Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (96 page)

He shrugged off my hand, then turned to look out over the street. “Just . . . take care of Andrew, okay?”

I didn’t know what else to say. Aaron was determined to blame himself for Jimmy’s death, despite the fact that a long parade of events and circumstances had led to the tragedy. I understood guilt. I carried a lot of my own guilt around for the people I’d failed to save—my mother, Angela, Janel, William—and people I’d let get hurt, like Renee.

Maybe I couldn’t convince myself to let go of that guilt, but I’d be damned if I’d allow someone I cared about to wallow in his own pool of it. “Deuce killed Jimmy,” I said.

Even in profile his face changed, going instantly dark and angry. Weeks ago, Dahlia had commented on the flashes of anger she’d seen in King before he joined with Aaron permanently. The way he’d lash out when his loved ones were threatened. That night on the roof, I saw it, too.

“Deuce killed Jimmy,” I said again. “Not you.”

His eyes glimmered, shifting from green to brown to black in a kaleidoscope of colors. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and I swore I heard his teeth grinding.

Deciding that tact and self-preservation could go fuck themselves, I grabbed him by both shoulders and turned him to face me. “You did not kill your brother.”

“Fuck you, Ethan.” He shoved against my chest harder than I expected, which did two things at once. First, the push made me let go of his shoulders and stumble backward. Second, the blow itself landed right on my CPR-induced bruise, which sent a stunning bolt of pain through my chest. Both things combined to make me lose my balance and fall over on my ass.

The jarring thud woke up every latent ache and pain from yesterday’s explosion, and my vision swam in murky colors. Disorientation shoved my protective instincts into high gear, and I drew a rush of air around me like a shield while I blinked the world back into focus. Dirt and grit swirled in the air cyclone, creating a barrier between me and Aaron.

He’d sat down with his back to the ledge, knees up, fingers tangled in his hair. Not that I’d expected to find him hovering over me, ready to fight, but the retreat confused me. I released the air and a cloud of dirt settled on the roof in a gray ring. Neither of us moved.

“You didn’t kill Jimmy,” I said again, softly this time.

His fingers tightened and I half expected him to rip huge chunks of hair out of his scalp. I should have left it alone, but I wasn’t the only one on that roof who needed to get his head straight about a few things. And now that my eye was on the target, I wasn’t letting this go.

“I could name any of fifty things that somebody could have done differently during that investigation, and maybe Jimmy would have survived. Maybe you would have died. Or Noah or Dr. Kinsey or Teresa. Maybe me.” His shoulders tensed—good, he was listening. “But I don’t have the power of time travel, and neither do you. All the what-ifs in the world won’t change what happened, or that you need to live with it and stop drowning in guilt.”

“Don’t you think I want to?” Aaron said. He looked up, cheeks flushed, his face a mask of furious misery. “Jimmy’s death hurts so bad, physically hurts. King lost Joker. Aaron lost Jimmy. However you look at it, a third of me is gone.”

“And a third of you is still left. Noah’s alive.”

“And he’s got a permanent guest in his body. He changed so much, too, when Jimmy died, and not just because of Dahlia.”

“Grief changes people.”

“I don’t want this. I made a conscious choice to become Aaron Scott, but sometimes I hate that choice because of all the damage it’s done. I actually considered shedding Aaron completely and leaving. Getting rid of his emotions and pain and attachments, so I don’t have to deal with them anymore.”

The grief in his voice made my heart ache, as did the admission of wanting to change his identity to stop the pain. Maybe our situations were completely different, but we were both dealing with the same basic issues. He was just much better at hiding his.

I scooted across the dirty roof to sit next to him, not quite close enough to touch. “You don’t really want to do that,” I said.

“Sometimes I do. I can’t wear this face in public. I can’t be myself because I don’t really know who I am. The Changeling doesn’t understand emotions like grief and lust, and Aaron understands them too well. I never imagined integrating would be this hard.”

“Because you thought you’d have both of your brothers to rely on and help you through it.”

He turned his head to look at me, his eyes so vividly green they didn’t look real. “Yeah.”

“But Noah’s got his head full of Dahlia right now.”

“Right.”

“And everyone else at Hill House, including me, treated you like an unwanted houseguest we had to tolerate, rather than a friend who deserved our help.”

