The Cure (6 page)

Mari seemed helpless to answer, but everyone pretended she had.

“And you know Stella,” I continued, “but she’s rather busy right now. She’s processing too much information at the moment to notice us, but she’ll come around in a minute. Next to her is your cousin, Oliver Parkin.”

As I spoke, Oliver tossed down his headset with a grunt of disgust.
So, not a technopath.
Whatever his ability finally turned out to be, I hoped it was something useful. He certainly hadn’t shown much skill during our training sessions since Stella had brought him in. His confession about his Change to his girlfriend hadn’t helped matters, and she’d gone screaming from his apartment, threatening to call the police. Ava and I’d been forced to masquerade as policewomen to get into her apartment so we could drug her and remove the memory from her unconscious mind.

“Hey, cuz,” Oliver said. “Glad you’re here.”

Mari gave a nearly imperceptible smile. A good sign, I hoped.

I looked at Ava, my thoughts turning to Mexico. “Was it the compound?”

Located in the Mexican rainforest, the compound was where we kept Emporium prisoners, trying to rehabilitate them, if possible, or making them stand trial for their atrocities. Neither the location nor the process was ideal, but we Renegades were forced to do whatever it took to ensure the safety of the mortal population were trying to protect.

Ava’s gray eyes, so like my own, stared back at me somberly. “Not the compound. They hit the research facility. Two days ago, actually. We only got word this morning.”

Ice dripped into my veins. No wonder Stella was absorbed by her computers and monitors, in so deep that she couldn’t break away—not even to say hello to her great-niece. She’d pinned all her hopes on the research facility. I glanced at her again and noticed that under the headpiece, her olive skin was more pale than usual, and there was an enhanced tightness around her mouth.

I shifted my gaze back at Ava. “How bad is it?”

Ava shook her head, and her golden hair swung slightly at the longest tips near her chin. She had smooth, clear, wrinkle-free skin, high cheekbones, and a nose that spread a tiny bit more than necessary. Ava was the epitome of a beautiful, successful leader. Though she appeared only a few years older than me, she’d already lived three hundred years. “We don’t know yet. We haven’t been able to contact them since the initial distress call. But Cort and Dimitri will land soon and should be able to discover more even before they drive out to the facility. If the worst has happened, Dimitri hopes to salvage what he can.”

“It’s the Emporium. It has to be.”

Ava inclined her head, her eyes meeting mine impassively. “Most likely.”

For Stella’s sake, I hoped it was a false alarm, or that our physicians and lab personnel had escaped with their research. The life of Stella’s husband depended on it. Bronson was mortal and at seventy much older than she was physically, but it was an autoimmune disease, not age, that was killing him. Stella had once been more at peace with his impending death, but her recent pregnancy had caused her to cling with hope to groundbreaking medical advances involving nanoparticles. Last week the information coming from the Mexican lab had indicated that curing him was a real possibility. We’d been expecting one of the doctors to arrive with the new formula.

Dimitri had originally arranged for several doctors in the U.S. to work on the problem of Bronson’s illness, but one by one, the doctors’ grants had been withdrawn and their jobs threatened. The Emporium, who invested deeply in health care, wasn’t interested in cures, only in continued treatment. More suffering made money, not cures. They’d successfully blocked cures for cancers, muscular dystrophy, and paralysis due to spinal problems. Renegade Unbounded who were gifted in healing like Dimitri kept organizing research facilities, but the Emporium was just as good at ferreting them out and bribing government officials to impose prohibitive sanctions and restrictions—or threatening grants. With their genetic experiments and forced breeding, Emporium Unbounded agents were everywhere now, from the FDA to the senate. The facility in Mexico was one of the few unhindered research labs left to us—the only one with the promise of obliterating autoimmune diseases. Dimitri spent a couple weeks every month working there alongside his research scientists, and Cort double-checked all their data.

