Unleashed

  “The good girls knew better,” he adds.

  Maybe he’s right about that. I would have known better. The Davy Hamilton of before would have given him a wide berth, watching from the window of her chemistry class as some other girl hopped on the back of his bike and took off to make out in some basement.

  This Davy Hamilton? She could be tempted.

  My cheeks sting as this thought slides through me to settle into the mass of butterflies kicking to life in my belly.

  “Guess we’re all bad here,” I say, unable to look away from him. I can hardly breathe. My chest feels tight as he watches me intently, like he’s waiting for me to say or do something. Like he can read my mind.

  “Well, we’re all rebels. This is true.”

  I nod, waving at the map with flags dotted across it. “Literally.”

  “You were the good girl,” he declares abruptly.

  I snort and tuck a strand behind my ear self-consciously. “What?”

  “It’s stamped all over you.” He moves closer. “You were the girl. The one.”

  I hold my breath, watching as he stops just inches from me. The notion of personal space is lost.

  “The perfect princess.” His words are a warm breath on my face.

  I open my mouth to deny the image, but can’t grab the words. They’re not untrue exactly.

  His lips twist into a crooked smile. “You wouldn’t have even looked at me.”

  Not true. I would have seen him. I know this deep in my gut where muscle meets bone and wraps tight. I wouldn’t have been able to not look at him. And if I’d ever heard his voice . . . if he ever sang? I don’t know if I could have stayed away. Good girl or not.

  He continues, still standing too close. I can smell the clean, soapy scent of his skin. “I would have been one of dozens looking at you. Just another guy who can’t help himself when he sees this amazing girl out of his reach.”

  I avert my eyes, stunned by his words. I’ve been complimented before. But not often since I became known as a carrier. And not since I hacked off my hair, dyed it, and exposed my face to so much sun it resembles leather. “I doubt—”

  “Yes,” he’s quick to say. “I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

  I moisten my lips and shake my head. I’m not beautiful. I know this. Not because I suffer from low self-esteem or anything. I know my assets. I have good hair (well, had). My legs are pretty decent. And yet there were far prettier girls at Everton than me—and even here. Tabatha’s face floats across my mind. I’m too thin. As far as my chest goes, there isn’t much to it, and my nose has a slight bump. So I can’t fathom where he’s coming from when he calls me beautiful.

  As though he’s reading my mind, he says, “And I’m not just talking about your face. You’re strong. Brave. And even though you try not to show it, you care about people. You’re beyond loyal. All you’ve wanted to do is get back to your friends. I can’t tell you how jealous that has made me.”

  Jealous? My gaze snaps back to his. His eyes are like amber lit from the sun, blazing down on me. I flinch—but not in fear—as he brushes the hair back off my forehead.

  “You can stay here, Davy. Join us. Join me.”

  My nerves snap then, bloom into full-scale panic at the mere suggestion. His eyes are too warm, too compelling. I have to look away, but even then I can still see them. They still pull me to look back at him. When I do, he’s somehow moved closer. Our lips are a hairbreadth away.

  Him. His words. The temptation hits me strong. My throat constricts, making the air impossible to flow.

  “I—I have to go.” Squeezing past him, I stumble from the room.

  Breathing heavily, I hurry down the hall, one hand pressing to my thundering heart. It’s not right. The way he makes my heart beat. I feel wrong, panicky. Guilty.

  I’m leaving this place. I’m going to find Sean and Gil and Sabine. I don’t need to be falling for this guy who’s committed to an impossible cause. Who will likely end up getting killed on his next mission. Who makes me wonder if there isn’t a little bit of something special . . . something other than tainted blood . . . still inside me.

  * * *

  Dear Mom and Ashlee,

  I know you expect me to come home. Nothing is keeping me here. Dad’s gone. It’s still such a shock. We all thought it would be something else. That nothing short of a bullet would take him from this world. Who knew he even had a heart problem? Maybe if he hadn’t been forced into early retirement, they would have caught it in time. Maybe. I think that word a lot lately. Maybe. And if.

