Night Betrayed (7 page)

Holy crap.

He looked back at the house. Was it possible some of Blizek’s computers and systems were still here? Possibly workable? His mouth fairly salivated at the thought.

“Well, hi there.”

Theo turned to find a young woman standing behind him. He rose to his feet, noticing long, tanned legs in very short shorts and a white button-down shirt that strained over a pair of great breasts. Light brown hair brushed her shoulders and curled in thick waves behind her ears.

“Hi, yourself,” he replied, unable to help scanning over her again. Wow. They sure grew them hot here at Blizek Beach. Wonder Woman or Xena in the flesh: all curves, all the time.

“You’re new around here,” she said, and they both laughed. Hers was light and airy. “I’m Jen.”

“Theo,” he said, and glanced down to look at her feet. She wore sandals and some sexy bracelet around her ankle. Jen looked to be in her mid-twenties, which technically put her about fifty years younger than Theo. But who was counting? She certainly wasn’t. Not the way she was looking at him.

“Where did you come from?” Jen asked, bending over to pick a strawberry.

Theo wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or not, but she bent away from him and he got a very nice view of her round behind; perhaps a little too much of a view to be strictly proper because those shorts were really short. He held back a smile. Not that he was complaining.

After all . . .

It hit him then, like the proverbial ton of bricks: he could look; he could appreciate and flirt. He could do a hell of a lot more than that now, couldn’t he?—and without feeling guilty as if he were betraying Sage.

Because she hadn’t chosen him. And there was no chance of them ever being together.

Not that there’d ever been anything to betray. At least, as far as she was concerned. But he’d been—hell, he supposed he still was—in love with her. And when that happened, there was no one else.

But now he was free to consider—and appreciate—other opportunities.

With that thought settling firmly in his mind, even as he tried to ignore the empty scraping in his chest, Theo tested out a warm smile on Jen. “I’m from Envy, and I’m not quite sure how I got here. I just know Sam brought me to Selena.”

Jen’s eyes traveled over him and back up. “Well, you don’t look too sick to me.” She smiled and . . . Sheesh, was that a little flicker of tongue over her top lip? Just enough to get his attention, but not enough to be crude. “You look just fine. To me.”

Theo met her eyes just long enough to let her know he read her loud and clear, then pulled his gaze away. It still felt odd, but he’d get over it. In fact, maybe this was exactly what he needed. A little diversion.

Then her eyes widened in horror and she clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh. Oh no. Are you . . . do you know one of Selena’s patients?” She looked as if she’d just walked into a pile of something messy. “Like . . . is someone you know dying?”

“No,” Theo replied, trying to hide a smile. “I don’t know anyone here.”

She frowned, and he didn’t think it was wholly because of the sun in her eyes. “So you were here to see Selena? Or Cath? I mean. You don’t look like you’re dying. Are you? I mean . . .” She gave up and sort of shrugged. “People only see Selena when they’re dying.”

For some reason, Theo didn’t want to say that he’d just been brought back to life. Might put a damper on things if the girl thought he’d been dead. Unless she was into those vampire books that had been all the rage back before, and undeadness didn’t bother her. The ones in which the guy looked about her age but was really a hundred and twenty years old.

Kinda like him.

“I’m perfectly healthy,” he replied.

“You sure look like it,” she said, perhaps unaware that she’d just made the same observation moments earlier. “That’s a bang-ass tattoo on your arm.”

Theo smiled back and let a little heat into his gaze. It felt good. It had been a long while since he’d done that. “Her name is Scarlett. I’ve got a blue one on my back I call Rhett.”

Jen looked at him blankly.

“You gonna stand around all day, or you gonna do your job?”

Theo and Jen turned to see Frank standing there, holding a clump of weeds dripping dirt from their roots.

“Oh, right,” Jen said, and adjusted the hem of her shirt by pulling it down tighter over her breasts. “I better go see if Selena needs me today? Maybe I’ll see you later tonight? In Yellow Mountain? For the storytelling?”

That was three question marks too many, but who was counting? Although he didn’t know what she was talking about, he figured there was nothing else to do. “Probably will,” he replied. She gave Theo a melting smile as she skirted away, walking toward the house.

