CHAPTER 8

Lucas curled into a ball on the floor. The pain scoured the inside of his spine as if someone were scraping his vertebrae with steel wool. It stretched in tight strings through his ligaments; it pooled in his joints, in his fingertips, under his tongue. He felt it in his teeth. It ground him like a grain of wheat between two millstones.

His ears caught the sound of approaching steps.

He forced his eyes open.

Karina knelt by him. He inhaled her scent and felt it spark a deep, angry hunger inside him. She pulled him like a magnet. His body screamed for her blood and the end of the pain. Tearing into her would be bliss.

She was rolling up her sleeve. Her lips were pinched together.

He had to speak now. It hurt and he was tired, but he managed. “Don’t.”

“Arthur said you had to feed.”

“Arthur is a sick fuck. I told you that.”

“I can smell you,” she said. “You need to feed.”

“If I feed now, you’ll die.”

“If you don’t, you will, and then they’ll kill Emily.”

Ah. For a second he thought she had felt sorry for him, but no. “Nobody will touch Emily. And I’m not dying. Just hurting.”

“You look awful.” He heard a soft note in her voice. In spite of everything, she cared a little bit. He would take that. That was more than he usually got from anyone.

She hadn’t shied back when he phased. Her knees had trembled but she didn’t flinch. For that he was grateful.

Karina brushed the grime off his face, her eyes kind, her voice gentle. “Lucas, don’t be an idiot. Feed. It will make you feel better.”

“The pain isn’t fatal. It will pass. You’ll need all of your blood before long.”

She pulled back. “What does that mean?”

“Do you have a fever?”

“Yes.”

“Tired?”

“Yes. Lucas, what is happening to me?”

He almost told her the truth. “I told you before, you’re reacting to the venom.”

The ache had burrowed deep into the base of his spine. Lucas forced himself to turn, trying to shift his weight, and it exploded into a blinding white, mind-numbing haze, twisting his limbs. Like being punched in the mouth by a star. He passed out.

When he awoke, her scent was everywhere. The hunger stirred inside him, demanding. Lucas clenched his teeth and felt a light touch on his cheek. His eyes snapped open. She was sitting next to him, her back resting against the wall.

“How long was I out?”

“Maybe a minute or two.”

“Try to time the next one. I need to know if they’re getting shorter.”

“Is there anything else I can do?”

The ache rolled back at him. “Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“You never did tell me exactly why Emily hoards food.”

She sighed and brushed the brown lock of hair from her face. “It happened after Jonathan died.”

“Your husband?”

“Yes. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why?”

She met his gaze. “Because then you will know things about me.”

“And that would be bad?” Lucas asked.

“Yes.”

Now he wanted to know more.

“Does it hurt to be the beast?” she asked.

“No. Phasing is like being a superhero. I’m faster, stronger. Everything is sharper. There are no consequences. I can let myself off the leash. But my attack variant’s venom is toxic to my human phase variant. Turning back into a man is a bitch.”

A small tremor shook his legs. Lucas grunted and closed his eyes, trying to will the pain away.

“How long will we be locked in here?”

“Until I pull through. Hours. Arthur is trying to keep me safe. I’m an asset and I’m rare and difficult to replace. We shouldn’t have come here, to this building.” The words came slowly. “This base is not secure. We rent five floors here. We don’t own the buildings and don’t control access to it.”

Karina bent down, looking closer into his eyes. Tiny red rosettes marked the skin on her cheeks and forehead. Her own transformation was closing in. Shit. He hoped she would have another day. He didn’t want her to phase here, in the vault, without medical help, without Henry to keep her calm. She could die and he wanted her to live. He had to heal fast.

Heal, Lucas willed in his mind. Heal.

The pain exploded in a white burst and dragged him under.

When the light faded he heard her voice, soothing, calm, warm. Like sitting back in the hot tub, soaking his exhausted body while she floated nearby. “. . . met in college. Jonathan was handsome. Funny. His father was the CFO for Drivers Company. It’s a big insurance company in the Southwest. Brian’s very driven, very conscious about his appearance. Brooks Brothers suits, expensive watch, a new BMW every couple of years. He and Lynda had Jonathan when they were much older, in their forties. Jonathan could do no wrong. He was their golden child. Good at sports, good at academics. He was easygoing and charming. The perfect son.”

She leaned her head against the wall. He moved closer to her and rested the back of his head on her ankle. She let him do it. From here he could see her face. He could touch her hand. Lucas closed his eyes and let himself sink into her voice.

“Things always went Jonathan’s way. I used to watch a cartoon when I was younger. Two mice were living in a lab, and one was very smart and the other one was a knucklehead. So every night the knucklehead mouse, Pinky, would ask the smart mouse, ‘And what are we going to do today, Brain?’ And Brain would say, ‘Try to take over the world!’ And Pinky would get all excited. See, Brain was serious. He was trying to take over the world. But to Pinky it was all a big game. That’s kind of how Jonathan was. The world was his huge playground and every day he’d play at taking it over. Some days he was an athlete; other days he was a student. When we met, he was finishing his MBA and I was getting my bachelor’s in accounting. My parents had died in a car accident when I was a senior in high school. I had just turned eighteen when they passed.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucas said and meant it.

“Thank you. They left me just enough money to get me through college and I had to work to feed myself. Before they died, I wanted to go into art history.” She laughed a little, a bitter, quiet sound. “I wanted to be an art appraiser. You know, the person who examines art for auctions and museums to determine if it’s authentic. I always thought it would be so neat. But I was on my own then, so I went into accounting instead. It seemed . . . sensible. I was trying to be sensible. To have some structure. And then Jonathan shot into my world like a comet. He could make anything seem exciting. He made things fun. His parents were always very formal with me. I don’t think they ever understood why he liked me, but Jonathan picked me and he could do no wrong.”

He very badly wanted to murder Jonathan.

“It was great at first. Jonathan’s father’s connections got him a position in a private equity firm. During the day he got to play a businessman and during the night he got to play a husband. And then Emily was born. Well, you’ve seen her.”

