The Barrier Between (Collector Series # 2) (2 page)

He was sexy, commanding, and dangerous. I bit down on
my bottom lip, uneasy with his close proximity. We both had started
out despising the other. Slowly over the month, it grew into
tolerance, then to understanding, now to respect. I glanced away as
he helped me out of the basket.

A line dented the space between his eyebrows. “You
used glamour?”

I nodded, straightening out my clothes, peeling off
the jacket and hoodie, and tying them around my waist. The tank top
underneath was soaked with sweat, but the slight breeze felt good
as it brushed my damp skin. “I didn’t think it would work, but I
kept repeating,
Don’t see me,
in my head.”

“Is this the first time you’ve done that?”

Yes
was on my lips, but something triggered a
memory of trying to escape Garrett and his men one night at the Red
Cross shelter. He was Vadik’s leader and muscle and wanted nothing
more than to catch us and take the Stone of Destiny back to Vadik,
an extremely powerful, dangerous, and wealthy man. That night one
of the fae walked right by me and asked another man if he had seen
me. At the time I chalked it up to luck and ran for it. Looking
back I could see there was only one way I could have gotten out of
the situation. I wouldn’t have gotten away so easily if it hadn’t
been for glamour. I shook my head, my loose ponytail flicking over
my bare shoulders.

Ryker nodded, seeming to know the answer. “It was far
too commanding for it to be your first time. The cop was intent on
seeing you, but you still blocked him. Not newbie stuff.” He
frowned again.

“I’m sorry.”

He jerked his head over to me. “Why are you
apologizing?”

“Because I know what it means.” I placed my hands on
my hips, glancing at the ground.

“We don’t have time for this. We need to get out of
here.” He spun around, heading back the way we came. “Don’t
apologize for something you can’t control.” He was angry. I could
see the muscles in his shoulders drawn close to his ears. The
frustration wasn’t at me but the situation. Still, I felt awful. If
I could open my chest, take his powers out, and hand them over to
him, I would. I didn’t want them. And it was even worse knowing at
any moment I could die, and I would take them from him for good. We
were working against an invisible clock.

As I tracked Ryker’s figure down the path, Sprig’s
voice rose out of my bag. “Please, no more running. You’re lucky we
haven’t eaten in a while or your bag would smell really different
right now. And why the hell is it so hot?” His head popped up and
took in the scene around him. “What in sprite-nuggets... where are
we now?”

Life in Seattle was uncertain after the electrical
storm, but it had been easy finding a place to stay

as so many left the city to escape. Death and
destruction made it a free-for-all, and squatter’s right became
law.

Aguas Calientes was a town near Machu Picchu. I had
investigated this area, being strangely drawn to the mystery and
beauty of the “Lost City of the Incas.” South America had always
been at the top of my list to visit, and Machu Picchu was the place
I wanted to see the most.

The small town was full of tourists taking up the
limited hostels, B&Bs, and hotels. The locals fed off
sightseers by selling trinkets, offering “authentic” guided tours,
lodging, and food. The town was financed from the tourism industry,
and the persistence of the residents wanting to make a living off
it was only intensified by the remote location. The town lay in a
deep gorge below the ruins. It was fundamentally an island, cut off
from all roads and fenced by stone cliffs, a towering cloud forest,
and two rushing rivers.

My dream for a long time had involved moving to South
America with Daniel and Lexie to open a day camp for orphans and
disabled kids. Now I was here, but neither Lexie nor Daniel would
ever be.

We crossed over a bridge to the other side of town
where we found more local inhabitants, though even here you
couldn’t get away from the infestation of B&Bs and rooms for
rent to vacationers.

It was one of these places where Ryker stopped when
he spotted a room-for-rent sign. We had no money, but with two
thieves who held glamour, we easily persuaded the clerk into giving
us the room. He was short and on the skinny side with the dark
hair, eyes, and deep tanned skin of a local.

“We will pay him when we get money,” I whispered to
Ryker as we walked up the two flights of stairs.

He sighed but nodded. “Let’s deal with one thing at a
time.”

I was a survivor, always had been. I used to steal,
fight, and cheat to get what I needed. Growing up in foster care
could take away the right and wrong of things. When you had no
consistent home and little food, you did what you needed to
survive. Most people would stick their noses up at me, but they had
no idea what it was like. To imagine it was far different from
living it. But being a part of the Department of Molecular
Genetics, DMG, and having Daniel and Lexie in my life changed me a
lot.

I tried to put my dark past behind me and become a
new person, a respectful person. But when so many of us ended back
on the streets after the destruction of Seattle, I realized the
girl I had once been was not as hidden as I thought. She came out
with a roar, almost killing another girl in a street fight. It
terrified me. Ryker was the one who said I had to learn to accept
all sides of myself, even the dark twisted parts. I learned early
to play a part, be what people wanted, to keep myself in
compartments, even with Daniel. I didn’t want him to know much
about the “real” me, but in the short time I’d known Ryker, he had
seen it all.

Still, I didn’t like stealing from people who were
doing their best to get by. If I were going to rob or not pay, it
would be from the uber-wealthy.

“
Aquí lo tienes
.”
Here it is
. The
landlord unlocked the room and moved to the side so we could step
in. “I rent it by the week or month. Whatever you decide, I need
the money up front.”

It was a compact room, with worn, creaky floors. A
small, pointless rug sat at the foot of the bed too dingy to see
its original colors. The walls were painted in a cream, chipping
and peeling in the corners. Sheer white curtains covered two large
windows which looked onto the street below. A wooden table and two
chairs were stationed in front of them. One tall dresser sat
between the bathroom door and a closet. A miniature refrigerator
stood next to the table, an old TV sat on top of it, with a desk
fan set on the TV. The center of the room was filled with a
queen-size bed.

