Exiled (TalentBorn Book 2) Read online

  I hurry back down the stairs and find Drake in the kitchen hunting through the cupboards. There’s a microwave plugged into the nearest socket. I unplug it and replace it with my phone charger. I’m down to eight percent and I can’t risk it running out if Scott somehow gets away and reaches out to me.

  “Better?”

  I nod.

  “Good. There’s no food here,” he gestures to the almost-barren cupboard, “so we’ll have to head out to grab something.”

  I reach over and shove the cupboard door shut.

  “We have other priorities – like finding Scott.”

  “Take a breath, Rambo. I made some more calls while you were upstairs. One of my colleagues is going to run the plates, but I’m guessing he won’t find anything?”

  I shake my head as I check the kettle for water and flip the switch on it. AbGen will have covered their trail. Doesn’t matter anyway, we already know who has him. We just need to know where.

  “That’s what I figured, so I asked him to check back through the CCTV footage as well.”

  “Nice thinking.” I’m impressed. And also pleased he’s on my side. I never would never have thought of that – nor would I have had the contacts to pull it off.

  “See? Not just a dumb blond.”

  “Funny. Tea or coffee?”

  I open the cupboard and grab a couple of mugs.

  “Tea, one sugar.”

  I toss a tea bag in one and some coffee granules in the other, and open the fridge. There’s a funky smell coming from something in there, so I pull the milk out and give it a sniff. Eugh. My nose wrinkles. That’s definitely not good. I empty it down the sink and make the drinks up without, then slump into a seat at the table. There’s a difficult conversation to be had and I’m not sure I want to – it might scare off my one and only ally. It’s pretty clear I need him to save Scott; I’m in way over my head (again). But this is going to put him squarely on AbGen’s radar. It comes down to a choice: do the right thing, and risk losing Drake, or keep my mouth shut and save Scott – but put Drake at risk to do it. I whisper a silent apology to Scott.

  “Look, Drake–” I start, then break off with a frown. “What’s your first name? I’m assuming you have one.”

  “It’s Iain,” he says. I nod.

  “Listen, you need to know what you’re getting involved in,” I try again, taking a sip of my unpleasant coffee.

  “I think the four guys with guns gave me a clue.”

  “You have no idea. You’ve seen what I can do, and you saw what Scott can do. There are hundreds of us – thousands, maybe. Not all of our talents are so… passive. I’ve seen absas who can move things with their minds, pulse electricity from their hands, even temporarily blind you. But they’re not the ones you need to be afraid of.”

  I lower my mug back to the table and look across at Iain. He’s staring at me with a rapt expression, and I swear he’s a shade paler than he was a minute ago.

  “I asked you earlier if you were working with AbGen.”

  “Ah, yes. The mysterious puppet masters.”

  I raise an eyebrow and try to work out how to phrase the question I want to ask, but my brain is still feeling sluggish. Luckily Iain answers anyway.

  “I told you I didn’t put your… what did you call it? Talent? In my report, because I didn’t want to get sent to the resident psychiatrist. That’s true. And I convinced Harry not to report it either. But he mentioned it to our sergeant. Next thing I know, a suit shows up at my door. Tells me I’m not going to talk to anyone else about what I saw. Tells me it wouldn’t be… what were the words he used? Conducive to my good health. Harry took sick leave the next day. I’m guessing he got the same visit. The difference is, he has a family to worry about. I don’t. So I came looking for you. I figured if someone was prepared to go to those lengths to cover it up, I wanted to know more.”

  My mouth’s been hanging open since about half-way through his story. I finally regain control of it.

  “Wait, they threatened you? How did they even know?”

  Iain grimaces in response.

  “My best bet? My sergeant. Either he’s been paid to pass on any information, or he talked to someone further up the food chain who’s working for your agency.”

  “They’re not my agency,” I grind out, eyes blazing. “Not since they tried to cage me in the basement.”

  “They tried to what?”