“She is pretty,” Lucas said.

“She is. Jonathan loved her. It was yet another new game: being a dad. He used to show her off like a cute purebred puppy.” She sighed again. “I should’ve seen it then. Anyway, everything was great for a few years and then the bottom fell out of the economy. Suddenly it wasn’t fun anymore.”

“The party was over,” Lucas guessed.

“Yes. Jonathan had to start working for his living and buckle down, or the firm would cut him loose. I worked, too, and we were doing okay, but we had to mind our p’s and q’s and Jonathan didn’t want to be bogged down with details. We used to have the stupidest conversations. He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t drop thirty grand on a membership at a country club. It’s like his brain couldn’t digest the concept of a budget. I mean, the man had a master’s degree in business management, for crying out loud.” Her voice rose too high and Karina fell silent.

“What happened?” he prompted.

“Finally he decided he was tired of playing with us. He started sending me these long rambling e-mails about how he felt constrained and unhappy and about the need to find himself. He wanted to live fully, he said. To find the zest in life. At first I was concerned, then I thought he was cheating, but he wasn’t. It’s not like we were ever on the verge of bankruptcy. We just couldn’t do exciting things anymore, like ordering champagne for the entire bar. I offered to move; he didn’t want to do it. No solution I suggested was good enough. He tortured me like that for about four months. In the end I didn’t even care anymore. I should’ve fought harder maybe, but I remember one of my friends calling and telling me she saw Jonathan at her office party without me, and you know what I thought?”

She paused. Her dark eyes were huge on her pretty face. “I thought, ‘Good. Maybe he’ll meet someone and I can divorce him.’ That’s an awful thing to think about your husband. That’s when I knew the marriage was over. We were heading downhill, except there was Emily. How do you explain to a four-year-old that Daddy decided he doesn’t want her anymore because he needs to go find himself? So I spoke to his parents. I thought maybe they would talk some sense into him.”

Lucas grimaced. “You said he could do no wrong.”

“Yes, it was stupid, but I was desperate. They called him over to have a heart-to-heart. Jonathan took me out to dinner at the end of the week. I knew something was up; I could just tell. It wasn’t a date. He told me he had filed for divorce. He had no problem paying me alimony, and I could retain all my parental rights.”

A shadow passed over her face. She seemed small all of a sudden.

“We were in the car, going to pick up Emily from the sitter’s. We were fighting about his generosity in regard to my ‘parental rights.’ ” Her voice dripped with bitterness. “He wanted to leave and stay gone. I insisted that Emily needed a father and he couldn’t just take off. He was mad. He told me that everyone had a right to be happy. He wanted to be free of me and Emily but he didn’t want to be judged for it. And then, all of a sudden, he lost consciousness. It was like someone had flipped a switch. We shot into the opposing lane. I remember headlights. I woke up in the hospital.”

She fell silent. “He had a stroke,” Karina said finally in a flat voice. “He had fibromuscular dysplasia. Nobody knew. He was healthy as a horse, played racquetball, and then he just died. It was touch and go for me for a little while but I bounced back. I was in the hospital for two weeks. Emily had to stay with his parents. They didn’t feed her.”

“What?”

“Brian, Jonathan’s father, always eats out. When Jonathan died, he spent all his time at a country club. He said it was his way to cope. Lynda is in her seventies. She has a touch of dementia. All she did was eat candy all day, but she wouldn’t give Emily any—it would ruin her teeth. She would forget to give Emily lunch, and when she did remember to feed her, she would either try to cook and burn it or she’d give Emily food that had been in the fridge for so long, it wasn’t just moldy, it was blooming.”

She was crying, not from pity but from anger. There were no tears, but he heard it in Karina’s voice, hidden behind the flat tone.

“They had a bowl of nuts set out and Emily told me she would pretend to fall asleep and then sneak out and steal them. When I got out of the hospital, she was six pounds lighter. She barely weighs anything as it is. So now you know why she hoards food. She was terrified, her father had just died, her mother was in the hospital, and her own grandparents wouldn’t feed her. I told Arthur she doesn’t have anyone except me. I meant it. We are not welcome at that house. They blame me and Emily for Jonathan’s stroke. We made his life so difficult, he died to escape.”

The red rosettes on her face were turning darker. Karina touched her hand to her forehead and looked at it. Her eyes widened. She rubbed his forearm.

“This is another reaction to the venom?”

“Mmhh-hhm,” Lucas said.

“I told you my story. Tell me yours now. It’s fair.”

“What do you want to know?” he asked, wondering what she would think if she looked inside his mind and saw him strangling her husband.

“Who are you? All of you. Who are you really? I need to know what’s happening to me.”

Lucas sighed.

*   *   *

She had told him too much, Karina decided. As much as she wanted for it to be a bribe, a down payment for the information he held, at least in part she told him what she did because he was lying beside her, bruised, beat up, bloody, and hurting. He needed a distraction and she had enough compassion to give him one. But she hadn’t meant to pour her heart out. It just happened. He was in pain, and although she had the means to ease his suffering, he refused to feed, because he didn’t want to hurt her. He wasn’t willing to trade his pain for hers. The least she could do was talk and try to distract him.

Karina reached over and touched his hand. His fingers closed on hers. Lucas glanced at her, surprised. They had that in common now—both of them treated any act of kindness with suspicion. She didn’t expect kindness anymore, except from him. But she was an outsider. He wasn’t.

“There are no scared women here to watch us,” he told her.

“It was never for them. It was for you.”

She almost cried and couldn’t even understand why. It was the stress, Karina told herself. The trauma of watching hundreds of people die at once. And the fever, which kept rising and rising. Her breath felt hot when she exhaled. Her skin was dry and too tight. And now there were rings of red dots all over her arms.

She had never told the entire story of her marriage to anyone. It’s the fever. Of course it is.

Lucas was looking at her. Sprawled like that, even battered, he looked enormous. If a week ago someone had told her she would be locked in a vault with a nude, bloody man who was trying his best not to devour her to stop his pain, she would’ve dialed 911 to report a lunatic running amok.

