Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (109 page)

Official court documentation existed for all thirteen (Marco checked), in which they pled guilty to their crimes and were sentenced to serve time at an undisclosed government facility “designed to contain their unique physiology.” So far, we hadn’t found clue one as to where or how those young people were being contained, and those missing thirteen weighed heavily on Teresa’s conscience.

She continued to play nice with law enforcement and to assist in Meta-related crimes, but she wouldn’t turn Landon over to the Pennsylvania State Police until she’d had a chance to talk to him first. Withholding information on his identity was a dangerous game, and I just hoped it didn’t come back to bite our collective asses in a big way.

“Well, as much as I enjoy your company, Saturday is my day off and Caleb is waiting for me at home,” Simon said.

“Yeah, sorry, I think we’re done here,” Ethan said. I knew he felt guilty about dragging Simon into the tower so we could have our little interview, but I didn’t. Simon was the prisoner liaison. Sometimes it was a 24/7 gig.

Ethan and I headed back to HQ, where we gave Teresa a rundown of our conversation with Thatcher, as well as our theories on who had taken him and why.

“Fucking Overseer and his goddamn Recombinants,” Teresa said with an uncharacteristic snarl in her voice. She banged her fist on the top of the conference table, jarring her mug of tea and making me jump.

What the hell was up with that woman?

“They do seem intent on screwing with us,” Ethan said gently. Always the peacemaker, even though neither one of us was sure why peace was needed.

“They’re doing more than screwing with us,” she snapped back. “Stealing the DNA of our parents is one thing, but stealing kids? That’s a completely different level of disgusting.”

“Maybe we should run this by Dr. Kinsey? He’d heard rumors of the cloning project years ago, so he could have some insight.”

“Maybe. I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

“What’s wrong with right now?” I asked. It was barely suppertime.

She blinked at me, then glanced at the clock on the far wall. Her eyebrows arched. “Oh. I guess now’s good, then. Call him down.”

Ethan did the honors, and we hung around until Dr. Kinsey showed up. The man always reminded me more of a college professor than a scientist. But despite everything, he’d been a loyal ally to us, and he fiercely loved both of his sons (even though his sons were only half his, and one was a murderer, but who’s keeping score, right?). After we explained everything we’d learned and guessed, he stared at us with a familiar expression of shock and outrage.

“This is the first I’ve heard of anything like it,” Kinsey said. His voice was deep and sandpaper-rough, but still somehow comforting. He’d been a huge help to me while I was healing from my burns, and his voice had carried me through many a painful period of time.

“We still haven’t identified the female suspect,” Teresa said, “but there’s also a chance she and Landon aren’t the only victims of this sort. With so many dead on both sides during the last few years of the War, there’s no easy way to track down which Metas did or didn’t leave children behind.”

“You mean which Banes,” I said.

She gave me a cross look. “You know exactly what I meant.”

I didn’t answer.

“The FBI might have that information,” Ethan said.

“Like they’re going to share it if they do?” I retorted. “For all we know, the FBI is running this whole Recombinant thing. Who knows which part of the alphabet soup is involved?”

“Renee’s correct,” Kinsey said. “If the FBI has that information in its records, it would be difficult to access. Even Agent McNally might have trouble getting it.”

Teresa heaved a sigh—she’d been thinking along those lines already. Rita McNally had worked with our Meta predecessors, the Rangers, decades ago, and in the nine months since our powers came back had been a useful and loyal ally. An FBI agent for more than twenty-five years, she occasionally used her contacts and influence to assist our investigations, but Teresa didn’t like calling in favors more often than necessary. Meta-related topics had every government agency in the country on pins and needles, and no one wanted to make serious waves until after the election in November.

“Asking for it will send up red flags,” Teresa said. “The people behind this will know we’re looking into Landon, if they don’t already.”

“Simon said his contact in Georgia was discreet,” Ethan said.

“
Discreet
doesn’t always mean undetected.”

“So until we figure out who the female accomplice is, we’re at a standstill.”

“Looks like.” She glanced across the table at Kinsey. “I don’t suppose I need to ask for your discretion? Only a handful of us are in on the details of this investigation.”

“I’ll keep it to myself,” Kinsey said.

“Thank you.”

Considering themselves dismissed, Kinsey and Ethan left. Teresa fiddled with her mug. I watched her silently for about five seconds before my impatience won out.

“Tell me what’s bothering you before I start making wrong guesses,” I said. “You know how insane my wrong guesses can be, because of my overactive imagination, so let’s just save some time, okay?”

She stared at her tea, not even reacting, which scared me on a hitherto unreached level.

“Seriously, T, are you and Gage fighting or something?”

“Not exactly.”

Two very unhelpful words. “Does Gage have some kind of irrational, jealous bug up his ass about Sebastian?”