“I understood it, though. In your eyes, I’d killed four people, and nearly got half your friends killed, too. Hell, I’m the one who shot Teresa.”

“Because Queen and Deuce were blackmailing you.” Blackmailing him with himself—and if I spent too much time thinking about the duality of the whole situation, I was going to break my brain. “Look, you told me once that this is who you are, and this is the last identity that you’re ever going to take. Was that bullshit?”

He blinked slowly and some of his intense anger seemed to dissipate. “No, it wasn’t. I’d never do that to Noah.” His lips twitched. “And I know if I did, Jimmy would be pissed.”

“Sounds like the perfect reason to stick around, then.”

“Unless a better one comes along.” The tentative question in his eyes sent my pulse into overdrive.

I swallowed. “Do you have something in mind?”

“One thing has recently crossed my mind.” He leaned closer. “If you’re interested.”

Oh, I was interested all right. If I was honest with myself, I’d been interested for days, even before I knew there was a chance.

This is a really bad—oh, fuck it.

I don’t remember if he kissed me, or if I kissed him, or if it even matters who did what first, because hot damn, it was a fantastic kiss. A crap ton of pent-up emotions on both sides went into it, along with generous amounts of lips and tongue and hands. I never put my time or energy into kissing before—getting off fast and furious had always been my goal. But this was different. No rush. No fear of being found out. Just touch and smell and taste, and holy hell, he tasted good—like nothing I could describe past “wow” but wanted more of, and I took everything he gave me.

I was half hard by the time we paused for air. My hands were clasped behind his neck, and his were bunching my T-shirt around my shoulders like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to pull me closer or push me away. Looking at him now, breathing hard and lips wet, I acknowledged the attraction that had been nudging at me for days, trying to make me pay attention. Strange chemistry, to be sure, but I so did not care. I wanted—

“This isn’t right,” Aaron said.

“Huh?” I let go, stunned by the abrupt comment.

He held tighter to my shirt when I tried to pull away. “Hey, no, that’s not what I meant. We’re on a roof, Ethan.”

Okay, not a brush-off. “Our nearest neighbors are probably stray cats, and I doubt they’re sitting in the apartments next door with binoculars hoping to catch an eyeful.”

Aaron chuckled, his breath warm on my face. “Thanks for that visual.”

“If semipublic roofs aren’t your thing, I could fly us somewhere.” Hell, I’d fly us all the way to Pennsylvania if it meant he’d keep kissing me like that. Aaron was different than anyone I’d ever been with—being with him felt real. Passionate. Right.

Cheesy, I know, but there it is.

He considered my offer a moment. Then his eyes narrowed and his lips twisted into a cocky grin—challenge accepted.

I sent a quick text to Teresa, telling her we were stepping out, we’d be safe, and not to wait up. Then I hauled Aaron close with my arm around his waist—and yeah, that felt good—and lifted us up on a heavy gust of air. We flew west, away from Manhattan and the prison observation tower. Toward the Hackensack River. Below us, the occasional home was lit, but in this mostly abandoned section of New Jersey, we had the night sky to ourselves.

I had no destination in mind and found myself flying aimlessly. Aaron didn’t complain about our travel time. He just held on and took in the sights. A strip of green came into view below, with a nice pond in the center and several stone buildings. I took us in low, unsure of the location. Half a sign remained, with the beginning of a word:
Weequ
. I didn’t know enough about New Jersey geography to guess at the rest of the name.

We landed at the shore of the tree-lined lake. The water smelled tepid without being stagnant, and the sharper scents of grass and leaves and dirt drove away the harsher odors of gasoline and oil we’d left behind on Communipaw Avenue. A little slice of nature in the middle of a battered urban area.

Aaron walked down to the edge of the water and peered out over its smooth surface. He squatted down and scooped up a handful. Sniffed it. I was about to ask what he was doing when he stood back up. He tossed me a grin that was very much a challenge.

“How do you feel about skinny-dipping?” he asked.

Despite a bruise on my chest the size of a dinner plate and scars on my feet that would make small children cry, I felt really damn good about skinny-dipping. I answered him by tugging my shirt over my head and off. Aaron’s grin widened, and his shirt followed mine. Thirty seconds later, we were both naked and diving into the water.