“I’m going to tell you a story,” Lucas said. His voice was laced with fatigue. “You can choose to believe it or not. It can be the truth or just a story. It’s your choice.”

“Okay.”

Lucas closed his eyes. “Suppose there is a civilization. A powerful country. It has taken over all of its available territory, but it knows that it must expand. It must continue to grow outward, or it will rot and collapse. This civilization sends colonists out to explore new territories. They find fertile lands and colonize them. When they succeed, they let the knowledge of the large civilization fade. The small colonies grow and prosper on their own, and when they develop enough, they rediscover their mother civilization and rejuvenate it with their unique achievements.”

He glanced at her.

“Okay,” Karina said. “I can see how that would happen.”

“Suppose a new island was found for colonization. An island with an abundant ecosphere and great resources. The civilization had done this many times before and they had developed a protocol. The colony ships arrived and the colonists created thirteen small settlements, Houses, one for each colony ship.

“Genetically, all the colonists belonged to the Base Strain. It’s a very stable breed of human, long-lived, resistant to diseases, armed with superior DNA repair mechanisms to counteract mutation. To successfully colonize a new environment, a species must adapt to it. To facilitate this adaptation, most of the colonists were exposed to an agent inhibiting their cellular and DNA repair and vulnerability to native viruses.”

“They deliberately made their people weaker? How does that make sense?”

“They didn’t just want a colony,” Lucas said. “They wanted a unique colony, perfectly in tune with this new island. That’s how the civilization kept itself from stagnation. The colonists wanted an explosion of mutations in the future generations, and they needed a shorter life span and faster sexual maturity to pass the new changes on to their offspring. That’s why scientists experiment on mice: they breed quickly and don’t live very long. The shorter life span goes hand in hand with faster sexual maturity. But it also brings negative anthropological consequences: immaturity, inability to pass on knowledge, loss of ethics and culture, and so on. These consequences were considered acceptable. The colony had to develop on its own without the knowledge of its origin anyway. The sooner people forgot where they came from, the better. A small group of the colonists remained as Base Strain for control purposes. They lived in the settlements, the Houses, and monitored the whole thing. With me?”

Sort of. “Go on.”

“Mutations bloomed. A succession of several dozen subspecies of human followed. Some subspecies developed variations, people with similar powers or physiology. Subspecies 29 showed all of the adaptations necessary for survival, but all eight of its types were plagued by sensitivity to heat and alarmingly low fertility. Subspecies 44, type 3, produced exceptional Mind Benders, who were prone to insanity.”

“Is that what Henry is?”

Lucas nodded.

“We’re not talking about islands, are we?”

“Some say islands,” Lucas said. “Some say planets. It’s just a story.”

A story, right. “Aliens.” She stared at him. “Are you trying to tell me that all of us are aliens?”

Lucas sighed. “You could say that. You could also say that once the planet shaped us and twisted our DNA, we are now just as native as anybody else.”

“What about Subspecies 30?” What about you?

Lucas’s eyes fixed on her. “Subspecies 30, types 1 through 5, otherwise known as Demons. A venomous, carnivorous, predatory variant of human with the ability to drastically alter its morphology. They were powerful, aggressive, territorial, and they dominated their point of origin for a few hundred years, hunting in small packs, but this subspecies was not viable long term. They were crippled because their bodies couldn’t produce a set of small molecules necessary for their survival, so they had to cannibalize other humans to get it.”

“Cannibalize?”

“At that point the various subspecies of human had only a rudimentary language and no memory of where they came from,” Lucas said. “No ethics, no morals, nothing. They were forming fledgling societies and ‘might is right’ was the law. If I need your blood, and there is nothing in my upbringing or experience that tells me I shouldn’t, why wouldn’t I kill you and eat your flesh? Being a nice guy is a modern concept.”

He was serious. He was actually serious.

“Should I keep going?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“This went on for hundreds of years. The small remaining pockets of Base Strain, the original colonists, kept as a control group, meticulously documented all of it from their Houses. They didn’t interfere. They just cataloged what occurred.

“Then suddenly Subspecies 48 popped on the scene. The Rippers had a fatal vulnerability to cancers but also the ability to rupture holes in reality, accessing dimensional fragments. This was a new development, unknown to the colonists, and nobody knew what to do about it. Some Houses took Ripper children and raised them within the settlements to study them.

“The mutations bloomed and bloomed, until one subspecies emerged as best adapted. It did well in almost every climate. It reproduced quickly, showed mental agility, and demonstrated decent DNA repair. At approximately six thousand planetary cycles, Subspecies 61 was declared viable. The colonists had done their job: they had created the type of human with the best ability to survive and prosper. Now nature needed to take over. All support for other strains ceased, as dictated by the Original Mandate. Ile must survive. Subspecies 61 became ile. Everyone else needed to die to make room.”

“Subspecies 61. Humans,” Karina guessed. “Us.”

“No,” Lucas said. “Them. Your neighbors, your friends. But not you.”

Her fever was now so high, she was freezing and melting at the same time. “You said them, not me. What do you mean, not me?”

“I’m getting to that. Other subspecies were dying out, while Subspecies 61 went on to multiply and claim the island.”

“The planet.” Karina didn’t need him to keep babying her.

“The planet,” he agreed. “The colony cities began to gradually phase out their technology. They were letting themselves disappear. But there was a protocol breach at one of the cities, as a result of which Subspecies 29, the one that had trouble with heat, discovered where they came from.”

“What do you mean?”

Lucas sighed. “I mean that the scientists at the Mare House fucked up. Subspecies 29 produced several unusually smart children. A sudden explosion of kids with genius-level intelligence was rare and odd, so the idiots thought it would be a good idea to study them further. They extracted these children and raised them within Mare with the full knowledge of their history. Well, the kids grew up and decided they didn’t want to go gently into that good night while some other breed of human took over.

“There was a quiet coup. By the time it was discovered, Strain 29 and their captive personnel had genetically corrected their shortcomings. Now they had no trouble with heat and they bred like rabbits. They decided that they were more viable than Strain 61. They, not humans, were ile. A mistake was made and they decided it had to be corrected. They were ordained to take over the Earth.”

