Project Paper Doll: The Trials (13 page)

I shook my head.
Ridiculous.
I had no way of knowing if he was even capable of taking care of the tracking issue, except that he said that he could, and I believed him.

I
wanted
to believe him. And that was incredibly dangerous. No matter how fiercely he proclaimed otherwise, he had changed. He’d been seconds away from attacking Ford, a cry for
help at best and a suicide attempt at worst.

I didn’t know what to make of that, but I needed to find out.

Plus, as grateful as I was to find Zane alive, there had to be a reason for what St. John had done beyond compassion. And I couldn’t figure out what that would be. Whatever it was, I did
not want it to bite me in the ass when I was least expecting it.

Hole in One was exactly where Zane said it would be, though on the opposite side of the street. I darted through a gap in the traffic and slipped inside, gritting my teeth against the brush of
so many bodies in close proximity.

Zane was nowhere in evidence at the front of the restaurant, as far as I could determine, and his height usually made him fairly easy to find, so I wormed my way in deeper.

It was possible that I’d arrived ahead of him, in which case it seemed wise to stake out some small piece of real estate where we could talk in relative privacy. A crowd would certainly
help hide us, but it also made having a conversation without being overheard trickier.

Then again, anyone bored enough to eavesdrop on us today would likely assume we were (a) crazy or (b) working a bizarre creative writing project.

Ha. I wished.

In the far corner, I found a small, secluded seating area: a single row of three tables with chairs instead of the more prominent booths in the front by the windows.

Two out of the three tables were occupied. At the closest, a college-aged guy demolished a bagel while he thumbed through something on his tablet, his lips moving as he read. The woman at the
second table with the painfully tight ponytail was glaring at her phone, her coffee forgotten in her annoyance.

I started for the last table in the row, which also offered the advantage of the corner. I could put my back to it and know that no one would be sneaking up from that direction, unless someone
decided to leap over the ordering counter and come through that way.

That seemed like something Ford might do. But not today, I hoped.

As I passed the second table, the woman with the phone looked up suddenly. Her gaze passed over me from head to toe, lingering an extra second on my hair and my face, with frank curiosity.

“Wait,” she said, holding out her free hand, palm out, as if to prevent me from passing her by.

Her interest immediately set off an alarm in my head. Nothing about her seemed inherently dangerous, though, except that she was sitting up straighter and paying more attention than she should
have been.

That, in and of itself, wasn’t exceptional. Occasionally I’d had strangers—women, usually—stop me before. It never failed to send me in a panic in Wingate. But running
would have broken Rule #4, keeping my head down and being as inconspicuous as possible, so I’d stood my ground, trying to keep my shaking from being obvious.

It had always turned out to be innocuous. Most of the time, they wanted to know if that was my natural hair color, and if not, who did it for me. Sometimes one of them would cluck over my
thinness and ask, “Isn’t anyone feeding you?” as if I were a stray animal.

I’d always given the answers as quickly as possible. “Yes, it’s natural. And yes, I’m fed well at home. I just have a small frame.”

Responses that would ring true and encourage no further dialogue.

So, more out of habit than intention, I paused, those old phrases leaping to mind in preparation.

But then she spoke again. “Ariane,” she said with a big smile. “Right?”

My field of vision narrowed to the woman’s face, panic blocking out everything else. The intense interest in her expression was familiar in a very specific way. I’d seen it from Dr.
Jacobs repeatedly, every time I’d achieved another level of accomplishment in his experiment. It was an eagerness born of the desire to obtain, to own.

This woman, whoever she was, knew not only who I was but
what
I was. Worse yet, I couldn’t get anything from her thoughts, which meant she’d had training and knew exactly what
to expect from me.

Suddenly, the air felt suffocating, the warmth and smells that had seemed so pleasant a moment ago now seemed to cling to my face, like plastic pressed against my nose and mouth.

Get out. Now.
A scene in here with all these people, that would only draw more attention to me, which was the last thing I needed. I didn’t know this woman, but if she knew me, that
could only mean that she was somehow involved in this mess.

