The Cure (11 page)

The mortal saw me coming and shifted his pistol in my direction. I was faster. Two shots and he was down.

“Behind you!” Kathy shouted.

I turned to see one of the wounded Unbounded men coming toward me, moving with a speed and agility that signaled his talent was combat. I pulled the trigger, but he was too fast and the shot went wide. A left hook sent me to the ground. I twisted as I fell, kicking out at him. He staggered, giving me enough time to get to my feet. I punched; he blocked. He punched; I ducked. Veins bulged in his neck, and his dark eyes were murderous. No matter how much I’d trained, this wasn’t a fight I could win.

Behind the man, I glimpsed Ritter now fighting both female Unbounded. He moved with incredible speed, blocking before a punch was thrown, stepping out of reach at the last moment. At least one of the women was also gifted in combat. Probably both. It was a miracle Stella had been able to protect the others as long as she had. She wasn’t moving now.

“Stop or I’ll kill her!” The mortal I’d shot had come to one elbow, his gun pointed toward Kathy. Max growled, but that was no defense against a bullet.

Pain exploded in my head and in my ribs as my Unbounded opponent rewarded my distraction with the mortal. I fell, gasping for breath. The room spun around me. I struggled to my feet, half blinded.

What should I do? I felt paralyzed. If we gave up, most of us were as good as dead anyway. My brother had forgiven me for the death of his wife, but losing his children—I didn’t know if either of us could recover from that.

A sudden, strange pulse waved through the room, stealing what breath I had left with its intensity.

“Police!” came a shout near the door.

What?
I jerked my head toward the door where a dozen armed men had appeared in SWAT clothing. They looked competent, dangerous, and willing to kill. Two near the front also looked familiar, but I couldn’t place them. Relief swept through me for an instant before I realized that something didn’t fit.

There were no sparks of life forces, no
feeling
that marked one real person, much less a dozen determined men. If they were blocking, I’d still be able to at least sense their presence this close. So either they were all sensing Unbounded who could hide their presence from me, or they didn’t exist at all. Yet I caught a whiff of tobacco and gun oil. They even smelled real. It had to be some kind of a trick. An illusion meant to confuse. But whose? The Emporium Unbounded were every bit as surprised as I was, their shields wavering enough that I could sense their shock quite clearly. How could I use that to my advantage?

I couldn’t. Not with that gun aimed at Kathy.

Wait. It wasn’t quite aimed at her. The man, gaping at the police, had lowered it so the barrel pointed downward.

Ritter’s mind was still dark, so there was no way for me to warn him that the policemen weren’t really there without also alerting the Emporium agents. Diving for my Sig, I rolled and came up shooting. First the mortal and then my Unbounded opponent. I emptied the rest of the magazine. If that didn’t do it, I had nothing left.

Ritter was only a heartbeat behind me. One powerful blow took out the larger Unbounded

woman. The other, seeing the change in the battle, backed away from him, glancing toward the officers near the door, who still looked tough and ready but unmoving. Even as we watched, they vanished, taking the smell of tobacco with them.

The Emporium woman fled the room.

Ritter glanced at me.

“I’m okay,” I shouted. “Go.”

Actually, my eyesight was still half dark, and I almost couldn’t breathe. A couple ribs were busted at the least. But I wanted revenge every bit as much as he did.

He dipped his head once and sprang after her, the taut lines of his body screaming in anticipation.

I breathed in deeply, absorbing consciously. I needed energy.

“Are you okay?” Kathy’s voice, stronger than I expected. She scuttled over to me, with Spencer still clinging to her waist.

I forced myself to a seated position and tried not to wince as I put my arms around them. “I’m fine. Are you guys hurt?” Max licked my hand.

“We’re okay,” Kathy said. “Stella was great. She wouldn’t let them get to us.”

My eyes went to Stella. She was breathing but unconscious. I wished Dimitri were here and not in Mexico. He’d be able to tell in an instant if the baby was okay, and with his ability, he could often prolong life simply with the touch of his hands.

“Oliver helped,” Kathy added. “He was shooting like crazy.”

Oliver. He was sitting on the floor, staring vacantly at the door, his confusion pounding at my senses. I caught a glimpse of the SWAT team in his mind, exactly as it had appeared. But there was also a TV, and now I recognized characters from a popular weekly show.