Now it made sense. “They became the Ordinators?”

“Yes.”

“So this is it? They’ve been trying to kill us off for thousands of years?”

“More or less. They went to war, using the colonists’ original technology. The other cities opposed them, but they were weak by that point and in the process of dissolving themselves, so they plucked people from different strains with combat potential. The Ordinators were broken and would’ve been wiped out, except they acquired Rippers and began hopping through dimensional fragments. Eventually, so did we.

“Strain 61, the ile humans, was reproducing too quickly, and their numbers grew too numerous. They saw us and started forming religions and folklore. We had to disappear.”

“So this is how it is,” Karina said.

He nodded. “People like me have been keeping the Ordinators at bay for over thirty thousand years. Occasionally they break through with a new weapon. Sometimes it’s a virus that kills the food supply. Sometimes it’s bubonic plague. Sometimes they find a way to fiddle with the climate. The problem is that the Ordinators breed faster than us, they’re better organized, and their job is easier: it’s much simpler to destroy something than to protect it.

“There were thirteen Houses, one for each landing site. They have one House, the House of Mare. There are probably between one and two hundred thousand of them. We are the soldiers of the remaining twelve Houses. There are maybe fifty thousand of us. We crossbreed and have children with weird powers instead of dying out the way we should. This is the planet where everything went wrong. As humanity moves closer and closer to interstellar space flight, the Ordinators are getting desperate, because once we reconnect with the root civilization, it’s all over for them. They abandoned the original mandate and they will be exterminated. They’re attacking with everything they’ve got and we’re losing the fight.”

She stared at him. “And where do I fit in?”

He took her hand and squeezed it gently. “You know why my people died out?”

“Because their own venom poisoned them?” Karina said.

“That. But also because the colonists had done some projections. It was decided that if we were allowed to exist, we would destroy the other subspecies and then die out before reaching the level of medical sophistication necessary to fix our defect. They poisoned us, wiped out the entire species almost completely. They were right—even now the synthetic substitutes are just a Band-Aid. See, if we could’ve overcome this handicap, they would’ve let us murder everyone else, but the problem is that only one very specific subspecies produces the hormones we need. The Base Strain. The donors. The ones who gave rise to all of us.”

She jerked her hand back. “You mean I am a descendant of the original colonists?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It is. Your type has a remarkably stable genome.”

“But my parents were normal people!”

“They may not have known who they were. Maybe only one of them was a donor. A donor and Subspecies 61 will produce donor offspring.”

“But what about this?” She held out her arms, speckled with brilliant red. “Explain this!”

Lucas sat up. “When I fed on you, the mutation agent entered your bloodstream. In normal humans the mutation agent has grown weak over the generations. But I am carrying a near-full dose and I gave it to you during the feeding. You are changing.”

“Into what?!”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s in your DNA besides the donor genes. The mutation agent is an inhibitor. It will release the brakes within your body, short-circuiting your DNA repair, and let you develop into something that’s already there in your genotype, acquired over the centuries of crossbreeding with different human subspecies but suppressed. You could become Subspecies 61, but I doubt it. Chances are, it will be one of our subspecies instead.”

They had taken her freedom, her home, and her dignity, and now they were taking away her body. “No! No, I am not doing it! I won’t! You hear me?” Karina surged to her feet. She managed two steps. Pain shot up through her bones. She cried out. The world went red and she crashed onto the floor.

*   *   *

It hurt. It hurt more than any pain she could remember. At first she begged, then she prayed, then she screamed and whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut, opening them again, glimpsing Lucas’s face against the harsh light of the vault, and then sinking into more pain. If only she could pass out completely and be done with it, but no, every time she tried, he shook her back, into the place of hurt.

“Come on, stay with me. Stay awake. Snap out of it.”

“Let me be,” she snarled.

“You pass out, you die. Come on. Stay with me.”

“I hate you! You did this to me!”

“That’s right,” Lucas snarled right back. “Hate me. Fight with me. Stay awake. You die, Emily will be alone. You don’t want to leave your daughter with an asshole like me.”

She just wanted the torture to stop.

Another bout of agony rocked her. When it was over, she was so tired, she could barely breathe.

“The other woman . . .” Karina whispered. Forcing the words out felt like trying to swallow glass. “Did she have to do this?”

“Yes.”

“Did you kidnap her, too?”

“No.” Lucas gathered her closer, holding her against him. “She was one of us. Her family were donors of Daryon.”

“Did she hurt, too?”

“Yes.”

Lucas’s eyes were so dark, they seemed almost brown.

“Tell me about her.” She wasn’t sure why she wanted to know, but she did.

“She was very smart. And she looked beautiful. Very graceful, fragile, elegant.”

“Not like me, then?” Nobody would call her fragile. Or elegant, for that matter.

“Nothing like you,” he told her quietly.

The agony burned through her in a crippling spasm. “Why does it sound like a compliment?”

“Because she only looked beautiful. In our world nobody has the luxury of doing nothing,” he said. “Everyone has a function. I protect. Someone else oversees mining. Someone else oversees stocks and finances. Galatea’s family had only one function: to provide Base Strain to the House. For that they were sheltered, fed, and protected. Galatea never worked a day in her life.”

“Must be nice,” Karina whispered.

“She didn’t think so. She wanted the mutating agent.”

“She wanted this? Why?”

“Power,” Lucas said. “She thought she would become something much more prized than a donor and she would be free of me. Her father was my first donor. She wasn’t supposed to become one, but he died, and she had to take his place. She thought I was an animal. She was convinced that once I fed, she would become a Ripper and could use it as leverage to be free of me.”

“What did she become?”

“An Electric. She senses electric currents. It’s not an uncommon subspecies. A lot of technicians come from it.”

“Uh-oh,” Karina managed. Her lips were so dry, but there was no water. “Let me guess: it was your fault, right?”

He nodded. “It was everyone’s fault. She used to scream and throw fits, and then she wanted to fuck and she wanted me to beg for it. I was young and stupid. She was older, smarter, and beautiful.”

