Noah mumbled something that sounded like “okay,” then rummaged around in the center console until he found an open bag of chips. The jeep veered onto the road. We were only a few blocks away, so it took five minutes. Maybe ten because we hit every damn traffic light on Broadway. The entire way, all I could do was go over things in my head. Dylan had committed a crime. A crime against the military. The punishment was a death sentence. I’d known that, yet I’d still turned him in. Then, I’d changed my mind…
We pulled into the driveway, and Noah grunted. He pulled the key from the ignition and jabbed me in the arm with it. “What’s done is done. Let it go. Your blood pressure is going to shoot through the roof. Not to mention your—”
I rolled my eyes and clamped my hand across his mouth. “Thank you, Doctor Anderson.”
He snorted and got out of the car. I did the same. “All I’m saying is, you made a choice. You acted and now you gotta live with it. If we’re lucky, he’s two states over by now and is smart enough never to set foot near law enforcement again.” He moved to unlock the front door, pausing a moment to scowl at me. “And seriously, is there a reason you’re wearing your blacks? Do you need to do everything in that stupid uniform?”
I was damn proud of this uniform. Noah didn’t quite understand it. He’d grown up taking the establishment for granted, but not me. Unlike the Anderson family, whose trust and friendship had been given freely, the army was the only thing in my life that I ever truly cared about. That I’d ever truly wanted. It meant something to wear this uniform.
When I wore this uniform, I meant something.
I waggled my eyebrows and shouldered him aside as he pulled the key from the lock. “Your sister loves my blacks—so yes.” Over the threshold and into the living room. The Anderson house was someplace I knew better than my own home. I’d practically lived here since I was six. “Kori?”
“You sure she told you to meet her here? I thought she was headed to the park to sketch.” I pulled out my cell to double-check the text. “Yep. Says the house.”
We searched the entire place and came up empty. It wasn’t until we came back down to the living room that I noticed the basement door was open a crack. “Kori?”
“She’s not down there, man. She hates the basement.” Noah snickered. “I might have locked her in there when she was nine and told her an evil version of the Easter Bunny was going to eat her…”
I snorted. “You’re such an ass…”
He was right, though. I knew she wouldn’t be down there. But I started down the steps anyway, aware of an odd feeling settling in my gut. The lights were all off, so I couldn’t see a thing, and when I got to the bottom and stepped onto the last stair, my foot slid in something slick, and my leg gave out. I ended up in a heap on the carpet while Noah snickered and groped for the light.
“The army must be desperate…” Light filled the stairwell and Noah’s face turned ashen. “Is that blood?”
I’d started to pick myself up and froze, the air in my lungs all but turning to stone. It was blood. The entire bottom step was coated in it. It dripped to the floor, a thin trail of the stuff leading down the hall and around the corner toward the laundry room.
“She’s a klutz, too,” he said. He was shaking his head slowly, but there was panic in his eyes. “Just like you. She cut herself. Banged her head. Head wounds bleed like motherfu—”
I was up and running in an instant. Noah was right on my heels. He was yelling. He might have been cursing—the guy had a mouth worse than any trucker I’d ever seen—or he could have been calling out for Kori. It was all just white noise though. There was so much blood.
Too much.
For a few seconds I convinced myself it wasn’t her. We barreled into the laundry room, and at the far end, handcuffed and hanging from the pipes, was a girl. But she wasn’t my girl. She couldn’t be.
I threw myself forward, falling on my knees and slipping in the growing pool of blood. Noah had pushed ahead of me. He had his shirt off and was ripping it in half. When it was separated, he was beside the girl, tying the pieces over her wrists in violent, jerky motions.
“Here,” he snapped. He grabbed my hand and wrapped the bandage tightly around her arm. “Pressure point. Inside fold of her elbow. Hold as firm as you can.”