All at once, I understood what Ava and Oliver himself hadn’t yet realized. He could create illusions. I’d read documentation about the ability, but it had been lost among Unbounded for centuries, along with some of the other mental gifts. The theory was that both mathematics and sensing had to be in the Unbounded’s heritage in order to develop the ability.

Oliver. Useless, full-of-himself Oliver had a gift that might prove vital to the Renegade movement. It was almost too much to believe.

“I’d better see to Stella. Kathy, stay here with Spencer. It’s going to be okay. Uncle Jace and Ritter will make sure.” I extracted myself from them, told Max to stay, and climbed awkwardly to my feet, gritting my teeth against the pain in my ribs that was echoed by a renewed throbbing in my ankle. It felt a lot like broken glass inside the skin.

I took my gun with me, slapping in a new magazine, and double-checking on the unconscious Unbounded. The two men weren’t even breathing, but that could change at any minute as their bodies made repairs.

Kneeling beside Stella, I shook her head gently. No response. She was cut, scraped, and bruised over much of her exposed body. No telling what internal injuries she may have suffered. My hands went to the tiny mound of her growing baby. Two months ago I’d been able to tell that she was pregnant before she was sure that her missed cycle meant anything important. She was scarcely more than three months along now. Had she been heavier and a bit taller, her baby bulge might not be noticeable at all.

Looking one last time at the fallen Unbounded to make sure they weren’t moving, I closed my eyes and reached out. All I felt was a pounding in my head and an urge to vomit. Some talent I had.

Wait.
There it was, a tiny, almost imperceptible spark of life, a minuscule pumping, so subtle compared to the ache in my head. My relief turned to worry as I contemplated the faint heartbeat. Every so often, the beat missed, as though it struggled to continue.

Stella had lost so much, and without Dimitri here, I feared she would lose this final piece of her husband.

Live
, I told the baby, knowing the effort was useless. I wasn’t a healer. The outcome would be whatever was destined.

“Is she all right?” Oliver had lost his fascination with the door and pulled himself over to where I sat. Blood stained the entire front of his shirt and the way he held himself, I knew it was his own.

“She’ll be fine. Don’t know about the baby.”

Oliver frowned. “I was no good to her. All I could do was fire the gun. She was like a maniac, trying to save us all.”

I swallowed hard. “But you did help. You saved all of us with that illusion.”

“What are you . . .” He stopped. “That was real? I thought I was hallucinating.”

“You didn’t think it was strange they looked like those actors in that show you watch every week?”

He gave me a weak smile. “Does this mean I’m part of the group?”

“You always were.”

“No. I was useless.”

I sighed. “We all felt that way in the beginning.” Who was I kidding? I still felt that way most days. It only meant I had to work harder.

Clattering down the hall diverted my attention. Lifting my gun, I aimed at the door, releasing a sharp breath as Jace’s head came into view. He nodded at me and began checking the Unbounded.

Ava appeared moments later, several syringes in her hand. She tossed one to Jace. “Give ten mils to each. That should hold them at least twenty-four hours.”

“That one’s human,” I said, knowing ten milligrams of Ava’s cocktail would kill a mortal.

Jace checked his pulse. “Won’t matter. He’s dead.”

Dead.

My eyes burned as I stared at the inert form, knowing his death represented how far I was willing to go to protect my family and friends. Saving them should make seeing his lifeless body easier, but somehow it didn’t. “All of ours okay?” I asked.

Ava knelt next to me, uncapping a syringe. Curequick gel by the thickness of the needle. “Everyone’s fine except Gaven. I’m sorry, but he’s dead.”

I lifted eyes that wouldn’t focus properly. Gaven? Only hours ago he’d been calming Mari in the park. He’d survived government black ops and years with the Renegades, but now he was gone. “What about Mari?” I choked.

Ava began injecting Stella near the worst of her wounds. “I’m not sure. She disappeared during the fighting.”

“Do you think they have her?” Mari was an innocent. There was no way she could protect herself.

