Part 25 (1/2)

Stella made a face as she parted the curtain, stepping into the corridor. ”You're probably right. But is that something we really want to mess with tonight? I don't think so. Poor kid's been under enough stress today.” She let the curtain swing shut.

That kid was my age.

”Oh,” she added, popping her head back in. ”There's a light dangling from the middle of the supply room. When Brody made the generator stall, they turned them all off before restarting, and it doesn't look like that one got turned back on.”

I watched her go with a sigh and pushed through the curtain, but that room was empty. Another slit in a second curtain beckoned me onward. How far does this tent go back? Inside the next narrow room, my eyes fell on a six-foot camp table filled with duffel bags. More duffels and a few boxes had been crammed underneath, the supplies stretching to each wall of the room. A dark figure was already rifling through the bags I recognized as belonging to our Renegades, but I couldn't see who. I stepped across the room, reaching for the chain dangling from what might be a light bulb. The figure turned as I pulled the chain.

”Don't-” It was Keene, and he held a s.h.i.+rt in front of him as the light clicked on. But not before I saw that he wasn't wearing any bandages. His recent scars looked years old, and the older ones had almost faded completely.

My eyes flew to his, which were as dark green as a forest at night.

He lifted his arms and pulled the s.h.i.+rt over his head. ”Jace told me I stank,” he said without emotion.

I stepped next to him, my hand going out to stop him from pulling the s.h.i.+rt down over his chest. ”Dimitri healed you, but not like this.” I reached out with both hands to his chest, one hand tracing the length of his newest scar. His heart pounded against my other hand. ”You . . . oh, Keene, you Changed! I felt a difference in you earlier but I thought it was because-” I broke off. The variance a person radiated when they first began to Change was easily misconstrued, but that wasn't an excuse for not paying more attention.

He pushed away my hand and tugged down his s.h.i.+rt, as if my very touch burned him.

”Sorry. Am I hot?” My skin had been warm for hours after the first time I'd channeled Brody's ability. With all the effort this evening, I might be burning, no matter how cold I felt.

”No.” He hesitated, a sardonic gleam in his eyes. ”I mean, yes, you're hot, but not like you mean. It's better you don't touch me.” His wet hair had slicked back when he put on the s.h.i.+rt, revealing the absence of the scar along his right cheek.

”When did it happen?”

”I noticed it yesterday morning, after we got back from Emerson's. It had probably already started inside before that, or I wouldn't have been able to get out of bed, even with Dimitri's healing. I'd nearly stopped hurting by this morning.” He rubbed the left side of his chest. ”Now the scars are fading, even the old ones.” A hint of wonder filled his voice.

”Does Cort know?” At thirty-six, Keene was a year beyond the outside Changing range for a typical Unbounded, but his wasn't the only late Change I'd heard of. Maybe he'd given up hope too early. I didn't dare consider that whatever Dimitri and Cort had given him had influenced his Change.

Keene shook his head. ”He might suspect. But no one else knows, and I'd appreciate if you didn't say anything just yet. I spent a lot of years struggling to accept who I was, and now I don't know who or what I am.”

That I could understand. His bitterness at being mortal had been one of the things I hadn't liked about him. He should be jumping for joy, not hiding in the dark. Still, I knew he'd come to love the Change, every bit as much as I did. ”Why didn't you tell me?”

”Would it have made a difference?”

I hesitated. Would it have made a difference yesterday? Probably not. But three weeks ago it might have, and that's what he was asking. ”Maybe,” I said.

For a moment I thought he hadn't heard me. Then the words, ”That's why I didn't tell you.” He stepped past me toward the opening in the curtain. ”Goodbye, Erin.” He had such a tight control over his emotions that not a hint escaped about how he was feeling.

”Wait. Where are you going?” Concern made my voice rise. He shouldn't be alone, not when so much was suddenly different for him.

”Does it matter?”

”I used your switchblade,” I answered. ”It saved me.”

”Good.” A slight smile tugged at his mouth.

”I'd like to be here for you. I know the others feel the same.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. ”Don't worry. I finally know where I belong, if nothing else. While you guys clean up here, I'll help Chris finish the safe house in San Diego. Not even Stella and her most powerful computer or Brody with all the energy he can hold will be able to get inside when I'm finished. See you there.”

I let him go, trying to take it all in. Keene was Unbounded. All his life, he'd worked hard to make his father proud of him, always falling short because he wasn't Unbounded. Now he'd Changed and the man might never know. He didn't deserve to know. We were Keene's family now. All the Renegades would be happy for him, if he let them. For now, I'd keep his secret.

