Havoc (6 page)

“How about I help you with dinner later?” Dalton asked her.

His mom shook her head. “No, don't worry about it, dear,” she said. “Invite your friends in, it's chilly out.”

No longer interested in Dalton, his dog stepped forward and started sniffing around my pelvis. I'd never played with dogs much. I patted him softly on the head. He continued snorting my lady bits.

Dalton let go of his mom and waved us forward. “Come on in, guys. Spence, you know Max. Emily, don't mind him, he's just friendly.”

Spencer laughed. “Yeah, he's
super
friendly!”

“Max, come!” Dalton commanded. He slapped his thighs and the dog thumped back inside, then disappeared into a hallway. Dalton motioned for me and Spencer to follow.

I nodded politely at Mrs. McKinney as we passed. She offered me a smile, but it wasn't genuine, not like with Dalton—she was clearly not pleased with the intrusion.

Dalton had us take off our shoes and leave them by the front door, then led us out of the spacious foyer. We went up a flight of stairs, the carpet soft beneath my socked feet, to an impeccable professionally decorated hall. And I mean impeccable—there wasn't a bit of animal fur on the carpet, not a smudge of dirt on the walls. The pictures were aligned perfectly straight, arranged symmetrically with various potted plants.

Dalton opened a door and ushered us into his bedroom. It was twice as big as mine, with half designated for his sleeping area—including a king-size bed covered with tangled sheets and a dresser with most of the drawers pulled out, socks and shirts hanging over the edge—and half for a messy desk, a recliner, and a workout bench.

Snagging a dirty towel off a barbell, he halfheartedly swabbed down the bench and sat down. Spencer plopped into the recliner familiarly, and I pulled out the desk chair. There were a couple of workout magazines on it, so I set those on the desk and sat down.

Not that I was going to say anything to Dalton, but I could no longer smell his and Spencer's musky scents. The room stank overwhelmingly of
boy
.

Dalton leaned onto his knees, grinning at both of us. “I'm so glad you guys actually came. I was worried I imagined it all.”

I bit my lip. “It was real, I promise. And … are you really okay, Dalton? I mean, you were shot in the head, but you look like you just got a scratch. I'm surprised they even let you out of the hospital.”

Spencer seemed to be ignoring us both, intently focused as he was on getting the recliner to spin him 360 degrees just with a shove off from the tip of his sock-covered toes.

Dalton's grin faded. “Yeah, I think I'm all right. I think so.” His hand rose to absentmindedly touch his bandaged temple. “The doctors said that I'm lucky to be alive, let alone walking and talking normally so soon. They couldn't believe how fast I healed up. They didn't even want to release me, but my father insisted very angrily until they let me out. I'm guessing I'm only better because of what we are, huh?”

“I guess it must be,” I said. “I mean, Spencer and I both got stabbed when … well, when we fought the BioZenith guy. By morning there weren't even scars.”

“BioZenith guy?” Dalton asked. “You mean my father?” He laughed to himself before I could correct him. “No, that's dumb. You mean the man with the hat. The one who shot me.”

Flashes of Dr. Elliott's face hit my head. The stubbly jowls. The defeated, defiant eyes. The contortions of fear that his features were stuck in after he was dead.

“Yeah. Dr. Gunther Elliott. Do you remember much of what happened that night?”

Dalton shook his head. “I dunno, I was just feeling real antsy, real angry. That happens sometimes, but usually it's not as bad as that night. I tried to drown it with beer, even though Coach says to avoid the stuff, and then you were there, and Nik was mad at me, and then … that's it. Next thing I remember I was in a hospital bed, then home.”

“What about last night?” I asked. “I saw a wolf outside. Was that you?”

Nodding rapidly, Dalton said, “Yeah, that was me. They brought me home and I got all antsy again, just like that night. I snuck out for a walk—my mom doesn't like me going out by myself anymore—and then… I was just turning into this
thing
. It hurt, man, but when I was running around … it felt like I was finally me again. My brain didn't lose track. I didn't have any worries. Just me and the woods and the streets.”

There came a
pop
and a
bang
, and I jumped. I turned to find Spencer staring at us sheepishly, having just accidentally popped out the footrest on the recliner. I couldn't help but laugh at his expression. He was embarrassed, and it was
adorable
.

