“Tell me about it,” I muttered.
I led the way downstairs and out the back door of “our” house. If we stuck close to the walls, the dark blue shadows of the early morning would likely cover us. Plus, we needed to be outside to hear Mara’s garage door going up. Our signal to run.
I took a deep breath and shivered in the damp air. The overgrown grass was slippery and cool with dew that would be burned off as soon as the sun was up, but for now it was soaking into my shoes and the hem of my jeans.
Next to me, Zane raised a questioning eyebrow.
I nodded. I was okay. It was just that this was the second day in a row that I’d been awake to see the sunrise.
Actually, the third. Today was Monday.
Saturday morning, I’d just been stuck underground in the lab and unable to see it.
I felt tired suddenly, worn down. I needed a vacation. Or at least a solid night of uninterrupted sleep. But I wouldn’t turn down a hammock and the peace of mind of being on a distant island where no one could find me.
Us. I altered the mental image of the hammock to include Zane and found I liked it even better. Maybe when all of this was done.
A low rumbling noise sounded in the distance, sending my pulse into high gear, and Zane tapped my arm lightly, his whole body tensed and ready.
I nodded, and we ran.
I was fast, but Zane’s longer legs gave him equal advantage, matching me stride for stride as we bolted through backyards on a parallel to the street. Once we reached the far side of the third house, we made a hard left, putting us directly in line with the rear side of Mara’s duplex.
At least that was the plan. But rounding the corner, I slipped on the grass and started to fall. I flailed, reaching for power to correct my balance, but my concentration was too scattered. My body stiffened, preparing for impact, for pain. We were moving too fast for me to roll through it. There would be broken bones. A wrist, most likely, and those were a bitch.
But Zane grabbed my elbow and yanked me upright before I hit the ground, his quick reflexes honed from years of sports, probably.
I shot him a grateful look but didn’t have time for more; the sliding glass door at the back of Mara’s duplex was looming large.
My hand up, I focused on the locking mechanism and flipped it up, and then turned my attention to the white security bar, stretched across the glass. One solid yank at the joint with my mind and it was dangling like a broken elbow, clattering against the door. Then, with another mental shove, the sliding glass door retracted so hard it bounced when it hit the end of the track.
Zane and I jostled up the concrete steps and into the kitchen, which reeked of charred toast. Our shoes squeaked on linoleum.
“This way,” I said in a rough whisper, broken by my panting. A left took us into a tiny living room with a small TV on a tray table and a tired-looking sofa, stuffing leaking out of one cushion.
On the far wall, a door with three shiny dead bolts. The garage.
Once again I pulled at the locks in advance of our approach. Only this time, I accidentally pulled the locks from the wooden door with a small explosion of splinters and sawdust—oops. But good enough. We burst through into the garage, with Zane ahead of me, as planned, just as Mara was backing up in her little silver Mazda.
She braked with a sudden screech, her face pale even behind the windshield tinting. “Zane.” Her mouth formed the word clearly even though the sound didn’t reach us over the engine noise. Then her gaze fell on me, and her mouth pinched in displeasure. But she didn’t leave.
I pulled Zane back a step, trying to keep him in the shadows as much as possible. I wasn’t sure what the SUV guys would see if they looked in the garage, and I didn’t want to risk it.
He gave me an unhappy nod—I knew he hated this part of the plan—then I slipped past him, down the steps, and climbed into Mara’s backseat.
“What are you doing?” Mara gasped, as I closed the door with a quiet thunk.
I ducked down to hide in the footwell and leaned to one side so I could see her in the gap between the seats. “Just go.”
She didn’t move.
“If you don’t, those guys in the SUV will be up here to check, and they’ll find Zane.” I didn’t like using her drive to protect her son to manipulate her, but it would work, and that was what I needed.
She released her foot from the brake and the car rolled backward again. “If you get him hurt, I will make you sorry,” she snarled, glaring at me in the rearview mirror.
“I believe it,” I said without hesitation. “Close the garage.”
Mara obeyed immediately, pressing a button on the remote clipped to her sun visor, no doubt recognizing the benefit of hiding Zane from view.
From my position on the floor, I couldn’t see him, but I imagined him standing there alone, his mouth turned down, watching us leave. I hated leaving him behind, but I figured that bringing Zane along, therefore putting him in further danger, would have made Mara even less cooperative.
“Now just go to work like you normally do,” I said.
Mara gave a strained laugh as she put the car in drive. “Because this has so much in common with normal. What do you want, 107?”
Oddly enough, with the adrenaline pumping, I didn’t even flinch at the numerical designation.
“If you’re looking for a hostage, you picked the wrong person,” she continued. “They’re not going to do anything to save—”
“I don’t want you as a hostage,” I said, swallowing my impatience with her. “I just need information.”
“I don’t know anything,” she protested. “They don’t tell me—”
I cut her off. “Where are Laughlin’s hybrids? Ford and the others.”
She inhaled sharply. “What do you want with them?”
“I’m changing the game,” I said grimly.
“What does that mean?”
I ignored her. “You said they’re in public sometimes, right? At school for training.”
“Yes, but—”
“Where?” I persisted.
“What are you planning?” she asked suspiciously.
I stayed quiet. I doubted Mara would turn me into Laughlin right now, not when doing so would jeopardize her son. But I couldn’t be sure.
“You don’t want anything to do with them, I promise you,” she said darkly.
“I don’t have a choice,” I said. “Where can I find them?” I concentrated on the buzz of her thoughts. Even if she wouldn’t say the name, she might think it.
But Mara’s mind was an uncoordinated scramble of half-finished thoughts.
I can’t—
If I tell her, then Laughlin will…Oh God.
Why not? Let them finish each other off and—
A, B, C, D, E, F, G…
She was attempting to block the name from surfacing by focusing on something else. The alphabet song. It would work. For a while. But eventually, she’d slip. I just had to wait her out. And she knew that.
Inside, her voice was shaky with panic. But on the outside, she was silent. The only noise came from the tires on the road and the low hum of the engine. It was lulling, particularly in combination with the rhythmic chanting of the song.
So when the melody in her head abruptly cut off and she spoke aloud again, it startled me. “If I tell you where to find them, you have to leave Zane alone. Drop him off somewhere, send him home to Wingate,” she said, the words tumbling out as if she’d been barely holding them back.
Ah, that I’d been expecting. She loved Zane, regardless of the crappy ways she’d chosen to show that. “He is free to leave me anytime he wants,” I said, though just the thought of him walking away ripped at me with sharp teeth. “But he’s made his choice, and I won’t abandon him.” Unlike you.