Chimera

Fourteen Two Pair

I spent the next twenty minutes or so sitting in the waiting room, pondering what Noah had told me. It physically hurt them both to allow Dahlia control. Both of their powers were haphazard and unfocused. They were exhausted almost constantly, and now Noah was having trouble keeping food down. Dahlia, he said, was becoming less and less present in his mind, backing off to keep him from hurting too much. Dr. Kinsey didn’t know how to help them.

“Ace can’t hold on to them both,” Noah had said. “Simon can’t separate us because Dahlia’s body died while she was absorbed. Nothing we’ve tried has worked. I can’t let Dahlia go without killing her, and Ace can’t let go of Noah without killing him.”

“You said part of the host lives on inside the Changeling,” I’d said.

“Sure, but it’s a presence and knowledge. One of us would still, for the way we imagine life, be gone. Dead.”

“But you can’t keep living as both.”

“Not for much longer.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

I had resented Dahlia’s presence the first few months after she’d joined us, and I’d used her as a convenient outlet for my frustration. Lately we’d become friendly, though, and I liked Noah because he was Aaron’s brother and Aaron made Ethan happy. We were a cluster-fuck of a family most days, sure, but we were still family. I was tired of losing people, but fuck if I knew how to fix this.

Thatcher came out through the swinging double doors at almost the exact same time that Denny and Kate Lowry entered from the corridor. The twins had come to us via their uncle just before the earthquake crisis, and he’d agreed that it would be safer for them to move to New York with us. Said uncle was a police detective in Los Angeles (now relocated to Las Vegas), and he still hadn’t manned up and claimed those kids as family, so I was all for getting them away from his idiot ass.

The twins didn’t look sick, and they weren’t limping, which meant: “Gage sent us to hang out with our visitors,” Kate said. “He said you needed to go to a meeting.”

Right, the debriefing. It looked like Thatcher was going, too, and our problem children (wounded or not) couldn’t be left alone.

“Second room on the left,” Thatcher said.

“Cool.”

The pair went through the door Thatcher had exited from, and I felt a slight pang of regret that I wouldn’t be there when they met Bethany for the first time. She’d probably terrify Denny into permanent celibacy.

My brain was still stuck on Double Trouble reruns, but when we left the infirmary and hit the corridor I had enough sense to ask Thatcher, “How’s Landon doing?”

“He’s alive,” Thatcher replied. “Somewhat out of it from the medication, but that’s to be expected.”

“The medication is a blessing, trust me.”

The look he shot me was a mix of sympathy and gratitude. “You know, Renee, it’s been a long time since I’ve been this angry at one person.”

“Sledgehammer?”

“The big one who threw Landon? Yes.”

“I’d like to promise you’ll get first dibs on hurting him back.”

“I know. Thank you.”

We were the last to arrive in the conference room. All of the Alpha leaders were there, plus Dr. Kinsey, as requested. As soon as we were seated, Thatcher and I began another tag-team retelling of our adventures that began at a New Jersey truck stop and ended on the side of the Pennsylvania turnpike. Ethan, who’d promised to take a nap once the meeting was over, interjected occasionally.

“They were targeting the kids,” Teresa said. “The clones who were there knew who Renee, Ethan, and I were, but they went after Landon first.”

“To kill them before they could help us?” Sebastian asked.

“Possibly, or to send a message so they don’t. They could have killed us all before we got out of the Sport, but they didn’t.”

“The clones have always been very deliberate in their machinations,” Ethan added. “Everything they’ve done against us has been with intent.”

“Landon and Bethany were raised to hate their parents,” Thatcher said. “They were intentionally told half-truths and full-out lies in order to make them despise the people left on Manhattan.”

“Do you think the Overseer or Uncle character will find a way to turn the other kids, if they exist, against us?” Ethan asked.

“I would put money on it.”

“If they exist,” Teresa said.

Thatcher’s gaze shifted down the table to her. “Again, I’d put money on it. Isn’t that why you brought them back here without first alerting the authorities? To assist you in tracking down both the other kids and this Uncle?”

“Yes, it is, you’re right. Which means for now, the only people who know who Landon and Bethany really are? The people in this room.”

A chorus of agreements went around the table.

