Unleashed

  I press one palm down on the ground to see if I can get back to my feet again. No good. Even my uninjured arm isn’t strong enough for the task.

  Mitchell’s voice is there again. Get up, Davy. Keep moving.

  I moan, shaking my head. “I can’t.”

  Groaning, I let myself sink, dropping to my side and rolling onto my back. Almost as if the thought of falling facedown is somehow reprehensible. Like I might get my cheeks dirty or something. The silly idea makes me giggle, and I know I’ve lost it. This battle I’m fighting is over.

  Who knew it would end like this?

  I think the part I regret the most is being alone. Feeling so very alone at the end.

  Too late, I wish I hadn’t shoved Sean away. Every time I cringed at his touch and winced at the sound of his voice—that is what he has left of me. I’ll never see him again, and he’ll have only that. Sadness swells through me.

  “Mitchell?” I whisper, reaching for something. Even if it isn’t real. “Are you there?”

  I feel myself fading. Squinting against the harsh sunlight, I turn my face to the side, escaping the cruel glare.

  “Mitchell?” I try moistening my hurting lips but can barely move my tongue. “Are you there?” My hand drops near my head, the backs of my fingers curling against my cheek. “I don’t want to be . . . alone.”

  My lashes dip and darken my world for long moments before lifting to the sunlit earth again. I reach deep, hunting for the will to move on, to fight. Short tufts of straw-like grass dance before my vision as I stare out across the ground.

  I take long blinks, the darkness easier to bear than the light. The next time I open my eyes, I know it’s the last. Staying in the light, awake, conscious . . . it takes too much out of me. Every moment uses up energy from my rapidly depleting well.

  Except I see something. Against the sun-bleached landscape. Something’s out there, moving, coming toward me. A blurred shape a shade darker than everything else.

  Ripples of heat undulate between me and the approaching figure. It grows bigger. Moves closer. Keeps coming. Boots. Dark boots. I know they’re attached to legs, to a person—of course—but I can’t lift my head to see the face. I glimpse only boots.

  Is this the angel of death coming for me?

  The well-worn pair of hiking boots stops directly before me. They’re unfocused in my failing vision, but I can tell they belong to a man. Too big to be a woman.

  The dry, parched flesh of my lips cracks as speech rumbles up from my chest. I don’t know what I’m saying. My voice sounds so far away. Distant as if in a dream.

  I pull from some reservoir of strength and turn my head. Look up. Just the slightest movement, but it costs me. For a split second my gaze slides up the long length of a body and locks on a face. Sunlight haloes him, blocking his features, giving him almost an angelic aura. Which kind of shoots down my angel of death suspicion and replaces it with the crazy hope that maybe he’s a guardian angel here to save me. A bit of absurdity that mocks me. Not because guardian angels don’t exist . . . but because I’m stupid enough to imagine one would waste his time with me. My head drops and my eyes fall shut.

  I descend into the dark never.

  * * *

  Press Conference with Emily Rothchilde, Spokesperson for the Wainwright Agency

  ROTHCHILDE: Rumors of resistance cells are highly exaggerated.

  REPORTER: Then how do you respond to the partnership of US Customs and Border Protection with the Wainwright Agency? Such a measure doesn’t indicate the government’s belief that carriers lack organization.

  ROTHCHILDE: We are talking about escaped carriers. They are no more than desperate, ragtag deviants who will soon be expunged from our country. The right of God is on our side.

  SIX

  WHEN I WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD, I DECIDED I wanted to be more than a music prodigy. Well, maybe not more but something else. I tried out for track. It didn’t dawn on me that my lack of athleticism might be an impediment. For some reason I thought hurdles might be my thing. I cleared the first jump. Unfortunately, not the second. I still have the scar where I gashed my knee open. There was blood everywhere. I actually lost consciousness, waking up with the school nurse huddled over me, an ambulance and my parents on the way. Friends surrounded me. Several of my teachers heard what happened and hurried outside to check on me. Everyone cared. My life was full like that.

  Before one advance in science tracked me down in my perfect cocoon. Before a few laws changed everything. And now I have no one.

