promise that we’ll do our best, but if he becomes violent or attacks, we will respond with force.”
“Deadly force?”
“Only if he pushes us to that point. I don’t like killing. None of us do.” A shadow passed across her face, no doubt put there by all of the lives lost these last ten months.
Bethany shoved away from the table, overturning her folding chair with a clang. She stalked to the other side of the small shack, then whirled around, her face a mask of anger. “This is bullshit, Landon. You want to give up everything to go with them? You want to turn on Uncle?”
He stood up, apparently getting his own anger on. “I don’t want to turn on him. You know me better than that.”
“Then what the fuck is all this?”
“It’s survival, Beth!”
“It’s giving up. We were fine until he”—she pointed at Thatcher—“started filling your head with his lies about giving you up to save you.”
Thatcher stayed quiet, but I saw angry retorts in the way he clenched his jaw and curled his fingers into the legs of his pants.
“You never should have sent that card,” Bethany said.
“I wanted him off that island so I could look him in the eye before I killed him,” Landon said, a little bit of embarrassment in the words. He’d obviously changed his mind on that plan.
“Well, mission not accomplished. They’ll turn on us as soon as it suits them. We don’t have to do anything they want, because we have the leverage. We’re more powerful.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Teresa said. Her voice had adopted a quiet, don’t-fuck-with-me tone. Bethany scoffed. “Honey, I don’t even have to touch you to kill you. I could boil your heart with the same amount of concentration you use to tie your shoes.”
“You won’t kill me.”
“No?”
“No. Too many people know who I went to meet today, and if we don’t show up again soon, there isn’t a place on this planet you can hide.”
“Don’t threaten me, Trance.”
“Right back at you, kid.”
“We don’t have to do this,” Bethany said to Landon, affecting a proper whine. She pulled a small black box out of her pocket—the trigger. “We have Red in a collar. They have to do what we say.”
“We’re trying to compromise here, Beth,” Landon said. “Let’s just go with them.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, practically hugging herself. “If we go, everything changes.”
“Everything has already changed. It changed the second we kidnapped Ethan and brought him here.”
Something shifted in Bethany’s expression, and she turned the full force of her anger and fear onto Ethan. “This is all your fault!”
Teresa stood up, as though she could somehow protect Ethan from a telekinetic who could easily hit both of them with a concentrated blast of pure heat. Thatcher shifted closer to me, doing the same thing, maybe without realizing it. “Calm down,” Teresa said.
“Fuck you. He got Thatcher out, didn’t he? Got him out to mess with Landon’s head like this!”
I didn’t bother pointing out that I also helped get Thatcher out of prison.
“Thatcher deserved to meet his son,” Teresa said. “Bethany, I would think very hard about this right now, before you do anything. No one has to get hurt today.”
“No one but me, right? That doesn’t seem fair.” Bethany’s eyes glistened with tears. Angry tears, scared tears, or just plain off-my-rocker tears, I didn’t know.
Teresa’s expression went cold. “Don’t push me, Bethany, because I push back.”
“You can’t push if you’re dead.”
“Neither can you. And if anyone dies today, Landon goes straight to prison.”
“You’re bluffing.” She pressed the box.
Ethan jerked, his hands flying up to grab at his collar. I was out of my chair, scrambling to get around the table to him as he hit the floor, so I missed what exactly happened above me. By the time I reached Ethan, Bethany was on the floor, too, clutching her abdomen and moaning.
Ethan was on his back, eyes wide and staring up at the ceiling, mouth open. I grabbed his face with my hands, careful to avoid the collar, and turned his head toward me. He blinked, then groaned. Teresa dropped to her knees next to us, practically vibrating with anger.
“Hey, Windy, say something to me,” I said, panic clawing at my heart.
“Ouch,” he said.
“You got more than that?”
He managed an impressive eye roll, considering he was flat on his back. “Must be what getting hit by lightning feels like.”
“Now Bethany knows what getting punched by an orb feels like,” Teresa said coldly.
“I am so sorry,” Landon said.
I glanced up. He was across the shack, kneeling next to Bethany, but he’d directed the apology to us. Thatcher stood between our little groups, either moderating or unsure where to go. Landon looked miserable, and for a moment I wanted to feel sorry for him. He was stuck between the life he’d always known and the chance for something new—not always an easy choice to make, especially when someone you loved was fighting against that very change.
“Guess she wasn’t bluffing,” Bethany said.
“No kidding,” Landon replied. “That was stupid.”
“At least now I know she’s serious.”
Ethan grunted. “Fantastic. She tests Teresa by electroshocking me.”
“Sorry about that, pal,” Teresa whispered. She squeezed his hand.
“Not your fault. I was born with a big old target on my ass.”
“Your ass deserves a rest.”
“I bet Aaron would disagree,” I said, which earned me twin glares from Teresa and Ethan.
“More than ever.” Teresa helped Ethan sit up; he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. In a tone barely above a whisper, she added, “We need to keep several sets of eyes on Bethany.”
“They’ll never be alone, not even at night. And they won’t have access to certain areas of the building or grounds. I think it’s a risk we need to take.”
“Teresa’s right,” Ethan said. “We have to find Uncle and to get more information on the Recombinants. Especially if there are other Bethanys and Landons out there.”
“Exactly,” Teresa said.
Landon helped Bethany half crawl over to her mattress, where she curled up with her back to us. He turned, his young face a mosaic of exhaustion, anger, and fear. “Bethany won’t do that again,” he said.
“How the hell do you know?” I asked.
“Because I know her, and now she knows you guys are telling the truth.”
“She needed to get blasted in the gut to know that?”
He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “It worked. But she has a condition, and I think I agree with it. Call it personal insurance.”
“Insurance against what?” Teresa asked.
“A double-cross.”
“What is it?”
“Ethan’s collar stays on.”
Ethan groaned and dropped his head to rest against his knees. The fact that Teresa didn’t immediately say no told me she was going to agree, even if she didn’t want to.
“I’ll agree to it as long as Bethany understands one thing very clearly,” Teresa said.