“I have spoken with Mai Lynn Chang again,” Marco said, piping up for the first time. “She is attempting to question her fellow residents about children. However, she says it is a difficult conversation to have casually. She will update us if she learns anything useful.”

“Thank you, Marco,” Teresa said.

While the group was assembled, Teresa assigned Lacey’s team to follow up on an incident of vandalism, which the police suspected was done by Metas, in Annapolis, Maryland. She gave the usual warning to keep their eyes open just in case this was Recombinant-related. Then we were dismissed.

Instead of trying to casually corner her on her way out, I darted around the conference table and said, “I need a minute, T.”

Teresa’s lips parted and her eyebrows furrowed—she was about to ask if it could wait—so I fixed her with a dead stare. My I-mean-it face. To Gage she said, “I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”

Gage pressed a kiss to her temple, then followed the others out. Even Marco left for some kind of errand, so I went over and shut the door.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I know what’s happening with Noah and Dahlia,” I said.

She blinked once. “What do you know?”

“I saw them in the infirmary. I know that Ace is starting to reject them and it’s making him sick.”

“Okay.” She sat down on the edge of the conference table, weariness settling over her like a heavy blanket.

“Are we doing anything to help them?”

“Everything we can, which is mostly keeping them comfortable. Dr. Kinsey has been reaching out to some old colleagues, but it’s difficult when so many could still be connected to the other Recombinant projects. He isn’t sure who to trust.”

“Makes sense.” I could hear that her voice lacked the fighting edge it usually had when she really believed in something. “Do you think we’ll find a way to save them both?”

She bit hard on her lower lip, her lavender eyes glimmering with grief. “I honestly don’t know, Renee. There’s so much we don’t know about the Changelings, that even Dr. Kinsey doesn’t know, and they were his project. We’ve even sent their medical histories to Dr. Bennett.”

My hand jerked in surprise.

Dr. Nancy Bennett was a former colleague of Dr. Kinsey’s from his earliest days at Weatherfield Research and Development and now worked for a private company in the field of genetic cloning. Last month, after the death of one of the clones, we sent the body to Nancy’s facility in Richmond, Virginia. She signed a confidentiality agreement—for her protection, as well as ours. The autopsy showed the body was a perfect genetic clone of the late Patricia Swift, right down to her Meta abilities and how they affected her system.

“What can Dr. Bennett do?” I asked. “Clone Dahlia’s dead body?”

“No, that’s not what she’s looking into.”

“Cloning Noah?”

“No.” Teresa wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “She’s attempting to clone the Changeling.”

I stared at her, stuck somewhere between confused and horrified. “Ace? Is that even possible?”

“I don’t know, but Dr. Bennett and Dr. Kinsey are going to try.”

“So if they do manage to clone another Ace, how do you know we can transfer Noah or Dahlia over to him?”

“We don’t. We’re guessing on all of this.”

“What if Dr. Bennett is successful and Ace 2.0 doesn’t want to join with one of them?”

Teresa’s expression shifted from surprise to calm faster than most people might notice—but I’d known her for too long to miss it. She didn’t like the answer she was about to give me, but she had to say it like she meant it. “Ace 2.0, as you said, would be raised knowing his purpose,” she said.

God, she was in a tough place right now—wanting to do everything she could to save two of her friends, and wanting to protect the rights of other living creatures to exist. And as much as I knew this decision would pain her, I couldn’t quite let it go. “Ace, King, and Joker made a choice to join with each of the Scott brothers, T.”

She glared at me. “Yes, they did. But Noah Scott made the choice for both Jimmy and Aaron to join with Joker and King. Those two brothers didn’t have a say. Dahlia didn’t have a say, either, when Noah absorbed her.”

Annoyance prickled across my skin. “From the way I heard the story, if he hadn’t absorbed her, they all would have died when Queen and Deuce went apeshit, not just Jimmy. Maybe even you, too.”

“I know that. I think about it a lot, trust me. But I think about something else, too. Something Dahlia told me a long time ago, when we were first house-hunting in Beverly Hills.” Teresa’s eyes went liquid again, and I couldn’t help it. I sat down and slipped my arm around her waist. She leaned into me and put her head on my shoulder.

“What did she tell you?” I asked gently. Curious, because Dahlia and I never really talked about anything, before or after she combined with Noah.