One bed.

I ignored the thought and walked over to the
restroom. We had shared a bed many nights, but the last time was
different. It was uncomfortable and tense, and it took me a long
time to fall asleep. I peered into the bathroom. It had an old claw
tub with a clear plastic hanging curtain, a pedestal sink, and
toilet. Simple, but efficient.

“We’ll take it,” Ryker spoke in Spanish to the
clerk.

He nodded. “There is also a community bathroom at the
end of the hall. No kitchen, but there is a hotplate in your
closet.”

Of course. Where else would you keep a hotplate?

“I’m Diego, and I live in the first apartment on the
main level if you need me,” he said to us in Spanish, dropping the
keys on the table before shutting the door. I hadn’t seen Ryker
glamour him, but I knew Diego wouldn’t have left without
payment.

We both stood in silence for a moment. We were
finally safe. For the moment anyway. Exhaustion pressed down on my
shoulders, lowering me into the chair at the table. Everything I
discovered in the past few hours crept into my head.

“Soooo, what’s for lunch?” Sprig jutted his head out
of my bag.

“It’s past lunch here.” I unlooped the bag from my
neck and set him on the table.

He crawled out, squatting back on his hindquarters
and looked at me with his huge brown eyes. “Then dinner?” His
little face tilted to the side as he clasped his hands together in
a hopeful plea. His long tail curled around his feet.

“Sprig,” Ryker warned, crossing his arms.

“What? I am hungry. You know how cranky I get if I
don’t eat.”

I put my head in my hands. The video of Daniel came
flooding back in my head.

Experiment.

Dying.

“Sprig, shut up.” Ryker lowered himself on the bed,
lying back.

“But it smells like churros.” He sniffed the air. “I
loooovvee churros.”

Tears filled my eyes, and I quickly looked at the
floor.

“Sprig!” Ryker bellowed from the bed.

“What?”

“I said shut up,” he growled.

Sprig huffed and was about to turn his back to the
Viking when he saw my face. “Wait. You cry?”

I had been crying a lot lately... for me, but only
one person so far had seen me do it. The man across from me.

“What don’t you understand about shutting up?” Ryker
sat up, glaring at Sprig. Ryker’s face was so severe even I scooted
back in my chair. He never stopped being intimidating, but I could
see past it—most of the time. Right now he was back to being
terrifying. He could make a sumo wrestler cower in the corner with
one look.

“I was merely asking.” Sprig crossed his arms in a
huff, twisting away from Ryker. “Asshat,” he mumbled under his
breath.

I swiveled in my seat to address Sprig. “Let’s say
you are not the only experiment in this room.”

“What? They dissected you too?”

“Not exactly. They created me. From scratch,” I
explained. “Unfortunately, I came with a defect. One that will kill
me.”

It was strange to say it out loud, but it was true.
At any moment my mind and body could decide it had enough. It had
been only hours earlier I learned Daniel Holt Senior, under Dr.
Rapava’s orders, created me in a lab.

“A seer egg and sperm from a donor were cooked in a
tube and then mixed in a dish to produce stronger seer babies. But
then something went wrong and the babies were born with a fault in
their makeup. My makeup.” I swallowed, feeling the truth swell my
tongue.

Daniel said most of the babies died right away, but a
handful who did survive past their teens, including me, were slowly
dying from this flaw. DMG had known about it and ignored the
results and Dr. Holt’s objections. Dr. Rapava, who ran the DMG,
would stop at nothing to produce a massive seer army to combat the
threat of fae. Seers could see fae aura and were not fooled by
their glamour, making them the perfect defense against a fae
attack.

Like true experiments, the DMG sent the survivors out
to be raised in different conditions to see the diverse effects on
the subjects. Some were raised by families, some grew up knowing
what they were, and some were tossed in an orphanage to deal with a
harder life. I was the latter. Then I was bounced from foster home
to foster home in some of the most sickening situations and
conditions. I grew up hard, cold, and fucked up. Lexie, my foster
sister, was the only one to save me from turning into a full-blown
criminal.

Sprig stared at me, his mouth hanging open.

“Sprig?”

“Holyy buunnyy faarrttss!” He stretched out each
syllable in utter shock. “Turtle dumplings! Are you kidding me
right now,
Bhean
?” He plopped back again on his legs.
“Sprite crumpets. I thought they messed me up.”

The reason Spriggan-Galchobhar looked like a cute
little monkey was also thanks to DMG. He was once a sprite living
in the Otherworld till one of my kind caught him and took their
collection back to the lab. There Dr. Rapava dissected and
experimented on him, creating the specimen in front of me: a sprite
who would never be accepted by his kind again, and a monkey who
could never fit in with other primates.

An outsider.

Like me. Like Ryker.

Ryker was one of the few Wanderers known to exist. A
novelty. This made me wonder why Dr. Rapava had been willing to
kill him earlier in the morning. Not that he’s easy to kill. Not
with manmade weapons. But Collectors carry fae-designed guns. When
we did need to shoot and not merely stun, it was to kill.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Now I feel awful.” Sprig
flung his arms dramatically.

“Yeah, because this is all about you, furball.” Ryker
snorted.

“Funny you bring it up.”

“Bring what up?” Ryker shifted and rolled over on his
side.

“Me,” Sprig chirped, pointing to himself. “Because
I am
really hungry.”

If the little guy did it on purpose or not, it was
the exact thing I needed—to smile.

“Come on.” I waved to Sprig, stretching my legs. “My
stomach is requiring churros now.”

“No.” Ryker shook his head, standing. “We need to
keep under the radar for a day or two. At least in the
daytime.”