“I don’t think so, but it is a possibility. It all happened so fast. We were defending ourselves when we heard you come in downstairs, and when I looked around, she wasn’t there.” Ava sighed. “Ritter’s searching for her now. Look, I need you to get Stella and Oliver and the kids out of here. Go to Stella’s. I can’t send anyone with you since I need the others to clean up here, but you can call Chris and tell him to meet you there. He should be finished fueling the plane by now. I’d planned for him to stay there in case we decided to fly out tonight, but Cort and Dimitri are going to have to be on their own for a while. We’re not leaving any of these bastards to fight again.”

There was no venom in her voice, only a determined calmness, but her choice of words chilled me. Ava never swore. Few of the older Renegade Unbounded did. They’d been raised in a time where gutter words signaled poor education, children respected their elders, and marriage meant a lifetime commitment.

That was one of the reasons I’d trusted Ritter’s promise.

“Okay,” I said, taking a syringe from her. I should use it on myself, but Oliver needed it worse than I did. He’d collapsed again and seemed to be struggling for breath. One of the bullets must have clipped his lung. Besides, there should still be enough curequick in my system from earlier to help me recover now.

“I may need to call someone to look at them.” I told Ava, as I inserted the needle into Oliver’s chest. He flinched but didn’t open his eyes. Both he and Stella would eventually heal without help, though getting out bullets and stopping the bleeding would speed up matters. Besides, I was worried about the baby.

“What about that doctor you have working with your dad?” Ava put her arms under Stella and lifted the shorter woman.

I nodded. Dimitri would be better, but Wade Crampton would do in a pinch. The doctor worked at the local university teaching and conducting research on transplants with government grants. I’d hired him on the side to piggyback a study on his research that might reduce my father’s dependence on anti-rejection drugs for his heart. Or my heart, actually. The one that now beat in his chest. I’d grown a new one since the hospital and didn’t miss it.

“Come on, kids,” I said to Kathy and Spencer. “Help me walk. Let’s get out of here.” My body was healing, but I was still having trouble seeing. I hoped Ritter could find Mari because I wasn’t confident in my ability to drive us safely to Stella’s, and Oliver wasn’t going to be much help.

Ava carried Stella, while Jace staggered under Oliver’s weight. Pain filled my steps, but after the first few minutes, my ankle became completely numb. In the lobby, we passed Marco, George, and Charles, our three remaining mortal employees, who were busy moving the unconscious Unbounded out to Dimitri’s truck. “At least two got away,” Marco told Ava as he went to help Jace carry Oliver. Marco was short and stocky with olive skin and dark hair and rolling eyes that missed nothing. He and Gaven had been best friends.

Ava nodded. “I know. They’ll alert others or whoever they have on the police payroll. We’ll have to torch the place. I’ll get what we need from the rooms. You guys grab the electronics and weapons. We don’t have much time.”

Part of the training for each Renegade was to keep vital documents and important items in one place in case abandoning the safe house became necessary. Copies were kept in a bank safe deposit box for much of it, including stacks of fake IDs and irreplaceable keepsakes. We’d moved before, but this was the first time I’d experienced a complete abandonment. I thought of the new pair of jeans in my closet that fit like a comfortable glove and had taken a week of horrendous shopping to find, and the black outfit Stella had especially made for me with numerous pockets for hidden weapons. I called it my catwoman suit. I wondered if there would be time to retrieve them. Silly and human of me. It could all be replaced. Though we couldn’t begin to compete with the Emporium for funds, individual Renegades had amassed large amounts of money, and Ava had allotted me a monthly share of her funds by right of my Change. There had been no strings attached, but I felt indebted to her, and now that I was finished with watching Mari, I hoped to earn my own way.

If people stopped trying to kill me long enough.

As we loaded the kids, Stella, Oliver, and the dog into our brown van, I belatedly remembered Keene. Where was he? I’d asked Ava if everyone was okay, and I’d meant him as well, but I hadn’t seen him around and it was possible she hadn’t included him in her count. Breath catching in my throat, I turned to Ava. “Cort’s brother. Is he—?” I couldn’t finish.

“He’s helping Ritter search for Mari.”

I let out a sigh of relief that I told myself was only because I felt responsible for bringing him here. I still had to tell Ava what he’d said about why we’d been attacked tonight and about Justine going to Mexico.