The Decaying Empire (The Vanishing Girl Series Book 2) (10 page)

“Morning, class,” Coach said. “I’ve got a good one for us today. We’re going to work on disarming and taking down your opponent.” He pulled out his clipboard, flipping through its pages. “Singles, find a partner of the opposite sex. I’ll be calling you up in groups of four. Those of you not up will spend the rest of the class running stadiums. If I see anyone slack off, I’ll be giving you tardy exercises for the rest of the week.”

Coach Painter glanced up from his clipboard. “Before we begin I want to reintroduce a teleporter joining us after recovering from an injury.”

Coach Painter’s eyes searched the crowd. “Ember Pierce, why don’t you come on up.”

My muscles tensed, but I forced myself to step forward. For the second time today, all eyes were on me. I made my way to Coach Painter, whose eyes twinkled, as though he knew just how incredibly uncomfortable the attention made me.

When I stepped to his side, he clapped me on the shoulder. “If you haven’t gotten to know her yet, make sure to take the time to do so.”

I closed my eyes. He couldn’t make this easy for me.

Coach Painter gave my shoulder a shake. “It’s good to have you back,” he said.

I nodded and gave him a pained smile.

“Okay, let’s get started,” he said, clapping me again on the shoulder and pushing me back into the crowd. He picked up his whistle and blew it three times, then rattled off the first set of names.

It wasn’t until thirty minutes later that ours were called. By then I’d nearly hacked up a lung running stadiums. My body had a lot of catching up to do, and no one had told me to take it easy. Why would they?
I
needed to convince
them
that I was useful. Or I was as good as dead.

Caden and I joined another pair in front of Coach Painter. “All right, you four,” he said, leaning in. “I want to see each of you demonstrate on your pair how you might disarm and take them down. You get five minutes each to practice.”

Everyone else was nodding, like this all made perfect sense. Déjà vu struck twice.

“Um, Coach,” I said, stepping up. “How exactly are we supposed to do this?” Was I the only one who ever needed additional instructions?

Coach Painter gave me a look like he expected better. From me. The resurrected chick. “You should know how,” he said. “And if you don’t, your partner better fill you in real quick.” He gazed at Caden with a stern expression. “You’re being graded for this.”

I glanced at my pair, who matched Coach Painter’s hard look with one of his own.

When Caden’s eyes met mine, his expression softened somewhat. “C’mon, angel, I’ll give you a demo.”

We walked off to the side to train.

“Okay,” I said, stretching my arms and praying my shaky legs would hold up after stadiums, “how do we . . . ?”

Caden leaned in and bowed his head so that his lips touched the shell of my ear. “We need to fail this.”

I drew back from him. “That shouldn’t be too hard.”

Caden stepped away, looking grim. I searched his face, trying to decipher his thoughts from his expression.

And then I did.

They want me back in the field ASAP.

I touched my stomach, where my scars were hidden. They couldn’t possibly want me back on missions. One, I’d proven my disloyalty, and two, it would be difficult to seduce targets with my monstrous scars.

Caden shook his head. “Whatever you think matters to them doesn’t,” he said, reading my expression. “Teleporters have a high turnover rate. They’ll put you in the field if they think you’re at all capable.”

That shouldn’t have surprised me—really, it shouldn’t have. But I’d assumed that I served one purpose and one purpose only: to pull Caden back from the brink. Seemed counterintuitive to bring me back only to chance letting me die again.

Caden was maybe right, that they could be desperate. Or perhaps the Project wanted to corral him into a decision he might not otherwise make. Like everything else with the Project, the layers of deception ran deep.

But what decision would Caden not normally make?

My eyes drifted to his arms. The thick, corded muscles distracted me for only a moment, and then I focused on his scar-riddled skin.

Of course.
Domestication
.

Caden stepped in close, cupping my face and drawing my attention away from my thoughts. “I lost you once,” he said, his voice low. “I’m not taking any chances.”

