The Change: Episode one (23 page)

Baker’s laughter was salt in my open wound.
“Not likely. Just a new toy.”

Before I could answer, the Convict looked
back to Candice. “She’ll break you the first time out.”

He had already sensed that we weren’t fully
bonded yet, and my hand moved of its own accord. I threw the six
inch spike from my belt as hard as I could.

Baker spun at the last second, taking the
blade to his shoulder instead of his neck, and he slid to the
ground with a spray of blood.

“
Uugg!”

Good!

C

Crack! Crack!

Angelica was already out of sight as the
bullets flew from the moldy landscape around us, slamming into
anything in their path, including Baker.

Snapping out of my impressed surprise, I
grabbed Daniel and shoved him into the corner behind me as I opened
fire. My parents darted out of sight to come out behind our
attackers, as we always did when ambushed.

“
Aim low.”

Baker, not dead, met my eye and there was a
second of understanding. It wasn’t his people out there.

“
Can I shoot him now?”
Daniel demanded, drawing his gun.

I fired at the shadows moving closer.
“Later.”

Together, we began sweeping in the pattern
my Father had started teaching him and drove the dark forms back.
The sound of the Mopar had me grinning.

Angelica slid to a stop, and I spun Daniel
her way. “Get him out of here!”

She dragged him onto the
ride, and I fired another spray as they vanished. Now, I could
let
me
loose.

“
Low!”

Baker’s tone was urgent, and I caught the
rest of his meaning this time. As I pulled the pins, the second
half of the trap sprung.

They came from the sewers, Network Hounds,
and I rolled the pineapples in three directions as I moved toward
him. He wasn’t supposed to come out of this alive, I remembered.
Apparently, the network had meant that.

Ping! Thud!
“Ugg!”

The slugs drove into us and the ground, and
I stayed over him as much as I could, waiting.

Kablamm!

Boomm!

The third blast didn’t come, a dud, but the
first two had cleared us a path. I tossed my wounded prisoner over
my shoulder and got out of sight before the smoke could clear. We
darted through the debris cloud, my blades out and hungry as he
clung to my waist.

“
Get them!”

I didn’t know the voice, but Baker
tensed.

“
Rankin.” he growled in
rage.

I didn’t waste my breath asking questions,
but I remembered the Snake Tracker’s words. We’d been betrayed.

I wasn’t used to carrying so much weight and
the blood dripped from us both as I picked up speed. I jumped over
piles of junk that were unrecognizable, traction boots catching me
on even feet. I darted across the deserted roadway, and we vanished
into the deep shadows of a nearby alley. There were no sounds of
pursuit, but with these hunters, there wouldn’t be. The Network
dogs were lethal once they caught the scent.

I quickly slid into the foot-deep muck in
the center of the cracked line and kept moving. They would know we
had come this way by the swirling water, but it would cover our
scent later. We had to hole-up somewhere for the night. Angelica
would take Daniel to my parents and come back. Where would she
look?

“
Go faster!” Baker growled
quietly.

I stepped up my pace, mind flying. We
couldn’t wait. There was only one choice – a very fast exit from
this city.

“
Hang on.”

Above, there were few signs of the night,
only more debris piled haphazardly, and I tensed for it, pulling on
my Changeling strength. I lunged for the beam, caught my footing as
we swung. It groaned but held, and I grunted, pulling. Men were so
heavy!

We made it onto the beam, layers of
precariously dangling debris now right above our heads, and I
sucked in a fresh lung of air. “You okay for a hard ride?”

I felt his grip tighten in response, and
then I was running along the soft wood, dripping muck and blood
into the cesspool below.

The beam ended suddenly and I jumped, landed
crouched on the edge of the crumbling wall as I searched for the
escape.

Bullets spun through the air, and I got
moving again, eyes looking for the right tunnel.

“
Coming in low!”

I didn’t look, only pushed myself harder. I
flew across a gap, landed lightly and sprang away.

“
There they
are!”

“
There’s the
watershed.”

“
Cut ‘em off!”

But it was too late. I dove into the
churning mass a second later and heard no more.

It had to be a nightmare for Baker, taking
it all upside down. His grip was like iron around my hips as we
were jerked under. Lungs full, I gripped his arm and yanked him
upward. He resisted at first, confused, but my force went with the
water, and I wrapped his big arm around my neck as he came
upright.

Half a minute later, my lungs were getting
tight, and Baker’s grip was nearly frantic as he struggled to hold
out. I groped for the button on my belt, got it on the second
try.

The raft inflated quickly, pulling us up,
and we broke the surface together, gasping for air. I clung to the
fragile boat, attached by my belt rope, and secured Baker’s heavy
weight the same way. Where the raft went, so would we.

Unable to see or hear any signs of pursuit,
I sucked in more air and gathered my strength. It took a lot of
effort to get both of us onto the floater without tipping it over.
With our weight, it moved faster in the muck, and we stayed still
for the first minutes, glad to be alive as the walled city fell
behind us. The watershed was unusually clear of debris, and we
moved steadily west, still bleeding.

I sat up and leaned forward. “Let me see how
bad it is.”

I snatched my hand back as his knife glinted
in the moonlight. “You first.”

I shrugged at his wary tone, confident I
could take it from him if I needed to. “Feels like one in the arm,
no two. That’s a double-tap. One in the thigh. Your turn.”