  I thought I could come home. I planned to. I told myself there’s no need for me to be here anymore. Except there is.

  They do need me here. More than ever now. I have to stay. For Dad. For everyone. Even for you and Ashlee. I can’t stand by and do nothing while this happens. I hope you understand. I hope you can forgive me.

  Love,

  Caden

  —Email sent from Caden Anderson following the death of Colonel Anderson

  SIXTEEN

  THERE ARE TEN OF US DEPARTING FOR MEXICO, including myself and Tabatha, and five men, one woman, and two children. I’m not sure if the children are carriers or just there because of their parents. I don’t know. I don’t ask questions. No names. No life stories. If I don’t ask theirs, they won’t ask mine. Maybe I can still have some distance.

  Still, I find myself staring at the little girl. She’s maybe ten with carrot-red hair. Her nose and cheeks are heavily freckled, her skin mottled shades of white, brown, and pink from a past sunburn. She stays close to her mother. Does the mother have HTS? Or the girl?

  Whatever the case, I think of my own mother. Try to imagine her here, running across the border with me. It’s impossible. I can only see her with her manicured nails and silk blouses.

  Tabatha is our appointed scout. I had hoped Junie would be leading us, but apparently not. Junie joins me in the main room, near the stairs leading up to the exit. My stomach churns and twists the way it used to right before a roller-coaster drop.

  “Don’t get killed out there.” She jerks her head to where Tabatha talks to Caden. I’ve been avoiding looking at him. It makes me think about his offer for me to stay. An offer I can’t take. And for some reason that makes my stomach churn even tighter.

  Junie shakes her head, and the action tosses twin pigtails over her shoulders. “And don’t expect that one to look after you. Keep up or she’ll leave you behind. Or worse.” Worse? It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what’s worse than that.

  I scan Tabatha. Dressed head to toe in fatigues, dark hair pulled back beneath a hat worn low on her head, she’s practically sexless. For some reason I see her in my mind, plastered against Caden. Far from sexless.

  “Don’t worry. I don’t expect her to stick her neck out for me.” I don’t expect that of anyone.

  Junie flings her arms around me and hugs me then. I pat her arm awkwardly, the most I can bring myself to do. “Take care of yourself,” she says.

  “You too,” I murmur, wondering if she’ll even be alive a year from now. A carrier scout, she’ll probably be shot or captured. Suddenly I’m hugging her harder, forgetting my issues about getting close to another person. For a brief moment, I let myself feel. A swift squeeze and then I’m stepping back, arms falling at my sides.

  She grins at me brightly like we’re not two people stuck in the middle of a war. Like we might run into each other at the mall. “Maybe we’ll see each other again someday.”

  “Maybe,” I allow, but I doubt it. Not unless she intends to leave her work here for a refuge in Mexico.

  “Let’s go,” Tabatha announces. Taking the lead, she starts up the stairs. I fall in last. At least I think I’m last, but then I hear a deep voice behind me.

  “Can you manage the steps?”

  I turn. Caden stands with one boot on the bottom step, his hands gripping the railing on either side of us. The others move ahead. I can h
ear the thunk of their shoes on the grate steps, but I don’t look up. I train my gaze on him.

  “I think I can handle a set of stairs. I hurt my shoulder, not my legs.” My tone escapes more biting than I intended. My stomach is all knotted up, and it’s impossible to talk in a way that makes me sound . . . better. Nice.

  His eyes move to my arm, and I know he’s measuring me. I took the sling off last night. It hurts when I move my arm too much. I can’t rotate my shoulder at all. Even without the sling, I hold my arm close to my side, the elbow partially bent. With his eyes focused there, I force it straight down, fixing my expression so it reveals none of the discomfort the simple action causes me.

  His eyes fasten on my face, and despite my attempt to disguise my pain, he looks at me knowingly. “Well, I hope so, considering you’re leaving. You don’t want to get out there and realize you’ve made a mistake and shouldn’t have left.”

  “I haven’t made a mistake.” I swallow and correct myself. “I’m not.”