  As I come to, it takes me several moments to realize that my eyes are even open. Darkness surrounds me so thickly, I feel like I’m buried under a blanket. I blink several times, testing that I’m right. That my eyes work properly and I am in fact awake. And alone. There are no familiar faces. No friends waiting for me¸ crowding around to see if I’m okay.

  Only pain greets me, saying hello to every part of me. Every limb. Every nerve and pore. Nothing is overlooked. Especially my shoulder. The burn there is poker-hot, deep and incinerating. It drills through sinew and bone and spreads out like branches on a tree, eventually arcing down my spine into my toes.

  I’m on my stomach, my face pressed into cool . . . rock, I think. There are sounds. A faint drip of water. The distant scurrying of a small animal. At least I hope it’s a small animal and not something bigger. Like a person. My eyes flare wide.

  Boots.

  I remember the boots. I focus, trying to remember more. But there’s nothing except those boots, which belonged to a man who was clearly no angel. He was flesh-and-blood real.

  My relief at being alive flees as my situation sinks in. I passed out at the feet of some stranger. Clearly he moved me to someplace else. Where has he taken me? He must have seen my imprint. Will he turn me in?

  A low glow begins to fill the space I occupy, growing in brightness as if the source of light is being carried toward me. Carried by someone. Boots. My gaze darts wildly, and I see more of my surroundings—which seem to be the walls of a cave. I can’t see who approaches. Someone’s coming from behind.

  I hold still, listening carefully to every whisper of sound. Then I hear it. The barest scrape of a shoe inches from my head. I release a silent gasp and then bite my lip, take the dry flesh between my teeth until I taste the coppery tang of blood.

  So close. I didn’t realize how close he was. Apparently, Boots walks with a near-silent tread. My mind works, fighting against the panic, the hysteria that threatens to consume me right along with the fever raging through me, eating at my mind. So hot. I burn and know that can’t be good. My decision making is probably impaired. I can think only of worst-case scenarios, imagining the kind of man who stumbled upon me. A criminal. Some drug runner. A carrier with a taste for killing. I almost snort at this—it seems the height of redundancy. A killer carrier. Isn’t that what all carriers are?

  Maybe he intends to amuse himself with me. I’m a marked carrier. I wear the imprint on my neck. I can expect no protection. No consideration. My life is forfeit.

  The luminescence shifts, and I guess that he must hold some kind of electric lantern. I hear a soft clang as he sets it down. The light ceases to move and flicker over the cave walls.

  My mind trips over my options and strategies to defend myself. With my sluggish thinking, it’s a struggle. But then I remember the knife. My right hand twitches in front of me, working open the zipper of my jacket pocket. It’s probably still there, right alongside my flashlight. I slip my hand under me, slightly lifting my hip as I ease inside the pocket, sliding two fingers inside, processing the small sounds behind me.

  “How long are you going to pretend to be asleep?”

  The deep voice fills the small cave. I freeze. My skin washes cold for one brief instant. Adrenaline fires through me as I hear movement, and I picture the faceless man bearing down on me, full of evil intent.

  Deciding against waiting for him to make the next move, I pull the knife free and palm it, hid
ing it from sight as I roll onto my back, gasping at the shattering pain in my shoulder.

  He’s digging through a pack, not even looking at me. I frown, studying him. His dark hair, cut close at the sides, is only slightly longer on top. His forehead knits as he investigates the contents of his bag like he didn’t just speak to me. Like I’m not even here. He’s wearing the boots—the same ones that filled my vision before I passed out.

  “W—” I stop at the croak of my voice and try to swallow, but my throat feels like sandpaper, raw and scratchy.

  He flicks me a glance, and I’m pinned by his eyes. They’re brown, but not as dark as his hair. No, they’re more like the amber light dancing over the walls of the cave. I guess he’s around my age, but his expression is so intense it’s hard to know for sure.

  And then I see it. The imprint around his neck. Everything in me seizes and locks up. He’s a carrier. Like me. My already raspy breath catches.

