The exchange. So that meant Ariane was here. And so was Ford. It had worked. I felt an immediate thrill of triumph, followed by a wave of nausea. What I’d done—imprisoned Ariane with GTX, at best, or guaranteed her death in the trials, at worst—had worked. But she was alive for now. She wasn’t being dissected and put on microscope slides somewhere. I had to feel relief about that, even if it was mixed with misery.
“Dr. Jacobs doesn’t want it getting out of hand,” the retrieval team agent continued.
I stiffened. By “it,” did he mean Ariane or the situation? Either way, I wanted to shout at him, punch him. She was not an “it” and this was not some situation to be handled. This was life and death, the end of hope and the beginning of something far worse.
“You understand?” he pressed when I didn’t respond.
“Yeah,” I said tightly. “I get it.”
“Good. Out.” He reached behind himself and popped open the door closest to me.
I didn’t move. “Where’s my brother?” I said, my throat dry and tight with fear. But I wasn’t going anywhere without him. I’d negotiated his freedom for my participation, and I may have done a shitty job of it, but I was going to get what I’d been promised.
As if he’d been expecting that, the gray-haired agent punched something into his phone.
And then the door on the van farthest from me opened and Quinn stumbled out into the open area between the vehicles, his pale skin shining with sickly sweat.
I let out a quiet breath of relief. His right arm was in a slightly larger makeshift sling than in the video, and he obviously still hadn’t received medical attention. But he didn’t seem any worse.
I scrambled out of the van, just as my dad stepped out of his SUV, opposite of me.
Quinn didn’t seem to know where to look first. His gaze bobbed from me to my dad and then back again. He was dazed. “What are you doing here?” he asked, turning to me, his voice rusty from disuse or screaming.
Before I could answer, my mom emerged from the same van Quinn had come from, blinking in the light. She followed his path into the center and laid her hand gently on his uninjured shoulder. He didn’t at all seem surprised to see her.
My heart stopped. She’d gone after him, turned herself in with the expectation of never returning. And that had worked about as well as I’d figured. She’d just given Jacobs one more hostage to work with.
Dr. Jacobs followed her, easing down from the van as though his joints hurt. His white hair was ruffled and uncombed and he looked older, as though he hadn’t slept in days. But he was calm, revealing nothing in his expression. “I would prefer that all parties remain in place, obviously, until our…meeting is complete,” he said.
I gritted my teeth. Meeting, yeah, right. He just wanted to make sure he had leverage over me, and therefore over Ariane, until the end.
“It will be safer for everyone,” he added.
“Bullshit,” I muttered, probably a little too loudly.
My dad glared at me before nodding at Dr. Jacobs.
Quinn, confused, looked to me. “Zane, what the hell is going on?” He stumbled over his own feet, trying to move toward me.
My mom moved swiftly, catching him by his good arm. “Just stay,” she said, her gaze watchful on Dr. Jacobs. Her expression softened to something like regret when she looked at me.
I glanced away. I understood now better than ever why she’d done what she’d done, but I couldn’t handle that right now. Not on top of everything else.
The passenger door on the farthest SUV opened, and Dr. Laughlin swung down to the ground. I recognized him from the pictures Ariane had found online. His dark suit was perfectly pressed, cuff links glinting at his wrists. He brushed his hair back with an impatient hand.
“Well?” he demanded. “Can we be about this already or what?”
“Hello, David,” Dr. Jacobs said evenly.
“Arthur,” Laughlin said with a sneer. Their history thickened the air between them. I didn’t know what it was, but I could guarantee it was more than that of colleagues or even fierce competitors.
I waited, holding my breath against the expected sharp words that would trigger God only knew what.
But apparently, any nastiness that would have been dispensed was negated by the fact that they were both here against their will. Jacobs couldn’t compete in the trials at all without Ariane, and clearly Laughlin wasn’t willing to take his chances with one of his other hybrids. So neither one of them was coming out of this ahead of the other. No winner, no loser.
Behind Dr. Laughlin, Nixon and Carter climbed down from the vehicle, accompanied by a set of guards. The four of them made their way toward the front of the vehicle to join Laughlin, Nixon and Carter moving slowly and unsteadily as though they were in shock or drugged or something.
I frowned. Why had Dr. Laughlin brought them? Was he going to try some kind of power play, three hybrids against one? Or was he just rubbing it in Dr. Jacobs’s face that he had more hybrids? Jacobs didn’t look pleased, that was for sure.
A half-smothered cry drew my attention to the second SUV. Ariane was making her way slowly to the empty space between the vehicles. She appeared so small and defenseless, sandwiched between Laughlin’s version of security and her hands bound in metal restraints. She wore part of her school uniform, but the long white sleeves of her shirt were smudged with dirt and splotches of blood.
My legs shook with relief and fury. They’d hurt her.
I took a step toward her without realizing it.
“No,” one of her guards said, raising his weapon in my direction.
I stopped, fear shooting electricity through my veins and holding me in place. That was an M16, a military-grade weapon. Not one of the tranquilizer guns Jacobs used.
Ariane’s gaze found me and locked on, but her head was lolling to one side slightly and her eyes seemed dim. They’d drugged her.
“I’m sorry,” she mouthed slowly, whether to make certain I’d understand or because that was only what she was capable of in that condition, I didn’t know.
I shook my head, blinking rapidly to keep from crying. She shouldn’t apologize to me. I was the one who’d done this.
On the other side, doors on the second GTX van opened and Ford, sagging in similar restraints, was tugged out by a GTX retrieval team, with another team immediately behind them as backup.
The two groups, Ariane and Ford with their accompanying guards, inched toward each other.
It might have been fine—well, as fine as it could have been in that situation, meaning that Ariane would have been returned to GTX and Ford to Laughlin without more fuss than had already been generated. But as they drew even with each other, Ariane staring holes through Ford, blaming her without words, Ford suddenly straightened up in her restraints.
“You accuse me, but it was your human who called them on us,” she hissed at Ariane, but it carried across the silent parking lot like a shout. “He told them where I was.”
Ariane’s gaze shot to me, hurt and shock making her eyes look even larger in her pale face.
“She was leaving,” I said. “Taking your bag with her.”
“Because he’d given away my hiding place, shouting for you and drawing the humans,” Ford snapped. “I was meant to provide a distraction.”
I stopped, my next words caught in my throat, horror washing over me. Was it possible? Had that been part of their plan?
“He sent them after me,” Ford said, jerking her head toward Dr. Jacobs and the GTX vans. “They were already searching the area before I even had a chance to make the call. They tracked it and me before I could get away.”
“If you were working with Ariane, then why were you tied up?” I demanded but weakly. I was so afraid she was right.