  Something flickers in the amber depths of his eyes, but then it’s gone. He waves ahead. “Then by all means. Let’s go.”

  My heart lurches against my chest. “You’re coming, too?” I look him up and down. He carries no gear.

  His mouth lifts in a half smile. “I don’t know if that’s hope or horror I hear in your voice.”

  Hope. It’s hope, and that disappoints me. I know better. Hoping for more than I need, more than I can have, only leads to pain. “I—I just didn’t know. . . .”

  He shakes his head. “I’m just seeing you off at the top. Making sure you’re all properly blindfolded before you step outside.”

  Right.

  “Oh. I see.” My heart settles back in my chest. A chest that feels a little hollow knowing this is it. He’s not coming with us.

  Turning, I continue up the stairs, his boots falling heavy on the steel steps behind me.

  At the top we reach a platform with a tunnel that stretches both left and right. I don’t see the others. They’ve already moved on. Shadows loom in both directions.

  “This way.” Caden steps past me and leads me to the right, his boots clanging over the grate. As we move the shadows deepen, enveloping us like we’re sinking into night.

  His strides fall swiftly. Clearly he doesn’t need to see where he’s going.

  I follow, studying the vague outline of his lean frame, the slope of his shoulders, careful not to walk too closely and run into him if he should stop. Ahead, I can hear the voices of the others, a soft rumble on the air.

  “Almost there,” he says over his shoulder, as if he senses that I need the reassurance.

  The narrow tunnel opens to a small space with three steps that lead up to a circular steel door reminiscent of the kind you would see on a submarine. Muted blue-tinged light glows from a fixture positioned near the door.

  Tabatha is securing blindfolds to everyone as she issues instructions. I try to step closer and listen, but Caden’s presence is a distraction. Especially when he makes no attempt to hide the fact that he’s watching me, his dark eyebrows pulling tight. My skin prickles. His gaze is like a physical touch to my face, invisible fingertips moving, sliding over my jaw, my cheek, the bridge of my nose.

  “At no time are you to remove the blindfold unless I tell you. It’s dark out there. You’re not going to be able to see where you’re going anyway, with or without the blindfold, but the blindfold must stay on. We’ll hold hands and make a chain. We just need to make it a few yards, and then we’ll be in the van that will take us to the halfway point.”

  The ten-year-old is bouncing up and down with excitement, so much that Tabatha has a hard time fastening the blindfold around her.

  Caden’s stare grows heavier on me. I swing around and glare at him. “Would you stop it?” I hiss, my voice low enough that no one notices.

  “Stop what?”

  My stomach feels like it’s bubbling with a thousand butterflies. “Staring at me.” This is it. Good-bye. He knows that. We both do.

  His eyes glint darkly in the muted light. “You’re really going through with it?”

  “Leaving? Yes. And why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because the right thing to do is to stay here, where you can help and serve a purpose.” His voice has a hard, desperate edge to it. He’s convincing. I’ll give him that. He almost makes me feel necessary.

  “Stay here?” I laugh.

  “Yes.”

  Stay here. Where no one wants me except him? And honestly, he scares me the most. I know Marcus’s kind. Caden I don’t understand.

  I shake my head and press a hand to my rioting stomach. What’s wrong with me? Maybe I’m getting honest-to-God sick? “You’re wasting your time.”

  “Evidently. I guess I just misjudged you.”

  I should just let that remark go, but I can’t. “Oh? How so?”

  “I thought there was something special in you. I thought you were someone who gave a damn. . . .”

  His words find their mark. Sting as they shouldn’t. As someone that everyone once thought was special, remarkable even . . . I still hunger for that. My stupid longing for more, for my life to be something extraordinary—in a positive way—it’s still there, buried beneath the scrapes and bruises.

  “You thought wrong,” I whisper thickly.

  Tabatha steps between us, her gaze curious and faintly suspicious. “Here.” She dangles the thick black strip of fabric out. “Turn around.”

  My gaze flicks to Caden, locking on him, memorizing. Once that blindfold is on, I’ll never see him again. For some reason, I crave a picture of him in my mind with a suddenness that rocks me.