“Dal told me again about her mom dying of cancer, and how she was there for every moment of it.” She shuddered, and I held her tighter. I knew this tidbit already. “I don’t remember why it came up, but Dahlia told me she was kind of grateful for finding the Rangers. Her greatest fear was a slow, painful, lingering death like her mother’s. She thought a fast, heroic death was better.”

My chest ached, and I had the oddest urge to cry. Mostly for the grief thick in Teresa’s voice, and for the power of the words she’d spoken to me. Dahlia could have had her fast, heroic death back in June, and now she was slowly fading away, trapped in someone else’s body.

“Dahlia doesn’t blame Noah for this,” Teresa continued, her voice raspy with tears. “Not that she’s admitted to me, anyway. They care about each other. I hope I can give them the life they want together. Everyone deserves their own happiness.”

“Like you and Gage?”

She tensed, then relaxed, but the tell was still there—things weren’t a hundred percent with those two. “I love Gage.”

“I know that. He loves you more than oxygen, T. You’re his world.”

“And he’s mine. Most of it.”

I angled to see her face better. Her tears hadn’t spilled yet, and she looked utterly miserable. Teresa rarely let herself break down anymore. She was always playing the part of the stoic leader, the one with all of the answers, when most of the time she was as uncertain as the rest of us. I hated seeing my best friend in the world so unhappy and torn. “But you have to keep a little room in your heart for the rest of us, right? For the team?”

She wilted a bit, and I pulled her into a real hug. Her chin rested on my shoulder, breath tickling my hair. “He knows I’ll always think of the good of the team first, above him or myself. I have to, Renee. He’s always known that, but lately . . .”

“He’s taking it more personally?”

“Yeah.”

I held her for a little while, hoping she’d just let go and have a good cry, but she didn’t. She pulled herself together, then pulled away from me.

“You’re our leader, T,” I said. “He’s known that from the start. He can’t change the rules this late in the game.”

“The rules are always changing. We can’t seem to stop things from changing.” She heaved a deep sigh, then stood up. “I don’t think I have to ask you to keep the Noah and Dahlia thing to yourself.”

“Does Aaron know?”

She flinched. “No.”

“Shouldn’t he?”

“Noah doesn’t want him to know yet. All he’ll do is worry.”

“He has a right to worry. Noah’s his brother.”

“Believe me, I understand, but it isn’t my call. Please don’t say anything.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She left first. I wasn’t sure where to go next, or what to do. A shower and a nap sounded like heaven, but I found myself wandering outside. My favorite bench was empty, so I sat down and pulled my knees up to my chest. No one was exercising or fake-fighting on the lawn this afternoon. I honestly had no idea what time it was, but the sun was low on the horizon.

“We can’t seem to stop things from changing.” Teresa’s words rang in my head like an alarm bell, loud and constant. Truer words were never spoken. Nothing was the same as it had been even a few days ago, when we had no idea kids like Landon and Bethany existed, and when Derek Thatcher was just a name on a log sheet of prisoners. Now he was a gentle, world-worn face I couldn’t get out of my head. A man who didn’t look at me and cringe in horror at the scars I carried.

“This seat taken?”

I jerked in surprise when the object of my thoughts appeared in my peripheral vision with two plates in his hands. His kind smile soothed my annoyance at being startled, and I shook my head. “All yours,” I said.

He sat down in the middle, leaving only a few inches between us. The mark under his right eye had blackened. “You’ll probably say you aren’t hungry, but I brought you something anyway.”

“Thanks.” I took the plate, amused to see another roast beef sandwich and a couple of dill pickle spears.

“Ethan mentioned you like pickles.”

“I do, thank you.”

We ate in silence, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. My head was full of Double Trouble, and his was no doubt full of Landon. People we cared about were hurting, and neither one of us could do anything to stop the hurt. I hate that helplessness more than almost anything—I wasn’t physically tied to a beam on a burning platform, but I remembered the sensation. I remembered the feeling of being totally abandoned, completely alone, even surrounded by people. Because no one was helping me.

They’d come to watch me burn.

A sharp tremor shot down my spine, and I fumbled my plate. The last pickle spear tumbled into the grass. “Damn it!” I said, with more anger than a simple pickle deserved.

