The Change: Episode one (22 page)

And then there was Daniel. I had only felt
safe bringing him because of the strict training the bachelors got
from the Network, but he knew almost nothing. Why hadn’t he been
taught these things like the other bachelors? It was as if they had
never intended for him to blend into the outside world at all…

Those who hadn’t attacked had cleared the
scene, and we’d been as careful as we could to only hit targets,
not civilians. As usual, our aim was good, but our luck wasn’t. Two
shots had found innocent targets, and we paid the farmer for both
hogs. The extra bit of gold dust my Mother pressed into the older
woman’s hand also gained us another ally.

Now, the woman could
justify eating the two animals and still have something to show for
it.
Here in New America, surviving was the
best most people could hope for. Getting ahead was only for those
in New Network City, and the Pruetts never forgot that.

Sure he was a wreck inside over what he had
unintentionally caused, I motioned Daniel back toward the Mopar
that Angelica now had upright - without the punishment he probably
felt he deserved. None of this was his fault. It was a result of
the War, of past mistakes, and… the Network.

D

I was too shocked to enjoy crossing the wide
river on the ferryboat. I didn’t care that it was my first ever or
that the feel of it could have been incredible. Those women had
died because I had made a careless mistake and there was no way I
could take it back. I wanted to curl up and hide. I kept my head
down against her back and struggled to keep from crying in shame.
More lives lost, for me. When would it end?

C

I knew Daniel was upset, but I didn’t
realize how much until I stepped from the Mopar and turned toward
him. He didn’t move, just stared back, waiting for the blows to
begin. My heart broke for him.

“
Come with me.”

I moved us into the shadows, choosing my
words. He didn’t mean to be reckless, and until I had time to train
him properly, I wouldn’t blame him any more than he deserved.

As soon as we were out of sight, he went to
his knees at my feet, trembling. I understood that he wanted me to
give him a punishment, or he would torture himself over it.

“
What would the Network
have done?”

His eyes shot to mine and his voice held a
tremor I loathed.

“
Speaking… is a serious
rule. I’ve heard they use the whip.”

I scowled. There was no way I would do that,
and I chose to try a different tactic. “I am not the Network. If I
thought you had broken a rule and needed to be punished, do you
believe I would do it?”

He nodded quickly, forehead
wrinkled in that familiar way. I struggled to sound angry when I
really wanted to comfort him. “Speaking is not against
my
rules, Daniel. Those
women could have controlled themselves. We do.”

I was seeing fresh signs of
my Daniel, like t
he way the middle of his
forehead squeezed together when he was frustrated or when he was
hurt and couldn’t find a way to express what he was thinking. There
was no way I would let him regress into that shaking form I’d first
been given. “In my household, you are a person, not a slave to be
punished, and my rules stand before the Network’s. If you plan to
stay with me, you’ll accept that.”

D

She left me standing there, waiting for pain
that wasn’t coming. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t upset, but I
was grateful and tried to put it out of my mind – mostly because I
knew she wouldn’t like it if she caught me dwelling on it.

The images I’d seen, the snarls and the
screams, the claws I’d felt, those wouldn’t go away anytime soon,
but I had gotten good at hiding my thoughts from the other
bachelors and Den Mothers. I would use that skill now. I wouldn’t
be separated from her. Not after all she’d done for me.

C

We had chosen not to rest, but to take an
energizer instead and get this run cleared up. It had already
become worthless in the terms of UDs. The Network would have huge
fines waiting for us, to balance the mess their employees had to
clean up.

Despite it being Spring, only small areas of
the eastern half of the country were in bloom. The Western half was
a desert with little to recommend it besides the leftover tools of
mankind.

I watched Daniel stare at the stars, the
moon, and even the blowing leaves as if in a trance, and I shook my
head at Angelica’s quick look to him. He wouldn’t get an energizer.
He needed some sleep, and he could doze, tied to me this time,
while we rolled to Jericho.

Chapter Fifteen

Old St. Louis

D

The City had a wall around it!

I stared in amazement as we crested the
rise, unable to see any gaps in the ten foot barrier. Made from
boat planks and entire slabs of concrete, the sheets of wood and
houses were covered in vivid graffiti, much of it anti-Network.
Inside those filthy walls was more of the same. Jericho would be
like wandering through a labyrinth.

“
Looks like they’ve fixed
the south wall,” Candice stated, looking through a pair of
expensive Network binoculars. “Not the north side, though. We’ll
slide in through the fence and head for the Square.”

The Square was in the very center of the
city, where they thought Baker had a hole-up. During our only break
in the twenty hours it took to get here, Bruce informed me that St.
Louis had been one of the first Midwestern towns to be rebuilt. Its
citizens had erected the wall in order to keep others out. The
Network had put a quick, harsh stop to that, but left the wall and
turned the city into their final outpost before the borderlands of
Arkansas. Everything beyond that point was ruled by the West Coast
Outpost, sister to the Network council we currently served.

C

He was here. What the hell was Baker
thinking? If we caught him, we would turn him in. He knew that, so
what the hell was he doing standing outside his hole-up?

I studied the surrounding area and found too
much debris and stacked furniture to be sure he wasn’t alone.
Likely he wasn’t, and I gave the signal for my parents to drop back
and send in a sighting alert. We would then move straight in and
snatch him up.