Karina raised her hand and touched his haggard face. “You loved her.”

“Yes. And I was so dumb, I thought it was enough. That’s why I let it go that far. She once told me that we, the House, had stolen her life. She wanted to stroll the streets of London, visit the Tate Modern, go to concerts in Royal Albert Hall. I offered to take her. She told me that it wouldn’t be the same. My presence would poison London for her.”

“She sounds charming,” Karina managed.

“I am what I am,” Lucas said. “No illusions. Life with me is hard, but she made a personal hell for me and her. I wasn’t the one who started sex, but I finished it. I dealt with it for four years and when I turned twenty-two, I decided I was done. I went on synthetics and told Arthur to find her a different place. He transferred her to a technical work crew. She tried to stab me with a knife when she found out. Galatea was never fond of getting her hands dirty. Three months later, during an attack, she disappeared. The next time Henry sensed her presence, we ran into the Ordinators.”

“She betrayed you.”

“Yes, she did.” Lucas shifted her carefully. “And now you know the whole story.”

“Do you miss her?” she asked.

He peered at her face. “How did you know?”

“I miss my husband,” she whispered. “I don’t blame you, you know.”

“For what?”

“For any of it. For the motel, for the feeding, for this.” Karina tried to swallow the pain away, but it remained. She wouldn’t make it. She could feel death crouching just a few feet away. “Lucas, you’re not a bad person. You have no idea how scary you are, but you’re kind and patient. If things were different . . . It has to start right . . . And we just can’t, because I would never be more than a slave and you would always own me. Please take care of Emily for me. Don’t let anyone hurt her. She’s a great kid.”

He didn’t answer. He just held her.

*   *   *

Karina awoke slowly. Within her body, the pain subsided, gradually, like a receding tide, fighting for every step of its retreat.

She opened her eyes and saw Lucas’s neck. Her face was buried in it.

He was kneeling on the floor, looking up. She was wrapped in his arms.

Her voice shook. “Why are you holding me?”

Lucas turned to look at her. His face was too close to hers. “I didn’t want you to die alone on the floor.”

She said things. Stupid, stupid things. Maybe it was a dream. His eyes assured her that it wasn’t.

“Please put me down.”

He let her go slowly. Karina slid down onto her knees and sat clumsily on the floor. Her legs shook a little. She felt light, so light and cold. “Is my change over?”

“Yes,” he said.

She had survived. “I don’t feel any different.”

“The change isn’t always obvious. Something will trigger it sooner or later.” He was looking up again. She glanced up, too, and saw a monitor in the ceiling. It showed an empty hallway.

A man in dark clothes darted across the hallway, brandishing a machine gun, and hid behind the wall.

“We’re being attacked,” Lucas said. His voice was calm, almost casual.

“How is that possible?” Emily. Henry had her. If they were being attacked, her daughter would be in danger.

More people flickered past on the screen.

“The Ripper must have been an Ordinator mole,” Lucas said. “We should’ve gone to a ranch in Montana—that’s our evacuation route from that base. Instead we’re in Detroit. This building is nearly abandoned; only the bottom three floors and the top five—those are ours—are operational. The blocks in a one-mile radius around it are basically deserted. We’re sitting ducks here.”

“Why didn’t Arthur evacuate us?”

“I don’t know,” Lucas said. “The Ordinators likely blocked the exits. We landed into a trap.” His face was dark. “Our best chance is to stay here.”

No. No, she had to go and find Emily. “Why?”

“I’m at my limit. Normally I would be drugged and sleeping this off for the next two or three days until my body came to terms with my venom. I could barely hold you. Most likely Arthur has sent for reinforcements. The vault is solid and must be opened from the inside. It will take them several hours to get through the door, so it’s likely they won’t bother with us right away. By the time they get around to it, we might be reinforced. Our best bet is to stay here and wait it out. We probably die either way, but here we have more of a chance. Especially if we’re quiet.”

“You have to let me out.”

He looked at her, obviously trying to decide if she was crazy. She had to convince him she wasn’t.

“Henry has Emily,” she said. “She’s out there somewhere.” Out in an abandoned building full of people with guns and God knows what sort of weird powers.

Lucas looked at her for a long moment.

“I have to find her, Lucas. You don’t have to come with me. All I ask is that you help me open the door, because I don’t know how. I’ll find her myself.”

*   *   *

Lucas looked at the door. If they opened the vault, he would walk out of it a dead man. She stood before him, her eyes huge and brimming with worry. She just wanted her little girl back and she didn’t understand how far gone he was or how many enemies they would face.

Everyone dies, Lucas reflected. He’d been a selfish bastard all of his life. If he walked out of that door and died helping her find her child, at least he’d die doing something worthwhile, not cowering like a dog in the vault, waiting to be gunned down.

And she couldn’t go out there alone. She would be dead in minutes.

He sighed, rose, and stepped to the wall. Karina clenched her hands. She couldn’t read his face. He touched it and a section of it slid open, revealing a number keypad and a small speaker. His fingers played with the keys. “Cousin?” Lucas said softly.

A faint hiss of static issued from the wall, then Henry’s faint voice came through. “Lucas. Red, gray, seven, pinned.”

Lucas grimaced. “Is the little girl with you?”

“Yes. Black.”

“How bad?”

“I’ll live.”

“Don’t move. I’m coming to get you.”

“That’s unwise,” Henry said.

Lucas slid the panel back in place. “He is two floors below us. He’s been shot. Emily is okay; he is keeping her under. He can’t move because it’s too dangerous and he is cloaking, which makes him harder to find, but they will locate him eventually. The moment we leave this vault, you and I must fight to survive. Remember how you tried to cut me with your knife?”

“Yes.”

“Find that woman and be her.”

He had no idea how hard she had worked on hiding that woman and how ready she was to let her out.

“Don’t move.” Lucas walked over to the vault door, punched in a combination in the small number pad, and turned the wheel in the door’s center. Something clanged inside the door. Lucas moved to stand on the side. With a soft hiss, the door swung open and Karina stared straight at a man with a gun.