“Spends more time lookin’ in the damned mirror or scavenging for clothes,” Frank grumbled, “or talking, than doing anything else.”

“She lives around here?” Theo asked, bending dutifully to the strawberries. A basket had appeared on the ground next to him, ostensibly from Frank, and he began to pick the ripest berries.

“In Yellow Mountain. ’Bout five miles down the hill,” replied the old man. “Supposed to relieve Selena, but spends more of her damn time talking to Sam and Tim than working. And when she’s around, they don’t do nothing either.”

Theo hid a smile. Sounded just about normal for young people with raging hormones. He hadn’t met Sam or Tim, but he figured he’d need to make a point of doing so—if for no other reason than because if they hadn’t found him, he’d still be dead.

He paused for a moment and thought of Lou. Damn. And as he sat there, in the hot sun, red stains from the berries on his fingers, he opened his mind once again to his brother.

Lou was working in the subterranean computer lab when a familiar sizzle of awareness zipped over his shoulders. His hands stilled over the keyboard.

Theo! he thought, and opened his mind. You there?

Yeah.

Lou’s fingers collapsed onto the keys, creating a jumble of letters. Relief blitzed through him. Are you okay?

He didn’t know for certain whether Theo could actually understand those specific thoughts, but he tried anyway. On his end, it was more of a feeling that communicated whatever they were trying to say to each other. But it had been more than a day since he’d had that brief connect from his brother, and Lou wasn’t certain if he’d imagined it or not. So to have that feeling again was a great relief.

I’m safe.

That came through loud and clear. Solid.

Lou opened his eyes and was mortified to find that they were damp and stinging. He wasn’t ready to lose his brother, not quite yet. Thank God, he’s still here.

Good, Lou sent back vehemently. He waited, wondering if Theo had anything else to say. Ever since the whole thing with Sage had gone down, Theo had been a little more reticent and quiet. And snappish. But although there had been silence from his twin, now the connection was open and Lou took comfort in the familiar bond—simply the awareness that he was still there.

Lou looked at the computer screen on which he’d been writing a new program to analyze numerical information they’d obtained from a journal stolen from the Strangers, who were also called the Elite. The jumble of letters and numbers was, ironically, comforting to him, despite the fact that he hadn’t figured out the significance of the sequences.

Now he could concentrate. Now he’d be able to set his mind to the task that he’d merely been using as an escape from fear that he was once again alone.

Elsie had died a little more than a year after the Change, trying to have their baby in a world without Pitocin, without epidurals, without emergency C-sections. A little flutter of her presence brushed over the back of his neck, beneath the silver-gray ponytail.

Where are you? he asked Theo.

You won’t believe me.

Where?

I’m at Brad Blizek’s ranch.

Lou’s eyes widened. Holy shit.

He could almost hear Theo’s chuckle. I have to look around. More later.

Report back
ASAP
with deets. I’m expecting Tony Stark’s lab, you know.

Me too. Later.

Brad Blizek’s ranch. Sweet. Would there be anything left of his office? With that tantalizing thought, Lou returned his attention to the computer screen, deciding then and there that if it was even half as amazing as he imagined, he was going there too. No matter what Theo said.

“What’s up with that new guy Theo?” Jen asked as she passed Selena in the hallway from the kitchen.

“What do you mean?” Selena replied. The front of her shoulder hurt where the gangas had torn into her, and there was a deep abrasion on her lower back that she’d made certain Vonnie hadn’t seen.

“Well, he’s not dying. And he doesn’t know anyone here,” Jen replied, seemingly unaware of Selena’s tone. “Why is he here? Do you know him? Is he staying?”

Good question. Selena shrugged and then winced at the sharp twinge. “I don’t know if he’s staying, but he’s perfectly healthy as far as I can tell.”

“He sure is,” Jen said with relish. “Did you see that red dragon on his arm? Bang.”

Selena resisted the urge to mention the even more bang dragon on Theo’s back, and merely shrugged again—this time, more gingerly. Jen had been leading Sam on a merry chase for a while—poor sixteen-year-old Sammy was too young for the cute, if not easily distracted, twenty-three-year-old, but since she worked a lot with Selena, the proximity had contributed to what Vonnie called a big, fat Orange Crush.