It was a standard plan we used, but thanks
to our hunting skills, the prey often thought we were much farther
away. Right now, the Snake Tracers were passing the word that we
had stayed a night in the Forests of Kentucky. We shouldn’t be
expected so soon, but the convict shouldn’t be out in the open,
either.

Baker turned suddenly, hand dropping to his
lean hip, and I stared as the memories flashed over me at the sight
of that body. I’d use it many times, in many ways.

I’d found him hiding under
a house a year after Daniel was gone, too exhausted to pay the
local runaway gang leader for the night’s room and board after
evading Network guards all day. Our friendship had come easily
because of our common hatred of adults and authority. Back then,
when the
change
was just starting to show signs, I hadn’t cared that Baker was
male. I only saw his strength and his friendship. As the feeling
grew out of control, he’d eased me into the pain and pleasure… the
cool relief that came after one of our sessions.

Those first few years had been awful for me.
Daniel hadn’t been gone a month before the Change was already
lighting my small body up from the inside. It didn’t usually come
until the age of puberty, but my grief at losing him had sped
things up until I was burning alive all the time. Then I’d found a
substitute…

Baker wore earrings in both thick lobes, an
onyx circle with an indecipherable symbol in the center and a
silver chain around his neck that I thought might be made of
titanium. In all the times we’d slept together, it had never
snapped under my Changeling strength.

He moved with an arrogance that said he was
on his own and surviving it. That was another part of him I had
been taken with. Even as a homeless teenager, he’d been sure of
himself, and I had needed that for what I was planning. We’d spent
time working on my strength every day. He was the reason I had made
survived the Games.

When Baker made the Network’s wanted list,
we had been lovers for half a decade. I’d turned him in before, but
it was something I didn’t think I could do now, despite accepting
the assignment. The Network would get someone else when I let him
go. I hadn’t agreed for the UDs or for the chase. I needed to see
him… feel him. I had to know if he still affected me so strongly. I
had to let go of Baker to have a real future with Daniel, and after
the month we had spent together in the very den he was holed-up in,
I wasn’t sure that was possible. Before I’d signed up for the
Games, I had feared I might be falling in love with Baker and I now
needed to know if it was true. If I loved Baker, too, there were
different choices to be made.

I joined Angelica and Daniel at the Mopars
we had left just outside the walls, my parents guarding from
nearby. “You ready?”

Her curt nod told me she was jumpy, and I
gave her a look of recognition. “Why don’t you hang back, have a
ride ready?”

She understood what I wanted without having
to be told. If there was trouble, she would take Daniel out of
harm’s way. I’d rather have her at my side, but my Mother would be
concerned with her own mate, and I was the leader. Daniel had to be
protected.

I waved us forward with a sense that things
were about to go wrong, but I didn’t call it off. Besides needing
closure, I was also hoping the Convict might have some information
on the Ring. That fury was also still burning hotly.

We spread out in a
V-formation that put Daniel in the center and walked into Jericho
with our hands hovering over our guns. I knew instantly that Baker
was watching us now…watching Daniel.
I
could feel it. He was close.

Minutes after easing inside the walls of
Jericho, we moved through the alley where he’d been standing and
the tension crackled. Crates and old garbage littered the narrow
dimness, the debris a foot deep and flattened down, but not
lifeless.

I waved us forward with a
bad feeling in my gut. Was Baker setting me up? He had to know I’d
never allow that to pass, lovers or not.
I
wondered how he saw me now. I’d asked him once, what he was drawn
to when he could have his choice of Changelings in the breeding
programs. He’d surprised me and won a chunk of my affection with
his answer.

“
You represent a kind of
freedom and strength that I would do anything to have. When I’m
close to your fire, I’m sure I’m alive, and there’s
hope.”

Now, I was ending that and I thought maybe
he was seeing me differently. I was no longer his tattooed
mistress. I was someone’s legal mate.

C

“
Stop there.”

I moved closer to Daniel, feeling waves of
male menace aimed his way. Baker wasn’t happy to see my new mate
along for his capture.

“
Comin’ in.”

The voice failed to stun me, and I grinned.
We would be on equal terms this time. “Slowly.”

My warning was heeded, the shadow moving
away from the wall with careful movements. I hadn’t even known he
was there.

A big hand raised black goggles and those
glinting silver orbs regarded us coolly.

“
Baker.”

His shined eyes flashed at the sound of my
voice. “Candy.”

He wasn’t expecting my reaction, and really,
neither was I. The blade spun by his head and sank deep into the
molding wood he’d been camouflaged by. “No more.”

He nodded, not taking any new offense that I
could see. “I had to be sure.”

“
This is Daniel. My
mate
.”

The two males took an instant dislike to
each other.

Baker’s voice rumbled insultingly. “That
weakling?”

Daniel’s anger flared, and
his hand dropped to the weapon on his hip. “Can I shoot him now? It
said
preferred
dead.”

Okay, maybe it was more like instant
loathing. I listened to my instincts and kept quiet as my lovers
glared at each other.

D

I hated him on sight. He
was unkempt and unclean, a smirking threat to my place. I wanted
her away from him the instant he appeared.
This heathen had been with her. Baker knew
my
Candice intimately, and the
jealousy, the absolute fury, made me fearless. “Mine!”