The Butterfly Code (19 page)

After starting the car and guiding it onto the road, he holds out his forearm. "Feel it."

"I’m not sure I want to."

"Just feel it, Aeris."

I do. "Seems pretty normal."

"Squeeze it. Harder."

Suddenly I know something’s off. It’s like earlier, when I pressed against his chest to push him off me. His chest had felt like skin wrapped over armor.

"Is it—is there metal under there?"

"Metal and Kevlar and a whole lot of stuff I don’t understand."

"And you thought they did that to me? That’s what the doctors were looking for in the X-rays? Why, because I was Dr. Cayman’s patient?"

"That and the convulsions, your high temperature, a lot of things. It happened to us. The body doesn’t take kindly to having that much metal shoved inside. Ask my brother. Oh right. You can’t. He’s dead."

"And they did that to you without your consent?"

"Oh, we gave our consent. We just had no idea what we were consenting to when we signed ourselves over to Blackbird, to Brewster King and his Franken-doctors. They called it an unfortunate program gone wrong. The doctors were arrested, of course. And the military was pressured to release us with decent pensions. Basically, they bought our silence. Works for me. I don’t want people knowing I’m a freak."

"And this guy, Brewster King, why wasn’t he arrested?"

"The worm wriggled clear. People like King know how to get out of things."

"So that’s it? He’s just carrying on?"

"For now. Believe me. Justice will be served."

I press my forehead to the side window and stare out at the blue sky. All I’m seeing, though, is Hunter lifting the ATV off me and flinging it through the air.

Pieces start falling together. Flying together. Slamming into place.

I recall Gage and Hunter facing off in the Foggy Joe—seeing Gage’s stiff, brutish frame matched against Hunter’s own powerful, fluid body. A bionic man against a mortal beast.

Hunter didn’t make me into a metal soldier.

Oh, he did something to me. Of that I’m sure. Hunter’s not normal; I see that now. Yet he isn’t like Gage, either. Whatever he did, he made me more like him. And Victoria. And Ian. Lucy and Edward.

I picture the ceiling in their operating room. The caterpillars, the cocoons, the butterflies. I see my broken body on the table. Hunter bending over me, begging me to come back to him. I feel the needle stab my heart, the strange electric pulse, the flames rushing through my limbs, the burning fire melting my muscles. Melting my bones.

He saved me. He saved my broken body on a molecular level.

I know why Gage saw Blackbird’s CEO visiting the PRL. King’s company designs military weapons—be those guns or futuristic soldiers like Gage. Blackbird took the brute-force approach. But Brewster King knows there’s a better way, a technique to rebuild a human from the inside, with his or her own blood, muscles, and bones. A way to make them healthier, stronger. Strong enough to throw an eight-hundred-pound ATV through the windshield of a truck.

I grab the door handle and squeeze. Nothing happens. It doesn’t crush between my fingers. Feeling self-conscious, I glance at Gage. He has no idea what I’m thinking. At least the awkwardness of our kiss is gone. We’re friends again. Closer than friends. We’re both hiding horrible secrets. Although he’s still not privy to mine.

"Shit," Gage says, eyes narrowed on the rearview mirror. "Shit!"

I twist in my seat.

Five big black SUVs are coming up on our tail fast. Through the nearest tinted windshield, four broad-shouldered men in dark clothing are visible.

Terror ricochets down my spine.

"Maybe they’re just in a hurry," I hear myself say.

"Yeah," he growls. "I don’t think so. Hold on." He presses the accelerator to the floor and we bolt forward.

The SUVs increase their speed. A police siren whoops, and lights whirl to life on all three vehicles.

"It’s the police," I say. "It’s just the police! Stop."

"They’re not the police." His eyes are on the mirror.

I wrench around and stare, hoping against hope he’s wrong. A hand reaches out the passenger window. It’s holding a rifle.

"Gun!" I shout.

"We’ve got bigger problems."

A shot pings off the truck bed. I hunch down, facing front, and my eyes peel open in dismay. Two more SUVs are coming at us from the opposite direction. They fill both lanes on the narrow road, driving parallel. Spikes jab forward from their armored grills. They’re going to hit us. They’re going to plow right into us.

"Gage!" I scream, bracing my arms and legs against the dash.

The distance is closing.

Four hundred feet.

Three hundred feet.

Two hundred feet.

A rock wall to the left. To the right a coastal cliff. Gage slams the brakes and we skid, whirling in an arc so tight the truck tips up onto two wheels. Still, the SUVs come at us, driving hard.

"They’re crazy," I gasp, holding the door and bracing.

"Come on, come on!" Gage growls.

