Under My Skin

  The wind has shifted since he arrived, but I don't need it anymore to track the rest of his team. Behind him, I see three of them approaching—wearing those distinctive FBI vests he mentioned a moment ago—and I assume there are more behind me.

  We're so screwed.

  We're all on our feet now.

  "Get out of here while you can," I tell Desmond out of the corner of my mouth. "No point in all of us being taken."

  Elzie nods in agreement, though her hard gaze never leaves Daniel. Desmond, as I should have expected, stays rooted to the spot.

  I feel my Wildling side straining to break free—an instinctive need to defend my pack, like we're all floating on the ocean and the sharks are circling in. It's all I can do to leave the decision of fight or flee to Elzie and Auntie Min. But taking off seems less and less of an option as the Federal agents draw closer.

  We have maybe a minute before we'll all be dancing on the ends of the wires from their Tasers. Except they're carrying rifles. It takes me a moment to realize that they must be tranquilizer guns. I suppose that even the FBI isn't going to Taze an old lady and a bunch of kids—not after the flak they must have caught with capturing Josh.

  Auntie Min regards Daniel evenly. As mild as her face is, the air feels charged with static electricity. "You seem confused," she tells him.

  He takes another step back, though she still hasn't even given him so much as a dirty look. He clears his throat.

  "What do you mean?" he asks.

  "You seem to think I care about the concerns of the five-fingered beings, or the cousins aligned with them."

  He shakes his head. "It doesn't matter if you care or not. You still have to come with us."

  She smiles. "Don't you remember who I am, young antelope?"

  She's so unthreatening that he seems to get some of his bravado back, though he maintains his distance from her.

  "Sure," he says. "You're Auntie Min—the old woman who thinks she's queen of the homeless."

  The FBI agents are almost upon us. This is it. We are caught unless Auntie Min can pull a miracle out from behind a sofa cushion or out of her sleeve. But all she does is hold out her hands to Daniel.

  "If that's all you remember," she says, "then put your handcuffs on me and take me away."

  "Auntie Min!" Elzie cries. "What are you doing?"

  All I can do is stare.

  "Shit," I hear Desmond mutter beside me. "My mom's going to kill me."

  Mamá isn't going to be happy with me, either, but that's the least of my worries. Bad enough I'm about to be arrested by the FBI, but what about when Mamá finds out I'm a Wildling? Or maybe they're going to disappear me and then she'll think I've just run away. Either way, it'll break her heart. And what about Josh? Who will save him now?

  "Really?" Elzie says. "We're not going to run?"

  "Why would we run?" Auntie Min says, keeping her gaze on Daniel. "We have done nothing wrong. We have broken no laws."

  "There's nowhere you can run," Daniel tells us.

  He's right. The FBI agents surround us now. Daniel turns to them.

  "You'd better tranq them now," he says, "before they change and take off. I don't know what their shapes are, but—"

  "That's enough, Reed," the lead agent says. "We'll take over from here."

  He has the handsome good looks of a leading man from one of those telenovelas I catch Mamá watching from time to time. Under his vest he wears a crisp white shirt and tie and well-tailored pants with a sharp crease.

  "But—" Daniel begins.

  "I said stand down," the agent tells him.

  "That's right," Elzie says. "Be a good little puppy and do what your master says."

  Daniel shoots her a dirty look. Auntie Min doesn't even acknowledge the presence of the FBI agents. All of her attention is still on Daniel.

  "You might consider this, Daniel," she says. "The Thunders gave you a great honour by waking the old blood in you. But they expect you to prove yourself worthy. Ask yourself this. Are you living a life of worth?"

  "You don't scare me," Daniel says.

  His eyes tell a different story. I'm not too comfortable with the question myself. What exactly is a life of worth? It probably doesn't include hiding your Wildling aspect and keeping a secret blog. So how would these Thunders judge me?

  The lead agent steps in between Daniel and Auntie Min.

  "Ma'am," he says. "I'm Special Agent Solana. The Bureau Chief has asked us to bring you all to headquarters."

