The Butterfly Code (20 page)

"Aeris," he gasps.

I’m screaming, screaming.

Tiny waves crash and froth on the miniature boulders, dizzy and distant and waiting.

His fingers swipe at my neck. They clutch my bag strap and for a wonderful moment my descent slows.

"I’ve got you," he cries.

"Don’t let me go."

"I won’t."

"I don’t want to fall! I don’t want to fall!"

Then the strap snaps. My fingers flail upward as it’s torn away and he’s holding it and reaching for me and I get one last touch of the leather satchel, grasping at its curved, smooth bottom, desperate to hold it somehow but not able.

"No!" His voice rips me with its agony.

Air.

It whips around me, buffeting my skin, my hair. My stomach lurches up into my throat.
Hunter
, I try to scream. Nothing comes out.

I’m alone.

Alone in a vast expanse of air that’s compressing as the earth flies at me with deadly speed. Boulders rush to meet me, jagged toothed tombstones, waiting, thirsting to receive me.

Silence. All I hear is the rush of wind. I don’t fight. There’s no point. Nothing to be done, no decisions to make. Nothing but the knowledge of my last breath.

Dad, I wish I could tell you how much I love you.

A body hurtles past, startling me so that I jolt and twist in midair. It’s Hunter. He’s dropping so fast he’s a blur. He must have been hit. I watch him plunge, my mind oddly detached. We’re so close to the ocean that details in the rocks are visible. Seaweed surges in sparkling pools. Jagged crevices hold scuttling crabs, their sharp pincers working.

A wave crashes, sending up a violent plume that mists my skin.

Hunter hits first.

I close my eyes. Squeeze them shut.
Please, God.

Let it be quick.

F
ootsteps pound the rocks
. I hear him. Over rocks, splashing through water. Running. My back slams into the curve of his arms. I fall against the slickness of Hunter’s wet chest. And then we’re tumbling in water, rolling and thrashing in the surf, and I’m gasping as his hands push me to the surface. I cough, eyes streaming in the salt-charged foam that churns relentlessly and threatens to pull me down again.

For a moment, he holds me to him, burying his face in my hair.

"Swim," he whispers, urgent.

"How did you—"

"Doesn’t matter. Swim. Now!"

The water plane is there, anchored offshore. One pontoon, the damaged pontoon, wallows half beneath the surface. I straggle at Hunter’s side, thrashing in the frigid water. I’m a good swimmer, but the water’s ice cold. Teeth chattering, I kick harder and crawl forward, fighting off the growing chill.

His hands seize me, and he pulls me to a stop, holding me against him and cursing.

I follow his gaze up to the cliff. A man stands there holding a giant metal tube. I know what that tube is—I’ve seen one before. In an action movie on TV. My trembling grows more violent.

"Is that a rocket launcher?"

A flash lights the end of the tube. Then a missile explodes outward. It flies toward us, winging downward with terrifying speed. No, not toward us—toward the plane. They’re trying to cut off our escape.

The missile hits, exploding water sky-high. The blast sends my head snapping back. Frantic, I thrust hair from my eyes. The plane’s still there.

"Missed," Hunter notes. "Come on, before someone who can shoot gets hold of it."

Panic makes me abnormally strong. I swim toward the plane with strokes more powerful than any I’d consider myself capable of. Even the deadening cold is no match against my growing swiftness. Still, it’s not fast enough for Hunter. His left arm wraps around me and hooks under my armpit. He hauls me at inhuman speed across the surface.

The nearest pontoon bobs a foot away. He leaps onto it and helps me out of the water as he thrusts the lightweight door open. We climb in and he tosses my bag into the foot well and pulls my door closed, fastening it shut.

Through the misty window, I stare up at the cliff. The gunman is loading a fresh round.

Hunter starts the engine, impatient, his big hands working levers and knobs and switches, his amber eyes focused and in control.

I’m not, though.

"Hurry!" I cry, staring up at that gaping barrel.

The engine thrums to life, strong and throaty. It rises to a steady, throbbing whir.

"They won’t shoot, not with you in here."

I watch the gunman on the cliff, cringing, waiting for the flash. Hunter’s right. It doesn’t come. The plane limps across the water, picking up speed. The shooter lowers the rocket launcher and watches us go.

A gust takes us, and we lift off. Winds batter the wings. The plane climbs higher, and soon the cliff top is visible. The cars are there, small as black toys. The road snakes in either direction. Gage’s truck lies upside down, forgotten. A knot of men stand around a prone form on the pavement. From this distance, the glint of his blond hair is barely visible.

I press both hands to the glass. My face turns hot with tears. "Oh, Gage, what have they done to you?"

The plane banks left, and all I see are clouds.