Whining, the engine grinds as he aims for the narrow gap between them. I see a driver’s face, and then we hit hard, still tilted, somehow forcing our way through in a scream of grinding metal and broken glass.

We made it. We made it out the other side. Glass fragments spill into the lap of my nightgown. The wheels slam down, and Gage looks triumphant. Except the axle must be broken because we’re spinning again, spinning around and around, burning out rubber, and then the truck flips like a bug onto its back, and still it spins some more so we’re hanging from our seat belts, papers raining down from the sun visor, glove box crashing open and spewing its contents, dizzy and upside down until we stop, facing the open road ahead and no way to get out of here.

"You okay?" Gage asks, unclipping and dropping down to land on all fours on the ceiling.

"Yes," I say, breathless and terrified as I fumble with my seat belt.

He catches me as I fall.

From outside, a loudspeaker squeals. A voice comes on. "Come out with your hands up."

We freeze, staring at each other.

"Leave your weapons in the car, and come out with your hands up."

"They think we’re armed," Gage says.

"Are we?" I ask, hopeful.

"Nope."

My heart thunders in my chest. I’m breathing fast. My throat’s sore with the floating stench of burned rubber. The megaphone squeals again, grating and loud. A person coughs.

"Gage." The man’s raspy voice makes us both jolt. "You recognize me, don’t you? Your old buddy, Brewster King?"

Gage isn’t the only one to recognize him. I know him, too. Iron-fist. The man with the creepy, cold gray eyes. The one I found spying on Dad’s house. The villain who chased me down and almost killed me.

All along it’s been King. I should have known. Should have put it together. It’s been in front of me this whole time.

Did Brewster King and his company, Blackbird, have enough authority to order my tests at the hospital? Had he instigated the patient watch list after my crash outside the PRL? Or did the unfamiliar doctor who showed up this morning work for him? Had it all been a bluff?

How did he know we were on this road?

Gage’s lips peel back from his teeth, and the tendons—or whatever’s in there—bulge in his forearms.

"Not very impressive driving, but I guess that skill wasn’t part of your program," King calls.

"I’ll kill him," Gage growls.

"It’s the girl I’m interested in. Send her out."

"Like hell I will," Gage shouts.

"As you recall, I know exactly what you’re made of. You’re not strong enough to take us all on. Send her out, and I’ll play nice."

Crouching in the upside-down truck, I study our pursuers through the cracked rear window. The vehicles are lined up for attack. Why don’t they just come for us? Are they afraid? Afraid we’re armed?
Afraid of Gage?

Shattered safety glass grinds into my palms and knees. Daylight streams through the windows. It catches the shards and makes them flash like diamonds. I blink against the brightness. That’s when I see my reflection in the broken rearview mirror that lies in front of my hands. In the shards’ starry light, my irises reflect up at me like a cat. The way Hunter’s had on that fateful night outside the Zenith Club. Reflecting in a way that’s completely inhuman.

The whole world seems to go silent.

It’s like someone pushed pause.

It’s like there’s no breathing, no movement, nothing. Just this eternal vacuum of shock.

I’m no longer who I was. I’m different. I’m a freak.

Then the world comes roaring back.

"You can’t win, Gage," King calls. "Send her out or we’ll simply shoot until you’re both incapacitated, and I’ll come get her myself. Messier than I’d like. I could live with it."

Gage puts his face to the broken driver window. "This is bullshit! She’s normal! Cayman didn’t modify her. Let us go."

Over the megaphone, King says, "I’ll decide that. Send her out. Or do I need to come get her?"

Gage reaches for the door handle. "Stay in the car."

"No way. I can’t let you do that," I tell him.

"I’ve been waiting for this for years. I’m going to kill the bastard."

"No. There’s too many of them." I fumble in his jacket pocket for the syringe and vial. "Wait. I have an idea. We can give them my blood. That’s what they want, isn’t it?"

"No way in hell am I giving him your blood. If this bastard tracked you down, Cayman did something to you. And obviously I was wrong about them working together, because he’d have no reason to stage this takedown."

"I don’t care. Let him have it." I shrug out of his jacket. "Quick. Help me make a tourniquet."

"No, Aeris. Don’t you get it? I’m not giving this asshole your blood. I don’t want him to have it. He’s dangerous enough without him owning Cayman’s secrets, too."

I freeze. He’s right.

"What about your blood, then? We can call his bluff, say it’s mine."

"He won’t go for it." Even still, he’s wrapping his arm tight and then his crimson life force is flowing into the tube.

"Time’s up, Gage," King calls.