I spun around immediately to return the way I’d come.

“Don’t.” As if she’d anticipated my reaction, the woman’s hand landed on my arm before I got more than a step, jerking me to a stop.

NO.
Even before I consciously made the decision to defend myself, power rose up in me and flooded outward, surrounding her.

The pressure of her hand on my arm lessened as she loosed her grip and tried to pull away. But she wasn’t going anywhere.

I turned to face her, holding her frozen.

The tips of her fingers twitched against my forearm as she struggled to free herself. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she whispered, her eyes wide as she stared at her hand and
then at me.

“No,” I agreed. “You’re not.”

The college student guy at the table in front of us turned to glance back with a frown, evidently sensing the tension.

“Leave,” I said, making sure he heard the threat implied in my tone.

His eyes bugged, but he didn’t move.

I stared him down. It didn’t take much effort to make full-blooded humans recognize that something wasn’t quite right and that they should listen to the tiny voices in their brains
screaming at them to run away.

College guy scrambled up out of his seat, grabbing his bag and his iPad, leaving his half-finished bagel behind.

There. That was better. One less witness for whatever I did next.

“Ariane!” I heard Zane’s voice, breathless, behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him move around the bakery racks toward me.

“What are you doing?” He approached, his hands out as if to keep me from making a sudden move.

“She grabbed my arm,” I said flatly, in the same tone I would have said, “I don’t like her.” The two were equivalent in my mind.

“I see that.” Zane sounded wary. I glanced at him, his face even more flushed, his eyes still oddly dilated. He looked…ill. That’s what had bothered me before. He and
Adam, they both looked like they were on the third day of a virus. That had to be a side effect of their alteration. I wondered if it was permanent. Would he always be on the verge of being
sick?

How could that possibly be good for him? Would it eventually work its way through his system?

The woman grimaced, trying to shift within the field of my power, drawing my attention to her again. I squeezed a little tighter as a reminder that she was not the master of her own destiny at
the moment.

She gasped. “I wasn’t…I just wanted to stop her from leaving.”

“Ariane doesn’t like to be touched,” Zane said, edging closer with caution, as if I might suddenly lash out at him as well.

“Noted,” Justine said through clenched teeth. She watched the two of us, her mouth set in grim lines.

“Are you okay?” he asked, inching toward me, and despite the fact that I still didn’t know what was going on, part of me trembled in anticipation of his nearness.

“Yeah,” I said. His dilated eyes were alarming at this proximity, just a sliver of the blue-gray left around the edges, and the knuckles on his left hand were bruised and bloodied.
“Are you?” I asked.

He waved his hand dismissively. “I’m fine.”

I didn’t quite believe him, but for the moment there were greater worries. “What about the trackers? Did you—”

“It’s taken care of,” he said, waving my words away. “I gave my phone and tag to Adam.”

I frowned. “Adam? How—”

The woman cleared her throat loudly, calling our attention to her. “Excuse me. Now that we’ve established that you’re both well and full of cozy puppy feelings, do you think we
can move on to releasing me from this lovely little bear trap you’ve created?” Her smiling eagerness had subsided to a general crankiness that pleased me.

Zane shifted uncomfortably. “Can you let her go?” he asked me.

Can I? Yes. Would I? Not yet. “Why? Who is she?” I asked.

A look of exasperation crossed the woman’s face. She didn’t like that we were discussing her as if she weren’t here. But, wisely, she said nothing.

“This is Justine,” Zane said, raking a hand through his hair. “She’s who I brought you here to meet.”

I stared at him and took a step back, all my fears returning and my stomach sinking with dread. “You planned this?” I asked, working to keep my voice level. I’d worried that
Zane had been changed by whatever St. John had done; I’d never considered that they’d somehow convinced him to switch sides.

He nodded, and my heart fell.

“She’s government like the others,” I spat. It was stamped all over her, now that I knew to look for it. The hardness in her expression that suggested she was used to getting
what she wanted. I’d seen it at times even in my father, who was accustomed to giving orders to teams beneath him both at GTX and in his former military life.

