The Reckoning (Unbounded Series #4) (11 page)

I waited. That was the best thing to do with Stella. She liked people to understand as much as they were able, even if they could never process information like she did.

“You know that Bronson and I . . . we weren’t physical before his death. Not really for years, at least not on a regular basis. He was just too sick most of the time. Even the baby, well, that was a good day because Bronson had received treatment from Dimitri. I—”

“This is about sex? You’re using my brother for sex?”

She colored. “No! Of course not. It’s nothing like that.”

Though her shield was tight, I could feel the sincerity in her surface thoughts. Moreover, most Renegades were born in a time when commitment was ingrained, and one of the main differences between us and the Emporium was that Renegades valued relationships and family above all else. They didn’t mess around unless they planned to stick around. I’d seen Stella’s devastation at her mortal husband’s death; she’d loved him deeply and wholeheartedly. Enough to stay with an aging, sick man who looked more like her grandfather than her husband. A man who apparently hadn’t been able to satisfy her physical needs. “Then what?”

“I, uh—it’s complicated.” Pain crossed her face, and from inside the depths of her shield an emotion leaked out: agony, the black color of despair. I knew she’d let me see it on purpose. “I miss him so much,” she said softly.

“Chris is my brother,” I reminded her. “He’s also in mourning.”

“Then what’s so wrong about us comforting each other?”

“Do I really need to tell you?” Because someday she’d recover and go on with her very long life, but Chris was in search of a mother for his two children—and looking to replace the love he’d had with Lorrie.

“I said it’s not what you think,” she repeated, pushing past me. “You need to believe that. I’ll meet you downstairs when you’re ready to go. I still have to look through the clothing shipment we got this week to see if what else I ordered for Jeane arrived. Apparently Ava’s sending her with us.”

I watched her go, wanting to yell after her, but Chris was a big boy and I couldn’t live his life for him. I couldn’t blame him for wanting Stella; every man who saw her did.

Deciding there wasn’t time for the roof and any more inner reflection, I went to my own quarters next to the suite Chris shared with his kids and grabbed the bag that I’d packed earlier. My black bodysuit that I sometimes referred to as my catwoman outfit and the similar but heavier metamaterial suit were already inside, along with an extra change of jeans, two more shirts, and an assortment of weapons.

Maybe it was the emotions brought on by Chris and Stella’s makeout session, or Ritter’s gift of the small knife, but now I tucked in a red dress that was both elegant and impervious to wrinkling. A girl had to hope for some downtime. I tried not to remember that red normally didn’t bring me luck; I liked the color and planned to change that. Pulling on my long leather jacket, I slipped my sai into their special pockets in the lining and strapped my machete around my waist. My nine mil was already in my holster and the backup pistol was in my boot near my ballistic knife.

I felt fully dressed now and ready to face anything. Well, anything except my brother’s love life and Delia’s snake.

On the main floor, I found Mari, Jace, Ava, Dimitri, and the kids in the dining area that was separated from the kitchen by a huge granite countertop where our cook Nina laid out breakfast each morning at six. We usually ate together every morning after training, but it was only a social thing and a link with our mortal employees rather than a necessity. Thankfully, the old woman used warmers—probably having learned that people who didn’t need food to survive wouldn’t eat if the meal wasn’t perfect. It was an arrogance I couldn’t see any way around, but Nina had taken it all in stride.

I poured myself a cup of her rich, gourmet hot chocolate with plenty of fresh whipped cream.

“Erin!” my twelve-year-old niece, Kathy, waved wildly from one side of the long table. “Come over here. We’re talking to Great-grandma.” To the computer in front of her, she added, “Aunt Erin is here. She’s coming to say hi.”

Kathy’s brother, Spencer, jumped up from the space next to her. “You can have my seat. I’m finished eating.” More like finished talking, I knew. He grabbed his plate and passed me on his way to put it into the dirty dish bin, grinning with satisfaction. He looked younger than ten, his freckled face still plump with baby fat, though the rest of him was mostly skin and bones. Both children were blond and had their mother’s blue eyes. For a long time, I’d seen Lorrie’s face every time I’d looked at Kathy, but that was happening less and less now that months separated us from her death.