  "Why?" Elzie says, her voice rising in anger. "What did we do? And what have you done with Josh?"

  "Hush now," Auntie Min says. "These men mean us no harm." Her gaze finally leaves Daniel and fixes on Agent Solana. "Do you, Señor Solana?"

  "No, Señora. The Chief only wants to talk to you."

  "What's going on here?" Daniel says. "This was supposed to be my—"

  Solana cut him off. "We have new orders." He turns back to us. "If you'll come with me?"

  Auntie Min now holds her hands out to him.

  "You can put your hands down," Solana tells her. "You're not being arrested."

  "Then why do we have to go with you?" Elzie demands.

  There's a wild, panicked look in her eyes and I realize that she's just as scared as Desmond and me. The difference is, she's on the offensive while we're just trying to make ourselves invisible. Neither strategy is doing much good. The only positive thing I can see is that the agents are no longer threatening us with their tranquilizer guns. Their rifles are slung over their shoulders, with the muzzles pointed to the ground.

  "Because I'm asking you nicely?" Solana says.

  "Hush now," Auntie Min tells Elzie. "The sooner we do what the nice gentleman asks, the sooner we'll be done with it."

  Solana and a tall blonde woman lead the way back to their cars. I fall in step beside Auntie Min. She takes my arm and leans on me as though she needs my support. I'm not fooled, but I suppose the Feds are.

  "Now listen to me," she says so softly that only I can hear. "Unless our lives are threatened, you have to keep that otter of yours under your skin, where it can't be seen. Don't show them what you have become and don't admit what you are."

  "But they already know we're Wildlings."

  "No, they have nothing they can prove. We will get through this so long as we don't give them fuel to treat us as anything but the five-fingered beings we present ourselves to be. You can pretend you're scared—that would be natural, given the circumstances—but no matter what they promise or how they threaten, do not allow them a glimpse of your true nature."

  "I don't have to pretend to be scared. And what about Daniel? He can tell them which of us are Wildlings."

  She squeezes my arm. "Don't worry. I don't think they put much faith in Daniel. You'll do just fine. Now make sure you let Desmond know what I said."

  "I think he'll keep his mouth shut this time. What about Elzie?"

  "She knows what she needs to do. She might complain bitterly, but she'll do the right thing."

  When we get to where the three black SUVs are parked all in a row, I make my way to Desmond's side and whisper the message that Auntie Min has asked me to give him.

  "Come on," he says in a low voice that doesn't hide his annoyance. "You don't think I haven't already figured that out? I'm not going to screw up again."

  "I know," I tell him, but it's more for his sake than because I believe it. The truth is, I can't be sure. "Auntie Min just asked me to tell you," I add.

  I turn away from Desmond and call over to Solana, "Can I send my mother a text? She's going to be worried."

  He stops on his way to the lead car.

  "Of course," he says. "You can have her meet us at the office if you like." He nods toward a man standing nearby. "Agent Bryden will give you the address."

  He keeps on going without checking what I'll do. Daniel joins him as he gets to the driver's door.

  Now I'm really confused. If I can ask Mamá to meet us at the FBI h
eadquarters, they're not planning to make us disappear, are they? They haven't tranquilized us. They haven't searched us or taken away our phones. They haven't put us in handcuffs. And now it's okay for me to text Mamá? So what do they want from us?

  "Are you sure you want to do that?" Desmond says under his breath as I take my phone from my pocket. He hugs me as if we're an item and puts his mouth to my ear. "You're going to spend an hour just trying to explain how you've ended up here. I mean, dude. Do your parents even suspect you're a Wildling?"

  I shake my head slightly.

  "And you want to open that can of worms with all of this going on?"

  I shake my head again. "You're right," I murmur, pulling back from him.

  And he is—if Agent Solana is really as benign as he seems to be. I glance over to where Solana and Daniel are having a hushed conversation by the side of the lead car. If I were an ordinary girl, they'd be too far away for me to hear, but the otter under my skin has excellent hearing.

  "—under control," Daniel is saying. "I didn't need you to step in and take over."

