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“A mocha latte, please,” I say to the snooty coffee shop attendant. I look at the pastry display and wonder if I can afford a cookie, but the prices are a travesty, an outright insult to my scant pocket. I can barely afford the coffee, except I need the stuff if I’m to survive a meditation session with Aydan today. At school, I thought non-stop about what he told me yesterday. The possibility of torturing and controlling the agent has me ready to endure the fear and humiliation I know this session will bring.
As I wait for my drink, I look out the window, hoping things go smoother this time. Men and women in fancy business suits speed-walk across the street, enter the coffee shop, get in line and order grande this and tall that, then rush back to work, looking smart and totally miserable. I take a silent vow never to sell myself to Corporate America. Somehow I’ll figure out how to be independent and work doing my own thing. If I don’t first sprout scales or hairs all over my body, that is.
I pay for my mocha and walk to the counter to doctor it up. Ten sugar packets should get a good buzz going through my veins to help me hold on to my senses when I inevitably flop on the floor like an over-sized trout. I stir and stir, watching those fools run back to their offices. I guess their breaks don’t allow them more than a quick trip to the coffee shop.
I’m contemplating my options after high school when I notice a black Bentley pull up to the sidewalk across the street. A guy—whose name must be Jeeves because he wears a black suit and tie, white shirt, and even one of those stupid chauffeur hats—gets out of the driver seat, runs around to the other side and opens the back door to let someone in.
Looking around, I try to spot the lucky bastard who gets sidewalk service in nothing other than a three-hundred-thousand-dollar car. When I recognize the man, the drink almost slips from my grip.
Elliot Whitehouse.
I would know those sharp, cruel features anywhere. Limbs frozen, I stare at his face, experiencing the same gut-stabbing fear from that night in his house. He’s yards away, but he may as well be right here inside the coffee shop, analyzing me with those cold, golden eyes. I hide behind a promotional sign and will the man to hurry up and get in his car.
My eyes are glued to him, watching his every step. The closer he gets, the more I’m convinced there’s a slight buzz starting in the back of my skull. I shake my head, sure I must be imagining it. Eklyptors have to be within a fifteen-foot radius in order for me to sense them. I take a quick look around the room; no one in here is infected.
When Elliot finally reaches the car, there isn’t any doubt. My head is droning as if he was standing right in front of me. He pauses, looks this way. I peek around the corner of the small sign, wondering if he can sense me too, trying to figure out which way I would run if he crosses the street. He puts a hand on the car’s roof, frowns as his eyes search for something.
Suddenly someone steps next to Elliot, someone I now realize has been walking beside him all along, but who, in my trance, I hadn’t noticed. Elliot turns, although his gaze lags behind for another instant before he faces the person waiting for him. It’s James.
My stomach contracts. James is with Elliot, wearing a sharp business suit and a sickening smile. James shakes the creep’s hand, tells him a few things. After a small nod, he hands Elliot something that looks like a leather folder.
Elliot turns to the driver, barks what looks like an order, and faces the open door. As he lowers himself into the seat, he spares one last glance this way. I shrink into an empty armchair and watch the Bentley drive away. James runs up the front stairs of his office building. My cup is dripping mocha latte on the floor. I’ve poked a couple of fingernails through it.
I clean the spilled coffee with a few napkins and dump the untouched, dripping cup in a garbage can. Sinking back into the armchair, I prop elbows on knees and rest my forehead in the palms of my hands. Staring at a large drop of mocha that I missed, I try to understand what I just saw.
James is supposed to be out of town, but instead he’s here, exchanging pleasantries with Elliot. I understand that they are civil with each other on some social level, but whatever was going on between them didn’t look social, it looked official, like some sort of business transaction. What was that all about?
Could it be that Aydan’s been lying to me about James’s emergency trip? Or is James lying to everyone else? No. That would be stupid. The Tank is in the same building, any of the other Symbiots could spot James like I just did.
I stand and shake my head, trying to dismiss my mounting doubts. Marching with purpose, I leave the coffee shop and straddle my bike. A car door shuts behind me and suddenly my head begins to buzz.
“I thought that was you,” a chilling voice says from behind.
I freeze, helmet halfway to my head.
