The Vanishing Girl (14 page)

Chapter 23

Wine. It was
the color of my long dress. I had to give props to whoever was in charge of costume design. The dress was gorgeous. I’d also arrived with a matching clutch. I opened the clutch and pulled out a ticket and a sheet of paper with instructions I already knew. Thankfully, nothing else rested in the bag.

“You look … amazing.” I looked up to see Caden staring at me, his eyes wider than usual.

I smiled and gave him a once-over. “You clean up pretty well yourself.” That was an understatement. He looked like sex in a suit. But I wasn’t about to inflate his ego any more than it already was. After all, I had to deal with him all of tomorrow and every day after that.

I checked out our surroundings. We had strategically arrived behind some shrubbery in the back courtyard of the new museum, hidden from view but visible enough for us to assess the guests.

“We should go,” he said.

I nodded and we casually walked out from behind the shrubs. If anyone noticed our strange entrance, they didn’t let on.

After we handed our tickets to the teller, we passed through the entrance.

“Okay, this is where we split,” Caden said. He grabbed my hand and gave it a tight squeeze. “You got this Ember.”

I gave him a tight-lipped smile and squeezed his hand back.

With a parting glance, he let go of my hand and walked away.

I looked around the museum. Waiters carrying trays of champagne flitted through the walkways, offering them to the guests. I walked over to the nearest one and snagged a glass. I needed something to preoccupy my nervous hands. Not to mention that technically it was legal for me to drink in Mexico. So much for my earlier promise to never drink again. That lasted for what, five hours?

Now that my hands had something to do, I began to peruse the art displays hanging along the walls.

How was I going to possibly attract attention of a certain cartel boss?

“
Bienvenido.
”

Or I could let one fall into my lap. I turned and saw Emilio Santoro, the Columbian drug lord and perpetrator of several international human rights violations. He’d come right to me like a moth to the light.

“
Hola se
ñ
ore,
” I replied in what I thought was broken Spanish. I smiled and twirled the champagne in my glass.

“
C
ó
mo est
á
s esta noche?
” The photos had not done Emilio justice. He was hot. That was something I should’ve been warned about. It was hard to label someone as
bad
when they looked so good.

“
Muy bien, gracias
—
el arte es maravilloso. Y tu?
” I’d just used up about the extent of my Spanish vocabulary.

“The art is beautiful, but it is not what caught my attention,” he said in a thick Spanish accent. His eyes twinkled.

Dang it, he was a bad guy. Bad. Bad, bad, bad.

“You are American?”

I nodded, smiling coquettishly. I took a healthy swig of my champagne, cringing as it hit my stomach. A wave of hangover-induced nausea swept through me.

“But your Spanish is very good. I am impressed.”

“Hardly!” I said, trying hard to keep down the champagne and still act the part. “But that’s nice of you to say. I did have some incentive to learn it,” I admitted. “I have a thing for Latin men.” I let my eyes linger on his for a beat longer than was necessary, just to make sure he got the message.

He tilted his head back and laughed. “I thought American girls were shy. But you, you are
una pirata
.”

“I’m a pirate?” I smiled as I gave him an incredulous look, just to let him know that I was flirting and not judging. Even though
—
let’s be real
—
I was judging. Still, I’d pass on pissing off the drug lord.

He smiled, showing off his pearly whites, made even whiter by their contrast to his caramel skin.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to surrender the booty, because we pirates take our treasure very seriously,” I said.

That got another hearty laugh out of him.

“
Mi pirata
, who
are
you?”

I began backing away, knowing I had to vanish soon. I was supposed to hide in a restroom stall before that happened to prevent anyone from witnessing my disappearing act.

“That’s for me to know and you to figure out.” I think I swiped that line from a movie, but it seemed to do the trick.

“Wait
—
”

I threw a look over my shoulder, and flashed him what I hoped was a mysterious smile before concentrating on the bathrooms. I frowned at myself as I moved through the museum. That whole interaction left me feeling dirty and used.

As soon as I rounded the corner for the women’s restrooms, I noticed the line snaking out the door. Shoot. What was I going to do? I maybe had a minute left.