  That he’s like me is no comfort. If anything, his carrier status pumps the adrenaline through me faster. The only carriers I ever trusted were Sean, Gil, and Sabine. The three of us had a connection forged in our past experiences.

  Me and this guy? We have nothing. I can’t even trust that he won’t turn me in. What if he works for the Agency? What if they sent him out after carriers? A killer who hunts killers. Wasn’t that the whole intention behind Mount Haven? Training carriers to follow orders?

  One thing is certain. I can take no chances. In what I hope is a smooth move, I flip open the blade.

  A corner of his mouth lifts. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Whatever I need to do.”

  “Huh.” He angles his head like he’s waiting for me to do it then. Whatever it is.

  I don’t consider my fate outside escaping this cave and him. Not where I’ll go or what I’ll do following that. And I guess that is the fever. Or the blood loss. Or fatigue. It could be all those things really.

  I force myself up, using my leg muscles for support. My fingers clench tightly around my knife.

  He watches me with detached curiosity. Like I’m some little rabbit caught in his snare. I scan the cave, looking for a way out. My gaze lands on a canteen, and my thirst slams into me almost as savagely as the pain.

  With eyes fastened to his face, I inch a step closer and snatch the water. Never looking away from his face, I drink. Water dribbles down my chin and neck, and it feels wonderful.

  “Better?” he asks, like he isn’t some killer. As if I’m not. I can hear the smirk in his voice over my labored breath and suddenly realize what a fool I am to think I can best him. I grimly calculate my chances of getting the jump on him. In my condition? Not good. My only chance is to outsmart him. Assuring myself that I’m smarter, that he has underestimated me, I bow my head and moan a little. As though the pain is too much. And then I drop. Fake losing consciousness.

  I feel the uncomfortable bulge of a rock beneath my hip and loosen my grip on the knife. Because why kill if I don’t have to? I can knock him out. Maybe it’s the conversation with Sabine nipping at the back of my memory, insisting that we’re equipped to kill. That we have a knack for it. I want to resist that logic and prove that I don’t need to kill to save myself.

  I slip my fingers under me and grasp the rock, its jagged peaks scraping my tender flesh. I hold on to it, taking comfort in its weight. If I learned anything during the weeks at Mount Haven, it’s to take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself.

  I wait, listening, straining for the slightest sound. And it’s there. Just a breath. He’s beside me. Sucking in a deep breath, I lurch upright and swing, trying to assess his shape—primarily the location of his head—so that I can do the most damage.

  I make contact. A stinging curse rings out. His hand comes up to cover his ear, and I see that I’ve just grazed him.

  Grinding my teeth, I pull back, still clutching the rock, ready to try again. He guesses my intent. I see a flash of glittering eyes just as I’m tackled to the ground.

  I cry out. Pain bursts through me as I’m pinned. Hands grab my wrists and trap them against the cave floor. I whimper and choke at the stretch of screaming muscle in my shoulder. The sound turns into a twisting sob that doesn’t even sound like me but some wild animal.

  I surge against him, trying to fling him off. Even if I wasn’t so weak, it would be useless. His body is hard and strong over mine. Too late, I know I should have used the knife. I should have ignored that scrap of my old self that shied from killing.

  “Do you normally brain people to death after they go to the trouble of saving your life?”

  Panting, I eye him, appreciating the scrape of angry red skin on the side of his temple, courtesy of me.

  “If you’re such a Good Samaritan, get off me. You’re hurting me.”

  He holds my gaze for a long moment, the amber-gold of his brown eyes crawling over my face and throat, missing nothing. Yeah. Even that. He knows what I am. My fingers itch to touch the flesh there. Still. After all this time, I still want to hide it. Still want it gone. I feel a stab of regret that I couldn’t stick it out at Mount Haven. That I couldn’t last there long enough to win their offer to remove my imprint. It’s only a temporary regret, because then I remember how bad it was there—that they required me to kill a man. I had to leave. There was also the not-so-small incentive that Sean and Gil were leaving. With or without me. This reminder brings a fresh pang to my chest.

  I lost them anyway. I’m alone and at the mercy of this guy.

