Rivals and Retribution (22 page)

He met me by the car. He didn’t comment about the fact I was still standing outside of the car in the cold when he caught up to me, or the fact I didn’t help him load the groceries into the trunk.

He didn’t speak to me again until we were nearly back at the house.

“What’s really going on between us, ’laena? What’s changed?”

I kept my mouth shut and stared straight ahead, letting the road ahead entrance me.

“I thought we were getting closer … and then you took Jessie, and Pietr changed, and…” His words faded away.

“I…”

“Do you want us to be close?”

“Yes,” I said. “I do. Of course I do.”

“But it’s like you can’t stand to even be around me sometimes.”

“No. It’s not you.”

“If you say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ I’ll…”

“No. That’s not what I was going to say.” Dammit, how did he know what I was going to say? “I was going to just say…”

“What? What is it, ’laena? Because you know you can say anything to me. You can bring any of your baggage to my door and I’ll deal with it.” His knuckles were growing pale as his hands clenched the steering wheel. “Just say whatever you need to say.”

“I was just going to say, ‘It’s not you.’ That’s all. That’s really all I was going to say,” I muttered, shaking my head as panic blended with sudden understanding. “Because, Gareth, it’s
not
you.”

It’s Pietr.

*   *   *

He took both Gareth and me aside almost as soon as he returned home. “I have found her.”

“What? Who?” Gareth asked, startled.

“Terra,” Alexi said mildly. “Wondermann has her.”

“Wondermann?” I breathed the name out. “Then Dmitri and Gabriel…”

“
Da
. They are all connected somehow. And she needs to be out of there before two days’ time is up. Otherwise she will be shipped off or used as bait and then experimented on.”

“So take us to her—now,” I demanded.

“That is impossible. We cannot afford for this to be traced back to me. It would ruin all my best-laid plans.”

“And we wouldn’t want that,” I sneered. “We wouldn’t want to impose upon your plans—even if the life of a pack member depends on it.”

“You would not understand,” he protested. “You need to track her. Track her all the way to Wondermann. You must infiltrate the building and break her out—
without
my assistance.” He paused and drew a quick breath. “And you must do it all within two days, otherwise you will have lost your opportunity—and your packmate.”

“We’ll take Pietr and Max,” I said stubbornly.

“You cannot. For this, you are on your own again. Your pack rescuing your packmate. Is that not how you have always preferred it?”

Gareth nodded and laid a hand on my shoulder, the warmth of his touch sinking into me and making my head fuzzy with nausea.

“And how do we know this is not a trap for us?” I asked him, realizing the danger.

“You must simply trust that it is not” was all he’d say.

Alexi

I called Jessie next. “You must warn her,” I said firmly. “I do not care what else you talk about or how you get Wanda on the phone. But you must warn her that Wondermann has baited a trap for her by using a werewolf and that the werewolf in question is being removed from play this evening.”

“What about when she gets all untrusting, the way Wanda always does?”

“Assure her she has a friend on the inside.”

I could hear the smile on Jessie’s face when she next spoke. “I’ll pass it along. And, Alexi? I’m so glad you’ve moved past the … the
past,
” she said. “I’m so glad you’ve forgiven her for whatever happened then.”

I grunted into the phone. “I try to learn something from every situation,” I assured her before hanging up. I did not mention that what I had learned was that by delivering this single message, I rebuilt trust in Wanda, made Jessie believe all was well, and would probably make Wanda more anxious to get back at Wondermann.

And that all those things rolled together beautifully to set the stage for Wanda’s undoing.

Marlaena

We rode in on one of the last trains of the evening, Gareth’s eyes fascinated by the world blurring into indistinct smudges of night punctuated by bursts of speckled light—towns and small cities.

“Not a trap,” I whispered.

Gareth looked at me, his eyebrows raised. “Not a trap,” he agreed. “Alexi wouldn’t betray us. He does not strike me as the type to betray another.”

I snorted. “Doesn’t he?” I wondered aloud. “He strikes me as the exact opposite—the most efficient and clever of traitors.”

