True Born (6 page)

“We’re locked in,” I say unhelpfully. He doesn’t even look at me, just stops at the three-inch thick steel reinforced door. His nose twitches, and he sneezes. He places Margot carefully on the floor beside the door, then motions for me to stay in the shadows with her. He has his ear to the door when the first bang comes, strong enough to knock Jared back and make him shake his head. Seconds later the outer door buckles and collapses.

In its place stands a monster. Jared springs for its face, ripping into it with freshly cut claws. It wasn’t the prettiest face to begin with. The monster has got to be close to seven feet tall, draped in the baggy white uniform of the Protocols attendants. But that’s where normalcy ends. The thing Jared attacks is a nightmare come to life: misshapen lips curled into a snarl, black piggy eyes set far back in a face covered by thickly ridged eyebrows. The arms are too long, forearms absurdly muscled. I watch the tendons in its neck stand out like ropes as it raises a ham-size fist and swats at Jared as though a six-foot panther man is no more bother than a fly.

Jared snarls as he rakes the thing’s face, going for the eyes, and jumps away. The monster is strong, but even I can see how much slower he is than Storm’s man. Jared is mid-leap at the monster’s jugular when a slim figure appears from behind it and zaps Jared in the back with an electric gun. Jared lets out a high-pitched cat scream that makes my guts hurt before crumpling at the monster’s feet.

I’m so shocked I don’t realize I’m just standing there, dumb and staring, until the monster has grabbed hold of me with a hammy hand. “Don’t struggle,” the other man orders. He’s skinny to the point of Plague-struck, his bones jutting into knots at the joints. The slim fit of the white Protocols suit makes his thinness even more pronounced.

“Who the hell are you?” I ask rudely, trying to put together what’s wrong with his face. No eyebrows, no eyelashes to cover his red-rimmed eyes, the whites pink against pale blue irises. He has hair, but it’s almost as pale as his skin. Albino, I reckon.

“Be quiet, Lucinda. My orders are to make sure you and your sister are safe. But accidents can always happen.” His voice is high pitched, with a strange lilt that reminds me of some of the foreign dignitaries who have dined with my parents.

“What do you think you’
re doing?
” I back up, mentally screaming at Jared to wake up.

Behind me and tucked against the wall, Margot stirs and twitches, but it’s not until the albino asks, “Where is your sister?” that I realize he hasn’t spotted her yet.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” I reply. It’s a brazen lie, but I’d do anything for a few seconds to think. The albino steps over Jared like he’s a suit of clothes. “Do you work for the Clinic?”

The albino’s thin lips curl in an amused half-smile. “Something like that.”

“May I inquire what your plans are for us?”

He laughs, sounding like a little girl. “Don’t you just have such good manners,” he drawls.

My attention is diverted by the monster, who holds up Jared’s unconscious form and shakes him like a rag doll. Something protective rears up inside me. “Don’t hurt him,” I warn. Jared may be a stranger, a merc, but every cell in my body goes crazy when I think of him being hurt—protecting us, no less. I’ll not leave him to be harmed. The albino’s eyes turn sharp. “You want to rescue your friend here, do you? I’ll tell you what. We’ll make a deal. You get your sister and come with us without a fuss, and we’ll consider letting your friend live.”

No one is looking when Jared cracks open an eye with a bright green glow. “
But I don
’t know where she is. We came in here looking for her,” I whine.

“I think you do.” The albino advances a step, something so incredibly off about him that I step back, realizing a second too late that it will expose Margot.

But in that second all hell breaks loose. The albino’s back is turned when Jared sinks four-inch claws into the monster’s chest. The big guy bellows and tries to shake off the attack as Jared leaps again. With a snarl and roar, Jared plunges his teeth into the monster’s thick neck, the blood spraying across the whites of their uniforms and coating the albino’s hair.

“Siggy,” the albino barks. But it’s too late. The monster crashes around in a blind, dull rage, knocking the albino off his feet as the blood pumps from his wound. They both land with a thud in a growing pool of red. I throw myself back. Still in the corner, Margot twitches and moans softly. I shake her, willing her to open her eyes, but they remain shut.

“Margot, please,” I whisper, kissing her cheek and telling her everything is all right but that we’ve got to move. Nothing.

I turn my attention back to the spectacle before me. The monster’s eyes are dull, lifeless, as he slumps over the albino. Jared straddles a beefy leg and brings his fist down on the albino’s head again and again, until I hear a crack and the soft sighs coming from the albino cease.