I sat down by Kathy, only to have my hand licked by Max, the family dog, who really belonged to Jace, but who, for some incomprehensible reason, loved me the most. I wiped my hand on a napkin. I wasn’t a dog person, but Max had once saved my life so I owed him.

“Hey, Grandma,” I said to her face on the computer. Meredith Martin was almost eighty. Her cropped hair was white and her skin sported a myriad of wrinkles, but she was spry and her eyes bright.

“Good morning, Erin.” The old woman smiled, and I felt a pang of nostalgia for the days when I had gone to her house just for the fun of talking to her. Before we had to worry about Emporium assassins.

We exchanged a few pleasantries before I said, as I always did, “So, when are you coming here or going to live with Mom and Dad?” My parents were living under false identities in Oregon after the attempt on their lives, but short of throwing Grandma into a trunk and forcing her to leave Kansas City, there wasn’t anything we could do further to protect her. She liked meeting with her friends and walking down the streets where everyone knew her. She didn’t want to start over. Ava had said to give her time, that family would eventually take precedence. I was trying to be patient.

“Well,” Grandma said, and I felt a sliver of hope, “I do miss all of you. I think that when I go for your wedding, I might move in with your parents.”

“That’d be great. They miss you a lot.” I tried to keep the relief from my voice, but my grandmother’s smile told me she’d seen it for what it was. She knew me too well.

“Erin, I’m fine. These two young men are seeing to that.” She gestured to the two security officers Ava had installed in the house next door, who were on constant lookout for her. Grandma Martin always went to their place to communicate with the kids on secure equipment, so the calls couldn’t be easily traced or overheard, but there was still a risk.

“We should go,” Mari said from the counter, where she had returned for seconds of bacon. With a last nudge of my leg, Max hurried toward her. He’d become our group mascot of sorts since he’d moved in and knew how to work the system in a way that resulted in the most bacon possible.

“Gotta go, Grandma,” I said.

“See you in two weeks.”

My stomach flopped at the mention of my upcoming nuptials. “Yeah.”

“Bye, Great-grandma.” Kathy clicked to disconnect the call.

I arose and nearly spilled the cup in my hand when Kathy hugged me. “You’ll take care of Dad, right?” she asked.

“Yeah. Of course. Jace and I will.”

“Good,” Kathy said, “because he sometimes forgets he’s not like you.” The children had accepted the near immortality thing a lot easier than most mortals. Almost every day they asked Cort if he’d made any progress on a way to activate the Unbounded gene in their own bodies. He’d told them it was impossible, given the generations that separated them from an Unbounded ancestor, but their hope never dimmed.

Most Unbounded eventually realized that leaving their mortal families behind was the only way the people they loved could have a normal life. One day when Kathy and Spencer married, my goal was to see them set up far away from the Emporium’s view—and far away from the danger we Renegades faced daily. Maybe Chris could even be convinced to leave and take on a new identity. I wouldn’t be able to be a part of their lives, which devastated me, but it was a sacrifice I’d make willingly so they wouldn’t have to live with the constant danger. I didn’t think distancing myself would help when I eventually had to attend their funerals.

Leave it,
I told myself. I didn’t need to think about funerals now. To Kathy, I added, “See that your brother obeys Becka, okay?” Becka was Nina’s granddaughter and the children’s nanny who Chris had stay with the kids when we all went out of town.

“You kidding?” Kathy laughed. “Spencer has a crush on Becka. He does everything she asks.”

Like father like son,
I thought. Chris would do anything for Stella. I hoped Chris at least had an idea of what he was doing.

Ritter strode into the room. “Let’s move.”

A few minutes later, we retraced our steps through the basement and underground tunnels to the warehouse where Ritter’s Land Cruiser waited.

“Do you know that I can get practically anywhere in town using these tunnels?” Jace said. He’d memorized all the maps Chris had created of the connecting tunnels and sewage lines while we’d been in New York and had made a few more of his own. “That guy who built the Fortress might have been paranoid, but he was also a genius. We’ll never get trapped in there.”

After loading most of our gear into the top carrier, we piled inside the SUV, with me riding in front next to Ritter. The three other women took the middle seats while Cort, Jace, and Keene settled in the rear. Stella was strangely quiet and for once her headset was off and her laptop zipped tightly in her bag. She didn’t look at me.