“Hands up!”

She didn’t move.

The barrel of the machine gun glared at her, black and huge, like the mouth of a cannon.

“I said hands up!”

Lucas nodded at her. She raised her hands.

“Subspecies?” the man demanded.

“I’m a donor,” she said.

The man’s eyes widened. “Get up and walk to me.”

Lucas shook his head.

“I can’t,” Karina said, keeping her voice monotone. “I’m sick. I can’t walk.”

The man moved into the vault, one step at a time, careful, the gun pointing at her. He took three steps in. Lucas lunged, so quick she barely saw it. His hands closed about the man’s neck. Bones crunched, and the man sagged down on the floor, limp.

A week earlier, she would’ve screamed. Now she just got up and ran over to the body.

Lucas staggered, leaned against the wall, and pushed himself upright. He wasn’t joking. He really was at his limit.

She crouched by the body and began going through the man’s pockets. “I can do this alone.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He picked up the man’s machine gun and handed it to her. “Safety here.” He flipped a small switch. “Point and pull the trigger. Your instinct will tell you to keep clenching it. Don’t. Count to three in your head and let go of the trigger. Short bursts.”

Karina took the gun and raised it. It was heavy like a cement block. “You do realize that I can kill you with this.” She didn’t mean to say it. It just came out.

“Yes.” He turned his back to her and went out of the vault. A pair of jeans and a sweatshirt lay by the door. Lucas pulled on the clothes and started down the hallway. She followed him. He moved like a cat, soundless on bare feet.

They came to the end of the hallway. Lucas leaned against the wall, glanced around the corner, and looked at her. “Point and pull the trigger,” he whispered.

“Count to three,” she whispered back.

He nodded.

There were people at the end of that hallway. People she would have to kill. It’s them or us. Kill or be killed.

She took a deep breath, stepped into the hallway, and pulled the trigger. The gun spat thunder. Bullets ripped into four distant shadows. She thought there would be blood, but no. They just jerked and went down, screaming. She pounded the bullets into the bodies for another long breath and let go. Lucas moved next to her.

It was a test, she realized. He had to know if he could rely on her. Well, he could. She’d kill every one of them to get to Emily.

“What happened to letting go on three?”

“There were four of them,” she said. Movies and books told her she should be throwing up now, but she didn’t feel queasy. Her mouth was dry. It would probably hit her later, but now only Emily mattered. “I decided to take two extra seconds.”

*   *   *

Karina followed Lucas through the dark passageways as fast as she could. She was squeezing everything she had out of her exhausted body. Now that the first flush of adrenaline had worn off, fatigue set in. She didn’t walk, she dragged herself forward, shot when Lucas shot, stopped when he stopped. Only the next step mattered and she gritted her teeth and managed it again and again.

They made it to a small door. Lucas punched a code into the lock, the door snapped open, and they went through onto a concrete landing. Lucas punched the lock and the small square light in its corner turned red.

“We rest,” he said. “Two minutes.”

Karina sank down to the concrete and he sprawled next to her. The grimy floor was like heaven.

“Why are you helping me?”

His voice was a quiet growl. “Because I like you. And your little girl.”

She closed her eyes, feeling the cold concrete under her cheek. That wasn’t it. Lucas was making up for his past sins, but that wasn’t all of it, either. She knew the true answer. She could read it in his worn-out face. He wanted to save her, because he wanted her to stop flinching when she looked at him.

“Thank you,” she told him. “Thank you for helping me.”

“Time to get up.” He rose.

She cried out as he pulled her off the floor and followed him down the stairs. An odd sensation clenched her, almost like some internal spring had compressed inside her and now begged to be released. She stumbled, and it vanished.

One floor. The landing. They were midway down the next flight of stairs when the door below swung open.

An icy presence clenched her mind in a hard grip. It shut her off, trapping her. She couldn’t move; she couldn’t speak. Time slowed to a crawl.

The door kept opening, wider and wider. She saw inside it; she saw armed people pour out onto the landing. She knew she had to fire. Instead she just stood there, disconnected from her body.

And then Lucas shoved her down and sprayed the landing with bullets.

The presence gripped her mind and squeezed. She couldn’t even scream.

Orange sparks flared on Lucas’s gun. It died.

More people spilled into the landing over the bodies. Lucas leaped into the attackers. He smashed one out of the way, cracking the man’s skull against concrete like a walnut. The man slid down, leaving a bright red stain on the wall. Lucas ripped a woman’s throat out with his hand, backhanded another man down the stairs, and shuddered as a handgun barked. Red spray shot out of Lucas’s side. He lunged forward and broke the gunman like a twig and dived into the doorway.

The sound faded. She was completely disconnected from her body now. Only her vision worked.

Lucas emerged from the door, bloody, his eyes furious. He must’ve jerked her up, because her view changed and suddenly he was directly above her. He barked something, angry. The world shook. He dived down. His lips closed on hers. She felt nothing. He jerked back up and rocked back and forth, screaming again.

Henry, she read his lips calling. Henry.

He kissed her again and rocked, his face jerking up and down. His hands pushed on her chest. She saw the muscles on his arms flex, but felt nothing. The red stain on his sweatshirt spread wider. Was he doing CPR? Was she dying?

Henry.

The ice cracked. She heard a distant female scream somewhere impossibly far. Warmth flooded into her. Something popped inside her mind and she saw a radiant light, bright and glorious.

She’s gone now, Henry’s voice said in her mind. She won’t bother you again. You’re free. Breathe, Karina. Breathe.

The world snapped back to its normal speed, jerking her back into her body. She felt everything at once: pain, the hardness of the stair under her back, and the rhythmic push of Lucas’s hands on her chest. She gasped. He pulled her up, into his arms.

“Mind Bender attack,” he told her. “Up. Keep moving.”

The scent of heated metal rising from Lucas was so thick, she almost choked. He wasn’t just hurt. He had to be close to dying. If he died, she would be free, but in this moment she didn’t care. She just wanted him to survive. “You’ve been shot.”