“I’ll just hope you are wrong, then,” Gareth muttered, a smile dimpling at the edge of his generous lips.

“I’ll hope that, too,” I admitted, but my stomach still twisted—this time at more than Gareth’s proximity to me.

Our train arrived at the station, and we stumbled out of the car and onto the dimly lit platform, following a meager trail of people as they headed out. We stumbled up and onto the street, getting our bearings.

“Can you smell her?” I asked, my own nostrils flaring to drink in the flavor of the city’s night. I caught the scents of steel, concrete, and glass—smells as cold as ice and freshly fallen snow. Too near the vents in the sidewalk or the steaming manhole covers and my nose was filled with scents far warmer and fouler.

“No, not yet. There are so many trails by so many people,” Gareth murmured, scuffing his shoes across a soft dusting of snow. “The city must be the best place to disappear.”

“I’ve considered it myself,” I returned, looking at the lights that soared up from the sidewalks and macadam, lights stretching and glaring along the silhouettes of sleek buildings. “Here. It’s this way.”

We blended with a slow-moving crowd focused on the occasional nightspots that cropped up in small groups. We stopped near the footprint of Wondermann’s building and glanced at each other.

“Remember our plan?” I asked, but I knew he did. Gareth was sharp and had no problem remembering.

“Around back, in and up to fifteen. A fight, then down, out, and away.”

I nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Jessie

I had already written three more chapters in my lit assignment and made additional notes in another notebook about what I needed to add later. I was reviewing some homework with the pups when I finally had to say something about Pietr’s twitching. “What’s wrong? You can’t sit still for all of five minutes, it seems.”

He refocused on his own schoolwork, but three minutes later he was looking toward the foyer. Toward the door.

“What’s going on, Pietr?” I asked, dismissing the last of Marlaena’s pack from the table.

I pulled out the chair to sit beside him and rested my hand on his arm. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s nothing. I just can’t focus on this.” He shoved his papers away, dropping the pencil on top of them.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing,” he said. Quickly.

“You’re worried about something. You keep watching the door.”

His eyes widened the barest bit before he regained control of his expression. “I was just wondering what’s going on right now in Wondermann’s building. Is she okay or should we have gone, too?”

“I’m sure Terra’s going to be fine.”

“Right,” he said. “Terra and Gareth. And Marlaena.”

I blinked. Shoving away from the table, I stood. “Right. I’m sure they’re all fine, Pietr. Even Marlaena.” And then I walked away from the table as fast as I could so I didn’t start yelling.

Or crying.

It wasn’t long before I pulled out my lit notebook and started writing again.

Because writing was so much cheaper than therapy.

Marlaena

I tugged the can of spray paint out of my coat pocket and loped around the side of the building, Gareth going the opposite way. We had agreed we’d split up if we had to—whatever it took to get Terra out of Wondermann’s grasp. We knew where we’d meet up afterward in case things didn’t go well and we knew at what point to abandon hope of the other ever returning and to just get out of the city.

Slinking along the very edge of the building I saw there was only one camera whose eye I had to blacken, and then it was just slip around to the area they used as a loading dock and … there he was.

Gareth stood on the steps, his foot in a door, though from the rug that was wedged to hold it open, it didn’t seem an entirely necessary move. He glanced down at the ground, which was littered with cigarette butts. “The place for the guards’ smoke break,” he said. He pointed to the nearest stretch of observable sidewalk with his chin. “Alarm’s disabled,” he added. “See the food cart?”

I took a look. “Yeah?”

“It serves gyros and drinks. Two-handed food. And no one wants to fight with their food
and
an alarmed door when they’re getting ready to enjoy a break.”

“Noted,” I said, slipping into the doorway.

“Ready for some cardio?” he asked with a smile.

“It’s the key to escaping zombies, so yeah,” I returned with a grin.

“Up, up, and away,” he said, starting up floor after floor of stairs.

We were barely even winded when we reached the fifteenth floor.

“In and take the first left. The guard marks the spot,” Gareth reminded.