I let my gaze wander. I could find an empty corridor … wait, nope, there’d be guards. How about a broom closet? Nah, they were almost always locked. I could try to make it to the shrubs, but I wasn’t sure I had enough time left.

Obviously I should’ve seen this coming. There were always lines for women’s bathrooms. Lucky men. They didn’t have this problem.

The men’s bathrooms. Duh.

I crossed the hallway and entered the men’s restroom. Other than a lone man, who looked highly confused by my presence, I was alone. I walked to the nearest stall and closed the door.

Now this, this was my typical situation. Twenty seconds later, I dissolved.

There was a
knock on my door. Before I could get up to open it, Caden sauntered into my room, flashing me his dimples. “Figured you’d be up.”

“When did you wake up?” I asked from where I rested against my headboard. I’d been sitting like that for some time, lost in my thoughts. The alarm next to my bed said it was 4:10 a.m.

“Just now,” Caden said. “You?”

“About an hour ago.” The sedatives from last night’s mission had screwed up our biorhythm. I wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon.

He sat down next to me on my bed, and my body was painfully aware of the heat that seeped into me where his leg touched mine.

Caden turned to face me. “Congratulations on completing your first mission,” he said. “How’d it go?”

I shrugged. “Fine. You?”

“Same as always,” he said.

I studied his face. “You’ve been doing this for a while now, haven’t you?”

“Since I was eighteen.”

That wasn’t an answer. “And when did you turn eighteen?”

“Almost a year ago.”

My eyebrows rose in surprise. He was almost a year older than me. What had I thought? That because we were pairs we were born on the same day?

“Why had you gone on missions so much sooner than the rest of the teleporters in our class?”

“I volunteered to go on missions
—
most don’t, not until they’re drafted into it.”

“Is that what all of those simulations were? The rest of our class getting drafted into these missions.”

Caden nodded.

“Why would you volunteer for this?” I asked.

He stared at the ceiling. “I was bored here, and the missions gave me a rush. I’ve lived here since I was thirteen, and the project’s been training me since my arrival. I was ready to try out my skills.”

Thirteen. He’d been here for over five years. I wondered if they’d ever let Caden outside the facility other than to go on missions. I doubted it.

I played with a loose thread on my comforter. “How long has everyone else been here?” I asked. “Did they all come after they turned eighteen, or did they arrive when they were still minors?”

He shrugged. “I’d say roughly three fourths came before they were eighteen, and a fourth came after. Why?”

I chewed on my lip. “I’m just wondering how the government found us all.”

“Well,” Caden said, “for those of us who were minors, usually our parents found out about our abilities and contacted the Project. For me, I got shot.”

I glanced up sharply, but he wouldn’t look at me.

“That’s how my parents figured out my ability,” he continued. “As soon as they did, they called up the government and shipped me out,” he said, his eyes sad.

“For others, it was teleporting in front of their parents
—
for instance, falling asleep on the couch in the middle of a movie then disappearing. Things like that.”

I’d always been paranoid about my abilities, I just hadn’t realized how useful my paranoia was. I’d made a habit of going to bed last, avoiding sleepovers, and planning out excuses and explanations in case someone did see me teleport. My ability had made me an excellent strategist, but it had complicated my morals.

“I also think they’ve kept tabs on the families involved in the project after they discovered that our ability was tied to puberty,” Caden said.

I thought back to my own family, the continuous moves and their uneasy attitudes around the time I turned eighteen. Either they were being cautious, or they knew the program would look for me. I’d been so angry with them for all our moves, for never being able to make long-term friends. If only I’d known it was to prevent this.

“How does the government find teleporters who are adults?” I already had some vague idea that I’d somehow fallen into a mission or simulation of theirs when they found me, but I couldn’t figure out just how that came to be.

“You really want to know?” Caden asked.

I nodded.

He scooted his body so that his back faced me, and he began taking off his shirt.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my eyes widening. Having a half naked man on my bed was not exactly going to make me more focused.

He ignored me as he pulled his shirt over his head. I took in bronze skin speckled with scars, some long and white, others round
—
bullet and knife wounds. It was still strange that someone so friendly could be exposed to so much violence.