The pond was warm, it smelled a little funky, and the bottom had a slimy, algae-like texture—but it didn’t matter. We swam and splashed and wrestled like kids, free for a little while from the horrors of our lives, and from all the problems waiting for us when we woke up tomorrow morning. Tonight, none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was finding a little peace in our otherwise chaotic lives.

And in each other.

Seventeen

Departure

W
e snuck back into the dark house hours after everyone had gone to bed. The next morning, no one commented on our conspicuous absence the night before. Our jet was leaving for Los Angeles in two hours, and I wasn’t sure who was more upset about the departure—Aaron or Caleb.

Caleb toiled over the stove for nearly an hour making letter-shaped pancakes for everyone. He seemed to thrive around groups of people. Creating a safe environment where he could play with kids his own age would do him a world of good. Aaron was quiet all morning, and I’d have blamed it on morning-after regret, only he did occasionally give me a
look
. The rest of the time he seemed on the verge of tying himself to the front steps so he didn’t have to leave.

Not that he had to. None of us did, and Simon extended an open invitation to return at any time. But we’d agreed that with the HQ demolition coming up and L.A. the next likely Humankind target, home was the best place for us. We were flying straight back into a possible disaster scenario.

You’d think the lot of us had a death wish.

Since our schedule didn’t allow for any final visits to the Warren, I gave Simon two notes—one for Muriel and one for Andrew. Both notes promised I’d be back soon to visit. To Muriel’s note, I added a few lines: “Sometimes the path to becoming a hero is hard, and sometimes bad things happen. But don’t ever let anyone tell you that your powers are a weakness. Hold your head up high, always.”

Simon promised to deliver the notes on his next visit to the island.

Island. At some point, I’d stopped thinking of Manhattan as a prison, even though we were a long way from changing that designation.

The jet ride home was as subdued as breakfast, and I dozed through most of the flight. Which was probably a good thing, given my dislike of being flown around in large steel tubes. Gage picked us up at the Burbank airport, and it wasn’t until the Sport was heading toward Beverly Hills that something important occurred to me about Aaron, who was sitting on the rear bench seat next to me.

“Do Denny and Kate know about Noah and Aaron yet?” I asked.

In the front, Teresa and Gage exchanged looks. “No, not yet,” Teresa said. She twisted around to face us, and her attention stayed on Aaron. “You did good work this week, Aaron. Thank you for everything.”

He nodded. “But?”

“No buts this time. I’m not comfortable telling the Lowrys about Aaron and Noah yet. That’s a huge secret. However, I’m also not comfortable with telling you to hide in your room until we can trust them more. I don’t know how long that will take.”

Aaron glanced at me. I shrugged one shoulder, unsure where Teresa was going with this.

“How do you feel about playing Scott Torres for a little while longer?” she asked.

His face shimmered, and then Scott’s mask slipped over, hiding his blond hair and green eyes under basic brown.
“Puedo hacer esto.”

“We’ll introduce you as having come forward before we left for New York, so the stories match, but you’re only just now accepting an invitation to join us.”

“Agreed.”

“Just pretend you don’t already have a furnished bedroom upstairs,” I said with a sage nod.

Aaron laughed, and the relief in that gruff sound made my skin prickle, and then all I could think was
Thank God the bedroom walls are thick.

Renee, Dahlia, and Dr. Kinsey were waiting on the porch when we drove up. Dahlia bounded down the steps and threw herself at me in a strangling hug. I hugged her back, genuinely happy to see her, until my bruised chest started to hurt, and then I disentangled and got a look at her. Despite the wide smile, she had shadows under her eyes and her skin seemed paler, like someone recovering from the flu—or coming down with it.

I thought the Changelings were immune to human diseases. “You feeling okay, Dal?” I asked.

“Fine,” she replied. “Just stressed from all this. And glad to have you home.”

“Thanks.”

“Good grief, Wind Bag,” Renee said. “Didn’t anyone tell you that going face-first into water leaves you black and blue?”

“I think I’m actually more purple and blue now,” I replied. I touched the bruises on the side of my face, which seemed to change color every hour. When she came in for a hug, I held up a hand. “Don’t get too close, Stretch. Things have a habit of blowing up when I’m around.”

“I’ll chance it.” She gave me a fierce hug that said more about how worried she’d been than any of a thousand words could.