  "I know you're trying to prove yourself," Solana tells him, "but this was your first field assignment and these orders came directly from the Chief. He wants these people in his office and he wants it handled with kid gloves."

  "But why? I can tell him anything he needs to know about Wildlings."

  "Maybe so. Why don't you take it up with him?"

  "He doesn't like me," Daniel says.

  I have to smile. Does anybody?

  "I can't help you there," Solana says. "But if you want him to respect you, a good place to start might be not arguing about his orders."

  As I listen, I go ahead and send Mamá a text telling her I'm with Desmond and not to wait for me for dinner.

  Josh

  A buzzing sound fills my ears. My entire head is vibrating. My body aches and I can't seem to move my limbs. I'm vaguely aware of someone's foul breath as they lean over me, doing I don't know what. There are other sensations. A regular beeping sound—faint, but persistent. Have I heard it before? Something is fastened to my left middle finger. I try to raise that hand, but it remains stubbornly beside my body. I'm on my back. My bed feels hard. My head seems to be cradled by some metal support. Where is my pillow?

  I struggle to regain consciousness, to wake up from this bad dream. Am I naked? Why do we dream stuff like this? I'm almost there. I'll awake in my bed at home and this weird nightmare will be over. I summon all of my meager strength to wake myself up. My eyelids start to flutter open and I'm instantly blinded by bright fluorescent lights beaming down on me. Instinct has me shut my eyes. I don't know if I could've kept them open anyway.

  The mountain lion is straining to wake up inside me. There's an inherent sense of danger all around and strange antiseptic smells begin to seep into my consciousness. I can't subdue my Wildling sense of smell to block it out and I begin to gag involuntarily. Vomit rises from my stomach and wrenches my body, but I can't even turn my head to get rid of it. I'm drowning in my own puke. Why won't my eyes open?

  "Give me a hand here," a female voice says. It sounds faint and garbled. "Quick, we're losing him."

  Now my jaw is being wrenched to the side and vomit suctioned from my mouth. Something hard is being forced down my throat and I gag once more. A breathing tube. And again, the prick of an injection.

  The mountain lion and I fall back into the void once more.

  Marina

  They split us up for the drive. Daniel is in the front car, Auntie Min and I in the second, with Desmond and Elzie in the last. It's a short trip.

  There was never an FBI field office in Santa Feliz before the Wildlings outbreak—there'd been no need. But now they've taken over the old Bayside Realty building by the marina, which has been empty since all the mortgage foreclosures made them go out of business. I know all of this because Julie Harrison's mother worked there until Bayside closed. Julie and I used to go by after school every couple of weeks and wait for Mrs. Harrison to finish work. Then she'd drive us down the coast to Tiki Bay, where we'd surf until sunset. The only obvious difference between then and now is that the Bayside sign is gone and the parking lot is filled with black sedans, SUVs and vans.

  A crowd of reporters is milling outside the front doors, while the street is lined with news vans.

  "Damn," I hear Solana say over the car radio. "We'll go in the front and keep them busy. The rest of you take our guests in through the back."

  The lead car pulls into the front parking lot while we continue down the street, the car holding Desmond and Elzie following us. I look back to see the reporters swarming the first car until we're around the block. There's a newly erected tall chain-link fence all around the back lot, which makes me think of prison. One more turn and we pull up to a gate, where a guard lets the car through. We park by the back door of the building and the agents hustle us from the vehicles.

  "They're going to split us up," Desmond whispers to me as we're led into the building, "so let's stick to the same story. We were just hanging out. If they want anything else, just give them the silent treatment."

  I roll my eyes. Good luck with that, I think, but I don't say it aloud.

  But we aren't put in cells or even in separate interrogation rooms. Instead, we're all ushered into a large office on the second floor with a fabulous view of the marina. A large white man with a shaved head is behind the desk, peering at a laptop. He glances up, but doesn't rise when we're brought in. His dark suit is looking a little rumpled, the top button of his white shirt is undone, and his tie is hanging loose. Dark rings under his eyes tell me that he's tired and his five o'clock shadow might've been a fashion statement if he didn't look more like an accountant than an FBI agent. But although he only gives us a quick once-over before returning to whatever is on the screen of his laptop, I sense he's the kind of person who doesn't miss a thing.