He brushed aside the wavy locks of hair that kissed the nape of his neck.

“Reminding you of this,” he said. “Our imprints.”

I stared at the same black, twisted lines I’d seen on him earlier. They discolored the skin of his neck and the top of his back, looking for all the world like tree roots.

“Your tattoo hides this, doesn’t it?” he said.

I nodded. “How exactly do these imprints tie into the government finding us?” I asked, absently reaching out to trace the strange markings.

“I’ll tell you, but you’re going to have to be really open about the explanation I give you.”

“Okay …” I trailed off.

“I talked to Dane about this once, and he said that the marking actually helps guide each teleporter to their destination.”

“Huh?”

“It acts like a magnet
—
this helps the project guide us to various locations across the world.”

“
Magnets
?” I raised my eyebrows. “That’s kind of an insane explanation.”

“How do you think homing pigeons get around so well? Same concept. I’m not saying I understand how it works. I’m just saying that it was part of the bioengineering that went into us.”

“So why did the mark only appear once I turned eighteen, and what does this have to do with the facility finding adult teleporters?”

“I don’t know, but I have a theory.” His eyes shined. “Each one of these imprints is different, which makes me think it’s some kind of teleporter fingerprint, a way to identify each individual. Combine that with its magnetic properties and now, if you’re the project, you have a way of locating adult teleporters.”

I leaned back
and stared at the ceiling, thinking about what Caden said. I chewed on my lip, letting Caden’s disturbing theory sink in. It seemed so highly implausible, but if it were true … the project could always control where I teleported to.

The bed shifted, and a still shirtless Caden replaced my view of the ceiling. “You okay?” he asked.

I shook my head, not meeting his eyes. I’d worn unease like a second skin since I arrived. This entire elaborate program was built upon secrets, from the missions we went on to the very nature of our DNA. And what I’d learned so far about those secrets was that they protected very disturbing truths.

“Hey,” he said, brushing a piece of my hair aside, “whatever it is, know that we’re in this together.”

I gave him a sad smile. Even if Caden didn’t share my cynicism
—
and I wasn’t sure he did
—
he was the one person who I could trust.

I snaked my hands around his back and gently pulled him to me. He lowered his torso slowly and brought his lips to mine. His kiss was exactly what I needed, and without meaning to, I moaned into him.

I felt him smile against me at the sound. “God you are sexy,” he whispered.

At his words I pulled him even closer to me, and he deepened the kiss, brushing his tongue against mine.

I pushed myself against him as my lips responded, and my hands scoured his back, taking in every rippling muscle and rough scar.

Caden moved a hand to my waist, his fingers skimming over the exposed skin just below the hem of my shirt.

For a second his hand hesitated before slipping under. His hand moved up my stomach and dipped below my bra. I gasped when he began to massage my breast.

Heat pooled in my stomach; I wanted more. I moved my own hands to the button of his jeans, and with a deft yank, undid it.

Caden broke away from the kiss and slid his hand out from under my shirt. We were both breathing heavily.

His body was still flush against mine, but his head was bowed and he wouldn’t look at me. “I can’t do this,” he said.

I could read his worries from his body language. That he might die, and I’d fall apart like Desiree had. Or I might die, and he’d have to go through the same turmoil that Serena was going through now.

The thing was, sex wouldn’t change the awfulness of that situation. It would still suck, regardless.

I clasped my hands behind Caden’s neck, letting my fingers trace the upraised skin of his imprint. “There is no one else I’d even considered doing this with,” I said. “Please, I want this, with you, right now.”

“I have a secret,” he said, still not looking at me.

I watched him, saying nothing. Inside though, my heart hammered away.

Finally his eyes met mine. “I think I might be falling in love with you.”

If it was
at all possible, my heart sped up even more as adrenaline surged through my veins.

Caden Hawthorne was falling in love with me. With me. My stomach tightened happily at the thought.

I pulled him closer and brushed my lips along his. His hands moved to my temples, his thumbs stroking the loose tufts of my hair.

“If you really want this
—
” His lips moved against mine as he spoke.

“I do.”

“Demanding princess.” He smiled against me.