Dr. Kinsey and Aaron shook hands while Teresa whispered the plan about “Scott’s” arrival at Hill House.

“Where are the twins, anyway?” Gage asked.

“Probably spying from the lounge windows,” Renee replied. “Kate said this was a private reunion, so they’d make themselves scarce.”

“We were only gone for a few days,” I said.

“You nearly died. Again.”

“Good point.”

“If no one minds,” Dr. Kinsey said, “I’d like to borrow Dahlia and, ah, Scott, for a little while.”

No one minded, and the trio went inside. This was the longest they’d been apart from each other in . . . well, probably since the Changelings were born. And I had no doubt Noah and Kinsey wanted to pick Aaron’s brain about Manhattan. I didn’t know if Aaron had shared with his father yet the theory of Recombinants being involved in Humankind—that was bound to be an interesting conversation.

Our original quintet migrated to the porch, hanging outside despite the thickly humid air and pressing heat. We hadn’t had time to discuss the warden’s recommendation of pardons when Teresa called last night. Gage had always supported Teresa’s vision for a united Meta race. Renee, on the other hand, had joined me in hating the idea, and as soon as we’d settled down on various pieces of outdoor furniture, she attacked.

“So what changed your mind?” she asked.

Everyone looked at me, and I held Renee’s curious (and slightly accusatory) stare. “I met them,” I said. “Talked to them. I met their kids, Renee. No one over there’s talking about revenge. Their biggest concerns are fresh water and planting tomatoes.”

Her entire face puckered up. “Five days and you forgive them all for what they did?”

“I didn’t say that. But I am starting to see the War with a new perspective.” I told them what McTaggert had said about leaving the Rangers and automatically being labeled a villain. Of everyone, only Gage did not seem totally surprised.

“I’d heard something like that from Jasper,” Gage said. Jasper McAllister had been two years older than Gage and part of an active Corps Unit when he was killed in action. “He’d overheard Delphi and Hinder discussing Unit rosters and how using ‘Join Us or Else’ as an enlistment slogan for undiscovered Metas wasn’t working.”

“And McTaggert is just one story,” I said. “I have a feeling that when Warden Hudson begins interviewing each prisoner, we’ll hear more that are similar.”

“So now the Banes are just misunderstood?” Renee asked with a startling sneer. “A Bane killed your mother, Ethan. A Bane killed Gage’s brother and T’s father, and a hell of a lot of our friends. Or was that just a misunderstanding, too?”

Annoyance prickled my scalp and I turned to face her full-on. “I know what we’ve lost, Renee, but the people in Manhattan are just Metas who want a chance to have a life and to raise their kids, and to be able to protect themselves the next time a bunch of hate-mongering crazies decide to crash a helicopter on top of them.”

Renee took a step toward me, her cheeks flushed a deep purple. “So if you had to look the bastard who killed your mom in the eye and tell him he could go free, you’d be able to do it?”

“I already looked him in the eye.”

She jerked back, surprised. Even Gage and Marco looked startled.

“Freddy McTaggert killed my mother. We’ve spoken at length about several things, including his eight-year-old son Andrew. A kid he’d do anything for, just like Simon would for Caleb. He’s trying to be a good father to his son.”

My insides twisted up as one more secret nudged its way to the surface, begging to finally be shared. I looked at Teresa, whose lavender gaze was drilling into my head, trying to see the thing I wasn’t saying. In for a penny . . .

“Teresa knows one of the reasons I wanted to go to New York was to confront McTaggert,” I said. “But there was another reason.” More than anything, I wished Aaron was there to buoy my courage and make this a little easier. “Before she died, my mother told me that McTaggert is my biological father.”

You remember that saying “you could hear a pin drop?”

Does not describe the reaction to my announcement at all. An explosion of words followed that included such phrases as “Holy crap!” “Are you serious?” “Does he know?” and
“¡Mierda!”
My friends were not shy in expressing themselves.

When they stopped trying to talk over each other, Teresa’s question rang out last and loudest: “You’ve known all these years?”

“You’ll have to narrow that down,” I replied tartly. “Did I know I had a father out there while I was stuck in a hellhole of a foster home for five years? Yes. Did I know my father killed my mother with her own powers? Yes. Did I know exactly where to find the bastard for the last fifteen years and occasionally imagine killing him myself? Yes.”