“Sorry,” he said. “But man, first night back and you already got out more than I ever did. Emily was out at clubs and stuff, and I always just stayed home programming.”

Dalton looked at me with that vague smile again. It felt a little weird, like he was seeing something that wasn't there.

“You went clubbing?” he asked. “You don't seem like that's your thing. But you looked different at the party.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, well, nighttime me is a bit more, uh, carefree than I usually am.”

He leaned forward again, a fire behind his eyes. “They told me that they found the shooter behind Spencer's house,” he said in a low voice. “Dead. Dogs did it, but that isn't right, is it? It was you guys.”

Spencer and I both fell silent. Embarrassed heat rushed over my skin—embarrassed, of all things. I know, right? Whoops, tore out a man's throat, how untoward of me! So not toward.

Eventually I nodded, confirming.

Dalton's eyes darted between us. “What was it like?” he asked.

A chill ran up my arms. I didn't know how to answer. I didn't
want
to answer. It wasn't something I had expected anyone to ask, let alone Dalton “helps old ladies cross the street” McKinney.

As though sensing my discomfort, Spencer piped up. “Um, it's not really a good memory, man,” he said. “Maybe we'll talk about it some other time. We should start doing some research or something before it gets too late.”

Dalton lay back against the workout bench, his arms behind his head. “It's fine, we have all night. My mom and father won't make me get rid of my friends. They're tiptoeing around me.”

“Actually, we don't have all night,” I said. “Spencer and I … well, we've sort of been taking sleeping pills to keep us from changing.”

Dalton furrowed his brow. “Why?”

I crossed my arms. “So, uh, we don't get into trouble. Or any more trouble anyway. Last time we went nighttime, we … that was when Dr. Elliott found us.”

Crunching his stomach, Dalton rose back up to sit. “Man, it sounds like I missed out on all the excitement.”

Spencer kicked down the footrest and swiveled the recliner once more. “Totally, man. Next time try not to get shot.”

Dalton laughed, a little too loudly, then shook his head. “Okay. Research. Yeah, just love research. What do you guys know about all this?”

We went back and forth, Spencer and I, relaying the relevant info: our respective nighttime changes (how I became all uninhibited, how he became super focused), how Dr. Elliott had targeted us, how we kept seeing shadowy beings when we were wolves, and how two of the shadowmen had sort of attacked us in our beds the night before. I mentioned how aside from Emily Cooke and Dalton, we only knew for sure that there was one more of us—a female who we were still trying to sniff out. Or Spencer was, anyway. My only guess so far was Mai Sato, though granted that was on some flimsy circumstantial evidence.

I also told him how we'd looked up connections between ourselves and BioZenith, and though both Dalton and Emily Cooke had a parent who worked there, as far as Spencer and I knew, neither of us did.

At that last part, Dalton got up and walked to the desk. He leaned over me, smelling overwhelmingly like a locker room, then waved his mouse to clear the screen saver and began clicking on his monitor. He seemed completely unaware that his armpit was inches from my face. Eyes wide, I leaned back—hello, privacy invasion.

When he finally pulled back, I surreptitiously took in a deeeeep breath of comparatively fresh air and took a look at what he'd brought up on-screen. It was some sort of spreadsheet listing times and dates.

“What's that?” I asked.

“It's the schedule,” Dalton said simply. It seemed completely unintelligible to me, but he scanned it with his eyes, then nodded.

“He'll be home any second now.”

And downstairs I heard the front door slam heavily and a man's voice echo up through the floorboards.

Dalton looked between me and Spencer. “Let's see if we can get anything out of my father.”

6

WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT BIOZENITH

I tiptoed down the plush steps behind Dalton and Spencer, one hand clinging to the railing as we descended to the first floor. I could hear Dalton's dad clearly now. He wasn't shouting, exactly, but he talked as if he was speaking to an auditorium, and his deep voice reverberated through the halls.

“I know he just got back from the hospital, Darla, but he knows that his friends only park on the street. He knows that.”

I heard Dalton's mom respond, but she was so quiet I couldn't make out the words.

Dalton's dad sighed. “Fine. For today, fine.”

