Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (86 page)

“About what?”

“How are you? After going back to Central Park?”

A flood of emotion filled my chest and I pressed a hand over my heart, like that could stop it. Blood roared in my ears. I didn’t want to relive everything I’d felt stepping off the copter for the first time. Looking Keene in the eyes and knowing what he’d done. Finding a small piece of paradise in a ruined, rotting city.

Aaron, the nosy bastard, had stopped eating and was staring at me like I might spontaneously combust. I waved him off, then stood. Crossed to the apartment’s barred window and looked out over a silent street.

“Ethan?” Teresa asked.

“Can I get back to you on that?” I said.

“Yeah, sorry. I’d be there in your place if I could.”

“I know. Thanks.”

Someone on her end spoke. The conversation was muffled as Teresa answered, probably with her hand over the phone. “Ethan, Noah wants to talk to his brother,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Do you have anything else?”

“Not at the moment. I’ll keep you apprised.”

“Thanks.”

I handed the phone off to Aaron, who took it with a suspicious look. “Noah,” I said.

Aaron smiled his first genuine smile all day. “You left before Caleb broke out this fruit and cream thing he made with Luisa,” he said, pointing down at the plate he’d brought over for me.

“Thanks,” I said.

He took the phone into the empty bedroom and closed the door, so I sat back down and ate. The instant sugar rush nearly sent me bouncing around the room. I didn’t know what was worse—the cookie crust underneath, the syrup drenching the fruit, or the sugar in the whipped cream. I ate it, though, and made a mental note to compliment Caleb on it the next time our paths crossed. He was brilliant with books, but his sweet tooth needed a little toning down.

Aaron and Noah’s conversation didn’t last long. Aaron came back out before I’d finished choking down dessert, and he handed me back the phone. He looked troubled, almost worried, and I found myself asking, “Is Noah all right?”—
aka, is Dahlia all right?

“Same as always.” Nice non-answer.

“Right.”

“You look like you’re going to be sick,” Aaron said as he sank into his chair.

“I’m not a huge sweets person.” I stabbed at the dessert. Half of my opponent still remained, but I was determined not to send any back to the pint-size chef.

“Really?”

“I prefer salty stuff.” I wouldn’t have minded a huge chunk of rock salt to suck on after this.

“I’ll finish it, if you don’t want it.”

I shoved the plate at him. “As long as I don’t have to scrape you off the ceiling later.”

“You won’t,” he said with a soft chuckle. “It might be a Recombinant thing, but stuff like sugar and caffeine don’t really affect me.”

Fascinating.
“What about alcohol?”

Aaron’s fork scraped sharply across his plate, and he frowned. “Our father never allowed alcohol in the lab at Weatherfield. Since joining with Aaron, I’ve avoided the stuff for obvious reasons.”

Fuck me, I’m an idiot.
Of course he hadn’t tested the alcohol theory. Aaron Scott was a former drug addict and recreational drunk. Just like Noah’s joining with the Changeling called Ace had cured him of leukemia, Aaron’s joining with King had healed the ravages caused by his addictions. But it may not have dismissed the cravings or susceptibility to temptation that came with addiction.

“That was a stupid question,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Not stupid. Maybe a little insensitive, but not stupid.”

I started to reply, but the sharp quirk of his eyebrow clued me in—he was teasing me, the jerk. I rolled my eyes. He stuffed another big bite of Sugar Shock into his mouth.

“We do have pretty high metabolisms, though,” Aaron said after he’d cleaned the plate. “So my guess is that I’d have to consume vast quantities of alcohol in order to even get buzzed. Same for drugs.”

“Then let’s hope you never need surgery, because anesthesia would be a bitch.”

He laughed. “Good point.”

Aaron collected the plates and left. I stared up at the ceiling, trying to gather my thoughts and failing miserably. Tomorrow we’d go into Manhattan and search for the nine missing Banes—and considering they were tangentially involved in Specter’s attack on us back in January, I had no qualms about still calling them Banes. But Mai Lynn? Keene? Muriel? What were they now?

Aaron returned with two bottles of water. I thanked him, then gulped down half of mine, eager to wash away some of the sticky sweetness left behind by that dessert. He settled back into his chair and stared at me until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“What?” I asked.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

“What are you looking for out there?”

“Out where?”

“Don’t be an asshole, Ethan.” The sharpness in his tone made me bristle. “In Manhattan.”

“What am I looking for in Manhattan?” I repeated. “None of your fucking business,
Aaron
.”

“Really? None of my fucking business?”