  “I told you, you don’t know what you’re getting involved in. The people in my world don’t play by your rules.”

  “Yeah, I’m starting to get that.”

  “Good. Because they won’t hesitate to kill you if you get in their way.”

  He’s silent for a long moment, his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall somewhere behind me.

  “Just leave,” I tell him eventually, feeling sick to my stomach. “I won’t blame you. I’d walk away if I could, too.”

  His eyes snap back to my face and he shakes his head emphatically.

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to help. Isn’t that enough?”

  I pause, wondering whether to press it. Any sane person would have taken the out I offered them. Hell, I’d have been gone in a heartbeat if it wasn’t Scott in there. But you know what they say about gift horses. I’ve done my part, warned him what he’s up against. By some miracle, he’s still here. I don’t want to risk pushing him away.

  “For now,” I compromise. He nods, and I get the sense that he intends to stretch ‘for now’ into ‘forever’. Do I really care? Honestly, no. I have more important things to worry about. Like getting Scott back.

  “Are you done with your tea? We need to get back out there.”

  He glances at a clock on the wall and I follow his gaze. Quarter past seven.

  “Probably still a little early to find any locals,” he says, and I’m forced to admit he’s right. The only people we’re likely to bump into are commuters on their way to work, who aren’t likely to want to talk to us, and drunks making their way home from a late night, who aren’t likely to have anything useful to tell us. I slump back into my chair. Waiting around is killing me. I need to find Scott.

  “How about you satisfy my curiosity, while we’re waiting?” he suggests. I’m about to refuse, but I owe him, and frankly it’s better than giving my mind time to wander. I don’t like where it’s taking me.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “You call yourself absas?”

  I nod.

  “It stands for Atypically Biologically Selectively Advantaged. The scientists at AbGen came up with it.” I don’t complicate things by telling him that the Ishmaelians call us ‘gifteds’.

  “Okay. And your talent is genetic? You’ve had it since birth?”

  “Yes, and no. No-one’s tampered with my genes, if that’s what you’re asking, but I didn’t know about it until a couple of months ago.”

  “When we chased you in the jewellers.”

  I nod, thinking back for a moment to that time when my biggest worry was trying to pay my rent. It had seemed like the worst thing in the world back then. Little did I know. What I wouldn’t give to trade today’s problems for those ones…

  “Does it hurt, when you teleport?”

  “We call it ‘shifting’. At first, I used to black out, and I’d come to with this horrific headache, a hundred times worse than a migraine. And nausea. I couldn’t keep anything down for days when I first started shifting.”

  “You’d lose consciousness right after you shifted?” He sounds like he’s starting to appreciate that this isn’t the gift he’d assumed. “Do you still?”

  I shake my head.

  “The lab techs figured out it was hypoglycaemia. As long as I fuel up, I’m fine.”

  He glances at the can still bulging in my coat pocket, and I nod.

  “Still, must’ve scared the shit out of you.” He leans back in his chair and exhales, and a harsh laugh escapes my l
ips.

  “Yeah, you could say that. I thought I was losing my mind, or dying, or… something.”

  “I’m sorry.” He sounds like he really means it. It’s the first time anyone – aside from me – has seen my talent as anything other than a cool trick or a potential weapon. I let the words roll around my head for a moment.

  “I’m not. It sucked, and I miss my old life, but it’s a part of me. It’s who I am.”

  “No, it’s not,” he says with a sad smile. “Anna, you’re more than just some superpower. You’re a human being: a funny, intelligent woman, who deserves to have a life of her own.”

  He gets up and dumps our empty mugs in the sink, breaking the awkward silence.

  “So, how far can you go?”

  “So far? France.” He looks impressed, but I quickly amend, “But if I want to have any say over where I end up, about half a mile. I’m still learning to control it.”

  “You wanna get some practice, while we’re waiting for the locals to rise?”

  I think about it. Shifting is the last thing I want to do – I’m exhausted and cranky from last night, and worried about Scott. But if I’m going to help him, I need to be at my sharpest. I nod.

