Reborn (Altered) (15 page)

Evan softened. “Yeah, all right.” He smiled. “Anything for our Lissy.”

I blushed. “Thanks.”

With my order placed and a few minutes to spare, I went out front. Nick’s back was to the kitchen, but as soon as I entered the bar area, he straightened, shoulders leveling, as if he sensed me. And then I realized he was watching me through the mirror behind the bar. He turned as I walked up.

“Hey,” he said. There was a tumbler in his left hand, a couple of inches of brown liquid inside.

Everyone carded here. Merv was strict about that kind of thing. So Nick definitely was over twenty-one. Or had a very good fake ID.

“I’m almost done,” I said. “Give me a few more minutes?”

“Sure.” He brought the tumbler to his lips and drained the glass. He waved at the bartender for another.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tiny blond-headed girl weaving quickly through the tables as if on a mission. Chloe. She was grinning at me like a fool, her eyebrows waggling. When she bounded up, Nick went stiff as a cutting board.

“Hi,” Chloe said, and held out her hand to Nick. “I’m Elizabeth’s best friend. Her coolest friend.”

Nick stared at her hand, his face impressively blank. But then he blinked, smiled, and shook her hand. “Hey,” he said.

“Did Elizabeth talk to you about tonight yet?”

I cleared my throat and made shut-up eyes at Chloe. “Not yet. He just got here.”

“What’s tonight?” Nick asked, glancing between Chloe and me.

I told him about the group, and about the lake. After our break, Chloe, Evan, and I had decided it’d be fun to have another fire. It was supposed to be nice tonight.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” I added when I’d finished.

“I’ll come,” he said without giving it a second thought. “Something tells me there isn’t much else to do here anyway.”

Chloe slid onto the bar stool next to him. “You got that right.”

“Well,” I started, “I should go check on my order, and then I’ll be out. Chloe?”

She raised the line of her brow. “Yes, dear?”

“Be nice to Nick while I’m gone.”

She glanced at him, and a large smile spread across her face. “Never fear, Lis. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

I wasn’t sure I believed her, but the sooner I got my last order out, the sooner I could rescue Nick.

23

NICK

“WHAT THE FUCK?” I SAID IN A RUSH, once Elizabeth was out of earshot.

The smile on Chloe’s face disappeared like a snuffed-out flame. “Calm down. I’m not going to say anything.”

She was the girl. The girl I’d picked up at Arrow two nights ago. The girl who told me her name was Sarah.

Sarah/Chloe was Elizabeth’s best friend?

The whiskey in my gut turned sour and cold. It wasn’t just the connection between the two girls—there had been something off about Chloe. She hadn’t blinked an eye when I’d come out of my flashback and nearly knocked her on her ass.

I twisted around on my bar stool and propped my elbows on the bar top, burying my hands in my hair.

Chloe leaned in to me and lowered her voice. “Lis doesn’t need to know. Nothing happened between us anyway. Remember? You went ape-shit before anything could.”

“Ape-shit.” I snorted and shifted so that I could look at her through the gap of my bent arm. “How the hell does something like this happen? You of all people! Her best friend?”

She frowned and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “Something tells me you pick up a lot of girls. And something tells me that the likelihood of this happening is actually pretty damn high considering how cute I am.”

I scowled her way. “You are unbelievable.”

“Me?” Her free hand fluttered at her chest. “I should be the one worried here. I’m Lis’s best friend, and you are clearly, somehow, questionably important to her. And, if I had to guess,
you
don’t place much importance on
anyone
you meet.” She pulled herself upright. “Just what are your intentions with Lissy, anyway?”

I mirrored her, pulling back from the bar top. The stool creaked beneath me. “My intentions? Well, I don’t plan on courting her, if that’s what you mean.”

A hoarse laugh escaped her throat. “Despite my better judgment, I actually like you. You’re not a pussy.”

She had no idea, and I was grateful for the flashback that’d interrupted us. If it hadn’t, what else might have happened between us? What else might she have figured out about me? Elizabeth knew some of my past, but she didn’t know the scary parts. And
if she did, then she’d push me away and this whole mission would turn to ash.

Chloe narrowed her eyes, as if she sensed the horrible things I was hiding.

“What
did
happen the other night?” she asked. “What happened to you?”

“Migraine,” I said quickly, too quickly.

“Sure.” The look on her face said she knew it was bullshit, but she didn’t press, and I wasn’t about to elaborate.

Elizabeth came up behind me, her uniform apron gone, her purse slung over her body. “Ready?”

Chloe and I shared a look. If she could keep her mouth shut about the other night, then so could I. I just wasn’t sure if I could hide the growing elephant in the room.

“Ready,” I said.

Elizabeth led the way out.

Chloe shot a look over her shoulder at me and winked as she walked away.

We followed Evan in his puny little sports car north of Trademarr.

Evan had offered to give Elizabeth a ride to the lake, but she’d said she’d ride with me. Part of me was glad (smug) that she’d turned him down. The other part didn’t know what to say to her now that we were trapped in the truck’s cab together.

We slowed for a stop sign, and the truck idled as Evan waited for a car to pass through the intersection.

“Are you sure you’re okay with going out with my friends?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yeah. It’s fine.”

More silence. Evan hit the gas, pulling away from me in just a few seconds. The truck I’d picked out earlier this spring had a V8, and I’d picked it out for that reason. I caught up to Evan fast.

Jackass.

Truth was, I didn’t really feel like hanging out with Evan for the night, but I did want to stick close to Elizabeth. If she was hiding something, I needed to find out what. If she was drinking tonight—and from the sound of it, there’d be booze—then she might let something slip. And the more time I spent with her, the more opportunity I’d have to gain her trust.