“We must move,” he told her and pulled her up to her feet. “Faster!”

He drove her down the stairs, through the door, and along the narrow hallway. They dashed past a row of offices. Lucas rammed a door head-on and they burst into a small conference room. Henry lay slumped in the corner, his back pressed against a wall that was mirrored floor to ceiling. His cracked glasses sat slightly askew on his blood-smeared face. Emily was curled in the crook of his arm.

Karina cleared the room in a desperate sprint and dropped to her knees. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” Henry said softly. “She woke up a little when I had to help you, but now she’s sleeping again.”

Karina hugged her, cradling Emily’s small body. Finally.

Lucas shoved the table against the door and landed next to them.

“I see you’re bleeding, too, cousin.” Henry smiled. “Nice of you to join me.”

“Where are the others?” Lucas growled.

“I don’t know. We were hit two minutes after you went into the vault. It was a concentrated assault. They came prepared. The seventeenth floor fell within ten minutes. We were retreating, when I got cut off. I went into cloak almost immediately. Our people may have evacuated.”

“Without us?” Karina stared at them.

“Arthur probably thought I fed,” Lucas said. “Your blood would give me enough of a boost to either get Henry and me clear or to hide.”

“They are surrounding us,” Henry said. “What’s the plan?”

“You and I go. They stay,” Lucas said.

“Ah.” Henry nodded. “I thought it might be something like that.”

“What are you talking about?” Karina gathered Emily closer.

“We’re going to open that door,” Lucas said. “Henry and I will take off. Henry will make sure they concentrate on us and I will make sure to keep them busy. They will follow us. You will wait here for three minutes, then you will take Emily, go out into the hallway, and turn right. You will come to an intersection. Turn right again. That will get you to the stairs. Shoot anyone you see. Then you get the hell out. If you make it out of the building, Arthur won’t look for you right away, since I’ll be dead and he won’t need a donor immediately. Don’t use credit cards, don’t stay twice in the same—”

“They will kill you!” No, that was not how this would go. The spring of tension inside her shivered, compressing.

“It was never about me surviving,” Lucas said. “I died when we opened the vault.”

“He’s right,” Henry said.

God, he pissed her off. “No.” She shook her head, trying to keep a lid on her anger. “We go to the stairs together and fight our way down. Together.”

Lucas grabbed her, jerking her close. “You will do as you’re told.”

“No,” she said into his snarl. “I won’t. We go together.”

The pressure inside her built.

“This isn’t a democracy!”

“Lucas, I can’t carry Emily and shoot at the same time. I can barely hold this stupid gun with two hands. Do you think I’m Rambo? It’s suicide for me, Emily, and you.”

“She has a point,” Henry said.

“See? They will kill me and your grand sacrifice will be wasted. I don’t want you to die for nothing. I don’t want you to die at all.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I care if you live or die! My God, you are a moron! We fight our way to the stairs together. We have a better chance that way.”

He shook her. “I’m trying to save your daughter, you idiot! I’ve been doing this a long time and I am telling you, if we go out there, we’ll all die.”

“He also has a point,” Henry said.

Karina exhaled. Emily’s life was all that mattered. “Then drink my blood and get her out of here.”

“I would have to drain you dry. I’m barely conscious!”

“Do it.” Karina told him, furious. “You have the best chance of getting out of here with Emily alive. Drain me.”

“No!” he snarled.

“Do it, Lucas!”

“That’s nice,” Henry said. “But the Ordinators are coming.”

“Drain me or we go to the stairs,” Karina said.

“No, we’ll do this my way.”

“Your way, I die, you die, Emily dies!”

“There is no time,” Henry said calmly. “You missed your opportunity. We are all about to die. Don’t let them take you alive. You will regret it.”

The back wall of the conference room shuddered. Cracks crisscrossed the wood. It shattered and rained down in a waterfall of tiny splinters. People stood behind it, people with automatic weapons and dark helmets shielding their faces. In front of them a tall man with pale hair down to his waist slowly lowered his hand, smiling. She looked into his face and saw her own death there.

It hit her like a punch. Emily, she, Lucas, and Henry—the four of them really were about to die.

For nothing. They would die for nothing.

Lucas surged to his feet, trying to shield her.

No. No, this was not happening. She was tired and scared and pissed off and she was done with this shit.

Fuck them all.

The coiled spring inside her snapped free. Fiery power surged through her in a glorious cascade. It was time to set things right.

The smile slid off the blond Ordinator’s face. He opened his mouth.

The power surged from her, up and over her shoulders in twin streams.

She looked right into his eyes and said, “Die!”

His face turned green, as if dusted with emerald powder. He crumpled and fell to the floor. She stared at the men behind him and they collapsed like rag dolls.

Two others burst into her view from the left. She turned and looked at them and watched them die in midstep.

“Anybody else?” she called out. Her voice rang through the building. “Does anybody else want some? Because I’ve got plenty!”

Nobody answered. She marched out into the hallway, turned the corner, and saw a hallway full of people.

Die.

They collapsed as one.

They wanted to exterminate humanity. They had declared a war. Fine. If the Ordinators wanted a war, she would introduce them to one.

Karina turned. Lucas was staring at her, his mouth hanging open. Next to him Henry stood, blinking as if he hoped that one of the times when he reopened his eyes he would see something different.

Karina looked above them and saw her own reflection in the mirror wall. Twin streams of green lightning spread out from her shoulders in two radiant green wings. Like Arthur’s red ones.

“A Wither,” Henry said in a small voice, still blinking. “She’s a Wither.”

The memory of burning faces flashed before her and she brushed it aside. Fine. She was a Wither and nobody would ever push her around again.

Lucas closed his mouth. His gaze met hers and she saw pride and defiance in his eyes. “Do it quick,” he said.

He expected her to kill him.

After everything she’d said to him, he expected her to kill him.

Karina stepped to him. Her lightning wings burned around them. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “I’m the biggest and the strongest and I’ll protect you. We are walking out of here.”

Henry stopped blinking.