He wasn’t sure he should
let me touch him even though I’d saved his life. I could see it in
the way his usually bright eyes were so dark.
What Baker did when he was away from me, I still didn’t know.
He had never volunteered the information, and I had never asked. I
also hadn’t seen him since before the Games and hadn’t told him
about it before I left. He’d found out like everyone else – by the
Network’s official announcement of the contestants.

“
Relax,” I muttered,
shoving his hand aside. “If I wanted you dead, you would
be.”

With a few quick movements, I had cloth
strips around his wounds that I could reach, and I moved away from
his temptingly bloody scent in relief. I settled back carefully,
sharp ears still straining to hear anything.

“
He’s changing you,
already.”

I shrugged. “More the Games than him.”

And then Baker became what I least expected…
an ally.

“
It’s awful. No one should
ever have to do that for a mate, and no man should ever be treated
that way. It has to stop.”

I didn’t answer, but he knew I agreed. After
what Daniel had been through, how could I not?

We spent the rest of the ride in silence,
staring at the darkness and each other. It was impossible not to
compare Baker to my new mate. Baker was thick from head to toe, but
in the lean, dangerous way that had drawn me to him before I’d
known what to do with a boy like that. His sideburns came all the
way down his face to meet in a light goatee of black shadows and
mysterious allure. He liked my tattoo, but only had one of his own
during the time we’d been together. On his neck, was the green ink
I’d put there myself.

Now he was sporting a new one on his upper
arm that made those muscles stand out. Tanned and rarely shaven,
Baker’s good looks screamed at me from that unforgiving chin and
those deep-set, impossible-to-read silver eyes. He’d told me one of
his clients was a doctor, and she had done it for him in place of
money when he’d begged. He’d had them when we met, and thinking of
it now, I looked over at him.

How long had he thought of me as a friend
before he saw me as a future purchaser of his services? Had he ever
doubted it? We had used each other for our own reasons, but against
my will, a bond had grown. It wasn’t the type I had with my new
mate. Baker was too independent for that, but it was still enough
to make me mourn a little for the life we might have had together
if we had met in a different world, without Daniel’s ghost between
us.

Chapter Sixteen

Frogtown, Alabama

1

We drifted for hours before the land finally
began looking familiar.

I carefully began pushing us toward the
steep side. “I have a den near here. Can you climb?”

Baker shook his head. “Your mate hit a
muscle.”

Again, I couldn’t have been more pleased.
“Seems like maybe he’ll do.”

Baker grunted as I slid him onto my back.
“Maybe so.”

I was careful not to tip us over as we left
the raft. It was an ugly, graceless climb where I scrambled for a
hold while Baker’s big hands did the same. We were both glad to be
lying across the top of the wall a few minutes later.

We looked down on row after row of barbed
wire dividers, seeing occasional shadows moving with the
darkness.

“
You ready?”

He nodded weakly against my shoulder, and I
understood he was about done, but my Changeling body was already
healing. None of my wounds were life-threatening. His, I wasn’t so
sure about.

With Baker on my back, I moved slowly
through the tangles, the only way into my Den. I’d chosen to go
there because only one other person on the planet knew where it
was. That was about to change.

“
Down!”

His hiss had me on my stomach in the debris
field, where rats, and who knew what else, survived under us.
Lights swept the barbed wire, searching, and we stayed motionless,
letting the centuries of rubble be our cover. It helped that we
were also coated in muck.

“
Send in the
dogs!”

“
It was just an
animal.”

“
Send ‘em in!”

I tensed, eyeing the shadows of the alley we
needed to reach.

“
They’ll come straight for
us.”

I nodded, working on it.

“
You should leave me…
Ugg!”

I took off, stopping his words, and we
listened hard for the pad of feet.

“
Aaahh!”

We dropped again and were relieved and
saddened to see another shadow break away. He ran with a noticeable
limp, and the dogs got him quickly.

The fire hounds were menacing with their big
red eyes that mirrored my fury. Humans weren’t the only living
things to be infected with Rage-Walkers disease. The dogs had also
suffered from the change, as had the rest of Nature. The
contamination had destroyed the males of all the species humans
depended on, had befriended. A cat was a very rare sight in New
America, but the toads were abundant due to their ability to shift
genders. If only people had the same skill.

The Hounds certainly didn’t, and it did to
them what it did to us. They grew larger, angrier, and desperate
for a mate. Their eyes flamed, and their breath became volatile.
Some of them could even snort out flames, and I hated them even as
I understood what made them so bloodthirsty. There wasn’t any
target the Hounds wouldn’t take down, including the gigantic snakes
in the south.

“
Cute pets. We gonna be
food too?”

Baker’s voice was low and I grinned, got us
moving again. Was there any way I could combine my two lovers? I
had forgotten a little, how alive Baker could make me feel. We slid
into the alley without being noticed, and I kept him on my back as
I climbed the stacks of wooden skids, glad I was almost there. Even
for a Changeling, this was a bit much to sustain.

I stumbled, regaining my balance as we hit
the top. Almost an entire warehouse of pallets had been in this
alley, and it had been a simple matter of rearranging things once
I’d found the room.

The wood gave easily under my fingers,
sliding over, and then we were dropping inside and the hatch was
closing behind us. I slung him from my back to the room’s only
chair, and he dropped into it with a grunt that became a moan.

Baker slid to his knees, in agony, I
thought, and kissed the ground.