There was something she wasn’t telling me—or anyone for that matter—about what had happened during her captivity. And it was aggravating, because the more I could learn about her captivity, the more I’d know about the program and what the Branch was up to when they were here six years ago. In my experience, the Branch changed people in screwed-up ways, and if I had to guess, they’d altered Elizabeth, too.

The biggest question was—had they made her into a weapon like they had me? And if so, what was she capable of?

We left the main road, turning left down a dirt two-track that
cut through the woods. The lake came into view when we rounded a thick grove of trees.

I parked the truck on the passenger side of Evan’s car and got out. We still had some daylight left, but out here, away from the city lights, it felt duskier.

It was quieter, too.

Another few cars pulled in behind us. More of Evan’s friends, from the looks of it.

A tall, skinny guy went straight for the fire pit and started stacking wood inside. There were several rickety lawn chairs around the pit, and a few logs that had been used for seats. From the looks of the trash lying around—empty beer cans, plastic cups—this was their favorite party spot.

I scanned the surrounding woods. The two-track we’d used to get here was the only viable way out. We were cornered, with the woods on either side and the lake at our backs. It left me on edge. If the Branch attacked, I could run to escape, but could Elizabeth?

The lake was probably the best route out. There was a house about two miles east of the party spot, with a boat tied to the dock. Mentally, I tagged it as my escape route, should I need one. Swim to the boat, steal it, and take it across to the other side. The Branch would need a lot more ground time to cut me off on the other side than I would to boat across it. By then, I’d be long gone.

Another of Evan’s friends showed up with beer and liquor a few minutes after we arrived.

“Hey, Nick!” Evan called. “Want a beer?”

I glanced at the girls. Elizabeth was sitting between Chloe and me. “You guys want anything?”

“Beer, please,” Chloe said. “I had a ton of tequila the other night and I’m still paying for it.”

Elizabeth was watching me, so she missed the teasing look Chloe shot my way.

Was she trying to piss me off? Because it was working.

“A Coke, if they have some,” Elizabeth said.

While I wasn’t one to get a girl drunk if she didn’t want to drink, I’d been counting on her getting a little bit sloppy. “Want me to throw in some rum?”

“Umm.” She thought for a second and glanced at Chloe. Chloe nudged her knee with a smirk. “All right. But just a little.”

The booze had been set up on the back of some guy’s truck, the tailgate used like a table. There were cases of beer, some vodka, Red Bull, rum.

I grabbed the bottle of vodka and poured enough for a shot into one of the red plastic cups. I gulped it down, the alcohol lighting a fire in my gut. “‘Liquor before beer,’” I said, when Evan looked at me sideways. It was an old saying I’d learned from my dad. One of the many gems handed down from father to son.

Evan grabbed a cup and did the same. “Good thinking.” He smiled, but it was tight against his teeth. If Evan and I got through
the night without punching each other in the face, it’d be a goddamn miracle.

I poured Elizabeth a drink, grabbed beers for Chloe and me, and sat back down. Chloe was talking Elizabeth’s ear off about some customer at the restaurant. I was pretending to listen, laughing when it seemed appropriate. I’d got through two beers by the time Chloe came up for air. She hadn’t touched her beer, I noticed. Elizabeth had been nursing her drink, but at least half of it was gone.

A tall, blond girl came up and stood in front of me. At first, she chatted with Chloe and Elizabeth, but then she turned to me.

“Hi,” she said, leaning toward me, affording me a clear view down her low-cut shirt. Not that I was looking. “I’m Heather.”

“Hi.”

“Where has Elizabeth been hiding you?”

“I haven’t been hiding him,” Elizabeth argued, but Heather ignored her.

Over the course of the next hour, all the girls in the group wandered away from the guys and gathered around me.

I caught sight of Evan seething across the clearing. It was a wonder his head didn’t catch fire.

“So, like, where do you live?” a girl in a short skirt asked. I couldn’t remember her name.

“Michigan,” I answered. I thought about lying, but where I lived didn’t matter. Especially not to these people.

“That’s cool,” Heather said. “Like, literally.” She’d managed to squeeze her way in on the other side of me, on the log. She was sitting so close to me now that our legs were pressed together.

“Do you go to school there?” another girl asked.

“No. I’m taking a year off.” If only school was the least of my worries. ’Course, even without the Branch, I still wouldn’t go to school. From what I could remember, before the Branch, I’d dropped out when I was sixteen. I’d never had a plan beyond getting drunk for the day. Just like dear old dad.

“Do you have any brothers?” Chloe asked.

It was the first question she’d asked me since I’d become the focus of the girls’ attention. It put me on guard for some reason. Like she was trying to rattle me, even though the question was innocent enough.

Sam had taught me a long time ago that if I was going to lie, to lie as close to the truth as I could. In my life before the Branch, I’d been an only child, but that life didn’t count as far as I was concerned. Sam, Cas, and Anna were as close to family as I was ever going to get. “Two brothers and a sister,” I answered.

A redhead took a sip of her drink and asked, “How old are your brothers?”

“One older, one younger.”

“Ohhh,” Chloe said, and flashed a smile that was all teeth. “Are they coming here? New meat gets snatched up quickly in Trademarr.”

“No.”

The group murmured their disappointment.

Chloe got up and went over to the boys. I got the sense they were bullshitting about me.

“Will you walk with me?” Heather asked, threading her fingers through mine. “There’s a really cool cliff just over there.” She pointed over her shoulder. “I could show you.”

I turned to Elizabeth, but she was already pushing me away. “Go ahead. If you want. The view up there is great.”

“Come on.” Heather tugged on my arm.

I wasn’t sure if “cliff” was code for “stick your tongue down my throat,” but either way, it didn’t matter. I
did
want to be alone with Heather, if only to get out some of this pent-up tension. Being so close to Elizabeth set me on edge and made me think things about her that I didn’t want to think.