Elliot’s cruel features come into view as he takes a few steps closer. “Do you remember me, dear?” He inclines his head and offers me a perfectly manicured hand. His unnatural golden eyes analyze me with intensity.
Swallowing the rigid lump in my throat, I hook the helmet back on the handle bars and extend my hand to Elliot. It takes a great effort to keep it from shaking.
“Sure, I remember you,” I say, feeling like I’m going to puke inside my own mouth.
Elliot takes my hand, gives it a squeeze, then pulls me, gesturing for me to get off the bike. I sling one leg backward, stand on the sidewalk, then pull my hand away and stuff it in my back pocket.
“A motorcycle,” he says, looking at it as if it’s a mangy horse. “How ... unconventional for a pretty girl like you.” He looks me up and down, his regal nose flaring at the sides. “This is a far cry from the elegant attire you wore the other night, but it suits you, somehow.”
I stare at the holes in my jeans. Next to his immaculate dress shoes, my muddy boots look like shoewear for the homeless. Elliot and his compliments can get stuffed.
“Thank you,” I say, but really it sounds more like “screw you.”
“Did your friend have a ... pleasant end to his evening?”
His meaning almost escapes me, then I remember we were supposed to “take care” of Xave after we left his house. Exactly what he means by pleasant though, I don’t want to know.
“Yes, he did,” I say.
“Well ... ?” He lifts an eyebrow.
He can’t possibly want details. I examine his face and find with disgust that he does. With curious pleasure in his piercing eyes, he waits for my account of what happened.
Maybe I’m supposed to feel like he does about torturing and killing regular humans. Maybe all Eklyptors are monsters, but I’m not about to jump into some gruesome story about how we tortured and murdered my friend, even if it isn’t true. I don’t have to stand here humoring this guy. I’m not in his creepy house anymore. I’m out in the middle of the street where I’m free to do whatever I please.
“I’d love to stay and chat with you,” I say, trying to copy his fake-pleasant, arrogant English tone. “But I have to run. I’ve got far more important things to do than stand here discussing ... trivial matters.”
Elliot looks at me, taken aback. His eyes dart around as if trying to see if someone heard my disrespectful tone. Then he shakes his head and laughs in a fuddy-duddy sort of way.
“You young Americans,” he says. “So crass and straightforward all the time. But you’re right, we both have better things to do. I understand you have chosen a faction already, and that is all right.”
A faction? What is he talking about?
“Just know this, Ms. Milan ...” The way he says the fake last name I used in his party leaves me with the certainty he knows it isn’t my real name. “When my faction rises to the top, I will remember you could have humored me and, instead, you disrespected me.” And with that he strides toward the coffee shop with sharp steps, inclining his head to gawking passersby who don’t know that this man and his kind are our worst nightmare.
What was all that? What does he mean by “faction”? Is James part of Elliot’s faction? Or another one? I understand that IgNiTe’s leader lives a triple life, but now it seems that it may actually be a quadruple one.
“James Number One” owns and works in the building across the street—probably holds an important position, judging by his uptight, executive fancy suits. That man is nothing like version number two, the Harley-riding badass I first met, a dude that heads a group of misfits called IgNiTe, whose purpose I’ve yet to figure out. Then there’s “James Number Three,” a Symbiot heading yet another group, just as mysterious as the first one. And now “James Number Four.” What does he do? I don’t even want to imagine it, not if it involves that creep, Elliot.
When I decided to trust James, I didn’t realize he was such a skillful chameleon. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe this whole meditation deal is just a ruse to make me vulnerable, to make me lower my defenses so the agent can take over and turn me into a proper Eklyptor.
Stupid. Why didn’t I think of that before? Maybe every single person in James’s Tank crew is a full-fleshed Eklyptor and there aren’t such things as Symbiots. James and Elliot are nothing but friendly with each other. What if they work for the same side? One infecting healthy humans, the other releasing agents trapped in reluctant hosts?
My head feels like an over-sized melon, full of all the things I’ve witnessed, of all the things I’ve been told, and all the unanswered questions everyone keeps telling me to stow away until James decides to spill the beans. Well, I’ve had enough. I can’t trust blindly anymore. Someone’s gonna have to shed some light on this dark labyrinth of lies, half-truths, and unproven theories. No more compliant Marci.