The Change: Episode one (15 page)

My new family wasn’t what they appeared to
be, that much was obvious. Most Network employees, even as far down
the chain as bounty hunters, were strict rule-followers. It was
clear that the Pruetts didn’t fall into that line. I thought about
her three pale relatives and the expensive home I was now a part
of. How did her family view me? Was I the foundling she’d adopted
or an intruder to be watched?

C

It was deceiving, but the Pruetts didn’t
flaunt wealth. We knew better. Despite being worth more UDs than
everyone in our neighborhood, from the outside we appeared as
broken as the rest. Stepping into our home forced Daniel to revise
that theory.

Plush gray carpet and well-tended wooded
walls surrounded us, full of expensive furnishings that included an
art collection that would have gotten us arrested if the Network
ever saw it. We’d ventured into dark, dangerous places for these
forbidden treasures. The Mona Lisa painting hanging over the table
wasn’t one of my favorites, but it was easily worth as much as our
entire net worth… and no one knew we had it.

The rest of the world had
only seen it in old books, but the Pruetts were collectors of such
things. Our underground storage room held nothing but blasts from
the past. Like the tattered document declaring this a
free
country. The Network
would execute anyone caught with something like that, but we
understood that history needed preserving.

I watched Daniel’s face while listening to
my family manipulate the guards outside. He was shocked, unable to
place this well-stocked, pleasant interior to the crumbling white
dome and weather-beaten walls he’d stepped into.

“
Welcome to your new
life.”

He flashed me an uneasy smile, and I headed
for the window, sure he would follow. The blinds allowed a good
view into our house, but I doubted the guards would pay too much
attention to background after the next show I planned to give
them.

As the squad began to pass the house on
their rovers, I spun Daniel toward the window. The embrace was
light, allowing me to see their nudges and grins, and then he moved
against me in response, and I was lost again. His taste was enough
to make me drunk.

“
Well, this may get old
after a while.”

Angelica’s slightly jealous voice had Daniel
tensing again, but I refused to let him go this time.

“
Did he really do all that
damage? The fine is huge.”

I drew back from his lips, but stayed
leaning against him as the guards rolled out of sight. “Some
overdue justice, don’t you think?”

“
Yes…”

Her voice was thoughtful, and I shook my
head. “Not yet.”

“
But we’ll need
help…”

When I spun from the room, Daniel knew to
follow. His eyes were wide, face confused. “I’d like to help if I
can.”

I didn’t respond, didn’t need to. I’d given
my answer.

“
Can I come up?”

Angelica’s voice was full
of good humor, something I relied on at times, and I said nothing,
granting permission. The upstairs, all five rooms of it, had been
mine as long as I could remember. Other than the cleaners, no one
was ever allowed up here. Because I was free to be me in these room
–
Changed
.

Our home was laid out in a
series of rooms arrayed in a circle. Old wood framed it all into a
spiral of rooms that almost all had adjoining doors. We were
Pruetts. We liked having extra exits.
The
second floor was the same, circling the steep stairs, and the dark
paneling kept it cool despite the height. It also held in the heat
in the winter and kept the house warmer than most dwellings of our
neighbors.

On the walls downstairs, were a variety of
art and family items, but up here were only dark, mysterious
collections I’d gathered during our bounty runs. My favorite was
the black Jesus on the cross. Had the others really thought God
like a man? It was a question I didn’t understand. How could
anything so complex, so completely self-sufficient as the planet,
be created by a being like men? We didn’t create. We killed.

Angelica had missed our
daily workouts. W
e had no sooner entered
the upstairs hall, when I had to shove Daniel to the side so that I
could deflect her attack. She slammed against my hip, sending me
into the wall with her new strength.

“
Long week?”

She answered with a lunge that I caught and
used to throw her into the wooden wall.

“
Slam it!”

I laughed at her very real frustration,
causing her eyes to tighten. I watched her pull it back in
approval. She hadn’t been able to do that before I left for the
Games.

“
Very good.”

I wondered what she’d suffered during her
time at the Korean’s hands, but the doctors at the complex had
proclaimed her uninjured, and I hadn’t asked. We Pruett women were
like that. If we had a problem we couldn’t handle, we gathered
help. Until then, our business was our own.

Angelica grinned, a harsh mirror of my Games
matches, and I held out a hand, yanked her to her feet. “Come on. I
want to get Daniel settled in his room.”

I slung an arm around her thin shoulders,
and we turned to see him cowering in the doorway where I’d shoved
him. His whole body screamed fear.

“
Kinda jumpy.”

I nodded, seeing him understand, flush.

“
He just needs
time.”

I moved toward him slowly, making sure to
control my expression when he flinched. I held out a hand.
“Come.”

He moved carefully, taking the light grip I
offered. My hand tingled, sending more heat into the furnace, and
we moved into my bedroom. I closed the door behind us, ready to
start his retraining.

The first thing I did was leave him
alone.

“
We’ll share this bed on my
good nights. For others, you’ll have the adjoining room. You should
go there now and put away your things.”

He was out of my sight an instant later, and
I frowned at my own flash of worry. His actions today proved that
the fear was weaker than his anger. I would use that to pull him
out of his misery. What the Network had destroyed, I would
patiently rebuild.

