Replica (30 page)

Nadia’s emotions were a confusing swirl. Fear at the thought of venturing into the Basement at night. Gratitude that Nate still cared about her enough to object. And determination to make her own decisions about what she would and would not risk.

“Bishop’s instructions were very clear,” Dante said. “Either you both go, or neither of you goes.”

“We can both go somewhere other than the Basement.”

“You’re under the mistaken impression that this is a negotiation. It isn’t. It’s a take-it-or-leave-it deal.”

Nate opened his mouth to protest, but Nadia put her hand on his arm to stop him.

“I’ll go, Nate,” she said quietly, ignoring the flutter of fear in her belly. “If that’s the only way Bishop will see you, then I’ll do it. There has to be a reason he’s changed his mind about seeing you, and I suspect it’s something we need to know. I’m already in this up to my eyeballs anyway.”

Nate put on his stubborn face, which she knew all too well. “I am not taking you into the Basement.”

“Yes, you are,” Nadia said more firmly, then turned her attention to Dante. “I presume you won’t be parading me through the streets for everyone to see.” The predators couldn’t hurt her if they didn’t know she was there.

Dante gave her an approving smile. “No. We’ll be discreet. The disguise is just a precaution. If all goes well, it’ll be only the good guys who see you.”

“If all goes well,” Nate muttered darkly. “Nothing has gone well since the moment I came back to life. Why should I expect that to change?”

“We’re doing this,” Nadia said. “We have to.” She tried not to think about what she would tell Mosely the next time he talked to her, which, with Nate’s visit to her apartment tonight, would no doubt be tomorrow. If she’d managed to convince him of her ignorance today, she wasn’t sure how she’d do it tomorrow. But that was getting way ahead of herself.

Thinking of Mosely reminded Nadia about the new tracker she was supposed to plant on Nate, and she reached into her pocket to draw it out.

“By the way,” she said, “I’m supposed to plant this on you. Will you take it with you when you leave here tonight so it looks like I’ve done what I’m supposed to?”

Nate took the envelope from her hand and nodded. “Sure.” He tucked the envelope into his jacket pocket, then reached out and took both her hands, drawing her closer to him. She looked up and met his eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, squeezing her hands tightly. “I’ve put you in so much danger already…”

Nadia squeezed his hands back and gave him a smile. Then she freed one of her hands and reached up to smooth the worry line that had appeared between his brows. However angry he was about her deception, there was no denying that he still cared about her, and she was beginning to hope that she hadn’t lost him as a friend after all.

“I’m sure.”

Nate pulled her into a hug that she suspected was painful, thanks to the battering his body had taken.

*   *   *

Nate
didn’t even try to sleep. He wasn’t sure he could manage it under the circumstances, and he had a sneaking suspicion that if he
did
manage it, he wouldn’t wake up when Dante called. How pathetic would it be if he made all this effort to find Kurt and then slept through his chance when it finally came?

Assuming, of course, that Dante was telling the truth. The guy had set Nate’s teeth on edge the moment he’d laid eyes on him, and nothing that had transpired since had changed his opinion. He didn’t like the easy, casual way Dante talked to Nadia, as if they were equals, and he
hated
that Dante was putting Nadia in more danger, even if the request/order had come from Kurt. Not that Nate was a snob and thought Employees should bow and scrape when in the presence of Executives, of course. He hated all that bowing and scraping stuff. Maybe it would have been different if Dante hadn’t been so good-looking—or if Nate didn’t think Nadia
noticed
he was so good-looking.

Nate laughed at himself. Was he actually
jealous
? He hadn’t been able to put a name to his feelings on the rooftop earlier, but now that he tried the word on for size, he found that it fit.

The laugh died quickly. What did he expect Nadia to do? Stay a virgin her entire life to protect his delicate sensibilities? He didn’t plan to “cleave only unto her” when they were married, but somehow he’d never allowed himself to think about what
she
might do. Didn’t she have as much right to look for love as he did? She had never once shown any sign that she was jealous of his relationship with Kurt. He had no right to be jealous if she’d been hanging all over Dante, which she hadn’t. Just because she would be his wife someday didn’t mean she was
his
.