Thatcher’s hand landed on my neck, warm and comforting, and I didn’t pull away. “You okay, Renee?”

“No, I’m not.” I leaned into his touch a little, grateful for his presence. “But then again, neither are you.”

“Is something besides the turnpike fight bothering you?”

“Yes. But it’s not my place to tell anyone else about it.”

“I can understand that.”

“Well, I can’t, especially when someone else does deserve to know about it. Not you, by the way.”

He made a soft noise in his throat, something like a chuckle, but not quite. “That’s a bit of a relief. I’d hate to think everything is always about me.”

I looked at him, unsure of his tone of voice. The arch of one eyebrow and the tilt of his head clued me in—he was teasing me. So I did what any adult woman would do in such a situation. I stuck my tongue out at him.

He laughed out loud this time, and the deep sound rumbled in my chest. The hand on the back of my neck stroked very gently, fingers massaging in a way that seemed more instinctive than deliberate. It felt nice. “Were you injured in the accident?” he asked.

“Not really. Snapped my neck hard, but with my particular powers the pain won’t last long.”

His hand stilled. “Am I hurting you?”

“No. It feels nice.”

He put both of our plates on the bench beside him. I allowed him to shift us both until I was facing away and he was behind me. Both of his hands pressed gently into my shoulders, thumbs massaging both sides of my vertebrae. It felt amazing, and I leaned into the touch. It had been a long time since I’d felt a man’s hands on me in such a comforting way. I craved the attention, the sensation—even if it couldn’t possibly last. He hadn’t seen the scars on my chest, back, and legs.

And who said he ever would, anyway? He was a former Bane, loaned to us from prison for an investigation, and he was heading right back there at some point in the near future. Derek Thatcher wasn’t someone I was allowed to get attached to, no matter what.

But the fantasy was extremely entertaining.

And his hands were extraordinary. I closed my eyes and relaxed under his ministrations, as his deft fingers soothed and loosened tired, aching muscles. If I were a cat, I’d have started purring. No one had paid me this sort of attention in a long time, not since William died. Before him, I’d gotten laid pretty regularly. I couldn’t throw a poker chip in Vegas without hitting someone who was willing to sleep with the extremely flexible blue dancer, which meant I could be picky. Singling out the good ones, the best ones, became something of a game for me. It was in his eyes and in his touch, mostly, and if I couldn’t trust those two things, no way was I trusting a guy with my body.

I trusted what I saw in Thatcher’s eyes, and I trusted the smoothness of his touch. He’d be a hell of a lover—if only such a thing were possible.

“Can I ask you something?” I said without intending to.

“Of course.”

Now that I’d stuck my foot in it, I wasn’t sure how to phrase this. “In Manhattan, there weren’t as many women prisoners as men, right?”

“Correct.”

“So how did you . . . I mean, was it . . . Fuck. Never mind.” I was insanely glad he couldn’t see my face, because I was pretty sure I was blushing like an idiot.

His hands never stopped pressing and rubbing my shoulders and neck. “Are you asking if I’ve had sex in the last fifteen years?” And damn him, I could tell he was smiling when he asked that.

I’d tossed money into the pot already, so I might as well call. “Yes.”

“No.”

I turned around on the bench, stunned by his matter-of-fact reply. He dropped his hands into his lap and watched me with a calm, unembarrassed expression I couldn’t quite decipher. “Seriously?”

“Why would I lie?”

“I didn’t mean that, it’s just . . .”

“What?”

The truth came burbling up and out. “You’re so good-looking.”

His lips quirked. “Thank you.”

“It surprises me no one saw that.”

“There’s more to wanting to sleep with someone than finding them attractive, Renee. Most of us were incredibly angry at the end of the War, not only because of our situation in Manhattan, but at Specter and his manipulations. I was one of the worst, and my anger was only heightened by the news of my wife and son’s deaths. I was an emotional wreck, and so many of the couples who came out of the aftermath chose each other for the support they could give and receive. I was in no place to support anyone, and I was too damaged to take any kindness in return.”

“I’m sorry.”

His eyebrows furrowed and his mouth pressed into a line.

“Not that you weren’t getting any,” I said, trying to recover my verbal fumble. “I mean, I’m sorry that you were in such a bad place. That there was no one to be there for you.”

