UNREQUITED DEATH

Book 6

New York Times Bestselling Author

TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

www.tamararoseblodgett.com

TRB Facebook Fan Page

Editing suggestions provided by Stephanie T. Lott

Synopsis:

The Graysheets remain ominously quiet during the teen's senior year. When tragedy strikes Tiff, her confidence shatters into a million pieces and the group doesn't know how to pick up the scattered mess of her emotional health.

As the control of the Zondorae scientists slips away, they make a final move to swing the balance in their favor, negotiating a future for the paranormals that is so final, a covert group moves to halt the momentum of their control over humanity with Jeffrey Parker as the catalyst.

In a final bid to protect everyone, Caleb discovers he was at the center from the beginning, an unwilling pawn moved on a chess board that no longer exists. Will he have a future of safety and happiness for himself and Jade? Or will the decisions made before the fateful day of inoculation remain to hinder that forever?

DEDICATION

My four sons, without whom, Death would have been impossible to write~

CHAPTER ONE

now

KPH graduating class of 2029

I adjusted the cap on Jade's head and she ducked away from my nimble fingers, a frown puckering the smooth mocha perfection of her forehead.

“Come on, babe, come here.” I reached to scoop her back to me and she huffed. “No, Caleb, you're going to wreck my hair!”

Wreck. The. Hair. Uh-huh.

We couldn't have that. I mean, graduation and all. Monumental.

I couldn't have cared less but this was Jade's day, John's day. The prison doors were opening with a whisper and closing with a clank.

We were free.

“It's hanging crooked,” I argued logically. The deep royal blue of the cap contrasted with the naturally black hair that flowed down her back in an artful silken waterfall.

It was a mite distracting as Clyde would say. He had given me a level of vocabulary that even my Grammar-Nazi mom couldn't compete with. I dug that.

Clyde would be here today with Bobbi. He wouldn't miss it.

Jade shrieked as I raced after her, my arms going around her waist and I lifted her as she squealed.

Alex came in and saw the two of us doing a staggering dance of hyperactivity. “What... is this like a porn thing here?”

What? I looked at him, bodily turning around to face him with Jade in my arms.

Her embarrassment was tangible.

I hadn't been thinking that way but now that he mentioned it....

Jade was dying, I noticed, a flush creeping up on her cheeks.

“No man, she won't cooperate with a hat fix,” I said, saving the moment.

Alex's eyes shifted to the crooked graduation cap, the tassel swinging in Jade's face like a pendulum gone bad and smiled.

“Yeah, that bad cap. I hear that.” Mucho-sarcasm.

I let Jade down and gave a chuckle. Perv-Alex was right on board as usual. Then Randi came up behind him and goosed him in the ass and it was his turn to get embarrassed.

Randi peeked around his big body and looked at Jade. “See how that works?”

Jade nodded, grinning. “I do, yes.”

The girls looked at each other smugly and Alex grunted. “The girls have the power man,” he said, only half-teasing.

“That's smart that ya just figured that out,” I responded and gave him a sly smile, suppressing a girl-worthy eye roll.

“Merranda?” Principal Chen popped her face into the room where many graduates gathered, the talking like a low din of white noise in the background. Her hair was so tightly slicked back from her face she looked like a refugee from a forty MPH wind tunnel.

I blinked and Jade laughed, she'd gotten the full Empath blow by on that. I'd always wondered if she got it like a pulsescreen visual of my thoughts or what? Sometimes I just wanted to own my weirdness with no witnesses.

“You grumpy that I saw that?” Jade whispered, her lips tickling my neck and making me shift my weight. She knew how she affected me. Jade was a walking sexsicle. She knew it, I knew it and she was being evil now.

I glowered at her. “Yeah, now let me fix your hat.”

She smiled, giving my neck a soft peck and I turned to capture her lips, giving an internal groan of satisfied bliss.

I completely forgot about Chen. Jade sometimes had that Mind Blanking Effect on me.

“Mr. Hart,” she said in a low voice full of warning.

It cut through my fog like a lighthouse beacon.

I swiveled my head and Alex whispered, “Busted.”

How could I be busted? I'd be nineteen in a matter of a few months.

Randi made the slicing the neck gesture behind her gestapo mom's back, which clearly said don't blow it, not today, we're this close.

Then something happened that surprised the hell of me. Chen gave me a break.

“Don't do the PDA spectacle when we get out there in the auditorium.”

Right. I nodded. “Hey thanks.” My surprise must have shown because she gave a low laugh.

“I was eighteen once,” she explained.

We all looked at her and she laughed again. “I was... you'll see.” She turned to her daughter, dwarfed by my friend the Body. A guy so massive he was his own zip code. Not defined by name but by area.

“I need you to be in your seat before the other students, Merranda.”

“Okay, Mom,” Randi responded on the barest side of neutral.

I think all of us had about had Enough of Parents.

We filed out, Jade with her crooked hat and perfect hair, me with the I'm-so-glad-this-is-over-I-could-shit-myself look.

I saw that same look on about half the guys and a good number of the girls too. Universal School Scorn.

Nice.

We were alphabetical so my hands fell away from Jade reluctantly when she went to the L section.

It put her really close to Carson Hamilton. There was only a skinny girl still in braces sitting between them.

I felt that familiar anger wash over me, thinking about our senior year. The near misses. The intensity of my anger was barely held in check. I'd just missed getting that probation reinstated. I'd finished my Reactive Management class by the skin of my teeth and I used the skills I'd been taught and barely mastered now.

Our world had become so politically correct that even criminals graduated. Thankfully, Tiff was in the W section.

Jonesy came up behind me and clapped me on the back. He'd grown over the summer between junior and senior year, his frame an inch shy of my almost six feet two. We'd all become tall but Terran and Alex were giants. Alex was all due to the Graysheet cocktail. But Terran was just him. He was six feet five inches of lean mean fighting machine.

John was also the valedictorian. Of course.

“Jade is by Hamilton,” Jonesy said, like that little fact would escape my notice.

“Yeah,” I responded, my anger deepening. My intellect told me he wouldn't try anything. That primitive beat of guyness was on point all the same. I thought males would always be this way. It was a natural thing.

We stood there contemplating that fun occurrence when Tiff came up and stood between us.

“Well that's a fuckburger,” Tiff said casually, eying Jade's seating.

“Language, Weller,” Griswold hissed, sans whistle. Tiff lifted a narrow shoulder, the satin of her white gown making a slithering sound against her hair. “Okay,” she replied, utterly unruffled. I held in the walrus bark with an effort.

Jonesy didn't, giving a raucous guffaw that made Griswold's brows drop into a unibrow above her eyes.

Griswold stalked off muttering as Gramps walked up to our group. His eyebrows popped as he watched Griswold circle us ruffian teens like a shark on the blood scent trail.

“She a hard charger?” Gramps asked knowingly.

Tiff turned her head to look at him. “Huh?” she asked, giving Griswold the look as she got in someone else's grill.

I instantly translated Old Guy Speak, “She gets 'er done.”

“Hell yeah,” Jonesy muttered, wiping fake sweat off his forehead and Griswold hissed from across the room, “Language, Jones.”

Gramps laughed. “Good hearing too.”

He had no idea.

Mia came up with Bry, their hands laced intimately. They'd finally gotten together and the group had given a collective sigh of relief. Although, if Bry didn't get his act together and start to think again we were going to be driven insane.

Mia had graduated last year and was attending today just for us. Bry was here with his one hundred and one siblings en mass. He leaned down, using the tip of his nose to push Mia's hair away from her ear and she tilted her face so he could get better access and smiled in response to something only she could hear.

Gramps looked on and said nothing. His face said so much.

The scars from the beating he'd taken in the sphere world were still on his face and he claimed they were character marks. He had a lot of character then.

Jezebel the Organic hadn't been able to fix him totally and he still limped when the weather turned cool.

It made me feel guilty as hell.

I saw Gramps' hand stray to the pocket of his perfectly pressed shirt. He was itching for a smoke but I knew he was finally trying to quit.

Tiff gave my arm a small squeeze. She was telling me that it sucked ass that Hamilton was by Jade but I consoled myself with the basic fact that it was graduation. He wouldn't try anything stupid.

Right?

They announced my last name and I filed into the auditorium.

I got to be right next to Hamilton who was wearing a smug expression. He'd love to make trouble. He couldn't though; his daddy was sitting and watching.

So were the cops, the sick fucks.

I leaned forward and caught Jade's eye and she winked, the emerald of her eye blinking out of existence for a second and then reappearing like found treasure. She was so brave, sitting not far from Hamilton. Where were all the letters in between? Damn, it figured we were missing a bunch.

John walked on stage and I watched him, my scrutiny probably not unlike his parents'. Out of all of us, he'd fashioned his future. I was proud of him. So was Jonesy, who turned around, no embarrassment over eyes that were shiny with our friend's accomplishments.

Terran opened his mouth to speak, his three by five index cards gripped in long tapered fingers that matched his tall body perfectly. I couldn't help but think of the Guys with Gills as the memory of their physique slid through my mind as an unforgettable memory.

John had that look. He was unfinished, not yet nineteen and too lean by far, but he had that look. Minus the gills.

“I was going to give the perfect speech,” John said gazing out at the audience. The sound of crickets was clear in the well of silence that struck the outdoor auditorium. “However, as I look at your faces, I'm going to speak about what really matters instead of what is expected.” His pleasant face, framed by hair that had gone to a deep red as he'd gotten older, looked at the sea of faces, his light blue eyes scanning the crowd for a readiness that might or might not be there.

Every eye was trained on him and when he had their full attention he said, “I want to talk about Brett Mason.”

Even I sucked in a lungful, and I'm not easily shocked. I would've never thought John would abandon the Perfect Lecture for emotion. But he had. His parents were somewhere using airsick bags as we watched. I just knew it.

I got a sudden image of Joan upchucking in a bag and smiled until my face hurt.

Jonesy turned around and grinned. “This oughta be good,” he said with barely contained glee.

Yeah.

“My biggest lesson was not learned through my textbooks. And I am very aware that this should be the time to talk about how fine an education I've received.” His icy eyes held the crowd's without rancor but with a purpose.

Maybe Griswold wasn't the only hard charger in the auditorium today.

“I'll leave that for others. My finest lessons came from my friends,” he paused, his eyes briefly resting on Jones and me, then restlessly moving on. “They taught me the value of individuality,” and his speech halted, a small grin overtaking his face and I knew, just knew, he was thinking of Jonesy. “However, Brett Mason taught me the finest lesson of my life.”

The audience held their collective breath.

“Bravery,” John said and they stood.

Every cap and gown, every parent, everyone who had legs stood. Even that bastard Hamilton.

Because one of our own had died saving a girl that I loved.

Who, I was certain, would one day be my wife.

Sometimes milestones are not measured by the accomplishments of society, but by those of integrity.

Brett had taught John that.

Hell, he'd taught us all.

I turned to look at Jade as the clapping died down and saw the tears on her face, seeing through the sadness to the joy that lay underneath.

Brett was gone but he was still a part of us.

There would have been no “us” if it had not been for him.

We all understood it.

That's why John had committed himself to a speech about a mundane from a broken family that had been misunderstood.

Though not forgotten.

Never that.

I don't know what possessed John's parents to host a humongous reception for the graduates at their house. Obviously, serving a red fruit punch over obscenely white carpeting was nothing short of idiotic. Even if it did have plastic runners bisecting the center.

Especially watching Jonesy doing the hip-swiveling dance with his punch. A la beer pong cup.

He was having fun with that part. He'd flung his arm around Sophie who was making every effort to act like she was indifferent to the attention.

“And here's the thing, Soph... John's mom's doin' quarters baby,” his voice dropped to be hidden by the low drone of the mixed voices in the Terran household, filled to bursting with red punch.

Hell, even I was nervous. I watched Terran's eyes dart around like a ping pong ball without a paddle. There were simply too many cups to watch. He gave up, slogging over to my side.

“What's Jonesy talking about?” he asked, his hands on slack encased hips. His parents had made him wear the Man Outfit. John jerked the tie down a little so it was less like a noose.

“I'm pitting out in this bullshit,” John muttered.

“Dirty mouth, Terran,” Tiff said in a sultry purr from behind us and the poor bastard went from ivory snow to red as a tomato as fast as you could say....

Girl.

Tiff was one of those rare individuals whose very existence gave me a perpetual case of the crooked mouth. Like now.

“Tiff...” John began as she moved around to the front of our position and both our jaws dropped.

Tiff looked like a girl.

It was literally the first time we had ever seen her in a dress and she immediately tensed, feeling self-conscious.

John cleared his throat, the blush flaring ruthlessly back to life. He opened his mouth and then shut it.

“What?” she asked in a defensive bark.

John looked at her, taking in the soft, honey colored hair that had missed mousy brown by a millimeter. Her hazel eyes were rimmed with a swipe or two of light mascara but her face was so small that those luminous eyes with flecks of green took up half of that precious real estate.

And she had a body.

Who could have known? Hoodie as Uniform had obscured all.

She had been a skinny girl who had grown into a curvy woman. Not as curvy as Jade but in the same league.

Tiff huffed, pegging a small hand on her hip. Hands I'd seen jab throats. I was mesmerized, it was hard to imagine her doing the things she'd done when she was wearing skyscraper heels and a deep green blouse that hugged her torso tightly, a lacy black cami peeking out from actual, bona fide cleavage.

I swear I heard Terran swallow. Must've hurt. Poor dude.

“You look nice, Tiff,” John said. Color rose to her cheekbones and she was silent, fiddling with the hem of her short black skirt.

The awkwardness was suffocating us and dragging Tiff along for the ride when Sophie walked up.

Thank everything that was holy.

“Hi guys,” she said, her eyes shifting from my face to Terran's then to Tiff's.

“What'd I miss? You guys look totally stiff.” Then she lowered her voice, “Jonesy added some cool stuff to the punch so go have some of that and start looking like the stick is out of your asses.” Then she straightened, looking at Tiff who glared back at her.

“How do you boys like Tiff's transformation-to-girl, huh?” she asked smugly.

Holy crap, Tiff must've been desperate to let the animal print queen get a hold of her.

Sophie looked at my face. “Come on, Caleb. A little credit! I mean, we're warming her up nice and slow before zoo time.”

Tiff had a physical reaction, blanching at the mere thought of wearing anything with a print, I could tell.

Terran smoothly said, his eyes steady on hers, “I think this might be more Tiff's style.”

Tiff looked up at Terran and smiled at him with a shy regard that was a first.

Well, it was the first time Terran noticed. The gang had been noticing for months.

It was one of those moments when you know something with such assurance that it sings a tune in your bones.

Sophie gave me a sly smile and I gave an almost imperceptible nod in return.

John and Tiff didn't pay attention because they were too busy looking at each other.

Perfect.

CHAPTER TWO

then

autumn of senior year

Clyde was waiting for me when I dropped Jade off at the dorm-like foster set up. It beat the Frazier household (which had really been a ruse anyway). Jade hadn't had any belongings to move except the dreamcatcher.

We placed it last, above her new bed, my superstitious mind conjuring images that maybe it had survived everything to be an omen of good fortune. The creepiness of our past covered in the freedom of our future.

It was as if her existence that year had been wiped from everyone's consciousness. Erased. Jade came of age on a day like any other when she turned eighteen in our senior year, getting the deed to her Aunt's house and moving into the new foster dorm the same day.

We celebrated.

Oh did we.

For two weeks after Brett's funeral Jade had stayed at my house. After her birthday, my parents helped with getting her settled in her new place. We still found time to be together and christen her new start.

However, there had been the matter of Clyde.

I dropped Jade off at her new digs, the house was a huge old-fashioned four square from the turn of the last century. Its bold lines framed her. I watched her through the rain sheeting against the car window. When she went through the door it appeared to swallow her.

I left her in that cavernous mouth, driving away uneasily to seek out Clyde.

I knew he'd be with Bobbi and I headed there.

But I pulsed Jade. It made me feel better. My finger was itching to pulse. I had to know that she wasn't being digested by her new environment.

Color me jumpy.

I was. And I wasn't apologizing for it either. It'd been a helluva year and there were new challenges to face. I'd rather face them with Clyde than without.

Right now Clyde was a shell of his former self. Gale had a new scar above her heart; a bullet meant for Clyde had pierced her instead. If not for his life force, she'd be on my team.

Team Dead.

None of us wanted that.

I let the car idle in front of Roberta Gale's house and sighed. I pulsed the Camaro off and jerked open the door. My foot hit the street, rain pounding the asphalt so hard it slopped back up and soaked my shoes. I turned the collar of my jacket up, a khaki thing that looked more brown than green. The water resistant fiber mesh made the water run off my back without soaking through the material. I gave a glance in each direction, sweeping my eyes up the street and hopped over the small river running along the curb.

I caught sight of someone standing off in the distance with an umbrella.

Candy ass, I thought. Who uses umbrellas? It gave me pause and I looked back. The lone figure was gone.

Effing weird... I gave a mental shrug and jogged up the steps to the door.

Clyde opened it before I could knock. It wasn't that much of a shock. I could feel him five miles out. He knew I was coming.

His skin had plumped out a little but those eyes... they were dry orbs in shriveled pockets of flesh, his skin hanging off his body like an ill-fitting suit. Like the guy from the classic film, Men in Black, in his Edgar suit.

That Life-Transference wasn't for nothing. It literally sucked the life out of ya.

He stepped backward, sweeping his palm inward to indicate I should proceed him. I stepped off the deep stoop of their porch and came into the house. It was small by my standards. Our house was over two thousand square feet, and for the three of us it was almost too big. This was one of those Craftsman bungalows, low eaves with high ceilings, and real wood beams bisecting one another in an elaborate tic-tac-toe design on the ceiling. There was a roaring fire in the background and I looked at Clyde.

He gave a small smile, his lips pulling away from a mouth that had been one of my best. The mouths were always the hardest.

The mystery of life. Or death. I got the crooked mouth thinking about it.

It figured that the first place I sucked energy from would be there.

“Hey man,” I said, clapping him on the back.

“Caleb,” Clyde responded, shuffling over to push another log into the fire.

“How come you're not reeking?”

“Roberta has managed that much,” Clyde said, without turning and I watched him expertly tending the fire. The deep forest green tiles on the surround were slightly reflective. The flames made shadows dance against the surface.

“I can keep him where he's at but not much more,” Gale clarified, coming into the room with a mug of hot cocoa. She had a very snarky mug which read Death Happens.

She gave it to me handle-first and my eyebrows rose.

“Nice,” I said, lifting the mug in a salute.

She smirked, the corners of her mouth lifting, then she looked at Clyde and her smile faded.

“So?” she asked, letting herself fall on the couch as she stared pensively at Clyde's back. He loaded more sticks of firewood inside the gut of the wood stove insert, the fragrance of the Western Red Cedar permeating the small sitting room.

The clock ticked as I stared at the floating marshmallows. And here I thought it was something Mom did to keep me young. My eyes met Gale's and she said a little helplessly, “You can't have hot cocoa without the marshmallows.”

So true, I thought, the corners of my mouth turning up.

Clyde straightened, turning to face us, the orange of the flames giving a halo effect as he stood there patiently. His pants were held up by old-fashioned suspenders. The rolled up shirt sleeves uncovered paper thin gray flesh; his decomposition had been arrested by Gale.

“I've talked to my AFTD teacher and, although no one has ever tried anything like this,... and it might backfire...”

“Do it,” Gale said, her gaze shifting to Clyde.

I sighed. “I might screw things up, Gale.”

Clyde spoke, “I cannot go back. There is another life waiting for me. If I cannot have the one that lays before me like a gift, I will go back to rest.”

“Clyde no!” Gale cried, popping to her feet and Clyde turned to her.

“Roberta, hear me.” He stopped her forward progression easily, lightly gripping her shoulders. “It is not that I do not love you.” His eyes searched hers. I sat there feeling like hell, knowing that somehow, regardless of the circumstances, I was responsible for this. Then those hazel eyes flicked to mine. There was no condemnation there, only trust. I flinched at what he gave me. I wasn't sure if it was a gift that I could accept.

But I would try.

For Clyde.

For them.

I stood and said to Gale, “I'm ready. But if it goes the opposite way,” I shrugged my unease in front of them then continued, “I may not be able to stop it... fix it.”

They nodded and I tried another time, giving them the Supreme Loophole. “Smith said it should work, that I need to use the same power that I used to Transfer, putting it back into you. If it doesn't work, there's no way to anticipate what might happen.”

Bobbi looked confused and I gave her a level look. I was ready to play in the sandbox but I needed to know they would be on board if shit got weird.

And since that was usually the way it went, I was counting on it.

Clyde nodded his head and looked at Bobbi. “We spoke of this possibility, Roberta. We knew that it was an experiment. You know that we cannot go on like this, dear heart,” he looked into her eyes, “this is existing, not life. Not life as it was meant to be lived.”

“I know,” she said, covering his much bigger hand with her own.

“Nice job on the smell, by the way,” I complimented her.

She smiled. “I keep forgetting you're not even eighteen yet.”

What did that have to do with anything?

Gale's smile became a grin. “It's just that... here we are, ready to try and put my corpse-lover back together and you're complimenting me on keeping his rot at bay.”

Well... yeah.

“Come on,” she said, giving up on me as a lost cause. “Let's go.”

I followed her into another room, smaller but without a fire. I was pleased about that, ʼcuz the place had to have been one hundred five degrees. I did a stealthy forehead wipe but Gale caught it.

“Too hot?”

I nodded but shrugged out of my jacket and threw it on a chair. Clyde raised a brow.

Cripes, he was as bad as Mom. I grabbed it and put it on a hook by the door, the mirror that was built into the old bench seat gazing back at me with dark spots, silvered in places and glanced back.

“I bet this place feels like home, Clyde,” I said, walking into the small room, a couch stood on either end, separated by a low oak coffee table.

He nodded. “It is an older home but not near as aged to me as it might appear to you.”

“It was my great-grandma's,” Bobbi said. “When she passed the family was going to get rid of it but I thought it had a certain charm.”

I looked at Clyde. He looked right in a house built in 1905. He just did. I told him so.

He grinned and that black mouth waved like a flag of rot at me. I guess I hadn't done so great on the mouth after all.

Time to get started.

“Okay, so come lie down.”

Clyde shambled over to the couch, his usual grace nothing but an echo of what it'd been.

“Do I need to...?” Bobbi asked.

“No,” Clyde and I said in unison and I laughed.

“You're not a part of the process.”

I hesitated.

“What is it, Caleb?” Clyde asked. It sounded like he had gravel in his mouth.

I wiped suddenly sweaty palms on my jeans. “There's one thing. My AFTD teacher thought that using Transfer in reverse might... call stuff.”

One of Bobbi's eyebrows cocked. “Like what?”

“Using the power of Life-Transference is tricky and I've only done it a few times. By accident, and under duress,” I added.

They waited.

I explained.

“You mean, that using this power in the reverse can bring things to the surface that might have stayed in their graves?”

I nodded, but it was more and maybe I hadn't been clear enough. “It is also like a dinner bell to other AFTDs. By doing this, I'm alerting the C-Ms.”

Clyde frowned, the skin between his brows staying in a frozen ripple of flesh between his eyes. I was so ready to fix my zombie.

“It's no big deal if a dead chicken starts pecking in your front yard here,” I said and her eyes strayed to the grim day, the rain pounding her grandfathered lawn into a sodden swamp as her equally illegal fire spewed fumes into our atmosphere.

“Somehow, that's not a comfort,” she said and Clyde actually covered his mouth with his hand. I laughed, he was so on board with the chicken humor.

“Okay... listen, it's just a precaution. Me using this power might or might not alert the undead media. I'm just sayin'.”

“So,” Bobbi cocked her head and palmed the soft point of her triangular face. “Other Cadaver-Manipulators might know you're doing something.”

“Yes,” I said, relieved.

I knew it was rare to be a five-point, it'd almost not been worth mentioning. I liked to think that the potential for bullshit happening was as far out as a Hail Mary pass on the football field.

Although, I'd caught far more Hail Marys than sheer chance allowed.

“Well Parker is not a problem, so who cares?” she said, lifting her shoulders in a shrug.

Yeah, Parker wasn't a problem. Clyde and I shared a look.

“I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be insensitive....” she said, looking between the two of us. “I know you're worried about him, Caleb.”

It was the height of irony that my nemesis was now someone that might need a hero.

Namely, me.

I nodded, ducking my head to hide my expression. There were too many mixed emotions for me to engage any of them. Instead, I ignored the whole tamale and concentrated at the task at hand.

“Parker would know I was using.” I looked at both of them. “And so would anyone that was say, a four-point or greater. That is the concern. That I would call another C-M to our location.”

“What's so bad about that?” Gale asked but it was Clyde that answered. “It is not good that another as powerful as our Caleb make an appearance whilst I am vulnerable and we are tied in this...” He waved his shriveled, vaguely mummy looking hand and I finished, “reverse Life-Transference.”

He nodded.

“I want you to try anyway,” Gale said.

“You know I want to but I just had to let you guys in on it. What could happen.”

“The potential for evil will always lurk at the edges of what is good... what is wholesome,” Clyde mused.

“What is right,” Bobbi finished.

I nodded in agreement, they were correct on all counts.

Then I laid hands on Clyde. Everything receded to a pinpoint of consciousness and the only noise was a warm rushing in my ears like blood.

But it was death.

Death came like a wave to shore, sweeping me away and with it, my bearings were gone.

All that mattered was the corpse under my hands, his flesh called to mine. My death power that was only barely held in check came online. I released it and, with a sigh, it slipped out of its prison and swam through the conduit of our union.

It crashed into Clyde and his mouth dropped open, slack with the crush of it and my hands involuntarily convulsed against his. Our grips tightened, my hands bleeding to white with his hold and I watched as color came back to skin that had been ashen moments before.

Then his eyes filled in, losing their glittering obsidian velvet to brown. Finally the flecks of green that made them what they were flickered to life.

When I was done he let go of my hands. “Now show me your mouth, Clyde,” I requested.

He smiled and like an amateur dentist I was happy to report that all his teeth remained perfect, whole and white.

His tongue was pink.

I kept my shudder of relief to myself.

Gale and I smiled at each other and Clyde sat up, his clothes magically restored to order. I wasn't sure how I had wardrobe control but that was for a different day. Right now, my Clyde was a guy again. Gone was the rot.

“I feel like a new creature!” he sang in his rich timbre, running perfect and whole hands over his restored figure.

We were all grinning like fools when Gale said hesitantly, “Is that what I think it is?”

I looked at where she was pointing through the window, the hand-rolled glass added to the disquieting image that wavered and rippled in our line of sight.

There was a chicken in the yard. A quite obviously dead chicken.

Our smiles faded. None of us were diggin' on the coincidence of the very thing I had joked about manifesting so neatly.

We walked to the door and opened it.

I stepped out onto the stoop.

There were a million chickens. Or at least about fifty. They were real creepers too. They came to stand on the lawn and stared at me expectantly. A few dove and pecked, tearing earthworms out of the wet ground and slurping them down with unnervingly disgusting consumptive noises.

“Caleb,” Gale said in a shaky voice. “God, I can feel them... they're so...”

“Vacant,” I supplied in a flat voice. These dead were different. I didn't like it. At. All.

Bobbi nodded in tacit agreement. Clyde stood behind her, a head taller and wrapped a beefy (and perfect) forearm around her waist.

He hissed at the flock and the one who had appeared first cawed like a crow, its rotting eyes fixing on Clyde, recognizing him. The sound of it thrummed deeply within that power still roiling underneath the surface of my being.

It was a rooster.

Just then, the Js rolled up to the front door. The birds, instead of acting like live birds and getting out of the way stood there staring at the approaching car and stayed.

Jonesy plowed over one, feathers and chicken zombie guts getting in the spokes of his wheels like plaque in teeth.

He'll be flossing that out of there for forever, I thought, my gaze coming to rest on the chickens standing like feathered sentinels in my zombie's yard.

Wow... just wow.

Jonesy cranked open his door and gave a look of profound disgust. “What is this trumped up shit, Hart?” He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. “I mean, what?” he began, flailing his hands around as John came around the front of the car to inspect the entrails now wrapped in the grill and tire wells.

“You've been done with probation for three and a half seconds and you raise goddamned chickens?” he asked incredulously.

John clucked at me. “I expected more, really,” he said with a small Mona Lisa smile. Straightening, he plucked a feather out of the grill and sent it flying like a small spear into the air. It stabbed the ground directly in front of the original chicken... that I now knew was a rooster.

“Hey look, Terran,” Jonesy began and waggled his eyebrows and John frowned. We both knew something inappropriate was going to happen but Jonesy was too unpredictable to fathom so we waited for the bomb to drop.

“You got a cock in your front yard!” he yelled into the still neighborhood, bent over at the waist and laughing until tears streamed out of his eyes at the lone rooster surrounded by hens.

John's small smile became a grin and Clyde frowned.

“I do not see the source of your amusement,” Clyde said in his droll way, giving me a look that said is he really saying this?

Yes, yes he was, I thought and Clyde sighed in annoyance. Jonesy sorta got old Clyde riled up.

“I think, young sir, you're missing the greater point,” Clyde said, trying for logic. That only made Jonesy whoop harder.

Huh.

“Knock it off ya pudwacker,” I said.

John rolled his eyes, shoving Jonesy into the side of his car and the pulsealarm started to wail. “Hey Terran, ya dick!” Jonesy said, fumbling his thumb onto the pad and disabling the alarm.

John stepped forward, keeping a wide berth around the chickens.

“What's going on?” he said, then added, “I mean... besides the basic fact you have a couple coops' worth of zombie chickens.”

I couldn't help it, I gave a snicker at that and Jonesy said, “See?”

And Clyde looked at me, giving a deserving frown my way. I sharpened up, telling the Js what happened.

“Ah... okay, Hart. You're off the hook. I thought you'd become an imbecile and started raising barn animals.” Jonesy looked around dramatically. “Speaking of which, where the hell's Alex to razz about that happy crap?” Seeing no one else to abuse with his sarcasm he huffed.

“Okay, you need a ride and now you have to clean up the farm, man.”

I smiled. “I think I can handle a few chickens.”

Jonesy looked at the roaming fowl, getting a look of distaste again. “They're freakin' creepy Hart.”

And zombies were so normal.

John laughed and then mumbled “Sorry” to Clyde.

“It's quite alright, young man. I am willing to be magnanimous this day as I have been restored.” He graced me with a grin of pride and gratitude and I felt a little heat rise to my face. Clyde's pride in me mattered. I know it was weird, him being a zombie and all but Clyde had become like... family. Truthfully, he was in a way I hadn't gotten straight. Too many issues, not enough time to solve all the mysteries.

“Yeah man, you look a buttload better,” Jonesy said. John tried to soften the horror of Jonesy's compliment. “You look good, Clyde.”

“Thank you Mr. Terran.” His eyes swiveled to Jonesy's. “And I think... thank you as well.”

“You betcha! You're our number one zombie, Clyde. We can't have you running around rotting. Makes Caleb look bad.” He was so earnest but I could tell Bobbi had reached her end.

“Thanks Jonesy, why don't you wait in the car?”

“Am I being dismissed?” Jonesy asked in surprise, his dark hand splayed against his muscular chest.

Gale appeared to ponder her answer.

For like four seconds.

“Yeah,” she said and Clyde gave a smirk.

“Well damn! Okay, ingrates. I was the chauffeur and...” he looked over at my car. “Hey! You didn't even need a ride.” Jonesy turned accusing eyes to mine.

“I was thinking we could meet here, Jones.”

His eyes rolled in his head, just two spots of white in his black face. “Whatever,” he said, giving a subtle adjust of his package and John about died.

Jonesy was so him. There was no stopping him, he was like a force or something.

“What about these stupid chickens?” he said and went to kick out toward the rooster for emphasis and Gale yelled, “Jonesy, watch it! The yard is slick...”

Jonesy was graceful. More than anyone I knew but even he couldn't correct himself on the saturated lawn. His foot slipped from underneath him and he did what everyone does, he tried to break his fall with his arm, the sidewalk roaring up to greet him.

He didn't break his fall, but the sidewalk broke his arm.

And it had been an okay day. Kinda.

Terran and I rushed over there and Jonesy was groaning about his arm, holding the elbow.

One of my dead chickens came over and pecked him right on the hip.

“Shit!” Jonesy hollered.

I turned and the rooster backed off, its eyes meeting mine, then with a slurping noise that was disgusting even to me it sucked the one drop of blood it had managed to rob Jonesy of into its beak.

Clyde's eyes met mine.

These weren't just regular zombies.

“I'll pulse the ambulance,” Gale said, running into her old-fashioned house.

John looked at the chickens then at a writhing Jonesy and said, “He would have to break his arm.”

“Shut your pie hole Terran!”

We smiled at each other, sirens becoming gradually louder as they drew nearer.

I glanced at Clyde and he was slightly green around the gills at the sight of bone protruding from Jonesy's forearm. I thought that was the height of irony, Clyde was a little squeamish. Nice.

I wondered what the EMTs would think when they came on the scene. Fifty zombie chickens, a kid with a busted arm and chicken guts in the grill.

Another day in the life of Caleb Hart.

CHAPTER THREE

now

Jonesy's sour look stayed on his face while the rest of us kept laughing.

“Very uncool, chumps. I mean, it was a spiral, ya doofuses. I could have been Maimed. For. Life,” Jonesy said, folding two good arms in front of himself, one in the soft cast that he still had to wear.

“It was funny, Jones,” Tiff said, crossing an elegant and very girly leg over the other. I watched Terran track it like a hawk. It was all I could do not to laugh. I let the crooked mouth sit there on my face instead. Jade gave me a light punch and hissed, “Not funny.”

“So funny,” I whispered back, thinking of the years that Jade and I had been on the Radar for Friend Scrutiny. Now Terran could deal. He was under a girl's spell like the rest of us poor saps and it was a great moment.

Yes indeedy.

“I can't believe you spiked my mom's punch,” John said in a morose voice.

Jonesy's eyebrows rose. “We can only hope she consumes fifty liters, Terran.”

John groaned and did a facepalm.

“Besides, it will get you guys off the subject of me breaking my wing... and all the uncoolness that was.”

“I don't know, remember when you had zombie shit on it and it covered the signatures?” Tiff said, clearly goading him.

Jonesy opened his mouth for rebuttal when Carson walked up.

No surprise that the asswipe had somehow gotten an invite; his daddy owned half of Kent. I bet the cops were peeking through the window though. He was under some heavy-ass guard.

Tiff tried to hide her tension and couldn't. Terran moved closer to her.

“Hey guys,” Carson smirked and his eyes flicked to Tiff, doing a lingering once-over that clearly undressed her. A light blush rose to her face and I could tell she was restraining herself when Bry walked up and clapped him on the back. “Hey, Hamilton,” he said as Carson staggered forward, and that was saying something, we'd all grown to be tall dudes and Bry had made him stumble with the force of his love tap.

“Why don't you check out some other chick, ʼkay?” He gave the back of Carson's neck a bruising squeeze and Carson swung around, his punch cup's contents rioting dangerously around the rim. I chanced a glance at John, expecting freak out but his face had darkened. This situation had caused the potential of a red stain fest to be forgotten.

It was all about Carson noticing Tiff. Carson being around Tiff.

Tiff scared. Again.

John was pissed about it but maintaining his cool. Shit, I wish I could do that. I would've already incited a riot. I wanted to kill him on principle

Tiff stood up, smirking at the choke hold. She teetered over to Carson. Even with the high heels giving her four inches she was still inches shorter than him. Somehow, Tiff never had looked small. I knew that was a contradiction in terms but this was the girl that had taken down two of the fragment from Clara's world and was jonesing for a third when that Frazier low life had put the whammy on her. My chips were on Tiff. Bry defending her was just icing on a fat cake.

She was still the bravest person I knew. Maybe more now.

Jonesy had shut his trap and was watching the drama unfold with typical glee. He and Tiff should have been twins: she was the one without a filter and a streak of mean.

She looked up into Hamilton's eyes and fluttered her eyelashes.

Fluttered. Her. Eyelashes.

The guys were stunned, it was too much to assimilate. Tiff of the popping gum and psychedelic yawn hoodies... it couldn't be.

Yet it was.

“See Weller, she likes my brand man. See her diggin' on it,” Carson said to Bry as he and John seethed. I knew she didn't, Tiff had a plan.

“I like your brand,” Tiff said, dragging a small finger along the skin of his forearm, her eye contact direct, engaging and sensual. I couldn't believe how she was working him. After what she'd been through with him, it was an amazing thing to witness.

“I want your brand to go away and never come back,” she smiled. She leaned into him like a cat wanting its head scratched. “I prefer my men with dicks, ya know,” she purred.

Oh dear baby Jesus, I thought with a mixture of perverse glee and horror. After what had gone down, she wasn't giving an inch.

And he was going to take a mile.

Bry tensed and Carson moved in, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a hard shake that made her teeth rattle.

I knew Tiff could get out of this but she didn't make a move to stab his inset with her stiletto or anything.

“Help!” she yelled in a pitiful, un-Tiff like yell.

Every male in the room turned and saw the six feet one Hamilton with his hands on a small girl, shaking her.

His dad gave him a look that should have cooked him on the spot and he wasn't the one with the Pyrokinesis.

Hamilton's dad went charging over. Carson dropped his arms from Tiff's shoulders. She began to immediately rub them, with large crocodile tears welling and sliding down her face.

It was Academy Award time.

Carson's dad looked at the fragile looking Tiff and then back to Carson in disbelief. “Why are you laying hands on this girl?” he demanded. His eyes were wide and sick looking as he whispered, “Didn't you learn your lesson?”

My dad strode over to us and said to Carson, “You should leave. There won't be any tolerance for violence here. I believe the appropriate chaperones are outside.”

Joan Terran joined Dad with a sniff. “Yes, as I've mentioned since time immemorial, words shall be used in this house instead of fists.” She cocked her head like a bird before taking a worm. “I will see you to the door now.” She hadn't tasted the punch, I was disappointed to note.

“Dad!” Carson protested, “She was...”

“Not here, Carson,” he said, fuming. He gripped Carson's arm and Dad looked at the guy.

Dad's look was one of pure disappointment. Of course, he had broken his thumb. Nice.

Carson lurched toward Tiff again and she gave a surprised yelp, not contrived like her earlier behavior but a genuine oh shit. The passive fear was reasserting itself and I was sad to see it take up residence again.

Before anyone could react she was crushed against him. He said something to her that only she could hear and then dumped her just as quickly.

John caught her, dragging her against his chest, his forearm covering her throat. “Get out of my house, Hamilton,” John ordered in a low voice. Carson locked eyes with him, a smug smile ghosting his lips.

He turned that look to Tiff, saying, “It's a promise, babe.”

People were quiet after that scene but it was Joan Terran that put it into perspective. “He's an ill-mannered young man.” Then her sharp bird-like eyes fell on Tiff. “Are you quite alright young lady?”

Tiff nodded her head and Joan looked at John. “She just might be able to stand on her own now, John.”

An implied directive was there but John ignored it.

Jonesy and I about died, it was impossible, but John was Standing Up. “Not yet,” he said turning away from Mrs. Terran in clear dismissal and turning around a somewhat deflated Tiff, rotating her carefully until they faced each other.

“I'm so pissed!” she grated. John's brows rose to his hairline.

Unflappable.

“Huh?” Jonesy said. “That was righteous, except for that ending. I gotta ask, did you plan that?”

Tiff nodded.

“Why?” John asked. “He's gone forever now, you should have let Bry handle it.”

“I restrained myself, I wanted to head butt his arrogant ass.”

“I see we have more to work on besides clothes, Tiff,” Sophie said sarcastically.

Bry and Tiff looked at each other and he nodded. “Ya might as well tell 'em,” he said, scrubbing a hand over his buzz cut.

“Tell us what?” I asked, starting to get the alarm bells ringing. Jade and I looked at each other and she gave a subtle shake of her head.

“Well, I wanted witnesses basically. I was being opportunistic,” she began.

Then she told us of such a frightening sequence of events that it stole our breath. It paled John's face. It put thunder on Bry's. And it made every girl quiet.

“So this bozo-the-damn-clown's a stalker?” Jonesy asked. Then he added, “After what happened?”

She nodded. “I figured it started a couple of years ago...”

“When you kept telling him he was without a penis?” Mia said innocently and Tiff grimaced, nodding.

“I guess I could've handled that better.”

The guys didn't say anything, even Jonesy. But yeah... she could have.

“Still though, no guy should be like, following you,” Jade said. She didn't mention The Incident. None of us did.

“What the hell were you doing about this Weller?” Jonesy asked.

“My job, asswipe,” he said good-naturedly. Everyone loved the Jonester. He had a purity about him. He was a social pariah but he was without ill intent. It was a kick ass combo, I had to admit.

“I got a job, I got a girl... a life. I'm out of my house, ya know—solo.”

Bry had an apartment and had actually started his own landscaping business. That reminded me.

“You lose Hamilton as a client?”

Bry nodded.

“Actually, man, he was the first to go. I mean...” He scrubbed his head again and Mia put a hand on his shoulder. He smiled at her and she gave one in return. “He was like a cash cow. Big-ass yard, paid on time...”

“Creepy effing gnomes in yard,” Tiff interrupted in a droll way, her skin still pale from the Hamilton encounter and Jade gave a shiver.

What the hell was it with the gnomes?

“Anyway,” Bry said, shooting a look at Tiff. “I hate Carson's ass and now I'm my own boss...”

“You rich, Weller?” Jonesy asked.

Bry laughed, “Hell no, pal. I'm effing broke as usual.”

Alex had been quiet this whole time. “But there's a freedom with being your own dude.”

Bry nodded, relieved someone got it. “Yeah, I like that part.”

“I thought if I like, got his dander up and all, everyone could witness something. Ya know, my family doesn’t have any money to defend me. If he were to try something again then it would be his rich's daddy's word against mine. And,” she pegged Randi with her hazel eyes, “he kept out of trouble by the skin of his nose all through school.”

Not all, I thought. There was that juvy vacation.

Randi looked uncomfortable. “I did some looking in my mom's pulse records.” A guilty flush rose on her normally coffee-colored skin as she continued with her surreptitious recounting, “There were some altercations but his dad interfered and...”

“They were erased,” Sophie guessed.

Like his attempted rape of Tiff. Can anyone say 'lesser counts?' I wondered without wondering.

“Yeah,” Randi said helplessly.

“Bastard,” I said.

Tiff nodded.

“He's more than that, guys.” We listened and Randi told us what she'd uncovered after Tiff gave her the nod.

Sometimes paranormals weren't the evil ones.

Human nature was.

Jade and I drove home to her new place. She wouldn't get her own coded pulsekey for another week but she'd made me drive by about a hundred times.

I was excited, I'd admit.

It wasn't in Valley Keys. Jade had told me she would never go to that neighborhood again.

I did.

It was almost a compulsion. Sometimes, during the school year I'd go by Jade's old house and it would watch me with its blank windows like soulless eyes as I'd slowly cruise past on my way to get her. I'd turn around before the house veered out of sight and I swear it winked at me. Like it was alive.

Gramps said I had a healthy imagination. Go figure.

Her old house wasn't the only one I'd check on. The Frazier house stood silent and unoccupied. It seemed to be a magnet for the errant trash that was always around.

One day I'd let the Camaro idle at the curb and watched as the wind made small tornadoes out of recycled plastic grocery sacks, outmoded pulse credits, non-PVC cups and other debris. The crap rolled along the brown grass like tumbleweeds, collecting in the dark corners of the house's foundation, the flat roof standing like a frown, the porch a gaping mouth of displeasure.

It didn't bother me, or intimidate me. I kept that last tip of the hat salute from Frazier in my mind's eye. Waiting... always waiting for that other shoe to drop.

There was a nagging part of me that knew he was out there somewhere.

Or some-when, because the shitbag was fragment. I doubted he could go back to the sphere world but the Zondoraes had used the tailwind of Randi's dimensional comet and were skulking around.

They had Parker.

Before graduation, after I hadn't seen him for almost ten months, I let my guard down and stopped cruising that same block, waiting for him to spring out of that angry house like a jack-in-the-box. Or Jack-in-the-crack like Jonesy called it.

It gave me a smile to think of the nickname.

It faded when I thought of what Carson had said to Tiff.

They won't always be here when you need them to be.

Carson was gunning for Tiff. Had been gunning for her. School was over and he hadn't forgotten her school girl taunting, his almost-revenge. Of course, Tiff had laid it where it hurt the most. For Carson, his prick was his pride.