Behind him a familiar form walked onto the field. I stilled, my attention diverted.

Dane Richards.

He scanned the field, and his eyes paused on me. We held each other’s stares for several tense seconds. Long enough for Caden to throw a glance over his shoulder and see what I was looking at. Then Dane the Dick approached Coach Painter.

My heart slammed into my chest. Dane was here to watch me. He had to be.

“Ember?” Caden said.

I touched my chest, feeling the uneven skin where my scar had formed. I couldn’t catch my breath. Nothing had ever hurt so badly as that gunshot. Then I’d teleported, and I was pain incarnate. I knew I was going to die. And Dane had to have ordered it.

And here I was now. Under his control once again. I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. “Need to escape. Need to escape. Need to—”

“Angel.” A hand slid down the side of my face, and suddenly I stared into Caden’s eyes. “Focus on me. Focus.”

I did, drawing in one shaky breath. It only helped so much. You couldn’t reason with fear, nor could you with physiology. That’s what this was—my mind and body reacting instinctually to Dane’s presence.

“You’re all right,” Caden said, soothing me. “You’re all right.”

“He did it, Caden.” My voice broke as I spoke. “He killed me.”

Agony flashed in Caden’s eyes for a moment, and then it was gone. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

That wasn’t the point. “How could you stay here?” I accused. I already knew his reasons; they just didn’t seem valid at the moment.

Now he didn’t bother to disguise his pain. “I was waiting for you.”

That answer, the answer he’d mentioned earlier, was one that I couldn’t get angry at. Those five simple words sated some of the hurt I carried.

But not the fear.

I ran a shaky hand through my hair, and then I vanished.

CHAPTER 7

I
t took me a moment to get my bearings. Once I did I let out a little squeak. I stood behind Adrian, who was taking a piss. Perfect timing as usual.

At the sound of my voice, Adrian flinched. But he didn’t scream—I’d give him that. “What the—” he said, turning.

“Don’t!”
I practically shrieked. Heaven forbid I get an eyeful. There were some things that couldn’t be unseen. Catching a glimpse of an acquaintance’s junk was one of them.

“Ember?” he said to the wall in front of him. Then he shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m leaving,” I said, pawing for the door handle behind me. “Shit, just give me a second.”

I swiveled, grabbed the handle, and gracelessly fled the bathroom—only to run into a woman. She rose from a couch—Adrian’s couch—and stared at me, confused. “Who are you?” she asked in a clipped British accent.

My eyes widened and my mouth opened and closed. “Me?” I pointed to myself. Adrian had a girl over, and all that flashed through my mind was how bad this looked.

“Yeah, you.” Her confusion morphed into something darker and more suspicious.

Adrian saved me from explaining myself when he exited the bathroom. Not that I wanted to see him either.

He flashed me an annoyed look. “Couldn’t you have picked a better time to drop in?” he asked.

“It’s not like I can control these things.”

“Well, now that you’re here, I need to talk to you,” he said.

“What is going on?” the woman interrupted, glancing between the two of us and trying to make sense of the situation. “Adrian, what was a girl”—she eyed me—“doing in your bathroom?”

His eyes flicked from me to the woman. “Sarah, it’s a long story. It’s work related.”

“‘Work related’?” Her brows drew together.

“You’re really screwing this up,” I whispered under my breath to him.

“Shut up,” he dismissed me. Rude as usual.

“Sarah, we can either reschedule dinner—”

“Reschedule dinner?” She’d gone from horrified surprise to fuming.

“—or you can wait outside for the next ten minutes.”

“Wait outside?” she repeated.

I bit the inside of my cheek. For all his brains, Adrian was having a hell of a time maneuvering the subtleties of relationships. That, or he didn’t much care for this woman.

Sarah looked between us again. Then, as she realized that this wasn’t a practical joke, her cheeks flushed. She ducked her head, mouthing
Wow
to herself. Grabbing her coat and purse, she woodenly walked out the door.