The past few days had been brutal, and he wouldn’t wish them on his worst enemy. But the fact was, they’d forced him to take a good look at himself, at how he treated those he loved, and he didn’t like what he saw.

Nate grunted in frustration. He had no use for wallowing, no matter how much he’d have liked to indulge himself. He had to be ready when the call came, and it took some serious time to transform himself from the Chairman Heir into the Ghost.

Nate was tired enough that it took him twice as long as usual to get dressed and costumed, and he was still fussing with his makeup when his phone buzzed. He glanced down at the phone to confirm it was Dante’s summons, then took a critical look at himself in the mirror. He needed another coat of powder on his face to perfect the bluish-pale complexion of the Ghost, but he was afraid Dante would get impatient and leave. Besides, the longer Nate spent fixing his makeup, the longer Dante was alone with Nadia in the van.

Rolling his eyes at himself for his ridiculous jealousy, Nate decided his disguise was good enough and began the simultaneously tedious and hair-raising task of sneaking out of his apartment, leaving Mosely’s tracker on his pillow.

As promised, the white panel van was sitting by the curb near the service entrance, its hazard lights blinking. The van was an ancient, dinged-up piece of crap, but, even so, Nate couldn’t imagine someone of Dante’s station being able to afford a scooter, much less a van. Maybe the vehicle belonged to someone higher up in the food chain in this mysterious resistance movement Nate was just learning about.

The van was stopped in a pool of shadow, but as Nate peered out cautiously to see if the coast was clear, he could see that the back doors of the van were ajar. Nate waited until there wasn’t another car in sight, then sprinted across the short distance, belatedly thinking that jumping into the back of a panel van without checking to see who and what was inside first might be a tad on the reckless side. He was taking a hell of a lot on faith tonight, and after everything that had happened, he didn’t have a whole lot of faith to spare.

The back door swung fully open just as Nate’s second thoughts were beginning to slow him down, and Dante reached out to offer Nate a hand up. At least, Nate
thought
it was Dante behind all the face paint. Nate hesitated only a moment before taking the offered hand and climbing into the back of the van.

Before the doors had even finished closing, the van took off, abruptly enough that Nate staggered and had to balance himself with a hand on the ceiling.

The back of the van was empty but for a handful of overturned milk crates and a duffel bag. Nadia sat on one of those crates, and Nate’s jaw dropped open when he got a good look at her. She was dressed in a shiny black catsuit that made her usually willowy form look lush and curvy. A silver chain belt circled her hips, tinkling charms hanging from a link here and there. Her blond hair was hidden beneath a neon-pink wig, and a band of pink and black face paint crossed her face over her eyes like a blindfold.

No two ways about it. She looked
hot
. And not at all like Nadia Lake, the sweet-tempered, genteel Executive’s daughter.

“Down, boy,” Dante muttered, and Nate blushed under his makeup.

Nadia smiled at him tentatively as he made his way to the milk crate closest to her and sat down. He reached over and took her hand, giving it what he hoped was a comforting squeeze.

“You look amazing,” he told her, telling himself that he shouldn’t feel embarrassed that for a moment he’d found his future bride attractive despite his sexual preferences.

Nadia cocked her head at him, eyes taking in his alter ego. One thing he knew for sure was that he did
not
look amazing. The point of his costume was to make him look different, not good. Maybe there were people in the Basement who thought skin the color of skim milk and black lipstick on a guy attractive—Kurt seemed to like it, after all—but to Nadia, he had to look bizarre.

“You look…” She thought about it a moment. “Wild,” she finally finished, and Nate felt strangely pleased by the term.

Dante came to sit on another milk crate, and Nate frowned at him.

“If you’re back here, then who’s driving?” he asked, uncomfortable at the thought of some unknown other being in control of the vehicle. The fact that Dante looked sexy and exotic in his Basement disguise while Nate looked like a freak wasn’t helping his nerves much, either.

“No one you know,” Dante said, but didn’t elaborate.