And the awful truth was, he was right.

We couldn't always be there. Tiff's words had proven that.

I knew I couldn't be responsible for plugging the holes of the group's vulnerabilities.

It didn't help my rage issues.

What did?

CHAPTER FOUR

then

senior year

Tiff walked to her locker, pulsereader swinging in a loose grip. It was between classes and she had all the lame ones from prior years satisfied. Now she was taking all underwater basketweaving types now. Autopilot Mode for senior year was awesomesauce squared. The only class that was prerequisite core was AFTD which totally worked because she and Caleb could play catnip with old Dave Smith. It was tight. She'd roll her gum in her mouth like a cow chewing its cud and Smith would have a cow and she'd spit it into the separator. Rinse and repeat.

Priceless.

Tiff was usually pretty good about noticing her surroundings but had let the quiet of the hall lull her into a false sense of security as she made a self-absorbed beeline to her locker.

When Hamilton barreled into her from behind, slamming her into the locker and pinning her against it using his body weight like an effective anchor, she thought she'd pee on the spot.

Tiff knew it was him.

It'd only been a couple of weeks since she'd called him the Dickless Wonder. His lack of a penis was not his fault but Tiff was honor bound to tell him.

Hamilton hadn't forgotten, his eyes followed her everywhere she went since her last jibe. Hamilton had just been biding his time. She bit off the whimper that rose in response to her automatic fight and flight response.

“Bitch,” he seethed, grinding against her posterior.

Gawd... effing ick, she thought with sick revulsion.

However, Tiff had no sense of self-preservation. “I'm not feeling it now either...”

“What?” Carson hissed, pressing his hips into her back. He was such an evil turd.

“Your dick, dumbass,” she said in the slow tones you use with a child or someone that doesn't understand English as a first language.

Snatching a handful of her hair, he slammed her forehead into the locker, and Tiff saw stars.

Shit, not smart on the tongue lashing, she thought in a daze. And horror of horrors, she could feel his dick and it made her armpits sweat. Her heart began beating wildly in an attempt to escape her ribcage. The perv was getting off on hurting her.

No surprise there, the fucking freak.

Tiff let her head tip forward and then used it like a battering ram (it had been very effective with the brothers), launching it backward into his forehead. She had to hop a little as she did it, guessing at his height, ignoring the latent dizziness of the abuse of her head.

She nailed him, and his gross tool and body fell away from her.

Tiff laid a palm on the cool metal of the lockers, a knot of flesh forming above her eye and turned to him.

They faced off: a one hundred fifteen pound, five feet four pissed off girl against two hundred pounds and six feet one of perv.

Just then, students poured out from their portals, released from the classes they'd been learning in. They flowed between the pair, unaware of what had transpired. Carson gave her a shitty smirk and with a finger like a gun, took a shot like a bull's eye aimed at her chest.

Clearly, this was just going to be the beginning of the harassment. He sauntered off, adjusting his junk as he did. Just another day in the park, the bastard.

She clutched her own hands together to stop their shaking from the residual surge of sick adrenaline brought on by the fun little encounter with Dickless.

Tiff stared after his retreating back, wondering how many other girls he'd scared, coerced or worse. Why he was focused on her... she was a pain in his ass. Chicks were throwing themselves at his feet. Good looking, rich... ah—Pyro. Kinda attractive bad boy combo.

Not to her. Bad boys that beat girls' heads into lockers were on her Do Not Date list.

Guys that were mirror-lovers were on the list too. Besides, she had a guy she kinda liked.

That she'd always liked. Tears burned the back of her eyelids with unshed tears. She was scared. And Tiff was pissed that he'd scared her. She was not gonna be intimidated by his punk-ass.

She sure as shit wasn't going to be caught with her head wedged up her ass again. True dat.

Tiff hesitated in the middle of the hall as the teens swirled around her, jostling her with their gear packs. She wasn't sure what to do. Her head was throbbing like a rotting tooth, but she didn't want to alert the guys (especially Bry who would have ten different kinds of cows) that her antagonism had gotten her into this fucked up bind with Hamilton. She had a guilty flash when she thought of saying anything. Nah, she'd take care of it in her own way. She especially didn't want John to know. Tiff wasn't a coward who begged for a guy's protection.

It was somehow easier not to say anything when she knew that any one of them would kill Carson if they knew. It made it easier for Tiff to be brave. She took a deep breath in the middle of the herd of moving flesh, regaining her composure through sheer grit.

She pressed a hand to her head, flinching at the tenderness. Yeah, this was an in-house deal. The group didn't need to know about it. Tiff could handle it. Besides, she'd look like an ass. She flipped up the hood on her screaming pink hoodie and moved down the hallway, her pulsereader clutched in her hand, fighting nausea, her head down like a rudder cutting its path in the water.

After a few meters, Tiff paused, touching a passing locker, steadying herself. She couldn't remember another time in her life when she'd wanted to toss her cookies more than now. Oh yeah, when she and Caleb were working that serial killer thing with the cops.

This was a different kind of puking, though. It was brought on by a chick beater. Look at where his wounded ego had taken him? He was such a small jerk.

When Randi walked up and asked if she was alright, Tiff hesitated. Randi's eyes widened at the purple knob on her brow line.

Maybe just one person could know, Tiff conceded. She'd keep her yap shut, principal's kid and all. Randi would never bend the truth.

Uh... yeah.

Tiff told her and Randi listened, her face a kaleidoscope of reactions as the story unfolded. The last one mimicked Tiff's.

Anger with a chaser of injustice.

An alliance was formed. However unlikely, the two girls became better friends.

Secrets had a way of forging distance.

Especially confidences of the violent sort.

Caleb

Tiff was subdued at lunch and the general table noticed. John especially, his eyes were watching her slumped shoulders closely.

“How'd you get that bump?” I asked casually, eying it up. It looked like somebody had crammed an egg under her skin like a cyclops with a coating of purple on top.

“Hell yeah, Tiff, ya klutz, what's doin'?” Jonesy asked around a slurp of chocolate milk. Tiff flipped him off and he barked out a laugh.

“She hit her head on the locker,” Randi explained, pushing her gross salad around on the plate.

I knew Tiff could answer for herself.

Jade looked across the table at Tiff and opened her mouth to say something as Tiff looked up. “It was a lame fall, I know,” she said with a tight smile.

“Yeah, like a banana peel slip?” Jonesy said, digging around on Sophie's tray for some leftovers.

“Hey!” Sophie slapped his hand, “let me eat my lunch ya pig!”

“Oink!” Jonesy said, stabbing a tater tot off her tray with his spork.

“Ugh!” Sophie cried at his thievery.

“Looks like it hurts,” John observed quietly.

I noticed Tiff's lip give the slightest tremble and her eyes got shiny. “Yeah, it hurt's like a bitch.” She cast her eyes on her tray and pushed food around in an attempt to look like she was eating.

“They've got a level three Organic in the nurse's station today,” Alex said.

We all looked at him.

“Now let me ask why you'd know that, Alex?” Archer gave him steady gray eyes.

“I like to be prepared for stuff.”

I laughed. “Yeah, ya never know around here what fun may erupt.”

“Uh-huh, that's right Hart. Your level of shit slides in one direction.”

“Downhill?” Lewis Archer asked the obvious.

Jonesy pointed his spork at him and said, “You got it, Archer.”

I frowned and Jonesy grinned like a fool. “No offense, Hart, but you're a magnet for violent weirdness.”

Uh-huh, I thought, getting peeved.

I watched as Carson Hamilton strolled up. That was never a good thing.

He balanced his foot on the bench and pegged Archer with a stare. Lewis didn't flinch at the guy who'd tortured him in the past.

Tiff did.

My mind began putting together dots but that almost-realization died when Carson said, “Hey butt-humper.” The comment was aimed like a Bigotry Torpedo at Archer. I wonder if Carson Hamilton got the memo on what assholes bullies were?Probably not.

Extra asshole points for his lack of originality, it was painful to observe.

Archer stared at him. Finally, because Lewis was way brighter than Hamilton, he said, “How would you know, Carson?”

Well, wasn't that just clever as hell, I observed with a sick thrill.

Of course, Jonesy couldn't let Archer fend for himself. He was a homophobe but he didn't dig unfairness; it rubbed his fur the wrong way. And like a cat, he arched and took a swipe at Hamilton.

“Pulse. It. In,” Jonesy told Carson.

“What... ya moron, pulse what in?” Carson asked, totally stepping into the Jonester Logic.

Nice. Move.

“1-800-Reach Around,” Jonesy said, completely pleased with himself. Archer groaned, knowing that was just the tip of the homosexual iceberg.

“He's calling ya a fag, man,” Brody explained, having sidled up behind Carson, honing in on the potential for a violent episode like a vulture circling carrion.

Carson's eyes narrowed to slits as he reached for Jonesy's shirt, his knuckles grazing the big ass cast littered with colorful signatures on Jonesy's forearm.

It didn't help that John had fallen off the cafeteria bench, landing in an ungainly pile on the floor, tears streaming at Carson's expense. As usual.

“Colon cowboy!” Jonesy chortled, barking out a laugh as he neatly avoided Carson's reach. Jonesy even managed to look graceful while using his bulky cast to his own advantage.

“Oh shit,” Tiff said in soft horrified fascination, an odd look on her face while snapping gum like machine gun fire.

“Man-wrangler,” Archer added and Jonesy stopped in his tracks with an open mouth and stared at Lewis. So did Hamilton.

Lewis shrugged at his flagrant surprise. “Gay guys come up with the best G, Jonesy.”

“Nice, Archer,” the Jonester said with open admiration. That cool mutual regard was shattered when the bull that was Carson charged.

“Hell!” Carson trumpeted, stalking Jonesy, “he's fucking gay!” He whipped an arm in Archer's direction. “Why are you telling me what to do?” Carson asked as he inched closer to Jonesy.

Probably because it was so much more fun, I thought, taking a sip of chocolate milk while keeping my body between Carson and Jade. Insurance was key.

“Because, man,” Jonesy answered, pinwheeling in graceful backward arcs, “we know he's gay... we suspect your ass...”

“Deeply suspect,” Alex said with a wink, then added contemplatively, “your ass.”

“Yeah,” Tiff said in a compulsive one word answer, keeping a safe distance as Carson's eyes rested on the third eye above her brows. She backed away further, muttering, “What he said, Hamilton.”

Carson got a weird smile on his face for a moment but turned his attention to Jonesy again. “You!” Carson bellowed, gathering his momentum and charging after Jonesy in a loose circle through the cafeteria. Jonesy swept the loose lunch trays from the cafeteria tables in a trail behind him for Carson to trip over. They clattered like plastic sleet against the floor as the gang watched Carson implode in the cafeteria.

“Chen didn't buy your victim act?” I asked Jonesy outside. All of us were standing underneath the eaves along the perimeter of the school. They were too narrow to help much with the sheeting rain; it bounced up and nailed our shins, soaking our jeans as we stood around.

November in Kent: hovering above freezing and raining. Unpleasant as hell.

“Hell no she didn't,” he said morosely. “I wanna know why that jag-up Hamilton always gets the free card.”

“His dad,” Tiff said softly, not a gum bubble in sight.

“Nah, my mom would nail him if she could tag his stupid ass with something,” Randi said and Alex put a beefy arm around her.

“Tag his ass... hmm,” Alex said with a faraway look.

“Sims! You're killin' me, quit it. Totally not funny, muscle-head,” Jonesy said, drilling him with a look.

“Come on, Jones, it's only three days...” Alex began, trying to console the Jonester, then added with a wink, “It was totally worth it.”

Jonesy grinned at first but then he thought of something, his smile turning upside down. “Yeah but my mom will have me watch Monster Micah,” he said.

Sophie grinned. “I thought you dug Micah?”

“Yeah,” Jonesy turned, sweeping his arm out and thwacking me in the gut with the cast-as-weapon.

“Hey!” I yelled.

“Sorry Hart, watch where you're standing.”

Yeah, right. Freakin' bludgeoning tool.

He dismissed me and turned to Sophie. “She was awesome when she laid around, cooing and drooling, babe.”

Sophie raised a manicured eyebrow, dragging a nail file over her glittering purple nail tips. “Ah-huh—”

“And now she gets into shit. Like my comic books.”

“Oh man, that blows, pal,” Alex said, feelin' it and they high-fived their agreement over Comic Book Destruction by Toddler.

The girls watched with a bored detachment that I found insulting.

Sophie gave a subtle yawn behind her fist as Mia's car drove up.

“See ya dweebs,” she said good-naturedly, with a cascading ripple of purple nails in a farewell wave. She jogged out into the fierce drizzle, her high-heeled boots bringing rat-a-tat-tat sounds to our ears, muffled by the wet cement.

Jonesy watched her leave as she folded into the tin can with a sigh.

Tiff followed his gaze then said, “Put us out of our misery Jones, just ask her out.”

Jonesy scrunched up his face but for once he didn't try to defend himself with the usual lameness and pseudo excuses. “Yeah.” Then, “I don't know, it took me so damn long to figure out I was a one-woman man that now I don't think she'd be convinced no matter what I did,” he said, striking a lone pebble with his sneaker and flinging it into the growing puddles on the sidewalk.

We all looked at Sophie pulling away from the curb with Mia in the Smart Car a.k.a toaster.

Jade said it best, “I think if you showed ya liked her she might see fit to give it a go.”

Jonesy gave a perv hip pop and said, “Give. It. A. Go!”

Jade blushed to the roots of her hair. Somehow, I was thinking she hadn't meant that.

Dear baby Jesus, I thought and got the crooked mouth plastered on my face. I saw the other guys had it too. Like a contagion.

Jonesy grinned, his buoyant nature restored and I gave Jade a gentle squeeze in thanks and she sighed. Of all of the group, Jonesy struggled with anything that resembled the serious. I sure appreciated it when stuff was dire. But day to day... it was time to grow up.

Maybe not all the way though. There was something great about Jonesy. I didn't want that small part to change. Then we'd have to submit to adulthood. Most of us thought that was a last resort.

“Hey, do you need a ride Tiff?” John asked casually.

When it was anything but. John was never casual. He was the most deliberate dude I'd ever met.

Tiff looked up at John and I sucked in a breath, that lump on her head was a humdinger. She cast her eyes down again, moving the dirt on the only patch of dry concrete with a sneakered toe. “Nah... Bry's gonna swoop in here and get me.” Her hair had fallen forward and she looked up quickly at John, remembering what passed for manners for Tiff. “Thanks though... John.”

It was like the rest of us didn't exist. It was just John and Tiff. She never called John by his given name, just Terran. I watched as his hand flexed by his side, deliberating. Then he jumped off that precipice of indecision, taking a swan dive. He lifted his hand in slow motion, caught that stubborn dark blonde strand that had fallen forward, covering part of her face and tucked it behind her ear.

Her hazel eyes stood out like glittering jewels, flecks of green lighting them from within and I watched as they filled with tears.

I saw it.

But they didn't fall. Bry roared up in his beater, setting the moment on its ear. His door was bashed in permanently and as my mind edged again toward that narrow realization I'd had earlier about Tiff, it slithered away again when Bry jogged up, head bent against the chilly rain.

John and Tiff turned like they'd been caught or something and Bry got a load of Tiff's head, his face filling like a thundercloud, impregnated darkness.

“What the fuck?” he screeched. “Tiffie... what happened to your head, hun?”

Now the Weller family was tight so when Tiff took a step backward from her brother we all looked at him.

“What's going on, Tiff?” he asked in a low voice, his hand dropping from where it had hung midair to touch the knot on her skull.

“I tripped in the hall and didn't catch myself,” she said miserably.

“What? Like twelve damn times or something?” he asked incredulously.

John nodded, sensing answers that stood just out of reach.

We were smelling something that seemed off. But Tiff was such a straight chick, we would've never thought she'd hide something this monumental from us.

Damn, I wish we'd known then. It would have given us a head's up for later.

She shrugged, lifting a shoulder. “Let's go bro, I'll tell ya the gory details in the car.”

Then Tiff did one of the bravest things I'd ever seen her do. And that was saying something. Tiff had the heart of a lion.

She turned to John, before he had any chance to figure out what she was doing and wrapped her arms around his waist, briefly pressing her face against his chest and he hesitated for maybe a second then pulled her against himself tightly.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

She fit against him perfectly, I noticed. I was always a little shocked when Tiff got next to one of us guys. She was really small. But when one of us weren’t around to give her petite size scale; she was big, larger than life. It was the Tiff Phenomena.

Then she pulled away, rushing after her brother and slipping through the hole of the window, the soles of her feet the last thing we saw.

Since Gramps had welded the door shut that was the main access. That made my crooked mouth wink back into existence.

John looked like he'd just got nailed with a perfectly executed sucker punch.

Randi and Jade gave each other the girl stare. I walked up to Terran, clapping him on the shoulder. “You in love, Terran?”

“Yup,” he said without hesitation.

I nodded, better to just admit it.

Jonesy looked at John and said, “Join the club Terran.”

John shook himself out of his stupor with a small smile, a guy of few words.

He and Tiff couldn't have been more opposite. Tiff was so loud, bold and without a filter.

“You can't help who you love,” John said, briefly waxing philosophical.

“Amen to that brother,” Alex said, squeezing a red-faced Randi against his side.

“That's what I've been trying to convince everyone of,” Lewis said in his dry way.

Jonesy cracked up. “Yeah Archer, like we need convincing.”

Archer cocked a brow, giving a level stare at Jonesy. “You might not need convincing, but the world at large. Yeah, they sure do.”

The Carson Hamiltons of the world just kept hating. Hating people that were different, that were more. Just hating. They were threatened by anyone that was not like themselves.

We watched the rain come down, soaking the streets outside our school.

“Thank you for distracting that thug,” Archer said and Jonesy smirked at the word.

“You betcha. I'm the only one that gets to make fun of your gayness, Archer. He was being presumptuous,” Jonesy said, trying out his vocab on the unsuspecting Archer.

Lewis cocked a brow then smirked. “Too true, Mark. But I am grateful nonetheless.”

Jonesy came over and wrapped his cast around Archer's neck. “Anytime pretty boy.”

Lewis smiled at Jonesy who waggled his finger at him. “Don't get any ideas, pal.”

“Oh no Mark, I will have no ideas. You see... I don't think.”

John barked out a laugh and the awkwardness of Terran and Tiff, Sophie and Jonesy; his three day vacation for defending our gay friend, well... it washed away with the rain that fell.

Jade and I took off, my coat covering our heads as we headed to the Camaro. When Jonesy pulsed me about getting together because it was Friday I sent a return pulse that was the most important of my life thus far:

Nah, I'm spending it with my hot girlfriend, dumbass- CH

I got ya, Hart winks- Jonesy

The time was finally right. For me it had been right for awhile but for Jade she needed to be ready and that's all that mattered in the end

Jade.

CHAPTER FIVE

then

I don't know how other guys felt when they had sex for the first time but I was so nervous I had Ball Shrivel.

Jade and I were in her room in the foster housing, a place that held twenty different minors. You had to be between the ages of sixteen to eighteen with no living relatives. Voilà, that was why Jade was here.

Things had finally settled down after Brett's death, her family's extermination, and though Frazier roamed free, there had been almost a solid three months of actual peace. A first for us, I think.

No insanity drug lingered in her system, I wasn't raising road kill anymore, things had been notably silent on the Graysheet front. Clyde was back to his normal steadfast self....

So here we were, breaking in her new space.

I thought we'd robbed ourselves of spontaneity a little with planning it like we did, but after over two years of being together the time was right and we'd set aside the night to come together. Important things were worth waiting for, celebrating.

Unfortunately, I tended to over think things. I guess I had my parents to thank for that.

I couldn't turn off my brain. All these questions came to mind: would I hurt her (yes), would we still be okay once that threshold had been breeched? (I hoped.)

“Stop thinking, Caleb,” Jade said (probably saw my eyes rolled up in my head as the first clue, then the pre-Exorcist head spin to follow).

She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her soft lips to mine and my anxiety slid down a notch.

“I want it to be perfect,” I said against her mouth. She was an evil girlfriend, distracting me with her lips.

It was alarmingly effective.

I pressed my lips away from her mouth, working toward her neck and lower when she said, “It is perfect, Caleb... look around.”

I wasted a glance on the room, noting our position on the third floor which was a special flavor of amazing, given I wasn't sharing anything with anyone but her, our privacy was secured. The candles I'd snuck over here stood at fragrant attention on every horizontal surface. The flames flickered when the gaps in the old windows allowed the air from outside to infiltrate.

A cut crystal vase held a dozen roses; all lavender with a single, inky black bud in the center.

It was kind of an awesome move for me. It had been worth pulling out every romantic stunt I could think of and ones I couldn't. For Jade.

She hadn't looked very hard or she would have seen the velvet box with a little something inside it.

Or a big something.

It was really just a token of what I felt for her. It wasn't enough but it'd have to do.

It'd cost me my summer's wages as a Yardwork Minion.

Again, worth it.

I dragged her so close to my body there was no separating where she stopped and I began. We came up for air and I grunted out my question for the tenth time, panting between the words, “Did you get the birth control?”

“Yes, shhh... they gave me the pulsedose last month.”

“Okay... it's not that I wouldn't take care—

I know you would, remember?”

Her hands were under my shirt, her palms erotic handles gripping my ribs, my breathing hitching with her touch.

There was no hiding my intent from her. My love.

My burning desire.

I'd never wanted to be an Empath but in that moment I would have given quite a bit to know how she felt.

“I brought a condom...”

“No, I told you, that's why I got the dose.”

“What about safe sex?” I asked, hanging on to logic with a white-knuckle grip.

“I am safe, you are safe. We're virgins—”

“Barely.” I smiled and pressed another kiss down between the silky skin that separated her magnificent breasts. Her skin was like velvet, I nuzzled there for a minute, enjoying the softness that was Jade.

Jade leaned back into the hand holding her head and whispered an answer, “Yeah...”

“Not for long?” I asked while blowing hot breath between the soft mounds and she groaned, gooseflesh rising in response to my attempt at sensuality.

It seemed to be working pretty well. Of course, we'd been practicing a lot.

“No, not for long,” she agreed. Her green eyes opened and looked into mine. “I need this, Caleb. If I don't have full contact my first time will be marred by losing the full experience.”

Like I'd argue that.

“I heard that, stud,” she grinned, getting the run of my emotions through our contact.

Busted.

I kissed her until she stopped smiling and began giving me back what she was getting.

Jade launched herself around me like a small monkey, her legs wrapped around my waist and I did a swaying quick shuffle stagger to the bed and put her gently on it.

Her legs were still around my waist.

I couldn't get tired of that.

I tore my shirt off by the collar, ripping it off my head and she giggled. My eyebrows rose and she said, “I like the view even if you take your shirt off funny.”

And guys fold the toilet paper while girls crumple... the gender difference wasn't just anatomical. I gave a mental shrug. “You find me amusing, then?” I leaned forward, my bare chest pressing against her already unbuttoned blouse . Her lacy deep pink bra made an offering of her boobs.

They looked good enough to eat.

Hey, bright idea, I thought and removed the pin striped long sleeved shirt the rest of the way and she stared at me, her eyes green pools of heat. For me, for what we were gonna do.

“I love you, Jade,” I said, never meaning anything more in that moment than I did that sentiment.

“I know,” she whispered back.

She didn't need to tell me back, her eyes did. It was her trust that I most relished. Here was a girl, half naked and vulnerable beneath me, who had been neglected, emotionally and physically abused for most of her life. And it was me she was giving herself to. Me. That was greater than the love I saw shining for me. Her trust.

I would never let her down.

When we were down to our underwear she grabbed my wrist as I was sliding her panties off, a hot pink strip that had less material than a hair band.

“Are ya okay?” I asked, pressing a kiss to her belly button and she sighed.

“Yes... just go slow.” I could see her anxiety and I responded, “Ya know I will. I'm a guy, I want it to be good for you. In fact, look what I have?” I waved the little tube back and forth like a small flag of celebration.

Jade laughed when she saw the travel-sized lube in my hand and I waggled my brows. “I want this to be as good as possible.”

Jade trailed her fingers down my arm, lacing our fingers. “Thank you.”

When her panties were clenched inside my hand and I'd done some prep, I lay between her legs, supporting my upper body with my elbows, our chests kissing close. I looked into her eyes, using my free hand to push that black hair away, her eyes tight with anxiety and with a desire that matched mine.

“I can feel how much you want me...” she said in a breathy voice.

I thought that was funny.

“Can't miss it, babe,” I restated logically with a grin.

“No,” she whispered and put her small hand above her heart. My obvious physical desire pressed between us but she felt my urgency through her Empath skills.

I simply nodded, anything else would be a lie.

“How can you not go faster?” she asked, searching my eyes. “I feel how much you want to be... inside me.”

I thought about it, my desire throbbing to do just that, for us to be connected in that last, intimate way. After a few moments I finally said it plainly, “I love you more than I want you.”

We looked into each other's eyes for a heartbeat more, our bodies suspended together within that moment of realization.

And then I was pressing inside her, the heat of Jade gripping me like a precious velvet glove of slickness and warmth.

When I came to her barrier Jade gave the smallest nod at my hesitation and I pressed deeper inside her in a single rock and Jade cried out. I stilled, terrified I'd hurt her. That froze me in place and then her eyes met mine. Her expression was different than I expected... wonder, pain and need mixed inextricably together.

“It hurts but it's wonderful, Caleb...” she said, pushing her hips against me, meeting our bodies more deeply together.

So I did it again, slowly pulling out and rocking inside her.

Jade began to meet my rhythm until I couldn't maintain it any more, the sweet torture of her beneath me was a frenetic exquisiteness I didn't want to end. When my own release came I shuddered above her, the most powerful, mind-blanking sensation I'd ever known overtook me and Jade groaned underneath me in ecstasy.

For my release had been shared as if it were her own.

We came together in more than the physical, our minds' mutuality combined for a shattering few seconds of unified heaven.

It changed everything.

And nothing.

after

Once I knew the secrets of Jade's body it was more of a challenge than I thought it'd be. It was as if I'd opened the floodgates and every look, every touch, everything was just... so much more.

We laid by each other for hours until I knew my parents would begin to worry I'd died if I didn't drag my ass home.

“I don't want you to leave,” Jade whispered into my chest, her head tucked inside my arm as we lay on the bed together.

I lifted our entwined fingers and looked at her beautifully shaped and delicate hand inside my bigger one and I sighed, slightly frustrated.

“I don't want to go either. But I have to.”

“I know,” she said quietly and I was struck by how wrong it felt to leave her. I thought of the power a woman had over a man. It wasn't just the sex, if there was love too; it was a deadly combination. I was her little slave, I knew it; I don't think she did.

I gave a slight smile and she asked, “What?” with a laugh.

“I was just thinking I'm your sex slave now,” I said without regret, it was a new reality.

“I like that, it's a perfect role for you,” Jade said in a droll way.

I turned on her quickly, tucking her underneath me and laying slightly above her. She gave a squeal and our grins faded as I saw the look on her face, a mirror of my own.

“I know what my first sexual favor shall be, my prince,” she said with a slight pout to lips that were swollen from my kisses.

“Oh? My queen,” I said, jerking her even closer and she gasped in anticipation. “What is your first command?” I asked with soft innuendo, licking and pecking along her jaw.

She told me and I rose above her and stared. “Really?” I asked.

Jade nodded.

I spent the next hour doing all she asked.

“Hart,” Jonesy said.

“Hart!” Jonesy repeated

I swung my face toward his. “Huh?” I said, wolfing down my second sandwich.

“Are ya okay? Shit, you've been such a tard lately. It's like someone pulled the plug.”

“That's an old one,” Alex said, scooping up his fourth sandwich.

I grunted a response. I was eating, nothing stopped the Mow.

Jonesy rolled his eyes. “I was outlining the plan ya doofus, and you're zoning or some shit.”

“Language cretin,” Gramps said smoothly, rolling up to the picnic table with two bags of chips.

“You have a good case of worms or something, Mr. Sims?” Gramps asked as Alex jammed half a sandwich in his craw.

“Or something,” John muttered.

He was one to talk, he was on his fifth sandwich, I thought. Archer was delicately and deliberately eating through some potato salad and had declined on the sandwiches.

Gramps eyed Lewis. “Ya sure you don't want more than some tater salad?”

“Yes I am, thank you,” Archer said and Gramps stared at him with open suspicion. “It's a little strange that you don't like sandwiches, Lewis. It's unAmerican.”

Archer cocked a brow, taking a sip of his pop that he'd unloaded into a glass on the pretense of culinary manners. He lifted his shoulders in a subtle shrug.

I was pretty sure Gramps knew Archer was gay but had elected to focus on his lame eating preferences instead. It was way weirder than his gayness.

I dug a guy that was man enough to make allowances for others. If nothing else, he'd taught me that. Gramps was more concerned with integrity than sexuality.

“So this is a Man Day, guys?” Gramps said, gesturing toward the lake with his mayo knife. The lake bed was now empty with the season, jagged wood stumps like angry prisoners climbed out of the patches of low water left from summer.

The rain blasted down, hammering everything.

It was kinda depressing. It took a special constitution to live in the Pacific Northwest. It rained November through March and liked to not commit to snowing. It made outdoor stuff a hassle. We didn't let it stop us from sitting on the covered deck in the forty degree weather and watching the rain come down as we engulfed three loaves of bread and an entire sub pack of luncheon meat at the picnic table.

“Caleb?” Gramps said.

“Huh?” I responded.

Gramps looked at the other guys. “What's wrong with him?”

What?

I had been kinda thinking about Jade.

Actually, she consumed my thoughts now. I thought I'd been distracted by her before.

That paled to my new reality.

“He's all love-struck...” Jonesy said, making smooching sounds and trying to make out with the arm that wasn't in the cast.

Huh, maybe I could break the other one. That made me laugh thinking about the Jonester in a pair of casts.

Terran smirked at the comment. I narrowed my eyes on him and he sobered up in a hurry. He really couldn't play innocent since he'd been chasing a weird-acting Tiff around for the last week. Not that it'd gotten him anywhere.

“Jade?” Gramps asked.

“Yeah, Gramps, who else?”

“Maybe you became a player overnight?” Gramps said, throwing the pass.

In my shock, I fumbled it. “What... uh no. I'm... she's... ugh!” I said, sounding stupid.

Alex jabbed a finger into the air. “Flag on the play! Your grandpa is not allowed to use teen verbiage.”

I kinda agreed but...

Gramps' brows shot down above his eyes. “Would you prefer 'old guy' speak?”

Alex thought about it. “Can ya just talk like a regular adult?”

I actually covered my mouth on this one, it was beyond crooked and making its merry way to crippled.

Grandpa pegged his hip with the hilt of the knife, palming his chin and staring up at the upper deck joists, appearing to be deeply in thought. After a few moments where Jonesy's Cheeto hunt was the only noise, Gramps finally said, “No.”

Alex laughed. “You're something, Mac.”

Gramps laughed. “You keep that in mind Sims, it might save your muscled ass in the future.”

Alex just shook his head. Gramps had a point. He swiveled away, whistling as he favored his leg a little from the damp weather.

“Those pricks put a hurt on your Grandpa,” Archer said.

My brows popped at the strength of his words but the other guys nodded.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“I bet he still has a can of whoop ass,” Jonesy remarked casually.

I gave him a speculative look. “Yeah,” I repeated. Of course Gramps could still take care of shit.

Wow, could he. As it turned out. He'd saved all our asses, collective and otherwise. On that day, he was just Gramps though.

Life had a way of capturing you and forcing maturity down your throat in a gag-worthy feeding.

I was getting ready for a feast I didn't know about.

A banquet.

“Ya bunch of Nancy-boys,” Gramps said, wiping down a perfectly clean counter with his washrag while steam rose from the soapy water as it filled the basin of his kitchen sink.

He drilled us with those deep slate blue eyes of his, wiping red and chapped hands off on his apron.

Which never made him look like a pussy. Hell, if I wore that I'd never live it down. But Gramps could take everyone.

I looked at Alex.

Maybe not him.

“Ya all roar over here, park your lethargic asses at the table like a cloud of locusts, inhale my food then proceed to moon and whine about the girls.”

Yup, that about covered it.

“What happened to Man Freedom?” Gramps asked, the soap from his scalded hands dampening the sides of his apron.

“What's a Nancy?” John asked, deeply troubled by being called a name that sounded somehow creepy and female.

“Sissy-suckin'-titty-baby,” I extolled.

“Oh well, that's so flattering,” Archer said, bringing his potato salad bowl to the hot water and putting it into the sink until it was buried by suds.

“If the shoe fits...” Gramps said, whistling tonelessly while we shifted our weight.

“Go!” Gramps said waving us away. “You could have stayed and had junk food and played pool. Now that's a respectable pursuit of one's time.”

Usually that sounded good. But I couldn't get Jade out of my mind. She and the other girls were having some Chick Hang Fest where they broke out all the girl accouterments and the guys got scarce. I just wanted to do a quick check.

Gramps called me over as the guys stumbled into the driveway, the rain was a steady drizzle but it'd still soak you to the skin. It was deceptive: rain in Washington was wet.

Hardy har-har.

“Spill it, champ,” Gramps said.

I shrugged, jamming my hands in my pocket, I couldn't hide a thing from Gramps. “I just can't shake the feeling of impending doom,” I said.

Gramps grinned. “You're such a morose kid, pal.”

I smiled. “Yeah.”

“You've had so much excitement here lately that you're like Pavlov's dog: conditioned for chaos.”

I nodded my head. It was true, Pavlov's dogs had understood that when the bell rang, they'd get their supper. So they'd start drooling at just the chime of that bell.

Well, I'd gotten used to shit going down that was A) always bizarre, B) usually dangerous and C), a personal favorite, life-changing.

Things were calm. Like when I was little and would gaze out the window when pewter clouds formed, pregnant with rain and the oncoming storm. But not a leaf stirred, the wind only a promise.

My life felt like that.

That a storm was coming and I didn't know from which direction.

“Ya gettin' one of those feelings again?” he asked, screwing his eyebrows together.

I nodded. I had a little half-point Precog thing happening. It wasn't enough to really do anything with. It was just enough to make me feel uneasy.

Though it had never been wrong.

“You're economical with words, kid,” Gramps said, peering up at me now that I was two inches taller.

I was. I spoke when it mattered.

“Yeah well, that's okay. People can wonder if you're stupid but let's not speak and remove all the doubt.”

He clapped me on the shoulder then said quietly, “You know how to get my attention if ya need something, right?”

I did. “Yeah. Thanks Gramps,” I said and gave him a fierce hug.

It surprised him and he hugged me back.

I had a hard time saying what I felt but he saw it on my face.

“I love ya too, Caleb.”

He so got me.

I turned and walked off feeling worse with my sense of foreboding deepening.

I wanted to see Jade.

Needed to.

I slid into the Camaro, low to the ground, I was practically laying down and Jonesy said, “Come on Minion of Jade, let's go see what the chicks are doing.”

Yeah.

John's eyes met mine from the back and he gave a nod.

Tiff had a rainbow of healing going on above her eyes. The knot was gone but the haunted look in her eyes remained.

None of us believed the falling story.

But what was happening? Was there some kind of domestic violence bullshit in the Weller household? That didn't agree with what we knew.

It was confusing as hell.

As my eyes met John's I relaxed my hold on the worry, smoothly handing most of it to John without words. Tiff was someone he wanted to worry about. And he had that look on his face. When we were little kids he'd get that same look on his face, a look of quiet introspection.

He was puzzling through something.

Terran hadn't met a puzzle he couldn't solve.

So whatever Tiff was hiding, it wouldn't be hidden for long.

John's solving wheels were turning and they wouldn't stop spinning until he figured it out.

That time was coming.

Sooner than any of us knew.

CHAPTER SIX

now

Jeffrey Parker

“I won't do it,” Jeffrey said in a flat voice.

“You've screwed things six ways to Sunday, Parker. Now,” Gary Zondorae's eyes drilled Parker to the spot. “I have the word from our boys that steer the helm that you'll cooperate or we'll move against Hart again.”

Jeffrey didn't want the boy touched. He knew from their covert surveillance that Caleb's life had actually come to some sort of crazy balance.

Parker answered the question with one of his own, “What about Frazier?”

Joe looked at his brother then again at Parker. “We're not sure but he's managed to go off-grid.”

Well wasn't that a clusterfuck, Jeffrey thought. He was beyond rogue. The brothers' little experimental Manipulative was running around, absorbed into the populace.

Or perhaps he was absorbing the populace. Jeffrey raked a hand through his hair, huffing out an exasperated sigh.

“That has to be a level thirteen priority,” Jeffrey announced, his eyes shifting between the corrupt sibling pair.

Level Thirteen was a total clean. Elimination. Erasing.

Gone.

Joe nodded. “Oh yes, he is slated for Thirteen.” Then he added, “He has to be found first.”

Parker sighed again, scrubbing his face. “You're the scientists,” he said in exasperation. “Tag a Locator to his dumb ass.”

“It's not that easy.”

Parker gave a snort. “Let me get this straight: you followed the Dimensional girl back to this world.” He raised his eyebrows and was met with sullen regard. “Then that idiot Manipulative that you created somehow escaped into this world? If he'd been left in the Sphere-world we would not have to deal with him. He'd be the fragment's problem. And that brings to mind another horror story.” Jeffrey paused for effect. “Those criminals now roam the middle ground of that world, gifted with abilities they shouldn't have. What are you going to do about that?”

Gary looked uncomfortable but that made no difference to Parker. He enjoyed holding these two chumps accountable. “Mark Jones destroyed the pathway with his Electromagnetic interference...” Joe began in a whine.

“Whatever,” Parker said dismissively. “I know if you could easily construct another that you would. But you just don't know exactly how you began it, do you boys? You used a ripple in the space/time continuum, snatched DNA from a people you should have never been able to know existed, spliced it all to hell, and injected the nation's children with a cocktail that has now come full circle to bite you in your arrogant asses.”

“We will watch you burn, Parker,” Gary said in a voice that held promise, his eyes narrowed.

“Sticks and stones, Zondorae... sticks and fucking stones.”

Joe looked at him. “Mark our words. They need you now but when your usefulness is no longer necessary you will be expendable.”

“Maybe,” Parker agreed, “but until that time you have to put up with my thoughts.”

“Not if we keep you busy. A busy necromancer is an occupied and distracted C-M.”

Jeffrey didn't like those words. What were these jerks cooking up now?

Gary tried to play nice and it came off like a turd soaked in chocolate. He offered the olive branch anyway. “We all want the same thing: Caleb Hart.”

Jeffrey knew that they wanted Caleb for a different reason than himself.

Joe held up the glass slide that had the genetic coding that marked the paranormals. “The Key from the sphere-world is all here in this little chunk of crystal. If we can get a molecular sample of Caleb Hart, who holds the code for many of the basic DNA strands, we could establish an antidote. It's never been possible before.”

He knew that was a barb at his ineffectiveness in acquiring Hart in the beginning, in that long-ago moment of the cemetery. Jeffrey let his head hang, his hands going to his hips as he breathed deeply through his anger.

“Why did you do it then? Weren't you thinking of all the innocents?”

Gary smiled. “And you cast the first stone?”

Jeffrey flinched and the brothers saw it. “I have done things I'm not proud of. Know this: I was fifteen when I was taken...”

“Out of such a successful domestic circumstance,” Joe observed.

Jeffrey nodded. “I know that it was less than ideal. It is true: I am not beaten here, I have no alcoholic caretakers. I am necessary.” His hazel eyes met theirs in a glare, “nevertheless, my lack of freedom has come at a high price, it serves as a form of abuse to me.”

Gary shrugged then answered, “But you're all grown up now and our masters wish for us to fetch the bone, Parker. There will be some whom escape the net of our antidote, true, but the heat is on. If we can corral the Americans that have been inoculated, the majority would then become mundane again and the ones who slipped through the cracks would eventually be so few in number as to not effect the population at large. A minority population alone.”

“Simple,” Joe affirmed.

It never was, Jeffrey knew.

“It doesn't give us Frazier. I can take care of him but I'll need... resources.” Jeffrey suddenly grinned, an epiphany striking him between the eyes. “You guys have to be in the doghouse if you're using me.”

They were silent. Then, “We have our orders: prepare an antidote, using the spliced DNA from the Key and the Hart boy.”

“Does the head scientist know that his son's DNA was special?” Parker asked.

Gary shook his head. “We thought it was an excellent 'hide in plain sight' tactic.”

Right, Parker thought, inject Hart with the wild card genetic mess because no one would ever think to find it within that host.

What a colossal mess.

Jeffrey Parker knew one thing, Caleb Hart's time of peace was coming to an end.

Parker moved to walk out through the eighteen inch thick stainless containment portal.

“Wait,” Gary called out.

Parker turned, his face in profile, sharp angles met their hard stares. The three of them were engaged in an uneasy quest for the same goal.

“There is another powerful five-point that has been identified.”

WTF? Jeffrey stuttered in his mind. “What? Frazier isn't the only Manipulative you jackasses created?” he asked, his face a wash of anger mixed with shock.

“She's not a Manipulative,” Joe said.

“You're killing me... just spit it out.”

“AFTD,” Gary said.

“Oh fucking swell.” Jeffrey paused then laid it on them, “So let's recap: I need a powerful Locator.” He began to tick off his points on his fingers. “I'm definitely going to need a Null for stupid Frazier who can cook my brain with a word... and now there's some girl running around... what? Exhuming entire cemeteries of their wards?”

Joe shifted his weight. “Actually, she's not a stable sort.”

Parker barked out a laugh. Could this get any fucking better? he wondered.

“Didn't weed out the whackjobs? She has a bucketful of crazy then, guys?”

Gary scowled. “Psychological testing is effective with the general population.”

“What are you saying?”

“She's got a genius IQ,” Joe admitted reluctantly.

Fucking superb. “So we have a really smart, loony tune, five-point AFTD.”

“Yes, that is about it.”

Jeffrey's eyes narrowed on the pair. “What did she do?”

Joe cast his eyes down. “When we tried to contain her, she plowed through ten agents.”

“Yes, that is about it.”

Jeffrey whistled- nice going, he thought silently to the unknown girl.

He contained his mirth badly and Gary said, “Knock it off, gloating about their deaths isn't helpful.”

Parker was not a real big fan of what Caleb affectionately called the Graysheets. They had killed his miserable family, after all. It felt like a bizarre kind of justice to him.

“But it feels fucking fantastic,” Jeffrey acknowledged easily.

Joe sighed. “In any event,” he began, giving Parker a long-suffering pause, which Jeffrey ignored as per usual, “she has incapacitated her pulse-sensor and is untraceable.”

“No shit?” Jeffrey asked, stunned.

“She did self-surgery...” Gary confirmed.

“Wow,” Parker breathed. That was impressive as hell.

“That by itself should be part of the identification process.”

“That and the smell of rot,” Parker quipped unmercifully, a smirk growing unbidden on his face. This was rich. They had a corpse-raising sociopath on the loose with a fat brain.

Parker liked it. The assholes deserved her and more.

“There isn't any amusement in this, Parker,” Gary scolded.

“Oh... there's plenty, guys.” Parker paused then continued, “So I locate Frazier, net the C-M that is raising the world and get Caleb to give me a sample?”

The Zondorae brothers said in unison, “That's it.”

So easy, Jeffrey thought, I always get stuck with the shit end of the stick. “Then I'm through. You won't need me anymore.”

“And you'll be clean, Parker. No more corpses for you.”

“I don't know if I trust the system that far yet. Or that I'll be given the right substance.”

None of them said the obvious. That maybe he'd be fucked over one more time.

The Zondorae brothers wouldn't care, that was for sure.

An uneasy thought came to mind: no one would care. There was no relatives to weep for his death. Except Clyde. And that was almost funny.

It made Parker feel disassociated in his own skin.

He gladly left the slimeball brothers behind.

Jeffrey moved through the various security corridors, using the embedded pulse-sensor disc behind his ear. The pulse-sensor ensured the doors opened just as he needed to pass through.

Jeffrey thought of the mystery C-M digging the disc out of her own flesh.

He gave a little shiver, not easily spooked. I've done some dastardly deeds in my time, he thought with a small smile, but self-mutilation was not one of them.

Sometimes liberation exacted a price that few people were willing to pay.

Their darling AFTD girl had paid in spades.

He escaped the yawning mouth of the Graysheets like a birth gone wrong, the surrealism of his last mission chasing him like the return of Haley's comet.