  He looks away, releasing my wrists. Plucking up the rock that I used to club him, he settles back down a few feet away from me, tossing it carefully between his hands.

  “Pretty resourceful for someone with a bullet in her shoulder.” He arches a dark eyebrow as though impressed.

  Wincing, I sit back up, scooting into a secure position and holding my arm close to my side as if that might somehow control my pain. My movements don’t do me any favors. Fresh blood trickles warmly down my back, soaking my shirt.

  I glance down at my knife, which he left beside me, and back up at him, wondering at his game. He couldn’t have forgotten about it.

  He watches me in turn, his expression mild, unconcerned. “Are you going to use that on me?”

  I stare, contemplating him as I pick the knife back up and stand with a grunt of discomfort. Looking down on him makes me feel somewhat better. “You want me to? Is that why you left it?”

  “If it makes you feel better, keep it.” Even as he says this, he doesn’t fool me. He looks hard. Like something that belongs here, a part of the unforgiving landscape. A shadow of scruff brushes his jaw. He hasn’t shaved in several days. A wide-brimmed hat hangs back behind his neck to protect him from the sun. And yet he’s still sun-browned. He wears an earth-colored poncho. More protection from the sun. My gaze drops to his boots again. They’re quality. Made for this type of living. If eking out an existence here could be called that. But isn’t that all I can hope for at this point?

  “What do you want with me?” I ask.

  “I can’t just want to help you?”

  Maybe I could have believed that a few months ago. The inherent goodness of my fellow man. But not anymore. The world isn’t the same. At least my world isn’t. I’m not brimming with faith in the humanity of others. Especially carriers.

  I nod to his pack. “Kick that over here.”

  He glances from it to me. Shaking his head, he starts to speak. “You have real trust issues.”

  “Just kick it over here.” After a moment of hesitation, he moves, pausing when I sharply instruct, “Don’t get too close. Keep your distance.”

  He kicks the bag, frowning, looking disappointed. And that annoys me. Why should he—a total stranger—act as though I disappointed him?

  Sitting back down, he looks up at me. “You’re not going to make it far. You’ve got a bullet in your shoulder.”

  “Yeah?” I snap. “I kind of noticed that, but than
ks for the tip.”

  His gaze skims me. “You’ll stand out like a hothouse rose there. There aren’t too many girls traipsing up and down the border all alone. How do you expect to make it out there—”

  “That’s my problem.”

  His eyes narrow on me. “You’ve got a funny way of showing your thanks.”

  His words give me pause. Is that what he’s truly doing? Helping me? I think of Tully then. And Jackson. Carriers I know. Guys who I would never want to be alone with. The things they would do to me . . .

  Death would be easier than any of those scenarios.

  How do I really know what this guy’s intentions are with me? He brought me to this cave for what? So that I could recuperate?

  The answer reverberates loud and clear in my head. Don’t trust him. You can’t afford to be wrong.

  I slip one strap of the backpack over my good shoulder. I nod at him, and the motion makes my head spin. I stagger sideways one step before righting myself, reaching a hand to the cave wall for balance. “Thanks. No hard feelings.”

  “Nice,” he says flatly as I inch around him, heading to where he entered, assuming the exit is that way. “I rescued you, and for that you’re stealing my stuff and taking off. You’re not going to make it. Just look at yourself. It’s the hottest part of the day, and patrols are swarming out there. In greater force than usual.” His amber eyes glint at me, sharp as a blade, cutting, probing. “Almost like they’re looking for someone.”

  His words make my stomach clench. Me. They’re looking for me. Maybe they already captured the others. God. Sean. Gil and Sabine.

  He continues, “Apparently some carriers made it across the river into Mexico last night. It’s all over the wire. I’m guessing you were with—”

  Everything inside me locks up tight. “Wait . . . what? I’m not in Mexico?” I press a hand to my forehead as if this information just pinged me like a rock in the face. I’d been so close. I was almost to the shore.

  He studies me a long moment, not responding right away. My heart thunders in my chest as I wait for an explanation. I lower my hand and demand hoarsely, “Tell me. Please.”