I did as I was told, never taking my eyes off her. Vaguely I was aware that Noah was on the phone. I heard the word ambulance, and bits and pieces of the address, then nothing. The sound of my own pulse, ramped and thundering in my ears, drowned it all out. “Don’t do this, Kori. Stay with us. Stay with me.”
“He got the vein. Nicked the artery but didn’t slice through…” Noah was beside me, putting pressure on the inside of her other arm. Somehow he’d gotten her down. She wasn’t attached to the pipe anymore. “It’s been too long, though. She’s lost too much.”
That snapped my attention back. He wasn’t looking at me. I didn’t think he was even talking to me. He had a habit of talking to himself when things got bad. Entire conversations and arguments fought and won all by himself. “Noah…”
He looked up, and I knew. I could see it in his eyes, in his expression. I could tell from the lack of life in his eyes. The way he shook his head was almost surreal. Once to the left, and then once to the right. Like the effort was almost too much. “They’re coming, but they won’t get here in time, Cade. It was too late when we got here.”
I stared at him, sure I’d heard wrong. He couldn’t possibly be suggesting…
He got the vein…
His words finally settled, and something rumbled in the back of my mind. Something dark and violent. “He who?” When Noah didn’t answer, I lost it. “He who? Who did this?”
He didn’t answer, but turned, his fingers still stroking the edge of her hair. I followed his gaze to the mirror above the dump sink. Written in what looked like lipstick was, How does it feel?
“No…” Though really, I’d already known.
I looked down. She was gone. It was strange, but I could tell by the air in the room. The lack of life, of spark. Kori had an energy that was almost electric. I felt it whenever she entered a room. She had a way of breathing light into darkness, into my darkness. Now, there was nothing. The space around me was a void and my insides were just…gone. I was hollow.
The room faded away. Brick and mortar, plaster and paint, none of it existed anymore. Nothing existed except for her.
And the rage.
I shifted so that I could lay her gently on the floor. After that I was moving. Noah called after me, but I ignored him. He wanted me to stay with her. To wait… But there was no one left to stay with. Nothing left to wait for. No. I didn’t need to wait.
I needed to act. Fast.
I didn’t remember the walk outside, or getting behind the wheel of the jeep. I came back to myself only when I realized Noah had the keys.
Keys he was holding out to me. “He needs to fucking pay.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. If I opened my mouth, all that would come out was blackness and rage. It was in my blood, the anger. Dylan and I, we worked so hard to combat it. Took so much care in keeping it tucked away beneath the skin. Our father’s legacy had been a constant cloud over both our heads. He’d unleashed his today.
I wasn’t far behind.
The car ride from the house to Cora’s lab normally took fifteen minutes. I blew every light and got us there in six. On the way I called the general. Told him he needed to meet me at the lab. That my brother had escaped. That he was heading there to break in, to steal tech.
To skip…
He’d started to question where I’d heard the term—Infinity was highly classified—but I hung up on him. The fewer questions he asked, the better. We could hash it out after this was over. After we’d made my brother pay for what he’d done. If I had to take us both out, Dylan wasn’t leaving this place. At least not while there was breath in his lungs.
When we pulled up in front of Cora’s lab, I
didn’t even bother killing the engine. Noah and I were out of the jeep and into the building in a flash. I flew past the elevator and burst through the stairwell door, taking the steps three, sometimes four at a time. By the time I hit the bottom landing, the pounding of my pulse and the itch in my fingers to tear into Dylan was all-consuming.
I rounded the corner and charged through the door to find him bent over a small box. I didn’t think. I didn’t hesitate or second guess my actions. I launched myself at him with every ounce of pain and rage over what he’d done fueling the attack.
“How could you!” I roared, grabbing him by the neck and throwing him sideways. I’d caught him off guard, so he tumbled to the left, but caught himself before going down completely.
Dylan opened his mouth, but I wasn’t interested. There was nothing he could say, no excuse he could possibly concoct, that would justify what he’d done. I balled my fists tight and hit him in the face as hard as I could.