Right on schedule.

then- senior year

Tiff

Tiff tried to never get caught alone in the halls. She was ashamed at the tremor that started when she drew nearer to her locker and clamped down on her irrational fear ruthlessly.

That fucking Carson had made her afraid.

Which in turn made Tiff mad at herself and ashamed of her physical reaction.

When her shoes became hot Tiff tried to explain it away rationally.

That's what people did when weird shit went down and she was no different.

Except that she was in the girl's washroom. There shouldn't have been anything to explain it.

The pain was unbearable. It felt like someone had stuck her feet in an oven on broil.

Tiff tore off her shoes and threw them into the sink where she'd just washed her hands and the pulse-activated sensor brought the water on.

Her sneakers steamed inside the basin as the room temperature water sprayed over them. Her bare feet slowly cooled on the recycled quartz flooring of the school lavatory. They had reddened from the warmth of the ghost fire that had coated the shoes now smoldering in the basin.

She looked down at her feet; the toenails were hot pink because Sophie had talked her into it. Tiff blinked, sucking in a shaky breath that was just shy of tearful and went to the door of the bathroom, peeking out into the empty hall. She needed to pull up her goddamned big girl panties. Like. Right. Now.

There was no one. Tiff let out another trembling, fear-drenched exhale, shame and anger mingling again.

Somehow she knew that Carson was cooking her shoes. They weren't babies anymore. Hamilton had a level of control that he hadn't possessed when they were freshmen. And she was a nothing but a two-point AFTD. Tiff swallowed past the lump in her throat.

No, he had a handle on shit now and Tiff was on his radar, the asshat. Tiff almost wished she hadn't yanked his chain.

Almost.

She stepped out of the safety of the threshold in a rookie move that made her want to kick her own ass later.

Tiff didn't check behind the bathroom door.

There went the theory on her cleverness.

It wasn't Carson though, it was Diego.

Somehow, that was worse.

“Hey Mouth,” he said, gripping her by the hood and hauling her back behind the door.

Without hesitation, Tiff drove her elbow into whatever was behind her.

“Ugh!” Diego grunted, relaxing his hold on her.

She swung and gave her hardest stomp on his foot. Unfortunately, Tiff was no longer wearing shoes.

It was not as effective with a bare foot and then Carson was on her like a fly on shit. He lifted Tiff right off her feet. She swung her head back against him but he was ready for that move. He was a faster learner than she wanted him to be.

Diego came from the front and Tiff swore she had no breath. She could feel the darkness eating at the edges of her mind.

Tiff fought her fear and it was an ugly matter staying conscious.

This was scarier than hunting a murderer, than raising corpses with Caleb, or traveling to another world.

This was real.

Then Jade came into the hall and saw the three of them in a dance of violence and she did what Tiff could never make herself do.

Jade opened her mouth and screamed like a girl. A clear, high-pitched bell-like shriek.

It was the most beautiful sound Tiff had ever heard.

She almost sobbed in relief even as Carson gave her a pinch that deadened her upper arm.

Tiff gasped at the fresh pain that settled there.

“Don't touch her you... shitbag,” Jade said in a low voice filled with rage, full of experience and Diego strode to her.

“Don't,” Jade said, backing up a step.

Tiff noted she looked very small next to the six-feet plus Diego.

“Or what- you prim little bitch? Ya gonna sick your corpse-humper boyfriend on me? He gonna dump you for a dead chick?” he asked, giving an obscene hip gyration.

Jade gave a circumspect look around for the adults that should be coming and Diego grabbed her by the hair. She yelped as Tiff gave a miserable scream of warning, “Jade!”

Caleb

I listened to Smith drone on about our responsibilities to the dead. How they had been living once.

Yeah, I kinda got that.

I glanced down at my beat up Timex and thought that Tiff had made a career out of the bathroom. She was probably trying to take extra time because we were going over review stuff beginning with: Cadaver-Manipulation Etiquette. She'd be All About missing that lecture.

I figured I'd just practice on Clyde with that. He sure let me know when I got it wrong. I chuckled.

My scalp began to tingle like ants were crawling across my head. It was a case of the creeps.

I sat up straighter in my seat.

I thought about it. I didn't normally get those.

Suddenly Jade filled my mind.

My hand shot up.

The creeps intensified and then my friend Worry crawled up my ass.

Smith folded his arms across his chest. “Yes, Mr. Hart?”

“May I be excused?”

He glanced at Tiff's empty seat, then his eyes shifted to the pulse-clock.

“I don't like two students absent for lavatory trips... however, perhaps you can see what's taking Tiffany so long?”

“ʼKay, thanks.” I hopped out of my seat smoothly and made my way to the restrooms. Just as I was thinking I'd become paranoid, I felt the sensation of crawling insects grow horribly intense just before my hair felt like someone was pulling it out at the roots.

What the fuck?

I didn't think, I ran.

Jade

“Caleb!” Jade shrieked in an agonized wail, her hair torn from her scalp, black strands trailing from Diego's hand.

He backhanded her, spilling her to the floor.

As he jerked her up by her hair again she bit the hand that held her as hard as she could.

“Bitch!” Diego seethed, dragging her behind him as he shook her until her teeth rattled.

“Oh no,” Tiff moaned, feeling guilty beyond anything she'd ever known. She had defenses, Jade did not.

“Drag the bitches in here,” Carson said, indicating the boys restroom.

Tiff fought and was subdued.

In the end, she was not strong enough to get away and was soundlessly taken into the restroom with a bleeding Jade.

Caleb

I threw myself around the corner, my scalp throbbing like a banked fire and saw....

Nothing.

There were no people. It was the middle of the school day.

I closed my eyes and let everything else recede to a pinpoint, my sense of urgency had heightened, not quieted.

The empty hallway didn't fool me for a moment.

The heartbeat of the dead I located in about three seconds, they breathed out of sync with my searching.

Then, faintly a beat of something else captured my seeking fingers. It was familiar somehow. But like a muscle that was seldom used it didn't last for long.

It was the whimper that alerted me instead of my paranormal sense.

Boys' bathroom, I thought, taking three strides to the door and tearing it off its hinges.

Oh shit, I thought upon witnessing the scene in front of me. Carson was on top of a beaten Tiff, his pants long gone.

I ran and things got fuzzy after that but he was beneath me moments later, my fist beating his nose into a bloody pulp.

It was scary how naturally beating came to me.

“Caleb!” Jade cried out in warning as Diego landed on me.

He had the advantage of surprise and rolled me over. He started whaling on me like I'd just done to his buddy Carson.

The call to the dead left me as easily as a sigh.

I didn't know what was coming but... gawd, Tiff... I couldn't think of it.

The consequence couldn't be seen.

It didn't matter.

They came. It was December but the black bears that laid low in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains had yet to bed down for the winter.

One had been crushed by a vehicle that day as twilight made the landscape flat and indiscernible. It was just outside the boundaries of my school, waiting for the road kill pick up crew.

Later I would be told that it threw its body against the door to get to me.

To us.

I slammed a free leg into Diego's chest and his fist glanced off my knee on his downstroke.

I got up on my knees in one motion with blood clouding my eyesight. My hand shot out in a stiff knuckle strike, taking him in the throat and he made a satisfying gagging choke.

Then the bear lumbered into the bathroom.

It saw me and went for Diego, swatting him with a huge paw. He arced, flying into one of the stall doors that was ajar and landing in the commode face down.

Perfect, I thought numbly, spitting out a spray of blood on the ground beside Carson.

Who had decided it was a swell idea to torch my bear.

Until the second joined the first.

I swiped blood out of my eyes and looked for the girls, letting my zombies take on Flame Boy.

Diego was out of commission.

Jade slammed into me the minute I stood and I took stock of her face. “I didn't know,” I said as the bears roared behind me.

“Yes you did, you came,” she cried against my chest and my eyes swept the room.

Tiff.

She was curled up in a corner, her clothes thrown into a pile on the floor.

Oh no, I thought, not Tiff.

Chen burst into the boys' bathroom, took one look at Carson and a cooling water of nothingness flowed from her outstretched hands.

It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of icewater on everything.

Carson's fire stopped.

My bears turned to me, their eyes dead plums in their expressive faces.

They were waiting.

Zombies were hell on time lines.

“Caleb Hart,” Chen said, eying the Wonder Twin Bears.

“In. My. Office- NOW.” Then she looked at Carson, her eyes taking in a half naked and nearly catatonic Tiff.

“The police are coming, you stay where you are,” she said to him.

“Fuck you, Chen,” he said with promise.

She shook her head. “I think it is you who will have that honor, while you're in jail, Mr. Hamilton.”

They scowled at each other and I tucked my distraught girlfriend underneath my arm.

So much for peace.

I took it for the omen it was.

CHAPTER SEVEN

then-early winter

John was such a cool as a cucumber dude that to see his unraveling after the Tiff incident was a slice of surreal I never wanted to relive.

Watching Sophie be solicitous toward Tiff would've been hilarious under different circumstances but now was just sad. Gone was the lippy, sarcastic, fiercely brave girl that had tag-teamed my success with the dead.

Where had Tiff gone?

She couldn't be this shell of a girl who kept her head down and clutched her pulse-reader in front of her like a shield.

John had tried, following her around until she turned on him and hissed, “I don't need a bodyguard, Terran!”

He looked like he'd been punched. I'll never forget his words.

I'd looked at my best friend, his eyes thick with tears that no self-respecting guy would shed and he said, “It's my fault. We should have known this was happening... that bruise, the weird way she was acting...” he began miserably as he watched her small body weave through the sea of kids, the bruises long gone.

Though the scars remained.

I clapped Terran on the back. “I was there, pal. How do you think I feel?” I felt like hammered dog shit, was what. That fucking Diego had laid hands on Jade before I could get there. Of course, Hamilton had a nice scar on his chest from my zombie bear. I'd taken care of Diego later too. I wasn't proud of it, but it got things done.

Life was good.

I shook myself out of my pleased recall and focused back on Miserable John.

John looked slightly down at me from his six feet four plus and said, “I love her, jackass. And I wasn't there. I could've helped.” I nodded, any normal guy could have tipped the scales. Those jerks had been lying in wait for her like predators. Hell... that's what they were. Now Carson was doin' a nice stint in Juvy. Yeah.

“He'll still get to graduate though. Daddy saw to that happening,” John said in a morose tone.

I paused, thinking. I didn't know if I had anything helpful to say. “She's seeing someone John...”

“I know, Caleb. She's seeing some shrink that doesn't know her.” John's voice had gone low in uncharacteristic anger, his hands clenching, bony and large, I got a glimpse of the body that would grow into that frame.

Suddenly he turned to me and asked the question I was dreading.

“Just tell me Caleb... I know Jade knows. Did that fucker rape her?”

What was rape, exactly? Rape was violation, brought on by violence. Did Carson have to penetrate Tiff with his dick for it to be rape? It wasn't a fine line for me. It didn't matter if he put his dick in her or not.

He touched her without permission; that it was sexual made it doubly worse. That it had been driven by violence and stemmed from revenge... well, it was about the lowest a dude could go.

But it wasn't mine to tell, and pillow talk with Jade wasn't fair to repeat.

I thought about how many tearful conversations we'd had about what Jade had seen... what she'd narrowly avoided because I'd luckily gotten there before Diego had done anything to her.

Yeah, I kinda knew. It made my heart try to escape my ribcage with the near miss it'd been. Thinking about another guy doing what Jade and I shared in love... in hate.

No, I couldn't think about it. So I answered John the best I could.

“It's her story to tell man. She'll talk when she's ready.”

His shoulders slumped and he glanced again at the spot where she'd been walking.

The bell chimed its one minute warning for class, discordant and raw, making us both flinch.

“Yeah,” he said softly. Then his next words I'll always remember, “I want him dead.”

I pretended not to hear that.

Sometimes it was better to say nothing when you completely agreed.

Silence was acceptance.

Bry never missed a day picking up his sister. His wary eyes would scan the short distance from the sidewalk to the large doors of Kent Paranormal High.

He was a tiger waiting for prey.

When he caught sight of Diego a couple of weeks after what happened to Tiff he ran after him. The anger and pain were still fresh wounds for Bry.

“Weller!” I bellowed.

Not that it mattered, he was a bull with a target.

“Alex?” I begged and the Body ran, giving a running tackle at Bry.

“Why? Let me go, dipshit!” Bry roared, fighting without success against a male who was five times stronger than the strongest guy alive.

“Look at his face, man!” I yelled at Bry, while a silent and gumless Tiff stood watching as her brother lost it in front of a hundred students.

Students who wouldn't say jack about another Diego beating. Yeah, he was Mr. Popularity here at KPH.

Finally Bry calmed down long enough to look at Diego who was sporting dual bruises underneath eyes as a result of what Gramps affectionately called pancake nose.

Translation, someone had done a stomp-o-matic on his face.

I wonder who.

I was pleased as hell at the result though: he didn't even look at Jade.

It suited me fine.

Bry looked at the ruin of Diego's face, his sullen glare going from Diego to myself.

“Huh,” Bry gave a sad laugh. “Looks like someone already worked you over, ya loser.”

Diego flicked his eyes to mine and then away, remaining wisely silent.

Weller looked at me with an understanding that was beyond words, a silent Guy Communion if you will.

Yeah, he knew what I'd done. And it had passed muster as Gramps would also say.

“Let me go, I won't bust his chops,” Bry said. Alex's hands fell away and I exhaled hard.

Shit that was close.

“Oh! Too bad...” Jonesy muttered and winked at Bry. He laughed and Tiff came to him quietly and Bry put his arm around her shoulders.

She accepted it with reluctance as he led her away.

Tiff didn't look back at us.

winter

senior year

An uneasy rhythm had developed within the group. Tiff's melancholy reserve had changed the dynamic and we were set adrift, the easy camaraderie that had been in place had shifted to guilt.

Randi was guilty because she knew the truth about the bruise from the locker beating and hadn't realized how serious it was. All the guys would've. It's like girls' self-preservation alarms were busted. I couldn't get over that. They needed protecting, period. Why most didn't see that was beyond my understanding. It was as natural to most guys as breathing.

Except the Carsons of the world. He was broken in a different way.

John was guilty because he had feelings for Tiff. She was wounded from an attack that he felt he should have been able to prevent. He reasoned that if he had laid his claim on her before the event then somehow he would have been with her.

John was the most rational person I knew but somehow there was a Bermuda Triangle where Tiff was concerned. His logic got sucked into whatever nothingness was there. He wouldn't have been able to do dick. Tiff had been using a bathroom pass from a class they didn't share in the middle of the period.

It didn't have to be rational for John to feel the guilt though. After all, humanity wasn't rational. And love sure as shit wasn't.

Jade felt bad because she was shy about going to a teacher first and saying the words: one of my friend's might be in trouble in the hall.

Horrible trouble.

But Jade hadn't trusted her own Empath skills. She thought she'd Check. It. Out. First.

Yeah, that worked out so well.

spring

School was... well schooly. I hit the house running, slinging my gearpack on the hook, giving a slight smile to the ginormous backpacks of the past that my parents had been forced to use. What a first class hassle that would've been. But with Brain Impulse Technology everything had changed. Our gear was a pulsereader and maybe a lunch. Because I brown bagged it, Mom gave me the credits for the ten milks a day I liked to drink.

I should have my own cow.

I scanned the living room, my eyes raking over the colorful afghans all in place over the couches that were a magnet for Onyx Hair and here he came.

I braced myself for the lunge and tackle. That was code for Dog Love.

An inky blur tackled me, his paws reaching my shoulders and the long lick was the same every day.

I gave him a rough scratch under his chin in the sweet spot, now gone white with little hairs as he'd aged.

I didn't know if Onyx would die. He wasn't really all the way alive. Some interesting concepts there.

“Hey boy, how are ya? Did you find any hot female bitches?” I said, feeling clever as hell.

“Are you swearing, Caleb?” Mom asked from the corner of the kitchen.

It's like she had paranormal hearing.

I stood and gave a sheepish grin. “Technically,” I raised my finger in explanation, “female dogs are actually called bitches. You wouldn't want to screw up that fundamental identifier, right Mom?”

Mom glared at me as I grinned.

“I think I must have turned a wrong corner somewhere with you. Sarcasm and splitting hairs were not in the Parent Training Manual.”

“Right, do you have a copy of that?” I asked, pouring on Brat Mode, as she liked to call it, swiping a cookie off the breakfast bar and jamming the whole thing in my craw... easily.

“Hey wolf-boy, slow down. Nobody's going to steal from you!” Mom laughed at my heathen behavior.

“Ya never know!” I said with noisy conviction.

“Uh-huh, you're wasting away...” she smirked, folding her windshield wiper arms over her chest.

I looked at myself. I was the same as I always was. Two hundred pounds and almost six feet two. I had Dad by an inch. He was still hell on the court though. There was something about being a man that seemed to have more mass or something. I'd asked him and he gave me this scientific jumbo about frontal lobe completion and full muscle mass building around twenty-five.

“So, I'm eighteen and not really grown?” I'd asked him.

Dad got that 'wheels turning' look that came before the Scientific Explanation. Shit, I was in for it. Couldn't I have the condensed version?

No. I was totally in the wrong family for that, I realized.

“Well, in your case, with your paranormal constitution it isn't certain what time line you would follow but in young males the frontal lobe is not fully realized until early to mid-twenties. One can only assume critical muscle mass completion would be in sync with that intellectual growth as well.” He shrugged.

“So, I'm a he-she until then?”

Dad guffawed. How was being prepubescent even mildly amusing?

“No, Caleb. You're... a guy.” Dad tried for cool and totally missed it. Forgivable... I guess.

“Consider it a fine-tuning.”

Well that certainly explained Jonesy.

I came back to the moment when Mom asked a question that made my stomach clench.

“How's Tiff?” she asked quietly and Onyx's ears lifted at the mention of her name, which struck me as odd. Mom's hands deftly worked the dough for pizza and I watched, my stomach knotting further.

The Dog smelled his Boy's scent change to one of coiled anxiety and the Dog's dream of catching the small furred creatures that dared to breach the yard halted, his entire focus shifting to the Alpha female and her scent as well.

They were making words of importance and the dog would smell the nuances of the trouble.

It could be pack trouble.

The Dog knew just what to do with that.

He would signal the Dead Ones.

They would come and aid the pack.

I found something to mess with on the counter and turned it over and under in my hands.

Mom waited through my fidget of nerves.

“She's not the same, Mom,” I finally said.

“Well... of course not,” she said, punching the dough in the center and I raised my brows.

Seemed like that dough was getting attacked.

“She's seeing that Nightingale woman?”

I nodded. Dumb name, good woman. Those were our thoughts, the group's. Tiff wasn't herself but she wasn't so... vacant anymore.

I looked at Mom and our gazes locked, we had a moment. She waited.

“She hasn't said what went down. And Carson's in kiddie jail...”

“Caleb...”

I put my hand up. “He's not getting what he deserves, the prick.”

Mom's lips pursed and she punched the dough again.

I'd never seen her do it twice. She all but threw it in the bowl and covered it with the rainbow plaid cloth.

She met my eyes. “He's getting out soon?”

I nodded. His rich dad had greased the wheels and the Weller family didn't have the financial means to fight it all.

I told Mom that and she sighed.

“I have an idea,” she said after a few long moments of silence.

She told me.

“I don't know if she'll go for it.” I thought it was an awesome solution but... Tiff was unpredictable now.

“It'll make her feel more in control. Beating her brothers up and surviving her chaotic household is a lot different than having self-defense skills. And,” Mom said, “I never again want to be in the position I was when Mr. LeClerc paid his visit last year.”

Mom had been taking self-defense classes since that Loser had hit her. That was Mom, proactive squared.

She gave a small shrug, turning on the burner for the sauce as she did. “We women cannot always count on men to protect us.”

I almost laughed out loud. That's the very thing I had been thinking they needed to do.

Mom straightened saying, “After all, it was a man who hit me. It was a young man that attacked Tiff in a place where she should have been safe.”

She had a point, I hated to admit it. I guess I couldn't always think everything through from my perspective. I just couldn't wrap my head around a guy hurting a girl so purposefully.

But it happened.

It did happen. To women I knew and cared about.

I nodded. “Let me handle this, Mom.”

“Okay, you do it your way but if it doesn't work, I'm taking the bull by the horns.”

I cringed. I was definitely motivated now.

In the end, it wasn't me that got Tiff on the right track, it was Jonesy of all people.

Tiff unhinged

Tiff felt good, it'd been months since The Bathroom and she had stopped jumping in her skin whenever that bathroom door squeaked as it shut.

And Hamilton was away.

She even went to the bathroom by herself now. The first time she couldn't breathe, the air felt trapped in her lungs.

Tiff didn't tell anyone that she passed out from hyperventilating.

She did sing to Nightingale about it though. She was kinda stiff but what the doc said made sense, Tiff thought, remembering.

“You've associated the bathroom with the assault, Tiffany. It will always be a trigger for you.” Those clear blue eyes met hers and Tiff shifted her gaze away from that probing gaze.

“Now, let's go over the fainting episode so we don't have a recurrence.”

Fainting episode. Gawd it was all so dumb. “I don't know why I bit it,” Tiff said, her hands straying to where her gum lay, just out of reach by her pulse.

Nightingale watched her nervous twitch and waited.

“Okay, so maybe going there freaks me out,” Tiff grabbed the gum and jammed a stick in her mouth, chewing it like it was a lifeline.

Nightingale nodded, a ghost of a smile playing around her lips. “As it should.”

Tiff tore her gaze off the floor and met the doctor's caring eyes.

It was no bullshit, the doc cared about Tiff. She saw it and recognized the genuineness of her immediately.

They stared at each other and Nightingale said softly, “It wasn't your fault, Tiffany Weller.”

Tiff broke.

She burst into tears for the first time since that bastard had hurt her and Nightingale wrapped her up, holding her tightly.

A tough girl and her Empath doctor.

Two women helping each other.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jonesy

April

My arm was slung around Jade's neck as we paced an easy rhythm through the hall, Easter break had officially begun and I swore that everybody had their head wedged, running around hollering and cheering that school was out for a week.

Jade and I were thinking of all the things we could do to each other in a week.

Well, I was anyway.

John and Tiff were walking together, he acting as her protective shadow. When it had become clear a few months ago that he wasn't leaving her alone again... ever, she had stopped yelling about bodyguard shit.

It just was what it was. And that was all.

Sophie was humming the latest pop tune (badly) as her internal disc was fired up on whatever... loud as hell, and we were suffering.

A singer she was not.

Then she drowned us with the exterior sound. She'd recently gotten an app that let the music come out of her mouth.

Kinda like the karaoke of the past, pulse style.

That's when Jonesy came up out of nowhere and did the typical launch at unsuspecting people thing. He was expert at it and today's target was Tiff and John.

I thought later that it had been more about the general mood of the school; Jonesy had been swept up in the euphoria (imagine that) and wanted to suck up whatever part of the group he stumbled on.

Sophie's music was loud and it aided in Tiff not hearing Jonesy's approach.

There were a million people everywhere so he was just another person in the crowd.

He swung both arms around the pair, swinging between them and pulled Tiff back against himself, laughing.

Jade stiffened a moment before Tiff's meltdown, “No!” she yelled and I stopped, looking at what was going down.

I saw Jonesy but was too late to stop it. I knew when his six feet of muscled and energized giddiness nailed Tiff she'd freak.

Jade told me Carson and Diego took her from behind.

Jonesy didn't know that. Nor did he give it a lot of forethought. He was a Reactor, plain and simple.

Tiff screamed, letting her body weight act as an anchor as she sunk like a rock to the floor.

John's face was comical for a millisecond and rage the next.

He belted Jonesy so hard he flew, his dark head kicking back.

I didn't think Terran had it in him. I also think that for the first time ever he hadn't used his Frontal Lobe.

Yeah, looked like Terran's wasn't fully developed either. Here was the proof.

Alex, Archer and I stood stupidly for a second as Terran realized he'd belted Jonesy. Terran didn't even try to apologize. He grabbed a hysterical Tiff, who was screaming and swinging at everyone who tried to help her.

John grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. In a loud voice he said, “It's John, Tiffany!”

She blinked, the tears and snot from her fear drenching her face.

“John?” she asked like she didn't know him, couldn't see him when he was right in front of her face.

He slowly nodded from above her.

She jumped into his arms and John snapped them around her.

“It's okay, I've got you...” he said, pressing her head against his chest. His eyes met mine over her head and I nodded.

You're doing okay, my look said.

“I thought... I thought it was him...” Tiff said as fresh tears fell.

“He can't hurt you Tiff, you're safe.” John's eyes met hers and she held on to him like he was the last solid thing in the world.

Then John said the unthinkable, “I'll keep you safe. I love you, Tiff.”

He said it in front of the student body of KPH, his friends and a girl that had rejected him countless times.

Jonesy approached. “Hey, I'm sorry...”

John gave him a look and Jonesy backed away, with his palms up in surrender.

“He didn't rape me,” she said, so quietly I barely heard her.

Jade hiccuped a sob back into her throat, covering her mouth with her hand.

“He did something, Tiff,” John said, dismissing the semantics of the assault.

“He touched me, he... he touched me inside,” she wailed in a pathetic sob, her hand tightening on the material of his shirt as she shook with her sobs. “I woke up to him... doing it...” she whispered her confession miserably.

I'd never seen death so eloquently held up in a stare. I'd raised it, conquered it and called it.

Yet the death I saw in John's flat blue eyes was for one person: Carson Hamilton.

God help him.

after

The Js were cool. John apologized for punching Jonesy and of course, Jonesy thought it was cool that John would. So that ended that. With guys, you could duke it out and still be friends later.

I think with girls the knife was still twisting at the twenty-five year class reunion.

John and Tiff just sort of fell together after that. It was a slow-burn romance. Like an ember that glowed, the wind had picked up and it burnt brighter, hotter as the days toward our graduation wore on.

Terran the Tender, that's what Jonesy and I called John behind his back. Not like a dis, more like a surprise. He'd taken on Tiff single-handedly and become her champion.

That kitten had teeth.

And claws.

Now Tiff smiled. She chewed gum. Not with the vigor of before but she wasn't going to be the same.

About two weeks later I came up to her and she didn't flinch. I told her about my Mom's self-defense classes and I didn't get the smart ass retort I was expecting.

“Okay, thanks... Caleb,” she said with just the edge of shyness to her words and John smiled at me.

John cupped her chin, looking deeply into her eyes. “I'll take you.”

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out.

Mission accomplished, I thought, walking off to meet my girl at the end of the hall. Her eyes met mine and I saw the pride.

A guy couldn't hide a thing from an Empath girlfriend.

That was okay, I thought, it had its upside.

Boy, did it.

Nightingale

Georgia looked at Tiffany Weller struggle to tell her what had happened.

She'd had a breakthrough brought on by an innocent friend reenacting the trauma by accident and it had finally brought her to the progress she'd so desperately needed to achieve.

Georgia had almost given up on forward momentum with Tiffany, who was self-reliant and resilient in a way that Georgia had never seen before.

And the boy... young man, John Terran; Georgia thought if she ever saw him she'd plant the biggest kiss on him he'd ever had.

That one boy was at least partially responsible for her recovery. He'd doggedly pursued Tiff and made sure he was there, just his presence, without any strings or demands.

And for once, someone was in the right place at the right time. When Tiff had a trigger, John Terran had been there to comfort her and she'd begun to trust again. And with a male.

Georgia thought she'd be okay.

Until that criminal was let loose again. Georgia was set to testify for barring him from attending the graduation. She didn't have high hopes that it would prove fruitful. In this climate of sympathy towards criminals and their equal treatment, his status as student and his recent birthday; he'd get the most sympathetic response possible.

Georgia shuddered. She'd been the on-site head doc to take a peek at Carson Hamilton.

She had been disturbed. He'd shown no remorse for his assault against Tiffany Weller. Further, it was her professional opinion that he had perpetuated this type of crime before. Just not so publicly. Tiff had been a perfect catalyst for what set this boy off. Somehow, Carson's normal stealth couldn't be employed. And to coerce that pathetic friend of his... ugh. It made Georgia sick.

Tiffany met her eyes. “I'm ready.”

Nightingale gave an encouraging smile and answered, “I know.”

Tiff looked at the doc gratefully. Then, taking a deep breath she began, “I was in the girl's washroom...”

Georgia took notes. Tiff got quiet after she'd told Georgia about the beating; she had squeezed her hands so tightly they mottled to white. Nightingale put her pulse down. Her thumb was indented from depressing it so much.

“We can take a break for a moment, Tiffany.”

Tiff's eyes shone. “No. I've taken too many breaks, Doc.”

“Alright,” Georgia said.

One heartbeat of silence unfolded... two.

Tiff twisted her hands. “When I came to, his hands were in me... hurting me.” She met Georgia's eyes. “It hurt so bad, Doc.... so bad,” she repeated in a whisper.

Nightingale stood and came to Tiff. “Are you okay now?”

Tiff nodded. “I'm okay... I'm still... he didn't...”

Georgia nodded. “I know.”

“You do?” Tiff asked, jerking her head up and meeting Georgia's eyes.

“Yes, I have the medical reports. I've always known, Tiffany.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice, casting her eyes down again.

“Look at me.”

Tiff did.

“It was important that you tell me, Tiffany. It was yours to tell, yours to own.” Georgia gave her a look full of such compassion that Tiff could not stop the fat tears that chased each other down her face.

“Yours to conquer,” Nightingale finished in a voice that vibrated with truth and conviction.

“Thank you,” Tiff said through her tears.

“No, thank you. You're the bravest person I know,” Georgia said in honest surprise.

Tiff laughed. “Yeah, I've been told that a time or two.”

Georgia laughed with her.

And Tiff was okay.

She wasn't back to the old Tiff, but the new Tiff had a passing resemblance to the former.

It was good to have her back.

CHAPTER NINE

now

Tiff & John, graduation night

“Breathe, Tiff,” John said, one hand palming the wheel, the other on her knee, his finger flirting with the hem of her skirt.

Tiff did, slowly and deeply, the Carson Experience at John's parent's reception was still with her like an aftertaste. Tiff looked at John. “I didn't think I could pull it off.”

John nodded, not much for talking but knowing that something was expected as a response. Tiff made him feel klutzy in his responses. The whole attack by Carson against Tiff made it doubly worse. He wasn't reactive like Jonesy, but his normal control fled him when it came to Tiffany.

He didn't hold the short leash of death like Caleb.

John knew he was crack-the-whip smart, he was also a Null. But none of that shit mattered for Tiff. It was a huge responsibility.

It's what he wanted.

He carefully formulated his response.

“Say something, Terran,” Tiff said.

John smiled. She still called him by his last name when she was irritated with him. Tiff was so bossy.

John kinda liked it. They were such a contrast, but somehow fit so well.

“You did.” He flicked his eyes to hers then back at the black ribbon of road ahead of them. He turned the corners that wound closer to the Weller house.

“What?” Tiff asked, studying his expression.

John clenched his hands. “I've never wanted to kill someone so badly in my life,” he admitted without rancor or guilt.

Tiff snorted. “Yeah, well, after I did my Brain Counting that Nightingale taught me to do... I was pissed enough I wanted to pull his pathetic pecker out and run it up and down his zipper like an accordion.”

John's brows lifted.

Tiff contemplated, then, “About five or six hundred times.”

John guffawed. “Really?” he asked slowly.

“Really,” Tiff responded definitively. “Of course, I'd have to touch it.” She shuddered.

“You'd have to find it,” John added, playing the game, making it light.

Tiff grinned at him, her happiness was palpable and he grabbed it midair, like a species threatened with extinction, greedy for the rarity of her pleasure.

The moment passed and John pulled up in front of the Weller house.

“You don't have to walk me to the door every time, John,” Tiff said, her small hand on the door handle.

“I know,” he said quietly, pulsing off the engine.

Tiff watched the sun slant through the window and cut through his hair, making it look ablaze.

She had a disturbing premonition.

John saw her face and frowned. “What?”

Tiff stared at him a beat longer then shook it off. “Nothing,” she said, feeling kinda lame.

John and Tiff walked to the front door and she opened it. Inside there were toys strewn everywhere. John saw Legos all over and instantly grimaced at the feet mutilator those were.

“I'll pick you up tomorrow for class.”

Tiff nodded. It still made her feel uptight to go to the self-defense classes. But she was three months in and her instructor claimed she was a natural.

She hated the ultimate precept: that girls should aim for getting away. Not fighting. The focus of the class was about disarming and gaining time to get help.

Tiff was more than a runner.

She was a fighter.

It was a deep-seated need to defend her own person. That Carson had beaten and sexually assaulted her lay like a raw and open wound on the very fabric of who Tiff was.

She didn't say those things to John when he referenced chaperoning her tomorrow.

Tiff's eyes did. It caused worry to bloom instantly inside John, who had more intuition than he gave himself credit for.

He knew that she wanted a go at Carson.

John was afraid for himself.

They'd better dump him in jail and throw away the pulsekey if that fucker touched Tiff.

Because John knew he'd kill him if he touched her.

Slowly, if time allowed.

They didn't speak their thoughts to each other in that still moment of time outside the chaos of her house.

Instead, John bent and put his lips on Tiff's, palming both sides of her small face as she wrapped her small arms around his neck.

He ended the kiss buried in that fragrant soft spot that all girls' held between their neck and shoulder, tickling her.

Tiff pulled away with a small smile and put her hand on the side of his face, feeling a light golden red stubble there.

“I love ya, John Terran,” she said with a husky catch.

He blinked slowly, tears that burned his eyes staying put by the barest margin.

John managed to nod as he turned away, swiping at his eyes.

Tiffany Weller so had him.

He'd told her a hundred times he loved her.

Tiff had told him once.

It clicked her position into his heart with a clanging finality that echoed long after he left her stoop.

Carson

Carson Hamilton watched the lovebirds from his mandatory one hundred meter distance. That stupid bitch had put the bite on him alright. Her little tag on his ass at the graduation reception had landed him with a pulse anklet. A nifty-as-fuck 'distance monitor'.

Carson was ready to go the distance. The dumb thing gave him a one meter warning beep when he violated the football field distance of his restraining order. If he went outside his limits, it lit him up like a Christmas tree.

It hurt like a bitch.

After the graduation reception they'd wasted no time in shackling him with the anklet. Carson stewed, just far enough away to need binoculars as he watched Terran walk away from that stupid twat.

Actually, Tiff Weller wasn't stupid. That was the problem. He'd tried to knock her brains out on the locker but that hadn't worked.

He lowered the binoculars, tapping them restlessly against his thigh.

Carson wasn't popular at home. Dad was pissed because he'd made him look bad. They were fighting the rape charge, but it might stick. And he'd not even gotten to do her, Carson ruminated sullenly.

It had been a near thing. Just the thought of how close he'd come from being able to do his worst. He clenched his eyes shut. Carson could remember her fragile and vulnerable underneath him, a hairsbreadth away from his mercy.

He'd wanted to put Tiff Weller in her place in the worst way, he could taste it. It had been choking his fucking tongue.

Carson stared at her small form by the door while his rage swelled. Then he saw that brick head of a brother come to the door, he about shit when the lug looked straight at him.

But Carson had camouflaged himself well, so he knew Weller didn't see him.

It was disconcerting as hell, though.

That shithead had made the Hamilton yard Carson's chore now, he'd dumped his dad's house like a hot rock when he got his own landscaping gig. Like he was too good to shovel steer manure onto their postage stamp lawn.

Those Wellers were too big for their britches.

They needed to be taken down a peg or two.

Carson eyeballed that house of theirs with a keen eye.

Carson Hamilton could be the big bad wolf. He'd blow their house of sticks down.

He swung his glance to Terran as he got into his eco-car. A natural gas hybrid.

A car for dickheads.

He frowned when he thought of Terran doin' that stuck up Weller bitch. Tiff had always claimed Carson didn't have a dick. What made Terran so special?

Hamilton thought Terran would be a problem. He needed to make sure Terran wasn't in the picture. 'Cuz the plans he had for his bitch girlfriend wouldn't happen if his Null ass was around.

Carson walked away without a backward glance.

Caleb

“Wow... that was so bad,” Jade said, throwing her heels off into the well of the Camaro's floorboards and putting her feet on the dash.

The weather was warm and her feet were bare with hot pink on her toenails, courtesy of Sophie. I had an errant thought, was Sophie like a part time manicurist?

“Hot feet, babe,” I said, winking. Then, “Sophie did your manicure, right?”

Jade did a cute little frown that I wanted to kiss away but my Sex Impulses interfered with my goal of Driving without Wrecking.

“Ah... no. I did it, I think she worked Tiff over though,” Jade gave a giggle behind her mouth and I scowled, I knew something was coming.

“You're so cute when you screw up girl stuff.”

Screw up girl stuff. Yeah, that was me.

“It's a pedi, Caleb.” She studied her pretty toenails with absorbed attention.

Oh right, feet is pedicure, hands are manicure, I remembered too late to sound remotely knowledgeable.

Kinda like the difference between a manifold and an engine.

Made all kinds of sense.

I was dying here, could she throw me a bone? I wondered.

Jade patted me on my knee and my thoughts shifted instantly. She gave a low throaty laugh. “I hear you, stud.” And she winked. “Loud. And. Clear.”

“Good,” I said, practically panting like a dog on her leash. “Glad we're on the same pulselength.”

She smiled and batted her eyelashes. Then, thoroughly bashing the mood said, “So what's gonna happen with Carson Hamilton?”

Ugh.

I shifted in my seat, trying to think about a dickhead instead of more exciting things and finally responded with, “Terran's got it.”

“I don't know,” Jade said hesitantly, thinking about the episode at Terran's house.

I snapped my eyes off the road for a second and latched onto her face.

I only looked for three seconds.

“You feel something, Jade?” I asked.

She looked at me for a second more. “Yeah, I kinda... Caleb!” she shrieked and the adrenaline surged as something so unexpected rose up in my vision.

It was another bear.

Not mine.

But quite dead.

The Camaro plowed into it and the bear tumbled over the low slung, racing style car with a thump that cracked the windshield in an elaborate spider web. The impact threw us against our harness restraints and they did their job, snapping us into place.

An airbag would've killed Jade.

But Gramps had that grandfathered for this vehicle. No airbags, real fossil fuel, and and all-steel carriage. It was a heavy car with a huge engine and that bear tore over the roof, careening over the trunk and crunching the spoiler on the back as it thunked to the ground behind my skidding car.

Jade and I looked at each other.

“What the hell was that?” she asked in a breathy voice.

“It's a bear,” I said, my hands gripping the wheel.

“Oh my gawd!” she cried, her open palm striking the center of her chest. “The poor thing!” Jade got big crocodile tears sliding down her face because of the poor bear.

Uh-huh. “It's dead,” I said in a flat voice that belied the racing of my heart.

“Wait... what?” Jade asked, turning in her seat and facing me. Then her eyes took on a look I knew too well.

Knowledge.

Fear.

“You mean...” she said weakly.

I nodded. “Oh yeah.”

The bear lumbered over to the passenger window and pawed the glass.

I grabbed Jade just as it shattered it behind her, large sheets of glass falling where she'd been sitting a heartbeat before.

Non-tempered glass breaks in shards.

Sometimes grandfathering sucked.

Like now.

I popped the door and hauled her out with one arm. I couldn't even believe it myself.

The bear straightened up on its hind legs and opened its mouth wide.

It roared at me, its great head shaking, the sound deafening from that distance.

Jade shuddered, cleaving to me like a second skin.

My girlfriend was standing in the middle of a little-traveled road, barefoot in her post-graduation finery.

With a zombie bear that wasn't mine just stepping out with perfect timing in front of my car.

Yeah, right. That level of coincidence always happens to me. Uh-huh.

I tore off the tie that my parents had insisted I wear and got ready to figure this whole mess out when I had a moment of intense relief.

I thought it was Jonesy pulling up behind us, coming to a slow stop. I looked quickly but it wasn't Jonesy, it was Gramps' car.

Before I could figure out why Jonesy and Gramps were together, the bear dropped on all fours and lumbered around the edge of the car, working his way to where we stood.

I backed up and the dead eyes of the bear bore into mine, rotten plums in a black face.

There was no pull of death from me to him. He was being fueled by another Cadaver-Manipulator.

But who?

Gramps took in the mess of the Camaro, completely ignoring the bear.

“Caleb? What's this with the car, son?”

Jonesy snickered in the background.

Cripes on a crutch. “Not now, Gramps, kinda got some zombie shit brewing.”

Gramps snorted.

“Fine. Let Parker deal with furnuts here and I'll see what the hell's happened to this old gal,” Gramps said in that casual way of his. When nothing was remotely casual.

Parker?

I whirled around and there Jeffrey Parker stood. “Hey, Caleb.”

He looked thinner, I thought.

“Watch out!” Parker yelled.

I turned and the paw descended as if in slow-motion and I shoved Jade away, letting that power over the dead flow out. It was more about not holding back than trying.

It struck the bear between he eyes and it paused.

“Is this yours?” I yelled at him as I used its hesitation to grab Jade and run to Parker, who was shaking his head.

Gramps jerked a thumb at Parker. “You can't call off Wild Kingdom, pal?”

Parker smirked. “No. That is actually not mine.”

Before I could figure out whose it was or really, what in the blue hell was going on, Gramps said, “Well, it's not just the zoo, Caleb.”

I saw them in the trees that lined the road. Rotting sentinels that I didn't own. That Parker didn't own.

There were simply too many. Too many dead, not enough weapons; even with Parker's help I couldn't rein in my emotions hard enough for control.

Then Jonesy sprang forward. “Who's in charge of these zombies?” he asked, all man-of-the-hour.

Parker and I looked at each other as a wave of nauseating rot reached us like a spoiling tide landing at shore. It was funny, really. A necromancer liked their own brand. But raise a horde of zombies that weren't mine and I wanted to spew chunks.

Like now.

Jonesy coughed like he was going to barf. “Damn-man! Whoever is raising the zombies needs to get some Glade or something 'cuz that's some sick smelling shit!” he howled in disgust, his tie skewed like a sideways flag.

In my experience death always smelled bad.

The first corpse that was not under my liege came at Jonesy and he swung his arm up and bashed the thing in the jaw, cleanly breaking it under the weight of his new soft cast. The jaw popped off like a hanging door hinge and the blackness of its mouth opened like a cavern of coffin bait. All we were missing were the worms.

Somebody besides me couldn't get the mouths right. Seemed to be epidemic.

“What in the Sam Hill is going on here, Caleb?” Gramps asked, keeping a wary eye on the bear who was rocking its head back and forth, getting ready for a charge while ten zombies began moving toward where I stood with a trembling Jade.

“I don't know,” I said unhelpfully.

“Well,” Gramps said, “I suggest you get a handle on this undead bullshit before it all goes to hell in a hand basket.”

Really...? Huh.

“I think he's gonna get right on that, Mac,” Jonesy said, backing up until he touched the hood of Gramps' car, his hand clenching around the snarling bulldog emblem on the front.

“Go for it, Hart,” Jonesy enthused helpfully, watching the zombie with the broken jaw shuffle closer to where we were huddled.

When the girl that had started the entire undead mess came out from the middle of the corpses I felt the first surge of death energy wash over us and knew that we were in for it. I'd never felt anything but Parker's. Knew the flavor, recognized it.

Jonesy hadn't noticed her yet because he was busy whining about the rotting sludge that got all over his cast (shouldn't have broken his arm in the Chicken Episode then). “Ah hell...” he yelled in the middle of the Zombie horde, “I've got zombie slime all over my whiteness! It's covering the signatures- damn!” he hollered.

Jonesy looked up, startled when a decidedly feminine voice said, “I certainly can raise a clean corpse but why should I when I can spread the rot all over the top of you boys?”

Jade gave a small moan beside me, and it wasn't the good kind.

“She's not okay, Caleb,” Jade said so softly I could barely hear her.

The girl's eyes narrowed on Jade and I put her behind my back.

Bry pulled up in his noisy car and I couldn't believe my luck. Nobody used this road. The Wellers showing up meant two things: reinforcements and a guaranteed beating for Bry.

Now that was true friendship.

Bry got out of his hunk of shit and Tiff followed. Gone was the pretty green blouse and hot ensemble of the reception where that jerkoff Hamilton had gotten himself in even more trouble.

Tiff was in hoodie-readiness.

“Hey man,” Bry said, “this is looking bad.” Parker just looked at him.

No shit, I thought without an ounce of humor.

Tiff scanned the bear, Gramps, Parker (her eyes kinda widened at his presence) and the small rotting horde before landing on the chick on the Knoll.

Kinda felt like Custer's last stand.