Something in her expression twitched, so I knew I’d hit close to home. I circled the conference table and perched on top of it, crowding in. “Talk to me, sweetie. We can always talk about anything, right?”

“I can’t, Renee, not about this.”

Oh, that hurt like a bitch, but I didn’t give up. “Are you cheating on Gage with Sebastian?”

“What?” Her purple eyes widened in bewilderment. “Fuck, no! What the hell kind of question is that?”

“Is Gage cheating on you?”

“No!”

I cocked my head to the side. “I told you I’d start making shit up if you didn’t talk to me.”

She dropped her forehead into her palm and suddenly looked very, very tired. More tired than any twenty-five-year-old should. “Can you let it go for a few days, please? Please?”

“I’d way rather untangle whatever’s got you tied up in knots.”

“I know, and that’s why I love you. But can you back off for a little while until I figure it out?”

“Sometimes talking it out helps.”

“Not this time.”

Great. I hated mysteries and I hated being locked out of my friend’s head when something important was tumbling around inside. She’d talk about it when she was ready, but that didn’t stop a thousand scenarios from racing through my mind, each one worse than the last. As she left the War Room with her tea, the worst of the worst hit me upside the head like a two-by-four.

Back in January, she’d learned that her body wasn’t made to handle the incredible energy that her orb powers generated. This buildup of excess energy inside her system—explained to us like a dirty filter in an air conditioner clogging up clean air—had caused a few near-fatal blowouts. She’d learned to expel the energy on her own so it didn’t build up like that again, but what if something was going wrong?

What if, like she’d feared so many months ago, her powers were once again killing her? Teresa was our beating heart. We couldn’t lose her and survive.

Five

The Flop

T
he next morning at half-past six, the distant sound of sirens shook me out of slumber. I sat up and listened to the noise, trying to figure out where and why . . . Manhattan. Ethan had described the sirens once. The prison was going into lockdown.

I threw my uniform on and joined a small cluster of people heading for the War Room. I nearly stumbled over Alexia and Sebastian. My heart was pounding in my ears. Our own HQ alarms hadn’t sounded, but everyone seemed to want to know what was happening.

“Attention, please,” Gage’s voice boomed over the intercom system, and most of us stopped moving to listen. “The Manhattan facility is currently under emergency lockdown, and we are trying to get information on why. As far as we are aware, there is no immediate danger, so everyone can calm down. Alpha leaders, report to the War Room. Everyone else? It’s way too early on a Sunday.”

The intercom clicked off. Me and Sebastian kept moving toward the War Room.
Alpha leaders
was a term we’d adopted for us five original ex-Rangers, as well as Aaron Scott, and the few ex-Banes with enough experience to lead teams—Sebastian and Lacey Wilson, a woman with gorgeous dragonlike wings, sharp teeth and finger-claws, and glowing orange eyes that could light up the darkness.

Once all eight of us were in the War Room, mostly bed-rumpled and yawning despite our adrenaline, Teresa clapped her hands to shut us up. No one sat, but we listened.

“We don’t have a lot of information on the lockdown yet,” she said. “All I do know is that at exactly six-twenty, an object went over the prison wall and landed in Central Park near the Warren.”

“What kind of object?” Aaron asked.

Good question. Security around that island was tighter than a miser’s asshole. Not even small birds made it through without being detected from five hundred feet out.

“No one is telling me yet, but it was extremely small and, so far, nonexplosive.”

Ethan shuddered, and Aaron slipped an arm around his waist. Last month, both of them had been in Central Park when an explosion nearly killed them—an explosion caused by a flying object that breached security. Granted, that time it was a telekinetically controlled helicopter which was exploded by the prison’s antiaircraft measures, but still. Bad memories.

“Are the Warren residents safe?” Ethan asked.

“So far, yes,” Teresa replied. “Once the lockdown went into place, everyone who was out reported back to the Warren.”

The timing of this didn’t feel right. We settled in to wait, no one saying much in the way of speculation. Ethan left and came back a few minutes later with coffee for everyone. Teresa ignored her mug. I sipped at mine before it was properly cooled, too eager for the caffeine jolt to care that I burned my tongue.

Ten minutes passed before Teresa’s cell rang. I split my attention between her expressions and Gage’s, whose enhanced senses allowed him to eavesdrop. They both looked confused.

“All right, we’ll be there,” she said, then hung up. She looked first at Ethan, then at me, before saying, “Someone took it upon him- or herself to send a letter over the prison wall, addressed to Mr. Derek Thatcher.”

“Shit,” I said, looking over at Ethan. His wide eyes told me he was thinking the same as me: Landon. Thatcher’s son was an incredibly powerful telekinetic. He certainly had the ability to send a paper-thin letter all those miles over the harbor and into Manhattan.

