her best. To everyone else, she looked confident and in control.
“Is anyone hurt?” she asked, looking right at Ethan. Her gaze flickered down to the collar, and her eyes narrowed. “What the hell is that?”
“Insurance,” Landon replied. He came around the truck with a small duffel bag in his hand—a bag that, I hoped, contained clean clothes. My current ensemble was starting to stink.
“It’s the same collar that the clones put on Andrew and Freddy,” Ethan said. He tapped at the metal ring. “And it fucking itches.”
Teresa exhaled hard through her nose. “Where’s Bethany?”
“She went into town, didn’t say why.”
“I’ll make some coffee,” Landon said. “And then we can talk.”
He walked into the shack, leaving the four of us alone.
As soon as he was gone, Teresa gave me a sharp smack on the shoulder. “That’s for scaring me to death yesterday,” she said.
“Sorry, T,” I replied.
“It’s okay. You found Ethan and that’s what’s important.” She gazed around us. “You also found Sherwood Forest.”
“So to speak.” I couldn’t help thinking of the Bogarts and their multiple generations of fishermen. “Just once I’d like a case that has clear-cut bad guys.”
Her eyebrows jumped. “Landon and Bethany aren’t the bad guys anymore?”
“It’s more complicated now.”
“Yeah. Landon filled me in on a lot of things on the drive over. I can see why you wanted me to come here and meet them.”
“I never knew places like this existed,” Ethan said. “But we should have, right?”
“I don’t know, Ethan. The only time anyone even talks about rural towns anymore is when another independent chain is swallowed up by a conglomerate. And even then, it’s just a sound bite.”
“No one champions the poor nowadays. The government wants to forget they even exist.”
“Would it make a difference if someone did champion them?” Thatcher asked. “Would anyone even listen?”
“Depends on who’s doing the talking,” Teresa said. “But good intentions don’t excuse the pile of charges against these kids, nor does it excuse assault and kidnapping.”
“The ends don’t justify the means?”
“Right.”
“Didn’t we once say that about the Changelings?” Ethan asked.
Teresa frowned.
Landon poked his head out and waved us inside. By the time we’d settled around the table with Styrofoam cups of bitter coffee, Bethany reappeared. She inserted herself between me and Thatcher, and I resisted the urge to physically move her elsewhere.
“You have my undivided attention,” Teresa said. “Now what?”
“We’re not turning ourselves in so you can toss us in jail,” Bethany said, “so if that’s what you’re thinking, forget it.”
Teresa turned her steady stare onto Bethany, who sat directly across the table from her. “It’s not even close to what I’m thinking.”
“Yeah? You gonna share with the rest of the class?”
“First of all, we can’t allow you to burglarize any more distribution centers. That’s nonnegotiable.”
Landon nodded from his place at the head of the table. “And how will our towns get food?”
“The legal way.”
Bethany snorted laughter. “Yeah, that’s working so well right now. Are you sure you’re qualified to be in charge?”
Teresa’s eyebrows twitched—a sure sign she was trying not to roll her eyes. “I have more contacts than you might think. Listen, there are only two ways this is going to go down: with us as enemies, or with us as allies. You choose.”
“Allies,” Landon said without pause.
Bethany glared at him, but said nothing for a change.
“Good,” Teresa said. “Now settle in for a second while I tell you two a story.”
She launched into a fairly detailed account of our June escapades with the hybrid-Changelings Queen and Deuce (as always, leaving out the part about the two Scott brothers currently living at HQ with us), including their stories of the Overseer. She also told them about the Los Angeles earthquake and our battle with the Recombinant clones of our relatives. Thatcher listened as raptly as the kids as he learned a lot of private details for the very first time.
“So you think the Overseer and Uncle are working together?” Landon asked, once Teresa had finished talking. “Or at least for the same people?”
“Yes, I do,” she replied. “We still don’t know for certain who’s in charge of the Recombinant projects, but so far we’ve seen hybrid-Changelings, we’ve seen clones, and we’ve seen you two. I’m willing to bet there are more young Metas like you and Bethany out there, raised like you were by a man like Uncle.”
“So what?” Bethany asked. “Seriously, so fucking what? Uncle gave us a good life. He taught us things. We were special even before we got our powers.”
“Yes, you were,” Thatcher said, breaking his silence in the conversation. “Bethany, your powers aren’t what make you special. They just make you different. The thing that makes you special is what’s in your heart.”
“Yeah? Well, my heart stopped working a long time ago, so fuck you very much.”
“Shut up, Beth,” Landon said. He said it with a forceful wariness that suggested he didn’t tell her to shut up very often, and was only doing so because he wasn’t alone.
Her glare was epic in its nastiness. “Are you seriously—”
“Yes, I am, and you should, too.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I believe them.” He glanced at Thatcher, and I saw something sad and hopeful in Landon’s eyes. Eyes that looked very much like his father’s. “Beth, I’m tired of living like this. Isolated. Moving from place to place all the time.”
I swear he wanted to say,
Bethany’s face went bright red, and the air around us vibrated with kinetic energy. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. “I don’t want our life to change,” she snapped.
“I don’t think we have a choice.”
“Of course we have a choice.” She pointed across the table at Ethan’s throat. “That gives us every choice we need. We don’t have to sit here and indulge them.”
“We don’t have to, no, but I want to. I’m sorry, sis, but I want to hear what they have to say.”
You know that saying “if looks could kill”? She wisely kept her big mouth shut, though.
“What are you suggesting we do?” Landon asked Teresa.
“Here’s my proposal,” Teresa replied. “Give me time to find a legal grocery supplier to the towns you feed, as well as to get this issue in front of people who can raise holy hell about it.”
“How much time?”
“Four weeks, but it will probably be less.”
“Okay. What do we get?”
“We don’t turn you in to the Pennsylvania police or the federal authorities for all of the distribution centers you’ve hit. You’ll come back to our headquarters and lay low there.”
Landon pulled a face. “And what do you get in exchange?”
“You’ll help us find Uncle, so we can connect him to the Overseer and the other Recombinants.”
He chewed on that while staring at his hands, ignoring Bethany’s glare beating into him like a death ray. “I have one condition,” he said. “You have to promise me you won’t kill Uncle.”
Teresa’s shoulders tensed. “My intention is never to kill, Landon. Taking lives is not what we’re about. I can