“No, not like the others,” Justine said quickly.

Zane shook his head. “She’s not. She’s been working with Emerson—Dr. St. John—to try to reach you and get you out.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Right.” As if there could be a fairy-tale ending to this one, a winged godmother—albeit a seemingly grumpy one—appearing out of nowhere to grant my
fondest wish.

“Just hear her out,” Zane said. “Okay?” His strangely dilated eyes met mine, pleading with me. Then he held his hand out, palm up, a gesture of peace…or a reminder
of our first “date.” When I’d first trusted him and taken his hand. I wanted to have that same sense of trust again.

But I couldn’t bring myself to let go of my suspicions and take his hand. Not yet.

Listening, however, felt manageable. “Fine.” I released the field around Justine, and her hand dropped off my arm, but with no force to counterbalance her weight, she toppled
forward.

She caught herself and straightened up, glaring at me as she rubbed her wrist like the blood circulation had been impeded. Oh, please.

Zane lowered his hand without looking at me. I couldn’t feel his hurt, not anymore, but I could see it in the new stiffness in his posture.

“I’d ask you to sit,” Justine said to me mockingly, “but I wouldn’t want you to take it as a threat.”

“You spend your life in a cage with people poking and prodding at you,” I snapped. “Then let’s see how you interpret someone making a grab for you.”

“Fair enough,” she said, picking up her coffee cup and setting it upright. “But it seems as though maybe you’ve gotten used to some kinds of poking,” she added
darkly, eyeing the two of us.

It took a second for the double-meaning to click.

My mouth fell open. Had she seriously just said that?

“Jesus,” Zane muttered, his cheeks flushing a deeper shade of red.

She waved one hand dismissively as she wiped up the puddle of coffee with a stack of napkins. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. It was a joke.” She shoved the soggy napkins
aside and leaned forward in an all-business manner, her hands folded neatly on the table.

“Here’s what you need to know in brief,” she said, “since we’re all on borrowed time here. Zane is correct. I’ve been working with Dr. St. John for the last
seven years.”

That matched what Dr. Jacobs had hinted at, that perhaps Emerson St. John had colored outside the lines. Interesting. But whatever had compelled him to break the bounds of confidentiality to
enlist this woman’s aid, it had clearly not been an objection to the morality of the program. He had, after all, “created” Adam and saved Zane with his invention.

“The contract that St. John and the others are all hoping to win is being offered by a division within the Department of Defense, to greatly simplify a complicated history,” Justine
continued. “I’m part of a…competing organization.”

Zane glanced at me. “Department of Homeland Security.”

Justine glared. “I can’t say much about the particular situation,” she said to me, choosing her words with care. “But I’m sure the concept of limited funds,
overlapping responsibilities, and competing priorities is one you understand.”

I eyed her speculatively. “A turf war would be the vernacular, I believe.”

She gave me a tight smile. “We prefer to think of it as two strong organizations vying for the opportunity to protect the people of this country in whatever way necessary.”

I shrugged. Either way, it meant the same thing. She was in this because whomever she worked for wanted to screw over the other guys. Maybe it was about protecting people; more likely it was
about money or credit or a tweaked ego.

And the Department of Homeland Security, if Zane was right about that, was indeed a separate entity from the Department of Defense, and it didn’t require a stretch of the imagination to
believe that they might not always be, what was the saying, two peas in a pod.

It sounded good. Whether it was true remained to be seen.

“They’re interested in using you for strategic military strikes, high-profile targets where anonymity and death by natural causes might be a benefit to them.” She shrugged.
“Ordinarily, we would agree. But we think you might have more value as a resource, a tool of sorts instead of a weapon.”

“They have documents, tech—” Zane began.

Justine shot him a dark look for the interruption. “Zane is correct. We have inherited from various other agencies a cache of documents and a warehouse of evidence gathered from a variety
of ‘incidents.’” She paused, giving me a significant look. “Particularly the one taking place in a desert around seventy years ago, give or take.”