“Yes.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, green eyes flashing angrily. “I watched you today, you know. I saw your face when we landed, when we first saw the Warren. When we were talking to Keene at the playground. Every single time, you looked like you’d rather stick your hand in a meat grinder than be here, so why are you?”

An unexpected rage washed over me, and I clutched the arms of my chair, keenly aware of the swirling air. None of my standard lines—
someone needed to represent our group, it’s not personal, bite me
—seemed right. I wasn’t about to tell Aaron the truth, though, not when I’d denied the truth to people I actually cared about.

I didn’t answer him. Just glared at the opposite wall where a refrigerator had once stood, had once been part of a functional kitchen. Now just a gaping hole, unfinished. Empty.

“Fine,” Aaron said after several minutes of silence. “Whatever your real reason is for being here? Make sure it doesn’t get someone else killed, okay?”

That low blow hit me like a cold slap to the face, and my rage evaporated in an instant. The last thing on earth I wanted to do was be the cause of more deaths—I was already responsible for so many. Deaths of friends.

Almost three years ago, I’d hit a wall in my life and been desperate for a connection to someone. Someone who shared my past, my fears, and my sense of alienation from other people—and not because I was gay. Because I was a former Meta. I missed the friends I’d grown up with, so I started looking for them. It wasn’t easy, not by a long shot. Our foster records had been sealed, and some of our names had been changed through adoptions.

I’d found so many—Renee, William, Teresa, Janel, Angela, Joshua, Adam. Some struggling, some surviving, a few actually thriving in their new lives. But I couldn’t make myself approach any of them. And then last summer, an ATF agent showed up at my apartment and demanded every scrap of information I’d collected on my old friends. The agent had used the name Garth Anders, shown me a badge, and I’d given him what I had—only to find out later that Anders had been dead nearly two years at that point.

Because of my research, someone posing as a dead ATF agent had known where to find nine of the twelve of us still alive. Six months later, seven of us were dead at Specter’s hand. Specter, whose powers were being controlled by a former ATF employee who had once worked with the real Garth Anders.

Maybe I had no real proof my information led to their deaths, but I didn’t have proof otherwise. I hadn’t been able to save Angela the day we fought Specter in the Arizona desert. I couldn’t save Janel the day we fought her, possessed by Specter, in the Medical Center corridor. The heavy weight of guilt I carried over those deaths—my fault, not my fault, it didn’t seem to matter anymore—hung like a fifty-pound stone around my neck.

Make sure it doesn’t get someone else killed, okay?

“Ethan?”

A hand closed over my forearm, and I jerked back, heart pounding, momentarily disoriented. I blinked Aaron into focus, his hands up and expression startled, and felt like the asshole he’d accused me of being. “Sorry,” I said.

“No problem.” He dropped his hands, but his face remained wary, even suspicious. “You okay?”

“If I say yes, will you believe me?”

“No.”

“Question answered, then.”

He grunted. “Whatever. So, to intentionally change the subject, what do you think of the Warren?”

I willed myself to relax and let go of the negative emotions churning around inside me. How Aaron managed to stir them up so easily, and with record speed, was beyond me. “I was genuinely impressed by everything they’ve accomplished in such a short amount of time,” I replied.

“They’re working together, despite their differences, to create a home and a life for themselves. A safe place for their kids.”

“According to Simon and Mai Lynn, that’s what they want. A place away from regular people, where they can be themselves.”

“I guess we both know what wanting that is like.” Something in Aaron’s tone got my full attention. He was staring past me, face soft, lost in his own thoughts. And it hit me like an anvil before he said it. “I wouldn’t mind a place where I could just be Aaron, without hiding behind Scott’s or anyone else’s face.”

I had no idea what to say to that. In the two months I’d known him, Aaron had basically been a prisoner in Hill House, unable to leave the grounds for fear of being recognized by the police. He’d said over and over that he intended to remain Aaron for the rest of his life, which precluded the possibility of ever being someone else. Today he’d interacted with more people in three hours than he had in months. He’d walked around in the sunshine and spoken to strangers—all while borrowing someone else’s face, since his own was wanted for several murders.

I understood the appeal of a community like the Warren—not just to Aaron, but also to the Metas hiding elsewhere around the world, afraid to come forward and admit what they were. We’d tried to create a safe haven for Metas at Hill House, but our space was limited.

Aaron was a Recombinant, though, not a Meta. He’d been created in a test tube as a replacement for Metas and their powers. Would the residents of the Warren welcome him if they knew the truth? Had Aaron even asked himself that question?