“What’s wrong with her?” Mari mouthed over the seat at me. I shrugged because it wasn’t my place to tell her. Stella was still my best friend.

Mari lasted all of five minutes in the SUV before she said goodbye and shifted ahead to the plane. I wished I could go with her. Jeane wasted no time in spreading out her belongings on Mari’s vacated seat.

We were early arriving at the airport, but the plane was already fueled and ready to go. This aircraft was the corporate jet, not the smaller plane we’d taken to Austin, and inside on the right were two small tables with four seats around each, and on the left side of the aisle, two seats bordered yet another table—for a total of ten seats and three tables. A small kitchen, a bathroom, and a storage area were also located on the left side. A cargo area that looked like sailors’ berths stacked impossibly close together was situated at the back of the plane on the right side just past the restroom. We typically used the bunks to transfer unconscious Emporium Unbounded to our compound in Mexico, and I was glad it was empty for this trip.

Of course, with the way I felt about Jeane, maybe they wouldn’t stay empty long.

Ritter cast me a sympathetic glance. “I’ll be up front with Chris if you need me to shoot anyone.”

“The sooner you learn how to fly this thing, the better.”

He laughed, knowing too well how I felt about letting my mortal brother head into danger. “Don’t let Chris hear you say that. He’ll stop teaching me.”

I slid into the single seat across from Stella, not wanting to watch Jace flirt with Jeane or to hear Mari’s chatter. Cort would have to make sure they behaved all on his own. Keene was already dozing in the back set of seats, his eyes shut and a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes.

Stella reached into her bag and pulled out an extra neural headset that matched her own. She extended it to me. “You want to practice?”

I almost took it but remembered in time. “The snake. It grows when I use my ability. I’d better not.” The nanites we’d injected into my body yesterday to emulate birth control were still there, though probably not doing what they were supposed to since I hadn’t connected with them today. Even with the advances Stella and Cort had made with the new nanites, they still couldn’t avoid an Unbounded immune system on their own and would be ejected before long. They were better and far more complicated than the programmable tracking devices we all used just inside the skin of our upper arms, but they could be directed only by a technopath—or someone channeling that ability.

“I thought Jeane’s presence should keep it from feeding.”

“It seems to—at least when I’m not consciously using my ability—but I’m not sure about anything else.” I’d been building a second box around the first one holding the snake, and it was almost completed, but I didn’t want to make matters worse before I had to.

“You’ve only got two weeks before you have to get the hang of the nanites. Unless you’re going to be a celibate bride for the next couple decades until you decide to have children.” Stella smiled. “Or you and Ritter could have a baby. There’s always that option.” The smile didn’t reach her eyes, and for a moment I recalled quite vividly the suffering bleeding from her as she wept over her lost baby, the last gift from her dying husband.

I took the headset and opened my mind. Jeane was close enough that the two blue lights hadn’t started up again as they had when I’d gone upstairs at the Fortress. I reached out to Stella. Still no blue light.

Okay.
I placed the thought into her mind. I was tempted to look into her thoughts to see if she was thinking of Chris, but I stopped myself in time. She was my friend, even if she had my brother on a string. I hoped I wouldn’t have to choose between them if their relationship went sour.

“Do what I showed you,” she said. “See if you can get them to behave. Make sure you send those pulses so your body thinks they belong.”

Channeling Stella’s ability, I connected mentally to my body and all the nanites. It was as if thousands of little cameras came to life. Then I sent complicated pulses to the nanites and to all the nerves in my body, signals the nanites would echo for approximately the next twenty-four hours. These pulses would fool my body so that it wouldn’t systematically expel the nanites as it did all foreign objects, especially ones that used the body’s own electrical system to obtain power as these nanites did. But the signals needed to be altered slightly every day because our bodies still eventually figured out they were foreign.

Satisfied it was working, I began directing the nanites to my ovaries. That was when I noticed the thin blue lights emerging from the box of snakes. Cursing under my breath, I dropped the connection with Stella. “It’s feeding. When I exert more effort, they must increase their power enough to slip past Jeane. I can’t risk it.”