Tiff seemed to decide something, instinctively understanding the situation. “I can take her ass,” Tiff said, eyeing her like a prize to be won.

“Try it,” Corpse Girl intoned.

Tiff nodded once. “Okey-dokey.” A leering grin stretched her face as the wadded gum in her mouth went sailing into the air on a loogie toss that smacked the same zombie Jonesy had bludgeoned earlier... right in the forehead. It was a sloppy bull's eye.

Death by gum.

Here we go, I thought and waded into the melee.

CHAPTER TEN

Zondorae

“Ten years working on this contingency and we're just now putting it into play?” Gary said into the microscope, his gaze never straying from the slide beneath him.

Finally, he lifted the pulse glasses that allowed microscopic image viewing, using his integral brain impulse disc to fuel the magnification and frowned at Joe.

Joe lifted the glass, credit-card sized chip, the symbolic helix emblazoned on the front of the crystal by a finely calibrated laser. Without human contact, the symbol disappeared. But with the correct thumb, the symbol appeared.

More security.

There were only a handful of people who had the correct genetic imprint for the symbol to rise to the surface like oil on water.

Zondorae, Kyle Hart and of course, that shitty C-M, Jeffrey Parker.

The Zondorae's had fought against bringing him on. He'd been a problem in the trials. In hindsight, Gary would have done anything if he hadn't allowed his personal snit to maneuver him into giving the real dose instead of the placebo to Parker. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It had been a poor choice. So Parker of the unstable family and the highest recorded IQ in the test subjects was running amok with full control of sensitive and classified information; for your eyes only.

Parker had eyes in the back of his head. The brothers suspected him of giving away the time continuum to that pack of paranormal brats, with the Hart boy at the wheel.

It had continued to worsen.

Now, the head of their little league was batting for a home run.

Take away what made the paranormals special. They were too powerful to control and didn't seem to be moved in the normal directions humanity had followed in the past.

Coercion by means of money.

No, Caleb Hart's generation liked money but they weren't hungry enough for power. There could not be one without the other.

The Zondorae sibling team had now been tasked with the systematic disassembly of the cocktail. The genetic code wiped.

Of course, it did not mean that in the future they could not be called upon for selective inoculation.

Oh no, their branch of the government would always need soldiers.

Paranormal ones.

Too bad that these kids wouldn't do what their bosses wanted. Better that they were mundanes.

Gary especially loathed that the majority of their directives were in a metaphorical stasis chamber, waiting for Parker to get the sample from Caleb Hart.

To shut down the rogue C-M, Nevaeh.

She would be cleaned. There was really no other option.

Joe looked at his brother. “Parker will get the sample. We'll combine his code with the key,” he lifted the slide again in emphasis, “and we will have the slate-wiper.” Joe landed a weighted gaze on Gary. “Too bad we can't off Hart. I hate that little prick.” Joe nodded in agreement. Hart was not an even tempered individual like his father, but volatile.

Kyle Hart and his belief in goodness had ultimately been his undoing. He simply believed that who he worked for was motivated in the same way that he was. It always amazed Gary that someone as brilliant as he knew Kyle Hart to be would miss the fundamental deceit and guile present in the human population.

Of course, Gary always thought from his own perspective. It was the only one that mattered.

Gary looked at Joe over the rims of the pulse glasses. “Hang in there, Parker will have this final mission.”

Joe looked at his brother with a grim smile. “That's well and good. If,” he raised a pudgy finger in the air, “the other AFTD and he don't compare notes.”

Gary shuddered.

Joe gave a dismissive shrug. “Don't fret, what are the chances of the three of them having a pow-wow. After all,” Joe gave a level stare at his sibling, “she's certifiable.”

“True,” Gary said. “But I'll feel better once she is out of the equation.”

manipulation

Christopher & Amanda

Christopher wiped the sweat from his forehead, its burning pathway making his vision waver as it found the deep holes of his eyeballs. He looked at the pulse clock in the medical clinic he'd broken into and figured he had roughly three minutes to sub out the pulse dose of birth control for the harmless placebo.

This was their third infiltration.

His partner pulsed the change with deft and nimble fingers, her thin sheet of fingerprint skin disintegrating before his eyes. Not that it mattered. It was the best prosthetic of fraud that money could buy. Slap on the threaded skin of the high security thumb of your choice, use it for a total of ten depressions, and it harmlessly melted into the skin of its host.

Quick, effective... and in this case, deadly.

He looked at Amanda and grinned. Things were Grade A Fucked up.

The Graysheets, as they were so affectionately referred to by the group of paranormals that his group would ultimately save, wouldn't have their way regardless. His source within the Helix organization of morally corrupt scientists would find their contingency plan blown to hell by a mixed pair of mundane and paranormal who believed.

It didn't matter what their cause was.

Yes, The Code would remain in effect. The paranormals would continue into perpetuity. With or without the blessing of the Graysheets. They'd started this little party and the mundanes would finish it.

Evolution had just gotten a kick in the ass, courtesy of the failsafe of humanity.

Amanda packed her gear and gave Christopher a nod.

They were done, never to return again. The third time was the charm.

Christopher put his false skin onto his thumb and pulsed out of the med clinic.

It was widely used by paranormals.

Its services were free to everyone under and at the age of emancipation and true adulthood. He smiled under his black hood as he and Amanda melted into the shadows of the building.

As quietly as they'd come, they left.

No one would know of the subtle changes they made until it was too late.

After all, even the Graysheets couldn't explain away infanticide.

Caleb

As the girl on the hill descended, I got a real look at her; an angular face with brilliant blue eyes that missed nothing. Her azure gaze flicked over the assembled group, her zombies making a loose triangle behind her. The one with the gum stuck on his forehead shambled after her with a grotesquely awkward and jerky gait.

His jaw was still all crooked and hanging.

“Caleb,” Jonesy said.

“Not now, Jones,” I replied.

“Is she like a bad-ass zombie girl or just a douche?”

Like that distinction mattered right now?

Gramps answered for me and I didn't need to say anything. “Mark Jones, let us stay on task: an unknown AFTD has brought the dead. Caleb and,” Gramps looked at Parker with a small frown, “my relative of unknown origin cannot contain said 'zombie girl'.”

“Huh?” Jonesy wailed, readying his cast like a weapon.

“It's two bad ass C-Ms against a rogue,” Bry explained as his sister went for the jugular on the new chick.

Right, pretty snappy for Bry.

I watched Tiff snap a punch off at the chick's face and the closest zombie latched onto Tiff.

Tiff wasn't a screamer but I could tell she wasn't a fan of being grabbed. It didn't matter that it was a zombie (those had an almost natural feel to me know). It was After Carson and that was enough. She bashed her elbow in a slick little defensive jab that just about knocked his block off.

“Shitty job on the zombies,” Parker said in casual observation.

The girl was rubbing her jaw from Tiff's swing as her zombie got his neck broken by Tiff's elbow.

“And you're so perfect?” she said, those blue eyes flashing in a way that told me buy your bucketful of crazy here.

“Okay,” I began, keeping my eye on the bear, who was staying where he was. For now. “Why are you here and who the hell are you?”

“Don't know if that matters, Caleb,” Gramps said. “It's not necessary to get caught up in the 'why' of the thing. Let's just react.”

“Yeah, that,” Jonesy agreed.

“It's solid reasoning,” Bry said, watching with semi-interest as Tiff worked her way through zombies that were almost too rotten to fight back.

“Listen, I won't kill all of you if you'll listen.” She looked at Tiff. “Except you, you're kinda a bitch,” she said to Tiff, rubbing the small knot forming on her jaw.

“Piss off, you lippy bitch,” Tiff said, cracking the zombie that plowed into her.

Parker barked out a laugh. “It's you that will get the stay of execution as I'm not so thrilled with my current employers. Call off your dogs so we can chat.”

Chat?

Gramps laughed. “That's all well and good but this will cause a stir if we don't get the corpse parade and damaged vehicles out of the way.” He looked at the conjurer of undead bullshit as he so eloquently put it and scowled. “You injured a fine vehicle, young lady. Very distasteful character trait.”

“What?” she asked in a pissed off snarl.

“No respect for personal property, of course,” Gramps said as if that basic fact should have been obvious to all that existed in His Presence.

I hid a smile and Jade seemed to relax behind me.

“Okay,” Gramps said, clapping his hands together and striding over to the Camaro with a comical lift of one brow. “Let's get the horde and zoo rounded up and get our baby pulsed back to life.” He lifted his brows together in a comedic get moving expression that made all of us laugh and move toward him.

“So what? Ya old asshole... I'm supposed to call back my dead things,” she crooned to the zombies that flanked her like faithful suitors, “because you say so? Ha!” She threw back her head laughing. “No, I think not.”

“You obviously missed many a paddling,” Gramps said thoughtfully. “Parker?”

I watched Parker's ghost of a smile come over his face. “Yes, sir?”

Gramps nodded at what he considered a proper response. “Clean up this mess so I can get Caleb's car out of here.” He looked at Jonesy and Bry. “Help your sister, Mr. Weller.”

“Nah, Mac... I don't like those zombie creepers.”

“Geez, man-up, Weller,” Jonesy said, giving him a look.

“Yeah, I will with living opponents,” Bry said with a look of disgust, his sister's hand covered in zombie goop.

“Eff it,” Tiff said, wiping off the zombie trail on the girl. It shone like slug slime.

“What are you... who do you think you are?” she half-cried, the zombie stew on her clothes. Tiff smirked, “I'm Tiff, you sissy girl.”

She glared at Tiff. Tiff glared back, putting a finger in her chest and pushing her. “Call off the horde, ya stupid twit before I sick Parker and Hart on ya.”

She knocked Tiff's finger away as a zombie got into Tiff's face and hissed.

“I knew who was here,” she said. “It's not like he's subtle as shit or something.” She looked straight at me.

Huh.

“He raised a damn chicken coop putting his zombie pet back together.”

I shifted my eyes to hers. “That was you?” I asked, remembering the figure off in the distance.

“Yeah, Sherlock Holmes.”

I scowled and Jade giggled. I thought she was mildly traitorous.

“Wonderful, let's hide the cars,” Gramps prompted.

“I guess I won't kill you today,” she said.

“You won't even come close... Nevaeh,” Parker said.

She flashed those oceanic eyes to his, widening them in alarm when he lifted a pulse-activated gun, his aim steady, his hold one of practiced ease.

“Whoa, Parker. Settle down ya stroke!” Jonesy said.

“Don't kill the filly for lack of manners, Parker,” Gramps growled.

“Yeah... don't kill her,” Tiff said in an unconvincing drawl.

Nice.

“Parker?” I asked.

“I have my orders. She's a renegade C-M.” His thumb moved over the pulse pad of the hammer.

“Don't,” Bry said as her eyes widened.

He plugged her in the upper chest and Jade screamed, the mood going from contained chaos to shreds in a second.

Gramps went for Parker.

“Don't, Mac!” Parker yelled, blocking the first numbing punch.

“Gramps!” I said, figuring out what Parker had done.

He swung his face to mine. “He knocked her out is all.”

“Why didn't you say so then, punk?”

Parker laughed, rubbing his forearm that had blocked a hard strike.

Bet it hurt like a bitch on steroids.

“Because, we need to subdue her dead, get the cars off the road... and lastly, I need to know why our organization wants her dead.”

I could think of a few reasons but Tiff brought it up first in her special way.

“It's the attitude guys,” she said, watching the dead stare without their master, the girl laying at their feet. “She's a bitch on wheels.”

“Yeah,” Jonesy agreed.

I didn't let my relief at Parker showing up stop me from getting my car pulsed on and moved into a dirt road that carved its way through the woods bordering a back road in Kent that only old timers knew about. And my friends, of course.

Courtesy of Gramps.

So this was the stranger I'd seen off in the distance. Parker was okay, still working for the Graysheets (somehow) and killing this C-M was his mission. For reasons unknown even to him. But he hadn't killed her, instead he'd disobeyed orders to satisfy his curiosity. Interesting.

I still wanted to know what the prick Zondorae brothers were up to.

No good, I was betting. They were consistent as hell.

Parker and I worked on the small horde while the bear looked on, mewling above the girl that lay on the ground, dosed with enough tranquilizer to lay out an elephant.

Perfect.

“Did you think I'd kill her?” Parker asked me quietly as the dead and their stink melted back into the forest while he easily put them to rest.

I didn't respond.

He looked at me. “I'm trying, Caleb. It's a real reversal for me.”

“I know,” I said.

“It may bite me in the ass. The Graysheets always have reasons for the missions they want me to accomplish for them.”

“Then why didn't you go through with it?” I asked as my friends and girlfriend assembled next to the vehicles.

“Because I think there's something about this mission that is final. I can't put my finger on it but I think they'll be putting me out to pasture soon.”

That sounded bad. It was an expression Gramps used but I think the context of this was different. A pasture that didn't see the living, only the dead.

He searched my face. Finally, reading things correctly he nodded and pointed to the unconscious girl. “She's a threat and we need to know why.”

“Because?”

“Survival,” Parker said simply. I shoved my will into the bear and it gave a plaintive wail. I watched it lumber to the side of the road where it melted beneath the road's shoulder.

I waited.

“Ours,” he added, not that I'd needed the clarification.

Yeah, I got that. Us AFTDs were magnets to each other, whether we liked it or not.

Tiff toed the girl as she lay there. “Gawd, she's a raging bitch.”

Bry and I looked at each other and her eyes narrowed on us.

Parker smiled. “Bitch or not, she has some explaining to do.”

Gramps broke in. “Well.” He looked at the group. “Let's throw her in the trunk here.” He rapped his knuckles on the dented spoiler of my Camaro. “And reconvene at my humble abode.”

“That's creepy!” Jade cried, affronted. “She can't be put in the trunk. Gawd!” She looked from me to Parker.

“She'll be alright, sweetheart,” Gramps said by way of soothing.

“I like it,” Tiff said. “It'll be very disorienting for her to do the dose of dead from the trunk.”

That was true... but....

“Ugh, Tiff, come on,” Jade pleaded.

“Nope, I'm with sis on this one,” Bry said.

Parker nodded and under Jade's disgruntled look, he folded the newest necromancer on the block into the back of the Camaro.

“There, that's done,” Gramps said, zip tying the trunk to the latch as a pseudo-air hole. He didn't act as if we'd just loaded a girl into my trunk but instead had finished a commonplace chore.

“Let's high tail it back to my place and put our heads together.”

“I thought all this was calming down,” Jade said forlornly.

“Where's the fun in that?” Jonesy asked, waggling his brows.

Jade rolled her eyes and we piled into the Camaro. I gave a look at Parker.

“I've got my own ride,” he said.

I didn't ask how.

Or what.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Gramps' driveway looked like a parking lot. Everyone showed up in various stages of post-graduation garb.

All of us were wary and confused. I was pissed at myself because I'd become complacent. All it had taken was a few months of calm and suddenly I'd felt like I was home free.

Not.

I didn't think I'd let that happen again.

Gramps looked at the assembly and sighed. “Bring out the princess.”

Parker went to the trunk and popped it. I knew what had happened before I saw his face in profile. “She's gone, Mr. O'Brien.”

“Mac,” Gramps responded absent-mindedly. “Well, isn't that interesting.”

Parker narrowed his eyes, looking around. He scanned the yard then looked at me. “No way she escaped in the fifteen minutes we've been here.” Then he gave me a significant glance. “I think she had help.”

“Okay,” Sophie said, swinging a platform stiletto pump back and forth on her crossed knee. “Let me get ahold of this latest disaster.”

I frowned at her wording but the group went with it so I figured it was fairly accurate. Not that I accepted that.

“You picked up skank-ho necromancer...” She ticked it off on her finger and Tiff agreed, “Yeah.” Sophie nodded, continuing, “and Parker,” she looked at Parker who stood with his arms folded over a muscular but lean frame, “was supposed to pop her.”

Parker sighed and I smiled.

Sophie shrugged at his dislike of her verbal rendition of events but he couldn't deny it. It'd be splitting hairs as Gramps would say.

“Now she's gone poof and you're crying over that? I say good riddance. Didn't she bust up the Camaro with a dead bear?” Her eyes went to my face.

Well yeah but... “She's some kind of answer for Parker.”

“Oh, I understand: he needs her to fill in the blanks,” Sophie said, half in question.

“Do you ever consider when you'll outlive your usefulness?” Lewis asked Parker suddenly.

Parker drilled Archer with a look. “Every day.”

Gramps put up his palms. “Can't you guys... feel her or something?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“No,” Parker said. We looked at each other.

“Which is it?” Gramps asked, plugging his hands on the hips of his perfectly pressed slacks.

“I could feel her if she were close by,” I said.

“I can't so she's not,” Parker said simply.

“Right,” Bry said with Mia on his knee. “Who'd take her then, guys?” he asked, scrubbing the shadow of hair that grew on his head.

“Hey!” Jonesy spurted randomly. “You didn't get your ass kicked this time Weller.”

Bry grinned.

“There's time,” Alex said like the naysayer he was.

Bry frowned at him and Alex laughed, spreading his palms in a defensive sweep. “Just sayin'....”

“Don't, babe,” Randi said, pinching his leg with her fingers. “Ouch!” He smiled down at her. “Don't abuse me, ya dominatrix.”

We all looked at him and he smiled while Randi blushed.

Jade giggled. We were definitely not the ones that everyone was noticing anymore.

“Interesting choice of words, Mr. Sims,” Gramps said.

Randi was dying.

“I think Zondorae weaseled in here and nabbed her,” Parker said suddenly.

I swung to face him. “Why? Weren’t you supposed to ...?”

“Yeah.”

“Then...”

“They're getting him out of the way. Classic deflection,” John said and Tiff clasped her hand in his.

It's the only time I saw Tiff soft. When she looked at Terran. He could do no wrong. It was like his timing in that fateful moment in the hall had been providence.

“Do we have to figure out where she went? She was a pain in my ass,” Tiff reiterated and John smiled. I thought he'd shown real restraint, letting her take on the zombie horde earlier. Of course he'd shown up too late to halt the momentum.

Gramps laughed. “Yes well, be that as it may, she had some answers that Parker thought might shed light on our circumstance.”

“Huh,” Tiff said, disgruntled.

“What's going on now?” Mia asked innocently.

Parker hung his head and I came instantly on point. I knew news was coming and usually that meant it sucked donkey dick.

He met my eyes and said to the group at large, letting the proverbial cat out of the bag, “The Graysheets,” he said with airquotes, “have decided to go with plan B.”

“Right... and....?” John prompted.

“They bit off more than they can chew so they will reverse the power base.”

Gramps' eyes narrowed. “Whose?”

“Theirs,” Parker said with a slight frown.

“They're going to strip us,” Archer surmised instantly and I nodded.

Parker gave a nod of assent.

“How?” John asked.

Parker's eyes found mine and I got it right away, the conduit of my understanding sliding immediately to Jade.

“No... it couldn't be,” she said.

“It is,” Parker replied. Then said, “I'm to get a sample,” he looked at me again, “willing or unwilling, so that his strands can be combined with the Key. It will give them the essential foundation needed to reverse the manifestation of the paranormal abilities.”

Gramps threw his head back, guffawing.

I found zero comedy in the Graysheets continued interference: League of Asshats Unite.

“So,” Gramps said, slapping his knee and wiping his eyes, “they got in over their heads... Zondorae right?” Parker nodded and Gramps took the confirmation as biblical fact. “They're all panicked with their panties in a twist and now they think the DNA answer is here,” he pointed at me, “and....?”

“Queen Clara from the sphere-world,” Parker supplied.

Holy shit.

“It's like those creepy mind-fucks they pulled on us,” Jonesy said out loud, then added, “Ya know, when they juiced us with the 'go crazy' shit.”

Gramps frowned at him, “Language Jones.”

“Hey! I'm eighteen now.”

Gramps was striding to him in two point five seconds. He whipped Jonesy around and jacked up an arm between his shoulder blades.

“Mac!” Sophie cried, “that's the arm he broke.”

“Ladies present, Jones,” Gramps said casually, ignoring everything but The Lesson.

I smiled and the other guys grinned. Jonesy was so him.

“Alright man! You're gonna break it again....”

Gramps and Jonesy stayed in an awkward suspension of butting heads and ideology.

“Sorry,” Jonesy said.

“Mean it,” Gramps said and jerked the arm up a little higher and Jonesy howled.

“Sorry!” Jonesy yelled.

Gramps released him. “That hurt!”

“Ya got the lesson though, yes?”

Parker said, “I want you on my team.”

“I'm on my own team,” Gramps said and Parker laughed.

“Yeah, I see that, Mac.”

Mac looked at Parker. “Can you get one of those pudwhackers here?”

“A Zondorae?” Parker asked.

Gramps nodded.

“I can but what's your plan?”

“I'm a spontaneous fella... it'll come to me. And my grandson here has some undead handy. Let's get those bastards off-balance and talking.”

“Like canaries,” Clyde said, strolling up.

Though I had never called.

Gramps gave a grim smile which Clyde returned. There was an eerie understanding that flowed between Gramps and Clyde.

It was sorta psychic but technically wasn't.

Parker looked at the two and nodded. “I can get him here. But I'm capable, Mac.”

“Yes, I know. I'd like to make it a family affair if you will.”

Gramps looked at me and I nodded. I was on board but Jade shivered. “Are we talking torture here?”

No one said anything.

But Parker turned to her. “What do you think they're doing to the girl?”

Jade stared back at him. “Nobody deserves that. Two wrongs don't make a right.”

“Oh... I don't know about that,” Clyde said, his eyes held what I liked to think of as Zombie Edge.

Nevaeh

She awoke and it wasn't in the back of the other C-Ms trunk. Nevaeh had woken up in the trunk but the fucking government dickholes had jerked her out of there before she could let the other AFTDs know that she was running scared.

That she wouldn't have killed them.

But... too late now. She'd been running for months; she'd even dug out her pulse disc so they couldn't track her. But it was that goddamned older AFTD that had honed in on her when she'd been trying to find that young guy.

Caleb Hart.

She needed his help. Hell, she'd have taken Jeffrey Parker's help if she could've had a five minute audience. She'd blown her chances with her smart ass mouth, per usual.

That bitch of a low level AFTD had been... interesting too. Nevaeh had never encountered another female that was on her level of No Fear. It was über-cool.

Not that anything was right now.

Nevaeh was tied to an examining table. No hope.

Story of her miserable life.

When the first of the two scientists entered the medical lab room, Nevaeh eyed the ten gauge needle and struggled to remain neutral. It was a horse syringe, they certainly weren't concerned with her comfort.

Typical Graysheet modus operandi.

“Give it to her,” Gary said in a flat voice.

“We don't want this bitch breeding,” Joe reasserted like it'd been said a hundred times before.

“What? Not going to kill me boys?” she asked with a voice that was unusual by most standards: a throaty contralto that belied her looks, her fragile size emphasized by a tall build.

“Not yet,” Gary said, plunging the needle home, causing a flinch that was almost a jump. He smiled at his abusive use of the sterilizing toxin.

“What is this shit?” Nevaeh asked as the liquid depressed into her vein in a rape of her bloodstream, the stuff felt like iced fire as it surged through her body, aided by a healthy heart that pumped it through its first cycle.

“Insurance,” Gary said cryptically, holding the needle up.

“I guess you don't have a Null on board then?”

Gary and Joe frowned, for all their intellectual prowess, not sizing up the potential in her words.

Parker walked in and, without even a hello, plunged a syringe into Gary's shoulder.

“Nighty-night,” Nevaeh said, grinning even as her arm oozed blood from the needle's assault.

“What the fuck, Parker?” Joe shrieked as his brother slumped and cracked his head on the floor.

Parker turned to Joe and yanked him forward by the labcoat. “Answers, Joe.”

“He doesn't know anything you crazy fuck,” Joe Zondorae said.

Parker slugged him in the temple, dumping him into a heap on the floor.

His gaze swung to Nevaeh, vulnerable and tied to the lab table, her arm bleeding where they'd given her something.

“They shot me up with some bullshit anti-breeding thing...”

“I wouldn't worry about that,” Parker said cryptically.

“Okay stud, ya gonna do me with the juice or are we gonna talk about our similar interests?”

Parker couldn't help it, he laughed. “Kinda full of yourself, aren't you?”

“Yeah,” Nevaeh answered with a smile, full of bravado.

Full of fear.

Parker looked at her for a second, taking in the circular scar beneath her ear, the blacker-than-night hair and light blue eyes. Her malnourished body was almost skeletal in its thinness.

Fierce intelligence burned out of her eyes, scorching him, nailing him.

Before Parker could analyze what his thought direction meant she looked down at the unconscious brothers. “What about these ass monkeys?”

Parker barked out a laugh, grinning. Nevaeh may have been crazy like the brothers claimed but she was growing on him.

He was glad he'd decided against murdering her.

For the moment.

“I guess it's safe to say my free pass with the agency is null and void.”

“Get me out of here, Parker,” she commanded and he cocked his head.

She grunted, her pretty eyes like a pale glacier. “Pretty please with sugar on top?”

He gave a hard swallow.

“You better not pull more undead crap or I'm going to be forced to subdue you.”

“Will I like it?” she asked with that voice of hers, her liquid eyes flashing like a silver streak.

He gave her a sharp look.

For the first time he considered if her five-point AFTD status was the most dangerous thing about her.

Maybe not.

He unlocked the manacles that bound her and she sat up. The room spun and she would have fallen if he hadn't caught her.

When had she eaten last? he wondered.

Nevaeh was pressed against the hard planes of his body and something terrible happened.

Their power clicked like a fist in a glove.

It washed over Jeffrey and Nevaeh, binding them.

“What is that?” Nevaeh asked, the dizziness hitting her between the eyes.

“I don't know,” Parker said, struggling to banish the wash of linked death that bound them.

When the first zombie showed up Parker and Nevaeh weren't surprised.

It felt like the two of them could have emptied the graveyards of the world.

Maybe they had.

But maybe... just maybe, if they hadn't- they could.

Caleb

Parker showed up with the female AFTD who looked worse than when I saw her last and dragged a bedraggled Zondorae behind him.

“Well hell, Parker, that was fast!” Jonesy said, clearly loving it.

Gramps said, “Slow learner, Jones?”

Jonesy backed away a little and Alex smirked.

“No more teen beatings, Mac,” Jonesy said.

“If I beat you, you'll know it, Jonesy,” Gramps said.

“Now,” Gramps said, rubbing his hands together and giving a sidelong look at the girls. “You young women may wish to be somewhere else while I have a little chat here with Zondorae.”

The girls looked at each other uneasily then Tiff commented, “It's alright, whatever happens, this dispshit deserves what's coming to him after that whole creepy auction thing in the dome world.”

Gramps looked at Tiff. “Let's keep our civility, Tiffany.”

“Sorry, Mac,” she said in a contrite voice.

“She gets off the hook,” Jonesy mumbled and Gramps narrowed his eyes on Jonesy.

“Excuse me?” Gary Zondorae said. “My people will be showing up, en masse in about...” his eyes rolled up into his head, doing an internal calculation that only he was privy to, “fifteen minutes.”

Clyde cuffed him on the ear and he howled. “Cease and desist, swine.”

Gale, who had shown up in her vehicle a few minutes before, giggled. “Oh, the language from the bygone era, it's so fun,” she trilled in delight.

I couldn't believe we were discussing these light topics when the Graysheet cavalry was gonna show.

Gramps must have been thinking the same thing. He had reappeared with the socket wrench we used to torque nuts when we were laying underneath cars.

A versatile tool.

But I knew that glint in his eye, he meant business.

“No, Caleb,” Jade said, a standing horror in her eyes. I let my hand drop off her skin.

The female necromancer looked at Jade. “Oh yes.” Her eyes glittered with an anger sharp enough to cut, her hand fingering a flesh-colored square bandage at the bend of her arm.

Gramps jammed a cigarette between his lips, eyes squinting against the wall of smoke.

I guess torture needed a few things in place: socket wrench- check. Smokes- check. Motivation- check.

The girls went into the house. Tiff remained. Jade cast a glance my way before disappearing inside. It was a guilt trip for sure, that look.

Kinda worked.

Gramps shook his head slightly, the smoke from his cigarette making a loose spiral around his head, wrench in hand. He used it to punctuate his point. “You Zondoraes...” he looked Gary over with disdain, pointing the wrench at his chest, who was currently getting the love squeeze from Parker, “are really slow learners. Now,” he took a drag, holding the butt end like a joint, his face fuzzy through the haze, “I got a cure for that.”

Clyde stepped forward, his shirt sleeves neatly folded almost to his elbows and looked at Gramps questioningly, who gave a slight chin dip. Clyde grabbed Zondorae and held him tight. Parker stepped away like they'd always done this dance. Gramps leaned in real close. His quiet voice sounded more menacing than a loud one ever could. “Tell me what your plan is for my grandson or I'll start with your toenails.”

I watched Gary's Adam's apple bob and he shifted his eyes to mine in sheer panic, playing the Time Game: would the Graysheets arrive before we could mutilate him?

“Come on, Hart! You can't let this... thug of a grandpa have my body parts because we have... a plan that you're not aware of...” he pleaded.

But my cup of care was full.

He'd pretty much filled that thing to the brim in Clara's world.

Twice.

And actually, I so could. I put my nose an inch from his. “There's no 'letting' on this one Zondorae. It's more like me not interfering with his excellence.”

Gramps and I looked at each other and he stepped forward, crushing the cig under his foot casually in a graceful stomp. He stepped over it as Clyde tightened his hold on Gary Zondorae who was mewling like the coward he was.

Gramps swung the wrench high, the faded ambient light of twilight glinted off the thing as it arced downward.

Clyde didn't flinch when it hit.

Nor when the howling began.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Zondorae's toes were splattered like mashed pancakes, his howling was waking the dead.

Hardy har-har.

Now, that would have been funny if the dead hadn't actually risen.

“Who the hell are they?” Nevaeh asked.

“Indians,” Parker responded.

I rolled my eyes when the nearest zombie frowned, that ripple of skin staying like a flesh stripe between his brows.

“Skopamish,” I corrected automatically.

Nevaeh shrugged and Tiff, the only girl who'd remained for the carnage, snorted in the background.

The chief came forward, his eyes taking in Parker, Nevaeh and myself. “Why have I been called?”

“Injun again,” Gramps muttered when the Indian spoke in his native tongue above a hollering Zondorae.

The chief, a lean specimen with corded muscles that flexed when he gripped his tomahawk tighter- hissed.

The sound didn't have a direction, it just happened, like an involuntary hiccup.

“Pesky fucker,” Nevaeh observed, giving a casual kick to Gary's ribs.

Tiff came closer, Bry at her heels. “Let's drag his butt into the garage. He's making a lot of noise.”

“Right,” Gramps said, his fist loosely holding the wrench covered in toe gore.

Gramps titled his head and looked at her. “Not feeling sorry for him yet?”

“Nah,” she said, popping her bubble of gum like gun fire.

I was sure Tiff was ruminating on the happenings of the sphere-world. It wouldn't exactly elicit sympathy for Zondorae.

I looked at the chief who had an attitude and said, “He would take away the Song of Death.”

“Damn, Hart!” Jonesy said, “been studying?”

I nodded. I had. The deal was that I wanted to know what the things were that I raised. Knowledge was power. My parents had been right about that.

The chief nodded, bending to pick up Zondorae who threw up from the smell. Chief whipped it off himself with a casual swipe of his hand and it splattered to the ground.

Archer stepped around the mess with distaste.

Chief threw Zondorae in a chair, Gramps put the tip of the bloodied wrench under his chin and said, “Speak,” like Zondorae was a dog.

Actually, Onyx received better treatment.

He was weeping, trying unsuccessfully to cradle his mangled toes.

“Stop being a sissy, an Organic can fix ya right up,” Gramps paused then said, “later.”

“How would you know?” he wailed.

“How do you think I knew what to do?” Gramps asked and I gave him a sharp look.

Hell, Gramps had been tortured?

His gaze slid to mine and I knew more than I had. All of it was bad.

Zondorae spoke, between hiccuping sobs, weeping and flailing around. He told us the Graysheet Plan.

It was worse than we had supposed.

Wasn't it always?

Nevaeh was the first to break the silence. “Why would you sterilize me?”

Zondorae's eyes met hers. “Yours was a special dose.” His watering and swollen eyes took in the group of guys and Tiff. “It's for your own good. There's no way to alter your genetic code. We can inhibit the manifestation through a booster,” he said then coughed and shuddered, moaning and holding his feet. “But we can't have the breeding.”

Like we were goddamned cattle.

Parker clenched his fists. “You think that you can stop the paranormals from having children? Are you insane?” I narrowed my eyes, his anger seemed feigned to me. Off. But Zondorae distracted me from further reflection.

Zondorae nodded, arrogance rearing its ugly head like a slip showing underneath a skirt. “We know we can. We have.”

The chief twitched, his tomahawk moving without a word. Zondorae's eyes widened at the blade; rusted but effective.

“Not yet,” I said casually and Chief gave me a look, backing down.

For the moment.

Nevaeh smirked. “Lots of action, no conversation,” she observed, flicking a strand of inky black hair behind her shoulder.

“Yeah,” I replied, my eyes never leaving Zondorae. “The Skopamish are my favorites.”

“You can kill me, but the wheels are in motion. You will be shut down, your powers- gone.” He looked at me. “You should be happy, Hart. Who wants to raise the dead?”

I don't know, I was kinda used to it now.

“You can't be allowed to have children. Period. Once we knew...”

“You thought you'd play God,” Nevaeh growled, her body vibrating with her anger as more zombies arose from the wet ground.

It was great timing because the Graysheets silently pulled up in their black, unmarked SUVs, pulse-fueled, state-of-the-art.

Gary Zondorae grinned as his pals showed up to save the day.

I wanted to smash his teeth down his throat.

Instead, the three of us necromancers opened a can of whoop ass.

“Holy smokes,” Jonesy said as the Graysheets stepped out of their vehicles, guns naked in their hands.

“This will definitely not improve neighbor relations,” Archer commented dryly while Zondorae chortled in the background, “Over here!” His voice broke on the last word.

The one in front looked at Parker, taking in the fifteen zombies behind him and said in greeting, “Parker.”

“It's not what it seems,” Parker responded.

I got the crooked mouth. In the middle of death staring us in the face, guns and the prospect of never having children, I felt like laughing.

Typical reaction to Bad Shit Coming Down.

“Let me get this straight,” the agent said, taking in a bleeding and barely coherent Zondorae. “I recognize torture techniques when I see them and a rogue agent. Don't try to turn the tables.”

Zondorae stood favoring his pulverized foot. “Kill them. They know everything, the reversal, the sterilization. They know.”

The agent sighed, raising his gun.

My crooked mouth slipped when he shot Gary Zondorae between the eyes.

“Oh shit,” Alex whispered as Zondorae slumped to the floor and began to bleed out. The pool of red flowed toward the drain Gramps had installed when the place was built.

Parker looked at the agent, casually turning away from the murdered scientist. “Listen Brewster, I'm all for him going....”

“There's a new plan, Parker,” Brewster said.

Jade was suddenly there. Which made me want to puke, her terrible vulnerability in the open.

“You didn't stay in the house,” I said quietly as Parker and Brewster squared off.

“They're going to kill us,” she said with an intense certainty that tightened my guts.

I didn't wait for verification, I grabbed Nevaeh, her bony hand like fragile twigs in my grasp and we called everything that would respond and things that wouldn't.

And I thought siphoning off Tiff had been a rush.

The pool of our power was a crushing slip of energy that left us in a hot ripple of death that flowed out in every direction.

I felt the Null before he tried to shut us down and John was suddenly there.

He nodded at me, his bronzed hair like a low flame in the late dim of dusk. “I have this, Caleb,” he said in a low voice.

I swung my face away from him as the bullets fired, trying to cut us down even as we kept summoning.

Our zombies moved like a wall of dead flesh in front of us without being invited.

The dead needed no such invitation.

They came, their bodies jerking as they shielded us from the barrage of bullets. My soul cringed as I delivered my zombies up for massacre.

It felt somehow wrong yet it was all we could do.

Nevaeh turned her head like we were moving in a slow motion dance underwater and reached out to Parker.

The slide of deadly power, linked by our affinity, brought all the death that remained to heel.

We fell to our knees as Brewster pressed the gun barrel to Parker's bowed head, execution-style. Parker remained under the weight of somnolent awe of the death energy that had brought us low.

The Chief stepped into the agent's path, smoothly swinging the tomahawk and took Brewster's hand off at the wrist. After a heartbeat or two, the veins that had retreated by the hack now began to flow in earnest.

He began to stagger around in a jerky stumble as his raw end pumped his lifeblood on Gramps' driveway.

Jade moaned at my back, clearly not feelin' the moment.

When dead came from five miles away I saw another relative I hadn't expected.

“Mother,” Gramps breathed, dropping the bloodied wrench on the ground.

Gran had definitely gotten her groove on and was back with her head in the game.

I gave a shouting bark that sounded alarmingly like laughter combined with a cry and realized that hysteria was a pace away from me, waiting to consume me in an instant if I let it.

I felt Jade's small and warm hand press on my back and shuddered underneath her blind faith that she poured into me. She was fragile in stature, but never in her interior.

Jade was my rock.

She gave me what she could.

It was enough; my head started clearing.

We stood and I hauled up my compatriots.

I looked over at the Zondorae's corpse and with a small tap of power I raised him.

He stood smoothly, the power of the three of us cleanly knitting his wounds into a sublime kind of perfection and he gave a small bow.

“Touché, Caleb Hart. I'm here to serve,” Gary said, his voice like a low growl.

“I know,” I said and beckoned him forward. He shambled forward quickly, like a spider walking upright. His mangled toes caused a little bit of a balance problem.

Huh.

“Now... that's just wrong,” Jonesy said as the zombies hacked and the Graysheets shot.

I was hoping Jonesy wasn't having a moment of regret.

“I like it,” Alex said, tossing a Graysheet armed with only a knife about seven meters away, his powerful body doing a slight swivel that sent the agent flying like a low human airplane.

The zombies, some with separated limbs, some headless, never quit. They kept coming in waves and in various stages of rot and pieces. Their missing limbs trembled across the surface of the ground to get to the enemy. The sheer numbers overwhelmed the paltry force of the Graysheets.

That's when I knew that something was desperately wrong.

But what?

The Graysheets simply didn't do small.

It wasn't long before we found out.

We chucked the bodies inside their vehicles. Actually, it was more like a scrape and stuff.

The two Ss.

Jade began to gag. I'd had to just ignore my need to comfort her because of my need to get the agents hidden.

“There's more work, Caleb,” Parker said, heaving an agent in the rig by the legs.

“Eww... they're just staring,” Sophie said, peeking at the zombie horde from between her fingers. Jonesy snorted. “You ought to be immune now, sweetheart.”

Tiff rolled her eyes, snapping a bubble while eyeing Gran. I'm sure the event from a few years ago where Gran had tossed Bry and her around might be a little fresh.

We finished and the zombies closed in, sensing us, needing us. Their hands flowed over our clothing and we stood while they drew energy from us.

“Does it just leak out?” Nevaeh asked.

I knew what she meant.

“Yeah. It's more like I keep it caged...” I began.

“Raw,” Parker said in loose agreement.

I nodded.

“So,” Jonesy said, hopping off the crushed end of the Camaro's spoiler. “What about all these dead guys?”

I looked at Zondorae because that's who Jonesy was looking at.

“Gary Zondorae,” I said and I heard his neck pop wetly as he turned and I realized he must have fractured it on the way down. A pink scar showed like a cyclops eye in the middle of his forehead.

It was bizarre even by my standards.

“This is our chance,” Parker said.

There was silence.

Then Gramps said, “Are we talking about a total clean up?”

Jeffrey Parker nodded. He may have started out normal but his background and training had changed what he might have been.

He was what he was now.

I had never been happier, or more scared of the unknown.

“I'm in, death-boy,” Nevaeh said then looked at Tiff. “What can you do, dude?”

“I've been a helluva battery for Caleb,” Tiff responded.

“And you gotcha a buttload of snark.”

Tiff smiled. “Only for the deserving,” she deadpanned.

Nevaeh grinned and it transformed her face, making it open and pretty.

She looked at me. “You got some relatives here.” She looked at Clyde. “He's different...”

“Yeah,” I said, not wanting her to pay too much attention to Clyde until I knew what side she was batting on. I was getting to be as suspicious as Gramps.

Gramps was checking out Gran (which was his mom) and he said, tearing his gaze away. “What can we do for your Gran here?”

“Same thing with all of them, Gramps. She came because I called the state and all that jazz.”

He grunted.

“So you gonna bomb the Graysheets or something?” Bry asked with a small laugh.

Parker nodded then said, “No, not me.”

I gave him a hard gaze. “Who?”

He looked slightly embarrassed and Gramps said, “You've been working both angles, Parker?”

He nodded. “I have.”

Mia raised her hand, ignoring the evidence of the battle.

Bry laughed and she gave him a mild glare. Mild by Jade standards.

Jade elbowed me and I laughed. So Empath of her.

“Ah... I was just wondering,” Mia began, looking around at the statue-like dead. “You're saying that you had a plan to what... bomb the Graysheets?”

“It's already happening.”

Mia nodded like it made sense but it didn't.

“You mean, that whole coming and rescuing me was a decoy to get that pervert scientist here, to distract the Graysheet 'guard',” Nevaeh made airquotes, “and get some wackos in place to do them in.”

“Yes.”

“Prick,” Nevaeh said with conviction.

The barest smile turned the corners of Parker's mouth up.

Gramps shook his head at the hopelessness of it all.

I thought Parker had his hands full with this new girl.

As if there were a cue-by-jinx a huge explosion erupted to the west of us. My eyes bulged.

“You did it? You destroyed their headquarters?”

Parker shook his head. “My benefactors did.”

Jade mouthed the word in confusion.

“Who?” Gramps said. “Stop the cryptic bullshit and spit it out.”

The zombies moved slightly closer to Gramps, who promptly evaded them.

“A group that would circumvent the Graysheets. That would allow us to keep our powers, or...” he caught our eyes easily, dead and alive, “allow the future of our nation to be ruled by mundane or paranormal. Without bigotry or prejudice.”

“That'll never happen,” Randi said, Jonesy and Sophie nodding. They instinctively understood that history had a way of repeating itself and hanging on to archaic precepts.

Parker lifted a muscular shoulder, slamming the last vehicle door on the new dead.

The old dead followed us out of there.

We drove.

They ran.

I kept Tiff and the new AFTD, seven kinds of crazy, in separate vehicles and we raced to the Graysheet building. It was the beating and black heart of their organization.

The nucleus, as Dad would say.

The zombies kept to the greenbelts of woods that divided everything like green ribbons bisecting cement.

Other zombies joined us, riding on the tail of our death power. As we passed by, they followed like we were the Pied Piper.

By the time we arrived at the building there were over a thousand zombies.

What was interesting was the cops, firemen and general chaos of responders who had set up camp for the wounded were doing their job when the horde began to flow into the scene.

The yellow tape didn't stop anything or anyone. Our dead walked through it like dental floss.

Gary Zondorae was mobbed the minute he came on scene. “Thank God... Gary!” Joe gave a wave, soot covering him from head to toe. Several hails of “Doctor” followed.

Zondorae didn't respond.

Because Gary was mine now and looking very alive. Joe would've never known had he not interacted with him.

Unfortunately, he did.

Joe rushed up and skidded to a stop when he saw me. “What is Hart doing here?” Then, “Did Parker get the sample?” He looked at me with a superior grin.

Not for long.

“I don't know,” Gary said nonchalantly. Joe took a step back, his hand that'd been raised to touch Gary snapping back against his body. “What's wrong with you?” Joe asked.

I knew when he got it. The draining of color on his face was a tell.

“You stupid brat,” Joe Zondorae proclaimed in a voice that shook with emotion.

I just stared at him and was proud when the crooked mouth didn't erupt as Gary hissed at his brother.

His mouth was pink and perfect.

I did smile then.

“Shit,” Joe whispered. “He's your zombie.”

“Yeah... Joe,” I said, making a loose circle around Gary while I appeared to admire my new zombie.

“Caleb,” Gramps admonished. “Act your age, son.”

I felt shame claim me like a wart on my ass. He was right, I was being childish.

Clyde looked at me in disappointment and I realized how much I had.

The Graysheets hadn't won, they were pushing forward an agenda to strip us of our abilities because we'd become a monster they couldn't control and were backpedaling big time. But had they succeeded in removing the possibility of procreation along with it?