D

I stood against the closed door, almost
unable to believe Candice wasn’t beating me for what I’d done, the
fine she would be responsible for. She was so… different than the
females I’d had contact with. If not for the pleasure I knew how to
hand out, I would have no idea how to survive her ownership.

My eyes went over the rounded room, the
small door indicating a washroom, and I stared in surprise. This
was all for me?

It had been set up for a man, from the dark
blue walls to the plain-colored blankets on the enormous bed.
Braced with tall wooden pillars, it wasn’t as large as the bed in
Candy’s room, but it was still more than I was used to. I found
myself fearing it a little. How alone would I feel in that empty
space?

I looked around from where I stood, not sure
I could make myself touch anything yet. There were enough clothes
and personal gear to outfit me for a year or more, I estimated, and
felt my heart begin to relax from the hard ball it had clenched
into upon seeing who had won me. Candice didn’t have plans to sell
me if she’d spent this amount of UDs on my future care. She
intended to keep me. It suddenly occurred to me that she was more
faith-based than I’d first thought. To have gathered so much, she’d
been sure she would win. It was something else I hadn’t expected
from the brutal fighter.

Remembering she wanted me to unpack, I
slowly got started, hands admiring the soft textures she’d chosen.
At the complex, new outfits were given twice a year, with no
exceptions, and after repeated washings, they became threadbare
quickly. The clothes I now had would allow me the decency of being
well-covered no matter how many outfits my owner tore up. Inside my
heart, those holes left by missing pieces, began to heal.

Aware of how lucky I was, I soon got lost in
exploring her gifts, but after a while, the exhaustion had me
stretching out on a corner of the bed, surrounded by my new
possessions. A week ago, I’d been cowering in my cot, waiting for
Rankin’s heavy service call. Now, I was… home? Yes. I already knew
I would come to love it here. The only thing that mattered, was
could I come to love Candice?

Chapter Ten

C

It was very quiet.

After the two days we’d spent at the
complex, I wasn’t sure he was capable of it, and I moved toward the
door with a nagging sense that I’d forgotten something. I hadn’t
searched it before he went in, but Angelica had been here…

My hand turned the knob before I stopped,
remembering these weren’t just my rooms anymore. Smirking slightly
at the feeling, I knocked.

“
Come in.”

His voice sent that familiar ache into my
gut, and I pushed it back, starting to get frustrated with my lack
of control. I opened the door and stepped inside, but didn’t go any
further. I wanted him to feel that this room, at least, was his, so
that he would have a sanctuary. I personally had dens all over our
hunting grounds.

“
Thank you. I’ll try to
take care of it all.”

I was glad he was aware of the cost of
replacing things, but I wanted him to understand it didn’t matter.
With a deliberate move, I flipped the window open and shoved a box
he’d already gone through out the window.

I turned to see his shock, and started to
explain…

“
What the hell?”

Angelica’s voice was angry, and I snorted
laughter at the thought of it landing on her.

I snapped the window shut with an honest
grin and finally took in his reaction.

“
Why did you do
that?”

He was mad! To my shock, Daniel headed for
the door.

“
I want those!” he
complained, hand reaching for the knob… and then he remembered who
he was talking to.

D

I expected her to be heading my way in
anger, but she was trying not to laugh! Not understanding, but
determined to reclaim the gift, I stomped from the rooms without
permission.

On the way down the stairs, I became aware
of a sound that rang through my head and stuck there. Candy was
laughing. It sent flashes of that dream girl into my brain,
bouncing around, opening doors.

I stopped on the stairs, head turned toward
the sound like a hunter scenting prey. I wasn’t the only one it
drew. Her parents came to the bottom of the stairs to stare up at
me in shock. I also felt her furious little relative nearby
listening, and it took my anger away, replaced it with curiosity.
“I guess you haven’t heard that much either.”

My comment pulled a snort from her Father
and a pointed look from her Mother.

“
When you were gone, she
closed up. We haven’t seen or heard from
that
girl in ten years.”

I watched them step out of
view, mind flying over the newest piece of my puzzle. I’d been
Candy’s.
Before
the Change, she’d wanted me. It was a powerful moment, knowing
I’d had at least one person I had trusted enough to be attached to.
The rest of my family memories were awful, ugly enough to make me
wish the flashes would stop. I didn’t need to know everything that
had happened to me, but I longed to have those images of Candice in
place in the proper order, rather than the choppy picture that I
worried might always be there.

Aware of the quiet, I moved
outside with careful steps, seeing her cousin was still near the
scattered packages. I gathered the items back into the box quickly,
sure she was watching. I wanted to say something, like
“sorry they fell on your head.”
but I knew better. Changelings didn’t handle the
sound of male voices very well. Candice was the only exception I’d
ever seen.

As I turned to go, Angelica moved in front
of me, and I instinctively looked up to the window. I already
viewed Candice as my protector, and her cousin saw it. She grinned
at me.

I was leery of her, but Candice clearly
trusted the smaller woman, and I decided I would give her a chance.
She didn’t seem to be hateful, just… in pain. “Sorry.”

Angelica’s face paled, eyes flickering.

I hurried around her, worried again over the
new rules I needed to learn. I had no idea what was expected of me,
and I was so tired! I’d only allowed myself a few minutes rest, and
I could feel the veins throbbing in my head.