He shrugged. “I had some friends. Freddy and I were always close, and I was happy for him when Andrew was born. I was happy for him when he found out Ethan was his son.” Something in his voice still sounded hollow.

I touched his knee. “You can be happy for a friend and still envy their happiness, you know.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Yep.”

He brushed the pad of his thumb down my cheek, a gentle touch of skin on skin that made my spine tingle. “You deserve to find your own happiness, Renee. I sincerely wish that for you.”

I angled my head up, unsure what to say to that. His gaze flickered down, then back up. He leaned in. My heart slammed against my ribs.

“Hey, guys?” Sebastian’s voice echoed from the building archway.

We pulled apart. I glared at Sebastian over the back of the bench. “What?”

“Thatcher has a phone call.”

I held up the wall in the conference room while Thatcher spoke with Mai Lynn for a few minutes. His side of the conversation was somewhat muffled and he was typing information onto a tablet, but I knew he’d share as soon as he was finished. I couldn’t help replaying those final moments on the bench and wondering if he’d have really kissed me had we not been interrupted. My money was on yes.

Damn you, Sebastian, and your terrible timing.

Thatcher hung up after less than five minutes.

“So what’s new?” I asked.

“Mai Lynn found some information that might be useful.” He held up the tablet. “She found two other prisoners who did what I did during the War.”

“Gave up all contact with their kids to protect them?”

Something like pain flashed in his eyes. “Yes.”

“Who?”

“Peter Keene.”

Keene had been in Central Park during the final day of the War. He’d also died last month—ironically, in Central Park—when a copter crashed down on a bunch of people, including Thatcher.

“Keene had an infant son he never met,” Thatcher continued. “He and his mother disappeared after the War ended. The boy would be sixteen or so now. She thinks his name was Tate, but she didn’t know the mother’s last name.”

“That’s a start, though. Who was the other one?”

“Dana Parks. She was Whitney and Andrew’s mother.”

Right. Dana had died in Manhattan a few years ago. Whitney died a few months ago, and we were all unclear on just who the father had been, since no one was volunteering that information. “Dana had a third child?”

“Supposedly Dana had a daughter she left with her parents. Mai Lynn thinks the girl would be about twenty now. Her name was Sasha.”

“So Andrew has another half-sibling out there somewhere.”

“It seems so.”

“It isn’t a lot, but it’s something to start with. Let’s get this—”

As if he’d been summoned by my thoughts, Marco walked into the conference room. Thatcher gave him the tablet and summarized the information on it. Marco promised to begin searching immediately.

It was still pretty early in the evening, but I’d had a hell of a weekend, and now the idea of a shower and my bed was dancing in front of me like a merry mirage. I decided to grab hold of the mirage and crash until someone inevitably needed me again for one crisis or another. I told Thatcher, so when we hit the hallway again. He just nodded and followed me upstairs.

We stopped at my bedroom door and for the first time since we’d met, I felt kind of awkward.

“I’m going to go sit with Landon for a while,” he said.

I almost asked why he’d followed me all the way upstairs if he was going back down, but curbed that question. The answer was kind of obvious. He’d wanted to walk me to my room. “That’s good. You two may not really know each other, but I bet right now it helps to have his father close by.”

His expression softened. “Your parents were never there for you, were they?”

“My real parents? No. I was eight years old when my Meta powers kicked in and my skin turned blue. They thought I was a demon, and they tried to have me killed.”

Now, why had I gone and said all that?

His eyes narrowed, then understanding widened them again. “The Rangers saved you.”

“Yes, they did. And after the War, my foster parents were amazing.” I shrugged, hoping none of the roiling emotions inside showed on my face. “Family isn’t always determined by blood. Sometimes blood turns on you.”

I hadn’t meant my words to be a warning about Landon, or any of the other kids we were looking for, but he seemed to take it that way. His face went blank and he straightened his shoulders. “You may be right,” he said.

But I’m probably wrong. “Good night, Derek.”

“Good night.” He reached out, and for one brief, terrifying moment, I thought he might actually try to kiss me. Instead, he lifted my right hand and brushed his lips across my knuckles. The unexpected gesture made my insides quivery. My mouth went dry.

I didn’t say a word as he walked away.

Holy smokes, what was I getting myself into?