Teresa’s face softened into a smile of genuine sympathy that few people could pull off without it coming across as pity.

“You never told anyone,” Gage said. No accusation in his tone, just mild curiosity.

“Would you have?”

“Probably not.”

“McTaggert left the Rangers because he disagreed with how they were being used by the government, and for that he was labeled a Bane. My mother made the choice to stay in the Ranger Corps and she never told him about me for obvious reasons.”

“But he knows now?”

“He didn’t say it in so many words, but yes.” I tugged at a lock of hair near my temple. “The resemblance is hard to ignore, as is the timing of my birth. McTaggert’s a bright guy.”

“Admitting this now is very brave,” Marco said, in one of the first full sentences I’d heard him utter all week.

“Maybe. I always saw my paternity as a weakness, but it’s just another part of me and only a weakness if I allow it. How you guys see it is up to you.”

“As far as I’m concerned, nothing’s changed,” Teresa said. “And you’re right. Who your parents are isn’t a reflection of who you are or who you can be.”

The daughter of two decorated heroes, she had flailed and fumbled her way through leading us in those first few precarious weeks after our powers returned. And now I couldn’t imagine anyone else in charge. She’d found her own way. Teresa’s support meant the world to me, and I had no idea how to say it. So I smiled.

Renee stood without a word and walked into the house.

I stared at the closed front door, disappointment settling heavily in my chest. She’d been hurt so badly and was clutching tight to her grudges. I couldn’t fault her for that, since I’d been in her shoes. I just hoped hate didn’t eat her up from the inside—I’d been there, too.

“I’ll talk to her,” Teresa said.

“Don’t,” I said.

No one spoke for a few seconds, until Gage said, “So Andrew is your brother?”

I nodded. “I didn’t tell him, and I don’t know if McTaggert has or will.”

“He should know.”

“It’s his father’s call. Our father.” I pulled a face. “That’s going to take getting used to.”

“Well, your secret stays here until you say otherwise,” Teresa said. “I’ll make sure Renee understands that, too. What about the Scotts?”

“Aaron already knows.”

Her eyebrows arched high. Gage’s nearly disappeared into his hairline. I understood the surprise, given my previous attitude toward the Changelings, and here now I was admitting deep, dark secrets to one before I told my childhood friends.

I had zero compulsion to explain my decision to confide in Aaron. “I told Dahlia, too, so I might as well let Dr. Kinsey in on it. Not the noobs, though.” I’d spent a total of sixty minutes so far with the Lowry twins and was not about to hand over that sort of personal ammunition to virtual strangers.

“Understood,” Teresa said.

We chatted idly for a while, about nothing in particular. Okay, so Gage, Teresa, and I chatted. Marco mostly sat and nodded and occasionally made a facial expression. He excused himself first. Gage followed a minute later, leaving me alone on the porch with Teresa, and I swore she planned it that way.

“Something on your mind?” I asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

I shook my head and leaned back in my deck chair. “I’ve said everything I need to say right now.”

“Good, because I have something to say.”

Nerves sent a swarm of butterflies loose in my stomach. “Okay.”

“I want to apologize, Ethan.”

I stared. “For . . . what?”

She sat up straighter in her chair, hands folded neatly in her lap, head canted to the side. “When you volunteered to go east and help Simon, I was apprehensive about my decision to let you go. You had made it very clear what you thought about the people in that prison, and I was worried it would affect the job you went there to do.”

“Honestly? I was a little worried about volunteering. Maybe if the Warren hadn’t existed, or if I hadn’t met Muriel and her mother beforehand, I’d have reacted differently to seeing McTaggert for the first time.”

“Circumstances aside, I didn’t fully trust you to be professional, and I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to forgive. You’d have been a bad leader if you hadn’t worried, and you’re amazing at what you do.”

She ducked her head, her cheeks flaming. Teresa didn’t like being praised for a job she embraced as an extension of herself, but making her blush was too much fun. “Aaron seems to have come out of his shell a bit, too,” she said.

I forced back a grin that desperately wanted to come out and play. He’d come out of his shell, all right. We both had, and in more ways than one. “I think Aaron just needs to feel involved and useful, even if he’s still wearing someone else’s mask.”

“To be honest, I haven’t given Aaron’s situation the consideration it deserves. I was far more worried about shielding him from Detective Pascal.”