  “I got it.” He takes the blindfold from her.

  Shrugging, she turns away. “I’ll go check and make sure everything is clear.” The well-oiled door doesn’t make a sound as she unlocks it and pulls it open.

  “Go ahead,” I say, lifting my chin and trying not to care that this is my last glimpse of him. That it’s for the best. A good thing. He pushes too much. Makes demands.

  He steps closer and lifts the fabric to my face. I watch his eyes, holding them, fixing on those tiny flecks of gold that give them an amber tint. I feel his breath on my cheek as he brings the cloth over my eyes and works on knotting it behind my head. The knot catches on a few strands, and I wince.

  “Sorry,” he murmurs near my ear.

  He’s so close, his chest brushing my own. I tremble even as everything inside me tenses, eager for him to step back and go away.

  “There.” He lowers his arms. My pulse skips as his skin grazes my cheek. I blink, my lashes brushing the fabric blinding me. Drowning in darkness, I move my head to the side, listening. Feeling. All my senses thrum in hyperalert.

  Are you still there, Caden? Say something.

  The words knock around inside my head, threatening to spill loose like pebbles chipped off a boulder. Sheer willpower dams them up inside me.

  The others speak in low tones around me. I sense their hovering presence, their soft movements. The tension is thick, swirling like smoke as we wait for Tabatha to return.

  Suddenly I hear the click and grind of a door opening. Tabatha’s voice rings out, “Okay, we’re clear. Let’s go.”

  Shoes shuffle as Tabatha starts lining everyone up, instructing them to hold hands. I turn in the direction of her voice. I know Caden’s still here but have no idea where he stands. I sense him. Feel him.

  Then he touches my shoulder. I know it’s him and not Tabatha. There’s just something in the heat and pressure of his hand on me . . . in the sparks that flare from the simple contact.

  He turns me around. “I should have handled you differently.”

  I bristle. “Handled me?” No one handles me.

  He sighs. “Okay. Poor word choice. It’s just that I—I listened to you. I let you push me away.” Again, I can feel his breath on my cheek.

  My chin goes up. “That’s what I wanted.”

  “Yeah, you wanted th
at, but it’s not what I wanted. And it’s not what you needed.”

  I snort even though his words are finding their way beneath my skin, arrowing straight for my heart. My hands shake a little, and I press them against my sides. “And you know what I need?” We just met, but he thinks he knows me as well as that?

  “I think you’re scared and running.”

  I nod once, swift and certain. It’s hard to admit, but what’s the point in arguing? I am scared. What carrier isn’t? I should be scared. It’s logical. “Of course I am.” I step back, feeling the heat of him radiate, close to me, following.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t change your mind.”

  There’s a slight shift in the air. For a fraction of a second, I understand his intent, that he’s moving in. His hands slide along my cheeks, holding my face for him, the calloused pads of his fingers exerting the barest pressure. And then his mouth is on mine.

  I startle, jump a little as our lips meet. They’re cooler than I expect. Soft and dry. Not that I have given kissing him great thought. It’s been one thing I deliberately avoided considering, but an awareness has always been there. Maybe this was inevitable. Two forces destined to collide.

  His lips move over mine, slanting one way, then the other, kissing me like some sort of snake charmer working to coax a response. I finally give in and lean into him, my mouth softening under his, moving, kissing him back like it’s the last kiss of my life.

  And maybe it is. At least it’s our last kiss. The first and the last.

  That familiar heat sweeps over my face. How does he do this to me? So quickly? So easily? And was breathing ever this hard before? I feel like I’m stuck in a windowless room without any air-conditioning in the middle of summer. It’s something that only happens to me around him. I breathe just fine any other time.

  “Caden!” The sharp sound of his name is like a sudden douse of ice water. His mouth lifts off mine. I turn in the direction of Tabatha’s voice, tempted to wrench the blindfold from my face.

  Instead, I hold myself still, waiting to hear if he says anything more. That deep, velvet voice one more time before I go.