Jared’s head snaps up like he can feel me watching him. His arm halts mid-blow, and he pushes the albino’s messy face down and leaps up, blood soaking his shirt so now the letters read, “
Girls -re f--
.”

He doesn’t so much as glance at me as he rips the rest of the reinforced door off its hinges and slings Margot up into his arms. She looks like a fragile doll as he hurries down the hall, like she’s no weight at all. The minute we’re out of the small room I’m no longer swamped with the iron-tinged scent of blood. I take a deeper breath, feeling slightly less nauseous.

Mohawk and Storm approach as we turn the corner.

“What the hell happened to you?” Mohawk flashes a quick grin. A hint of gray floats over her eyes as she takes a deep whiff of the three of us. “
Never mind,
” she says darkly.

Beside her, air shimmers around Storm’s uncannily still body. His fists clench as he tersely orders, “Get her into the van. Lucy, are you all right?”

I nod automatically, but I consider revising my answer. My legs are shaking badly. I sag against the nearest wall. Jared sighs and hands Margot to Storm before plucking me up into his arms. He glances down at me only briefly. It’s not an expression I understand: annoyance and a dollop of confusion mixed with something territorial and just a bit smug, like I’ve been indelibly stamped as his property but he can’t figure out how it happened. If it helps, I can’t either.

We head back toward the loading bay doors. I don’t say a word, even though he’s got me pressed against his gory shirt, and neither does he. My arm curls around his neck instinctively. I want to close my eyes and disappear, but I’m too jacked up, my heart hammering away inside my chest, so I stare at the spot in his neck that pulses frantically and listen to the slow, steady beat of his heart. The deserted hallways echo with the tinny, generic sound of horns and strings as we walk.

I expect Jared to dump me outside the van and get as far away from me as he can. So I’m surprised when he opens the back door one-handed and settles me in the middle of the seat so gently I want to weep. He crawls in after me, his body hot and pulsing as he presses himself up along my side. A second later Storm buckles Margot in place beside me and hops into the driver’s seat while Mohawk slides into the front passenger seat. Margot’s head lolls back. I put an arm around her. The car jumps to life, and I start whispering in her ear, telling her she’s safe, that we’ve got her. But despite the furnace of Jared’s heat beside me, a coldness spreads inside my body. I am frozen to the core, and it starts in Margot.

“We’ve got to hurry,” I say to no one in particular.

Storm glances at us through the rearview. “Fifteen seconds,” he says enigmatically. As if on cue, Torch opens the back and rolls himself in before pulling the hatch down over him.

“Go.” There’s an urgent note to his voice. Storm steps on the gas, and we race down the long road that winds back into the heart of the city. Margot shivers fiercely. I hug her close to me and shiver myself. Jared stretches an arm around us both and with his other hand produces a blanket. He unfurls it one-handed and settles it over my sister, then me. I can’t look at him as I murmur, “Thank you.”

Jared says nothing. My body is such a confused mixture of heady awareness, shock, and terror that I keep my gaze, wide-eyed, locked on my sister. I will her to come back to me.
I need you, Margot
, I whisper into the space between us, the now silent and empty room of our bond.

Chapter Seven

It never occurs to me to ask where Storm is taking us. Still, I reckon I’m not surprised when his van pulls into the underground parking garage under the immense cobalt skyscraper in downtown Dominion. Storm takes my sister again, and we all climb into a private elevator. Mohawk opens a small black keypad, punches some numbers into the identi-pad, then puts her thumb to the scanner. The doors close silently. As we zoom toward the 60
th
floor, I try to stop my knees from knocking together. Jared holds my upper arm like he’
s certain I
’m going to fall down. I don’t pull away.

My throat is raw as I croak, “Do you think they’ll come after us?”

Storm cocks an eyebrow at Torch. For the first time I notice the small box he carries in his hands, like a miniature banker’s box. He sends me a lopsided grin and shrugs.

“Recording devices and security are kind of my thing,” he tells me with sheepish pride, picking up what looks like a mini disc.

“For crying out loud, Malcolm, don’t burn it.” Mohawk slaps his hand so the disc falls back into the box. “We need that.” His fingers smoke and leave tarry blue afterburns on the disc.

“It’s
Torch
.” He glares at Mohawk, who flips him a dimpled smile.

“
Whatever, Einstein.
”

As the elevator beeps I catch her glancing at me, undisguised curiosity stamped on her exotic features. Her sharp eyes linger on Jared’s firm grip on my arm, his body closer than it needs to be. Jared ignores her. I decide to do the same, repressing the blush creeping its way onto my face.

We’re alive. Right this minute, that’s all I can handle.