  “Sure. But not here.”

  “Right. The power outage?”

  I’m stunned for a moment, then realise that the lights must’ve gone out when I shifted in front of him in the jewellers.

  “My body generates an electo-magnetic pulse right before it shifts. It’ll take out anything that’s close to me.”

  “There’s a park a few miles from here. It’ll be deserted this time in the morning.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I’m pretty sure Iain just wants to see me shift again, and reassure himself he isn’t going mad, but whatever. Practice is practice. The park is isolated enough that my EM pulse won’t affect anything other than our phones, and there’s no-one to be seen – or to see us. I dragged him via an all-hours pharmacy to stock up on glucose pills – they may not be as good as the ones Toby brews up in his lab, but they’ve got to be a big improvement on all the fizzy drinks I’ve been downing.

  Accuracy over distance is still my biggest issue – while I’m almost always spot on if I’m shifting a hundred metres or less, and reasonably accurate up to half a mile, anything beyond that is haphazard at best. That said, for the first time ever I’m training without a tracker, and without a team to watch my back – just one guy who knows less about how this works than I do. I decide to start with an easy one.

  With Iain watching me with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety on his face, I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and start to tune out everything around me, until only the fear remains. It’s easy to find – it’s been my constant companion these last few months. Sometimes muted, but always there. I unmute it. It takes hold of me, worrying at me, pushing me, until I’ve got to get out of here. I hold a picture of the swings in the kids’ playground in my mind, I have to get there, I’ve got to–

  I open my eyes and turn back to Iain. He’s looking a little pale. I guess it’s one thing to have a theory about what you think you saw in a dark shopping centre, and another entirely to have it confirmed in the cold light of day. As I watch, a smile spreads across his face. He hurries over.

  “That’s incredible.”

  “Yeah, that’s me,” I say without enthusiasm. “Incredible.” Anna Mason, the incredible circus animal. Destined to be locked in one cage or another. I shake off the melancholy. It’s tricky when you’re riding fear like your own personal cosmic pony. I cram it back in its box for a moment and look around. There’s a row of trees off in the distance. It’s pushing the edge of my reasonable-accuracy range, but what am I here for if not to push myself? I’m not going to save Scott by holding back. Scott. I push his tortured face from my equally tortured mind with a grimace, and nod to the trees. Iain follows my gaze and his eyes widen slightly, but I don’t see what happens after that because my own eyes are closed. I lock the tree in the centre of my mind, and flip open the lid of the box.

  My foot loses its balance on the uneven ground, and my arms windmill wildly for a moment, crashing into rough bark. Bark? I open my eyes as I regain my balance, and see that I’m stood right on a protruding root. Iain is jogging across the field but I have a moment before he gets here. I stare at the tree in amazement. That’s literally the tree I focussed on, and I couldn’t have got any closer if I tried. Well, I did try, obviously, but you know what I mean. I’ve never managed that level of accuracy over that sort of distance before. All my training at the barn is obviously starting to pay off. Coupled with my crippling fear about Scott, of course.

  Oh. Oh, I don’t feel so good. I lean around the tree and retch. Eugh. I wipe my mouth and glance back. Is it too much to hope for that Iain didn’t just see that? Apparently, yes. He’s sprinting the last few steps. Great.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I brush off his concern. “It happens sometimes.”

  “You never said it has that sort of effect on you! Maybe we should just stop.”

  Huh. He actually seems concerned. That’s… novel. And irrelevant.

  “It’s nothing. And it’s my only weapon.” I take a breath. “I’m going to try something harder.” Might as well ride my success and really push my luck. Iain looks unhappy but he doesn’t press it. Smart.

  “I’m going to aim for the house. My aim is a little hazy over distance, and my phone will need to reboot after the EM pulse. If I’m too far away to make my own way back, I’ll call you when it switches back on.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if you get hurt, or end up somewhere dangerous, like the middle of a busy road?”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re a worry wart?” I shoot him a grin loaded with confidence I don’t feel. “See you in a few.”

