Crash Morph: Gate Shifter Book Two (43 page)

Hopefully, no one would ever believe them.

Even as I thought it, Jazzy smiled at me. Her skepticism about my story was still there, I could feel it, but I could also feel her choosing to let it go. Whatever else she thought about what had happened that day, she’d definitely decided I was one of the good guys.

“So this is Nik?” she said, quirking an eyebrow. She gave him a once-over, then grinned at me a bit cheekily. “He’s, uh...pretty cute.”

Laughing, in spite of myself, I moved in front of Nik anyway, blocking his more, uh, private areas, from view of the two high school students.

No reason to corrupt the minds of children, after everything else.
 

Even so, her words brought reality back to me, at least to some degree. Looking at Nik more seriously, I motioned with my head for him to follow me to the other side of the car. Walking well around Evers’ fallen and now pretty gross-looking body, I made my way to the hood of the car, using the car’s banged up body for balance with my free hand.

Nik followed me, seeming to understand why I was doing it.

Once we got there, and hopefully out of earshot of the two girls, I leaned closer to him, kissing him on the cheek.

“You better go,” I told him, meeting his gaze. “They can’t find you out here naked.” Seeing Nik’s puzzled look, I shook my head. “...I’m not saying they’d know what it means, but it’ll cause too many questions. I think you should go. When the cops come, I’ll tell them that you had a car nearby. I’ll say you left to get help. All right?”

Nik stared at me. I could tell something was there, on the tip of his tongue. Something he wanted to say to me, or to ask maybe, but he didn’t seem to know how to say it, or ask it...or maybe he just couldn’t decide if now was the right time.

I could relate. I had about a million questions for him, too.

But I had a feeling Gantry was screaming down the freeway at about 120 mph with his team, and probably half of the Seattle PD not far behind, given all the 9-1-1 calls they must have gotten from a dinosaur chasing cars on northbound Highway 5...or two dinosaurs fighting in a field while an SUV rolled, assuming any witnesses got a good look at
that
action, too.

So yeah, unlike Nik maybe, I knew it wasn’t the right time.

I was about to prod him again, to tell him to go, before Gantry and the rest of the posse got there, when Nik slid his arms around me suddenly, pulling me up against him.

He kissed me before I could wrap my head around what he was doing, winding his arms tighter around me as he did it, coiling his fingers into my hair and around my hip as he crushed me against him.
 

For a long moment, yeah, I didn’t care about much else, either.

I kissed him back, letting my relief at him being alive really hit me for the first time. He was stroking my face with his fingers then, kissing me harder even as he pressed me against the hood of the car.

Then, after what felt like a long...but not nearly long enough...time, he released me.

I watched him walk away, heading in a diagonal line south towards the road. I already knew he’d veer off once he was out of sight of the car, and walk into the woods.
 

I didn’t question how I knew that, either.

I did know there was no second car. Nik would be flying home. Or walking.

That time, when I glanced back towards the SUV’s windshield, I saw two teenaged girls giggling at me from the back seat. Even Hilary was smiling, even if she still looked overly pale and kind of out of it. They pointed at me when I faced them both, giggling harder and talking to one another although I couldn’t hear their words.

Under normal circumstances, I might have rolled my eyes.

That time, I just grinned back at them, feeling another intense flush of relief.

Of course, I knew I’d have to answer for killing Evers, in one shape or form, but I wasn’t too worried about that, given everything. Only a few, simple things mattered to me as I stared through the cracked windshield of that black, crunched up, wreck of a BMW.

Nik was alive.

I was alive.

So were Gantry and Irene.

So was my screw-up of a brother, Jake, for that matter...who I loved, in spite of everything.

I’d managed to keep my promise to Mr. Jiāng. Even if it was a dumb promise, and one I probably should never have made...I’d kept it.

And yeah, okay, so a bunch of alien shape-shifters were still roaming around Washington State, including their leader, who’d just tried to kidnap me...and finger me for terrorism...and sell me to some mob bosses from Eastern Europe. I hadn’t forgotten all of that.

But I decided I wouldn’t worry about it, either.

I decided that was a problem for another day.

Or so I hoped.

19

Boy Fights and a Late Confession

“Gantry, jeez...” I rolled my eyes in mock drama, letting my weight fall back into the beat-up but extremely comfy leather chair. “Give it a rest, will you? Just one day. Everything’s fine. You wouldn’t be using your guys for this if it wasn’t...”

The tall ex-Marine stared down at me, his blue eyes boring into my face.

Still, I could tell he heard me.

I could also tell he wasn’t being entirely honest about what bugged him about all of this.

A flicker of what might have been guilt crossed his tanned face, probably because he could see some of my thoughts on my face...or maybe because I was still pretty beat-up from my adventures of the previous week...or maybe both. All in all, I felt pretty okay, despite everything. Tired, sure, and sore still. I was definitely on the mend, however, and ready to get back to work.