...

It seems like days later, rather than hours, that Margot is finally settled and Storm calls me into his office. I haven’t slept, and at the moment I wonder if I ever will again. Every few seconds terrible scenes flash behind my eyes, each more incredible than the last. I sleepwalk over to the couch and stumble to a sitting position to stare at walls a color our mother would describe as “
buff.
” My face is numb, covered in grit. I rub at it, hoping to stir myself enough to get what I need. Answers.

“It will get easier,”
a gentle voice tells me.
“You need some sleep.” Cracking open my eyes I see a pair of ultra-expensive brown leather men’s dress shoes poking out from under black tailored slacks. I crane my head up to see Storm peering down at me. Around his head floats a ball of energy, crackling lines of lightning that dart out from his brain. I blink. The faint luminescent glow fades. Storm frowns and sits across from me.

“You must have a lot of questions,” he says.

“Do you know where my parents are? Have you called them?”

I don
’t like the way he studies me. “Do you want me to?”

“
I don
’t think… Margot…” I bite my lip.

He nods like he understands. Maybe he does. “They’re in Europe. An emergency business trip,” he lies smoothly.

We both know the real story goes so much deeper. “This is the first time they’ve both gone away without telling us,” I reply like a true politician’s daughter. And hanging in the air between us is the unspoken question of a business partner, someone from Russia that we’re supposed to be impressing.
Look how impressive we’re being now
, I think with bitterness. If word of this gets out, it could put whatever plan our father is cooking up in jeopardy.
And then he will kill us.

I start a silent staring contest with Storm, but I’ll lose every time. The merciless winter of his eyes is terrifying. But then a small smile breaks across his handsome face. “You’re a very smart young woman, Lucy. I think if your parents knew how brave you’ve been, how you protected your sister, they would be very proud.”

My fingers clench into bloodless balls in my lap. “I think we both know better, Mr. Storm,” I tell him frankly. I obey the rules. That’s what I do. And in this case I messed up. “And I didn’t exactly save my sister, did I?”

“Nolan. Call me Nolan,” he says. He places one big hand over my hands. His flesh crackles with a kind of heat I don’t understand. “Or Storm if you prefer. She’
s alive,
” he tells me in a grim voice. “She’ll survive.”

But I wonder, how much did they steal from her? And fresh on the heels of that tumbles another, more troubling thought:
what is the price of living?

...

Once we arrived at Storm’s we were taken straight to a guest room, where they parked Margot in a queen bed. It looked huge in the little room with its floor-to-ceiling windows across one wall. The walls were cheerful pale yellow and covered in bright paintings with squiggly lines in primary red and blue and yellow. The windows looked up to sky, which I reckoned in daylight transforms the light in the room into fine opals.

The woman with the severe bun slipped in the door. This time her hair was a loose curtain of sable, and she wore a simpler dress, black and tailored down to her knees, a strand of freshwater pearls twisted around her neck. Her expression was strained as she pulled in a cart with water to wash my sister.

“A doctor will be here in a few minutes,” she’d said in the kind of voice you save for funerals. I went back to stroking Margot’s hair from her face. She’d said nothing, my sister, but then, she hadn’t had to. Her eyes were open but sunken, red rimmed. The woman had begun sponging off the makeshift bandages on Margot’s belly when I felt an electric zap course through my nerves.

“No.” I grabbed for the woman’s hand. The last thing I needed was Margot to get hysterical. “Margot has asked me to do it. If you don’t mind.”

She nodded and stepped back toward the door. I could see pity in her eyes, so bright and clear it hurt. “I’ll be right outside if you need me. I’ll knock when the doctor gets here.”

For the next little while I forgot everything but the feel of Margot inside my skin as I washed her, sang to her. Her raw nerves lay down and got quiet for a while, and we both started to relax. She wasn’t that hurt physically, but I’d known that. The hurt was tucked away, inside her body, where you couldn’t see it.

A little while later a sharp rap came and a small woman with wiry curls and bright blue eyes walked in. She carried herself like a practical woman, dressed in a turtleneck and slacks, a stethoscope around her neck and a large bag in her hands. Margot’s eyes flickered over to the woman before she zoned out again.

At least it was a woman. I think we were both thankful for that.

She introduced herself as she washed her hands. “I’
m Dr. Dorian Raines,
” she said in a clipped, efficient voice. She leaned over Margot and touched her hand. “I’m going to examine you now. I’ll be as gentle as I can be.” Margot blinked and gave the doctor a slight nod. We both jerked when the hands pressed down on her belly, the pain stinging and intense. It wasn
’
t the pain so much—the doctor was gentle—but anything was too much now. The doctor was quick, though, and within seconds she was removing her gloves and washing her hands.