*   *   *

It took them forty-five minutes to get down the stairs. Karina inhaled the night air. It smelled of acrid smoke and rotting garbage, but she didn’t care.

Behind her the building rose like a grim tower. It now belonged to the dead. She had walked through every hallway and checked every room, while Henry and Lucas sat waiting and bleeding on the stairs. She had no idea how many people she killed, but it had to be dozens. She checked their faces to make sure they were dead. They all looked the same: features sunken in, emerald green tint painting their skin.

And now, finally, she was done.

Her lightning wings had vanished, her power exhausted. Reality returned slowly, in bits and pieces.

Next to her Lucas stirred. “If you want to disappear, now is the time. You killed them because they were caught unaware. The House of Daryon won’t be. I don’t know what your plan is but I know that once Arthur realizes what you are, he’ll do everything he can to keep you within the House. You are too powerful to cut loose. He’ll kill you if you refuse, and I don’t know if I can stop him.”

“He’s right,” Henry said. “It’s alarming how often I keep repeating that. Withers, Subspecies 21, have several types. You’re type 4. Arthur is type 7. He is more powerful and he has a lot more experience. At your best you can’t take him, and it will take you a long time to build your reserves back up to do anything on a massive scale again. Sometimes it takes years. Not to mention that we will have to fight you if you try to kill Arthur.”

Karina looked at Lucas. “If I leave, how will you feed?”

“Synthetics,” he said. “They take the edge off.”

His entire body was tense, like a string pulled too tight. He didn’t want her to go. “Why?” she asked.

“That’s what you want,” he said. “Freedom. One more day or maybe many. It’s yours. Take it.”

Henry cleared his throat. “The Ordinators . . .”

Lucas looked at him. Henry closed his mouth with a click.

Karina peered at Lucas’s face. “Didn’t you promise me you would find me if I escaped?”

“I did. I promise you it will take me a really long time to find you. Go now.”

She hesitated. Emily stirred in Lucas’s arms, waking up.

Lucas could find her—she saw the certainty of it in his eyes. If he could find her, the Ordinators could find her as well, and they would be much more motivated. And even if she did escape, she would always be living on the run, hiding from everyone and afraid of every shadow. She had no doubt that Emily was a donor. She had a responsibility to her child—she had to teach Emily how to protect herself or when they would be found, Emily would be caught unaware, just like she was.

Karina looked out into the city. That way lay freedom. Even twelve hours before, Karina Tucker would’ve taken it in a blink. But she was no longer that Karina Tucker. Nothing would ever be the same. There was a chasm between her old self and her new self, and it was filled with Ordinator bodies. Too much had happened. It changed her and there was no going back.

The woman who only days before had driven four children on a school trip was dead. She had been a nice girl, kind and a little naive, because she thought she knew what tragedy was. That woman had a small, secure, cozy life. Karina missed her and she took a moment to mourn her. It hurt to let go of that life. She shed it anyway, but not like a butterfly breaking free of the cocoon. More like a snake leaving its old skin. And this new Karina took risks. She was stronger, harder, and more powerful. There was a war going on and she would take part in it.

And even if she chickened out and tried to walk away, the memory of Lucas would keep her from going too far. She had more in common with a man who turned into a monster than she did with Jill and her endless worry over seat belts. She couldn’t leave him behind now, back in the place where everyone was scared of him, where Arthur used him with no regard for Lucas’s life, where his brother continuously bickered and fought with him. She had Emily. Lucas had no one and he wanted her so badly. And she wanted him. Right or wrong, she no longer cared. It was her decision and she made it.

“Decide,” Lucas told her. “We can’t stay out in the open.”

Only one question remained. Karina took a deep breath and closed the distance between her and Lucas. She lifted her face and looked into his green eyes and kissed him.

For a moment he stood still and then he kissed her back, his mouth eager and hungry for her. When they broke apart, Henry was staring at them.

“I am confused,” Henry said.

“Well, I can’t let you go back on your own,” Karina said. “All beat up and sad. Arthur might kill you somehow, or Daniel will bring the house down, or Henry, you might poison everyone with your cooking.”

Emily opened her eyes. “Mommy!”

“Hi, baby.”

“Where are we?”

“In Detroit. We had to make a stop here for a little while, but Lucas and Henry are taking us home with them now.”

There had to be words to describe the look on Lucas’s face, but she didn’t know them. He probably didn’t know them, either. He looked like he wasn’t sure if he were surprised, relieved, happy, or mad.

“I believe there is a fast-food place three blocks north,” Henry said. “We could go there, use their phone, and drink coffee while we wait to get picked up. I could use some coffee.”

“Can you make it?” Lucas asked.

“If I faint, just leave me in the street.”

Lucas slid his shoulder under Henry’s arm.

“Thank you.”

They started down the street.

“You don’t own me anymore,” Karina said quietly.

“Fine,” Lucas said.

“And I will have my own room.”

“Fine.”

“And if you need to feed, you will ask me. Nicely.”

He stopped and glared at her.

“Nicely,” she told him.

“Fine.”

“But all kidding aside, you will still cook, right?” Henry asked. “You said—”

“Yes, I will definitely cook.”

“Oh, good,” Henry said. “I was afraid you would quit and we would have to eat Lucas’s cooking.”

“My cooking is fine,” Lucas said.

Ahead, the familiar yellow-on-red sign rose on the corner.

“Are we going there, Mommy?” Emily pointed at the sign.

“Yes.”

“Do we have money to get ice cream?”

“I have twenty dollars,” Henry said. “It’s a little bloody, but they will take it.”

“They’ll take it,” Lucas said grimly.

Karina pictured Lucas, a little bloody and a little pissed off, breaking the McDonald’s counter in half. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

“Don’t worry, baby. We’ll get you all the ice cream you want.” Karina glanced back at the husk of the skyscraper. For a second she thought she saw her own self waving good-bye. Her new self smiled back. People who knew the old Karina would judge her, if they knew, but that didn’t matter. She made her own choices now.

She put her hand on Lucas’s arm. He bent it at his elbow, letting her fingers rest on his muscled forearm, and they walked side by side into the night.