I pulled off my hotel uniform and retrieved a pair of worn gray sweats from the duffel Keene had been standing over. Likely some of Ava's, since Stella was a little shorter than we were and the legs and arms fit. It wouldn't have mattered if they didn't. I pushed up the sleeves and contemplated how many steps it was back to the main room of the tent.

The next thing I knew, Ritter was behind me, pulling my back against his chest, bringing the outside cold on his clothes. ”There you are,” he said in my ear. ”The cars are here.”

”Did we get any of them?” I asked. For Mexico, I meant.

”Four.”

It was a pitiful amount compared to their number of soldiers, but it was better than nothing. And we'd freed the prisoners. Not a bad day after all. Even so, we'd have to do better. One of these days, the Emporium was going to announce to the world our presence and we'd better be ready.

I leaned into Ritter. ”Fortunately, they also gave us our best weapon in the form of the vice president. And possibly Patrick.”

”Yeah, we lucked out on that.” Ritter nuzzled my neck. I shuddered, feeling my body respond despite its exhaustion.

”At the hotel,” I said, ”when Delia told you there'd been a delay. How did you know it wasn't me? She was using my mind, so it was me.”

”It didn't feel like you.” He hesitated before continuing. ”There was no . . . you in the thoughts. No sa.s.s, no pa.s.sion, no . . .” He laughed. ”No irritation. When I realized they'd taken you, I felt . . .”

I turned to face him, waiting. Had he been sad? Scared? Despairing? I dropped my s.h.i.+eld to see if he wanted to tell me that way.

”Angry,” he finished, leaning over to place his forehead on mine. ”Angry at both of us for taking so d.a.m.n long. I love you, Erin. I love you like I've never loved anyone else. I want you like I've never wanted anyone else. You make me more crazy, more frustrated, and happier than I've ever been. I feel alive inside again for the first time in more years than I care to count. No matter what we've felt or meant to others, it's not the same. It can never be the same. You were right to be upset when I left for those two months I disappeared. I should have taken you with me, but I wanted you so badly, and you weren't ready. I guess I was . . .” He didn't finish, and he didn't have to. His s.h.i.+eld had gone down, and even in my exhausted condition a mental link sprang up between us. ”I needed to get my head on straight.”

He reached for the long chain around his neck, bringing it up over his head and down over mine, without breaking the connection of our foreheads. ”I want you to have this. You know what it means to me.”

I knew, but if I hadn't, the emotions of love and loss pouring off him would have told me only too well. I brought my hands between us, fingering the rings, feeling the tiny one that had belonged to his sister and his mother's larger band. He'd carried them for over two centuries, mourning their loss. Now he was ready to let go. There was also a new ring I didn't recognize, with a large stone that felt like commitment. But from the moment I'd realized a relations.h.i.+p between us was possible, I had known he'd settle for nothing less.

”The other is for the mortal world,” he said. ”I'm relearning that language.” He kissed me gently at first, running his tongue along my teeth. I pushed closer and our contact deepened until it felt as if we were one. I loved being in his arms, loved the delicious heat I felt from his hands, the hard lines of his body pressed against mine.

I pulled back to look into his eyes, trying to catch my breath from wherever it had gone. ”Okay, Your Deathliness. You win.”

”You mean we win.”

I laughed. ”That doesn't mean you don't owe me that poisoned knife you promised.”

”You know what?” He removed my ballistic knife from the folds of his clothes and placed it in my hand along with two smaller blades. ”You can have all my knives.”

”Hey, how'd you get those past Secret Service?”

”You kidding? That's the least of what I got past them.”

I'd just finished kissing him again when the National Guard began taking down the tent around us. We each grabbed a couple of duffels and hurried to the waiting cars where our wounded were being loaded. I still felt like someone had run over me with a truck, but the weight of my knife and Ritter's other gift against my chest gave me new energy.

There were only two things I needed to take care of in the immediate future. One was a discussion with Stella about her comment regarding technopaths being able to use nanites to control fertility, because despite my commitment to Ritter, I wasn't ready yet to have a child.

The other was the matter of the little present Delia had placed in my head. I'd checked on the box, and it was untouched and unchanged. As soon as I recovered enough energy, I'd reinforce the box using what I'd learned about s.h.i.+elds from Delia. But I couldn't leave the snake there. I had to know what it meant.