Jade grabbed my hand and looked up at me.

She was counting on me to own it.

Sometimes manhood comes with stealth; sometimes it steals your boyhood quietly like a thief.

I'd say mine was taken in that moment.

With the Graysheets building a torch and my girlfriend's hand inside my sweaty grasp I committed. “Let's do it.”

“Do what?” Jonesy asked, baffled.

“Just go with it Jones,” Bry said, “float, dude.”

“Right,” Jonesy said, “Onward!” he cried raising his arm straight up like he held a sword.

“Gary no,” Joe said, begging, as he tried to pluck the sleeve of his brother's shirt, now dark brown with the dried blood of his death.

Gary took his palm and with splayed fingers captured Joe's face and pushed him over.

“Ass over tea kettle,” Gramps observed, following us.

Yeah, I thought as I glanced back to see Joe sprawled on the ground.

“This way, Master,” Gary Zondorae said.

I nodded, following him closely.

John said, “That is so weird.”

He was right, the irony of a Zondorae being on Team Dead was a flavor of surreal that was difficult to quantify.

The responders stood, staring at the horde as they crowded behind us, knowing that there was no gun in the world that would save them from the human ocean of death that flowed behind the three of us.

It was sheer numbers- again.

It still stood. The central vault that held the secrets of the genes. It survived.

It had been built like a bomb shelter above ground.

Gary placed his thumb on the pulse lock that hung at the entrance and it pulsed open with a soft whisper. He entered and we followed.

A small amount of his humanity remained because he stroked the glass slide as he removed it from the stainless steel that held it inside the tomb of the Graysheets.

Zondorae turned, handing it to me with a reluctance that let me know that some part of him rebelled. But I owned death. And in owning it; I owned him.

We looked at each other and he let a breath escape that sounded like a sob.

I released him. His regret was a black tide against my brain, entering every open place where I stored my emotions.

I couldn't abide it.

It was so terrible that I moved away from Jade when she would have touched me, sparing her that.

I watched as he wove through the bodies like an obstacle course, passing his fallen brother and not even glancing his way.

Dad showed up, picking his way through the rubble like a race car avoiding cones. He slowed as he saw the loose mess of zombies.

“Caleb...?” he asked, his expression telling me everything.

We were a few meters apart and as part of my new Introspection Plan I slid my gaze to Parker, my resolve vacillating.

I realized that no one should have what I did.

We weren't ready.

In that single thing, the Graysheets had finally made sense.

“Do it,” I told Parker.

He pivoted smoothly, bringing out a collector he'd been holding. He clamped a strong hand over my wrist, and punched the teeth of the disc into my arm, turning it.

Blood flowed into the collection area.

“Caleb!” Dad screamed, his eyes frantic as he watched Parker take what would be The DNA Sample.

I got woozy right away. “What was in that?” I asked Parker in a slur.

“Sorry, it's just a part of the collection,” Parker said, his face doubling in my vision.

I could see Dad coming for me. Gramps, Clyde and creepy Gran were racing to Parker's position. Then I was leaning like a tree.

Falling.

Clyde caught me, his expression very human, very worried.

I said the one thing that mattered.

Jade, I mouthed and he nodded.

He so got me.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I opened my eyes and felt the throbbing in my arm before I looked at it. I noticed I was in the hospital too.

Seemed like I should have a annual pass or something, I always ended up here.

I went to sit up and Jezebel the Organic was there. She had a fresh needle mark herself.

I rolled my eyes up to meet hers. “Whoa cowboy, settle down. You're not going anywhere yet.”

“Did they take away your ability?”

She frowned in confusion, then smiled. “I think you're not thinking clearly, Caleb.”

I pointed to the mark on her arm.

Jezebel looked down with a confused glance. “Oh that. Right... I gave blood. I'm AB negative. They beg me for it.”

Beg. For. It.

“Where...? Is Jade okay?” I asked.

“Who?” she asked, carefully laying her hands above my arm in a diagnostic hover, sensing my vitals. Whatever was there must have been okay because she nodded to herself and began to leave.

“Wait,” I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed, my naked ass waving a hello to the window behind me.

“No!” she frowned, pointing her finger. “What do you need?”

Jade. “I need my pulse.”

Her brows rose.

“It's in the back pocket of my pants.”

She rooted around till she found the all-black pulse. When I went to grab it she said, “Ten minutes, Mr. Hart. That was a powerful depressant that you were given. It was hard on your respiratory system.”

“Okay,” I said, my palm out for the pulse.

She slapped in my waiting hand and I breathed a sigh of relief as I curled my fingers around it; already that much closer to Jade.

Hot one, I thought into the pulse as soon as I depressed my thumb on the pad.

Initializing

I watched the green characters float, then clash in a blinding smack in the middle of the screen.

Then Jade was there.

Hey... are you okay?- Hot One

Yeah, it was some kind of big profanity block depressant.- Stud

What's going on?- Stud

Emotive Response High

Jade?- Stud

The plan is to herd us to a sanctioned building for a reversal.- Hot One

What? Wow, not wasting any time.- Stud

How could this happen when the heart of the Graysheets had been taken out? That should have left them with a bleeding chest wound, I thought, giving a small smile at the gusher they had.

What about those slides Zondorae gave me?

I thought those questions into the pulse.

Your dad took the slide to Anderson.- Hot One

The journalist?- Stud

Yes.- Hot One

Now the question was: Could Dad expose the very ones who had funded his research in order to make every kid a potential paranormal? The same ones who'd unilaterally decided to take said abilities from them.

Last time I noticed, we were living in America. The abilities could be a liability, but the Graysheets needed to be exposed for their manipulations. I had that pang of indecision again.

I'm getting all that!- Hot One

I lifted my thumb. It was beyond novice of me to leave it on the viral touchpad when I wasn't intending to convey thoughts.

Sorry smiles- Stud.

Smiles, it's okay. BTW, you'll be released today.- Hot One.

When?- Stud

I'm coming to get you.- Hot One

I relaxed even more.

What about the parents?- Stud

I thought is was weird as hell that Mom wasn't here doing the helicopter parent.

Hover-hover-hover.

They have you under guard.- Hot One

Really?- Stud

Really.- Hot One

I couldn't imagine a circumstance that Mom wouldn't come crashing through. I remembered passing out and the zombies, Dad... Gran (I gave a small shudder at that image) and wondered what had happened. The last thing I'd seen was Clyde's face above mine. Time would tell.

I didn't think we needed too much more time.

I love you, Jade.- Stud

You know that I do.- Hot One

We ended the pulse and I waited. There was so much to do I didn't even know where to begin with prioritizing it.

There were going to be repercussions to raising every zombie in four cities, I knew it. I couldn't hide behind a thing now.

There was just certain shit that was too legendary to ignore for law enforcement.

Like raising the horde.

Which brought more questions than answers. Where were Clyde, Parker... and the new chick? Nevaeh.

Jade burst into the room and I stood, forgetting about that attractive hospital flap that came open.

She didn't.

It was almost worth the hospital stay.

Jeffrey Parker

“How'd it go?” Parker asked and Amanda pursed her lips.

“Obviously, it was only an amputation.”

Christopher shrugged. “It's a slow bleed but they'll be trying to recover for years.” He smiled suddenly and said, “Hart is funnier than hell.”

Parker frowned. “Yeah, raising Zondorae was an interesting choice.”

Amanda snorted. “That's one way of putting it.”

“They offed him without thinking about it,” Christopher stated, stuffing his hands in the front pocket of his jeans, his frown of contemplation eating his grin.

Parker nodded. “A dead Zondorae is a good Zondorae. He was a helluva zombie,” Parker said with reflection.

The two nodded in agreement.

“Joe is still out there, ranting about espionage and terrorism,” Christopher said. “He'll give all the do-gooders who haven't served a day securing our freedom some credibility.”

Parker nodded at Christopher's words.

“We'll move forward. Then, when they think that they've reestablished control, we'll tear the rug out from underneath their feet,” Amanda recited from a voice steeped in repetition and deep-seated zealotry.

“Pass the map,” Parker interrupted.

Amanda narrowed her concentration at the map, her brow furrowing. The map lifted and came at Parker in a flash of rippling paper.

“Don't get cute,” Parker said, catching it.

“Why do I support paranormals?” Christopher asked to the room at large, shaking his head.

“'Cuz we're hot, baby,” Amanda said, twining herself around Christopher and giving him some tongue and lip.

Parker sighed and they disentangled.

Christopher wore her lipstick like a clown had mauled him.

“Stay classy, guys,” Parker tried.

Amanda flipped him off.

“Anyway,” Parker said, elongating the word significantly. He gazed down at the map, detailing every building the Graysheets owned in the state.

There were ten. There were even greater numbers in some of the more densely populated parts of the nation.

But Parker was worrying about Washington. Others would worry about their territory. Now, if he could just secure the cooperation of the rogue C-M.

As if reading his mind Amanda scattered his thoughts with, “So what about the AFTD chick you picked up like a stray. Is she really all that? I mean, why did the Graysheets want to clean her?”

Parker had looked into her records. He knew why.

He just wasn't sure they should know.

Parker wasn't sure he wanted to know.

He was also dead sure Nevaeh did not. What a clusterfuck.

Instead, he shrugged. The file that had held her secrets was now a molten and destroyed mess of glass in the incinerator. It'd been within the guts of the Graysheet building his sponsors had destroyed.

“We were lucky to get those files,” Christopher said, tapping his finger on the long file holder made of a sophisticated lucite material. The predecessor to acrylic.

Amanda agreed. “It reminds me of the Holocaust, what they're jonesing to accomplish.”

Christopher raised a brow. “The what?”

“That brilliant whacko, Hitler?” Parker prompted.

Christopher nodded. “The dude that tried to kill off an entire race of people back, what?” His eyeballs lifted, he was thinking. “It was in the middle of the 20^th century, right?”

Amanda nodded. “1940s, I think.”

He shrugged. “Don't see the correlation.”

“It's the same. Their focus is on the paranormals. They want to take away our powers. Then, they know that our DNA has been permanently altered by the Helix Cocktail. Basically, they're screwed if we reproduce.”

“And we've taken care of that,” Christopher said in a flat voice.

“Not all,” Parker said and they met his eyes. The silence stretched. Finally, Parker told them the worst news.

“You know the clinical trials were sketchy. That Dr. Kyle Hart was fed deliberate facts, ones that made it appear safer than it was. Lies by omission.”

“It was the Zondoraes' baby,” Amanda interrupted him.

Jeffrey nodded, remembering the boy he was. The boy they exploited, and pushed the memory away with the rest of the disturbing shit in his internal lockbox. He wasn't a big believer in introspection.

“Even I couldn't get to this one thing here,” Parker said, pointing at the thirty-odd glass slides, the invisible helix lying in wait for the right pulse print.

“Well?” Amanda asked, hooking a thumb through a belt loop on Christopher's black jeans.

“One,” Parker began, “they only want some powers reversed.”

“Smart,” Christopher said, smirking.

Amanda nodded, biting lightly on her thumbnail. “It makes them look—

Responsible,” Christopher finished.

“Discerning,” Parker added, then, “they'll gain public sympathy as well.”

“What are they 'keeping',” Amanda asked with airquotes.

“Hardly anything. The brass has announced that the 'vital abilities' will be 'managed',” Parker said.

“Which?” Amanda's eyes searched his face.

“Organics. Locators... maybe Electromagnetics?”

“Hmmm. Not good.” Christopher looked at Parker. “There's worse news than this.”

Parker nodded. “The single worse thing that they could have kept secret in the trials were the side effects of the HC.”

They watched him and he told them what the Helix Cocktail destroyed.

“No!” Amanda cried. “It negates what we were trying to accomplish.”

“Not entirely,” Parker said.

“What do you mean?” Amanda asked, guarded hope crowding her eyes.

“I mean that they were scientists without more than just integrity. They lacked vision and purpose beyond their own greed. So now, unless those kids,” Parker paused, “several of whom are adults now... unless they get a counter serum there will be a great fall in the human population.”

For the HC given at the onset of puberty took the most precious choice of all: life.

The millions of children inoculated now had an end without options, stolen forever by the hunger for power.

Sterility was the future for paranormals.

But for a twist of fate, Caleb Hart would have been amongst this number.

However, he was not. Like Nevaeh, he was a special case and his father had given him more than height in the genetic equation.

His interference had saved his reproductive potential.

Caleb

Jade lay curled against my side, fitting there like she'd always been while the mess of my life slid through in a stream of images through my head.

“I'm scared,” Jade said.

I stroked her bare back, loving the feel of it against my fingertips, not being able to believe skin existed that was as soft as hers.

I thought about lying. Not that it was possible but it bleeped through my mind and was gone.

Instead I just answered with the truth, “Me too.”

“Can they force us?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Oh, Caleb.” She gave a small cry and nuzzled in against my ribs tighter, using her small arm to grip me.

“They said they'll do it by year then alphabetically. They've already gotten through almost everyone born before us.”

We'd all be next, all of us had birthdays that were close to one another.

Wow, they were moving fast. Parker's people had crippled them but there were enough Graysheets scurrying around that the imperative moved forward regardless.

Damn. I pulled away, looking into the deep green of her eyes. “Did this happen when I was in the hospital?”

Hell... overnight?

A sly grin appeared on her face. “I would have told you if we hadn't... ya know, not talked.”

I threw a hand up in surrender. “You're the one that attacked my ass.”

She giggled. “It wasn't really your ass.”

True. “I can't argue that...”

Jade gave me That Look and I set the bullshit aside and tackled her.

It worked out pretty well.

early autumn

Jade threw a pillow at me that I deftly caught and flung on her bed, making it in a half-ass way.

“Don't you know how to make a bed?” she asked, looking absolutely hot in the first degree. “Hello?” Jade said, snapping her fingers.

My chin shot up and I swung my head to the crap job of the bed, not tucked in anywhere, the covers still rumpled from... activity.

Uh-huh....

I grabbed Jade and she squealed, her shirt half buttoned and one boot on. “Caleb!” she squealed.

“What?” I asked, nipping and licking along her neck.

“Ooh,” she purred at me and I went for it. “No, no!” she said, pushing me away gently with a laugh. “You're still living with your parents, I don't want them pissed at me.”

Right. “For about three more seconds. Then I go to train.”

She shook her head. “We don't know that. All this reversal inoculation could change our futures. If I'm no longer an Empath... if you're not AFTD?”

That wasn't going to happen. A world without the dead was one I wouldn't be a part of. I couldn't fathom their absence. Even though in a moment of weakness I had let Parker have my blood to do just that, or so I'd believed.

Just when I thought nothing could take Jade from me there was a loud knock at the lower level of the old-fashioned house she bunked in.

We looked at each other.

When the commotion sounded downstairs, I was momentarily distracted by a pulse.

I looked down even as I pulsed the lock on the door, the bolt sliding seamlessly into place.

Are you with Jade?- Dad

Yes- CH

Can you leave safely?- Dad

Why, Dad?- CH

Emotive response High.

Holy shit, I never got an emotive response from my parents.

It's come to my attention that the reversal inoculation will be compulsory.- Dad

Then-

Did you get my last pulse?-Dad

I scrolled through and found a bunch of details about the Herding of the Paranormals.

But I'd been busy with Jade.

Shit.

I tried to regret it and couldn't.

I knew this day was coming.

No- CH

Get out of there- Dad

Wherever you are, get out safely, you and Jade- Dad

What about the Js?- CH

pause in pulse communication.

I'm sorry, son. I just don't know.- Dad

Fuck me.

Jade's eyes widened. Holding her hand saved time.

I took my thumb off the pulse.

“Did you get that?”

She nodded. “They're here and they're going to force it.”

“They'll have the police on their side,” I said, searching her face.

“What can we do?” Jade asked, then asked the only critical question for me, “What will you do?”

I didn't hesitate. “What I have to.”

When the pulse lock on Jade's door was deactivated, she gripped my hand. “It's them,” she said.

I called the dead. It was simple, I let the leash go and they came running.

The Graysheets weren't taking me.

And they sure as shit weren't taking Jade.

I put her behind my body protectively and tensed, expecting the worst.

It wasn't them, it was Archer. He'd worked her lock like the pro he was.

“Come on. We don't have long.”

I got over my surprise and we followed Lewis as he opened every door that stood in our way, locking it behind him with a grim smile affixed to his face.

We left.

Safe for the moment, but not for long.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kent Refuse

“Shit, Hart. It's a load off that you're gracing us with your presence,” Jonesy said, rubbing a rough hand over the short nap of his hair.

I gave a chin lift and smiled, throwing my coat onto one of the milk crates at the dump, it'd been a logical place to go.

Jade went immediately to the tossed coat and sat down on the crate, wrapping it around her legs. Perpetually cold. Not me, it was grounds for ass sweat if I had too many clothes on.

Not gonna happen.

My eyes scanned the group. Tiff was missing, Bry was here.

I lifted a brow at Terran.

“She'll be here, she had to babysit one of the brothers.”

There was like fifteen so that made sense. Still, a small pool of dread knotted in my guts and I paused.

“It's okay, Hamilton's got, like an ankle bracelet of lightning, pal,” Jonesy said.

John shrugged. “I don't trust it either but...” John raked a hand through his hair, strangling it in a messy turban on his head.

“Tiff isn't the constraining type,” Alex quipped, rolling the tenseness out of his shoulders. He did a loose swirl of his neck, working out the kinks as Randi sat on his lap, peering up at him.

Sophie snorted in the background while she filed her nails.

“Okay,” I began, “my Dad told me to get out of Jade's place because the goon squad was coming...”

Archer mimed a small bow, “And I facilitated their escape.”

I gave the nod to Lewis, who still looked like every hair was in place. I asked him when his birthday fell.

It was in October, like mine, right around the corner. We were definitely next in line. They'd been at it hardcore since the disembowelment of their main headquarters.

I thought it was stranger than shit that everyone had autumn birthdays. However, our collective numbers were up and the Graysheets had come calling.

“They're going to stick us,” Randi said with a slight tremble of her lip.

“I call bullshit on that, big time shenanigan bullshit,” Jonesy said. Then he added, “I was just getting the hang of causing black outs and shit and then they want to put out my awesomeness? No.” He slammed his blow pop back in his mouth and slurped, missing Sophie's disgusted glance.

“What right do they have to jack our powers?” Sophie asked rhetorically, blowing glitter nail polish dust off with a pouty mouth. She splayed her fingers in front of her and with a twist of her mouth went back to Making her Manicure Perfect.

I guess nothing stopped grooming for chicks.

Right.

“They must,” I said, beginning to palm my chin and pace. There had to be a way out of this. I kept turning over the rightness of losing our abilities against their control. Maybe it was the right thing for paranormals not to exist, but taking away our freedom? The right answer had become as gray as the Graysheets themselves.

“Wonder if your Gramps got rid of the Graysheets' bodies and the SUVs?” Alex asked casually, referencing the months' old mess.

Good effing question, I hadn't even considered the corpse wallow at Gramps'. Of course, the Graysheets weren't going to let their own sit around at a civilian's house so they could become further compromised. That had happened long enough ago... I didn't even have a clue. At least the zombie horde episode at the torched Graysheet complex had been pinned on Parker. That was one good thing, he could handle the heat. I opened my mouth to respond and there was a noise that made me turn toward the tunnel-like entrance of our semi-buried hiding place, stopping my introspection about Hiding Bodies.

It was Clyde and Gale.

Well wasn't this cozy? I strode to Clyde, a smile plastered on my face.

“You are well?” Clyde asked, clamping down on my hand with the vise of his own. My hand throbbed upon its release, blood rushing back to it in a tingling surge of pins and needles.

My smile became a grin and he smiled back at me.

“I'm better now that you're here.”

Clyde was a subtle dude, he lowered his chin in the barest of acknowledgments and Bobbi came to stand at his side.

It hit me then.

My Clyde. The one who had stood by my side as my childhood melted into adulthood would cease to exist when Gale's AFTD power was stripped. The grayness of choices became less so with the thought of a world without Clyde.

“Oh no,” John said, totally getting the implication.

“Yes,” Bobbi said.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

His face became profoundly sad in pieces. When the last one slipped into place, taking the life from his eyes and dimming him, he responded, “Leave you, Master.”

He gripped my shoulders and hugged me. It was goodbye and thank you.

It was crushing. I felt my soul bruise with his departure.

There was nothing they could do. Nothing we could do.

If he were to live, Bobbi Gale would need to remain an AFTD. She'd have to exist under the radar.

Clyde released me in the dead silence of the hideaway.

I turned my attention to Gale. “How?”

She turned her face and there was a healing scar over where her pulse disc should be.

She opened her palm, showing the crushed disc that lay inside.

“Oh my gawd, you guys are going rogue?” Sophie said and Clyde's lips turned up.

“Yes, my dear, we will be making ourselves scarce,” Clyde said and Gale wrapped her arms around his waist from behind and he absently covered her small hands with his large ones.

“You knew I was here,” I stated.

He nodded. “I know wherever you are.” Clyde grasped my palms and looked into my eyes, hesitating. I could see the moment when he'd made an internal decision to tell me something. “I doubted you when you were a youth.” His gaze searched mine, those smoldering hazel eyes holding so much more than most. “However,” his eyes flared with intensity, sincerity, “I cannot imagine a better man.”

I blinked hard, the wetness straining to overflow the rims of my eyes.

And with that, his hands slipped out of mine, and his arm pulled Gale against him as they made their way out of the tunnel.

And Clyde was gone.

Being an adult sucked balls.

And I had the feeling this was the beginning of a long term series of challenges.

Why, if life was so precious, did it hurt so much?

blaze of death

We were still arguing methods of avoidance when Gramps burst through the hole of the tunnel.

I'd never seen him look flustered, or out of breath.

“Kids, let's go,” he said.

I looked at my watch, we'd only been here less than an hour. A surreal melancholy settled in when my mind brushed past Clyde's departure and I pushed it aside. It was easier to think about it later, especially when I heard Terran's words.

John whispered, “Tiff.”

It crashed into us then: Tiff should have arrived by now.

Gramps nodded. “You guys are walled up in here while they're collecting every paranormal from here to goddamned Timbuktu.”

Bry jogged to Gramps and put a hand on one of his big shoulders. “What is it, Mac?” Bry asked in a low voice that was filled with trepidation.

“It's your family Bryan.” Gramps looked at all of us. “Their home is burning to the ground as we speak.”

Jade ran to me and I grabbed her hand.

“How?” she asked.

Gramps turned in the narrow tunnel, continuing to move forward in an awkward scuttle. “Not how... who.”

Terran smacked his head on the tunnel roof. “Tiff.” He said the word in a statement as absolute as his existence and Gramps hesitated for a moment.

“Yeah, son.”

“Is she okay?” Bry asked in what sounded like a soft cry and I heard the low sounds of Mia soothing him from behind us as we single-filed our way out of there.

Finally, we got out of the tunnel into a misting rain that was little more than sleet falling, unseasonably cold, Indian summer now only a memory.

Gramps got soaked in a second.

“They don't know,” Gramps said, looking at Bry.

Bry swallowed, unashamed tears scalded his face as they drove a hot path to his chin. “The boys?” he asked in a raw voice.

Gramps nodded. “They're okay.”

Bry's shoulders slumped in relief.

“Let's get going!” Terran shouted over the roar of the rain falling.

“Yeah, let's get the sticks outta our asses,” Jonesy said, water dripping from his chin. Jade had my coat over her head like an umbrella so that the rain would sheet off the waterproof surface.

“Wait,” Gramps said.

We paused.

“They'll net the lot of ya,” Gramps said, resuming his smoking habit in the blink of an eye, the hot ember at the tip hissing in the damp weather, rain dripping off his cupped hand.

“Damn it all!” Terran shouted in to the heavens, the veins in his neck standing out like flesh cords, his hands in tight fists of impotent rage.

“We are so fucked,” Jonesy said forlornly.

Gramps didn't head lock him for the language. None of us even responded.

We needed to get Tiff.

Who'd disappeared into thin air.

I knew it wasn't thin, it was thick. Thick with the usual soup: Graysheets.

In this case, it wasn't what we thought.

It was way worse than any of our suppositions could have ever been.

decoy

“You understand your mission?” Joe Zondorae asked him.

“Fuck yes, ya old goat.” His eyes glittered at the scientist.

If Joe didn't desperately need the assistance of this piece of shit then he'd never ask.

Never.

Yet, he did. So here he was, his brother dead, raised as a zombie and put to rest at the thug Grandfather's house of Caleb Hart. His flesh and blood now lay entombed in the cement under a driveway where he could never pay his respects. Joe could feel his blood roaring in his ears, the rage at all their hard work null and void.

Well, he had one more card to play.

It had fallen into his lap like a fat plum. That jackass firestarter, Carson Hamilton, had somehow overridden his prisoner pulse cuff and torched the brat AFTD's house with her family inside.

Zondorae's lips curled in a smile of cruel satisfaction. It was perfect really. Now that smart ass was with her attacker and the trouble makers would come in, presuming they could save the day, and his least favorite Manipulator would be there to scoop up the reluctant Jade.

For it was she that Joe needed. She would be the catalyst. Her abuse and eventual death would send Hart over the deep end of sanity. It was the directive from above, the reversal still in full swing and gaining speed after the ruination of their government facility and the zombies that had appeared. The public sympathy was still not for the paranormals even two months later. Corpses had a way of turning folks off. Caleb Hart was too high profile to kill by traditional methods. It would need to look self-motivated, explainable. Of course, Hart could be helped along. He had high resilience, unfortunately. However, they'd run the numbers and hurting the girlfriend had the highest probability of eliciting the manic behavior that would lend credibility to his suicide.

Or faked suicide.

Psychologically, Hart wasn't the do-himself-in-type.

Joe stroked the vial that contained the sample provided by Parker and taken from Hart that he'd carefully sifted to include the Key's DNA.

But not for the reasons that Parker had surmised, his last legitimate act as an agent.

No, it was to keep that paranormal gene splice alive. With this unique set of DNA, his employers could enlist the help of anyone they wished to gift with the paranormal spectrum.

For the usual reasons: war, control, power, and Zondorae's personal favorite, money.

Better to make Parker believe he was helping humanity. Zondorae was more than aware of Parker's sentimental streak. Weakness, rather.

And if their chosen didn't like the gift... Zondorae looked at Frazier.

There was always manipulation with a capital M.

“Go fetch, Frazier,” Joe said with more bravado than he felt.

“I know what I'd do if you you weren't immune,” Howie Frazier said.

Joe Zondorae nodded. “Yes. My brother,” he gave a hard swallow, and Frazier smiled, the sociopath, “and I were well-aware of your potential. Hence,” he swung up his arm, scarred with a star shape, “the necessary precautions are in place, my friend.”

“You're so obvious, Zondorae.” Frazier gave a derisive snort. “You want Hart fucking crazy because then he can't realize what he really is.” Frazier's eyes bored into Joe. “But I'm not the only one who knows. And then there's that whack-job chick...”

“Just do your job, Frazier. Leave the intellectual underpinnings of the plan to me.”

“Yeah, 'cuz you've been so smart,” he ended the last word on a sarcastic clip.

“Smart enough.”

Frazier barked a short burst of laughter, briefly crossing his muscular arms across his chest. “Ask your brother how smart he was when Hart raised him like a ventriloquist doll.”

Howie turned away, walking out of their meeting place, Zondorae's eyes darkening with his rage. When he was almost out of sight, he turned, giving Joe a fake gun salute, pulling back the imaginary hammer, he shot Joe.

Zondorae flinched.

Frazier laughed.

November

the journalist

Tim Anderson rattled the shit on his boss' desk in his need to emphasize the greatest point in the history of journalism, his fist making brutal contact with the unforgiving surface.

“Okay,” Anderson moved away from the desk he'd just abused, pacing and pissed out of his damned gourd. Really? Was this possible? They'd never, and he meant never, been shut down.

He tried to reason one last time with his boss, “Kyle Hart brought it to me himself.” Anderson placed both palms on the wide wooden desk again, antique by most standards as real wood was no longer used. He himself had a recycled glass desktop. He drilled Rumford with his stare. “You remember a couple of years ago, Bill?”

“Yeah,” Bill Rumford answered, scrubbing his weary face with a damp palm. He was pissed himself. But his hands were tied.

“Remember the numbers, Bill? How our sponsorships and ratings soared? Demographic-neutral, boss.” Anderson straightened, his eyebrows were to his hairline, palms out in the universal gesture, Are you hearing me?

Bill held up a palm. “I understand. It was unprecedented, all age groups hit the same plateau.”

“Everyone wanted to read about the Graysheets. About a boy that had almost been taken by a government organization so covert, the name isn't even whispered.”

Bill looked at his lead journalist. Skeptical and exacting, Tim Anderson was a dog with a bone. And the one he was after was meaty. Spoiled.

However, Bill had his neck on the guillotine's blade, it was pressing on his jugular.

“It comes as a mandate...” Bill began.

“From whom?” Anderson's eyes searched his, waiting for answers that wouldn't be forthcoming.

“The President.”

“Oh shit, seriously?” Anderson straightened, propping his hands on his hips, brows raised to his hairline again.

“Bullshit!” Anderson nearly shouted.

“Would I joke about that?” Bill responded quietly.

Anderson looked at the man who'd shared the last revealing of the Graysheets in the none-too-recent past. Dammit. Hell no he wouldn't.

Anderson sat, throwing his legs out, his feet diving underneath the large square desk.

“What? National security or some other happy-ho-ho-crap?” Anderson asked, flailing his arms around in frustration.

Bill's brows rose.

“Wow... just wow,” Anderson said, raking a hand through his hair. “I have to say, Bill... I think Dr. Hart was using that slide info. as insurance.” Anderson's intense eyes stayed on Bill Rumford with a palpable weight.

Bill leaned forward and Anderson met him, their noses a foot away from each other. “He's scared, Bill,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

They looked at each other.

“He's not the only one,” Bill Rumford said, ending the conversation.

Anderson turned to leave, then faced his boss again. “I feel like the worse kind of coward.”

He left.

“Me too,” Bill answered to the closed door.

Caleb

I saw Gramps give a look at the group of dead that had come into the open pathway of the dump, their dead eyes following my every move.

Gramps looked at them, then swung his face into the downpour that was slowing. “Damn weather,” he muttered, tossing his cig onto the sodden ground, and tramping it down with a savage stomp of his foot. “They followed you?”

I nodded. Actually, they'd been waiting here. I'd been that smart at least. I gave a small smile.

“Good thinking, son.” He glanced at them again, impervious to the rain, the weather dripping off fingertips of some, others it found the crevices of rot perfectly, pooling where it shouldn't have been able to.

John said, “Let's go.”

I looked at my dead. The reality of not being able to have that affinity for all things not living was something I couldn't even wrap my head around. That potential seemed wrong. Whereas just a few years ago it was absolutely alien.

Jade's hand found mine and we headed to Archer's car.

I gave the dead a final command. They followed. I still had that pressing portent of fun things to come.

When we showed up at Tiff's house it was a charred ruin, the cinderblock foundation like heaved gray teeth out of ground that was wet from rain and stinking of violation by fire. The responders were crawling all over the place like red ants. Fire, ambulance and police, a rainbow of protection, their colors of red, navy and black should have filled me with an abiding comfort. After all, they were here to help.

Instead, my suspicious nature took precedence. I took stock of my surroundings, watching my friends three vehicles pull up and they piled out.

The rain had thinned, giving the day a dimmed and slightly off-kilter feel. The ambient light made everything seem to float.

I watched the insects of salvation work over the rubble. I saw Bry rush to his parents, the Weller spawn cocooned safely in the gray wool blankets of shock-prevention. I noticed too late Terran's eyes widening at something behind me.

When Gramps yelled at me in warning, I was already turning.

I'd always feel when I was older that if a moment could hang, suspended, captured in slow-motion... it was indeed that one.

I met Frazier's eyes and jerked the chain of the dead to me, feeling the heat and connection of Jade at my back.

Then his hand fell on my arm.

“Sleep,” he whispered with a voice that brought slumber instantly.

I fought.

And lost.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Clyde

Clyde stopped, a void-like pain beginning like a stone thrown at the middle of his chest, just off center of his heart.

He rubbed the deep bruising ache that began, radiating from the core of his body and stopping at his fingertips.

“What is it?” Bobbi said, throwing the last duffel in her car. She gave a quick glance at the home she'd be leaving behind and sighed. She shivered against the chilly weather seeping into her bones.

The house was just a thing. Bobbi knew this.

But it had been a thing she'd loved. However, there was now something she loved more that sticks and mortar.

Her gaze slid back to Clyde, her zombie lover, and she screamed when she saw him fall to his knees. “Clyde!”

Clyde's hands hit the same sidewalk that Jonesy had broken his arm against. His mouth had gone slack and he was beginning to drool.

Clyde understood intrinsically that somehow, he would be less alive if Caleb Hart would ever cease to exist. It was obvious that Roberta gave him the essential spark that fueled him. But it was the necromancy at Caleb's center that had brought him here.

It was compromised now.

He did not know how or why.

Clyde knew that his boy now hovered in some state that paralleled death like railroad tracks.

That went nowhere.

Bobbi knelt by Clyde, his muscular arms shaking, holding up his pain wracked body.

“Caleb,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“Is he okay?” she asked, immediately feeling as dumb as a post. Of course he wasn't or Clyde wouldn't be kneeling on the concrete, on the verge of purging... something.

“No.” His face tilted up to look at hers, his hazel eyes appeared so green in the brightness of a day gone dark.

Bobbi shook her head in denial. “No, Clyde. They'll take me.”

He smiled through his malaise. “Over my dead body.” Then he winked.

Rising, Clyde took her small hand in his, gritting his teeth against the death energy fluctuation.

“He wouldn't want us to go and find him, Clyde! Caleb wants you safe,” she pleaded with him.

“I know,” he responded, cupping her chin, he gave a sensuous flick of his tongue on his dry lips then pressed them to hers in the softest brush of skin, a press of crushed velvet.

Their death energy flexed around them both in a sensual binding that instantly invigorated Clyde, his strength returning. He broke the kiss reluctantly and opened the car door for Bobbi and she slid inside as he strode to the passenger side.

“Where?” she asked in a short word.

Clyde thought. Actually, he felt.

Shattered images filtered in through the conduit that he shared with Caleb, now shut down, only fragments left to grasp. He reached further.

When fear slammed him in the gut, he recognized the flavor of it immediately.

“Tiffany Weller,” he returned softly.

“What? I thought it was Caleb....”

His eyes burned at her, the hazel so bright it hurt to look into them. “Oh... her house?”

Clyde nodded once. It was not spot-on as Caleb's grandfather loved to exclaim, yet it had the right feel to it. “It is a good start.”

They left, Bobbi's fingers itching to pulse on the hidden police light.

She resisted.

The car sped through the day, the driving rain finally broken by the rare sunlight as the crispness of the fall day became winter and snow fell where sleet had been before. A moment of sunlight stolen by snow.

Turning the world white.

While blackness creeped at the edges like soot.

Frazier

Howie watched that dick, Hart fall to the ground, rapping his head a good one on the way out.

It's not like he'd brace his fall. Howie hoped his brains slid out on the pavement. Hart was trouble.

But he'd play the Graysheet game for now.

Frazier didn't know who he really worked for. It didn't matter to him. As long as he could do his criminal shit, get paid and not get caught. Not necessarily in that order.

He now commanded pay first.

Shit, Howie thought, watching as the people came for him in a wave of bodies.

Cops ran from every corner of the block towards his position. Slow asses, Frazier thought, grabbing Jade as he let Hart drop.

She turned and he latched onto her skinny arm, trying to close his palm around the smallness, his mind envisioning immediately the closing and pulverizing of the small bones he could feel just underneath her skin. Jade yelped at the pain and he jerked her against him and she moaned like a trapped animal, a low sound of fear squeezing out of her lips.

“Hey sis,” he said, giving her a tender kiss on the temple.

They were almost on them, including that old fucker grandpa of Caleb's, his fists like ready strikes of balled flesh.

Howie Frazier recognized an ex-assassin when he saw one. Like knew like. He saw the knowledge in the old dude's eyes.

He'd have to put him down first. Grandpa was old, but his body moved like he still knew how to use it.

Frazier squeezed Jade's arm microscopically tighter and she moaned again.

Howie liked the sound of that. He figured there'd be a lot more of that later.

“Do not listen to my next words,” he said and gave a mental shove into her thoughts. That's what a Manipulator did, pushed their mental directive against another.

Unfortunately, it didn't work on high point Nulls. The low points, one or twos; he could sometimes make pick their own asses, but a not a powerful Null. He had to bring it physically.

Howie could do that.

He waited until every gun was drawn, Jade mewling like a crippled kitten in his arms. Jesus she was weak.

Frazier hated that about her, he also found it terribly exciting. He wasn't perturbed over that internal oxymoron of his emotional signature. He'd known he was fucked up for awhile and accepted it as his unique reality.

When Caleb's grandfather was within striking distance Frazier yelled with a metal shove so fierce that he felt at once empty and coasting, like he was a ship without a rudder.

“Sleep!” he bellowed into the open chill of the twilight.

People dropped like flies.

It was always an interesting phenomena when he did a mass Manipulation. Some were so fast they didn't take their next breath and others were very slow to comply.

Howie dragged the uncooperative Jade as a handful of people still struggled with consciousness, fighting his heavy-handed Manipulation.

Frazier bent down over Gramps. It figured he'd be resistant, Frazier thought with a snort.

“I'll kill you,” Gramps said in a voice soaked in sleep, wrapped in the cotton of drowsiness.

“Fuck off, grandpa,” Frazier whispered, touching the skin of his forehead, “sleep.” He gave him the juice.

The old guy shuddered, his body going limp. Frazier paused, nodding when the jerk's chest swelled and dropped.

Very slowly.

He turned away and Terran round house clocked him.

It took Howie a second to acknowledge that this lanky geek had clocked him.

“Jade, run!” John yelled.

“No... Jade!” Howie said with a quizzical look on his face, like this turd would steal his prize? No. He grabbed her as she tried to run and shook her so hard she fell on the ground, crawling to get away and he shoved a foot on top her back and she sprawled out beneath him.

John tackled him.

Terran didn't know how to fight with the finesse that Frazier possessed but there was no one else. He had to, for Jade.

Howie Frazier went to town on John Terran. If Terran had known how to use his body, he could have wiped the asphalt with Howie.

He didn't.

Howie Frazier was a Graysheet prodigy, trained in hand-to-hand, any weapon that fired and all those that cut.

His fists worked John top to bottom.

Frazier was unprepared to have Jade jump on his back.

It was enough to distract Howie and save John from certain death. He lay on the ground, too beaten to move or even groan, blood flowing from every orifice he possessed. His state of mind had shut down to the barest impulses and he'd never wished harder in that moment that he was AP. If he could have escaped the pain of this body and summoned help, he would have. Instead, he could do nothing but bear witness to Jade's assault.

And Tiff remained MIA, John remembered with a sickening horror in the pit of his stomach.

He watched Howie swing Jade around and punch her in the face. Like she was a guy. She fell like a limp ragdoll and John closed his eyes against the most acute misery of his life, unconsciousness sweeping him away on a black sea that rushed toward death.

Caleb

I awoke with Clyde's face in front of me again and had that overwhelming feeling of déjà vu slide over me, giving me a case of chicken flesh.

I sat for several moments without a thought, I was a total blank.

That ended when my parents stuck their heads beside Clyde's.

“You did it, I thought he was going to...” Mom covered her mouth, tears spilling over the knuckles of her hand, her eyes tightly shut against them.

I sat up and Clyde helped me off the ground.

The pieces of the disaster tumbled all around me, broken glass falling like rain.

But that's not what fell. Snow floated from a sky gone pewter gray, pregnant and angry clouds glared down on the ashes of the Weller home.

I hung my head and cried in front of my parents, my friends, and the troop of responders that were all in various stages of wakefulness.

Clyde wrapped me in his arms. “We will find her, Master.”

I knew Frazier had her before Clyde confirmed it with his words.

I saw Jezebel stooped over Terran and ran to his side, sliding in beside him.

He looked like death.

As I watched, I felt his signature hover on my radar, bleeping in and out of existence.

John was fighting death.

And I was its master.

I had never been more torn in my life. My best friend lay dying from a beating given to him by a Graysheet assassin who now had the love of my young life.

I weighed my options.

Finally, I took John's cold hand in mine while his parents quietly sobbed in the background.

I held death at bay as John's blood soaked through the knees of my jeans and tears flowed down my face, dripping off my chin and hitting our joined hands. Men's hands.

Jezebel worked as a medic held a bag of blood above John, pulsing a unit into him even as it pumped out of his body.

I felt Clyde's large hand grip one shoulder; Dad's the other.

We waited and I focused on John as Frazier got a head start.

With my Jade.

Gramps wasn't waking up and nobody knew why. I watched the medics fold him into the back of the ambulance with John in its twin.

Jezebel and I had managed between the two of us to stabilize him.

But Jezebel still had a day's worth of work to do on him.

Meanwhile, Tiff was gone and I had a sneaking suspicion we knew exactly who was behind that.

And Jade was even now in the hands of someone who was a known Manipulator. A good one.

I was now without my Null side-kick.

I couldn't ask my friends to take this on.

I sat there collecting my thoughts while gearing up to try to find Jade... somehow.

Then Jonesy was there. “I have an idea, Hart.”

He looked at me and I said, “Now's not the time for bullshit, Jones.”

“Hey man.” He held up his hands. “No bullshit.”

“K, lay it on me.”

“First, let's get the hell out of here before the 'officials' round us up for the cattle call.” He gave me a significant look and I stopped moving. I could do nothing for Jade if they took me to get shot up with the reversal juice.

Jonesy studied my face, letting that brain of his show. “I see that you feel me, Hart.”

“I do,” I said slowly, nodding. The wail of the sirens taking Gramps and John to our home away from home, the hospital, plowed through the sloppy snow that slushed all over the road, now dangerous and icy.

I looked at the parents. My dad gave me a slight nod. “Go.”

“No Kyle,” Mom begged and Dad looked at her. “He's no safer here.” He nailed her with a stare. “In fact, he might do better finding Jade.”

“Howie Frazier is dangerous!” Mom sounded off loudly.

Dad and I looked at each other then he turned to face Mom again, taking her by the shoulders. “So is he,” Dad said slowly with each word articulated in crystal clear distinction.

Jonesy did a small victory pump and motioned for me to follow him. We got near his parent's car. I glanced behind me and Dad extended his trust, shooing me off. Mom looked like she was holding back from barfing.

Jonesy's car of the day was his dad's four wheel drive. Jonesy rooted around, tossing Micah's car seat in the back, while I tried not to think of Jade... or Gramps... or John. “I hate all this baby shit!” he muttered, chucking a bunch of pacifiers and other crap in the back.

“There!” he said, sliding in. I ripped around the back and found the door being opened for me.

Clyde said, “We will finish this, young Master.”

“It's Caleb,” I corrected automatically.

Clyde shook his head. “Today it is not. Today we work together as necromancer and prodigy.”

I took shotgun and Clyde hung between us, his arms hanging over the back of the seat between us. I felt his light suction of death energy right off the top of what leaked from me constantly. Didn't even make a dent. I was a geyser of death.

Jonesy pulled away in the muck of the weather that covered the roadway just as unmarked vehicles drove into the carnage of the Weller home. I watched Dad take charge of the scene, stalling.

I knew my friends were scattering to the four corners of the world and turned around, my back to the scene.

Jade, my mind said her name just once. It was enough. I put my hands to my skull and wanted to crush the thoughts out of it or scream... or both.

Instead I asked, “What's the plan?”

Jonesy grinned and I wanted to pop him. This was not the time for humor, with my girlfriend missing and... Tiff. John wasn't here to help her and from what I could tell back there, there'd been a beat down on John. It didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that he'd been the only one left standing after Frazier's mass sleep command. John was too powerful a Null to succumb. So he'd fought for Jade.

And lost.

Kinda like losing the battle of consciousness I had. It was the most frustrating thing in the world: I could command the dead but couldn't do anything with a Manipulator, he'd made me fall asleep while he ripped Jade away from me.

My guilt wouldn't help her now. I needed to stay out of my head.

Jonesy's smile grew on his dark face. Those nearly black eyes glanced away from the road for a moment. “First, I think I know how to get that fucktard, Hamilton.”

I couldn't help it, as grim as things were, I laughed and Clyde frowned. I explained.

Clyde scowled. He hated foul language but sometimes, there was no substitute. Like now.

“What about Frazier?” I asked. I knew time was running out for Jade.