“Look,” I said. “I’m not sure what you want me to do about it, exactly.”

“Control him,” Gantry said, his voice a near-growl.
 

I snorted a laugh that time, giving Gantry a pointed look. “Seriously?”

“He listens to you more than he does me!” Gantry said, undaunted by my humorous head-shake and a second exhale meant to convey I thought he was off his rocker. “I don’t trust any of this! I don’t trust that fucker, Razmun...or any of what he says he’s going to do.” Gantry bit his lip, as if suppressing something else he would have liked to say, too.

I frowned a little, wondering what that was all about.

Then I shook it off.

“Nik is trying to negotiate with them,” I explained patiently. “Given the events of the past few weeks, I thought you’d find that reassuring...or at least a step in the right direction.”
 

“Getting them off Earth would be a lot more reassuring, Tonto.”

I conceded his point with a wave of my hand. “Nik said he’d offer to help them with that,” I said. “It’s a win-win, Gantry,” I added, looking up at him again. “Let Nik handle it. They’re his people. He understands them. And he knows Razmun. Razmun agreed to leave all humans alone while they worked out the details of their agreement...” I let my own eyes narrow when I saw Gantry frown, the look on his face making it clear just how much he trusted that agreement. “You just don’t trust Nik...if you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I added.

“Why the hell would I trust him, chica?” Gantry burst out. “He nearly got you killed!”

I felt my jaw harden.
“He
nearly got me killed?”

I saw a hurt look flicker across Gantry’s face. More guilt quickly followed.

Looking at him, it occurred to me how he’d taken my words.
 

“I didn’t mean that,” I said impatiently. “I was talking about Evers. And Razmun. And those crazy Russians...not you. I know you were trying to find me, G-man.”

“I don’t know how he slipped my guys,” Gantry muttered.

I waved that off, fighting not to be annoyed.
 

Gantry had been beating himself up for losing Evers ever since that crap all went down the week before. At this point, I really wanted him to let it go. I had enough to deal with, with Nik hovering over me 24/7 and him going into formal negotiations with Razmun and me spending way too much of my time both at the hospital and then at the police station. I’d almost been relieved when Nik announced he was going to go talk to Razmun, if only so I’d have some time to myself, to just watch bad television and space out.

More and more, Nik’s going to Razmun directly struck me as a really good idea.

After all, at base, Razmun wanted the same thing as we did.

Meaning, all of us wanted Razmun and his friends to leave Earth. All of us wanted them to find a planet where no humans lived.
 

The only real sticking point was Nik himself.
 

Razmun, last I knew, had been determined to bring Nik with him to that new morph-only world. I could only hope he could let go of that idea, because I seriously doubted that would work out well for Nik, whatever Gantry tried to imply.

Nik agreed with me.

Even so, Nik didn’t trust Razmun to negotiate openly on that point, either. He also told me that he thought Razmun suffered some kind of “emotional attachment” to the idea that defied reason to a large degree. I could tell something in that had to do with Nik having been lock-bonded to Razmun when they were young, but Nik was cagey about it, and I didn’t ask.
 

I knew from other things Nik said, that being lock-bonded to someone against his will was a kind of hell for him. It was by far the worst part of being enslaved, according to Nik.
 

He didn’t go into detail, but I knew he’d been forced into a lock-bond with his human owner, Yaffa, and that they’d tortured him to get him to do it. I also knew the guy was a total reptile, and that he’d treated Nik like shit. Due to the nature of the lock-bond, Nik had been unswervingly loyal to Yaffa, anyway. He couldn’t help himself, from what he told me. Rebellion was out of the question. Escape, even more so. For a morph, having someone hold your lock wasn’t
just
having your shifting ability owned by someone else...it was having your mind and heart and even your perception of reality owned by someone else, too.

Nik also told me that I’d been the first lock-mate he’d ever
really
chosen himself.
 

Unsurprisingly, Razmun had been the one to approach Nik when they were kids. While Razmun may not have tortured Nik to get him to agree, Nik described the other morph’s pursuit of him as “incredibly persistent.” Nik had been young enough and naïve enough to be flattered by the attention...and also to mistake it for loyalty and affection.

Nik now strongly suspected that, even back then, Razmun’s motives for wanting Nik as a lock-mate had less to do with affection and more to do with controlling him. Nik admitted he hadn’t seen it clearly at the time, again in part due to the bond itself, but that he’d sensed that Razmun had been jealous of him. Maybe more than jealous. Nik even suspected that Razmun had pushed his sister and Nik together romantically, to strengthen that bond between them, and to solidify Razmun’s control in the long-term.

Nik described it by saying that he, meaning Nik, had something Razmun wanted.
 

When I asked him what that something was, Nik got cagey again, but I definitely got the sense it had to do with the gates. Nik did tell me that his mind worked differently than that of most morph. He said that Razmun didn’t really understand how Nik’s mind worked, which made him want to control Nik even more.