Stella removed her headset and stood gracefully, the multicolored greens of her dress briefly flowing before settling over her full breasts, narrow hips, and the slightly mounded belly where her child grew. Delicately boned, she had the same confident bearing as all Unbounded, but while most Unbounded were simply arresting, Stella was beautiful. Every feature on her face was absolutely perfect, from her wide brown eyes to her sculptured eyebrows and flawless golden skin. These were complemented by thick, shoulder-length dark hair and a heart-shaped face. Born of an Italian father and Japanese mother, her Asian heritage was prominent and exotic. I’d grown accustomed to her utter perfection, the effect not dimmed by the knowledge of the nanites she, as a technopath, used to achieve such results. Given another option, why live forever with plainness? Though I’d once felt a world of inadequacies around Stella, over the past months she’d become the sister I’d never had, and I no longer let her perfection intimidate me.

Mari caught her breath. “Stella! It really is you! I can’t believe it!”

Stella smiled and hurried around the table to enfold Mari in her arms. “Oh, darling girl. I’m so sorry about the Hunters. I would have brought you in last week, but I wanted to give you more time to adjust.”

“You look exactly the same as when I was a child.” Mari hesitated before adding in a rush, “Then it’s all true, isn’t it?” The last words were garbled by sobs.

I looked away. So much emotion blasting the airwaves was an assault on my senses.

Jace caught my eyes and grinned. “You’re bleeding.”

“Was.” My stomach felt fine now. In another hour, I wouldn’t even have a scar. I looked down at Ava, who was sitting again in her chair, her body emanating coiled energy. “So, are we going to Mexico?” With Cort already there, Chris would have to fly the rest of us, and while worrying about Jace was hard enough, having my mortal brother in the midst of yet another crisis was not good for my peace of mind. I still blamed myself for his wife’s death.

Ava’s brow creased. “It depends on what Dimitri and Cort find there.” She glanced at Stella. “There’s no chatter about it anywhere, so I really can’t plan anything right now. The lab’s not exactly a secret, so it might be an Emporium ruse to flush us out. They don’t like that we came out on top during our last struggle. I do wish Ritter had been here to go with them just in case.”

“You could have sent me,” Jace said. “Cort says I’m probably faster than Ritter now.”

Somehow I doubted it, though I admired my brother’s enthusiasm and I couldn’t wait to see him spar with Ritter. Someone needed to remind him that being Unbounded didn’t mean complete immortality—and that he still had a long way to go in training.

I waited for Ava to tell Jace he’d have been in the way, but her gravestone eyes observed him without expression. “You may still have your chance. Meanwhile, we have another problem to take care of. Two, actually.”

“The Hunters, I suppose.” I frowned. “There’s no way to erase their knowledge of Mari altogether. She’s already in their database. But we might be able to erase the fact that she actually Changed.”

Ava jotted something on a paper in front of her. “I hope so, though that’s not what I’m referring to. However, I did talk to Ritter after you left the park, and I sent George with the trailer. We’ll bring the Hunters here to study the situation. If we can erase Mari’s Change, I’ll need your help.”

I nodded. Delving inside people was exhausting, and though taking the Hunters’ memories hadn’t been too difficult, my run-in with the armed bum had left me depleted. Concentrating now, I increased my body’s rate of absorption from the air. More nutrients should help me recover.

“The real concern with what happened tonight,” Ava continued, “is how many other descendant lines might be compromised. Is this a one-time thing, or do the Hunters have a way to track our relatives who carry the Unbounded gene?”

My stomach tensed. If they did, it could devastate the entire Renegade movement unless we all acted fast. New Unbounded were the only way we’d survive the ongoing battle. “We’ll have to contact the other groups.”

“Stella already sent out a message,” Ava said with a sigh. “But more pressing than all this is the problem of Cort’s brother. He contacted us on our emergency line less than an hour ago, right before I called you. He wants to meet with Cort tonight. In person. Says it’s urgent.”

I blinked. “Keene? That brother?” Cort Bagley’s Unbounded father was a member of the Emporium Triad, and Cort had many siblings, both mortal and Unbounded. Cort had defected years ago from the Emporium to Ava’s group of Renegades, but his half brother Keene had remained embroiled in his father’s cause, a mortal in the midst of Emporium Unbounded who considered themselves superior—almost gods—compared to the lowly mortals. Two months ago Keene had captured and taken me to the Emporium, but he’d eventually helped me escape. My life wasn’t the only one he’d saved, and I owed him. “I thought Cort had lost all contact with Keene.”

Stella, her arm still around Mari, turned her head in our direction. “He had for a while, but there’s a chat group online where they sometimes talked in the past. Cort told me he’s been keeping an eye out there, and Keene posted there last week.”