Dalton walked confidently through the foyer, leading us into a den (where Max now lay snoozing on a plush baby-blue love seat), then through a large dining room, and finally into the kitchen, where we saw his parents both standing by the sink. Mrs. McKinney was quietly putting dishes in the dishwasher while behind her, on the stove, something simmered in a pot. Mr. McKinney had his back to us and was drinking from a mug as he leafed through mail that had been set on the counter.

Mr. McKinney was almost the spitting image of what I imagined Dalton would look like in thirty years: tall, graying at the temples, still well built but a little soft around the middle from no longer being as active. He turned as he heard the three of us pad into the kitchen, and I saw that he shared Dalton's green eyes, though they were wrinkled at the edges.

Mr. McKinney gave me a strange look. “Uh, hello, Spencer, and … friend.” To Dalton, he said, “I'll let it slide today, D, but tomorrow I don't want to come home to find my driveway taken up by other vehicles.”

Dalton's eyes darted back and forth, studying his dad's face. His expression was unreadable, though I sensed a vague smirk. “No,” Dalton said. “No, I think when it's raining, it's fine for my friends not to have to hike across the yard to get inside.”

Mr. McKinney's lips pressed into a tight line, and he set his mug down on the counter, hard. He looked as if he was about to say something—until Dalton absently raised his hand once more and rubbed at the bandage that covered his healing wound.

Uh, wow, manipulative. I didn't know Dalton had it in him. I wondered if he'd even known he'd made the gesture—if so, maybe he wasn't exactly the nice guy I'd assumed he was.

Dalton's father breathed out through his nose. “We'll talk about it later. How about you kids clear out of the kitchen so your mother can finish our dinner. She feels crowded.”

Mrs. McKinney said nothing, just kept up the pattern of rinsing a dish, then placing it into the dishwasher with little clinks.

“Actually, Father, we wanted to ask you some questions,” Dalton said.

Mr. McKinney raised an eyebrow. “Oh? About what?” “About your job. We're supposed to do a project on an exceptional person's exceptional work. We chose you.”

Tossing down the mail, Mr. McKinney smiled. “Ah, a school project.” His eyes darting to me, he said, “That explains it.”

Yeah. Thanks. Even aside from being part of the whole evil-bioengineering-firm thing, I wasn't exactly growing very fond of Dalton's dad.

“Well, come on then, I have a couple of free minutes. Let's go back to my office.”

Mr. McKinney left the kitchen, and Dalton gestured for us to follow. I gave Spencer a wide-eyed look, and he whispered to me, “You get used to him.”

We went down another hallway, this one slick hardwood. My socked feet slid and I almost fell, my arms pinwheeling wildly until Dalton caught me firmly by the arm and helped me regain my balance. Both he and Spencer held back their laughter as an oblivious Mr. McKinney opened up a door to reveal a large study.

Oh, daytime me. The epitome of grace and poise, am I right?

Unlike the rest of the house, which was all homey and looked like it was probably updated to reflect each holiday, the study was sleek, clinical. The wood floor continued in here, but was mostly covered by a sleet-gray rug. Steel-and-glass shelves lined the walls, and a similarly styled desk sat front and center, with an expensive-looking computer on it. Behind the desk hung a large abstract painting.

Mr. McKinney sat back in a leather chair behind the desk and motioned for the three of us to sit on some chairs. Chairs that were designed like one of Lady Gaga's shoes, in that at first glance, they seemed impossible to hold one's weight. Yet deceptively, they did just that.

“So, what sort of questions are you supposed to ask?” Mr. McKinney asked us.

Gripping the sides of my seat, still not sure how the chair even worked, I started to say, “Well, Mr. McKinney, we—”

“Your name?”

I blinked. “Sorry?”

Mr. McKinney leaned forward onto the glass top of his desk. I couldn't help but notice there wasn't a streak or a spot of dust on it. “What is your name?” he asked slowly. “We haven't met.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling a blush spread annoyingly over my cheeks. “Sorry. Yeah, hi, I'm Emily. Emily Webb.”

I swear, for just a moment I thought I saw a flash of worried recognition cross the man's face. If it was ever there, he hid it quickly with a satisfied expression as he leaned back and crossed his arms. “Hello, Emily Webb. I take it you were assigned to this group, then? I know Dalton has lots of girls trying to team up with him on projects like this.”