We carefully opened the door and jogged down the hallway, peeking around the first left to get a glimpse of the guard. He stood stiff and straight at his post and looked bored beyond belief. I cracked my knuckles and spotted the place on his belt where the keys hung.

Right beside his holster.

He yawned and rubbed his face with a slow hand, not knowing how we intended to liven things up for him.

Alexi

It was awkward, watching them. Pietr drifted further from Jess unwittingly, his eyes never resting on her for long unless he truly forced himself to focus, and yet, when I’d seen him watching Marlaena, everything about his attitude intensified. He straightened his back, threw back his shoulders, and raised his chin, a swagger in his walk. With Jess, he was gutless and guilty—tired beyond recognition, and pale.

Jessie clung to him, watched him more closely, and kept her hands on him as much as she could.

After the pups had finished their homework, and Cat, Amy, and Jessie had figured out dinner, Jessie grabbed me to go outside and spar.

We fought and we stumbled around each other, practicing both our best and worst moves. When we had exhausted ourselves and she had spilled out her frustration all across my rib cage, we sat in the windbreak the porch’s corner provided and talked—me rubbing warmth back into her hands.

“Something’s wrong. He’s sick. I can tell,” she whispered, blowing on our joined hands. “He’s sick. But it doesn’t make any sense. He’s
oborot
again now.”

I nodded.

“He shouldn’t be capable of getting sick, right?”

“
Da
.”

“So why is this happening, then? How can he be sick if he can’t
get
sick? And Marlaena—it’s like she’s caught some bug, too. She looks pale and weak, but there’s this fever to her eyes.…”

I looked away from Jessie then, my heart pounding angrily in my chest. “A fever in her eyes? What do you mean?”

“Her eyes go this crazy purple and then flare red when we’re nearby. I mean, I know she hates me, but…”

It was so unfair.

“Maybe there’s something going around…,” she suggested. “Something only alpha werewolves are susceptible to…”

I nodded, but the motion was halfhearted. “
Da
. Perhaps that is it,” I agreed. “Perhaps there is some new ailment—something brought in by the new pack and only triggered for some reason here and now. There is so much about the
oboroten
that we do not yet understand.…” I rose and extended a hand, pulling her to her feet.

“Good point. They are relatively new, I guess.… Lots to still understand.…”

“
Da
,” I muttered.
Like imprinting. And how to overcome it.

I held the door open for her, still avoiding her eyes.

“Maybe you should get back in the lab—figure this all out,” she suggested, searching out my eyes.

I nodded again. “
Da
. I will head back to the lab as soon as I can, but there are other circumstances now.”

“You need to wait on Wondermann.”

“
Da.
”

“How close were you to the cure? The real, point-of-no-return cure?”

“Closer than ever before, but not quite close enough. I will get it, Jessie. There must be a solution.”

Jessie threw her arms around me, hugging me tightly. “Thank you, Sasha,” she whispered into my neck. “Thank you for helping me fix whatever this is.” Then she released me and disappeared into the house.

I wanted a cigarette. Desperately. How could I possibly fix this, now that I knew what
this
was? This was designed to
not
be fixable. To simply be an imperative above all others.

For the good of the species, not for the good of anyone in particular and certainly not for the good of any notion like love. When the
oboroten
were designed, love was clearly the last thing on anyone’s mind.

Marlaena

There was no point in trying to sneak up on the one guard in the hallway, but there was every reason to surprise him quickly and make sure he couldn’t radio for help.

We sprinted down the hall, Gareth bowling the guard over as he reached for his radio and gun and I played keep away with those two very important items.

I slung the radio down the hall, pocketed the gun, and Gareth shoved a gag in the guard’s mouth as I pulled out my roll of duct tape. “Sorry about this brief intermission in your otherwise dull day, but we need what you’re keeping stashed away and we followed her trail to here.”

He struggled and mumbled into the gag, thrashing against the duct tape I’d just lashed around his ankles and wrists.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I warned, but he struggled a bit more—just enough to lose his balance and fall to the floor, an embarrassed and writhing mess of tangled humanity.