“You’d want to live here?” I asked. “If the government pardoned the residents, shut down the prison, and allowed them to stay?”

“Maybe.” Aaron sank deeper into his chair. “I don’t really belong anywhere, Ethan. Maybe here I wouldn’t have to hide. And I’m sure they could use a doctor.”

“A doctor?” But Aaron wasn’t— “Oh.” Shit. He’d ask Dr. Kinsey to come along to New York. And if Dr. Kinsey left Los Angeles, then Double Trouble wouldn’t be far behind. We could lose our house doctor, as well as Dahlia. The idea of losing someone else I cared about, even to something as innocuous as a cross-country move, made my stomach clench.

“I go where my family goes,” Aaron said. “But it’s a thought worth considering.”

“Right.”

“Would you?”

“Would I what?”

“Live in the Warren, if it’s no longer a prison?”

That I didn’t say no right away surprised the hell out of me. I didn’t say yes, either. “Tearing down walls and removing the armed guards doesn’t make it any less of a prison, if you’re afraid to ever leave.”

Aaron didn’t answer.

Seven

Ghosts

F
or the record, if you want a good night’s sleep, I do not recommend air mattresses—or sharing an apartment with someone who snores.

Fortunately, adrenaline wiped away the last remnants of my fatigue the moment I stepped off the copter that morning. Instead of the park, it dropped us off at the Southeast corner of Central Park South and Fifth Avenue, in front of the rubble of what Simon said had once been Pulitzer Fountain. Mai Lynn was already waiting. We’d chosen this spot as our home base, of sorts—the place we’d return to after our grid searches in order to regroup and share notes.

The skeletons of once-proud office buildings and hotels blocked the early-morning sunshine. A few trees grew here and there, some of them right through the broken pavement and sidewalks, their green leaves the only color contrast to the gray of those empty structures. Directly across from us stood The Plaza hotel, just another pile of stone and glass with no real value. It amazed me to think people used to waste thousands of dollars to stay in its rooms.

Once the copter flew off, the city settled into an eerie silence. This far from the activity of the Warren, Manhattan started to feel like the graveyard I’d always imagined it to be.

“The observation tower is still getting sensor ghosts on its thermal satellite,” Simon said, repeating information to Mai Lynn that Aaron and I had already learned. “So we’ll be doing this blind, as we thought.”

“Satellite images take the fun out of the hunt,” Mai Lynn replied, the purr in her voice deeper than yesterday.

“Ethan, I want you in the sky,” Simon continued. “Look for any kind of movement on the ground, and if you see anything larger than a feral cat, do not investigate on your own.”

I nodded.

“Mai Lynn will shift and go alone. Scott and I are together on the ground. Today’s grid is east to Third Avenue and south of Seventy-Seventh Street. It’s more than enough city to scout for one day.”

Aaron didn’t look thrilled to be partnered with Simon, but it made the most sense. Mai Lynn and I could move faster on our own. We both had walkie-talkies, set to the same frequency—the only electronic devices Warden Hudson allowed on the island.

“Report every thirty minutes,” Mai Lynn said.

“How will you manage that?” I asked.

She smiled, then began to strip in the middle of the street. I studied a crack in the side of The Plaza, until a gentle growl stole back my attention. A gray-brown cat, larger than a house cat but smaller than most big cats, swished her ringed tail at me. Little tufts of fur came out of her ears, reminding me of a lynx, but the coloring was different.

“Jungle cat,” Simon said as he knelt next to her. He reached out as if to pet her, only he had a collar on his hand. “The material’s stretchy, so it won’t choke her when she shifts back.” To the collar, he attached the walkie. It didn’t exactly make her blend, but she was less obvious than if she roamed around the city as a lioness.

“Everyone have the right time?” Simon asked.

Aaron and I held up our left wrists in synch, showing off the cheap watches we’d been given for the duration of our search. I glanced at Mai Lynn the Jungle Cat, half expecting Simon to put one on her paw.

He saw me looking and smiled. “When she hears our reports, she’ll know it’s time to check in.”

She tilted her head at me, catty eyes seeming to say, “Duh.”

“Thirty minutes, then,” I said. “Happy hunting, I guess.”

I stepped back a few feet to give myself room to call the air and not blow them over. It swirled around me, thickening beneath me, and I used its force to lift me up. Soon I was drifting a hundred feet above the ground, moving north along Fifth Avenue.

Even though at least a dozen eyes from a dozen different guard towers were probably watching me, soaring above the ghost town of Manhattan was the most alone I’d felt in years. On my left, Central Park bore few scars of the battles waged there, most of the destruction long since overgrown by nature and time. The city on my right, though, lay in fractured pieces of broken stone, shattered glass, and twisted metal.