“She was innocent!” I hit him again.
“You knew what she meant to me.” Another blow.
“She was your friend!” I swung again. That time, though, Dylan pivoted and ducked. The blow sailed harmlessly by, the momentum of it sending me off-balance. I crashed into a workstation as Noah propelled himself at my brother, a fury-filled roar on his lips.
“You sick fuck,” he spat as his fists pummeled Dylan. One to the gut, another to the side of the head.
Dylan went down, crashing into a small metal cart a few feet away.
I started toward him, but Noah beat me to it. He fell to his knees and began whaling on him. One. Two. Three. Four… He was lost in the rage. So lost that he didn’t see Dylan’s hand groping for the broken leg of the cart.
I called out a warning, but it was too late. Dylan brought the metal thing up with brutal force. It connected with the side of Noah’s head and sent him sprawling sideways.
“Now you know how I feel,” Dylan bellowed as he climbed to his feet. He snatched something off the table beside him—one of the project’s cuffs—and clicked it into place around his wrist. “Now you have to live my nightmare.”
The fury in his voice stopped me from throwing myself at him again. In that moment, the overwhelming reality of what had happened hit me, crushing my body like a fifty-ton weight. “It’s not the same.” There was anger in my voice, but something else as well. Something defeated. “I didn’t kill Ava. What you did to—”
The general burst in, rushing forward. But Dylan was smart. He would have anticipated trouble. In a blurring move, he reached behind him and whipped out a pistol, pointing it at the general. “Stop.”
Karl froze, the expression on his face a mix of fury and horror. “Take it easy.” He held up both hands. “You’re making this worse for yourself.”
“You…” Dylan spat the word like the vilest of curses. “You deserve this as much as he does.” He jabbed a finger at me. “He took her from me, but you’re keeping her from me.”
“Cade,” the general said. Noah was stumbling upright a few feet away, the both of us covered in blood. His eyes flickered from Dylan to me, widening. “That’s a lot of blood. You boys all right?”
“It’s not—”
“They got their asses kicked, but most of that blood doesn’t belong to them. Its Kori’s,” Dylan said smugly.
The general’s expression twisted, almost as though he didn’t believe it. A second later, he started forward.
Dylan popped off the safety. “Not kidding, old man. Stop.” He held up his arm and gave it a shake. “I’m leaving. You won’t stop me from finding Ava—or getting my revenge. You both kept me from the person I loved; now I’m going to return the favor. Everywhere I go, every place I skip to, I’m going to kill her. I won’t stop until every single Kori Anderson is wiped from the face of this planet.”
“You’re not leaving this lab,” the general said. His voice was low, dangerous. I’d heard that tone from him only once before, when I was little and Kori had had an issue with someone bullying her at school.
Dylan sighed and readjusted the weapon. “Wrong. You’re the one who isn’t leaving this—”
I kicked out and knocked the gun from his hand. Dylan cursed and dove for the table and Noah and the general rushed forward. They weren’t fast enough, though. He pressed his fingers to the inside of the cuff and, as I lunged for him, he grinned. His boot came at me, lightning fast, and everything swam. My forehead kissed the edge of a metal table, and when the world stopped spinning, Noah, the general, and I were the only ones in the lab.
Noah helped me off the tile floor. “We have to move fast,” he said. “We have to—”
“She’s gone?” He shook his head. “Tell me I’m wrong. That I misunderstood.” His gaze dropped to my blood-soaked shirt. “That it’s not hers…”
I’d never seen the general, the man who’d raised me, a man whose strength and fortitude helped shape the person I’d grown into, look so broken. I understood it. A part of me was already rotting away. Dead and decaying beyond hope of revival. But I couldn’t call up sympathy. Not in that moment. All I had was anger.
I dove for the table and grabbed the last two remaining cuffs. Dylan had taken three of the cuffs in the set with him, but that was fine. I only needed two. I tossed one to Noah. “Find the prep serum.”