Obviously, Jen had found another, more appropriate outlet for her flirtations, if the way she peered out the window toward Frank’s garden was any indication. Selena had seen Theo walk out with the elderly man some time earlier, and could pretty much assume that Frank had put him to work. Jen must have met him as she walked through the area from her home, halfway between here and the settlement of Yellow Mountain.

Selena wondered if Theo had gotten hot enough in the sun to take off his shirt yet, and the thought made her pause in surprise. Not the idea itself, but the fact that she’d thought it. Selena certainly admired a wixy male body when she happened to see one, but normally those sorts of thoughts didn’t just crop up in her mind out of the blue. She was over fifty years old, for creep’s sake, and her days of passion were long behind her. Besides, having a man in her life would be too dangerous.

Aside from that, she had other things to deal with. Things that generally put a damper on anything like passion or sex.

What guy wanted to sleep with a woman who got up close and personal to zombies in order to save their souls?

“What?” asked Jen.

“Nothing,” she replied. “I just forgot something I wanted to check on. How’s Maryanna doing?”

But as Jen rattled on about the young woman, Selena couldn’t quite keep her attention from the window. She wondered what his skin tone, already a rich olive color, would look like when it tanned. And she knew how sleek and muscular his back was, how it curved into square shoulders and round biceps.

“Remember?”

With a start, Selena looked at Jen. “Uh,” she began.

“You promised,” the younger girl reminded her. “Vonnie will be busted if you shove it off again. And my Mom and Dad are going to stay here so you can go.”

Right. Vonnie was doing her monthly storytelling gig in Yellow Mountain tonight. Everyone from the surrounding areas—about a hundred people—attended the pig roast and entertainment without fail, partly because Vonnie painted amazing pictures with her words, and partly because it was a social activity that brought them all together and gave them a rest from the daily work.

“Yes, yes, I’ll be there.” She smiled, but it was a little forced.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go or to socialize, but she had to be careful about that sort of thing. She’d learned her lesson back in Sivs. And again in Crossroads. She couldn’t let anyone too close, because once they found out what she did, it could get ugly.

Which was why Selena never thought of herself as alone—for she had Sam and Vonnie and Frank—but she was lonely. She didn’t have a partner. Someone whom she neither had to take care of, nor who tried to mother her to death. Just . . . an equal. Someone to listen. To talk to. To laugh with. And . . . other things.

Someone who didn’t need anything from her.

But maybe tonight . . . maybe she’d just have fun. Drink a little wine. Relax a little.

Maybe she’d even drink a lot of wine. For some reason, her gaze wandered back to the window. She knew what would happen if she drank a lot of wine. It had been a long time . . . she searched back in her mind . . . Three years? Four?

No, good grief—Six! Six years, because it had been Sam’s tenth birthday party, the last time she’d let herself relax. Have a good time.

No wonder she was a little tense.

And so . . . maybe tonight. A night where she could just do . . . what she wanted.

Selena couldn’t help glancing toward the window again. Would it be so bad to flirt a bit with a guy younger than her? Especially one who looked like Theo? Plus he wasn’t from here; surely he wouldn’t be around much longer anyway.

“I’m going to ask Theo if he wants to go,” Jen was saying. “He can sit with us.”

Selena pulled her attention away, her light thoughts deflated. Right. He’d fit in perfectly with the group of friends that Jen normally interacted with. Young, vibrant, and filled with energy.

She turned away. It had been a while since she’d felt like that.

Young. Vibrant. Filled with the joy of life.

Since he’d gotten the news that this was Brad Blizek’s place, several things had occurred to Theo. Aside of the realization that there could be some awesome plans or even prototypes of some of Blizek’s unmanufactured brain children (which he fairly salivated at the thought of getting his hands on), he had to believe there would be a state-of-the-art NASA-like technology setup somewhere.

Maybe even still viable.

So, as soon as he finished helping Frank with a variety of chores in the yard, he asked about it. And was rewarded by the old man trudging him up two flights of steps to what he said they called the arcade.