New York City had been part of so many battles, and not just Manhattan. All of the abandoned boroughs bore the aftereffects of a five-year-long war that left devastation everywhere it touched. Flying above the city now, I was an eyewitness to the destructive nature of our Meta powers and what happened when we chose to be enemies, rather than allies. Our parents and mentors had done this.

Were we strong enough, smart enough, to stop it from happening all over again?

I hope so. For Muriel’s and Caleb’s sake.

My path shifted without real thought, and the street became sun-parched ground dotted with occasional trees. I didn’t register where my new direction was taking me until a broken, blackened spire appeared on the horizon—Belvedere Castle. I flew toward it like a moth to a flame, everything else forgotten under the pull of that distant place where my life had changed.

I hovered above it a moment, mesmerized by the sight of the stone patio, the busted windows, the broken beams no longer sheltering the steps we’d hidden upon a lifetime ago. Several spots on the stones were stained black by old blood—Teresa’s grandmother’s, William’s, Nate’s, mine.

The stones seemed to vibrate with energy when I landed, as though they still held the power of the emotions we’d felt that day. Grief and fear twisted my insides, and I closed my eyes against the onslaught of memories crashing down on me.

•   •   •

My shoulder hurt like hell. I’d never been shot before, not in my whole life, so I didn’t know what to expect, and it was nothing like any pain I’d felt before. Burning and ripping and cold all at once, every time I moved. And I couldn’t even bandage it, had to just let it bleed.

“We stand here,” Gage had said. “The man out there was right. It comes down to what we do tonight. We have to make our parents and mentors proud.”

His words, spoken like he was a seasoned general instead of a fifteen-year-old kid, got me off my wounded ass and onto the line. I didn’t know how much wind I could muster like this, when a strong breeze could probably knock me right over. It was raining hard, the cold sweeping under the pavilion where we stood.

The top of the castle exploded, showering the patio with rock and wood. Someone screamed—might have been me. I’m pretty sure Teresa did, too, so brave for such a little kid. Smoke swirled. A female Bane crested the stairs at the far end, spotted us, and let out a whoop probably meant to alert the others.

Bitch.

With a shriek of anger, Janel let loose a blast of hailstones that the woman avoided like a pro. More Banes appeared. Time to fight. Fear and agony consumed me, a fire in my gut I tried to harness and use to control the wind. Only I couldn’t.

The fire spread through my entire body, from my scalp to my toes, like I’d been injected with boiling water. Everything seemed to stop while I existed in that pain. I couldn’t even scream, couldn’t see if anyone else felt it. Was I dying? Being burned alive? Why wasn’t someone putting me out?

The agony stopped, leaving behind a sudden, consuming chill. Rain smacked me on one side of my face; the other was pressed against wet stone. Someone nearby was sobbing. I shivered, then tried to sit up. My shoulder screeched in protest—still shot, still at the castle. Nothing else made any sense. Not a damned thing.

Next to me, a high-pitched keening sound made me spin around. I nearly slammed into a stone pillar. Marco was huddled on the ground, holding his knees to his chest, stark naked and shaking. I scooted closer to him, looking for wounds. Was he hurt? Is that why he’d shifted back?

The others were talking, asking questions. I ignored them and reached for Marco with my good hand. “Marco?”

He snarled at me, but it lacked . . . well, the animal fierceness I’d heard him use dozens of times in the past. His arm lowered and one eye rolled wildly—one pale green eye. The bright green blaze that had always been there was gone, extinguished. “I can’t . . . can’t . . .” he tried, then broke on a sob.

My chest constricted. I’d never seen Marco cry before. I rarely saw him out of animal form, so this was seriously freaking me the hell out.

“My powers,” Janel said somewhere behind me. “Can you guys . . . ? Oh my God.”

The horror in her voice dragged my attention off Marco and over to the rest of my friends. They wore versions of the same face—shocked, horrified, scared. I reached for the wind, just to feel the comfort of its caress.

Nothing happened.

My panic level racked up a notch. I tried again, but the wind ignored me. All I felt was a dull ache in my chest, like an organ had been removed and a hole left in its place.

“Can’t shift . . . can’t shift,” Marco moaned.

“What’s happening?” Renee asked. “Please, someone, what’s happening? Gage?”

“I don’t know,” Gage replied. “Shit, who has the gun?”

