talent of mine.” He grins almost smugly, and I have to fight down a smile of my own. He’s even better-looking with that cocky grin.

  “Yeah? You’ve sized me up then?”

  “Yep.”

  A frisson of discomfort rushes through me, but still I hear myself ask, “And what do you see?” I have to know.

  “Someone way too hard on herself, who needs to stop believing what others say about her . . . especially what some stupid lab report says. She needs to stop believing that a test can define who she is.”

  I laugh hoarsely and hug myself, my fingers flexing on my arms. “You see all that, huh?”

  He looks back at the map. “You chose to escape that place. That says it all. You didn’t stay to let them warp you into some heartless machine. You escaped. And now you’re here.”

  I’m here. With him.

  Something loosens inside me as I realize he’s right. I didn’t stay. Leaving Mount Haven . . . yeah, that means I’m different.

  My skin shivers as the idea takes hold and settles deep . . . as his gaze drills into me, seeing beneath the surface to the real me. The me I’m not even sure I know anymore. It’s disconcerting to think he sees more than I can of myself—but a relief, too. Because listening to him, the girl he sees when he looks at me isn’t lost. My stomach flutters beneath his amber-eyed examination.

  “You have an amazing voice,” I blurt, both deliberately and not. He does have an amazing voice. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. But I also feel desperate to break free from his scrutiny.

  He blinks at the sudden change in topic. “Thanks.” He shrugs like it’s not a thing. His voice. My compliment. “I played around with the guitar a bit in junior high. Couple friends and I actually thought we could put together a band. We’d just started to get serious and practice when my father got reassigned again. . . . And eventually—” He stops and waves a hand, motioning at the bunker around us. Enough said. I try to picture him in his life before but have trouble grasping it beyond who he is now. Here. In this world.

  “Where are you from?” I ask.

  “South Carolina.”

  I thought I detected the barest southern lilt to his voice.

  “
Let me guess. Football?” Bred in the South. It seems a certainty. I cross my arms and assess him with an air of drama.

  A plan that backfires, because once I start checking him out, it’s hard to stop. My cheeks grow warm, heat creeping all the way up to my ears as I skim his broad shoulders. The cotton T-shirt looks so soft. It rests across his chest, hugging the flat lines of his torso. I remember the sensation of me curled against that chest. The power of his arms, flexing biceps as he carried me. Aware that I’m ogling him, I jerk my attention back to his face. I’m worse than a boy who can’t keep his eyes off a girl’s chest.

  He smiles that grin that makes my stomach flutter again. “No. No football.”

  I angle my head. “Not the golden boy, huh?” It fit. At least I thought so. He’s so strong and in command here. He seems like the kind of guy who would lead his team to a state championship or something. Then it dawns on me. “Oh, I get it. You were the army brat. Bet you rebelled.”

  The idea of this is kind of hot. I picture him luring some Goody Two-shoes (who resembles me a lot) onto the back of a Harley and speeding out of the school parking lot. I glance away, afraid my burning face is bright red now at the totally ridiculous fantasy.

  “Am I that predictable?”

  I feel my eyes widen. “Oh my God, am I right?”

  “Hey. It wasn’t cool moving around every couple years. One year I changed schools twice. So. Yeah. I might have acted out a bit. First day of school I might have made a beeline for the kids who looked most likely to skip school and get high in their parents’ basement. I had a nose for them.” He taps the side of his nose.

  “And wild girls,” I say before I can catch the words.

  He stares at me for a while. “Well, I was wild. They were the only ones I could get.”

  This I doubt. All he needed to do was flash that grin, and any girl would have followed him.