Gray and heavy, they consume us both.

How can this be happening? How can I be flying away from my best friend? This is my fault. And he’s paying for it. My heart squeezes so hard I almost throw up.

We have to get him back. Please don’t let King kill him. Please.

We fly in silence, the plane roaring south.

I stare at the sky. Gage told me his friends are planning to destroy King. When we land, I’m going straight to his cove. We’ll take down that monster together. Obliterate him. Limb by limb. His twisted company, brick by brick. All of it, until he’s no more than a name on the wind. An item in a Wikipedia entry. Dust.

That’s my only sliver of light—I will avenge him. And for now I have to focus on that. I grit my jaw and swallow my tears, my whole body clenched until I’m exhausted. Spent.

I’ll never forget what you did for me. Ever. I will owe you always until I can make this right.

My agony narrows into a little stone in my belly. It lies like a sharp weight. Right beside the stone that belongs to Mom. The pain fills me with new fire.

I’ll avenge you both.

T
he sky is
black and icy as my soul. Hunter’s hands are busy entering coordinates into some digital device on the dash. His blunt-tipped fingers make deft, knowing movements. Water leaks from his T-shirt, dripping down the tanned skin of his solid arms.

For a moment I allow myself to imagine he’s what he appears. Good and honest and true.

He’s not all those things, though. I’m sure part of him cares for me. Yet he lied. He did things to me. And he left me alone without a word of explanation. He’s playing the hero today. For how long, and to what end?

"I want answers," I say, weeks of pent-up frustration blending with my fear for Gage. "I want them now. What the hell did you do to my body?"

"You’re cold," he says. "There’s a blanket in the back."

"I’m fine." I look down at my wet nightshirt and realize I’m completely exposed. Scowling, I grab the blanket and pull it over myself.

"There’s no point in keeping secrets any longer, is there?" he says quietly. "I’ve made mistakes. Big ones. This never should have happened. I’m sorry, Aeris."

Clouds blow past, trailing water droplets along the windows.

"Just tell me what you did. Right now."

"That night we spent in the barn was . . ." There’s a thread of pain in his voice. He stops and turns to study me. Power and worldliness radiates from his face while tiny lines of disenchantment are etched around his eyes. "Do you really need me to answer that?"

"Yes."

"When you were on my operating table, I kept thinking of us riding Ranger together. I remembered everything you said about losing the people you care about, and I made a choice. An irresponsible one. I went against every principle I stand for. You didn’t know what you were in for. How could you? It’s what I wanted. Simple as that."

"Bringing me to life?"

"Yes."

Finally, the unvarnished truth—I was dead. And yet I’m not. I’m here in this plane above the earth. And he did what he’d been so vehemently against so that I could live
.

"Why did you leave?"

"I needed you to get better without me there."

"Why?"

His eyes go to the windshield. There’s that shuttered look again, like he’s worried. Like he’s hiding something. I try to reach out and sense his emotions. I can’t feel a thing. It’s just me. Me going crazy.

"Did I make you sick? Is that it?"

"You? No. Definitely not."

"So you wanted me to get better without you there, but when you left, I already was, wasn’t I? When you sang to me. I woke up the next morning."

He shoots me a glance, his startling amber eyes curious. "You were aware of me?"

"Yes. Look, I’m done with all these secrets. I want to know what’s actually happening to me."

"You’re healing."

"Obviously. How?"

"It’s a process."

"A process? If you won’t explain it, then I will. Because I’m pretty sure I have it figured out. So stop me if I’m wrong, but your drug sent me into some wild, hyperfast healing mode. A doctor told me my bones were never broken. She had no clue. They were, and they fixed themselves in record time. You know how I know? Because it felt like hell. Like my whole body was tearing itself down. I was on fire. It felt like I was melting inside. Maybe I kind of was until my bones started reforming."

In the darkening sky, the cabin has turned murky. The colored dashboard lights catch the angles of Hunter’s face.

"I’m right. Aren’t I?"

"Pretty damn close."

My feet are cold against the metal floor. I stare at my toes, the nails somehow impossibly perfect as a child’s. "My mom was obsessed with caterpillars. She told me once that when they enter a chrysalis, their cells go back to their original state. They become cellular building blocks, the kind that can turn into anything. The caterpillar melts inside its protective shell. And gradually their cells become new things. A new body, new eyes. New arms and legs. And something extra the caterpillar didn’t have before. Something special."

"Wings," Hunter grinds out.

"Exactly. And when it’s ready, when its change is complete, it crawls out and emerges like a phoenix. Reborn into something new."

"That it does."

"That’s what happened. Isn’t it? The drug doesn’t just fix bones. It changed my muscles. My skin. Even my eyesight. I’m not normal anymore." My voice wobbles and I struggle to keep it steady. "I don’t know what I’m becoming."