“That
. . .
probably could’ve ended better,” Adrian said after the door clicked shut.

“You think?”

He sighed. “Another one bites the dust.”

I shook my head. “This life ain’t for the fainthearted, that’s for sure.”

Adrian’s cool fingers traced my angel-wing tattoo. “So you camouflaged your imprint?” he asked.

We stood in his office, my shirt and bra clutched against my chest with one hand. Considering what I’d witnessed only a few minutes ago, this was not nearly as awkward as it might otherwise have been.

With my other hand I swabbed the inside of my cheek, handing the Q-tip back to Adrian when I finished. “Yep.”

He dropped the Q-tip into a plastic bag and returned his attention to my shoulder blade. “That’s going to make this a bit harder.”

He grabbed a camera from his desk, and I heard the clicks as he took a series of photos. Adrian had wanted to record my imprint and collect a sample of my DNA, things I had more than a little trepidation about. But the sooner he had this information, the sooner he could direct where I teleported to. That would be important if I ever wanted to escape from the Project’s control over my visits.

It also meant that I’d have to trust Adrian. Me, I wasn’t a big fan of trust. The trusting got exploited far too often. But I’d already seen and lived the alternative path. The devil I didn’t know was, at worst, just as bad as the one I did know. That left me with nothing to lose.

“Why do you think I’ve been showing up near you as often as I have?” I asked.

Silence. I glanced over my shoulder to find that Adrian wasn’t even paying attention to me. No, he was frowning at his camera screen.

“What is it?” I asked.

“In person I can make out your imprint—the color and thickness is a little different—but it’s lost on camera.”

“You could always make a cast of it.”

Adrian’s eyes lit up only to then fall flat. “A plaster cast would take too long.”

“Got any candles?”

“Worst idea ever,” I said not a minute later, when the first few drops of wax hit my skin.

I’d sprawled on Adrian’s couch.

“Once we have this,” Adrian said, “we’ll be one step closer to removing you from under the government’s thumb.”

He made it sound easy. I knew it would be anything but.

“Did they take you to the Big Sur facility or somewhere else?” Adrian asked.

“Big Sur,” I replied, tensing when another stream of wax hit my back. “Is your offer to help me and Caden escape still good?”

“Caden—that’s your pair, correct?”

As if he didn’t know. He had his father’s notes. He was just probing, wanting to see how I responded.

“Mmm-hmm,” I said casually. And that was the end of that line of questioning.

After a pause and another round of hot wax, Adrian spoke again. “The offer is still good. I’m getting in touch with some of my contacts, and I should have more information for you soon.” He hesitated.

“But?” I filled in, hearing the word in his pause.

“I can help you and your pair get to our safe house here in Zurich, but escaping the facility
. . .
That, you’ll have to do alone.”

I appeared buck naked back on the field in front of my entire class, my coach, and Dane Richards. I almost laughed at the last one. Not ten seconds ago, I’d been plotting against him, and now I’d been caught with my pants down in more ways than one.

“Ember.”
Worry and relief warred for dominance in Caden’s voice. He came over to me, using his body to shield my nudity from onlookers. I grabbed my clothes from the ground and hurriedly put them back on.

I’d day-teleported again. Damn it. Judging from the turbulent expression on Caden’s face, he wouldn’t agree to escape anytime soon. Not when he still considered my life to be in danger because of these daytime travels.

I untucked my hair from my shirt collar, and Caden plucked a strand. “You okay?” he asked, rubbing it between his fingers, as if making sure that I was real.

I nodded, glancing over Caden’s shoulder. I’d noticed that we’d drawn the attention of several other teleporters—including Desiree. She made no point of hiding her glee.

My gaze moved to Coach Painter. He studied me, his brow pinched with worry. Next to him Dane assessed me, scowling.

At least I wouldn’t have to worry about screwing up the takedown. Clearly, I’d already failed the most critical test—making the Project believe I was stable.