"We’re coming out," Gage shouts back. "Tell your men to back off." He caps the blood container and pulls his sleeve down.

Quickly, I snatch it from him, before he realizes what I’m doing. Then I turn and kick open the passenger door. I’m so worked up that the power in my legs sends it screaming under my assault, and it nearly breaks from its hinges.

I don’t want to die. No one wants to die. Letting Gage die for me, however, is not an option. This isn’t his fight. I brought this on myself. I never should have stolen the PRL key.

My speed surprises even me.

One second I’m in the truck.

The next I’m through the gaping hole and standing, barefoot, on the blazing tarmac.

"
A
eris
!" Gage howls.

I’m running, holding the tube of blood, yet his cry is so heartrending it makes me pause. I turn back to look at the sound of tearing metal. Gage is ripping the driver door free. It’s in his hand like a shield as he comes at me, his eyes bloodshot with rage.

"Back in the truck," he barks. "Get back in the truck!"

King calls, "She wants to come, Gage."

I’m rooted to the spot now. Halfway between the overturned truck and the mass of armed men in black fatigues. I open my mouth to speak. It’s parched and my words come out as a strange croak. "Here’s my blood!" I raise the tube high in my clenched fist. "It’s what you want, isn’t it? You can have it. Just let us go."

"Bring it to me," King calls.

"Promise you’ll let us go."

"You’re in no position to bargain. But bring it over and I’ll think about it."

"Stay where you are," Gage growls.

King’s next to his vehicle now. His pale eyes are trained on mine. Sun reflects off his prosthetic arm as he motions me forward. I obey his command. I start walking.

A rage-filled roar rips from Gage’s throat. He charges past me, thrusting me backward, and flings himself toward the men. I stumble and fall as five men in combat gear lope forward to meet him. The tube rolls away, yet I only have eyes for Gage.

Gage’s dark blond head rises half a foot above the rest. A man lunges. Gage spins, fast, slamming the door’s edge hard into the attacker and knocking him to the ground. The fight becomes a blur. Arms and legs, kicking and punching. The door moves at lightning speed, slamming men down. The others are quick, too, though, and I see Gage lose his shield and double over.

I scramble to my feet.

"Stop!" I scream, and sprint toward him. A man slams his boot into Gage’s head once, twice, three times. "Stop it!"

Gage rolls away and sways to his feet. Blood flows from his mouth. He reaches me before I reach him, running to close the distance. His big hands grab me—his left hand takes me by one arm, his right hand closes around my thigh. And then, as if I weighed no more than a doll, he lifts me high and flings me hard. I fly over the low wall, toppling end over end until the world spins out of control. My body whumps into a thicket of grassy overgrowth. For a moment, I lie dazed, the wind completely knocked out of me.

I roll onto all fours and strain to suck in a breath. It won’t come.

Then it does in a rush.

I leap to my feet and see Gage holding them back. But for how long? They’re a small army. He’s just one man.

A fresh fighter exits the SUV King arrived in. He’s larger than the rest. Hair the color of rust and cut like a jarhead’s. As if sensing his presence, Gage glances up and the man grins. Jarhead paces forward with a swagger to his step. The others, meanwhile, drop back.

I hear Gage shout something. A name, perhaps? Do they know each other?

And now the fight is on. But this time it’s real. Before I thought I felt fear. Now I’m sick with it. These two are equally matched. Yet Gage is already winded. Jarhead commandeers Gage’s arm and he’s twisting it hard, and Gage shrieks as it bends out of the socket.

I’m over the wall and I’m screaming. The pavement is rough and gritty under my bare feet.

"Brewster King!" In that instant, my words are drowned out by the appearance of a black airplane.

It swoops over the treetops less than a quarter mile away. Pontoons, the kind used for landing on water, jut like giant talons from its belly. They have a plane, too?

On the road, the fighters freeze, and every head turns skyward to stare at its approach. All sound is drowned out by its deafening roar. Lower it comes until its pontoons loom so close I see rivets shining on the struts. It buzzes over us, just missing the tops of the black SUVs.

On the road, gunfire rings out. They’re not aiming at Gage, though. They’re firing on the plane.

Bullets spray upward, aimed directly at the aircraft's midnight-colored underbelly.

Despite Gage’s bad arm, he’s managed to take up his door shield. He slams it into Jarhead’s face. Blood spurts in a high arc. From behind Gage, a fallen man lurches to his feet. A knife glitters in his hand.

"Look out!" I scream.

Gage whirls. The blade rips through his good bicep, and there’s a sick metal-on-metal sound. Blood spurts from the wound and my stomach lurches. Armor or not, he’s still mortal. Somehow he keeps moving, bringing his door-shield down on the knife-wielder’s neck and chest. The man crumples just as Jarhead fastens his hands around Gage’s throat.