“You’re going to be sore for a few days, but there’s very little real damage. I’ll bandage these,” she pointed to the incisions in Margot’s skin, “but you don’t need stitches. Whoever did this to you knew what they were doing. They didn’t necessarily want to wound you.”

Margot’s eyes glazed over. The doctor came back with some pills and a glass of water.

“Margot, I need you to listen to me for a moment. The people who did this—from the description Jared gave me—I think they were harvesting your eggs. There
’
s no way to tell unless I give you a thorough examination, and I
’
m not sure you
’
re up for that right now. Do you understand what I
’
m talking about? Did they say anything to you?” I felt my sister fight her terror as she took in the doctor
’
s words.

“It
’
s what they were after,” Margot said in a cracked voice. “They know when we
’
re ovulating. It
’
s part of Protocols.” The pieces began to fall into place as we sat in stunned silence. It hadn
’
t been an accident. All of it had been engineered. My sister licked her lips before confirming my worst suspicions. “We
’
d just been in the week before.”

Horror swamped me. “Why?”

Her voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “They kept taking Protocols, Lucy. Over and over. He knows exactly when we
’
re ovulating, when we’re not. He always knows.”

The room went dim. I grabbed her hands and told her she was safe now, safe. Storm and his people had come for her and me. We were safe. And as I watched my sister gulp down her pills and sob herself to sleep, I wondered if it was true.

...

“His name was Clive,”
I tell Storm an hour later.
I study the man before me. His cheeks are raised with dark nubs of stubble. Shadows brush beneath his eyes, but despite that he looks remarkably well rested. Calm. “Our usual Protocols guy. Always giving us these flowers. I reckon I knew Margot had a thing for him but…” I leave off and shrug helplessly. Maybe later I’ll be able to trace back and find the thread that might have stopped this, but tonight I’m too tired.

“The easiest theory would then be that he saw what was happening to you and your sister with the Protocols and decided to see what was in it for him. Black market test tube babies.”

“Hmm.” I shrug and grace our rescuer with a tight smile. “He was the only one who was the same. They kept switching in all these stupid nurses, but he was always there.”

The air in the room drops a couple of degrees as Storm considers me. “He could have stolen eggs from anyone, but he chose Margot. He went to elaborate lengths to make her trust him. So what was he really after?”

“
I don
’t know,” I tell him honestly. “But doesn’t it strike you…?” I start, then let the thought die. I’d just as soon not say it out loud in case it might be true.

Storm knows anyway.

“It
’
s always possible your parents had been receiving threats or interest, but I don
’
t think so. It could have been anyone from the Upper Circle, or Clive himself. Or the other two.”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. At least there’s that. Still, the timing is too coincidental. All these Protocols just weeks before our Reveal.
And Father’s mysterious business deal,
my mind chirps at me.
Don’t forget that
.

“What about the other two? I’d not forget if I’d seen them before. Do you know them? Are they True Borns, too?”

The electric cloud around Storm’s body increases. I sit back as his eyes darken. His curt reply says it all. “No.”

“So they’re Splicers or something?” But when he doesn’t answer, I ask, “So what are they, then, some sort of test-tubers?” He sits there, stony and silent. And all at once I understand what he’s saying—what he’s
not
saying—in one horrifying gulp.
Test-tubers.
The men at the Clinic somehow were
made
to be different, engineered to be monsters. And as my head tries to wrap around that one, I come to the most important thought:
what do they want with
us?

We
’
ve never heard of anyone being put through as many Protocols as they
’
ve run us through. This isn
’
t just about harvesting some poor Splicer girl
’
s eggs. They
’
ve stolen from the daughter of one of the most powerful men in all of Dominion—who conveniently happens to be out of the country. What happened to Margot can
’
t be random.

This was about her, about us. And we can
’
t afford to wait for our parents to come home to take care of things.

“We’re not going to have our happy eighteenth Reveal party, are we?”

The words come out sounding as dull and flat as I feel. I walk over to the window and trail a finger across a rain-soaked window. The smeared drop reminds me of birds in flight. Something I’d love to be right now. Free, able to soar away from all these heavy burdens. “They say it changes everything. When they finally tell you.”

Storm doesn’t answer. He just silently unfolds his long body from the couch and walks me to my room. If I glance at him from the corner of my eyes, I can still see the swirling mass of energy rising like sharp branches from his head. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear it looks like antlers.