"You will be normal. I promise you that."

He reaches for me, tentative, and then his fingers close around mine, and, for a moment, I allow myself to get lost in the caress of his big hand. Then I pull away and cross my arms. I’m not ready to trust him. Not even to voice my suspicions that Mom might have been involved in the PRL twenty years ago. Anyway, that was long before his time.

"I know you don’t trust me," Hunter says. "It kills me I wasn’t there for you. I am now and I swear—I won’t let anything bad happen to you."

Despite his claim, I sense his worry wrapping around my heart, threatening to choke out all hope. Once again I’m capturing his feelings in the same way that a stereo captures radio waves. Would he think I’m mad if I told him?

The tops of the towering clouds create a majestic path on either side of the tiny plane. They’re so solid one could almost imagine stepping out and climbing among them. Air currents bump the plane, and I wonder if those bullets did any damage to the engine.

"How long will I have to take the pills?" I ask.

"I don’t know."

I stare.

"We’ve never done this before."

My mouth drops open. "What? I thought you and Victoria and the others—"

"What I mean is that we’ve never knocked down the modification."

"Knocked down?"

"Reset a person’s DNA back to normal, return it to how they were before."

I struggle to digest what he’s telling me. "You mean turn the butterfly backward into the caterpillar? Back into the worm? Is that what you’re saying?"

"Humans were never meant to be butterflies. But you were never a caterpillar—not in my book."

Against my will, my heart skips a beat and starts to race. I won’t let him do this to me. I’m not falling under his spell again. I raise my chin. "What about you? Why haven’t you reversed the effect on yourselves?"

He reaches over and tucks the blanket around me. "It’s a long story. You need to rest. It’s been a heavy day."

"I’m fine." I edge away from him, closer to my door.

He’s right, though. The stress of it all crashes over me like a black icy wave. There are too many things to think about. Gage. Dad, I have to call Dad as soon as I get to a phone and tell him I’m all right.

I think of King and his vicious attempts to harvest my blood. What about the researchers? Why hasn’t King gone after them? I’ll ask Hunter tomorrow. When I’m not so tired. This much I know: Until I’m normal, until the modification has been knocked down, King and his men will chase me. Hound me until they run me into the earth.

I pull my bare toes onto the seat. It’s cold up here in the sky. From beneath my lashes, I watch him. I watch his aristocratic, mysterious face, those steady, capable eyes trained on the darkness ahead. A fighter. A researcher. A liar who bound me in casts and yet still makes my heart pound uncomfortably hard in my chest.

Part of me trusts him completely. Part of me longs to lean into him and let his arms protect me from my fears. Another part isn’t so sure.

The argument Gage and I had that day we played cards and ate candy comes back to me—

Maybe they didn’t want you going to a hospital. Ever think of that? . . . Did it ever occur to you that your accident could have given them the perfect chance to do a little human research? . . . You were there for four weeks.

A lot can happen in four weeks. Especially three of which I have little memory of.

Hunter still hasn’t explained why he put me in casts. I had a right to know how he’d changed me. From the start. And I still do. No matter his motives, no matter that he’s trying to protect me. I am an experiment. His experiment. I’m taking his experimental drugs. For how long, even he doesn’t know and he’s the doctor.

I’m nearly too numb to be frightened. Or maybe I’m growing used to the small fissure of fear that hums in my belly, constant and unsettling.

Gage had said Hunter and King were friends. I’m certain now they couldn’t be.

Still, like the last time Hunter came to my rescue, he’s once again in control. Before, I was in his secret lab. Now I’m in this unmarked plane. I’m his passenger yet also his captive. With no phone, no money, no proper clothes, I have little chance of getting home on my own.

If nothing else, I’m going to get answers. I have so many questions. I’ll get to the bottom of this. No matter what.

For now, I have to trust him. Because anything else is too awful to contemplate.

I’m so drowsy. The wild, frantic stress drains from me and turns into a glowering worry that drags me down, drags me under into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I wake to the sensation of the plane descending. A sliver moon glows weakly in the dark, twinkling night. We drop below the cloud cover. Stars wink out, replaced by a blur of gray. I squint to see the ground. There’s no sign of an airport, just pitch-black countryside.

Trees, fields. A building in the distance with a glowing yellow light.

Hunter touches my shoulder, pulling me fully awake.

"Where are we? Why are we flying so low?" I say.

"Landing."

"I don’t see a runway."

"Runways are overrated. Fasten your seat belt."

"Overrated? Great." I sit up quickly and push aside the blanket to snap on the safety belt. It’s one of those things that crosses over both shoulders and locks over my breastbone.