looking at him with her dark, almond eyes. The smile she cast at him was enough to get his attention even if he hadn’t been able to read the attraction she felt for him.
And then there was Not-Cody. Joe frowned as he looked at the last of the Others. He was big. Physically he was actually bigger than Joe, and that was unusual, especially since Cody himself was damned near the runt of the litter.
It wasn’t his size that caught Joe’s attention, however. It was the fact that he got nothing at all off Not- Cody.
The other Hyde looked in his direction, his expression unreadable.
For just a moment, Joe was nervous.
He pushed that notion aside. He still had the ultimate card in his deck. He could wake them up, and he could put them back into a deep sleep.
“We have to leave, kids, right now.” Joe looked at his new friends and smiled. They had no names yet, but that was okay. They’d figure out what they wanted to be called when the time was right. “They’ll be sending in more armed men-a lot more. We’re faster and stronger, but that doesn’t mean we’re indestructible.”
Not-Cody dropped down from his perch and walked over to the man he’d slapped senseless. The guard stayed where he was, unconscious. He crouched and lifted the man easily from the ground. “We supposed to kill these losers or what?”
Joe shrugged. “You decide.”
Not-Cody looked at his new toy and nodded. The man in his grip started to stir and struggled, tried to fight back. Not-Cody broke his neck. “You look too much like Chadbourn.” Joe had no idea who Chadbourn was but figured Cody had a few issues that Not-Cody was going to have to work out.
Not-Gene squeezed his hands into tight fists, then growled his response. “Get on with it. We probably have more people coming to kill us.”
“Well, that’s my point. If you think you can figure out the guns, pick them up and use them. We have to go.” Joe laughed softly as he looked outside. There were more vehicles pulling up.
Not-Kyrie spoke. “I can hear them. They’re coming.”
Joe frowned and leaned his head to the side, straining. Nothing. He reached out with his mind again and took in the sensory information coming from her. She heard the vehicles coming. No one else did. Just her. A quick check and he understood. They were different, all of them. They were failures, after all, experiments that had not worked out properly. It shouldn’t have surprised him that they were all different. Her senses were sharper than his by a long measure. He kept that information to himself and looked out the window. There were easily twenty men outside, all dressed in the same black outfits, complete with bigger guns.
“You’re right. We don’t have time to escape. We’ll have to face them. Do as I say, and we’ll be fine.”
There were only five of them, less than he’d hoped for. Less than he thought he needed to carry out his plan. That meant he needed all of the Others alive.
“We need to divide and conquer,” Joe said calmly.
Not-Cody shook his head. “No shit, Sherlock.” Joe bit back a hard comment. He didn’t have time to school the new boy on his attitude.
He pointed at the big one. “Take the back door. Be ready.”
Without another word the bruiser took off, rolling his shoulders as he ran.
Not-Tina and Not-Gene were next. “The front of the building. Cover it.” If they disagreed with his orders, they decided not to complain for now. They nodded and headed off.
“You.” His eyes locked on Not-Kyrie. She had skills and he wanted her close by. “You come with me. We’re taking the high road.” He quickly untied his shoes and wrapped the laces around his arm. Climbing was easier with his toes than it was with the shoes that covered them.
Without another word he reached up and caught the same pipe Not-Cody had hung from and started climbing past the acoustic tiles and into the ceiling. There was no time for looking around and trying to find an access point. He explained with his mind as he worked. They were going to the roof.
The area they were in was long and narrow, no more than five feet wide. It was a crawlspace, really, designed to allow people to move between floors, to fix the guts of the building. He could feel a breeze from the right and urged Not-Kyrie to move in that direction with his mind. She listened, following without question. Up ahead they found that the source of the breeze was an access point to the roof.
Not-Kyrie followed him, scurrying along the pipe with hands and feet alike, not forgetting the shoes wrapped around her neck but not bothering with them as yet. When they’d hidden before, their bare toes had pressed into grooves that they’d never have felt with shoes on. The same careful consideration worked this time as well. Joe preferred being without shoes. Most of his life he’d gone barefoot and he knew exactly how limiting shoes could be.
The access point to the roof was a ladder that ran along the side of the building.
Not-Kyrie moved up the ladder with unsettling grace. Joe could understand her thoughts well enough to know that she was already considering what she would have to do to gain the advantage over any possible enemies. Sometime in her past Kyrie had been shown how to defend herself, and she’d already used that knowledge a few times now, hadn’t she? Bleed over was an accident, part of why Janus believed them to be failures-but it was working out in their favor, wasn’t it? Whatever training a Jekyll got, a Hyde got at the same time. That was how bleed over was supposed to work. Long-term memory was supposed to go to both bodies, both minds. Short-term memory was supposed to stay separated. Short-term memories were the sum of a person’s life experiences. Long- term memories were the things people were trained to do, like driving a car or reading a book. So far Kyrie was closer to a proper success than either of the males.
Ask Not-Kyrie to do long division and she could. Ask her to give directions in Spanish, and as long as she knew where she was and how to get from point A to point B, she was good to go. Ask her what her name was and suddenly you were dealing with a different situation.
Mom would have been so proud. The thought brought a scowl to Joe’s face.
Joe paused for a moment and fumbled with a padlock that was supposed to keep the roof access secured. The lock was too strong for him to break. The hook that attached it to the roof was not. He hit the trapdoor four times and finally broke free onto the roof.
The light was almost blinding after the darkness between floors. He squinted and let himself adjust. Far below her Not-Kyrie heard the voices of more strangers calling out and Joe heard them with her. They’d been discovered.
It’s okay. We want to be discovered. He assured her with his thoughts and she relaxed.
They wanted to be discovered because at least one of the people coming after them might have answers that Joe needed.
They reached the roof without worry, well ahead of the men after them. Joe looked around quickly. “This’ll do. They’re going to come for us. I know you can fight. I saw that already. The others, they’ll probably be okay, but I need you at my side. We need to have at least one of these jokers awake and not too badly hurt. Understand?”
She nodded and moved quickly, putting her shoes back on. The roof was covered with rocks over tar paper. She could walk on the stuff, but it hurt her feet. Joe did the same.
They’d just finished putting on their shoes when the guards made it to the roof access.
They had seen the bodies down below. This group was more cautious. They came up with weapons drawn. Joe watched Not-Kyrie as she stared at the guards, at the weapons that were leveled at her chest and face.
“You need to put your hands over your heads and stand still!” The man’s voice was stern. His eyes were locked on hers for a moment and then he looked over toward Joe.
Joe returned the favor, staring hard even as he sent a mental warning to Not-Kyrie to avoid attacking yet.
Joe lifted his hands into the air and then moved them to the top of his head. She did the same, following his lead.
The rest of the team came up and the bossy one sent two men to restrain them.
Not-Kyrie tensed, and Joe’s voice came again in her head. Steady. Let them come closer.
The man that came toward her didn’t hesitate. His hands roughly patted down her shoulders, slipped briefly over her breasts-not seeking a cheap thrill but looking for concealed weapons, despite the fact that her clothes