"Stop!" I shout, "Leave him alone."

I sprint forward. Bullets rain down on the pavement from the plane overhead, stopping me in my tracks. The acrid taste of panic burns my mouth. Whose side is the pilot on?

A gunman climbs onto an SUV roof and points his weapon skyward. The plane keeps coming. Straight for him. Low and lining up with the roadway. If the plane keeps going, it’ll hit the gunman. What is this, a suicide mission?

Gusting air sends my nightgown beating against my bare thighs.

Then I see him.

The pilot.

A dark-haired man with intense amber eyes, whose jaw is set in rage. A powerful figure, poised and capable and ready to attack. The man I can’t stop dreaming of. The man who deserted me. The one who tore my heart in two.

Hunter.

We’re so close now that his eyes meet mine.

Determination floods through me. His determination. Foreign yet familiar. Powerful and possessive, furious and appalled, charging me with fresh hope, and I don’t know if I’m imagining it, wanting to imagine it’s real, but I feel it. I don’t know why he left me. I don’t know why he lied. This one thing, however, I know is true. Gage and I are no longer alone.

He’s here for us.

He came back.

The gunman on the SUV opens fire.
Rat-tat-tat-tat
explodes upward. Bullets shred the plane’s right pontoon.

Still Hunter keeps coming at him. The man scrambles from the roof. Not fast enough. The pontoon spears his chest, sending him airborne.

Triumph, however, is fleeting, for the plane rises up, only briefly. A moment later, it limps toward the cliff’s edge and falls out of view. My heart lurches in my chest. They must have hit the engine. It splutters and grows silent, replaced by the faint, distant crash of waves.

I stare in horror at the empty space.
Hunter, no!

Shouts sound behind me.

"Run!" It’s Gage. "Run, dammit!"

In the next instant, his attacker overwhelms him, taking him down and pounding his fists and heels into him. Three others are sprinting toward me, their black boots hammering the pavement. Ruthlessness is plain in their eyes. To them I’m no human. I’m a specimen. An anomaly to be dissected and preserved in a glass jar. My courage drains away. I stumble backward, clutching at the front of my nightgown, unable to force my legs to run. The hard blacktop ends. My bare feet skitter on the gravel shoulder and my heel catches. I trip and go down hard. My hands find a rock. I pick it up and throw it as hard as I can.

It flies straight as a missile, so fast it whirrs, straight toward the closest man. He goes to duck. Too late. Bull’s-eye. I stare in horrified fascination as the man staggers backward, clutches his bleeding face, slumps to his knees, and falls over.

I’m up again. I find another stone and hurl it. Miss. Another and another. I’m fast and strong as hell, but my aim is for shit. The two men are fencing me in. Backing me toward the cliff. Far, far below, the frothy ocean is edged with hungry rocks. Rough grass jabs the soles of my feet. I’m throwing sticks now. Garbage. Anything I can get my hands on. I’m almost at the edge. There’s nowhere to go.

I turn and look.

There, where the cliff meets the sky, fingers appear.

Big, strong fingers.

They latch onto the dry dirt and grass. Then Hunter lunges into view, flying up and over and landing in a crouch. Dirt stains his thick forearms. His jaw is knotted in rage. His black hair is drenched and dripping down his forehead. Our gazes meet, and here at the edge of the world, I’m falling for him all over again.

"Aeris." His fingers close around my wrist as if to confirm I’m real. He pulls me to him and I feel his lips in my hair as he mutters, "Thank god."

His eyes flick past me to my pursuers. He’s all bulging shoulders and lean torso, and there’s a dangerous look to him that sends a chill trembling across my skin. Even if we don’t survive this, I know this now: He does care. And so do I.

He releases me, and his powerful leg muscles propel him forward. He flies past so quick he’s a blur of movement. The pair of thugs close in, smiling. One lunges. Hunter moves like an animal, fluid and fast. The other attacks Hunter from behind. I drive my elbow into his kidneys. Hunter spins and breaks the man’s arms. He falls to the ground, screaming.

"Your meds," Hunter demands. "Where are they?"

"In the truck."

More men are running at us now. I count twelve or thirteen. People are shooting.

"Get them," Hunter says, half pulling me as I sprint to the upside-down vehicle. Bullets fly past, barely missing us.

"We need to help Gage!"

He shoves me through the passenger door. As soon as I’m in, he’s dragging the truck to the cliff’s edge, holding it in front to shield us from the gunfire. We’re moving fast, incredibly fast, and I’m clinging to the hanging seat belt, jerking up and down so hard I nearly tumble from the gaping door hole.