“Does Thatcher know?” I asked.

Teresa nodded. “He and the letter are being brought to the observation tower, and Warden Hudson wants us there.”

“Who’s us?”

“You, me, and Ethan. Simon’s being called, too.”

“In case Thatcher goes ballistic when he reads the letter?”

She flinched. “Probably.”

“Joy.”

•  •  •

Our trio arrived at the observation tower at the same time as Simon. He looked more rumpled than usual and a lot less awake than the rest of us, and we rode the elevator up to the fourth floor in silence. Warden Hudson was waiting for us outside of the interrogation room with a yellow envelope in his hands. The man was an intimidating presence at the best of times, and right now he looked more like a snorting bull waiting for permission to charge.

“Warden,” Teresa said as we approached.

“Trance,” he said, then nodded in the general direction of the rest of us. “This situation may be more volatile than we thought.”

“Why is that, Warden?”

“Fifteen years ago, just after the end of the War, we had to inform Thatcher that his son and his son’s mother were killed. He didn’t take the news well.”

Teresa’s expression didn’t change, but I bet she was thinking along the lines of
Tell me something I don’t know
. “That’s understandable.”

Hudson held up the letter. The envelope had a ragged edge—he’d opened it. “This is a Father’s Day card, dated sixteen years ago, from a boy named Landon. The same name as Thatcher’s son.”

“Sixteen years ago?” I said. “The postal service around here sucks.”

Teresa glared at me. “Do you believe someone sent this to get a rise out of Thatcher?” she asked Hudson.

“It’s possible. We’ve already called the printing company, and they confirmed that they sold this particular card sixteen years ago. The signature inside looks like that of a small child. It seems authentic, but the question is, who had it all these years, and why? Why rile Thatcher up now?” He pinned her with a hard stare. “Unless you have a theory?”

My best theory was that Landon himself had sent that letter, but we didn’t have proof. And Hudson still seemed to believe that Landon was dead, and I wasn’t about to clue him in. That was Teresa’s call, not mine.

“Not at the moment,” Teresa replied. “Has Thatcher seen the card?”

“No.” The part he left unsaid was,
I was waiting for you people to show up first
.

“Renee and I will go in,” Ethan said. “We were here with him yesterday.”

Thatcher hadn’t seemed willing to buy our evidence that Landon was alive, and now we were delivering a card from his supposedly dead son. Sometimes my job sucked serious ass.

As we did for our previous visit, we went into one side of the interrogation room. Thatcher was waiting on the other, pacing like a caged lion, all intense energy and anger. He paused long enough to glare in our general direction, then approached the glass.

“Is someone going to explain why I’m here again?” he asked.

“The perimeter breach this morning was a letter addressed to you,” Ethan replied.

“A . . . what? A letter?” He shook his head, his angry glare softening into something full of confusion. “How?”

“Telekinetically, is our best guess.”

Thatcher’s eyes flickered with annoyance. “Where is this letter?”

The door on his side opened. A uniformed guard stepped inside and held out the envelope. Thatcher stared at it a moment, then snatched it. The guard left. Thatcher rolled his eyes at the jagged tear where his mail had been opened, then turned it over in his hands, studying it.

“It feels like a greeting card,” he said, more to himself than to us.

I swallowed hard, a little nervous about his reaction once he saw who the card was from. He tugged the card out and let the envelope flutter to the floor. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a sneer as he read the front. From my angle, I saw a cartoon boy with a big smile holding his arms out like he wanted a hug. Thatcher opened the card. His face went slack, then actually seemed to pale a little. He turned the card over, looked inside again, repeated that three times, as if searching for the punch line.

His gray eyes burned with fury when he pinned me with them. “Is this some sort of joke?”

“No,” I replied with far more sympathy than I intended.

“Coincidence?” The heartbreak in his voice startled me into taking a step closer, even though a thick pane of glass separated us.

“I don’t like the word
coincidence
, especially not in light of our conversation yesterday.” My gaze flickered to the card practically bent in half in his hands. “I think we both know who sent that.”

He noticed he’d crumpled the card, and frantically smoothed it out against his thigh, shaking his head the whole time like he could wish away the terrible truth—that his son was alive and was taunting him from afar. But the taunting confused even me. Why bother now? Because Landon had finally been caught and identified?

“Landon’s alive,” he said quietly, voice rough with emotion. Like he had to say the words to make himself believe them.

“Alive and in some pretty serious trouble,” Ethan said.

Thatcher’s expression went sharp, almost fierce. “What kind of trouble?”