“I'm working on that. I think I'll lump him in with Hamilton,” Jonesy said, feigning deep contemplation as I heard Clyde grunt in the background.

“How?” I asked.

Jonesy busted out laughing as we neared a place I knew well.

“Fucktards 'R Us,” Jonesy said.

Nice.

Clyde asked, “Is there a point to all this profanity?” he asked with the thinnest edge of irritation.

Jonesy was silent for a heartbeat then said, “Not really.” Then shrugged. Clyde sighed.

We pulled up to a place I never thought I'd visit again.

Jonesy smiled and tapped his temple.

“S.M.R.T, Hart?”

“Smart?” I guessed.

“Hell yeah!”

We got out quietly and looked at the dirt road that led to the old Clemens Graveyard.

Jade

It was the jostling that woke her. Or maybe her face being on fire, a throbbing pulse of agony. Her arms flopped against the back of someone.

Holy shit, she remembered, Howie Frazier.

He immediately noticed her weight shift from dead to live and whipped her over his shoulder and set her on her feet.

Tiff had taught her one defense move she'd learned in class.

Avoidance.

Jade executed the smartest move she'd ever made. Ignoring her fear, and choosing not to run in natural reaction, she used her elbow, ramming it into Frazier's balls in a jab that was perfectly centered, an absolutely lucky strike.

Then she plugged her ears and ran, her elbows sticking out like wings as she took flight through the woods, branches tearing at her arms like grasping fingers.

Jade heard him hollering something but because she'd jammed her fingers in her ears, it fell on her as if she were deaf.

He couldn't Manipulate her if she couldn't hear him.

She ran, trying to recognize a landmark that would bring her to safety and seeing nothing, Jade ran harder, her lungs beginning to burn.

Jade would get away.

In her mind, she let out a distress cry for Caleb. She hoped that somehow, their connection would allow him to hear her.

It was her last hope if she couldn't find help before Frazier found her again.

She'd be aware of everything he did to her.

Or made her do to him.

Not wanting to but unable to stop it.

Jade shivered as she ran, slipping on the slushy ground, her thumbs popping out of her ears.

She shoved them back in like wayward corks, robbing herself of one of the best senses to hear the approach of an enemy.

Jade's soul trembled with the urgency of the call, its loud and shrill echo leaving her, seeking the recipient in a blind leap of faith and desperation.

She sent her silent psychic message like an arrow without a target and prayed as she ran.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

choice

the journalist

Tim Anderson strode back and forth, then paused, looked at the oddball pair who had come to him and began pacing again.

Finally he stopped, his hands on his hips.

“I could lose my job,” he stated.

Christopher and Amanda just looked at him. Then Amanda said, “We came to you because we thought you'd give more of a shit about what was going down.” She rubbed her nose in agitation, her short shock of brown hair trembling with the movement.

“And the story, of course,” came the jaded response from Christopher, her antitheses; with his long blond hair, tied in a tight ponytail at the nape of a thick neck.

Tim raked a hand through his hair back and forth for a few strung out and tense moments then answered, “I'd sure like to refute that.”

Christopher crossed his beefy arms across a chest muscled from stylized military training and smiled, a touch cruelly, “You can't though. So, given your lust for The Story, coupled with the sheer control by this organization...”

Tim raised his eyes to the male part of the duo. “Do you know their real name?”

“Of course,” Christopher said, shrugging as he lifted his own precious pulse-coded crystal slide, the best conductor of information available. Glass was the perfect conduit for Brain Impulse Technology. The slides were coded and embedded for thumb security.

Christopher knew his way around that and slipped the thin and perfectly formed synthetic skin sheathing over his thumb. The DNA facsimile rose to the surface in a frosted white etch when he pressed it on the slide.

“Holy shit,” Anderson said, awed.

Amanda nodded. “Isn't that nifty as fuck? Everything's there. It'll blow them out of the water....”

Tim glanced at her, tough girl, he thought. “Tell me. Tell me who they really are,” Tim demanded of Christopher. “I know that 'Graysheets' was a code name adopted by those who didn't know, could only guess at their motivation.”

“Insiders know,” Amanda said cryptically, looking like she'd be right at home with a cigarette jammed between her teeth. But she wasn't a smoker, Amanda was a Telekinetic. Her mundane partner was just as lethal, but for different reasons.

Anderson trained his eyes on Christopher, his stare compelling answers.

“The Helix Complex,” Christopher responded.

That made all kinds of sense to Anderson. Of course it would be short, inherently readable with what it pertained to, and with a paradoxical twist.

Christopher pushed the crystal slide across the table towards Tim Anderson. The emblazoned symbol of twisted DNA was a deeply etched pattern of permission.

Tim picked it up and read.

Amanda and Christopher waited.

Finally, after fifteen minutes, Tim Anderson lifted his eyes from the slide. The characters flashed out of existence as the helix imprint faded to nothing.

“You've done what they've done, you're no better than them,” Anderson said, sending the slide skidding back across the desk.

Christopher carefully picked it up and slipped it into one of the pockets of his black pants. “You may think that now, but when these young adults find that not all is lost, there will be hope,” Christopher reasoned.

Anderson shook his head. “Maybe they didn't want this?” he said, raising his voice.

“Not all, just some,” Amanda said, then added, “we were very deliberate.”

“Like the myth of Noah's Ark,” Anderson breathed out.

Amanda nodded. “Yeah, but without that pesky flood.”

“Who?” Anderson demanded, eyeing them critically, acute accusation hanging in his eyes like a coat on a hanger..

Christopher and Amanda looked at each other. “I think you know.”

Anderson did a forehead slap. “Wow... this is going to be...”

... groundbreaking?” Amanda guessed.

Anderson gave a single, tense nod. “Yeah,” he answered with only the barest tremble.

Christopher pulled the slide out again.

“Do your job,” Amanda instructed. She didn't give a ripe hairy rat's ass if Anderson thought they were dogshit on the bottom of his shoes. He was a means to an end.

“And if I don't?” he asked, looking from one to the other.

“You will,” Christopher replied with dead calm certainty.

They left the way they had come, in stealth. Very much like Graysheets... but not.

Anderson stood there for an undetermined amount of time, thinking as a far-off water faucet dripped into the sudden silence.

Finally, decision made, Tim pulsed his hacker contact.

Initializing

I have a job for you- Tim Anderson

Yeah?- BadJuJu

Not here-BadJuJu

Let's meet at the usual location- BadJuJu

Okay, this is very sensitive- Tim Anderson

K, what color?- BadJuJu

Black- Tim Anderson

pause in pulse communication

*whistles* It'll cost ya- BadJuJu

I'll pay- Tim Anderson

I know, cya-BadJuJu

2am tonight- Tim Anderson

Copy that- BadJuJu

disconnecting

Nevaeh & Parker

Parker came to, punch drunk with grogginess which left his thought process in a fog of mental stew. He reached out blind and palmed something soft beside him.

His eyelids sprung open and he turned his head.

His palm was cupping Nevaeh's tit.

“Get your hand off my boob or I'll kick your teeth in, Parker,” she said casually.

He could tell she meant every word.

He snatched it back like he'd been burnt. Hell, he hadn't meant to touch her there. Parker had been half out of the bag.

Hadn't he?

Or was it some weird-ass Freudian slip? In. The. Physical.

Shit-damn-shit.

Nevaeh sat up and stared down at him. “Listen, sleeping beauty, the asshat brigade is here so let's get a move on if you're done feeling me up?”

Heat washed up into his face and he had to remind himself he was a hardened assassin for one of the most covert government groups on the globe.

Twice.

Her unnerving ice chip eyes gazed down into his face without blinking, unflinchingly open and cavernous... he found himself falling.

What was wrong with him?

“What's wrong with you, stud muffin?” she asked.

Parker blinked.

She bounced up, her lean frame unfolding gracefully to standing.

Nevaeh was tall. Parker stood and looked down on her. He towered over her but he was tall himself, six feet three.

He felt the world stop spinning then asked, “What happened earlier between us?”

She smirked, one brow arched above her glacial gaze. “Listen, philosophy later. Check it,” she said, kicking a thumb in the direction of who was fast closing in.

Parker whipped his face toward his fellow assassins.

But he'd jumped ship; he knew it... and so did they.

Parker didn't even flinch, he did what any self-respecting five-point AFTD would do: he called in the undead troops. The ones that he and Nevaeh had inadvertently called when their energy had come together like a bomb of death.

They poured out from behind every building that was standing, every tree trunk, shed, garage and separator receptacle. They came to his call.

The Graysheets or, as they were formally known, the Helix Complex assassins, surged forward, the civilians backing away in confusion and various stages of consciousness.

The operatives saw what waited for them and switched out their guns for handheld flamethrowers.

If Jonesy had been here he could have deactivated their weaponry as it was pulse operated.

Unfortunately, he was not and the zombies began to burn. They lost the battle as they won the war through sheer numbers, pushing the front fiery line of the Helix Complex operatives back as the horde surrounded them. A few fell on the assassins as they burned, catching them on fire as well.

The smell of burning flesh, both living and dead, singed the nose hairs of the gathered, gagging and retching beginning in earnest as the firebomb of combined zombies and operatives roared unabated.

Zombies were zealots in their rotting hearts. They believed in The Directive.

It was a very handy attack. And unlike Caleb, Parker was pragmatic with his zombies. They were for his use, if they became charred husks... well- there were always more dead.

He grabbed Nevaeh and took off after Caleb.

He was more advanced than any other AFTD and followed Caleb's signal of death like a beacon in the deepest part of night, that single sweeping light swinging to pierce Nevaeh and him like a well-timed strobe.

They left the smell of burning flesh behind them.

Both living and dead.

Nevaeh leaned over, putting her hands on her knees, breathing in high, whistling breaths. “Parker,” she called out softly.

He turned and looked at Nevaeh. Really looked at her, she was pale as a ghost. Parker walked back.

“What?”

“I can't,” she pleaded with him for what was the first time in her life. If she didn't get some fuel she was gonna die.

“Hungry,” she whispered.

Parker felt that strange emotion again. It was the second time she'd brought it forward inside him.

Guilt.

He tried to shake it off. They needed to find Caleb, but he had to take care of her. The woman he had been tasked with murdering. Who might be crazy, though she didn't seem insane to him. Lonely, scared, defensive... smart. But not a freak. Certainly the Zondoraes wouldn't be up front with any fact or detail, saying only what suited them.

She made Jeffrey Parker buzz with life. It was like an electric current with her around. Nevaeh energized him.

He looked at her face, pinched and pale from strain, thin and angular, a soft triangle surrounded by black hair and striking eyes that were so light they appeared gray, translucent.

He swallowed again and dropped his gaze, busying himself with opening his small backpack. Parker noticed the fine tremble in his hands when he found the water bottle and two energy bars.

Parker hoped she didn't.

Nevaeh slid down the trunk of a nearby tree, landing on her ass and silently took the water bottle from Parker, along with the bar and tore off a chunk, taking a swig of water that was still cool because of the ambient outdoor temperature.

After some chewing and swallowing, devouring the first bar, Nevaeh worked on the second. As she did, she looked around and saw that they had paused in a small valley of cedar trees, the cold snow layering all the areas around them with a drippy white canopy, her breath pluming in front of her in icy puffs. But the seven meter diameter area they rested in was so thick with the intersecting ceiling of treetops that it lay bare and dry, evergreen needles littering the ground in a fragrant blanket.

“Nice here, Parker,” she said absently, feeling better, trying desperately to distract herself from the magnetic connection between herself and Parker.

Resisting it.

When he didn't respond, Nevaeh looked up from her last bite and what she saw there made her drop the water, the remnants gurgling out.

Unmistakable heat.

She'd never noticed until that moment that the green of his eyes flickered like banked coals of emerald fire.

Her own desire answered his and before she could stand he was on her, wrapping her in such a tight embrace she didn't know whether to escape or succumb. She couldn't think, move or decide.

Parker kissed her like he would eat her soul through her mouth.

She tasted like oatmeal, cinnamon and female. He breathed her in, sucking at her lips in a tasting contest of time and frantic consumption to which she responded instinctively, her body and soul deciding for her.

They slid to the ground in a tangle of limbs, hands and seeking mouths and parts.

Their clothes became tossed and strewn about them in seconds, bright swaths of color against the forest floor.

Parker held her against him, finding Nevaeh's heat easily. He stayed suspended above her for a moment, her bare thighs pressed against the outside of his hips in a silken grip of flesh. He slowed above her, his eyes asking a question.

“Do it, Parker... I want you,” Nevaeh said with vulnerable surprise in her voice, just as desperate to connect with him as he was with her.

Parker entered her and she drove her hips up to meet him in a unity more perfect than death, eclipsing their past in a single sweeping moment of contact that neither anticipated.

That neither wished to have end.

Parker held her afterward, their heated flesh married from head to hip, her body fitting against his as if by unique design.

He kissed the back of her head and felt like crying for the first time in a decade; from joy, which he felt was a shade away from agony in his experience.

He'd just complicated shit six ways to Sunday.

Parker was in lust.

With love hovering overhead like a vulture over the dead.

Eventually, it would find the carrion and when it did, it would devastate them both.

But for now, with the forest their only witness, they clung to each other in hope.

When none was there to cleave to.

Caleb

It was too much of a coincidence. That Hamilton or Frazier would be anywhere near any place I would have gone, it was too much.

Clyde looked around, knowing the past, seeing it through my eyes. It was what he was good at, beyond fighting, speaking and doing, Clyde could vicariously be the other person.

He hunted, his senses online. He turned to me. “I do not sense anything.”

Why would he? Why would I?

Shit, we weren't Empaths, I was AFTD with a dash of Precog. It simply wasn't enough. I slammed my fist onto the top of a headstone and the granite crumbled, biting into my hand.

“Don't be a dumbass, Hart,” Jonesy said.

I rolled my eyes at that, I needed to find Jade, I couldn't find her and I knew time was running out. A clock of doom was ticking backwards and I heard every click.

That's when something began to tingle, like the old tales of static electricity, my hair felt like it was actually rising off my nape.

Caleb!

Jade! My back went ramrod straight like I was goosed in the ass as my mind answered her tortured summons.

Clyde was there, shaking me as I'd fallen to my knees.

“What is it?” he asked, his eyes wide, Jonesy behind him like the clown he was.

“Anytime, Hart,” Jonesy prodded me for my delay.

“It's Jade, I heard her,” I said, getting up, shoving off Clyde's hands frantically and moving toward where I'd heard it.

“I didn't,” Jonesy said shrugging. “I think you need to stop wishing and start searching.” Then Jonesy asked the worst question in the world, formed without any thought of discreet delivery, “Hey!” he said, popping up a finger, “maybe because you guys are doing the nasty, you have a special connection. You feel me?” Then he actually did a hip thrust.

Clyde cuffed him.

I looked at Clyde. “Can you do that again?”

Jonesy was howling. “Fuck me, that hurts! He used his zombie strength!” he accused.

“Shut up!” I yelled.

I let everything fall away and stood in the middle of the graveyard where most of the Graysheet action had started. The caretaker's cottage had been razed and a memorial for the lost children put in its place close by. I let my eyes close in concentration.

I allowed the small little psychic tap Jade had tried to give me find me again.

Nothing.

Not a whisper.

Then: Caleb!

It was a tunnel of echoed noise, like I was receiving it through static on the pulsevision after it tuned off for the night. The worms of black and white fuzz fought one another endlessly.

I snapped my eyes open and ran. I couldn't wait for my crass friend and my faithful zombie. Jade needed me. I didn't have a plan or a hope against Frazier but I'd think of something.

I wished for John, he would have had earplugs.

I ran toward that faint psychic beat that thumped in my head, veering in another direction when it got stronger, until I was in a mental labyrinth with Jade, each of us running without an end in sight.

Hamsters on a wheel.

But toward each other.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Zondorae

Joe surmised just about every paranormal in the nation had now received the reversal and he was fast approaching the finish line of the greatest race of his existence.

Gary was dead and the precious slides which documented their entire Helix project was in the wrong hands. However, if their agenda had been pushed through, and Joe was certain it had, then regardless of what happened to him, they would win.

Winning was all that mattered in the Zondorae book of Ethics. Or lack thereof, he thought, chuckling to himself at his own cleverness.

It was layered security, really. With the inoculation reversal in the final stages, along with the pulse-dose birth control, there were now very limited numbers of paranormals, period. Further, though there were paranormals who had already had children, the pool of paranormals who partnered with other paranormals was extremely small. It worked out very well that typically paranormals did not marry or partner with one another, for reasons unknown. No one knew why this was.

Maybe, there was some inherent natural selection inserting itself despite their calculated interference. All the Zondorae tampering and here nature was still attempting to set it to rights.

Interesting.

Joe was feeling like a colorful, plumped up peacock when one of his associates, actually a Helix Complex operative, came and whispered in his ear.

It was not sweet nothings, but disastrous occurrences.

Joe turned to him from behind the glass that allowed him to see the pulsevised mass inoculation of America's paranormals.

“Are they gone?”

The agent shrugged. “Yes, of course. The horde has been neutralized but we lost almost the entire team.”

Joe said nothing. He and Parker were more alike than either knew. Joe knew there were more operatives. It was a casualty of war, lose expendable men, garner more for the next battle. It meant nothing to him, it was simply numbers.

They stood quietly together for a moment, shoulder to shoulder. Then the operative asked, “Sir, do we move forward?”

Joe crossed his arms, deliberating.

Parker had gone rogue, the sterilized Nevaeh was running wild, with an unknown agenda, there was no loyalty to the HC from Parker and she did not know what she really was.

What Hart really was.

Thank God they were now mules. They could put every sexual practice to the test without any breeding potential. Just the thought of one or both of them perpetuating their genetics made Joe's stomach erupt with queasiness. He was beyond glad they had made the necessary alterations in the booster shot Caleb Hart received late in his eighth grade year and of the extra dose they'd given the female AFTD. At least that possible disaster was out of the equation.

Parker was really the one who needed erasing. The HC couldn't have someone with his knowledge and power... and considerable intellect, Joe thought that last on a sour note, run amok. He would have to be put down. The analogy of the sick dog was not lost on Joe.

He smiled. “I think the plans have changed somewhat.”

The agent quirked a brow, his only response.

Joe Zondorae gave what he hoped was the last directive. He believed it would take the wind out of the resistance's sails. Now that he'd given the two orders of murder, it should plug those stubborn holes that were bleeding the HC and they could begin to rebuild. He'd be happy as a pig in shit when they corked Parker. Along with that pain in the ass journalist. He wasn't going quietly, like Rumford. Rumford had his mouth to the HC tit from the onset. No, Rumford was a perfect lackey. Tim Anderson was not.

The agent nodded, turning away. Then paused, looking back. “One messy, one accidental,” he clarified.

Zondorae nodded. He hated being apprised of the how. Just get the desired result. He didn't want his hands dirtied.

“Parker's not going to go easily,” the agent stated, just the slimmest tone of uneasiness layered his voice.

Joe narrowed his eyes on the man, all hardness and indifference, the small and deadly weapons of stealth hanging off his fit body.

“Figure. It. Out.”

His face hardened. “Of course. I was letting you know there will be collateral damage.”

“I'm aware of that,” Joe snapped.

“I wanted to say the words,” the agent responded smoothly.

They stared at each other.

Joe got it. He didn't want to be responsible.

“You're absolved. What? You want the sign of the cross or something?” Joe questioned with his typical caustic bite.

“Yeah. Not that anything will help us,” he said quietly, leaving Joe in an uneasy red tide of limbo.

Poisonous and predictable.

Caleb

I felt the pull and followed it blindly, bursting out of one stand of trees to the next, hopping between the clusters of forest like islands with the brown and wet grass a sea between them.

When I saw Jade I could have wept, my relief was the most profound of my life. But I didn't.

I ran harder. I was done with any scrap of complacency. I used my athleticism to carry me those last several burning steps until she fell into my arms.

I grasped her shoulders and noticed something bizarre as hell.

She had her fingers jammed inside her ears.

For the second time in so many hours my mind was a blank, adrenaline dropping my IQ to double digits.

Jade couldn't talk, she was so out of breath from running. I knew from whom.

Frazier rounded the stand of trees Jade had just slipped through, limping.

His ungainly lurch had a distinctive look to it and I felt a grim sort of smile overtake my face. Jade must have gotten lucky and decked the prick in the nuts. He had that, I-puked-but-lived-through-it look. I would have laughed if I could have.

Then it slammed into me. I was too slow to let go of Jade, so happy to have her against me I momentarily forgot the threat of Frazier until he spoke.

And I obeyed.

“Beat Jade, Caleb,” Frazier said, gasping, his hands cradling his package.

Jade's eyes widened and somewhere a part of my soul died.

I knew how to fight really well. I'd been in too many fights in recent years and had taken ten years of Judo. I was seasoned in defense. That was exceptional for an era in which violence wasn't held up as a prerequisite for males.

I'd always been a believer.

I attacked my girlfriend with a natural grace that shouldn't have been there... yet was.

Jade howled pitifully when I took her down behind the knee and struck her in the face.

Then Clyde was on me, hauling me off. I began to fight him, struggling to get back at Jade.

To beat her until the Manipulator told me to stop.

However, Clyde wasn't something to be taken lightly and I was not versed in boxing, an outmoded sport.

That was what he'd been in life. Farmer by day, illegal boxer by moonlight. Before the UFC, cage fighting had been resoundingly popular in the pre-depression years. He'd been a winner, stealing a fight away from boxing legend, Jack Dempsey.

I guess Clyde was saving me from myself as he didn't hold an ounce back. He didn't pull punches, they landed with precision and force and I found standing was a challenge. He went in close and I stepped away, striking his knee to cave it.

He began to fall and I grabbed him, frantic to get to Jade and Finish What I'd Been Told To Do, even as my very being rebelled against a command that fought every fiber of instinctive protection I had toward her.

Clyde latched onto my wrist and using his undead strength, tossed me over his head. I went spinning in the air, ass over tea kettle, and landed on my back, the wind knocked out of me.

Still I struggled to regain my footing and stand.

I did manage it. My eyes scanned the area for my target.

The air in my lungs burned, old and needing replacement. It didn't matter. Beating Jade did.

I caught sight of her and charged like a bull with a red flag, she ran from me and I chased after her, heavy fists at the ready.

Jade didn't have a chance; she was nearly one hundred pounds lighter and almost a foot shorter. I caught up easily, swinging her around to face me. Her wide emerald eyes were caught like stranded jewels in the black silk of her hair, her dusky café au lait skin an unnatural shade of pale.

Then it suddenly shut off, like a water faucet savagely twisted and I had a moment of extreme vertigo, the world tilting on its side, his command super-imposed over my own emotional signature. Then mine solidified and his slid away like a layer of liquefied garbage.

I looked around, bewildered, feeling like my head was jammed up my ass and suddenly the air came whooshing out of my lungs and I threw my head back, sucking in a lungful like I'd been drowning. In essence, I had: his directive had canceled even the involuntary functions of my physiology. Only his command mattered.

I could breathe. Finally, I straightened, choking and gasping. I saw Jonesy, standing behind Frazier's body, holding a large rock, his hands very black against its buff color.

It was covered with blood and other bits and our eyes met.

I instantly felt Frazier, bleeping once on my undead radar.

He was mine now... because my best friend had killed him.

“I had to man!” Jonesy wailed into the cold openness of the swath of weeds between the patches of trees, his breath frosting in front of his face. He dropped the small boulder, the murder weapon- and backed away. “You were gonna kill Jade!” He looked at Clyde, who was wiping blood and debris off his face and arms. “And Clyde,” he added, shifting shocky eyes toward my zombie.

“I am already dead,” Clyde clarified in a voice devoid of emotion.

“Whatever... fuck!” Jonesy yelled in a half-moan.

I frantically looked for Jade, my hair swinging into my eyes in sweaty strands that chilled against my head from the weather.

She was in a small ball against a tree and I ran to her.

She screamed when she saw me coming.

Jade wouldn't stop screaming and it broke a piece of my heart. It floated away and I felt crippled, her bruised and bleeding face bore testimony of what I'd done to her.

“Please... Jade,” I began, holding my arms out toward her, inching closer.

“Stay the fuck away from me, Caleb,” she said in a low fearful voice, scuttling backward. Her green eyes were wide with terror and betrayal. Her gaze gone resolute with the need to survive, a look I'd hoped never to see on her face again. And now it had been put there by me.

I stood there, my arms hanging by my side, never having felt worse than I did right then.

To Jade, it looked like I'd flipped out and just attacked her out of the blue.

Her fingers had been in her ears; she'd never heard Frazier command me.

“Jade,” I held my hand out again in a helpless gesture for her to come near me.

“No... get away,” she screamed, taking off.

I did what any guy would do after beating up his girlfriend. I ran after her. But not for the reasons she thought.

We crashed through the brush together, our labored breathing the only sound other than startled birds leaving the trees due to our noisy chase.

I grabbed her from behind, my strong arms easily lifting her off her feet.

Jade let out a scream of such terror that I felt my heart clench in response that she'd make it because I held her.

A woman I had moved against with a beautiful tenderness, with the utmost love and unrestrained passion.

I couldn't think of taking another breath without her in it.

She struggled then Clyde was in front of her, “Jade! It was the Manipulator!” he roared.

Then Clyde did an odd thing. He raised his hand against her, Jade's hysteria was an unbroken circle of crystal shards, spinning up into an emotional hailstorm that carved our guts out moment by moment.

“Don't you touch her,” I commanded in a tone I barely recognized as my own.

Against a dead man I loved, who threatened the woman I couldn't live without. There simply was no choice.

Jade stilled at the sound of those words. Clyde met my eyes. The forest went suddenly silent and cold.

Jonesy walked up to us. His whole body visibly shaken.

“I did not know another way,” Clyde said, dropping his palm.

“Well, that sucked,” Jonesy said then promptly puked into the stand of weeds beside him.

Jade turned to me, ignoring the sounds of Jonesy retching.

Oh my God, her face, I mourned, seeing what I'd done there. Her hand came to my neck, then inched up to my face, shaky and uncertain.

Her flesh came into contact with mine and I saw the realization of what actually happened take shape, her Empath abilities aiding me without words.

“I thought...” She shuddered, her eyes looking into mine. It felt like she could see all the way to my toenails with that gaze, so deeply did she go. When a full minute had passed she said, “He gave you no choice.”

“No,” I said, and the first, hot tear rolled out of my eye, burning a pathway of shame, relief, terror and my old friend-rage, as it settled near my chin.

Jade brushed it away, putting her head against my chest, the thump-thump of my heart pushed against her cheek as she whispered, “It's alright, Caleb... it's alright.”

I wrapped my arms around her and cried against her soft hair.

I thought I was crazy about Jade before. Well, after I tried to kill her there was nothing on earth that would have kept me from her side.

Clean up wasn't a snap. Jonesy and I were arguing about Frazier's body. I looked down at it with distaste. “Here's the thing, Jones,” I began, absently stroking Jade, who was more or less tolerating my constant need for contact. “If I raise his dumb ass,” Jade shivered and I drew her tighter against my body, “then he'll just...” I made a motion with my palm like it was diving underwater.

Jonesy put his hands on his hips, checking out the brains around Frazier and gave one last retching cough.

Clyde looked on with a little too much keenness if you asked me.

Brains around zombies. Yeah, kinda a diversion.

“So, we don't have to bury the putz to hide the evidence....”

“He's fragment, remember?”

Clyde nodded, “He is from the world of spheres. A ne’er do well.”

I nodded, although he was not pulse printed like the rest of us, and he'd have no history to speak of, he was still dead. Dead bodies collected more than flies. Thankfully, with the winter weather, his decomposition... ah, the hell with it.

I thunked Frazier between the eyes with a hammer of death energy and he rose with a gasping lurch, coming to his feet and staring at me.

Jade slid behind my body. Even knowing I was in control, knowing Frazier couldn't touch her. I swallowed hard against the fear I felt coursing through her. I hated that she was afraid because of what I needed to do.

His personality filled his eyes and Frazier drilled me for about two seconds, our gazes locked. I opened my mouth to command him to return to rest, thereby negating the need for digging graves while still getting his criminal ass gone and out of Jade's sight forever.

Instead, my cool simplistic plan got blown away when he turned to Clyde. “Kill them,” he said in the same Manipulative tone he'd used on me.

“Fuck a duck!” Jonesy hollered, putting his hands to his head.

Clyde turned to me and our eyes met. His held a vacant emptiness... then he hissed and came at me.

Suddenly, I was fighting for my life from the only one I thought I'd never have to worry about.

Jade screamed again as Frazier smiled, slowly walking toward her.

“Do I have to kill ya again, ya dickhead?” Jonesy asked, grabbing a stray limb from the ground.

“Gnaw your own arm,” Frazier tried.

Jonesy flipped up his middle finger. “Sit and spin ya tard. You're dead, dipshit, your crap doesn't work on me.”

“You can't blame me for trying, Jones,” Frazier said, half growling.

I saw in my peripheral vision, Jade move behind Jonesy and Frazier followed her unnervingly with his freshly dead eyes while I kept my gaze on Clyde.

He moved in and, unfortunately, he remembered all the moves I'd put on him. He was a fast learner.

Clyde rammed that fist into my jaw and I turned at the last second or it would have come off its hinges.

We exchanged strikes, mine smooth martial arts and his jabbing butchers of flesh as they struck all the vulnerable points of my body.

He was winning, I simply didn't have the undead strength. The only thing that kept me going was Jade.

She'd be dead for sure if I didn't subdue Clyde.

How could I?

How could I not?

I fought and when he had brought me down to my knees, ready to pound me into oblivion, I met her eyes and Jade mouthed her love for me.

That's when I felt it, a doubling of the sentiment.

I'd wonder later if it was my imagination or that little bit of psychic I had.

I'll never know for sure because Bobbi was striding in the mess.

She interpreted things perfectly, kicking out Clyde's feet from underneath him. Her surprise advantage allowed her to knock him over like a domino set and he fell, throwing out a hand to catch himself as it gripped the icy grass.

I swiveled my head toward Frazier. “Rest!” I bellowed into the chilly air.

The command hit Frazier like a well-aimed bullet between the eyes. He didn't just fall, he sunk into the ground like it was split-second quicksand. I heard the ground suck him in like a vacuum.

I laid down in the weeds, twigs and frozen needles that were all around me and closed my eyes, my forehead pressed against the chilled ground.

When I opened them, there were four heads above me.

“Master.” Clyde swallowed through his guilt, bruises fading as I watched. They turned from purple to chartreuse in a reverse healing of colors.

I held my hand out and he took it, jerking me to my feet. Every bit of my body ached and screamed from the shit I'd just put it through.

“How did he...?” Jade asked, moving against me and I winced as she touched me. She leaned back and looked at me and I shook my head slightly. There was nowhere that didn't hurt so fuck it.

She cuddled in against my abused body. I'd rather hurt and have Jade plastered to me, thank you very much.

“He couldn't Manipulate anyone living because he was dead,” I said softly, easily putting it together.

I felt like a tool for not thinking that through.

Jonesy looked at me. “Smart, Hart.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, giving him a thanks look.

Bobbi put up her hand. “It's over now. It's just one of those things...”

One. Of. Those. Things?

I threw back my head and laughed. Yeah... I was so sure that those types of things happened to everyone.

When we could finally stop laughing Jonesy chirped, “I think I can get to Tiff.”

“How?” I asked.

Clyde, Bobbi and Jade looked at him.

“Like Gale found Clyde...”

Bobbi looked at Clyde and shrugged. “It's a death-vibe,” she said, smiling. She gave him a little squeeze and he gave her one back.

“Clyde!” she cried.

“I am sorry, dear heart,” he said, using too much undead gusto.

“Hamilton busted his ankle thing, right?” Jonesy elaborated.

We nodded.

“Well,” he tapped his head. “I think I can sniff that out because it is newer technology so when it's busted it's like someones playing the wrong musical note...”

“A discordant melody?” Bobbi asked.

Jones thought about it, then slowly nodded.

“Great,” I said, beginning to hobble back to Jonesy's borrowed monster truck, “I'm ready to go.”

“Hold your shorts, Hart.” He walked by me and winked. “I'm in charge this time.”

I stopped for a second then relented. “Okay.”

He looked surprised and then said, “Yeah, baby!”

Jonesy jogged off and I hobbled after him with Jade against my side, hoping I had enough to bring it with the next mess.

'Cuz there'd be one.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Parker

They dressed in the quiet shroud of snow, the circle of dry forest floor disappearing as the temperature dropped and a rare day of true winter moved in to stay.

For once Parker was at a loss for what to do next.

He did know that killing Nevaeh was no longer in the cards. He'd killed for years, some murdering had been justified and others had been his job.

Caleb Hart had changed all that... and Jeffrey's personal hunger to make the Helix Complex crumble. Their path had never been of his choosing, but one he'd been coerced into when they'd killed his worthless family at about the same age Caleb was when Parker first made his acquaintance in that old graveyard.

Yeah, Parker was meant for something greater. His family had been terrible, true.

Yet... they'd been what he'd known. The sweep of death had done nothing but cripple a psyche already damaged by the abusive familial upbringing he'd received.

HC intel gave credence to Nevaeh's childhood being worse than his. The fine scars that he'd caressed.

Kissed.

They told the history of her abuse. Parker hadn't needed to see any confirmation on her beautiful skin. It was in her eyes. When Nevaeh let down her guard, that heartbreaking vulnerability had been there, a mirror of his own.

He saw himself in her and was inexplicably drawn to her.

And he made the worst mistake of his life.

Parker embraced the hope he'd caught sight of in the maze of life and chased it.

Parker pulled Nevaeh against him from behind. She didn't have her shirt on and his warm palms brought gooseflesh to the surface of her pale skin. “Quit it,” she said. “I'm freezing my ass off here,” she elaborated, trying to pull away, the warmth of their encounter standing between them awkwardly.

Parker jerked her against him, wrapping one hand against her throat, the other a caged band of warmth around her waist. “Don't you dare run, Nevaeh,” Parker said in a fierce whisper, his large hands wandering the bare skin of her flat belly, dancing with exquisite slowness up ribs that were too prominent.

“Let me go,” she said in a whisper, uncertainty threading her voice, momentarily stealing her normal throaty purr.

“No,” he said, breathing against her ear, wrapping his hand in the tangle of inky hair and gripping it so tightly it was almost painful. He added, “I have found my slice of heaven and I'm not going to give it up.”

“No one's ever connected that,” she answered, laying her head against his shoulder, relaxing against his dominant hold. Her voice and body told Parker she'd relented to the chemistry that roared like an unchecked fire between them.

“I knew that your name had been chosen by an angel,” Parker said in the first inspired and poetic turn of his life.

Nevaeh turned in his arms, her bare breasts pressed against the thin material of his t-shirt and he shivered, pressing her deeper against himself, his hold on her hair never wavering.

“You were sent to kill me,” she said with breathy certainty.

“I don't think you have to worry about that now,” Parker said, tipping her head back, he began kissing her slowly. When her eyes fluttered closed he kissed her lids, working his way down her cheekbones. When he began to lick and bite softly at the bones of her neck she became limp and he realized they weren't quite ready to leave this sliver of shelter.

They dropped where they had stood, devouring each other in a frantic and all-consuming passion.

Like it would be their last pass at happiness, a wisp of smoke seen, then disappearing into thin air.

Parker understood the irony of Nevaeh's name. A place he didn't believe in had become real in the form of a highly intelligent, broken woman with a secret of which she was unaware.

Nevaeh was Heaven spelled backward.

No security in the hereafter for Parker, but Heaven had come for him regardless.

Sometimes seeing was believing.

Or feeling.

Caleb

Bobbi had barely escaped notice. The rest of the gang had been rounded up and she had felt, “a blackness” she said, from Clyde that spurred her to find him.

In essence, when Frazier had pulled his final Manipulation move, Bobbi had already been trying to find us and it was all a shake down of lucky timing.

Really lucky.

Jonesy was driving carefully as the snow thickened. “Damn!” he said loudly, “I can't see dick in this white out.”

Clyde scowled, looking around at the snow starting to gain ground, piling up on the curbs and sighed. “This does not help our pursuit.”

Jonesy did the duck head, which I liked to affectionately think of as part of his non-verbal vocabulary. “Ya think?” He looked at Clyde like he'd lost it.

Bobbi smiled, and gave a cough behind her hand that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

“You are driving or another cuff would be in order,” Clyde grumbled.

“I hate those, man. They make my ears ring and hurt like hell.”

Clyde gave a genuine smile. “Yes, that is the intended consequence.”

“Well, it works! Why don't you do more of that to the bad dudes?” Jonesy asked, squinting into the roadway. The snow gave us all a dizzying sense of being in a blackened wind tunnel hurtling through space with white bullets racing alongside. I closed my eyes for a second. Being in the back seat sucked, I decided.

“Are you okay?” Jade asked quietly, getting some residual of my shit swimming.

“Yeah,” I said just as quietly, “I get kinda carsick and this sucky weather...”

“Yeah,” she agreed and I cracked an eye open, taking in her beat up face. I stroked a rough thumb as delicately as I could over the raw surface. “Who gives a ripe shit how I'm doing, babe?”

God, I'd beat her up. The nausea surged worse at my emotions and I clamped down on it. I swallowed over my raw interior. “It's you I'm worried about,” I finished my thought.

She smiled a little. “I'm okay, but my stomach's not doing too great either.”

Whose would be? It'd been a hell of a day.

“Come here,” I said and she scooted into the cradle of my body as I palmed her head against my chest.

I might've dozed but was jolted awake as we rolled up to... the hospital.

There was an ongoing argument about the difference between a cuff versus a full beating. Clyde was heatedly letting Jonesy know that a cuff was an affectionate beating as opposed to a real one.

Right, a cuff hurt like hell, I thought, silently agreeing with Jonesy.

I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and Jonesy turned around, his arm dangling over the back seat. “He's here with Tiff somewhere.”

I was fuzzy from the sleep and sat up, Jade sliding off me and I held her as she woke up too.

“It works out, bro,” Jonesy said like he'd just executed the best maneuver in the world and said, “Jade can get patched up and we can go kick Hamilton's ass and save Tiff.”

“Just like that?” Clyde asked with a marked lack of believing.

“Hell yeah... just like that,” Jonesy challenged and Clyde hissed at him.

Jonesy got the hell out of the car.

Clyde was creepy as hell when he hissed.

Bobbi giggled. “You're so cute when you hiss, Clyde.”

He frowned and opened his mouth again and she pressed her finger against his lips. “I know, lover. It's supposed to be frightening....”

“I suppose a lesson on scare tactics are in order at a future time,” he deadpanned.

Then I looked at Bobbi. She had blushed and did a whoa... okay.

Jade broke in awkwardly. “Right, well, let's... get in there and let an Organic fix me.”

We piled out of the car, none of us talking about the undead foreplay.

I held Jade's hand as we walked up to Valley General's entrance.

I didn't like her going in without me.

She turned, taking both my hands, looking so fragile with her swollen face and small body. My chin dipped and I cast my eyes down at our feet, so close to each other, mine so much bigger and I took a deep cleansing breath.

Didn't work: I still felt like shit for beating up my girlfriend.

“Look at me, Caleb,” she said in a commanding tone I'd never heard.

I opened my eyes and met hers.

“I know you love me. I know it was Howie. Remember? Remember Brett?” she said, embarrassed, but determinedly searching my eyes.

I did remember. I'd never get the image of her climbing his body out of my mind.

I said nothing, just nodded.

“I don't blame you.” She cupped her hand around my jaw, her tenderness undoing me like glue gone bad and I snapped my arms around her, hauling her against me.

“No more sadness, Caleb. Promise me.” Her green eyes captured mine and wouldn't let go.

I paused, promises meant something to me. “Okay,” I said, releasing her.

“You can't go in, man.” Jonesy looked at us. “They'll throw your ass in jail, no matter what she says.”

“Don't take him!” Jonesy squealed in a high-pitched, white trash female voice, “I love him!” Jonesy ran around feigning high heeled slut shoes running after a wife-beating spouse while dodging the gutted car on cinderblocks.

Pulsevision. Screen. In. Head.

I guffawed and Clyde scowled at my inappropriately timed laugh. “I think it would be better that she say nothing, it will open Pandora's box wide open,” Clyde said, forcing the dumbass troop back in line.

Jonesy opened his mouth and Bobbi interrupted, “Clyde means, that one confession will then lead to questions about bodies.”

There were plenty of hidden corpses piling up, I noted.

“Oh, yeah,” Jonesy said, frowning. Then he perked up. “Listen, that signal is really close and there's no telling what is going on with Tiff.” Jonesy's brows lifted.

I knew Tiff was in danger, Gramps and John were recovering in this very building, and I had to let my girlfriend, who was so much more than that lame identifier... go. So she could be healed. So Jade could be out of harm's way, as Clyde would say.

Because I needed to help a friend. Two, if you counted John in the hospital. Right now I was hoping that Tiff was holding her own but I wasn't sure.

After all, Carson Hamilton had attacked her before and was now in possession of her again. Time was running out.

Too bad I'd had the dual threat of Frazier and Jade. Actually, it had been a terrible choice.

My girlfriend or my friend.

Life was always that, choices without a promise of outcome.

Jade slipped away, my kiss still a spot of heat on her forehead and lips.

I turned away from the double glass doors of the hospital and went after my friend while Jade, Gramps and John were in various stages of healing.

Safe.

Or so I believed.

Tiff

The panic attack had hit Tiff like a ton of bricks. The instant her home had started to burn a single word sifted through her brain.

Hamilton. A heated whisper that accompanied the flames.

A normal person would have assumed a reason for the fire that was explainable within the norms. But Tiff Weller wasn't “normal;” she was crafty and an outside-the-box thinker.

She'd always been.

Instead of taking the intellectual pulse of the moment, she'd raced around the smokey house, searching for her four younger brothers, the littlest not yet six, the cuff of her sleeve crammed against her face, trying desperately not to inhale. Her lungs burned for oxygen.

Where are they? Tiff scrambled, finding her youngest brother passed out from smoke inhalation in his room, her parents busy with the others.

Tiff hit the deck of the outdated shag carpeting her parents insisted on keeping until all the messy kids were out of the house.

Well, Tiff thought, that'd probably be replaced now.

She swallowed semi-clean air near the floor and GI-crawled across brutal Legos and other sharp, flesh mutilating, invisible army men. Reaching out her hand, she grasped a pajama clad ankle, pulling her little brother into her arms.

Tiff frantically searched for an escape route, the door she'd closed against the flames hotter than hell. There was no going out through there, she thought, dismissing that route. Her brother's limp body gave testimony to where she'd be in about three minutes.

Tiff had to get them out of here.

She caught sight of his window and hauled them both to the ledge, coughing hoarsely into her hand. Tiff's eyes were streaming with tears as she opened the window with one hand and rolled him out onto the ledge, cool air fought itself inside the heated and smokey room.

Her eyes met those of a firefighter and he grabbed her brother to his chest, cradling him. Tiff watched him jog to a waiting ambulance, the pulsing red and blue strobes piercing through the haze of smoke and she pressed her forehead against the cold sill in relief.

Her little brother was safe, she thought, shuddering in relief.

When she felt strong arms jerk her through the window she didn't resist.

Help had come and Tiff allowed herself to be saved for once, exhausted and weak from smoke inhalation, she willingly moved into the embrace of the firefighter.

But the crinkle of the fireproof jacket didn't meet her cheek as she had unconsciously anticipated.

Tiff opened her eyes and met those of her attacker.

Carson Hamilton carried her away, slamming a depressant, shaped like a star, into the tender flesh above her breast.

It silenced her scream before it could alert those who were true saviors.

Tiff opened her eyes, moaning. See, now this was why she didn't use drugs. Besides the fact they cost so much, even though they were now legal and regulated (her home state had been the first to legalize weed); she hated that disoriented and thick feeling pot gave.

It just wasn't for her. She liked to be the master of her body and mind.

That wasn't the way it was right now. Tiff felt like she'd toked up good. Her tongue was swollen inside a mouth that was drier than a popcorn fart and her body and mind were mush.

Hamilton, she remembered suddenly.

She sat up too fast and her head swam from the residual sedative and adrenaline that began to pump to her extremities. Tiff pulled her shirt away, uncovering the angry star-shaped pinpricks left by the shit Carson had dosed her with. She fought the feeling of her chest being constricted like a hippo was sitting on it.

Tiff fought the fear battling to consume her.