  I close my eyes and run his words through my mind, filling it with the image of shifting in front of a moving car. Scott at Pearce’s mercy. Iain betraying me. All fear is good. Fear is fuel. I fling the box open. There’s only one safe place. An image of the house takes centre stage in my mind. I have to get there. I have to get away from here. I’ve got to–

  I open my eyes tentatively and look around. Well, I’m not in the house, and there’s a gaping hole in my plan. I don’t know this area – I don’t know if I’m five miles away, or the next street over. Although it’s got to be said, five miles out would be bad even by my standards. My phone is obviously no help – I wonder idly how many pulses it can stand before it starts to take long term damage. Hopefully at least one more.

  Walk or stay put? That’s an easy decision; I’m in the middle of a residential street, albeit one where half of the curtains are drawn. I stick out like a sore thumb. Standing around is going to attract all kinds of the wrong attention. I start strolling slowly towards the end of the street, fumbling in my pocket. Got it – a stray coin. I pull it out as I reach the end, and toss it in the air. Heads I go right, tails I go left. Left it is. I check there’s nothing coming down the road – Iain seems paranoid enough without me actually being hit by a car – and pause. There’s something familiar about that twisted tree on my right. I give a shrug, and head that way instead. I reach it, and laugher bubbles up inside me. There’s a reason that it’s familiar: we drove past it this morning – right as we turned into our road. I was literally a hundred feet away from where I was aiming. Amazing! Although now that I think about it, I do feel a little dizzy.

  I take my time heading to the house, and park myself on the doorstep. Slight flaw in my plan: Iain has the only key. At least it’s dry, I console myself. But it could be the middle of a monsoon and I’d still be bouncy with elation. I did it, I actually did it! Well, almost. A hundred feet over four miles is pretty damned good.

  I’m still grinning like an idiot when Iain pulls up. He climbs out of the car with a smile that matches mine.

  “Pretty impressive. Good to see yo
u in one piece.” He glances down. “And not vomiting on Pete’s doorstep.”

  I groan. Talk about embarrassing. Stupid wacky talent, just as I thought I had the nausea under control. My stomach helpfully rumbles, reminding me I haven’t eaten since yesterday, and I glance at the watch on my wrist. I’ve taken to wearing one, since my phone has become an unreliable timekeeper whenever I shift. At least the analogue watch isn’t affected by my pulse.

  “Breakfast?” Iain suggests. I really must be transparent – I haven’t even told him about my embarrassing tendency to eat like a horse whenever I’ve shifted. It’s nine a.m., so I reckon I can just about justify a late breakfast. Then it’s down to business – there’ve got to be enough people around by now that we can ask about last night.

  *

  It turns out that’s not as straight forward as I imagined it. Iain has his police warrant card, but he’s reluctant to use it, in case anyone starts asking awkward questions about why he’s so far out of his area, and why he’s not in uniform. I twist his arm and he caves, but he’s not happy about it. And before much longer, I’m not happy either. It’s clear the locals have no interest in cooperating with the police, which in hindsight we probably should have seen coming. Much to Iain’s relief, we ditch the warrant card and police investigation story, but it does nothing to improve our luck. One old lady recalls hearing a van racing down her road in the early hours of the morning, which sounds promising until someone else recalls hearing one passing their house – in the complete opposite direction. Either Scott’s abductors got themselves lost, which seems pretty damned improbable, or one of our helpful informants has a phantom memory. Trouble is, we don’t know which, so by the time we call it quits in the middle of the afternoon, we’re no closer than we were when we started.

  We traipse back to the house and I shut the door behind me with more force than is probably necessary.

  “You break that, we have to pay for it,” Iain says with a weary smile, tossing his coat onto the bannister. I fix him with a glare – I’m in no mood for his humour – and then abruptly feel guilty. He’s just given up his entire morning to help me, not to mention put himself at risk for a complete stranger.