Whoever was driving didn’t give a damn about his passengers’ comfort, jackrabbiting through intersections and taking turns more sharply than necessary. The van banged its way through a pothole so deep Nate thought they were going to overturn. All three of them reached out to steady themselves, and when they did, Nate saw the butt of a gun sticking out of the inside pocket of the loose jacket Dante was wearing. Dante met his eyes and practically dared him to comment, but Nate managed to keep his thoughts to himself. It wasn’t a bad idea to have an armed escort when traveling into the Basement, and he had a feeling Dante knew how to use it.

Nate wasn’t wearing a watch, but he had the sense that they drove far longer than it should have taken to get to the Basement from his apartment. Either Dante had lied to them about their destination—which seemed unlikely, considering the costumes—or the driver was taking a deliberately circuitous route, perhaps to make sure they weren’t followed. Nate tried to guess where they were by listening for clues, but there were no telltale sounds. Or if there were, he didn’t recognize them.

After a while, the van’s progress slowed considerably, the road getting rougher under its wheels, and Nate guessed they’d finally crossed into the Basement. He expected the ride to end shortly after they crossed the border, but the van continued on, the ill-maintained roads doing a hatchet job on its suspension. Nate gritted his teeth to keep from biting his tongue with any of the unexpected impacts.

At last, the van came to a stop, and the driver pounded on the wall between the cab and the back.

“We’re here,” Dante said, and Nate’s heart leapt into his throat.

Nate wasn’t sure what scared him more: the thought that he was about to see Kurt again, or the thought that he
wasn’t
. His pulse raced, and his palms were damp with sweat as he waited for Dante to open the back doors and let them out. Nadia put a comforting hand on his shoulder, sensing his anxiety.

“It’ll be all right,” she murmured in his ear, her voice too low for Dante to overhear. “Whatever happens, it’ll be all right.”

But Nate knew there were no guarantees for either of them.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Nate
hopped out of the van behind Dante, then turned to help Nadia down. She wobbled a bit on the stiletto heels of the knee-high boots she was wearing, and Nate decided no matter how much he liked the outfit, he wanted to punch Dante again for making her wear it. Then he took a couple of steps forward to get out of the shadow of the van and take a look around.

They were in a dark, crumbling underpass, the van parked horizontally across the road, blocking any potential traffic. Though judging by the state of the road, traffic here was far from common. There were more potholes than asphalt, and grass and weeds had grown up in the gaps. A storm drain on one side of the road was backed up with litter and unknown debris, packed so tightly it formed a stagnant lake even though it hadn’t rained since Nate had awakened as a Replica. The walls were thick with gang tags, all done in red spray paint.

There were no lights in the underpass, so only the ambient light of the city made the road and the walls by the entrance visible. Nate could see the same ambient light from the other end of the underpass, but in between was a menacing pool of impenetrable darkness. A tiny spot of red glowed briefly in that darkness, then went out. There was a sound Nate took for the crushing of a cigarette butt underfoot, then the echoing of footsteps.

Nate reached for Nadia’s hand as the sound of those measured footsteps approached, not sure if he meant to give or seek comfort. Maybe a little of both.

At first, Nate didn’t recognize the figure that emerged from the darkness. He’d been looking for Kurt’s familiar scruffy hair, for the rings in his ears and the tattoos on his upper body that he displayed whenever he wasn’t in uniform. He
hadn’t
been looking for a kohl-eyed bald guy wearing a torn crimson muscle shirt that displayed a nipple ring and no tattoos. It took a couple more steps into the light before Nate was able to see past the trappings, to recognize Kurt’s unique way of moving, though even that was camouflaged by the high-heeled boots he was wearing and the sway they put in his hips. Kurt had too many hard edges to ever pull off a truly androgynous look, but this was a close approximation.

Emotion clogged his throat, but Nate wasn’t sure what he would say anyway. He wanted to cross the distance between them, but the lingering aches in his belly and back reminded him that he didn’t know his boyfriend as well as he’d thought he did. And though Nadia might not have come right out and said it, Nate was aware of the implication that Kurt had deliberately infiltrated his household on a mission from his resistance movement, not because he was in love.