She began her deep breathing techniques, trying to gain calm and stave off the panic attack. Once that took over, she would be a flailing fish on the ground, opening and closing her mouth, eyes bulging, screams of terror captured inside her throat.

Tiff knew she couldn't survive this if she had a panic attack.

She clenched her eyes thinking about his hands on her, in her.

Tiff bit her lip until she tasted copper.

“Hey Tiffany,” Carson said, enunciating that last part of her name like an open wound.

She watched him like caught prey and stood, putting her palm on whatever was behind her.

Cold and rough chunky bark met her touch, tree trunk, she thought. The environment came crashing into her. They were outside and snow fell all around them, the large flakes like God's salt shaker.

Tiff saw him notice her looking around for options.

“Don't bother, you little slut,” Hamilton said, his broken ankle cuff still dangling in a tangled mess. He strode toward her and Tiff had a moment of fear that was so intense her bladder almost released.

Then, rage followed on its heels and she'd never been more glad to be who she was.

Tiff might die this day, but she would never submit.

Of this, she was sure.

“Bring it, dickless,” Tiff growled, crouching like she'd been trained.

“Oh, I will,” Carson said, unbuckling his belt and jerking the belt through the loops in a series of snapping pops of denim against leather.

The sound made Tiff flinch.

Hamilton laughed and came for her.

That fucker tried to kill my whole family, Tiff remembered as he circled her slowly, whipping his looped belt up in the air, he slapped it in his open palm and she fought giving him the satisfaction of cringing at the sound. The belt was a trigger and he knew it. Not in the front of whatever brain matter he had, but in that deep primal subconscious criminal layer of slime that coated his unconscious. He kept popping the fucking thing against his palm and Tiff struggled to keep her anger as a focus, sharpening her defenses instead of sliding into the mindless panic that threatened.

“I'm gonna finish what I started with you, bitch. What you've been giving Terran for free, will be mine for the taking.”

Tiff thought furiously.

“Rape is violence, you sick turd,” she told him in a low and furious voice. “You're not proving you have a dick by raping me, you're just proving the obvious.”

He inched closer. “What obvious?”

And Tiff jumped from her carefully constructed cliff of balance, like a skydiver. “That you don't have one,” she uttered in a soft and strong voice of steely resolve.

With a roar, Carson came and Tiff glanced to the side, very accustomed to the size difference he brought, her brothers were all big apes too. But apes that loved her.

Therein lies the difference.

Carson missed purchase on the wily Tiff and realizing it, swung the forgotten belt around, making a lucky hook of her head and jerked her backward by the neck.

Tiff felt the noose close and fell limp in the best attempt to make her dead weight difficult for Carson to manipulate but he followed her move, dropping the belt, and her along with it.

They fell together, she on the bottom... right where she didn't want to be and he on top, his pants already partially undone.

“Get off me!” Tiff screamed, freeing an arm, she clawed his eyes out, and he shrieked, covering a bleeding orb as it lay in its socket like a mutilated and hardboiled egg.

“You cunt!” he bellowed into the still and frozen air as Tiff scrambled from underneath him, his blood falling on the white and slippery ground, his hand covering his eye like a pirate's patch.

She gave a hysterical laugh, the imagery striking Tiff silly at exactly the wrong moment.

His face became a thunderstorm of anger. “Forget bitch splitting!” he screamed at her, spittle flying in her direction as she drove her fingers into the icy ground, doing an awkward backwards scuttle.

“I'm gonna melt your damn face off,” he said with purpose.

Oh dear baby Jesus, Tiff had time to think before the heat engulfed her.

It was so much worse than the house.

Tiff felt like her body would burst from the heat, like she was personally combustible.

Then it slipped away like a bubble of heat popped.

Tiff fell backward, gasping, her body on the icy and refreshingly chilled snow pack. More of it fell on her face and instantly melted. Her eyes were open and watching the large flakes land. Some clung to her eyelashes and Tiff blinked them away, sitting up.

John was there, like an angel of retribution.

The streetlamp from the nearby alley cast an eerie glow behind him, his hair a low flame in the twilight that had given way to night.

Faded bruises marred every patch of his fair skin, but his eyes blazed healthy and alive out of his face.

His gaze locked with hers and she whispered, “John.” It was horribly weak and female; Tiff hated how she sounded but was conversely relieved for his presence.

John turned his face away from hers, a deep flutter started in his jaw and he used that long reach of his and launched a strike at Carson's jaw that rocked his head back, new blood joining the old.

John jumped Hamilton like he was a six feet tall trampoline springboard.

Snow fell on John's fists as they lifted and fell.

Over and over.

Tiff watched as they rose with blood and the snow covered the red with white.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Caleb

We ran, Jonesy in the lead and came upon John beating the snot out of... I couldn't tell but had a pretty damn good clue who.

Whoever was underneath Terran was a pulverized mess and as we stood there gaping, Tiff slowly walked to John as his flesh made resounding smacks against a body that limply took the punches.

Carson Hamilton was getting a primo beat-down.

“Fuck, Terran's lost it,” Jonesy said and went to move forward.

I stopped him with a hand. “No,” I said simply.

“He'll kill him,” Jonesy stated quietly, the voice of reason for once.

Not. My. Problem. I thought, taking in a shaky and ill-looking Tiff.

“I like a lesson having an opportunity to come full circle,” Clyde affirmed off-handedly. Bobbi moved forward, “I can't... I can't let this happen.”

Clyde grabbed Gale, holding her against him. There was no struggling, he was a zombie. He would never hurt her, but in this moment, he was a vehicle of delayed justice.

I saw it. I knew it.

“He does not deserve to live,” Clyde added softly against her temple. “Let the boy become the man he must by protecting Tiffany against that soulless excuse of humanity.”

But it was Tiff that ended it.

“John!” she yelled, her hands going to his back, his fists slick with blood. She placed her palms on his hunched form and he turned instantly with his fists raised beside his chin in classic striking stance and I heard Clyde suck in a breath.

Tiff took a step back.

We all waited to see if John could dial it back, tame the beast of the most basic male precept of protection and notice the very thing he would protect... now stood before him.

He did. The raging violence that thrummed through his body on an invisible sting of tension loosened, his personality and self-awareness coming back into his expression like liquid filling a crystal glass.

We watched it happen, that metaphorical cup filling up to the brim.

Then spilling over.

Tiff took another step back from the six feet five Terran, sweat running down his center, the undershirt he must've thrown on from his hospital stint turned inside out and plastered against his core, the tag on the side sticking out. It waved as a breeze came up and we were close enough to see the gooseflesh rise on his skin, once hot, now running cold.

“Tiffany,” John said, cupping his hand and motioning for her to come to him. And for the second time in four years, Tiff burst into tears, shaking and crying in the middle of the snow that fell.

John strode the two paces to her side, wrapping Tiff against him, his bloody prints making marks against her back, his large frame folding her neatly into the shadow of his body.

She wept and he held her, murmuring soothing words that sounded exactly like comfort to me.

after

We alerted the hospital staff about Hamilton. It was the last thing we wanted to do but even we couldn't leave him out there for hypothermia's embrace.

John could.

I saw it on his face, all sharp and hard angles. His knuckles, though clean, were free of skin. They were raw and shredded like a cheese grater had brutalized his flesh.

Jonesy, me, Tiff, Gale and Clyde were in the waiting area while Jade was getting the final touches. I took another deep breath thinking about Jade. She'd made me promise, I told myself. I took another. Let it out. Repeat.

Better.

Jezebel walked out and I stood. Jade wasn't with her. I looked around and she smiled at me, it looked a little strange.

“Caleb?” she said with that brittle smile in place.

My heart picked up its pace. “Yeah?”

“May I speak with you for a minute?”

I nodded, following her back to Jade's room.

Jade was in the hospital bed, her skin like coffee with cream, a faint blush edging her cheekbones.

God she looked good, only a shadow of the harm I'd put on her face remained.

I went to stand beside her and picked up her hand.

It was cool. My eyes snapped to hers and there were tears running out of that beautiful emerald gaze.

“What is it?” I asked, my stomach in my throat, my eyes looking from Jezebel's to Jade's.

Whatever it was, it had me back in knots again.

An easy task recently.

Tiff

John would never make Tiff feel small. As she snuggled against his side, she realized that he had saved her. Tiff had needed someone to save her.

Admitting she couldn't save herself was a bitter pill to swallow.

A level one Organic hovered at John's elbow. He was Class-one critical only and couldn't even be admitted. With a few passes and presses of flesh the worst of the damage to his knuckles closed. New skin washed over the damage in a bare whisper of flesh that was nothing more than a thin and raw covering, so new it was translucent.

The Organic stood, handing a package of antiseptic swabs to John. He scooped them with his left hand, the one that had needed less attention, and shoved them into his coat pocket.

“Thanks,” John said in a rough voice, Tiff's eyes rolled up to meet his and she saw what was in them and dropped hers to their linked hands again, it was so much, too much raw emotion. His massive hands were torn up, covering her small and perfectly fine palms, the barest application of healing covering his wounds.

The Organic wasn't quite finished. “You did well, John.”

John looked at the Organic and he gave a small smile back. “I can't work on that guy,” he continued, throwing a thumb behind himself and Tiff clamped John a little tighter to herself.

John nodded like he understood, allowing Tiff to burrow against his side.

“They need a Null and an Organic; I've been outclassed,” he said as John remained silent.

“And it wouldn't even matter if I wasn't,” he added thoughtfully, staring off. “Some people don't deserve to be healed.” His eyes met John's. “First... do no harm.” The Organic grunted in the back of his throat and it sounded like a growl to Tiff. He'd been trying to convince himself on that last.

He walked off and Jonesy smirked. “Real professional.”

Clyde nodded. “He spoke the truth.” He met their eyes and added, “There is entirely too much skirting the important issues in this era.” He looked momentarily thoughtful then snapped his fingers with sudden insight. “Is it that political correctness?” he asked with a lilt in his voice.

“I was never much of a believer,” Caleb's grandpa said from behind them and smiled.

Bobbi stood and gave him a hug and he awkwardly hugged her back. “I'm glad you're okay,” she said from the crook of his arm.

“Right as rain. Now where's that grandson of mine?”

Tiff searched the waiting area, noticing he was still gone.

“He's still in Jade's room. The Organic wanted to talk to them together.”

Gramps' face crinkled in thought. “Humph.”

Jonesy glanced at John, so quietly sitting beside Tiff. “So spill it, Terran.”

John gave Jonesy a sharp look and Tiff felt the tension like a weight in the atmosphere.

“I saw you giving Hamilton the meat-tenderizer. Didn't know you had the skills, Terran.”

John was quiet for so long Tiff opened her mouth to break the crushing silence.

“I didn't take just Medieval Speech Class last year.” His piercing blue eyes met Jonesy's. “He was going to hurt, Tiffany...”

“He simply couldn't abide it,” Clyde finished his thought.

John gave Clyde a level look and dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “That's right. I couldn't.” He pressed a kiss to Tiff's temple and said softly, “You smell like smoke.”

The silence swelled in the waiting room, everyone waited, breath held.

Finally she broke it. Tiff told them how Hamilton had gotten his grimy paws on her to begin with. There wasn't a male in the group that didn't want to go kick his ass again.

As it turned out, John had done a stand-up job all on his own.

Just as Tiff was finishing what had happened and how somehow, John had known she was in danger, a group of nurses burst past them in a flash of white, the code for death singing its mindless tune into the quiet of the hospital. It shattered the myth of peace forever.

Carson Hamilton died from a bleed on the brain that night.

John Terran was remanded to police custody with a wailing and hysterical Tiff begging them not to take him.

It was Garcia, of course. Bobbi watched silently as her former partner cuffed a boy that had grown five inches taller than him.

And was now a man.

Tiff watched them take John and she stood like a fragile and broken statue in the middle of the hospital corridor, hope taking flight, her soul raw, her composure... gone.

The almost-murderer of her family had been killed by a boy that had always loved her... and who she finally loved in return. However, he wasn't a boy anymore.

John Terran was a man.

She'd slipped quietly into love with him. Love had stolen her heart like a thief in the night.

Tiff wept as her other friends surrounded her in a protective circle when she needed them most.

Parker

Parker dragged his knuckles over Nevaeh's collarbone, his fingers gentle, undulating as they passed over the bones that were there.

“You don't eat much,” he observed and she shrugged under his touch, then grabbed his fingers, slipping his pointer finger deeply into her wet mouth, sucking on it.

Parker gasped, she was sensuous without being purposeful about it.

Fuck, I'm just getting in deeper every minute, he thought.

He watched her mouth grin around his finger and groaned, touching his forehead to hers.

“How did this happen?” he asked.

“Well,” she began, popping his finger out of her mouth, “you have a penis and then...”

He pressed his finger to those full lips, trying not to think about where they'd been. He swallowed. What they'd done. Parker closed his eyes.

Better get moving.

He pulled Nevaeh to her feet and she managed to get her shirt on with one hand.

Tricky girl, Parker paused, thinking, she's so perfect for me it's sick.

He stuffed all their loose items in his small pack and slung it over his arm.

Nevaeh laughed, the sound so foreign from her he turned and she blasted him in the face with a pile of snow that was not quite frozen, slushy.

He grinned at her as the taste of wet snow lay in his partially open mouth.

Parker watched her face fall to a point behind him.

He turned and felt the cloak of his training shroud him as the HC operatives bled out into the forest, their clothes very black against the white of the snow.

“Parker,” one of the front line operatives said.

“Bledsoe,” Parker said.

“Brenner,” he corrected with the wrinkle of his forehead making his black glasses move, though it was night. Shit-damn-shit, Parker realized, they've got their night vision on.

And Parker was burdened by his unadorned eyesight, he and Nevaeh were so painfully visible.

“Whatever,” Nevaeh said behind him and Brenner looked at her, then smiled, lifting his weapon.

Parker grabbed Nevaeh and called the creatures that had died in the forest.

The HCs thought they could take him.

Without a Null in sight.

With one of the two most powerful paranormals in the world.

Nevaeh was as generous with her undead power as she'd been with her body and Parker siphoned from her like they were two parts of the same whole. It was frighteningly automatic and natural, like drawing breath.

Then she was torn from him, an operative jerking her against him, a knife at her throat.

Her wide eyes were shadowed midnight in her head, the kiss of blue lost in the gloom.

However, her fear was obvious.

Parker almost gave it away with the direction of his gaze shifting behind Nevaeh when the first zombie tore the agent's head off his shoulders, the blood spattering like black spots of oil as it sprayed a ground blanketed in white.

Then they fell on him, the agents using weapons of bludgeoning instead of death. He'd not been expecting it and Nevaeh screamed for him as he struggled with consciousness, fighting five agents trained as he was.

His anxiety made him sloppy and the chain of death he'd begun wavered, trying to slip back to rest.

“No!” Nevaeh yelled in a low and deep timbre.

It twanged and his mouth fell open in awe, she had sung the perfect note of summons.

They came and suddenly, the agents were turned away from him. Parker was in the center and the five were loosely in a circle facing away from his position on the ground as dead animals' black and sightless eyes stared at them.

“Get the fuck out of here before I have them gut you,” Nevaeh said in a voice that held the sincerest note of promise.

Parker was on his knees, spitting blood out of his mouth, the sting of it nothing compared to that of his ego.

She'd called the zombies. When he couldn't, Nevaeh had.

“I was going to protect you,” he said, standing.

Nevaeh walked to him. No, scratch that noise, she prowled.

She was the hottest woman he'd ever known. In the middle of this mess, he wanted her again.

“I know.” Nevaeh stood before him for a moment. “You'll have to get over that,” she stated in a flat voice, then walked around to the agents. She swept her knee up, bent at her chest and kicked one of the operatives in the ass with her foot.

He went sprawling forward, landing face first on the frozen ground and a buck, once having been road kill, pawed the ground and neighed like a horse, shaking its head in annoyance.

“I've been wanting to do that for forever,” she said, looking down at the agent who glared up at her.

Parker grinned. He stepped up beside Nevaeh and looked at men he'd stood shoulder to shoulder with, killed beside.

That was before. “Talk. Now,” Parker instructed.

When Bledsoe, who was really Brenner, was finished, Parker frowned.

Only half his team was here.

The other half had been dispatched to clean a certain journalist.

One could only hope that somehow, before his death, he'd been able to get the story out.

For Tim Anderson was dead.

Of that Parker was certain.

revelation

Caleb

I looked from one to the other of them, Jade's small hand a block of ice in mine. I squeezed it once in assurance. “What is it?”

Jade began to cry harder and covered her eyes. “It's all my fault!”

This was fucking awful, and about more than I could handle. I grabbed her hands that were covering her face. “What... nothing's that bad... just tell me.” My eyes searched the swimming water of hers.

“I told you not to wear a condom,” she said mournfully.

I stood, feeling light-headed. “What?” I heard myself ask.

“It is automatic that we conduct a battery of standard blood tests upon admittance,” Jezebel said somewhat helplessly. “Jade is...” she began softly.

“I'm going to have a baby,” Jade said in a whisper, her knuckles white as she clenched her hands together.

I stood there for so long my feet began to feel numb, my knees locked.

I opened my mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again. Then looked at her sitting there so alone in the bed, engulfed by white and pillows and hospital smell.

I sat on the edge of Jade's bed. My hand reached out and pushed the hair away from her eyes, cupping her face with my hand, then adding the second until I cradled her face between them.

I locked gazes with her. “I knew you'd be my wife,” I said.

Jade turned her head into my palm and pressed a kiss into the center.

I turned to see where Jezebel had gone but she had disappeared outside without our knowing.

I got into the bed with Jade, sucking her against me, my hand straying to her still-flat belly.

We didn't talk.

I learned a lesson that day. There was always a consequence to your actions.

Even love.

Cause and effect.

We lay together like that until my parents came and we had the hardest conversation of my life.

My mom cried and my dad listened.

In the end, they remained as they'd always been, unconditional.

It's what allowed me to become who I was meant to be.

It would be what I would pass on.

CHAPTER TWENTY

BadJuJu

Tim pushed the glass slide across the café table, invisible bacteria climbing on and being sloughed off as he did.

The slide had an impermeable surface, receptive to fingerprint only, thumbs specifically, down to the finest microscopic component.

Anderson looked across the table and thought for the millionth time that BadJuJu, or whoever he really was, was the antithesis of what he thought a pulse-hacker should look like.

Bad sat in front of Tim, his sausage legs dangling from the booth, his girth folded over the cheap laminate of one of the only diners in Kent that was open twenty-four hours a day.

His greasy hair was swept back from a naturally occurring widow's peak that helped keep it out of his beady eyes, pressed like raisins into rising dough.

Intelligent eyes. They regarded him now.

Bad put the slide in his front pocket where an old-fashioned pen leaked onto the material, a spreading stain of black softening and darkening the bottom seam.

He was a slob. And a prodigy.

Bad leaned back, which was little more than a shift of his immense weight, the booth protesting underneath him.

“What now?” Tim asked.

Bad's eyes swept up. “We eat.” His tone said how silly he thought it would be to meet at a diner and not eat.

“I don't think I can work up to that....”

“That's your problem, man.”

The waitress came and Bad ordered... one of everything.

Anderson cupped his palm around his steaming old coffee, adding cream for the calcium and to counteract the bitterness.

“This will go viral to everyone who has a disc by tomorrow night,” Bad expounded, a crumb from the cream cheese filled pancakes dropping from his bulbous lips and making a plopping sound as it fell into his large milk.

Bad grabbed the milk glass, taking a swig and wiped his mouth with the back of a meaty palm.

Anderson's gorge rose.

“Okay,” Tim said, scooting a second slide across the table.

“What's the credit?” Bad asked, the wall of food winking in his open mouth for a moment then disappearing down the food pipe. Anderson's stomach gave a vicious turn.

He had to get out of there.

“The number we discussed.”

“Good,” Bad said, waving him away. “Go ahead, but...”

Tim already had his wallet in his pants, his jacket shouldered on. The weather had turned to a rare, true winter during the night. He cocked a brow at Bad.

“Watch yourself,” he said in parting.

“Yeah,” Tim said.

The warning followed him all the way home.

When he entered his house and the HC operative was waiting in the darkest corner of his home, Tim was almost relieved, his tension and sense of foreboding hadn't been for nothing. And here he was: a mundane.

The flash of intuition was Tim Anderson's last.

Fat lot of good it'd done.

Caleb

My parents and Jade and I walked out of the hospital together, Gramps and the others who'd been waiting trailing after us.

Put a fork in the whole group of us hot dogs, we were done.

If that hadn't been bad enough, the entire world started to come alive with a new piece of information: the Graysheets had been outed.

I guess there was such a thing as silver-lining. And I'd thought it was a bullshit expression.

As the sun rose, time zones came awake, pulse activated news center emergent updates were uploaded into our built-in pulse-discs. Those who had embedded chips knew the entire story, the very young and the very old who did not, received the entire story the old-fashioned way.

Pulse news.

Then there was the matter of the death of Tim Anderson.

He'd been found in his home this morning, three nail beds removed and two crushed toes for his trouble.

Gramps and I looked at each other as the billboards that used to house flat advertisements now held breaking viral news as it became live.

“Seems to me that he had something to tell,” Gramps said, palming his chin while looking at the flashing boards, blasting their disconcerting news. Methods Gramps had employed most recently with similar results.

Dad nodded, too troubled for words and I wondered at his expression.

But right now, Tim Anderson was dead and soon, when the viral wave of the emergency broadcasting system, now renamed the Emergent Pulse System, came sweeping through our time zone I would know exactly what had happened, and to whom.

Even more importantly, there was me and Jade.

And the new life we'd created.

Zondorae

Zondorae opened his eyes to be greeted by a male and female pair of crazies.

He knew who they were and didn't bother to hold back his scorn, they'd finally caught up with him.

“Couldn't save the loud mouth journalist?” he asked in a smug voice.

Amanda swiped a tear from her eye angrily. That arrogant fucker, she thought, not giving the asshole the satisfaction of a response.

“No,” Christopher said slowly. “He could not be saved before your merry troop of murderers paid him a visit.”

Christopher walked slowly toward him, placing his look on the chest of a scientist that had sterilized millions of children, who had changed the very fiber of their genetics for government gain. Then when they could not be manipulated for the HC's purposes, sterilized their future.

But not all.

Christopher smiled at the fanatic scientist and Joe's brow furrowed.

“My partner and I,” Christopher began, “have been playing in the Zondorae sandbox for years,” he confessed easily and Joe's frown deepened into a scowl.

Christopher paced in front of the zip-tied doctor, his hands laced behind his back, his ass planted in an all-wood chair.

“You have been successful in culling the paranormal herd, Zondorae.”

“I know,” he answered, as if Christopher was mentally slow.

“But the mules have been saved from that fate.”

Amanda smiled and Zondorae sat up in the chair like he'd been electrocuted instead of just bound.

They could see Zondorae's wheels turning furiously and it gave the duo a savage satisfaction.

The Zondoraes had made sure the boy had the special dose in eighth grade, solidifying it with the pulse dose to the girlfriend when she visited the clinic for mandatory birth control. It was handled. That horrible Nevaeh had been likewise eliminated by the dose he and his departed brother had injected her with.

No female could survive what they'd done to her. It would have incinerated her uterus.

Forget egg production, the dose was meant to pulverize her reproductive... well, everything.

Zondorae smiled.

Christopher grinned back.

He should not have been smiling, Joe thought. It was the Zondoraes' plan. It was flawless.

“You're so predictable, Joe,” Parker said, entering the room in stealth, as he always did.

Old habits die hard.

Zondorae looked from the zealot pair before him then his eyes found Parker... then the bitch AFTD they'd done in.

Everything clicked and he bellowed, “What have you done?”

Amanda answered in a soft whisper, “Your question should be: what have we undone?”

“You don't know what you've accomplished!” Zondorae hissed at them.

Nevaeh looked at Zondorae, then at Parker.

Christopher looked at Parker. “Did you do it?”

Parker nodded.

Amanda looked at Nevaeh. She was almost beautiful, there was a haunting quality about her.

“What's going on?” Nevaeh asked, her normally sure manner and cocky bravado falling before their solemn expressions.

“Did you like the sex with Parker?” Zondorae asked, making an accurate stab-like guess in the dark.

Nevaeh gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.

Betrayal of an unknown variety slammed into her and she staggered back, her eyes unwittingly finding Parker's. His were grave and sad... filled with regret.

He'd never felt anything for her, it had been a fuck with a purpose.

The first light of hope she'd ever had faded and was extinguished. She backed away from the tight little group, her ass hitting the door. She turned, ripping it open.

Nevaeh ran out of the warehouse into the seediest part of Kent, no plan or path in front of her.

She just needed to escape.

Back to running.

“Nevaeh!” Parker yelled in a hoarse rasp after her departing back, the door slamming at her departure.

He swung and hit Zondorae all in one motion. “You fucking prick!” Parker bellowed, Zondorae's head snapping back as the front legs of the chair caught air, then settled with a clunk on the cement floor.

Parker's death energy rippled through the air, like a wave without a shore.

Nevaeh felt it a half mile away and shuddered as it caressed her. She straightened her body from a hunched crouch and pressed forward harder.

Zondorae spit blood out on the hard floor, looking at Parker. “I knew you'd try to knock her up, before the sterilization could take effect.” His eyes pegged Amanda, Christopher... then landed again on Parker. “How'd that go?” Zondorae gave a sharp cackle.

Parker went forward to beat him, reason leaving him in a smooth mudslide of rationale. Christopher stayed him, giving a subtle shake of his head. “He doesn't know, Parker.”

Christopher gazed at the wretched excuse of humanity in front of him. “We've been tampering fools, like I've already elaborated.”

Zondorae spit more blood on the floor. “The journalist is dead, the reversal has come full circle, the paranormals are sterile...” He gave an abbreviated shrug, constrained by his bonds.

“Caleb Hart is not sterile,” Christopher said and Zondorae's eyes widened.

“And neither is that girlfriend of his,” Amanda said.

“As we speak, the pulse-hacker that Anderson gave the slide to has gone viral with your plan. The world knows, Zondorae,” Parker said, his very being aching to find Nevaeh, who had completely misunderstood everything.

Yet, he had this bit of unfinished business here. Parker was a follow-though guy, and no fool to priorities. But as he saw this through, a vulnerable prodigy walked around without his protection.

Ignorant of what she was.

And already she might carry his child.

“Finish this, Parker,” Amanda said.

Parker told Zondorae the rest.

After Parker finished, Zondorae hung his head. “You don't know what you've done. You know what Nevaeh and Hart are. What they could do if they procreated. Abomination is not too soft a term, Parker. Think,” he begged of Parker.

Parker grabbed the arm rails of the chair and gave it a hard shake. Zondorae didn't break, his eyes narrowing on Parker.

“That's not all,” Parker said, his eyes boring into Zondorae's. “I have a certain distant relative that's alive enough, my friend. And he will, By. God. Be alive again.”

Parker shoved the chair and it rocked on its legs, teetering.

“No,” Zondorae breathed out in horror.

“Oh yes,” Parker said, planting his hands on his hips. “The Helix Complex lies exposed and will be disbanded. My zombie relative is charged and a miracle has occurred.”

“An abomination!” Zondorae yelled, straining against his bonds.

Parker nodded to Christoper and he cut Zondorae free.

Zondorae stood. He rubbed his wrists where the zip tie bindings had chafed his skin, presenting a painful stripe of abraded flesh.

“I'll have that boy and that crazy AFTD killed, Parker. I don't care if she was the best piece of tail you've ever had... they must die.” He looked at the trio. “You're all crazy if you think those two can be allowed to perpetuate their genetic signature on this world!”

“And the zombie, Jesus,” Zondorae scrubbed his face.

“I don't think God has anything to do with it,” Jeffrey said.

“You're going to kill me now, but that won't solve anything,” Zondorae said, stalling.

“Maybe. But I'll feel better,” Jeffrey said. “Besides,” he continued, giving Zondorae a hard stare, “I've learned very well by example.”

Joe Zondorae watched the three zombies move into the room and flank Parker.

He began screaming before a rotting finger could touch him.

Parker, Amanda and Christoper left to the sounds of his wailing.

The shrieks stopped after Zondorae's head was forcefully removed and the brains he had so revered became a meal for the dead he so despised.

Caleb

one month later

By the end of that fateful day, the entire world knew. My nemesis had a name: Helix Complex. They'd been the Graysheets, and now they had been demystified.

All their covert wrangling had been untangled and laid before an unforgiving public. Most paranormals were now in various stages of their abilities melting away. Many had slipped through the cracks. My former school? It was now an “alternative” school. There for those few paranormals who remained.

What had been the dream of the Zero Populationists was now a reality and the globe was calling for anyone and everyone to have children. An entire generation had been obliterated because of the widespread sterilization practices implemented by the corrupt Helix Complex.

Gone was the supposed morality of the ages.

There would be such a huge swing of the pendulum for birth rate in the negative direction, there was speculation our world couldn't recover.

I knew differently.

Jade was pregnant with our child. And I knew why.

Well, obviously I knew why.

But it was Parker that told me the how.

We met and had a conversation to end all and he put in a request I couldn't refuse.

After all, I'd do anything for love.

I already had.

the dump

“Hey,” I said, the weather warm again after the rare snowstorm that had ran through the prior month. Our lives had changed along with the swath of cold and snow that had swept in, cleaning out the old and bringing in the new.

Parker stood there in the warm post-Christmas weather, a false spring day teasing us with its near-miss, in just a tee-shirt and slacker jeans. Parker seemed so much more him. I didn't know how, he just did. Maybe more in his own skin.

He smiled. “I heard congratulations are in order.”

I nodded. “Yeah, we're young and all...” I began, starting to feel defensive. Although, with the climate as it was right now, society was thrilled for anyone's pregnancy. It was a three hundred and sixty degree position from what had been the collective thought process of just a few months ago.

“Ah,” Parker lifted a finger, “but you've lived a lifetime.”

That might be true but I held my tongue.

“Is it over?” I asked. That was the only question that burned inside me. I wanted Jade safe, I wanted... our child protected.

He nodded. “I took care of that.” He paused, “Okay that's not exactly accurate. The boys took care of it.”

Zombies moved into the light then retreated again into the shadow line the stacked cars gave off.

Zombies weren't big fans of sunlight.

I'd known they were present, they were always a part of me.

He gave a slight shake of his head. “Zondorae?” I asked.

“He won't be part of the equation in the future.”

“What happened?” I asked.

Parker looked at me, his eyes glittering darkly in his skull. “He lost his head.”

I laughed.

He didn't.

Gotcha.

“It's a tough break about Anderson,” I commented, changing the subject from headless Zondorae, though I couldn't feel bad about it. He'd almost ended my life. He'd certainly dicked up billions of people's futures with the HC interference and manipulation.

He'd tried to play God and failed. After all, there was only one.

Parker met my eyes. “He was responsible for the exposure.”

I nodded, I'd bet on that. Anderson had been a tenacious sort of guy. It was a loss.

“So it wasn't in vain. His sacrifice....” I trailed off.

We were quiet for a time, our hands jammed in our pockets.

“I need a favor, Caleb.”

He told me what he needed.

Well hell, I could do that.

“What are the chances?”

“She found us, didn't she?” Parker asked me and I thought about it.

“Yeah she did.” Where would a five-point AFTD go if they were all alone and hurting? If the paranormals were truly rare now, if AFTD was still the shittiest ability to possess.

I knew.

Parker and I looked at each other.

“She thinks I used her for some HC agenda.”

My eyes scanned his face. “Did ya?”

He shook his head. “I was through with them before I met her. Besides, she scooped my guts out the minute I laid eyes on her,” he said, grabbing a hunk of his tee and patting his chest.

I barked out a laugh. Hell, I knew that feeling.

Parker grinned. “I didn't think that the love at first sight bullshit was real.”

“It doesn't happen to everybody, Parker,” I noted.

His eyes found mine again. “I know,” he hesitated, “that's why I've got to find her.” Those hazel eyes flared. “Because, for the first time in my miserable life... I've got a chance. And I'm not going to fuck it up.”

“I hear ya,” I said and we shook hands.

We left the dump, the dead trailing behind like faithful soldiers of the peace.

Our peace.

I turned around one last time as we closed the gate and it clanged with finality as it shut.

Nostalgia kicked up dust at the sight of my childhood hideaway.

It seemed smaller when I returned as an old man.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It was pizza at the parents and Onyx sat glued to Jade's feet. He'd suddenly taken a liking to her and it was weird, but cool. I was figuring he'd better get used to her in a whole new way. A lot had changed but also remained the same. Jade and I would be together in our own house soon.

Right now, Jade and the rest of the gang were having a last hang session at the house before we moved into the new one. I leaned over and scratched Onyx behind the ear, right where he loved it best and he gave a nudge of his head into my hand but remained where he was, by Jade, leaning his head into my hand rather than coming over to me. Funny ass dog.

The Dog wished to remain close to the small female, for she smelled like pack. One recent day when she returned with his Boy, her scent had changed and suddenly, she smelled somehow like the Boy. The Dog recognized that she was somehow more vulnerable than before and he wished to help protect this one of the pack that had the least defenses.

The female did not even possess proper teeth.

The Dog settled near her feet after the Boy gave him the special pet behind where the Dog listened.

He loved his pack.

Wag-thunk-wag.

I watched Onyx wag his tail briefly as he resettled himself beside Jade. She leaned down, giving him an absent stroke and he gazed at her with his soulful brown eyes then put his chin on his paws again.

Jonesy came rushing by, grabbing a handful of cookies over Jade's head. “Excuuuuse me!” he said.

Onyx gave a low growl.

“Quit it, Onyx,” I commanded.

“Whoa, Hart, guard dog-much,” Jonesy said, a cookie halfway in his mouth.

I shrugged, wasn't sure what that was about. “He's become protective of Jade recently.”

“It's 'cuz she's PG, man,” Jonesy said.

Swell.

Sophie did a facepalm. “Stay classy, Jonesy.”

His brow furrowed as he took another bite of cookie. “I was, I didn't even say it out loud. Knocked up, pregnant, preggers, 'with child',” he palmed his chin then put a finger up in the air as my mom's face became contained thunder. “Bun in the oven...”

“Mark. Cease and desist,” Clyde said.

“Thank you, Clyde,” Mom said.

“You are most welcome,” Clyde returned.

Awkward didn't even begin to cover this.

Tiff chimed in at Jade. “I think it's cool that you were able to sell your old house and get the money from it.”

John nodded, his fingers laced in Tiff's. When she wasn't looking, he slipped the tag of her hoodie back underneath the cloth where it had stuck up like a flag. She turned and smiled at him.

Tiff was softer for her experiences but hard when it was needed.

We were all glad Carson Hamilton was dead. Though none of us said it.

When John had been hauled off to jail, his parents had secured the best lawyer in the state. It wasn't too hard to get John off with an obvious self-defense plea. Hamilton had already been under probation for the attack. He'd broken his pulse ankle cuff and attacked the same victim again. I couldn't help but remember he'd been paces away from Jade in the same hospital. Unlike John, I knew I couldn't have stopped.

I'd have killed him.

Happily.

But Terran had stopped. He was healed and back to his normal succinct and intellectual self, snark included.

“Yes, it was... well, it helped with the baby coming and everything,” Jade agreed in a shy voice. I put a small strand of her hair behind her ear and allowed my hand to linger by her temple as I did.

The house choice was a little cozy. Jade and I had bought a little place in the same neighborhood as Bobbi.

My zombie and I would be neighbors.

It was surreal beyond words.

I'd let Jade pick it out (actually, that was a lie, I'd hand-picked the list). It was a little cottage bungalow built in the teens of the last century. I'd gone behind her back and read up on historical houses, insisting that I needed something old-fashioned. Jade's Aunt's house hadn't sold for much but it was enough for a significant down payment. The new place had a full basement (I was already dreaming man-cave) and a small attic. It had three bedrooms and a great but small family room with a fireplace that burned real wood. Gramps and Clyde had loved that feature.

The guys razzed me about the house being like my hang-up for wearing a wristwatch, riding a bike, and owning a vintage car.

Somebody had to care about history, they could get off my dick about it. Somehow I knew that wouldn't happen, I thought ruefully.

It'd felt right the minute we'd walked inside. But it was Jade's eyes getting round and wet that let me know we'd struck gold. I'd put my arm around her small shoulders, her belly still flat and perfect and kissed her head, soaking in her happiness as my own.

Mom and Mia cleared the plates and I got up, stretching, my thoughts disrupted.

The girls and Mom all grouped together and began planning the next event.

The Wedding.

I glanced down at Jade's hand and admired the ring I'd gotten for her. It was what she wanted. No diamonds for my girl. It had been in the velvet box she'd never gotten around to opening. Sometimes timing was everything.

An emerald to match those eyes. It was also emerald cut, a deep true green, capturing the color and shimmering with clarity. The band that matched was in a small drawer of my now clean room. The salesperson had called it an eternity band. It was what I'd wanted. A diamond band that never ended, a circle of forever.

Jade had protested and I'd ended that in my usual fashion. She hadn't refused as I was so convincing.

I smiled remembering it.

“Get that shiteating grin off your face, Hart,” Alex said with a grin.

“He's in looovve,” Jonesy said, making smacking noises and cracking the invisible whip.

“Yeah, I am, so piss off Jones,” I said, in no mood for his bullshit.

Dad laughed. “So when do you leave?”

I shifted my weight, putting my foot on the edge of the coffee table, covertly looking around for Mom then realizing she'd vacated to talk about Bridal Crap.

I'd told the guys and Dad about helping Parker.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“You don't owe him, Caleb,” Lewis said, his light gray eyes serious.

I met his eyes. “I know.” I looked at the group gone solemn. “But she needs him. Especially with what we know now....”

“Are you scared, Hart?” Bry asked.

I thought about it. “Yeah.”

“You're gonna have a flipper baby maybe?” Jonesy said in a low voice.

“Shut up, doofus,” Alex said, punching him.

“Hey!” Jonesy yelped. “You're still strong even if you're not the Incredible Hulk anymore.”

Alex grinned. “I'm keeping up my manly ways.”

“Right,” John said in a droll voice. I gave him a chin lift and he acknowledged it. It was cool that once a Null, always a Null. The HC hadn't been able to undo that gene alteration. No one knew why.

In fact, it was funny but the Js and I ended up with our abilities. Just a series of strange circumstances had gotten us off the hook. The rest of the group hadn't been that lucky. Jade was the only other paranormal besides the Js that retained her ability. Sure there were others, some I knew from school and just other Randoms (as we were now calling them), but out of the core group, that was it.

“I don't miss mine,” Randi said thoughtfully. “I mean, we did a good thing in the dome world but,” she lifted her narrow shoulders, “we just about got sold into some whacked out sex-slave ring.”

The guys were quiet, thinking about the girls' near-miss.

“I wonder what happened to those women we let go?” John said, thinking out loud.

Tiff's face scrunched up. “Yeah, that girl you were tonguing? I so wonder.”

Sophie laughed. “Are ya jealous, Tiff? I mean John's kinda The Man if you ask me.”

Tiff looked at him and gave him a side hug. “Yeah, he is. Rescuer of females in distress.”

“There's only one female I love,” John said with total seriousness and I watched Jonesy die.

“John!” he wailed, “can you just pretend to have a nutsack?”

“Oh no, he's definitely got one,” Tiff said innocently and Bry did a dry retch in the background.

Jones grinned and we were back to talking about Parker.

“Is it safe?” Bry asked, folding his arms over his chest as a peal of giggles erupted from the living room where some of the women were clustered. We'd lost most of the chicks to our Guy Talk.

Except Tiff... of course. She was with the guys. We'd never even noticed. She just fit.

“Hell no it's not safe,” I answered Bry then looked at Clyde.

“I will attend you, Caleb,” he said.

“Yeah, okay,” Jonesy said. “I heard you have your own weirdness going down, Clyde.”

He quirked a brow at Jones and John translated while Dad got a little red in the face.

Clyde's brow dropped like a brick and Jonesy backed up. “I am not yet accustomed to the strange vernaculars of this era. However, to discuss one's intended in a manner that is on par with weirdness is evidence of a much needed flogging.”

“What?” Jonesy squeaked.

“He's gonna kick your ass,” Alex guessed.

“Hey,” Jonesy put his hand on his chest. “I wasn't trying to be offensive, like, on purpose.”

“I would hate to see what an effort on your part might produce,” Clyde said.

Jonesy got sullen.

“You gotta grow up sometime, Jones,” Bry said.

“Alright, gawd!” He pegged Clyde with his dark eyes. “I heard that you can get married, and play house and all that.”

Clyde nodded. “We are betrothed and will be moving into the house that has belonged to Roberta's relations for the better part of a century. And it is not 'weird'. It is a second lease on life, my mouthy young friend.”

Jonesy sulked at his new name. It did fit him, I thought.

“Your new government believes that everyone who can produce children, should. With or without the wedded component.” Clyde said with scorn laced in his words.

“Are you telling us you're... viable?” John asked slowly.

“I am,” Clyde said, his dead eyes looking very much alive.

Holy shit, this was just a year for revelations.

“Okay,” Jonesy said, thinking what was certainly weirdness through. To the best of his abilities. He looked warily at Clyde and Dad said, “Tread lightly, Jonesy.”

Jonesy swung his head to Dad. “Right.” Then he looked back at Clyde. “So... you're going to have a dead baby?”

Wow.

Clyde grinned, it broke across his face so quickly Jonesy gave a nervous laugh. “I think not, Mark. However,” Clyde said, pacing in front of us, “he or she will be our child. Roberta's and mine.”

He stopped, his large hands going to his perfectly pressed hips. “And as you are wont to say: for the record, I believe it is the woman of the pair who gives birth.”

We cracked up and Jonesy was left sputtering, that dark skin taking on a decidedly red undertone.

Dad held up his hand. “I will not elaborate to your mother what the acquisition plan is for this...”

“Nevaeh,” I interjected.

“Nevaeh,” Dad repeated. “However, I have become aware of some basic facts that have come to light. Actually,” he gave me a look, “the depressant did more than limit the HC's efforts to detect the true limits of your AFTD.”

I waited.

“It rendered their sterilization ineffective. In essence, the depressant diluted the component necessary for the full dose to both manifest correctly and negate your procreative potential.”

We stood there, some wiser than others. I got it, Jones did not and John said, “Kyle neutralized the booster when he used the counter drug to keep Caleb's five-point status under wraps.”

“Okay,” Jonesy glanced at my dad. “You could've just said that.”

Dad smiled, then continued, “The world is now in a desperate situation.” His eyes got serious and when he looked at me I knew his next words were all for me, “We need strong men that are willing to safeguard families. Families that are now a rarity.”

I didn't need the embedded lecture. Most of my problem had been my overprotectiveness of Jade. Now it was warranted. Of course, I'd always felt justified in my feelings toward Jade, that had never been a tough thing to embrace. Now others were feeling that same sense of entitlement and stewardship. Well good for them.

It was the same tune that had always played for me.

That's about as serious as things got that day, the guys going back and wolfing down the rest of the pizza as the women carried on about the big day.

I sat watching Jade without her knowing, Onyx at her feet, her happy face swinging from one face to another as she spoke, a flash of emerald fire would sparkle when she lifted her hand to push an ebony strand of hair from her face.

Jade turned and caught me staring at her from across the house and smiled when I didn't look away.

I got that feeling in my chest, that weight.

It was solid.

Felt like joy to me.

reconnaissance

We trudged through the long grass of the Washelli Cemetery, one of the largest in Seattle.

Of course, it was night and raining. That was a prerequisite condition for looking for an AFTD in a cemetery.

Parker stopped as if he was listening. All I could hear was the soft drone of the water sweeping the landscape, causing the headstones to darken as they became saturated.

Parker tapped his LED flashlight against his thigh with a thwack, his rain gear sloughing off the misting water. “She's not here, Caleb.”

“Yeah, she is,” I disagreed in a low voice. Clyde stepped up beside me, his eyes scanning the dimness in this antique section of the cemetery. Then I saw it.

“Caretaker's cottage,” Clyde said for me.

I nodded.

We moved in.

When the zombies erupted I about pissed my pants. I couldn't believe I could still be startled by corpses but I guess so.

Nevaeh exited the door of the caretaker's cottage, dim light haloing around her thin body and her eyes found Parker's, narrowing on his figure.

“Leave me alone!” she yelled, grasping a decaying post with a bony hand. “Leave me alone,” she said again, barely more than a whisper and the horde shambled a collective step forward.

“Do not,” Clyde instructed the dead and they swung their hastily raised faces to his. One in the front of the line slapped a pesky eyeball that kept trying to pop out, pushing it back in its socket.