  He motions distractedly toward a sofa and a pair of chairs along the wall. We head over to the seats.

  I watch the man at his keyboard. The screen casts a faint blue glow onto his face.

  "Sorry," he says. "I just need to finish this."

  Beyond the window, the masts of the boats in the marina look beautiful in the evening sun. I don't want to be here. I want to get Josh back. Then I want to return to Auntie Min's camp, where I can learn more about the old cousins and the new Wildlings. When she was talking about us, I didn't feel like a freak. I felt special. Like we have a purpose, even if we don't know exactly what that purpose is. I don't know how we're supposed to find out what it is, but I'm so ready to learn.

  After several minutes, Agent Solana and another man in a suit enter the room. They lean against the wall near the door. The new man's cold blue eyes give us a once-over before he turns his head toward Solana.

  "What've we got here?" he says in a voice so low that I only hear it because I'm a Wildling.

  I instantly dislike the newcomer. It's not just his creepy pale eyes. It's the way he carries himself. He's big and broad-shouldered with just a hint of swagger. And he clearly doesn't like us.

  "Beats me," Solana replies, leaning over to speak in the other man's ear. "The Chief just said to bring them in and to be nice about it. Boy, did that ever put a bug up Reed's ass."

  "Who gives a shit? The kid's an asshole. Using Wildlings to catch Wildlings was a lousy idea—I said it from the start."

  "Apparently we're not catching them anymore," Solana says. "Lindel wants us to—"

  He breaks off because the man at the desk shuts his laptop and looks across the desk at us.

  "Again," he tells us, "I'm sorry for making you wait. But ever since that boy got abducted at the school, there's been hell to play. Parents and the media are going nuts and politicians are after our heads." His gaze drifts over us. "Some of you are his friends, correct?"

  Desmond and I nod uncertainly. Elzie gives him a stone face. Auntie Min has taken out a bracelet of Hopi fetishes and is playing the carved anim
al figures through her fingers as though it's a rosary, except she's smiling, rather than looking serious the way Mamá does when she's saying her Hail Marys. Auntie Min doesn't seem to be paying attention to anything but her bracelet.

  "My name's Jason Lindel," he goes on, "and I'm the Bureau Chief here in the Santa Feliz office. I'm hoping we can help each other."

  "To do what?" I find myself asking.

  "To get your friend back."

  "Well you could just try releasing him," says Elzie, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

  "What would make you think we have him?" asks Lindel.

  "We were there," I say. "The FBI Tazed Josh and took him away."

  "That wasn't the FBI who abducted your friend. It was someone else."

  Elzie gives a derisive snort, but he ignores her, his gaze on me.

  "Anything you can tell us could help," he says. "Something he might have said, or that you might have noticed. Has he been in trouble lately? Have there been any suspicious strangers hanging around?"

  "Oh, come on," Desmond says. "There's been nothing but suspicious strangers hanging around."

  So much for the silent treatment. Des, I plead inwardly, please don't tell them too much.

  Lindel nods. "Can you describe these strangers?"

  Desmond hooks a thumb to where the two agents lean against the wall by the door.

  "Guys like that," he says.

  "So these men who took your friend—you've seen them before."

  "Dude," Desmond says, "your agents have been following him around for days now."

  Lindel's gaze goes briefly to his two men before returning to Desmond.

  "And you know this because …," Lindel checks a note on his desk, "… Joshua told you this?"

  "I know it because I'm not blind. Your men have been hanging around the school for days now. They're in our neighbourhood, following us everywhere ..."

  I think the Bureau Chief is being very patient, but I'm also proud of Desmond. He's keeping himself in check, but he's standing up to the cops who Tazed Josh and hauled him away. For my part, I just want to go hide somewhere—and I'm the Wildling.