I glanced at Ava to see if she’d known about this. Though each of us had our private lives, anything that might endanger the group had to be cleared through her.

She nodded. “I knew about it. They’ve been exchanging emails and talking on the phone. Cort’s been trying to get him to work with us.”

I was going to kill Cort for not telling me. “What does Keene want?”

“He wants to meet Cort—here in Portland. Tonight. With Cort in Mexico, that’s impossible, but with everything that’s going on, we feel we should meet him.”

“Keene knows we’re in Portland?” My eyes went from Ava to Stella and back.

Again Ava nodded, her lips tight with disapproval. “Apparently.”

Not good. Our location was the one thing we and other groups of Renegades guarded with our lives. Not doing so always ended in a blood bath.

“We don’t know
how
he knows,” Stella said, always ready to give each of us a fair chance. “But the fact that he requested a meeting here is significant.”

“Exactly.” Ava’s eyes still rested on my face. “We have to meet him. Or rather, you do, since Stella and I feel that you’re the only one he’d talk to in Cort’s absence. But keep in mind, it could be a trap.”

“I’ll go with her,” Jace said.

I rolled my eyes. “No. I’ll be fine.” My brother had embraced near immortality with a passion that often overruled good sense, and I didn’t want to have to worry about him.

“He should go,” Ava countered. When I didn’t reply, she added, “It’s either him or Ritter. We have no idea if Keene’s still working for his father and the Emporium. I expect you to be careful, but you can’t go in without backup.”

Unlike Ava, I trusted Keene—at least as much as you could trust anyone who knew about the Unbounded. He’d always told me the truth as he’d known it—even if it wasn’t the entire truth, which was more than I could say about most men in my life, especially Ritter.

Who should be here any moment.

My traitorous body began to grow warm just thinking about him. Not good at all, especially in light of the Unbounded fertility rate and high probability of non-Unbounded offspring. Maybe after I’d lived a century or two, I’d learn to control my impulses. Besides, like many other Renegade Unbounded, Ritter had old-fashioned ideas about morality and family. It was all or nothing, and I didn’t know if I was ready for two thousand years of commitment.

“Okay, Jace can come,” I said. “Where does Keene want to meet? And when?”

Stella frowned, and even that didn’t mar her beauty. “Eight o’clock. At a Chinese restaurant. I looked it up. It’s reputable and in a good part of town. In fact, it’s not too far from my apartment.” Her apartment meant where Bronson lay dying, tended by either Stella or her live-in nurse twenty-four hours a day.

“Bronson’s your husband, isn’t he?” Mari asked hesitantly, her face pale and drawn.

Stella’s frown disappeared, and I knew she was reminding herself that she had Mari and Oliver now, her beloved younger sister’s Unbounded progeny to focus on—even if one day her own child didn’t develop the active gene.

“He is, and you’ll meet him soon.” Stella looked over her shoulder where Oliver still sat at the table, leaning back, his long fingers tented over his stomach. “Meanwhile, Oliver can show you where you’ll be sleeping. You’ll be staying in my room here. I’m not usually there anyway. There’s clothing in the closet. Feel free to use whatever you need. We’ll get you more as soon as we can.”

Mari’s eyes widened. “But . . . I . . . all my things are at home . . . and I need to talk to Trevor.”

Had I been this dense? “Listen, Mari,” I said, stifling a sigh. “I told you at the park. You can’t go home. Not ever again. Those people will hunt you now. Trevor sold you out. He’s not there waiting for you. He never will be.” I wanted to tell her she was one of the lucky women who got away, but she started crying again, crumpling in Stella’s arms.

Stella glared at me. “Sorry,” I mouthed with a shrug. So I wasn’t the most empathetic person. I should be. After all, I was the one who could feel her emotions bouncing around like a bullet in my brain. I strengthened my mental barriers and immediately the desperation left me.
Ah.
I needed to remember to do that without having to concentrate so hard.

We all stood there a bit helplessly, not knowing what to do. I didn’t think telling Mari that Trevor was unconscious would improve matters.
Maybe I should tell her how my old boyfriend helped the Emporium kidnap me.
Then again, it wasn’t something I was willing to discuss with so many listening ears.