“Brother,” Eyeball popper addressed Clyde in a hiss and I swore I heard disdain in that rotten voice.

Hell, was there like zombie prejudice now? Maybe it hadn't been such a stand up idea to bring Clyde along after all.

Too late.

“Nevaeh,” Parker started, his palms out at his sides like superman with a cape, “we need to talk.”

“No,” she said. “We didn't do enough talking last time and look where it got me.” She folded her arms across her narrow chest.

The zombies took another step closer. They were practically within arm's reach.

“Now would be a great time to beg forgiveness or whatever your plan was, Parker,” I said. We were all five-point C-Ms and it was about to get ugly.

“Yeah,” he agreed then like a dumbass he ran to the door where she stood and her eyes got wide. It was the IQ drop again, Parker wasn't any more immune than myself.

The zombies turned and a few of the spry ones launched themselves at his feet.

Clyde waded right in and popped the jaw of the one who was closest to Parker.

“Can't ya call them off?” I yelled over the grunts and howls as Clyde knocked them down like a bowling ball in a alley full of pins.

“Nope!” Parker bellowed over his shoulder.

Shit, figures.

He was almost on her when Zondorae walked out from behind Nevaeh. It caused my feet to falter and it stopped Parker in his tracks.

“What the fuck?!” Parker bellowed, his hands curling into fists.

“Hello Jeffrey,” Joe Zondorae said, his head hanging at an odd angle.

Wait a second, hadn't he lost his head? Hadn't there been a brain fest?

That answered the question about brains once and for all: zombies didn't need much.

“Get away from her,” Parker said in a low voice as the zombies mewled all around him. Then his eyes slid to Nevaeh. “What. Is. This,” Parker asked Nevaeh, sweeping his hand out at Zondorae.

“Poetic justice,” she replied, her eyes glittering her hate at him.

This was not working out well.

Clyde and I made our way through the sea of dead, their arms and nubs trying to claim purchase to our slick rain gear and sliding off with only a trail of zombie slime as evidence.

Zondorae watched our approach and Clyde didn't hold back, hissing. Joe smiled and I watched a tooth fall out, plopping into a puddle that had formed in a low spot in the ground.

Disgusting.

“Put him to rest, Nevaeh,” Parker said.

“No,” she said, plucking a piece of invisible lint off his shredded clothing.

Parker hung his head.

I could see him deliberate. Finally he blew us away with raw sincerity. “I love you,” he proclaimed in a voice that was at once troubled and deadly sincere.

Nevaeh visibly started. It had been utterly unexpected. She had been prepared to pull us apart limb by limb and have her revenge like a swallow of neat whiskey.

Instead, her presumptions had been turned on their ear and I knew Parker had gotten through when her lip quivered.

They stood there for a swollen moment in the sands of time, Parker waiting and Nevaeh reeling.

Then she softly called out, “Rest.”

And with a sigh, the dead fell, sinking into the sodden ground. Their bodies were reabsorbed in the earth like they'd never been.

Only Joe Zondorae fought the return to death.

His hands were the last thing to disappear as they were sucked under the muddy and wet ground with a slurping pop.

Then Nevaeh was sliding down the post on the porch, her eyes rolling back in her head.

Parker was there to catch her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

something borrowed, something blue

late spring 2030

I decided I was way more old-fashioned than I knew. I carried Jade across the threshold without being asked, without really knowing it was a centuries-old practice. Her bright white dress catching the door as I kicked it shut with my fancy shoes.

That eternity band was so beautiful on her small finger, glittering like captured ice in a narrow band of white gold. It was perfect, like her.

I set her down carefully and we looked around at the house that seemed so big, yet we'd fill it with our happiness.

Our future children.

Jade looked up at me, her black hair swept up and artfully knotted at the lowest part of her neck. I bent down, kissing her right beside the heaviness of that knot and pulled the stick that held it out with my teeth. I let it drop and it clattered loudly on the wood floor.

“Caleb!” she squealed as her hair tumbled all around her, the slight bulge of her stomach hidden by a dress Sophie had found on one of their million shopping trips.

I covered her belly, my hand almost going from one hipbone to the other and said, “Let's christen the dump.” I tackled her with kisses until she gave up.

Jade wasn't heavy enough to worry about picking up.

I took her upstairs and kicked shut my second door of the day.

summer

“Hey Terran,” I said, heaving myself into the booth across from him. “Where's Jones?”

John shrugged, looking around then giving up. “He'll be here when he gets here.”

“So how goes it?”

John's eyebrows lifted and he gave a little smirk. “How's married life?”

I grinned, tried unsuccessfully to hide it and gave up, my smile widening.

“That good, huh?” John said, smiling wider.

I nodded, thinking about all the sheer time I had with Jade now. It was some kind of amazing, for sure. I flopped my arm across the booth, kicking my legs under the table. John, who was three inches taller, took the other side and we sat in companionable silence for a time.

“Did you get picked up by that free-lance group?” John asked, sipping a pop the waitress had brought.

“They want me and I'm not much for turning down the money,” I said, spearing a hand through my hair that needed a cut. We had to eat and Bry's landscaping business was just barely making ends meet.

“What about Bry?”

“Yeah, Weller's the man but...”

“Overhead.”

“Yeah, man, he's got his own thing going.”

“Him and Mia serious?”

“Seem to be.” I pegged John with a stare. “Shit, with all this pressure for people to hump like bunnies and spit out kids...”

“I heard the word hump,” Jonesy said, throwing himself into the booth and promptly kicking John in the shin underneath the table.

“Hey!” John said, curling his long legs up underneath him.

“Sorry, ya girl.” Jonesy rolled his eyes and shoved a Blow Pop in his mouth.

It was eleven a.m. Never too early for candy.

“What's all this noise about screwing, Hart?”

Yeah. “I was just talking about the societal shift to 'everyone hump everyone' for babies mentality.”

The Js looked at me, I'd sorta pulled out the intellectual card but at almost twenty, I could speak like an adult if the mood struck.

“That's great, Hart,” Jonesy said slowly, “but I never felt like they needed to give me the nod to enjoy the ladies. If ya know what I mean.” His eyebrows rose in a comical arch, the Blow Pop stick a white exclamation point out of his dark lips.

I did know exactly what he meant. Sophie walked up on that note and John and I stifled laughter. Her sparkly fingertips landed on hips encased in bright red pants. “What ladies are you enjoying, Mark Jones?”

Busted. So busted.

Jonesy tore out his Blow Pop and defended himself. “That was before, baby.”

Her sea-colored eyes narrowed on his face and he gave a nervous laugh.

“Got a nutsack, Jones?” Terran couldn't help but ask and Jonesy gave him the bird.

“Piss off Terran.”

“Sure,” John said, “just as soon as you justify our differences.”

Jonesy gave him a withering look and then the rest of the gang poured in and we jerked a center table over against the booth and the noise and conversation really began.

It'd been months since the downfall of the Helix Complex. The Zondoraes, the brains of the thing, were now dead and only Randoms remained: those left with abilities. Though we were few and far between.

I asked my friends at large if they missed their abilities.

“Not, really,” Archer said. then he thought about it, running a hand through his blond hair, disturbing not a strand. How did he do that? “I would have made a fine criminal,” he said randomly.

John looked at him. “Because criminals are stupid.” They smiled in complete understanding at each other.

Jonesy rolled his eyes, crushing his sucker and leaning back in his chair, his hand clasped on the back of Alex's chair. “You're butt hurt because you thought someday you could, what? Unlock Fort Knox?”

“There was no thinking, Mark. I could have.”

Randi said from her perch on Alex's lap, “Mine wasn't good for anything but exploration.” She looked at us. “And after seeing how the Zondorae's screwed up Clara's world,” she gave a little shiver and Alex wrapped his beefy arms around her, “I don't want to be a part of that.”

I looked at Alex and he smiled. “The 'experts',” he made airquotes, “swear I have some residual 'muscle memory'.” He shrugged like it didn't matter.

John looked thoughtful then elaborated, “I'm not sure that they know the full extent of how entrenched everyone's abilities became.” He had our attention and went on, pausing when our waitress set down drinks and appetizers. “I postulate,” he smiled when Jonesy rolled his eyes for the third time. “That we are all human and basically the same. However, I believe that there are subtle biological differences amongst one another. The scientific community can't dismiss these nuances. There will be some retention, there certainly will be a manifestation of an infinite number of offspring abilities....”

“That's not true, John,” Tiff said and John looked at her, sighing.

“You can't possibly want linoleum lizards,” Bry said. “I mean, that's all we've been doing is helping our parents raise the brood, sis.”

“You're not a girl, Bry,” Tiff said with the venom of the vindicated.

Bry sighed, raking a hand over his buzzed skull. “What I mean is, you might still be able to have kids. And I don't look at you... like a girl.”

Every female's eyes were on him.

Bry backpedaled before they strung him up by his gonads.

“I mean...,” He looked at Mia for help and she glared at him. “Tiff is my sister. Hell,” he looked at the dudes helplessly, “I've wrestled her!”

“She's definitely a girl,” John said softly and Bry winced. I could tell that was not what he'd been wanting to hear.

“You go, Terran!” Jonesy said with a laugh.

Our food came and I was very happy it did. Got us out of all kinds of male versus female discussions; saved by grub.

I was halfway done and already eyeing the dessert menu when Randi asked where Jade was.

“My parents. My mom's busy suffocating Jade with baby clothes.”

“No shit?” Jonesy asked and Sophie gave a little smile.

“No man, they want to talk about shopping and all that boring stuff.”

“So not boring,” Mia said.

“I think he's going to be so cute!” Sophie said.

“Is it a boy?” Archer asked, scooping the soup of the day into his mouth then blotting it with his napkin.

“Yeah, the docs know but we don't,” I answered, dipping my fry in mustard and popping it in my mouth.

“Hell, I'd have to know,” Tiff said.

I nodded. “Yeah, Jade really wants to know.”

They all watched me. I added with reluctance, “I think it ruins it.”

“It's that old-fashioned bullshit again, right Hart?” Jonesy asked.

“Guilty,” I put up my palms and ordered my dessert.

“Hart's leaving me guys,” Bry said as a conversation changer.

I threw my napkin on my plate and leaned back, checking my watch to make sure I had time before I needed to pick Jade up. We had somewhere we needed to be this evening.

Somewhere important.

I explained what my new job was. It was created just for me and I was happy to do it. Because the dead were still mine. Even sitting there in the diner I could feel the beat of everything dead within a one mile radius. If I'd been concentrating, it'd be five.

“So you're gonna be a dead-hunter?” Jonesy asked after listening to my new job details.

I nodded. “Kind of. I'll be finding people and most importantly, with them not making dirt anymore, well... they gotta know where the graves are.”

“The indians?” Alex asked and I nodded.

“The Skopamish are just a local tribe, but their dead are scattered everywhere and with the Native American Reparation Act of 2027...”

“They brought your skulking dead ass on board,” Jonesy said, slurping the last of his milkshake through the straw.

“Jones, ya slob, quit it,” Tiff said.

“Chill, sweetheart,” Jonesy said, now with a pink tongue.

John frowned and I laughed.

“Anyway, I don't think it's in my job description to 'skulk', Jones, but I will be locating and moving disrupted burial grounds.”

“Show me the money, man. If ya can't skulk you better get cash,” Jonesy said.

“He does have a small point,” Archer said, setting his spoon upside down alongside the plate that held his empty bowl.

“Ya greedy boys,” Sophie clucked and Mia grinned.

“Hard workers are sexy,” Mia said, giving Bry a peck that turned his face red.

Ah... the females, here to put us in our place with their wiles.

Speaking of wiles, I glance at my watch and saw it was already noon thirty. Hell, I better get home, I had to get on the fancy shit again.

I hated ties. In fact, I think they were just nooses disguised as ties. Someone who sat in a dark, windowless room had invented them as a subtle torture device.

“Stop,” Jade batted my hand away when I made the knot crooked trying to secretly loosen it. “It's only for a few hours, you can last...” she said, adjusting it against my Adam's apple again.

I didn't know that I could, I stewed, the knot strangling me again.

I watched Jade put away last minute things, her deep green dress grazing her feet, jeweled sandals peeking out from under the almost sheer material. Sexy toes painted a pale frosty white.

Her belly swelled now and I moved closer to her, putting my face against the hard heat of it just as the baby gave a huge roll and she laughed, putting her hand on her stomach.

“Hey guy,” I said softly against her rounded belly.

“What if it's a girl?” Jade asked just as softly and I rolled my eyes up to look into hers.

“Hey girl,” I repeated in the same tone of voice as our gazes locked and hers shone with her love for me, her hand moving away from her belly and into to my hair.

Maybe we didn't need to go right this second, I thought.

“Uh-uh, stud,” she said, getting a gander at my thoughts. “We'll be late.”

I frowned. “Not that late,” I said and moved her into the cradle of my body.

We were late and my tie was crooked.

Clyde didn't say anything when we arrived, taking in our flushed faces and eyes that were bright and happy. He smiled that secret smile of his. Understanding.

Then we followed him inside a church that he'd always wanted to be in. But for different reasons. There had been a girl he'd loved when he lived in a different time. After he died their love had remained unrequited.

But the fates had spoken. Clyde got what others before him had never realized: a second chance at life.

We'd held death at bay, robbing the grim reaper of one more subject, unlike love it was death, unrequited death.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, knowing that for all the horrible things that happened in this blue marble we lived on, sometimes, something that was truly deserved transpired.

I stood next to my zombie on his wedding day. His large hands, calloused from farming and fighting, took Roberta Gale's in his. They turned to face each other as their vows were spoken and she looked just like Jade in profile, her belly swollen with their child.

It was a true miracle.

When the priest voiced the final blessing in Latin, they bent forward and pressed a chaste kiss to each others lips. Then it deepened and for the first time, I saw Clyde's control slip a little, his happiness unrestrained and raw, he swept Bobbi against him, his heavy and muscular body wrapping her small one against his own.

Clyde shook as he wept against Gale's hair and the gang and I stood, clapping and cheering.

Mom cried and Dad's eyes had that tell-tale guy sheen as our gazes met and he gave me a nod. I guess we'd done okay after all.

Sophie squealed in excited girl delight, throwing rose petals at the pair after the kiss broke and they walked swiftly down the aisle.

Clyde's eyes caught mine before he exited the cathedral, his hand wrapped in his bride's.

I was humbled to my marrow by what I saw there.

Gratitude.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

early autumn

Jade and I sat at our small, Salvation Army kitchen table. The entire house was furnished this way, thriftstore chic, Sophie called it.

I didn't give a hot damn what the décor was. Jade was becoming quite a cook and the table held the food she made. From a guy's point of view, that was all that was needed. Women spent a lot of time complicating things with men. Trying to figure us out. We were terribly simplistic: feed us and... well, Jade was very good at the other. I gave a couple moments of thought to that and Jade giggled.

Her hand had been on my forearm and I thought for the millionth time how awesome having an Empath wife was.

“I am not your sex-minion,” she said, resting her cup of tea on her belly, the thing distractingly placed between breasts that were wonderfully huge.

“Uh.... huh!” I said, grabbing for her and she squealed. “Stop!”

She waved a letter in front of me to get my attention. “What?” I grumped. “Do you think mail will distract me from my goals here?” I asked with a smile.

“This one will,” she said and I grabbed it.

“I'm going to have my way with you later,” I promised, giving her a soft peck on her mouth.

Jade grinned. “I know, you're a man of your word.”

I gave her a look and she blushed.

But what I read absorbed my full attention.

I opened the thick creamy envelope, breaking a seal of wax in the process.

“He knows you like old-fashioned stuff,” Jade said in the background and I nodded absently as she got up to put the tea kettle back on. Who the hell even sent letters anymore? We had a glass mailbox that was over a hundred years old attached to the exterior of our house. The mailman came and delivered on Fridays, and this had arrived. When my parents were young, they'd delivered every day but Sundays.

I slid out the note and read it.

Twice.

Dear Caleb,

I am still keeping tabs on you, my favorite necromancer. Nevaeh and I are getting better acquainted and expect to see you and yours again when things have quieted.

Know this: that I have your back. I always did, though I couldn't always show it.

There will be a future for those like ourselves. Take heart that there is a place for Randoms. Don't get discouraged and take care of your new family.

Parker

I sat quietly for a time and Jade let me, quietly sipping her tea.

My eyes strayed back three times to the “favorite necromancer,” which made me smile.

Then the “better acquainted” which made me wonder.

Jade called my name.

I looked up, startled.

“I've called your name three times.” Her eyes had become strained and tight at the corners.

Instantly concerned, I put the letter down, my gaze meeting hers. “What is is?”

“My water broke.”

I shot up like an arrow as the doorbell rang.

I rushed to the door in an unnatural panic and ripped the thing open and Gramps stood there in coveralls, dripping with carpentry tools.

“Hey,” I said breathlessly, in a voice that squeaked like a strangled goose.

Gramps eyes widened. “Cat got your tongue?”

I stood there stupidly gaping as Jade came up behind me with a small packed bag.

Gramps took in my look and Jade's calmly composed face, her small hand clutching the bag.

“I take it we're not working on that picket fence today?” Gramps stated calmly while his eyes were full of contained mirth.

I shook my head, still struck mute like a dumb ass.

“No,” Jade said with quiet dignity, “I'll be busy having a baby.”

My hand gripped the solid oak door. “Maybe a ride instead, Gramps,” I managed.

Gramps smiled, clapping me on the back. “I think I can manage a ride.”

He grabbed the bag from Jade and nearly kicked my leaden ass out the door and locked it with the keys Jade gave him.

I gradually awoke from my fugue and helped Jade into the car, locking her seat restraint.

She put her head on my shoulder and I pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I'm scared,” she whispered into my chest.

I moved my hands off her skin.

Me too. “Don't be, I'll be there the whole time.” Then I cupped her head against my chest, our heartbeats syncing.

Jade nodded mutely into my body and I thought how hard it was to be a woman, having to go through the pain, the unknown.

I thought about how hard it was to be a man, to watch the one you breathed for go through pain you could do nothing about. In the end my fear had to take a back seat to hers.

Fear was nothing but a thief of your fortitude.

And it wasn't going to rob us of this moment.

We sped to the hospital, the woman I loved in my arms where she belonged, my heart in her hands and those of our child that would be born.

Life was good.

EPILOGUE

five years later

––––––––

Parker had finally wanted to meet so we scoped out Scenic Park.

It's where the kids could play.

The sounds of the park had changed since the HC mass sterilization. Where before there'd been chaotic noises of playing they'd fallen to a dim roar. Just a few dots of color littered the playground now.

One was my wife's. Jade stood behind our son, pushing him on the swing while he pumped his little legs.

He looked like her. When she leaned down to say something to him, their black hair mingled perfectly. His coat was red and hers green. Christmas colors.

“Why so long?” I asked him without turning. He came on my death radar before he stepped out of his car.

“Just being cautious, Caleb.”

Silence rolled out then I asked, “Are ya happy, Parker?”

I turned to look at him then and saw he'd gained weight, his lean frame had finally filled out and muscle and size had replaced that svelte frame he'd had back when we'd busted up the HC.

“Yeah,” he said simply and I nodded, my face turning back to watch my family. Jade's belly was swollen with another baby. We'd waited before we had another. She caught me staring and lifted her hand. I waved in return.

She went back to swinging Paxton and I asked Parker, “So?”

“Nevaeh already knows, but I thought it was fair that you did as well.”

We looked at each other and he told me that last little secret bit of information the HCs had worked out.

“They didn't think... they figured they had you on the sterilization bandwagon.”

An old expression, one Gramps still used. I understood it well.

Parker's hazel eyes met mine. “You're more than a mule, Caleb. You and Nevaeh both.”

He explained.

“You mean... we're like Noah's Ark?”

Parker laughed. “Not exactly but that nicely circles what I'm saying here. Basically, they made sure that all the unlocked markers that were in both you and Nevaeh lay dormant.”

He had my full attention. “Swell. So now what?” I asked, scrubbing my face, feeling the sharpness of my weekend stubble and dropping my hands to dangle between my knees. “I'm going to wake up and be... what? A paranormal prodigy?”

Parker shook his head. “I simply don't know. What I do know is that Dr. Hart giving you that depressant as a counter to subdue your abilities pinging on your aptitude test diluted their solution to you never procreating. They wanted that gene pool present but not manifested.”

The more details that were revealed about the Helix Complex, the more I hated the HC fuckers. Of course, they were a non-issue now, but they'd still managed to shape my life regardless. As Gramps said, you couldn't rewrite history, no matter how much you desired to.

Then Parker dropped the bomb, “Your genetics were altered at the molecular level, Caleb.”

Holy shit. I put everything together in a swelling leap of logic that made my heart stumble in its rhythmic progress.

“Our kids,” I said numbly.

He nodded once and Nevaeh came forward with two children.

Twins.

I stood, controlling the fine tremble of my hands with difficulty.

Jade saw me and stopped what she was doing, tightening the band that held her black hair as she quickly walked toward us.

Her eyes took in Nevaeh and Parker's kids with some caution.

I'd taught Jade that. I was freakishly overprotective. That was just the way I was hard-wired and mostly she was used to it.

I put my body in front of Jade's and my hand palmed the top of Paxton's head.

“We're not the threat, Caleb.” Parker stood and Nevaeh came to stand beside him, almost as tall as he, but reed thin. The two kids looked like her; they shared her coal-black hair color. But hazel eyes glittered at me and I held my ground even though they were a shade of creepy I had yet to encounter.

And that was saying something.

Jade took my hand and knew all, gasping when she got details maybe she'd have been better not knowing.

“So the kids will have... everything?” she asked and Parker nodded.

“It looks like your boy is already on his way,” Nevaeh said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Parker gave a look behind my shoulder and Jade and I slowly turned.

A group of squirrels, their bushy tails standing at attention, stared at us, their sockets empty of most of their eyeballs.

It had been an amateur mass raising. Something a child would do. I could have had them looking like they were still alive.

However, I was twenty-five.

And they weren't looking at me.

They only had eyes for Paxton, my four year old.

I kept it together by the thinnest of margins. Hunkering down next to my son, I took both his hands, ignoring the audience I asked, “What's happening, Pax?”

“They wanted to come out, Daddy,” he said, his wide eyes that were a bluish-gray like Mom's looking out from a face that was Jade's.

“They told you, pal?”

He nodded solemnly.

This was going to be interesting. I looked at the pack of disconcerting squirrels, their collective gaze on my son and gave a hard swallow. I swung my eyes to Parker and he gave a small smile.

One of his girls stepped forward, her hair glinting with high gloss bluish highlights as only truly black hair did, “I can help.”

She looked at Paxton, her finger in her mouth and Nevaeh said, “Go ahead, Simone, help him.”

And she did.

Paxton held out his hand and she took it within her small one.

Together they looked at the squirrels.

The squirrels turned and scampered back to where they'd died. I watched as scattered and random holes in the ground opened like mouths and the dead rodents melted into the earth, the holes closing over them like repaired wounds.

I met Parker's eyes. “It's a whole new world,” I noted quietly.

“Wait a minute,” Jade said, her eyes going from Simone to Paxton, “what's this Noah's Ark thing?”

I smiled but Parker didn't.

Mine faded and Jade went on, “I remember this story. God chose three couples to be saved, saved from the flood...”

Nevaeh huffed. “That's just a myth, Jade... you know that.”

Jade's eyes narrowed. “Then why is it I found it in the tone of his thoughts?” she asked indicating me.

Nevaeh's eyes narrowed on Jade and that protective urge sprung to life, our children a pair between us.

“Mommy's mad,” Pax said.

“Mine too,” Simone agreed, giggling behind her hand.

Jade's eyes widened but I was unsurprised.

Parker nodded. “As you would say, Caleb: they've got the whole tamale.”

“I don't think they planned on this happening.” Parker looked at us while a lone family played at a safe distance on this cool fall day, the leaves skittering across the ground as we faced off, the sky a deep and resolute blue above us.

The family remained ignorant, having entered the scene after the dead squirrel episode.

I almost laughed, even though none of these revelations were remotely funny. We had children that had every paranormal ability there'd ever been. Because they'd laid a Trojan horse within our genetic code, freaked out, and injected us with a sterilizing concoction that hadn't worked.

Parker watched my ruminations, then nodded. “The group that worked to make sure us Randoms were protected made certain the mules could have children. The Helix Complex never thought about Clyde, however.”

Gooseflesh covered my body and I heard Jade gasp.

Parker grinned. “By nature's laws, he should no longer be. Yet... he is.”

I knew this, hell, Clyde and I got together all the time, his children with Roberta Gale were not only accepted but welcomed. The former prejudice against his undead status was gone.

Funny how humanity would forgive anything when faced with extinction.

“So there are three pair?” Jade reiterated.

Parker nodded. “Clyde's a wild card but Nevaeh and Caleb, they're a 'known',” Parker said with airquotes.

I had a ominous thought. “Who knows?”

Parker shrugged. “No one. The people that knew are gone.”

Thank God, I thought. I didn't want a rinse and repeat with yet another organization trying to lay hands on my family.

Parker met my eyes. I could see he didn't either. He'd scratched and clawed his way to be where he was today. From a life of domestic abuse and murder, to an organization that exploited him for his ability, intelligence and natural gifts.

No, this is what he deserved, wrangling an unlikely happy ending through brute force.

It's what we both deserved.

He'd met me here to tell me.

And warn me.

Duly noted.

“I'll keep in touch,” Parker said, ending it.

I grabbed his hand, our flesh squeezing together in a brutal pact of understanding and kinship. Honed through circumstance and alliance.

Parker and I were in this together, our future uncertain, our present secure.

I watched him leave the park, a girl in each hand and Nevaeh alongside.

I tucked Jade against me, unconsciously turning her belly closer to my side, my hand on Pax's head.

I led my family toward our car and to the security of our home.

The eyes that watched us were thoughtful and remained unseen.

Paxton turned once and looked into the dense trees that bordered the open park. He looked beyond the jungle gym playthings into the dark branches that twined together.

“What is it, buddy?” I asked, following his deep gaze.

“I don't know,” he said, but a small furrow marred the perfect skin between his brows.

I ruffled his hair. “How about some ice cream?” I asked.

Pax's face broke out in a grin, thoughts of dead squirrels and that troubling presence melting away.

“Yeah!” he yelled in a voice that had recently lost the sound of babyhood. He jumped in the back seat, I buckled the toddler restraint around him and stepped back, his eyes once again straying to the woods.

I looked where he did and Jade said, “What is it?”

“I don't know.” My eyes searched the gloom beyond. Seeing nothing I rounded the front of the car and slid in, my family safely encased inside.

I shook off the misgivings of the moment, ice cream on the brain and pulsed on the Camaro, conceding its days were numbered. With another kid on the way, I'd have to get practical in a hurry.

There was always Gramps' vintage Bronco I could talk him out of. I grinned as Jade slid her arm through mine and I kissed her forehead, flicking my eyes to the rear view mirror.

I saw Paxton's eyes remained on the deepness of the woods.

We pulled away, leaving that gloomy moment behind us.

The eyes that had been watching continued until my car was out of sight.

––––––––

THE END

A Death Series Spin-off compilation

Books 7-9

Over a 1000 pages of Death!

Never miss a new release! Subscribe:

TRB NEWS

––––––––

***Love DEATH? Please read on for a sample of another TRB work within the DEATH world ....

VAMPIRE

An Alpha Claim Brief-Bites® Novelette

Episode 1

New York Times Bestselling Author(s)

MARATA EROS

TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT

www.tamararoseblodgett.com

TRB Facebook Fan Page

Marata Eros FB Fan Page

Cover art by: Willsin Rowe

Proofed by: Corinna

Synopsis

Narah Adrienne is a bounty enforcer in the near future. She runs the seedy side of her game, capturing criminals too dangerous for the local law enforcement. Using unorthodox methods, she finds herself in the crosshairs of the Magistrate for too many allowable kills for the quarter.

And her head hurts like hell.

Aeslin is part of an elite vampire squad of Turners. A rare sect of vampire scouts who possess the ability to find women with enough undead blood to be turned into full vampire. As the numbers of the supernaturals dwindle, it is the hope of the Nobles that extinction can be a thing of the past with female hybrids.

In a race against time and common enemies, can Aeslin find the one female who is meant to be turned and also his parallel soul? Or will the fabled carrot the Nobles dangle turn out to be a lie perpetuated by desperation?

Chapter 1

Narah

My legs are kicked up on the desk, the toes of my left combat boot stacked on the heel of my right. I lean my feet a couple of inches to the left and look at my boss.

Kinda wish I hadn't.

The tongue-lashing was going to be brutal, and not the fun kind. I just barely hold back a snort of self-serving comedy.

“Narah,” Casper leans into the desk, edging a butt cheek on the only part not covered by my assortment of shit. My eyebrow cocks. Perturbed doesn't cover it. If I wanted a butt on my desk, I'd ask.

“What?” I bark with anticipation.

A vein in Casper's forehead throbs and I dial it back some. No need to bring the guy to heart failure.

“What?” I repeat more good-naturedly, though both of us know I'm nothing of the sort.

He sighs, scrubbing a palm over his face. Hair almost as white as swan feathers glows under the LED lighting in my tiny office, and his glacial eyes tighten, fighting for a view of my face over the top of my boot.

I jack my feet down and stuff them underneath my desk. My fingers itch to go to my smart phone. Anything to not commit to this conversation.

“You know we appreciate your skill set.”

Blah, blah, stinking-blah.

“But we can't have you pulling firearms on all your bounties.”

My bottom lip pops out in a pout. “It was a very small gun, Casper.” I put my index and thumb almost touching.

“Using manstopper ammunition?”

He might have a small point.

“Outlawed in 1898,” Casper adds.

I shrug a bare shoulder, my tank top skin-tight against my small frame. I find loose clothes are handles to make a bludgeon against me easier. I nail the targets but if there's nothing for them to grab onto, so much the better.

“I like antique weaponry and ammunition,” I say with deliberate nonchalance.

“Really?” Casper says and I wince at the sound of his voice. “Let's run down the list of target fatalities.”

Hmmm.

“Target 103, lethal stabbing.”

I lean back in my chair and cock my neck back, staring at the dingy ceiling. A water stain has spread out from the center in a pattern of copper lines that somehow resemble a flower opening.

It's sort of like watching clouds outside, but inside.

“Narah!”

I sigh, answering the ceiling. “Yeah.”

“Target 424, beheading.”

Yeah, that'd been messy.

“Again, I was in fear for my life,” I say, not sounding defensive.

At. All.

“Thirteen times?” Casper asks softly.

My chin snaps down and I meet his eyes. Mine are big and golden hazel like a cat's, and that's why I hide them behind my aviator shades. The sun hurts like hell. I've always been sensitive to sunlight.

I shrug. It'll get me nowhere to fight with Casper. Who has the nickname in the office of, The Ghost. No one says it to his face though. I fight a snicker.

“We are the last profession for use of lethal force, you know. It's not goddamned 2015, when everyone thought all physical force was necessary in some capacity.”

I'm in the wrong era, I muse with regret.

“We are the last stand against the criminals of our time. When the police can't nail them, then it's up to us. But Narah,” Casper scrubs his head, his crewcut bristling from the contact, “we can't have you killing all the targets. They must be brought to justice.”

And of course, if I kill a target, Casper doesn't get credits. That's what this is really about. I bring in the most targets in our office. I get results and he gets credits for my hard work.

We stare at each other. I won't break and Casper knows it. “You're the finest bounty hunter we have. Your instincts are uncanny, and you never let being a woman get in your way...”

I lunge to my feet and Casper jerks to his, eyeing me warily.

Good, my desk is finally free of his ass.

“Nothing about me being a woman comes into play here.”

Casper shoots out an exhale like a cannon. “Everything about it matters. You're smaller, you're vulnerable to things a man could never be.”

Rape is the clear inference.

“You think a man can't be raped?” I bark out a laugh. “You think that my looks don't disarm. They do, Cas.” My eyes laser down on him and his shift away. “You know I'm a proficient, Level Ten.”

“Nothing to sneeze at,” he concedes and opens his mouth to add more, perhaps dig his grave a little deeper.

I raise my palm. Nothing to sneeze at. I can feel a royal conniption fit brewing. “No. If I've killed while gunning for a target,” Casper frowns at my wording which causes me to grin, “then they needed dying. Period.”

Casper walks to my office door. “I'm sorry, Narah, I've done what I could, but the law states that there can't be more than ten sanctions in one quarter. You have thirteen. I got the bonus three waived.” He whips his palm in the air like he's performing a magic trick. “Now you'll have to go before the magistrate.”

Fuck. They'd plug me a second ass after a first class reaming. If—if I could even bounty again.

I jerk my leather jacket off the back of my chair and sling it on. A bright headache, a new friend of mine of late, settles into my temples with zeal. I press my fingers against my head.

I hate not having a target. The chase is the one thing that makes my life worth living. No longer an outcast—always in the game.

Now the rules are being threatened.

And all I want to do is play.

Chapter 2

Aeslin

Edan jerks a thumb my way, throwing a towel I deftly catch. I dab at the sweat running like a river from my scalp and making its way to the waistband of my work out gear.

“Corcoran's asking for you.”

I look at him, narrowing my eyes.

“Hey man, don't kill the messenger,” Edan's hands spread away from his body.

He'd look so much more innocent if he had even one spot of bare skin. Edan's tatted from head to toe. Well... that's not entirely accurate. Don't think his feet hold the tats of our species. Or his face.

Turners are required to be marked.

It's grounds for immediate execution to civilian vampires if they touch us. After all, we're the only savior of our dying race. They can't miss our marks. In the human world, tattoos no longer stand out. We hide in plain sight now.

I flick irritated eyes to him. “I'm on leave, Edan.”

He shrugs. “You know the drill. If a female comes on the radar, we're all on alert.”

I throw the damp towel in the soiled laundry hamper. I'm bone tired. Not physically—mentally. So many scouting expeditions and coming up empty handed has taken its toll. I rub a hand on my nape, trying to make a raw spot. “I've worked a solid quarter—nothing.”

My eyes meet his. Edan's looks are unusual for a Turner. Most of the sub-sect of vampire Turners possess dark coloring. Our only unified feature are silver eyes. Edan's are amber. Some kind of genetic throw back. My own hair is a deep chestnut, more red than what is considered fashionable. And if we want to enjoy female vampire company, it matters. They're few and far between. If they can't be our mates, it's only for release. And that's become an empty vessel.

“But what if we have a live one?”

I smirk at his words. “You mean undead, right?”

Edan throws up his hands. He's muscled, like the rest of us. Mandatory training makes our bodies at battle readiness. Last month we'd just missed a female by minutes.

She'd been sterilized. Technically, it'd been on our watch.

The loss had brought the entire team down and morale had not recovered.

Edan spoke my thoughts, “We need this, Aeslin. We need a female. They're so vulnerable to the Hunters...”

I toss my palm up. “We've been over this. It's a race against them. And they got to that female first.” I see guilt on his face and know mine looks the same.

“Then why can't you see that every lead should be followed?”

Tired of fucking losing, that's why. Or just tired.

My eyes feel like they're on fire when I glare at Edan, a Turner I've fought shoulder to shoulder beside. “You don't think it haunts my fucking every thought that she could have belonged to one of us?”

“Does it?” Edan asks in soft disbelief.

“Yes,” I hiss defensively.

“Then join us.”

I don't want another dead end. Another disappointment. “I'm not rested.”

“So when has that ever mattered?” he asks.

Since that female was lost, I think but don't say.

Corcoran stands at the window when I walk into his office and shut the door.

He doesn't turn.

Corcoran is a Noble.

A politically correct word for being in charge of the Turners. But he became a Noble the hard way, having been a Turner first and struggling through the ranks to prove himself invaluable to the cause. Now he rules over the Turners of our region with an iron fist.

Hell, in his day, there was a female turned every month. Now we were lucky to turn one a quarter. However, there was one biological advantage. A human female with vampire blood once turned, was always meant for her biological other half. Lucky bastard. It meant offspring.

A chance at happiness.

With Hunters killing off every vampire they could, our numbers continued to dwindle. In the last half-century, one in two females who possessed enough of the blood of our kind had been sterilized before they could be turned, negating their vampire ancestry and the ability to have children.

A Turnersʼ goals were two-fold. Find the hybrid vampire females before the Hunters did, and determine how they were setting their sights on the rare females.

Easier said than done.

“Aeslin,” Corcoran said as greeting.

I remain silent.

Corcoran turns, eyeing me up. “You look rested.” He sounds hopeful. We both know I've had only four days respite.

I need a month.

I haven't taken enough blood, had enough sex, slept inside the ground as I should. A lot of have nots on the short list of my exhaustion.

I lift my shoulders in an answer that isn't one. It will do no good to rehash the discussion I had with Edan.

Corcoran says something under his breath. It sounds suspiciously like a curse.

“You're the best I have, Aeslin,” he says quietly.

“Let Edan take it. Hell—Jaryn could...”

His gaze darkens. Eyes not the common light gray of the Turner are pewter in a face devoid of emotions. Corcoran's gaze is a coming storm.

“I need you on this.”

That's just what Edan said. “I mean no disrespect...”

“Yes, you do,” he says with the barest bit of humor.

My lips thin. “Yes.”

“She's a Turn, Aeslin. I know it.” Corcoran closes his fingers into a fist.

My breath leaks out of me in defeat. “Okay.”

I simply don't believe anymore. There's been so many dry runs I can't remember the last one that wasn't.

“She's sending out pheromones like a distress signal.”

“Who called it?”

His face closes down. “Torin.”

Corcoran and Torin don't see eye-to-eye. I say nothing, waiting. I'm not political and won't immerse myself in it now.

Corcoran slams a fist against the wall that bisects the bulletproof windows. “She's bounty.”

His frustration gets my attention. Hell, her occupation stalls me and I unlace my fingers and straighten my posture. “What?”

“Damn,” he grits through his teeth, knowing full-well the risks of this acquisition.

I tell him anyway. “Too high profile,” I state, hands going to my hips.

“She's manifesting.”

Dammit.

“Is Torin sure she's a Turn?”

Corcoran exhales in a rush, taking a rough palm down his face, nodding.

I suck in a deep breath. “I'll do it.”

Corcoran looks relieved. “You know the risk?”

Hell yes. But another sterilized female? That we don't need. Can't stand.

“Yes,” I answer.

If Torin's got a bead on her, then so do the Hunters.

The thought of a female out there and vulnerable tightens my guts. This is the part of my job I hate. However small, the emotion is there in my suppressed emotional makeup. The hardest to squelch, the most damning.

Hope.

Chapter 3

Matthews

Rio raises the paper in the air. “Right from the top, Matthews!”

I snap my head up, my back on the bench as I flick my eyes to Rio then back to the bar. My arms shake from exertion but I can't take my eyes off the weights I'm pressing. Not unless I want my body as a pancake.

“Spot me, asshole,” I grit.

“Right! Sorry hoss.”

I'd roll my eyes if I wasn't so fucking plowed from fatigue.

Rio appears upside down and above me. His hands hover over the bar, I lift, as I take the last rep by storm. I heave another.

“No clanking,” Rio chimes.

Gonna kill his ass.

Beads of sweat roll, burning into my eyes as I gently set the bar on the brackets. It's almost soundless.

Rio smirks.

He whips the paper around and I duck out from underneath the three hundred pound weighted barbell set.

“God damn—you're a beast, Matthews!” Rio chortles.

“Give that to me and stop with the verbal diarrhea.”

Rio's face tightens. “Fine, fuck. You need to get laid if you're going to get your jock strap in a bunch all the time.”

I jerk the paper out of his hand and read the words.

Assignment thirteen.

I smile.

Thirteen is my lucky number.

I give the paper back to Rio. “Gonna save the world, brother.”

“On your life.”

“I hope not,” Rio winks and begins to walk off.

“Specs?” I yell after him.

“Same delivery as usual.” I shouldn't ask, it's protocol but I like to hear the words anyway. It makes me uneasy when things are changed. I like routine—crave it.

I sit on the weight bench, thumbing the missive. A thrill races through my body.

I'm a Hunter.

And being a Hunter is bigger than me.

It's for humanity.

People walk the streets; eating, sleeping, shitting and humping. They never realize there's an entire underworld of supernaturals vying for the top of the ecological heap. They're oblivious to the danger that sweeps past them like an unrelenting current.

Hunters have been in place since ancient times. Our opposition have the same sorcerer’s blood that we possess.

Druid.

Both sides descend from priests of the highest order.

But instead of exterminating the vermin, they are saviors of those that would harm who we're sworn to protect. They believe in perpetuation, and we believe in sterilization.

The Harborer's are the nemesis of our kind. Brothers by blood, enemies by deed.

The sooner we wipe out the supernaturals, the sooner the threat to mankind will end. And we're making steady progress.

I move through the expansive gym where all Hunters hone their forms, turning sideways to pass between the heavy equipment. I've worked myself so bulky I'm at the point of losing grace. However, no Hunter wants to be distracted by their own lack of strength when they've got an assignment to fulfill.

I'll get the details of my next sanction and be done. Hopefully it's another kill. Nothing gets my rocks off more than nailing one of the fangs myself. A larger threat would be a Harborer showing up for the same assignment. But they are fewer in number than Hunters. Vampires are the greater threat.

Even a skilled Hunter full of quality bloodline magic can find himself in the death embrace of a clever fang and poof—dead meat. The ultimate threat of being turned by one of them hangs over every one of us.

No Hunter wants to deal with that potential. Get in, kill the fuckers, and get the hell out.

Simple.

I run my high security keycard through the slot and the door to my penthouse suite whispers open. I move through and the door slides closed behind me. The midwestern skyline bleeds a purple and red sunset over downtown Sioux Falls as it colors my floor like beaten fruit.

I stretch and the vertebrae in my back give a satisfying round of pops. I toss my car keys in a low bowl of Mexican pottery that sits on top of a table hugging the jog out in the foyer.

The floor plan is one of my choosing. It's narrow in the entrance and widens to an open living room and kitchen combination.

Not that I do a shit ton of cooking. My lips pull at the thought of cooking as I cruise to my fridge. I open it, and true to form, there's no food, but plenty of beer. I grab one and pop the lid using a sterling band on my right ring finger. It's hell on beer caps.

I take a hard pull, taking the frosty beer to half empty and move to the view seen through my floor to ceiling glass windows.

Philips Street is overrun with tourists enjoying the bronze statues and Native American shops that dot the area. My excellent night vision is not necessary at the moment. Not with twilight promising nighttime. I roll the cool bottle against my forehead as my gaze wanders and sigh.

I have twelve hours before response is required for the sanction.

I set the nearly empty beer on a low thick glass coffee table. A hot shower and catching five hours of sleep is my entire goal before this mission. I'm beat. Chasing down hybrids is a full-time job.

Walking to the wall that rounds to the hall leading to the bathroom, I pass a palm over a glass sculpture that hangs like artwork.

It's not.

A brilliant blue spiderweb of light harmlessly lasers over my skin, reading the unique lines of my hand. A single chime sounds in the silence and the front slides away to reveal a black hole.

I pull out a cylinder that rests inside.

It'll have all the instructions for assignment thirteen. Name, birthdate, location. My sector covers the midwest states. There are twelve of us serving this area.

A vial with a syringe is enclosed in an thick airtight lucite case. My pulse quickens.

It'll be my first.

A woman.

Hunters sanction male hybrids. It's the Huntersʼ core belief that women should be protected. None of us kill females. I don't allow myself to touch on what happens when a rare hybrid is located and a Hunter won't sterilize. The penalty is severe and immediate for lack of follow through.

Or the disastrous transgression of mating with a hybrid, though rare, it's not unheard of. Those are grounds for a Kill Order.

I set my dark thoughts aside as the specs fall out last, rolled neatly with the traditional black satin ribbon keeping them in a tight circle.

I pop the ribbon and look over the specs, reading them twice.

Occupation: Bounty Enforcer.

I whistle low in the back of my throat. I'm all for a challenge.

I slug the rest of my beer back, running a fingertip over the name.

Narah Adrienne.

I crush the specs, having already committed them to memory. I walk over to my fireplace and toss the crumpled parchment inside the firebox. Striking a match on the base of my boot, I throw the lit match inside and watch it burn. A low flame bursts over the ancient paper and renders the message unreadable.

Ash rises up the flu. Ms. Adrienne's fate is not yet set in stone.

I smile at the thought of destiny. Here I come, sweetheart.

Vampire Alpha Claim, 1-6