Someone found it, passed it to him, and dunce that I was, I finally figured out why. The Banes who’d been charging us were clumped together on the opposite end of the stone patio, and they looked as confused as we did. They also weren’t attacking, but that didn’t mean anything. Had they felt what we felt? Or had they done this to us?

A man with black hair and a crooked nose looked over at us. The hate and accusation in his face made me scoot closer to Marco, who’d curled into a fetal ball and wasn’t moving. I wanted to cover him with something, but we were all wearing one-piece jumpsuits. All I could do was stay close until Gage figured this out.

One of the Banes, a youngish man with brown hair, took a step away from his group. Toward us. Gage raised the gun, and the man backed off. All of them backed off, the big cowards, until every Bane in sight had gone back the way they came.

Everything got a little blurry, and I struggled hard to stay awake. Passing out seemed like a really, really bad idea. “Did we win?” I asked.

“I don’t think so, Ethan,” Gage said. “Something tells me we all just lost.”

•   •   •

The shrill screams of seagulls startled me out of my memories. A dozen of them had landed on the stone patio, a few on the walls, oblivious to my presence. I’d squatted down next to the same pillar where Marco and I had huddled that day after our powers were stolen away, and I didn’t even remember walking over there. Fragments of those old emotions lingered like stubborn cobwebs, refusing to let go. Refusing to let me stand back up.

We hadn’t known right away that the Banes had lost their powers, too. We hadn’t moved from that spot at the castle until a squad of National Guardsmen found us.

I’d had nightmares about that day for years afterward. Each time, the end was nothing like reality—Gage didn’t have the gun, the Banes still had their powers, and I watched all my friends die horrible deaths. I was always the last one standing, and it was always Jinx staring me down at the end, laughing. Those nightmares, while not my fault, had been a trigger for a lot of the problems I had with my foster parents.

And for the punishments.

To hell with the Bacons!

I’d escaped ten years ago and not looked back, and I had no intention of doing that here. Not in this place. I stood up, and the quick movement startled the swarm of seagulls into scattering with indignant cries. It also made me stumble sideways as my numb legs protested suddenly being bent straight again. How long had I been sitting like that?

“Scout Two here.” Mai Lynn’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie in my pocket. “I have something at Sixty-Eighth and First. St. Catherine’s Park.”

“Scout Two, this is Scout One,” Simon replied. “We’re about fifteen minutes away, heading toward you.”

I grabbed my walkie and pressed the Talk button. “Scout Three, on my way,” I said. At least someone found something while I was off in La-La Land. “Scout Two, should I swing by and pick you up?”

A bit of a pause preceded his answer. “We’re at the corner of Madison and Sixty-First.”

“Acknowledged.”

I was at least fifteen blocks north of where I needed to get, so I took to the air amongst the chattering seagulls. Simon and Aaron were exactly where he said they’d be. I arranged them one on either side of me, then put my arms around their waists.

“Have you ever done this before?” Simon asked.

“Yep, just not this long of a distance,” I replied.

Aaron made a face. “Is it too late to walk?”

“I promise if I’m about to drop you, I’ll find a soft landing spot first.”

“That’s sweet, thanks.”

I grinned. “Hold on tight. It gets windy up there.”

Collecting the right force of wind to carry three people the distance we needed to go took a little extra concentration. I bet our trio looked a sight to the guards in the towers, too—three grown men flying over skyscrapers and churches and business centers long since abandoned and left to rot. I relied on Simon to guide me. He pointed at a rectangle of green among the blending shades of gray and brown.

I put us down on a tennis court, a small part of the equally small city park. The trees and bushes had grown wild around a playground, and a rusty iron fence surrounded the park on all sides.

“That was kind of cool,” Aaron said. “Flying.” He was grinning, and a hint of himself briefly peeked through Scott’s mask.

“And I didn’t even drop you,” I replied.

“Over here!” Mai Lynn said. She popped up from behind a tree a few yards away and waved us over.

Halfway there, it struck me that she was investigating the park in her birthday suit and didn’t seem to care. Not that it particularly bothered me—I never had much of a fascination with breasts—but I couldn’t speak for my companions. I caught enough flash of skin, though, to notice she didn’t have the same obvious fur patterns that Marco did. Of course, Marco didn’t have cat eyes 24/7 either, like Mai Lynn.

“What did you—?” Simon cut himself off as the answer to what she’d found became obvious to all of us.

Under the shade of an elm tree was a grave marker and a mound of recently turned earth. The marker was a simple cross, two wood planks lashed together with yellow rope. Written in black was a name: Whitney. None of the prisoners listed on the official documentation were named Whitney, first or last. And the mound was too small for an adult.