He nodded and took off for the set of cabinets on the far wall.
“No,” the general said, shaking his head. The dazed look in his eyes faded, replaced by something violent. Almost animal like. “He won’t get away with this. I’ll send a team—”
“No team, sir.” I held up the last remaining cuff. “Two left. That’s it. Noah and me.”
“You’re just out of basic, and Noah is a civilian. You cannot possibly expect me to allow you use of a top secret military project—one you should know nothing about—to exact vengeance.”
“What I expect,” I said, using a tone I’d never used with him before. “Is for you to allow your son, Kori’s brother, and the guy who loved her more than his own life, to go after her killer.”
Noah returned with two syringes. They were filled with a pale pink liquid. “I think this is it.”
“You think?”
He shrugged, and without hesitating, popped off the cap and plunged the needle into his skin.
The general’s face contorted. “What are you—”
“Dad, Cade is right. There’s no one on this Earth who will do more to find Dylan than us. There’s no one who will be more motivated.”
He shook his head. I could see he was torn. Ripped in half—loving father and loyal general.
“No one knows him like we do, sir.”
He squeezed his eyes closed for a minute. When he opened them again, there was a spark of determination there. “Go. Bring that bastard back so I can watch him die. But be warned, you do this at your own risk. I cannot officially give you my permission. If you take this action, you accept full responsibility for the consequences. You’re subjecting yourself to the possibility of the death penalty for a crime against the military.”
I nodded as Noah sank the needle into my upper arm, then slapped the cuff around my ankle. It was just in time. A moment later, everything grew hazy. My stomach roiled, and a wave of nausea hit hard. One minute we were standing in front of the general, his grim expression a warning. The next we were standing outside the lab, alone.
On another version of Earth.
If you loved INFINITY,
don’t miss Jus Accardo’s TOUCH
Available now!
A Denazen Novel
TOUCH
Chapter One
I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were there, waiting at the bottom. Bloodthirsty little shits—they were probably praying for this to go badly. “What do you think—about a fifteen-foot drop?”
“Easily,” Brandt said. He grabbed my arm as a blast of wind whipped around us. Once I was steady on my skateboard, he tipped back his beer and downed what was left.
>
Together, we peered over the edge of the barn roof. The party was in full swing below us. Fifteen of our closest—and craziest—friends.
Brandt sighed. “Can you really do this?”
I handed him my own empty bottle. “They don’t call me Queen of Crazy Shit for nothing.” Gilman was poised on his skateboard to my left. Even in the dark, I could see the moonlight glisten off the sweat beading his brow. Pansy. “You ready?”
He swallowed and nodded.
Brandt laughed and tossed the bottles toward the woods. There were several seconds of silence, then a muted crash, followed by hoots and hysterical laughter from our friends below. Only drunk people would find shattering bottles an epic source of amusement.
“I dunno about this, Dez,” he said. “You can’t see anything down there. How do you know where you’re gonna land?”
“It’ll be fine. I’ve done this, like, a million times.”
Brandt’s words were clipped. “Into a pool. From a ten-foot-high garage roof. This is at least fifteen feet. Last thing I want to do is drag your ass all the way home.”
I ignored him—the usual response to my cousin’s chiding—and bent my knees. Turning back to Gilman, I smiled. “Ready, Mr. Badass?”
Someone below turned up one of the car stereos. A thumping techno beat drifted up. Hands on the sill behind me, drunken shouts of encouragement rising from below, I let go.
Hair lashed like a thousand tiny whips all along my face. The rough and rumbling texture of the barn roof beneath my board. Then nothing.
Flying. It was like flying.
For a few blissful moments, I was weightless. A feather suspended in midair right before it fluttered gracefully to the ground. Adrenalin surged through my system, driving my buzz higher.
The crappy thing about adrenalin highs, though? They never last long enough.