drives of Institute information, and headed toward the stairs. Life was life. You either gave up on it, as I had while imprisoned in the Institute, or you made the best of it, as I had every day since I’d made it out of those walls.
Now that I was free, the best was all I’d settle for.
Two hours later we were in Barstow. We’d taken an SUV, tan to blend in with the dirt and sand, from the Institute and gone back to the plane for all our equipment. The Cessna’s nose had been only slightly crumpled. One wheel bent sideways a bit. Stefan, who would be considering the day we’d had—I’d had, seeing my fellow students dead—had said nothing. Big brothers know when to give you a hard time and when to let it go. I learned that in the first six months I’d been on the run with Stefan.
After packing up everything, including Godzilla, we’d driven into Barstow and parked at an outlet mall. Mixed in with all the other vehicles, we may as well have been invisible. It would’ve been dark if not for the parking lot lights, but the lot was still packed full of cars.
In the driver’s seat, Stefan was arguing on his cell. “Saul, just park your ass at the Las Vegas airport, send the mercs back, pay them full price . . .
Under Stefan’s eye, I had finished double-checking the two cases I had stowed in the SUV with several injection systems that looked like bulky guns. These were designed to be the mode of delivery for the cartridges. Those cartridges, plastic cylinders, had been made to be filled with a drug I’d started working on two years ago to alter the genetic makeup of the other chimeras. The cylinders could also be filled with enough tranquilizer to take down a rhino for a week or a chimera for an hour. Everything was intact in the foam packing despite the slightly less than smooth landing.
“Is it all good there?” He continued to smack his forehead with the phone.
“Nothing is broken,” I said, evading with the truth. “And you’re not going to do your forehead any good banging on it more.”
“I’m hitting it now, my choice. The windshield of your plane chose to hit it earlier.” He had a two-inch cut, crusted with dried blood, and a dark bruise surrounding it. I determined to hack into that training video Web site and take my money back. As instructional tools, they were all but worthless, even to a genius. With proper videos, I was positive the landing would’ve been perfect.
The bump on my forehead was naturally already gone. Quick healing shouldn’t make someone feel guilty, but occasionally it did. There was something I wanted to bring up to Stefan about the healing matter, but now wasn’t the time. I wasn’t quite sure when that time would be. “We need to get the first aid kit. I took it from the plane and put it in the backseat,” I said.
“He’s right, you know. That’s a nasty cut you’re sporting there, mate.”
I had rolled down my window to get a flow of cool twilight air. It could’ve been to air out Godzilla’s musky smell; that would’ve been reason enough. I’d stuck my head out when I had to make a cursory check to make sure no one was close enough to hear Stefan talking to Saul, but that hadn’t kept someone from crouching and moving their way up beside my window to now rest a muzzle of a gun against my temple. “By the way, Michael, I’ve been with the Institute long enough to know you can’t heal a bullet in your brain, and if you try to touch me, I’ll put one there.”
I couldn’t turn my head, but I could see Raynor from the corner of my eye, and I recognized him from the photos. He had a pleased smirk that revealed startlingly white teeth. Up close, I could also see the short dark hair and the satisfied glint in his black eyes. His face was cheerful with victory, but I had a feeling it would turn dark and toxic if he was crossed. “And Stefan Korsak. Nice to finally make your acquaintance. You were better at hiding than your father was . . . for a while. And please don’t go for your gun, if you had any such rude inclinations. You might get me, but how gratifying would vengeance be when you’re splattered with Michael’s brains? Or should I say your brother’s brains?” The smirk became more mocking. “Or should I not?”
I kept what vision I could on Raynor, but I didn’t feel the air stir or hear the seat squeak. Stefan was doing as he was told. He was not moving and he wasn’t speaking either. With an unknown element like Raynor, it was his best instinct, honed by his time in the mob. My time had been honed elsewhere and that led to a different approach. “You have a slight accent, Mr. Raynor. New Zealand. Christchurch, I think. But you came to the United States when you were twelve? Thirteen?”
The glitter in his eyes brightened as the muzzle ground harder against my temple. I felt blood vessels breaking, causing an incipient bruise. A fraction of a second later, I felt the blood vessels slowly knitting themselves back together. As I slept less now, I healed faster too. The difference almost three years could make in my abilities was staggering. When or if he pulled the gun away, I wouldn’t have a bruise—the damage having healed before it had a chance to fully develop.
“You know me, then, and you’re good with accents,” Raynor commented, unfazed by my guess. “You are as clever as them all, aren’t you? My mum’s American. Would you like to see my papers? I’ve dual citizenship. I’m even human, which is more than I think can be said about you, Michael.” The muzzle pressed harder against my head as that cheerful dark glint was snuffed out. “But enough about me. I’d like you to tell me what happened to the whole bloody lot of them, humans and freaks alike, back at the Institute.”
He’d been there, probably not long after we had. We had guessed he would be heading there after we escaped him, looking for Wendy, his own “freak.” If he was that involved in the Institute, he knew no other student could hurt me or contain me. He wasn’t as smart as I’d originally thought. Wendy didn’t hurt or control anyone. Wendy only killed, and Raynor could do that himself with a gun . . . like the one against my head.
“You know what happened.” This time Stefan did speak, cautiously and slowly. “You saw the tape the same as we did. When there’s slavery, there will always be rebellion. Only these slaves are walking, talking AK-47s, and that is on you.” The caution faded. “You and every other bastard at that goddamn torture chamber. It’s just too damn bad you didn’t happen to be there when it went down.”
That didn’t make Raynor happy. “You’re as mouthy as your father was, at least as he was at the beginning. But then again, a power saw will stop and have a man thinking better. It doesn’t matter what happened at the Institute. I saw the tape, yes. I saw the ones who escaped and I’ll have them back soon enough, plus”—he used his other hand to take a handful of my hair and give my head a light shake—“this one. Jericho didn’t consider him worth graduating, but beggars can’t be choosers, now can they? I’ll take him off your hands ‘as is.’ A better deal you won’t get and that’s a fact. If you want a psychic assassin of your very own, you’ll have to bid the same as everyone else.”
“You’re not taking him anywhere.” Stefan’s words were as dark as Raynor’s eyes.
“Oh, but I think I am. I can take him, and I am, or I can blow out his brains and then do the same to you. You seem fond of your little killer pet. Ah . . . it must be the family thing and all that. Am I right? If that’s so, I’d think you’d rather know he’s alive than know he’s one of two corpses in an SUV that smells of ferret.” The smile was wider. “Now, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to shoot yourself in each leg. I’m sure you have a silencer, so it won’t be heard—no doubt this would be the case with a careful, cautious man such as yourself with your wide range of career experience in that area. Do try not to scream, if you please. And then, when you’ve done that, you will throw your gun—who am I fooling?—you will throw
“Then?” Stefan asked, the darkness suddenly gone from his voice. It was empty—lacking in emotion, lacking in inflection, lacking in humanity itself, and if Raynor had been half as intelligent as I’d thought he was, he would’ve dropped his own gun and run.
“Then Michael and I take a drive, but have no worries. I do want him alive. He’s a valuable commodity, which oddly the two of you have never made use of, but no accounting for business acumen. Oh, and you can be certain my car won’t have an Institute GPS tracker in it as this one you stole does.”
I shifted my glance to Stefan and now he was smiling. I wouldn’t have thought I’d see a smile that equaled