He stops and I lurch to a halt. The medicine satchel flies through the open door. The bottles scatter.

"Pick them up," Hunter shouts.

Men are closing in, I see them through the rear window. I crawl out. A glass tube glistens in the weeds. Gage’s blood sample. I’m sobbing suddenly, wondering how everything went so wrong, and I snatch it up and shove it, along with the meds, into the bag, zipping it shut.

Gage is on the ground near King’s SUV, trying to get up. He can’t, though. He’s hurt.

Then our assailants are here.

The grinding of tearing metal sounds at the front of the vehicle. Hunter is wrenching the bumper free. He swings it like a giant ax. Two men go down.

"Aeris," Hunter shouts. "Come on!"

We’re at the edge of the cliff. He’s pulled us back here. His hands grab my waist and lift me to face him. His chest is firm against mine; his arms hold me as though I weigh no more than a feather. His face is inches from mine.

"Wrap your arms around my neck."

I look to Gage, who has somehow gotten to his feet. He’s fighting hard, fighting to keep back the men. Jarhead, the enhanced one, is circling for a fresh attack. Dark blotches stain Gage’s golden hair. Blood.

"We have to help him!"

"I have to get you out of here."

"I’m not leaving him."

Gage turns, his eyes bloodshot, his nose streaming red. Still he sees us, sees me sobbing and staring at him in desperation.

"Go!" he yells at Hunter.
"Get her the hell out of here!"

Hunter’s grip around me is almost painful.

"Let go," I cry, fighting to get down.

He holds me tighter, yet I sense his indecision.

On the road, Gage swipes at his oversize opponent. It’s clear his injuries are making him weaker. Others are coming at us now. There are too many against too few.

"I’m sorry," Hunter says. "He’s right. It’s the only way."

I hammer his rock hard chest with my fists. "Let me down. Let. Me. Go!"

"He’s fighting for you, Aeris."

"I don’t want him to!"

"I won’t let it be for nothing." Locking me in one arm, he carries me over the edge. "I won’t let you die."

One look down and my eyes peel wide. The rock wall drops straight under us; a sheer face ending in an unforgiving, distant shoreline. He’s cradling me to his chest with one arm, the other grips a barely-there crevice. His toes, too, have found purchase in impossibly small gaps. Wind whips over us, lifting my hair and swirling it around my cheeks.

"Hold tight," he says. "I need both hands to climb. With your legs, too. Wrap them around my waist."

I hesitate.

"Do it! Fast!"

I obey. Clinging to his neck with all my strength I wrap my legs around him. My skirt cinches up and I’m acutely aware of his hips, of his rough shirt fabric rubbing against my chest, of his pulse racing against my skin. I feel it in my cheek, racing as fast as my own.

He moves quickly with certain confidence. I have no right to feel safe here, not with Gage up there fighting. I’m shocked and sickened that there’s no going back. No getting back to yesterday to take my meds and stop this horror from ever happening. The thought of losing someone else, losing someone I care about while I survive, sends my brain into panic.

First Mom, now Gage?

My mind threatens to spin out of control, to break. I feel darkness closing in.

A thought wells up in me, a feeling that resolves itself into words.
Brewster King will pay for what he’s done.
I choke back a sob.

Inches from my face, Hunter’s neck is corded with strain.

"You’re okay, almost there. Hang on," he says, mistaking my sorrow for alarm.

His shirt grazes my cheek as he moves fast, lowering us down the cliff face. Out of nowhere, I’m reminded of a time long ago when a tall, dark-haired stranger bore my five-year-old self screaming and sobbing away from a different devastating accident. His skin smells of sweat, masculine, fierce, angry, and alive.

Suddenly I’m there again, fighting to get back to Mom, back in the Swiss Alps, back to where a stranger gathered me in his arms and carried me through the night. I’m being pulled away again when I should stay.

Gage, I’m sorry! I don’t want to leave you there!

I have to live. If only to see King suffer.

Rat-tat-tat
explodes over our heads. Bullets whiz down in a hail of deadly, metal fire. They hiss and spit past my ears.

Hunter swings left, so fast and sudden I lose my grip around his neck.

I scream. Oh god, I’m sliding down his body! His legs are moving, toes seeking gaps in the wall. I hear scratching, his fingers scraping down the rock face, trying to grab on. I’m still sliding. My hands rake his chest, rake the belt that’s covered by his T-shirt. I can’t grab it! The cloth is in the way! My hands are on his thighs now, and my legs are dangling.