Ethan explained everything we hadn’t told him yesterday, starting with a recap of the other burglaries, straight to how we connected the dots—even though Warden Hudson was right outside. The one nice thing about Hudson, though, was his loyalty to the prisoners in Manhattan. He truly wanted what was best for everyone involved, and I didn’t imagine he’d call the PA police and tell them we were withholding. Not that Ethan mentioned we hadn’t filled in the cops—he was smarter than that.

“So you think someone’s putting him up to this?” Thatcher asked. “Sending him out to steal from these warehouses?”

“It’s our working theory, yes,” Ethan replied. “The real challenge is finding him. He hasn’t contacted us, but he’s contacted you, and pretty damned directly.”

“He knows who I am.”

Obviously.
“Yes, he does, and he may contact you again,” I said.

Thatcher scowled. “More direct mail?”

“Possibly.” Or even more directly than that. I glanced at the observation window, and I hoped Teresa was thinking the same as me. I couldn’t believe my brain was even entertaining the idea, but if a bee is attracted to a certain flower, it makes sense to keep that flower around if you want to harvest some honey.

“Hang on a minute,” I said, then left our side of the interrogation room.

Teresa was waiting outside, Hudson next to her, and they both looked like they’d already been discussing something.

“Thatcher might be our best shot at getting to Landon,” I said.

“I agree,” Teresa said.

“As do I,” Hudson said, “but you’re asking me to take a huge risk here, Trance.”

I raised my eyebrows at Teresa, amazed she’d already updated Hudson and asked for his cooperation.

“I understand it’s a risk, Warden,” she said. “But Thatcher hasn’t had any incidents since he returned to the Warren. He’s been cooperative with us. And he also stands the best chance of leading us to Landon and his accomplice.”

“If I grant a conditional release, he’ll be your responsibility.”

“I understand.”

“What if he doesn’t want to help?” I asked.

Hudson frowned as though the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. “It’s voluntary, of course. He’ll have to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet, and I insist he’s supervised at all times whenever he’s not within the walls of your headquarters.”

“Agreed,” Teresa said. “Flex, would you like to do the honors?”

Gee, thanks.
“Okay.”

I went back into the interrogation room. Ethan was waiting patiently with one arm leaning against the glass partition. On the other side, Thatcher had slumped into the room’s only chair. He was staring down at the card in his hands and looked up when I tapped my fingers on the glass.

“I have an offer for you,” I said, “and Warden Hudson has already agreed.”

“Go on,” Thatcher said.

“A conditional release, to help us track down Landon and whoever he’s working with.” Thatcher’s eyebrows jumped with surprise. He didn’t say anything, though, so I continued. “You’ll wear an ankle monitor, and you’ll be with one of us at all times whenever you aren’t in our headquarters building.”

“Who’s one of us?”

“Trance, me, Onyx, take your pick. We’ll play this by—”

“You or Ethan. If I’m to have handlers, I want them to be you two. That’s my condition.”

I stared at him, confused. “Why?”

“Because I know and trust Ethan. He won’t bullshit me.”

“And me?”

He leveled an intense look at me, his exact thoughts impossible to guess. “Your eyes. Because you look like you have something to prove.”

“Do you think I’ll bullshit you?”

“I think I’ll know if you do.”

“And how’s that?”

He didn’t answer, and Ethan gave no objection. “Fine,” I said to Thatcher. “Ethan and I are your official babysitters.”

“Fabulous.”

I blinked.

Bastard used my word.

•  •  •

While the paperwork for Derek’s release was being approved, he was examined (for what, I don’t know), given new clothes (his were looking a bit worn), and fitted with an ankle monitor. Ethan and I were each given a remote for that monitor—if the strap was cut, or if it was removed from his skin for longer than ten seconds, we’d know. And so would Warden Hudson.

Unlike the collars all of the prisoners had once worn around their necks, these ankle monitors didn’t come complete with an electroshock unit that would render him unconscious with the press of a button. If he tried to run, we’d have to chase him. And if he succeeded, our asses could end up taking his place in Manhattan. Ethan and Teresa seemed confident he wouldn’t run. I wasn’t so sure.

And that uncertainty meant I shouldn’t have agreed to be his handler, right? Don’t ask why I said yes, because I couldn’t tell you.

Ethan, Teresa, and I were waiting in the barren lobby when Thatcher was escorted down by two guards. He looked positively normal in his khaki pants and blue short-sleeved polo. He’d even shaved, which took a few years off his appearance. I found myself looking a little too long and turned away.

Teresa led the way. Thatcher followed, with Ethan and me bringing up the rear. At the exterior gate, Thatcher froze. He looked up at the guard towers as though expecting a stray shot, and in his profile I saw a small degree of fear. I saw a grown man whose entire world had been contained by a few hundred square blocks for the last fifteen years. I saw someone who’d been fucked over by others enough times to not quite trust his release.